From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sun Sep 19 2004 - 17:40:33 BST
Hello Scott,
Scott said:
> My guess is that the individual animal does not model the physical, rather
> it is done for them by what we call instinct. So the bigger picture, for
> example as conjectured by Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic forms, is
> intellect: the animal perceives a physical picture, and instinct, using
its
> model, tells the animal what to do, but how the whole pattern plays out
> will be fed back to instinct to improve its model, for the individual
> animal (hence it can learn) and for the species (hence it can evolve).
mel:
Animals model beyond instinct - predators must learn skills
beyond what is innate, which is one reason why many species
of predators have such high mortality.
>
mel prior:
> >
> > We also seem to vary on our assumtion of what language is,
> > although it seems we both see many types of technology
> > for information processing or the conveyence of meaning.
>
Scott said:
> One has language when one has Peirce's thirdness: a semiotic event
involves
> three nodes: the manifested sign, that which the sign refers to, and an
> interpretant, as he calls it: that which connects the sign to its
referent.
> You cannot make a thirdness out of seconds (two things colliding, for
> example). Therefore, since there is thirdness, there must have always been
> thirdness (unless one invokes God to create it out of nothing).
mel:
Don't mistake the formulation of semiotics as a field
of study, specifically of symbols, which is just one type of
highly attributional meaning with the far more common and
older function of "mapping meaning".
For most of what passes in consciousness, semiotics
is irrelevant, but the perception of meaning and the
processing of data into information IS a measure of
the continuum of stored effect...
>
> > mel previous:
> > It's just that runaway intellection is a bit like
> > runaway cellphone use or conversational
> > chatter, it gets in the way of the movie.
> > Philosophy is one brand of cellphone.
>
Scott said:
> On the contrary, philosophy, like science and meditation, is attempting to
> control intellect, so that it does not run away. As intellectuals, we are
> all beginners. The intellectual level is new, only two and a half millenia
> old. Occasionally we get glimpses of how it is supposed to be, and we call
> those glimpses genius, but for most of us, there is a lot of disciplining
> ahead.
mel:
Not "on the contrary", you've simply pivoted into another
direction of discussion.
mel prior:
> >
> > As to what the neurons can do...well a length of copper
> > and a piece of glass can't connect two people on either
> > side of the Anglo-American pond either...oh, wait, that's
> > what most of the internet is. Each enabling layer of learning,
> > of modeling, of ASSOCIATIONAL mapping, as wave front
> > variability and transforms (think Fourrier) with variable strength
> > and pattern give immense data spaces for the manipulation
> > of meaning. Billions of neurons multiplied in combined
> > factorial and other "leveraged series" create huge numbers
> > of differing and relatable patterns. All in the squishy bone
> > bowl of noodles. Yum! ...some fava beans and Chianti
>
Scott said:
> No. No matter how complex a set of interconnections, one cannot, from that
> alone, get awareness. It also requires violating the rules of space and
> time. Unless that happens, there is nothing that can be aware of anything
> larger than itself, or one blip from something else (in fact, one cannot
> even get that, since the single thing (e.g., an electron) needs a way to
> combine the state of not receiving the blip with the state of receiving
the
> blip). So if the brain is considered to be all and only its neurons and
> synapses, and if one limits oneself to their spatio-temporal activity, one
> cannot get associations, or mappings, or anything. You can get all sorts
of
> patterns, but you cannot get awareness of those patterns. Now the brain is
> biological, so there could well be some goings-on that allows the
violation
> of spacetime rules, but once admit that, then there is no reason to assume
> any emergence doctrine.
>
> Ooh. I haven't had fava beans in years, and now I want some.
>
mel:
1)You've let the definition of awareness slip through your
fingers from earlier. Elvis has left the building...
2)The complex of neuronal connection does not cause
awareness, but does support an ever more complex capacity
3) no rules of "space or time" are violated -- odd comment,
why did that pop up?
4) Reductionism as above fails in the analysis of the complex.
5) As you allude, all systems operate within a meta-system;
to perseive any number of dimensions in an array, for example
you must have one more degree or dimension than is to be
manipulated.
6) Don't confuse the mind with the brain.
7) emergence is simply unanticipated complexity of behavior
arising from a comparatively simple rule set. It's not a doctrine
of some magical sort. The games of chess and GO are
emergent games, checkers and tic-tac-toe are not.
(brains are also...big time.)
thanks--mel
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