peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) (01/07/89)
Please consider the following thoughts of three people concerning the physics
of the mind. Notice the difference from the first person and the next two.
COMPUTER SCIENTIST:
In the book "The Society of Mind" Marvin Minsky writes (p.50):
"When people have no answers to important questions, they often give some
anyway.
What controls the brain? The Mind.
What controls the mind? The Self.
What controls the Self? Itself.
To help us think about how our minds are connected to the outer world, our
culture teaches schemes like this:
(diagram ...)
This diagram depicts our sensory machinery as sending information to the
brain, wherein it is projected on some inner mental movie screen. Then,
inside that ghostly theater, a lurking Self observes the scene and then
considers what to do. Finally, that Self may act--somehow reversing all
those steps--to influence the real world by sending various signals back
through yet another family of remote-control accessories.
This concept simply doesn't work. It cannot help for you to think that
inside yourself lies someone else who does your work. This notion of
"hommunculus"--a little person inside each self--leads only to a paradox
since, then, that inner Self requires yet another movie screen inside itself,
on which to project what *it* has seen! And then, to watch that
play-within-a-play, we'd need yet another Self-inside-a-Self--to do the
thinking for the last. And then this would all repeat again, as each new
Self requires yet another one to do its job!
The idea of a single, central Self doesn't explain anything. This
is because a thing with no parts provides nothing that we can use
as pieces of explanation!
Then why do we so often embrace the strange idea that what we do is done
by Someone Else--that is, our Self? Because so much of what our minds
do is hidden from the parts of us that are involved with verbal
consciousness."
MATHEMATICIAN/PHYSICIST/ASTRONOMY:
In the book "Bridges To Infinity" Michael Guillen (Ph.D in physics, mathema-
matics, and astronomy from Cornell University) writes (p.98):
"In his thirteen-page manuscript, "All Numbers, Great and Small," Conway
begins as Frege began, with a few primitive ideas, including the null set
and two rules. The first rule, Conway's logical definition of a number,
can be visualized in terms of encyclopedia volumes lined up in order in
a library shelf. According to the definition, a volume's place in the
lineup, its number, can be inferred from the set of volumes on its left
and the set of volumes on its right. We could determine where volume nine
belongs, for instance, simply by locating that place where volumes zero
through eight are on the left and volumes ten through infinity are on the
right. Therefore, every volume, every number, has its own niche, determined
uniquely by the left and right sets. That's the thrust of Conway's first
rule.
His second rule, again explained here in terms of a set of encyclopedias,
decrees that one number, such as 5, is smaller than (or equal to) another
number, such as 9, if two things are true simultaneously: (A) all the volumes
to the left of the first number (5) are less than the second number (9),
and (B) all the volumes to the right of the second number (9) are bigger
than the first number (5). This rule is necessary in order for Conway
to impose an order on the numbers he creates, beginning with zero: Zero
is less than 1, so it precedes 1; 1 is less than 2, so it precedes 2; and
so forth.
As he does not assume the existence of any numbers to begin with, Conway,
like Frege, has only the null set with which to start creating the sequence
of natural numbers. Consequently, Conway first contemplates the number
whos left and right sets are both null sets, written symbolically as {}:{},
He names this *zero*. That is, in Conway's theory, as in Frege's, nothingness
is the most primitive realization of nothing.
After creating the number zero, Conway has two sets with which to continue
creating numbers: the null set, {}, and the set containing zero, {0}.
Conway identifies the number 1 as the number whose left set contains zero
and whose right set is the null set. Thus, at this point in Conway's genesis,
the number 1 is flanked to the left by nothingness and to the right by
nothing. To the left is potential already realized (as zero), and to the
right is potential not yet realized.
At each point in his creation, Conway always selects the next number as
the number as the number whose left set contains all the previously created
numbers and whose right set is the null set. It's as though he were being
guided by an image of those encyclopedias. At each point, the newly created
volume is placed to the right of all those volumes already shelved and
to the left of empty space, which in this analogy has the aspect of the
physicist's vacuum in representing the potential of numbers not yet brought
into being. By proceeding in this fashion indefinitely, Conway creates
the entire sequence of natural numbers.
From there he goes on, however, to create an infinity of in-between numbers,
such as the number whose left set contains zero, {0}, and whose right set
contains one through infinity {1, 2, 3, ...}. This defines a number somewhere
between zero and one. Thus the standard set of encyclopedias, the natural
numbers, is embellished by an interminable number of in-between volumes.
And it doesn't stop there.
Pursuing the logic of his method, Conway is able to create between in-between
numbers, then numbers between *these*, and so on, literally ad infinitum.
The result is limitless hierarchies of in-between numbers, never before
named in mathematics.
Conway's theory has ineffable graphic implications as well. Traditional
mathematical wisdom has it that a ruler's edge, a number line, is a blur
of points, each of which can be labeled with either a whole number, a
fraction, or an irrational number such as .1345792 ..., where the string
of digits goes on forever. All these points (or their numerical labels)
together are imagined to form a continuum, with no space between adjacent
points. Conway's theory, however, asks us to imagine numbers that fall
somehow between unimaginable cracks in this blur of points, and between
the cracks left behind by those numbers, and so on and so on. With his
theory, Conway has made credible what many persons before him had merely
speculated about: there is conceptually no limit to how many times an object
can be divided.
Conway's "All Numbers, Great and Small" shows off the boundless potential
of the null set, but also of the human mind. Human creative energy, like
nothing, isn't anything if it isn't potential. It is also an indomitable
part of being alive, as countless experiments have documented. People
who are deprived of their senses by being floated in silent, dark tanks
of water warmed to body temperature will hallucinate. It is as though
the human mind will not be stilled of its propensity to make something
of nothing even, or especially, when immersed in nothingness.
Like a physicist's vacuum, the human mind can be induced to create thoughts
that come seemingly out of nowhere. Mathematicians over the years have
documented this common phenomenon. The German Carl Friedrich Gauss recalled
that he had tried unsuccessfully for years to prove a particular theorem
in arithmetic, and then, after days of not thinking about the problem,
the solution came to him "like a sudden flash of lightning." The French
mathematician Henri Poincare, too, reported working futilely on a problem
for months. Then one day while conversing with a friend about a totally
unrelated subject, Poincare recalled that "... the idea came to me without
anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it."
In this sense, the human mind is the real null set in Frege's and Conway's
number theories; the mathematical null set is but a subordinate entity
created after the mind's self-image."
PHYSICIST:
In the book "The Turning Point" Fritjof Capra (Ph.D in high-energy physics
from University of Vienna) writes (p.101):
"While the new physics was developing in the twentieth century, the
mechanistic Cartesian world view and the principles of Newtonian physics
maintained their strong influence on Western scientific thinking, and even
today many scientists still hold to the mechanistic paradigm, although
physicists themselves have gone beyond it.
...
In biology the Cartesian view of living organisms as machines, constructed
from separate parts, still provides the dominant conceptual framework.
Although Descartes' simple mechanistic biology could not be carried very
far and had to be modified considerably during the subsequent three hundred
years, the belief that all aspects of living organisms can be understood
by reducing them to their smallest constituents, and by studying the
mechanisms through which these interact, lies at the very basis of most
contemporary biological thinking. This passage from a current textbook
on modern biology is clear expression of the reductionist credo: 'One of
the acid tests of understanding an object is the ability to put it together
from its component parts. Ultimately, molecular biologists will attempt
to subject their understanding of cell structure and function to this sort
of test by trying to synthesize a cell.'
Although the reductionist approach has been extremely successful in biology,
culminating in the understanding of the chemical nature of genes, the basic
units of heredity, and in the unraveling of the genetic code, it nevertheless
has its severe limitations. As the eminent biologist Paul Weiss has
observed:
We can assert definitely ... on the basis of strictly empirical investiga-
tions, that the sheer reversal of our prior analytic dissection of the
universe by putting the pieces together again, whether in reality of
just in our minds, can yield no complete explanation of the behavior
of even the most elementary living system.
This is what most contemporary biologists find hard to admit. Carried
away by the success of the reductionist method, most notable recently in
the field of genetic engineering, they tend to believe that it is the only
valid approach, and they have organized biological research accordingly.
Students are not encouraged to develop integrative concepts, and research
institutions direct their funds almost exclusively to ward the solution
of problems formulated within the Cartesian framework. Biological phenomena
that cannot be explained in reductionist terms are deemed unworthy of
scientific investigation. Consequently biologists have developed very
curious ways of dealing with living organisms. As the distinguished biologist
and human ecologist Rene Dubos has pointed out, they usually feel most at
ease when the thing they are studying is no longer living.
...
An extreme case of integrative activity that has fascinated scientists
throughout the ages but has, so far, eluded all explanation is the phenome-
non of embryogenesis--the formation and development of the embryo--which
involves an orderly series of processes through which cells specialize
to form the different tissues and organs of the adult body. The interaction
of each cell with its environment is crucial to these processes, and the
whole phenomenon is a result of the integral coordinating activity of the
entire organism--a process far too complex to lend itself to reductionist
analysis. Thus embryogenesis is considered a highly interesting but quite
unrewarding topic for biological research.
...
Transcending the Cartesian model will amount to a major revolution in medical
science, and since current medical research is closely linked to research
in biology--both conceptually and in its organization--such a revolution
is bound to have a strong impact on the further development of biology."
***
I think it is quite interesting that "The Turning Point" was published
before "The Society of Mind" in reference to Fritjof Capra's comment,
"and even today many scientists still hold to the mechanistic paradigm."
Paradoxically, these three people's thoughts may sound unrelated. It is up
to you to decide, any comments?lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (01/07/89)
From article <558@soleil.UUCP>, by peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru): " ... " Paradoxically, these three people's thoughts may sound unrelated. It is up " to you to decide, any comments? Yes. Guillen (not Conway) doesn't make sense, and Minsky's and Capra's views seem to be in contradiction -- Minsky urging analysis into parts and Capra denigrating it. In the quoted passage from Capra, I believe one can detect some confusion among: (1) analysis into component parts (2) analysis into independently acting component parts (= Cartesianism?) (3) analysis in terms of more fundamental entities (= reductionism) It's hard for me to see that there can be any real objection to (1). I have been interested in analogues to the assumption of orthogonal axes, (2), for a long time, but have been unable to find any general discussions of the matter. Maybe someone can provide a reference? Here's a little example of this sort of reasoning from my own field. In 1783, in Elements of Phonetics, Geoffrey Holder pointed out that (voiceless) p, t, k are similar (voiced) to b, d, g, except for the action of the vocal cords, and that the latter are similar to (nasal) m, n, ng, except for the passage of air through the nose. He argued, on this basis, that there must exist in some language voiceless nasals -- this fills the gap in the paradigm. (It's very much like the prediction of new elements to fill holes in the periodic table.) Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks) (01/08/89)
In article <558@soleil.UUCP> peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes: > > Conway's "All Numbers, Great and Small" shows off the boundless potential > of the null set, but also of the human mind. Human creative energy, like > nothing, isn't anything if it isn't potential. It is also an indomitable > part of being alive, as countless experiments have documented. People > who are deprived of their senses by being floated in silent, dark tanks > of water warmed to body temperature will hallucinate. It is as though > the human mind will not be stilled of its propensity to make something > of nothing even, or especially, when immersed in nothingness. > This comment is quite naive, and I am surprise to find someone trained in physics can make it. Even though all sensory input is extinguished, the neural circuitry which is tuned to evaluate such input is still quite active. In the absence of input, it is the nature of such circuits to increase their sensitivity until artifactual output is obtained. The situation is somewhat analogous to amplifier circuits which go into oscillation when the gain is increased beyond a certain point. All neural tissues, including muscles do this. If you denervate a living muscle, it will, after a period of a few days, begin to twitch spontaneously. There is nothing mystical or infinite about such behavior. It can be explained on a purely mechanistic basis, and all neurologists are familiar with such behavior. >PHYSICIST: > >In the book "The Turning Point" Fritjof Capra (Ph.D in high-energy physics >from University of Vienna) writes (p.101): > > > We can assert definitely ... on the basis of strictly empirical investiga- > tions, that the sheer reversal of our prior analytic dissection of the > universe by putting the pieces together again, whether in reality of > just in our minds, can yield no complete explanation of the behavior > of even the most elementary living system. > All this says is that such systems, even the most elementary are very complex. As far as the nervous system is concerned, we are about at the level of snails (see the work of Eric Kandel, for example) in coming up with a more or less "complete" understanding of what is going on, at least on a macro level. Capra is definitely on the lunatic fringe on this subject. He embraces "holistic" medicine, chiropractic, and other even more bizarre medical quack systems which I suppose only enhance his popularity among his new age followers. He certainly isn't considered a touchstone among the physicists I know. I find little in his work to lead me to believe he knows anything substantial about the brain or biology.
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (01/08/89)
I continue to marvel at Dave Peru's fertile contributions to
our discussions in this newsgroup. The Minksy/Conway/Capra
excerpts were most stimulating.
Reductionist (analytical) reasoning is easy to describe and
easy to teach. But reductionism has a shortcoming.
If I give you a large, assembled jigsaw puzzle, and you examine
it piece by piece, you will end up with a pile of carefully
examined pieces. But you will have missed seeing the big
picture hidden in the assembled puzzle. This is called the
Forest and the Trees syndrome. After examining every element,
you must painstakingly reassemble them to see the big picture.
When you do so, you experience a profound psychological
transformation, called Insight or Epiphany. This rare and
treasured mental event is accompanied by a biochemical rush
of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, which yield a sense
of euphoria ("Eureka! I have found it!")
Another place reductionism fails is in the understanding of
emergent properties of circular systems. The simplest of
circular systems is the Furnace-and-Thermostat system.
When the furnace and thermostat are connected in a feedback
loop, the system exhibits the emergent property of maintaining
a stable room temperature in the face of unpredictable changes
in the outside weather. Feedback control theorists and
cyberneticians appreciate the emergent properties of circular
systems, but their appreciation is akin to seeing the big
picture in the pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Minsky and Conway, and Gauss and Poincare engage in
synthetic reasoning (the complement of analytic reasoning).
Instead of understanding something by taking it apart,
they understand something by putting it together. It is
harder to teach synthetic reasoning. Artists and sculptors,
playwrights and poets, theoreticians and children -- these
are the synthetic thinkers, the practitioners of creative
intelligence.
The feedback loops of these discussion groups give rise to
an emergent property: the synthesis of ideas from diverse
quarters. The melting pot of ideas and the melding of minds
is the synthetic product of circular information channels.
--Barry Korthes@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Henry Schaffer) (01/09/89)
In article <558@soleil.UUCP>, peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes: >... > MATHEMATICIAN/PHYSICIST/ASTRONOMY: > > In the book "Bridges To Infinity" Michael Guillen (Ph.D in physics, mathema- > matics, and astronomy from Cornell University) writes (p.98): ... > > Pursuing the logic of his method, Conway is able to create between in-between > numbers, then numbers between *these*, and so on, literally ad infinitum. > The result is limitless hierarchies of in-between numbers, never before > named in mathematics. Hmm, (even this has nothing to do with reductionism) how is this different that what is done in traditional mathematics? > ... > PHYSICIST: > > In the book "The Turning Point" Fritjof Capra [writes] ... > > Although the reductionist approach has been extremely successful in biology, > ... > As the eminent biologist Paul Weiss has observed: > > We can assert definitely ... on the basis of strictly empirical investiga- > tions, that the sheer reversal of our prior analytic dissection of the > universe by putting the pieces together again, whether in reality of > just in our minds, can yield no complete explanation of the behavior > of even the most elementary living system. > This seems to be an example of "proof by assertion". >... > An extreme case of integrative activity that has fascinated scientists ^^^^^^^^^^ - yes > throughout the ages but has, so far, eluded all explanation is the phenome- ^^^ - the large community of embryologists and developmental biologists would probably feel that they've explained *something* > non of embryogenesis-- ... > --a process far too complex to lend itself to reductionist analysis. ... Another proof by assertion - This whole controversy makes me think again about a question which has bothered me before. If reductionism is not sufficient - how can one show/prove that it is not sufficient. Clearly if a process is very complex, then much work must be done do reduce it sufficiently far to explain everything via a reductionist scenario. I doubt that any reductionist is willing to believe that embryogenesis is beyond reductionist analysis. We haven't even finished cataloging all the enzymes and enzymatic pathways in a single cell, there is still lots of (reductionist) work left to be done and which clearly can be done (I haven't heard anyone say that sequenceing the genome of a higher organism can't be done - just that it is a lot of work) and so clearly one can't give up on reductionism just yet. Is that the answer? One can't disprove reductionism as long as there is more work left to be done? That would mean essentially never. --henry schaffer n c state univ
EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) (01/10/89)
In article <558@soleil.UUCP>, peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes: > > Then why do we so often embrace the strange idea that what we do is done > by Someone Else--that is, our Self? Because so much of what our minds > do is hidden from the parts of us that are involved with verbal > consciousness." > Interesting. Have you read Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, by Richard Rorty, which deconstructs the notion of the self as the lonely spectator in an otherwise deserted movie theater (damned sad picture, not so?). According to Rorty, this notion got its start in the seventeenth century, and it is unnecessary. Edward Nilges "Where is the wisdom we lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we lost in information?" - T. S. Eliot
meadors@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Tony Meadors) (01/10/89)
In article <558@soleil.UUCP> peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes: >Please consider the following thoughts of three people concerning the physics >of the mind. > COMPUTER SCIENTIST: >In the book "The Society of Mind" Marvin Minsky writes (p.50): >"When people have no answers to important questions, they often give some > anyway. > What controls the brain? The Mind. > What controls the mind? The Self. > What controls the Self? Itself. > .... > It cannot help for you to think that > inside yourself lies someone else who does your work. This notion of > "hommunculus"--a little person inside each self--leads only to a paradox An infinite regress. One of the challenges of psychological explanation is to explain our overall intelligent behavior and cognitive abilities with a model whose parts are not themselves possessors of those abilities...this is how homunculi can creep into real world models. What Minsky is doing in the quoted passages is simply noting how commonsense notions such as self and mind entail the idea of a "detatched controller" and this quickly leads down the homunculi trail. > MATHEMATICIAN/PHYSICIST/ASTRONOMY: >In the book "Bridges To Infinity" Michael Guillen (Ph.D in physics, mathema- >matics, and astronomy from Cornell University) writes (p.98): > ........ > From there he goes on, however, to create an infinity of in-between numbers, > such as the number whose left set contains zero, {0}, and whose right set > contains one through infinity {1, 2, 3, ...}. > This defines a number somewhere > numbers, is embellished by an interminable number of in-between volumes. > And it doesn't stop there. > > Pursuing the logic of his method, Conway is able to create between in-between > numbers, then numbers between *these*, and so on, literally ad infinitum. > The result is limitless hierarchies of in-between numbers, never before > named in mathematics. I'm no mathematician, but if I take the numbers 2 & 3 and stick a bunch of new items between them (no matter how cleverly) I certainly won't have created "numbers never before named in mathematics." Numbers seem rather fixed to me, those that might be found on a simple numberline; the labels I attach to various points shouldn't make any difference...Unless these new numbers are not expressable in decimal form at all. If this is the case I missed the point but my point is below anyway... > points. Conway's theory, however, asks us to imagine numbers that fall > somehow between unimaginable cracks in this blur of points, and between > the cracks left behind by those numbers, and so on and so on. With his > theory, Conway has made credible what many persons before him had merely > speculated about: there is conceptually no limit to how many times an object > can be divided. Cosmic cracks eh. Again, Im not a numbers man, but was there ever any doubt that a given two points on a line one may always be found which lies between them? > Conway's "All Numbers, Great and Small" shows off the boundless potential > of the null set, but also of the human mind. Human creative energy, like > nothing, isn't anything if it isn't potential. It is also an indomitable > part of being alive, as countless experiments have documented. People > who are deprived of their senses by being floated in silent, dark tanks > of water warmed to body temperature will hallucinate. It is as though > the human mind will not be stilled of its propensity to make something > of nothing even, or especially, when immersed in nothingness. > > Like a physicist's vacuum, the human mind can be induced to create thoughts > that come seemingly out of nowhere. Mathematicians over the years have > documented this common phenomenon. The German Carl Friedrich Gauss recalled > that he had tried unsuccessfully for years to prove a particular theorem > in arithmetic, and then, after days of not thinking about the problem, > the solution came to him "like a sudden flash of lightning." The French > mathematician Henri Poincare, too, reported working futilely on a problem > for months. Then one day while conversing with a friend about a totally > unrelated subject, Poincare recalled that "... the idea came to me without > anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it." > > In this sense, the human mind is the real null set in Frege's and Conway's > number theories; the mathematical null set is but a subordinate entity > created after the mind's self-image." I must say it's really getting deep at this point. I realize that the "wondrous parallels between profound mathematical principles with the human mind" is the idea here. But I see no more that a paper thin relatedness between the specifics under discussion. This reminds me of other cases where "deep fundamental" mathematic principles are put forward as "the essence" of thinking or mind (recursion a common one). Let's go over this again: > Conway's "All Numbers, Great and Small" shows off the boundless potential > of the null set, but also of the human mind. Human creative energy, like > nothing, isn't anything if it isn't potential. So roughly the claim is "the mind is like, the null set." (a california surfer dude accent would go nicely here). I find this a very strange claim but let's consider the two examples... First, > People > who are deprived of their senses by being floated in silent, dark tanks > of water warmed to body temperature will hallucinate. It is as though > the human mind will not be stilled of its propensity to make something > of nothing even, or especially, when immersed in nothingness. Yes people do eventually have all sorts of wild experiences. How does this relate to the mind being like a null set or the mathematical discussion at all? Does the null set notion PREDICT that those in such cahmbers will hallucinate? THERE IS ONLY A VERY CRUDE SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NULL SET AND SENSORY DEPRIVATION. "Oh, like both have to do with complete nothingness man..." Second, > Like a physicist's vacuum, the human mind can be induced to create thoughts > that come seemingly out of nowhere. Mathematicians over the years have > documented this common phenomenon. The German Carl Friedrich Gauss recalled >..... Yes, yes, such cases are well known. But now the relationship between the null set and the "example" is almost hard to find at all. First, there is no reason to suppose any sort of emptiness involved. Research on this "incubation" period of problem solving indicates that active though unconscious processing is involved in producting "the answer." And the individual, through his long and arduous pursuit of a solution to fulfill some set of constraints, has set up a situation where when the "answer" is unconsciously conceived of, it is "recognized" and brought to consciousness. Anyway THERE IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CRUDE SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NULL SET AND THE INCUBATION PHENOMENON IN PROBLEM SOLVING. > In this sense, the human mind is the real null set in Frege's and Conway's > number theories; the mathematical null set is but a subordinate entity > created after the mind's self-image." 1 THE HUMAN MIND IS NO MORE "THE REAL NULL SET IN...NUMBER THEORIES" THAN IT IS A BASEBALL BAT OR A TORNADO. 2 The notion that the null set arose as a mathematical concept due to man's perception of some nothingness within his psyche is absurd. > PHYSICIST: >In the book "The Turning Point" Fritjof Capra (Ph.D in high-energy physics >from University of Vienna) writes (p.101): > >"While the new physics was developing in the twentieth century, the > mechanistic Cartesian world view and the principles of Newtonian physics > maintained their strong influence on Western scientific thinking, and even > today many scientists still hold to the mechanistic paradigm, although > physicists themselves have gone beyond it. > ... > In biology the Cartesian view of living organisms as machines, constructed > from separate parts, still provides the dominant conceptual framework. > Although Descartes' simple mechanistic biology could not be carried very > far and had to be modified considerably during the subsequent three hundred > years, the belief that all aspects of living organisms can be understood > by reducing them to their smallest constituents, and by studying the > mechanisms through which these interact, lies at the very basis of most > contemporary biological thinking. So is this a tirade against a mechanistic approach, or the reductionist enterprise? They are not the same of course. >.... > Transcending the Cartesian model will amount to a major revolution in medical > science, and since current medical research is closely linked to research > in biology--both conceptually and in its organization--such a revolution > is bound to have a strong impact on the further development of biology." Yeah this sounds like Capra. I don't know what it would mean to "transcend the cartesian model", and no explanation of what that would be like is offered in this passage. If what is meant is to "look for causes and processes outside the normal realm of measurable cause and effect then I would say that its hogwash. If its just a childlike hope that taking new perspectives, sometimes a "systems" or "cybernetic" perspective may yield new insight into complex systems, then point taken. >Paradoxically, these three people's thoughts may sound unrelated. It is up >to you to decide, any comments? Yes, not only unrelated, they are unremarkable. Dave, your postings remain without peer in being provocative and interesting. But trust me, the "deep stuff" concerning minds and brains, the meta-psychology, is largely fluff. Move up the scientific foodchain a bit. You know the old saying, fact is stranger than fiction. Its never been more true than in psychology. Get down to real data and yet keep these larger questions in mind. Read about the bizzare dissociations brain damaged patients exhibit, study up on perceptual illusions, investigate the cases of extraordinary memories (people can literally tell you what shirt they wore or the change they made on a given day in 1966, and its not a trick or learned ability). Well, you get the picture...these sorts of phenomenon baffle and challenge, and if there are secrets to be found and profound changes to take place in how we understand the mind it will likely be fueled by these inexplicable sorts of data. tonyM
markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) (01/11/89)
In article <43472@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes: >Reductionist (analytical) reasoning is easy to describe and >easy to teach. But reductionism has a shortcoming. > >If I give you a large, assembled jigsaw puzzle, and you examine >it piece by piece, you will end up with a pile of carefully >examined pieces. I don't know about that. I solve most of my puzzles by classifying pieces on the basis of their shape and printed color, with little or no regard for the place where they fit in the "big" picture. Yet, I also claim that I'm solving the puzzle holistically in the process. The "big" picture always emerges out of the jumble of pieces near the end.
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (01/11/89)
In article <6177@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> hes@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Henry Schaffer) worries about the overthrow of reductionism: > This whole controversy makes me think again about a question which >has bothered me before. If reductionism is not sufficient - how can >one show/prove that it is not sufficient. Clearly if a process is >very complex, then much work must be done do reduce it sufficiently >far to explain everything via a reductionist scenario. > >... Clearly one can't give up on reductionism just yet. > > Is that the answer? One can't disprove reductionism as long as there >is more work left to be done? That would mean essentially never. I don't think anyone is suggesting that reductionism (or analysis of a complex system into its constituent elements) is a doomed activity. I think the argument is that additional insight is gained through synthetic reasoning (constructing novel systems from known pieceparts). Nature does this all the time. The cerebral cortex of the species Homo sapiens sapiens is believed to be one of the most complex systems found in nature. We learn by taking apart, and we learn by putting together. There is room (and need) for both activities. Personally, I find that, as a species, we devote more time to disassembly than to assembly, and I would like us to spend more time developing our creative intelligence. But I wouldn't want a world in which we have to choose between holism and reductionism. Both are essential ingredients in cognitive growth. Now and then, I even like to rest and simply enjoy what is. --Barry Kort
peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) (01/11/89)
>>In the book "The Society of Mind" Marvin Minsky writes (p.50): >>"When people have no answers to important questions, they often give some >> anyway. >> What controls the brain? The Mind. >> What controls the mind? The Self. >> What controls the Self? Itself. >> .... >> It cannot help for you to think that >> inside yourself lies someone else who does your work. This notion of >> "hommunculus"--a little person inside each self--leads only to a paradox In article <686@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> (Tony Meadors) writes: >An infinite regress. >One of the challenges of psychological explanation is >to explain our overall intelligent behavior and cognitive >abilities with a model whose parts are not themselves possessors of >those abilities...this is how homunculi can creep into real world models. > What Minsky is doing in the quoted passages is simply noting how >commonsense notions such as self and mind entail the idea of a "detatched >controller" and this quickly leads down the homunculi trail. I would like to humbly express my opinion about the way Marvin Minsky describes "hommunculus" as "leads only to paradox". Using the word "only" is misleading, like there's something wrong with hommunculus or even having a paradox. Or as you have stated, "simply noting how". Personally, these kind of statements in any explanation are not very satisfying, in fact, I start to get uncomfortable. All I'm saying, considering the subject matter, is simply that things never to turn out so simple. Or at least, seem so simple to me. "The idea of a single, central Self doesn't explain anything. This is because a thing with no parts provides nothing that we can use as pieces of explanation!" MM. If to explain something, you must have parts, then at some point you got to reduce down to physics. I think our knowledge in physics is great, but limited. Physicists might have egos as big as atomic blasts, but unfortunately God is still alive. This bothers me and is why I have problems with reductionist thinking. Einstein said God does not play dice, or was it God that said Einstein does not play dice. Anyway, as far as I know, according to our current knowledge of physics, God does play dice and is probably living in Atlantic City. Who knows, maybe Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ. :-) Seriously, is there anyone out there who really thinks reductionism can explain everything there is to be explain? >>In the book "Bridges To Infinity" Michael Guillen (Ph.D in physics, mathema- >>matics, and astronomy from Cornell University) writes (p.98): >> ........ >> From there he goes on, however, to create an infinity of in-between numbers, >> such as the number whose left set contains zero, {0}, and whose right set >> contains one through infinity {1, 2, 3, ...}. >> This defines a number somewhere >> numbers, is embellished by an interminable number of in-between volumes. >> And it doesn't stop there. >> >> Pursuing the logic of his method, Conway is able to create between in-between >> numbers, then numbers between *these*, and so on, literally ad infinitum. >> The result is limitless hierarchies of in-between numbers, never before >> named in mathematics. >I'm no mathematician, but if I take >the numbers 2 & 3 and stick a bunch of >new items between them (no matter how cleverly) >I certainly won't have created "numbers never >before named in mathematics." Numbers seem rather fixed to me, those that >might be found on a simple numberline; the labels I attach to various >points shouldn't make any difference...Unless these new numbers are not >expressable in decimal form at all. If this is the case I missed the >point but my point is below anyway... Don't waive this off, spend some time with this. What Conway does is really awesome. If fact, it defines the word awesome. The idea of "nothingness" as opposed to "nothing as something", i.e. the set {0}, is really neat! And then boom, all the rational and irrational numbers spring to life. To say "Numbers seem rather fixed to me" seems fixed or closed minded to me. >> points. Conway's theory, however, asks us to imagine numbers that fall >> somehow between unimaginable cracks in this blur of points, and between >> the cracks left behind by those numbers, and so on and so on. With his >> theory, Conway has made credible what many persons before him had merely >> speculated about: there is conceptually no limit to how many times an object >> can be divided. > >Cosmic cracks eh. >Again, Im not a numbers man, but was there ever any doubt that a given two >points on a line one may always be found which lies between them? "Cosmic", interesting word choice. When you were younger, did you ever get the feeling while you were half asleep that you were falling off your bed? You suddenly wake up as you slam your hand down on the mattress. I have this feeling all the time, but nothing to slam against. :-) And mathematically speaking, the way Conway generates numbers is the closest thing I've seen to expressing this feeling. >> People >> who are deprived of their senses by being floated in silent, dark tanks >> of water warmed to body temperature will hallucinate. It is as though >> the human mind will not be stilled of its propensity to make something >> of nothing even, or especially, when immersed in nothingness. > >Yes people do eventually have all sorts of wild experiences. How does this >relate to the mind being like a null set or the mathematical discussion at >all? I knew I should have left the float-tank part out. People have all kinds of prejudices. Tony, have you ever floated? I haven't, but maybe Guillen has. Apparently, Guillen thought the experience related to the discussion to use the analogy. You think the analogy doesn't apply, okay. I still think it's a neat idea and I'll reserve judgement until after I've floated. > Does the null set notion PREDICT that those in such cahmbers will >hallucinate? THERE IS ONLY A VERY CRUDE SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN >THE NULL SET AND SENSORY DEPRIVATION. "Oh, like both have to do with >complete nothingness man..." This California surfer stuff is indicative of your close mindedness and adds nothing to the conversation. Which is appropriate considering the subject matter. When you say "there is only a very crude semantic relationship between the null set and sensory deprivation" are you speaking from experience? >> In this sense, the human mind is the real null set in Frege's and Conway's >> number theories; the mathematical null set is but a subordinate entity >> created after the mind's self-image." > >1 THE HUMAN MIND IS NO MORE "THE REAL NULL SET IN...NUMBER THEORIES" > THAN IT IS A BASEBALL BAT OR A TORNADO. > >2 The notion that the null set arose as a mathematical concept due to > man's perception of some nothingness within his psyche is absurd. Considering the quality of your comments, your mind is a perfect example of the null set. All you've really said is this is bullshit with bullshit reasons. Maybe this is all we can ever say about this subject. If you see something that is blatently wrong then say so and state why. However, if these interpretations are simply contrary to your own interpretations or intuition, then don't come off so condescending with words like "absurd". Like you know better, maybe you do. Personally, my belief system is evolving. I remain open to new ideas. >> Transcending the Cartesian model will amount to a major revolution in medical >> science, and since current medical research is closely linked to research >> in biology--both conceptually and in its organization--such a revolution >> is bound to have a strong impact on the further development of biology." > >Yeah this sounds like Capra. I don't know what it would mean to "transcend >the cartesian model", and no explanation of what that would be like is >offered in this passage. If what is meant is to "look for causes and >processes outside the normal realm of measurable cause and effect >then I would say that its hogwash. I think what Capra means by "transcend the cartesian model" is that a human being as an organism is affected by the environment in such a way that some processes will not be explanable out of that context. Things may be so interconnected that reductionism may be inadequate. I think this is interesting when you consider the relationship of the mind in respect to understanding the physics of the environment or the physics of the mind. > If its just a childlike hope that >taking new perspectives, sometimes a "systems" or "cybernetic" >perspective may yield new insight into complex systems, then >point taken. Childlike? I don't understand. What distinguishes childlike from adultlike? >>Paradoxically, these three people's thoughts may sound unrelated. It is up >>to you to decide, any comments? > > Yes, not only unrelated, they are unremarkable. Then why did you make a remark. I was trying to show some ideas about and of the mind in respect to the reductionist approach. Some people liked it. > Dave, your postings remain without peer in being provocative and > interesting. But trust me, the > "deep stuff" concerning minds and brains, the meta-psychology, > is largely fluff. Trust you? Is it safe? :-) Some fluff hardens. I think alot of people have been a little hard on Guillen. This guy has some really neat things to say. Consider from his essay "Irrational Thinking" from his book "Bridges to Infinity" (p.38-39): "Despite this preeminence of rational numbers, science does need irrational numbers. For well over a century, scientists have been taking note of a growing inventory of special quantities whose appearance in nearly every scientific theory signifies their import in the modern description of space-time. These natural constants can be seen as nature's vital statistics, and right now it looks as though every one of them is an irrational number. For example, one of these constants, the speed of light, has been measured out to nine decimal places, and the digits have yet to show any pattern. (Expressed in millions of meters per second, our best measurement of the speed of light is the number .299792458.) Another constant is one that is descriptive of dynamic behavior at the atomic level. It is called the fine-structure constant, and there is no pattern to its digits even when measured out to ten decimal places. (Our best measurement of the fine- structure constant, which is a dimensionless quantity, is .0072973502.) In physics alone there are more than a dozen of these constants, which have been measured out to anywhere from a few to eleven decimal places, and not one of them has a pattern to its digits." When I read this I was astonished. Of course, some of these constants may not be irrational numbers. But what would be really awesome is to come up with some physics that would predict these irrational numbers. Anyway, some more fluff for the pile. > Move up the scientific foodchain a bit. You know > the old saying, fact is stranger than fiction. Its never been more true > than in psychology. Get down to real data and yet > keep these larger questions in mind. Read about the bizzare > dissociations brain damaged patients exhibit, study up on perceptual > illusions, investigate the cases of extraordinary memories (people can > literally tell you what shirt they wore or the change they made on > a given day in 1966, and its not a trick or learned ability). Well, > you get the picture...these sorts of phenomenon baffle > and challenge, and if there are secrets to be found and profound changes > to take place in how we understand the mind it will likely be fueled > by these inexplicable sorts of data. I try to get down to real data as much as I can. That's why I like USENET, after I read all the fluff, I can see what real people think. In reference to "move up the scientific foodchain", I'm currently reading Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of Great Powers". I want to find out why it is so hard nowadays for a person my age to buy a house.
dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) (01/11/89)
In article <331@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: > In article <43472@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes: > >If I give you a large, assembled jigsaw puzzle, and you examine > >it piece by piece, you will end up with a pile of carefully > >examined pieces. > I don't know about that. I solve most of my puzzles by classifying pieces > on the basis of their shape and printed color, with little or no regard > for the place where they fit in the "big" picture. > > Yet, I also claim that I'm solving the puzzle holistically in the process. > The "big" picture always emerges out of the jumble of pieces near the end. How about those irritating puzzles with large washes of featureless background (sky, ocean, forest). Even with our terrific holistic pattern-matching power, the best we can often do is try every combination of pieces to see which ones fit together (the problem gets worse when a malicious jigsaw operator makes similar cuts that permit close but erroneous fits). Assembling a solid-color puzzle reduces us to the level of a slow, awkward serial computer, with perhaps some advantage in avoiding certain obvious misfits. Is the solid-color puzzle problem NP-complete? Then again, I don't know anyone who has spent enough time assembling solid-color puzzles to perform at an expert level. Perhaps subtle cues exist that would allow our holistic power to get its foot in the door and fetch the complexity monster a swift kick. A portion of the puzzle with more information content provides suitable grist for our holistic mill. Fixing the position of a piece is "only" a matter of spotting when the pattern on it corresponds uniquely to a detail on the puzzle box (if the puzzle came in a plain box, toss it in the incinerator), or to a partially-assembled structure. The holistic pattern-matcher must work in the face of rotations, and know when to ignore or exploit the shape of a particular puzzle piece. But I think I am subverting Barry's original comment. He seemed to be saying that the way the puzzle happens to divide into pieces has _nothing_at_all_to_do_ with the picture that appears on the puzzle. The "obvious" reductionist approach to "understanding" or "explaining" the picture on the puzzle is doomed from the start. However, I think the futility of the reductionist approach here follows from the nature of the puzzle. I.e., the puzzle is an artifact, and as such its decomposition is arbitrary. Do we in fact see such "arbitrary" or misleading decomposition in nature, or do we explain our failure to explain as due to nothing more than our limited knowledge and bookkeeping ability? Cheers, Dan Mocsny dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu "God is subtle, but He is not malicious." -- A. Einstein "Stop telling God what to do." -- P.A.M. Dirac (?) (Sorry, science historians, if I botched this one)
geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks) (01/11/89)
In article <564@soleil.UUCP> peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes: >God is still alive. This bothers me and is why I have problems with >reductionist thinking. Einstein said God does not play dice, or was it God >that said Einstein does not play dice. Einstein did say "God does not play dice with the universe", and one of his friends (I think it was Pauli) finally retorted: "When are you going to quit telling God what to do?" > >Seriously, is there anyone out there who really thinks reductionism can explain >everything there is to be explain? > I doubt if the human race will survive long enough to explain everything there is to explain whatever method is used. That isn't the point. The point is, when dealing with complex systems, reductionism is a necessary step if we are to understand them. Only a first step, since then we have to learn how to assemble the reduced parts back into a whole again. But it has worked splendidly in the past and there is no sign at all that it is exhausted as a method, despite the ravings of Capra and others. This all has nothing whatever to do with God. If reductionism allows us to make progress in understanding all parts of the universe we have heretofore investigated, why should the same method not work in the case of the human mind?
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (01/13/89)
In article <331@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) takes me up on my jigsaw puzzle metaphor: >In article <43472@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes: >>If I give you a large, assembled jigsaw puzzle, and you examine >>it piece by piece, you will end up with a pile of carefully >>examined pieces. > >I don't know about that. I solve most of my puzzles by classifying pieces >on the basis of their shape and printed color, with little or no regard >for the place where they fit in the "big" picture. > >Yet, I also claim that I'm solving the puzzle holistically in the process. >The "big" picture always emerges out of the jumble of pieces near the end. I grant that you are solving the puzzle holistically. After all, the big picture does in fact emerge at the end. But the *process* of solution seems to be occuring outside the focus of concious attention. We can teach people how to examine the jigsaw pieces, and classify them by color, shape, and texture. But the method of assembly which yields the "Aha! Insight" seems to a fuzzier, less algorithmic activity. Perhaps it is occuring largely in the right hemisphere, using parallel processing and combinatorial logic. Why is it that holistic thinking and insight seems to come during periods of sleep or during periods when our attention is diverted away from the problem at hand? Why is it that the solution "shows up" without warning? --Barry Kort
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (01/13/89)
In article <564@soleil.UUCP> peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) opines: > To say "Numbers seem rather fixed to me" > seems fixed or closed minded to me. In Howard Rheingold's book, _Tools of Thought_, there is a sketch of the neurophysiologist and pioneering cyberneticist, Warren McCulloch. As Rheingold repeats the story, McCulloch was an abnormally gifted and colorful person who had a firm background in mathematics. A teacher asked McCulloch what he wanted to do with his obviously brilliant future. "Warren," said he, "what is thee going to be?" And I said, "I don't know," "And what is thee going to do?" And again I said, "I have no idea, but there is one question I would like to answer: What is a number, that man may know it, and a man that he may know a number?" He smiled and said, "Friend, thee will be busy as long as thee lives." > What distinguishes childlike from adultlike? On weekends I work as a volunteer in the Children's Discovery Room at the Boston Museum of Science. Occasionally I ask a parent, "What is the difference between a child and a scientist?" Most of them quickly respond, "No difference?" I often feel sorry for adults who have lost their childlike curiousity somewhere along the way. Fortunately a few children grow up to be scientists. It is a shame that so many people become adulturated enroute to maturity. --Barry Kort Today's Quote: "Nothing is as simple as it seems at first, or as hopeless as it seems in the middle, or as finished as it seems in the end."
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (01/13/89)
In article <568@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (Daniel Mocsny) writes: > Is the solid-color puzzle problem NP-complete? There are two kinds of extra-hard jigsaw puzzles: the solid-color puzzles (Little Red Riding Hood's Hood) and the puzzle in which all the pieces are the same shape (Schmuzzles). But curiously enough, the solid-color Schmuzzle puzzle isn't even NP-hard. It's NP-ridiculous. :-) On a more sublime note, Dan returns to the original point of discussion: > But I think I am subverting Barry's original comment. He seemed to > be saying that the way the puzzle happens to divide into pieces > has _nothing_at_all_to_do_ with the picture that appears on the > puzzle. The "obvious" reductionist approach to "understanding" or > "explaining" the picture on the puzzle is doomed from the start. I suppose Mother Nature is not so devilish as the jigsaw puzzle maker. But our own category boundaries are still somewhat arbitrary. And, by studying the "elements" we don't automatically understand how they assemble themselves into "molecules". What I am saying is that anaylysis and differentiation are valuable tools, but creative intelligence also requires synthesis and integration. --Barry Kort
mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist) (01/14/89)
In article <686@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> meadors@cogsci.UUCP (Tony Meadors) writes: > "deep stuff" concerning minds and brains, the meta-psychology, > is largely fluff. Move up the scientific foodchain a bit. You know > the old saying, fact is stranger than fiction. Its never been more true > than in psychology. Get down to real data and yet > keep these larger questions in mind. Read about the bizzare > dissociations brain damaged patients exhibit, study up on perceptual > illusions, investigate the cases of extraordinary memories (people can > literally tell you what shirt they wore or the change they made on > a given day in 1966, and its not a trick or learned ability). Well, > you get the picture...these sorts of phenomenon baffle > and challenge, and if there are secrets to be found and profound changes > to take place in how we understand the mind it will likely be fueled > by these inexplicable sorts of data. Try any of the books written by Oliver Sacks ("A Leg To Stand On", "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat", etc). These books are accounts of some really strange disorders experienced by patients who had had trauma to the right hemisphere of the brain. These disorders profoundly change the patients' whole experience of being a human being. Their symptoms are not easily measured or quantified, and the disorders (according to Sacks) do not lend themselves well traditional case studies. Sacks decided that the appropriate form of 'case study' for these disorders is the story. He tells these stories with acumen, compassion, insight, and humor. He's also got another book (I can't remember the title) in which he discusses the relationships between Parkinson's and Tourette's syndromes.
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (01/15/89)
From article <43582@linus.UUCP>, by bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort): " ... But our own category boundaries are still somewhat arbitrary. " And, by studying the "elements" we don't automatically understand how " they assemble themselves into "molecules". Of course not, but is this a fair analogy for reductionism? I don't think so. Reductionist theories may occasionally arise by identifying elements apart from the patterns they assemble into (perhaps molecular biology would be a case?), but more typically the pattern is observed first. Later, a reduction into elements which assemble according to certain rules is proposed to explain the patterns. There is no step of analysis apart from synthesis -- the rules of assembly are intrinsically a part of the theory. Instances are the analysis of atoms to explain the pattern of the periodic table and the analysis of particles to explain the 8-fold way, probably. An instance I know more about may be drawn from Ventris' decipherment of Linear B. The molecules were, let us say, the signs of the writing system, and the atoms the vowels and consonants they stand for. A pattern in the data was that some signs appeared only at the beginning of (what were inferentially) words. One basis of the decipherment was the identification of such signs as standing for single vowels, the reasoning being that if the script was syllabic and if the language being written did not permit vowels to occur next to one another within a word (which is a common restriction), vowel-only syllables and their signs could occur only word-initially. This would explain the pattern. This, and other such inferences comprised Ventris' theory. (Other previous failed attempts to decipher the script were, however, based on direct assignments of phonetic values to signs.) One cannot find here a step of synthesis that is chronologically or logically "after" the analysis. I suspect that the criticism proponents of holistic theories make of reductionism is founded on a play on words -- an equivocation. There is traditionally a use of the term 'analysis' which opposes it to synthesis, but more commonly, 'analysis' does not refer merely to a decomposition somehow apart from composition. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
mirk@warwick.UUCP (Mike Taylor) (01/16/89)
In article <1995@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks) writes: >If reductionism allows us to make progress in understanding all parts >of the universe we have heretofore investigated, why should the same >method not work in the case of the human mind? Because the human mind is, by its very nature, something that can only be observed in its entirety from within, and this viewpoint of conciousness that we have is not succeptible to reductionist methods because we cannot view the phenomenon objectively. It is an intrinsically subjective thing. Thomas Nagel's article "What is it like to be a bat?" (which can be found in Hofstadter & Dennet's "The Mind's I") makes this point in rather more detail, but in a very dull and dry way, IMHBDO. His basic point is that we cannot understand what it is like to be a bat because it is a feeling subjective to the bat (if it is conscious at all). We can imagine what it would be like for ourselves to be a bat - but to have a true picture of the phenomenon of bat-consciousness, we must understand what it is like for the bat to be bat. Clear? No, I didn't think so :-( :-) I will try to restate the point in its bare form: to analyse something by reductive techniques, we must be able to view it objectively. But to view consciousness objectively is to omit the most important aspect of the phenomenon, namely the subjective experience of it, and thus any reductionist anaysis made on this basis will be incomplete and/or inaccurate. There - that wasn't so bad, was it? :-) ______________________________________________________________________________ Mike Taylor - {Christ,M{athemat,us}ic}ian ... Email to: mirk@uk.ac.warwick.cs *** Unkle Mirk sez: "Em9 A7 Em9 A7 Em9 A7 Em9 A7 Cmaj7 Bm7 Am7 G Gdim7 Am" *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
abrown@homxc.ATT.COM (A.BROWN) (01/17/89)
Can someone please E-mail the difference between reductionism and
non-reductionism. I'm doing a paper on Artificial Intelligence.
Which argues that given the proper sample space, computers can
adequately simulate the 'Primitive Visual System'. I now need to
conclude but am stuck as to whether this validates either system.
Thanks a million
abrownlee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (01/18/89)
From article <5038@homxc.ATT.COM>, by abrown@homxc.ATT.COM (A.BROWN): " " Can someone please E-mail the difference between reductionism and " non-reductionism... The Encyclopedia of Philosophy has some stuff under Laws and Theories, Reductionism, which begins: "Since theories do not refer directly to observables, at least prima iacie, and do not make directly testable statements, the first attempt to clarify their status was the suggestion that they make a disguised reference to observables; that is, that they provide some kind of shorthand for observation statements, or that their content can be exhaustively translated into or reduced to observation statements. ..." The article opposes reductionism to instrumentalism and realism. So far as I can tell, this "proper" sense of 'reductionism' has no relation to the way the term was being used in the recent discussion in these groups, where it meant 'science'. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
litow@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Bruce E Litow) (01/18/89)
Recently some postings have appeared in which the type of argument (so-called) indicated in the summary has been invoked to maintain that reductionist methods cannot succeed in mind studies. I cannot accept that we can use the construction: `the mind by its very nature ...' when we haven't a clue as to what that `very nature' might be. In arguments based on this construction one is always forced at some point into actually accepting that there is a mind in toto which escapes whatever approach is being argued against. That is the mind is an entity. (Following Rilke perhaps the ``Angels'' see it entire) Once this is admitted ,then mind study is on par with physics which also faces a unity (the universe) about which all our understanding has come from reductionist methods. An interesting extended attempt in support of the claim that mind studies cannot proceed via reduction is given in Fodor's ``Modularity of Mind''. However,Fodor only makes the case for cognition being beyond our present reductions and nothing more. I believe that there is tremendous confusion in mind studies between e.g. general,metaphysical speculation about mind and reductions such as neurophysiology,molecular physiology,linguistic inquiries,etc. The first is limited because it only rarely can provide testable hypotheses. It is unscientific. Its utility comes from inspiring people to examine things but it is useless for carrying out research about mind. We have nothing else but reduction when it comes to science.
geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks) (01/19/89)
In article <906@ubu.warwick.UUCP> mirk@uk.ac.warwick.cs (Mike Taylor) writes: >In article <1995@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks) writes: >>If reductionism allows us to make progress in understanding all parts >>of the universe we have heretofore investigated, why should the same >>method not work in the case of the human mind? > >Because the human mind is, by its very nature, something that can only >be observed in its entirety from within, and this viewpoint of conciousness >that we have is not succeptible to reductionist methods because we cannot >view the phenomenon objectively. It is an intrinsically subjective thing. > Certainly the mind can not be observed in its entirety from within. Introspection is a very poor tool for understanding the mind. If we were able to understand the hardware (wetware) in which the mind is implemented, and create simulations which show similar behavior to minds, then don't you think we would be able to better understand the natural mind? Especially since we could perform experiments with the simulations which we cannot do easily with the mind?