So what if the first premise of contemporary science is flawed?
posted by yellowseed | May 2, 2010
- Login or register to post comments
- Print this page
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Icerocket- Little by little the time comes to take away the veil from our eyes. When we remove that veil so we can see, we see ourselves face to face, and see that the Great Spirit is One with one, that He is One, and one is Him.
—Aurelio Díaz Tekpankali, Fuego Sagrado de Itzachilatlan
So what if the "realism" sustaining the materialist myth is false?
What does a 1st-person science look like? What does it mean to dis-cover ourselves?
It means embracing the reality of the in-visible—mainly, our viewing.
It means acknowledging that there is a world within every body.
It means accepting that we are all living, breathing models of the universe.
It means foregoing the notion that reality is out there to see that "out there" is really more "in heres".
It means laying bare the awesome miracle of this reality here, immediate, irreducible, incarnate.
It means considering that everybody else is our own reaction to their situation.
It means moving beyond our sense of specialness and into awareness of our divinity.
It means knowing that you are me and I am you, an indivisible organism of singular purpose.
It means accepting that we are the world-creating force, the same volitive energy inter-acting through every phylum, every creature, every particle, continually and increasingly bringing this world into existence.
It means approaching the awareness that we have created reality, and we are the authors of this, our world.
It means taking each day as a new step in the creation, always present in the beauty of this eternal moment.
It means growing in this consciousness to finish the great work, knowing full well that inauguration draws near.
Comments
doing the arthmetic of one consciousness
— May 02, 2010
"It means considering that everybody else is our own reaction to their life situation." I really enjoy that description of it. It's hard to blame someone for being a certain way when I realize I am, in a larger sense, them, reacting the way they are.
I would like to merge with the part of my consciousness that is manifesting this crazy reality. When I think about that, I'm like, what is going on? (Knocks on table) I mean, I know it's a manifestation of consciousness, but it's so stable!
"Astonishment is the appropriate response to reality." - Terrence McKenna
nice
— May 03, 2010
"When I think about that, I'm like, what is going on? (Knocks on table) I mean, I know it's a manifestation of consciousness, but it's so table!"
I first read that with a "table" instead of "stable". Thanks for that.
Let's do some Conscious Science!
Biocentrism
— May 03, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biocentrism_(c)
Lanza's theory of biocentrism has seven principles:
1. What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An "external" reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind.
2. Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another.
3. The behavior of subatomic particles, indeed all particles and objects, is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves.
4. Without consciousness, "matter" dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state.
5. The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The "universe" is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self.
6. Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe.
7. Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.
very cool
— May 03, 2010
I've only read a few articles by Lanza, and that on the Huffy Huff Po!
This is awesome:
Richard Conn Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, pointed out that Lanza's theory is consistent with quantum mechanics: “What Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it––or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private––furiously blushing as we mouth the words.”
Do you know his work in-depth?
Let's do some Conscious Science!
He has a book out. You can
— May 03, 2010
He has a book out. You can find it on amazon easy. It's called Biocentrism.
what then?
— Jun 01, 2010
I don't think I understand what you're saying, or perhaps the other way around.
Let's do some Conscious Science!
crazy! beautiful!
— May 07, 2010
Thanks for that, Sam. It almost makes me wish I'd studied mathematics.
"Examples are to philosophical discourse what logical inference is to mathematical proof."
Yes!
As for the meat of the excerpt, I wish I had the terms and concepts studied so as to dig deeper into it. I think I understand a little bit, and can see the mess of a problem they're dealing with. For it is the mystery of "as"-sociation, intentional association at that! How to make machines associate? Association implies purpose, finality--what do we associate for? Why is there such a thing?
It's really the definition of intelligence, as I see it.
Deep stuff...
But I think we're getting carried away in our conversation, Sam. What were we talking about?
Namaste
Let's do some Conscious Science
"It means approaching the
— May 04, 2010
"It means approaching the awareness that we have created reality, and we are all the authors of this, our world."
What is reality to you? I think most people have slightly different interpretations of what reality actually is and I'm curious what you think we really have created. Do you believe we've created anything more than a mental construct to understand and alter the realm we exist within?
"It means growing in this consciousness to finish the work, knowing full well that inauguration draws near."
You speak as if we're "growing" towards some ultimate; "finishing the work" as "inauguration draws near". Are we growing toward a threshold or an pinnacle? How is this an inauguration?
Thanks a lot, I loved your post.
BE the WAVE.
I0880I
wow
— May 07, 2010
Thanks for the questions.
"What is reality?" That should be a mandatory final project for every college degree! I'll do what I can.
I won't pretend to define or explain "reality", merely describe it (and don't we all?).
To the second question, I would say "we" have also created the realm we exist within (in this type of talk when I say "you, I, we" I mean the whole, true essence self, not the ego identities we currently hold as "me"): coinciding with the Biocentrism posted above, I take time and space to be products of consciousness. We know time is subjective, why do we insist on "objective" time? Our beloved notion of the "objective" (objective time, space, reality) is always a projection of our personal vantage point, nothing more, nothing less. Reality is subject-object interaction; "it" is no more object alone than it is subject alone, and we are that bridge.
Now for The Question.
"Reality" is not fixed. "Reality" is constantly changing and re-creating itself, both the micro and macro, self-creating, self-perfecting. Like the tree is contained within the unsuspecting seed, the tree of life is like a growing edifice of incarnate realities, and yes, humanity is the pinnacle, the spearhead. In that sense we are all like drafts of reality: we do what we can, learning, growing, building up our life, our "world". And all drafts are necessary to get to the final product.
And where are we headed, what is that completion? We need only look inside to our deepest desires and highest ideals. We all share them, we all yearn for them, no matter how much we may have convinced ourselves that they are not "real"--not to mention "realistic"--no matter how much ego, fear, ignorance, and existential trauma might be covering them up--they're always there, just waiting. And it's like we're going through a birth canal. The metaphors are endless--birth, awakening, metamorphosis, arrival, redemption, return--but the destiny is the same: that which we've always felt the world was supposed to be; that which we've always known we're capable of.
It's why we're all on Evolver, we know something is going on, and there's something we need to do. We just have far too many divergent ideas of what those somethings are right now.
Hey, you asked!
Namaste
Let's do some Conscious Science!
digital space-saving
— May 22, 2010
materialism again...
E. Sam — Apr 09, 2010
Returning to the problem of subjective experience. I had a few thoughts lately:
1. Let's assume, for sake of argument, that our brains can be simulated on a digital computer (more precisely, that our mind can be simulated by more or less any computer), contrary to what you and I believe. One would think, then, that because we are self-aware beings, we shouldn't have any hangups accepting our ``digital nature''. The only explanation for why we continue to believe that our brains and minds are special, contrary to `reality', is that our neural wiring is faulty -- perhaps we believe it for the same reason some people believe in religions (e.g. patternicity and agenticity inherited from our ancestors).
But I cannot perceive any faulty wiring related to my belief in the ``ontological subjective''... I perceive it, believe it is not like anything else I know (hence `subjective'), and so I assume there are no ``bats in the belfry'' (at least when it comes to this :] ). Therefore, because I ask the question ``but what about subjective experience?''... that questioning must be based on something real. Or to look at it another way: How odd it would be for my brain to be simulated on a digital computer, and then for the ur-Sam to claim, ``I... think... I feel... I don't think my experiences can be simulated on a computer.''
2. One of the standard arguments against the specialness of the human brain, and why it should be possible to simulate it on a digital computer, is that the brain is constantly replacing molecules here and there in a hot, noisy environment... so, you should only need to know approximately how all those neurons and synapses behave... and `approximately' is something you would expect a digital computer to be able to handle.
What I want to do is to turn this argument on its head, and to assume that both (a) The ``ontological subjective'' is real, influences our thoughts, and cannot be simulated on a digital computer, and (b) Indeed, the brain is very noise-tolerant (atoms shuffled... hot... noise). How could both be true? Well, one possibility is that ``subjective experience'' is kind of like the music from a chorus (many, many `singing' atoms), so that even if you replace a bunch of singers, they still can carry the melody (and the new `singers' tune in to the part they are to sing). Of course, it would need to be a kind of chorus where ``brain noise'' keeps the tune, while the noise from ``digital approximation'' destroys it. Now that is an interesting set of properties! Sounds like a nice problem for some mathematics, where the sort of answer one would like is, ``Look here at this dynamical system and very crude model of a human brain. Tweak the `particles' making up the system by soft Gaussian noise, and the system tends to behave one way... but tweak with discretized noise, and it beahves completely differently with high probability.'' (I'm not suggesting here that the brain is a mathematical, dynamical system -- I am merely trying to show that the ``standard argument'' in favor of functionalism, and against `brain specialness', has flaws.)
Anyways... that's all for now.
* reply
* Report this item
I thought a little more...
E. Sam — Apr 13, 2010
Although I don't really have the time, I thought a little more about designing a system that has the sort of properties listed in my remark 2 above (I couldn't resist thinking about it a little). Again, whether or not the human brain actually is such a system is immaterial to my point -- my point is merely to demonstrate that the functionalist argument is not airtight.
I came up with a very, very crude system involving the time-evolution of a single particle that really does have the properties I was looking for. Basically, it uses something called Euler's Theorem modulo a composite, together with ``fast repeated squaring'' to produce a dynamical system that in the discrete case rapidly converges to a steady-state behavior, but in the continuous case does not (at least for almost all initial conditions). The behavior of these systems are also noise tolerant in certain senses (you can add a little noise once every so many iterations, and you still get this sort of behavior).
What I would like to do is to scale up my example, so that it (a) can tolerate a lot more noise, and (b) is like some process you might think the brain actually carries out (perhaps like the feedback loop iterations in a Bidirectional Associate Memory [BAM]... whose iterations can be modeled by matrix multiplication, and the matrix multiplications involved somewhat resemble the `repeated squaring' procedure I had thought about, except carried out in a different algebraic structure... at least I think so... I would need to analyze it very carefully).
I am not sure where this will lead, but it is fun to think about, for me at least... and it really does seem to have some philosophical consequences. Although, it is not the sort of thing most Evolvers would find interesting -- it's not the organic and natural sort of philosophizing normally found in `Evolver philosophy'. I suppose I will also try to do some of that (natural and organic philosophizing) as well.
As before, that's all for now...
* reply
* Report this item
wow
yellowseed — May 02, 2010
Thanks for the thoughts. That's way over my head though.
Two things jump out:
I don't think the argument is about the "specialness" of the human brain: more so the "reality" of mind. To me this simply reflects the completely misguided origin of most contemporary discourse and terminology.
Second point has to do with this misguided origin, what I've written to you before: we must realize that everything is qualia. We can never know anything that is not the "ontological subjective". It is illogical and in-sane to talk of anything as if it were in-dependent of our talking about it.
As you might well know, I feel that the way out of materialist mythology (and culture) is through pure and simple epistemology, not necessarily reproducible experiments, which tend to be composed of the same materialist concepts and entities. Which is not to say that experiments are not also part of the shift, so please, bring them on!
Let's do some Conscious Science!
* reply
* Report this item
mind...
E. Sam — May 02, 2010
I don't think the argument is about the "specialness" of the human brain: more so the "reality" of mind. To me this simply reflects the completely misguided origin of most contemporary discourse and terminology.
I can see what you mean; however, this really is how some philosophers describe the problem, and I agree with that way of thinking -- though, there are dualist positions that don't emphasize the role of the brain as much. Basically, I agree with Searle's position that the brain and mind are inextricably linked, and that there is a two-way causal connection (unlike `property dualism' which takes `mind' to be epiphenomenal, a consequence of which is that there is no causal connection from mind --> brain, or at least in some versions of the theory) between them.
So, the mind (including qualitative experience) is generated by the particular matter making up the human brain, and it in turn influences this matter. This does not imply that one can just simulate the functional roles of the neurons and synapses, as understood from a ``third-person objective'' point of view, and in so doing generate the human mind on a computer . In other words, the particular matter (and its various properties, some known, some not) of the brain is important here (and the inner world it gives rise to), not just its ``functional role''. That is what I mean by the `specialness' of the brain -- the specialness of that particular matter.
....
By the way, I learned a great deal about how to think about certain aspects of the mind by reading some of the works of Gian-Carlo Rota (a mathematician and philosopher). He does an excellent job of distilling some of the ideas of Heidegger into readable form. Anybody who is serious about ``theory of mind'' should have at least a passing familiarity with Heidegger's ideas. In a few days, when I am less busy, I will transcribe some of Rota's writings here for you to read, particularly about fundirungs and facticity . In the meantime, here is a quite interesting dialogue between Rota and David Sharp, which has a few of the ideas (perhaps 10 percent of them):
http://web.archive.org/web/20070811172343/http://www.rota.org/hotair/rot...
* reply
* Report this item
matter...
yellowseed — May 02, 2010
Right, thanks for the explanation.
In that sense, I still see the "specialness" notion to be deceiving; the "matter" that makes up our brain being no more more special but just as wondrous as the "matter" that makes up a tree or this computer, i.e. if there is intelligence in matter, isn't it only logical to say that all matter is also intelligence?
And thanks for the reference. Very interesting guy, though I'm not that big on math and know nothing about AI.
"The philosopher's role is to tell the AI specialist that he doesn't know what he's talking about, to put it bluntly." That's hilarious. I loved the part about intentionality.
Let's do some Conscious Science!
* reply
* Report this item
matter again..
E. Sam — May 03, 2010
I would say that only particular arrangements of matter and forces can lead to consciousness and mind, at least `mind' of the sort we are aware of (i.e. you could take the very same atoms in our brains, and move them around, and you wouldn't have consciousness any more).
Incidentally, shifting the focus away from `matter' and onto the other aspects of brain and mind (or shifting it to mind, period) is similar to the idea I had at the end of this blog posting (look for the paranthetical comment):
http://www.evolver.net/user/e_sam/blog/limitless_tiles_art_culture_histo...
* reply
* Report this item
intention...
yellowseed — May 03, 2010
What if we take the energy flows and potential wells of the brain as the fundamental objects of focus, instead of neurons and synapses? -- thinking of them as shaping the matter of the brain, instead of the matter shaping the flows. Will this shift in perspective help in any way in coming to grips with the ``hard problem of consciousness''?
I like that. I believe so!
What do you mean by the energy flows and potential wells?
-
I think the problem here is reductionism, period. Whether we're looking at "the brain", "the mind", or any part thereof, this simply comes from the notion of separation; the desire to be detached observers; the impression that mind and brain are distinct; and the failure to realize that there is something in this "mind" and "brain" attempting to make sense of itself.
We fail to see the whole, we talk "brain", "neurons", "qualia", this and that, but do not see that this brain-nervoussystem-body-mind thing is a perfect unity, and it is also "us", that other part of the equation that is far too covered in social and historical identities right now to be a part of the mainstream scientific arena.
-
I had some thoughts on the article you posted:
In terms of building AI, I would say this is precisely the difference, the "specialness" of natural intelligence over artificial intelligence: Intentionality.
The human brain has come together through a long process of organic (or direct) intentionality, working through ages of heredity and natural selection, with a direct link back to that hypothetical first organism or first intender--not the product of "random" encounters or indirect (artificial) intentionality.
I would think the only way to truly build an aware or "intelligent" machine would be to find a way to inject or channel that natural "will to survive" or "will to perceive" into the artifice in question, and then that might look more like bio-engineering than genuine AI.
-
Finally, do you think there are grounds to rid any physical particle at all of the possibility of "mind" (in whatever form that may be)?
Namaste
Let's do some Conscious Science!
* reply
* Report this item
mind...
E. Sam — May 03, 2010
Finally, do you think there are grounds to rid any physical particle at all of the possibility of "mind" (in whatever form that may be)?
I can't logically exclude the possibility. However, it all depends on what one means by ``mind''. To me the term has a degree associated with it -- termites have less mind than humans... or perhaps `consciousness' is a better term. But below a certain threshold of existence, its hard to even really say what the word means. What would a paramecium mind even mean? For that matter, what would a termite mind even mean?
The trouble here (and also with ``termite mind'') is that we tend to anthropomorphize any object to which we apply the term `mind', and we really shouldn't. Perhaps this is part of what makes thinking about consciousness so difficult -- the human empathy circuitry... it's what makes me move earthworms drying out on a hot sidewalk, or lift a spider up on a paper to toss it outside rather than smash it -- but should we really think of earthworms and spiders as ``sufferers''?
* reply
* Report this item
function...
yellowseed — May 05, 2010
What would a paramecium mind even mean?
I think we'd be alright with but a notion of what the human mind means. What's it do? What's its function?
but should we really think of earthworms and spiders as "sufferers''?
Why not?
Our science, our understanding, will always be anthropogenic--whether it's the human concept of the "physical", the "inert", the "material", the "natural" or the "mental"--and if we're hypothesizing about internal experience, the best place to look is just that--our internal experience.
Let's do some Conscious Science!
* edit
* reply
* Report this item
you know...
brock — Apr 10, 2010
"It means accepting that we are all mental models of each other and everything else.
It means foregoing the notion that reality is fundamentally "out there", to realize that "out there" is really more "in heres".
It means letting go of our sense of specialness, the stage of separation, to consider that everybody else is our own reaction to their life situation."
...that's totally Buddhist.
Let's do some Conscious Science
