Optimality Requires "self" In Order To Exist.

[Antlerman]

Paraphrasing Richard Dawkins I believe, he said something to the effect of that consciousness as we know it today and self, evolved into what we know of it today because we kept evolving even though progressively we didn't need to just simply survive. So we got what amount to being a thing we didn't need to survive, but became useful. That is probably a real crappy paraphrase but anyway on to my point.

 

What if self is just a random occurrence of our biology we attach meaning to because we simply exist, and that we are allowed to by design control, so we can respond to outside environment and survive?

Translated, love is just a toss-in, nice to have. I've heard this argument before. Who we are plays much more of a roll in our evolution than just some "freebe" aside. It's integral to the whole.

[Legion]

Ah, I think I see it now. Okay. Yeah I was very tired. I took a nap. One thing though... I am trying to limit my questions to 2 at a time with you. I will expect you to do the same. I count 10 sentences here with question marks behind them from you. I will only answer 2 of them.

 

systems theorists also reduce the world into an 'objective' understanding that excludes the subjective.

Do you think all the sciences are reductive?

 

How do you understand what it is to be an Eskimo?

I don't believe science is the only way to gain understandings. In fact, given the current immaturity of sociology, psychology, etc. then they might not even be the best ways presently to gain understandings of Eskimos. In my view, what we want to be able to do is explain and predict.

 

I make a distinction between knowing intellectually and knowing relationally.

I do not understand this answer, therefore I will be lazy with my next answer to your question.

 

Is all truth empirical?

I am far more interested in understanding than I am in truth.

[Antlerman]

Ah, I think I see it now. Okay. Yeah I was very tired. I took a nap. One thing though... I am trying to limit my questions to 2 at a time with you. I will expect you to do the same. I count 10 sentences here with question marks behind them from you. I will only answer 2 of them.

 

systems theorists also reduce the world into an 'objective' understanding that excludes the subjective.

Do you think all the sciences are reductive?

Depends on how you're defining "the sciences". Astrology can be considered a science, but I don't think that's what you mean. No not all science does, but a great many of the fields of science since the Enlightenment have taken that path. I think the real question should be does valid knowledge need to use a reductive methodology? Is the approach of excluding the observer, not attempting to understand the nature of the observer as the observer from the inside not looking at it from the outside, removing the role of the observer from the totality of understanding, in fact is that a valid approach?

 

As William James put it, "The paper seen and the seeing of it are one indivisible fact".

 

Your question: How does Rosen include the observer? As a subject or as an object?

 

How do you understand what it is to be an Eskimo?

I don't believe science is the only way to gain understandings. In fact, given the current immaturity of sociology, psychology, etc. then they might not even be the best ways presently to gain understandings of Eskimos. In my view, what we want to be able to do is explain and predict.

I'm smiling. Now it's you who hasn't answered the question. You just said what science can't do. The question was what would be the best way to understand, what would be the best approach to understand what it is to be an Eskimo?

 

The question wasn't does science do this or not. But the fact you just stated this however does lend itself to my point that systems theory is missing something. You didn't call on it to answer the question, and I'd say specifically because it removed that variable, or reduced that variable to strictly observational data in its theories.

 

P.S. Yes, the immaturity of all the other sciences you just mentioned would be all around the same point I'm making here.

 

P.P.S. How in the heck actually does being able to "explain and predict" translate into "understanding" anyway? Understanding as an observer?? How is that understanding?? I see the key flaw in your reasoning here. This is the question I'd like explained

 

I make a distinction between knowing intellectually and knowing relationally.

I do not understand this answer, therefore I will be lazy with my next answer to your question.

 

Is all truth empirical?

I am far more interested in understanding than I am in truth.

First, I wasn't being lazy at all and very clearly answered. You excluded key sections of my re-quote above in your quote here now. Please let me re-add it for you to read again:

I make a distinction between knowing intellectually and knowing relationally. Same word, entirely different experience of knowing.

Same with truth and understanding

.

 

I'll try to elaborate since you didn't follow. A relational knowledge, truth or understanding, is experiential. There is a difference between an internal understanding and a rationalistic or intellectual understanding. It has nothing to do with reasoning. There is a difference between an existential truth and rationalistic one. The latter changes, the former does not. Truth itself vs. forms of truth.

 

The exact same thing applies to the word understanding. Understanding how?

 

So again to you, how to you understand or know? What is your approach to it?

 

 

P.S. Let's expand it to 3 questions per. Two is not enough.

[Saviourmachine]

"Particle chasers". That's good. Yes, reductionism is like atomism, that everything gets gutted out in trying to explain everything by the simplest form. Clearly those like Rosen in the complexity sciences, chaos theory, dynamic systems theory, etc can recognize that there are irreducible behaviors that arise as a result of interaction, interdependence, etc. But like atomism, or the 'particle chasers', systems theorists also reduce the world into an 'objective' understanding that excludes the subjective. It makes the world an "it" out there that if the mechanics can be analyzed sufficiently, in the case of complexity theories taking into account the emergent properties of dynamics of the systems, rather than imagining it's all contained in just the atom itself, then the world can be understood and even predicted. Instead of in the atom, it's in the nature of the systems. It remains an "it" outside the "I" or the "We".

Irreversibility

I never understood so much the attempts of physicists to include subjectivity (most obvious of course the interpretation that a - human - observer is needed to make the wave function collapse). However, that might very well be a strawman that no serious physicist actually believes. I encountered it again last weeks in "The end of certainty" by Prigogine. Nice book by the way. I'm still contemplating on the baker map where he wanted to demonstrate (macro-)irreversibility from an underlying (micro-)reversible process. If he can do that he feels he understands "the arrow of time" a bit better.

 

Self-organized criticality

Currently I am focusing on self-organized criticality because I am busy with a lot of recurrent networks. Most research is about understanding where parts are more than the whole. What can exactly be ignored. Feynmann with defining "virtual particles" with weak interactions instead of "real particles" with strong interactions. Then these beautiful diagrams that include or exclude certain types of interactions given fancy names like the Hartree approximation. That's a lot more sophisticated than truncating an ordinary Taylor expansion.

 

Renormalization group theory

Maybe they will detect the Higgs boson this year. I'm currently studying renormalization group theory, but I can't get my head around it yet. "Field theory, the renormalization group, and critical phenomena" by Amit and Martín-Mayor goes too fast for me (contrary to Amit's other book "Modeling brain function" which was awesome). To be honest to the authors, I am more interested in physical statistics than in quantum mechanics. There are some preliminary studies that describe the higher computational power of a system at criticality. Sounds "heavy", but it is just tuning the weights of e.g. a liquid state machine such that one spike causes on average one subsequent spike (and not more, or less). I hope renormalization group theory sheds some more light on different universality classes for critical systems and hence better AI algorithms for my robots. If anyone can help me out, please do.

 

I hope this discussion on micro-macro (or "reductionism") will continue for a while in the physics community, I will definitely profit from it.

 

Small question, anticipatory systems are of course very useful in robotics (e.g. in the form of inner rehearsal). What however do we gain exactly by "incursion" mathematically or system theoretically?

[Legion]

Antlerman I think it's a damn shame that we cannot continue this. This could have been fun. And I suspect that you and I have ideas to trade, but it looks like it's not going to happen. Real shame. Oh, I know. You'll think I'm quiting because you've got me on the ropes. You win and I lose. Whatever floats your boat. I have more interesting and fun things to do than deal with someone who has carved out a niche on an internet forum as some enlightened poobah with a head as big as the world.

 

Keep on preaching Antlerman. You are the man. You are a fountain of truth. You rock. What would we do without you? The Earth and Heavens will weep when you die. We are blessed beyond all measure by your presence. None can compare to you. Fortune itself smiles upon us to have you. You are sexier than any who have gone before you. Your noble ideals shine brighter than the sun. Your intelligence is sharper than a lazer etched razor. Our leaves would surely wilt without the brilliance of your light. All men want to be you, and all women want to be with you. Language itself is incapable of describing you.

[Antlerman]

Wow. That was an amazing, and unexpected response. I thought this was a good discussion, but apparently you read it in some way that makes you quite unhappy. I wish you well in your future pursuits.