Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA15081 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 6 Feb 2001 14:16:49 GMT From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 08:20:20 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution Message-ID: <3A7FB3C4.15358.277C463@localhost> In-reply-to: <20010206131541.A550@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <3A7F8B1C.26587.1D8F0B7@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 05:26:52AM -0600 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 6 Feb 2001, at 13:15, Robin Faichney wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 05:26:52AM -0600, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On 6 Feb 2001, at 9:36, Robin Faichney wrote: > > > On Mon, Feb 05,
> 2001 at 09:10:44PM -0600, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote: > > > In fact,
> > a major focus of Roger Sperry's work was how recursion in > > >
> systems possessing the prerequisite complexity, such as our > > >
> cerebral cortexes, were capable of, and indeed utilized, top-down > >
> > control (in addition to the bottom-up control which remains). > > >
> > I don't understand this. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that > >
> I don't believe that causation can cross levels of explanation -- in >
> > either direction. Perhaps you could tell us more about it. > > > To
> quote from SCIENCE AND MORAL PRIORITY by Nobel > laureate Roger Sperry
> (the author of the famous 'split-brain' > experiments and the father
> of emergent materialism and the > cognitive revolution in
> neuroscience):
>
> What was his Nobel granted for?
>
Medicine, for his split-brain experiments.
>
> > My long-trusted materialist logic was first shaken in the spring of
> > 1964 in preparing a nontechnical lecture on brain evolution in which
> > i was extending the concept of emergent control of higher over lower
> > forces in nested hierarchies to include the mind-brain relation. I
> > found myself concluding with the then awkward notion
> <snip>
> > occur was almost explosive in the cognitive disciplines. The
> > movement has already been referred to as the "cognitivist
> > revolution" and also variously as the "humanist", "consciousness",
> > or "third" revolution, and has extended also into philosophy,
> > anthropology, and neuroscience.
> >
> > And you were unaware of all this, Robin? Tsk, tsk...
>
> I'm very well aware of the "third" revolution. Which is why I know it
> has been nowhere near as successful as Sperry suggests here. Yes,
> consciousness is now a respectable subject to study. But if Sperry's
> model of mind/body interaction is so good, why is it not generally
> accepted within the field of consciousness studies? (I'd go so far as
> to suggest that it's not even well known.)
>
You obviously are not subscribed to the online Journal of
Consciousness Studies. I suggest you remedy that. And it IS
quite generally accepted; see Pribam, Fodor, Gazzaniga, LeDoux,
Neisser, Kagan, Zajonc, Izard, Damasio, Pinker, Koenig, Kosslyn,
Luria, Uttal, Stich, Edelman, Popper, Eccles, Changeau, Ornstein,
Kinsbourne, Varela, the list goes on and on and on...
>
> And what is Sperry's model, anyway? I won't have time to visit the
> university library within the next few days, but I'm sure you
> understand it well enough to summarise it in a paragraph or two. In
> particular, even if you do nothing else, I'd be extremely grateful for
> a few words on how any causal explanation can cross levels of
> explanation??
>
It isn't explanation, it's efficacy. Here's an analogy; a million grains
of sand separated on a vast table have no tipping point, which is an
angle of slope steeper than which they cannot pile. But when you
put them together, all that combined quantity permits the
emergence of a tipping coefficient, which is a new quality.
Dropping grains of sand on a flat table will just have them sit there;
dropping them on a tipping coefficient slope means that they will
roll to the circumference of the base of the pile until the tipping
coefficient is no longer transgressed. Single neurons and single
synapses can do little, but when enough neurons and
interconnections get together to pass a complexity threshhold,
holistic, top-down qualities, such as efficacious self-awareness,
emerge. Of course, there are many levels of organization, from
microtubules to components (such as the differing lobes) to the left-
right, front-back, and inner-outer schemas, in dynamic interplay,
and these all contribute to the complexity of the configurational
substrate. The dynamic and recursive patterns which
developmentally form in sufficiently complex brains and experience
enriched brains are (or at least some of them are) the objective
indices of subjective and self- and other-aware processes. These
self-aware processes can, and demonstrably, according to PET
scans do, recursively affect the processes occuring within their
own substrate foundations in a bootstrapping manner.
> --
> Robin Faichney
> robin@reborntechnology.co.uk
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 06 2001 - 14:19:20 GMT