Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA12368 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 19 Oct 2001 20:25:15 +0100 Message-ID: <003501c158d3$3ad584e0$9487b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Memes in Brains Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:21:17 -0700 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0032_01C15898.8D7346A0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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Hi Robin.
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 08:47:26PM -0700, Dace wrote:
> >
> > > But, making the leap from that to this -
> > >
> > > "there is no mind-body problem, no question about reduction of the
> > > mental to the physical, or even unification of the two domains."
> > >
> > > - seems to rocket across an abyss with specious ease, if not be
somewhat
> > > non sequitur, since reducing the mind-body problem to new and more
> > > correct views of matter would seem to unify the domains handily.
> >
> > This is scientistic faith. For three hundred years, every time we get a
> > "new and better" concept of matter, its true nature becomes that much
more
> > perplexing and ineffable. Yet we're supposed to have the whole mystery
> > cleared up any day now!
>
> There's a very good reason for that. The closer physicists get to
> subatomic reality, the further they get from all the types of objects
> and concepts that we evolved to be able to deal with. There is no way
> that any development "down there" is going to directly affect the way
> we think about the sort of things we normally think about.
My sentiments exactly. This was central to Bergson's outlook. He argued
that traditional, "normal" ways of thinking and perceiving have little to do
with reality per se. What evolved over the eons was a pragmatic approach to
life intended to facilitate our exploitation of the world, including each other.
"The World" itself is a construct of consciousness, not an intrinsic reality.
Philosophy (a.k.a. science) is all about puncturing our bubble of utilitarian
certainty and discovering existence as it is.
Quantum physics measures material/energetic phenomena at extremely small
time-spans. The oscillation of an electron plays out in the time frame of a
billion-trillionth of a second. For protons it's a trillion-trillionth. The closer you
get to absolute instantaneity, the greater the uncertainty of your measurements.
This is the basis of Heisenberg's principle. The time-span becomes so minute
that the uncertainty of the particle becomes "larger" than the particle itself.
(This is connected to the notion of "quantum foam," in which "virtual particles"
annihilate themselves as soon as the come into existence, never sticking
around long enough to be measured, harnessed, exploited, but just as real as
the constituents of matter.)
Matter has nothing in common with "common sense," and physics has no bearing
on our pragmatic, functional, day-to-day conceptions of things. But the important
thing is that the reverse is also true. If you're going to embark on a genuine,
scientific investigation, your common sense will turn out to be your biggest
obstruction. Reality turns out to be quite different from our traditional notions.
Should this be surprising? Right or wrong, memes are certainly adept at
reproducing themselves.
> And mind, in
> particular, is a high-level phenomenon about which physicists can never
> have anything useful to say, unless it concerns the limits of physics.
Who says the mind is a phenomenon? If it were, then there's no reason why
physics couldn't inform us of its properties. It's precisely the self-existence of
mentality that puts it off limits to physics.
> > Chomsky isn't denying that the terms "mind" and "matter" refer to real
> > things. He's just pointing out that we don't understand what these things
> > are, the second term being no more clear than the first, and couldn't
> > possibly reduce one to the other or describe how they relate. It's absurd
> > to think that the two "domains," so perfectly at odds with each other, could
> > somehow interact.
Much like Wade, Chomsky suggests that the problem will be resolved only when
we've discovered yet another "mysterious" property of matter that somehow
accounts for mentality. He argues that whatever it turns out to be, it will
probably resemble in some way the field-based phenomena of physics. Given
the holistic nature of mental functioning (as opposed to the atomism of
neurotransmission) there must be some sort of field-type activity, inherent
to matter, which is exploited by organisms, particularly in brains. The
University of Arizona theorist, David Chalmers, claims that the emergence of
a scientific theory of mind depends on the elucidation of new laws of
physics. Indeed, Sheldrake has established two laws in regards to intrinsic
form, the law of conservation and the law of like-affects-like (over time).
Like Chomsky he recognizes the necessity of a field, something that's based
on space rather than matter and functions holistically. He discovered that
such a concept has existed since the 20s and has long been essential to
developmental biology, the morphogenetic field. Perhaps this is what
Chomsky is looking for.
The problem with all this is that physics recognizes no such thing as
"intrinsic form." These laws of conservation and resonance cannot be
physical laws. In physics, there's no intrinsic nature of any kind, no
"self," just relations, quantities, spacetime events. Nothing has absolute
self-nature. For that, you must turn to metaphysics. Ultimately, nature is
metaphysical. In fact, this statement is so true as to be meaningless,
since absolute (metaphysical) existence is already implied in the word
"ultimate." If science is to pursue reality and not merely phenomena, it
must be based on metaphysics.
Due to the virulence of the anti-metaphysics meme, not only Chomsky and
Chalmers but even Sheldrake refuses to recognize nature beyond the physical.
Only Bergson is entirely clear on this point.
> > Philosophy has tended to get beached on one or the other perspective.
> > Either the coin always comes up heads (and all we see are brains) or it
> > always comes up tails (the realm of mind and Idea). The mistake is to
> > define the coin by one or the other of its sides and then try to reduce the
> > other side to that one. The solution to the mind-body problem is to get
> > past heads and tails and find the coin's true weight. Only when the
> > question is formulated this way can we unravel the Chomskyan knot.
>
> That was very well said, Ted. I've been saying very similar things
> myself for years. I attempt to unravel that knot by postulating that
> the subjective and objective aspects of reality are of equal status.
> More at http://www.ii01.org
Thanks. Will have a look at it.
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