I’m going to start a project. I’m going to use this thread as an arena to explore and understand the views held by key members of ILP whom I’ve had stimulating encounters with in the past. I do this with the sole purpose of understanding their views better. What prompted this idea was the reoccurring confrontation with challenges posed to my various views by these members, but challenges for which I didn’t quite understand the background from which they originated, and therefore didn’t quite understand how to address them or even why they were posed as challenges (i.e. why these members thought my views were problematic even having been given their positions).
Please take note that this is not a thread for posing my own challenges to their views (although I may ask questions that, at face value, seem to challenge their views - but I’m really only looking for their way of answering those questions). I respect the diversity of views held by the various members of ILP, and the point of this thread is simply to clarify what those views are so that I can better understand where they’re coming from in future discussions and challenges.
I ask that any other members who wish to join in also respect this purpose, and don’t pose your own challenges/attacks or lead the thread astray for your own selfish purposes (you can do that in another thread). I suppose others can use this thread for the same purpose, so if you know someone on ILP whose views you’d like carified, go ahead and invite them in. Also, if you’d like to take the initiative and clarify your own views without being invited or addressed, that’d be OK too.
To start off, I’d like to ask Ierrellus to explain his views. I’ve gathered this much: he believes the universe is primarily a dynamic place of change and process, that there are no constants (and please correct me if I’m wrong). I’d very much like it if you, Ierrellus, could please clarify what exactly it means to say this and on what grounds can one say this. Also, if you could explain to me what the limits of such a view are (in what sense can we say of certain things or scenarios that there are constants after all - or do you hold this view to the utmost radical extreme), then that would help me appreciate where you’re coming from in future encounters with you here on ILP.
Thanks (Ierrellus and all others who partake in this thread).
Gib,
Thank you for allowing clarifications. Be forewarned. Some will be pissed off to be in the same room with me. However, all to briefly, here’s a summary of my beliefs. I call my philosophy bioepistemology.
Bioepistemology involves belief in a progressive continuum in which information as physical activity evolves into mental content in organisms with brains. It examines processes.
Common adjectives describing processes are “organic” and “dynamic”. If all matter is involved in flux and change, considering processes requires redefinition of entities (nouns) and activities (verbs). In biological processes entities can best be described as phase-stable
plateaus or consistencies within domains. The matter/energy dance is never static.
Physical laws remain the only constants we know within variables of flux and change. They are the nearest one can get to describing an absolute. The problem raised by certain religious and philosophic ideas is that they often pose supernatural (in the case of religion) and idealistic (in the case of philosophy) absolutes. In these instances the religious and philosophical “certainties” depend on knowing separate from the knower and must produce eloborate, abstract theories as to how to reconcile these beliefs with reason and experience.
Reductionism and deconstructionism are tools of understanding. They do not show final ends or first beginnings. In fact they can obscure sight of precursory conditions–like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. They are useful tools so long as they don’t become answers in the place of further questions.
Human knowing is a mesocosm with access to microcosms and macrocosms. Its structure is the necessary constant, yielding to potential and possibilty. It is not a locked-box of subjective limitations. Subject/object, and most other dichotomies, do not exist in our yin/yang natural world.
Minds inform us of what they are–brain delopments. Darwinian evolution is not a necessary model for tracing the development of information in humans from genes to thought. We all experience that development. That model, however, can serve when one considers extant writings and primitives in asking if brain evoltion over time produces epistemological paradigms. I’ve listed these historically as mythology, religion, philosophy and science.
Humans “create” using metaphors of experienced structural growth. Brains collate information from three sources–genetic, somatic and sensory. In the brain an idea evolves from physical experience to practical metaphor to arbitrary symbols that can be validated by consensus among other humans.
My philosophy is a form of naturalism that does not negate our need for religious beliefs. It seeks the complementations of religion, science and philosophy. It is my belief that to deny the physical underpinnings of these disciplines is to put restrictions on what is physical that do not exist. The philosopher closest to my way of thinking is Spinoza. The evolutionist closest is Piaget. My current interests are in epigenetics, neuoroplasticity and evolutionary psychology.
Again, thanks for this opportunity. I am not a logical positivist. My philosophical preferenceis pragmatism.
And when it evolves into mental content, is it still physical?
This is very true - right down to the fundamental particles of the universe. All particles have a frequency, and so all particles go through flux. I like the concept of phase stable plateaus, though; it kind of serves as a reminder that although things go through flux, this doesn’t mean they can’t reacquire the same state on a regular basis.
Are you referring to the failure of some to recognize the dependence that such absolutes have on the reasoning that leads one to posit those absolutes?
Also, when it comes to physical laws, I assume you’re aware of the probabilistic nature of our world that has become known in light of quantum mechanics, correct? This only strengthens your view as it reveals the idealistic standing of these so-called ‘natural laws’.
This is a little vague. Would you mind elaborating?
Gib,
Thanks for good questions. Let me address them one at a time. And when it evolves into mental content, is it still physical?" In my understanding it is physical–as in my example of ice, water and water vapor all being H20. Mental content cannot be abstracted from its precursors. Here’s another example. My t.v. produces sound and pictures that do not take place inside the t.v. These are transmitted from a studio, via satellite, to my t.v. set. In all of this no physical laws are overruled. When my mind produces sounds and pictures, they are no more in my brain than they are in my t.v., except as representations. Representations are not abstractions. They are part and parcel of the physical continuum appearing in the domain of metaphor and symbol. In my water analogy, they are the vapor. Thoughts cause other thoughts (replication). Thoughts evolve. Thus thoughts are organic. To be inorganic or static thoughts would have to be a breach of the continuum–supernatural or ideal.
Further–
I hate to monopolize this thread. I could only wish for other points of view.
“Consciousness” is a development of “awareness”. The word is generally used to descrbe brain states such as unconscious, subconscious, altered consciousness, etc. Spinoza used the terms “awareness” and “knowing” to describe adaptability by organisms to environments as the constant in mobile organic informational systems. Haekel recognizes this constant, but would probably not call it awareness or knowing, since such words are bloated with meanings.
Quibbling over words to use to describe precursors of thought, what occurs in “the land of no names”, should not be an obstacle to undertanding. Symbols are arbitrary; experience is not. We could call the constant X and still know what it refers to. Symbols are necessary for communication. Their meaning and value are dependent on consensus of agreement among those doing the communicating.
A common objection to delineation of phases of a process is “You can’t get there from here.” In the 70s Nagel told us we could never know “what it is like to be a bat”. McGinn, I think it was, told us the brain/mind is too complex to understand itself. These convictions are based on the assumption that there is a “mental matrix” or that “mind” is a locked box of subjectivity. Rorty, in “Philosophy : End or Transformation” (Baynes, ed.) refutes that notion. In “Consilience” E.O. Wilson tells us quite clearly what it would be like to be a bee. The locked box objections do not consider the nature of the adaptational constant as a way of getting from here to there.
No organism can survive without accurate assessment of what exists outside its physical structure. “Knowledge” of what exists ouside the organism’s soma comes not only through the senses but from an identity between an organism’s internal chemical structure and the chemical structures that exist in an environment. Without such identification, adaptation would be impossible.
Locked box philosophers give the senses a bad reputation as retrievers of false information. We cannot survive on misinformation. Good minds can figure out most illusions. Empirical science and technology have afforded us greater ability to manipulate matter than other organisms have. We can split the atom and the gene! Telescope and microscope have extented our vision into microscopic and macroscopic worlds. Our consciousness exists in a middle world I call the mesocosm, having access to the other worlds of which it is a part. We learn from access, not from disconnects.
The biologist who best describes the “I” or “self” as a necessary adaptational POV is Nicholas Humphrey. The this {I, self) interacts with a that (environment).
About the Darwinian model of evolution–it is macrocosmic., i.e., it relies on our understanding of changes as they occur over geological time, of which we know little. We do know from experience our personal growth and development from a fertilized egg to an organism with a “thinking” brain. We must progress in knowing from the known into the unknown.
So let me see if I understand. What you seem to be saying - or what wilson seems to be saying - is that what it’s like to be a bee is to be an organism living in a bee’s environment with a bee’s body having to adapt our mind and knowledge to such an environment and body such that we are able to survive most effectively. Is this right? I can see how this brings us from “here” to “there”, especially given how adaptable the brain is (although it might be quite an exaggeration to say that a human brain can literally adapt and become identical to a bee’s brain), but wouldn’t you say it first requires undergoing such an adaptation in order to come to a full understanding of what it’s like to be a bee?
In other words, our own development shows us how knowledge is a progressive and evolutionary phenomena. Is that right?
Thanks for your questions. No, we don’t have to be a bee to understand what bees are and do, which is the only understanding we have of ourselves–what we are and do. We don’t have to be a kidney in order to understand a brain. Looking at wholes, insofar as we can, negates such disconnects. If we are smarter than the bee and are in anyway interconnected with its existence, we can surely understand what it’s like to be a bee. Evolutionists often base this assumption on homology of physical parts. I, and others, base it on adaptational identities.
Yes, on the second question. I’ll elaborate on this later.
I see - so, for you, awareness is not so different from one organism to another except in what the organism in question is aware of and how much of it it has. Awareness, for you, is just awareness of reality and the things therein. This is different from what some call phenomenological awareness which refers to the way things feel to a conscious being rather than what in reality the being is aware of. A phenomenologist might say of the bee that because it can directly sense frequencies in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum (if I remember my biology correctly), a region we humans can’t sense directly, then it probably experiences colors unfamiliar to us, colors beyond violet. They would say that we can’t know what this is like (of course, this depends more on the bee’s neurology than its sensitivity to ultraviolet light). But if we stick with a theory of awareness as just awareness of reality, then we too are aware of frequencies in the ultraviolet region, and so we know what it’s like to be a bee - that is, to know about ultraviolet frequencies. Albeit, I wonder if we’d still have to say that we understand it in a different way than the bee - the bee understands it as a color whereas we understand it as a physical phenomena (i.e. waves of electromagnetic radiation of a certain frequency).
Of course, we, unlike the bee, didn’t always know of frequencies outside the color spectrum, and so there was obviously a time when the bee knew something we didn’t, but I think you’re right that because we always had the potential to arrive at this knowledge, the mind is not a locked-box of experiences and knowledge accessable only to the organism whose experiences and knowledge they are.
About the bee–we are aware of ultraviolet and infrared and can reproduce them.
Remark–if only this thread could include other opinions!!! If it’s just Gib and I, p.m. might be a more appropriate forum. Where’s yours?
Correction. When I mentioned Haekel, I should have said Uexkull. Haekel claimed “ontogenesis is a rapid recaptulation of phylogenesis.” Uexkull believed in the adaptational constant among organisms. Trying to do an impromptu synopsis of nearly 50 pages of personal notes and commentaries can lead to errors which I will gladly admit to making.
Conclusions.
Chomsky’s “innate grammar” describes a disposition toward grammatical structure, not a rule book in the head. The disposition comes from our experience of being structured and of being structure. This experience sets the precedents for our understanding of physics and geometry as well as grammar.
When most small children are asked to draw a person, their “stick figures” are comprised of straight lines, arcs and circles. All written or typed languages are formed by lines and arcs, whether in the individual letters known in the West or the pictorial words known in the East. The Mona Lisa is comprised of lines and arcs. So is our latest spacecraft. Trajectories of electrochemical building blocks in the DNA construction of organisms are linear and circular.
From knowledge of our senses of sight and sound we have made cameras, videos, stereos, etc. From knowledge of neural activity in our brains we have made computers. Our constructions, made from our experience of structure in process, are metaphors made palpable.
The predominant theme in Douglas Hoffstadter’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Godel, Escher, Bach” is the concept of isomorphism–the fact that information can change and yet remain the same (Ice, water, water vapor=H2O). An example of isomorphism is the fact that my piano has 12 tones that are repeated several times in pitches above or below the middle C position. The number of melodies that can be made from these 12 tones has never been exhausted. DNA “makes” organisms from only four “notes” (G, A, C, T) and a substitute (U).
Music is mathematics given a voice (sound). DNA construction of organisms employs soundless, hands-on mathematics. IMHO, this is how humans are made (“played”) and this is what allows us to have an inexhaustible supply of human expressions.
Cool response there! You and gib are doing just swell as it is. I like the lively talk between you. Of course, I’d be happy to contribute my own little say if it’s wanted. We’ll see. Regarding your own view, it seems to me to be very complex and ably considered (you can’t just make up stuff like that and spill it out on a forum), and I’m glad that between you and gib, your work is becoming clearer to me. In your writing, there seems to be a strong scientific element that I find hard to understand always. As I’ve said, my scientific knowledge stops with alchemy!
But hey, please continue for the betterment of philosophical understanding in the world. Beats talk about banks hands down!
Remark,
Bless you. You are no grasshopper, sir. You have the experience to reject or accept my views. Opinion is our offering to discussions. At worst it can be rebuffed. Some opinions I’ve met, however, are to the point regardless of academic substantiation.
Anyone who wishes to clarify their own views (formally and for the record) can do so here - without invitation. But I’m also picking and choosing various ILP members and inviting them here to clarify their views for my own sake (i.e. 'cause I want to understand them). I think I’m almost satisfied with Ierrellus (a thousand thanks to him for his participation) and I’m thinking I’m going to call on Cyrene next.
If you feel the urge to spill your thoughts here, by all means do so (personally, I feel I’ve been exposed enough to your views in other threads to have a relatively firm grasp on them, so forgive me if I don’t formally invite you). Also, if there’s other ILP members you’re just dying to inquisition, feel free to invite them.
Whatever you (or anyone else) choose to do in this thread is fair game except that I kindly ask that we refrain from competative argument and attack - this thread is merely for understanding one another’s views.
Thanks for the input so far, Ierrellus - much appreciated. There’s just one last area in your thinking that I’d like to address before I let you go: the positing of absolutes and the supernatural. I’ve sort of inferred from a previous post that, to you, these two terms mark the difference between religion and philosophy (respectively). Is this a fair inferrence? Also, what counts as an “absolute” to you, and when (or why) is it a mistake to posit one?
Fair enough. Still a good thread, and I look forward to following your invited thinkers’ views closely together with your commentaries.
A thread like this just shows what able minds are out there - in the ether (I was told to call it ‘cyberspace’ or something, but don’t understand that - is it like the element, ‘fire’ or ‘earth’ or, as we’d say in this modern age, ‘phlogiston’???).
Kind regards,
R
PS I know this isn’t my thread and that it isn’t up to me whom to invite as speakers. That said, I would personally appreciate Ucci’s setting out his thoughts or ‘world view’. There are others, too, I like to see represented now that Ierrellus’ thoughts are almost fully set forth.
Sincere apologies if I speak out of place, but it would be daft creating a new thread with exactly the same purpose as this interesting one. R
On the contrary, you have every right (if I’m dishing out rights) to invite whomever you want. You wouldn’t be imposing - in fact, you’d be adding some much need vitality to this thread, helping it fulfill its purpose. So please invite Ucci or whomever you want.