ON THE VERY IDEA OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE

"Inevitably science, in its general effort towards objectification, evolved a picture of the human organism as a physical system undergoing stimuli which were themselves identified by their physico-chemical properties, and tried to reconstitute actual perception on this basis, and to close the circle of scientific knowledge by discovering the laws governing the production of knowledge itself, by establishing an objective science of subjectivity. But it is also inevitable that this attempt should fail." -- Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Cognitive science purports to be, or to aspire towards, a "science of mind." I will draw on the work of Merleau-Ponty to show that, in so far as it is genuinely a science, cognitive science is incapable of fully understanding mind. It is incapable of completing itself as a science. By its nature, science objectifies; it views the world as a causal web composed of determinate objects constituted by matter/energy. However, as Merleau-Ponty shows, the objective view of the world is underwritten by a preconscious commerce between body-subject and world wherein our environment in constituted. To understand this commerce requires that we seek the origins of objective thought, the "dark soil" from which it grows. Such a task is, by definition, beyond the purview of science.Many features or functions constitutive of mind have been correlated with particular causal processes--for instance, many have been localized to particular parts of the brain--and presumably this process will continue, but even at the limiting case in which science maps the totality of causal forces that surround and sustain human cognition, these correlations will not yield an understanding of the mind as a whole: "the organism presents physico-chemical analysis not with the practical difficulties of a complex object, but with the theoretical difficulty of a meaningful being". To understand the body-subject, we must attend to the character of our lived experience as it reveals itself to reflection; in the case of mind, it is ultimately philosophy which will yield understanding, and it is of the nature of mind that such understanding will always be partial and ambiguous.

These are heady claims that must be approached with circumspection. I will begin by very briefly describing the still-reigning paradigm in cognitive science and spending some time detailing criticisms of this paradigm have emerged with growing force in recent years in and around cognitive science. I will then explicate some of the work of Merleau-Ponty upon which these criticisms draw, and argue that they have stopped short of their appropriate conclusion, which is that the engagement of body-subject with world is a fount of meaning which is prior to and enables our ability to conceive of the body-mind as an object for science. As the epigraph shows, Merleau-Ponty anticipated both the emergence and the impossibility of completing a science of mind.

Indeed. But we can still make the attempt. And, a la Heisenberg, can we not say that we can not complete any field of study.

I believe this epistemic situation has arisen due to a series of questionable philosophical arguments about the role of philosophy of mind/cognitive science and quantum mechanics in our over-all theoretical framework. Why do philosophers develop theories of the mind/brain as if quantum mechanics does not exist, or as if it is utterly irrelevant to theories of the mind/brain?.

Indeed. By the way where is Y these days? I miss him.

On another note, How many times have you seen the movie? I have seen it twice so far. Awesome.

Cheers, Bill

One problem is the lack of clarity about the meaning of principles of simplicity, and I shall make the relevant principles clearer by my manner of employment of the principles in this essay. I shall argue that the big bang singularity is the simplest possible timeless particular and that God is the most complex possible timeless particular, and therefore that the existence of a causal explanation of spacetime in terms of a singularity has far greater prior probability than a causal explanation in terms of a deity. For this and other reasons, it also has far greater posteriori probability. I am treating causal explanations of the beginning of spacetime, since there has been nearly universal consensus among physical cosmologists since the mid to late 1960s that spacetime had a beginning (the most commonly given age of spacetime being 15 billion years ago)..., for there I treated the big bang singularity as both uncaused and as the initial temporal state or boundary of spacetime, and implied that if the singularity (=earliest boundary of spacetime) is uncaused, then spacetime's beginning to exist is uncaused; the difference is that I here treat the singularity as a timeless, spatial particular rather than as a spatiotemporal particular. This way of treating the singularity is more physically justified than the temporal treatment, since time in general relativity requires a metric and (as all agree) the singularity has no metric (the metric is "undefined on the singularity") Secondly, I here treat the singularity as a cause of spacetime, even though the singularly itself is an uncaused, timeless particular.More-likely that a timeless singularity causes spacetime to begin to exist than that a deity causes spacetime to begin to exist. This thesis implies that atheism is probably true, since it belongs to the essence of God to be the originating cause of spacetime if spacetime begins to exist. There is no possible world in which it is the case both that God exists and in which spacetime is caused to begin to exist by a timeless singular point. More important than this atheistic conclusion (a purely negative ontological conclusion, a conclusion that a certain entity--God--probably does not exist) is the positive conclusion that there is an atheistic causal explanation of the existence of spacetime. This counters traditional atheism as much as it counters theism.

I begin by arguing that the big bang singularity is the simplest possible timeless particular, that God is the most complex possible timeless particular, and therefore that the big bang singularity has a higher prior probability than God. (Recall that by "timeless" I mean exists outside of the time of General Relativity.)

The movie, only one, one only, uno time just once.

"To understand this commerce requires that we seek the origins of objective thought, the "dark soil" from which it grows. Such a task is, by definition, beyond the purview of science."

So You define (wrongly!), what You want to conclude. Forget it!

First, it is often necessary to stop and clarify the focus that requires creative thinking. By stating the focus broadly--"I need a way to remind busy people when a certain time has come"--we give our minds both a fixed point from which to direct our thinking, and a wide space in which to come up with alternatives. Being clear about the current reality and looking carefully to notice the underlying concepts behind the common things around us is a second critical element in directed creative thinking. Or maybe for some judgemental individuals like to throw rocks to the messenger instead of counter attack the messages? Often, we fail to pause and consider how or why something works or fails Some remedies are worst than the diseases. It is very easy just to label it wrong, and give the patient the wrong prescription by been kind of ofensive toward others peoples remarks of definitions. instead of removing the label of stereotype mask, without generalized or discrimninate someone point of view. The medication time log was a good idea, but it failed. If we stop and think about why it failed we might realize that an underlying assumption was that the nurses would find time to look at it. But, what we found was that they were too busy, which, of course, simply brings us back to the original problem. The key insight here is to notice that the failed solution relied on the sense of sight to do the reminding.

In the course of speculating about the nature of reality and the most fundamental elements of our universe, it is useful to draw together the various aspects of recent work in the field of quantum mechanics that have been described in earlier sequence of this general forum. The golem player will recall that assertions have been made by others, that the most fundamental building block of our universe is not atoms or atomic elements as we have known them, but rather information itself. Information is theorized to be comprised of dual aspects, similar to the dual aspects of light, namely wave and particle. Remember that information is truly fundamental and has two basic aspects: Physical and Phenomenal. The resulting construct would imply that we live in a world where not only mathematics, but all information is independent and fundamental. This gives rise to the question: "What is the relationship between this construct and the quantum wave nature of physical existence?" Applying the probabilistic aspect of quantum physics to the theory of information fundamentalism illuminates a function between information and existence that not only explains the nature of reality as we perceive it, but also yields the key to altering reality through altering the probabilities of discrete information elements. For example, there may be a threshold of probability beyond which any information element becomes a part of perceived reality - of human conscious experience. If so, "less probable" information may comprise alternative existences or realities outside (or beneath) our perceivable reality. In this model it is important to understand the definition of "true." True is a variable condition in the same way that the existence of a quantum level particle is "probably" present at a given position at any point in time. In quantum physics a fundamental element can neither be clearly stated to be at location A or location B, but rather must be described as most probably in one location or the other(God versus Humanism).

Alch

kaptroids:

The way You're arguing could be understand as an old rhetoric trick - turning an argument ad rem in an argument ad personam.

A rose is a rose - a definition is ....

Lichtenberg - (translated freely): He build an ideal scientific theory. She was perfect: no contradiction, absolutely logical, pure and beautiful. But then she fell about an ugly, small and dirty fact. ;)

EPHESIANS iv. 17.

"This I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, bring darkened in their understanding."

Let us give thanks to God for all things. Let us beseech Him that He will not declare us unworthy of the gifts offered to us, and let us ourselves withal endeavor to contribute our own part, that we may teach not only by speaking, but by acting also. For thus shall we be able to attain His unnumbered blessings, of which God grant we may all be counted worthy, in Christ Jesus our Lord with whom, to the Father and the Holy Ghost together, be glory, might, and honor, now, henceforth, and for ever and ever. Amen.

The Great Invocation

From the point of Light within the Mind of God

Let light stream forth into the minds of men.

Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God

Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.

May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known

Let purpose guide the little wills of men ––

The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan for Peace on Earth.

So, Y, how many times have you seen the movie?

Bill

Just Once!!

> Let us give thanks to God for all things.

Uhm, no, let's not. If it happens to exist, which I don't believe it does, it has a lot to answer for. I'd say, it rather ****ed up this place.

Given Finite Nature, what we have at the bottom is a Cellular Automaton of some kind.Collapse of the wave function" -- consciousness as mediator, as though the sensory universe was a display to the user. Cognitive science degenerates into a spurious philosophical enterprise when computers are no longer viewed as tools, but as potential peers or superiors. If all of space-time and all physical processes are fundamentally discrete, then for any given unit of space-time (i.e., for any volume of anything, or even a volume of nothing) there will be a limited, finite number of combinations that will describe all of the possible states of everything contained within that volume. Put another way, this is to say that for every volume of space-time there will be a definite and finite amount of information contained within it. A finite amount of information cannot evolve without a processing mechanism. Information + Process implies a mechanism of computation. To illustrate, suppose the memory bits were soldiers lined up in a row, and the rule was "take two steps forward, then take one step back." The sergeant must give these orders, one at a time, to each individual soldier, and each soldier then must carry out the orders. If we halted the process mid-application, we might see a very ragged line of soldiers because some of them had taken two steps forward and one step back, some of them had only taken two steps forward, and some had not yet moved. On the other hand, if we allowed the rule to be applied fully, we would see a tidy row of soldiers which had neatly advanced one step. Exploring physics as though it were the product of programming run on a computer requires that we explain how the physics of the natural world can be produced by a computer program. Two aspects of physics as we know it -- quantum randomness and reversibility -- are shown to be possible within the framework of familiar computer architecture."What cannot be programmed cannot be physics. This is a very important idea. If a process cannot be programmed on a particular universal computer, despite having enough memory and time, then it cannot be programmed on any computer. If we can't program it on an ordinary computer, Finite Nature implies it can't be a part of physics because physics runs on a kind of computer.""Uncertainty is at the heart of quantum mechanics. Finite Nature requires that we rule out true, locally generated randomness because such numbers would not, in this context, be considered finite. The reason is that there is no way to create, within a computer, a truly random number that is orthogonal to everything in the computer." The "particles" we see are defined by their properties, but the properties themselves seem to have less to do with the particles than with our need for information. - Whether the "particle" will have any property at all depends in some fundamental way on whether we need to know the property. (Double slit particles appear with a location property only if and when we arrange to detect them.)- One property can be modified or even completely erased by gaining knowledge of another property. Given Finite Nature, what we have at the bottom is a Cellular Automaton of some kind.Collapse of the wave function" -- consciousness as mediator, as though the sensory universe was a display to the user.

The paradoxes of incarnation deal with heaven and earth. The strategy of the evolution of mind is toward an increasingly looser relationship to the axioms of organic existence. But this relative freedom has evolved only because it serves all the better the purposes of the organism in the game of survival. The effective general strategy for survival lies in the ability to transcend or override any particular algorithm. It works to sustain tensions within the process of colonization: tensions between present and future, expectation and experience, migration and possession -- between the literal (linear) transition toward a new country and the spiritual (diagonal) rights to its ownership. To transcend a truth is to find a larger truth, to open to a greater, more objective reality that is binding on a higher level. And the transition itself, so conceived, effects a sea-change in identity from the related-but-distinct concepts of settlers and saints to the mixed image (ambiguously hierarchical and egalitarian) of a company in covenant. This freedom has its dangers. From an evolutionary point of view, this freedom to play God exists only for the purpose of serving the mandate of life on a higher level than we may already recognize. What the City upon a Hill makes visible is a far-reaching rhetoric of conditionality: a ritual of order-to-be that potentially unites a group of colonists in the bonds of grace, and so grants them provisionally the good land they have come to claim by prophecy and (not or) legal patent. There is a price to pay, not only in the overhead of complexity, but in the very laxness which is its essence. With our relatively free will, and enormous capabilities for transforming the environment, we humans are free to play havoc with the natural support for our very existence.

This universe is built very solidly on the foundation of polarity. You can only be here if you are polarized. If you were not polarized you wouldn't be here at all. "There exists a type of phenomenon even more mysterious than telepathy or precognition which has puzzled man since the dawn of mythology: the seemingly accidental meeting of two unrelated causal chains in a coincidental event which appears both highly improbable and highly significant." Becoming aware of 'likenesses' in things that seem to be quite different must be an attribute of the sixth sense, but that's my own distinction. In the never ending battle for souls In the never ending battle for souls.. * Telepathy (i.e. neuro-electric communication) is a post-terrestrial phenomenon. Telepathic communication cannot occur while we are crawling around on the bottom of a 4000 mile atmosphere ocean any more than vocal-symbolic communication can occur among marine animals. We have to crawl out of the water to activate the Third-circuit (left brain). When we leave the surface of the planet and live in free space, telepathy (Sixth circuit contelligence) will occur. " When we talk to God we are praying. When God talks to us we are schizophrenic." It's comic but isn't it possible to say almost anything as a 'joke'? Defined on a level above and beyond Good and Evil wage a malicious war of circumstances... "By a playful thinking that is more persuasive than the rigor of science," Like a perplexing match of chess.. From this and in conjunction with huge 'dumps' of information into the mind, is generated a 'voice' unlike human voices but it does convey information and it can generate understanding that surpasses 'scientific' attempts to describe its operations. That is a statement that I hesitate to make, but I have to do so. The religious experience has many faces, many attributes and obviously its about communication. Chemistries of the biological kind and chemistries of the non-material kind unite to form the kind of 'words' spoken by the zeitgeist itself and the 'psychological sense' of the new meanings of events emerges over a period of time. The 'planet itself' speaks and in it's conversation the biblical statement "Behold I make all things new." makes sense. This is an individual experience, specifically individual, unmistakably individual. We have defined consciousness as energy received by structure. And we have defined intelligence as energy transmitted by structure. The contelligence of life-forms is shaped and limited by anatomy and organic form. Sub-atomic-gravitational force fields are obviously capable of faster, more complex and more extensive levels of consciousness and intelligence. It is therefore possible that the mysterious "entities" (angels and extraterrestrials) monotonously reported by circuit VIII visionaries are members or races already evolved to this level. But it is also possible, as Leary and Sarfatti more recently suggest, that They are ourselves-in-the-future.

You claim that it is possible to be a Christian and still be an evolutionist, but the Theory of Evolution is in direct conflict with the Bible. Evolution clearly theorizes that animal life began in the water. Generally, it is said to have evolved from fish to amphibians to reptiles and then to birds. In the Bible however, the first chapter of Genesis explains that on the fifth day God created the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and that on the sixth day He created all land animals. This obviously does not fit the phylogeny of evolution. If God had truly used evolution to produce the diversity of species that now exist, why would He place the events of the fifth and sixth days in the wrong order? God is perfect in everything He does. He does not make mistakes. Each of began our individual life as a single fertilized cell, or zygote. In the process of its innumerable divisions and multiplications, that cell kept dividing up and redistributing the very same protoplasm. That protoplasm which now courses through all of the several trillion cells of your adult body is the very same substance which once coursed through the body of that original zygote. For when a cell reproduces, the mother cell does not remain intact, but actually becomes the two new daughter cells. Evolution, like any other science, begins with the premise that our eyes and ears do not lie to us. This shouldn't be a very controversial premise; after all, it's the same premise you use crossing a street to avoid being hit by a car.You have made the mistake that so many have made about evolution, and that is to confuse it with atheism. Evolution is not atheism. It does not say there is no God. If it did, why would so many devout believers of every religion accept evolution? Why would most mainstream Christian denominations accept evolution? Why would the Pope accept it? {Hypnotists are not inherently cultic or evil. They are highly trained technicians. Top world hypnotists like Peter Reveen, put on public shows that Christians would generally have no objection to. Being hypnotized is a natural and normal function of the way God made men and does not involve in any way the supernatural. Amazingly, International Catolics, who are known to be highly superstitious, are afraid of hypnotism. Yet Catolics's preachers are very skilled in the art of hypnotism. Not that they have any formal training as hypnotists, but through trial and error, have discovered how to get audiences to be "slain in the spirit" etc. just as effectively as any hypnotist. We recommend you attend a public performance of a hypnotist. You will enjoy the evening, learn something about human nature, and be shocked at the incredible similarities with Catolisism! } And this is why, no matter how many times a cell fissions in the process of embryological development, all the daughter cells collectively continue to comprise but one single organism. We may imagine that, should our cells have consciousness akin to our own, they may very well fancy themselves to be independent entities living and dying in a world that to them would seem to be merely an inanimate environment. But we know them to be in fact minute components of the far vaster living beings that we ourselves are. Over four billion years ago, life on Earth began, as do we all, with a single living cell containing a replicating molecule of DNA. From that point on that original cell, the first to develop the awesome capacity for reproduction, divided and redividied and subdivided its protoplasm into the myriads of plants and animals, including ourselves, which now inhabit this third planet from the Sun. But no matter how many times a cell fissions in the process of embryological development, all the daughter cells collectively continue to comprise but one single organism. All life on Earth comprises the body of single vast living being -- Mother Earth Herself. The Moon is Her radiant heart, and in the tides beat the pulse of Her blood. That protoplasm which coursed through the body of that first primeval ancestral cell is the very protoplasm which now courses through every cell of every living organism, plant or animal, of our planet. Evolution is not really well described as spontaneous generation; and evolution did and still does occur.Of course not every Christian takes everything in the bible literally. Usually it is those who do take the bible literally who have a problem with evolution, but since you are not in this category, it remains a mystery why you would equate evolution with lack of faith. I personally think the two are different subjects, and know of many faithful Christians have no problems with evolutionary theory. You may like to read the God and evolution FAQ for one perspective from a Christian writer

bump

The paradoxes of incarnation [ I have heard it said recently...] in LG Forum deal with heaven and earth. The strategy of the evolution of mind is toward an increasingly looser relationship to the axioms of organic existence. But this relative freedom has evolved only because it serves all the better the purposes of the organism in the game of survival.

"Complexity itself, however, is insufficient to demonstrate the direction of evolution, at least not biological evolution. Not all species have become increasingly complex: sponges, roaches, spiders, and bees, among numerous invertebrates, colonials are trapped in an endless cycle of perfected daily routines and thus have remained virtually unchanged for eons."

This is a very important idea. If a process cannot be programmed on a particular universal computer, despite having enough memory and time, then it cannot be programmed on any computer. If we can't program it on an ordinary computer, Finite Nature implies it can't be a part of physics because physics runs on a kind of computer.""Uncertainty is at the heart of quantum mechanics. This universe is built very solidly on the foundation of polarity. You can only be here if you are polarized. If you were not polarized you wouldn't be here at all.

Cognitive scientists also repudiate this law in their work. The creature is henceforth greater than the creator, for man has surpassed inanimate nature, whose creation he is. Their dream is to build a computer that will shame us, that will so surpass us intellectually as we do the apes. The Law of Priority in Creation, however, repudiates their programme. For the computers they build, the programs they write all testify of a creative genius in man which surpasses the objects it creates. For any computer program that is supposed to rival the human intellect, I merely point to the human author who conceived the program. According to the Law of Priority in Creation the cognitive scientist's programme is self-refuting. To the western esotericists, the Tree of Life functioned much like the Kundalini diagrams of the Hindu mystics. Some medieval Kabbalists used the concepts in the Sepher Yetsirah to create an artificial form of life, as in the Golem legends of Prague and Warsaw. This light, the essence of God, was trapped in human bodies as separate sparks of light, our souls. The goal of their knowledge was the path of return, or the ability of the individual sparks to return to the original Light through the process of redemption. As God is supposed to have made man in his image and likeness, then man was thought to contain, in microcosm, the entire Tree of Life. By mapping the internal power centers, and then projecting outward and aligning them with the forces of nature, the magician sought to re-enact the process of creation. And so become, like God, a co-creator of the universe. By comparing these to the structure and processes of DNA, we can assemble a complex of photo-linguistic meanings that allow us to fulfil the ultimate goal of man's spiritual yearnings, that of reading the divine.

I am not disposed to deny that...

Ref: http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=1&topic=736

Defined on a level above and beyond Good and Evil wage a malicious war of circumstances... "By a playful thinking that is more persuasive than the rigor of science," Like a perplexing match of chess.. From this and in conjunction with huge 'dumps' of information into the mind, is generated a 'voice' unlike human voices but it does convey information and it can generate understanding that surpasses 'scientific' attempts to describe its operations. That is a statement that I hesitate to make, but I have to do so. The religious experience has many faces, many attributes and obviously its about communication. The sin of Egoism thus emcompasses all those errors that stem from your ego: lack of 'Objective Reduction OR', failing to think of your oponnent's ideas as carefully as you own, feeling fear, self-doubt, feeling 'over-awed' by your opponent's rating, being aware of people watching your in game in LittleGolem, thinking of how great your play is during the game and the point of view on thess forums, that,,that we can be without a point of view is a point of view...The new physics, quantum mechanics, tells us clearly that it is not possible to observe reality without changing it. The erasure of subjectivity in order to be objective is itself a subjective act.

I do not question this.

What else this continued consistency of winning take all, be?

When someone admits that they are wrong, this is generally a good occasion to back off and to stop criticizing them for it. Remember to assume good faith. If they admit that they're wrong and go back to doing the exact same thing, or somebody put more woods into the fire; without apologizing to other players in general. They're just adding more descriminatories profanity coment against people's culture; that is one thing, but after an apology it is respectful to step back and give them a chance to show that they have learned some type of class.

I entirely agree upon this point.

Some literally have a hard time naming the fundamental particles of nature.

I firmly believe that.., God is the most complex possible timeless particular, and therefore that the big bang singularity has a higher prior probability than God. (Recall that by "timeless" I mean exists outside of the time of General Relativity.)

The movie, only one, one only, uno time just once. God is ONE.

If so, "less probable" information may comprise alternative existences or realities outside (or beneath) our perceivable reality. If all of space-time and all physical processes are fundamentally discrete, then for any given unit of space-time (i.e., for any volume of anything, or even a volume of nothing) there will be a limited, finite number of combinations that will describe all of the possible states of everything contained within that volume.

I have already said, and I repeat it.....

This gives rise to the question: "What is the relationship between this construct and the quantum wave nature of physical existence?"