|
Hi Harv,
Ramachandran (neurologist) has identified about 30 types of pattern matching associated with vision alone.
Neurological detective work has revealed interesting phenomena. One individual recognized his parent's voices on the telephone; but did not recognize them when seeing them. He was not connecting certain emotional data areas with visual data areas; yet connecting audio.
My idea of full neurological knowledge is not about traditional scientific inquiry; my idea is that if you had total recall to conception; you might recall CONSTRUCTING your own brain and body and have full understanding of its data-processing systems. This assumes "you" are pure spirit not just body.
Maybe some chimps don't recognize themselves, I gather baboons do not.
Re: "identity ". This concept involves a double definition, or a matching of patterns. Because there is "A", and this "identity" that "A" allegedly has. Example: "A" has an identity as a pilot. Actually, "pilot" is a subset of "A", if "A" is fully described.
If one knows the boundaries of one's existence; if one knows the limits of definition, one just IS and knows IS-ness. "Identity" has collapsed into oneself. To be is to be unique.
But if one is unsure about definitions and their boundaries, one might not be sure if, for example, one is "identified as being say above average height".
I wrote: "But what if they had an identical twin you didn't know about? How to be sure you know who is at the door?"
Why call this question "ridiculous"? As an aside, ridiculous questions might at times be good ones to raise (as Richard P. Feynman openly admits that what physicists actually do (by which almost all physics is explained by the most succesful theory they have); namely adding little arrows on a sheet of paper (adding probability amplitudes) "is ridiculous".
My point was about how do you know something for sure, that you are not mistaken? If you have full awareness of the boundaries of your patterns that you compare, that is a start.
I'm aware of pragmatism; I was looking at the foundations; from which chosen "pragmatic" less- precise criteria of "knowing" are adopted. But such pragmatic criteria are chosen. Underpinning them one relies on more tautological criteria?
I showed that to seek a "proof" of the very foundation ingredient of "proof" itself is non-sensical. To seek an explanation of an ultimate explanation is a contradiction in terms; as any explanation found would be the ultimate one instead.
The alternative logicians are fooling themselves with category games. I showed that LNC is basic.
"pragmatic experience" is based on LNC; or you could not even talk of its existence with any reliability; as this "pragmatic experience" might transform into something else that contradicts it.
You can not conserve a pattern; have an entity to even discuss, unless it is existent and non-contradicting.
Even imaginary ideas must conserve their existence as imaginary entities; if they are allowed to flip into some contradicting thing you could not "grab" them to talk about them. You couldn't discuss anything.
The quantum laws "bizarre"-ness can apparently be resolved by understanding their origin.
"pragmatism" is political. Who's brand of "pragmatism" depends on who's agenda one is pursuing.
If one's agenda is to live; then it is indeed very pragmatic to detect existent phenomena before you trip over them and hurt yourself!
Quoting: "You cannot know the limits of one's definitions without having more sophisticated science (etc). For example, we lack a full neurological understanding of the brain. If that's the case, from your perspective we should say that we are completely out of touch wth reality. From the pragmatic view, this is ridiculous. We have a very workable system which we are improving, so we are doing very well at understanding our environment (saying nothing about reality or ultimate reality). "
I can say this:
We are not completely out of touch with reality; but adult humans generally appear to be very very very seriously out of touch with reality.
If those humans had much more internal understanding (obtainable by recalling detail from infancy; ideally recall everything from conception) then those humans neurological understanding would be far beyond our present day science.
I do not think we have cause for complacency. The system is very workable in that anyone can uncover the past and (as they do when addressing other subjects) so as to understand what "something" is NOW (in this case, what they are now), by knowing the history.
If one is capable of a state of total internal past historical awareness; awareness of the moment of one's creation, awareness of the differentiating of bodily structures from stem cells, aware of all data processing ever done by oneself and awareness of the development of one's data processing systems; and if there is no such thing as "future" except in the sense of something that one actively participates in agreeing to what it shall be.............
then one agrees to what types of surprises the creator may bring to the table?
I know my train of thought is a little shaky here.
But I can say I know of another way of being, where I feel that my future is already known, even though I do not know it.
Axioms might require a "bedrock" of tautology.
"Then you need to admit the existence of a great number of absurdities. One could argue the existence of every Greek, Mayan, Polynesian god with that rule as your basis. You need to apply a little more Occam's razor to your thinking processes. "
I admit to the possibility of those civilizations dreaming up imaginary gods. It doesn't mean they are real.
"Dick's views have not been accepted or published for that matter. There are many errors in his approach in that he makes many invalid assumptions. "
I am well aware of that. But when I show him some detail he has apparently overlooked, I often get no reply.
What he is trying to do is a clever idea though. To identify any built-in constraints in a system; so as to know whether any found constraints go beyond that or not. If he succedes he could still get a Noble prize.
"Random is that which cannot be algorithmically computed. "
So it is obtained by one unique path, itself.
"I would also add that random has no meaning beyond its own occurence.
The reason I add the latter phrase is that it seems that 'randomness' is usually connected to our sense of an event being meaningless".
"Meaning" is ascribed to things; one can argue that "meaning" can be ascribed to "random" patterns by connecting them in some way.
Dr. Dick seems to claim that the meaning of science theories is "a made up story" ascribed to a set of unique patterns ("random" patterns)?
The tautologically correct part of that story pertains to the process of "the re-assignment of definitions" in ascribing such meaning? Maybe that's his line?
"If you have 'laws of existence', then do the laws make themselves true laws?"
Truth is Existence. "True laws" is a double definition, a repeat of the same concept twice in a row when the laws referred to are existence laws.
"That's circular".
No. The circularity is an illusion caused by double-defining. When an item is repeated twice, you have a "go round in circles situation" as the repeated item's two components chase each other. (using metaphors).
"If they are circular then these aren't logical laws, and therefore they contradict their own existence."
Double-definitions are not logical; and fight each other for priority.
Regardless of evolutionary theories; knowledge requires a unique matching of patterns. I think there is good illustration of this re: how a fly lands correctly upside down on a ceiling.
Dr. Dick said some very revealing things to Mike.
If he chooses to avoid the possible embarrassment of his possible errors and possible oversights being shown-up through discussion with me, that is his choice. If he thinks I am wrong, I wish he would be polite and point out my alleged errors.
"I've never heard Dick say that everything is random. " Dick said something like that "most of what we think we know is a made-up story".
He found Shrodinger's equation associated with "random" data aquisition, if I recall right.
Re: quackery:
Cranks and quacks might melt in the face of precise argument. It is decidely not quackish to invite the strongest challenge people can deliver to one's ideas, which is my approach. I am interested in what exists, and in not denying what exists. To be rational is to be open to argument.
One must beware of imposing an assumption on reality that it has to be hard or complicated.
Regards,
Alan
|
