Comments on: I am a Strange Loop http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/ and Other Matters of Math, Science and Technology Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:09:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Tim Reynolds http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-44 Tim Reynolds Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:21:41 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-44 <p>Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.</p> Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.

]]> By: Sabina http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-43 Sabina Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:37:12 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-43 I would like to see the inscription "to be continied":-D I would like to see the inscription “to be continied”:-D

]]> By: Eugene http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-42 Eugene Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:35:21 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-42 Now everyone is talking about the American economy and eclections, nice to read something different. Eugene Now everyone is talking about the American economy and eclections, nice to read something different. Eugene

]]> By: Arcos Plage http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-33 Arcos Plage Sat, 12 Jan 2008 02:07:13 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-33 Does <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandeism" rel="nofollow">Pandeism</a> solve the hard problem of consciousness? See <a href="http://blogger.xs4all.nl/bkastrup/articles/175950.aspx" rel="nofollow">Intriguing Metaphysical Parallels between the Consciousness Debate and Pandeism</a> for a discussion. Does Pandeism solve the hard problem of consciousness? See Intriguing Metaphysical Parallels between the Consciousness Debate and Pandeism for a discussion.

]]> By: MWP http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-32 MWP Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:15:21 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-32 <p>I'm questioning how to synthesize these two perspectives into a unified understanding of the world. Each perspective on its own leaves questions pointing to the other. To say that all that exists is our first-person experience leaves open questions about the regularity and predictability that we find in the seemingly objective world. Especially when it comes to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences" rel="nofollow">the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences.</a> On the other hand, to say that all that exists is the material world of space, time, matter, and energy, leaves the question of where our first-person experience fits into this third-person model of the world. Reductionists would say, "but that's all that we are!" And I would say that the furthest modern science can possibly go in its present paradigm is to give correlations between third-person objective neurological phenomena, and first-person subjective experience. Correlations, but no explanations, in the way that deeper principles such as F=ma and the inverse-square law of gravitation can explain elliptical orbits, or that biochemistry can explain all neurological phenomena in principle, even if not in practice. This is not because we don't know everything about neuroscience. Even if we did, it is not within its scope to explain experience in terms of neurological phenomena. It only explains behavior in terms of neurological phenomena, even if that behavior is a person saying "I see a red rose." The third-person to first-person leap that many people make here in assuming that "they must experience like I do" is a leap that lies outside the scope of science. This leap is perfectly fine to make for all practical purposes in getting through our lives, but it is a leap that is made here, and no where else in science. It is this gap that keeps first-person experience outside the present paradigm of science to explain, and it maintains this philosophical duality.</p> <p>I believe that Hofstadter himself would not disagree with this. Or at least with what I am trying to say, as evidenced by the 4th to last section of the book, in the epilogue: "[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness" rel="nofollow">The Hard Problem</a>] seems just as far from having an answer today (or, for that matter, at any time in the future) as it was many centuries ago."</p> <p>On a final note, I suspect that this first-person/third-person gap is related to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem" rel="nofollow">the measurement problem</a> in quantum physics. Conceptually, I feel as if these are similar problems, and that progress in one may provide clues to the other. Pure speculation, of course.</p> I’m questioning how to synthesize these two perspectives into a unified understanding of the world. Each perspective on its own leaves questions pointing to the other. To say that all that exists is our first-person experience leaves open questions about the regularity and predictability that we find in the seemingly objective world. Especially when it comes to the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. On the other hand, to say that all that exists is the material world of space, time, matter, and energy, leaves the question of where our first-person experience fits into this third-person model of the world. Reductionists would say, “but that’s all that we are!” And I would say that the furthest modern science can possibly go in its present paradigm is to give correlations between third-person objective neurological phenomena, and first-person subjective experience. Correlations, but no explanations, in the way that deeper principles such as F=ma and the inverse-square law of gravitation can explain elliptical orbits, or that biochemistry can explain all neurological phenomena in principle, even if not in practice. This is not because we don’t know everything about neuroscience. Even if we did, it is not within its scope to explain experience in terms of neurological phenomena. It only explains behavior in terms of neurological phenomena, even if that behavior is a person saying “I see a red rose.” The third-person to first-person leap that many people make here in assuming that “they must experience like I do” is a leap that lies outside the scope of science. This leap is perfectly fine to make for all practical purposes in getting through our lives, but it is a leap that is made here, and no where else in science. It is this gap that keeps first-person experience outside the present paradigm of science to explain, and it maintains this philosophical duality.

I believe that Hofstadter himself would not disagree with this. Or at least with what I am trying to say, as evidenced by the 4th to last section of the book, in the epilogue: “[The Hard Problem] seems just as far from having an answer today (or, for that matter, at any time in the future) as it was many centuries ago.”

On a final note, I suspect that this first-person/third-person gap is related to the measurement problem in quantum physics. Conceptually, I feel as if these are similar problems, and that progress in one may provide clues to the other. Pure speculation, of course.

]]> By: B http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-31 B Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:10:58 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-31 Descarte's "problem" of the separation of the spirit from the body is exactly the kind of thinking that Hofstadter appears to condemn. No spirit-- just body. He has demonstrated exactly how we might come to believe in an "I", a fire driving our subjective experience. Our symbol-driven brain spends, well, ALL of its time in our head. While it's getting used to the concepts of trees, and squirrels, and books (and how they might affect us (e.g. falling, whistling in the wind, biting us, transmitting rabies)), it is also coming to know itself, and how it seems to be able to control its environment. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that we would be able to react intelligently to our environment... "free will" would tend to continue existing in a world filled with other beings possessing brains just as flexible as yours, but with limited food to run you both. Being able to choose your course of action after considering the consequences has survival value. So your brain is doing its symbol dance, mirroring the external world, all the while referencing that environment, and how it might affect that all-important self-concept. "How will this change me?" asks your brain, in response to the constant neural dance. There need be no void between subjective and objective reality... subjective experience DEPENDS on objective reality, for the most part... unless one is constantly high on LSD, then subjective experience depends on objective reality plus a bunch of neural noise. In any case, I feel that he has done a great job at explaining why the inexplicably complex "soul", the seat of consciousness, is actually our enormously flexible brain's ability to represent the world it exists in, to represent itself, and finally to recognize how that world is capable of changing itself. None of this requires any form of dualism; neural activity that represents the environment(+self) with sufficient resolution is quite enough to produce a strong sense of "first person" experience. The general consistency of this experience with what you might consider objective reality, although not steadfast proof that they are part of the same system, gives good reason to believe they are. The argument goes both ways: not one person can prove the existence of a soul either! But I am writing this, and I believe that it will be posted for others to read... so either this giant hallucinated world is terribly consistent, and I'm the only one that actually exists, or, if you ever do read this, you must believe that I exist in the world as well... that conceivably we could arrange a meeting if we really wanted to. Is it part of a giant (world sized) hallucination, or is there an objective reality? I'm willing to go out on a limb, and say that the latter seems a tad more likely. That is essentially what you're questioning, no? Descarte’s “problem” of the separation of the spirit from the body is exactly the kind of thinking that Hofstadter appears to condemn. No spirit– just body. He has demonstrated exactly how we might come to believe in an “I”, a fire driving our subjective experience. Our symbol-driven brain spends, well, ALL of its time in our head. While it’s getting used to the concepts of trees, and squirrels, and books (and how they might affect us (e.g. falling, whistling in the wind, biting us, transmitting rabies)), it is also coming to know itself, and how it seems to be able to control its environment. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that we would be able to react intelligently to our environment… “free will” would tend to continue existing in a world filled with other beings possessing brains just as flexible as yours, but with limited food to run you both. Being able to choose your course of action after considering the consequences has survival value. So your brain is doing its symbol dance, mirroring the external world, all the while referencing that environment, and how it might affect that all-important self-concept. “How will this change me?” asks your brain, in response to the constant neural dance. There need be no void between subjective and objective reality… subjective experience DEPENDS on objective reality, for the most part… unless one is constantly high on LSD, then subjective experience depends on objective reality plus a bunch of neural noise. In any case, I feel that he has done a great job at explaining why the inexplicably complex “soul”, the seat of consciousness, is actually our enormously flexible brain’s ability to represent the world it exists in, to represent itself, and finally to recognize how that world is capable of changing itself. None of this requires any form of dualism; neural activity that represents the environment(+self) with sufficient resolution is quite enough to produce a strong sense of “first person” experience. The general consistency of this experience with what you might consider objective reality, although not steadfast proof that they are part of the same system, gives good reason to believe they are. The argument goes both ways: not one person can prove the existence of a soul either! But I am writing this, and I believe that it will be posted for others to read… so either this giant hallucinated world is terribly consistent, and I’m the only one that actually exists, or, if you ever do read this, you must believe that I exist in the world as well… that conceivably we could arrange a meeting if we really wanted to. Is it part of a giant (world sized) hallucination, or is there an objective reality? I’m willing to go out on a limb, and say that the latter seems a tad more likely. That is essentially what you’re questioning, no?

]]> By: Bruce L. Gary http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-2 Bruce L. Gary Mon, 28 May 2007 15:07:44 +0000 http://blog.quantumlab.net/2007/05/27/i-am-a-strange-loop/#comment-2 Human brains evolved to keep the genes that assembled them in circulation in a species gene pool; the brain was not designed to understand such things as "consciousness." "Qualia" gets the job done, just as spirits did before a rational left brain evolved. Both concepts are illusory, to this reductionist's way of thinking. To expect that we can go further than Hofstadter in explainning consciousness is like asking my cat to understand F=ma. A scientist is dedicated to reducing everything to F=ma (plus quantum physics), and any request for not delving to this deepest level is un-scientific - nay, it would be a betrayal of the scientific premise. Duality exists to the extent that all illusions exist. To ask for a thing in the brain that experiences the neural network resonances (taking a book off the shelf for a brief reading) invites an infinite regress like the silly notion of a homunculus, or the silliest notion of a God, who was constructed by another entity beigger than God, who... I am content to accept the limitations of my brain and adopt reductionism as the only philosophical position that I think can be defended, and leave the matters of qualia, consciousness, free will, etc for others to spin their wheels about. This could be wrong-headed, but that's how my partially-connected neural network brain works. Human brains evolved to keep the genes that assembled them in circulation in a species gene pool; the brain was not designed to understand such things as “consciousness.” “Qualia” gets the job done, just as spirits did before a rational left brain evolved. Both concepts are illusory, to this reductionist’s way of thinking. To expect that we can go further than Hofstadter in explainning consciousness is like asking my cat to understand F=ma. A scientist is dedicated to reducing everything to F=ma (plus quantum physics), and any request for not delving to this deepest level is un-scientific - nay, it would be a betrayal of the scientific premise. Duality exists to the extent that all illusions exist. To ask for a thing in the brain that experiences the neural network resonances (taking a book off the shelf for a brief reading) invites an infinite regress like the silly notion of a homunculus, or the silliest notion of a God, who was constructed by another entity beigger than God, who…
I am content to accept the limitations of my brain and adopt reductionism as the only philosophical position that I think can be defended, and leave the matters of qualia, consciousness, free will, etc for others to spin their wheels about. This could be wrong-headed, but that’s how my partially-connected neural network brain works.

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