Monday, November 30, 2009

The First Law of Consciousness

It's interesting to speculate about the role of the structure of the body in the development of ideas about a separation between the mental and the physical (dualism). I think that a strong argument can be made that dualism is the natural result of organizational constraints related to perception in living systems.

For as long as human beings have conceptualized consciousness, we've certainly known that there is sometimes a correlation between mental events and physical events. We don't see this correlation for all mental events, but it is certainly evident for many. For example, when we interact with the physical objects of our environment, it is clear that these physical events form part of the whole experience.

Scientific experimentation has shown us that the correlation between the mental and the physical is deeper than once thought. It's not just that some mental events correlate with physical events. On the contrary, experiments (like those involving the artificial electrical stimulation of nerve cells in the brain) have suggested that even our most intangible thoughts and feelings can be elicited by the artificial stimulation of certain areas of the brain. As a result, we've become aware of a deeper relation between the mental and the physical. The formerly non-physical nature of feelings, ideas, dreams, etc. has now been shown to be false because these things are physically manifested in terms of activity within a biological system.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between knowing that every mental event is accompanied by a specific pattern of activity in a physical system, and being able to grasp the dynamics of this correspondence-fully knowing the mental in terms of the physical. The physical processes that underlie a given certain mental state cannot be exhaustively known by the organism that is having that mental state as it is having it because such knowledge would require a more advanced physical system, which would in turn require more brainpower-the increasing requirements would feed back on each other!

Even though we can't fully grasp the dynamics of the biological side of our conscious experience, it's very interesting to speculate what it would be like to have this activity fed back into the perceptual organs so that the nervous system activity that corresponded to our waking experience could be perceived in real time. If we could make any sense out of the activity that we perceived, I would guess that this would have a significant effect on what it's like to experience. Of course, our existence is already defined by the fact that we do have a certain amount of this: we perceive our selves in real time-just not every process that's occurring. I believe it's this incomplete perception that is to blame for dualistic ideas about mind and matter that have arisen over the ages.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

A THEORY OF VALUE

Two contexts in which I might use the term value:

1. A set of items has a numerical value
2. I value a certain piece of music


These seem to be very different uses of the term value, and, while not disputing the differences between them, I want to argue that our use of the term value in both of these instances is indicative of a very abstract and useful concept of value that is equally applicable in both cases.

At the very foundation of this abstract concept of value is the fact that values require evaluators. Valuing is something that is done by organisms (and maybe-someday-by inorganic technology). More specifically, by evaluating, an organism assesses some part of the environment with respect to an existing system of classification. As a result of the assessment, the organism will categorize the assessed in terms of one or more dimensions of classification, which may be affective, moral, numerical, etc. Such is the process of evaluating, and therefore, to say that something has value is to say that it has been appraised by the organism in this manner.

I'm arguing for this abstract concept of value because I see it as forming a very important and basic component of all cognition and action in organisms. Any organism's ability to act in the world will be affected-for better or worse-by how adaptively the organism is able to evaluate in this general sense. The fact that there is such a big gap between e.g. moral values and numerical values does nothing to detract from the validity of this general concept. These very differences illustrate the diversity of means by which evaluating is done. That numerical values seem so different from values like patriotism is a testament to the diverse processes that may lead to values-which are themselves as diverse as the evaluative processes that created them.

From this standpoint, we can go forth and say: What is numerosity? What is patriotism? What is love? From an abstract level of a certain perspective, all of these are the same type of thing: they are all values.

Analogies

At the place where I work there is a set of keys used by the employees around the work area. This particular set of keys is connected to a plastic keychain, similar to the ones pictured here. As a result of its being stretchy, bouncy, and exhibiting what Buckminster Fuller called tensegrity, playing with these keys is something that I do often. I think that most people have-to varying degrees-the tendency to nervously play around with things like this, but what I think is noteworthy about my playing around with this keychain, is that it exhibits dynamics that remind me of much more complex-and less concrete-situations.

I'm thinking about one dynamic pattern in particular, which occurs when the coils of the keychain are twisted with both hands at two different places simultaneously. I really wanted to capture this on video, but my phone is blocking me from using the video camera until I get a memory card, so a verbal description will have to suffice. I should state that, while this may be very hard to picture without such a keychain at hand, with one, it is very obvious.


Anyway, the dynamic response that I'm talking about occurs when the keychain is held by the thumb and index finger of both hands (which have between them about 2 complete rotations of the coil), and twisted by both hands simultaneously in opposite directions (clockwise and counter-clockwise). Doing this causes the coils to initially expand in diameter, but if the twisting continues, the coil will suddenly reorganize itself. The reorganization takes the form of an inverted twist in the coil that goes in the opposite direction of the rest. While this may be difficult to picture, everyone has seen it, either with a key ring, or a slinky that has an obvious imperfection in the coil.


I think it may be helpful to describe the process temporally: When the coil is twisted as described above, it keeps its shape and simply expands in size-at first. However, as the twisting continues, a point is reached at which a new inverted twist emerges. At that point, the coil could no longer maintain the original shape, and it reorganizes itself into a new form. Once an inverted coil has emerged, no further outside force is necessary to maintain it. One can let go and the inversion will persist. Interestingly, once the inversion is in the coil, it can be removed by applying both hands in the same way as was used to implement the twist, and twisting in the opposite directions. Also noteworthy is that, when implementing or removing the inverted coil, stretching the keychain while applying force will lead to the reorganization requiring a greater amount of force.

I see this dynamical reaction to be abstractly isomorphic to many phenomena that involve a system (a physical, biological or social structure) that is able to withstand a certain amount of stress before reorganizing itself in a predictable way. Of course, there are no limits to how one might look at simple physical events as being metaphoric for larger situations. I could, for example, comapre a breaking ruler with the downfall of a corporation. But the beauty of the keychain is that it exhibits a complexity that makes it suitable for modelling systems-specifically adaptive systems that reogranize themselves rather than dissipate when disturbed.
If we were to look at the way that a family responds to a crisis, we might see a reorganization occurring at a certain "breaking point"--similar to what is found in the keychain. The organization of the keychain is a function of the system reacting to two different kinds of forces: the outside twisting and the internal force that gives the keychain its shape in the first case. A family is also distorted by outside forces, but the possible reorganization is a function of both the outside forces as well as the internal forces that may serve to maintain the family as a soherent system. The reogranization of a family following a crisis is easily seen as resulting from the force of the crisis, but the reorganization itself may be a product of the existing forces of the family reacting with and persisting after the disturbance--just as in the keychain.
Now, the keychain is not necessarily the best model for a complex system like a family. Nevertheles, I think that it is very useful to realize the analogical properties of complex physical systems like this one which can be seen right in front of ones own eyes. By doing so, we gain physical experience with dynamical processes that we may use to get a grip on dynamical processes whose physical/temporal dimensions dwarf our potential for easy grasping. I'm inclined to take a closer look at children's toys to see if they have access to complex dynamical phenomena like those in the keychain. Perhaps early exposure to such dynamical processes (confined both temporally and spatially for easier comprehension) could have its benefits...