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.

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...

Value

The Wikipedia article about Pitchfork mentions how the site has been criticized by some for what is perceived as that sites control over people's musical preferences. In short, it was claimed that a positive/negative review on Pitchfork has a massive effect on the success of the artist under review, because the site sets an influential example for how a particular work can be received.

I've been thinking a lot about this issue and about the value of shared aesthetic preferences. If Pitchfork does have the power that it has been accused of having, what are the consequences of this for society and individuals?

First off, it seems pretty much clear from the start that shared aesthetic values are important. Enjoying a piece of art with others (mutually revelling in aesthetic enjoyment) is certainly a bonding experience that can link minds by suggesting a similarity of experience between two or more people. Although it is certainly possible to enjoy others aesthetic preferences for their own sake (when we don't share them ourselves), a qualitatively different type of experience is offered by the mutual enjoyment of the same piece of art.

Also clear is the fact that aesthetic experiences are variable in terms of their intensity; i.e., they are not just good or bad, but vary in the intensity with which they are good or bad. This occurs at the level of the individual person, it is not objectively true. What I mean by this is that, to use the framework of Maturana and Varela, the aesthetic experience of art is something that occurs as a result of a coupling between a person and a work of art. Although it could be easily argued that there is also a coupling on a wider social level between a work of art and a society in general-in that a particular society is predisposed to accept certain works of art over others based on the preferences and values of its constituent members-the aesthetic experience of art being explored here is that which occurs on the individual level.

To return to the theme of Pitchfork, I'm wondering what the role of that site (and others like it) is in manipulating people in such a way as to change their potential for aesthetic enjoyment-in other words to change their predisposition to certain art. It would seem that a site like Pitchfork has the potential to act as an organizer of aesthetic preferences for individuals. This is how this would be achieved: First, the site achieves some level of credibility amongst individuals-perhaps this occurs directly, as a result of making individuals aware of music that they immediately like. Once this credibility has been established, further recommendations from the site will be taken more seriously. If the site has been particularly successful in showing its readers art they enjoy, it (the site) will have more freedom in terms of what art its readers will be willing to take seriously.

The things I have just said pertain to art criticism sites like pitchfork, but the same things could be said about an individual who affects the taste of others. Unique to Pitchfork however is that it is not a person, but rather an organization resulting from the collaboration of many people. Consequently, although it is able to attain the same credibility as a person (e.g. a knowledgeable music listener who gives valued recommendations to friends), it also benefits from the fact that it is perceived by its readers as the outcome of the aesthetic preferences of many people-an "in" group-and is therefore more formidable than most individuals.

To be continued...

Social Panic

A recurrent feature in my social life-that is my life in the social domain-is an uncomfortable situation caused by a conflict between two social constraints upon my action. One one hand, as I move about in the social domain, my awareness of the potential meaningfulness of my actions leads me to be aware of my surroundings so that I my temper my conduct with respect to what I perceive, with the goal of maintaining some desired relation to my surrounding social world.

However, ever so often I face a situation whose solution (the course of action that will resolve the situation in a desirable way) is in some other way problematic. For instance, if when walking down the street, I see an acquaintance, it is my usual desire to acknowledge this by saying e.g. "hello". If the acquaintance is more than 20 feet or so away, I am forced to account for the fact that quietly saying hello is unreasonable-especially if it is noisy out. As a result, I have several options: to raise my voice, wait until the person is closer, or give a greeting that is too quiet to hear. Each of these is problematic in that they will be intrinsically meaningful in their own ways-even as they solve the original problem.

By raising my voice I will satisfy my desire to greet the friend, but in doing so, engage in an activity (yelling) that has other social connotations which may conflict with the message I want to convey. If I wait until the friend gets closer, I will solve the problem presented by the distance, but in doing so will do nothing to fulfill my desire to be sociable towards my friend. As I approach the friend silently, I position myself in an ambiguous zone of social relations towards my friend-I may not be planning to greet them, I may be waiting, whatever the case, my positioning is ambiguous to my friend. This is an uncomfortable position to be in, because such ambiguous zones may catalyze (in the friend) several different courses of action. The friend is forced to attempt to interpret the ambiguous performance I am giving, and may interpret my actions in the "wrong" way-a way different from what I myself intend.

THe reason that this situation is so undesirable is that we do not look appetizingly on the possibility of reacting to ways of acting that are beyond our control. We act in certain ways towards others so that we may enjoy a particular social positioning. There are courses of action that we don't take because we don't want to face the social consequences of acting in these ways. When are actions make our intentions ambiguous, we enter a realm in which undesirable responses form others are made more likely.

Thus, such situations place us in a bind: though we want to position ourselves in a certain way, the possible courses of action that we have for achieving such a positioning would actually make our positioning ambiguous because these actions have additional significance-in addition to offering solutions to the present problem.

The Externalization of Perception

In his book, Signs of Meaning in the Universe, Jesper Hofmeyer talks about how in the phylogenesis of animals, the role of the genome has shifted from directly anticipating how to detect and respond to the environment (by specifying structures that will detect and respond to specific aspects of the environment in specific ways), to simply specifying means of perceiving and acting that will be flexible, as well as an organism that will be able to learn from its world how to act adaptively using its abilities of perception and action. Using this idea, we can look at how this process has taken shape within the comparitively recent history of human development over the last 40,000 years. Within this period there is a definite trend affecting human perception: The externalization of the perceptual process. In other animals, the perception of things in the environment is an internal process that occurs within the organism's nervous system. When a deer sees a lion in its field of vision, the process of recognition occurs largely within the nervous system, which makes use of the pattern of light to interpret the scene. It is possible to see the deer react to the lion once it has been interpreted as such, but it is not possible to see the process of interpretation itself which occurs completely within the nervous system. In contrast, it is possible to see human beings perform externalized processes of perception. Examples include a person counting a set of items, or a research team collecting data about a population. In the latter example, computers may even be used, in which case the perceptual process is in fact distributed throughout the environment and only overseen by the human being.

Inextricably connected to the development of new (externalized) ways of perceiving is the development of new things to perceive that, in different ways, overtaxed internal systems of perception. The first way that existing internal perceptual systems were overtaxed was by the proliferation of vast numbers of perceivable things that occurred as a result of linguistic distinctions. This proliferation overtaxed the memory and forced certain parts of the process of perceptual recognition to be stored externally. Of the many thousands of bird species in the world, I know only a small number of them, and of these I know virtually nothing more than their appearance. Despite this, if I see a strange bird I can learn a good deal about it if I consult a guide to wildlife.

The second way that the overtaxing of internal perceptual abilities led to the development of external forms of perception was the development of new things to perceive that were not suited to the existing internalized perceptual abilities. The latter are well suited to perceiving discrete objects in the environment, and to a limited extent, things that are distributed spatially or temporally. As spatial and temporal distribution increases, internalized perceptual processes become increasingly unfeasible. However, externalized processes of perception, combined with language allow for the perception of widely distributed things like population density, or its change over large amounts of time.

With externalized processes of perception, what we are able to perceive is a function of how we use our body to perceive things about the environment. The world that we live in (that we perceive ourselves to live in) is partly a function of how we act. Learning how to perceive new things in the environment is therefore an incredibly fruitful open-ended endeavor.

Second Order Perception

When we think of perception, we think of something being "picked up", or sensed, and then a process that is somehow induced within a system as a result of that stimulation. In other words, there is an initial stimulation, and then a process occurs that gives meaning to that stimulation. In visual perception, this may manifest itself when the stimulation of our retina leads to the phenomenological sensation of seeing a ball.

Certain practices within human culture demonstrate that the processes leading up to the phenomenological state of perceiving something may take as a part of their input other phenomenologically perceived states. Number provides a good example. If I stand by a pond and count out a group of 25 geese swimming in front of me, a perceptual process has occurred that used the perceived geese (which were already the output of another perceptual process) as its input.

A pattern of activity in the brain led to the perception of the geese, and another pattern of activity led to the perception that there were 25 geese. This demonstrates that it is possible to create meta-perceptual systems that may be quite useful. While the practice of enumeration demonstrates this, the entire field of statistics also exemplifies it. The goals of that field are none other than to create second order systems of perception.

Even though numbers may be very powerful tools for us, it is clear that there is much room for improvement as far as systems of perception go. THe perceptions furnished by numbers are very one dimensional. I don't think I'm going out on too much of a limb when I say that second order systems of perception are now in the stages that first order perception was in with the emergence of light sensitive cells that only later developed into vision. The question is, what can be done to expand the dimensionality of these new forms of perception?