Consciousness and the Paranormal

[smcder]

Sorry for multiple edits on my posts folks - I am trying to type on my wife's "smart" phone with my Neanderthal hands.

 

[Soupie]

Absolutely beautiful!

Here's my problem with it: the wolves are just doing their thing. They don't know they are changing the rivers, and they especially don't know they are changing the rivers in a "good" way.

Why is it that when humans do our thing, we destroy nature instead of making it "better?"

I can just imagine it now: Garzog speaks in a soothing alien voice as the camera pans over New York City: "And when the humans were reintroduced to the Earth, a strange thing happened... they fucking ruined it."

Re: our efforts to determine the nature of Objective Reality:

Crosseyed and painless

In 2004 remarks appearing in the New York Times, an unnamed Bush White House aide now believed to have been Karl Rove laid out the future for journo Ron Suskind. “The aide,” Suskind wrote, “said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality ... That's not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

“’And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again,’” Suskind’s source continued, “’creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’" ...

Mindblowing.

 

[smcder]

Absolutely beautiful!

Here's my problem with it: the wolves are just doing their thing. They don't know they are changing the rivers, and they especially don't know they are changing the rivers in a "good" way.

Why is it that when humans do our thing, we destroy nature instead of making it "better?"

I can just imagine it now: Garzog speaks in a soothing alien voice as the camera pans over New York City: "And when the humans were reintroduced to the Earth, a strange thing happened... they fucking ruined it."

Re: our efforts to determine the nature of Objective Reality:

Crosseyed and painless
Mindblowing.

I just re-read Lewis' essay "The Abolition of Man" - sounds like the Controllers he describes there.

The Abolition of Man : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

 

[Tyger]

Absolutely beautiful!

Here's my problem with it: the wolves are just doing their thing. They don't know they are changing the rivers, and they especially don't know they are changing the rivers in a "good" way.

Why is it that when humans do our thing, we destroy nature instead of making it "better?"

The mind, freewill and love - the ability to stand 'outside' creation 'looking in.' I once heard suicide described as 'turning one's back on God'. Can an animal 'turn it's back on God'? on creation? on it's nature? We look at a flock of birds flying in unison and say those are separate birds having a unitary experience - might it not be that we are seeing 'one' animal that manifests as separate 'pieces' - a single being having a split experience, in a sense? This is the basis of the Native Americans invoking the 'spirit' of the deer to 'allow' the hunter to cull a member of the deer herd. All is one in a certain way of thinking - except humankind. Why?

The evolutionary step forward - the emergence of the mind, intellect - the ability to say 'no'. Who is to say that what the human race is in the process of creating will not be stupendous in it's own right?

I can just imagine it now: Garzog speaks in a soothing alien voice as the camera pans over New York City: "And when the humans were reintroduced to the Earth, a strange thing happened... they fucking ruined it."

The games's not over, it's barely begun, the story is only at it's beginning. It is always noteworthy that we look at the great sweeps of geologic time, making it akin to the Washington Monument - say - and soberly indicate (in awe) that humankind's emergence is represented by but one inch on that column - and we don't turn it around: Humans, as Mind and Freewill, is a brand-new event, we are at the very beginning of this story that is us. Yes, we are breaking some stuff in our playpen, but what is our potential? Who are we?

[quote[Re: our efforts to determine the nature of Objective Reality:

Crosseyed and painless
Mindblowing.[/quote]

Writ large - it was obvious to whoever it was - Rove - in the gross-motor way of an 'empire'. But what is lost in the same applies to the fine-motor events of single biographies. This is the great un-truth spread abroad - a kind of urban legend - believed as an article of faith in this age of disbelief : that the single human being is - pick your word - powerless, insignificant, without moment. Quite the reverse.

Karl Rove's sentiment is the observation of the surface and the undeniable effect of the crude power of the bully (that we as individuals say 'yes' to in countless ways). The very fact that 'the empire' can make the choices it does has to do with the fact that it stands on the shoulders of countless decisions made by everyone. It's equivalent to wealthy people thinking that their money is function of their own effort and is not the result of the agreed-upon structure they used to amass that wealth (often using the structure to their own ends).

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." - George Eliot, Middlemarch

There is an illusion about fame and history (social history) being outside of us. What Rove is saying has couched within it what many would like 'the masses' to believe: that we are powerless before greater (material) powers. The materialist politician may abrogate the concept of God, but will willingly abscond with the operation of control such a concept often (unintentionally) creates.

If Rove were honest - and 'thought through his thinking' - he would also have to allow that the very same applies to the 'empire' - it cannot fully plan for the rise of a Spartacus - or a Martin Luther King - or a Caesar Chavez - or a Ghandi - or an Elizabeth Warren.

If Rove were honest in his thread of thought he would admit that 'the empire' gets flummoxed in any number of actions because of counter-forces and reactions not considered. Rove was existing without the limiting counter-balance of a Soviet Union. In the end, Rove's comment is warning true enough, and has been going on for centuries - but it is also a limited vision of how the whole dynamic works. Rove - as most who think in his way - would not be happy to think that his 'empire decision' is as well influenced/conditioned by what is made possible by the 'beating of countless butterfly wings' - the decisions of countless human hearts.

 

[Randall]

"More simply, it's easier for some people to believe a problem is so difficult that it can't be comprehended than to figure out why it doesn't make sense in the first place."

Now this sounds like a position called New Mysterianism - the leading exponent is Colin McGinn. A key phrase is "cognitive closure" - basically the argument runs that we don't have the sorts of minds (the "hardware" on his view) that can understand certain things and the mind body problem is one, but he thinks there is a physical explanation that might be accessible to some other kind of mind. Ill post his key paper on the subject for general interest if I can find it.

The difference between New Mysterianism and what I'm talking about isn't that those who subscribe to New Mysterianism don't have the "intellectual ability" so solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness ( HPC ), it's that they don't see that the problem is incoherent in the first place and therefore cannot be solved by anyone. We've been through all this already, but I want to emphasize that I'm not necessarily saying that those who aren't on my side of the fence don't have the intellectual capacity to understand why we think it's that way. It just that it takes another approach to the problem.

Instead of trying to solve The HPC, try to determine if it's a valid problem to begin with. To use an analogy, it's like the magician's trick where the challenge is to separate three metal rings. The HPC is rolled out in such a way that we're led to believe that the puzzle is hard but might be solvable, so the average person approaches it from that angle, and when they fail over and over again they finally concede to it being too hard for them to solve, when in fact, the three metal rings they were handed were never separable in the first place.

However unlike a simple three ring puzzle, seeing why The HPC cannot be solved requires a detailed dissection of how the problem is logically semantically constructed. It's of an abstract nature, and it's still not easy to unravel ( at least for me ), and that's why I think most people simply concede to it being unsolvable. To get an idea of the complexity of the relationships involved, I suggest that one begin by reviewing this article on propositional logic. Then review all the elements associated with The HPC to see how they relate to each other within that framework. Eventually the light bulb should go on. If you're a genius, I suspect you'll get it right away instead of having to reflect deeply on it for days and days like I did.

 

[smcder]

The difference between New Mysterianism and what I'm talking about isn't that those who subscribe to New Mysterianism don't have the "intellectual ability" so solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness ( HPC ), it's that they don't see that the problem is incoherent in the first place and therefore cannot be solved by anyone. We've been through all this already, but I want to emphasize that I'm not necessarily saying that those who aren't on my side of the fence don't have the intellectual capacity to understand why we think it's that way. It just that it takes another approach to the problem.

Instead of trying to solve The HPC, try to determine if it's a valid problem to begin with. To use an analogy, it's like the magician's trick where the challenge is to separate three metal rings. The HPC is rolled out in such a way that we're led to believe that the puzzle is hard but might be solvable, so the average person approaches it from that angle, and when they fail over and over again they finally concede to it being too hard for them to solve, when in fact, the three metal rings they were handed were never separable in the first place.

However unlike a simple three ring puzzle, seeing why The HPC cannot be solved requires a detailed dissection of how the problem is logically semantically constructed. It's of an abstract nature, and it's still not easy to unravel ( at least for me ), and that's why I think most people simply concede to it being unsolvable. To get an idea of the complexity of the relationships involved, I suggest that one begin by reviewing this article on prepositional logic. Then review all the elements associated with The HPC to see how they relate to each other within that framework. Eventually the light bulb should go on. If you're a genius, I suspect you'll get it right away instead of having to reflect deeply on it for days and days like I did.

I can't get that site to open for some reason but I'll have a look ... But I do think you should have someone look at your ideas. Univ Calgary has a large philosophy dept with several faculty listed under Phil of Mind.

One thing in the link I posted above has to do with how Nagel stated the problem or wrote the paper and has probably caused some unnecessary confusion:


"

Yes, I understand your point, but Nagel's whole point is that 'what it's like' is strictly inexpressible in objective terms. So it isn't surprising that he has to resort to a back-handed way of getting you to see what he's talking about. If he could describe it straightforwardly, he'd be contradicting his own theory."

About to squeeze the life out of this phone!!

Ok i got the link open - been awhile on prep logic but ive been reading about it in Berlinskis book on algorithms coincidentally. The Advent of the Algorithm by David Berlinski.

You may have found a unique angle on the problem -

Speaking of geniuses - it hit me today that you might like Wittgensteins Tractatus Logivo Philosophicus if you haven't read it.

 

[smcder]

It's fixed now. Here it is again: http://www.iep.utm.edu/prop-log/

I'll let the real philosophers argue the point.


All very interesting. Thanks for your further insights .

"If you're a genius, I suspect you'll get it right away instead of having to reflect deeply on it for days and days like I did."

So a genius is someone who comes to the same conclusions...only quicker? But half the fun of having a genius around is that you never know what she will do next! ;-)

I literally just finished the sections on propositional and predicate calculus in Berlinskis book yesterday and I re-read them this afternoon - curious about your approach ... The Tractatus takes what I imagine might be a similar approach in terms of putting philosophical problems into more formal terms (or passing them over in silence)

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

 

[smcder]

It's fixed now. Here it is again: http://www.iep.utm.edu/prop-log/

I'll let the real philosophers argue the point.


All very interesting. Thanks for your further insights .

Link still didn't load.

 

[smcder]

I think the problem is on their end. I tested the link before, and now it's doesn't load for me either. Nor does it load from the Google results page. Maybe try again later. It's a good write-up.

It came up once this afternoon then I had to surrender my wife's phone to her. Will keep trying.

This is an interesting attempt at it - is this the kind of approach you mean to take?

ILovePhilosophy.com • refuting physicalism/naturalism/materialism

And there is also a mention of photons in the thread.

 

[smcder]

The mind, freewill and love - the ability to stand 'outside' creation 'looking in.' I once heard suicide described as 'turning one's back on God'. Can an animal 'turn it's back on God'? on creation? on it's nature? We look at a flock of birds flying in unison and say those are separate birds having a unitary experience - might it not be that we are seeing 'one' animal that manifests as separate 'pieces' - a single being having a split experience, in a sense? This is the basis of the Native Americans invoking the 'spirit' of the deer to 'allow' the hunter to cull a member of the deer herd. All is one in a certain way of thinking - except humankind. Why?

The evolutionary step forward - the emergence of the mind, intellect - the ability to say 'no'. Who is to say that what the human race is in the process of creating will not be stupendous in it's own right?

The games's not over, it's barely begun, the story is only at it's beginning. It is always noteworthy that we look at the great sweeps of geologic time, making it akin to the Washington Monument - say - and soberly indicate (in awe) that humankind's emergence is represented by but one inch on that column - and we don't turn it around: Humans, as Mind and Freewill, is a brand-new event, we are at the very beginning of this story that is us. Yes, we are breaking some stuff in our playpen, but what is our potential? Who are we?

Writ large - it was obvious to whoever it was - Rove - in the gross-motor way of an 'empire'. But what is lost in the same applies to the fine-motor events of single biographies. This is the great un-truth spread abroad - a kind of urban legend - believed as an article of faith in this age of disbelief : that the single human being is - pick your word - powerless, insignificant, without moment. Quite the reverse.

Karl Rove's sentiment is the observation of the surface and the undeniable effect of the crude power of the bully (that we as individuals say 'yes' to in countless ways). The very fact that 'the empire' can make the choices it does has to do with the fact that it stands on the shoulders of countless decisions made by everyone. It's equivalent to wealthy people thinking that their money is function of their own effort and is not the result of the agreed-upon structure they used to amass that wealth (often using the structure to their own ends).

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." - George Eliot, Middlemarch

There is an illusion about fame and history (social history) being outside of us. What Rove is saying has couched within it what many would like 'the masses' to believe: that we are powerless before greater (material) powers. The materialist politician may abrogate the concept of God, but will willingly abscond with the operation of control such a concept often (unintentionally) creates.

If Rove were honest - and 'thought through his thinking' - he would also have to allow that the very same applies to the 'empire' - it cannot fully plan for the rise of a Spartacus - or a Martin Luther King - or a Caesar Chavez - or a Ghandi - or an Elizabeth Warren.

If Rove were honest in his thread of thought he would admit that 'the empire' gets flummoxed in any number of actions because of counter-forces and reactions not considered. Rove was existing without the limiting counter-balance of a Soviet Union. In the end, Rove's comment is warning true enough, and has been going on for centuries - but it is also a limited vision of how the whole dynamic works. Rove - as most who think in his way - would not be happy to think that his 'empire decision' is as well influenced/conditioned by what is made possible by the 'beating of countless butterfly wings' - the decisions of countless human hearts.

I like this very much:

"The games's not over, it's barely begun, the story is only at it's beginning. It is always noteworthy that we look at the great sweeps of geologic time, making it akin to the Washington Monument - say - and soberly indicate (in awe) that humankind's emergence is represented by but one inch on that column - and we don't turn it around: Humans, as Mind and Freewill, is a brand-new event, we are at the very beginning of this story that is us. Yes, we are breaking some stuff in our playpen, but what is our potential? Who are we?"

And the Middlemarch quote too.

 

[Tyger]

@smcder - not to be picky or anything but in the above post where you quote me you put what I said outside of the quoted text so that what I wrote looks like you wrote it and it is all confusing what you are saying though it's just two lines - ya know?

P.S. Glad you liked the post. The Middlemarch quote is one to give one pause - our culture is so wrought up in fame, of 'making one's mark' - that the essence of what a well-lived life is about gets lost. Most of us are lost.

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind, anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good.
Give the world the best that you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway." - Mother Teresa of Calcutta

 

[boomerang]

Now this sounds like a position called New Mysterianism - the leading exponent is Colin McGinn. A key phrase is "cognitive closure" - basically the argument runs that we don't have the sorts of minds (the "hardware" on his view) that can understand certain things and the mind body problem is one, but he thinks there is a physical explanation that might be accessible to some other kind of mind. Ill post his key paper on the subject for general interest if I can find it.

I haven't yet checked out McGinn's info on the web. The first and most obvious problem would seem to be something analogous to the old saw about not bothering to teach a horse calculus. I find it hard to imagine such an analogy would not hold for the human brain and more complex modes of abstract analysis as well. Unless, perhaps, our brains represent a kind of cognitive "critical mass" in the universe's larger scheme of things. Which seems rather anthropocentric at first glance.

 

[smcder]

@smcder - not to be picky or anything but in the above post where you quote me you put what I said outside of the quoted text so that what I wrote looks like you wrote it and it is all confusing what you are saying though it's just two lines - ya know?

P.S. Glad you liked the post. The Middlemarch quote is one to give one pause - our culture is so wrought up in fame, of 'making one's mark' - that the essence of what a well-lived life is about gets lost. Most of us are lost.

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind, anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good.
Give the world the best that you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway." - Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Ok - see if I have it fixed now?

 

[smcder]

I haven't yet checked out McGinn's info on the web. The first and most obvious problem would seem to be something analogous to the old saw about not bothering to teach a horse calculus. I find it hard to imagine such an analogy would not hold for the human brain and more complex modes of abstract analysis as well. Unless, perhaps, our brains represent a kind of cognitive "critical mass" in the universe's larger scheme of things. Which seems rather anthropocentric at first glance.

Let me know what you think after reading it. By "critical mass" do you mean the idea that intelligence is maximized in the human brain - maybe due to physical constraints? Anything larger and signals fade or take too long to arrive and overall intelligence declines? Or "critical mass" in that human intelligence hits a threshold sufficient to comprehend any/everything in the universe?

 

[smcder]

I wouldn't use those particular examples, but the idea is on the right track. I'll try to explain as simply as I can manage. As I sifted through The HPC, the realization for me came in steps as I deconstructed the various explanations sentence by sentence and word by word and evaluated them for logical consistency using the various interpretations associated with their definitions and usage, particularly the types of words being used together with other types of words.

So in the end, it didn't matter what the words themselves even said, only how these different types of words were being associated. This process could have been drawn as a series of PC expressions, but I didn't get into the notation. However I'm sure it could be done because in PC the statements come first, and the notation comes later.

That's what I thought you had done.

Definitely think the Tractatus and Wittgenstein's later work would be of interest.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Expand

1. The world is all that is the case.
2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.
3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.
4. A thought is a proposition with a sense.
5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)
6. The general form of a truth-function is [p, E, N(E)]. This is the general form of a proposition.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

I haven't listened yet but these guys are usually good:

Episode 7: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: What Is There and Can We Talk About It? | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

And discussion continues in podcast #8.

 

[boomerang]

Let me know what you think after reading it. By "critical mass" do you mean the idea that intelligence is maximized in the human brain - maybe due to physical constraints? Anything larger and signals fade or take too long to arrive and overall intelligence declines? Or "critical mass" in that human intelligence hits a threshold sufficient to comprehend any/everything in the universe?

Perhaps our brains have crossed a threshold into a kind of heuristic state of complexity in which, by "learning how to learn", any potential problem posed by the universe could eventually be sufficiently modeled. Another route to dealing with ever more abstract concepts might be that of self guided evolution of the biological (or some other) substrate in either a quantitative or qualitative sense: Some variation on Kurzweil's scenario.

Our grasp of the limitations of less complex intelligences seems 20/20. We know (or think we do) the approximate limits of abstract thinking of dogs and chimpanzees. In the other direction: we are essentially blind. Is a brain with an I.Q of 2000 possible? Even so, how would we know it, what would it want, and who's to say it would do anything but crawl into its own navel and endlessly calculate pi?

To fall back on inadequate analogies: The first case would be "merely" a matter of continiously re-writing better algorithms for the brain of H sapiens (assuming we are merely algorithms--a concept itself in doubt) in ever more powerful ways to plumb the secrets of the universe. This might apply in the globally collective as well as the individual sense. Although, I doubt a million horses would be much better at learning calculus than one ! The second case might be compared to building ever larger computers combined with more ever more complex algorithms.

My best guess is that our consciousnes is as much a function of self-organizing properites of this universe as are the crystal lattice or the most primoridal bacteria. An ability to increase the "power" of our own cogntive substrate seems dubious in that context. We agree that some species are more intelligent than others, but can scarcely settle on a fully operational definition of intelligence. Or conversely: perhaps evolution guided by self-awareness is what "critcal mass" is all about and we will indeed hoist ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

I disagree with Gould (had no choice but to read his work in school) that evolution is not grinding away in a process of reverse entropy in biological systems. The overall trend of life on earth has been one of increasing biological compexity over billions of years, and at an ever increasing pace. Or so it seems.

 

[smcder]

Perhaps our brains have crossed a threshold into a kind of heuristic state of complexity in which, by "learning how to learn", any potential problem posed by the universe could eventually be sufficiently modeled. Another route to dealing with ever more abstract concepts might be that of self guided evolution of the biological (or some other) substrate in either a quantitative or qualitative sense: Some variation on Kurzweil's scenario.

Our grasp of the limitations of less complex intelligences seems 20/20. We know (or think we do) the approximate limits of abstract thinking of dogs and chimpanzees. In the other direction: we are essentially blind. Is a brain with an I.Q of 2000 possible? Even so, how would we know it, what would it want, and who's to say it would do anything but crawl into its own navel and endlessly calculate pi?

To fall back on inadequate analogies: The first case would be "merely" a matter of continiously re-writing better algorithms for the brain of H sapiens (assuming we are merely algorithms--a concept itself in doubt) in ever more powerful ways to plumb the secrets of the universe. This might apply in the globally collective as well as the individual sense. Although, I doubt a million horses would be much better at learning calculus than one ! The second case might be compared to building ever larger computers combined with more ever more complex algorithms.

My best guess is that our consciousnes is as much a function of self-organizing properites of this universe as are the crystal lattice or the most primoridal bacteria. An ability to increase the "power" of our own cogntive substrate seems dubious in that context. We agree that some species are more intelligent than others, but can scarcely settle on a fully operational definition of intelligence. Or conversely: perhaps evolution guided by self-awareness is what "critcal mass" is all about and we will indeed hoist ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

I disagree with Gould (had no choice but to read his work in school) that evolution is not grinding away in a process of reverse entropy in biological systems. The overall trend of life on earth has been one of increasing biological compexity over billions of years, and at an ever increasing pace. Or so it seems.

It's been awhile since I read Gould - what I remember of The Spread of Excellence is that life doesn't necessarily get more complicated it just adapts - the bit about rewinding the tape and it could all play out otherwise on the slightest contingency and I think he talked about the possibility of previous hominids having had bigger and more complex brains - but that might be Loren Eisley in "The Immense Journey" ... What seems to you to indicate that life is getting more and more complex and at an increasing rate?

 

[smcder]

Perhaps our brains have crossed a threshold into a kind of heuristic state of complexity in which, by "learning how to learn", any potential problem posed by the universe could eventually be sufficiently modeled. Another route to dealing with ever more abstract concepts might be that of self guided evolution of the biological (or some other) substrate in either a quantitative or qualitative sense: Some variation on Kurzweil's scenario.

Our grasp of the limitations of less complex intelligences seems 20/20. We know (or think we do) the approximate limits of abstract thinking of dogs and chimpanzees. In the other direction: we are essentially blind. Is a brain with an I.Q of 2000 possible? Even so, how would we know it, what would it want, and who's to say it would do anything but crawl into its own navel and endlessly calculate pi?

To fall back on inadequate analogies: The first case would be "merely" a matter of continiously re-writing better algorithms for the brain of H sapiens (assuming we are merely algorithms--a concept itself in doubt) in ever more powerful ways to plumb the secrets of the universe. This might apply in the globally collective as well as the individual sense. Although, I doubt a million horses would be much better at learning calculus than one ! The second case might be compared to building ever larger computers combined with more ever more complex algorithms.

My best guess is that our consciousnes is as much a function of self-organizing properites of this universe as are the crystal lattice or the most primoridal bacteria. An ability to increase the "power" of our own cogntive substrate seems dubious in that context. We agree that some species are more intelligent than others, but can scarcely settle on a fully operational definition of intelligence. Or conversely: perhaps evolution guided by self-awareness is what "critcal mass" is all about and we will indeed hoist ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

I disagree with Gould (had no choice but to read his work in school) that evolution is not grinding away in a process of reverse entropy in biological systems. The overall trend of life on earth has been one of increasing biological compexity over billions of years, and at an ever increasing pace. Or so it seems.

"Our grasp of the limitations of less complex intelligences seems 20/20. We know (or think we do) the approximate limits of abstract thinking of dogs and chimpanzees. In the other direction: we are essentially blind. Is a brain with an I.Q of 2000 possible? Even so, how would we know it, what would it want, and who's to say it would do anything but crawl into its own navel and endlessly calculate pi?"

It's always a challenge in fiction to portray superhuman intelligence. Seems to work better to fall back on "inscrutable" in the same way Lovecraft used "unspeakable" ;-) and then have the character behave in arbitrary ways - as that's how it might look to us. But that's also how we have to be careful in assessing the other intelligences around us - the more I understand my dogs world the smarter they (five) becomes. I know what to look for and come to realize I look pretty "inscrutable" to them. Granted they don't seem to have the same ability to analyze me in this way.

This is bringing up Sturgeon's "More a Than Human" in your idea of collective intelligence.

I also like the idea of dogs evolving abstract thought/ language/culture - having been a companion and symbiotic species - they could either practically merge with us or be a formidable enemy or wise corrective species to our excesses while possibly retaining some extremely embarrassing social habits:

The treaty meetings were going well until, in his excitement, the canine ambassador licked Putins face and took a whiz on the carpet .... Etc.

But potentially far more interesting than a planet of say apes.

 

[smcder]

Perhaps our brains have crossed a threshold into a kind of heuristic state of complexity in which, by "learning how to learn", any potential problem posed by the universe could eventually be sufficiently modeled. Another route to dealing with ever more abstract concepts might be that of self guided evolution of the biological (or some other) substrate in either a quantitative or qualitative sense: Some variation on Kurzweil's scenario.

Our grasp of the limitations of less complex intelligences seems 20/20. We know (or think we do) the approximate limits of abstract thinking of dogs and chimpanzees. In the other direction: we are essentially blind. Is a brain with an I.Q of 2000 possible? Even so, how would we know it, what would it want, and who's to say it would do anything but crawl into its own navel and endlessly calculate pi?

To fall back on inadequate analogies: The first case would be "merely" a matter of continiously re-writing better algorithms for the brain of H sapiens (assuming we are merely algorithms--a concept itself in doubt) in ever more powerful ways to plumb the secrets of the universe. This might apply in the globally collective as well as the individual sense. Although, I doubt a million horses would be much better at learning calculus than one ! The second case might be compared to building ever larger computers combined with more ever more complex algorithms.

My best guess is that our consciousnes is as much a function of self-organizing properites of this universe as are the crystal lattice or the most primoridal bacteria. An ability to increase the "power" of our own cogntive substrate seems dubious in that context. We agree that some species are more intelligent than others, but can scarcely settle on a fully operational definition of intelligence. Or conversely: perhaps evolution guided by self-awareness is what "critcal mass" is all about and we will indeed hoist ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

I disagree with Gould (had no choice but to read his work in school) that evolution is not grinding away in a process of reverse entropy in biological systems. The overall trend of life on earth has been one of increasing biological compexity over billions of years, and at an ever increasing pace. Or so it seems.

"Our grasp of the limitations of less complex intelligences seems 20/20. We know (or think we do) the approximate limits of abstract thinking of dogs and chimpanzees. In the other direction: we are essentially blind. Is a brain with an I.Q of 2000 possible? Even so, how would we know it, what would it want, and who's to say it would do anything but crawl into its own navel and endlessly calculate pi? "

Extreme IQs often seem to be debilitating or at least require special handling -especially in the case if prodigies. Little Man Tate did this well especially with Jodie Foster having been precocious. Lots if real life examples like JS Mill or Quiz kid William Sidis. Obviously IQ scales don't go to 2000 and it raises the question if limits on abstract thinking in another way as to whether nature would find another way to do it ... There is a great short story that takes up the idea of Campbell's The Thing from its point of view - that's one example of a very different kind of adaptive capacity.

"To fall back on inadequate analogies: The first case would be "merely" a matter of continiously re-writing better algorithms for the brain of H sapiens (assuming we are merely algorithms--a concept itself in doubt) in ever more powerful ways to plumb the secrets of the universe. This might apply in the globally collective as well as the individual sense. Although, I doubt a million horses would be much better at learning calculus than one ! The second case might be compared to building ever larger computers combined with more ever more complex algorithms."

But a million people ... For example, this forum is smarter than any one member of it. Moby Dick - I don't know that Melville was smarter than other novelists but he was a conduit for his age for such a culmination of profundities in the novel that he could scarcely have fully known what he was doing at the time and that to me is another expression of collective intelligence.

I think.

 

[boomerang]

What seems to you to indicate that life is getting more and more complex and at an increasing rate?

My assertion here is subjective and my background in evolutionary biology too skimpy to outline the progression of self-replicating life on earth in order to back my argument. Life seems to have originated as prokaryotes "progresssing" to more complex eukaryotes and then to multi-cellular organisms of increasing complexity over billions of years. The increasing complexity argument might be especially true if problem solving ability were taken into account. The most capable problem solving species would seem to be "just off the bus" in evolutionary terms. Whales, canines, elephants and primates, for example, have occupied only a tiny and most recent slice of the overall spectrum.

Of course, the ever adaptive bacteria is forever amongst us, and the long term survival of the cockaroach seems better bet ours !

The theory that previous hominids may have had larger and more complex brains than ours is a new one for me and sounds interesting. Mankind certainly has a long history of underestimating "his" emotional and cognitive relatedness to the rest of the animal kingdom. We have, on rare occasion, seen certain of our cats and dogs demonstrate understanding in ways that have simply blown me and my wife away.