The Most Critical Question!

[Doctordick]

well, i have to say in all earnestness that you might consider actually getting & reading the book so you can see it all & hone your perception of it. it's only 400 or so pages, costs about $20, and hofstadter is a notable author. (have you read his Gödel, Escher, Bach or Metamagical Themas?

“Actually getting & reading a book” is not the trivial endeavor you cast it to be. If one includes all the stuff supposedly worthwhile to understand, the volume is beyond reckoning. You brought up two references. I went immediately to the first and discovered the following paragraph:

 

In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter has emphasized that GEB is not about mathematics, art, and music but rather about how cognition and thinking emerge from well-hidden neurological mechanisms. In the book, he presents an analogy about how the individual neurons of the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.

all of the underlined concepts are totally off subject regarding my question as they are clearly based upon the acceptance of a standard world view as valid. It presumes the existence of neurological mechanisms, individual neurons, the brain, social organization and, of course a colony of ants. His discussion seems obviously to begin from some established beliefs the basis of which is unquestioned.

 

When I went to the second, I read the first line: “ Metamagical Themas is an eclectic collection of articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s by Douglas Hofstader, and published together as a book in 1985 by Basic Books (ISBN 0-465-04566-9)”. I have had a subscription to Scientific American since 1960 and have read every issue from cover to cover (I remember a number of articles about “memes” and a great number about AI and some supposedly deep and profound physics). None of these articles ever even approached the issue central to my “question”.

 

i would think you would be all over something that is on your question. :shrug: if not, i'm curious why not. :confused: how exactly would you justify dismissing something you have an incomplete knowledge of? isn't that why you chide so many of us?

In a nutshell, I could say that the reason is quite obvious; "I am concerned only with what one has utterly no knowledge of." To suggest one needs "more knowledge" completely sides steps the question totally avoiding the issue "how can one develop an snswer starting with no knowledge whatsoever". Furthermore, I simply find no evidence at all that Hofstadter has any concern whatsoever with my question. I doubt it has even occured to him.

 

Sincerely Turtle, I first approached my question roughly fifty years ago and have brought it up with many people (both professional and amateur thinkers). For some strange reason, no one seems to comprehend what I am asking or maybe "why" I am asking it.

 

I have talked with many people who apparently have asked themselves that same question but concluded it was a waste of time to think about it. They are all so sure that it can not be answered that they don't want to discuss the subject (even to discuss it is obviously a total waste of time). To date, only Anssi has fully understood the question being asked and still taken it seriously. Though he found it impossible to answer he also saw it as the fundamental question lying behind AI and, for that reason, tried to find the solution through those familiar with AI studies. He was as unsuccessful as I was.

 

People just have such a strong compulsion to think in terms of what they think works (their world view) that they apparently cannot comprehend beginning without a world view. My breakthrough is directly a consequence of working with unknowns analogous to unknowns in mathematics (representing the solution with those undefined numerical labels I often speak of). Everyone else wants to talk in terms of handling and correlating "knowledge”. And they do not understand me when I say they are off subject.

 

I haven't the slightest idea as to how to get others to look at the question and don't feel that is a reprimand of your efforts. I have never intended to “chide” anyone and I still read your posts with interest. Thank you.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Turtle]

“Actually getting & reading a book” is not the trivial endeavor you cast it to be. If one includes all the stuff supposedly worthwhile to understand, the volume is beyond reckoning.

 

why don't you just say that you refuse to read it & move on. it's no skin off my teeth.

[Qfwfq]

I'm not trying to claim that Doug examines the exact same question (which wasn't even the point), but it would be wise to avoid confusing matters which are distinct.

 

all of the underlined concepts are totally off subject regarding my question as they are clearly based upon the acceptance of a standard world view as valid. It presumes the existence of neurological mechanisms, individual neurons, the brain, social organization and, of course a colony of ants. His discussion seems obviously to begin from some established beliefs the basis of which is unquestioned.

Consider the scenario in which the following two things hold:

1. An intelligent being is analysing a model of an intelligent being, without questioning the existence of its component parts.
   
2. The modelled being's mind can't perceive anything directly, only through a whole system which is part of the modelled being, hence this mind can't know anything about the origin of what it perceives except by somehow making sense of what it receives.
   

Surely Dick you can see the distinction between the following two questions:

1. whether the modelled being's mind questions the existence of its own parts and the things it defines as perceived objects
   
2. whether the analysing being's mind questions the existence of the modelled being's parts, to the purpose of the analysis
   

Surely you must agree the distintion holds and is relevant, even when it's a (proposed?) model of the same kind of being as the analysing one.

 

i would think you would be all over something that is on your question. :shrug: if not, i'm curious why not. :confused: how exactly would you justify dismissing something you have an incomplete knowledge of? isn't that why you chide so many of us?

In a nutshell, I could say that the reason is quite obvious; "I am concerned only with what one has utterly no knowledge of." To suggest one needs "more knowledge" completely sides steps the question totally avoiding the issue "how can one develop an snswer starting with no knowledge whatsoever". Furthermore, I simply find no evidence at all that Hofstadter has any concern whatsoever with my question. I doubt it has even occured to him.

You are plainly and grossly confusing two different lacks of knowledge. One is the lack of knowledge that you are concerned with; the other is the lack of knowledge of what you presume to judge (and dismiss as irrelevant). Can you really not sort it out?

[CraigD]

The question is, “How the hell can we manage to come up with a world view when we have nothing to work with?”

Or perhaps, “How can one begin the examination of such a problem?”

This is, for me, an important question, because I am interested in making computer programs to store, organize, and use data in a way similar to how “we” (human beings) do. “How can one begin the examination of such a problem?” is nearly equivalent to “how can one begin to make such a program?”

 

I’ve an intuition – an intuition only, as I’ve not read all your writing about your question and your answer to it, so apologize and ask to be corrected if wrong – that you are failing, Doctordick, to ask and answer a prerequisite question, “what is ‘we’?”, or, more commonly “what is ‘I’?”

 

This question is central to writing such as Turtle mentions in post #17 and #11, Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach and I Am a Strange Loop (Which Hofstadter jokingly explains he initially wanted to title “‘I’ Is a Strange Loop”), and many similar writing, such as that of Minsky (though less accessible than others, many of what I think his most important work on the subject being available only in interview and lecture transcripts and commentary by others), Dennett, and Penrose on the hard and easy problems of consciousness.

 

Failing to address this question results in the unstated assumption that the concept of “I” is semantically non-void, a conclusion not reached by myself and many other students of the subject, including some of those well-known ones I name above. This can leads to the unwarranted and essentially mystical adoption of a naive dualistic worldview before one has even began considering your question “how can we come up with a world view?” It’s semantic similar to asking “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” without first answering the questions “what are angels?” and “do they exist?”

 

The problem is that I have discovered a way of answering a specific question [(how the hell can we manage to come up with a world view when we have nothing to work with?)] and that critical question seems never to occur to anyone else.

I don’t believe this is a significant problem, because your specific question is not one that never occurs to anyone else. Rather, it is a question so basic that, in usual treatments of classical philosophy, one of the major branches, epistemology, is dedicated to it and similar questions.

 

Because most people are unfamiliar with classical philosophical terms, I’d agree if you had said your question “seems not to occur to most people”. “Seems never to have occur to anyone else”, however, is an inaccurate seeming, and I think rhetorically ineffective, as it tends to gives a new reader the impression what the writer is grandiose and self-important, causing him to either stop reading, or discredit ideas expressed later in the text.

 

well, i have to say in all earnestness that you might consider actually getting & reading the book [I Am a Strange Loop] so you can see it all & hone your perception of it. it's only 400 or so pages, costs about $20, and hofstadter is a notable author. (have you read his Gödel, Escher, Bach …

“Actually getting & reading a book” is not the trivial endeavor you cast it to be. If one includes all the stuff supposedly worthwhile to understand, the volume is beyond reckoning. …

I second Turtle’s recommendation that you read IAaSL. If you’re new to Hofstadter (and thus not inclined to try mapping its ideas to his previous work), it can be an easy, enjoyable, memoire-like read. GEB, while essential reading for Math students of my generation (b 1960), is long and dense – I’ve know people who spent 1000+ hours reading it thoroughly.

[Doctordick]

Surely Dick you can see the distinction between the following two questions:

1. whether the modelled being's mind questions the existence of its own parts and the things it defines as perceived objects
   
2. whether the analysing being's mind questions the existence of the modelled being's parts, to the purpose of the analysis
   

Surely you must agree the distintion holds and is relevant, even when it's a (proposed?) model of the same kind of being as the analysing one.

So there is a distintion; but how is it relevant? Neither question has any bearing on what I am talking about.

 

You are plainly and grossly confusing two different lacks of knowledge. One is the lack of knowledge that you are concerned with; the other is the lack of knowledge of what you presume to judge (and dismiss as irrelevant).

The issue is, can the relevant underlying circumstances standing behind an explanation be represented with my notation or not? If not then I have a problem. If it can be represented, then the issue is the correctness of the logical operations I perform on that representation. The information being represented is totally irrelevant to the examination. If any step requires any specific information being represented to be relevant, that step is erroneous.

 

I take mathematics (as the invention and study of internally consistent constructs) as given; that gives me the set of allowed operations. Everything else is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Rade]

"I am concerned only with what one has utterly no knowledge of."

Sure, and is it not true that you had utterly no knowledge of these words I now print before you perceived them ? So, you are saying that you are concerned with things and events (let us call them circumstances) such as "what will that fool Rade say next", that is, you are concerned with "the future". But, why do you believe that others are not also concerned with exactly the same thing as you--the future ? This is what I do not understand by the implication that you have some unique human concern ??

[LaurieAG]

Hi Doctordick,

 

The issue is, can the relevant underlying circumstances standing behind an explanation be represented with my notation or not? If not then I have a problem. If it can be represented, then the issue is the correctness of the logical operations I perform on that representation. The information being represented is totally irrelevant to the examination. If any step requires any specific information being represented to be relevant, that step is erroneous.

 

Anything that fits your criteria must reduce down to 0 = 0 regardless of any logical operations made because x = x is information specific and therefore erroneous. Once you add anything to either side, or manipulate both sides, it becomes information specific and erroneous regardless.

 

On the philosophical front this same criteria can be equated to a definition of ancient 'honour' honour which was only ever freely given and receipt could only be expected by the foolhardy or those propagandists who knew otherwise.

[Qfwfq]

Well I already knew you'd wiggle out Dick, so I was even hesitant (as so often) to raise these objections at all.

 

Neither question has any bearing on what I am talking about.

I did not say, nor even think, that they do. What I did say is that in your retorts you are always confusing things in this and in other similar manners. So, now, you admit there is a distinction, but I guess you won't admit that your reply to Turtle was (yet again) confusing those two things into one.

 

Of course this reply to me was confusing the matter of having relevance to your analysis with that of you having confused distinct things in your retort, so it is itslef another confusion. But of course neither of these things are relevant to your analysis, you'll say now, right?

 

The issue is, can the relevant underlying circumstances standing behind an explanation be represented with my notation or not? If not then I have a problem. If it can be represented, then the issue is the correctness of the logical operations I perform on that representation. The information being represented is totally irrelevant to the examination. If any step requires any specific information being represented to be relevant, that step is erroneous.

 

I take mathematics (as the invention and study of internally consistent constructs) as given; that gives me the set of allowed operations. Everything else is irrelevant to the discussion.

Now that was a total side stepping shift from what you quoted. But anyway lets take that leap and just go to what you said: Firstly, I have never implied that "your notation" can't be applied to anything, in fact you start just like the representation of state in QM, it can be used to express probabilities for any kind of outcomes that can be labelled by numeric values, with considerations of symmetry concerning the arbitrarity of this labelling.Therefore we get to what you say concerning the logical operations you perform on that representation.

 

One day I went to buy some supplies for taking a pack of growing youths on a long camping holiday. I found a shop that stocked jars of good quality beef spread for only €1 each, so I put my bag on the counter and requested the attendent to put a dozen of them in; then I requested him to put another half dozen in and gave him €3 as payment for my purchase. He said that wasn't enough!!!! I kept my calm and replied that, in [imath]\mathbb{Z}_{15}[/imath], it is perfectly correct that 12 + 6 = 3 and so I was making no mistake, thus dismissing his objection.

 

Know what? He accused me of making an ad hoc choice to suit my purpose! The darn nerve of the guy, what insolence! I informed him of how irrelevant his complaint was, pointing out that I take mathematics (as the invention and study of internally consistent constructs) as given, which gives me the set of allowed operations, and that everything else is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

The shop owner just wouldn't have it!!! He even had the chutzpah to stick his nose and index finger into my bag and count them; he said "Look Buster, there's 18 of them in your bag and you's gotta pay €18 or dump'em right back on the counter." Obviously, I informed the guy that this is only according to his worldview and he's presuming it to be valid. I just dumped the wares and never set foot in that dude's doggone blasted cott'npickin' shop again.

[Doctordick]

Know what? He accused me of making an ad hoc choice to suit my purpose!

Ah, so you are accusing me of making use of mathematical operations counter to their accepted common meanings (unusual definitions not commonly used). If that is the case, point out the point where you feel I have made such a use. :lol:

 

It hits me as pure misdirection of attention with no thought behind it whatsoever. ;)

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Qfwfq]

Ah, so you are accusing me of making use of mathematical operations counter to their accepted common meanings (unusual definitions not commonly used).

No, I accuse you of having said:

I take mathematics (as the invention and study of internally consistent constructs) as given; that gives me the set of allowed operations.

Do you deny having said this?

 

Mind that [imath]\mathbb{Z}_{15}[/imath] is just as much of an internally consistent construct as [imath]\mathbb{N}[/imath] is, so according to your logic my argument ought to be just as valid as that of the shopkeeper who insists on 12 + 6 = 18 and demands money accordingly. So, which are and which aren't the allowed operations?

[Doctordick]

Mind that [imath]\mathbb{Z}_{15}[/imath] is just as much of an internally consistent construct as [imath]\mathbb{N}[/imath] is, so according to your logic my argument ought to be just as valid as that of the shopkeeper who insists on 12 + 6 = 18 and demands money accordingly. So, which are and which aren't the allowed operations?

So, once again,you are accusing me of making use of mathematical operations counter to their accepted common meanings (i.e., unusual definitions not commonly used in day to day student mathematics) without specifying to them the fact that I am using these uncommon definitions. Why didn't you just tell the shopkeeper you were going to use an "uncommon" definition of addition? Clearly because, if you had, he would have wanted a number of small transactions rather than the "gross" transaction you proposed. (Gross having other meanings!) :P

 

Again, if that is indeed the case, point out the point where you feel I have made such misrepresentation of use.

 

As I said, this is no more than silly misdirection of attention with no thought behind it whatsoever other than to take advantage of the ignorance and gullibility of the ordinary reader. I am reminded of my favorite quote:

 

Knowledge is Power and, as all power is quite often misused, the the most popular misuse of the power of knowledge is to use it to hide stupidity. B)

 

Have fun -- Dick

[LaurieAG]

Hi Doctordick,

 

Knowledge is Power and, as all power is quite often misused, the the most popular misuse of the power of knowledge is to use it to hide stupidity.

 

So education is used to hide stupidity, an interesting variation on 0 = 0.

[Qfwfq]

So it seems I'm hiding my stupidity!? :doh:

 

I wouldn't say so, I'd say I was being stupid in plain view, deliberately. The acute and diligent observer may reflect upon why I was doing so.

 

So, once again,you are accusing me of making use of mathematical operations counter to their accepted common meanings (i.e., unusual definitions not commonly used in day to day student mathematics) without specifying to them the fact that I am using these uncommon definitions. Why didn't you just tell the shopkeeper you were going to use an "uncommon" definition of addition? Clearly because, if you had, he would have wanted a number of small transactions rather than the "gross" transaction you proposed. (Gross having other meanings!)

There's no reason why he should have required many smaller transactions; what's more it would not have defeated my feeble swindling tactic unless he gave me one jar at a time, demanding €1 each time. Can you imagine the shopkeeper clowning like that?

 

Again, if that is indeed the case, point out the point where you feel I have made such misrepresentation of use.

No use telling me to point out where, because you are simply not addressing the point I raised. You put the cart before the horse about uncommon definitions. Which operations are "allowed" or not doesn't depend on which operations are uncommon; it tends to be more the other way around.

 

My question, yet unanswered, was: "So, which are and which aren't the allowed operations?"

 

Its answer does not depend on the answer to: "So, which are the common and which are the uncommon operations?"

 

It's more like, the second answer depends on the first. Why is it that many of all the mathematical constructs, and even entire topics, have been worked out at the initiative of theoretical physicists? There must be a reason, surely.

[modest]

The best I can do is to point out that the idea that our world view is created to explain our perceptions is an absolutely ridiculous hypothesis. I have mentioned that before but have achieved nothing but absolute refusal to think about the question. Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something. Why people cannot comprehend this as a significant difficulty is simply beyond me.

 

Kant pointed this out a long time ago:

 

The objective validity of the categories, as a priori concepts, rests on the fact that through them alone is experience possible (as far as the form of thinking is concerned). For they then are related necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, since only by means of them can any object of experience be thought at all.

 

The transcendental deduction of all a priori concepts therefore has a principle toward which the entire investigation must be directed, namely this: that they must be recognized as a priori conditions of the possibility of experiences (whether of the intuition that is encountered in them, or of the thinking). Concepts that supply the objective ground of the possibility of experience are necessary just for that reason.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=DoIA4SlN-OEC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=%22The+objective+validity+of+the+categories%22&source=bl&ots=A8-fe9SB1p&sig=L7-KfbYNmo7fmPokHMCGqs8Kl5Y&hl=en&ei=E5w-TczHF4_QgAfc_cW6CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22The%20objective%20validity%20of%20the%20categories%22&f=false

 

 

You are rewording Kant more than 200 years later. The interesting thing is that Kant's idea of a "category" is something like 'space', 'time', or 'causality' and those are the same things that you invoke a priori as assumptions in your derivation. You assume that an explanation requires causality in order to explain data the same way that Kant assumes the category of causality is required to experience perceptions.

 

I find off-putting the way you start the thread talking like you're annoyed that no one thinks about this stuff when volumes have been written on it hundreds of years ago. The problem can be diagrammed in a Korzybskian kind of way like:

 

territory ---> explanation ---> map

 

You think that you are proving (or have proved) that any explanation situated between the territory and the map must be a solution of your fundamental equation. In other words, you think you have found a way of assuring that the map matches the territory. But, you have not because you introduce assumptions about what an explanation is—assumptions like space, time, and causality. You define an explanation as anything which follows from those assumptions.

 

But, the real question at hand is "what is an explanation". As Craig put it: "what is ‘I’?" You have not proved what form any explanation needs to take in order to match some unknowable territory with a fitting map. You have assumed that an explanation should take a certain form, that it should follow your fundamental equation, then incorrectly deduced that any explanation has to follow that form if it matches the territory with the map in a flaw-free way.

 

~modest

[Rade]

Could someone please state specifically what most critical question we are now discussing. There are so many variations of it.

 

So, please fill in the blank.

 

The most critical question is ________________________ ? :unsure:

[Turtle]

Could someone please state specifically what most critical question we are now discussing. There are so many variations of it.

 

So, please fill in the blank.

 

The most critical question is ________________________ ? :unsure:

 

 

The most critical question is "what is I?".

 

craig laid the case quite well and i won't see that reply languish unanswered.

 

The question is, “How the hell can we manage to come up with a world view when we have nothing to work with?”

This is, for me, an important question, because I am interested in making computer programs to store, organize, and use data in a way similar to how “we” (human beings) do. “How can one begin the examination of such a problem?” is nearly equivalent to “how can one begin to make such a program?”

 

I’ve an intuition – an intuition only, as I’ve not read all your writing about your question and your answer to it, so apologize and ask to be corrected if wrong – that you are failing, Doctordick, to ask and answer a prerequisite question, “what is ‘we’?”, or, more commonly “what is ‘I’?”

 

This question is central to writing such as Turtle mentions in post #17 and #11, Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach and I Am a Strange Loop (Which Hofstadter jokingly explains he initially wanted to title “‘I’ Is a Strange Loop”), and many similar writing, such as that of Minsky (though less accessible than others, many of what I think his most important work on the subject being available only in interview and lecture transcripts and commentary by others), Dennett, and Penrose on the hard and easy problems of consciousness.

 

...

 

I second Turtle’s recommendation that you read IAaSL. If you’re new to Hofstadter (and thus not inclined to try mapping its ideas to his previous work), it can be an easy, enjoyable, memoire-like read. GEB, while essential reading for Math students of my generation (b 1960), is long and dense – I’ve know people who spent 1000+ hours reading it thoroughly.

 

rade et al, if you haven't read I Am A Strange Loop, i recommend it to you as well.

 

as i said i have loaned out my copy so i'm winging it here. hofstadter makes a point of setting a relative scale of "I-ness" and gives it a unit measure of hunekers(sp) after some dead guy who wrote the phrase "men of lesser souls". anyway, he graphs a cone where men of greatest souls are 100 hunakers at the wide top, and various creatures with lesser souls moving down to the narrow no soul at all. he plots dogs, & cats, & mosquitoes as i recall. i mention this because of doc's "squirrel logic"; certainly a logic of a lesser soul.

 

then dougie digs into deep gödelian logic & while i don't recall the specifics he "gödelizes" logical statements in a way that puts them in some(?) common context. particularly self-referential statements then too if i recall. anyway, i'm wondering what we would/could benefit - or lose- by gödelizing doc's fundamental equation. if it is fundamental in that it generalizes all equations, then musn't it also refer to itself? maybe craig has some thoughts on this as he has clearly read IAASL.

[AnssiH]

I had not noticed this thread until recently. I don't really browse the forums actively so I can be slow that way.

 

So the real issue here is communicating the actual problem you and I have in mind. I think you find my work worth reading for the simple reason that it answers a question you had already asked yourself long before we had any interchanges. I sit and think about it and I cannot come up with a way of presenting that question which makes it appear to be worth thinking about to others. I think it is worth thinking about and you clearly think it is worth thinking about but how do we make others comprehend it is worth thinking about? That is the critical issue standing behind all this worthless verbal exchange.

 

The best I can do is to point out that the idea that our world view is created to explain our perceptions is an absolutely ridiculous hypothesis. I have mentioned that before but have achieved nothing but absolute refusal to think about the question. Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something. Why people cannot comprehend this as a significant difficulty is simply beyond me.

 

 

Well, there are many ways to express that problem, and of course there are people who have famously discussed various aspects related to that problem (such as Kant and Kuhn and Korzybski). Maybe the problem is that a lot of people have settled to some kind of "just is" explanation, whose understanding or at least whose communication relies on ontological assumptions of some sort. I.e. there has not really been good or at least well known attempts that do without assuming that some aspects of our world view are explicitly correct. Also, it is probably impossible topic to communicate without making at least some unwanted implications towards that effect, and the reader really needs to be able to see the forest from the trees.

 

As to the expression of the problem itself, maybe a good way to discuss it is to point out that there is no such thing as an experience of what something is, or an experience of reality itself, but more accurately you can only experience what some information means to you.

 

We have two simple assertions which, superficially, appear to imply that having a world view is not possible;

 

- What some information means to you, must be a function of your world view.

- Your world view must be a function of what some information means to you.

 

Now there are many issues where this could branch off to from here, and it appears that typically people just explain this dilemma to themselves without careful analysis, by thinking that the information "just does" represent itself in some clear form to some learning mechanisms, which then somehow becomes able to figure out how the world works from that information.

 

If we take a look at that dilemma a bit more carefully, we will end up understanding something about why those epistemological/ontological aspects and musings expressed by Kant, Kuhn, Korzybski, Searle, Metzinger and many others, exist.

 

So, let's discuss, what do those two assertions actually imply, regarding our world views?

 

-Anssi