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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 18, 2017 - 03:44am PT
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Lovelock describes Gaia metaphorically as a living organism, struggling to maintain its homeostasis under the growing stress of climate change.
Although Carson does not specifically reference the “one life” hypothesis in her book, she consistently uses a “web of life” (69) metaphor which also emphasizes Earth’s living qualities through both Romantic descriptions and scientific analysis
I have mentioned it before, but many folks out there consider all life on the planet as simply the current expression of a global pool of DNA and that the global pool is always seeking to maximize its expression under the environmental and ecological conditions current on the planet. The idea probably got somewhat cribbed from mycology where what we call 'mushrooms' are actually just the 'fruiting bodies' of an underlying fungal culture.
And it's not a case of "struggling to maintain its homeostasis", but rather the opposite given the planet is always changing. Rather than seeking homeostasis, the global pool of DNA is always chasing the rabbit on a dog track of ecological change.
If one takes this perspective, then notions 'Gaia', 'web of life', and 'one life' are all in fact quite accurate to the reality of life on the planet and there's nothing romantic about it.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 18, 2017 - 10:35am PT
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What does this test tell you about the mind of the bird?
I'll take the feralfae answer:
2). That the mind of the bird is a problem-solving system and structure.
But that answer can be expanded a bit. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the bird has in its mind a picture, or model, of the external world which it can manipulate in the form of ideas, or imaginative possibilities, or hypotheses, in order to solve problems. The bird seemed to know what to do on the second set-up of the test without any trial-and-error learning. It may have learned a little from the first set-up about what would not work, but its solution showed what the guy who did the test called insight.
taken from
Mind of the Raven
Bernd Heinrich
What the raven (named Matt) did to get the salami could be characterized as a step-by-step terminating procedure to reach a goal.
How the raven came up with the idea?
It is certain that the combinations which present themselves to the mind in a kind of sudden illumination after a somewhat prolonged period of unconscious work are generally useful and fruitful combinations... all the combinations are formed as a result of the automatic action of the subliminal ego, but those only which are interesting find their way into the field of consciousness... A few only are harmonious, and consequently at once useful and beautiful, and they will be capable of affecting the geometrician's special sensibility I have been speaking of; which, once aroused, will direct our attention upon them, and will thus give them the opportunity of becoming conscious... In the subliminal ego, on the contrary, there reigns what I would call liberty, if one could give this name to the mere absence of discipline and to disorder born of chance."
-Henri Poincaré Science and Method 1914
edit:
And of course:
salami has the potential to alter the quantum-mechanical structure and problem-solving design of the bird's brain
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 18, 2017 - 02:25pm PT
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Mobey Dick ??? Never mind. Inconsequential.
Poincaré anticipated some of Einstein's Special Relativity theory. But he didn't accept Einstein's interpretations. He seems to have sided with Bergson's notions of duration. (beyond my paygrade, however)
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Jul 18, 2017 - 05:21pm PT
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Ed:
What is the supposed quantum mechanical characteristics of the brain/mind?
What is the supposed quantum mechanical characteristics of a forest, or a tree?
I am sure you would agree that photosynthesis is a quantum mechanical charistic of a tree, would you not?
ff
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 18, 2017 - 05:22pm PT
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beyond my paygrade
Although we may have congregated around The Wizard, we sit at a Round Table here.
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Jul 18, 2017 - 05:23pm PT
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Glad to have you on board, feralfae. My comment on God the ultimate algorithm was only a joke on the supposed origin of the word "algorithm." As someone said about humor, "If people laugh, it was funny. If they don't, it wasn't."
It is very funny; my mind was off on an tangent of wonder at the Indian who invented zero as a place-holder for our numeric notations. What minds! And thus, a segue back to the topic at screen. . .
:)
ff
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 18, 2017 - 07:15pm PT
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all of chemistry is quantum mechanical...
so?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 18, 2017 - 07:58pm PT
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I still think of algorithm in a looser sense, like the Collins/Webster Dictionary definition: 'Procedural model for complicated calculations'. I would go further and say it is a well-defined procedure. Certainly any computer applications must terminate. But the procedures for functional expansions would qualify for me. And in practice of course they are terminated.
For example, a simple way to expand something as a continued fraction is to write, for a1 "large" and b1 "small", F = a1 + b1 = a1 + 1/(1/b1) = a1 + 1/(a2 + b2) = a1 + 1/[a2+1/(1/b2)], etc. This is algorithmic or procedural. The point of termination is an additional feature of the process. But this is hair-splitting. (Although one reason we never really get anywhere on this thread is that even fundamental concepts like awareness are pathetically ill-defined)
But interesting comments about Hilbert and algorithms, Tim. I had pretty much spaced all that out. My math is ancient and elementary, figuratively speaking!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 18, 2017 - 08:48pm PT
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Perhaps the word "program" would suffice for any well-defined procedure, and "algorithm" could be reserved for the specialists in computer science, math, and logic.
Back in the early 60s a friend and I got introduced to computing at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, NY, where both of our fathers worked. One day we went to see the machine itself and a frame was pulled out from it to show us the wires strung like a tennis racket with a little metal donut at each intersection. That was the memory. The flow chart method of programming greatly intrigued us and back home I created a flow chart for doing the laundry, with the diamond-shaped decision points having YES and NO arrows splitting from them.
It is a whole different level of wonder when one learns that there was a time before zero. To be more clear: a time before humans had the idea and rules for using zero. It is fair to wonder whether we are missing a similar idea today that will become fundamental and ordinary in the future. Only math will tell.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 18, 2017 - 09:03pm PT
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Paul and others speculate that increase in intelligence may well lead to levels far beyond ours. Quite possibly they are right. In that case, something that is so abstract and complicated for us at present that only a select few at least partially understand it may later be seen as fundamental and simple.
General relativity at some future time may be a subject for third-graders.
;>\
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 19, 2017 - 08:41am PT
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Thanks for the article, heleyje! I'm downloading it for my biological anthropology classes.
Interesting that the same circuits for making tools are used for piano playing, indicating that music and dance came before language also. That co-relates well with the findings of speed reading that people memorize better when listening to music with a steady beat (about 60 per minute is best) and making some kind of motions with their body at the same time. Once again, it seems that evolution adds to what exists rather than making dramatic changes in the existing organism.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jul 19, 2017 - 09:21am PT
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and making some kind of motions with their body at the same time.
When I'm working on a piece of music and undecided about its possible direction, I often find myself dancing to it in order to put together clues about where and how to proceed from that point forward. The dancing also helps to consolidate what I've already written, which is continually subject to revision.
The dancing helps to tell me what to do. Apparently it's yoked, perhaps subliminally, to an underlying rational process or outcome. I don't like to think about that connection overly much lest I clumsily jinx the whole thing, rendering it to ineffectiveness.
And perhaps near a hard fought conclusion, after lots of hard work, dancing can help to finally wrap everything together-- in a fun celebratory sort of way.
Along those lines it is easy for me to appreciate why and how early hunter/gatherers may have found it necessary to dance both before and after a particularly difficult and dangerous hunt. Ritualized dance not just merely confined to gratefully appeasing the spirits -- but in a clear utilitarian way having to do with method and performance.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jul 19, 2017 - 12:50pm PT
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pacing and composing the meter
I'm reminded of Beethoven who would often go on long walks through the Austran countryside (during visits to his brother's house) either stomping with his feet or with his cane ,or both. The aging composer was nearly deaf by then but he could still make out the dull thuds,in unison with the rhythmic pacing motion , well enough to help allow the composition of the last series of string quartets during these walks--- some of the more exquisite ever composed.
Erik Satie, the French composer, received an inheritance that allowed him to purchase a residence many miles from his old Parisian neighborhood and yet he still insisted on walking to his former haunts to spend the days eating,drinking, socializing, and taking in the occasional play, or musical performance. Many times he would miss the last outbound train and be forced to walk the 8 miles home very late at night. Nevertheless he would awake the next morning and walk the 8 miles back to his old neighborhood.
When asked about his long walks he merely replied "they are good for my compositions."
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2017 - 01:57pm PT
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One of the things that is most persistent here is what one British neuroscientist called "mechanitus." That is, if causal/mechanistic thinking is all that you are conscious of, then the entire world will look like that, and Dingus McGeee will still go on about his bit rates (computer metaphor) for awareness - a model not derived from looking at his own process, but rather derived from a provisional model based on the computer metaphor, which is all about processing.
Thing is, Dingus, awareness is not a processing agent, though I can easily see why you keep flubbing this point since you are looking at one thing and guessing about another.
Like I've said many times, for anyone to get clear on even the basics of this, you have to differentiate for yourself how your own creative process differs from that of a machine, and how awareness is the key component of this.
Of course to do so you'd have to look at your own process, NOT a computer, and many on this thread are scared off or made bored by a process they have never investigated at depth - but think they have. If you have, you'd never talk about awareness as a processing agent. You'd know better - of that you may be sure.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 19, 2017 - 03:14pm PT
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We are not worthy.
I am sure that Zen-sitting eventually leads to certain 'insights' that diverge from the intellect, but there is no reason to conclude that these reveal anything beyond a simple alternate state of mind. And there are many alternate states of mind. Do all of them provide glimpses of fundamental truths?
It may not help your argument to suggest those who choose not to meditate lack some sort of sense of adventure, courage, or persistence.
John, your comments supporting your position on awareness more and more to me parallel Bergson's attempts to explain his notion of Time, in which he advanced a definition which Einstein refuted. I don't really understand Bergson's concept, but it mingles the subjective and physical in a sort of duration which he believed to be the proper definition. At one point the author of the book I am reading says something to the effect that one should not take what Bergson says literally. Thus one is left with intuiting the idea, I suppose.
However, it would appear that, long-forgotten, Bergson's concept of time has been resuscitated among some philosophers, so who knows what will come of that?
Edit: Norton, ↓ already cited by healyje, above.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 19, 2017 - 07:21pm PT
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Hmmmm...
Some of the data presented have been analyzed by using new mathematical designs.
Sounds intriguing. Whether the math is novel or not, Pakkenberg and Gundersen may be pioneers of a sort.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9215725
It once was surprising to be told that the brain has more than a billion neurons, but now we learn that it may have 0.15 quadrillion synapses.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12543266
Let's see. Between 10 and 100 billion neurons firing at rates between 1 and 100 times per second activating 150,000,000,000,000 synapses...
Yes!! I managed to make a sandwich.
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