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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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I could be wrong here, but it sure seems to me that the field of cosmology provides plenty of integrationist if not magical explanations.
My understanding is the field of cosmology is in search of models which can explain what we observe and are mathematical and logically consistent; that everything is on the table until it isn't. So those aren't "magical explanations", rather they're ideas proffered as part of that search.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Healyge you got a great mind keep it runnin
Good job today i learned much from ya
you ever eat at the Montage? man i miss that place
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Occasionally Blue, it's still there same as ever.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I'm interested in what you took from that article, Jan... in particular, what is this thing they are talking about: "naturalness"?
for a discussion of emergence, an interesting place is the Wiki article on reductionism
which leads to this paper by Phillip Anderson, which begins and ends with a couple of interesting paragraphs (and take umbrage with the particle physicists who were the a few generations before those in the article Jan cited):
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/bblonder/phys120/docs/anderson.pdf
"The reductionist hypothesis may still be a topic of controversy among philosophers, but among the great majority of active scientists I think it is accepted without question. The working of our minds and bodies, and of all the animate and inanimate matter of which we have any detailed knowledge, are assumed to be controlled by the same set of fundamental laws, except under extreme conditions we feel we know pretty well."
...
"The arrogance of the particle physicist and his intensive research may be behind us (the discoverer of the positron said "the rest is chemistry"), but we have yet to recover from that of some molecular biologists, who seem determined to try to reduce everything about the human organism to "only" chemistry, from the common cold and all mental disease to the religious instinct. Surely there are more levels of organization between human ethology and DNA than there are between DNA and quantum electrodynamics, and each level can require a whole net conceptual structure."
Oddly, while arguing against "constructivist" thinking, that we can build up an explanation of everything from the fundamental "laws" and attributing it to the hubris of the particle physicists, in biology it is the application of network theory, coming from Anderson's own field of material science, that considers the cell as a metabolic network regulated by the information encoded in the DNA, and provides an amazing insight into the functioning of a cell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_network
here is a review (about 10 years old) with the intriguing first paragraph
http://pdg.cnb.uam.es/pazos/cursos/bionet_UAM/BioNet_didactic_revs/02_Barabasi_network-biol_NatRevGen.pdf
"Reductionism, which has dominated biological research for over a century, has provided a wealth of knowledge about individual cellular components and their functions. Despite its enormous success, it is increasingly clear that a discrete biological function can only rarely be attributed to an individual molecule. Instead, most biological characteristics arise from complex interactions between the cell’s numerous constituents, such as proteins, DNA, RNA and small molecules1–8. Therefore, a key challenge for biology in the twenty-first century is to understand the structure and the dynamics of the complex intercellular web of interactions that contribute to the structure and function of a living cell."
...
"Conclusions
It is impossible to ignore the apparent universality we have witnessed by delving into the totality of pairwise interactions among the various molecules of a cell. Instead of chance and randomness, we have found a high degree of internal order that governs the cell’s molecular organization. Along the way, a new language has been created, which allows the cell’s molecular makeup to be discussed as a network of interacting constituents, and to spot and quantify the interplay between behaviour, structure and function. The cell can be approached from the bottom up, moving from molecules to motifs and modules, or from the top to the bottom, starting from the network’s scale-free and hierarchical nature and moving to the organism-specific modules and molecules5. In either case, it must be acknowledged that structure, topology, network usage, robustness and function are deeply interlinked, forcing us to complement the ‘local’ molecule-based research with integrated approaches that address the properties of the cell as a whole."
Reductionist?
put the title into Google Scholar and take a look at the 4431 papers that reference this one...
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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?!, ? ? ! ! alha Abkhaz shalom, Take your pick Christ be with you or peace...Would the brain spike at these words in a 'visual' way in the brain of a random people? Ala Jennifer Aniston?
That separately they are said to show faith, and respect when coming and going does not mean that they mean the same thing to the users of the words but the brain /spirit/soul link is triggered in the greater sphere so that it is said for effect losing or trading it's intimate respectful, meaning, it's affect. For a more strident form of inclusive xenophobia. Any way why test girls pictures when the brain is being probed and not the questions delt with here on of this thread? Some of, "by opposing forces" questions not overly open to speculation.
Do you belive? or the words themselves. What happens do they make the brain spike, show in the brain when said or represented ?....
You all have moved on......and not to look so stupid I was not one page off but two! missing until logged on?was all the meat! Even if I read it all again, it will be next week before I have digested it and can coment.
Silent Scream is a great route a proud send any wAY it went down or up. Eight is a great age! Congradulations on getting her out with good stoke and big smiles !! I am jealous, my kids love to swing and dangle, I blame it on the Gym experience.
wait . . . Carry on.......
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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The last part of that last paragraph is pretty much spot on from our perspective a decade later.
In either case, it must be acknowledged that structure, topology, network usage, robustness and function are deeply interlinked, forcing us to complement the ‘local’ molecule-based research with integrated approaches that address the properties of the cell as a whole.
We're just gotten to the point of being able to [functionally] model a cell:
A Whole-Cell Computational Model Predicts Phenotype from Genotype
Figure 1.
M. genitalium Whole-Cell Model Integrates 28 Submodels of Diverse Cellular Processes
(A) Diagram schematically depicts the 28 submodels as colored words—grouped by category as metabolic (orange), RNA (green), protein (blue), and DNA (red)—in the context of a single M. genitalium cell with its characteristic flask-like shape. Submodels are connected through common metabolites, RNA, protein, and the chromosome, which are depicted as orange, green, blue, and red arrows, respectively.
(B) The model integrates cellular function submodels through 16 cell variables. First, simulations are randomly initialized to the beginning of the cell cycle (left gray arrow). Next, for each 1 s time step (dark black arrows), the submodels retrieve the current values of the cellular variables, calculate their contributions to the temporal evolution of the cell variables, and update the values of the cellular variables. This is repeated thousands of times during the course of each simulation. For clarity, cell functions and variables are grouped into five physiologic categories: DNA (red), RNA (green), protein (blue), metabolite (orange), and other (black). Colored lines between the variables and submodels indicate the cell variables predicted by each submodel. The number of genes associated with each submodel is indicated in parentheses. Finally, simulations are terminated upon cell division when the septum diameter equals zero (right gray arrow).
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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"It is entirely plausible that consciousness is nothing more than a pragmatic use of our brains information gathering system which focuses attention on some stimuli at the expense of others. In this theory, consciousness may only be a generated construct (with no substantial properties) that gives a sense of awareness of our biological skill at attending to signals."
I think so.
(I might have left out the "nothing more than" and "may only be" parts though.)
.....
Ref for later, thanks Cintune...
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
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WBraun
climber
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If the brain gives rise to consciousness then it must have substantial properties
Yes consciousness MUST have properties.
Every living entity has individuality along with it's individual properties.
Largo's no thing does not mean there are no properties.
Also
It is entirely plausible
If the
In this theory
I think so
may only be
You can actually see by the above statements they are guessing and really have no clue.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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When I ask for clear language I recognize that I often don't make myself understood, either. My unhappiness with the word 'reductionist' probably has more to do with how it may reduce a person to a label or a type. As I heard Bill Russell say to a radio interviewer, "I am not a basketball player, I am a man who plays basketball."
Also, using plain language is no guarantee of making yourself understood, as Werner often reminds me.
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Meatbird
Social climber
Lindsay, OK
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Thanks Blue, your right that my comments smack of "we're looking through the glass darkly" thinking. However, stupidity, is not an accurate word for what I'm saying. I highly respect the intelligence of anyone willing to wrestle with the nature of human experience. I am saying that our imperfect manipulation of our language creates many pseudo problems that may essentially be unanswerable in existing constructs.
High Fructose your cautionary comments about my phrasing using "nothing more than" and "may only be" are well taken. That restrictive vocabulary is exactly what I'd like to avoid. I do value the world view that Jan and others so eloquently explicate. Using the word magic was meant to point out the way language slips into neutral when used in certain ways like emergent properties in describing human awareness. It's probably the wrong word because it sounds pejorative. I don't see current spiritualists as practicing magic but only as being dualistic thinkers trying to use a limited linguistic resource. I just disagree about how some of the linguistic tools are being used. I don't see them always matching the experience being described.
I also respectively disagree with Dingus and Werner about consciousness having to have substantial properties, at least, in the sense of how we commonly think of things existing. If awareness is a meta model of our skill at focusing attention on human experience, then it's possible, it has no properties other than a usefulness in binding particular experiences into a sense of self. It simply goes away when the neurons no longer fire do to injury or death.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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One thing I wanted to comment on also, Mh2, was your observation that so far what we know of brain research and language is based on English and different parts of the brain may be involved with certain words in other languages. Also that a particular area may light up because it is connected to the sound of the word rather than the meaning. In that regard, it would be fascinating to test English against Chinese with its tonal system. I think that would probably give us a really clear idea of which it is.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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And thanks Ed for your thoughtful reply. I'll need a couple of days to respond probably. As for the Is Nature Natural article, I was first of all surprised to learn that the discovery of the Higgs didn't yield the answers they had hoped. And speaking of vocabulary, while clever, I thought the use of the word natural as it was in the title, was misleading.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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that everything is on the table until it isn't. So those aren't "magical explanations", rather they're ideas proffered as part of that search.
Actually this is my approach to the teaching of comparative religion as well.
And to me the most frustrating part of the search for whether we live in a singular universe with universal natural laws or are just one bubble in a multiverse each with its own physics, is that none of us will likely ever know the answer in our lifetime. And then there's always the argument that quite possibly even the smartest among us is not equipped with a brain that can solve these problems.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Seems to me that if the problem can be conceptualized, then the solution is possible. Always reminds me of a dog that gets its leash wrapped around a tree. Not only is it unable to figure out how to unwind itself, the very nature of the problem is completely opaque.
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Bushman
Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
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'Tip of the Day'
Always use the torn end of a paper match to remove the present bubble multiverse reality stuck up in the corner of your eye.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Just a reminder that emergence is a perfectly legitimate term in the proper context, as here where a programmed cellular automaton produces patterns either beyond the scope of reasonable prediction or extraordinarily difficult to predict. Where a computer is involved, as here, the term weak emergence is applied. Strong emergence may apply to consciousness.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jan did you have a link for this? Thanks
video of Kanzi the talking bonobo
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Actually, the use of the word "natural" is the central point of the article, but unfortunately it was assumed that the reader would understand what that meant.
Cosmology, and particle physicists participation in it, have had to ponder the question of how could we come to be in the universe. If you take a very common argument on the likelihood of everything be "just so" you can calculate a vanishingly low probability that human life could arise from "random" occurrence.
Of course, just how you construct those probabilities is important. You have to assume that you know the the number of occurrences (usually we take that to be 1, as we only know about this one universe) and then attempt to calculate how many other possible things could have happened. We divide these two things and get our probability.
But the point of the "naturalness" argument is that since we exist, it cannot be unlikely, otherwise we wouldn't exist.
That argues that the universe, the laws and constants that govern the universe, can not be "fine tuned." The requirement for "fine tuning" means that the universe we live in would be unlikely. So the physics of the universe has to be "natural" that is, the constants, laws, etc... would be likely given any universe.
That is, the denominator we used above to calculate the probability, which was 'how many other possible things could have happened,' the naturalness argument would say this number has to be close to 1. It could be 2 or 10 or maybe even 100, but it can't be a very large value.
The problem with the Higgs is that we think we knew what the mass should have been, and it's turned out lighter than we thought from this "naturalness" criteria. So we assume it would require some "fine tuning" that would make our existence very unlikely.
Here is the Wiki article on it (which I just now found myself). It concerns itself with the values of the constants, but it turns out that this has very deep connections with the physical laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalness_(physics);
This is not an example of emergent phenomena. It might be a example of analyzing something "wholistically" but the whole outcome is informing the underlying bits, which is reductionist.
Probably best to think of it as de-constructing the whole to the underlying bits, and inferring what the bits have to be like.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Blue-
Here's the best of the videos about Kanzi. It repeats itself at 39 minute for a few seconds but isn't broken, just badly recorded, and then continues on. Kanzi uses a computer sign board and listens to his tests with ear phones to preclude the possibility that he's getting cues from his human trainers (note they stand behind him).It's also interesting because it compares the brain size and bone structure of bonobos to Austrolopithecines, the ancestors of the first humans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-vVR7z8lw
If you want to see what they're like on their own in the wild, here's another video that shows how bonobos live in the Congo in the wild.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnDUV8xB8mo
And for another talking ape who is bilingual in spoken English and sign language, here's Koko the gorilla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk
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