Unmediated perception - sheldrake

[Prof David West]

A longer attempt to address issues raised by Nick and Steve Smith - separate threaded so those not interested can quickly bypass.

Crude metaphor follows.

Consider this description of an ensemble: a "signal" and a "crystal." The signal has an attribute, say frequency, and the crystal has an attribute, say structure (arrangement of atoms perhaps) such that the crystal in the presence of the signal exhibits a behavior, say vibrates, and that vibration is expressed as an output, say emission of an electrical current. If  the signal is variable in some dimension, the behavior of the crystal echoes that variation as does the output.

The ensemble is a crudely described crystal radio. Is there, in this description, anything that is perceiving? experiencing?

Make some suppositions: First, a mechanism of some sort (absorption of energy from the signal by crystal?) such that an attribute of the crystal, its structure, is altered a bit, and its behavior (vibrating) is modified a bit, as is the output. Second, the output is not otherly directed as in the crystal radio, but is feedback to the signal itself and modifies that signal but the same tiny bit.

The ensemble is closed and although inside the ensemble there are two things (signal and crystal), hence a dualism, from the outside we see something not inconsistent with a Leibniz -ian monad.

Perceiver / Experiencer still absent.

Assemble and organize a bunch of these monads to create a more interesting ensemble, something resembling a computer. We still have a "signal," its frequency limited to a sequence of square waves (a program expressed ordered 1s and 0s); and a "crystal" with the the attribute of structure (more complicated than an arrangement of atoms, but still nothing more than a structure). Assume the same feedback mechanism, something like a binary string in, the same string, with a bit or two flipped, out.

Because this is a closed system, there is a hidden assumption, that signal "loops" in some fashion: Turing's infinite tape with its ends spliced together. [For reasons not important here, it can be assumed that the length of the tape is infinite only because it is circular, but the diameter of the circle expands in parallel with the age of the Universe.]

Still no Perceiver / Experiencer.

Now, using these descriptions to address questions of Nick and Steve Smith, Steve first.

If you have a lot of ensembles each of which has a crystal with the same structure, they will respond to the same signal (frequency).

Both Sheldrake and Hoffman assert that the "crystal's" structure is determined by morphology. All entities with similar morphology will have a similarly structured "crystal" and therefore respond/react to the same signal.  Both assume a single signal. — as if there was but one global (universal) radio station broadcasting on frequency Y and all crystals with structure X vibrate in the presence of that sole signal.

For Hoffman it pretty much ends there - and only accounts for the commonality of the interface among those with the same morphology.

Sheldrake goes further, and asserts the existence of the feedback mechanism describe earlier. Since there is one signal, all of the crystals responding that signal, modify the signal with their individual outputs; such that the looping signal, with its modifications, is common input to all crystals to behave in the same, signal determined, alternate manner.

Sheldrake's model is nothing other than a model of culture, where shared culture predisposes individual behavior, but variations in individual behavior can feedback and alter the probabilities of behavior X and X' given the same context. This allows culture to evolve - most of the time slowly, but occasionally quite dramatically.

Sheldrake simply wants his mechanism to be grounded in physics or metaphysics.

Now Nick,

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

This is the dualism of which you stand accused: two things, Experience and Experiencer. This may very well be a dualism that is imposed, by language, and not intrinsic to belief/philosophy.

Many times your words, and those of Peirce, suggest that it is merely language causing the dualism problem, but then the "program" the reason for thinking and talking about experience and truth and convergence of experience, etc. suggests that the dualism is integral to the ideas.  Still trying to figure that out and love to have it explained to me so that I can see IT>

But the question of unmediated experience — the mediator is the Experiencer.

There is not some kind of Hoffmann-ish Interface that is mediating perception — it is the epiphenomonological [Ego | Observer | Perceiver | Self | Aware Entity] that is absent.

Of course there is no way to describe or speak of or talk about this "state of existence" except when "It" is not extant. They mystic's eternal dilemma.

davew




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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Nick Thompson]

Dave,

 

Your contribution needs to be "honored" by an hour or two of larding which I cannot do right now.  Let's just say I owe you some lard.

 

But one passage bemused me particularly, and I thought you might direct my understanding of it.

 

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

 

Why isn’t this just a version of , “And then a miracle happened!”  Certainly, for Frank it’s the whole ball game.  And for Descartes, too?   I don’t think that as a monist I can have “emergence,” except to say, perhaps, that some properties of ensembles are not given by their components but by the arrangement or order of inclusion of the components. 

 

I will get back to this late this afternoon.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:35 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

A longer attempt to address issues raised by Nick and Steve Smith - separate threaded so those not interested can quickly bypass.

 

Crude metaphor follows.

 

Consider this description of an ensemble: a "signal" and a "crystal." The signal has an attribute, say frequency, and the crystal has an attribute, say structure (arrangement of atoms perhaps) such that the crystal in the presence of the signal exhibits a behavior, say vibrates, and that vibration is expressed as an output, say emission of an electrical current. If  the signal is variable in some dimension, the behavior of the crystal echoes that variation as does the output.

 

The ensemble is a crudely described crystal radio. Is there, in this description, anything that is perceiving? experiencing?

 

Make some suppositions: First, a mechanism of some sort (absorption of energy from the signal by crystal?) such that an attribute of the crystal, its structure, is altered a bit, and its behavior (vibrating) is modified a bit, as is the output. Second, the output is not otherly directed as in the crystal radio, but is feedback to the signal itself and modifies that signal but the same tiny bit.

 

The ensemble is closed and although inside the ensemble there are two things (signal and crystal), hence a dualism, from the outside we see something not inconsistent with a Leibniz -ian monad.

 

Perceiver / Experiencer still absent.

 

Assemble and organize a bunch of these monads to create a more interesting ensemble, something resembling a computer. We still have a "signal," its frequency limited to a sequence of square waves (a program expressed ordered 1s and 0s); and a "crystal" with the the attribute of structure (more complicated than an arrangement of atoms, but still nothing more than a structure). Assume the same feedback mechanism, something like a binary string in, the same string, with a bit or two flipped, out.

 

Because this is a closed system, there is a hidden assumption, that signal "loops" in some fashion: Turing's infinite tape with its ends spliced together. [For reasons not important here, it can be assumed that the length of the tape is infinite only because it is circular, but the diameter of the circle expands in parallel with the age of the Universe.]

 

Still no Perceiver / Experiencer.

 

Now, using these descriptions to address questions of Nick and Steve Smith, Steve first.

 

If you have a lot of ensembles each of which has a crystal with the same structure, they will respond to the same signal (frequency).

 

Both Sheldrake and Hoffman assert that the "crystal's" structure is determined by morphology. All entities with similar morphology will have a similarly structured "crystal" and therefore respond/react to the same signal.  Both assume a single signal. — as if there was but one global (universal) radio station broadcasting on frequency Y and all crystals with structure X vibrate in the presence of that sole signal.

 

For Hoffman it pretty much ends there - and only accounts for the commonality of the interface among those with the same morphology.

 

Sheldrake goes further, and asserts the existence of the feedback mechanism describe earlier. Since there is one signal, all of the crystals responding that signal, modify the signal with their individual outputs; such that the looping signal, with its modifications, is common input to all crystals to behave in the same, signal determined, alternate manner.

 

Sheldrake's model is nothing other than a model of culture, where shared culture predisposes individual behavior, but variations in individual behavior can feedback and alter the probabilities of behavior X and X' given the same context. This allows culture to evolve - most of the time slowly, but occasionally quite dramatically.

 

Sheldrake simply wants his mechanism to be grounded in physics or metaphysics.

 

Now Nick,

 

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

 

This is the dualism of which you stand accused: two things, Experience and Experiencer. This may very well be a dualism that is imposed, by language, and not intrinsic to belief/philosophy.

 

Many times your words, and those of Peirce, suggest that it is merely language causing the dualism problem, but then the "program" the reason for thinking and talking about experience and truth and convergence of experience, etc. suggests that the dualism is integral to the ideas.  Still trying to figure that out and love to have it explained to me so that I can see IT>

 

But the question of unmediated experience — the mediator is the Experiencer.

 

There is not some kind of Hoffmann-ish Interface that is mediating perception — it is the epiphenomonological [Ego | Observer | Perceiver | Self | Aware Entity] that is absent.

 

Of course there is no way to describe or speak of or talk about this "state of existence" except when "It" is not extant. They mystic's eternal dilemma.

 

davew

 

 

 

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Prof David West]

Don’t think it is a miracle. Just a new property of the ensemble arising from an ordering or an arrangement. Scale plays a role only in making ordering/arrangements possible that were not there before. If you only have three monads, you cannot have an ordering resembling a square.

The only subterfuge is an unspoken assumption that when a sufficient number of Experiencers discuss their experiences they will converge on the name, and common understanding of that behind the name, of “self awareness.”

But, intentionally or not, you make me think that you are not a “thing” monist, but a “flow” monist.  Yes they are different, but will have to wait for a later time to discuss. But even with that difference I don’t think my argument or response changes.

davew

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, at 5:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Dave,

 

Your contribution needs to be "honored" by an hour or two of larding which I cannot do right now.  Let's just say I owe you some lard.

 

But one passage bemused me particularly, and I thought you might direct my understanding of it.

 

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

 

Why isn’t this just a version of , “And then a miracle happened!”  Certainly, for Frank it’s the whole ball game.  And for Descartes, too?   I don’t think that as a monist I can have “emergence,” except to say, perhaps, that some properties of ensembles are not given by their components but by the arrangement or order of inclusion of the components. 

 

I will get back to this late this afternoon.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:35 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

A longer attempt to address issues raised by Nick and Steve Smith - separate threaded so those not interested can quickly bypass.

 

Crude metaphor follows.

 

Consider this description of an ensemble: a "signal" and a "crystal." The signal has an attribute, say frequency, and the crystal has an attribute, say structure (arrangement of atoms perhaps) such that the crystal in the presence of the signal exhibits a behavior, say vibrates, and that vibration is expressed as an output, say emission of an electrical current. If  the signal is variable in some dimension, the behavior of the crystal echoes that variation as does the output.

 

The ensemble is a crudely described crystal radio. Is there, in this description, anything that is perceiving? experiencing?

 

Make some suppositions: First, a mechanism of some sort (absorption of energy from the signal by crystal?) such that an attribute of the crystal, its structure, is altered a bit, and its behavior (vibrating) is modified a bit, as is the output. Second, the output is not otherly directed as in the crystal radio, but is feedback to the signal itself and modifies that signal but the same tiny bit.

 

The ensemble is closed and although inside the ensemble there are two things (signal and crystal), hence a dualism, from the outside we see something not inconsistent with a Leibniz -ian monad.

 

Perceiver / Experiencer still absent.

 

Assemble and organize a bunch of these monads to create a more interesting ensemble, something resembling a computer. We still have a "signal," its frequency limited to a sequence of square waves (a program expressed ordered 1s and 0s); and a "crystal" with the the attribute of structure (more complicated than an arrangement of atoms, but still nothing more than a structure). Assume the same feedback mechanism, something like a binary string in, the same string, with a bit or two flipped, out.

 

Because this is a closed system, there is a hidden assumption, that signal "loops" in some fashion: Turing's infinite tape with its ends spliced together. [For reasons not important here, it can be assumed that the length of the tape is infinite only because it is circular, but the diameter of the circle expands in parallel with the age of the Universe.]

 

Still no Perceiver / Experiencer.

 

Now, using these descriptions to address questions of Nick and Steve Smith, Steve first.

 

If you have a lot of ensembles each of which has a crystal with the same structure, they will respond to the same signal (frequency).

 

Both Sheldrake and Hoffman assert that the "crystal's" structure is determined by morphology. All entities with similar morphology will have a similarly structured "crystal" and therefore respond/react to the same signal.  Both assume a single signal. — as if there was but one global (universal) radio station broadcasting on frequency Y and all crystals with structure X vibrate in the presence of that sole signal.

 

For Hoffman it pretty much ends there - and only accounts for the commonality of the interface among those with the same morphology.

 

Sheldrake goes further, and asserts the existence of the feedback mechanism describe earlier. Since there is one signal, all of the crystals responding that signal, modify the signal with their individual outputs; such that the looping signal, with its modifications, is common input to all crystals to behave in the same, signal determined, alternate manner.

 

Sheldrake's model is nothing other than a model of culture, where shared culture predisposes individual behavior, but variations in individual behavior can feedback and alter the probabilities of behavior X and X' given the same context. This allows culture to evolve - most of the time slowly, but occasionally quite dramatically.

 

Sheldrake simply wants his mechanism to be grounded in physics or metaphysics.

 

Now Nick,

 

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

 

This is the dualism of which you stand accused: two things, Experience and Experiencer. This may very well be a dualism that is imposed, by language, and not intrinsic to belief/philosophy.

 

Many times your words, and those of Peirce, suggest that it is merely language causing the dualism problem, but then the "program" the reason for thinking and talking about experience and truth and convergence of experience, etc. suggests that the dualism is integral to the ideas.  Still trying to figure that out and love to have it explained to me so that I can see IT>

 

But the question of unmediated experience — the mediator is the Experiencer.

 

There is not some kind of Hoffmann-ish Interface that is mediating perception — it is the epiphenomonological [Ego | Observer | Perceiver | Self | Aware Entity] that is absent.

 

Of course there is no way to describe or speak of or talk about this "state of existence" except when "It" is not extant. They mystic's eternal dilemma.

 

davew

 

 

 

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 12:23 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

Don’t think it is a miracle. Just a new property of the ensemble arising from an ordering or an arrangement. Scale plays a role only in making ordering/arrangements possible that were not there before. If you only have three monads, you cannot have an ordering resembling a square.

 

The only subterfuge is an unspoken assumption that when a sufficient number of Experiencers discuss their experiences they will converge on the name, and common understanding of that behind the name, of “self awareness.”

 

But, intentionally or not, you make me think that you are not a “thing” monist, but a “flow” monist.  Yes they are different, but will have to wait for a later time to discuss. But even with that difference I don’t think my argument or response changes.

 

davew

 

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, at 5:17 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Dave,

 

Your contribution needs to be "honored" by an hour or two of larding which I cannot do right now.  Let's just say I owe you some lard.

 

But one passage bemused me particularly, and I thought you might direct my understanding of it.

 

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

 

Why isn’t this just a version of , “And then a miracle happened!”  Certainly, for Frank it’s the whole ball game.  And for Descartes, too?   I don’t think that as a monist I can have “emergence,” except to say, perhaps, that some properties of ensembles are not given by their components but by the arrangement or order of inclusion of the components. 

 

I will get back to this late this afternoon.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:35 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

A longer attempt to address issues raised by Nick and Steve Smith - separate threaded so those not interested can quickly bypass.

 

Crude metaphor follows.

 

Consider this description of an ensemble: a "signal" and a "crystal." The signal has an attribute, say frequency, and the crystal has an attribute, say structure (arrangement of atoms perhaps) such that the crystal in the presence of the signal exhibits a behavior, say vibrates, and that vibration is expressed as an output, say emission of an electrical current. If  the signal is variable in some dimension, the behavior of the crystal echoes that variation as does the output.

 

The ensemble is a crudely described crystal radio. Is there, in this description, anything that is perceiving? experiencing?

 

Make some suppositions: First, a mechanism of some sort (absorption of energy from the signal by crystal?) such that an attribute of the crystal, its structure, is altered a bit, and its behavior (vibrating) is modified a bit, as is the output. Second, the output is not otherly directed as in the crystal radio, but is feedback to the signal itself and modifies that signal but the same tiny bit.

 

The ensemble is closed and although inside the ensemble there are two things (signal and crystal), hence a dualism, from the outside we see something not inconsistent with a Leibniz -ian monad.

 

Perceiver / Experiencer still absent.

 

Assemble and organize a bunch of these monads to create a more interesting ensemble, something resembling a computer. We still have a "signal," its frequency limited to a sequence of square waves (a program expressed ordered 1s and 0s); and a "crystal" with the the attribute of structure (more complicated than an arrangement of atoms, but still nothing more than a structure). Assume the same feedback mechanism, something like a binary string in, the same string, with a bit or two flipped, out.

 

Because this is a closed system, there is a hidden assumption, that signal "loops" in some fashion: Turing's infinite tape with its ends spliced together. [For reasons not important here, it can be assumed that the length of the tape is infinite only because it is circular, but the diameter of the circle expands in parallel with the age of the Universe.]

 

Still no Perceiver / Experiencer.

 

Now, using these descriptions to address questions of Nick and Steve Smith, Steve first.

 

If you have a lot of ensembles each of which has a crystal with the same structure, they will respond to the same signal (frequency).

 

Both Sheldrake and Hoffman assert that the "crystal's" structure is determined by morphology. All entities with similar morphology will have a similarly structured "crystal" and therefore respond/react to the same signal.  Both assume a single signal. — as if there was but one global (universal) radio station broadcasting on frequency Y and all crystals with structure X vibrate in the presence of that sole signal.

 

For Hoffman it pretty much ends there - and only accounts for the commonality of the interface among those with the same morphology.

 

Sheldrake goes further, and asserts the existence of the feedback mechanism describe earlier. Since there is one signal, all of the crystals responding that signal, modify the signal with their individual outputs; such that the looping signal, with its modifications, is common input to all crystals to behave in the same, signal determined, alternate manner.

 

Sheldrake's model is nothing other than a model of culture, where shared culture predisposes individual behavior, but variations in individual behavior can feedback and alter the probabilities of behavior X and X' given the same context. This allows culture to evolve - most of the time slowly, but occasionally quite dramatically.

 

Sheldrake simply wants his mechanism to be grounded in physics or metaphysics.

 

Now Nick,

 

When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.

 

This is the dualism of which you stand accused: two things, Experience and Experiencer. This may very well be a dualism that is imposed, by language, and not intrinsic to belief/philosophy.

 

Many times your words, and those of Peirce, suggest that it is merely language causing the dualism problem, but then the "program" the reason for thinking and talking about experience and truth and convergence of experience, etc. suggests that the dualism is integral to the ideas.  Still trying to figure that out and love to have it explained to me so that I can see IT>

 

But the question of unmediated experience — the mediator is the Experiencer.

 

There is not some kind of Hoffmann-ish Interface that is mediating perception — it is the epiphenomonological [Ego | Observer | Perceiver | Self | Aware Entity] that is absent.

 

Of course there is no way to describe or speak of or talk about this "state of existence" except when "It" is not extant. They mystic's eternal dilemma.

 

davew

 

 

 

 

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Geez, Steve,

 

I didn’t know that morphs COULD resonate.

 

What on earth are you talking about?

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:32 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

 

 

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

 

Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Geez, Steve,

 

I didn’t know that morphs COULD resonate.

 

What on earth are you talking about?

What Dave just said in description of Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance"...   a resonant coupling amongst things which have the same morphology  (shape).  In your case, you and Dave apparently have similar "intellectual resonant chambers" which, in this treatment "begin to resonate" as you spend enough time "coupling" (in conversation).  

Following the analogy (stronger/more-formal than a metaphor I propose), when you "couple" with others who you end up disagreeing with, I suspect it starts out  a bit like a barbershop quartet... one member hitting a tone and another following by hitting the same tone, but as the progression gets more  complex, the *differences* in your tonality starts to expose itself as dissonances.   I credit you "harmonizing" with Dave in this (and perhaps other) instance to Dave for *trying* to help you find the same note (as I am here).  

The Nick and Frank show (e.g. recent analogy to train conductors) seems to be a deliberate study/applicatoin in dissonance... one of you hits a note  and the other intuitively (or with great intellectual effort) factors the composing frequencies of that note and responds with a new note that has *none* or *few* of the same composing frequencies, generating a complex set of beat frequencies anew.   I don't know how much this type of deliberate dissonance is used in echolocating creatures (bats, cetaceans, ???) but finding *dissonance* seems potentially *more useful* than resonance in some cases?

- Steve

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:32 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

 

 

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

 

Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Dave -

Sympathetic Resonance is a well accepted, even fairly easy to observe
phenomenon in the overt physical world (e.g. stringed musical
instruments).  

Sheldrake seems to *start* from there and then go *all over the place*
with it.   I don't have a problem of positing that there are
higher-level strata in which this phenomena can operate (e.g. "memes")
but Sheldrake (or maybe just his most zealous groupies?) seem to stretch
it arbitrarily to fit *anything* they want to believe might be "in
resonance" (e.g. the law of similars where a plant remedy "heals" the
heart because it has a "heart shape" (a valentine is not really that
heart-shaped BTW)).

Brin's "Practice Effect" seemed to be a parody of such things.

I think I heard (but can't seem to find?) you say that Sheldrake has a
significant store of supporting data.   I've always assumed what I've
seen that was relatively compelling to simply be "cherry picked" and
"post hoc".   Do you believe otherwise?

- Steve

> Assemble and organize a bunch of these monads to create a more interesting ensemble, something resembling a computer. We still have a "signal," its frequency limited to a sequence of square waves (a program expressed ordered 1s and 0s); and a "crystal" with the the attribute of structure (more complicated than an arrangement of atoms, but still nothing more than a structure). Assume the same feedback mechanism, something like a binary string in, the same string, with a bit or two flipped, out.
>
> Because this is a closed system, there is a hidden assumption, that signal "loops" in some fashion: Turing's infinite tape with its ends spliced together. [For reasons not important here, it can be assumed that the length of the tape is infinite only because it is circular, but the diameter of the circle expands in parallel with the age of the Universe.]
>
> Still no Perceiver / Experiencer.
>
> Now, using these descriptions to address questions of Nick and Steve Smith, Steve first.
>
> If you have a lot of ensembles each of which has a crystal with the same structure, they will respond to the same signal (frequency).
>
> Both Sheldrake and Hoffman assert that the "crystal's" structure is determined by morphology. All entities with similar morphology will have a similarly structured "crystal" and therefore respond/react to the same signal.  Both assume a single signal. — as if there was but one global (universal) radio station broadcasting on frequency Y and all crystals with structure X vibrate in the presence of that sole signal.
>
> For Hoffman it pretty much ends there - and only accounts for the commonality of the interface among those with the same morphology.
>
> Sheldrake goes further, and asserts the existence of the feedback mechanism describe earlier. Since there is one signal, all of the crystals responding that signal, modify the signal with their individual outputs; such that the looping signal, with its modifications, is common input to all crystals to behave in the same, signal determined, alternate manner.
>
> Sheldrake's model is nothing other than a model of culture, where shared culture predisposes individual behavior, but variations in individual behavior can feedback and alter the probabilities of behavior X and X' given the same context. This allows culture to evolve - most of the time slowly, but occasionally quite dramatically.
>
> Sheldrake simply wants his mechanism to be grounded in physics or metaphysics.

The part of Sheldrake (and Hoffman) that I get implicitly is the
"coupled oscillator" which can operate in as many dimensions as the
elements can oscillate and couple in.   Sheldrake (or maybe it is his
followers) merely seems to take it too far... to postulate (out of
wishful thinking?) that there are more dimensions of oscillation and
coupling than seem reasonable (or more importantly detectable/verifiable)?

You credit him with

>
> Now Nick,
>
> When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.
>
> This is the dualism of which you stand accused: two things, Experience and Experiencer. This may very well be a dualism that is imposed, by language, and not intrinsic to belief/philosophy.
>
> Many times your words, and those of Peirce, suggest that it is merely language causing the dualism problem, but then the "program" the reason for thinking and talking about experience and truth and convergence of experience, etc. suggests that the dualism is integral to the ideas.  Still trying to figure that out and love to have it explained to me so that I can see IT>
>
> But the question of unmediated experience — the mediator is the Experiencer.
>
> There is not some kind of Hoffmann-ish Interface that is mediating perception — it is the epiphenomonological [Ego | Observer | Perceiver | Self | Aware Entity] that is absent.
>
> Of course there is no way to describe or speak of or talk about this "state of existence" except when "It" is not extant. They mystic's eternal dilemma.
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Right.  Beware the over-stretched metaphor.  However, I get the impression that human beings do resonate when they interact in a quite literal sense.  There was a time when I could always figure out who my wife was talking to on the phone because she would instinctively mimic the cadences and pitches of the voice she was hearing on the phone.  Also, isn't there evidence that moms and babies "beat" together when they interact?  

I am not sure I want to extend the metaphor to two people coming to share the same idea by talking.  

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 7:33 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

Dave -

Sympathetic Resonance is a well accepted, even fairly easy to observe phenomenon in the overt physical world (e.g. stringed musical instruments).  

Sheldrake seems to *start* from there and then go *all over the place* with it.   I don't have a problem of positing that there are higher-level strata in which this phenomena can operate (e.g. "memes") but Sheldrake (or maybe just his most zealous groupies?) seem to stretch it arbitrarily to fit *anything* they want to believe might be "in resonance" (e.g. the law of similars where a plant remedy "heals" the heart because it has a "heart shape" (a valentine is not really that heart-shaped BTW)).

Brin's "Practice Effect" seemed to be a parody of such things.

I think I heard (but can't seem to find?) you say that Sheldrake has a significant store of supporting data.   I've always assumed what I've seen that was relatively compelling to simply be "cherry picked" and "post hoc".   Do you believe otherwise?

- Steve

> Assemble and organize a bunch of these monads to create a more interesting ensemble, something resembling a computer. We still have a "signal," its frequency limited to a sequence of square waves (a program expressed ordered 1s and 0s); and a "crystal" with the the attribute of structure (more complicated than an arrangement of atoms, but still nothing more than a structure). Assume the same feedback mechanism, something like a binary string in, the same string, with a bit or two flipped, out.
>
> Because this is a closed system, there is a hidden assumption, that
> signal "loops" in some fashion: Turing's infinite tape with its ends
> spliced together. [For reasons not important here, it can be assumed
> that the length of the tape is infinite only because it is circular,
> but the diameter of the circle expands in parallel with the age of the
> Universe.]
>
> Still no Perceiver / Experiencer.
>
> Now, using these descriptions to address questions of Nick and Steve Smith, Steve first.
>
> If you have a lot of ensembles each of which has a crystal with the same structure, they will respond to the same signal (frequency).
>
> Both Sheldrake and Hoffman assert that the "crystal's" structure is determined by morphology. All entities with similar morphology will have a similarly structured "crystal" and therefore respond/react to the same signal.  Both assume a single signal. — as if there was but one global (universal) radio station broadcasting on frequency Y and all crystals with structure X vibrate in the presence of that sole signal.
>
> For Hoffman it pretty much ends there - and only accounts for the commonality of the interface among those with the same morphology.
>
> Sheldrake goes further, and asserts the existence of the feedback mechanism describe earlier. Since there is one signal, all of the crystals responding that signal, modify the signal with their individual outputs; such that the looping signal, with its modifications, is common input to all crystals to behave in the same, signal determined, alternate manner.
>
> Sheldrake's model is nothing other than a model of culture, where shared culture predisposes individual behavior, but variations in individual behavior can feedback and alter the probabilities of behavior X and X' given the same context. This allows culture to evolve - most of the time slowly, but occasionally quite dramatically.
>
> Sheldrake simply wants his mechanism to be grounded in physics or metaphysics.

The part of Sheldrake (and Hoffman) that I get implicitly is the "coupled oscillator" which can operate in as many dimensions as the elements can oscillate and couple in.   Sheldrake (or maybe it is his
followers) merely seems to take it too far... to postulate (out of wishful thinking?) that there are more dimensions of oscillation and coupling than seem reasonable (or more importantly detectable/verifiable)?

You credit him with

>
> Now Nick,
>
> When the ensemble described reaches some degree of scale (perhaps complexity) an epiphenomena, "self awareness" emerges. You now have a named thing - an Experiencer and the ensemble, the Experienced.
>
> This is the dualism of which you stand accused: two things, Experience and Experiencer. This may very well be a dualism that is imposed, by language, and not intrinsic to belief/philosophy.
>
> Many times your words, and those of Peirce, suggest that it is merely
> language causing the dualism problem, but then the "program" the
> reason for thinking and talking about experience and truth and
> convergence of experience, etc. suggests that the dualism is integral
> to the ideas.  Still trying to figure that out and love to have it
> explained to me so that I can see IT>
>
> But the question of unmediated experience — the mediator is the Experiencer.
>
> There is not some kind of Hoffmann-ish Interface that is mediating perception — it is the epiphenomonological [Ego | Observer | Perceiver | Self | Aware Entity] that is absent.
>
> Of course there is no way to describe or speak of or talk about this "state of existence" except when "It" is not extant. They mystic's eternal dilemma.
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Prof David West]

Yes, Sheldrake,yearns for a kind of metaphysical reality and scientific validity that still eludes him. I think that have have reached, and are at risk of blending with, homeopathy and the like cure like, the dilution of "stuff" til there is no stuff left, but the "water has memory."

All based, of course on shared resonance.

Not sure about the data set. Most of it is from him or true believers and suffers from finding what you are looking for. But, because no one is really taking him seriously, no one is presenting data sets that might prove him wrong. Also, not a statistician so can't comment on methodology or significance.

Another of those connection things — a few years back, in a Quantum Consciousness type book, there was a discussion of resonance starting from the vibrating strings of physics fame to aggregates of strings creating blended vibrations to larger aggregates creating "harmonies" and feedback from "observers" blending everything — and when I was reading that it seemed to "resonate with Sheldrake." Being quite vague here, because the book is back home, but when I return I will pick it up and look at it again.

davew

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, at 11:56 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Geez, Steve,

 

I didn’t know that morphs COULD resonate.

 

What on earth are you talking about?

What Dave just said in description of Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance"...   a resonant coupling amongst things which have the same morphology  (shape).  In your case, you and Dave apparently have similar "intellectual resonant chambers" which, in this treatment "begin to resonate" as you spend enough time "coupling" (in conversation).  

Following the analogy (stronger/more-formal than a metaphor I propose), when you "couple" with others who you end up disagreeing with, I suspect it starts out  a bit like a barbershop quartet... one member hitting a tone and another following by hitting the same tone, but as the progression gets more  complex, the *differences* in your tonality starts to expose itself as dissonances.   I credit you "harmonizing" with Dave in this (and perhaps other) instance to Dave for *trying* to help you find the same note (as I am here).  

The Nick and Frank show (e.g. recent analogy to train conductors) seems to be a deliberate study/applicatoin in dissonance... one of you hits a note  and the other intuitively (or with great intellectual effort) factors the composing frequencies of that note and responds with a new note that has *none* or *few* of the same composing frequencies, generating a complex set of beat frequencies anew.   I don't know how much this type of deliberate dissonance is used in echolocating creatures (bats, cetaceans, ???) but finding *dissonance* seems potentially *more useful* than resonance in some cases?

- Steve

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:32 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

 

 

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

 

Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Dave -

It felt a strange coincidence, but in the early days of SFx, we were holding a "blender" on the topic of morphometrics at the same time that Sheldrake was visiting SFe to speak at a "Science of Consciousness" conference.  This was the meeting at which he was stabbed by a 'fan' who was apparently disturbed going in but more disturbed by Sheldrake's ideas?

https://boingboing.net/2008/04/09/biologist-rupert-she.html

Our "morphometrics" was an acutely more mundane conversation about the practicalities of starting with laser scans of paleontological  and archaelogical artifacts and doing statistical analysis to try to reveal "hidden" correlations.  For example, we were hoping to be able to recognize the "hand" in objects such as flaked lithic tools or hand-formed ceramics.   

It is interesting to me that you bring up homeopathic "dilution to nothing" based on the assumption that the water's quasi-crystalline structure somehow holds something meaningful from the original inoculant which had been titered into oblivion.

Are you familiar with Mae-Wan Ho's work in quasi-crystals in water and water emulsions?   I understand that where she (and others more acutely) have taken her research to fundamentally vitalistic places in a way that is hard to not dismiss as pseudo-science, but the underlying science seems pretty sound?   My daughter who is a molecular biologist has been unable to provide either confirmation nor refutation of the application of this work in her own domain (flavivirii).

I naively discarded a personal/professional correspondence (typed letter on letterhead ca 1984) from Roger Penrose in response to a tiny bit of work I did in pre-quantum consciousness (:Cellular automata in cytoskeletal lattices" : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167278984902598).  Penrose was postulating that it was aperiodic tilings (surprise!) that were at the root of consciousness (in human brains).   This was some years before his "Emperor's New Mind" and pursuit of "Quantum Consciousness" (with my co-author Stuart Hameroff).   I am unable to get sufficient traction on contemporary QC work including Penrose's nor Stu Kauffman's to know what I believe on the topic.  I am most sympathetic with the Pibram/Bohm perspective, but that is more intuitive than anything.

I understand that Marcus' has moved from LANL to a day-job in full-up Quantum Computing.   I don't know that Q computing has any implications for Q consciousness, but it would seem that it can't help but lead to more experience with quantum effects translated into human scales of time and space.  

- Steve

On 9/16/19 12:20 AM, Prof David West wrote:

Yes, Sheldrake,yearns for a kind of metaphysical reality and scientific validity that still eludes him. I think that have have reached, and are at risk of blending with, homeopathy and the like cure like, the dilution of "stuff" til there is no stuff left, but the "water has memory."

All based, of course on shared resonance.

Not sure about the data set. Most of it is from him or true believers and suffers from finding what you are looking for. But, because no one is really taking him seriously, no one is presenting data sets that might prove him wrong. Also, not a statistician so can't comment on methodology or significance.

Another of those connection things — a few years back, in a Quantum Consciousness type book, there was a discussion of resonance starting from the vibrating strings of physics fame to aggregates of strings creating blended vibrations to larger aggregates creating "harmonies" and feedback from "observers" blending everything — and when I was reading that it seemed to "resonate with Sheldrake." Being quite vague here, because the book is back home, but when I return I will pick it up and look at it again.

davew

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, at 11:56 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Geez, Steve,

 

I didn’t know that morphs COULD resonate.

 

What on earth are you talking about?

What Dave just said in description of Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance"...   a resonant coupling amongst things which have the same morphology  (shape).  In your case, you and Dave apparently have similar "intellectual resonant chambers" which, in this treatment "begin to resonate" as you spend enough time "coupling" (in conversation).  

Following the analogy (stronger/more-formal than a metaphor I propose), when you "couple" with others who you end up disagreeing with, I suspect it starts out  a bit like a barbershop quartet... one member hitting a tone and another following by hitting the same tone, but as the progression gets more  complex, the *differences* in your tonality starts to expose itself as dissonances.   I credit you "harmonizing" with Dave in this (and perhaps other) instance to Dave for *trying* to help you find the same note (as I am here).  

The Nick and Frank show (e.g. recent analogy to train conductors) seems to be a deliberate study/applicatoin in dissonance... one of you hits a note  and the other intuitively (or with great intellectual effort) factors the composing frequencies of that note and responds with a new note that has *none* or *few* of the same composing frequencies, generating a complex set of beat frequencies anew.   I don't know how much this type of deliberate dissonance is used in echolocating creatures (bats, cetaceans, ???) but finding *dissonance* seems potentially *more useful* than resonance in some cases?

- Steve

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:32 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

 

 

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

 

Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Hi, Steve,

 

This is one of those moments when I have to be grateful you-guys let me participate here because it is so obvious to me that I am out of my depth in this conversation.  But …

 

You have my shroedinger (what is life?) crystal humming AND my Peirce (it’s signs all the way down) crystal humming.  The proposition, “It’s signs all the way down” has to be understood as the proposition that a sign is a certain kind of relation in which something stands in for something for something else.  Full stop.  So all basic biological processes (think enzymes) are sign systems.  Another way to think of a sign system is as a relation èto a relationç.  So is the sorting of the pebbles on a beach a sign relation?  What about the tendency of slush to maintain a 32 degree temperature?  Fill in your favorite example, here. 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2019 10:41 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

Dave -

It felt a strange coincidence, but in the early days of SFx, we were holding a "blender" on the topic of morphometrics at the same time that Sheldrake was visiting SFe to speak at a "Science of Consciousness" conference.  This was the meeting at which he was stabbed by a 'fan' who was apparently disturbed going in but more disturbed by Sheldrake's ideas?

https://boingboing.net/2008/04/09/biologist-rupert-she.html

Our "morphometrics" was an acutely more mundane conversation about the practicalities of starting with laser scans of paleontological  and archaelogical artifacts and doing statistical analysis to try to reveal "hidden" correlations.  For example, we were hoping to be able to recognize the "hand" in objects such as flaked lithic tools or hand-formed ceramics.   

It is interesting to me that you bring up homeopathic "dilution to nothing" based on the assumption that the water's quasi-crystalline structure somehow holds something meaningful from the original inoculant which had been titered into oblivion.

Are you familiar with Mae-Wan Ho's work in quasi-crystals in water and water emulsions?   I understand that where she (and others more acutely) have taken her research to fundamentally vitalistic places in a way that is hard to not dismiss as pseudo-science, but the underlying science seems pretty sound?   My daughter who is a molecular biologist has been unable to provide either confirmation nor refutation of the application of this work in her own domain (flavivirii).

I naively discarded a personal/professional correspondence (typed letter on letterhead ca 1984) from Roger Penrose in response to a tiny bit of work I did in pre-quantum consciousness (:Cellular automata in cytoskeletal lattices" : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167278984902598).  Penrose was postulating that it was aperiodic tilings (surprise!) that were at the root of consciousness (in human brains).   This was some years before his "Emperor's New Mind" and pursuit of "Quantum Consciousness" (with my co-author Stuart Hameroff).   I am unable to get sufficient traction on contemporary QC work including Penrose's nor Stu Kauffman's to know what I believe on the topic.  I am most sympathetic with the Pibram/Bohm perspective, but that is more intuitive than anything.

I understand that Marcus' has moved from LANL to a day-job in full-up Quantum Computing.   I don't know that Q computing has any implications for Q consciousness, but it would seem that it can't help but lead to more experience with quantum effects translated into human scales of time and space.  

- Steve

On 9/16/19 12:20 AM, Prof David West wrote:

Yes, Sheldrake,yearns for a kind of metaphysical reality and scientific validity that still eludes him. I think that have have reached, and are at risk of blending with, homeopathy and the like cure like, the dilution of "stuff" til there is no stuff left, but the "water has memory."

 

All based, of course on shared resonance.

 

Not sure about the data set. Most of it is from him or true believers and suffers from finding what you are looking for. But, because no one is really taking him seriously, no one is presenting data sets that might prove him wrong. Also, not a statistician so can't comment on methodology or significance.

 

Another of those connection things — a few years back, in a Quantum Consciousness type book, there was a discussion of resonance starting from the vibrating strings of physics fame to aggregates of strings creating blended vibrations to larger aggregates creating "harmonies" and feedback from "observers" blending everything — and when I was reading that it seemed to "resonate with Sheldrake." Being quite vague here, because the book is back home, but when I return I will pick it up and look at it again.

 

davew

 

 

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, at 11:56 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

 

Geez, Steve,

 

I didn’t know that morphs COULD resonate.

 

What on earth are you talking about?

What Dave just said in description of Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance"...   a resonant coupling amongst things which have the same morphology  (shape).  In your case, you and Dave apparently have similar "intellectual resonant chambers" which, in this treatment "begin to resonate" as you spend enough time "coupling" (in conversation).  

Following the analogy (stronger/more-formal than a metaphor I propose), when you "couple" with others who you end up disagreeing with, I suspect it starts out  a bit like a barbershop quartet... one member hitting a tone and another following by hitting the same tone, but as the progression gets more  complex, the *differences* in your tonality starts to expose itself as dissonances.   I credit you "harmonizing" with Dave in this (and perhaps other) instance to Dave for *trying* to help you find the same note (as I am here).  

The Nick and Frank show (e.g. recent analogy to train conductors) seems to be a deliberate study/applicatoin in dissonance... one of you hits a note  and the other intuitively (or with great intellectual effort) factors the composing frequencies of that note and responds with a new note that has *none* or *few* of the same composing frequencies, generating a complex set of beat frequencies anew.   I don't know how much this type of deliberate dissonance is used in echolocating creatures (bats, cetaceans, ???) but finding *dissonance* seems potentially *more useful* than resonance in some cases?

- Steve

 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:32 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

 

 

Interesting, David.  With most people I find that if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it mostly works the other way.  Thank you.

 

Nick

 

Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!

 

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[jon zingale]

Nick,

`Signs all the way down` ... hmm.

Such a theory strikes me as necessarily objective, in the sense that:

1) there is nothing that signs ultimately refer to, signs

are not produced through reflection about the world.

2) that the corresponding system of signs is to be taken

as the privileged frame of reality, there is no world.

To the extent that you agree with this characterization

of your own Piercean interpretation, what prevents the

ultimate collapsing of sign (and reality) under Baudrillard's

`sign as universal equivalent`?

Wrt Sheldrake, I remember being tempted by his theory

that the universe evolves through habit. I very much enjoy

thinking that physical law began through arbitrary and

frivolous fluctuations before settling on what happened

most. In an effort to see where he would take such a

theory, I found some youTube videos of him speaking.

My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a

talk he gave at Google, where with maybe six people

in the room, I had the privilege to observe what a

rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost

never think about him or his theory.

Jon

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[gepr]

Ha! "Rhetor". It's fantastic how you assembled those words so that "rhetor" seems so distasteful. I'm going to start using "rhetor" as a username for those throwaway logins I'm always having to create.

On 9/17/19 9:46 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a
> talk he gave at Google, where with maybe six people
> in the room, I had the privilege to observe what a
> rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost
> never think about him or his theory.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[Nick Thompson]

Hi,, Jon,

 

Another case of my being at risk of drowning in my own thread.*  Ach!

 

Please see larding below.

 

Nick

 

*!!!!! Mixed metaphor alert.  Can one drown in a thread?  I think Dave is going to like that metaphor! 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 12:46 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

 

Nick,

 

`Signs all the way down` ... hmm.

 

Such a theory strikes me as necessarily objective, in the sense that:

1) there is nothing that signs ultimately refer to, signs

are not produced through reflection about the world.

[NST==>To be honest, I am having trouble understanding your meaning of “objective”, so I may be off the mark, here, but… :  Let’s say for starters that a sign is a relation such that if I stands in relation to O via S, S is a signifier of O for I.  OK, now that is an objective relation in the sense that you and I, and scientists everywhere, could have a meaningful conversation about whether these conditions are fulfilled by any situation in nature.  I think when those conversations are held, we will see controversially that all biological systems, including human social systems, are governed by signs.  In some of his writings, Peirce seems to take the step down to the next level and insist that physical laws are of the same character.  People like me call that “Weird Peirce”:  we are tantalized by it but we don’t like to be caught  talking about it in public.  Please see my comments about Sheldrake, below. <==nst]

2) that the corresponding system of signs is to be taken

as the privileged frame of reality, there is no world.

[NST==>Well, I agree if you mean by “no world”, no world apart from experience as I use the term (monistically –i.e. the world consists of everything that is experienced and there is not experience outside of experience because experience is just everything that is.  Or, you could put it the other way around and switch the words experience and world in the above sentence and still be a proper monist.)  It really doesn’t matter to a monist what you call “it”, because every naming I inevitably falsifies monism by  implying a contrast.   <==nst]

 

To the extent that you agree with this characterization

of your own Piercean interpretation, what prevents the

ultimate collapsing of sign (and reality) under Baudrillard's

`sign as universal equivalent`?

[NST==>alas, I don’t know what you are talking about here. <==nst]

 

Wrt Sheldrake, I remember being tempted by his theory

that the universe evolves through habit.

[NST==>Oh, Crap!  Now I have to read Sheldrake.  Your words might have been written by Peirce.  In fact, come to think of it, I think they WERE written by Peirce.  Since I cannot do this justice now, I am going to cc Mike Bybee, and see what he has to say.  <==nst]

 I very much enjoy

thinking that physical law began through arbitrary and

frivolous fluctuations before settling on what happened

most. In an effort to see where he would take such a

theory, I found some youTube videos of him speaking.

My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a

talk he gave at Google, where with maybe six people

in the room, I had the privilege to observe what a

rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost

never think about him or his theory.

 

Jon

[NST==>Jon, please put aside readings for me for when I get back. N<==nst]

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[Nick Thompson]

Could Dr. Rhetor be in a mortal combat with Dr. Strangelove?  

Marvel Comics where are you when we need you!?

N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 1:06 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

Ha! "Rhetor". It's fantastic how you assembled those words so that "rhetor" seems so distasteful. I'm going to start using "rhetor" as a username for those throwaway logins I'm always having to create.

On 9/17/19 9:46 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a talk he gave at
> Google, where with maybe six people in the room, I had the privilege
> to observe what a rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost never
> think about him or his theory.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[Nick Thompson]

A rhetor is just a teacher of writing, right?  But I want to pursue this idea of a Rhetor as villain.  I think it has legs.  So, suppose I start a company whose job is to go into companies and identify and fire all the people who are picky about writing.  What would we name such a company?  

I have idea, in case somebody else doesn’t think of it.  

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 1:06 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

Ha! "Rhetor". It's fantastic how you assembled those words so that "rhetor" seems so distasteful. I'm going to start using "rhetor" as a username for those throwaway logins I'm always having to create.

On 9/17/19 9:46 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a talk he gave at
> Google, where with maybe six people in the room, I had the privilege
> to observe what a rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost never
> think about him or his theory.


--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[gepr]

Because I'm a fan of all things fake (fake news, homeopathy, numerology, speculations about consciousness, etc.), I can't help but be interested in fad diets and pop culture ideas about eating and weight loss. One of the things I learned from my lymphoma, consisting of "immortal" lymphocytes, is that it's *normal* for us to eat ourselves ... which is why diets like "keto" and "intermittent fasting" are so rhetorically successful.

By which I mean to introduce my name for such a company: Phagocytes Inc. -- We eat you so you don't have to eat yourself.

On 9/17/19 11:32 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> A rhetor is just a teacher of writing, right?  But I want to pursue this idea of a Rhetor as villain.  I think it has legs.  So, suppose I start a company whose job is to go into companies and identify and fire all the people who are picky about writing.  What would we name such a company?  
>
> I have idea, in case somebody else doesn’t think of it.  

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

This instinct taken to an extreme might explain how someone would end-up at a Trump rally and not an Obama rally.
Fear of those that can tell a complex and convincing story and cut corners in hard-to-detect ways.   Individuals having such fear might be more at ease with someone that does not have these skills.   Someone that makes them feel relatively good about themselves.

On 9/17/19, 10:06 AM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:

    Ha! "Rhetor". It's fantastic how you assembled those words so that "rhetor" seems so distasteful. I'm going to start using "rhetor" as a username for those throwaway logins I'm always having to create.
   
    On 9/17/19 9:46 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:
    > My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a
    > talk he gave at Google, where with maybe six people
    > in the room, I had the privilege to observe what a
    > rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost
    > never think about him or his theory.
   
   
    --
    ☣ uǝlƃ
   
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[Nick Thompson]

Sorry.  I thought the name of my new company would be obvious:

"Rhetor Rooter"

I suppose it also could be the name of a person who cheers on rhetoricians.

Nick



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 3:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake

This instinct taken to an extreme might explain how someone would end-up at a Trump rally and not an Obama rally.
Fear of those that can tell a complex and convincing story and cut corners in hard-to-detect ways.   Individuals having such fear might be more at ease with someone that does not have these skills.   Someone that makes them feel relatively good about themselves.

On 9/17/19, 10:06 AM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:

    Ha! "Rhetor". It's fantastic how you assembled those words so that "rhetor" seems so distasteful. I'm going to start using "rhetor" as a username for those throwaway logins I'm always having to create.
   
    On 9/17/19 9:46 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:
    > My favorite and perhaps most  disillusioning was a
    > talk he gave at Google, where with maybe six people
    > in the room, I had the privilege to observe what a
    > rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost
    > never think about him or his theory.
   
   
    --
    ☣ uǝlƃ
   
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