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not a place but a process-

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Victoria Hughes

not a place but a process-

The self feels like a singular thing - I am me - and yet it comes from no single brain area and depends on a vast network of neurons, distributed across the brain. This means that we are not a place: we are a process. As Daniel Dennett wrote, our mind is made up "of multiple channels in which specialist circuits try, in parallel pandemoniums, to do their various things, creating Multiple Drafts as they go."

From Identity Delusions : The Frontal Cortex

Tory

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Robert Howard-2-3

Re: not a place but a process-

CHANGE THIS IN THE PROPERTIES

We are a “strange loop”...

I Think --> therefore --> I Am ---

^ |

| |

------------------------------------------

Rob Howard

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Victoria Hughes
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:46 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] not a place but a process-

From Identity Delusions : The Frontal Cortex

Tory

Eric Charles

Re: not a place but a process-

So... at what point does the reductionism end? Or, more specifically, at what point do we decide that the degree of reductionism is just getting silly?

It used to be a mind-boggling claim that "I" was my brain (note: mind-boggling, not brain-boggling). Recently, the "brain in a vat" paradox has more or less replaced Plato's cave, where the original clearly required an entire, bodily "I" for the story to work. Now we are dissatisfied again, apparently because we find "I = my brain" to be too holistic for our tastes? Now we try to determine the minimal specifiable number of brain parts that need to be in the vat? Then, apparently, we are surprised to find out that it is hard to specify? Who really thinks that one day we will find the quarter-inch square in the brain where "I" resides? Is it really any better to look for a small cluster of dispersed neurons? Can it improve anything to say that it isn't the cluster, but a process that occurs within the cluster?

Bah! A pox on both your... something... not houses... but something.

Eric

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 12:10 PM, "Robert Howard" <[hidden email]> wrote:

We are a “strange loop”...

I Think   -->   therefore   --> I Am   ---

^                                          |

|                                          |

|                                          |

------------------------------------------

Rob Howard

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Victoria Hughes
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:46 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] not a place but a process-

The self feels like a singular thing - I am me - and yet it comes from no single brain area and depends on a vast network of neurons, distributed across the brain. This means that we are not a place: we are a process. As Daniel Dennett wrote, our mind is made up "of multiple channels in which specialist circuits try, in parallel pandemoniums, to do their various things, creating Multiple Drafts as they go."

From <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/08/identity_delusions.php" onclick="window.open('http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/08/identity_delusions.php');return false;">Identity Delusions : The Frontal Cortex

Tory

Steve Smith

Re: not a place but a process-

ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:

So... at what point does the reductionism end? Or, more specifically, at what point do we decide that the degree of reductionism is just getting silly?

It used to be a mind-boggling claim that "I" was my brain (note: mind-boggling, not brain-boggling). Recently, the "brain in a vat" paradox has more or less replaced Plato's cave, where the original clearly required an entire, bodily "I" for the story to work. Now we are dissatisfied again, apparently because we find "I = my brain" to be too holistic for our tastes? Now we try to determine the minimal specifiable number of brain parts that need to be in the vat? Then, apparently, we are surprised to find out that it is hard to specify? Who really thinks that one day we will find the quarter-inch square in the brain where "I" resides? Is it really any better to look for a small cluster of dispersed neurons? Can it improve anything to say that it isn't the cluster, but a process that occurs within the cluster?

Bah! A pox on both your... something... not houses... but something.

This is starting to sound <blink>Philosophical</blink>... cut it out!

Seriously... this is precisely where Science needs Philosophy... the problem isn't in how to answer the question "where am I?" but rather to understand what the real question is (e.g. "what means I?").

<anecdote> In my collaborations at UNM we have a fictitious (defunct?) project called the Homunculous project (whose mascot is a flute player in the head of a flute player in the head of ... named Homuncupelli). </anecdote> Does the "brain in the Vat" reference this as well?

A *pox* on your Homunculii and their infinite regress of Philosophistical Arguementations!

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Russell Gonnering

Re: not a place but a process-

Sorry to be somewhat of an iconoclast, but doesn't reductionism push what is "complex" into something that is "complicated"? Could it not be that "ego" is emergent? As I understand it, in a CAS structure and process are intimately intertwined (think pinon and juniper). If the quality of "personhood" is emergent, then the sub-agents really assume less importance, as their relationship (co-evolution?) is the important thing. The arrows, not the boxes.

Russ #3

On Aug 12, 2009, at 12:29 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:

So... at what point does the reductionism end? Or, more specifically, at what point do we decide that the degree of reductionism is just getting silly?

It used to be a mind-boggling claim that "I" was my brain (note: mind-boggling, not brain-boggling). Recently, the "brain in a vat" paradox has more or less replaced Plato's cave, where the original clearly required an entire, bodily "I" for the story to work. Now we are dissatisfied again, apparently because we find "I = my brain" to be too holistic for our tastes? Now we try to determine the minimal specifiable number of brain parts that need to be in the vat? Then, apparently, we are surprised to find out that it is hard to specify? Who really thinks that one day we will find the quarter-inch square in the brain where "I" resides? Is it really any better to look for a small cluster of dispersed neurons? Can it improve anything to say that it isn't the cluster, but a process that occurs within the cluster?

Bah! A pox on both your... something... not houses... but something.

This is starting to sound <blink>Philosophical</blink>... cut it out!

Seriously... this is precisely where Science needs Philosophy... the problem isn't in how to answer the question "where am I?" but rather to understand what the real question is (e.g. "what means I?").

<anecdote> In my collaborations at UNM we have a fictitious (defunct?) project called the Homunculous project (whose mascot is a flute player in the head of a flute player in the head of ... named Homuncupelli). </anecdote> Does the "brain in the Vat" reference this as well?

A *pox* on your Homunculii and their infinite regress of Philosophistical Arguementations!

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org