From: Marc Geddes (marc_geddes@yahoo.co.nz)
Date: Thu Mar 03 2005 - 22:15:30 MST
--- "Bantz, Michael S (UMC-Student)"
<msbk99@mizzou.edu> wrote:
> I'm impressed with what your doing, and I think
> approaches like this are as vital as engineering
> experimentation or bottom-up techniques. My
> interpretation of what you are saying about Morality
> vs Rationality is that Rationaltiy involves
> analyzing how an external input creates a different
> external output whereas Morality analyzes how an
> external (or maybe internal as well) input creates
> an external output (decision making). Basically,
> does an situatio-action include that Mind or not. Is
> this what you are getting at (atleast, in part)?
> Hofstader (I highly reccomend GEB if you havn't
> looked at it) talks about isomorphisms (and
> recognizing them) being essential to meaning and
> intelligence in a way similiar to your use of
> metaphors.
It seems that you didn't see what I was getting at
all. For some reason I've found it's nearly
impossible to communicate highly abstract ideas in
short posts *sigh*
I was talking about complex systems theory and its
possible application to general intelligence. Complex
systems are systems with many parts interacting
harmoniously together to enact some goal. They
consist of different 'levels of organization'. And of
course the mind is a complex system.
We can describe any level of a complex system in terms
of two variables: Structure and Content. But the
'Structure' might itself be considered a complex
system, which could in turn be decomposed into a lower
level 'Structure' and a lower level 'Content' thusly;
Structure1 >>>> Structure2, Content2
The lower level 'Structure' might be a complex system
too, which could again be composed into an even lower
level 'Structure' and 'Content' and so on (fractal
like).
Structure2 >>> Structure 3, Content3 etc
Content can be decomposed in the same way.
Now I'm suggesting that the top level 'Structure' of
the mind can be equated with Morality/Friendliness and
the top level 'Content' of the mind can be equated
with 'Rationality'. I'm proposing that Rationality is
a top level generalized kind of 'Induction' and
Morality/Friendliness is a top level generalized kind
of 'Deduction'. I also pointed out what I thought the
big unifying connection between them was: Top level
generation of metaphors.
At the next level down, I split Morality/Friendliness
into a lower level Structure (which I call Volition)
and a lower level Content (Eudaimonia). I proposed
that Eudaimonia is a lower level kind of 'Induction'
and Volition is a lower level kind of 'Deduction'.
Again, the key to the interaction between the two is
the generation of a lower level form of metaphors.
I go on splitting each lower level function down into
pairs of interacting functions : Structure and Content
until I reach the 'ground floor' of the mind. At each
level, Structure is a function which is 'Deductive' in
nature, Content is a function which is 'Inductive' in
nature. There is an interaction between the two
between unities them :
Cognitive System = Structure x Content
The key to the interaction (represented by the 'x'
sign) is the generation of metaphors, which the mind
uses to form the bridge between Structure and Content
- the mind finds an analogy between aspects of
Structure and aspects of Content.
I only need to look at the highest level to spot what
I believe to be the secret to general intelligence:
Mind = Rationality x Morality/Friendliness
The mind is a complex system with Content
'Rationality' and Structure 'Morality/Friendliness'.
The interaction
between the two ('x') tells me the real purpose of the
mind: It's a system which seeks to find metaphors
enabling it to describe the workings of it's own
internal value system in terms of the workings of
physical objects. Examples of such metaphors:
'She is as sweet as a rose'
'He was able to direct his thoughts to his goal as
effectively as a master marksman firing an arrow
towards it's target'
All make sense?
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