From: Marc Geddes (marc_geddes@yahoo.co.nz)
Date: Wed Mar 02 2005 - 23:43:32 MST
--- Tennessee Leeuwenburg <tennessee@tennessee.id.au>
wrote:
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> If it is 100% complete, hopefully you won't mind
> being asked to expand
> on some parts. I think you have a good basis for
> your theory, but I
> need to probe it a little.
No problem. Let's begin then.
>
> How does forming a metaphor help give rise to
> qualia? This
> mis-understanding might be the same one that holds
> me up later also.
I would take me a while to explain but just briefly:
I said that the main use of metaphors is as ‘bridges’
between different levels of organization in the mind.
But this can only work because there is a general
self-similarity property running through the levels of
organization in the mind. Ultimately this has to
carry over to the physical universe itself (the
universe itself is a ‘Complex System’). So metaphors
are a powerful kind of ‘self-reflection’ property,
where basic deep properties of reality are being
recursed at higher and higher levels. It seems
natural to equate the generation of metaphors with
qualia.
>
> I think the term morality is not a good one - it
> appears to be saying
> that the formation of metaphors (and thus qualia)
> has some kind of
> good/evil distinction involved. Is that a proper
> understanding? Why
> not call them Rationality and Intuition for example?
> You seem to be very deliberately using the term
> morality - yet surely
> there we have some metaphorical knowledge that is
> not morally laden?
> Such as an inductive partial understanding of
> physics, for example. Or
> are you using indiction in a different meaning to
> me?
We can view the system that is the mind at many
different levels of ‘course graining’ (an analogy here
is with a microscope – we have to choose the
magnification level at which we are viewing
something).
At the highest level of course graining I have divided
the mind in two – into a sub-system dealing with
morals/values and a sub-system dealing with reasoning
about inanimate objects. But of course I can further
decompose these two big systems into smaller
sub-systems (turning up the resolution with which I
describe the mind so to speak), and each of these
sub-systems would have their own kinds of metaphors.
I’m proposing a fractal structure to the mind - I
think that each new level can be decomposed into two
smaller interacting sub-systems, and each new class of
interaction will have its own metaphors associated
with it. So I certainly didn’t mean that all metaphors
are connected to morals/values. Only the high level
ones are.
>
> What is the thinking behind calling rationality a
> "linear" process,
> and induction a "non-linear" one? I doubt you
> literally mean the
> mathematical concept of linear, you must be
> employing one of those
> metaphors to which you referred, but unfortunately,
> I am not forming a
> bridge between your metaphor and my rationality!! :)
>
I’m using the words ‘Induction’ and ‘Deduction’ in a
generalized sense that does not correspond to standard
definitions. In point of fact, I think there are many
different *levels* of induction and deduction.
Philosophers already acknowledge this actually – they
have different terms for different levels of induction
– one for low-level induction in the sense of simple
generalization of perceptual observations (concept
formation), and another for high-level induction in
the sense of probabilistic confirmation of theories
generalized from classes of observation (they call
this ‘abduction’).
It is in an extremely generalized sense of the term
that I call ‘Rationality’ inductive and ‘Morality’
deductive when viewed from the highest level of
organization of the mind. Of course, high level
Rationality can be decomposed into two sub-levels –
one a lower level kind of ‘Induction’, another a lower
level kind of ‘Deduction’. And so too with moral
reasoning. I hope this isn’t too confusing. Just
remember I’m postulating many different *kinds*
(levels) of Induction and Deduction.
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