The following summary of the areas I’ve been working in over the years was prompted by my reading of a
pre-published paper by Christian
Missionary and anthropologist Jim Harries. In very different ways both of
us are struggling to come out from under the dualistic philosophical wreckage
that pervades much of Western thought. In particular I’ve had years of trouble
from Western paradigms which either:
a)
Cut the knot of dualism by declaring conscious cognition an illusion in favour
of a crude billiard ball materialism or,
b)
Persist in maintaining a sharp dualism between mind/intelligence and “Natural forces”.
In
Africa Jim Harries has found that once you get past the language barrier and
speak the native lingo you soon realise that although like Westerners rural Africans desire wealth, they are not buying into Western dualism as a way of seeking it. (See here
and here).
This
summary of my work is indicative of my two-front intellectual war against both
knot-cutting-denial of the reality of conscious cognition and the rampart dualism current in much of Western
Christian folk culture. In particular as a Christian myself Western Christian folk
culture, with its implicit dualism, has been a challenge to my keeping
the faith; in fact much more so than any challenge an atheist might raise; at
least atheism does try to rationalise its categories rather than multiply entities! (although, of course, I don’t accept the way atheists carry out their
rationalisation; as a result of which they teeter on the brink of nihilism)
***
Most
people who have studied physics are impressed by its tendency to suppress the
multiplication of entities: Viz: Phenomena which from the first person
perspective seem very different in category are often merged by physics into a
unifying theoretical narrative. e.g a) Heat and light collapse into the single
category of electromagnetic radiation b) Matter and electromagnetic radiation
collapse into the single category of quantum waves etc. It was this powerful category
simplification that attracted me to physics in the first place and I’ve been in
the business of category rationalisation ever since: It’s a great occupation
because it considerably simplifies reality & simplification equates to
understanding.
Below
I list some examples of how I’ve carried on in the spirit of physics’ category
rationalisation. In some ways this represents a kind of sketched out manifesto
summarising the drift of my thoughts and the “policies” I’m working on. These
“policies” have been filled out to a lesser or greater degree and I provide links
to related articles giving more details.
Category
rationalisation 1: Human beings are goal seeking systems.
I introduced the idea of “goal seeking systems” during a written discussion I was having with Jim Harries. As Jim Harries has made me aware Western Christians have theologically slanted their goal seeking toward the dual goals of social development and the afterlife whereas Africans slant it in favour of the single goal of prosperity teaching. Nevertheless, in spite of this big cultural difference there is the obvious underlying shared universal, namely goal seeking. Whether pertaining to the afterlife, hocus pocus magic, prosperity teaching or just plain old commercial goals, Westerners and Africans are both involved with goal seeking; it is a cross cultural universal. In both cases actions are being carried out now with an eye to the future; Viz: sacrifice and work now for a return on the “investment” later; and by “sacrifice” it could be literal! (unfortunately!). Goal seeking may be either carried out with some consciously conceived aim or the goal seeking system is set up in such a way that when it stumbles across the “goal” it selects it. The teleology of goal seeking is, I propose, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of intelligence. The concept of goal seeking is pivotal in what follows here. In my last point below I introduce the radical but tentative idea that the cosmos is an intelligent computation in as much as it shows evidence of having a declarative structure as opposed to an imperative structure.
While on the commonalities of Africans and Westerners let me also mention, as I hope the following will make clear, both Westerners and Africans engage in the epistemic activity of narrative creation in order to give sense to their otherwise very variegated experiences .
I introduced the idea of “goal seeking systems” during a written discussion I was having with Jim Harries. As Jim Harries has made me aware Western Christians have theologically slanted their goal seeking toward the dual goals of social development and the afterlife whereas Africans slant it in favour of the single goal of prosperity teaching. Nevertheless, in spite of this big cultural difference there is the obvious underlying shared universal, namely goal seeking. Whether pertaining to the afterlife, hocus pocus magic, prosperity teaching or just plain old commercial goals, Westerners and Africans are both involved with goal seeking; it is a cross cultural universal. In both cases actions are being carried out now with an eye to the future; Viz: sacrifice and work now for a return on the “investment” later; and by “sacrifice” it could be literal! (unfortunately!). Goal seeking may be either carried out with some consciously conceived aim or the goal seeking system is set up in such a way that when it stumbles across the “goal” it selects it. The teleology of goal seeking is, I propose, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of intelligence. The concept of goal seeking is pivotal in what follows here. In my last point below I introduce the radical but tentative idea that the cosmos is an intelligent computation in as much as it shows evidence of having a declarative structure as opposed to an imperative structure.
While on the commonalities of Africans and Westerners let me also mention, as I hope the following will make clear, both Westerners and Africans engage in the epistemic activity of narrative creation in order to give sense to their otherwise very variegated experiences .
Category
rationalisation 2: The elimination of language processing as a distinct
cognitive category.
If I’m right in my simulation models of association then language is just a (very) tweaked version of a general cognitive learning ability which is capable of bringing experiences (in this case experience of symbols) into a weighted association.
If I’m right in my simulation models of association then language is just a (very) tweaked version of a general cognitive learning ability which is capable of bringing experiences (in this case experience of symbols) into a weighted association.
Category
rationalisation 3:
Elimination of the empirical vs metaphysical distinction. All things are at once both empirical and non-empirical.
In
its most general form theorising is a case of weaving our diverse experiences together with a unifying
sense-making narrative; this is true of both:
a)
Low level formal science which deals largely in bits and pieces and
b)
The high-level activity of all-embracing world view synthesis, an activity which tends to be
informal, seat of the pants and often carried out unconsciously.
The
difference between these two epistemic activities is not one of fundamental
distinction but one of degree: Science tends to be a very disciplined, formal
and highly conscious self-critical activity confined
to elementary low level objects with regular behaviour like springs and
precipitates. Worldview formation is far more informal, tries to boil down huge intricate nutrient beds of experience and incorporates them into complex “mythological”
sense-making narratives. One other difference is that science endeavours as far as
possible to engage in a prediction-test coupling in order to cross check its narratives – but this is not always
possible even in science – String Theory is an example; we are told that it does
a good job of making post-facto sense of things, but it has yet to pass the
test of prediction. World view synthesis,
because of the complexity and epistemic intractability of its subject matter,
tends to be a post-facto sense making activity and doesn’t readily make
predictions.
Nevertheless
the general idea behind both formal science and world view synthesis is that in
both cases theoretical narratives are used in an attempt to join the dots of
experience. The upshot is that in one sense every theoretical concept is
observable in as much as it attempts to make sense of experience. And yet in another sense nothing is
observable: This is because we do not directly observe the constructions that
our minds place behind the data dots of experience; rather those experiences
only effectively sample the theoretical
objects they purport to manifest. This is true of simple objects like Hooke’s
law right through to the most complex baroque conspiracy theory – both
activities involve data dot joining, although it has to be said that in this
extreme example these activities are of very different levels of rigor,
consciousness, self-awareness and self-criticism.
So
the pertinent questions revolve not round whether an object is metaphysical or empirical,
but rather questions about the epistemic quality used to construct the narrative
which links the data dots of experience.
For
more, see the side bar of my blog which is entitled The Ideas-Experience Contention and see also here:
In
many ways the foregoing is effectively eliminating the science vs. non-science
distinction; all epistemic endeavours
have both an empirical and metaphysical element.
The difference between scientific knowledge and other knowledge consists not only in differences of the formality and rigor of the epistemic technique but also in the regularity, order and complexity and of the phenomenon studied. Springs and precipitates are low level, very regular and therefore very amenable to formal scientific epistemology. In contrast world view synthesis grapples with complex and highly erratic experiences and consequently can’t be expected to return synthesizing narratives with anywhere near the authority of the elemental objects delivered by science.
The difference between scientific knowledge and other knowledge consists not only in differences of the formality and rigor of the epistemic technique but also in the regularity, order and complexity and of the phenomenon studied. Springs and precipitates are low level, very regular and therefore very amenable to formal scientific epistemology. In contrast world view synthesis grapples with complex and highly erratic experiences and consequently can’t be expected to return synthesizing narratives with anywhere near the authority of the elemental objects delivered by science.
Category
rationalisation 4:
Elimination of the Natural forces vs God’s
work dichotomy: See here and here.
Category
rationalisation 5:
Elimination of the subjective vs objective distinction.
So
called “objective” matters are couched in the language of the third person, a
language which affects to be absent of the observer perspective. Ultimately, of
course, those third person accounts must trace back to a conscious observer-theoretician
although third person language tends to suppress this by positing the existence
of some perspective detached from any sentient observer; almost a kind of
“God’s eye” view, ironically! But I would question whether this detached
“thing-in-itself” perspective is a coherent idea: The only world we really have
inside knowledge of is the world of sentience and therefore with any third
person account, with its affectedly detached language, we actually implicitly assign to it first person content and significance. We have some inkling as to what it means and feels like to be another sentient being, but we don't know what it feels like to be, say, a block of lead. In fact apart from an observer's ability to perceive the block and theorize about it, the block seems to have no real intelligible existence; for even when we think about the existence of the block in third person terms, apparently independent of observers, we implicitly understand its existence in terms of how it impacts cognition.
I
would tend to go along with a view not dissimilar to Bishop Berkley’s version
of “positivism”; namely, that a world without
cognating observer-theoreticians makes little intelligible sense. As I've implied already, the
cognating observer is actually implicit in the
so-called “objective” third person accounts.
NOTE:
Don’t get too hung up on the connotation of “theoretician”. I’m not necessarily
thinking of a consciously deliberating intellectual theorist. The fact is our minds
are so smooth and quiet in operation that we theorise and hypothesis about day-to-day-things without apparent thought; the hypothesising mind works
informally in the background and then presents its end-results to our
consciousness.
Category rationalisation
5: Elimination
of the mind vs matter distinction.
The
two accounts, third person and first person, go hand in glove. In fact I would
maintain that both first and third person accounts are needed to make an
intelligible cosmos; they are irreducible and inseparable; if you try to make
one primary and the other secondary you end up stuck in a schizophrenic
philosophical dualism that is liable to reduce the cosmos to either an
ill-defined irrational medley of unconnected qualia or an insentient world of billiard-ball
matter; both reductions are an error in my view and a full account of the
cosmos requires both perspectives to be put together in a complimentary and rational way.
“Matter” is the theoretical means by which conscious sentience understands
itself. I sketched out the latter idea
when I wrote the prologue of my book.
Category
rationalisation 6: There is no Bible vs Nature distinction.
Because
natural language (of the Bible) works by connotation, then for its meanings to
be generated the Bible must utilise the mental resources of association that
bind it seamlessly and organically to our world. See here.
Category
rationalisation 7:
There is no clear justification whereby
one can posit a dichotomy which contrasts an invisible God over and against visible people. Both God and man are
invisible as far as the third person perspective is concerned.
Clearly
the essence of a person is neither the visible body nor the behavioural sample
that the third person observes. In actual fact the essence of a person is a far
more extensive object consisting of the immense behind-the-scenes frenetic sentient
activity that the third person can only
sample and from that sampling informally construct that complex invisible theoretical
object we call “personhood”. The essential point is that like everything else
the thing-in-itself we call “personhood” is basically invisible apart from a
few observed behavioural traits which constitute the “data dots” available to
the third person. In other words personhood is not directly observable – it is an
object constructed by the third person in order to arrive at a sense making
narrative about personality. This isn’t,
of course, done in a formal theoretical
way but by innate cognitive packages that work to a large degree
unconsciously. The cognitive package
which deals with the (re)construction of deity may well have considerable
overlap with our social interaction packages. But in spite of this I think it
would be wrong to say that deity isn’t subject to observable tests: In a sense
people test their faith every day; experiences confirm or may disconfirm their
faith: But this daily “walk with deity” is
carried out in a very informal, subconscious and anecdotal way and this
probably renders formal scientific testing of the existence of deity via
established epistemic protocols all but impossible.
Being
the sort of guy who is probably on the autistic spectrum may peculiarly fit me
to understand this lesson of the invisibility of personhood. I can remember a
time at infant school when I used to walk around the school playground by
myself believing that all the other children were unconscious; they all seemed
so irreflexive. This almost solipsist response of mine was probably down to my
social cognitive package not working very well; that is, in my case there seemed
to be no automatic conclusion which kicked in and told me that the other kids
were conscious – it is something I had to learn over a period of time. But the
essential point is that in consequence of my mild disability it became plain to me that the behind-the-scenes conscious
personality is an entirely invisible entity and has to be mentally constructed
by the third person. Human personhood is as invisible as God’s personhood; the epistemics
of personhood means that it is always something one has to interpolate between the data dots.
Category
rationalisation 8:
This is the ultimate category elimination: Everything
is cognition.
Is
it right to say that mind is embodied in matter? Probably no, if we accept the idea that so-called “matter” is in fact the third person’s
perspective/experience of the first person. The concept of “matter” necessarily
follows if one is to have a set of communicating centres of cognition.
But
I’m going to go a bit further here and remark upon my on-going speculations in
this area. Viz: Rather than “mind being
embodied” it is better to say, I propose, that “matter is incognated”. What do I mean by this? My current thinking
is that the parallels between quantum mechanics and the way our minds work at
the neural level are indicative of one thing; in both cases I see hints of a declarative goal seeking computation rather than the standard view
of physics as entirely the domain of imperative
processes. This has prompted me to
conjecture that the cosmos is in fact the inside workings of an immanent
sentience in action. On this view the cosmos is itself a cognitive process in
which we are all immersed. If true, then given cosmic dimensions and its
potential computational power, it follows that as far as we are concerned the
cosmos looks to be the mental workings of a deity of immense power. Just as the
third person perspective of the neuroscientist only sees signalling neurons
when he zooms in on the first person, so our low-level perspective of the
cosmic cognitive process only sees quantum signalling. Yes, it's all conjectural I know, but its a notion worth pursuing in my opinion.
To
anticipate and suppress any possible pantheistic misinterpretations in these
proposals let me point out that the relation between God and his Creation may
not be dissimilar to the relationship an author has with his/her story: The
author’s story is created by the author and runs in his/her mind as a huge idea
and yet the author remains, nevertheless, very distinct from and eminent in relation to his
creation.
***
I
have attempted to give the foregoing thoughts a more defined shape in The Cosmic Perspective (see here, here and here), The
Melencolia IPproject
and the The
Thinknet Project.
This blue skies investigation is on going
c.
Tim Reeves, March 2017
