Psybertron Asks

Interesting piece from back in January in Time magazine by Stephen Pinker entitled The Mystery of Consciousness. Thanks to David Chalmers for the link; he’s referred to in the article in connection with the easy / hard problem distinction. Lots of other good articles linked in and alongside the article.

Daniel Wegner’s psychology-based work gets a mention. I side with Dennett in not really seeing the hard problem as a problem, and disagree with this kind of summary by Pinker, thought it is a fair summary of a common view …

Identifying awareness with brain physiology, they say, is a kind of “meat chauvinism” that would dogmatically deny consciousness to Lieut. Commander Data just because he doesn’t have the soft tissue of a human brain. Identifying it with information processing would go too far in the other direction and grant a simple consciousness to thermostats and calculators–a leap that most people find hard to stomach.

For me this is just the simplistic positivist logic – either / or – problem. There is a middle ground interpretation here that says any sufficiently complex computation system (any physical substrate, not just meat) can support the emergence of consciousness, and that simple devices like the thermostat, are simply not sufficiently complex examples of such systems. Bisson’s “Thinking with Meat” essay, illustrates that the chauvinism is just a matter of perspective.

And, the fact that most scientists would support the idea that the explanations for animalian consciousness are already shown to reside in the brain, does not say that science has killed the soul, or anything like it. What it does tell us is something about what the “soul” is, and hopefully reminds many a scientist that simple reductionism is unlikely to yield the best brain / mind explanations.

Anyway, good news, Pinker concludes …

… the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It’s not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings – the core of morality.

That’s my view too. The catch is not to let that get misrepresented as some crass explanatory argument for how morality is “caused” by the physical and biological.

Just collecting links for future follow-up. Roger Anderton over on Friends of Wisdom has a special interest in Boscovich’s relativity work pre-dating Einstein, and in Lancelot Whyte a co-worker of Einstein, who also documented Boscovich work. The Wikipedia introduction is as good a summary as any to start with. (Beware confused nationality and consequent variants on his name when searching / following up links.)

The reason for interest is the “Einsteing was right” brigade and the arguments casting doubt on modern mathematical interpretations fundamental physics generally, and the base of any fundamental philosophies of existence and meaning at the quantum level. The specific interest for me is my understanding of Quantum Information theory which depends on mathematical models, post Dirac.

Must link this with “Island” and his anthropic arguments on “science in crisis“. Also picked up earlier reference to Boscovich on the in our time broadcasts on the Jesuits.

Here is the Lancelot Whyte biographical piece on Boscovich.

Another good source of links are Roger Anderton’s own papers posted on the “General Science Journal” (Look in the author list dropdown.)

Interesting PBS broadcast featuring a discussion on Richard Posner’s “Little Book of Plagiarism” – brought to my attention by Marsha over on MoQ.Discuss.

Not listened thoroughly yet, so captured here for future linking. Picked-up so far, the modern interpretation being closely linked to the business value of the content copied, rather than the morality of the process by which and for which it is “borrowed”. Interesting.

Kat Herder appears to be Chris Locke’s latest nomme de plume on Mystic Bourgeoisie. Crossed paths before with Chris over Abram Maslow, when following up the “Criticisms of Maslow” meme.

Personally, whilst obviously wary of any prescriptive “objectivisation by numbers” of human psychology (see my manifesto), I still find Maslow’s Jungian rules of thumb informative and explanatory. For me the quest is to fit these ideas within a more inclusive world view. Chris (Kat)’s purpose is to warn against the Eugenic connections of these schools of psychology that reduce humans to objects of comparative statistical explanation – a no brainer. The latest post has some good links to the background of the Stanford led scientification of psychology.

How to distill the value from the risks. Similar I guess to the backlash against too primitive Princeton “game-theory” explanation of population behaviours – “mind-blind” theories that ignore the dynamic will and evolution of the individual and collective minds involved in the “games” of life are obviously doomed to failure.

Anyway, the links are useful. No big deal for me to “defend” Maslow, just don’t like to see valuable babies thrown out with no-brainer bathwater.

Interesting to see Modafinil presented by the Academy of Medical Sciences as boosting brain power in this BBC News Story. Like Amphetamine it induces wakefulness, but unlike the psychedelics doesn’t seem to act on dopamine / norepinephrine receptors directly, yet still seems to produce the “enlightening” effect.

Excellent opening lecture in the BBC 2007 Reith Lectures series by US economist Jeffrey Sachs. A large part of the opening to “Bursting at the Seams” was a call for a “new enlightenment” based on a speech by JFK following the Cuban missile crisis. The main thrust of Sachs talks, of which this is just the first, is that the major issues of this “Anthropocene” age are characterised by the stress of humanity on the planetary ecosystem, intellectually and culturally, as well as physically.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions, on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single simple key to this peace, no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation, for peace is a process, a way of solving problems. [JFK] 

Inlcusive, dynamic, evolving, process and as Sachs goes on to elaborate a shift from the original “superpowers” not simply to the (temporary) US / North Atlantic powers but a balance in favour of China and India, that we’d better get used to, in our view of what it means to participate. Interestingly Sachs black picture actually paints an optimistic story of how we have the means to address this, an optimism that few of the audience of invited brains seemed to share – except for Geri Halliwell. The focus is education, education at home, specifically education in mothers (in the underdeveloped societies). Education, education education to new enlightnement. Naturally I was impressed, and will be looking out for the subsequent lectures.

Interestingly BBC’s “In Our Time” concerned the British / Chinese “Opium Wars” – a lesson from history in how the size of the Chinese market (trading tea for silver until silver became too scarce and opium became the currency) had global impact and lasting legacies. Enlightened education involves learning the lessons of history, and China’s ongoing importance in that.

Audio book exchange concept. [also via Rivets]

Not much content here yet, but an interesting metaphor between regular scientific order and circular cultural disorder. [via Rivets]

Tommy Womack – we’ve seen Tommy several times in Huntsville, AL. Usually solo, but Thursday before last he was there with his band, and the release of a new professionally produced CD “There, I said it”. Tommy’s a poet; he plays ’em country-blues-rock style, but every song an autobiographical social-comment story, linked by more stories between numbers. Plenty of words and word-play, and every one enunciated discernibly through his tortured croaky voice – the words about his life-lessons and family matter. This time with his band – good to hear Tommy on electric guitar (Keith Richards maybe – read his style / influences on his web site); plus a tight comfortable rhythm section – and the wonderful additional voice of Lisa Gray (puts me in mind of The Beautiful South’s Alison Wheeler.) Good luck with the CD Tommy – I’m playing it to death in the car at the moment.

Love of Diagrams – caught this Melbourne trio at the ArtRocker in Highbury, London last Tuesday. Glad I did. Bassist / lead-vocalist somewhere between the Slits and Siouxsie, and a great bassist to boot; female drummer too, probably the distinctive feature of the band – really tight on a very sparse kit – excellent. Interesting manic noises and vocals added by the token male guitarist. Interesting, if not more so. (Must look out for their southern US gigs in the next few weeks.)

The Hamsters do the “Jimi gets his bus-pass” tour – one of relatively few all-Hendrix gigs The Hamsters do these days, seen at The Brook, Southampton on Thursday. The 65th birthday tribute involved two long sets, not quite the full repertoire – technically really well done by Slim with as much feedback as anyone can reasonably control and then some, as we have come to expect, but somehow a little low-key due to below-par audience participation I’d guess.

Oh, and how could I forget – bumped into Frank McAvennie in the car park – of Southampton Airport, station just before the gig.