The Socratic Dennett – Onward and Upward

Made a start on my pile of Dennett original reading. Having realised recently I’m practically a pan-Darwinist, I thought I’d start on “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”.

Skimmed it first, and realised I feel I practically know it already; so many of his chapters and witty headings having been quoted by others since 1995. The respect Dennett pays to his reader just commands reciprocation.

“This book is about science, but it is not itself a work of science.”
“There is no such thing as a sound argument from authority …”
“… when I quote them, rhetoric and all, I am engaging in persuasion.”

“Since you are reading this book, you have probably read several of ..”
Dawkins, Pinker, Gould, etc …

“And if [I] can’t write a good book after the sterling help of …
[Dawkins, Hofstadter, Pinker, Mayr, Brockman, etc] … [I] should give up !”

After his “peremtory dismissal” of creationism, which I’ve quoted before, he says “The fundamental core of Darwinism is now beyond dispute …” and later “Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award to the best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin ahead of Newton, Einstein and everybody else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. But it’s not just a wonderful idea. It is a dangerous idea.”

“The philsopher and scientist are in the same boat [quoting Van Quine, quoting Neurath.]” “There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, only science whose philosophical baggage [is unexamined]” And the unexamined life is not worth living, is it. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread [quoting Pope]. Do you want to follow me ?”

And so he’s headlong into Aristotle’s misguided teleology.
And Locke too. “Go run along and stop asking such silly questions.”
It’s why / how, not why / because, dummy.

With respect, I’m not sure I need to read this, but I’m going to enjoy it.
What is it about men with bushy beards ?

Mind’s I – Round-up

Completed Hofstadter and Dennett’s “The Mind’s I” on the way back to Perth, Oz. Although it peters out a bit, with Hofstadter’s “Conversation with Einstein’s Brain” there are still more gems in there.

After Lem’s excellent “Non Serviam” mentioned previously, we still have Ray Smullyan’s “Is God a Taoist”, John Searle’s “Minds, Brains and Programs”, and Thomas Nagel’s “… Bat”

Nagel’s Bat has been well aired here previously, and familiarity no doubt breeds contempt. There’s actually quite a lot wrong with it and the editors’ reflections, not so much wrong, as missed opportunity. Bats are not only not blind, they “see” with sound, but their vision must be incredibly vivid and textured compared to our world of one-dimensional electromagnetism, they have so many layers of modulation as well as wavelengths to play with and, what’s more, they are in control of it. Nagel’s Jimi Hendrix to Hofstadter’s J.S.Bach maybe. Of course there is something “it’s like to be” a bat, even if its self-conscious “I” is no doubt pretty limited by its neurone count. Again, it’s not all or nothing. There must be some kinda way outta here. Next.

Smullyan, on the other hand, was new to me. His brief dialogue with “god” on free-will and ethics, can’t help but lead you to a Taoist, non-teleological, pan-theist view of the “laws of nature”. Liked the conclusion ….

[Quote]
Mortal : You certainly seem partial to Eastern philosophy !
God : Oh, not at all ! Some of my finest thoughts have bloomed in your native American soil.
[Unquote]

East and West are merely points of view as Northrop and others have pointed out. In fact Smullyan is thinking of neither Northrop nor Pirsig, but Walt Whitman when he quotes … “I give nothing as duties. What others give as duties, I give as living impulses.” Native American is good too – the ambiguity in the native referring to the “mortal” in the dialogue works on three levels at least. Clever stuff.

Searle is ultimately disagreed with by Dennett and Hofstadter. This legendary discussion on AI covers the “Chinese Room” and McCarthy’s infamous “thermostat”. Like many a thought experiment the “ifs” are probably too incredible to begin with, but whilst the particular case doesn’t support AI, the reasoning does, even if it is more geared to the material of brains than the form and architecture of the software levels they can support. The disagreements seem subtle compared to the power of the arguments for Strong AI. (I see Roger Schank’s work gets yet more namechecks, alongside Block, Dreyfus, Haugeland, Wilensky and Winograd. Must read Schank and understand better why Jorn Barger fell out with him. My instinct is to stick with Barger. The criticisms of strong AI seem to be targetted at the falsity of early claims to haver created it, rather than the possibility in principle.) The thermostat story, just illustrates the problem with excluded-middle / binary arguments about what constitutes AI. Let’s move on.)

The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of

Used this quote recently (at the MoQ Conference), and admitted I couldn’t recall it’s source.

No, not Shakespeare dummy – it’s a deliberate play on the Tempest quote.

Best documented web source is Thomas Disch, who used this as the title of his book about how Sci-Fi “conquered” the world.

I first saw the phrase as a signature line on some mail discussion forum, and it is frequently referred to as a quote by “a” physicist, alluding to the fact that quantum physical reality is 99.9999% vacuum. The only attribution I can find is David Moser (?)

[BTW – “Science Fiction” – I like the ambiguity, the fiction that is science.]

Shanghai Maglev

Hoping to use the 430kph (270mph) MagLev “train” from Shanghai to PuDong Airport tomorrow.

A somewhat eastern philosophical engineering review here about “being able to run with the wind”.

[Added – a later YouTube video of the full journey – with speedo.]

At 50RMB it’s one eighth the taxi-fare and at 8 minutes it’s under one fifth the travel time too. Scary to think of travelling at that speed only mm from the massive concrete rail, but impressive to see it whizz silently past the freeway traffic on the way here.

Thinking of Prof Eric Laithwaite demonstrating the principles all those years ago at Imperial College, and is my memory playing tricks or were they even earlier black-and-white TV editions of Tomorrow’s World with Raymond Baxter and Michael Rodd ? [James Burke actually.] The principles were first demonstrated by Germans pre-WW2.

[Post note : my flight out left too early, before the MagLev started operating, and my hotel was on the PuDong side of the river away from the downtown LongYang Road terminus anyway, so I missed out. Ah well, next time.]

Shanghai Shipping

The PuDong Shangri La hotel here in Shanghai affords an amazing view of the HuangPu river. The traffic on it indicates the mind-boggling scale of local economic activity.

The myriads of barges and lighters incessantly ploughing up and down, neck and neck, six “lanes” overtaking in each direction, with their loads of coal, aggregates and god knows what, loaded to the gunnels, wash breaking over their prows, are scary enough. The ferries chancing their luck to make the river crossings by weaving through the traffic, are given no obvious quarter. Only the massive cargo freighters, tankers, container ships, heavy lift cranes and barges, and submarines (!) with their official-looking tugs and pilot boats, receive a wider berth.

Amazing stuff, but the seemingly ever present smog, makes any photographic record a pretty murky prospect.

Stanislaw Lem

Still reading Hofstadter and Dennett’s “The Mind’s I” collection when I get free moments.

There are several extracts from the work of Stanislaw Lem, of whom I’d never previously heard, which actually pre-date Hofstadter’s own “Godel, Escher, Bach”. One “book”, “Non Serviam” taken from Lem’s 1971 work “A Perfect Vacuum – Perfect Reviews of Non-Existent Books“, is remarkably prescient concerning the evolution of consciousness. Practically blown away by it, I have annotations next to just about every paragraph.

In fact Dennett and Hofstadter’s own editorial reflections sum it up … Lem’s Non Serviam ” … is not just immensely sophisticated and accurate in its exploitation of themes from computer science, philosophy, and the theory of evolution; it is strikingly close to being a true account of aspects of current work …”. As true now in 2005 I reckon, as it was when they commented in 1981 on this 1971 work.

Zen – The Musical

I was struck at the MoQ conference by the number of passionate musical connections, (not to mention the Liverpool location). There’s a running musical thread in my blog, which I’d never really connected to the world-model mainstream, except I guess through Hofstadter’s Bach and Minsky’s musical appreciation, but Ant kept this one quiet. Some interesting links there too.

I remember thinking, given that it was a post-hippie trip, that there was precious little musical allusion in ZMM given, say the constant references in Kerouac, and the road-movie genre generally. Every movie has a soundtrack except ZMM, and it’s not even a movie. 😉 Odd what ?

What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger

Two posts [initial reaction] & [on reflection] from Hydragenic via [qB @ Frizzy].

Without the BBC here in China, it has seemed eerily distant since last Thursday. Can hardly believe I’m saying it, but it makes you proud to be British.

[Ewan (B) forwarded this link too … We’reNotAfraid.]
[And what’s more, I got this photo onto their site too. “Ian G Australia“]

[Like this one too from Anonymous via Euan (S), via Suw (C). PS like the “stalker gen” idea on Suw’s site :-). Brilliant comment thread too, with additional images.]

Another “post-note” this time via Dave Pollard, the New Yorker story by Adam Gopnik contrasting 9/11 with 7/7 in terms of popular response and public debate.

MoQ Conference Update

Not sure yet whether all the conference papers are to be published – presumably on Ant McWatt’s site would make sense, or the MoQ.org site – it will be interesting to see if and how the BBC filmed documentary and any transcripts see the light of day.

[My photographs published here.]
[Horse has
published proceedings & attendees? on Original MoQ.org]
[Papers are
published on Ant’s site.]
[My own paper here and the accompanying slide presentation here.]
[Many broken links above – under reconstruction by the RPA in 2024.]

Whilst waiting, I thought I’d blog my incomplete thoughts …

I was only able to attend the Wednesday 6th social evening, at the Bear and Billet in Chester and then on a Dee river cruise, and the Thursday 7th conference, before zipping back to Reading as the Thursday evening social got underway. Bob and Wendy (Pirsig) both attended, as did a number of active MoQ-Discuss members and other participants with connections to organiser Ant McWatt, and the Liverpool Philosophy department. Marvellous, not just to put real human faces to names, but to see, hear and be a part of lively discussion between so many enthusiastic personalities. Bob as the self-effacing but proud father of his now self-sufficient MoQ offspring, and Wendy as enthusiastic advocate of MoQ as anyone. Horse, Maggie Hettinger, David Buchanan, Paul Turner, Mark Maxwell, Mati Palm-Leis, Gavin Gee-Clough amongst the 35-plus participants, including several who had travelled from the US, Canada and the Far East, not forgetting the sympathetic BBC TV production team of Andy and Karen. I hope Ant got a full attendee list.

The conference itself kicked-off with a welcome by Ant, including delivering an introduction penned by Bob.

Horse (custodian of MoQ.org and the MoQ-Discuss forum) then read a scene setting excerpt by Lao Tsu from the Tao Te Ching, suggested by Henry Gurr.

Then Paul Turner and I presented a live tour of Henry Gurr’s web-site, focussing certain passages in the narrative ZMM trip, being (a) highly accurate in terms of the real details of the geography and locations, and (b) metaphorically equivalent to the philosophical “chautauqua” woven into the narrative. The latter may be no surprise in a general sense to readers of ZMM, (the low country, the foothills and the high ground of the mind, etc) but Henry’s studies show how precise and consistent the metaphorical bridges between the journey and the chautauqua really are. Those claiming the title “Pirsig Pilgrims” need to check-in with Gennie DeWeese in Bozeman.

Then I presented my own personal view “It’s Evolutionary Psychology, Stupid” of how I came to read ZMM late in life and learn that the MoQ fitted as a world model of many issues I’d discovered in my 25 plus years general engineering management and information modelling experiences to date, and some of my speculative thinking that makes up the material blogged through Psybertron.

[I see this 1999 paper by Ant McWatt (Doug Renselle’s review here at Quantonics), covers very explicit Darwinian evolution parallels in the MoQ. I remember thinking I must be going mad when some MoQ’ers challenged the reality of evolution, but I feel vindicated in the title of my paper.]

Then Dave Boyce, one of Ant’s colleagues, read out a paper “Quality in the new Millennium” by Richard Loggins. A poetic review of the relevance of MoQ and its significance compared with the great works never fully appreciated in the lifetimes of their creators, together with a very personal view of cultural blindness and perception such as only Richard could know. (Post Note – Loggins and his paper both turn out to be hoaxes. Humorous though the content is with hindsight, a great deal of ill-feeling has been caused between the perpetrators and those embarrased by their quotes about the paper. My own reaction to the paper itself was to criticise Loggins / Glenn Bradford’s use of feigned disabilities and sympathy to excuse that “perecption as only Richard could know” as I alluded. See report here.)

The second half was led by the highlight of the day, an immensly creative and moving presentation by Dave Buchanan. Suffice to say it was a speculation on a screenplay, that portrayed the MoQ via a modern-day Orphic mythology with rock music, more details of which I can’t give here without spoiling the quality and effect of the paper itself. You people will be eternally grateful David’s delivery was recorded for posterity by the BBC crew. Inspired stuff which hit home with everyone, not least Bob, who was moved to reveal personal details of experiencing Cocteau’s film (Testament of Orpheus ?). The Orphic thread must surely grow from here.

Follow that, Mark Maxwell. Mark continued with a paper on his questions concerning the coherence of dynamic quality or “sweet spot” that lies between static quality on the one hand and totally disordered chaos at the other extreme. Mark’s search for that elusive dynamic quality, illustrated with his father’s bow and references to Eugen Herrigel.

Mati Palm-Leis then presented his paper on the difficulties of getting Bob’s work approved as a valid academic / doctoral research topic, and some recommendations to make progress in future, Ant McWatt being the sole success so far. A number of those present with specific interests in this problem led to some lively debate.

Talking of academia and education, Gavin Gee-Clough delivered an, at times vitriolic, tirade against the low-quality culture of education by imitation, mediated with an enthralling mix of sex and drugs and rock and roll. Worth experiencing for the QOTSA quote alone.

Several impromptu statements and questions were made by others that led to some real quality debate, terminated only by the caretaker needing us to vacate and lock-up the room. Pity I couldn’t stay for the full post-conference social.

The Long and Winding Road

The first ever conference on Bob Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality was held yesterday 7th July 2005 at Liverpool University Philosophy Department, organised by Dr Anthony McWatt.

A fuller report will follow here, and on the MoQ.org website in due course.

Excellent event with some really high quality presentations, and face-to-face meetings of minds.
Well done to Ant for pulling it off, all the headaches were worth it.