The royal we that is. I blogged when I first spotted Skype that it came from the same guys that brought us Kazaa – P2P technology being fundamentally analogous to semantic networks, that I had been following and blogging about those technologies generally. I’d forgotten until I read this BBC story.
The Ant Man
Hofstadter’s metaphor for the brain / mind as a colony of ants makes only one reference to E O Wilson, as author of “The Insect Societies”. Been meaning to add E O Wilson to my reading list.
One quick google throws up this exchange, something I’ve alluded to many times about a number of physicists. Stephen Hawking recently said that the human race won’t last this millennium unless we start to colonize space. Do you agree ? E. O Wilson ” I admire Hawking but I think he’s completely wrong. All of the evidence shows that we can turn Earth into our permanent, safe home.” [via Salon] Interestingly, the photo of Wilson in this article has him with a large model of an ant, very like Escher’s Mobius Strip. Just noticed I was reading these Hofstadter passages whilst sat in the “Little Creatures” brewery in Freo.
Wow, didn’t realise Consilience was so recent (1998). “Insect Societies” pre-dates Hofstadter (obviously, he quotes it) but Wilson also published Pullitzer prize-winning “Ants” in 1991. The word “consilience” (meaning little more than convergence, of ideas across diverse domains) was apparently coined by William Whewell, in The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 1840 [Wikipedia]. The word is listed in the 1913 Websters [OneLook]
The biologist (sickle-cell) S.J. Singer apparently said : “I link, therefore I am.” (Quoted from Consilience)
As a 1998 book, I can see why Consilience was a reactionary undertaking. For example Bjorn Lomborg is an interest of mine (not because I agree with him, I’ve not read him, you understand, but) because of the intense debate he caused, and the questions he raised about motives for doom & gloom arguments. E O Wilson’s review of Lomborg is wholly negative, and bemoans the scientific resources expended countering his suggestions. Interestingly in this article, neither Lomborg, nor his inspiration Julian Simon, is quoted as saying anything controversial, quite the opposite. “primary research on the environment, generally appears to be professionally competent and well balanced.” There is no question that, in the process of creating a political movement and seeking the scientific evidence to support it, environmentalists have sometimes made both factual and strategic errors — who hasn’t? But environmentalists are not devious puppeteers controlling the heartstrings of the hoi polloi and the purse strings of politicians. The skeptical environmentalist is jousting at windmills, whereas the people he denounces are fighting real battles. If the words of Lomborg’s nemesis-turned-idol Julian Simon come true — if “the material conditions of life continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time” — it will be with the help of, not in spite of, the environmental movement. [Kathryn Shulz in Grist]
The point for me … Lomborg’s error is in implying a “conspiracy theory” angle to erroneous (spurious, secondary) bandwagon-jumping motives on eco-arguments. No amount of objective scientific debate can sustain or refute that. Only something like common sense. A bit like the quote made against Dawkins – “the atheist who has done more than any other for the cause of religion”; scientists arguing objectively against Lomborg, and using mainstream media to do it, are digging their own graves, spreading the meme “with 3,000 footnotes.” (Me too, BTW)
Interestingly Dawkins mocks “the great convergence”. Interesting too that induction (the basis of the original Whewell definition of consilience, induction from two directions to the same conclusion) is much undermined anyway since Popper.
Many happy returns for a “dangeorus entity”
Aung San Suu Kyi is 60, and still under house arrest.
Envy and the Logic of Death
Couldn’t help noticing the hypocrisy in this tale of envy and fear between dynamism and comfort. We are so mixed up. Yes, that’s we.
What’s It Like To Be An Ant Colony
Hofstadter’s variation on Nagel’s Bat. His “Ant Fugue” seems to say it all. More later.
Schopenhauer
Said “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” which reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke’s 3 stages of reaction to technological breakthroughs: (a) It’s completely impossible. (b) OK, it’s possible, but it’s practically useless. (c) Well, I said it was a good idea all along.
Anyway I’m browsing the BBC In Our Time / History of Ideas “Greatest Philsopsopher” debate / vote.
Hofstadter and Zen
I’m well through Godel, Escher, Bach.
(Started Hofstadter’s “GEB” here.)
Hofstadter is almost apologetic in his introduction about his apparent espousing of Zen philosophy, almost distancing himself from it to maintain credibility with serious scientific peers. It’s actually pretty clear in the book that he is not ultimately sympathetic to it anyway, but he does provide a good summary of where it fits as a world view, which for me suggests he does really “get it”.
His baffling “MU Offering” dialogue does not itself actually provide much enlightenment on the Zen koan and string folding stuff, but the following chapter “Mumon and Godel” is excellent.
“Zen is holism, carried to its logical extreme. If holism says that things can only be understood in wholes, not as sums of their parts, Zen goes one further in maintaining that the world cannot be broken into parts at all” [by the duality of the words we subjects use to name distinct objects within it.] “Zen, eg in its koans, is trying to break the mind of logic.”
Zen breaks this logical comfort zone, but doesn’t itself provide any real alternative. To study it is to miss the point of it. The “way” is unattainable, to name it is to lose it.
As well as drawing parallels in subject matter and ways of looking at reality between Zen and Escher, he also draws on frequent examples of Magritte and I notice also that “The Mind’s I” has Magritte’s “The False Mirror” on the cover. Magritte is a recurring theme.
[Post-note : If M hade been a note in post-Bach musical notation, as is E, my guess is Hofstadter could just as easily have named his book Godel, Magritte, Bach with no loss of meaning. Ultimately, he makes almost as much reference to the work of Magritte as he does Escher.]
It’s becoming apparent that GEB is mainly about languages, mathematical and typographical, the communication of information, and the properties of encoding on multiple levels, patterns within and upon patterns. ‘There is no such thing as an uncoded message. There are only messages written in more or less familiar codes; when familiar it ceases to appear like a code.” Reminded me very strongly of all language being metaphors, just that some metaphors are so long established they are dead, are no more, ceased to be, fallen off their perch, pushing up the daisies, gone to meet their maker. (Pythons, with apologies to Lakoff)
====
[Post Note: Hofstadter takes his linguistic, syntactical, algorithmic ideas to the extreme in the creation of semantics here “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies“. Some things do get “created”. Recommended.]
Epiphenomenalism
Huxley (Darwin’s bulldog) – The physical world has causal closure. Physical things are caused by physical things. The biological brain is part of that physical world. IF the mind is not physical, then it cannot cause physical things to happen, and must just be a by-product, and epi-phenomenon, of the physical. Mind and mental things are just the “hum” of the brain machine, not the cause of anything.
Yeah, close. Of course the theological response is that divine intervention closes the causality between the spiritual and the physical. The real problem is the word IF. Better conclusion is that mind, free-will, intention, etc are also physical. Where’s the problem ?
Facts Fixed Around Policy – Really ?
This one is running and running …. more on the decision making behind the Iraq invasion from The Downing Street Memo.
The point of interest for me is not so much the outrage that this clearly happens (happened) at high level, but that it is in fact how most decisions are reasoned in real life.
Quality of Explanation
Julian Baggini article at Butterflies and Wheels. Subject close to my heart, but this article is mainly pointing out the rhetorical extremes between explanation and none, rather than the relative qualities of arguments.
Some good points in the article about the human need for an explanation to accept, even where there there isn’t one available of any quality.
[This is an christian evangelical example again, Billy Graham in this case. See also Scary Ted Haggard arguments justifying proselytising in the US Air Force academy story, reported here at BBC, and more references to US government and president links.]