Reply to Cozmikzen 4of4

More rambling reply.
Here's a link to David Hubel's online book:
http://hubel.med.harvard.edu/bcontex.htm

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[demrings]

Inaccurate quote: "The problem with accepting ideas as real is that you're accepting something that's irreducibly complex."

I strongly disagree! Some ideas are very complex, but *none* are irreducibly complex. Ideas like mathematical ones are as easy as can be (math is a result of a sort of 'reductionism of the abstract'). But even more complicated ideas, like say the percept/concept 'face' is not irreducibly complex.

I'm a computationalist. I believe *simplification* is the key to the mind.

[SpiritualAtheist]

The irreducibility to which I refer is something like the probability distribution of a photon. We say that the photon could appear here or there or there or an infinite number of other places in this probability distribution. That is complex behavior, and in the present "orthodoxy" we are told that's just the way it is. No attempt to say "the next photon will appear here." No attempt to reduce further.

[SpiritualAtheist]

No attempt to explain what is observed as a consequence of some simpler natural principle. The mathematical description (formula) has beome the explanation.

I agree with you that simplicity is the key. Perhaps we disagree on the meaning of 'simple'. Philosophy!!

[jogayot]

perhaps you meant this by irreducibly complex:

tinyurl com /62tkdc

and in the end i think that's how universe is. and that's why you get IDers running around, but they (as opposed to scientists) espouse naive idealism.

hard problem of consciousness is imaginary, imagination is hard problem of consciousness ;) it's circular... i like endless universe.

tending toward out of "everythingness" into "nothingness", atm, it solves

problems of existence, and contradictions of "true" god like figures.

[demrings]

The reason I say this is that I can't understand how else the mind might work than somehow computationally. I mean, the brain is not digital, but computational principles still apply in analogue systems!

Virtuality is a metaphor of the mind that enables me to make sense of the modularity of conceptual thinking, which at least I experience. Things like math and universal ideas of mythical or ethical kind. Or faces or tables etc. Virtuality is like the Platonic ideas, only without the hubris.

[demrings]

But a photon is not an idea.

My view is that reality seems irreducibly complex (at least so far), but that virtuality (i.e. the mental product of the computational mind) is simple. Everything virtual can in principle be perfectly understood, because it is virtual. Everything from math and logic (which are obviously simple and understandable, at least the basics of it) to more complex things like symbolism, faces, musicality etc.

[pyrrho314]

a computer mind metaphor solves the first step... how can non-physical models be created in physical structures... and it turns out, how can they not? When you model something you put it into a symbolic domain where the laws of physics don't apply because instead they apply to the material of which the model is made. Even an architect's model changes the physics around from the thing modeled. I think the question is where intention/will come from, why do we process perceptions this way.

[demrings]

To elaborate onthe 'face' percept/concept: We have an area in the brain responsible for the 'face effect'. If this area is damaged, we become face blind, or 'prosopagnosic'.

A healthy brain sees faces not only where they belong, but also in dolls and stick figures and clouds and trees. 'Pareidolia' demonstrates how the 'face template' is flexible. This is an ability that can be trained.

'Face' is thus a program that can be run, for your mind to make a 'template search' in your field of vision.

[demrings]

To elaborate onthe 'face' percept/concept: We have an area in the brain responsible for the 'face effect'. If this area is damaged, we become face blind, or 'prosopagnosic'.

A healthy brain sees faces not only where they belong, but also in dolls and stick figures and clouds and trees. 'Pareidolia' demonstrates how the 'face template' is flexible. This is an ability that can be trained.

'Face' is thus a program that can be run, for your mind to make a 'template search' in your field of vision.

[cozmikzen]

"how does the physical universe give rise to consciousness", keep that in mind when you see mine. maybe consciousness isnt limited to our brain.

im gonna go upload!!

Great freaking videos man, thanks alot!!

its awesome turning reality outside in!