Sunday, March 19, 2017

Sure, have a bit of rapping fun, 
Until AI bytes you in your bun!
"It's just a smart tool, 
So don't hype it fool!"
But, will "humans" time soon be done?

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Anamnesis

The Anamnesis process refers
To when memory, untaught, still concurs
(See Meno and Phaedo -
Dialogues of Plato)
With the truth: the minds "inner" murmurs.

In Meno, Plato's character (and old teacher) Socrates is challenged by Meno with what has become known as the Sophistic paradox, or the paradox of knowledge:
Meno: And how are you going to search for [the nature of virtue] when you don't know at all what it is, Socrates? Which of all the things you don't know will you set up as target for your search? And even if you actually come across it, how will you know that it is that thing which you don't know?
In other words, if you don't know any of the attributes, properties, and/or other descriptive markers of any kind that help signify what something is (physical or otherwise), you won't recognize it, even if you actually come across it. And, as consequence, if the converse is true, and you do know the attributes, properties and/or other descriptive markers of this thing, then you shouldn't need to seek it out at all. The result of this line of thinking is that, in either instance, there is no point trying to gain that "something"; in the case of Plato's aforementioned work, there is no point in seeking knowledge.
Socrates' response is to develop his theory of anamnesis. He suggests that the soul is immortal, and repeatedly incarnated; knowledge is actually in the soul from eternity, but each time the soul is incarnated its knowledge is forgotten in the shock of birth. What one perceives to be learning, then, is actually the recovery of what one has forgotten. (Once it has been brought back it is true belief, to be turned into genuine knowledge by understanding.) And thus Socrates (and Plato) sees himself, not as a teacher, but as a midwife, aiding with the birth of knowledge that was already there in the student.
The theory is illustrated by Socrates asking a slave boy questions about geometry. At first the boy gives the wrong answer; when this is pointed out to him, he is puzzled, but by asking questions Socrates is able to help him to reach the true answer. This is intended to show that, as the boy wasn't told the answer, he could only have reached the truth by recollecting what he had already known but forgotten.

This lesson, is artfully repeated by Jacob Bronowski, in the BBC production of "The Ascent of Man", where he demonstrates that Pythagoras Theorem is something that a boy without being taught geometry has the reason and forms within him to grasp the theorem without being discursively and symbolically taught it (see
here).

Monday, November 25, 2013

Platonic Realm

What if concepts are just things rehearsed
As Platonic ideals in dispersed
Universal like forms
(That we root all our norms)?
Then our minds in this "realm" are submersed.


Platonism is an ancient school of philosophy, founded by Plato (428/427-348/347 BCE). The "Platonic realm" usually refers to the ideal realm in which Plato's' theory of forms operates. Some commentators hold Plato argued that truth is an abstraction. In other words, we are urged to believe that Plato's realm is divorced/divided from the so-called external world, of modern European philosophy, despite the fact Plato taught that ideas are ultimately real (albeit conceived by us as norms), and different from non-ideal things.  In this respect we can interpret Plato's thought of ideas being Dual Aspect Monist, we have thoughts that have ideal and a non-ideal aspect.  
The Platonic Realm, where the ideal forms of the Good, True and Beautiful are to be found, is connected to everything underneath in the physical realm.  

Platonism is considered to be, in mathematics departments the world over, the predominant philosophy of mathematics, especially regarding the foundations of mathematics.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Quantum Woo

When is “woo”, not just new, but taboo?
Quantum woo pseudoscience you pooh-pooh
(Since it’s false to your pet
Ideology bet),
Thus you dismiss it all as doo-doo!

Quantum woo is the justification of irrational beliefs by an obfuscatory reference to quantum physics.  However, quantum theory/logic has a role in biology and perhaps consciousness (as in the new science of Quantum Biology).  It is not all necessarily "woo".  Some who claim (by the demarcation theory in the philosophy of science) that a new (outside of a physics domain) theory, is pseudoscience need to ensure that their reasoning is not based on an ideology that is not irrational given the findings of quantum theory, e.g., a naive materialism/realism.  By making a claim, and risking setting taboo status on a research area by their criticism (i.e., pooh-poohing) it needs to be rigorously considered (with an open mind as to the ideology underpinning reality).  Otherwise the critic can be criticised as being pseudoskeptical, and himself talking doo-doo!

Monday, November 18, 2013

Dusk and Dawn

I love dark nights and love sunny days,
Each is good in their own special ways.
Gloaming dusk follows dawn,
Day light goes, comes back on: 
From the sun's death and life, spirits raise.


Would you enjoy the sunshine if you banished clouds and the night? Would continual bliss be a curse?  We need both light and dark, night and day.  Happiness (or success) should not be the goal of life, rather it would should ensue when we lead significant lives, aligned to true purpose and meaning.  The last line, has a Tolkien like intent to speak to a Eucatastrophe


 “Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” ~ Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Collective Unconscious

Jung's "Collective Unconscious" effect
Is that we all share minds that project.
So if "I" think a thought,
Then by "you" it is caught:
Synchronicity means we connect.

Carl Gustav Jung's concept of collective unconscious is based on his experiences as a psychoanalyst. Though initially Jung followed the Freudian theory of unconscious as the psychic strata formed by repressed wishes, he later developed his own theory on the unconscious to include some new concepts. The most important of them is the archetype.

Archetypes constitute the structure of the collective unconscious - they are psychic innate dispositions to experience and represent basic human behavior and situations. Thus mother-child relationship is governed by the mother archetype. Father-child - by the father archetype. Birth, death, power and failure are controlled by archetypes. The religious and mystique experiences are also governed by archetypes.

Archetypes manifest themselves through archetypal images (in all the cultures and religious doctrines), in dreams and visions. Therefore a great deal of Jungian interest in psyche focuses on dreams and symbols interpretation in order to discover the compensation induced by archetypes as marks of psyche transformation.

The collective unconscious is an universal datum, that is, every human being is endowed with this psychic archetype-layer since his/her birth. One can not acquire this strata by education or other conscious effort because it is innate.  In a sense it is a pool of innate knowledge that the mind is "projected" into and "reflection" taken from.

In his subsequent work with the Nobel prize winning Physicist,  Wolfgang Pauli he developed a interdisciplinary theory of a psycho-physical effect known as "Synchronicity" , or the "Acausal Connection Principle".  The understanding of Quantum Mechanics lends credence to the notion that Quantum Systems can be connected when "entangled". This has lead some to speculate on the quantum basis of the mind/consciousness.  Indeed perhaps an unconscious part of us is a shared thing, where "I" and "you" is really a connected "one", or "Other".

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Biography

First cause formed in physics the knack;
Cybernetic effects fed it back.
But our needs led to want;
We collapsed to a quant.
Hence theology's back on the track.


This limerick is an autobiography and whimsical biography of the universe, a kind of Theory of Everything in panentheism (the theistic worldview holding God to be both transcendent and immanent). It describes my own studies in physics and cybernetics, followed by my material desires leading me into a stage in my career as a quant (financial quantitative analyst), and finally my interest in theology in an effort to find my way back to meaning and purpose, resparking my academic interests in physics and cybernetics. 

The allegorical aspect of the five lines is more complex:
  • Line 1 — A first cause started a world in which evolution (the "knack") would eventually emerge;
  • Line 2 — By means of feedback mechanisms, intelligence emerged and became self-aware;
  • Line 3 — Mankind chose to serve their own material needs;
  • Line 4 — As a result of this, humans are conscious of themselves as individuals rather than as beings coherent with the universal wave function;
  • Line 5 — God guides us in the search to rediscover a selfless worldview.