Re: Creativity

On 1 Dec 2003 01:46:23 GMT, Neil W Rickert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lester Zick) writes:
>>On 30 Nov 2003 17:37:30 GMT, Neil W Rickert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in
>>comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lester Zick) writes:
>
>>>>What I will point out for general edification is that everything that
>>>>is a property whether seen, thought about, or considered in any way
>>>>whatsoever is seen, thought about, and considered within the envelope
>>>>of the brain. In other words there is no specifically objective
>>>>reality outside the brain/mind complex. And everything we know and can
>>>>know of reality inside or outside the brain/mind complex takes place
>>>>right in the brain/mind complex.
>
>>>This sounds like the solipsist's manifesto.
>
>>Why do I get the distinct impression you feel more comfortable
>>discussing things in personally abusive terms?
>
>I'm sorry that you see it as "personally abusive".  It was not
>intended that way.
>
>If you don't believe that you are implying solipsism, then you need
>to clarify your assertion.
>
>>                                               Where do you think
>>perception, cognition, and the results of those processes occur? In
>>outer space just because you're looking at the moon?
>
>The reflecting of sunlight off the moon is an important part of the
>processes, and it surely does not occur solely within the brain.
>
> ----------

Let me see if I can clarify what I was describing in mechanical terms.

Let's say we see the moon and each of us sees it in almost exactly the
same way in practical terms.

Now the moon itself is what I would call a material body. But that
materiality is not the same as what we see or what we know in
objective terms. The actual lunar materiality as it exists in space
represents a continuum amalgm of undifferentiated material properties
which I would call aggregated sensation. And that amalgm reacts to
other material amalgms in continuum terms according to the differences
between and/or among them, things like sunlight, gravitation, etc.

In looking at the moon what we see however is not its materiality as a
whole but certain objective properties selected by our optical,
perceptual, and cognitive faculties for a variety of evolutionary and
volitional reasons. I say objective in this context but only because
those properties have properties to begin with and not because the
properties we see are material or because they are external or
anything like that. These kinds of considerations we can only know
after the fact.

But the actual perception lies wholly within the brain/mind complex.
And the same is true for everything we know of or can know of. This
doesn't mean that material aggregates like the moon as it exists in
outer space lie in the brain/mind complex. But it does mean that every
property known of the moon and everything else lies in the brain/mind
complex because that is where perception and cognition occur in terms
of differences and differences are the reason perception and cognition
occur inside the brain/mind complex and not anywhere outside.

The typical solipsist views material aggregates as lying within the
brain/mind complex and when he uses the terms objective or subjective
what he is referring to are whether those things subject to his will
or not. And most opponents of solipsism contend that subjective things
lie inside the brain/mind complex and objective things lie outside.
However this is an entirely fallacious distinction and badly misjudges
the whole meanings of the terms subjective and objective.

The only reason I wrote the previously cited thread on solipsism to
begin with was that I was immensely frustrated by the conventional
approaches to the problem. It's an old and very stupid philosophical
doctrine that should have been dealt with centuries ago in definitive
terms.

The term objective simply refers to things having definable, known, or
knowable properties. In point of fact there are no definable "things"
in the brain/mind complex except properties and properties of other
properties and those properties are the result of differences between
material circumstances whether originating inside or outside the
brain/mind complex.

This is why the doctrine of differential cognition is crucial to the
comprehension of what goes on in the brain/mind complex and why there
is a mind in literal mechanical terms and why the brain is not just an
especially complex piece of neural machinery. But it turns out that
solipsism is also a critical limiting link in analyzing the problem.
Not so much because it represents a credible possibility but because
it highlights the issues involved, issues the importance of which I
didn't begin to appreciate until I started considering the problem in
critical terms.

I realize that I have drawn several very fine and idiosyncratic
terminological distinctions in the course of elaborating differential
cognition. The terminology however isn't so important as the
properties and mechanics of the brain/mind complex they describe.
(By the way, Omega, this is the reason I didn't seem very enthusiastic
about your suggestion regarding receptors, etc. These things may exist
but the real issue is whether they are part of perception or cognition
or just what.)

So where do we get notions like inside or outside the brain/mind
complex in definitive terms? It's all in the logical relations between
and among the things we see in perception and in the mind. These are
all objective so the fact that we see them has no bearing on the issue
of inside or outside We judge whether something is inside or outside
the brain/mind complex according to the relations between things.

If what we see as the moon is occluded by other things, we know or
infer that the moon lies beyond those things and those other things
are intervening. And if those things lie beyond our arms or noses we
know that those things also lie outside whatever is defined as lying
within arms, noses, the skin, etc. This is exactly what babies do in
the course of their cognitive development and why it takes so long.
They have to formulate and automate all their cognitive relations in
spatial, temporal, and logical terms. In other words they have to
learn to judge things in terms of perspective.

This is why we all tend to see things like the moon in very similar
ways - because we all see it through exactly the same processes of
logical inference applied to perspective.  And this is also why
Renaissance painters became famous for their renderings of spatial
perspective, because it had unstated and previously unrecognized
cognitive implications applicable to every individual.

These relations are all objective. I'm going out on a limb here
because I haven't analyzed or defined all the implications but I'm
going to suggest that all true materialities are subjective and
unknowable in this manner apart from objective differential aspects.
(I use the term materiality here to describe aggregate sensory
properties of things as a whole since the term material has objective
connotations relating to properties of material things like steel
balls, the moon, or whatever.)

And to answer a previous question, yes dreams have properties as
dreams that make them objective despite the fact thay they are
figments and not material things. The same would apply to ideas,
concepts, in fact anything that has definable properties one of which
is not materiality. Which is why simply correlating an idea like
objectivity with outside the brain/mind complex represents a
treacherous and ultimately fallacious assumption.

If we look at the ongoing discussions in this group we can easily see
that it focuses primarily on issues between behaviorism and cogntive
science. And early on I suggested that the issue might be so fractious
because there were certain things cognitive scientists felt they had
not resolved quite to their own satisfaction and that advocates of
behaviorism were preying on that lack of resolution.

Now I think the problem becomes a little clearer What I think is
happening is that cognitive scientists are being caught in an
intellectual bind between materialism on the one hand and solipsism on
the other. Obviously this is specualtive on my part and is not
intended to demean cognitive science or cognitive scientists. But
cognitive science seems to be squeezed between materialism and
solipsism to explain exactly how the brain/mind complex works such
that it is neither just a neural machine and yet is not a subjective
fantasy. I think most cognitive scientists ignore the issue and try to
focus on results despite the lack of any definitive understanding. But
I think this may represent the ultimate source of the sense of
frustration and irritation I discern in such discussions.

And I believe that the only way to resolve this issue is to come up
with some definitive comprehension of how the brain/mind complex
works in mechanical terms that is neither materialist nor solipsist in
implication, an unexcluded middle in effect between materialism on the
one hand and solipsism on the other. And I regard differential
cognition as the only plausible alternative in self consistent
mechanical terms.


(Because the foregoing explanation has important philosophical and
cognitive implications I'm going to cross post it to sci.cognitive and
sci.philosophy.meta. But you are welcome to delete those if you wish
in your own replies.)


Regards - Lester