The two types of knowledge - as given in the classical language of Russell's classical version and as given and the more modern Hameroff/Penrose QM version
I. Russell's classical version http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/problems/terms.html 1) Russell's two types of knowledge. Bertrand Russell identified two types of knowledge, which I have been calling objective knowledge and subjective knowledge. Or the two types of truth. a) Knowledge by Acquaintance (Subjective Knowledge-experiential knowledge or Qualia) - [This appears to me to be what the British empircists called "empirical knowledge."] Knowledge by acquaintance is one of the ways Russell that we can have knowledge of things. We have knowledge by acquaintance when we are directly aware of a thing, without any inference. We are immediately acquainted with our sense-data. Knowledge by acquaintance is logically independent of any knowledge of truths. b) Knowledge by Description (Objective Knowledge -quantitative knowledge ) - Knowledge by description is the other way, together with acquaintance, that allows us to have knowledge of things. Knowledge by description is predicated on something with which we are acquainted, sense-data, and some knowledge of truths, like knowing the description: "such-and-such sense-data are caused by the physical object." Thus, knowledge by description allows us to infer knowledge about the actual world via the things that can be known to us, things with which we must have direct acquaintance. Russell's famous example of knowledge by description is his discussion of Bismarck, a physical entity with which we may either have acquaintance, or knowledge by the description: "the first Chancellor of the German Empire." II.Consciousness, computability and quantum wave collapse. Penrose and Hameroff's QM version of this computability) -- http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs_3_1.html#conscious%20events Conscious events as orchestrated spacetime selections JCS, 3 (1), 1996, pp.36-53 Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose Abstract: What is consciousness? Some philosophers have contended that `qualia', or an experiential medium from which consciousness is derived, exists as a fundamental component of reality. Whitehead, for example, described the universe as being comprised of `occasions of experience'. To examine this possibility scientifically, the very nature of physical reality must be re-examined. We must come to terms with the physics of spacetime , as is described by Einstein's general theory of relativity , and its relation to the fundamental theory of matter , as described by quantum theory. This leads us to employ a new physics of objective reduction: OR which appeals to a form of `quantum gravity' to provide a useful description of fundamental processes at the quantum/classical borderline (Penrose, 1994; 1996). Within the OR scheme, we consider that consciousness occurs if an appropriately organized system is able to develop and maintain quantum coherent superposition until a specific `objective' criterion (a threshold related to quantum gravity) is reached; the coherent system then self-reduces (objective reduction: OR). We contend that this type of objective self-collapse introduces non-computability, an essential feature of consciousness. OR is taken as an instantaneous event , the climax of a self-organizing process in fundamental spacetime , and a candidate for a conscious Whitehead-like `occasion' of experience. How could an OR process occur in the brain, be coupled to neural activities, and account for other features of consciousness? We nominate an OR process with the requisite characteristics to be occurring in cytoskeletal microtubules within the brain's neurons (Penrose and Hameroff, 1995; Hameroff and Penrose, 1995; 1996). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roger Clough, [email protected] 9/15/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
