Sorry to be somewhat of an iconoclast, but doesn't reductionism push
what is "complex" into something that is "complicated"? Could it not
be that "ego" is emergent? As I understand it, in a CAS structure and
process are intimately intertwined (think pinon and juniper). If the
quality of "personhood" is emergent, then the sub-agents really assume
less importance, as their relationship (co-evolution?) is the
important thing. The arrows, not the boxes.
Russ #3
On Aug 12, 2009, at 12:29 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
So... at what point does the reductionism end? Or, more
specifically, at what point do we decide that the degree of
reductionism is just getting silly?
It used to be a mind-boggling claim that "I" was my brain (note:
mind-boggling, not brain-boggling). Recently, the "brain in a vat"
paradox has more or less replaced Plato's cave, where the original
clearly required an entire, bodily "I" for the story to work. Now
we are dissatisfied again, apparently because we find "I = my
brain" to be too holistic for our tastes? Now we try to determine
the minimal specifiable number of brain parts that need to be in
the vat? Then, apparently, we are surprised to find out that it is
hard to specify? Who really thinks that one day we will find the
quarter-inch square in the brain where "I" resides? Is it really
any better to look for a small cluster of dispersed neurons? Can it
improve anything to say that it isn't the cluster, but a process
that occurs within the cluster?
Bah! A pox on both your... something... not houses... but something.
This is starting to sound <blink>Philosophical</blink>... cut it out!
Seriously... this is precisely where Science needs Philosophy... the
problem isn't in how to answer the question "where am I?" but rather
to understand what the real question is (e.g. "what means I?").
<anecdote> In my collaborations at UNM we have a fictitious
(defunct?) project called the Homunculous project (whose mascot is a
flute player in the head of a flute player in the head of ... named
Homuncupelli). </anecdote> Does the "brain in the Vat" reference
this as well?
A *pox* on your Homunculii and their infinite regress of
Philosophistical Arguementations!
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
