[Krimel] > The first waves limit the degrees of freedom available to any future > waves.Each new wave is influenced by the ripples that precede it. This is > the origin of SQ. To say there is a pattern is to say that the limits of > variability are defined. A pattern is a range of probability. As we learn
> in pre-school for a pattern to hold it has to stay inside the lines. A > Static Pattern has to be stable over time. The longer it remains static > the more influence it has over future possibilities. DM: Agreed. > [Krimel] > While certain aspects of this resemble tic tac toe; it really isn't as > bleakly deterministic as that. DM: Determinism is way off the mark. Surely a fine balance between chaos and just enough past-imposed-limitation to give us an evolving and open actuality. [Krimel] I don't think determinism is off the mark. What is off the mark is the idea that determinism can provide infallible prediction. The point that converges from math, physics and biology is that all of the cause and effect relationships can not be specified in advance. Or look at it in terms of degrees of causality. If all of the really big forces are in balance then minor even very minor causes can play a decisive role. Take an apple clinging to the branch of a tree being pulled by gravity. We know that as the apple matures the force of gravity will surely pull it to the ground. Our study of biology will yield clues as to the range of possible dates that a mature fruit is likely to be shaken from the tree. But to predict exactly when and where that apple will fall we would have to factor in exact temperatures, wind speeds, the population of animals that might climb or bump into the tree, conditions of the soil and the amount of water vapour in the air... It is not a problem so much for determinism as for exact prediction which has long been seen as the goal of determinism. > [Krimel] > The more complex the SQ becomes the more > possible interactions can occur between static patterns. The more > possibility is limited, the freer actuality becomes. As possibility closes > at the lower level it opens at a higher level. Or one might say new static > patterns arise dynamically from static foundations. DM: And vice versa [Krimel] Perhaps but as I have said in the past I don't think a top down approach works very well. > [Krimel] > Our experience of all of this is shaped primarily by our biology. DM: Yes upto a point, but just as much we are shaped by our openness to new possibilities emerging on the back of all these patterns.I see a person as having an expanding history and future. [Krimel] But I think projecting a future or exploring the past are both subject to the problems of determinism outlined above. But you are quite right as the behaviorist would have it what we do is a product of our genes, our history and the present moment. > [Krimel] > We are organisms confined within certain biologically ordained limits. > Each of us has a range of possibility. DM: This range has increased from what is possible for a single celled organism to the range open to a thinking, socialised person. There are realised possibilities required (a history) to reach new and more complex possibilities. [Krimel] Correct. The range has increased as a function of the inflow of solar energy into the biosphere. The result has been increasingly complex techniques for the dissipation of that energy. Each increase is a product of what has come before. The range of possibility is limited by the degrees of freedom lost in previous choices. > [Krimel] > Emotions are for the most part, in most of us, purely autonomic and > outside of conscious control. DM: From the point of view of habit and inheritance, but what about from the point of view of their creation and dynamic emergence? [Krimel] The point of view of creation and dynamic emergence is evolution; pure and simple. > [Krimel] > We do no choose to be happy any more that we choose > major depression. DM: Is not reaction and response not potentially open? My life coach and Sartre suggest that we always choose. [Krimel] I would say that choice is largely an illusion. It is the interplay of complex causal factors colliding in ways that make final outcomes hard to predict. We are driven to believe in free choice, but as John Searle points out this does not square well with what we know about nature, biological or human nature. > [Krimel] > We do not choose to fall in love or to be awed by a work > of art. DM: Are you sure? Is there no alternative to habit, if nothing else habits need their origins explained. [Krimel] Habits are static patterns of behavior. They are explained in the same way as other static patterns are explained above. In the same way that fixed action patterns and instinct evolve in species. Patterns of individual behavior evolve as a response to events in the environment working on what biology gives us. Biology provides the foundation and framework. Experience builds on it. > [Krimel] > While we might learn consciously to appreciate certain kinds of art > or a certain type of person; these learned preferences affect who > specifically we love or which pieces of art inspire us but they do not > alter the fundamental nature of these biological responses. DM: Maybe consider the complexity of the organism as a self-changing system? It changes within itself whether or not stimulated to do so. It has an ability to change its response, this is key to flexibility and survival. Is this not what humans are very good at compared to animals. If approach 'a' does not work lets try 'b'. I think where you see the fixed space I am seeing the wiggle space. [Krimel] Yes. The ability to respond to increasing complexity is the niche our species dominates. We can see this ability reflected in the increase in the size of the human cortex. We have an expanded capacity to store, replay, process and evaluate experience. Lots of room to wiggle in that space. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
