Greetings All;
I am new to your group, and am moved to contribute by the Machado passage
posted by Pedro. Never have I read such a concise and eloquent rendering
of how I've come to understand the dynamic physical process of mind and
intelligence. The poetic focus this last week, and the thread's original
Far East infusion, has been refreshing. However, I will try to
contribute something towards a more formal expression of intelligence per
Joe Brenner's suggestion.
My own research has led me to a number of realizations, not the least of
which, very generally stated, is that the question of cognition, mind, and
intelligence will only be understood by embracing a paradox of information
- not in the the Shannon sense, but in the significance to organisms sense.
Namely, to be informed, in the sense that an agent's internal structure
re-organizes so as to increase its chance of making significant choices in
its indeterminate environment, is to do two seemingly contradictory things
at once:
1) Re-organize so as to represent, or 'know', distinct objects and events
in the agent's world that are relevant to it, and
2) Re-organize so as to represent, or 'know', the relevant inter-relations
between these objects and events.
And, the crux of the paradox is that these two behaviors are *simultaneous*.
Put very briefly, agents evolved to do this, I suggest, because physical
reality is itself both distinct events and their inter-relations,
*simultaneously*. Here in lies the numerical intractability of the *n*-body
problem; because, both the barionic masses and their gravitational
attributes co-exist, not as a sequential processes, but as a single unified
dynamic.
It is here where I think this thread's openness to more (w)holistic world
views can be very useful. Never the less, an *n*-body system, though
numerically intractable, is still formally knowable to within knowable
bounds. So, there is a both/and outcome, where distinct formalism, the
so-called Western tradition, are employed as tools to both measure and
influence the complex irreducible dynamics of self-adaptive systems.
Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there
is no road, the road is made by walking.
Celestial masses both form and are simultaneously formed by the dynamic
gravitational terrain, an attribute intrinsically of the system.
Similarly, I suggest that brain assemblages of neural, glial, and blood
vessel cells both form and are simultaneously formed by their interstitial
chemistry and fields into and out of complex terrains of mass and energy.
Again, this system is intractable when assessed sequentially. There is a
physical, and therefore, simultaneous dynamic between so-called parts and
their whole.
By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path
that never will be again. Wanderer, there is no road - only wakes upon the
sea.
Amazing image. A beautiful rendering of a self-efficacious relationship
between the distinct agent(s) and its(their) surroundings at every scale.
Cordially,
Josh
On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 3:29 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es wrote:
Dear FISers,
Herewith my contribution to the poetic intelligence tangent we have
entered.
It is in Spanish, from the great poet Antonio Machado:
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.
One English translation could say:
“Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there
is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and
upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea.
I find it quite moving, and extremely complex on its meaning, quite
phenomenological and deeply neurophilosophical. But above all, impressive.
Thanks are due to Chuan, Stan, Joseph, Francesco... et al.
best---Pedro
Lee todo en: Caminante no hay camino - Poemas de Antonio Machado
http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/antonio-machado-caminante-
no-hay-camino.htm#ixzz3Uv6PQoJo http://www.poemas-del-alma.
com/antonio-machado-caminante-no-hay-camino.htm#ixzz3Uv6PQoJo
Francesco Rizzo wrote:
Caro Joseph e cari Tutti,
anche se rischio di essere bloccato o frainteso perché non ho voce
linguistica di moda, nei numerosi interventi precedenti ho sottolineato
l'importanza della parola composta emo-ra-zionalità, risultato della
combinazione della intelligenza emotiva e della razionalità
intellettuale. Nessuna descrizione non poetica della realtà può essere
completa. Ilya Prigogine ha proposto di adottare nel campo della scienza il
paradigma della musica. Henri Poincarè ritiene, talvolta, le equazioni o le
funzione un museo teratologico ed i modelli paradigmatici una scelta
convenzionale o di
