Several mathematicians and physicists have made this same argument. Primarily, their argument boils down to two principles: chaos and complexity. The chaotic argument being that any small difference in initial conditions will have a major effect on the end result. The complexity argument being that many small interactions can lead to unpredictable (literally speaking) macroscopic results. Stuart Kauffman has written extensively on the complexity of the economy, and I would recommend his writings to anyone interested in complexity theory. I think today's unemployment numbers speak to the unpredictability of the economy. First we heard that unemployment wouldn't get above 8%. Then it hit ~10% and all we heard is that it was going to stay there for 2 or 3 years. Now its back to 8.5% and all the economists are making new (useless) predictions. Havel was a genius; I'm glad he could state in an accessible way what many people can only describe in numbers.
> This "era of systems, institutions, mechanisms and statistical averages" is doomed to failure because "there is too much to know" and it cannot "be fully grasped." While back posted something called 'CHOICES' that was basically addressing the same issue based on the same precise critique. > Stuart Kauffman I like the whole Santa Fe gang. (I did see a recent research paper that did challenge some of the findings -- they couldn't reproduce it -- see if I can dig it up.) Kauffman, on the other hand (in my opinion), has already earned a fairly exalted place in history of human thought by 'The Origin of Order' [1]. A very substantial thinker that is not yet fully appreciated. That work is imo possibly a step below Principia (although Wolfram [3] may not agree!). [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Order-Self-Organization-Select...
The Origins of Order, and the later Investigations changed my perspective. Its not often a book can do that. One of the only other books that has affected me so profoundly was Philosophic Investigations, which, perhaps not coincidentally, is where Kauffman took his title from (because he was trying to do for biology what Wittgenstein did for philosophy and lingustics, which is, prove that irreducible levels of order exist that can't be understood in any kind of atomized way). Regardless of the findings of the Santa Fe Institute, Kauffman is an intellectual heavyweight.
> irreducible levels of order exist that can't be understood in any kind of atomized way Interesting. Not sure I can agree with that thesis. I'm with Pythagoras on this matter. The atom is Number.
As to irreducible levels of order, Wittgenstein put it like this: We could try to understand what is happening in a room by describing all that is going on that can be observed. We could observe a man sitting in an elevated wooden bench, and several other men sitting at table opposite him. There also exist 12 individuals paying attention to each person as they speak in succession and another near the front transcribing everything, and etc., etc., etc. We could describe the entire scene in exquisite detail, but unless we already knew what jury trial is, it would be a complete waste of time. There is no amount of description that can allow us to understand what is happening. Kauffman makes the same argument about biology. We spend so much time with a reductionist approach, but perhaps we can never in principle discern how these findings relate to the organismal level, which results from essentially infinite interactions smaller units on many different length and time scales. I would totally agree with you if you said "Numbers are the only form of absolute Truth". I just don't think they can always provide a useful description of the world.
> Greek thinkers; most were extremely disinterested in observation. Of course, but they had at times supremely penetrative insight. Consider Democritus and the Atom. > Pythagoras believed in a highly idealized world "Number governs the Universe" is the shared thought. That school was a comprehensive order governing all aspects of life, including mores, hygiene, etc. Anyway, that school only knew of {N}. I am talking {Z} and harmonic systems: http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=PPN235993... http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=e%5EiPI+%2B+1 To frame it by more contemporary terms, my philosophical views regarding Mathematics are likely close to Constructivism/Intuitionism: I reject the "excluded middle" [1] as a universal truth, and, more fundamentally consider the entire edifice of time-space (and all objects therein) a construct of mind, a side-effect of cognition. (Recall our previous conversation.) I assert that knowledge requires effort, at a fundamental level and is but the fruit of computation. While I personally like Ludwig far (far) more than Alan Turing, it would appear that Turing (an "empiricist" you should note) was correct and our dear Ludwig was merely philosophizing. [1]: Of course (!:) I have a wonderful proof 'showing' this, but the internets is too small to contain it ...
I assert that knowledge requires effort, at a fundamental level and is but the fruit of computation. I agree with this statement, but where I don't agree is that the brain can be treated as a Turing machine. How real neurons respond to real environmental cues is still not entirely clear, and our understanding is becoming more complex year upon year. For example, it was recently shown that the firing of an action potential is not a mere superposition of the inputs to a neuron, as was previously thought, but actually is highly dependent on the order in which the inputs are received. That is, in neurons, logic gates are not the same as the logic gates in an electric circuit, which I believe is the underlying assumption in a Turing machine. I suppose our divergence is that I don't think of LW as "merely philosophizing". I am of the opinion that good philosophy underlies good science. To me, he was showing us how to think, and thus, how to understand the world around us.
It is a temporary condition, I assure you. Truth is eternal. This material life is a crucible: The 'foam' rises to surface and is wiped away; what remains is what is. Like shall be with like: Light with light; darkness with darkness. (Harmonic systems ...) > How real neurons respond to real environmental cues is still not entirely clear, and our understanding is becoming more complex year upon year. For example, it was recently shown that the firing of an action potential is not a mere superposition of the inputs to a neuron, as was previously thought, but actually is highly dependent on the order in which the inputs are received. That is, in neurons, logic gates are not the same as the logic gates in an electric circuit, which I believe is the underlying assumption in a Turing machine. I didn't hear about that, but your conclusion is incorrect: A neuron is modelled as an FSM [1]. You are perfectly correct that a simple logic gate is an inaccurate model for our new understanding of the neuron. But a temporally ordered selector set across n input feeds can be trivially modeled with a multiplexer front-end and a demultiplexer back-end. (In other words, the organic neuron is cleverly O(1) given the permutation set of threshold exceeding event based on a temporal ordering of the input activations, whereas the model will be O(n) -- in terms of space.) It remains a Turing Machine. > I suppose our divergence is that I don't think of LW as "merely philosophizing". I am of the opinion that good philosophy underlies good science. To me, he was showing us how to think, and thus, how to understand the world around us. I have deep respect for Wittgenstein's mind. Let's discuss TLP:4.1252 [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine [2]: http://people.umass.edu/phil335-klement-2/tlp/tlp.html#bodyt...
Anyway, neurons are a convenient example because they're so well known, but there are many other factors that lead me to believe the brain itself can in no way be construed as a Turing machine. Namely, the contribution of glial cells to neurophysiology, which is largely ignored by most people who espouse their ideas on the deterministic nature of the brain (which, if the brain is a Turing machine, it certainly is deterministic). However, we need look no further than the tripartite synapse to see that the behavior of many neural mechanisms is often stochastic. The tripartite synapse is so named because there are three essential components: the axon terminal (pre-synaptic terminal); the post-synaptic terminal; and a psuedopod of an astrocyte. The role of the astrocyte is to provide neurotransmitters and other bio-molecules that can vastly alter long term depression and potentiation. This makes a non-neuronal cell, that does not fire an action potential, integrally important to the normal firing of action potentials. I don' believe there is any such analog in computers. Furthermore, there is biomolecule sharing between oligodendrocytes and axons that drastically alter the properties of the axon, such as the ability of the axon to produce neurotransmitters, to grow and to conduct current. These, and many other, properties are stochastic, not deterministic, and cannot be ignored when developing a complete picture of the brain, but they often are by those who are trying to model the brain and those who are writing about the deterministic quality of the brain (John Searle comes to mind). I believe this is history's influence on neurobiology. It was thought for many years that astrocytes provide structure and nutrients and oligodendrocytes provide myelin; end of story. This is as far from the truth as claiming the world is flat, but is still ignored in so many arguments. I will need to brush up on the Tractatus to have a meaningful discussion about it. I take PI to be divine words, but I've always read that LW himself rejected a lot of the Tractaus later in life, so I haven't paid nearly as much attention as it probably deserves. I appreciate the free link though; definitely going to bookmark.
Yes, his life is parted in the middle. I am strictly a fan of the young, fearless, and spiritual Wittgenstein. TPL is inspired thinking. > I take PI to be divine words !!! b_b, you have some explaining to do! :)
When we focus on the same set of ideas and come to different conclusions, I think it speaks to our underlying assumptions about the world, which can't be dictated by reason or logic. One feels X, and another feels Y. Like our materialist vs. non-materialist conversation the other day. This type of belief can't be shown to be true or untrue; we just pick a side based on some internal criteria, and it can dictate how we feel about many things.
Notions of good and evil, are individual solutions, and are attempts to wrap context around everything. Doing so, we remain ourselves, but we are not accepting each other, and are only agreeing not to raise the point that we are certain the other is wrong. In fact, we can both be wrong, and we can both be right. It is our context that has built our worldview and solutions, and they are worth understanding. IMHO it's not productive to agree to disagree, or to call off the search. We need to understand why we must disagree, and why we need each other in order to search better. An individual cannot be whole unless he/she accepts that everyone else is whole. And to do this, we have to realize that we have no advantage of perception. It's not arrogant when we honestly look to each other to solve the puzzle of the world. It's arrogant to think that anyone can solve it using a context that is consistent with his/her worldview.
mk, I am trying to understand how you arrived at that as the fundamental "issue that [informs the issue that] Havel was raising". (Please explain.) There are 2 distinct concerns here: top-down systems of societal order that govern based on heuristic reasoning and statistical modeling, and, (ultimately) cosmic points of view. Consider: a bottom-up system can be based on an absolutist bias that is applied locally.
And, to me, these seem to be contradictions of a sort. That is, he seems to assert (like you mention) that local or personal absolutism (absolute bias) is natural and good, and yet, he believes that global absolutism is our problem. However, I believe that global absolutism is based in the validity of personal absolutism. For example, I do not think that: "The more we know about dangers like global warming, the less we seem able to deal with them." In fact, I think most individuals know very little about global warming. And, yet, many individuals have strong opinions on global warming based upon personal absolutism. The problem, I see, is that we have validated the idea of personal absolutism too much. In short, if we understood that we are all only correct in context, and knowable in context, then we might better understand that the world may not not be a puzzle to be solved, but that parts of the puzzle can be understood and solved from a (humble) point-of-view. That is, I don't look to my self for an opinion or solution to global warming, but I look to others to better help me understand it and to solve it. That is, 'correctness' about global warming is not found in the individual. I can't even reconstruct the entirety of my own yesterday. I am actually much less knowable than the world. The problem with solving the world has more to do with my complexities than that of the world. IMHO, I think absolutism (objectivity) in the West is wrongly validated in the Individual. In the communist block, I think absolutism (objectivity) was wrongly validated in the State.