AW: [Fis] CONSILIENCE: When separate inductions jump together

I cannot say that I understand very deeply the deep structure behind
"consilience". The term may describe an introspective experience of
understanding, setting into relation, getting the inner structure of
SEEMINGLY UNRELATED aspects of cognition. If it were closely related
similarities, the intellectual reward would be less than which merits a
"Wov, by Jove! That's consilience for you!..." type specific intensity. So,
the attribute of what is a consilience and what is it not does not reside in
the subject-matter but, again, in the spectator. (For someone to whom
pencils, quills, pens and crayons do not fall into one category, it may be
an experience of consilience that one can use each of them to write).
If everything is too much related, we often speak about a psychotic
incident; the opposite case, that the glue, making the inner concepts and
feelings carry a sense of belonging-together, is below a critical threshold,
is usually referred to as a depression, but this is only tradition. No one
has any idea why and how we have the "feeling of evidence" which tells us
that heretofore unrelated inner experiences (concepts, ideas, feelings) now
belong together. The understanding is a key mechanism and of course we
cannot easily understand the mechanism of understanding (try watching your
own eyes from the inside).
This psycho-talk aside, I'd like to comment on Malcolm's point of the close
relation between predicting and recognising. There is reason to assume that
both are the same as far as the brain is concerned. We measure on animals
whether they have learnt the use (or the attributes) of something by
watching them become predictable in their relation to the thing. "If it
behaves like ... then it is ..." seems to be a very common-sense and usual
way of dealing with experiences of the brain. (The term "experiences of the
brain" is a very broad category, encompassing virtually anything but the
subject-matter /reason, cause/ of inhibitions and taboos.) So, I see no
great benefits in splitting up the properties of our brain productions into
"I - statically - believe this to have properties {a,b,c,...}" and "I -
dynamically - believe this to do {q,w,r,s,...}". In fact, my constant
nagging in this chatroom about combing together how something is now and how
it shall become in the future centers exactly around the idea that these
aspects are distinct only in our brain. Really, I believe that our brain
processes momentary and predictive processes in somewhat different fashions.
(As in this trade, psychology, there is a tradition that anyone may and is
encouraged to offer any theories about thinking and understanding, because
there can be no right way of understanding humans, I respectfully offer this
great theory without any pretence of importance or exactitude or sense.
Theories on how understanding works are dozen to a dime and neither of them
is more true that any of the competing ones. A psychological theory has the
scientific value of a poem or a painting - you like it, ok, you don't like
it, tant pis. We can always make experiments to prove that what we want the
experiment to prove.)
That the brain makes us distinguish between the stable, static aspect of a
thing and its dynamic, predictable properties is ok, but has probably
nothing to do with the thing and its place in the flow of Nature. We should
distinguish between errors ex introspection and errors ex unfitting
theories. In the former case, we talk about ourselves, in the latter, about
our ideas about what is outside of us. We may want to pretend that we talk
about objective reality but we build our objective laws in the subjective
grey matter.
Now to Malcolm's point: "That consilience [ ... with ... Newton's theory
... ] is achieved by the fact that Kepler's constant and g provide
independent measurements of the earth's mass, where these measurements agree
numerically." At last, here we have found solid terrain under the feet. If
you can root it into the numbering system, then it is rational. A numeric
relation is momentary, but it also gives rise to some consequences. It is
again the dynamic and static aspects that interplay. We have made TWO sets
of numeric beliefs: the static, background raster (rooster?; grid) of
unmovable facts and the dynamic, function aspects of relations and
functions. This appears to be a cultural misunderstanding of our ancestors.
One can imagine the numbering system to be a stable and static grid as
usefully as 4 elephants carrying the Earth on their back. The concepts give
you a good solid feeling of stability and permanence. The only lamentable
aspect is that it has no uses outside psychic comfort. We have to get out of
the superstition phase of natural philosophy and discard ideas that place
concepts far apart: infinity, stability, places, entropy. If one has a
clear-cut antagonist to the concept, then it probably fulfills a seductive
need without an access to its grown-up meaning (like the ideas of fair
maiden, noble savage, dear leader, etc.). Once one has built polarised
concepts, it is an exciting experience of consilience that they SURPRISE
belong together under some aspects. De-polarising or not building up
antagonisms in the first place (in one's natural philosophy) lessens the
importance of overcoming them. So, I argue that it is promising to look into
"how is it now" and "when shall it again be like this", as they are
basically the same but have some very interesting surprises in store.

Hope that this is not too much off the main red thread.
Karl

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Received on Fri Sep 24 12:12:16 2004