From: Patrick van den Berg (cirandar@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Sep 19 2003 - 10:55:33 BST
Hi Ian, Pete,
Come to think of it, Pirsig's classic and romantic quality could
perhaps be formalized in a quantum mechanical scheme.
As we know, classic quality is led by reason, and cuts certain
contexbound schemes in isolated, analyzable parts. Romantic quality has
a more firm though intuitive grasp on the whole of things present.
The trick that theorists like Gabora en Aerts use is not describing
the mind itself, but the informationprocessing qualities that give rise
to it. It's amazingly simple: There's an uncertainty principle of speed
(momentum) and place at work in the activation of concepts by the
conscious part of the mind. If you understand this uncertainty
principle, you should be able to follow this scetch of the uncertainty
principle apllied to the conceptual structure of the mind, and hopefully
can make it better (I'm not certain at certain points):
It means that romantic quality is best described as a thoughtprocess
where thoughts trigger other related thoughts like dominoes. Momentum
here is definite, but place isn't. It's an easy ride, the momentum with
a certain direction in conceptual phasespace activates a set of
internally (or simply learned by habit) coherent sets of
representations. However, the place of the concepts is not well defined.
This means that the process activates a wide set of associations in a
non-logical way. Though 'pure' momentumthinking is a free and seemingly
contineous ride, from a logical point of view it's not internally
coherent at all.
So consider thinking where the locations of concepts that are
activated are are clearly defined. This means that in this stance, you
can define things, using well-defined borders (it means 'this' and not
'that'), and can apply logical or rational rules in your thinking. This
classical mode of thinking is per definition almost perfect for
contemplating thoughts that you can write down, look at it's static form
in space; only the dynamical flow of time is ignored here. That's
because the momentum of the thought is unfixed (or that the thinking has
a wide set of different momenta). This means that you don't know where
you're going: you're blocking the big picture. Of course this handicap
is stettled by using rational steps to guide your thinking.
The two modes of thinking can be metaphorized by walking in a dark
building with a flashlight. Momentumdefined thinking is pointing ahead
of you: you see the whole room and you know where you're going.
Placedefined thinking is like pointing the flashlight down. You now
can't see the way ahead, but you have a good notion of where you are.
Logical thinking can now be of help, in the way that you perhaps laid
down red and blue cords the previous time when you found the way to
certain parts of the building. So by focussing on one of the cords, you
only have to follow one of the cords and you can find your way.
That's one way to Quantum quality ;-) What do you think of it? Any more
ideas on quantum info and the mind?
Friendly greetings, Patrick.
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