Hi Squad
I was doing a piece on on AI and cognition but Keith beat me to it (cybernetics
and AI have an enormous amount in common) so I wiped it, but I'll try and get
back to it as Keith raised some excellent points.
Anyway, the posts seem to have gone on to Spiders on LSD so I thought I'd start
with this.
GLOVE:
"Mary, Pirsig uses spiders on LSD in Lila as an analogy of a hallucinogen
uncovering a more perfect reality underlying the one we normally perceive
of. i would say spiders are a perfect example of a species by-passing the
social level and using the intellect directly. why did the US government
conduct LSD tests on spiders in the first place?"
Who can tell what the wacko's in the military and government think. They'll
commission others to poke any substance into any creature in ridiculous
amounts and come up with results that makes even the craziest of people glance
skyward - excluding politicians, of course, who will attempt to make some form
of capital of the results. So, personally I wouldn't read too much into the
government (yours or mine) doing drug tests on animals or humans - what they
want are new weapons.
I'm not saying the LSD doesn't do some very odd things to spiders (or humans for
that matter), but you seem to be getting things in the wrong order. LSD is a
chemical/inorganic compound as are other chemicals which produce
"hallucinatory" states - mescaline in peyote (which Pirsig described in Lila),
psilocybin, MDMA (a sort of amphetamine/hallucinogenic) etc. I'm not sure of the
exact chemical composition of these substances but as far as I'm aware they are
inorganic substances that work on the brain in an inorganic/biological fashion,
releasing various other neuro-chemical combinations NOT an inorganic/intellectual
combination or biological/intellectual combination. As far as I can see the brain is
(part of) a Q-biological structure, which due to massive interaction of
combinations of neurons produces a form of social patterns of value. Web-
spinning is an instinct which, like language ability, is partly hard-wired into the
brain. The introduction of LSD, or one of a number of other hallucinogens, into the
brain will certainly produce complex effects and altered behaviour but I don't see
any evidence that this causes a biology/intellect jump. I'm also not convinced that
LSD uncovers a more perfect reality (in an analogous fashion or whatever). There
is little doubt that it alters dramatically the supposed reality that we would
normally perceive without LSD but this doesn't qualify it as perfection - ask
anyone who's ever had the horrors.
Hallucinogenic compounds are fascinating - read Pirsigs account of his Peyote
(mescaline) experience - given the "right" setting and initial "mental" state.
Inorganic patterns of value affecting biological patterns of value which make social
pattens of value (agreed interpretation of the "real" world) go haywire resulting in
altered intellectual states and other effects such as induced synaesthesia!!!!
Smelling colours, seeing tastes. Who thought THAT one up?? This could be
something to test out the MoQ hierarchical approach. Why does a relatively
simple substance (simple relative to something as complex as DNA) like LSD in
such minute quantities (250 millionths of a gram) produce such profound
experiences. Hmmm!
Back to Glove and spiders:
GLOVE:
"because baby spiders are not taught to weave webs by adult spiders. they
just seem to "know" how to build a web. where does that "knowledge" come
from? "
Baby spiders "knowing" how to spin webs is analogous to baby humans
"knowing" how to talk. There is sufficient evidence to show that baby humans are
not taught to talk by adults but learn by a combined process of socialization and
language ability which is part of the neural structure of the brain. The result of this
is intellectual capability - ability to form theories, logical analysis etc. The overall
result is a combination of all of the levels interacting. The whole is greater than
the sum of the parts.
Horse
***********************************************************************
"Prejudice is the greatest labour saving device known to man,
it enables one to form an opinion without having to go to
the trouble of checking the facts.
Quote from Stephen Fry - Source Unknown
(Could be Oscar Wilde ??)
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