ROGER SUPPLIES A FINAL BIT OF INPUT THE BRAIN, MIND AND INTELLECT THREAD
REGARDING THE SANTIAGO THEORY OF COGNITION
To : Bodvar, Donny and the Lila Squad (and Walter)
Rather than continuing to question Bo on "Sotaqi," and Donny on "Intellect
requiring communication", I followed some investigations into network theories
of biology, sociology and intellect. I discovered a newer? theory out there
that some of you may be familiar with. Called The Santiago Theory Of
Cognition...it reads like a theory written jointly by Pirsig, Donny and
Bodvar. To be honest, I can find very little in this theory that doesn't read
like the MOQ as applied science. I read it last night, and was so taken by it
that I had to post this AM.
SANTIAGO THEORY
In brief, the theory states that the process of knowledge isn't to represent a
pregiven world, it is to bring forth a world.
To set the stage, biological organism's are defined (roughly)as non-linear
networks which form feedback loops that allow self organization and regulation
by importing energy and exporting entropy. They can be defined by their
pattern (the network of relationships or form -- quality!), their structure (
component parts -- SOM), and their process (self organization).
Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana have expanded the definition of
Cognition (The Process of Knowledge), to being the process of coupling the
organism to the environment. They have shown that living systems have the
ability to specify not only how they will respond to the environment, but what
they will respond to. The biological network responds to selected
disturbances by rearranging its pattern of connectivity. It chooses what to
value and how it will respond to maintain its pattern.....which is now
connected to the environment. Intelligence becomes a definition for an
organism's ability to deal and respond successfully with the environment.
Success is defined as pattern continuance. These static patterns of value
include the organisms pattern itself , its offspring , an ant's colony, etc,
and they implicitly involve dynamic pattern evolution.
QUALITY CREATES SUBJECT AND OBJECT
Per Varela, cognition isn't a "representation of an independently existing
world, but rather a continual BRINGING FORTH OF A WORLD through the process of
living." Therefore, each living system builds its own distinctive world.
"Mind and world arise together." Sounds familiar to our familiar "quality
event creating the subject and object", doesn't it?
Varela and Maturana, like Pirsig, don't assert that "nothing exists", instead
they suggest that "no things exist" independent of the process of cognition.
"The map making itself brings forth the features of the territory". This
sounds so much like RMP (and Bodvar), that it is uncanny.
CONSCIOUSNESS, LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY
As the biological system becomes more complex, so does the cognitive domain.
More complex organisms have more range of freedom. At a certain level of
complexity , it can eventually couple with itself (consciousness). Also,
similar organisms have similar structure and environments , therefore, their
worlds, or networks, are quite similar. Humans are further linked by a
common language and culture.
We have the ability to use concepts and mental representations and to adapt
ourselves based on them, but our cognitive process isn't based on these.
Maturana asserts that communication is not transmission of information, but
coordination of behavior via "mutual structural coupling". Language arises
only with communication about communication. He provides an example of a cat
meowing for milk is communicating, but not using language. To use language,
it would need to refer back to its own meowing...."Hey, I meowed three times,
where is my damn milk?" Other than occasional breakthroughs by primates,
language is pretty much isolated to us.
The author writes "To be human is to exist in language. In language we
coordinate our behavior, and together in language we bring forth our world....
. Consciousness is basically a social phenomenon."
I could go on about how this theory questions the very assumptions of AI, how
it connects intelligence on top of the requisite social level, how it supports
several assumptions Donny and Bo have been making....... but it would be
better if you read it yourself. It is in "The Web Of Life" by Fritjof Capra,
and in his web site at
http://www.geocities.com/~combusem/CAPRA4.HTM
Roger
PS Tomorrow they will pack up my PC for the move to Chicago,so I will soon be
incommunicado for 4 or 5 days
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