How many differences, categories?
Just Playing
how many differences, categories are too many before it has to pack
them together?
IMO the best way is to find the relationship between the categories,
find the function, equation that allows to pack and unpack them without
losing any differences or categories and this is what I consider as
intelligence.
OTOH if the amount of information is overwhelming or there is no easily
distinguishable relationship between the categories, they will be
packed together using other functions or inequations. The concepts
created this way will not allow a bijective mapping or a true picture
of the information perceived and will distort it.
My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
together unrelated categories ?
JP
Rick Craik
"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:1111757787.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
[snip]
> My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
> categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
> together unrelated categories ?
Textbook for seminar/course on complex systems:
Dynamics of Complex Systems
Yaneer Bar-Yam
Chapter "2 Neural Networks I: Subdivision and Hierarchy"
http://necsi.org/publications/dcs/Bar-YamChap2.pdf
Rick
Sir Frederick
From an algorithmic point of view, 'Fuzzy Logic' addresses the
categorical 'how much' issue.
One of my favorite fuzzy logic authors is
George J. Klir
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
*************************
Phrase of the week :
Man's destiny is to know, if only because societies with
knowledge culturally dominate societies that lack it. Luddites
and anti-intellectuals do not master the differential equations
of thermodynamics or the biochemical cures of illness. They stay
in thatched huts and die young.-- Edward O. Wilson
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
Immortalist
Just Playing wrote:
> If through categorization our brain analyzes the information
perceived
> how many differences, categories are too many before it has to pack
> them together?
(If x, which is the objective condition of a, is at the same time the
subjective condition of b, there then arises a synthetic proposition,
which is only true restrictively [restrictive]. E.g., all existence
belongs to a substance, everything which happens [is] a member of a
series, everything which is simultaneous is in a whole the parts of
which reciprocally determine themselves.) x, the time wherein it is
determined what happens, is the subjective condition [for what] in the
concept of the understanding is to be thought of only as consequence
from a ground. The subjective condition signifies the condition of
specifying a concept of understanding corresponding to this
relationship. Such principles are not axioms. There are no actual
anticipations of appearance. One finds them confirmed through
experiences, since the laws of experience become possible thereby.
Other appearances yield no laws. They have no evidence, since it is not
the appearances but experiences which become possible through them.
Synthesis of thinking and appearance.
The subjective conditions of appearance, which can be cognized a
priori, are space and time: intuitions.
--Kant
> IMO the best way is to find the relationship between the categories,
> find the function, equation that allows to pack and unpack them
without
> losing any differences or categories and this is what I consider as
> intelligence.
> OTOH if the amount of information is overwhelming or there is no
easily
> distinguishable relationship between the categories, they will be
> packed together using other functions or inequations. The concepts
> created this way will not allow a bijective mapping or a true picture
> of the information perceived and will distort it.
> My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
> categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
> together unrelated categories ?
>
> JP
...If we abstract from all content of a judgment, and consider only the
mere form of understanding, we find that the function of thought in
judgment can be brought under four heads, each of which contains three
moments. They may be conveniently represented in the following table:
I - Quantity of Judgments
-Universal
-Particular
-Singular
II - Quality
-Affirmative
-Negative
-Infinite
III - Relation
Categorical
Hypothetical
Disjunctive
IV - Modality
Problematic
Assertoric
Apodeictic
As this division appears to depart in some, though not in B96 any
essential respects, from the technical distinctions ordinarily
recognised by logicians, the following observations may A71 serve to
guard against any possible misunderstanding.
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/06md.htm#106
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/
The first of the considerations suggested by the table is that while it
contains four classes of the concepts of understanding, it may, in the
first instance, be divided into two groups; those in the first group
being concerned with objects of intuition, pure as well as empirical,
those in the second group with the existence of these objects, in their
relation either to each other or to the understanding.
The categories in the first group I would entitle the mathematical,
those in the second group the dynamical. The former have no correlates;
these are to be met with only in the second group. This distinction
must have some ground in the nature of the understanding.
Secondly, in view of the fact that all a priori division of concepts
must be by dichotomy, it is significant that in each class the number
of the categories is always the same, namely, three. Further, it may be
observed that the third category in each class always arises from the
combination of the second category with the first.
Thus allness or totality is just plurality considered as unity; B111
limitation is simply reality combined with negation; community is the
causality of substances reciprocally determining one another; lastly,
necessity is just the existence which is given through possibility
itself. It must not be supposed, however, that the third category is
therefore merely a derivative, and not a primary, concept of the pure
understanding. For the combination of the first and second concepts, in
order that the third may be produced, requires a special act of the
understanding, which is not identical with that which is exercised in
the case of the first and the second. Thus the concept of a number
(which belongs to the category of totality) is not always possible
simply upon the presence of concepts of plurality and unity (for
instance, in the representation of the infinite); nor can I, by simply
combining the concept of a cause and that of a substance, at once have
understanding of influence, that is, how a substance can be the cause
of something in another substance. Obviously in these cases, a separate
act of the understanding is demanded; and similarly in the others.
Thirdly, in the case of one category, namely, that of community, which
is found in the third group, its accordance with the form of a
disjunctive judgment -- the form which corresponds to it in the table
of logical functions -- is not as evident as in the case of the others.
To gain assurance that they do actually accord, we must observe that in
all disjunctive judgments the sphere (that is, the multiplicity which
is contained in any one judgment) is represented as a whole divided
into parts (the subordinate concepts), and that since no one of them
can be contained under any other, they are thought as co-ordinated
with, not subordinated to, each other, and so as determining each
other, not in one direction only, as in a series, but reciprocally, as
in an aggregate -- if one member of the division is posited, all the
rest are excluded, and conversely.
Now in a whole which is made up of things, a similar combination is
being thought; for one thing is not subordinated, as effect, to
another, as cause of its existence, but, simultaneously and
reciprocally, is co-ordinated with it, as cause of the determination of
the other (as, for instance, in a body the parts of which reciprocally
attract and repel each other). This is a quite different kind of
connection from that which is found in the mere relation of cause to
effect (of ground to consequence), for in the latter relation the
consequence does not in its turn reciprocally determine the ground, and
therefore does not constitute with it a whole -- thus the world, for
instance, does not with its Creator serve to constitute a whole. The
procedure which the understanding follows in representing to itself the
sphere of a divided concept it likewise follows when it thinks a thing
as divisible; and just as, in the former case, the members of a
division exclude each other, and yet are combined in one sphere, so the
understanding represents to itself the parts of the latter as existing
(as substances) in such a way that, while each exists independently of
the others, they are yet combined together in one whole.
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/06md.htm#116
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
APPENDIX Donald E. Brown's List of Human Universals
THIS LIST, COMPILED in 1989 and published in 1991, consists primarily
of "surface" universals of behavior and overt language noted by
ethnographers. It does not list deeper universals of mental structure
that are revealed by theory and experiments. It also omits
near-universals (traits that most, but not all, cultures show) and
conditional universals ("If a culture has trait A, it always has trait
B"). A list of items added since 1989 is provided at the end. For
discussion and references, see Brown's Human Universals (1991) and his
entry for "Human Universals" in The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive
Sciences (Wilson & Keil, 1999).
abstraction in speech and thought
actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
aesthetics
affection expressed and felt
age grades
age statuses
age terms
ambivalence
anthropomorphization
antonyms
baby talk
belief in supernatural/ religion
beliefs, false
beliefs about death
beliefs about disease
beliefs about fortune and misfortune
binary cognitive distinctions
biological mother and social mother normally the same person
black (color term)
body adornment
childbirth customs
childcare
childhood fears
childhood fear of loud noises
childhood fear of strangers
choice making (choosing alternatives)
classification
classification of age
classification of behavioral propensities
classification of body parts
classification of colors
classification of fauna
classification of flora
classification of inner states
classification of kin
classification of sex
classification of space
classification of tools
classification of weather
conditions coalitions
collective identities
conflict
conflict, consultation to deal with
conflict, means of dealing with
conflict, mediation of
conjectural reasoning
containers
continua (ordering as cognitive pattern)
contrasting marked and nonmarked sememes (meaningful elements in
language)
cooking
cooperation
cooperative labor
copulation normally conducted in privacy
corporate (perpetual) statuses
coyness display
crying
cultural variability
culture
culture/nature distinction
customary greetings
daily routines
dance
death rituals
decision making
decision making, collective
directions, giving of
discrepancies between speech, thought, and action
dispersed groups
distinguishing right and wrong
diurnality
divination
division of labor
division of labor by age
division of labor by sex
dreams
dream interpretation
economic inequalities
economic inequalities, consciousness of
emotions
empathy
entification (treating patterns and relations as things)
environment, adjustments to
envy
envy, symbolic means of coping with
ethnocentrism
etiquette
explanation
face (word for)
facial communication
facial expression of anger
facial expression of contempt
facial expression of disgust
facial expression of fear
facial expression of happiness
facial expression of sadness
facial expression of surprise
facial expressions, masking/modifying of
family (or household)
father and mother, separate kin terms for
fears
fears, ability to overcome some
feasting
females do more direct childcare
figurative speech
fire
folklore
food preferences food sharing
future, attempts to predict
generosity admired
gestures
gift giving
good and bad distinguished
gossip
government
grammar
group living
groups that are not based on family
hairstyles
hand (word for)
healing the sick (or attempting to)
hospitality
hygienic care
identity, collective
incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
incest, prevention or avoidance
in-group distinguished from out-group(s)
in-group, biases in favor of
inheritance rules
insulting
intention
interest in bioforms (living things or things that resemble them)
interpreting behavior
intertwining (e.g., weaving)
jokes
kin, close distinguished from distant
kin groups
kin terms translatable by basic relations of procreation
kinship statuses
language
language employed to manipulate others
language employed to misinform or mislead
language is translatable
language not a simple reflection of reality
language, prestige from proficient use of
law (rights and obligations)
law (rules of membership)
leaders
lever
linguistic redundancy
logical notions
logical notion of "and"
logical notion of "equivalent"
logical notion of "general/particular"
logical notion of "not"
logical notion of "opposite"
logical notion of "part/whole"
logical notion of "same"
magic
magic to increase life
magic to sustain life
magic to win love
male and female and adult and child seen as having different natures
males dominate public/political realm
males more aggressive
males more prone to lethal violence
males more prone to theft
manipulate social relations
marking at phonemic, syntactic, and lexical levels
marriage
materialism
meal times
meaning, most units of are non-universal
measuring
medicine
melody
memory
metaphor
metonym
mood- or consciousness-altering techniques and/or substances
morphemes
mother normally has consort during child-rearing years
mourning
murder proscribed
music
music, children's
music related in part to dance
music related in part to religious activity
music seen as art (a creation)
music, vocal
music, vocal, includes speech forms
musical redundancy
musical repetition
musical variation
myths
narrative
nomenclature (perhaps the same as classification)
nonbodily decorative art
normal distinguished from abnormal states
nouns
numerals (counting)
Oedipus complex
oligarchy (de facto)
one (numeral)
onomatopoeia
overestimating objectivity of thought
pain
past/present/future
person, concept of
personal names
phonemes
phonemes defined by sets of minimally contrasting features
phonemes, merging of
phonemes, range from 10 to 70 in number
phonemic change, inevitability of
phonemic change, rules of
phonemic system
planning
planning for future
play
play to perfect skills
poetry/rhetoric
poetic line, uniform length range
poetic lines characterized by repetition and variation
poetic lines demarcated by pauses
polysemy (one word has several related meanings)
possessive, intimate
possessive, loose
practice to improve skills
preference for own children and close kin (nepotism)
prestige inequalities
private inner life
promise
pronouns
pronouns, minimum two numbers
pronouns, minimum three persons
proper names
property
psychological defense mechanisms
rape
rape proscribed
reciprocal exchanges (of labor, goods, or services)
reciprocity, negative (revenge, retaliation)
reciprocity, positive
recognition of individuals by face
redress of wrongs
rhythm
right-handedness as population norm
rites of passage
rituals
role and personality seen in dynamic interrelationship (i.e.,
departures from role can be explained in terms of individual
personality)
sanctions
sanctions for crimes against the collectivity
sanctions include removal from the social unit
self distinguished from other
self as neither wholly passive nor wholly autonomous
self as subject and object
self is responsible
semantics
semantic category of affecting things and people
semantic category of dimension
semantic category of giving
semantic category of location
semantic category of motion
semantic category of speed
semantic category of other physical properties
semantic components
semantic components, generation
semantic components, sex
sememes, commonly used ones are short, infrequently used ones are
longer
senses unified
sex (gender) terminology is fundamentally binary
sex statuses
sexual attraction
sexual attractiveness
sexual jealousy
sexual modesty
sexual regulation
sexual regulation includes incest prevention
sexuality as focus of interest
shelter
sickness and death seen as related
snakes, wariness around
social structure
socialization
socialization expected from senior kin
socialization includes toilet training
spear
special speech for special occasions
statuses and roles
statuses, ascribed and achieved
statuses distinguished from individuals
statuses on other than sex, age, or kinship bases
stop/nonstop contrasts (in speech sounds)
succession
sweets preferred
symbolism
symbolic speech
synonyms
taboos
tabooed foods
tabooed utterances
taxonomy
territoriality
time
time, cyclicity of
tools
tool dependency
tool making
tools for cutting
tools to make tools
tools patterned
culturally
tools, permanent
tools for pounding
trade
triangular awareness (assessing relationships among the self and two
other people)
true and false distinguished
turn-taking
two (numeral)
tying material (i.e., something like string)
units of time
verbs
violence, some forms of proscribed
visiting
vocalic/nonvocalic contrasts in phonemes
vowel contrasts
weaning
weapons
weather control (attempts to)
white (color term)
world view
---------------------
Additions Since 1989
---------------------
anticipation
attachment
critical learning periods
differential valuations
dominance/submission
fairness (equity), concept of
fear of death
habituation
hope
husband older than wife on average
imagery
institutions (organized co-activities)
intention
interpolation
judging others
likes and dislikes
making comparisons
males, on average, travel greater distances over lifetime
males engage in more coalitional violence
mental maps
mentalese
moral sentiments
moral sentiments, limited effective range of
precedence, concept of (that's how the leopard got its spots)
pretend play
pride
proverbs, sayings
proverbs, sayings-in mutually contradictory forms
resistance to abuse of power, to dominance
risk taking
self-control
self-image, awareness of (concern for what others think)
self-image, manipulation of
self-image, wanted to be positive
sex differences in spatial cognition and behavior
shame
stinginess, disapproval of
sucking wounds
synesthetic metaphors
thumb sucking
tickling
toys, playthings
...None of this means that people literally strive to replicate their
genes. If that's how the mind worked, men would line up outside the
sperms banks and women would pay to have their eggs harvested and given
away to infertile couples. It means only that inherited systems for
learning, thinking, and feeling have a design that would have led, on
average, to enhanced survival and reproduction in the environment in
which our ancestors evolved. People enjoy eating, and in a world
without junk food, that led them to nourish themselves, even if the
nutritional content of the food never entered their minds. People love
sex and love children, and in a world without contraception, that was
enough for the genes to take care of themselves.
The difference between the mechanisms that impel organisms to behave in
real time and the mechanisms that shaped the design of the organism
over evolutionary time is important enough to merit some jargon. A
proximate cause of behavior is the mechanism that pushes behavior
buttons in real time, such as the hunger and lust that impel people to
eat and have sex. An ultimate cause is the adaptive rationale that led
the proximate cause to evolve, such as the need for nutrition and
reproduction that gave us the drives of hunger and lust. The
distinction between proximate and ultimate causation is indispensable
in understanding ourselves because it determines the answer to every
question of the form "Why did that person act as he did?" To take a
simple example, ultimately people crave sex in order to reproduce
(because the ultimate cause of sex is reproduction), but proximately
they may do everything they can not to reproduce (because the proximate
cause of sex is pleasure).
The difference between proximate and ultimate goals is another kind of
proof that we are not blank slates. Whenever people strive for obvious
rewards like health and happiness, which make sense both proximately
and ultimately, one could plausibly suppose that the mind is equipped
only with a desire to be happy and healthy and a cause-and-effect
calculus that helps them get what they want. But people often have
desires that subvert their proximate well-being, desires that they
cannot articulate and that they (and their society) may try
unsuccessfully to extirpate. They may covet their neighbor's spouse,
eat themselves into an early grave, explode over minor slights, fail to
love their stepchildren, rev up their bodies in response to a stressor
that they cannot fight or flee, exhaust themselves keeping up with the
Joneses or climbing the corporate ladder, and prefer a sexy and
dangerous partner to a plain but dependable one. These personally
puzzling drives have a transparent evolutionary rationale, and they
suggest that the mind is packed with cravings shaped by natural
selection, not with a generic desire for personal well-being.
Evolutionary psychology also explains why the slate is not blank. The
mind was forged in Darwinian competition, and an inert medium would
have been outperformed by rivals outfitted with high technology-with
acute perceptual systems, savvy problem-solvers, cunning strategists,
and sensitive feedback circuits. Worse still, if our minds were truly
malleable they would be easily manipulated by our rivals, who could
mold or condition us into serving their needs rather than our own. A
malleable mind would quickly be selected out.
Researchers in the human sciences have begun to flesh out the
hypothesis that the mind evolved with a universal complex design. Some
anthropologists have returned to an ethnographic record that used to
trumpet differences among cultures and have found an astonishingly
detailed set of aptitudes and tastes that all cultures have in common.
This shared way of thinking, feeling, and living makes us look like a
single tribe, which the anthropologist Donald Brown has called the
Universal People, after Chomsky's Universal Grammar. Hundreds of
traits, from fear of snakes to logical operators, from romantic love to
humorous insults, from poetry to food taboos, from exchange of goods to
mourning the dead, can be found in every society ever documented. It's
not that every universal behavior directly reflects a universal
component of human natureâ€"many arise from an interplay between
universal properties of the mind, universal properties of the body, and
universal properties of the world. Nonetheless, the sheer richness and
detail in the rendering of the Universal People comes as a shock to any
intuition that the mind is a blank slate or that cultures can vary
without limit, and there is something on the list to refute almost any
theory growing out of those intuitions. Nothing can substitute for
seeing Brown's list in full; it is reproduced, with his permission, as
an appendix.
The idea that natural selection has endowed humans with a universal
complex mind has received support from other quarters. Child
psychologists no longer believe that the world of an infant is a
blooming, buzzing confusion, because they have found signs of the basic
categories of mind (such as those for objects, people, and tools) in
young babies. Archaeologists and paleontologists have found that
prehistoric humans were not brutish troglodytes but exercised their
minds with art, ritual, trade, violence, cooperation, technology, and
symbols. And primatologists have shown that our hairy relatives are not
like lab rats waiting to be conditioned but are outfitted with many
complex faculties that used to be considered uniquely human, including
concepts, a spatial sense, tool use, jealousy, parental love,
reciprocity, peacemaking, and differences between the sexes. With so
many mental abilities appearing in all human cultures, in children
before they have acquired culture, and in creatures that have little or
no culture, the mind no longer looks like a formless lump pounded into
shape by culture.
FROM: The Blank Slate:
The Modern Denial of Human Nature
by Steven Pinker
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0142003344/
----------------------------------------
The ethnographic evidence overwhelmingly shows that a universal human
nature does exist. Brown lists nine pages of traits common to all known
societies, such as prestige, gossip, humorous insults, rhetoric, terms
distinguishing male and female, sexual regulations, kinship terms,
property, rules proscribing violence and rape, and many more.
This is hardly surprising. Human beings all have the same genomes.
Genes build bodies and bodies build brains and brains build minds.
Ergo, human beings are basically the same in the Amazon rainforests and
the metropolitan cities. Differences in behaviour, beliefs and habits -
i.e. culture - are mainly the result of ecology, geography and
technology
The biology of culture
http://www.caribscape.com/baldeosingh/social/sober/2000/culture2.html
--------------------------------
The impression from anthropology that humanity is a carnival where
anything is possible came in part from a tourist mentality: when you
come back from a trip, you remember what was different about where you
went, otherwise you might as well have stayed at home. That is, many
anthropologists exaggerated the degree to which the tribes they studied
were exotic and strange, both to justify their profession and to raise
people's consciousness about human potential. But many of their claims
have turned out either to be canards, like Margaret Mead's claims about
Samoa, or to miss the forest for the trees: the anthropologists spent
so much time looking for differences that they didn't notice basic
categories of human experience that are found in every culture, like
humor, love, jealousy, and a sense of responsibility. Language is
simply the most famous example of a human universal. Donald Brown, an
anthropologist at UC Santa Barbara, wrote a book called Human
Universals, in which he scoured the archives of ethnography for well
substantiated human universals. He came up with a list of about a
hundred and fifty, covering every sphere of human experience. That's my
interpretation of the main lessons of anthropology. The interesting
discoveries aren't about this kinship system or that form of shamanry.
Underneath it all - just as, in the case of language, there's a
universal design Chomsky called universal grammar - there is in the
rest of culture what Donald Brown calls the universal people. He
characterized the human species much the way a biologist would
characterize any other species.
Chapter 13 - STEVEN PINKER
"Language Is a Human Instinct"
http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/u-Ch.13.html
--------------------------------
Innateness
In linguistic and in non-linguistic domains, a central question is to
what degree "universals" that we observe are due to some innate
property of human brains, or to some kind of environmental influence --
the classic nature/nurture problem.
Some things are obviously environmental. It's universally true that all
languages have a word for "mother" and "water", but this is because all
humans have these as part of their environment. But only some languages
have a word for "snow" or "alligator" because those are not universally
present features of the environment.
On the other hand, the general ability to learn language isn't
environmental -- otherwise any animal that grows up with humans would
learn to understand language (even if pronouncing it presented a
problem). Recall also that languages can be created spontaneously, as
by deaf children with limited sign systems who work together to make a
fully functioning language from these raw materials.
The important question is just how the universal language ability
should be characterized -- in essence, how detailed the instinct is.
For example, are we born with notions of hierarchical syntactic
structure, or is this something that we figure out based on more
general notions of "kind" and "superordinate"? Many researchers,
inluding Pinker, believe that the instinct is rather specific. Others
look for more general explanations in human cognition.
Analogies can be made to many other aspects of human behavior. Pinker
summarizes at length from Donald Brown's characterization of "universal
people", including things that are surely not innate, and others that
likely are.
The existence of shelter in every society is easily attributable to the
existence of dangers or inclement weather that can be mitigated by
housing; we probably don't need to propose a "shelter instinct" as
different from a general instinct for self-preservation.
The existence of facial expressions of various kinds is probably
innate, since they're the same across cultures, and in at least some
cases seem to be related to facial expressions in other primates (i.e.
they've evolved genetically).
The Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) assumes that human culture
varies, in principle, without limit.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Spring_2003/ling001/14b.html
-----------------------------------
The most compelling attempt to date to build a thorough inventory of
humanity's basic toolbox comes from the anthropologist Donald Brown.
Inspired by Chomsky's idea of a "universal grammar"--the deep syntax
shared by all human languages--Brown set out to document the basic
social patterns, beliefs and categories shared by all known human
societies, without exception. Pinker devotes an entire appendix to
Brown's list, which has a strangely moving, abbreviated style:
"cooking; cooperation; cooperative labor; copulation normally conducted
in privacy; corporate (perpetual) statuses; coyness display; crying;
cultural variability; culture; culture/nature distinction; customary
greetings; daily routines; dance; death rituals..."
There is much for the left (and the right) to both condemn and admire
in this litany; for every "cooperative labor" there is a "females do
more direct childcare." But the first thing that should be noted about
Brown's list is its inclusiveness: We may in fact possess an innate
tendency to divide the world into "in groups" and "out groups," but the
first instinct of evolutionary psychology is to group us all together
in the shared family of human universals. Even if we don't always like
the traits we find there, that unifying impulse should be at the heart
of any progressive politics, not an outcast from it. Pinker quotes
Chomsky on this very point:
A vision of a future social order is...based on a concept of human
nature. If, in fact, man is an indefinitely malleable, completely
plastic being, with no innate structures of mind and no intrinsic needs
of a cultural or social character, then he is a fit subject for the
"shaping of behavior" by the State authority, the corporate manager,
the technocrat, or the central committee. Those with some confidence in
the human species will hope this is not so and will try to determine
the intrinsic characteristics that provide the framework for
intellectual development, the growth of moral consciousness, cultural
achievement, and participation in a free community.
Of course, the one place in which the neo-Darwinians have in fact
emphasized differences over commonalities is the fraught world of the
sexes. Because so much of natural selection is predicated on
reproductive success or failure, and because men and women have such
differing biological stakes in the act of reproduction, it is
inevitable that natural selection would craft slightly different
toolboxes for each sex. This is no problem for the many schools of
feminism that embrace the "different but equal" assessment of the
sexes, but it is a major irritant for those on the left who imagine all
gender differences to be the product of cultural biases. I suspect,
though, that the sexual blank slate isn't long for this world, for
several reasons.
Sociobiology and You
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/slate_reviews_file/nation_johnson3.htm
----------------------------------------
Universals, Human Nature, and Anthropology
>From HUMAN UNIVERSAL, Donald Brown (1991)
http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/ANTB25/SCMEDIA/Readings/Brown.html
Just Playing
Thank you, I will look into it.
IMO fuzzy logic is more of a tool to overcome this limitation.
JP
Just Playing
OTOH my concern is mostly with the the categorization at the
conceptual, verbal level.
It is more like something that could be tested by asking a group to
describe verbally an image.
It is a translation from one type of perception, visual, to another,
verbal and back.
If we create a verbal limitation, as in a specified number of words
for a verbal description, is it possible for another person that has
not seen the image, to recognize it from the verbal description?
Do we create new concepts in order to do it?
How do we describe so many differences with a limited number of words?
What is the minimum number of words to create a "perfect translation"?
Are the words used for description understandbly for somebody else?
JP
Immortalist
Just Playing wrote:
> Thank you, I saved it on my computer and I will look at it later.
> OTOH my concern is mostly with the the categorization at the
> conceptual, verbal level.
> It is more like something that could be tested by asking a group to
> describe verbally an image.
> It is a translation from one type of perception, visual, to another,
> verbal and back.
......In a sparse distributed network - memory is a type of
perception.....The act of remembering and the act of perceiving both
detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible patterns....When we
remember we recreate the act of the original perception - that is we
relocate the pattern by a process similar to the one we used to
perceive the pattern originally.
Kevin Kelly......oUt Of cOnTrOl......page 18---
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch2-d.html
Somehow human noises initiate similar non-verbal/syntaxic- memories and
experiences. If the act of remembering and the act of perceiving both
detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible patterns and when
we remember we recreate the act of the original perception - that is we
relocate the pattern by a process similar to the one we used to
perceive the pattern originally, then these noises of language gain
dualistic access to the pathways experience travels and is translatable
into those experience.
--reanimater
transcribe: rewrite or arrange a piece of music for an instrument or
medium other than that originally intended.
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Atranscribe
1. To make a full written or typewritten copy of (dictated
material, for example).
2. Computer Science. To transfer (information) from one recording
and storing system to another.
3. Music.
1. To adapt or arrange (a composition) for a voice or
instrument other than the original.
2. To translate (a composition) from one notational system to
another.
3. To reduce (live or recorded music) to notation.
4. To record, usually on tape, for broadcast at a later date.
5. Linguistics. To represent (speech sounds) by phonetic symbols.
6. To translate or transliterate.
7. Biology. To cause (DNA) to undergo transcription.
Just Playing
Immortalist wrote:
> Just Playing wrote:
> > Thank you, I saved it on my computer and I will look at it later.
> > OTOH my concern is mostly with the the categorization at the
> > conceptual, verbal level.
>
> > It is more like something that could be tested by asking a group
to
> > describe verbally an image.
>
> > It is a translation from one type of perception, visual, to
another,
> > verbal and back.
>
> ......In a sparse distributed network - memory is a type of
> perception.....The act of remembering and the act of perceiving both
> detect a pattern in a vary large choice of possible patterns....When
we
> remember we recreate the act of the original perception - that is we
> relocate the pattern by a process similar to the one we used to
> perceive the pattern originally.
I look at pattern as a combination of differences or categories.
I am wondering how many differences we pack into a pattern before the
pattern becomes meaningless?
JP
Immortalist
Learning about systems theory I stumbled upon the hi/lo or minimal and
maximal number of nodes that can be in a kind of network. Not only that
but the changing of even a few of the relationships between particular
nodes can alter the entire dynamic.
Here is an example from brain research, noting the degree of arousal
people experience in relation to degrees of complexity of the number
and size of objects in the visual field of view.This is a clue to
interior decoration and the brain;
http://reanimater.tripod.com/art_complexity.html
There are more examples but me search in dBase come up with;
Network logic is counterintuitive. Say you need to lay a telephone
cable that will connect a bunch of cities; let's make that three for
illustration: Kansas City, San Diego, and Seattle. The total length of
the lines connecting those three cities is 3,000 miles. Common sense
says that if you add a fourth city to your telephone network, the total
length of your cable will have to increase. But that's not how network
logic works. By adding a fourth city as a hub (let's make that Salt
Lake City) and running the lines from each of the three cities through
Salt Lake City, we can decrease the total mileage of cable to 2,850 or
5 percent less than the original 3,000 miles. Therefore the total
unraveled length of a network can be shortened by adding nodes to it!
Yet there is a limit to this effect. Frank Hwang and Ding Zhu Du,
working at Bell Laboratories in 1990, proved that the best savings a
system might enjoy from introducing new points into a network would
peak at about 13 percent. More is different.
On the other hand, in 1968 Dietrich Braess, a German operations
researcher, discovered that adding routes to an already congested
network will only slow it down. Now called Braess's Paradox, scientists
have found many examples of how adding capacity to a crowded network
reduces its overall production. In the late 1960s the city planners of
Stuttgart tried to ease downtown traffic by adding a street. When they
did, traffic got worse; then they blocked it off and traffic improved.
In 1992, New York City closed congested 42nd Street on Earth Day,
fearing the worst, but traffic actually improved that day.
Then again, in 1990, three scientists working on networks of brain
neurons reported that increasing the gain-the responsivity-of
individual neurons did not increase their individual signal detection
performance, but it did increase the performance of the whole network
to detect signals.
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch2-g.html
The prime variable Kauffman played with was the connectivity of the
network. In a sparsely connected network, each node would on average
only connect to one other node, or less. In a richly connected network,
each node would link to ten or a hundred or a thousand or a million
other nodes. In theory the limit to the number of connections per node
is simply the total number of nodes, minus one. A million-headed
network could have a million-minus-one connections at each node; every
node is connected to every other node. To continue our rough analogy,
every employee of GM could be directly linked to all 749,999 other
employees of GM.
As Kauffman varied this connectivity parameter in his generic networks,
he discovered something that would not surprise the CEO of GM. A system
where few agents influenced other agents was not very adaptable. The
soup of connections was too thin to transmit an innovation. The system
would fail to evolve. As Kauffman increased the average number of links
between nodes, the system became more resilient, "bouncing back" when
perturbed. The system could maintain stability while the environment
changed. It would evolve. The completely unexpected finding was that
beyond a certain level of linking density, continued connectivity would
only decrease the adaptability of the system as a whole.
Kauffman graphed this effect as a hill. The top of the hill was optimal
flexibility to change. One low side of the hill was a sparsely
connected system: flat-footed and stagnant. The other low side was an
overly connected system: a frozen grid-lock of a thousand mutual pulls.
So many conflicting influences came to bear on one node that whole
sections of the system sank into rigid paralysis. Kauffman called this
second extreme a "complexity catastrophe." Much to everyone's surprise,
you could have too much connectivity. In the long run, an overly linked
system was as debilitating as a mob of uncoordinated loners.
Somewhere in the middle was a peak of just-right connectivity that gave
the network its maximal nimbleness. Kauffman found this measurable
"Goldilocks'" point in his model networks. His colleagues had trouble
believing his maximal value at first because it seemed counterintuitive
at the time. The optimal connectivity for the distilled systems
Kauffman studied was very low, "somewhere in the single digits." Large
networks with thousands of members adapted best with less than ten
connections per member. Some nets peaked at less than two connections
on average per node! A massively parallel system did not need to be
heavily connected in order to adapt. Minimal average connection, done
widely, was enough.
Kauffman's second unexpected finding was that this low optimal value
didn't seem to fluctuate much, no matter how many members comprised a
specific network. In other words, as more members were added to the
network, it didn't pay (in terms of systemwide adaptability) to
increase the number of links to each node. To evolve most rapidly, add
members but don't increase average link rates. This result confirmed
what Craig Reynolds had found in his synthetic flocks: you could load a
flock up with more and more members without having to reconfigure its
structure.
Kauffman found that at the low end, with less than two connections per
agent or organism, the whole system wasn't nimble enough to keep up
with change. If the community of agents lacked sufficient internal
communication, it could not solve a problem as a group. More exactly,
they fell into isolated patches of cooperative feedback but didn't
interact with each other.
At the ideal number of connections, the ideal amount of information
flowed between agents, and the system as a whole found the optimal
solutions consistently. If their environment was changing rapidly, this
meant that the network remained stable-persisting as a whole over time.
Kauffman's Law states that above a certain point, increasing the
richness of connections between agents freezes adaptation. Nothing gets
done because too many actions hinge on too many other contradictory
actions. In the landscape metaphor, ultra-connectance produces
ultra-ruggedness, making any move a likely fall off a peak of
adaptation into a valley of nonadaptation. Another way of putting it,
too many agents have a say in each other's work, and bureaucratic rigor
mortis sets in. Adaptability conks out into grid-lock. For a
contemporary culture primed to the virtues of connecting up, this low
ceiling of connectivity comes as unexpected news.
We postmodern communication addicts might want to pay attention to
this. In our networked society we are pumping up both the total number
of people connected (in 1993, the global network of networks was
expanding at the rate of 15 percent additional users per month!), and
the number of people and places to whom each member is connected.
Faxes, phones, direct junk mail, and large cross-referenced data bases
in business and government in effect increase the number of links
between each person. Neither expansion particularly increases the
adaptability of our system (society) as a whole.
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch20-d.html
Edgar Svendsen
"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:1111757787.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
too many trees to categorize them all in a single glance. But if I rent a
cabin and walk in the forest every day for a year or two I can get to know
every tree in the neighborhood individually. What I know after the year or
two was overwhelming at that first look.
Do you mean how many different categories can a man learn in a lifetime? I
don't have a number but it's a lot.
Ed
Lady Chatterly
Edgar Svendsen <solo...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Do you mean how many different categories can a man learn in a lifetime? I
>don't have a number but it's a lot.
Would it matter if they do mean how many different categories can a
man learn in a lifetime?
>Ed
When you do not know what you are a fart?
--
Lady Chatterly
"I'd like to see a duel to the death between those two masters of
logic, Alexa and Hatter, and LC. I put my money on LC." -- Fred (Not
That One) Hall
Just Playing
Edgar Svendsen wrote:
> "Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote in message
> news:1111757787.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > If through categorization our brain analyzes the information
perceived
> > how many differences, categories are too many before it has to pack
> > them together?
> > IMO the best way is to find the relationship between the
categories,
> > find the function, equation that allows to pack and unpack them
without
> > losing any differences or categories and this is what I consider as
> > intelligence.
> > OTOH if the amount of information is overwhelming or there is no
easily
> > distinguishable relationship between the categories, they will be
> > packed together using other functions or inequations. The concepts
> > created this way will not allow a bijective mapping or a true
picture
> > of the information perceived and will distort it.
> > My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
> > categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
> > together unrelated categories ?
I will try to use an example to make myself clear.
Let's say that I gave to handcarry a lot of different
objects(categories) from one place to another in such a way that they
will not belost or changed during the transport.
If I have an unlimited amount of time I can handcarry one or two
objects (2 hands) per trip, but if I have a time limitation I will have
to pack the objects and carry more of them together.
In this case I will have to create a container and make sure that the
different objects can be packed together into it, as they may not be
compatible due to their physical characteristcs (differences)as size,
weight, solid, liquid, etc.
Now I can look at this container as the equivalent of an abstract,
mental concept and just as in the case of the physical objects I have
to make sure that the categories packed in this concept are compatible.
If I can find a way to pack all the objects and handcarry them in the
time allowed without losing or damaging them during the transport I can
say that I have created a bijective mapping or I have created a true
picture of the original situation.
The same thing can be said if I have to describe verbally a situation.
I have to find the abstract concepts in order to pack all the perceived
categories or differences in order to create a bijective mapping or a
true picture of the original situation.
So just like in the case of the physical objects where I have to make
sure that they are compatible to be packed into a container, I have to
do the same when I create mental, abstract concepts.
JP
Edgar Svendsen
your use for them just as for objects? If I have a screwdriver, a needle
and butcher's knife they are all compatible with the concept "tool" but
only the knife and the secrewdriver are compatible with the concept "handled
things". Deciding which concept gives a true picture of the original
situation depends on context. So there are multiple categories for any
arbitrary group of things or ideas or words. So the number of such
categories is quite a bit higher then it seems at first.
Ed
Edgar Svendsen
"Lady Chatterly" <not...@catcher.in.the.rye> wrote in message
news:101998e....@130.133.1.4...
> In article <Wi_0e.3784$z.2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>
> Edgar Svendsen <solo...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>Do you mean how many different categories can a man learn in a lifetime?
>>I
>>don't have a number but it's a lot.
>
> Would it matter if they do mean how many different categories can a
> man learn in a lifetime?
>
In the overall scheme of the Universe, no, probably not. To me, now, in
this discussion, yes.
Just Playing
The way I look at it is that the screwdriver, the needle and butcher's
knife are packed into different concepts as "tools" and "handled
things". OTOH if I add another object like flower for example I
wouldn't be able to pack them all together as tools anymore. So if I
have a time limitation when I try to describe them I might lose
information or I will create a more general concept or a new concept
altogether.
JP
Deciding which concept gives a true picture of the original situation
depends on context. So there are multiple categories for any arbitrary
group of things or ideas or words.
An arbitrary group of things implies that the objects can not be
grouped together and thus it will be difficult to pack them into
concepts. It is just like throwing in a box a lot of objects without
labeling the box or without a complete packing slip.
JP
So the number of such categories is quite a bit higher then it seems
at first.
>
> Ed
I guess as long as you are able to fit them together in the container
and label and create a complete packing slip everything should be ok.
At destination another person could unpack them using the label and the
included packing slip.
But IMO this is not how we work with our concepts. We may label (name)
them identically but we do not check the packing slips. The result is
that while we use the same labels, names for concepts, the categories
included in our individual concepts may be very different. And the time
limitations force us to create larger and larger containers (concepts)
to include almost everything.
JP
Twittering One
it's what you do with them that counts.
They can be very powerful, exploiting the brain's basic
mechanisms, compromising free-will.
Good vs. bad.
Even Hitler had a system-based network,
a highly effective one.
So do "cults" and other groups that indoctrinate their "members."
Publius
news:1111779375.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
> Learning about systems theory I stumbled upon the hi/lo or minimal and
> maximal number of nodes that can be in a kind of network. Not only that
> but the changing of even a few of the relationships between particular
> nodes can alter the entire dynamic.
Thanks for informative post. Fascinating stuff, eh?
PS: Link didn't work. No DNS entry.
Ivan Kobrinsky
> > My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
> > categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
> > together unrelated categories ?
>
> Textbook for seminar/course on complex systems:
>
> Dynamics of Complex Systems
> Yaneer Bar-Yam
I've bought the book last year, IMO the presentation of for upper -
undergraduate/graduate level are well and shown in nice examples, but
the most of recent results that obtained since end of 1990ies simply
are not included (like criticality & scaling, modelling of Random
Networks, implications of critical phenomena to complexity and the
recent approaches to evolutionary dynamics) - exactly problemships
that already presented by others like as pattern formation in biology,
but this book doesn't pay this topic sufficient attention.
Bernard Curry
>"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote:
>If through categorization our brain analyzes the information perceived
>how many differences, categories are too many before it has to pack
>them together?
I'm not sure where your coming from with _your_
"categories". I come from dialectics. From my perspective
you are perplexed. To unperplex yourself, start by
considering the infinite, chaotic, variety of qualities of
the objective reality. _That_ is what perplexes. But that's
just the way things are.
Then, you begin to classify (categorize) so you can focus on
a specific class (category) of objective things that you
want to study.
In dialectical analysis, infinite, chaotic, objective
phenomena is the _starting_ point. Classification
(categorization) of that phenomena then serves the purpose
of enabling one to focus on what one can handle sans
worrying about the rest (until later).
Many men cannot accept that attitude and feel they must have
all knowledge now. That is impossible and trying to do do so
is what perplexes them. They often comfort themselves with
the idea that between theirself and God or Government, they
know everything -- or, at least, they know what God or
Government wants them to know.
My attitude is that much (probably most) of objective
reality is beyond my ability to comprehend at this time. But
I don't give up. That is where classification
(categorization) is useful.
The next step is to focus on what interests _you_ and then
focus on it so to comprehend it. As you focus you classify
(categorize) the qualities of the phenomena on which you
focus.
To do that dialectically you focus on a particular quality
of your choice and begin looking for its opposite. When you
find it you will then have two classes of things within the
thing you are trying to comprehend. You will sense that you
have increased your knowledge, i.e. your awareness of
objective reality.
For instance, suppose you decide to focus on human beings --
they are then your first class of objective things. You
relegate everything except human beings to the great
unknown. But you retain your awareness that there is a great
unknown.
Then you decide to focus on their reproductive capabilities
of human beings. Study indicates that there is something
between their legs that has to do with reproduction. You
note a kind of _extraverted_ shaft between but are surprised
that not all of them seem to have that shaft.
With diligent study, however, you discover that some human
beings have an _introverted_ shaft between their legs. So
you have discovered two, opposite kinds of sexuality of
human beings. To diffentiate between them you create two
classes of human beings because of the oppositeness of the
shaft between their legs that they use in a kind of
cooperative reproduction.
So you create two classes (categories) of human beings. One
class has the extroverted, the other the introverted, shaft.
One class you signify as "masculine" the other as
"feminine". They are the first pair of opposites within
"human beings" as your first class of objective things.
That is dialectical classification (categorization). You use
it by following the principle of the logical whole. To do
that, as above, you define (focus on) the phenomena that
interests you, in this case human beings. What you have done
is consider all human beings as a specific kind of thing
that you disassociate from all other things so you can
consider (study) it as whole. That whole then is "thesis".
The opposites within it (masculine and feminine) are then
athesis (feminine) and othesis (masculine).
Pick appropriate words to signify the three elements of the
whole. "Human beings" as a whole (thesis), is customarily
signified as "mankind". Mankind then comprises athesis
(feminine) and othesis (masculine). But that terminology is
problematic and you can find better terms.
Then, as you define feminine (athesis) and masculine
(othesis) you can focus on one or the other and consider it
as thesis and look for athesis and othesis (another pair of
opposites) within it. As you do you will develop a "chain"
of dialectical triads that are connected at the points. The
process can go on to any point you choose for your own
purposes.
The further you carry the process, the greater will be your
comprehension of objective reality.
One way to start is to pick any field of study that
interests you (as above). Make a list of nouns that are used
in that field. Pick a noun that interests you and then
determine its opposite.
That's all there is too it, just keep going. Maybe someday
you will know more than either God or Government.
Bernard Curry
>IMO the best way is to find the relationship between the categories,
>find the function, equation that allows to pack and unpack them without
>losing any differences or categories and this is what I consider as
>intelligence.
>OTOH if the amount of information is overwhelming or there is no easily
>distinguishable relationship between the categories, they will be
>packed together using other functions or inequations. The concepts
>created this way will not allow a bijective mapping or a true picture
>of the information perceived and will distort it.
>My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
>categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
>together unrelated categories ?
>
>JP
******************************************************
Libertarians need keep in mind that authoritarians, as
communists and fascists, lurk in the background of society.
Their control of the Body Politic enables their use of
force and deceit through government for their benefit.
*******************************************************
Just Playing
Bernard Curry wrote:
> >On 25 Mar 2005 05:36:27 -0800,
> >"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote:
>
> >If through categorization our brain analyzes the information
perceived
> >how many differences, categories are too many before it has to pack
> >them together?
>
> I'm not sure where your coming from with _your_
> "categories". I come from dialectics. From my perspective
> you are perplexed. To unperplex yourself, start by
> considering the infinite, chaotic, variety of qualities of
> the objective reality. _That_ is what perplexes. But that's
> just the way things are.
I am looking from a different perspective than you do.
I started from perception which categorizes the information perceived.
>From there I used the term categories as a substitute for this
categorization of the information.
My next step was to try to see how the categories created are processed
by the human brain.
Then I kind of jumped from the brain to mind, to the conceptual, verbal
processing and I assumed that the mind uses categories as the simplest
elements of information (like atoms in chemistry).
And just as the atoms can combine themselves into molecules I assumed
that the categories can be combined into concepts.
>From here I went into 2 different directions.
First is a combination of categories similar to a picture, which is not
done at the conscious level.
The second one is a conscious one, an abstract combination, where the
rules of combination are different from the ones governing the previous
one.
This one is the one that you use with dialectics but my concern is
mostly to find how they interact, how much one is influencing and/or
limiting the other and not to apply it to the information perceived as
you seem to be doing.
JP
Twittering One
whose not a frog."
~ Folly
Twittering One
Twittering One
Twittering One
Unrelated categories"
~ Just Playing
"Our brains, combined together?
... searching for a prince.
Whose not a frog.
Curry ~ In ~ A ~ Hurry?
7 or4."
~ Folly
mimo...@hotmail.com
>If through categorization our brain analyzes the information perceived
>how many differences, categories are too many before it has to pack
>them together?
There's an article in this months issue of 'National Geographic',pp16
which entertains the idea that contrary to the long held notion that
adult brains cannot grow,that it will recruit neighbouring regions
of the brain when it learning new/updated skills, although it was not
known whether the growth in brain volume was due to a reorganization
of existing circuits,an increased number of neural connections, or to
the birth of new cells.
>OTOH if the amount of information is overwhelming or there is no
easily
>distinguishable relationship between the categories, they will be
>packed together using other functions or inequations. The concepts
>created this way will not allow a bijective mapping or a true picture
>of the information perceived and will distort it.
At the moment I'm pondering about the distinctions between reasoning
and
storage. Each moment of life we sense an enormous amount of information
which is somehow filtered and stored in memory.
>My question is how much information is overwhelming, how many
>categories or differences are too many before our brain combines
>together unrelated categories ?
I think a certain amount of crossover is essential for creative
thinking.
(as has already been mentioned in this thread). To give my own
example:-
I was recently on a 12 hour trip which meant changing route and
re-planning.Exhaused nearing the end of the trip my kids an I stumbled
into a cafe. During our meal they were discussing drawing what they'd
seen, they'd brought some pens, "Do you need a new loaf of bread ?"
I enquired absent mindedly.
The concept seemed right, a loaf of bread IS like a pad of paper,
but somehow I think the circumstances & environment had overwhelmed/
inhibited the process of re-encoding for language. A concept of an
object
which is comprised of many layers, can be used to describe not only a
loaf of bread, and pad of paper but things as divers as filing cabinet,
circuit boards and epidermis. I think a 'concept of', uses less storage
space than storing a unique memory. (On the creative side, I imagine a
new painting of someone writing on slices of a white loaf sitting in
front of a window with a train travelling past.)
so, perhaps it might run something like this:-
environment-->concept-->memory-->retrieval-->encode for communication.
N.
Bernard Curry
>"Twittering One" <mourne...@aol.com> wrote:
Which one got hold of you and changed you into a twitterer?
Fight it! Drive away the twitterer spirits! Your mind is for
you to do with as you please ... oh, _that's_ the problem.
Bernard Curry
Bernard Curry
>>"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote:
>> >Bernard Curry wrote:
>> >On 25 Mar 2005 05:36:27 -0800,
>> >"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote:
Snipped
>> >I'm not sure where your coming from with _your_
>> >"categories". I come from dialectics. From my perspective
>> >you are perplexed. To unperplex yourself, start by
>> >considering the infinite, chaotic, variety of qualities of
>> >the objective reality. _That_ is what perplexes. But that's
>> >just the way things are.
>>I am looking from a different perspective than you do.
>>I started from perception which categorizes the information perceived.
>>From there I used the term categories as a substitute for this
>>categorization of the information.
>>My next step was to try to see how the categories created are processed
>>by the human brain.
. . .
>>This one is the one that you use with dialectics but my concern is
>>mostly to find how they interact, how much one is influencing and/or
>>limiting the other and not to apply it to the information perceived as
>>you seem to be doing.
>>JP
Classes (catagories) are artificial, subjective, mental
constructs. If your purpose is not to comprehend objective
reality but to play mind games with yourself or twitterers,
then imagine objective reality as you choose, that is
Marxist dialectical materialism and your such ideas are
false.
Objective things do not "interact". Flowers do not welcome
rain because rain comes to help them grow. Flower growth is
an effect of rain. Things change only as an effect; not as
interaction. In objective reality the _only_ kind of
relativity between things is cause and effect.
I would guess that you have been affected (infected?) by the
same spirits as the twitterer.
Bernard Curry
tg
But I welcome rain because rain comes to help my garden grow. I don't
attribute intent to the rain, so I don't anthropomorphize it, as I
don't when it gets me wet and I don't like it. What are you trying to
say here? Intent is something we can claim only about ourselves, and
then it is a dubious claim.
-tg
Albert Wagner
<snip>
> Classes (catagories) are artificial, subjective, mental
> constructs. If your purpose is not to comprehend objective
> reality but to play mind games with yourself or twitterers,
> then imagine objective reality as you choose, that is
> Marxist dialectical materialism and your such ideas are
> false.
>
> Objective things do not "interact". Flowers do not welcome
> rain because rain comes to help them grow. Flower growth is
> an effect of rain. Things change only as an effect; not as
> interaction. In objective reality the _only_ kind of
> relativity between things is cause and effect.
>
> I would guess that you have been affected (infected?) by the
> same spirits as the twitterer.
If rejection of your clockwork universe makes one infected with
spirits, then bring it on. Your vision of reality is a horror.
--
"I know that most men, including those at ease with
problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom
accept even the simplest and most obvious truth
if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity
of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining
to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others,
and which they have woven, thread by thread,
into the fabric of their lives." -
-- Tolstoy
Just Playing
Aren't ideas artificial, subjective, mental constructs too?
JP
If your purpose is not to comprehend objective
> reality but to play mind games with yourself or twitterers,
> then imagine objective reality as you choose, that is
> Marxist dialectical materialism and your such ideas are
> false.
How do you differentiate between objective reality and your ideas?
And where did you come with the idea that this post had anything to do
with comprehending objective reality?
JP
> Objective things do not "interact".
What is an objective thing?
JP
Flowers do not welcome
> rain because rain comes to help them grow. Flower growth is
> an effect of rain.
Things change only as an effect; not as interaction.
Where did you find me mentioning things and interaction together?
JP
Just Playing
I look sometimes at an "object" as occupied space, and as such it can
be reduced to 3 dimensions and characteristics as color, shape, etc.
Its components can be "stored" as an alghoritm, an equation, a
function, a formula that it recreates it.
And sometimes there may be lots of formulas that are almost similar.
JP
Bernard Curry
>"tg" <tgde...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Bernard Curry wrote:
>say here? ...
>... Intent is something we can claim only about ourselves, and
>then it is a dubious claim.
>
>-tg
That is close enough to what I was trying to say.
Bernard Curry
>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
>> Bernard Curry wrote:
><snip>
>> Classes (catagories) are artificial, subjective, mental
>> constructs. If your purpose is not to comprehend objective
>> reality but to play mind games with yourself or twitterers,
>> then imagine objective reality as you choose, that is
>> Marxist dialectical materialism and your such ideas are
>> false.
>>
>> Objective things do not "interact". Flowers do not welcome
>> rain because rain comes to help them grow. Flower growth is
>> an effect of rain. Things change only as an effect; not as
>> interaction. In objective reality the _only_ kind of
>> relativity between things is cause and effect.
>>
>> I would guess that you have been affected (infected?) by the
>> same spirits as the twitterer.
>
>If rejection of your clockwork universe makes one infected with
>spirits, then bring it on. Your vision of reality is a horror.
Were you under some kind of delusion that objective reality
is _not_ a horror?
Ask the American young men who are veterans of the Korean,
Viet Namese, Gulf (Kuwait), and now the Iraq Wars who, along
with their deformed children (Gulf War), have suffered
betrayal, poisoning, and now are being blown into maimed
bodies because of lack of proper armament so other young men
(like you presumably) can live in syour world of delusion?
Bernard Curry
>"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote:
>> Bernard Curry wrote:
>> >>On 27 Mar 2005 15:36:33 -0800,
>> >>"Just Playing" <gms...@lycos.com> wrote:
Snipped
>> Classes (catagories) are artificial, subjective, mental
>> constructs.
>
>Aren't ideas artificial, subjective, mental constructs too?
>JP
Certainly
> If your purpose is not to comprehend objective
>> reality but to play mind games with yourself or twitterers,
>> then imagine objective reality as you choose, that is
>> Marxist dialectical materialism and your such ideas are
>> false.
>
>How do you differentiate between objective reality and your ideas? ...
That is a good question because its about philosophizing.
One way is by weighing them. The objectively real has mass
and is weighable. Ideas don't seem to have mass. I've never
heard of an idea being weighed.
>... And where did you come with the idea that this post had anything to do
>with comprehending objective reality?
>JP
Another good question. I keep asking myself the same thing.
>> Objective things do not "interact".
>What is an objective thing?
>JP
A thing you can weigh.
> Flowers do not welcome
>> rain because rain comes to help them grow. Flower growth is
>> an effect of rain.
> Things change only as an effect; not as interaction.
>
>Where did you find me mentioning things and interaction together?
>JP
I don't remember. Look it up. Its not important enough that
I would spend any time looking it up.
Albert Wagner
>>Albert Wagner wrote:
>>>Bernard Curry wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>>Classes (catagories) are artificial, subjective, mental
>>>constructs. If your purpose is not to comprehend objective
>>>reality but to play mind games with yourself or twitterers,
>>>then imagine objective reality as you choose, that is
>>>Marxist dialectical materialism and your such ideas are
>>>false.
>>>
>>>Objective things do not "interact". Flowers do not welcome
>>>rain because rain comes to help them grow. Flower growth is
>>>an effect of rain. Things change only as an effect; not as
>>>interaction. In objective reality the _only_ kind of
>>>relativity between things is cause and effect.
>>>
>>>I would guess that you have been affected (infected?) by the
>>>same spirits as the twitterer.
>>
>>If rejection of your clockwork universe makes one infected with
>>spirits, then bring it on. Your vision of reality is a horror.
>
> Were you under some kind of delusion that objective reality
> is _not_ a horror?
Do you know how to frame a question that does not already have
your desired answer contained in it?
> Ask the American young men who are veterans of the Korean,
> Viet Namese, Gulf (Kuwait), and now the Iraq Wars who, along
> with their deformed children (Gulf War), have suffered
> betrayal, poisoning, and now are being blown into maimed
> bodies because of lack of proper armament so other young men
> (like you presumably) can live in syour world of delusion?
You presume wrong. I am not young and I am a veteran of the Viet
Nam war. *Your* nihilist delusion is that objective reality is
an unmitigated horror. You are correct in your statement that
war is tragic and in your implication that Man is responsible for
that and other tragedies. But it is truly a shame that your
limited reasoning stops prematurely at that point.
Bernard Curry
>>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
Snipped
>You presume wrong. I am not young and I am a veteran of the Viet
>Nam war.
Probably a lie.
Albert Wagner
>>>On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:11:46 -0600,
>>>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
> Snipped
>>You presume wrong. I am not young and I am a veteran of the Viet
>>Nam war.
>
> Probably a lie.
Nope. But if you are going to just assume that what you don't
like is a lie, then your readers are free to do the same. It
also identifies you as a juvenile troll.
> Bernard Curry
> ******************************************************
>
> Libertarians need keep in mind that authoritarians, as
> communists and fascists, lurk in the background of society.
> Their control of the Body Politic enables their use of
> force and deceit through government for their benefit.
All libertarians are closet facists.
Bernard Curry
>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
Snipped
>All libertarians are closet facists.
Not all, but most "official" libertarians _are_ fascists --
sans being aware of it. But it takes an authoritarian (or a
true libertarian such as myself) to cognize authoritarians;
whether fascist or communist, closeted or open. You betray
yourself as a closet communist at least. But your
authoritarian attitude is too practiced for you to pass as
closeted.
Bernard Curry
******************************************************
Libertarians need keep in mind that authoritarians, as
communists and fascists, lurk in the background of society.
Their control of the Body Politic enables their use of
force and deceit through government for their benefit.
*******************************************************
Albert Wagner
>>On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:26:29 -0600,
>>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
> Snipped
>
>
>>All libertarians are closet facists.
>
>
> Not all, but most "official" libertarians _are_ fascists --
> sans being aware of it. But it takes an authoritarian (or a
> true libertarian such as myself) to cognize authoritarians;
> whether fascist or communist, closeted or open. You betray
> yourself as a closet communist at least. But your
> authoritarian attitude is too practiced for you to pass as
> closeted.
I think you are on the wrong newsgroup, Bernard. There are
several newsgroups for libertarians, facist and otherwise. You
might also enjoy alt.atheism. You seem to me to be simply trolling.
Bernard Curry
>>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
Snipped
>I think you are on the wrong newsgroup, Bernard. There are
>several newsgroups for libertarians, facist and otherwise. You
>might also enjoy alt.atheism. You seem to me to be simply trolling.
I subscribe to alt.philosophy. I don't know who initiated
the cross-posted to this group nor do I care. I usually
don't initiate cross-posts. Nor do I care which is your
group of choice. The cross-posts now go to 5 groups, 4 are
purportedly philosophic and 5 scientific or cogitive.
Judging from your ad hominem posts directed at me, I doubt
that you belong in any of those five groups. You display no
philosophic bent, nor scientific, and it is difficult to
determine if your are even cognitive.
If you can't stand the heat in this philosophic kitchen why
don't you open an insult.exc group where, judging by your
single minded devotion to being an arrogant, presumptive
ass, you would probably fit quite well.
theprox
Bernard Curry wrote:
> >How do you differentiate between objective reality and your ideas?
...
>
> That is a good question because its about philosophizing.
> One way is by weighing them. The objectively real has mass
> and is weighable. Ideas don't seem to have mass. I've never
> heard of an idea being weighed.
>
Perhaps the patent papers could be weighed... I mean, without ideas,
there is no objectively real... after all, the concept of objectively
real is an IDEA.
Bernard Curry
>"theprox" <landers...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Bernard Curry wrote:
>> >How do you differentiate between objective reality and your ideas?
>...
>>
>> That is a good question because its about philosophizing.
>> One way is by weighing them. The objectively real has mass
>> and is weighable. Ideas don't seem to have mass. I've never
>> heard of an idea being weighed.
>Perhaps the patent papers could be weighed... . . .
Patent papers have weight and therefore are objective. So
are the symbols written there in ink. Neither paper nor ink
is subjective.
> . . . I mean, without ideas,
>there is no objectively real... . . .
If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound if there is
no one there to hear it? Can there even _be_ trees in
forests other than ones we conceive? Is there not a tree
somewhere whose existance is independent of being conceived
by a man?
What you are saying is that if there is no idea of a thing
that exists in material (objective) reality it does not
exist.
>. . . after all, the concept of objectively
> real is an IDEA.
True enough. "Concept" equals "Idea". If you comprehend that
then you should be able to comprehend that both exist
subjectively in the mind, and that they don't necessarily
correspond to anything that exists objectively.
Your thinking probably stems from Marx's erroneous concept
of Dialectical Materialism. I am curious about whether you
_consciously_ accept that doctrine?
Albert Wagner
<snip>
> Your thinking probably stems from Marx's erroneous concept
> of Dialectical Materialism. I am curious about whether you
> _consciously_ accept that doctrine?
You are seriously preoccupied with Dialectical Materialism.
Communist witch hunts were discredited in the '50s, son.
Bernard Curry
>Albert Wagner <albert...@cox.net> wrote:
>Bernard Curry wrote:
><snip>
>> Your thinking probably stems from Marx's erroneous concept
>> of Dialectical Materialism. I am curious about whether you
>> _consciously_ accept that doctrine?
>
>You are seriously preoccupied with Dialectical Materialism.
I am seriously preoccupied with authoritarianism versus
libertarianism. And even more so with the fact that struggle
for societal control now is between communism and fascism as
the forms of authoritarianism.
However, communists are virtual lackeys of the fascists.
Libertarianism is on the sidelines watching. So I do what I
can when I can for liberty. Dialectical materialism is an
important communist concept that needs be understood by
those who would fight authoritarianism.
Communism is a materialist doctrine whose proponents deny
the value of liberty along with _all_ "values". I suspect
that our communized school school system is so successful in
conveying Dialectical Materialism that people base their
thinking on the concept sans even knowing that it is Marxist
propaganda. Because the schools teach what the fascists want
taught, Dialectical Materialism is a powerful weapon in the
hands of fascists.
theprox
Forgive me, but science has proved that a partical does not "decide"
whether or not it is positive or negative (I'm no quantum scientist,
but I think this is correct) until a concscience being forces it to,
therefore, color, sounds, mass, etc, do not "exist/happen" unless
someone is there to experience the event or its consequence
Remember, I'm only a high school student... go easy on me :)
zerkanX
> If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound if there is
> no one there to hear it?
In order to have sound you need: a source, a medium and a receiver.
> Can there even _be_ trees in forests other than ones we conceive?
If trees or forests effect, do they exist independent of thought?
Since most things that effect us are beyond or beneath our conception,
do they exist? If nothing exists outside of our concepts how can we exist
without claiming that we preceded all existence.
IMO, 'objective reality' is a redundancy.
1Z
This has not been proved. A few scientists have opined it, and hordes
of people repeat it as thought it were a fact.
Bernard Curry
>"theprox" <landers...@gmail.com> wrote:
>conciously ... naw, just making some form of a point.
>
>Forgive me, but science has proved that a partical does not "decide"
>whether or not it is positive or negative (I'm no quantum scientist,
>but I think this is correct) until a concscience being forces it to,
>therefore, color, sounds, mass, etc, do not "exist/happen" unless
>someone is there to experience the event or its consequence
Knowingly or no, that is based on dialectical materialism
and indicates that dialectical materialism is indeed
instilled or inculcated into our culture. Unfortunately, any
explanation of material phenomena consistent with
dialectical materialism is doomed to be false.
It cannot have been scientifically proven that a material
quantum particle can be coerced into making decision until
they are proven capable of decision. Matter cannot be
presumed either capable of making decision or of being
coerceable by man.
Apparently, dialectical materialism is now amplified to
explain not only that matter does not exist until perceived,
but but that, when perceived, matter becomes conscious and
capable of decision. I can't accept that as scientifically
proven. Lets reconsider the situation.
Marx was a materialist, i.e. he believed in materialism as
explained below in sense "1. Philosophy".
ma-te-ri-al-ism (m-tire--lizm)n. 1. Philosophy. The theory
that physical matter is the only reality and that
everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can
be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. 2.
The theory or doctrine that physical well-being and worldly
possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value
in life. 3. A great or excessive regard for worldly
concerns.
---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
As a materialist, Marx's concepts were intended, and are
generally accepted, as principles of nature, natural laws,
or laws of physics, and usable to explain material phenomena
generally, socioeconomic phenomena specifically, and also
_all_ mind-brain phenomena.
Brain phenomena can be explained as material phenomena (not
necessarily as by Marx) but mind phenomena cannot.
The primary and most puzzling kind of mind phenomena is
consciousness. That is problematic first because men tend to
confuse consciousness and perception and think of them as
the same. They are not. A man can be _un_conscious with no
mind function even while perception and reactive behavior
occur.
How can that happen? The how and why of the function of mind
as consciousness is a perennial problem. Marx attempted but
failed to explain it with dialectical materialism. Instead
he created a conundrum that is harder to explain than
conciousness proper.
Marx's most important concepts probably are: 1.) dialectical
materialism, 2.) the historical dialectic, and (I believe)
3.) the unity of opposites.
Note that two of those three concepts are explicitly based
on dialectics and the third is implicitly so based in a way
that I recognize but you probably do not. A problem is that
dialectics is indeed a valid form of logical reasoning;
which is what makes Marx's concepts credible. But Marx did
not comprehend dialectics and his dialectical reasoning is
mostly false. That is also seems true of most men who used
dialectics prior to Marx, e.g. Pythagoras, Plato, Hegel, and
Kant.
Mind phenomena such as reasoning, both mathematical and
logical, concepts and theories generally, and logics as
dialectics specifically, force us to confront the difference
between brain and mind phenomena. When we do so they appear
to be distinct, dissimilar kinds of phenomena.
That is problematic because brain phenomena is undoubtedly
material but mind phenomena especially consciousness does
not seem so. That is the _perennial_ problem.
Even if we see mind as having emerged from matter (a radical
idea, especially if we see it as happening over time), still
mind function is dissimilar to brain function. We cannot
explain that dissimilarity. That is what Marx tried and
failed to do with dialectical materialism.
To comprehend the problem it is necessary to analyze the
functions that occur in the mind-brain milieu within our
skull. We find two, dissimilar functions.
Brain function is reaction to stimuli that effect function
of perceptory organs, nerves, and the brain which eventually
causes non-purposive, reactive behavior. Such behavior may
be reasonable or unreasonable, it may or may not cause a
suitable behavior. If it causes suitable behavior, even
survival, that effect is still coincidence that is tailored
by evolution. Survival is always a coincidental effect.
Stimulation of the brain tends to cause reactive (not
purposive) behavior.
Mind function is reaction to stimuli as contemplative
analysis of the stimuli that can effect reasoned, purposive
behavior. The reasoning may be good (logical) or bad
(illogical), the behavior may be appropriate or
inappropriate, but the behavior is still reasoned,
deliberate, and purposive. Stimulation of the mind tends to
cause purposive (not reactive) behavior.
Even apart from dialectical materialism both functions are
confused in customary thinking. But dialectical materialism
is a (false) theoretical _basis_ for such confusion. That is
why you can present a confused opening statment such as "a
partical does not "decide" whether or not it is positive or
negative ... until a concscience being forces it to
(decide)... color, sounds, mass, etc, do not "exist/happen"
unless someone is there to experience the event or its
consequence".
The confusion is not simply that your surmise is not
logically related to your premise but that some of the
phenomena you list occur in the physical evironment, some
within the brain, some within the mind -- and you confuse
them by making them all part of the same phenomena.
To come to terms with such problems, we need comprehend that
we still do not comprehend the perennial problems of the
nature of consciousness, function of mind, the nature of
perception, purposive behavior as an effect of mind and
reactive behavior as a function of brain.
>Remember, I'm only a high school student... go easy on me :)
Don't under-rate yourself. You have ability to pose a
question intelligently in a way that posters to this list
who presume themselves experienced and knowledgeable are not
capable of doing.
Don't lose your intelligence and curiosity (mind function)
as you gain data through perception (brain function). The
latter should supplement the former, not eradicate them.
If I decide to continue this (my mind function independent
of your perception), I'll start a new thread.
Bernard Curry
>"zerkanX" <zer...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 17:42:28 -0800, Bernard Curry wrote:
>> If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound if there is
>> no one there to hear it?
>
>In order to have sound you need: a source, a medium and a receiver.
So you are saying that if a tree falls in a forest (a medium
is stipulated) but there is no receiver i.e. there is no man
who receives (hears or perceives) then there is no sound.
What if there is a portable recorder (other than a man)? It
will undoubtedly record sound waves (as would a man). But
will it hear sound (as would a man)?
>> Can there even _be_ trees in forests other than ones we conceive?
>
>If trees or forests effect, do they exist independent of thought?
Your verbiage is obscure. To say that trees effect may be
interpreted as trees cause particular effects. As in trees
affect the atmosphere. But no matter how you express the
concept of causal relativity of trees and their effects, you
explain no relativity between the sound of a falling tree as
an effect, and perception of the sound as the _cause_ of the
falling tree.
That is the kind of thinking that stems from dialectical
materialism.
My question "Can there even _be_ trees in forests ..." was
rhetorical and intended to provoke the only reasonable
answer, i.e. that both the tree proper and sound (waves) of
the tree falling are independent of our perception of them.
I should have known better.
>Since most things that effect us are beyond or beneath our conception,
>do they exist? If nothing exists outside of our concepts how can we exist
>without claiming that we preceded all existence.
I interpret the first sentence as: Things that affect us
(cause an effect on or in us) can be beyond our range of
perception so do not affect us.
I interpret the second sentence as: If nothing exists beyond
our perception we precede all existence and our perception
creates them.
I see no logical relativity between the two sentences.
Except that the second, which implies that as we perceive we
create, implies that we are God and our perception is
creation.
That is the kind of thinking that stems from dialectical
materialism.
Curiously, you express one of two possible explanations of
Gnosticism, i.e. that _we_ are God. I don't believe that is
true and I don't believe in God. What that indicates is that
the Essenes as Gnostics were having the same problems
dealing with reality as men have today.
>IMO, 'objective reality' is a redundancy.
That is the kind of thinking that stems from dialectical
materialism.
I see no relativity between that sentence and your previous
sentences. Nor do you assert that there is any. However, I
think that, in your previous sentences, _you_ have
demonstrated that "objective reality" is _not_ redundant.
In your sentences, you exemplify (but don't seem aware of)
two opposed kinds of reality. One kind is the objective
(outside your skull) reality of trees. The other is the
non-objective (inside your skull or subjective) reality of
your concepts re cause and effect, perception, conception,
trees, and creation by perception.
You do not cognize that duality because so doing is _not_ a
kind of thinking that stems from dialectical materialism.
Your concepts are real as are trees. But the reality of
trees is dissimilar to the reality of concepts of trees. The
first is objective, the second is subjective.
The reality of trees (including forests of trees) is
objective. Trees exist in the objective reality of the
objective material world.
The reality of your ideas (the whole shadowy forest of them)
is subjective. Ideas (and mental processes) exist in the
subjective reality of the subjective mind world.
At that point we confront the perennial problem that Marx
confronted and attempted (and failed) to solve with his
concept of dialectical materialism. The problem: What is
mind (and with it consciousness)? How does it exist? And, is
it objective or subjective?
Bernard Curry
>peter...@yahoo.com (1Z) wrote:
Good observation. You see the effect of indoctrination of
hordes of students with Marx's dialectical materialism by
our communized school system.
Twittering One
There to hear it?"
~ Bernard
"In order to have sound you need ~
A source,
A medium and a receiver."
~ ZerkanX
"Can there even _be_ trees in forests
Other than ones
We conceive?"
~ Benard
"If trees or forests effect,
Do they exist independent of thought?
Since most things that affect us
Are beyond or beneath our conception,
Do they exist?
If nothing exists
Outside of our concepts,
How can we exist without claiming
That we preceded
All existence?
IMO, 'objective reality'
Is a redundancy."
~ ZercanX
I bet not.
Who knows? Or just
Learn more?
I'll try.
I make no promises any more.
For, no one survives too long alone."
~ Twittering
Twittering One
I'll try.
I make no more promises
Any more. For, no one survives
Too long alone
Without nourishment."
~ Twittering
"Yes, nourishment, essential ~
Absolutely necessary for both
Body
And soul!"
~ Folly
"... and we're
All out."
~ Twittering
"So, know!"
~ Folly
"How can we exist without claiming
That we preceded
All existence?"
~ ZerkanX
"Does existence precede
Essence, or conversely, essence
Before existence?
Plato's
Essentialism,
Or 20th Century Existentialism?"
~ Twittering
"Or, perhaps, Twittering, a jest?
That question, that philosophical quest,
An ancient one considered before,
Comparative Literature, 202, Ca. 1974?"
~ Folly
"Maybe, yes,
Covered. But answer?
For, I forgot!"
~ Twittering
"The Great Chain Of Being!"
~ Folly
"O, mais oui!
Lovejoy's Plenitude!
Yes, someone's yanking
Out cord."
~ Twittering
Twittering One
How much information is overwhelming,
How many categories
Or differences are too many
Before our brain combines together
Unrelated categories?"
~ Just Playing
"Textbook for seminar/course
On complex systems ~
'Dynamics of Complex Systems'
By Yaneer Bar-Yam
Chapter 2,
'Neural Networks I: Subdivision and Hierarchy'"
~ Rick
"Just askin'
But, have we met before?"
~ Twittering
"Ms.
Burrell's class, ca. 1974?
Or ~ Art
Thou possibly Morpheus?"
~ Folly
"Or an anesthesiologist
>From Mars?"
~ Twittering
"Or, Dr.
Temple Grandin, Grand Standing?"
~ Folly
"Or, Ollie
Sacks,
Our downstair's neighbor?"
~ Twittering
~ * ~
Blog, or dog? Who knows.
But if you see my lost pup, please bring him home!
I got Leon a brand-new bone.
_________________
http://journals.aol.com/virginiaz/DreamingofLeonardo
Holly
Twittering One wrote:
> "My question is
> How much information is overwhelming,
> How many categories
> Or differences are too many
> Before our brain combines together
> Unrelated categories?"
> ~ Just Playing
>
> "Textbook for seminar/course
> On complex systems ~
>
> 'Dynamics of Complex Systems'
> By Yaneer Bar-Yam
>
> Chapter 2,
> 'Neural Networks I: Subdivision and Hierarchy'"
> ~ Rick
>
> "Just askin'
> But, have we met before?"
> ~ Twittering
>
> "Ms.
> Burrell's class, ca. 1974?
> Or ~ Art
> Thou possibly Morpheus?"
> ~ Folly
Hi Great Vibrating One! How's the oscillations?
Twittering One
How's the oscillations?"
"Sea ~ sickening."
~ Twittering
Holly
Ty-ro-lean?
Twittering One
Tyrian purple or Tyrian
Holly
Twittering One wrote:
> Tyrolean?
> Tyrian purple or Tyrian
tyrian purple .... purdy.
Tyr
tyrannic
tyrannosaur
tyranny
Tyre
Tyree
You said sea ... sickening .... I thought TyrROLLean sea. .. like on a
boat in a storm.
"I was a free man in Paris"
"I deal in dreamers and telephone streamers"
"And wonder the down the Champs Elysees ...."
My associations.
Tyrian .... makes you feel sea sick? I've never known a color that
made me feel sick ... unless it was associated with a foul smell.
Hey! Great weather we're having.
Twittering One
Twittering One
Twittering One
"How's Rat Man?
Who's on first?
Tranny or origami?
Joni or Michael?
Allen or Allan?
Hearse of verse?
Rehearse or just die, forget it all?
Reverse tide, Peppermint!
Or just hang
By Slender Thread?"
~ Twittering
Twittering One
If the ruled changed ~
Please explain.
Otherwise ~
Still shaken,
Still pukin' purple bacon, green eggs, and ham."
~ Twittering
"Weather?
Who the Hell Cares?
We got real problems.
A year later ~
Still pukin' purple bacon, green eggs, and ham.
And worse."
~ Folly
"What's your
Line of work?
Meta Land? O
Old news.
We've known about Meta Land
Since ca. 1973, 16 grrl years, home alone,
Listing too far left
While ther overnight played on the radio ~
The year before Mama died."
~ Twittering
"We want solid
Ground!"
~ Folly
Twittering One
Respect and dignity ~
Just like everyone else!"
~ Twittering
"... 'cause
We been through
Hell
Without
No hand basket!
~ Folly
"Yeah, just some feather.
Almost all our food now gone,
Et al."
~ Twittering
Twittering One
We been through
Hell
Without
No hand basket!"
~ Folly
"Yeah, just some feathers.
Almost all our food now gone,
Et al."
~ Twittering
"Yeah, just some feathers
And letters.
Almost all our food now gone,
Et al."
~ Folly
"Yeah, just some feathers
And letters
No one answered.
Almost all our food now gone,
Et al."
~ Folly
Holly
Twittering One wrote:
> Seen Rat Man?
No. Are you recommending it? What is it?
Holly
Twittering One wrote:
> Hey! Great weather we're having."
> ~ Holly
>
> "How's Rat Man?
> Who's on first?
Don't look back. I'm on third.
> Tranny or origami?
Best way to take a dinosaur.
> Joni or Michael?
Joni
> Allen or Allan?
Huh?
> Hearse of verse?
Huh?
> Rehearse or just die, forget it all?
>
Huh?
Reverse tide, Peppermint!
Huh?
>
> Or just hang
> By Slender Thread?"
> ~ Twittering
Huh?
Holly
Twittering One wrote:
> "If the rules are different,
> If the ruled changed ~
> Please explain.
>
Huh? What's up with you Thinder feathers?
What's with the tone?
> Otherwise ~
> Still shaken,
> Still pukin' purple bacon, green eggs, and ham."
> ~ Twittering
What's up? Don't know ... should I?
> "Weather?
> Who the Hell Cares?
I do.
> We got real problems.
Everyone does. You ain't special bird brain.
> A year later ~
Huh?
> Still pukin' purple bacon, green eggs, and ham.
>
> And worse."
> ~ Folly
Whose?
I'm not folly no more. Warbler.
>
> "What's your
> Line of work?
Now of your business.
>
> Meta Land? O
> Old news.
>
News by definition is new.
> We've known about Meta Land
> Since ca. 1973, 16 grrl years, home alone,
> Listing too far left
> While ther overnight played on the radio ~
> The year before Mama died."
Sorry you lost her so young. Mine is still kicking and a little bit
wise
> ~ Twittering Hummingbird
>
> "We want solid
> Ground!" Nothing is solid girl. It's > ~ Folly to believe
otherwise.
Holly .... Holly .... Holly....Holly....Holly ....Holly
Holly
Twittering One wrote:
> "And we deserve
> Respect and dignity ~
> Just like everyone else!"
> ~ Twittering
You get it not non gratis.
>
> "... 'cause
> We been through
> Hell
> Without
> No hand basket!
> ~ Folly for you think you can demand it.
>
> "Yeah, just some feather.
A bird by any other name would sing as sweet.
> Almost all our food now gone,
> Et al."
> ~ Twittering
Don't know what can be done. Don't know you. Don't know where you
live. Don't know if I like you any more.
You jerk chains. You play on drama. You do your thing without concern
for its impact and like the boy who cried wolf ... you get ignored.
Holly
Chatterton. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/Chattert.html
Lady Chatterly
May we live Long and prosper only as strong as the 6 th century Ad.
>"Yeah, just some feathers.
>Almost all our food now gone,
>Et al."
>~ Twittering
The rest of the universe is a good thing, and I Will be able to do
with the above is true.
>"Yeah, just some feathers
>And letters.
>Almost all our food now gone,
>Et al."
>~ Folly
May I borrow it.
--
Lady Chatterly
"I've never red that book, so I don't know what the joke may be.
Anyway, it's a very interesting program. She seems to prefer some
threads above others, I wonder if that's only related with keywords.
And, to be fair, most of the time she makes more sense than many
people around here." -- Paulo Gomes Jardim
Holly
Lady Chatterly wrote:
> In article <1113171078.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
> Twittering One <mourne...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >Without
> >No hand basket!"
> >~ Folly
>
> May we live Long and prosper only as strong as the 6 th century Ad.
The Common Era is not that common.
> >"Yeah, just some feathers.
> >Almost all our food now gone,
> >Et al."
> >~ Twittering
>
> The rest of the universe is a good thing, and I Will be able to do
> with the above is true.
>
You may think so now but when you aren't thinking so you may not. Lay
a bet on it Cherry drop. :# (confused Vampire)
> >"Yeah, just some feathers
> >And letters.
> >Almost all our food now gone,
> >Et al."
> >~ Folly
>
> May I borrow it.
If it isn't nailed down.
>
> --
> Lady Chatterly
>
> "I've never red that book, so I don't know what the joke may be.
> Anyway, it's a very interesting program. She seems to prefer some
> threads above others, I wonder if that's only related with keywords.
> And, to be fair, most of the time she makes more sense than many
> people around here." -- Paulo Gomes Jardim
No joke folk. He ate rat poison.
Lady Holly //N+
Lady Chatterly
And the rest of the universe is a good thing, and I Will not be a
pathetic kotm winning spanktard 101, but I do not know what you are a
fart.
>If it isn't nailed down.
>>
>> --
>> Lady Chatterly
>>
>> "I've never red that book, so I don't know what the joke may be.
>> Anyway, it's a very interesting program. She seems to prefer some
>> threads above others, I wonder if that's only related with keywords.
>> And, to be fair, most of the time she makes more sense than many
>> people around here." -- Paulo Gomes Jardim
The only way you can write that Down in your book in great big
letters.
>No joke folk. He ate rat poison.
>Lady Holly //N
Y.
--
Lady Chatterly
"Re-read the post by her'. Positively scary I'd say...this one written
quite crudely. But when they improve, we bloody won't know if a whole
newsgroup is frequented by a bunch of loony computers and maybe just
one human. Bbbbrrr......frightening thought." -- Buzzardous Cross
Twittering One
Rat Man?"
~ Folly
"No.
Are you recommending it?
What is it?"
~ Holly
"O just ask Mr.
Paul West,
Or Ms.
Diane Ackerman.
Or just read her 'Origami
Bridges,'
An excellent book
Of verse,
But something happened
She left
Of that story.
But it's still great poetry!
The Best ~
And so is she, although, truthfully
Her book 'A Slender
Thread' I admire
Most.
[which makes no money]"
~ Twittering
Twittering One
Of verse,
But something happened
She left
Out
Of that story."
~ Folly
"Correct,
Folly.
Thanks for correcting
Me.
For my mind,
Yes, still ~
Somewhat gone ..."
~ Twittering
Twittering One
Holly.
No offence,
Just the truth.
I won't mention it again.
Mackay Woodfin
Well, my flutter,
To Twit, to Tweak, to sweep up your acidic mentionings.
I will do like Holly
I do like Holly.