[FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

[Steve Smith]

Eric Smith wrote:
> */  Dreams are an epiphenomena of the waking brain catching the
> sleeping brain at its work.  I think I have just created a dualist
> monster here.  Oh, well. <===nst] /*
>
> I actually think this is fine.  What I have seen about the
> memory-reinforcement role believed to be served by dreams works with
> it well.
I have always liked the "just so" story that dreams serve as a forum for
"untangling" the tangles left from the day's weaving of webs that humans
seem to do.  Like braiding a set of cords and having to pause every few
dozen braidings to untangle the ends of the cords (the
counter-braid).    In a more modern idiom, I think of it as a
refactoring process.  Or following Piaget's structural theory of
learning convolved with CS201 topics, it is a rebalancing of "trees" as
we hang more and more stuff on them in our daily experiences.
>
> The point being, dreams are not creating narrative for their own sake
> and within their own scope.  They are inheriting structures of
> narrative that are there in the brain, and are part of a template as
> other work is being done.

Yes, like that.


>
>> I prefer that kind of example, where there are many inputs and a real
>> thing (all the organization of the brain) that they create, which is
>> then available to act “downwardly” on any one thing, particularly one
>> that the structure probably wasn’t selected for.  Like, dreaming may
>> be functional, but I’m not sure that whether dreams are entertaining
>> would matter that much to evolutionary criteria.
>>  
>> What I prefer those examples to are the old trope of “magnetization
>> downwardly causes spins to align”, since there is no additional thing
>> that is “magnetization” than the aggregate effect of all the other
>> spins.  So one hasn’t added anything by claiming “downward causation”
>> to just saying “each spin affects all the others, and the net effect
>> excludes entropy to the environment”.
>> */[NST===>So am I right that the magnetization is not an emergent; it
>> is just the aggregate effect of the spins?<===nst] /*
>
> It is emergent, and it is exactly nothing more than an aggregate
> effect.  Both.  Because in this use of the term “emergent” there is no
> dependence on a notion of downward causation.
>
> This was my life.  I use emergence daily.  I never find myself needing
> to use downward causation.

Following DaveW's commentary, I suppose I think of "Emergence" as being
about ontological status.   When a jizillion air molecules (with
suspended dust and water droplets) begin to (self?) organize into a
vortex, there is some point at which we want to call it a
whirlwind/funnel-cloud/tornado/tropical storm/hurricane.   And in fact,
the collective action of those molecules/particles/droplets is dominated
by the vortex's properties with the components' properties less
important?   But when/how does this transition happen?  Is it always a
recognizable phase transition of some sort?  

I admit to finding "self-organization" "emergence" "ontological status"
"downward causation" and "auopoesis" to be very (but wonderfully)
mysterious...   I think it was recently that someone (SteveG) made the
point that the central theme of any study is the term which is most in
contention (Consciousness, Art, Governance, etc.).  Perhaps by
definition, the central object of study (or constellation thereof) is
the one thing left to be under-specified... otherwise why would we be
studying it?

- Steve


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