Clipmarks | wildcat's philosophy collection

AUTOPOIESIS, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:19:14 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

The concept of autopoiesis has long surpassed the realm of biology. It has been used in areas so diverse as sociology, psychotherapy, management, anthropology, organizational culture, and many others. This circumstance transformed it in a very important and useful instrument for the investigation of reality. Years ago, Chilean scientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela proposed the following question: to what extent human social phenomenology could be seen as a biological phenomenology? The purpose of this article is to look for an answer to this question. However, before getting to it I think that it is necessary to review some of the fundamental principles introduced by these two authors.

Autopoiesis

Poiesis is a Greek term that means production. Autopoiesis means autoproduction

In Maturana’s viewpoint, the term "autopoiesis" expresses what he called "the center of the constitutive dynamics of living systems"

Tags: autopoiesis, culture, society

'Mind's eye' influences visual perception

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:14:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: ..even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another..

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.

"We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception," says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study. "This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on."

"You might think you need to imagine something 10 times or 100 times before it has an impact,"

Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right."

"These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself,"

Tags: 'mind's eye', visual perception, brain, imagination

“What is Life?” Evolution of Robots is Causing Scientists to Question

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:04:36 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “Robots are not human, but humans aren’t the only things that have emotions,” she said. “The question for robots is not, Will they ever have human emotions? Dogs don’t have human emotions, either, but we all agree they have genuine emotions. The question is, what are the emotions that are genuine for the robot?”

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

There is ongoing debate about what constitutes life. Synthetic bacteria for example, are created by man and yet also alive. Some go so far as to say that robot “emotions” may already have occurred—that current robots have not only displayed emotions, but in some ways have experienced them.

“We’re all machines,” says Rodney Brooks author of “Flesh and Machines,” and former director of M.I.T.’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, “Robots are made of different sorts of components than we are — we are made of biomaterials; they are silicon and steel — but in principle, even human emotions are mechanistic.” A robot’s level of a feeling like sadness could be set as a number in computer code, he said. But isn’t a human’s level of sadness basically a number, too, just a number of the amounts of various neurochemicals circulating in the brain? Why should a robot’s numbers be any less authentic than a human’s?

Tags: robotics, intelligence, life

Can a Robot, an Insect or God Be Aware?

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:43:26 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Our intuitions about consciousness in other beings and objects reveal a lot about how we think.

Can a lobster ever truly have any emotions?

Or a sophisticated computer? The only way to resolve these questions conclusively would be to engage in serious scientific inquiry—but even before studying the scientific literature, many people have pretty clear intuitions about what the answers are going to be. A person might just look at a computer and feel certain that it couldn’t possibly be feeling pleasure, pain or anything at all. That’s why we don’t mind throwing a broken computer in the trash. Likewise, most people don’t worry too much about a lobster feeling angst about its impending doom when they put one into a pot of boiling water. In the jargon of philosophy, these intuitions we have about whether a creature or thing is capable of feelings or subjective experiences—such as the experience of seeing red or tasting a peach—are called “intuitions about phenomenal consciousness.”

Tags: consciousness, thought, awareness, robotics

According to Popper

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:16:45 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: According to Popper, a science without limits or imperfections or fixable flaws isn't science: it's metaphysics. In this sense, the end goal of science - the construction of a perfect mirror to reality - isn't just unrealistic: it's also unscientific.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

It's a truism that the favorite philosopher of every scientist is Karl Popper. (In my own experience, this truism is mostly true.) Popper, or so the story goes, stood up for empirical fact when the post-modernists were descending into Deleuze and Derrida and difference. His popularity among experimentalists is also a side-effect of simplicity, as his fundamental idea is easy enough for just about anyone to understand: Popper famously pointed out that science never proves things true, it merely proves things false (this is the falsifiability doctrine). In other words, scientists proceed in stuttering steps, advancing by saying what theories are wrong. The truth is just what (temporarily) survives.

it's easy to not notice how radical an idea this is. But look closer. For Popper, all discovery is really just criticism

Scientific truth is true precisely because it is open to change, willing to reverse itself and admit its errors

Tags: popper, science, philosophy

The Duplicates Paradox

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:38:52 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Personal identity is perceived as continuous through time. Yet this perception cannot be instantaneous, and must be based on memory. Given the fact that memories can be forgotten, altered or even fabricated, the question arises as to whether memories are essential for personal identity. Certainly no specific memory seems necessary for identity, but a perception of a continuity of the memory process is often believed to be. Subjective experience involves not just memory, but thoughts, desires, feelings and personality. Even when subjectivity is focused on the "outside world", this focus necessarily has a point of view. Any attempt to describe personal identity impersonally will lose an essential element. A self has both sensation and will.

Clip Source: www.benbest.com

The idea that personal identity (mind, self, will) is entirely contained in the molecular and biological structure of the brain (ie, is entirely material) implies that a duplicate identity could be created that is identical in every way except physical location

It is said that most molecules in the body are replaced every few years, presumably also including the molecules of the brain. This implies that the exact atoms and molecules of which our identity is constituted are not essential to that identity. Thus, lives and minds are much like a candle flame -- life, consciousness and selfhood continues with a material basis despite the fact that the exact material (atoms and molecules) change.

Personal identity is perceived as continuous through time. Yet this perception cannot be instantaneous, and must be based on memory

Tags: mind, philosophy, duplicates, paradox

THE REALITY TESTS

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:05:56 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?

To enter the somewhat formidable Neo-Renaissance building at Boltzmanngasse 3 in Vienna, you must pass through a small door sawed from the original cathedrallike entrance. When I first visited this past March, it was chilly and overcast in the late afternoon. Atop several tall stories of scaffolding there were two men who would hardly have been visible from the street were it not for their sunrise-orange jumpsuits. As I was about to pass through the nested entrance, I heard a sudden rush of wind and felt a mist of winter drizzle. I glanced up. The veiled workers were power-washing away the building's façade, down to the century-old brick underneath.

Tags: reality, physics, observation

Steven Pinker: The evolutionary man

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:53:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: There is, he points out, a world of difference between knowing something to be true and believing that you know something to be true

Clip Source: education.guardian.co.uk

Few academics come close to Steven Pinker in his grasp of image and imagery. With his trademark rock-star chic and an ear for a good soundbite, he has risen steadily to the top of the academic pile. In the heavily contested field of evolutionary psychology, Pinker has managed to consistently make sure that his voice is heard above most others, and along the way he has landed one of the top jobs at Harvard, while his books are usually to be found on the bestseller lists. And yet there is a twist. For a man who has dedicated a career to unpicking the secrets of language and thought, he has surprisingly often failed to make himself entirely clear to others. Either that, or he's a person whom some people choose to misunderstand.

You either love Pinker or you hate him. Indifference does not appear to be an option

Tags: steven pinker, evolution

Books That Changed My Life

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:12:54 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: What's your list of Books That Changed Your Life?

Clip Source: www.kk.org

Books still have the power to change lives. Which ones have changed yours?

I don't mean merely great books, or memorable ones, or favorite ones. I mean books that altered your behavior, changed your mind, redirected the course of your life. Books as levers.

Childhood's End -- For a kid growing up without TV in the boring enclaves of suburbia in the 50s and early 60s, science fiction opened up my universe. I devoured any and all science fiction our public library contained. Arthur C. Clarke's stories in particular birthed a life-long interest in science, and a deep respect for the power of imagination. This story of a singularity always stuck with me as something to prepare for. (Available from Amazon)

Whole Earth Catalog --

The Fountainhead -

Leaves of Grass --

My Experiments with Truth

The Bible --

Godel, Escher, Bach

The Ultimate Resource -

Finite and Infinite GamesÂ

What's your list of Books That Changed Your Life?

Tags: books, life changing

The Singularity Frankenstein

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:56:15 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Singularity defender George Dvorsky is spot-on when he calls for the singularity-aware to “frame the issue as a scientific endeavor and pitch the various scenarios as hypotheses” and in that “we need to keep the language within the scientific vernacular”. And that’s exactly what’s NOT happening.

Clip Source: www.memebox.com

When exploring the possible futures ahead of us one sooner or later encounters The Singularity memeplex, a concept with multiple meanings that people now generally associate with exponentialist Ray Kurzweil’s definition, “technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history”. He and others argue this will come about as the result of human-trumping or super-human-enabling artificial intelligence that fundamentally transforms our system and ourselves.

While the notion of a big-ass capital-S singularity is a very important concept, especially for future interested noobs attempting to comprehend the general ramifications of runaway technology growth, I agree with the likes of Eliezer Yudkowsky that it’s become a most un-scientific mash-up of several different schools of little-s singularity thought, something he appropriately calls “Singularity paste”.

Tags: singularity, frankenstein, paste, mishmash

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:14:59 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: and your answer?

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

A star-studded panel of scientists gathered to discuss those heady themes last night at the World Science Festival in New York City. Here are their answers in convenient nutshell form:

Marvin Minsky, artificial intelligence pioneer: We do something other species can't: We remember. We have cultures, ways of transmitting information.

Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist: We are the first species that represents our reasons, and can reason with each other. "The planet has grown a nervous system," he said.

Antonio Damasio, neuroscientist: The critical unique factor is language. Creativity. The religious and scientific impulse. And our social organization, which has developed to a prodigious degree. We have a record of history, moral behavior, economics, political and social institutions. We're probably unique in our ability to investigate the future, imagine outcomes, and display images in our minds

Tags: question, deep question, human, meaning

Marcel Proust- quotes

Thu, 22 May 2008 09:51:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.brainyquote.com

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.

A fashionable milieu is one in which everybody's opinion is made up of the opinion of all the others. Has everybody a different opinion? Then it is a literary milieu.

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.

As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.

If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.

Tags: proust, brilliant, powerful

A Digital Escape - frogConcept

Sun, 18 May 2008 13:35:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: just imagine this

Clip Source: www.frogdesign.com

The future isn’t all rosy. Increasing pollution, overpopulation, poverty, and climate change – society’s impact on the earth is reaching a breaking point. And while we may work to slow the onset of these catastrophes, reversing them is no longer an option. The question becomes, how do we live with the troubles we’ve already caused?

We don’t wish to make any prophecies – but if we fail to do more to mitigate today’s cultural, climatic, and economic dangers, the future may not be a pleasant one. Natural disasters will become more frequent, society more stratified, diplomacy more volatile.

In a troubling future, these augmented reality devices would offer a new dimension - a virtual layer that could be used to “re-skin” the troubling outside world. A boundary between the wearer and the world around him, the device would become a sort of visual drug, used to make the world appear a better place – even if just for a moment.

Tags: frogconcept, virtuality, concept, reskin

Eugenics and You

Fri, 16 May 2008 09:54:52 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.damninteresting.com

Sir Francis Galton, father of eugenicsWhen Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory of Natural Selection in 1859, it was received by the public with considerable vexation. Although the esteemed naturalist had been kind enough to explain his theory using mounds of logic and evidence, he lacked the good manners to incorporate the readers' preconceived notions of the universe. Nevertheless, many men of science were drawn to the elegant hypothesis, and they found it pregnant with intriguing corollaries. One of these was a phenomenon Darwin referred to as artificial selection: the centuries-old process of selectively breeding domestic animals to magnify desirable traits. This, he explained, was the same mechanism as natural selection, merely accelerated by human influence.

the gentleman-scientist suggested that one could apply the principle of artificial selection to humans just as one could in domestic animals, thereby exaggerating desirable human traits over several generations

Tags: francis galton, darwin, eugenics, natural selection, evolution

Is life a gift?

Thu, 15 May 2008 20:55:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: ieet.org

Mike LaTorra

Ethical Technology

Harvard’s Michael Sandel argues in his book The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering that life is a gift and that we should accept the unbidden nature of this gift, working toward acceptance and solidarity with others rather than seeking unbridled mastery over human biology. But is life properly viewed as a gift?

The claim that life is a gift automatically entails a responsibility on the part of the recipient of that gift to respond with gratitude and without taking issue with the precise attributes and characteristics of what has been given and received. One is supposed to live by the aphorism “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” (or you might see a lot of rotten teeth). So to accept Sandel’s premise that life is a gift is also to accept that one is obliged to respond in a certain way and without closely scrutinizing the actual conditions of what has been received.

But is life a gift at all?

Tags: ethics, technology