Deterministic Chaos

http://www.exploratorium.edu/complexity/CompLexicon/chaos.html

On fairness

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/10/is-our-sense-of-fairness-genetic.html

how the mind works

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/on-the-other-ha.html

Books to read (from Ian)

daniel dennett - darwin's dangerous idea
stuart kaufmann (1993?) - ?

On the degree of freedom (statistical concept)

Hypothesis1: For every (complex) closed system, the degree of freedom equals 0.

Hypothesis2: Observing any system from within itself (i.e., open system with one subject as the intervening variable), the degree of freedom equals 1.

This in effect means that the degree of freedom depends on the (subjective) epistemological interpretation of reality. It can range from 0 (absolute determinism - the entire complex system can be defined by one finite set of equasions (what kind of matrix?)) to infinity (when interpreting all others as subjects (undeterministic), or objects/god as subjects/actors with 'free will'). Thus, the degree of freedom in the real world depends on the (subjectively interpreted) number of variables that can change independently of each other.

Hypothesis3 (general theory of evolution): The optimal behavior of an actor within a closed system considers the degree of freedom to lie somewhere between 0 and infinity. Either of the extremes are unsustainable from an evolutionary (long-term) point of view.

From Godel to Hegel

so, basically, what i am up to was already done by Godel and Hegel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel#Evolution_through_contradictions_and_negations

Prologue

(Habermas writing in 1971)

Almost nine years ago, Adorno answered the question "Does philosophy still have a purpose?" as follows: "The only philosophy we might responsibly engage in after all that has happened would no longer make any pretense of being in control of the absolute. Indeed, it would have to forbid itself to think the absolute, lest it betray the thought. And yet it must not allow anything to be taken away from the emphatic concept of the truth. This contradiction is its element."

(T. W. Adorno, Eingriffe, Frankfurt am Main, 1963, p. 14.)

Live Out the Entire Truth

Originally, I had in mind titling this 'Live Out the Half-Truth'.

Let's not talk about truth, (not even an intersubjective one as Habermas does), let's speak about persuasiveness.

There are, most possibly, certain principles of persuasiveness - determining what is more and what is less persuasive/convincing. These principles can be the cause of virtually universal persuasions/convictions - in the fields of mathematics, logic, probability theory or rationality. Persuasive? It is possible to admit this is true? I would think so..

Belief is sensible only as a belief in persuasiveness (notice: persuasiveness~truth). In convincing arguments. "Because of Golden cow" is, unfortunately, not any longer a convincing argument in today's society. A belief that acting pro-socially is meaningful is, after disclosing some agrument of game theory, much more convincing. It would be interesting to trace the evolution of principles of persuasiveness throughout history. Anropology? Or Foucaults 'history of madness'?

Agnosticism and relativism are based on the knowledge (conviction-belief) of the impossibility of absolute persuasiveness. A little paradox, indeed (conviction about the impossibility of conviction). Gödel proved in 1931 that no logical system can be both consistent as well as complete at the same time (with his second theorem, however, he proved that an inconsistent logical system can prove everything, even itself being right - I call this 'interpretation (of the world)'). Then, only a half-truth is possible, and that can not fulfill one entirely, for there remains always a space for doubt (not being convinced). Itentity - in sense of identity of thoughts, feelings and action - can no longer exist. Belief in (otherwise) half-truth (in what is right or wrong, for example) can, however, have a great meaning in specific period's of one's life, even thought it can change 180% (i.e. from yes to no) degrees over time. That will most probably be the fundamental and final status of self-reflection in the general theory of evolution.

It makes no sense, however, to doubt about the core of oneseld. Okay, it might make, from a longer-term perspective (learning effects, weakness of will, metapreferences). In a static analysis, and we truly do live only in the present, however, it really makes no sense. The world does not necessarily have to be true, because it might be fake (made-up). Feelings, however, have to be true because they can never be possibly fake - they are us and we are them. Alienation from emotions would be distancing from the very oneself, from life (see the identity problem above). After "i think hence i am" comes the "i feel hence i am", "i am hence i feel" (equivalence).

So please live the entire truth, you are the truth, live out emotions, convictions if you are convinced about them, and live out also doubt - because if there is doubt, it is part of yourself and so it is true. It is true because it is convincing - it would be unconvincing to believe that doubts, if you have them, are untrue, unconvincing/incommunicable.

Aubrey de Grey on why and how to prolong lives

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39

A List of Books I Want To Read II

Hofstadter, Douglas. 1999. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books.

List of Books I Want to Read

Koskenniemi, Martti. 2005. From Apology to Utopia. The Structure of International Legal Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This one is on international law. International law is significant because it teaches about the dichotomy of individual (state) choice, and community interest (when in conflict; see: game theory). It is interesting because "there is no world state", and the international community is evolving spontaneously.
This is also closely connected to the question of what is law, how can it be detected (and enforced), how does it come about, how does it change etc. Law is the rules, the institutions, the structure of behavior, the 'right', the moral, but also the hegemonic, the misused, the trampled upon etc.

(Me: "From Apology to Utopia. An back. And in a circle. And in-between and beyond." radical centrism?)

Ray Kurzweil on Exponential Growth

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38 (focus on technology)
Note: exponential growing property is inherent to (positive) feedback mechanism (~self-reflection). I.e. we create technology that helps creating technology..

Robert Wright on Progress

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/68
(social/institutional learning)

Main Themes, Keywords, Related Sites

A How-To To Understand Everything

How it all began
- did it begin?
How life began
- self-catalizing RNA
How the mind works
- what can we know, and how do we do it
- omnipresent paradoxes
- how do we cope with knowing nothing, how shall i live
How systems of minds work
- game theory, institutions
- complex systems of spontaneous order
- economic growth and evolution
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/books
Where is it all going

emergence (emergence phenomena), complex systems, plasticity, paradoxes (relativity, intersubjectivism), epistemology, theory (interpretation, reductionism)

GTE, GUT, GTE-GUT, GEB


Epistemological principles: evolutionarism, specific comparative advantage, functionalism, (agnostic) determinism, dynamic equilibrium, realist-constructivist cycle of reality (re-) production (=assumptions?)

Ontological principles: mutual constitution
Main actors: subatomic particles/energy, atoms, molecules, organic molecules, organelles, cells, muticellular organisms, animals, humans, ... ((complex?) systems? object-subject, agent-structure, two-bodies/jin-yang)

Dynamic dimensions of evolution: 'history', time, entropy, complexity, plasticity, level of 'development', predictability/knowability, emergent properties of complex systems



'Laws' (a priori axioms/tautologies): What is capable of surviving in a specific environment, survives. "Water follows the path of least resistance." Basic laws ('spontaneity') 'given'.

Main 'inventions': replication, movement, 'learning', self-reflection, (script, digitalization)

Scientific disciplines concerned with actors: (astro-)physics, chemistry, biochemistry, cell-biology, biology, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy

Complexity Blog
Santa Fe Institute
Edge Magazine

Is mind in the body, or body in the mind?

The true answer is that both views are equally sustainable. On the one hand, everything we feel or think of occurs in our mind (at least so we conceive of it), and so do the images of our bodies or the outside world. Without the minds, therefore, there would be no reality. On the other hand, our mind clearly seems to be an evolutionary construct of our physical body: it is determined by the eletric signals in the different parts of the brain, and is greatly regulated by the hormonal system.

The underlying significance of what I am writing here is not whether the one or the other position is true. The crucial importance lies in the fact that the decision one makes about which option to believe in can determine the worldview over his/her entire life course. Yes, after understanding the equal plausibility of both stances, one is free to decide which one to take for his/her own.

The more fulfilling and useful option, in my view, is to take the stance that our body is in the mind. This attitude helps to create a specific unity between the world and the self, in that the world by definition becomes such as the mind conceives of it. This approach helps to overcome pain or misfortune (since these can be 'manipulated' by the mind in the mind; and, after a certain point, thus 'constructed' optimism becomes innate). Similarly, it enables to do away with suffering brought about by desires and, as such, if adopted on a larger scale, could possibly even save the depletion of our planet's resources.

The other view, that the mind is in the body, is typical for classical Western materialism. It sees passing time as a (in the long run a uni-directional) linear development towards progress. The suffering we knew at one point in time is reduced with the coming improvements from the outside (many of these eventually targeted at bodily pleasures). New wants, however, are being automatically created at the same time. The result, in one extreme, can be that one is content because he/she identifies with the world as it is (apologetical stance). More often than not, however, the person slides into a dualist schism of reflection, with his/her desires not in concordance with the state of the outside world and, as such, a person can never feel truly fulfilled.

The real world might bring us times of both - of the outside world determining the state of our mind, as well as the mind controlling our perception of the outside world. In the former case, it does not make sense to counter or devaluate the 'superficial' (deterministic) feelings of happiness, such as enjoying a good meal. In the latter, the free will character of our ability to self-reflect (i.e., having a mind able to counter determinism) provides us with a tool to tackle the seeming limits or downsides of life.