Mathematical models of global consciousness theory: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-accidental-activist-who-changed-the-face-of-mathematics-20240103/
Into the Gray Zone
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Post: "Early voices and attitudes from parents, siblings, family, friends, teachers become introjected. And then we forget that what we think was not originally ours at all."
Me: I've always been quite interested in Bergson's question of the "creative mind". How do we create brand new ideas that didn't exist before through the recombining of the previously known?
FB User: And that's why one would argue there's nothing new under the sun, just mutations of what came before.
Me: But then the question becomes how does that work inside the physical brain? Do our brains already possess the potential for a complete understanding of reality, but we can simply never get there in a finite amount of time of internal exploration? That is, are "new ideas" simply neuronal potentials that have always existed through unconscious deduction / physico-chemico-electrical momentum but have just never been turned on until their manifestation is made possible by a new path in the mind corresponding to a new path over previously inert matter-space in the brain? Is there an equivalent archaeological dig in the mind whenever we are trying to come up with something new?
FB User: If complete understanding is never possible then they never posses that potential, and I think just by our finite nature a complete understanding is impossible. I do like the idea of there being so many potential thoughts out there, just waiting to be birthed by the right combination of neural flashes within a particular brain. I don’t look at new ideas being an archaeological dig so much as just a new pattern emerging in the cascading pool balls that are the electrical flashes within our brain, a long psyiological cause effect chain complex beyond our ability to fully understand or accurately predict.
Me: So like a machine-learning algorithm playing chess with reality?
FB User: I’ve always seen us as exceedingly complex organic robots but I’m a determinist.
I also think the question of free will is moot as we all feel that we have it and make choices so I act accordingly, even if those choices are the only ones I could ever have made based on all my programming. What is life if not a game of chess against reality and oneself?
[Me: Schopenhauer, Hume, freedom versus necessity or constraint?]
Other FB User: Like Hegel, some people say that in life we always encounter some kind of status quo thesis, and then inevitably criticism or discontent arises generating an antithesis, and therefrom eventually emerges an arguably 'new' synthesis. So I guess everything is always technically new—even though originally it isn't. Quite the paradox, huh?
Me: Dialecticism! Yes, that's definitely a great way to think about it! Climbing the ladder of the historico-temporal unflawing of ourselves towards Ernst Bloch's "horizon".
Other FB User: Unlike many Marxist theorists who focused primarily on socio-economic structures, Bloch placed a strong emphasis on the subjective, on human consciousness, and on the cultural manifestations of the desire for a better world—I like the idea of us struggling together for a better world. But I actually don't know all that much more about Bloch.
Other FB User [reply to original post]: Hmmm. Individual Agency: Critics can argue the quote underestimates individuals' ability to critically assess and change their internalized beliefs, emphasizing personal choice and reflection.
Innate Characteristics: The nature side of nature-nurture highlights that genetic and biological factors also shape our thoughts and behaviors, suggesting a complex interplay between innate traits and environmental influences (nurture).
Plasticity and Change: This perspective points out that people's beliefs and self-concepts can evolve over time indicating that early introjected attitudes are not immutable.
Overgeneralization: Critics could say the statement oversimplifies human development by not accounting for cultural, individual, and situational diversity in how people form their identities.
Empirical Evidence: Some critics could demand empirical evidence for the claim that individuals "forget" the origins of their beliefs arguing that people can often recognize the influence of their early environment upon reflection. Bottom line: Is this question inviting a discussion of nature-nurture arguments and evidence?
Me: "The Platonic and Kantian idea of rationality centers around the idea that we need to bring particular actions under general principles if we are to be moral. Freud suggests that we need to return to the particular — to see particular present situations and options as similar to or different from particular past actions or events. He thinks that only if we catch hold of some crucial idiosyncratic contingencies in our past shall we be able to make something worthwhile of ourselves, to create present selves whom we can respect. He taught us to interpret what we are doing, or thinking of doing, in terms of, for example, our past action to particular authority-figures, or in terms of constellations of behaviour which were forced upon us in infancy. He suggested that we praise ourselves by weaving idiosyncratic narratives — case histories, as it were, — of our success in self-creation, our ability to break free from an idiosyncratic past. He suggests that we condemn ourselves for failure to break free of that past rather than for failure to live up to universal standards."
-- Contingency, Solidarity, Irony
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