April 2011 – Page 2 – William Dare

Singularity: Information Expediting Evolution

The first thing that came to mind as I watched this video was Kurzweil’s concept of ‘singularity’. If we consider the past decade alone it’s simply astonishing to think about the enormous proliferation of information and technology. My first thought was whether we are progressing beyond our means to adapt. The news is filled with queries regarding multitasking and information overload. But then it occurred to me: knowledge and information is expediting our evolution. No longer must we wait for nature to facilitate our evolution; knowledge is allowing us to manipulate nature so that it adapts to us. Evolution is taking place right before our eyes at exponential rates like never before in history.

Protagoras was ahead of his time when he said “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not”

Burn

Never again will I subject myself to eighteen credit hours, fifteen hours of work a week, and actively participate as an executive officer of a large organization. These activities alone are frustrating enough and near impossible to juggle. Never mind maintaining a social life, close relationships, and free time to think.

My current schedule could be taken as belonging to a sadist. My daily routine consists of waking at 7:30am, gathering my books and school supplies together, and heading to class by 9:00am. Monday through Friday I have class from roughly 9:30am to 2:30pm. Daily I work till six in the evening. By this time hunger has taken hold and I make plans for dinner. When fraternity meetings are not on the agenda, I can expect to begin studying around 7:30pm. This is approximately the first time during any given weekday where I can begin to reflect on my life, or my homework and studies. So, yea. Sleep deprivation has ensued. This week is no fun.

Insanity

What is insanity? The most familiar definition that comes to mind is from Einstein who said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It is peculiar to think of insanity this way, particularly because it flies in the face of normalcy. Many believe that the socially responsible and acceptable thing to do is to adhere to certain norms and customs and traditions, and that these will allow you to adequately function in society. What normalcy doesn’t guarantee, however, is individuality, or originality. To be an individual, one must do things differently and expect different results. But what of a society that values doing things differently only to achieve the same results, such as participating in all the counter-cultural rituals to gain acceptance as an ‘individual’ ? Can it be said that such a person has achieved individuality?

‎”Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” -F.Nietzsche

Insanity. What I find insane is society. Civilization. Tradition. Custom. Ritual. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the utility of consistency. I understand the pragmatic element of predictability, from a linguistic standpoint as well as a logical and epistemological standpoint. After all, learning curves are greatly reduced by assimilating the knowledge past down by forbearer, no? And we can’t very well go about creating our own neologistic language and expect to be effective interpersonally, now can we? But where do we draw the line between maintaining and gaining? Passing on and passing over? Subsisting and thriving? Progress requires change. Change requires adaptation. If we sell out to maintain the status quo, if we fail to commit to the efflorescent incarnations of possibility in favor of the denouement of equilibrium, we must embrace our death; for we have already died.

Society is insane. Look at the way they scuttle around in the rat race, trying to secure these temporal provisions; see how they frantically instill meaning and comfort into fabricated facticities. Observe the perduring populous that embodies repetition; always allied to the alacritous attachment of doing the same thing, over and over again, and always expecting different results. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. In the end everyone’s demise is the same. Society is a self-fulfilling prophecy; a reflexive perpetuation proselytizing more of the same. The social consciousness does not readily expand but rather, it promptly strengthens itself onto itself.

So what is insanity? A break from conventional norms, I suppose. So sanity, once again, is doing the same thing over and over again. The endorsement of cultural customs, e.g. materialism, hedonism, consumerism, aceticism, celebrityism, sciencism, etc. I suppose the great majority of people think they aren’t insane because they don’t expect different results. Predictability is offered as a sycophant of security.

That is the real tragedy. When people not only do the same thing over and over again, but they do not expect different results. They have been sedated or conditioned or desensitized to rudimentary routines and rituals. 9 to 5. Primary, secondary, tertiary schooling, followed by a stint of rebellious youth, cue the career, make room for marriage, corral some kids, restfully retire, and then comes the inevitable surprise of death.

Sanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results.” This rationalist program will inevitably suffer the same stifling fate as freedom. Time waits for no man. If you are not progressing, you are regressing. Life is meant to flourish. Growth and evolution should be the cynosure of contemplation, the mark of progress. But not by any quantitative measure imposed by external authority. It should be an inward journey. Growth is not static.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” -R.W. Emerson

Insanity is characterized by senseless or abnormal behavior by societal standards. But how amazing it is to look at societal standards! Especially through the perspective lens of time! How standards change!

So the question of insanity remains. Are you insane for following your desires? Even if your desires lead to your demise? Even if they cast you into chains? Even if they toss you into pain and hardship? Would you be willing to escape sanity and embrace the lucres of authentic freedom? At what price?

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.
-A. Camus

Be Interested.

The uninteresting are uninterested.

The interesting people of the world are those who are most interested. They are constantly accreting new knowledge about themselves and the world. They continue to dig about for new wonders to incite the passions and move the imagination. They forge new experience through people, books, travels, or creative expression. These are the interesting people. By most standards they may be mad or crazy, eccentric or foreign, but they are overtly original and authentic, blithely bold and daring.

Do you want to be interesting? Be interested. Be curious.

How does one become interested? Ask questions. “Why questions?” you may ask.

Question (n.) c.1300, from Anglo-Fr. questiun, O.Fr. question “legal inquest,” from L. quæstionem (nom. quæstio) “a seeking, inquiry,” from root of quaerere (pp. quæsitus) “ask, seek” (see query). The verb is first recorded late 15c., from O.Fr. questionner (13c.). Question mark is from 1849, sometimes also question stop (1862); figurative use is from 1869.

Query 1530s, quaere, from L. quaere “ask,” imperative of quaerere “to seek, gain, ask,” probably ultimately from PIE *kwo-, base forming the stem of relative and interrogative pronouns. Spelling altered c.1600 by influence of inquiry. The noun in the sense of “a question” is attested from 1630s.

Questions are reserved for the seekers; for the creative minds who wish to explore the depths of experience and find the outer reaches of their world. But man cannot see what he does not know. Let us work on increasing our knowledge, on cleansing the lens of perception, so that we may have clear eyes with which to seek.

Those who ask questions are the adventurers of the world. They are not afraid of the unknown. On the contrary, they slaver at the sight of uncertainty.

Thoughts on Science: Realism and Anti-realism

There is a debate between realism and anti-realism. I believe the arguments brought against the other lack a certain scope regarding the enormous claims made about science. The realist philosophers in our readings represent realism with general coherent agreement. The anti-realists, on the other hand, represent a wide variety of views regarding anti-realism. The philosophers in both camps do a poor job accounting for, what seem to me, vital aspects of scientific enterprise.

When one talks of truth, or a true reality, one is not merely critiquing the sociological or psychological influences of those conducting the experiments, nor are they simply making claims about whether causation and inference are adequate tools for explaining phenomena or whether they can produce true and reliable ontological claims. It is much more than splitting hairs over observables and non-observables, true and falsity. While these are important, one needs to begin with examining the context in which this debate resides. That is, one needs to look at the embedded assumptions within the language of philosophy of science, as well as the sciences in which they refer. In addition, one needs to examine the various components that comprise the discourse: logic, context, and the principles of epistemological analysis of scientific knowledge.

A great deal of clarity could be gained if the debate focused on the aforementioned aspects. A starting point is differentiating between true relational knowledge claims and true substantive knowledge claims. This debate focuses a great deal on the nature of predicate logic and truth and falsity. But what is meant by truth? Regarding relational knowledge, truth is a result of the true conditions of predicate logic. The statement “If you are an unmarried male, then you are a bachelor” is a true statement, where M(x)->B(x). They are true because of their form and their form depends on certain immutable laws of thought.

On the other hand, substantive knowledge claims deal with the ontology of entities within the world. These are true based on experiential knowledge on the entity through acquaintance, be it through direct or indirect reference.

A vital distinction between these two types of knowledge is their relationship with context. Relational knowledge claims are contextually independent in that whatever the context, they will be true. As a result, relational knowledge is contextually indeterminate. It doesn’t matter what context a relational knowledge claim is made, the veracity does not change. Substantive knowledge, however, depends on a context for validity. The statement “Water is cold” depends on a context with determinate parameters for a truth value. In short, relational knowledge uses logical deduction to arrive at exact truth, whereas substantive knowledge uses logical induction to arrive at approximate truth.

To continue building towards clarification, we need to examine the role of language. Due to the discursive nature of philosophy, the debate within the philosophy of science seems to revolve around language, but its implications are much more than language. Language cannot be transcended. Mathematics and logic can be said to be the purest language as descriptions of truth, but these are semantically independent. That is, despite given predicates and primitive parameters, the semantic predication cannot be determined by the inference system itself. Once these have been semantically defined, the truth value can be inferred.

Regarding knowledge, language serves two primary functions of establishing knowledge, that of indexing proper names, and that of referring to descriptions. Drawing from Russell’s theory of language, there are two basic kinds of knowledge acquisition, namely acquaintance and description. Knowledge by acquaintance includes logically proper names which are referential of indexical demonstratives. Knowledge by description includes attributes that make description claims of thing in the world that can be true or false, but are not referential. That is, they are merely conceptual constructions. Within these descriptions reside indefinite descriptions, which make existence claims using indefinite articles (“A man drinking a martini…), and definite descriptions (“The man drinking the martini…), which make existence and uniqueness claims using definite articles.

What about non-existence objects? These are merely descriptions with no acquaintance. They may lead one to denote a particular in the world, but they do not ensure it. Descriptions without acquaintance may offer a adequate roadmap to their truth.

Strawson would say that referring is not asserting, but rather mentioning, something quite different from identifying. In addition, Donnellan divides definite descriptions into the referential and the attributive. Attributive descriptions denote all important, essential information about whoever or whatever. Referential descriptions contain information that is accidental and not important, but rather is instrumental in accurately picking out particulars through idexical or deictic use.

Names of objects and facts can have meaning, but only insofar as they have a context of propositions that are held together by a proper logical form. You may ask: why is this important? The answer is that logic is used to make inferences about the properties of postulated entities. Suppose we have the statement F(m, n) which stands for “m applies force to n”. In this way F is a property between m and n such that F is “applies force to”, and m and n are primitive names for Mike and Nail. So that, Mike applies force to Nail. The semantics of these variables are contextually determined and dependently attributed. They are given as substantive knowledge claims regarding the properties.

Context is necessary to define any set of data. Finding an ultimate truth is akin to finding an ultimate context. Within any given context there are phenomena that can be said to be real and true, but extrapolating beyond that context can be a fatal move for a theory.