> Christopher Jaynes <jaynes@CS.UMASS.EDU> writes:
>
>> . . .The individual
>> cells in your body, for example, cannot influence (to any measurable
>> degree) your Will even though they make up a great deal of your
>> overall system.
Bruce replies:
> A case might be made that some cells, at least in groups, do have decisive
> influence, and even single cancer cells might have vital consequences.
>
> Whatever else it may be, the Will must be in major part a resultant of
> contributing and contending forces in dynamic play. Cells and systems form
> the background of structure and function which mostly support the organism
> in its ennvironmental niche. When cells begin to lack for glucose the Will
> becomes inclined to the pursuit of food. When we get a sliver or other
> injury or inflammation, the pain and impaired function take our attention.
> Absent such distractions the Will can attend to higher level concerns, but
> only on the grounds of a familiar biological equilibrium.
This is what I've been trying to adress from our work. We study models
of tumor cell populations as communicating networks. Individual cells
are deceptively complex, but the essence of the complexity is in the
fact that the tumor has lots of cells, a community if you like, and that
they form a communication network more sophisticated than many of the
artificial neural networks that can do so many impressive things.
Our first naive simulation showed that emergent behavior, and other complex
patterns arose with a minimum of mechanistic detail in the model and
all of it resembles closely what real tumors do and had been heretofore
unexplained. Perelson and others get it for immune networks.
>> The great difference between this example and the Super-Brain that
>> could form is a matter of awareness. I believe that the strict
>> separation between system/metasystem begins to break down when the
>> lower levels become aware of the metasystem.
>
> Strictly speaking, lower levels are lower because, by definition, they have
> only limited range and scope. For example, the elements within a pattern,
> or the notes in a melody, have nothing within them, and no adequacy or
> complexity, to enable them to symbolize or take into awareness organization
> at a higher level. (Perceptual Control Theory emphasizes this point.)
May I suggest that we have called some things "lower" because we only
percieved a limited range and scope. When all these signalls are
processed in either the brain or the super organism, the are not
neatly labeled as we do when we try to make sense of them. Here is an
area where science has been very muddy for a long time, which doesn't say
too much for its categories and/or theories.
> However, some lower levels may be influenced by input signals which,
> unknown to them, originate as feedback from detectors at higher levels.
> Thyroid cells are influenced by pituitary hormones, etc. But this is
> organized feedback, not awareness. The themostat is aware of nothing, even
> if it is influenced by the values or settings of the detector which is
> connected to it.
This gets closer to what I'm trying to convey, but still is very
traditional. We need to break free a bit and see all the other stuff too.
> All human beings play multiple roles in daily life. To the extent that
> anyone becomes not just vaguely or theoretically aware of a metasystem but
> really begins to function in some related role, however minor, then they
> are also part of the metasystem and may have an effect on its practices,
> development and policy.
Yes, and we interact with machines so that it might be a parallel artificial
distinction to separate the two!
>
>> If we can control the formation of Will, then the question then
>> returns again: Who should decide upon the Metasystem Will? How?
>
> As an abstract question of principle this is unanswerable. An empirical
> approach would suggest that all those who through their knowledge and
> practical competency have an effect will at the same time influence
> decisions. This is an evolutionary process, not to be decided in advance
> from on high or by theoretical or ideological positions. Those who
> demonstrate competency in identifying problems and organizing for solutions
> and convincing others will be the ones trusted to decide. The search for
> these as well as other societal values is thus, in the proper sense, a
> political process.
I see a real flaw in the idea that we are so much in control.
Rationalisation after action and hipocracy seem to suggest it is not as
it appears. Dennet seems to suggest that consciousness works in this
ratification after the fact way and thereby makes self deception quite normal.
>
Best regards, Don Mikulecky