Re: Penrose & mathematical Platonism

DON MIKULECKY (MIKULECKY@VCUVAX.BITNET)
Fri, 17 Mar 1995 15:16:04 -0400


Don Mikulecky, MCV/VCU,Mikulecky@gems.vcu.edu
Reply to Jeff, Bruce and others...
It is worth reading Rosen's own words on the mind/brain issue and related
matters. He addresses the issue in "Drawing the boundary between subject
and object: Comments on the mind-brain problem" in Theoretical Medicine
14:89-100(1993).
Here's a quote from the abstract...."I claim that what is wrong is the
adoption of too narrow a view of what constitutes `objectivity',
especially in identifying it with what a `machine` can do. I approach
the problem in the light of two cognate circumstances:(a) the 'measurement
problem" in quantum physics, and (b) the objectivity of standard
mathematics, even though most of it is beyond the reach of 'machines'.
I argue that the only resolution to such problems is in the recognition that
closed loops of causation are 'objective'; i. e. legitimate objects of
scientific scrutiny. These are explicitly forbidden in any machine or
mechanism. A material system which contains such loops is called 'complex'
Such complex systems thus must possess non-simulable models; i. e. models
which contain impredicativities or 'self-references' which cannot be
removed, or faithfully mapped into single coherent
syntactic time frame.
I consider a few of the consequences of the above, in the context of thus
redrawing the boundary between subject and object."

I think that some of you are beginning to see why we've not
given up on this guy. He seems to focus on a real distinction between
systems and also, at the same time, why it has taken us so long to
even begin to define the problem correctly.

To summarize in my usual poor manner, he discusses why the
mind can seem to arise out of purely mechanistic atoms, molecules,
nerves, glia, etc. and yet not be the result of mechanism.
The functional organization is as much or more a system property
as are the physical attributes of the above. This organization,
is in itself complex and therefore non-"objective". Note
carefully, that organisation in this sense is not merely the assembly
of the parts, but much more. here we must go to a non-material
aspect of the organization as symbolized in the abstract block
diagrams and the role of causality in them. Here is where I
found the limits of my own Network Thermodynamics. It simply exists
at the level of nodes and mappings in these diagrams, but not
at the level of certain kinds of causality. (Example: I can
model fish swimming from A to B in an ecosystem as if it were
a mass flow, but the causality is totally different).
This is why ecosystems become complex systems and metabolic
networks are mechanistic.

I won't belabor this here, but recommend this
article highly.
Don Mikulecky