Onar writes:
>This is a valid objection. What you are implying here is that I hold a
>Cartesian perspective. Is this true? No. I believe that consciousness and
>physics merge into one at a very deep level. But just because they are one does
>not mean that we can arbitrarily smear them together as memetics does. ... The
>smearing that Dawkins has done is bad science and philosophy; that's why I
>reject it...
On the same subject, Rosen stresses that Cartesian dualism (for science) is one
manifestation of a failed mental construct that can lead to paradox. The
paradox, generally, is defined as follows: (I quote from Rosen from Theoretical
Medicine 14: 89-100, 1993):
"Most, if not all, (of) the known paradoxes arise from an attempt to divide a
universe into two parts on the basis of satisfying some property or not (e.g., a
property like objectivity). Trouble arises whenever this property can be
turned back on itself; in particular, when we try to put some consequent of the
property back into one or the other class defined by the property. This
constitutes an impredicativity; what Bertrand Russell called a viscous circle.
Kleene puts the matter as follows:
'When a set M and a particular object m are so defined that on the one hand m
is a member of M, and on the other hand the definition of m depends on M, we
say that the procedure (or the definition of m, or the definition of M) is
impredicative. Similarly, when a property P is possessed by an object m whose
definition depends on P (here M is the set of the objects which possess the
property P). An impredicative definition is circular, at least on its face, as
what is defined participates in its own definition... In the Epimenides paradox
[i.e. Epimenides the Cretan says that all Cretans are liars] the totality of
statements is divided into two parts, the true and the false statement. A
statement which refers to this division is reckoned as of the original totality,
when we ask if it is true or false [1]'"
[1] Kleene SC. Introduction to Metamathematics. Princeton, NJ; van Nostrand,
1950.
The way the paradox occurs for Cartesian dualism, is that the world is divided
up between the subject (observer) and object (the observed) by the concept of
objectivity. (Note, that objects are defined by the objective property which
is a property of the whole). The problem (paradox) occurs when we then try to
define (or entail) the objects only in terms of the objects themselves. The
paradox prevents Cartesian science from saying anything about the mind or
consciousness. It also probably prevents us from really knowing anything
fundamental about objects.
One attempted way around this problem was to disallow any external referents
in our conceptual statements (basically to throw away the subject...act like it
didn't exist). This is what formalization does. This is what computation does.
This is the Materialist perspective. Unfortunately, Godel (in 1931) showed
problems with formalizations (sufficiently strong formalizations are
incomplete...and the stronger a formalization is, the more apparent the
incompleteness is...)
Karl Jaspers refers to "the comprehensive"...the totality of subject and
object...that objects can't exist without subjects and subjects can't exist
without objects. To only concentrate on the object is to have a degeneracy.
It seems to me that the situation with Dawkins making an object out of his
meme is necessarily degenerate in that he does not identify any kind of
impredicativity. It seems to me that the deep level in which consciousness and
physics merge would have to involve an impredicativity (that is a consequence
of the way in which we partition reality, and then try to explain the object
exclusively in terms of the class of objects).
Rosens relational biology is partially an attempt to objectify this totality
(the comprehensive)... to make an object (for scientific study) of the "subject
+ object". This new "complex" object will necessarily have closed causal loops
or impredicativities (something science has thus far disallowed). I am
presently struggling to understand and evaluate Rosens work. Onar may find it
worth considering, also, in his attempt to "do better" than Dawkins.
Jeff Prideaux