Number 88 : September 1997 |
To the Editorial (C87, pp. 2-4) : Despite having the proven wisdom to join the ultra-exclusive 0.2% of Mensa members who like to put their brains to good purpose, P.D.G. members are bound to flog the seemingly dead horse occasionally. Nevertheless, the more one travels a familiar road the more detail one notices along it. Is it up to those who have learned more to correct those who have learned less, and, by doing so, possibly enlarge their own understanding? Academics who expect fore-lock tugging betray a self-doubt and immaturity which would be unlikely to be helpful.
To Theo Todman (C87, p. 11; on consciousness) : Briefly, the point sources of consciousness are us, for which my only evidence is me; but then is not everything within our experience subjective? I grant that 'points' is an imperfect word for the purpose because consciousness develops into relationships, as in Michael Nisbet's quote from Aleister Crowley. Thus in a sense all can say, "I am the Universe", yet all are limited by each having a unique informative view of it as if each was a point within it. I would humbly suggest that as a 'port’ based upon a visible land mass of reason it offers a course more prudent than drifting aimlessly while arguing about which way up the charts are !
To Theo Todman (C87, p. 10; on abortion) : Supporting, being 'glad of’, or just acquiescing in, someone else doing something we would not be 'happy’ doing makes hypocrites of us all. I was merely inviting supporters of abortion who would shy from the task of carrying it out to face their hypocrisy.
To Roger Farnworth (C87, pp. 24-25) : Regarding my light-hearted look at the problems of time in C86 I fear I may have misled Roger into misrepresenting me. The 'metal bar’ stands in for the non-locality of the photon or particle. Also, I did say that the ‘timeless photon' seemed to be 'linked' with 'action at a distance' but the 'different viewpoints' I referred to are those of the viewers and the photon, which detail I felt sufficiently in the field of general knowledge for the reader to provide, which Roger generously does. Also, I trust Roger realises he is effectively accusing me of saying that space-time consists of time and space; 'co-habit' being what past, present, and future do via the added dimension. Roger could do worse than read the Alastair Rae book I mentioned in C85, with particular reference to what has become known as the Aspect / Bell experiment. Written by a scientist who can communicate, it is brief, to the point, and free of the interminable waffle so beloved of the frustrated novelists who pass for scientific journalists, and who could make an account of changing a light bulb run to three hundred pages. Perhaps we just have to accept that time is a subjective phenomenon: is that problem enough ?
To Michael Nisbet (C87, pp. 5-7) : Michael starts from the position that gods and spirits were invented to fill the role of that which must be responsible for those events for which our ancestors could find no other explanation. This is a common and perfectly valid guess, but, as Michael acknowledges in his ordering of events, it is dependent on self-awareness and this is perhaps too simply dismissed as just 'emergent’. Unfortunately, to get beyond this idea of an emergent property empirically seems to be impossible in principle. It may be reasonable to assume that individuals similar to ourselves possess it but how do we look for its source ? Isolating or removing bits of their brain to the point whereat they no longer claim it or seem to possess it would be pointless. Such observations could only lead to a similar position as a claim that flies see with their wings because although they always fly away when you approach them they fail to do so when their wings are removed ! Thus it may seem that in the matter of selfhood and the possibility of a Supreme Self science must forever be silent. Can science be versus what it cannot talk about ?
To Theo's reply to Philip Lloyd Lewis (C87, p. 21) : Regarding Pythagoras' theorem, does your necessary qualification of 'in Euclidean geometry’, render the apparent proof subjective ? Must the nature of space and its measurement always be open to revision so that every theorem will always be dependent on special conditions imposed by us, and does this plus the fact that mathematics can never be complete mean that the whole of mathematics and perhaps all axiomatic systems will always be subjective ?
To Philip Lloyd Lewis (C87, p. 20) : Is the statement, 'Something is happening', subjective or objective ? If subjective then we may only be thinking that something is happening, but in that case the process of thinking is happening, which either leads to a reductio ad absurdum or a contradiction.
Anthony Owens
Anthony : with reference to ports in storms, there are other explanations on consciousness to that you espouse. If you subscribe to JCS-Online, you can get three long e-mails a day from various researchers debating the subject. I don’t have time to read mine any more !
There’s something fishy about your objections to the correlation between incremental brain lesions and reduction in conscious experience demonstrating that conscious experience is brain-related. There are loads of post hoc propter hoc fallacies, and your sight / wings example is a good one. However, scientific experiments are designed to eliminate coincidental non-causality. Theories are usually backed up with some explanation of how the causation takes place - a model of what’s going on. The study of pathological cases, PET scans, etc. has demonstrated the close correlation between brain events and conscious events. The study of the structure of the brain leads us to expect that consciousness must arise in it somehow. More so, at any rate, than sight in wings.
Your remark about Pythagoras’ Theorem raises an interesting point about the nature of mathematics and about theorems within deductive systems. A theorem is simply a true statement within a mathematical system. It can be arrived at subjectively, idiosyncratically, intuitively or logically - the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan believed that he received some of his theorems in number theory from the Hindu goddess Namagiri. In this he was presumably mistaken, especially since a few of his theorems on prime numbers turned out to be wrong. He simply had a very strong intuitive grasp of the subject. However, theorems still have to be proved; that is, the proof has to be written up, by means of a mechanical application of the rules of inference to the axioms. This is why very difficult proofs, such as Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem which runs to over 100 pages, become less certain as their length increases.
This said, if the axioms are changed, certain theorems that were true become false, and vice versa. In non-Euclidean geometries, one of Euclid’s 10 axioms, the parallel postulate ("through a given point P not on a line L, there is only one line in the plane of P and L that does not meet L") is denied. This is equivalent to changing the rules of the game, but has nothing to do with subjectivity. The rules of ball games are not subjective because in soccer only the goalkeeper is allowed to handle the ball while in rugby all players can. The rules of one game are intended to be objective, and all players must appear to the referee to abide by them. Similarly, Euclidean geometry is a different game to non-Euclidean geometries.
On the other hand, what, if any, mathematical system or systems happen to best describe the physical universe is a matter for observation & experiment. It appears that space is non-Euclidean, but this has nothing to with theorems in Euclidean geometry being valid or invalid. Indeed, there is an important philosophical difference between validity and truth, though this must wait for another occasion.
Theo