From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Philosophy 101
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:46:08 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <Bvuq3p.rG@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <1992Oct7.024522.12603@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>>| gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>>| > My existence is dependent on being in a society.  Human beings
>>| > are extremely social animals.  Very few of us could survive in
>>| > isolation from human society.  And without language, a tool
>>| > or mental organ that does not exist apart from society, I
>>| > could certainly not conceive of political or philosophical
>>| > ideas, much less post them on Usenet.  

>>thant@void.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman) writes:
>>| A methodological nit to pick:
>>| From Human_Action by Ludwig von Mises:
> 
>>| Praxeology deals with the actions of individual men.  It is only in the
>>| further course of its inquiries that cognition of human cooperation is
>>| attained and social action is treated as a special case of the more
>>| universal category of human action as such.  ...
>
>>I wouldn't call this a nit, I'd call it a separate subject.
>
>On the contrary, I think he's restating the same issue.  If you think that 
>"society" can learn, make decisions, etc.  How can that occur outside of
>individuals having such a capacity?

   How can the brain do so outside of being comprised of neurons that 
   do so?   How can neurons do so without being comprised of atoms that
   can do so? (chorus)  
 
   This is the sort of thinking that led to the assumption by some of a 
   homunculous, or in the words of my neurophysiology professor, "the
   little man theory", or as we might say of some Usenet posters today
   (present company excluded): "him got little man upstairs, no good!" 

   The relations between the behavior of a system and that of the
   components which comprise the system are complex and not easily
   understood but I would suggest that anyone here who is interested
   to get on the artificial life mailing list (please send mail to 
   alife-request@cognet.ucla.edu) or read Douglas Hofstadter's books
   _Goedel, Escher, Bach_ (especially the Aunt Hillary chapter) or
   _The Mind's I_ for good laymen's introductions to these problems.
                 
   It is interesting to ask whether the aggregate behavior or nature of
   a complex system can even be mapped onto any one of the components
   of that system, except with heavy aliasing.  Since chaos theory 
   predicts that even tiny perturbations in the initial state of a 
   system produces huge changes in its macroscopic behavior, then 
   even a *little* aliasing produces hopeless distortion in any attempt
   to model the mapped system.   It may be that human social systems 
   are complex and subtle in ways we can't even begin to understand 
   since our nervous systems can't map the complexity of the system
   any more than a neuron can map chess theory or the state of a 
   computer can be mapped into its status register.  

   William Gibson once remarked that if aliens came to earth seeking
   the most advanced life forms they would attempt to contact the 
   large multinational corporations.  If you think he meant "the CEO
   of some large multinational" then you don't understand my preceding
   paragraph.  Read about Aunt Hillary.   This may explain why the 
   social sciences have so little predictive value.



---peter


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