Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 3

I was very encouraged when I first read NKS because it substantiated my own work which is the conceptual counterpart to the fact that complexity originates with simple rules. I've created an educational model that has the same radical change in persective as NKS.

The premise is that all disciplines have a common foundation which is the concept of symmetry. This is the simple concept that develops into the complexities of our knowledge base. This actually includes all ideas, religions, mythologies,etc.

In addition, I realized that the terms used to describe the child's natural learning process were also symmetry. This answered the 'mystery' of learning. Symmetry is a concept to learn and a process by which to learn it. It is both product and process, the 'what' we learn is the 'how' we learn it. Nature designed learning as a self referential feedback system, we survive in this world because we are programmed to 'read' it.
Actually, we already know that learning is accomplished from the simple to the complex, but this fact seems to be taken for granted. There is alot more and I'm working on how it all links to quantum holographic computing which is apparently where we're headed. I notice that education is an interest of your research and would like to discuss this further.

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Registered: Mar 2005
Posts: 46

“The "what" we learn is the "how" we learn..”

I like that immensely..

What would you say to this,

Any piece of "knowledge" or memory within our being is not "held" waiting to be called up, but is in fact an application, even if it is applied below our threshold of awareness within a form that an observe would never be able to identify as a “linguistical“ representation of that knowledge..

Nothing can exists tangible within our brain unless it is "used".
There is no such thing as a piece of knowledge that sits there statically waiting to be called up, no.
Any knowledge that is in existence can only ever be "held" while it is in application, while it is "updating" the nodes surrounding it, telling them "I am here, this is my form, alter under my affect and let me be known".
This leads me to think that a certain “piece of knowledge” actually has a variety of "presentations forms" that it can relay to the individual.
The knowledge within a linguistical representation is only one of these presentations, and one that is quite solid and reliable in terms of "reconsolidation" after a period of time, but i feel one that is actually not very "potent" in terms of the actual relaying that takes place which subsequently updates the nodes within application.

I would like to invite you to a form to discuss education and learning with us, it would be very beneficial I think and we would enjoy it if you were to join us. http://p104.ezboard.com/bparallelperception

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A great revolution is at hand, but this is just a metaphor.

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Registered: Sep 2006
Posts: 2

Very interesting and mind opening!

I have had some similar thoughts regarding the nature of reality existing as a feedback system because this is what you have described.
"Symmetry is a concept to learn and a process by which to learn it."
“The "what" we learn is the "how" we learn..”

The "how" we recall knowledge from our minds and the "how" we learn knowledge is also the "how" our universe exhibits that knowledge to begin with.

Umm this kind of gets into Quantum Consciousness as proposed by Hameroff and Penrose. If you are familiar with it you will know about microtubules within cell structures and how they direct cell development and basically everything else associated with cell life. Well this is just the microphone connected to the amplifier (although this analogy is somewhat inadequate). Microtubules also regulate synapse function in the brain, they somehow decide which neruons fire and when... For a better description of the Quantum Consciousness model vist www.quantumconsciousness.org

My idea has to do with resonance which is the fundamental process by which atoms interact with eachother to form molecules. Anyway, resonance exists on all levels of reality that we have discovered, it exists in sound waves and it exists in photons. These are objects which are resonanting within the same order of magnitude yet resonance has been shown to exist on all orders of magnitude we have thus explored well what if resonance also exists between orders of magnitude? The idea was that the microtubules were resonanting with a more fundamental level of reality, a level some would describe as aether or ZPE (zero point energy) or simply energy that exists below the planck scale - sub-quantum energy.

Enexseenge said that our knowledge or memory does not exist within our minds waiting to be called up, but rather is held somewhere else. I agree. This is what my idea suggests too!

So back onto the feedback part of it, there is a certain physicist who believes the quantum environment is not random, but pseudo-random. There is a method to it and that method involves the interaction of resonant energy fields which exist multi-dimensionally. Because hydrogen and oxygen will always make water there must be information encoded into the space-time of these particles... information similar to that of our memories. These atoms know how to combine in the same way that we remember what we did this morning.
Edit: The atoms follow a flow of energy that is pre-determined prior to them ever forming.

In the beginning of the universe there was plasma and as it cooled the plasma formed atoms and then the atoms fromed molecules.
In a crude explanation, the universe develops through the resonance of certain macroscopic structures and sub-quantum energy. Our experience is recorded into the universe through the resonance of microtubules with sub-quantum energies and this resonans disturbs the "flow" or "alignment" of sub-quantum energies which then in-turn effect the resonance of energy fields or the flow of energy fields which are larger representations of sub-quantum energy alignments that direct the flow of particles into atoms and atoms into molecules. This then becomes the method by which atoms form as the universe cools and also by which molecules form as the universe exapnds...

structures such as microtubules act as the microphone, they interact with other structures such as themselves and resonate with the fundamental (sub-quantum) level of reality - the aether or ZPE - which then dictates to the atoms how they form into molecules - the amplification and the feedback!

I hope this is easy to understand... the limitations of language make it hard to easily convey this idea. Any thoguhts?

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Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 712

This, of course, is babble.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 3

Yes, AJ, Hameroff and Penrose have good research on quantum consciousness, and it's true, it is hard to communicate, especially in these kind of formats.

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Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 712

Actually Penroses's microtubule stuff is pretty transparently nonsense, and he has himself pretty much given up on it as just factually incorrect. It is pretty obvious that nothing essential about consciousness is as fragile as quantum coherent anything, because patting yourself lightly on the head does not change your personality etc. It is just an example of hopelessly strained reasoning, grasping for some way to get QM to matter for anything about mind.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 3

I'm really confused. My original post had nothing to do with quantum consciousness, just that the disciplines can be simplified to one 'rule' or concept. The concept of symmetry is fundamental to physics and is currently being used in cognitive science work such as Leyton's. It is just an interesting parallel to Wolfram's philosophy.
Hameroff and Penrose are also both respected scientists.

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Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 712

Penrose is a great guy, I like him a lot. He is a good physicist and a good writer and teacher. He also has fun philosophical ideas and his books are readable and provocative. As with anyone who ranges so widely and speculatively, he also has his share of silly ideas and of honest errors. The microtubules (MT for short) quantum coherence just-so story is an example of the former. It never made much sense or had much motivation, it is wrong empirically and he has pretty much given it up.

And I don't see what you are confused about. A comment directed at the MT idea is not directed at you in particular. As for symmetry in everything, it is greek for "same size". The philosophical problem with such statements is that there are n of them, all different and all not very illuminating. There is a notion of equality in all fields, there is a notion of distinction in all fields, there is a notion of existence in all fields, there is a notion of effect or consequence in all fields, etc. This does not mean that one can understand all fields, independent of their actual specific content, as instances of a single philosophical notion.

If you have some specific use or instance in mind, or some particular way in which emphasizing one common notion across multiple fields is to illuminate either that notion, or various things within some of those specific fields, by all means share it with us. So far, you haven't. Nothing wrong with that, there just isn't much to comment on.

To pick out the soundest single thing you said in your original, it was the idea that we do well in the world because doing well in the world is what we've evolved to do - or otherwise put, we needn't be too surprised at epistemological success because nature has already addressed the problem. This isn't a new idea but it is a decent one. George Santayana wrote a fine philosophy book about it called Skepticism and Animal Faith. You might look for it sometime.

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Registered: Mar 2005
Posts: 46

"all different and all not very illuminating. There is a notion of equality in all fields, there is a notion of distinction in all fields, there is a notion of existence in all fields, there is a notion of effect or consequence in all fields, etc. This does not mean that one can understand all fields, independent of their actual specific content, as instances of a single philosophical notion."

You are correct..

But... there is one problem here, which is not a problem within what you have said, but a paradox that i see now..

You speak of the fields and the "understanding" of them in relation to their specific content.
That is to say, the field is understood in terms of these properties; the equality, distinction, existence, effect or consequence of these fields are the substance..
And that one cannot understand all fields independent of their properties, their substance; within a vague philosophical notion no "understanding" arises?..

The problem is within the application, the manifestation of that which is the "understanding".
One may very well "understand" all ‘n’ amount of fields within a vague philosophical notion but what does this "understanding" constitute? What does this mean?
It could be a simple intellectual rigidity which allows one to justify their actions, no matter the “field” which comes at them, they wrap that field into their vague notion and this wrapping becomes the “application” or manifestation of that particular form of “understanding”… A capability arises.

This word "understanding" as I see can fall into only two categories, an understanding within intellect, or an understanding within affect.

An understanding within intellect is our ability as human beings to decipher knowledge and make our selves aware of the implications within the relations of conceptual items.

An understanding within affect is independent of human abilities but revolves around a specific "phenomena" it self which is regular in terms of it's coherence, or incoherence for that matter...
That is, a phenomena or process existing and functioning tangibly, whether or not a human intellect can decipher it intellectually.

Some times we humans make a mistake and we mix the two together, we make a vague philosophical or intellectual notion and then we try to form the phenomena that we witness into that notion...

It seems sometimes it is the only way we can “get” to our intellectual understanding is to create (barrow most of the time) a notion and then form phenomena around that notion so as to give a understanding, a “function”. Which happens to be our application of that understanding, an application which in the end results in a capability.

Even math with it’s precise abilities is a version of this “mixing“.
A very reliable version which is fruitful in terms of “capabilities” that we can create when we form the phenomena into the “notion”, capabilities that I think relate well to our overall agenda as human beings, but have nothing really to do with “knowledge or understanding” in the regular sense of the words.
But have to do with capability, power, structure, reliability and what ever we feel we “need”…

Which is why I say, we cannot let the two sides mix too much, or we create what is basically “babble”.
A search for meaning within a plethora of seemingly meaningless data..
Perhaps it is an emotionality of the human who dreams this meaning that is creating a barrier, a sense of justifcation of worth… Meaning...

Meaning then… if that, then we should take care in what we create within our “intellectual” understanding.
Because sometimes we forget that all this “Science” that is being done is not really being done to find meaning, or knowledge…
But to create… yes.. Create application.
Theory and Data are the substance from which you set up the next step to create your application.
And if we can remember that, then we run less of a risk of letting our power be drained into a frivolous purist of vague philosophical notions which we create to justify our emotionality as humans, create a sense of meaning.

And meaning it self, should never be found within science…
For science is not a function of meaning, but of capability.
And the intention of creation leads one to a capability, and it is the form of that intention which is more impacting in terms of definition then any form of intellectually created "meaning".

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A great revolution is at hand, but this is just a metaphor.

Last edited by Enexseenge on 09-11-2006 at 08:38 PM

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