Tenure blog archive June 2012

The Cyber-IRA; a reductio ad absurdum for DCU's new spook center

First of all,some pol sci 101; the state is run for the benefit of its citizens. Where it ceases to be so run, it loses validity, and the citizens can and should withdraw their consent, right up to the point that armed revolt becomes legitimate if – as happened in the British occupation of Ireland – the occupier continues to defy the expressed democratic will of the people.

Since 9/11, we have seen a quickening of another impulse; the state as a hoarder of information garnered about its citizens, on whom it feels empowered to spy. Increasingly, any surplus created by the economic activity of these citizens is diverted into an increasingly disembodied and criminal financial services “industry”, which is again attempting a comeback and will create the winner in the current US presidential “race”. Many brave hacktivists have defied this impulse, sometimes paying with long jail sentences. Other hackers are of course destructive adolescents, about which more later.

The USA was explicitly set up by radicals who wisely judged that anyone who preferred security over liberty deserved neither. The EU, au contraire, has just inflicted a massive debt on Ireland that vastly outweighs the EEC/EU paltry contributions through structural funds, “research” grants etc. the research in particular in general competes with and destroys vastly superior native work.

Universities are meant to be loci of free speech, where the state amplifies the freedom to allow proper intellectual development and checking of ideas. That is the main reason that this tenure fight was initially worth the candle; however, DCU morphed into something very dangerous indeed after SIPTU's idiocy in 2003 and this post is an attempt to illustrate that. When we set DCU up, it was essentially as a group of cultural nationalists and we could have kept it there, sans SIPTU.

My home institution is now Stanford. It features a variety of opinions, from professors who took refuge from UC Berkeley when asked to sign a loyalty oath, and at the other extreme the Hoover institute, once home to Danny O'Hare and now Condi Rice. We disagree with each other, and are encouraged to do so. It would not be allowed the center about to be put in place at DCU . Stanford's motto features freedom; it is also commercially the most successful university in the world. Freedom and success go together in this world.

The Irish state should focus on producing a plan, and accompanying narrative, that generates respect and consent from its citizens, not set up a new spook center. That narrative would stop the “going postal” incidents that are beginning to proliferate; it would also stop the disaffected youth attempting something like the following, using material culled over the past fortnight from “The Daily Show” et al from someone not even interested;

1.Use something like SQL induction, mentioned on Jon Stewart, to wage cyber-warfare against targeted sites
2.Set up a Google e-mail address and claim responsibility on a venue like boards.ie as the Cyber-IRA with whatever moniker one chooses”- P O'Brien”? The famous recent FBI sting featured a boards.ie poster
3.Disconnect the internet connection for the night, generating a new IP address.
4.Continue as before
5.Alternatively, a more secure option; travel using cash only, and stop in different towns using their computers. ETC

Why not just introduce a just system of redistribution in our society, stop trying to spy on us, and the above will almost certainly not happen!

Monday, June 25, 2012

DCU is the wrong place for sensitive research like this

Let's get the narrative straight again;

1. An attempt, unprecedented in world history, to introduce summary dismissal for academics was made at DCU starting in 1995 or so;
2. This included DCU's president arguing in the High court that he had the right summarily to dismiss anyone working at DCU;
3. Eventually, this dark initiative was stopped at the supreme Court, and mainly because the current Chief Justice (who obviously strategically delayed both  the verdict and announcement of the remedy  in the Cahill case ) is vehemently in favor of academic freedom
4. The rest of DCU's criminality- including, and indeed especially, abuse of students, is documented on this blog

So now we find that DCU is chosen to conduct research into “terrorist' groups;

http://www.thejournal.ie/dcu-funding-5-million-research-extremism-internet-maura-conway-498455-Jun2012/

Nothing wrong there, you might say; it will prevent deaths. Don't want any more Berwicks, right?

Of course, Berwick , like McVeigh, Kaczynski, etc, would know how to fly below the radar.

More troublingly, the lead in the study was outed – by Stratfor itself – as a subscriber, using her DCU address, to the data base of that CIA-emulating agency;

http://dazzlepod.com/stratfor/?page=84

The rampant criminality at DCU for the best part of a score years should mean that it is prevented from snooping on our most sensitive communications

Seán Ó Nualláin Ph D Stanford 25u Meitheamh    2012

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Inner and outer empiicism in onsciousness resarch

Along with many other academics, I have been compelled to sign over copyright of much of my work (not my books, as it happens, due to a very clever Dublin copyright lawyer who also handles my music)

This paper was published in 2006 in the reputable "New ideas in psychology";

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X06000195

and benefitted from an excellent commentary in a follow-up article;

https://iris.nuigalway.ie/uat/!W_VA_PUB_OTHER.EDIT?POPUP=TRUE&object_id=1126289

Here it is;

Inner and Outer Empiricism in Consciousness Research

Seán Ó Nualláin

New Ideas in Psychology
Volume 24, Issue 1 , April 2006, Pages 30-40

With great fanfare, a “new” science of consciousness has been launched, not to say inflicted on us, starting perhaps with the first Tucson conference in 1994. Debate has focussed around issues like neural correlates of consciousness; what can only be described as extreme experimentation with, to take one example, ferrets' brains being rewired to see whether visual cortex can behave auditorily, and vice versa, has been legitimized. In the meantime, more thoughtful reseachers will admit that we have not identified a single neural correlate of consciousness; that consciousness studies has become a canvas on which we project all the problems of the cognitive sciences; and, indeed, that the major effect of all this debate is possibly the global warming caused by the peregrinations of the stars of the discipline. In the meantime, simple questions like the ones Kafka asked a century ago about what it feels like to be a cog in a bureaucracy remain unasked.

In this paper, we study a possible new perspective on methodology in this area; between “inner” empiricism, an attempt to isolate exact conditions and methodology for a science of experience, and “outer” empiricism, a projection of the methodology of Galilean empirical science onto phenomenal space.

If there is a science of consciousness distinct from cognitive science, that science of consciousness is inevitably committed to inner empiricism, however crude such inner empiricism may initially be. In fact, the claim made by such researchers as Daniel Dennett (1992) that introspective data may be scientifically disregarded is equivalent to the claim that outer empiricism is sufficient to handle all the phenomena of mind. In other words, we can study such phenomena as qualia by projecting the methods of classical science into phenomenal space and thus, incidentally, “disqualifying” them. In particular, Dennett (1988) has great difficulties with the notion of qualia. Invoking the name of his teacher, he insists that qualia should be “quined.” The rationale is essentially that of William of Ockham: nothing can be said about qualia from the scientific, third-person perspective (Flanagan, 1992, p. 61), and they have no explanatory role. He betrays his behaviorist origins: since qualia have no effect on external behavior, we can deny their efficacy.

Daniel Dennett's position is considerably strengthened by its context in an overall Darwinian Weltanschauung: Design, including consciousness, is algorithmic. To refute Dennett, we must produce a more encompassing and/or more valid Weltanschauung (on which, more later).

Dennett (1995, p. 59) allows himself considerable latitude as to the definition of algorithmic: “Are there any limits at all on what may be considered an algorithmic process? I guess the answer is no.”

However, the algorithmic level has a definite role when it comes to answering questions about design: “If what strikes you as puzzling is the uniformity of the sand grains or the strength of the blade, an algorithmic explanation is what will satisfy your curiosity.” (p. 59)

For Dennett, as he claims also for Darwin, “evolution is an algorithmic process” (1995, p.61). I have written an extended critique of the specifics of Dennett's view of consciousness in Ó Nualláin (1995, pp. 293-295); similarly, his views on what constitutes an algorithm, and evolution, seem destined to ensure that all objections fade into the warm blur of his personality, and Conway's Game of Life. What we are concerned with here is something quite specific; i.e., first-person methodology. So the details of that critique are not relevant. What is relevant are the denials of qualia and thus of the whole first-person enterprise and how we respond to these denials.

For Dennett, there is no need to invoke first-person accounts of anything. Subjectivity does not really exist; it just seems to exist, and he is concerned to dispel the illusion. He can point to the vast amount of data supporting the neo-Darwinian position to buttress his case.

As hard science, a position like Dennett's is, thus, possibly irrefutable. Arguments like David Chalmers’ (1996) can be adapted to prove that there are no “scientific” data that require subjectivity for their explanation. However, at this point we have left a fundamental and utterly certain fact behind: that each of us knows that we are, that “I am.” The difficulty this presents to conventional science was pointed out with great elegance by Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky. The latter insists on an “I,” however inelegant, that reason, however elegant, cannot handle.

Kierkegaard is as scathing as the Dostoevsky of Notes from the Underground about the possibility of science ever encroaching on the higher realms of subjectivity (as distinct from those pointed to in work like that of John Taylor's referenced below).

Kierkegaard’s masterpiece, The Sickness unto Death, begins; “Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates to its own self... the self is not the relation but that the relation relates to its own self... So regarded man is not yet a self” (1941, p.17).

Confused? You're meant to be: “.. it is the practical work of religion to make it possible for natural man truly to experience his own nothingness, his own lack of being” (Needleman, 1982a, p. 36).

This experience is the first step on the royal road to consciousness. The first-person methodologies we are about to examine in this article begin with an experience of nothingness. These methodologies have historically been embedded in the esoteric core of religious traditions. Let us continue with the Danish proto-existentialist. He is concerned with what he sees as the religious task of pointing out our nothingness, and then: “For Kierkegaard, the highest truth of which man is capable is an event that takes place within the psyche when consciousness simultaneously confronts God and the ego” (Needleman, 1982b, p. 207).

In the science of consciousness, we are trying to do justice to both scientists and existentialists. Let's see what such a science might look like.

Consciousness studies and cognitive science are two distinct, if overlapping areas. Cognitive science studies that aspect of mind which can be informationally described; consciousness studies attempts also to provide a framework that can do justice to phenomenal experience. Work like John Taylor’s (in Ó Nualláin et al.,1997) exemplifies how cognitive science and neuroscience can contribute to consciousness studies; he states, for example, that we focus on only one thing at a time because only one informational channel exists. It is the claim of researchers like Penrose and Hameroff that links directly from quantum mechanics to subjectivity can similarly be posited; for example, coherent quantum states are required to explain our (supposed) continuous sense of self. (There may be a more fundamental contribution from Von Neumann’s work and the analysis of observer status. This we examine below.) Anthropology has vast amounts to say about different types of experience across cultures, and its findings may eventually be subsumed into cognitive science. The distinction between the content of consciousness and consciousness itself becomes paramount here; computer science, similarly, may tell us much about the former.

Computer science can significantly inform us about this because, pace Dennett, the notion of an algorithm is a non-trivial one and we can describe the vast majority of what goes on in our minds algorithmically. Let us, for the sake of argument, slightly simplify matters and say that an algorithm for X is a way to effectively compute X. As you read these lines, edge-detectors are parsing the visual scene, letters and words are being extracted, sentences are being parsed and, finally, a representation is being delivered to consciousness, a meaning representation which will hopefully coincide with my intention. The processes which combine to produce this representation, this content of consciousness, are algorithmic and unconscious. What then is consciousness, as distinct from the contents thereof?

This point is so central that its explanation could well occupy the rest of this paper. It suffices to say that ― at least in this writer's opinion ― the only justification for the existence of a science of consciousness is the existence of a distinction between its contents, the subject matter of cognitive science, and consciousness itself. We shall find it necessary to travel by a rather circuitous route to this particular conclusion; specifically, we revisit the experience of self and nothingness. It is possible that the exercises that contribute the discipline of inner empiricism are useful only to these who with Kierkegaard know that man is not yet a self, that they themselves lack being, lack presence. (I am aware that this sentence will have the same effect that a mathematical equation famously has in a popular science text—it will halve the readership!) I cannot find words more cogent that those of Needleman (1988, p.21):

... the traditional teachings - as expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, for example- make a fundamental distinction between consciousness on one hand and the contents of consciousness such as our perception of things, our sense of personal identity, our emotions and our thoughts in all their color and gradations on the other hand.

Needleman's work, as we see again below, has shown

an increasing concern that this distinction be experienced, rather than intellectualized, and that this experience be continually re-engaged:

... anything in ourselves, no matter how fine, subtle or intelligent... becomes transformed into contents around which gather all the opinions, feelings and distorted sensations that are the supports of our secondhand sense of identity. In short, we are told that the evolution of consciousness is always 'vertical' to the constant stream of mental, emotional and sensory associations. (1988, p. 21)

Indeed, to "understand" consciousness, we must continually strive for a better state of consciousness.

The philosophy of mind allows us to segue into inner empiricism, the matter at hand. In particular, Chalmers’ zombie arguments strike me as having an unintended consequence as already noted. Chalmers can conceive of a zombie equivalent of himself who, without any subjective experience, can yet know that his bibulous behavior now will lead later to a headache.

(I must admit that the mental act by which David can conceive of such an outcome is outside the range of this writer. For me, to have a headache requires that I, as subject, experience something specific. However, I am also willing to concede, with Husserl, that I am a perpetual beginner in phenomenology.)

Chalmers’ stance is vehemently in favor of the strong AI position that there is a non-empty set of computations, executions of which constitute a mind (Chalmers, 1996, p. 314). However, the contention that experience always must be taken as over and above the facts of the world finds a place (p.333) in Chalmers' opus. I believe these views to be incompatible; let us focus on the zombie-related point. What Chalmers is above all doing is making a distinction between subjectivity itself and the contents of consciousness. This distinction is not a priori accessible to the rest of us as to him. (One is reminded of the claims that Bob Dylan, the genius that he is, wrote his songs without even having to think.) Chalmers can be read as an inner empiricist, in the tradition of the modern founder of this field, Jacob Needleman: “He is calling him to remember what the Zen Buddhists call the original face... It is not metaphor. There is a face within us, a source of attention and consciousness, that is eternal. It is a literal fact. A material fact” (Needleman, 1998, pp. 54-55). Moreover, as in Descartes’ Meditations, what is happening here is actually a mental exercise.

The imperative is to distinguish the experience from the content of experience. Why do this? Essentially, because like techniques in conventional science, it leads us to ever more valuable insights. What's being argued, then, is that inner empiricism is a discipline, a “science,” and that it has been practiced with great sophistication in the past. The results of these explorations are codified in religious traditions.

A consensus from these traditions is that consciousness can only be understood in the context of a Weltanschauung. One’s own experience has a cosmic dimension. By "Weltanschauung" in this context, I intend the classic Bergsonian notion of an all-encompassing worldview. However, I emphasis also that one's "subjective" experience should be seen in this worldview as manifesting a cosmic dynamic. As has so often been the case in this article, let us cut straight to Needleman for an exemplification:

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we are most familiar with its expression in the teaching, that man is made in the image of God — God, the Creator and preserver of the Universal Wholeness in its gradations and levels. The traditions of India speak of the Divine, Cosmic Man whose dispersal into fragments constituted the creation of the world and whose re-collection is the sole essential task of human life. In Buddhism we find the doctrine that all the levels of being, from mineral up through the Gods, are contained in Man — Man, the center and Man the all-embracing void. The traditions of China revolve around the idea of the King, the Great Man who governs the parts of existence. One could go on with this listing. (Needleman, 1988, pp. 22-23)

Yet, man is not yet a self. I am not yet that man who can be a microcosm. I need to work on myself, to engage in the activities of inner empiricism which are simultaneously an exploration and an arduous path of self-transformation. In order to know consciousness, to be a self, it is necessary to elevate my level of consciousness.

By complete contrast, Dennett’s system is a Weltanschauung that brackets the subjective; I will not be so opaque as to say that Dennett denies its existence in any other than a methodological manner. What he is trying to achieve is a third-person account of all that is, including those states we currently class as subjective. The key is neo-Darwinism, construed as the algorithmic creation of what appears to be design. Subjectivity is a bag of parallel algorithms with a virtual machine riding shotgun on them to finesse the type of serial purposive experience or behavior that we attribute to ourselves. Or, in other terms, man is not yet a self. Dennett (whose ideas closely resemble Baars’ and Smolensky’s on this score) may be closer to Needleman and to the tradition of inner empiricism than he thinks. What he depicts is fallen man, man without a self. Like Michael Gazzaniga, as we see below, his mistake is that, having realized his and our basic nothingness, he refuses to countenance anything that can fill it.

What can fill it, according to the traditions, is nothing less than the cosmos itself: “Zen insight is not our insight, but Being's awareness of itself in us” (Merton, quoted in Conner, 1987).

Or from the sanatana dharma tradition: "The Rishi attempted to realize Brahman, the hidden power of the universe, in himself" (Griffiths, 1982). Atman, this realization, is his own hidden ruler.

The way to this realization seems at first sight full of paradox: “It is the Not-I that is most of all the I in each one of us” (Merton, quoted in Conner, 1987).

There is a remarkable convergence across the religious traditions here: in the Christianity of John's gospel, the hierophant Jesus proclaims: “Before Abraham came to be, I am” (John 8:58).

Many mental exercises are proposed to help induce this realization. Chalmers' unintended instances we have looked at; for Gurdjieff, the starting point was the shocking realization of oneself as automatic and fragmented. The final insight can be gently introduced with such metaphors as this one from the Upanishads: “Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating” (quoted in Griffiths, 1982).

Much more sophisticated such exercises are also implicit in the use of koans; finally, the physical and emotional "brains" are controlled by movements, work, and music right across the religious spectrum. The aim is always to point to the reality underlying the "empirical self", the "imposter", or what Gazzaniga calls the "interpreter".

We now come to one of the central positive contributions of this article, which is to rectify Gazzaniga's and other's overlooking of these traditions. More specifically, we wish to investigate the possibility of creating a science of consciousness that can do justice to the myriad findings emerging from neuroscience and the cognitive sciences on one hand, and the knowledge carried by the religious traditions on the other. We ultimately wish to confront an even more awesome question: how can I use the findings of outer empiricism and the exercises of inner empiricism to be more fully myself? And what is the relationship of the “myself” which emerges from this engagement with first-person methodologies, and that which I am now? Inner empiricism is of course by definition a first-person methodology, but the person inevitably becomes transformed by it.

I wish to make these points absolutely clear. Outer empiricism is the set of conventional scientific techniques devoted to the “easy” problem, the projection of standard Western science onto phenomenal space. Inner empiricism is applied experientialism, a set of exercises operating on the physical, emotional, and intellectual parts of the psyche. Using these exercises, one is invited to arrive at a better concept of the nature of consciousness by transforming oneself, by becoming a self. Resources exist in the religious traditions to help this process of self-transformation. The first step is the most difficult one : that of realizing there is a problem, that I am not. Only then is one open to the suggestion that there is a substrate of consciousness, an observer, independent of mental contents. It is precisely the perception of the ephemeral nature of these contents, and one's identification with them, that provides the dynamic toward self-integration. We just looked at some catalysts for these perceptions (e.g. John 8:58).

Of course, all of this is realization at purely the intellectual level. Let us look briefly, (and given this print medium, inadequately) at physical exercise within various traditions. Advaitins will stress that there can't be yoga without yoke-ing (a jeu de mots that works in practically all Indo-European languages, westward to the Gaelic equivalent chuing). One's body is to be experienced as continuous with one's physical environment. One exercise to induce this realization is to conceive of physical sensations as fish in a ocean encompassing both body and physical environment. Above all, one is to rethink what the body is (answer, ultimately, a container metaphor imposed on these sensations.) Once that is done, the final non-dual truth is revealed; the fish also are composed of water. Another yoga exercise designed to confound proprioceptive habits is to conceive of one's chest as co-extensive with the wall in front, and one's back as co-extensive with the wall behind. These visualization exercises inform the experience of physical postures, where energy-flows through the body are attended to.

Physical exercises in dual traditions differ in explicit intent. The Gurdjieff movements, themselves physically complicated, are meant to be done simultaneously with mental math and devotional prayer. (Peter Brook's film Meetings with Remarkable Men features these movements, normally not shown to non-initiates.) Finally, the traditions always use music to educate the emotional center. Monastic music tends to be modal (i.e., non-diatonic) and to have a restricted tonal range. The goal is serenity; the emotional highs and lows used by diatonic music as it creates and releases tension are inappropriate. Experiencing such music is an interesting first-person exercise; its simple melodies initially attract, them become boring, and finally settle, unmovable, in one's mind. I do not believe it beyond the scope of a contemporary religious genius to produce a new set of intellectual exercises using the advances in logic of the twentieth century, modal jazz, and perhaps the kind of physical exercises developed by Moshe Feldenkrais. (In particular, Gödel can be seen as a koan-master).

It behooves us at this point to look more conventionally at the traditions. In particular, the eastern approaches to reality called Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga stress, respectively, action, devotion and knowledge. Yet underlying even these is the quest for presence.

And when, it is seen that none of these is complete in itself, one can invent an integral yoga to integrate all the various paths... But can you see who is this integrator?... Real integration is only possible through pure and simple observation and perception - by seeing the fragments. This very seeing is integration. (Kaushik, 1977, pp. 49-50)

Let us be utterly clear again. Realizing the existence of the interpreter, the empirical self, is the royal road to consciousness, to self-integration. It is the leitmotif of inner empiricism as a first-person methodology. To arrive at having everything, it is first necessary to lose all.

Good science has been defined as the art of making errors that lead to making further, more interesting errors. All scientific theories are ultimately proven incorrect. The science of consciousness I propose that combines inner empiricism with outer empiricism starts with the following “Copernican” revolution: a substrate of subjectivity is posited as existing independently of the contents of consciousness. Copernicus' system famously needed epicycles, just like the Ptolemaic system it superseded. Similarly, the existence of that substrate may be convincingly demonstrated only through immersion in a set of physical, mental and emotional exercises, as proposed in the spiritual traditions.

There are good reasons for supplementing Chalmers’ hard/easy distinction with inner empiricism versus outer empiricism. If the latter is an error, it is one that facilitates our access to the findings of millennia of work in the spiritual traditions, rather than an error that proposes a perhaps doomed search for a single magic bullet.

Let us revisit the above points s-l-o-w-l-y. First of all, scientific activity can usefully be divided into "normal" and "abnormal" phases (Kuhn, 1996). The former features work within a received paradigm (and no, I'm not going to define that word): “Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact and theory and, when successful, finds none” (Kuhn, 1996. p. 52).

However, the progress of science demands that a different phase must also obtain from time to time: “... Research under a paradigm must be a particularly effective way of inducing paradigm change” (p. 52).

In other words, even “normal” science contains within itself the seeds of the destruction of the paradigm which regulates its activity. We do not need to go so far as assenting to a Popperian falsificationist ethos; the goal in all normal science is (ultimately) to prove oneself wrong. How does this relate to our proposal for a science of consciousness? Essentially, in contending that the proposal of inner empiricism as the central first-person methodology is, at the most, an intriguing mistake.

The evidence that the ancients were well acquainted with the wiles of the “interpreter” is impressive in extent. Its workings are documented similarly even in spiritual tradition that seem to the noninitiate to diverge wildly thereafter. Thus, from the advaita tradition:

(18)... What is this thing called mind. What is its nature? Such an enquiry will reveal that there is no such thing.

(19)... 'Mind' is but a name for thoughts. Of all thoughts, that of 'I' is the support. Therefore, what is called 'mind' is truly the thought ''.'

(21)... The 'I' thought, the pseudo - 'I' is inconstant but the real ‘I’ is always there, it is eternal. (Mahadevan, 1977, p. 90)

From David-Neels' work on Buddhism: “A person... is an assembly composed of a number of members” (Walker, 1957, p.76). Walker, like Lancaster, comments on the Buddhist strand in Gurdjieff's thought: "The similarity between Buddha's thinking and the ideas we were learning from Ouspensky was obviously a very close one. (p.77).

I wish now to confront one of the conceptual tensions bedeviling “Western” versus “Eastern” thought, tensions that have damaged interreligious dialogue. For advaitins and others, consciousness is synonymous with Being and Reality. It is the ultimate creative principle. For others, consciousness seems exclusively mental; an event, perhaps, when self-observation has been achieved, or a result of the harmony of the three centers, (mental, emotional, physical). I believe that this tension can only be resolved within a worldview in which the events of one's life are seen as part of a cosmic dynamic. We find tantalizing hints in von Neumann about the possibility of grounding the perspective in physical law.

John von Neumann's brilliant work on the foundations of QM has found modern interpreters in Stanley Klein and Henry Stapp (1993). Both of these point to the sequence of preparation - evolution - measurement of a quantum system (see also Ó Nualláin, 2002). At measurement, or observation, von Neumann showed that the line dividing observer and system can consistently be drawn at any point. This leads Klein to an exaltation of duality; there is an absolute distinction between observer and observed. How ever, advaitins like Francis Lucille (see below) have pointed to a non-dualist use of von Neumann. It is indeed possible that von Neumann's work affords an at least metaphorical framework in which these apparently diametrically opposed perspectives can be synthesized. I hint below on at the framework developed in Ó Nualláin (2002) in which this synthesis is explored in a neo-Hegelian model, as at a psychological level.

For the advaitin, consciousness is the fundamental reality. It is the wave function just before breakdown, or the observer just before consciousness, which are the same thing. It is spread throughout the entire universe, and contains infinite possibilities. What we know as the world, and the events of our lives, are mere superimpositions on it. The metaphor Ramana Maharshi uses is that of the blank cinema screen, which remains the same as the movie is projected on it. In meditation in a correct setting, this reality is allowed reoccupy those parts of the psyche from which the ego customarily bars it. Ultimately, there is no distinction between subject and object.

Let us revisit these points. Francis Lucille, who comes from the advaita stream initiated in the West by Jean Klein (1988) exemplifies the viewpoint I have just outlined. Unfortunately, he has yet to publish, so what follows is a potted summary of his tapes. Lucille claims to have found a key that gives a unity to his spiritual experience and knowledge of QM. Let us revisit the notion of a Weltanschauung; it is a worldview in which one's phenomenal experience is seen in the context of a cosmic dynamic. Of course, to adapt the characetr Haines in Joyce's Ulysses, physics is a happy hunting ground for a sick mind. What makes Lucille impressive is not just his physics knowledge (gained through an education at the Ecole Normale Supérieure), but the undoubted presence of the person, which obviously is incommunicable through this medium.

In the advaita tradition, being, consciousness and reality are synonyms. It is important to note that this concept of consciousness does not connote a disembodied observer; there is no subject /object differentiation. As we've seen, it resembles a cinema screen on which all that we experience as ourselves and the world is projected. Let's try to interrelate this with QM. QM agrees with the ancient idea that everything consists of vibrations.

Schrödinger's equation describes the determination and evolution processes that regulate the “thatness” of all matter. The solution to this equation is , the wave function.

Now for the tricky bit. The square of the modulus of the wave function at any point represents the probability that the particle is (found) at that point once an observation is performed. However, before observation, the particle is, as it were, smeared all over the cosmos, containing infinite potential for any measurable property. For example, we might decide to measure its momentum property, rather than position. Lucille's major insight is that this pre-observation state of the particle is identical with what Advaitins call consciousness.

Moreover, this state is identical with the state of the observer just prior to observation. The idea central to Vedanta, that Atman and Brahman are one, finds a correlate at the physical level.

Let us now refer again to yoga. As taught in the advaita tradition, it serves to alert us to the non-dual reality through body sensing. Indeed, we can gain further justification for this intuition by referring to the physical interchange of particles between the body and the rest of the world. On an intellectual level, we need to be alert to the wiles of the interpreter, which Lucille calls the ego. In fact, he claims that we never initiate an action; behavior is automatic, and the ego steps in to take responsibility for it, in the move Gazzaniga attributes to the interpreter. The result of this abdication of will is, I believe, quietism: “We are not the doer but the witness of doing” (Klein, 1988, p.109).

Similarly, Krishna instructs Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita to distance himself from his actions, to see everything sub specie aeternitatis: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be” (2:12).

The reader's stamina has been sorely tested by the switching in this paper from philosophy of mind to comparative religion to QM; I beg her indulgence for one more piece of cross-disciplinary speculation, explored at length in Ó Nualláin (1998). Advaita teaches not renunciation of the world, but realization through non-attachment to one's actions as one develops the observer in oneself. Yet we go through most of our lives actively becoming through the world, which seems to be full of attractor surfaces that spur us upward.

The neo-Hegelian framework I have developed (Ó Nualláin, 1998; ms. available on request) affords a synthesis, using Von Neumann's work, in which the two impulses are seen as fundamentally one. Nor does the Orient have a monopoly on non-dualism. Meister Eckhart’s experience thereof is a starting point. “I am converted into Him in such a way that he makes me one with his being, not similar” (Eckhart, quoted in Forman, 1991, p.14).

It does not take a wild leap to find a continuous line of transmission between this Rhineland mystic and Schelling, in whom the non-dual European tradition reaches something of an apotheosis. The difference from Oriental thought manifest in its progressivist ethos is a minor detail. What counts is that the union “in which these two absolutenesses (absolute objectivity and absolute subjectivity) are again one absoluteness” is posited by Schelling (1978) as by Ramana Maharshi as the ultimate non-dual reality.

Synthesis seems at first unlikely. However, I am briefly going to outline the synthesis I am working on. Advaitins like Jean Klein are careful to point out that their system cannot help one with one’s career; it is essentially spirituality for retirees (and none the worse for that). Similarly, the more authentic Western paths like Cistercianism insist on a radical renunciation of the world. It is as if the “acts of alienation” we require to become professionals, parents and individuals in society are to be thwarted. In physics terms, the wave-function is to differentiate into subject and object as little as possible. Focus on the eternal, undifferentiated state must be maintained.

In this scheme the movement of consciousness in Gurdjieff's system is the movement of differentiation. At that moment, the observer is absolutely distinct from the observed. So it is in life when the imperatives that the unfolding of Geist (in the Hegelian sense) forces on us individually are fulfilled. Yet this moment of fulfillment is of course unsustainable, and the remainder of Gurdjieff's system facilitates some recollection of Being in the midst of becoming. To put it in other terms, it allows us the most subtle and important gift of all; participation in our own lives.

We are, in a sense, right back where we started. To study consciousness is not just to engage in outer empiricism, in standard Western science. It is also to engage in the first person exercises, physical and emotional as well as intellectual, that have been preserved in the religious traditions and that we call “inner empiricism.” To study consciousness, we attempt to become conscious, to become a self; ultimately, fully to be.

References

Chalmers, D. (1996). The conscious mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Conner, J. (1987) The original face in Buddhism and the True Self of Thomas Merton. Cistercian Studies, 22(4), 343-351.

Dennett, D. (1988). Quining qualia. In A.J. Marcel and E. Bisiach (Eds.) Consciousness in Contemporary Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dennett, D. (1992). Consciousness explained. London: Allen Lane.

Dennett, D. (1995). Darwin's dangerous idea. London: Penguin.

Dostoevsky, F. (DATE). Notes from underground. PLACE: PUBLISHER.

Flanagan, O. (1992). Consciousness reconsidered. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Forman, R. (1991). Meister Eckhart. Rockport, MA: Element.

Gazzaniga, M. (NEED REFERENCE)

Griffiths, B (1982). The mystical tradition in Indian theology. Monastic Studies, 13, 159-174.

Hameroff, S. (NEED REFERENCE)

Kafka, F. (DATE) The trial. Place: Publisher.

Kaushik, R.R.P.(1977). Light of exploration. Ipswich: Journey.

Klein, J. (1988). Who am I? Longmead: Element

Kierkegaard, S. (1941). The sickness unto death (Trans. E. H. Hong and H. V. Hong) . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1849).

Kuhn, T. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions. [which edition?] Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mahadevan, T.M.P (1977). Ramana Maharshi. London: Unwin.

Needleman, J. (1982a). The Heart of philosophy. San Francisco: Harper.

Needleman, J. (1982b). Consciousness and tradition. New York: Crossroad.

Needleman, J. (1988). The cosmos. New York: Arkana.

Needleman, J. (1998). Time and the soul. New York: Doubleday.

Ó Nualláin, S. (1995). The search for mind. Norwood: Ablex. (Revised edition 2002. Bristol: Intellect)

Ó Nualláin, S., McKevitt, P., & Mac Aogáin, E. (Eds.) (1997). Two sciences of mind. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ó Nualláin, S. (1998). [title?]

Ó Nualláin, S. (2002). Being human. Bristol: Intellect.

Penrose, R. (NEED REFERENCE).

Schelling, F. W. J. (1978). System of transcendental idealism (P. Heath, Trans.). Charlottesville VA: University Press of Virginia. (Original work published 1800.)

Stapp, H. (1993). Mind, matter and quantum mechanics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Walker, K. (1957). Gurdjieff. London: Unwin.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Why DCU must be wound down quickly

A recent report in DCU's student paper, "the college view", revealed disturbing facts that many of us had suspected for some time;

http://thecollegeview.com/2012/06/15/dcu-bailed-out-subsidiaries-at-a-cost-of-e9-8-million-in-2010/

Ironically, the misappropriation and misuse of public funds will not surprise anyone - this after all is not just Ireland, but northside Dublin. What is really disturbing is that these funds were run through a company called "DCU Commercial Ltd". While we assured that DCU owns this entity, it is not actually located at DCU. If one checks the Irish companies' database www.cro.ie  one finds that DCU Commercial Ltd was set up at the same time as the university, and is based IN ARTHUR COX BUILDING! Cox is DCU's mafia law firm, the author of three illegal disciplinary statutes and about a thousand employment contracts that would not survive a court challenge.

This follows a run of very strange examples of the tail wagging the dog. The current president of DCU had his e-mail diverted to Marion burns, head of HR, and as close to a functional illiterate as exists in upper management anywhere.  It is indeed possible that she was one of the levers though which Cox - whoever they ultimately are- controlled DCU. The High court judge and chancellor (ie head) of DCU whose ignorance of communications in upper management critical of her at DCU became a national story, the late Mella Carroll, did not have access to her own e-mail; this was diverted to Tom Hardiman, at that time head of IBM and later of another Dublin law firm. Hardiman, as head of DCU, presided over the introduction of the illegal statute no 3, thrown out by Ireland's high and supreme courts at huge expense to the taxpayer.

There was no reason for  DCU Commercial Ltd to exist in such independence; DCU is itself a legal entity, which can "sue or be sued" according to its charter. The explanation invited is that the "education' going on at DCU - regardless of the occasional heroics of the scholars there -  is simply a fig leaf to hide a festering wound in the Irish state, an abyss of crime and abuse that will gradually reveal itself over the next few years

A final comment; DCU was never properly  accredited, so its degrees are in themselves not worth the paper they are written on. However, the many diligent and bright students who went through there have a right to have their degrees transferred to a properly constituted entity, like a new college in the NUI

Seán Ó Nualláin Ph D Stanford 16u Meitheamh (La blath)   2012

PS It is now increasingly plausible that this scenario is in fact correct;

1970s; Danny O'Hare, Ed Walsh and their knights of Columbaus /Columbus/FF buddies  decide to save Ireland by setting up - ahem! - a new type of university

1980's; Both NIHE's are attracting staff with higher salaries and pushing students into very pressurized degree programmes that make the students ideal corporate fodder (I rarely meet a graduate of the NIHED/DCU computing degree still working at the technical end in computing as they're burned out)

1985; The Fwui force Danny into accepting tenure and academic freedom. His master-plan ever after is to get rid of both

1989; After a rather compromised accreditation, NIHED becomes DCU.  We now enter phase two; get rid of all the staff who set it up, replace them with non-tenured people, and run the education wing as a front for DCU Commercial Ltd, headquartered at the building named after Arthur cox

A slight problem; DCU is in fact running very well as a normal small university. Ah well - breaking eggs and omelets etc

1994 approx Chuck Feeney, apparently unsolicited,  continues his career of interference with universities worldwide by donating to approx $40 million to DCU. It is known that several of Feeney's other "gifts" - like to the center of public inquiry and the health service - came with considerable strings attached, and his closeness to Bertie Ahern was such that he was heard   threatening Ahern, while the latter was Taoiseach, with repercussions if privatization of the health service was not accelerated. Of course, Feeney claimed to have given all "his" money away by the ealy 80's.

1995; A new "agreement" with the union is published at DCU; the union was never even consulted, and signatures are actually fraudulently appended, photocopied from the earlier 1985 agreement,  to indicate assent including that of Pat Cullen, who had left DCU 5 years before and had been in Australia since then.  Prosecution for fraud ? No way - this is Ireland

1997; A new universities act is passed, that require only "consultation' rather than agreement with the union over disciplinary procedures. If we fast-forward to 2012, we find DCU management desperately trying to get agreement from the union, as their legitimacy is now nil. Education is for scholars not management in real life

 2000; An industrial relations whizz-kid is brought in to implement the final solution; Academics being transferred like superstar soccer players (actually used as an argument by DCU's barrister  Sreenan  at the supreme court and, no, I could NOT have invented this), the university to be used for "inward investment " outside the department of education, students as cheap employees doing commercial projects (Aalborg university visit to DCU, 1997)


2000- 2012; cover is given by the Irish state for all these activities, even when the law is clearly being broken with intimidation and bribery of students; no visitor ever is appointed (Mella Carroll was there to frighten off any visitors, whom the la requires to be high court Judges)

2012; Academia internationally is revolutionized by premier universities going online, making all these ill-laid plans irrelevant, even if they had worked. If DCU is to survive, it .must be as the normal small university it once was within the national university system and with regular re-accreditation as happens in the USA. As it stands, it is a menace to the world of scholarship, as well as to its own staff and students.

PPS We are now at the core of the whole issue. I realize this blog comes across as angry, verging on infantile, at times, but it is an honest record of a very significant set of events.

In 2003, there was a chance for staff (faculty and non-faculty together) not just to rescind what turned out to be an illegal disciplinary procedure, which later caused mayhem and was rescinded, in any case after the EAT and Supreme court, but also to take the university back from management. It is appropriate for me to say that I did not let my colleagues down; I refused two deals from management, at great professional and financial cost to myself. The response from SIPTU was to collude with management, and in so doing, to defy the will of their members. That was also the end of DCU.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Code and context in gene expression, cognition, and consciousness

Published  in “The codes of life” edited by Marcello Barbieri (Springer-Verlag)

http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/book/978-1-4020-6339-8

Seán O Nualláin, lecturer, symbolic systems program, Stanford; visiting scholar, molecular and cell biology, Berkeley

Abstract/summary

“Code” and “context” are two of the most ambiguous words in English, as their cognates no doubt are in other languages. In this paper, we are concerned to bring these notions down to earth, and use them as structuring schemas to understand various types of biological and cognitive activities. En route, we consider work such as Barbieri’s and Smith’s that impinge on our concerns in various ways. The notion of code, of course, has been discussed with respect to what constitutes the original genetic code, and indeed what the original autocatalytic sets were to facilitate the emergence of a biological code in the first place, and where in organisms they could be located. These issues are not our central concern here.

We first revisit the main themes of previous work that provides a new framework for considering gene expression vis a vis language production and comprehension. It is decided that the gene-expression/language production analogy is a worthwhile one, and that both evince a useful dichotomy of code and context. Yet language itself, as exemplified in the case of verbally able autistic people, is not sufficient for communication. We then consider what the code for intersubjectivity is, if not language. It is argued that selfhood, which is the medium in which communication takes place, may be an artifact of data-compression occurring in the brain. Yet we have managed to extend this epiphenomenal attribute into a vehicle for “code” by narrating to ourselves. These narratives, which on a personal level maintain what is often the illusion of personal potency, likeability, and logical consistency, have on the social level the capacity to produce consensually-validable identifications like national sentiment, those parts of gender which are constructed, and other affiliations. We finish with an extended framework in which qualia – generically viewed, subjective states – are naturalised in a way that does justice both to ourselves and the world that we inhabit.

Introduction

In Barbieri (2003) the existence of a multiplicity of codes in nature is insisted on. A code is defined as a set of rules relating entities between independent worlds. He argues that along with obvious genetic and linguistic codes, we must consider splicing codes, signalling codes, compartment codes and apoptosis codes. These points  granted, many apparently counterintuitive conclusions follow.  “Meaning” arises when any given object is related to another through a code. Therefore, meaning can be said to inhere at the molecular level when the code is between organic molecules. At the genetic level, we speak of copy-making; at the protein level, we can speak of code-making and “meaning”. He would agree with the “language of thought” proposals from Fodor and his followers (see O Nualláin, 2003, 91-92, and below) that we can - and, according to Fodor,  must in order to explain many cognitive phenomena – speak about a mental code or “language of thought” as emphatically as we speak about a genetic code at the origin of life. Finally, the notion of adapter, defined as “catalyst plus code”, is introduced. Peirce’s celebrated trio of sign, meaning, and interpretant can be biologised as sign, meaning, and codemaker. Barbieri (in press) extends the previous argument to insist that sequences and codes are “nominable” entities.

An analogous project, arising from an impulse to extend the notion of “computation”, complements Barbieri’s.  Brian Smith (1996) is unwilling, a priori, to assert even the existence of objects, let alone that of subjects. His project is an attempt to construct a theory of “computation in the wild”; a notion of computation so encompassing that it can encompass word-processing at one extreme and the most athletic feats of Lisp hackers at the other. After finding all previous accounts of computation qua effective computability, Turing machines, and so on, inadequate, Smith comes to a radical conclusion; a theory of computation is also a general metaphysics. To explain computation as a concept requires a thorough ontology of the world, and metaphysical preparation.

In the beginning, according to Smith,  was the raw material for objects; proportionally extensive fields of particularity (P. 191). A metaphysical clearing has to occur before we even speak of the existence of different objects, let alone their relation to each other through a code. He argues that the cognitive acts of sensation, perception, and syntactic analysis can be compiled together in a concept called “registration” which results in the emergence of s-objects (roughly speaking, subjects). “Registration” is of course broader than cognition, and can occur at “lower” biological levels than the cognitive; therefore, Smith’s is a hospitable formalism, with respect to this principle at lease, for biosemiotics.  Objects emerge when the registration is altered to cater to the possibility of independently registered “worlds”; to use cognitive science terminology, allocentric versus egocentric representation. Smith’s conclusion is revolutionary. He argues that computation is quite as intentional, in the classical Brentano sense of relating to objects, as any human cognitive process.

Combining aspects of the two proposals in ways that do violence to neither, we may indeed speak about “meaning” in a way that does not confine it to human cognitive process. In this paper, we are attempting to extend analyses such as those of Barieri and Smith in a way that psychologizes these analyses in the case of human cognition, and en route transforms our notion of subjectivity. So the goal here resembles that of Smith; to deconstruct and then return our notion of the “subject” or its related term “self” in the manner that he does for “object”, “true”, “formal”, and so on. The path is as follows: We first revisit the main themes of previous work that provides a new framework for considering gene expression vis a vis language production and comprehension. In many ways, this program is consistent with and extends Piagetian genetic epistemology (Piaget, 1972). We finish with an extended framework in which qualia – generically viewed, subjective states – are naturalised in a way that does justice both to ourselves and the wonderful, terrible world that we inhabit.

Gene-expression and linguistic behaviour

In  our previous work  it was noted that the analogy between gene-expression and language-production is useful, both as a fruitful research paradigm and also, given the relative lack of success of natural language processing by computer (nlp), as a cautionary tale for molecular biology. In particular, given our concern with the HGP and human health, it is noticeable that only 2% of diseases can be traced back to a straightforward genetic cause. As a consequence, we argue that the HGP will have to be redone for a variety of metabolic contexts in order to found a sound technology of genetic engineering (Ó Nualláin ,forthcoming,  a  and Ó Nualláin and Strohman, forthcoming),

 In essence, the analogy works as follows: first of all, at the orthographic or phonological level, depending on whether the language is written or spoken, we can map from phonetic elements to nucleotide sequence. The claim is made that nature has designed highly ambiguous codes in both cases, and left disambiguation to the context.  At the  next level, that of syntax, we note phenomena like alternative splicing in gene-expression that indicate a real syntactic level in the genome analogous to that in NL. It is argued, in turn, that the semantic level in language corresponds to protein production, and that, in apparent paradox, proteins do not in themselves specify “meaning”. That is reserved for the concept of function in the environment. To take one example, while rock pocket mice in Arizona acquire an adaptive darkening melanin through expression of genes related to the MC1R protein, their fellow species members 750km. away in New Mexico use an entirely different mechanism for the same end. Sibling species are of quite different genetic origin; the swallowtail butterfly mimics its poisonous counterparts using entirely different genetic mechanisms. Conversely, Watson (1977,P. 7) postulated thirty tears ago that “ a multiplicity of proteins will be generated from ‘single’ genes”.  The suspension of disbelief required for the HGP’s hype to take was considerable, given the scientific sophistication of many of the boosters of the project.

There has been an enormous amount of work on the nature and complexity of the genetic code. Di Giulio (2005) reviews stereochemical and physicochemical hypotheses about the origin of the genetic code before coming to the conclusion that the coevolution hypothesis about this origin, with its reference to the biosynthetic relationship between amino acids, and corroboration by analysis of metabolic pathways, is most nearly correct.  Gene assembly in ciliates has spawned a massive amount of work (e.g. Daley et al, 2003); the existence of two different nuclei, micronucleus and macronucleus, in a single cell, and the transformation of the latter into the former has provided much grist to the mill of formalists anxious to apply the artillery of formal language theory to genetics. Yet this will not provide a context-general calculus relating nucleotide to phenotype any more than generative grammar facilitated the advent of computers that could translate between arbitrary texts of arbitrary languages at will.

Similarly, in NL, correct interpretation of language strings often requires the processing of “pragmatic” factors. Conversely, “semantics” often does yield meaning; indeed there are situations where a single word or phoneme can give us all the meaning we want, without any explicit syntactic or semantic processing (Fire!!). Since Austin (1962) distinguished the “perlocutionary” import of phrases from the other levels of messages conveyed, it has been clear that sentences like “Would you like to help me?” are not necessarily amenable to pure semantic interpretation to arrive at their meaning. Humans who are non-opaque to such indirection quickly realize that understanding of such sentences initially requires an act of consciousness, an act of considering themselves as objects in the environment of the speaker. Of course, as we shall see, many humans never quite get it; at one extreme, sufferers from severe autism, and at the other, the milder versions of self-centredness that we classify as Asperger’s.

Are there counterparts in nature? If the nexus of organism and environment is considered over time, perhaps we can suggest that there are. While it absurd to suggest that the swallowtail butterfly is “trying” to look like others, natural selection in the specific environment pushes it in a direction that makes it seem as though it had  conscious knowledge of its own appearance. In the schema considered here, the HGP did little more than elicit some context-independent  relations between keywords and semantic primitives. The cautionary lesson is that the HGP has to be redone in countless metabolic contexts, just as NLP needs at least another generation of work before the Turing test can be passed outside wholly trivial micro-domains.

Some simple, yet very significant, points need to be made, particularly in the context of the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo):  First of all, considered with respect to the Chomsky Hierarchy, the system of gene-expression with its myriad feedback mechanisms is context-sensitive. Therefore, to take but one example, the stance in Salzberg et al. (1998) that there are no long-distance dependencies in the genome is absurd. The issue of formal complexity in the case of the expression of certain ciliar genomes, as we saw,  has inspired an impressive corpus of papers. Secondly, the notion of  the “field” is as current in biology, thanks to painstaking observation of the development of the fruitfly embryo through the expression of Hox genes, as it has been in Physics post-Faraday. In order to clarify matters, we will refer to these field effects as due to “domain” for the rest of this paper.

The field effects are considerable. Hox genes, which determine many aspects of morphogenesis,  operate in a context-sensitive manner with a recursive, phrase-structure type complexity. A context-sensitive rule for language might specify that in context A, a sentence is to be described as a noun phrase followed by a verb-phrase:

S- A/NP VP

Similarly, Hox genes function with genetic switches at two levels. One set belongs to the Hox genes themselves, and specify their expression in the different longitudinal segments of the animal. The other set of switches involve recognition by hox proteins in order to vary the expression of different genes. Thus, to take one example, the BCMP gene will  express proteins

belonging to the outer ear, or rib cartilage, depending on the field. One gene might generate different proteins, according to Watson (ibid.); conversely, one gene might be controlled by a variety of other genes, giving rise to recursivity and ambiguity fully as complex as anything in NL.

Let us continue with our analysis of the effects of external dynamics on formal symbolic systems with reference to another innovation from physics; Einstein’s work on gravitation. Einstein famously inspired many excursions to view solar eclipses by predicting that a massive body like the sun would distort space-time sufficiently for stars to appear displaced from their normal positions. Moreover, this distortion of space-time would be more and more marked as one approached the surface of the massive body in question. The argument in the previous papers leading to this one, similarly, is that restriction of domain causes the layers of language – phonetic/orthographic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic – to get compressed until, ultimately, a single phoneme can have massive meaning effects. This restriction of domain is, of course, nothing other than the process of living itself.

Cognition.

Of course, language is no more the only symbolic cognitive system than proteins manifest the only biological code. In Ó Nualláin (2003), chapter 7, the following attributes are predicated of human symbol systems: A hierarchical organization, formal complexity of a certain degree, a recursive structure, processing within micro-domains called contexts,

metaphor, emotional impact, ambiguity, systematicity, duality of structure, the notion of a native language, and creativity. In western classical music, to take one example, harmonic contexts are defined so specifically that a dominant seventh chord will always demand resolution to the tonic. In Jazz, that is of course not the case; songs like “Yesterdays”, to take but one example, involve circles of dominant seventh chords following each other like a snake swallowing its tail.  In visual art, there is an enormous cultural and historical component as well. Piet Mondrian can draw a jumble of boxes in a minimalist context and label the result “Broadway boogie-woogie”, neatly inviting  musical experience to enter also. Braque and Picasso, some decades beforehand, arrive at a system of depiction that considers the depicted object from a variety of different perspectives, thus violating classical canons; the result, cubism, can be considered an innovation in formal complexity. Likewise, Uccello’s rediscovery of the laws of perspective in early renaissance Italy adds another layer of formal complexity. Finally, in their choice of art, the public often chooses the less formally complex of two forms, when given a choice; the monodic melodies of Monteverdi gained prominence over Palestrina’s dense harmonies.

Fodor (1975) has vehemently argued for the existence of an innate, language-independent, language of thought. He insists that computation over representations is the essence of cognition, and that therefore there must be a language of thought in which representations are couched for cognition to occur. He exploits the fact that absolute innatism, like its cognate absolute idealism, is irrefutable; we must, he argues, possess the complete set of representations from birth. Essentially, the  argument boils down to the fact that, if concept Y is logically distinct from concept X, it cannot possibly have been learned as an extension of concept X; if it is not  logically so distinct, it essentially is concept X. It is therefore either a distinct innate concept, or an extension of an innate concept. To his opponents like Talmy who insist on compositional semantics with new meanings emergent from combinations of old such, Fodor offers ridicule; it is like saying that “New York” is simply an up-to-date version of the Yorkshire town. Talmy remains unconverted.

A coda to Fodor’s “language of thought” argument would insist on its manifestation in various symbolic modalities like pictorial representation and music as well as language itself. There is a lot of value in this argument. We might like to explore whether folk musics around the world contain equal levels of formal complexity, in the same way that languages do, to take one example. Therefore, we might conclude that the relative harmonic and melodic simplicity of Balkan music is counterbalanced by its rhythmic sophistication, with use of time signatures like 11:8 and 7:8 that are rare indeed in the “wild”. Conversely,  contemporary “Irish” music (much of which is Scottish) is rhythmically and harmonically simple, but extremely intricate melodically. In the absence of this research, we do have some critical evidence in musical scores for how music is processed in the real world by a sophisticated audience. For example, Beethoven’s Eroica symphony features the use of diminished chords repeatedly to change key in its first movement and moves imperceptibly (once the diminished innovation is accepted) away from its “home key” before returning.  In this case, the key changes can be regarded as shifts in context. Mozart, in his last G minor symphony, uses dissonance a great deal in a way that foreshadows many much later innovations; this is an elaboration in “code”.

Gombrich (1959) is explicitly a history of elaborations in code in the history of pictorial representation. Constable’s landscapes are, according to Gombrich, explicitly scientific. They are a Popperian attempt to set up refutable hypotheses about the constraints on visual experiences. We have spent some time of music, vision, and language at this level because we do not know what the neural code really is. If there is a unified such code, it must exist at a very high level of abstraction if implementations in media as disparate as dance, music, architecture, and so on are to be achieved. One hypothesis, featured in the contributions by Kime, Aizawa, and Hoffman to Ó Nualláin et al. (1997) is that the neural code is describable by mathematical formalisms akin to tensors and Lie groups. Specifically, these formalisms allow entities to transfer between systems of different dimensionalities while maintaining their quantitative identity. The principles of invariance we can possibly identify as Kantian quantities.

Therefore, at an explicitly symbolic level, we can say a great deal about code and context in the symbolic modalities of language, vision, and music. Of course, the analysis has been extended to other aspects of human endeavor like architecture and dance. Undoubtedly, code processing is contextual, and skilled artists play on this to provide us highly ambiguous structures for aesthetic affect. When it comes to specifying the code at a neural level, we know little.

Code and context in consciousness and intersubjectivity

With respect to this  final section, we know even less at the neural level about consciousness than we know about the production of symbolic expression. However, we have a plethora of data, available to the most unfunded  observer: introspective experience. We will conclude that, whereas Smith’s (op. Cit.) caveats about the necessity for the construction of subjects and objects is correct, the path to a resolution of this issue may feature the type of non-linear dynamics that he does not reference.

The argument is that our experience of self reflects a process of context-specification, as well as generating the illusion of agency, in the hope it will become reality. We narrate to ourselves continually, assigning to ourselves the authorship of acts that in fact happened automatically; we identify ourselves with respect to our nation, gender, football team, or choice in food from second to second. In actual fact, EEG work by Walter Freeman, inter alia,  indicates that, at a gross level, our gross brain state is changing much faster than that; perhaps 3 to 7 times a second (Freeman, 2003, 2004; Ó Nualláin (forthcoming, b)). The “conscious moment” at a perceptual level is on the order of 100 milliseconds; stimuli presented to each eye at a gap greater than this will not be subject to binocular fusion, and will be perceived as two different objects. However, the cortex can be destabilised by a saccadic eye-movement in 3 milliseconds. (Freeman, 2004). So we are getting a sample in consciousness of events that, whatever we imagine about them, are happening at a speed that is well beyond our conscious control by far most of the time. It makes sense to talk of the conscious “perceptual” moment as being in the order of a tenth of a second, and the “subjective” self-related moment as being perhaps an order of magnitude longer.

However, we have educational and training systems that use the accumulated experience  of humanity to facilitate our getting partial control of our mental processes in restricted contexts. The lavish funds required to establish and run universities, schools, and research institutes bears witness to just how distractible we are, and just how much support we need to keep up a train of thought. One estimate is that we consciously process a few hundred bits out of the hundreds of billions that impinge on us each second. The major task for the brain, then, is filtering; context-specification.

Therefore, our phenomenal experience, with its ever-changing self that yet claims permanent ownership of the whole organism, is mainly detritus from a process of context-specification that occurred automatically whole tenths of a second before. The self is fundamentally the part of this process accessible to the slow rhythms of consciousness. The pathology of the self mechanism is manifest in many forms of asomatognosia, where the patient will insist that the left side of her body does not belong to her, or will with equal determination consistently claim that she has three hands.

Now for code. Amartya Sen has recently stressed how we are all multiple; just as his native India, he stresses, is both Hindu and Muslim, so are we all different identities at different moments. Indeed, to continue, these identifications are themselves a code, a snapshot of the Other that allows us compress much information. They function at a level above that of language and other symbol systems. They become more elaborate, as when the 19^th century notion of the nation-state compiled feelings of place and  race into one, highly morally ambiguous entity. At their best, they allow a shorthand for dealing with others, and indeed with ourselves.

To summarise up to this point, then, at the phenomenal level, as at the organic molecular level and levels in between, there are  clear processes corresponding to context and code. Perhaps we shall eventually learn to ontologise the world such that our identifications, and the physiological processes on which they supervene, seem clearly to reflect the structure of both the objective and intersubjective world. With this ontology complete, we can identify whatever remains outside its grasp as our authentic and true selves, inviolable by neural contingency.

It may not be clear that there is actually a problem to be solved with respect to the code used in communication between people. Surely the existence and proper use of language is sufficient? Unfortunately, as exemplified in autism, this is not the case. Williams (1992) is an at times harrowing account of the transition from autism to the real social world. It is all the more powerful as its author was at all times verbally fluent:

“My progress at school was not too bad. I loved letters and learned them quickly. Fascinated by the way they fitted together into words, I learned those, too. My reading was very good, but I had merely found a more socially acceptable way of listening to the sound of my own voice. Though I could read a story without difficulty, it was always the pictures from which I understood the content” (ibid., P. 25)

Freeman (2004) anticipates this, and argues that we effectively need a new type of code to understand intersubjective communication as mere symbols are not enough. Meaning is the result of synchrony at a neural level between two individuals, and need not necessarily refer to anything in the “outside” world. Even with a full semantic analysis of each sentence, we have not necessarily achieved meaning. He exploits the work of  Barham (1996) who argues that biological systems, like the brain, are often kept at far from equilibrium states and need high energy oscillators in the environment to stabilise them.  Freeman argues that the neural part of this story has been confirmed with EEG work by himself and others.

Therefore, the “code” for social life is at a higher level than mere symbolic expression. As a consequence, the way we mediate our experience to ourselves, which in general is an introjection of the tropes of social life into phenomenal space, is going to exploit this code. At first analysis, the code involves coherent “selves”, as described above, which yet can change from second to second in phenomenal experience; dialogue with others stabilises them. Obviously, much further work of the type that Freeman and his colleagues have done is necessary; however, the case for existence of a meta-level verbal conscious code, exemplified by the case of Williams (1992), is one that has many strengths.

Conclusion

Therefore , we can conclude that the duopoly of code and context re-create themselves at each level we have considered in this paper. To ignore context is to risk wasting further billions on doomed extensions of the HGP, of simplistic natural language processing projects, and of programs for curing autism that fail to reflect the subtlety of the disorder in many cases. It is also to risk the generation of a new type of cognitive science, as remote from the reality of the grace and grit of real human existence as its intellectual forebears.

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