Not being a mathematician nor being inclined towards any academic or philosophical approach, in my experience, I think McGilchrist is on the best course for understanding how we function.
We cannot get away from this duality, as it’s stated, not just because of having Left and Right brain hemispheres, but there are other factors activating or imprinting on those parts of the brain.
There is a reason for all the binary patterns we see throughout human existence. Especially Politics!
Please, let me know your thoughts on how I’ve explained it in this video.
Thank you Curt for inspiring me to get out of the shadows and put myself out there!
I think there’s great wisdom in what you’re saying — even enough to unseat Dennett. See, he thinks that he’s addressing the true puzzles, but he’s actually missing them completely. That’s because they’re found in the debates that he considers hopeless — in the questions we don’t know how to answer. To us, for example, it seems that concepts both must, and can’t, have coherent definitions. And the puzzle is why both perspectives, though contradictory, seem right. And the solution to that antinomy, and perhaps to all others, may lie in the distinction you’re drawing between monolithic and manifold modes of attention.
Checklists are cool. They save lives. Not sure if Gawande mentions it, but the airline industry is the classic case. So many lives saved. There's a cognitive bias of, "Why are we dong this routine stuff?" To which you should slap whoever says that for being a cretin.
When we can automate things (appropriately) we are not losing expertise, nor employment . We are gaining freedom to do far more complicated and awesome things. Automation is a productivity gain story, not an uemployment story. See,
Hey Curt, interesting read! These ideas sound a bit like some of those about duality in eastern Buddhist philosophy. I know you interviewed him before, but have you read the short book written in part by Graham Priest named "what can't be said"?
you should read into Laruelle. your use of 'God' seems to have some parallel with his use of 'the Real'/'the One'.
"*Real* critique is a type of thinking that, without denying Difference, is content to deny what there is in it of restraint, limit or non-autonomy, its lack of the One and its hallucination with respect to the One which it believes itself to have the power to determine."
What courage you have to explore all the madness in the world! There has to be a common thread, a common language we can all latch on to. Science tells us to focus on the evidence. Let evidence tie the disparate threads from all disciplines into a coherent whole.
Every living organism on earth has the same ratio of Carbon to Nitrogen to Phosphorus in their composition (100C : 10N : 1P). Organic chemistry is different because Carbon is different. Carbon carries an electrostatic charge. A physical property that is unique to that element and caused by a special nuclear configuration. The nuclear configuration of Carbon can be better defined using memory units and geometry. The memory units themselves can be further defined.
Our common scientific language begins here with the best possible description of the fundamental unit of memory.
Yeah I think it’s a good idea to rethink this idea that the two halves of the brains performing radically different roles, when what we see there is brain dominance and the dominance aspects change the nature of what the supporting hemisphere does possibly. We see some evidence of this in largest organisations, like in governments, where you have central decision-making factions and then supporting passive groups of people that provide a more distributed network of inputs. In theory.
I think also the other dimension, in understanding the mind in relation to mathematical structures must also somehow correlate with the experience that one might find one self in during lucid dreaming for instance, or other experiences that are not of the material world perceptive (a function that the brain seems to have evolved to) to serve our biology.
In these scenarios you can find consistencies to suggest that perceptions such as the visual field, sounds, texture, smells and taste seem to present themselves in distinct ways and there may even be an absence of these things along with emotion. Thought, states of mind and self also emerge in a very consistent way, alongside types of thinking and ‘physical’ presence, clarity of mind - destinct from the vividness.
It’s almost as if there are these two ‘halves’ again.
Pleasantly surprised also that you suggest an arts background in your thinking. These questions are something I felt, as somebody studied in the art, but felt the arts had simply abandoned this pursuit, so guess we have to pick it up in our own way.
this is mostly reifying linguistic behavior. we make several utterances, why infer that any particular utterance or memeplex refers to some 'real pattern'—as dennett would call some intersubjectively established pattern—any relation among data (ladyman et al.'s construal for ontic structural realism in the book every thing must go)?
well, real patterns are those relations among data that our best collective explanations establish via empirical inquiry. there's such a real pattern as 'electron'. there's no such real pattern as 'free will'.
i think dennett was great on many points and metaphilosophy, but he was also occasionally hubristic, underwhelming and obnoxious, like with his construal of free will. there's no science of free will, because we can't establish reliably predictive and counterfactual-licensing patterns in data that are about the alleged informational content of 'free will' utterances and relevant social phenomena, because it's a historically contingent, disunified clusterfuck of associations, theology, rationalisations, and vibes-based linguistic trickery that bewitches people, precisely because it's a memeplex—a replicator information structure that's truth-insensitive.
iain is a tad too onanistic and obnoxious for my taste, though i liked part 1 of his latest work. the signal:noise ratio is insanely skewed towards noise in part 2 via logorrheaic riffing, vibes-based poor philosophy, pseudo-profound bullshit and just a tsunami of underanalysed references and vague gestures to his selection of intellectuals in part 2.
...i wonder why iain et al. who riff endlessly and write 'tomes' and do super ultra hyper giga mega yotta D E E P complexity appreciating, open inquiry, aren't quietists? they seem to return to notions of ineffability, linguistically ungraspable Nature of Reality, Logos, all kinds of nifty Capital Letter'd Bombastic Stuff, referencing rapturous, cathartic, peak, flow, ecstatic etc. extreme experiences, suggesting that the 'something more, something different' is REALLY REAL, but it's just! totally elusive via all these vulgar methods, like trying to access it via merely talking. well, how do they know that what they're alleging to exist really has such elusive but totally Real properties? are they managing after all to EFF the ineffable? what are they talking about? no doubt certain experiences feel WOW mindblowing, bizarre, magical, so DIFFERENT than any other, so salient and meaning-laden. but... so what? why would we infer that via such experiences you're accessing the alleged 'something more, something different'?? perhaps iain mcgilchrist et al. are... bullshit artists? high on their own supply?
So then our biology permits us to be both happy and unhappy at the same time? This reminds me of two verses:
1 Thes. 1:6 you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit
2 Cor. 6:10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
Curt, you conclusions about fields of inquiry like biology and philosophy of mind are somewhat valid, I'd almost agree there with the dummy ultramaterialist Dennett. (The "opposite" is contextual, for a chair it could be just anything 'not a chair'. Then you can argue about the two sets so partitioned and the fuzzy membership ones. So as Dennett says that's a bit of a chump move. Just sit on the chair or not for heavens sake!)
But two problems arise where clear definitions matter a lot, and it is stupid to ignore them. One is mathematics. Definitions are everything, even if one is not as extreme as Grothendieck in pursuing them. The mistake philosophers make is thinking they are saying something about the platonic realm. They may well be (I am a platonist) — but only when their definition is platonic, so harbours no paradox or inconsistency. What we "do" as mathematicians may or may not be platonic, we hope it is, but how can we be sure?
The second is The Divine. You can use the word "God" as you please, but there is one way to use the word that is better than others, and that is to use a nonconstructive definition. Presuming only mild assumptions about metaphysical (beyond time) causality then The Absolute could be defined as the unique universal uncaused cause of all things. It is a logical concept, not a spiritual concept. Uniqueness is not hard to prove. Although it tells us nothing much about God, it is nevertheless extraordinarily useful in discourse about the spiritual! (At least I find so.) One does not ever pretend to know what God is, but one can be almost certain God exists. This definition is nondenominational enough to accommodate all valid faiths.
The residual faith is however important. There are all sorts of claims floating around by contemporary gurus. I do not give any of them much credence, the gurus do not know sh*t. If their weltanschauung hits some eternal Truth then good for them. But how on earth would they ever know? There is only one type of Prophet worth trusting, and that would be a manifestation of God. But that is such a high bar (or proof/validity) you cannot find such beings down at the local grocery store. Perhaps none have ever existed? Ah, but wait... maybe at certain moments in our cosmos they have appeared. That's where faith comes in. To demand tests of claims of prophethood with science is a bit abominable, it's like asking your Mother to rebirth you from her womb "just to make sure". Some things you just need to have faith in.
Not being a mathematician nor being inclined towards any academic or philosophical approach, in my experience, I think McGilchrist is on the best course for understanding how we function.
We cannot get away from this duality, as it’s stated, not just because of having Left and Right brain hemispheres, but there are other factors activating or imprinting on those parts of the brain.
There is a reason for all the binary patterns we see throughout human existence. Especially Politics!
Please, let me know your thoughts on how I’ve explained it in this video.
Thank you Curt for inspiring me to get out of the shadows and put myself out there!
https://rumble.com/v5plotb-the-psychology-of-politics.html
Oh wow! Another upcoming interview with Iain McGilchrist! I can't wait!
I think there’s great wisdom in what you’re saying — even enough to unseat Dennett. See, he thinks that he’s addressing the true puzzles, but he’s actually missing them completely. That’s because they’re found in the debates that he considers hopeless — in the questions we don’t know how to answer. To us, for example, it seems that concepts both must, and can’t, have coherent definitions. And the puzzle is why both perspectives, though contradictory, seem right. And the solution to that antinomy, and perhaps to all others, may lie in the distinction you’re drawing between monolithic and manifold modes of attention.
Checklists are cool. They save lives. Not sure if Gawande mentions it, but the airline industry is the classic case. So many lives saved. There's a cognitive bias of, "Why are we dong this routine stuff?" To which you should slap whoever says that for being a cretin.
When we can automate things (appropriately) we are not losing expertise, nor employment . We are gaining freedom to do far more complicated and awesome things. Automation is a productivity gain story, not an uemployment story. See,
https://smithwillsuffice.github.io/ohanga-pai/blog/28_justiceandknowing/
https://smithwillsuffice.github.io/ohanga-pai/blog/73_m_again_but_aged_well/
Man, may Allah bless you! This was such beautiful writing that it made me tear up at some point. Such amazing connections were drawn, thank you!
Too much Gods reduce clarity, in my opinion.
And - the only real god is Zeus.
How can we bring the manifold brain back into political conversation? What kind of education tweaking is needed for future generations?
Hey Curt, interesting read! These ideas sound a bit like some of those about duality in eastern Buddhist philosophy. I know you interviewed him before, but have you read the short book written in part by Graham Priest named "what can't be said"?
you should read into Laruelle. your use of 'God' seems to have some parallel with his use of 'the Real'/'the One'.
"*Real* critique is a type of thinking that, without denying Difference, is content to deny what there is in it of restraint, limit or non-autonomy, its lack of the One and its hallucination with respect to the One which it believes itself to have the power to determine."
What courage you have to explore all the madness in the world! There has to be a common thread, a common language we can all latch on to. Science tells us to focus on the evidence. Let evidence tie the disparate threads from all disciplines into a coherent whole.
Every living organism on earth has the same ratio of Carbon to Nitrogen to Phosphorus in their composition (100C : 10N : 1P). Organic chemistry is different because Carbon is different. Carbon carries an electrostatic charge. A physical property that is unique to that element and caused by a special nuclear configuration. The nuclear configuration of Carbon can be better defined using memory units and geometry. The memory units themselves can be further defined.
Our common scientific language begins here with the best possible description of the fundamental unit of memory.
GL
Yeah I think it’s a good idea to rethink this idea that the two halves of the brains performing radically different roles, when what we see there is brain dominance and the dominance aspects change the nature of what the supporting hemisphere does possibly. We see some evidence of this in largest organisations, like in governments, where you have central decision-making factions and then supporting passive groups of people that provide a more distributed network of inputs. In theory.
I think also the other dimension, in understanding the mind in relation to mathematical structures must also somehow correlate with the experience that one might find one self in during lucid dreaming for instance, or other experiences that are not of the material world perceptive (a function that the brain seems to have evolved to) to serve our biology.
In these scenarios you can find consistencies to suggest that perceptions such as the visual field, sounds, texture, smells and taste seem to present themselves in distinct ways and there may even be an absence of these things along with emotion. Thought, states of mind and self also emerge in a very consistent way, alongside types of thinking and ‘physical’ presence, clarity of mind - destinct from the vividness.
It’s almost as if there are these two ‘halves’ again.
Pleasantly surprised also that you suggest an arts background in your thinking. These questions are something I felt, as somebody studied in the art, but felt the arts had simply abandoned this pursuit, so guess we have to pick it up in our own way.
Take care, and good luck!
this is mostly reifying linguistic behavior. we make several utterances, why infer that any particular utterance or memeplex refers to some 'real pattern'—as dennett would call some intersubjectively established pattern—any relation among data (ladyman et al.'s construal for ontic structural realism in the book every thing must go)?
well, real patterns are those relations among data that our best collective explanations establish via empirical inquiry. there's such a real pattern as 'electron'. there's no such real pattern as 'free will'.
i think dennett was great on many points and metaphilosophy, but he was also occasionally hubristic, underwhelming and obnoxious, like with his construal of free will. there's no science of free will, because we can't establish reliably predictive and counterfactual-licensing patterns in data that are about the alleged informational content of 'free will' utterances and relevant social phenomena, because it's a historically contingent, disunified clusterfuck of associations, theology, rationalisations, and vibes-based linguistic trickery that bewitches people, precisely because it's a memeplex—a replicator information structure that's truth-insensitive.
iain is a tad too onanistic and obnoxious for my taste, though i liked part 1 of his latest work. the signal:noise ratio is insanely skewed towards noise in part 2 via logorrheaic riffing, vibes-based poor philosophy, pseudo-profound bullshit and just a tsunami of underanalysed references and vague gestures to his selection of intellectuals in part 2.
...i wonder why iain et al. who riff endlessly and write 'tomes' and do super ultra hyper giga mega yotta D E E P complexity appreciating, open inquiry, aren't quietists? they seem to return to notions of ineffability, linguistically ungraspable Nature of Reality, Logos, all kinds of nifty Capital Letter'd Bombastic Stuff, referencing rapturous, cathartic, peak, flow, ecstatic etc. extreme experiences, suggesting that the 'something more, something different' is REALLY REAL, but it's just! totally elusive via all these vulgar methods, like trying to access it via merely talking. well, how do they know that what they're alleging to exist really has such elusive but totally Real properties? are they managing after all to EFF the ineffable? what are they talking about? no doubt certain experiences feel WOW mindblowing, bizarre, magical, so DIFFERENT than any other, so salient and meaning-laden. but... so what? why would we infer that via such experiences you're accessing the alleged 'something more, something different'?? perhaps iain mcgilchrist et al. are... bullshit artists? high on their own supply?
So then our biology permits us to be both happy and unhappy at the same time? This reminds me of two verses:
1 Thes. 1:6 you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit
2 Cor. 6:10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
I wrote about this duality here:
A deeper understanding of why believers suffer:
https://joshuad31.com/a-deeper-understanding-of-why-believers-suffer-27fe228dff98
Curt, you conclusions about fields of inquiry like biology and philosophy of mind are somewhat valid, I'd almost agree there with the dummy ultramaterialist Dennett. (The "opposite" is contextual, for a chair it could be just anything 'not a chair'. Then you can argue about the two sets so partitioned and the fuzzy membership ones. So as Dennett says that's a bit of a chump move. Just sit on the chair or not for heavens sake!)
But two problems arise where clear definitions matter a lot, and it is stupid to ignore them. One is mathematics. Definitions are everything, even if one is not as extreme as Grothendieck in pursuing them. The mistake philosophers make is thinking they are saying something about the platonic realm. They may well be (I am a platonist) — but only when their definition is platonic, so harbours no paradox or inconsistency. What we "do" as mathematicians may or may not be platonic, we hope it is, but how can we be sure?
The second is The Divine. You can use the word "God" as you please, but there is one way to use the word that is better than others, and that is to use a nonconstructive definition. Presuming only mild assumptions about metaphysical (beyond time) causality then The Absolute could be defined as the unique universal uncaused cause of all things. It is a logical concept, not a spiritual concept. Uniqueness is not hard to prove. Although it tells us nothing much about God, it is nevertheless extraordinarily useful in discourse about the spiritual! (At least I find so.) One does not ever pretend to know what God is, but one can be almost certain God exists. This definition is nondenominational enough to accommodate all valid faiths.
The residual faith is however important. There are all sorts of claims floating around by contemporary gurus. I do not give any of them much credence, the gurus do not know sh*t. If their weltanschauung hits some eternal Truth then good for them. But how on earth would they ever know? There is only one type of Prophet worth trusting, and that would be a manifestation of God. But that is such a high bar (or proof/validity) you cannot find such beings down at the local grocery store. Perhaps none have ever existed? Ah, but wait... maybe at certain moments in our cosmos they have appeared. That's where faith comes in. To demand tests of claims of prophethood with science is a bit abominable, it's like asking your Mother to rebirth you from her womb "just to make sure". Some things you just need to have faith in.