I think bringing up the importance of Autotomy is interesting, and something I
did not think about before.
I actually looked up the meaning of autotomy, and for those who didn't know it
is basically "The spontaneous casting off of a body part" (www.dictionary.com)
How does this relate to The Riddle? Well, whatever the Riddle was, it led
those who encountered it to spontaneously cast off their bodies, focusing all
their energies to their mind. So that the paradox the Riddle posed to those
people's minds led them to a line of questioning that eventually resulted in
them understanding (the Aha! moment) the Riddle. The moment they understood
it, they must have jumped out of their own systems because they could only see
the truth from outside.
How does this relate to Lucas? I think this has to do with Lucas' argument of
consistency. He says that humans are consistent and can choose to be
consistent because they can "resolve not to tolerate inconsistencies in our
thinking and speaking, and to eliminate them, if ever they should appear, by
withdrawing and cancelling one limb of contradiction." My interpretation of
this is that if inconsistencies occur in the human mind, humans will hack them
off in order to remain consistent.
The coma-sufferers could have seen that their current level of consciousness
was inconsistent, and therefore decided to ditch it for a higher level that
will bring them back to believing they were consistent. They were jumping
outside of the system.
Of course this begs the question of how many more systems there could be for
them to jump out of and into. On a morbid note, we could say that this would
never be answered since these people in the comas will surely die soon.
=Katherine Loo=
Quoting David McKay <ntkernl@yahoo.ca>:
> After weeks of reading and analysis on the Lucas piece
> and "the riddle" I believe I have the answer.
>
> What puzzled me for the longest time was how a brain
> could become jammed. Especially after reading about
> how we are able to think at many levels and trump
> machines because of it. After much debate with myself
> over the merits of different scenarios and the
> relevance to Lucas' analysis I believe the brain is in
> fact looking for answers.
>
> Several people have explained very admirably how
> Lucas' analysis relates to Godel's Incompleteness
> Theorem. I believe this is very important to gain an
> understanding of the riddle and 'look' for possible
> answers to why this is happening.
>
> Here are some (of many) of the things that REALLY
> puzzled me about the Cherniak story that I had to work
> through to come up with my answer.
>
> 1. Why did the new programmer 'fail' to get enticed
> by the riddle?
> 2. Why did the topologist suffer identical
> consequences in a totally unrelated research project
> and field?
> 3. Did Dizzard suffer the same consequences of the
> riddle 10 years prior? (credit to the other person in
> this forum who initially proposed this first!)
>
> 4. What does this have to do with Self Reference?
>
>
> I re-read the Riddle (probably 6 times) and read other
> information and felt compelled to answer Question 4
> before moving on to formulate my answer to the riddle.
>
> After some creative brainstorming I still was
> thinking, Loop, infinite iterations, recursive
> questions for unkowns and tried to normalize my answer
> to fit seemed like all the other explanations I found
> while reading all the latest emails each day. I
> agreed with almaost all of them.
>
> Then, by accident, in my sub-concsious I thought of
> it while listening to music in the car. Similar to
> hearing special effects, like an echo. Well the idea
> was what if the rationalistic side of your brain could
> gain a conscience. The second order is attained.
> Previously mentionned by J.D Rueda for his analogy
> when a computer crashes. This is very similar.
> Except this is not a mechanistic process, this is the
> Brain gaining another 'level' of consciousness.
>
> This satisfied my belief that a self referential
> paradox was at play when these people articulated
> thoughts in their head how to compare, analyze,
> differentiate and ANSWER their questions.
>
> I encourage you to look up the definition of Autotomy.
> If you have read this far. You deserve to find out
> but I will leave it to your own curiosity.
>
> Answers to the questions I had above...
> 1. Because the programmer failed to understand the
> information on the screen. He was new after all. I
> have a lot of other Questions regarding this person in
> the story. I am saving those for my essay!
> 2. Topologists do it by their very nature. I don't
> really understand what they really do anyways. This
> was accidental. My apologies to all the Topologists
> out there.
> 3. I believe yes. Dizzard must have been able to
> break out of the paradox in his brain and return to
> investigate and document his findings on the Autotomy
> of the brain.
> 4. The brain has obtained another dimension of
> conscience and might be asking itself a question.
> Similar to the 2nd order and thinking outside the box.
> Once you are able to ascend to that level and
> dimension of consciousness, parts of the brain appear
> to be jammed as it debates several other new
> tantalizing ideas in a whole new dimension.
>
> Other questions like, did the brain disconnect from
> the body or the body from the brain, to protect
> against loss of the other party etc. These are
> obvious philosophical questions. Can make arguments
> for both ==> and then Inconsistancies.
>
> Let me know if this is just a bunch of nonsense or if
> it seems like a sound argument.
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
> ___________________________________________________________________
> This message was sent to the math3500 discussion list by David McKay
> <ntkernl@yahoo.ca> .
>
___________________________________________________________________
This message was sent to the math3500 discussion list by Katherine Loo <in_limbo@yorku.ca> .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Dec 08 2004 - 19:25:50 EST