Katherine,
I like the way you put it --- the casting off --- to
remain consistent. I thought of the casting off part
more as the detachment of ANYTHING that could distract
it from arriving at a solution. That it was always
getting one step closer to the answer! If detaching
from the body was necessary to save the mind from
losing the answer to the riddle then so be it!
So I gues it wasn't such a crazy idea after all.
whew!
/David
--- Katherine Loo <in_limbo@yorku.ca> wrote:
> 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
>
=== message truncated ===
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This message was sent to the math3500 discussion list by David McKay <ntkernl@yahoo.ca> .
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