Brief Glossary:

Combinatorial complexity: if one attempts to analyze combinations of N rules and M situations, for instance, then the number of possible combinations is N to the power of M (N^M=exp(N ln M)). For medium-sized values of N and M this value is an extremely large number and it grows rapidly as M and N are increased. In other words, if one attempts to analyze situations using a computer one finds the computing power needed for any problems that are close to reality is enormous.

Middle-excluded-logic: another term for Aristotelian logic. That is, our classical system of logic that allows only two possible values in truth tables, true and false. This necessitates crisp definitions for terms, propositions and sets. Initially developed by Aristotle and expanded over the centuries from Boole to Russell. See Susan Haack's "Deviant Logic Fuzzy Logic" for her thoughts on why "truth does not come in degrees".

Framework: I have used the term rather freely and I apologize for any confusion that may cause. In a sense it is equivalent to reason and rationality; in other words, our conscious mental representations take place within this realm. As I expanded upon in my dialogue, this implies it is a fuzzy framework since it is actually composed of many other components besides reason. A framework implies both thinking and understanding.

Fuzzy Logic: developed by Lotfi Zadeh. Utilizes fuzzy definitions with an infinite number of truth values between 0 and 1.

Entry:

"Nothing can be viewed as a good reason for failing to use reason according to one’s best standards of rationality." [1]

"The underlying paradox of irrationality, from which no theory can entirely escape, is this: if we explain it too well, we turn it into a concealed form of rationality; while if we assign incoherence too glibly, we merely compromise our ability to diagnose irrationality by withdrawing the background rationality needed to justify any diagnosis at all." [2]

What is the nature of "reasoning"? What is the nature of "knowing"?

In the early days of AI, also known as cybernetics, (1968), Minsky proposed that cognition was based on the application of rules; that is, Minsky took Plato’s idea of a priori knowledge and extended it 2300 years later. Minsky proposed that an extensive base of a priori rules were used for the recognition and representation of knowledge.

Not only has rule-based AI never produced anything remotely similar to human cognition in the many years hence, Chaitin had this comment on some of the most "fundamental" rules ever developed by the human intellect:

"The same way that all it took for Turing to destroy Hilbert’s dream was the diagonal argument, you just write down this expression 0 Chaitin’s final comment is the simple fact that in the future, mathematics will become an empirical science similar to physics.

The final deathblow to rule-based AI is the work done by Perlovsky. He has shown that a priori rule-based methods are brittle and do not adapt. In fact, Perlovsky has demonstrated that purely adaptive systems (neural nets) also share a common defect with rule-based methods: combinatorial complexity for any problems of a real nature [4]. The state of our understanding of the nature of cognition becomes more interesting if one looks at the evolution of neurology. Early models of neurons led many to trumpet that the brain was, in reality, nothing more than large digital computer with neurons functioning much the same as the digital circuitry of a computer. Wilson has only just pulled this area into the next realm of debate by demonstrating that neurons are actually non-linear in behaviour [5]. In fact, systems of neurons are always on the verge of chaotic behaviour leading Wilson to speculate this non-deterministic nature may have some influence on creativity and free will.

Nowhere do we see a better glimpse of the nature of the brain than that given by Austin [6]. Not only are neurons themselves non-linear, but the structure and interaction of the parts of the brain is incredibly complex, non-linear and full of hidden, unconscious compartments. In fact, as Austin observes:

"So we have now cited at least two general categories of phenomena which people commonly experience: (1) ordinary consciousness, and (2) ordinary discrete alternate states of consciousness." [6]

which he then links to the fact that "...we do not always maintain the same, stable grasp on reality." [6].

In many experiments, particularly those of Gazzaniga and Libet, unconscious cognition obviously plays a large role in what we would term "normal" rationality. Gazzaniga observed irrational responses that led him to conclude that nonconscious activity had interacted with the conscious [7]. Libet’s work led him to conclude that "...cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act...can and usually does begin unconsciously" [7]. Work by Kupfumuller compares the conscious "bandwidth" of various activities from silent reading (3 bits/sec) to counting objects (45 bits/sec) with the available processing power of the brain which is estimated to be on the order of 1010 bits/sec [7]. Again, one must suspect that we would not possess this much capacity if it were not required to support the tiny amount of overhead reasoning.

Where does this leave rationality and reasoning? One needs to look back to Plato’s original allegory of the Cave (The Republic: Book VII) and the problem of representation versus reality posed in the story. 2300 years later and we are still going in circles trying to separate the two. In a way, the problem is not much different than that demonstrated by the evolution of physics.

Physics has always had a term called ‘entropy’, originally coined by Clausius to explain the existence of irreversible processes. Over time the term has held many ‘meanings’ but this has not changed the fact that the Second Law of Thermodynamics appears to be sound and that it would appear that everything should tend towards maximum entropy - chaos - and never the other direction. However, as one looks over work from Newton up to Einstein one notices that the universe, as depicted in their equations, does not appear to be concerned with time; Hawking has even gone so far as to state that time is an illusion.

It has been largely due to the work of Ilya Prigogine that physics has begun to include a direction of time and his work has indicated some very important philosophical ties between our physical theories and our philosophical views of the world. Does the universe run by deterministic laws? Prigogine notes

"For Epicurus, the problems of science, the intelligibility of nature, and human destiny could not be separated. What could be the meaning of human freedom in a deterministic world of atoms?" [8]

And so Prigogine has spent his life developing the field of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

It has primarily been Prigogine’s work in dissipative structures that has lead to the idea that out of chaos can arise organization. Prigogine concludes that

"Chance, or probability, is no longer a convenient way of accepting ignorance, but rather a part of a new, extended rationality." [8]

The extended rationality put forth by Prigogine has been applied to many fields now including biology and sociology but it has had a deeper effect: it is radically changing the very framework of our thinking. Prigogine has associated classic physics of dynamics to ‘being’ and his work on complex systems to ‘becoming’.

Maturana and Varela have used Prigogine’s ideas in addition to material from cybernetics to develop their theory of autopoiesis; basically the idea of the organization of the living such that living beings are self-producing. Their theories are similar to Prigogine’s in that they demand a fundamental change to the framework of rationality: "living is knowing and knowing is living" [9]. They embrace paradox by referring to individuals who are functionally embedded within their environment yet cannot be separated from it. Similarly, they note

"Again we must walk on the razor’s edge, eschewing the extremes of representationalism (objectivism) and solipsism (idealism)."[9]

This brings me to the proposition and its relationship to the framework of analysis. Ever since Plato’s allegory we have been debating the problem put forth in ‘the cave’ within the framework of Aristotle’s logic. The real question regards the validity of using middle-excluded-logic for this type of enterprise: may any of the terms such as "knowing", "being" and "reason" be defined crisply? In fact, may any part of everyday reality be defined crisply to allow it be analyzed within the Aristotelian logical framework?

Perlovsky concludes that the real block to progress in AI is its reliance on Aristotelian based logic; he proposes that Fuzzy Logic, as developed by Lotfi Zadeh, is the only possibility [4]. I would propose that the constrictive nature of Aristotelian based logic is at the root of many other problems we are currently experiencing in our analysis of our nature. For, as I have outlined above, cognition at a very basic level is not crisply defined at all and I would also add has defied all of our attempts at such. This does not point to a problem with rationality but with the framework we are using for analysis.

The non-linear nature of neurons and the complex physical behaviour of the brain would appear to be perfectly complemented by an infinitely-valued logic that does not require crisp separation of terms such as being, knowing, and cognition. Looking at the mechanisms of the sensory system one sees that once again, there cannot be crispness in any of our perceptions due to the complex interaction and feedback loops of brain to sense organs. Perfect examples of this interaction lie with ‘filling in’, the process by which the blind spot in the eye is removed from perception. This is but a tiny part of the constant level of information processing occurring in the brain on an unconscious level that directly affects conscious activity. Enormous areas of the brain including the pulvinar, medial dorsal, and lateral geniculate nucleus interact to bring forth sight, sense and salience [6].

"Approximate reasoning is an important application area of fuzzy set theory. It is essential for modeling human common-sense reasoning." [14]

Due to the many uncertainties in information, measurement as well as the sheer complexity of existence attempting to limit reasoning to an Aristotelian based formal system effectively reduces our cognitive capacity to that shown by the many failed AI systems. In other words, what are the ‘limits of reason’?

On a more fundamental level, much reasoning is actually abductive as opposed to deductive or inductive. That is, reasoning tends to follow from the concrete to the general; but, unlike induction, it is according to a general rule. This type of reasoning by analogy cannot be captured with the use of crisp sets yet we use it all the time.

It is the idea of cognition as representation of some independently existing world of ideas, due to the artificial crispness needed to fit the mental realm into the Aristotelian framework, that finally dissolves with the application of fuzzy logic. This becomes more obvious if one asks the question "Does representation need reality?" For, in fact, it does not [10]. It is interesting to note that Aristotle’s "forms" are best described in a fuzzy sense since his logic deals only in the final crisp concepts they generate.

Language is a good example of a process that is neither purely in the mental realm (symbols) nor purely in the physical realm (a priori coded in the neurons). Obviously we must have some type of a priori very fuzzy concept of language embedded within us that enables all humans to learn to speak; however, as evidenced by Chomsky’s failed attempts at universal grammar, it is definitely not coded into some purely symbolic format. If one looks at the development of semiotics one again begins to see the blurring between symbol and emotion leading to a fuzzy definition of meaning once again.

Human intellect combines both a priority, embedded within our structure, and adaptivity. Adaptive learning is based on a priori general rules that, in order to deal with the multitude of uncertainty in our existence, must be fuzzy. And, to avoid the combinatorial complexity noted by Perlovsky, internally we function using fuzzy logic reasoning. The age-old dialectic of matter and mind does not have an absolute truth value.

"Knowing is effective action, that is, operating effectively in the domain of existence of living things." [9]

Knowledge is brought forth by doing. Organization and structure then become key for an organism to bring forth the world; representation is purely individual and subjective. As much as we would like to artificially separate the symbols such as language and knowledge they are, paradoxically, entrenched into our individual structure as well as the entire web of life we interact with.

This is evident in Information Theory which has linked information to entropy; paradoxically they are linked by the concept of "forgetting" which relies on a process. In other words, it is through the act of translating into Aristotelian based logic that we suddenly force meaning to reside in a piece of "information" rather than the context from which it has been separated. This is similar to our concept of ‘now’ which may only be defined in a fuzzy sense as the division between the past and present.

Returning to the proposition, one must start to examine the fuzziness of many of the terms and the fact that the truth-value of any proposition depends upon the context of terms. For instance, you have questioned the truth of the statement ‘1+1=2’. I would propose that this statement does indeed have some truth value, but only in the purely mental realm; in other words, as you point out, this statement has only a small amount of truth value in the universe outside of the mental realm. And herein lies the true root of the problems you have noted.

We have managed to construct enormous quantities of propositions that are only valid within the sphere of purely mental representations. In other words, we have constructed a belief system based upon such things as Aristotelian logic, mathematics and quantum physics that only have validity within the purely imaginary mental landscape. Such constructions can have only very limited truth in the real world and to not acknowledge the fact of mapping the artificially crisp to the fuzzy as resulting in error is very foolish.

It is also not surprising why we have been going in circles for 2300 years when one realizes that the framework does not accommodate any of the concepts. One has only to examine the current debates in the area of the philosophy of mind put forth by people such as Searle [18], Chalmers [19] and the Churchland’s [20] to see the rather surprising conclusions one reaches when one’s initial premises are flawed. Whether it is the "fact" that we have no thoughts (Churchland’s), the idea we have no unconscious activity (Searle) or the really surprising conclusion of panpsychism (Chalmers) that one reads, the conclusion is still the same: change the premises!

Our sensory data is also obviously based upon the fuzziness of reality and any mental representations based upon it must be admittedly fuzzy. Again, the more crispness the internal representation contains the more it must therefore deviate from truth. And it is the complex interplay between the context of the representations and how crisply they are defined mentally that ultimately keeps us somewhere between the extreme dream of the AI researchers to the purely autopoietic organism. That is, we have the ability to range between the purely symbolic and hence non-real to something which knows by doing.

Bateson noted some of the problems associated with Aristotelian logic when he examined the concept of learning with regards to logical types [11] and their application to reality. He noted:

"...there are important differences between the world of logic and the world of phenomenon, and these differences must be allowed for whenever we base our arguments upon the partial but important analogy which exists between them." [11]

In fact, Bateson was one of the first researchers to note that a schizophrenic’s behaviour has aspects of the double-bind and that they appear to be falling victim to trying to follow middle-excluded logic!

The real danger is not realizing that knowledge may become similar to that of Plato’s ideal: something that is completely detached from the functional structure of the environment in which we live. Knowledge is ultimately contained in structure and no fully-mental representation will have any coherence or truth in the biosphere that we are part of. It is also unlikely that the mental representation has ultimately any value in the biosphere that composes each of us; perhaps as the toll of our mentally-induced stress-filled lifestyle increases we will come to realize this fundamental flaw.

Eastern traditions such as Zen and Taoism as well as many Native People’s beliefs have always emphasized a much different level of interaction of human to both internal and external environment than that constructed through our Aristotelian-based mental dialectics. The most fundamental have always focused on eliminating the "I" and it is time we (those embedded within Aristotelian tradition) acknowledge that our constructions may have some serious implications on our well-being. Austin ponders why we rarely experience insight-wisdom and concludes:

"The question answers itself. See what it contains. It holds "I", and "think". Why don’t our ordinary thought processes raise deeper insights? Because logical thoughts retrace pathways that are mostly conventional, if not predictable. And too many association loops of the I-Me-Mine are entangled in their circuitry. But if you let these self-referent connections drop off, a totally fresh synthesis can emerge." [6]

No better example of the fuzziness of life exists than the paradox death poses within the framework of Aristotelian logic. Guthrie [17] noted that there are four paradoxes associated with death:

1. Although death is an inevitable and universal event about which nothing can be done, it is at the same time an event we cannot relegate to the status of common, everyday occurrence.

2. While we know intellectually that we are going to die, experientially we have great difficulty in believing it.

3. Death is both a biological and spiritual event.

4. Although death is the terminus of life, it is not simply isolated at life’s end since its reality permeates the whole of our existence.

Western tradition has attempted to deny death through our many mental abstractions and the value of such enterprises must be questioned. There is no doubt that our artificial separation of the world into pure mental abstraction based upon middle-excluded logic leads to many types of behaviour that are not compatible with our structural environment.

Is there a final truth-value to your proposition? I would suggest that there may be possible avenues by which one may better come to a good approximation of such. Wilber [16] has, in my opinion, put forth the best attempt starting from our current framework. His ideas of holons simply needed a different framework than middle-excluded logic to be appreciated. Within the world there are many other excellent avenues but ultimately, based upon all of the preceding debate, we must admit that any such avenue will be an individual journey. That is, admitting to fuzziness must lead one to acknowledge that the internal subjective world will play a large role in refining the truth-value of any propositions.

It is your conclusions that are quite salient and important. Jantsch first came to similar conclusions by extending the work done by Prigogine, Maturana and Varela into the social arena [12]. This has now been expanded by LeDuc [13] and Capra [15] with the same conclusions: the planet cannot survive our gift of rationality without a fundamental shift of our framework. I highly agree with this conclusion.

Yuri Kuzyk December 28 2000

References:

[1] Davidson, Donald. 1985. "Deception and Division", in E. LePore and B.P. McLaughlin (eds) Actions and Events, Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson.

[2] Davidson, Donald. 1982. "Paradoxes of Irrationality"

[3] Chaitin, Gregory. 1998. "The Limits of Mathematics"

[4] Perlovsky, Leonid. 2001. "Neural Networks and Intellect"

[5] Wilson, Hugh. 1999. "Spikes decisions and actions"

[6] Austin, James. 1998. "Zen and the Brain"

[7] Norretranders, Tor. 1999. "The User Illusion"

[8] Prigogine, Ilya. 1996. "The End of Certainty: time, chaos and the new laws of nature"

[9] Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. 1987. "The Tree of Knowledge"

[10] Markus Peschl and Alexander Riegler. 1999. "Does Representation Need Reality", in Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences

[11] Bateson, Gregory. 1972. "Steps to an Ecology of Mind"

[12] Jantsch, Erich. 1980. "The Self-Organizing Universe"

[13] LeDuc, Laurent. 1995. "Knowledge and Sustainability: Can the Planet Survive Human Rationality?" in IEEE transactions on Knowledge and Sustainability.

[14] George Klir, Ute St. Clair and Bo Yuan. 1997. "Fuzzy Set Theory: foundations and applications."

[15] Capra, Fritjof. 1996. "The Web of Life"

[16] Wilber, Ken. 1996. "A Brief History of Everything"

[17] Pelletier, Kenneth. 1978. "Toward a Science of Consciousness"

[18] Searle, John. 1992. "The Rediscovery of the Mind"

[19] Chalmers, David. 1996. "The Conscious Mind"

[20] Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland. 1998. "On the Contrary"

Response:

From your statement of "underlying paradox of irrationality", we ask, is there such a thing as "irrationality"? We contend that all thoughts, with limited comparison of them, are rational because their basis is conscious meaning. So even through the comparison of thoughts, thoughts become less or more rational in relation to each other, while they themselves maintain their rationality. (Garvey, "The Critique of Reasonableness", work in progress)

Could it be that our inability to crisply define cognition at a basic level is not a problem with the framework we are using, but a limitation of rationality itself (i.e. our inability to get outside of our consciousness, so all we can know is our consciousness)?! To illustrate, we apparently can only view neurons, and know that we do, through our perception, so that all we end up viewing from intellect is our perception, or conscious representation, without actually viewing directly at neurons or what is outside of us. Therefore, it follows that we should not be able to crisply define neurons, or anything outside of our perception, because we cannot really know them.

Moreover, we do not see how another framework could overcome our perceptual limitation, other than to acknowledge it, thus make the limitation part of its framework.
In our view, by such an open-minded approach, in which fundamental ideas are not upheld for the sake of the ideas or individual(s), but for the ideas’ levels of comparative reasonableness, the framework would minimize the "constrictive" nature of frameworks like Aristotelian based logic. In other words, all conscious frameworks apparently have an element of constrictiveness, due to the need of frameworks to have fundamental ideas. Though the more open-minded an individual is, the less constrictive will likely be fundamental ideas.)

We agree wholeheartedly with your profound point about meaning being "forced" to reside in a piece of information (Aristotelian based logic), rather than simply viewing the meaning in its comparative form.

Though we have the following questions pertaining to sensory:
How do you know that sensory data is based upon the fuzziness of [unconscious] reality? How do you know that unconscious reality is fuzzy? More important, how do you know that our sensory is comprised of data, instead of our sensory being converted into data or mental representation by our thought process?

147. Entry:

The proposition, "we cannot know who we are and be who we are at the same time" means that we can not know who we are. So what we know itself is EMPTY of who we are. It follows from this conclusion that by existing from our minds and the material extensions we invent from them, we are making our means to exist, and our existence itself, empty of who we are.

Answer:

(I) This proposition has two parts :

1) we cannot know who we are. (this refers to our knowing)

2) and be who we are at the same time. (this refers to our being "who we are " irrespective of our knowledge about ourselves.)

(II) Now let me put the above in a positive manner:

1) can we know who we are?

2) can we be who we are irrespective of our being aware of "who we are"?

(III) Let us start with the second (II-2):

Can we "be who we are" without knowing or rather while being ignorant about ourselves?

Let us take an example of a human child.

a) It can be male or female.

b) At birth the child is ignorant about its own sex or race.

c) Being ignorant does not stop the child from being a human and male or female which ever the case may be.

d) The knowledge follows later.

This proves that "we can be who we are" irrespective of knowledge about ourselves; because the being comes first and then the knowledge of our being.

(IV) Now the main proposition: "can we know who we are?"

a) It is proved above that the beings come first and then the knowledge, this shows "we are" or in other words "we exist"

b) Use of the word "we" denotes the presence of "I" and "you" and "many others" who exist.

c) If I can know "who am I?" obviously it is possible for you and others to know about themselves.

d) Thus the main question is it possible to know "who am I?"

(V) Let us start the inquiry and find the answer:

"Who am I?"

The first thought comes to my mind is pointing towards my body.

"Am I a body?"

I am not ready to accept the answer "yes" because there are many incidences when I am not aware of my being present in body.

For example,

Once I was talking to my friend and suddenly when my friend was narrating an incidence, my thought carried me away to a place where my son lives.

Obviously, I did not hear a word which my friend was talking about and when my friend asks for my opinion about the same, I apologize and say "sorry, "I" was carried away by my thought when you were telling me. Can you repeat again?

What does that mean? "I" whom I refer as the body is present in front of my friend, the words fall upon my ears when my friend speaks, I do not have hearing problems but still I did not register a word! Because at that time as per my explanation my thought carried me away! This shows that though "I" reside in this body, my thoughts were successful in separating me from my body!

This means there are two things: self and the body. My body does not function if I am separated from it. At the same time I know "I am not the body."

Then again "who am I?" "What is my relation to the body and thought?

1) Body is the physical entity in which "I" reside and when the body dies "I" leave the body.

2) Thoughts evolve in the mind. The mind is a subtle part related to brain which itself is a part of physical body. Thus thoughts are also subtle and can not be seen by physical eyes.

3) Thoughts were successful in carrying away myself shows that "I" comprises of a subtle entity and there are means of separating it from the body for a while and returning back.

4) In spiritual science this subtle entity is called as "soul" or "spirit".

5) Thus "I" am a "soul" and not the body.

6) Till now, "I" as long as connected with the outer physical world always think of myself as a body as I use this body to perform the necessary actions and also from the birth of this body "I" am aware of my individual existence in this world.

7) But from above argument I realize that I am not the body or mind or intellect but "I am a soul". Similarly every individual is a "soul".

8) This is not sufficient. Now the question arises as to from where does this "soul" come?

9) Science tells me that a living cell called "sperm" from male individual emerges to unite a female living ovum and then multiply to form a fully grown human body to be delivered as a child.

10) Thus "soul" is a "life force" present in the body.

(VI) From the above inquiry we conclude that "I am a soul" and every individual is a "soul". Now the question is are this souls same or different?

For this let us take example of various electrical equipment:

An electrical fan, a tube light, a radio or a television works when an electrical current pass through them. All these equipment have a different body and different tasks to perform. When electricity fails or the switch is off they are dead! Just the way our body is dead if the life force is not present.

Also, the work of individual equipment depends upon the wavelength of the current used. Similarly, the life force remains the same but the wavelength (intensity) may vary with the different bodies of different species of living beings.

Now just the way either one snaps the current or the equipment fails to hold the current it goes dead. Similarly, either we stop the life force or our body becomes unable to receive and the body dies. The current still exists.

Thus irrespective of our knowing "who we are" we remain who we are(the souls). But with the inquiry it is possible to know who we are. In India many yogies and saints spend their lifetime for this knowledge. The books of wise men of India "upanishad" gives us the methods. The wise man from Arunachala Hills in southern part of India Ramana Maharshee when interviewed by Paul Brunton , the philosopher and spiritual seeker has written about the same in his book titled "A Search in Secret India" first published in 1934.

The souls though look different are connected with each other with current of breath we take in and take out. Thus together form the "supreme soul" called "Brahman" in Sanskrit language. This is the true identity of us but unfortunately we identify ourselves with the body and the all problem comes."

Mrs. Bharathi Shanker December 31 2000

Response:

What is it about "inquiry", including the length of inquiry (i.e. "lifetimes") that allows us to know who we are?

Do you know who we are from the "knowledge" of any Indian yogies or saints?

Other issues:

Just because your thoughts may distract you from the situation at hand, as your example about you and your friend shows, does not necessarily mean that your thoughts are separate from your body. Your thoughts may be part of your body even though they can distract you from what is occurring around you. Or as you say in Statement 2, "the mind is a subtle part related to brain which itself is a part of physical body", which means that the mind is part of the brain, and thereby physical body, in some way. (i.e. there is no mind or thoughts without brain.)

Regarding Statement 9, it is uncertain that "life-force" originates in "sperm" and "ovum", because the origin of sperm and ovum is uncertain.

We agree that if we stop the life-force or our body becomes unable to receive, the body dies. Yet we do not know how you can defend the position that the "current" or "life-force" does not stop when the body ceases, when you apparently can only know whoever we are from conscious labels like "life-force" and "current"? For this reason, we think your correlation of the findings from observation of electrical equipment to who we are, by equating electrical current to life-force, does not necessarily stand.
You cited objects like fans, tube lights, and radios which work when a electrical currents runs through them, but do you know a living being that exists from a electrical current running through it?!

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