[MD] Mystics and Brains

[Case]

[Platt]
I would say that if perfect mathematical constructions can lie outside of
natural processes, so can consciousness. But, I could be wrong.

[Case]
Mathematics is a vocabulary and syntax for describing precisely all sorts of
relationships. We assume that these relationships could be understood and
expressed by any sufficiently complex entity. But in the form that we
understand and express them they are human ideas. My question all along here
has been how do ideas and consciousness exist outside of the physical
processes that sustain them? How can they be understood as other than the
product of those processes?

[Platt]
Except there are a thousand and one variables in the event including the
exact position of the ball when kicked, it's angle, the force of the foot
meeting the ball, the wind direction and speed, the effect of crowd noise,
the position of players, etc., etc. Science can't deal very well with such
hypercomplex events, which is why the social sciences are so dismal.

[Case]
Complexity theory is exactly the study of this sort of thing. How is it that
simple systems can produce complex results and complex systems can be
explained in simple terms. Pirsig said of the MoQ: "It would be almost like
a mathematical definition of randomness."  He more or less dismisses this
but I would say he nailed it squarely right there. 

[Platt]
You got me about aesthetic philosophical theory. Rather I look to direct
experience of beauteous forms to explain beauty in ways science does not,
such as the following poem by William Wordsworth from which we got the
phrase "murder to dissect."

[Case]
If you are suggesting that I need to get out more, you are probably right.