[MD] Mystics and Brains

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Case <Case at iSpots.com>:


> [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?

Correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to be saying nothing can exist outside of
man's (or a sufficiently complex robot's) mental processes. In other words,
you favor philosophic Idealism. Otherwise, if physical processes can exist
independently of man, why not relationships we call ideas?  

> [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. 

The "systems" you speak of are a far cry from a singular event in a football
game whose interconnections to the universe within that moment are infinite.
Anyway, complexity theory is even younger than the social sciences and has
a long way to go to even accurately predict the weather in Miami a week from
now. Finally as I've claimed before, randomness is science's way of saying, 
"We don't know and probably never will."  And as I've suggested before, I think
it significant that some experiments have shown human intention can affect
what is otherwise thought to be random events. Such inexplicable phenomena as
the placebo effect suggests there's more going on than meets the scientist's
eye.



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