Ideas that won't work and projects I'll never finish

My master’s thesis is finally finished

Gorm — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:20:37 +0000

Here she is, my firstborn child, finally fully developed after years of metaphorical pregnancy. Title and abstract:

Skepticism, epistemological fictionalism and the metaphysical claim that the brain is a virtual reality engine

The primary aim of this essay is to present and defend “virtualism” – essentially, the claim that the brain is a virtual reality engine, meaning that the world of experience is, literally, a virtual reality somehow computationally generated by the brain. The most challenging objection to this theory is that it undermines itself by having to admit its own virtuality, i.e., untruth. In preparing my defence against this, I introduce “epistemological fictionalism” as an attempt at establishing a first philosophy based on global skepticism, inspired in particular by the ancient skeptics and George Santayana. The entire first part of the essay’s two parts deals with epistemological fictionalism, the problem of justifying belief in general, and my reply to the objection that virtualism is self-undermining. In the second part, virtualism is finally expounded, and a wide range of philosophical consequences are explored. In most of what I discuss here, I rely heavily on Antti Revonsuo and Thomas Metzinger.

I think most of you will find part two a lot more interesting than part one. Please tell me what you think, even if you haven’t read the entire thesis, or very closely.

Which one is the meditator?

Gorm — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:02:00 +0000

A possible evolutionary origin of the concept of the soul

Gorm — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 12:21:54 +0000

I’m reading Thomas Metzinger’s The Ego Tunnel, and found a great idea by someone else, quoted by Metzinger in a footnote. The context is a discussion about the flexibility of the body image, the way we can extend our sense of body ownership to tools, e.g. the way proficient drivers “feels” the boundaries of their cars.

If external objects can be reconceived as belonging to the body, it may be inevitable that the converse reconceptualization, i.e., the subject can now objectify its body parts as equivalent to external tools, becomes likewise apparent. Thus, tool use may lead to the ability to disembody the sense of the literal flesh-and-blood boundaries of one’s skin. As such, it might be precursorial to the capacity to objectify the self. In other words, tool use might prepare the mind for the emergence of the concept of the meta-self, which is another defining feature of human intelligence. (footnote at p. 80)

A very exciting new perspective on these issues. And Metzinger takes it further:

It now looks as if even the evolution of language, culture, and abstract thought might have been a process of “exaptation,” of using our body maps for new challenges and purposes [...] (p. 81)

This line of thought continues later in the book. Looking forward to getting there.

The need for a narrative structure to one’s life

Gorm — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:56:20 +0000

There is a human need to understand our lives along strong and clear narrative lines. Two ways to acquire such a narrative:

Live an interesting, outgoing life where you collect personal experiences that can be told to others. By telling stories from your life, you simultaneously gain a narrative of it for yourself. Without reflection, you become the author and protagonist of your own life story.
Invent a narrative, or accept one presented to you by another, and believe in it. Become a believer. This option is traditionally associated with religion.

I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between being an atheist or materialist and living an interesting life. Personally, I do think the fact that my life is uninteresting to the people I know and talk to, significantly contributes to my fascination – dare I say, attraction – to religious belief.

Added: I guess a third option is to write a particular kind of diary.

Insanity

Gorm — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:11:43 +0000

Only the fewest of us will manage to go through life without losing our minds – if not to psychedelic drugs or radical philosophy, then to ambition or the rhythm of habit. Or to each other.

The future end of football history: Team Human

Gorm — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:14:25 +0000

In 1997 the IBM computer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in chess. In a few years, we might have enough computing power to challenge humans players in other games and sports. Like football: On the one side, Team Human, made up of the best players in the world for each position; on the other, 11 soft but clever Japanese robots.

This might have a uniting effect on us.

Two great Schrödinger quotes

Gorm — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 07:01:26 +0000

“Every man’s world picture is and always remains a construct of his own mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence.”

Erwin Schrödinger wrote these insightful words in his 1958 book Mind and Matter. Here is another quote from the same book, in my opinion outright amazing:

“The reason why our sentient, percipient and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture. It is identical with the whole and therefore cannot be contained in it as part of it.”

We (that is, each one of us) are many

Gorm — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Found this cool drawing (here). Makes me think of the narrative self and how we all keep track of the myriad characters we encounter, both in our real lives and in the fiction we consume.

As a radical constructivist, an obvious but interesting point to make here is that the only thing that distinguishes the former category from the latter is an attitude of belief – we believe that a certain section of our character gallery (which includes our image of ourself) truly represents real people, even though the rest of the gallery has been constructed using exactly the same conceptual material. Making them real is just the flick of a mental switch. The border line between what we call reality and what we call fiction is extremely thin and uncertain, as we can all witness every night, in dreaming (and as anti-realists can witness every day as well, in our infinitely many habitual everyday superstitions).

It is incredible to me that our minds do not break down more often than they do. The mechanism is so fragile. Even prolonged thinking along these lines – reflecting on the apparently miraculous toughness of one’s sanity – threatens to cause the mechanism to malfunction!

The Treachery of Perception: A pictorial argument for idealism

Gorm — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:38:53 +0000

This guy is not seeing a real pipe, nor a painting of one. What he sees is at most two images of perception (one for each eye); perhaps only an image of mental representation. The physical painting, as well as the rest of reality external to mind, can never truly be seen, by him or by us.

The future of reading

Gorm — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:53:36 +0000

The only reason we read is that we have yet to find a better way to consume composed thought. Text-to-speech-technology is still uselessly poor. But how will it be when we finally get there? What will we use our eyes for? Will we move about in the world? Speaking for myself, I don’t think so. But I would like to find something useful to do for my eyes. Maybe I can look at some kind of visual material relevant to what I’m being read?

The best possible solution would be to have a virtual world at one’s disposal, to explore a simulation of reality, full of images and organized information on almost everything. And there should be available a tool for quickly and intuitively taking visual notes (using maps, graphs, diagrams etc. – as close as possible to the language of one’s thought). I think it is realistic enough to hope for this. The way from thought to product will in any case be extremely shortened – a tendency that I think will asymptotically continue, with the limit point being a situation where thought and manifest expression (in virtual reality) are completely unified.