0:05
let's go ahead and get started welcome everyone to a special Saturday edition
0:10
uh of uh the Cobb institute's offerings I'm Matt Siegel I chair the science
0:17
advisory committee here at the Cobb Institute and today I'm very excited uh
0:24
to welcome Aaron gare who many of you know that's why you're here he's an Australian philosopher and
0:32
associate professor in philosophy and cultural inquiry at swinburne University
0:38
as you've heard a little bit about already his his areas of research include environmental philosophy history
0:45
philosophy of science mathematics metaphysics and the history of philosophy the history and philosophy of
0:52
culture I'll mention just one of his most recent books the philosophical
0:58
foundations of ecological civilization a Manifesto for the future which was
1:05
published in 2017. today uh Professor Garrett is going to talk to us about
1:12
mathematics narratives and life in an attempt to reconcile science in the
1:18
humanities so he'll he will speak for about 45 minutes I'll have a couple of questions
1:24
for him and then we'll open it up to the larger group for discussion all right so uh with that uh Aaron I'll
1:32
turn it over to you very much look forward to your remarks yeah thank you thank you and thank you for inviting me
Presentation | Arran Gare
1:38
to make this presentation um I was literally asked to talk on developments and Mathematics
1:45
um but I was heavily involved in that about five years ago I'm not a
1:50
mathematician it's difficult to give a lecture if you're not a mathematician about Arts ideas and maths
1:56
um so um I suggested that I talk about something I've been engaged in more
2:01
recently and it's really associated with the development of biosemiotics and the
2:07
effort to give a place to both mathematics and narratives and this is
2:13
seen by me as part of that broader project of making process philosophy you
2:19
know the glossary of civilization succeeding in the straw against um you know the nilas
2:26
um and uh the work that I'm engaged in is also an effort to integrate ideas
2:33
from various process whilst was particularly personal Whitehead
2:38
um but going back to showing and arguing that he has to be recognized as a major
2:43
figure in the development of modern process metaphysics you can trace most
2:49
of the process philosophers back to him somebody who's generally ignored because he's regarded as a
2:56
romantic and the romantics but people who thought to have their hearts in the right place but a bit soft-headed well
3:02
if he wasn't like that um but the the work in theoretical biology is also a way of
3:12
uniting these ideas in a very practical way that is that um you know I'll be
3:18
looking at the ideas of referring to the ideas of Warrington who has very strongly influenced by Whitehead in the
3:26
development resist theoretical theoretical biology and the whole theoretical biology movement that he
3:31
opted Inspire um leading to Major conferences in the late 1960s and early 1970s and what I
3:39
want to do is show the need to integrate those ideas of what items but the ideas of the biosemiotics
3:46
parasymmeticians particularly those influenced by purse and that's a way of integrating the ideas of purse and
3:52
Whitehead so um I think you need to keep that in mind and
3:58
um what I say and what I'm talking about so it's partly an effort also in the
4:04
process to rethink the history of process metaphysics um and from my point of view that's
4:11
extremely important and it's also illustrating the importance of narratives stories not to be taken as to
4:18
sort of entertainment but as Central to orienting ourselves to understanding the
4:24
past and creating the future and the way you tell these stories um to some extent determines whether or not
4:31
you're going to be successful so one of the most influential works of Whitehead
4:37
is science in the modern world we he told a story about you know the development of science situating his own
4:43
work in relationship to that and it's that perspective provided by history that I think convinced usual people the
4:52
people who you know didn't have any contact with process philosophers to embrace his work and embrace them there
4:59
too um um you know sort of forward these ideas
5:05
um so to some extent you know what I'll be doing in this is refiguring that
5:11
narrative now the um starting point is the um
5:17
scientific materialism which um writer defined as what has to be overcome
5:23
um Ronnie does Matt has suggested that the
5:29
problem now is not so much scientific materialism but pythagoreanism and if you look at the development of
5:35
scientific materialism it was associated with new developments in mathematics analog geometry of Descartes the
5:42
calculus developed by Newton and so on and uh the development of the notion of matter
5:49
is inert it's a atoms moving endlessly meaninglessly as
5:56
um what had characterized it or points as um Descartes talked about
6:01
um really derived from the mathematics and this is what I think has to be understood now the thing about that
6:09
development was was enormously successful and the only way you're going to
6:15
succeed in process philosophy is doing Justice to the achievements of mathematics
6:21
and also on that basis recognizing the potential of developing better
6:27
mathematics mathematics that's more in accordance with the process view of the world
6:32
um so um looking at you know that that earlier
6:38
history divided by um Martin um it focuses on the 17th century if you
6:45
move to the 19th and 20th Century as you can see the kind of scientific materialism
6:50
um really um was led by irwinians
6:57
um and the concept of life I think has to be recognized as it is Central to
7:03
um to all this because it's um you know if you look at the Cartesian dualism
7:08
um you don't get very far just looking at Consciousness and then looking at its relationship to the physical world
7:15
it's with life that you've got that bridge and so I think that that has to
7:21
be the focus of um understanding the opposition between you know the dominant
7:26
Pythagorean pythagoreanism and people promoting a process view of the world you know what
7:33
you've heard of the Department of darwinian evolutionary theory was the development of neo-darwinism which tried
7:39
to make it more scientific and in the process we need much more mechanistic and as it's developed it's Incorporated
7:47
information the notion of information so DNA is supposed to encode information
7:52
and we're supposed to be machines for reproducing DNA and I think that the um
7:58
the development of information science has been really problematic for process philosophers because it's enabled the
8:06
proponents of this reductionist uh pythagoreanianism to gain a new release
8:11
of Life by claiming now they've got the means to characterize as life and
8:16
thought supposedly cognition can be characterized as receiving and processing information and you had the
8:24
development of cybernetics so we can be conceived of as information processing cyborgs
8:32
um we've now got people first humanists arguing that to lead us to regard ourselves as
8:38
Superior to these um to robots as they develop which might become more efficient to process the information and
8:45
we should just accept that we'll be succeeded by these more efficient information processes
8:52
um that's also associated with the development of scientism you know the success of that oral development has
9:00
been associated with the undermining of the humanities um so it's regarded as part of the
9:07
entertainment industry and it's clear that you know the humanities areas of universities are now really looked down
9:14
upon they've lost in that struggled with two cultures um so that's something that has to be
9:21
really struggled against um now that's where also looking at the history of the development of scientific
9:28
materialism write it um like most people regarded the 17th
9:35
century Scientific Revolution as overcoming or living behind the Medieval World View
9:40
um what people like Stephen Truman pointed out was it wasn't so much the um Medieval World View medieval order
9:48
that was being reacted against by people like Descartes and Newton and so on but
9:53
the Florentine Renaissance um and Mr Florentine Renaissance that
9:59
intended the humanities uh you know Petra developing a new form of Education Reviving ideas of the Roman Republicans
10:07
and ancient Greeks committed to republicanism a form of democratic
10:13
republicanism and from the perspective of people like Descartes I just led to chaos
10:20
um so they if they supported anyone it was the um the lesions who had a society
10:26
based on Commerce even though they purported to be a republic um and you can see this with um homes
10:31
further developing that mechanical review of the world and I think probably being the most important figure for
10:38
characterizing society and you can see in hobbs's work a virtual anticipation of the idea that all thinking is just
10:45
adding and subtracting in other words pretty much processing information
10:51
um the other um
10:56
I suppose defect in Whitehead's characterizing with history he gives a
11:02
place to the romantics but as I said I don't think that he fully appreciate it just how powerful the ideas of the
11:08
romantics were and the extent to which his own thinking was really a development of their ideas
11:16
so what you've got is this pythagoreanism that um
11:21
sort of integrates into it a kind of logical atomism where the blood or atoms
11:28
now bits of information so John Wheeler argued that we probably take to be things or it's a Reconstruction from
11:35
bits of information and you know that really supports the
11:40
block Universe if you read John Wheeler's work um and supports you know the idea that
11:46
uh with now um with the notion of information got the basis for a coherent scientific
11:53
worldview that's got no place for the Humanities and by virtue of that it has really got to know a place for what the
11:59
humanity stood for or the other side of the um the other development of the advantages which culminate I mean the um
12:06
um planting Renaissance culminated I think in the work of guidono Bruno which
12:12
was nature enthusiasm which is really a form of process philosophy and also Vico
12:17
is a culmination of um you know work on History um the Renaissance was concerned
12:23
particularly with Reviving history as it had been defended or developed in Rome
12:29
but also in the ancient Greece it's a history is the core of the humanities is something we have to take
12:36
really seriously and this is where you get the conflict between you know the humanities and scientism really coming
12:42
out into the open or one area where it comes out of the other areas as a service I think the um uh struggle
12:49
within biology over how you characterize what life is
12:55
now that's a very schematic sort of History um
13:00
um of development of um scientism but the thing about narratives is that the
13:06
table of being schematic in fact they have to be you know if you write history you always have to leave certain things
13:12
out but I think that um what it does is shows how you know the pythagoreanism
13:21
um culminates in a prominentian view of the world and this is what nature as
13:26
somebody who is um influenced by The Romantics pointed out
13:31
um It's associated with the egyptianism of Western philosophers
13:37
um and as they put it there was the hatred it did and the idea of becoming their egyptianism
13:43
I think they're doing I think honor when they dehistoricize it supposedly
13:48
subspecy attorney when they make a mummy of it all the philosophers have handled for Millennia have been conceptual
13:54
mummies nothing actual has escaped their hands alive they kill their stuff when they worship these conceptual idolaters
14:01
they become a mortal danger to everything when they worship death change age as well as procreation and
14:08
growth and for them objections refutations even what is does not become
14:13
what becomes is not now they believe even to the point of Despair in that
14:18
which is I was normally regarded as somebody who was reacting against Christianity but did you read his
14:23
notebooks it's clearly the development of Science and bobsman's work um
14:29
advancing that mechanical view that we're at intimacy view of the world that he is really concerned about and he
14:36
really is a part of the um um labor of you know these scientists
14:42
producing a great edits of concept displaying the rigid regular regularity for Roman columbarium
14:49
it's learning exciting the logic and strength and coolness which is characteristic of mathematics and the
14:55
column they're in as we're actually with the ashes the dead it's a the deadly
15:00
effect of scientism and also in the influence of the books he talked about the aim the science is to destroy the
15:07
world I think that if you look at the trajectory that we've been on since then there's good evidence that in this world
15:16
view this this culture continues that's where we're going to recommend that so
15:22
um looking at the um the development that took place after that
15:28
um as I said I think the thing that's um Whitehead left out didn't do justice to was the Romantic reaction and what
15:36
you really heard was in Germany um a Revival of
15:43
um Renaissance ideas and further elaborating elaboration of them these
15:48
ideas have been really suppressed after the rise of Newtonian physics you might have here in Britain and uh few people
15:55
promoting it and in France you had people at Russo ditto and so on promoting these ideas
16:02
but it was in Germany with these ideas got really developed and a pivotal
16:07
figure is clearly can't um is perhaps less um or his main ideas on his radical then
16:15
I think they should be um he just started out embracing vico's
16:20
ideas that Science and Mathematics are human constructions and thereby putting Humanity back in the center of the
16:27
picture and on that basis being able to give a place to a free agency yeah the
16:32
extent his political philosophy and so on um but it was really a very big thinker and
16:39
um if you read his work you realize that he was never somebody who came up with just a fixed system he's continually
16:46
developing his ideas and this is how he was understand understood at the time
16:53
um for instance he wasn't simply defending eternity physics he was
16:58
influenced by broskovic and leibniz and so defended a notion of matter as active
17:03
even when he was sort of trying to limit the influence of scientism
17:09
um but it's also in the critique of judgment he wrote some really important
17:15
ideas on biology that had a huge influence on shelling
17:20
um and he characterized these for the most part as principles of regulative Reason
17:25
rather than the more basic ideas of reason because he thought that
17:31
ultimately you might be able to justify these ideas making them stickly
17:37
but he also in one place suggested that this is more basic than what you get in
17:45
the physical sciences and I think that you know one of the interesting things about the mechanical
17:51
view of the world why they didn't use that term I think for good reason the machine always implies Organization for
17:58
a purpose this is something that Michael Palani really brought out very clearly and if you're studying a machine you're
18:04
never going to understand how difficult it's chemistry and what have you you have to understand what its purpose is
18:09
you have to have life as something more than a machine in order to understand
18:15
what a machine is um so I think that that's what um Shilling took from
18:22
um can't and really developed now it can't influence the number of thinkers and for
18:30
the most part these people um gave up on the numeral and defended a
18:36
form of uh idealism and then Hegel and selling is usually
18:42
lumped together with Victor and Hegel as somewhere in between the two
18:48
but in fact selling when you read him ideas of natural philosophy is more
18:53
fundamental than the work of the idealists where they're examining the categories that people must use in order
19:00
to understand the world what he did was naturalize the um transcendental argument
19:07
um saying that if science is possible nature must be something different than
19:13
it was characterized by people like Newton and daycare you have to fundamentally reconceive nature and he
19:21
built on that notion of nature being active and counts ideas about biology to
19:28
really defend the process view of the world um and that that fundamental
19:34
argument I think should be recognized as the core of process philosophy you know
19:40
science requires people who are conscious who can develop science
19:45
as part of Nature and you have to understand nature um as such that allows that development
19:52
to take place you know like there's that kind of being sort of emerged from nature
19:58
um this is where I think you know the the people who are promoting us the idea of
20:04
us as information processing inside of all which is a real challenge that has to be combated
20:10
um you know they're acknowledging the need for understanding us to get this with you know crude versions of um uh
20:17
darwinian epistemology um and this idea that ideas the ones that went out in the struggle for
20:24
survival and they're just really forms of information and means of organizing
20:29
your information um I think that you have to recognize that that just
20:35
doesn't do justice to what science is you know it's associated with understanding and awareness and
20:40
Consciousness and so on and that requires a far more fundamental re-characterization of the nature of
20:46
physical existence and the The crucial place is
20:52
um out of biology looking at what life is and characterizing life and that's
20:58
what shelling was doing now in doing that I'm calling for a new philosophical
21:05
physics he also suggested that we need a new mathematics I think that this is um
21:12
you know really bold move um think about something like Hegel you
21:17
know right huge amounts on natural philosophy that had no influence showing
21:22
actually had a huge influence on the subsequent development of the sciences and during mathematics people took up
21:29
his ideas um and further development I won't talk
21:34
so much about his ideas about physical existence but his return very similar in some ways to to whiteheads but the idea
21:42
is about mathematics um the idea that we needed um
21:48
Dynamic mathematics um let me find that um
21:56
a new form of of mathematics appropriate or a dynamic universe and this inspired a slow marker
22:05
supporters also and Justice Crossman was influenced by both schwar marker and
22:11
shelling to develop a fluid geometry a dynamist morphogenetic mathematics that
22:17
would facilitate insights into the emergence in the synthesis of patterns in nature that's how I was characterized
22:23
by horiza and that's um come as a successful development of mathematics
22:30
that enabled him to model crystallization now his um
22:35
this intelligent son living Grossman who he thought didn't have much potential
22:40
took up his ideas and developed a whole new approach to mathematics called
22:45
extension Theory which he presented as a survey of a general theory of forms assuming yes
22:52
they put it only the most the general concepts of equality and difference conjunction and separation
22:59
um it was meant as the Keystone of the entire structure of mathematics um if people have read things apart on
23:07
isolation of the water as um
23:13
differences and similarities similarities similar differences and so on um he actually was studying Grassman
23:20
when he developed these ideas so you can see the source of that notion of order in grassman's work the Grossman even
23:27
though it is largely ignored at the time um actually provided the foundation for
23:32
most of the new forms of mathematics that have been deployed in physics it
23:38
was an invented lineians Martin in aradara and the pre-cursor vector algebra
23:44
exterior and Clifford algebra how clever with Australian influence by
23:49
and uh Whitehead this first major published work I think was universal algebra strongly influenced by cross
23:56
plants um later on other printers maybe Snowden Gibbs um
24:01
developed ideas that really echoed his work without having read his work but he anticipated
24:09
those developments even the organizing transparents um
24:17
pencil calculus was some extent influenced by grassland's mathematics
24:26
um now William was here um
24:32
I use the Craftsman Craftsman's extension theory was also a precursor to
24:38
category Theory which is a more recent development in mathematics so let's talk about later on but it's I think really
24:44
important to understand always developments in relationship to each other so it was a very powerful tradition so what you know process
24:51
velocity should be appreciated as a much more powerful tradition of thought than this normally understood to be and if
24:58
people look at books and so on various other figures perhaps um
25:06
um let's see
25:12
already in Russia for instance um the idea of technology which led to
25:21
development of systems theory these are also part of that whole
25:26
tradition I thought the thing is they should be recognized as part of a developing tradition which has diversity
25:32
of approaches within it but that's characteristic of a healthy tradition
25:37
you need diversity for it to succeed well not losing the plot on losing the
25:45
core commitment to understand the wireless process now Whitehead
25:51
um was usually associated with certain muscle that's trying to reduce mathematics to logic but um I think that
25:59
he was um doing far more than that and really had a very different understanding of
26:05
mathematics to um Bertram Russell um he characterized it as the science of
26:12
patterns but um Everybody wrote about it in various places you know rejecting the idea that
26:18
mathematics is just a set of tautologies you know when we say the equal sign of 2
26:25
times 3 is 6 implies that it's tautology um
26:31
he argued that you shouldn't read that as two threes are becoming six
26:37
um so it's got a process orientation to it and you could argue that what he is
26:42
really talking about is patterning rather than patterns other patterns of you know or to investigate as the realm
26:49
of possibilities you know the Eternal objects and process and reality but
26:56
um I think it's better to characterize these as you know the realm of possibilities and recognizing the
27:02
reality of possibilities and the need to study those and then look at how those possibilities are actualized
27:09
um as a kind of process so that's the core of his whole thinking I think
27:16
um along with this commitment to doing justice to all dimensions of our
27:21
experience and recognizing that science only reveals some of those some of the
27:28
patterns of activity that exist in reality they also defended the you know
27:33
classical education the humanities and as I said really uh brilliant histories of Science and
27:40
civilization um
27:45
um it's interesting reading is characterization of science how similar it is to shelling this it also
27:52
anticipates most of the developments of the post logical positivist philosophers
27:57
of science uh clearly curing which was probably in direct influence by Whitehead
28:03
um like a tasks for this notion of hard cause and you commit sort of term what have you
28:08
um so again it's really important to recognize the continuities of this tradition which tends to get locked out
28:16
nothing else gets blocked out you know people gain positions and then don't
28:21
allowing their students don't get um agonic positions so there's a kind of tendency for the continuity of this
28:29
these Traditions to be plus side of
28:34
um now looking at the influence of writed on science
28:40
um you know his famous for his effort to develop an alternative general theory of relativity but I think
28:47
that the more interesting work perhaps is physicist influenced plan but the
28:55
potentially perhaps it's because this was taking place in Britain rather than America is the development of
29:01
theoretical biology and the importance of people like um Warrington and um
29:08
his colleagues in developing the theoretical biology movement um they're influenced by other thinkers
29:15
as well the notion of field was taken up and
29:21
developed from um Alexander gervich and Lithuanian Russian
29:28
biologists influenced um
29:36
influenced by other thinkers influenced also by um
29:42
phy who also took up the notion of field but the Waddington was particularly influenced
29:49
by Whitehead in its characterization of these fields and how they're developed
29:55
he wrote on write it and criticized him for being too complex he produced
30:01
simplistic ideas perhaps but I think that he was taking over those ideas which you could utilize not worrying
30:07
about whether or not he was being faithful to write it so developing the notion of increase of
30:14
uh catalyzed piles of development was as he sort of pointed out strongly
30:21
influenced by what I did um now you don't normally think of concretions in relationship to societies
30:27
of actual occasions because there's a strong tendency to treat that as appropriate to understanding you know
30:34
the actual occasions not from that's understood very optimistically but then
30:39
you know the compound individual has been a problem for Whitehead ends and right at himself said he'd been
30:45
misunderstood in that regarding the letter to Art Sean um so I think that there's justification
30:50
for that appropriation of emotion concretions and characterizing the
30:56
development of fields as canalized Pathways developments understood as a kind of concretions
31:02
an interaction of these fields with the surrounding environment
31:09
now the other aspect of his work on those fears was appreciating how they
31:15
emerge from each other so if you look at embryology you can see her from a you
31:22
know a couple of cells and get that differentiation and in the process
31:29
um subfields emerging so you get the field of you know the volume and the high end and then the sub-sub fields of
31:36
the digits and what have you and so that Enchanted um whole research project in biology
31:45
developed particularly by Brian Goodwin um
31:50
it was associated with as I said the notion of Creations necessary path homeareesis the tenancy once a path is
31:58
Disturbed to return to its original state but also the examination of how
32:03
past could move from I mean the path compete displaced that led to a
32:09
different path being taken and these are the ideas that influenced um Rene Tom from the Department of
32:15
catastrophe Theory which he um acknowledged rather than graciously but
32:22
um I think it's clear that you know got there was a similar kind of
32:28
development that had taken place when faradays which was uninfluenced by mathematics was taken up and developed
32:34
by Maxwell who is a mathematician and could develop these ideas much more
32:40
rigorously um so another example of mathematics emerging from the process view of the
32:47
world is that development of uh of catastrophe Theory uh good one was
32:54
looking at a different aspect of his work the development of um temporalities you know with temple organization of
33:01
Souls and looked at um of statistical mechanics um
33:15
the centrality of biochemical feedback loops and living processes but also the oscillations that develop in those and
33:21
how those related which was um looking at how you get complex
33:28
coordination in multi-celled organisms um that notion of different
33:34
temporalities I think is really important it was something that was argued for by
33:39
um bergson and take up and developed by the topic
33:46
um it tends to get forgotten about but I think it's also been revived by the hierarchy theorists people influenced by
33:54
our party I think that it's an important component of the process philosophy that should be taken fairly seriously
34:01
um the whole project of theoretical biology
34:06
um inspired different developments participants included Stuart Kaufman
34:14
um David Bond um
34:19
somebody called ibro who also looked at different temporalities a whole range of things there's some
34:25
um writing some linked up with um Ilia pregajin in his last years and
34:33
Bridget James work to some extent was influenced by the effort to depose that theoretical biology and the way he
34:39
characterized the development of a slime mold and how the individual cells
34:44
integrate into a multi-solar organism using fluctuations
34:50
in chemical accuracy to orient themselves so it's pretty pretty much a development that whole research program
34:57
and the notion of disability structures I think you know as a developmental process thinking
35:03
um and it's interesting in the way in which brigazine also is critical of the
35:09
idea that you could fully characterize reality through mathematics as a major argument that's Renee atonement over
35:15
that issue um the other development has a service
35:20
hierarchy Theory by Patty was also a participant in the conferences were later Taken up in ecology in
35:27
particular by Timothy Allen and then later on by Stan Salter Who provided a
35:33
kind of bridge between this theoretical biology movement in Britain and the biosynapticians
35:41
um my passenger wasn't invited to the conference apparently because um
35:47
which should go on and playing that was too far from the data was Robert Rosen
35:54
and uh well it wasn't I think was primarily a mathematician initially but
36:00
concerned mainly to develop mathematics appropriate to life and working in
36:06
Chicago he embraced and developed category Theory and I think it's
36:11
unfortunate you know the category Theory wasn't taken up at the time in the 1970s
36:18
um it originated in the workers Saunders McLean
36:23
um trying to investigate weather and when different branches of mathematics were dealing with the same objects
36:29
uh it was seen as a way of modeling one branch of mathematics per another
36:34
um and then developed into a general theory of mathematics William rovere as
36:40
a challenge to um to set theory as a foundation of mathematics but I think that it's really
36:47
provided a better defense of Whitehead's nation that science I mean mathematics
36:52
is the science of the study of patterns
36:58
Rosen who took up these ideas and embraced loveria's arguments
37:06
um characterized category of theories the general theory of formal modeling the comparison of different modes of
37:12
inferential or entitlement structures moreover it is a stratified or a
37:17
hierarchical structure without limit the lowest level which is familiarly understood by Telluride theory is a
37:24
comparison of different kinds of entirement and different formalisms the next level is roughly the comparison of
37:30
comparisons the next level is the comparison of these and so on so
37:36
it facilitates an examination of relations to relations
37:41
so Rosen was concerned to characterize life mathematically as I said and what
37:48
he argued was um what he started looking at nature of modeling generally in
37:53
science and in mathematics and breaking with them Saunders McLean suggested that just as
38:01
you can model different branches of mathematics you can model physical reality through or mathematics
38:08
and the entitlement structures in the mathematics will be those that are
38:13
associated with the causal entailments and what you're examining
38:19
looking at life the idea that the peculiarity of it was that
38:24
um drawing from Neumann organisms have models themselves this is
38:29
a condition of them being able to repair um damage to them
38:36
um and once they can repair damage to them they can also reproduce themselves so there's the Mr models
38:42
um to allow for the possibility of that you have to allow for circular definitions
38:51
and in predicativities in mathematics which have previously been excluded by
38:58
which of allowing those in predictivities then it becomes impossible to sim simulate
39:04
the causal entombments on a computer and they argument that this is because
39:10
you're dealing with life life itself something that's much more than just
39:15
mechanisms anything that's a mechanism can be modeled on a computer living being as can't
39:23
um he emphasized that um you know life is really emergent and the um
39:30
when he talks about model it's not as though you've got some kind of map somewhere it's a function of the whole
39:37
organism in its environment um
39:42
and I talked to Stuart Kaufman about this notion he was very critical of it
39:49
um because I think that he understood it in a fairly limited way but I think that you need to take seriously in this idea
39:55
that it's not the um um
40:01
as he put the um fractionated components that you're
40:07
examining it's the functions he's reintroducing through mathematics the notion of there being functions and
40:13
associated with that um final causes and this was associated with this
40:19
development of um you know systems that anticipate the future respond to what they anticipate
40:27
anticipate anticipated systems um now the movement to develop
40:34
um theoretically I mean you know theoretical I mean philosophical
40:41
brother biological mathematics biomass as it can be called by
40:47
um and semino and Andre eresman
40:55
um they took their Point of Departure in waslam's work and
41:00
um try to further elaborate that notion of
41:07
um [Music]
41:13
or modeling at um very category Theory
41:19
um now pythm as I said was rather critical of
41:24
rosin um didn't fully go along with the idea that you can model mathematically all
41:31
the relations in human beings and it came to this conclusion quite suddenly
41:39
writing and like in a book investigations published in 2000 because
41:44
it really broke with what he'd previously believed it was a radical thinker developing
41:51
um the whole idea of um once they call them
41:59
the order catalytic sets and deriving new
42:05
ideas you know being at the Forefront of complexity Theory you came to the conclusion that they've been dominated
42:10
by um the sort of assumptions about what science is that came from Newton
42:17
developed by Einstein and Bohr which had to be questioned and that is that
42:22
through mathematics you can pre-state all the possibilities he said that when you look at what
42:28
actually goes on in the evolution this isn't possible they're adjacent possibles that are totally unable to be
42:37
represented through your mathematical models so he gave an example of what's involved in that for instance if you
42:44
um even to fish short of oxygen started sculpting air
42:50
and that gulp there allowed the organism to take in oxygen so it's float tanks
42:58
float bladders a whole new development of evolution takes place but it's not
43:04
something that you could anticipate you can't represent it prior to that having taken place
43:11
um if you look at um what do you call it or Darwin characterizes expectations
43:18
developments that end up having a useful function but didn't have a function tool I developed
43:25
you can only understand it through these adjacent possibilities being taken up
43:31
and when you look at the interaction between organisms and evolution and the way in which new situations are thrown
43:38
up by their interactions you can see that there's co-evolution where new
43:43
possibilities are addressed in creative ways it can't be mathematically
43:49
so even the very radical ideas in biom mathematics developed by rosin are not adequate to
43:57
to Justice to life itself um it's on this basis that he
44:04
started taking more interest in both wytech and he turned up to one of the Whitehead and conferences that I was at
44:10
and also biosemiotics and and that Levy
44:17
Carol one of the main figures in the development of Iris and Alex in Estonia
44:23
um and was convinced that we've been there to move beyond that notes to semiotics that doesn't doesn't mean to
44:29
say you abandoned mathematics just recognizes limitations this is recognition of the limitations I think
44:35
that's fairly important and why it is necessary to embrace
44:40
um biosemiotics in the case of um Danish thinkers there are principally
44:46
influenced by the work of purse in developing biosemiotics but um also take
44:53
upon obstacle and take upon our school was in a huge influence in
44:59
Estonia where he was born so clearly colors and Estonia really pushed
45:06
um Jacob from Oak school's work so I think most of you would know about take upon our school and how he argued that to
45:13
understand an organism you have to understand how it defines its environment as its world to then
45:19
responds so the world has meaning for it um these are the ideas that taken up and
45:26
developed in having you seek phenomology by people like Heidegger but yeah we've
45:31
also in the case of humans got with worlds on Mid Falcons and
45:37
eigenbuild and the software achieve through reflection
45:43
um but the notion of the surrounding World um was also the core of efforts to
45:49
naturalize the phenomenology so it's um a core idea of this more humanistic
45:57
approach um to understanding what life is um what puts provided was a way
46:04
rigorously characterizing what was involved in in the transformation or the the defining of elements in your
46:12
environment as science equating the notion of that meaningful
46:17
world has a world of science that you then respond to the audience's response to yeah
46:24
a person's been like Whitehead um mathematician a major figure in the
46:31
development of symbolic logic uh steeped in the history of philosophy um but he characterized himself to
46:39
William James as a selenium of some stripe unlike Wright had been influenced by
46:45
idealism defended a kind of realism which is confusing but that's how it is
46:52
um he defended um metaphysics and I get the basic categories of first and secondness and
46:58
thirdness there's actually influenced by dialectical thinking um and he argued that the Emporia is a
47:04
most thought based on dualisms about virtue of always thinking in diets
47:10
rather than Triads so um in characterizing logic he argued
47:16
that there's not only deduction and induction but also abduction which is the creative
47:22
component where people conjecture to make sense of what
47:28
that experience or would overcome contradictions and their previous ideas using Keppra as an example somebody
47:36
looking at the observations of Tico Abra and coming to the inclusion that you could account for is observations if you
47:43
saw the sun as the center of the solar system and the orbits being elliptical
47:50
rather than circular um
47:55
that had a big influence on either development and philosophy of science in
48:01
hospital um Lord Russell Hanson patterns of Discovery
48:07
um but it's um the audience were taken up beyond that and first himself
48:14
um suggested that a huge amounts huge areas of what we understand about the
48:19
world could be understood through um his logic which he then characterized as
48:27
semiotics um so semiosis was triadically as involving
48:34
a sign an object and and an interpretant and that's been triadic allow sport
48:41
continual further development as each interpreter becomes a scientific
48:46
efforts to understand the object a person literally understood what's
48:52
involved in interpreting ideas in the mind but later on provided a much more General definite general definition as
48:59
that which mediates between an object and an interpreted since it is both determined by the object relatively to
49:06
the interpretent interpret determines the interpretent in reference to the
49:12
object in such ways as to cause The Interpreter to be determined by the object through the mediations of sign so
49:18
it's a long definition but if you understand it you can see that it's essentially a process in nature
49:24
involving a very complex form of causation and that's very much in accordance with
49:30
Charlene's thinking um so it's on that process that the um
49:36
prior semantitions could take up versus work and rethink
49:42
um Jacob front of school's ideas but in doing so it may also extended it far further versus suggestions arguing that
49:51
The Interpreter could not just be a symbol an idea but it could be an action
49:57
so you think about you know organism interpreting situations the action being
50:03
an interpreter which also becomes an assigned rather organisms or for itself
50:10
not only that you can also have visited something else as well the generation of form can be seen as an interpretant so a
50:17
plant developing in a certain way is really an interpreter
50:23
um that is growing towards light and towards the ground and then you've got
50:28
endosomiosis is something the communication that takes place within the organism and interpreting lots of
50:35
what's involved in DNA [Music]
50:40
um being assigned a vehicle didn't you I mean the price of magicians use the term sign vehicle
50:46
um a person sort of didn't but anyway um they analyzed this
50:52
and in the process were highly critical of the idea that you could particularly
50:58
hofmeyer you could categorize this as you know DNA just encoding information
51:04
um it's something that involves interpret and interpretent
51:09
um and uh the relationship information that was acceptable to hofmeyer was
51:14
um Gregory Brighton's notion of the difference that makes a difference it was always understood in relationship to
51:19
the whole organism so it's a much more holistic approach
51:25
than you get in the information scientists and then just a quick time check for you
51:31
we're at about a little bit a little bit over 45 minutes so I don't know
51:39
um so the um the reverse
51:44
um ready that's taken up by the biosemite digitals they Embrace Patty's work on constraints talking about
51:51
semiotic constraints and characterizing emergence and semiotic scaffolding leading to new more complex levels of
51:58
organization on that basis um they're
52:04
um the reactions to it though within the movement some of them wanting to become
52:09
more acceptable to mainstream science and more happier to embrace the notion
52:14
of information and focus on codes others about radical according for Bio
52:20
hermeneutics influenced by cardigan gadana um now
52:27
um mother is that the um they need to be both more acceptable to
52:34
science mainstream science and need to embrace the insights of the bio human users in
52:40
fact the bioluminesis in my view weren't radical enough because they didn't really give a place to
52:48
narratives in the development of life supposing you think about I mean one of the peculiar features of logicians that
52:56
focus on propositions pretty much in isolation the um you're reacting against
53:01
logical positivism you know pointed out absurdity of that here I suppose
53:07
questions always formatted from the perspective of a theoretical framework which itself can be an answer to a
53:14
broader question so the different propositions are related to each other
53:20
and you can say the same thing about science you know Perth because he was a magician to find particular active
53:27
semiosis and it's unfortunate that the plural semiasis is the same as their singular
53:33
um when your Chinese might be happy with that but um it means that you can't talk
53:39
about them easily but if you think about what's involved in the semiosis in organisms
53:46
you can see that you know the development of um the complex organism in epigenesis is a
53:53
process of responding to a whole range of science the way I try to eliminate it
54:01
was looking at what's involved in the way Builders and innovators built Cathedrals which often took centuries so
54:08
over the individual lifetimes we just superseded by the development of the
54:14
cathedral the people participating in the development didn't have a rigid plan
54:20
they responded to what was going on around the new developments and how you build things that kind of thing and they
54:26
were responding particularly to the signs around them so the signs
54:33
had made each of them by the to their engagement of this much broader project now if you understand
54:40
um you know what's involved in that it's really living out a story of building the cathedral and what I've been
54:47
suggesting is that you can see the same thing involved in the development of an organism the inner semiosis which is
54:54
connected to um the follow School talked about you know the
55:01
surrounding World um being responses to situations where
55:06
the particular instances of stimulus is a part of a broader narrative
55:11
um and the importance of narratives in life was pointed out by
55:16
um Stuart McIntyre and also David Carr I
55:24
think made a very strong Pace that um we're always living out stories and
55:29
the stories we tell made sense of because we're living out stories and we can re-figure those stories
55:35
what I'm suggesting is that this is what's taking place within organisms they're kind of living out of the story
55:43
now try to argue for that position um seems to me that you the
55:50
person by the semiticians haven't done Justice to the um you know what's really
55:56
going on I mean they haven't fully embraced um the kind of ideas that were taken up by Warrington and what you really need
56:03
to do is synthesize the ideas of whatington who called for something like bio symbiotics right at the end of his
56:10
four conferences and and this person brought some addicts and then you can
56:17
see that the sign you know if you look at DNA what is it I mean you know
56:22
information science talks about you know how you can get so much through a channel
56:27
um through um you know cable or whatever trying to characterize that in
56:33
abstraction of this information but it's like looking at a page of print on a paper and saying how many
56:39
shapes you can sort of identify on the page it's meaningless unless you see
56:46
this as writing that has to be interpreted it's only in relationship to it's being interpreted that it can be
56:51
seen as information and I think that this is a feature of science the science
56:57
always have to be understood in terms of the broader Fields um that uh
57:04
um that they're part of and they're associated with the you know switching
57:10
from One path to another whatever you can see that this is um where signs are really important and
57:17
you can see how you know science and the environment uh for instance a particular sign was sent off I think it is other
57:24
horned grasshopper can lead to Old transformation of the morphogenesis of
57:29
the grasshopper so that it develops into a locust rather than a grasshopper with every part of the grasshop would be
57:36
slightly different than it would have been otherwise but you can see from that you know the creativity involved in that semiosis and
57:44
the semiosis being involved with a whole lot of levels of different
57:50
instances of semiasis associated with the different uh fields and subfields
57:55
each of those fields having partial autonomy been constrained by their environment
58:02
and considerance but not being reducible to them and relating that back to the National concretions you know as an
58:08
imminent causation I think that's really important we're also appreciating whether you know the feeling that's so
58:14
important to Whitehead ends has its place you know it's when you eliminate any appreciation of that imminent
58:20
causation the notion of something having a feeling becomes meaningless but once
58:26
you've got that in place then it doesn't it's not a lot difficult and you know to appreciate that and appreciate that's
58:33
connected to the science having meaning so this leads to
58:40
um you know defense of that motion of narrative and the idea was that um
58:45
biasmaticians can give a place to mathematics and as kind of symbiosis and
58:52
the causal relationships that are associated with that but also to that more creative side of things associated
58:59
with narrative and you can combine the two when there has been efforts to develop a um
59:06
um a semiotic notion of mathematics based on purse and modeling by myself done
59:13
easy and Mariana even though it was himself didn't
59:19
characterize mathematics through semiotics and that links up with the work of or utilize the work of people
59:26
like lakov on the role of metaphors and liberation of metaphors in developing
59:31
mathematics fitting versus idea of diagrammatic reasoning
59:38
um so my work was sort of saying that that's great and that can
59:44
um allow the biosynapticians to appreciate providing they integrate their ideas
59:51
with what engine's ideas developed by category Theory um and then at the same time you can
59:58
recognize this Persian approach to neurotology as opposed to a
1:00:04
structuralist or a hermeneutic phenomologist approach in my view be
1:00:09
superior to both of those and giving a place to the inside so both of them so that's what my work has been involved in
1:00:15
trying to make sense of that and I'm not sure that I've been all that convincing
1:00:21
I'll go over a talk that the biosemiotics conference in last year in
1:00:26
Czech Republic I'm not sure how it went down I really feel that I've got a lot
1:00:31
more work to do in this um but uh that's that's where it stands
1:00:38
and the audio is that with that synthesis of warrington's theoretical trajectory and biosyntheticians you've
1:00:46
got a synthesis of um um process philosophy the Percy and the
1:00:53
whiteheading process philosophy growing upon other ideas which are consistent with the Challenger and tradition and it
1:01:00
really does overcome that opposition between the humanities and the Sciences by putting narratives right down in
1:01:07
nature as part of life
1:01:13
that's it thank you so much Aaron
Dialogue | Gare & Segal
1:01:19
both for the historical account of uh the sort of
1:01:25
stream of influences that some of us may not have known about and also for the theoretical proposals uh to to move the
1:01:32
ball forward um it strikes me that uh in in Whitehead's
1:01:39
own historical account as as you know um in science in the modern world he doesn't
1:01:44
do justice to or wasn't aware of uh the contributions that shelling made in the
1:01:53
uh early 19th late 18th early 19th century to the kind of process um
1:02:00
philosophy and and philosophy of nature that he himself would take up in the 20th century
1:02:05
um and your work is helping to correct that and
1:02:11
um carrying forward this uh work of archeology that that you're
1:02:17
doing I've also been trying to cement shelling in in the lineage of process
1:02:22
philosophy um to point out the continuity there I think it helps illuminate what
1:02:28
shelling was doing to compare him to Whitehead and vice versa so there's so many so many questions I
1:02:35
could ask you and there's there's a very active um conversation in the chat that hopefully
1:02:41
I can draw from as well I think my first question for you would be in regards to uh Pythagoras and
1:02:48
pythagoreanism and the role that mathematics plays in
1:02:55
metaphysics um it seems to me that for Pythagoras and the pythagoreans there was not yet
1:03:02
this sharp bifurcation between say the quantitative and the qualitative and
1:03:08
that uh the pythagoreans obviously felt there
1:03:13
was a very close connection between number and music for example yeah uh and
1:03:20
the idea of ratio as a relationship um that in some sense was was an
1:03:26
aesthetic relationship a Harmony as it were and that the meanings of numbers had to do with these types of
1:03:32
relationships and it was not the kind of calculative quantitative form of
1:03:37
mathematics that we might be more used to in the modern world and so I wonder if there's anything salvageable in the
1:03:45
Pythagorean tradition I don't know you have to salvage that because you have to
1:03:50
appreciate just how important the development mathematics was development of their understanding of the world the
1:03:56
problem is to avoid that permittian and tendency so amenities was really strong
1:04:01
influence but Pythagoras and if you think about principle of sufficient
1:04:07
reason he conclusion he came to understand the world through mathematics is this just one little change and
1:04:14
difference and so on or Illusions since then I defended that pointing out the um paradoxes when you do give a place to
1:04:21
change and you can't make sense of it um you look at the atomas and they were saying okay well how can we have the
1:04:29
appearance of change um with Humanity so what they said there's a whole lot of community and
1:04:35
ones that move in relation to each other so you've got the atoms and the void and
1:04:41
I was sort of pointed out you know that the boy does nothing how can there be any difficult distance
1:04:48
incoherence to that and you can trace you know all these developments the introductor of the motion is displaced
1:04:54
by telezio was dealing with that problem with Aristotle would argued against the atomas by saying well actually they're
1:05:01
located in space so this place is called an ontological status and it will you
1:05:07
know brilliantly to hear them Newton's philosophy and that's some you know the problematic aspect of Newton's
1:05:13
philosophy that it was so coherent that it becomes really difficult to overcome
1:05:19
um but then yeah Newton sort of said that um spacemith is a sensory of the deity
1:05:26
and through which God was active and so when Maxwell was looking at this defending field there he pointed out
1:05:32
well Newton was really a field he was so it was a vulgarization that ended up
1:05:37
coming to dominate yeah I suppose I can see the line from Parmenides saying that being is to a
1:05:45
view of mathematics as merely logical tautologies um and that there's a there's a need to
1:05:53
uh resurrect I think uh I mean in Whitehead's work you get a more aesthetic sense of the mathematical
1:05:59
realm as uh not detached from Aesthetics
1:06:04
I think and and it's a very powerful um tool but I think we've allowed it to
1:06:10
become the master perhaps and I hear you saying um that semiotics can provide us with a
1:06:18
um a sort of General language in terms of which both the humanities and the the role of
1:06:25
narrative as well as mathematics can begin to to cohere and to be understood
1:06:31
as descriptions of the same universe uh right for providing um you know become the
1:06:38
limitations of the biosemite digital display integrating with the um you know Waddington
1:06:44
traditional Fields I think is really important the notion of fears is really interesting because you know in that
1:06:50
whole debate about compound individuals um various people came up with salute
1:06:55
Solutions one of them I think it was Joseph early argued that you needed to give a place to fields in what's
1:07:02
involved in concretions you know the concretions involving appreciation by you know for occasion of the field
1:07:09
within which it's functioning um and I think that uh I found that pretty appealing I mean I haven't spent
1:07:16
a lot of time working on it but because Washington just used the term feel it seems to me that that's a good thing to
1:07:22
build upon and it's lacking in um in person bio semiotics and I think
1:07:28
you've got the same problem that led Charles hard to want to move from Perth
1:07:34
to Whiter you know you edit it or person's work and found it deficient well you've got the same kind of
1:07:40
deficiency I think in Nebraska's you need to incorporate that um we're at Helium
1:07:46
development but the notion of fields itself that's you know really um customers here so you can talk about
1:07:53
that um you know really complex notion um and Ruth along with um
1:08:01
Stuart Kaufman you know want to give a place to real possibilities
1:08:07
um your potentialities um as part of those fields which I think is the right way to go
1:08:15
so just a few weeks ago at the 50th Anniversary conference at the center for process studies there was a presentation
1:08:22
by Benjamin chica on biosemiotics and
1:08:28
he offered it as a friendly challenge to pan experientialists uh
1:08:34
by arguing that you know we really shouldn't be trying to push experience all the way down but rather recognize it
1:08:42
as emerging at the level of life and that the biosemiticians give us a powerful way of
1:08:48
um of understanding and and and grappling with the role that experience as a kind of interpretation might play
1:08:55
um in the Living World um I've always understood purse to be
1:09:01
like Whitehead um if not a pan experientialist at least a pan semi-auticist in the sense that
1:09:08
sign interpretation goes all the way down and so some kind of um experience if you want I don't know
1:09:14
if purse would use that exact word uh goes all the way down and so when you think about speaking of the limitations
1:09:20
of the biosemiotic Paradigm um do you think that there is
1:09:27
um any is there something important being lost when we are unable to recognize that the phys the pre-living
1:09:33
or non-living physical world is also engaged in activities of sign
1:09:38
interpretation and if that is the case what does that mean about the the extent of experience in in the universe yeah
1:09:47
um I think Perth talked about feeling rather than experience I think that somehow you have to get experience right
1:09:52
at the beginning because um otherwise you just can't account for its emergence and that's where I was saying
1:09:59
that um just the um imminent causation of fields and must imply some something
1:10:05
like feeling and holding the whole thing together um in a very Proto way I like the word
1:10:10
protest that we should have sort of minimize it and then talk about how it might develop
1:10:17
um the um the biocentricians for the most part um I get for a parasymatics being
1:10:25
the beginning of semiasis I mean life beginning the semiasis so some wanted to
1:10:31
extend it through the entire crossbar sign Bria I think I wanted to do that which was reacted to by others who
1:10:39
regarded that as leading people to dismiss it as an unscientific
1:10:45
um I've sort of not really gone into it much
1:10:50
um as far as white as it's concerned you know he was interpreted by some as a parent cyclist
1:10:56
and rejected the idea that he was a Panasonic so that's why people took up the mountain of pen experientialism
1:11:02
um I'm happy with the notion of feeling um and would like to think of experience as a
1:11:09
you know more developed kind of feeling but I haven't really um gone into it much
1:11:16
um living in an environment which is really hostile to these ideas I tend to you know take my stand on positions
1:11:22
where I can most easily defend what I'm arguing for and then build out from
1:11:27
there in the case of um Barbieri you know he's promoting code biology and
1:11:33
very critical of purse um so the paper that I gave in Moscow in 2019 was an effort to defend person by
1:11:42
our semiotics in a way that couldn't be dismissed as somehow unscientific by talking about the notion
1:11:47
of conversation so on that basically I he got me to write a paper for a special edition of
1:11:54
the journal um by assistance then he later on asked me to write another paper and since I
1:12:01
was working on narratives which is related to her musics that was just too
1:12:06
far for him he took my proposal um this is what you've got you know this
1:12:12
this constant struggle and then promoting the notion of narrative I've decided to focus on the epigenesis of
1:12:20
multi-star organisms because I think that's where it is code biology proves to be limited he talks about codes as
1:12:26
being a kind of natural convention you know there's no necessary relationship
1:12:32
between the DNA and the proteins that produce that has to be a kind of rhinot type that kind of mechanism that
1:12:39
transforms the you know the order to get in the DNA into the particular kind of proteins but
1:12:46
a feature of molecular organisms is clearly the ability of the organism as a whole to utilize DNA the same string of
1:12:54
DNA to produce different proteins which you know sort of doesn't fit as characterization of what's going on when
1:13:02
other carefully this work but it's clear that you know it's really weak in that area so that's what I've decided to
1:13:08
focus on um yeah it's it's a difficult
1:13:13
issue um because we both want to recognize and Grant what is unique about living
1:13:20
organisms that's uh not present in the non-living world and yet we don't want to so emphasize that difference that it
1:13:27
becomes impossible to understand how life could have come out of physics and chemistry and there are very few
1:13:34
um approaches that get that balance right I think uh yeah I think it's really important to acknowledge that
1:13:40
distinction between life and one life because we're first with you know working in the global ecosystem and you
1:13:46
think that it's necessary to appreciate that this is some people regard that as soon as
1:13:52
possibly incorrect because it implies some kind of elitism you know aren't really opposed to the
1:13:59
um posthumous but I tend to take an egocentric view um but then appreciating you know the
1:14:06
importance of different life forms is some more sentient than others and humans you know being cultural business
1:14:13
somehow um having a unique status
1:14:18
yeah so one last question for you um thinking more about the domain of
1:14:25
mind and Consciousness there's a lot of talk a lot of concern uh a lot of
1:14:32
um almost hysteria right now about the new chat GPT um AI uh applications and
1:14:40
um some people seem to me to be um um
1:14:46
on the verge of claiming that these that these machines are already in a sense conscious and a lot of this has to do
1:14:52
with the ambiguity of the term information as you were highlighting um because if human beings are
1:14:57
understood is if our own Consciousness is understood as just a kind of complicated information processing then
1:15:04
there's no real huge hurdle for uh algorithms to LEAP in
1:15:10
order to become just like we are um and you know personally I'm less concerned about machines becoming
1:15:17
conscious than I am about human beings who think that machines are conscious yeah um and so I wonder what what what would
1:15:23
you want to um bring into this conversation that's so topical right now
1:15:28
well the brother said right at the beginning you know this effort to add information look at us as information
1:15:34
processing cyborgs has been the prime thing that has to be overcome so that's just part of that whole world view
1:15:42
associated with post-humanism the idea that we should replace humans with machines
1:15:47
um admittedly all of in this book on shrinking the technosphere at a brilliant piece on you know this kind of
1:15:54
thinking how um parents would first of all or people as they got sick would sort of cut off
1:16:01
their heads and have um cyborg better organized cybernetics
1:16:07
bodies and later on that decide that they could download their brains onto computers then they would do away with
1:16:15
the entirely that have children first of all that have children and cut off their heads to begin with to make life easier
1:16:20
and attach them to computers and then later on they'd say all you know the heads a bit problematic will just
1:16:29
relaxing the stupidity of it um I think you know people like rosin
1:16:36
are important for saying what's wrong with that we're thinking you know there's a kind of life itself it just
1:16:44
isn't computable in that way yeah yeah absolutely I mean it seems to
1:16:50
me that while machines are becoming uh more and more capable at mimicking
1:16:55
human language human beings are becoming more and more machine-like uh in our
1:17:02
in our Communications and so uh it says though we're meeting that's a problem well I mean Perth talked about this you
1:17:08
know I talked about when you you said that you know you've got Minds you know there's this feeling and so on and it's
1:17:14
all spontaneity possibilities and then it gets habits when the habits become
1:17:19
absolute then you've got matter and you can see that people are transformed the episodes from one to America and
1:17:25
becoming you know this is associated with managerialism you know controlling people so that they become predictable
1:17:31
cobs in the machine then you can replace them with machines
1:17:37
right