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Evolition: A Theory of Everything is the title of a book by Dan Lewis. I hope we can give its ideas some scrutiny in this dedicated thread.

. . . This is directly from my book--the first part of the chapter about knowledge. . . .

Because thoughts, instincts, behaviors, in general all our actions can be considered a natural consequence or embodiment of our knowledge, its axiomatic nature may seem as obvious as the concept of existence. In other words, to be aware of things requires at the very least, acknowledgment of some substance behind that capacity—if we can think of objects, life-forms, the mind, or anything, we must ultimately submit to the idea that something makes that process happen.

However, whether it is through perception or blind faith, a seemingly obvious idea of something alone cannot be used to justify its ultimate certainty unless both its logic and external reality prove inescapable. Popular associations and beliefs have been rationalized and used for centuries to try to prove the existence of God, as well other ephemeral concepts like ethical and aesthetic principles, base substances, and non-empirical worlds.[1]

Such ideas on the surface may seem no different than a concept like knowledge, but there are some crucial differences. Unlike God or other essences, if existence is an inescapable or axiomatic concept (as was hopefully just demonstrated), then to know this automatically, reciprocally, indicates a concept or “knowledge” was involved. So if we know existence is a self-proven concept, then we know the “self-proven” and some kind of “knowledge” should also exist, whereas with other ideas we cannot make these same direct assumptions.

Though similar, this deduction is not the same as Descartes’s proclamation, “I think, therefore I am.”[2] Rather, it is first posited that existence exists (not that “I” am or “think”), and in knowing this axiom, both self-proof and the conceptualization must also be inescapable. This does not mean that existence, self-proof and/or knowledge have to be conceptualized to be real. However, because existence is all-pervading, and knowledge is needed to know any existent, knowledge at least carries with it some active self-proof. Just as some notion of existence must predicate all things, some kind of knowledge, at the very least, must be a given for any act of “knowing.”

But for knowledge to fulfill all our qualifications to be an axiomatic concept, it needs some kind of infinite presence, some basic or never-ending link to the external world beyond

any mind, or even any action.[3] Existence is axiomatic in part because it makes no necessary discernment between the mind and what may lie outside of it. As explored in footnote 18, on a basic level, it doesn’t matter if everything is a mental construct or if the mind exists at all, because everything has the common quality of existence. Knowledge may be mentally or even actively self-proven (if abstracted to envelop all our actions [of awareness or otherwise]), yet if there is no way to really discern the mental from the physical (or an action from its object) though our axiomatic definition of existence anyway, then why should we prejudge knowledge as only “mental” either? We know knowledge must somehow differ from existence, or it would become the same concept, but we have not yet explored what knowledge could include or be, thus we should not preset its limitations. So in some way knowledge is just self-proven to us—in other words, something, whatever it is, allows us to be and/or act. The remainder of this section attempts to understand more specifically how this something should be defined, how knowledge needs to be understood to become an all-encompassing idea.

Common ideas of knowledge usually to tie it with awareness/consciousness, truth, language, or more narrowly, simply brain functions. However, even beyond theories of mind, many scientific discoveries, e.g. in gene sequencing, brain mapping and animal intelligence,[4] have led us to consider wider definitions for knowledge. For example biologically, knowledge could be any/all that composes life-forms, from DNA to neurons to conceptual structures.

Still, if knowledge is to be considered an axiomatic concept, philosophic problems arise with a definition that applies only to DNA and living things, or even broader scientific ideas. As suggested before, a concept only can be axiomatically purposeful if it defines a universal, inescapable condition of both the mind and outside world. The same philosophic difficulty arises in “life” being a defining qualification for knowledge, as if “universe” were substituted for “any/everything” in the definition of existence. “Life” and “universe” are scientific concepts with composite associations such as “carbon compounds” or “stellar space.” Scientific concepts do not rest on their own self-logic; instead, they depend primarily on external observations and measurements. Ultimately, because scientific method involves studying things by limiting their variables, experimental proof can never be fully inclusive.[5]

For example, doesn’t a corpse contain knowledge, with its reusable organs, post-sequential reflexes or signature biology? How about the “inanimate” DNA composing our biologies? Couldn’t some “non-biological” extra-terrestrial, new element, invention or anomaly—one that may alter our ideas of life and the universe—possess knowledge? What about the words on this page? If they hold no knowledge, then how is any meaning reaching your brain? Yes, knowledge seems to encompass a wider framework than it is normally granted, and it needs a much wider one to fully perform its axiomatic duties.

Because biologically speaking, many would include the non-living DNA composing life-forms as knowledge, then why not stretch this physical idea to any active quality that makes-up things, like some universal “life-force.” Perhaps knowledge manifests in space-time as wave-cycles not that unlike RNA/DNA helix structures, being able to stretch, bend and/or shift into different patterns of motion, binding together any/all forms and processes. Any motion “recorded” in the fabric of space-time, whether or not it is living, could construct and channel at least all physical events, similar to how DNA programs our bodies and brains.[6] This idea of knowledge as physical information[7] is already alive today in fields such as theoretical physics and data systems analysis. Physical information in such contexts may be generally defined as any material record and/or “data capacity” of matter-energy in space-time.

Such an idea abstracted further, could support an axiomatic definition of knowledge as “the way things have been, are, and/or will be”… slightly different than the concept existence in that knowledge would be any or all actualizations of things. So knowledge wouldn’t be any or all possible things at any or all possible times, but only the way things actually express, have expressed, or will express themselves, whatever context that may be. Knowledge as some infinite physical expression, or eternal propagation of information, could frame it as a fundamental active quality within all things, whether inside or outside the mind.[8]


[1]. This argument is similar to ontological arguments, used by philosophers like Anselm, Leibniz and Kant (to greater and lesser extents). As summarized in Magee’s Story of Philosophy, 57, an ontological argument purports that ‘perfect’ or ‘ultimate’ thoughts or beliefs (like God, Truth, or even our axiomatic concepts) must have external reality, because some most ideal state must exist, because even if our thoughts do not accurately depict this, there would still be something existing outside our conceptions to allow for the best of all possible worlds. However, I think ontological arguments on their own, with no other logic or proof, often reverse cause and effect, where many very abstract, metaphysical ideas can quickly become ‘perfect,’ a priori premises. One example would be the “perfection” often seen in mathematics, or numerology. This can lead to favoring ‘unprovable’ presuppositions versus delving into more cogent logical and/or scientific ideas.

[2]. St. Augustine could have first (informally) uncovered a kind of axiomatic nature in awareness (as consciousness) as is discussed in Rand’s, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 262-263, precluding this famous claim by Descartes.

[3]. It is important not to think a concept axiomatic just because it is inescapable from one’s mind or being. For example, ideas like ‘humanity,’ (stripped of its ethical associations) may be inescapable because we are human, but the idea is far from axiomatic because not all things are human. So an axiomatic concept needs not only internal, logical consistency and certainty, but also some way it can exist outside of ourselves and still permeate things in some infinite way, so that the idea is really inescapable. This is what would give epistemology its metaphysical power.

[4]. Studies on many animals such as elephants, parrots, and primates, have proven not only more computational and language intelligence than previously acknowledged, but also much more self-awareness, creativity, long-term planning, and intra/inter-species empathy (Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life, 283-287). Combined with relatively recent biological insights and innovations (e.g. as seen in medical technologies and genetic engineering), these scientific studies have revealed both how limited and non-physical our conceptions of knowledge have been.

[5]. This seems to be due to both mental and physical constraints. Purely physical support for this idea comes from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It in effect surmises that the exact position and momentum for anything never can be simultaneously pinpointed—the more precise one measurement, the more potential for inaccuracy with the other (Rohmann, World of Ideas, 412-413). Yet also, because there is always some lag time between an occurrence and its observation, there should always be some natural deviation between an object and its perception. The moment we know precisely where and when one thing has occurred, that thing (as well as other things outside one’s empirical field) would have already changed to some degree.

[6]. This wider conception of knowledge may be implicated by our growing understanding of life’s material origins. The physical nuances of atomic substructures and ‘self-regulated’ entities are being increasingly delineated through fine-tuned experiments. Of biological note as documented in Oparin, Genesis and Evolutionary Development of Life, 76-77, amino acids (the building blocks of proteins [which are seen as the building blocks of life]) have been produced from electrically charged elemental gases as early as the 1953 Miller experiment. Gill reports in “‘Artificial life’ breakthrough announced by scientists,” that half a century later in 2003, the first artificial virus was constructed, and in 2010, scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute planted a completely synthesized DNA sequence (a genome) inside a “blank” cell that then successfully self-replicated.

The quasi-living status of viruses and what separates mere organic substances from intelligent ones still contentious in the fight over what life is. How exactly to define the ‘inanimate’ in contrast to ‘life’ is still unclear, often fuelling a wider debate about ‘self-regulation’—a capacity that could be stretched to apply to all natural, cyclic processes. Considering knowledge as this broader kind of self-regulation could unify all things within one ‘life-like’ continuum of information, helping us better understand and harness all self-regulative processes.

[7]. Generalizing from the Wikipedia article, “Physical Information,” physical information could refer to any or all defining properties contained within a material system. In Barrow’s Constants of Nature, 169-172, he abstracts information into a possible broad-based “memory,” connecting “thinking,” or “information processing” into some wider physical context. These ideas do stretch the limitations of both the physical world and knowledge as we commonly conceive them, but into substantive concepts that are not implausible.

[8]. The reason I do not use ‘information’ in place of knowledge as a more ‘objective’ axiomatic concept is because I think knowledge has better association with an active quality in all things, combining the animated quality of life or awareness with the physical nature of all reality. ‘Action’ also is not a good axiomatic term because it cannot be self-proven deductively. Knowledge more directly associates us with our own minds, all its thoughts and processes, and this is how it functions axiomatically within us. The fact that we attribute knowledge mainly or only to life forms is, I think, unnecessarily limiting. If we rethink the idea of knowledge as an infinite context, it can help us understand more deeply the active processes steering evolution within all things.

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Dlewis? I liked him in “Lincoln” and “My Left Foot.”

Evolition? Not a misspelling? dlewis (Dan Lewis) was quoted by Stephen Boydstun:

For example, doesn’t a corpse contain knowledge, with its reusable organs, post-sequential reflexes or signature biology? How about the “inanimate” DNA composing our biologies? Couldn’t some “non-biological” extra-terrestrial, new element, invention or anomaly—one that may alter our ideas of life and the universe—possess knowledge? What about the words on this page? If they hold no knowledge, then how is any meaning reaching your brain? Yes, knowledge seems to encompass a wider framework than it is normally granted, and it needs a much wider one to fully perform its axiomatic duties.

end quote

Low brow that I am, TV shows come to mind. “The X Files”: “The truth is out there.” Dan, I also see a tie-in to Forensic Anthropology as in the show, “Bones.” I think you have also gone a step past the plot of one of my favorite StarTrek episodes, “The Chase,” where the origins of humanoid life in our galaxy, is discovered. The premise of that show is a step behind the truly awe inspiring idea that the origins of DNA flow naturally from the nature of our galaxy. In fact, due to the nature of reality, the arise of DNA should be universal throughout the universe. Yet I would not mind humans seeding the galaxy with our DNA.

Peter Taylor

From Wikipedia, StarTrek TNG, “The Chase:”

Picard has always been a student of archeology, and in this episode he is contacted by his former mentor Professor Richard Galen (Norman Lloyd). The professor, who Picard said is "like the father who understood me", states that he has come across something in his travels which could be the most profound discovery of their time.

Galen, however, will not tell him about what he has found unless Picard agrees to go with him, which means leaving the Enterprise and his career in Starfleet behind. Picard ultimately refuses, although he is torn about disappointing his former mentor, who in anger remarked that Picard's job was like that of "A Roman centurion .... maintaining a dull and bloated empire". Shortly after angrily leaving the Enterprise, Galen's transport vessel is attacked and boarded.

When the Enterprise arrives, Galen is beamed to sickbay and has just enough energy before he dies to apologize for his earlier rude remarks, saying "Jean-Luc I was too harsh" with his dying breath. Picard is fueled by this event and decides to assume Professor Galen's research. An investigation of Galen's ship yields no results other than a series of seemingly random number blocks.

After studying the ambiguous number blocks for hours, the discovery is made that these fragments are compatible DNA strands which have been recovered from different worlds all over the galaxy. The crew eventually believe that they have discovered an embedded genetic pattern that is constant throughout many different species, and it is speculated that this was left by an early race that pre-dates all other known civilizations. This would ultimately explain why so many races are humanoid.

Picard resolves that the answer to the 'puzzle' will be revealed when the remaining DNA samples are obtained, and so the Enterprise travels to a remote, uninhabited planet that Galen had mentioned was his next destination. They encounter Klingon and Cardassian ships that appear to be on the same trail as themselves. These two groups believe, respectively, that the puzzle will yield the design of a formidable weapon and the secret of an unlimited power source.

The Enterprise hosts representatives from the Cardassians and the Klingons, and they all agree to combine the DNA samples that they have found so far, since all three parties have pieces of the puzzle that the others cannot find. Using the shared information, they determine a pattern in how several planets were aligned millions of years ago and extrapolate the position of a final planet.

The Cardassians warp off ahead of the others, firing at both ships to disable them. However, Picard had already learned of the Cardassians' attempt to sabotage the Enterprise's defenses; the ship is fully functional, and he takes the Klingon captain to the last planet.

Upon arrival, they discover that almost all life is extinct, but scans by the Enterprise detect residual lichens located on a fossilized seabed, and they beam down to investigate with their tricorders containing all previously known information. The Cardassians arrive, as well as an undetected Romulan force, creating a standoff. Reasoning that the seabed may not be completely fossilized (and thus still containing some DNA), Picard and Dr. Crusher scan the sea-bed with their tricorder while the other parties argue.

They locate the final DNA fragment, which completes and runs the program. The program reconfigures the tricorder's emitter to project a holographic message. The recorded image of an alien humanoid ( Salome Jens) is projected to the assembled company, and it explains that its race is responsible for the presence of life in the Alpha Quadrant.

When the alien race first explored the Alpha and Beta Quadrants there had been no humanoid-based life other than themselves, and so they seeded various planets with their DNA to create a legacy of their existence after they had gone. The alien ends its message by saying that it hopes that the knowledge of a common origin will help produce peace.

The Cardassians are outraged at this (considering themselves a superior race), as are the Klingons (who hate the Romulans and are disgusted to be related to those "without honor"). Only the Federation representatives seem optimistic. The episode ends with all parties diverging, but the Commander of the Romulan ship contacts Picard and hints that "One day..." [there may be peace].

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Roger wrote:

I really sympathize with the Cardassians. They've been so mistreated by the media. :-)

end quote

What I wonder about is flatulence on The Enterprise or an inter galactic space station. You are walking to ten forward and a Klingon walks by and farts.

“Jeezus H. Christ!” you yell. “What were you eating?”

“What?” he replies. “I didn’t do anything.”

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Sorry, sometimes I am scatterbrained. Must be the Ambien the VA started prescribing. Last week I opened a can of black olives with a hand, can opener and didn’t remember until I saw the can opener in the dish washer the next day, though the sleep remedy usually works. I didn’t mean to lower the discussion, but I can’t promise . . .

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I see consciousness/awareness as axiomatic, but not knowledge. Knowledge is an aspect of consciousness, the content or product of awareness but not seperable from consciousness. Trying to apply 'axiomaticness' to knowledge doesn't seem to make sense , or I do not understand his argument. I have the sense that by axiomatic he means something other than irreducible.

As to whether or not his printed words contain knowledge per se, by my understanding the answer is no, knowledge would refer to my understanding of the information communicated by the symbols. The symbols themselves are just symbols. A means by which the author communicates his ideas or knowledge to another consciousness that recognizes the information and assimilates the information or data into its own 'knowldege', not a direct transference of an enity called knowledge.

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TMJ wrote:

A means by which the author communicates his ideas or knowledge to another consciousness that recognizes the information and assimilates the information or data into its own 'knowledge', not a direct transference of an entity called knowledge.

end quote

Very good. And yet it is information - data – and a clue requiring deciphering by the consciousness that recognizes the information. Transmission matters for nought without the answering, understanding intelligence.

Now, off on a tangent. Seeding the galaxy with our DNA? Trans-spermia? If we were to do that even inadvertently by contaminating Mars or any other planet, would we as a thinking species, want to first modify our DNA, and delete any inherently violent or suspicious tendencies? Perhaps we should send IBM’s “Watson” computer into space.

Before transmitting our genetic message, would we want to recreate a composite message or simply send “the fittest” DNA? Eugenics was a bogus science but the science it pretended to rest upon is valid.

Perhaps our violent and suspicious, yet sometimes rational nature is the one we should send, to ensure survival of our progeny. There certainly is a message in our very beings though it may be mysterious to us or any alien beings who analyze us. (If we found traces of intelligent alien life would our analyses resemble the plotline from, “The Dharma Initiative,” on “Lost” which I am now multitasking on G4, mediacom cable?)

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I found a couple of old messages on my system from that seem relevant to my tangential thoughts on seeding the galaxy.

SPACE.com -- Friday, June 28, 2002 -- Would Aliens Visit?

When it comes to alien activities, visiting Earth seems to be pretty high on the "to do" list. But does that make sense? [...]

...We have enticed the aliens with human activity. Let's set aside the question of whether advanced galactic societies would have the slightest interest in our wars, our pollution problems, or our reproductive systems. The real question is, how would they know about us at all?

In fact, there's only one clear and persistent "signal" that Homo sapiens has ever sent to the stars: our high-frequency radio transmissions, including television and radar. The Victorians (let alone the Egyptians or the Nazca Indians), despite all their technical sophistication, could never have been spotted from light-years away. Humans have been making their presence known to the universe only for the last 70 years or so.

And that's a problem. It means that even if, after receiving an earthly transmission, the aliens can immediately scramble their spacecraft and fly to Earth at the speed of light, they can't be farther than 8 light-years away to have arrived by 1947. There are four star systems within this distance. Count `em, four. We’re back to winning the lottery.

What about warp drive? Maybe the aliens can create wormholes and get here in essentially no time. It doesn't matter. Our signals travel at the speed of light, and this means that even with infinitely fast spacecraft, the aliens can't be farther off than 15 light-years to have reached our lovely planet by 1947. The number of star systems within 15 light-years is about three dozen. There would have to be 10 billion technically sophisticated societies in the Galaxy to have a reasonable chance of finding one camped out among the nearest three

dozen stars. That's optimism of a high level indeed.

It's nice to think that either Earth or its human inhabitants have not only attracted the attention of galactic neighbors, but encouraged them to visit. But frankly, the numbers don't give much support to this somewhat self-indulgent idea.

end quote

There was a reply from Dennis May to “Would Aliens Visit?”

I wouldn't take anything SETI says too seriously. They have demonstrated on more than one occasion a scientific approach wearing blinders due to their political bias. Carl Sagan, the former fair hair leftist media magnet of SETI, more than once slanted science for political beliefs. His cronies still have high influence both at SETI and the "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine.

I once had a brief correspondence with the editor of the "Skeptical Inquirer" explaining why his publication is way off base in placing UFO's in the same class as the paranormal. In his response he indicated he would have to think more about what I had said. That has been 4-5 years ago and the message apparently has been lost.

I will repeat it here in brief form.

In the 1950's Fermi and von Neumann among others showed with simple pen and paper calculations that even a single technological civilization in our or a nearby galaxy has had plenty of time to colonize and re-colonize the galaxy many times over without any new physics being involved. The galaxy is old enough this could have happened over and over many times prior to man coming on the scene. This means that listening posts and hidden alien assets can be anywhere and everywhere.

The SETI model is based upon benign statist aliens who have come into technology about the same time we did.

Let's see, my great-grandmother was born long before airplanes but died after the space shuttle was old news. If an alien civilization was created before dinosaurs walked the Earth do you think they might

have outgrown the one dimension SETI model?

Those who demand hard evidence of alien visits are well aware that the United States government will confiscate any evidence they know of and protect it at a higher level of classification than even nuclear or code secrets. There are many dozens of reports over the last fifty years that this is exactly what has occurred with any substantial physical or photographic evidence. I used to work right across the base from the Foreign Technology Division of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. They re-verse engineer intercepted foreign technology and have a TOP SECRET mandate for what are often innovations generally equal to what we have anyway. Can you imagine the level of secrecy involved and the ends the government would go to in order to protect alien technology from prying eyes? I guarantee they would scramble black helicopters and men on ropes would come crashing through your windows within hours of their actually believing you have such "Hard Evidence" in your possession. After the fact, depending on the degree of force used, you would be accused of running a meth lab or being involved with terrorists seeking nuclear weapons.

Dennis May

Now that is enough to give a person a sense of paranoia. I think Sagan left a lasting legacy, and most of it is quite rational.

Peter

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Dan wrote:

Because thoughts, instincts, behaviors, in general all our actions can be considered a natural consequence or embodiment of our knowledge, its axiomatic nature may seem as obvious as the concept of existence. In other words, to be aware of things requires at the very least, acknowledgment of some substance behind that capacity—if we can think of objects, life-forms, the mind, or anything, we must ultimately submit to the idea that something makes that process happen.

Why accept that idea from thinking of objects, life-forms, the mind, or any other object of thought? We each learned about objects and mama and that some things make certain things happen before we could reflect on our thinking about such things. And when we do, now, think about our thinking, we don't find it necessary that every process we think of entails a process to make it happen. Yes, we think all things have a history, but wouldn't that be a rather stretched-thin sort of making the thing happen? My thought of a material body includes as necessary that it is composed of certain types or other of matter and fields, but if the body is moving at a constant speed in a straight line, then Newton, standing on the shoulders of Galileo and Descartes on this point, has gotten me very used to the idea that nothing is required to make that process happen. If the body begins to change its speed or its direction, that, now that, has something making it happen, and we have made our modern world in a large portion by finding out specifically what is making that happen.

Or are you only saying that if we think of anything, we realize that something must make that process of thinking happen? That seems true once we become able to reflect on our thinking. And we know that we direct our thoughts, so in that sense, we know what makes some of their direction happen. I imagine that even before the discovery that perception requires nerves, let alone our own level of scientific understanding, people also noticed that some of their thoughts are directed by association and that rational direction of thought can be interfered with in various ways.

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Thanks Stephen for starting this as a new thread, and Peter, I used to be a big fan of Star Trek... though I haven't watched any episodes for a while--that episode sounds interesting. Evolition is the correct title -- a fusion of evolution and volition. I guess my description of knowledge does have a sci-fi edge to it, though I was trying to formulate what knowledge may be very basically and more abstractly.

Tmj, you say:

"I see consciousness/awareness as axiomatic, but not knowledge. Knowledge is an aspect of consciousness, the content or product of awareness but not seperable from consciousness."

This is a more common idea of what knowledge is for sure, and I struggled for years with this same assumption, especially since Rand christened the idea "axiomatic" and I was fully drawn in by her philosophy. But think about it further. Only us, and some animal life, are known to be "conscious," or aware of our surroundings in a way which, by epistemologic standards, we can recognize entities outside of ourselves. Yet we are not always fully conscious (as a fetus, doing mind-altering drugs, in sleep, in a coma, etc)--and in such cases, don't automatic "knowledge" (or at least "information") processes take over? In footnote 3, I state:

"It is important not to think a concept axiomatic just because it is inescapable from one’s mind or being. For example, ideas like ‘humanity,’ (stripped of its ethical associations) may be inescapable because we are human, but the idea is far from axiomatic because not all things are human. So an axiomatic concept needs not only internal, logical consistency and certainty, but also some way it can exist outside of ourselves and still permeate things in some infinite way, so that the idea is really inescapable. This is what would give epistemology its metaphysical power."

Tmuj, you also state:

"Trying to apply 'axiomaticness' to knowledge doesn't seem to make sense , or I do not understand his argument. I have the sense that by axiomatic he means something other than irreducible."

The sentence above, "So an axiomatic concept needs not only internal, logical consistency and certainty, but also some way it can exist outside of ourselves and still permeate things in some infinite way, so that the idea is really inescapable." is an attempt to clarify my qualifications for what would make something axiomatic --being internallly and externally inescapable. In order to be always relable as a first order, a priori, concept I think consiocusness has to be expanded to the wide-reaching definition of knowledge I have posited, as any "actualization" in space-time, past, present and future, to have an idea that can actually be irreducible. I know I am redefining knowledge perhaps far outside of common understanding-- perhaps a new word like "existledge" is warranted, but I think we are really falsely constraining what knowledge is by making it a subset or aspect of consciousness, simply a product of it. Especially since DNA is how we start, and it is not even living in the scientific sense. Doesn't it make more evolutionary sense that consciousness is a product of knowledge-- or the way that "information" arranges?

You also state:

"As to whether or not his printed words contain knowledge per se, by my understanding the answer is no, knowledge would refer to my understanding of the information communicated by the symbols. The symbols themselves are just symbols. A means by which the author communicates his ideas or knowledge to another consciousness that recognizes the information and assimilates the information or data into its own 'knowldege', not a direct transference of an enity called knowledge."

I agree with you that the symbols/words outside our minds are of a very different nature than the thoughts in our heads, but I do think there must be some, however loose, physical/metaphysical thread from the symbol to those thoughts in our minds for there to be any consistency at all between our thoughts (whether conceptual, perceptual or sensory) and what they represent outside of us. I'm positing the universal thread of matter to mind, mind to matter to be knowledge-- any or all physical information taken in any or all timescapes.

Imagine how humans may have communicated before words--or concepts. Primitive man (and perhaps many animals do this) may have picked up a stick and held it up to another man, and then pointed at another stick at the ground so that that man knew to pick it up. There is not much of an extra symbol there, just perceptually very similar objects and actions-- the pattern, or information communicated, is the motion of picking up the stick itself. Perhaps this pattern of motion is abstracted to a pictogram at a later date showing a simplified hand or person picking up a stick. Years later the idea is abstracted even further to a simpler image of a stick in a certain position which tells us what to do with it. Even later the ideas of "picking up" and "stick" can be separated into two different visual symbols, and eventually those symbols could morph into letters and words. I think the problem in understanding this is often tied up in the complexity of our conceptual thought processes, now often being so far removed from more tactile connections we would have to utilize more to communicate things if the words were not there.

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Stephen, on your comments from post #9 on my statement,

"Because thoughts, instincts, behaviors, in general all our actions can be considered a natural consequence or embodiment of our knowledge, its axiomatic nature may seem as obvious as the concept of existence. In other words, to be aware of things requires at the very least, acknowledgment of some substance behind that capacity—if we can think of objects, life-forms, the mind, or anything, we must ultimately submit to the idea that something makes that process happen."

I'm not sure I stated it well, but I was implying that every action seems to require something that fuels it (but not necessarily separate from it)-- it doesn't have to be just a thinking process--you are right, I just started with that because intuitively, we are constantly at one with our own internal "actions," and such things often commonly seem to be associated as or with our knowledge, as internalized reflections on or of our consciousness.

But then I also go on in the next paragraghs to debate why those states of awareness/consciousness should not be automatically be considered axiomatic certainties (in the way I am classifying the terms), even though we may always be in some state of awareness. (this is also reiterated in footnote 3).

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Dan,

Inertial motion of a body requires no fuel. That is what Newton’s first law is come here to tell us. Intuitions from our own processes and physical efforts failed us for centuries on this point, from Aristotle and pals to the scientific revolution. Don’t worry. You won’t get any useful work out of only inertial motion. The second law of thermodynamics is cool with the first law of mechanics. But the point remains that not all changes, hence not all existents, require something to make them happen (make them continue happening in this case).

We have all sorts of certain knowledge that is not axiomatic. There are specific reasons we would call something axiomatic in mathematics. There are specific other reasons Rand called certain general concepts axiomatic. There is no necessity in either case that there be only one axiom; it depends on the nature of the realm for the axioms. But to repeat, “certain knowledge” is fine, and we don’t need to call all such knowledge axiomatic, which would ruin the nice special and specific uses to which we were already putting that term. Do you agree with all that?

The concept symbol entails an interpretant (cf. §B). I take the point from Peirce. His insights into the nature and types of signification have been elaborated profitably within our current evolutionary understanding by Terrance Deacon in The Symbolic Species – The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain (1997). I’ve studied that one quite a bit since its appearance. At present unopened on my shelf, also related to your own ambitious and sustained project, is his Incomplete Nature – How Mind Emerged from Matter (2012).

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Dan

I think trying to equate information/data with knowledge leaves no explanation of error, or even volition.

How would the information/knowledge paradigm be affected in the example if instead of two men in a field, it was one man viewing a holographic image of another man?

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TMJ wrote:

I think trying to equate information/data with knowledge leaves no explanation of error, or even volition . . . How would the information / knowledge paradigm be affected in the example if instead of two men in a field, it was one man viewing a holographic image of another man?

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Good question which means we need to scientifically define *human.* For example, I wrote “. . . would we as a thinking species, want to first modify our DNA, and delete any inherently violent or suspicious tendencies?”

I thought an Objectivist/volition-ist would take issue with my deterministic statement. Ayn Rand wrote "Man's volition is an attribute of his consciousness (of his rational faculty) and consists in the choice to perceive existence or to evade it." (ARL, 27 July, 1972).

And Ross Levatter responded to that definition on the Old Atlantis:

Now, as Rand has reminded us, "attributes cannot exist by themselves."

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So what is a post-Rand, modern scientific definition of *man*? I am not a determinist yet I think there are inherent facets to our beings, encapsulated in our DNA. Those innate behaviors have been proven in infants but is it stretching that fact to say we have “human tendencies” past infancy? Of course we have them. I remember seeing a movie/video back in the seventies that examined male and female traits across cultural lines. So, if we have DNA inspired infant behavior and behavior based on sex or DNA inspired sexual identity is it not likely that our DNA also extends to adults? Step back from the experience of being human and observe inherent human behavior through the eyes of ET.

Peter

Notes:

Here is a partial list of innate human infant reactions to stimuli which includes: Rooting, Sucking, Swimming, Eye blink, Withdrawal, Babinski, Palmar grasp, Stepping and Moro (Hold infant horizontally on back and let head drop slightly, or produce a sudden loud sound against surface supporting infant--Infant makes an "embracing" motion by arching back, extending legs, throwing arms outward, and then bringing them in toward body--6 months--In evolutionary past, may have helped infant cling to mother.)

From Genetic and Environmental Influences on Criminal Behavior by Caitlin M. Jones at the Rochester Institute of Technology:

Twin studies are conducted on the basis of comparing monozygotic (MZ) or identical twins and their rates of criminal behavior with the rates of criminal behavior of dizygotic (DZ) or fraternal twins. Ordinarily these studies are used to assess the roles of genetic and environmental influences. If the outcomes of these twin studies show that there is a higher concordance rate for MZ twins than for DZ twins in criminal behavior, then it can be assumed that there is a genetic influence (Tehrani & Mednick, 2000). A study conducted looked at thirty two MZ twins reared apart, who had been adopted by a non-relative a short time after birth. The results showed that for both childhood and adult antisocial behavior, there was a high degree of heritability involved (Joseph, 2001). This study was of particular importance because it examined the factor of separate environments . . . . These males were reported to have selective MAOA deficiency, which can lead to decreased concentrations of 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid (5-HIAA) in cerebrospinal fluid. Evidence suggests that low concentrations of 5-HIAA can be associated with impulsive aggression.

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tmj wrote:

Wouldn't it be homosapiencentric to at least consider we may be the progeny? Could help explain why Earth is so convenient for our development, course we could be the rejects someone took pity on, too.

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Our messages passed in the blink of an eye. Without evidence of one new variety of living creature beyond earth it will always be speculation. Evolution explains the convenience we experience when we see a sunset and think “the earth was made for us,” or “and so God created man.”

I do not fault mythology or religion for coming up with a primitive explanation of existence. Without science and knowledge we will always speculate and wonder if we are the progeny of “others.” It sure is fun to think so. However, it would be wrong to view religion as more truthful than science. For example, like OL contributor Dennis May I have always felt suspicious about the similarities of “the big bang theory” and Christianity’s and other religion’s myths of creation.

The search for extraterrestrial life will continue as long as humans exist. The Jodie Foster flick, “Contact” is my favorite movie.

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Peter

I took your statements post tangent to be more humorous than not, and commented in kind.

Modifying or changing some'thing' makes it a different thing.

The earth is not 'well suited for' humans, it's where most of the humans are, I think we can ask 'how' we 'got' here, but I don't think 'why' questions are appropriate.

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Dan,

Inertial motion of a body requires no fuel. That is what Newton’s first law is come here to tell us. Intuitions from our own processes and physical efforts failed us for centuries on this point, from Aristotle and pals to the scientific revolution. Don’t worry. You won’t get any useful work out of only inertial motion.

What about David's stone flung from its sling. It retained its kinetic energy until it contacted Golyath's forehead and the kinetic energy was transformed into heat, noise, broken bone and scrambled brains. Under the circumstances I would consider that useful Without inertia the stone would have fallen as soon as it left the sling which is just what Aristotle would have predicted.

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Bob,

It remains that no useful work was gotten out of only inertial motion, which was my statement. (It can be safely presumed that any such statements I make are only conveying standard physics; they do not intend anything contrary to it and should not be read with any alternative interpretation deviating from the context of standard physics.) At impact the motion is no longer inertial. That is not to say that inertial motion is not useful, of course. Work cannot be gotten out of inertial motion alone. If ever someone finds otherwise, they will have a perpetual motion machine, as likely you know.

The take-home of the first law of classical mechanics for philosophy is: drop the old doctrine that every change requires a cause. A body moving in a straight line at a constant speed requires no cause to continue in that condition; changing that sort of change does require a cause. Sorry for the repetition of this elementary point, but philosophers fully aware of the correct physics principle of motion sometimes forget it when thinking about metaphysics and go on to maintain that every change has a cause. That is false, and the means by which people thought it true needs to be kept always on probation best we can.

Hopefully, we will not now in this thread use mention of physics to wander far afield into physics, that is, into physics not directly tied to the epistemological and metaphysical views Dan has woven in this book. So far, we're still on the beam.

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Stephen Boydstun wrote:

The take-home of the first law of classical mechanics for philosophy is: drop the old doctrine that every change requires a cause. A body moving in a straight line at a constant speed requires no cause to continue in that condition; changing that sort of change does require a cause.

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Wouldn’t be a blast if it could be determined how philosophies ALWAYS form? I know Rand tried and could very well be mostly right. How’s that for hedging a bet? Plato to Hegel to Kant to Marx to the latest witch doctor of the mind. I think philosophies partially form from increasing populations and the resulting nationalism. Not that being free of want will ensure right thinking but somebody stealing your cattle and range does lead to retaliation and then the inevitable justification for whatever actions were taken.

I like the concept of *Evolition.* It has potential. From Galt's speech, in Atlas Shrugged:

. . . as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining -- that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul -- that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create . . .

end quote

The mind IS tabula rasa (or empty) at its quickening, of ideas and concepts, around the 26th to 28th week after conception (is that the correct term for when a baby begins to think? Is that the beginning of Evolition?) It is empty at birth of anything other than from what it has acquired from its sensory data processed in the womb. The *ability* of humans to shape their souls is inherent. The “beginners” mind is there but is then formed by environment, learning, and volition. Volition can change the environment. Free will gives a child the ability to remember or disregard environmental factors, beyond rudimentary stimulus and response. If you disturb a baby it will seek to avoid the irritation, due to an automatic response.

As Rand described it in "The Objectivist Ethics":

Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are 'tabula rasa.'

end quote

George H. Smith described “tabula rasa” further on the old Atlantis:

If we did not have an inherent power to conceptualize, then the "choice to think" would be utterly futile. To put it in Aristotelian terms, if we did not have the potential (the power) to think, then it would be impossible to actualize this potential by any means, including choice. If man did not have the innate physical ability to run, then he could not "choose" to run. Similarly, if man did not have the innate mental ability to conceptualize, then he could not "choose" to think.

Rand makes this point very clearly in "Kant Versus Sullivan":

The possession of means and their use are not the same thing: e.g., a child possesses the means of digesting food, but would you accept the notion that he performs the process of digestion before he has taken in any food? In the same way, a child possesses the means of "interpreting" sense data, i.e., a conceptual faculty, but this faculty cannot interpret anything, let alone interpret it "correctly," before he has experienced his first clear sensation.

end quote

So my point is that we need not throw Rand out with the bath water, but a modern approach might be contained or expanded upon from the process Mr. Lewis calls *Evolition.*

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Some great discussion :cheer: !

Just wanted to say Peter-- that you explain the roots of Evolition, how I'm trying to approach it, very well! The only exception I make is that I don't really believe in the tabula rasa idea. The whole idea of knowledge permeating all things is meant to say we must have SOME pre-programiing there, so the "mind" (unless we are talking about this as consciousness itself) really isn't ever a "blank slate." But you are right that our ability to choose, if it is actually a special ability, must have some power (however small or large) over the purely determistic or "random" forces of nature. I try to formulate the roots of this ability with an idea derived from my idea of knowledge (and its derivatives as I have reasoned: cause, effect, state, and change) that I coin in my book as "cholce," or "holistic choice"-- here is an excerpt:

"Things can maintain themselves, grow, or devolve as they change, depending on their different contexts. However, apart from any specific evolution, changes must always go from one state to another, thus involving at least two actions. Two (or more) actions can either happen either at the same time or one before/after another. Thus, versus ideas like growth that can describe progressive change, more generally, simultaneous or sequential actions seem to carry knowledge processes forward first.[1]

When considering that different events seem to happen alongside one another all the time, both externally and introspectively, simultaneity as a basic active context is not hard to fathom. Simultaneous effects could be seen as different pathways (or records) of action occurring at the same time. We experience this phenomenon astutely through our synchronous levels of consciousness, highlighted further by our volitional capabilities, or through the plethora of states from instincts to choices, that fuel all our actions. Although all things do not possess our conscious levels, all co-effects or simultaneous actions, because they occur within one referential frame, could be seen as holistic choices, or cholcestwo or more effective states held within and/or used by any entity.

I realize predetermination or the probabilities implicit in physics could be used to explain away volition-like capabilities, especially for things that don’t experience choice (human cholce) like we do. A common evolutionary argument is that life-forms are predetermined products of both their genetics and environments, so any “choices” are at best, secondary affectations of self-awareness. Thus, the phenomena we experience as choice could be dismissed as a dubious power, despite other “freedoms” (like “random” mutations or sporadic quantum movements) that may be at work in nature. Similarly, disbelief in authentic “will” could be argued from the standpoint of evolutionary reduction—since the same physical mechanisms already underlie all things, at what level do some have cholce while others don’t?

However, cholce, being removed from any mental and human constraints, could qualify a level of control (however strong or weak) within all entities, without discounting any physical causality. I envision cholce reduced to some basic “self-regulatory" mechanism, perhaps like an electrical feedback loop of conductance (yes) and resistance (no). Any "self-regulatory" process of basic complexity in an entity could be seen as exhibiting a level of self-control simply because some internal force (like strong nuclear) is holding its various components together, thus to some degree internally-modulating its own properties and/or powers. Cholce could describe any or all of these internal, self-regulatory processes.[2]

That said, it is neither uncommon nor unwise to think that until the creation of life (or animals or even the human mind), the forces that drove and composed inanimate matter had no dominant self-regulation. But if self (as will be examined later) holds as an axiomatic concept, this could implicate some kind of all-pervading separating, or individualizing force on all levels of existence. Such self-regulatory forces seem necessary for entities to maintain their unique positions and powers in space-time.

Basic self-regulation (as cholce) within all entities could help establish a better evolutionary context for the emergence of new forms, qualities or abilities, without having to revert only to ideas of predetermination combined with “chance” or “randomness”(which for living entities, could be genes interacting and mutating “spontaneously” in their environments). Still, cholce is easy to dismiss as an unnecessary anthropomorphic term—genes within environments (or whatever the predetermined probabilities) may be capable of explaining most if not all evolutionary phenomena. Even if cholce can be broadly defined as any/all self-regulated states, if it reduces to these more basic causes, does it really add anything useful to our understanding of knowledge capacities?

Following the logic of evolutionary gradualism, if complex things first evolve from one or two basic things (like genes and environments), it is not unreasonable to assume in a naturally-caused universe, these things should self-replicate. And self-replication seems often to involve some regulated containment or enclosure of information, where things of complementary nature surround and siphon from themselves in order to grow and/or reproduce; particles within particles like nuclei in atoms and cells, or suns within celestial systems, seeds rooting plants, brains controlling bodies, or even “minds” (like our frontal cortex) within brains giving rise to new levels of awareness—all these similar, significant organizational patterns up and down the evolutionary ladder suggest that entities grow in complexity by some cumulative balance around centers or nexuses. An idea like cholce could help inform us of even greater potential, self-regulatory controls or “freedoms,” e.g. by better understanding how knowledge is held, used and compounded through and by entities, so that “higher”level patterns, i.e. new evoltuoinary abilities, could emerge or be created.

Again this doesn’t mean that a rock, or water, or any more basic form of nature, has or can have the same volitional capabilities as human beings. Cholce just unifies all inherent multiple or simultaneous actions by self-capacity. So water changing to a solid, liquid or gas state with fluctuations in temperature would be similar to us wearing clothes or seeking shelter to adapt to or “survive” the same changes. One could say we choose to go in or outside or take on or off our clothes despite the weather, while the water can’t choose its state. But just as knowledge need not presume life, cholce need not presume the consciousness of actions—there are many processes that happen within us automatically that also could be considered cholce."


[1]. Although growth adds the idea of ‘progress’ to change, change itself can involve both/either growth and/or decay processes. It may even be probable that decay processes sometimes ‘advance’ things. Thus, logically, it becomes more accurate to say initially, one thing must become two (or more) things without itself being replaced, if we want to encompass a fuller sense of evolution or progressive change. This is why simultaneous events/effects (as will be described as cholce) seem to work more fluidly to elaborate our ideas of knowledge, specifically of what follows after a single change or effect.

[2]. Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger may have been the first to suggest volition as a kind of focused or “goal-directed” action in his essay, “Volition as Cognitive Self-Regulation.” I am not completely convinced with this definition, since a goal hints more at a specialized level of volitional processing, rather than a defining quality of choice, but the idea of self-regulation intrigues me, since this idea could extend beyond cognition as we know it altogether. Experimentally, we do not currently know enough to predict how far volition extends down the chain of life (notwithstanding matter), but choices abstracted to any internal or self-regulatory processes as cholces, give us an edge to start comparing how simultaneous events, i.e. knowledge pathways, can work together to create new, emergent abilities in all entities. All entities, being physical (rather than metaphysical), may have a level of cholce due to their more separable forms. So some things (like perhaps “particle-waves”) may not possess cholce, being completely determined by set variables, inseparable from the universal matrix, and only capable of changing one way. On the other hand, entities (e.g. particles) would have at least more than one pathway to move simply by way of their greater separation. Note that self-separation or self-regulation does not mean evolution or growth is automatically ‘willed’—sometimes the only path to growth may be to succumb to outside forces.

I also propose "evolition" as another potential level of human cognitive awareness-- when the mechanisms of evolution its pattenrs/designs are able to be grasped and used on a conceptual level, to push ourselves and our surroundings/world/universe forward in harmony.

Evolition reinforces what I begin with (though on a more advanced level) in the book, when I state at its beginning that I believe in some kind of "evolutionary purpose." So Stephen, despite where physics in the classical/Newtonian "inertia" sense may stand on the nature of causality, I do believe that everything has cause-- I believe cause to be a more primary concept, seeding both inertial action (what I call "state") and change (i.e. a cause involves some action (state) in the process of changing into something else). So I do see the universe as a kind of substance in perpetual motion-- although I do not necessarily believe in aether as in was conceptualized, I do believe in what theoretical physicists today call "dark energy" and "dark matter," and I think gravity is or is an effect from some "base substance" or at least some base context. But you are right-- I don't want to diverge too much into physics, though I do address these concerns, very important ones, in chapters 2 and 3 in the book.

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Stephen,

You also address my use of the term axiomatic, which is very understandable, since I am stretching its meaning to the metaphysical realm. I do think that this use is warranted though. I think the concepts Rand called axiomatic were intended to have a special quality-- a grounding for all other knowledge-- maybe she left open the possibility that there were more concepts than existence, consciousness, self (in the appendix of ITOE) and identity that could be axiomatic-- (if so I think they'd probably be precursors or hybrids of these concepts), but nonetheless, I think these concepts warrant a special category. Existence may be in an even more fundamental category too-- as it seems to require far less demonstration/logical verification of its primacy compared to the others--it is more immediately obvious. But I don't feel good just calling knowledge, the way I've defined it, as simply a certainty, equal among other kinds of certainty. What I'm trying to establish is the simultaneous metaphysical and epistemological certainty these concepts possess. Perhaps there is a better word than axiomatic for this, but I don't know of any.

On the nature of symbols and their role in cognitive development, I concede I have done only a little scientific research in this area beyond pure introspection, and being a visual artist I'm very interested in how language works in words and images, so I appreciate your references, and I'm eager to look at them as they seem pretty interesting. Thank you!

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Thanks Michael-- I've enjoyed reading a lot of your posts.

I read several of your comments just yesterday--on the video of the homeless people dancing-- and your comments made me tear up. There is so much hope and happiness in the world in so many different forms.

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