Considering the implicit primacy of the individual in a CAS [complex adaptive system], I must examine the essence of the individual. In particular, the individuals that combine to form – through their collective actions – a system each have their own simple purpose regardless any other individual in the CAS. Furthermore, the individual relentlessly pursues its own rather than the group’s purpose, even when the group’s apparent purpose disagrees / differs. Example: every bird in a flock feeds and flees as it sees fit. Another bird may compete as it dives for the same morsel of food, which provokes a fight. Neither bird cares the least about the flock’s well being, nor even about it’s peers; selfishness prevails.

Now take that to a finer level. Although the bird appears to be a whole entity "owned and operated" by its brain, it in fact consists of many organs composed of cells. Do the cells possess this selfishness [or it possess them], with no regard for one another nor for the bird? It appears not. However, an example from the human world shows the cells do act only for their own benefit.

During one of the famines in Africa pictures of skeletal children with distended bellies pervaded the media. As it turns out [ref?], when a person reaches that extreme of starvation not only do the cells start consuming one another, the cells of the stomach itself attempt to leave the organism. The bloated belly is an attempted mass migration of stomach cells searching for greener pastures. Clearly the cells serve only themselves and their own well-being, just like birds of a flock. The individual purpose overrides the collective – regardless how cleverly self-organized the group – purpose. Individuality reigns supreme, serving the self-organized group only when the group serves the individual.

How far down does this go? Other researchers have shown or claimed that the cell itself exists only to serve the mitochondria within it. DNA facilitates reproduction & proliferation of primarily the mitochondria; the cell being reproduced by that blueprint merely houses the self-serving organelle. Suppose we skip a few steps down & talk of the atom. Does it have a "goal" it tries to achieve regardless any other atom with which it associates? And if so, does it act autonomously in negative situations in ways that endanger the greater thing of which it is part, e.g., a molecule? Then consider those same questions in regard to atomic parts, protons, neutrons and electrons and to even lower levels of quarks, gluons and then string theory (in which "vibration" occurs without any "thing" to do the vibrating.)

Tightening our focus from self-initiatory organic human behavior (including the self-initiated inhibition of behavior) we arrive at a level of being, of existence, (sub-atomic / quantum) normally considered non-conscious and non-initiatory, a level at which action is presumed to be a result of endowment with energy captured or imposed on particles. From whence does consciousness come, from where does self-service arise among "lifeless" particles traveling / acting / behaving only as mechanical response to a photon or quanta? Where does self-serving, self-initiatory individuality begin? Does it begin self-organizing somewhere between the inanimate atomic particles and the life-like viral protein?

Personally I find the problem lay in the language of science, specifically in mathematics. On another >page I argue that all of mathematics, and therefore all of contemporary science rests on nothing more than a PRESUMPTION. Math begins with what is called the "identity function" of A=A. This reduces all of the universe to things, and utterly excludes action.

The "Hard Problem*"

08/11/2000 1:17 PM

Let me take up the so-called "hard problem" originally presented by Chalmers in 1994.

As I understand it he asks the question, "What does consciousness have to do with the brain?" In larger terms, "How does mind connect to matter?" And in the largest generic version of the question, "What does the first thing have to do with the second thing?" Thus, in his presentation of the problem, we must look for some elusive connection between a very clearly understood item – the brain & matter itself – and consciousness, which despite his and innumerable other attempts remains a nebulous, unbounded, possibly illusory object.

Well, unless I am mistaken, the hard problem looks for a connection between something and maybe something. That, to me, betrays both a problem with the problem, and the answer.

Consciousness, despite our term in English being a noun, and therefore an object, is not an object at all. Consciousness is an event, and more accurately an ongoing event. To use an analogy (a metaphor?), the hard problem attempts to connect a bird to its flight. Isn’t that rather silly? I will not criticize Chalmers, as he is clearly a brilliant and thorough scholar with whom I wouldn’t dare argue so much as a football score. But he must have run out of coffee that day when he overlooked such a fundamental and obvious distinction. Consciousness, like flight, may be described or at least referred to with nouns, but neither flight nor consciousness is, itself, a thing.

Now this is not to say the flight has nothing to do with the bird, or the mind the body. But it refocuses the question to more accurately study the relation between an "object" and it behavior. Ultimately I would argue that rudimentary, i.e., sub quantum, string-theory-level action merely goes through increasingly large stages of rest where collected actions self-organize into apparent things, which then act in ways that self-organize into yet larger apparent objects. There are no things, only actions resting.

*To quote him: "The hard problem, in contrast, is the question of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. This puzzle involves the inner aspect of thought and perception: the way things feel for the subject. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations, such as that of vivid blue. Or think of the ineffable sound of a distant oboe, the agony of an intense pain, the sparkle of happiness or the meditative quality of a moment lost in thought. All are part of what I am calling consciousness. It is these phenomena that pose the real mystery of the mind." For further study of the hard problem, please access Chalmers' 1994 Tucson I paper.

11/13/2000 &~6pm EST, added note

08/14/2000 `6pm EDT

Complexity: is it the edge of Chaos and Order? I understand the notion [complexity] as being the meeting point or edge of two "ways of being." But I think it misleads one away from an accurate description of the truth.

Instead consider Movement and Rest. "Order" as a way of being refers to stability which in turn describes lack of movement, or of expressed movement. The lack of movement may be, but is not necessarily, orderly. Within that placid, motionless place of stasis the "occupants," if you will, may rest in unchanging disarray. Thus, the place of Order in fact lacks orderliness: it should more accurately be described simply as stasis or rest.

So what about the so-called Chaos, the way of being that we call chaotic? Again, the language misleads the reader. The area called chaos in fact can easily accomodate - in some cases it must require - orderliness. A more accurate characterization would simply use the word "active" to characterize what opposes stability.

These terms have been used as a pair by fundamental & ordinary people in the history of the world, and especially in regard to consciousness. Jesus, the Bhagavad Gita, and recently the late out-of-body researcher Robt. A Monroe, and others claim motion and rest precede all that is, and that there is nothing else.