Science's arrogance?

In Nasim Taleb's book 'Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable', page 138, it mentions:

"Let us examine what I call epistemic arrogance, literally, our hubris concerning the limits of our knowledge. Episteme is a Greek word that refers to knowledge; giving a Greek name to an abstract concept makes it sound important. True, our knowledge does grow, but it is threatened by greater increases in confidence, which make our increase in knowledge at the same time an increase in confusion, ignorance, and conceit."


Episteme, it may refer to knowledge but it primarily means 'science', so someone should read the term of 'epistemic arrogance' as 'scientific arrogance', more at the heart of the matter alluded by the uncommon use of the term, unfamiliar to a wider audience. The use of the Greek word 'episteme', it is not merely giving a veil of importance but the equivalent of a derogatory term to science itself. That science could stoop so low as to becoming arrogant.

By the use of Greek words freely outside the context of the Greek language ignoring the semantic overtones that bear, it has been an ingrown pastime, Greeks would say a lack of respect of the language. But what the heck, why not, words are merely symbols to be used at will to the context it is transferred to and the meaning attributed it alone. However when as in this case the use of a word that in its original form means what you try to avoid saying to their face reveals a cautiousness from the part of the introducer and mar the very concept itself instead of being different.

You are avoiding saying to their face that science itself creates arrogance.

.. has a past ..

It is not the limits of our knowledge that it is questioned here but our over-reliance to our conscious aspect of our consciousness, it is our conscious mind that is arrogant, it bears the ingredients to become arrogant.

.. don't blame knowledge itself but the way it is used ..

It is our conscious mind that overwhelmed by notions that prevail in our societies, in the current stage and age, that drives individuals to a trail of arrogance.. (page 139)

".. Harvard Business School students, a breed not particularly renowned for their humility or introspective orientation. MBAs are particularly nasty in this regard, which might explain their business success."

.. nasty ..!!

or in page 137

"Many of the opera-bound people looked like they worked for the local office of J. P. Morgan, or some other financial institution where employees experience differential wealth from the rest of the local population, with concomitant pressures on them to live by a sophisticated script (wine and opera)."

Conscious mind is a product, highly amenable to influences, which at any time could lead it astray. Succumbs under the pressures, a (highly?) volatile quantity. That is the make-up of our conscious mind. Restrains, puts reigns to its unconscious counterpart, undermines the unconscious, instils it with fear, hesitation. Hesitance, self-doubt creeps in, confidence is undermined.

When my conscious self gets in the way, interferes, I loose the streak that my unconscious put forth. All the concepts are there, awaiting, but the conscious is an ill agent, contributor, handler. Can not handle things in the way the unconscious can, knows, handles.

And how can it not be. Logic reasoning, logic reasoning works at another level above what unconscious works, a bundle of things that their main reason being there, is to put barriers, to slow down, mostly to a standstill, the thoughts that rush in.

Science, the way it is employed by its purveyors, can not be imaginative.

Conscious mind emergent? A construct? What fires up the conscious, cranks the brain machine from the top, from a higher level? Till all the cogs of the brain machine are in motion, it takes time, they are not deployed fast. Fast enough. A notion that is revealed to any individual that complains at a computer, that is not fast enough, unaware of the speed, the complexity of a program entails, which its conscious mind can not emulate, but its unconscious can.

The unconscious works down at the deepest level, down to the level of neurons themselves, at speeds unimaginable. Where inspiration resides and fires up.

The conscious, can not only keep up the pace, but stops the fire spreading. The unconscious is what pokes out the ideas, bifurcations ahoy. The conscious kills the unconscious, undermines, the unconscious, instils it with fear, hesitance. When my conscious mind gets in the way, interferes, I loose the streak that my unconscious pushed forth. Grammar rules, overbearing syntax, fancy words that could do without, see to that. The conscious writhes in, struggles and suffers.



-----------
and its use in this context it is not merely to make the abstract concept sound important but it is used to derogate science itself or at least one of its aspects the aspect that science can be used in arrogant ways, a slur against science itself and not a totally different concept.

Consciousness is not a thing, but a process

deep inroads dug .. the stream is narrowing .. are nearer to a solution

In Fractal Neurodynamics and Quantum Chaos: Resolving the Mind-Brain Paradox through Novel Biophysics, Chapter 2.1 Defining Mind and Consciousness, Paragraph 2.1.3.3

"As William James originally pointed out "consciousness is not a thing, but a process"."

Consciousness, a process and by being a process is ongoing, it needs to keep going. Sustained by what has sparked it, in the first place. Once sustaining is not possible, ceases to be, consciousness dwindles to its ground state, nothingness.

"Conscious features may thus be rapidly transformed by the very act of observation, leaving only the sensoria as stable observables."

Conscious features what we use to define and describe our inner and outer worlds and by such an act instantiating an instance of existence of ourselves at its centre. Consecutive instances stringed along depicting the flow of our lives, each instance depending on the conscious features being continually transformed enabled by the very act of observation anchored in our sense organs.

"Thought is an example of such dynamically unstable observation, because the act of thinking results in an evolution of the experience."

Thought being more than just an example, but the reason the human individual has reached to such heights of development, the part of consciousness that enables experience to evolve, to transform experience in ways impossible for other brain architectures existing and use this transformation to continually re-define its role in its surroundings. Adjusting to its surroundings enabled and simultaneously transforming the surroundings to fit self, a virtually eternal cycle.

"An idea is an unstable bifurcation to a novel thought state."

The essence of idea, as they appear as unstable bifurcation, fledglings to be nurtured, fed to fulfil their purpose thereafter, to consummate the role they will play in restructuring our inner and outer worlds, our world. Their immense transformative power. Without ideas we would have never progressed from our primitive stage.

Inspiration .. flashes .. what is perceived as, .. the norm of thinking out of the turmoil of brain activity.

...

I would not put .. a nail .. a distinction between the two .. suffice to say .. the fine boundaries .. of conscious and unconscious activity .. their interaction .. a collaboration .. how it is affected .. obscured .. blurred .. disoriented by the conditions surrounding ..self .. favourable conditions ..a must .. for its un-interrupted ..action .. whatever these might be .. for an individual .. a specific individual ..

a mind .. fresh, crisp, brand new .. like in the morning .. as if the thoughts .. leave a residue behind .. that clogs up .. the paths .. the passage-ways for the trajectories to run .. for thinking to develop .. evolve .. thought residue .. clouds the mind .. the conscious action .. its will aspect .. clouded, obscured, haphazard .. looses purpose, focus, attention .. the sleep clears the mind .. hippocampal or other action .. memories .. jumbled-up fragments .. separated, sorted in piles, segregated .. the paths cleared .. highways .. ready for another bout ..of activity .. amidst a day's toil

'The Emperor's new mind' Roger Penrose page 542

"The many hard hours of deliberate conscious activity would certainly be necessary, and sometimes it would take a while to re-acquaint myself with the problem."

.. in my mind .. trying ..to acquaint? .. myself? .. to the hmm.. value? .. role? .. significance? .. relative ..value? .. of whatever .. of conscious ..vs unconscious .. the relevance .. of conscious and unconscious ..activity .. deliberation

despite all .. this chaos .. I feel .. I am building the attractors .. and out of both .. modes of thinking? .. conscious ..thinking and unconscious ..thinking .. to find out .. how the two are related .. or ..being more precise .. how ..I relate them

.. mentioned them as modes ..of thinking .. though to someone .. and not me .. would not attribute .. thinking with unconscious

.. nevertheless I feel .. that both ..collaborate .. need each other .. intertwined .. one takes hold ..on what the other ..has left on .. a loop .. swirling constantly ..and that action ..goes beyond .. what someone .. wants to prove .. they have ..a connection? .. their connection .. all of their own ..despite of what ..lingers at the back ..of the mind ..of anyone .. trying to handle ..their relationship

they need .. one-another .. regardless ..of viewpoints ..one looks at them ..

hard hours .. of deliberate conscious activity .. Penrose hard on his heels .. to prove ..the superiority ..of conscious ..self? .. to its ..unconscious counterpart .. but that is not .. what conscious is .. it is not one of its attributes .. deliberate? .. may be to the point .. that expresses will ..and tenacity ..and perseverance .. a focusing ..kind of ..action .. to concentrate the focus of attention .. to one particular ..aspect ..object .. while at the same time .. is wandering about .. swirling around .. above ..what it is sustained ..by .. what is relevant .. to the aspect or ..the object .. deliberately ..its activity ..is focused upon ..

conscious activity ..is driven by will .. wants to ..

.. what I have ascertained .. about ..a point to ..contemplate ..separately .....

.. the concentrated nature .. attribute of ..conscious activity ..its single-dimensional nature ..its wave-front .. the tiny .. focal point .. to the quantum .. of the world .. that bears it? ..it is a part of .. a photon wave .. its wave-front ..sinusoidal .. the loop ..in time ..of its motion ..its movement ..followed the wrong thread .. inappropriate .. irrelevant dimension .. strayed .. lost focus .. taken away .. to the unconscious ..side .. need to ascertain ..focus ..deliberate ..conscious action ..

conscious action .. to put me back into the path .. I had originally in mind .. hard hours of conscious activity .. anything but .. where ..haphazard ..chaotic involvement .. what conscious does ..is to pull ..one's mind .. out of the chaos .. and put ..the concerted thinking .. back on the track .. force the mind to settle the chaos .. into an attractor .. a dive ..necessary ..in deep waters

all thinking ..is unconscious .. conscious action .. the flashes .. a sign that a connection ..has been availed .. an association .. of concepts ..notions .. ideas .. which to the physical level of the brain .. equates with a ..bridge .. a synaptic connection .. between one neuron with another .. or may be more than one .. several neuron-to-neuron connections between neuron groups .. assemblies .. which as ..wholes .. represent the concepts involved

flash .. connections snapped ..into being .. inspirations .. the mode of function of brain activity .. the norm and not ..the exception .. the underlying turmoil of all brain activity .. of thinking ..

Chaotic logic?

...

.. chaotic logic .. an overview of logic .. ponder on it .. it will come without being aware of .. the problem and the solution .. out of the attractors .. that chaos is built out with .. never fret .. be confident .. have confidence ..


Example: The second law of thermodynamics .. sprung up .. in front of me .. present itself .. to my consciousness .. without warning .. un- anticipated ..

it made wonder .. is it just a fluke? .. does it fit? .. to my current mode of thinking .. the urge to revise .. the concept used .. mode .. it is not mode .. 'something' objects .. argues .. what is that 'something' .. that raises that objection .. apart from the tedious .. the obvious .. that is 'me' and 'me' .. participants .. huh .. in this conversation .. huh again ..

participants .. where .. did these participants .. came from .. concepts .. grappled with .. and by .. thought .. the circularity .. in this process .. contemplating the concepts .. the concepts get back to you .. concepts participate in the conversation .. a loop .. suspended on its own .. materialise .. instantiate .. without the need .. for another .. the physical presence .. of another individual .. to bounce on your ideas .. on your thoughts

what is your role then .. (no question-mark) .. just a wondering thought .. your participation .. in this process .. seems minimal .. the process unravels .. without you actually making a significant contribution .. you are just recording the outcomes of the process .. concepts .. kind of .. answer back .. and concepts raise the questions .. you are just the vehicle of that conversation .. you might as well .. not be here .. witness? .. (that's a question-mark)

hindsight .. or the idea this line of thought .. touched .. touch .. the rudiments of .. soul .. or 'something' .. along the lines of soul .. the word soul .. being used and abused .. repeatedly ..

witness .. (not a question-mark) .. wondering .. contemplation .. the closure of the thought? .. for now? .. reached a stalemate? .. no bouncing back? .. it exhausted the gamut .. the range .. of stored .. stored what? .. the words .. memories .. concepts? .. that's just using the same term .. to refer to itself .. stored .. what there are imprints of .. patterns .. neural nets .. in neuron pathways .. adjacent neurons .. synapse .. connected .. synapse mediated pathways .. the carriers .. (look at that) .. that gives an answer .. to what .. you implied .. what you came up with .. a few minutes ago .. in the paragraph above .. the witness .. you are not a mere witness .. or just a witness ..you are the carrier as well .. or .. even .. the sole carrier ..

without you .. without your mind .. there won't be any concepts .. to talk about .. you make it possible .. if it wasn't for you, concepts would not exist .. receptacle .. you are the receptacle .. where concepts reside .. develop .. argue with you .. or between themselves

immortality? .. purpose for being? .. what we are? .. along these lines ..

How long will it take, for an (any) untrained brain, to fathom into the most intriguing aspects of human knowledge.

How long will it take, for an (any) untrained brain, to fathom into the most intriguing aspects of human knowledge. The complexity is bottomless but yet within the grasp of the mental capabilities of the human individual. One can master any subject in any discipline human knowledge invented.

The question is asking, how long, as it takes for granted, and not assuming, that such a task can be accomplished. It is not, if, or whether, a human individual is capable of mastering any aspect of knowledge open to scrutiny, but how long. The current thought occurred, well not occurred, instantiated, out of thoughts triggered while reading the following paragraph page 102, 'emergence, from chaos to order' of John H. Holland

"Processing. For simplicity, the model will do its central processing via a large number of neurons that are interconnected at random. That is, the axon of any given neuron in the central group branches in such a way as to make random synaptic contacts with other neurons in the central group. The connections, once established, remain fixed thereafter. This arrangement, of course, sets aside all the structural biases that evolution has supplied to real nervous systems. There is, however, an advantage to using a model net that has no initial structural bias. Any feature extraction accomplished by such net can only be the result of learning; it cannot be built in by an initial structural bias."

Feature extraction. Features that describe and define concepts. Concepts assume their existence by the features that describe and define them. What the human brain is doing is identifying features, lost in the mists of insurmountable complexity, but lost to the untrained mind, only too obvious to the trained mind. The vast range of stimuli for the brain to take in, enormous. Hinders the efforts of individuals to acquire meaning, stimuli for all the features concepts or non-concepts are made out of, and acquiring the right stimuli of the right features, the features the trained mind will pick out from. And how this ability is afforded .. it is afforded by learning ..the process by which vast amounts of knowledge has been accumulated over eons by inquiring minds, one that is the signature of all individuals.

It sets aside the structural biases, the hardwiring aspect, the genes, the genetic makeup, what has been used up incessantly to separate people, into worthy and unworthy, capable and incapable, brilliant and stupid which attributes intelligence as something inherited through generations. The tendency of past and current societies to belittle the human individual and its constant efforts to stray the individual away from accomplishing its goals, collectively and individually.

What fed hordes of conceptions to support racism, sexism and all other discriminatory constructions to achieve ulterior goals. It (learning) shakes off, and keeps shaking of, all these maligning conceptions, the proof, the indication of such process, or whatever someone can call it, it is irrelevant

Humble me .. I will challenge the 'randomness' quality .. attributed by the sentences .. 'interconnected at random' and make 'random synaptic contacts' which do not give credit to the implications of chaotic processes which our brain employs, and by implicating chaos as a participant and as a way of processing, we make use of the attractor concept deeply seated within the chaos framework. The concepts sought after, lie within an attracting basin that chaos assisting processes leads us to.

Chaos enabled pathways, trajectories assists us in our journey to knowledge, as knowledge is already there, awaiting for our arrival.

The wonders of my mind ...

Learning, that is what I am doing right now. And what is learning? Simply categorising all the new information that entered the realm of my mind, in the immediate past, pigeon-holing it, organising it according to the framework, I have chosen gradually over time.

Haphazard, in a way chaotic, as i prefer to call it. Chaotic in the manner it instantiates, it is brought into existence, right from when it is generated right down to the way it is implemented.

Generation, by the way the accumulated instabilities already in place, deep into my brain, vibrate, responding to tiny flickers of ideas, I come across, and set the neurons in my brain in motion. Neural energy floods my brain, drives my neurons re-arranging actions. Instabilities, ideas ad limbo still seeking closure resurrect. Synapses ad necessito break apart, the room they leave, a void to be filled by new synapses, eagerly absorbing the new ideas, while an excited state overwhelms my being. New synapses, unforeseen, rigorously form.

Implementation chaotic, by way it is organised and by that I mean, without being sought after, specifically. Without seeking the particulars of any specific information, but letting information come in, seemingly haphazardly, without any plan, any conscious plan for that matter, without a consciously implemented plan.

Brought along, another attribute of chaos. In the way it manifests itself, a radical overhaul of sectors of ideas fostered by minute inconspicuous details of information. Little ideas with overwhelming potential, as by changing them, enable my mind compelling insights.

Out of the blue, of no-where, of seemingly incoherent information, the attractors of my thoughts, the framework set forth, is hidden from my conscious mind, but nevertheless, exists. What is seemingly haphazard, is not haphazard at all. It guides the essence of my thoughts, without me knowing and puts them together.

Learning, a process which incorporates all the seemingly disparate ideas, into a coherent whole. Its limitation, its necessity of a clear, un-troubled mind state, required. Clarity of mind available, at only suitably selected day's intervals.

Analysing a thought from its inception to its conclusion.

Analysing a thought from its inception to its conclusion. It is a process and as such it will be dealt with. For the thought to materialise, to instantiate it has to be embedded in two levels, the brain and the mind. The brain refers to the neural structures that carry the mental structures, the neural structures being the vehicles for the mental structures.

It relies upon the existence of a certain number of intermediate, pre-existing thoughts in the form of ideas, concepts, notions namely pre-existing mental structures despite their validity, as such the only pre-requisite is that they are secure in a psychological sense in the mental level and more significantly, for the thought process to occur their existence in the neural level. A necessary condition to be satisfied otherwise the thought process would not occur.

The thought process would undergo with whatever is available at the neural level. The mental structures are composite exist as free-standing units and they are accomplished via connections associations between neural structures by synaptic pathways. Synaptic pathways traverse disparate regions of the brain? Proximity matters?

Confusion matters? Confusion dissolved? Cleared? Confusion a hindrance for a thought to occur? A thought can be thought as a novel way of looking at things, something new created despite its magnitude or its significance. It differs from other mental processes that involve a simple recall of stored ideas, concepts, notions, or even plain memories.

Thinking is a process where new associations are performed and is triggered when individuals are confronted with tasks which there is not a ready made solution. They have to invent the solution.