Selected Quotes
Categories
- ART 7
- ENACTIVISM 7
- EVOLUTION 5
- GOD 9
- HEBB 3
- HISTORY 7
- HOW THE BRAIN WORKS 18
- MENTAL ILLNESS & etc. 8
- OVERVIEW OF MODEL 16
- PROBABILITY 1
- SCHISM 3
- UNIVERSAL MODEL 5
- VALUES 19
- VARIOUS QUOTES and BUNDLED QUOTES 4
- WHEELER 7
- WORD 19
- x A LIST of SYMBOLS & DIAGRAMS & PICTURES 3
- x Additional Putnam Quotes 17
- x BARRY comments on paper FORMULATION of VALUES 1
- x Transcriptions of Putnam_Spinello conversations 3
BJS main comment - in progress
Barry’s comment:
Through the course of your gestation, your infancy, adulthood and continuing into the present, through the senses, a record of every jot and nuance of the world that you encounter out there is taken inside as neurons that connect. We know, as we know, not as the world out there per say, and not as a magical picture of the world out there, but, step by step, as the billions of neurons, each containing no information, and each linking to other neurons all containing no information, but are linked together (via Hebbian connection) to produce our words and actions. And this activity establishes or is called “reality.” What I know of the world out there is a ‘slot view’ of what has significance to each of us, individually. Reality is enacted as we describe it (pain is saying “ouch”).
This reciprocal relationship: sensation in, body movement out, is our total connection to the world. There is no other fundamental. No memory. No magical picture of the world taken inside.
And most importantly, it is “probability” that rules.
1. Hebbian connectedness
2. Random Search
3. Probability
What does it mean that probability rules?
Where does probability exist in us? It exists at every junction. Since the very beginning of life on earth which is the electro/chemical fact of live existence, the beginning of life on earth with it’s primitive yet essentially electro chemical nervous system - it is probability that rules.
And that intangible, which is not us, is the mystery that is labeled god. God is not a person or a force that shapes reality from outside, but is built into the fabric of reality at every junction. God is in the numbers.
Knowing this leads to a humbling awareness - it aint me babe, it’s God rules, in the numbers.
Overview of the Course - SCHISM and etc.
Lecture Notes for Class in Sci and Phil #3 Oct 1966
BJS: This paper is a must read in it’s entire. It gives the most concise and clear overview of Putnam’s ideas.
Some BJS comments
Decisions in science are local. Decisions in morals are global.
Moral decisions involve the will. Science decisions do not involve the will. The opportunity for ‘will’ has been precluded. It is the mechanical connection of neurons, independent of will, or personality, or feelings that rule in science - Probability in the longest sense.
We are increasingly faced with making moral decisions that apply to science decisions: when does life begin? when does life end. Are we responsible for life?creating it? ending it? where do we look for answers? We look in our common history in morals and ethics.
Science discipline, however, is constructed with rigid rules, closing out any considerations other than science.
Where then is room for God? Answer: Probability - which is the fundamental, at the heart of our every move and can be considered the missing ‘God” link. God is in the numbers.
Conflicts are in Maxims not in Persons
Formulation of Values 1957 pg 5
Conflict, ultimately, is a conflict of maxim forms, not of persons.
The person is free, it is only the role is formed.
Lower Animals vs Higher animals - regarding learning
Putnam/Fuller NS Model 1964 pg 8
PUTNAM/FULLER NS MODEL 1964 pg 8
In lower animals sensory stimulus elicit stereotype response. In higher animals learning becomes more possible by a loosely wired-up network of defuse random interconnections which interconnections can be, in effect, altered by the CRP. A general mode of operation replaces a uniquely wired-up gadget, making possible greater adaptability. CRP - Conditioned Reflex Principle
Edited by BJS
