Re: What is special about humans?

[John M <***>]

Hi, Jerry,
thanks for your "good and unexpected" reflections as I predicted. 
I am not an autopoetic, I consider the M/V theory model-based 
and devoid of continuing connotations (auto...) into Wholeness.
I want to view their domain into the totality with - of course - an 
input from the inside (as response or initiation to the 'rest of the 
world'). I felt some restrictions in your views for awhile, reason 
for my reluctance to enter into discussion with you on the M-list.
I am no missionary and condone everybody's personal preference 
until it comes up as an argument against the views I represent for 
myself. On this list,however, I post a lot to trigger responses in a 
Rosen-based knowledge base, to bolster my scimpy cognizance - 
about the ways RR might have thought. Not always successfully. 
People don't think equally and it is wasier to absorb the 'spirit' at 
a judeochrislamic bible-class then from the personalized meaning 
of RR's words - especially at different stages of his trhinking.

I enjoyed Judith's botanical explanations (thanks, Judith) in a way 
of totally human (anthropocentric, that is) phenomenological views
which might be quite different how a plant "sees" or "thinks" it.
(I remember an article in J.Conscnss.Studies ~ 1992?) by H - P,
"How to be a worm?" when I responded: first BE a worm - with 
1000 neurons - and do not describe how a human thinks about it).

I vote for your term in the 'cognitive' plants, since I generalized the 
cognition (consciousness?) as "acknowledgement of and response 
to information - no matter at what level and means. Memory is a 
way pof response. Structural, ideational, power-related etc. All is
part of the totality with more-or-less 'efficiency' of interaction as I
assumed in networking influencing unlimited, but not equal, in
http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes/influence.html 

It is my view and you get no bonus if you join into it. You may and 
probably will disagree.

John M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Zhu" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 9:42 PM
Subject: Re: What is special about humans?


> John,  good to "see" you here. Thanks for reminding me
> not being clear on my post and caused confusion. 
> 
> My thinking in this regard is based on Maturana and
> Varela's autopoiesis theory.  The world brought forth
> is in the domain of cognition defined by (M&V 1980) as
> the set of all interactions in which autopoietic
> systems can enter without loss of identity. M/V talked
> about internal structural coupling of an entity and
> external coupling with the context within which that
> entity emerges. Cognition is defined as the ability of
> an entity to change structural coupling in response to
> perturbations from context. Plants were cognitive as
> they changed form to bend towards the sun when they
> sensed signals from the sun about its location. 
> 
> Learning as an expression of structure coupling, which
> alway maintains compatibility between the operation of
> the organism and its environment.  Autopoietic systems
> are sturctural determined systems whose cognitive act
> is not passive receiving signals from context rather
> they bring forth a world that expresses external
> structural coupling.  The world brought forth
> specifies what patterns of the environment are
> perturbations and what changes trigger them in
> organism.  
> 
> Here I tried to characterized the outcome of cognitive
> act.. the expression of external, not internal,
> structural coupling and their difference in different
> life forms. Plants' cognitive domain is one
> dimensional since they extend from their roots. Amoeba
> maintains a structure capable of admitting certain
> perturbations and a structure capable of generating
> movement spatially limited. Multicellular organisms
> evolved nervous systems that expand qualitatively
> their external structural coupling.  Pharaoh adopted
> the plan advised by Joeseph to take fifth of havest of
> seven good years for the following seven years of
> femine.  as you can see the difference between the
> world brougth forth by animals and humans.  An
> interesting research is to study what is the world
> brought forth by different patterns of social
> organizations and the design of the "neverous systems"
> of different patterns of organizations/context. 
> 
> You, as well as Judith, apparently talked about
> interal structural coupling which was not what I
> intended to say. I have a whole lot say in that regard
> but not in this message.
> 
> I hope this will make thing a bit clear.
> 
> Jerry
> 
> --- John M <***> wrote:
> 
> > Hi, Jerry,
> > Long time since we had a discussion on the M-list...
> > To your beautifully organized hierarchy of
> > dimensionality,
> > Why do you deny plants, bacteria, organisms (I
> > guess: biological you mean)
> > the BIOLOGICAL CLOCK  that imparts IME into
> > functions? Do plants not age? Or
> > do you refer only to the consciousness(!) of the
> > bacteria, meaning "they
> > don't THINK in time? What DO they think in?
> > I couldn't help remembering the Abbott-book (~1870?)
> > Mr Square, the 2D
> > scientist in their 2D world (looking down to the 1D
> > stupids) and going to
> > the nuthouse because he spoke about a 3rd dimension?
> > Are bacteria 2D, because we are used to see them in
> > the old fashioned
> > microscopes as images in the plane? Ask your organs
> > when they get sick
> > whether the bacteria stay put in one plane?
> > 
> > You wrote:"the world we brough forth is the one we
> > can experience."
> > Can 'pure' mathematicians 'experience a 387D world,
> > or an infiniteD one, for
> > that matter? They 'think about such' so they
> > 'brought it forth'.
> > They - as I believe - understand it (=comprehend it)
> > - (I don't), so are
> > they not human, or what? BTW: what do you call "to
> > experience it?"
> > are you restricting this to the 64+ senses we use
> > (and counting) only?
> > How about Chalmers's 'personal experience', the Hard
> > Problem? That is in a
> > 'dimension of ideation', and bio-physicists have
> > problems with it.
> > 
> > I can't wait for your reply, you usually have good
> > and totally unexpected
> > ones.
> > *
> > To Steve J, (post copied hereunder): the first line
> > ('Nothing'...) is OK,
> > but then you imply more than the indicated
> > quantitative differences to
> > animals. We evolved different organs to different
> > levels. On the 'complex'
> > list Val referred to his dog, 'who' anticipated the
> > angle of the ball he
> > threw obliquely on a wall and ran in the changed
> > direction to catch it.
> > Superior communication? Have you ever tried to
> > communicate with a dog by
> > sniffing the tree-trunk he left his message on, or
> > did you leave a message
> > similarly?
> > 
> > With best friendly Newyear's regards
> > John Mikes
> > 
Truncated prior posts