Re: Rosen, Kauffman and compatibility

[Howard Pattee <***>]

Jamie,

Better brains than mine have worried about this for >2000 years. Zeno's 
paradox of motion arises just because conceptually discreteness can't ever 
"embrace" continuity. Aristotle's resolution of Zeno's paradox of motion 
was: "That which moves does not move by counting."

I believe the neuroscientists who say that number sense and motion sense 
arise in different parts of the brain. All humans, including infants, and 
many animals instantly tell at a glance whether there are one, two, or 
three objects in their view (called "subitizing"). This is direct pattern 
recognition, not counting. Counting is much more complicated because it 
requires short-term memory. Motion detectors are much closer to the 
sensory-motor control systems. You don't need to perceive numbers (above 
one) to move.

A single formal model can be interpreted to represent discrete objects that 
move continuously, but that is only because of our different conceptual 
encodings of the symbols, and that again appears to require different parts 
of the brain.

Howard

At 07:25 AM 1/26/05 -0800, you wrote:
> Howard,
>
> You wrote:
>
> > The continuous wave image of light is not compatible
> > with the discrete particle image of light.
>
> Now I know that this is the current state of understanding
> in science/mathematics, Howard, not just a personal
> pronouncement by youself.
>
> But I'd like to put this question directly to you ...
> do you think there is any mathematics possible which
> identifies that these different images are actually
> compatible aspects of a single model?
>
> Can you envision any math that can natively embrace
> both qualia?
>
> Jamie