So I think that what you and I are discussing is as good as it gets in my topsey-turvey Alice in Wonderland-ish way of having deconvoluted evolution/biology/psychology. My co-author Bill Miller refers to it as being 'like turning your sock inside-out'. And again, I don't think I am 'right' and that all others should comply, I am offering way to leverage our understanding of our condition, given that it started as an ambiguity, tempered by deceits, beginning with the deception of Nature by defying the Second Law of Thermodynamics since under ordinary circumstances the negative Free Energy within us should just dissipate, but it doesn't because we have evolved to husband it through our life cycle, learn whether and what may be changing in the environment and remodel accordingly through the evolutionary mechanism. So your statement at the end of your last reply: " My life's work is in answering the question of how to have a heck of a good time on the way to the singularity" is exactly what I think is the essence of evolution, and what I would hope we can convey through this ToK construct. So in that vein, I will interject my replies within your last reply in brackets, as follows:

The appreciation for the dialogue is mutual, and I likewise hope we will continue!

[Like Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey in Aurora, IL, "Party On!"]

I see no problems or discrepancies with anything you are proposing and my own understanding of how all of this is developing and coming into focus.  As I am professionally trained as a clinical psychologist, the fidelity of my vision is most defined at the conceptual levels of Mind and Culture.  I possess a cocktail party conversational level of understanding of the foundational biological processes.  As such, I enthusiastically defer to your expertise within the biological domain. 

[I assume that when you say that 'the fidelity of my vision is most defined at the conceptual levels of Mind and Culture' that you either do not need scientific evidence or even more strongly actively reject scientific evidence? I ask because several decades ago medicine declared that it was evidence-based, i.e. that scientific evidence was needed in order to justify medical practices. I gather that did not spill over into psychology? even with the advent of the psychotropic drugs to treat mental illness? Really?]
 
And so with all due respects given...


[So just for clarity, and not for braggadocio, did Freud think that our consciousness was the internalization of the external environment?]

I'm not enough a Freud scholar to know if he would agree with that exact phrasing, or at which time in his life he might have.  I'm curious, though, and so I'll take a dive back into Freud to see if I can find a direct quote.  I had a paragraph written out here about it, and then I just caught that Freud discusses unconscious processes as existing in non-time and I figured I'd better get out my highlighter and go line-by-line. 

[Well if you're willing to take that plunge, this person would be very appreciative in knowing Freud's position on the origins of consciousness because in all of my readings about the subject no one is hypothesizing that it is acquired through physiologic evolution from the Singularity, particularly as a consequence of endosymbiosis. And I assume that is because of that schism between cell biology and evolutionary biology I had mentioned in my lecture that has led to a vacuum of any reference to cell biology in the evolutionary biology literature. That is extraordinary, given that cell biology is at the core of biology and medicine today]

"P -M--> E, which describes behavior, whereas behavior is in service to epigenetic inheritance, referring all the way back to the First Principles of Physiology"

Yes! Exactly.  The Tree of Knowledge system is a model of the unfolding wave of behavioral complexity that begins with the Big Bang, transitions through physical processes described by physics and chemistry, and then biological processes described by someone such as yourself, and then eventually to the psychological domain of complexity that someone like myself might try to grapple with.  You and I should both agree that my typing this sentence to you is in some way a more granulated expression of a pattern of behavior first articulated through the medium of epigenetic expression.  Just as a bird does not defy physics when it flies, but rather works in concert with physical laws, biological properties, and psychological principles --- and in that order

[I have to admit that I find it extraordinary that you get what I am talking about, given that you, like everyone, have been trained and imbued with descriptive biology, whereas what I am talking about is usually rejected as 'woo-woo' unless and until I am given the opportunity to go through the 'logic' of looking at the process of evolution as cellular communication, starting with embryologic development as the Rosetta Stone for translating what we think are our evolutionary origins based illogically on reasoning after the fact. So that said, Gregg's P -M--> E is based on description, whereas I would submit that the underlying mechanisms that form the basis for that 'equation' are far more insightful with respect to why we do what we do. In this mind space I have resorted to the comparison of Newton and Einstein's takes on Gravity. Newton describes it in as the attraction of bodies, whereas Einstein expresses it as the distortion of space-time, tying gravity to Relativity Theory, showing how gravity is part of the continuum of all of the forces, whereas in Newtonian terms gravity remains in isolation from other physical phenomena, leading to the clock-like perspective of reality that still dominates our worldview of physiology as Lego Blocks, detached from the continuum with the Singularity that is necessary to understand how and why we exist. That is to say, I think we still are in the Cartesian Mind-Body duality mindset, even if we disavow it. Take the attitude of society toward mental illness as distinguished from organic disease, but who am I to bring that to the attention of a clinical psychologist....BTW, I am merely paraphrasing what I have learned of the subject from my psychiatrist daughter-in-law.]

In "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"  Freud cites Fechner's Law, and quotes Fechner as follows:

"every psycho-physical movement rising above the threshold of consciousness is charged with pleasure in proportion as it approximates—beyond a certain limit—to complete equilibrium, and with pain in proportion as it departs from it beyond a certain limit; while between the two limits which may be described as the qualitative thresholds of ―pain or pleasure, there is a certain area of aesthetic indifference.

Gregg's P - M => E is the more advanced and modern articulation of what I believe Freud was getting at, which is that when we have experiences that move us significantly toward desired goal states, we become conscious of feeling good (approach).  Whereas when we have experiences that move us significantly away from desired states, we become conscious of feeling bad (avoid).  P - M => E accounts for the physiological electrical-emotional wave that serves as the orienting, or re-orienting force. 

[So when I read Fechner's Law I immediately think of my reduction of how physiologic stress, when persistent and unavoidable, ultimately resulting in remodeling in order to establish a new homeostatic set-point, which we refer to as evolution (hope that made sense.....so I don't remember if I went through that rationale with you before, so at the risk of repeating myself, based on cell-cell communication as the basis for development and homeostasis, when external environmental forces cause stress, they generate Radical Oxygen Species due to shearing of the microvessels in response to increased blood flow. Those Radical Oxygen Species cause gene mutations and duplications, which when affected in communicating cells will eventually lead to remodeling based on The First Principles of Physiology (or not, in which case the organism will ultimately become extinct in the worst case scenario). I sincerely hope that was helpful and not geeky because it is important to my mind to understand that there is a 'logic' to my madness]. Anyway, this is how I understand the pleasure-pain of behavior......oh, and importantly, the net result of either dyshomeostasis or homeostasis that are the underpinnings of all of the above is calcium flux, which is the universal output of all cells. So the synchronous flow of calcium is the physiologic equivalent of pleasure.....so for example, the runner's high is the result of endorphins aligning the flow of calcium from tip to toe, resulting in the elation we feel as a result. That's the epitome of calcium fluxes that Maslow refers to as 'Peak Moments', but there are smaller versions that occur when we view art or gain resonance with our colleagues in a dialogue like this one. So again, I think Gregg's  P - M => E can and should be reduced to calcium fluxes and what's causing them in order to get to the bottom of the process/mechanisms......to me it's like looking at a TV screen, seeing the phenotypic behavior v looking at the back of the TV to determine how and why those images are forming because understanding the mechanisms has what I would call 'fidelity' to The First Principles of Physiology, whereas the descriptive mode can and will erode over time, and quite honestly will eventually fail for lack of fidelity. BUT you have to have the phenotypic description in order to delve into the mechanism, that's the paradox. What I am saying is that the description should be the beginning, not the end.]

What those goal states are and should be is the big cultural debate we're having right now.  For me, it all ends with the personal alignment of consciousness to the reality of the present-moment singularity. However, before we get there, we have to pass through other layers hardcoded into our mammalian/ape structure.  Gregg articulates this in his Influence Matrix. 

[I get all of that, but will refer to my previous comment. When I look at Gregg's Influence Matrix I see description, whereas if we were to understand the underlying basis for the components, we could more effectively reduce the stress/friction/pain that hinder our journey back to the Singularity. As a physiologist I think that we can learn to do this based on the principles of cellular communication mediated by factors that are to a large extent under our control, either in a positive or negative direction (as you know). So when my Buddhist friend chants I am convinced she is entraining those calcium fluxes I alluded to earlier; or when I used to run and get that high from the endorphins, largely by synching my pace to my heart rate and breathing, such that I could get there more consistently, probably inducing more endorphin receptors, both centrally and peripherally. As I write this, I think of the aphorism about the cup half full or half empty.....something as simple as that, if one is receptive, is immensely helpful in grooving that serotonin mechanism in a positive rather than a negative direction. And I might add that IMHO, having that knowledge of the 'nuts and bolts' of physiology is also helpful because it lets us better implement such tools. As an aside, I have taught Pediatricians training to become Neonatologists, those who clinically treat preterm newborns, in research methods for 50+ years now. And I am convinced that their understanding of the cellular-molecular physiology improves the lives of such premies because the clinicians 'appreciate' the consequences of their actions in viscerally, like muscle memory of the brain. So for example, we know that over-zealous expansion of the lungs of such preterm newborns can have inadvertently devastating effects even though the kid 'looks better'. So by understanding the Rube Goldberg mechanisms involved I think that the clinician is more aware of what lies beneath, like the Buddhist sensitivity to themselves and to the environment.....mindfulness? Anyway, you get what I mean knowing you ] 

 My life's work is in answering the question of how to have a heck of a good time on the way to the singularity

[I can only hope that in some small ways what I have conveyed to you will facilitate that for you, because then you can convey it to your clients, etc, etc. That's why I have self-selected to try and engage in the ToK on this 'long weird trip'. I am tired of the BS, to quote that article that Gregg circulated. And just to put a point on that, we are all trying to get on that trajectory toward the Singularity in expressing the emotion that we know there's something bigger than ourselves, but if there's more error than trial the effort diverts us from the path of least resistance😀 LITERALLY]

 "Oh and the simplification of the algorithm may be the consequence of being warm-blooded" 

Jung describes this as "individuation," whereas Hobson and Friston describe it in terms of the reduction of free energy in the external environment.  We carry the heat with us which allows us more freedom from heat sources.  The consequence, of course, is the need for more complex homeostatic processes, and, thus, the commensurate computational control to organize and streamline those processes.  

[So as a corollary, both hominins and birds have an extraordinary range of environments, the former populating virtually every niche within and outside of Earth, Albatrosses circumnavigating the pole, and to what end? To gather more and more epigenetic marks. And this because we and the birds are warm blooded. But because of this 'gift' of evolution, it behooves us to use these skills to advantage, not to cope an attitude of superiority towards all else, but to be good stewards of ourselves and our evolutionary history with the flora and fauna (sorry if I am sounding preachy, but once I get to this place I get very moody (read angrily hopeful). I know that I am preaching to the choir, but I think that by reducing the problem of biology and physics to 'networks' I have found a path through the forest to distinguish it from the trees, if you will, so I hope to disseminate my insights as best I can with what time I have left)]

Culturally, we are currently experiencing the collective negotiation of what the social simplification will be, as we are all thrust shoulder to shoulder through the proliferation of internet connectivity.

[Wouldn't it be cool if what you and I are talking about went 'viral' on the Internet. I am of the opinion that small steps in the 'right' direction could/would be buildable. I say that because in retrospect, the main reason I like the cell-cell communication concept is that it is scale-free, i.e. it works at all levels without having to change the rules, so in that sense it is universal.......and it connects to physics, offering a seamless bridge between the animate and inanimate. Anecdotally, I gave my spiel at the Center for Process Studies at the School of Theology at Claremont-McKenna last month to a bunch of more spiritual types. Historically, the Center was founded by Alfred North Whitehead, who as you probably already know was big into everything being energy. At any rate, after my talk someone came up to me and said that my message was of great value to him because he works with Millennials, who have rejected religion, but have nothing to fill that 'void'. He thought that my take on the Singularity would be an effective way for that population to regain that sense of oneness with the Universe through a secular/cultural route.] 

John, in the meantime while I continue to school myself on the materials you're taking the time to send out to us, I am curious what you feel the effect of consistent and long-term deep breathing exercises might have on an individual's epigenetic expression and potential self-transformation?

[If I understand you question correctly, and mind you I see the world through my own lens too much, or so I am told, the premise of the "Central Theory of Biology" paper I published was that physiologic stress was the force behind the evolution of warm-bloodedness. I was emboldened to publish that article because when I played devil's advocate, wondering what the opposite of stress would mean in the context of integrated physiology, I thought about meditation and hibernation in the context of reduced cholinergic stress. When I went to the literature I discovered that the mirror opposite of the cholinergic stress mechanism occurs when we meditate or hibernate, literally. So in answer to your question, when we breath deeply and rhythmically we are increasing oxygenation and blowing off carbon dioxide, the latter causing anxiety, reverting back to an earlier more gut-brain like state of mind, alleviating ourselves of many of the neuroticisms that have developed to cope with the stresses of everyday life. So perhaps we're entering a more dream-like state? Where our brains can cool so we're more receptive to the collection of those epigenetic marks that foster the path to the Singularity? Given that all of the cells of our bodies turn over every seven years (fact), if we start practicing breathing deeply and rhythmically now, we will have moved ever closer to the Implicate Order of the Singularity. And if Nicholas Christakis's Contagion Theory that we're all networked independently of the Network biologically is correct, then such a practice could be 'contagious' within the limits of human capacity. So in this vein/vain, I have now published 70 peer-reviewed articles and 3 books on the technical aspects of this way of thinking. When I asked you at the ToK about publishing you said you were thinking about a book. Where along that path are you? Is it a solo process or, as I have done with Bill Miller, something you might consider as a joint effort if you and I can formulate enough critical mass.....more light than heat....the scientist and the psychologist find common ground in the Singularity (I'm thinking of the debate between Einstein and Bergson, which didn't end in harmony, but maybe we can do better ? I have attached the book proposal under review at Springer that Bill and I have pitched based on our several years of discussion, laced with co-authored journal articles. What you and I are discussing would follow further down the path, and would obviously have a psychology-based bent given your background, so it would be different. BTW, Miller doesn't understand my position on Consciousness as the humanization of the Cosmos, so there's room for that if you care to develop that idea, particularly as it may/not relate to what you discover in your reading of Freud. I just finished reading Deepak Chopra and Menas Kafatos's "Your are the Universe", in which they posit that we determine the external environment, which as you know is inconsistent with my take, for example. 
Again, my take is linked to the evolution of physiology based on cellular mechanisms, so it is unique, and I welcome the opportunity to carry that further with you if you like. Just a thought.] 



On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 12:53 AM, Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
The appreciation for the dialogue is mutual, and I likewise hope we will continue!

I see no problems or discrepancies with anything you are proposing and my own understanding of how all of this is developing and coming into focus.  As I am professionally trained as a clinical psychologist, the fidelity of my vision is most defined at the conceptual levels of Mind and Culture.  I possess a cocktail party conversational level of understanding of the foundational biological processes.  As such, I enthusiastically defer to your expertise within the biological domain.  
And so with all due respects given...


[So just for clarity, and not for braggadocio, did Freud think that our consciousness was the internalization of the external environment?]

I'm not enough a Freud scholar to know if he would agree with that exact phrasing, or at which time in his life he might have.  I'm curious, though, and so I'll take a dive back into Freud to see if I can find a direct quote.  I had a paragraph written out here about it, and then I just caught that Freud discusses unconscious processes as existing in non-time and I figured I'd better get out my highlighter and go line-by-line. 

"P -M--> E, which describes behavior, whereas behavior is in service to epigenetic inheritance, referring all the way back to the First Principles of Physiology"

Yes! Exactly.  The Tree of Knowledge system is a model of the unfolding wave of behavioral complexity that begins with the Big Bang, transitions through physical processes described by physics and chemistry, and then biological processes described by someone such as yourself, and then eventually to the psychological domain of complexity that someone like myself might try to grapple with.  You and I should both agree that my typing this sentence to you is in some way a more granulated expression of a pattern of behavior first articulated through the medium of epigenetic expression.  Just as a bird does not defy physics when it flies, but rather works in concert with physical laws, biological properties, and psychological principles --- and in that order

In "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"  Freud cites Fechner's Law, and quotes Fechner as follows:

"every psycho-physical movement rising above the threshold of consciousness is charged with pleasure in proportion as it approximates—beyond a certain limit—to complete equilibrium, and with pain in proportion as it departs from it beyond a certain limit; while between the two limits which may be described as the qualitative thresholds of ―pain or pleasure, there is a certain area of aesthetic indifference.

Gregg's P - M => E is the more advanced and modern articulation of what I believe Freud was getting at, which is that when we have experiences that move us significantly toward desired goal states, we become conscious of feeling good (approach).  Whereas when we have experiences that move us significantly away from desired states, we become conscious of feeling bad (avoid).  P - M => E accounts for the physiological electrical-emotional wave that serves as the orienting, or re-orienting force.  

What those goal states are and should be is the big cultural debate we're having right now.  For me, it all ends with the personal alignment of consciousness to the reality of the present-moment singularity. However, before we get there, we have to pass through other layers hardcoded into our mammalian/ape structure.  Gregg articulates this in his Influence Matrix.  

 My life's work is in answering the question of how to have a heck of a good time on the way to the singularity

 "Oh and the simplification of the algorithm may be the consequence of being warm-blooded"

Jung describes this as "individuation," whereas Hobson and Friston describe it in terms of the reduction of free energy in the external environment.  We carry the heat with us which allows us more freedom from heat sources.  The consequence, of course, is the need for more complex homeostatic processes, and, thus, the commensurate computational control to organize and streamline those processes.  

Culturally, we are currently experiencing the collective negotiation of what the social simplification will be, as we are all thrust shoulder to shoulder through the proliferation of internet connectivity.

John, in the meantime while I continue to school myself on the materials you're taking the time to send out to us, I am curious what you feel the effect of consistent and long-term deep breathing exercises might have on an individual's epigenetic expression and potential self-transformation?

Peace,

-Chance






On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:02 PM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Chance, thank you for keeping the momentum of the Conference going (as I see it). I want to respond to your thoughtful comments, but to preface all that I will say in brackets by stating that what I have been able to do is turn biology around 180 degrees, allowing us to finally understand evolution from its origins instead of its ends, essentially reasoning after the fact, which we know by definition is illogical, yet until now that's all we had to go on. BTW, my latest book is entitled "Evolution, the Logic of Biology", and I assume that psychology is a branch of biology.... Nuff said....


I want to chime in quickly and say that as I'm keeping up with the articles and discussions here, I'm doing quite a few double and triple takes.  John, I was wrong about Friston's first name, and so we were in fact talking about the same Karl Friston in our discussions.  I am very much a fan of Hobson and Friston's Bayesian brain model, and their temperature homeostasis model.  In my conceptual dissertation on dreams, I showed that Freud, Hobson, and Friston think of the brain in the same way, and in the way that you are articulating here:

"consciousness is assimilation of the environment as physiology, interpreted by our nervous system as consciousness."

[Just to be clear, I am saying that what we think of as consciousness as the state of being aware is actually our awareness of the Cosmos, or at least those aspects that are necessary for our survival, derived from our physiologic makeup, which has been internalized from the environment endosymbiotically......and this is not metaphysics, it's the current theory for evolution from the unicellullar state to multicellular organisms as formulated largely by Lynn Margulis]

I am not out to make a point that "Freud was first," but more that when two opposing camps actually agree on something a century apart, that we should consider that a sign post towards something worth looking at closely.  

[So just for clarity, and not for braggadocio, did Freud think that our consciousness was the internalization of the external environment?]

The brain cooling hypothesis is one that I am attracted to conceptually, but I did not have enough time to research it enough to endorse it strongly in my own research.  I had to "earmark it" for later.  So thus my double take that you, John, have published on this. 

[And just for background, when I read Hobson and Friston's brain cooling hypothesis I instinctively thought to myself "well if brain cooling's important in dreams during REM sleep, the brain had to have been warm before it could cool, so I reflected on my theory of the evolution of endothermy, evolving during the water-land transition, causing physiologic stress and remodeling of the internal organs- skeleton, lung, kidney, thyroid, brain- and how that might have played out in brain cooling, particularly since only mammals and birds are warm blooded, and only mammals and birds exhibit brain cooling]

I feel that this discussion and these conceptualizations are highly relevant to the current situation we find ourselves in.  The Bayesian Brain model/the UT/Freud/Torday model would suggest that the individual self is attempting to expand its awareness in order to account for the changes in the environment, but at the same time is driven towards simpler algorithms for processing the increased data and knowledge needing to be considered. 

[The other aspect, IMHO, is what Andy Clark is expressing in that New Yorker article that Gregg distributed, "Are we already living in a virtual reality". Clark talks about the externalization of the mind or disembodied consciousness. My bias is that this is how our minds are evolving, moving further toward the Singularity from whence we evolved. But this is not higher consciousness, it's the stripping away of the Explicate Order we are burdened with by perceiving the environment with our subjective senses, when the true Implicate Order lies elsewhere in the gap between us and the Singularity of the Cosmos. And no, I don't think of this as philosophy, it is a natural extension of the evolution of the human mind, which can conceive of past/present/future simultaneously due to the co-evolution of bipedalism, warm-bloodedness and the prehensil thumb. There is an actual DNA modifier that is unique to hominins that confers the prehensil thumb, mobile wrist and ankle on us. Oh and the simplification of the algorithm may be the consequence of being warm-blooded. Cold blooded organisms require multiple enzymes to accomplish the same metabolic step that warm-blooded organisms only require one enzyme for, which is why there was a collapse of the vertebrate genome in the post-Cambrian period when endotherms evolved. If the nervous system has evolved to regulate physiology, then that simplification would have translated to the simpler algorithm you referred to Chance. Oh, and to finish that thought, the simper metabolism also facilitated bipedalism because it takes more energy to stand on two legs v four, and the evolution of bipedalism freed the forelimbs for flight and texting, hence the selection pressure for the prehensil thumb(?)]

Freud (and then later Hobson and Friston) talk about surprise as being inherently aversive to the organism, thus the drive to be able to predict what's going to happen next.  However, as experiences accrue, so do the proliferation of  "if - then" possibilities that the brain must calculate.  Just like a computer will heat up if the system is overclocked, so the runaway brain theoretically becomes at risk for free energy spillage within the system, thus creating  neuro-associative damage.  I think of this like the water drip torture, where water is dripped on the face at random intervals.  The increasing anticipation of the next drop is said to lead to insanity (See Gregg's behavioral shut down model here:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201604/the-behavioral-shutdown-theory-depression)

The tension is thus that it is more pleasurable to live life in a state of reflexive certainty, but once we become aware that our reflexes do not account for the total free energy in the environment, we feel the tug to incorporate more environment into our physiology.  "Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill," or said another way:  "ignorance is bliss."

[My take is that you're talking about homeostasis, or energetic balance. In the face of dyshomeostasis, the cell-cell interactions that maintain such energetic balance physiologically are perturbed, generating what are called Radical Oxygen Species (ROS) due to the shear stress on microvessels. Such ROSs cause gene mutations and duplications locally in those tissues most affected, leading to remodeling of the structure/function to re-establish homeostasis, or what we conventionally call evolution. This certainly works in the visceral organs, and peripheral nervous system. Not sure how it would play out in the CNS other than as an inflammatory mechanism of some sort, given that you don't have capillaries in the brain (I don't claim to have all the answers...yet)]

The solution to this tension between the desire to "take it easy" versus the anxious urge to anticipate the environment is the formation of simpler algorithmic models that consider all of the known variables, and thus allow the self to maintain certainty across the most situations possible.  This resolves the dialectical tension between death anxiety (which results from uncertainty) and the pleasure principle (the retention of optimal energy homeostasis).

[I don't think this is an active process at the functional level, it's innate, as I have described above. But we become conscious of it and respond accordingly through self-awareness and social cues]

Gregg's Behavioral Investment Theory is the best psychological model for this that I have encountered, and is fully compatible with everything that I'm reading so far from you, John.  

I need to continue to read the articles you've sent out carefully, though I will shoot from the hip now and say that your model seems theoretically rich at the domain of "Life" and then thins out at the level of Mind and Culture.  

Have you looked closely at P - M => E  ?


[All due respect Chance, the model may only seem to peter out at the Mind and Culture level because it is integral with them. I think of it like the debate between Punctuated Equilibrium (evolution occurs in fits and starts) and Gradualism (as the term would infer). They are one and the same process, they just appear to be different depending upon the way they are perceived. This is the same as Neils Bohr's Complementarity hypothesis, explaining why light can be seen as both particle and wave. He said that the duality was due to the way light was being measured, but that they were one and the same in reality. I consider such dualities and dichotomies and dialectics the residual of the Singularity/Big Bang. We came into existence as an ambiguity of Free Energy, negative within and positive without. We learned to cope with that ambiguity through deceptions, originating with the deception of Nature by circumventing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, only complying when we die. That founding deception hypothetically gave rise to the deceptions that Robert Trivers had described in his book "The Folly of Fools". The persistence of such behaviors should, in my opinion, by rectified now that we recognize this historic 'error'......that was a long-winded run up to my comment about P -M--> E, which describes behavior, whereas behavior is in service to epigenetic inheritance, referring all the way back to the First Principles of Physiology in the unicell (witness the fact that we return to the unicellular state as a 'reality check' to make sure we are in compliance with such principles....mechanically, that occurs when we undergo meiosis, or reduction division from 46 to 23 chromosomes. During that process there is an as yet to be determined mechanism by which the epigenetic marks collected during the life cycle of the organism are sorted out as to which 'marks' are consistent with the history of the organism genetically. So the offspring express the newly acquired epigenetic marks that informed the parent as to changes in the environment. In other words the phenotype is not a passive product of reproduction, it is an active 'agent' for the on-going acquisition of epigenetic in the next generation, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. I have attached the paper I published on the Phenotype as Agent, which yet again comes out of the 180 degree turn around of biology from description to mechanism. I would like to think that this would/could/should apply to psychology as well.😀] 

By the way, if you want to translate this Western frame into a more Eastern one, then every time you hear the word "Chi" and "energy" just think of it in terms of the Bayesian brain model, where perfect "Chi" flow is simply a 1 - 1 ratio of adaptive reflexivity between self and environment. 

[I think my take on the continuum from the physical to the physiologic is in sync with Eastern philosophy. In fact we contributed the attached paper on ambiguity to a special issue of Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology on Eastern Holism-Western Reductionism]

Hope I don't sound too hubristic, but I do think that the model I have concocted is an improvement on descriptive biology based on parsimony/Occam's Razor. I appreciate your willingness to dialogue with me.....hope we can continue. John


On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 2:58 PM, Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I want to chime in quickly and say that as I'm keeping up with the articles and discussions here, I'm doing quite a few double and triple takes.  John, I was wrong about Friston's first name, and so we were in fact talking about the same Karl Friston in our discussions.  I am very much a fan of Hobson and Friston's Bayesian brain model, and their temperature homeostasis model.  In my conceptual dissertation on dreams, I showed that Freud, Hobson, and Friston think of the brain in the same way, and in the way that you are articulating here:

"consciousness is assimilation of the environment as physiology, interpreted by our nervous system as consciousness."

I am not out to make a point that "Freud was first," but more that when two opposing camps actually agree on something a century apart, that we should consider that a sign post towards something worth looking at closely.  

The brain cooling hypothesis is one that I am attracted to conceptually, but I did not have enough time to research it enough to endorse it strongly in my own research.  I had to "earmark it" for later.  So thus my double take that you, John, have published on this. 

I feel that this discussion and these conceptualizations are highly relevant to the current situation we find ourselves in.  The Bayesian Brain model/the UT/Freud/Torday model would suggest that the individual self is attempting to expand its awareness in order to account for the changes in the environment, but at the same time is driven towards simpler algorithms for processing the increased data and knowledge needing to be considered. 

Freud (and then later Hobson and Friston) talk about surprise as being inherently aversive to the organism, thus the drive to be able to predict what's going to happen next.  However, as experiences accrue, so do the proliferation of  "if - then" possibilities that the brain must calculate.  Just like a computer will heat up if the system is overclocked, so the runaway brain theoretically becomes at risk for free energy spillage within the system, thus creating  neuro-associative damage.  I think of this like the water drip torture, where water is dripped on the face at random intervals.  The increasing anticipation of the next drop is said to lead to insanity (See Gregg's behavioral shut down model here:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201604/the-behavioral-shutdown-theory-depression)

The tension is thus that it is more pleasurable to live life in a state of reflexive certainty, but once we become aware that our reflexes do not account for the total free energy in the environment, we feel the tug to incorporate more environment into our physiology.  "Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill," or said another way:  "ignorance is bliss."

The solution to this tension between the desire to "take it easy" versus the anxious urge to anticipate the environment is the formation of simpler algorithmic models that consider all of the known variables, and thus allow the self to maintain certainty across the most situations possible.  This resolves the dialectical tension between death anxiety (which results from uncertainty) and the pleasure principle (the retention of optimal energy homeostasis).

Gregg's Behavioral Investment Theory is the best psychological model for this that I have encountered, and is fully compatible with everything that I'm reading so far from you, John.  

I need to continue to read the articles you've sent out carefully, though I will shoot from the hip now and say that your model seems theoretically rich at the domain of "Life" and then thins out at the level of Mind and Culture.  

Have you looked closely at P - M => E  ?


By the way, if you want to translate this Western frame into a more Eastern one, then every time you hear the word "Chi" and "energy" just think of it in terms of the Bayesian brain model, where perfect "Chi" flow is simply a 1 - 1 ratio of adaptive reflexivity between self and environment. 


-Chance













On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:30 AM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
To Gregg and the ToK community, I am totally empathetic to Gregg's frustration with the field of psychology because I have come to the same point in my coping with Biology/Evolution/Biomedical Research. Like Gregg, I have come to the realization that we are merely doubling-down on collecting factoids, assuming that if we haven't figured the problem out yet we just need more data (or what is commonly held to be the case in the field of Informatics; the fallacy is that biology, like psychology, is not a closed system, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, i.e. some other paradigm is needed). We need a paradigm shift in both biology and psychology, and Gregg has made a strong and organized case for his Tree of Knowledge. I, in turn, have offered that the 'joints' in his schematic are the mechanisms that have facilitated the progression from the Singularity to Matter to Life to Mind (in brief). In my reduction of the problem to cell biology and communication I have been able to work backwards from what we think of as complex (actually complicated) physiology to the unicell, and from there back to the Singularity/Big Bang. That progression, in the forward direction, has been accomplished by the internalization of the environment (Endosymbiosis Theory), de facto encompassing the Cosmos, or actually as much of it as we need to survive (which is just enough). So with that perspective, I have deduced that what we think of as consciousness is assimilation of the environment as physiology, interpreted by our nervous system as consciousness. It is like Philip Johnson-Laird's "Mental Models" concept, referenced in the New Yorker article that was circulated among the ToK community a couple of days ago, entitled "Are we already living in virtual reality?". What is missing in that perspective is the connection to the physiology that I offer in my mechanistic approach. So in this synthesis there is, IMHO, opportunity for a more holistic way of thinking about health, both physiologic and mental that may buoy all boats? With all due respect to other opinions. So, for example, I offer a segue to Chance's lecture on Dreams in a paper we published on the role of brain cooling/REM sleep as a way of understanding the evolution of mind (see attached).

On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Nancy,

 

  Thanks so much for your note. It was great having you here. You offer an interesting and helpful question regarding “building knowledge within the ToK System.” This is a little hard to answer because I think there are many different communities that I am trying to address and the emphasis, tone and tenor varies a bit depending on the audience. For example, I am trying to connect with Big Picture philosophies and movements like Big History, I am also trying to get my vision out to mental health practitioners, and am trying to narrate the need for the system to lay people.

 

For the purposes of what follows, let me focus on how I am approaching the field of scientific/academic psychology (as separate from professional practitioners, which I am approaching from a different angle). I am attaching a presentation I gave at the last Theoretical and Philosophical conference as part of a President’s initiative on Re-envisioning Psychology. It invites psychologists to consider moving from Empirical Psychology to a Metaphysical Empirical Psychology.  

 

First, I attempt to point out in what I hope is a systematic and clear way, that the field’s concepts and categories matter every bit as much as empirical data. Metaphysics in this context refers to the concepts and categories we use to carve up reality.

 

Second, I point out that the concepts and categories in current usage are obviously flawed. I show very clearly that we do not have good working definitions or shared conceptual maps of the field’s central terms such as: psychology, behavior, mind, or human consciousness (and the animal/person relation).

 

  Third, I point out that we have been pre-paradigmatic as a science since our inception. This relates to the problem of the definition of psychology because we have not had a system that has allowed a clear enough map of the field of inquiry. Together, points 2 & 3 document THE PROBLEM OF PSYCHOLOGY, which I argue no psychologist can ignore in good faith.

 

  Fourth, because mainstream academic psychology has doubled down on empirical methods and data collection we are looking in the wrong direction; more rigorous empirical studies will not solve conceptual problems.

 

  If you agree with these elements, you agree that there is a problem of psychology, then it follows deductively that we need to deeply consider a new conceptual and meta-theoretical approach to the field.

 

Then I offer the ToK System as a system that can solve both the metaphysical and metatheoretical issues that the field faces. And I argue it does these things far better than any other system, thus we should take it seriously. Indeed, if we are to be psychologists of good faith, we are compelled to take it seriously or advocate for a better conceptual system that can situate what we mean by the “field of psychology.”

 

  The problem I face is in the diagnosis of the problems above. That is, in response to the problem of psychology, mainstream psychology has adopted an “eclectic empiricism” as the modern paradigm. Thus, most psychologists have no idea how to think about or assess a metaphysical/meta-theoretical solution. As such, academics in the field look at my work, are overwhelmed, don’t see “methods and data,” and then look the other way. After all, it is complicated to learn and is not affirming of the direction the field is headed in. So, the natural response is to ignore the proposal, which is more or less what happened.

 

  In sum, I do not consider my arguments intuitions. I have no problem about intuitions (I have had many intuitions that have led me to this), but this is every bit as much about clear argumentation as empirical research on cognitive dissonance (or anything else). It is very clear and logical and systematic. It is just is a different aspect of the scientific enterprise than most academic psychologists are trained in, and thus there is enormous inertia that must be overcome to get the field to pay attention.

 

  So, I guess the challenge has been, which I have not solved, is how do you get academic psychologists to wake up to the problem of psychology and realize they need to take it seriously? I have not been able to find an effective way of communicating that message so that it gains traction with large numbers of folks, but that is how I see my journey, at least within that audience.


Best,
Gregg 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]u> On Behalf Of Nancy Link
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 10:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Thanks to all who made the conference a success

 

Dear Gregg,

 

I returned feeling upbeat and very stimulated intellectually. It was good to get out of the confines of my Toronto home office and experience the welcoming warmth of you, the other ToKers and the whole JMU community. THANK YOU!!!

 

One thing I have been wondering about is how you envision building knowledge within your ToK system?  I think that we have strong negative reactions to scientific thought as it is currently practiced, but we may have different ways of reacting to that negative feeling.  My feeling is that scientific thought has taken over too much of the dialogue.  Experts use the “data shows that…”argument to silence opposition. The truth is that the data seldom show anything with absolute clarity.  It is not surprising that ordinary people have given up on science and stopped listening.  My solution to this problem is to try to contain science by putting it in balance with a narrative.  I believe that the narrative (theory) can only be built using data. Once we have a narrative, we can use new data to refine or change the it, but without a narrative, we are at sea.

 

My impression of your negative reaction to the same reality is to blast through it with your strong and good intuitions about how things fit together. I like and trust your intuitions, but how do you argue to the outside world that your intuitions are better that theirs?

 

Nancy

 

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]u> on behalf of Gregg Henriques <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]u>
Date: Monday, April 16, 2018 at 10:30 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]U" <[log in to unmask]U>
Subject: Thanks to all who made the conference a success

 

Dear TOK Society,

 

  I am writing to offer deep gratitude to all those who came and participated in the first ever TOK Society conference over the weekend. I thought the talks were splendid. The breadth of ideas covered was huge and yet they did seem to cohere around key themes and pointed to future directions for education, psychology and society at large. I also found the conversation on the back half of Friday to be very stimulating and demonstrated how thinking about big TOKs could illuminate powerful perspectives on real world issues.

 

 I will be in consultation with folks about next steps. One thing I would like to consider is having folks share their powerpoints on the list and perhaps have some time devoted to reviewing the talks and engaging in some exchange about them on this list.

 

Thanks again to everyone.


Best,
Gregg

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)


Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge

 

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