Hi TOK folks, Thanks for the great introduction, I'm excited to be a part of the great work going on here. I know of some Allsops up in Boutifull, they are probably related. If anyone is interested in some detailed information about canonizing. there is the White Paper link on the sidebar of the main canonizer.com page. The title is: Amplifying the Wisdom of the Crowd, Building and Measuring for Expert and Moral Consensus It's about 7 pages. It is by the brilliant James Carroll. He has a PhD, and is doing leading computer science research in the Physics Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Back in the 90s, I was very interested in wanting to know what the best (as in accepted by the most experts) theories of consciousness are, if any. But all I could find in any of the peer reviewed journals and popular books being published seems like junk. The only thing anyone agreed on was that there was no consensus, and that nobody had any idea about how to approach things like the explanatory gap. It was also very frustrating in all the forums that descuss this topic. And this was mirrored in the journals. The same old bad views and poor arguments would come up, over and over and over again. Everyone repeating the same arguments multiple times, every year, about all the minor issues people disagreed on - nobody ever making any progress. When wikipedia came out, I was like Yeah, so close. The only problem is, the edit wars on anything controversial. Inspired by Wikipedia's success, we got started on a consensus building wiki system with camps. Now the level of intelligent discussion that goes on in forums that know about Canonizer has dramatically changed. Instead of infinite bickering, when poor arguments come up, people just point to a camp and say: This is what I believe, and these are the experts that agree, along with a concise statement as to what they do believe and why. The people ignorantly spouting the bad ideas can canonizer their ideas, if they want, but when they start thinking about how they could canonizer their bad idea - and in most cases, they realize, compared to what the experts are already saying, concisely and quantitatively, there idea isn't such a good idea after all. And the quality of the idea can be measured by how many people do support the idea. So they usually self sensor, and stop spouting the bad ideas, over and over again. When good new ideas do come up, they instantly get canonized and supported. You can rigorously measure the quality of the idea, by how many people it converts, so you can focus on the best ideas, as they rize to the top in the better supported camps. Also, we always stress testability. We encourage each camp to describe experiments that could be done, that would falsify their, or competing camps. In this way, there is finally good hypothetical, testable information the experimentalists can run with. Of course, the results of experiments falsify various camps. We've already had one camp falsified, by data coming out of the Large Hadron Collider. It is fun to be able to see and rigorously track this kind of stuff, in real time. More exciting that sports events, if you ask me. I'm working on a post that describes in more detail the state of the main "Theories of Consciousness" topic: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__canonizer.com_topic_88-2DTheories-2Dof-2DConsciousness_1&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oKURBsFszzlLxNDnSF6Lft1-YAQmX3Me76qKU3rosTA&s=ubbkTEMotogvD2_E77IoP6XaGxqjvPZslYpWnLNFkFI&e= As Gregg indicated, there is some surprising amount of consensus forming around the Representational Qualia Theory Camp: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__canonizer.com_topic_88-2DRepresentational-2DQualia_6-3F&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oKURBsFszzlLxNDnSF6Lft1-YAQmX3Me76qKU3rosTA&s=Y2jcSkZgzadg7PhHr-4iijWYABbhzAHaLLGRN4630Z4&e= Where a surprising 36 or so of the 54 experts, including to a greater and lesser degree, Steven Lehar, David Chalmers, Stuart Hameroff, Daniel Dennett, John Smythies... and a growing number of others have participated. The numbers next to the camps are the "canonized score". The default algorithm is "popular consensus" - one person one vote. You can select other algorithms, like "mind expert" canonizer that uses a topic where peers in the field rank each other's expertise: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__canonizer.com_topic_81&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oKURBsFszzlLxNDnSF6Lft1-YAQmX3Me76qKU3rosTA&s=jzfnVbyX-qoj7YEa9DNBZ1dBxJSvRVT2UDwZqHt3Wpo&e= Being able to compare popular consensus with expert consensus, enables the popular consensus to keep up. Another way the system amplifies the wisdom of the crowd. The hierarchical structure, where you can push the inevitable disagreements down to lower level camps, enabling the discussion to remain on the more important things people agree on. It's the best consensus building system on the internet, in my opinion. The best part about Representational Qualia Theory is, it is a meta approach which describes ways to experimentally test the various competing theories like Functionalism, materialism, quantum theories, and so on, all these competing theories concisely and quantitatively described in supporting sub camps. Anyway, that is probably enough (too much?) for now. Thanks! Brent Allsop On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:07 AM Waldemar Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Brent: > > Welcome to the list serve. > I believe you’ll find it both stimulating and fascinating. > > I used to live in Bountiful, Utah, and had as neighbors a family named > Allsop (father: Kent) - any relation to yourself? > > Best regards, > > Waldemar > > *Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD* > (Perseveret et Percipiunt) > 503.631.8044 > > *Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)* > > On Dec 17, 2018, at 5:47 AM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > > Hi List, > I wanted to introduce to you a new TOK Society list member, Brent > Allsop. He contacted me after reading my blog on the top 10 problems of > consciousness. He obtained his degree in computer science and has worked > for a number of companies, like Hewlett Packard, Jet Blue and 3M. He > founded this fascinating approach to knowledge/idea classification called “ > Canonizer.com > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__canonizer.com_&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GzmMW2NjZT9_Jze-XwlBPPTlRVUBDOJffWUSIqu0HHY&s=iJyp8oiCVElc2YFFN4KRdDMDCtCostXmuSIHO3HpOBQ&e=>” > which surveys and categorizes ideas. He has applied it to consciousness and > has demonstrated that there is a powerful core of consensus around the idea > of “representational qualia” that is often overlooked in consciousness > studies. We had a great conversation and thought the system might be > helpful as this group explores theories of psychology and broader “Theories > of Knowledge.” > > Brent, when you get a chance, can you share with the group a bit about > your background and canonizer and how it works? > > 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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=oKURBsFszzlLxNDnSF6Lft1-YAQmX3Me76qKU3rosTA&s=rc3TRnejZSApmYUdUOtQNO3ef1uxWFXA97MfZsqkAik&e= > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GzmMW2NjZT9_Jze-XwlBPPTlRVUBDOJffWUSIqu0HHY&s=zyOjt78vemn-lp9jrwy0_pICtySW5_iGFkZsV-9VI7M&e=> > > Check out my webpage at: > www.gregghenriques.com > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.gregghenriques.com_&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=GzmMW2NjZT9_Jze-XwlBPPTlRVUBDOJffWUSIqu0HHY&s=Q7oOXM1MQBE2nGPOEMZ3nKbFFyLzfkcZwo95ITAGVXs&e=> > > > > ############################ > > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the > following link:http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 > > > ############################ > > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the > following link: > http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 > ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1