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Eric,

 

What is this so-called "alternative framework"?

 

And how do the articles (and book) you linked to disprove Gregg's ToK, especially the Six Principles of Behavioral Investment Theory, the joint point between Life and Mind, as posited in his 2011 book or thereafter? 

 

Greg Thomas

 

 

 

On Wed, Feb 3, 2021, 1:28 PM easalien <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Hey Brandon,

 

Your point is taken. However, given the brain doesn’t exist in isolation, it’s more appropriate to see it as an extension of biology than its own own separate existence. As a relatively recent evolutionary advancement, giving it the smallest region seems appropriate, ie more cell activity in the universe than brain activity. The historical consideration that identity resides in a single organ neglects the interconnectedness of systems, demonstrated by recent discovery of an independent nervous system in the gut:

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/

 

Gregg’s TOK is an accomplishment in its own right, and it’s initially why I reached out to him. However, it possesses some persistent problems that aren’t solved. The alternative framework remedies those theoretical shortcomings (as well as others, e.g., Quantum Gravity). As mammals, primates, and humans are not the only organisms with minds, the alternative is more inclusive.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/do-crows-possess-form-consciousness-180975940/

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/12/honeybees-use-tools-dung-repels-giant-hornets/

 

https://pwb.princeton.edu/2020/11/02/weirdly-monkeys-keep-domesticating-themselves-huh/

 

 

Eric

 

P.S. Instead of donuts, the model is more appropriately smaller circles resting on top of larger ones (insufficient shadowing showing depth)

 

On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 2:56 PM Brandon Norgaard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Looks like this disk graphic could be seen as a perspective on ToK except that it has only in a small corner of the “biology” donut the word “brain”.  If that was expanded out to its own donut, with perhaps some of the major milestones in the evolutionary development of the mind (mammal, primate, human) then it would be more analogous to Gregg’s ToK. 

 

Brandon Norgaard

Founder, The Enlightened Worldview Project

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of easalien
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2021 2:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK RE: the place for Philosophy in the ToK system / knower vs known

 

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Hey Andrea,

 

I share similar concerns. The proliferation of narratives absent justification seems to be the metaphysical problem of our times. TOK falls into similar fallacy when employing its broad classifications. Obviously mathematics, physics, and science operate as subsets of philosophy. However, the lack of a consistent separating mechanism renders things fuzzy and circuitous.

 

There’s an asymmetry in this case that applies more generally. For example, we can have philosophy w/o science, but can we have science w/o philosophy? As science requires a specific philosophical paradigm, the answer is no. There is an ordered dependence—similar to how biology requires specific chemistry—that can only happen chronologically.

 

To address this, I’ve mentioned Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, e.g. Big Bang, on previous occasions. It’s a recurring physical process describing broken balances: why there’s something over nothing (Big Bang), matter over antimatter (Baryogenesis), and left-handed amino acids over right (Homochirality). If Mind is simply another broken symmetry (Memory), philosophy applies in the following manner (left margin):

 

 

This is my own rendering of TOK using a “top-down” perspective.

 

Gregg,

 

According to your model, you cite “String Theory?” and “Parallel Universes?” as tentative placeholders. However, this doesn’t solve the initial problem of indeterminacy or address their respective shortcomings, i.e. Crisis in Physics. The problem with applying hierarchy to science occurs when, for example, atomic theory can apply to any arbitrary region of the universe or if humanity’s biomass surpasses Earth’s by becoming an interstellar species. The fact you had to list physics twice is precisely the problem of Quantum Gravity (how to incorporate singularities). TOK seems unable to address these concerns in its current iteration.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Eric

 

On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 5:40 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Andrea,

 

  Great questions.  The ToK System maps (a) the ontic reality in the form of the four planes of existence (i.e., Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture) and it maps how (b) Modern, Empirical Natural Science (i.e., MENS Knowledge) maps reality, both in terms of how it (i) currently maps physics to the material dimension and life to the biological dimension and how it (ii) should map basic psychology to Mind and the social sciences to the Culture-Person plane of existence. This argument is bolstered by the PTB 12 floor depiction. This is central to my “Psychology Defined” argument, which explains that the institution of Psychology maps onto (1) basic psychology, (2) human psychology and (3) professional psychology.

 

  Now, to your question. Philosophy per se is not depicted on the ToK System. Philosophy means many, many different things and thus represents lots of kinds/threads of justification. That said, we can locate it in the Culture-Person plane of existence. If we follow Lene Rachel Andersen’s Metamodernity classification scheme, which I am wont to do, we can divide the Culture-Person plane into four different epochs of justification systems or sensibilities: (1) oral-indigenous; (2) traditional, formal (pre-modern); (3) modern…which is when empirical/experimental science pops as a kind of justification system and (4) postmodern. Where is philosophy here? That depends on how you define it. But generally in (2). We have first the bronze age, then the axial age in this period. Modern philosophies generally have their roots in the Axial age.

 

Now if we are concerned with MENS knowledge and want to understand the philosophy branch that lead up to that, we can trace that rather clearly. This is the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian “Western Mind” lineage (see Tarnas).

 

Here we want to understand first the emergence of mathematics (see this Wolfram history for those who are really curious). In the Greek tradition, we then get the Pythagoreans. They were crucial because what the Pythagoreans show is that they can use the language of math to decode features of nature. This is one of the first real advances that would become modern science. Then we get the Socrates, Plato, Aristotle jump. This is the birth of Western philosophy proper. What we get, in essence, with Socrates is the birth of formal epistemology. This is the analytic analysis of justification. He uses the development of the pre-Socratics and his famous method” to deconstruct the social-pragmatic processes of justification and shows how they are wanting. He is a wise man because he realizes he knows essentially nothing when he applies the more sophisticated methods of epistemology to the knowledge systems of the day. Then we get Plato, who claims to be able to climb out of the cave of appearances. He finds the ultimate forms of God that are the True essences of reality. This is the ontology of Platonic idealism. Aristotle disagrees and sees forms as a function of mapping the material universe. This is the ontology of Aristotle’s materialism. As such, what you see here is the birth of Western philosophy, in terms of formal epistemology and deep disputes about the ultimate nature of reality (materialism versus forms).  This is the ground of justification that sets the stage for modern science.

 

Modern science is different in how it works to frame the relationship between the subjective knower and the object of inquiry. Specifically, the processes of quantification, measurement and experimentation allow for a greater degree of “transcendent realism”. That is, a greater degree of objectivity, which in part is achieved by methods that factor out the unique “qualitative” “subjective” perspective of the specific, idiographic knower. I used to refer to this idea as the “anti-knower” function of MENS. Think here of “double blind” research designs.

 

Here is a graphic depiction:

 

One final point here re the relationship between the formal sciences of math and logic and the modern empirical natural sciences mapped by the ToK, you can see the distinction here:

 

Note that the 0s and 1s that run down the center of the first diagram correspond to the formal sciences (i.e., the fact that they are mapped by the deductive and quantitative rules of logic and math)

 

This is the snapshot. There is much more that can be said. It might be an interesting dialogos to do. That is, we could tape a conversation on these issues.

 

Best,
Gregg

 

 

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Andrea Zagaria
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2021 7:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: the place for Philosophy in the ToK system / knower vs known

 

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Hi ToKers, 

This morning, I found myself wondering about the place for philosophy in the ToK system. I recently read a Gregg's blog  that states that philosophy and history cannot be placed in the ToK system.

I won't consider history and the humanities for now, but I have a need to  somehow place philosophy in the ToK. If mathematics is a formal science which encompasses all ToK "planes of complexity" from physics to culture (it is actually the language of science), what is the place for philosophy? Epistemology and philosophy of science (not philosophy per se, but an important branch of it) can be considered as the lens through which the ToK can be seen? Are they "external" to the system, are they a product of knowledge (created by the knower) that can not be directly figured out in the system of the known?

As you may guess from my last question, I have an intuition that this issue is   entangled with the relationship between the known and the knower, which is one of the few ToK topics I still can not get my head around. So I have a first explicit question about the place for Philosophy in the ToK system which has in it a second implicit question about the relationship between the knower and the known. Gregg or others: if you have relevant literature/blogs/videos about the relationship between the known and the knower from ToK's perspective I'd really appreciate it. I read something about here and in other ToK's essays but I did not understand it. 

 

 

Thank you.

Andrea

 

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