Continuing a conversation with Nate, re introspection; Nagal’s “what is it like to be a bat”; and Nate’s series on biological cells
Ha, all good Nate—your feedback is perfect!
And while I appreciate that I don’t need to convince you of anything, I relish the challenge, because I find this elementary account of territory compelling.
I guess my problem, is that this evidence builds up – each layer aligns with pertinent phenomena, which also shapes the next layer – but this means that technically, evidence for any claim depends upon the full stack (and context) for completeness, which will take time.
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For now, the suggestion of a ’lack of scepticism’ left me concerned that you might think I was musing without constraint (when the entire model is constraint based) – which led me to consider the entire dependency space from the top down in each moment (to assess how deep an explanation might be necessary), which was exhausting.
I decided that I needed to shift expectations to curious ‘shortcuts’ (below), while pointing out that there is a deeper set of evidence/ formal analysis to come.
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So, shortcuts?
An interesting feature of this working, is an observation that early phenomenal characteristics (from ‘closer to t=0 in the universe’, and derivatives thereof), also seem to apply to all sorts of other ‘universal stuff’
I might refer to these explanatory shortcuts as meta-phenomena, or ‘fragments’
Like phenomena, fragments are composed and composable; though somewhat phenomena invariant.
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I hope to demonstrate how seemingly trivial fragments can in fact be formative to:
- Understanding modern complex phenomena (composition, construction, structure, behaviour, of)
- Producing formal, phenomena invariant models
- A means to interrogate representational negative space (or gaps in our understanding)
By applying these fragments to:
- Our conversation (on introspection)
- Nagals article
- Your series on cells
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Some important points:
- No one fragment is meant to ‘one-shot convince’ anyone – think accruing intuitions, before proof – but I will look to ground each fragment as necessary
- Fragments offer a way to navigate phenomena by ‘constituent group signature’, rather than detailed implementation – quite like software interfaces (which might be implemented directly, in standard library, or by using arbitrarily complex graphs of other implementation), and equally, are a shortcut to understanding a broader architecture
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Consider that fragments from early in the universe don’t initially appear to be that abstract (because at that time, the space-of-all phenomenal complexity was small) – but over time become more abstract, as relates to increasing complexity.
The first to be introduced is here (https://fragments.themanual.io/the-pattern/).
Abstract nonsense? I suggest not! 🤣
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I’ll add more detail and context to better frame this fragment shortly, but for a sense of where this goes:
- Fragments are formal (typically geometry, graph or set)
- We can formally translate between geometry, graph and set; and compose, validate, and derive (or predict) within constraint
- These three forms of mathematics directly relate to cognition, and we can abstract over the top – alignment, intersection, constraint, structure, behaviour, etc
I’ll map this out.
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A curious accident: consider your advice on writing – separation of concerns (or SRP).
Now look again at the the pattern – isolating the general-case or metaphor, separates concerns, to exclude circumstantially redundant detail.
Also, consider my dilemma above. By explicitly defining a boundary to expectations, I in-effect defined a circumstantial boundary to the set-of-all-explanation, to exclude a specific subset of detail (though a derived form better makes this case)
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For some reason, this has been a real challenge to articulate! And i’m sure improvements might be made (please push for more detail or refinement as necessary), and all feedback very much appreciated.
I’ll post the thread here (https://fragments.themanual.io/io-nate-fragments/), and continue soon.
continued
Ok, proof of life :D.
I’ve decided to address Nagel first. I hope by focusing on Nagel (who is external to both of us), I’ll afford myself a little more headroom to be direct, without coming across too abrupt! (please push back as necessary; and honestly, if you are able to share more palatable alternative turns-of-phrase along the way, please do!)
I’ll circle back and summarise later (so by all means wait for a future update)