Metalogue: what is the instinct of Tao?

Definition of insinct: in animal psychology and ethology, “nervous mechanism hierarchically organized, with innate action patterns, sensitive to certain environmental stimuli that arouse it, put it in action and direct it, to which it responds with well-coordinated movements which have as their purpose the preservation of the individual or species". The animal instinct (which leads for example the birds to build nests) is more complex than reflection; does not change either during the life of the individual or through several generations of individuals of the same species, and become less rigid or preformed and so much more connected to learning as going up in the zoological scale..

quoted from Nikolaas Tinbergen, Nobel prize 1973 in Physiology and Medicine shared with  Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz

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Definition of Metalogue: A metalogue is a conversation about some problematic subject. This conversation should be such that not only do the participants discuss the problem but the structure of the conversation as a whole is also relevant to the same subject.

Notably, the history of evolutionary theory is inevitably a metalogue between man and nature, in which the creation and interaction of ideas must necessarily exemplify evolutionary process.

Daughter: Daddy, what is an instinct?

Father: An instinct, my dear, is a explanatory principle.

D: But what does it explain?

F: Anything—almost anything at all. Anything you want it to explain.

D: Don't be silly. It doesn't explain gravity.

F: No. But that is because nobody wants "instinct" to explain gravity. If they did, it would explain it. We could simply say that the moon has an instinct whose strength varies inversely as thesquare of the distance .. .

D: But that's nonsense, Daddy.

F: Yes, surely. But it was you who mentioned "instinct," not I.

D: All right—but then what does explain gravity?

F: Nothing, my dear, because gravity is an explanatory principle.

D: Oh.

D: Do you mean that you cannot use one explanatory principle to explain another? Never?

F: Hmm . . . hardly ever. That is what Newton meant when he said,"hypotheses non fingo."

D: And what does that mean? Please.

F: Well, you know what "hypotheses" are. Any statement linking together two descriptive statements is an hypothesis. If you say that there was a full moon on February 1st and another on March 1st; and then you link these two observations together in any way, the statement which links them is an hypothesis.

D: Yes—and I know what non means. But what's fingo?

F: Well—fingo is a late Latin word for "make." It forms a verbal

noun fictio from which we get the word "fiction."

D: Daddy, do you mean that Sir Isaac Newton thought that all hypotheses were just made up like stories?

F: Yes—precisely that

D: But didn't he discover gravity? With the apple? F: No, dear. He invented it.

D: Oh.... Daddy, who invented instinct?

F: I don't know. Probably biblical.

D: But if the idea of gravity links together two descriptive statements, it must be an hypothesis.

F: That's right.

D: Then Newton did fingo an hypothesis after all.

F: Yes—indeed he did. He was a very great scientist.

D : Oh.

D: Daddy, is an explanatory principle the same thing as anhypothesis?

F: Nearly, but not quite. You see, an hypothesis tries to explain some particular something but an explanatory principle—like "gravity" or "instinct"—really explains nothing. It's a sort of conventional agreement between scientists to stop trying to explain things at a certain point.

D: Then is that what Newton meant? If "gravity" explains nothing but is only a sort of full stop at the end of a line of explanation, then inventing gravity was not the same as inventing an hypothesis, and he could say he did not fingo any hypotheses.

F: That's right. There's no explanation of an explanatory principle. It's like a black box.

D: Oh.

the Places of Tao

Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. A main dome, located at the center of the top platform, is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues seated inside perforated stupa.

The building has a squared line divided by steps and appears like a mountain; from the top view is visible its complexity and its architecture. It is the most visited monument of all Indonesia.

From 1991 has been included by UNESCO as a world heritage site.

horizontality, verticality, transversality and laterality of Tao

The hierarchical levels structure of the description domains:

basically corresponds to the so-called natural sciences, and has two distinctive features:

the first is that each level of description contains the lower levels, extending them and it s based on them:

 

in this sense chemistry is based on physics but at the same time is more than physics, biology is based on chemistry etc. As noted by Anderson this does not mean that each level is a simple or direct extension of the lower level(s), since at any new level some emergent phenomena arise which bear no relation or that can be explained by the lower levels, even if they depend from these.

The second is that each of these areas of description, with many above and below-levels, intermediate levels, mixtures of levels etc., is based (has as "foundation") on the physical level 0. Of course, leveling up the properties of the physical level are becoming less relevant to the description at that level, if not for the fact - taken for granted, and therefore became "transparent"- to obey the laws of the lower levels.
For example, just imagine a psychiatrist at level 4 visiting a patient with mental disorders. The psychiatrist may need to obtain information from lower levels of the patient to have a complete diagnosis, for example by requiring blood or genetic tests,  but he does not expect the patient begins to rise for air and began to fly out the window for the laws which apply at level 0, or that his blood is made ​​up of hydrocarbons to the laws that apply to level 1 and 2.

The vertical hierarchical levels structure becomes also with an horizontal extension when considered in three dimensions:



in this case at each level is associated a hierarchical and/or logical plane which includes all the topics of description of that level. If an higher level emerges from the lower, as in the case of the biological phenomena from the chemical level, then the gap between levels in not only hierarchical but also logical,in the sense that the descriptions in the biological domain  necessarily become meta-descriptions obsrved from the lower chemical level - not only they will be quantitatively more extensive, as occurs between physics and chemistry (although some chemical phenomena such dissipative structures by Prigogine or the hypercycle theory by Eigen are not immediatly referable to physics), but will be qualitatively and logically different. The same is valid for the higher levels: the communicative interaction and the rising of social structures among organisms are not referable to their biology, and so on.

However, there are many areas of description that does not have a base level 0; among the many is enough to remember the so-called social sciences - such as literature, history, pedagogy, etc. - plus a number of areas of non-immediate placement but to self-evidence or self-definition, such as art, music, economics, linguistics, artificial intelligence, psychology etc.
It is also to be noted, for the distinction between map and territory, that even for the description domains of the natural sciences what are based on the lower levels are the objects/topics of the description, in particular always on level 0, but not the description domain itself which, as such, has no physical material aspect - if not the paper books or data bits which describe it or the cerebral activity of those who are thinking that description. In this sense physics or chemistry are  la fisica o la chimica are no less "immaterial" of literature or music.

Besides, there are at least three description domains which are transversal with respect to  the hierarchical structure and to many others description domains non-hierarchical.

The first, classically, is the one of philosophy: with its meaning from the greek φιλοσοφία, composed by φιλεῖν (filèin), "to love", and σοφία (sofìa), "wisdom", that is"love of wisdom", philosophy potentially applies to any description domains, from physics to art. A single definition of philosophy is not possible because every philosophical system of some significance (and there are at least dozens, if not hundreds, in the course of at least 3000 years) has in its conceptual foundations a redefinition of the meaning, scope and purpose of philosophy. In its research dialogue upon something rather than of something philosophy is intrinsically a meta-domain of description,  as it provides essentially meta-descriptions; applied to several specific areas of description it divides in several fields of specific meta-description as metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, of language, of science, of history, of specific sciences and specific histories etc.

The second is the study of the mind, or more specifically of mental processes. Also in this case the description domain depends from the definition of mind, whether considered as an emerging phenomena defined as the whole of the brain higher functions or as  something more extensive intended as a mental process  beyond the brain and not necessarily  requires its presence. In the framework of the philosophy of mind (or philosophy in general) have been proposed models which are exactly opposed, from those who consider the mind all and only "inside" the brain (and therefore a product of the cerebral activity)  to those which consider it (at least in part - but in the essential part: consciousness, if not even in its entirety of mind-consciousness-soul, and in this case is more defined as Mind) entirely outside of the brain.
In the figure the mind is intended primarily as a process (in various forms) in a larger system that does not necessarily limit to the skull, but that can extend to an environment/ecosystem in which the mind works; this conception of mental process was proposed independently and quite complementary in the 70s-80s  by Gregory Bateson and Humberto Maturana, and later developed by Francisco Varela in the context of the cognitive science, but of course has several preconditions in various philosophical systems of the past.
It should be noted that - singularly - does not exist a specified organized "science of the mind", the so-called "mentalics" described by Isaac Asimov; the various aspects of it are divided into a number of fields ranging from anatomy to neurophysiology to psychiatry to psychology up to artificial intelligence.

The third is complexity, or science of complexity. In its intrinsic characteristic of multi-dimensionality, which it divides among all possible description domains, lthe study of complexity is intrinsically trasversal to any organized discipline.

Finally there is the possibility of a laterality over the several description domains, based on the so-called lateral thinking, to be intended as a description and logical path which transversally and laterally crosses the various description domains, capturing the aspects which  singly taken would not have any particular interest, while collected together and interrelated in a specific description path may bring out new descriptions typically multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional. Laterality may occurs between any level of several systems, in particular has been often applied as a technique in philosophy to conceptual  (or partially conceptual) systems, such the philosophical ones and leads, and has  lead in the history of philosophy, to next new systems  than the previous.

A classical example of this type is the work of Douglas Hofstadter, where lateralizing description domains very far apart such formal logic, music and visual arts he revealed the common pattern of Strange Loop.

tribute to Tao: Who will carry on with your work, once you're gone?

the grave of Gregory Bateson: Pacific in front of Esalen, Big Sur, CA

Before he passed away, someone asked an ailing Gregory Bateson:

"Who will carry on with your work, once you're gone?"

Bateson replied:

"A man by the name of Humberto Maturana out of Santiago, Chile. He has been doing some very interesting research that compliments my work."

(1997)

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Francisco Javier Varela García (Santiago, Chile, 7 September 7, 1946 – Paris, May 28, 2001)

"Why do emergent selves, virtual identities, pop up all over the place, creating worlds, whether at the mind/body level, the cellular level, or the transorganism level? This phenomenon is something so productive that it doesn't cease creating entirely new realms: life, mind, and societies. Yet these emergent selves are based on processes so shifty, so ungrounded, that we have an apparent paradox between the solidity of what appears to show up and its groundlessness. That, to me, is the key and eternal question."

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Humberto Maturana (Santiago, Chile,  September 14,  1928)

«Conservation is not for the earth, it is for ourselves; biodiversity is important for our physiological, psycological, relational, aesthetic ... wellness. [...] It is a problem of desire»

recursive literary Tao

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone.

change and stability of Tao

"STABILITY" AND "CHANGE" DESCRIBE PARTS OF OUR DESCRIPTIONS

In other parts of this book, the word stable and also, necessarily, the word change will become very important. It is therefore wise to examine these words now in the introductory phase of our task. What traps do these words contain or conceal?
Stable is commonly used as an adjective applied to a thing. A chemical compound, house, ecosystem, or government is described as stable. If we pursue this matter further, we shall be told that the stable object is unchanging under the impact or stress of some particular external or internal variable or, perhaps, that it resists the passage of time.
If we start to investigate what lies behind this use of stability, we shall find a wide range of mechanisms. At the simplest level, we have simple physical hardness or viscosity, qualities descriptive of relations of impact between the stable object and some other. At more complex levels, the whole mass of interlocking processes called life may be involved in keeping our object in a state of change that can maintain some necessary constants, such as body temperature, blood circulation, blood sugar or even life itself.
The acrobat on the high wire maintains his stability by continual correction of his imbalance.
These more complex examples suggest that when we use stability in talking about living things or self-corrective circuits, we should follow the example of the entities about which we are talking. For the acrobat on the high wire, his or her so-called "balance" is important; so, for the mammalian body, is its "temperature". The changing state of these important variables from moment to moment is reported in the communication networks of the body. To follow the example of the entity, we should define "stability" always by reference to the ongoing truth of some descriptive proposition. The statement "The acrobat is on the high wire" continues to be true under impact of small breezes and vibrations of the wire. This "stability" is the result of continual changes in descriptions of the acrobat's posture and the position of his or her balancing pole.
It follows that when we talk about living entities, statements about "stability" should always be labeled by reference to some descriptive proposition so that the typing of the word, stable, may be clear. We shall see later, especially in Chapter ..., that every descriptive proposition is to be characterized according to logical typing of subject, predicate, and context.
Similarly, all statements about change require the same sort of precision. Such profound saws as the French "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" owe their wiseacre wisdom to a muddling of logical types. What "changes" and what "stays the same" are both of them descriptive propositions, but of different order.
Some comment on the list of presuppositions examined in this chapter is called for. First of all, the list is in no sense complete, and there is no suggestion that such a thing as a complete list of verities or generalities could be prepared. Is it even a characteristic of the world in which we live that such a list should be finite?
In the preparation of this chapter, roughly another dozen candidates for inclusion were dropped, and a number of others were removed from this chapter to become integrated parts of Chapters ... However, even with its incompleteness, there are a number of possible exercises that the reader might perform with the list.
First, when we have a list, the natural impulse of the scientist is to start classifying or ordering its members. This I have partly done, breaking the list into four groups in which the members are linked together in various ways. It would be a nontrivial exercise to list the ways in which such verities or presuppositions may be connected. The grouping I have imposed is as follows:
A first cluster includes numbers 1 to 5, which seem to be related aspects of the necessary phenomenon of coding. There, for example, the proposition that "science never proves anything" is rather easily recognized as a synonym for the distinction between map and territory; both follow from the Ames experiments and the generalization of natural history that "there is no objective experience."
It is interesting to note that on the abstract and philosophical side, this group of generalizations has to depend very closely on something like Occam's razor or the rule of parsimony. Without some such ultimate criterion, there is no ultimate way of choosing between one hypothesis and another. The criterion found necessary is of simplicity versus complexity. But along with these generalizations stands their connection with neurophysiology, Ames experiments, and the like. One wonders immediately whether the material on perception does not go along with the more philosophical material because the process of perception contains something like an Occam's razor or a criterion of parsimony. The discussion of wholes and parts in number 5 is a spelling out of a common form of transformation that occurs in those processes we call description.
Numbers 6, 7 and 8 form a second cluster, dealing with questions of the random and the ordered. The reader will observe that the notion that the new can be plucked only out of the random is in almost total contradiction to the inevitability of entropy. The whole matter of entropy and negentropy and the contrasts between the set of generalities associated with these words and those associated with energy will be dealt with in Chapter 6... in the discussion of the economics of flexibility. Here it is only necessary to note the interesting formal analogy between the apparent contradiction in this cluster and the discrimination drawn in the third cluster, in which number 9 contrasts number with quantity. The sort of thinking that deals with quantity resembles in many ways the thinking that surrounds the concept of energy; whereas the concept of number is much more closely related to the concepts of pattern and negentropy.
The central mystery of evolution lies, of course, in the contrast between statements of the second law of thermodynamics and the observation that the new can only be plucked from the random. It was this contrast that Darwin partly resolved by his theory of natural selection.
The other two clusters in the list as given are 9 to 12 and 13 to 16. I will leave it to the reader to construct his or her phrasings of how these clusters are internally related and to create other clusters according to his/her own ways of thought.
In Chapter ... I shall continue to sketch in the background of my thesis with a listing of generalities or presuppositions. I shall, however, come closer to the central problems of thought and evolution, trying to give answers to the question: In what ways can two or more items of information or command work together or in opposition? This question with its multiple answers seems to me to be central to any theory of thought or evolution.

the Teh of Tao

- 14 -

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.

Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.