Pointless Loops - PLs

Building a house in the clouds is impossible because where would we place the foundations. However, if we assumed that we had the foundations then the rest of the house would be ok. So an architect might get to thinking, well if the rest of the house is ok what if we could find a way to build the foundations out from the ok bit, then we would have ok foundations too. Thus they would be stuck in a pointless loop, because they forgot that the building of the house depended upon the foundations originally. M.C.Esher is famous for creating such illusions in drawings. In science the people building the walls are always trying to then go on to build the foundations, not realising that to be building the walls already involves having done the foundations! If scientists can't remember or see themsleves doing the foundations they need to look a little more carefully.

While such loops look simple the number of people who get caught in them is bewildering. I point to Daniel Dennett as the worst example because he should know better, but Richard Dawkins and many others are equally foul. Stephen Hawkins and the physicists are rather more aware.

The best hunting ground for PLs is in whooly sciences (rather than rigorous mathematical/logical) where they seek the foundations of the world.

The scientist sits there and begins investigation of the world. They are involved in detailed and lengthy processes involving their senses and their brains, they work within a framework of language and culture, they have personal intentions and objectives, they have careers and their own lives. Their whole being is inextricably wrapped up in the process. Separate a dancer from the dance, as Kierkegaard once challenged. Separate a scientist from the science.

To believe that science is objective then to imagine that scientific truth precipitates out of the scientific process and can afterwards be extracted and stood alone as a self explanatory and independent entity. Of course it had its cause and without its cause it has no existence.

So when scientists begin to examine the processes upon which science and humanity is built they must be careful. It is the Reductionist Fallacy (from the previous post) again.

For example a scientist decides to investigate vision. All their work in brains and neurons only makes sense because we can relate it to our experience of vision. The things they study are chosen based upon an already present understanding of vision, and its significance. Imagine how important or meaningful such work would be to blind people.

Imagine further blind people doing such research in their own terms - which would be more objective! Firstly what machines would they use to investigate it since most machines have visual displays? Secondly what would form would their understanding take since most people map an understanding of brain structure to a seeing like space. Most importantly how would they understand the behaviour of sighted people to electromagnetic stimulation in the 400-700 nm range?

Blind people are like sighted people in every respect except the trivial loss of sight. So they would be able to make sense of most of it. But imagine more fundamental changes to the brain and how they would disrupt the meaning and "objective" significance of scientific research.

Thus within its context, upon its right building blocks and foundations, science is a perfectly natural and meaningful process. Remove its foundations by claiming "objectivity" and truth and it's a building in the sky.

Remove its foundations (pretend to be objective) and then try to build an explanation for the processes of human beings and you are in a PL.

As Hegel put it so simply. Why use a telescope to examine itself for faults? We would either be getting a faulty picture of the faults, or a true picture of a good scope. If the faulty picture is good enough the work out the faults then its not a critical fault and we can use the scope safely anyway. If it is a critical fault then we have no choice but to use it anyway too. In the same way we have no choice but to just "be" and "exist" and use the mind and human life as it occurs. That is our only starting point and one which cannot be investigated because all investigations depend upon that starting point or existing and being.

Existence and Being cannot thus be investigated any further than the moment of investigation that we exist in. Being has no identifyable foundation beyond the present moment. That is where absolutely everything begins even our own thoughts about it, and certainly any science that comes from that.

In Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" which I have grown tired with, while holding many interesting ideas, it seems to be deviating more and more into brain functioning and less into consciousness. The idea that consciousness is a self-referential software loop is an old idea (at least I thought of it 17 years ago) as did many friends. It is also an absurd idea because I am left with the thought that this book is just the output of a Von Neumann machine running on a parallel computer - which besides is logically impossible because what data would a Von Neumann machine process to represent it own self (as opposed to just the general idea of a Von Neumann)? i.e. what is Daniel Dennett? A PL extraordinaire.