C2. intuition
The existence of memory is an undeniable fact whereas the concept and definition of intuition is far more nebulous. it has been established well enough by historical example of the way in which knowledge is increased, that science does not progress in anticipated directions and in an orderly fashion. it certainly seems that the most important breakthroughs would appear to come in flashes of intuition, whereby the answer to a long standing and vexing problem is suddenly grasped and comprehended in an instant. Mathematicians appear to advance very obviously in this fashion. This been covered in many books especially those by Arthur Koestler but I give a couple of brief instances.
Karl Friedrich Gauss described in a letter to a friend how he finally proved a theorem on which he had worked unsuccessfully for four years: (Montmasson 1931)
"At last two days ago I succeeded, not only by dint of painful effort but so to speak by the grace of god. as a sudden flash of light, the enigma was solved...... For my part I am able to name the nature of the thread which connected what I previously knew with what made my success possible".
On another occasion, Gauss is reported to have said:
Thus far, it has been postulated that in near perfect trance or random firing state, a structure of firing synapses in the brain is more likely to reproduce an accurate or correct interpretation the external world of nature and its mechanisms than an inaccurate one, simply through the operation of the Principle of Least Action. If a scientist is attempting to divine a mechanism of how, say, molecules combine to form a certain complex molecule and there are literally millions of possible combinations and permutations, the task might seem beyond him or even the largest computer to check through all the possibilities. However if he has all the elements of the problem in his mind at a subconscious level, and he sleeps on the problem, or manages to bring about a self induced trance state, where the elements of that problem are allowed to insert themselves into the otherwise random blankness of his mind, then on a quantum scale it will take slightly less energy for the synapses firings in his brain to take up the structure to form a holocept that duplicates what actually occurs in nature, than any other possibility.
The correct answer then presents itself through resonance with actuality, if perhaps he can bring himself out of trance state with some conscious vestige of its memory. Such a scenario seems almost too disarmingly simple to be a basis of explanation for the operation of intuition, but that is no reason why it should not be plausible. In more specific terms of the theory, the intuitive process can be described as follows. Having absorbed all the relevant facts in the memory, these are materialised as holocepts and combined, or parts superimposed over the top of each other in holoceptual palimpsests. the more variable facts there are, the more combinations and permutations there are, and the mind has to shuffle through an impossibly large number in order to get a chance of hitting on anything like the right sort of combination that would take an impossibly long time without some external guiding force or tendency. but we have this guiding tendency in duplication theory: if circumstances can be made sufficiently random, with no external perturbations to disturb the randomness of the action of the particles, or the firings of the electrical currents across the synapses of the brain, then the structures of the holocepts created therefrom, will tend to form in the way that emulates most accurately structures in the external world. In other words, the mind in trance will tend to form holoceptual structures that duplicate those in nature.
It is also seems not unreasonable to postulate that the brain has some sort of mechanism for detection of this resonance or energy release potential which is interpreted as a glow of well being or thrill of aesthetic pleasure, or just the pleasure of accomplishment, so that the brain or the whole metabolism knows in a flash of illumination when the right answer has been chance achieved.
A further interesting point is the means whereby, once the correct understanding of nature has been grasped in holocept form, that information is relayed to others. In science, the problem usually has a relatively limited number variables to shuffle about, so that once the correct solution has been intuitively chanced upon, the scientist is usually capable of working backwards and thus building a logical sequence of small deductive steps, manipulating these steps so that the correct end result is obtained from the original separate bits of data. Each individual logical step is in fact an intuitive jump on a very small scale in itself, but so small is the jump concerned that it appears obvious, and has the appearance of logical deduction. Once this framework of logical steps has been constructed in retrospect, it then becomes possible to communicate the concept and explain it verbally, graphically, or mathematically to others in these small 'logical' steps, so that they might quickly comprehend it without having to juggle and consider all the relevant facts endlessly before the right relaxed conditions prevail and the flash of insight is at last attained.
It would seem obvious that a series of small intuitive steps guided in the right general direction is a much easier process to assimilate than the one large intuitive jump that the original thinker working it out for the first time ever, has to make. so, it can be seen that the method of communicating knowledge to others through any form of language, is a process of breaking down one large intuitive jump into a succession of little insights, all guided in the tight direction. gradually information is imparted step by step, in the right order until the collection of small insights builds up to the intuitive grasp of the whole concept that the originator perhaps had first to make in one step.
In the Arts, the intuitive process works in the same way, but on a much wider scale, not so capable of being broken down into small steps, so that it lacks the precise definition of explanation available to the sciences. the concepts attempted by the artist, the impressions of nature as he comprehends it are on a much grander scale than those of the small precise steps taken by the scientist or mathematician, and inevitably, his task of communication is much harder, and it will never be broken down into the small logical steps required for efficient communication. a poet might intuitively recognise some fundamental truth of the universe, while considering memories of his observations of life in dreamy, absent minded state (Wordsworth's impressions recollected afterwards in tranquility or Coleridge's composition of his best poem, Kubla Khan). Such a fundamental truth will inevitably involve an imponderable multiplicity of facts, compared to the limited number of components that might be involved in a scientific problem, and the artistic task of communicating this intuitive knowledge to others is correspondingly much greater.
The intuitive jump the artist has made is so great and so general that he is probably, and no doubt temperamentally incapable of breaking his insight down into the little jumps required for others to easily grasp his truth. however, he might try to communicate the gist of it in the form of a few well chosen words, or lines and colour in a painting, which might serve to spark off, or instigate the same sequence of thoughts, or holocepts, which he enjoyed. a single visual art work, for instance, might therefore be regarded as a sort of instant trigger to instigate in others, hopefully, the same holoceptual sequence that the artist experienced, a form of communication based on a minimum of initiating information. The observer would then have inculcated within in him similar understanding or neural patterns as inspired the original artist. Exactly the same arguments can be applied to reconcile the Eastern way of acquiring wisdom through trance and stilling of the mind, with the Western approach of small jumps of apparent deductive logic. In essence, they are the same but on a different scale, despite the fact that they may at first appear as completely at odds with each other as is possible.
The Eastern mystic concentrates on emptying his mind via any one of the many techniques for doing so such as contemplation, fasting in isolation, yoga, or even the dervishes spinning like a top on one spot: there are many such techniques but all concerned with emptying and stilling the mind. To most Western scientists this might seem the antithesis of the way in which he acquires wisdom and knowledge of the the way in which nature operates, but if emptying the mind of structured thought patterns equates to a random pattern of firing synapses, then if that randomness starts to approach a near perfect of singular state, what might occur? By the arguments set out above, certain problematical circumstances in the external world that were under consideration before the trance state was assumed may, given a tiny initial instigation, be replicated almost at a stroke assuming enough necessary data in detail has been previously assimilated and still perhaps stored in part in short term of chemical storage molecules, albeit in a chaotic or unordered manner which did not seem to present any coherent resolution. This sudden replication in holocept form of the structures under consideration in the external world is at once recognised because in that it presents itself perhaps as the only possible answer, and also by the generation of an increase in the to convert the rest mass of the duplicate image or into a amount of energy: the Eureka moment indeed.
The Eastern method of gaining such insights or wisdom is on a much larger scale than the western scientist means of making small breakthroughs, and the latter may consider that his mind is working on an essentially deductive basis, but there is this intuitive process of instant duplication being the crucial mechanism underlying both. The Eastern mystic method of making large intuitive jumps in grasping the beauty of nature (or the laws of the universe) is perhaps closer to the way in which the minds of great poets or artists work in the West. An artist of the stature of Van Gogh obsessively considers the way in which he views objects and then manages to present such images, the way his mind sees things, on canvas. Initially the response of the public might be blank incomprehension, because it is so different from anything else experienced hitherto. But because there is a facet of this representation of the external world, not necessarily purely visual, which is accurate then it starts to ring true an increasing number of others, so that the pictures invoke in their minds the same considerations that prompted to artist to represent the external world in the way he did. In short, the minds of the viewing public are instigated to a certain extent into operating in the same way as that of the artist beyond a mere presentation of a single image on a canvas. In short the minds of the artist and the observer start to resonate to a limited extent in that they both now share a new understanding of the way in which a particular subject exists.
The reason why a poet's few verses should seem so beautiful, so right, is hard to explain: impossible certainly to explain in scientifically acceptable terms since the concept, the beauty of nature, is far too wide to be summed up in a series of small graduated steps. so the difference between the arts and the sciences is mainly one of scale: the artist stands back and surveys the beauty of the wood, without necessarily being able or even wanting to appreciate the individual wonder of a component tree, and even less the capillary action that forces the sustaining liquids up into such heights, and how the leaves act to absorb the power of sunlight through photo synthesis. the artist serves to remind his fellow man of the overall scheme of things that has occurred to him in a flash of insight, and he tries to share his vision of truth; or the way in which nature operates, by attempting to instill a similar reaction through his art in others, preferably in the most economical way possible. But both routes to acquiring increased understanding of the external world are based on the same intuitive process of resonance brought about through by emptying the mind into random motion having first been curious enough to consider vast amounts of seemingly formless unconnected detail.
2.1 the problem of the Homunculus or Mr. X
An explanation has not been attempted for the mechanism of how structures of firing synapses create the this holographic image, the holocept, but as progress is made in the relatively new field of laser science, it does not seem impossible that something along these lines might become apparent. This is of course a large assumption, but it seems to me highly unlikely that the fact I can see an image in my head now of my fingers on a keyboard as I type these words, that this image, in great three dimensional detail, is not a creation very closely connected with holographic interference patterns, and what is more, given the accelerating rate of progress in scientific knowledge of this sort, maybe such mechanisms might be made manifest in the not too distant future. What is far more difficult to answer is the nature of the mechanism through which such images are viewed and assimilated as rational thought. A clear description of the extent of the problem for me was described as the problem of Mr. X as it was termed by Eddington in book 'The Nature of the Physical World'. (1929)
A little reflection will show that the point of contact of mind with the physical universe is not very definite. mr. X knows a table; but the point of contact with his mind is not in the material of the table. light waves are propagated from the table to the eye; chemical changes occur in the retina; propagation of some kind occurs in the optic nerves; atomic changes follow in the brain. just where the final leap into consciousness occurs is not clear. we do not know the last stage of the message in the physical world before it became a sensation in consciousness Mr. X is one of the recalcitrants. when sound waves impinge on his ear he moves, not in accordance with a mathematical equation involving the physical measure numbers of the waves, but in accordance with the meaning that those sound waves are used to convey. to know what there is about Mr. X which makes him behave in this strange way, we must look not to a physical system of inference, but to that insight beneath the symbols which in out own minds we possess. it is by this insight that we can finally reach as answer to our question. what is Mr. X?"
Briefly, the problem is identifying the mechanism by which we are aware that we exist; by which we are aware of our own thoughts. what is it inside our intelligence that observes and registers the holoceptual image created by the patterns of firing synapses? this is also a major problem in philosophy, which they call, amongst other descriptions, the problem of the homunculus.
To rehearse the intuitive process yet again, consider the mind contemplating some intellectual problem: if enough relevant information has been observed and recorded, if the mind is set in conscious random motion, then as conjectured above, the correct answer should be resolved. this occurs through the true state of structures and events in nature, resonating with the brain's holoceptual image, when the correct combination of structures in the brain comes up arbitrarily. when this happens, this resonance or interaction between the external world and the structures in the brain, increase the potential for the material particles of the involved structures to convert to radiation energy.
This leads fairly effortlessly to the following postulate: that one purpose of the intelligent animal organism, the whole metabolism and not just the brain, is to recognise and detect this resonance, which represents a lower energy level or more stability and therefore more desirable to nature. this represents a tendency towards a more ordered state of affairs, a negentropic tendency, when it is remembered that the concept of order depends on pattern and duplication. The physical body and brain of an intelligent organism exists to detect pattern, duplication and order, and indeed to exert itself on the external world to bring about increase in the degree of order. this activity is in itself, the operation of self consciousness. mr. X is not a viewing mechanism of any sort: he does not exist: there is no need for him. Increasing self consciousness is nothing more than an increasing ability to duplicate in holocept form the structure of the external universe. The latter process is also another way of increasing understanding generally.
When an answer to a problem is sought, and then found, its resolution produces not only intellectual pleasure, but also a physical sense of well being, depending on the extent and complexity of the problem. All human beings strive to increase their pleasure or enjoyment in life, so that it could be argued that if the resolution of the truth represents the highest form of pleasure, then the purpose of human intelligence is to detect more and more truth in the universe. in this respect 'Truth' means in general terms, the accurate portrayal in holocept form in the mind of the structure of the external universe. In the same way the concept of understanding is no more than a duplicate image formed in the mind in holocept form of the mechanisms of a certain part of the external world that is under consideration, which is accompanied by a sense of pleasure or achievement (potential to release energy) thereby created in that particular organic and intelligent system. It is also possible to define the word 'love' as an act of increased understanding, and also to define the notions of good and evil in terms of Duplication Theory, but that is beyond the remit I have set myself on this website.