Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!Larry From: Larry E. Carroll Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Intuition and intelligence (was emergent properties) Message-ID: <10106@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Date: 25 Oct 90 17:50:53 GMT References: <1990Oct24.174143.20918@riacs.edu> <10097@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Sender: news@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab, AEG/FIST Lines: 34 >I wouldn't agree that your sample set of thoughts is done "unconsciously", >based on the fact that you are so able to elucidate them. > James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com The rest of your post makes sense to me, but I disagree with this comment. I believe it was Whitehead who said (something like): We advance, not by becoming more aware of the elements of our thinking, but by automating & then ceasing to be aware of them. Thus allowing us to think at successively higher levels of abstraction. However, we can become conscious of the elements of our thought through practice at introspection, though most of it has to be done after a decision- making session (else introspection would massively interfere with the session). That is, I focus my attention on the surround of the question that I wanted answered (or problem I wanted solved, or decision needing made). Then the elements rise out of the depths like vast behemoths. (Oops, sorry about that; my metaphor agent malfunctioned.) And if I focus on one of the elements it resolves into components, each of which I can then focus on. This can go on down several layers. Of course, there are several limitations to this process. First, it's private (at least at this state of our technology--in some future time we may be able to hook brains together & share thoughts); science can only be done on observations that are public. Second, observations are always approximate. Third, the act of examining (either during a session or afterward) distorts (a sort of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). And lastly, we can never be sure that repression/suppression isn't working to shield parts of our psyche from conscious examination. (Related to this, I suppose there are elements that are too alien to our consciousness, or too rooted in the low-level components of thought, that also act as blind spots.) Larry Carroll "Takes-us" (correct pronunciation of Texas) Dancin' Fool