Metatheoretic Problems and their (mostly) Neocybernetic solutions
GOLEM-NEODE Theory's matching metatheory can be summarised succinctly as <brain = computer>. In an ideal world, the simplest explanation is used as the first iteration of the model. Subsequent iterations describe a series of incremental improvements. In this case, the simplest case (ie <brain = computer>) shouldn't be nearly as contentious and controversial a choice as it so obviously is. There are reasons why this prime candidate for a metatheory (brain=computer) has received such a bad reputation. We have learned a lot more about the brain - both theoretically and empirically - since this metatheory was first mooted. We also know a lot more about building better computers, from both hardware and software perspectives.
## problems with metatheory fall into two broad camps-
*Subjective/ phenomenal/ qualiate* - it is obviously the case that computers don't seem to possess either consciousness or emotionality. If they do, it isn't in a scientifically recognisable form or pattern. The case for consciousness/emotionality of GOLEM must be made. By allocating cause to emotions and effects to consciousness, GOLEM theory has created an opportunity for cognitive philosophers to use a 'back to basics' approach to put their house in order. Both are proposed to be co-animated semantic states, synchronised and synchronous slices of space and time respectively.
*Objective/ physical/ material* - even though other problems with the brain=computer metatheory are more conventional in nature, they still represent significant challenges to any GOFCS101-based revision. These challenges include reasons why the brain=computer identity is not compromised by replacing the FETCH-EXECUTE loop from which all digital (and most analog) computers derive their dynamic (or 'feedforward', cybernetically speaking) agency, with the equivalent GOAL-TARGET instantiation which empowers all known examples of biocybernetic machinery, from complex mammalian brains to simpler supervisory ganglia of invertebrates. The case for equivalence rests on the observation that both types of agency (=feedforward governance aka command imperative) are themselves exemplars of 'heterostats'. The GOAL-TARGET driver is a heterostat, almost by inspection, but a little more thought is needed to make the case for the computer's ubiquitous FETCH EXECUTE loop. This is nothing more than a discrete-step heterostat which, because it continually resets its setpoint to the sum =|delta + measurement|, ensures that it's appetite for data always exceeds the size of the measured input, ensuring that it is always making alimentary self-predictions that fall within the right range. When there is no data to be consumed, it just sets the next setpoint value equal to its previous amount. This action is more familiarly known in biology as a saccade, though it is rarely understood to be so, an inevitable consequence of widespread professional ignorance. This regrettable state of affairs (especially in light of the clearly superior nature of the new neocybernetic aka equilibrium point paradigm) is most likely a legacy of its recently discovered scientific status.
The figure above illustrates the key difference between the subjective Right Cerebral Hemisphere, which processes intrasubjective experiences, and the objective Left Cerebral Hemisphere, which processes intersubjective appearances.
The GOLEM's innovative cognotopic (cognometric?)[2] design answers one of Gilbert Ryle's [1] requirements of brains, namely the 'problem of other minds'. Ryle made this observation of Descartes- 'As a man of scientific genius he could not but endorse the claims of mechanics, yet as a religious and moral man he could not accept, as Hobbes accepted, the discouraging rider to those claims, namely that human nature differs only in degree of complexity from clockwork. The mental could not be just a variety of the mechanical'.
In our own, millenial time (ie after AD 2000), we use Arthur C. Clarke's quote to express roughly the same sentiment- 'any sufficiently complex technology is indistinguishable from magic'. We might profitably replace the term 'magic' with 'religion', since this document is written by an atheist, for atheists [3].
1. Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind
2. Ryle uses the term logical geography to refer to the map-based metaphor he utilises to systematically indicate differential mental faculties.
3. Some scientists prefer to be called 'skeptics' or 'non-believers', rather than atheists, since (or so they claim) to deny the existence of a supreme being is, ergo, to covertly affirm it. Perhaps this is meant in the same way as my asking you not to think of an elephant.