Sunday, February 25, 2007

We Sink Zis Means Somesing

We sink zis is important.
One of my favorite films of all time is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Directed by Steven Speilberg in 1977, it is not only recognized almost universally as a great film, having won dozens of awards for filmmaking, but it illustrates some incredible philosophical ideas. In fact, this post is about (at least) one of them.

In my last post, I discussed the idea that intuition may be much more reliable than cognitive deliberation. Intuition is not exactly a cognitive process, in the sense that we think consciously about it. It is cognitive in that we perceive it, but often without words or thoughts of any kind.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is about this intuitive experience. The main character, Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfuss, along with a number of other folks, encounter UFOs (alien space ships) at around the same time, most of them on the same night. While they are not abducted (although some are), they are all marked with unconscious impressions of something they cannot explain to anyone. They know they know something; they just don't know what it is that they know.

As time goes by, they become obsessive about this unconscious impression, and several of them begin to draw pictures of it, or create models of it. Neary goes from seeing it in various common objects, to modelling it in his mashed potatoes at dinner, and finally driving his family out of the house in an attempt to build a model of it with dirt, grass, and shrubs he has carried into the house from the front yard.

In the meantime, people from some unknown international governmental agency are seen investigating the people and events associated with the UFOs. They are aware of what has happened, but very secretive about it. François Truffaut plays the central character among these covert officials, and at one point he makes the remark in his french accent, "We sink zis means somesing. We sink zis is important." It seems that even the top secret organization doesn't know quite what to make of the visitors or their intention. It does, however, understand that what is happening is real, and that it is probably somehow important.

All of this illustrates a kind of thinking that I think is quite useful at times, in terms of problem-solving. Perception and thought are 2 entirely different things. Perception is pure; it is the conscious (or unconscious) reception of pure data by the mind. Thought is the cognitive process which we use to analyze the data. Thought may or may not be reliable. And it is the cognitive process of thought which creates the conscious model of that which we perceive. Therefore, what we consciously model from our perception may or may not be reliable.

How the mind works is still a subject of much conjecture. We are continually able to gather more data about the activities of the brain, and the behavior and communications of individual human beings. But the mechanism of the brain is still beyond the ability of science to understand. We have recognized and identified a number of different processes which we have names for, but little else. Among these are personal identity, attention, and cognitive control, all of which I want to discuss here.

The human mind (and I refer to the mind rather than the "brain" deliberately, because I don't necessarily want to limit the mind to the organ which we call the "brain") is a multi-tasking operation, behaving in many ways similarly to a multi-tasking computer. Regardless of how many operations may be occurring simultaneously, our minds are constantly performing a wide variety of tasks "at one time." We know that a computer processor is capable of only one operation at any given time, and that it simulates multi-tasking by switching from one task to another at an incredible rate of speed, performing small "slices" of each operation in a large loop process. We don't know whether the human brain does this, however. We do know that the brains exhibits simultaneous activity, which would tend to indicate many simultaneous processes, as if we had many processors in our brains. But exactly what that activity is, we do not know yet.

Still, among those processes, there is one which we call "attention," and it seems to behave as if it is a single thread, which is capable of "time-sharing" like a computer processor. That is, it can jump among many different foci (points of focus) at a high rate of speed. It does seem, however, to only be able to focus on one "thing" at a time. Attention is somehow associated with personal identity, and it may be that our sense of identity comes from this (apparently) single-threaded process; we may identify "self" as this process. I don't know. But I "sink zis means somesing."

However, apparently simultaneously, there are other mental processes at work. There are routines that have been stored, such as those that cause the heart to beat continuously, as well as the operation of the lungs and other organs of the body. We are capable of performing multiple physical tasks simultaneously, such as walking and talking at the same time. These processes are not conscious. We do not consciously control them. At one point we may have consciously directed their development, such as learning how to walk, how to talk, etc. But we don't consciously control them at some point. They are stored as complete routines and executed automatically.

We also know that decision-making is manifested both as cognitive and unconscious process. Well, perhaps it is not agreed upon as to whether it is always a cognitive process, but I will elaborate on that further to clarify. In any case, there is a cognitive control of at least some decision-making, and possibly an unconscious control of other decision-making.

As an analogy of unconscious decision-making, let's talk about a software routine, as an analogy for an unconsciously-controlled stored mental routine, such as walking. A software routine is a set of instructions which contains selective processes. If statements and switch statements are such selective processes, which constitute a form of software decision-making. If one condition is true, one set of instructions is followed. If another condition is true, another set of instructions is followed. Thus, software makes decisions, however unconsciously. Mental routines such as walking must necessarily include such decision-making, albeit unconscious. When we are walking, and we encounter a dip in the ground, our walking process "automatically" accounts for the change in orientation, and the correct combination of muscular adjustments is made, enabling us to continue walking, without any conscious control, within certain limits. If those limits are exceeded, such as a sudden change, a hole in the ground, for example, our conscious deliberative process is notified, and we swiftly get consciously involved in the corrective process.

So, it is at least possible that we make decisions both consciously and unconsciously, and that those decision-making processes which are unconscious are generally more reliable, because they have been constructed ovcr a long period of time, involving a lot of experience.

The conscious deliberative process, while less reliable, probably due to its' apparently single-threaded nature, is that which controls the creation of the unconscious routines that we store and use. How it does this is, of course, not known. And it is entirely possible that poor unconscious decision-making processes are the product of long-term input of bad data. That is, a person who is trained at a young age to distrust authority, by means of a bad parent, for example, may exhibit poor decision-making habits (routines) with regards to other authorities in adulthood. These can be corrected by long-term input of corrective data. But that is the subject of another discussion.

The point which I am getting at here is that problem-solving is a cognitive process as well. As such, it involves the attention, or conscious involvement, of the person doing the problem-solving. Because the modelling process of the conscious mind is not necessarily accurate, as direct perception is, our problem-solving ability may actually be hampered by conscious thought.

We know, for example, that when we are struggling to solve a problem it often helps to "sleep on it." The process of removing the conscious attention from the problem, even sleeping, about which little is yet known, seems to allow the data which constitutes the parameters of the problem to be organized better, perhaps associated with other information that may be related, and of which we are not (yet) consciously aware. It is this act of allowing the (possibly superior) unconscious processes to work on the problem that seems to "inspire" us with new ideas that help to solve the problem. This is sometimes also referred to as "letting go."

I believe that "zis means somesing." It is not pure will that is most capable of solving problems, of coming up with creative solutions; it is "intuition." This speaks directly to the subject matter of my previous post, which is concerned with intuition versus deliberation. That process which is termed "cognitive control," and which may be that which we identify with "self," has a strong impulse to exert control over our other processes. We feel uncomfortable when we cannot trace the logic of a solution. Yet, we are constantly creating solutions to certain types of problems without any conscious understanding of them. How do you walk? Can you enumerate the muscles and components of the nervous system that you employ in order to do it? No, at least without a great deal of scientific study. Yet, it is an ability which almost everyone has.

And so, it is my thought that perhaps we often take conscious control of problem-solving when we would be better off not to. Sometimes it is better to loosen our focus, to "let go" of a problem, to allow ourselves to float freely in a stream of consciousness, in order to most effectively come up with a solution to a dilemma. The more complex a problem is, the less likely our conscious cognitive process is to be able to solve it in any reasonable period of time. It's a simple matter of resource use. If the conscious process is indeed single-threaded, at a certain point it can only switch between so many sub-threads before it runs out of resources. The unconscious mind is apparently not limited in the same way.

In practical terms, when I begin a project, I often wait several days after being given the requirements and parameters before actually doing anything about it. That is, I don't give it much conscious thought at all. I will allow my mind to freely wander to and away from it. I will sometimes "play with it" in my thoughts, deliberately "blurring" my thoughts about it, concentrating on feelings and impressions rather than concrete ideas and thoughts. Then, when I begin the actual planning process, it seems that much of the structure is already present in my mind, having been created by my unconscious thought processes. Like the elves that helped the shoemaker in the old fable, much of the creative work has already been done for me, as if by magic. And the quality of the work is much better than it would be if I had struggled over it consciously.

This is not to negate the function of the deliberative process. It certainly has its' place, and comes to play at just such a point, filling in the details and creating all of the actual end product. The product cannot be produced without it. But the design, the inspiration, comes from the unconscious.

At any rate, while I know that this concept is not yet fully fleshed out, "I sink zis means somesing. I sink zis is important." It is my hope that perhaps this might stimulate others to do the grunt work.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Intuition - Leaving is Besieging

For Christmas, my Princess gave me a new subscription to Scientific American Mind magazine, which I have bought previously at several airports on occasion. At one time I had a subscription to Scientific American magazine, but somehow I let it lapse. I had always enjoyed reading Scientific American magazine. Its articles are written not by journalists, but by scientists and researchers. They deal with cutting-edge science, and I am a cutting-edge type of person.

When I discovered Scientific American Mind magazine, which is published by Scientific American, I immediately fell in love with it. The subject matter is fascinating, as it joins together research from several fields that until recently have remained largely separate: Psychology/Psychiatry, and Neuroscience. Only recently have we had the tools to undertake a serious study of the mechanisms of the brain, which, like most of our body, is composed of trillions of nearly-identical cells, neurons for the most part, but which is capable of incredible computational skill, such that it will be a long time before computers begin to catch up with it. There is an inner simplicity to its structure which yields an enormity of complexity and power.

At any rate, while perusing the web site and the magazine recently, I came across a series of articles provoking thought in me, which I would like to share. In fact, most of what I read in Scientific American/Mind provokes thought in me, but this line of thought in particular has pervaded my mind quite a bit recently. This leads me to believe that there is something important (at least to me) lurking underneath it somewhere.

In this case, I was poking around on the Scientific American web site, and came across a series of blog posts, which were all centered around the concept of Intuition versus Deliberation, and related to several articles that deal with the concepts in various ways. It seems that there is now scientific evidence that "intuition" is more reliable than "deliberation" in the decision-making process. I believe (intuitively?) that this is likely to be confirmed, and that the consequences of these discoveries is likely to bring a great deal of benefit to the human race.

Our conscious mind is at least from shortly after birth, almost entirely consumed with that process we call "Thought." Thought, Cognition, and Consciousness are all closely related, and all related to the process of pattern-recognition, abstraction, modelling, and organization which is constantly occurring in our mind, at least when we are awake (or "conscious"), and perhaps even when we are not.

Because we are social beings, we have also developed languages that enable us to communicate thoughts as abstractions to one another, and because we use that language pervasively throughout our lifetime, it is also a large component of our thought process. We often think in "words," as if we were having a conversation with ourselves. This thought process is enormously complex, and must consume a great deal of menta resources, as evidenced by the sheer size of the areas of the brain devoted to it.

However, there is another process at work in our brains as well, one that precedes thought. Our brain is, after all, a computer of sorts. It is capable of performing incredibly complex calculations far faster than any computer we have yet created. It is also capable of learning, responding "intuitively" to positive and negative stimuli, and creating various subroutines that govern the decision-making process.

A perfect example is that of walking. We are not born with the capacity to walk. It is learned when we are infants, and it takes several years to learn it. We learn it by a combination of factors, including observation and motivation. We are motivated by desire. A baby wants to move from one place to another. It begins by squirming, then rolling, followed by crawling, and finally walking. Walking involves the coordination of thousands of muscles, combined with the perception of very fine differences in balance. It is not an easy trick to master. This is why robots do not yet have legs (at least like ours). Yet, once we have learned how to do it, we perform it without any cognitive thought involved. Each step involves a complex sequence of perceptions, both internal (balance) and external (environment), followed by a sequence of decisions (which leg to move, how much force to apply to which muscles, etc.).

Thus, it is provable that we are capable of making decisions accurately without conscious thought.

Therefore, it is logical to presume that we might be able to apply the same sort of process to our other decision-making. We are constantly making conscious decisions as well. We decide what to eat, what clothes we should wear, whom we should marry, whether and when to use force as a means to accomplishing our goals. However, our conscious thought process is somewhat hampered with our language. Our language is inexact, and at times ambiguous.

The language of integral mathematics is rigorous and exact. It is this very exactness which makes computers so reliable (not software, but computers - that is a different topic altogether). Computers deal exclusively with integral numbers, and apply exact mathematical rules to them. 1 + 1 always equals 2. A computer processor is, at it's core, simply a counter. It adds by counting up, and subtracts by counting down. Multiplication is a derivative of addition, and Division is a derivative of subtraction. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are the basis of all mathematics. Mathematics is the basis of all computer programming.

Human language, on the other hand, is much less exact. We employ a limited set of linguistic symbols to represent a nearly (or perhaps entirely) limitless set of ideas. How we accomplish this is by employing the same symbols in different ways, in a highly-complex system of context and association, which is not integral in nature at all. When we parse human speech, we must interpret it. Each individual word is evaluated in the context of the words with which it is combined. Even more ambiguously, words are evaluated in the context of a set of ideas which forms an environmental influence upon their meaning. In other words, language is highly nuanced. Hence, we may at times have difficulty understanding one another. And because we use language internally in our cognitive thought process, we may even have difficulty understanding our own thoughts.

This thought process is further influenced by desire, which forms an environmental influence upon our internal language. We hear what we want to hear. We believe what we want to believe. We are capable of deliberately, and even unconsciously ignoring "unpleasant" thoughts and ideas. What You Seek Is What You Get.

Quite often, this leads to an internal conflict of thought, a debate of sorts which is constantly being conducted in our cognitive thought process. This is the essence of deliberation. The resulting decisions may or may not be helpful. Therefore, we are prone to "error." This can be seen in such things as "criminal" activity, immorality, and psychological disturbances of various sorts.

However, it is important to remember that there is still a part of our brain which remains incredibly reliable. This is the part of our brain which makes decisions without thought, without deliberation, the part of our mind which we use to walk, to run, to dance, to throw a ball, and so on. Is it possible to employ that reliability in the cognitive decision-making process? I believe this has already been demonstrated.

Albert Einstein spoke of the "leap of intuition." He often proposed ideas that did not arrive via any deliberative or logical process. They just "seemed right." It took a great deal of logical and scientific work to confirm these ideas, and many of them were confirmed long after his death. Yet, they were confirmed.

As children, before we are capable of conceiving complex abstract ideas, we seem to have a similar intuitive ability to "know" what is the right decision to make. Certainly, we do not always make the right decision as children, but when we are confronted with the consequences, we generally own up to our mistakes. It is simply desire which causes children to make wrong decisions, just as it is desire which causes adults to make them. The difference is that the child will "know" that they are doing wrong. An adult will often rationalize wrong-doing.

The word "intuition" is derived from 2 Latin roots, "in" (at, on) and "tueri" (to look at, watch over), and in that sense, essentially means "direct perception." This is a revealing definition, as it infers that one can perceive things without cognitive thought, which is of course true, as exemplified by infants.

It would seem that if it were possible to employ such intuition in the decision-making process, as we do when walking, and filter out the internal dialog/debate, the consequences of our decisions would improve dramatically. Various scientific studies I have been reading about in Scientific American Mind, and elsewhere seem to confirm this idea.

In fact, various forms of meditation seem to focus on such a process, that of emptying the cognitive mind of all abstract thought. While meditation seems to be associated with religion in many cases, I believe there is some aspect of the process which is not religious in nature, but purely a form of mental discipline, one that allows the intuitive, unconscious, and highly-accurate mechanism in our brains to be used in the decision-making process.

I look forward to hearing about continued study in this area.