The Pivotal Role of Intentionality within the Neurosciences by John Edward LaMuth

John LaMuth

Essay Abstract

One of the most profound conundrums of human existence ultimately questions how mindless mathematical laws can give rise to aims and intentions? Alternately, should this order of causality actually be reversed? Indeed, what factors of the motivated human intellect actually promote the development of the advanced mathematical models so conducive to explaining the dynamics of a callously-silent natural world? Any foundational explanation of goal-seeking intentionality necessarily invokes the scientific precepts of Behavioral Psychology: defined as a dynamical set of laws governing survival through learned behavior where homeostatic conditions at one moment of time extend inexorably into a future time-frame in order to maintain a safe range of homeostatic equilibrium. Truly intelligent agents appear to mentally plan in relation to long-term goals and intentions that serve the crucial aims of physical-survival, reproduction, and thriving. This treatise proposes how complex goal-oriented systems evolved (through an appeal to evolutionary and biophysical neuroscience), whereby further speculating how such intentional goal-seeking behavior emergently functions within a natural world that we can scientifically describe through the aid of mathematical symbolism.

Author Bio

John E. LaMuth is a 63 year-old counselor and author, native to the Southern California area. Credentials include a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biological Sciences from University of California, Irvine: followed by a Master of Science Degree in Counseling from California State University, Fullerton; with an emphasis in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling. John is currently engaged in private practice in Divorce and Family Mediation Counseling in the Southern CA area . John is also Professor for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at The American University of Sovereign Nations, located at San Carlos, Arizona - USA.

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Eckard Blumschein

Dear author,

I see your objection against physical explanation of physiology justified to some extent. To my humble knowledge of auditory function, even hearing is an at least partially active process that can best be understood by means of evolutionary and experimental data.

Unfortunately even T. Ren recently gave in and accepted in nature communications v. Békésy's mandatory idea of a mechanics based traveling wave in human cochlea. He merely admitted to me, an alternative hypothesis might likewise be right.

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John LaMuth

I am unclear about the authors you mention. Can you please offer any references

John L

http://youtu.be/gMSGoxUSYxk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kL3v539D4 Forebrain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alf5IB6iR2c AI

Eckard Blumschein

With pleasure. I refer to Tianying Ren of ohsu.edu and his papers in PNAS 99, 17101-17106 (2002) and Nat Commun 7, 10282 (2016), respectively. In order to understand my objections to the latter one, you might look into my essay "Galilei, Gold, Ren: votes for ultimate realism" in the second fqxi contest "What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?".

Until the end of this month, January 20017, my home page is still available. It contains about 275 postings of a worlswide discussion on auditory function which was prompted by Al Bregman out of Dan Ellis' huge auditory list. Having attended a NATO ASI devoted to computational hearing in Il Ciocco, Italy on invitation by Steven Greenberg, I an convinced that in particular Pujol in France, Martin Braun in Sweden, Geoffrey Manley in Germany, Haim Sohmer in Israel and also Andrew Bell and Flatmax in Australia contributed valuable details or concepts. I see the afferent and efferent AN fibers and many other physiological details up to A1 as indications for active hearing down to the cochlea. Nonetheless, there is there some kind of a wave that quasi travels on the spot, i.e. with non-traveling envelope, merely directed towards apex. Admittedly, nobody of the authorities seems to be ready to abandon the idea that a mechanical wave is primary to the action of HCs. I see it the other way round.

John Hodge

RE: your Fig. 1-The major virtues, values and ideals

What is the meaning of the arrows (seems like cause and effect)? To what are the numbers referring?

The paper http://intellectualarchive.com/?link=item&id=694 sets survival as the only goal of life (and everything) . I understood you also suggested this. However, I notice the end result of Fig. 1 is Transcendence. The Adam Kadmon (Tree of Life) and its reinterpretation in the paper holds some of the values as evil (acting against survival). One of the more controversial is "Faith" is a passive evil (destructive of the individual) of "Hope". The same for Beauty and Truth (note Faith leads to the opposite of Truth). The whole level of "humanitarian" may oppose survival as we see in the current decline of the US.

Structure alone (emergent process) dictates considerably to the increase of intelligence. Why?

Hodge

John LaMuth

Mr. Hodge

The arrows represent a concept from the fledgling science of Communication Theory, borrowing the crucial concept of the metaperspective. It is defined as a higher-order perspective on the viewpoint held by another: schematically defined as "this is how I see you-seeing me." The higher-order groupings of virtues/values are ordered as subsets within a hierarchy of metaperspectives, each more abstract grouping building upon that which it supersedes. Take, for example, the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude), the theological virtues (faith-hope-charity-decency), and the classical Greek values (beauty-truth-goodness-wisdom). Each of these traditional groupings is further subdivided into four subordinate terms permitting precise point-for-point stacking within the hierarchy of metaperspectives. Additional listings of ethical terms can further be added into the mix: namely, the civil liberties (providence-liberty-civility-austerity), the humanistic values (peace-love-tranquility-equality), the mystical values (ecstasy-bliss-joy-harmony), etc. When taken in concert, the complete ten-level hierarchy of virtuous terms emerges in full detail, as partially reproduced in the compact table below (including the preliminary behavioral antecedents).

Approach • Rewards Avoidance • Leniency

Solicitude • Approval Submission • Blame

Glory • Prudence Honor • Justice

Providence • Faith Liberty • Hope

Grace • Beauty Free-Will • Truth

Tranquility • Ecstasy Equality • Bliss

_________________________________________________

+ Reinforce • Appetite - Reinforce • Aversion

Desire • Aspiration Worry • Compliance

Dignity • Temperance Integrity • Fortitude

Civility • Charity Austerity • Decency

Magnanim. • Goodness Equanimity • Wisdom

Love • Joy Peace • Harmony

This cohesive hierarchy of virtues, values, and ideals proves exceedingly comprehensive in scope, accounting for virtually every major theme celebrated in the Western ethical tradition. It is particularly easy to gain a sense of the increasing degree of abstraction when scanning the individual columns from top to bottom. The traditional sequences of terms line up seamlessly within this hierarchy of metaperspectives. Indeed, it proves exceedingly unlikely that this cohesive style of system could have arisen solely by chance. Furthermore, this ethical hierarchy mirrors the specialization of personal, group, spiritual, humanitarian, and transcendental realms within human society as a whole: which (when further specialized into authority/follower roles) accounts for the full ten-level span of ethical terms. The concept of transcendental is distinct from transcendence...

John L

John Hodge

Mr. LaMuth

I noticed your response to Gambini. I'll watch the videos and will have questions. I was hoping the numbers referred to some discussion on how each helps or hinders survival.

Hodge

John LaMuth

Mr. Hodge

Glad to offer any clarifications.

My you-tube channel is - meaningolife

The numbers are simply a three-digit coding system I have devised to organize the complexity

Here, a planetary system of ethics is a goal that has long been anticipated on the world scene today. Although organized religion has long been celebrated as the standard bearer for the promotion of a virtuous life style, the various conflicts afflicting many of the major world religions clearly expose the inherent weakness to such a simplistic interpretation. Ideally, a scientific foundation for such a global moral perspective should prove exceedingly beneficial. Here a formal behavioral-science tie-in with ethical principles should prove particularly effective for removing such a cultural range of stumbling blocks. In particular, a foundation within behavioral psychology proves suitably effective: invoking instinctual principles shared in common as a human species (as well as the rest of animal kingdom) as general unifying themes. When expanded to include the more abstract human-cultural levels; namely, group and universal authority, the affiliated traditional groupings of virtues/values rightfully enters the picture.

A radically new model of motivational behavior is currently called for, one that melds modern behavioral psychology with the long-standing traditions associated with value ethics: a trend encompassing the group, universal, humanitarian, and transcendental realms of inquiry. This comprehensive fusion linking instinctual conditioning with ethical philosophy permits the first grand unified synthesis of motivated behavior. The currently proposed motivation solution endeavors to provide the first clear dynamical understanding for the general public, providing a grand-scale synthesis of the virtues/values in correlation with behavioral principles. The specific details for such an ethical achievement invoke the entire span of human culture: organized as a ten-level hierarchy of personal, group, universal, humanitarian, and transcendental domains (comprising both authority and follower roles). Furthermore, this ascending ethical hierarchy formally appeals to the schematic principles underlying Set Theory. Here, the elementary concepts of the one, the many, and the absolute are specified in terms of the personal, group, and universal authority realms, respectively.

Each distinctive conceptual level is further associated with its own unique complement of ethical/motivational terms. The master ten-level hierarchy of authority/follower roles is uniquely correlated with over two-hundred individual virtuous terms. The traditional ethical listings defined within this system all appear linked on an intuitive level, suggesting a clear sense of overall cohesiveness

Best

John L

Joe Fisher

Dear Professor LaMuth,

As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not a conundrum.

Joe Fisher, Realist

John LaMuth

Mr Fisher

Plz provide your experimental confirmation for your theory. It sounds brilliant...

John L

Joe Fisher

Dear Professor LaMuth,

Thank you ever so much for the compliment. My whole point am that natural reality am not experimental. All humanly contrived experiments are complicated and have to be undertaken in the supposedly closed finite conditions of the laboratory. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not a conundrum.

Joe Fisher, Realist

John Hodge

Thanks.

I suggested studying neural nets and bundels as a possible way to understand consciousness in a deterministic model. You suggested the layering of the brain must be part of understanding deterministic consciousness is very interesting.

The 2 concepts together suggests to me the functioning of PLAs (Programable logic arrays) as a means to explain how bit inputs from light, sound can be turned into action - one big logic array processing bundles (parallel signels) to muscle stimulus in long string of PLAs.

Years ago I studied the idea of using oxides on metal surfaces as bits. An oxide bound to a metal surface is a diode. Place 2metal surfaces togeher with an oxide between. The oxcide can be swithced to one or the othr surfave bu the polarity of a pulse (nerves act by pulses). layers of crossing metal paths (0.1 mil wide, 0.1 mil between). The difficulty was the bond was temporary and required refreshing and constant pulsing. This is starting to sound like a neuron to neuron mechanism.

Thanks for article.

Hodge

Joe Fisher

Dear Mr. Hodge,

A human brain consists only of a visible surface. There are no invisible components. The real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not as complicated as theories of reality are.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Steve Dufourny

Hello Mr Lamuth,

You have made a beautiful general work about what is our brain and its interactions.I wish you all the best in this contest.

Universally and altruistically yours :)

Steve Dufourny

lol Jung is a bar with Freud.Jung explains that the collective consciousness is more subtil than a simple deterministic interpretation of dreams :) now nietsche arrives and kant also ,they drink of course a belgian beer.Goethe him listens with humility during that the natural irreversible laws are discussed.Of course after a time ,the belgian beers act on their cognitive interactions and there they open, their minds to this universal psychology.What a big puzzle all this and Descartes fortunately who explains this determinsitic school of copenaghen.But after all they turn sio they are these 3D sphères Mr Lamut.The world peace can be reached with the liberation of funds for this solar system.We shall give, water, energy, food, jobs and hopes to all and all wins .Simple and evident.

Regards

Joseph Jean-Claude

The author does a good job a exposing the state of the knowledge in neuroscience and behavioral psychology in relation to motivated human behavior. He faithfully exposes the difficulties experienced in these sciences insofar as hard core mathematical description of motivational behavior, beyond the now familiar metrics and taxonomic methods. The author makes no attempts however to propose own contribution to such efforts of mathematical codification, which the question at hand is calling for.

The language reaches at times a level of technical sophistication, common in those circles, but frankly unsuitable to the uninitiated.

Nevertheless a serious, substantive and respectable essay overall.

John LaMuth

You appear to have missed my Cartesian coordinate system that aspires to represent the first "Periodic Table for the Human Forebrain," analogous to the similar influence the Periodic Table of Elements plays with respect to Chemistry and Physics, imparting a crucial sense of systematic order and purpose. As such, it provides the long-anticipated link between the "hard science" of neuroanatomy with its "soft" correlates within behavioral and humanistic psychology. The precise number of elementary levels has accurately been determined for both basic forebrain parameters. Sanides (1970) proposed that the human cortex evolved as a sequence of five (and now six) concentric growth rings comprising a medio-lateral hemisphere gradient. Furthermore, the interoceptive, exteroceptive and proprioceptive input categories each project to their own four-part complex of cortical bands that (when taken collect¬ively) define an antero-posterior hemisphere gradient. When the para-cor¬onal variable of phylogenetic age is plotted as the ordinate and the para-sagittal parameter of input specificity charted as the abscissa in a Cartesian coordinate system, the resulting dual parameter grid depicted in Fig. 1 is spatially oriented in a pattern analogous to the standard cortical representation. Each unit square within this schematic chart depicts paired coordinate values specifying functionally unique age and input forebrain parameters.

Joseph Jean-Claude

Hello John.

I sure have noted those features of your analysis, essentially proposing a chart of the brain and its developmental history based on a Cartesian referential. However, interesting though they are, they are not quite the mathematical codification that we are used to in the "hard" sciences, as we expect functional expressions, or trigonometric, or matrixial, or otherwise... beyond the coordinate system.

I do not want to promote my own essay at your expense, but you will see there a full mathematical development subtending a detailed analysis of the structure of human cognition, including intentionality.

Again I believe the effort shown in your essay overall is much commendable.

Good luck.

Joseph

John LaMuth

Joseph

You devised an elegant math-model and then populated it with a wide assortment of seemingly random affective terms (after the fact) Where is your experimental proof that all this truly models the reality of the way the mind works ??

John L

www.world-peace.org

www.forebrain.org

http://youtu.be/gMSGoxUSYxk

Satyavarapu Gupta

Good essay on behavioral sciences and human brain working and virtues and values....

How will this fit in this FQXi contest ..."how mindless mathematical laws can give rise to aims and intentions?"....?

I did not understand

John LaMuth

Why would mindless mathematical laws only give rise to aims and intentions? Alternately, should this order of causality actually be reversed? Indeed, what factors of the motivated human intellect actually promote the development of the advanced mathematical models so conducive to explaining the dynamics of a callously-silent natural world?

You appear to have completely missed my Cartesian coordinate system that aspires to represent the first "Periodic Table for the Human Forebrain," analogous to the similar influence the Periodic Table of Elements plays with respect to Chemistry and Physics, imparting a crucial sense of systematic order and purpose. As such, it provides the long-anticipated link between the "hard science" of neuroanatomy with its "soft" correlates within behavioral and humanistic psychology. The precise number of elementary levels has accurately been determined for both basic forebrain parameters. Sanides (1970) proposed that the human cortex evolved as a sequence of five (and now six) concentric growth rings comprising a medio-lateral hemisphere gradient. Furthermore, the interoceptive, exteroceptive and proprioceptive input categories each project to their own four-part complex of cortical bands that (when taken collect¬ively) define an antero-posterior hemisphere gradient. When the para-cor¬onal variable of phylogenetic age is plotted as the ordinate and the para-sagittal parameter of input specificity charted as the abscissa in a Cartesian coordinate system, the resulting dual parameter grid depicted in Fig. 1 is spatially oriented in a pattern analogous to the standard cortical representation. Each unit square within this schematic chart depicts paired coordinate values specifying functionally unique age and input forebrain parameters.

John L

www.forebrain.org

Satyavarapu Gupta

Nice Reply sir,

Best wishes