Imagined Goals in a Material World by Georgina Woodward

pjackson

Georgina,

Yes, it's that 'imagination of the outcome' I agree is critical, and I discuss the results of the feedback loops from running those 'scenarios' in mine.

" In a raging fire window or door beats staying put. You can think about whether it was the right choice if you are still alive afterwards, which you won't be if you don't move. ". . I also agree entirely, indeed I use a tiger in the same scenario! what I'm suggesting is distinguishing between two thought modes, and using 'rationalisation mode' is essential for advancement of understanding.

I'm sorry mine used QM again this year, but simplified so 4 of 5 barmaids understood it so I'm certain you will - if using thought mode 2 - 'goal directed'! (there's also a nice video, and a 100 sec glimpse version here; Classic QM.).

Yours looks too low to get many reads so I'll help it now. I hope it doesn't get as hit by the trolls as mine!

Very best

Peter

Georgina Woodward

By the way, there is a temporal component to embryological development that can be seen as connected to the foundational arrow of time. For example the timing of the correct specific concentration gradients at certain receptor sites can have profound outcomes.

sherman jenkins

Georgina Woodward,

I will post on both your topic and my own in the essay contest.

Enjoyed your essay as usual. And agree with most of your observations. I would like to make a couple of comments. The first relates to giving the lower ranked life forms a little more credit. My essay originally included my experience with slime mold but due to size restrictions - something had to go; and anyway, who would believe such simple creatures could have goals and anticipate the future? And a second has to do with time. I know that you have expressed a long interest in the nature of time. So much of physics is more beautiful when viewed with a working understanding of time. My essay in the first FQXI contest on the nature of time describes how time and the laws of physics come from one underlying principle.

Sherman

Georgina Woodward

Hi Sherman, I have described why only the higher organisms are able to have prior goals; rather than merely functional outcomes that only have the appearance of being consciously goal directed. I'd like to have included something about the social insects and how the sum of individual behaviours produces "wisdom of the crowd" leading to the appearance of group decision making achieving a planned goal

Don Limuti

Hi Georgina,

Super to be in another contest with you (I missed the last one). I think you have been in all contests and used your biological and teaching background to great effect. And once again you have created a very good essay. Let me comment about your conclusions:

1. "The limbic system common to birds and mammals provides innate emotions that appear to be drivers of many goals." Yes, a very good point "emotions" are not mentioned in other essays.

2. "A goal is in the future imagined by the thinker. Yet the goal exists wholly Now in the only materially existent reality." Yes, from a third person scientific point of view. No, from a first person point of view. If asked how they feel, a person will generally give you an emotion (pain), not a materially existent reality (I feel like an arrow in my foot).

3. "Goals are impotent, tasks are interactions with material reality that can lead to goal achievement." Maybe, I find this to be a bit of word salad.

Please forgive my being nitpicky. This is a really good look at material reality, and establishing a link to emotions. In my own essay I tried to establish a link to emotion....didn't do as good a job as you did.

Do check out my essay.....it is relativity easy on the neurons:)

Thanks for being in the contest and for an excellent essay.

Don Limuti

Georgina Woodward

Hi Don, thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful comments.

Re. your 2., I am purposefully differentiating conscious thought about the goal, which is about information processing in the brain producing an imagined outcome at a future time, from material existence and where/when that physical biochemical/neurological process is happening. I am using the uni-temporal model of material existence which is that all existing material things exist at the same and only time there being no time dimension in foundational reality.There is a paper about uni-temporalism here if interested. Uni-Temporalism, the Relation of Human Beings to Time and the 'future' of Time in Physics

Re. your 3., Having a mental idea about what can be caused to happen, or is a desirable outcome, is different from doing what is necessary to make the imagined outcome happen. So here I am differentiating goal from task. There are authors that do not differentiate them, considering task performance giving a functional outcome to be the same as being goal directed or to imply a prior goal. To reinforce the difference; Consider the difficulty of translating a goal into task performance when there is nerve damage causing paralysis, or where there is insufficient neurotransmitter production.

I will read your essay, kind regards Georgina

Georgina Woodward

Some thoughts: Outcomes are not always the product of prior goals. Most things in nature happen without being goal directed, which is not denying the functionality of the outcome but recognizing that functionality does not require prior aim or purposvity. A goal is not something to be retrospectively assumed but is generated prior to task/s (or happenings) and outcome.

A goal is not just neural activity happening now but also pertains to something or relationship that is imaginary; i.e. that does not yet exist. It is the task planning and execution in between that raises the probability that the imagined outcome is achieved. Shooting the ball at the net, after taking clear aim, significantly raises the probability that the ball will go through the net as imagined. Choosing to alter the probability of an outcome in the external reality is where will comes in to play. Yet the choices made can also be affected by things like neurotransmitter levels/ balance which can be reduced to chemistry and physics, or seen as the product of lifestyle and environment and social relationships. The freewill problem may come from trying to isolate goal production (will) from micro and macro environment. Yes, we can have will, yet it can never be entirely free.

Georgina Woodward

The imagined component of a goal (rather than process of its production), could be used as an argument against the time reversibility allowed by classical mechanics and Einstein's relativity. Reversal of tasks (a series of actions) seems odd, with a 'uni-directional' subjective experience of passage of time. Even more so, going in reverse from outcome through tasks to (neural processing product) the goal, such as "this X is what I am going to do," to pre-goal is more than odd. In reverse direction, the imagined future of the goal pertains to the past and has no relevance to what will be done progressing in time reverse 'direction'. A counter argument is that there wouldn't be coherent thought but nonsensical reverse direction un-thinking in time reversal, so no imagined future, as the neural processes too are reversed. Time reversibility is not an issue in uni-temporalism.

About free-will: employing a uni-temporal viewpoint, only Now exists materially so the material future is open rather than already fixed. The goal imagined is not itself a part of the existing external material reality. Goal setting may be the way off of the path of inevitability, allowing conscious manipulation of the probabilities of outcomes; Rather than merely passive automatic biological response and inanimate mechanics of physics.

pjackson

Georgina,

Thanks for your comment on mine. I responded, posted here for your convenience;

Thanks Georgina.

Yes, the 2 parts (really 3) are directly as well as indirectly connected which 'reverse engineered' the ontology, but I had to trim a few of the words that that clarified how. (And a few too many others!)

Essentially; The fine structure complexity required to produce 'Qualia' (Ullas excellent word) and 'intent' from the architecture and 'mechanisms' in our cortices simply wasn't adequate. However decoding all the 'noise' (in a Shannon information channel, - see my It from Bit IQbit essay) by revealing the second Cos2 momentum distribution on the surface of an electron easily allows it.

We then 'loop' back' (as the neural architecture does) to thinking modes, which shows why, because physicists have no 'memory' (patterns) embedded in that complex RAM, that all such new concepts are rejected a priori when thinking in Mode1 (primeval evolved intuitive response mode). So once you see the link you should see a massive elephant sized Catch 22! (some smaller scale ones have been identified!)

I actually announced a medium sized one; Anyone 'skipping over' the essay (mode 1) would miss most of it's true value. You'll see I guesstimated ~20% would 'get' the BIG and important (ClassicQM) discovery (many aren't interested in QM) that's just been surpassed, which is great progress!

I hope that helps. I hope that didn't feel too much like decoding Shakespeare in English Lit!- but I AM saying we need to self evolve to more Mode2 analytical thinking to understand nature better after all!!

Very best

Peter

Jonathan Dickau

Very nicely laid out..

I like this essay a lot Georgina, and I'm sorry I could not get here to read and comment sooner. A lot on my plate. I concur with Don's comment above that it's nice to read an essay by an author unafraid to talk about emotions as a defining concept relating to goals. You may be the only one who weaved that and several other related concepts in to treat a topic that arguably demanded it. I think you nailed it, though (disagreeing with Don's word salad comment), when talking about tasks vs goals. Tommaso Bolognesi uses the word mechanism, in place of task, but you are on the same page. He also talks about CAs in a similar connection.

Thanks for a most pleasant and informative read I'll want to return to.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan Dickau

By the way,

I got to hear Temple Grandin talk a few years back, and she was a wonderful and engaging speaker.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Georgina Woodward

Thank you very much Jonathan. I really appreciate you having read the essay and your positive comments. I ma glad you like it.

Georgina Woodward

oops that should say -I am glad you like it. : )

Georgina Woodward

I really would like more feedback to know where i have gone wrong with this essay. I tried to fully address the stated requirements. Taking out the comments that were not anything to do with the essay, there are only 10 community members and one FQXi member who commented (prior to name change). I did read and comment on other's essays. was involved with the process.

i think that perhaps in trying to answer all of the questions each one was not considered in enough depth. Maybe I should have picked just one. I don't know if referring to the uni-temporal concept of time passage counted against it as it isn't "recognized". I wonder if talking about the cellular automata as i did was a bit too simplistic or an analogy too far for readers. These are what spring to mind but maybe its something/other things else I haven't considered. Can anyone help with this?

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