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  frustration on 2005-04-25
This is just a forum. Assume posts are not from medical professionals.
No need to be rude!
 
passkey last decade
Is this a cry for help or what?
 
Minsa last decade
I understand your position, but I disagree.

A key assumption we make is one which, while it has no clear connections with experimental physics, does make contact with a position that was advocated by mathematicians such as Gödel ( Davis and Hersh 1981 , Penrose 1994 ). This is the idea that some aspects of mentality involve a realm of reality largely, but not completely, disconnected from the phenomena manifested in conventional physics. The idea of a disconnected realm does have precedents, for example in the way two of the fundamental forces (the strong and weak forces) play no role in large areas of physics and chemistry, whilst in other contexts they have a very important part to play. Next note that string theory, involving as it does spaces having more dimensions than the usual three, and also a non-unique vacuum state (and according to Susskind ( 2003a , b ), a very large number of such states), is consistent with there being such a 'separate realm', in a way that the Standard Model, with its unique vacuum state contained within a limited number of spatial dimensions, did not.

The point in regard to mathematical thinking, which motivates our model, is the following. Consider first of all what the brain does in visual perception. Here the primary information from the visual receptors goes through various levels of processing until it ends up as a high-level representation of the content of the visual field. It is not unreasonable to identify mathematics as a similar process, except that higher levels of abstraction are involved in this case. With the visual case, the mechanics are straightforward: the visual field typically contains for example edges, for which abstraction a dedicated neural system has evolved, related to our ability to perceive edges. It is hard to see why we should have such ready access to higher mathematical abstractions having little connection with experience ( Penrose 1994 ). One resolution of the problem would be for mathematical concepts to be in some way 'in the physics', rather than being emergent properties of brains. In case it is felt that such a drastic solution is not necessary to explain our ready access to mathematical ideas, and that neural networks can provide an adequate explanation, a stronger argument for the existence of some kind of Platonic realm can be made on the basis of the aesthetic aspect of music ( Josephson and Carpenter 1996 ).

So far, in shifting the locus of mathematical thinking (and music?) to another realm, we have only replaced one mystery by another. But why should such a realm exist at all? The explanation we provide is of a biological character, taking account of the fact that information processing is an essential component of biological functioning, but with only very specific informational processes having a life-supportive character. While it is commonly taken that the informational processes involved are mediated by ordinary physical means, it is not a logical necessity that this should be the case. Some informational processes in an organism are specialised to the nature and circumstances of the organism concerned, but some have a more abstract and universal character, and so could be mediated by a quite different system with which individual organisms would interact.
 
dadoody last decade

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