Some Terminology
From hurst Tue Aug 30 01:51:32 1994 Subject: some terminology Thanx to Agent Scotto for elaborating the Eight Circuit model. As I pointed out in a previous post, though useful, as any model will be, it is incomplete. In the interests of establishing some common ground and agreeing on useful terminology, I'd like to describe some additional models and maybe develop some terminology. This is likely to be the first of several posts discussing these topics. Your input is more than welcome! The term "metaprogramming" was actually coined by Dr. John Lilly, who wrote the book _Programming and Metaprogramming the Human Biocomputer_. If you haven't read this book yet, do so *now*. In the meanwhile, I'd like to discuss some concepts related to metaprogramming. The term "metaprogramming" implies that the human mind (or biocomputer, as Lilly calls it), can be programmed. That is, that it is constantly and continuously running a complex set of programs which are controlling all aspects of the organism's existence. There are programs which keep your heart running. There are programs which control your oxygen intake and consumption. There are programs which monitor your energy reserves and generate requests for nourishment that you experience as "hunger". There are programs which control the complex dance of coordinating muscular and skeletal movements as you walk. Many of these programs are "hardwired", that is to say, they come with the original equipment and don't require any kind of learning. Other of these programs require a significant amount of learning before you can run them, although the hardware comes ready to run them. Walking for example. Or any temporal-spacial location reflexes. If you watch a baby exploring the space around it, you can see it developing basic motion/location reflexes. Learning to walk is an excellent example. Humans are designed to walk upright, on two legs. But it requires a good two years of training to get it right, to get most of the bugs out of the complex calculations necessary to coordinate location and balance inputs with muscular-skeletal outputs. Then there are the more complicated programs which must be learned: language, symbol manipulation, social interactions, science, business, art, etc. At some point, the organism must learn how to learn. This is metaprogramming: the program which enables the organism to orchestrate the vast numbers of subordinate programs, develop new programs, and coordinate the interactions between them. There are likely many metaprograms as well. Different styles of learning, for example. Somewhere in this sea of metaprograms arises a particular set of metaprograms which represent the self. These are usually refered to as 'I' when acting on other metaprograms, and 'me' when being acted upon by other metaprograms. Lilly calls this the 'self- metaprogrammer'. Beyond these metaprograms, there may be other controls and controllers in the hierarchy, which Lilly labels 'supraself-metaprograms'. To quote Lilly: These may be many or one, depending on current states of consciousness in the single self-metaprogrammer. These may be personified _as_if_entities_, treated as if a network for information transfer, or _realized_ as if self traveling in the Universe to strange lands or dimensions or spaces. If one does a further unification operation on these supraself metaprograms, one may arrive at a concept labeled God, the Creator, the Starmaker, or whatever. ... Certain states of consciousness result from and cause operations of this apparent unification phenomenon. We are still general purpose computers who can program any conceivable model of the universe inside our own structure, reduce the single self- metaprogrammer to a micro size, and program him to travel through his own model as if real. ... Once one has control over modelling the universe inside one's self, and is able to vary the parameters satisfactorily, one's self may reflect this ability by changing appropriately to match the new property. This hierarchy of programs and metaprograms is summarized in the following diagram of levels of functional organization: LEVELS XI Unknown Above and in biocomputer X Supra-species-metaprograms Beyond metaprogramming IX Supra-self-metaprograms To be metaprogrammed VIII Self-metaprogram (awareness) To metaprogram VII Metaprograms/metaprogram storage To program sets of programs VI Programs/program storage Detailed instructions V Subroutines/subroutine storage Details of instructions IV Biochemical/neural/glial/vascular Signs of activity III Biochemical/neural/glial/vascular Brain II Biochemical/sensory/motor/vascular Body I Biochemical/chemical/physical External reality Now a cursory inspection of this diagram reveals a couple things. First, this model is clearly open-ended. It contains within it a symbol for things which it cannot represent itself, namely level XI. Clearly, additional experiential data could reveal levels beyond XI. Secondly, it has some correspondence with Leary's 8-circuit model, but doesn't quite make the same assertions about the specific functioning. However, with a bit of work, one might see where the various 8 circuits might map into this model. OK, that's all for tonight. Your assignment for the next class is to observe the functioning of your own biocomputer in terms of this model and see how it applies. One final word: remember "it's only a model!" "shhh!" --DaveH "Be Excellent to each other!" From hurst Thu Sep 8 01:51:04 1994 Subject: some terminology (part 2) In my previous post, I summarized some of the things which Dr. John Lilly had to say about metaprogramming, and presented a somewhat different model than that proposed by Leary. To me, the problem with Leary's model is that it is way too specific. It implies that certain levels of mental functioning only "come online" in a certain sequence, and that this sequence is the only one possible. This seems too limiting. Perhaps the most useful aspect of Leary's model is the concept of "imprinting", wherein the form of the circuit is set during certain crucial experiences, say an infant feeding at her mother's breast or during a first sexual experience, etc. It is clear that what is meant here is that a set of programs are being developed in response to an environment and as new capabilities develop in the organism. While Leary hypothesized that these imprints occurred primarily only during certain vulnerable periods in an organism's natural development, it should be obvious that this kind of metaprogramming actually happens all the time, though with a much higher frequency for younger organisms than for older and adult organisms. A simple example of this is the process that one goes through in learning a new physical skill. Since I practice the martial art of Aikido and frequently teach beginning students, I have an opportunity to observe this process in adult humans first hand. In Aikido, we practice a collection of physical movements which the average beginning student is not familiar with and which are not necessarily easy to perform. As the beginning student first starts to practice, he is likely to have a difficul time even getting his body to approximate the correct motions. There are an awful lot of things to coordinate all at once. New neuro-muscular programs have to be developed to execute the new movements. This patterning takes time to create. Over time, you can see the student becoming more confident and more accurate in his movements. The neuro-muscular programs are being debugged and honed. In fact, this process would appear to involve the development and coordination of a multitude of simple programs into more complex systems. As you might expect, I've found a wide variance in the speed at which new students start to develop their neuro-muscular programs. Some students have obviously not done anything really physical since they were children and it shows---their bodies are stiff, their reflexes are slow, their motions inaccurate. These students have not yet developed a collection of basic programs for controlling physical movements in general, or perhaps their set of basic programs is still limited. Other beginning students clearly show the effect of prior neuro-muscular metaprogramming, and pick up the movements quickly. They already have a repetoire of basic programs and can easily choose from these to start building more complex programs. I chose physical skills as an initial example, because it's easy to see how to metaprogram them. You develop neuro-muscular programs with practice and lots of it. Once you can perform the basic actions without having to think about them, then you can move to move advanced combinations; stringing sequences of motions together. Once you have reached the point where you can simply react to a situation without having to think about what you are doing but just *do* it, the level of physical metaprogramming is fairly complete. It seems that this might map easily to Circuit I in Leary's model---the biosurvival circuit is concerned with physical reality. But look again: according to Leary, Circuit I is the first one to imprint and I have just described a process whereby adults are changing and extending their range of physical metaprograms. In the eight circuit model, this metaprogramming activity is mediated by Circuit VI, which is supposedly not normally activated in mature humans without some help. So it would seem that we can describe a hierarchy of programming in operation here which is perhaps orthogonal to the eight circuit model and intersects it at different points. I refer you back to the diagram presented in part one of this series. Well, that's it for this evening. You have two assignments for the next class. First, think about how Lilly's hierarchy of programs and metaprograms applies to the example described in this post. Second, take some non-trivial physical activity that you do, say riding a bicycle or something of similar complexity, and analyze all of the programs you had to develop in order to learn how to do it. How many of these programs have you been able to apply in different situations? Are any of these programs applicable to non-physical activities? If so, what are they and how do they operate? --DaveH "Be Excellent to each other!" From hurst Thu Sep 22 01:23:33 1994 Subject: some terminology (part 3) (was Re: Nexial what?) Agent Carl Yount transmitted this meme: > I to am having a hard time understanding Nexial thinking. > Especially the thinking/not thinking part. > > If you assume we evolved, and the animals that we evolved from > did NOT have language at some point in the evolution. Then there > must be a consciousness that does not involve language. > > So are you saying that we have this consciousness, and it can be > aware of the part of consciousness involving language? > > Or are both parts based on language. i.e. I do NOT think in > images, I think in languages. Shit, where's Mike Gourlay when you need him? Well, this is something that we've discussed at length before, but for the benefit of the recent influx of newbies, some terminology might be helpful at this point. For the purposes of discussion (Gerald, note this is a *definition*, not an assertion!), let's define "thought" as "the collection of mental processes which involve manipulating symbols." This encompasses any symbolic manipulation is lingually based, whether or not it is uses words, and so might also be called "lingual thought", but for reasons that should become apparent below, it is useful to refer to this simply as "thought". Using this definition, "thinking" then involves relating to the world in a symbolic way. Most of the time, our waking consciousness is consumed with thought, that is, interacting with the world on a symbolic level. Pretty much any time you communicate with someone, you're operating in the realm of thought. There are other examples too. Music, for instance, is wholly lingually based, although it doesn't involve "words" at all. Although 20th century humans seem to spend most of their time in this mode of consciousness, there are other modes of consciousness as well. As you noted, there are modes which developed before humans evolved the capacity for lingual thought. However, lingual consciousness tends to invade these modes. Suppose that you burn yourself on a flame. There is an alingual mental process which reacts to that sensory input: your hand jerks back from the flame, and maybe you put your hand in your mouth without "thinking" about it. But you felt it and for a moment your consciousness was operating alingually. But then the lingual consciousness invades again and maybe you think, "oh shit! That really hurt!" And now immediately you have taken that experience and symbolized it in your consciousness. Labels are given to the feelings you experienced. It would be awfully clumsy and perhaps even dangerous if you had to re-experience that pain the next time you wanted to communicate what happened to you to someone else, or even just to think about it. So your mind creates symbols for that experience and operates on those instead. A level of indirection from the actual experience has been introduced. Other examples of alingual thought: somebody does something which really pisses you off and you explode at them without "thinking". In this case, your consciousness is being directed by an emotional process of rage. In this society, it's considered improper to actually attack someone who's ticked you off, so maybe you sublimate that urge and pound your fists on the table instead. Or maybe you live on the south side of Chicago, and you don't sublimate that urge. So you find that your fists are connecting with the other person's face. Now if you examine all of these examples, you might say, "but those aren't examples of people *thinking*. They were reacting reflexively or out of instinct. Those were *unconscious* actions." An interesting choice of words. I think they are fully conscious actions. In each case, the person is aware of what's going on and directing hir mental processes. But when we say that they were not *thinking* about what they were doing, we really mean that they were not symbolizing their potential action or reaction and modeling potential outcomes. As an exercise in understanding some of these modes of consciousness, try the following experiments. Look at a page of text and try to see it without puting meaning into the words. Can you do it or do the words seem to force meaning into your consciousness. Now if you have access to a manuscript in a language that you don't understand, look at that. What do you see now? Find a place where you can be by yourself for a while. It needn't be quiet, in fact if there is sensory stimulation, that's so much the better. Now, close your eyes and *feel*. Try to sense the room *without* putting labels on what you are experiencing. Feel each sensation to its fullest and then let it pass. After about 5 minutes, open your eyes and try to recall what you experienced. OK, now for the really interesting part. In general, when we experience something in the world, we can point to its physical manifestation and compare it with the experiences of other people. Over time, we can agree that these experiences are similar enough to be grouped together under a single label. Then we have a word for it and we can think about it. But what happens if I have an experience for which I have *no words* to describe it? And what if the experience is something that doesn't have a physical manifestation and so is not readily compared with other peoples' experiences? How do we deal with it then? Well I can try to describe it in terms of other words; I can make a metaphor. I can say, "well it was like this," or "it was kind of like that but had overtones of something else." But I can't relate to it directly. If I experience the same thing several times, then I might be able to say that they were similar and I might make up a symbol for it in my own mind, but that symbol would be useless for communicating it to other people. This is what I call the "unsymbolized experience." This is different from the kind of alingual thought described before precisely because we *don't* have any effective way of symbolizing it, and hence there is no effective way of thinking about it. Anyone who has meditated successfully has undoubtedly reached a state of consciousness like this, where symbols had no meaning and so the mind could be consider to "not be thinking". Similar states are frequently experienced by people using large doses of psychedelics as well. There's a lot more that can be said on this subject. But first, I highly recommend that you check out the excellent papers written by Mike Gourlay. Mike spent a lot of time analyzing these very issues in detail. The papers can be found in the Leri Institute Department of Ontological Cartography. The Gourlay Papers --DaveH "Be Excellent to each other!"