Gilbert Ryle

Hi!

It has been a while since my last post. Unfortunately, time moves ever forward. I am currently reading "The concept of Mind" by Gilbert Ryle in my spare time, which is few these days. It deals with our misconceptions between states and processes. One among other interesting quote:

"It should be noticed that someone is not said to know how to play chess, if all that he can do is to recite the rules accurately. He must be able to make the required moves. But he is said to know how to play if, although he cannot cite the rules, he normally does make the permitted moves, avoid the forbidden moves and protest if his opponent makes forbidden moves. His knowledge how is exercised primarily in the moves that he makes, or concedes, and in the moves that he avoids or vetoes. ... The distinction between habits and intelligent capacities can be illustrated by reference to the parallel distinction between the methods used for inculcating the two sorts of second nature. We build up habits by drill, but we build up intelligent capacities by training. Drill (or conditioning) consists in the impositions of repititions. ... The practices are not learned until the pupil"s responses to his cues are automatic, until he can 'do them in his sleep'. Training on the other hand, though it embodies plenty of sheer drill, does not consist of drill. It involves the stimulation by criticism and example of the pupil's own judgement. He learns how to do things thinking what he is doing, so that every new operation performed is itself a new lesson to him how to perform better. ... Drill dispenses with intelligence, training develops it."

Complexity

One of the most important question for sciences today to answer are questions around the nature of complexity, i.e. systems with a large amount of different parts and the quality and quantity of their interactions. Some interesting links on this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems

http://www.necsi.org/guide/DCSchapter0.pdf

Maybe all physical laws could be derived from more hidden forms of complex algorithms... As Richard Feynman is suggesting in "The Character of Physical Law": "Suppose that physics, or rather nature, is considered analogous to a great chess game with millions of pieces in it, and we are trying to discover the laws by which the pieces move. The great gods who play this chess play it very rapidly, and it is hard to watch and difficult to see. However, we are catching on to some of the rules, and there are some rules which we can work out which do not require that we watch every move."