Direct Sensory Awareness: A Tibetan View and a Medieval Counterpart

McDermott, Annella

doi:10.2307/1398334

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Since the universe has complete goodness, falsehood is the evil of intellect. The intellect is not made for being pleased with the false, so that it can be stated that "what appears is, what is evident is true" (McDermott 1973). The concept of cosmic goodness recalls the modern notion of the antropic principle (Dicke 1961), which states that the scientific scrutiny of the Universe would not even be possible if the laws of the universe had been incompatible with the development of life.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nicholas of Autrecourt: A Forerunner of Paraconsistent Logics

Tozzi¹

2021

Preprint

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We suggest that the 14th century scholar Nicholas of Autrecourt can be regarded as a precursor of the paraconsistent logics developed around 1950. We show how the Sorbonne licentiatus in theology provided in his few extant writings a refutation of both the principle of explosion and the law of non-contradiction, in accordance with the tenets of paraconsistent logics. This paves the way to the most advanced theories of truth in natural language and quantum dynamics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nicholas of Autrecourt: A Forerunner of Paraconsistent Logics

Tozzi¹

2021

Preprint

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“…Since the universe has complete goodness, falsehood is the evil of intellect. The intellect is not made for being pleased with the false, so that it can be stated that "what appears is, what is evident is true" (McDermott 1973). The concept of cosmic goodness recalls the modern notion of the anthropic principle, asserting that the scientific scrutiny of the Universe would not even be possible if the laws of the universe had been incompatible with the development of life (Dicke 1961).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only God comprehends all the things in a single, simple apprehension. The strongest way to provide a bridge between mental contents and their supposed noumenal correlates is to build a probability, though probable in the mere sense of being of worthier assent than its contradictory opposite (McDermott 1973).…”

Section: Nicholas Of Autrecourtmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Bipolar Logic of Feedforward and Feedback Circuits<strong> </strong>

Tozzi¹

2021

Preprint

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Instead of the conventional 0 and 1 values, bipolar reasoning uses -1, 0, +1 to describe double-sided judgements in which neutral elements are halfway between positive and negative evaluations (e.g., “uncertain” lies between “impossible” and “totally sure”). We discuss the state-of-the-art in bipolar logics and recall two medieval forerunners, i.e., William of Ockham and Nicholas of Autrecourt, who embodied a bipolar mode of thought that is eminently modern. Starting from the trivial observation that “once a wheat sheaf is sealed and tied up, the packed down straws display the same orientation”, we work up a new theory of the bipolar nature of networks, suggesting that orthodromic (i.e., feedforward, bottom-up) projections might be functionally coupled with antidromic (i.e., feedback, top-down) projections via the mathematical apparatus of presheaves/globular sets. When an entrained oscillation such as a neuronal spike propagates from A to B, changes in B might lead to changes in A, providing unexpected antidromic effects. Our account points towards the methodological feasibility of novel neural networks in which message feedback is guaranteed by backpropagation mechanisms endowed in the same feedforward circuits. Bottom-up/top-down transmission at various coarse-grained network levels provides fresh insights in far-flung scientific fields such as object persistence, memory reinforcement, visual recognition, Bayesian inferential circuits and multidimensional activity of the brain. Implying that axonal stimulation by external sources might backpropagate and modify neuronal electric oscillations, our theory also suggests testable previsions concerning the optimal location of transcranial magnetic stimulation’s coils in patients affected by drug-resistant epilepsy.

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“…Only God comprehends all the things in a single, simple apprehension. The strongest way to provide a bridge between mental contents, their supposed noumenal correlates and the ever-present principle of individuation is to build a probability, though probable in the mere sense of being of worthier assent than its contradictory opposite (McDermott 1973).…”

Section: What Next?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the universe has complete goodness, falsehood is the evil of the intellect. The intellect is not made for being pleased with the false, since "what appears is, what is evident is true" (McDermott 1973). Cosmic goodness recalls the modern notion of the antropic principle (Dicke 1961): the scientific scrutiny of the Universe would not even be possible if the laws of the universe had been incompatible with the development of life.…”

Section: What Next?mentioning

confidence: 99%

To Know Them, Remove Them: An Outer Methodological Approach to Biophysics and Humanities

Tozzi¹

2021

Preprint

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Set theory faces two difficulties: formal definitions of sets/subsets are incapable of assessing biophysical issues; formal axiomatic systems are complete/inconsistent or incomplete/consistent. To overtake these problems reminiscent of the old-fashioned principle of individuation, we provide formal treatment/validation/operationalization of a methodological weapon termed “outer approach” (OA). The observer’s attention shifts from the system under evaluation to its surroundings, so that objects are investigated from outside. Subsets become just “holes” devoid of information inside larger sets. Sets are no longer passive containers, rather active structures enabling their content’s examination. Consequences/applications of OA include: a) operationalization of paraconsistent logics, anticipated by unexpected forerunners, in terms of advanced truth theories of natural language, anthropic principle and quantum dynamics; b) assessment of embryonic craniocaudal migration in terms of Turing’s spots; c) evaluation of hominids’ social behaviors in terms of evolutionary modifications of facial expression’s musculature; d) treatment of cortical action potentials in terms of collective movements of extracellular currents, leaving apart what happens inside the neurons; e) a critique of Shannon’s information in terms of the Arabic thinkers’ active/potential intellects. Also, OA provides an outer view of a) humanistic issues such as the enigmatic Celestino of Verona’s letter, Dante Alighieri’s “Hell” and the puzzling Voynich manuscript; b) historical issues such as Aldo Moro’s death and the Liston/Clay boxing fight. Summarizing, the safest methodology to quantify phenomena is to remove them from our observation and tackle an outer view, since mathematical/logical issues such as selective information deletion and set complement rescue incompleteness/inconsistency of biophysical systems.

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Direct Sensory Awareness: A Tibetan View and a Medieval Counterpart

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Nicholas of Autrecourt: A Forerunner of Paraconsistent Logics

Nicholas of Autrecourt: A Forerunner of Paraconsistent Logics

The Bipolar Logic of Feedforward and Feedback Circuits<strong> </strong>

To Know Them, Remove Them: An Outer Methodological Approach to Biophysics and Humanities

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