Replying to LO26986 --
Dear Organlearners,
Winfried Dressler <Winfried.Dressler@Voith.com> writes:
>While I used to think of knowledge as only related
>to the intellect I realize now how much knowledge
>is emotion&intellect. In fact, e-motion is much more
>related to "capacity to act" than intellect.
(snip)
>In my new model I have associated emotion with
>entropic force, the difference of an intensive quality,
>a property which does not scale, when it is shared
>with other people. The emotion gives temperature
>(temper?) or color. On the other hand, the intellect
>is a kind of entropic flux, an extensive outcome, a
>flow of thoughts, a property which scales, when it is
>shared with other people.
Greetings dear Winfried,
Thank you very much for your delightful thoughts on "understanding
knowing". It is a great pleasure to see someone else also pushing the
limits of mind into the unknown domain of LEP dancing on LEC in the
spiritual world.
Accepting the assumptions which you make, I cannot find mentionable errors
in your thinking. What emotions do to the mind and what entropic forces do
to physical organising systems is so striking similar that it begs us to
consider emotions as entropic forces.
But what has been worrying me, not of your thinking, but my own along
similar lines, is that when I consider emotions as entropic forces, what
are the qualities associated with emtions? The reason why I ask is that
when Y is an intensive parameter (quality), then two different values of Y
in the same system, say Y(2) and Y(1), set up an entropic force Y(2) -
Y(1) . This entropic force is also intensive!
Now think of the emotion "anger" as an entropic force Y(2) - Y(1) . What
will the quality Y itself be such that differences in its values will give
rise to "anger" as the entropic force? I have pushed my mind as far as
possible to become aware of this Y such that "anger"=Y(2)-Y(1). But I
still cannot become aware of it.
As a result of this "black hole" I have to speculate why I get to it
rather than "seeing some light in it". One possibility is that, with
writing Y(2) - Y(1) as /_\Y, it is impossible for my mind to analyse this
/_\Y into Y(2) - Y(1). It is this possibility which Leibniz worked into
his philosophy of the "monad" -- a whole of which its parts cannot be
found!
Here is a mathematical example, typical of any system with a growth
parameter r to it, going through n cycles, giving q as the collective
ourcome. The formula is: q = (1 - ((1+r)^-n))/r It is impossible to find
an equation with the form r = f(q, n) In other words, it is impossible to
find r as one of its parts.
The other possibility is that "anger" is not Y(2) - Y(1), but rather
only one of these two values, say "anger"=Y(2). But then I have
to ask:
What is this Y(1) giving rise to /_\Y="anger" - Y(1) and what is
this /_\Y itself?
My gut feeling tells me not to go with this last possibility because it
generates two problems -- what is Y(1) and what is /_\Y? The first
possibility generate only one problem -- why cannot "anger"=/_\Y
be analysed into Y(2) - Y(1)?
What strikes me as particularly important is that some emotions like
"anger" with its associated "body language", identified as an entropic
force /_\Y, is also recognisable among higher ordered animals whether
domesticated like dogs or wild like leopards. It is easy to identify the
similar neurological systems of humans and animals as the "sustainer" for
such emotions.
So what will be the entropic flux /_\X be corresponding to the entropic
force /_\Y=emotion? It is important to answer this question because it is
the entropy producing forxe-flux pair /_\Yx/_\X which will drive the
"mental organising" which we know better as "learning".
When, no matter how closely, I observe animal behaviour, a force-flux pair
such as "anger"x/_\X seems to get molded into a predictable pattern for
that animal which we call its "instinct". This means that the entropic
flux /_\X is strongly reduced into a fixed trickle which is almost a
"rheostasis". (This is the word which you had been looking for -- see
series on "Work and Free Energy".)
I sometimes observe this "rheostasis" among humans to, namely that their
"anger"x/_\X get molded into "instinctive behaviour" rather than emerging
into typical human learning. In many cases I can even spot a definitive
impairment in one of the 7Es.
So what will be the entropic flux /_\X be corresponding to the entropic
force /_\Y=emotion? And what will all the entropic fluxes together be
corresponding to all the emotions? You have identified it as /_\intellect
with
>learning = /_\ knowledge (/_\ = "change of")
>emotion = /_\ intensive property (which one?....)
>intellect = /_\ extensive property (which one?....)
Perhaps you are right while I am failing to make the connection. But
whenever I observe in a human that "anger"x/_\X" becomes "instinct" rather
than "learning", the freezing of "imagination" into a fixed "mental model"
is most striking for me. In other words, should we not perhaps consider
imagination = /_\ extensive property (which one?....) here?
Is imagination and intellect not perhaps one and the same thing? I know of
no dictionary which shows through languages that some humans have made a
connection between these two. Neither can I find a connection between
imagination and emotions. But the liguistic connection between intellect
and emotion does exist. Dictionaries often give emotion as one of the
antonyms to intellect. (For some reason linguists failed to make the
important distinction between a "dialectical dual"=antonym and a
"complementary dual")
You would probably ask why I search so much in dictionaries and so little
in journals and books on pshycology. The reason is that I find too many
"mental models" as well as "black holes" in psychology rather than answers
to the questions which I ask myself. For example, psychology has far more
to say on intelligence than on imagination, except in psychotic syndromes.
>Finally I need to say that I am aware that I write
>intellectually on emotions. I would love to read a
>complement written emotionally on intellect. As
>long as both are fully appreciated...
Dear Winfried, I began to do just that, progressing some two dozen lines,
when I realised that it was far too judgemental. Afterwards I began to
think of the sermon of Jesus on the mountain. I was pleasantly surprised
how much he used emotion to clarify the intellect without being
judgemental. So I began repeating the excercise you requested, but are not
finished yet. Give me some more time!
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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