Meaning is 'dormant' (a 'spore' or 'virus') in/as a script without a reader. — plaque flag
That is how a computationist would look at it. Biology and neuroscience show that computationalism is simply wrong. Life and mind start from the first meaningful action. The first shifting of an atom for a reason.
Scripts don't write themselves. And they need to be being read from the start of their writing.
I think that maybe you don't sufficiently address the importance of the subject. — plaque flag
Or you are not following what I've been saying.
So let's get focused on what you say your are here to discuss despite it being a wandering of the thread. You want to be able to quantify the "genius personality" in terms of some individualistic paradigm of the human mind and spirit?
I am saying this would simply be a bad question arising from a bad metaphysics. And I've made that reply accordingly.
I've tried to argue using concrete examples which you brush away in your haste to just keep moving on in aimless-feeling fashion.
So again, focus. If we have Shakespeare and Newton as our candidate for intellectual hero of the English millennial, how do we decide who wins, who is runner up?
A metric I might toss into the mix is what we are willing to ignore about their personalities – if personalities is indeed key to your putative model.
So Newton was a historical genius in turning physics into maths. He was brave or reckless enough to use dramatically lossy data compression. He even was willing to chuck out the very materialistic metaphysics he just had substantiated with his Laws of Motion to take the opposite tack "action at a distance" in his Law of Gravitation.
We all applaud that kind of relentless genius that can use and abuse metaphysics as he willed. The maths is what mattered. The metaphysics got backfilled to fit. A project going on for both his mathematical triumphs. And even the maths was of foundational importance and is keeping folk busy trying to back fill its metaphysics too. The ghost of departed quantities, and all that.
No wonder Newton is a turning point just in terms of social attitude. He personified something that really did change intellectual history. Where would Kant and the rest be without Newton as that central challenge? The guy had strut.
But what does polite intellectual society then say about his religiosity? Well, it seems excusable for a person of his time if not his genius.
What about his difficult personality? Again, excusable to be impatient with dullards and jealous of those claiming any part of his personal glory. That's just people being people. Maybe he was neurodiverse and so really can't be blamed.
Did did you know he was made Master of the Royal Mint? And he was twice an MP? Oh yeah. A man of the world, a man of action too. That adds to his genius personality index. But wait. That was about social influence and good money. Erm, it seems he was trading up to be a big cog in the Imperial British enterprise. He lost a good chunk of change plunging into a slave-trading venture. Um, move on.
Now let's socially evaluate his career as an alchemist, his occult studies. Oh no. Let's not. Erase that from the collective memory and fix on the bit of the scientist that was the mathematical genius. We don't have to judge the genius personality in terms of his personality after all perhaps.
Now run the same ruler over Shakespeare. Could his peccadilloes even detract from his reputation? Wouldn't he be judged more leniently on that social score because the social realm was itself the one he was addressing where Newton was addressing something intellectually more demanding than that?
Shakespeare stands accused of the literary sin of plagiarism – turning the prose of others into poetry. But no one minds that as he just told the stories better.
I'm just illustrating here the reality that it is audiences that rate genius. And they do so in regard to their institutionalised interests. It might then take certain personality traits to succeed in this competitive game. But it is still the audience that takes the view on what it might treat as the proper measure, even just on the "type of person" the genius was.
If you are a mathematician, for instance, there are almost no standards of social grace that obtain.
:naughty:
I'm a holist focused on the (human) lifeworld that can't really be broken up except in terms of useful lies. — plaque flag
The problem with the subjective stance is that even the self as a first person viewpoint is socially constructed.
Well it is first neurobiologically constructed. Pragmatic modelling means I can chomp my food with out chewing off my tongue.
But the kind of self that exists the social world where individuals can be acclaimed as "genius personalities" is a social construction. And needs to understood as such. Otherwise you are building your philosophical cities on foundations of sand.
Language is tribal software. — plaque flag
Computationalism works as very rough metaphor. But it is another foundation of sand.
Life and mind science need to be built on the foundation of dissipative physics. As I argued, even the modern industrial world with its particular economic and political structures are comprehensible as "metabolism".
Once again a code is putting itself in charge of the physics needed to give itself existence as a structure that can grow and evolve.
And you can't say that about a computer. Well, not until they start telling ChatGTP to go find its own wall socket to plug itself into after the power company cancels over the mounting unpaid bills. Hey computer, go figure it out for yourself. If you are so smart, provide your own metabolic foundation.