Graph Theory

We just completed a discussion with ChatGPT 3.5 on the compound topic of graph theory, systems thinking, theosophy and quantum non-locality. Our basic objective was further to publish the groundwork for our proposal for a modest presentation at UofAZ’s 2024 Science of Consciousness symposium and to address the reception we are getting.

Chat GPT 3.5 can’t locate any big problems with our central premise: If we stipulate the conceptual possibility of the theosophical astral body, meaning its physical existence, we are inconsistent neither with the notions of quantum non-locality and quantum superposition nor with the pragmatic engineering notion of systems thinking. This latter was formulated by Jay Wright Forrester as he introduced to the world, among other things, non-local electronic memory.

In a nutshell, we see no plausible explanation for the Science of Consciousness to keep us away from the 2024 Symposium other than that given by Thomas Kuhn for how normal science works automatically. As new science gets its footing and becomes institutionalized, self-interest accumulates and innovation is delayed. Innovatively, we believe the current thinking at the Science of Consciousness is premised on a serious fallacy: science can be done by investigators who aren’t affected by what they are doing. The premise seems reasonable when one is thinking about the functional skeleton of the 50 micron neuron. The fallacy is, fearing a radical and important change of focus, to disregard innovative ways of looking at the mass action of such neurons.

We think ordinary, natural language conversation is an instance of such mass action and studying it can be made tractable and normal. The study of conversation is or should be nothing less than the application of the Forresterian/Skinnerian principles of holism to conversation performance. Certainly such application would entail a reset of how some science is practiced, but for science gatekeepers merely to begin to think about such a reset shouldn’t force them to try to prevent it.

The key notion in all this is the investigator-subject. The very idea of a science of consciousness calls for it. The notion that one’s personal work in the field of consciousness can be kept out of its World Graph can’t be sustained. Conversation, in all likelihood, is what makes consciousness what it is. Certainly there exist degenerate forms of conversation, but these aren’t or shouldn’t be particularly entitled. Much better will be artfully to stage and to study ideal forms of conversation. For Kuhnian reasons, we think, the Science of Consciousness hasn’t yet come around to considering this optimizing practice.