Talk:Homunculus argument
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Okay, so if a person reflects in a cognitive way upon his situation -- i.e., what his senses and reasoning powers tell him -- then it's turtles all the way down, is it?
Maybe so. The homunculus fallacy, it seems to me, suffers under the weight of what we have learned in the past century or so regarding the workings of the universe.
Sure, the mundane world presents itself to our sense in ways that LOOK like everything is causal. Time, after all, flows in a single direction, and events cascade, one after the after. Right? Or not.
In the classical descriptions of existence, a homunculus fallacy makes sense. But what we now suspect and in some cases know is this:
The universe appears to be underlaid with a foamy quanta, where probability reigns. Furthermore, energy and matter and gravity are manifestations that in space-time connect among one another in wholly relativistic ways -- i.e., they're fungible. And now come cosmologists to suggest that the entire universe may be the equivalent of a fantastic, projected hologram -- a virtual reality, if you will.
Thus (and these words come as fast as he can write them from a lay person who has but taken a few college physics courses), the mind that leaps from the vastly complex construct of the brain could be holistic, relativistic and quantum-rigged in its own fashion. Do we create existence by our own bootstraps? The evidence points toward that. Is the (or perhaps, "an") observer necessary for existence to manifest? Quite possibly. If there are multiple homunculae,there also may be multiple universes, allowing us to almost literally have our cake and eat it, too.
If string theory is right, the entire cosmos is effectively composed of a series of tiny, vibrating, looped strings -- rings, I suppose. You might picture that as a universal reptile which is eating its own tail and yet in the act finds sustenance. Reality is synergistic. The act of observing is only suggestive of a homunculus if you think in classical terms, e.g., one on one, and only in an orderly, seemingly causal progression of discrete events.
But if there are more than four dimensions, if there are very occasionally quantum effects that (I stress the word) appear to represent paradoxes or, worse, to violate physical laws through sheer statistical chance, if a wave collapses into a particle by the mere act of observation, if space and time are malleable and the latter is traversible in more ways than we can at the moment engineer (as for instance in the Aspect experiment, where entangled particles moving apart at light speed nevertheless share information), then mind may indeed be able to reflect upon itself, may be both external and internal as circumstance warrants, without the necessity for troublesome regression.
Having read this article a few times, I, a (I hope) reasonably bright woman with a high-school education (abnout to enter college) cannot make heads or tales of it. Granted, I've not studied logic overmuch, but I've been readging the logical fallicies section and seem to be bale to understand most of them decently... perhaps some easier to understand examples can be added? Kuroune 03:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Argument or Fallacy
Should this article be moved to "Homunculus argument" and "Homunculus fallacy" made a redirect? The article uses "argument" almost exclusively. Ibn Abihi 00:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
- Never mind I did it myself. If you disagree with this, feel free to change it back. Ibn Abihi 01:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What's wrong with an infinite regress?
For some reason, everyone assumes that just because something goes back infinitely, that means it can't exist.
But if each following step takes half as much time and brain space (and whatever other resources are necessary) as the previous, it's totally possible to finish an infinite regress with finite resources! See also the calc solution to Zeno's paradox.
[edit] Homunculus argument should not be confused with Homuncular Decomposition
Homuncular Decomposition is the notion that we can explain behavior through a simpler Homunculus, which itself can be explained by even simpler Homunculii, until we get down to a machine or neural level. Such proceedures are essential to progress in the cognitive sciences and AI; the key is to prove that each level actually does both explain the behavior of the higher abstraction homunuculus, and does not itself use a homunculus which is as complex as those on any higher level of abstraction.
[edit] The Homuncular Fallacy is different
The Homuncular fallacy is not some contentious philosophical issue about metaphysics, reality, truth, etc. It is just a fallacy; meaning, that its use leads to illogical conclusions. The principle of logic observed by the recognition of this fallacy, is that an explanation of a phenomenon cannot depend on a system which presupposes understanding of the phenomenon itself. The example is, if I want to explain sight, I cannot just say there's a little man in my head watching a screen, because I'm just saying that sight is the result of something else's 'sight'. That's like giving a recipe for cake and listing 'cake' as the primary ingredient. To explain cake, I have to invoke non-cake items (simpler foodstuffs). And I can't then just say "and bake a cake with them," because I have not formalized the baking process in a way which does not presuppose understanding of cake! I have to use objects not of the target kind to explain a target object. Now the homuncular fallacy has got nothing to do with explaining something in terms of other unexplained things. To recognize the fallacy is to realize you can't explain something in terms of itself. And that is the logical principle violated by the fallacy.
[edit] Have cleared this up
I have cleared up this page, because, although I understand it, as the first commentator above pointed out, I think it's hard for an outsider to understand. Feel free to play around with what I have written as you see fit. 130.209.6.40 17:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
