Chapter Notes
165
book The Embodied Mind, Varela is expressing the thought that it is traumatic
to have to face the fact that what we perceive to be an absolute truth, and have
always believed, is incorrect.
9. An influential contemporary theory of perception is called predictive processing: In this theory, the brain is constantly referring to its world-model in order
to generate hypotheses of the external situation. The hypothesis is compared
to incoming sensory information, and if errors are detected, the hypothesis
is altered. The corrected hypothesis is what we experience in perception. The
theory is elaborated in two recent books: Andy Clark’s Surfing Uncertainty,
2016 and Jakob Hohwy, The Predictive Mind, 2013.
10. Kolmogorov complexity is a very important concept in theoretical computer science. It was the outcome of work by several researchers, especially
Ray Solomonff, Gregory Chaitin and Andrey Kolmogorov. In addition to its
application in the science of computing, it is of great philosophical interest as
the rigorous definition of complexity.
5. In Search of Reality
1. Many consider Ludwig Wittgenstein to be the greatest philosopher of the
20th Century. His short book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus, was the only
book-length work on philosophy published during his lifetime. It is a strange
book, which contains no logical arguments but mainly declarations which he
considered to be self-evident. The declarations are in the form of numbered
propositions. The book begins with the claim that “the world consists of facts,
not things”, and this is given as Proposition 1.1. Wittgenstein considered his
propositions to be “logical pictures”. He believed that a picture is something
that requires no explanation, because its meaning reaches us directly.
2.This important insight is prominent in the work of the American philosopher
Hilary Putnam. He referred to it as Internal Realism. It is discussed at length in
the article titled “Internal Realism” in the journal Synthese. It is also the central
topic of Putnam’s book Reason, Truth and History.
3. Alfred Korzibsky wrote several books on a number of topics that excited
his interest. The map and the territory is discussed in his book “Science and
Sanity”, on page 58.
4. Authors of popular books on physics go into great detail to try and convey
the idea of four-dimensional space to the general reader. An interesting book
on the subject is Rudy Rucker’s “The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of
the Higher Universe”.
5. Information theory as a scientific discipline was pioneered by Claude Shannon in the 1930s and 40s. The founding text is Shannon’s paper entitled “A
Mathematical Theory of Communication”. It must be noted, however, that the
technical concept of information is limited. Our intuitive idea of information
165
book The Embodied Mind, Varela is expressing the thought that it is traumatic
to have to face the fact that what we perceive to be an absolute truth, and have
always believed, is incorrect.
9. An influential contemporary theory of perception is called predictive processing: In this theory, the brain is constantly referring to its world-model in order
to generate hypotheses of the external situation. The hypothesis is compared
to incoming sensory information, and if errors are detected, the hypothesis
is altered. The corrected hypothesis is what we experience in perception. The
theory is elaborated in two recent books: Andy Clark’s Surfing Uncertainty,
2016 and Jakob Hohwy, The Predictive Mind, 2013.
10. Kolmogorov complexity is a very important concept in theoretical computer science. It was the outcome of work by several researchers, especially
Ray Solomonff, Gregory Chaitin and Andrey Kolmogorov. In addition to its
application in the science of computing, it is of great philosophical interest as
the rigorous definition of complexity.
5. In Search of Reality
1. Many consider Ludwig Wittgenstein to be the greatest philosopher of the
20th Century. His short book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus, was the only
book-length work on philosophy published during his lifetime. It is a strange
book, which contains no logical arguments but mainly declarations which he
considered to be self-evident. The declarations are in the form of numbered
propositions. The book begins with the claim that “the world consists of facts,
not things”, and this is given as Proposition 1.1. Wittgenstein considered his
propositions to be “logical pictures”. He believed that a picture is something
that requires no explanation, because its meaning reaches us directly.
2.This important insight is prominent in the work of the American philosopher
Hilary Putnam. He referred to it as Internal Realism. It is discussed at length in
the article titled “Internal Realism” in the journal Synthese. It is also the central
topic of Putnam’s book Reason, Truth and History.
3. Alfred Korzibsky wrote several books on a number of topics that excited
his interest. The map and the territory is discussed in his book “Science and
Sanity”, on page 58.
4. Authors of popular books on physics go into great detail to try and convey
the idea of four-dimensional space to the general reader. An interesting book
on the subject is Rudy Rucker’s “The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of
the Higher Universe”.
5. Information theory as a scientific discipline was pioneered by Claude Shannon in the 1930s and 40s. The founding text is Shannon’s paper entitled “A
Mathematical Theory of Communication”. It must be noted, however, that the
technical concept of information is limited. Our intuitive idea of information