Testimony of Freedom:
Formal Outline of the Mind and Body of Freedom

Purpose of this Page

1. The Physical Principle of Freedom is Stated as a Selectional Process in a System That Passes Through a Critical Point
   1. A Mechanical Metaphor
   2. The Example of Magnets Passing Through the Critical Point
   3. The Ising (Mathematical) Model of Critical Point Magnetism
   4. Critical Point Principles: universality, singularity, collective selection, self-similarity, transcendence of scale
   5. Similar possibilities generated during a selection are the point of origin of both physical and psychological resemblances
   6. The physical principle of freedom can become of paramount importance during a critical moment in a Quad Net selectional process

2. Selectional Processes in Quad Net Operations
   1. A Selection Cycle in a Quad Net Device Part:
      1. Ongoing cycling of a Quad Net device part: begin with silence leading to a critical moment and selection, then to an actual selected phase (e.g., pattern of pulses producing the equivalent of muscular activity), and finally return to silence
      2. A repertoire is a collection of two or more possible phases, governed by an exclusionary principle stating that the selection of one actual phase excludes other phases in the repertoire
      3. The critical moment supports co-existence of germinal forms of multiple possible active phases (condition of shimmering);
      4. In passing through the critical moment, one of the co-existing germinal forms becomes dominant and achieves the status of an actual phase, being thus selected to continue, until silence returns;
      5. The selection may be affected by very tiny changes in influences (condition of sensitivity). For example, it may be possible to drive the Quad Net device part cyclically through a critical moment while influences are varied, observing any change in resulting active phase. It should then be possible to "chart" the effects of variations in influences, in the manner of a phase diagram in thermodynamics;
      6. On four-fold causation in a selection cycle (with apologies to Aristotle)
         1. The "material cause" -- a physical system, e.g., an Ising Model or a suitable Quad Net device part, that can be driven through a critical point;
         2. The "formal cause" -- the reduction of the temperature (or the reduction of a parameter that is equivalent to a temperature, e.g., ε in Quad Net devices ) down through the critical point, causing a critical moment to occur;
         3. The "efficient cause" -- an influence that selects the active phase of the physical system as the temperature (or equivalent parameter) passes downward through the critical point, e.g., a nearby magnet in a system of iron magnets or interactive pulses in Quad Net devices;
         4. The "final cause" -- the engineer who designs the system, puts it together and controls its operations.

   2. The "Binding Principle" Is Realized As a Union of Selections Occurring Synchronously during Quad Net Device Operations:
      1. The "binding principle" as a problem in brain theory
      2. The "binding principle" illustrated in magnets
      3. The "binding principle" in critical point physics
      4. The "binding principle" in a synchronous composition of Quad Net selections
      5. The "binding principle" as the "selectional principle of personality"

   3. Unions of Repertoires During Synchronous Selections:
      1. Magnetic metaphors
      2. Ising Model metaphors
      3. Unions of repertoires in coupled Quad Net devices - a primal memory device
      4. Unions of repertoires in a Quad Net device assembly - the Phase Transfer Controller
      5. Development of Quad Net device part assemblies in response to psychological situations; unanswered questions about neurovascular coupling in animal brains

   4. Sequences of Selections:
      1. A sequence of selections in magnets
      2. A structure made of sequences of selections in magnets
      3. Sequences of selections in a structure of Quad Net devices, namely, variations of selections in modified versions of the Phase Transfer Controller

   5. Some Forms of Possible Knowledge Based on Selectional Processes in Quad Net Devices
      1. Structures of selections (e.g., game plan, road map, jury verdict form)
      2. Covariant unions of selections (e.g., household objects and their places, telephone directory, allegory)
      3. Sequences of covariant unions of selections (e.g., tunes, recipes, chores, Piaget's schema)
      4. Sequences of continuously covariant unions of selections (e.g., distance, time and speed; phase diagrams)

3. Psychology of Freedom
   1. The Arising of Experience
      1. Dualism of magnetism and electricity compared to mind and body
      2. The model suggests that a flicker of experience arises from a selectional process in a Quad Net device, as shown through a metaphor involving Faraday's law and an electrical current induced by a magnet passing through the critical point
      3. The binding principle unites flickers of experience into a tapestry of experience (see Sherrington's image of the brain as "an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave")

   2. The Experience of Freedom: Generate Multiple Possibilities, Compare Resemblances, Select and Act
      1. Operational modes of timing of intelligent activity: episodic (e.g., episode described in B.1.a), cyclical, eternal, linear, developmental, backwards and other concurrent (contrapunctal) combinations of variations (e.g., multiple concurrent interactive cycles)
      2. Idealized circumstances for analysis: cyclical repetition of a single kind of selection that is subject to incrementally variable influences
      3. Applying the Quad Net Model, a brain is a "generator of families of possible experiences related by resemblances"
      4. Personality is shown through tendencies in and the style of a person's selections and actions

   3. The Deed Model of Animal Action
      1. Sensory and motor systems
      2. An idealized cyclical sensori-motor deed: waiting, select on signal, act (or, perhaps, not-act), then relax to waiting
      3. Situations that support cycling and sequencing of deeds
      4. Situational interaction during concurrent deed generation that is producing unions of selections
      5. Covariant deed generation; continuous covariant deed generation
      6. Repetitively successful covariant deed generation (especially of the continuous kind) constructs a domain of knowledge; dreams of Feynman and Weinberg envisioning comprehensive knowledge
      7. Situational incongruence, phasic discontinuities, singularities and other boundaries of and defects in domains of knowledge that deflate dreams of comprehensive knowledge

   4. Psychology of Resemblances
      1. Settings in idealized situations that generate cyclic activity
      2. Resemblances arise from possible activity patterns that are co-existing during a critical moment of selection and that make up a family of members of activity patterns whose production gives rise to experience
      3. In the Quad Net Model, the principle of family generation applies to a device part. It also applies to an appropriately connected and operating assembly of device parts that are all passing through a critical moment together (synchronously). When device parts are so assembled and so operating, the family of resemblances generated by the assembly has members, in general, that can be analyzed, in part, by reference to families generated by the device parts that make up the assembly. The families of resemblances generated by the assembly can, and typically does, also include new, additional families based on the collective character of the assembly.
      4. Following the Quad Net Model, divisions of experience are based on different systems of brain parts in which assemblies arise. Each system consists of a great number of brain parts and each system allows for a very great number of possible assemblies and modes and ways of operation. The nature of experience depends foundationally on the particular assembly, but also on the timing mode(s) (§ C.2.a, above) and the ways of operation.
      5. Ways of operation are processes for sequencing and emphasizing critical moments. When one critical moment immediately precedes another critical moment, the selection made during the first critical moment may influence the selection made during the second critical moment. Such influence depends on the details of the assembly and on the mode and way of operation. In Quad Net systems, the principles apply both to individual device parts and to assemblies of device parts, e.g., to a sequence of selections in assemblies where a selection in a first assembly later influences a selection in a second assembly. Then, at a still later time, the selection in the second assembly influences a selection in the first assembly. Selections depend on each other in a circulating way. This is the device approach to phenomena of psychological dwelling.

   5. Psychological Dwelling and the Ground of Personality
      1. Examples of dwellings in systems of magnets and the Quad Net Phase Transfer Controller
      2. Simple psychological dwellings are shown in a person's habits, ways and personality traits
      3. Situations that support particular psychological dwellings; situational "goals," "prohibitions," "ways" and "means"
      4. Multiple memory systems support simultaneous psychological dwellings in multiple modes of timing, e.g., both eternal (fixed) and cyclical
      5. Discipline originates in covariant deed generation organized through simultaneous psychological dwellings in multiple modes of timing
      6. The basis of dwelling of personality and a person's character
      7. Dwellings, disputes and selections in communities and institutions

   6. Development of Freedom Through Institutional Disciplines
      1. "More possible selections" is the predicate for "more freedom," a measure of value for purposes of development; that is: "better" means "more freedom"
      2. Begin with a motor plenum: every muscle is continually stimulated; the timing and intensity of the stimulations are variable and the ranges define a person's muscular freedom; in general, stimulation dwells in most muscles at a continuous low level of readiness - called tonus (muscle tone)
      3. Muscular activity is actual activity in the selectional approach. What we experience as objects, concepts, images in imagination, hunches, etc., are possibilities that can be combined in unions with actual activities in deeds. The finest (most refined and organized) system of such deeds is the writing of words that name such objects, concepts, images, etc. Systems of deeds for reading, speaking and listening to such words are closely similar to the system of deeds of writing.
      4. We organize activities in a situation with "goals," "prohibitions," "ways" and "means" that increase freedom by constraining and organizing selections; the means of organization is a discipline
      5. A discipline is based on the inference of an underlying "attachable reality" known through goals, prohibitions, ways and means and through successful activity within the situation
      6. Solipsistic attachable realities of mathematics and music
      7. Development of a discipline for attachment to reality
      8. Disagreements and disputes are vehicles of development of institutional disciplines for attachment to reality, e.g., disagreement between a theory and experiment or between doctrine and practice; disputes between persons
      9. We attach to interactive realities through institutional disciplines of natural science, civil law and the Christian religion

Copyright © 2008 Robert Kovsky