Strange Inversion and Symmetry Breaking
Daniel Dennett describes symmetry breaking using the neologism ‘strange inversion of reasoning’. He describes theories from Darwin, Turing and Hume as examples of these.
Symmetry, or invariance, is a relationship between objects such that their form does not change when they are re-positioned, rotated or made larger or smaller. In mathematics, physical space often exhibits symmetry. An object or figure of which an invariant form can be found has symmetry. It can be described by a set of transformations. A transformation is a mapping that carries every element in a structure into another position and preserves their relationships.The simplest kind of symmetry is called the identity symmetry of an object, which means that the structure of the object is not changed, aside from a movement.
Symmetry breaking is used in physics and refers to a phenomenon in which a configuration which is symmetrical under a permutation of its coordinates is not invariant under such a permutation. A good analogy is to imagine a pencil balanced on its tip. This is a symmetric configuration, with respect to translation along the horizontal axis. However, the pencil still falls when released. The symmetry is not complete. Symmetry breaking can be observed in various phenomena in a variety of scientific contexts. It is a foundational concept in symmetry groups, an important topic in group theory and in particle physics. In condensed matter physics, defects possess a non-trivial asymmetry where the breaking of symmetry is revealed in phase transitions.
Competence without comprehension is shared by Darwin and Turing’s theories. Hume argues that habitual anticipation is how humans recognize causality. Habits lead to competence. Comprehension is an illusion.
Intuition of the unconscious involves nonverbal, intuitive communication from our unconscious mind to our conscious mind. The psychological process of intuition is known as “unconscious intelligence”. Unconscious intelligence involves the information that is “below” or “outside” of consciousness — waiting to be recognized. It is what is unknown for the conscious, but known by the unconscious. It is the unknown known.
Intuition is forged through constructive experience. The learning brain is live wired to its world. The illusions that we create of this world arise from interactive and empathic emergence. How we learn and how we think is embedded in how we are conformed to the world and its relations. The world and our brain are in a feedback loop of divergent impulses and outcomes. This network of relations is intimate and im- portant. This experience gives rise to trust and belief in the world and the systems of control and understanding that regulate this world.
Minds invent meaning in this world through the illusions that we create. What we call reasoning is based on the illusions that we’ve invented. We act in surprise or in disgust when these illusions are broken. We live in a world of illusions. We are surrounded by illusions, and we create illusions. The media, the politics, the governments and the religions all create illusions. These illusions are sold. They are franchises that offer instant gratification; beautiful dreams and miracles that vanish at their touch. Young and old are encouraged to believe. Belief leads to conviction. Conviction leads to belief.
New discoveries in science have the effect of breaking human habits of thinking and thus our illusions. The feeling of the loss of meaning in this world is a consequence of modern life demolishing our previous illusions. When illusions are shattered and meaning is reduced to the absurd, a unique appeal of the human mind is to find a replacement for the illusions. Human beings have undergone an illusion loss since around the beginning of the 19th century. This is attributable to the exponential advances in science. To replace lost meaning, we changed from the anthropocentric world view, in which humans are the center of the universe, to a ecological world view, in which the relations between humans are as important as the relations between humans and nature.
The unconscious mind is driven by a systematic inference process that is informed by the cognitive biases or habits that are formed through experience. Unconscious inference does not imply non-systematic thought. The operations that constitute unconscious inferences (or unconscious automatic processes) are determined by the context and the activation of previously constructed mental representations.
Geniuses like Einstein who have spent years spent in the cultivation of habits of systematic thought have developed a systematic intuitive mind. Systematic conscious thought leads to a systematic unconscious mind. Systematic thinking is a cogent, truthful, sensible, data-based and rational way of thinking. Systematic thought really is a road map of the path of thinking. Systematic thought built into the unconscious mental world through repetition becomes habitual thinking. It becomes a whole way of thinking. Systematic thinking leads to consistent thinking which is key to achieving success in the rigorous fields of inquiry.
AlphaZero the chess playing system from DeepMind is a synthetic demonstration of how a systematic thought process (i.e. tree search and self play) leads to a systematic intuition. Learning chess with AlphaZero is a fascinating journey. Throughout the learning process, the agent demonstrates a great deal of new insights and intuitions about the game that are very systematic and seem to be self-discovered, i.e. not human taught.
It is indeed unfortunate that a majority of humanity is immersed in the notion that all relevant thought is conscious. In reality, all relevant thought is unconscious. Our consciousness exists to find explanations for these unconscious thoughts.
Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ which is meant for a popular audience is virtually unknown by most people. The book should be required reading for all, not just psychologists. It is a crystal-clear account of the way we think, and of why we so often get it wrong. I personally was unaware of the book until I tried to attempt an understanding of Deep Learning technology. The same technology at the core of DeepMind’s AlphaZero.
It was only in the last few years that even DL researchers began to see the parallels with dual-process theory. In cognitive science, the separation of system 1 and system 2 is called dual-process theory. This viewpoint is based on the idea that neural systems automatically make quick decisions and another system that makes deliberate decisions. The fact that human thought is mostly system 1 thinking may seem to be quite a shock. Even Kahneman himself in a recent AI debate had to revise his thinking.
This illusionary world of ours is a comprehensive construction of our minds. It is similar to virtual reality, our consciousness acting so that we will be aware that we are an intelligent beings. An ‘inversion of reasoning’ or a ‘symmetry breaking’ happens when we discover what we previously thought to be true was in fact wrong. It comes as a shock to many that we are indeed intuition machines.
Disclaimer: Half of this article was written with GPT-3, an artificial intuition. It cost me 80 cents worth of compute time.
