Beyond the Algorithmic Mind

Abstract

The past few hundred years have seen an increasing commitment to abstraction as the primary instrument of cognition. One result of this commitment is the conviction that the world consists, ultimately, of nothing but structure — a conviction exemplified in the feeling that the machine is essentially the algorithm governing its operation. But the reduction of understanding to the grasp of manipulable abstractions is at work in our culture far beyond the notion of algorithmic machines. The reduction is evident even in practical activities such as farming, chemistry, manufacturing, and business. All of which poses a problem, since abstraction, by itself, cannot give us a world. What operations of mind give us a world from which to abstract? What mental activity is necessary to counterbalance the one-sided drive toward abstraction, rendering it healthy and constructive? Here I do no more than sketch the background against which the question can be acutely felt. Then I point in the briefest possible way to the direction from which I believe an answer can be found.