Wishing All the very best of the New Year.

Join Plato's Cave philosophers and Orlando Stoics on Zoom this Sunday morning, Jan 4, 2026 at 9:00. (Informal chat at 9:00, forum at 9:15)

Plato's Cave members can reserve a place and receive zoom login information on this site and by e-mail notice.

Every Sunday, a new lecture. Our meeting starts at 9:00 AM with friendly wakeup conversation; then our select panel briefly introduces the subject at 9:15 AM, followed by member discussion with Q&A.

A link will be shared here and by message to members who RSVP.

*This Sunday: Patterns, Loops, and the Myth of the Inner Mind
*(be sure to check back before the meeting for any updates)

Description:
This week, we continue to explore what intelligence is and where it resides. If intelligence does not live inside the mind as a private inner substance, then what can count as intelligence at all? Must intelligence belong only to humans, or even to minds? Or can it emerge through patterns, systems, memory, and interpretation that extend beyond individual consciousness?

We begin with Daniel Dennett, who argues that minds are not hidden inner objects but interpretive patterns. For Dennett, intelligence is something we attribute when a system’s behavior is coherent, predictable, and explainable under the assumption of rationality. There is no need to posit an inner essence of understanding. If treating a system as intelligent allows us to make sense of what it does, then intelligence exists at the level of pattern and explanation, not private introspection.

We then turn to Douglas Hofstadter, who locates understanding in strange loops—self-referential structures that allow systems to represent, revise, and recognize themselves. For Hofstadter, meaning is not stored as static symbols but emerges through recursive interaction across levels of organization. Intelligence arises when a system can loop back on its own representations in a way that stabilizes identity and meaning over time.
Next, we consider Edgar Morin, who emphasizes the role of memory and temporality in intelligence. Complex systems, Morin argues, would collapse into noise without mechanisms that preserve and reorganize information across time. Understanding is not a momentary achievement but a dynamic process that maintains coherence while adapting to change. Intelligence, on this view, resides in the system’s capacity to stabilize complexity rather than eliminate it.

Finally, we look to Contact, which offers a powerful illustration of understanding without inner certainty. In Contact, truth does not arise from private mental assurance or direct proof, but through interpretation, trust, institutional validation, and public reasoning. Understanding emerges socially, not introspectively. Meaning becomes something that must be shared, argued for, and sustained collectively.

Together, these perspectives shift our focus away from inner mental contents and toward patterns, loops, memory, and interpretation. Intelligence becomes something real and structured, but not private or mysterious. It exists in systems, narratives, architectures, and temporal processes. It can be informational rather than psychological, relational rather than introspective.

This shift has major consequences for how we think about artificial intelligence. If intelligence is pattern-based, emergent, and temporally stabilized, then the key questions change. What patterns warrant interpretation as intelligent? What kinds of loops generate meaning? What forms of memory allow systems to remain coherent over time? And what does it mean to build systems whose understanding depends on shared interpretation rather than inner certainty?

Join Plato’s Cave and the Orlando Stoics for a discussion on intelligence, interpretation, emergence, and the philosophical foundations of understanding.

READING MATERIALS

Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett
The Intentional Stance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intentional_Stance

Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter
Strange Loop (concept):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop
Gödel, Escher, Bach:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

Edgar Morin
Edgar Morin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Morin
Complex Thought:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_theory_and_organizations

Contact (1997)
Contact (film):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film))
SETI and scientific interpretation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence

Hosted by:
Plato's Cave
https://www.meetup.com/platoscave/

Orlando Stoics are Welcome
https://www.meetup.com/orlando-stoics/