Dear Soren,
Excellent!
What it amounts to is that you and I interpret all this a bit differently.
I am happy with Bateson’s unmarked states and his
"All that is
for the preacher
> The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
> They will come after me
> And use the little that I said
> To bait more traps
> For those who cannot bear
> The lonely
> Skeleton
> of Truth”
Best,
Lou
> On Apr 2, 2016, at 9:18 PM, Søren Brier <sb....@cbs.dk> wrote:
>
> Dear Lou
>
> I did red these very nice metalogues, but these are not the philosophy of
> science conceptual network underlying the real theory:
> For Bateson, mind is a cybernetic phenomenon, a sort of mental ecology. The
> mental ecology relates to an ability to register differences and is an
> intrinsic system property. The elementary, cybernetic system with its
> messages in circuits is the simplest mental unit, even when the total system
> does not include living organisms. Every living system has the following
> characteristics that we generally call mental:
> 1. The system shall operate with and upon differences.
> 2. The system shall consist of closed loops or networks of pathways along
> which differences and transforms of differences shall be transmitted.
> (What is transmitted on a neuron is not an impulse; it is news of a
> difference).
> 3. Many events within the system shall be energized by the responding part
> rather than by impact from the triggering part.
> 4. The system shall show self‑correctiveness in the direction of
> homeostasis and/or in the direction of runaway. Self-correctiveness implies
> trial and error.
> (Bateson 1973: 458)
>
> Mind is synonymous with a cybernetic system that is comprised of a total,
> self-correcting unit that prepares information. Mind is immanent in this
> wholeness. When Bateson says that mind is immanent, he means that the mental
> is immanent in the entire system, in the complete message circuit. One can
> therefore say that mind is immanent in the circuits that are complete inside
> the brain. Mind is also immanent in the greater circuits, which complete the
> system “brain + body.” Finally, mind is immanent in the even greater system
> “man + environment” or - more generally - “organism + environment,” which
> is identical to the elementary unit of evolution, i.e., the thinking, acting
> and deciding agent:
> The individual mind is immanent, but not only in the body. It is immanent
> also in pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger Mind,
> of which the individual is only a subsystem. This larger Mind is comparable
> to God and is perhaps what some people mean by “God,” but it is still
> immanent in the total inter-connected social system and planetary ecology.
> Freudian psychology expanded the concept of mind inward to include the
> whole communication system within the body - the autonomic, the habitual
> and the vast range of unconscious processes. What I am saying expands mind
> outward. And both of these changes reduce the scope of the conscious self. A
> certain humility becomes appropriate, tempered by the dignity or joy of
> being part of something bigger. A part -- if you will -- of God.
> (Bateson 1973: 436-37).
>
> Bateson’s cybernetics thus leads towards mind as immanent in both animate and
> inanimate nature as well as in culture, because mind is essentially the
> informational and logical pattern that connects everything through its
> virtual recursive dynamics of differences and logical types. The theory is
> neither idealistic nor materialistic. It is informational and
> functionalistic[1] <x-msg://14/#_ftn1>.Norbert Wiener (1965/1948) has an
> objective information concept, which Bateson develops to be more relational
> and therefore more ecological. He develops a cybernetic concept of mind that
> includes humans and culture. Bateson’s worldview seems biological. He sees
> life and mind as coexisting in an ecological and evolutionary dynamic,
> integrating the whole biosphere. Bateson clearly sympathizes with the
> ethologists (Brier 1993, 1995) when he resists the positivistic split
> between the rational and the emotional in language and thinking that is so
> important for cognitive science. He acknowledges emotions as an important
> cognitive process:
> It is the attempt to separate intellect from emotion that is monstrous, and
> I suggest that it is equally monstrous -- and dangerous -- to attempt to
> separate the external mind from the internal. Or to separate mind from body.
> Blake noted that “A tear is an intellectual thing,” and Pascal asserted that
> “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” We need not be
> put off by the fact that the reasonings of the heart (or of the hypothalamus)
> are accompanied by sensations of joy or grief. These computations are
> concerned with matters, which are vital to mammals, namely matters of
> relationship, by which I mean love, hate, respect, dependency,
> spectatorship, performance, dominance and so on. These are central to the
> life of any animal, and I see no objection to calling these computations
> “thought,” though certainly the units of relational computation are
> different from the units which we use to compute about isolable things.
> (Bateson 1973: 438-39)
>
> It thus seems obvious that Bateson's “pattern that connects” includes the
> phenomenological-emotional dimension in its concept of mind but viewed as
> computational thoughts of relation, not as first person experiences.
> Cybernetics does not have a theory of qualia and emotion – not even in
> Bateson’s theories.
> In my opinion, this cybernetic viewpoint tells a great deal about
> motivational and emotional functionality as seen through an ecological and
> evolutionary framework. It avoids physicalistic explanations, but although
> Bateson developed his theory far in this direction, he never revisited the
> first-order cybernetic foundation it was built upon. In Mind and Nature
> (1980:103) Bateson further develops his criteria for a cybernetic definition
> of mind:
>
> 1. A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.
> 2. The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference, and
> difference is a non-substantial phenomenon not located in space or time;
> difference is related to neg-entropy and entropy rather than to energy.
> 3. Mental processes require collateral energy.
> 4. Mental processes require circular (or more complex) chains of
> determination.
> 5. In mental processes, the effects of difference are to be regarded as
> transforms (i.e., coded versions) of events preceding them. The rules of
> such transformation must be comparatively stable (i.e., more stable than
> the content) but are themselves subject to transformation.
> 6. The description and classification of these processes of transformation
> disclose a hierarchy of logical types immanent in the phenomena.
> (Bateson 1980: 102 and Bateson and Bateson 2005 p.18-19))
>
> Today these criteria are famous and basic within the cybernetic understanding
> of mind. My critique concentrates on the foundation of the second criteria:
> “difference is related to neg-entropy and entropy... .” I find it
> problematic that Bateson follows Norbert Wiener's idea that the concept
> “information” and the concept “negative entropy,” are synonymous. He is not
> only thinking of the statistical concept of entropy that Shannon uses in his
> theory, since this is not connected to energy. Further, he thinks that this
> insight unites the natural and the social sciences and finally resolves the
> problems of teleology and the body-mind dichotomy (Ruesch and Bateson 1967:
> 177). Regarding how the mystery of mind is resolved through the relation
> between the concept “information” and the concept “negative entropy” Ruesch
> and Bateson typically write:
> Wiener argued that these two concepts are synonymous; and this statement, in
> the opinion of the writers, marks the greatest single shift in human thinking
> since the days of Plato and Aristotle, because it unites the natural and the
> social sciences and finally resolves the problems of teleology and the
> body-mind dichotomy which Occidental thought has inherited from classical
> Athens.
> (Ruesch and Bateson 1987/1951: 177)
>
> This statement characterizes the views of many researchers using this
> framework within systems, cybernetics, and informatics. To Bateson
> cybernetics provides a radical new foundation for a theory of mind and
> communication, as well as cognitive science, with a modern expression that
> unites the natural and social sciences. Psychology as such is not mentioned.
>
> Here is Bateson’s poem he wrote after completion of Mind and Nature (Bateson
> and Bateson 2005/1987:6), which I think makes my point very clear:
>
> The manuscript
> So there it is in words
> Precise
> And if you read between the lines
> You will find nothing there
> For that is the discipline I ask
> Not more, not less
>
> Not the world as it is
> Not ought to be –
> Only the precision
> The skeleton of truth
> I do not dabble in emotions
> Hint at implications
> Evoke the ghosts of old forgotten creeds.
>
> All that is for the preacher
> The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
> They will come after me
> And use the little that I said
> To bait more traps
> For those who cannot bear
> The lonely
> Skeleton
> of Truth
>
>
> Best
>
> Søren
>
> Fra: Louis H Kauffman [mailto:kauff...@uic.edu <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>]
> Sendt: 3. april 2016 01:09
> Til: fis
> Cc: Søren Brier
> Emne: Re: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS
>
> Dear Soren,
> If you were to read the dialogues with Mary Catherine Bateson (as a child)
> and Gregory Bateson in “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”, you might change your
> notion of
> what sort of view of the observer is being studied in cybernetics. It is all,
> through and through about a feeling for and an awarenss of context.
> This deep awareness of context is what brought so many of us to study the
> cybernetics of Bateson, von Foerster, Pask, Matrurana and others!
>
> I feel sorry that you have acquired such a mechanistic view of cybernetics.
> I have no idea what you could possibly mean by a ‘cybernetic mind built out
> of circular logical reasoning’!
> Do you mean what comes from
>
> “I am the observed link between myself and observing myself” (HVF)?
>
> Note that the words
> observer,
> observed,
> myself,
> I,
> are all undefined here and it is up to the reader of this evocation to fill
> them in with feeling in the circular round that is but a walk or spiral about
> the notion of self,
> based on the given that selves can observe ‘themselves’.
>
> Similarly in your sentence, the words
> cybernetic,
> mind,
> cybernetic mind,
> built,
> are undefined. The most treacherous is the word ‘built’ suggesting as it does
> that we would perhaps imagine that we can construct, as in building Uinivac,
> a ‘cybernetic mind.’ I think that i prefer the postitronic brains of Isaac
> Asimov.
>
> Perhaps you are a reader of Stanislaw Lem and his Science Fiction Robots.
>
> In taking a concept such as circularity, and emphasizing it, we run the risk
> of making it sound like a be-all and end-all. It is important to understand
> that circularity is really always a spiral, and when we return to the first
> place it has been transformed in the next newness. Feeling emerges in the
> eternal return to the new and just born. These are the metaphors that we take
> to heart.
> Very best,
> Lou
>
> P.S. I am quite conscious that I use an apposite strategy, speaking as
> poetically as I know how in the face of apparently logical but undefined
> rhetoric.
> It is easy for us to get lost in our own words.
>
>
> On Apr 2, 2016, at 2:28 PM, Søren Brier <sb....@cbs.dk
> <mailto:sb....@cbs.dk>> wrote:
>
> Dear Lou
>
> Thank you for your comments. My critique of Bateson is that his definition of
> the observer was purely cybernetics and never included the experiential and
> therefore the emotional and meaning producing aspect of awareness. This is
> simply not included in the foundation the transdisciplinary foundation of
> cybernetics and may I add most of system science. Bateson’s observer is a
> cybernetic mind build out of circular logical reasoning, like McCulloch’s and
> von Foerster’s observer and I will include Maturana’s observer too. It is an
> inherited limitation of the cybernetic paradigm. This is the reason I have
> tried to integrate it into Peirce’s deep form of transdisciplinarity.
>
> Luhmann see the lack of a phenomenological foundation in systems science and
> cybernetics (his system theory attempts to integrate them all including
> Bateson). Because of this lack he attempts to integrate his model with
> aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology by including a horizon of expectations but
> conceptualized in probability mathematics. Luhmann (1990) and Peirce both
> share the idea of form as the essential component in communication. Peirce
> writes:
>
> […] a Sign may be defined as a Medium for the communication of a Form. [...].
> As a medium, the Sign is essentially in a triadic relation, to its Object
> which determines it, and to its Interpretant which it determines. [...]. That
> which is communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is
> a Form; that is to say, it is nothing like an existent, but is a power, is
> the fact that something would happen under certain conditions. (MS: 793:1-3)
>
> In Peirce’s dynamic process semiotics, a form is something that is embodied
> in an object as a habit. Thus, form acts as a constraining factor on
> interpretative behavior or what he calls a real possibility in the form of a
> ‘would-be’. The form is embodied in the object as a sort of disposition to
> act (Nöth 2012). This is based on Peirce’s metaphysics of Tychism, which is
> close to the spontaneity found in the vacuum fields of quantum filed theory,
> except that Peirce’s view of substance differs from modern physics in that he
> is a hylozoist like Aristotle, but now in an evolutionary process ontology.
>
> I did meet Penrose many years ago and discussed his three world scenario with
> him and it is correct that on p.17-21 in The road to reality he give one of
> his most deep discussion of the model. But I do not recognize you far
> reaching and subtle interpretation there. For me the important ontological
> assumption is the independent mathematical platonic world, which is why the
> book’s subtitle is A complete guide to the laws of the Universe, which is
> connected to his prejudice that “the entire physical world is depicted as
> being governed according to mathematical laws” (p.18). Like Popper he
> operates with a mental world, but never gives a phenomenological or otherwise
> definition of the experiential world of experience, feelings and meaning,
> which is a place Popper also avoids and therefore never goers into a
> discussion of the qualitative “sciences”. In his development of his basic
> three world model in Fig.1.3 Penrose in figure 1.4 does believe that “there
> might be mentality that is not rooted in physical structure”(p.20) and there
> is “the possibility of physical action beyond the scope of mathematical
> control” (p.20). On p. 21 he write about the mystery of “how it is that
> mentality – most particularly conscious awareness –can come about in
> association with appropriate physical structures...” and like in his work
> with Hameroff he believes that this understanding has to come from “.. major
> revolutions in our physical understanding”. They want to go deeper in quantum
> theory to transgress the type of physical worldview science is working from
> now. I am puzzled by how his views here are consistent with his view in the
> Emperor’s new mind and Shadows of mind where he argues against AI having the
> same qualities as the human mind.
>
> Thanks
>
> Søren
>
>
>
> Fra: Louis H Kauffman [mailto:kauff...@uic.edu <mailto:kauff...@uic.edu>]
> Sendt: 2. april 2016 05:46
> Til: fis@listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Cc: Pedro C. Marijuan; Søren Brier
> Emne: Re: [Fis] _ DISCUSSION SESSION: INFOBIOSEMIOTICS
>
> Dear Soren and Folks,
> I have included some comments inside Soren’s introduction.
> Best,
> Lou K.
>
>
> Infobiosemiotics
>
>
>
> Søren Brier, CBS
> This discussion aims at contributing to the definition of a universal concept
> of information covering objective as well as subjective experiential and
> intersubjective meaningful cognition and communication argued in more length
> in Brier (2015a). My take on the problem is that information is not primarily
> a technological term but a phenomenon that emerges from intersubjective
> meaningful sign based cognition and communication in living systems. The
> purpose of this discussion is to discuss a possible philosophical framework
> for an integral and more adequate concept of information uniting all isolated
> disciplines (Brier, 2010, 2011, 2013a+b+c).
> The attempts to create objective concepts of information were good for
> technology (Brilliouin 1962) and the development of AI, but not able to
> develop theories that could include the experiential (subjective) aspect of
> informing that leads to meaning in the social setting (Brier 2015b). The
> statistical concept of Shannon (Shannon and Weaver 1963/1948) is the most
> famous objective concept but it was only a technical invention based on a
> mathematical concept of entropy, but never intended to encompass meaning.
> Norbert Wiener (1963) combined the mathematics statistical with Boltzmann’s
> thermodynamically entropy concept and defined information as neg-entropy.
> Wiener then saw the statistical information’s entropy as a representation for
> mind and the thermodynamically entropy as representing matter. So he thought
> he had solved the mind matter problem through his and Schrödinger’s
> (1944/2012) definition of information as neg-entropy.
>
>
>
> The idea was developed further into an evolutionary and ecological framework
> by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979, 19827) resulting in an ecological cybernetic
> concept of mind as self-organized differences that made a difference for a
> cybernetically conceptualized mind (Brier 2008b). But this concepts that
> could not encompass meaning and experience of embodied living and social
> systems (Brier 2008a, 2010, 2011).
> [It seems to me that Bateson is well aware of the neccesity of being
> meaningful and thoughtful in relation to information and that his ‘difference
> that makes a difference’ is often the difference that is understood by an
> aware observer. Thus for him it is often the case that information arises
> within awareness and is not just
> a matter of channel capacities as in the Shannon approach. The whole reason
> one is take by Bateson and can find much to think about there is that he has
> a sensitive and thoughtful approach to this area of problems. It is too harsh
> to just say that “the idea was developed further …”.
>
>
> My main point is that from the present material, energetic or informational
> ontologies worldview we do not have any idea of how life, feeling, awareness
> and qualia could emerge from that foundation.
> [Yes.]
>
>
> Ever since Russell and Whitehead’s attempt in Principia Mathematica to make a
> unified mathematical language for all sciences and logical positivism failed
> (Carnap, 1967 & Cartwright et.al. 1996),
> [Personally, I do not regard the incompleteness results of Godel as an
> indication of failure! They show for the first time the true role of
> formalism in mathematics and in intellectual endeavor in general. We cannot
> rely on formalism only for our search, but it is through examining the limits
> of given formalisms that the search can be carried further. I do not say this
> is the only way forward, but we are no longer stuck with idea of a perfect
> mechanism that can in principle generate all mathematical
> truths. This has failed and we are happy at that.]
>
>
> the strongest paradigm attempting in a new unification is now the
> info-computational formalism based on the mathematic calculus developed by
> Gregory Chaitin (2006 and 2007) ).
> [The ‘mathematical calculus’ of Chaitin iis very stimulating and it is based
> on the same incompleteness arguments as Goedel. Chaitin defines ‘random’
> relative to a given formal system L. A sequence is random if there is no
> algorithm in L simpler than THE SEQUENCE ITSELF that can generate the
> sequence. Complexity of algorithms can be examined from this point of view.
> What we do not see in Chaitin is that same thing we do not see in Shannon. We
> do not see a role for judgement or phenomenolgy. I am interested in your
> notion that Chaitin has done more than this. Please say more.]
>
>
>
>
> The paradigm is only in its early beginning and is looking for a concept of
> natural computing (Dodig-Crnkovic, 2012) going beyond the Turing concept of
> computing. But even that still does not encompass the experiential feeling
> mind and the meaning orienting aspect of intersubjective communication wither
> be only sign or also language based.
> [Here I think you say the same as I just said above. It does not go far
> enough.]
>
>
> So far there is no conclusive evidence to make us believe that the core of
> reality across nature, culture, life and mind is purely absolute mathematical
> law as Penrose (2004) seems to suggest
> [Penrose says more. He is a particular sort of Platonist and he speaks of
> Three Worlds: World of Mind, Platonic Ideal World, Physical World.
> He has a triplicate circular relationship of these three worlds. The subtle
> part of Mind is included in the Platonic. The subtle part of the Platonic is
> included in the
> deep mathematical structure of the physical. The subtle part of the physical
> is included in the Mind. These are all proper inclusions. Mind is greater
> than the subtle physical. The Platonic is greater than the subtle mind. The
> Physical is greater than its subtle mathematical core. You can find all this
> in the introduction to Penrose’s
> book “The Road to Reality”. ]
>
>
> or purely computational.
> [In his books Penrose argues again and again against the notion that we are
> purely computational and he does not believe that the Universe is purely
> computational.]
> Meaning is a way of making ‘sense’ of things for the individual in the world
> perceived.
> [I think it would help to raise (once again) the question of the meaning of
> meaning. It is too easy to say that meaning is a ‘making sense of’ or that it
> is non-mathematical. The problem with saying non-mathematical is that one has
> to raise (once again) the question of what it means (sic) to be mathematical.
> And when all is said and done it will become clear that one has to
> differentiate between mathematical meaning calculational and mathematical
> meaning
> conceptual (the number two is the concept of pair). When one asks how comes
> about a concept then one is thrown fully into the relationship of
> thought,percept and concept. I say that this is where meaning comes about.
> And indeed ‘feeling’ is important in this domain, as feeling is what
> intermediates thought,percept and concept.
> There is a strong need for very careful and sensitive phenomenological
> discussion of this issue.]
>
>
> It is a non-mathematical existential feeling aspect of life related to
> reflection past, present and future of existence in the surrounding
> environment, in humans enhanced by language, writings, pictures, music
> through culture. In animals cognition and communication are connected to
> survival, procreation and pleasure. In humans beings cognition develops into
> consciousness through subjective experiential and meaning based (self-)
> reflection of the individual’s role in the external world and becomes an
> existential aspect.
> [Here you discuss exacty that arena of though, concept and percept.]
>
>
> My conclusion is therefore that a broader foundation is needed in order to
> understand the basis for information and communication in living systems.
> Therefore we need to include a phenomenological and hermeneutical ground in
> order to integrate a theory of interpretative/subjectiveand intersubjective
> meaning and signification with a theory of objective information, which has a
> physical grounding (see for instance Plamen, Rosen & Gare 2015). Thus the
> question is how can we establish an alternative transdisciplinary model of
> the sciences and the humanities to the logical positivist reductionism on one
> hand and to postmodernist relativist constructivism on the other in the form
> of a transdisciplinary concept of Wissenschaft (i.e. “knowledge creation”,
> implying both subjectivism and objectivism)? The body and its meaning-making
> processes is a complex multidimensional object of research that necessitates
> trans-disciplinary theoretical approaches including biological sciences,
> primarily biosemiotics and bio-cybernetics, cognition and communication
> sciences, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of science and
> philosophical theology (Harney 2015, Davies & Gregersen 2009).
> Peirce develops his pragmaticism as a way to unite empirical research,
> meaning and experience. His ontology is not only materialistic science but
> does also include meaning through embodied interaction through experiential
> living bodies and thereby the social as well as the subjective forms of
> cognition, meaning and interpretation. Thereby he goes further than Popper’s
> (1978) view of the three worlds. Communication is not only a world of
> objective knowledge but is intersubjective meaningful information. Peirce’s
> idea of ‘the world’ is much bigger than what science considers being ‘the
> world’...
> [Thank you for this fine introduction to your thinking!]
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> <FIS Soeren Infobiosemiotics abstract
> NEW.docx>_______________________________________________
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>
> [1] <x-msg://14/#_ftnref1> Functionalism is a philosophical view of mind,
> according to which mental processes are characterized in terms of their
> abstract functional or even computational relationships to one another, and
> to sensory inputs and motor outputs. The mind should be explained in terms of
> the function of the human body within a given environment. Bateson expands
> this idea further into the environment. Its core idea is that mental states
> can be accounted for without taking into account the underlying physical
> medium such as the brain. In the computational view the mind is seen as the
> software and the brain as the hardware. As these processes are not limited to
> a particular physical state or physical medium, they can be realized in
> multiple ways. Some call it a non-reductive materialism others the
> information processing paradigm. It is probably the dominant theory of mental
> states in modern philosophy (Brier 1992 and 1999). I know that many
> researchers using Bateson’s work do not share this understanding and find it
> provoking and unfair to their interpretation of Bateson’s paradigm. But I
> find my interpretation clearly supported by the two first chapters in the
> posthumous published book Angels Fear (2005/1987), which Mary Catherine
> Bateson participated in and finished after her fathers dead, and it is also
> supported by Hayles (1999) interpretation of cybernetics and in the way
> Luhmann (1995) uses Bateson in his theory: The view is further developed in
> this article.
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