Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 06/24/2009 01:05 AM: > A number of people have talked about 1st person vs 3rd person perspectives. > What I'd like to know is what you all mean by a 3rd person perspective. And > what I'd really like to know is why what you mean by a 3rd person > perspective isn't the 1st person experience of that perspective. > > [...] > > The more abstract way of saying this is that meaning occurs only in a first > person context. Without meaning, all we have are bits, photons, ink on > paper, etc. If you want to talk about meaning at all -- whether it's the > meaning of a first or third person perspective -- one has already assumed > that there is a first person that is understanding that meaning.
The 1st person assigns an intent or purpose to a context. The 3rd person simply refers to an attempt to talk about that context admitting ignorance about the purpose or intent. The 3rd person is a useful fiction (a.k.a. "model") where we talk about 1st person contexts ignoring the personhood of the person. However, that does NOT imply that meaning only occurs in a 1st person context. The term "mean" is ambiguous, with at least 2 meanings. ;-) Rewording your claim with one of those meanings of "mean", chosen to demonstrate my point, we get the following: all grounded symbols are teleological. And in that form, your claim is false. Weakly, any extant object _can_ be a symbol or stand-in for any other extant object. And when one object is a symbol for another object, that symbol is grounded. So, for example, the domino at the end of a line of dominoes is grounded by the nearest domino. We don't need a person with personhood to interpret the first domino. The grounding (meaning, standing-in-for-ness) exists in the world, objectively, by virtue of the laws of physics. Strongly, we can even go further and remember that there is no such thing as a pure syntax with no semantics. All formal systems are grounded in larger formal systems. So, ultimately, every symbol must be grounded, regardless of whether the symbol is "viewed" or not. Hence, grounding is objective, not subjective. Now, adopting the other meaning of the term "mean", what you _may_ be trying to say is that _interpretation_ of symbols (hermeneutics, semiotics) requires a person (personhood, intent, telos). And that's certainly true. The interpretation of symbols is subjective. And that requires the middle ground between the 1st and 3rd persons, the "transpersonal", by which I intend "(subjective) grounding shared by more than 1 person". Usage: Science is the effort to discover the objective grounding of all the symbols around us through transpersonal interpretation of those symbols. Usually, when people use the term "3rd person", they are talking about the convenient fiction described above. Sometimes, however, they are talking about the objective grounding of the symbols in that context, i.e. reality or truth, which is only approachable through transpersonal interpretation. That's my $0.02 anyway. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
