Helmut, Ben, Lists, I agree with what you say here, Helmut: "Pitifully, this sort of distinction is not a scientific one." What I mean in saying this is that I don't believe that the distinctions you are making are problematic for the practice of doing science. That is, scientists don't start by reflecting on the kinds of worries you are expressing about the nature of the real relations between observer, observation, and phenomena observed. For the most part, they get the enterprise of scientific inquiry off the ground by just making observations and then trying to explain the phenomena that have been observed. For my part, I think there is much to be gained by starting in philosophy in a similarly naive way. Where the phenomena are well explained by the theories that have been developed, then there is no need to have doubts about those theories. It is the surprising phenomena that lead us to doubt some part of the accepted theories--and then we have reason to search for better explanations.
Based on what I have seen so far about the recent discussions of the "self" that has been taking place on the list--I don't yet see a clearly delineated set of phenomena that call out for explanation. As such, those who are taking up these questions would do well to focus their attention at this observational stage of the process before jumping to big conclusions about which kinds of explanations are or not sufficient to account for the phenomena they are trying to explain. Let me offer an example: one kind of phenomena that Peirce devotes considerable attention to is the phenomena of how an individual person is able to exert self-control over their thoughts. For his part, Peirce does not think that the kinds of explanations offered by the likes of Descartes, Leibniz, Hume or Mill are sufficient to account for the phenomena associated with the exercise of logical self control. As such, there are aspects of the phenomena of what a person--such as a young child--realizes when he discovers that his beliefs about something like the suitability of a stove for being touched are in error. Peirce claims that the stages the child goes through in learning about the logical conceptions of error and falsity as well as the conceptions of self and other are entirely analogous to the stages that the human species must have gone through as these powers of rationality of thought and action evolved. It isn't clear how this logical conception of the self is related to the chemical or biological conception of a system that is auto (or self) organizing. They seem to be very different conceptions that are associated with very different kinds of phenomena we're trying to explain. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Helmut Raulien [h.raul...@gmx.de] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 1:37 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Subject: [biosemiotics:8672] Re: self-R The difficult thing about a phenomenon is, that it is a phenomenon in the observers mind. An observer who wants to distinguish a phenomenon of his/her own mind from a phenomenon, that is a phenomenon of another self, might ask: Have I asked to have this phenomenon? Or am I observing something that can only be explained by some entity other than me, having a phenomenon, because this special phenomenon is so weird, that I never would have made it up. Pitifully, this sort of distinction is not a scientific one. But it indicates, that a self can only be detected by another self. Id say, a self is something with a need. But assigning a need to something is always a supposition, and a supposition is an action only a nother self can do. So, at least, what remains is to say you have hit the nail on its head by saying "preferably some that are surprising". A self is something surprising, but surprise can only be felt by somebody who is surprised. So maybe there is no way of getting a better grip, or is there? Helmut Von: "Jeffrey Brian Downard" <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> Ben, Lists, I, too, find the thread puzzling. In order to get a better grip on what the discussion is about, I wanted to ask a simple question: what are the phenomena that need to be explained? We use the word 'self' to talk about a wide range of things. As such, I was hoping that someone might point to sample phenomena--preferably some that are surprising in one respect or another--so that we could compare different explanations in terms of their adequacy in accounting for the phenomena. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 5:52 AM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Subject: [biosemiotics:8665] Re: self-R Kalevi, Howard, list, I've been trying to understand this discussion thread's idea that the individual self is founded in (self-)replication. Replication seems for continuation of kind, species, lineage; it doesn't seem obvious how, furthermore, the individual self is _founded_ there too, even if the individual self is underpinned by that level. When I try to think of it in my simplistic ways, it seems to me that the individual self is founded at a 'higher' level. Let me resort for what it's worth to an analogy. In the analogous scientific practice, replication of results (even one's own across various occasions), is not the same thing as the checking, balancing, structurally supporting of results by various lines of evidence, observation, etc., by various inquirers (or by oneself qua various), converging from various directions, which seems a process of buttressing and evolutionary (renovating, re-designing) buildup of results. While biological replication is needed for evolvable species and lineages, the evolutionary process itself seems more analogous to that 'buttressing' process in scientific practice. Insofar as an individual's learning process, even though it depends on a general inherited capacity to learn, does not follow inherited pre-programmed developmental paths, it is 'evolutionary' (in the sense that various people including Stan Salthe use the word), and this makes each individual an individualized self who is checked and balanced both within the self's own experience and by other individuals and experiences. (Such seems even more so the case when the individual learns not just by trial & error (struggle) in various directions, practice & repetition, and emulation/replication of valued exemplars and results, but by investigating and testing claims made by various people or virtually made by various appearances, the testing our notions to destruction rather than ourselves, as Popper would put it.) Best, Ben On 5/20/2015 2:07 AM, Kalevi Kull wrote: Dear Howard, let us try whether we can find more agreement here. KK: yes, both construction and description, here von Neumann is right, I agree - but the way how he defines self-reproduction is not what we could apply in biology or biosemiotics. HP: How does it not apply? What I mean is this: von Neumann assumed that "self-reproducing configuration must be capable of universal construction. This criterion, indeed, eliminates the trivial cases, but it also has the unfortunate consequence that it eliminates all naturally occurring self-reproducing systems as well, since none of these have been shown to be capable of universal construction." (Langton C. G. 1984. Self-reproduction in Cellular Automata. Physica D 10: 135-144 - p. 137) KK: Therefore, if You state that "An individual self is first defined by self-replication", it would require a relevant definition of self-replication. Do You have one? HP: Yes. Von Neumann's logical conditions plus my physical conditions Von Neumann's logical conditions (which include the existence of universal constructor) are not necessary - these are not used in the real living systems. That is the point. Best Kalevi
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