Jerry, list, Well, I'm glad that someone agrees with me, as far as the statement went.
Jerry, I think that you raise some good questions. Though, I must admit I'm not entirely sure what a couple of your terms mean, such as 'coupling' and 'grammar'. As for 'unit', I'll guess you mean something like what the original meaning of 'atom' meant, as something basic and indivisible from which other, more complex things can be built up out of. I've decided to answer the questions in the order reverse to the order in which they were presented. Do you consider this part - whole coupling to be "mereological in > character"? I'm not sure what that means, but since it's a part-whole relation, and mereology is a study concerned with such relations, it would seem almost tautological that it is "mereological in character". But there are different and competing theories in mereology, and I don't want to be taken as supporting any one of them specifically. Is smoke a unit? Is a precept a unit? I take it you meant "percept", not precept. I would say it depends on the context; in one context, we could take percepts as our basic elements, or units, while in another context of analysis we might try to break it down more, as presumably someone in experimental psychology might try to break down sense impressions to the physical operations of the body and the thing experienced. Similarly with smoke, if we just wanted to talk about the matter in terms of commonly understood objects and signs, then it could be considered a unit; but obviously, the chemist could try to break it down more into the specific analysis of gases, and down to the atoms, of which the smoke is composed, and so on further to particles and such. > > If "whole work of understanding." implies a coupling of external events > with internal processes, then what is the nature of the grammar the > generates the coupling of the parts of the whole? This is where the meaning of 'coupling' worries me, but I'll suppose it's something like correspondence. Also not sure what grammar is supposed to be in this context. By "whole work of understanding", I meant the introduction of a concept, whether in perceptual judgment or in an abduction, for explaining the phenomenon (percept); which concept, when analyzed into possible further interactions with the object of the percept, and then put to experimental test in practical conduct, proves helpful for interacting with the object of the percept. So the whole process of semiosis, up to the following out of a scientific inquiry into the object, may be required to grasp the (whole) object. Put in terms of correspondence, I suppose that the fact that the object responds to our interactions in the way we predict is what reveals that there is a correspondence between our concept of the object and the object as it is in itself. I'm not sure how to relate that to "the nature of the grammar the generates the coupling of the parts of the whole". Part and whole here were originally about the object as immediate and the object as dynamical, but relating what is going on between external events and internal processes (i.e., perception?), is a different kind of relating. Perhaps (and this is simply a suggestion), we might think of there being the real object, which has a part of it involved in perception, and there being the mind, which has a part of it involved in perception, and these two (the real object and the mind) are themselves parts of a semiosis, and so the 'grammar' that would ultimately be appropriate would be that offered by semiotic. What is the nature of the coupling between the smoke and the "whole" of the > experience? Hmm, that's a good question. Partly it depends upon what is meant by experience, and whether one subscribes to the doctrine of immediate perception. If one includes perception and conception, and what is perceived and conceived, then smoke would be a part of the experience; and with respect to perception, it would be a part of smoke, but with respect to conception it would be the whole of the smoke. But, it is good to recognize that in such case, we can think of experience in a somewhat flexible way, such that we could consider the initial experience as one of perception only, then the experience of seeing the smoke and coming to recognize it as smoke, and then the experience later of interacting with the fire that is the source of the smoke; or we could lump these altogether as one long experience, and include in it any other interactions we ever have or could have of perceiving the smoke. Of course, even in the latter case, the smoke and the experience of it will not be the same thing, because there is always us, the ones experiencing the smoke, either as individuals or as a community, that are also always involved in the experience. So the smoke remains part of the experience, not the whole of it; while whether we consider the smoke as experienced in part, or as a whole, depends on how experience is considered in a given context of analysis. -- Franklin ---------------------------------------------- On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 3:41 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com > wrote: > List, Frank: > > On Dec 12, 2015, at 11:16 AM, Franklin Ransom wrote: > > That effect of the smoke is in some sense part of what it is to be smoke. > Going beyond the part of the real that we perceive, and grasping it as a > whole, requires the whole work of understanding. But while the percept is > not "smoke itself", i.e. is not the whole of the object, it is nevertheless > as much a part of smoke as it is a part of the perceiver. > > > While I concur with these sentences, I would ask further of your views: > > What is the nature of the coupling between the smoke and the "whole" of > the experience? > > If "whole work of understanding." implies a coupling of external events > with internal processes, then what is the nature of the grammar the > generates the coupling of the parts of the whole? > > Is smoke a unit? Is a precept a unit? > > Do you consider this part - whole coupling to be "mereological in > character"? > > Just curious. > > Cheers > > Jerry > > >
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