On Oct 2, 2011, at 11:06 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote: > Jerry, > > [[ I have been debating with myself for the past month on the relations > between "collective" and "distributive" in the context of 'communicational > communities'. A complete stalemate exists. I have no idea what this phrase > might mean logically or socially. ]] > > If you have no idea what the phrase " communicational communities" denotes, i > wonder how you are able to sustain a debate about the relations between terms > in that context! But just in case it might be helpful: a proposition > referring to a set (or group or class or community) is taken collectively if > its subject is *the set as a whole*, and is taken distributively if its > subject is *each member* of the set. (Or it can be taken selectively, in > which case its subject is *some member* of the set.) In the case of a > scientific community, for instance, there's a big difference (and a logical > relation of some kind) between the behavior of the community and the behavior > of its members. And the same goes for a political community. > > Gary F.
Hi Gary: Thanks for the intriguing response to the notion "internal debate." Of course, an internal debate is a reflexive mental action on our individual personal experience, intellectual development, present context, and so forth. It is a unique, one-of-a-kind debate that Is difficult to make public as the representations are embedded in our personal neuronal networks of meaningful symbolizations. I will make an effort to give my personal view, which certainly will NOT include a reference to set theory. In my debate, set theory never enters the stage. The reason is simple. Set theory is known for decades to be laced with paradoxes. More recently, the issues of "para-consistency" have rotted away the foundations of set theory as a decision making tool for biology / medicine. Set theory may be useful in machine logic, certain computations and in some nice narratives, but, it is not adequate for the logic of chemistry or biology. Hence, we have "biosemiotics" as an inquiry into the logic of biology and medicine. More specifically, my conundrum lies with the roots of the terms used in the phrase. The pairs of symbols "communicating communities" both are derived from the same root, so the adjective function is modifying itself. Thus, the pair of symbols is analogous to the grammar of the pair, reddish redness. Is this meaningful? The second pair of symbols, distributive and collective, are intimately related. A collection is possible only from a distribution. A distribution is possible only from a collection. The terms function as inverses of one another. Is this meaningful? So, my internal debate is a futile search for meaning from the roots of the terms as I understand them. Everyone is entitled to a few idiosyncratic opinions, are they not? Cheers Jerry --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to [email protected] with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to [email protected]
