[peirce-l] Re: What

[Jim Piat]

Dear Jim Willgoose,   Opps, I goofed.   I think you are right.    In an earlier version of my post I had included the possibility that in an open system new energy, information and possibilities were being added (or taken away) that would change the mean of the system and thus account for evolution of the mean (and why variation about the mean is so important and included in nature's plan).     Otherwise, yes,  the average represents the "least total error" of a distribution and moreover is in some ways an abstract "fiction" as for example the average family size of 2.3 people.   Still,  as long as we are dealing with generalization about multiple observations that in reality vary about a mean (and I can't think of any actual observations that don't) then the mean remains the characterization of the group of observations that produces the least total difference from all the other  observation comprising the data set.   And what is our notion of truth if not the example with the least error?      Along with Peirce, and statistical measurement theory,  I think of every observation as containing a combination some universal truth and individual error.  The average of a distribution of observations contains the least percentage of individual error because that is what the math of achieving the average produces.  The "truth" of a whole distribution is the distribution itself.  The least erroneous generalization about the distribution is its average.  I don't think truth lies outside the data.  I take the view that every method, observation or imaginable thing contains some truth but only a part of the truth along with individual error.  Each of the three methods for fixing belief is valid in so far as it goes (and of course as examples of themselves perfectly true).  So I would describe them as producing partial truths.  All observation are individual matters. But idividual observations are wrong in so far as they lack the validity that only multiple individual POVs can provide.   The whole truth requires simultaneous observations from multiple POVs which can only be achieved through the existence of others.  And the multiple observations must be combined rationally (as for example the simple average) in order to cancel rather than multiply or add error.  All of this multiple POV business being required because the universe extends in both space and time and there is no way any individual can achieve a POV from which to grasp its totality.    As to the flat earth example  -- I'd say "the world is flat"  was not so much a wrong conclusion as it was an only partially true conclusion.  For the purpose of most local everyday walking distances (the main mode of transportation at the time the view was popular, though never universally accepted) the idea that the earth was a bumpy (hills and valleys) flat surface was effectively true.  Granted,  as we expand our horizons and the distribution of observation to include previously excepted outliers  the mean shifts accordingly.  An error you have correctly noted in my account.  I incorrectly spoke as if my world were the whole world and we all lived in a locally closed and fixed system.   A common false assumption of the tenaciously narrow minded such as myself.   BTW some empirical studies of cultural ideals of human facial beauty point to the conclusion that the population average (based upon actual measurements of facial features) is the most favored.  This seems to tie in with Peirce's suggestion (as it survives my personal filter)  that aesthetics is the basis for ethics and ethics for truth.    And yes -- in the final analysis all of what I've proposed is not only old hat but so limited in its generality as to be little more than a crank opinion. I realize this.  Yet for me individually  pluralism has been a big part of my small personal conception of how truth is approached.  So I appreciate your taking the time to comment, Jim.  Your helpful suggestions have, I believe, already brought me a bit closer to courtroom ideal of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth".  I've been learning a little about the history of common law recently .  In a way the common law system with its constant honing and development based upon reason and evidence has produced a quasi scientific body of knowledge about human behavior that is in my view every bit the equal or superior of that produced by other social science approaches.   A psychologist who wants to understand interpersonal relations and our society at large could do worse than to study contract and property law.    Best wishes and thanks, Jim Piat     Jim Wilgoose wrote:     Interesting. But if all the scientist did was "average" three defective modes of inquiry, wouldn't we be stuck with the "least total error," yet an error nevertheless? We would have all agreed that the earth is flat, Euclidean geometry is the true physical geometry, a part can never be greater than the whole and so forth. The other methods are experimentally defective. Even if the average was taken just from within the scientific community, are there not numerous examples of "leaps" in knowledge occurring by virtue of the beliefs held out along the fringes of the distribution?   Jim W --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com