Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)

2006-08-16 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 15-août-06, à 21:09, David Nyman a écrit :


 Bruno Marchal wrote:

 1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the
 zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names
 emerges through the third person pint of view.

 I'm beginning to see that, unnameability apart, it's the 'indexicality'
 of the zero-person point of view that you are reluctant to concede. I
 press you elsewhere on the 'reality' of the number realm. My essential
 point is that I assert the necessary reality of 'indexical David', but
 since I am a merely a 'lens' of the totality - the zero-person point of
 view, the 'gestalt' - then my claim is subsumed in the logically prior
 claim on indexical existence of that point of view - i.e. its necessary
 reality.

OK (as far as I understand you).


 Hence in logic, if necessary reality is to be postulated as
 deriving from something more 'fundamental', then this must a fortori
 have a logically prior claim on such necessity. If we claim this
 reality to be the number realm, are we not merely conceding it such
 necessity through logical force majeure?

This is unclear. i don't figure out what you are trying to say. You 
will have opportunity to explain this. No need to comment directly (but 
you can of course).


 Yours in ontic realism


Really?

:)

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)

2006-08-15 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 14-août-06, à 01:04, David Nyman a écrit :

 There is another aspect, which I've been musing about again since my
 most recent exchanges with Peter. This is that if one is to take
 seriously (and I do) 'structural' or 'block' views such as MWI, it
 seems to me that whatever is behaving 'perceivingly', '1st-personally',
 or 'subjectly' (gawd!) is the gestalt, not any particular abstraction
 therefrom. It seems to me that this is necessary to yield:

 1) The unnameability of the 1st-person (i.e. 'this observer situation')
 2) The consequential validity (?) of any probability calculus of
 observer situations
 3) The dynamic quality of time as experienced (i.e. contrast between
 'figure' and 'ground')
 4) Meta-experiential layering - e.g. 'coherent histories' of observer
 situations

 Any views on this?

1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the 
zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names 
emerges through the third person pint of view.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)

2006-08-15 Thread David Nyman

Bruno Marchal wrote:

 1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the
 zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names
 emerges through the third person pint of view.

I'm beginning to see that, unnameability apart, it's the 'indexicality'
of the zero-person point of view that you are reluctant to concede. I
press you elsewhere on the 'reality' of the number realm. My essential
point is that I assert the necessary reality of 'indexical David', but
since I am a merely a 'lens' of the totality - the zero-person point of
view, the 'gestalt' - then my claim is subsumed in the logically prior
claim on indexical existence of that point of view - i.e. its necessary
reality. Hence in logic, if necessary reality is to be postulated as
deriving from something more 'fundamental', then this must a fortori
have a logically prior claim on such necessity. If we claim this
reality to be the number realm, are we not merely conceding it such
necessity through logical force majeure?

Yours in ontic realism

David

 Le 14-août-06, à 01:04, David Nyman a écrit :

  There is another aspect, which I've been musing about again since my
  most recent exchanges with Peter. This is that if one is to take
  seriously (and I do) 'structural' or 'block' views such as MWI, it
  seems to me that whatever is behaving 'perceivingly', '1st-personally',
  or 'subjectly' (gawd!) is the gestalt, not any particular abstraction
  therefrom. It seems to me that this is necessary to yield:
 
  1) The unnameability of the 1st-person (i.e. 'this observer situation')
  2) The consequential validity (?) of any probability calculus of
  observer situations
  3) The dynamic quality of time as experienced (i.e. contrast between
  'figure' and 'ground')
  4) Meta-experiential layering - e.g. 'coherent histories' of observer
  situations
 
  Any views on this?

 1), 2), 3), 4) are theorem in the comp theory. Note that the
 zero-person point of view will appear also to be unnameable. Names
 emerges through the third person pint of view.
 
 Bruno
 
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
Everything List group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)

2006-08-13 Thread David Nyman

Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:

 ASIDE, for the record, dual aspect science (from the previous post).  I)
 APPEARANCE ASPECT. Depictions (statistics) of regularity (correlations of
 agreed 'objects' within) in appearances
 II) STRUCTURE ASPECT. Depictions (Statistics) of structure of an
 underlying natural world based on organisations of one or more posited
 structural primitives.

 Both have equal access to qualia as evidence. Qualia are evidence for
 both. Whatever the structure is, scientists are made of it and it must
 simultaneously a) deliver qualia and all the rest of the structure in the
 universe(II) and b) deliver the contents of qualia (appearances) that
 result in our correlations of appearances that we think of as empirical
 laws(I). This is a complete consistent set of natural laws, none of which
 literally 'are' the universe but are merely 'about' it.

For the record, how would you contrast this with Chalmers' property
dualism and his programme for 'psycho-physical laws'? Presumably his
'conceivability' of structure (ll) without appearance (l) is sheer
'3rd-person cultism' from your perspective. This is where I part
company from him. My conceivability apparatus just can't come up with
this. For me a situation that isn't self-revealing needs a mediator
(little observer) to do the revealing for it, and we know where that
leads...

 Qualia(appearances) are only intractible because we keep insisting on 
 trying to use qualia (appearances, our scientific evidence) to explain
 them! Is it only me that sees that when the scientific evidence system
 (qualia) is applied to collect evidence in favour of a science of
 qualia, a science of _our evidence system_!!, that the evidence system
 breaks down?

Can you say more about how a structure (ll) science approaches this?

 FYI
 ['unsituated' means that the scientist is, despite the observer dependence
 characterised by quantum mechanics, surgically excised from the universe
 by the demand for an objective view that does not exist. 'Situated'
 science puts the scientist back inside the universe with the studied
 items. Note that science only needs OBJECTIVITY (a behaviour) not a real
 'objective view' to construct correlations of type I (above). Dual aspect
 science disposes of the cultish need for a delusion of a 3rd person view ]

Yes, this is broadly what I was aiming at with '1st-person primacy',
using words like 'embedded', 'present', etc. - but 'situated' is good,
I'll adopt it.

There's another aspect, which I've been musing about again since my
most recent exchanges with Peter. This is that if one takes seriously
(and I do) 'structural' or 'block' views such as MWI, then it seems to
me that whatever is behaving 'perceivingly', 1st-personally', or
'subjectly' (gawd!) is the gestalt, not any particular abstraction
therefrom. It seems to me that this is necessary to yield from an
infinity of recursively nested structure:

1) The unnameability of the 1st-person (i.e. 'this observer situation')
2) The consequential validity (?) of any probability calculus of
observer situations
3) 'Time' as the tension of structure and gestalt - i.e. sensing
situations dynamically
4) 'Coherent observer histories' - i.e. sensing 'meta-situationally'
(is this an adverb?)

Any thoughts on this?

David

 David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 
  Yes, and I despair (almost) of remedying this, even if I knew how. My
 own attempts at linguistic 'clarity' seemed destined only to muddy the
 waters further, especially as I'm really trying to translate from
 personal modes that are often more visual/ kinaesthetic than verbal,
 gestalt than analytic.

 I have these very same difficulties and I try my very hardest to use the
 minimal number of most-accessible words in their popular mode. Not always
 successfully...but you have to start somewhere. My origins are as an
 engineer immersed in the natural (electrical) world. Thousands of hours of
 waiting during commissioning, thinking for a couple of decades to
 surface and try to describe what you have seen after this...is a
 challenge.

 
  That said, I rather like your 'adverbial' mode, which I think has also
 cropped up in other contexts (didn't Whitehead attempt something of the
 sort with his process view?) Nominalisation/ reification creates
 conceptual confusions, embedded assumptions spawn others, as in all
 language to do with time, which is already loaded with the assumption of
 experiential dynamism, and hence can do nothing to help explain it.
 
 
 ASIDE, for the record, dual aspect science (from the previous post).  I)
 APPEARANCE ASPECT. Depictions (statistics) of regularity (correlations of
 agreed 'objects' within) in appearances
 II) STRUCTURE ASPECT. Depictions (Statistics) of structure of an
 underlying natural world based on organisations of one or more posited
 structural primitives.

 Both have equal access to qualia as evidence. Qualia are evidence for
 both. Whatever 

Re: Dual-Aspect Science (a spawn of the roadmap)

2006-08-12 Thread Colin Geoffrey Hales

David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Yes, and I despair (almost) of remedying this, even if I knew how. My
own attempts at linguistic 'clarity' seemed destined only to muddy the
waters further, especially as I'm really trying to translate from
personal modes that are often more visual/ kinaesthetic than verbal,
gestalt than analytic.

I have these very same difficulties and I try my very hardest to use the
minimal number of most-accessible words in their popular mode. Not always
successfully...but you have to start somewhere. My origins are as an
engineer immersed in the natural (electrical) world. Thousands of hours of
waiting during commissioning, thinking for a couple of decades to
surface and try to describe what you have seen after this...is a
challenge.


 That said, I rather like your 'adverbial' mode, which I think has also
cropped up in other contexts (didn't Whitehead attempt something of the
sort with his process view?) Nominalisation/ reification creates
conceptual confusions, embedded assumptions spawn others, as in all
language to do with time, which is already loaded with the assumption of
experiential dynamism, and hence can do nothing to help explain it.


ASIDE, for the record, dual aspect science (from the previous post).  I)
APPEARANCE ASPECT. Depictions (statistics) of regularity (correlations of
agreed 'objects' within) in appearances
II) STRUCTURE ASPECT. Depictions (Statistics) of structure of an
underlying natural world based on organisations of one or more posited
structural primitives.

Both have equal access to qualia as evidence. Qualia are evidence for
both. Whatever the structure is, scientists are made of it and it must
simultaneously a) deliver qualia and all the rest of the structure in the
universe(II) and b) deliver the contents of qualia (appearances) that
result in our correlations of appearances that we think of as empirical
laws(I). This is a complete consistent set of natural laws, none of which
literally 'are' the universe but are merely 'about' it.

back to David's words re language...'adverbial' descriptions:

Nicholas Rescher has wrested process thought from the Whitehead
sequestration of it. Rescher uses the adverbial mode quite convincingly in
his latest works. Thank goodness...far too much religious/cultish detritus
smattered throughout the Whitehead camp. They have no right to 'own' the
process view. I hope those days are over now.

The adverbial depiction is very apt as it stops us being deluded into the
assumption of 'nouns' and 'things'. In day to day life nouns and things
are very very useful, but the assumption that just because our language
has them and we have agreed to their presence in the universe's
appearance...does not mean that the language tokens are actually
instantiated!

Adverbial descriptions are far more general in that they easily unify all
natural world behaviour as a single process that can deal with 'verby
things' like rainstorms, that are inherently processual and apparent lumpy
things (like lions) that behave 'nounly'. Qualia naturally fit into this
idea. There is no thing 'red' in your head. The universe is behaving
red-ly in your head. NOTE: An ideal object 'red' may be said to exist in
'platonia'. But so what! This is about _our_ universe, not some
abstraction.

 My own hastily contrived usages were an attempt to expose the implicit
(and hence generally conceptually invisible) holding of the world 'at
arm's length' by the objectifying effect of 3rd person language, which
simultaneusly relegates 1st-person to a subsidiary role, to the extent
that some even feel impelled to deny its existence, or resort to bizarre
ontolgies in an attempt to 'reintroduce' it. Where McGinn and Chomsky hold
that it is the analytic/ synthetic modes of language that puts 1st person
beyond our ability to conceptualise, I feel that the
unacknowledged consensual projection of an 'objective model' as
 'reality' has more to do with it.

 My belief has been that restoring 1st person to some sort of centrality
would be part of the antidote, and I haven't yet (quite) lost hope on this
score. I look forward to the fruits of your own efforts in this regard.

 David

Your plea has not gone unheard. V.S. Ramachandran said ...the need to
reconcile the first and third person accounts of the universe...is the
single most important problem in science. (Phantoms in the Brain .229)

and there's McGinn in 'the mysterious flame' where he makes a convincing
case for us having a profoundly inadequate view of matter. I agree! I'd
say there isn't any such 'thing'! :-)

Note Ramachandran is not saying 'physics' or 'neuroscience' or
'consciousness studies' is affected but SCIENCE, all of it. He is
absolutely right. Qualia are our entire source of scientific evidence. We
have nothing else. They are an appearance (as a measurement supplied to us
inside our heads by the action of brain