Message from Joseph Brenner
---------------------------------------------
Dear Karl,
In closing your note, you wrote: "and we shall have overcome a long
division between
those who employ the difference property between a and b, and those
who apply the similarity property of a and b."
One way of helping to achieve this is to recognize, in specific complex
cases, that similarity and difference are not absolute properties. Some
things (the most interesting ones) are partly similar to and partly
different from others at the same time, and the predominance of one can
increase at the expense of the other. Further, in the system of Stephane
Lupasco (Principle of Dynamic Opposition, up-dated in Logic in Reality),
diversity, negativity, inexactitude, vagueness, instability, etc. are
given appropriate ontological value vs. identity, stability, etc., their
"positive" partners.
This is my proposal of a principled "ordering perspective" to be
included in the group available for use. Your comments would be welcome.
Thank you and best wishes,
Joseph
----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----
Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
Datum: 29.04.2011 12:34
An: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Betreff: [Fis] Discussion on INFORMATION THEORY--Karl Javorszky
Message from Karl Javorszky
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information – A Culture Shock
Dear Fis,
We keep coming back to the Middle Ages. The real achievement of the
Fis group is, that here professionals both from biology and the hard
sciences try to understand each other. If this endeavor will be
successful – and there are reasons to believe that we are on the right
path -, then we will have bridged a gap that has been created by the
distinction between the trivial (artistic) and the quadrivial
(scientific) arts, differentiating e.g. music from geometry.
Biology belongs definitely not among the exact 4 of pastimes. Yet, it
does have its own trade secrets, which may appear surprising to those,
who have learnt to think according to the rules of exact sciences. It
is not a big deal of intelligence to think in reverse mode, concluding
from the effect to the cause, from the conclusion unto the praemisses.
This is rather a state of the art technique one learns while having to
do with systems that do not obey the rules, where one deducts the
rules and hopes that one has deducted usefully.
The main difference between the art of a psychologist, a composer or a
painter and the knowledge of a geographer, astronomer or arithmetician
is the technique of “framing”. One moves the set of references into a
position which makes the picture feel good (conclusive, aesthetic,
explanative, didactic, etc.). There is no pre-existence of a single
ordering principle but rather the rivalry of ordering perspectives is
assumed as a fact of life. We may wish for an ideal human, but such a
thing does not exist, not even in the fashion as ideal gases exist, so
we do not assume that any theory about whatsoever living will ever be
all-explaining and paramount tautological.
The tautological sub-system in which the quadrivial scientist operates
is embedded in a complex web of interdependences, where the hope is
not maintained that a single ordering principle can declare itself to
be The Ultimate Ordering Principle. Wittgenstein says that one should
not even try to explain (from within) that in which the exact
tautologies are placed. There, Fis is more optimistic than the great
thinker. We do try to understand by means of the exact rules of
reasoning that what is presently outside of the realm of what can be
said exactly. (Adorno’s critique of Wittgenstein is, that a defeatist
attitude towards the inexplicable offers a deep misunderstanding about
what the job description of a philosopher contains. The task is to try
and try again to formulate in a reasonable fashion that what escapes
an exact formulation.)
If Fis succeeds, we will have made a Cultural Revolution. We now have
a sufficiently diverse set of competent people who will translate -
each into his own words – the deep structure of the message. The
message the trivials and the exact can agree on might be that
“generally, things are on their places, in an order. There are rules
that govern the interplay between when, where and what. Order lies in
the eyes of the spectator. Information is for a spectator that what
deviates from his – the spectator’s – expectations about how the
interplay between when, where and what will unfold.” This approach
allows the dancers and the painters to be taken seriously, because
they work with the complex harmony and transmit information by
manipulating the expectations of the spectator.
The only difference is that the followers of the exact faith have a
common agreement that there is a paramount first ordering principle
which overrides and consolidates all subsequent ordering principles.
This goes back to the cultural achievement of going upright and
observing Gravitation as common – all-pervasive, transcendent,
ubiquitous, static, absolute, eternal – to all activities of the
brain. They understand abstraction as a neurological process that
aligns mental structures to one main ordering structure. The trivial
thinkers do not underestimate the importance of a directed,
continuous, thought-up (because we do not feel in the brain) main
ordering principle. They try to make understand that there are many
other forces affecting our organs and that using one main ordering
principle is nice and all, but one should not eroticise his ability to
neglect all other possible viewpoints.
Ordering and reordering takes place in a human’s life like the natural
process it actually is. One can learn to balance and manipulate the
changes, but the changes are there. It is useless to make up a world
in which the things are by definition stable and remain so unless
otherwise instructed. The trivial people have as much resentment
against the formally exact sciences as those against the trivially
nonsensical. There is much to be understood and explained away before
we make up and kiss.
The culture shock that comes your way, my dear brethren from the 4
noble pastimes, is that Nature does not obey one’s wishes. Better, one
learns the art of compromise. Mathematical compromises may not fit
into the traditional ways of thinking exactly, but this is a point we
trivially inclined can not compromise on. Either you understand that
it is in the nature of things to be possibly – and equally
legitimately – otherwise than one supposes and defines them to be, or
not. The might of the definition is nice, but the normative force of
the factual (namely, that Nature will not compromise) compels you to
consider that any definition of “this is the right order” has – in the
model we might find useful to use – 71 alternatives which also, and
concurrently, say “no, mine is the right order and you are in
deviation”.
Now we have professionals in this group who can tell the general idea
in a professional way. It would be really a breakthrough if prejudices
and long-standing mutual declarations of incompetence about the others
could be overcome. Let 72 flowers bloom and fight for pre-eminence,
let the idea that there is more to a and b than c, and that it depends
on the spectator, which aspect he prefers to see as main ordering
aspect, blossom; and we shall have overcome a long division between
those, who employ the difference property between a and b and those,
who apply the similarity property of a and b.
Karl
--------------------
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
