Re: [Fis] [Feedforward II and Anticipation] Joseph Brenner
I would concur completely with what Joseph says here. I have never understood the tendency to replace the world with models of it when we can interact directly with the world in a brute, unmediated way: it can really surprise us sometimes, no matter how sophisticated our models. Those familiar with the work of C.S. Peirce will see that I am just invoking his most basic reason underlying his realism. This is also the message of our book: Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, though I don't agree with everything in it. There are several problems with the models view, I think: 1) what Joseph raised, 2) our models can contain information about the world even if they are not fully accurate, allowing for correction rather than replacement (sequential idealism, as one of my colleagues has called it), and 3) our models are seldom complete, and often not even fully consistent, so they are always open-ended and subject to revision and greater clarity; this is another major point that Peirce pressed (his article, How to make our ideas clear is a good source). If we just add clarity without external motivation, then we are playing word (or symbol) games, which can be fun, no doubt. John At 12:27 PM 2014-02-18, Joseph Brenner wrote: Dear Loet and Colleagues, In this most interesting comment by Loet, there is a fascinating inversion of roles! Laplace told Louis XV that I don't need the hypothesis of God, something, let us say, rather abstract compared to the solar system. Loet is telling us, however, that what he does not need is the hypothesis of an external reality of energy, since he can explain 'everything' with a set of discursive perspectives, which I consider far too abstract. My position is that I do not need the hypothesis of abstract, epistemological perspectives that are not grounded in reality. I do not know exactly what this is, nor everything about it, but I know some things and understand some real dynamics of their evolution. If a system (such as Loet's) excludes all of these as ungrounded beliefs, something may be missed in the understanding of complex processes, e.g., information. Loet is, perhaps, closer to Newton in his attitude to his own (Loet's) system: Hypotheses non fingo. I'll go with Laplace. Best wishes, Joseph - Original Message - From: Loet Leydesdorff To: Joseph Brenner Cc: fis Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 9:32 PM Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw: [Feedforward II and Anticipation] Joseph Brenner Dear Joseph, The energetic terms are external referents to the communication (scholarly discourse). These external referents can differently be codified; for example, in terms of thermodynamics or various forms of physics (e.g., in terms of classical physics). The dynamic properties can only be studied from one discursive perspective.or another. The ontological status that these dynamics are nevertheless attributed in your logic in reality requires an act of belief in an external reality that is assumed to be given (so that can enter into the dialectics of logic in reality.) Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothese-la. Best wishes, Loet On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Joseph Brenner joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote: Dear Loet, I am still hoping that there will be more comments on both my original note and your significant emendation of it, for which many thanks. Here is my response to you now. I have, more than before, the feeling that you have agreed that LIR can add something to the sufficiency of the overall picture. Three things might make this even clearer: 1. You wrote: From this perspective, the reality in Logic in Reality (LIR) is res cogitans: an inter-human construct about which we remain uncertain. JEB: But LIR applies also INTRA-human constructs, that is how human agents change one another, including their expectations. Thus, 2. The codes in the reflexive communications can be considered as the (hypothesized!) eigenvectors of the networks of relations among expectations (carried by human minds). JEB: Same comment as above. The logical values of actuality and potentiality of real process elements, which include communications, have the dimensions of vectors. 3. However, this reality has the epistemological status of a hypothesis, whereas you seem to reify it and identify it with nature (energy?) as a given. From my perspective, this presumes a reduction of the complexity using the communicative codes of physics and biology. There is nothing against this coding, but it can be considered as one among an alphabet of possible ones. JEB: This is an interesting _expression_ of our different points of view. You see my approach as reducing complexity and reifying 'this reality' and I think it is your approach that reduces and reifies it!! Perhaps we are both right!! Logic in Reality does not deal with a /certain/ complexity, which can be associated with complicated epistemological entities or states. Your theory seems to me
Re: [Fis] [Feedforward II and Anticipation] Joseph Brenner
Dear John and Joseph, Let me use my second option this week to side with you against those who wish to replace substantive theorizing with modelling. The issue is, in my opinion, *which* hypotheses one needs and can elaborate when developing discursive knowledge (e.g., in physics or sociology). The hypotheses are entertained in disccourses and can be reflected by agency. I wished to deny the fruitfulness of the ontological assumptions made in the Logic of Reality--disguised as energetic dynamics--because this hypothesis can only be stated as an act of believe. Instead of believes, one can participate in discourses developing systems of rationalized expectations. (I'll be silent fo the remainder of this week. :-) But I thought that I had to prevent a misunderstanding.) Best, Loet On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 1:43 PM, John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za wrote: I would concur completely with what Joseph says here. I have never understood the tendency to replace the world with models of it when we can interact directly with the world in a brute, unmediated way: it can really surprise us sometimes, no matter how sophisticated our models. Those familiar with the work of C.S. Peirce will see that I am just invoking his most basic reason underlying his realism. This is also the message of our book: *Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized*, though I don't agree with everything in it. There are several problems with the models view, I think: 1) what Joseph raised, 2) our models can contain information about the world even if they are not fully accurate, allowing for correction rather than replacement (sequential idealism, as one of my colleagues has called it), and 3) our models are seldom complete, and often not even fully consistent, so they are always open-ended and subject to revision and greater clarity; this is another major point that Peirce pressed (his article, How to make our ideas clear is a good source). If we just add clarity without external motivation, then we are playing word (or symbol) games, which can be fun, no doubt. John At 12:27 PM 2014-02-18, Joseph Brenner wrote: Dear Loet and Colleagues, In this most interesting comment by Loet, there is a fascinating inversion of roles! Laplace told Louis XV that I don't need the hypothesis of God, something, let us say, rather abstract compared to the solar system. Loet is telling us, however, that what he does not need is the hypothesis of an external reality of energy, since he can explain 'everything' with a set of discursive perspectives, which I consider far too abstract. My position is that I do not need the hypothesis of abstract, epistemological perspectives that are not grounded in reality. I do not know exactly what this is, nor everything about it, but I know some things and understand some real dynamics of their evolution. If a system (such as Loet's) excludes all of these as ungrounded beliefs, something may be missed in the understanding of complex processes, e.g., information. Loet is, perhaps, closer to Newton in his attitude to his own (Loet's) system: Hypotheses non fingo. I'll go with Laplace. Best wishes, Joseph - Original Message - *From:* Loet Leydesdorff l...@leydesdorff.net *To:* Joseph Brenner joe.bren...@bluewin.ch *Cc:* fis fis@listas.unizar.es *Sent:* Monday, February 17, 2014 9:32 PM *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Fw: [Feedforward II and Anticipation] Joseph Brenner Dear Joseph, The energetic terms are external referents to the communication (scholarly discourse). These external referents can differently be codified; for example, in terms of thermodynamics or various forms of physics (e.g., in terms of classical physics). The dynamic properties can only be studied from one discursive perspective.or another. The ontological status that these dynamics are nevertheless attributed in your logic in reality requires an act of belief in an external reality that is assumed to be given (so that can enter into the dialectics of logic in reality.) Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothese-la. Best wishes, Loet On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Joseph Brenner joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote: Dear Loet, I am still hoping that there will be more comments on both my original note and your significant emendation of it, for which many thanks. Here is my response to you now. I have, more than before, the feeling that you have agreed that LIR can add something to the sufficiency of the overall picture. Three things might make this even clearer: 1. You wrote: From this perspective, the reality in Logic in Reality (LIR) is res cogitans: an inter-human construct about which we remain uncertain. JEB: But LIR applies also INTRA-human constructs, that is how human agents change one another, including their expectations. Thus, 2. The codes in the reflexive communications can be considered as the (hypothesized!) eigenvectors of the networks
[Fis] [Feedforward II and Anticipation] Joseph Brenner
Original Message Subject:Fw: Feedforward II and Anticipation Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:20:01 +0100 From: Joseph Brenner joe.bren...@bluewin.ch Reply-To: Joseph Brenner joe.bren...@bluewin.ch To: Pedro C. Marijuan pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es Dear FISers, This subject was introduced late last year by Bob Logan with reference to his draft paper entitled Feedforward, I. A. Richards, Cybernetics and Marshall McLuhan. I feel feedforward deserves more then the limited discussion it received because it embodies, rather visibly, dualistic process aspects of both information transfer/communication and the distinctly human cognitive process of anticipation. First, just three points about feedforward to remind ourselves of its characteristics: 1. Feedforward is anticipatory control, the reciprocal of feedback. 2. Feedforward transfers context as well as content. 3. Both feedforward and feedback are 'circular'. Second, I make the claim, for discussion purposes, that my logic of energy, Logic in Reality (LIR), provides a somewhat more rigorous basis for discussion and clarification of the dialectics of feedforward, better, of feedforward and feedback. This means that in all complex biological/living systems, feedforward is always accompanied by feedback. In particular, LIR replaces the unworkable concept of circularity by saw-tooth or spiral evolution. Third, it provides interpretations for McLuhan's concept of probes for studying media, quoted by Bob: 1. Figure/ground: partial simultaneous instantiation of the elements of figure/ground dichotomies. LIR supports Deacon's view here. 2. Meaning determined by context plus experience. 3. A basis for reversal of standard cause effect; effects as a form for feedforward leading to new causes. My vision of feedforward and feedback is thus as non-separable attributes of living biological and cognitive systems, one or the other of the above dynamically interacting pairs predominantly actualized or potentialized as the case may be, alternately and reciprocally. In LIR, the potentialities of a process are available to consciousness, only more vaguely than what is usually referred to as 'knowledge'. The experience of potentialities is to all intents and purposes equivalent to anticipation of them. I have analyzed elsewhere the approach to anticipation of Daniel Dubois, with whom Loet has also worked, referring to Robert Rosen. I found I could differentiate between his and my perspective as follows: - Dubois: anticipation is the potential future value of a system's variables - LIR: anticipation is the current potential value of a system's variables In conclusion, and in anticipation (;-) of Loet's constructive comments, I re-emphasize that as far as I am concerned, both analytical and energetic perspectives are necessary for an adequate picture of feedforward outside purely electro-mechanical control systems. I look forward to further discussion of the issues just touched upon above. Best wishes, Joseph -- - Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA) Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 ( 6818) pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ - ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
