- #176
Gold Barz
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apeiron said:So it is more his view of epistemology than complexity that I cite.
Correct me if I am wrong here but I find Rosen's complexity similar to your pansemiosis.
apeiron said:So it is more his view of epistemology than complexity that I cite.
Gold Barz said:Correct me if I am wrong here but I find Rosen's complexity similar to your pansemiosis.
A comparison of Peirce’s sign systems with Rosen’s (M,R) systems yields
the following communalities: 1) they are both systems of triadic relations, 2)
they irreducibly involve self-referential loops, 3) some of the relata are
themselves relations, and 4) some of the relata are not things but temporal
processes unrepresentable in purely spatial terms.
There is also an important dissimilarity. The effect of self-reference in one
case is recursivity, through the production of an open-ended chain in which
each interpretant becomes a sign for another future interpretant. In the
other case the effect is circularity, in which each process is simultaneously
at the beginning and the end of a cycle.
The concept of Biosemiotics requires making a distinction between two categories, the material or physical world and the symbolic or semantic world. The problem is that there is no obvious way to connect the two categories. This is a classical philosophical problem on which there is no consensus even today. Biosemiotics recognizes that the philosophical matter-mind problem extends downward to the pattern recognition and control processes of the simplest living organisms where it can more easily be addressed as a scientific problem. In fact, how material structures serve as signals, instructions, and controls is inseparable from the problem of the origin and evolution of life. Biosemiotics was established as a necessary complement to the physical-chemical reductionist approach to life that cannot make this crucial categorical distinction necessary for describing semantic information. Matter as described by physics and chemistry has no intrinsic function or semantics. By contrast, biosemiotics recognizes that life begins with function and semantics.
Biosemiotics recognizes this matter-symbol problem at all levels of life from natural languages down to the DNA. Cartesian dualism was one classical attempt to address this problem, but while this ontological dualism makes a clear distinction between mind and matter, it consigns the relation between them to metaphysical obscurity. Largely because of our knowledge of the physical details of genetic control, symbol manipulation, and brain function these two categories today appear only as an epistemological necessity, but a necessity that still needs a coherent explanation. Even in the most detailed physical description of matter there is no hint of any function or meaning.
apeiron said:Another post that tries to evade previous questions about your claims and asks me to repeat arguments I have already made.
Perhaps Bohm2 will have better luck getting a reply from you?
apeiron said:What? You still seem to be trying to map this to an epistemology/ontology distinction. And that is so missing the point that I doubt I can straighten things out.
bohm2 said:Does semiosis bring any new facts to bear or is it just a different way of looking at the known "facts" of neuroscience, biology, cognition, etc.? I mean, does it make any new predictions/testable models? Is it a just a philosophical perspective or a different approach that offers new directions/predictions? If the latter what are some of those predictions/testable models?
apeiron said:Semiosis (and systems thinking) would take the symbol side to be as real, measurable and dependable as the material side. Software and hardware, if you like. Both distinct from each other (separated by an epistemic cut), but also both real.
Have you read JA Scott Kelso's Dynamic Patterns? He is really good at modelling this kind of dynamics. But I am still arguing that you can only get so far with DST (otherwise that is all I would have needed to be interested in). You need the story from the other side of the epistemic cut as well.
So you can explain hysteresis in terms of bistability, but then something must be prodding the system from one state to the next. You could say it is a random internal fluctuation (which might be the best answer in a system which has such fluctuations). Or you could say it was a driving input - and now you have something further that is external and must be accounted for. And then this driving input might be a memory, a bit of coded information, a symbol. And now you are really talking about something diifferent in kind.
If you can offer a reference where you think bifurcation theory does the complete job here, please do.
I think DST is an important piece of the puzzle - it means that the computational side of reality has so much less work to do because dynamical systems do so much of their own self-organising. But then there still is that job of switching states in a way organised by memory and habit.
abstract said:Pattern formation and switching between self-organized states are often associated with instabilities in open, nonequilibrium systems. We describe an experiment which shows that systematically changing a control parameter induces qualitative changes in sensorimotor coordination and brain activity, as registered by a 37-SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) array. Near the instability point, predicted features of nonequilibrium phase transitions (critical slowing down, fluctuation enhancement) are observed in both the psychophysical data and the brain signals obtained from single SQUID sensors. Further analysis reveals that activity from the entire array displays spatial patterns evolving in time. Such spatiotemporal patterns are characterized by the dynamics of only a few coherent spatial modes.
apeiron said:As you note, there are the genes as a straight dormant code, then the genes in action as a dynamical device. It is the gap between these two kinds of existence that the epistemic cut/semiosis seeks to span.
Gold Barz said:In Rosens theory (I do not know what the official name for it is lol) life is a consequence of complexity and while life is not a first principle in the universe, complexity is...is that true of pansemiosis too?
PhizzicsPhan said:Then I guess we're done with this dialogue, with your positions collapsing into self-contradiction, mockery, vagueness and arbitrariness.
I think if you step back a bit and reconsider your own statements you'll see the merits of what I'm suggesting. As I've mentioned more than once, the systems approach has many similarities to my approach and can perhaps be subsumed, as Skrbina suggests, in the panpsychist approach to the hard problem.
Pythagorean said:here's some groundwork that I found quickly. I can spend more time on this later if you're really interetsed:
http://chaos.aip.org/resource/1/chaoeh/v11/i1/p160_s1?isAuthorized=no
apeiron said:So are you intending to support my contention that the systems approach must somehow recognise the reality of both dynamics and computation?
Pythagorean said:I don't understand why you think that was ever a question...?
apeiron said:Well then what the heck are you trying to say? You appeared to be arguing that the whole of the story could be told in the language of dynamical systems.
How does DST deal with questions of function and dynamics?
That old Goodwin/Kauffman reference is in fact very good. It draws attention to the key fact of hierarchy theory that dynamics + scale does give you an epistemic cut. The dynamics of a much larger scale stretch out to look like an unchanging context, while those of a much smaller scale merge to become a grainy blur.
This is precisely the kind of approach I am talking about. But it does not seem to be the concept that you are appealing to here.
And even then, this dynamical story does not touch the story of the codes themselves. You still have to have all this hierarchical dynamics and also the something else.
apeiron said:So the answer is no, you cannot even answer Bohm2's query about pilot waves and telepathy?
PhizzicsPhan said:apeiron, you may have noticed I asked bohm2 to elaborate on his question. Regardless, you've completely glossed over the meat of my ideas, which I provided at your request, choosing instead to nitpick at peripheral issues. Why don't you address the core concepts instead and dispense with the snarkiness?
Gold Barz said:Apeiron, would you agree to this statement made by Rosen, "mind is to brain as life is to organism"?
apeiron said:The point of his question seemed completely obvious, but I expanded it for you anyway. So this is now just further evasion. If you want to consider it now my question, then I'm fine with that.
As to nitpicking, I don't see how the question of how events have both a material and experiential aspect is so trivial.
You have only asserted that this is a fact, not given any reason to believe it is a fact.
If you had a model of the causes that said why it should be so, then that would be an argument whose logic could be examined.
If you had data which suggested that fundamental events have minds, then at least this would create an interest in looking for such a causal link.
Your assertion that electrons are making choices rather than behaving probablistically is just that - an assertion again unsupported either by theory or data.
You complain about my tone but you keep talking like a crank. I'm happy to discuss panpsychism because nothing should be ruled out without being fully examined. But as soon as we get into the detail of data and theory, you just make ungrounded assertions and get all huffy and abusive.
You also have not replied on the solid/liquid/gas remark. Was this an honest mistake on your part, or are you still really saying there are no readily apparent macro-distinctions when it comes to phase transitions?
apeiron said:But isn't the complete quote: "because both are examples of organisational complexity"?
bohm2 said:Here’s Chomsky’s argument on this topic. He is basically arguing that trying to delineate such boundaries of living/non-living or mental/non-mental is on par with delineating the boundary of the “chemical”/non-chemical, "electrical”/non-electrical, etc. From a naturalistic perspective, it’s pointless:
I will be using the terms "mind" and "mental" here with no metaphysical import. Thus I understand "mental" to be on a par with "chemical", "optical", or "electrical". Certain phenomena, events, processes and states are informally called "chemical" etc., but no metaphysical divide is suggested thereby. The terms are used to select certain aspects of the world as a focus of inquiry. We do not seek to determine the true criterion of the chemical, or the mark of the electrical, or the boundaries of the optical. I will use "mental" the same way, with something like ordinary coverage, but no deeper implications. By "mind" I just mean the mental aspects of the world, with no more interest in sharpening the boundaries or finding a criterion than in other cases.
...It is not that ordinary discourse fails to talk about the world, or that the particulars it describes do not exist, or that the accounts are too imprecise. Rather, the categories used and principles invoked need not have even loose counterparts in naturalistic inquiry. That is true even of the parts of ordinary discourse that have a quasi-naturalistic cast. How people decide whether something is water or tea is of no concern to chemistry. It is no necessary task of biochemistry to decide at what point in the transition from simple gases to bacteria we find the "essence of life", and if some such categorization were imposed, the correspondence to common sense notions would matter no more than for the heavens, or energy, or solid. Whether ordinary usage would consider viruses "alive" is of no interest to biologists, who will categorize as they choose in terms of genes and conditions under which they function. We cannot invoke ordinary usage to judge whether Francois Jacob is correct in telling us that "for the biologist, the living begins only with what was able to constitute a genetic program", though "for the chemist, in contrast, it is somewhat arbitrary to make a demarcation where there can only be continuity"
http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/old/class_text_095.pdf
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/mikhail/documents/Noam_Chomsky_Biolinguistic_Explorations.pdf
PhizzicsPhan said:"If you had a model..." Did you even read what I wrote?
PhizzicsPhan said:As for the water/ice/vapor issue, I guess I'll have to elaborate what I thought was a pretty basic point.
PhizzicsPhan said:Consciousness is entirely different because we are not talking about relational properties of the outsides of various substances. We are talking about insides, experience, consciousness, phenomena, qualia, and all the other terms we can use for mind or subjectivity.
apeiron said:You said: "Last, a "fundamental seamlessness" and "very distinct transition" are entirely contradictory." I said: "Would you make the same argument about the phase transitions of water from ice to liquid to vapour?"
So it is plain your assertion that there cannot be both continuity and distinct transitions is wrong. As you say, it is all just H2O molecules (continuity), but then very different macro-states (which we describe qualitatively as solid, liquid, gas)...Should we then impute some interior aspect to these parts that know how to assemble in a fashion that meets the global constraint? Or rather, should we just accept that this is the real world and constraints also exist as the proper causes of things?
And when we start talking instead about whole cells, or even whole brains, well if you are going to make claims based on your reductionist concept of emergence...
Deal first with something half-imaginable as "mere computational emergence" like a moderate sized molecule.
bohm2 said:It should be noted that the molecule-water example, commonly used, is not a very telling one. We also cannot conceive of a liquid turnng into two gas by electrolysis, and there is no intuitive sense in which the properties of water, bases, and acids inhere in Hydrogen or Oxygen or other atoms.
apeiron said:A reductionist will try to argue that it is all about the molecular bonds. Well, at least they might remember that as the clinching idea presented to them in school chemistry class. But the significance of the bonds is that they are a constant that does not change. Every H2O molecule is identical in its inter-molecular attraction (given a normal range of temperature ad pressure).
So to squeeze liquidity or any other form of difference out of the something which does not change is of course going to seem paradoxical. There is just no liquidity (or gassiness, or solidity) intrinsic in the bonds as a further property. The bonds alone offer no account of the dynamics. And can't do.
Think about this. What if the inter-molecular bonds were in fact all much weaker, or much stronger? This alone would make no difference to whether a collection of molecules were liquid or solid or gas. It would determine nothing new. The story would still come down an emergent balance of local temperature and global pressure.
Pythagorean said:I'm not saying the symbol side is "fake" by any means. But symbols are arbitrary. An 'a' does exist, but it has no meaning alone, and it's place is no better or worse served by a 'b'. But, you can't have an alphabet of just 'a' so there is something meaningful about how the symbols exist, but it's not their labels (i.e. it's not the symbol itself).
bohm2 said:What about this reductionist argument:
Where there is discontinuity in microscopic behavior associated with precisely specifiable macroscopic parameters, emergent properties of the system are clearly implicated, unless we can get an equally elegant resulting theory by complicating the dispositional structure of the already accepted inventory of basic properties. Sydney Shoemaker has contended that such hidden-micro-dispositions theories are indeed always available. Assuming sharply discontinuous patterns of effects within complex systems, we could conclude that the microphysical entities have otherwise latent dispositions towards effects within macroscopically complex contexts alongside the dispositions which are continuously manifested in (nearly) all contexts. The observed difference would be a result of the manifestation of these latent dispositions.
So I'm guessing a reductionist can claim that we lack these "latent dispositions" because we don't have a complete physical theory, yet?
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/
This is an interesting point. That sounds like an "intrinsicality" argument since anything can be a symbol. What determines what is a symbol comes from the subject. That seems like an argument against symbolic or semiotic function?
bohm2 said:So I'm guessing a reductionist can claim that we lack these "latent dispositions" because we don't have a complete physical theory, yet?
bohm2 said:This is an interesting point. That sounds like an "intrinsicality" argument since anything can be a symbol. What determines what is a symbol comes from the subject. That seems like an argument against symbolic or semiotic function?
apeiron said:The reductionist of course wants the parts to be as simple as possible. Really, it is hard to explain why there should be anything rather than a nothing. But to be fundamental, a part should at least have as few properties as decently possible. Every new property is an addition to a growing collection. It seems troublesome that a part could both have many properties, and also that some of these are subtle enough to be hidden until some kind of complexity harnesses them and brings them to the fore.
apeiron said:No, rather it is the basis of semiosis and the epistemic cut. The whole point of symbols is that they are as detached as possible from any physical considerations. Rate independent information needs to be separate from rate dependent dynamics for there to be a semiotic relation between syntax (the realm of symbols) and semantics (the real world they refer to).
apeiron said:So latently, anything is possible. But due to downwards acting constraints, this freedom becomes increasingly constrained. Parts become ever more definite and particular as complexity or global organisation increases.
bohm2 said:Some reductionists argue that, in fact, it is quite possible, in physics, to have a fundamentally important new property, completely different from any that had been contemplated hithero, hidden unobserved in the behaviour of ordinary matter. Although not the best example, one can argue that general relativistic effects "would have totally escaped attention had that attention been confined to the study of the behaviour of tiny particles." (Penrose).
bohm2 said:The internalist denies an assumption common to all of the approaches above: the assumption that in giving the content of an expression, we are primarily specifying something about that expression's relation to things in the world which that expression might be used to say things about.
apeiron said:This was phizzicsphan's argument - hidden microproperties are always conceivable. A reductionist is free to make any claim. But why would we take such a claim seriously unless there is a theory and data to show this to be so..
bohm2 said:Would the semiotic approach predicted QM via a different approach?
1. The first handicap is that biosemiotics is wrongly perceived as a philosophy rather than a science, and in particular as a view that promotes physiosemiotics, pansemiotics, panpsychism and the like. Here, the only solution is to remind people that biosemiotics is a science because it is committed to exploring the world with testable models, like any other scientific discipline.
2. The second handicap is that biosemiotics appears to be only a different way of looking at the known facts of biology, not a science that brings new facts to light. It is not regarded capable of making predictions and having an experimental field of its own, and to many people all this means irrelevance. Here the only solution is to keep reminding people that the experimental field of biosemiotics is the study of organic codes and signs, that biosemiotics did predict their existence and continues to make predictions, that codes and signs exist at all levels of organization and that the great steps of macroevolution are associated with the appearance of new codes. This is what biosemiotics is really about.
3. The third handicap is the fact that biosemiotics, despite being a small field of research, is split into different schools, which gives the impression that it has no unifying principle. Here we can only point out that a first step towards unification has already been taken and that the conditions for a second, decisive, step already exist. When biosemioticians finally accept that the models of semiosis must be testable, they will also acknowledge the existence of all types of semiosis that are documented by the experimental evidence and that is all that is required to overcome the divisions of the past. At that point, the old divides will no longer make sense and most schools will find it natural to converge into a unified framework.
apeiron said:Well, it does predict reality is fundamentally indeterminate (vague) and requires constraints (measurement) to make the local crisp (collapse). So in fact yes, it always argued against simple atomism.?
apeiron said:I don't call this a weakness. Do you?
bohm2 said:So I'm guessing it doesn't much favour the Everett or Bohmian interpretations of QM.
bohm2 said:What is interesting is attempts by Barbieri's group to form a synthesis with biolinguistics and with linguists like Chomsky (see link below) given Chomsky's nativism and premise that syntax determines meaning. This is inconsistent with "the pragmatic context" which determines meaning for systems view.
apeiron said:Having read his papers, my main reaction is not that he is wrong (and others right) but he over complicates the analysis whereas others (principally Pattee and Salthe) are seeking to strip things down to their barest bones. And these two are also seeking the pan- view where semiosis is described with such generality it can be appreciated as a universal process (as Peirce envisaged).