[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[Scott Roberts]

Ian,

> Scott said:
> First, some clarification. Is this a shift in your thinking, that you now
> accept that "aware of" and "perceived" are suitably applied to any
> significant difference? (This is a straight question, that is, I'm not 
> sure
> whether or not you always felt this way, since I don't recall your saying
> so, but may have just forgotten.)

[IG] I trust your sincerity in asking. I don't feel any great shift,
really just a clarification of the language - on both our sides. In
fact the linguistic issue is going to recur here I fear ...

> That is, are you in agreement that value
> implies awareness of value?

[IG] - As you go on to say in your next sentence "another" - I think
this is just a definitional problem with the word "awareness". I agree
it implies "existence of significance" - but we're at a micro scale
here where the "awareness" metaphor is being stretched - it's a very
basic proto-awareness. This is our key difference though - see later.

Scott:
I guess I don't see 'awareness' as a metaphor, in that we make metaphors out 
of what we are aware of, not awareness itself. To me, there is awareness or 
there isn't, like being pregnant. Of course, since the only awareness we are 
aware of is our own, to say that there is awareness in the microcosm 
stretches our understanding of awareness, but that's all. It might be noted, 
though, that the idea that there isn't awareness in the micro scale stems 
from stretching the mechanistic metaphor to nature.

> Another terminological question, which is what
> do you mean be "proto-". I believe it can mean two things, and I want to
> disambiguate. A protozoon is "first life" -- and is living, but a
> "proto-star" is (I think) "not a star but will be". So, in your view, 
> would
> "proto-awareness" be some very simple and originating kind of awareness or
> something that is not aware but (when complexified) becomes aware?

[IG] A very good question, that caused me to think. This is going to
sound like a cop out, but I think this is a definitional problem
again. With proto-zoon, cleary the etymology is "first life", but it's
only first biological (zoological) life. I suspect my working
definition of live - reproducibility - starts a little earlier. So
this is about definition of life. With the star there is an implied
definition of what a "star" is at some point in its life (or the
continuity of some physical life) - it's a bit ontological and well
beyond the "first cause" beginnings of things we're really talking
about.

>
> On to the issue. I deny that one can have significant difference, or
> perceived value, without intellect,

[IG] I appreciate that, That is why I stated (simply) the opposite -
to say - this is our disagreement. We agree on that :-) (But before we
go on, don't forget I qualified my statement at this first-cause point
in proceedings - the first significant difference, not just any one.)

Scott:
Are you distinguishing between differences and significant differences? This 
would mean that the first significant difference would not be the first 
cause, as I understand it.

> and to explain why I refer once again to
> Peirce's distinction between dyads and triads. A dyad is a 2-relation, 
> like
> stimulus and response, or "John saw Mary",

[IG] I have trouble seeing "two" here - it looks like three to me -
but I accept you are explaining the Peircian terms.

Scott:
It is 2 in the sense that 'seeing' relates two objects....

> while a triad is a 3-relation,
> like "John gave the book to Mary"

[IG] Again this looks more like 5 to me (The 2 and 3 views seem to be
giving greater ontological significance to the "objects" involved)

Scott:
... and 'giving' relates 3 objects. So, yes, there is more involved in a 
triadic relation than 3 objects, namely, the relating itself (where's the 
5th, BTW?). And every relation exists in a network of relations. (Also, 
compare the 'giving' triad with "John saw the car crash into the tree". This 
is two dyads, not a triad).

> All semiotic events are triads, which
> involve an interpretant, a representamen, and a referent (an interpretant 
> is
> the cognition of the referent through the representamen). Now the thing 
> is,
> no triad is reducible to dyads, and there are clearly triads, so what are
> dyads? In my view (and this may be going beyond what Peirce says, I'm not
> sure), all dyads are partial observations. We jump off a hot stove
> reflexively, and see it as a dyad. But that is only our view of it, 
> because
> we jump off before we consciously cognize that we are in a dangerous
> situation. However, to the body, this was a triad. The heat of the stove
> makes a signicant difference to the well-being of the body, and so the 
> heat
> is the sign of danger.

[IG] I'll need to come back to the Peircian point you are trying to
make. My main problem with all this is that we are talking macro
events John, Mary, Stove, etc ...

Scott:
An electron absorbing a photon is a dyadic relation. Will that do? And of 
course we can't see triadic relations in the microcosm, since we can't think 
with an electron (assuming there is an electron to be thought with -- that 
is, if somehow we do learn to think with microcosmic events, who knows what 
we would be thinking with -- we don't know what the interpretants are.)

>
> So my argument is that to call a difference significant means one is 
> dealing
> with a triad, or semiosis. To be aware without value is impossible (a MOQ
> postulate, which I agree with).

[IG] And I agree too, but as we know that's because I see a much
simpler idea of "awareness" at the micro level.

Scott:
But the problem is that we can't infer from the objective data available any 
value or awareness at all, no matter how simple, in the microcosm. Or in the 
macrocosm except in ourselves and in higher animals. This is what I was 
arguing with Bo about. *Any* imputation of value in the microcosm is a 
purely metaphysical assumption. So if we are going to talk about value or 
awareness outside  of ourselves then we must resort to something other than 
objective study. See below.

> But there is value only because what one is
> aware of is within some static pattern of value, which is to say, an
> interpreting pattern. By isolating the "what one is aware of" from the
> interpretive nature of the pattern is how one gets dyads. But in fact that
> isolation only exists because we are only thinking *about* the event in
> question. Because of this we are not cognizant of the interpretant. We are
> only cognizant of the interpretant when we think *with* the situation, as 
> we
> do in understanding what someone else is saying. Because we cannot think
> with atomic activity, or with a cat, for that matter, we see only dyads, 
> not
> triads. Which is to say, objective thinking (thinking about) produces 
> dyads,
> while subjective thinking (thinking with) includes interpretants.
>
> Thus my response to what you say is that there is intellect in subatomic
> activity, but we do not know the interpretant involved. So how do we know
> there is intellect? Because triads are not reducible to dyads, and we 
> don't
> like dualism (I don't, anyway). Or because we assume (as the MOQ does, or
> accept as revelation from mystics) that there is value involved, and that
> implies triadic relations, not dyadic.

[IG] As you can tell from the earlier comments - I can't buy that
conclusion yet - you haven't brought my mind along with us yet :-) I
think we're talking about the right subject though.

Scott:
I'm actually not sure it was a good idea on my part to bring in the Peircean 
stuff, since I am aware that "X can't be reduced to (or emerge from) Y" 
arguments are not convincing in themselves. It is more a case of something 
else causing a change of view, and then realizing that it was silly to think 
that X could be built out of Y in the first place. What changed my viewpoint 
was staring at the problem of how a computer could be aware of anything 
larger than a change in a transistor, and realizing that it was space and 
time that prevented that larger awareness from occurring. Realizing that, 
plus being aware of non-locality in quantum physics, plus being aware that 
mystics have long been saying that Ultimate Reality is not 
spatio-temporal -- all three things combined is what "converted" me. Hence I 
see your "not-quite-aware awareness" as being forced. On the one hand, you 
want to include value in your speculations, but don't want to accept 
revelation (what mystics say) as relevant to the question. You still want a 
bottom-up explanation of reality (a spatio-temporal explanation -- the 
simple to the complex in time, by and large), but revelation (at least the 
kind I like) thinks top-down. (I know, I'm imputing things to you that may 
not be the case, so my apologies, and treat those last two sentences as 
questions about your view, not assertions.)

- Scott