[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[ian glendinning]

Hi Scott .... I'm conscious I've not responded to this yet, due to
time / work pressure on thinking space ....

Initial thoughts ...

Metaphor - I mean it when I (often) say "it's metaphors all the way
down", right down to the micro-first-cause level - but that is of
course from our macro perspective of having an evolved intellect. (I
have a bone to pick with Baggini on that point too - we need to
distinguish live metaphors from dead ones - but that's for another
day) So at the first-cause event there is no metaphor (though we can
only ever have a metaphorical "view" of it). In your Peician model
there is no "interpretant" I guess, no evloved intellect in my model.
So ...

First-cause, Significance ?
(my triplets are not Peircian Tryads)
The first difference looks like this.

<no-thing><difference><some-thing>

I'd call that a triplet, you call it a dyad.
What's in a name ? If this really is "first-cause" then there are no
other resources to add to my argument - no third "object", just this
triplet. So ..

Q1- What is "aware" of that difference ?
A1 - only the triplet itself.

Q2 - What makes this difference "significant" ?
A2 - only the triplet, there is nothing else to need to distinguish it from

Q3 - What does it take to be "aware of this significant difference" ?
A3 - nothing more than the triplet, see A2. Intellect is needed to
evolve pattern recognition skills, etc, only when there are many
difference triplets to distinguish between.

Reality, awareness, triplets (quality), intellect all evolve from
these small beginnings. (You do of course realise I'm being
speculative - as we've both already agreed any metaphysics has a hole
in it at this point, that we can only plug with speculation that is
consistent with the rest of our model.)

How'm I doin'
Ian

On 1/22/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> 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
>
>
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