Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA13342 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 21 Jun 2000 02:08:56 +0100 From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 11:21:25 +1000 Message-ID: <LPBBICPHCJJBPJGHGMCICENICGAA.ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <200006201918.PAA11206@mail5.lig.bellsouth.net> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Joe E. Dees
> Sent: Wednesday, 21 June 2000 5:22
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
>
>
> From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au>
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
> Date sent: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 18:41:36 +1000
> Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk
> [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > > Of Joe E. Dees
> > > Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2000 8:38
> > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > There IS a sense of 'truth', a feeling 'rightness',
> > > 'correctness' that we
> > > > all have and that feeling is very EITHER/OR, absolute, even
> if it can be
> > > > wrong.
> > > >
> > > Feee-Lings! Ohh, ohh, ohh Feee-Lings! ;~) I thought we were
> > > discussing not what one felt to be true, or wished to be true, or
> > > believed to be true, but what one could logically, rationally and
> > > reasonably maintain to be true, and this requires evidence of some
> > > sort or other beyond one's emotional proclivities (unless what one
> > > is maintaining is not the truth of X, but that one feels X is true).
> > > >
> > >
> >
> > Logic and rationality are not 'feelings free'. Logic and rationality are
> > based on syntax processes linked to the basic feeling of
> correct/incorrect;
> > we do not go past these distinctions, we do not amplify them, we do not
> > exagerate them and so many seem to think that these feelings are not
> > feelings at all but states 'outside' of feelings. They are not.
> What I call
> > secondary thinking acts to take a distinction and exagerate it
> or suppress
> > it, the aim is to bring-out an aspect for closer examination or to
> > de-emphasise a boundary to bring out background. This secondary thinking
> > will lead to a loss in precision in that you move from a single context
> > IS/IS NOT to a multi-context COULD BE where we move into the use of
> > probabilities and fuzzy logic. This may qualitatively seem rich
> ground but
> > it is also more subjective and so approximations biased.
> >
> Despite all of your hebephrenic word salad, given the premises "if A
> then B" and "A is the case", the conclusion "B is the case"
> inevitably follows regardless of how you or anyone else feels about
> it. We establish our preferred premises and preferences through
> emotion-influenced choice, but the efficient, elegant and error-free
> journey from premise to conclusion is by the utilization of logical
> principles, not Loftingian "intuition". Your obfuscatory appeal to
> pseudopsychological "primary" and "secondary" processes may
> complicate, but does not obviate, this simple analysis.
> >
> > You can see this movement from rigid IS/IS NOT to more
> approximate states in
> > the development of logic where the original universe of
> discourse (single
> > context) combined with the use of dichotomisation (A/~A and 1:1 format)
> > gives way to more context sensitive logic, thus propositional
> calculus leads
> > to predicate calculus and then into modal logics and fuzzy
> logic, the latter
> > where we use probabilities but this does not remove the assertion of an
> > absolute truth, since you have moved past that area, you have moved from
> > primary to secondary thinking.
> >
> Look, Chris, the Greimassian semiotic square (having-to-be
> [necessity], having-not-to-be [impossibility], not-having-to-be
> [possibility], not-having-not-to-be [contingency),
I am reviewing the use of this in the semiotics of music (Tarasti gets into
this in (1994)"A Theory of Musical Semiotics" IUP) Using the template
material we can expand this into a compass format (eight points compared to
four) as well as TWO approaches, oppositional (as in the orginal semiotic
square) and cooperational. I run a 'small' list dealing with semiosis
(emergence of meaning) where some of this is/will be expanded upon. Will let
you know how things go!
<snip>
> >
> I refer you to Introducing Semiotics: It's History and Doctrine by
> John Deely for the standard philosophical and semiotic definition of
> abduction, as well as the distinctions between semantics (the
> relations of signs to their signified referents), syntactics (the
> relations between signs in a sign system) and pragmatics (the
> relations of signs to their signifier) within semiotics.
> >
Been there, done that. I relate induction/deduction/abduction directly to
what has been found in the neurosciences/psychology and so what REALLY
happens. At my eisa website I touch on Peirce's method of analysis and how
it resonates with 'in here' methodology other than the error of not
differentiating relational processes into static and dynamic (most 'three'
oriented methods or so due to the fact that they have not recognised the
complexity/chaos processes going on and so the presence of bifurcations.)
Most of the texts I have read on semiotics (old as in Peirce and new as in
Eco etc) dont touch on the neurology/psychology too well since it is only in
the last 10 years of so that we have been able to get a good idea as to what
is happening and so using this data we can refine our models and that
includes semiotics.
> > The area of semantics is the area of SECONDARY thinking (and
> includes the
> > play of the deduction/abduction loop). Secondary thinking
> assumes meaning is
> > present at all times since it assumes that the primary thinking
> process has
> > applied the 'correct/incorrect' dichotomy, the syntax process
> precedes the
> > semantic process. This means that random processes which have nothing
> > 'behind' them, if allowed to 'slip-through' the screening
> process will be
> > given meaning since the assumption of the secondary process is
> that anything
> > that does get through must in some way be meaningful. The emphasise on
> > probability processes ensures that some 'rubbish' WILL get
> through since the
> > process itself is secondary and works with dichotomisations such as
> > meaningless/meaningful which is replaced with a qualitative
> assessment of
> > worthless/priceless -- strongly subjective terms.
> >
> > Genetic diversity alone will allow for a developing bias where semantic
> > processing is seem as primary and that will lead you into such
> concepts as
> > there is meaning 'out there' independent of 'us'
> >
> There is no meaning independent of us, for we impose meaning
> upon the being we perceive,
you are reading me incorrectly, I push the approach that meaning is 'in
here', my above statement was re those who have developed secondary thinking
methods...
<snip>
> >and everything is connected
> > to everything else
> >
> Gravitationally this may be trivially true, but causality is not
> universal (random appearances of electron-positron pairs, Brownian
> motion, radioactive decay), nor is spatiotemporal contiguity.
> >
THis is an interesting point when you get to quantum mechanics where the
entanglement concept would allow for 'random' processes to in fact be the
manifestation of the non-local part of a pair being influenced by something.
Since we cannot see this (the other part being perhaps on the other side of
the universe) all we see is an apparent 'random' event - no detectable
cause.
> >and there are no absolute truths since all is in flux etc
> > etc
> >
> Do you maintain that truth ABSOLUTELY, or deny it
> ABSOLUTELY?
again you read me incorrectly, I was describing the perspective of secondary
thinking...
> >
> > BTW I liked the absolute way you stated that there is no
> absolute truth etc
> > very Popper, but then Popper's thinking starts in secondary space since
> > extreme primary space is 'unscientific' due to it being too
> positive where
> > the concept of negation is not even considered.
> >
> Actually Popperian falsifiability forbids absolute universal POSITIVE
> empirical truth-claims, NOT NEGATIVE ones.
you miss the point, the emphasis is on negation and that is sourced in
secondary thinking. Primary space is too positive and that is what Popper
forbids, the total act of faith :-)
Fundamentalist faith falls into the area of positive truth claims and this
behaviour is linkable to specific persona types. It is interesting that
areas in physics and computer science, all secular fundamentalisms often
attract religious fundamentalists.
BTW Popper's 1-2-3 worlds maps to template concepts and Popper pointed out
that the closest person to his work was that of Charles Peirce.
best,
Chris.
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