Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA23179 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 22 Jun 2000 02:51:02 +0100 From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 12:05:25 +1000 Message-ID: <LPBBICPHCJJBPJGHGMCIAEOFCGAA.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) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <200006220020.UAA23235@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> 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: Thursday, 22 June 2000 10:25
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - more on truth
>
>
<snip>
> Peirce recognised that to get into the quadrivium of
> arithmetic, geometry,
> > astronomy, and music you had to first work your way through
> three 'lesser'
> > disciplines, grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
> >
> > These lesser disciplines are for Peirce the three threads of
> the Science of
> > Semiotic where grammar = firstness, logic = secondness and rhetoric =
> > thirdness.
> >
> Firstness is object, secondness is subject, thirdness is sign.
Peirce makes the point that:
"A Sign, or Representaman, is a First which stands in such a genuine triadic
relation to a Second , called its object, as to be capable of determining a
Third, called its interpretant..."
Firstness has a degree of single context about it as well as a 'realtime'
presence. Secondness and thirdness etc take us into harmonics analysis where
we 'cut' the first out from 'reality' and create an internal mapping for
analysis. The interpretant is 'in here', the copy of the first, as Peirce
comments:
"A sign, or representamen, is something that stands to somebody for
something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is,
creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more
developed sign [Peirce's acknowledgement of internal feedback processes i.e.
memories, that can add more to a sign than is 'there']. That sign which it
creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for
something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but
in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the *ground*
of the representamen. "Idea" is here to be understood in a sort of Platonic
sense..."p99 Buchler, J. (Ed) (1955) "Philosophical Writings of Peirce"
Dover
On the same page Peirce emphasises that the "Science of semiotic has three
branches...the first.. we call pure grammar...the second is logic proper
[secondness works using analogy, it is dyadic this compared to that aka NOT
this]...the third...I call pure rhetoric.."p99
In this sense there is a continuum present that is divided into three,
firstness = syntax, secondness = emergence of meaning, semantics (use of
analogy, this from that) and thirdness = pragmatics that is tied to rhetoric
and so qualitative discernment.
> >
> > The last distinction does take us into preliminary dynamics that get
> > expanded as you work further up the hierarchy (at least the
> three tiers ).
> >
> > >From the template area the structural emphasis is very
> archetypal in form,
> > in the I Ching it is called the Fu Hsi sequence with a rigid
> structure using
> > binary trees. Upon these foundations are layered the 'King Wen' sequence
> > were the emphasis is on dynamics and a definite start-end distinction.
> >
> > I have linked Greimas's semiotic square to the Fu Hsi sequence
> emphasising
> > the structural basis and am now expanding this into dynamics
> and the King
> > Wen sequence (there are 8 trigrams that form a compass pattern
> and we get
> > two compasses, the relational overlayed on the structural.)
> >
> Any one of these a priori and mythically influenced classificatory
> systems, be it astrology, Native American earth astrology, tarot,
> runes, qabbalistic tree of life, the enneagram, or the i ching, I take
> with a sack of salt.
then you totally misunderstand what is going on. These systems are metaphors
and they all 'map' to the template I present, a template that also
'contains' our categories of types of mathematics number representations. My
websites, my interest, is the acceptance of these systems by people, how
they find value in them. Read my 'general' essay "The Logic of the Esoteric"
at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/esoter.html
The problems come when these systems are taken literally rather than as
metaphors for the particular description of objects and relationships, where
objects and relationships are the basic units of information the brain works
with.
The fact that you take a sack of salt suggests that you interpret these
systems literally and so reject them, which is fine since they should be
since they are METAPHORS.
<snip>
> >
> Neurological connections in the physical substrate brain are in the
> realm of being, not the realm of meaning. This basic distinction
> cannot be erased or ignored.
Meaning is directly linked to neurotransmitter/neuromodulator processes.
Manipulate neurotransmitter uptake systems and you go from 'god in the head
syndrome' to severe depression (serotonin link) or Parkinson's Disease to
Schizophrenia (dopamine link) etc etc
Neural connectivity INCLUDES neurochemical processes and so there IS a link
to meaning. The neurons themselves are structure and the neurochemistry is
relational processes -- emotions linked and so meaning linked. Neurons are
warp, neurochemistry is weft and the relationships create patterns --
meaning.
<snip>
> > The concepts of free will/determinism can be traced to left
> brained naming
> > processes tied with right brained pattern mappings (link of a
> 'random noise'
> > to a determining pattern) and superdeterminism follows when you change
> > scales (it is tied to the secondary processing concepts in that
> there is the
> > assumption that all is meaningful and so there is no free will at all)
> >
> This is patently false; if everything was determined, there would be
> no room for free will to influence choices, thus neither it nor an
> impotent self-consciousness to direct such a free will could have
> evolved. Without self-consciousness to impose meaning upon
> being, there could be no meaning.
Free-Will = local
Determinism = non-local
Super-Determinism = Free will is determined.
Meaning is more SPECIES level not self level (other than personal meanings
which are meaningless if you cannot communicate them to others).
Consciousness is the recognition of other selves in the form of other MINDS
that share meaning in the form of communications that cause our 'pools' of
emotion to resonate; this is all feedback processing.
As for information processing and the determination of meaning, since all
data is based on invariant object and relationship distinctions so all
possible meanings are pre-defined, they exist even though you may never
experience them.
Free will is the association of some sound etc to a particular pattern but
the pattern is invariant, the object-ness or relationship-ness is fixed as
part of the what/where dichotomy our neurology uses in processing data.
The linking of a pointer to a pattern is 'random', free-will, but the
structure of the pattern is determined in that it is one of the set we have
linked to our method of analysis. The feeling of 'wholeness' is across the
species, the difference is WHAT is determined to be 'a whole'.
> >
> > The local/non-local dichotomy, from a neurological perspective
> maps to the
> > particular/general structure of the neocortex. thus non-local
> will take-on
> > characteristics linked to relational processing in the brain and this
> > includes the everything-is-connected-to-everything-else and so the
> > entanglement issues etc etc and the interpretive differences
> since we have
> > moved from single context local thinking to multi-context non-local
> > thinking.
> >
> This is a failed and futile attempt to psychologize physics. Bell
> won a Nobel for his work precisely because it stands up to rigorous
> analysis, and has little or nothing to do with the mindset of the
> person considering it.
you are missing the point, you are trying to keep physics thinking and psych
thinking at the same levels, they are not. BEHIND the mathematics, the
structure of experiments etc is our METHOD of analysis and this method has
properties that can be confused with what you are investigating. Thus
creating experiments (mind based on 'real') based on dichotomisations will
give you results that manifest properties of the method and so the results
do not necessarily reflect 'out there' but more our attempts to interpret
'out there'. Physics is metaphor just as mathematic is etc etc
That said, from an evolutionary development viewpoint, if we have adapted to
our environment by internalising its characteristics then one of these is
reflected in the methods we use, namely recursive application of 1:many type
dichotomies where the 1 is fixed and the many variable.
The resonance we get when we compare our theories to 'out there' reflects
this in that our theories often seem to 'fit' but the 'fit' is determined by
the method, meaning is always within the context set by the method and so we
can map out all possible meanings without even looking 'out there'.
When Bell did his work it was based on set theory, set theory being a
logico-mathematical tool that uses dichotomisations and one of the
properties of applying a dichotomy recursively and including a fuzzy factor
(indeterminacy) will lead to patterns that suggest wave interference at work
as well as entanglement of the elements of the dichotomy. These are
properties of the METHOD and so you need to be wary; wavyness etc is not
restricted to QM, ANY application of dichotomisations at ANY level will give
you the same type of results.
Most physicists etc have little or no understanding of how we process,
manipulate data, they work within their box. This has been fine in the past
but now things are changing in that we are starting to understand the
structure of our methods and we need to include that data when making our
maps.
best,
Chris.
>
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