David Nyman wrote: > On Jun 19, 12:31 pm, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our >> everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from >> virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly? >> (Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction) > > Please, spare me the physico-mathematical imperialism! You say > "interaction is in terms of fields'". I think what you might claim > more modestly is something like "there is a mathematical formalism in > which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'". Fair enough. But > implicitly the formalism is a projection from (and reference to) a > *participatory* actuality which isn't simply 'mathematical' (pace > Bruno - and anyway, not in the sense he deploys it for the purposes of > COMP). And I'm not of course imputing 'sensing' to the formalism, but > to the 'de-formalised participants' from which it is projected. > > 'Participatory' here means that you must situate yourself at the point > of reference of your formalism, and intuit that 'thou-art-that' from > which the projection originates. If you do this, does the term > 'sensing' still seem so 'soft'? The formalisms are projections from > the participatory semantics of a 'modulated continuum' that embraces > you, me and everything we know. When you situate yourself here, do > you really not 'get' the intuitive self-relation between continuum and > modulation? Even when you know that Russell's 1-person world - an > 'emergent' from this - indeed self-relates in both sense and action? > If not, then as Colin is arguing, you'd have to erect a sign with > 'then magic happens' between 'emergent' and 'reductive' accounts.
Sounds like the sign is already up and it reads, "Participatorily intuit the magic of the de-formalized ding an sich." > >> Sensing to me implies some >> form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort >> of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up >> a hydrogen molecule for instance. > > Same illustration. 'Hydrogen atoms' are again just projective > formalisms to which of course nobody would impute 'agency'. But > situate yourself where I suggest, and intuit the actions of any 'de- > formalised participants' referenced by the term 'hydrogen atoms' that > are implicated in Russell's 1-person world. From this perspective, > any 'agency' that Russell displays is indeed inherent in such lower- > level 'entities' in 'reduced' form. This is a perfectly standard > aspect of any 'reductive-emergent' scheme. For some reason you seem > prepared to grant it in a 3-person account, but not in a participatory > one. > > The customary 'liquidity' and 'life' counter-arguments are simply > misconceived here, because these attributions emerge from, and hence > are applicable to, formal descriptions, independent of their 'de- > formalised' participatory referents. But you can't apply the > semantics of 'sensing' and 'agency' in the same way, because these are > ineluctably participatory, and are coherent only when intuited as such > 'all the way down' (e.g. as attributes of 1-person worlds and the > participatory 'sense-action' hierarchies on which they supervene). So a hydrogen atom has a 1st-person world view, but this is more than it's physical interactions (which are merely part of it's formal description)? Maybe so - but my intuition doesn't tell me anything about it. Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
