Dear Lou and colleagues,
The reasoning is very clear. Thank you. (…) At this point the being has attained linguistic self-reference. The being can say “I am the meta-name of my own naming process.” This nexus or fixed point of self-reference can occur naturally in a being that has sufficient ability to distinguish, name and create. It seems to me that as language arises from interhuman interactions, it takes over as the agent of change. One is called by a name which is then codified by that name. This distinction is important because languages can be further differentiated and codified. Thomas Kuhn, for example, gives the example of “atom” having a meaning codified in some area of physics differently from physical chemistry. While we tend to call you “Lou”, the bureaucracy will call you “Louis”, and your wife may call you with yet another variant. These different names may enable you to enrich your “I”, without loosing a self-reference. I would call this self-reference with the additional degree of freedom for calling itself consciousness. Without consciousness, the name is only a semiotic “actant”. (Perhaps, a dog is a good example.) The issue is important because once constructed, the codes guide the meaning (e.g., “atom”) at the supra-individual level. The control at individual level is only consciousness, including one’s own (idiosyncratic) degree of meta-reflexive freedom. From the perspective of communication, the latter provides the variation; in scholarly discourse, for example, knowledge claims are submitted. In other words, the epistemological grounding is to be found in the “inter” of inter-subjectivity. This goes against our (neo-liberal and enlightenment) intuition that agency grounds existence. The priority of understanding the communication tends to move the order among the sciences to a post-enlightenment one: a sociological epistemology becomes the center with the option to be operationalized in a sociology of scientific communication. The additional degree of freedom in consciousness moreover enables us to participate selectively in the different domains. Latour called this “infra-reflexivity”. The selections shape our identity. The sciences are infra-reflexive to the extent that one can intervene across disciplinary language games; i.e., in other jargon. Best. #Loet In this way, I convince myself that there is nothing special about self-reference. It arises naturally in observing systems. And I convince myself that self-reference is central to an organized and reflective cognition. Even though it is empty to say that “I am the one who says I.” this emptiness becomes though language an organizing center for our explorations of our own world and the worlds of others. The beauty of “I am the one who says I.” is that it is indeed a vacuous reference. Anyone can take it on. The “I” can refer to any observing system sophisticated enough to give it meaning. My example should be expanded into a discussion of the role and creation of meaning in observing systems, but I shall stop here. I am interested in how Soren Brier will react to these, perhaps seen as indirect, remarks on mind and meaning. I take thought and the realm of discrimination as the start of epistemology and I do not regard the immediate apparent objects of our worlds as anything but incredibly decorated entities appearing after a long history of indicative shift. What is their original nature? It is empty. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. The form we take to exist arises from framing nothing. Now, I caution you in replying to please read carefully what I have written here. I will not reply directly to the discussion for another week or so. Best, Lou Kauffman P.S. The indicative shift is precisely the formalism in back of the workings of Goedel’s Theorem. See “Categorical Pairs and the Indicative Shift”, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2048.pdf On Apr 11, 2016, at 11:41 PM, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone <m...@uoregon.edu> wrote: To all colleagues, I hope I may voice a number of concerns that have arisen in the course of the ongoing discussions that are ostensibly about phenomenology and the life sciences. The concerns begin with a non-recognition of what is surely the ground floor of real-life, real-time realities, namely, animation, not in the sense of being alive or in opposition to the inanimate, but in the sense of motion, movement, kinetics. As Aristotle cogently remarked, “Nature is a principle of motion and change. . . . We must therefore see that we understand what motion is; for if it were unknown, nature too would be unknown” (Physics 200b12-14). Through and through--from animate organisms to an ever-changing world-- movement is foundational to understandings of subject and world, and of subject/world relationships, and this whether subject and world are examined phenomenologically or scientifically. In short, movement is at the core of information and meaning, at the core of mind and consciousness, at the core of both gestural and verbal language, at the core of nervous system and organic functionings, at the core of molecular transformations, at the core of ellipses, electrons, gravity, waves, particles, and so on, and further, at the core of time, the concept, measurement, and meaning of time. I enumerate below specifics with respect to what is essentially the foundational dynamic reality. The summary concerns are followed by references that document each concern. If further specifics are wanted or if specific articles are wanted, kindly contact m...@uoregon.edu (1). Instincts and/or feelings motivate animate organisms to move. Without such instincts or feelings there would be no disposition to move. An ‘animate organism’ would in truth be akin to a statue, a statue Condillac described two and a half centuries ago as having first this sense given to it, then that sense given to it, but that, lacking movement, is powerless to gain knowledge of the world. Such a movement deficient creature would furthermore lack the biological capacity of responsivity, a near universal characteristic of life. The startle reflex is a premier example. Can what is evolutionarily given be “illogical”? Clearly, feelings are not “illogical,” but move through animate bodies, moving them to move. Without feelings of curiosity, for example, or awe, or wonder, there would be no exploration of the natural world, no investigations, hence no “information.” Furthermore, without feelings of movement—initially, from an evolutionary perspective, no proprioception, and later, no kinesthesia--there would be no near and far, no weak and strong, no straight and curved, and so on, hence, no determinations of Nature. In short, there would be no information and no meaning. (See Note #1: The Primacy of Movement) (2). An excellent lead-in to scientific understandings of movement and its inherent dynamics lies in the extensive research and writings of J. A. Scott Kelso, Pierre de Fermat Laureate in 2007. Kelso was founder of the Center for Brain and Behavioral Studies and its Director for twenty years. His rigorous multi-dimensional experimental studies are anchored in coordination dynamics, an anchorage that is unconstrained by dogma. The breadth of his knowledge and his sense of open inquiry is apparent in the literature he cites in conjunction with his articles and books. His recent article in Biological Cybernetics that focuses on “Agency” is strikingly relevant to the present FIS discussion. It takes experience into account, specifically in the form of “positive feedback,” which obviously involves kinesthesia in a central way. Moreover his upcoming Opinion piece in Trends in Cognitive Science should be essential reading. (See Note #2: “The Coordination Dynamics of Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement” and The Complementary Nature) (3). As pointed out elsewhere, “Certainly words carry no patented meanings, but the term ‘phenomenology’ does seem stretched beyond its limits when it is used to denote either mere reportorial renderings of perceptible behaviors or actions, or any descriptive rendering at all of perceptible behaviors or actions. At the least, ‘phenomenology’ should be recognized as a very specific mode of epistemological inquiry invariably associated with the name Edmund Husserl. . . . ” Phenomenological inquiries are tethered to a very specific methodology, one as rigorous as that of science. Phenomenological findings are furthermore open to verification by others, precisely as in science. Moreover two forms of phenomenological analysis warrant recognition: static and genetic, the former being a determination of the essential character of the object of inquiry, the second being a determination of how the meaning of that object of inquiry came to be constituted, hence an inquiry into sedimentations of meaning, into protentions and retentions, into horizons of meaning, and so on. Thus too, what warrants recognition is the fact that bracketing is not the beginning and end of phenomenological methodology. On the contrary, bracketing is only the beginning. Phenomenological reduction follows bracketing and allows the essential character of the object of inquiry or the constitution of its meaning to come to light. (See Note #3: Animation: Analyses, Elaborations, and Implications”) (4). References made to Gödel’s theorem to uphold certain theses can be definitively questioned. The claim that Gödel makes on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate. Three articles that demonstrate the inaccuracy, one from a phenomenological perspective, two others from a logical-analytical perspective, warrant clear-headed study. In brief, self-referential statements are vacuous, hence neither true nor false. Moreover the sentences expressing the statements may be used to make two quite different statements, a fact ignored by Gödel.(See Note #4: “Self-Reference and Gödel’s Theorem,” “The Liar Syndrome,” and “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained") (5): Information is commonly understood as factual knowledge, thus empirically sustained and sustainable knowledge. It is thus a matter of the condition or nature or workings, etc., of something out there in the world, including even your liver if that is the source of information. Mathematics has its origin in arithmetic, the latter having its origins in counting things in the world, including if not beginning with one’s fingers, and in shape, including if not beginning with differentiating contours and size, thus with linear and amplitudinal dimensions of things in the world. As I wrote in my last posting, I hope that someone will take up the challenge of doing a phenomenological analysis of information. An inquiry into the relationship of meaning to information and of information to meaning might then be undertaken. That step, to my mind, would provide solid ground for linking informational sciences and phenomenology, linking by way of showing—- demonstrating—complementarities, precisely complementarities in the sense that Bohr and Kelso specify. Note #1: Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 2011. The Primacy of Movement, expanded 2nd ed. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Note #2: Kelso, J. A. Scott and Armin Fuchs. 2016. “The Coordination Dynamics of Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement,” Biological Cybernetics: DOI 10.1007/s00422-015-0676-0. Kelso, J. A. Scott and David A. Engström. 2006. The Complementary Nature. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Book/MIT Press. Note #3: Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 2015. “Animation: Analyses, Elaborations, and Implications,” Husserl Studies, 30/3: 247-268. DOI 10.1007/s10743-014-9156-y Note #4: Johnstone, Albert A. 2002. “Self-Reference and Gödel’s Theorem: A Husserlian Analysis." Husserl Studies, 19: 131-151. Johnstone, Albert A. 2002. “The Liar Syndrome,” SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3/1: 37-55. Johnstone, Albert A. 2002. “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained,” SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3/2: 142-153. 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