I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and don't understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign from its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that framework.
On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 10:18 AM glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > > I find myself confused about what you mean when you say > > they are "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively > > confirmed way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your > > view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a sign > > it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to mind (in > > the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign. > > A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of > this conversation, not any single member of the set. Any one of the 3 > things can be handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple. > I.e. any given referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have > multiple signs; the sign can signify other objects (be part of a different > 3-tuple); and the thing interpreting the sign can interpret other signs. > E.g. > > multiple signs: √ versus x^.5 > multiple referents: > • any x such that x*x=2 > • ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞ > multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC > > The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no > longer have a sign. > > > So let's say we take a paint > > color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words > (along > > with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color experience > they > > have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is essentially universal > > agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that they all have the same > color > > experience? That sounds more empirical than mathematics and should > satisfy > > your requirement for an experimental experience -- although I'm not sure > > what you mean by "experimental experience". > > You keep isolating the machine from its I/O. If they all get "the same" > input and give "the same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the > strength of whatever equivalence is considered. Any variation that is > undetectable is just that... undetectable. Sure, you can _speculate_ on > those undetectable differences... the differences that don't make a > difference. But why? To what purpose? > > We've already talked about hypothesis formulation. So, perhaps the > purpose is to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the > differences undetectable under the old one. But you're not talking that > way. You seem to want to promote speculated constructs up to a > significance that's unwarranted ... to talk about thoughts and feelings as > if they exist, without any similarity measure with which to falsify them. > > -- > ⇔ glen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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