> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Marco
> Sent: Sunday, 4 February 2001 4:23
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: MD Language and reality
>
>
> MARCO TO ANDREA ON LANGUAGE AND REALITY
>
>
>
> Dear Andrea,
>
> given that we agree that language is part of reality, and that the
> language/reality dualism is a sort of fiction, I will focus on this
> point. What is this fictitious game good for? Is it always necessary?
>
>
>
> On 1 Febbraio 2001 Andrea Sosio wrote:
>
>
> > If I think of the way language is actually *used* by human
> > beings, I find that every sentence has a role in the interaction
> > between human beings. This is the quintessential nature
> > and purpose of language.
>
> Yes. Language is primarily a social pattern.
mathematics is also language but it is written biased more so than words etc
>
> [...]
>
> > In retrospect, why should we care about language being
> > precise? I don't think we should. I think we should consider
> > language as a part of reality, as you say, and even forget the
> > distinction between language and reality.
>
> > That would be true if you used language as a purely
> > social tool, as they probably do in some cultures around the
> > world. But as it comes, western thought (the one that gave birth
> > to positivism, among other things), have taught us to use it
> > as an intellectual tool to discuss and investigate about
> > what life is, what the world is, as you do in metaphysics.
>
> Yes. Many here stated that language is the *DNA* of intellect: a social
> tool, able to support the intellectual basic information. Intellectual
> patterns are *made of* language, just like biological patterns are *made
> of* inorganic DNA.
There is a pattern that is general across all communications where the focus
is on the particular/general dichotomy. At the molecular level in humans the
'gene' is spread diffusely throughout a DNA strand. This allows for easy
'variations on a theme' encoding where the cut'n'paste that takes place to
create a gene in mRNA format, continguous and so concentrated, can
cut'n'paste variations easily. In bacterial DNA the gene is contiguous in
storage and so not efficent enough to allow for variations.
Jump up to the language level in humans and the same general pattern is
revealled, IOW evolution works along the GENERAL lines of 'if you are on to
a good thing, stick to it!'
Underneath this conscious level of language is an unconscious level where
expression is limited to making object/relationships distinctions IOW the
SAME pattern as in RNA/DNA processing where object emphasis reflects an
enclosed expression (gene, noun etc) and relationship emphasis reflects
linkage between objects, more of a field emphasis (dynamics, verbs bias).
Nominalisation is an example of relationship-to-object (verb-to-noun)
conversation where a doing (e.g. a person fathering) becomes a being (a
father).
>
> [...]
> > If you state that the gap between language and reality does
> > not exist, that this is a false duality, to that I agree in general.
> > This means that your reality *is* your language.
>
> hmmm... actually I state simply that language is part of (my???)
> reality, not reality itself. Let me try a small example: my house is
> made of bricks, but my house is not simply bricks. Language is the
> social brick we use in order to build intellect. But my intellect is not
> simply language: It uses the social language as support. Language is a
> necessary condition for intellect, but not sufficient.
>
intellect existed before spoken word; the word enables precision, the 'dot'
but can fail when it deals with patterns where you need a more relational
emphasis (field of dots). Out of the oscillation of the two comes 'meaning'.
> > But I also think that when you begin talking metaphysics, you
> > "pretend" not to believe this, or you're not in the game.
>
> Well, it depends a lot on the purpose... You see, this *game*, the game
> of S/O Logic, has produced good results. All our western culture and our
> scientific advancements are based upon this game. S/O Logic is a
> perfect tool in order to investigate and dominate a part of reality.
LOCAL reality. Since vision plays a STRONG role in information processing so
the tools of vision seem to have been abstracted to general information
processing. This means that the fovea/parafovea distinction of the eye are
expressed as LOCAL, detail emphasis (fovea) and peripheral, NON-local
emphasis (parafovea).
As you try to move away from the LOCAL so you lose details, you can see
patterns but the details are 'fuzzy'.
Add-in audition and the local is even more pronounced in that audition is
better at precision than vision (as well as being available 24 hours, just
needs an atmosphere)
The price for all of this is a 'problem' in trying to clearly identify the
non-local.
The
> scientific method is perfect to control the inorganic and biologic
> levels. We can build houses and bridges and computers; we can cure
> cancer and even create new forms of life.
>
> So I agree that if I want to be scientific I must pretend to investigate
> a separated reality.
>
> > Unless you think that the purpose of metaphysics is that
> > of "creating a better language",
> [...]
> > Agreed. Really, agreed. But can we really play this game? Are we
> > playing it? Is this the game of MOQ discussion?
> [...]
> > Perhaps, we can weaken the rules of the
> > game and progress somehow within the fiction of
> > language/reality dualism, and then, when we are to sum
> > up, add this fundamental piece again: remember
> > that we were just pretending to be approximating truth; we
> > have always been just building a better truth, where better
> > is only defined by our immediate perception of value and
> > by *no other means*.
> >
>
> Wise words. I strongly agree that it's important to remember that by
> this pretension I'm forcing the situation. One problem is that too many
> don't remember.
>
> But IMO it's not enough. What about the investigation of the social and
> intellectual levels? They also are part of reality but is this *Logic*
> game a good game on this ground? Can logic successfully investigate
> emotions? Can logic successfully investigate happiness? Can logic
> successfully investigate art? Can logic successfully investigate itself?
>
Logic only works WITHIN the local. Thus all disciplines have 'logic' but you
have to get into the discipline to appreciate it; from the outside a
discipline can seem very 'illogical'. Thus you need to move to a COGNITIVE
perspective. This shifts focus from the particular to the general and so
from the individual/culture to the SPECIES.
The 'problem' is the LOSS in precision where all we deal with at the species
level are 'objects' and 'relationships', dots and fields. It is the
particularisation of these distinctions through the use of metaphor that
allow is to be more 'precise' in expression but in doing so we can get lost
:-)
So we oscillate between the 'extremes' and in doing so create dynamic
processes that emerge from the 'middle' of the particular/general
dichotomy... this leads to the entanglement of the elements of the dichotomy
and so ... evolution.
> Yes, the purpose of intellect is to investigate reality. All reality.
> Language is the tool, but I've an enlarged concept of what's a language.
> A language is generally the code by which we share socially the result
> of our investigations.
>
> Take art, for example. Drama. It's a language. IMO it's a better way to
> investigate and communicate realities like emotions, justice, happiness,
> sense of Quality.
see http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/onemany.html Uses a particular
example of Drama theory from the software Dramatica...
Drama allows for resonance, empathy, easier than say a book on neurology.
IOW there is a loss in the precision of the 'dots' in favours of the
expression of the patterns in the field. IN studies on emotion for example
there is the recognition of the 'interdigitation' of the elements of the
fight/flight dichotomy across the amygdala. But include neurochemistry and
so RELATIONAL aspects and the 1010101 oscillation is too 'dot' level, step
back a bit, include immediate neurochemical relational processes and
PATTERNS can emerge. It is like the warp/weft of a carpet, combined they
create expression in the form of 'quality' patterns not seeable at the
'coalface' (like photographs).
In your fictitious *game* can you explain
> *objectively* what is pain? Oh, yes, many physiologists surely will
> offer dozens of *interpretations* of this phenomenon. They will explain
> how many hormones are involved in the process, how they interact with
> brain's cells. Then you watch a movie, like Schindler's List, or Life is
> Beautiful, and if you abandon your self for a moment you feel pain. Of
> course, a fictitious pain. But isn't fictitious the scientific pain as
> explained by physiology?
>
> Both fictitious pains have an intellectual value. The scientific one is
> good to create medicines for depression, ache. The artistic one can be
> good to create a *social medicine* against, for example, violence and
> racism. Ethics can't be merely logic.
>
> Here comes my caution about mysticism: in a SOMish context, all what's
> mysterious and out of a scientific/logic domain is mystic. The swindle
> is that to consider logic and rationality almost the same thing. In a
> MOQish view, we can find a good rational explanation of many mystic
> (non-logic) phenomena.
>
Go cognitive and all mysticism is shown to be metaphor for
object/relationship distinctions as is all maths etc.
Within PARTICULAR mystic disciplines you will find 'logic' since 'IF P THEN
Q' could not care less what P and Q are; that is why logic is limited to
local considerations. This is due to all disciplines having some heuristics
involved where 'traditional' perspectives are maintained and so allowing for
external perceptions to deem a particular discipline 'illogical'. Logic
works INSIDE the discipline. Cognitive analysis is needed to cover all
disciplines, to find the common ground.
> Take for example the moments in which you are alone, on the top of a
> mountain, laying down on the ground , looking at the blue sky. You feel
> you are in connection with nature, with the world, with everything. And
> you feel good.
>
> Moment 0 (The Quality event). The dynamic experience.
>
Peirce's FIRSTNESS IN FIRSTNESS concept. VERY LOCAL, very NOW.
> Moment 1 (The SOLish attempt) Then, when you try in the first moment to
> rationalize it on the usual S/O Logic basis, this sense of good is an
> enigma. A rational SOL-based view can't understand what there's of
> good. No food. No money to gain. No women to conquer. No football
> matches to watch. S/O Logic tends to classify everything, and classifies
> this moment as a mystic enigma. Many people stop here in the moment 1,
> stand up and walk away with their enigma. When they go back home, the
> SOL view makes them forget all.
>
SECONDNESS IN FIRSTNESS where comparisons are made, you move 'out' of the
moment. This is the step of using analogy to try and describe the moment in
terms associated with somethingelse.
Zen, Taoism etc try to favour staying with the moment and as such are more
local in perspectives.
THIRDNESS in FIRSTNESS is the making of a hypothesis about multiple
experiences, where all of the energy in each experience becomes equally
distributed into a 'field' where that 'field' is then presented as a 'copy'
of reality.
Here we move from FIRSTNESS as context to SECONDNESS as context where the
hypothesis replaces the 'reality' and we compare hypothesis (general) to
reality using the abduction/deduction dichotomy.
Our focus has thus shifted for 'reality' to our model/hypothesis. Next level
is that of THIRDNESS as context where the hypothesis/model develops into a
HABIT and that acts to colour all perceptions when we move 'back' to
firstness again.
> Moment 2 (The Q re-mapping) But if you change your point of view, away
> from what you are losing to what you are gaining, everything becomes
> rationally clear. It's not an enigma. There's nothing mystic. In the
> same moment in which you lose food, money, women and football, you gain
> the freedom from every social connection. And the freedom from the need
> of a SOL view. You don't need anymore a strong representation of your
> SELF in opposition to the rest of the world. You RATIONALLY UNDERSTAND
> you are part of the rest of the world, and you RATIONALLY UNDERSTAND
> that the SOL is limited by its need to classify everything in order to
> control it. You realize that SOL is very useful in a q-social context,
> but it's not enough to explain Quality. At the contrary, the Q-idea
> comes later, and it's able to explain the SOL. You can go back home with
> a new awareness of everything. Finally, if you are an artist, you will
> be able to express that moment and share it with the others.
>
> So, we have enlarged the rules of the game. An enlarged language for a
> wider range of reality to investigate. And here is the evidence that
> language can't be separated by reality, and it's not merely a static
> tool. Firstly, it comes from the dynamic encounter with reality, when
> you feel you are not separated by reality. Secondly, as it is primarily
> a social tool, active within the social environment, it changes people.
> And if man is the measure of things.....
>
> >
> > Art is of course an interesting issue. The artist expresses
> > static quality.
>
> I don't know exactly what you mean here.... I've had an infinite
> discussion (with Roger, Platt, Danila, Elephant and others) about art
> and intellect last November / December on this forum. In the end, we
> reached the conclusion that art (as High Quality Endeavor) and science
> share the same purpose.
Dont think so. Science aims to solve problems by identifying algorithms and
formulas and as such is more concerned with what is BEHIND expression and so
the identification of SAMENESS behind DIFFERENCE. Art favours expression and
so uniqueness to start with. Once you develop a style (Which ideally you
should NOT :-)) so you shift to 'mimicry' but at all times trying to
maintain your uniqueness.
The artist 'goes' for the rainbow, the colours, sounds etc of the moment.
The Scientist 'goes' for the rules and regulations BEHIND the expression.
Thus an emphasis more on prediction and so problem solving rather than the
artists preference for sensation and 'unique' expression (difference).
As the artist matures so they may 'relax' the difference emphasis and 'milk'
a style. As the scientist matures so they may 'relax' the sameness emphasis.
Thus scientist and artist head for each other but still maintain the
underlying biases, art to expression, science to what is behind it.
>From a psychological perspective, science stems from fear emerging from
sensation seeking.
Investigate and communicate reality. Of course
> there are differences in methods, but this is secondary. The important
> thing is that even scientists are artists. They have intuitions and then
> they use a method in order to refine their job and share the results. Of
> course on a different ground. Usually the artists give an holistic
> representation of reality while scientists offer an analytic
> representation.
>
Only locally. The scientist is more into connecting the dots in the long
term and that leads to 'emergence'. Art cannot find a cure for cancer since
it deals too much with expression. Science fails in the realm of the
aesthetics since it can be too 'dot' oriented -- although complexity/chaos
work seems to unite the two :-)
best,
Chris.
------------------
Chris Lofting
websites:
http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
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