Edwina, Jon A., Clark, list, The issues of mapping a continuous world to a small finite vocabulary imply that (1) there is always some residual error in anything we say about the world, and (2) there is an open- ended variety of ways of talking about the same phenomena from different points of view and for different purposes.
ET
I don't think that you can reduce the differentiation and subsequent networking of these differences that is the basis of complexity---- to vagueness.
I chose the word 'vague' because I was thinking of Peirce's point:
It is easy to speak with precision upon a general theme. Only, one must commonly surrender all ambition to be certain. It is equally easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague. It is not so difficult to be pretty precise and fairly certain at once about a very narrow subject. (CP 4.237)
ET
the development of differentiation of Form, which implies boundaries to that Form, and a severance of This from That, and thus enables Secondness, is a reality in our universe.
Yes, but those forms, which determine the types we express in our languages (natural and artificial) are of the same nature as laws of science: To the extent that they enable us to make reliable predictions, they express something real. But like anything in science, they can be "pretty precise and fairly certain at once about a very narrow subject." JA
we do not take the whole actual universe U as our starting point, but begin by constructing concrete examples of systems
CG
We simplify both because we have to in order to reason about these things, but also because our simplifications work most of the time.
Yes. Jon's "concrete examples" are sometimes called mental models, which represent some aspects of the world as we interpret it. They also correspond to Peirce's diagrams, which we can make as precise as we please in order to talk about them with mathematical precision. But "one must commonly surrender all ambition to be certain" that they are true of the real world. CG
I’d more put it that biological descriptions typically aren’t reducible to chemistry or physics... attempting to make the reduction... did perhaps help in getting biologists to think more carefully about the type of descriptions they make.
You could say the same about "reducing" meteorology to computational physics. Weather predictions today are far more reliable than they were 50 years ago. But it's good to have an alternate date when you're planning a picnic. John
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