Thanks, Jerry,
That passage from Proust epitomizes for me one of the most
distinctive features of the inquiry process, the fact that
its object is a state of information that the inquisiturus,
the agent of inquiry, may never have known before.
I have thought of inquiry and intelligence in terms of cybernetic
or system-theoretic processes ever since my first encounters with
the works of Arbib, Ashby, Bateson, McCulloch, Weiner, Young, and
others during my undergrad years. In the early 90s I returned to
grad school in a Systems Engineering program with the idea that I
might be able to string together many loose threads of unfinished
business that continued to tug at my brain. Here's a bit I wrote
at the outset of that project, that comes to mind in this context:
Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems : Architecture of Inquiry
http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Prospects_for_Inquiry_Driven_Systems#Architecture_of_Inquiry
<QUOTE>
It is important to remember that knowledge is a different sort of goal from the run-of-the-mill setpoints that a system
might have. The typical goal is a state that a system has actually experienced many times before, like normal body
temperature for a human being. But a particular state of knowledge that an intelligent system moves toward may be a
state it has never been through before. The fundamental equivocation on this point expressed in Plato's Meno, whether
learning is functionally equivalent to remembering, was discussed above. In spite of this quibble, it still seems
necessary to regard states of knowledge as a distinctive class. The reasons for this may lie in the fact that a useful
definition of inquiry for human beings necessarily involves a whole community of inquiry.
</QUOTE>
Regards,
Jon
On 4/28/2017 10:24 AM, Jerry Rhee wrote:
Great quote!
Thanks Jon, Tom, list!
J
On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 7:42 AM, Jon Awbrey <jawb...@att.net> wrote:
Tom, List ...
One of my favorite passages in this stream ...
I put down the cup and turn to my mind. It is up to my mind to find the
truth. But how? What grave uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken
by itself; when it, the seeker, is also the obscure country where it must
seek and where all its baggage will be nothing to it. Seek? Not only
that: create. It is face to face with something that does not yet exist
and that only it can accomplish, and bring into its light.
— Proust • In Search of Lost Time • 1.48
http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Inquiry_Driven_Systems
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2013/04/16/the-way-the-cookie-uncrumbles-itself/
Regards,
Jon
--
inquiry into inquiry: https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
academia: https://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
oeiswiki: https://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
