Kirsti, list, As list moderator and co-manager I try to follow what I consider to be the exemplary notions expressed by the founder and first manager and moderator of peirce-l, Joseph Ransdell, concerning what he considered to be best practices on the list. I may not always be as successful as Joe was in this, but I try to do the best I can. For Joe's remarks, see: HOW THE FORUM WORKS (scroll down a bit):
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/PEIRCE-L/PEIRCE-L.HTM if you are new to the list or have not read them for some time, I highly recommend (re)reading Joe's remarks, something I do myself from time to time. In the current matter I would especially recommend reading these passages (I've inserted a very few of my own comments into these). CAVEAT ABOUT CORRECTING OTHERS ------------------------------ It is expected that criticism will be vigorous and diligently pursued: philosophy is understood here to be essentially a critically directed and self-controlled conversation. But there is one important caveat in this connection: If you feel that some messages being posted are not to the purpose of the list or that there is something someone is doing which should be discouraged, do NOT attempt to rectify that yourself by posting a message to that effect to the list in general. Because there is so little overt or formal moderation by the list manager, it is natural to suppose that the individual members can and should take that role as needed. But this rarely if ever produces the effect intended, regardless of how reasonable it may seem at a particular time. Contact me instead off-list and we will see what can or should be done, if anything, without generating a chain reaction of protests and counter-protests, which are the typical result of attempting to rectify the problem on-list. GR: Following the practice Joe advised here, I was properly contacted by three members of the list who found especially this passage in a message from Kirsti addressed to John problematic: Kirsti had written: "This time, John, I have to say: Wrong, wrong, wrong, You just don't know what you are talking about. - just walking on very thin ice and expecting your fame on other fields with get you through." These remarks were seen by one lister as "denigrating" and by another as "untoward." I agreed and wrote Kirsti off-list. WHY THE LIST MANAGER SHOULD DO THE CORRECTING ------------------------------ Should you contact the person yourself first, off-list, in an attempt to rectify their way of participating rather than bothering me with it? Although you do of course have a right—professional, moral, legal, whatever—to do this, and it may seem best to you, let me urge you to contact me first, nonetheless, unless there is some truly special and urgent reason to the contrary. There are several reasons for this: (1) None of us really knows yet what the most humane and productive communicational mores will turn out to be for communication of this sort: it is continually surprising, and if anything is certain here it is that our initial hunches tend to be unreliable. The list manager is more likely to understand enough about the dynamics of this particular list than anyone else, and has also had enough experience of these things to have learned what is likely to be the most effective response to something problematic. (2) It is the list manager who is ultimately responsible for the list, as regards institutional accountability. Speaking directly to this: I need to have these things under my own control if I am to handle judiciously the problems that can arise in such connections. I am open to advice and counsel at all times and try not to act imperiously. But there is no way that I can effectively delegate my responsibility to the list members, which would be essential if the members were themselves to participate in the management of the list other than as informal advisors in off-list discussion. (3) It is probably because everybody on the list understands (at least unreflectively) that no list members as such have any special right to regulate or moderate the conduct of others as list members that criticisms of one another that suggest directly or indirectly that someone is not of the proper sort to be on the list because of what they post are highly inflammatory and are the cause of most so-called "flame wars". Contrary to what one might think, "flame wars" do NOT begin because people, excited by ideas, sometimes go too far and say things they shouldn't. Errors like this are to be expected in a new discussion medium and they are easily corrected by apology and retraction immediately thereafter. Anybody who participates vigorously in this medium will make errors of judgment like this, and those familiar with the medium do not condemn one another for it. They do expect, though, that those who are at odds with one another in this way be both generous in their tolerance of the other when excess occurs and in their readiness to make verbal amends when excess is imputed to them. *When in doubt, apologize: you are never diminished by it.* GR: Again, I wrote Kirsti of the off-list concerns expressed by several forum members including my own concerns. Her response on-list suggests to me that she was clearly offended by that message. Still, I thought the way I approached it was the correct way to do so. And her apology (reflecting what is emphasized in Joe's comments just above) is certainly appreciated, at very least by me. THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE IN THE PROTECTION OF REPUTATION ------------------------------ Special situations do arise, though, in which someone feels aggrieved at what someone else has said to or about them in the public forum and feels it important to set the record straight in the forum as well, not necessarily out of anger but as a matter of the practical need to exercise self-defense of reputation as regards personal or professional comportment. I will address this more fully and adequately in an appendix below, but it should be understood that not even the list manager has the right to deny to a person the opportunity of rectifying, by speaking in his or her own behalf, what he or she believes to be serious misunderstandings about themselves as persons, private or public, that have been or are being generated in the forum. *This right of personal self-defense must be respected, even when the person seems to be mistaken or to be using poor judgment in pursuing it.* See the appendix in further explanation of the reason for this and for some procedural points and policies that are especially important in this connection. GR: So, Kirsti indeed has every right to defend herself since she clearly feels maligned by me (btw, note that while I Cc'd Ben Udell, list co-manager, my note to Kirsti, he did not himself participate in the writing of it). THE PUBLIC AND THE PERSONAL ------------------------------ If you are new to this discussion medium you may make the common mistake of thinking that a public forum should be impersonal. Not so. In fact, all relationships of persons established here in virtue of becoming a subscriber to the list are necessarily person-to-person relationships. PEIRCE-L is not a community or a group, though it will hopefully function to encourage community relationships. It is simply a place where persons talk to persons in a public setting, and it is normal to address one another personally while speaking in a public place. The personal is not the same as the private. The question is whether the discussion concerns matters that pertain to the purpose of the forum in general, and when that condition is met it is quite in order to pursue special interests in public in list-based discussions of this sort as long as there is nothing exclusive of others in it, either explicitly or in tone. Best, Gary Richmond (writing as list moderator and co-manager) [image: Gary Richmond] *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *C 745* *718 482-5690 <(718)%20482-5690>* On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 3:30 PM, <kirst...@saunalahti.fi> wrote: > Dear John, > > I sincerely apologize for any negative feelings my latest mail addressed > to you may have caused. > > I have been reprimanded by list managers that my tenor and tone are not > tolerated. In a democratic list, so I am told. > > There have been three complaints. Off-list. So I'm told. > > My rare praises have been out-of-place and unfounded too. So I have been > told as well. > > Hereby I publicly apologize for both kinds of responses. > > Regards, > > Kirsti > > > > > > > > > kirst...@saunalahti.fi kirjoitti 10.11.2016 15:51: > >> John, list, >> >> Most important points you take up, John. Time-sequences between >> stories do not apply. - The big-bang is just a story,one on many just >> as possible stories. >> >> Time-scales are just as crucial with the between - issue as are >> storywise arising issues. There are no easy ways out ot the time-scale >> issues. >> >> Best, Kirsti >> >> John F Sowa kirjoitti 9.11.2016 21:25: >> >>> Edwina, Kirsti, list, >>> >>> ET >>> >>>> I wish we could get into the analysis of time in more detail. >>>> >>> >>> I came across a short passage by Gregory Bateson that clarifies the >>> issues. See the attached Bateson79.jpg, which is an excerpt from p. 2 >>> of a book on biosemiotics (see below). Following is the critical point: >>> >>> GB >>> >>>> thinking in terms of stories must be shared by all mind or minds >>>> whether ours or those of redwood forests and sea anemones... >>>> A story is a little knot or complex of that species of >>>> connectedness which we call relevance. >>>> >>> >>> This observation is compatible with Peirce, but CSP used the term >>> 'quasi-mind' to accommodate the species-bias of most humans: >>> >>> CP 4.551 >>> >>>> Admitting that connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further >>>> be declared that there can be no isolated sign. Moreover, signs >>>> require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and a Quasi- >>>> interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) >>>> in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the Sign >>>> they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a fact >>>> of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical >>>> evolution of thought should be dialogic. >>>> >>> >>> Re time: We have to distinguish (1) time as it is in reality >>> (whatever that may be); (2) time in our stories (which include the >>> formalized stories called physics); (3) the mental sequence of >>> thought; and (4) the logical sequence (dialogic) of connected signs. >>> >>> ET >>> >>>> The question is: Are the Platonic worlds BEFORE or AFTER the so-called >>>> Big Bang? I read them as AFTER while Gary R and Jon S [not John S] >>>> read them as BEFORE. In my reading, before the Big Bang, there was >>>> Nothing, not even Platonic worlds. >>>> >>> >>> This question is about time sequences in different kinds of stories: >>> the Big Bang story about what reality may be; and Platonic stories >>> about ideal, mathematical forms. >>> >>> The time sequence of a mathematical story is independent of the time >>> sequence of a physical story. We may apply the math (for example, >>> the definitions, axioms, and proofs of a Platonic form) to the >>> construction of a physical story. >>> >>> But that application is a mapping between two stories. The term >>> 'prior to' is meaningful only *within* a story, not between stories. >>> >>> In short, our "commonsense" notion of time is an abstraction from >>> the stories we tell about our experience. The time sequences in two >>> different stories may have some similarities, but we must distinguish >>> three distinct sequences: the time sequences of each story, and the >>> time sequence of the mapping, which is a kind of meta-story. >>> >>> JFS >>> >>>> Does anyone know if [Peirce] had written anything about embedding >>>>> our universe in a hypothetical space of higher dimension? >>>>> >>>> >>> KM >>> >>>> I am most interested in knowing more on this. >>>> >>> >>> David Finkelstein, p. 277 of the reference below: >>> >>>> Peirce seems to have included geometry in his evolutionism, at least >>>> in principle... [He] seems not to have responded to the continuously- >>>> evolving physical geometry of Riemann and Clifford... nor to Einstein's >>>> conceptual unification of space and time. >>>> >>> >>> In any case, I think that the notion of time as an abstraction from >>> stories -- imaginary, factual, or theoretical -- provides a way of >>> relating different views. It also allows for metalevel reasoning >>> that can distinguish and relate different kinds of stories that >>> have independent time scales and sequences. >>> >>> John >>> ____________________________________________________________________ >>> >>> From Google books: >>> >>> _A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor >>> to Biosemiotics_ edited by Jesper Hoffmeyer, Springer, 2008: >>> https://books.google.com/books?id=dcHqVpZ97pUC&pg=PA246&lpg= >>> PA246&dq=Order+is+simply+thought+embodied+in+arrangement&sou >>> rce=bl&ots=DQUnZlvOYu&sig=X8bH0YAG597uwjyedB4dSf2BuC0&hl=en& >>> sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizyZD88JrQAhVENxQKHeEeBwoQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage >>> &q=Order%20is%20simply%20thought%20embodied%20in%20arrangement&f=false >>> >>> David R. Finkelstein, _Quantum Relativity: A Synthesis of the Ideas >>> of Heisenberg and Einstein_, Springer, 1996. >>> https://books.google.com/books?id=OvjsCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA277&lpg= >>> PA277&dq=peirce+relativity&source=bl&ots=0rc7kjxqIJ&sig=Hsgt >>> u9_LwZAoDxH7kbVgvWmAfiI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihk4SzpZzQAhWF >>> 3YMKHR1kA5wQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=peirce%20relativity&f=false >>> >> > > > ----------------------------- > 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 > . > > > > > >
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