RE: [PEIRCE-L] Invigorating Philosophy with Natural Propositions

[paul eduardo]

Gary, List

, I agree with the difference between PS and PP, especially after having been 
in the SIAP at Oregon University in EUGENE.
There, in a conference about  political philosophy, it  was raised  that 
political philosophy can be  considered a vision, or be used  as a tool.

Philosophy in general, and pragmatism in particular, can be considered  in both 
aspects. In first place, philosophy like a vision can be studied from the point 
of view of a scholar. But if philosophy must be considered like a science with 
functions of the others  and the duty of improve the world, so, we should 
consider use the different concepts of philosophy in general and the peircean 
concepts in particular.
This kind of doubt is own of the philosophy, but it doesn't in  physics, in 
which the concepts are used like tools by the applied sciences like engineering.
I am very interested in the application of peircean concepts in the hypothesis 
generation, so I can be considered like a PP, but I need all the investigation 
of the PS to do my work. The ideal would be be PP and PS at the same time. But 
this would be very difficult, because it would demand a lot of time.
So, I prefer use the concepts and relations discovered by PS like tools to 
solve  quotidian problems.
I mean, that the two positions are necessary, philosophy like a vision and 
philosophical concepts like tools, PS and PP; and this demonstrate that between 
theory and practice there are a continuity, although the human limitation 
forces us to break this continuity, which is reestablished in the research 
community.

Paul



From: g...@gnusystems.ca
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 09:24:46 -0400
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Invigorating Philosophy with Natural Propositions





List,
 
Since the Peirce Centennial conference last week, i've been thinking about its 
explicit aim, “Invigorating Philosophy for the 21st Century”, and about the 
role of peirce-l in doing that.
 
It seems to me that most subscribers to peirce-l occupy some space on a 
spectrum between two poles, which i'll describe here as personified ideals 
(meaning that no actual person is absolutely one or the other): the Peircean 
scholar, and the peircean Philosopher. 
 
The Ideal Peircean scholar participates in a largely professional community 
working toward a fully developed, pragmaticistic and widely shared 
understanding of Peirce's work as a whole. The PS regards that work as a single 
sign (namely an Argument) and a living system, every part of which is 
functional in the context of the whole. It follows that the critical study of 
any part contributes to the comprehension of the other parts and of the whole 
—so the specialists in this community have good reason to work together.
 
The peircean Philosopher on the other hand is more philosophical than Peircean 
— that is, the PP participates in a community hoping to tell the Whole Truth 
(which, were it ever to arrive, would include its confession that it does not 
profess to be Exactly True.) The PP regards Peirce as another member of that 
philosophical community, one who fortunately has left abundant representations 
of his trains of thought in his published and unpublished work. We could say 
that PPs are miners of Peirce because in his work they find realizations that 
deserve to be replicated in the philosophical community, in many other human 
communities, and ultimately in the Earth community. So while the PS is after 
the Whole Truth about Peirce, the PP is mining Peirce for functional components 
of the Whole Truth (about life, the universe and everything, if we may use this 
language).
 
As someone who gravitates toward the PP pole, i realize that some of those 
peircean components may need to be reformulated and revised in order to 
function better in other communities; indeed some of them are already 
functioning in other communities in formulations that owe nothing to Peirce. 
But i also realize that Peirce's work is more a network than a nest of nuggets. 
Pull on any of its strands of system hard enough, and you have to either take 
the whole thing on board (hoping it doesn't sink you) or be left with a 
bleeding chunk of “Peirce” on your hands, feeling like a thief. This should 
motivate us to work together with the PS community. Actually peirce-l, as i see 
it, is a single community with a common interest in Invigorating Philosophy for 
the 21st Century.
 
Toward that end, it's been suggested that we might conduct a seminar of sorts 
to study Frederik Stjernfelt's new book Natural Propositions. I suggested this 
to Frederik at the Lowell conference and he’s keen on the idea. It will be 
organized in a similar way to our seminar on Kees de Waal’s book, in which each 
chapter was assigned a volunteer to start a thread on it and lead the 
discussion. We called these volunteers “emcees”, but since that’s a strange 
term to many readers who aren’t North Americans (as I learned at the Lowell 
conference), I’m goi

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Benjamin Udell]

Sung, you wrote to Stephen,

   [QUOTE]
   "Your written word just conveyed energy to my (6231-1)
   fingers to say NO."

   I did not write any words on a piece of paper (which would have been
   an example of equilibrium structure, since no energy would have been
   required for them to exist on a piece of paper).

   The words that appeared on your computer screen (when you read my
   email) are dissipative structures, since they would have disappeared
   if your computer ran out of energy.  As dissipative structures, my
   words on your computer screen can do work, like stimulating the
   retina of our eye generating nerve impulses which travel to your
   visual cortex and thence eventually to the muscle cells in your
   fingers that produced motions on the keyboard resulting in the
   visual image"NO" on your computer screen.
   [END QUOTE]

Sung, you're saying that words on a computer screen can do work on 
Stephen but words written on a paper sign can't do work on Stephen - as 
if seeing "Mr. Rose, you have won a million dollars" on computer screen 
at a state .gov website would have an effect on him but seeing it in a 
notarized letter to him from a state lottery would not. Then you 
complain that philosophers don't understand physicists. I doubt that 
many physicists would endorse your view of the physical effects of 
words. Some might ask you for your physical definition of _/word/_.


The big difference to you seems to be whether the word comes to Stephen 
by variations in illumination by the screen or by variations introduced 
by the inscribed paper into the light that the paper reflects. To you 
the computer screen's word IS those variations in illumination, but the 
paper's word is NOT the variations in reflected light. But usually when 
philosophers and everyday people speak of the written word, they do not 
mean simply patterns of ink or pencil lead, but the system involving 
their being potentially or actually read. This is why I said that the 
spoken/written distinction has an affinity with the 
dissipative/equilibrium distinction but is not a straightforward 
instance of it.


The effect of the computer-screen word and the paper-sign word on Steven 
may be quite the same. The nature of the effect would depend more on 
what word, with what credibility, etc. That is why I switched to talking 
about the event of reading, and the like, in order to try to save some 
sense from the things that you said. The system involving a person's 
reading a word on a computer-screen and the system involving a person's 
reading a word on paper are both of them dissipative systems, while the 
word's computer-screen display is dissipative and the word's on-paper 
display is not.


Best, Ben

On 7/26/2014 9:28 PM, Sungchul Ji wrote:


Benjamin wrote:

"Verbal speech can be stored, too, in recordings (072614-1)
of sounds. You will have to stretch the meaning
of the word "written" to cover such recordings."


I do not have to stretch anything.
"Verbal speech", like spoken words, is a dissipative structure and
"recorded speech", like written words, is an equilibrium structure.

Peircean scholars and philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
(or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of structures,
equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have been
done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of writing.  This
bias for equilibrium structures over dissipative ones in the medium of
communcation among philosophers may have left profound influences on the
content of "written" philosophies.

With all the best.

Sung
___
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net




Sung, list,

If you want to take the word "written" so literally, then consider the
writing of an authorized signature on a contract or on legislation. Now,
you may say that the system of the individual writing-event is a
dissipative system, as opposed to the signature standing written.

But having to make such a finicky distinction shows that your
spoken-written distinction has only an affinity with the
dissipative-nondissipative distinction and is not an unequivocal
instance of it.

You'll have to go on being finicky in order to distinguish between the
signed legislation (at this point one hopes you'll allow the printed and
the written to form a single class) and its being copied, its being
read, its being remembered via the shaping and maintaining of habits, etc.

Verbal speech can be stored, too, in recordings of sounds. You will have
to stretch the meaning of the word "written" to cover such recordings.
Yet, let's say that it's indeed a kind of "written" or "printed" form.
More generally, we would call it "stored." You're reaching for the
distinction between that which

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

John wrote:

"In particular I argued that dissipative and  (072914-1)
non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction."

I would agree. That is, there may be no "absolute" scale at which some
systems are dissipative and some are at equilibrium. Perhaps we can define
a dissipative system only relative to its associated equilibrium system,
for example, a magnetic tape and its sound or images that can be produced
from it upon input of energy through a tape-reading device.  As Clark
pointed out, a magnetic tape can be viewed as not at equilibrium in an
absolute sense, since it's atomic configuration is not random and can
undergo changes under right environmental conditions.  Anything that can
undergo a change is, by definition not at equilibrium. Another example
would be the pair of an artificial rose but and a real rose bud.  An
artificial rose but is an equilibrium structure only in relation to its
real counterpart, since, again as pointed out by Clark, even an artificial
rose bud can undergo changes to a lower energy level upon being burned to
ashes and gases.

With all the best.

Sung
___
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net




> 
> 
> At 11:28 PM 2014-07-28, Clark Goble wrote:
> (Sorry for any repeats - I
> accidentally sent several emails from the wrong account so they didn’t
> make it to the list) 
> On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji
> s...@rci.rutgers.edu>
> wrote:
> Peircean scholars and
> philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
> (or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of
> structures,
> equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have
> been
> done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of
> writing.
> A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with
> writing really just since the modern era and even then only on a large
> scale in more recent centuries. It’s just that the major works of
> philosophy that we have recorded are written. However I think for a large
> portion of our history (and perhaps arguably even today or at least until
> the advent of email) philosophy was dialogical in nature.
> Of course I think there’s a continuum between what you call equilibrium
> and dissipative (I’m a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium -
> apologies if you’ve clarified this before. I’m behind in reading the
> list) Writing is frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings
> as new contexts are introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade
> over time. Even data stored on hard drive loses data and can become
> corrupt. At the end all we have are traces of the original dialog. To
> follow Derrida (although he makes his point in an annoyingly petulant
> way) all we have are traces rather than some pure presence of
> communication we call speech.
> 
> I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990,
> 
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/intrinfo.pdf";>Intrinsic
> Information (1990)
> but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the
> usual thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple
> confusions and misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on
> mailing lists. In particular I argued that dissipative and
> non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction. The goal was to ask
> what the world must be like if we get information from the world, as some
> philosophers hold. At that time I thought that semiotics was too far from
> my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I have dome some extensions
> in later papers. 
> John
> 
>
> 
> 
> Professor John
> Collier
> colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
> Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
> +27 (31) 260 3031
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier"; eudora="autourl">
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
> 
> 
>
>



-
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 .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

At 11:28 PM 2014-07-28, Clark Goble wrote:
(Sorry for any repeats - I
accidentally sent several emails from the wrong account so they didn’t
make it to the list) 
On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji

wrote:
Peircean scholars and
philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
(or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of
structures,
equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have
been
done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of
writing.
A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with
writing really just since the modern era and even then only on a large
scale in more recent centuries. It’s just that the major works of
philosophy that we have recorded are written. However I think for a large
portion of our history (and perhaps arguably even today or at least until
the advent of email) philosophy was dialogical in nature.
Of course I think there’s a continuum between what you call equilibrium
and dissipative (I’m a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium -
apologies if you’ve clarified this before. I’m behind in reading the
list) Writing is frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings
as new contexts are introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade
over time. Even data stored on hard drive loses data and can become
corrupt. At the end all we have are traces of the original dialog. To
follow Derrida (although he makes his point in an annoyingly petulant
way) all we have are traces rather than some pure presence of
communication we call speech.

I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990, 

Intrinsic
Information (1990)
but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the
usual thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple
confusions and misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on
mailing lists. In particular I argued that dissipative and
non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction. The goal was to ask
what the world must be like if we get information from the world, as some
philosophers hold. At that time I thought that semiotics was too far from
my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I have dome some extensions
in later papers. 
John




Professor John
Collier
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
+27 (31) 260 3031

Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




-
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 .