[FRIAM] Abduction

[Nick Thompson]

Glen, 

 

I am having a terrible time keeping up with my own thread here.  (Fools rush in, etc.)  But I will add a little larding where I can, below.  Thanks for your work, here.  Thanks to Renee for loaning you to us.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of ? u???
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2018 8:02 AM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

 

I've tried to catch up with this thread and probably failed to grok most of it.  But it strikes me that your coarse- and fine-graining formulation of abstraction and Nick and Eric's true/real distinction are both instances of what I'll call "layer prejudice".  I almost want to call it a form of reductionism as a criticism of Nick's original posted paper and the conception of "Natural Design" as a favoritism for the fine-layer structure over the meta-stuff (self, agency, intention, etc.).  But neither your coarse-/fine- nor the true/real distinction seem to fully commit to reduction, perhaps for different reasons. [NST==> I think the term, “layer prejudice” is patentable and I would like, if you don’t mind, to purchase a license for its  use.  I might suggest “layer bias”, just because the rhythm works better, but the basic idea is  stunner, and I want to keep it close.  However, I hope you have misread “natural design” because otherwise I have mis-wrote it.  My level-bias is distinctly upward.  Where others might think of an intention as an inner state, something about my guts or my brain, I think of it as a higher-order patter.  For most people who talk about the brain, it is serving as a covert behavioral model, but without the potential for falsifiability that a genuine behavioral model would afford.   <==nst] 

 

 

Like mathematicians, maybe we have to ultimately commit to the ontological status of our parsing methods?  Are the equivalence classes things-in-themselves (Platonic)?  Or are they merely convenient/useful fictions (Construction) we use to parse an *inherently* dynamic (perhaps even unstable or mystical/hidden[†]) world?

[NST==>Remember, the whole point about the ding an sich is that it is inaccessible.  Peirce thought “generals” were real but not inaccessible.  <==nst] 

 

It's unclear to me why we have to be "layer prejudiced". 

[NST==>I agree.  I guess I believe in “ontological “ levels, just the way the different levels in a fractal are real patterns.  But we have to be careful not to mix up levels when we talk.  In any particular conversation, we must not equivocate about levels, confuse things within us, with things “of” us.  ==nst] 

 Why can't both the fine and coarse things have the same ontological status?  The example of the unicorn is unfortunate, I think, because the properties of unicorns are essentially stable. 

[NST==>Well, that’s sort of why I bring it up.  I think it’s possible that inquiry might converge on what a unicorn IS without there ever having been a unicorn.  Obviously, a unicorn is a white horse with a luxurious mane and tail and a narwhale horn in the middle of its nose and on its back a damsel with long flowing golden locks, a garland crown, and a white gown.  Obviously.  We all agree on THAT, don’t we?  <==nst] 

 Given a particular culture, every little girl knows what a unicorn is and can predict with certainty what another little girl will expect to see when presented with one.  Hence, studies of unicorns *will* eventually stabilize as long as the underlying culture is stable.  This is exactly the same type of statement one might make about the multiverse.  We can predict the properties of spacetime outside the observable universe *if* the underlying multiverse is stable.  These little unicorn experts eventually evolve into "shut up and calculate" adults who hang unicorns from their rear view mirrors, nostalgic for the (innocent) days when they were committed to the status of unicorns.  (At least 1/2 the cheesy XMas movies Renee's made me watch involve reinvigorating one's belief in "magic", "santa claus", or "christmas spirit", much like Einstein or Russell might have felt after their paradigms were successfully challenged.) So why would statements about unicorns have a different ontological status than statements in physics?  And, further, why would the subjects of statements about unicorns have a different status than the subjects of physical laws? 

[NST==>I am afraid I don’t have a lot to say here.  My family spent Christmas day rewatching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  <==nst] 

 

It seems reasonable to claim that the answer to my question is: one's metaphysical commitment (Platonic or Construction).

[NST==>I think this is also known as the distinction between realism and nominalism.  Are generals real things, or just conveniences of the mind. <==nst] 

 

[†] By which I intend something like B.C. Smith's "ontological wall", Hoffman's Interface, or OOO's withdrawn objects ... not the spiritual stuff.

[NST==>I still haven’t fulfilled my promise to read OOO with you.  I have read it; but forgotten it.  Ugh!  But withdrawn objects sounds right<==nst] 

 

 

p.s. In this post, I *wanted* to talk about quasi-periodicity, the perhaps-periodic-within-some-larger-context signals that we can successfully classify as periodic for some (but not other) purposes. It seems to me this prejudice toward "convergence" and the ontological status of limit/horizon points Nick and Eric keep claiming 

[NST==>them are fighting words, son!  (See G, B, U, aforementioned)  Do you doubt Peirce, or our account of him.  We can supply quotes. <==nst] 

Peirce was after fits methods for quasi-periodicity to a tee.  But if we proceed with a badly formulated problem, all we'll get is a badly formulated solution.  If we don't know where we're going, how will we know when we (do or don't) get there? For what purposes should unicorns be metaphorically real and for what purposes should they be metaphorically fictitious?  I demoted quasi-periodicity to the postscript because I'm worried that not enough of us have enough experience learning they've been *tricked* by pareidolia.  But, ultimately, concepts like stationarity target the meta-friendly question of whether the coarse- can be stable while the fine- is unstable.  And if we admit to a multi-level hierarchy, perhaps level N is unstable, level N+1 is stable, and level N+2 is (again) unstable?  Why not?

[NST==>Oh wow I agree with all of THAT.  But I don’t think Peirce, or Eric (Charles), or I are level-chauvinists in the way you need us to be.  I think Peirce thought it was signs all the way down, i.e., he would be as happy talking about sign relations in the retina as in a supermarket window.  See my Nesting and Chaining <http://www.behavior.org/resources/146.pdf>  paper, if you can stand it.  <==nst] 

 

p.p.s. Merry Christmas! >8^D

 

 

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