<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)">
<style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol";
panose-1:2 11 5 2 4 2 4 2 2 3;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle20
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-size:10.0pt;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style>
</head>
<body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">“Ouch” can be described in natural language and there can be consensus or not about that description. That is quantification. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A hammer falling from a building construction site’s scaffolding onto one’s head could also be described. The description of pain might be a “2” for the apple and a “7” for the hammer (if one survived the event). I have met people that
have never been shocked with household electrical current. I’ve described it as been hit in the arm as a kid by the strongest kid in school. That’s not quite right, but it gives an idea. A hard shock has ringing to it. All are models, and not Real.
Some of them are precise and intersubjective, others are expected by construction to not quite get the experience across. Another example that comes to mind is comparing the misery of a severe sinus infection. I remember having one when I was in my early
twenties and weeks of ongoing discomfort. I kept going on about my affairs the best I could and didn’t really mention it to my family – no antibiotics. Many years later he had one and sought treatment, but nonetheless was out of action for weeks. He
couldn’t understand how I could have kept it to myself. I described the somewhat gruesome symptoms and he said they were the same. Did we have the same experience? Hard to say. Some of it probably depends on our different personalities. What was
the self-talk about the experience? What distractions were available? Were they viral or bacterial sinusitis? What were our lymphocyte counts like? Supposing there were similar pressures in our sinus cavities, and other measurable things, what is the
value of surveying divergent descriptions of the experience? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I expect all aspects of human feeling and perception can be formalized and captured, and that it is a matter of waiting for the science and technology to enable it. The problem is that all these experiences needs to be put in the frame
of the subject, and so may quickly become high-dimensional – idiosyncratic -- in a way that isn’t useful for communication.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> <b>On Behalf Of
</b>Prof David West <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, March 24, 2022 12:07 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> friam@redfish.com<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] Analytic Idealism<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">a minor (?) point of clarification: what is being asserted by these authors (in various ways and from various perspectives) has to do with what we assert to be Real, i.e., to have ontological
(metaphysical) status.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">With regard the mythical apple hitting Newton on the head:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> - Mass, velocity, inertia, volume, even the Pantone value of the red skin—the description—are
<b>Real</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> - "ouch," the grey scale perception of the apple's skin because I am colorblind, even the "Wow, I just realized what gravity is,"—the perceptions—are
<b>Not Real</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">A different example: the quantized and digitized values from five types of sensor that feed a neural net 'describe' human perception and are
<b>Real</b>. Any aspect of human perception that cannot be similarly formalized and captured, is therefore
<b>Not Real</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">Questions about whether or not a description can 'capture' an object are orthogonal. (Of course, no description can ever be complete, or accurate from one moment to the next.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">davew<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">On Thu, Mar 24, 2022, at 10:21 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> Obviously, there can be flaws in observing a system from within the <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> system. If a hardware platform is in some weird state, the software <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> running on it may not be computing or observing in an accurate way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> But I'd be first to claim there is no such thing as independent <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> measurement. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> -----Original Message-----<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> On Behalf Of glen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2022 9:57 AM<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com">friam@redfish.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Analytic Idealism<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> I don't think the point is that the description(s) *cannot* capture the <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> object, only that there *can be* flaws in the description(s). Saying <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> that descriptions *do not* is not the same thing as saying they *can <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> not*. But I haven't read the book(s). So maybe I'm giving it too much <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> benefit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> On 3/24/22 09:47, Marcus Daniels wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> There wouldn't be, say, a LIGO experiment if people were confusing the referent with the descriptor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> It is absurd by construction: Communicate using description given the belief that description can't capture the essence of a quality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> Just stay stoned and enjoy, no?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> -----Original Message-----<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> On Behalf Of glen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2022 9:30 AM<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com">friam@redfish.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Analytic Idealism<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> I think EricS' digestion puts too much gloss on the (lack of) crispness between the qualities. There's a (possibly preemptive) registration of the ontology where (e.g.) mass, length, and time
are disjoint, albeit I can infer that might not be the case if we can replace (ground, foundationally) any quality with a collection of substitutable acts/behaviors. While Dave mentions LSD and the (quantitative) greater or less than of brain activity, he
doesn't mention things like synesthesia, the pollution of one quality with another [</span><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif">⛧</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">]. So, while I don't quite buy the Analytic Idealism concept
that scientists have replaced the object with the sign (referent with the descriptor), I do buy that the scientific-ish crisp distinction between things like mass and length can be artificial.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> Such a gooey context is amenable to such (artificial) distinction - analytic -. But that slicing is lossy ... information is lost in the distinction between qualities [</span><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif">⛤</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">].
The same would be true of the/whatever recipe of action that replaces the quality. Recipes for length could be (more strongly "already are") mixed with recipes for mass (or time). But it's our Scientismist/Objectivist bias that allows us to impute any artificial
crispness into the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> [</span><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif">⛧</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">] In arguing that the qualities/dimensions may not be distinct, I'm relying
on the data fusion activities of animals with a CNS and a relatively large brain. While it may seem like swinging a bucket of water around is not substitutable with a yard stick, composing such high-order activities out of smaller activities (like moving one's
opposable thumb or realtime monitoring of a moving object with saccadic binary vision) relies fundamentally on the goo inside our heads. Mess with the goo and you mess with the composability of the actions. LSD messes with the goo.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> [</span><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Symbol",sans-serif">⛤</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">] If we try to speak more jargonally, I'm challenging the idea that a "space"
of qualities can ever have an orthogonal basis. Orthogonality isn't necessarily a feature of the way our CNS/brains work. And worse yet, it may not be a feature of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>> On 3/22/22 18:15, David Eric Smith wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> Dave —<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> I’m not sure I understand qualitative and quantitative as a <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> partition, or as a pair of alternative predicates, though of course I <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> recognize the usage of setting one against the other. This is <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> probably because I don’t understand “qualitative” as a category. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> (Given that I don’t understand Brouwer’s intuitionism beyond the <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> small feature of its requirement for constructions, I probably don’t <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> understand “quantitative” as a category either.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> A place this comes up for me is when I try to teach dimensional analysis to beginning physics students (or sometimes to liberal arts students).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> Very little of what we do involves “pure numbers” (and even those often include more; but I’ll come back to that). In all of dimensional analysis, a number has to be paired with a dimension.
So I have to explain to my students what “a dimension” is. Since I have told them that we are going to require operational definitions, I have to tell them somehow operationally, and not just say “you know it when you see it”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> What I come up with is that each dimension corresponds to a recipe <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> for a set of _acts_ one can carry out, and the concept of a dimension <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> refers to certain substitutabilities in those acts. So if I say a <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> ruler has length, by that I mean that I can put two objects on a <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> tabletop abutting the two ends of the ruler. Saying that length “is <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> a dimension” is saying that I can take away the rule and put bananas, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> or king’s feet, end to end and perform the same operation of holding <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> two things apart. A different recipe goes with swinging objects <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> around in a bucket to measure mass, or dunking them in water to <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> measure volume, etc. (Anecdote from Lucy Jacobs, squirrel-woman <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> supreme: During the harvest season, when squirrels pick up acorns, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> they shake them vigorously a time or two in their teeth, before <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> choosing to keep or to toss. We are pretty sure they want to know <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> which ones have a lot of nut-meat and moisture. Even squirrels <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> understand what mass is, and that it is not identical to<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> weight.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> One has to go a little further than just the recipe for substitution to say that something “is a dimension”; the operation also has to admit subdivision. So in place of one meterstick, I
must be allowed to substitute three and 1/3rd kings’ feet, so I am saying that stringing the feet end to end, and so separating them, is an operation _of the same kind_ as using the string of feet or the meterstick to separate to objects on the table. It
is in subdivisibility without changing the nature of the operation that I bring in quantity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> To the extent that one program of activity can’t be substituted for another, the dimensions have distinctness. Swinging buckets can’t be used as a surrogate for lining up kings’ feet, or
dunking objects in water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> It is conventional, in physics, to see three dimensions (mass, length, time) as “the” dimensions upon which dimensional analysis is built, and to call other things counted “pure numbers”.
However, there are many places where I have reason not to leave it at that. Counts of atoms need to be partitioned, sometimes, among which elements they are, and I can use those partition labels as dimensions. Often, in economics, I want to treat goods-types,
and also monies, credit denominations, or near-monies, as having dimensions. If I do so, I can do many of the same things done with dimensional analysis in physics with them. The question of what “a dimension” “is” therefore seems to me not to be closed
with a memorization of three cases.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> So are dimensions “qualities”? To the extent that we perceive them as somehow different in kind, I would assume it is because our nature has become shaped around the different kinds of things
one can do, or can witness happening in the world, but I can’t defend that belief with a validated origin story.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> The above, for me, are not meant to be exemplars of all notions of “qualitative”, but only some entry-point to whether there is a category, from places where I know how to speak carefully.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> My above question, about what relation the “qualitative” aspects of some experience or program have to the quantitative, is about testing whether you can say what you mean. A quite different
invocation of the quantitative has always been about being able to hold people to account for whether what they are claiming could ever be said to have “truth-value”, and of what kind? To say “I checked that the rod is 1m long, and you can check it too” has
a kind of intersubjective easy fungibility that “I know that God loves me” does not (at least to me) have.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> I am _sure_ that wherever the discussion is, it wasn’t meant to be where I cast it above. But I don’t know how one would check whether my certainty is right.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>> Eric<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> On Mar 23, 2022, at 6:31 AM, Prof David West <<a href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm">profwest@fastmail.fm</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm">profwest@fastmail.fm</a>>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> "Back in the seventeenth century, when science as we know it today <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> took its first steps, scientists based their entire work on—what <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> else?—/*/perceptual experience/*/: the things and phenomena they <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> could see, touch, smell, taste or hear around them. That starting <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> point, is course,/*_/qualitative/_*/in nature./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /Soon, however, scientists realized that it is very convenient to <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> describe the eminently*qualitative*world by means of*_quantities_*./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /But then something bizarre happened: many scientists seemingly <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> forgot where it all started and began attributing fundamental <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> reality only to the*_quantities_*./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /This, in a nutshell, is the beginning of/metaphysical materialism/, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> a philosophy that—absurdly—grants fundamental reality to <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> mere*descriptions*, while denying the reality of that which is <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> described. ... we began cluelessly replacing reality with its <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> description, the territory with the map./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /And so now we face the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness':<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> the impossibility of explaining qualities in terms of quantities./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /In the space of a couple of centuries, we tied ourselves up in <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> hopelessly abstract conceptual knots and managed to lose touch with <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> reality altogether./<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /Laboratory results in quantum mechanics, for instance, strongly <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> indicate that there is no autonomous material world of tables and <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> chairs out there. Coupled with the inability of materialist <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> neuroscience to explain experience, this is forcing us to reexamine <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> our earlier assumptions and contemplate alternatives.*_Analytic <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> idealism_*—the notion that reality, while equally amenable to <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> scientific inquiry, is fundamentally qualitiative–is a leading <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> contender to replace metaphysical materialism."/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> The preceding was from/Science Ideated/by Bernado Klastrup.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> Factoid: when "perceiving alternate realities," e.g., while on LSD, brain activity decreases when material neuroscience predicts an increase.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /"Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> world we experience. ///<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /Forget everything you thought you knew about the difference between <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> the hemispheres, because it will be largely wrong. It is not what <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> each hemisphere does – they are both involved in everything – but <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> how it does it, that matters. And the prime difference between the <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> brain hemispheres is the manner in which they attend. For reasons of <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> survival we need one hemisphere (in humans and many animals, the<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> left) to pay narrow attention to detail, to grab hold of things we <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> need, while the other, the right, keeps an eye out for everything <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> else. The result is that one hemisphere is good <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> at/*_/utilising/_*/the world, the other better <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> at/*_/understanding/_*/it.///<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> /Absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> narrow, sustained or piecemeal, attention has the power to alter <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> whatever it meets. The play of attention can both create and <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged. How you attend to <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> something – or don’t attend to it – matters a very great deal."/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> Preceding from Iain McGilchrist's/Ways of Attending/. I am a big fan of McGilchrist and his book The Master and his Emissary and, I expect, the just ordered two volume,/The Matter with Things/.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> Just throwing some things to see if they stick against anyone's walls and prompts some conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">>>>> Also, big fan of/The Dawn of Everything/mentioned on the list in the last couple of days. I think it has some valuable information and insights that would inform a lot of conversations on
this list with regard sociopolitical organization and means of effecting change.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> --<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> archives:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> archives:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>