[FRIAM] Abduction

[Nick Thompson]

Rushing Glen to make an apt, so can't answer fully. 

Just meant by "duality" a division into two, an opposition, a polarity. 

I now see that it has a distinct mathematical meaning, which of course, I have no idea of. 

I thought the example of saccads was good.  Wanted more, is all. 

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?l? ?
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2019 2:15 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abduction

I just gave you an example. But it's weird because nobody ever responds to my mentions of eyeball saccade.  You also didn't respond to my scalar multiplied by a matrix analogy (an analogy because I was talking about comprehensions, which matrices are not, technically).  So, rather than give you more examples, I'll treat you like an atheist treats Christians.  What sort of example would make sense to you?

I have no idea why you used the word "duality".  The ways of organizing things (heter- vs. hier-) would only produce a duality if the different ways of organizing were *functionally* equivalent.  My attempt to change language from "level" to either "layer" or "order" is an implicit assertion that heterarchies are functionally *different* from hierarchies.  (To be more specific, hierarchical systems are less expressive.)  So, a duality might be achievable between 2 differently arranged heterarchies, but not between a hier- and a heter-.

By choosing 2 things of (we assume) the exact same type like Siamese twins, you provide a set that probably does not require a heterarchy to organize.  Fraternal twins would be a better choice because while they are both of the same kinship, their *genes* differ significantly.  Genes are of a lower/quicker order than kinship.  But typical understanding of kinship operates over BOTH the high level (who's your daddy) and low level (what color eyes does your daddy have).  While you *can* construct a hierarchy to handle that situation.  There may be some situations (e.g. recessive genes, step-parents, etc.) that the hierarchy can't express but the heterarchy can.

Note that "order" doesn't technically require heterarchy, either, really.  Technically, an ordering like we have in 1st to 2nd order logic is still a hierarchy, just with mixed operators.  You'd only *need* a heterarchy when there are external (to a given hierarchy) objects/relations that need to be accounted for.  But I suggest the social kinship, biological kinship, and genotype system does approach that need, where even if you can formulate the social as a hierarchy and the biological as a hierarchy, the mixing of the two different hierarchies requires a heterarchy.

I hope this is not a conversation stopper.  That's not my intent.  But based on my failures, here, I'm clearly very bad at this.


On 1/3/19 12:38 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Ok.   Good.  I like this.  Stick with me here. 
> 
>  
> 
> Keeping your language as citizen-y as possible, please talk to me about "heterarchy".  Being of great age, I learned the song, I'm my own GrandPa <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlJH81dSiw>  in my youth.  I assume that’s an example of heterarchy.  But I bet you have better examples.  But perhaps even more important, where does the concept stand in your approach to things?  I stipulate that every duality asserted is like Siamese twins separated.  A lot of blood is inevitably spilled.  But no thought can possibly be achieved without that sort of blood-letting.  I think I am going to argue that to the extent that the idea of heterarchy might give one a better way to separate the babies it should be entertained;  but if it is a way of stopping the conversation how best the babies might be separated, then it should not.  


--
☣ uǝlƃ

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