[FRIAM] Dope slaps, anyone? Text displaying correctly?

[Steve Smith]

Glen wrote:
> I *think* that works. Ordinarily, I react badly to hyper-formality. 
> But one reason to formalize is so that we can be agnostic about the 
> origins of some thing, abstracting it from the world. Whether an 
> ultra-abstracter like Peirce would support the historical/scholarly 
> logging of whatever messy process gave rise to the stable patterns is 
> unclear to me. I tend to think he would not. It seems to me that 
> Abstracters tend to want crisp boundaries and forever-trustable 
> conclusions, like EricS' suggested ... "committed to making true 
> statements". Concretizers, on the other hand, insufferably insist on 
> adding the burrs back onto the finished piece, thereby breaking the 
> machine. Somewhere within biology, the two camps diverge. Concretizers 
> seem to have been rare in logic and physics, less rare in chemistry. 
> Abstracters seem to percolate out of the soft sciences, which are 
> described that way because they resist abstraction. Their burrs are 
> resistant to machining. (Caveat that there's no shortage of hucksters 
> that *claim* to have abstracted them, but haven't.)
>
> Of course, the art lies in iterating between the two poles. 
> Concretizing enough to make Platonic objects useful in the world. 
> Abstracting enough to make concrete objects transmissable across 
> circumstance. And none of us are fully integrated animals. We do both, 
> just to a greater or lesser extent.

This "oscillation" or "orbit-following" within the dimensionality 
including/dominated-by concrete/abstract is fascinating to me, and I 
think it *is* the dynamics that make it work.  We are so prone to want 
to (statically) place an entity as a point in those spaces (quad-charts 
'R Us!)  and ignore the implied *phase space* that can be derived from 
them (and their dynamics).

I know this is a typical (for me) abstraction that somewhat ignores the 
concrete (and the dynamical) that I speak of ...  I am (naturally) a 
low-dimensional creature (A. Square ala E A Abbott ) struggling to 
apprehend (and maybe navigate) a hidden higher-dimensional space I suppose.


And again, I can't resist referencing Deacon's Homeo/Morpho/Teleo 
Dynamics <https://teleodynamics.org/>

Surely someone here has a better (formal) understanding of this or a 
more inspired (intuitive) apprehension of this than I!?

Or I am just one hand (set of gums) clapping in the dark...


>
> On 1/16/23 07:53, Prof David West wrote:
>> I do not know and have not read Feferman, so this may be totally off 
>> base, but ...
>>
>> glen stated:
>> /Worded one way: Schema are the stable patterns that emerge from the 
>> particulars. And the variation of the particulars is circumscribed 
>> (bounded, defined) by the schema.
>> /
>> This is a description of "culture." Restated—hopefully without 
>> distorting the meaning:
>>
>> *Culture is the stable patterns of behavior that emerge from 
>> individual human actions which vary (are idiosyncratic) within bounds 
>> defined by the culture.*
>>
>> The second glen statement:
>>
>> /Worded another way: Our perspective on the world emerges from the 
>> world. And our perspective on the world shapes how and what we see of 
>> the world./
>>
>> alludes to the cognitive feedback loop (at least part of it) that I 
>> developed in my doctoral dissertation on cognitive anthrpology.
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 16, 2023, at 3:32 AM, glen wrote:
>>  > Well, not "languageless", but "language-independent". Now that you've
>>  > forced me to think harder, that phrase "language-independent" isn't
>>  > quite right. It's more like "meta-language" ... a family of languages
>>  > such that the family might be "language-like" ... a language of
>>  > languages ... a higher order language, maybe.
>>  >
>>  > Feferman introduced me to the concept of "schematic axiomatic 
>> systems",
>>  > which seems (correct me if I'm wrong) to talk about formal systems
>>  > where one reasons over sentences with substitutable elements. I.e. 
>> the
>>  > *particulars* of any given situation may vary, but the "scheme" into
>>  > which those particulars fit is stable/invariant. [⛧]
>>  >
>>  > EricS seemed to be proposing that not only do the particulars vary
>>  > within the schema, but the schema also vary. The schema are ways to
>>  > "parse" the world, the Play-Doh extruder(s) we use to form the 
>> Play-Doh
>>  > into something.
>>  >
>>  > Your "random yet not random" rendering of Peirce sounds to me similar
>>  > to the duality between the particulars and the schema they populate.
>>  >
>>  > Worded one way: Schema are the stable patterns that emerge from the
>>  > particulars. And the variation of the particulars is circumscribed
>>  > (bounded, defined) by the schema.
>>  >
>>  > Worded another way: Our perspective on the world emerges from the
>>  > world. And our perspective on the world shapes how and what we see of
>>  > the world.
>>  >
>>  > And, finally, paraphrasing: The apparition of schema we experience is
>>  > due to the fact that such schema are useful to organisms. Events 
>> in the
>>  > world that don't fit the schema are beyond experience.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > [⛧] I'm doing my best to avoid talking about jargonal things like 
>> type
>>  > theory, things that should have come very natural to Peirce, but 
>> would
>>  > be difficult to express in natural language.
>>  >
>>  > On 1/15/23 19:49, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>>  >> EricS and Glen,
>>  >>
>>  >> Sorry, again.  Here is the short version.  I apologize, again, 
>> for appending that great wadge of gunk.
>>  >>
>>  >> I found the second Feferman even harder to understand than the 
>> first. Glen, can you give me a little help on what you meant by a 
>> languageless language.
>>  >>
>>  >>   Thanks, all
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >> On Sun, Jan 15, 2023 at 4:09 PM Nicholas Thompson 
>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>> 
>> wrote:
>>  >>
>>  >>     Aw crap!  The shortish  answer that I meant to send had all 
>> sorts of junk appended!  Sorry. Will resend soon. [blush]
>>  >>
>>  >>     Sent from my Dumb Phone
>>  >>
>>  >>     On Jan 12, 2023, at 8:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson 
>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>> 
>> wrote:
>>  >>
>>  >>     
>>  >>     Dear EricS, Glen, and anybody else who is following.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Thank you so much for pitching in.   As I have often said, I 
>> am incapable of thinking alone, so your comments are wonderfully 
>> welcome.  And thank you also for confirming that what I wrote was 
>> readable.  I am having to work in gmail at the moment, which is , to 
>> me, an unfamiliar medium.
>>  >>
>>  >>     First, Eric:  I am trying to talk math-talk in this passage, 
>> so poetry is not an excuse if I fail to be understood by you.
>>  >>
>>  >>     /*FWIW: as I have heard these discussions over the years, to 
>> the extent that there is a productive analogy, I would say 
>> (unapologetically using my words, and not trying to quote his) that 
>> Peirce’s claimed relation between states of knowledge and truth 
>> (meaning, some fully-faithful representation of “what is the case”) 
>> is analogous to the relation of sample estimators in statistics to 
>> the quantity they are constructed to estimate. We don’t have any 
>> ontological problems understanding sample estimators and the 
>> quantities estimated, as both have status in the ordinary world of 
>> empirical things.  In our ontology, they are peers in some sense, but 
>> they clearly play different roles and stand for different concepts.*/
>>  >>     /*
>>  >>     */
>>  >>     I like very muchwhat you have written here and think it 
>> states, perhaps more precisely than I managed, exactly what I was 
>> trying to say.  I do want to further  stress the fact that if a 
>> measurement system is tracking a variate that is going to stabilize 
>> in the very long run, then it will on average approximate that value 
>> with greater precision the more measures are taken.  Thus, not only 
>> does the vector of the convergence constitute evidence for the 
>> location of the truth, the fact that there is convergence is evidence 
>> that there is a truth to be located.   Thus I agree with you that the 
>> idea behind Peirce's notion of truth is the central limit theorem.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Where  we might disagree is whether there is any meaning to 
>> truth beyond that central limit.  This is where I found you use of 
>> "ontology" so helpful. When talking about statistics, we are always 
>> talking about mathematical structures in experience and nothing 
>> beyond that.  We are assuredly talking about only one kind of thing.  
>> However, I see you wondering, are there things to talk about beyond 
>> the statistical structures of experience?   I hear you wanting to say 
>> "yes" and I see me wanting to say "no".
>>  >>
>>  >>     God knows ... and I use the term advisedly ... my hankering 
>> would seem  to be arrogant to the point of absurdity. Given all the 
>> forms of discourse in which the words "truth" and "real" are used, 
>> all the myriad language games in which these words appear as tokens, 
>> how, on earth, could I (or Peirce) claim that there exists one and 
>> only one standard by which the truth of any proposition or the 
>> reality of any abject can be demonstrated?  I think I have to claim 
>> (and I think Peirce claims it) that whatever people may say about how 
>> they evaluate truth or reality claims, their evaluation always boils 
>> down to an appeal to the long run of experience.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Our difference of opinion, if we have one, is perhaps  
>> related to the difference of opinion between James and Peirce 
>> concerning the relation between truth as a believed thing and truth 
>> as a thing beyond the belief of any finite group of people.  James 
>> was a physician, and presumably knew a lot about the power of 
>> placebos.  He also was a ditherer, who famously took years to decide 
>> whom to marry  and agonized about it piteously to his siblings.  
>> James was fascinated by the power of belief to make things true and 
>> the power of doubt to make them impossible.  Who could jump a chasm 
>> who did not believe that he could jump a chasm!   For Peirce, this 
>> sort of thinking was just empty psychologizing.  Truth was indeed a 
>> kind of opinion, but it was the final opinion, that opinion upon 
>> which the operation of scientific practices and logical inquiry would 
>> inevitably converge.
>>  >>
>>  >>     EricC, the Jamesian, will no doubt have a lot to say about 
>> this, including that it is total garbage.
>>  >>
>>  >>     As for Fefferman,  my brief attempt to learn enough about 
>> Fefferman to appear intelligent led me to the website, 
>> http://www.vipfaq.com/Charles%20Fefferman.html 
>> <http://www.vipfaq.com/Charles%20Fefferman.html> 
>> <http://www.vipfaq.com/Charles%20Fefferman.html 
>> <http://www.vipfaq.com/Charles%20Fefferman.html>>, which might be the 
>> weirdest website I have ever gone to.   I don't THINK that a 
>> language-free language is my unicorn, but Glen NEVER says something 
>> for nothing, so I am withholding judgement until he boxes my ears 
>> again.  I think my unicorn may be that all truth is statistical and, 
>> therefore, provisional. Literally:  a seeing into the future.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Thanks again for helping out, you guys!
>>  >>
>>  >>     Nick
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>     Consider, for a moment, the role of placebos in medicine.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Consider the ritual of transubstantiation.  At the moment 
>> that you sip it, is the contents of the chalice Really "blood."
>>  >>
>>  >>     /*Peirce writes, "Consider what effects, which may have 
>> practical bearing, the object of your conception to have. Then our 
>> **conception of those effects is our whole of our conception of the 
>> object.*/
>>  >>
>>  >>     "The Whole"?!  Really?  Now somebody of  Peircean Pursuasion 
>> would point out that, if a parishionner were to burst a blood vessel, 
>> and a doctor with a transfusion kit were present, NObody would 
>> conceive that the patient should b transfused with communion wine.  
>> Since causing instant death upon tranfusion is not one of the 
>> conceivable consequences of the chalice containing blood (leave aside 
>> immunity issues ), and is a conceivable consequence of transfusing 
>> communion wine, we are warranted to say that, despite what the  
>> practice of communion implies, the stuff in the challice is wine not 
>> blood.
>>  >>
>>  >>     But it's entirely conceivable that some parissioners, at 
>> theinstant of communion, do conceive of the wine as blood, and 
>> experience changes of themselves and teh world around them as a 
>> consequence of receiving communion.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Fork 1 here "The Whole"?!  Really? Consider the phenomenon of 
>> a   _________________ effects.
>>  >>     /*
>>  >>     */
>>  >>     The juice here is what we think we are estimating.  Are we 
>> estimating the true state of affairs in some world we cannot more 
>> directly access or are we estimating the final resting place of the 
>> statistic we are measuring.  My point, here, is that the latter is  
>> all we have.  To the extent that anything in experience is non-random 
>> (ie, some events are predictive of other events), any mechanism that 
>> homes on these contingencies will be selected if the consequences are 
>> of importance to reproduction of the organism. we live in a mostly 
>> random world  and to the extent that our methods of inquiry are 
>> useful, further inquiry will probably narrow our estimate of some 
>> property within finer and finer limits.  This is a process I would 
>> call inductive.
>>  >>
>>  >>     Now I think, in your latter comments, you are getting at the 
>> fact that this is only one kind of convergence,and is dependent on a 
>> prior convergence concerning what identifies a substance as lithium.  
>> Before we can determine the boiling point of lithium we have first to 
>> agree upon which substances are lithium and which operations 
>> constitute "boiling".   These are decisions that are abductive in 
>> nature, and, to that extent are less straight-forward.    Lets say we 
>> are interested in determining the boiling point of Li and we are sent 
>> looking for some li to biol.   We come accross a lump of grey metal 
>> witha dark finish in our lab drawer and we want ot know if this is 
>> lithium.   The logic here (light grey substance with dark finish =? 
>> lithiumisthe logic ofabduction.  That this first test is positive 
>> will lead you toperform yet another abductive lest: is it noticeably 
>> light when youbalance it in yourhadn, can you cut it withthe 
>> plasticknife you brought home with your take-out
>>  >>     lunch , etc.  These tests are similarly abductive (Li is 
>> light, theis substance is light, this sjumbstance isli;Li is soft, 
>> this substance is soft, this substanve is Li. When enough of these 
>> tests have come up positive you will declare the substance to be Li 
>> an procede to measure its boiling point.  (A similar series of 
>> abductions willbe require to agree upon what constitutes "boiling".
>>  >>
>>  >>     *Lithium* (from Greek 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language>>: λίθος, romanized 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Greek 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Greek>>: /lithos/, 
>> lit. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_translation 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_translation>> 'stone') is a 
>> chemical element <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element>> with the symbol 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_(chemistry) 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_(chemistry)>> *Li* and atomic 
>> number <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_number 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_number>> 3. It is a soft, 
>> silvery-white alkali metal 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkali_metal 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkali_metal>>. Under standard 
>> conditions 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_temperature_and_pressure 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_temperature_and_pressure>>, 
>> it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid element. Like 
>> all alkali metals, lithium is highly reactive 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactivity_(chemistry) 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactivity_(chemistry)>> and 
>> flammable, and must be stored in vacuum, inert atmosphere, or inert 
>> liquid such as purified kerosene or mineral oil. When cut, it 
>> exhibits a metallic luster
>>  >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luster_(mineralogy) 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luster_(mineralogy)>>, but moist air 
>> corrodes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion>> it quickly to a dull 
>> silvery gray, then black tarnish. It never occurs freely in nature, 
>> but only in (usually ionic) compounds 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_compound 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_compound>>, such as 
>> pegmatitic <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite>> minerals, which were once 
>> the main source of lithium. Due to its solubility as an ion, it is 
>> present in ocean water and is commonly obtained from brines 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine>>. Lithium metal is isolated 
>> electrolytically <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis>> from a mixture of 
>> lithium chloride <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_chloride 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_chloride>> and potassium 
>> chloride <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_chloride 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_chloride>>.
>>  >>
>>  >>     On Sun, Jan 8, 2023 at 3:21 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>>  >>
>>  >>         This smacks of Feferman's claim that "implicit in the 
>> acceptance of given schemata is the acceptance of any meaningful 
>> substitution instances that one may come to meet, but which those 
>> instances are is not determined by restriction to a specific language 
>> fixed in advance." ... or in the language of my youth, you reap what 
>> you sow.
>>  >>
>>  >>         To Nick's credit (without any presumption that I know 
>> anything about Peirce), he seems to be hunting the same unicorn 
>> Feferman's hunting, something like a language-independent language. 
>> Or maybe something analogous to a moment (cf 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics) 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics)> 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics) 
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics)>>)?
>>  >>
>>  >>         While we're on the subject, Martin Davis died recently: 
>> https://logicprogramming.org/2023/01/in-memoriam-martin-davis/ 
>> <https://logicprogramming.org/2023/01/in-memoriam-martin-davis/> 
>> <https://logicprogramming.org/2023/01/in-memoriam-martin-davis/ 
>> <https://logicprogramming.org/2023/01/in-memoriam-martin-davis/>> As 
>> terse as he was with me when I complained about him leaving Tarski 
>> out of "Engines of Logic", his loss will be felt, especially to us 
>> randos on the internet.
>>  >>
>>  >>         On 1/7/23 15:20, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>  >>          > Nick, the text renders.
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > You use words in ways that I cannot parse.  Some of 
>> them seem very poetic, suggesting that your intended meaning is 
>> different in its whole cast from one I could try for.
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > FWIW: as I have heard these discussions over the 
>> years, to the extent that there is a productive analogy, I would say 
>> (unapologetically using my words, and not trying to quote his) that 
>> Peirce’s claimed relation between states of knowledge and truth 
>> (meaning, some fully-faithful representation of “what is the case”) 
>> is analogous to the relation of sample estimators in statistics to 
>> the quantity they are constructed to estimate.
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > We don’t have any ontological problems understanding 
>> sample estimators and the quantities estimated, as both have status 
>> in the ordinary world of empirical things.  In our ontology, they are 
>> peers in some sense, but they clearly play different roles and stand 
>> for different concepts.
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > When we come, however, to “states of knowledge” and 
>> “truth” as “what will bear out in the long run”, in addition to the 
>> fact that we must study the roles of these tokens in our thought and 
>> discourse, if we want to get at the concepts expressive of their 
>> nature, we also have a hideously more complicated structure to 
>> categorize, than mere sample estimators and the corresponding 
>> “actual” values they are constructed to estimate.  For sample 
>> estimation, in some sense, we know that the representation for the 
>> estimator and the estimated is the same, and that they are both 
>> numbers in some number system.  If we wish to discuss states of 
>> knowledge and truth, everything is up for grabs: every convention for 
>> a word’s denotation and all the rules for its use in a language that 
>> confer parts of its meaning.  All the conventions for procedures of 
>> observation and guided experience.  All the formal or informal modes 
>> of discourse in which we organize our intersubjective experience
>>  >>         pools and
>>  >>          > build something from them.  All of that is allowed to 
>> “fluctuate”, as we would say in statistics of sample estimators.  The 
>> representation scheme itself, and our capacities to perceive through 
>> it, are all things we seek to bring into some convergence toward a 
>> “faithful representation” of “what is the case”.
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > Speaking or thinking in an orderly way about that 
>> seems to have many technical as well as modal aspects.
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > Best,
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          > Eric
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          >
>>  >>          >> On Jan 7, 2023, at 5:05 PM, Nicholas Thompson 
>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> 
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>>> 
>> wrote:
>>  >>          >>
>>  >>          >> */The relation between the believed in and the True 
>> is the relation between a limited function and its limit. {a vector, 
>> and the thing toward which the vector points?]   Ultimately  the 
>> observations that the function models determine/**/the limit, but the 
>> limit is not determined by any particular  observation or group of 
>> observations.  Peirce believes that The World -- if, in fact, it 
>> makes any sense to speak of a World independent of the human 
>> experience -- is essentially random and, therefore,  that 
>> contingencies among experiences that lead to valid expectations are 
>> rare.  The apparition of order that we experience is due to the fact 
>> that such predictive contingencies--rare as they may be-- are 
>> extraordinarily useful to organisms and so organisms are conditioned 
>> to attend  to them.  Random events are beyond experience.  Order is 
>> what can be experienced. /*
>
>
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