[FRIAM] Mysticism: still effing the ineffable?
steve smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Fri Jun 27 16:46:08 EDT 2025
On 6/27/25 12:11 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>
> Do you people use acronyms to appear more esoteric? Stop it!
Legend:
FWIW == For What it is Worth
QWAN == Christopher Alexander's Quality Without a Name
EAC == Enactivism / Autopoiesis / Dependent Co-Arising (in
bottom-posted definitions)
LLM == Large Language Model
M&V == Maturana & Varela (in reference to their Autopoesis)
DaveW == David West
EricS == David Eric Smith
hope I got them all
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 10:06 AM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW I composed one of my arbitrarily long (and convoluted)
> observations (maybe just mansplaining) about the multiple uses of
> the term /Reality/ and how I apprehend them and how I (think) they
> relate to the business of "chatting with LLMs" and the
> implications for the discussion at-hand. Maybe there will
> (co)arise a white paper elsewhere.
>
> However, to (try to) be concise I trimmed it a bit. I think I
> hear us talking (effing) all the way around the question of
> whether there is an ineffable and is it just "mysticism" by
> another name?
>
> I hear DaveW holding Qualia as the only truly grounded Reality and
> EricS alluding to the way the Intersubjective dribbles over into
> Placeholder (a handwaving name for something we all think we know,
> but can't seem to pin down or agree on). Most of us trained and
> operating in Sci/Eng/Tech *want* there to be a simple Objective
> which the formalisms of math/science help us converge upon but
> defer to Operational/Pragmatic most of the time?
>
> My suspicion of mystical rhetoric is that it is a most
> /obscurational/ form of Placeholder Reality... while also being
> *aspriational* ("but what IF there IS an objective reality which
> *only I* can access through unspecified occult means?"). That
> said, I DO agree with DaveWs suggestion that there are things
> which can be perceived, even apprehended which cannot be expressed
> ("effed"). thus they are "ineffable". The arts of the Arcane and
> Occult attempt to "eff" them, though gesturally, pointing vaguely
> toward an interstice? Alexander's QWAN, etc.
>
> My working definitions of "Reality" to be found at the bottom of
> the post.
>
> I acknowledge Qualia as fundamental to *my* existence.. but
> recognize the Pragmatic as a common mode of my expression and
> even apprehension, all the while aspiring to Objective but
> deferring heavily to Intersubjective to interpret all of the
> others. EAC is most interesting to me whether it is the
> autopoesis of M&V or the vedic/buddhist dependent co-arising, or
> wheeler/beyond quantum realities. But maybe because it is more
> exotic?
>
> EricS wrote:
>>
>>> On Jun 27, 2025, at 7:31, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
>>> <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dave writes:
>>>
>>> <My 'mysticism', like my hallucinogenic experience, is nothing
>>> more than a source of what I consider to be "real" data and a
>>> supply of fascinating questions—never answers.>
>>>
>>> Not clear why something that supposedly cannot be captured by
>>> mere language keeps getting pitched as a real and
>>> intersubjective thing via language.
>>
>> I am much less bothered by this _in principle_, since I generally
>> hold the two premises:
>>
>> 1. Language is a collection of signals _within_ a system,
> ...
>>
>> 2. The term “reality” is a problem in general.
>> I do like the idea that this is just a version of the normal
>> confusion, for things not understood very well (like, quite
>> badly), and that one could find ways to do better.
>
> Without belaboring (but including for completeness) I offer my
> working definitions of various uses of the term /*Reality*/:
>
> 1) Operational Pragmatic Reality: /
> /
>
> /That which affords coherent behavior—the reliable background
> against which action can occur. As from ecological psychology
> (/Gibson/’s affordances), predictive processing (/Friston/),
> and some aspects of (our beloved) /Peircean/pragmatism?/
>
> 2) Intersubjective Reality:
>
> /That which is constructed, maintained, and enacted through
> language and shared narratives. As from /Luckman, Lacan,
> Foucault/?/
>
> 3) Formal (Scientific) Reality:
>
> /That which can be modeled with precision, prediction, and
> repeatability. As from Mathematics, physics, systems theory?/
>
> 4) Experiential Reality: /
> /
>
> The immediately given, lived experience—the “suchness” before
> concept.**/As from /Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Varela? Whence
> /Qualia/.
>
> 5) Placeholder Reality:
>
> /The term “reality” as a placeholder or dummy variable—used
> rhetorically to defer deeper ontological commitments. As from
> /all of us/all the time?/
>
> 6) Participatory Reality:
>
> /Reality as not wholly determinate /until observed or
> enacted/—that is, it co-arises with participation./
>
> 7) Linguistic Manifold Reality:
>
> /LLMs inhabit and approximate intersubjective reality. Each
> language model represents a “manifold” within a semantic
> plenum. “Reality” is the high-dimensional attractor surface
> that forms when enough participants (biological or artificial)
> converge on something shareable, predictive, and compressible./
>
> Enactivism / Autopoiesis / Dependent Co-Arising (EAC) is not a
> single category in this typology—it is a *meta-theory of
> reality-generation*, operating across:
>
> *
>
> *Operational* → it explains the /conditions for affordances/
>
> *
>
> *Intersubjective* → it explains /how we co-construct the shared/
>
> *
>
> *Experiential* → it explains /how we inhabit the lived/
>
> *
>
> *Participatory* → it explains /why observation creates reality/
>
> And it gently critiques:
>
> *
>
> *Formal* → by showing its limits
>
> *
>
> *Placeholder* → by showing its necessity
>
> *
>
> *LLM-based* → by asking what is missing for full participation
>
>
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