[FRIAM] Mysticism: still effing the ineffable?
Frank Wimberly
wimberly3 at gmail.com
Fri Jun 27 18:39:41 EDT 2025
FWIW and LLM were not the problem
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 2:47 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
> 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,
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++%0D%0A++++++++++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++%0D%0A++++++++++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> 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>
>> <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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