[Fis] Maxine’s presentation

[Stanley N Salthe]

Commenting upon Maxine's presentation:

S: I think Maxine should make clear distinction between phenomena viewed
from an evolutionary perspective (e.g. comparing your hand with a chicken’s
foot, which even a child can puzzle over) and evolutionary *theory*.  It is
the former she wishes to address.

By the way, evolutionary theory does not address origins at all -- this was
even denied by Darwin despite the title of his famous book.  It deals with
change of already existent forms.

Then, many of the living do not ‘move’ in the sense that we automatically
think of (monkeys jumping). Plants move slowly by growth. How could a
phenomenologist view this at all?

STAN

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan <
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es> wrote:

> Dear FISers and New Colleagues,
>
> For travel reasons, Maxine could not post her presentation. On her behalf,
> I am attaching a file with the whole text and also copying below the Intro
> and the Final Section, in order to facilitate discussion. For those
> interested in further reference material, there is a folder in the FIS web
> pages, at the section "resources": http://fis.sciforum.net/fis  The
> folder can also be accessed by clicking on the announcement of this
> specific session (http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/). In
> due time, the other presenters will have similar arrangements.
>
> Responses have to be addressed to fis at listas.unizar.es. Remember please
> that only two messages per week are allowed to each participant. In case
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>
> Reading the whole text of this presentation is strongly encouraged. It is
> a fine and rigorous essay that deals with fundamental issues not always
> within the focus of natural and computer scientists (and of many other
> tribes). It is interesting that Maxine's views in Sections 2 and 3 are not
> far from two previous discussion sessions in this list: "Informational
> Foundations of the Act" (2015), and "The Sociotype: Social Relationships
> and Beyond" (2013). Intriguingly, in Section 4 about Descriptive
> Foundations (below), is there a cryptic message for the Foundations of
> Information Science too?
>
> Best regards to all,
>
> --Pedro
> fis coordination
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Phenomenology and Evolutionary Biology*
>
>
> *(1): Phenomenology *As written in the Preface to the 2nd edition (1979)
> of The Phenomenology of Dance, “Certainly words carry no patented meanings,
> but the term ‘phenomenology’ does seem stretched beyond its limits when it
> is used to denote either mere reportorial renderings of perceptive
> behaviors or actions, or *any* descriptive rendering at all of
> perceptible behaviors or actions. At the least, ‘phenomenology’ should be
> recognized as a very specific mode of epistemological inquiry, a method of
> eidetic analysis invariably associated with the name Edmund Husserl, the
> founder of phenomenology; and at the most ‘phenomenology’ should be
> recognized as a philosophically-spawned terms, that is, a term having a
> rich philosophical history and significance.”
>
> A phenomenological analysis of movement given in The Phenomenology of
> Dance follows the rigorous methodology set forth by Husserl. The
> methodology is integral to understandings of phenomenology as well as to
> its practice. Husserl distinguished two modes of the methodology. One mode
> is termed “static,” the other is termed “genetic.” The aim in static
> phenomenology is to uncover the essential character of the phenomenon in
> question or under investigation. The aim in genetic phenomenology is to
> uncover the source and development of meanings and values we hold.
>
> The abbreviated phenomenological analysis of movement set forth below
> follows a static phenomenology. The abbreviated phenomenological analysis
> of the origin of tool-making follows a genetic phenomenology. The first
> analysis elucidates the inherently dynamic character of movement, and in
> ways quite contrary to the idea that movement is a force in time and in
> space and quite contrary as well to the dictionary definition of movement
> as a “change of position.” The second analysis answers questions that
> paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and anthropologists leave unanswered.
> The analyses present basic aspects of animation that anchor the
> relationship between phenomenology and the life sciences. In particular,
> the point of departure for both phenomenology and the life sciences is
> *animate* being not just in the sense of *living* creatures, but in the
> sense of *moving* creatures, creatures who, in and through movement, are
> sustaining their lives, mating and reproducing, and so on. In short,
> movement is fundamental to animation, a decidedly significant entrée to
> understanding basic aspects anchoring a relationship between phenomenology
> and the life sciences. Following these analyses is a final section on the
> descriptive foundations of both phenomenology and evolutionary biology and
> on their common concern with origins...
>
> (cont., see attached file)
>
>
> *(**4) Descriptive Foundations*
> While it is common to speak laudingly of the keenness and scope of Darwin's
> observations, it is not commonly  recognized, certainly not explicitly,
> that his observations, as written, describe his experiences. His written
> observations are in fact equivalent to his experiences in the sense that
> they detail what he saw, felt, heard, smelled, and even tasted. Though
> focal attention is consistently--one might even say, exclusively--riveted
> on  his  theory  of natural selection, Darwin's descriptive writings are
> of fundamental significance, for it is these descriptive writings  that
> ground  his theory, that are its foundation. More broadly, evolutionary
> understandings and explanations of Nature are in the end tethered to an
> experientially-derived descriptive literature. Reading this literature, we
> learn a good  deal about nonhuman animals. We learn  that  they are
> perceptive,  thoughtful, and  affectively moved  by creatures and  things
> in their environment, and  we learn further that their perceptive,
> affective, and thoughtful ways are intimately related  to our own. In
> short, Darwin's descriptive accounts of the natural living world reveal
> something about the lives of others and in turn something about our own
> lives.
>
> I highlight the descriptive foundations of evolutionary theory in part
> because these descriptive foundations have fallen by the wayside,
> particularly in the highly visible present-day writings on evolution by
> neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. “Darwinian bodies” are not
> automatons. Neither are they robots lumbering  about  on behalf  of
> selfish genes nor are they head-end neurological mechanisms, as per
> cognitivists of all stripe who collapse bodies into brains. I highlight the
> descriptive foundations of evolutionary theory equally to call attention to
> experience, specifically to the fact that descriptive foundations are
> grounded in experience. Descriptive foundations do not come by way of
> reducing the living world to genes, collapsing it into brains, or modeling
> it along the lines of a computer. Descriptive foundations are laid by way
> of direct experience of the living world. Only by hewing to experiences of
> that world have we the possibility of arriving at veridical descriptive
> accounts of nature and in turn, at explanations of nature.
>
> I follow up these aspects of Darwinian evolutionary biology to show their
> confluence with phenomenology. Phenomenology, like Darwinian evolutionary
> biology, is methodologically essential to understandings of human nature;
> like Darwinian evolutionary biology, it too is tethered to experience and
> is basically a descriptive project; and again, like Darwinian evolutionary
> biology, it too is concerned with origins. What we think of and separate
> academically as disparate fields of knowledge are undergirded by
> descriptive foundations. The descriptive challenge lies in languaging
> experience and being true to the truths of experience, a challenge common
> to both fields of study.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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