[Fis] Fw: Fw: Idealism and Materialism - and Empiricism
Dai Griffiths
dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com
Thu Nov 9 16:25:32 CET 2017
Joseph says that "Luhmann perhaps deserves some historical credit for
basing his theory on information". I would not give him any special
credit for this, but I do see value elsewhere.
To my mind Luhmann does not base his theory on information, in the sense
of establishing a theory of information and then applying that theory to
understand how society works. Rather I see him trying to answer the
question "what is an institution, that it should be able to survive
longer than the people who operate within it, and how does it achieve
this?". In any case, that is the question that his work helps me to
think about. In addressing this issue, and thinking about patterns of
communication in autopoietic terms, Luhmann of course had to take a
position on what information might be.
Institutions are indeed, as I see it, a kind of abstraction standing
above, and often pathologically ignoring or intervening in, the
'contradictorial relations and dynamics' of individuals. /Pace /Fuchs, I
find it helpful to understand the mechanisms through which institutions
maintain this position. If we can understand this, then we are better
able to formulate how we might deal with the problems and opportunities
that institutions generate. Some or many institutions (according to
one's political position) have Fascist implications. Alternatively (or
simultaneously) they may have benefits. But in any event, they are
objects of study, not artifacts of Luhmanns methodology, whatever we may
think of it.
What Luhmann does not do is provide any insight about important related
questions, such as how political processes interact with and flow
through institutions, nor how individuals can or should orient ourselves
within those processes, nor what we should do about pathological
institutions. Nor (as far as I know) does Luhmann offer a theory of
information that makes claims for application beyond the scope of his
own inquiry. I don't think it makes sense to consult Luhmann when
looking for the answers to these questions, nor to dismiss him for not
providing the answers.
There are many on this list who know Luhmann's work much better than I
do, so I stand ready to be corrected!
Dai
On 08/11/17 18:27, Joseph Brenner wrote:
> Dear Jose Javier,
> Thank you very much for your constructive response to my note. I
> respect your view of Luhmann and his constructivism (?), which you
> have certainly correctly summarized in a few words.
> However, what the Lupasco theory of actuality and potentiality does is
> to offer some ontological basis for both, grounded in physics and is
> hence in my opinion hence worthy of some modicum of our attention. It
> /is /possible to talk about reality without the pretty little diagrams
> and calculus of Spencer-Brown.
> Luhmann talks about the "constant interplay" between actual and
> potential, their /ineinanderstehen/, but there is no functional
> relation to the mundane properties of real physical systems. As Loet
> showed at the time, Luhmannian structures can be defined
> /analytically/, but that is not enough for me. And a key point: why
> 'constant' interplay? Is there something wrong, or is it just too
> real, to include discontinuities as equally important as continuities?
> It should be clear that I completely disagree with the place given to
> Luhmann in current thought. Luhmann perhaps deserves some historical
> credit for basing his theory on information. However, I follow
> Christian Fuchs who said in 2006 that "The function of Luhmann's
> theory for society is that it is completely useless".
> Society does not "contain" human beings: society is a group of human
> beings composed of individuals and the group and their contradictorial
> relations and dynamics. Luhmann stated that the "ground of being" is
> at the same time actuality and potentiality, but tells us nothing
> about their nature and rules for their evolution. Meaning cannot be a
> /unity/ of actualization and potentialization (or re- and re-). In
> unity, the two lose their necessary specificity and basis for change.
> Luhmann took human beings as agents out of his system, and replaced
> them with abstractions. Fascist ideology is not far away.
> If people would spend 1/20 the time on Lupasco that they do on Pierce
> and Luhmann, . . .
> Best regards,
> Joseph
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Jose Javier Blanco Rivero <mailto:javierweiss at gmail.com>
> *To:* Joseph Brenner <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 08, 2017 11:20 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Fw: Idealism and Materialism - and Empiricism
>
> Dear Joseph,
>
> Luhmann's concept of meaning (Sinn) is defined exactly as the unity of
> the difference between actuality and potentiality. Maybe there an
> answer can be found.
> Besides, Luhmann's Sinn can also be translated as information since it
> regards redundancy and selection. Luhmann self referred to Sinn (which
> I'd rather to translate as sensemaking) as information processing.
>
> Best regards
>
> El nov 8, 2017 6:59 AM, "Joseph Brenner" <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch
> <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>> escribió:
>
> Dear Colleagues,
> This is simply to register a dissenting opinion, for similar
> reasons, with the last two notes, if nothing else to say that
> there can be one:
> 1. Regarding John C.'s view of the value of Pierce, there can be
> no common ground. Scholastic, propositional logic is part of the
> problem. His metaphysics has no ground in physics. Only Pierce's
> intuitions, to which he gives less value, have some value for me.
> 2. Koichiro presents some good science, but it is misapplied.
> Nothing tells us that information, or another complex natural
> process, evolves according to the trajectories that he describes:
> Any robust loop trajectory appearing in biochemistry and biology
> must be either clockwise or anti-clockwise, and by no means an
> undisciplined mix of the two.
> Rather, like this discussion, such processes follow follow a 'mix'
> but is by no means undisciplined, even if it is partly backwards
> and forwards at the same time. Such scare words should not be
> used. /Pace /John, I think what underlies both has been found in
> part, and it is the linked movement of systems from actual to
> potential and /vice versa. /
> //
> What is missing from /my/ picture, since no-one seems to point to
> it, are the detailed values of the path from actuality to
> potentiality, which themselves may go from maxima to minima, as
> discussed by Michel Godron. Michel has left us . . .
> Best regards,
> Joseph
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Koichiro Matsuno <mailto:CXQ02365 at nifty.com>
> *To:* fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 08, 2017 1:18 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Idealism and Materialism
>
> On 6 Nov 2017 at 5:30AM, John Collier wrote:
>
> In fact I would argue that the notion of information as used in
> physics is empirically based just as it is in the cognitive
> sciences. Our problem is to find what underlies both.
>
> Yes, there have already been serious attempts in this direction,
> though which may not yet have received due attention from the
> folks interested in the issue of information.
>
> One example is the entropy production fluctuation theorem by Gavin
> Crooks (1999). The agenda is on the distinction between states
> and events in thermodynamics. An essence is seen in the uniqueness
> of thermodynamics allowing for even the non-state or
> history-dependent variable such as heat. This perspective is
> powerful enough to precipitate a dependable synthesis out of
> integrating both the state and the process descriptions.
>
> When a microscopic system of interest contacts a heat bath, its
> development along an arbitrary trajectory of the state attributes
> of the system necessarily accompanies the associated event of heat
> flow either to or from the bath. If the trajectory is accompanied
> by the heat flow to the bath over any finite time interval, it
> would be far more likely compared with the reversed trajectory
> absorbing the same amount of heat flow from the bath. This has
> been a main message from Crooks’ fluctuation theorem. One
> practical implication of the theorem is that if the trajectory
> happens to constitute a loop, the likely loop must be the one
> having the net positive heat flow to the bath. For the reversed
> loop trajectory would have to come to accompany the same amount of
> heat flow from the bath back into the inside of the system, and
> that would be far less likely. Any robust loop trajectory
> appearing in biochemistry and biology must be either clockwise or
> anti-clockwise, and by no means an undisciplined mix of the two.
>
> A lesson we could learn from this pedagogical example is that
> thermodynamics is a naturalized tool for making macroscopic events
> out of the state attributes on the microscopic level
> irrespectively of whether or not it may have already been called
> informational. It is quite different from what statistical
> mechanics has accomplished so far. Something called quantum
> thermodynamics is gaining its momentum somewhere these days.
>
> Koichiro Matsuno
>
> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es
> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>] *On Behalf Of *John Collier
> *Sent:* Monday, November 6, 2017 5:30 AM
> *To:* fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Idealism and Materialism
>
> Loet, I have no disagreement with this. at least in the detailed
> summary you give. In fact I would argue that the notion of
> information as used in physics is empirically based just as it is
> in the cognitive sciences. Our problem is to find what underlies both.
>
> My mention of the Scholastics was to Pierce's version, not the
> common interpretation due to a dep misunderstanding about what
> they were up to. I recommend a serous study of Peirce on te issues
> of meaning and metaphysics. He wa deeply indebted to their work
> iin logic.
>
> Of course there may be no common ground, but the our project is
> hopeless. Other things you have said on this group lead me to
> think it is not a dead end of confused notions. In that case we
> are wasting our time.
>
> John
>
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Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
Professor of Education
School of Education and Psychology
The University of Bolton
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