[Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Stan

Karl Javorszky karl.javorszky at gmail.com
Thu Jun 13 17:40:06 CEST 2019 

Dear Friends,



Our central theme is information. Whether it is to be recognised among the
pictures that we make about Nature (in the objective, outside world) or
among the pictures that we make about ourselves, all these pictures are
localised in the brain which is at the end of our neck. There is no
escaping the fact that the mechanism which generates our ideas is a
biologic one.

Biologic concepts of order are vastly different to concepts of order in the
technical sciences. Among the tasks FIS has, is consolidation of the
differing systems of thought.



The black hole of neurology/psychology mentioned by Stan is in fact the
only, and therefore the unavoidable path we can take. The pictures we make
and the words we use are contents of the brain and are subject to storing,
filing, indexing, retrieving, connecting and disconnecting procedures.
There is no way avoiding the subject of storing and retrieval, because that
is what we call information management. It is not the problem that the
brain does it, it is the problem that we have difficulties in visualising
HOW the brain does it. Actually, it does it by utilising the inherent
communalities and differences in the actual meaning of the term ‘sequenced’
as opposed to ‘contemporary’.



The discussion may run presently around, in which screen realisation we see
the movie plot of information management, we should however better shift
the subject to the plot: and that is, how the brain manages information: by
storing and retrieval. Once we understand the principle of embalming and
resurrection of a content, we can build such machines that do the trick.
The information management of the brain is that eye, which, Wittgenstein
said, cannot see itself. We can however deduct the working principle of
information management, each one individual among us (having found inner
places in inner landscapes) for themselves alone, but speak about it can we
only in that case in a comprehensive fashion, if we use words that are
commonly understood. The principle is easy to transmit and to comprehend.
What is needed, is a readiness to accept the idea that a new explanation
makes the mechanism of the inner coherence understandable. Whether one
observes principles of inner coherence expressing themselves as a priori
rules of external reality, or as subtle inner mood changes influencing
taste in preferences and views, is of secondary relevance.



Joseph’s approach has always impressed me as very well-reasoned. Lacking
knowledge of literature, I cannot take part in that discussion. That there
are a priori existing rules in Nature is self-evident, irrespective of the
way we speak about them.



Thank you for the interesting discussion. I hope you are not too much bored
by the interjections: Listen, it is accounting that is important!
Accounting! Pay more attention to Accounting! - during a nice office party
while people talking shop.



Yours:

Karl

Am Do., 13. Juni 2019 um 16:37 Uhr schrieb Stanley N Salthe <
ssalthe en binghamton.edu>:

> Joseph, replying on Natural Philosophy
>
> JB: Natural Philosophy deals with the question of nature as a whole stated
> by beings (ourselves) that find themselves in nature without having the
> possibility of a holistic view, being ourselves in nature and not beyond
> it.   S: SO, YOU INCLUDE HUMANS AS PART OF THE NATURE TO BE STUDIED. The
> fact that we are able to ask this question means that we have some kind of
> pre-knowledge about nature as a whole   S: THIS WOULD HAVE BERN DERIVED
> FROM OUR CULTURE  while at the same time this pre-knowledge is problematic,
> otherwise we would not ask the question and would not be able to become
> natural philosophers. S: WHETHER PROBLEMATIC OR NOT, OR IN WHICH WAY, WOULD
> DEPEND UPON OUR CULTURE
>
> The question then changes to the difference between nature and reality as
> a whole, including fictions, non-verifiable beliefs and intangible objects
> of thought.  S: SO THIS FURTHER BRINGS IN  PARTICULARITIES OF THE CULTURE
> OF THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHER. IN SOME CASES THAT CULTURE MAY NOT
> DIFFERENTIATE REALITY FROM NATURE Since the idea that classical Natural
> Philosophy evolved into  science  seems  correct,  we  are  left,  for
> the  domain  of  Natural  Philosophy, with only a speculative
> interpretation of nature viewed in its entirety.   S: OK     This
> interpretation is, *ipso facto*, at a lower ontological level than the
> science which has largely replaced it. S: IN WHAT SENSE LOWER? Much of the
> 20th Century linguistic turn, expressed in both analytical and
> phenomenological and residual transcendental traditions, is well visible in
> contemporary philosophy.S: I SUPPOSE THIS MEANS THAT ‘IN THE END WILL BE
> THE WORD!.
>
> IN MY OWN VIEW, I DO NOT EXPLICITLY INCLUDE CONSIDERATIONS OF HUMAN
> NATURE, WHICH I HOLD TO BE IMPLICIT IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE BASED ON
> SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS (ANTS OR BIRDS WOULD CREATE - IF THEY COULD - A
> DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE.
>
> BRUNO -- REGARDING  We can’t have both Mechanism in cognitive science,
> and materialism, or just physicalism, in the “natural science”. THIS DOES
> IMPACT MY CHOICE NOT TO EXPLICITLY INCLUDE THE HUMAN CONSTRUCTION OF NATURE
> IN MY VIEW OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY BASED ON THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE SINCE
> THAT COULD END UP IN A BLACK HOLE OF NEUROLOGY/PSYCHOLOGY.
>
> STAN
>
> STAN
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 10:40 AM Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
> wrote:
>
>> Stan,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for your question. I reply with a modified excerpt from an
>> article in *Philosophies. *The full article is Open Access. I am
>> indebted to Rafael Capurro for part of this formulation. Comments welcome.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>>
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>>
>> Natural Philosophy: Excerpt from Brenner, J. 2018. The Naturalization of
>> Natural Philosophy.* Philosophies 2018 *3, 41.
>>
>> Natural Philosophy deals with the question of nature as a whole stated by
>> beings (ourselves) that find themselves in nature without having the
>> possibility of a holistic view, being ourselves in nature and not beyond
>> it. The fact that we are able to ask this question means that we have some
>> kind of pre-knowledge about nature as a whole while at the same time this
>> pre-knowledge is problematic, otherwise we would not ask the question and
>> would not be able to become natural philosophers.
>>
>> The question then changes to the difference between nature and reality as
>> a whole, including fictions, non-verifiable beliefs and intangible objects
>> of thought. Since the idea that classical Natural Philosophy evolved into
>> science  seems  correct,  we  are  left,  for  the  domain  of  Natural
>> Philosophy, with only a speculative interpretation of nature viewed in its
>> entirety. This interpretation is, *ipso facto*, at a lower ontological
>> level than the science which has largely replaced it. Much of the 20th
>> Century linguistic turn, expressed in both analytical and phenomenological
>> and residual transcendental traditions, is well visible in contemporary
>> philosophy.
>>
>> The reaction to this unsatisfactory state of affairs has been the
>> reinstatement of realisms and materialisms of various kinds, associated
>> today with the names of Derrida, Badiou, Zizek, and others. The
>> ‘ontological turn’ in philosophy is a term of art that designates
>> dissatisfaction with descriptions of reality based on analytical, semantic
>> criteria of truth. Starting with Heidegger’s critique of hermeneutics and
>> the basing of philosophy on human life, the ontological turn is a challenge
>> to neo-Kantian epistemologies, and looks to what the structure of the world
>> might be like to enable scientific, that is, non-absolute knowledge.
>> Unfortunately, ontological theories have been hobbled by the retention of
>> static terms whose characteristics are determined by bivalent logic. In
>> 2002, Priest suggested that such an ontological turn in philosophy was
>> taking place, away from language in the direction of an contradictorial
>> view of reality. Priest proposed paraconsistent logic as appropriate to
>> this turn, but his system suffers from the epistemological limitations of
>> paraconsistency. Lupasco, on the other hand, anticipated the ontological
>> turn by some 60 years. (In the complete article, I show that his logical
>> system can be used to differentiate between Natural Philosophy and
>> Philosophy *tout court.*)
>>
>> The most important point for me is that Natural Philosophy tells us
>> something real about the world that is consistent with our best science,
>> physical, biological and cognitive. Speculative philosophy can always
>> re-illuminate ‘eternal’ questions such as what it means to be a thinking
>> being in a non-thinking environment. This non-Natural Philosophy, to
>> repeat, exists for ‘natural’ reasons: it is a natural necessity for human
>> beings to create it, by a natural process, but it is not part of nature
>> *qua* content.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Stanley
>> N Salthe
>> *Sent:* mardi, 11 juin 2019 21:09
>> *To:* fis
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] New Perspectives
>>
>>
>>
>> Joseph -- Would you like to write how you define Natural Philosophy?
>>
>>
>>
>> STAN
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 12:03 PM Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Pedro and All,
>>
>>
>>
>> Many thanks are due to you, Pedro, for this new and valuable formulation
>> of the – daunting - task at hand. The task is logical and philosophical, as
>> well as scientific. Philosophy here, exemplified by the Philosophy of
>> Information, does not mean standard discussions of ‘where did we come from’
>> and ‘does a transcendent deity exist’, which are as sterile in their way as
>> the excesses of the IT and AI ideologists. Natural Philosophy can be a
>> ‘vehicle’ for interaction between people of good will, the collaboration
>> that you point to that may help to advance IS4SI. Some of you who may not
>> have been at the Conference in San Francisco (Berkeley) may wish to look at
>> abstracts of papers from the Philosophy of Information sub-conferences at
>> the 2015, 2017 and 2019 Summit conferences on Information.
>>
>>
>>
>> To revitalize the list is indeed a key first step. But it starts, in my
>> opinion, with some self-examination, examination of whether one’s own
>> theories are just ‘pet’ theories. Applying this criterion to my own Logic
>> in Reality, about which I have written on several occasions, I claim that
>> it is not just a pet theory. It is a new perspective on how information,
>> logic and thought operate as real processes, following laws within the laws
>> of physics, without loss of a human, ethical dimension. However, LIR makes
>> many demands on one. It requires an understanding and acceptance of what is
>> /*not*/ Natural Philosophy, which may include some of the ideas that
>> have appeared in this list.
>>
>>
>>
>> Again, accepting my own criterion of interactive non-separability, I do
>> not call for any exclusions or limitations on the list. I only wish that
>> everyone makes the necessary effort to position his or her own views in
>> relation to the overriding need for furthering the Common Good. The sum of
>> all such honest self-referential (or second-order recursive) opinions of
>> people about their own work would itself be a useful creative effort, I
>> think.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you and best wishes,
>>
>>
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C.
>> Marijuan
>> Sent: mardi, 11 juin 2019 13:05
>> To: 'fis'
>> Subject: [Fis] New Perspectives
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> A few days ago took place the IS4SI Meeting, in SFco, with one of the
>>
>> parallel sessions devoted to FIS and other sessions also with presence
>>
>> of veteran parties of this list. Relevant speakers in the plenary
>>
>> sessions covered the main topic of the conference, expressed as: Where
>>
>> is the I in Artificial Intelligence and the Meaning in Information? From
>>
>> Tristan Harris to Melanie Mitchell, to Paul Verschure, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> In my view the perspectives in these IT fields are changing
>>
>> significantly. The tremendous hype in AI, Deep Learning, IOT, etc. keeps
>>
>> unabated, but critical voices are being heard, not just from a few
>>
>> Academia corners as usual, but now by leading technologists and
>>
>> researchers of big companies in these very fields. "Dissent" on the
>>
>> contents, methodologies, and consequences of social applications is
>> growing.
>>
>>
>>
>> The industrial development of this IT sector --notwithstanding the
>>
>> inflated proclamations and all the hype of the gurus-- does not mean the
>>
>> arrival of some great singularity, or the symbiosis with machines, or
>>
>> widespread menace of robots & cyborgs... these are slogans coming from
>>
>> the industrialists to maintain social/ideological preeminence for their
>>
>> whole sector. Rather I think they are starting to feel the consequences
>>
>> of their social overstretching in different ways.
>>
>>
>>
>> The fundamental point, in my opinion, is that our solitary, isolated
>>
>> efforts from a few Academia places (Sciences & Humanities) in the quest
>>
>> for new perspectives in Information Science, and not just AI
>>
>> development, should not isolated any more. We can now establish an
>>
>> interesting dialog and partnership with those new "dissenters" of the
>>
>> technology in its concepts, methods, and social applications. It is upon
>>
>> us to improve the discussion procedures, the collaborations, the
>>
>> organization, etc. so that this opportunity might materialize
>>
>> progressively. Do not ask me how... In any case I pointed out three
>>
>> future directions for IS4SI advancement: community building, attracting
>>
>> scientific/technological avantgarde, and organizational improvement.
>>
>>
>>
>> Revitalizing this discussion list--shouldn't it be one of the first steps?
>>
>>
>>
>> Best greetings to all,
>>
>>
>>
>> --Pedro
>>
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>>
>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>>
>>
>>
>> pcmarijuan.iacs en aragon.es
>>
>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>>
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>>
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