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[Karl Javorszky]

Cat Got Your Tongue?

2023 11 27



Dear Learned Friends,



   1. The epistemological equivalent of Courbet’s *L’Origine du monde*

After some 28-30 years of collaboration, FIS is near the edge of an epochal
discovery. The participants themselves are stunned and speechless.

Emotional reactions to communications that one can’t help but recognize as
true give often rise to catatonic behavior patterns. (In insider-speech,
one transcribes a shock after being informed about e.g. the partner’s
infidelity as F43.2 reactive state, in text: state after having gained
knowledge about circumstances that were unknown to the subject.)

The conflict is, that parts ‘not-me’ and ‘me’ are served differently and
their results are processed differently. The ‘not-me’ is differentiated out
of the experience of the mother’s breast (or equivalent objects). The tits
are the origin of all that is objective. Impressions split as the infant
learns to coordinate its own movements and feelings and separate these from
the signals that come through the sensory organs (are not self-generated).

Symbols are a special class of not-me contents of the brain. Symbols are
the farthest away from one’s own nervous system or brain or soul
productions. At least this is the official theory, although flags, totems,
tattoos, etc. show a fluid interface via perceptional archetypes.



   1. Symbols and their properties

In the FIS context, symbols are understood to be objective within the
agreements of the social framework in which their use is commonly
understood.

In this traditional understanding, symbols are purely man-made, and if
humans do not generate symbols, so symbols do not exist. This is strictly
spoken a picture collection of symbols, which we abstract from the
realities we observe and agree to talk about. Symbols (same, whether the
symbols or their pictures) are tools in our experiments which we conduct in
our efforts to better understand the world.

Using tools in experiments has its own literature and specific checklists.
When planning an experiment, one has the responsibility to check for
artefact and biases.

The proposition is that we are traditionally neglecting a β-type bias in
the setup of our experiments.

   1. Two kinds of error

In the α-type error, one includes in the experimental setup things that one
has brought along, and which do not belong to the experiment. (Examples of
efforts to avoid α-type errors: deep cleaning and sterilizing before an
operation, recusing judges that have a personal involvement in the case,
etc.)

We do this part of the job perfectly. We assume symbols to be devoid of any
properties before we start utilizing them by giving them names and extents.

In the β-type error, one excludes things from the experiment, not because
the things would not be a part of the experiment, but due to personal
shortcomings and errors in judgement. (Example: one may believe that there
are no icebergs on one’s route in the North Atlantic while one steers a big
steamship.)

This is the point to raise. Are we really, absolutely sure that there are
no relations amongst symbols such as they are?

Today’s cultural agreement about symbols to be like pulver-snow or a huge
collection of *‘1’s *has had and still has some opponents. There are some
who believe in trolls inhabiting rocks, deities having a home in a
mountain, stones of wisdom and fountains of youth. Against such
inexplicable preverbal associations was created the technical definition of
symbols, namely that symbols as such have no properties unless one imagines
properties unto them, and imagining properties into symbols will lead to
evidently insupportable corollaries like charms and amulets.

All good and well but throwing the baby out with the bathing water is
overdoing the formalism. Superstition is a part of life, because the
underlying relations are indeed there, and over-rationalizing the question
by eradicating superstition cleans too deeply. The decree that we can
perceive no relations among symbols, because there are no such things,
allows us to place a blind spot over the happily surviving habitat of
logical relations, in which symbols live a very complex life among
themselves, just by being so similar, so different and so many as they are.

   1. What goes on behind closed doors, invisible to us

Imagine a sizable heap of different symbols. Is it not true that some of
them are similar in one aspect but different in a different aspect to
others?

Even the most anti-witchcraft learned friends will agree that some among
the symbols will be the most frequent, and we can grade the symbols on the
property alone of how less frequent their group is relative to the most
frequent.

Such relations do evidently exist. Such relations are, however, the basis
for the algorithms that process the ‘me’ part of the brain. Doing
comparative preferences experiments, it has been established (Weber,
Fechner, Ebbinghaus et al) that here exist gradations for subjective
impressions (*a *is *x% {heavier, sweeter, warmer, etc} *than *b.)*

As soon as the metric changes from *0,1 *into *<,=,> *the topic is no more
strictly objective but involves subjective decisions also.

The property of units being different among each other is an invention on
the Sumerian concept of what is a unit. The most usual has a relation to an
outlier that is different to the relation of the most usual to a
mainstream. These relations do exist and are the much-needed other pillar
to a bridge connecting biologic and technical sciences.

   1. The order of the twelve books

All and everyone is heartily invited to develop a nice educational tool,
small and easy steps, many reinforcing messages, didactive and inductive.
The suggestion to order twelve books on one’s table with one’s own hands is
the best didactic idea this person could come up with. It is certainly a
resistance present against inventing something new in mathematics because
mathematics is solidly rooted in the descendants of the tits, not of the
gut. (“If it is useful, it has already been invented. If it has not been
invented, it is not useful. Clever things are what I intake, not something
that I produce.”) There are many such unhelpful cultural signposts in the
socialization of a technical scientist.

   1. Adepts of the Twelve Books

On the other hand, who knows, maybe some of the learned friends will
actually give a short email:

Id nr of exp

No of cycles

Length distribution















This can come anonymously. Who knows what new steps are coming after having
set up the chess pieces. In fact, the game you are about to learn and apply
is more complicated than chess, although it is simpler in many ways. Be
ready to learn how to play with a hybrid between sudokus and the ultimate
version of Rubik’s cube.

Pedro has a deep talent to create an atmosphere of an intellectual *salon. *The
Zaragoza Twelve Books Story is unfolding under our very eyes. It is one’s
own decision, whether one joins the jam session. Great music has been
created by banging of pots, in the first sessions, if the novelty was a
rhythm never heard before, a truly natural rhythm. Hypothesis: Those who
learn to work with the liaison algorithms have a higher probability to be
mentioned in Wikipedia than those who do not learn to work with the liaison
algorithms.



All the best

Karl
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