[Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 118, Issue 58
Louis Kauffman
loukau at gmail.com
Fri Jan 17 04:09:21 CET 2025
Dear Kate,
I have some questions that are for you, but they are really quite general.
I seem to have to describe a point of view before asking the question.
But the question is simple.
What do you mean by binary?
When one speaks of “binary distinctions” or binary evaluations one usually means situations that can fall into one of two possibilities.
Thus in writing (printing), a given space on the page is either marked by a letter, or it is unmarked. In a tame logical situation a statement is either true or it is not true.
After Leibniz and the invention of the binary system for numbers we elevate this concept of binary values to encompass the vast activities of logic (usual logic as formalized) and computers.
Most mathematics lives in situations where we wonder whether a given statement is true or false, without an in between. Then there arose in early 20th century logics very beautiful logics that had in-between values, and we
remembered that such gradations had been there all along. These gradations are also parts of every culture and very apparent in some non-Western cultures.
It seems to me that we (mathematikers, scientists, philosophers, reasoners generally) begin to realize that the very sharp and clear binary distinctions that we work with are our creations and that they are supported by backgrounds and contexts that are not binary at all. To have the binary is like forming a building with nice well-defined rooms. You also need the substructure, the architecture, the walls that support the building. I can give you an example. Below is a Venn diagram. All those nice categories in the compartments. But how did it get to be so tidy? Well you can notice the boundaries. They are integral to the diagram. When you are on the boundary between two categories, you are not in one category, nor are you in the other category.
The Venn diagram also has jerry rigged in its boundaries all the Buddhist states:
Exists
Does not exist.
Neither exists nor does not exist.
The binary comes about by both constructing or being aware of the “excluded middle” AND ignoring that middle.
Can it be that such a highly constructed situation is at the basis of emotion?
Now my question begins to come forth.
So I’ll stop.
(Apologies beforehand for the rather sarcastic contents of the Venn diagram. My computer gave it to me for you as a gift.)
Best,
Lou
> On Jan 16, 2025, at 2:48 PM, Katherine Peil <ktpeil at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Eric,
> You ask:
> But, Kate, I do think that emotions are not binary and rather continuous gradations and multidimensional. Would such an assumption be deleterious to your overall theoretical stance?
>
> Given my fondness for you, I will forgive you for not doing your homework. My claim is that there arethree levels of “self-regulatory” information encoded in our complex human emotions. The binary – feel good/feel bad - categories offer only the first level of information. But they are perhaps the most important in terms of their deeper biophysical underpinnings, their ancient evolutionary function, their semantic and identity logic, and the complementary self-regulatory purposes which together they subserve (self-development and self-preservation). But your intuitions are correct because: 1) The foundational electrochemical sensory stimulus has both analog and digital features; 2) Basic emotions refer to universal requirements of the neurally endowed living embodiment, while Complex human emotions refer to one’s personal history, linguistic, sociocultural schemata and conditioned beliefs – the relative mindscape and the social landscape; 3) The scientific neglect and religious derogation of emotion coupled with its social abuses (third party punishment and reward to dominate – regulate - individuals via hardwired emotional behavior), have given binary – hedonistic – features of emotion a bad name.
> For detail, I direct you to page 15 of this paper:https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.emotionalsentience.com/docs/KTPeil2012EFS.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WgybuquyJ23ssXliguNgBTwPPyrYv8Ns8NMLzvkBHlA1lFOLun-ElJT2QnA4JCMM19oYt1gKabP5h7PR$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.emotionalsentience.com/docs/KTPeil2012EFS.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!STConXnlJDsgZ8hdjzZkO54JdP8hOeKxOYvu8746_3oXWA9k_7KNIpJy_zFjsEZBobQQ5gstwX79reSapQ$>
> With kindred affection,
> Kung Fu Kate
>
> On 1/16/25, 12:29 PM, "Fis" <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>> wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman
>
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: "Percepts" and self-reference and meaning (Stuart Kauffman)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2025 12:28:21 -0700
> From: Stuart Kauffman <stukauffman at gmail.com <mailto:stukauffman at gmail.com>>
> To: Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>>, 0 <stukauffman at gmail.com <mailto:stukauffman at gmail.com>>
> Cc: Eric Werner <eric.werner at oarf.org <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org>>, fis <fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>>, 1
> <ktpeil at outlook.com <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>>
> Subject: Re: [Fis] "Percepts" and self-reference and meaning
> Message-ID: <F6448B5C-086C-453A-B9BF-267F996BDD6F at gmail.com <mailto:F6448B5C-086C-453A-B9BF-267F996BDD6F at gmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi Lou, Eric and All, Eric thank you for the ?hats off? remark. If we are not able to specify the phase space of all the possibilites, we have no probability measure, In so far as we take Information aka Shannon, to be a reduction of uncertainty about which of a set of messages from a predefined set of possibles has been sent, Shannon is not sufficient. The evolving biosphere creates non-deducible ever-new ways of getting to exist with one another. This IS the creation of semantic information. Que no? Stu
>
> > On Jan 16, 2025, at 10:58?AM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Comments in Text.
> >
> >> On Jan 16, 2025, at 10:35 AM, Eric Werner <eric.werner at oarf.org <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org> <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org>>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Lou and Kate and all,
> >>
> >> To point 1. There are those fascinating studies of pathologies of disconnection between the right (holistic) and the left (linear) ideations.
> >>
> >> 2. The probability that what you are suggesting will be followed has low frequency.
> >>
> >> [I have no idea what you mean here. The values of the probability and the corresponding frequencies in QM can range arbitrarily high or low.]
> >> 3. Of course, human perception includes unconscious processing. In fact most of it is unconscious. Does the ant perceive the full moon? How is perception related to the complexity of neural processing in the brain? Are there degrees of perceiving the same object or event by different agents of different neural structure and complexity?
> >>
> > [yes]
> >>
> >> 4. Sorry I get all emotional when I see the lack of distinctions in GSB
> >>
> > [Sarcasm? Not appropriate. I would be interested in what you mean here. Then we would have something to discuss.]
> >> Wittgenstein version 2 would perhaps not agree with Wittgenstein version 2 where he allows a much broader range of function and what can be expressed in language and its games.
> >>
> >
> > [Yes. But I refer to parts of W1 that do not really depend on his ?picture theory?.]
> >>
> >> 5. 'O' my God we have entered religion. As the country singer disparages her partner-husband when she croons "You say it best when you say nothing at all." Poor guy. But more seriously, Lou, do you really think "All of language collapses into the meaning of a single word or sign," ? The problem is that recursion generates repetition and the lack of sufficient meaningful content whether it be in conversation of the development of embryos.
> >>
> >
> > [I point out that the concept of distinction goes across the board. In that sense we can have one word or one symbol that stands for any distinction. It is not a religion.]
> >>
> >> But, Kate, I do think that emotions are not binary and rather continuous gradations and multidimensional. Would such an assumption be deleterious to your overall theoretical stance. Your remarks on cell signalling and the approach-avoidance theme may hold at that level of ontology but seems to fail at higher levels of more complex systems and beings.
> >>
> >> And hats off to Stu and the problem of assuming a well defined phase space of what is possible. It points to problems with the foundations of probability theory. Again thank you Stu
> >>
> >> And yes Pedro thanks for points about meaning and action which relates to Wittgenstein version 2.
> >>
> >> Thank you for the motivating discussion Lou,
> >>
> >> Eric
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 1/14/25 2:58 AM, Louis Kauffman wrote:
> >>> Dear Kate,
> >>> I have questions and comments.
> >>> 1. While the notions of right and left hemispheres are useful to summarize certain aspects, I actually do not know what is really meant when people use those words.
> >>> So it would be better in communicating with me, a mathematician who needs definitions whenever possible, to rewrite statements without those metaphors.
> >>> 2. I do not want the word probability unless you can tell me what you are counting. If you cannot tell, then please speak of frequencies. Same for so called probability in QM.
> >>> 3. Perception does not include unconscious processing, but unconcious processing can affect perception. Perception is accompanied by awareness, often by consciousness.
> >>> This is how I use the word perception. My camera does not perceive the sunset. I perceive the photo produced by the camera and I am involved in the taking of photos by the camera.
> >>> Of course, I can set the camera to taking photos automatically. No perception occurs until I see them or you see them. But registration does occur. These issues are related to QM as well.
> >>> The cat registers and is dead or alive at the end of the hour. I find out. But the potentia have come to rest before I find out because the cat is corporeal.
> >>> 4. Do you feel that all awareness is related to emotions? GSB says every distinction is associated with motive. So maybe. Feeling is more general then emotion in my ways of speaking.
> >>> Feeling has to do with going outside given language and meaning to a wider and not defined domain from which we return with possibly new ways of speaking. This is for me what Wittgenstein is speaking
> >>> about when he says ?Whereof one cannot speak one must be silent.?, and then new speaking can emerge, but NOT from a ?hierarchy of languages? as Russell said in his introduction to W?s Tractatus, but by going beneath language to
> >>> Its source.
> >>> 5. In relation to 4. C.S.Peirce had the idea of a ?sign for itself? that emerged from the ever expanding hierarchy of a person?s language. There is a truth in that. One can also see an icon, such as O, as a sign for itself when seen as both a distinction and a sign for a distinction. But then the sign O is enveloped in the interpretant that would see it that way. And we only understand the interpretant in terms of the ever expanding hierarchy of our language. The O is like a ?quantum particle?. It takes the whole universe of
> >>> discourse to disclose its meaning. All of language collapses into the meaning of a single word or sign.
> >>> Best,
> >>> Lou
> >>>
> >>>> On Jan 13, 2025, at 3:57 PM, Katherine Peil <ktpeil at outlook.com <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com> <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com <mailto:ktpeil at outlook.com>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Thank you so much Lou.
> >>>> Self-reference is something very deep indeed, perhaps fundamentally located at the nexus of subject~object itself (in terms of geometry and association with quantum physics). The step from the Peircian triangle to George Spencer-Brown?s observer intervention and wavefunction collapse seems to be in this territory. Self-reference as being the perfect circle, representing the emergence from a sea of possibilities the probabilistic manifestation of percept and concept in one lovely unit.
> >>>>
> >>>> From a psychological perspective, however, perception is a different can of worms, distinct from (but related to physical sensory stimulus) and the embodied response. Behaviorism noted the stimulus-response coupling (and its essential role in learning), but remained intentionally blind to any internal cognitive processing inside the proverbial Black Box. Perception can be defined as everything happening inside that Black Box, everything between that stimulus and response, and the more neurally endowed the creature, the more the perceptual processing involved. Unlike the perfect zero, it can be reasonably accurate or riddled with error. This is why some self-referential feedback is required in the stimulus itself.
> >>>>
> >>>> This marks the distinction between affective computations and cognitive computations. Affective computations specifically concern the self, they feel either good or bad, offering evaluative feedback about the self within its local physical environment and they trigger direct stimulus-response behavior. The stream of emotional information came first and still provides primary behavioral motivation. No observation no qualia? I agree but add no sensory stimulus, no percept!
> >>>>
> >>>> Ian McGlichest?s work in the dual yet interacting functions of the left and right brain hemispheres is instructive here as well. Music, maths, non-verbal wholism, creative ?unconscious?, intuitive capacities and all imaginable possibilities?? and emotion?collectively dwell in the right hemisphere ? the Master to the left-brain emissary where complex linguistic perceptual processing occurs.
> >>>> Kate Kauffman
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On 1/12/25, 9:39 PM, "Stuart Kauffman" <stukauffman at gmail.com <mailto:stukauffman at gmail.com><mailto:stukauffman at gmail.com <mailto:stukauffman at gmail.com>>> wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman
> >>>>
> >>>> Thank you both,
> >>>>
> >>>> Stu
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Jan 12, 2025, at 8:52?PM, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com> <mailto:loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Dear Katherine
> >>>> I do not yet take the step to ?explain? how to go from percept to concept.
> >>>> The point I inhabit is prior to that.
> >>>> In every situation where you have percept you also have concept.
> >>>> They arise together for you.
> >>>> Possibly not with the good concept you are searching for.
> >>>> For example, consider the way the perception of Saturn?s rings first appeared as lune-like patterns on the orb of the planet.
> >>>> The better concept of rings took some time.
> >>>> But every time there is a perception there is at the very least some concept, some description and it is from this place of percept/concept together that we proceed.
> >>>> From there you may or may not conclude that there is no way to reduce percept to concept and there is no way to reduce concept to percept.
> >>>> That is my position as a working position.
> >>>>
> >>>> Experience provides evidence that there is much more to the concurrence. In typing I can accomplish the task without looking at the keys.
> >>>> I have no training in this. I found that eventually I did it. I do not know how it works or why it is reliable. If you asked me which fingers make which letters, I could not answer.
> >>>> The same goes for improvisation on my clarinet, but there I do keep conscious track of the key and some other contextual information. Then my ?fingers? do the rest in feedback with ear and brain.
> >>>> LeDoux has an important point and I would like to know how he links the Cognitive Computations with the Affective Computations. In music practice we do this very deliberately, but in performance
> >>>> (also part of practice) we let it happen. Music seems to begin with the affective. Doing mathematics seems to often begin in the cognitive, but achieves new creation at the nexus of cognitive and affective levels.
> >>>> This is why many people gravitate to geometry. And the Pythagoreans knew that music and geometry were one.
> >>>>
> >>>> Steiner in his early work focused on the self-reference of "thought thinking thought? which I take to be at the nexus of concept and percept.
> >>>>
> >>>> In logical and pre logical work it helps to use signs iconically.
> >>>> Thus a circle such as O can stand for a distinction and we can ?see? that the circle itself makes a distinction in the plane.
> >>>> Thus the circle O is seen to refer to itself.
> >>>>
> >>>> In this self-reference the Peircian Triangle
> >>>>
> >>>> Interpretant
> >>>> Signifier Signified
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Collapses to.
> >>>>
> >>>> Interpretant
> >>>> O
> >>>>
> >>>> The O does not have a separate meaning from its interpretant.
> >>>> This leads George Spencer-Brown to declaim:
> >>>>
> >>>> <GSBMarkObserverQuote.png>
> >>>>
> >>>> I suggest that this situation is imaged in the orthodox form of quantum measurement where the smooth and determinate evolution of the wave function is
> >>>> Interrupted by the mark of observation. Without an observer there is no distinction and the world unseen evolves in potentia. With an observer comes
> >>>> percept and concept and all the rest. When I was 16 I called the potentia the ?guarded source of the discrete?. Can?t do any better yet.
> >>>>
> >>>> Best,
> >>>> Lou
> >>>>
> *******
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