[Fis] "Percepts" and self-reference and meaning

Sat Jan 18 22:32:08 CET 2025

Dear Pedro,
It depends on how you look at it.
Consider the Heart Sutra.

In Mathematics, all forms are brought forth from emptiness.

{ }
{{}}
{{},{{}}}
…

Emptiness can mean “that which is not (yet) articulated or indicated”.
At the bottom of what is indicated is what is not indicated.
What is not indicated is not marked.
Emptiness is a word for what is not marked.

Very best,
Lou

> On Jan 18, 2025, at 3:05 PM, Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou and List,
> 
> Thanks to you (and Eric) for the thought-provoking exchange. Along it, I was reminded of a maverick approach to distinctions I read long ago. It was pointing to a set with N elements carrying multiple "signs" or "marks". The distinctions between these elements carrying heterogeneous signs within the set were expressed by means of partitions, actually multidimensional partitions. Other related authors tried to systematically obtain and compile those multidimensional partitions via a few 'logical' principles (economy, parsimony, symmetry) applied to the pruning of redundant signs, and subsequently the 'canonical' multid.partitions could be obtained 'almost' algorithmically (at least for small N)... etc. etc. At least, in my non-mathematical mind I could make some practical sense of this distinctional stuff (in which I was interested regarding cellular signaling systems and the way receptors combinations were occupied by different signaling molecules). 
> I disagree with the closing statement (THE FORM WE TAKE TO EXIST ARISES FROM FRAMING NOTHING), because it situates itself above the conditions of any previous kind of existence. IMO it is a Barón of Münchhausen's type of statement. Maths as I pointed days ago inherit the inner dynamics of our sensorimotor transformations from which language developed. Maths, as it has often been recognized, is a particular form of collective language. It partakes of an enormous historical accumulation of thought-experimentation and pruning, particularly trying to capture the transformations of the external world. The implicit subject is always "us", the writer plus the concerned learned community of 'practitioners' of that particular math 'dialect'. And concerning distinctions, it obviously includes the possibility of entering into the scheme of other subjects (as Eric points) endowed with genuine distinctional capability--from living cells to...
> Anyhow, in spite of the disagreement, your message was a great reading. Thanks for those GSB quotations.
> 
> Concerning Kate's recent emphasis on E. coli's two component system in charge of motion control, the discoveries on prokaryotic signaling during last two decades have left a richer panorama. For instance, E. coli counts with about 100 one-component-systems (1CSs), 28 of the 2 CSs class, and just two of the 3 CSs (actually one of them is the motion control). The 1CSs are more simple and primitive (evolutionarily), and slower, with respect to the faster, more specific, and more evolved 2CSs, which in their turn are less complex and sophisticate than 3CSs, which are applied to the treatment of very important signals than need a further layer of intervening processes. It always depend on the whole advancement of the cell cycle, or life history, which endowment the bacterium will contain... Anyhow, the whole signaling panorama of 'primitive' cells is fascinating--it is indeed the beginning of biological sensing & communication.
> 
> By the way, Jason, thanks for that amazing report on the proton innards.
> 
> Greetings to all,
> --Pedro
>   
> 
> El 17/01/2025 a las 21:57, Louis Kauffman escribió:
>> Dear Eric,
>> There is a confusion here that is quite natural.
>> LOF is a book of mathematics and philosophy. It discusses the idea of a distinction.
>> When one takes a mathematical approach one attempts to begin with very simple structures and 
>> explore outward into complexity. LOF dwells on the possibility of one distinction throughout the whole book.
>> 
>> “We take as given the idea of distinction and the idea of indication 
>> and that one cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction. 
>> We take therefore the form of distinction for the form.”
>> 
>> As such LOF is not concerned with where or how the distinction is made.
>> In the same way, a mathematics book about number is not concerned with particular representations of numbers.
>> Of course we have these concerns and we want to understand more and more about numbers in general
>> and we feel that some representations will help and some ways to use signs and symbols will help. 
>> The same is the case with the idea of distinction. 
>> 
>> GSB does have his ontology (or lack thereof!). 
>> 
>> Some people are made a bit nervous by declarations that the world is created from nothing. 
>> But you can investigate this if you are not annoyed by it.
>> What could ’things’ be ‘made of’? 
>> 
>> If you’re bothered, then you are bothered.
>> Mathematics is similarly annoying 
>> as we have systematically shown 
>> how to build it all from nothing 
>> but the act of collecting/distinguishing 
>> and the act of creating signs and indications.
>> 
>> Everyone has their niche of ideas and ways that they want to continue to use. 
>> In the approach of a big general idea, what we already “know" looks too good be abandoned, 
>> and so we keep demanding that the other talk in our language.
>> GSB created new language. 
>> Wittgenstein pointed out the ontological consequences of the limitations of language. 
>> Both are very challenging. 
>> Neither are making religions. 
>> These are anti-religions.
>> Best,
>> Lou
>> 
>> THE FORM WE TAKE TO EXIST ARISES FROM FRAMING NOTHING.
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jan 17, 2025, at 6:19 AM, Eric Werner <eric.werner at oarf.org <mailto:eric.werner at oarf.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear Lou,
>>> 
>>> To point 4. Yes, I admit it was sarcasm. To me a distinction requires a subject. And that subject's neuro-hardware or firmware or software limits the distinctions that that subject can make. For example, the distinctions made by an ant, a frog, a cat or a human may be quite different.  
>>> 
>>> I realize you are probably the world top expert on Spencer Brown so you probably have a reply. But my instinct is that GSB is claiming too much by using 'distinction' as an ONTOLOGICAL or metaphysical foundation for what requires a subjective capacity. OK, this last sentence is not fully clear, but I think GSB is confusing subject and being. 
>>> 
>>> As for the sarcasm, it is a more personal emotional reaction having little to do with you. Although you may unknowingly have had a role in the matter through your publications.  I have friends who study early Wittgenstein and GSB as if their texts were biblical texts. Going to the library every day to read the Tractatus and LOF like a disciple doing his or her religious studies. 
>>> 
>>> At the onset of puberty and the ability to consciously reason, my mother took each of us into the kitchen and taught us to be critical of the bible, both the old and new testament. We were raised Christian but there were also Jews in my mother's ancestry. Who knows why, but I have maintained my religious skepticism and hence my perhaps inappropriate reaction when I smell religiosity. Apologies dear Lou. 
>>> 
>>> In spite of my critical attitude, I do believe there is more to the universe. There may be a God or Gods and angels.  There may be life after death. Life is always surprising. So, I am open to that. 
>>> 
>>> -Eric
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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