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

Sun Jan 19 16:00:24 CET 2025

I second Joe strongly here, "* they are a possibly misleading way of
describing natural physical processes, including and especially
cognition. "*

I used to be a fan of Hofstadter's "Gedel, Escher, Bach" in my younger
years, but gradually started realizing that type of thoughts might be an
intellectual trap - an endless rabbit hole that leads to just
self-entertainment or self-glory but no useful actions, no tools for
handyman to do everyday work to benefit normal people.

Well, *"I have just written may not be completely correct (what is?)" *so I
welcome any of you to prove me wrong or even change my mind, by offering
some solid example of how GSB thinking has been beneficial to
solve/resolve/dissolve the huge conflicts going on in the Middle East, or
the deep divide among the Americans between Trump supporters and Trump
haters, or the chaotic social issues in the U.K. and the Europe. If no such
examples exist so far, at least point out to me how it could be, under what
conditions?

Best regards - Jason

On Sun, Jan 19, 2025 at 3:29 AM <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch> wrote:

> Dear Lou and All,
>
> Just some comments to explain my resistence to GSB and much of Lou's
> otherwise essential work: the diagrams used do not nove; they are
> "eternal". They accurately reflect *only epistemic self-reference* and
> not recursion or  ontic hetero-reference. Therefore, they are a possibly
> misleading way of describing natural physical processes, including and
> especially cognition. Information applies to the content of the diagram
> below, but the mental "movement" from figure to ground and back, and its
> logic, is at a low level of complexity. Information more broadly. however,
> is easily seen as a dynamic phenomenon, embodying and describing *change.*
>
> I submit that what I have just written may not be completely correct (what
> is?), but that it has received insufficient serious attention.
>
> Thank you and best wishes,
> Joseph
>
> Le 19.01.2025 02:08 CET, Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com> a écrit :
>
>
> Dear Karl,
>
> Background.
> Figure and Ground.
> Yes.
> And in starting with the idea of a distinction one needs to have an
> unfettered notion of background.
> That notion is emptiness.
> The empty set is placed against a background of non-membership and it has
> no members.
>
>      { }
> The GSB mark is a relative of the empty set and stands for a distinction
> and for that state obtained by crossing from emptiness
> (the first distinction, if you will.)
> As soon as one fixes on a representation of a concept, that representation
> has more properties, more inherent and indicated distinctions, than the
> concept “itself”.
> Thus the curly brackets of the representation of the empty set, { },  are
> not necessary for the concept. And the right angle bracket is not necessary
> for the mark.
> We sometimes use < > for the mark as it is useful in typing, but execrable
> as an icon since < > is two characters representing one distinction. And so
> it goes.
>
> It is in fact very powerful to understand the backgrounds that are
> appropriate for discourse and keep them as minimal as possible.
> In LOF, GSB uses the notational plane as a background, not the line.
> This has some eplstemological advantages and some drawbacks.
> After studying any indication set-up it is useful to examine what kind of
> background is being used.
> Mathematical advances and scientific advances have resulted from such
> scrutiny.
> At the level of the Heart Sutra the concept of emptiness can be the basis
> for (everything).
> Very best,
> Lou
>
>
>
> On Jan 18, 2025, at 3:55 PM, Karl Javorszky <karl.javorszky at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> Remark: this is usually called BACKGROUND.
>
> Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com> schrieb am Sa., 18. Jän. 2025, 22:43:
>
> 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> 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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