[Fis] Fwd: Re: "Percepts" and self-reference and meaning - [chaotic issues]

[Prof. Dr. Thomas Görnitz]

Dear Jason,
A paradox is not a contradiction.
Para = against and doxa = opinion mean that a tricky situation is  
presented for which there is no solution at the moment.

In the story with the barber, the paradox only appears with the  
question: does he shave or does he not shave?

Now my question:

Is it paradoxical if, in a situation that is arranged in such a way  
that the essence of a paradox is to be explained without the tools of  
mathematical set theory, instead of a paradoxical sentence, a sentence  
is proposed in which one cannot recognize anything paradoxical?

All the best
Thomas



Quoting Jason Hu <jasonthegoodman at gmail.com>:

> Dear Thomas,
> I invite you to consider a different perspective regarding the barber topic.
> "All men who do not shave themselves" is actually a superficial
> description, In My Honest Opinion.
> Why don't they? (1) their facial hair has not grown out yet; (2) they
> prefer leaving it growing like Gandolf; (3) They dislike that barber and
> don't want to see him; (4) They do not have a shaving knife at home.
> Only the fourth case contains a solid client for the barber. Therefore, a
> better description of the issue should be "any man who *has a need* to be
> shaved", IMHO. Subjective judgment (of a need to be shaved) plays a key
> role here.
> Thus, the barber shaves "all men who have a need to be shaved," period.
> That includes himself when he perceives that he needs a shave. Case closed.
> So, I thought Russell was just too fussy entertaining himself by bragging
> this too much... to impress some girl students? (Like err, Martin Heidegger
> attracted Hannah Arendt with his deep, sophisticated philosophy...)
> Because "a set of all sets that do not contain themselves" might be just a
> meaningless/needless toughen-twister language game - I don't see why
> Russell and followers are so soaked in it. (I see I have a right/destiny of
> not seeing something...) You tell me.
> Best regards - Jason
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 7:34 AM Prof. Dr. Thomas Görnitz <
> goernitz at em.uni-frankfurt.de> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>> In addition to my answer to Joe, I would like to point out the following:
>>
>> If I see it correctly, Spencer Brown introduces an aspect with
>> imaginariety that transcends the factual distinction between early,
>> now and later. This is very nicely illustrated in Eric's post:
>> negative, zero, positive.
>>
>> The temporal facts can be arranged on the real axis.
>>
>> The imaginary is not real. That is why it does not obey Aristotelian
>> or Boolean logic.
>>
>> As I show in my books, quantum theory means recognizing an aspect that
>> we take for granted in our daily lives: mere possibilities that have
>> not yet become facts influence our actions even now.
>>
>> In other words, not only facts can cause action, but also
>> possibilities that have not yet become facts.
>>
>> This fundamental insight distinguishes quantum theory from classical
>> physics. In the latter, possibilities are merely unknown or
>> uninteresting facts.
>>
>> If possibilities are not facts, then they cannot be represented on the
>> real number line. Mathematicians have long since proposed and
>> introduced “i”, the root of -1, as an extension to the complex
>> numbers. Possibilities (and consequently quantum theory) can therefore
>> be represented with imaginary or complex numbers.
>>
>> Possibilities can become facts. The square of an imaginary number is a
>> real number.
>>
>> Spencer Brown uses the imaginary to refer to self-reference. From a
>> natural philosophical point of view, Paul Drechsel is working on this
>> problem of imaginativeness.
>>
>> Behind this insight is probably the property of the whole of nature,
>> as far as it can be grasped by natural laws, that possibilities are
>> much more and much more important than just unknown facts.
>>
>> Even an AQI has an infinite number of different possibilities, even if
>> only two of these possibilities can be totally different because they
>> are orthogonal to each other.
>>
>> I had explained this possible infinity in quantum theory as a
>> necessary mathematical aspect for a mathematical modeling of
>> self-reference.
>>
>> But of course, as Spencer Brown implicitly shows, you can also use the
>> imaginary for it.
>>
>> Spencer Brown sees the effect of “re-entry”, which leads to the
>> imaginary, as an aspect of temporality. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
>> had tried to derive the structure of quantum theory from a temporal
>> logic. This is useful because a temporal logic must include the
>> possibilities and thus goes beyond the Aristotelian or Boolean logic
>> of facts.
>>
>> If the barber in the village shaves all the men who do not shave
>> themselves, then, according to this premise, he must shave when his
>> beard has grown and he has not shaved.
>> But then he has shaved himself and must not shave again for a while.
>> But after that, the whole thing can start again. A temporal sequence
>> can sometimes resolve the logical contradiction in a certain way.
>>
>>  From a physical point of view, nature naturally precedes logic in
>> time. Logic only enters the cosmos with humans. We can therefore
>> expand Aristotelian logic into a quantum logic, precisely because this
>> enables a better description of nature.
>>
>> All the best
>> Thomas
>>
>>
>> Quoting joe.brenner at bluewin.ch:
>>
>> > Dear Pedro, Lou, Terry and All,
>> > At the end of his note of Jan. 23, Pedro wrote:
>> >
>> > "I assume this at the other extreme of logical underpinnings, sorry,
>> > but in my eyes it has some relation.."
>> >
>> > These logics to which I have seen recent reference, especially in
>> > connection with Spencer-Brown, are all Boolean. In addition, another
>> > recent note below suggests that the processes involved are "circular".
>> >
>> > I submit that what is happening before our eyes is "reductionism in
>> > action". With a stroke of the pen, large swaths of reality are
>> > excluded if they follow a non-Boolean logic of the kind proposed by
>> > Boole himself in his Appendix to the Laws of Thought.
>> >
>> > My own interpretation insures me that opposites to it are present in
>> > your approaches also, but at most as minor perturbations that can be
>> > safely ignored since that presence is primarily potentialized, swept
>> > "under the rug".
>> >
>> > The dialectical approach, which I claim has its grounding in the
>> > Laws of Physics, and should be discussed as following them. There
>> > are inherent in such an approach the non-standard  "logical
>> > underpinnings" that Pedro correctly states are missing. My problem
>> > with trying to defend my position and correct it for the "common
>> > good" is that it has never been attacked on specific grounds.
>> >
>> > The problem I have with LoF inspired reasoning is that it is
>> > hopelessly Hegelian, univocal. "Ad astra per aspera" preferably in
>> > vehicles built and operated by Musk.
>> >
>> > To conclude, applicable logical uderpinnings of your position,
>> > Pedro, exist, and it will be in a non- or anti-LoF approach that
>> > they may be found.
>> >
>> > Thank you and best wishes,
>> > Joseph
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ---------- Message d'origine ----------
>> >
>> >> De : Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com>
>> >> À : "Pedro C. Marijuán" <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
>> >> CC : fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> >> Date : 25.01.2025 18:03 CET
>> >> Sujet : Re: [Fis] "Percepts" and self-reference and meaning -
>> >> [chaotic issues]
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Dear Pedro,
>> >> I would like to speak to your question again.
>> >> You ask about the nature of the subject/person (in the LoF dialogue
>> >> and/or beyond that discussion).
>> >> Certainly that book and our discussions in language presuppose a
>> >> subject like us who can read and reason and make distinctions as we
>> >> make them.
>> >>
>> >> We also look out on our worlds and see other makers of distinctions
>> >> in a wider sense of the term - Bacteria, Eukaryotes,
>> >> Multicellulars, Mammals and their Central Nervous System,  and so
>> >> on. And we are always looking at these through our own eyes, and
>> >> thinking about the autonomy of such subjects. Indeed we think about
>> >> and work with and live in our world recognizing the autonomy of
>> >> other human subjects.
>> >>
>> >> And we know that our language is a communal construction.
>> >>
>> >> Yet we each, perhaps as a construction of that language, adhere to
>> >> the notion of a personal subject.
>> >>
>> >> So the nature of “personal subject” is something that we can each
>> >> explore and possibly communally via language and community.
>> >>
>> >> In the book LoF and in the literature of cybernetics there is talk
>> >> of the “observer”, as though we knew what this meant.
>> >> We do not know.
>> >> And not knowing, we can regard this notion as subject (sic) for
>> research.
>> >> To ask about the nature of the observer is the same (I suggest) as
>> >> to ask about the nature of distinction.
>> >> Best,
>> >> Lou
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > On Jan 23, 2025, at 1:30 PM, Pedro C. Marijuán
>> >> <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com mailto:pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > Dear Lou and FIS Colleagues,
>> >> >
>> >> > Let me ask you just a couple of questions on the subject implicit
>> >> in your distinction scheme. I assume it is human, an enlightened
>> >> logician. And this person makes use of an unfettered system of
>> >> perception --jumping then from percepts to concepts, as you say,
>> >> and achieving a higher state of consciousness and problem solving
>> >> via emptiness and the Heart Sutra. Right? No thought collective
>> >> instances are intervening or involved, at least directly. And no
>> >> ostensible limitations are precluding advancement of thought...
>> >> And about other possible 'distinctional' subjects, i.e. non-human
>> >> subjects --Bacteria? Eukaryotes? Multicellulars? Mammals and their
>> >> Central Nervous System?
>> >> >
>> >> > One could state, too succinctly, that any of these living
>> >> entities have adapted to their niche by abducing or intercepting ad
>> >> hoc information flows, which in the basis become sort of
>> >> molecular-recognition distinctions that are processed in successive
>> >> steps and finally elaborated into meanings that adaptively change
>> >> the ongoing behavior and selfproduction processes. So... it is
>> >> about surviving via the information flows adaptively catched from
>> >> the niche, which in the human case is a social niche.
>> >> >
>> >> > Further, we humans have developed an amazing knowledge system of
>> >> several thousand disciplines, where distinctions pile up on
>> >> distinctions, assembled into theoretical constructs, experimental
>> >> methods and multifarious approaches. The actual ways and means to
>> >> move within that gigantic tangle have been pragmatism, traditions,
>> >> and bureaucracy. Lots of the latter as we know well from the
>> >> institutions in charge of knowledge handling. Right. But nowadays
>> >> we have a new invitee to the chaotic "Fiesta of Knowledge": AI.
>> >> >
>> >> > In what extent this new invitee will get free of the most
>> >> conspicuous knowledge limitations of our individual minds? What
>> >> kind of information flows will enter into its gut and what kind of
>> >> new 'meanings' will be produced? Unfortunately, almost nobody is
>> >> interested in the nuclear matter that has forced us into a Babel of
>> >> spattering disciplines, into unending explanatory/'translatory'
>> >> exchanges: our entrenched cognizing limitations. We prefer, and
>> >> take refuge into, the security of the well-framed 'microscope'.
>> >> >
>> >> > I assume this at the other extreme of logical underpinnings,
>> >> sorry, but in my eyes it has some relation...
>> >> >
>> >> > Best--Pedro
>> >> >
>> >> > El 20/01/2025 a las 8:46, Louis Kauffman escribió:
>> >> >
>> >> > > Dear Jason,
>> >> > > I have already answered this in some other ways, but lets try again.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Diagrams
>> >> > > (a) A diagram is not particularly static. It could be a movie
>> >> or an injunction to make a movie.
>> >> > > It could be a dance or a ritual, a temple or a war.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > That is how you might view the diagrams about topology of DNA
>> >> recombination.
>> >> > > And it is in that mode that diagrammatic work and the
>> >> possibility of creating a diagram from the “microword” by electron
>> >> microscopy, led to the understandings about
>> >> > > Knotted DNA and topological enzymes. These in turn have had an
>> >> effect at some medical levels since if your topo enzymes do not
>> >> work, your cells cannot divide and you die.
>> >> > >
>> >> > >
>> >>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.excedr.com/resources/topoisomerase-overview*:*:text=In*20pharmaceuticals*2C*20topoisomerases*20are*20used,anticancer*20therapeutics*20other*20than*20chemotherapy__;I34lJSUlJSUlJSU!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UDe2a6H8b5fUHZZLowtIGpBPU_wId_81A6j7zmJZoymCIJhysfXZ1SR55-WWmtzYec2jy57-Tb5Kkl3VIKMKkxhPlhI$
>>
>> >>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.excedr.com/resources/topoisomerase-overview*:*:text=In*20pharmaceuticals*2C*20topoisomerases*20are*20used,anticancer*20therapeutics*20other*20than*20chemotherapy__;I34lJSUlJSUlJSU!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VN3_KOI3NVnHHrQCUBhk-CmKe_3eXVjVC6CDnsTgT_aqTDe_YRSaOTbYTVnZXUUn-RfO2h_ygvadEF65$
>> .
>> >> > >
>> >> > > So here you have a real example of how diagrammatic topological
>> >> mathematics is closely allied with applications that can save lives.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (b) For the design of quantum algorithms and all things quantum
>> >> field theoretic we use diagrams quite intensively.
>> >> > > The same is true for working out the reactions that lead to the
>> >> bomb. So diagrams can also be used to kill en masse, as can all of
>> >> language.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (c) Written language is a work of diagrams. Those little
>> >> characters you string together are stylized diagrams, rather static
>> >> by themselves. And if you live in China or Japan your
>> >> > > Language is an incredible pastiche of diagrams.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (d) Actually all of mathematics is a pastiche of diagrams for
>> >> all sorts of conceptual and calculational purposes.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (e) I refer you to C.S. Peirce for the role of diagrams and
>> >> signs in thought.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (f) The greatest masters of diagrams in Cybernetics were
>> >> Strafford Beer and Humberto Maturana. Perhaps you see some value in
>> >> their work.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (f) The GUI that began with Mac and infiltrated PC is the
>> >> > > diagrams of finitely nested boxes
>> >> > > that are the basis of the distinctions and indications of LOF.
>> >> > > LOF is about distinctions and indications.
>> >> > > Its diagrams are just a particular representation of that.
>> >> > > Mac uses these diagrams and never had to pay any royalties to GSB.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Religion
>> >> > > (g) The Heart Sutra explains clearly how to use the unmarked
>> >> state (emptiness) to solve all human problems.
>> >> > > That it has not been applied to this end is not the fault of
>> >> either GSB or the Buddha.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > (h) I am aware that no matter what I say,
>> >> > > someone will complain
>> >> > > about something
>> >> > > that comes up for them
>> >> > > when we get near to no-thing.
>> >> > > That is the nature of it.
>> >> > > Believe it or not,
>> >> > > I am not an advocate of the absolute binary distinction.
>> >> > > It is in contrast to what cannot be said.
>> >> > > See the quote below that fell into my email from Malcolm Dean.
>> >> > >
>> >> > >
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > > >
>> >>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/books?id=oI9hwgEACAAJ__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!UDe2a6H8b5fUHZZLowtIGpBPU_wId_81A6j7zmJZoymCIJhysfXZ1SR55-WWmtzYec2jy57-Tb5Kkl3VIKMKqbrLaZY$
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/books?id=oI9hwgEACAAJ__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VN3_KOI3NVnHHrQCUBhk-CmKe_3eXVjVC6CDnsTgT_aqTDe_YRSaOTbYTVnZXUUn-RfO2h_yggIa9BkE$
>>   GIF by Etienne Jacob
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://bleuje.com/mp4set/2019/2019_25.mp4__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VN3_KOI3NVnHHrQCUBhk-CmKe_3eXVjVC6CDnsTgT_aqTDe_YRSaOTbYTVnZXUUn-RfO2h_ygkOzwPOE$
>> used to illustrate Bits forming an Information
>> >> process.
>> >> > > > >
>> >> > > > > "The tentative and non-black-and-white nature of
>> >> categorization is inevitable, and yet the act of categorization
>> >> often feels perfectly definite and absolute to the categorizer,
>> >> since many of our most familiar categories seem on first glance to
>> >> have precise and sharp boundaries, and this naïve impression is
>> >> encouraged by the fact that people’s everyday, run-of-the mill use
>> >> of words is seldom questioned; in fact, every culture constantly,
>> >> although tacitly, reinforces the impression that words are simply
>> >> automatic labels that come naturally to mind and that belong
>> >> intrinsically to things and entities. If a category has fringe
>> >> members, they are made to seem extremely quirky and unnatural,
>> >> suggesting that nature is really cut precisely at the joints by the
>> >> categories that we know. The resulting illusory sense of the
>> >> near-perfect certainty and clarity of categories gives rise to much
>> >> confusion about categories and the mental processes that underlie
>> >> categorization. The idea that category membership always comes in
>> >> shades of gray rather than in just black and white runs strongly
>> >> against ancient cultural conventionsand is therefore disorienting
>> >> and even disturbing; accordingly, it gets swept under the rug most
>> >> of the time."
>> >> > > > >
>> >> > > > >
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > (i) Oh, and what did you think Hofstader was about?
>> >> > > Did you think that he was bragging about the clarity and
>> >> perfection of logic?
>> >> > > He was telling you the story of how logic in the hands of human
>> >> understanding
>> >> > > slayed the Jabberwock of the completeness of formality.
>> >> > > Don’t worry. You are not the only one who did not listen.
>> >> > > We sell you fake word makers to do your job.
>> >> > > And in the year of our T, you can buy cryptocurrency, watches
>> >> and bibles  from your leader.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > "It was one of those pictures
>> >>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!VN3_KOI3NVnHHrQCUBhk-CmKe_3eXVjVC6CDnsTgT_aqTDe_YRSaOTbYTVnZXUUn-RfO2h_yglukToEj$
>> which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you
>> >> move."
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Best,
>> >> > > Lou
>> >> > >
>> >> > >
>> >> > > _____________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> Prof. Dr. Thomas Görnitz
>> Fellow of the INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF INFORMATION STUDIES
>>
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>>
>> Fachbereich Physik
>> J. W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main
>>
>>
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Prof. Dr. Thomas Görnitz
Fellow of the INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF INFORMATION STUDIES

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Fachbereich Physik
J. W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main