<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear Soren,<div class="">I will respond to your letter by adding comments below.</div><div class="">This will be my last entry in this discussion until next week.</div><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Lou K.<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br class=""><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Dear Lou<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">You wrote: “<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>I am interested in how Soren Brier will react to these, perhaps seen as indirect, remarks on mind and meaning. I take thought and the realm of discrimination as the start of epistemology and I do not regard the immediate apparent objects of our worlds as anything but incredibly decorated entities appearing after a long history of indicative shift. What is their original nature? It is empty. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. The form we take to exist arises from framing nothing.”<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Answer: Can I deduce that the “we” that takes the form to exist by framing nothing is also something that arose by framing nothing? </div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div>[If I were to be consistent and absolutist about these metaphors, then indeed the we also arises by framing nothing. That is consistent with ‘I’ as a fill-in or empty nexus.</div><div>You can ask who did that? But I say it is ungrammatical to ask the question at the inception of a distinction where the distinction and the observer arise together.]</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Who did that? How do you get from your self-organizing logical thinking to experiential consciousness and it’s dynamics of making distinctions from cybernetics and without stipulating a philosophical framework with an epistemology an ontology? </div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div>[I do not have a story to tell that shows how to get something from nothing. I only observe that it is the case.</div><div>All creation stories have a gap at the beginning.]</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">And an anthropology?<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I do see that a theory of form is essential for you as it is for Spencer Brown and Peirce as well. But Peirce is open enough to infer to a Cosmogony when he writes:<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><i class="">… the immaterial contained in the material. … Now the meaning of a thing is what it conveys. Thus, when a child burns his finger at the candle, he has not only excited a disagreeable sensation, but has also learned a lesson in prudence. Now the mere matter cannot have given him this notion, since matter has no notions to give. Who originated it then? It must be that this thought was put into nature at the beginning of the world. It must have been meant because it was conveyed. Further, what is the necessary condition to matter’s conveying a notion. It is that it shall present a sensible and distinct form. … It must be sensible to be anything to us and it must be distinct or distinguished to be a form to us…. Thus it is the form of a thing that carries its meaning. But the same thing conveys different meanings to different faculties. So there are different orders of meaning in nature. The poet with his esthetic eye reads the secret of the sea. ... The man of science with the eye of reason reads the secret of Nature as a system.</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(W 1 50)<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote>[Well, he says “this thought was put into Nature at the beginning of the World. As I said, all creation stories have a JUMP at the beginning.]</div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">When I read your cybernetic arguing I wonder how man can read the secrets of nature? In CP 5.488 Peirce makes a crucial ontological distinction; namely that:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">“all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs”.</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""> </span></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>[I say the distinguished universe of man is perfused with signs. I find it romantic to imagine that this is all there is. I do not know if that is all there is. I doubt it. When you wash away all the signs then ….NOTHING IS EVERYTHING!]</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Only the latter idea implies Peirce’s thesis that signs are not restricted to the living world, in the sense that semiosis is also at work already in the pre-living development of the universe. This is what John Deely calls physiosemiosis. The idea is not pansemiotic, but that signs develop within cosmogony, as part of the development of the universe’s reasoning capability. Thus, it accepts the physical description of the processes in the early universe before life emerged, but it is not physicalist, as it is encompassed in a greater semiotic cosmogony. This is not pansemiotics since it only implies that the possibility of semiosis lies in physics, – but not that those possibilities are realized in all physical processes. Physiosemiosis explores the question of exactly where and how the possibility of semiosis lies in physics. This means that the overall view of evolution is the connection between man and the universe. The connection between outer and inner nature was driven by the universal development of semiotic reasoning in cosmogony (CP 1.615).</div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div>[I summarize all of this by saying that every distinction is accompanied by an awareness. Every distinction is semiotic.]</div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: 1cm;" class="">Overall, this gives Peirce the alternative view of Cosmogony expressed in “A Guess at the Riddle” that might be compatible for both science and religion if they accept the semiotic pragmaticist framework. He starts in the usual thycistic way with absolute change with the tendency to take habits. Then he writes about the development of the universe in a way that is compatible with the modern theories of multiverses (Carr 2007):<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="border-style: none none solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(79, 129, 189); border-bottom-width: 1pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 4pt; margin-left: 46.8pt; margin-right: 46.8pt;" class=""><p class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 10pt 0cm 14pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; border: none; padding: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal;" class="">Our conceptions of the first stages of the development, before time yet existed, must be as vague and figurative as the expressions of the first chapter of Genesis. Out of the womb of indeterminacy we must say that there would have come something, by the principle of Firstness, which we may call a flash. Then by the principle of habit there would have been a second flash. Though time would not yet have been, this second flash was in some sense after the first, because resulting from it. Then there would have come other successions ever more and more closely connected, the habits and the tendency to take them ever strengthening themselves, until the events would have been bound together into something like a continuous flow. We have no reason to think that even now time is quite perfectly continuous and uniform in its flow. The quasi-flow which would result would, however, differ essentially from time in this respect that it would not necessarily be in a single stream. Different flashes might start different streams, between which there should be no relations of contemporaneity or succession. So one stream might branch into two, or two might coalesce. But the further result of habit would inevitably be to separate utterly those that were long separated, and to make those which presented frequent common points coalesce into perfect union. Those that were completely separated would be so many different worlds which would know nothing of one another; so that the effect would be just what we actually observe…<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 10pt 0cm 14pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; border: none; padding: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal;" class="">Pairs of states will also begin to take habits, and thus each state having different habits with reference to the different other states will give rise to bundles of habits, which will be substances. Some of these states will chance to take habits of persistency, and will get to be less and less liable to disappear; while those that fail to take such habits will fall out of existence. Thus, substances will get to be permanent.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 10pt 0cm 14pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; border: none; padding: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal;" class="">In fact, habits, from the mode of their formation, necessarily consist in the permanence of some relation, and therefore, on this theory, each law of nature would consist in some permanence, such as the permanence of mass, momentum, and energy. In this respect, the theory suits the facts admirably.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(CP 1.412-15)<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 10pt 0cm 14pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; border: none; padding: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class="">Adding to this construction of categories and cosmogony, Peirce also establishes his metaphysical framework based on pure mathematics,</span><a href="x-msg://11/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; vertical-align: super;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class="">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>phenomenology, aesthetics, ethics and logic as semiotics. He writes in his<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class="">Cambridge Lectures</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(Peirce 1898): “metaphysics must draw its principles from logic, … logic must draw its principles ... from mathematics” (Peirce 1992:123). Since all cognition, thinking and communication is done with and through signs, and since the processes in the natural environment (geology and ecology) work dynamically on sign processes, there is no reason to suppose any limits to our knowledge on one hand and on the other that we know the whole truth in any precise detail. Logic is semiotics. Peirce writes:</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 10pt 0cm 14pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; border: none; padding: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class="">Logic, in its general sense, is, as I believe I have shown, only another name for semiotic (σημειωτική), the quasi-necessary, or formal, doctrine of signs. By describing the doctrine as “quasi-necessary”, or formal, I mean that we observe the characters of such signs as we know, and from such an observation, by a process which I will not object to naming Abstraction, we are led to statements, eminently fallible, and therefore in one sense by no means necessary, as to what must be the characters of all signs used by a “scientific” intelligence, that is to say, by an intelligence capable of learning by experience. As to that process of abstraction, it is itself a sort of observation. ( CP 2.227)</span></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote>[You are right that i do not disagree with Peirce, not at all]<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="border-style: none none solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(79, 129, 189); border-bottom-width: 1pt; padding: 0cm 0cm 4pt; margin-left: 46.8pt; margin-right: 46.8pt;" class=""><p class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 10pt 0cm 14pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; border: none; padding: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I do not think you disagree very much with Peirce here Lou, but I think the cybernetic background you are coming from has skipped important parts of the philosophical work to put up an adequate metaphysical framework. </div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div>[Naw. I am not speaking from cybernetics. What the heck is cybernetics?</div><div>I am speaking from contemplating a distinction. You could take me as an afficianado of the Peirce Calculus written in Spencer-Brown form and influenced by both early and late Wittgenstein. I am skeptical of cosmology. I think we make a lot out of very little and indeed our worlds are built from our signing and the limits of our signing are the limits of our world.]</div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div style="direction: ltr;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">This is what lead me on to Luhmann and from him to Peirce. I have a short column in CHK on that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FLPGS9TfROIJ:www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/brier/integration.doc+&cd=13&hl=da&ct=clnk&gl=dk" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FLPGS9TfROIJ:www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/brier/integration.doc+&cd=13&hl=da&ct=clnk&gl=dk</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> I have discussed this with Maturana now and then over the last 20 years and with Heinz von Foerster for whom I wrote a paper analyzing his theory development to his 70 years festschrift: “The construction of information and communication: A cybersemiotic reentry into Heinz von Foerster's metaphysical construction of second-order cybernetics” it can be downloaded here<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/3140705/The_construction_of_information_and_communication_A_cybersemiotic_reentry_into_Heinz_von_Foersters_metaphysical_construction_of_second-order_cybernetics" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">https://www.academia.edu/3140705/The_construction_of_information_and_communication_A_cybersemiotic_reentry_into_Heinz_von_Foersters_metaphysical_construction_of_second-order_cybernetics</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">There is much more Peirce stuff on cosmogenesis where he is very close to Spencer Brow’s conceptions. But this mail is already too long.<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Best<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""> Søren<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div class=""><div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(181, 196, 223); border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 3pt 0cm 0cm;" class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><b class=""><span lang="DA" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">Fra:</span></b><span lang="DA" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Fis [<a href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">På vegne af<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Louis H Kauffman<br class=""><b class="">Sendt:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>16. april 2016 06:58<br class=""><b class="">Til:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>FIS Webinar<br class=""><b class="">Cc:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Maxine Sheets-Johnstone<br class=""><b class="">Emne:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[Fis] _ Re: _ Discussion<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="DA" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Dear Maxine Sheets-Johnstone,<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I would like to make a remark on your comment below.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><br class="">"(4). References made to Gödel’s theorem to uphold certain theses can be definitively<br class="">questioned. The claim that Gödel makes on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate.<br class="">Three articles that demonstrate the inaccuracy, one from a phenomenological<br class="">perspective, two others from a logical-analytical perspective, warrant clear-headed<br class="">study. In brief, self-referential statements are vacuous, hence neither true nor false.<br class="">Moreover the sentences expressing the statements may be used to make two quite<br class="">different statements, a fact ignored by Gödel.(See Note #4: “Self-Reference and<br class="">Gödel’s Theorem,” “The Liar Syndrome,” and “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained”)”<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">My remark takes the form of a partially linguistic analysis of reference and it will be a bit technical/symbolic.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">My point is to show that reference naturally leads to self-reference in domains where there is a sufficiently rich structure of reference.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I also have a question for you in that you say that "The claim that Gödel makes on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate.”. Can you please articulate your view of <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Goedel’s claim. There are many claims about Goedel that are inaccurate, but I would not say that the inaccuracies are his!<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Now to get to my analysis. First let A——> B denote a reference from A to B. You can think of A as the name of B. But it can be just an ordered relationship from A to B and in that case <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">A and B can be physical entities or symbolic entities. Usually in naming we think of A as symbolic and B as physical, but we mix them in our language. For example, if I am introduced to you<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">then I acquire a pointer Maxine ——> SJ where I use SJ to denote the person you are. This might be the person sensed visually upon being met. Before we were introduced, there was SJ in my sight, but now I know her name.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> This situation shifts almost immediately. I learn to associate the name Maxine with SJ the person, and so when I see you next I see you as “SJ - Maxine” and it seems that your name comes along with you. I call this shift the Indicative Shift and denote it as follows.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">A ——> B shifts to<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">#A ——> BA.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">#Maxine is my internally indexed name for that entity SJ-Maxine who is seen with a name associated with her.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">You could call #Maxine the ‘meta-name’ of SJ-Maxine. Of course in our actual language #Maxine is still pronounced and wrote as Maxine.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The indicative shift occurs in all levels of our language and thought. The objects of our thought and perception are so laden with the names and symbols that have been shifted to them, that their ‘original nature’ is nearly invisible. I will not involve this to a discussion of the ding-an-sich or with meditation practice, but these are important avenues to pursue.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I am imagining a human being (or another organism) as a very big entity with the perceptual and naming capabilities who is endowed with this ability to make indicative shifts.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Such a being would notice its own shifting operation.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The being may then engage in a naming process such as M ——> #. <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">M would be the being’s name for its own operation (so observed) of shifting reference. <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">It does require a certain age for this to occur. <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">But then this naming would be shifted and we would go from <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">M ——> #<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">to <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">#M ——> #M.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">At this point the being has attained linguistic self-reference. The being can say “I am the meta-name of my own naming process.”<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">This nexus or fixed point of self-reference can occur naturally in a being that has sufficient ability to distinguish, name and create.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">In this way, I convince myself that there is nothing special about self-reference. It arises naturally in observing systems. And I convince myself that self-reference is central to an organized and reflective cognition. Even though it is empty to say that “I am the one who says I.” this emptiness becomes though language an organizing center for our explorations of our own world and the worlds of others. The beauty of “I am the one who says I.” is that it is indeed a vacuous reference. Anyone can take it on. The “I” can refer to any observing system sophisticated enough to give it meaning.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">My example should be expanded into a discussion of the role and creation of meaning in observing systems, but I shall stop here.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I am interested in how Soren Brier will react to these, perhaps seen as indirect, remarks on mind and meaning.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I take thought and the realm of discrimination as the start of epistemology and I do not regard the immediate apparent objects of our worlds as anything but incredibly decorated entities<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">appearing after a long history of indicative shift. What is their original nature? It is empty. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. The form we take to exist arises from framing nothing.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Now, I caution you in replying to please read carefully what I have written here.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">I will not reply directly to the discussion for another week or so.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Best,<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Lou Kauffman<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">P.S. The indicative shift is precisely the formalism in back of the workings of Goedel’s Theorem.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">See “Categorical Pairs and the Indicative Shift”, <a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2048.pdf" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2048.pdf</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> <o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div class=""><blockquote style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt;" class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">On Apr 11, 2016, at 11:41 PM, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone <<a href="mailto:msj@uoregon.edu" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">msj@uoregon.edu</a>> wrote:<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">To all colleagues,<br class=""><br class="">I hope I may voice a number of concerns that have arisen in the course<br class="">of the ongoing discussions that are ostensibly about phenomenology and<br class="">the life sciences.<br class=""><br class="">The concerns begin with a non-recognition of what is surely the ground<br class="">floor of real-life, real-time realities, namely, animation, not in the<br class="">sense of being alive or in opposition to the inanimate, but in the sense<br class="">of motion, movement, kinetics. As Aristotle cogently remarked,<br class="">“Nature is a principle of motion and change. . . . We must therefore see<br class="">that we understand what motion is; for if it were unknown, nature too<br class="">would be unknown” (Physics 200b12-14).<br class=""><br class="">Through and through--from animate organisms to an ever-changing world--<br class="">movement is foundational to understandings of subject and world, and of<br class="">subject/world relationships, and this whether subject and world are<br class="">examined phenomenologically or scientifically. In short, movement is at<br class="">the core of information and meaning, at the core of mind and consciousness,<br class="">at the core of both gestural and verbal language, at the core of nervous<br class="">system and organic functionings, at the core of molecular transformations,<br class="">at the core of ellipses, electrons, gravity, waves, particles, and so on,<br class="">and further, at the core of time, the concept, measurement, and meaning of<br class="">time.<br class=""><br class="">I enumerate below specifics with respect to what is essentially the<br class="">foundational dynamic reality. The summary concerns are followed by<br class="">references that document each concern. If further specifics are wanted or<br class="">if specific articles are wanted, kindly contact<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:msj@uoregon.edu" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">msj@uoregon.edu</a><br class=""><br class="">(1). Instincts and/or feelings motivate animate organisms to move.<br class="">Without such instincts or feelings there would be no disposition<br class="">to move. An ‘animate organism’ would in truth be akin to a statue,<br class="">a statue Condillac described two and a half centuries ago as having<br class="">first this sense given to it, then that sense given to it, but that,<br class="">lacking movement, is powerless to gain knowledge of the world. Such<br class="">a movement deficient creature would furthermore lack the biological<br class="">capacity of responsivity, a near universal characteristic of life.<br class="">The startle reflex is a premier example. Can what is evolutionarily<br class="">given be “illogical”? Clearly, feelings are not “illogical,” but move<br class="">through animate bodies, moving them to move. Without feelings of<br class="">curiosity, for example, or awe, or wonder, there would be no exploration<br class="">of the natural world, no investigations, hence no “information.”<br class="">Furthermore, without feelings of movement—initially, from an evolutionary<br class="">perspective, no proprioception, and later, no kinesthesia--there would be<br class="">no near and far, no weak and strong, no straight and curved, and so on,<br class="">hence, no determinations of Nature. In short, there would be no information<br class="">and no meaning. (See Note #1: The Primacy of Movement)<br class=""><br class="">(2). An excellent lead-in to scientific understandings of movement and<br class="">its inherent dynamics lies in the extensive research and writings of<br class="">J. A. Scott Kelso, Pierre de Fermat Laureate in 2007. Kelso was founder<br class="">of the Center for Brain and Behavioral Studies and its Director for twenty<br class="">years. His rigorous multi-dimensional experimental studies are anchored in<br class="">coordination dynamics, an anchorage that is unconstrained by dogma. The<br class="">breadth of his knowledge and his sense of open inquiry is apparent in the<br class="">literature he cites in conjunction with his articles and books. His recent<br class="">article in Biological Cybernetics that focuses on “Agency” is strikingly<br class="">relevant to the present FIS discussion. It takes experience into account,<br class="">specifically in the form of “positive feedback,” which obviously involves<br class="">kinesthesia in a central way. Moreover his upcoming Opinion piece in Trends<br class="">in Cognitive Science should be essential reading. (See Note #2: “The Coordination<br class="">Dynamics of Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement” and The Complementary Nature)<br class=""><br class="">(3). As pointed out elsewhere, “Certainly words carry no patented meanings,<br class="">but the term ‘phenomenology’ does seem stretched beyond its limits when it<br class="">is used to denote either mere reportorial renderings of perceptible behaviors<br class="">or actions, or any descriptive rendering at all of perceptible behaviors or<br class="">actions. At the least, ‘phenomenology’ should be recognized as a very specific<br class="">mode of epistemological inquiry invariably associated with the name Edmund Husserl. . . . ”<br class="">Phenomenological inquiries are tethered to a very specific methodology, one as<br class="">rigorous as that of science. Phenomenological findings are furthermore open to<br class="">verification by others, precisely as in science. Moreover two forms of<br class="">phenomenological analysis warrant recognition: static and genetic, the former<br class="">being a determination of the essential character of the object of inquiry, the<br class="">second being a determination of how the meaning of that object of inquiry came<br class="">to be constituted, hence an inquiry into sedimentations of meaning, into<br class="">protentions and retentions, into horizons of meaning, and so on. Thus too,<br class="">what warrants recognition is the fact that bracketing is not the beginning and<br class="">end of phenomenological methodology. On the contrary, bracketing is only the beginning.<br class="">Phenomenological reduction follows bracketing and allows the essential character<br class="">of the object of inquiry or the constitution of its meaning to come to light.<br class="">(See Note #3: Animation: Analyses, Elaborations, and Implications”)<br class=""><br class="">(4). References made to Gödel’s theorem to uphold certain theses can be definitively<br class="">questioned. The claim that Gödel makes on behalf of his theorem is inaccurate.<br class="">Three articles that demonstrate the inaccuracy, one from a phenomenological<br class="">perspective, two others from a logical-analytical perspective, warrant clear-headed<br class="">study. In brief, self-referential statements are vacuous, hence neither true nor false.<br class="">Moreover the sentences expressing the statements may be used to make two quite<br class="">different statements, a fact ignored by Gödel.(See Note #4: “Self-Reference and<br class="">Gödel’s Theorem,” “The Liar Syndrome,” and “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained")<br class=""><br class="">(5): Information is commonly understood as factual knowledge, thus empirically<br class="">sustained and sustainable knowledge. It is thus a matter of the condition or<br class="">nature or workings, etc., of something out there in the world, including even<br class="">your liver if that is the source of information. Mathematics has its origin in<br class="">arithmetic, the latter having its origins in counting things in the world,<br class="">including if not beginning with one’s fingers, and in shape, including if not<br class="">beginning with differentiating contours and size, thus with linear and amplitudinal<br class="">dimensions of things in the world. As I wrote in my last posting, I hope that<br class="">someone will take up the challenge of doing a phenomenological analysis of information.<br class="">An inquiry into the relationship of meaning to information and of information to<br class="">meaning might then be undertaken. That step, to my mind, would provide solid ground<br class="">for linking informational sciences and phenomenology, linking by way of showing—-<br class="">demonstrating—complementarities, precisely complementarities in the sense that<br class="">Bohr and Kelso specify.<br class=""><br class="">Note #1: Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 2011. The Primacy of Movement, expanded 2nd ed.<br class="">Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing<br class=""><br class="">Note #2: Kelso, J. A. Scott and Armin Fuchs. 2016. “The Coordination Dynamics of<br class="">Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement,” Biological Cybernetics: DOI 10.1007/s00422-015-0676-0.<br class="">Kelso, J. A. Scott and David A. Engström. 2006. The Complementary Nature. Cambridge,<br class="">MA: Bradford Book/MIT Press.<br class=""><br class="">Note #3: Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 2015. “Animation: Analyses, Elaborations, and Implications,”<br class="">Husserl Studies, 30/3: 247-268. DOI 10.1007/s10743-014-9156-y<br class=""><br class="">Note #4: Johnstone, Albert A. 2002. “Self-Reference and Gödel’s Theorem: A Husserlian Analysis."<br class="">Husserl Studies, 19: 131-151.<br class="">Johnstone, Albert A. 2002. “The Liar Syndrome,” SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3/1: 37-55.<br class="">Johnstone, Albert A. 2002. “Doctor’s Diagnosis Sustained,” SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy,<br class="">3/2: 142-153.<br class=""><br class="">Maxine<br class=""><br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">Fis mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br class=""><a href="http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br clear="all" class=""><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" class=""><div id="ftn1" class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><a href="x-msg://11/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">[1]</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class="">Peirce distinguished</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>between formal logic as a mathematical branch of the science of discovery and pure theoretical mathematics as the most abstract of all sciences (<i class="">CP</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>4.244, 4.263, c.1902) and he argued that the reasoning of pure mathematics had no need of any separate theory of logic to reinforce them.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“… mathematics is the only science which can be said to stand in no need of philosophy, excepting, of course, some branches of philosophy itself.” (CP 1.249)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class=""> From his father, Peirce had the view that mathematics is the discipline that draw necessary conclusions and is its own logic. He did not see logic as a foundational science, but as one of the normative sciences like aesthetics and ethics where logic is the science of correct reasoning, as mentioned above.</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>