SV: SV: Information and Natural Languages

Dear Rafaello

It is very interesting to consider if there are qualitative basic
different kinds of existing in the world.

Like Aristotle I think that there are levels of subjectivity but cannot
anymore see any reasonability of the mechanistic idea of physical being.
Classical physics misuses the Greek term of physis.

Once - especially the empiricists - thought that you could observe
passively. Nobody can hold that view any more after the quantum physics
observer discussion. So I will hold that an observer is also a doer.

Venlig hilsen/Best wishes

Assoc. Prof. Ph. D. S�ren Brier
Royal School of Library and Information Science, Aalborg Branch
Langagervej 4, DK-9220 Aalborg �st
Telephone: +45 98 157922 , Fax: +45 98 151042
Homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/home_uk.htm
Ed. & Publisher of Cybernetics & Human Knowing
homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/cyber.htm

> ----------
> Fra: Rafael Capurro, Professor[SMTP:CAPURRO@hbi-stuttgart.de]
> Sendt: 11. december 1997 16:01
> Til: Multiple recipients of list
> Emne: Re: SV: Information and Natural Languages
>
> Dear Soeren,
>
> I am not so sure if this is very helpful: to say everythink is a
> potential observer seems to me like Teilhard de Chardin's idea that
> everything (including particles) have some kind of consciousness, or
> the (metaphysical) idea that everything is spirit or matter or
> whatever. If you want to distinguish between different ways of being
> an observer, then you must make qualitative differences.
> If an observer is always 'an-observer-in-the-world' i.e. if there is
> no place outside the world (or an absolute observer), there we can
> say that observers are precisely characterized by their
> 'in-the-world-being'. This presupposes that other things which are
> not observers but are also 'in-the-world' are not in the world in the
> way observers are. By the way, we should reflect also that observers
> are suppose to 'observe' i.e. not to actively intervene in the
> processes they observe (although their observation is a kind of
> doing). This is, I think, one week point of Luhmann's conception, as
> it disregards the praxis. But the question again is, what does it
> mean to be a 'doer'. Everything is doing something as far as it is
> moving (this was the Aristotelian standpoint in his Physics, but
> Aristotle differentiates very clearly between 'praxis' and 'poiesis'
> and 'kinesis').
> Cheers
> Rafael
>
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>
> Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 12:54:12 +0100 (MET)
> Reply-to: fis@listas.unizar.es
> From: Brier S�ren <SBR@db.dk>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Subject: SV: Information and Natural Languages
>
> Dear Koichiro
>
> You write: "My observers are exclusively internal, even including
> myself.
> There is no such a non-observer out there."
>
> I guess that all observers are internal to the universe? Aren't they.
> Laplaces demon is dead.
>
> Now everybody agree that an important part of the universe consists of
> observers: the living systemseven in the standard scientific
> (physicalistic) world view.
>
> One of the questions is if we will ever be able to form a consisten
> theory of the development of life and consciousness and thereby
> consistent with our own epistemology in this ontology. I seriously
> doubt
> it.
>
> Are we not forced to consider all systems we observe as observing
> systems? That means that a stone or an elementary particle is an
> observer, but on a much lower level that languaging self-conscious
> social humans. We recognize animals as observers on a lower scale than
> humans. But so far the scientific world view has stopped there, mainly
> because of physicalism.
>
> Venlig hilsen/Best wishes
>
> Assoc. Prof. Ph. D. S�ren Brier
> Royal School of Library and Information Science, Aalborg Branch
> Langagervej 4, DK-9220 Aalborg �st
> Telephone: +45 98 157922 , Fax: +45 98 151042
> Homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/home_uk.htm
> Ed. & Publisher of Cybernetics & Human Knowing
> homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/cyber.htm
>
> > ----------
> > Fra: koichiro matsuno/7129[SMTP:kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp]
> > Sendt: 11. december 1997 10:54
> > Til: Multiple recipients of list
> > Emne: Re: Information and Natural Languages
> >
> > Rafael, I was too blunt previously.
> >
> > >the question is what does it mean to be an observer? or, in other
> > >words, what is the ontological status of a non-observer.
> >
> > My observers are exclusively internal, even including myself.
> > There is no such a non-observer out there. This view however causes
> > a lot of headache to us, especially with regard to their ontological
>
> > status. Heidegger seems to have considered this problem seriously.
> > Some Heideggerian in the States told me that Heidegger in his
> intended
> >
> > mysterious third division of "Sein und Zeit" tried to establish a
> new
> > ontology based upon the present progressive tense. In other words,
> if
> >
> > everything is an actor or an observer in one way or another, the
> most
> > direct means of its description is in the present progressive tense
> > instead of in the present tense. I am quite sympathetic to the view.
>
> > Incidently, that Heideggerian found such statements in the
> > hand-written
> > manuscript (roughly 200 pages) by Heidegger himself, kept in the
> > library
> > of the University of Marburg.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Koichiro
> >
> > Koichiro Matsuno
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
Received on Fri Dec 12 13:11:23 1997