RE: opinions vs knowledge - a View from the Cave

Dear colleagues,

I am making a few comments on Edwina & John C past messages:

>[ET} I'm not saying that the truth is always clear-cut. I am saying
>that our experience must be open to validation. That a belief cannot
>be self-affirmed. Clear cut beliefs are operative in ideologies, such
>as those that are forever being posted to this list by Elohimi (sorry,
>I can't recall the name properly] and they are not only ungrounded
>but not open to verification.

I am reminded on Ortega y Gaset's distinction between 'ideas' and 'befiefs'
(Rafael brought this very point to our list a couple of years ago). While
one 'has' or may have ideas, one 'is' in the beliefs. It may look more
adequate than the other dichotomy 'opinion' vs. 'knowledge' put by Edwina,
though it also misses some interesting aspects.

Before the elaboration of 'ideas' there are some individual and social
processes of interest. I would roughly sum them up as follows: a prior
'acknowledgement' (that there is something unknown of interest),
'perception' (the sustained focusing of our perceptual and mental skills),
'opinion' (conceptualizations liberally exchanged and socialized), 'ideas'
(more systematized and put into schemes), 'beliefs' (to be defended), and
finally 'dogmas' (that simply cannot be discussed)... The argument to
explore is that the former parts of that train of thought are but the
social equivalent of an abduction process --congruent and built upon the
previous nervous system' and cellular ones?

(By the way, to Edwina, Elohimjl is the name you could not spell
properly--I believe you complained once to Jerry about his 'Edwinia'
spelling. The best for our list, with all its heterogeneity of backgrounds
and fields, is to keep a discussion atmosphere of strong courtesy and
tolerance.)

>As for the truth being rational, I believe that our world does operate
>logically rather than randomly. Certainly, randomness exists as
>well as freedom (not the same thing), but, overall, both freedom and
>logic interact in a 'logical' manner. And our perceptions must
>always be open to validation, or, rejected. I can continue to believe
>in a flat earth, but I must allow that belief to be open to proof.

The fraction of living happenstances in 'our world' that can finally be put
into a formal, logical scheme is astonishingly small. Including the
sciences themselves (not to speak about the economy and our social life).
That is the hard fact that for instance put into a modest scheme the Art.
Intel. great hype of decades ago. Cellular and neuronal 'intelligence' are
orders of magnitude above their artificial counterparts, based on
principles and 'new maths' that we do not contemplate appropriately yet.
Logicism, in the way it is treated above, is not definitely the main engine
behind individual and social accumulation of knowledge. So, to put it a
couple of words: 'economy' versus 'entropy', without forgetting
'complexity' and 'elegance'.

>
>[JH} Aren't opinions and beliefs only paradigms with varying
>degrees of fallability
> > according to time and place?
>[ET] No. You are taking a relativist view, which links the
>opinion/belief to a particular society/culture. I don't agree with this,
>for that denies the reality of the external world. The opinion must be
>kept open to ongoing validation. I cannot conclude, now and
>forever, that X is true. I can only conclude that, according to the
>evidence, at the moment, X is valid, but further research might
>change that conclusion.

The reality of the external world in the context of science is a discussion
of its own (I recognize it has been postponed a couple of times here--some
day it has to be treated). More than establishing a logical 'truth' the
problem of life becomes capturing the 'relevance' of the different
cognizing perspectives that can be applied into the context. One can
produce endless logical statements about any occurrence --stumbling upon
the most relevant aspect of the occasion is the biggest problem, which
usually we take for granted. In the context of the different sciences, I
call it the 'interdisciplinary problem' --what of the multiple existing
bodies of knowledge would apply given the numerous surrounding constraints?
In my opinion it could be subsumed under the intricacies of the 'abduction'
conceptualization (thanks a lot to John C. for his posting with the abd.
stuff he checked about)

> >[JH] However, the statement may not be completely unfounded. The
> evidence says that female gang
> > rape is less prevalent than the male variety and that men aren't much
> good at
> > breastfeeding.
>[ET] You are trying to preserve a fallability by irrelevant examples! If
>I put forward the hypothesis that women are as violent as men,
>then, that hypothesis can't be disproven by the example of 'inability
>to carry out gang rape', for violence is carried out in multiple
>manners. Equally, the physiological fact that men do not have the
>hormonal capacity to provide milk, says nothing about nurturing
>behavioural capacities in men. That is: the ability to provide milk is
>not the sole indicator of the ability to nurture.

The most relevant piece of knowledge is, in this case, the new concoction
of ecology and neurobiology that Allman and others have developed
(curiously, in parallel with the growing 'eco' impact upon the emerging
evolution-development field --evo-devo). For Homo sapiens, the violence and
nurturing behavioral complexes are definitely well separated between the
sexes (it does not mean that they are not 'plastic' and can be relatively
molded by social life). The neuro and molecular stories underlying our
emotional and behavioral (eco) adaptive traits are just fascinating. This
is not the old sociobiological reductionism, it is great interdisciplinary
science, really sober and prudent (and perhaps, lacking the spice and the
hot conflicting elements, it has not make an impact: 'salience' and
'relevance' do not always go hand with hand). Then, in what extent can
social life counteract nature's propensity designs? I do not really know,
but I have scholarly references about the contemporary rate of violent
crimes of men vs. women in Western countries: it is about an order of
magnitude (10 to 1).

>[JH} But if information is knowledge-independent (say as part of a
>physics of
> > pure information states as in 'It from Bit') then the misinformation is
> a 'distorted' form of
> > the primary matter - 'men are violent' distorts the true nature of men
> as non-violent and nurturing beings (:
>[ET] I disagree with the statement that 'information is knowledge-
>independent'. It is knowledge-dependent. What is going on, in the
>universe, is an evolving 'knowledge' where bits of matter are
>'informemd' (set up into relations). These relations operate within a
>logical interaction; they are not random or the matter would rapidly
>dissolve. The relations, as operative in the logic, are knowledge-
>dependent. But, this knowledge cannot be isolate. It cannot be a
>self-asserted belief. It has to enable information 'bits' to emerge
>that are validly operative in the real world. Also, there is no such
>thing as a 'primary matter' in the sense that the emergent
>information is a copy of it (that's Platonic, and I'm not a Platonist).
>There is primary energy which is formed, by logical relations, into
>matter.

That�s quite a cosmological scheme. I am really curious on what physicists
would say about it.

To put an end to my comments:
John H. is preparing the next batch of papers --Florido, Benking, Brier,
Fuchs. Let us enjoy in anticipation, and let us start the readings...

best wishes

Pedro

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Pedro C. Mariju�n
Fundaci�n CIRCE
CPS, Univ. Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762036-761863, FAX (34) 976 732078
email: marijuan@posta.unizar.es
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Received on Fri Sep 6 14:29:49 2002