Re: Platonic information theories

John and Edwina,

I hope not to go beyond my e-mail account
with this answer...
In fact, I do not adhere to Kant but to... Heidegger
(with regard to time) and this means a very
radical questioning of transcendental idealism...
Heidegger is not far away from Bergson (he
planned a discussion of Bergson in the second
part of Being and Time) who distiguishes (against
Descartes) between the *living time* (or *dur�e*)
and the classical (Zeno, Aristotle) definition of
time as a quantitative dimension - both being
empirical (!). But indeed Bergson (similar to
Kant) thinks the *duree* within *conscience*
while Heidegger's *fundamental ontology* (i.e.
his conception that the temporality of human
existence 'in-the-world-with-others') is not only (!)
of the kind of a succession of identical *nows*
(as for Kant and also for Aristotle). Heidegger
was looking for a *common ground* where the
different views of time (the quantitative and the
qualitative) may be grounded *beyond* the (too
narrow) provisional (!) *fundament* provided by
the analytic of *Dasein* (which is already beyond
the limits of Kant's conscience, as it departs
from the *facticity* of our being-in-the-world...)
Heidegger's late philosophy even temporalizes
not only existential being but also being itself
in the sense of the *eventuality* of the, in
Koichiro's and Edwina's terms, of the progressive,
the present and the perfect tense (which are in
some way the three modes of time that *give*
what comes into being, including (!) human
existence (with its specific richness, as John
remarks). In this sense I do agree with you, that
within such a *theory of time* there is no possibility
of conceiving time neither as an absolute framework
not as a historical one. Nevertheless is the *clock
time* not wrong or useless and we do not need to
take an idealistic (Kantian) viewpoint (and, less than
that, a metaphysical viewpoint � la Plato...). In sum,
what I have learned from Heidegger (and others...) is
- to *weaken* the quatitative (absolute and/or
empirical) conception of (clock-) time
- this means to weaken the *metaphysics of
presence* (and the conception of time derived
from (the duration) of *precenceing* as well as
from the *limits* (or *de-finition*) of what is
present (which is Plato's intention: the permanent
limits of *ideas* make possible their *permanent*
duration in/outside time)
- to be able to see why and how our rich forms of
being-in-time are not just based on the (empirical
or transcendental) structure of my brain/subjectivity but that
they depend on the awareness of our natality and
mortality (including different ways *looking away*
of these constraints, for instance conceiving our
existence *just* in the way of *clock time*...)
- we may still, indeed, use 'clock time' for different
and very useful purposes...

What follows from this with regard to information?
Well for instance that information is for us
*for a while* as we are *for a while*,
*ephemere* as Pindar says, which means not
just *sub-ject* to time but also free to respond to
time... (and *in time*) at list for a while!

cheers
Rafael

> I don't see that we have to give up a version of information
> theory that can serve as a sort of fixed point. One of the advantages
> of the relativization of space and time was the recognition that they
> are not fundamental, but that the interval was. Likewise with matter
> and energy, replaced with a broader view of energy. In this case
> the richer forms of information that you mention are merely shown
> not to be fundamental. I think the problem you refer to Kant is a phoney
> one that results from placing out ideas above empirical evidence.
> Kant was wrong; space and time are empirical entities. Our
> intuitions of them can be wrong and corrigible. Likewise with
> information, or for that matter for irreversibility. I think that the
> very Kantian problems arise from a false obsession with our
> human perspective, and that they are bogus problems resulting from
> taking some of our limitations and projecting them as transcendent.
> This is an impediment to seeing things clearly, and has much in
> common with parochial religion.
>
>
> John
>
Received on Sun Jan 5 19:32:51 2003