[Fis] Part ll, of S�ren'sMS

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Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:13:56 +0100
To: "fis-listas.unizar.es" <fis@listas.unizar.es> From: "Pedro C. Mariju�n"
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(PART II)
For FIS discussion with start 22.Jan. 2004 by S�ren Brier, Management,
Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, sbr.lpf@cbs.dk

I have beeen told that interleaving remarks is not favored in Fis. However,
it impossible for me to technically comment on parts of this text without
doing so. Only in this way can I make specific points.
STAN
   So, first some general comments:
   I would point out that, while Nature is not a machine, cybernetics is a
mechanistic mode of thinking (although second order cybernetics tries to
get away from this), while Peircean semiotic is less so when using its more
general categories. As these categories become elaborated, however, they
become more precise, and, therefore, more mechanistic as well.
     The word 'heterarchy', in earlier meanings was meant to convey a
messiness of Nature when it was attempted to fit the scale hierarchy model
over it. My point is that hierarchy is a model, which fits, to some degree
or other, many aspects of Nature, but not necessarilly all.

S�ren said:
>1.Levels emerge through emergent processes when new holons appear through
>higher level organization. These principles can be placed into a Peircean
>perspective, where potentialities (Firstness) are processes manifested
>through constraints and forces (Secondness), into regularities and
>patterns (Thirdness). This process is continuing in a recursive manner
>from level to level. The new emergent level then acts as a potential for
>the development of the next level.
     SS: The way this is stated, it implies that levels emerge in a pattern
of one on top of the next. This is materially impossible. I have argued
(Salthe, 1986, Evolving Hierarchical Systems) that new levels always emerge
between pre-existing ones.

>2. Levels can form and dissolve when their dynamical parameters are near
>critical points, like when nucleons form and dissolve in a “quark soup”.
>Stabilization requires that the system moves further from the critical
>point into organizing patterns, like energy wells.
     SS: It is my view that stability is anchored to larger scale
constraints from higher levels. These foster the emergence, and preserve
it as long as they remain in effect.

>6. ... Machines lack autopoiesis, reproduction, code-duality, and an inner
>organization of membranes, and thus also lack both individually- and
>species-based motivation and intentionality and therefore consequently
>also the ability to establish a genuine interpretant.
     SS: Well, if these properties (autopoiesis, code-duality, etc.) can be
fully and explicitly stated or modeled, then they would be mechanistic.
Membrane organization may not be fully describable, nor motivation and
intentionality.

>8. Meaning is most manifest in the living systems that fulfill
Hoffmeyer’s conditions. But starting from dissipative systems, one can
define a heterarchy of pre-living self-organized systems as based on
degrees of closure, asymmetry between inside and outside, protocomunication
over membranes, digital representation and formation of interfaces.
     SS: It is important to note that living systems derive from abiotic
ones, and so whatever properties they have must have had precursors in the
ancestral abiotic systems. We will never understand the origin of life
without this consideration. Note that, as evolution proceeded into the
sociocultural level, the ability to be more fully explicit increased:
{abiotic -> {biotic -> {cultural }}}. This can be viewed as a development
of increased definiteness (over, it must be said, a smaller and smaller
portion of Nature).

>a) A primary chaotic level of continuity, quality, and potentiality, with
>the tendency to form habits (Firstness). This would include the quantum
>vacuum field as it is conceptualized by modern physics as one aspect only.
b) A “causal” level of matter, energy, and causality by natural forces
(Secondness and its ‘brute force’). The level of efficient causation much
connected with physics.
c) An informational cybernetic system level of quasi-semiotic signals that
encompass the goal-oriented mechanical systems described by first-order
classical cybernetics. Described from a cybersemiotic view, concepts of
information as signals of differences make sense only when interpreted as
quasi-signs. This is the level of formal causation much connected with
chemistry and the level of reflexes in the body. d) The semiotic level
belonging to all living systems (biosemiotics) and is much connected with
biology. The living systems are the basis of true triadic semiosis --
producing signification spheres in sign games. This level encompasses the
work of Uexk�ll (1934) and ethologists such as Lorenz (1970-1971, 1973) and
Tinbergen (1973) within a broad semiotic framework. This is the level where
unconscious final causation dominates.
e) The level of conscious languaging systems (language games, arguments) is
so far occupied only by the social realm of humans and their culture. Here
final causation is full-blown in self-consciousness.
     SS: These levels look to me like integrative levels in a specification
hierarchy: {physical world {material/chemical world {biological world
{sociopolitical world}}}}, not the scalar levels talked about above. I
think it is important to keep track of what we are making here. These two
hierarchies can both be applied to any system, but it helps clear thinking
to distinguish them -- especally since they have different properties (see
Salthe, 2002, General Systtems Bulletin 31:13-17.).

>Sign-making is thus immanent in nature, but manifest only in full triadic
>semiosis within autopoietic living systems.
     SS: I contest this. It is manifest in abiotic dissipative structures,
but in much vaguer, even episodic, form

>Brier.pdf>pdf Questions:
1.Can’t we avoid the metaphysics?
     SS: There is a metaphysic involved in so-called avoiding M.

>2.Is a theory of levels really necessary?
     SS: It depends upon what we wish a theory to show, and how we wish to
show it. You could have a network model instead if you like.

>3. Aren’t we supposed to keep mind and meaning out of scientific theories?
     SS: That is science as it has been -- the handmaiden of technology,
with entirely pragmatic aims. Complexity science already has escaped
instrumental purposes!

>6. Is final causation a scientific concept?
     SS: I have made it out to be (I have a short MS on this for any who
would like to see it), but not for science as it HAS been.

>7. Is it possible to define science on another basis than the mechanistic?
     SS: Again, I think so, but this brings in finality, internalism,
vagueness, semiotics, etc.

>8. If we have given up the belief in a universal mechanistic science
>shouldn’t we then avoid grand schemes like the intended her as they are
>unscientific in their base.
     SS: In my view what is to be avoided is full explicitness in modeling.

STAN

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Received on Mon Jan 26 22:19:52 2004