Re: [Fis] Consilience and Structure

Malcolm said:

>Dear Rafael, Stan, and others,
>In reply to Stan:
>
>I didn't know that birds apparently have four color cones. But it sounds
>plausible given the co-evolution of colorful fruits and flowers are in part
>"designed" to attract birds. On the other hand, it sounds wrong to conclude
>that "What there is in the world is a mutual construct between external
>objects and a system of interpretance that interacts with those objects."
>It seems mysterious to say that the way that any organism perceives the
>world changes the world itself. It changes their perception of the world.
>It changes the relationship between the world and the organism. But there
>is only one world.
     SS: OK. Yes, I did not mean to make that meaning here. The
world-as-interacted-with is a co-construct of a system of interpretance and
the World.

>In the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn made similar claims
>about paradigm shifts in science (using the analogy of the duck-rabbit
>visual gestalt). He claimed that a paradigm shift literally changes the
>world in which a scientist lives. On a weak reading, Kuhn is merely
>claiming that scientists working in different paradigms see the same world
>differently. Under a stronger reading, Kuhn is saying that "What there is
>in the world is a mutual construct between external objects and a system of
>interpretance that interacts with those objects." That is, there are many
>worlds.
     SS: On this, I see it as isomrphic to the above example. Scientists
construct Nature -- a linguistically mediated model of the World. Then they
and others act as if Nature were the World. And. of course, it does bear
some relation it.

>In analytical philosophy, the many-worlds doctrine is known as relativism.
>I oppose relativism because it denies a fundamental consilience: I prefer
>the one-world viewpoint because it is conceptually more parsimonious and
>equally consistent with the facts.
     SS: Ah, well, the physical many-worlds idea is somewhat more
interesting (as I understand it). If Ihave it aright, it can be taken to
imply that each of us constructs the world we live in anew every moment,
and so, indeed, there would be untold parallel worlds -- or, in effect,
only one -> yours! This solipsistic view apparently is possble coming out
of the measurement problem of QM. I rather like the creative challenge it
delivers to us.
     (As a poet I have little use for parsimony, except in writing
nonpoetcal text!)
     In any case, I see relativism as a more down-to-earth limited
perspective that simply is a statement (ultimately from cultural
anthropology) of the inappropriateness of imposing one's views upon others
as if they represented truth (as in the erstwhile colonialism of Europe,
still holding on the Muddled east). So, for example, I see my own views as
being that of an ex-European, educated, middle class, academic, ageing,
white, male, naturalist -- finding myself in the intersection of these
categories. (THAT myself is the one creating this world around me!)

Skol
STAN
>
>Cheers,
>Malcolm
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Rafael Capurro" <capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de>
>To: "Malcolm Forster" <mforster@wisc.edu>; "fis-listas.unizar.es"
><fis@listas.unizar.es>
>Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 6:07 AM
>Subject: Re: [Fis] Consilience and Structure
>
>
>> Malcolm
>>
>> probably the question you are asking has something to do with the
>> (conceptual/philosophical) problem of defining what are 'relations'. If
>> you take a look at Heidegger's Being and Time � 17, you will find there a
>> discussion with Husserl's idea of 'relations' (in German: Beziehungen) as
>> a formal concept for all kinds of connections between things. Digns and
>> their 'relations' are, following Heidegger, a universal characteric of all
>> kind of things but we should not follow from this that all relations
>> (Beziehungen) are necessarily of the kind of relations Heidegger calls
>> 'reference' (in German: Verweisung).
>> I quote Heidegger showing the complexity of the concept of sign:
>> "Among sings there are symptons, warning signals, signs of things that
>> have hapened lready, signs to mark something, signs by which things are
>> recognized; these have different ways of indicating, regardless of what
>> may be serving as such a sing. From such 'signs' we must distinguish
>> traces, residues, commemorative monuments, documents, testimony, symbols,
>> expressions, appearances, significations. These phenomena can be easily be
>> formalized because of their forml relational character; we find it
>> especially tempting nowadays to take such a 'relation' as a clue for
>> subjecting every entity to a kind of 'Interpretation' which always 'fits'
>> because at bottom it says nothing, no more than the facile schema of
>> content and form."
>> This sentence was published in 1927, long before semiotics (and
>> cybersemiotics). It can be considered as a criticism of the universal
>> claim of semiotics. Heidegger is making the point by making a difference
>> between the kind of universal kind of relation he calls 'relation' and the
>> kind of relation he calls 'reference'. This last one is confined to the
>> phenomena analyzed by Heidegger as being "ready-to-hand" i.e. to phenomena
>> as we deal in everyday life (also in a scientific/technical set) by using
>> things as tools and organizing them within a wordly environment.
>> The difference our retina makes could be interpreted then as a difference
>> of the retina that 'reacts' at the light in the sense of a 'reference' and
>> not, as expected, in the sense of an objective frame of reference or as a
>> 'relation'. The reason for this is the retina has an 'internal stance' (or
>> a 'pragmatic' way of doing with 'signs') as Koichiro would say, and that
>> we have both, an internal and an external stance of sings as 'relation'
>> and as 'reference'. The question concerns them the foundational
>> relationship between both. Heidegger argues that although relations are
>> universal, this kind of universality (Koichiro's external stance) is an
>> abstraction with regard to the 'narrower' or 'pragmatic' view of
>> 'reference'. Signs as 'reference' imply the kind of existential
>> 'pragmatic' envolvement that makes things understandable by situating them
>> within a (familiar) wholeness of references (and significances). I wonder
>> if our retina is 'reacting' so to speak automatically, within such a whole
>> of references, before our (scientific) mind starts making the universal
>> reflection of sings and what they 'mean'
>> cheers
>> Rafael
>>
>>
>
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Received on Sat Nov 13 21:18:40 2004