RE: [Fis] biological "dynamics" - Bayesian Filter detected spam

RE: [Fis] biological "dynamics" - Bayesian Filter detected spam

From: John Collier <[email protected]>
Date: Wed 01 Feb 2006 - 11:43:47 CET

Bayesian filters be damned -- reality is not our perception of it,
Bayesian or otherwise.

Loet and other fisians,

At 10:14 AM 2006/02/01, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
>Dear John and colleagues,
>
>The problem is old and transcends the domain of physics. Leibniz, for
>example, was deeply troubled about the position of the soul in the new
>mechanic philosophy. Traditionally, one opposes "grace" against "nature,"
>and only by assuming a harmonia praestabilita the reduction to physics could
>be warranted. The harmonia praestabilita "fixes" the next-order system.
>
>Nowadays, we no longer oppose nature to grace, but to culture. Culture adds
>degrees of freedom. As Marx said, "Die Natur baut keine Maschinen." These
>cultural solutions are also not fixed: the steam engines of Marx's time are
>now to be seen in musea.

Asserting that culture adds degrees of freedom does not make it so,
though as I said in my previous post, it might give that appearance.
I prefer not to be seduced by appearances, and to ask what makes them
possible. There is a long history, as you say, and all of the
proposals so far to "transcend the domain of physics" have either not
been justified (including culture as a separate domain, as you now
suggest) or have proven false. So I think there is warrant for my
scepticism. My quest here is for some reason to think that culture
may not be reducible to basic physics, not a reassertion that it is
the case. Perhaps if I did not think that I have an explanation of
how it might work, then I would not be so persistent in asking for
reasons, and pointing out that the reasons you have given are very problematic.

> > An interesting question is how we can add dimensions to a
> > model of a system that is justified by our knowledge of the
> > system. We do know that in standard physics, all
> > possibilities are given by the phase space of the system.
> > That is a matter of definition, so Loet is simply violating
> > technical terminology in the passage quoted above. If we add
> > dimensions to a model without justification, it is very easy
> > to get the appearance of emergence without any reality to back it up.
>
>The problem is in the concept of "reality" which you use. This reality of
>physics does not include the social system as an order of expectations
>or--to say it with Leibniz and Husserl--as another monad. If this
>justification is dismissed as a transgression of the physical reality, then
>the transdisciplinary communication stops and we would live in "two
>cultures." From my perspective, however, your discourse can be understood as
>one which contains a specific set of rationalized expectations about
>"reality" or "nature" which can no longer understand the models of that
>reality as parts of that reality. Insofar as a physicist manages to do this,
>one has to assume that the models are already contained in this reality from
>an origin. This is precisely Leibniz's position: everything (the phase
>space) was given by God at the moment of the Creation and revealed to us
>because of His Grace. Our access is thus secured transcendentally.

Yes, that is my point about Fodor as well. He can't be right, but the question
is why is he not right. If we have a part of the world ontologically separate
from physics, then it seems that it is not relevant, since it cannot interact
with the physical, by the very hypothesis of its existence. I am asking
for ontological hygiene here, not for a physicalist world view. So your
presupposition that I am using a particular concept of "reality" is false.
I am asking how we reconcile the idea of new degrees of freedom with what
we know about physics without introducing problematic and mysterious
metaphysical entities. I take it that we accept the physical: we can kick
a stone and feel the resistance, observe the trajectory, and even calculate
and predict it reliably. This was not so of the folk physics that preceded
the Modern period. I want an intelligible reason to think that these "extra
dimensions" you invoke are not just a reflection of folk psychology and
sociology that is equally mythic. I don't think that is too much to ask
(especially since I think I have a pretty good sketch of an answer).

>If order is not given ex ante, but constructed ex post, reality becomes an
>order of expectations. Physics then is the discourse which provides us with
>access on expectations concerning nature. One of the assumptions of the
>specific discourse of physics is that the phase space is already given (and
>revealed).

Reality is not an order of expectations. Reality is what enables the unexpected
and non-anticipatable. The phase space of physics does not have to be
revealed to create the problem I am addressing. Other than that, I probably
agree with you.

Back to my bureaucratic slumbers,

John

----------
I've found the link between apes and civilised men - it's us.
                         -- Konrad Lorenz
Professor John Collier collierj@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Cybernetics & Human Knowing http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK
Subscriptions sandra@imprint.co.uk

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Received on Wed Feb 1 11:42:46 2006


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