Re: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5Re: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5
From: John Collier <[email protected]>
Date: Mon 05 Feb 2007 - 17:17:48 CET Hi folks, I'll take a few minutes from my moving and dealing with academic emergencies at UKZN to make a comment here. Jerry brings up a point that keeps arising in the literature one constraints and information. Recall that Shannon said that they are the same thing. That is a clue. Loet and I dealt with this issue previously on this list about a year ago when he claimed that social communications channels open up new possibilities (analogous to Jerry's position here), and I asked him why this was so, since any further structure must reduce the possibilities, not increase them. We each promoted out view for a while, and then stopped, as it wasn't going anywhere. The reason is that there is nowhere to go with this issue. Both positions are correct, and they do not contradict each other; they are merely incompatible perspectives, much like Cartesian versus polar coordinates. The positions are not logically incompatible, but pragmatically incompatible, in that they cannot both be adopted at the same time. This is a fairly common phenomenon in science. In fact I wrote my dissertation on it. There is a paper of mine, Pragmatic Incommensurability, in the Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984 (PSA 1984) that goes into the issue in more detail, but not as much as in my thesis. I am kind of bored with the issue at the issue at this point, but it keeps coming up, so I'll say a bit more. Stan's bracket formulation is a logical restriction (constraint), with the outer bracketed items logically restricting the inner ones. It is a neat formulation for a system developed by W.E. Johnson in his book Logic, in which he called the inner elements determinates and the outer ones determinables. The idea is a basic one in the Philosophy business, and these are the technical terms used there, although they are somewhat awkward, being relative terms, and also not words used with their English meaning. Jerry's problem is that if the chemical opens up a huge range of possibilities not available to the physical, how can we call the physical a constraint on the chemical. I once asked Stan a similar question, and he gave me an answer that satisfied me enough not to pursue the issue. The answer requires a distinction concerning constraints (which, recall, is logically equivalent to information -- any connotative difference being irrelevant to my point here). My colleagues and coauthors Wayne Christensen and Cliff Hooker once referred to the difference between restricting and enabling constraints. The former restrict possibilities, while the latter are required in order to make things possible -- mush produces nothing. But there is no essential difference -- context, if anything, makes the difference. I say 'if anything' because in many cases constraints (indistinguishable from information by logic alone) do both: restrict and enable. There is no paradox here -- they are two sides of the same coin. A Taoist like me sees them as Yin and Yang -- the Yang element is the defined and restrictive, active, controlling part, while the Yin is the open, receptive and enabling part. We cannot view the same thing as both Yin and Yang at the same time (we can talk about it in the abstract, in the same way that we can talk about Cartesian and polar coordinates together, and even transform them on in to the other), but the thing itself is both, and the transformations between Yin and Yang have a logical form that is predictable and determinate. Just so with restricting and enabling constraints -- we can learn to transform one into the other, both in thought and in practice. I will now demonstrate this with Jerry's cases (though the ideas are hardly peculiar to Jerry's cases) At 05:16 PM 05/02/2007, Jerry LR Chandler wrote: To: Igor / Ted / Stan There is no difference between the two statements -- the scope in the 'from' case is the Yang side of things, but in the 'to' case it is the Yin side. One pays attention to the Yang aspects, and the other to the Yin aspects. Both propensities are there, and the stronger the Yang propensity the more it transforms into the Yin, and vice versa. Given a finite information capacity, these are the only two possible dynamics, and they trade off against each other. Now, if we have an expanding information capacity (phase space), as Kaufman, Brooks and Wiley, Layzer, Landserg, Frautschi, Davies and other notables have seen, we can get both together, though they still trade off one against the other. Ted's comment seems to be based on a some recent innovations in the mathematics of hierarchies. The issue of how we select the meaning for our symbols of representations of the world can be a very complicated one. The profound limitations that linear and quasi - linear mathematics places on the symbolic carrying capacity of signs may be relevant to Ted's statement. But, I am not certain of the origins of his views. Jerry, I think the way this is worded is not quite consistent with the perspective you are promoting. We don't "select" the meaning of our symbols, except perhaps in fairly formal contexts. If we did it would be very hard to be usefully creative, I am sure you agree -- we could only select what we already have a template for -- see my Dealing with the Unexpected from the CASYS meetings examples. Stan's comment deserves to be attended to. See note on W.E. Johnson above. That is the standard source for the logic here, and it is universally accepted among those who know it. Indeed, chemical logic functions in exactly the opposite direction. But so do the constraints or restrictions, as Stan has been arguing for years now. There is no inconsistency in both happening. On a personal note to Stan: We have been discussing similar concepts since the inception of WESS more than 20 years ago and it does not appear that we are converging! :-) :-) :-) Unless you choose to embrace the creative capacities of chemical logic, I fear your mind is doomed to the purgatory of unending chaotic cycles, searching for a few elusive or perhaps imaginary "fixed points." ;-) :-) :-( !!! And there is no convergence. There are fixed points -- there have to be or all we can have is mush -- but they are not where the action is. On the other hand, the 'action' occurs only because of receptivity to being worked on or guided by constraints that must relatively fixed. The divergence is there in reality, and the place where there is convergence is beyond our ability to grasp with an argument. I am sure that Stan knows this. John Professor John Collier [email protected] 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.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
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