Continuing with Robin --
>Thursday, March 15, 2007, 7:46:47 PM, Stanley wrote:
>
>> Commenting on Robin's text, he said:
>
>>>In this paper I combine and extend some ideas of Daniel Dennett
with
>>>one from Wittgenstein and another from physics. Dennett introduced
the
>>>concepts of the physical, design and intentional stances (1987),
and
>>>has suggested (with John Haugeland) that �*?some concept of
INFORMATION
>>>could serve eventually to unify mind, matter, and meaning in a
single
>>>theory.�* (Dennett and Haugeland, 1987, emphasis in the
original)
>> S: I'm not sure I see a distinction between meaning and mind as they
>> relate to matter. I suppose matter + meaning might be one perspective
on
>> mind.
>
>I think the quoted statement is perfectly reasonable, because the
>common concepts of mind and meaning are distinct, while unification
>is, in fact, what is being proposed.
SS: Well, one might still note that meaning and mind are processual
relations, while matter is, in relation to that, just stuff. Then, while
meaning could be said to be unlocated or dispersed, minds are tied to
locales by being linked to matter. Meanings can drift and spread, while
minds are points of contact between them and matter.
>>>The concept of physical information is now very well established.
The
>>>famous
>>>bet between physicists Stephen Hawking and John Preskill that
Hawking
>>>conceded
>>>he�*?d lost in July 2004 concerned whether physical information is
>>>conserved in
>>>black holes. (Preskill, 2004) Physical information is basically
material
>>>form.
>>>The concept derives from C.E. Shannon�*?s information theory
(1948) and
>>>has no
>>>semantic component. When this concept is taken to its logical
>>>conclusion, an
>>>energy flow becomes an information flow and an object becomes its
own
>>>description. The crucial distinction is between form and
>>>substance. Dennett�*?s physical stance could be renamed the
>>>�*?substantial stance,�* while I
>>>introduce an additional stance to account for information, called
the
>>>�*?formal
>>>stance,�* in which we attend to form rather than substance.
>> S: So, here we have reflected the Aristotelian causal anlaysis:
>> material cause (physical stance), formal cause (design stance). For
>> completion we still want final cause -- directionality, which relates
to
>> intentionality, and efficient cause, which determines 'when', or
initiates
>> the moment to be considered.
>
>I do not believe that my formal stance is related to Aristotle's
>formal cause except in the sense that both relate to the concept of
>form. My account is not primarily about causation, though that comes
>into it. You've perhaps been mislead by the terminology, and I'm
>afraid you'll have to forget Aristotle altogether if you want to take
>my ideas onboard. All I'm saying there (besides the fact that the
>concept of physical information is well established in physics) is
>that sometimes we focus on form rather than substance, that this
>accounts for the concept (in fact all the concepts) of information,
>and that we can call that focus "the formal stance". I hope I
don't
>have to change my terminology.
SS: I shouldn't think so -- but, using it, you do invite some
causal
obligato to your concepts. In the face of complexity, causal analysis can
never "forget Aristotle", whose (updated) views on causality are the only
causal framework up to dealing fully with complexity. In that context,
your "stances" seem to be formal frameworks. Recognizing that, causality
necessarily intrudes.
>> -snip-
>>> (The intentional stance actually implies the formal stance, as
>>>only information can be intentional.)
>> S: This is to say that whatever happens does so in a context.
>
>I don't think so. This is not about "whatever happens", because
most
>of what happens has no intentional aspect. Only when sentience comes
>into the picture does that arise.
SS: Well, then you are just refusing to generalize. If we have
intentionality, the evolutionary perspective will insist that it had to
evolve from something more general(ly present in nature) -- nothing comes
from nothing. In my analysis intentionality can be derived from
functionality, and that from physical tendency (like the Second Law, or any
variational principle). Thus, {teleomaty -> {teleonomy -> {teleology}}}.
>> Contexts embody information, and select what among many possibilities
will
>> occur.
>
>Yes, but everything embodies information, and the "selection"
can be
>considered either a physical process (from the physical stance) or an
>information process (from the formal stance).
SS: Yes. Then we have {physical stance {design stance {intentional
stance}}}.
>> So, you are saying that intentionality cannot exist outside of some
>> context of possible choices.
>
>That might be true but it's not what I intended to say. It would
>certainly be useful to tie free will in with intentionality.
SS: Ah, 'free will'! For me, this is a kind of unicorn. In the
'evolutionary stance' there can never really be something truly new; only
refinements on what has preceded, with reduction of the original degrees of
freedom coupled to the emergence of new degrees of freedom. These 'new'
degrees of freedom are always just coarse grained linkages between orginal
degrees of freedom (thus, intetionality was episodically there in the
quark-gluon soup as fleeting configurations). So, what would FREE will
amount to? Just a seemingly unfettered selection from immanent
possibilities. Only "seemingly" because the willer has form (design,
organization).
>>>To adopt Dennett�*?s intentional stance toward an object is to
suppose
>>>that the
>>>object encodes intentional information.
>> S: That is to say, some directional take upon the formal setup,
>> pushing a final causality.
>
>No. Or at least I don't think so. We have a clash of paradigms here. I
>can view these sguiggles on my screen as mere squiggles, or I can read
>them. To do the latter I have to take the intentional stance towards
>them, that is to suppose that they encode intentional information,
>i.e. information that is about something, the usual kind. As mere
>squiggles, they're physical information.
SS: OK. Again, {physical stance {design stance {intentional stance}}}
-- you can choose your integrative level.
>>>To adopt his design stance is to view
>>>something as the product of an intentional information process.
>> S: That would be to say that an existing situation has resulted from
>> past 'descisions' or initiations that, given past designs, resulted
in the
>> present setup.
>
>Yes. Except that I'm not sure of the significance of "given past
>designs". Past designs will very often be relevant but I doubt
whether
>they're necessarily so.
SS: Well, with, again {physical stance {design stance {intentional
stance}}}, read this as {physico-chemical {biological {sociocultural}}},
and you see that, in order for intentionality to occur there needs to have
been in place prior biology.
>And I'm not sure why you mention "situations".
>The design stance, in the simplest cases, merely distinguishes
>manufactured objects from natural ones,
SS: I think most folks today see design already in biology, even if
there was no 'designer'.
>though it can be applied to
>natural objects by creationists and those seeking explanations in
>terms of evolutionary adaptiveness, and also to much more subtle and
>complex scenarios, such as aspects of interpersonal relationships. Is
>this what you have in mind?
SS: Yes, as I just said. Human design tends to be a mechanistic
extension of biological design. "Mechanistic" here entails 'logical',
'pragmatic'. While we impute these qualites to Nature, we have not
demonstrated that Nature is bound by these as our (Western) thinking is.
>>>Though the physical stance is very natural and practical in many
>>>contexts, the
>>>formal stance is superior in a certain sense: information is all
that our
>>>senses convey, we do not experience matter directly, it can be
considered a
>>>theoretical entity (or set of entities).
>> S: The word "experience" here is critical. Our experience
(and
>> meanings) is engendered by our formal organization. Matter is what is
>> organized, and so could not itself be the content of experience (or
>> meaning) even though it is the carrier (channel).
>
>Here at last we seem to have unambiguous agreement.
SS: I think we have other 'hidden' implicit agreements.
>>>A mind is a user or processor of intentional information.
>> S: That is to say, it initiates finality.
>
>Perhaps, I don't think in these terms.
SS: Well, using 'intentionality' seems to me to implicitly use
finality. Consider {propensity {purpose}}. Intent is necessarilly
directional, and directionality is all that is left is the particular goal
is removed.
> >>Matter is a theoretical entity extrapolated from physical
information.
>> S: Presumably "physical information", then, relates to an
array of
>> possibilities generated by a situation, from which the formal setup
>> (context) will select some given a nudge informed by an intentional
>> tendency.
>
>Physical information is simply material form. Any physical process
>involves contextual selection, but a perfectly static arrangement of
>entities embodies physical information too, by virtue of the fact that
>it has some form.
SS: Agreed. Configuration might be exploited by biology, and given
significance socioculturally.
>Having looked at your home page, I see we have very different concepts
>of form. You suggest {energy -> {matter -> {form ->
{organization}}}}
>but I see form as occurring simultaneously with energy, in fact as
>more-or-less synonymous with quality. Whatever has qualities, has
>form. Perhaps you limit form to instances of stability?
SS: I am demarking where form becomes crucial to our understanding.
This is in biology. All form embodies historical accident, and these come
and go on, say, the moon. But here biology has represented form abstractly
in the genetic system and promotes it (as a kind of sucesful superstition!).
>I'm fairly confident that matter can reasonably be considered a
>theoretical entity, but I'm now having some doubts about saying that
>it's extrapolated from physical information, because it can be argued
>that we don't have direct access to that either, all we experience
>being intentional information, so physical information is theoretical
>too. This needs more thought.
SS: The social constructivist view of science agrees with this
(recall operationalism in physics -- the first postmodern perspective), and
so do I. Matter is known from experiments, in which the formal arrangement
is a sociocultural construct (the other three causal categories are easily
seen here). A property of matter is the result on a dial, carefully
predesigned as a possibility.
>>>Meaning is intentional information (though multiple levels of
en/decoding
>>>might
>>>be involved), and consciousness is the use or processing of
>>>intentional information.
>> S: Again, then: mind = matter + meaning.
>
>Perhaps, but I think I'm saying rather more than that.
SS: Ah, yes. I have been trying to pull yours into a more general
arena -- {general {particular}}. The particular is always more than the
general. This sort of thing is endemic on lists like this, where all hans
are not workers in the same tunnel.
STAN
>--
>Robin Faichney
><http://www.robinfaichney.org/>
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Sat Mar 17 15:23:10 2007
