RE: [Fis] Meaning. Meaningfulness. Meaning of Meaningfulness.

Loet said:
> I would layer individual minds between the biology (body) and the
>social. While the individual mind is still very constrained by
>("structurally coupled" to) the biological body, the communication between
>minds allows for much more freedom.

This is a perennial question, and I wish to register a different opinion.
We could have the formulation:

{physical process {chemical connections {biological forms {social
conventions}}}}

where this issue is skirted, taking either meaning.

But I think it possible to suggest that there could not be minds, as we
spontaneously think of that term, without sociality (even in animals). If
that is the case, then:

{physical {material {biological {social {psychological}}}}} would be the
proper arrangement.

Loet again said:
>Meaning has to preserved in hierarchies at the chemical and biological
>level. In discourse, meaning can be >deconstructed and reconstructed, and
>therefore is at variance.

This is embodied in the above (specification) hierarchy by the fact that it
is formally a tree, branching to right. Thus, the biological level has a
coordinate realm branching from the material realm in abiotic dissipative
structures. Loet's "variance" would be embodied in the many socialities
that mightemerge from biology, and as well in the very many more
psychologies possible within each sociality. In any case 'meaning is
preserved' throughout.

Julio said:
>One of my favorite aphorisms:
>
>There is no good science that is vague,
>and no good poetry that is not.
>-- Fernando Pessoa

     This is certainly very true for poetry! But the fact that science is
still only fully explicit is, in my opinion, a deficit that has delivered
us a mechanistic Nature, which serves as a very poor model of the World.
Of course, if the role of science is only to support technology, then my
remark here is irrelevant. But I think many on this list think of science
rather as a way to understand the world. Well, the world is in one degree
or other vague, while our pathetic models of it are (still) fully explicit.

STAN

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Received on Wed Feb 8 07:25:59 2006