This is my reply to Jerry (acknowledging that John's reply to Jerry below
says it as well as -- probably better than -- I can), who said:
>Stan's comment deserves to be attended to.
>
>> "The many complexities facing us as society can be parsed as
follows,
>>using a
>> specification hierarcy:
>> {physical constraints (material/chemical constraints {biological
>> constraints {sociocultural constraints}}}}."
>
> As I search for the substance in this comment, I focus on what might be
>the potentially misleading usage of the term "parsed."
S: 'Parsed', as I use it loosely here, is just 'to divide into
component parts', as with a sentence -- {man {running {uphill {chasing his
hat {naked}}}}} -- the order here is not important.
>Nor, do I understand why brackets, signifiers of separations, are used in
>this context.
S: The set theoretic brackets are used here, as John says, to indicate
the logical relations between realms of nature, as we have constructed
them. So, as we think biology emerged from chemistry, we can note this as
{chemistry {biology}}. This -- importantly -- means that biology further
constrains (the traditional usage here is 'integrates') chemistry by
instituting rules that limit what chemistry may do in biologial systems.
> I have no idea what it would mean to "parse" a "material /
chemical
>constraint" in this context.
S: I feel free to use a grammatical operation like this when
linguistically dealing with scientific concepts because our concepts ARE,
indeed, just grammatical / logical constructs.
>Indeed, chemical logic functions in exactly the opposite direction.
>The creative relations grow with the complexity of the system. Is this not
>what we mean by evolution?
S: This elicits, as John notes, an interesting philosophical point.
The logic as I have used it indeed says that as evolution uncovers new
realms of nature, these are MORE restricted in their freedom than were
prior existing realms (in the ways that these prior realms were free to
explore). Each emergence reduces degrees of freedom that were open in
prior realms. An example I like to use is language. As we learn a
language, it opens up immense possibilties for unique statements, BUT it
closes off possibilties that might have been opened up if we had learned
another language instead (recall the Whorffian hypothesis), and, I believe,
it blots out some intuitive aspects of our cognition just by intense mental
focusing on language. So, a tornado is freer to attain different forms in
different locales than is an organism.
>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." ;-) :-) :-( !!!
S: I think the main problem in this particular case is that you need
to note the exact meaning of the set theoretic brackets. Having noted
that, then you would have understood -- even if not agreed.
John said --
> Hi folks,
>
> I'll take a few minutes from my moving and dealing with academic
>emergencies at UKZN to make a comment here.
S; No wonder I haven't been able to contact you!
> 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.
>
>-snip-
> 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.
S: A new realm of Nature, while closing off / fixing many degrees of
freedom still open in the prior realms of nature, opens up NEW degrees of
freedom at the higher integrative level. Thus, flying and running would
not look very different if seen from a protein's point of view within a
muscle, but it marks a significant difference at the biological level -- as
would 'flying up to the left' rather than 'down to the right'. The new
degrees of freedom are enabled, while the old ones are restricted.
STAN
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Received on Mon Feb 5 22:50:35 2007
