Re: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5

Dear List,

I must disagree with the notion that there is any real separation of
nature and culture. There are things that can be known that do not
exist - as a general category that includes culture - but culture
does not stand alone - it's right up there with irrational numbers
and televisions.

The force of natural ethics (inevitable behaviors) is mediated by
convention and manifest in the behavior of individuals - culture is
merely one such convention.

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
http://iase.info
On Feb 5, 2007, at 11:37 PM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I agree with most of what is said, but it does not apply to social  
> systems because these -- and to a lesser extent also psychological  
> ones -- operate differently from the hierarchical formations that  
> are generated "naturally". That is why we oppose "nature" to  
> "culture" in the semantics: cultural (and social) systems enable us  
> to model the systems under study and this changes the hierarchical  
> order. I understand that Maturana et al. argue that the next-order  
> systems always model the lower-order ones, but then the word  
> "model" is used metaphorically. The model (e.g., the biological)  
> model enables us to reconstruct the system(s) under study to such  
> an extent that we are able to intervene in these systems, e.g. by  
> using a technology. This inverts the hierarchy.
>
> Thus, let me write in Stan's notation: biological {psychological  
> {social}} -- or is this precisely the opposite order, Stan? -- then  
> our scientific models enable us to change nature, for example, by  
> building dykes like in Holland and thus we get: social {biological}  
> since the ecological changes can also be planned in advance.
>
> While lower-order systems are able to entertain a model of the next- 
> lower ones -- and even have to entertain a model -- human language  
> enables us not only to exchange these models, but also to study  
> them and to further codify them. The further codification sharpens  
> the knife with which we can cut into the lower-level ones. We are  
> not constrained to the next-order lower level, but we can freely  
> move through the hierarchy and develop different specialties  
> accordingly (chemistry, biology, etc.). Scientists are able to  
> adjust the focus of the lense. This is a cultural achievement which  
> was generated naturally, but once in place also had the possibility  
> to distinguish between genesis and validity. No lower-level systems  
> can raise and begin to answer this question. And doubling reality  
> into a semantic domain that can operate relatively independently of  
> the underlying (represented) layer increases the complexity which  
> can be absorbed with an order of magnitude.
>
> The issue is heavily related to the issue of modernity as a  
> specific form of social organization. While tribes ("small groups")  
> can still be considered using the "natural" metaphor, and high  
> cultures were still organized hierarchically (with the emperor or  
> the pope at the top), modern social systems set science "free" to  
> pursue this reconstruction in a techno-economic evolution. "All  
> that is solid, will melt into air" (Marx). Because of our  
> biological body, we are part of nature, but our minds are entrained  
> in a cultural dynamics at the supra-individual level ("culture")  
> which feeds back and at some places is able increasingly to invert  
> the hierarchy.
>
> With best wishes,
>
>
> Loet
> Loet Leydesdorff
> Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
> Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
> Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
> loet@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
>
> Now available: The Knowledge-Based Economy: Modeled, Measured,  
> Simulated. 385 pp.; US$ 18.95
> The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society; The Challenge  
> of Scientometrics
>
>
> From: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis- 
> bounces@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of John Collier
> Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:18 PM
> To: Jerry LR Chandler; fis@listas.unizar.es
> Subject: Re: [Fis] Re: fis Digest, Vol 501, Issue 5
>
> 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
>>
>> First, Igor.
>>
>> I found your perspective here to be 180 degrees off from mine!
>>
>> On Feb 5, 2007, at 6:01 AM, fis-request@listas.unizar.es wrote:
>>
>>> Reply to Steven and Ted
>>>
>>>
>>>> By "genetic constraints" I assume you simply mean that we have   
>>>> certain capacities and are not omnipotent. Is not conflict and  
>>>> war an  indicator of our individual failure to manage social  
>>>> complexity? Or  would you argue that war is social complexity  
>>>> management?
>>>>
>>> I was referring to the hypothesis that we have the propensity to  
>>> function in relatively small groups bind by strong cultural bonds.
>>
>>
>> From my perspective, enriched by chemical relations,
>>
>> genetic system serve as fundamentally creative activities.
>>
>> Genetic networks are not an amalgam of soft concepts, rather a  
>> genetic network is a discrete interdependent network of chemical  
>> relations.
>> The enumeration of the creative  genetic network is complete for  
>> some organisms, some species.
>>
>> In Aristotelian logical terms, the position of the species is  
>> between the individual "point" and the "genus".
>> It is the chemical capacity to create species that I find to be  
>> absent from your narrative.
>>
>> Thus, I would re-phrase your  hypothesis generating sentence:
>>
>> From:
>>> I was referring to the hypothesis that we have the propensity to  
>>> function in relatively small groups bind by strong cultural bonds.
>>
>> To:
>>
>> "I was referring to the hypothesis that genetic networks have the  
>> creative capacity to function in very large associations that are  
>> linked together by very weak bonds."
>
> 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.
>>
>> "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."    
>> Nor, do I understand why brackets, signifiers of separations, are  
>> used in this context.
>> I have no idea what it would mean to "parse" a "material /  
>> chemical constraint" in this context.
>
> 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.
>>
>> The creative relations grow with the complexity of the system.  Is  
>> this not what we mean by evolution?
>
> 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                                      
> 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.ukzn.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
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Received on Tue Feb 6 08:58:13 2007