SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
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LIS. Discussion Note 16
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JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
JA: So I think I have a way of understanding the statement that
a state is just a complex property of a system. Some people
will call that system-thing the "reified system".
MW: It is that which takes on the state.
JA: Yes, the picky point that I think some people are trying
to make is that the data of experience or the results of
measurement are what we really have on hand, whereas the
system-thing is in the bush, as it were, at some remove
from immediate impressions, the object of possibly many
competing hypotheses that we form to explain why the
data are as they are.
MW: I'm not one of them, as you have probably guessed.
As noted below you can have any individual object
you want as long as you can demonstrate it has
a spatio-temporal extent.
JA: Yes, I have no qualms about pretending a hypothesis here
and there, but the question is whether the specifics of
a given hypothesis explain the data better than the many
competing alternatives. This is a stricter test than
demonstrating mere consistency or the projection of
a possible extension in space and time.
JA: Morever, data can vary widely with changes among different bases
or frames of reference, whereas real objects are associated with
functions that remain invariant through transformations from one
frame to another, so it is a non-trivial step to relate the data
to the object.
MW: You seem to have some idea that there are some "real" objects.
What do you consider these to be?
JA: I am working on the hypothesis that there is a reality.
I have not always been so realistic, but reality is
a persistent, if not always patient teacher, and
a sequence of recurring impressions of the type
that is commonly referred to as brute reactions,
the "dent" or "dint" of recalcitrant experience,
or just plain "hard knocks", have willme, nillme,
conduced me to adopt the hypothesis that there is
some kind of objective reality that produces these
impressions on my sphere of pathic, felt experience,
and which Reality or Nature ought to be my objective
to know better, if I have a clue what is good for me,
and so I am following out the consequences, practical
and theoretical, of that hypothesis, at least, until
some more viable alternative commands my attention.
MW: OK. I agree there is reality. I was thinking in terms that
the objects we discriminate relate to our theories of the world,
and they might be different, but they are still what we extract
from reality.
JA: It is always a bit tricky to say this right. If we say
"reality is just a concept", that all of its objects are
"concepts" or "constructs" or "fictions" or "hypotheses",
that is a scion of colloquy, a slip of loose talk that will
eventually get us into trouble if we, or most likely others,
take it too literally. Better if we say that our knowledge of
things is conceived, constructed, pretended, preposed to refer
to a substance beneath the superfices that appear in experience, ...
MW: Agreed.
JA: moreover, that a great many of the signs that we use to convey and store
this knowledge are of an artificial proxy, in stead of a natural kind.
MW: Not sure what this means.
I am just referring to the fact that general theories of signs from
the times of Hippocrates and Aristotle forward have recognized both
the analogies and the differentia between "artificial signs", those
that we make, and "natural signs", for example, smoke as a sign of
fire, or laughter as a sign that our delirium is not too serious.
This is a bit of backpropaganda that I'm strutting out here to
reinforce my earlier remarks about the connections among all
types of signs, whether they form in nature or in nurture:
JA: Yes, the world is there. I will make that hypothesis.
If we knew it directly as it is we would have no need
of approximately iconic models or logical formalisms.
But we got kicked out of that garden a long time ago.
So now it is only in the medium of concepts, models,
signs, and thoughts that we have any representation
or any knowledge of the world, and it is only by
collating, critiquing, and reconciling the vast
variety of our different accounts of the world
that we are able to form anything approaching
an adequate model or competent picture of it.
There is nothing dispensable about this fact.
JA: Maybe I can convey the importance of this if I explain that
all of the following brands of information involve the same
dynamic array of problems at this primary level of analysis:
1. Sensory data.
2. Measurements.
3. Identifiers.
JA: Yes, the precise values in each case are arbitrary in any absolute sense,
since they depend on sensor specs and aberrations, frame of reference,
history of the naming faculty or the hash code generator, scale of
measurement, topology of nearby space, and so on. This is exactly
why "systems identification" is such a non-trivial problem and
why we can only get a grip on ontology through comparative
and relative operations on the pile of bits that the data,
measurements, and identifiers would otherwise remain.
This has a bearing on several of the clauses in your treatment of things,
possible_individuals, and abstract_objects, as I have already pointed out.
Jon Awbrey
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