SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema :> Abstract & Physical
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LIS. Discussion Note 70
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JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = John Sowa
John,
I am walking a razor's edge between "distributed" and "scattered",
so permit me to experiment with a few strategies to maintain dual
consciousness without losing the stream of thought I came in with.
JS: When you ask the question that way, you can't get an answer:
JA: So where have we got? As usual exactly nowhere.
| What is the operational test of the distinction
| between abstract things and non-abstract things?
JA: Until I get some reason to believe otherwise, I must
now conclude that the supposed distinction is almost
purely a matter of personal or regional taste, about
which no further dispute can serve any actual purpose.
It was late, I was tired, let's call that a "note of desperation" (NOD).
But the point is that I now intend to shift the burden of proof onto those
who would say that abstractness is an absolute or non-relative property of
things, whether it's the sort of things that are denoted by nouns or verbs.
I personally see no further plausibility to the claim that identifiable things
of either sort can be sorted once and for all, for all contexts, purposes, and
seasons under heaven into one or the other bin, Abstract versus Non-Abstract,
no matter what label one uses for the semiotic underside of this distinction.
I think that the evidence against the absoluteness of that distinction is
rather abundant and evident as soon as one stops taking it for granted
and starts looking around at the weight against it.
I am stating this objection at its maximum possible strength, with a logical
opposition between Abstract and Non-Abstract, in order to stress the fact
that it's a matter of the "conditions of use" of the whole genus of
concepts like Abstract, Concrete, Embodied, General, Individual,
and so on, and not just a peculiarity of this one example.
A short way of saying it: Abstractness is Not an Essence.
I am not saying that it never makes sense to use such concepts and distinctions.
I am just saying that there has to be a "test of the active possibility" (TOTAP)
that they can make sense in a given context of application or discussion. That
really shouldn't be all that difficult to appreciate.
Have to break here, will get to the details infra later on.
Jon Awbrey
JS: I call the categories Physical and Abstract.
There are several clear criteria for being
physical:
JS: 1. Can you see it, feel it, hear it, taste it,
or smell it, directly or indirectly?
JS: 2. Does it, has it, or could it exist
in a particular place and time?
JS: 3. Does it have causal interactions (in Aristotle's terms,
efficient causes) with other physical things and events?
JS: Besides not being physical (i.e., having negative
answers to the above questions), abstract entities
have affirmative answers to the following questions:
JS: 1. Can it have physical replicas, embodiments,
instances, encodings, or whatever similar
term you would prefer to use?
JS: 2. If you are given a physical replica of an abstraction
at one place and time, can you transmit it (the
abstraction, not the replica) at the speed of light
to another place and time where another physical
replica, sufficiently similar to the original by
whatever criteria you choose, can be reconstructed?
JS: I also emphasize that both physical objects (i.e. continuants)
and processes (i.e., occurrents) can be replicas, embodiments,
or instances of abstract entities. I use the term Schema for
the abstraction of a continuant and the term Script for the
abstraction of an occurrent. (Nicola has complained of my
shorthand term "abstract occurrent" so I now call a script
an abstraction of an occurrent.)
JS: I would also add, in parentheses, a comment that all
abstract entities are of the same nature as Plato's forms
or mathematical structures of which sets are one rather simple
example. I would also add, in a double layer of parentheses, that
these entities can be, in Aristotle's terms, a formal cause, but not
an efficient cause.
JS: Finally, I want to point out that I use the categories Abstract and Physical
to replace the older notions of Universal and Particular. Those were useful
notions when Aristotle introduced them (by other names), but over the centuries,
too many confused and ill-conceived conceptions have become associated with them.
JS: As just one example, I would cite the Dolce notion of "abstract particular"
as an example of a confused and confusing conception. I realize that they
have introduced ways of qualifying the confusion, but it's better to avoid
the confusion by picking a better name to begin with.
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