RE: SUO: RE: Peirce's "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man"
John,
Thanks very much for your reply.
You wrote:
>
> Some brief comments on your response to Jon A.
>
> >That is fine, and I appreciate your discussion of these terms in
> the context
>
> >of Peirce, Kant and Descartes.
> >
> >However, I am more concerned by Peirce's following statements which were
> >made in relatively plain English:
> >
> >"all knowledge of the internal world is derived by hypothetical reasoning
> >from our knowledge of external facts."
>
> An example of what Kant claimed and what Peirce denied
> is that our knowledge of space and time is not derivable
> from perception. P would say that everything we know about
> space and time is derivable from sensory input combined
> with abduction (hypothetical reasoning). He would classify
> "observation" of mental imagery and perception of pain,
> headache, toothache, etc., to be of the same nature as
> "external facts".
Thanks for this clarification. It seems unusual to define "external facts"
to include observation of mental imagery. However, if that is the case, then
it seems my question is answered affirmatively -- i.e., we can have some
knowledge of the "internal world" by direct observation of our thoughts (or
at least, direct observation of our self-verbalization of our thoughts).
>
> >"every cognition is determined logically by previous cognitions."
>
> By logically, he meant by deduction, induction, or abduction.
> The third is extremely important, because it allows any new
> hypothesis to be introduced or generated by chance. But before
> it can be accepted as "knowledge", it has to be tested against
> "facts" by induction and deduction.
Thanks also for this explanation. Abduction would include what I described
as the generation of thoughts by chance. I think I was thrown off the track
by the phrase "determined logically by previous cognitions" -- especially
the word "determined" -- since in the case of abduction a unique hypothesis
may not be determined by previous cognitions. Also, the value of a
hypothesis may need to be tested by later facts, not just prior facts.
> >"We have no conception of the absolutely incognizable."
>
> This seems to me to be obvious. We might hypothesize that
> some parallel universe exists that can never interact with
> us in any way. But then that is pure fantasy. It is indeed
> a conception, but calling it a conception of anything that
> exists is totally unwarranted.
I did not hypothesize a parallel universe that could never interact with us
in any way. That is not what my comments were intended to be about, though
perhaps somehow you have inferred that must be what they were about.
>
> >All I can say at this point, is that my comments on the question
> of having
> a
> >conception of the incognizable were not in reference to randomly
> stringing
>
> >together sequences of signs.
>
> I would not call your comments about some totally inaccessible
> universe (or whatever you might want to call it) random.
> They have a definite syntax and a definite logical structure.
> But any assertion that is totally untestable by any kind of
> experience (including any kind of scientific measurement)
> is pure fantasy -- it cannot be knowledge.
My comments were misunderstood, and I apologize if I wrote something that
caused this misunderstanding.
My intent was not to suggest a totally inaccessible universe, relative to
which assertions would be totally untestable by experience or scientific
measurement.
What I tried to do was to discuss the possibility that there may be limits
to what we can understand, i.e. things that are uncognizable. I mentioned
the results of Turing and Godel, along with the claims by some physicists
(e.g. Feynman) that there are some aspects of quantum physics that are
beyond our understanding.
Godel's result has been cited by Penrose to argue that there are limits to
artificial intelligence. Some have replied that if such limits apply to
artificial intelligence, then they also apply to human intelligence.
So, my suggestion that there *might be* limits to human understanding and
cognition was not new, and not about fanciful, imaginary, untestable
universes.
However, in parallel you have sent me some more detailed comments offlist --
So, I'll ponder those comments and reply further, offlist.
Sincerely,
Phil Jackson
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