ONT Re: Inquiry Into Inquiry
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Howard,
That was certainly a long cup of coffee --
actuality, we had to go buy some wheels --
"Old Paint" has been put out to pasture --
where was I?
Howard Pattee wrote (HP):
Jon Awbrey wrote (JA):
JA: You continue to rush on ahead of my more plodding ways,
and so I find that I have to keep taking your messages
in several tries to get through their briar patches.
HP: Take your time. Ignore my old postings. I haven't begun to read all your
posts and links either. Already your comments are reducing the dissonances.
That would definitely be a novel experience for me!
HP: I am not sure how I fit into this discussion. Jon obviously has enough comments
to answer without my adding more. Anyway, here is another view of inquiry.
I am not sure how Jon's discussion of inquiry gets into the observable
world of science.
JA: Pragmaticians are "real" thinkers. They guess that there is a world beyond them,
that it has properties -- this is, a little Peirce tells me, the authorized sense
of the word "real", as it was originally introduced into our culture's discourse.
My own experience tells me that this "real world" will just keeping on thumping
me in the head, as it were, until I pay attention to the features thereof, and
this forces me, all against my initial inclination, to try to catch its drift.
All the nets that I have to catch it with are made, in the end, of signs and
the types of signs that we know as affects, concepts, impressions, or mental
ideas, and so I must, per force aforesaid, contemplate the relations that
insist, persist, subsist, or systematicaly exist among these arrays of
so-called "real" objects, signs, and their host of interpretant signs.
IOU: Insert about here a passage from "IDS: III" on the use of the term "real".
HP: Agreed, but only if "sign" is broadly defined as every actual interaction the
environment has with the organism (physical, sensual, instinctive, semiotic, etc.).
Yes, as a slight bit of look-ahead in my mind's parser tells me, you are well aware that
the "pragmatic theory of signs" (PTOS) voices the word "sign" with just this expanse
of liberal breadth. I occasionally use the phrase "data of the senses" (DOT) to
remind my self that all the DOTS that we connect in our percepts and concepts
are also examples of signs in this sense. But this is not just another case
of gratuitous generalization. What give the word "sign", in this employment,
a technical content, neither exploded nor imploded, and its utility as a term
of art is just what gives all of our other adoptions, borrowings, conversions,
or "liftings" of ordinary langauge to technical purposes their meaningful use
to these ends, to wit, a definition of some order, rough or sharp, whether
logical or pragmatic or hopefully both.
I have started trying to organize my online links.
There is the beginning of a cumulative accounting
appended to the end of this note. Here is one
quick link on the "Definition Of A Sign":
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02034.html
Doleful experience has taught me that it is best to expand our focus a bit
to compass "sign relations", taken as wholes, over and above just isolated
signs, and taken at least at first in extension as sets of 3-tuples of the
form <o, s, i>, with o, s, i the "object", "sign", "interpretant sign" of
the "elementary sign relation" (ESR) <o, s, i>.
At this point, I personally find the comparsion with group theory to be compelling.
A "group" is another sort of set of 3-tuples that is subject to a terse definition,
and yet the theory of groups encompasses a wealth of imaginative possibilities and
utilitarian potentials that can scarcely be con-&-sur-veyed in any finite lifetime.
As it happens, one of my many "returns" to mathematics,
after a time in the wilds of philosophy and psychology,
was through the slits of "group representation theory",
but the tale thereby hanging is too long to pursue now.
True Story. There was once in a university library that I knew quite intimately
a volume on "Group Theory" that had been rebound by the library staff and placed
on the shelves under the cover of "Group Therapy". Moral Of The Story (MOTS):
The theory of signs is far from being the only subject to have this problem
of 'what'sin'a'name'.
HP: Incidentally, this universal use of "sign" by Peirce is one of the causes he is
often misunderstood by scientists and mathematicians (as well as normal people)
who are accustomed to normal usage that implies a non-arbitrary, causal or
active (verbal, non-displaceable, spatially and temporally) relation to its
referent (e.g., fever is a sign or signature or signifier of disease).
HP: A symbol usually implies an arbitrary passive (nominal, displaceable) relation
to its referent. This is consistent with etymology as well as common usage.
(I think C.W. Morris develops this view.)
Charles Morris got this fever of signs from Peirce,
but what he did to remediate it is the subject of
many a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., opinion, if not many
a knock-down-drag-out among and between analytic
and pragmatic doctors. I will try to tiptoe
past the sleeping dogmas without pausing to
enumerate their heads ...
But I will need to introduce the technical distinctions and relations, deployed in PTOS,
of terms like "sign" (the genus), in relation to "icon", "index", "symbol" (the species):
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Semiotic SIG,
For future reference, here is a primer for the
classification of signs in Peircean semiotics:
Sign
Index
Icon
Symbol
Term
Proposition
Argument
Deduction
Induction
Abduction
By "primer", of course, you may catch my drift
that the whole scheme of classification is set
to "blow up" from this point on, but this much
will do for start, and for my present purposes.
It needs to be understood that this scheme classifies
the aspects of functioning or the modes of being that
any sign may have to some degree, and that almost any
concrete token of a truly effective sign is likely to
have in a significant measure. So let us not jump to
the facile conclusion that this scheme, or any of the
many schemes that develop, expand, and refine it, are
meant to be taken as mutually exclusive categories of
the signs themselves, even if the whole array of them
aspires, perhaps, to a certain form of exhaustiveness.
My immediate purpose, on the present occasion, is to
begin pinning down the slippery concept of a concept,
in other words, to provide our notions of a notion
with a provisional placement in the semiotic plan.
The way I see it (TWISI), a concept is just a sign
in the mind, in particular, a symbol, which is the
kind of a sign that depends for its interpretation
in an especially integral way on the sign relation
as a whole, which whole sign relation is typically
personified in the hypostasis of an "interpreter".
This means that a concept has a significant portion
of its properties accounted for by its standing as
a symbol, by the mere fact of its membership among
that non-exclusive tribe of signs called "symbols",
which it only partly derives from its mental locus,
and this aside from the manifest aspects of an index
or the manifold attributes of an icon that it has by
dint of being an "affection or impression of the soul".
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01111.html
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HP: For example, in mathematics we have the noun symbols, x, y, etc.
and the verb signs, +, =, etc. We speak of the "plus sign" because
it is an operation (that must be performed where and when indicated),
and the "symbol, x," because it stands, passively, wherever and whenever
we write it, for whatever we choose. We also speak of a "STOP sign" because
in this case the symbol "STOP" is functioning as a verb, a non-displaceable
operation (actually, it stands for an elliptical imperative sentence:
"You STOP here and now."). I won't go into Peirce's other numerous
eccentric terminologies.
That's okay, I probably will.
I need to take a break here.
I kinda suspect you do, too.
Jon Awbrey
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HP: As a non-logician, it seems to me Jon is just inquiring into Peirce and
logical strings and graphs. If this is Peirce's main contribution I can
understand why scientists do not pay him much attention. Inquiry to
most scientists does not really depend on this type of logical analysis,
but on imagination and observation. I don't know of any cases of discovery
in science, or even mathematics, where logical analysis played the creative
role. Of course, in math proofs require logic, but rarely is logic the
source of the inquiry.
JA: I am guessing then that you are one of those who does not consider
this art that we call "computer science" to be a "real" science?
HP: Again, if you don't want to make finer distinctions, then science can mean
any form of knowledge, just like sign can mean any interaction with an agent.
I think it is conceptually useful to make a distinction between formal, or
purely syntactical activities, and activities that require observation or
measurement. I think most mathematicians and computer theorists strive
for purely formal systems that can be operated measurement-free and
semantics-free. I'm not sure about logicians. Mostly they try to
be formalists, but because they often use natural language, they
cannot prevent tacit semantic biases from slipping in. I think
it is an open question whether complete formalism is possible,
even in mathematics. I doubt it. But nevertheless, the ideal
is worth imagining.
HP: I think for most scientists "inquiry" means exploration
or looking for something entirely new in our experience.
After all, modern scientific inquiry did not begin with
logic but with the extension of our natural senses by
instruments and by the extension of our natural imagination
by mathematics. Modern biology began with the microscope,
chemistry with the analytic balance and chemical indicators,
and physics with the telescope, theodolite, and mathematics.
JA: Ah, the "2001: A Space Oddity" picture of science!
These instruments just fell from the sky one day,
and science began. It would explain a lot of
this cargo cultism that I see about me today,
but I have another picture of the motion.
HP: I don't appreciate the point of your sarcasm. What did I actually say that you dispute?
I did not mean to imply that instruments are sufficient for science, but I think they
are necessary. The naked eye sees very little of the universe, large and small.
As an old instrument-maker myself (I designed and constructed the first compound
x-ray optics the likes of which are used in the Chandra telescope:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/
I can assure you that instruments do not "just fall from the sky"
(although Chandra will, literally, only too soon.)
HP: Chronometers, galvanometers, spectroscope, mass spectrometers, centrifuges,
chromatography, radioactive tracers, particle accelerators, and especially
mathematics, are the essential prostheses for our senses and brains without
which scientific inquiry would have come to a dead end like scholasticism.
JA: Yes, I came to the university as a post-sputnik era math and physics major,
and so I heard all the same stories of history, read all the same romantic
accounts of our noble climb from pre-historical slime (=< 1901), but then
I made the "experiment" of actually going out and "observing" what was
actually laid down in some of the old "fossil pits", and lo and behold
I discovered that our "ascent" was far more gradual and rule-governed
than all these romantic novel-ists had been catechizing me to believe.
HP: I agree that too many intelligent students like you received a very bad education.
I am glad you have learned to observe and inquire for yourself.
HP: The real problem for scientific inquiry is: How do we know what are we looking for?
This is an old problem. Meno asked Socrates, "But how will you look for something
when you don't in the least know what it is? How on earth are you going to set up
something you don't know as the object of your search? To put it another way, even
if you come right up against it, how will you know that what you have found is the
thing you didn't know?" This is the big question, but Socrates gives one of his
sillier answers: "The soul, since it is immortal and has been born many times,
and has seen all things both here and in the other world, has learned everything
that there is." Therefore, he concludes: "learning is nothing but recollection."
JA: Here, now, Howard, you have, in your own inimitable way, a way that I would not even
dare to attempt to imitate, brought us to the very hub and nub of the Big Question.
So I will fortify myself with another cup of coffee, and return with anticipation.
HP: I will also temporarily break off here and take a nap.
Yes, logic, by any other name, is known for its dormitive virtues.
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Analytic Differential Ontology (ADO)
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00072.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00108.html
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Definition Of A Sign (DOAS)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00729.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01224.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04442.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04529.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04807.html
Alternates --
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02034.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-April/000414.html
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Determination
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02377.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02378.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02379.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02380.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02384.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02387.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02388.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02389.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02390.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02391.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02395.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02407.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02550.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02552.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02556.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02594.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02651.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02673.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02706.html
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Differential Analytic Turing Automata (DATA)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg03004.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg03026.html
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Extensions of Logical Graphs (RefLog, DifLog, HopLog)
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03351.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03352.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03353.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03354.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03376.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03379.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03381.html
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Higher Order Sign Relations, Quotation, Reflection
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00625.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00703.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00973.html
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Painted Cacti & Propositional Calculus (PC&PC)
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-January/000150.html
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Propositional Equation Reasoning Systems (PERS)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04187.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04305.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04413.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04419.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04422.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04423.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04432.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04454.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04455.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04476.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04510.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04517.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04525.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04533.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04536.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04542.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04546.html
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Rambling Dialogues On Sign Relations
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01233.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02621.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04500.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02400.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02403.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02406.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02413.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02416.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02455.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02456.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02462.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02463.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02505.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02615.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000621.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000622.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000623.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000624.html
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Semiotics Formalization
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00815.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00829.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00894.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01111.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01112.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01113.html
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Sequential Interactions Generating Hypotheses (SIGH's)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02607.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02608.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg03183.html
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Shroud of Turing (SOT)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02714.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00308.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03669.html
http://www.virtual-earth.de/CG/cg-list/msg03677.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-January/000167.html
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Sign Relations
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00729.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00815.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00829.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00894.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01111.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01112.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01113.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01224.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01233.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg03033.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg03111.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg03381.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04442.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04529.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04807.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04810.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04812.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04813.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04820.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04823.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04869.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04870.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04912.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg05020.html
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Signs, Information, Logic, Inquiry (SILI)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02534.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02554.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02570.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02590.html
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Ultimate Reckoning Graph Engine (URGE)
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-January/000168.html
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What Is Information That A Sign May Bear It?
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000616.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000617.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000618.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000619.html
http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2001-June/000620.html
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What Language To Use?
Sowa's Top Level Categories,
Sowa's TLC In And Out Of KIF
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01949.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01956.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01966.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02463.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg02466.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00048.html
http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg00051.html
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Zeroth-Order Logic (ZOL)
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01406.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01546.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01561.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01670.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01739.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01966.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01985.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg01988.html
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