ONT Re: Differential Logic & Dynamic Systems
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Jim Piat wrote (JP):
Jon Awbrey wrote (JA):
JA, quoting Ashby:
| The most fundamental concept in cybernetics is that of "difference",
| either that two things are recognizably different or that one thing
| has changed with time.
|
| Ashby, W. Ross,
|'An Introduction to Cybernetics',
| Chapman & Hall, London, UK, 1956,
| Methuen & Company, London, UK, 1964,
| Page 9.
JP: Sm(wh)ile I've found you on a lighter note--
JP: Let's explicitly suppose (as the above supposition does seem to suppose)
that not only is life real and earnest but that things move about in space and
forward in time sometimes combining with other things to form more complex things.
It seems to me you that you are reading a whole lot of extra content
into a statement that invoked very little more that the concepts of:
1. "one"
2. "two"
3. "time"
4. "thing"
5. "change"
6. "difference"
7. "recognition"
JP: So what are the properties of things and what are the properties of space-time?
Are they the same? Is space-time a thing? Is mass a property of things or space?
Do things change or only their positions in time and space? Is deduction (or more
broadly logic) just a definition of space-time, just a definition of things or just
a relatively fixed set of rules for deciphering the meaning of words in terms of our
vague presuppositions about the nature (human scope) of things and space-time upon
which our language use seems to float? Or are my puzzlements just an example of
the ways in which we disagree about the meaning of some expressions -- just more
sound and fury. Is language a presumption or a conclusion? Or is a presumption
and a conclusion really just the same thing in a different time and place?
JP, quoting TSE:
| And would it have been worth it, after all,
| Would it have been worth while,
| After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
| After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --
| And this and so much more? ---
| It is impossible to say just what I mean!
| But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
| Would it have been worth while
| If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
| And turning toward the window, should say:
|
| "That is not it a all,
| That is not what I meant, at all."
|
| T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
A single sunflower's turn toward the sun: What makes it make
A signal difference to any other sunflower's turn in the sun?
It may not shine like the most burning brand of question yet,
But I hold it key to turning the irritation of our doubts to
supply the irrigation of our droughts, witless or other wise.
Waiting for the rain ...
Jon Awbrey
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