ONT Re: Differential Logic A -- Discussion
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DLOG A. Discussion Note 9
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HT = Hugh Trenchard
Re: DLOG A Discussion 7. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05402.html
HT: Hi Jon. As usual I can supply only a superficial comment rather than
a really rigorous analysis of your discussion. However, I see some
parallels here to the concept of emergence, which as we all know
is described simplistically as the whole is more than the sum
of its parts. The concept actually runs counter to what
Peirce said in the quote below, that "the sum of these
consequences will constitute the entire meaning of
the conception".
HT: Even so, I see from your commentary that if your formalism is to work
"... the "effects" of an object are somehow simpler than the object
itself, and simpler in the sense that their concept is easier to
conceive than the concept of the object itself". This appears
to me to describe the concept of emergence.
HT: I know that you are adhering to a particular line of inquiry, and
I'm sure my comments are, more often than not, little more than a
distraction to you, but I think it may be a not entirely un-useful
observation that what you are doing appears to be consistent (albeit
on a very superficial analysis) with other current lines of inquiry,
namely regarding descriptions of the emergence of novel forms of order
which arise from the interaction of component parts of a complex system.
Hugh,
When I find myself using the word "emergence" it is usually to point out
some surprising phenomenon that has escaped an adequate explanation by the
prevailing frameworks of representation and theory. There are times when it
seems like so many people have become so sure of their dominant paradigms that
they regard it as some kind of "emergency" whenever one of them is revealed
as falling short of reality, but I guess that I've gotten so used to their
fallibility that I tend to consider this the normal course of inquiry.
In that light, the word "emergence" is sometimes used in a way that bears
a number of misleading connotations. Most serious I think is this one:
Are we really so sure that the phenomenon has emerged in recent ages,
or is it simply that we are just beginning to notice something that
has been there all the time? The answer may depend on the case,
but it needs to be asked, in any case.
So I tend to view the issue this way: There is the reality, and then there
are the many different representations that we have of the given reality.
It's a convenient figure of speech, but one that we deploy at the risk
of self-deception, to say that we analyze an objective reality into
its "atoms", "constituents", "elements", "effects", "parts", etc.
But any form of analysis that we pick is conducted on the level
of our chosen representation, to which we may be very "partial",
and not without good reason, but which is always very "partial",
and often just wrong, in regard to the objective reality itself.
That is why it is critically -- you might even say "Critique-ally" --
important to recall that the concept is a sign, a symbol, a tool
whose good is to "grasp", to "seize as one", to "throw together",
to "unify a manifold of sense impressions", as the various Greek,
Latin, and Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic etymologies will inform us if we
stop to examine them closely enough. Remembering this should be
enough to remind us that neither the analysis nor the synthesis
of the signs that we bring to bear on the case will necessarily
touch the real constitution of the object, the phenomenon, or
the reality itself. That does not render the representation
useless, not by a long shot, it is simply the nature of our
represenation of reality to function in this partial way.
Jon Awbrey
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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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