Please I need help with a technical term

[Nick Thompson]

Hi, all,

 

I am writing a piece for some philosophers – remember I have No training in philosophy – on how to express Peirce’s sign relation, which, is roughly, “S. is a sign to I.,  of O.” Somehow, in the last several years, I have been infected by you guys with the word, “arguments”.  I have found it very convenient to use it to refer to terms you fill into an empty expression to fill it up, so it computes.  So below is a short passage.  If you can manage to read the passage, I will have two questions:  1. Have I used the term correctly; and 2. Is there a substitute for it.  After all, if I could avoid demanding that philosophical readers change their definitions of “argument”, I would probably make things easier for myself.

 

The passage follows:

 

Nick wants to know, What is the form of proper expressions of the sign relation?  He understands that minimally a sign statement is a five term expression of the form.

 

[Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short

 

A1R1A2R2A3

 

Here the term “argument” is used in a sense familiar to computer scientists:  to refer to a term that must be supplied to complete a well-formed expression of a particular kind.  Three-termed expressions are familiar in every-day life. “Danny does hit the ball” is an example of another three-termed expression, one we call a transitive sentence.  To complete a well-formed transitive sentence we must supply a subject, an action verb, and an object and the subject must act on the object in accordance with the verb.  The General form of such an expression is thus:

 

[A1=Subject][R1=does][A2=Verb] [R2:to] [A3:Object] 

 

There are rules about what sorts of values can be supplied for each of the arguments which any English speaker will know and will violate only for rhetorical purposes.  “Ball does hit Danny to“  is not a well formed English sentence, whatever a transformational Grammarian might contrive to make of it.

. 

So to Nick’s question: we have to understand what three arguments and two relations are required to write a well-formed expression of the sign relation.  This means we have to supply rules (analogous to the rules that we just supplied for a transitive sentence) for what sort of conceptions can properly fill the role of each of the arguments and what sorts of relations the sign relation itself entails.  

 

Thanks, everybody (or anybody).  There is a special place in heaven reserved for those who help colleagues write.  Remember, the issue is not whether what I say about the sing relation is true, but rather, have I used the term argument correctly and is it necessary for me to use it – i.e., do you have one that is just as good for the purpose. 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Prof David West]

Nick,

one of the computer scientists can answer more definitively, but your use of argument in the passage is inconsistent with the everyday programming usage. Good programs are modularized with specific computational abilities isolated within discrete modules. Frequently, one part of the program requires that computation in another module be performed before I can proceed with my own work. So I must sent a message (execute a function call) to that other module: e.g. heyYouDoThis. Sometimes I possess information that the receiver of my message (function call) does not, but does need before it can do its thing. In that case I send the request and include the additional information as "argument(s). e.g. heyYouDoThis (usingX, usingY).

"Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.

It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

davew

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016, at 11:16 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Hi, all,

 

I am writing a piece for some philosophers – remember I have No training in philosophy – on how to express Peirce’s sign relation, which, is roughly, “S. is a sign to I.,  of O.” Somehow, in the last several years, I have been infected by you guys with the word, “arguments”.  I have found it very convenient to use it to refer to terms you fill into an empty expression to fill it up, so it computes.  So below is a short passage.  If you can manage to read the passage, I will have two questions:  1. Have I used the term correctly; and 2. Is there a substitute for it.  After all, if I could avoid demanding that philosophical readers change their definitions of “argument”, I would probably make things easier for myself.

 

The passage follows:

 

Nick wants to know, What is the form of proper expressions of the sign relation?  He understands that minimally a sign statement is a five term expression of the form.

 

[Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short

 

A1R1A2R2A3

 

Here the term “argument” is used in a sense familiar to computer scientists:  to refer to a term that must be supplied to complete a well-formed expression of a particular kind.  Three-termed expressions are familiar in every-day life. “Danny does hit the ball” is an example of another three-termed expression, one we call a transitive sentence.  To complete a well-formed transitive sentence we must supply a subject, an action verb, and an object and the subject must act on the object in accordance with the verb.  The General form of such an expression is thus:

 

[A1=Subject][R1=does][A2=Verb] [R2:to] [A3:Object] 

 

There are rules about what sorts of values can be supplied for each of the arguments which any English speaker will know and will violate only for rhetorical purposes.  “Ball does hit Danny to“  is not a well formed English sentence, whatever a transformational Grammarian might contrive to make of it.

. 

So to Nick’s question: we have to understand what three arguments and two relations are required to write a well-formed expression of the sign relation.  This means we have to supply rules (analogous to the rules that we just supplied for a transitive sentence) for what sort of conceptions can properly fill the role of each of the arguments and what sorts of relations the sign relation itself entails.  

 

Thanks, everybody (or anybody).  There is a special place in heaven reserved for those who help colleagues write.  Remember, the issue is not whether what I say about the sing relation is true, but rather, have I used the term argument correctly and is it necessary for me to use it – i.e., do you have one that is just as good for the purpose. 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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[Nick Thompson]

Hi, Dave,

 

Thanks so very much for answering.  Everybody else seems to be lost to me in the election. 

 

There is something that puzzling about your answer.  The example you used as an example against my usage seems (to me) to confirm it!  Such is my confusion.

 

 

heyYouDoThis (usingX, usingY).

 

In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it. 

 

While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it. 

 

Thanks again,

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2016 7:30 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Nick,

one of the computer scientists can answer more definitively, but your use of argument in the passage is inconsistent with the everyday programming usage. Good programs are modularized with specific computational abilities isolated within discrete modules. Frequently, one part of the program requires that computation in another module be performed before I can proceed with my own work. So I must sent a message (execute a function call) to that other module: e.g. heyYouDoThis. Sometimes I possess information that the receiver of my message (function call) does not, but does need before it can do its thing. In that case I send the request and include the additional information as "argument(s). e.g. heyYouDoThis (usingX, usingY).

 

 

"Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.

 

It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

 

davew

 

 

 

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016, at 11:16 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Hi, all,

 

I am writing a piece for some philosophers – remember I have No training in philosophy – on how to express Peirce’s sign relation, which, is roughly, “S. is a sign to I.,  of O.” Somehow, in the last several years, I have been infected by you guys with the word, “arguments”.  I have found it very convenient to use it to refer to terms you fill into an empty expression to fill it up, so it computes.  So below is a short passage.  If you can manage to read the passage, I will have two questions:  1. Have I used the term correctly; and 2. Is there a substitute for it.  After all, if I could avoid demanding that philosophical readers change their definitions of “argument”, I would probably make things easier for myself.

 

The passage follows:

 

Nick wants to know, What is the form of proper expressions of the sign relation?  He understands that minimally a sign statement is a five term expression of the form.

 

[Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short

 

A1R1A2R2A3

 

Here the term “argument” is used in a sense familiar to computer scientists:  to refer to a term that must be supplied to complete a well-formed expression of a particular kind.  Three-termed expressions are familiar in every-day life. “Danny does hit the ball” is an example of another three-termed expression, one we call a transitive sentence.  To complete a well-formed transitive sentence we must supply a subject, an action verb, and an object and the subject must act on the object in accordance with the verb.  The General form of such an expression is thus:

 

[A1=Subject][R1=does][A2=Verb] [R2:to] [A3:Object] 

 

There are rules about what sorts of values can be supplied for each of the arguments which any English speaker will know and will violate only for rhetorical purposes.  “Ball does hit Danny to“  is not a well formed English sentence, whatever a transformational Grammarian might contrive to make of it.

. 

So to Nick’s question: we have to understand what three arguments and two relations are required to write a well-formed expression of the sign relation.  This means we have to supply rules (analogous to the rules that we just supplied for a transitive sentence) for what sort of conceptions can properly fill the role of each of the arguments and what sorts of relations the sign relation itself entails.  

 

Thanks, everybody (or anybody).  There is a special place in heaven reserved for those who help colleagues write.  Remember, the issue is not whether what I say about the sing relation is true, but rather, have I used the term argument correctly and is it necessary for me to use it – i.e., do you have one that is just as good for the purpose. 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Nick,

 

You might look at SPARQL.  Purely functional logic languages like Mercury provide general ways to formulate things the way Dave describes, but adding strong typing so that one can be sure the desired form is provided. 

 

Marcus

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2016 11:17 PM
To: Friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Jon Zingale' <[hidden email]>; Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi, all,

 

I am writing a piece for some philosophers – remember I have No training in philosophy – on how to express Peirce’s sign relation, which, is roughly, “S. is a sign to I.,  of O.” Somehow, in the last several years, I have been infected by you guys with the word, “arguments”.  I have found it very convenient to use it to refer to terms you fill into an empty expression to fill it up, so it computes.  So below is a short passage.  If you can manage to read the passage, I will have two questions:  1. Have I used the term correctly; and 2. Is there a substitute for it.  After all, if I could avoid demanding that philosophical readers change their definitions of “argument”, I would probably make things easier for myself.

 

The passage follows:

 

Nick wants to know, What is the form of proper expressions of the sign relation?  He understands that minimally a sign statement is a five term expression of the form.

 

[Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short

 

A1R1A2R2A3

 

Here the term “argument” is used in a sense familiar to computer scientists:  to refer to a term that must be supplied to complete a well-formed expression of a particular kind.  Three-termed expressions are familiar in every-day life. “Danny does hit the ball” is an example of another three-termed expression, one we call a transitive sentence.  To complete a well-formed transitive sentence we must supply a subject, an action verb, and an object and the subject must act on the object in accordance with the verb.  The General form of such an expression is thus:

 

[A1=Subject][R1=does][A2=Verb] [R2:to] [A3:Object] 

 

There are rules about what sorts of values can be supplied for each of the arguments which any English speaker will know and will violate only for rhetorical purposes.  “Ball does hit Danny to“  is not a well formed English sentence, whatever a transformational Grammarian might contrive to make of it.

. 

So to Nick’s question: we have to understand what three arguments and two relations are required to write a well-formed expression of the sign relation.  This means we have to supply rules (analogous to the rules that we just supplied for a transitive sentence) for what sort of conceptions can properly fill the role of each of the arguments and what sorts of relations the sign relation itself entails.  

 

Thanks, everybody (or anybody).  There is a special place in heaven reserved for those who help colleagues write.  Remember, the issue is not whether what I say about the sing relation is true, but rather, have I used the term argument correctly and is it necessary for me to use it – i.e., do you have one that is just as good for the purpose. 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[gepr]

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Russ Abbott]

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

-- Russ

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Eric Charles-2]

Case study:

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

----

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

----

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

----

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

At least, that would be my take.

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

-- Russ

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

----

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

----

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

----

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

At least, that would be my take.

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

-- Russ

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Eric Charles-2]

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

----

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

----

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

----

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

At least, that would be my take.

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

-- Russ

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Nick Thompson]

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a viewer’s mind and some minds are rather

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19^th century erotic  literature having a more profound effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we have another composite symbol. When CS Lewis used the Lion to symbolize

the Ultimate Goodness , Aslan , in Narnia the symbol appears reordered and now the child follows this symbol.

Perhaps Objects as distinct from Symbols is a first step. Symbols become ever more complex and their level of abstraction becomes difficult to determine.

Back to the basement level then a Real Lion can eat me or foul my carpet. No symbol can do so.  But someone holding a symbol can still slay me.

But a hooligan  carrying a swastika  symbol does not actually give the symbol agency. If one can see these two as inseparable then we may call it conflation.

Conflation of symbols today is very common and widely acceptable, sometimes useful and even  revolutionary.

 

I will hazard a guess and suggest you are exclusively dealing with high level symbols such as computer code that can digest other symbols and may or may not ,make a mess as well.

Let’s assume that is the case and symbolic code can sort and re-catalogue other code, information. It is highly ordered and intolerant of meddling. These symbols are mechanistic

and can not tolerate disorder. So in a sense they may be symbols but also serve as operators.  My Fake Hiroshige wood prints only operated on my own vanity, my guests

were unaffected.  I think your symbols have a wider field of operation.

I might suggest that only a thinking entity can tell the difference between an object and a symbol.

I used to catch dragonflies by tossing small gravel above my head. The dragons were attracted but once caught they could detect the chicanery and released the bait.

However they never learned that this was a ruse. So the dragonfly responds to an image that fits an optical pattern.

 

It is rather timely that someone adds to this topic from a hard science position, bridge the divide so to speak.

If you manage to reconcile so much literature it should be seen as a triumph.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky

vib

 

names are symbols and it is  in our nature to categorize such symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-15-16 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

 

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Frank Wimberly-2]

Vladimyr,

Two of my closest friends in Pittsburgh were senior psychoanalysts.  One was a female and a child training analyst (the pinnacle of the profession).  The other was a male and was very involved with philosophers from the University of Pittsburgh (one of the best graduate programs in the US).  They were discussing Lacan and the female said, "He's crazy, isn't he?". The male said, "What difference does that make?"  Irrelevant to your points but an amusing memory.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

On Nov 16, 2016 6:44 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a viewer’s mind and some minds are rather

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19^th century erotic  literature having a more profound effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we have another composite symbol. When CS Lewis used the Lion to symbolize

the Ultimate Goodness , Aslan , in Narnia the symbol appears reordered and now the child follows this symbol.

Perhaps Objects as distinct from Symbols is a first step. Symbols become ever more complex and their level of abstraction becomes difficult to determine.

Back to the basement level then a Real Lion can eat me or foul my carpet. No symbol can do so.  But someone holding a symbol can still slay me.

But a hooligan  carrying a swastika  symbol does not actually give the symbol agency. If one can see these two as inseparable then we may call it conflation.

Conflation of symbols today is very common and widely acceptable, sometimes useful and even  revolutionary.

 

I will hazard a guess and suggest you are exclusively dealing with high level symbols such as computer code that can digest other symbols and may or may not ,make a mess as well.

Let’s assume that is the case and symbolic code can sort and re-catalogue other code, information. It is highly ordered and intolerant of meddling. These symbols are mechanistic

and can not tolerate disorder. So in a sense they may be symbols but also serve as operators.  My Fake Hiroshige wood prints only operated on my own vanity, my guests

were unaffected.  I think your symbols have a wider field of operation.

I might suggest that only a thinking entity can tell the difference between an object and a symbol.

I used to catch dragonflies by tossing small gravel above my head. The dragons were attracted but once caught they could detect the chicanery and released the bait.

However they never learned that this was a ruse. So the dragonfly responds to an image that fits an optical pattern.

 

It is rather timely that someone adds to this topic from a hard science position, bridge the divide so to speak.

If you manage to reconcile so much literature it should be seen as a triumph.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky

vib

 

names are symbols and it is  in our nature to categorize such symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-15-16 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

 

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,

 

Trouble with my e-mail server.

I think you have some of the problem staring at you. It is the observer that decides what is an object or a sign not strictly speaking

your formula.

 

If the dragonfly regards airborne gravel as a target it is it’s decision to do so until his tactile organs decide otherwise.

 

Your formula appeals to people only. It may work if you acknowledge the role of the mind of the observer

if the observer thinks it is an object engaged in one or the other action.

 

This feels like a theatrical example

 

You and I are at the edge of a duck pond and I bend down to grab a handful of gravel.

You watch ducks recklessly eating grit and corn. Then I toss a handful of mixed grit and corn into the air. Then you see

a very big, Anax junio, zoom into the debris field. It pause and then discards the grit or grain as unpalatable.

The ducks gobble up the fallen material. Four minds at least saw this event and each had different conclusions,

but it is the same event that is the heart of the confusion.

So is an event an object or a symbol…

vib

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-15-16 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

 

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

to Frank

Curious, a trained psychoanalyst had difficulty determining Lacan’s mental state.

One only has to attempt reading his work.

vib

 

At least Zizek has some funny lines about bathroom seating and the focal centres, English, German ,and American .

I think he missed the Italian tiled pit and the Bavarian Watering Hole.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: November-16-16 8:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Vladimyr,

Two of my closest friends in Pittsburgh were senior psychoanalysts.  One was a female and a child training analyst (the pinnacle of the profession).  The other was a male and was very involved with philosophers from the University of Pittsburgh (one of the best graduate programs in the US).  They were discussing Lacan and the female said, "He's crazy, isn't he?". The male said, "What difference does that make?"  Irrelevant to your points but an amusing memory.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

 

On Nov 16, 2016 6:44 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a viewer’s mind and some minds are rather

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19^th century erotic  literature having a more profound effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we have another composite symbol. When CS Lewis used the Lion to symbolize

the Ultimate Goodness , Aslan , in Narnia the symbol appears reordered and now the child follows this symbol.

Perhaps Objects as distinct from Symbols is a first step. Symbols become ever more complex and their level of abstraction becomes difficult to determine.

Back to the basement level then a Real Lion can eat me or foul my carpet. No symbol can do so.  But someone holding a symbol can still slay me.

But a hooligan  carrying a swastika  symbol does not actually give the symbol agency. If one can see these two as inseparable then we may call it conflation.

Conflation of symbols today is very common and widely acceptable, sometimes useful and even  revolutionary.

 

I will hazard a guess and suggest you are exclusively dealing with high level symbols such as computer code that can digest other symbols and may or may not ,make a mess as well.

Let’s assume that is the case and symbolic code can sort and re-catalogue other code, information. It is highly ordered and intolerant of meddling. These symbols are mechanistic

and can not tolerate disorder. So in a sense they may be symbols but also serve as operators.  My Fake Hiroshige wood prints only operated on my own vanity, my guests

were unaffected.  I think your symbols have a wider field of operation.

I might suggest that only a thinking entity can tell the difference between an object and a symbol.

I used to catch dragonflies by tossing small gravel above my head. The dragons were attracted but once caught they could detect the chicanery and released the bait.

However they never learned that this was a ruse. So the dragonfly responds to an image that fits an optical pattern.

 

It is rather timely that someone adds to this topic from a hard science position, bridge the divide so to speak.

If you manage to reconcile so much literature it should be seen as a triumph.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky

vib

 

names are symbols and it is  in our nature to categorize such symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-15-16 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

 

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Nick Thompson]

Victor,

 

Why would you ever expect Lacan to report accurately on his on mental state?   Or even to know it?  What special privilege does Lacan have to know his own mental state? 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 11:32 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

to Frank

Curious, a trained psychoanalyst had difficulty determining Lacan’s mental state.

One only has to attempt reading his work.

vib

 

At least Zizek has some funny lines about bathroom seating and the focal centres, English, German ,and American .

I think he missed the Italian tiled pit and the Bavarian Watering Hole.

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: November-16-16 8:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Vladimyr,

Two of my closest friends in Pittsburgh were senior psychoanalysts.  One was a female and a child training analyst (the pinnacle of the profession).  The other was a male and was very involved with philosophers from the University of Pittsburgh (one of the best graduate programs in the US).  They were discussing Lacan and the female said, "He's crazy, isn't he?". The male said, "What difference does that make?"  Irrelevant to your points but an amusing memory.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

 

On Nov 16, 2016 6:44 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a viewer’s mind and some minds are rather

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19^th century erotic  literature having a more profound effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we have another composite symbol. When CS Lewis used the Lion to symbolize

the Ultimate Goodness , Aslan , in Narnia the symbol appears reordered and now the child follows this symbol.

Perhaps Objects as distinct from Symbols is a first step. Symbols become ever more complex and their level of abstraction becomes difficult to determine.

Back to the basement level then a Real Lion can eat me or foul my carpet. No symbol can do so.  But someone holding a symbol can still slay me.

But a hooligan  carrying a swastika  symbol does not actually give the symbol agency. If one can see these two as inseparable then we may call it conflation.

Conflation of symbols today is very common and widely acceptable, sometimes useful and even  revolutionary.

 

I will hazard a guess and suggest you are exclusively dealing with high level symbols such as computer code that can digest other symbols and may or may not ,make a mess as well.

Let’s assume that is the case and symbolic code can sort and re-catalogue other code, information. It is highly ordered and intolerant of meddling. These symbols are mechanistic

and can not tolerate disorder. So in a sense they may be symbols but also serve as operators.  My Fake Hiroshige wood prints only operated on my own vanity, my guests

were unaffected.  I think your symbols have a wider field of operation.

I might suggest that only a thinking entity can tell the difference between an object and a symbol.

I used to catch dragonflies by tossing small gravel above my head. The dragons were attracted but once caught they could detect the chicanery and released the bait.

However they never learned that this was a ruse. So the dragonfly responds to an image that fits an optical pattern.

 

It is rather timely that someone adds to this topic from a hard science position, bridge the divide so to speak.

If you manage to reconcile so much literature it should be seen as a triumph.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky

vib

 

names are symbols and it is  in our nature to categorize such symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-15-16 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

 

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Nick,

 

I don’t usually ascribe madness to any  writer . There seems to be too much

of that sort of thing lately.

Never attribute to an action, malice, when stupidity serves as well.

 

I started thinking about the evolutionary origins of Conflation.

And low and behold I wrote some code to experiment on myself.

I work with images mostly and how we infer meaning to what we see.

 

My brain at least will conflate at certain frame rates and not at other slower speeds.

Since the images are computer generated they have no intrinsic meaning, so why does speed

of presentation  impart some attitude from my brain is quite curious.

 

Then it occurred to me that eyes require a major contribution of neurons to make appropriate sense

out of visual chaos. Those neurons supply us automatically with an imperative when we see certain patterns.

Brains are not recognized as using extravagant techniques to supply us with meaning.

vib

 

How goes the battle, good luck.

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-17-16 1:09 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Victor,

 

Why would you ever expect Lacan to report accurately on his on mental state?   Or even to know it?  What special privilege does Lacan have to know his own mental state? 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 11:32 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

to Frank

Curious, a trained psychoanalyst had difficulty determining Lacan’s mental state.

One only has to attempt reading his work.

vib

 

At least Zizek has some funny lines about bathroom seating and the focal centres, English, German ,and American .

I think he missed the Italian tiled pit and the Bavarian Watering Hole.

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: November-16-16 8:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Vladimyr,

Two of my closest friends in Pittsburgh were senior psychoanalysts.  One was a female and a child training analyst (the pinnacle of the profession).  The other was a male and was very involved with philosophers from the University of Pittsburgh (one of the best graduate programs in the US).  They were discussing Lacan and the female said, "He's crazy, isn't he?". The male said, "What difference does that make?"  Irrelevant to your points but an amusing memory.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

 

On Nov 16, 2016 6:44 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

 

Eco describes a situation where the object is its own sign and the confusion just keeps getting worse when

the Thing described as an object , turns out to be a counterfeit. If you wish to  elaborate on what is an object

you may have a problem since every possible object only exists as a symbol in a viewer’s mind and some minds are rather

perverse in what they consider to be real in any sense.

Eco hinted at some 19^th century erotic  literature having a more profound effect than the real.

E.O. Wilson described a species  of moth where the males attempted to gang rape Tinsel lures cast out into a field.

The object gets the distinction of that name only when perceived by a witness.  If I recall correctly the males entirely ignored the females.

 

A self guided robotic vacuum cleaner never identifies the obstacle as a chair or sleeping dog, nor is it even a requirement.

 

I once tried to read Jacques Lacan  but never finished due to all his baffling jargon.  I thought him a charlatan.

Then I tried reading Claude-Levy Strauss , Savage Mind,  and started seeing the historical line of thinking.

 

Strauss tried to develop a formalism based on some weird type of graphical geometry and all his parameters were given metaphorical names but never any clarity.

You would be welcome to these if you lived closer. Slavoj  Zizek tried to modernize Hegel and Lacan and actually got some  real laughs. He is  very prolific and an easier read than Lacan.

 

Umberto Eco is much more methodical and Kant and the Platypus is still a difficult work to plough through.

Eco died last year but his body of work should help you and is well referenced.

 

The Lion is an object as well as a symbol. When the symbol of a lion is juxtaposed with a symbol of a royal family it becomes another level of symbology.

Place the Lion at the foot of a child and we have another composite symbol. When CS Lewis used the Lion to symbolize

the Ultimate Goodness , Aslan , in Narnia the symbol appears reordered and now the child follows this symbol.

Perhaps Objects as distinct from Symbols is a first step. Symbols become ever more complex and their level of abstraction becomes difficult to determine.

Back to the basement level then a Real Lion can eat me or foul my carpet. No symbol can do so.  But someone holding a symbol can still slay me.

But a hooligan  carrying a swastika  symbol does not actually give the symbol agency. If one can see these two as inseparable then we may call it conflation.

Conflation of symbols today is very common and widely acceptable, sometimes useful and even  revolutionary.

 

I will hazard a guess and suggest you are exclusively dealing with high level symbols such as computer code that can digest other symbols and may or may not ,make a mess as well.

Let’s assume that is the case and symbolic code can sort and re-catalogue other code, information. It is highly ordered and intolerant of meddling. These symbols are mechanistic

and can not tolerate disorder. So in a sense they may be symbols but also serve as operators.  My Fake Hiroshige wood prints only operated on my own vanity, my guests

were unaffected.  I think your symbols have a wider field of operation.

I might suggest that only a thinking entity can tell the difference between an object and a symbol.

I used to catch dragonflies by tossing small gravel above my head. The dragons were attracted but once caught they could detect the chicanery and released the bait.

However they never learned that this was a ruse. So the dragonfly responds to an image that fits an optical pattern.

 

It is rather timely that someone adds to this topic from a hard science position, bridge the divide so to speak.

If you manage to reconcile so much literature it should be seen as a triumph.

 

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky

vib

 

names are symbols and it is  in our nature to categorize such symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: November-15-16 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Hi Eric and Victor,

 

One of the most frustrating features of my attempt to formularize the sign relation, is that with each next example, I always think that applying the formula is going to be easy.  And yet, when I try to do it, it always turns out to be VERY hard, or simply impossible.

 

Let me try out my newly-declared formula for the sign relation, …

 

[A sign] re-presents [some object] with respect to [some interpretant]. 

 

…on your example:

 

Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything.

 

First of all, I assume that “symbol” was a slip of the tongue.  In the Peircean world, a symbol is a very special sort of sign, and we are just trying to come up with a general way to attribute sign-dom, so the question of whether this is a “symbol” or not, can be postponed.

 

Before I apply the formula, I need to make a stipulation about how a chick works.  I assume that a chick that lacks grit in its gullet but has food is a different chick than a chick that has food in its gullet but lacks grit. Let’s assume that the chick distinguishes between grit and corn, by a trial peck, and that it distinguishes peckable items by how they behave when scratched. With these assumptions in place, let’s try to apply the formula to the chick. 

Chick scratches

 

[loose Object] re-presents [dirt] with respect to [object vs substrate]

 

[Peckable] re-presents [loose objects] with respect to [size]

 

Chick Pecks, now two possibilities, path a and path b

 

1a [Hard, dense] re-presents [peckable, loose object] with respect to [density, softness]

1b [Soft, light] re-presents [peckable, loose object ] with respect to [density, softness]

 

2a [Grit] re-presents [hard, dense, peckable, loose object] with respect to [chick that lacks grit]

2b [Food] re-presents [soft, light, peckable, loose object with respect to [chick that lacks food]

 

Chick pecks and swallows. 

 

WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 8:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

 

Good points! And this draws attention to the "third party" problem I mentioned. Only to a third party, analyzing the events before them, would "High_contrast_round_things" be a bird-symbol for "Seeds". To the bird it is whatever it is, and is not a symbol of anything. Should the third party misidentify the function of the objects in question, for example, by neglecting to take into account that birds gain benefit from eating small hard objects of almost any kind (because the non-food aids digestion by performing a grinding function in the crop), then the third-party is wrong about what is going on.  

 

This is complicated by the ability of homo sapiens to adopt a reflective third-party perspective regarding their own behavior. Thus I can speculate about what different things symbolize to me, in the same manner I speculate about what different things symbolize to the bird. However, contra Descartes, and in line with Peirce and Freud, we must remember that our diagnoses of our own symbolic actions can suffer from the same deficiency discussed above. A claim like, "To me, this flag symbolizes strength and resolve," is a hypothesis/assertion regarding our own symbolic interaction with the world, and can be mistaken. A third party can challenge our self-symbol claim in all the same ways they could challenge our bird-symbol claim.

 

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 9:49 PM, VLADIMYR BURACHYNSKY <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds"

 

Birds peck for gravel to aid digestion in the crop. They have to replace the grinding stones regularly.

So without grit they starve to death even when supplied with more than adequate grain.

 

Your interpretation of this particular symbol requires a modification. I am such a supplier of information

and it requires the linkage of two minds connected by a  flexible Script . Your Symbol may or may not be amended

that is your decision not mine. However your symbol may ultimately contain information  that originates from other minds and

preserves this in your language without full attribution. I also adjust my symbols in such a casual manner without intentional

disrespect.

 

Check out Umberto Eco's writings on Semiotics and Good Luck.

 

I myself am struggling with Object Oriented Programming versus Procedural Programming

and the versions of language appear to overlap and smear out some distinctions. Each discipline attempts to

inform users in its unique idiom of a language while the student arrives with a third language set never anticipated

by the lecturers.

 

At first reading I thought myself unable to contribute but the slight error seems opportune.

 

 

You,  so it appears, are now trying to reconcile more than one language set for the benefit of unknown minds with unknown

language preferences. So it forces you to use a common predecessor language structure which I never considered so important before now.

That implies that a general language must be a first step to building subsequent precise languages. 

 

This e-mail is perhaps an example of something , I thought came from Wittgenstein ; about the way he  thought language is a type of negotiation procedure.

I have no idea in truth how you think and expect you have no idea how I think but this scrap of agreed upon language may

be of some use to an unknown  reader.

Serendipity that started a course of thought.

vib

 

 

 

---

From: "Eric Charles" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:38:14 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please I need help with a technical term

Case study:

 

We put several (non-toxic) items on the ground around a bird, and find that high-contrast mini-Styrofoam balls, high-contrast glitter, and several similar items result in pecking. From that we learn

 

----

 

When Object [Bird]  performs Function [Peck_Ground?] with the Cue/Argument [High-contrast_round_things_on_ground], the result is that Bird sets variable "Peck_Ground_Now" = "True"

 

----

 

That's all fine and good, I think. But, If you want to get to "signs", I suspect, we need to go up a level of analysis. We need to add into our system a third party capable of taking all of those elements as arguments for something akin to a Function [Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility].

 

That is, we must have outside knowledge (perhaps derived from prior study, perhaps from deep study of religious texts), that the "proper" context of Peck_Ground_Now is "Seeds".

 

Building off of several of the messages above, an Object [Human] could run the three-argument-function Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility(Bird, Peck_Ground, High-Contrast_Round_Things) . As a result, the human would set variable "Evolutionary_Function" = "Seeds".

 

You would then have Human run another Funciton [Is_Sign?], which takes two arguments ---- 1) the third argument in the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function, and 2) the result of the Evaluate_Evolutionary_Utility function ---- to determine if they match. In this case, because they do not match (i.e., "High-contrast_round_things" =/= "Seeds" ), Human sets the variable "Sign" = "True".

 

If you want to make a more sophisticated (Peircian) function, then in this case the Function [Is_Sign?] might lead you to set the variable "Sign" = "Icon" (because it is the type of "sign" that physically resembles what it "stands for").

 

 

----

 

 

Note that (and this should appeal to Nick), the "arguments" for the Human include things that were not "arguments" for the bird, demonstrating that one cannot determine whether any particular "thing" is an example of "an argument" without knowing it's role in the program/discussion.

 

At least, that would be my take.

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

If you are talking about “S. is a sign to I.  of O.” I would call that a ternary relation: isASignOfTo (S, O, I). (Notice I switched the O and the I.) So the triple ("hello", greeting, Nick) is a triple in the isASignOfTo relation. I don't know that there are standard terms for the individual elements. They might be called field values, tuple elements, components, or something similar. I don't like "argument" because I tend to use "argument"  when calling a function. But we are talking about relations, not functions. If the fields have names (like sign, meaning, person), you might call the elements use "the sign", "the meaning", and "the person." More generally, if you like to think in terms of roles, you might call the elements in the tuples, role-fillers, where sign, meaning, and person are roles. 

 

-- Russ

 

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:53 AM glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It seems we're conflating relations with operators.  The sense of "argument" is that of operand, which can be just an input to an operator or just an output, or both an input and an output.  The operand is a possibly dynamic thing operated on by the operator.  I don't think you want that sense.  So, for that reason, you may not want to use "argument".

Naively, relations are simpler statements of how extant/static things relate.  And if you really just want relations, then you're talking about a triad, not a dyad.  So, there would be 1 relation term and 3 "parameter" (or "variable") terms.

But operators _also_ define context, which is relevant to your "O".  So, perhaps S and I are merely related in the context set by the O operator?

So, the reason I waited till lunch time to answer is because I think the language you choose to say this depends quite a bit on what it is you're trying to say.


On 11/08/2016 11:20 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> In the language I proposed, this expression would be rendered as [Relation1([Relation2][Argument1][Relation3][Argument2]) or something like that.  In other words, I see you as using “argument” exactly as I meant it.
>
> While still confused, tho, I like your solution to my problem.  However my FRIAM colleagues my react to my usage, Philosophers are going to HATE it.

dave> "Arguments in this sense have nothing to do with the structure of the expression itself.
dave>
dave> It might sound redundant, but I think you should simply use 'Term', e.g. [Term1][relation][Term2][Relation2]Term3] and replace the word 'term' in the prose with 'part' or 'element', i.e. segment or piece.

[...]

nick>     [Argument1][relation1][Argument2][Relation2]Argument3]; or, for short
nick>
nick>     A1R1A2R2A3


--
☣ glen

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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