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Subjectivity, intimacy, experience

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gepr

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> I find myself confused about what you mean when you say
> they are "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively
> confirmed way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your
> view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a sign
> it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to mind (in
> the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign.

A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of this conversation, not any single member of the set. Any one of the 3 things can be handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple. I.e. any given referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have multiple signs; the sign can signify other objects (be part of a different 3-tuple); and the thing interpreting the sign can interpret other signs. E.g.

multiple signs: √ versus x^.5
multiple referents:
• any x such that x*x=2
• ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞
multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC

The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no longer have a sign.

> So let's say we take a paint
> color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words (along
> with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color experience they
> have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is essentially universal
> agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that they all have the same color
> experience? That sounds more empirical than mathematics and should satisfy
> your requirement for an experimental experience -- although I'm not sure
> what you mean by "experimental experience".

You keep isolating the machine from its I/O. If they all get "the same" input and give "the same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the strength of whatever equivalence is considered. Any variation that is undetectable is just that... undetectable. Sure, you can _speculate_ on those undetectable differences... the differences that don't make a difference. But why? To what purpose?

We've already talked about hypothesis formulation. So, perhaps the purpose is to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the differences undetectable under the old one. But you're not talking that way. You seem to want to promote speculated constructs up to a significance that's unwarranted ... to talk about thoughts and feelings as if they exist, without any similarity measure with which to falsify them.

--
⇔ glen

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Russ Abbott

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and don't understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign from its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that framework.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 10:18 AM glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> I find myself confused about what you mean when you say
> they are "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively
> confirmed way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your
> view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a sign
> it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to mind (in
> the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign.

A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of this conversation, not any single member of the set. Any one of the 3 things can be handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple. I.e. any given referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have multiple signs; the sign can signify other objects (be part of a different 3-tuple); and the thing interpreting the sign can interpret other signs. E.g.

multiple signs: √ versus x^.5
multiple referents:
• any x such that x*x=2
• ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞
multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC

The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no longer have a sign.

> So let's say we take a paint
> color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words (along
> with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color experience they
> have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is essentially universal
> agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that they all have the same color
> experience? That sounds more empirical than mathematics and should satisfy
> your requirement for an experimental experience -- although I'm not sure
> what you mean by "experimental experience".

You keep isolating the machine from its I/O. If they all get "the same" input and give "the same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the strength of whatever equivalence is considered. Any variation that is undetectable is just that... undetectable. Sure, you can _speculate_ on those undetectable differences... the differences that don't make a difference. But why? To what purpose?

We've already talked about hypothesis formulation. So, perhaps the purpose is to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the differences undetectable under the old one. But you're not talking that way. You seem to want to promote speculated constructs up to a significance that's unwarranted ... to talk about thoughts and feelings as if they exist, without any similarity measure with which to falsify them.

--
⇔ glen

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

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

On 03/04/2016 10:27 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and don't
> understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and
> why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign from
> its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a
> mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that framework.

This is the 1st time I've mentioned the 3-tuple. Sorry. It was my guess at Nick's use of the word "sign".

It relates to "mental constructs" at least because you have to place the "mental construct" in one of the 3 types: referent, sign, interpreter. I gave mathematical examples because you expressed confusion over what Nick might have meant by "They are signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively confirmed way for a vast collection of mathematical relationships." I presume you intend to put "mental constructs" in the interpreter category, but maybe not. They could be in any category. For example, the mental construct I have of cat-like can be a sign for a particular image of one of my cats (yes, I have more than one, unfortunately). And the interpreter is the mental construct(s) I use to organize the house (feeding times, expected behaviors, etc.) with respect to those cats.

--
⇔ glen

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

Russ Abbott

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

All that is much to sophisticated for me. I don't have a theory or a model (e.g., in terms of interpreters) for how the mind works.

This all started as a discussion of subjective behavior. It has drifted into a discussion of thinking more generally -- and in particular thinking about mathematical "objects." I see the drift as a positive development since we all presumably agree about what things like "the square root of 2" means. Yet the referent of "the square root of 2" is not (I still claim) a material thing. It is (I still claim) a mental construct, and it exists (at least and perhaps only) in the mind.I see that as important to this discussion since Nick and Eric claim (as I understand them) that talk of things being in the mind is meaningless. So the discussion comes down to the question of whether mathematical constructs are meaningless or how Nick and Eric define what such things mean without talking about thinking about them. (Or perhaps I'm wrong and Nick and Eric think it's ok to talk about thinking about things -- where by "thinking" I mean what most people have in mind by that term. I guess I can use "have in mind" in this discussion since Nick himself used it.)

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 10:48 AM glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 03/04/2016 10:27 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> I must have missed the message where you talked about the 3-tuple and don't
> understand what you mean that a sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple and
> why it matters. Nick talked about a sign; I was distinguishing a sign from
> its referent -- which you do too. I also said the reference is often a
> mental construct. I'm not sure how your comment relates to that framework.

This is the 1st time I've mentioned the 3-tuple. Sorry. It was my guess at Nick's use of the word "sign".

It relates to "mental constructs" at least because you have to place the "mental construct" in one of the 3 types: referent, sign, interpreter. I gave mathematical examples because you expressed confusion over what Nick might have meant by "They are signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively confirmed way for a vast collection of mathematical relationships." I presume you intend to put "mental constructs" in the interpreter category, but maybe not. They could be in any category. For example, the mental construct I have of cat-like can be a sign for a particular image of one of my cats (yes, I have more than one, unfortunately). And the interpreter is the mental construct(s) I use to organize the house (feeding times, expected behaviors, etc.) with respect to those cats.

--
⇔ glen

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

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

On 03/04/2016 11:17 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> All that is much to sophisticated for me. I don't have a theory or a model
> (e.g., in terms of interpreters) for how the mind works.

Heh, you claim it's too sophisticated and that you don't have a theory or a model for how the mind works, yet you _write_ as if you do. The things Eric and Nick have said would make complete sense if you had no theory/model. They may end up being incomplete. But they're coherent (as far as I can tell). I believe I'm the same thing they're saying, just in different language.

What I think is actually happening is that you do have a theory/model and what Nick and Eric say simply doesn't fit your theory/model. That's OK, of course. But it'll continue to be difficult to compare your model with theirs as long as you won't explain your model.

> This all started as a discussion of subjective behavior. It has drifted
> into a discussion of thinking more generally -- and in particular thinking
> about mathematical "objects." I see the drift as a positive development
> since we all presumably agree about what things like "the square root of 2"
> means. Yet the referent of "the square root of 2" is not (I still claim) a
> material thing. It is (I still claim) a mental construct, and it exists (at
> least and perhaps only) in the mind.

We don't all agree, I think. The √2 is extremely hard to conceive, I think. Irrational numbers are naively defined in the negative, as any number that's not a rational number. This indicates to me that they are _not_ mental constructs at all. They are linguistic/algebraic/definitional (whatever) constructs for most of us. (I'm not ruling out that people like Leibniz or Penrose did/do conceive them... but most people probably don't.)

And language/algebra/definitions are concrete things referred to by symbols like √ in the same way actual cats are referred to by symbols like "cat" (and interpreted by things like humans).

> I see that as important to this
> discussion since Nick and Eric claim (as I understand them) that talk of
> things being in the mind is meaningless.

I don't think they've intended to say that it's completely meaningless. I do think they've said that whatever happens in "the mind" can be (can only be) precisely described through it's I/O. This seems like the same thing as the holographic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle And although it may not be true, it's certainly a pretty solid idea.

--
⇔ glen

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

Nick Thompson

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

In reply to this post by gepr

I perhaps put us back in the pragmatist weeds by using the term "sign". But Glen is right, a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is, and no sign has been identified until all three elements have been specified. To get an intuitive idea of the idea of sign, one might take the example of a monkey "predator call". A predator call (the sign) is is a sign of the presence of a predator (the referent) to from the point of view of (the interpretant) another monkey. But the concept of sign, in pragmatism, is much, much, much broader. (And more confusing ... to me.) And Glen is correct also that all three elements of a sign are themselves signs. Thus every sign is embedded in a web of signs. The final crucial element in pragmatist philosophy (in case you-re still with me) is that all experience is in signs. So Pragmatism treats us as living in a stream of experience, in which each experience leads to expectatons of other experiences which may or may not be confirmed. Through confirmation and disconfirmation of these expectations we (i.e., all of us, together) erect structures of experience such as, you, me, object, reality, true, false, etc, which are, themselves, experiences in good standing. The square root of two is one of those structures of experience, richly confirmed in “our” experience.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 11:19 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

On 03/03/2016 11:16 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:

> I find myself confused about what you mean when you say they are

> "signs that stand in a rigorous, systematic, and extensively confirmed

> way to ... mathematical relationships". A sign is not (in your

> view) a thing (other than itself) is it? I would have thought that a

> sign it's a reference to a thing. The thing itself is only brought to

> mind (in the mind) when looking at and thinking about the sign.

A sign is one of 3 objects in a 3-tuple. The set of 3 is the subject of this conversation, not any single member of the set. Any one of the 3 things can be handled as itself, separate from that particular 3-tuple. I.e. any given referent object (the thing the sign signifies) can have multiple signs; the sign can signify other objects (be part of a different 3-tuple); and the thing interpreting the sign can interpret other signs. E.g.

multiple signs: √ versus x^.5

multiple referents:

• any x such that x*x=2

• ½[x_n + 2/x_n]|n→∞

multiple interpreters: ZFA versus ZFC

The important point is that if you remove any of the 3 objects, you no longer have a sign.

> So let's say we take a paint

> color strip and ask people to select from a list of five color words

> (along with non-of-these as an option) the best match to the color

> experience they have when looking at the strip. Let's say there is

> essentially universal agreement. Is that good enough to confirm that

> they all have the same color experience? That sounds more empirical

> than mathematics and should satisfy your requirement for an

> experimental experience -- although I'm not sure what you mean by "experimental experience".

You keep isolating the machine from its I/O. If they all get "the same" input and give "the same" output, then they are all "the same", up to the strength of whatever equivalence is considered. Any variation that is undetectable is just that... undetectable. Sure, you can _speculate_ on those undetectable differences... the differences that don't make a difference. But why? To what purpose?

We've already talked about hypothesis formulation. So, perhaps the purpose is to formulate a new equivalence relation that will detect the differences undetectable under the old one. But you're not talking that way. You seem to want to promote speculated constructs up to a significance that's unwarranted ... to talk about thoughts and feelings as if they exist, without any similarity measure with which to falsify them.

⇔ glen

============================================================

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

Arlo Barnes

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is

A 3-tuple? I believe "tuple" itself is just a generalisation of "double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, [...]", with "singleton" being the odd one (pun? intended) out. So the word you want is "triple".

-Arlo James Barnes

Nick Thompson

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

Arlo,

I stand corrected. However, there is something awfully charming about “thrupple.” Can I continue to use it?

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 Arlo Barnes
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 3:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is

-Arlo James Barnes

Steve Smith

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

I like it... seems like the precedence of tuppence and thruppence adds charm if not validity!

Arlo,

I stand corrected. However, there is something awfully charming about “thrupple.” Can I continue to use it?

N

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 3:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjectivity and square roots

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

a sign IS a thrupple .. or whatever that lovely word is

A 3-tuple? I believe "tuple" itself is just a generalisation of "double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, [...]", with "singleton" being the odd one (pun? intended) out. So the word you want is "triple".

-Arlo James Barnes
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Arlo Barnes

Re: Subjectivity and square roots

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Fine with me. Reminds me of https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thripple, and for some reason marshmallows also (perhaps by way of "ripple"?).
-Arlo James Barnes