Re: Truth: “Hunh! What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!”

Posted by Prof David West on Oct 17, 2017; 11:03am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Truth-Hunh-What-is-it-good-for-Absolutely-Nothing-tp7590706p7590735.html

Nick, at the risk of a mere dialogue that would be better served face to face in a month or so, I will respond.  All the time with a friendly smile on my face and a desire for common understanding in my heart.

I won't re-lard, but respond in order:

1-  I was going to use 'in vino veritas,"but as an example of a language (drunken babble is a language of sorts) that you would not accept as a vehicle for communication intended to result in convergence. But the point of what I said is simply to impute intent on your part when selecting which words you use to convey your thoughts. [See comment 2-.]

I did not "presume the truth of some matter." I made an assertion and, as noted in my initial post the only truth in such a thing is purely local to me, not shared. But all assertions / declarative statements — including yours — share this same 'local truthiness' and are not to be taken as assertions of shared, or possible shared, notions that, if they converged, would take on the property of "truthy."

2- I made no mention of "belief" and so I am mystified as to why the first sentence of your response makes a point of " beyond what you I / any group might believe." I did use the term opinion, which in colloquial and common use is often a synonym for belief — however, I used the term only because you used it first in describing Pierce's approach. When I read your use of the term, I took it as a stand-in for one or more of the following: experience, observation, measurement, calculation, even analysis. I intended to use the word in the same exact way. Perhaps I misunderstood your intent when you used the word.

True, the core thesis you present is an operational defintion of "truth" but that intent to define is embedded in, and the rest of the thread is engaged in, the use of that operational definition to determine if some proposition or the other is truthy.

3- It is not a pose. My antipathy for rule, convention, certitude in almost any form is very real and very essential to my sense of self. You have no comprehension of the sense of alienation this conviction engenders.

It is not that everyone agrees with you, but that you all share at least one thing in common and that is your acceptance of the "rational" world view that has dominated, not only science, but Western culture in general since the inception of the "Age of Reason." There remains lots of divertissement within the realm of the rational to assure pleasant passage of time for all.

4- Clever self deprecation simply obfuscates the fact that you see no utility in pursuing conversation / sharing experience / seeking convergence unless those efforts are undertaken within and are consistent with your particular world-view. I am being quite uncharitable here as I know my assertion is not always true at least in degree. You might take up meditation (altered state of consciousness ahead) or you might go to church (at least as long as the church in question was not fundamentalist requiring reptilephilia and glossallalia.)

5- Re: convergence on things like public policy, a simple example.  Say we both study biological organisms and we not things like a change in environment, creating a new, exploitable niche, will prompt bio-organisms to adapt (even evolve) to exploit that niche. We further observe human beings - as biological organisms and converge on the "truth" that they are biological organisms.  We have 'converged' in our understanding and have established truth. (?) At this point our observations / experiences diverge. Your study leads you to believe that humans are biotes PLUS something else. I, being a sociopath, cannot share those experiences, observations, analyses, or conclusions.  We sit down to discuss public policy  - the need for welfare perhaps - and we are immediately stuck because we have no common ground, common "language" with which to proceed and hence no convergence is possible and no truth as to the matter.

I would see welfare as a case of "feeding the bears," certain to lead to nothing except the proliferation of dependent bears as they, being biological organisms, adapt to exploit the "welfare niche." You would see it quite differently. But, how do we proceed? What process would you (or Pierce) suggest be used? Or do we simply acknowledge that we have no basis for convergence and therefore, no 'truth' is possible? I would be OK with that, but no one else will. Instead each faction will insist on the certitude/truth of their respective opinion and insist that public policy be grounded in their idiosyncratic truth.

The preceding is an extreme example, especially as to the reason we cannot find a common language and proceed, somehow, to convergence. But, at least, it has the virtue of a concrete embedded difference that prevents convergence. Too often, in almost all public policy debate the inhibiting difference is simply a refusal to listen to the other and insisting that the only means for finding convergence is everyone adopting one side's language and worldview and crafting the conversation on that basis.

dmw

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017, at 01:26 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Hi, Dave,

 

See larding below.  I have to say, this still doesn't quite sound like you.

 

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 Prof David West
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 12:27 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Truth: “Hunh! What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!”

 

Naw back at ya. I am not picking a fight or being contentious just to be contentious. I am trying to be a little dog nipping at the heels of assumptions and presuppositions.

 

Because this list is not a scholarly forum where you spend an exquisite amount of time picking your words and making your statements as precise as possible I am assuming that your language reveals said assumptions/presuppositions. So when you use rational man, I think you really deep down mean exactly that. And when you shy away from that as in the post I am responding to, you still cannot get away from your core position.

[NST==> This I would characterize as an approach to discourse roughly equivalent to “in vino veritas”.  It is the assumption that the most accurate representation of a person’s view of the world is its most unguarded presentation.  Notice that your sentence above presumes a truth of some matter, “Thompson’s Real View”.  So far as I am concerned, that presumption concedes the ONLY POINT I have been arguing for in our discussion … so far.  It concedes the MEANING of the word “truth”.  You will notice that unlike yourself, I have not in this conversation EVER argued (yet) for the truth of any matter, other than what we are referring to when we refer to truth.  <==nst]

 

We have two people with two idiosyncratic opinions. Each communicates his/her opinion to the other and they interact trying to discern what each other means in order to see if their individual opinions are the same, or somewhat the same, or substantially the same.  If the conversation leads both parties to agreeing with each other that their individual opinions are really the same, shared, opinion — even if stated somewhat differently — voila, we have Truth. I think this is a fair restatement of what you say (and say when channeling Pierce).

[NST==>No, David.  It is absolutely Unfair, and I am surprised to hear your say it.   When we speak of truth, we speak of something beyond anything that you, or I, or any particular group of people might believe.  But, contra Descartes, we do not speak of anything outside of all possibility of human experience.  What we speak of is that humans will converge on in the very long run, if indeed they ever converge.  No convergence, no truth, because, on Peirce’s account, that is what the term, truth, means.  Please, David, do not continue beyond this point in this message without acknowledging that my thesis is a thesis about the MEANING of the term, Truth.  And that we have not yet begun the discussion concerning whether there exists any such thing.  Until we see eye to eye on that, the discussion is stupid.  It would be like a discussion in which I would say, “a unicorn is a horse with a horn in the middle of it’s nose” and you keep replying, “NO, NICK.  There ARE no unicorns.  Until we have agreed on a definition of a unicorn, the question of its existence cannot even come up.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <==nst]

 

However ... the first imposition on the process focuses on the language we use to communicate/interact. I believe that Pierce, you, and all of the scientists and mathematicians and CS types on this list are going to insist on using a very narrow set of languages and would prefer just one

- mathematical logic. Definitely one with well defined terms and formalized grammar, i.e. one that is "rational."

[NST==>You are posing here as the romantic outlier, a pose that both Glen and Marcus, and many others of us would like to contend you for.  All I can say is, if everybody on the list agrees with me, why am I arguing with them all.   <==nst]

 

Well of course you say; how else could we proceed?

 

Well, one possibility is that you come over and we drop acid together - or better yet the one hallucinogen derived from the Ariocarpus cactus that empirical evidence suggests yields consensual hallucinations - and we use that 'language' to see if our opinions converge.

 

You are nuts, you say.

[NST==>It would be convenient for your argument if I said that, but I don’t.  I would say only that at 80 I have a hard enough time moving through my world without taking hallucinogens, and so I probably won’t do that.  Also, I can’t immediately think of any reason why accuracy of perception or happiness would arise from mucking with my cognitive capacities, such as they are.  It aint much, but it’s what I got.  <==nst]

 

AHA! I say. You are privileging YOUR means of communication and simultaneously asserting that Truth can only be found within the set of possible conversations conducted using YOUR language and YOUR rules of conversation/interaction. [NST==>I haven’t [yet] said anything about how truth is found; only something about how it is defined.  <==nst]  

 

Now, let us return to your signal. Imagine we have a thousand people listening to it. 999 of them use your statistical/probability tests and agree that is is simply noise - a random signal. I, on the other hand, recognize that the signal is the voice of God, speaking the Language of the Birds, and He is giving me clear and precise knowledge.[NST==>Well, you are welcome to that knowledge.  I guess I agree with Peirce that knowledge is, at its root, social.  So, idiosyncratic knowledge is kind of a contradiction in terms.  <==nst]   

 

So what is True? Is the signal noise or is it knowledge?

 

And further suppose that I write some bad free verse that manages to bypass the conscious and speak directly to the subconscious and the 999 slowly begin to agree with my position vis a vis the signal? At what point does the Truth shift from noise to knowledge? (BTW, I would argue that their simply agreeing with me based on what they understand of my poetry, is insufficient - they must actually experience and directly perceive the signal before we can be accord.)[NST==>Well, assuming that you have accepted my DEFINITION of truth as that upon which the human community of inquiry will agree in the very long run, we can ask for what constitutes EVIDENCE that something is true.  çnst]   

 

The main point I made in my polemic, and continue to make: Pierce, science, 'reasonable and rational' beings can never find more than local Truth, for themselves, and it is immoral to impose that Truth on others.[NST==>You sentence only makes sense if you havre already stipulated to my DEFINTION of truth, right?  <==nst]   

 

Ceding a point - Pierce, and scientists, are not wrong when they assume that their approach leads to truth as long as they restrict the domain of application to things like Physics, Math, and Logic. I vehemently react, negatively, when they blithely assert that the same approach is appropriate for finding truth in epistemology, morality, social conventions, public policy, governance, etc. etc.

[NST==>If that is the case, then Peirce would assert, I think, that there is no truth of such matters. He disliked literary criticism and other fashion-driven enterprises for just that reason.   However, I think he and perhaps some of his followers, believed that opinion with respect to some of the matters you mention above will in fact stabilize in the very long run.  If it would, then indeed there is, by definition, a truth of these matters, also.

 

Nick <==nst]

 

dmw

 

On Sun, Oct 15, 2017, at 10:39 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> Naw.  Come on Dave.  You're just picking a fight!  I don't meed the

> "rational man" at all.  All I need is that people either will, or will

> not, share an opinion in the very long run, and that opinion, by

> definition, if shared, is what we mean by truth.  And the edge I am

> talking about here is emotional.  I  am not pressing this view with

> the ferocity that you take me for.  Persistence, perhaps, but not ferocity.

>

> Nick

>

> Nicholas S. Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University

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

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David

> West

> Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 12:44 AM

> To: [hidden email]

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Truth: “Hunh! What is it good for? Absolutely

> Nothing!”

>

> Hi Nick,I write from Vienna. I will be back in Utah next week and at

> FRIAM for a couple of weeks starting in mid-December. You can apply

> cold compresses then, or just toss me in a snow bank.

>

> The "edge" that you do not recognize is present in your response.

> First, you propose a probabilistic/statistical "method" for discovery

> of the 'certainty' of a property of the signal. Why? What makes that

> method privileged? I.e. what is it about Probability that merits using

> it as a Philosopher's Stone? More egregious is the use of the term "rational man"

> — this is what I meant about allowing only some individuals at the

> conversational table.

>

> see you in December

>

>

> On Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 11:50 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> > David,

> >

> > Somebody has obviously riled you up, wherever you have gone to. 

> > Please come back so I can administer cold compresses.

> >

> > I can recognize in what you write below the vague outlines of things

> > I have said about Peirce, but your representation of me has a kind

> > of edge I don't think I ever would have given it.  Try this: 

> > Imagine that you have a fancy antenna and that it is picking up a signal from outer space.

> >  Imagine you are interested in the frequency of the signal.  Now, I

> > say, the signal can either be random or systematic.  Let's say that

> > the last ten readings on the signal give you a reading of 256hz +/-

> > 1 hz.  Now, it's entirely possible that such a sample of measurements could be

> > produced by a random signal.    But now let us double the number of

> > readings, and let us also notice that the variation of the

> > measurements has also diminished by the square root of two.  Now double again, and

> > diminish the variation once again by root 2.    And so on.  While we both

> > would have to recognize that there is no certainty that the signal

> > is not random, still the probabliliy keeps increasing that such a

> > sample is drawn from a population of measurements with a mean of

> > 256hz.  It's that way with truth.  It's quite possible that our

> > experience is random, and no amount of consistency  can ever

> > convince a rational man that the randomness of any particular chain of experiences is not random.

> > However, as experience increases in consistency, the same rational

> > man will be more likely to bet that that chain of experiences will

> > be confirmed in the very long run of human experiences.  On Peirce,s

> > account, that is what it means to say that something "is the truth"

> > It is to bet that this string of experiences that we are now in the

> > midst of will be confirmed in the very long run of human experience.

> >

> > Notice that I never asserted, for a certainty, that there is

> > anything at all that is True.  I only gave a Pragmatic[ist]

> > definition of what truth would be if there ever were any.

> >

> > Come back.  We miss you.

> >

> > Nick

> >

> > Nicholas S. Thompson

> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University

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

> >

> >

> > -----Original Message-----

> > From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof

> > David West

> > Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2017 4:02 PM

> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

> > <[hidden email]>

> > Subject: [FRIAM] Truth: “Hunh! What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!”

> >

> > Two caveats: first, this might better be a private communication

> > with Nick since he is the one with the temerity to first (at least

> > in the past few weeks) use the word 'Truth', although it has been

> > implicit in a lot of recent threads; and second, the following

> > contains a lot of assertions and assertions are, at minimum, 

> > ‘Truthy’ in nature, but I am making no such claim, as will be explained later.

> >

> > There can be no Truth.

> >        Nothing IS except in context and therefore only local – situated

> > - ‘truths’ are possible.

> >        Until the Universe achieves  ‘heat death’ (at which time there

> > might be a single Truth), everything changes and therefore only

> > ephemeral ‘truths’ are possible.

> >        All is Maya (illusion) and all Truth and all truths are equally

> > illusory.

> >

> > There is no / are no means for discovering Truth even if It existed.

> >        To go all postmodern on you: what means/method died and ceded

> > privilege and sole possession of the ‘Royal Road’ to math, logic,

> > scientific method, rhetoric, and “reason?”

> >

> > There is no / are no means for expressing, and therefore

> > communicating or sharing, Truth; were It to exist.

> >        Trivially, this is merely an expression of the first line of the

> > Tao de Ching: “Tao Tao not Tao.”

> >        More importantly it is a generalization of what Peter Naur said

> > about software and software development. Specifically that a program

> > was the expression of a consensual theory share among those that

> > developed it. That “theory” exists almost entirely in the minds of

> > the humans engaged in building the theory; and, that theory cannot

> > be reduced to documentation and therefore cannot be

> > transmitted/communicated to other minds. (Actually, transmission

> > would be possible extant telepathy and simultaneously, empathy.)

> >

> > As I have understood Nick’s interpretation of Pierce I find him to

> > be an intellectual terrorist and his approach useful only for

> > establishing orthodoxy and dogma. A prime reason for believing this

> > is that the ‘conversation’ espoused by Pierce (and Nick) cannot be

> > global – every living person at once – and therefore can only result

> > in a consensus of the few that that is to be imposed on all. A

> > second reason for this belief is that the only ones allowed at the

> > conversational table are those proficient in and willing to abide by specific rules of discussion.

> > This is application of my postmodern stance expressed above.

> >

> > A corollary of my antipathy towards Pierce, a favorite quote from Hesse:

> > “Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and

> > be their own judges; obey the laws. Other’s sense their own laws

> > within them.”  Hesse was speaking of ethics but I would extend his

> > notion to epistemology and metaphysics.

> >

> > None of the preceding is Truth, merely my truth. Accepting same

> > essentially makes me a sociopath; but, I hope, an amiable one.

> >

> >

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