kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) (04/14/90)
In article <372@ntpdvp1.UUCP> sandyz@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Sandy Zinn) writes: >(Ken Presting) wrote: > >> Implementationism is cheap (I can get it for you wholesale) but it only >> works between abstractions. The three plaits of the plexus are all >> within the organism/environment biological abstraction, so Imp'ism is >> irrelevant for this. > >definition of abstraction: representation of pattern/info in a different >symbolic system. Your definition corresponds more to *interpretation* or *analysis* than to "abstraction". Any symbol system is an example of an abstraction - musical notation, paper money, a file system namespace, or powdered wigs. Symbol *tokens*, such as a particular wig, are concrete, of course. When symbol tokens are manipulated by an organism or artifact, the manipulation is always a physical phenomenon, and is explainable in phsyical (chemical, biological, etc) terms. An explanation is arrived at through two steps: analysis and demonstration. The analysis is a *description* of the process - just a set of sentences which (a) refer to the process and (b) are true. Often a process or object will be identified in one vocabulary, with the hope of obtaining and analysis in a different vocabulary, as in "What *are* those powdered wigs"? or "What *are* you doing?" On other occaisions, an analysis will be desired in the same vocabulary, as in "What chemicals are in this solution?" An analysis is *complete* iff every true statement about the process (in the relevant vocabulary) is included in the analysis. An explanation organizes the description provided by the analysis. There are many philosophical theories of explanation, but IMO they all boil down to "an axiomatization of an analysis". An interpretation is *always* between two abstractions, and is somewhat more complex than an analysis. Interpretation is a lot like translation, but a translation is always between two languages. An intepretation can be between real events or objects (after they are analyzed) and a language. (Cf Quine, _Word and Object_, and Davidson, _Radical Interpretation_. David Lewis' _Radical Interpretation_ is very good also, and is an important counterpoint to Davidson). When we engineers *implement* a design, we start with a fixed analysis and interpretation, and build something to fit. In Impl'ism as applied to natural sciences, each science provides its own analysis of "reality" and is responsible for the interpretability of that analysis into the abstraction of Physics. Physics is responsible for (a) the analyzability of all processes within its abstraction, and (b) the interpretability or all experimental procedures and results, as analyzed, into deduction. (This picture is so idealized as to border on absurdity, but I would claim that my proposal is not an *incoherent* ideal, as Logical Positivism was. I would owe a great debt to Carnap, if I had not swiped this view from Aristotle first. :-) Impl'ism requires a HLS from the entire implemented abstraction to the implementation, but the HLS concept can be applied in other contexts. > I don't consider that all abstractions are fully homo- >morphic; they can be transforms, or partial mappings. Lots of biological >examples of those. If you want to reserve "abstraction" only for full >homomorphs, for formalized systems, then let's Capitalize it to indicate >this more pristine use. I do want to preserve a close relationship between "abstraction" and "formal system", and I would suggest that we consider "analysis" as an analysis of "transform", and "restriction of HLS" for "partial mapping". Freudian "primary process" is one example. Conceptual abstraction, simile, and metaphor (but not allegory) is another. Eventually, I want to claim that all *sensory* processes have the logical structure of an analysis, and that *perception* has the logical structure of an interpretation. I'm not sure yet, but I think *memory* might turn out to be just *entropy*. I do think it is possible to demonstrate formally that *force* has the logical structure of *choice* and NOT the logical structure of goal-directedness. Memory is the hard part (!), but I don't see much role for categorization anywhere. For example, an ANTIBODY does not recognize any natural kind. It will bind as firmly to an artificial anti-antibody as to a virus. All natural processes have similar difficulties - their behavior is independent of any higher-level analyses. I doubt that categorization (as opposed to discrimination) enters the psychological picture before language does. This is Hume's view, if that helps. > >> Would "determined by" work as a substitute for "emerging from" in the >> statement above? Please? How about "made of?" "Implemented in?" > >No, *not* "determined by". Too many bad implications for me. How about >"abstracted from", or "which are transforms of"? For the sake of your >*gentle decorum*, I'll give up "emergent", except when I'm in that gadfly >mood... I expect I'll be catching a few gadflies with determinism. It's sticky stuff; the more things seem to make sense, the more they seem to be determined. Most secretions, quantum or existential, have no effect. (Statistical determinism is almost as bad as the old-fashioned kind) My gut feeling on determinism is that the issue is undecidable. I have good arguments against Davidson/Dennett/Kant style free will - I read a seminar paper on the subject at a philosophy conference. The one argument that won't go away is the stupid old "predict yourself and do the opposite." For TM's, which can be analyzed in an abstraction which is not semantically closed, this paradox is useful. For any system which speaks a semantically closed language, there are a few, well, "complications": >> >> I believe that communication does not occur in the absence of an >> emotional interaction (real or imagined). This is a problematic >> assertion, I realize. > >Maybe for some. The biggest problem I have here is that you have >tried to distinguish *real* from *imagined* emotional interaction. >There is no make-believe emotion. It's a transform of real inter- >actions. Now, whether those interactions are comfortably isomorphic >is another story.... Too true. Who would want to be isomorphic to an inconsistency? Who has any choice? Ken Presting ("Dark thoughts on a dark day")