----- Begin Included Message -----
···
From peter Fri Apr 2 16:26:18 1993
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 16:26:13 EST
From: peter (Peter Cariani)
To: harvard!CSG-L%UIUCVMD.BITNET%mitvma.mit.edu
Subject: Epistemology and Action
Cc: peter
Content-Length: 1893
Bill Powers --
Hi, Bill, sorry it's taken me so long to get back, but I was in
a cab accident the night I sent off the post on Einstein and Bohr,
and it's really slowed me down (broken thumb, fractured rib plus
some funding deadlines). This always happens
when I get into discussions about physics (last time it was my gall
bladder....). So, to close the loop, I'll respond.
Of course I agree with you completely regarding active agents
(and this is an essential difference between a real organism or
device and a ideal observer). My reading of Bohr makes him more of
a pragmatist than a solipisist -- the contexts in which he was
discussing other, unmeasured factors ("hidden variables") were
very formal ones after all. Murdoch's book, which I highly
recommend, is very clearly thought out and makes the case for
Bohr as a pragmatist (rather than a solipsist) quite strong. Here
one can acknowledge the existence of influences and events outside
one's percepts, but one cannot say anything definite about the
form that they take (the structure of Reality). This is neither
a Realist faith that we "know" "how things really are" or a solipsist
denial of all things outside ourselves, but that there are always
new parts of the world waiting to be measured and incorporated into
our (expanding) models.
The way that we expand our models is through action, as you
rightly point out. We interact with the world, we build new sensors
and effectors and revise our models, and all of this happens outside
the formal realm of the model itself. Action is Essential.
So, I'm working on temporal, multidimensional coding schemes
in the brain (auditory system), and when I get a chance to think hard
about how this relates to Control Theory, I'll communicate the
relevant substance of the results to the control net.
thanks for bearing with me,
Peter
eplunix!peter@eddie.mit.edu
----- End Included Message -----