[From Bill Powers (920617.0800)]
Bruce Nevin (920616) --
An interesting view of how anarchism works is in Ursula LeGuin's novel
_The Dispossessed_. A fine writer.
Yes, indeed. This novel is worth study as an illustration of the way system
concepts rule one's whole organization. It has long been my favorite
LeGuin. I've started a re-read -- thanks.
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I thought that addictive substances grabbed you by the intrinsic error.
What they do (some of them) is give you the same feeling you would get if
you sank a 50-foot basket to win the last game of the playoffs. Only
without actually accomplishing anything.
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Carl Sagan on primates:
The perks of being an alpha male entail certain obligations. In
return for deference and respect, for preferential sexual access
to ovulating females and for deluxe dining privileges, he must
render services to the community, both practical and symbolic.
He adopts an impressive demeanor, even something approaching
pomp, in part because his subordinates demand it of him. They
crave reassurance. They are natural followers. They have an
irresistable need to be led.
This is an example of misapplied categories, or homocentrism. Obligations,
deference, respect, services to the community, and the idea of subordinates
demanding something of a leader (etc., etc.) are interpretations by a human
observer. To use such interpretations is to miss the opportunity to guess
what the actual controlled variables and means of control are. You could
speak exactly the same way of ants, but then the projection of human
qualities would be too obvious. The obverse of this objection is that using
such terms for human interactions is probably also to miss an opportunity
to see how control is working.
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I have several times posed the question, how can an ECS controlling for
perception of a word (or category) distinguish between tokens that have
the same referent and those that do not.
This is more of a problem for understanding speech than for producing it,
at least according to my hypotheses about language. Talking with J. Marvin
Brown (and eating his wife's cooking), it occurred to me to wonder whether
the word for "hot" indicated, in Thai, both temperature and what we call a
"hot" taste. The answer is that no, these are different words in Thai. This
interested me, because to me, the sensations evoked by high-temperature
food seem similar to those evoked by certain peppery spices. I had always
taken the English usage of "hot" to indicate this perceptual similarity.
Now I see that it's just a failure to make a perceptual discrimination.
This isn't quite what you're talking about, but it's similar. When I'm
producing speech, I know in advance the meaning I want to produce, so
there's no problem in my own understanding of the words I use. I can say
"John is supposed to have said that, but that's just John's opinion." (or
"his" opinion). There's no problem in my mind with the two Johns -- I'm
still meaning the same nonverbal person, whatever word I use. A problem
arises only when I DON'T mean the same John -- when John Brown is supposed
to have said the thing, but that is only John Smith's opinion. I could
still use the same sentence and know what I mean, but it would be clear to
me that a listener might have a problem sorting it out as I mean it.
So I agree:
One approach that I have not mentioned is to suppose that a word (or a
category) has the same reference as a repetition of it has unless they
are explicitly differentiated.
(I distinguish between "referent" -- the perception pointed to by a word --
and "reference" -- the state of a perception that is desired).
The differentiation involves not just using alternative words, but
introducing different perceptual attributes, as you say:
An occurrance of a word may be differentiated from another occurrance >of
the same word by asserting something of the first and denying the >same of
the second.
The "something" is the different perceptual attribute: you take the red
apple and give me the yellow one. Or (in terms of assertion/denial), you
take an apple that's red and give me one that's not.
So previously the question was how to capture the perception of >sameness
nonverbally; now it is how to capture the perception of >difference between
two tokens of the same perceptual signal.
I don't think this is ever a problem for the speaker. The perceptual
meaning comes first; then the attempt to describe it using words. The
problem is for the speaker to detect possible wrong meanings that a
listener might get (Martin Taylor's "model of the listener"). You can think
"He sure didn't like how he was taking her attitude toward her boyfriend"
and have no problem keeping the four different people straight. But if you
say that to someone else, there's no telling what meaning the other person
will construct on that base. The differentiations needed can be
accomplished by describing different perceptions that go with the different
people: The fat guy sure didn't like the way the thin guy was taking the
black girl's attitude toward the grandmother's boyfriend. Same meaning as
far as the speaker is concerned; much clearer to the listener.
Sameness and difference don't have to be captured nonverbally. If the same
perceptual function responds the same way while other perceptions change,
and you're talking about the one that didn't change, you say there's
"sameness." If you're talking about the ones that did change, you say
there's a "difference." The changes or lack thereof come first; then the
attempt to describe them.
Any insights?
Have you ever known me not to have an opinion? Oh, you said insights.
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I want to work up some ideas on the reduction of logic and the program
level to simpler terms based on G. Spencer Brown's _Laws of Form_.
See "Control theory, constructivism, and autopoiesis" in Living Control
Systems II, p. 179: the section called "Cleaving the continuum." My thesis
is that the concept of creating complementary categories by "strokes"
belongs at the category level of the HPCT model, but that there is also
sequence and logic operating tacitly in the background, and that the
"continuum" is created by lower level perceptual systems. At the lowest
level, intensities, we begin with the maximum possible differentiation:
every intensity signal is an independent entity. You can't cleave the
continuum until you've created it.
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Nice to hear you vocalizing again. Coming to the meeting? Deadline for
registrations is July 13. $220 for everything but beer (includes
membership). You've met a few of the CSG: everyone else is exactly the
same, only different.
Best,
Bill P.