1. Re: PAPER ON IA AND COMMUNICATIONAL NORMS
2. Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
3. Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
4. Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
5. Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
6. Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
7. Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
8. Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
9. Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
10. Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
11. Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
12. Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
13. Fw: Re: McGinn on Popper
14. slow delivery of messages
15. Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
16. Re: Peircean Semiotic & Computational Intelligence Augmentation
17. Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
18. Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
19. listserver worse than I thought
20. Re: Peircean Semiotic & Computational Intelligence Augmentation

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Subject: Re: PAPER ON IA AND COMMUNICATIONAL NORMS
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 00:12:17 -0600
X-Message-Number: 1

Continuing the response to Creath Thorne, who wrote:

> . . .
> 2. Peirce indeed might agree that all thought is materially embodied,
> but special attention needs to be given to the term "materially." the
> inkpot qua inkpot is a necessary but hardly sufficient means of
> thinking. But in Peirce's universe everything is suffused with habit,
> thus mind, thus thinking. It is, thus, misleading to attribute to Peirce >
> "exosomatic" mind.

JR: But a lot of the world processes are "hidebound by habit", meaning
physical, which Peirce regarded as a kind of limit case of the psychical,
where the spontaneity (= chance) is reduced to such an extent that it can be
regarded as if it is not psychical at all, i.e. no profit in regarding it
in probabilistic terms. i.e. it would not be profitably treated as if it
were tendential. Classical mechanics is like that. In a lot of his work
Peirce uses the psychical/physical contrast where some one else would think
in terms of mental/physical. in some contexts he will use mentalistic
teminology, but I think he preferred to use the idea of the psychical in its
stead: the Greek word "psyche" is associated primarily with the idea of
life, the association with the mental being a special case of that. Peirce
seems to thiink of the mental as being the psychical, and the explication of
the latter sort of process is the job of semiotic. Thus the psychical
sciences would be the same as the semiotical sciences. See the work on the
classification of the sciences, especially the division of the sciences into
the physical and the psychical, and notice what falls under the heading of
psychical science. The reason for identifying the phenomena amenable to
distinctively semiotical analysis as being "exosomatic" is to make
conceptual contact with Karl Popper's thinking in the papers of the late 60
's on "evolutionary epistemology". Let me quote Peter Skagestad on this,
from his 1993 paper on Thinking with Machines":

===============QUOTE SKAGESTAD 1993==============
Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology was originally sketched in his 1965
Arthur Holly Compton Memorial Lecture 'Of Clouds and Clocks', and further
elaborated in the two papers 'Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject' (1967)
and 'On the Theory of the Objective Mind' (1968). The term 'evolutionary
epistemology' is not actually found in these articles, but was introduced in
1974 in the landmark essay of that title by the psychologist Donald Campbell
who, incidentally, has been profoundly influenced by Ashby as well as by
Popper. Campbell's essay explores the blind-variation-selective-retention
paradigm exemplified by both Darwinian evolution and the Popperian
scientific method of conjectures and refutations, but Campbell himself was
first introduced to this paradigm by Ashby in the nineteen-fifties.(27) The
past twenty years have seen a veritable explosion of publications on
evolutionary epistemology, but I shall here focus simply on Popper's
original formulations.

In his 1965 lecture Popper raised and discussed two problems: "Compton's
problem", or the problem of how to reconcile rationality with physical
determinism, and "Descartes' problem", or the problem of mind-body
interaction. Drawing on both Charles Peirce's indeterministic cosmology and
the evolutionary language theory propounded by Popper's erstwhile teacher
Karl Buehler, Popper proceeded to sketch an account of human evolution as
being largely exosomatic: "Human evolution proceeds, largely, by developing
new organs outside our bodies or persons: 'exosomatically', as biologists
call it, or 'extra-personally'. These new organs are tools, or weapons, or
machines, or houses."(28) Noting that other animals build lairs, nests, and
dams, Popper points to the greater role played by exosomatic organs in human
evolution, stressing the higher functions of language already postulated by
Buehler: (29)

"Yet the kind of exosomatic evolution which interests
me here is this: instead of growing better memories
and brains, we grow paper, pens, pencils, typewriters,
dictaphones, the printing press, and libraries. These
add to our language -- and especially to its descriptive
and argumentative functions -- what may be described
as new dimensions. The latest development (used
mainly in support of our argumentative abilities) is the
growth of computers."

=====END SKAGESTAD 1993 QUOTE========================


http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/skagesta/thinking.htm


The disucssion of that continues for several pages, and in view of what is
said there the term exosomatic seems appropriately used, given the motive of
making that connection with Popper's work and other work on evolutionary
epistemology.

Back again in another message.

Joe Ransdell


.



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Subject: Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 03:14:21 -0500
X-Message-Number: 2

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

JR: Turing regarded the human being as essentially indistinguishable from a machine;
Bush regarded the human being as essentially a machine user, and sought to construct
symbol-manipulation machines that would be "thinking machines" in the sense of machines
to think with, not machines that think. While Bush's vision has served as the inspiration
for a vast industry that is rapidly transforming our culture and society, Turing's vision
has become the governing paradigm of the research program known as artificial intelligence
(AI), and indeed for the entire interdisciplinary field known as cognitive science. So
pervasive is the influence of this paradigm that one frequently hears it said that the
computational model is the only comprehensive and fully articulated model of the mind
available. There is, however, a different model of the mind available-one which,
while not articulated by Bush, is fully supportive of the research program Bush
initiated, the program today known as "intelligence augmentation" (IA).

JR: The model I have in mind is one which was articulated in the nineteenth century
by Charles Peirce, and which has recently been advocated by James Fetzer as
the semiotic model of the mind.

Joe,

Science fiction aside, I detect the beginnings of a false oppostition here,
maybe one you do not intend, but I am learning what a careless reader can
do with a careless statement, even one that is obviously a retrospective
rhetorical meta-commentary.

Turing, or rather let us speak of the field of recursive function theory generally,
does not "regard the human being as essentially indistinguishable from a machine".
Its main thrust has been to present several models of "effective description",
somewhat surprisingly discovering that all of those yet proposed have turned
out to be equivalent in the class of computable functions that they capture.

Mathematical models do not say what they are about.
People may see some image or likeness of reality in them,
but all sensible people and especially all sensible math
folk already recognize that reality is inexhaustible.

So computational models are meant to capture what mindful people do
only in so far as mindful people do what is effectively describable.
The model itself does not say, cannot say, how big a proportion of
the whole human reality the effectively describable portion may be.

The notion of effective description is almost the same idea as that
of the pragmatic maxim, and I do not think that it would be good to
draw any hard and fast lines that might lend themselves to obscuring
this connection.

The reason that any of this business has much importance to us is this:
the relationship between the effectively describable and the teachable.

So the heart of the question is rather ancient: Whether virtue can be taught.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

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Subject: Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 04:02:40 -0500
X-Message-Number: 3

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| Phenomena of this complexity are often explainable, as regards their
| origins, from more than one perspective. Real things have facets, and
| multiple complementary perspectives on complex historical realities is
| usually required in order to have a reasonably sophisticated account of
| them overall. In this case the role of visionaries like Turing and Bus=
h
| is undoubtedly important, but there are other things to be said about t=
he
| origins of the conception of the computer as well, and my guess is that=
, as
| regards the conception of it as an instrument of personal use in augmen=
ting
| the ability to produce text, to work with documents in various ways, an=
d to
| communicate with others originated also, in part at least, as an uninte=
nded
| by-product of work designed to satisfy the need to document the program=
ming
| involved in mainframe computing, the maintenance of which required that
| records be kept both for one's own use as a programmer and for the use
| of other programmers as well. This in turn required the ability not
| only to record information but also to communicate it, which could be
| facilitated by making use of the powers of the computer itself as the
| instrument for doing such recording and transmitting.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmen=
tation"

Maybe a little, in a practical sense, but the recognition of the computer
as a generic idea and symbol processor, not just a another number-crunche=
r,
has been with us from the beginning -- let us not forget to invke the nam=
es
of Lully, Leibniz, Pascal -- it was a guiding idea in the transition that
Babbage made from the Differential Engine to the Analytical Engine, and
then along came G=F6del with his numerals that denoted more than numbers.
On the IBM nuts-&-bolts side, text processing was on people's minds
since Hollerith, at least.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 04:25:41 -0500
X-Message-Number: 4

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| [Skagestad] continues, saying:
|
| | Turing regarded the human being as essentially indistinguishable from a machine;
| | Bush regarded the human being as essentially a machine user, and sought to construct
| | symbol-manipulation machines that would be "thinking machines" in the sense of machines
| | to think with, not machines that think.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation"

Again, this constructs an untenable opposition, since the design of the augmentor,
as the telescope, demands a good model of the faculty to be augmented, as the eye.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

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Subject: Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 05:02:08 -0500
X-Message-Number: 5

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| To summarize to this point, Skagestad's basic argument is to the
| effect that computational intelligence research (CI research) has thus
| far worked chiefly from two distinctive visions of what might be achieved --
| AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IA (Intelligence Augmentation) -- which are
| capable of being regarded as complementary rather than exclusive alternatives
| of CI development, but which may tend to be at odds with one another because of
| the importantly different conceptions of mentality which lie at their respective
| bases. Skagestad's primary aim thus far, though, has not been to encourage
| research development in which they are capable of being mutually supportive,
| though he is doubtless in favor of this, but rather to make clear that the
| second paradigm for research into computational intelligence is conceptually
| independent of the first, such that what we refer to as if it were one thing,
| the computer, is in reality two importantly different things at once: on
| the one hand, an algorithm-embodying mechanism capable of mimicking mentality
| functionally to an extent yet to be determined; on the other, an instrument
| for coordinating factors variously involved in human intelligence insofar
| as these can be supported mechanistically in such a way as to augment
| human intelligence instead.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation"

On the contrary, to the extent that we can even say in practical terms what we mean
by "an instrument for coordinating factors variously involved in human intelligence
insofar as these can be supported mechanistically in such a way as to augment human
intelligence", much less provide effective procedures for realizing the designs of
such instruments, the aims of augmentation cannot be sundered from algorithmics.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
From: HGCALLAWAY[…]aol.com
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 05:43:49 EST
X-Message-Number: 6

Joe & list,

I just looked through the webpages which you indicate below. I would think
that there might be some other source of the James essay which you might
recom-mend.

You wrote:

-----quote---------
Thanks for the comments, Howard. The James paper on "The Moral Equivalent
of War" is available at a number of different sites on the internet, e.g.

http://www.constitution.org/wj/meow.htm

so i don't think there is any need to add it to what is available through the
Arisbe website, unless there is some special connection with Peirce that
makes it Peirce-related.
----end quote--------

Perhaps the essay is not Peirce-related enough to justify putting it up at
Arisbe, and I suggested myself that it might already be available on line. I
leave this to you to decide. My suggestion was based on your own references
to the James in a posting you sent to the list, and my thought was, of
course, that evaluation of the points you made might require access to the
James essay on the part of readers of the Peirce-l. But a link to some other
source is preferable.

Your discussion of Hobbes and agressiveness is of interest in connection with
the present thread, certainly, and it may be worth some further comments.
What I think to say in the first place is that excess of habitual
aggressiveness may function to prevent the kind of cooperative activities and
agreements required to properly limit its effects (such as agreeing to a
common peacekeeping authority). I think there can be little doubt that
habitual agressiveness typically arises in particular sorts of
confrontational situations, though it may persist as mere habit beyond the
confines of the situations where is may in fact play a useful role. One may
think here of the possibile limitations of Hobbes' perspective in light of
the stressful times in which he lived. The point is not unconnected with the
idea we put forward, in _American Ethics_, commenting on the James essay, of
the need to step back on occasion and refuse to participate in cycles of
aggressiveness or violence. More on this later, perhaps. This, you will
recall, was the theme of "turning the other cheek."

I thought I should mention, here, though that the webpages you mention above
seem to be a rather doubtful source with which to associate the James essay.
I quote the following short passage from the page "What you can do to help."
Apparently, this "Constitution Society" thinks that federal reserve notes are
unconstitutional, though we are encouraged to send in money anyway.

----quote----------
If you support what we are doing, and want to help, we would prefer you send
anonymous donations. We would rather not know who you are, especially if your
contributions are large. Don't send cash through the mail, of course, but
money orders are good. Make them payable to "J... R...., trustee for the
Constitution Society". Do not make checks payable to "Constitution Society".
We don't have a bank account for the Constitution Society, don't intend to
get one, and can't accept checks made payable only to "Constitution Society".
It is our principled position that banks on state territory that denominate
in Federal Reserve "dollars" are unconstitutional. On state territory only
gold or silver or notes backed by gold or silver are constitutional legal
tender.
-----end quote--------------

I think that there must surely be some reputable scholarly source on the web
with which we could associate the James essay on "The Moral Equivalent of
War." One might support or critcize it, of course, and I have done both. But
we would not want to equate James' plea to sublimate excesses of
aggressiveness with the aims or purposes of this particular "Constitution
Society." Instead, it seems obvious that the purpose of having the James text
on those webpages is to suggest, without argument, that it is a "meow.htm."
Right? But what James has to say is certainly consistent with the need to
keep our powder dry.

Keeping ourselves in a position to defend the country against aggression is
one thing, getting caught up in cycles of aggression and counter-aggression
is something else again. That is part of the danger of a "Manichaean Bent"
--if such there be in our current life and thought.

BTW: I heard from Peter, who has just returned from a trip. He says that the
established policy of the _Transactions_ remains in place. For the author to
make a review available on line it is only necessary to reference the
original publication in the Transactions. Since, you have experienced some
trouble in putting up an html version of my review of Baltzer, I am going to
send you the corrected text in Word format again. I would suggest checking
your html text against a printout of the Word text, since the transformation
seems to misplace quotation marks --or I could send you my own html version
if you prefer. Thanks for your troubles with the text.

Howard

H.G. Callaway
(hgcallaway[…]aol.com)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 06:00:30 -0500
X-Message-Number: 7

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| 4. THOUGHT IS IN SIGNS --> THOUGHT IS EXOSOMATICALLY EMBODIED (SKAGESTAD)
|
| Peter Skagestad understands the dictum "All thought is in signs" to mean that
| thought is not primarily a modification of consciousness, since unconscious
| thought is quite possible, but rather a matter of behavior -- not, however,
| a matter of a thinker's behavior (which would be a special case) but rather
| of the behavior of the publicly available material media and artifacts in
| which thought resides as a dispositional power. The power is signification,
| which is the power of the sign to generate interpretants of itself. Thinking
| is semiosis, and semiosis is the action of a sign. The sign actualizes itself
| as a sign in generating an interpretant, which is itself a further sign of the
| same thing, which, actualized as a sign, generates a further interpretant, and
| so on. As Skagestad construes the import of this -- correctly, I believe --
| the development of thinking can take the form of development of the material
| media of thinking, which means such things as the development of instruments
| and media of expression, such as notational systems, or means and media of
| inscription such as books and writing instruments, languages considered as
| material entities like written inscriptions and sounds, physical instruments
| of observation such as test tubes, microscopes, particle accelerators, and so
| forth. The evolution of mind means that cognition is still developing, not
| primarily in the nervous system and brain and not in some mysterious kind of
| immaterial mind-stuff, but rather in the material instruments and media of
| cognition. Thus Peirce says, for example:
|
| | A psychologist cuts out a lobe of my brain (nihil animale a me alienum puto) and then,
| | when I find I cannot express myself, he says, 'You see, your faculty of language was
| | localized in that lobe'. No doubt it was; and so, if he had filched my inkstand,
| | I should not have been able to continue my discussion until I had got another.
| | Yea, 'the very thoughts would not come to me' [emphasis added]. So my faculty
| | of discussion is equally localized in my inkstand.
|
| Let me quote Skagestad's comment on this:
|
| | As is indicated by the emphasized sentence, Peirce is not making the
| | trivial point that without ink he would not be able to communicate his
| | thoughts. The point is, rather, that his thoughts come to him in and
| | through the act of writing, so that having writing implements is a
| | condition for having certain thoughts -- specifically those issuing
| | from trains of thought that are too long to be entertained in a human
| | consciousness. This is precisely the idea that, sixty years later,
| | motivated Engelbart to devise new technologies for writing so as to
| | improve human thought processes, as well as the idea that motivated
| | Havelock's interpretation of Plato.
|
| I am sure you can readily see the connection of this with the development of
| computer graphics, the user interface, the use of the mouse, word processing,
| hypertext, and so forth, which is what primarily interests Peter Skagestad.
| The theoretical grounding of all of this in Peirce lies in his locating of
| thought in the media of its expression, as expressed in the dictum that
| "all thought is in signs."

Two points:

The power of signification is a limited and regulated power.
Signs may determine their interpretant signs in measure, but
they do not, cannot determine their interpretations perfectly.
There are times when we think to add signs, diacritical marks
and inflexions, thinking to augment the power of determination,
but it is equally likely that they only increase the ambiguity.

Peirce said "equally localized" -- he did not force a false
opposition between endosomatic and exosomatic embodiment.
Indeed, there is a whole system before this distinction
is drawn, whether in amber, in ink, or in imagination.
The whole system can be a sign, of itself, to itself.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

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Subject: Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 06:30:25 -0500
X-Message-Number: 8

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| 5. THOUGHT IS IN SIGNS --> THOUGHT IS DIALOGICAL (RANSDELL)
|
| I agree with Peter Skagestad in all of this, and my interests
| certainly include those computational mechanisms that constitute
| and control the interface both with document and data materials and
| with other persons, and which include or enable the many powers of
| manipulation of text and graphics that have been developed in recent
| years, the ability to make and follow hypertext links (i.e. to associate
| freely and to trace associations already made), the ability to exchange
| messages with others in various ways, and so forth, which Skagestad is
| especially concerned to emphasize. But there is a further and equally
| valid interpretation of the dictum that "all thought is in signs" which
| also has implications for computationally-based Intelligence Augmentation,
| namely, that thought is dialogical -- hence communicational -- in form.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation"

What prevents this point of view from degenerating into the incoherence of coherentism?
Only that signs are defined by the role that they play within sign relations, and that
sign relations irreducibly and integrally involve that which the objective lens of our
scope points to, an object domain. So, before we turn Peirce into yet another facile
conformist, we have to remember the trialogue of a soul with itself in the effort to
understand what nature, 2nd nature, and 3rd nature all have to say.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

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Subject: Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 06:56:29 -0500
X-Message-Number: 9

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| If thought is to be found in signs, and is actualized in their actual
| generation of interpretant-signs of themselves, then it is the flow
| of discourse as asymmetric dialogically-structured interpretation
| calling forth further interpretation that constitutes the flow or
| process of thought, and the development of intelligence is at least
| in part a matter of the development of critical control practices that
| conform to communicational norms which make discourse more efficient and
| effective relative to whatever ends it may have. Since the discourse or
| communication in question is to be made more effectively intelligent, it
| seems reasonable to start out by working with communication as it occurs
| specifically in processes of inquiry, where the function of the norms of
| critical control is to make inquiry more successful in the sort of results
| it specifically aims at. The capability of this kind of success is certainly
| an important part of what we regard as intelligence. Whether the focus upon
| communication in inquiry in particular will provide us with an adequate basis
| for understanding the potentialities of IA programming designed especially to
| make communication in general more intelligent is another matter. This might
| take us only a certain distance, beyond which we will need to consider other
| and importantly different types of communication as well if our aim is to
| develop Intelligence Augmentation of this sort as extensively as we can.
| But understanding something of the potentialities and problematics of
| IA in this respect should at least provide us with a more sophisticated
| understanding of the role of communicational norms in intellectual life
| than we presently enjoy and it also enables us to take advantage of the
| work of Peirce -- himself a master of inquiry in a number of different
| fields -- in developing analytical conceptions for this purpose.
|
| By far the most effective kinds of inquiry that have been humanly devised
| are those that occur in research traditions of the sort which have developed
| in modern times, where mastery of the use of computational mechanisms and
| programs of the sort which Peter Skagestad is especially concerned with is
| embodied in practices, habits, and skills of the inquirers in the given
| tradition. These might be called the "material skills" of inquiry that
| have developed in the given field. Some of these will be field-specific
| but many will be common to a number of such fields, and some will be
| common to all. My own concerns come to a special focus, though, not
| on the material skills of the inquirers but rather on what I will call
| the "discursive skills" of inquiry, meaning by that the mastery of those
| practices, habits, and skills of discussion and communicational interaction
| generally -- such as e.g. asserting, suggesting, questioning, critical
| response and counter-response, objection and elaboration, etc. -- that
| control the flow of discourse in the context of inquiry, according to
| the communicational norms developed in the various research traditions.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation"

Joe,

For a long time now it has puzzled me that just as you begin to get down
to the real business of inquiry you throw out Peirce's model of inquiry
and introduce something rather different. Why is that?

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 07:28:52 -0500
X-Message-Number: 10

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| 6. INQUIRY AND ASSERTION
|
| The support for this to be found in Peirce's philosophy is in his theory
| of inquiry, which is the general framework he draws upon in developing his
| logic. Logic includes the development of notations and derivation techniques
| for deduction, and the development of methodologies of induction and abduction as
| well, but Peirce situates these traditional logical concerns within the framework
| of inquiry conceived, in effect, as a general theory of assertion. However, I am
| hesitant to call it that because it could be more misleading than helpful to do
| so in view of the way speech act theory, which was pioneered by Peirce, has been
| developed in the past century after his death, which has taken an importantly
| different approach to understanding what assertion is by minimizing the social
| aspect of the speech act. This is done by considering the role of the addressee
| of the act to be limited to whatever is implicit in recognizing the given speech
| act as being the sort of act it is. "Uptake" is the usual term for this sort
| of constitutive acknowledgement of the speech act as being of this type or that,
| and the role that assertional acts in particular actually do play in a community
| of inquirers is left undeveloped and relegated implicitly to the studies dictated
| by the special interests of the sociologist. This is not what Peirce had in mind
| in conceiving logic as a general theory of assertion, however.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation"

I am glad that you are hesitant, because I see nothing but misunderstanding, and
indeed a kind of regression into positivism that would would come from trying to
recast Peirce's logic or his theory of inquiry as a "general theory of assertion".

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 07:46:36 -0600
X-Message-Number: 11

Howard:

Here is another of many places where the James paper is available on the
web. I think you will approve of the organization making it available at
that site. Or if that won't do, there are others.

http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/amstud/resources/nationalism/james.htm


I didn't track down the background on the people who put up the version I
referenced because there was nothing on the web page containing the paper
that suggested to me that they might not meet with anybody's approval. I
naively thought that the filename "meow" was used because it is an acronym
of the title. It didn't occur to me that it might be a sly dig at the paper
based on associations one might have with the word "meow" and cats. Sorry
to be so obtuse as to have missed that. I still see no need to put it up at
Arisbe as well because I don't see it as Peirce-related sufficiently to
warrant it. The reason for the mention of James' paper, on my part, was
that I was responding to your pointer to the political piece about
manicheanism in American politics, and I wanted to give the discussion some
philosophical reference as well instead of leaving it as based only on the
political article you referred us to.

As regards the Hobbes' view which I described, you say:

> Your discussion of Hobbes and agressiveness is of interest in connection
with
> the present thread, certainly, and it may be worth some further comments.
> What I think to say in the first place is that excess of habitual
> aggressiveness may function to prevent the kind of cooperative activities
and
> agreements required to properly limit its effects (such as agreeing to a
> common peacekeeping authority). I think there can be little doubt that
> habitual agressiveness typically arises in particular sorts of
> confrontational situations, though it may persist as mere habit beyond the
> confines of the situations where is may in fact play a useful role. One
may
> think here of the possibile limitations of Hobbes' perspective in light of

> the stressful times in which he lived.

If you think that Hobbes' argument is based on historical contingencies
about human aggressiveness you are misunderstanding his argument, as I
understand it. Be it correct or incorrect, the point is that it is not
natural aggressiveness, as based on any of several motives which he mentions
as ones that natrally incline people toward competitive aggression, but
rather a problem implicit in the nature of trust and suspicion itself -- a
problem of distrust that is logically, not psychologically based -- that
cannot be overcome when the parties involved, be they individuals or whole
nations, are not under some constraint external to both or all of them.
This is why the state of nature, where there is no government, cannot belp
but be a state of war, given that there is any reason at all for people to
distrust one another to begin with. We do not have to posit any very high
degree of aggressive tendencies to generate the kind of escalation you get
in what we call now an "arms race". The problem is that even when people
understand quite well that mutual distrust is driving the escalation, and
can see that, if unchecked somehow, the escalation will result in
cataclysmic disaster, it will still be reasonable for them to do what will
in fact count as an escalation of the process. It is useless to preach
trust to people already caught up in an escalation based on distrust because
it can only appear to them to be irrational. You say:

> The point is not unconnected with the
> idea we put forward, in _American Ethics_, commenting on the James essay,
of
> the need to step back on occasion and refuse to participate in cycles of
> aggressiveness or violence. More on this later, perhaps. This, you will
> recall, was the theme of "turning the other cheek."

The point to Hobbes' view is that it is useless to urge people caught up in
an escalation of defensiveness to "step back" and "turn the other cheek",
given a situation of defensive responses and counter-responses, because it
is in fact irrational for them to do so at any given time even though it is
also irrational to persist in behavior known to tend toward catastrophic
destruction. There is a practical contradiction here -- not just a conflict
but a contradiction -- to be overcome somehow, and the creation of
government as an external constraining power is the practical solution to
that practical contradiction, which explains why government exists, and
Hobbes' theory of the powers and responsibilities of governments is based on
what he believes to be the logical implications of this. It is not based on
pessimism about people being "no damn good" or being naturally motivated to
desire war. The arms race between the US and the Soviet Union, which did
not cease because of anybody being reasonable but because one of the parties
involved (The USSR) ceased to exist.

> Keeping ourselves in a position to defend the country against aggression
is
> one thing, getting caught up in cycles of aggression and
counter-aggression
> is something else again.

Formally, yes, of course, but in practice, In Hobbes' view, you are simply
mistaken because you are not taking due account of the nature of distrust.

> BTW: I heard from Peter, who has just returned from a trip. He says that
the
> established policy of the _Transactions_ remains in place. For the author
to
> make a review available on line it is only necessary to reference the
> original publication in the Transactions.

Good. Others on the list who have reviews in the Transactions will want to
learn of this. I imagine there is also a policy for making papers published
in the Transactions available on-line as well, probably differing not too
importantly from the policy for review articles, given the permissions he
has sometimes granted in the past.

> Since, you have experienced some
> trouble in putting up an html version of my review of Baltzer, I am going
to
> send you the corrected text in Word format again. I would suggest checking
> your html text against a printout of the Word text, since the
transformation
> seems to misplace quotation marks --or I could send you my own html
version
> if you prefer. Thanks for your troubles with the text.

Apparently you did not receive my message of a week or so ago when I made
the changes to the Balzer article you specified in your letter and asked you
to check it again. If there is still some discrepancy you need only let me
know what the discrepancy is. I recall your mentioning something about
quote marks, but you did not describe exactly where to go to find what you
had in mind in that respect and I could not find anything in the copy I had
that seemed to correspond to what you were saying, I guess. Apparently I
missed it, then, but It would not be desirable to mount yet one more html
version of it as derived by a conversion from Word, since the process of
conversion plus the minimal amount of formatting that I must always add
provides new occasion for a mistake to occur. The discrepancy has to be
fairly serious and extensive to make that the prudent way to handle it.
Just let me know what it is that you want changed, making sure that it will
be clear to me how to find it. It is also best that you do the checking
against the Word version yourself, rather than me. If you think the
version presently there is seriously enough flawed to warrant it, I will
take it down upon receiving your request to do so and leave it down until a
version satisfactory to you has been created.

Joe Ransdell


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
From: HGCALLAWAY[…]aol.com
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 09:29:32 EST
X-Message-Number: 12

Peirce-l,

The following message did not get back to me, so it is possibe that it was
not distributed by the listserv program. Please excuse any duplications.

HGC

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Fw: Re: McGinn on Popper
From: Charles F Rudder <cf_rudder[…]juno.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 08:55:03 -0600
X-Message-Number: 13

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

----__JNP_000_30d0.5b9c.7347
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

I am resending following which seems to fallen between the cracks--at
least I have no confirmation of its having been posted. My apologies if
it gets duplicated along the way. Charles

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Charles F Rudder <cf_rudder[…]juno.com>
To: peirce-l[…]lyris.ttu.edu
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:20:40 -0600
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Re: McGinn on Popper

PETER BRAWLEY; LIST

Thanks, Peter, for your response.

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:48:21 -0800 "Peter Brawley"
<peter.brawley[…]artfulsoftware.com> writes:
I enjoyed your survey of Popper, and your analysis of McGinn's paper, and
in the latter I find just two trouble spots.

One concerns Popper's account of positive and negative facts. Apart from
the problem that distinctions between facts and theories can't be
complete (eg Duhem, Quine, methodologic underdetermination &c), Popper's
treatment of logical relations between theories and what he called "basic
statements" had problems. For example in section 28 of "The Logic of
Scientific Discovery" (LScD) he held that "a basic statement must have a
logical form such that its negation cannot be a basic statement in its
turn" and that "basic statements have the form of singular existential
statements...", not of singular non-existence statements, thus
disallowing statements like "there was no raven in spacetime region k'.
Disallowing negative facts makes for many problems in any account of how
evidence bears on theories. IMO it is part of a much larger problem in
Popper--his accounts of theory testing were too often pre-modern in their
emphasis on confrontations between theories and instances, and too often
failed to take into account modern methods of experimental verification
and falsification (methods his LScD had helped propel forward, eg through
its influence on Fisher).
E.Q.

Before commenting further on the issue of "basic statements" or
unimpeachable premises of empirical/experimental arguments in Popper's
logic of scientific discovery, I would like to review the broader context
of the section in LScD to which you refer. From what you say above, it
is not clear to me in what sense "there was no raven in spacetime region
k" is a statement of singular "nonexistence"--it is one thing to deny
"presence" (Jones is not in the next room.) and another to deny
"existence" (There is no Jones.).

PETER WRITES:

The second trouble I have is your remark that McGinn ...

distorts the role of conjectures or guesses in
Popper_s thesis when he says that _it is absurd to
suggest that basic high school science consists
of mere guesses that no one has managed to refute._

You go on to say that Popper acknowledged that facts have a role in
theory building. Yes, but Popper is also on record that knowledge is
guesswork, eg in the introduction to "Conjectures and Refutations":

"The question of the sources of our knowledge, like so many
authoritarian questions, is a genetic one. It asks for the
origin of our knowledge, in the belief that knowledge may
legitimize itself by its pedigree. The nobility of the
racially pure knowledge, the untainted knowledge, the
knowledge which derives from the highest authority, if
possible from God: these are the (often unconscious)
metaphysical ideas behind the question. My modified
question, 'How can we hope to detect error?' may be said
to derive from the view that such pure, untainted and
certain sources do not exist, and that questions of origin
or of purity should not be confounded with questions of
validity, or of truth. This view may be said to be as old
as Xenophanes. Xenophanes knew that our knowledge is
guesswork, opinion - doxa rather than episteme - as shown
by his verses [quoted on p. 31 above]. Yet the traditional
question of the authoritative sources of knowledge is
repeated even today - and very often by positivists and by
other philosophers who believe themselves to be in revolt
against authority."

This view does not quite allow for what McGinn described in the sentences
leading up to his remark about high school science:

"...two other questionable Popperian theses. One is
that science does not consist of established facts but
of tentative conjectures. This is exaggerated and partial
at best: some of science is as solid as the plainest
statement of fact, such as that London is the capital of
England. It is not a tentative conjecture that water
consists of H2O molecules or that, at sea level, it boils
at 100 degrees centigrade: these are hard facts, if
anything is."
E.Q.

The primary emphasis above is on Popper's anti-authoritarianism and its
relation to his anti-foundationalism. My emphasis was principally on
McGinn's "mere" guessing. What I was driving at was that like Peirce,
Popper does not denigrate "guesswork," and, acknowledging the "dignity"
of guesswork, acknowledges the dignity or "nobility" of the human--the
anthropomorphic/anthropocentric--role in the growth of knowledge. The
human is "merely" human only in contrast to the demand that, in Popper's
terms, it be legitimated by an aristocratic "pedigree." At the same
time, I had in mind the circumstance that however brilliant, alluring,
and unfettering, guesswork is nonetheless guesswork which, apart from
restraints imposed by human encounters with something "real," can be or
become as debilitating as head in the sand dogmatism. Both Peirce and
Popper recognize that guessing is an affair that may on the one hand open
new and previously unimagined horizons, and, on the other, wander off
into flights of sheer fancy--in Peirce's terms, dogmatic allegence to
authority may, under the influence of unrestrained guessing, give way to
an equally irrational allegence to what is merely fashionable.
Pre-seventeenth and seventeenth century criticism of Scholasticism
opposed both its dogmatic authoritarianism to which Popper's political
philosophy is addressed and its irresponsible flights of speculation that
troubled Descartes, Bacon, and Hume and to which Popper's falsification
thesis is addressed.

Charles

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: slow delivery of messages
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 09:09:07 -0600
X-Message-Number: 14

MANAGER NOTE: The listserver is delivering messages at a delayed pace --
delays of several hours or more -- but as best i can make out it IS
delivering them. I'll try to get them to speed it up Monday, but it would
be useless to try to get them to do anything until them. So just be patient
about delivery times for a couple of days rather than re-posting, which
won't speed anything up.

Joe Ransdell

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
From: "Alexandre" <weber[…]carrier.com.br>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 13:25:06 -0200
X-Message-Number: 15

Hi Peirce-l,

My name is Alexandre and I live in Santos - S.P. Brazil, a nice harbor city
with a beautiful beach. I've been lurking this list for some weeks and I
have to confess most of what is discussed here is above of my head, but I
have the feeling if I stay here for some years I'll learn lots of things.
The post, replied now, make me thinking about an issue I've been concerned
for some time, so I would like to make some questions, but if they were out
of context of the list , please, don't bother in answer they.

The doubt:

Can deflation trigger a new world war?

Can Peircean grammar explain deflation?

If not, can we understand deflation in the context of firstness, secondness
and thirdness?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Best to all,

Alexandre

PS. Sorry for the terrible English, don't be afraid to correct me.




----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Peircean Semiotic & Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 13:14:04 -0500
X-Message-Number: 16

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

| If you are already acquainted with Peirce's work you will know that he
| prefaced his first systematic account of the logic of science with a pair
| of essays -- "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" --
| which situate logic in the narrower sense in which it is taught in logic
| classes within the general framework of a process of inquiry,<7> which
| might roughly be described overall as follows: A particular inquiry
| process is not to be regarded as having an absolute moment in time when
| it first begins nor a moment in time when it completely and definitively
| ends, but is to be thought of rather as a formally non-terminating process
| (i.e. non-terminating at any identifiable time) in which the starting point
| of a given particular inquiry process falls within an ongoing discursive
| process which has become informed by two or more conflicting tendencies
| toward acceptance of something which, however, cannot be completed because
| to do so would be to accept two or more contradicting assertions of opinion
| at once. A given inquiry is constituted by the inability of the inquirers
| to resolve a disagreement about what is to be accepted. This disagreement
| will have come about as a result of previous understanding up to that point,
| and the overall direction of inquiry is given by the attempt to take such
| steps as are required to get past the initial impasse or aporia in order
| to arrive at a shared acceptance of results. This shared acceptance, if
| it occurs, will enable further inquiry into the same subject-matter to
| proceed, using, when relevant, whatever is accepted as the basis for
| achieving still further understanding of the subject-matter.
|
| To regard logic as a theory of assertion is to take a certain perspective on
| the inquiry process,<8> regarding it particularly from the point of view of
| the individual inquirer, considered as motivated qua member of that research
| community by the aim of making a contribution to the shared understanding of
| the subject-matter which has already developed within the research tradition.
| The act of assertion occurs when the individual inquirer, having prepared
| him/herself sufficiently to be willing to take the risk involved in doing so,
| actually attempts to capture the attention of others in the research field in
| such a way as to cause them to come to the same conclusion which he or she has
| already come to and thus to contribute to the research tradition by shaping it
| in the direction of an ultimately stable and shared understanding of the subject-
| matter. The occurrence of such an act, when it is recognized for what it is, is
| the intentional triggering of a complex set of non-terminating communicational
| obligations and permissions that apply not merely to the researcher making the
| assertion but to everyone in the research tradition addressed by the assertion.
| (This is a special kind of assertion, to be sure, because it occurs within the
| context of communication in an ongoing research community, but it may provide
| helpful clues to understanding what assertion is outside of this special context.)
|
| Now, assertions can be made both in a serious and in a playful or at
| least nonserious spirit, the former being the case whenever the person
| making the assertion takes full responsibility for making a claim which,
| taken seriously by the others in the research community, will put upon
| them the obligation to take what has been claimed seriously enough to
| allow themselves to be persuaded to the conclusion which the claimant
| has already come to, if the claimant has actually made the case for it
| in a way that is found to be rationally persuasive. (By whom? By each
| member of the given research community taken distributively, i.e. taken
| one by one, as distinct from the membership regarded as a collectively
| constituted individual. The research community is not to be regarded
| as a collective entity.<9>) Other obligations are involved as well.
| For example, the claimant is required to be sincere about actually
| having arrived at the conclusion him/herself; those addressed by
| the claim are obligated to make known to the claimant and to the
| research community any serious objections they have to the claim
| made in case they see a serious flaw in it and think it important
| enough to warn others about; anyone addressed by the claim -- i.e.
| any member of the research community -- is permitted to respond
| appropriately to the claim in any other way they see fit, insofar
| as it bears on the question of whether the claim should be accepted;
| the person making the claim is required to include enough information
| about the method of replication of results to enable it to be tested
| according to the claimant's own specifications; the claimant is
| expected to have some explanation in case an objection is made
| to the effect that replication has been attempted but failed;
| and so on.
|
| This describes what I am calling for the moment "serious" assertion,
| and it obviously plays a special role in the inquiry process because
| of the power of a seriously made research claim, regarded as such by all
| concerned, to affect the actual course of research in a given research
| community in virtue of its ability to impose such obligations on those
| in the same community. Assertion in this sense is, of course, the same
| as what is usually referred to as "publication". But the inquiry process
| is not simply a matter of being serious, in the sense just indicated, but
| also involves much -- indeed, far more -- communicational activity of a
| preparatory sort which also affects its outcome but does so differently
| because what is said is not asserted seriously in that sense and thus
| does not trigger the same rigid and rigorous obligations as serious
| assertion triggers. Seriousness, in this special sense, is not a matter
| of how anyone feels: people can, in a nonserious way, argue about matters
| with great passion and intensity of conviction as regards their opinion at
| that moment, but still be arguing nonseriously in that it is understood that
| what is being said is not to be taken as invoking the application of the
| rigid and rigorous communicational norms associated with what is identified
| as a serious claim to a research finding. What makes assertion serious, in
| the relevant sense, is the de facto recognition and acceptance of the intent
| that the special rules of discourse that constitute the obligations and
| permissions attendant to a serious research claim obtain, and this is
| not a matter of how one feels but of the willingness to accept the
| special communicational norms associated with such claims.
|
| Joseph Ransdell,
|"The Relevance of Peircean Semiotic to Computational Intelligence Augmentation"

Joe,

I suppose that different observers will always see slightly or radically different
facets of any large jewel, buried in cotton wadding or not, but I continue to have
trouble recognizing an account here of what I have always considered to be the most
distinctive features of Peirce's model of inquiry. Overall there is just something
too litigious or parliamentary about it. I can see how one might transmute the word
"belief" into an alternative more salable to modern taste, and Peirce does use words
like "acceptance" or "assertaion" often enough to warrant that, not to mention giving
us the helpful metaphors of defending a proposition in real and imaginary courts, as
the "sheet of assertion" and the "game-theoretic" interpretation of the quantifiers,
and so on. Still, inquiry does not begin with assertion or acceptance but with the
irritation of doubt that demands to be appeased and just not appealed. And inquiries,
if successful, do terminate in meeting their ends, even if never but transiently so,
and even if never more than miniscule sub-inquiries of the larger ongoing inquiry.

And again, intelligence is an evolutionary adaptation necessary to most animate life.
I suppose that even the amoeba must face a form of peer review -- you know that I'll
not be the one to stop you from stretching analogies and metaphors till they break --
but I think that we have to consider how the capacity for inquiry ever got started
in the primal soup, that is, without this "logic of publication" already in place.
And then there are times, now and then, when you seem to be describing something
more like the "logic of getting tenure", which is a logic that Peirce failed at.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Intelligence Amp/Aug & Communicational Norms
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 16:43:32 -0600
X-Message-Number: 17


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> JR: Turing regarded the human being as essentially indistinguishable from
a machine;
> Bush regarded the human being as essentially a machine user, and
sought to construct
> symbol-manipulation machines that would be "thinking machines" in the
sense of machines
> to think with, not machines that think. While Bush's vision has
served as the inspiration
> for a vast industry that is rapidly transforming our culture and
society, Turing's vision
> has become the governing paradigm of the research program known as
artificial intelligence
> (AI), and indeed for the entire interdisciplinary field known as
cognitive science. So
> pervasive is the influence of this paradigm that one frequently hears
it said that the
> computational model is the only comprehensive and fully articulated
model of the mind
> available. There is, however, a different model of the mind
available-one which,
> while not articulated by Bush, is fully supportive of the research
program Bush
> initiated, the program today known as "intelligence augmentation"
(IA).
>
> JR: The model I have in mind is one which was articulated in the
nineteenth century
> by Charles Peirce, and which has recently been advocated by James
Fetzer as
> the semiotic model of the mind.
>
> Joe,
>
> Science fiction aside, I detect the beginnings of a false oppostition
here,
> maybe one you do not intend, but I am learning what a careless reader can
> do with a careless statement, even one that is obviously a retrospective
> rhetorical meta-commentary.

The passages above are not written by me, Jon, but by Peter Skagestad.

> Turing, or rather let us speak of the field of recursive function theory
generally,
> does not "regard the human being as essentially indistinguishable from a
machine".
> Its main thrust has been to present several models of "effective
description",
> somewhat surprisingly discovering that all of those yet proposed have
turned
> out to be equivalent in the class of computable functions that they
capture.
>
> Mathematical models do not say what they are about.
> People may see some image or likeness of reality in them,
> but all sensible people and especially all sensible math
> folk already recognize that reality is inexhaustible.
>
> So computational models are meant to capture what mindful people do
> only in so far as mindful people do what is effectively describable.
> The model itself does not say, cannot say, how big a proportion of
> the whole human reality the effectively describable portion may be.

Peter Skagestad is basing what he says -- in the quotes from him above which
you mistakenly attributed to me -- not on the 1936 paper on computable
functions but on what Turing says in the 1950 paper in which the so-called
"Turing Test" is described. Peter's imputation of the view to Turing on the
basis of what he says in the 1950's paper seems reasonable enough to me. In
fact, though, Turing's arguments for the view are so sketchy (to put the
best face on it) and the tone so flippant as to make me wonder whether he
might not be doing a leg pull there. But we can't go on that assumption.

> The notion of effective description is almost the same idea as that
> of the pragmatic maxim, and I do not think that it would be good to
> draw any hard and fast lines that might lend themselves to obscuring
> this connection.

I should think that, on the contrary, the one thing we would not want to do
would be promote the idea that the pragmatic maxim is the demand for an
algorithm, which is what I have often seen identified with the idea of
effective description. But perhaps you do not regard it that way.

> The reason that any of this business has much importance to us is this:
> the relationship between the effectively describable and the teachable.

Well, what is that?

> So the heart of the question is rather ancient: Whether virtue can be
taught.

I don't see that connection. What is it?



----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 16:56:14 -0600
X-Message-Number: 18

Welcome to the list, Alexandre. The questions you are raising would have to
be answered by someone who understands the relationship of Peirce's ideas to
economics, first of all, and there may be nobody currently on the list who
is informed about that. There is in fact some basis in his work for
economics theory, and there have been people knowledgeable about that on the
list, but I don't know what has been or might be figured out on that basis.
Hopefully, someody will be able to provide some pointers (references) for
that.

Joe Ransdell


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexandre" <weber[…]carrier.com.br>
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l[…]lyris.acs.ttu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 9:25 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Thinking with a Manichaean Bent?


> Hi Peirce-l,
>
> My name is Alexandre and I live in Santos - S.P. Brazil, a nice harbor
city
> with a beautiful beach. I've been lurking this list for some weeks and I
> have to confess most of what is discussed here is above of my head, but I
> have the feeling if I stay here for some years I'll learn lots of things.
> The post, replied now, make me thinking about an issue I've been concerned
> for some time, so I would like to make some questions, but if they were
out
> of context of the list , please, don't bother in answer they.
>
> The doubt:
>
> Can deflation trigger a new world war?
>
> Can Peircean grammar explain deflation?
>
> If not, can we understand deflation in the context of firstness,
secondness
> and thirdness?
>
> Thanks in advance for any help.
>
> Best to all,
>
> Alexandre
>
> PS. Sorry for the terrible English, don't be afraid to correct me.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: listserver worse than I thought
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 17:34:30 -0600
X-Message-Number: 19

MANAGER'S NOTE: The listserver is worse than I thought, only delivering
to about half of the list. I'm trying to build a fire under the people
supposedly responsible, but I don't count on anything before monday. The
general solution I had hoped for, at Texas Tech, in connedtion with the
Philosophy Department, is not going to work, for reasons having nothing to
do with me or PEIRCE-L. Finding a reliable home for the list on a reliable
listserver is now the number one problem, to which I have no solution to
propose. If you have any ideas on this, let me know. They will probably
get lyris back to functioning more or less okay for a while, but it just
seems to be incorrigibly flakey and computer support at Texas Tech is just
not responsible enough


Joe Ransdell


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Subject: Re: Peircean Semiotic & Computational Intelligence Augmentation
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey[…]oakland.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 21:44:25 -0500
X-Message-Number: 20

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Joe,

I was working from the ascii copy that had lost all the formatting and
got mangled even further when I saved it out to disk, so I will try to
start again, just to see if it is possible to establish a grounds for
discussion. First of all, there is a whole lot of popular nonsense
out there, especially in the cognitve science journals, where I have
seen whole literature streams that went on for ten years running, the
last time that I checked, where it was pretty obvious that none of the
participants, reviewers, or editors had ever taken a relevant course,
and did not know the distinction between a finite state machine and
a turing machine, between a formal grammar and a formal language,
so if it comes to that, I have long ago resigned to leave it be.

As I presently understand it, we have a number
of proportion problems, otherwise known as
"how big is the subset?" problems.

1. {Effective concepts} c {Arbitrary concepts}
2. {Pragmatic concepts} c {Arbitrary concepts
3. {Scientific concepts} c {Arbitrary concepts}
4. {Intelligent conduct} c {Arbitrary conduct}

An effective concept, description, predicate, term, or whatever,
is one for which you have an effective procedure (algorithm) for
deciding when it applies to any given instance (and perhaps when
it does not, but that's a later issue).

A pragmatic concept is one that can be completely clarified along the
lines of the pragmatic maxim, in terms of the effects that the object
of the concept might have in all of its conceivable practical bearings.

A scientific concept is one whose application is repeatable and testable.

The only thing that I want to say about intelligent conduct at this stage
is that it is directed in accordance with some purpose and that not all
behavior is intelligent or rational.

These characterizations become more informal as we go down the list,
but there are some immediate analogies between them, and there are
more analogies that develop the more that one tries to clarify the
vaguer ones.

Now, I am not myself looking for an algorithm for the whole of inquiry,
because there is a problem about how concepts get formed in the first
place that presents too big a mystery to me at present, but neither
do I have a proof that there can't be any such thing.

So I am focusing on the special properties that concepts must have
in order to qualify them for use in science, and there we do have
a whole lot of similarity between the effective, pragmatic, and
scientific concepts. I even have reason to believe that the
classes converge the more that one requires a high degree of
completeness in the way that examples fit the requirements.

Jon Awbrey

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END OF DIGEST 11-30-02