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PEIRCE-L Digest 1283 -- February 3-4, 1998
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Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Re: What is zero? What is number?
by Thomas.Riese[…]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
2) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by Tom Anderson
3) Re: What is zero? What is number?
by Tom Anderson
4) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by John Oller
5) Re: The end of philosophy
by Dennis Bradley Knepp
6) Re: What is zero? What is number?
by joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell, joseph m.)
7) Re: What is zero? What is number?
by Thomas.Riese[…]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
8) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by Tom Anderson
9) Re: What is zero? What is number?
by Tom Anderson
10) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by BugDaddy[…]cris.com (BugDaddy)
11) Re: Hypostatic Symbols (i.e., the concepts underlying the highest abstractions)
by Cathy Legg
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:23:45 +0100
From: Thomas.Riese[…]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID:
Dear Alan Manning,
to find the square root of 2 is as easy as that 1x1=1 and 2x2=4 for
then you can GUESS that it must lie between 1 and 2. _Doing_ so you
get successive MEANINGS (arithmetic means) a, a', a'',..., your
initial guess a being the zeroth mean thus:
a' = (a + 2/a)/2
The process converges very quickly: the number of significant decimal
places is doubled with every step.
So starting with e.g. a=1.5 as your first guess (resp. zeroth mean)
you get in succession:
a' = 1.416667
a'' = 1.414216
a''' = 1.414214
..
Well, the whole thing is a bit irrational of course, since it never
ends and nevertheless works, even with any other square root.
Greetings,
Thomas Riese:-)
P.S. I am very interested in reading John Robertson's paper.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 10:49:43 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D766C7.2E5514E1[…]ix.netcom.com>
Howard Callaway wrote:
> My impression is that the points mentioned here might bring us to
> a consideration of Goodman's "Grue" paradox. Though Goodman formulated
> in in reference to induction, given the interaction of abduction and
> hypothesis testing which Tom emphasizes, I suspect that we might use-
> fully look at Peirce on induction in relation to the Grue paradox.
> Surely, there is a relationship here.
>
> So, if x is green, y is blue, and z is green, we are not inclined to
> count this as a genuine repetition, tending to support a generalization
> involving "grue," though, if y is also green, then we do seem to have
> a repetition supporting or suggesting a relevant generalization or
> hypothesis, involving "green." The difference seems to be that "green"
> already fits in with our established belief in some way, while "grue"
> does not. Obviously much more could be said, but I'm wondering in the
> first place if looking at abduction in this way might hold out some
> interest to the issues now under discussion on this thread.
As peculiar as it might sound, I think that considerations similar to those
raised by Goodman's new riddle were at the heart of Peirce's analysis of
abduction. A judgement that something is grue is just the sort of logically
possible judgement that Peirce argues we never make -- when he talks about the
severely constrained hypothesis space that we actually take serious in any
realm in contrast to the huge realm of logically possible hypotheses that
could be entertained to account for any reasonably rich phenomena. "Grue"
made such an impact because it is catchy -- but you could think of a host of
similar ideas, some much more plausible but still never actually entertained.
I can explain the workings of an elevator because a certain percentage of
those who ride it wear wedding rings. The fact is that we don't offer those
kinds of explanations -- the range of hypotheses we consider, although it
might be big, is hugely smaller than the possible range.
Earlier, Howard wrote:
> I'm tempted to say something like this, that abduction which results
> in hypothesis formation is implicitly or explicitly "guided" by
> established belief in the domain of inquiry. Perhaps the point is
> obvious, and doesn't need to be emphasized, but if we think of
> abduction as "guided" by everything established in the domain, and
> not merely by particular premises we want to put in a quasi-
> syllogistic form, then this might relate the discussion of abduction
> to prior discussion concerning the "unification of the manifold," and
> the contextual character of the validity of judgment.
>
Some people are better at abduction in some realms -- because they know more,
so they can constrain their hypothesis space more intricately. I don't think
the point is any more obvious than anything else about abduction -- in some
ways the phenomenon is totally obvious, so much so that it escapes notice and
comment. Few people, Peirce among them, notice how unusual it really is that
such a form of inferences operates and works, and fewer still attempt to
analyze it carefully, Peirce among them.
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 11:37:48 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID: <34D7720C.C1FB26A3[…]ix.netcom.com>
Alan Manning wrote:
> All you mathematically-inclined Peirceans:
>
> First, a quick query. Can anybody out there describe for me the process of
> calculating (approximating) the square root of two (or any other numbers
> with irrational roots) to the Nth decimal place? I remember learning a
> way, but I've mostly forgotten how I did math before calculators. Here's a
> tougher one: what algorithm does one follow to calculate numbers like "pi"
> to the Nth decimal place?
Here's a web page about pi: http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/pi/pi.html. The Borweins
at Simon Fraser University came up with a formula to generat the nth
hexadecimal place of pi, but as far as I know, no one can produce the nth
decimal place without producing all of the preceding decimal places. Their
formula is as I understand it a refinement of one by Ramanujan. There are some
nice old formulas, such as
pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 - 1/11 + . . ., but this one converges very
slowly. Ramanujan came up with several that converge very fast, so that you
can use his formulae to calculate a certain number of digits and know that you
are accurate as far as you go. In the web page I referred to, Borwein, Borwein
and Bailey comment on the state of our ignorance about pi, and mention many key
facts about pi that we have no answers to. They conclude their section about
our current ignorance with this comment on the practical utility of calculating
pi to many digits:
In part we perhaps settle for computing digits of pi because there is
little else we can currently do. We would be amiss, however, if we did not
emphasize that the extended precision calculation of has substantial
application as a test of the ``global integrity'' of a supercomputer. The
extended precision calculations described in Section 3 uncovered hardware
errors which had to be corrected before those calculations could
successfully run. Such calculations, implemented as in Section 4, are
apparently now used routinely to check supercomputers before they leave
the factory. A large-scale calculation of pi is entirely unforgiving; it
soaks into all parts of the machine and a single bit awry leaves
detectable consequences.
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 11:36:35 -0600
From: John Oller
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D755A3.29C4[…]usl.edu>
Tom Anderson wrote:
>
> I'd like to make a quick comment on this dialogue between John Oller,
> Tom Gollier and Bill Overcamp.
>
> I agree with John that abduction fills out the picture of logic, and
> that an account of the logic of inquiry or knowledge is sadly incomplete
> without it.
Right, and in that sense abduction has a certain necessity about
it--that is, logic is incomplete without it and deduction and induction
are, in fact, if abduction is done away with, impossible to develop.
> I also agree with Tom [G] that as it stands, there is a certain
> kind of logical deficiency in abduction -- only as viewed from the
> perspective of induction and deduction.
You're exactly right when you say "only as viewed from the perspective
of" which is the error of that approach, on account of the fact that
those views from that perspective cannot be developed at all without
abduction. Therefore, it is hardly possible to make the foundation
accountable to the roof when the roof cannot be built unless the
foundation first be laid down. The thing that troubles logicians is that
the foundation appears to be less solid than the roof, but in the final
analysis that seeming anomaly is accounted for and explained fully, and
we understand from the theory of abstraction why it is and how it is
that inductive and deductive reasoning are each more secure in turn than
their own abductive basis.
> John argues that something in
> abductive inference is necessary,
No. I have, I think, merely defended Peirce's case for the unity of
conception as a necessary element in thinking. And, I have alluded to
certain developments of that idea in the form of TNR theory. Here is a
Peirce quote lifted from Tom Gollier.
>
> ================= Quote Peirce 1.89 =================
> .. Now a retroductive conclusion is only justified by its
> explaining an observed fact. An explanation is a syllogism of which
> the major premiss, or rule, is a known law or rule of nature, or
> other general truth; the minor premiss, or case, is the hypothesis
> or retroductive conclusion, and the conclusion, or result, is the
> observed (or otherwise established) fact.
> ==================== End Quote ======================
>
Tom Anderson continues:
> and I couldn't disagree more
You disagree less than you think. If I could just get a couple of points
to register, we are not so far apart, I suppose, as you think.
> -- I do
> think abduction is often certain, or nearly so, and probably in the vast
> majority of cases abduction is certain, or at least more than good
> enough to go on.
Agreed, and nothing in any of my arguments, nor Peirce's as I understand
them requires that any give abduction be "necessary". However, if any
given abduction happens to be correct (i.e., partakes of the characters
of a true narrative representation--all of which are abductive at their
basis) then the powers of both induction and deduction are unleashed.
This is not the same as saying that any given case has to be true. This
point has been made carefully and repeatedly. (It amazes us all that the
powers of deduction should be dependent in the peculiar way that they
are on abduction.)
Recall the quotation from Einstein on the fact that no particular
perception can be absolutely relied upon. However, when a whole host of
perceptual judgments all point to the same abductive conclusion, the
likelihood that the abductive judgment suggested is valid increases
toward a limit of diminishing doubt very rapidly, and a multitude of
abductive judgments form the basis for induction. Deduction, it is true,
retains a kind of indifference to abductive judgments (and inductive as
well) and yet cannot be made intelligible without them. And, as Peirce
noted, as soon as we know enough to make the judgment secure (e.g., that
I am dealing here with my old friend Tom Anderson and that we are back
to old disagreements already worked over), we know more than enough.
> Magicians typically use abduction to get you to
> believe that something impossible happened -- evidence is presented that
> you can virtually only fit together in a way that supports the illusion
> via abductive inference.
An analogy most applicable to the manner in which you, dear Tom
Anderson, perhaps unintentionally misunderstand and reconstrue what I
have said. By sweeping aside my point that no abductive judgment is
necessary all by its lonesome, you achieve your positional but illusory
advantage. But my arguments, if understood, preclude your
interpretation.
> A skeptic uses this as evidence for the
> unreliability of our abductions -- although no skeptic phrases the
> argument thus -- but you could turn the argument around and point out
> that it takes great skill to be able to create such illusions, and that
> normally our abductions are reliable.
Indeed, just as an error or a lie must resemble a TNR to function as
such (i.e., as an error mistaken for a TNR, or as a lie erroneously
believed to be true), the illusionist's tricks are dependent on ordinary
abductive judgments applied in ordinary ways to phenomena that have been
carefully arranged (in extraordinary ways) to deceive (yet usually
without harm). Abduction is by no means disproved or disestablished by
illusions, on the contrary, its merits are thereby demonstrated.
> And as John points out with his
> infant example, our routine perceptions of stable objects are abductive.
You seem to neglect, in the very next line, the fact that all scientists
start out as infants and that infants appear to use the basic principles
of science in developing their theories of the world. Recall the
Leibnizian principle and Ockham's razor and the discussion pertaining to
each.
>
> When it comes to scientific abductions, though, I'd argue that they are
> a lot less reliable,
No. This is just a mistake. Perceptions in an experimental context are
exactly as susceptible of misinterpretation as in other contexts of
experience. That is precisely why in the sciences we require
replicability and, often, actual replication before results are widely
accepted. Even then, with evident replications, errors can still lurk
undetected for long periods. With hopefulness, we aim to reduce our
tendency to err by paying closer attention and by cross-checking, but
ordinary perception is so critical to experimental observations that
Einstein could insist that scientific thought was not really different
from ordinary thinking. Peirce's case against the criticism of
sensations is the same argument in a different light.
> and stand very much in need of testing, and further
> that the result of any test is usually not to confirm or disconfirm but
> to force revisions
According to some, but the idea that negation does not involve
affirmations in order to establish the negation is easily seen to be
false in any conceivable case. To note that X is not Y, it is necessary
to affirm certain traits of X and of Y and to affirm that they are not
shared. To note that "this" is not "that" the contexts of "this" must be
affirmed and of "that", and the distance between the two must also be
noted in a positive way. See the earlier discussion of negation and zero
in a previous post.
> -- our hypotheses allow us to structure reality in
> the form of data that we can review, and what this review usually shows
> is that our hypothesis captured a part of the structure we were
> investigating, but also the data reveals anomalies between the data and
> hypothesis. In light of the anomalies, we develop new hypotheses and
> test them. From the point of view of conformity to reality, the results
> of abduction range all the way from zero to one, with most of them (I
> submit) being at or close to one, but the more scientific they get the
> further from one they get. Although some abductions are as certain as
> anything ever is, I'd still argue they aren't necessary -- and I'd argue
> that abductions had the same logical status all the way along the line
> from zero to one -- and then the logical status of the propositions
> proposed by abduction or hypothesis is given by deduction and induction.
Agreed, except that abductions can be linked by inductive comparisons
and inferences and can begin to mount up toward a limit beyond which a
certain generalization is virtually assured. E.g., that I am really
arguing with Tom Anderson again.
>
> Abduction remains the without which not of logical investigation,
No dispute there.
> the
> feature that most logicians ignore and we owe a great deal to Peirce
> for having placed hypothesis generation so near the center of inquiry.
Hear! Hear!
>
> What do you think?
I think you are a very clever lad, Tom Anderson. I wish you could
realize how your remarks parody the position you claim to argue against.
Still you have my admiration as always, and you pique my great desire to
both understand these difficult matters and to communicate about them
more effectively.
Sadly I have other pressing issues (and less important ones which is the
real source of the present grief) to address at the moment. I'll have to
leave this thread for a while in your own and the other capable hands of
my colleagues here on Peirce-L. I wish you all well. I've got to get
some computers hooked up and a certain memo constructed explaining a
policy about Masters exams. Not a favorite topic. I also have some
research to attend to and a bunch of data from Korea on bilingual
language and IQ measures to analyze. I really hate to leave and look
forward to getting back to the discussion soon. Conferences as always
are also bearing down. Bon courage to us all, as I know you folks are
dealing with much the same kinds of demands in your different contexts
(and pardon me for my plaintive tone).
All the best,
John Oller
***************************************
John W. Oller, Jr., Professor and Head
Department of Communicative Disorders
University of Southwestern Louisiana
P.O.Box 43170
Lafayette, LA 70504-3170
***************************************
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:39:15 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Bradley Knepp
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: The end of philosophy
Message-ID:
Joe--
As far as I'm concerned you can keep hogging the forum!!! I'm
enjoying reading your comments.
I was born in 1970, so my views of philosophy in the 40's and 50's
have been acquired second and third hand. Many of my views are culled
from stories that professors tell me about the Good Ole Days when we
believed, with Quine, that philosophy of science is philosophy enough.
At any rate, I think that Kuhn can be helpful here. Analytic
philosophy filled a job that it's main rivals could not. Grad students
could easily be taught the rules of the game and allowed to play along --
by publishing. Thereby allowing very large groups of people to "do
philosophy." The G.I. Bill had created thousands of new professors who
needed to follow the old guidelines of publishing to advance. And, by
setting themselves up as a "scientific philosophy," the Analytics were
able to fit in with the over-all cold-war mentality of the era. Remember
what Kuhn said: advancements in research are largely determined by who
gets the research grants. If you can sell your project as being
scientific, then you get the research grant.
The power of the research grant is still alive. Old man McDonald,
of the McDonald-Douglass corporation, decided that he was interested in
how the mind works. Somehow he was sold the idea of funding a philosophy
department to research the mind, and the
Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program here at Wash U. was born. The
majority of the courses and the excitment is focused on the PNP program,
and if you're not a part of it, too bad.
--Dennis Knepp, resentful in Washington University in St. Louis
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:42:03 -0600
From: joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell, joseph m.)
To:
Subject: Re: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID: <003101bd30d3$6ce01760$13a432ce[…]ransdell.door.net>
Tom Anderson says:
> the extended precision calculation of has substantial
> application as a test of the ``global integrity'' of a
supercomputer. The
> extended precision calculations described in Section 3 uncovered
hardware
> errors which had to be corrected before those calculations could
> successfully run. Such calculations, implemented as in Section 4,
are
> apparently now used routinely to check supercomputers before they
leave
> the factory. A large-scale calculation of pi is entirely
unforgiving; it
> soaks into all parts of the machine and a single bit awry leaves
> detectable consequences.
I believe we may have stumbled across the location of the Divine
Stern-ness, Tom! But surely I jest. More seriously, what better
argument could there be for the realism of mathematical law? This
should at any rate run all of the sceptics out of computer science!
("You say law is just a verbal formula? Then why are you correcting
those machines?")
Joe Ransdell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph Ransdell or <>
Department of Philosophy, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX 79409
Area Code 806: 742-3158 office 797-2592 home 742-0730 fax
ARISBE: Peirce Telecommunity website - http://members.door.net/arisbe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 20:05:10 +0100
From: Thomas.Riese[…]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID:
Thanks for the interesting URL, Tom!
What I could contribute, is that the (pre-Ramanujan) methods all go
back to the series-expansion of the arcustangens-function
arctan x = x - (x^3)/3 + (x^5)/5 - (x^7)/7 +- ...
Most calculation formulas are then combinations of arctan-series
which converge more or less "quickly" (given e.g. by Gauss and
Stroemer).
Though practically speaking: if you have calculated pi with just 14
decimal places and then use it to calculate the circumference of the
earth from the radius (ca. 6400 km), the error will be less than
0.001 mm.
What seems to me interesting is the fact that the trancendence of pi
has been proved as recently as 1882 by Lindemann ("Concerning the
number pi.")
For nonmathematicians: irrational numbers are divided into
'algebraic' and 'transcendental' -- so in a sense they can be more
or less 'irrational'. Transcendental numbers 'transcend the powers of
algebra' in that they are not roots of any algebraic equations.
Geometrically speaking 'algebraic' (constructible by a finite number
of rational operations and square roots) corresponds to
'constructible by ruler and compass'.
There are very interesting and famous lectures by Felix Klein, who
was a contemporary of Peirce, titled 'Famous Problems of Elementary
Geometry' on the "Quadrature of the Circle" and Lindemanns famous
proof on the transcendentality of pi. (Reprinted in 1962 at Chelsea)
Thomas Riese.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 15:49:09 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D7ACF5.4D124DDD[…]ix.netcom.com>
John, it shounds as if I'm going to have to agree with most of what you wrote!
I'm still sticking on the 'necessary' part, even when it comes not to the
necessity of abductive inference, but to the ROLE of abductive inference in
the logic of inquiry. I'd agree that it's important, and even that it
it's essential -- but necessary? I think part of the difference we have comes
from differences in background, and my exposure -- exposure that's getting
pretty old now, although I do read things from time to time -- to analytic
philosophy, and to what always strikes me as an obsessive concern with
necessary argument and a decided lack of interest in other kinds of argument.
This isn't a totally fair characterization, and I could cite a great many
interesting and valuable exceptions -- also some of those who are leading
lights in analytical philosophy. But I think it's part of professional
philosophy culture to place excessive value on necessary arguments -- in turn,
supporting skepticism, because outside of mathematics necessary arguments that
are interesting are scarce.
> You seem to neglect, in the very next line, the fact that all scientists
> start out as infants and that infants appear to use the basic principles
> of science in developing their theories of the world. Recall the
> Leibnizian principle and Ockham's razor and the discussion pertaining to
> each.
> >
> > When it comes to scientific abductions, though, I'd argue that they are
> > a lot less reliable,
>
> No. This is just a mistake. Perceptions in an experimental context are
> exactly as susceptible of misinterpretation as in other contexts of
> experience. That is precisely why in the sciences we require
> replicability and, often, actual replication before results are widely
> accepted. Even then, with evident replications, errors can still lurk
> undetected for long periods. With hopefulness, we aim to reduce our
> tendency to err by paying closer attention and by cross-checking, but
> ordinary perception is so critical to experimental observations that
> Einstein could insist that scientific thought was not really different
> from ordinary thinking. Peirce's case against the criticism of
> sensations is the same argument in a different light.
>
Yes, good points.
> > and stand very much in need of testing, and further
> > that the result of any test is usually not to confirm or disconfirm but
> > to force revisions
>
> According to some, but the idea that negation does not involve
> affirmations in order to establish the negation is easily seen to be
> false in any conceivable case. To note that X is not Y, it is necessary
> to affirm certain traits of X and of Y and to affirm that they are not
> shared. To note that "this" is not "that" the contexts of "this" must be
> affirmed and of "that", and the distance between the two must also be
> noted in a positive way. See the earlier discussion of negation and zero
> in a previous post.
Again, your points are sound (although I don't understand the zero/negation
reference here and I'm curious about what you mean -- I'll try and find the
message).
I referred a while back to Deborah Mayo's book on error & philosophy of
science, where she places great emphasis on what Kuhn calls 'normal science'
and points out that the anomalies that lead to scientific revolutions may not
be very controversial -- that is, both adherents and opponents of a 'paradigm'
may be able to agree on the factuality of anomalous findings, that they show
such and such, and that on the face of it they clash with the given 'paradigm'
-- as opposed to the popular view of 'normal science' that it is some kind of
mob psychology marked by conformism. She argues on the contrary that a mature
scientific practice has very strong methods for determining facts, far
stronger than for determining the truth of theories, and that it's this
cultivated culture of distinguishing truth from error in small ways that
ultimately decides between competing theories. Perhaps you are saying
something similar here.
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 18:01:02 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID: <34D7CBDE.7A278464[…]ix.netcom.com>
ransdell, joseph m. wrote:
> I believe we may have stumbled across the location of the Divine
> Stern-ness, Tom! But surely I jest. More seriously, what better
> argument could there be for the realism of mathematical law? This
> should at any rate run all of the sceptics out of computer science!
> ("You say law is just a verbal formula? Then why are you correcting
> those machines?")
Yes! Incidentally, Joe, I'm reading a great popular book, OUT OF THEIR
MINDS: THE LIVES AND DISCOVERIES OF 15 GREAT COMPUTER SCIENTISTS, by
Dennis Shasha and Cathy Lazere, 1995, NYC: Copernicus (Springer-Verlag).
It's interesting to me that some of the more mathematically inclined of
these people, Edsgar Dijkstra, Leslie Lamport especially, comment that they
couldn't have done the work they did -- in their case involving important
mathematical theorems about computers & software -- if they hadn't been
very isolated, because they both used far higher standards of proof than
were common among mathematicians -- and because they were experienced
programmers who knew that errors when materially implemented resulted in
big problems. The book is also interesting for some good sketches of
issues involving complexity, randomness and difficulty of computation. The
people are all very fascinating -- each of them a little bit or more of an
oddball one way or another. The book covers, in addition to the two I
mentioned, John Backus, John McCarthy, Alan Kay, Michael Rabin, Donald
Knuth, Robert Tarjan, Stephen Cook, Leonid Levin, Frederick Brooks, Burton
Smith, Daniel Hillis, Edward Feigenbaum and Douglas Lenat.
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 03:14:20 GMT
From: BugDaddy[…]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34dcd946.7185805[…]pop3.cris.com>
John Oller wrote:
>BugDaddy wrote:
>> I can't speak for Tom, but I think you have misinterpreted what I
>> wrote. I do not see that I "rejected" anything. I said I did
>> not understand. Perhaps I asked a dumb question...
>Didn't I read a series of posts recently with your name attached that
>were singing the praises of "multiplicity" (something about a roller
>coaster ride) as against "unity"? It is that rejected "unity of
>conception" that I was aiming to defend. If you have not rejected it,
>then you would, I think, be in a better position to understand the
>merits of Peirce's conception of abduction. Perhaps I have misunderstood
>your position on "multiplicity" versus "unity". If I am wrong, please
>show me where.
I really have not stated my position, but instead asked
questions. Is this not what slow reading requires, questions to
be explored?
>
>Then the question is to seek a consistent understanding of Peirce that
>would accord with his manner of thinking. This means that we must see
>his notion of the "unity of conception" in the manner in which he has
>put it forward. Reject his argument for the "unity of conception" and we
>might as well abandon hope of understanding or doing justice to Peircean
>thought or its derivatives.
Ah, but we are engaged in slow reading. We need to take time to
smell the flowers. There should be plenty of time for doing
justice to Peircean thought.
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Friend and lover you have taken away. My only friend is darkness.
Psalm 88:18
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Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
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Bill Overcamp
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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 16:54:12 +1100 (EDT)
From: Cathy Legg
To: John Oller
Cc: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Hypostatic Symbols (i.e., the concepts underlying the highest abstractions)
Message-ID:
On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, John Oller wrote:
> My idea of
> hypostasis involves a trichotomous distinction between it and
> discrimination used in the usual way and prescission used in a
> substantially modified way (detailed in part in the paper to appear in
> the volume Bill Spinks is editing on the Semiotic Society of America
> meeting of 1997). By the latter, prescission, I mean the mental
> operation of literally removing an image (or a prescinded sign) from an
> object while keeping that object (its discriminated percept, situated in
> a particular space-time context) in view. Here, as Vincent Colapietro
> noted at the SSA meeting, my definition of prescission is different from
> Peirce's, but not, I think, in spirit. A hypostatic sign (the next
> abstraction from a prescinded sign), on my reading, is one that achieves
> full generality to a limit and applies to all possible contexts rather
> than just the one or ones we may have happened to encounter up to any
> given moment in time.
This distinction between prescissive and hypostatic abstraction is
something I am trying to get clear on myself and don't think I
understand. Would it be possible to run through the distinction for me
via an example? So for instance if I regard the stuffed gorilla that sits
on my computer and "discriminate" the particular dark yellow which
belongs to the banana which it is holding, how is it different
(logically) if I "prescind" or "hypostatically abstract" that particular
yellow? Do I give a degree of existence to the property concerned
in the latter case? Or a greater degree of reality?? What is meant
exactly by "full generality to a limit" in your passage above?
888888888888888888
Kind regards,
Cathy.
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