The ontological assumptions of science.

fresco wrote:

Cyra...no. The concept "color" would not be in our language.

But the "ontic reality of color" would still be there. The data we then derived from our studies of the organisms capable of sensing color would be unverifiable theory to us.

There are such scientific theories today, string theory perhaps being the most famous one.

So it would seem that even though science requires no assumptions of an "ontic reality", ontic reality is what it unveils. Perhaps the particle accelerator they're building at cern will expand our conceptual reality...

Perhaps this is one of the mechanisms evolution works through, in establishing conceptual reality in the entities it produces with the capacity to have such perception. But that is a misgiving way of putting it, since it implies the intent to do so on nature's part.

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Terry,

There are no "photons" wothout observers who agree on what mutual acts lead to the events evoking the use of that term. We have had this discussion before. You are clinging to "ontic reality" when in fact modern physics (post Heisenberg) supports its illusory status. The question is not which view is "correct" but which view is of greater functional value. Maturana is overtly "ecologically orientated" and his paradigm of consensus as "structural coupling" is in part a political tool in support the sustainability of the planet as a macro-structure. He is rejecting the paradigm of "ultimate control" by scientists proposing "underlying causes" as shortsightedly pernicious.

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Cyracuz,

I can't agree with you on the "color" argument. A dog's sense of smell is thousands of times more sensitive than ours but we have not resorted to subcategorizations of the olfactory sense perculiar to dog's (yet). That will only happen if at some future time we become interested in such descriptions for our human purposes.

Von Glazersfeld writes of Maturana and science...

Quote:

Physics for example explains how it comes about that heavy objects "fall", by means of the concept of gravity; that heavenly bodies exert a gravitational pull, can perhaps be reduced to the curvature of space; but why space should be curved in an ontic world is a question to which the physicist neither has nor needs an explanatory answer - he may merely observe that the assumption of curved space makes possible some useful calculations and predictions. Those physicists who have become aware of the epistemological foundations of their science, have said this quite clearly, because, like Maturana, they have realized that it is their own concepts, their own operations of distinction that bring forth the experiential world which they describe in their science.

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Agreed on the dog thing, fresco.

But back to the color argument. I can only assume that if the research on the organism with color capacity revealed variables previously unknown to us, it would be in our interest to at least get a sense of what these variables do.
I think that theories would form and fall apart according to our needs and what expectations we might have for the use of such theories. In short, there would be a debate on wether or not it was useful.

If we believe in some form of evolution theory, we can assume that man hasn't always possessed the ability to be aware of himself.
As I see it, awareness of the temporal dimension is a direct result of this self awareness, since it puts the entity in a context.
Prior to that, the reality of the creature that was to become human was three dimensional. There was a sense of space, but not time.
While ontic reality never changed, human reality did, and I like to assume that it can still change.

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Getting late...I'll get back to you on that.

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Yeah, you're an hour ahead of me I think, and it's pretty late here too..

Good nigh Smile

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Quote:

If we believe in some form of evolution theory, we can assume that man hasn't always possessed the ability to be aware of himself.

Two points.

1. What we call "man" may be synonymous with "languager" which according to many is axiomatic to "self awareness". In the mathematical model "catastrophe theory" we have a picture of spontaneous emergence of "new"structure.

2. Maturana argues that evolution is not about emergent "properties" but about emergent "adaptations to niches" thereby expanding our focus as "super-observers" to include organism and environment. Note also that the term "environment" has both "physical" and "social" aspects.

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bm

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Cyracuz,

I notice I have not suggested an answer about how we "commune with an ontic reality". Such an answer lies in the in the nature of language and the inextricability of language and "thought". A focal point in this is surely the temporal independence of "the word" as an apparant "representation of reality". Thus the use of the word "tree" implies its permanent status for interlocutors hence its "reality". But commentators on Maturana point out that the English word "representation" encompasses two connotations (associated with the Geman forms Darstellung and Vorstellung), the first being "a static picture" but the second being a dynamic "re-living of experience". The idea of a "fixed reality" is attributable to the first.

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fresco wrote:

Terry,

There are no "photons" wothout observers who agree on what mutual acts lead to the events evoking the use of that term.

Here you have the problem of having no authority to make such an assertion. You can no more authoritatively and definitively deny that there are photons without observations than anyone can authoritatively and definitively assert that photons exist independently of observation.

This is where the arguments of those who deny the reality which they arrogantly refer to as "naive reality" always break down. Such arguments always assert an authority to speak of the nature of experience and "the world" which is no better founded than the authority of those who assert that a real world exists independent of our observation and description.

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Setanta,

Raising an "authority" issue misses the point that scientific "theories" operate by a functionality principle not a "truth" principle. Therefore, as pointed out in the Von Glazersfeld quote, it is usually irrelevant to the experimental prediction to view "space is curved" as a statement of "ontological reality" or whether to view it as statement about "a mathematical structure". However those scientists who are "epistemologically educated" tend to agree with the latter view and not the former. Such "education" can certainly seems to be apparent in Einstein's comment "Reality is an illusion albeit a persistent one".
Following Heisenberg, the inextricability of observer and observed was one of the foubdation stones of quantum theory. So the point is that "naive realism" no longer has a valid claim to "equivalent worth". There is experimemtal evidence to the contrary. (see for example discussions of "Non-locality")

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fresco

In a sense, we are ontic reality, wouldn't you say? (I guess you would, since it is implied in your use of the word "commune" rather than "communicate") What we refer to as human existence is this very communion with ontic reality. In a sense, the representation we have of it, the one we might call "conceptual reality", is merely a by-product of existence.

So both concepts, "fixed reality" and the "dynamic re-living of experience" are useful to us in that they are expressions of existence. But can we say if one is more "real" than the other?

Btw, get a sense of being on thin ice here. Please correct me if I have misunderstood you.

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Cyracuz,

"Reality" tends to boil down to "what works".....but because "what works" is event-dependent and hence observer(s) dependent, it seems to have no "ontic status" of its own. Comparing Newtonian and Einsteinian views of "gravity" is one such example of this. Usually we are drawn to views of "reality" which we can experience or imagine with the five senses, hence anthropomorphic concepts of "a deity".

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I see, I think.

But if reality tends to boil down to "what works" (can we call it practical reality?), then we have to consider the fact that practical reality may not be an accurate re-rendering of what it represents. Isn't practical reality then something that allows for illusions to be seen as something real?

The concepts of transcending self, for instance, are denied by those who relate to the concept "self" as something absolute and distinguishable on the basis that "it works".

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Only the effects of gravity are observable. Modern physicists have still been unable to demonstrate the material particles responsible for gravitational force. (Newton also lamented the fact that he could not describe a material cause for gravitational attraction.)

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wandeljw
that's simple. The cause is love. Very Happy

(not being too serious here)

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The hardest thing for use "languagers" to do is to drop "causality", because every grammatical sentence requires at least a subject plus verb. Thus every sentence implies the "existence of a causative agent".
Yet here we have Maturana saying that seeking "causes" is a futile or delimited paradigm doomed to micomprehension by fragmentation.

A parable comes to mind in the spirit if this point.

God and the Devil are watching humanity from above when God exclaims: "Look! That man has picked up a a real piece of knowledge."
"I'm not bothered", says the Devil, "Watch him take it apart and render it useless !"

(Not bad for an atheist don't you think Smile

)

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fresco wrote:

Setanta,

Raising an "authority" issue misses the point that scientific "theories" operate by a functionality principle not a "truth" principle. Therefore, as pointed out in the Von Glazersfeld quote, it is usually irrelevant to the experimental prediction to view "space is curved" as a statement of "ontological reality" or whether to view it as statement about "a mathematical structure". However those scientists who are "epistemologically educated" tend to agree with the latter view and not the former. Such "education" can certainly seems to be apparent in Einstein's comment "Reality is an illusion albeit a persistent one".
Following Heisenberg, the inextricability of observer and observed was one of the foubdation stones of quantum theory. So the point is that "naive realism" no longer has a valid claim to "equivalent worth". There is experimemtal evidence to the contrary. (see for example discussions of "Non-locality")

Your initial contention is nonsense. I did not refer to "truth," nor do i assume that "authority" is evidence of "truth." My point is that people speak as though with authority, but in fact, their "authority" is no better founded than the "authority" of those who disagree with them, and present an argument which is distinguished from the argument of the first "authority" based upon different principles of "logic," or of "interpretation." My only point is that making statements from authority in a realm in which any participant questions the "reality" of a statement based upon contentions about "language" and "meaning" leads to arguments none of which is any better founded than any other argument presented. I made no reference to "truth," and it is nor relevant to the point i was making, which is that as soon as someone questions the authority of anyone's contention based on a "corruption" from language, meaning, understanding--what have you--none of the parties to the argument have any greater claim to an authoritative statement than any other party to the argument. If you wish to introduce a concept of "truth," you once again suffer from the inability to found any contention you make upon any surer foundation than anyone who chooses to disagree with you.

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Setanta,

By "better founded" I mean claim more support from the subject specialists. This now seems to be the trend in the case of the rejection of naive realism by physicists, which allows commentators on Maturana to refer to them. Indeed it is perhaps only within such paradigmatic "authority" that Maturana can be "understood" at all !

There are criticisms of Maturana's theory but not in terms of its epistemological status....rather (a) in terms of its internal coherence which fails to adequately include the action of biological viruses, and (b) in terms of its eco-political subtext. Its epistemological "value" clearly lies in its achievement in advancing on the ideas of Kant, Piaget and others.

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When i refer to better founded, although it does not necessarily refer to your boy Maturana, it might be applied. What i am saying is that at such point as anyone objects to an argument or contention on the basis of that argument or contention being founded in language and culture, whoever makes such objection is him- or herself subject to the same objection. Therefore, epistemology is the point of my remark, and more specifically, i am attempting to get at at what point anyone would allege that one person's argument is unfounded due to epistemological flaws, but the same cannot be said of the person making the allegation.

So, for example, i might say red, to which you would object that this ("red") is only an artifact of language and culture. If i say that i mean by that light radiation in the range of 625 to 750 nanometers wavelength, do you still have an objection for which you will allege an epistemological basis? Is not any such objection itself subject to the same allegation of imprecision from linguistic and cultural corruption? At what point does this cease to be a valid objection?

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