The ontological assumptions of science.

Setanta,

It is Joe who claims that Maturana says everything is "just words" !
Nothing could be further from the facts.

Matura says language co-ordinates structural coupling in a social domain. Linguistic tokens, whether they be acoustic or other form of sign, only "work" by mutual consent, and he cites experiments with primates to reinforce the point. What matters is the flow of the coupling, not the static representational value of a particular token. In successful communication there are no ambiguities.

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fresco wrote:

In successful communication there are no ambiguities.

Come again?

I know you think you know what i meant, but actually, you only thought i meant what you thought i meant. [Insert wink here]

I have often in casual conversation pointed out that millions of people sit next to one another in church each Sunday, confidently believing that those around them have exactly the same theological viewpoints as they do themselves. In fact, they can discuss god and religion with one another, and become more convinced that they all believe the same things about god and religion, when in fact they don't.

Which tends to beg the question of successful communication. Functionally, the co-religionists who don't believe actually the same things about god and religion, but who, upon discussion become more and more convinced that they do, have successfully communicated to one another their sense that they are "on the same page." However, there's a whole truck load of ambiguities in operation there.

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Setanta,

Maturana takes a behaviorist line on this. If the participants continue to interact with each other "effectively" the word tokens have done their job.
For him "semantics" doesn't enter into it.

This is in essence a direct challenge to linguists like Chomsky whose systems capitalize on "ambiguous sentences" like "Visiting relatives can be a bore". I have also used "communicative flow" to reject what I call "seminar philosophy" where great diatribes are written about "statements" like "Peter has a pain". In everday life, if Peter says he "has a pain" we just get on with it ! We act !

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fresco. Who was it that said that the purpose of science wsnt to EXPLAIN everything in terms of some other thing. It is to, instead, understand the natural and universal processes that exist (or existed). In that respect, while Ive read some of Maturana (his 2000 paper on NAtural Drift)and Valenzuelas (as well as guys like Fischer and margulis), I tend to shy away from " autopeitic linkages" in natural science. Ive got enough trouble making drill bits stay straight.
I dont "believe in" Gould and Eldredge's Punctuated Equilibrium, nor Maturana"s "natural drift" (as opposed to genetic drift).

The rest is, as Joe nicely avoided, but implied, linguistic gratification.

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fresco wrote:

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.

... 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")

Yes, we have had this discussion before, but you always evade the hard questions.

It is simply not true that modern physics considers the universe to be illusory. Nothing above the size of a buckyball can be in an indeterminate quantum state, or is dependent on an observer for its existence.

Please post your reference for any experimental evidence that an ontic reality does not exist. Do you honestly believe that the universe did not come into existence until there were observers to talk about it? Then where did the observers come from? How did they communicate before they invented photons?

How do fish and other non-languaging animals interact with the world if there is no ontic reality?

What is the functional value in claiming that there is no ontic reality, when we have to deal with the world as if it is really there anyway? Can observers create or change reality simply by agreeing on what is true? Do you know of any instances where this has been documented?

Why do people die in automobile accidents? If there is no ontic reality and the consensus of all of the victims, police, paramedics, doctors, and family members is that they should live, who got together and decided that they would die?

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farmerman, I thought lambing occured in the spring. Hope you have a warm barn.

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Farmerman,

Thanks for that later reference. I will investigate.

Terry,

Quote:

"Man is the Measure of all Things"

Protagoras of Abdera ( c. 480-410 B.C.).

The functional issue raised by Maturana is that the assumption of an "ontic reality" is antithetical to an ecological onerview and he has been criticised for it. Other "reality issues" associated with this are that "science as control" is a "male chauvinist" activity embedded in our social structure and reified by language (Capra, Foucault etc).

My own interest is not in terms of social functionalism, but in terms of intellectual coherence especially in relationship to boundary physics. It is simply self evident to me ( and many others) that observer and observed are inextricably co-existent.

Von Glasersfeld writes:

Quote:

In philosophy the authoritarian dominance of the realist dogma (be it materialistic or metaphysical) has certainly been shaken by the manifested unreliability of political and social "truths" as well as by the revolution in the views of physics. But the aversion against models of cognition that explain knowledge as organism-dependent and even as the product of a closed circuit of internal operations, has by no means disappeared.

I cannot undo your "aversion", I can merely suggest it delimits you. Your request for "evidence of existence" is so entrenched in "realism" that I must quote the "Irish answer" about asking for directions...."If I were you I wouldn't start from here !" Smile

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My interest is limited to the evidence surrounding the dynamics of evolution. Consequently, I strongly have disagreed with autopoeisis in its use within developmental biology. No living organism is self organizing, as Mayr said just before his death.
"Life recieves its instructions from its ancestors it doesnt self organize". The zygote does not reproduce itself but goes on to produce an entirely different organization called an embryo which did not exist before.
MAybe Im being too simplistic but the way it is , is a zygote only occurs as a sperm and egg fuse. Such an organization did not exist prior to this union. Consequently, natural selection is not a linguistic explanation but a central drive of the living world whether we , as an interacting species are here or not.
On a related note, MAyr had always been critical of the refusal of many researchers in paleontology to fail to test their own hypotheses against the well understood concepts of ecosystem structure and social interdependence of life forms. That had led to a major discipline shake-up during the 1980's . This has helped applied scientists like me to have a much more diverse and useful bag of tricks to apply to field exploration.

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Terry,
We "control "the delivery of lambs usually based upon when we want them for show, replacement or market. This year, we wished to have finished lambs by mid April (when the market price is highest) SO, we had to count back from an April 10 finish date and count about 90 days for development. prior to that we have to count back 140 days for gestation , so we should have bred them in October, but we "decided" to breed the ewes in August,.

NOW, having said that (like I know what Im talking about). We were actually away on vacation and the people who were tending the flock during our absence had only begun "flushing" (changing the ewes diet) about 2 weeks earlier . The rams due to some poor gate management wound up in the ewes pastures and, well, the rest is a consequence of our "planned" breeding season gone all to hell. Weve only had 3 previous Christmas lambing season, usually we try to have lambs in Feb/March.

We often have to deal with these unplanned consequences. We will miss the ethnic Easter market because our lambs will be too heavy for this niche market. So we will have plenty of replacement stock and Corriedale lambs to smaller "spinning" flocks.

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Fresco, you made very specific assertions about the non-existence of an ontic reality, and that modern physics supports the view that reality is an illusion, which is not true.

Please post any evidence you have that physics indicates that the universe is observer-dependent or created by scientists.

Why does Maturana think that science is a male-chauvinist activity? (I do not doubt that the scientific establishment still is, in spite of the increasing number of female scientists)

Of what advantage to anyone is the assumption that there is no ontic reality?

Quote:

It is simply self evident to me ( and many others) that observer and observed are inextricably co-existent.

Well, duh. It is self-evident to me also that you can only observe things that exist concurrently with you. But that doesn't change the fact that events occur in the absence of observers, events occur in which the observer has no effect on the observed, and that observers cannot alter the laws of physics by consensus.

I have no aversion to "models of cognition that explain knowledge as organism-dependent and even as the product of a closed circuit of internal operations, has by no means disappeared."

I have an aversion to those who misrepresent science in pursuit of their own patently-ridiculous dogmas.

I agree that knowledge is organism-dependent and a product of internal operations in the brain, but it CANNOT be considered a closed circuit when the organism is constantly receiving new sensory data from other co-existent organisms and the ontic universe that surrounds it.

If knowledge arises from a closed circuit, where did the circuit itself and the data it contains come from? How do you create knowledge out of nothing, without the 13 billion years of ontic reality it takes for languaging observers to evolve?

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Farmerman, perhaps if you all got together and agreed that the breeding had occurred in October as planned, you could change the illusion that your ewes are lambing now. :wink:

Is there any market for frozen lamb, or do they have to be freshly killed to be kosher?

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Terry,

What interpretation do you place on Heisenberg's dictum ?

Quote:

We never observe the world but only the results of our actions on the world.

Okay...its a rhetorical question...but that's where the "Irishman" thinks you should start from. Whether the journey from there is in the company of Kant, or Maturana, or Bohr, or even myself is irrelevant. All such journeys take place without reference to traditional fixed landmarks...no method of triangulation can be used to navigate which corresponds to "evidence" since traditional evidence presupposes an "ontic reality". Instead we must resort to consensual actions (in the Heisenberg sense) or in the Khunian sense of "prevailing paradigm".
"Reality" shifts as paradigms shift. What is is what works for us as homo sapiens with a concept of "time" and hence a need to predict and retrodict our experiences.

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fresco wrote:

"Reality" shifts as paradigms shift. What is is what works for us as homo sapiens with a concept of "time" and hence a need to predict and retrodict our experiences.

This is why the discussion becomes essentially a word game, with certain players in the game claiming privileged positions. Reality does not shift as paradigms shift, the description of reality, the terms within which it is agreed upon that reality will be discussed shift--but the reality has not shifted.

You earlier referred to Einstein's remark about the persistence of reality. Reality persists precisely because it exists independently of any discussion of reality which we may have, and despite epistemological theory or argumentation. You want to equate the shadows on the cave wall with those whose shadows are cast on the cave wall. The shadow may be, in a sense, illusion. That which casts the shadow is not.

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Quote:

Reality does not shift as paradigms shift

But that position is the epitome of "a priviledged one". Einstein himself overthrew such a theologally important position with his rejection of Newton's "fixed frame of reference". And he himself was obliged to concede his view of "reality" in the light of the failure of his challenge to QM with respect to "non-locality".

We are the fire in our cave !

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I disagree--obviously. You continue to speak (write) as though a failure to solidly establish an epistemological basis for asserting that there is a reality independent of our perception thereof is evidence that reality might not be real. As Terry (i believe) pointed out, the arguments against the concept that there were no reality without observers make that a laughable contention.

We are not the fire, we are (in an epistemological sense) the shadows themselves. I assert that you fail to make a case that reality does not exist independently of our perception of it.

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Setanta,

I cannot "make a case" which you might understand from your entrenched position which with a few tweaks of content is equivalent to this....

(Apocryphal) An ancient believer that the earth was supported on the back of a giant turtle was asked what the turtle was standing on. "A bigger turtle," he replied. When it was pointed out that this second turtle needed something to stand on, and so on, he replied "You can't fool me. It's turtles all the way down !

Ask yourself "down to what ?", and that might yield what I consider to be the status of "reality".

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Certainly my position is entrenched, as is yours. My position is entrenched because i am able to understand a distinction between epistemological theory and that "persistent reality" mentioned before. Your analogy fails. I am not arguing for a superstitious or mythological position which is particular to a theology, and my acceptance of "persistent reality" does not partake of a religious faith. People may disagree about the nature of reality, but i know of no one who seriously asserts that reality is produced by consensual perception, and would not exist without it.

You have failed to adequately answer those who have asked if reality only came into existence with sentience, and if so, from when derives sentience? Sounds like an argument for theistic creation to me, unless you have a plausible answer to those objections.

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Setanta,

Quote:

but i know of no one who seriously asserts that reality is produced by consensual perception

No... you still don't get it. Reality is a consensual CONCEPT. Perception is active not passive. It is selective of what constitutes "data". All "information" is subject(s) dependent. Note also that in a celebrated experiment by Asch, a subject would "mis-report" what he saw in a simple picture in order to conform with the staged reports of stooges posing as fellow subjects.

I'm sorry, but the fact that "you know of no-one who...." simply means you haven't looked ! Indeed it even supports my case exemplfied in the copious literature on "selective perception"!

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Your response functions (for whatever your intent) to assert that reality is a concept, and has no existence other than as a concept. You continue to fail to address the issue of whether or not there were a reality in the absence of an observer, or before there were any observers (or "conceivers," if you prefer). You have failed to make a case that reality has no existence other than as a concept; that reality only exists to the extent that it is observed.

Playing a word game about reality being a concept is only a means of dodging the issue of the concept of reality referring to that which exists without reference to being observed, without reference to being conceived of.

I'll leave you alone now, as i don't see you presenting a plausible case.

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Obviously there no "concepts" without "conceptualisers"...no "things" without "thingers", and vice versa. If you want to call "reality" that mutual existence then you are close to Maturana's view, but that is not the "ontic reality" which dualists think can exist independent of observers.
(BTW "before observers" begs the question of "time" being another psychological concept)

Yet, believe it or not, many "serious" commentators do take the non-dualist position. It has been well thought through even in its most disconcerting aspects. Most of us have a vested interest in a "reality" concept, but you as a historian will bear witness to some of its more disasterous consequences.

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The ontological assumptions of science.

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