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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 10:29 pm
random definitions of chaos from Google:
1. "Complex dynamical behavior characterized by a lack of dominant periodicity and great sensitivity to initial conditions."
2. "Apparent randomness whose origins are entirely deterministic. A state of disorder and irregularity whose evolution in time, though governed by simple exact laws, is highly sensitive to starting conditions: a small variation in these conditions will produce wildly different results, so that long-term behavior of chaotic systems cannot be predicted."
3. "The property describing a dynamical system that exhibits erratic behavior in the sense that very small changes in the initial state of the system rapidly lead to large and apparently unpredictable changes in the later state."
4. "In chaos theory, a dynamical system that is neither static nor periodic."
excerpt from Wikipedia.org:
"Chaos derives from the Greek Χάος and typically refers to unpredictability. In the metaphysical sense, it is the opposite of law and order: unrestrictive, both creative and destructive"
I want to talk about the chaos in the wikipedia excerpt, not so much the mathematical or scientific definitions that seem to me "less-then-chaotic".
Questions I have trouble with:
1. can a state exist where no stable properties exist?
2. can a state exist where logic does not apply (what ever that means!)
3. how can these questions even be approached??
Hmm..
As I see it "chaos" is merely "inabillity to predict". It is a word that gets all it's meaning and all it's appartent sense from the fact that the host of the term has ignorance.
Only when you don't know all the factors involved in a puzzle are words such as chaos and random applied.
As to your questions, my immediate response is No to number 1 and 2. However, entities do exist within these confines of logic and stability that are completely or partly oblivious to it, wich is how I understand the motive for the third question. The answer to that question is "carefully and humbly". Discoveries have a way of enflaming us, causing us to take bigger leaps, and suddenly we've made suppositions that are so subtle and minuscule in our reason that we don't notice them unless we're careful, while these suppositions slowly lead the whole string of thought off it's track.
-Cyracuz
I think there is a question at the root of this that could be a problem.
What do you think logic is?
1. A set of constant rules in all cases and instances- a property independent of any other properties of the universe (transcendent like).
2. Dependent on the properties of the universe?
3. Or something else? (if so explain please. Maybe there is an option that escapes me)
My bias: logic is dependent on the "rules" of natural phenomenon as we have observed and experienced them. Ex 1) 1+1=2 comes from the fact that when have one apple and put it with another apple we suddenly see two apples. Ex 2) Valid inferences are statements that no independently verified experience has ever been in contradiction with or that exhibits a method/structure which has always worked in the past. Basically that logic is derived from the properties of our universe. What do you think?
This should have been in Science Section.
Aeon I just remember Chaos as an incident of Butterfly Effect.
Slightest Temporary movements (swings) of wings of a butterfly in Amazon jungles can cause a Cyclone in Asia. How? Simply because Weather is chaotic. We are unable to predict weather or it depends on too many factors which are too difficult to relate.
Aeon, I really hasn't occured to me what a good question that is. "What is logic".
Maybe logic is simply how we explain and justify.
There are many ways to apply logics, and to the same problem there can be more than one logic answer depending on what factors we focus on.
I notice that your post doesn't give a clear answer to what you think logic is, only how it is applied, but I cannot say that I'm nearer to any answer. I like your last sentence anyway, that logic is derived from the properties of our universe. I think I agree with that.
Aeon,
Partial answers to your questions might lie in references to the "Santiago theory of cognition" which (a) depends on "chaos theory" as a potential mathematical model for the dissipate structures found in "life" and (b) is an extension of the genetic epistemology of Piaget which relegated "logic" to "a specialized form of linguistic structure". Also (c) the theory implies that what could be deemed "chaotic" from one level of observation could be "structured" from another.("Life" is a succession of nested levels of structure).
NB Only a "naive realist" would say "logic is derived from the properties of our universe". It could be argued that "properties" are imposed on the universe by the perceptual needs of "observers". Logic depends on static set membership ...i.e. "naming".... which is a synthetic/artificial context specific human process within the ongoing flux of changing inter-relationships.
Quote:NB Only a "naive realist" would say "logic is derived from the properties of our universe". It could be argued that "properties" are imposed on the universe by the perceptual needs of "observers". Logic depends on static set membership ...i.e. "naming".... which is a synthetic/artificial context specific human process within the ongoing flux of changing inter-relationships.
I over simplified my post at the end. I do agree with this.
There is a really wonderful book written by James Gleick called "Chaos" that outlines the story of chaos and the various breakthroughs of the science of complexity.
It's the one book more than any other that actually did change my life. It changed the way I see everything around me.
If we placed sensors one metre apart over the entire surface of the earth, we wouldn't have enough data to accurately predict the weather in 10 days time. (That's essentially the butterfly effect.)
Quote:NB Only a "naive realist" would say "logic is derived from the properties of our universe". It could be argued that "properties" are imposed on the universe by the perceptual needs of "observers".
And it can be argued that the universe imposed properties on the observer. There may be times when the observer is forced to change his or her perception of reality. I think that logic is not derived from properties of the universe, it aims at deriving the properties of the universe from information gathered by the senses.
Oh, and from a hollistic viewpoint, the observer is part of the universe.
We all start from "naive realism," i.e., the doctrine that things are what they seem. We think that grass is green, that stones are hard, and that snow is cold. But physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and the coldness of snow, are not the greenness, hardness, and coldness that we know in our own experience, but something very different. The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.
Bertrand Russell
(from An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth, 1950)
Logical positivists have never taken psychology into account in their epistemology, but they affirm that logical beings and mathematical beings are nothing but linguistic structures. That is, when we are doing logic or mathematics, we are simply using general syntax, general semantics, or general pragmatics in the sense of Morris, being in this case a rule of the uses of language in general. The position in general is that logical and mathematical reality is derived from language. Logic and mathematics are nothing but specialised linguistic structures.
Jean Piaget
(Genetic Epistemology 1968)
When we are observing something, it is indeed caused by interactions of the wavelength and interactions from the object on our senses. Is that not what "observation" is? How else can someone or something observe?
How does reality "really seem?"
Quote:The position in general is that logical and mathematical reality is derived from language. Logic and mathematics are nothing but specialised linguistic structures.
And linguistic structures are nothing but the means by which we communicate and "know". In this sense, logic is an essential requirement for "truth" for it must conform to certain laws for it to work in reality. Mathematics also must conform to rules in nature or else it has to change.
We do not live in a world of situations but of defintions of situations, and these are our constructions. As Schopenhauer put it "The world is my idea." Maybe we can say that our world is metaphorical (and grammatical).
Jl, I had to look this up, but I've read that Schopenhauer believed in a Kantian notion of noumenal self, and of the individual will as what we are. I don't agree with that, but it is interesting.
BTW, don't you think that German philosophical texts are kinda hard to read?
Yes, Ray, I find them very difficult, with the exceptions of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. But Kant, especially after his Critique of Pure Reason, is very difficult and Hegel and Hiedegger are for me unmanageably obscure. Maybe much of the problem is the quality of the translations.
I have been influenced by the idealism of Schopenhauer, and that's easy to understand, given my long-time attachment to Hindu Vedanta and Zen Buddhism. Schopenhauer was a student of the Upanishads, as was Nietzsche through the medium of his friend, the Asian scholar, Paul Deussen.
Kant's notion of the noumenal transcendtal realm of the "thing in itself", the metaphysically imperceptible source of the phenomenal world of appearances, is, I suppose, inconsistent with my statement above about the metaphorical nature of our reality. Kant's "thing in itself" (the realm of Noumena) would suggest that our metaphorical constructions are merely interpretations of an objective, if imperceptible, world.
I think the contradiction can be resolved--or dissolved--as follows: my construction of a "tree" is a metaphor, a symbolic entity and reflects a way I relate to that aspect of Reality (a tree). I use it for shade, for landscape decoration, for the generation of oxygen, for fruit, etc. etc.. But the "tree" can be said to consist of substances that appear to be objective facts. For example, it is made of "wood", but that's another metaphor (a metaphor behind the metaphor of tree). And we could go farther to uncover an "objective" noumenal substance behind the metaphor of "wood." For example, wood consists of "molecules". But they, too, are metaphors, and this process can move farther away from the "tree" metaphor in terms of others like the atoms, of which molecules are made and the quarks of which atoms are made, ALL THE WAY DOWN (lol). But notice that I end up with a system of nested metaphors. e.g., trees, wood, molecules, atoms, and quarks. And I'm sure physicists can take the reduction further than that.
Well put JLN.
Note too that each level "down" fails to "define" the level above. i.e. "Tree" is not just a conjunction of its sub-components. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Each level implies a different inter-relationship between observer and observed.
When Ray asks about the "nature of observation" he needs to consider that an optical description of "light" in terms of wavelength serves a different analytical purpose/level to the level at which "tree" is observed.
The tree cannot be "constructed" from its optical correlates. The "tree" may be "triggered" by optical cues, but the concept lies within a context sensitive semantic (social) web which sets up perceptual expectancies.
The process of observation is a process of satisfaction of perceptual expectancies, and when the "unusual" occurs* we either miss it, or we may become conscious of an internal dialogue in ourselves (....what the ?.... )wherein we renogotiate the context.
(* Occurence is in fact observer dependent...no observation..."no event"...It only has "meaning" if later if in social context we may be asked "didn't you see X ?" )
Fresco, VERY well put. Your argument is more subtle than mine. It does seem that the metaphorical level of "molecules" does not necessarily imply the higher metaphorical level of "wood"; it does nothing more than provide the foundation for many higher level "substances" (another metphor). They could be "metal", "meat", "pigment," without known end.
When I think "tree", I am not thinking of a hierarchy of "levels" of reality. It is, at my everyday posture of naive realism, a self contained, or adequate, phenomenon. For philosophical purposes only I deconstruct it into the levels described in my last post.
Quote:an optical description of "light" in terms of wavelength serves a different analytical purpose/level to the level at which "tree" is observed.
The tree cannot be "constructed" from its optical correlates. The "tree" may be "triggered" by optical cues, but the concept lies within a context sensitive semantic (social) web which sets up perceptual expectancies.
The optical description is a part of the meaning of a "tree." When you are little and you are told that what you saw is a "tree," you associate the image to that of the word "tree." When you see other objects with similar properties to it, you say it is a "tree." It is merely a matter of associating sense-information to certain words that resemble a collection of that information. Society may suggest what information is associated to a certain word, and that is how we communicate, but even within that context we may analyze the meaning of the word, and decide to reestablish its meaning, maybe leaving out or adding certain criteria; in the latter case, the meaning of the word "tree" may have changed even though the word remained the same, or it may have been "clarified," bringing out information that is implicit within the criteria that we did not consider or realize.
Quote:Kant's notion of the noumenal transcendtal realm of the "thing in itself", the metaphysically imperceptible source of the phenomenal world of appearances, is, I suppose, inconsistent with my statement above about the metaphorical nature of our reality. Kant's "thing in itself" (the realm of Noumena) would suggest that our metaphorical constructions are merely interpretations of an objective, if imperceptible, world.
I think the contradiction can be resolved--or dissolved--as follows: my construction of a "tree" is a metaphor, a symbolic entity and reflects a way I relate to that aspect of Reality (a tree). I use it for shade, for landscape decoration, for the generation of oxygen, for fruit, etc. etc.. But the "tree" can be said to consist of substances that appear to be objective facts. For example, it is made of "wood", but that's another metaphor (a metaphor behind the metaphor of tree). And we could go farther to uncover an "objective" noumenal substance behind the metaphor of "wood." For example, wood consists of "molecules". But they, too, are metaphors, and this process can move farther away from the "tree" metaphor in terms of others like the atoms, of which molecules are made and the quarks of which atoms are made, ALL THE WAY DOWN (lol). But notice that I end up with a system of nested metaphors. e.g., trees, wood, molecules, atoms, and quarks. And I'm sure physicists can take the reduction further than that.
Yes I do agree with you and fresco to a certain extent, but my main problem is with the notion that the noumenal reality is "imperceptible." In order to perceive something, a perceiver must exist, and in order for the perceiver to perceive something, an event must occur that will result in parts of the receiver to respond to the environment in such a way that they directly compile the information into representations. It seems to me, that that is the very basis of the action of perceiving. How can something external to a system analyze the system without interacting with it, and thus gathering information and thus being a part of the system? So I don't think it is correct to say that noumena is "imperceptible," but I think it is better to say that the noumena cannot be perceived fully all at once.
Ray, I wonder how Kant would have responded to your: "I don't think it is correct to say that noumena is 'imperceptible', but I think it is better to say that the noumena cannot be perceived fully all at once."
I for one do not go along with Kant's notion of an "imperceptible thing-in-itself." If there were, it would have nothing to do with me. I live in a world of experiences. For me there are only appearances, and fleeting ones at that. Atoms--and events on the planet Venus--exist in my world only to the extent that they can at least IN PRINCIPLE be perceived, by someone else, if not by me.
Ray,
Consider....
An "event" is only such in the eye of an observer who defines the "event window". In the case of an "event of perception" it is a third party who defines it as such! (REF: Von Foerster "Second Order Cybernetics") The "third party" could of course be the "self" making retrospective rationalizations. I am arguing here that perception is not normally segmented into "events" but is a relatively smooth interactional flow like a train travelling on a familiar linguistic track. When a child "misnames" a "cat" as a "dog" he is merely taking his familiar track according to his linguistic route map. But its not the "naming" per se that matters, it is the "prediction of the route ahead" as encapsulated by the naming....a third party knows that "cat" implies the possibility an unexpected nasty scratch (etc). ....Or as Bateson said "words are merely co-ordinators of action".....or as I say "existence" of a "thing" is a about an "interactional relationship". The "thing" does not possess "properties" independently of the observers activities.
It seems like some words there need defining. What do you mean by "existence" and "properties?"
Quote:But its not the "naming" per se that matters, it is the "prediction of the route ahead" as encapsulated by the naming....
Matters in terms of what? A third party may say that a cat is not a dog by virtue of its appearance or anatomy.
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