SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema :> Abstract & Physical
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LIS. Discussion Note 92
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JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = John Sowa
JS: OK. I agree with that:
JA: When I said "this is the phenomenon that is due to be explained here",
my comment, in its context, was pointing to the phenomenon of success
in the ways of inquiry that scientific method frequently provides us
with adaptable models of, for all its rife pretending of hypothetical
entities and for all its rampant use of abstract objects, mathematical
and otherwise. What I am saying is, not that it's our job to supplant
all that -- it ain't me who imagines that such a thing would be feasible --
but merely that what we do here must be in accord with the best current
accounts of "what is, out there", and so our work should be sensitive to
the best thinking that has come down the intellectual history pike as to
"how indeed scientific knowledge is possible", inasmuch as it seems to be.
And we both know where to look for samples of that kind of thinking, but it
just seems that it will take a bit more work for us to abstract its essence.
JS: My approach to abstracting its essence is the lattice
of all possible theories, which I relate via all the
possible models of those theories to the world, for
some purpose in some context.
JS: I also relate that lattice to the ideas of Peirce,
Whitehead, and Wittgenstein in the paper I often cite:
JS: "Signs, Processes, and Language Games":
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.htm
Okay. I think I'll quit while I'm ahead here,
as I always get a bit squirrelly at TGIF time.
It was alla that mystifying stuff that Peirce
wrote about groups and lattices and matrices,
oh my, that dragged me back into mathematics
after many pleasant diversions in philosophy
and psychology, long long ago but still in
this galaxy, so I have always been ready
to follow up this bit in a serious way,
which to me means asking "what next?"
and then pursuing the consequences
of the truths so enunciated.
In a computational workshop, though, that means looking at
some far more concrete, bottom-of-the-recursion-heap types
of cases than I've noticed many of the floks hereabouts in
CloudCuckooLand willing to muss up their fine plumage with.
Over & Out,
Jon Awbrey
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