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Saturday, June 8, 2013

Re: Nested Monadologly

Hey, Serge,

Thanks for your helpful questions. I address some of them below, and yet I'm beginning to understand that you and I may have ~style, value,  interest, and framework differences that make for very difficult communication.  I presently  characterize these as  a clashes of intuition  with intellect, brevity contrasted with verbosity, simplicity within complexity, and perhaps differences in  intended audiences, goals, etc.  Yet, also, I'm getting the impression that a core issue here relates to the backward compatibility on conventional subject-object or subjectivity-objectivity orientation that each of us desire or require and/or have already integrated into our respective theoretical/explanatory expressions.

I get the impression from what I read or your model that you are invested in retaining subject-object and/or subjectivity-objectivity categories, values, and/or limits as somewhat scientifically sacrosanct.  And now here I am where I reduce subjectivity-objectivity to yet another instance of duality and then expose objectivity to be a strongly repeating form of subjectivity, therein slightly disrupting one of the ~370-year old western philosophical mores (the accepted traditional customs).   Recently, I am starting to see the sense in labeling adherence to this custom as some type of an addiction or co-addiction, that is, an unhelpful or hurtful dependence.

How very gauche of me. Yet it's another one of those dirty jobs that does have to get done. 

What do you think about that, Serge?  Cn you accept revision or disruption of the subjectivity-objectivity tradition?

...More interspersed below...


 

--- In general_theory@yahoogroups.com, Serge Patlavskiy wrote:
>
>
> Ralph Frost on Thu, Jun 6, 2013 wrote:
> >Regarding you trying to get an appreciation, impression, or
> >initial understanding of nested structured~duality,
> .
> [S.P.] No, it is you who want (I hope) to present to general_theory readers your idea of "nested structured~duality". So, we are all ears.
> .

[rf] Yes, that apparently is the difficulty.  100% ears.

> [Ralph Frost] wrote:
> >I suspect you had to study the material and work through it
> >on at least a few occasions before you built up your own
> >internal representation and appreciation for the principle(s).
> .
> [S.P.] We are not discussing here the level of my education. Please, present your idea as if you are talking to the big number of students who are listening to you.
> .

[rf]  Since you brought it up, perhaps we do need to talk about your level of education or aspirations.  My point was to remind you and other readers that most people learn new things (that we are open to learning) through repetition and over time and NOT just  from reading another more complex, pedantic string of text. The learning or a general principle is a developmental, experiential task. It takes openness and some effort on the part of the learner.

Do you WANT to talk about your level of education, Serge? If so, please do.  Perhaps you are  one of the rare types who just read a thing once and instantly and completely understand or think you understand it.  Does that fit?



> [Ralph Frost] wrote:
> >That is, what's the general theory of general theories, or the
> >next general theory of general theories?
> .
> [S.P.] My General Theory, to be formalized as an MT-level intellectual product, does not require some new general theory to be constructed. It means that it is complete, and G�del second incompleteness theorem cannot be applied to it. My General Theory meets the requirement of having the level-by-level structure (in obedience to the fourth criterion of approach; see my paper, Section 2.5), therefore, for my General Theory, the more general conceptual framework will be that same General Theory but on the next level of its evolvement (for details, see my paper, Section 4.3 "Nonstatanalysis and the G�del second incompleteness theorem").
> .

[rf] What's your theory about, Serge: the structure of general theories, consciousness, or (the one I am advocating and presenting), a more unified, more robust scientific theory exposing the underlying principle and common denominator of the physical and mental fractions of reality?

I get the impression that your theory actually does require your various categories and rules and principles and types of analysis, etc., which is to say it DOES require some new general theory.  It just so happens that you are the person writing the new general theory that your theory requires.  I don't see anything wrong with that. It arises due to the nesting of structured~duality.  Call it "boot-strapping" or whatever, but why try to obscure these rather obvious facts?

Do you need, or have to be a wizard hiding behind a curtain? 
   
> [Ralph Frost] wrote:
> >The answer to this new (current) set of questions and
> >simultaneous puzzles is the principle of structured~duality
> >which is defined as: all things have some structure, and also
> >things have or exhibit one or more dualities or differences.
> .
> [S.P.] The formulation of that principle is so inaccurate that I cannot even treat is as a principle. First. A principle must indicate the cases when it can be applied.

[rf]  I'll admit it is a simple, deeply ubiquitous expression. That's what makes it a general underlying principle.    The scope is conveyed in the labeling of "general underlying principle" and also the term "all things".  Think, broad, very broad, Serge, reaching back to contain contain the ~370-year long traditions and findings of the initial phase of the western scientific worldview. 

[s.p. ...] For example, when I formulate my Principle of Cognitive Indeterminacy (see my paper, p.36), I indicate that it works when the investigator investigates his own exemplar of consciousness.
> .

[rf] That looks like an extrapolation from Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Neat. It seems reasonable and useful, though, Serge.  However, IF you or anyone else were to wonder about how or why Heisenberg's or your principles, and even your FT-level (Functional tautology relation) exist or emerge, we might attempt an account for  some of it with a wave-particle duality/unity/integration storyline, but going below that, again, the underlying  principle and explanation is reality is nested structured~duality.

The "trick" that I guess that I'm applying to work around your so-called principle of cognitive indeterminacy (glibly assuming it as valid and has influence), is (1) I've not been working on a theory of consciousness, and (2) NOR have I been using  an exemplar of my consciousness in the ways you describe to investigate consciousness.

If you remember, I give the quite bizarre account of playing with magnets in a tetrahedral structure, then making up the general principle and then noticing that we already have an internal representation forming within the 10^20 water molecules pr second forming in our respiration sites.   Then I say, "Hey, look at that. We've got a structurally coded interactive internal representation. And my model continues to hold together and develop revealing the common denominator of the physical and mental fractions of reality.  The model sufficing as a functional model of consciousness is somewhat like an afterthought or sidebar.

But back to your first question on scope, the principle of structured~duality applies to all things. It's very general. That's why I call it a general underlying principle.
     
> Second. Your principle seems to consist of two unrelated parts. The first part states: "all things have some structure". Should I understand it thus: Reality consists only with things; if consciousness is real, then it must be also a thing, and must have some structure? By the way, how do you define the concept "thing"?
> .

[rf] I think of "thing" in the common way. Nothing tricky. Physical things; non-physical, mental things or associations and references, etc., they all have  some structured and have or exhibit one or more dualities/differences/integrated traits.  As for consciousness "being" real",  of course it is, but I might prefer to say that structural coding is real, or to envisage the structural coding (or the levels of consciousness) nested fields within nested fields and then having replicating  "~intersections" or "~states" within the nested fields as being real.

This may come as a shock to you but it relates to the way you are asking your question.  In the model I am presenting, structure and duality are the tenets. The whole is nested structured~duality. Then we come up with various slices and protein-folded  expressions and accounts.

When you ponder "If consciousness is real..." you are still drifting around in subjective-objective la-la-land.

I suspect as we go further  we discover that "consciousness" is or was real but also it is a dissipative thing.   the structural coding is real, though.


Lastly,  yes, the sentence structure and our habits  induce us to think of the two parts as "consist of two unrelated parts", but I would ask you to try to consider what seems like two to be one.  A similar pattern might be like the eastern notion of yin inter-transforming with yang, or I suppose mass intro-converting with energy.


> Third. The second part states that "things ... have ... differences". Do you mean that a thing differs from itself? For me, it is some nonsense. Also, for me, "duality" is not the same as "difference". 
> .

[rf] You seem to be missing an increment of information.  Take, for instance  a magnetized bar -- exhibiting north-south duality, or some charged element exhibiting  plus-minus duality..  At zero field strength, the two ends of a magnet or a rod don't have any difference. But  say, you add an excess of negative charge to one end compared with the other. The plus-minus duality arises from the difference.

What do you typically think of or associate when you encounter the term duality, Serge.?

> Forth. In your principle I see mentioning of "structure" and "duality". But, it talks nothing of "nesting". So, in which does "structured~duality" differ from "nested structured~duality"? And what sense is in the symbol "~"?
> .

[rf] The nesting can be considered  redundant or more like for emphasis or to covey the various nested levels for many or most things.   I view the principle and underlying common denominator as structured~duality, and then because I think of reality as having many levels, reality is nested structured~duality.

If it bothers you, you can think of reality as structured~duality, too,  where the nesting is implied in additional, but unstated levels of structure.   Adding in the nesting turns out to have been a lead in to noticing and describing reality as nested fields within nested fields which I find illuminating.

As for the '~',  I see it as an improvement over using the dash or hyphen to implicate strong interconnection.   In a near perfect world, of course,  the symbol might become the abbreviation for the full term. Thus we'd get the principle of ~.  This might overload the symbol's typical usage or meaning as 'approximately equal', or that might inspire ~~~  : reality is approximately equal to structured~duality.


> Summing up, may I ask you to reformulate your principle, and to name it somehow?
> .

[rf] Do you mean like coming up with a follow-on principle of nested fields, or principle of unified nested symbolic representation?    You can ask, but as I said at the start of this post, we'd likely want and need to confront and clarify  some additional points and differences. 

Your sets of rules and principles, etc., seem rooted in the subjective-objective custom and aimed at a different target  than the model I am advocating.   Mine serves to give an answer to the notion posed by John Amos Comenius in the 1640's, framed by the historian, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs as:

"The essential nature of external reality, Comenius thought, could be conveyed by education to the simplest intelligence if all knowledge could be reduced to a basic principle."  

His question and my answer thread back through the history -- all knowledge -- developed in the initial phase of the western scientific paradigm and provide us with the underlying general principle.   In the process we also notice the multiple levels of inter-related structural coding and we now come face-to-face with the option of selecting the different tenet: structured~duality, and shifting over or slowly migrating over to the next phase of the western scientific paradigm.

What do you think, Serge?

Best regards,
Ralph Frost








 
> [Ralph Frost] wrote:
> >My original query, though, started out from your comment in
> >another post about (I think it was) perhaps clarified to ~Shannon
> >information not having a place in consciousness studies.
> .
> [S.P.] Please, see my post http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/jcs-online/message/11264
> .
> [Ralph Frost] wrote:
> >Also, if your "increments of information" have units on them,
> >like bits/second, those things themselves, though described
> >differently, may already have too much in common with
> >Shannon information.
> .
> [S.P.] The increment of information has no units on it, and has nothing to do with Shannon concept of information. The given increment of information can be characterized through the values of entropic characteristics of certain integrated information systems. For example, in the moment t1, the value of entropic characteristic of IIS{Ralph} was S1. Suppose, at the moment t1 Ralph started to read a newspaper, and finished doing this at the moment t2. Then, at the moment t2, the value of entropic characteristic of IIS{Ralph} will be S2. So, the increment of information will be labeled as S=S2-S1. In general, every memorized event (every element of subjective experience) has its own entropic label.
> .
> Best,
> Serge Patlavskiy
>

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