Failure of normative logic to address the progressive nature of existence
I see that my answers to the last three posts in this forum would have one thing or another to do with my last post in real_philosophy so I might as well repost.
re: "How does one keep an open mind" and Aristotle. See section of post marked "Goal."
re: Revelation. Many ideas begin their lives as intuitions and not the result of direct observations. In this case, I did not directly "observe non-identity." It can be inferred from observations, but not observed.
Disclaimer: I have not read any Pirsig. Usages of the terms "static" and "dynamic" are coincidental. Those were the words that best described my intuitions regarding the matter when I wrote about it, and any Pirsigian references are nonintentional.
Background: A discussion with Synanimus in the past has brought up the question of "Which kind of metaphysics am I doing, descriptive or revisionary?" Upon an examination of my own framework I concluded that neither the label of descriptive nor revisionary metaphysics fits my aims. The issue of sliding scales popped up once more in a very recent discussion with adamsphilosophy, but I do not know how firm of a link can be established between that common theme with the determination of the nature of my metaphysics. Sliding scales (the terminology used was "targeted zone of investigation) first appeared in a discussion with chgriffen. I think there have been enough discussions since then for me to begin sorting things out and making connections. I am much inspired by recent bold statements that tiresias2 have made in his journal, and believe we are hitting upon a common pool of issues- that of normative distinctions. Continuous bridging of ideas via continuum has always been the policy in the handling of the "problem of discernment" eversince the inception of my framework.
Goal: Since I assert that the metaphysics that I am doing does not fit neatly under descriptive or revisionary, I would have to explain why. I already know the practical reason- I do not want to be constricted by conception and rationale. Now people would jump on that right away and say "Hey that doesn't make sense at all." The short answer is that if I go by what I perceive of the world and saying what exists in my mind is "thus" and work upon that conception, my methodology would be constricted by my conception of the mental process. On the other hand, if I go by what I reason of the world and saying what "must" exist in the world my methodology would be constricted by my conception of the content and operation of the world. What I want to do is take a page out of phenomenology (but this is not phenomenology, mind you) by saying "look, I don't assume anything about what's "in here" (mind) or "out there" (world). All I want to do is construct a plausible model simply by observing the problem at hand and shaping the methodogy to the flow of the problem itself." In other words, not shaping the solution to the preconceived paradigm but going the reverse and shaping the ad-hoc paradigm to the problem. Now I can just picture all kinds of "What the hell is that" remarks, but I argue that shaping the problem solving tool to fit the problem at hand is much better than trying to wrestle with the problem to somehow jam itself into the inflexibly fixed problem solving tool. What is this tool? The paradigm. What is the paradigm? The underlying metaphysics that we use to solve the problems. How can this be, undoubtedly the critics would scream. No, I would answer, this is not "be;" I am neither describing the world as I perceive it nor describing the world as it should be but describing the microcosmic condition of the problem at hand. This is not "the world" but "of the world;" There is insulation to keep me from treading upon the unseen actual. Whatever smokes and mirrors may be in the mind or in the world, they become moot at the point of pragmatic practice. I need not to even pretend to stand on epistemic grounding besides knowledge of the end symptoms (phenomena) in the form of the problem. The problem itself provides the metaphysical parameters.
Despite knowing the practical impetus for the non-fit of labels, I would not stop right there. I would go further by saying that what underpins the separation of descriptive and revisionary metaphysics is a bit of an idealistic mistake. Here is where an even more controversial issue arises- logical re-identity. I want to dispute logical re-identity and point out "what it really does." I then finish by asserting that re-identity is not logical but intuitive in nature.
[Begin notes]
Perhaps separation of being and becoming and the persistence of memory are the only reasons that re-identity exist. It seems to me that identification and re-identification are not really logical but intuitive processes. It is for the convenience and necessity of thought that normative logic even exists.
Let me define what "normative logic" means. I use "normative logic" to describe logic that does not take the dynamism of the object in question into account.
Let's say that "A" is our normative logical denotation of a thing, anything. Now, when we talk about this "A," do we normally and immediately think of these questions:
1. Does A evolve?
2. What is A turning into?
3. What is A's potential for change?
4. Is A changing as we are observing it?
I say that we don't normally think of anything like those questions, but instead take for granted that "A is what it is," a kind of static object that stays what it is unless some force or another is acting upon it.
This conception is erroneous. Not only is object A not static it is not even "quite what it is" as we deem it.
What is really happening is that we are merely taking some sort of static snapshot of our perception and conception of what A "is (supposed to be)" in one instantaneous moment and identifying it in our memories. It does not really include its dynamism, just our largely static perception and conception of it. I am not merely saying "once we see A, A changes so we have a delay of the speed of light" or something like that but "we can not fully appreciate A as a dynamic, evolving being- we can not help but perceive/conceive A as static because we must perceive/conceive it as such in order to identify it."
[Edit: i.e. We can not "see" the dynamism, but only the transitions from one filtered/received moment to the next. We do not directly perceive the dynamism but could only infer. It is like if something is "alive" but we only see the symptoms of its "aliveness" but not actually "see" the actual "aliveness." Okay, if this is not helping at all then please ignore and excuse my overall clumsiness to boot]
In the process of identification we lose something. There is a gulf between identity and "nonidentity;" between the locking-down of identity and the other extreme- the non-acknowledgement of identity. Now we have to identify things and have them perceived and perceived as somewhat static no matter what, but at least we could acknowledge the difference between the static A of our memories and the live, dynamic "Ã" (henceforth that symbol would be used as shorthand) that is presently changing right in front of us.
a. There is the gulf of nonidentity, the difference between memory and actuality: A ≠ Ã
b. A is obsolescent; what is deemed A is no longer, once indentified. Ã can not be obsolete but it can not be identified either, only referred to.
c. Only things persisting in memory can be identified. What enters into our memory is static.
Normative logic relies upon the persistence of memory and is in turn bound by it.
------
Insert sidebar on machine memory. Data is collected from the world and stored in registers. Operations are then done on the data that's stored in the registers. The value is a detected value, and thus the data is an imprint from the world (i.e. filtered) and not the world itself. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that there is a gap, a distance between logic and the world.
------
Only when we speak of the static, "not what it is" A can we perform normative logical operations:
A = A
However, when the progressive à is involved the self-relation can no longer apply:
à ≠ Ã
There is no reidentification because an identification was not performed in the first place. Now this is not some kind of kludge to "skip the problem." Something containing a potential for change involves a degree of uncertainty, and this uncertainty make the reidentification impossible.
[editorial 2/20/04: I expect most of the challenge/complaint/criticism to be aimed at the above paragraph. In other words, I have a whole lot of explaining and elaboration to do regarding how I got my "there is no identification performed in the first place." Perhaps I sould use the term "transitional" or "transient" to "un-pin" this "Ã" instead of "dynamic." It is very difficult to pin down an apt description of something that's not even supposed to be describable (if I can describe the disposition of "Ã" fully then it's not "transient/dynamic" anymore but back to the regular "static"). It's a bit of an oxymoronic activity. This is where the "Problem of Discernment" and "Problem of Articulation"(the converse) that I have discussed in the past really rear their ugly heads]
Of course, we still see A. So how is this taken care of? We have memories of A, the identity of A. Again, we just take for granted that "A is A" and gloss over the dynamism and the progression. After all, our observations of this world consist of mostly stable objects, and our conceptions consist of stable concepts. Faced with those two pillars, how else is our mind going to react to objects but to view them as static? It would be counter-intuitive to not do so. We intuitively reidentify objects.
[notes page 2]
Logic is a static representation of life but not a reflection of it.
A thing can only be generally depicted as retaining identity but not specifically. [here, I'm going to copy from a conversation with adamsphilosophy instead because it's clearer]
Some designations are relatively more particular or more general than others. If we want to be "absolutely general about something" the most we can denote is the term "thing" or "something." At the other end of the spectrum (that's "absolute particular"), we couldn't say anything at all because the number of symbols required would be infinite.
Instead of adhering to revisionary metaphysics and say "okay those properties must be separatable" or doing descriptive metaphysics and say "we perceive black, we perceive ravens, so the raven with black on them..." I want to do some kind of "methodological metaphysics" where I just say "Okay we're dealing with the problem of colors and objects. We have different kinds of objects so we don't want to mix them up when we talk about colored objects" Intead of going paradigm-first, we "invent the paradigm just for the problem at hand" as we go along. What that ends up doing usually is sliding metrics back and forth depending on the needs of the problem.
Let's take black ravens and the color of them. "The black of black ravens" is not "the black" of "black ravens." let me explain further. "The black of black ravens" is one "particular," there is no breaking that down into the components of "the black" and "black raven" with "of" as "connector."
I might as well write "the black of black ravens" as "RavenB." "RavenB" is not "black." It is not "black raven." It is not black of black ravens as breakable down into its constituents. It can't because it IS. Same with "AppleR." We can compare "RavenB" with "RavenX" but not "AppleR" or any "AppleX." Any AppleX wouldn't affect RavenX. At all. Unless there's an apple that's a raven, or a raven that's an apple. Now we know just how much sense that would make.
RavenB and RavenW would be grouped together by interactions with other objects that predicates them as "Raven[COLOR]" (e.g. there are consequences attached to the condition of "a raven being black" versus "a raven being white" or whatever) Predications are neither absolutely specific nor general. Now if I used a broom as a bat to hit a ball then that broom was practically a bat in that instance. That broom gained predication of "bat[nanikore]" from me, who used it as a bat. The point is to make the assignment circumvent, peripheral, relational, and indirect. Why- because that's my idea of "how it works."
Realistically, a designation is never going to be purely specific or purely general; It's always going to be a bit of both- the question then would be is the designation we're looking at too general or too specific (i.e. at the right "level of focus" or "scale")
----
Why perceived movement is not only possible but necessary
(responding indirectly to tiresia2's comments regarding Zeno's paradox)
An integral part of being is its own becoming. Paradoxes are the result of the separation of being from its becoming (its dynamic/evolutionary aspect). Existence can not remain static.
1. existence exists.
2. transformation is necessary for there is dynamism (the becoming that is inherent in being).
3. there is persistence of memory of object "A" from perceived static state A1 until the next perceived static state A2, all the while the dynamic state "Ã" is retained and unidentifiable
4. there is perceived movement of A from A1 to A2
5. perception and conception of A1, A2... is quantized, progression à is still continuous
Wherever we "place" the arrow logically (i.e. identify its position), it is already "not where we place it at"
re: "How does one keep an open mind" and Aristotle. See section of post marked "Goal."
re: Revelation. Many ideas begin their lives as intuitions and not the result of direct observations. In this case, I did not directly "observe non-identity." It can be inferred from observations, but not observed.
Disclaimer: I have not read any Pirsig. Usages of the terms "static" and "dynamic" are coincidental. Those were the words that best described my intuitions regarding the matter when I wrote about it, and any Pirsigian references are nonintentional.
Background: A discussion with Synanimus in the past has brought up the question of "Which kind of metaphysics am I doing, descriptive or revisionary?" Upon an examination of my own framework I concluded that neither the label of descriptive nor revisionary metaphysics fits my aims. The issue of sliding scales popped up once more in a very recent discussion with adamsphilosophy, but I do not know how firm of a link can be established between that common theme with the determination of the nature of my metaphysics. Sliding scales (the terminology used was "targeted zone of investigation) first appeared in a discussion with chgriffen. I think there have been enough discussions since then for me to begin sorting things out and making connections. I am much inspired by recent bold statements that tiresias2 have made in his journal, and believe we are hitting upon a common pool of issues- that of normative distinctions. Continuous bridging of ideas via continuum has always been the policy in the handling of the "problem of discernment" eversince the inception of my framework.
Goal: Since I assert that the metaphysics that I am doing does not fit neatly under descriptive or revisionary, I would have to explain why. I already know the practical reason- I do not want to be constricted by conception and rationale. Now people would jump on that right away and say "Hey that doesn't make sense at all." The short answer is that if I go by what I perceive of the world and saying what exists in my mind is "thus" and work upon that conception, my methodology would be constricted by my conception of the mental process. On the other hand, if I go by what I reason of the world and saying what "must" exist in the world my methodology would be constricted by my conception of the content and operation of the world. What I want to do is take a page out of phenomenology (but this is not phenomenology, mind you) by saying "look, I don't assume anything about what's "in here" (mind) or "out there" (world). All I want to do is construct a plausible model simply by observing the problem at hand and shaping the methodogy to the flow of the problem itself." In other words, not shaping the solution to the preconceived paradigm but going the reverse and shaping the ad-hoc paradigm to the problem. Now I can just picture all kinds of "What the hell is that" remarks, but I argue that shaping the problem solving tool to fit the problem at hand is much better than trying to wrestle with the problem to somehow jam itself into the inflexibly fixed problem solving tool. What is this tool? The paradigm. What is the paradigm? The underlying metaphysics that we use to solve the problems. How can this be, undoubtedly the critics would scream. No, I would answer, this is not "be;" I am neither describing the world as I perceive it nor describing the world as it should be but describing the microcosmic condition of the problem at hand. This is not "the world" but "of the world;" There is insulation to keep me from treading upon the unseen actual. Whatever smokes and mirrors may be in the mind or in the world, they become moot at the point of pragmatic practice. I need not to even pretend to stand on epistemic grounding besides knowledge of the end symptoms (phenomena) in the form of the problem. The problem itself provides the metaphysical parameters.
Despite knowing the practical impetus for the non-fit of labels, I would not stop right there. I would go further by saying that what underpins the separation of descriptive and revisionary metaphysics is a bit of an idealistic mistake. Here is where an even more controversial issue arises- logical re-identity. I want to dispute logical re-identity and point out "what it really does." I then finish by asserting that re-identity is not logical but intuitive in nature.
[Begin notes]
Perhaps separation of being and becoming and the persistence of memory are the only reasons that re-identity exist. It seems to me that identification and re-identification are not really logical but intuitive processes. It is for the convenience and necessity of thought that normative logic even exists.
Let me define what "normative logic" means. I use "normative logic" to describe logic that does not take the dynamism of the object in question into account.
Let's say that "A" is our normative logical denotation of a thing, anything. Now, when we talk about this "A," do we normally and immediately think of these questions:
1. Does A evolve?
2. What is A turning into?
3. What is A's potential for change?
4. Is A changing as we are observing it?
I say that we don't normally think of anything like those questions, but instead take for granted that "A is what it is," a kind of static object that stays what it is unless some force or another is acting upon it.
This conception is erroneous. Not only is object A not static it is not even "quite what it is" as we deem it.
What is really happening is that we are merely taking some sort of static snapshot of our perception and conception of what A "is (supposed to be)" in one instantaneous moment and identifying it in our memories. It does not really include its dynamism, just our largely static perception and conception of it. I am not merely saying "once we see A, A changes so we have a delay of the speed of light" or something like that but "we can not fully appreciate A as a dynamic, evolving being- we can not help but perceive/conceive A as static because we must perceive/conceive it as such in order to identify it."
[Edit: i.e. We can not "see" the dynamism, but only the transitions from one filtered/received moment to the next. We do not directly perceive the dynamism but could only infer. It is like if something is "alive" but we only see the symptoms of its "aliveness" but not actually "see" the actual "aliveness." Okay, if this is not helping at all then please ignore and excuse my overall clumsiness to boot]
In the process of identification we lose something. There is a gulf between identity and "nonidentity;" between the locking-down of identity and the other extreme- the non-acknowledgement of identity. Now we have to identify things and have them perceived and perceived as somewhat static no matter what, but at least we could acknowledge the difference between the static A of our memories and the live, dynamic "Ã" (henceforth that symbol would be used as shorthand) that is presently changing right in front of us.
a. There is the gulf of nonidentity, the difference between memory and actuality: A ≠ Ã
b. A is obsolescent; what is deemed A is no longer, once indentified. Ã can not be obsolete but it can not be identified either, only referred to.
c. Only things persisting in memory can be identified. What enters into our memory is static.
Normative logic relies upon the persistence of memory and is in turn bound by it.
------
Insert sidebar on machine memory. Data is collected from the world and stored in registers. Operations are then done on the data that's stored in the registers. The value is a detected value, and thus the data is an imprint from the world (i.e. filtered) and not the world itself. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that there is a gap, a distance between logic and the world.
------
Only when we speak of the static, "not what it is" A can we perform normative logical operations:
A = A
However, when the progressive à is involved the self-relation can no longer apply:
à ≠ Ã
There is no reidentification because an identification was not performed in the first place. Now this is not some kind of kludge to "skip the problem." Something containing a potential for change involves a degree of uncertainty, and this uncertainty make the reidentification impossible.
[editorial 2/20/04: I expect most of the challenge/complaint/criticism to be aimed at the above paragraph. In other words, I have a whole lot of explaining and elaboration to do regarding how I got my "there is no identification performed in the first place." Perhaps I sould use the term "transitional" or "transient" to "un-pin" this "Ã" instead of "dynamic." It is very difficult to pin down an apt description of something that's not even supposed to be describable (if I can describe the disposition of "Ã" fully then it's not "transient/dynamic" anymore but back to the regular "static"). It's a bit of an oxymoronic activity. This is where the "Problem of Discernment" and "Problem of Articulation"(the converse) that I have discussed in the past really rear their ugly heads]
Of course, we still see A. So how is this taken care of? We have memories of A, the identity of A. Again, we just take for granted that "A is A" and gloss over the dynamism and the progression. After all, our observations of this world consist of mostly stable objects, and our conceptions consist of stable concepts. Faced with those two pillars, how else is our mind going to react to objects but to view them as static? It would be counter-intuitive to not do so. We intuitively reidentify objects.
[notes page 2]
Logic is a static representation of life but not a reflection of it.
A thing can only be generally depicted as retaining identity but not specifically. [here, I'm going to copy from a conversation with adamsphilosophy instead because it's clearer]
Some designations are relatively more particular or more general than others. If we want to be "absolutely general about something" the most we can denote is the term "thing" or "something." At the other end of the spectrum (that's "absolute particular"), we couldn't say anything at all because the number of symbols required would be infinite.
Instead of adhering to revisionary metaphysics and say "okay those properties must be separatable" or doing descriptive metaphysics and say "we perceive black, we perceive ravens, so the raven with black on them..." I want to do some kind of "methodological metaphysics" where I just say "Okay we're dealing with the problem of colors and objects. We have different kinds of objects so we don't want to mix them up when we talk about colored objects" Intead of going paradigm-first, we "invent the paradigm just for the problem at hand" as we go along. What that ends up doing usually is sliding metrics back and forth depending on the needs of the problem.
Let's take black ravens and the color of them. "The black of black ravens" is not "the black" of "black ravens." let me explain further. "The black of black ravens" is one "particular," there is no breaking that down into the components of "the black" and "black raven" with "of" as "connector."
I might as well write "the black of black ravens" as "RavenB." "RavenB" is not "black." It is not "black raven." It is not black of black ravens as breakable down into its constituents. It can't because it IS. Same with "AppleR." We can compare "RavenB" with "RavenX" but not "AppleR" or any "AppleX." Any AppleX wouldn't affect RavenX. At all. Unless there's an apple that's a raven, or a raven that's an apple. Now we know just how much sense that would make.
RavenB and RavenW would be grouped together by interactions with other objects that predicates them as "Raven[COLOR]" (e.g. there are consequences attached to the condition of "a raven being black" versus "a raven being white" or whatever) Predications are neither absolutely specific nor general. Now if I used a broom as a bat to hit a ball then that broom was practically a bat in that instance. That broom gained predication of "bat[nanikore]" from me, who used it as a bat. The point is to make the assignment circumvent, peripheral, relational, and indirect. Why- because that's my idea of "how it works."
Realistically, a designation is never going to be purely specific or purely general; It's always going to be a bit of both- the question then would be is the designation we're looking at too general or too specific (i.e. at the right "level of focus" or "scale")
----
Why perceived movement is not only possible but necessary
(responding indirectly to tiresia2's comments regarding Zeno's paradox)
An integral part of being is its own becoming. Paradoxes are the result of the separation of being from its becoming (its dynamic/evolutionary aspect). Existence can not remain static.
1. existence exists.
2. transformation is necessary for there is dynamism (the becoming that is inherent in being).
3. there is persistence of memory of object "A" from perceived static state A1 until the next perceived static state A2, all the while the dynamic state "Ã" is retained and unidentifiable
4. there is perceived movement of A from A1 to A2
5. perception and conception of A1, A2... is quantized, progression à is still continuous
Wherever we "place" the arrow logically (i.e. identify its position), it is already "not where we place it at"