Rising to the bait once again, pursuing dialogue, I comment on some of the
points Don makes.
>I'm sorry you see this as peripheral. I failed to get you to see that
>it might indeed be central to all we do. So, I'll keep trying and try
>not to deflect us too far from "important" topics. [and]. . . insights we all
>>need to get get anywhere. Which of us is taking the limiting position?
I think there is considerable common ground in our views, although I think
literal intepretations may be getting in the way at times (on both sides).
I do see this discussion as significant - at least, concerned with
significant matters ;-).
And perhaps I should make my own premises explicit. In my own pursuit of
what is of central importance I have come to the view that the mind is like
(or is) a hierarchical system of ascending levels of feedback controls,
which at the higher levels (or increasing importance) are values. There is
nothing absolute about these, but they are the source of direction and
feedback for the "action" in human life.
> Way back in the sixties, it was
>pretty widely accepted that the value free and "end of ideology"
>positions were really ideaologies in disguise. How do you fit Karl Popper's
>ideas into all this? He thinks (as I understand him) that we can not
>escape value judgements and personal bias. Our attempts to do so simply
>play havoc with our integrity.
Agreed. Popper also emphasized that the world we live in is not only a
world of abstract or cultural concepts (within which science and religion
can both be classified), but a realm for each of us within which we
interact both with a real external world (things-in-themselves) unknowable
to us as such, as well as in terms of subjective phenomena not classifiable
in language and abstract terms. This is what I see in Popper, as well as a
cybernetic style of inquiry which relates these worlds and assist us to
allow for our inherent biases.
>Now, as we consider cybernetics, or
>what ever it is we are supposed to be doing here, isn't there some
>operational value in seeing if we can break free from these self
>deceptions?
Agreed. The major problems that I see are related to how we can do this.
>The lay writings about the "complexity revolution"
>suggest that reductionist science was unwittingly serving a quest for
>power and control. They go on to posit that complexity research may be
>telling us that the best we can hope for is "understanding" To me this is
>NOT a limitation, but a liberation? It is what we pretended we were
>doing all along. What will it cost? Less "fat" from those who sponsored
>us because they thought we'd help them get power. In this sense we
>have the oportunity to move from being the dominant religion to what
>we so often profess to be. (see we even traffic in sermons).
>Maybe this clarifies my concerns a bit.
I share your concerns about the role of power in society, which I think
poses immense problems precisely for the reason that it tends to be both
blind (in the interests of narrow self-aggrandizement) and exploitative
(trying to dominate others). In cybernetic terms what is involved, I
think, may be seen as lower level systems in the body politic (and
economic) acting like cancers in disregard of larger societal values. But I
would not want to define science as a religion on the grounds that those in
power sometimes use science (more strictly, technology) in that way.
Unfortunately there are also academics who, much influenced by history,
understand social control only in terms of coercive physical power. While
it would be foolish not to acknowledge the role of physical force in many
situations, in terms of cybernetics both freedom, and the control which
enables freedom, are better understood in terms of individual automomy and
purposes guided by adequate information - cf. Mill's On Liberty.
>Maybe you have found a way to overcome the limits of our language,
>which demands a linear, a followed by b, format. Otherwise, you too,
>seem to be forced to deal with issues in this linear manner. Further,
>a holistic approach is what I am after, but the medium does not seem to
>encourage that. Most of the topics we dabble with here are very deep.
>We seem to have agreed a long time ago that this is not the place for
>in depth discourse.
Let's distinguish the problems of achieving a holistic approach from the
limitations of this particular medium. (My own hope for this newsgroup
medium is that somebody may point me in the way of a more suitable forum,
for I agree that the problems are very deep.) And while language is linear
in its presentation, the information which it provides can be used to
reconstitute a picture, or a perception of an organized whole e.g. many
works of art.
In my view cybernetics also provides the most useful model on which to base
a holistic appoach. It is the only organizational arrangement which relates
levels - systems and subsystems, etc.- in precise ways. Medicine e.g.
endocrinology and neurosciences, etc., in effect takes this approach,
although as in all disciplines there are many practitioners who mostly
reduce everything to rules of thumb. But when deeper problems are
encountered in any field, a systems approach seems to be required, relating
everything potentially to everything else, but systematically, with
reference points.
I wrote:
>> ...I think the firm reference point of values should be,
>> i.e. in supporting dynamic processes of creative freedom.
>I don't know what you are talking about, no ammount of reading will make
>that last phrase ("i.e. ...) comprehensible. I guess I'm not able
>to see your point.
Well, let me try it another way. As I have said, my view is that there is a
hierarchy of control at work in the processes we call "minding", and that
at the higher levels our ideas of what constitute truth, fairness, etc.
dominate. There is nothing absolute about these for they depend upon
experiences in life. But, while they are relative, they are relative to
human needs and the conditions of human life, so there are many contraints
upon the values that prove useful. We also have good reasons to believe
that they cannot be fixed or rigid and at the same time be adaptively
successful - so they should be dynamic (as opposed to static). They should
be open to new information i.e. free, and capable of new syntheses i.e.
creative. So, as I said, the values which set the ultimate stage must be
dynamic, open and creative, where these words refer to concepts and are not
being used as emotive code words alone - as so often they are used for
manipulative purposes. (Of course, processes require materials to work on,
and the materials provided for the drama on stage are developed up through
the perceptual hierarchy, ultimately from phenomena perceived in the
world.)
Scientific and religious beliefs depend upon the observations and methods
of their origins, even those now taken simply on authority. Even values
depend upon the methods that create and inform them, that keep them updated
in terms of applicability. So the highest values involve the processes of
valuation, of the validation and (provisional) acceptance of values.
>I though YOU were trying to distinguish science from
>religion, not me?
I was just saying that there are some distinctions to be made between them
- e.g. many religions accept arguments made on the basis of authority
alone, while no science does. But I would also agree that they have
features in common. For one thing they both are conceptual constructs, and
also depend upon values at higher levels in the controlling hierarchy of
mental functions, although the values on which they depend may not be the
same. Each involves notions of truth, for instance. If one does not
acknowledge a decisive difference between the "truths" of (1) consensually
validated knowledge, as in science, and (2) belief based upon authority
and/or conviction, as most religions, when one can hold that since both
science and religion believe in truth they are the same.
The problem with this argument is that mistakes words for the concepts they
represent and fails to distinguish levels of perception, ideas and values.
>fundamentalism 1 does not equal fundamentalism 2 does not equal ....
>yet they are all fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism is a word that means nothing without considering the
context. It is rather like a word such as central or peripheral, only to be
understood in context in relation to particular things.
Well I could go on but I will stop with two more ideas (which I think are
most important and on which comments are particularly invited).
(1) All freedom is derived from cybernetic or negative feedback
arrangements which liberate systems from the immediate impact of random
contingencies, and higher freedoms are structured in ascending levels of
control.
(2) The possibility of freedom(s) at any level(s) depend upon feedback and
guidance in terms of higher levels which alone have adequately holistic
perspectives, in terms of likelihood of adaptive success for all the
systems involved. The control by values at higher levels is the source of
so-called free will. The concern of religion has been with these higher
values. Too often, unfortunately, the operating links of origination and
effects in relation to lower levels have not been recognized as integral to
those values.
Cheers!
(Don, you may be interested and not unhappy to know that I will be away for
the rest of this week ;-))
Bruce B.
"We are all in this together!"