Dear Cliff,
> In order to subscribe to the PRNCYB-L mailing list, please fill in the
> following form and mail it to Cliff Joslyn at
> cjoslyn@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu. Thank you for your patience in
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Here is the completed form as requested.
Best regards,
Doug Moore
Name:
Email address: doug@leopard.lat.oz.au
URL of home page:
http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~doug/index.html
Postal address:
Computer Science Department voice: 61 3 9479 1142 (office)
La Trobe University,
Bundoora,3083
Australia
Phone:
61 3 9479 1142 (office)
61 3 9857 9964 (home)
Affiliations:
La Trobe University
How did you hear about PCP?
from the web
Please take at least one page to describe your work and how it might
relate to PCP:
My main area of research is "generic theory". This relates to the PCB
as my generic theory project has identical aims - generic theory is to
be my "Principia Cybernetica." The following is cut from my web page
and gives a bit of an idea of my perspectives on the matter. As can
be seen, my emphasis differs from the contemporary perspectives of
the PCP and reaches back to the historical roots of the problem.
Despite this, my actual writings on the subject are quite modern and
employ arrow theoretic techniques and are heavily influenced by the
structure of the genetic code and my many years as a professional systems
software developer. More information is obtainable from my New Stoa
web page, linked to my home page.
For a long time, this project was called Totality Theory and a certain holistic
thrust
to it. I eventually realized that the holistic approach was
erroneous as the theory must be independent of scale and applies
equally to the microscopic and sub-symbolic as to the large. I
eventual settled with the term generic theory , a term that not
only settles well with my Computer Science culture but also with
the general trans-historic pitch of the project - from a
philosophical perspective, generic theory is pre-socratic.
Aristotle and Plato introduced a new rigor into philosophy and
science. However, their contributions were not made without some
cost and compromise. In the process, they also made the first
step in the divorce between the two.
But Aristotelian logic was not the only logic of antiquity -
there were also the Stoics and Magerians. Less favored by the
fortunes of time, virtually all the writings of the Stoics and
Magerians have been lost, and all we have are secondary accounts.
Nevertheless, the signature of the grand ideas of Zeno of Citium
and the great Chryssipus can still be gleaned from these
remnants. It is claimed that, unlike Plato and Aristotle, the
Stoics achieved a form of modern rigor in their renovation of the
ancient generic approach, and did so without cost or compromise.
In other words, they started the road to a modern, all inclusive
science that was compatible with the ancients of their time.
Stoic logic and philosophy remained true to the generic. Their
post-Socratic renovations remained true to the pre-Socratic
Schematically, Plato and Aristotle took the road to the West; the
Stoics went East. It is time to return to the Eastern road..
Thus the story of generic science goes back to the Stoics. In a
nutshell, generic science as conceived in this project is a
reverse engineering of ancient Stoic philosophy and logic put
into a modern context where it seems to resolve many vexing
questions of our time. That is why I call this page The New Stoa.
It is the initial home for relaunching a modern version of
ancient Stoic thought. It involves a return to the past with a
vengeance and the possible opening of a new and fresh start to
resolving so many of the problems and apparent paradoxes of the
sciences that followed the road started by Aristotle and Plato.
Doug Moore
=======================================================
Dr Douglas Moore
Computer Science Department voice: 61 3 9479 1142 (office)
La Trobe University, 61 3 9857 9964 (home)
Bundoora,3083 fax: 61 3 94793060
Australia email: doug@leopard.lat.oz.au
THE NEW STOA page -Generic Science and Stoic Philosophy
http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~doug/generic/generic.html