Re: [Critical-Realism] Creative Dialogue

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dave

Frankly, I don't find it very worthwhile engaging with you because I don't 
find your postings very clear or consistent or to the point or on some 
things well informed. Now you're rabbiting on about my alleged 
Australianness, when you know very little about my identity and it's anyway 
beside the point, and about my need for a depth-understanding of your own 
personality. Why should I single you out for such attention (especially 
given that you read Neville Shute)? I clearly can't bestow it on all the 
critical realists in the world.

Re lack of clarity, you say that what you've been trying to do is "to 
persuade critical realists not to throw the  radical baby out with the 
non-Marxist bathwater". What does that mean? That critical realists throw 
out everything non-Marxist and keep the Marxism? But that's a nonsense, not 
worth discussing. If you can't state your overall project coherently, the 
devil will be in the detail.

You say "the crucial CR question is HOW is it possible to detect them 
[errors] without knowledge?" I've been arguing that it isn't possible (if 
knowledge includes provisional understandings). You say machines can do it, 
and intuitives. But you also say that machines can't understand, and we've 
been talking about humans who can; and that machines help generate  illusory 
appearances that there is no error.  As for intuition, a moment's reflection 
will show that its insights can only occur on the basis of a thoroughly 
immanently prepared ground -- great familiarity with existing knowledge, 
theories, traditions etc.

Mervyn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List'" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Creative Dialogue


> Oh dear!
>
> Dear Mervyn
>
> I said nothing about my not being in error - I am relevant to this
> discussion only insofar as my talents and experience are as real as anyone
> else's, and better known to me for purpose of illustration.  Nor are you
> relevant to it.  I am trying to explain a crucial concept rather than
> criticise or belittle you for not already understanding it.  I am well 
> aware
> that I also started as "a rank amateur".
>
> The discussion was about how automatic error detection works in computers,
> i.e. it focusses on the form of the signal rather than the meaning of the
> message.  It has to because (until programmed) a computer cannot 
> understand
> the messages.
>
> Previously I've made the point that this same mechanism can be used to
> detect the occasional presence of no errors in otherwise apparently
> gobblygoog messages (accepting of course that coding like parity checks 
> can
> only improve reliability, not secure certainty, and even computer hardware
> can develop faults).  I've also made the point that the same mechanism is
> one of just two forms of circuit logic: the NOT AND rather than the NOT OR
> form (though to admit an error, I probably referred to the AND and OR 
> forms
> without the NOT). And I've also made the point which is crucial when this
> underlying mechanism is applied to user programming of error checks (the
> equivalent of human judgement): that the program has to compare the signal
> with known types of error, which it can't do until the types of error have
> become known to the system.  Taking myself as an illustration of this, I
> have previously recognised that it wasn't until I was about forty that I
> began to trust my own judgement, and I was nearer 60 when I learned (i.e.
> was taught how) to understand myself via analysis of a Myers-Briggs
> personality test.
>
> Mervyn, your Australian and my Northern English cultures have this in
> common: a willingness to call a spade a spade and not take offence if 
> others
> do.  Let me ask, then, is it "creative dialogue" to make a straw man out 
> of
> one aspect of an argument and then substitute the real man for the straw
> man?
>
> Let us step back from this.  If you are willing to try and understand my
> real character, then I can point you to sometime Australian writer Nevil
> Shute's novel, "No Highway", in which the character and story of Mr Honey 
> is
> an accurate reflection of mine, except that he was a backroom scientist at
> the Royal Aircraft Establishment, whereas I was at the Royal Rader
> Establishment.  He too was a family man, happy in his work and somehow
> managing to end up with the nicest girl in town.  His problems with 
> getting
> people to take metal fatigue in their own aircraft seriously have some
> similarity with mine trying to pursuade critical realists not to throw the
> radical baby out with the non-Marxist bathwater.  We both end up being
> considered objectionable.  I won't spoil the story by saying what Mr Honey
> does about it, because that is what we still have time to find an
> alternative to.
>
> Let me also try an analogy to convey the flavour of Myers-Briggs 
> personality
> typing.  You are probably aware how cricket commentators have started
> analysing a batsman's style, strengths and weaknesses in terms of where
> (relative to where he is facing) he hits the ball: right or left, forward 
> or
> behind.  To say a batsman hits most of his best shots up or along the 
> floor
> in one quarter or another can be a definite and accurate statement without
> saying precisely where he does hit the ball or any suggestion that he
> doesn't hit it anyway else.  Likewise, there is no suggestion that
> introverts and extroverts (ideas-focussed or people-focussed), intuitives
> and sensors (focussed on memory or sense), thinkers and feelers (judging 
> by
> programming or primitive mechanisms) and judgers or perceptives 
> (primitively
> wanting to act or discover more), though definite types, are individually
> defined thereby.  Even introvert intuitive thinking just-about-judgers 
> like
> myself have feelings.
>
> Back on the subject, what is the point of arguing (with Ruth and against
> Tobin) abour errors, if the crucial CR question is HOW is it possible to
> detect them without knowledge?  The answer matters, even if you don't like
> it.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
> 

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