Re: [Critical-Realism] Redescribing ( De-ont and Absense) as (Matterand Form) as (partial derivatives of Being)

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dave

The problem with Howard's making "form" stand in for "absence" is that
Howard doesn't allow that absence has any causal force, but on a critical
realist account form qua relations, including social relations, is sui
generis real and causal. Something's got to give -- either entity
relationism and the TMSA or Howard.

Mervyn 

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dave
Taylor
Sent: 09 December 2007 08:05
To: 'Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List'
Subject: [Critical-Realism] Redescribing ( De-ont and Absense) as (Matterand
Form) as (partial derivatives of Being)

Hi Mervyn, Howard et al

The discussion of "How can a de-ont exist or an absence be present?" was so
interesting I cleaned it up so I could follow it better, and what I've
attached below suggests that early on there was actually a measure of
agreement.

This note is to put on record how Howard's redescription of the issue in
terms of matter and form ("simpler, really") has triggered a realisation of
how the issue of polyvalence is being dealt with in other fields, notably
systems analysis, english and mathematics.

In SSADM the systems analysis is first in terms of entities (matter) and
their network of relations (form).  The relations are then analysed causally
(i.e. as the processes which the relationships imply: how the form of each
entity is transformed by the form of others).  The entities are analysed
temporally (how they are formed, modified and removed: de-onted like
Mervyn's Twin Towers).  The "design" phase then redescribes the entities in
terms of their structure (> Algol68 Modes) and the processes as programs.

In english the same set-up has to be redescribed in sentence structure:
which it is, in the sequence subjct - verb - object.  Where SSADM diagrams
have the advantage over english is that they can show all such relationships
at the same time, whereas in english they have to be shown one after the
other, destroying the visual representation  of the form of the system.

In mathematics, Pythagoras represented complete difference such as that
between matter and form by means of a right angle.  Descartes applied that
to mapping space two-dimensionally. (But Descartes also invented coordinate
geometry, which permits geometry to be represented and so manipulated as an
algebra of points (but like English, destroys the representation of the
system form).  Newton invented the calculus, but used geometry to justify
his conclusions about gravity. It was left to less celebrated others to
others to show that Descartes' analysis generates four points (each itself
in his terms two-dimensional Complex Numbers: (X,Y), (0,Y), (X,0), (0,0)),
four sectors, four phases, Hamilton's quaternions (four rotations by 90
degrees, so representing four types of difference).  Thus we have four types
of differentiation, Aristotle's four causes, Bhaskar's dialectic, SSADM's
form of analysis, an architect's plan, front and side elevations and list of
parts,  four differentials at three levels: the undifferentiated (being),
two partial first differentials (matter and form)and an undifferentiable
second differential (zero; but the context is dimensions, so this means no
measure, not that what cannot be measured - e.g. unstructured energy - is
necessarily absent).

After Hume redescribed the reality to be mapped as the sequence of points
generated by the events of a scientist's observation, the world has ended up
with the mess it is in now: using english etc, algebra and numerical
calculus, with a great deal of knowledge of things but very little of system
form (how all the bits come together, how one can "reform" by redirecting
rather than merely opposing).

When Bhaskar takes scientific method to pieces and tries to put the bits
together in English, he may still be able to see the way the bits fit
together but we are left guessing (and arguing).  Is it possible, I am left
wondering, to map his arguments on SSADM diagrams?

Best

Dave    

    

----- Original Sequence of Messages -----

From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard
Engelskirchen
Sent: 06 December 2007 01:47
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] 

Hi Mervyn,

> > tell me where to look and what to look for

><snip>
>The main problem seems to be that you're thinking in a monovalent rather
>than a polyvalent way about being in general - you're tacitly assuming that
>it's all pure positivity ("material"). So if "something material is shot
>through with with positivity" this must somehow preclude its being shot
>through with negativity. What about the level-specific gaps or voids in it,
>and the deep structure that is absent from the level of the actual?
>
>In like manner, you're (presumably, as a CR) thinking in terms of real
>emergence (e.g. of the Twin Towers), but not of real dis-emergence. <snip>
>
>This is not to say that something can come out of just nothing (any more
>than out of just something, in the sense of pure positivity). In the
>polyvalent world we know, there's no such thing as "pure negativity" (any
>more than "pure positivity"), nor probably was there before it came to
>exist. It's true that, if the question of the coming to be and ceasing to
>exist of any world containing presence is posed in the context of current
>cosmological theory, it could only be from absence to absence. But this
does
>not entail that there was ever absolutely nothing: there may be degrees and
>modes of absence we do not fully comprehend. We need to take the
>implications of modern science seriously in this area, not ignore them.

>From Howard:

I had already noticed that the water molecule is 
composed of gaps between its constituent elements, but thanks anyway.

1.      One way to talk about this, simpler, 
really, is to say that the things of the world 
are composites of matter and form.  As I 
suggested in my response to Nick, arrangements of 
matter and its gaps can vary enormously with the 
result that the same constituents can have very 
different causal effects.  The water molecule 
differently arranged causes steam or ice.

2.      Non being is without causal 
structure.  Because it lacks causal structure it 
has no causal potency, force, efficacy, 
consequence or "impact";  no amount of rhetorical 
shock and awe can obscure that.

3.      Ruth is absolutely right to call 
attention to the terrific utility of our ability 
to linguistically redescribe the world, including 
our ability to imagine things that aren't 
there.  Our success as a species is an important 
consequence of our ability to imagine a future 
(absent) different from the present.

4.      But it is important not to confuse 
linguistic redescription with the way the world 
is.  Any actual transformation of the present 
into the future requires the efficacious 
operation of ordinary causal mechanisms.  See 
point 2.  Meanings are causal, but they are so 
only in virtue of engaging ordinary causal 
mechanisms.  My idea that it would be nice to have a breeze opens no
windows.

>From Dave:

This again is a lovely letter.  At (1), though, don't you mean "different
arrangement of water molecules causes steam or ice"?

I can go along with (2), but suggest it implies that "being" is thereby
restricted to things within the universe capable of affecting observers.
Take away all from the Universe all the matter  and detectable
electromagnetic waves which have emerged, and one is apparently left with a
sizeable proportion of expanding energy which as a whole is not lacking
structure (c.f. Hubble's Bubble) and from an earlier state of which
localised being has in fact emerged, probably at the interface with
non-energy.

At (3), isn't this where 'referential detachment' comes in? (and in
computing languages the emergence of "types" or structure definitions
distinct from objects which are to be interpreted as so structured)?

At the end of (4), are you quoting Mary Parker Follett's example from
"Constructive Conflict" in "Dynamic Administration", or is this just a
coincidence?  But in any case, the fact that my liking a breeze does
sometimes cause me to open a window implies that in the context of my brain
they ARE engaging ordinary social mechanisms, so the question is, How?
That, I suggest, is where seeing how changing the arrangements of logic
circuits is effected in computer hardware becomes instructive. 

>From Mervyn:

This is interesting. The hole in the ground isn't there, it's in our heads,
and so is the gap we see in the cafe. Meanings are causal, but then again
not really causal because they engage "ordinary" (i.e. "material") causal
mechanisms.  You admit gaps to being and causal structures, so non-being is
part of being and causal structures, yet somehow non-being has no causal
force, only (a fortiori) purely positive being has, even though it couldn't
move if there were no gaps and in fact nowhere exists. 

There's no such thing as pure absence any more than there's pure presence.
You can't isolate one or the other out and say whether they have "causal
structure" - as your statement that "non-being is without causal structure"
does.  Absence, like presence, is essential to what a causal structure is
(and to cause is to absent). You're not engaging with this position at all.
It's tacit monovalence forever.


>From Howard:

Thanks, Dave.

Yes, of course, on (1);  molecule should have an 's' attached.

If you take away the Universe and are left with expanding energy, then
that's stuff, that is, being.

Coincidence with respect to Follett, I'm afraid,  and yes, there must be
some engagement in the brain, that, as far as I understand it, we have  yet
to explain.  We know our actions are semio-causal, but we don't know what
the hyphen stands in for. 

Hi also Mervyn.

A fair reading of my posts makes clear I had already noticed also that
"absence, like presence, is essential to what causal structure is."  And
your parenthetical addition, that "to cause is to absent," of course is
something I had explicitly said.

I also said that being presupposes non-being.  But how do we distinguish
between them?  Here's a way:  being causes, non-being doesn't.  (That's
what's important about holes.)

Since we seem to be labeling here, the traditional philosophical designation
for the view that supposes meanings are causal without engaging ordinary
causal mechanisms is idealism.


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