Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of Information

["Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Jose-Carlos

It is important to realise that some elderly people suffer from cateracts
and, though they may not notice the mist around what they are familiar with,
think everything else is misty.  Here apparently Mervyn has not seen where
reference to CR ended and reference to information began.  

In an accompanying arrogant and insolent dismissal of everything I say,
Mervyn is still, after seven years, seeing it as an attempt to compete with
Bhaskarian CR as against an attempt to co-operatively enrich it.  If it is
"tommy rot" to talk of conflation of structures and mechanisms, why has
Bhaskar not distinguished passive structures from active mechanisms on Table
0.1 on page 13 of "A Realist Theory of Science"?  Why can't Mervyn accept
that Bhaskar's ideas have developed?  (Which was all I suggested.  In my
eyes pointing out the fact is a compliment to him).  My "preposterous
reduction" was intended as a pointer to a core of shared meaning and to less
clouded eyes was obviously not intended as a reduction of Bhaskar to a
caricature of Christianity, but if that incautious word "just" has offended
I apologise and gladly withdraw it.

This is all a great pity.  I am still able to learn from Mervyn; Mervyn, it
seems, has learned nothing from me, despite my different perspectives and
even longer experience of grappling with the substantive issues. (Hume from
27 years before RTS was first published, the transcendental [wide sample]
justification of scientific and religious belief from 4 years before that).

Yours sadly

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mervyn
Hartwig
Sent: 14 December 2007 11:29
To: 'Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List'
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of Information

Dear Jose-Carlos

It's important to understand that Dave sometimes sheds more fog on this list
than light. CR does not abstract from meaning - it *sets out from* common
understandings of what people are doing in their activities. If you had to
say what it is in 3 words it's a philosohy of praxis. On the philosophy of
meta-Reality, which in my view constitutes a single system with CR, the
world itself is meaningful ('enchanted').

I hope you don't mind my asking, but are you related to *the* Jose Carlos
Mariategui? 

Mervyn 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Jose-Carlos Mariategui
Sent: 14 December 2007 08:48
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realist Philosophy of Information

dear Dave:

Yes, from a CR perspective, I believe you are right in trying to  
understand 'information' in complete abstraction from 'meaning', but  
in that sense starting from Shannon we would need to analyze much part  
of the studies on AI that had been trying for more than 50 years now  
to give a logico-mathematical perspective to meaning.

The issue with Shannon is that I believe, from what I read by him, he  
is then trying to abstract his engineering perspective to more complex  
issues that deal with society and the individual, and that, as in the  
case of many other AI researchers, have failed to give an  
understanding on 'meaning'.

Jose-Carlos



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