Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realism and Philosophy ofInformation

["Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A more considered response here to Mervyn and Mark reflects on the four
different mechanisms involved in thinking: taken three at a time to provide
the beginning, middle and end of a thought:

Action to observe > logical analysis > emotional satisfaction [the thought
that stops thought].

Dissonance between observation and logical analysis > emotional
dissatisfaction > intuition scanning of image memory looking for
satisfactory alternative.

Emotional satisfaction > imagination of solution > logic of it.

Dissonance between logical solution and observation > emotional
dissatisfaction > corrective action.

So I suspect that in the passage Mervyn quoted Bhaskar must have been
thinking of 'thought' just as logical analysis.

On Mark's earlier references to personalisation, I obviously need to become
more familiar with the literature (especially Scheler, for which reference
thanks).  My understanding of this at the moment is that the term person
comes from the Greek for a mask, which can be read as "appearances", so that
'personalisation' works out as something like enabling the expression of the
inner spirit, which in terms of the way in which inner energy is physically
guided comes down to something like personality type.  More or less
"enabling people to be themselves"?  The interesting thing is how
personalities develop with age, so that the selves we need to be are
different at different ages.

Best

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dave
Taylor
Sent: 16 December 2007 12:12
To: 'Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List'
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realism and Philosophy
ofInformation

Fair comment, Mervyn.  I think the dynamic response is that thought doesn't
require us to stop, it allows us to move on to a different way of thinking.

Best

Dave  

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark
Johnson
Sent: 16 December 2007 11:32
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realism and Philosophy
ofInformation

yes, I agree. Conceptually-bound thought is an attenuator of
reality... it is the map to the territory, but we couldn't manage
without attenuators.

To act is to inhabit the territory, but acting without maps is not a
good idea in my experience! (Bateson said to not have a theory is a
bad theory)

The 'thought that stops thought' is just a form of ignorance (brought
about by a pathological scientific culture), and in the context of
this discussion, ignorance of the nature of information. It's an
attenuator too far - what Beer calls a 'lethal attenuator'

On 12/16/07, Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  "There is a thought that stops thought.  That is is the only thought
> > that ought to be stopped".  Then he indicated what it was: "We have
> > found all the questions that can be found.  It is time we gave up
> > looking for questions and began looking for answers".
>
> But in looking for answers we do have to stop thought at some stage: we
have
> to unthink, unthought. See 'the critique of the discursive intellect' in
> Bhaskar, Meta-Reality, Chapter. 3. 'Nothing creative ever comes from
> thought.'
>
> Mervyn
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark
> Johnson
> Sent: 16 December 2007 10:53
> To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realism and Philosophy
> ofInformation
>
> This is vey refreshing. To give a slightly more contemporary twist, I'm
> spending a lot of time with the late work of Ivan Illich. The big issue in
> education at the moment is what is termed 'personalisation'.
> Illich was on to this years ago, and I'm fascinated by the resonance
between
> Illich's personalised universe and the 'personalisation' of Teilhard de
> Chardin: "evolution is a continual process of personalisation" to Max
> Scheler's 'personalism'... be interested if anyone's looked at any of
> this...
>
> Mark
>
> On 12/15/07, Dave Taylor <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Mark
> >
> > "Where is the life we have lost in living?
> > Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
> > Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
> >
> > > how is it that three lines of poetry written 70 years ago can tell
> > > us so much about the information cult of our times?)
> >
> > Perhaps because the man who wrote your verse was, like Lord Alton,
> > informed by the wisdom of G K Chesterton: one of if not the first to
> > intuit the causal mechanisms of personality and policy differences.  A
> > hundred years ago GKC wrote:
> >
> > "There is a thought that stops thought.  That is is the only thought
> > that ought to be stopped".  Then he indicated what it was: "We have
> > found all the questions that can be found.  It is time we gave up
> > looking for questions and began looking for answers".
> >
> > Eliot was asking the right questions in 1934, but wisely was not
> > satisfied by that.  By 1939 he was trying to answer them in "The Idea
> > of a Christian Society"; by 1941, at the Malvern Conference on the
> > Order of Society, in "The Christian Concept of Education".
> >
> > Here'e an Eliot line from 1939: "A national [leadership] must of
> > course include individual [people] of different intellectual types and
> > levels; and ... belief has a vertical as well as a horizontal
> > measurement: to answer fully the question "What does A[lton] believe,
> > one must know enough about A to have some notion of the level on which
> > he is capable of believing anything".
> >
> > Sincere thanks for this.  I look forward to hearing more of Minger.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> > Mark Johnson
> > Sent: 15 December 2007 17:35
> > To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
> > Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realism and Philosophy
> > ofInformation
> >
> > Hi Dave, everyone
> >
> > I'm not sure I know what Lord Alton means by information (and I doubt
> > he does either!). I'll send you some more stuff on Mingers when I have
> > it to hand, but in the meantime, I think T.S. Eliot put it rather well
> > in "The Rock":
> >
> > "Where is the life we have lost in living?
> > Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
> > Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
> >
> > (how is it that three lines of poetry written 70 years ago can tell us
> > so much about the information cult of our times?)
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > p.s. If you're adding to the reading list then Winograd and Flores:
> > "Understanding Computers and Cognition" is absolutely essential.
> >
> > On 12/15/07, Dave Taylor <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > With David's interest and Mark's book review in mind, I picked up on
> > > the
> > way
> > > Lord Alton used the word in a recent House of Lords debate:
> > >
> > > "I was struck in our preceding debate by how my noble friend Lord
> > > Patel
> > and
> > > the noble Lord, Lord Winston, were arguing, understandably, for the
> > > use of INFORMATION to develop research to ensure good medical
practice.
> ...
> > > Bioethics brings together philosophy, science, medicine and
> > > healthcare but increasingly recognises the need to have regard to
> > > broad social interests, as well as the needs and concerns of
> > > specialist groups. The problems are pressing, the concerns
> > > widespread and the issues difficult, but resources can be brought to
> > > bear to provide policy-makers such as ourselves and
> > others
> > > with INFORMATION, advice and guidance."
> > >
> > > This (perhaps because of the contrast with advice and guidance) gave
> > > me
> > the
> > > impression he was talking about FACTUAL information (CR events,
> > > Algol68
> > > variables) whereas advice would be interpretive (CR structure,
> > > Algol68
> > > modes) and guidance "know-how" (CR about mechanisms, Algol68
> > > program).  In the context of philosophy he would hardly have been
> > > talking about (in Shannon's terms) "non-redundant" information, i.e.
> > > real-world "news" (CR experiences, Algol68 values of variables),
> > > although with a four-level
> > > Algol68 interpretation of Shannon's decoder it can be seen that new
> > "facts"
> > > to be remembered might well include interpretations or methods as
> > > well as real world objects.
> > >
> > > My conclusion from this is that Lord Alton was using 'information'
> > > in the way which has become common-place in our Humean culture (i.e.
> > > excluding interpretive advice and guidance), whereas the
> > > implications of the Shannon and CR positions are that it should be
> > > used inclusively.  Advice and guidance, I suspect, are precisely
> > > what Humean science has replaced by pseudo-facts about monetary value
> and equilibriating markets.
> > >
> > > Mark, from this you may get some idea of what it is I would like to
> > > know about Minger's book.  His "characterisation of language as
> > > connotive
> > rather
> > > than denotive" sounds promising, but is he still going in Humean
> > > fashion
> > for
> > > one or the other and not (in CR fashion) both?  Has his focus on
> > autopoiesis
> > > (automata) drawn his attention away from the implications for human
> > freedom
> > > of Shannon's "how to free oneself from information error", how to
> > > [sufficiently] absent an absence of truth?
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> > > David Opderbeck
> > > Sent: 14 December 2007 15:22
> > > To: critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: [Critical-Realism] Critical Realism and Philosophy of
> > > Information
> > >
> > > Jose-Carlos and Dave Taylor -- thanks for the helpful feedback!  I
> > > have
> > read
> > > Shannon and other work following off of Shannon such as Norbert
Weiner.
> > I'm
> > > relatively new to critical realism, though, having come to it
> > > through discussions in the religion-and-science field.
> > >
> > > Here's what I'm working on:  I'm an intellectual property law scholar.
> > > Although my field deals with the legal regulation of "information,"
> > > the notion of "information" itself is undeveloped in our literature.
> > > The predominant underlying assumption is that "information" is a
> > > sort of economic commodity, and that it should be viewed through the
> > > lens of neo-classical economic theory as a sort of "public good" (a
> > > non-rival resource).  There is also a significant stream of our
> > > literature that focuses on "authorship" from a postmodern
> > > deconstructionist perspective,
> > and
> > > essentially argues that control over cultural production is entirely
> > > and issue of power.  Finally, there are "cyberlaw" scholars who
> > > focus on Internet regulation who -- I would argue -- mish-mash the
> > > economic and postmodern ideas about information to suggest that
> > > information in
> > cyberspace
> > > is socially constructed "code" (including computer code), which can
> > > be
> > kept
> > > "open" without depleting the "information commons" because it also
> > functions
> > > as a non-rival economic commodity.
> > >
> > > I want to critique and synthesize these perspectives on "information"
> > > through a critical realist lens.  What I am thinking is that
> > > "information
> > /
> > > code" is neither a non-rival economic resource nor entirely a social
> > > construction.  I want to conceive of "information" similar to the
> > > way in which Bhaskar conceives of "society" in "The Possibility of
> > > Naturalism" -- as something that is both a given and a product of
> > > continual
> > transformation
> > > by people.  In other words, I want to introduce a critical realist
> > ontology
> > > of information to the debates over the control intellectual
> > > property.  I think this will suggest a more communitarian ethical
> > > and regulatory
> > approach
> > > than the sort of libertarian presuppositions that I think underlie
> > > much of the existing literature.  At the very least, I don't think
> > > anyone in my field has made a serious stab at this sort of thing.
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
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