Copyright
2017 Graham Berrisford. One of more than 300 papers at http://avancier.website.
Last updated 12/01/2021 10:23
This article is a
supplement to this description theory.
It discusses the implications of that theory for philosophy.
Contents
Our
epistemological triangle (RECAP)
Four
triangular views of description and reality (RECAP)
A new
tractacus logico philosophicus
Appendix: A
table of philosophical dichotomies
A map is an abstract model or representation of a physical territory.
The triangle below relates maps to the territories they represent.
Cartography |
Maps <create
and use> <represent> Mappers
<observe and envisage> Territories |
Epistemology is
about what we know of reality, through observation, testing, reasoning and
learning from others.
This article uses
this triangle to relate epistemological concepts.
Epistemology |
Descriptions <create and
use> <represent> Describers <observe and envisage> Phenomena |
The triangle is only simple graphical device,
telling a small part of the story
The semantics of the triangle are defined
below.
Describers
are actors (natural or artificial) that can encode and decode descriptive
models of phenomena.
Descriptions embrace all forms of
mental, documented, digital and physical models.
Phenomena are entities, events and
processes that can be observed or envisaged in time and space.
The relationship between each pair of
concepts is many-to-many.
One describer can create several descriptions
of the same thing.
Those descriptions may be compatible or in conflict (is light waves or particles?).
Also, several describers can contribute to creating one description of the same thing.
It may well be that none of those describers (e.g. system architects) can hold the whole description in mind.
Both describers and descriptions can be observed as phenomena .
Describers are physical actors (natural or artificial), which may be described.
Descriptions are physical matter/energy
structures, which can be described.
To describe a thing is to classify it (after
A J Ayer).
A description represents, specifies or
idealises a thing that embodies or instantiates the description.
A class or type represents, specifies or idealises a thing that embodies or instantiates the type.
A type is a description; a description is a type.
“Intensional definition” is the process of
creating a type or description.
A description expresses a type in the symbols of a particular language.
What gives the description meaning is the action of an actor in creating or using it.
Encoding is the process of creating the
symbols.
Decoding is the process of reading and using
the symbols.
(The encoding and decoding of information is a theme of cybernetics, after Ashby.
See article/chapter 4 for that and others ideas drawn from Ashby’s cybernetics.
Many don’t at first grasp the radical nature
of this psycho-biological and cybernetic view of description and reality.
Note especially
·
Descriptions in the mind are at the top (not the
left)
· Descriptions are often recoded into other descriptions
· Descriptions are physical phenomena
This article starts by saying “holism is not wholeism” and “the map is the territory we understand”.
All written here about systems is based on the idea that systems are patterns we abstract from physical phenomena.
This reflects the outcome of a famous debate between two mathematicians about the meaning of descriptions.
Another mathematician (to help me) has distilled the argument thus.
Frege posited that descriptions (axioms) are imperfect representations of thoughts.
And that mathematics is carried out at the level of thoughts rather than descriptions.
The presumption is that we know what geometric entities, such as points and lines, actually are.
Hilbert said that, even if we did know, this is irrelevant to understanding of geometry.
Since geometry merely defines some relations between some entities.
He argues mathematics is carried out at the level of descriptions or models.
In geometry, a description is a holistic model - it asserts that particular relationships exist between basic, unanalysed, entities
Those entities can be anything (large or small) that follow the relationships stipulated in the model.
Hilbert is now regarded as the winner of the debate, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frege-hilbert/
I am told the debate is whether you regard what is described in geometry as
· a concrete entity, of which every detail is potentially relevant to answering questions about it
· an abstract set of relationships between unanalysed entities.
In other words, does geometry addresses the whole of a
thing (Frege), or only selected features of it that are describable by geometry
(Hilbert).
As related articles show, the cybernetic answer to
this question is firmly in the Hilbert camp.
The four triangles below have been proposed; none are wholly satisfactory.
Some are not well explained. (On Peirce: "a baffling array of under-explained terminology." SEP)
Some put internal mental descriptions and external spoken or written descriptions in different corners of their triangle.
All four triangles look clearer (to me anyway) when revised to match ours.
Ogden and Richard’s Semiotic Triangle |
Charles Peirce’s triadic sign relation |
Karl Popper’s
three worlds view |
Pierre Bordieu’s three relations
of knowledge |
Symbols <are
symbolised by> <stand
for> References <refer
to> Referents |
Signs <understand
objects from>
<represent> Interpretants <refer to> Objects |
3: Products of the mind <produces> <describes/predicts> 2: Mental world <observes
and envisages> 1: Physical reality |
Knowledge <social> <epistemic> Knower <objectify> Known |
Issue:
structures in the brain are symbols. Our version moves mental symbols to the
apex. |
Issue: structures
in interpreters’ minds are signs. Our version moves mental signs to the apex. |
Issue:
structures in the mental world are products of the mind. Our version moves
mental models to the apex. |
Issue:
knowledge is contained in both memories and messages. |
Revised to match
our triangle |
Revised to match
our triangle |
Revised to match
our triangle |
Revised to match our triangle |
Symbols (inc.
references) <create
and use> <stand
for> Referees <refer
to> Referents |
Signs (inc. interpretants) <understand
objects from>
<represent> Interpreters <observe and envisage> Objects |
Products of the mind <create
and use>
<represent> Minds
<observe and envisage>
Physical entity |
Knowledge <create
and use>
<represent> Actors <observe> Known things |
Our epistemological triangle moves from a sociological viewpoint to a psycho-biological one.
From the sociological: actors with a memory <express ideas using> messages to <represent> phenomena.
To the psycho-biological: actors with an intelligence <create and use> memories and messages to <represent> phenomena.
To us, all patterns (internal and external) created and used by organisms to represent things are at the apex of the triangle.
Read the chapter on semiotics for a longer and
deeper version of the analysis above.
We
can see description and reality in terms of types and instances.
·
A type - concepts or properties expressed
in an intensional definition.
·
An instance – concepts or
properties embodied in an observed or envisaged thing.
Philosophers
draw a contrast between particulars and universals.
·
Universals are generic descriptive types
like “tall”, “circular” and “dangerous”.
·
Particulars are specific and discrete
things (entities and events) we observe and envisage.
Universals |
Universals <create and use>
<typify> Describers <observe and
envisage> Particulars |
Universals are
sometimes called types, qualities, properties, concepts,
characteristics or attributes.
The “problem of
universals” is the question of whether universals are real or ethereal (or
else, what it means to “exist”).
You may presume
descriptive types are ethereal.
In other words, they
exist eternally, above and outside of time and space, as “Platonic ideals”.
How does that sit
with the idea that knowledge is a biological phenomenon?
Today, there is
little debate about the existence of particular things.
We all presume there
is physical stuff out there.
And surely, most
accept that our memories and records of them also exist in physical forms
The question arises:
do descriptive types exist in real and/or ethereal forms?
Three possible
philosophical positions are:
·
Platonic realism: a descriptive type
exists in a metaphysical form independently of life and record of it.
·
Aristotelian realism: a descriptive type
exists only when things of that type exist.
·
Idealism: a descriptive type is a
property constructed in the mind, so exists only in descriptions of things.
Since Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have developed
a many diverse and overlapping positions.
Some positions seem
to turn the classical idealism/realism distinction on its head.
Today, I believe
idealism may be contrasted with realism as follows.
Realism
is the view that things exists in reality, independently of our perception
of them and conceptual schema.
Empiricism
is the view that our knowledge of entities in the world comes from our
perception of them.
Most
scientists would probably describe themselves as realists and empiricists.
They
test how well some entity behaves according to what a theory predicts.
Just
as systems theorist tests that some entity behaves as a system predicts
Idealism
is the view that reality as we know it is a construction of the mind.
Solipsism
is the view that we cannot logically prove that things (we think we know) exist
in reality.
Also,
that the past is an illusion we construct to account for our present state of
mind.
These
views may lead people to conclude all ideas about the world are equally valid.
And
since abstract systems are constructs of the mind, all systems are equally
valid.
This
is a kind of "relativism" that devalues science and system theory.
It seems to me there
is something fundamentally misleading about the contrast drawn above.
On the one hand,
pragmatic system theorists tend to see themselves as realists and
empiricists; and some promote what is called scientific realism.
Yet at the same
time, the Darwinian psycho-biological philosophy in this chapter is compatible
with idealism and solipsism.
Epistemological
idealists take the view that reality can only be known through ideas, that
only psychological experience can be apprehended by the mind.
And to instrumentalists, the
existence of universals is a question for biology, psychology and epistemology.
Their view is that
descriptions are encoded in real-world forms, whether in our biochemistry or
records and machines we make.
Aside: Ian Glossop
tells me the view above is compatible with many philosophers.
Including Searle,
Dennett, Dretske, Fodor, Kim, Davidson, McGinn, Putnam, Popper and Russell.
But I don't promise
they would endorse all this chapter, which is mostly what I read as said or
implied by Darwin and Ashby.
This philosophy of
systems takes the view that description and knowledge are tools that evolved
alongside life.
You could say it is pragmatic,
instrumentalist, materialist, empirical and epistemological.
Is the philosophy a
kind of realism or idealism? You could say both.
The problem of universals
is not so much resolved as dissolved by the philosophy here.
As Maturana said,
knowledge is a biological phenomenon.
It isn’t that
concepts exist out there, sooner or later encoded by people in
mind or in writing.
It is that people (and now their computing
devices) abstract concepts (like “round” and “yellow”) from what exists and
happens.
These descriptions
are locatable in space and time, in mental and documented models.
They exist in minds,
in writing, in computers, wherever.
E.g. Consider the concept of an ellipse.
In truth, planets don’t orbit in ellipses, they
only approximate to that model of their behavior.
The concept is an
idealised description, held in countless mental and documented models
For sure, planets
moved (approximately) in ellipses before the concept of an ellipse was thought
of,
And they will
probably still being doing it after all descriptions of an ellipse have been
erased from the universe.
But by that time,
the concept of an ellipse will no longer exist in any physical or material
form.
Many believe or
propose that every concept exists for eternity in a metaphysical sense.
But this has no
practical implication or use.
Using Occam’s razor,
we can cut it out of our philosophy with no loss.
And most scientists
are favour of discarding what is redundant.
For most of this
chapter, it makes no difference whether you believe types are ethereal or not.
However, you don’t need
to presume any descriptive type exists outside of the physical world in a
metaphysical way.
This table shows how
tricky it is to discuss ideas about ideas, and illustrate reality in words.
The right-hand
column contains descriptive words that serve as place holders for physical
entities
Description |
Reality |
|
|
Typifying
assertion |
Instantiation
of the type |
Generally |
“Roses are
colored” |
A display of
rose varieties |
More
particularly |
“Some roses
are red” |
A bunch of
red roses |
And more
particularly |
“This rose
is red” |
One red rose |
Suppose we replace
the words by photographs of roses – that would be another kind of description.
Suppose we replace
the photographs by live broadcast pictures – they are closer to reality, but
still a description.
However close we get to reality, we never quite get there.
This section of the chapter is an attempt to
distill some presumptions and consequences of what is discussed above.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) influenced the “Vienna circle” of logical empiricists (aka logical positivists).
He argued philosophical disagreements and confusions can be resolved by analysing the use and abuse of language.
In his “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” he set out seven propositions.
The propositions are famous for being a tough read, and have been interpreted in various ways.
That doesn’t matter here, because Wittgenstein later realised his tractatus was self-contradictory.
In “Philosophical Investigations”, published after his death, Wittgenstein developed an entirely different linguistics.
He turned from seeing language as precise to seeing language as fluid.
He dropped the metaphor of language “picturing” reality and replaced it with language as a tool.
Some classical and linguistic philosophes seem to have been overtaken by biological and software sciences.
This philosophy sees language as only one tool for describing things.
Its starts from this general epistemology in which descriptions can take any form, including paintings for example
Epistemology |
Descriptions <create and use> <represent> Describers <observe and envisage> Phenomena |
This philosophy looks at description from the viewpoint of Darwinian biology.
It promotes the modern view of "knowledge" and "truth" as instruments that evolved alongside life.
It promotes a type theory that allows for fuzziness and transience in the conformance of things to types.
It compares and contrasts this type theory with the more rigid set theory you may be familiar with.
And questions what
it means for mathematical concepts to “exist”.
There follows an informal “tractacus” about
description and reality.
It written from the perspective of a
psycho-biologist rather than a linguist or mathematician.
·
Space and time exist
as physical phenomena.
·
Other physical
phenomena - things and their effects - exist out there in space and time.
·
Things that exist
include you, me and other people we can communicate with.
·
We can perceive
things, remember things and recall things.
·
We can describe things
in memories and in messages.
·
By exchanging messages,
we can communicate and share knowledge of things that exist
We don’t “know” space and time in some ideal or
perfect sense.
We do have concepts (three dimensions of
distance, and units of time) for describing them.
There is no need to presume those concepts
existed before life.
-1- Describers are
intelligent actors (natural or artificial) that can encode and decode
descriptive models of entities.
-2- An entity is anything that can be observed or envisaged in time and space.
Phenomena include descriptions and describers.
-3- A description is created by a describer
to represent an entity that is observed or envisaged.
Descriptions can be
formed in mental and digital models, speech and writings, paintings and
physical models.
-4- A description has a degree of truth to
its creator and any user.
True means true enough, and false means not
true enough.
The judgement of “enough” may be made
differently by different observers on different occasions.
-5- A description is fanciful to an
actor who believes it represents an imagined entity (e.g. a unicorn).
However, on discovering an entity that
matches the description (e.g. on the discovery of unicorns) the description
becomes true.
-6- Types are descriptions, and descriptions
are types.
A descriptive may type be singular (e.g.
tasty) or a compound (e.g. hot, tasty liquid).
However large and complex a description is,
it can be seen as a compound type.
-7- Describers
formalise resemblances between entities
into generic types.
To this, they codify types using the
symbols/words of a symbolic/verbal
vocabulary.
In natural language, the meanings of words
are fluid and fuzzy.
In a controlled vocabulary the meanings of
words are fixed.
-8- A controlled vocabulary must start from
some (ideally very few) basic axiomatic types.
Since words are defined in a circular fashion
using other words.
E.g. A “rock” might be described/typified as
“a perceptibly discrete entity, a dry and solid body of mineral material”.
-9- Communication is a process that can
creates and conveys a description from a creator to a user.
It succeeds when the meaning/information in
descriptive types are near enough the same when encoded and decoded.
-10- Communication requires speakers and
listeners to share the same vocabulary for encoding and decoding a description.
A vocabulary contains a set of symbols used
in the process of creating and using descriptions.
-11- To communicate verbally, human speakers
and listeners must share a great deal.
They must largely share same vocabulary,
grammar, psychology, biology, and experience of the world.
-12- Descriptions can be verified by empirical, logical and social means.
The philosopher Neitzche argued no purely objective science can exist.
Because no concept or thought can exist outside the influences of an individual perception.
In his “transcendental perspectivism”, each truth is the product of the perceiver.
However, he said, if two perceivers share a truth, then that truth transcends each individual perceiver.
Some present
Neitzche’s view as “shared perception is reality”.
What matters is more is testing that a
description corresponds to some physical phenomena.
If a description passes empirical and logical
tests, we may call it true - objective - science.
Sharing is nice, but usually the weakest of the
three verification tools: empirical, logical and social.
Q1) Does the meaning or concept of “ellipse” exist in a description of it?
A1) No, it exists only in a process that creates or uses the
description.
Q2) Is a description of the concept “ellipse” the same as the
concept?
A2) It corresponds to the concept only in those moments when
actors decode the intended meaning from the description.
Q3) If I write down the mathematical formula for ellipses, is that a
description of an ellipse?
A3) Yes, but to find your intended meaning in that
description, an actor must decode it using the code you used to write it.
Q4) If we send that formula into space, it is still a description that
somehow ‘equals’ the concept of ellipse?
A4) The description is less than the concept, since that requires also
an intelligent actor able to decode the description.
Q5) If I give the formula to you, will you have approximately the same
understanding of the concept ‘ellipse’?
A5) Only if and when I decode the formula using the code you used to
write it.
Q6) If an alien receives the formula, can they form a mental image
equivalent to our understanding of ellipses?
A6) Only if and when the alien decodes the formula using the code you
used to write it.
Q7) If humans are extinct but aliens haven’t evolved yet, will the formula
still describe the concept of ‘ellipse’?
A7) The formula can represent an ellipse, but only to an actor
able to decode it.
Q8) So, is the concept encode in the description independent from any
‘mind’ or ‘brain’ that interprets it?
A8) No, the concept existed also in the mind of the describer – you,
when you encoded it in the formula.
Q9) According to quantum physics, elementary particles ‘exist’ as a
probabilistic wave form
There is no sharp boundary between existence and non-existence.
In what appears to be vacuum, there is a finite, non-zero, probability
that a particle will pop into existence.
(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state.)
Surely that implies there is a non-zero (admittedly tiny) probability
that several such particles form into the shape of an ellipse.
Would that shape itself be a description of an ellipse, i.e. embody the
ellipse concept, in your philosophy?
A9) That shape will be an ellipse (an instance),
But will only describe an ellipse to an actor who interprets that
shape an instance of the generic type.
Q10) What is the difference between a deliberate description of
ellipses, and a randomly occurring ellipse shape?
A10) The first is an intentionally encoded concept - a type, which an
actor might interpret as typifying all ellipses.
The second is an instance of that type, which might or might not be
interpreted by an actor as exemplifying the general type.
Intelligent actors who communicate about
“ellipses” must remember the concept, however vaguely, in some mysterious
biological form.
But the meaning of that concept to the actors
exists only in the processes of creating/encoding and decoding/using that
memory.
An actor might arrange a set of golf balls in an
ellipse shape with the intent to describe what all ellipses look like.
The intent is in the thought processes
of the actor who forms the shape.
An actor who already knows the ellipse type, or
is told the shape embodies the ellipse type, may perceive the shape as
exemplifying that type.
The interpretation is in the thought
processes of the actor who observes the shape.
This article is a supplement to this description theory.
It discusses the implications of that theory for philosophy.
Finally, people ask about my personal view of other philosophers.
At the risk of upsetting people, here are some glib thoughts.
· Plato, Aristotle and Descarte – superseded.
· Metaphysical and theological philosophy (e.g. Kierkgaard) - on a different planet.
· Political philosophy (e.g. Engels and de Beauvoir) - tendentious.
· Linguistic-based philosophy – too human-centric.
· Heraclitus and Kant – close to my philosophy
· Charles Darwin and W Ross Ashby - my touchstones.
The table below is an attempt to help me and
readers compare and contrast the terms and concepts therein.
The first column contains my view, distilled
from the history of life on earth in my article on The
science of system theory
The second and third columns were edited from
the three sources below.
·
The philosophy book. ISBN 978-1-4053-5329-8
·
http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2829&context=cq
·
http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/jrmcont/notespart1/node9.html (this
may be a dead link)
Since posting the table in 2014 I’ve had many
reservations about it.
Some terms are defined differently in other
sources and/or have multiple meanings.
Some terms presented as “different” are
arguably not opposites.
Some definitions depend on other terms, such
as “existence”, whose meaning is debatable.
And some philosophical positions seem like
meaningless babble to me.
In so far as philosophy is about language,
knowledge and truth, it seems to have been overtaken by biological and software
sciences.
My view |
Some
philosophical positions |
Some
different philosophical positions |
On “existence” Matter and energy
exist, but are mysterious, beyond our full comprehension. All our
perceptions, descriptions and mental models of matter and energy also exist
in the form of matter and energy. |
Idealism: existence is mental or spiritual. Foerster’s
Constructivist Postulate: "Experience
is the cause, the world is the consequence." |
Materialism: existence is material. Foerster’s Realist
Postulate: "The World
is the cause, experience is the consequence." |
The modern view is “cognitive embodiment”. The mind is part of the body rather than separable from it. |
Cognitive
embodiment: mental states and
activities are bodily states; the mind is inseparable from the body. |
Cartesian Dualism: views the mind as standing apart from the body;
the mind controls, interacts with and reacts to the body. (After Descartes) |
Wisdom
is the ability to respond effectively to knowledge in new situations |
||
Knowledge
is information that is accurate or true enough to be useful. Knowledge
represents what exists – to help us
manipulate it or predict its behavior. |
|
|
Information is meaning created or found in a structure or
behavior by an actor. Communication
requires speakers and hearers to
share a language for encoding and decoding the structure of behavior. |
The Hermeneutic Principle: "The hearer, not the speaker determines the
meaning of an utterance." |
The
communication principle: Speakers create meanings in utterances; hearers find meanings in
utterances; communication succeeds when the created and found meanings are
the same. |
Data
is a structure of matter/energy in which information has been created
or found. Facts are
encoded in the data structure by a sender and can be decoded from it by a
receiver. |
|
|
Knowledge acquisition The members of a
social species necessarily see the world similarly. They evolved
the ability to perceive and communicate about the world. They do this
well enough to survive. We humans learn from a mix of 1. empirical experience of real-world entities and events 2.
logical deduction 3.
social interaction Each kind of
learning has helped our species to understand reality and manipulate it. Perspectivism,
radical constructivism and post-modernism are dangerous ideas that people use
to undermine science and its importance to society. |
Empiricism: knowledge is acquired from information obtained
from the senses rather from reasoning. Interpretative: we understand things by perceiving them. Functionalism: we build mental structures through
maturation and interaction with the world. Cognitive
constructivism:
knowledge is
acquired by creating mental structures in response to
experiences. (Piaget) Social
constructivism: knowledge is acquired
from social interaction and language usage, and is a shared rather than
individual (Prawatt & Floden). Epistemological Postulate: "He who organises his experience organises
the world". The world is unique to each individual. Radical
constructivism:
knowledge is
acquired from experience, but is not, in any discernible way, an accurate
representation of the external world or reality (von Glasersfeld). Perspectivism: There is no objective truth; knowledge is
conditional upon personal perspectives or interests. (Nietzsche) |
Rationalism: knowledge is acquired by reason and logical
analysis. Formalism: we understand things by manipulating symbols. E.g.
Mathematics does not require the existence of objects or properties. |
On language Whether there
is some truth in structuralism or not, the human mind is plastic and language
is infinitely flexible. To describe a
testable system, an artificial domain-specific language is needed. |
Structuralism: we are born
with structures that determine how
perceptions (phenomena) of concrete things (noumena or
a priori objects) are brought together and organised in
the mind. Structuralism
in linguistics: language
consists of rules that enable speakers to produce an infinite number of
sentences. (Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) and Chomsky). |
|
On determinism At a micro level, the world as we experience it is deterministic. We can predict the next discernible event - at least in theory. At a macro level, the world we experience appears indeterminate. The long-term outcomes of events are unpredictable (aka chaotic). At a psychological and sociological level we have no reasonable or
acceptable option but to treat people of sound mind as having free will. |
Deterministic: every state and event is the consequence of
antecedent states and events. This implies that prediction is possible in
theory. Deterministic
automaton: a machine in
state Si, when it
receives input Ij, will go into
state Sk and produce output Ol
(for a finite
number of states, inputs and outputs). Self-determination: choices arise from reasons or desires (regardless
of how the processes of choice work). |
Indeterministic: a state or event is not wholly the consequence of
antecedent states or events. This seems to imply some kind of randomness in
state transitions. Random: haphazard, not-predetermined. In maths it is a
measure of how unpredictable a future state or event is. Chaotic: disorderly.
In maths it means behavior in which small differences in an initial
state or event yield widely diverging outcomes (even though the system is
deterministic, with no random elements). This makes long-term prediction
impossible. |
Both holist and reductionist views of a system are
important and helpful different times. Enterprise
architecture is deprecated by some “systems thinkers” as being reductionist. The implication
is that other kinds of “systems thinking” are better for being purely
holistic. In practice, both enterprise architects and systems thinkers take
both views of systems. |
Holism: treats a system’s parts as inseparable. The
properties of the whole system are not the properties of any part. These
“emergent properties” emerge only from the interaction between parts |
Reductionism: explains the properties of one thing by the
properties of another (lower level) thing. Or else, ignores the higher thing
in favour of discussing the lower thing(s). |
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