Preface to part 4

A new look at how we know what we know

The first three parts discuss how enterprise and business architects model the reality of business operations. This part addresses a more fundamental question: How do we acquire, verify and share knowledge of reality? It is for those with an intellectual curiosity about how systems thinking ideas relate to ideas about knowledge, truth and the philosophy of science. It underpins systems thinking with a psycho-biological view of description and reality.

“A biological approach to human knowledge naturally gives emphasis to the pragmatist view that theories [descriptions of reality] function as instruments of survival.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

This final part looks at how we perceive reality and describe it in memories and messages. It presents the evolution of human society as a story that runs from biology through psychology, sociology and civilization to science and artificial intelligence. By relating theories of description and typification to human cognition and communication, it will give you some insights into how brains and social communication work, and insights into the nature of description (typification) and reality (instantiation). It answers a few philosophical questions in ways that favor some philosophical positions over others.

Contents

The evolution of intelligence and civilization.. 1

On description as typification.. 1

Communicating information.. 1

Sharing knowledge and verifying truth.. 1

Implications. 1

The evolution of intelligence and civilization

This chapter starts with the idea that knowledge is a biological phenomenon. It describes the emergence of human intelligence and civilization from the biological evolution of animals, with reference to symbolic languages and the sharing of knowledge in writing. It discusses the following three principles.

Knowledge and description evolved in biological organisms

The "second order cyberneticians" claimed that

· knowledge is a biological phenomenon (Maturana, 1970), that

· each individual constructs his or her own "reality" (Foerster, 1973) and that

· knowledge "fits" but does not "match" the world of experience (von Glasersfeld, 1987).

Stuart A. Umpleby (1994) The Cybernetics of Conceptual Systems. p. 3.

A good regulator has a description of what it regulates. Here, a regulator is an animal or a machine that either has a model or has access to a model. So, read this triangle from left to right: regulators <have and use> models, which <represent> systems.

The good regulator

Models

Regulators <monitor and regulate > Systems

The question is not whether an animal or a business has a model; it is how complete and accurate is the model? To which the answers might be both “very incomplete and somewhat inaccurate” and “remarkably, complete and accurate enough”. Thinking about this leads inexorably to the view of description and reality outlined in the following chapters.

Consciousness enables us to compare the past, present and future. Consciousness is a process that, among other things, enables us to compare descriptions of past, present and possible future phenomena.

This chapter identifies three kinds of description (our main interest is in symbolic description) and details the semantics of the epistemological triangle used to illustrate points in other chapters. Read the triangle from left to right: describers <create and use> descriptions, which <represent> phenomena.

Our epistemology

Descriptions

Describers <observe and envisage> Phenomena

Descriptions created (in mind, in speech, in writing, in mathematics, wherever) appear at the apex rather than the left of the triangle.

On description as typification

This chapter may be seen as an academic aside of interest to those with a mathematical bent. However, the type theory in this chapter may also be seen as fundamental to, the foundation of, how we describe things. It is relevant to the challenges of defining a “domain-specific language” for doing business, and defining the data created and used by a business in an “enterprise data architecture”.

To describe a thing is to typify it in terms of types already understood

“No statement which refers to a ‘reality’ transcending the limits of all sense-experience can possibly have any literal significance” Chapter 1 of “Language truth and logic” A J Ayer.

https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/language-truth-and-logic.pdf

Every type is a description. There are several set and type theories. In our type theory, a type is an intensional definition; it is a description of one set member.

Every description is a type

“The fact is that one cannot in language point to an object without describing it… And in describing a situation, one is not merely ‘registering’ a sense-content; one is classifying it in some way or other, and this means going beyond what is immediately given.” Chapter 5 of “Language truth and logic” A J Ayer.

A description is not categorical – it cannot pin down a single object – since it applies equally to any object in universe that shares the same description. E.g. Physicists say there is nothing in their description of the universe that prevents parallel universes from existing. Think of any particular thing; a molecule, a game of chess, a galaxy, whatever. Write down a description of it. Perhaps the thing you have described is unique. But there is nothing to prevent your description being realized in more than one particular thing. To describe one thing is to create a type to which other things might conform.

Communicating information

This chapter outlines some information and communication theory. It features a WKID hierarchy, and the principle that in symbolic communication, coding is ubiquitous. It goes on to describe how message senders communicate, and so share knowledge, with message receivers. It discusses the following two principles.

A description is meaningful to an actor only in the process of creating or using it.

Coding is ubiquitous in the creation, sharing and use of symbolic descriptions. A brain can encode some information in the structure of its memory, which becomes useful later, when the brain decodes it, by reversing the encoding process. Similarly, a brain can direct the mouth to encode some information in spoken words, which become useful when a receiver hears and decodes the message (using the language it was encoded in). The information/meaning in the structure of memory or message exists in the processes of encoding and decoding it.

Ashby observed that coding is ubiquitous in thought and communication. To create a description is to encode a model that represents some feature(s) of a phenomenon. To use a description is to decode it, then use it to respond to or manipulate whatever is described.

Sharing knowledge and verifying truth

This chapter discusses how we clarify information by reducing noise and ambiguity, and verify the truth, or at least the usefulness, of information by and empirical, logical and social means. In doing so, it rejects extreme interpretations of relativism and perspectivism.

We share knowledge by verifying descriptions we share. We clarify the information in a description by reducing noise and ambiguity, and verify the truth of information by empirical, logical and social means.

Implications

In short, the principles of description introduced above are.

· Knowledge and description evolved in biological organisms

· A good regulator has a description of what it regulates

· Consciousness is a process that enables us to compare the past, present and future.

· To describe a thing is to typify it in terms of types already understood

· Every type is a description

· Every description is a type

· A description is meaningful to an actor only in the process of creating or using it

· Coding is ubiquitous in the creation, use and sharing of symbolic descriptions

· We share knowledge by verifying descriptions we share

The final chapter summarizes some implications of these principles for

· system architecture – as defined in ISO/IEC 42010.

· semiotics – notably Peirce and Popper.

· philosophy – including the problem of universals

· mathematics – did numbers exist before life?