[Arisbe] Re: Differential Logic & Dynamic Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤

Howard Patee wrote (HP):
Jon Awbrey wrote (JA):

I will pick up this Hertz-lichen picture once again and
keep on trying to get a clearer picture of what it means.

HP: |   EXTERNAL OBJECTS ____ WE FORM FOR OURSELVES ____ IMAGES, SYMBOLS, OR PICTURES
    |         |                                        / [SIGNS, BRAIN STATES, WHATEVER]
    |         |                                       /                  |
    |         |                                      /                   |
    |   [NATURAL LAWS]        . . . SUCH THAT . . . /    [LOGICAL, MATHEMATICAL MODEL]
    |         |              /                                           |
    |         |             /                                            |
    |         |            /                                             |
    |   NECESSARY NATURAL /___ ARE THE SAME AS THE _____ LOGICALLY NECESSARY
    |   CONSEQUENTS                                      CONSEQUENTS OF THE MODEL

HP: Let me elaborate.  The only formal part is in the right vertical column.  All the rest is
    a kind of epistemological diagram indicating the necessary conditions for an empirically
    verifiable formal model to successfully represent our experience.  An important aspect
    of Hertz's statement, emphasized by the diagram, is that the horizontal lines represent
    the observer's (or agent's) semantic interaction with the world (i.e., detection, pattern
    recognition, observation, measurement), the right vertical column represents the syntactic
    or formal (usually sequential) manipulations of the observer, and the left vertical column
    represents the part of the world (space, time, energy, and matter) that we choose to model.
    The separation of semantics (measurement of particular events) from syntax (the formal model
    of universal laws) is essential for physical theory.

I thought at first that I recognized this picture,
but a lot of the things that you have said in the
meantime have muddled my sense of what the sundry
headings and labels on its several parts may mean.
Maybe the problem is in the translation, the word
"consequent" is especially problematic, and seems
to have a punning sense in the way you explain it.
Dewey was fond of a punning parse when it came to
the word "con-sequence", so perhaps I am missing
some cosmic joke here.  It wouldn't be the first
time, for sure.

The words "logically necessary" did seem pretty clear to me, once,
unless you wish to retract them now, and to recuse yourself from
further association with that not-to-be-trusted name of "Logic".
Once again I fear that the problem here is that we attach all
sorts of different connotations to the word "Logic", and this
promises to be ongoing problem due to our historical setting.
We have just been through a period of a hundred years or more
of a "decline in logical literacy" (DILL), itself due in part
to a "degeneration of logically operative realism" (DOLOR) that
beset us from the beginning of the Late Great 20th Century out of
that "Foist Order Logic, Self-Conceived Analytic Philosophy" (FOLSCAP)
that a certain following of "Principians" had set up in their own images
and their own imaginations as the one true "Logic As God Wrote It" (LAGWI).
Well, I understand how anybody would get the wrong idea about logic from that,
but, myself, I have gotten other ideas, from sources that I trust just a bit more.

Oh well, let me get down off the soapbox and get back to the picture.
You next said some things about "'following' in a temporal sense" that,
once again, I thought I grasped at first:

| HP: Hertz's "consequent" means only "following" in a temporal sense.
|     It does not imply a "consequence" which means two things.
|     Logically it means "derived from" and
|     physically it means "caused by", often
|     a source of confusion, as you warn us.

But it appears that I was only grasping at straws here,
given the things that you said after that:

| HP: For "logical" a physicist would mean "mathematical" (they don't trust logic).
|     For example, one mathematical consequent of Dirac's image of electrons
|     (the relativistic wave equation) are states with negative energy.
|     At the time this was considered nonsense, as well as contradictory
|     to experience, and some thought, even to logic.  However, this
|     mathematical consequent of Dirac's image turned out to be
|     an image of the consequent of high-energy collisions
|     (pair production, the creation and annihilation of
|     particles and antiparticles ).  Physicists believe
|     that in the long run experience (our images of
|     natural consequents) will always supervene what
|     we call logic or even nonsense.

That left me at an utter loss.  I seem now to have three different senses of "following" --
the number three is not a problem, but I just cannot follow what you mean by any of them --
perhaps it has something to do with e-lecturons traveling backward in time?

There was more, but I have to break here ...

Jon Awbrey

¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤