[Inquiry] Re: Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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INT.  Discussion Note 2

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JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West

MW: A question of clarification below.

JA: An inquiry driven system, in the simplest cases worth talking about,
    requires at least three different modalities of knowledge component,
    referred to as "expectations", "intentions", and "observations" of
    the system.  Each of these components has the status of a theory,
    that is, a propositional code that the agent of the system carries
    along and maintains with itself through all of its changes of state,
    possibly updating it as the need arises in experience.  However, all
    of these theories have reference to a common world, and they indicate
    under their varying lights more or less overlapping regions in the
    state space of the system, or in some derivative or extension of
    the basic state space.

MW: "Reference to a common world" is the question.  We would probably
    all agree that there is one "common world" that we all experience,
    but there is good evidence that we don't all experience it the
    same way, e.g. 3D/4D, that even discriminate different objects.

MW: Now in a system, you only have a reference to the real world,
    so my point of clarification is when you say "common world" do
    you mean "common reference"?  Either way it would be useful to
    say something about the link between perception and reality here.

Matthew,

At this point I am still taking a bird's eye view of things, where
individual agents, communities, groups, organizations, societies,
and species of agents all look pretty much alike in their first
level of properties, with respect to being agents of inquiry.
So you could think of things like learning organizations as
special cases of what I am calling inquiry driven systems.

In this light, let's pursue the pertinent analogies between
the local individual agent and the global extended agent
for a little while, just until we see the point where
finer distinctions will need to be made.

Both individuals and organizations can have internal diversities
and divisions of opinion.  Indeed, that is one way of describing
the states of uncertainty in which inquiry most naturally begins.

What I was trying to do in the above passage was to reverse engineer
something close to a minimal model of the conditions under which the
need for an inquiry process arises.  The best I can do to cover the
most common cases that I know about is to imagine that we have these
three different modes of viewing what goes on in the world around us.

1.  There is the Observation View, where we just collect data
    and store it away in our personal and/or group data bases.

2.  There is the Expectation View, where we use our stored data to
    predict or to project what we guess will happen in the future.

3.  There is the Intentional View, where we keep in mind our own
    set of set-points:  aims, goals, objectives, pragmata, 'tele'.

So what I was talking about when I referred to a "common world" in
that context is just the world that is common to those three views.
This would also be the world that we just naturally tend to assume
underlies all of the many different spotlights that we shine on it,
for example, in this case highlighting in diverse ways the facets
of Observation, Expectation, Intention.

Okay, coming back down to earth, some very concrete considerations
develop out of this point of view as to what sorts of systems can
function as genuine inquiry driven systems.

With respect to your last question, we have to realize that
we never, ever have direct access to reality, at least, not
in the sense of the word "direct" that implies that we can
be certain of getting a perfect picture of reality in the
first candid snapshot, and so we are forever and always
in the business of comparing and contrasting different
pictures of it.

Of course, everybody knows this, or says they do, at least, in principle,
but there is a natural tendency to identify with a particular picture,
and this leads people to reify that picture into something that is
all but indistinguishable from reality, at least, so far as the
people who identify with it can tell.

Long story shortening time.  I think I would classify the diversities
of opinion about 3D/4D pictures of reality, and many other questions
about the best description of reality, as dispersions or dissonances
that fall within the Observational View, affecting its integration.

The issue for inquiry is:

What do these disparities of viewpoint mean in terms of the next stage
of inquiry?  Are these the kinds of differences that need to be reduced
or resolved, or is it better just to let them be and instead to develop
one's tolerance for them?  Trick question.  No simple answer, so far as
I can guess.  There are situations where the inability to settle on the
best picture for the problem, or to project a new one, will lead to bad
consequences.  There are situations where not having a diverse resource
base of angles and heuristics will be equally disastrous.  Perhaps the
best thing to do in the mean time, when not at some critical juncture,
is just to clarify the relationships among the various perspectives.

Being at a critical juncture, or not, however,
is probably another one of those issues about
which there will be some diversity of opinion.

Jon Awbrey

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