[Inquiry] Re: Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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PRO.  Note 32

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1.2.2.2.  Statements, Questions, Commands (concl.)

In proceeding from surprise and problem states to arrive at explanations and
plans of action that are suited to resolving these states, the system's aim is
expedited by certain resources, all of which involve massively complex systems
of signs and symbolic expressions.  It helps to have a library, an access to the
records of individual and collective past efforts and experiences.  To be used for
clear and present indications this library must have a ready index of its contents,
a form of afterthought that is not too thoughtless in its design.  And it helps to
have a laboratory, a workshop or a study, any facility where imagination reigns,
for composing and testing improvised programs and theories, for prototyping
on-the-spot inventions.  To be used for free and unbiased evaluation this
factory of imagination must be a mechanism of forethought without malice,
where symbolic expressions extempore are not confused with actions and
do not exact the same price in energy spent and pain risked.

But how can all this information and flexibility, constraint vying with
freedom of interpretation, be accorded a place in the present state of
a system?  Can Epimetheus and Prometheus find a way to "get along" in
the current state of things?  Is the phase space of a system really
big enough for both of them?  If signs and symbols are to receive a
place in systems theory it must be possible to construct them from
materials available on that site.  But the only thing a system has
to work with is its own present state.  How do states of a system
come to serve the role of signs?  How can it make sense to say that
a system regards one of its own states as a sign of something else?
How do certain states of a system come to be taken by that system,
as evidenced by its interpretive behavior, as signs of something
else, some object or objective?  A good start toward answering
these questions would be made by defining the words that are
used in asking them.  In looking at the concepts that remain
to be given operational and system-theoretic definitions
it appears that all of these questions boil down to one:

What character in the dynamics of a system would cause it to be called a
sign-using system, one that acts as an interpreter in a non-trivial sense?

Jon Awbrey

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