ABSTRACT

It is difficult to write about topics which sit at the crossroads of so many fields. Especially in fields such as philosophy, it is probably a very good idea to start with definitions of some words. In this case, it is doubly important for me since some of these words constitute my 'pet peeves' in the sense that the words are often used in philosophical discourse in ways which really upset me. It is not a good thing that some ideas seem to obtain their effects thru switching between two meanings of the same word.

<1>
Here are some of them:

OBJECT
1) anything perceptible by one or more senses, especially something that can be seen and felt; a material thing
2) [phil] anything intelligible or perceptible by the mind
3) person or thing serving as a focus of attemtion, curiosity, discussion, feeling, thought, or action
4) A noun or substantive that receives or is affected by the action of a verb within a sentence

OBJECTIFY
1)to present (something) as an object; impart reality to; externalize or make objective

OBJECTIVE
1) of or having to do with material object as distinguished from a mental concept, idea or belief (compare subjective)
2) having actual existence or reality
3.a) uninfluenced by emotion, surmise or personal prejudice
3.b) based on observable phenomena; presented factually
4) (grammar) denoting the case of a noun or pronoun serving as the object of the verb

OBJECTIVISM
[phil] any one of several doctrines holding that all reality is objective and external to the mind, and that knowledge is reliably based on observed objects and events (compare solipsism) [probably the most famous one is by Ayn Rand]

SUBJECTIVE
1) pertaining to the real nature of something; essential
2.a) proceeding from or taking place within and individual's
mind such as to be unaffected by the external world
2.b) particular to a given individual; personal
3) moodily introspective
4) existing only in the mind; illusory

REAL:
1) being or occurring in fact or actuality; having a verifiable existence
2) true and actual; not illusary or fictitious
3) genuine and authentic

REALITY:
1) the quality or state of being actual or true
2) person, entity, or event that is actual
3) the totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence
4) that which exists objectively and in fact
5) [phil] the sum of all that is real, absolute, and unchangeable

QUALITY:
1. A characteristic or attribute of something; property; a feature
2. The natural or essential character of something
3. Excellence, superiority

QUALITATIVE:
Of, pertaining to, or concerning quality or qualities

QUANTITATIVE:
1.a. Expressed or capable of expression as a quantity
1.b. Of, pertaining to, or susceptible of measurement
1.c. Of or pertaining to a number or quantity

QUANTITY:
1.a. A number or amount of anything, either specified or indefinite
1.b. The exact amount of anything
2. The measurable, countable or comparable property or aspect of a thing
3. Math. Anything serving as the object of a mathematical operation
4. Logic. The exact character of a proposition in reference to its universality, singularity, or particularity

<2>
At this point, I'd ask who the target audience is for articles of this type. If it is meant to be seriously read by physicists, engineers, mathematicians, perhaps biologists, then less colorful and more precise language should be used. For example, one way achieving it would be to start with definitions, and also avoiding words that stick out like red-flags. Yet another way would be to use vague words only if more precise words cannot be used. For example, 'belief' is OK to use since it is constantly in use, and there is no connotation of it that is in common use that can cause confusion.

<3>
OTOH, the word 'matrix' is something very specific in math, and CS & eng types might (a) expect more because of this word or (b) think of the paper as confusing because of what they perceive as misuse of words ignoring the fact that it means something like 'container' in general usage. If the word is used in a figurative way, perhaps some other word should take its place.

<4>
The phrase 'mind's center' is not clear except as a figurative trick. 'Objectification' etc are red-flags for anti-Marxists and are often used by the postmodernist residue of Marx. Since most of them get their jollies from abuse of science, use of such words almost guarantees that no scientist will read this too seriously. They will see yet another jealous scientist-wannabe.

<5>
If the interplay between 'reality' and 'mind' is meant to be more than the same dualistic rhetoric, and if the use of 'objective-subjective' is not going to be used as yet another excuse to attack the 'alleged objectivity of science' by those who have not been as successful as the 'hard-sciences' and are taking the easy way out by going on the offense as a means of defense, then those words should be kept out of the abstract and used carefully and gingerly in the body.

Specific comments follow.

TA[5] '(A) Concerning the first part of this question, I want to propose that the reason for this conceptual problem is the exclusive objectivism of many investigators: the explicit or implicit conviction that objectivity is the only valid method of inquiry. Objectivity deals with circumscribed and more or less invariable (that is, closed, or self-contained) and verbally labeled parcels of experience, for instance of gestalt type. This method makes renewed structuration of experiences, each time they are dealt with, unnecessary, and handles them at a distance, like coins of invariable value, and as-if they were mind-independent. It can also help in avoiding subjective bias.'

<6>
Here we get into the usual problems about objective and subjective. First, we should try to create some operational distinction between them. For a start, subjective is easy to define. Second, is objective the opposite? No. Objective is perhaps 'God's view' which sees all things. That is, what many people mean by subjective is 'relative'. Which means that this particular opposite of subjective is 'absolute'. Secondly, what many people mean by subjective is that things look differently to everyone but that they cannot all see the same thing or the same way. If we can see that different people can see something in different ways then we have truly something 'relative'. If everyone can see things the same way, is it then 'objective'? In many ways the definition of `objective' that many people use is to mean something that would be perceived exactly the same way by everyone. That brings up yet another problem. It requires sentience and observation. That is good enough for practical purposes since the other (absolute) alternative seems to be 'God's view' of things.

<7>
Next problem is that of 'invariability'. That simply means `not changing', and lots of things that change can be handled quite easily in physics and math, so that can't be it. We do look for `invariants' in science, but they don't have to do with closing or self-containment in any way that I can see. For example, there are invariants of motion, and it is this that variational calculus uses to depict Newtonian mechanics in the language of conservation laws (invariants by another name) using Lagrangians and Hamiltonians.

Target Article (TA)[6a] 'But ongoing experience (the subjective aspect of the mind) remains always open for structuring and cannot itself become a closed gestalt, or invariable object. If object formations are demanded as a pre-requisite for scientific investigation, the mind as a whole cannot qualify.'

<8>
This does not follow. The motion of trillions of atoms and molecules can be studied scientifically and successfully. This comes from confusion of the word 'object' in its various forms/meanings.

(TA[6b]) 'center of the open mind is always at the origin of mental structures, it uses mental structures but cannot itself become a closed configuration resulting from gestalt or concept formation. A 'view from nowhere' (Thomas Nagel) or 'from nowhen' (Huw Price) is therefore impossible, and so is objective mind-independent reality,

<9>
Does not follow. 'Nowhen' and 'nowhere' are either attempts to describe 'objectivity' and 'God's view' or are attempts to confuse so that it can be claimed that 'nothing can be known'. If these words are not meant merely to confuse, we can counter them simply by inventing new words 'everywhen' and 'everywhere' to produce the feeling of 'God's view' or of objective knowledge/science.

(TA[6c])'which if assumed turns subjective experience into a 'hard problem' (David Chalmers), or more correctly: into a paradox which cannot be resolved. The difficulty is not an 'explanatory gap' in an objective explanation of consciousness, but it is that: exclusive objectivism (or exclusive empiricism) will not work as a basis for theorizing about subjective experience.'

<10>
It does not follow. Sunburn is subjective since only the one burnt can feel it. It depends on the amount of melanin and exposure to sun ie., but it is quite easily objectively describable and that is what makes it scientific since we can write b=f(e,m)


TA[7a] 'To summarize this difficulty: if reality were mind-independent, the mind would have to be mind-independent in order to be real.

<11>
This could work out completely in reverse to what is intended. For example; 1) Reality is mind-independent. 2) Since the mind cannot be mind-independent, then the mind is not real. (But of course, the brain is).

(TA)[7b]A scientific 'study of consciousness' cannot imply mind-independent reality; if it does, it cannot say anything about subjective experience. Such an assumption is self-contradictory - not only for the understanding of mind but also in general. This would seem to be a fairly obvious point, but it is neglected in some recent publications on consciousness and related matters.'

<12>
Of course, if everything were to be mind-independent, then the mind-itself would be mind-independent. Secondly, everything in the universe is connected to everything else, but if we want to study sea slugs we don't care much about the cost of potatoes in Ireland in 1865. I personally do not see any reason to search for grand solutions to problems which do not need it.

<13>
This is a word-trick but it does not even work that way. This looks like a diagonal-argument but lots of diagonal arguments work or don't work. What is being intended here is a diagonal argument, but not all self-referencing is diagonal, and not all diagonal type fixed point problems result in contradictions.

<14>
Here's a simple problem of attempted diagonality (more technically that of the fixed-point or self-reference). An easy way to picture this problem is to start with something like this

x = f(x)

<15>
How do we solve this? Well, let's try a mind-numbingly simple trick. Guess a number, and substitute for x, then compute f(x) and compare it against it. If they are equal we got the solution. If they are not then we can try another numbingly simple trick. Keep substituting the result and see what happens. In some cases it will converge to the solution, say s, so that s=f(s) is satisfied (this is indeed the fixed point). In other cases it won't converge. Couched this way, this is a problem of numerical analysis. In more abstract settings this becomes the infamous diagonal proof and self-reference.

<16>
In other words, the self-referential aspects of things that mathematicians look for etc do not all fall into the same category. Examples of this in fuzzy logic can be seen on the papers on my website.

'---------------------------------------------------------------
TA[9] TABLE 1 :

THE UNSTRUCTURED MATRIX
....
A simple neutral term might be:
ZERO-REFERENCE METHOD

TA[10] '(B) A necessary and sufficient condition for avoiding this problem (of belief in mind-independently pre-existing, pre- established, pre-structured, or pre-fabricated, and perhaps even pre-verbalized, reality and truth) is to consider that all mental structures crystallize (and are constructed) within an unstructured and therefore undefinable matrix, which can be used as a kind of zero-reference point.'

<17>
Structure is a nasty word these days. Secondly study of mathematics is the study of structures looked at one way so that if every problem consists of looking for structures, it's useless to debase either the search for structure or to dwell on the obvious.

<18>
Looked at another way, math is a set of tools for knowledge compression. And sciences are those sets of information/knowledge that have been properly compressed. If some people who read this are looking for specific structures (math) in which the mind works (compresses reality around it and stores it, and operates on it), then I am sure they will take great offense if someone claims that there is no structure, or that someone says that there is structure after all. The former will draw ire, and the latter might draw 'No kidding.'

<19>
Compression of data is done via algorithm, and this says that whatever is being compressed has a structure or order. The algorithms take advantage of existing order/structure to compress information/data. It is this compressed form of data/information that we call knowledge.

'OBJECTIVITY AND EXCLUSIVE OBJECTIVISM

TA[14] 'Objectivity means the handling of circumscribed and usually verbally labeled parcels of experience which are treated as-if they were mind-independent and invariable.'

<20>
Again, the usage of objective and invariable are confused or at least quite loose. Mathematical equations need not be verbalized. Even animals can see 'objective reality' to enough degree to be able to find food, procreate and survive.

TA[14]'although they often describe functions. Objectivity is a very helpful method of investigation, and can 'explain' many parcelled experiences in terms of reduction to simpler parcelled experiences: the simpler ones can be more reliably comprehended and manipulated.'

<21>
Objectivity is not and does not mean that subjective experience is negated or that it is impossible. All experience is subjective. Commonality of experience or agreement among sentient beings is probably what people mean by 'objective', and that is not the opposite of subjective.

TA[15] 'But objectivity (or empiricism) is not an indispensable ingredient, and even less a guarantee, of truth and reality. Objectivated functions cannot be the mind in toto because experience is not an object.'

<22>
But you already said that concepts and things are objects. The 'objective' (in obj-vs-subj) does not have anything to do with the generic use of the word `object' to refer to everything in the universe. It is more like the use of the word 'thing' but just sounds more scientific :-) The 'objectification' is postmodernist confusion used in the frontal assault on science and takes advantage merely of the different meanings of words to confuse issues.

<23>
It is not a good idea to identify empiricism with 'objectification' or 'objectivity' which were made by postmodernists with their confused assault on science. Many of them are pretty close to deranged and most of them are totally confused. At best they are tilting at windmills and they will be mercifully forgotten soon. Most of them parrot words that they have read by copying the ways in which some words tend to occur in clusters in popular science paperbacks. The rest are trying to mesmerize people by inventing new words for old ideas.

TA[15b]The objective method should, and can only, 'be understood as a tool within the wider perspective of zero-referencing; this proposition goes somewhat further, I would think, than Chalmers' more recent opinion (1997) that a phenomenological basis is needed for objective theorizing.

<24>
Words like mechanistic, phenomenological, empiricist only make sense within the time period in which they occurred. Their real use was in re-creating science for the masses of that time period. The word then got picked up my mimickers and parrots and came to be used in some distorted sense. Later philosophers invented different words to mean the same thing, which again went through the same life-cycle. Mechanistic is another word for deterministic but from the era of 'mechanics' (before EM). Phenomenology is more or less the philosophers word for empiricism and the discovery of analysis-synthesis. The word 'machine' these days is used quite often for computers without implying mechanical gadgets in the process. What we mean is 'deterministic' or a manifestation of a 'deterministic process' in some physical form.

<25>
We should simply stick to the word 'deterministic' unless we have good reasons to imply electronic, electrical, or mechanical devices, or the weight of the particular science behind them such as classical or Newtonian mechanics, etc.

TA[16] 'In contrast, exclusive objectivism is an unwarranted scientistic extrapolation from the objective method (cf. Lindley's discussion of weak and strong objectivity). It has been prompted by the successes of the objective method, and it does tend to promise the truth. To say that objectivism is the only access to truth is like claiming that money is the only possible indicator of value.'

<26>
Objectivism is a philosophy of Ayn Rand, these days. It has nothing to do with being 'objective' other than having been derived from that word, and nothing to do with `objectification' used by Marxists. They are the result of decades of misuse of words and attempts to provide proofs by using the same word in different meanings). This sounds too much like feminist-marxist buzzwords like `objectification of females'. It is meaningless in the broader meaning of 'object' and it is perfectly clear that females are objects in both senses.

<27>
In any case, there is nothing to be gained by denying or rejecting science. I brought up this point in the title of the paper 'Science of Philosophy' and it is also a section of my paper on Topology of Thought. It is well and good that philosophers have taken upon themselves the task of criticizing science and its methodology but who shall answer the question of how much science there is in philosophy? And where is the success of the philosophical method as opposed to the scientific method, if there is such a thing?

TA[16b]'main feature of positivism; but although positivism, empiricism, and materialism are often said to have become obsolete, the exclusively objectivist belief in mind-independendent reality and truth still predominates in the practice, as well as in the philosophy (which sometimes tries to justify itself by appealing to the practice), of science. Many investigators who are critical of the positivist view are nevertheless exclusive objectivists.'

<28>
Same comments apply for usage of 'objectivist'. If the problem is with the existence of the universe outside of the mind, it is not fruitful to imply that the universe disappears when someone's mind disappears.

<29>
Infants a few months old (maybe even a couple of years old) apparently believe that the world disappears if they close their eyes. I don't think this is a beneficial approach to solving great problems of the world.


TA[17] 'The only support for exclusive objectivism (or exclusive empiricism) is the belief of its adherents, to the effect that there is a mind-independent objective world. To call this belief 'knowledge of truth' is an error which complicates matters; it introduces a prejudice, a theoretical handicap which prevents effective dealing with subjective experience. Knowledge is strong belief,

<30>
That is true but what is belief? Actually in philosophy knowledge is said to be 'justified true belief'.

TA[17b]'become dangerous). Beliefs and world views become established since early childhood while mental structures form within the unstructured matrix; the formed structures are adopted or rejected on the basis of reality testing, plus adoption, or else rejection-and-modification (or re-construction) of beliefs which prevail in the community. The testing takes place even when structures are strongly pre-determined by biological factors, as for instance with hallucinations or dreams. The accepted beliefs may, in addition, be stabilized to varying degree by metaphysical assumptions such as the one of mind-independent reality, where parcels of experience such as objects or data or facts are understood as prefabricated and pre-conceptualized units, which are given as such (this tends to happen in much of empirical research). Such an assumption usually prevents questions like: who 'gives' data to whom, and how, and why ? Who 'makes' facts ? If we discard this assumption, on the other hand, we see that we deal with our own belief.

<31>
Getting into belief, knowledge, epistemology is kind of dangerous especially since so much of this has already been talked about for a long time by philosophers who see this as their turf, and by computer scientists whose jobs it is to create machines that can use knowledge or seem to use knowledge in ways beneficial to humans, or at least to researchers.

<32>
That is the main reason why there is such great noise today in this field. First the psychologists entered with their poking around the mind,then started to create instruments to test things, like intelligence, and dabbled with learning theory. Now the computer scientists are trying to give intelligence, knowlege and reasoning power to machines. If they can all be coupled together we will have machines with lots of knowledge and all of this used to be the philosopher's turf. you should know that they will put up a lot of fuss over this :-)

<33>
A small problem here with logic. First, most philosophers and logicians have things backwards when they try to discuss truth, knowledge etc. Logic is about falsity and it is only falsity of which we can be certain. The implication used in 'deductive logic' has codified it already. If we have P=>Q, the implication is false only if P is true and Q is false. For every other case, the implication is true. That means that truth is defined as whatever that cannot be demonstrated empirically to be false. This amounts to saying that truth is really temporary and provisional. This puts logic also in the same league as the physical sciences. It is useless to argue that one has to justify inductive logic inductively. The criticism of Popper's falsification also falls in the same boat. One cannot justify deductive logic any other way except to argue inductively or via falsification.

<34>
The discussion of who gives data to whom etc is a problem that is one of scale and priority. Whether we simply amass data and then theorize or amass data according to a theory is a fallacy of false dichotomy. We do both, and start doing it as soon as we are born. We make theories (tentative) and reject them (if falsified via an example). This is how we learn. And that is how science is also done.

<35>
Additionally, knowledge (as discussed above) is not simply about truth. For if that were so, every meaningful sentence is knowledge since either it is true, or its negation is true.

<36>
Finally, this section touches upon the great mystery of how the brain works and how we learn and apparently it is thought that there is no mathematical way of modeling these things. If we could only find some simple mathematical model, that has the basic problems of learning and the working of the mind, in ways similar to the, say, ideal gas equations of physics or chemistry, at least we can get a firmer grasp on this problem!

<37>
I will produce one such model, even if only to show that such a model will have the basic ingredients and the essentials and it will be related to all the basic thought patterns used by people who dwell on such topics, such as logic, probability theory, linear algebra, stochastic processes (markov processes), differential equations, integral equations, and nonlinearity.

Unfortunately, there is no space here and what I intend to write needs more than ASCII formatting.


'MIND AND NATURE

TA[23] 'It differs from experience of natural objects, however, inasmuch as subjective experience is more difficult to take distance from (except in notions like 'immortal soul' or 'ego', which are firstly often erroneously used as objectifications, and secondly not acceptable to everybody because of their wider connotations). And also, the unstructured matrix can here less easily be neglected. In addition it is more difficult to share (because it is in principle confined to one person) except by empathy, which is difficult to study scientifically, for instance because it cannot easily be quantified except with rating scales for subjective states.'

<38>
Because experience is subjective does not mean that the experience cannot be objective or have objective components. This kind of reasoning uses different meanings of the words. Pain is subjective but under the same circumstances everybody else would also feel pain. Or at least we think so. Without inductive generalization there can be no science. Even deductive logic, cannot be justified without the use of inductive logic and falsification. That is, the usage of 'conjectures and refutations' by another name.

<39>
Even the usage of the implication in logic codifies this by making the counterexample definitely false, and by making every other case (tentatively) true.


'THE METAPHYSICAL DILEMMA, AND WORKING
METAPHYSICS

TA[28] 'If the present argumentation is right, the choice is not between: for or against metaphysics (neither opinion being sustainable); but instead: between fixed (or static or fundamental) metaphysics and transitory (or functional, or auxiliary, or makeshift, ad-hoc, or as-if) metaphysics. A term like 'working metaphysics' might be more acceptable to some, in analogy to 'working hypothesis'. Because as-if metaphysics is seen as only secondary, and of auxiliary type, the unstructured origin or matrix can simultaneously be explicitly recognized as persisting at the center of experience; this is not possible to do within a fundamentalist metaphysical view, because there the center is occupied by a structured positive assertion of some type (this applies for instance to empiricism). Besides stable images, words - in particular nouns - are suitable for storage as fixed entities, in memory and in encyclopedias. An alternation appears desirable between temporary reliance and stabilization with the help of old and new such structures, and ongoing experience (which is the source of intuition for the construction of new mental entities, and in turn has to discard some old ones).

<40>
Uses of words like 'virtual' and 'unobservable' instead of 'as-if' or 'metaphysical' would make the writing at least more fashionable. I don't think anyone knows what 'metaphysical' means. It's not clear that there is any such thing. Inventing a word does not create the object. The use of the virtual in science is plentiful; we have virtual images in optics, we have positive current (which is virtual) and we finally have virtual reality. Soon and as a result of these continuing debates on AI and consciousness many of the favorite words of philosophy will take a serious beating. That could also do a lot to damage the last temper tantrum of the immature semi-literates called postmodernism.


'--------------------------------------------------------
TA[30] 'TABLE 2 : CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE ZERO-REFERENCE VIEW'

<41>
Not possible. Our brain is constructed from the real world. Since our mind is the working of the brain, there is no possibility of starting with zero in our brain/mind. Everything that we know or think we know has been constructed from the real world. The only possibility is that some neural connections are already made when we are born. That would be as close to zero-reference as possible.


'REALITY AND TRUTH

TA[31] 'Reality and truth are the ensemble of mental structures which are accepted as valid on the basis of belief (as, among others, Blaise Pascal and Karl Jaspers pointed out) by individual and 'collective' subjects. Such ontological beliefs or commitments are usually fortified by words (by nouns in particular), but remain always in need of re-evaluation of their current functional validity; with a possibility of functional 'falsification' (as suggested by Karl R.Popper), but not of verification, certainly not verification in the sense of a mind- independent truth.'

<42>
Belief is built up on data which is inputted via our sensory organs. The belief was based on 'reality' or at least those aspects of reality that we could sense and extrapolate from. Science is the art of correct and precise extrapolation. We cannot function without a large set of beliefs. We start building them up as soon as we are born.


TA[35] 'To appreciate the pervasiveness of extrapolation (or transcendence), consider that when you look at your hand, you see only one side of it, all remaining visual 'knowledge' about your hand is provided by stored and recalled extrapolated parcels, and even what you see now falls very predominantly within forms which you have previously established and extrapolated, and which you use now, because you believe that they are reliable. One may object that we have no choice when we see a tree, and that this shows that the tree is mind-independent: but firstly we can close our eyes and not see a tree, and secondly we might be blind and never have seen one. What this shows is that: we can only construct images within the constraints of mind-nature experience as it occurs, which is the unconditional (and unstructured to start with) source.'

<43>
This area is now called something like 'inductive generalization'. We have tools with which know/observe things we can't see directly (i.e using only our senses. Things like microscopes, telescopes do this for us. But this is how we extend our knowledge, and then use the knowledge to create more tools so that we can observe more. At this point the observations are made in terms of and with respect to a theory.


TA[37] 'We tend to use these icons so automatically (similar to our use of money) that we may forget their secondary (transcendental or extrapolated) nature, particularly if we believe in them unconditionally (as in naive realism or exclusive objectivism). Whatever we say about past, future, and other places, and even about the non-visualized parts of objects we see, is extrapolation from previous ongoing experience, and the extrapolation procedure needs the stabilization with help of the invariable icons; and ongoing experience uses them as well, all the time. And in many cases, we can indeed safely neglect our subjective part for the time being, and handle objects like invariable coins, as-if they existed mind-independently. We do that all the time in science, it works quite well (except for subjective experience, and perhaps for some aspects of particle physics), and there is nothing wrong with that so long as we do not mistake this for original positive mind-independent truth.'

<44>
Yes, we use them automatically. That is what belief is. The average of all subjective experiences is practically what we mean by objective. That is, we claim that everyone would see it that way. That claim is explicit in physics when we look at formulas and claim that anyone can repeat it and obtain the same result. Is it still subjective? Is objective the opposite of subjective or an average of an ensemble of subjective ones? Of course, the average of an ensemble of subjective beliefs can be wrong, but nobody said that science is belief. Besides, isn't the whole business of science, the creation of objective, correct, precise truths from subjective experiences?


TA[40] 'A practical key question is: how strong can guiding beliefs be without absolutes ? Individual and collective responsibilities and possibilities will be experienced as being both more intense and making greater demands than when mind-independent sources are seen as guarantors. Due to the under-determination of mind-nature experience, we are, one might say, condemned to active construction, choice, and freedom, if we do not want to be blindly dominated by some dogma.'

<45>
But math is such a mind-independent language i.e. language is public. IOW math fosters objectivity since we can share/communicate our [subjective] experiences. Science does this. What other method is there?

'TWO DEMONSTRATIONS OF ZERO-REFERENCE USE

TA[41] 'A well known instance of the mind's stumbling over its own products (which is a frequent type of mishap in epistemology) is the Achilles-turtle paradox of Zeno of Elea. The slowest being, the turtle, will never be reached by the fastest, Achilles, because necessarily the pursuer must always first come to the point from which the fleeing one has already departed, so that necessarily the slower one always has a certain advantage (see Vlastos, 1967).'

<46>
Zeno confused the definition of motion with what he thought the definition of motion should be. Motion is the occurrence of the same object in different places at different times. How else could it get to another place without moving? Similarly today many philosophers confuse what the mind is. The mind is the working of the brain.

<47>
Zeno's confusion was cleared up by Euler when he showed that infinite series can have finite sums. Perhaps one day the present philosophical confusion will be brushed aside by advances in science. That day does not seem too far away.


TA[42] 'As another example, 'time' (and 'space') originate as extrapolations from, and quantification of, the flow of experience which occurs 'now' (and 'here'); the experience aspect of time, 'temporality', has been emphasized by the phenomenologists (such as Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty). Backward extrapolation starts from the present activity and experience of remembering (that is, we remember the past 'now' and 'here'), plus the communicated experience of'

<48>
One might just as easily say that time stays just like space. We move through time as we move through space. It's just that time is a one-way street and we can't go back.

<49>
Beginning physics students often get confused with what happens until they learn to leave numerology behind. When the law says that a body has constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force, this law also applies to velocity=0, since zero is also a constant number. So the law also applies to a body at rest, since a body at rest has zero velocity. Students get bent out of shape sometimes by saying that 'X has no velocity' instead of saying 'X has zero velocity'. In the former they think of velocity as a binary property which a body either has or doesn't have. Then, of course, if it has no velocity, it sounds like it has lost some magical property it used to have. But of course, we should say that it always has velocity and that its velocity has a numeric value; it just sometimes so happens that its value happens to be zero. And zero certainly is a number.

<50>
This is in contradistinction to much of what is done in philosophy so based on set theory in which objects are put into sets based on the possession of a property. It is unnatural to think of the real world in this way. If we did so, we'd have to think of an accelerating body as popping in and out of a huge number of sets based on velocity values. The proper way to do physics and to look at the objects of the world is to think of them as property tensors in which the values of the various components change. If we do this in formal ways, of course, we have state vectors, and dynamics of the system in terms of the changes of the state vectors that describe the system.


'PERFORMANCE OF SOME EPISTEMOLOGIES

TA[46] 'A comparison of the zero-reference position with the 'view from nowhere' and 'from nowhen' shows similarities and differences. The similarities stem mainly from the realization that the Cartesian subject/object dualism is no longer a sufficient theoretical basis. The negative expressions in the titles refer, however, to different aspects of experience. In the Nagel-Price formulations it means the elimination, or at least the marginalization, of subjective experience, while belief in mind-independent objective reality is the definite positive anchor. In contrast, subjective experience is central in the zero- reference view, and object-concepts are its tools, while mind- independent reality is impossible and the unstructured origin is the definite negative anchor; the central role of experience is crucial for understanding mind.'

<51>
Only the extreme variations/deviations from the mean are marginalized. The mean is what passes for objective usually in non-scientific circles. It is decided via a vote of what common ground the protagonists can agree on. Superficially that's how science is done. Scientists decide what is true. In that sense it is like art; artists decide what is real art, and not the men on the street.


TA[48] 'To the extent that the positively anchored views are held in an exclusive or fundamentalist way, they leave no room for a central negative anchor (i.e., an unstructured matrix): because the center is occupied by a structured positive anchor. As a result,' <52> Some kind of an algebra is apparently being implied here, of the type, of electric charges.


TA[48b]'from the notion of an empty center. On entering new situations, one tends to form a positive (active) operating image of the initial situation which serves as a standard for comparison with later developments; and similarly one necessarily constructs more gradually a fundamental positive general picture'

<53>
The use of positive-negative is quite confused here. One does not know if this is mathematical or in the sense of Rogers or Spock (like positive thinking) or positive-feedback. If the words positive and negative are being used merely as labels for good vs evil or good vs bad, there is no reason to attribute more relationships such as the implied connection to positivism etc.

<54>
Positive and negative feedback from the sciences have to do with direction of stimulus and the direction of the state. They are multiplicative so that if the state is negative and the stimulus/input is negative that is positive feedback. Negative feedback refers to input that will reverse the direction of the system.

This is quite confused in the literature.


TA[49] 'In several other views, the positive anchors are less strong, and they are often based on mental tools such as numbers or logic (Pythagoreans, logical positivism, complexity studies). - Language, discourse, consensus are anchors for critics within positivism (from Wittgenstein to Feyerabend; and recently Searle, Chalmers, Penrose, Globus, and others), sometimes with recourse to other fields which at first sight at least are unrelated, such as'

<55>
This usage of the word 'positive' is merely a label and has nothing to with arithmetic properties. It is like using numbers to assign telephone codes. Nobody will ever to arithmetic on telephone numbers except numerologists. Telephone numbers are merely labels; they might as well have been ABD-RDEF.

'quantum mechanics, or mystical thought. - Phenomenology (from Kierkegaard to Merleau-Ponty) is based on experience, but tends to use language and 'data' as secondary anchors. - '

<56>
It seems as if the author is making the distinction between quantitative vs qualitative (my pet peeve) or is making a distinction similar to the one I made in 'Topology of Thought' in which I separated two main trends or thought patterns these days in some philosophical areas.

TA[49b]'Postmodern writers (such as Foucault, Habermas, Derrida, Rorty, Lyotard) also utilize language, discourse, consensus as basis, or else deny any possibility of knowledge in an 'ironical' point of view. Because the center is less clearly structured, an unstructured matrix is here less clearly excluded, but neither is it expressly postulated. (The task of skepsis as a monitor of thinking habits has not really changed since the time of Socrates, Pyrrhon, and Pascal.)

<57>
Well, here it is finally ! Postmodernists! But this is the wrong view of knowledge. They confuse the words subjective- objective and all the other words they need to make whatever points that they fancy. Only the words are the same; the meanings are different. Science and knowledge production is not like art. There is one truth. In the arts, producing the same truth is called copying. By its nature, arts force the artists to create something different. One does not laugh at the same joke every time. It becomes stale. In the same way, a copy of an artistic piece is not great art. Science does not work that way. There are not multiple solutions, and there do not exist equally valid truths. Such truths are paradoxes in logic and philosophy and are the treated with as much toleration as cancer. Only a single needle is haystack can be tolerated in science. Social scientists have lately picked up a new tack called 'totalizing' to defend themselves and their ideas which have no truth content. They have to decide whether what they do is art and entertainment or science. All ideas are not equally valid.

<58>
As for how we'd go about finding truth, it is only too clear. All truth is inductive. All truth is provisional. Only falsity is absolute. And knowledge is based on a compression of truth. If it were not so, and simply an ensemble of truths, then every falsehood would give us a truth since we would merely negate the falsity.

<59>
A house may be a pile of stones, but a pile of stones is not a house. That is what knowledge is about. Names and dates make good historical recital or good trivial pursuit but do not make science. Deliberate misuse of words (the postmodernists, of course) does not create truth or knowledge, only gets them temporary fame. Like the boys who keep watching Rocky XXX movies their disciples keep reading them, feeling good about how they wish they could have done it.

'CONCLUSION

TA[51] 'Theories dealing with the relation of mind to brain, and to reality generally, should be examined with help of a zero-reference point of view, which I suggest is better suited for a contradiction-free analysis than other epistemologies. Such analysis'

<60>
Epistemology is no longer what it was since it is being taken out of the romping ground of philosophers and into the domain of artificial intelligence researchers. It is not clear at all that there is any contradictions since there is not much progress anyway.

TA[51b]'ought to be a background consideration in objective studies (and conversely: the access to the mind-brain and mind-reality relations could be a touchstone for epistemological theories). Going back to before the subject/object split can also help in bridging the gap between subject and object, and thus between the 'two cultures' (Snow).'

<61>
Here object/subject has taken on an extension of the linguistic meaning, which in mathematics we'd classify as operator, input, and output.

TA[52] 'Nothing I have said here denies the value of objective studies in the areas where they are appropriate ( including for instance questions like: how - by which mechanisms - are functions which are experienced as conscious bound together ?, or: what are the mechanisms of working memory ?, or'

<62>
Here the word 'objective' means 'physical science' or 'hard science' or 'quantitative', and not the previous meaning.

TA[52b]'clarification, and which of them need both. In a capsule: there is no mental activity without brain activity, but mental activity is not brain activity, and any actual or possible knowledge of brain activity is a specialized structure within awareness, or mind, or experience, or consciousness. That is, there is no mind-independent brain activity.'

<63>
Dubious. This is the crux of the AI and consciousness debates. The meaning depends crucially on the meaning of 'mental'. If it implies 'intelligence' we have the AI debate. If it means only human thought, then it's useless to belabor the obvious tautology.

TA[53] 'The discussion of these matters should not be side- tracked by the limitations of empiricist or other
fundamentalism, whether they be unreflected or deliberate, which deals with pre-fabricated reality only and refuses to discuss the conceptual basis. Empiricism works well for many questions but is self-defeating for studies of subjective experience.'

<64>
Without a doubt, empiricism is limited, but so far no one has found anything better.

<65>
Far bigger constraints when dealing with humans is the need for 'nondestructive testing' which in the medical sciences are called 'noninvasive procedures'. Most of our knowledge has to be synthesized after an analysis of the components in various settings. But this is what science has always been about.

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[ H.M. Hubey is Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, and works mainly in computer science, but with research interests in cognitive science, economics, linguistics, psychology, history, and sociology. He has written a book on linguistics, and is working on other books on economics, and aspects of evolution, etc. ]


Mark Hubey ---------------------------------------------------------
http://www.csam.montclair.edu/Faculty/Hubey.html
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu hubeyh@alpha.montclair.edu
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