[no subject]

["John M" <***>]

Roberto,

I stand correctly: I used the word epistemology in an unusual way, I think I
made a mistake: I used it rather as epistemic development, as enrichment of
the cognitive inventory, the gathering of (more) information. Please, try to
reconsider my sentences this way. Sorry.

I will quote only some of your 'remarks' and address them omitting the parts
I accept as you wrote it. I accept your disagreement.

First I rephrase what I "meant" in my assessment of ontology:
As our cognitive inventory increases, the ontological bases  also     change
and so MUST the content as well. Besides: my more dynamic view prefers
instead of "being" the "becoming" and "change". I consider ontology static,
or a snapshot view subject to  alterations when our information about the
circumstances change.
I use a "naive" one in my "narrative" about the world's origin.

My basic tenet is: all we can know is by interpretation of the mind. We have
no other way to assess the impacts the mind acts upon.
Different people have different representations of the same things, in spite
of uniform brainwashing (as: teaching).

> > "Levels" of this 'reality' are our fabrications 'how we slice it'.<<
> This is something I tend to reject....<

I have to outline 'reductionism' as I use it: it is forming topical models
of the world, parcels with chosen boundaries cutting the total
interconnectedness into well defined domains, with wider or narrower
limitations. This is the way we CAN think, how we can do science. It cuts
out influences from parts we don't include into our interest for the model.
We reduce the 'total', the wholeness into topical parcels. You may call them
layers, levels, domains, maps, strata, disciplines, etc. Our 'modeling' is
usually not a conscious application, it comes naturally. Yet it is a
reduction of the total.

I agree with you that to pick "a cause" is reductionistic since changes
occur by unlimited influences from a changing world. I don't see, how a
restricted amount of 'named' causes (or types) can eliminate the
reductionist label in my sense.

I already withdrew my 'supremacy of epistemology over ontology'
what got you all in arms, changing to: ontology has got to be based on our
enrichment of the epistemic information we gather. You wouldn't base your
ontology (I don't know the first thing about it) on
the information about the world what Nicolas de Cusa could have, or
Aristotle. I am sure you are past the Flat Earth. So as we "get smarter" we
mentally construct differently our world.

">... Moreover (and more interesting), most distinctions are
> grounded on both sides: they require both the world and the
>mind (they present a kind of bilateral dependence
> on both sides).<"
All we CAN know is the representation of the mind, we have no other way to
assess the impacts which the mind receives. I don't see "the other side" you
mention. It's us, period. We get info from others, but nobody will interpret
them the same way: we are different, all of us and the 3rd person info is
just that, not a 1st person one, it has to be 'interpreted' into our 1st
person knowledge.

I agree with your 'jargon':
"Some levels of granularity are levels of reality as well".
and add my own one: "reality" is what the mind represents as such
eo ipso our objective reality is subjective virtuality. In this case the
'granuality' (I suppose it means 'scaling') is part of it, we are incapable
of composing a multiscale (fractal) effect on something.
For me it is an interesting side-aspect (in my reductionism) which I don't
want to go into.

Please forgive my unprofessional remarks, I am on your turf. I may be more
eloquent and adequate in polymer science.

Thanks for the reply

John Mikes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roberto Poli" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 3:09 AM

> John,
>
> I have appreciated your reactions. Coming from different communities,
> mutual understanding
> usually require adjustments from both sides. Let me add some minor
> remarks only.
>
> > In my views the world (nature? existence?) is "change", a dynamic flow
> > of influences concerning a constantly altered wholeness.
>
> I entirely agree
>
> > You said: I am epistemic, well, epistemology provides in its constant
> > enrichment the current (up-to-date) basis for an "ontology"
>
> I entirely disagree. Seeing ontology as dependent from epistemology is
> possibly the main
> mistake of mainstream philosophy since the times of Kant (and is
> responsible for the poor
> state of contemporary philosophy). Unfortunately, I see no way to
> substantiate my thesis
> in two or three sentences. Let's say that I, for one, claim for the view
> that ontology
> comes first while epistemology (i.e., the cognitive activities developed
> by systems able to
> represent themselves and their environment) comes after.
>
> > Your views are of course definitely reductionistic, not a fault,
> > I hurry to say, but not in the wholistic (Rosenite) line either.
>
> let's wait and see, possibly without adopting dogmatic attitudes. I
> guess we all
> are trying to understand the world and our experience thereof.
>
> > "Levels" of this 'reality' are our fabrications 'how we slice it'.
>
> This is something I tend to reject. Some distinctions are unquestionably
> ours. No doubt.
> But some other are grounded in the hard stuff of the world and we only
> have to properly
> recognize them. Moreover (and more interesting), most distinctions are
> grounded on both
> sides: they require both the world and the mind (they present a kind of
> bilateral dependence
> on both sides).
> One minor aspect of the problem of levels may help clarifying the point.
> It is useful to
> distinguish between levels of granularity and levels of reality. The
> former depends on our choices:
> we may observe something at any chosen degree of detail, with any chosen
> scale. Interesting enough,
> most phenomena require and impose their own preferred scale(s). We have
> no choice but finding the right
> (spatial and or temporal) scale. In my jargon, "Some levels of
> granularity are levels of reality as well".
> Good. Now a major hypothesis: Levels of reality are sustained by
> causality nets. Select the levels of
> reality with their causality nets and add the laws of connection between
> levels (i.e. forms of dependence and independence, or causality from
> above and from below) and you will approach one of the major structures
> of the world.
> As soon it is recognized that the different levels are sustained by
> different families of causation, variously
> interlaced, reductionism can't surface. As a matter of fact, one of the
> main claims of reductionism is the thesis that there is only one form of
> causation. Therefore, admitting more than one form of causation is one
> way for attaking
> reductionism. I think that this is a perfectly Rosennean claim.
>
> cheers, r
> *****************************
> Dr Roberto Poli, PhD
> Editor-in-chief of Axiomathes
> http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1122-1151
> Papers and other information from
> http://www.mitteleuropafoundation.it
> Preferred e-mail: ***