Re: Teleology and vitalism

[Ayten Aydin <***>]

Tim,
Thank you. I'll do my homework and come back as needed.
My best,
Ayten

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Gwinn" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 9:29 PM
Subject: Re: Teleology and vitalism


> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Ayten
> > Aydin
> > Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 9:32 AM
> > To: ***
> > Subject: Re: Teleology and vitalism
> >
> >
> > Tim,
> > Thank you for your clarification.  I did interprete abstracting
> > as picking a
> > piece out of something, a bigger whole, such as an art work or a
> > scientific
> > discovery. Each person appreciates the former differently depending on
> > his/her level of consciousness understand its reality differently. This
is
> > natural and as it should be. This is its potential  to expansion both
> > horiziontally and vertically. The latter is bound to be taken as it is
and
> > be understood as intended by the discoverer/scientist, let's say
> > here there
> > is no potential for horizontal expansion, but it is open to
> > vertical growth
> > as new and new discoveries are made and the scene is left to the
> > new comer.
> > In both cases the abstract is the seed of a bigger message in one way or
> > another. It then grows further as circumstances permits or calls for.
That
> > is why I said it has a potential for expansion , in a way tacitly
> > operating
> > in an open system. Certainly Lawson "Closure" also have the same
> > characteristics, it is also an aid for making understanding easy.
> >
> > I must perhaps remain with these two concepts for a while within my
> > philosophical appreciation level and meditate further on your
> > views before I
> > clarify the concept for myself, in the first instance. Thank you
> > anyhow for
> > your guidance. Any further comment on this theme will be
> > appreciated. I have
> > Lawson's book by the way, if you refer to a specific passage or
> > part in this
> > regard I may consult it.
> >
> > This topic is important for me for my other study on an enquiry
> > into seeing
> > where(at what level) the art and science meet, in a way where the
> > subjectivity and objectivity unite, where the time and space become one
> > entity. I wonder how much all these are relevant to RR's all
encompassing
> > philosophy? Judith may also wish to comment.
> >
> > My best,
> > Ayten
>
> Ayten,
>
> I think Lawson summarizes the distinctions between the closures of science
> and art nicely in his statements at the top of the respective chapters on
> science and art:
> Chapter 10 "The Closures of Science" - "The success of the stories of
> science stems from the abstract character of the closures involved and the
> incorporation of idealised mathematical relations."
> Chapter 15 "Art and the Avoidance of Closure" - "What distinguishes art
from
> knowledge is the acceptance of the failure of closure and the avoidance of
> an attempt at complete closure."
>
> Since mathematical objects are defined or assumed to have no other
closures
> possible of them other than what their definition asserts [p. 151-2], then
> any given scientific model (i.e., one represented in mathematical or
> otherwise strictly defined terms) will inherit that same apparent lack of
> possibility of failure of closure or possibility of attaining other
> closures. In Lawson's terminology, mathematical closures appear as
'complete
> closures' that have no 'texture', no remaining 'openness' within the
> mathematical object.
>
> Others have phrased this notion by saying that mathematical objects (and
> models) can be thought of as having limited or fixed degrees-of-freedom,
> compared with a physical system. Rosen has, for example, a chapter in AS
> where he discusses models as being "closed systems" - systems that are
open
> only to a select number of interactions and closed to all other
> interactions.
>
> By contrast art is assumed subjective and therefore closures around art
> inherit that assumption that any such closure will fail to be complete,
and
> other closures are always possible. "Thus we can say that for the artist
> closure cannot exhaust the world. Another way of expressing this would be
to
> say that the artist is more interested in texture than in material." [p.
> 206]
>
> I hadn't really thought about it before, but from this it seems to me that
> the difference between art and science revolves not so much around their
> different forms of presentation as it does around the assumptions that
> accompany the forms of presentation and around the assumptions about what
> the activity can (and cannot) accomplish.
>
> Regards,
> Tim
>
>