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A few comments:
Tim Gwinn wrote: My point is that the abstract mappings of the modeling relation are what is a "free creation of the mind". If we *physically realize* an abstract mapping by including use of a measuring device, it is not that the measuring device per se is a "semantic element", but snip
in a certain indirect sense, one can say that the measuring device
(and
other associated physical aspects) are 'part' of the semantic nature of encoding/decoding, but in my view it is only because those physical aspects are part of the physical realization of the abstract mapping. I prefer to say that the semantic aspect belongs to the abstract mapping, and not call the physical devices used 'semantic'. I would say that, where empirical/experimental/quantitative
science is concerned, there are semantic elements all over the place. In this
particular situation (creating a model of a natural system), we could say that
semantic elements are natural by-products which come from the
application of a measuring system, for the purposes of taking
measurements of some aspect of the system. In other words, the activity of
analysis, of deciding what to measure, how to measure (why to measure) and
then, even more in the actual measuring and in putting the
measurements together, etc.... There are semantic elements aplenty
being generated in the entire process (encoding/decoding... model
building). And none of these particular semantic elements is being
generated from within the system we are measuring
(encoding/decoding "how to build and test a model" is not entailed
by the natural system). Neither is the process of building a
model generated from within the model we end up building
(encoding/decoding are not entailed by the formal system).
Every aspect of studying something (of developing ways to study it,
ways to record what we think we are learning, ways of talking about the various
aspects-- labels and names...) is an activity that is not entailed by the things
we study nor is it entailed by the various tools and techniques we create in
order to facilitate our endeavors.
So much of science takes place in the human mind, even with
impirical science. The problem is that in our rather paranoid efforts to remove
or eliminate the semantic pollution we add to any system we study, from
perception and interpretation, all the way down to lab equipment and methods...
we can end up erasing the natural semantic elements that the system DOES
generate from within its own organization. Semantic elements are labeled
"bad" and targeted for extermination. However, this is a mistake because
in living systems, for example, semantic
information represents the bulk of the information we need. Semantic can
mean "relational". All relations are entirely context dependent for their values
and in a highly integrated, interconnected system organization this means
that all relations are also constantly interacting, which constantly changes
context, and so on.
Context, itself, is a huge topic. There are innumerable values to
context, because there are innumerable ways of defining it in any given
situation. In other words, what we are labeling "context" in a scientific study
of some system depends entirely on where we are observing from and what we are
observing, etc.... depends entirely on contextual aspects of our
observation.
The creation of any model we decide to build is
going to have oodles of decisions about just exactly these sorts of things
involved in the process, as well as all the other decisions we have to make
about tools, measurements, techniques, modalities, etc.
Judith
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