Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rpi!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!amdahl!kp From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Emergence and Static Vs. Dynamic properties Summary: Description and perception are VERY distantly related Keywords: phenomenology, measurement, reading, abstraction Message-ID: Date: 20 Mar 90 00:47:09 GMT References: <12143@venera.isi.edu> <14431@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <7bnM02KL92Qo01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <12434@venera.isi.edu> Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 164 In article <12434@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >>>In article kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com >>>(Ken Presting) writes: >> >>. . . Certainly the physicists have produced >>a very interesting analysis of time, which seems to me to be adequate for >>the description of natural processes. If you mean that physics is more >>dependent on phenomenology than most physicists often admit, then I would >>probably agree. However, the inscribed graduations on most measuring >>devices suggest to me that natural science is more dependent on *texts* >>than on perceptions. >> >I would be prepared to argue that some of those texts may run the risk of being >abstractions which were imposed in an effort to dodge critical questions of >phenomenology. This may be a worthwhile topic on which to focus. I would agree that the texts which science assigns to events throught the use of measuring devices are part of an imposed abstraction. However, I would deny that this is a "dodge", in any sense. On the contrary, I think this is an inescapable and salutary methodology. Natural sciences, on my view, cannot possibly make any direct use of phenomenological descriptions. Science is an essentially public and dialectical activity, whereas transcendental phenomenology is the opposite. > Where physical analysis has made its progress seems to be in >the question of the perception of the passage of time. . . . >. . . clocks which measure units of time, . . . (Nitpicking: Clocks measure Time no more than rulers measure Space. Both of these devices measure *intervals*, when they are used to make measurements at all) >. . . there is more story to tell. Where physics has not yet provided >adequate analysis, to the best of my knowledge, is in the relationship that >time plays in the GENERAL perception of phenomena. This is true in some sense - the analysis of time provided by relativity explicitly excludes many of its interesting phenomena from observability within a single reference frame (which is as close to subjectivity as physics is likely to get). This is not a problem. From natural science, we should not expect anything more than a description of the hardware in which our minds are implemented. This is actually quite a lot to expect, and it is remarkable that so much has been described. > This is where the issues >of experience which were nicely summarized by Ken being to rear their >collective heads. However, while Ken wanted to relate experience simply >to listening, I suspect he would agree that it is a factor in ANY form of >sensory perception (including, for better or worse, our perceptions of any >of the measuring devices provided us by physics). I do agree - can we drop time-dependent phenomena and concentrate on perception of static phenomena? Compared to the difficulties of explaining perceptual abstraction in "simple" object cases, the additional problems of individuating processes and events are mere increments. Individuating objects themselves already involves re- identification, motion of the objects, figure/ground discrimination, vanishing intersections, vigilance dependance ... ... ... Btw - meters are not just perceived, they are *read*. That is a much more difficult issue. Once the reading is accomplished, and the observation becomes a statement in a formal symbol system, the logic of data interpretation, hypothesis testing, and deduction applies in familiar ways. Reading includes all the problems of perception of course, but also the abstract background of logical (and other) rules, not to mention "understanding" and other impolite terms. > > . . . We began by debating the question of how we perceive the >behavior of an array of cellular automata, such as the R-pentomino problem. Well, actually, you asked for an abstraction for describing that behavior. We may have a substantive difference over the relation between description and perception. I think any such relation is a fantasy. Literally. I would say that there is a formal similarity between description and perception, but the psychological interaction between a description of an object and subsequent attempts to identify such an object are of the utmost complexity. Capital UT. Especially if the description is *read*. Listening involves, I would say, a transference onto the speaker. But reading is a transference onto a fantasy object. I'm very reticent to bring up Freud, who is not only controversial, but is an object of general ridicule, even beyond Descartes. It is no accident that Freud seminars are generally filled with literature students if not sponsored by literature departments. How many psychology depts. even have a course on Freud in their catalog? Reading is a lot easier to do than to think about. Freud's psychology deliberately attempts to understand the most complex phenomena of human behavior, and has little if anything to say about the simple elements of behavior. This is a grandiose strategy, virtually assured of abject failure. If there were any other system that had made the attempt, I'd gladly consider it, but till one comes along, Freudian concepts will have to do. (Wouldn't you rather discuss measurement? :-) > . . . a terminology of chords, but that does not imply >that they will tell you anything about what those chords actually SOUND >LIKE. I think the word "like" is important here because of the experience >connection: we hear in relation to what we have heard. > >On the other hand, if we put aside all the notational games which keep the >academic types busy, we discover that there are other attempts at description >which tend to dwell more on what we can express in natural language. I agree that natural languages provide a more direct association to experience and feeling than artificial notations. This is not to say, however, that the association between expressions in natural language and experiences is itself direct (except for the association between expressions and experiences of language use). >. . . There has been recent recognition that phenomenology plays a role >in what is being communicated by such means. . . . >. . . All I am arguing is that such an approach to music leads us in >a direction of getting a better handle on the description of dynamic processes. Steven, unless you intend to include "hyletic" phenomenology, I would disagree very strongly. Description of any type is necessarily non- dynamic - a text is always presented as extended in space, but independent of time. If musical time is not clock time, how much less so is time in a novel? Only in the natural sciences do we find examples of a text associated to an object or dynamic process, without the intervention of a conscious interpretation. Only measuring devices produce "dynamic texts". Perception, in my view, does not produce texts at all, in any sense. It may be helpful to compare my view on measurement to Kant' view of perception, especially the "transcendental schematism". Kant supposes that "schemata" bridge the domains of sensation and conception, the way an antibody recognizes an intruding organism and presents it to the immune system (the analogy is quite close). My view of measurement is simply Kant's view of perception, externalized. (cf _Critique of Pure Reason_) >To sum up: I think that trying to approach music strictly in terms of its >notation is a bit like Ken's suggestion that we understand cellular automata >in terms of the state definitions of the automata themselves. Yes, that tells >us about what is going on; but it does not tell us how we PERCEIVE what is >going on. Such perceptions are the basis for abstractions we form which we >then engage in our reasoning. Thus, if we have a better handle on the >abstractions which facilitate our describing the experience of listening >to a performance of music, those abstractions may also apply to our perception >of the behavior of the R-pentomino. I would suggest that we defer all discussion of the relation of perception to description, until we have decided on the logical status of the concept of emergence. I believe that we will have little success in any attempt to understand language until we have replaced "emergent" with "normative". Does your concept of "emergence" essentially depend on perception? Or could you define it in some other terms? Ken Presting