brian carroll on Fri, 7 Sep 2012 09:17:33 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> subjective math. |
Brian:The severe limitations of "logic" have been long recognized -- which is why "real life" doesn't much rely on it.Are you familiar with the Trivium and have you thought much about your "system" in relation to it?Ultimately, what are you trying to accomplish? Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY
Hello Mark, The prevailing view of logic appears to consider it 'optional' and apart from the normal reasoning process. Perhaps this view is equivalent to equating it with the abstract level mathematic computations and equations for data that derive answers from computer processors, that thought would begin and function in terms of logical operators. A robot likely would be capable of doing this brute-force "thinking", yet even that remains unnatural to natural processing of logic as it exists in the world. I cannot quite fathom the total question the entire situation involves - the context for logic and its various mediations - yet to me it preexists and is attached to 'all truth' as an informational structure, which if something actually is true, it is resolved as A = A. So when a scientist or astronomer discovers a new cosmic detail, what is revealed is of this context and its truth justified by the logic that it inherently involves, as things are related to other things, in shared structures of truth. It is not optional as a basis for defining truth and yet it is viewed as if somehow secondary to language. Whatever truth exists in language, it is justified by its logic, not by the signs alone (that would be faith in observational viewpoints versus what they are referring to). Things ground to logic, like a circuit, and 'truth' is based within logic, not outside or beside it. If preexisting models of truth existed, purified of errors, then it may be possible to reason like a computer processor does in its logical calculations - though because it is a natural process, it is truth that is structuring and interweaving with other truth, and how the ambiguities and errors are mediated, dealt with. So I think in this sense perhaps much that exists is actually not effectively 'grounded' in truth the way it is believed to be, and this is allowed by language in its default functioning and so rationalization can occur, function as if logical reasoning, yet only allow for partial truth and partial exchange as a result which then skews ideas and 'shared worldviews' to the finite, where truth actually is the problem, managing, controlling it, versus honoring and serving it as the foundation of reality. In this way perhaps much thinking and many ideas, even those of science, are 'virtually' being reasoned, yet without the rigor of logic, the errors are the structure for the views. And that it is proposed is how structural problems creep in to 'pure ideas' without being accounted for, via feedback. So until logic is the basis for determining truth, this virtual condition of consensus language as an unreal substitute. Regarding the Trivium, I am not directly familiar with it though have much appreciated reading your posts and ideas and that is perhaps how it was first encountered, though I have heard and had conversations about similar aspects, to the effect that the way mathematics is taught in schools removes it as a general knowledge via equation-based abstractions, versus the real utility it has for thinking and conceptualization. So too with music. This could even be a question of how the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge exists and yet cannot be approached within existing categorization/rationalization. For instance, music and mathematics overlap and could be a way to teach themes across frameworks or dimensions. An idea like 'resonance' and tuning directly relates to that of logical reasoning (A=A) and also psychology and social relations, e.g. zones of public and private consciousness, if shared or unshared in a given scenario, as with Venn sets. There are ideas involved in these realms that are of general importance for thinking and yet absent from communications and that is where I have wondered about a core curriculum that could address an issue of 'missing literacy', where basic skillsets could be developed both for children yet also for the existing adult population. I believe part of this situation exists as a result of not having any cultural account and awareness of technology and its purposeful management within society, in the sense that issues it involves are yet to be addressed. For me it involves recognition of the role of electromagnetism within society, which is a non-subject yet also censored data. So society basically is founded upon a pre-electric worldview yet governed by an electromagnetic state and its machinery. So there is that. Yet it is also an issue of science and religion, which once were not separated, philosophy at this juncture. So if populations are not able to deal with the 'physics' yet it is also prevalent in the metaphysics ('new age' and so on), so there is all this magical thinking yet very little is grounded in the world as it actually exists, including scientific views that edit out truth from perspectives beyond its framework. It is a recipe for cultural madness, a technological dark age where instead of revealing greater truth it is instead buried. To sidestep the issue of actually be able to effect change in this situation and finding support for the pursuit of truth, for me it became very clear that skills of visual communication are nearly absent from the populace to mediate ideas and complex relations - the ability to diagram concepts and to organize information coherently. And this is as simple as making a list or two dots and a line interconnecting them. It is not necessary pretty pictures or artwork and instead about structural communications, breaking down as with building up ideas and abstractions via conceptualization. So diagramming to me is a fundamental skill that if shared could enable far more than written language alone, where it could become a primary means of sharing knowledge. And yet 'listserv' mailing lists from the 1990s and email software has degraded in performance for such basic visual communication, now even email software does not allow inline imagery and instead forces it as an attachment. The ability to share a complex idea is forced into alphabets or photoshopped imagery, versus cave diagrams needed by those who primarily mediate concepts, their exchange. So digital tools have degraded in the last twenty years and it even seems purposeful, to limit the possibility to relate. If you think primarily in concepts, language is a translation from a purer form, and opens up much more ambiguity via explanation in words, all the inherent problems it involves, versus dealing with structures, their conceptual relations. With the diagram, you can enter into mathematics in terms of the numberline and various approaches to number via its geometric relationship, say with counting systems, into issues of language and communication (expanding the tree-branch analysis of sentences, to ideas themselves). So in some sense: diagrams {reading/writing/arithmetic} And if adding symbols, it could enter into conceptualizing not only ideas, also musical concepts if not programming as flowcharts or whatnot. Maybe UML in some sense. It is seemingly necessary for establishing and interacting with pattern, also related across many fields of consideration. A related aspect to the diagram is modeling of a circuit, If feedback-based it is a way of evaluating the processing of ideas and information and activity, understanding the self or other events and how they function, and how the decision-making process relates and is founded in logic. Is it really true the way something functions is the way it is modeled. And what if there are anomalies and it does not exactly fit or work a given way in some parameters. How to deal with that. And so circuit-based analysis and consideration could allow for such logical reasoning. In this way the circuit corresponds to a hypothesis, where such thinking begins, not the law of 'theory' where it is solidified as an established truth given the entirety of its empirical review, a position that has to be earned not just declared as interpretation, a result of 'signs'. If ideas were modeled and evaluated, they could also be proven wrong and fallible and this then could be addressed and the truth that exists, retained, while the falsity removed, and circuits could allow for this in terms of concepts, whereas words and sentences as structures are relied upon to hold up these ideas. 'point line plane' would in this shared realm extend beyond a given author, to plot the points everywhere, their interconnection in truth, its validity, and then the shared plane of consciousness the grounded result. It may happen temporarily in reading, yet collapses, whereas in diagrams it could be a sustained field or atmosphere, a common referent, the empirical model. And so this modeling is presumably related both to diagramming and also this circuitry, like in a context of ecology and chemistry and biology at the very least. The issue that seemingly is most vital to the present is to teach people how to think - not what to think, though how to go about accurately processing information and dealing with feedback, so to manage an individual life yet also relations with others. 'Logic' seems to be some kind of expert system that is its own symbolic language and that is not what is referenced here, it is a simpler approach via the most basic observations, that it is an issue of common sense and thinking-through ideas in an accurate modeling, as a way of mediating truth. Weighing it, valuing it, being able to account for it. Much of it psychological, as bias, distortion, warping are part of peoples lives as they are born into contexts of others, who influence development via particular dynamics and thus everyone has their own viewpoint or relativisms to mediate for such a shared observation. To account for this, an education where each child or person would diagram themselves as their educational project, from youngest age to adulthood as a living model of the self and its relations and dynamics. In this way, if error arises it can be communicated about in a grounded context, and if in a school context, perhaps as diagnostic, some may be better with mechanical skill in their circuitry thus curricula shifts to their independent studies, based on improving abilities, evaluating their growth and health of circuitry and goal setting and basic standards, such as contributive work, and teachers as tutors and guides then interacting with students in this particularized context of individual and group, and what may be possible if able to function outside the too-simple standardized test that oftentimes punishes all differences of all people, their uniqueness, versus helping and fostering their growth. So what if the circuit of self was a model of awareness, such a boy who is preoccupied with taking apart things may harness that in their education, or a girl who is a fine orator and thinker, how that could be developed as individuals versus existing institutionalized hazing. There must be a place for poetry within education and if there is not, what occurs besides a training regimen. Grounded truth is need in educational systems to allow for such an approach, and its accurate accounting such that a person would have a right to pursue greater truth and not be held back by teachers or guides or mentors, given logical reasoning, evaluating the feedback circuit. This versus the opinion of authority, which oftentimes is requiring the student to work in its narrow framework to proceed. Without logic to evaluate these dynamics the power of decision-making rests with existing hierarchy. What they say is true is true - that kind of pure tyranny. So the idea of diagramming a life as a circuit then can also relate to 'rights' and how they are grounded with an individual in relation to the state. If an injustice were to occur, it would be between the circuit of the state or the educator and the circuit of the person, and it could be logically evaluated and determined via shared truth what is actually going on, versus onesided viewpoints. If the Constitution says something, a person could link their actions to it, which is its essential idea, whereas if it is mediated in language, its truth can be lost amidst surrounding noise, skewed interpretations, frameworks that force the exchange into false views, compartments. In this way, law & lawyers, the supreme anti-reasoning, detached from neutral truth, virtual, mainly about power, managing the status quo, the functioning of machinery. Logic, as a way of accounting for truth, via its structure, then can begin to deal with any such situation in any such warped or distorted or biased condition, perhaps on the level of its 'physics' in the sense of concepts that are structural frameworks and influence these dynamics. Ideas like 'empirical' or 'relative' can be understood via logic such that these dynamics can be neutralized and their truth recognized and their errors identified and in turn accounted for, recovering & grounding what exists in truth, and removing the falsity contaminating ideas. So the relation between logic and concepts, as these relate to diagrams and circuits and models, then is an issue of basic awareness and core observational skill, to be able to consider things in a grounded viewpoint, defined as fallible, yet tending towards truth if following certain guidelines recognized, yet not yet adhered to. In this way, 'truth' instead of a standing-reserve would be a 'standing truth' or standing wave, to achieve this, versus each person being archaeologist at their own excavation site, without corresponding data sets of shared culture, the truth not adding beyond the self. An attempt to say the relativistic perspective and the empirical perspective can become unified within a logically grounded observation via such modeling, based within circuits, diagrams, as communication. It would seem from here, an issue of patterns, about how larger scale feedback loops within circuits, of say 'the state' or 'society' could themselves each as models have recurrent patterns or themes, such as 'economic bias' or 'cancer-causing chemicals in food' or 'discrimination against women' or whatnot. Errors within certain frameworks potentially. Also, positive or neutral themes such as 'romance' and 'wildlife sanctuaries' and 'population'. The thing is, it could be a child in school who has an idea, referencing some observational model and testing a hypothesis that could flip certain bits and if insightful, as feedback cause a rube-goldberg like cascade of truth across the various logical structures, as it is accounted for in its accuracy and-or errors. A sociologist could run studies or a thesis against large datasets this way, and it would be a common way of thinking, referencing the shared empirical model of truth. That, the result of the combined efforts of society to model what exists as it is exists, beyond signs, into the structures, their truth, grounded in reality. Patterns then may be recognized as ideas, yet in the N-dimensional realm, where it could involve 'many perspectives' at once, thus moving from a 2-D flatland version to a spherical Platonic form, where seemingly the dodecahedron resides in its mystery, the more and more connections in this shared truth of observation, seemingly to smooth out the remaining rough edges of idea. By contrast, a CERN collider diagrams of the particulate explosion, of sharp shrapnel rays. Thus, it would seem such an education and ability to communicate would require advanced models that can only be sustained within technology if to export such conceptualizing beyond the person, their consciousness, brain, and logical functioning. Thus such a future computer actually is extension of this essential competency that allows a person and state to govern itself toward highest purpose and capacity, versus lowest. Such a computer is worthless without the purposeful interacter, the person thus is in a vital relationship with it, their value is its same value, their logic is its logic too. Meaning truth could be its foundation rather than something subsequent if not non-consequential. So the person, so society. The computer as tool. Today its quite different. It is not even possible to imagine interacting with technology in these terms given existing equipment and modes of relation. A disenfranchisement or detourned development has occurred, leaving people out of loop of the society. In this way, people, populations, turned into slaves of the machinery and its functioning and routines. Machine-based culture, politics, economics, etc. Its reality, its rules, its priesthood, the god-head. In this way the relativism of atheism, those who refuse to serve nothingness as the greatest truth. And so that is a context, my naive approach was to believe it possible to 'reason' within society, thus to approach questions of curricula within the goals of electromagnetic literacy, a project for a HIOX ring, a 16-segment LED display that would be a kit that like a Board of Education from Parallax or other electronics microcontroller platforms, it would be a way to teach logic via electronic components in a given circuitry, and also in its functioning and operation, logic and programming. Perhaps today a watch would allow for more to occur yet the idea at its simplest involved language and mathematics in a common symbol, and how it could potentially allow a new basis for reasoning about ideas and concepts and how things relate. All information of this has been lost, so there is nothing to reference. And yet such a project could encapsulate various principles of diagrams, circuits, feedback circuits, logic, reasoning, programming, as a literacy device. I mean, what's it mean that an ancient symbol has within it the alphanumeric code running the society. It is not known what the exact structural relation between the various concepts may be, though it logic likely is primary, reasoning, and circuitry. It is also likely modeling and diagramming are involved yet how they might relate to circuitry as subsets or supersets would need to be evaluated. For instance, {logic, reasoning, modeling} where: modeling {diagramming,circuitry}. I do not know. I mistakingly started using 'set theory' structures like the above paragraph without defining them, so it is basically a way of modeling ideas as sets, as groups or classes in relation to hierarchy, where: superset {set1,set2}, which if in a traditional diagram would be a rectangle where 'universe' is superset, a container, for two circles 'set 1' and 'set 2' within it. Likewise, an option for labeling exists such that the superset could instead be referenced as 'set' instead, and thus: set {subset1, subset2}. Doing this to give an indication of structural relation, the left-side is a level up. Maybe some are not familiar with this yet, though a tutorial search on the topic could clarify. The question of Trivium as structure then might be: curricula { grammar, rhetoric, logic } And Quadrivium: curricula { arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music } The curricula as a 'superset' category, for various sets else as a set, with various subsets. So my question or a question might be how diagramming, logic, reason, may fit into that category via its structural hierarchies. For instance if Venn diagrams and set theory are vital to conceptualizing logical considerations in their simplicity that it would be a necessary subset of logic, such that: logic {venn diagrams, set theory} Then in this way: curricula { logic {venn, sets}, reasoning, modeling } And yet likely 'diagramming' exists in modeling and 'feedback circuits' in multiple categories of reasoning and modeling, so perhaps that would move it up in the hierarchy, given a thorough evaluation of the structures, how these concepts functionally relate to one another. I don't know though it is fascinating to consider. Ultimately the purpose of the subjective mathematics essay was to convey an idea that to me is quite evident and not yet adequately addressed or communicated about. The situation it defaults to requires and institutes and propels unequal exchange, where expropriation and exploitation occurs via biased onesided dynamics within interactions, of people and ideas, oftentimes in the guise of 'reasoning' yet it is to interact and mediate things within language that, in its short-circuiting, function like a rigged slot machine or other device that in its very use, unaccounted for in such malfunctioning, is wrongly believed the basis for action, when instead it is the medium deterring its possibility. My goal was to convey that to deal with this requires logic. That that is how the accounting occurs. And that if each person who is contemplative thinker, who evaluates and seeks truth, were to recognize the common condition, that in changing the basis for evaluating 'reason', that different set of rules could apply that are not being acknowledged, and if they were, every just claim could be approached in this way, in a legal, constitutional, grounded context, It is just a matter of logical reasoning. It is a capacity and it can be developed, given enough consideration and sharing of basic knowledge which today is very difficult, even online, given splintered group dynamics and technological tools. In this moment of reflection upon the potential to say and what is said, if there is one thing to convey, the purpose, it is that one viewpoint of reasoning does not equate with all truth of what it references, and is likely very minimal. [reason 1] =/= [all reason] So while I may reason about something, it is fractional at best to what it references, only if all other views and observations in truth were accounted for, would the idea be more fully 'true' in its totality. Perhaps the word reason stands in the way here, as a concept. Yet if every view of some event were to occur, its every truth accounted for, then in this N-number of observations, what is observed may be modeled accurately as truth. [observer] ==> [observed] Meaning that if a single observer makes an observation, such as within language describing something, it is not describing 'the whole thing' only a particular view of it, relative to its perspective and context. Observer 1 and Observer 2 may see different things: [observer 1] ==> [observed] [observer 2] ==> [observed] This is relativism, and some of what is observed may be inaccurate, partly true, if not false, given observational biasing, lack of knowledge, new data, whatever. So if considering that what is observed, if it were 'all true' and described in its entirety, this would likely involve all observations to account for its totality of truth. Observers 1, 2, 3... all the way to infinity (N=infinity) then could evaluate this shared observation... [observers 123..N] ==> [observed] And yet if errors in view or assumption are not corrected for, even then what is observed may not be fully true, it could only be partially true. It would require taking all of the observers, their observations, and figuring out what is true and separating it from what is not. That is how the observation would then be grounded in empirical truth, if the bias, warping, and distortion were neutralized, the known errors corrected and disallowed in the modeling. By default the situation today in language is to assume: [observer 1] ==> [observation] (100% truth) When in the totality of what is observed, as an idea or concept in its reality, all possible truth of its existence, then tends to have a single finite observer contributing a minor aspect of the totality of truth a concept involves, such as my mentioning [society] without referencing or distinguishing contradictions and interpretive errors, such that in such a ungrounded reference instead of being by default [100% true] it may be [false] or even [0.000000000000000000001%] of its dimensionality, yet within ordinary reasoning function as faith accompli (typo kept for je ne sais quo factor), in terms of its not being the 'whole accounting' for what is referenced. A [sentence] could begin to fall into [error] as these [things] get [out of control] as [ungrounded] [ideas], such that [truth] may not be occurring at [100%] via referencing [concepts] as [words] in comparison to their [modeling] as [ideas], and instead, because of this [lack] of [empirical] [cumulative] [N-dimensional] [accounting], what is [referenced] as a [sign] could instead be [minor truth] if not [infinitesimal] by default. Such that [all truth] is not being processed by each and every [reference] to [concepts], [100%] as it combines with [100%] as it correlates with [100%], thereby, I conclude [100%] is the standing[reality]. Instead, it could be [partial truth] and [minor truth] full of [errors] and [bias] that are [structural] to the ideas themselves, including their [origin], that is the [fallibility] of thinkers, their [subjectivity], even that is not [accounted for], and in continuation of these, [0.001] and [0.00000001] and [0.000001] in their interaction as more and more minor truth is described and calculated, that this is not adding up to N-dimensional modeling removed of error, via this [observational relay] within communication, instead it is moving towards [absolute falsity], that is, [nothingness], by default of its lack of grounding. Thus the more [words] relied upon to describe the [concept] the more errors and impure frameworks are assumed to be [neutral] carriers of [ideas] yet it is their very recession, a receding of [truth] via this language, hidden within the structures if not beyond them, [forced] to [mediate] this instead, these [signs] and this armature of [alphabetic] [signage], that this description in itself is a unique [perspective] that is only [partially true] at its best. And thus its a trap, to mediate ideas in this way, especially without a common referent removed of known errors, all of this instead relying on a basis of assumption - essentially 'faith' and 'belief' in the infallible observer communicating in pure truth and it is just not the reality. Errors are at the foundation. This is in error, by default of writing it, as if all true. And yet its truth, however infinitesimal - as its truth could be all true, if corrected for, yet it is precisely not this N-dimensional truth of each & every idea that is referenced. It is of dust within the cosmos. Unless empirical models were to sustain 'truth' and this instead was referenced as the basis for exchange and sharing of hypothesis, views. Where error would be removed by requirement so only the pure concepts would be mediated, not the noise, not the distortion, not the biasing, which seems to function almost as if categorical style, sociodemographic or institutional aura, etc. To sum up the basic idea, and maybe this diagram is not effective to do so, yet it attempts to model the situation, it is that a single observer is not observing this N-dimensional truth by default: [observer 1] ==> [N-observed] Whereas if the observer was made empirical, then together our observations would combine into a single shared viewpoint, as N-observer, such that: [N-observer] ==> [N-observed] And if this, the accumulation of all views was itself the position of an observer, what is observed would be of the panoptic, every available facet evaluated in its truth and inaccuracies, not just the observed, also every observer observing every other observer such that in their correlation and resolution of views, the observer is removed of their own errors prior to and along with other observational errors, such that a defect in the eye could affect what is seen, so too inaccuracy in thinking could effect what is observed, and therefore others can account for these errors in observations between us, so to capture the truth of a particular view or observation while removing it of distortions or biasing or whatever is not true. Without this correlation and correction, any number of observers could lead to a miniscule truth if their observations do not accurately add up, such that they may cancel eachother out via contradictions, where shared frameworks becomes arbitrary... [N-observers] ==> [0.00000000000001 truth] Wheres if errors were accounted for, this same scenario could be grounded in a shared empirical model, where together the same group of observers could have the 'truth' they know, correspond to the observation in its shared modeling of the concept... [N-observers] ==> [100% truth] While such observation may remain contingent, and actually involve remaining unknowns and unknown errors, 'know errors have been accounted for' and are not allowed to continue in the shared processing, if falsified, to whatever degree. Perhaps remaining around as junk DNA or in the realm of potential data that could be further reinterpreted via other hypothesis. And here is the point, that N-observers in their combined efforts, can then become a single observer who is able to reference the shared model in its truth, such that: [N-observer] ==> [100% truth] That would require a new kind of computer as the basis for communications, and yet, to say this or that each of these referenced [concepts] could be instead empirically grounded to a shared model removed of falsity and tied into its structural interconnections, say as a [concept] may relate to an [idea] and having a model with the best working hypothesis of why this is so, and running viewpoints through these 'forms'. The thing is, today, in this language, by simply being able to type at a keyboard, it could be assumed that the person is doing exactly this, that it is to reference a 100% truth by referring to an [idea] from what is a unique perspective, ultimately, as a finite observer. And what that is by comparison is the very opposite: [observer 1] =/=> [100% truth] The observer does not tend towards absolute truth, via the uncorrected for relativistic assumptions, it is instead to tend to highly particular truth, enframed: [observer 1] ==> [00.0000000001 truth] If an observation is true it may actually be 100% truth, if it were removed of its errors, except the context is: [observer 1] ==> [99.9999999999% falsity] If considering the truth in its actual N-dimensionality, such that the observation is so small, it is not even equivalent to the entirety of what is referenced. In this way, ungrounded observation tends towards absolute nothings and total falsity by default. [observer 1] ==> [total falsity] In this way, the false perspective and false reality, language propping up a virtual realm of 'reason' as if it inherently corresponds and is guided and managed by language, mediated it by it, versus the way [truth] is removed, replaced by [power]. Logic, the requirement to resolve this condition. An idea such as [ideology] has been referenced here as negative many times, yet it is potentially neutral, a function of [answered questions] that may be [working models] of [grounded beliefs]. Yet if an ideology is based in bias, warped and distorted thinking, it can function against truth in its deterministic answering, closed-minded and not allowing feedback to correct for its errors. In this way, [everything], subtle & in superposition. Any given view, only partial, likely a contradiction in absolute terms (N-observed), and only partial. Like these ideas and my viewpoint versus those of others, to correct my errors and distortions and to correlate and add additional observations and views and greater truth. Without that, whatever is here collapses back into the undifferentiated, as it cannot be sustained within language, its signs. The truth is not in these words, it is beyond them. And in that way, a contradiction annihilates itself. --- Brian Carroll Minneapolis MN # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org