The False Dichotomy of Abstract and Empirical

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The False Dichotomy of Abstract and Empirical

The nature of abstraction is the limit of what it is, as abstraction, and the same limit of what it is not, as empirical.

The nature of empiricism is the limit of what it is, as empiricism, and the same limit of what it is not, as abstraction.

What each is not is interpenetrated by the other; empirical realities becomes abstractions, abstract realities becoming empirical, some do not become the other, some remain as themselves.

What remains across the dichotomy is the limit itself that allows each and its absence thus this limit is trans-dichtomous, transcendental to the dichotomy, an event in itself, and event as the scale of itself through the dichotomy.

At the foundational level there is no abstract or empirical dichotomy just the emergence and dissolution of distinctions, limits, as a meta-distinction of itself.

In this respect the dichtomy is subject to a closed loop that is open by infinite scaling of each respectively and beyond each respectively.

The abstract/empirical dichotomy is false by the very same merelogical boundaries that reveal them. What remains of the dichtomy is but the dichotomy, and what it contains, as contexts.

These contexts are not foundations outside the scaling of said foundations via the frameworks that embody them.

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I lean towards accepting the idea that the abstract and empirical aren’t really two independent domains, but distinctions we impose on an underlying process. Once we start treating the boundary itself as something that can shift, I think that the dichotomy becomes much less absolute.

The part I’m less sure about is whether saying the distinction is “trans-dichotomous” actually escapes the dichotomy, or simply creates another level of abstraction around it. In other words, are we discovering something beyond the abstract/empirical distinction, or are we just describing the relationship between the two in increasingly abstract terms?

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Your first paragraph is what the text already claims.

Trans-dichotomous would be the emergence of dichtomies, via distinction, and yet not limited to them as distinction is an event that goes beyond and yet mediates its own scales (ie the dichotomies, triads, etc.).

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False, period, or can be looked at as false in certain contexts?

It still seems useful and true to distinguish between the map and the actual landscape one is walking through. Or what happens when you fall contrasted with Newton’s formula and models in trauma medicine.

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That is the question…and a legitimate one.

So with the text in mind:

What we know as incontrovertible is the event of distinction. The distinction of “knowing” or even the distinction of “assumption” effectively reveals an event of distinction both prior to an mediative of both.

To doubt this or argue against it requires the very same event of distinction for “doubt” and “counter-argument” itself.

Distinction is prior to and mediative of the abstract/empirical dichotomy.

It allows for each to occur, transcendental of both, while effectively is mediative of both, as they are scalings of the event of distinction itself.

The same applies for the absolute and relative dichotomy.

So they are relative by degree of being scalings of the event of distinction, as a scale (we can use expression or form synonymously) is relational thus conditional.

They are absolute within the scale as well. Take for example axiom X. An axiom is a starting point from which a framework is derived or constructed. The framework itself is a scaling of the axiom X thus regardless of the variations of the framework axiom X is synonymous to a fixed point. In the context of the framework axiom X is absolute…as it is the framework itself.

In this context the dichotomy is:

Relative.
Absolute in context.

Where the dichotomy is not absolute, in the standard sense, is in the respect of being an unchanging foundation. And the reason is real simple; they are derivative from the event of distinction.

So it is not absolute.

With this in mind the distinctions within the dichotomy are now:

  1. Relative
  2. Absolute in Context
  3. Not Absolute as Absolute (Points 1 and 2 combined)
  4. None of the above as they are fundamentally distinctions (neither 1 nor 2 thus not 3)

So the answer, to be over-precise, is fourfold.

And this fourfold nature? It is an event of distinction.

So effectively we are left with a transcendental event that is perceived and mediated via immanence.

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Well, yes, here we are online. If you treat words as containers (or conduits a la Reddy and the conduit metaphor) then you can say, hey you produced words. Words are abstract. Try another line greenfuse. Oops you used words again, that’s abstract. But words aren’t just containers for ‘ideas’. They point. Next time you put too cold water on your face. I won’t be there with words. That won’t be abstract. Now you can point to this post and say, look at your words, you are making distinctions and that’s abstract, but you’ve pared down language to a mere map, which is pretending it is less than it is - I’d really suggest a look at the Reddy and I’ll put a link at the end.

Language isn’t just doing one thing. Yes, it can be a container. It is also expressive. It also points. If you want to keep pointing at language when you use language or maps when you use language, that is a choice.

Point at something, and a wolf, utterly concrete, won’t look at it. Point at something with a dog and the dog will look at where I am pointing. (You’re not the wolf in this schema, they are embodied, and you’re not the dog, who is also embodied. Or you’re a dog pretending that pointing is pointing at the finger.) I can’t make you treat language as the full phenomenon it is. I can’t make you deal with the referents. You can just say, Oh, referent, another abstract distinction. So, I acknowledge that you can treat anything I post as not pointing but mapping. If you actually convinced me or yourself that this is all that this real, that would be a pyrrhic victory.

You can keep treating language as only a container and abstract breaking down of ‘things’. Or you can go to memory or direct experience, the feel of the chair on your ass right now. But, yes, you are utterly impervious if you want to be. You can say it’s maps all the way down if you want. But you don’t live like that.

Reddy, I see requires you to join to download a pdf, but if you want you can do that here. You don’t have to pay, but you have to join.

https://www.academia.edu/6290150/The_Conduit_Metaphor_A_Case_of_Frame_Conflict_in_Our_Language_about_Languag

We can pretend that my words are only about distinctions. But I’m living outside this map. And so are you.

And yes, again, I know you can say that the above sentences can be viewed as just more distinctions. But at some point you’ll stop typing, get hungry, shift your ass, feel horny, notice that wart is back on your wrist, decide to put some socks on those cold feet. Or maybe you’re an AI.

Me, I’m not a drawing of a man.

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And where did I make the claim that distinctions are just words?

That claim is not there, and if your problem is words then the question on your part is a problem by your own design.

No, what was said, directly and implicitly, is that the question smuggled in assumptions.

Your claim is one giant strawman.

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I didn’t think distinctions had to be words. It could easily be even more abstract or differently abstract, something like Spencer-Brown’s use of the term ‘Distinction’ and ‘Mark of Distinction’ for his symbol. And perhaps that’s your inspiration, him or those he inspired. Yup, his ‘mark’ is not a word and distinctions don’t have to be words. But words make distinctions and we interact here with words. I was using words as the practical example where we often make distinct the concrete and the abstract. It is certainly one way to make distinctions. I was pointing out that you can treat any argument as a mass of distinctions, but that’s treating language in a specific way, limited way. I am pointing out that words which are kinds of distinctions don’t just point to other signs/distinctions/words, but they point to concrete experience. We don’t live in a maps, or one of the more complicated calculations without words in The Laws of Form.

But if you think an orgasm is just a mass of abstract distinctions or the muscle aches in a flu are just abstract distinctions, then we likely live in different worlds. Or in a world that has maps in it vs. a map of a world. If you think the map can only point to other parts of the map or other maps fine. That’s not what I experience. I use maps and I also have concrete experiences and not just of maps. Language and distinctions can lead a horse to water but it can’t make it drink. Perhaps for some people thirst is merely an abstract signifier.

I did my best to point out what I think is a problem in your position. If it affects something great, if not, not.

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Then why bring words up in a several paragraph long dialogue?

You talk about abstractions and yet your sensory experiences are distinct from eachother just as abstract experiences are distinct from eachother thus distinction is not subject, but allows, the abstract and empirical.

Distinction allows the dichotomy but is not subject to it as the distinctions of the abstract and the distinctions of the empirical are distinctions nonetheless.

Distinction is an event that is neither abstract nor empirical.

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OK—Okay I thought I explained why words they’re how we make distinctions most of the time and it’s also where we discuss concrete versus abstract so it seems like a wonderful example of how something that draws distinctions can also Point Beyond itself and that there can be a living distinction or dichotomy between the concrete and the abstract that it’s not a false dichotomy. But I didn’t get much of a response to any of that or any of the distinctions between the various uses of language which can be viewed as just a bunch of distinctions or a mere map or the conversation as talking within a map. But anyway now I’m facing what seems like a Triad abstract concrete and distinctions we take a process a living process of distinguishing or making distinctions or making distinct and this process is being reified into an abstract noun. It’s an event, but it’s not concrete. I think most events are concrete. Like an explosion is not an abstraction though the word referring to it is. But, OK, it’s not abstract actually and it’s not concrete it’s a fundamental force or an underlying substrate or a third category of something and is neither abstract nor concrete so maybe that’s what it meant about this false dichotomy it was there’s a trichotomy or there are things that fall into neither batch or maybe it’s all something else. A secular transcendence.

So I’m getting lost and that’s okay
let’s see what other people have to say

oh it’s like philosophy Dr Seuss

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Distinction can be referenced as D

Abstract = D

Empirical = D

Abstract/Empirical Dichotomy = D

The Absence of Abstract/Empirical Dichotomy = D

(A, E, A/E, - A/E) = D

A =/= E
A/E =/= - A/E

Therefore D =/= D

A = A
E = E
A/E = A/E

  • A/E = - A/E

Therefore D = D

Now

D =/= D
D = D

Then

(D =/= D) = D
(D = D) = D

Now

(=/=) = D
(=) = D

Therefore
D((D)D)

And what remains is distinction as scaling.

The abstract and empirical, theory dichotomy and absence of dichotomy, are just scales of distinction. Because these fourfold natures are scales the nature of distinction is not limited to each.