Imagine an isosceles triangle as a device for explaining three major epistemological questions. Label the left side base point A. to stand for Dick. Label the right side base point B. to stand for Jane. Label the top point C. to stand for a large rock. Imagine that the lines between the points represent avenues of informational exchange.
Does Dick observe anything real at a distance from his body, A. to C.? Does Jane, B. to C.?
Does the rock offer any information to Dick’s and Jane’s observations, C. to A.; C. to B.?
Given that Dick and Jane have different experiential and educational associations with rocks, is an A. to B.; B. to A. consenses about observed reality possible?
I’ve thought about this question too, but with the superimposition of violence in the West Bank as “the rock”, Palestinians as “Dick” and Israel as “Jane”.
From this perspective (evidently) there seems to be a disconnect. To address your questions, I would say:
Yes, they all observe ‘real’ events.
Yes, it offers sensory information to both spectators, and
Definitively no - there is no ‘shared’ perspective about the events each witnesses.
Instead of the top of the triangle represented as a rock, a more-apt metaphor might be a mult-faceted diamond, or better yet, a spinning disco ball. Trying to describe the points of light you are seeing to someone in real time, and them to you…
Duende,
Thanks for your insights. The triangle can also be used in theological arguments as person 1, person 2., and God. It is a very flexible explanatory model. I call it the Ierrellusian epistemological triangle (IET), not trying to be pompous but trying to show a model that works.
Now as to question 3. In a social setting consensus of agreement may be the only verification of experienced reality we have. If there were no intersubjective informational agreements, the Crayola Co. is at fault for suggesting that there is a color blue which both Dick and Jane can recognize and most doctors are at fault for suggesting a brain substance P as explaining pains both Dick and Jane feel.
Since this thread gets to the heart of the hard epistemological questions, I’m somewhat baffled by the lack of response to it from philosophers here. I would like to hear more ideas regarding question 2.
Tab,
Above the quantam level, let’s imagine this possibility. Dick walks his dog Spot around the rock. Both Dick and Spot are aware that the rock cannot be eaten and that they cannot pass through it. They have to walk around it. Looking at the rock, Dick finds that larvae have taken shelter in its crevices and that moss is growing on it. Anthropomorphism, canisomorphism or any other species morphism as personal awareness does not contridict the fact that Dick, Spot, the larvae and the moss all are aware of the rock as a substantial entity. The fact that the rock may be comprised of atoms in motion does not negate the human animal, nonhuman animal, plant experience with it.
Ierrellus, I’d say you would be really interested in reading about biosemiotics. Do some cursory google-ing of the word umwelt and then experience the resonations. I think you’ll get a lot out of a gent named Uexkull, and Sebeok is good too (and easier to spell).
Ah - My bad, I read question two as ‘active’ - ie: “the rock itself can hold states of information concerning those who interact with it.”
The reduction of quantum supositions by conscious observations sprang to mind, acting as a type of ‘memory’ for the rock - recording its ‘history’ - but actually having read a few more pages of my book last night even that idea is a bit spurious.
I like this triangular visualization process though.
Duende,
Merci, mon ami. I’m going to Google!
Tab,
Muchas gracias, amigo. The fuzziness about informational interactions tends to disappear when we consider that all organisms are involved in it. About the rock–it appears to me to be part of the phase stability experenced simply because changes wrought over geological time are exceedingly slow and we all need some stable ground from which to operate.
Duende,
Again, my heartfelt thanks for your references. I’m on page 34 of about the seventh draft of my book “Bioepistemology: A Psychological Synthesis”. The references you gave are right up my alley.
Reading the basic query of this thread, I really think that the idea of qi (alt: ch’i) is both relevant and useful for this discussion. For a quick introduction to the idea:
So, using this system the rock is made out of the same fundamental ‘qi’, the same psychophysical ‘stuff’. Somewhat extreme examples of this are quite common in Chinese literature, for example Bao Yu was trasformed from a piece of Jade into a human,
So, given a qi-based perspective on the world, there is no reason why the rock couldn’t contain some information about Dick and Jane. But this is where the other foot drops within Chinese dualism – li, or principle, can in this case be understood as information. Using classical explanations of qi, the rock’s qi is less refined that a human’s qi, so it is therefor able to hold less information.
This, of course, feels strange to a modern thinker; however, the qi-monism of Kaibara Ekken clarifies the matter somewhat. Ekken was a botanist first and a Confucian philosopher second, and he strongly emphasized tehe use of biology (rather than physics) as a means for understanding the world. He posited that li was embedded in qi (as opposed to them being seperate or, in a platonic twist, the other way 'round!) so the information that the rock might have about Dick and Jane would be dependent on their ‘physical’ interaction. However, from the position of qi-monism coupled with the idea of the Confucian trinity (Heaven-Man-Earth) which serve to balance each-other out, the distinction becomes increasingly blurred between the three. This isn’t pre-Cartesian naivete, but rather a way of formulating subject and object as being mutually dependent.
So, if one takes it as a given that Dick, Jane, and the Rock are made of the same fundamental qi, and that it is through interaction at the ‘physical’ level that they are defined, then I think the three questions could be answered thusly:
Yes, the do observe something real. This is where I really think the idea of qi is quite powerful. We acknowledge that there is some form of outside ‘reality’ which informs our senses, but at the same time we are trapped by our senses because we cannot be sure if what they percieve is reality. Under the Western model, this creates a rather unfortunate feed-back loop that ends in the nihilistic cry of no-knowledge. However, if we instead view these two aspects as mutually reinforcing aspects of the whole then reality becomes . . . well, real.
Yes, but in a very limited capacity. Tu Weiming clarified this far better than I can in his essay, “On the Continuity of Being” quoted earlier.
While the information (and hence their relationship, and hence li) that Dick and Jane have about/towards the rock is presumably different their perception of the rock might be slightly different. However, the pattern embedded in the rock’s qi remains the same for each, so while they percieve different aspects of the rock’s qi, the qi of the rock is fundamentally unchanged. In this way, their perceptions will be more similar than not and (may) even be close enough for us to call them ‘the same’.
Xunzian,
Enjoyable reading. Thanks much for you time and outstanding explanatory efforts. But does qi in any way coincide with umwelt? Are Easterners and Westerners on the same page here? I really can’t conceive of the rock as in any way knowing Dick or Jane or their dog Spot; but I can visualize some physical complementations among the three that allow those with brains to know what’s out there.
Given that li denotes a relationship or pattern (as opposed to the noumenal world as some qi/li dualists such as T’oegye would have it) I find the two ideas quite complementary.
So, if we posit that there is a real world outside of us (as most materialists would agree) the issue of perspective becomes incredibly important.
This is quite an easy idea to express in terms of li and qi. If we remeber that the fundamental composition of the chalkboard is the same (or the photon absorbing/emitting qualities of a plant) but our varying composition of qi (a manifestation, if you will, of li) causes us to precieve them differently. This goes back to the yin/yang (errr, ti/yung but let’s not get into semantics) relationship between our preceptions and reality reinforcing each other which I mentioned in answer to question #1.
So, we have the substance of the object (qi) and the way in which we relate to the object (li) together which forms our perspective of the object and hence the reality-as-we-understand-it of the object. If we accept that we are structured differently in terms of our physical/mental abilities by our substance, then it follows that the way in which we relate to other things is constricted by those physical/mental aspects (in this way li is embedded in qi). Li is the semoitic web which relates the various objects, if you will.
Alternatively, if I wanted to wax dualistic, I think that li as Zhu Xi understood it related very, very closely to the Innenwelt and the qi in this case would be the semoitic web whose interaction with li gives rise to the Umwelt.
Though I must ask – what is the Umwelt response to Derrida and the like? I haven’t brought Yangming and his li-monism into this yet but I think that such a discussion could yield a fruitful discussion. Similarly, how does Umwelt relate to Whitehead’s philosophy (which shares enough similarities to Yulgok that we can get a discussion going on, perhaps, more familiar turf?).
Additionally, have I understood the essays I’ve read correctly and grasped the meaning of the Umwelt? It is a new term for me.[/url]
Man, I love this board! Great question, Xunzian. That’s the problem - the conception of the Umwelt is relatively ignored because it is based in the ‘major’ semiotic tradition of Pierce as opposed to the ‘minor’ semiotic tradition of Saussure. Essentially, Saussure’s semiology spawned structuralism, which itself spawned poststructuralism, which spawned Derrida and his Deconstruction.
But Uexkull based his concept of Umwelt off of Pierce’s semiotics which is much more comprehensive than Saussure’s, for it deals with all possible sign types (not just human signs). This lead to biosemiotics, which Sebeok did great work to promote.
That’s why Derrida and most other postmodern-day thinkers don’t bother with it.
Xunzian wrote:
Another good question. I have yet to get really deep into Whitehead (and I haven’t heard of Yulgok until now), but, yes - Whitehead’s concept of ‘Field Being’ is very similar to Uexkull’s ‘Umwelt’.
For anyone who cares, Field Being basically explains reality as nothing but process - relationships. No nouns, only verbs. Patterns of value within me are ‘humaning’.
A good example of this is the question: What happens to my fist when I open my hand? The trick here is that Whitehead discovers that we’ve hidden an action as a noun. It’s more appropriate to view things as processes, rather than fixed entities.
In other words, nothing is forever. Or: nothing can be separated from its environment; no man is an island, etc… however you want to think about it. But it is an apt comparison, no question about it, Xunzian.
All I can say is WOW!!! This is what I hoped this thread would evoke. Great posts Xunzian and Duende.
“The Sun’s Light when he unfolds it
Depends on the Organ that beholds it.”–Wm. Blake, from “The Gates of Paradise”. Umwelt?
Peirce and Uexkull both talk of an internal mechanism all organisms have that enables them to act and transact with environments. This is the common denominator on which individual perpectives are built. I’ve yet to read where either equates the common denominator with RNA. Uexkull thought Darwinism was just another religion, an explanatory mythology that was doomed to perish. He did, however, revere Mendel. But didn’t Mendel’s ideas flesh out Darwin’s?
Apparently, the confusion that arises whenever one attempts to omit practical scientific models or common sense from the realm of philosophy is one of omitting some experience in order to describe some other experience. It’s a pick and choose description of reality.
I also tend to see reality as process–verbs, not nouns, but with nouns included in verbs. Basic Anglo-Saxon words were almost like gerunds, they were noun/verbs., eg., milking, fucking, etc. As language developed nouns split from verbs. If you line up subject, verb and object with connectives, then hang modifiers beneath them, you get what looks like a protein built from amino acid modifiers of S, O, V type original chemical structures.
I still think that if deconstruction were applied to the notion of umwelt that now, far from being a complex semiotic web which connects all life, we have each organism building a semiotic web within itself. Trapped in this Innenwelt unable to reach beyond the self.
So, if one were to try and make umwelt into a viable philosophy that can withstand deconstructionism (or offer an alternative to deconstructionism) how would it go about it?
Additionally (and more importantly) how can one apply the notion of Umwelt to self-cultivation?
Xunzian,
First, IMHO, I would make a distinction between what needs deconstructing and what does not. Most certainly any ideas that pretend to close the doors to process or development definitely need deconstruction. Those ideas that enhance concepts of moving potential are best not subjected to deconstruction. The latter amounts to the common ground among organisms, the recurrent possibilty of retaining what is best as what is most useful. When applying the acid test, one must determine what needs fixing.
I’m not necessarily talking about deconstructing it, but rather that space between what is thought and what is communicated. That gulf which Derrida considered insurmountable.
Xunzian,
I’ve not read Derrida, but the idea of such a gap appears to me to be absurd. There are no gaps in organic processes. Is Derrida out in abstract space?
Navigator,
Welcome to the discussion. Your take on consensus, however, is refuted by many outstanding philosophers and scientists simply because it is Cartesian. We’re a few centuries advanced from Descartes’ problem of how to be both religious and scientific, a problem that made Kant ineffectual by mistaking constants for absolutes. The given triangle is an explanatory model for presenting all epistemological questions. It is not an answer to any of them.
Other,
I realize that Peirce and Uexkull both died before the genetic discoveries of the 1950s occurred–production of amino acids in a lab and Watson’s and Crick’s model for DNA structure. Perhaps their ideas would have been different had they known of such possibilites.