Language LO867 (was: Complexity, languaging...)
Fred Reed (freed@cc.atinc.com)
Fri, 21 Apr 95 12:03:18 EST
Greetings,
I have been following the various current threads on LO with great
interest that have something or other to do with "language." Mike
McMaster recently followed up on some questions I had raised some time
ago concerning the use of language in self-organization, John Warfield
followed up with further inquiry concerning "linguistic domains", and
Jack Hirschfeld noted that several threads were tied together through
the question of language; in particular the difference between
"definition" and "meaning".
Since our conception of language plays such a large role in how we
think about many of the issues raised on LO, I thought it would be
appropriate to "focus in" on it. Below, I will try to outline a
relatively non-traditional view of language that I have found to have
many desirable attributes with respect to thinking about learning and
self-organization. My only hope is that it will provide sufficient
fodder for more interesting and lively discussion on the list. As I
have neither the space nor the information/knowledge/wisdom? to speak
about the topic in detailed or formal terms, I will stick mostly to
generalities and metaphors that I have found interesting/useful in my
continuing struggle with the concepts of language and learning.
In particular, I would like to outline a philosophy of language
created by Charles S. Peirce (rightly mentioned by John Warfield as one
of America's best and most underappreciated thinkers, IMHO). Peirce
developed his "pragmatic philosophy" to explain and provide guidance for
conduct of a process that he felt should be practiced by a "scientific
intelligence." This process would necessarily be performed by a
"community of inquirers". It is my understanding that this "community"
can be, among other things, either within a single human being (thus
implying that human thought is comprised of many "minds") or within the
more commonly thought of "social" community made up of human
individuals. This idea obviously has connections to Maturana/Varela's
concept of many levels of autopoietic "meta-systems", and I think to
Mike McMaster's various levels of self-organization, but I will avoid
the issue for the time being.
The process that Peirce proposed he called "semiosis", which he held
to be a self-correcting, self-controlling, self-generating process by
which ENDs are established and refined, and MEANS to these ENDs are
initiated, consummated, and evaluated. It is critical to note that
semiosis is held to be *the* means by which intelligent thought,
behavior, and learning come about. Thus, Peirce is saying that the
basis for thought is not processing information as we traditionally
refer to it (defined as representations or "models" of the outside
world), but rather a process of refining *ACTS*.
Now, semiosis means "sign process" so the question comes up, what do
SIGNS and ACTS have to do with each other. Peirce was proposing that
the shared signs are the means by which the individuals in the community
of inquiry engage in the process of scientific intelligence called for
by his pragmatic philosophy.
Now, as Mike McMaster has rightly pointed out, the traditional (or
"Cartesian" as he put it) view of language or linguistic signs (direct
representation of "real" objects) could not hope to fulfill this role.
Instead, Peirce reconceptualized the term "representation" to be a fully
"triadic" one, where a SYMBOL is held in relation to both an END (the
"object" of the relation) and a set of ACTS that are believed to the
MEANS to that END. In other words, the END or object is known through
the ACTS that detect or satisfy it. The term "triadic" means that all
three components: the END, the MEANS, and the SYMBOL that represent them
are held in an irreducible relationship that cannot be decomposed into
lesser (i.e., "dyadic" (two-wise) or "monadic"(singular) relationships
without loss. It is interesting to note that the traditional view of
representation is only "dyadic" (SYMBOL <-> "object")
Although I know that this seems all horribly non-intuitive, Peirce
took the position that all "languaging" is actually of this form. It is
not, according to this view, simply expressions of "information" by the
speaker. Rather, encoded (so deeply in fact that it "seems"
unbelievable on first look) in our language are interactions between
members of the community of inquiry in the form of arguments leading to
adopting, modifying or rejecting ENDs (actual or implied expression of
"ought") and the MEANs to these ends (actual or implied expression of
"is"). According to Peirce, this total triadic system of acts and
representations provides the ideal "language of science" necessary to
implement pragmatism in a community of autonomous entities. In fact, in
agreement with Mike McMaster, one can view language as an emergent
phenomenon, from this perspective an evolving MEANs to the END of
cooperative interaction ("structural coupling") between autonomous
entities.
Without further lengthy explanation (as I have probably already
exceeded the limits of good sense) I would like to throw out a few
starting points for further discussion, related to topics already seen
on LO that relate to language:
- As Kent Palmer tried to so hard to convince us some time ago,
philosophy IS important to practical matters. Surely, how one defines
concepts such as "information" and "representation" will affect the
practical design of things such as "corporate knowledge repositories".
Do we know the important and practical limitations we bring on ourselves
by adopting a non-pragmatic/non-triadic computing technology as the
basis for such repositories?
- Pragmatism is "phenomenological" in that it provides a means for
obtaining "truth" without any direct access between the mind and an
external reality. In the terms above, "truth" is the frequency that an
ACT satisfies the END for which it is held as a MEANs. Such fulfillment
of expectations is a sign for a "fact" of reality. In this way, we can
come to know "real" things indirectly, although never directly or with
certainty. I like to use the metaphor of the semiotic process as a
chaotic process "attracted" by the reality in which it takes place. Two
interesting consequences of this metaphor are that 1) if reality
changes, the process naturally reorients itself to this new attractor
(unlike more "mechanistic" views of learning that are thought of as
linear steps toward a single unchanging point of truth), and 2) as Doug
Seeley pointed out such systems naturally may move through dramatic
shifts ("discrete chaos"). The Kuhn notion of paradigm revolutions come
to mind.
- As Mike McMaster would probably agree, the notion of "post-modernism"
has been attacked by some as allowing for one belief to be as good as
another (since they are all "subjective") Peirce's pragmatism is
completely "post-modern" in that it dismisses complete objectivity (core
to the modern sense of "science"), however it also provides a process
(scientific intelligence) by which "truth" can and should be pursued.
Thus, the "deconstructions" of concepts and intellectual habits that
Mike rightly (IMHO) encourages us to make are necessary, but must *also*
be placed in a pragmatic process to encourage us to "re-construct" a new
world that tends more toward "truth". (one belief is not as good as
another when put to the pragmatic test).
- In this new light, language is not just a passive conduit for
communicating information, but is itself an embodiment of knowledge (and
values I might add - a topic for some other time). The meaning of
"linguistic domain" conceived by Maturana/Varela and raised recently by
John Warfield takes on a much richer meaning than if one adopts the
traditional, much more limited "dyadic" representation, view of
language. That is, the possible structural couplings between languaging
entities (i.e., the ENDs they may agree to commit to, or the MEANS they
have found to achieve them) are clearly limited/defined by the
representations available to them at a given time (the *shared* triadic
linguistic signs).
Well if anybody made it this far, I admire your perseverance. As I
said, I too am just struggling with this stuff myself and am interested
in all sorts of comment/critique/etc.
Fred Reed
freed@cc.atinc.com