McEvoy: “It is true that W3 contents have a somewhat *abstract* character.
But it is problematic to suggest that W3 is "[an abstraction] of" W2: it is
and it isn not, and we need to examine the ways it is and is not
* I would ask this: let us say that we have a student Tom who accepts
Popper's W3 as defined by Popper / Donal, and another student, Bill, who
does not. What would be the consequences of this ? Would they be doing some
different things - say, as students, and what would those things be ? I
have a nasty suspicion that the issue is completely academic, and does not
affect anyone's life or actions or (other) beliefs in any noticeable way
whatsoever.
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 11:20 PM, Redacted sender jlsperanza for DMARC <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
McEvoy: “It is true that W3 contents have a somewhat *abstract*
character. But it is problematic to suggest that W3 is "[an abstraction]
of" W2: it is and it isn not, and we need to examine the ways it is and is
not. For Popper, there are senses in which W3 is "[an abstraction] of" W2 -
for example, W3 only emerges from the [Homo sapiens] W2. But W3 products -
though produced by the [Homo sapiens] W2 - are not "[abstracta] of" W2 in
some other [ways], and are not correctly considered as an abstraction of
W2: e.g., we produce the sequence of natural numbers, but the existence of
primes within that sequence *is a W3 property of the sequence* that
pre-dates their W2 discovery by [Homo sapiens];”
Only that “pre-dates” possibly equivocates, in that, if I understand
Popper aright, ‘temporality’ does NOT apply to W3.
McEvoy: “and so the W3 content of 'prime numbers' is here not an
abstraction of W2 processes but an autonomous, unintended consequence of
certain W2 processes.”
Granted. I think W2 must deal with the potential infinite, whereas we can
conceive of W3 as containing an _actual_ infinite.
Re: W3, McEvoy notes: “It is not just a difference in how [Homo sapiens]
use[s] W3 – it’s that [non-Homo sapiens] animals have no access to W3, so
they cannot use W3 ‘knowledge’ at all. Otoh, what may happen is that W1 and
W2 processes, connected with animal knowledge, simulate (or correlate with)
knowledge in its W3 form for humans. However, we should not attribute any
role to W3 in these animal W1 and W2 processes.”
I think I prefer ‘correlate’ to simulate; since, it would seem that it’s
Homo sapiens who is simulating, say, via a chemical theory, the structure
of DNA (W1) or the system of ‘communication’ in bees.
McEvoy: “Yet it must be admitted that it may be very tempting to make such
an attribution, and that it is easy to deceive ourselves that higher
animals have a limited form of W3 knowledge. Consider the trainable ape.
Obviously '2 + 2 = 4', in W3 mathematical terms, whereas it would be wrong
to say 'Yellow patch + Yellow patch = 4' *in W3 mathematical terms*. Now
consider the ape who we train to take bananas from a pile using cue cards.
The training could involve cue cards with numerals or cue cards with
coloured patches. If we used coloured patches, with 'Yellow patch'
"meaning" retrieve 2 bananas, 'Blue patch' meaning retrieve 3 bananas
*etc.*, we might be clear enough that the ape was NOT learning a number
system by this training *in the W3 sense of a number system*. The ape is
simply learning to use a certain kind of physical cue (the cue card with
its coloured patch) to carry out a task (of retrieving a certain number of
bananas from the pile). But if we did this training with cue cards with
numerals on them, we might be (wrongly) tempted to think that in this case
the ape is actually grasping the meaning of numerals in their W3 sense -
rather than merely grasping the symbols-for-numerals as physical cues, as
in the previous case of coloured patches.”
Well, I’m pleased McEvoy uses ‘meaning’ in scare quotes. It took me a
consultation of Stevenson, “Ethics and Language,” to see that Stevenson
does it, too! And Grunebaum found that illuminating. Scare quotes are so
handy!
But I’m not sure that if Grunebaum is rephrasing Peirce’s
‘krypto-technical’ terminology, the appearance of a sign (a numeral) or
another (a coloured patch) would make a difference. One seems to be as
arbitrary as the other. At least in Araby! With the ancient Romans it may
be different. It may be said that the Roman numeral “I” for 1 is what
Grunebaum (and Peirce) would call ‘iconic’ representation (or iconic
correlation). II for 2, ditto. III for 3 ditto. “IV” poses a BIG problem.
“V” was possibly a way the Romans had to represent a hand which usually has
five fingers, but Virgil is not very explicit about this in the “Eneide”!
McEvoy: “In the case of higher animals, like apes, I think Popper would be
open to the possibility that well-constructed tests might show these
animals can access some forms of W3 content, but he remained sceptical. For
reasons too complex and involved to fully explore here, Popper viewed W3
knowledge as creating a gulf between human knowledge and animal knowledge,
especially in terms of error-correction by critical reflection.”
I see. But you can drop the point or two and we can elaborate. I was
re-reading the link in the Wikipedia entry for ‘three worlds’. It’s a
lecture by Popper on the worlds, with special reference to the Third World,
but I see that there is an ever-growing literature on the topic. I’m not
sure he is too serious about “Homo sapiens” but then neither am I!
McEvoy: “Tests to show [non-Homo sapiens] animals could process W3
content *as such* would have to be very carefully constructed so that it
was sufficiently clear that the animal was not merely taking (what *for
us* is) W3 content and processing it in W1 or W2 terms.”
I see. Perhaps this is back to abstraction. Do non-Homo sapiens animals
make use of ‘abstraction’. At one point of that lecture Popper seems to
suggest that W3 is MERELY a set of abstract items – but then he is slightly
misleading – to a follower of Grunebaum, when Popper also stresses that W3
is essentially “Language” with a capital “L”. I noted some secondary
bibliography that traces three sources to Popper’s idea of the W3:
evolution theory, Buehler’s theory and Fregean semantics, so there!
McEvoy: “We may remember that computers may appear even more intelligent
than higher animals because computers can take (what is for us) W3 content,
which we have encoded in W1 formats, and subject it to very elaborate and
refined W1 processes; further these W1 processes may produce content that
is (for us) W3 content, and sometimes very developed and refined W3
content; yet it is illusory to suggest that the computer has any access to
W3 or, within its W1 systems, is processing the W3 content in W3 terms.
However, if we can be deceived that computer 'intelligence' derives from
computers accessing W3 content *as such*, then we might easily deceive
ourselves that animal intelligence may also be based (to some limited
extent) on the animal accessing W3 content.”
I see. That’s why I was rather suggesting that, while obviously W1 is
neutral and common to us all, with W2 and W3 things start to differ. An
eagle may have a disjunctive belief (“Do I catch that hare on the ground or
the pigeon on the wing?”). And there may be a way to say that the eagle’s
‘belief’ is a pre-rational, predecessor of Homo sapiens’s belief. Grunebaum
here follows Aristotle. For Aristotle, at one point, says the analysis of
the concept of ‘soul’ is like the analysis of the concept of ‘number’:
serial in nature. Grunebaum takes up this from Aristotle and inspires him
to say that ‘belief’ is unaequivocal as we apply it to an eagle or to Homo
sapiens. (Only Grunebaum would use a symbol here: “ψ” – and he would see
this symbol as a dyadic predicate holding between an agent (a specimen of
Homo sapiens, an eagle) and a _content_ “I should rather catch the hare on
the prairie.”). Popper seems TOO abstract when it comes to contents (in
that lecture he distinguishes between the temporal-based idea of a thought
process and the thought content itself. But he clearly wants contents to be
free of psychological (or ψ) content, whereas Grunebaum (and later,
Peacocke, “Sense and Content”) would rather not. While a ‘proposition’ may
be an abstraction, the content of a belief, or a desire (in a specimen of
Homo sapiens, or an eagle) seems to an empiricist like Grunebaum or
Peacocke too tied to sense-data to treat them as ‘abstractions’. At one
point Grunebaum allows that while he is not committed to propositions, he
is committed to ‘propositional COMPLEXES’!
McEvoy: “It is also possible that higher animals, particularly the very
social ones, may have a great deal of what we call 'social intelligence' or
'emotional intelligence' - and this 'social intelligence' may tempt us to
think they have access to W3. But I think Popper's view is that we as
humans (or proto-humans) had this kind of great social intelligence long
before we created any W3 products.”
Well, Popper includes music in W3, and I’m sure proto-humans were making
music before The Beatles!
McEvoy: “There are many, many difficult and intractable questions here.
Some remain open to scientific investigation - a recent investigation
seemed to indicate our forebears were walking upright *before* they
descended from the trees. Afaiui, the current view is that human brain
power *in W1 terms* had largely (if not entirely) evolved to its current
state in modern man long before our forebears developed any traceable W3 or
much in the way of W3 achievements - perhaps even before we spoke (voice
box evolution may have been subsequent to our forebears having brains
comparable to ours in W1 terms). In other words, we have had an exponential
increase in human cultural W3 achievements without any correlative increase
in human W1 brain power: this might seem miraculous, but it is part of
W3-theory to explain this by way of W3's 'rebound effect' on our human
W2. The human brain has had its current W1 form for probably more than
100,000 years, whereas nearly all the most significant W3 achievements have
occurred within the last 10,000 years, and many only within the last 1,000
(roughly speaking), and many only in the last 300 years.”
Well, the questions may seem more untractable than they are because after
all W3 is a term of art. At one point in the lecture I was referring to,
Popper says that his W3 resembles the ‘anthropologists’’s use of ‘culture’.
While ‘culture’ is allegedly ALSO a term of art, it has more of a
widespread usage!
McEvoy: “Again afaiui: the crucial characteristic of our W3 products is
that they become objects in their own right: this permits our W2 to operate
on them in a more critical, advanced way than where "knowledge" remains as
an internalised W2 state or process.”
Well, the key seems to be the footnote in this lecture by Popper I’m
referring to: his reference to his ‘objective’ knowledge. As opposed to
‘subjective’ knowledge, which to many philosophers is ‘all there is,’ to
echo Peggy Lea!
McEvoy: “The recent discussion of *Roberts* was partly to indicate how
this idea, of their becoming "objects in their own right", may be
'experienced' by engaging in their critical discussion (say of W3
constructs like ‘capacity,’ and limitation periods, and amendments, and
‘cause of action,’ and the inter-relations between these brought out by
reasoning); and so W3 may be 'experienced' as more than a metaphor for
certain highly developed mental activity that we might otherwise consider
as occurring entirely within W2.”
Well, while individual psychological states are, as it were, isolated, we
can think of ‘culture’ as a bit of an overlap of these individual
psychological states. So we can have two communicators agreeing on what
‘capacity’ means or what ‘cause of action’ means. There are more ways to
explain ‘rational dialogue’ (cfr. Habermas) than by positing a W3
Cheers,
Speranza
