New article by Andy Clark et al. in Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
Andy ClarkArtificial intelligenceCognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceconsciousnessEmbodied cognitionExternalismphenomenologyPsychologysituated cognition
Walker Percy Wednesday 175
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD issues in statements about the world. Whether one is a realist, pragmatist, operationalist, or materialist, one can hardly doubt that the various moments of the scientific enterprise–induction, hypothesis, deduction, theory, law–are all assertions of sorts. Even observation and verification are in the final analysis not the physiological happenings in which the retina and brain of the scientist receive the image of pointer readings–a dog might do the same. They are rather the symbolic assertory acts by which one specifies that the perception, pointer on numbered line, is a significant reading.
It shall also be my contention, following Ernst Cassirer, that the main elements of cultural activity are in their most characteristic moments also assertory in nature. The central acts of language, of worship, of myth-making, of storytelling, of art, as well as of science, are assertions.
What I shall call attention to first is a remarkable difference between the sort of reality the scientific method is and the sort of reality it understands its data to be. To be specific: The most characteristic product of the scientific method is the scientific law. Perhaps the ideal form of the scientific law, the formulation to which all sciences aspire, is the constant function, the assertion of an invariant relation between variable quantities. In physics, the function takes the form of the functional equation, E = f(C), in which variable C (cause) issues in dependent variable E (effect) in a determinate ratio f. This formula is, of course, an assertion. It asserts that such a function does in fact obtain between the variables. What takes place in the phenomenon under investigation, however, is not an a·ssertion. It is a sequence of space-time events, an energy exchange. Thus we have two different kinds of activities here: (l) a space-time event in which state A issues in state B; (2) a judgment which asserts that such is indeed the case. Thomas Aquinas called attention to the qualitative difference between the events which take place in the world and the act by which an intellect grasps these events.
Secondly, I wish to investigate the state of affairs which comes about when the scientific method is applied to this very activity of which it is itself a mode: the assertory phenomena of culture. I think it will be possible to show that when the method is used, with the best possible intentions, to construe assertory behavior, it falls into an antinomy. Examples will be given from ethnology, from semiotic, from current philosophies of science, to illustrate the kind of antinomy into which the method is driven when it seeks to explain as functions those activities of man which are not primarily physiological or psychological but assertory: language, art, religion, myth, science-in short, culture.
Finally, a suggestion will be made toward the end of a more radical science of man than the present discipline known as cultural anthropology or ethnology, which, it will have been my hope to show, is essentially a nonradical science.
Nick Lowe at Daryl’s House Club
Would I love to be at this gig! Now that would be a night to remember. I saw them a few years back in a conventional theatre setting and that was superb. Nick is a musician’s musician — it was unusual to see so many musicians in the audience paying their respects. If you are expecting a “greatest hits” type show, then forget it. Despite the immensely rich back catalogue that most will know from the 70s and early 80s, Nick has never rested on his laurels. Indeed, his writing in his mature years has gotten even better. If you do make it to the show, listen closely and you will hear Los Straitjackets do some tongue-in-cheek instrumental versions. In the intimacy of Daryl’s they will blow the roof off, and if Daryl himself made an appearance . . . whoa!
Karl Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism after 60 years
Jack Birner has this new article just published in Metascience.
The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will
This looks like it may well be a cracking read. I do appreciate Ken’s quality of mind as per his chat with the Gad Father.
The Semiotics of Eyewear
Another classic from The Chap this time, issue 15. I trust that you chaps are also monitoring the encroaching vulgarity that I noticed corroding Jermyn Street. Long live anarcho-dandyism!
Taleb on EconTalk
Russ Roberts chats with Taleb about his latest book Skin in the Game, my copy due to be in my hands tomorrow.
Bobby
Birthday boy in conversation with Terry Gross.
And he say, hey, Bobby, come here a minute. And I froze – came back. Hey, oh man, I didn’t see you. He said I loved the way you did the song. I think it’s fantastic. And I felt really good. I said oh, I’m glad you really like it, Mr. Bennett. And that was it.
Extended minds, predictive processes, and Andy Clark
Charlotte Rampling
On the eve of the annual (and in decline) luvvy virtue-signaling regress-fest, there still stands Charlotte Rampling who, along with Catherine Deneuve, have timeless and towering unalloyed class, dignity, elegance and, most importantly, critical faculties — unlike the pompous half-baked cause du jour “celeb” types who are superficially deep, but deep down, are superficial! This documentary, clearly done on Rampling’s terms, powerfully shows up the Hollywood fuckwittery of trying to arrest the aging process. For me Rampling’s most memorable performance is still in The Night Porter, and though pretty much universally decried in the day, at least it could be made, a time when transgressive art could exist side-by-side with bread and circus idiocy. Of course, she trusted her co-lead Dirk Bogard, who arguably had the greatest transgressive acting career of all and yet who started out as matinée fluff. Rampling really did/does have THE look and she is acutely aware of it — but she also has integrity and a finely tuned talent.
