From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 17:25:53 MST
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 01:59:09PM -0600, Damien Broderick wrote:
> Anders wrote:
>
> > As for the sentence Robert took as an example, that was likely
> > murky just due to terminology, not concept (I hope). There is a
> > difference between relying on complex or specialised shared
> > concepts and having a complex train of thought.
> [...]
> > "The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a
> > center. It is the very concept of variability -- it is,
> > finally, the concept of the game. In other words, it is
> > not the concept of something -- of a center starting
> > from which an observer could master the field -- but
> > the very concept of the game."
> >
> > is of the second kind, a complex train of thought whose value
> > cannot easily be ascertained despite being written in a far
> > less technical language (although some hidden jargon exists;
> > the above mess is likely only meaningful within a postmodern
> > context, and even there I am doubtful if it says something
> > relevant).
>
> Ah, but relevant to *what*? Half the trouble in understanding difficult
> discourse is knowing what interpretative frame to read it through.
But how much information is provided by the frame and how much by the
discourse? Even the clearest, most self-evident statement needs some
context framing (the ability to understand the language at least). And
much of what we say requires a lot of frame which also implies that it
carries with it built-in or assumed resonances that make discourses say
more than just the intended message. But some interpretative frames seem
to be so massive and filled with meaning themselves that they can take
messages with nearly no information of their own and produce enormously
more complex interpretations. Beside the problem of knowing which frame
is expected, there is also the problem of deciding on how
powerful/complex the frame should be to achieve some aim with the
understanding. Is the goal just to get what the other person was saying,
or understand the message/messenger more deeply, or to produce an
interesting and relevant idea that may have little to do with the
message?
Ribosomes have it easy.
> Consider the citation above (from Jacques Derrida, although Anders
> politedly omits this provenance)
I knew you would be lured out by a bit of Derrida :-) I was just hunting
randomly for something apparently obscure, and found that quote in Sokal
- I was actually hunting for Heidegger. BTW, politedly is a nice
neologism. Pointedly but politely :-)
> an impatient scientist (Sokal, let's say) might assume
> that the writer is an idiot who doesn't understand the difference between a
> constant such as the speed of light in vacuo and a parameter (let's say). My
> reading, with a certain amount of hermeneutic charity toward its
> poststructural frame, suggests that Derrida is referring not to *c* but to
> the spacetime interval, where the invariant quantity is maintained despite
> any number of variations in either space or time distances so long as they
> are suitably coupled. Hence, Derrida says (playfully), while relativity is
> founded upon an invariant, this cannot serve as a *center*, a Primum Mobile,
> a godlike place without motion from which the entire field of play (of
> reality) can be observed in a top-down, magisterial fashion. His error is
> not in saying any of this, which is a commonplace of physics, but in
> supposing that this insight can be imported directly and usefully into any
> relativism salient to human culture.
Thanks! Now the piece makes a lot more sense. I got confused both by
Derrida - who sounds like he is speaking about c - and Sokal, who
claimed it is about G_ij=k T_ij. Of course, I still think the interval
might be considered a centre, but a bit more like the cartesian cogito:
a single certainty, from which one might extend outwards an onion of
structure.
> But I have the mournful feeling that this attempted explanation of Derrida's
> apparent obscurity will have failed Robert Bradbury's test and will itself
> need explanation...
I seem to have acquired the right reading frame without undergoing too
much humanistic schooling, so it is clearly learnable with only some
effort. But it is likely on the same order of effort as learning the
behavior of black holes.
I often find your explanations of postmodern concepts clear and helpful.
Even when explanations of explanations grow exponentially longer, before
fatigue sets in there is usually a point where the inherent structure in
the exposition sets in and one can start to deduce and constrain
meaning. From this point one can work backwards and learn what the
original stuff was, as well as some of the surrounding context. It is
not unlike learning a language.
> BTW, there are plenty of groups of smart people out there (mean 3 sigma,
> say) who are not members of this club house. :)
Our treehouse is much better. And we have a soup-can telephone and an
animatronic goat head.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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