Re: Ontolog Forum • Jon Awbrey • Paola Di Maio

JA:

We continue in pursuit of a system-theoretic answer to the question:  What are formalisms and all their embodiments in brains and computers good for?

PDM:

Could you also provide a brief answer to the question, through your analysis of the text you reference — we all suffer from attention deficit and may forget what you were trying to say at the beginning.

I know what you mean.  Brevity is the soul of wit, but the brief lives of mortal attention spans struggle to embody half of it.  I personally have trouble remembering what I was thinking a few days ago unless I wrote it down somewhere I can easily find again.

My question about the good of embodied formalisms was intended to call attention to a natural connection between Pragmatic Truth and Cybernetic Purpose.  Pragmatic ways of thinking about the role of representations in relating interpreters to objective realities naturally harmonize with systems thinking about the role of information in achieving the objectives of agents.  In either mode of thinking we tend to become quickly dissatisfied with disembodied abstractions, detached from dynamic context and meaningful purpose.

Reference

• Ashby, W.R. (1956), An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman and Hall, London, UK.  Republished by Methuen and Company, London, UK, 1964.  Online.

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog Forum • Structural Modeling • Systems Science