The Shape of Systems to Come (Session 4)

Okay, now just let me share the screen. Can you guys see the first slide? Yes, we can. Sorry. Got it. So basically, I just talked to Tony, everyone. I assume that we won't be able to finish, basically,

the whole content of the first module in this session. Otherwise, it will be too much brain meltdown. So whatever is left, we will talk about it next session. It's probably 45 minutes where we talk about basically ultimate ontology and scientific decomposition of intellectual intuition. Sorry. Did anyone say anything? Sorry. Okay. All right, you can continue. Should I go ahead?

Yeah, there will be no echo. Okay. So last session we talked about basically the import of intelligibility unbound by scientific with regard to the conceptual activities of the manifest image and the overall project of self-conception. Now, in this session we talk about manifest image, basically the core component of the manifest image, conceptual activities.

And then we basically develop it towards the fusion of images, the stereoscopic fusion of images, scientific and the manifest. Now, so I start with a quote from Sellers. The ideal aim of philosophizing is to become reflectively at home in the full complexity of the multidimensional conceptual system in terms of which we suffer, think, and act. I say reflectively because there is a sense in which by the sheer fact of leading an unexamined but conventionally satisfying life, we are at home in this complexity.

It is not until we have eaten the apple with which the serpent philosopher tempts us that we begin to stumble on the familiar and to feel that haunting sense of alienation which is treasured by each new generation as its unique possession. This alienation, this gap between oneself and one's world, can only be resolved by eating the apple to the core. For after the first bite, there is no return to innocence. There are many anodynes, but only one cure. We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize. The manifest image, roughly speaking, is an idealized, sophisticated framework

in which we are reflectively at home with our understanding of our own conception as sensing, conceptually thinking, and rationally active beings. As we talked about in the first session, it can be understood as an orientation of thinking and knowing that follows the arrow of subject.world, basically from the perspective of subject, conceptual activity, subject intentions, from the perspective of persons,

and not from the perspective of world subjects, qua object uniformities, or the world story. It is the conceptual framework in terms of which man experienced himself and the world long before the revolution in physics was even a twinkle in the eye of Democritus. Now, for the manifest to be coherently grasped, we must examine it within three linked areas, perception, thinking, and intentional action. Again, in the first session we talked about this in terms of the adjoins of intelligence.

And in the last session we talked in terms of language entry transitions and language exit transitions. This is again the diagram that we had. World to language perception entry level or language entry moves, then intra-linguistic transitions namely inferences which are comprised of the moves between assertions and inferences. Then the language exit level, which is basically intentional action.

It's basically the category of volition or willing. But nevertheless, the exit designation of this level can only be concretely grasped by way of intentional action. Now, so again, for the manifest to be coherently grasped, we must examine it within three linked areas, perception, thinking and intentional action, with each area having its own functional laws and patterned uniformity. So this is really important. We should not confuse and conflate the functional levels and pattern uniformities of these three

levels of transition. Extra linguistic entry, intra-linguistic, and extra-linguistic exit. And this is kind of also can be understood in a sense in terms of what we were talking about in the last session with regard to different computational classes. And different computational classes in this sense, here functional levels, cannot be coherently grasp in terms of their antecedent, basically, computational levels. They are, in a Turingian sense, they are non-computable.

In this diagram, what is noticeable is that both perception and intention can be delineated in terms of language-bound transitions. You see, what is really common between these two extra-linguistic transition levels is really the domain of the language, namely intra-linguistic transitions, the moves between assertions and inferences. In this diagram, what is noticeable is that both perception and intention can be delineated in terms of language bound transition, or more precisely language entry and language exit transitions. For this reason, in order to examine the manifest image, we start with its intralinguistic domain

as the common dimension of both perception and intention. Basically, this is the core of the manifest image. Now, Szilard's approaches the intralinguistic domain by way of a pragmatist, coherentist theory of meaning and conceptual functions. We talked a little bit about this coherentist view of language and theory of meaning in, I think, the first session. Now, roughly speaking, the coherentist view of language rejects the idea that there is a relation between words and nonverbal entities.

The idea that language represents the world. Basically, it's anti-representationalist. Words do not signify objects, basically. B. The pragmatist view rejects that words have meaning. Or more accurately, it states that the meaning of linguistic item cannot be conceived outside of their functional, non-instrumental use or conceptual role within a wider inferential network or rule-governed patterns. Rule-governed patterns of the language here. Here, when we speak of functions, rules, and patterns, we should strictly take these concepts in relation to language.

functions are functional roles of linguistic items here, not functions as, you know, the kind of general schema of functionalism that we had, you know, for example, in terms of mechanisms. Rules are rules of language and not natural laws. And patterns strictly refer to rule-governed patterns, not patterns prevalent in nature. So you see, again, this idea of carving a problem at a joint, and this is really the understanding that, you know, at the level of, when we are basically, a robust self-conception is a fruit of carving a structural and functional problems at their joints.

For the coherence approach to language, semantical statements that attribute truth indicate whether a linguistic utterance is assertable in light of the formal and material rules of inference that constitute the linguistic framework in which the utterance is made or not. In this context, a proposition is true when it is correctly assertable. Hence, assertable, hence the coherentist. It's assertable according to the coherentist, basically, configuration of rules,

coherentist view of rules. What assertable by whom? This is a question that we later come back to and answer. True, in this sense, means semantically assertable, S-assertable, semantically assertable. And the varieties of truth correspond to the relevant variety of semantical rule. Now, according to the definition of the coherentist and the pragmatist, we see the pragmatist-coherentist

approach makes both the relation of a word with world and the meaning of a word problematic. Words don't have meaning and words don't have any relation with world or basically objects. Now, the import of this subversion should be perceived in the larger picture of self-conception, that is, the knowledge of what we are in the world and how we can change ourselves according to this knowledge. Why? Because it is not difficult to see that the intertwining of word as a given meaning and word as a direct relation to the world ultimately amounts to a relational theory of meaning in which meaning is a relation to the world.

This, in turn, serves a foundationalist account of knowledge with the claim of direct access to the world through manifest resources. So you see why Salars basically develops this pragmatist coherentist theory of language in order to, you know, launch a full-scale assault on the myth of the given, namely a foundationalist account of knowledge, through which we allegedly access the structure of reality via manifest resources alone.

in a nutshell once the representational relation of language to the world is mixed with linguistic item as meanings words or whatever linguistic items as meanings subscribing to various forms of the myth of the given and respectively false self conceptions and flawed self transformations in the broader picture becomes inevitable. So espousing a relational, representational theory of meaning inevitably leads to a false self-conception

and a flawed self-transformation. Now, in order to disarm the relational theory of meaning and eliminating the threat of spontaneous accounts of knowledge, the knowledge built upon the myth of the given as an ideological fixation, resurging through the relational theory of meaning, Szilard's develops a use or functional theory of meaning in which coherentism and pragmatist theories of language are glued together. So, as I said, the gluing of the coherentist and pragmatist theories of language needs to be understood as a strategy to disarm the relational theory of meaning

and eliminating the threat of the spontaneous account of knowledge, quo-meth, ideological fixation, in the sense of ideological fixation. As we will argue later, the use theory of meaning, the use in terms of, as I said, it's non-instrumental use, is a functional rule theory. Function in the sense of the role that a linguistic item plays strictly in accordance with the rules of language and its functional class. The use theory of meaning permits naturalization and integration of conceptual activities within a broader holistic, pragmatic, and corrected empiricist framework.

work. So, in a sense, the coherent is pragmatist theory of language is basically a form of scaffolding for the stereoscopic coherence of the scientific and manifest image, as we will discuss later. In the use theory of meaning, the basic premise is that meaning is not a relation, but following Wittgenstein, I'll be correcting his definition, meaning is use.

That is to say, the meaning of a word is its use or functional role within the language, And the functional rules is a propriety with regard to rule-governed behaviors of the language. The immediate question that can be raised in view of a functional theory of meaning is that how can the name of a thing, place, or a person not be a form of relation to the world, the actual thing, place, or person, at least by virtue of its reference. For example, how can the word London not have a relation to the actual city of London? Example, rouge means red insofar as both refer to redness.

London refers to London. These statements have the surface logical form, a relation between two terms, A in relation to B. The relation between a linguistic item and a non-linguistic entity is a one-way reference or asymmetrical meaning relation. This is in the relational theory of meaning or representational theory of meaning. What is wrong with treading meaning and cognition in the sense of deployment of concepts as

fundamental kinds of relation to world entities is not the sound idea that in a standard cases of successful empirical reference at any rate in order for names and basic descriptive predicates To name or mean what they do, various empirically definable relations must obtain between the relevant linguistic and non-linguistic item involved in the given meaning statement. For example, pink wouldn't mean what it does if it were not regularly used in statements made in perceptual responses to pink objects. In this sense, meaning statements do indirectly convey, indirectly implicitly convey the information that appropriate psychological, social, historical relations.

In particular, certain reliable causal relations do indeed obtain in this way between utterances of red or pink and red or pink objects. But what kind of causal relation is this is something that we are going to talk about later. So what is exactly wrong with the representational or relational theory of meaning is that it makes erroneous, is that basically what makes the erroneous core of the relational theory of meaning is the idea that we can infer from the above, namely empirically definable relations, to conclude semantic statements,

such as rouge means red, themselves, as semantic basically configurations, themselves assert a relation of any kind between a linguistic item, red, and non-linguistic item, red things, or the property of redness. In other words, we cannot say that meaning statements function in a way that they themselves assert a relation with the world or the non-linguistic domain, even though there are empirically definable relations between linguistic items and non-linguistic ones. but these are not explicit in or describable in a given sense by basically these semantic statements.

In short, empirical causal relations between linguistic and non-linguistic items cannot be regarded as meaning relations, Whereas, we will discuss later, they belong to a different order of patterns, to a different, basically, level of uniformity. It's not the order of linguistic behaviors. According to the use theory of meaning, what a meaningless statement does is to functionally classify, functionally, again, function according to the rules of a given language. and its functional class is to functionally classify a given linguistic item by identifying the role it plays with a type of linguistic role,

i.e. how it is used, with which one is familiar. For example, und in German means and in English. Und plays the same role in German that and plays in English. Here, however, the reasons that und and and are in single quotation marks is that here, however, single quotation marks do not function as the name of a linguistic universal or abstract universal. Hence, it does not fall back on a name or word object model of the relational theory of meaning.

The quoted und function like certain other singular terms, like the pawn or the ant, which are not names of objects but functional items generalizing about the standard pawns or general ants. Now, to prevent confusion between words as functional items and words as names of objects, Sellars uses dot quotations, dot, un, dot, or sortals, what he calls sortals. A sort-all term is a term applying to all things of a specific sort or kind, conveying any item in any language which plays that role.

So basically they are, as I said, they are functional classificatory items. The sort-alls are, you know, the designation of the functional classification or sort, which plays that role, or a relevantly similar role. Similar role is important. Sortal und, means sortal and, functionally classifies the sort or kind of role that sortal und plays in German by emphasizing the known functional role of AND in English.

The relation between sortal UND as a functional item and AND as a functional item is not a meaning relation but a sorting or classificatory functional identification. Therefore, the underlying logical form of a meaning statement statement such as means and is really owned is an and a functional perspective is an and not means is basically again it's the correspondence of the functional class the sort of items pawn and and are distributive singular terms in that what is predicated of the pawn or the ant

distributes over or is true of any given individual pawn or ant, broken pawn, mutant ant, so on and so forth. For example, to make this a little bit clearer, for example, in chess, the pawn plays a specific role determined by the rules of chess. does not have a relation with the physical pawn in chess. In chess, the pawn plays a specific role determined by the rules of chess, and all pawns can be sorted by this rule-governed functional rule.

The rules themselves are instituted, tracked, and monitored, by a community of language users. In the case of chess, it is the recognition and perhaps even revision of initial rules of chess by a community of chess players. The communal institution of rules itself belongs to a broader pragmatic functionalist horizon that covers social discursive practices, whose oughts, namely normative rules, are distinguished from social conventions and imperatives.

So when we are saying rational norms, normative oughts, these are not social conventions. Having, wearing, for example, things like etiquette, things like, you know, a governmental imperative, a governmental, you know, imposed law, a sociocultural norm is a convention. It's not an ought, basically. They are, there is a complex relation with ought, but this is, they are not ought by themselves. This is something that we get back to in our second module.

It is by virtue of these discursive oughts what ought one to do in order to count as saying something and what one ought to say in order to specify a doing, namely the discursive moves between assertion and inferences. that social discursive practices are distinguished from general sociocultural practices and have the capacities to undermine, change, or modify the latter. Basically, arts have the capacity to subvert conventions, to subvert sociocultural norms.

Now, there's a little digression in terms of the rules, basically, that rules are defined, modified, tracked, and instituted by a community of language users. And rules need to be understood in terms of basically their pragmatic functionalist dimension. A digression on this, I want to make a digression on this pragmatic functionalist aspect of

rules. in the sense that assertions and inferences that, you know, that constitute basically the proliferate, produce and revise norms, revise odds, can also be understood in terms of basically use meaning as use relations. As I said, what one ought to do, namely ability or practice, in order to count as saying something,

and what one ought to say, again saying is an ability. It should only be understood in accordance to the know-hows or abilities associated with sayings or assertions in order to specify a doing. And this is basically this vacillation, this oscillation between sayings and doings, assertions and inferences, meaning use relations, constitutes the pragmatic dimension, the broad pragmatic dimension of communal institution of roots.

Now, basically, what are exactly these discursive moves between assertions and inferences, between sayings and doings, and why is that we are talking about them in terms of a certain form of autonomy, autonomy of discursive social practices? These basic discursive moves or meaning use relations can be analyzed into four pragmatic functional categories or classes of realizers. We talked about realizers in the last session. Realizers as simply being those activities whose combination can functionally realize the overall behavior of a system or a global function, basically.

The first pragmatic functional category or class of realizer is this PV sufficiency, namely a category of functional realizers, which is, for which the relation between practice and vocabulary, P as for practice and V for vocabulary, namely an utterance. Ho, ho, ho, ha, ha, I, me, you know, these are all basically utterances. PV sufficiency. So basically the PV sufficiency defines a class of functional, pragmatic functional realizers for which the relation between practice and vocabulary is sufficient.

So when we are saying that PV sufficiency, VP sufficiency, we mean it in this sense. So PV sufficiency as a class of pragmatic functional category or class of realizer is practices or abilities to deploy a vocabulary or an utterance. VP sufficiency, the relation between a vocabulary and practice. A class of realizers for which the relation between vocabulary and practice is sufficient is a vocabulary to specify a set of practices or abilities.

The third one, PP sufficiency, practices, practices. A set of practices or abilities that can be elaborated into another by a set of algorithmic abilities that implement that practical elaboration. Basically, a set of practices that can elaborate another set of practices. by virtue of the algorithmic decomposability of the latter into the former. The fourth pragmatic functional category or basic discursive move is VV sufficiency,

the relation between vocabularies. one vocabulary characterizing another vocabulary, the relation of being a direct semantic or syntactic meta-vocabulary. Now, each category of meaning-use relations or basic discursive ability can be taken as a specific functional class automaton. Basically, these discursive moves, these pragmatic functional categories are socially realizable. are, can be actually, are in a sense, functional class automations. PV sufficiency is a functional class automaton.

VP sufficiency is a functional class automaton, so on and so forth. So social discursive practices is realized by the sufficiency of these automata and how they basically combine together. More complex and elaborate abilities can, in this sense, be bootstrapped from practical algorithmic combinations of primitive abilities or know-hows. Know-hows of sayings and know-hows of assertions as specific to those automata. we see that each automation, each basically class of realizer has a set of specific abilities or know-hows.

And these can be combined to boot a strap basically from these basic discursive moves, extremely complex ones. For example, now we see that, you know, this is a digression. And again, we come back to this in the second module. We talk about basically a project of social realization of artificial general intelligence. AI, classical AI of Turing machines can also be grasped by way of basically these class of realizers, by way of these basic discursive moves.

And by virtue of that, it is really, AI is really kind of a rudimentary model of social intelligence, of social functional intelligence. For example, weak syntactic pragmatic bootstrapping belongs to the second set of abilities, VP sufficiency, a vocabulary to specify a set of practices or abilities. which specify Turing machines, which in turn are able to deploy or produce and recognize expressively stronger, recursively enumerable vocabularies, i.e. PV sufficiency, practices or abilities to deploy vocabulary and utterance.

Now, we see that, and this is something, again, we can come back to it later, and also we talked about it very briefly in the last session in terms of the relation between realizers and functional realization. The core claim is that once we have a functional map, once basically we identify the set of

pragmatic functional categories or class of realizers or basic discursive moves and we We are also combining these into a coherent map, how they interact and how they can bootstrap complex abilities. In principle, we already have a blueprint for functional realization. It is not, I mean, even though we are far behind this elaboration of this schema in terms of social realization of artificial general intelligence, but it is not really hard to imagine how this works.

A functional map is in principle already a blueprint for functional realization. And once we understand the basic discursive social moves as classes of automata, or autonomous class of realizers, it is not hard to picture basically how it can, how social discursive practices can basically lead to a social model

of AGI or artificial general intelligence now this was a digression I just wanted to you know explain a little bit you know how these discursive rules are basically coming from where they're coming from and how they are instituted Now, we get back to basically the theory of meaning and the manifest image. So to summarize the above points with regard to pragmatist coherentist theory of language,

it is true that there is a causal relation between norms of language and nature, but this causal relation is implicitly conveyed or entailed, implicitly. It is neither explicit in the semantic structure of language nor described in linguistic terms. Now, the representational or relational theory of meaning expresses, basically is built on the assumption of the explicity of these causal relations in the semantic structure of language. To assume otherwise is to espouse the myth of the given. We talked about this. For the

word pink to mean what it does, there should be a naturalistically definable and reliable perceptual relation with the world or pink objects. But this relation belongs to another level of language transition, language entry transits, not the semantic level of intralinguistic transitions or the moves between assertions and inferences, nor does it belong to the intentional or language exit transitions.

So it is important to understand that the causal relations that allow pink to have the meaning that it has, that's that's cause of relation should belong to a basically a level of

transition that is neither the intro linguistic transition the semantic inferential one, nor the intentional, basically, level of transition, the extra-linguistic exit level of intentionality or intentional action. If we assume that these causal relations, which are neither basic semantic nor intentional relations, are within the language or are built inside the items and rules of the language, we can also falsely conclude that what is true in language, the criteria of S-assertibility, semantic assertibility,

can be extended to or describe what is true in the world. How and what something an assertion means in language means something in relation to or about the world. To put it differently, we are led to the conclusion that we can remain in the manifest image and adequately identify or describe ourselves and the world and act accordingly. Before moving to the next session on the theory of picturing as what elucidates these causal relations in terms of picture

and ultimately puts forward the basis for the fusion of scientific and manifest images, let's briefly discuss the logical irreducibility of conceptual activities within the manifest image. So, just one second, I mean, to make sure that everyone can hear me and there's no sound glitch. Right now you sound very clear. Thanks for going on. I just wanted to bring up something that you may or may not have encountered. I posted it in the chat, Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sanders' book, Surfaces and Essences. Oh, yes, I just saw it. Yeah. So I read that last year, and it's interesting.

Sanders is a psychologist, did a lot of work with children in particular, and they're talking about the role of analogy in language formation. And one of the things that's most striking with that is how the categories of thought that children possess when they are using language are really kind of, they start off really rough and then they gradually get more and more defined. and a lot of the sort of comedic things children say are really these sort of category mismatches. And a really striking example of this was actually when my son was young. His grandmother's dog was named Nina, and he learned the dog's name, and he would call it Nina. We're like, oh, great, he knows the dog's name.

And then he saw a rabbit for the first time, and he called the rabbit Nina. And we realized, okay, Nina means, like, small furry mammal or something like that. We realize there's a difference in the categories of language that he's utilizing than what we were expecting. And the cultural process is kind of this recursive social function where we start refining each other's patterns to come into a state of equilibrium. Yes, this is exactly what I'm coming to. And I will talk about this in terms of basically the, you know, the infralinguistic, you know, creatures, babies included, that this is basically the picture, and the picture is a different kind of thing, and the picture does not belong

to the order of language, even though language, the only way that language can function is by way of the order of the picture and basically the picture is at the level of the perceptual or entry-level transition not the interling with semantic assert abilities or coerentism which is socio historically in the matter of either relationships is being refined in terms of you of social discursive practices. Now, thanks for this explanation. This is a good point of entry to what we are going to talk about. So yes, I was saying that the pragmatist coherent theory

of language does two things at the same time. It ensures that knowledge is basically freed from the spontaneous knowledge of the given. but also at the same time it preserves the logical irreducibility of conceptual activities which for Salars basically belong to the concept of person person here is not this species being

but person can be anything can be a machine can be human as long as it basically engage in these interlinguistic conceptual activities so at the same time it's the pragmatist coherent is non-relational theory of language basically arrests knowledge from the ideological fixation of the given, quo spontaneous knowledge, and we will see how it basically further sharpens the distinction between manifest and scientific and somehow guarantees the replacement of the manifest

by the scientific, but also at the same time it preserves manifest image at the level of its conceptual activities, the logical irreducibility, basically the normative discontinuity of the manifest image. Normative principles are conceptually or logically irreducible to the corresponding causal patterns and behavioral uniformities, which they nonetheless systematically generate and generally sustain due to their widespread embrace by the members of the relevant community.

Accordingly, there is a complex interplay between ought and is, which Salars recapitulates in a norm nature meta-principle, his famous norm nature meta-principle, which basically shows the Janus-faced nature of norms, manifest norms, or normative principles. Esposal of principles is reflected in uniformities of performance. This we will get back to it later, but what Salars means by esposal of principles, he means implicit intersubjective or communal esposal of normative rules.

the use or non-relational theory of meaning the functional rule theory of meaning is in fact a marker of the functional autonomy of conceptual activities at the level of language now it's important to note the functional demarcation of this autonomy it's functional autonomy and it's a strict correspondence with the functional laws of language as a distinct functional level. We talked about that basically the most important thing is to make sure that we are, you know, adequately differentiate these functional classes,

these functional levels and level of uniformities. The entry level, intralinguistic and exit level. perception, thinking, intention. So, we can talk about, basically, the conceptual activities of the manifest image in terms of their functional autonomy, with the functional autonomy being, basically, strictly in relation to the functional laws of language as, again, a distinct functional class,

as a distinct functional level. In the above sense, conceptual activities are from a functional perspective, not reducible. Because if we say that they are reducible from a functional level, then we are basically buying, again, into the relational view, the representation of this account of language, that there is, in fact, a relation between word and world at the level of the functional class language. So in the above sense, conceptual activities are from a functional perspective not reducible and from a causal perspective are, in fact, reducible.

So this is the distinction between logical discontinuity of the manifest image and conceptual activities and causal continuity of the manifest image, namely that basically allows for the naturalization of the manifest image. And again, this can also be grasped in terms of functional discontinuity of sapience as distinct from sentience functionally. And it's a structural continuity with sentience, which again allows for its naturalization. And it's grasping in terms of basically the evolutionary spectrum.

but this reducibility is not and cannot be searched within the pragmatic functional rules of the language for the reasons discussed earlier since it is a register of causal continuity that belongs to a different level of patterns than those of language. What level of uniformities does it belong to? This basically leads us to the theory of picturing. The question is what are these entailed causal relations

and to what order do they belong? Before answering this question, there is another question that has been lingering around throughout this course. We discussed epistemic dimensions of the manifest and scientific frameworks. We also discussed that human self-conception is the knowledge of ourselves with regard to the world along two main orientations, from the perspective of subject world and from the perspective of the world subject. Two different orientations sublimated in the distinction between manifest and scientific frameworks. However, what we didn't answer is that what exactly does warrant this epistemic traction on the world,

us included, or the real in the first place? You know, basically, how can we even talk about, you know, these epistemic orientations if we can't account that how is that and why is that, that we can gain an epistemic traction upon the real in the first place? this can be summarized via a quote by Salars the function of abstract entities is to carve at the joints of representational systems and the primary empirical function of the latter systems

is to picture or map the structure of reality But must there not be a matter of factual relations between abstract entities and human minds, by virtue of which abstract singular terms acquire a hookup with the world? the overall idea of picturing is that at any given stage and context of empirical inquiry our conceptual framework ultimately bottoms out in atomic matter of factual propositions atomic level statements or basic level propositions that ascribe properties and relations to basic objects and events in the world.

These are the propositions which, if true, correspond to or picture how matters stand with regard to those objects and events. As Elars puts it, the primary concept of factual truth is truth as correct picture. And it is the correct picture that makes intelligible all the other modes of factual truth. So, and this is something that we talk about later, the scientific unbinding of intelligibility is basically a matter of picturing. It is the intelligibility of picture. Remember that when we talked about assertability, the criteria of assertability in the coherence theory of language,

We asked if something is true, namely semantically assertable by the rules of the language, but we still haven't answered assertability by whom exactly. assertibility by whom is then at the bottom assertibility by correct pictures by resurrecting building and rectifying with gonna stein's picture theory of meaning salars argues for the essential truth of picturing as part of a naturalistic theory of linguistic and

and cognitive representation rather than control Wittgenstein as a theory of meaning. So Solarsian theory of picture is not a picture theory of meaning. This is basically that missing link that allows to understand the causal reducibility of language, naturalization of the manifest image but also as we will talk later the conceptual refined maintenance of basically conceptual activities or knowledge in general in order to understand so large and picturing as

different from with canstein's the first point that must be noted is that why While signification belongs to the order of the language and is definable in terms of isomorphism, or more accurately homomorphism, as the morphism between objects of the same category, here the language. Sorry, that was a little bit confusing. Signification belongs to the order of the language and is definable in terms of isomorphism between linguistic objects. More accurately, homomorphisms. In the first session, we talked about that basically morphisms, transitions,

between objects of the same category are homomorphisms. Language signifies, but signification is not a transition or a morphism between a linguistic object and a non-linguistic object. Namely, it is not a morphism between two different categories. It's the morphism between the objects of the category of language, linguistic objects or linguistic items. While picturing belongs to the order of the real, since it involves isomorphism or homomorphism between two natural objects,

a natural linguistic object and a natural object in the causal or the real order, A picture is in this sense a marker of a structural, not functional similarity between two physical systems. I'm going to make an example so we can understand what is exactly a picture. But before that, picturing in this sense is not an abstraction, but a certain kind of nonlinear causal processing that intrudes upon the linguistic order and results in a tension between the natural and the normative. A tension that warrants and eventually overruns truth

as an index of coherent assertibility within linguistic rules. And this, again, this returns back to the, you know, we see that where all this is headed. in terms of Szilard's thesis that the scientific image will ultimately replace, you know, the manifest image with the intelligibility of things. Because with the science having a traction on intelligibility of things, and in order for us to give us a non-trivial account of our self-conception, is that we need to understand this relation of ourselves with the world in terms of intelligibility of things.

Just a quick question on that, though. I don't think the picturing, when I'm thinking of it as you're describing it, doesn't seem like necessarily a cognitive act. I think of... No, it is a representational mapping. It's a representational mapping. And your voice went robot just now, too. Oh, OK. One second. Let me reconnect again, then. Thank you.

Hello? Much better. Okay. Yes, picture is a representational mapping. Cognition is basically the capacity to deploy concepts. But we will talk about that there is actually a complex interplay between representational mapping, co-picturing, and basically deployment of conceptual functions, which constitute basically cognition. Okay. Making those two separate things makes it a lot clearer.

Thanks. Okay. This tension reflects in the truth of correct picture as a strictly non-normative causal naturalistic understanding of the sense in which basic matter-factual truths correspond to the world, and it must be distinguished from normative notion of truth as correct assertability. Now, before moving forward, let's clarify picturing via Salar's own thought experiment concerning future anthropoid robots who are capable of internal representation of their...

Sorry? Can you turn on the screen sharing? Oh, sorry. Yes, I completely forgot this. Can everyone see? Yes. Okay. So before moving forward, let's clarify picturing VSLR's own thought experiment concerning future anthropoid robots who are capable of internal representation of their environment. This is an example that is strikingly similar to what we discussed in the first session with regard to the role of the nervous system in orienting the organism toward making sense of its environment.

This is Salar's thought experiment. I mean, you can see this, how this works, you know, in the mechanisms of guided missiles, how RoboCop works, how basically, you know, any kind of, you know, representational mapping, you know, works as belonging to the real order, to the causal uniformities. Basically, the nonlinear causal processing between two physical systems. Here, for example, for us, the real and the nervous system. Or for a robot, the real and it's basically wiring, a circuitry.

Suppose such an anthropoid robot to be wired in such a way that it emits high-frequency radiation, which is reflected back in ways which project the structure of its environment and its body. Suppose that it responds to different patterns of returning radiation by printing such sentences as triangular object at place P time T on a tape which is able to play over and over and to scan. Suppose that again by virtue of its wiring diagram it makes calculational moves from sentences or sets of sentences to other sentences in accordance with logical and mathematical procedures and some

system of priorities and that it prints these sentences on the tape. Suppose furthermore that in addition to logical and mathematical moves the robot is able to make inductive moves i.e. if its tape contains several sentences pairs of the form lightning at p, t time t, t thunder at p plus delta p change in place and t plus delta t change in time and no sentence pair of the form lightning at p t peace at p plus delta delta P and T plus delta T. It prints the sentence whenever at PT thunder at P delta

P T delta T. Clearly the diagram, the wiring diagram, must provide for the cancelling of such inductive generalization when a subsequent pair of observation sentences sentences turns up which is inconsistent with it let us suppose finally that the wiring diagram provides for the printing of certain general resolutive sentences sentences of the form whenever I am in circumstances see I shall do X X, and that whenever the robot prints I shall now do X, it is so set up that it proceeds to do A. Suppose such a robot to wander around the world, scanning its environment, recording

its observations, enriching its tape with deductive and inductive inferences from the observations and guiding its conduct by practical silologisms, which apply its wired resolutions to the circumstances in which it finds itself. It achieves an ever more adequate adjustment to its environment, and if we permitted ourselves to talk about it in human turn as we have been, we would say that it finds out more and more about the world, that it knows more and more about facts about what took place and where it took place, some of which it observed while it inferred others

from what it did observe by the use of inductive generalizations and deductive reasoning. In this example, a correct picture is created when the pattern on the tape, when the patterns on the tape are functionally arranged in ways that are isomorphic to the way these patterns are arranged in the environment. Elaborating this isomorphism does not require taking recourse to meanings, contents, or abstract entities. Insofar, it is achieved through patterns of relations, patterns of relations.

that are completely formal. The relation between the natural linguistic item and the natural item, the pattern on the tape or the diagrammatic wiring and circuits of the robot and the pattern in nature is a transducing transition between objects of the same category. You know, a transducing transition is basically or that we can grasp them by way of transducing automaton is that we have two tapes, an input tape and output tape. Here, the transducing transition is between objects of the same category, causal, natural, and structurally isomorphic.

The arrangement of patterns on the robot circuitry conforms or is structurally isomorphic to the arrangement of those real patterns in nature. The robotese language of the android is a causal language. So it's different from, you know, our, for example, language we are currently talking in English. The criteria for the adequacy of the picture is the correct representational relation, and not the correctness of semantic assertibility. In RobotEase, the picturing language of the robot, lightning at place P and time V might take the form

double colon 915, a particular configuration in the hardware of the robot. From an engineering standpoint, we could carefully study the complex causal uniformities that obtain with respect to the robot's printings of double colons in response to lightning in its environment, in the patterns of its internal processing of double colons in relation to its other printings, and in relation to the role of double colons in generating the robot's active maneuvers in its environment. Recognizing the Android's input processing output mechanism, a highly complex method

of projection in relation to events in its environment and in relation to its own internal estates, the engineer could explain to us with one eye on each standpoint, as it were, the tiny double colons caught up in various patterns in robotese correspond in various patterns in robotese correspond to or represent lightning events as caught up in various natural sequences in the robot's environment. The isomorphic and the arrangement of patterns. as being part of the representational mapping.

The symbol double colon physically inscribed, the symbol double colon on the anthropoid robot's tape has the meaning that it does from the standpoint of intentionality, aboutness, being about enlightening, depends on the fact that the appropriate causal relations and representational isomorphisms have come to obtain in the real order as conceived from the naturalistic engineering standpoint. So what, so, it, as we talked about, that it's mean what it does,

pink mean what it does. by virtue of basically this isomorphic relation that does not belong to the order of language, but to the causal naturalistic real order. Accordingly, we can say that homomorphism, or a structural continuity in the real order between the robot's electronic system and its environment is a presupposition of isomorphism in the order of signification or meaning between robotese and the language we speak. Now let's make this rather more clarify

in terms of the linguistic examples that we were making. we can define picturing here as basic matter of factual truth in relation to truth in terms of correctness of the functional rule semantic assertibility Socrates in German means or refers to Socrates i.e. is a sort of Socrates the functional role or semantic assertability. If and only if Socrates in German is the linguistic representative of, i.e. pictures,

the historical flesh and blood Socrates. If and only if Socrates stand in appropriate psychosociological historical causal uniformity relations to the historical Socrates. This is famous, basically, summary of this whole point. F.A. is true, semantically assertable, if and only if, FAs, for example, pawn, or for example, lion, ant, and ants, the singular and basically the normal lion,

that includes all kinds of lions, regardless of their diversification. If A is true, semantically assertable, if and only if F A is, picture A. This schema shows the Janus-faced nature of normative principles in which there is a complex interplay between world-world and world-world uniformities. The normative order and the real order, functional discontinuity of language and its structural continuity within the causal order. With regard to basic empirical matters of fact, then truth and reference in the normative,

rule-governed dimension, stand in a complex relation of interdependence and presupposition with linguistic or mental representation as a non-normative naturalistic correspondence or picturing isomorphism between language and the world. It is this complex interplay between pictures and meanings, world and the mind, the structure and function, representations and concepts, the natural and the normative, and most importantly, matter-of-factual truths and rule-adjudicated truths, which forge a great vector of cognitive inquiry

capable of providing us with a non-trivial conception of ourselves in relation to the world as the basis of our transformative practices. Before proceeding toward the final section of this course, which I'm not going to basically cover in this session, I'm going to read and talk a little bit about this picturing. We should make a digression and clarify pictures as matter-of-factual truths. Matter-of-factual truths, in a sense, are basic, logically atomic, singular, empirical truths concerning particular objects or patterns of events in the world as revealed in our perceptual judgments in particular.

empirical or matter of factual in the latter sense perceptual judgments cannot be defined independently of an overall philosophical account of what it takes for any judgment with judgment being understood as the inferential capacity to deploy and revise concepts or theory to be a proper candidate for revealing an objective truth about the mind-independent world. Now, with the understanding of this necessary interaction between pictures and conceptual activities, we can define the role of picturing in scientific investigation. Conceptual change and the ultimate fusion,

a stereoscopic fusion of scientific and manifest images. In the first session, we defined a project of reorienting thought and this is something that we talked about, reorienting thought, both according to truth and according to the good, pre-neal questions of philosophy. But with the understanding that the good, as we talked about in the last session, cannot be conceived without the intelligibility of things, namely, reorientation of thought according to truth. In the first session, we defined the project of reorienting thought in terms of a Kantian-Persian-Copernican revolution, targeting nature with rule-governed or inferentially defined conceptual systems of reason's own self-correcting enterprise,

subsequently by way of experience or test determining if the world we have conceptually responded to, the nature we have epistemically, not ontologically differentiated ourselves from, correspond to our conceptual representations. This is the Kantian aspect of this Copernican revolution. And if it does not correspond, then we must modify our conceptual representation in our ongoing quest for explanatory coherence through critically controlled conceptual change. This is basically the insight from the Persian pragmatism, which in Perse basically associates with the ideal framework of science.

Here, picturing should be understood as the core of this quest for explanatory coherence through the revisionary constructive interplays between representational mapping and conceptual functions. More precisely, explanatory coherence should be defined in terms of correcting pictures of the world by way of controlled and successive conceptual change. Picture refining is in this sense the central protocol of Copernican revolution as an ongoing scientific program. The science can picture. We already have a rather clear picture how science postulational theories regarding non-observable entities

engage in precisely these complex interplays between representational mapping and conceptual functions. Observation and theory that lead not only to more refined pictures but also determine the trajectory of control, conceptual change of scientific theories along the person inside outlined above. We talked about this in terms of the empiricist scientific realist frameworks. And the person inside outlined above is simply that if our observations or tests do not conform to our conceptual representation, we must modify the latter in our ongoing quest for explanatory coherence. And we need to adapt conceptual functions to representational,

to basically pictures, to the correctness of picture. The correctness of picture entails adaptation and revisionary alteration in the conceptual framework. Even though the conceptual framework of our common sense is built upon atomic level of statement that are causal Lee mapped to the real order ie pictures this framework named the common sense framework of the common sense conceptual framework does not commit us to the picture as such this was the central claim of non-relational non-representational theory of meaning since properly conceived pictures belong to the framework of scientific physical theories in saying X is read the common

sense language neither commits us to the idea there is such a thing as X nor that X is read as a redness is conceived in the common sense framework both X as a thing and the redness can only be properly conceived within the framework of science through the sophisticated interchanges between representations at the level of observations and conceptual functions at the level of scientific theory. But insofar as the assertibility of truth in the latter cannot be corroborated without the matter of factual truth of the former, conceptual framework of theory must be seen as necessarily revisable.

In this sense, the refinement of picture as the basis of explanatory coherence coincides with the progressive picture becoming of concepts, where the distinction between theory and observation is increasingly blurred. The aboutness of intentionality, this is about this and that, is replaced by natural relation of the picture. And the truth at the level of conceptual function is overwritten by the truth of the picture as belonging to the order of the real. What was previously true in the conceptual framework of the earlier theory is only approximately true but in an explanatory sense is strictly false from the counterpart conceptual framework

of the new theory built around a more refined picture. I'm going to stop here without going further. The next session, we will talk about the consequences of this picture refining framework of scientific image and show that how, from one perspective, it allows for the fusion of the scientific and manifest images. And from another perspective, it's basically functionally realize, and this is important, this is something that I'm going to talk about and elaborate later.

functionally realize the knowledge of things in themselves. Basically, it's the ultimate picture as a regulative ideal signals the bridging of the gap between appearances and things in themselves. And this whole idea that basically the synoptic image as the framework of non-trivial self-conception

and also this functional realization of the knowledge of things in themselves via the explanatory quest of science, basically can be joined to the, basically, the quest for the good of man, or what we talked about in terms of, can be combined intelligibility of things, co-op pictures can be combined to the intelligibility of practices. with intelligibility of practices are the ones that elaborate, articulate the form of good as the form of forms,

as we talked about in the previous session. So I'm not going to continue. Everything that is left we are going to talk about in the next session. We can start the questions and discussion. So would you say for Sellers that his perspective of science properly understood would also be coherent and pragmatic? Yes, it is. As I said, you see, the basic atomic level picture is the one that, you

know, part of the perceptual judgment. Perceptual judgment cannot be refined, namely it cannot yield more refined pictures unless it is combined with the coherentist framework. But the coherent framework, as we see, cannot assert the priority of its truth in terms of assertability over the matter of factual truth of the picture. And in fact, we show that basically the matter of the factual truth of the picture that in the last instance overwrites the truth of assertability, the truth in the coherence's framework.

Yeah, that's the disruption you get when new facts break your theories. Yes, and this is what we are talking about in terms of theory of conceptual change and what Sellars calls Persish language, basically Pers's idea of the, which of course Sellars vastly rectifies and develops, the regulative idea of the ultimate ontology as basically the correct, the most correct, the adequate picture, qua knowledge of things in themselves. That basically this becomes a kind of, in fact, the picture,

this is the asymmetry of picture with regard to truth at the level of assertibility can be understood as a traumatic vector that forms the compulsion to explain. Sounding almost affect theory-ish there. It is not, because this is something, you know, that's, as I will talk about, that ultimately, this framework needs to answer two questions. what does we have the intelligibility for example but what are we supposed to do with intelligibility

this becomes the question of good basically or the question of intelligence and the second question is that where does this will to explain, this compulsion to explain is coming from we cannot really ascribe this will to explain to understanding because we explain, we understand something that we can explain. So we cannot create this vicious circle that this will to explain is coming from our will to understanding. This will to explain is coming from this basically traumatic asymmetry between picture and basically semantic assertibility. Yeah, I'm just giving you a hard time, really.

Yeah, I had something, but I lost. I'm not in the best shape this morning, so I'll agree with anybody else. I had a question, too. Maybe I'm just not aware of the technical usages of certain turns, but it seems to me like a picturing, like that picturing theory has a lot in common with certain ideas of what representation is. Yes, but a representation that does not belong to the order of language. Okay. As we talked about, it belongs to the causal uniformity, so the level of causal

uniformities. Now, the representational theory of language tries to subsume this representation within the intralinguistic transitions. Okay. And I was wondering if you or anybody else had any thoughts about what the relationship of the traditional philosophical, or especially art, aesthetic category of mimesis had to this. Is that also something that tends to try to subsume that, I guess, you know, the idea of language as imitation? Yes. Yes, it from a certain... Yes, and this also brings back to Roger Caioa's essay that the mimesis of the language can again be,

can be basically encroached upon by that physical mimesis. The insect that basically, you know, memetizes, performs a mimicry of basically a real pattern in nature. And this is basically Rojicaiawa's point, that basically the mimicry as belonging to the order of the real intrudes upon the mimesis at the level of language. Could you, what's his name? Roger Caiva. Can someone please...

Doesn't Ray also develop a discussion on this in relation to Adorno and the... Yes, yes, yes. But also it can be explained more coherently in terms of this really. Picture as belonging to the order of basically real and how it basically, you know, intrudes into the order of language and shapes language around itself. Because I mean, with Adorno, isn't his point to keep mimicry and mimesis distinct from one another, and then the mimesis being this sort of elevated form of discourse, whereas once mimicry begins to intrude,

it becomes a, oh gosh, like I said, I'm really not the best way to explain anything right now. Can someone please spell correctly Roja Kaiova in the chat box for David? I think I found him. Okay, good. Yes. I will put that essay and also Ray's chapter on the classroom

page. I also wanted to ask you a little bit more about when Jordan brought up surfaces and essences, the Hofstadter before. I haven't read that so give me kind of a summary of what is it about really. I have no idea what it's about but I wanted to ask you about your thoughts on, like I mean Hofstadter's project has a lot to do with analogy so I wanted to ask you what, I mean I don't know what is the place of analogy because analogy tends to be used especially from a literary perspective as a way to sneak in the myth of the given you know that's how the idea that things

physically impress upon one another that language takes the exact I don't know so I was curious I don't know what around on analogy and you know basically the formal elaboration of metaphorics in the sense that it unbinds the creative functional capacities of language. Schatle talks about it in terms of a Trojan horse deploying the resources of a language A to language B and then observing the functional tensions that arise in the second language. And then this creates, you know, it's basically an analogical transfer that then it allows for to diversify and construct and revise the second language.

For example, one framework of mathematics, the resources are deployed in another field of mathematics, and this creates the constructive revisionary tensions that allows for the creativity of mathematics to be unbound. It's basically a morphological transfer analogy. I think the major takeaway, I'm just flipping through it again to refresh my memory, but the major takeaway with Hofstadter and Sanders is they're trying to, I don't know if you're familiar with Lakoff and Johnson's work, Metaphors We Live By?

I have read some stuff by Lakoff, but not this one. No. So the premise of Metaphors We Live By is this idea that, you know, metaphorical thinking is a lot more pervasive than we think and how it tends to have multiple linkages. So when we start talking about things being up or, like, I'm feeling up today, I'm feeling down, stuff like that, Hofstadter and Sanders are basically taking that intuition and they're pushing it very heavily and much further and saying it's not just that metaphors are much more prevalent in language, but they're saying it's actually fundamental to thought. And how we draw these nested analogies

is actually a bootstrapping process for cognition. So that's kind of the argument. Yes, I mean, Châtelet talks also in Le Dénier de Mobile, at the stake of mobile, he talks about this, and he shows actually, you know, the conceptual representations can be metaphorized in a formal sense, not the kind of metaphorics that postmodernists talk about. can be metaphorized, and this metaphorization basically constitutes the core of the geometrical project. Basically, figuring out a space, simply.

So I'm linking in the chat some excerpts from that book from a year or two ago when I read it. So it's not a pricey, it's pretty idiosyncratic. That's my son in the background, sorry. MALE SPEAKER 1 Don't worry. OK, excellent. I mean, one thing that I think we need to be careful with,

well, as I said, I really need to read this before making any kind of statement. But the thing is that we need to be careful with this generalization of the metaphorical schema is that I think that cognition is primarily in the jurisdiction of conceptual functions, primarily, I said. And these conceptual functions cannot all be reduced to metaphoric transports and metaphoric diversifications. John, you have something to say about this?

Hi, Reza. Hello? Yes. OK. So just to be randomly polemical here, to shake it up a little bit maybe, what if I said Sellers just takes the myth of the given and transposes it from the beginning to the end so that instead of a myth of the given, in other words, that we have a harmony of reasons and causes of patterns and pictures, what have you at the outset and I know I divided it up slightly differently than you did but we could talk about that difference instead of having it at the outset we have it at the outcome so what if we said

we've replaced the myth of the given with a myth of the worked, a myth of the outcome but that this is still moving within the horizon of a very traditional epistemology maybe that's not a bad thing as far as you're concerned. But it seems to me that the prior question is about the possibility a priori of that harmony, however it is we want to express it, of reasons and causes, of patterns and pictures, of consistency and completeness, he said slyly, slipping that in there. What would you say about that, the charge that the value remains in place? Yes, you see, I think, and this is something that Johanna Zeib talks at length about it.

The given is not problematic in every and all senses. The givenness of the picture is one that is not a dispute. It is not basically a problematic givenness as the myth of the given. And this is, she goes at length and elaborates this. So from this sense, yes, picture is a form of given relation, but this given relation is not really an ideological fixation in the sense that of the myth of the given in the problematic sense. There is this essay called Function, Between Reasons and Causes,

by you on a site first this and then we come back to the ultimate picture the outcome of this and then the outcome of this this is something that I'm going to talk about at length in the in the basically in the sense of the regulative idea of the adequate picture qua ultimate ontology that this regulative ideal in fact does not is not incompatible with the kind of incompleteness theorem that for example you talk about because this regulative

ideal we do not know what it is and we do not need to state it it gives a different kind of limitropic approach to the entire basically Solaresian framework then for example a physical limit that allows for this kind of transcendentalization of these reasons and causes to bring them according to this regulative ideal this is something that I will talk about as a form of Archimedean dilemma an Archimedean vantage point but would you agree the regulative ideal still has to be non-contradictory. Yes, non-contradictory. Yes, absolutely. Non-contradictory, but, again, as I said,

and this is something that I'm going to elaborate next session, that this non-contradictory of the ideal picture basically doesn't mean that we can or should state what the ideal picture is. Basically, we don't need to put the given at the end. We don't need to put the given at the end. And this is really the Archimedean dilemma of the regulative ideal, quo, complete science. Yes. And from that framework, it is not incompatible with the incompleteness theorem. Again, it

needs to be understood in terms of what derives the compulsion to explain. But again, better not to go too much into this. But there is a chapter, I will again put this online before next session, by Jay Rosenberg in his magnificent book on cellars called Fusing Images, that he talks about this regulative ideal in terms of not Weistrauss limit theory. It is not limit in that sense that we can state what it is,

but in terms of basically Cauchy condition of limit, which is very interesting. And that's really what our comedian dilemma is about, You don't need to state what the regulative ideal is. As long as you can find that these explanatory conceptual levels of scientific theories get arbitrary closer to one another, you can basically hypothesize this Archimedean vantage point without assuming it as given. notice how monotonicity creeps back in there as we say they get closer together and don't get farther apart yes yes

yes that's what we should keep arguing about I think is the possibility of course nobody is saying we should be able to project what the final theory is but the question of whether it's possible a priori is still open for me, so I'm looking forward to hearing what you're going to say about that next time. And the interesting thing is that Sellars doesn't never strictly, I think, as far as I know, doesn't strictly refer it as a possibility. Peirce talks about it in terms of possibility, and by virtue of that, Peirce falls back into the escepticism that this is not possible. Sellars never talks about it in terms of possibility, but simply

an Archimedean projection that can only be taught in terms of a regulative ideal, a regulative ideal that does not state what it is, nor we should inquire what it is or state what it is a priori. Sure. I'm not sure that's a virtue, though, right? Not to name, not to reflectively and explicitly name the value that you're talking about as possible, or to inquire into its possibility. This is what Jay Rosenberg talks about. This is exactly the definition of Cauchy condition for a limit. You do not need, as long as you can find an arbitrary pattern of closeness within a series,

you can basically say that they are verging toward a limit. without actually in a Weistras condition that you are saying that they are, for example, verging toward limit one, for example. That's why I'm becoming closer. Yes, yes, I understand. But this is from building this, we can bring back the Archimedean ideal in a sense that it is no longer a matter of, It's not permissible or permissible for us to talk about it, but that the projective, the idea, the regulative idea is projected not in the basically what it is,

but in terms of how explanatory conceptual refinements approach one another. Yes, and we have to be able to posit final approach and uniqueness of final approach as opposed to, for example, thinking that divergence is intrinsic to the form of the thing. Convergence here. Yes. It's convergence. Convergence. Right, that's what has to be posited in order to make this work. Yes, and the condition for convergence can be basically elaborated from the successive approach of current scientific theories,

or a series in a number, basically, which basically what this scientific theory is about. Scientific theories succeed each other by way of magnitudes of numbers in terms of their corrections of pictures, basically. The output is the final number that, for example, correct the previous, and this is what we talk about in terms of basically, for example, in terms of the Boyle theory, Boyle-Charles theory of gases and kinetic molecular theory of gases. And as far as we have basically a pattern, established a pattern between the successive conceptual theories, we can talk about convergence without even mentioning basically to what they

are converging because this is a condition of convergence. This can be, and this is what really Kaushy talks about and also Peirce talks about in terms of basically logical conceptual refinement. I don't want to monopolize the discussion. No, no, no, don't worry, but I'm sure that next session will have philemics over this, yes. Good. Good. I was literally just commenting to my wife how much I love it when John and Reza argue, so. I learn a ton. I have a question that's...

not really related, not necessarily related to the content of this class even, but it was something I was thinking about after the last session, which is that you've talked a little bit about, I think in your responses to my comment, you talked about how rationalism is necessary but insufficient for robust self-conception and self-transformation, and that comes down to what kind of, I mean, once you've decided all of these questions, like the irreducibility of the art, And the fact that norms still have to be constructed requires some kind of, I guess, some kinds of decisions about what's of value and what matters. And I was wondering in particular what kinds of conceptions, like what conceptions of the human are maybe entailed by rationalism.

I'm thinking in particular of the line that you've quoted, I think, once or twice from Kant of the kingdom of rational beings. I mean, this is, again, something I will talk about in the next session, that what is really preserved is the concept of person. Person might be a bundle of basically atoms, molecules, synapses, dendrites, nerves, so on and so forth, but the concept of person is not a concept of bundle. This is what Solaris talks about. And in so far, and this comes back to that rather enigmatic meta-principle, espousal

of principles reflects in performances, reflect uniformities, basically. So yes, basically the parts of the person that are preserved is one, the logical irreducibility of conceptual activities with them being associated with social, pragmatics, functionalist domain. And also the question that basically forces us to go to the second module, what ought to do with the intelligible? And this is the question of intelligence. This art in terms of basically what can we do with the intelligible is not something that basically we can find

solely by recourse to intelligibility of things. Even though these things, these arts again can be naturalized because it again belongs to a different order of intelligibility or intelligibility at the level of social practices which also basically generate values and this is something that we talked about in this we talked about is very briefly that know a very common that we people when When we are talking about the normative status in this framework, people, you know, all the whole postmodern era, people confuse this with basically conventions, social conventions.

But these are two different things. And these odds, as I talked about, at the level of the social pragmatic level are logically reducible. They are instituted, they are generated, revised by a community of language concept users. And the same thing, their value for basically at the level of practical intelligibility also again generated by this community. and then again this all comes back that Sellars sees the concept of person not as a concept of bundle in so far as the concept of person is basically

the first thing that distinguishes it is the social conception of a person the pragmatic functionalist aspect of a person So person is, in this sense, is not even a being. It's a functional designation. One question that you'll probably answer in part two, but I want to float the question at least, is then what are the implications for personhood politically under that framework? You've talked about some of the possibilities of machinic intelligence, but I'm thinking particularly about promotion of the animal

and perhaps demotion of certain group, you know, certain phases of humanity, so whether that's infant or whatever. Yes, and I mean, okay, I think this combination of basically a structural continuity, functional discontinuity of person can play the key role here in so far as basically commitments and entitlements also obligations at the level of functional discontinuity can be translated and how we can act on this structural continuity between persons in the sense of their functional

discontinuity and basically these infra linguistic domains the sentience the animals and this is this is why that I think it's important to see that the sapient sentience distinction as being a functional distinction not a structural one doesn't is not incompatible with the understand with with with this framework in which we can translate the commitments and entitlements that this functional discontinuity yields into how they can be enacted upon preserving and promoting this structural continuity and enhancing this structural continuity.

You can, in the broadest possible sense, human rights, basically pedagogy of education of children, enhancement of basically, you know, culture of reception of children and so on and so forth. So I think it's really in this understanding the functional discontinuity, structural discontinuity, the commitments and entitlements, obligation and responsibility of this discontinuity can be translated and should be translated account and promote this structural continuity. And this becomes also, you know,

not only the infralinguistic spectrum, it doesn't only cover the infralinguistic spectrum, but also can be used as a basis for transhumanist thesis. Neuro-linguistic, basically re-engineering, neuro-biological re-engineering of human beings, with the understanding that we are bundles, basically. And these bundles can be reconfigured and function, realized and implemented in different substrates. David, do you want to expand on your comment in the sidebar?

No, I, I, not, not anything except to say that the definition of a person as a, as a bundle of functions opens up, I mean, definitions of, definitions of person, I mean, definitions of persons where the constituent bundle, the constituent elements of a bundle are persons? This, I, I, the reason I wanted to poke at that was simply because of the separation Reza was talking about between having conceptions and making representations, because I think one of the things where, if you're going to talk about corporate personhood, really what you're talking about is corporations recognized as people for the purposes of, you know,

certain legal parsings and things like that. Yes. I think it's also dangerous to equate corporates or physical organizations or social organizations with persons. They are constituted of persons, but they are not persons. If we say there are persons, we are basically subscribing to a different form of panpsychism again. What I was getting at the state or the law is is having representations of humans and of corporations, and those representations are lossy enough, you know, they drop enough information that for the legal purposes,

they basically say those representations are equivalent. Because the law doesn't care about the ability for the agent to be able to have concepts. The law doesn't care about that stuff. So it's a very lossy concept of personhood that drops out a ton of stuff, and so what remains, you then say, well... Yes, but as also as Salars talks about, the law can only really adjudicate itself even coming to being through these personal or person-related conceptual activities. Yeah, no, I'm not saying that corporations are persons in the rational agent. Yes, yes, sure.

Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. And this also brings back to some of this stuff that we talk about, you know, that the financial network is a person or basically functions as a person. No, it doesn't. If we do say something like that, again, you know, we are subscribing to this kind of panpsychism that conflates between functional discontinuity come structural continuity in different guises. Okay, that makes sense to me but it does seem to me that you could systematically explain each of these examples

so for example corporations or movements or I don't know, fellowships or families all of these possible candidates for like you said, these panpsychic individuals because they might have a certain uniformity of agency or something like maybe you could say that they aren't persons but that's not something that you can assume beforehand right because it seems to me like one of the things that comes up a little bit here one of the things that does seem to be assumed is what the definition of an individual within the context of the social so for example in he does all this complicated discussion of rational and then he says but it all comes down to the social and he gives like half a paragraph to the social within that you see as I We talked about the social needs to be understood as a very specific definition of social,

a community of language or concept users. And we talked about this, that social discursive practices are not general social practices. By virtue, that the social of them is not also a general social. Right, but a language user is absolutely in order. A specific pattern of uniformities in social practices. which allow us basically to identify in a Hegelian sense, to recognize the broader picture of the social. And what I mean in this context is that it's very easy for me to think of organizations that act as unitary language users. Yes, absolutely, yes, sure. This is non-controversial, yes, absolutely.

I mean, a spirit is a collection of rational agencies. Geist is a collection of rational agencies. And basically, you can have, in a sense, a corporate as a collection of rational agencies bound together by certain uniformities. And in response to Josh,

thing on the chat, yes. Social convention, in fact, you see, the rational ends, yes, they include the whole of humanity. And so far, as I talked about, basically the pragmatic functionalist core of how these arts are bootstrapped and generated is really what constitutes all other social conventions. By definition, it really is, includes the kingdom of, the realm of rational ends includes the whole of humanity. And this is basically, becomes part of the Hegel's project,

Brandom's project, basically, or the entire basically trajectory of philosophy drawn from Socratic method, expressive rationality, express or make explicit in thought or action what is implicit, what is being done. And along this explicitization, we see that whatever convention is being generated needs to be aligned basically by we need to make explicit their assumptions by virtue of these rational odds and through this exploits a process of expletization or expressive rationalities we can basically orient all

of these basically social cultural conventions towards rational ends and this is really the project of rationality as being understood by Hakel. It gets back to John's point earlier and some of the stuff I brought up about Levine, but I mean, how can then, I mean, it seems like we can ideally distinguish between these sort of, the general social and kind of actual social conventions, but how is it possible to do this in practice? I mean, it seems like there is no way since we only have the existing sort of norms and, you know, practices. We don't have norms, exactly, because if you say we have given norms, and this is really the whole idea,

it's the idea of the game of giving and asking for reasons, or the force of better reasons, or deontic scorekeeping, is really to put it at the level of inferences, to punctuate basically what assumptions underlying our conceptual commitments or beliefs are, to make them explicit, to show that if a contradiction arises at the explicit level, then basically a conceptual commitment or a belief commitment that a certain convention has needs to be revised. And if it cannot be revised, then it should be abundant. And this is really the project of, you know, the Brandomian understanding of elaboration of beliefs in terms of commitments. what is what in acknowledging a belief we are committing ourselves to a to an

acknowledgement but what what we are not aware of what we are really committed to by virtue of acknowledging that belief and the whole process is by way of these inferential I do movements, these discursive moves, be able to make explicit these basic collateral commitments that by virtue of that acknowledgement we have committed ourselves to implicitly. And this is where basically the subversive edge of art comes to light,

that it, once it really takes to its ultimate conclusion, once fully mobilized, is capable of yielding what Brandom calls the dark and pregnant claim of expressive rationality. You know, because it is dark in so far as what we believe has so many underlying assumptions, not only assumptions that it leads to, but only what it also presupposes, namely its antecedent commitments, where it is coming from. And once we start to explicitize these, elaborate these, by way of entering in the deontic score keeping,

we can basically show that there are vicious circles, that there are explicit contradictions. And at these levels, basically, we are rendering ourselves susceptible, essentially, to revision. wouldn't it be possible in principle though to come up with an entirely coherent framework for entirely what? coherent framework you know an entirely coherent normative framework for how the world is but it may actually have you know that one is able to give reasons that support

all the other reasons but it actually has no bearing on the way that the world actually is. Yes. As I said, I think we had this question in terms of what if this idea of the phantom limb. Yeah, phantom limb. Yeah, this is, yes. Yes, absolutely. This is, but the thing is that if, I think this is a little bit more subtle than this. And this is really, we need to investigate it from, yes, from. I'm sorry, you're roboting really bad. Okay, okay. Almost got through it though, we were very close to the end of the session.

How am I supposed to... Should I leave the call and call back or...? No, just go to the top and refresh the browser and it'll just bring you back in. Okay, okay. Okay, so somebody's comment on the right just went... Yeah. Yeah, Konstantinos, that's hard to read. Oh, hi. There you go.

Yes, I was talking about... Yes, okay, there are two things. There are two subtle, basically... Yes, and this is basically the understanding that we talked about. There is a necessary link between self-conception, qua intelligibility of ourselves with regard to intelligibility of things in the world, and self-transformation, how we can, according to practical intelligibilities, transform ourselves according to this truth. It's a necessary link. Doesn't mean it's sufficient. The whole idea is to make this from that of necessary to one of adequacy and sufficiency. Yes. And this becomes basically the project of transformation.

So how to make practical intelligibilities commensurate with intelligibilities of things. Second of all is, again, which is basically just a kind of a different version of this, is that even when we think that our practices are not in correspondence with these intelligibilities, that's not quite true. Because there is no way self-transformation can initiate without a level of intelligibility at the level of conception. This is something that I will talk about later. That there is a minimal truth core,

even if the practical intelligence, at the level of practice, they are completely, like, off, basically, with regard to, you know, this dimension of intelligibility, of how things and events stand as they are. But, again, most important thing, it's a necessary link, not an adequate. The adequacy cannot be guaranteed from the perspective of intelligibilities, of things, namely self-conception. It can only be warranted from the practical intelligibilities, namely the transformation thesis.

hence why that's why we require politics that's why we require basically the employment and utilization of forces that are outside of these you know rational norms metis, violence basically forces, social hegemonies so on and so forth intelligent configuration of you know economy, so on and so forth. I mean, that's why we are talking about necessity without sufficiency of rationalism. But necessity without sufficiency of rationalism, in fact, calls for irrationalist politics.

Because, as I said on the classroom page, without this rational politics, we just, we don't simply fall back on irrationalist fundamentalism. But as you said, we fall back on an instrumentalist account of rationalism in which everything and anything can be rationalized as long as basically it conforms to a use value for that system. And this is basically already the picture of the world we live in. It is not fundamentally rational. It is instrumentally rational. Basically, odds of rationality, of reason,

have been subjected to the basically use values of instrumentalities. So, if I understand you right, then the way that OTs are irreducible or separate from instrumentalities is that they are based entirely on, or they are inferred from linguistic systems, is that right? And so without regard for preconceived goals or interests? No, they have interest, but their interest cannot be reduced to that of basically use value.

They have rational ends. Rational ends are not utilities. That sounds like a cheat. This also brings back to the idea of, you know, where does the will to explain come from? Like, it seems like you're just trying... I'm targeting this at you because you're saying it, but... like you're trying to surreptitiously slip the... You broke. Yeah, your volume went off. Jordan froze.

So yeah, I mean, okay, this is... I think before going into this difference between instrumentalities and utilities and rational ends, I think this is something that we need to basically talk about practical intelligibilities again at different levels. practical intelligibilities also include instrumentalities but there are deep and this is what cellars talks about in terms of different kinds of good different

kinds of good good being basically practical intelligibility is different kinds of good and then we need to basically and this is basically the whole you know point of transformation that we need to distinguish and appropriately you know, work our way around these different kinds of goods. And these different kinds of goods can be rational ends, instrumentalities, so on and so forth. Jordan, go on. You were talking about, I think, come back. oh I was just saying that if if you're implicitly

valuing reason this obtaining a true knowledge of the world as what's effectively the primary use where all these other uses are subservient you know that's not necessarily no no no the whole idea no actually you see This is what we are talking in terms of projects of rationality, in terms of basically the distinction, but also the final stereoscopic coherence between scientific and manifest, between intelligibility of things and intelligibility of practices. The ultimate end of rationality is not really the basically just truth or intelligibility of things, but also the question of the good, practical intelligibilities.

And practical intelligibilities cannot be solely conceived by reducing them to intelligibility of things. There is a... I should find this... You can't instrumentalize the good. No, we can instrumentalize the good. But the good cannot be exhausted by instrumentalization because there are different kinds of good. If we totally instrumentalize the good, every kind of good, yes, that becomes basically rational choice theory, you know, instrumental rationality. There are different kinds of good.

So then is reason supposed to adjudicate between those? Yes. Both at the level of basically theoretical reasoning and practical reasoning. With the understanding that this adjudication cannot have only practical reasoning or theoretical reasoning. It needs to have both. Couldn't that just be rational choice theory with diversified good, with like a more complex conception of what goods are? You think rational choice theory is very specific. And then this, again, brings back to the identification that we cannot characterize rationalism

in some sort of liberalist framework. Because ultimately, rational choice theory is a form of methodological individualism with methodological choice of value. Value that is being strictly understood as used for that methodic individual and how basically this can be combined together. I will try to talk about this a little bit second session especially you know in the light of for example you know liberal mobilization of rationality and

the kind of you know inhumanist form of rationalism that we are talking about a process of expr you know and becoming practice of expressive rationality and also there is a also there is a good this is there is also a good point here to be made between for example the kind of rationality is Habermas talks about which is very much in line with the liberalist agenda of rationality and the one that, for example, Hegel and Brandon talk about, even though Brandon tries to be very amicable to the Abomasian picture of rationality.

Okay, so we're at over two and a half hours, so if we don't have any final questions, we can ask if there are any final ones. I will put some of these, I mean some papers both for, you know, some of the stuff that I promised to make them available on the classroom page, but also I will put some of the stuff, like just reference book, in terms of this kind of, you know, liberalist understanding

of rationality and the social discursive picture of rationality. And also a little bit more material on this idea of rational choice theory versus rational ends. Goods, good in the sense of platonic good form of forms and different kinds of goods with the utilization and basically overemphasis on certain kinds of goods, goods of instrumentality. Especially, I think Cellars has a really nice essay on this. I will try to find it. Hi, Reza.

We do have a question from earlier today, like just for any text or references. to further develop the pragmatist's coherentist theory of meaning and conceptual functions. Yes. That's book, I think, is also, and this is something we talk about, again, for the second module, Self-Transformation and the Social Realization of AGI, is Brandoms Between Saying and Doing. It's basically, the book is really, you know, three ties on analytic pragmatism and the functional core of analytic pragmatism to constitute these basic discursive moves.

But also from a different perspective, it can really be seen as basically a manuscript for a social model of AI, basically. Okay. I would say, I guess, then, the question would be, since we're going to go straight into the second module of the seminar, if you wanted to maybe, and we're going to obviously spend the first 45 minutes, we talked about that, finishing up the seminar, But maybe before we leave, if you want to sort of, I don't know, brief us about what we should for next week,

since we're going to be starting a new sort of theme. Sorry, your voice broke. Can you do what? JOHN MUELLER- Like, so just a review of sort of like what texts we should prepare for next week. I put the two, basically, essays optional alternative. You can go with one of them. It's 500 words. But next session, I will actually give, after I talk about basically the synoptic image and basically the core premise of this module, which was investigation of future philosophical systems,

to see that this intricate dialectic between realism, idealism, materialism, materialism or a slightly differently, put differently, naturalism, can be seen as basically a vector of diversification of philosophical systems, more robust philosophical systems. And this, I want to basically, that essay, the final essay, I want to only ask you to write it after I give that 45 minutes or an hour introduction of basically the synoptic image. But for now, it's the choice between the hierarchy complexity one and the relation between the intelligible and intelligence.

OK, thank you. OK, guys. Any final questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good afternoon. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you, Rosa. Bye-bye. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.