----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Grimes" <cgrimes at rawbw.com>
>
> Which reminds me to say I only got as far as about page 70 something
> and had to put in down. The trouble is, this is such a big work that I
> have to take in pieces. I couldn't just plough through it.
>
> But regarding this passage. It's a mistake. What the word essence
> refers to should be seen as part of a perceptional construct. It then
> needs to be related to the gestalt formation of perception. But this
> subtle distinction only applies to analysis of an otherwise objective
> domain, say biology outside its human dimensions. Within human
> boundaries, then essences become something like the distillation of a
> cultural and or linguistic character. A very similar perceptual
> mechanism maybe at work, but it takes on symbolic significance, and we
> pretend, and treat such characters as it they were a living things.
=======================
Invariants as social constructs? The "distillations" as contestations over which space-time scales shall be accorded research priority and how that in turn relates to which ontic/epistemic "level" is accorded greater causal efficacy, perhaps? Maturana and Varela further opened the pandora's box on the issues you mention and, hey, what's wrong with thinking of symbols as *semiosis.*
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~rcp/
http://www.zbi.ee/~kalevi/jesphohp.htm
http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~rocha/ijhms_pask.html
> It is to this latter aspect that I think that Gould is really
> referring, because it sets the stage to discuss the structure of a
> theory, or rather the structures that are interwoven together to
> become a grand scale theory.
================
A kind of evolutionary epistemology. Does Stuart Kauffman show up in the text or index?
>
> When such a concept as essence is applied to living things, there is
> an extremely like possibility that what is called an essence is
> transferred from within a human world of such ideas where perhaps such
> entities exist in some meaningful that is cultural fashion. But I
> think it is a profound mistake to apply them directly to organisms,
> especially since the word organism already has such an idea
> preconstructed within.
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Well the concept of essence has re-arisen in symbolic logic and metaphysics as well, so somethings goin' on
>
> Where this really gets tricky is when considering some molecular
> sub-system that has organized and routine behavior. It will appear to
> have an essence. But that appearance is I think primarily part of
> human perception.
===============
Oh those aporias of trying to separate the organism from the environment!
>
> One the hand, it appears that such a sub-system is life, so we have
> life all the way down? On the other hand, if an essence is life, then
> how can it be evolved from sub-divisions and sub-organizations and
> then evolve integrated into a whole? And where all this leads is into
> questioning exactly what constitutes a well bounded phenomenon. Is an
> essence such a well bounded phenomenon? Are we looking at a
> phenomenon, or are we some how manufacturing its appearance through
> our own perceptions?
=====================
When do recursions "bottom out" in living systems? M & V again.
> So because of all that, I would prefer to stay far away from ideas
> like essence, at least in terms of science. On the other hand essences
> fit very well in poetry, art, theories, any of the more abstract of
> human cultural productions. And so, perhaps within discussion of
> theory, rather than direct observation, something like essence would
> work as a mere stand-in expression for words like whole, character, or
> some assemblage of qualities.
==================
Well qualities and assemblage are problematic concepts too. The computational combinatorics of genotypes, molecular species etc. can, sometimes/often, humble all attempts to understand living systems with symbols, sentences and theories......
Ian