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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 09:47:54 -0700
From:         "William T. Powers" <POWERS_W%FLC@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Meaning; Second Order Cybernetics

[From Bill Powers (921111.0900)]

On meaning:

As I see it from the HPCT standpoint, meaning is not something
objective; words don't "have" meanings. Meanings are the perceptions
evoked in imagination by the symbol that is supposed to have a meaning.

Avery Andrews (921110):

>Consider the meaning of the NP `the Iliad'.  There are many >different
kinds of perceptions that this can be hooked up to.  In >the benign
environment of your local library, you can ascertain >that a book is the
Iliad by noting that it has `Iliad' written on >its spine, or by opening
up and seeing that the text starts out >`Sing, Muse, of the wrath of
Achilles',  So a wide range of >different perceptual functions will
suffice distinguish copies of >the Iliad from other things ...

If you think that the book you are holding is called 'the Iliad," then
that is the meaning of "Iliad" for you: it means the book you are
holding and see in front of you. The word also means whatever else you
are reminded of, which depends on your experience and memories.

>On the other hand, you can imagine more treacherous worlds, where
>books say on their covers that they are the Iliad, but have >something
completely different inside, or have all sorts of >omissions and
interpolations in the text, so that some expertise >(e.g. a large and
sophisticated perceptual function) is required to >distinguish good
copies of the Iliad from bad ones (the Ancient >world was like this,
before the Alexandrians cleaned up the text).

But that objection is based on the idea that there is a "real" meaning
of "The Iliad" that can be objectively established by experts. All this
shows is that different people will experience different meanings of the
same term, and if some of these people agree on the meanings, and can
persuade others to consider them as authorities, they may be able to
influence others to adopt (some of) the same meanings. Even so, if you
hold a book in your hand that says "The Iliad" on the cover, the meaning
of "Iliad" will be what you're experiencing -- so far. If you're an
expert, you might add under your breath "_purported_ Iliad." If so, then
the book you're looking at is the meaning of "_purported_ Iliad."
Meaning is perception. What else could it be?
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Penni Sibun (921110.1600) --

>the concept of ``meaning,'' or anything else, is useful in a theory
>only insofar as it has explanatory power.

But meaning is not a theoretical concept -- it's a phenomenon. When I
say words to you, you experience more than the words. You experience
their referents -- their meanings. If you don't experience any meanings
of words, then you don't understand them; they might as well be in a
foreign language (you being a linguist, I must add " -- that you don't
know"). Control theory provides an explanation of the phenomenon of
meaning, not the other way around. When I say "Penni's father" to you,you know
 what those words mean -- they call to your mind a specific
person who looks and acts in familiar ways. That is the phenomenon to be
explained. Theories are supposed to explain phenomena. I believe that we
have at least the beginnings of a control-theoretic explanation of the
phenomenon of meaning.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: Carver & Scheier and Vallacher: all of these people started their
writing about control theory after learning about my work and discussing
it with me. They understand it to a certain degree, but are trying to
merge it into existing methodologies and concepts. This has never
succeeded, and they do not succeed, either. I have invited Carver &
Scheier to meetings of the CSG, but they have been too busy to come.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: Second order cybernetics etc.

Margaret Mead suggested second-order cybernetics -- applying cybernetic
concepts to cyberneticists, or "Cybernetics of Cybernetics"  -- at the
first annual symposium of the American Society for Cybernetics. The
proceedings, published in 1968, nowhere mention the date or location of
this symposium, but it must have occurred before 1968. They appear in
_Purposive Systems_, edited by von Foerster, White, Peterson, and
Russell, and published by Spartan Books (1968). At this time my work on
what is now called PCT had been in progress for 15 years, but it is not
mentioned.

In this field Mead was a dillettante as were many of the others at the
symposium. She was just trying to get one-up on all these
cyberneticists, whom she didn't understand at all. It was in this volume
(p. 26) that the neurologist Ralph W. Gerard said "I have always
regarded a drop of water sliding down a slightly inclined plane as
showing all the manifestations of purposeful behavior." "Always," I
presume, meant both before and after learning about cybernetics,
sufficient proof to me that Gerard knew nothing about purpose and what
cybernetics had to say about it (or might have had to say). At some time
or other, Gerard became a President of the ASC as a reward, I suppose,
for his ignorance.

Cyberneticists have been floating upward into the cloudy realms of
philosophy ever since, when they have not been promoting a technocracy
or supporting Marxist revolutions by implementing expensive and
unworkable central computer control of the economy. Of control theory
they would know essentially nothing, were it not for Cliff Joslyn's
recent work. I spent many years attending cybernetics meetings and even
giving the occasional paper, but my message was generally received with
hostility or simply ignored. Only a few people, like Heinz von Foerster,
gave me any support. All the support faded away when it was realized
that I did not buy Ashby's conclusions about control theory, that I
thought Maturana was confused, and that I thought control theory was
more important than recursive self-computations of awareness.

For the most part there is nothing of interest to me going on in
cybernetics.
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Best to all,

Bill P.
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