Key words: philosophy, language

Excerpt: For more than two millennia, all Western scientific thought has rested on the methodological principle of two-valuedness dividing all reality into an objective and a subjective component. The division was assumed to be exhaustive. The existence of a third value of basic ontological significance was expressly denied. The ensuing system of logic not only posed the questions but also circumscribed the range of permissible answers. One of the two available values was considered to be designative, and the other had to be nondesignative in order to obtain a set of laws interpretable in ontological terms. The designative value was called positive; it pointed to the purely objective aspect of the universe. And since the non-designative or negative value could not point at anything, the trend of all Western science, based on this system of logic, has been one of progressive objectivation to the exclusion of all traces of “subjectivity” – which are implied in the nondesignative value.

The notions of collective autocatalysis and of autopoiesis are clear¬ly related; equally clearly, they are not quite the same. The purpose of this paper is to try to clarify the relationship. Specifically I suggest that autopoiesis can be at least roughly characterized as collective autocatalysis plus spatial individuation. Although some mechanism of spatial confinement or concentra¬tion is probably necessary to the effective operation of any collectively autocat¬alytic reaction network, autopoiesis requires, in addition, that the mechanism for maintaining this confinement should itself be a product of the reaction net¬work – and should thus (?) be capable of separating or individuating otherwise identically organized networks. I suggest an informal heuristic test to discrim¬inate the (merely) collectively autocatalytic from the (properly) autopoietic. Finally, in the light of this, I review a variety of published abstract or model sys¬tems, Alchemy, α-universes, Tierra, and SCL.

This paper reviews ideas developed by the late Gordon Pask as part of his Conversation Theory CT. CT uses theories of the dynamics of complex, self-organising systems, in conjunction with models of conceptual structures, in order to give an account of conceptual coherence for example, of a theory or a belief system as a form of organisational closure. In Pask’s own terms, CT is concerned both with the kinematics of knowledge structures and the kinetics of knowing and coming to know. The main features of Pask’s ways of modelling conceptual structures and processes are presented. The author goes on to present a summary two cycle model of learning, aimed to capture some of Pask’s key insights with respect to conceptual coherence and the organisational closure of conceptual systems. Parallels are drawn with other work in epistemology classic cybernetic studies of self-organisation and the concept of autopoiesis. The two cycle model is then applied recursively to generate learning cycles and conceptual structures at different levels of abstraction, as a contribution to Pask’s work on the topology of thought. Finally, the model is applied reflexively. That is, its own form is considered as a topic for conversation and conceptualisation. Carrying out such a reflection provides a coherent way of characterising epistemological limits, whilst retaining a clear sense of there being an in principle unlimited praxeology of awareness.

Excerpt: The question I wish to address is the following. At face value, there are two kinds of time: inner time and physical time. The first is the linear sequence of moments given by the clock we live by, and the other is what we live in. Both are valid as sources of facts and of scientific investigation. The first gives rise to well-developed physical theories; the other, to human temporality, centered on the present and manifesting as a threefold unity of the just-past and the about-to-occur. Both can be developed in precise scientific detail. I will sketch some of my ideas in this regard concerning inner time in terms of modern cognitive neuroscience. More precisely my topic for this symposium is: What is the meeting ground in our discourse and understanding for these two kinds of time?