Concept of universality within the framework of the second order cybernetics

Ideological essence of the second-order cybernetics is generally understood as a “view from within”. This requires certain conceptual revision of most fundamental notions. Particularly, an interpretation of a ‘universal law’ is subject to such a revision. Formally speaking, any universal law may be coded in the form АхР(х), where Ax is the universal quantifier. However, its meaning changes significantly, for it could be shown that it must be treated probabilistically. The reason for this is in that the standard phrase ‘for any x’, which discloses the meaning of the formula Ax, must be seen here as an arbitrariness of choice, while ‘the choice arbitrariness’ must be seen as a constructive procedure within the second-order cybernetics. Otherwise, basic presumption of the second-order cybernetics will not hold. Indeed, classical science assumes that when one says ‘Let us pick up an arbitrary x from the model M’ then the very procedure of ‘picking up an arbitrary x’ is not assumed to be a part of model M. Classical scientists think of this act as of some agent’s act who is completely external to model M. Second order scientists take it differently. All agent’s acts — observations, measurements, picks, experiment organizations, etc — must be seen as a part of an appropriate model. This is the core of the ‘view from within’: theoretical agents, their acts as well as their theories must be considered as internal events, or properties, of the intended models. Going back to formula Ax, it is easier to see now that an intention ‘to pick up an arbitrary x’ must be treated as a real process within an appropriate model M. The only way to do it is to assume that such models have (truly) random events generators G as a necessary part of their structure. All above implies that an interpretation of AxP(x) within the framework of the second-order cybernetics must be the following: P(x) is universally true on M iff there exists G in M such that at any time t G may randomly choose any element from M with probability р(х)≠0, and P(x) will appear to be true. As a result of this, we may claim that the very idea of justifiable universality is inconsistent with deterministic ontologies (in the second-order science framework). Indeed, deterministic ontologies do not assume that at any time t it is possible to pick up an arbitrary x from the model M, for, by definition, they are limited only to certain choices through time, which are pre-determined by deterministic schedule of choices.

The Noumenal Morass: Post-Kantian Representationalism and Its Relationalist Critique in the Light of Strong Disjunctivism

This epistemological essay addresses the issue of representational content’s existence in the case of true direct knowledge. Contrary answers to it are considered as a basis for the distinction between representationalism and relationalism. The first part of the essay contains a critical analysis of the fundamental features of German Idealism as a kind of representationalism, which determined the main epistemological trend of continental philosophy in the form of post-Kantian representationalism. In the second part, after a brief excursion into certain contemporary continental issues, the current discussion between representationalism and relationalism in analytical philosophy is considered. It is concluded that relationalism, while correctly recognizing the nature of direct perception as being without representational content, is incapable of ensuring the unity of direct perception and a perceptual judgment, and a solution is proposed that could lead out of this epistemological impasse.

The Incarnate Personalism of Albert Sobolev

Sixty years of communication, sometimes daily, of intimate conversations and furious disputes provide an opportunity to write about a friend-philosopher in the genre which he did prefer to other ones and realized brilliantly, in the genre wherein man’s portrait is inseparable from characteristics of the philosopher and preciseness of thought from artistic expressiveness.

Love in the family through the eyes of the writer Meir Shalev (and fragments of novel texts and analysis)

The article presents small fragments of three novels by Meir Shalev, and the author on this material discusses the writer's understanding of love, family and personality. Why, he asks, is the fate of the family as portrayed by Shalev so sad, almost unconnected with love, and why the personality in novels is usually lonely? To answer these questions, an analysis of these three realities important for life is proposed, on the one hand, as Shalev understands them, on the other, how they currently look objectively. The author comes to the conclusion that at present in culture the understanding and concepts of family, love and personality are not coordinated with each other, which gives rise to numerous problems and a crisis of sociality. In parallel, he is trying to clarify the essence of the phenomena of love, family, personality and sociality discussed by Shalev.

Ars historica sive de historiae et historices natura historiaque scribende praeceptis commentatio

Continuation of the translation of the book by the Dutch theologian, historian and philologist G. J. Vossii "The Art of Historians", started in No. 23–31 Vox. Chapter 15 deals with one of the main problems of historians: the relationship between the sequence of individual events and the truth of the overall picture. The author shows that the construction of events in one logical series on the basis of a simple linguistic sequence does not mean that they are similar in other spaces. Often outwardly similar descriptions of "glorious deeds" belong to different eras that are not directly comparable. This gives rise to the concept of a "picture of the world".

Parmenides and the problem of knowing

This article is based on same-named course work and appears as first part of upcoming research of Ancient Greek Philosophy. The research aim to be a reactivator of social ideas by the way of adopt antique mode of thinking. New method of working at material, trying to represent well-known text in an unusual perspective shows an urgency of this article. Metaphysical poem of Parmenides is taken as a material, so the author prevalently uses a text from the poem and looks at the structure, keywords such as The Truth, necessity, The Fate and Alethea, and a use of them. In the article a correlation between The Truth and necessity, Alethea and The Truth in Parmenides philosophy is explained for the first time. The author pays great attention to Parmenides, so the research has a primary focus on understanding the poem as a Parmenides’ creature. The article has a short biographical background of Parmenides. In this article, the author tries to motivate readers to reflect on it instead of obtruding any defined answers

Features of the interpretation of physical knowledge on the example of the works of K. F. von Weizsäcker and H.-P. Dürr

The article is devoted to the interpretation of physical knowledge in the works "Structure of Physics" by K. F. von Weizsäcker and “Matter does not exist” by H.-P. Dürr. These works reveal a special understanding of matter in quantum mechanics. In the interpretation of physical knowledge H.-P. Dürr and K. F. von Weizsäcker postulate a special interpretation of matter within the framework of quantum theory, namely the inseparability of consciousness from matter. At the same time, we emphasize the fundamental difference between these approaches. H.-P. Dürr remains in the position of Advaita-Vedanta, his approach is closer to Eastern metaphysics, Weizsäcker adheres to the Western epistemological tradition, presenting physics as what we can know about matter. Heidegger also touches this issue, he criticizes the concept of "object" and "subject" in modern science, but does not say that both concepts must somehow be combined.

The teachings of Alexei Chernyakov about the soul and mind: reflections and comments

Chernyakov in his famous monograph reveals the concept of the soul through the opposite — the concept of the mind. But the point is not only in the explication of the concept through the opposite meaning. Following the logic of Chernyakov, the soul and mind at a certain stage fall into a kind of dynamic unity as the highest participation in the divine gaze. Being, according to Aristotle, a common feeling, the soul is through continuous “flipping” of private feelings, and so that in the formula: “I feel and understand what I feel,” the second term is exfoliated, i.e. the terminological limitation has been removed. As a result, the pure movement “feel the feeling of feeling” is released as a continuity of sensual evidence. The soul lives in the gaps of the mind and sees its infinity in them. Chernyakov draws attention to the fact that any distinction is simultaneously and latently the moment of binding distinctions. But the moments of discrimination / binding in soul and mind are given in different ways. Awakening (discriminating), the soul simultaneously connects the different so as to survey the all-encompassing expanse of itself and all that exists in the unity of self-movement. The soul, like the mind, is a form without matter, but in a different way from the mind. The soul also moves towards the object, but does not deviate from it to meet with itself, as the mind does, but passes through the object at the moment when it is already (still) decomposed or is in a de-objectified form. An object, being the energy of the mind, is "weathered" in relation to the soul, leaving a kind of living sensory imprint, the soul revives when it connects sensory imprints of objects, meeting itself in them. Chernyakov, referring to Aristotle, believes that the general feeling really contains in some way all the objects of the senses (but without matter). We explain to ourselves that these objects are in a de-objectified form. Unimpeded by overcoming (opening) the gap of the mind, the soul “sees” (binds) a multitude of sensory forms, in each of which a free gaze as such is released. This is not a gaze fixed on something unchanging. And it is also not a perception, which, as part of a speculative form, adds a new “perceive something” to “I perceive something”. Now the act: “I perceive something” is opened and partially discarded, leaving only an independent, continuous dynamic attachment in the remainder: “perceives” + “perceives” + “perceives”, etc.

Rotational-monad metaphysics

The article presents a metaphysical concept, in the main tesa of which the simplest discrete element of physical reality is constituted — designated as a protomonad — which forms the basis of spatial forms of materiality, including space itself as such. The genesis of the protomonad is clarified by a certain way interpreted rotation of the spiritual essence, which in itself does not have an extension, and both the indicated essence and its rotation have a metaphysical order, and the dimension of physical space finds a rational interpretation through the characteristics of metaphysical rotation. The semantic aspects of complex mathematical constructs are considered that convey the semantics of rotations, and quite reasonably proposed by some mathematicians as the unified foundations of mathematics and physics, where the properties of constructs act as a mathematically strict co-proof of the validity of the concept. The meaning of number is explained as a method of restriction on infinite pre-physical multiplicity, and finite natural multiplicities are the result of such restrictions; the most important special case is the three-dimensional spatial metric given in the experiment, which appears as a restriction of an infinite-dimensional metaphysical space. The so-called principle of genetic inheritance is formulated, which makes it possible to remove the dialectical opposition between the one and the multiple and illustrates the categories of time and space as dialectical oppositions.

Who tells the story in “The Devils”?

Against all numerous complexities and riddles that Dostoevsky’s “The Devils” contain, a great storm of searing passions, insane ideas and wild behavior its characters reprise, the figure of Storyteller often seems lost, pale, quite insignificant. He is merely a mask of the Author, a weaver of narration, a devoted chronicler of what happened. Or is he really? We somehow rarely realize that it’s his eyes we look through and see what is considered to be the “final truth” of the novel, the meaning and motivation behind its heroes’ actions, let alone the deepest secrets of their minds and souls. How come a character all like themselves has all the keys, where’s the source of his all-knowing, and is it only a matter of pure art, a writer’s convention that we must easily accept and pay so much attention? Maybe ignoring this strangeness means we really underestimate the troubling greatness of “The Devils”, its many layers and ruinous conflict that lies at the core of all its confusion.