Survey of Definition and Determination • 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/04/06/survey-of-definition-and-determination-2/

In the early 1990s, “in the middle of life's journey” as the saying goes, I returned to grad school in a systems engineering program with the idea of taking a more systems-theoretic approach to my development of Peircean themes, from signs and scientific inquiry to logic and information theory.

Two of the first questions calling for fresh examination were the closely related concepts of definition and determination, not only as Peirce used them in his logic and semiotics but as researchers in areas as diverse as computer science, cybernetics, physics, and systems sciences were finding themselves forced to reconsider the concepts in later years. That led me to collect a sample of texts where Peirce and a few other writers discuss the issues of definition and determination. There are copies of those selections at the following sites.

Collection Of Source Materials
• https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey/EXCERPTS

Excerpts on Definition
• https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey/EXCERPTS#Definition

Excerpts on Determination
• https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey/EXCERPTS#Determination

What follows is a Survey of blog and wiki posts on Definition and Determination, with a focus on the part they play in Peirce's interlinked theories of signs, information, and inquiry. In classical logical traditions the concepts of definition and determination are closely related and their bond acquires all the more force when we view the overarching concept of constraint from an information-theoretic point of view, as Peirce did beginning in the 1860s.

#Peirce #Logic #Definition #Determination #DifferentialLogic
#Inference #Information #Inquiry #Semiotics #SignRelations
#AI #Cybernetics #IntelligentSystems #InquiryDrivenSystems

Logic Syllabus • 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Related Articles
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Logic_Syllabus#Related_articles

Cactus Language • https://oeis.org/wiki/Cactus_Language_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Futures Of Logical Graphs • https://oeis.org/wiki/Futures_Of_Logical_Graphs
Differential Propositional Calculus • https://oeis.org/wiki/Differential_Propositional_Calculus_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Differential Logic • https://oeis.org/wiki/Differential_Logic_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Differential Logic and Dynamic Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/Differential_Logic_and_Dynamic_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Propositions As Types Analogy • https://oeis.org/wiki/Propositions_As_Types_Analogy
Propositional Equation Reasoning Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/Propositional_Equation_Reasoning_Systems
Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey/Prospects_for_Inquiry_Driven_Systems
Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Inquiry_Driven_Systems
Inquiry Driven Systems • Inquiry Into Inquiry • https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Overview

#Logic #LogicSyllabus #CactusLanguage #LogicalGraphs #DifferentialLogic
#DifferentialPropositionalCalculus #DifferentialLogicAndDynamicSystems
#PropositionsAsTypesAnalogy #PropositionalEquationReasoningSystems
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry #DynamicalSystems

Logic Syllabus • 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Related Articles
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Logic_Syllabus#Related_articles

Cactus Language • https://oeis.org/wiki/Cactus_Language_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Futures Of Logical Graphs • https://oeis.org/wiki/Futures_Of_Logical_Graphs
Differential Propositional Calculus • https://oeis.org/wiki/Differential_Propositional_Calculus_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Differential Logic • https://oeis.org/wiki/Differential_Logic_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Differential Logic and Dynamic Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/Differential_Logic_and_Dynamic_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Overview
Propositions As Types Analogy • https://oeis.org/wiki/Propositions_As_Types_Analogy
Propositional Equation Reasoning Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/Propositional_Equation_Reasoning_Systems
Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey/Prospects_for_Inquiry_Driven_Systems
Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems • https://oeis.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Inquiry_Driven_Systems
Inquiry Driven Systems • Inquiry Into Inquiry • https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Overview

#Logic #LogicSyllabus #CactusLanguage #LogicalGraphs #DifferentialLogic
#DifferentialPropositionalCalculus #DifferentialLogicAndDynamicSystems
#PropositionsAsTypesAnalogy #PropositionalEquationReasoningSystems
#Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry #DynamicalSystems

Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/05/22/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-5/

Re: Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2022/07/20/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-2/

Re: Mathstodon • Joeri Sebrechts
• https://mathstodon.xyz/@joeri_s@mstdn.social/110401673746671834

JS:
❝That's not how it works. The model lacks agency. It is a machine whose gears are cranked by the user's prompt. It can ask questions, but only when prompted to. It is not doing anything at all when it isn't being prompted.❞

Sure, I understand that. The hedge “as it were” is used advisedly for the sake of the argument. (I wrote my own language learner back in the 80s.)

Speaking less metaphorically, the program and its database are always in their respective states and the program has the capacity to act on the database even when not engaged with external prompts.

Is there any reason why the program's “housekeeping” functions should not include one to measure its current state of “uncertainty” (entropy of a distribution) with regard to potential questions — or any reason why it should “hurt to ask”?

As it were …

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry
#ScottAaronson #AI #ChatGPT #GPT #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/05/15/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-4/

Re: Terry Tao • PCAST Working Group on Generative AI Invites Public Input
• https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2023/05/13/pcast-working-group-on-generative-ai-invites-public-input/

My Comment —
• https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2023/05/13/pcast-working-group-on-generative-ai-invites-public-input/comment-page-1/#comment-678057

I think a lot of people who've been working all along on AI, intelligent systems, and computational extensions of human capacities in general are a little distressed to see the field cornered and re‑branded in the short‑sighted, market‑driven way we currently see.

The more fundamental problem I see here is the failure to grasp the nature of the task at hand, and this I attribute not to a program but to its developers.

Journalism, Research, and Scholarship are not matters of generating probable responses to prompts or other stimuli. What matters is producing evidentiary and logical supports for statements. That is the task requirement the developers of recent LLM‑Bots are failing to grasp.

There is nothing new about that failure. There is a long history of attempts to account for intelligence and indeed the workings of scientific inquiry based on the principles of associationism, behaviorism, connectionism, and theories of that order. But the relationship of empirical evidence, logical inference, and scientific information is more complex and intricate than is dreamt of in those reductive philosophies.

#Peirce #Logic #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry
#TerryTao #PCAST #AI #IntelligentSystems #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/05/01/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-3/

Re: Scott Aaronson • Should GPT Exist?
• https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7042

My Comment —
• https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7042#comment-1946961

The more fundamental problem I see here is the failure to grasp the nature of the task at hand, and this I attribute not to a program but to its developers.

Journalism, Research, and Scholarship are not matters of generating probable responses to prompts or other stimuli. What matters is producing evidentiary and logical supports for statements. That is the task requirement the developers of recent LLM‑Bots are failing to grasp.

There is nothing new about that failure. There is a long history of attempts to account for intelligence and indeed the workings of scientific inquiry based on the principles of associationism, behaviorism, connectionism, and theories of that order. But the relationship of empirical evidence, logical inference, and scientific information is more complex and intricate than is dreamt of in those reductive philosophies.

Note. The above comment was originally posted on March 1st but appears to have been deleted accidentally.

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry
#ScottAaronson #AI #ChatGPT #GPT #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2022/07/20/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-2/

Re: Scott Aaronson
• https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6524
• https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6534
• https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6541

❝Personally, I'd give neither of them [Bohr or Einstein] perfect marks, in part because they not only both missed Bell's Theorem, but failed even to ask the requisite question (namely: what empirically verifiable tasks can Alice and Bob use entanglement to do, that they couldn't have done without entanglement?). But I'd give both of them very high marks for, y'know, still being Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.❞

To Ask The Requisite Question —
• https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6541#comment-1940887

This brings me to the question I was going to ask on the AI post, but was afraid to ask.

Does GPT‑3 ever ask an original question on its own?

Simply asking for clarification of an interlocutor's prompt is not insignificant but I'm really interested in something more spontaneous and “self‑starting” than that. Does it ever wake up one morning, as it were, and find itself in a “state of question”, a state of doubt or uncertainty so compelling as to bring it to ask on its own initiative what we might recognize as a novel question?

Resources —

Survey of Inquiry Driven Systems
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/04/23/survey-of-inquiry-driven-systems-5/

Survey of Theme One Program
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/03/30/survey-of-theme-one-program-5/

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry
#ScottAaronson #AI #ChatGPT #GPT #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

Inquiry Into Inquiry • On Initiative 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/05/15/inquiry-into-inquiry-on-initiative-4/

Re: Terry Tao • PCAST Working Group on Generative AI Invites Public Input
• https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2023/05/13/pcast-working-group-on-generative-ai-invites-public-input/

My Comment —
• https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2023/05/13/pcast-working-group-on-generative-ai-invites-public-input/comment-page-1/#comment-678057

I think a lot of people who've been working all along on AI, intelligent systems, and computational extensions of human capacities in general are a little distressed to see the field cornered and re‑branded in the short‑sighted, market‑driven way we currently see.

The more fundamental problem I see here is the failure to grasp the nature of the task at hand, and this I attribute not to a program but to its developers.

Journalism, Research, and Scholarship are not matters of generating probable responses to prompts or other stimuli. What matters is producing evidentiary and logical supports for statements. That is the task requirement the developers of recent LLM‑Bots are failing to grasp.

There is nothing new about that failure. There is a long history of attempts to account for intelligence and indeed the workings of scientific inquiry based on the principles of associationism, behaviorism, connectionism, and theories of that order. But the relationship of empirical evidence, logical inference, and scientific information is more complex and intricate than is dreamt of in those reductive philosophies.

#Peirce #Logic #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InquiryIntoInquiry
#TerryTao #PCAST #AI #IntelligentSystems #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

Survey of Cybernetics • 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/04/26/survey-of-cybernetics-3/

❝Again, in a ship, if a man were at liberty to do what he chose, but were devoid of mind and excellence in navigation (αρετης κυβερνητικης), do you perceive what must happen to him and his fellow sailors?❞

— Plato • Alcibiades • 135 A

This is a Survey of blog posts on Cybernetics. It includes the selections and comments I’ve posted so far on Ashby’s Introduction plus two series of reflections on the governance of social systems in light of cybernetic and semiotic principles.

Please follow the above link for the full set of resources. By way of a sampler, links for the series on “Theory and Therapy of Representations” are given below.

1 https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2022/09/13/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-1-2/
2 https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2022/09/14/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-2-2/
3 https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2022/09/16/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-3-2/
4 https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2022/09/17/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-4-2/
5 https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/04/26/theory-and-therapy-of-representations-5-2/

#Cybernetics #Information #Control #Governance #Plato #Ashby
#Peirce #Semiotics #Semiosis #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems

Survey of Inquiry Driven Systems • 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/04/23/survey-of-inquiry-driven-systems-5/

This is a Survey of work in progress on Inquiry Driven Systems, material I plan to refine toward a systematic treatment of the subject.

An “inquiry driven system” is a system having among its state variables some representing its state of information with respect to various questions of interest, for example, its own state and the states of potential object systems. Thus it has a component of state tracing a trajectory though an “information state space”.

Please follow the above link for the full set of resources.
Articles treating the more central ideas are linked below.

Elements —

Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems
• https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey/Prospects_for_Inquiry_Driven_Systems

Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Inquiry_Driven_Systems

Background —

Functional Logic • Inquiry and Analogy
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Functional_Logic_%E2%80%A2_Inquiry_and_Analogy

Functional Logic • Quantification Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Functional_Logic_%E2%80%A2_Quantification_Theory

Functional Logic • Higher Order Propositions
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Functional_Logic_%E2%80%A2_Higher_Order_Propositions

Developments —

Inquiry Driven Systems • Inquiry Fields
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Inquiry_Fields

Inquiry Driven Systems • Inquiry Into Inquiry
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Overview

Applications —

Conceptual Barriers to Creating Integrative Universities
• https://www.academia.edu/1266492/Conceptual_Barriers_to_Creating_Integrative_Universities

Interpretation as Action • The Risk of Inquiry
• https://www.academia.edu/57812482/Interpretation_as_Action_The_Risk_of_Inquiry

An Architecture for Inquiry • Building Computer Platforms for Discovery
• https://www.academia.edu/1270327/An_Architecture_for_Inquiry_Building_Computer_Platforms_for_Discovery

Exploring Research Data Interactively • Theme One : A Program of Inquiry
• https://www.academia.edu/1272839/Exploring_Research_Data_Interactively._Theme_One_A_Program_of_Inquiry

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems #InformationStateSpace
#Semiotics #SignRelations #Interpretation #SystemsEngineering
#Abduction #Deduction #Induction #Analogy #DynamicsOfInquiry

@io

Maybe of interest, a background piece on #Analogy and #Inquiry I put together for my work on #InquiryDrivenSystems.

Functional Logic • Inquiry and Analogy
• https://www.academia.edu/95740674/Functional_Logic_Inquiry_and_Analogy

This report discusses C.S. Peirce's treatment of analogy, placing it in relation to his overall theory of inquiry. We begin by introducing three basic types of reasoning Peirce adopted from classical logic. In Peirce's analysis both inquiry and analogy are complex programs of logical inference which develop through stages of these three types, although normally in different orders.

@NicoleCRust

I had some years ago given my long-running study of #InquiryDrivenSystems the subtitle #InquiryIntoInquiry by way of suggesting Scientific Method Self-Applied, somewhat in the vein of Reflective Practitioners and analogous to Second Order Cybernetics. I later discovered Dewey had scooped me on that coinage for pretty much the same purpose.

In the Way of Inquiry • Objections to Reflexive #Inquiry 10
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/02/05/in-the-way-of-inquiry-objections-to-reflexive-inquiry-2/

Second, the interruptive character or escapist interpretation of inquiry is especially significant when contemplating programs of inquiry with recursive definitions, as the motivating case of inquiry into inquiry. It means the termination criterion for an inquiry subprocess is whatever allows continuation of the calling process.

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems
#InquiryIntoInquiry #Recursion #Reflection

In the Way of Inquiry • Objections to Reflexive Inquiry 8
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/02/05/in-the-way-of-inquiry-objections-to-reflexive-inquiry-2/

First, it means genuine inquiry does not touch on the inciting action at points of total doubt or absolute certainty. An incident of inquiry does not begin or end in absolute totalities but only in the differential and relative measures which actually occasion its departures and resolutions.

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryIntoInquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems
#Actuality #Contingency #Indeterminacy #Uncertainty

In the Way of Inquiry • Objections to Reflexive Inquiry 7
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/02/05/in-the-way-of-inquiry-objections-to-reflexive-inquiry-2/

An episode of inquiry bears the stamp of an interlude — it begins and ends “in medias res” with respect to actions and circumstances neither fixed nor fully known. As easy as it may be to overlook the contingent character of the inquiry process it's just as essential to observe a couple of its consequences —

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryIntoInquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems
#Contingency #Indeterminacy #Uncertainty

In the Way of Inquiry • Objections to Reflexive Inquiry 6
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/02/05/in-the-way-of-inquiry-objections-to-reflexive-inquiry-2/

The inquirer is faced in the object of inquiry with an obstinately oppositional state of affairs, a character marked by the Greek word “pragma” for “object”, whose manifold of senses and derivatives includes among its connotations the ideas of purposeful objectives and problematic objections, and not too incidentally both inquiries and expositions.

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryIntoInquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems

In the Way of Inquiry • Objections to Reflexive Inquiry 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/02/05/in-the-way-of-inquiry-objections-to-reflexive-inquiry-2/

Our agent of inquiry is brought to the threshold of two questions:

• What actions are available to achieve the aims of the present activity?

• What assumptions already accepted are advisable to amend or abandon?

#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryIntoInquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems
#Activity #Aim #Assumption #Advice #Amendment #Abandonment
#Interruption #Obstruction #Reconstruction #Reconstitution

Differential Logic and Dynamic Systems • Overview 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2019/09/10/differential-logic-and-dynamic-systems-overview/

Logic-based systems have tended to be static in character, largely because we have lacked a proper logical analogue of differential calculus. The work laid out in this series of posts is intended to address that lack.

#Logic #DifferentialLogic #DiscreteDynamicalSystems
#LogicalTransformations #TransformationsOfDiscourse
#IntelligentSystems #InquiryDrivenSystems #Semiotics

Differential Logic and Dynamic Systems • Overview 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2019/09/10/differential-logic-and-dynamic-systems-overview/

Symbolic models use logical methods to describe systems and their agents in qualitative terms, deriving logical consequences of a system’s description or an agent’s state of information.

#Logic #DifferentialLogic #DiscreteDynamicalSystems
#LogicalTransformations #TransformationsOfDiscourse
#IntelligentSystems #InquiryDrivenSystems #Semiotics

Differential Logic and Dynamic Systems • Overview 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2019/09/10/differential-logic-and-dynamic-systems-overview/

Dynamic models take their cue from physics, using quantitative measures and differential equations to model the evolution of a system’s state through time.

#Logic #DifferentialLogic #DiscreteDynamicalSystems
#LogicalTransformations #TransformationsOfDiscourse
#IntelligentSystems #InquiryDrivenSystems #Semiotics