abduction (by David Morris)

One of the clearest explanations of (Peircean) abduction, by David Morris.

…[A]bduction is so central it is hard to get it square in view, although Peirce does have texts that focus on it. To pierce to the quick, here are some of the things Peirce says: (1) Abduction is a procedure of rational inquiry. (2) It is a kind of inference that is insightful. (3) Abduction is neither deduction nor induction. (4) In contrast to deduction or induction, abduction adds something new to thought, namely hypotheses—and “hypothesis” is Peirce’s other name for abduction. As Peirce puts it, “the essence of an induction is that it infers from one set of facts to another set of similar facts, whereas hypothesis infers from facts of one kind to facts of another.” Peirce’s repeated example is of beans in a bag. From the fact that all the beans in the blue bag are white and that this handful of beans is from the blue bag, we can deduce that the beans in this handful are white; the deduction is certain because it adds nothing new to the facts; it just puts them a different way. If it is the case that beans taken from the blue bag keep turning up white, we conclude by induction that all beans in the blue bag are white. Here too the induction does not give us a new sort of fact, for it quantifies in a probabilistic way over facts already given about colors of beans in a bag. Abduction is different: it starts from the facts that one of the bags of beans in the room, say the blue bag, contains only white beans and that this handful of beans, which was taken from a single bag, contains all white beans; the inference by abduction is that this handful of beans is from the blue bag. Put another way, in its context, this hypothesis is the best possible explanation for the fact that the beans are white in color. Notice that the abduction yields another kind of fact: from facts about colors of beans to a hypothesis about which bag the beans are from. Sherlock Holmes uses abductive reasoning all the time, which is what astonishes Watson: it is not surprising that someone studying the color of swans might claim all swans are white, but it is surprising that someone given facts about dogs not barking in the night can confidently claim that so and so is the culprit.

Muindi F Muindi, On World-Making

Part I from

Muindi F Muindi

The artist makes sensations in a given world — the artist composes sights (visual sensations), sounds (aural sensations), smells (olfactory sensations), tastes (gustatory sensations), touches (tactile sensations), etc.

The philosopher makes conceptions of a given world — the philosopher establishes the significance, the whither and wherefore, of different sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, etc.

The scientist makes predictions about a given world — the scientist figures out whether it is likely and how likely it is to encounter different sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, etc.

But neither the artist, nor the philosopher, nor the scientist can be said to make a world — for the making of a world precedes, exceeds, and succeeds the making of sensations, conceptions, and predictions. 

The world that we come to sense in and through art, and to conceive of in and through philosophy, and to make predictions about in and through science is a world that is taken as a given by the artist, philosopher, and scientist; it is not a world that they make themselves in and by doing art, philosophy, or science.

Relations are what make worlds, which is to say, in other words, that making a world means making relations. 

Sensations, conceptions, and predictions articulate the relations that precede, exceed, and succeed them. The figure of the artist enables us to sense established relations, the figure of the philosopher enables us to conceive of established relations, and the figure of the scientist enables us to make predictions about established relations, but none of these figures actually establish relations themselves. Establishing relations is an extra-artistic affair for the artist, an extra-philosophical affair for the philosopher, and an extra-scientific affair for the scientist.

A world-making project is neither an artistic project, nor a philosophical project, nor scientific project. Rather, a world-making project is the condition for artistic, philosophical, and scientific projects. Artists, philosophers, and scientists who cannot take the world that conditions their practices for granted find that they must act as world-makers in addition to acting as artists, philosophers, and scientists: they find that they must make the worlds that others will take as given.

…

The power of touch: is this the sense we’ve missed most?

Hi Yanjun, Vangelis,

It’s useful to see this long Guardian news paper article as a thoughtful portal to extensive research on haptic sense and, more fundamentally, on embodiment (Merleau-Ponty, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, etc.).


“The power of touch: is this the sense we’ve missed most?”

Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre, exercises in composition

Grotowski p 142

“
Exercises in composition
…
1) blossoming and withering of the body. Walk rhythmically. As in a plant, the sap rises, starting from the feet and spread- ing upwards through the entire body, reaching the arms which burst into blossom as indeed does the whole body. In the second phase, the limbs-branches wither and die one by one. Finish the exercise on the same rhythmic step with which it began.
2) Animal image. This does not consist in the literal and realistic imitation of a four-legged animal. One does not "act" an animal but attacks one's subconscious, …

3) By means of association with people, situations, memories, metamorphose yourself into a tree. The muscles react, expressing the personal association. To begin with, one concentrates these associations on one particular part of the body. As the reactions increase in intensity, the rest of the body is included. The vitality of this tree, its tensions, relaxations, micro-movements are nourished by the association.

4) The flower. The feet are the roots, the body is the stem and the hands represent the corolla. The whole body lives, trembles, vibrates with the imperious process of bursting into flower, guided by one's associations. Give "the flower" a logical signification, one which is at the same time sad, tragic and dangerous. "The flower" is separated from the process which created it and that part of it expressed through the hands is used as a rhetorical gesture in a dialogue.
“

etc.


46. Theatre Laboratory. Here the producer always keeps in mind that he has two "ensembles" to direct: the actors and the spectators. The performance results from an Integration of these two "ensembles".



SCAS Talk by Sha Xin Wei, Oct 15: "Infrastructure clinics and navigating indeterminacy"

Professor Sha Xin Wei will give a talk in the Making Sense of Complexity SCAS lectures series:
Infrastructure clinics and navigating indeterminacy 
11:00 AM MST, Oct 15

ABSTRACT:
We recap basic limits on complexity models, information, data science and machine learning, and introduce  abductive heuristics, continuous topological dynamics, and performative techniques as supplements to those formalisms.   As a practical application we describe a clinic for prototyping alternative socio-technical infrastructures.

NOTE:
This responds to some observations by Sander van der Leeuw and Gary Dirks, presented by Sander in the SCAS lecture series September 17”Competence without Comprehension”.   Prof. Van der Leeuw considers how societies and organizations have moved from open systems to closed systems, from long-term to short term thinking.  Flipping the problem-solving paradigm, he observes how solutions generically create unanticipated problems.  Given the growth of competency without comprehension, he calls for  turning from modeling the present in terms of the past to making a place in our science and social technology for unexpected and unintended consequences.

infinity

Thanks to David Morris,

QUANTAMAGAZINE.ORG
How Many Numbers Exist? Infinity Proof Moves Math Closer to an Answer. | Quanta Magazine
For 50 years, mathematicians have believed that the total number of real numbers is unknowable. A new proof suggests otherwise.
David: 
Noah Moss Brender, Peter Hill, Greg Recco, Mark Sentesy (Mark, there is something close to issues of change vs. motion here under the hood, here, I think, e.g. around determination vs. choice. All very strange and reassuring to know that there are still live questions re number….)
7You, David Morris, Noah Moss Brender and 4 others
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Zsuzsa Baross
"infinity" is a concept, not an existence, just as zero is not a number….

Sha Xin Wei
Mathematicians treat infinity not as a concept but as (Deleuzian) _problem_
What would be more interesting than the Quanta Magazine's fairly conventional metaphysical subtext is a genealogical and ontogenetic approach to the ever-evolving notion of "the real numbers". (compare this with Bitbol, Petitot et al's project) and even more, to recognize maths as a _speculative_ propositional adventure (cf Roy Wagner, after Whitehead, Stengers)

Muindi: Harper's art as a living


"Two articles from this month's Harper's, both US-centric, regarding the making of artistic livelihood.
The first article "Stages of Grief" takes a look at the difficulties of making an artistic livelihood pre- and post-pandemic.
The second article, "The Anxiety of Influencers", takes a closer look at the influencer economy, casting it as "a garish accentuation of the economy writ large". This statement is a bit too broad, and I would qualify it by saying that the influencer economy is only a garish accentuation of the arts and cultural sector of the economy writ large.”


Prototyping Social Forms: Summer Schedule: June 28th Meeting / July Hiatus / Reconvening in August

Forwarded from Muindi.

Hi PSF Team,

I hope this message finds you all as well as can be. We spent some time talking about summer scheduling at today's meeting. For those of you who couldn't make it today, here's what we are planning.

Next week, Monday, June 28th, we will be reconvening at our usual time (6pm CET / 12pm ET / 9am PT) to think further about a seminar and collective writings on "play". Here's some stuff to check out between now and then:
We will be on hiatus during July, but we will be keeping the regular Monday meetings on the calendar. Anyone who is available can hop on the zoom line for informal, open, unstructured chats.
We will pick up weekly PSF meetings starting the first week of August in preparation for Institute of Media Studies (GfM) conference.
Looking forward to the Fall: the GfM conference runs from September 22-25; following the GfM conference, Satinder has suggested that we consider how we might re-work our workshop at GfM for a L.A.S.E.R. (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendevouz) event. 

That's it for now. Remember: you are all welcome and encouraged share updates on works-in-progress and lines-of-flight over the PSF email list and Slack. 

Also, if there are any projects that you would like to pitch to the group, please don't hesitate to pitch them via email, Slack, and/or at an upcoming meeting.

Kind regards,

MUINDI FANUEL MUINDI