I was not referring to Sapir-Whorf (which has been "proved," disproved," "strawmanned," and "nuanced," repeatedly.
I was simply saying that the "physical" cannot be more than a signal, either present or not present. Anything after that is cultural, even something as simple as giving it a name. davew On Tue, Oct 6, 2026, at 4:17 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Good point. If you mean the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that the structure of a > language shapes and influences its speakers' worldview, cognition, and > perception of reality then I would assign it to the cultural part b) > > -J. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Prof David West <[email protected]> > Date: 10/6/26 4:09 PM (GMT+01:00) > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A field theory of understanding > > Maybe just a curiosity, but; because you mention color as an irreducible > physical part— > > If a human perceives a color, acknowledges its existence, would you not > expect the language used by that human would include a name for that color? > > - languages with only two color terms exist, and those colors, always, are > black and white, or closer to 'warm' and 'cold'. > - languages with exactly three color terms exist and those colors, always, > are black, white, and red > - languages with exactly four color terms exist and those colors, always, > are black, white, red, and green > - languages with exactly five color terms exist and those colors, always, > are black, white, red, green, and brown > - languages with exactly six color terms exist and those colors, always, are > black, white, red, green, brown, and purple > after that there is no pattern > > Similar differences in the areas of pain/pleasure and the five(six) tastes. > > This would suggest, to me, that the physical can be no more than 'signal" [ > on | off ] and anything other than that, linguistic term or expressed > perception, e.g., "ouch" is probably cultural, definitely not simply physical. > > davew > > > On Mon, Oct 5, 2026, at 5:13 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: >> I also see only some emails. Don't know why. >> >> Yes, a subjective experience is always linked to a specific subject. I would >> say we can divide subjective experience into >> >> a) a physical part that depends on molecular biology and genes: receptors >> for pain and pleasure, for red, green and blue colors or sweet, salty, sour >> and bitter taste. this part is irreducible and depends on our species >> b) a cultural part that defines subjective meaning (in China for example the >> colors white and red have different meaning than in Europe) >> c) a personal part that depends on the history of a person >> >> The mathematics used in the proofs describes more the personal part c) and >> perhaps part b) if we model the history of whole countries. >> >> -J. >> >> >> -------- Original message -------- >> From: Santafe <[email protected]> >> Date: 10/5/26 8:08 PM (GMT+01:00) >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A field theory of understanding >> >> For whatever reason, Jochen’s posts don’t forward to me, so I only see them >> in the later context of somebody else’s replies. In this case EricC’s, on >> Nick’s. >> >> I will clip to the focal sentence (acknowledging all that was clipped): >> >>>> > Claude was not happy about the theorem proofs that Gemini created. >>>> > And Jon also mentioned that they are not waterproof. So I asked Claude >>>> > and Gemini if they could write a new proof. They could. I asked them >>>> > if we could use gauge theory to explain subjective experience - gauge >>>> > invariance to describe objectivity, and symmetry breaking for >>>> > subjectivity. >> >> I think there was a time when I had enthusiasm for using these >> mathematical-physics metaphors. Something has apparently happened. >> >> I probably said, a while ago (so if you feel like it, forgive the >> repetition), that since I don’t know what philosophers mean by objective and >> subjective, I could take the more defensive posture of being a linguistic >> semanticist, which to me seems like a more pragmatist standing-point anyway, >> leaving many further mistakes for the future rather than making them all at >> once. >> >> I could take “objective” and “subjective” to be two speech registers, in an >> ordinary lexical/grammatical-semantics sense. A sentence in an “objective” >> register is one that I can parse to a meaning (in the everyday sense; not in >> some formal logic that everyday speech doesn’t use and that would need to be >> invented) without needing as input who said it. A sentence in a >> “subjective” register is one that cannot be parsed to a meaning without >> reference to some speaker (in whatever representation; maybe more or less >> explicit), which must thus be supplied. >> >> _Why_ we use those registers, why we have been handed them down from past >> speakers innumerable, and how our experienced lives reward or discourage the >> adoption of such registers, looks to me like a question that can to some >> degree (as good a degree as anything in semantics) be separated or factored >> from the classification of the locutions. >> >> Eric >> >> >> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / >> ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: 5/2017 thru present >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >> > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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