Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 10 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Language | Deacon | I 34 Animal language/Deacon: the communication of other species is never a "simpler form" of human language. It is not language at all. >Communication. Biological explanation/Deacon: is always evolutionary and tries to show continuity. However, there are no animal precursors to the emergence of human language, let alone an ascending scale of complexity. (See Robin Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, 1997(1); and Dunbar 1992 a(2), b(3)). I 54 Animal language/animals/Deacon: the misconception that animal calls and gestures are like words or phrases can be traced back to misunderstandings about the concept of reference. >Reference, >Gestures. Behaviorism: some behaviorists have suggested that animal cries are just external expressions of internal states and therefore have nothing to do with reference. >Behaviorism. Cognitive behaviorists saw calls as equivalent to words. One study played a central role in this. Seyfarth/Cheney: Thesis: Warning calls of guenons are like names for predators in the distance. (See Seyfarth, Cheney and Marler 1980(4)). I 56 In response to various calls, the monkeys left the trees (warning of eagles) or jumped on trees (leopards) or peeked into bushes (snake). Deacon: this is evolutionary easy to explain. Since the saving behaviour cannot always look the same and is even mutually exclusive, different calls have to be distinguished. (See also Hauser, 1996(5)). Animal calls/Cheney/Seyfarth/Deacon: Cheney and Seyfarth initially assumed that the animal calls were names for the predators. These were accepted instead of a complete sentence, i.e. as "holophrastic" utterances. Holophrastic utterances/Deacon: it is disputed how much syntactic potential lies in them. >Wittgenstein language game "Platte", cf. >Subsententials. Animal communication: the thesis was put forward that warning cries were different from cries of pain or grimaces by referring to something else... I 57 ...than the inner state of the animal. Reference/DeaconVsCheney/DeaconVsSeyfarth: it was implicitly assumed that pain cries, for example, could not be referring. Such assumptions give rise to the idea of a "proto-language" with calls as "vocabulary". >Vocabulary, >Words, >Signs, >Signals. Then you could imagine an animal language evolution with grammar and syntax that emerged later. This whole house of cards is falling apart however. (See also Cheney and Seyfarth, 1990(6)). Reference/Deacon: is not limited to language. Symptoms can refer to something other than themselves. For example, laughter: is congenital in humans. It does not have to be produced intentionally and can be simulated in social contexts. But laughter can also refer to things, even to absent ones. In this way alarm calls also refer. >Innateness. I 58 Language/DeaconVsSeyfarth/DeaconVsCheney: e.g. laughter differs from speech by the fact that it is contagious. In a room full of laughing people, it is hard to be serious. The idea of a room full of people repeating just one sentence is absurd. Intentionality/Intention/animal calls/Deacon: Animal calls do not fulfil the Grice criterion for messages either: "I think you believe that I believe x". Animal calls are involuntary and contagious. >Language, >P. Grice. I 59 Solution/Deacon: it is more about spreading excitement than sharing information. Reference/Deacon: therefore, reference is not the distinguishing feature between animal calls and words. Both can refer to inner states and things in the outer world. We must therefore distinguish between different types of reference rather than distinguish between referring and allegedly non-referring signals. >Reference/Deacon. I 65 Animal language/Herrnstein/Deacon: (Herrnstein 1980(7)): Experiments with pigeons who had successfully learned an arbitrary sign language and cooperation. I 66 Symbolic reference/Deacon: this simple form of reference with the characteristic learned association, randomness of characters, transmission of information between individuals are not sufficient to define symbolic reference. A symbolic reference system does not simply consist of words without syntax. >Symbolic reference, >Syntax. I 67 Animal calls: in one sense their understanding is innate, on the other hand the connection to the referent is not necessary. The reference is somewhat flexible. Some connections are built in prenatal, others are learned. I 68 Symbolic competence: is that which goes beyond parrot-like expressions. For this purpose, one has to distinguish between contextually determined causes of expression and memorized dictations. >Symbolic communication, >Symbolic learning, >Symbolic representation. 1. Dunbar, R. (1997). Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2. Dunbar, R. (1992a). Co-evolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 3. Dunbar, R. (1992b). Neocortex size as a constraint on group sizes in primates. Journal of Human Evolution 20, 469-493. 4. Seyfarth, R. M., Cheney, D. L., & Marler, P. (1980): Vervet monkey alarm calls: Semantic communication in a free-ranging primate. Animal Behaviour, 28(4), 1070–1094. 5. Hauser, M. D. (1996): The evolution of communication. The MIT Press. 6. Cheney, D. L., & Seyfarth, R. M. (1990): How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of another species. University of Chicago Press. 7. Herrnstein, R. (1980). Symbolic communication between two pigeons (Columba domestica). Science 210. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Brain | Deacon | I 45 Brain/Deacon: in the co-evolution of language and brain, the relationship between cause and effect was reversed in that the new ability of the symbolic reference (which is reserved exclusively for the human species) was decoupled from genetic transmission. >Symbolic Reference, >Symbols/Deacon. If it is true that there has been a pressure in selection on symbolic organisms, our unique mental ability must also be understood in these terms. Then the architecture of our brains should also show systematic deviations from the architecture of monkey brains. >Animals, >Animal language. Size: is only an insignificant feature. What is more important is the transformation, the re-engineering of the architecture. I 146 - 164 Brain/Learning/Deacon: Brain size has probably something to do with intelligence, but there are many other factors to consider, such as the proportion of brain capacity required to control the musculoskeletal system. Learning. I 164 Second level learning, i.e. the development of new reactions to new situations only occurs in organisms that live longer. In more short-lived species, such an ability would not pay off. >Behavior. I 166 Small dogs with correspondingly small brains are very similar to big dogs in their brain performances. Their cerebralization (i.e. their brain performance relative to their weight) is even slightly greater than that of their larger conspecifics. I 170 Cerebralisation/encephalisation: the origin of their increase in primates is not in the head! It is in the relatively slower growth of their bodies. I 183 To compare the brains of animals with those of humans, we do not need to compare sizes in general, but we need to compare the sizes of the individual parts of the brain. The structure of the brain or the control of the relative growth of individual body parts at all. Is controlled by homeotic genes. I 194 The brain adapts to the rest of the body during evolution. This explains the otherwise extremely improbable result that adding further components of this extremely networked structure leads to an increase in functions and does not restrict them. Solution: the brain itself plays a systemic role in the design of its parts. Neurons - unlike other cell types - are designed for communication and thus for tuning the function with remote cells. Cf. Learning, >Learning/Hebb. I 195 In this way, the nervous system itself can participate in the process of its construction. Cf. >Neural Networks. I 199 Xenotransplantation of brain parts between different animal species showed that growth and interconnection with foreign tissue is possible. The molecular processes are identical in the different animal species. I 202 In foreign tissue, neurons begin to produce an increased number of axons, some of which turn out to be less suitable and are then used less frequently. This is a Darwin-like process of selective elimination. I 474 Deacon thesis: the initial unspecific connectivity and subsequent competition of the connections influences cognitive processes through tendencies in neural computation resulting from superior patterns due to regional distribution. This is how differences between the species develop. Cf. >Computation, >Information Processing/Psychology. I 205 Cells in different brain regions have not previously gotten their compounds dictated and can specialize in different directions. Literally every developing brain region adapts to the body in which it is located. I 207 Displacement/Deacon: if a genetic variation strengthens the relative size of a population of nerve cells, the axons will shift from smaller to larger regions. I 212 We do not have to speculate about special brain functions, which are reserved solely for humans when we understand the shift that does not depend on the sheer size of the brain. The course for the division of regions for individual brain functions is set shortly after birth. I 213 The formation and differentiation of the brain regions of the human being takes place along the formation of the functions of its body parts and other bodily functions such as eyes, ears, musculoskeletal system. This formation is very different to the formation of small and large dogs. I 214ff Thought experiment: Assuming that a human embryonic brain is transplanted into a gigantic monkey body. It is possible to predict quite accurately which brain regions develop and how, adapted to the body functions and their relative expression. Factors such as the deviating size of the retina or the competition of the brain cells for the control of muscle cells are decisive. These changes are not isolated adaptations. I 220 Langauge/Brain/Deacon: Thesis: Increasing vocalization can be traced back to motor projections of the midbrain and brain stem, while symbolic learning can be traced back to the extension of the prefrontal cortex and competition for synapses throughout the brain. DeaconVsTradition: early on it was assumed that musicians, for example, have a particularly large brain region for processing auditory signals. That turned out to be wrong. I 221 There is competition between central and peripheral regions of the brain as well as between neighbouring regions. A selection is made not only with regard to regions, but also in terms of functions. >Selection. I 253 Language/mammals/Deacon: most mammals are unable to speak because the connection between motor cortex and vocal control instances in the brain stem has been cut during early development. I 267 In the brain, the operations for organizing the combinatorial relations, which regulate the use of symbols and associations, are located in the prefrontal cortex. I 277 The cerebellum is very fast in the formation of predictions. Linking to the cerebellum is, for example, beneficial for fast conjugations that are used in the formation of sentences. The prefrontal cortex is then responsible for filtering out the right associations. I 343 Brain/Human/Evolution: What is decisive is not an absolute growth in the size of the brain, but a growth in size relative to an increase in body height within species. And we can see that, in addition to this relative growth in size in the case of the human being, it has led to an increase in the size of the prefrontal cortex. This corresponds to a shift in learning disposition. I 345 This development can only be understood in terms of Baldwin's evolution (Baldwin effect). Cf. >Evolution/Deacon. I 346 Tool use/Deacon: passed on from individual to individual, i.e. learned and is not a characteristic that is reflected in the brain structure. >Culture, >Nature, >Evolution. I 347 The first tools were used by living beings whose brains were not well adapted for the use of symbols. However, experiments with monkeys such as Kanzi show that even such brains with considerable social training are able to learn to use symbols. >Symbols/Deacon. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Causes | Deacon | I 45 Cause/effect/Deacon: in the co-evolution of language and brain, the relationship between cause and effect was reversed in that the new ability of the symbolic reference (which is reserved for the human species alone) was decoupled from genetic transmission. >Symbolic Reference, >Reference, >Brain/Deacon, >Language/Deacon, >Symbols/Deacon. If it is true that there has been a pressure in selection on symbolic organisms, our unique mental ability must also be understood in these terms. >Selection. Then the architecture of our brains should also show systematic deviations from the architecture of monkey brains. >Animals, >Animal language. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Information | Kauffman | I 111 Order/Life/Human/Kauffman: the human is the product of two sources of order, not one. >Order/Kauffman, >Life/Kauffman, >Humans. I 112 Information/order/life/emergence/Kauffman: most people assume that DNA and RNA are stable stores of genetic information. However, if life began with collective autocatalysis and later learned to incorporate DNA and genetic code, we must explain how these formations could be subject to hereditary variation and natural selection, even though they did not yet contain a genome! >Genes, >Selection. On the one hand, evolution cannot proceed without matrices copying mechanisms, but on the other hand it is the one that combines the mechanisms. >Evolution. Could an autocatalytic formation evolve without it? Solution: Spatial compartments (spaces divided by membranes) that split are capable of variation and evolution! Solution: Assumption: every now and then random, uncatalysed reactions take place and produce new molecules. The metabolism (conversion, metabolism) would be extended by a reaction loop. Evolution without genome, no DNA-like structure as a carrier of information. >Life/Kauffman. I 114 Catalysis/Autocatalysis/Kauffman: in the case of autocatalytic formations, there is no difference between genotype and phenotype. >Genotype, >Phenotype. Life/emergence/Kauffman: this inevitably leads to the formation of a complex ecosystem. Molecules produced in a primordial cell can be transported into other primordial cells and influence reactions there. Metabolic-based life does not arise as a whole or as a complex structure, but the entire spectrum of mutualism and competition is present from the very beginning. Not only evolution, but also co-evolution. >Co-evolution. I 115 Order/life/emergence/Kauffman: the autocatalytic formations must coordinate the behaviour of several thousand molecules. The potential chaos is beyond imagination. Therefore, another source of molecular order has to be discovered, the fundamental internal homeostasis (balance). Surprisingly simple boundary conditions are sufficient for this. >Beginning I 148 Information/Genes/Kauffman: Question: What mechanism controls the implementation and suppression of certain genetic information? And how do the different cell types know which genes to use and when? J. Monod/Francois Jacob: Mid-1960s: Discovery of an operator that only releases a reaction at a certain point in time. >J. Monod. I 149 Also repressor. A small molecule can "switch on" a gene. I 150 In the simplest case, two genes can suppress each other. Two possible patterns. >Genes. Gene 1 is active and suppresses gene 2 or vice versa. Both cell types would then have the same "genotype", the same genome, but they could realize different gene sets. New horizon of knowledge: unexpected and far-reaching freedom at the molecular level. The addition of the repressor to the operator at different points results in different receptivity to the operator on the DNA. Regulation. I 151 This control mechanism by addition in two different places means complete freedom for the molecules to create genetic circuits of arbitrary logic and complexity. We must first learn to understand such systems. |
Kau II Stuart Kauffman At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity New York 1995 Kauffman I St. Kauffman At Home in the Universe, New York 1995 German Edition: Der Öltropfen im Wasser. Chaos, Komplexität, Selbstorganisation in Natur und Gesellschaft München 1998 |
| Language | Deacon | I 26 Language/DeaconVsTradition: traditional paradigms are e.g. 1. Explanation by association/associative images: according to that, the architecture of the language originates completely outside our organism 2. Mentalese/inner mental language: according to that it is completely within our organism 3. Innate grammatical knowledge >Chomsky. 4. Inner images triggered by sounds >Behaviorism. Nature/nurture/Deacon/(s): this classical question is about what nature has given us and what we have acquired ("nurture" = food). Depending on whether the answer is closer to the end of innate properties (instinctive knowledge), learning is seen as rather superfluous. >Nature versus nurture. DeaconVsChomsky: despite the amazing language learning skills of children, the origin must be sought elsewhere and other questions must be asked. >Language Acquisition. I 53 Language/Deacon: is a derived characteristic (derived from much longer existing animal communication) and should therefore be analysed as an exception to a rule, not vice versa. Cf. >Animals, >Animal language. Animal communication: is usually wrongly treated as "language minus something". I 54 In fact, language is a dependent stepchild of much richer communication, which also includes gestures, showing, tone of voice, interaction with objects, and so on. >Pointing, >Gestures, >Speaking, >Listening. It is not the case that language has replaced other forms of communication. Rather, it has developed in parallel. >Communication. I 309 Language/Brain/Deacon: Lateralisation (lateralisation, division of tasks between the right and left hemisphere of the brain) is almost certainly an effect and not a cause within the co-evolution of language and brain. I even believe that it is an effect in the language evolution of individuals. This involves a division of tasks,... I 310 ...so that they can be processed more easily in parallel. >Brain/Deacon. I 311 Children with only one cerebral hemisphere can learn all aspects of the language. (Plasticity of the brain) If we want to understand speech processing in the brain, we do not have to investigate so much the individual circumstances that change from individual to individual, but rather what drives individual development. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Language | Papineau | I 284 Purpose-means-thinking/language/animal/Papineau: (also as "Spandrille", side effect): Thesis: supposedly purpose-means-thinking emerged in a piggyback manner with language in the evolution. >Evolution, >Purposes, >Animals, >Animal language, >Thinking, >World/Thinking. PapineauVs: there is a danger of circularity: the primary biological purpose of language could be to increase the supply of information, but this would not help if the purpose-means-thinking had not already been developed. >Circular reasoning. Papineau: language could also have developed first as an instrument for passing on information. E.g. "A tiger approaches". >Information. I 285 Problem/Papineau: to explain the last step: what is the additional biological pressure that led to the language with which general information are reported? >Selection. A) If for the purpose of facilitating the purpose-means-thinking, then the purpose-means-thinking is not a side effect. It might have been language-dependent. B) If, on the other hand, language developed the ability to represent and process general information on an independent basis, there are further problems: 1. Why should language be selected for reporting and processing at all? 2. Fundamental: If language is independent of the purpose-means-thinking, then we need a story about how this independent ability is subsequently expanded as a side effect for the purpose-means-thinking. Cf. >Epiphenomenalism. The point is that the purpose-means-thinking must exercise a behavioral control. >Behavior, >Control mechanism, >Behavioral control, cf. >Self-regulation. I 286 The ability for general information processing must be able to add something to the set of dispositions: E.g.: "From now on only fish instead of meat", E.g. "At the next mailbox I will post the letter". Without this, the purpose-means-thinking makes no difference for our actions. >Information processing, cf. >Problem solving. I 286 Language/Purpose-Means-Thinking/Evolution/Papineau: Problem: how could a new way to change our behavior arise without a fundamental biological change? As a side effect? This is a pointless assumption. It must have brought the ability to develop new dispositions. >Evolution, >Dispositions. It is hard to imagine how this should have happened without biological selection. I 287 But this is not yet an argument for a wholly separate mechanism for the purpose-means-thinking in the human brain. Weaker: there could be some biological mechanism for the purpose-means-thinking, e.g. that the language has developed independently of the processing and reporting. Thereafter, further steps allow their outputs to influence the behavior. Cf. >Strength of theories, >Stronger/weaker. I 290 Language/Evolution/Generality/Papineau: previously I distinguished the language for special facts from one for general facts. >Generality/Papineau, >Generalization. Perhaps the former has developed for communication, and the latter for the purpose-means-thinking. >Communication. Or language for general facts has evolved under the co-evolutionary pressure of purpose-means-thinking and communication. Presentation/figurative/Papineau: how could the results of the figurative representation gain the power to influence the already existing structures of the control of the action? >Imagination, >Thinking without language. I 291 Perhaps from imitation of complex action sequences of others. >Imitation. |
Papineau I David Papineau "The Evolution of Means-End Reasoning" in: D. Papineau: The Roots of Reason, Oxford 2003, pp. 83-129 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 Papineau II David Papineau The antipathetic fallacy and the boundaries of consciousness In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Papineau III D. Papineau Thinking about Consciousness Oxford 2004 |
| Language Evolution | Deacon | I 25 Language evolution/Evolution/Deacon: Language is one of the most striking behavioural adaptations of our planet. Languages have developed only in one species, only in one way, without precursors - except in a very generalized sense. The differences between language and all other forms of communication are considerable. >Language, >Communication. This is also reflected in the anatomy of the human being, especially the brain and the vocal apparatus. We can see these differences in living species. I 34 Language evolution/human/animal/Deacon: the incomparability of human and non-human communication has led to exaggerated and unacceptable interpretations of the origin of language. I 35 For example, the assertion that language is the result of a certain interconnection in the brain, which is unique, is not only the assertion that it is a unique neurological characteristic correlated with this unique behavior, but also that it is a substantial biological discontinuity. DeaconVs: this is a modern mythology, according to which we would have given a monkey a speech computer in his hand. That reminds me of the movie "Short Circuit". I 44 Language evolution/Deacon: Thesis: Speech and brain have become more complex in common evolution and have been designed as they are today. Even though we do not find any simple languages today, the beginnings were certainly easier than the languages we find today. Somewhere in this development, the threshold was crossed to an extremely difficult symbolic reference. >Symbolic reference, >Symbols/Deacon, >Reference. I 105 - 110 Language evolution/DeaconVsChomsky/Deacon: Why do children so often make the right choice when they try out grammatical rules? It is the language that develops "user-friendly". Language develops faster than brains during evolution. >Evolution. Just as dolphins can only be taught tricks that they perform on their own initiative when they are in a good mood. However, the language is not as limited in its development as the interface of a computer, which is ultimately dictated by the design of the engineers. Language has evolved in terms of reproducibility, in relation to selection pressure by human users. Language that is easier to learn prevails stronger. N.B.: you do not have to assume, as Chomsky does, that children are particularly clever. I 111 It is helpful to imagine that language is a parasitic form of life that nests in brains to reproduce itself. I 112 Deacon/Morton Christansen: Thesis: There is a co-evolutionary dynamic between language and its host, the brain. One can compare language in a way with viruses, which are not completely independent living beings themselves, but are full of information for their own reproduction. I 113 The relationship between people and language can be described as symbiotic, both need each other to reproduce. Of course, the language as a whole cannot be defined in this way. I 114 Bilingualism: in the case of bilingual people, brain regions tend to be separated for the processing of the two languages. One explanation for this is that the two languages would otherwise compete for the neuronal resources in the brain of the user. Sooner or later, there would be a mutual disturbance. I 122 Brains have evolved along with language, but most of the adaptation was on the language side. I 354 Language formation/Lieberman/Deacon: Philip Lieberman has shown in a number of influential articles that the elimination of physiological limitations of vocal formation has contributed to a rapid acceleration in the development of language(1)(2). DeaconVsLieberman: however, it would mean to over-interpret the fossil finds at hand if one wanted to ascribe the language evolution exclusively to these anatomical developments by ascribing a sudden eruption of a series of abilities to this characteristic alone. I 355 The development of the brain and the vocal system were certainly both, both effects and causes in a mutually reinforcing process of language evolution. 1. Lieberman, Ph. (1984). The Biology and Evolution of Language, Cambridge, MA. (2) Lieberman, Ph. (1991). Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought and Selfless Behavior, Cambridge, MA. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Law and Technology | Economic Theories | Parisi I 170 Law and Technology/Economic theories/Wangenheim: Insights from joining the demand and supply forces driving the evolution of the law are much greater, however, if one takes into account that evolving law not only alters the constraints of behavior, but also channels innovation (Witt,1987)(1)and affects the individuals' interests in changing the law. Feedback loops: With such feedback loops, the evolution of law may lose its clear direction beyond what Cooter and Kornhauser (1980)(2) and Whitman (2000)(3) have attributed to stochasticity in legal evolution. Interestingly, none of the few authors who have attempted to deal with such feedback loops have studied the degree of efficiency as evolving property of the law, but rather the degree to which the law regulates and hinders innovation or fights discrimination. Lee (1991)(4), Woeckener (1993)(5), and Wangenheim (1993(6), 1995(7)) study the evolution of how much the law regulates and how this interacts with the evolution of the innovativeness of entrepreneurs. Lee: Lee's approach is very much in the tradition of the standard Lotka-Volterra model and results in a unique stable equilibrium of the co-evolution of regulation and innovativeness. To reach this stability, Lee has to assume that competing entrepreneurs hamper each other's innovativeness - an assumption that is in stark contrast to usual ideas about competition and entrepreneurial innovativeness. Woeckener: Woeckener gives up this restriction and in consequence finds that the equilibrium need not be unique nor stable. Besides path dependencies resulting from multiple equilibria, attracting limit cycles of oscillating degrees of regulation and innovativeness may emerge from his model. Wangenheim shows an even richer set of possible attractors. Both Woeckener and Wangenheim rely on a micro-foundation of their macroscopic equations of motion. Wangenheim: However, Wangenheim's model refers more to the demand and supply side approaches to legal evolution discussed above than does Woeckener, who exclusively relies on models from political economy. Efficiency: (…) further research should focus on efficiency as the evolving aspect of law to complement the degree of regulation. Obviously, when law induces technological change, the concept of efficiency has to be adapted, since static efficiency changes when technology changes. Only with such a dynamic concept of efficiency would it be possible to use the evolutionary models already described to study the evolutionary interaction between law and technology. Based on such co-evolutionary models, it might be possible to find a new comparison of the relative efficiency of common and civil law, perhaps building on Georgakopoulos's (1997)(8) model with its exogenously given change of what is efficient. Models: To be clear, we do not need econometric studies of how efficient the law currently is or was at some given point in time but studies of the change of law, its determinants and its effects. Three examples of such studies are the one by Pistor et al. (2003)(9), who study the change of corporate law; Eckardt (2001)(10), who gives an overview on how German tort law, in particular accident law, co-evolved with various technologies; and Khan (2004)(11), who undertakes a similar endeavor for American patent and copyright law interacting with the evolution of transportation industry, early telecommunication (telegraphy), and medical technologies. 1. Witt, U. (1987). "How Transaction Rights Are Shaped to Channel Innovativeness." Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 143: 180-195. 2. Cooter, R. D. and L. Kornhauser (1980). "Can Litigation Improve the Law without the Help of Judges?" Journal of Legal Studies 9: 139—163. 3. Whitman, D. G. (2000). "Evolution of The Common Law and the Emergence of Compromise." Journal of Legal Studies 29: 753-781. 4. Lee, L. W. (1991). "Entrepreneurship and Evolution: Dynamics and Political Economy." Journal of Evolutionary Economics 1: 219-235. 5. Woeckener, B. (1993). "Innovations, Externalities and the State: A Synergetic Approach." Journal of Evolutionary Economics 3:225-248. 6. Wangenheim, G. v. (1993). "The Evolution of Judge-Made Law." International Review of Law and Economics 13: 381-411. 7. Wangenheim, G. v. (1995). Die Evolution von Recht. Tübingen: Mohr. 8. Georgakopoulos, N. L. (1997). "Predictability and Legal Evolution." International Review of Law and Economics 17:475-489. 9. Pistor, K., Y. Keinan, J. Kleinheisterkamp, and M. D. West (2003). "Innovation in Corporate Law." Journal of Comparative Economics 31:676-694. 10. Eckardt, M. (2001). Technischer Wandel und Rechtsrevolution. Tübingen: Mohr. 11. Khan, B. Z. (2004). "Technological Innovations and Endogenous Changes in U.S. Legal Institutions, 1790-1920." NBER Working Paper 10346. Wangenheim, Georg von. „Evolutionary Law and Economics.” In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University Press |
Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
| Species | Kauffman | I 310 Species/Evolution/Kauffman: it is estimated that between 99% and 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are extinct again. >Extinction, >Evolution, >Survival. Today: probably between 10 and 100 million species. Probably between 10 and 100 billion species have emerged and disappeared in the course of time. I 310/311 Fitness landscape/Co-evolution/Kauffman: changes when the environment changes. Predator-prey-cycles. Both have a fitness landscape, but the two are combined! >Co-evolution. Co-evolution/Kauffman: changes not only the organisms (predator/prey) but also their interrelationship! This changes not only the respective fitness landscape, but also the elasticity of their relationships. >Fitness landscape, >Fitness. Thus, the process of co-evolution itself is subject to evolution. >Levels/order, >Description Levels. Selection/Kauffman: starts at the level of the individual. The mystery is that the emergent order of communities reflects this selection of individuals. >Selection, >Individuals. I 312 Predator-prey-cycle/Kauffman: either long-term transition to a steady state (parallel) or long-term shifted sinusoidal fluctuations, then "boundary cycle". I 315 Evolution/Communities/Kauffman: Question: How do biocoenoses form? We do not know it. >Life, >Life/Kauffman. When you fence an area (ecotope) the composition of the species always changes. After removing the fence, however, the original composition is not restored! "Community fitness landscape": after the change, the community climbs another summit. At a summit, a community cannot accept new species. Saturation limit. >Coincidence. I 320 Problem: it does not make sense to talk about community fitness right from the start! The success of immigration does not depend directly on whether it increases the fitness of the community! >Niches. Now, however, the simulations behave as if community fitness existed. In the model (not in reality) we see here an emergent phenomenon. Extinction events/extinction/Kauffman: the extinction of species occurs according to the pattern of avalanches in sand heaps, many small, few large avalanches, unpredictable, potency law. N.B.: the decision on how the interrelationship between species is formed, who is predator and who is prey, is based on a random distribution. I 320 Mitochondria/Kauffman: have penetrated the cells at some point and started the complicated interaction mechanism that has been stable for about one billion years. Highly complex problem. >Complexity. Def Mutualism: Mitochondria keep up the stable population by the speed of their divisions, the cell enjoys the energetic fruits of these efforts. I 322 "Red Queen Effect"/Kauffman: (Alice): "You must run as fast as you can to stay in the same place". I 323 Co-evolution/Niche/Kauffman: the goods and services in a community (economic network) exist only because they are useful as an intermediate or final product. These are the niches created by other goods and services. Niche/Kauffman: each species lives in a niche created by other species (>benefit for others). >Niches. |
Kau II Stuart Kauffman At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity New York 1995 Kauffman I St. Kauffman At Home in the Universe, New York 1995 German Edition: Der Öltropfen im Wasser. Chaos, Komplexität, Selbstorganisation in Natur und Gesellschaft München 1998 |
| Symbols | Deacon | I 79 Symbols/Deacon: Tradition: assumes that symbolic association is formed by learning the connection between a sound or string with something else in the world. DeaconVsTradition: this is what we mean by index or index-like or indexing association. >Icon/Deacon. I 80 Words can also be an index: e.g."Aha!","there" etc. >Indexicality. Understanding: a sign that someone has understood a word is his ability to use that word in other sentences. However, if the word is only inserted somewhere, it would only be an index-like or iconic understanding. >Understanding, >Language use. Symbol: to use something as a symbol, you should be able to handle the referential functions (what does it refer to?). >Reference, >Symbolic reference. Def stimulus generalization: the transfer of associations from one stimulus to a similar one. Similarly, the transfer of learned patterns to a similar context. This is often confused with symbolic associations. >Association, >Stimulus, >Stimulus meaning, >Language use, >Generalization. I 81 Learning/DeaconVsTradition: such transfers are not special forms of learning, but simply iconic projections. This happens by itself, because ambiguity is always involved. Psychological models often speak of rules for this transfer. >Learning, >Rules. DeaconVs: since this is an iconic relation, there is no implicit list of criteria that is learned. ((s) Images are compared directly, not based on lists of criteria). Icon/Deacon: Words or stimuli stand for a set of things that differ more or less from each other. People and animals learn this. This learning is not done by criteria for symbols, but by iconic overlapping. This provides the basis for an indexed reference. I 83 Symbol/learning/Deacon: the difficulty of symbolic learning stems from the complex relation a symbol (e.g. a word) has to other symbols. Such complex relations do not exist between indices (simple signs with a physical connection to an object). I 92 Symbols/Deacon: Problem: Symbols cannot be learned individually as they form a system among each other. I 93 Before a single symbol-object association can be detected, the complete logical system of symbols must be learned. Problem: even with a few symbols there is a very large number of possible combinations, most of which are pointless. These must be sorted out, i.e. "forgotten". I 99 Symbols/Deacon: Symbols are not an unstructured set of tokens representing objects, but they represent each other. Symbols do not refer directly to things in the world, but they do so indirectly by referring to other symbols ((s) because they are located in a syntactic and semantic system). I 100 Limitation/Borders: Randomly uninterpreted strings of signs have no reference and therefore no limit in their set. Other symbols: their quantity is limited because of (practical, external) use and because of the use of the other symbols by which they are defined. Question: why are only some types of symbol systems implemented in human languages, but not others? I 266 Symbols/Deacon: it is wrong to assume they are located somewhere in the brain. They are rather relations between tokens, not the tokens themselves. It is also not constituted by a special association, but by the set of associations that are partially represented in each instance of the symbol. I 267 In the brain, the operations for organizing these combinatorial relations are located in the prefrontal cortex. I 336 Symbols/language/brain/evolution/Deacon: Thesis: it is the use of symbols that made it necessary for our human brain to develop in such a way that special emphasis could be placed on actions in the prefrontal cortex. >Adaptation/Deacon. I 339 Symbols/Evolution/Brain/DeaconVsPinker/DeaconVsChomsky: whatever we call "language instinct", symbol processing is so widely distributed in the brain that it cannot be subjected to natural selection. Thus language is cut off from what biological evolution can shape. >Thinking, >Cognition, >Information processing/psychology, cf. >Cognitive psychology. I 339/340 Universal grammar/language evolution/solution/Deacon: Co-evolution of languages with regard to the circumstances and dispositions of the brain. This can be an explanation for a developing grammatical universality. >Universal grammar, >Symbolic communication, >Symbolic learning, >Symbolic representation. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
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Reference |
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| Luhmann, N. | Habermas Vs Luhmann, N. | I 426 Luhmann stands less in the tradition of Comte to Parsons than in the problem history from Kant to Husserl. He inherits the basic concepts and problems of the philosophy of consciousness. HabermasVsLuhmann: He undertakes a change of perspective which makes the self-criticism of a modernity crumbling with itself obsolete. The system theory of society applied to itself cannot help responding affirmatively to the increasing complexity of modern societies. I 430 HabermasVsLuhmann: thought movements from metaphysics to metabiology! Departs from the "as such" of organic life, a basic phenomenon of self-assertion of self-referential systems facing an over-complex environment. I 431 Undefraudable: the difference to the environment. Self-preservation replaces reason. Reason/HabermasVsLuhmann: thus he also replaced the criticism of reason with system rationality: the ensemble of enabling conditions for system preservation. Reason shrinks to complexity reduction. It is not outbid like in the communicative reason. Reason once again becomes the superstructure of life. Meaning/System Theory: the functionalist concept of meaning dissolves the relationship between meaning and validity. (As in Foucault: when it comes to truth (and validity as such) we are only interested in the effects of the considering-as-true). I 434 HabermasVsLuhmann: no central perspective, no criticism of reason, no position anymore. HabermasVsLuhmann: but we lack a social subsystem for perceiving environmental interdependences. That cannot exist with functional differentiation, because that would mean that the society occurred again in society itself. I 435 Intersubjectivity/Luhmann: language-generated intersubjectivity is not available for Luhmann. Instead, inclusion model of the parts in the whole. He considers this figure of thought to be "humanist". And he distances himself from that! I 437 HabermasVsLuhmann: Contradiction: Social Systems: previously, persons or "consciousness carriers" have to be postulated which are capable of judgment before all participation in social systems. On the other hand, both system types (psycho/social) cannot stand on different steps of the ladder if they are to be distinguished as equally emergent achievements of sense processing against organic systems. So Luhmann speaks of co-evolution. I 438 HabermasVsLuhmann: suffers from the lack of appropriate basic concepts of linguistic theory: sense must be neutral with regard to consciousness and communication. - Language/HabermasVsLuhmann: a subordinate status is assigned to the linguistic expression against the phenomenologically introduced concept of sense. Language only serves the purpose of the symbolic generalization of previous sense events. I 441 LuhmannVsHumanism: "cardinal sin" amalgamation of social and material dimension. Luhmann II 136 Living Environment/Luhmann: Luhmann does not know a living environment! (HabermasVs). Thus, person, culture and society are no longer cramped. HabermasVsLuhmann: "unacknowledged commitment of the theory to rule-compliant issues", "the apology of the status quo for the sake of its preservation", and "uncritical submission of the theory of society under the constraints of the reproduction of society." "High form of a technocratic consciousness." II 141 HabermasVsLuhmann: contradiction: that systems have a kind of relief function, while at the same time, the environment of social systems is a more complex world. Lu II 137 - HabermasVsLuhmann: Vs Functionalization of the Concept of Truth. Even the system theory itself can make no special claim to the validity of its statements. It’s only one way of acting among others. Theory is action. This, in turn, can only be said if you ultimately assume a theoretical point of view outside of the practice. II 165 System Theory/HabermasVsLuhmann: its claim to universality encounters a limit at that point at which it would have to be more than mere observation, namely a scientifically based recommendation for action. AU Cass.12 HabermasVsLuh: (in correspondence): Luhmann did not consider linguistics! LuhmannVsHabermas: that is indeed the case! I do not use the terminology. E.g. the normative binding of actors. It would have to be re-introduced in some other way, but not in communication. |
Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 AU I N. Luhmann Introduction to Systems Theory, Lectures Universität Bielefeld 1991/1992 German Edition: Einführung in die Systemtheorie Heidelberg 1992 Lu I N. Luhmann Die Kunst der Gesellschaft Frankfurt 1997 |
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