Changes

On principle, there is nothing inherently the matter with the form of the CLA itself, but it does not embody all by itself the spirit of suspense that accompanies a genuine human inquiry.  A real inquiry cannot know before it starts what the answer is and how the end will be achieved, and it cannot, if it wishes, merely trick out the foils of an already completed and pre-arranged survey, parading them as a passing series of plotted and transient complications in the guise of an honest quest.  Some types of completeness are far more complete than others, however.  Taken with respect to a properly limited and workably modest context, and treated as ''relatively complete'' rather than ''absolutely complete'', the ideal substrate of the CLA forms a suitably plastic material for modeling many forms of concretely reasonable inquiry.

On principle, there is nothing inherently the matter with the form of the CLA itself, but it does not embody all by itself the spirit of suspense that accompanies a genuine human inquiry.  A real inquiry cannot know before it starts what the answer is and how the end will be achieved, and it cannot, if it wishes, merely trick out the foils of an already completed and pre-arranged survey, parading them as a passing series of plotted and transient complications in the guise of an honest quest.  Some types of completeness are far more complete than others, however.  Taken with respect to a properly limited and workably modest context, and treated as ''relatively complete'' rather than ''absolutely complete'', the ideal substrate of the CLA forms a suitably plastic material for modeling many forms of concretely reasonable inquiry.

Invoked with a spirit of moderation, the idealized model envisioned in the CLA can nevertheless serve as virtual guide for practical inquiries, highlighting the space of conceivable models and projecting a standard against which to measure every approximate, likely, and partial result.  An inquiry of this self controlled kind, that considers in addition the logical alternative to every hypothesis it finds itself making, if it is addressed appropriately to the conditions of its constraining resources, can achieve complete success only within a tightly circumscribed sphere of action.  Thus, the ideal of CLA informs a workable genre of inquiry, but the experimental variations that it enables and permits an agent to contemplate are bound up with the experiences that can be expressed in a language of finite and discrete signs, and exactly to the extent that they are in fact expressible.

Invoked with a spirit of moderation, the idealized model envisioned in the CLA can nevertheless serve as virtual guide for practical inquiries, highlighting the space of conceivable models and projecting a standard against which to measure every approximate, likely, and partial result.  An inquiry of this self controlled kind, that considers in addition the logical alternative to every hypothesis it finds itself making, if it is addressed appropriately to the conditions of its constraining resources, can achieve complete success only within a tightly circumscribed sphere of action.  Thus, the ideal of CLA informs a workable genre of inquiry, but the experimental variations that it enables and permits an agent to contemplate are bound up with the experiences that can be expressed in a language of finite and discrete signs, and exactly to the extent that they are in fact expressible.

In principle and in effect, an inquiry pushing the envelope of CLA is restricted to a "universe of limited marks".  For all practical purposes, it must keep its remarks to a finite universe of discourse, and a small one at that.  Beyond these bounds, every inquiry is forced to take its chances on a pure hypothesis, unmitigated by any consideration of the opposite case.  Communities of inquiry, however, are likely to embody a distribution of individual inquiries that have placed their bets on opposing options.  Diversity of interpretation leads to disjunctions of opinion that can render many heads much smarter than one, but it also engenders forms of disagreement, discord, and duplicity that, for all their practical inevitability, are not essentially necessary.

In principle and in effect, an inquiry pushing the envelope of CLA is restricted to a “universe of limited marks”.  For all practical purposes, it must keep its remarks to a finite universe of discourse, and a small one at that.  Beyond these bounds, every inquiry is forced to take its chances on a pure hypothesis, unmitigated by any consideration of the opposite case.  Communities of inquiry, however, are likely to embody a distribution of individual inquiries that have placed their bets on opposing options.  Diversity of interpretation leads to disjunctions of opinion that can render many heads much smarter than one, but it also engenders forms of disagreement, discord, and duplicity that, for all their practical inevitability, are not essentially necessary.

Engaging in practical inquiry in a community of partially informed and presumptively constrained reasoners, then, is a task that leads to the recognition of several critical needs, not only for ways of synthesizing fragmentary interpretations of the presumptive truth and for reconciling divergent accounts of the objective world, but also for strategies that make these methods of negotiating differences and resolving conflicts more commonly available to all the inquirers in a putative community.  Finally, an agent attempting to be reasonable under these conditions needs to be permitted to exercise a number of "editorial" prerogatives.  For example, there needs to be a way to "retract projections", that is, to recognize the alienated aspects of oneself that appear to crop up in others and to reconsider the rejected options for thought and action that nevertheless are capable of leading to bona fide values.

Engaging in practical inquiry in a community of partially informed and presumptively constrained reasoners, then, is a task that leads to the recognition of several critical needs, not only for ways of synthesizing fragmentary interpretations of the presumptive truth and for reconciling divergent accounts of the objective world, but also for strategies that make these methods of negotiating differences and resolving conflicts more commonly available to all the inquirers in a putative community.  Finally, an agent attempting to be reasonable under these conditions needs to be permitted to exercise a number of ''editorial'' prerogatives.  For example, there needs to be a way to ''retract projections'', that is, to recognize the alienated aspects of oneself that appear to crop up in others and to reconsider the rejected options for thought and action that nevertheless are capable of leading to bona fide values.

In a striking analogy with visual perception, it is the reflections in the ambient flow of energy that make it possible for one complication in the medium, a living being, to see another variation in the density of the medium, animate or otherwise, as an object.  Reflection permits one to render an experience as due to a separate entity, to regard its occasion as the appearance of an object, and to respond to its cause as a reality.  The analogy is broken at the junctures where an agent attributes these reflections to the passive "reflectances" of the object itself rather than perceiving them as the active responsibility of every participant in the process as a whole.

In a striking analogy with visual perception, it is the reflections in the ambient flow of energy that make it possible for one complication in the medium, a living being, to see another variation in the density of the medium, animate or otherwise, as an object.  Reflection permits one to render an experience as due to a separate entity, to regard its occasion as the appearance of an object, and to respond to its cause as a reality.  The analogy is broken at the junctures where an agent attributes these reflections to the passive “reflectances” of the object itself rather than perceiving them as the active responsibility of every participant in the process as a whole.

In accord with this visual analogy, two factors frustrate the prospects of indefinitely extending and smoothly finishing any project of inquiry that works in a medium of CLA:

In accord with this visual analogy, two factors frustrate the prospects of indefinitely extending and smoothly finishing any project of inquiry that works in a medium of CLA:

1. The "transparent obstruction" (TO), or "obstacle of transparency", is due to an initial inability to discover and to render visible every assumption, category, or distinction that one automatically and implicitly acts according to.

# The ''transparent obstruction'' (TO), or ''obstacle of transparency'', is due to an initial inability to discover and to render visible every assumption, category, or distinction that one automatically and implicitly acts according to.

# The ''opaque obstruction'' (OO), whether it presents itself in the guise of an obvious or an obscure obstacle, arises on account of a final incapacity to consider both sides of every question posed.  This can amount to either one of two shortcomings:  (a) failing to identify a logical alternative to every presumption or thesis that one identifies with, or (b) failing to evaluate a logical alternative to every assumption or hypothesis that one does in fact identify.

In short, a ''finite information creature'' (FIC) is required to keep the contents of its forms within the range of a definite set of figures and to rest the forms of its contents within the scope of a certain cast of characters.  To be sure, these are precisely the characters that can be modeled and the figures that can be cut within a circumscribed theater of operations that everyone calls a ''partial logical analysis'' (PLA).

 

In short, a "finite information creature" (FIC) is required to keep the contents of its forms within the range of a definite set of figures and to rest the forms of its contents within the scope of a certain cast of characters.  To be sure, these are precisely the characters that can be modeled and the figures that can be cut within a circumscribed theater of operations that everyone calls a "partial logical analysis" (PLA).

===6.3. A Projective Point of View===

===6.3. A Projective Point of View===