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Revision as of 17:49, 28 August 2014
, 17:49, 28 August 2014→6.44. Reflections on Closure: add more
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===6.45. Intelligence ⇒ Critical Reflection===
It is just at this point that the discussion of sign relations is forced to contemplate the prospects of intelligent interpretation. For starters, I consider an intelligent interpreter to be one that can pursue alternative interpretations of a sign or text and pick one that makes sense. If an interpreter can find all of the most sensible interpretations and order them according to a scale of meaningfulness, but without losing the time required to act on their import, then so much the better.
Intelligent interpreters are a centrally important species of intelligent agents in general, since hardly any intelligent action at all can be taken without the ability to interpret signs and texts, even if read only in the sense of “the text of nature”. In other words, making sense of dubious signs is a central component of all sensible action.
Thus, I regard the determining trait of intelligent agency to be its response to non-deterministic situations. Agents that find themselves at junctures of unavoidable uncertainty are required by objective features of the situation to gather together the available options and select among the multitude of possibilities a few choices that further their active purposes.
Reflection enables an interpreter to stand back from signs and view them as objects, that is, as objective possibilities for choice to be followed up in a critical and experimental fashion rather than pursued as automatic reactions whose habitual connections cannot be questioned.
The mark of an intelligent interpreter that is relevant in this context is the ability to face (encounter, countenance) a non-deterministic juncture of choices in a sign relation and to respond to it as such with actions appropriate to the uncertain nature of the situation.
'''[Variants]'''
An intelligent interpreter is one that can follow up several different interpretations at once, experimenting with the denotations and connotations that are available in a non-deterministic sign relation, …
An intelligent interpreter is one that can face a situation of non deterministic choice and choose an interpretation (denotation or connotation) that fits the objective and syntactic context.
An intelligent interpreter is one that can deal with non-deterministic situations, that is, one that can follow up several lines of possible meaning for signs and read between the lines to pick out meanings that are sensitive to both the objective situation and the syntactic context of interpretation.
An intelligent interpreter is one that can reflect critically on the process of interpretation. This involves a capacity for standing back from signs and interpretants and viewing them as objects, seeing their connections as objective possibilities for choice, to be compared with each other and tested against the objective and syntactic contexts, rather than taking the usual paths responding in a reflexive manner with the …
To do this it is necessary to interrupt the customary connections and favored associations of signs and interpretants in a sign relation and to consider a plurality of interpretations, not merely to pursue many lines of meaning in a parallel or experimental fashion, but to question seriously whether anything at all is meant by a sign.
… follow up alternatives in an experimental fashion, evaluate choices with a sensitivity to both the objective and syntactic contexts.
The mark of intelligence that is relevant to this context is the ability to comprehend a non deterministic situation of choice precisely as it is, …
If a species of determinism is nevertheless expected, then the extra measure of determination must be attributed to a worldly context of objects and signs extending beyond those taken into account by the sign relation in question, or else to powers of choice as yet unformalized in the character of interpreters.
This means that the recursions involved in the process of interpretation, besides having recourse to the inner resources of interpreters, will also recur to interfaces with objective situations and syntactic contexts. Interpretation, to be intelligent, must have the capacity to address the full scope of objects and signs and must be given the room to operate interactively with everything up to and including the undetermined horizons of the external world.
===6.46. Looking Ahead===
On the whole throughout this project, the “meta” issue that has been raised here will be treated at three different levels of sophistication.
<ol>
<li>The way I have chosen to deal with this issue in the present case is not by injecting more features of the informal discussion into the dialogue of <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B},\!</math> but by trying to imagine how agents like <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math> might be enabled to reflect on these aspects of their own discussion.</li>
<li>
<p>In the series of examples that I will use to develop further aspects of the <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math> dialogue, several different ways of extending the sign relations for <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math> will be explored. The most pressing task is to capture facts of the following sort.</p>
{| align="center" cellspacing="8" width="90%"
| <math>\text{A}\!</math> knows that <math>\text{B}\!</math> uses <math>{}^{\backprime\backprime} \text{i} {}^{\prime\prime}\!</math> to denote <math>\text{B}\!</math> and <math>{}^{\backprime\backprime} \text{u} {}^{\prime\prime}\!</math> to denote <math>\text{A}.\!</math>
|-
| <math>\text{B}\!</math> knows that <math>\text{A}\!</math> uses <math>{}^{\backprime\backprime} \text{i} {}^{\prime\prime}\!</math> to denote <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>{}^{\backprime\backprime} \text{u} {}^{\prime\prime}\!</math> to denote <math>\text{B}.\!</math>
|}
<p>Toward this aim, I will present a variety of constructions for motivating ''extended'', ''indexed'', or ''situated'' sign relations, all designed to meet the following requirements.</p>
<ol style="list-style-type:lower-alpha">
<li>To incorporate higher components of “meta-knowledge” about language use as it works in a community of interpreters, in reality the most basic ingredients of pragmatic competence.</li>
<li>To amalgamate the fragmentary sign relations of individual interpreters into “broader-minded” sign relations, in the use and understanding of which a plurality of agents can share.</li>
</ol>
<p>Work at this level of concrete investigation will proceed in an incremental fashion, augmenting the discussion of A and B with features of increasing interest and relevance to inquiry. The plan for this series of developments is as follows.</p>
<ol style="list-style-type:lower-alpha" start="3">
<li>I start by gathering materials and staking out intermediate goals for investigation. This involves making a tentative foray into ways that dimensions of directed change and motivated value can be added to the sign relations initially given for <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}.\!</math></li>
<li>With this preparation, I return to the dialogue of <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math> and pursue ways of integrating their independent selections of information into a unified system of interpretation.
<ol style="list-style-type:lower-roman">
<li>First, I employ the sign relations <math>L_\text{A}\!</math> and <math>L_\text{B}\!</math> to illustrate two basic kinds of set theoretic merges, the ordinary or ''simple'' union and the indexed or ''situated'' union of extensional relations. On review, both forms of combination are observed to fall short of what is needed to constitute the desired characteristics of a shared sign relation.</li>
<li>Next, I present two other ways of extending the sign relations <math>L_\text{A}\!</math> and <math>L_\text{B}\!</math> into a common system of interpretation. These extensions succeed in capturing further aspects of what interpreters know about their shared language use. Although motivated on different grounds, the alternative constructions that develop coincide in exactly the same abstract structure.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>As this project begins to take on sign relations that are complex enough to convey the impression of genuine inquiry processes, a fuller explication of this issue will become mandatory. Eventually, this will demand a concept of ''higher-order sign relations'', whose objects, signs, and interpretants can all be complete sign relations in their own rights.</li>
</ol>
In principle, the successive grades of complexity enumerated above could be ascended in a straightforward way, if only the steps did not go straight up the cliffs of abstraction. As always, the kinds of intentional objects that are the toughest to face are those whose realization is so distant that even the gear needed to approach their construction is not yet in existence.
