Q: So, could we start with a discussion about modes of Interpretation?
A: Sure. It’d help to simplify things by focusing on the two most important modes historically and behaviorally.
Q: And what would they be?
A: Myth and Science.
Q: Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate?
A: As modes of interpretation Myth and Science are derived not from empirical data (the world of semiotic configurations) but from preceding and less developed explanations.
Q: And for you this position is impossible without Romanticism, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: What is the connection between Romanticism and Science?
A: Modern Science emerged from Romanticism. No Romanticism, No Modern Science.
Q: Ok. Well, since you’re going to go into this in more detail in your entry on Romanticism, could we focus for now on Science as a mode of Interpretation?
A: Of course. Science differs from Mythology in not resting on a judgment of an explanation as a stable guidance, but in exploiting the instability and non-immanency of all levels of explanation from sign configurations in the natural world to that termination of explanation known as scientific theory.
Q: Is this why you were so aggressive in going after CRT? Great entry by the way.
A: Of course! And thank you.
Q: So, Science and Explanation. Could we continue?
A: Certainly. The point is, Experiment modifies Explanation.
Q: How?
A: By generating semiotic material (or data) which the current explanation cannot successfully subsume.
Q: Feedback?
A: Feedback.
Q: And this is why you often refer to science as the model of knowing?
A: Yes, and for a reason. It is the model of knowing. In fact, in Latin science, or sciere, means knowledge. So that scientific knowledge means, the knowing knowledge. Anyway, science is the model of knowing.
Q: Could you explain?
A: Science is the most complete model of the semiotic hierarchy from configuration to the termination of an explanation, since it depends upon randomness of response. From this perspective man is best understood as homo scientificus, not homo sapiens.
Q: Is that true of the human being as an individual organism?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because the behavior that controls explanation is the kind of behavior subsumed under society and culture. That’s why it’s so useful, in English at least (which, like it or not, is the global language) to convert the noun science into the verb sciencing.
Q: What’s the advantage of that?
A: Because sciencing brings out the universality of scientific behavior, which is of course primarily a verbal mode of behavior, and therefore both normative and fictive.
Q: And that normativeness and fictiveness is in all behavior?
A: Yes.
Q: No exceptions?
A: No exceptions.
Q: And that’s why sciencing brings out the universality of scientific behavior?
A: That’s right.
Q: In what way? How so?
A: Well, remember, randomness of response is the primary attribute of the human brain, not just the scientific brain.
Q: Ok. And? So?
A: So, the exploitation of the human brain’s capacity for randomness is what makes scientific innovation possible.
Q: Ah! Alright. Interesting. But isn’t that randomness responsible for all innovation, not just scientific?
A: Yes, of course. It’s the model for all learning, since the acquisition of a behavioral pattern is, for that individual organism, an innovation. The most obvious example is children.
Q: Wow! Nice. As you know, I got more into learning now that my wife and I have two children. That’s why our conversations became even more important than they were before. So, could you explain a bit more about this, about learning?
A: Of course. The factors in learning are
1. the production of any response
2. the production of random responses
3. and the selection or validation of one of those random responses.
In fact, and while we’re at it, the brain’s capacity to produce random responses is the termination of the explanatory construct of human behavior that we are talking about now.
Q: Very interesting conversation Paul. But, just as Part IV ended by moving in the direction of Interpretation, so too is the end of our talk here in Part V moving in the direction of Learning. Would you agree with that?
A: Yes I would.
Q: So, how about we make that the starting point of Part VI?
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