An e-mail conversation between R Radhakrishnan and me

Mail from me

Dear sir,

I hope you're keeping well. I was fortunate enough to attend your lecture 'Tracking the simulacrum' at ACJ on the first day of August, 2011. Fantastic lecture, I haven't been intellectually stimulated like this in a while. For that, thank you very much.

I have an engineering background and consequently tend to contextualize everything I learn as a process, and if resources avail, as systems. On that note, with reference to your ideas on self-reflexivity (and perhaps denaturalization), would it be fair to say that the notions can be analogized to the characters in Edwin Abbott's book 'Flatland' (1884)? That the nature of self-reflexivity can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere? Going another way, can it also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't?

Perhaps just as an afterthought: can self-reflexivity as a macropolitical tool be applied to the Victorian society and its collapse in the face of growing and expanding communication systems? I ask this only because Flatland itself was said to make references to the male and female lifestyles during the Victorian era.

That's about it. I wish I'd asked these questions in class but I just assimilated your points enough to get this far. Hope you have good evening, sir.

Regards,

Vasudevan Mukunth

Reply from Radha

Dear Vasu (If I may, and please call me Radha),

Greetings, and thank you so much for your immensely generous appreciation of my lecture. so glad it worked for you.  i had a great time as well.

You bring up important questions.  not having read flatland, i can't be too specific in my response.  but i do get the drift of your general questions and i agree with you. i particularly appreciate your "engineers's" stress on systems and structures and their relationship to the lifeworld of which they are a part, but not a "natural" part. the question of nature and what it means or should mean, descriptively as well as normatively, i crucial. do read habermas, foucault, and judith butler.  also important to see how structures and systems partake both of the macro and the micropolitical, i would like to hear you say more on what self reflexivity means to you. i am thinking of herbert simon and boubded rationality.

Do stay in touch and let us keep talking, cheers, anmd with all good wishes,

radha

Reply from me

Hey Radha! (Feels awkward - and yeah, Vasu's fine)

I hope you're keeping well. Thanks for the prompt response, it alleviated a lot of doubts about my questions being stupid. And I must apologise about the length of this mail.

First off, bounded rationality: this concept I came across in another form in computational linguistics. In the late 19th century, Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir put forth their eponymous hypothesis that "the difference in the significance of languages is the difference in the significance of the perceptions of its speakers." In '57, Chomsky came up with universal grammar: all languages are accompanied by psychological nativism and a poverty of the stimulus. These rules struck at the heart of the empiricist position of language acquisition. So, by being born with preset capabilities, are we also beset by preset deficiencies that limit the scope of our successes? Here, we come to bounded rationalism as an immediate consequence of the existence of a universal grammar - and perhaps also to Nietzsche's 'Amor fati'. But this is a purely psychosocial argument.

Secondly, structuralism and rationalist theory: here, mathematics avails a solution I've been fond of in the past. John Nash's game theory. Simon's three steps to arrive at a decision are identification of alternatives, consequences of alternatives, and evaluation of relevance of consequences. All three are modeled on the necessity of a stable system (as engineers study in thermodynamics!), the condition that finite variables exist, and the condition that only a finite number of consequences are possible (my interests in structuralism end here). In that case,

1. Does the macropolitical structure transform into a metastructure when it comes to assessing the symbolism of a micropolitical reality?


2. What does that entail?


3. If it doesn't, then is the new mediator subjectivism?


4. In that case, is the purpose of subjectivist knowledge to reconcile the self-reflexive identity against the backdrop of a macropolitical entity?


5. Or, is subjective knowledge purely a micropolitical issue?

This, I think, leads to Carnap's question: can ontological questions have objective answers? Here, as an engineer, I'm reminded of metaphysical naturalism as well.

Finally, the question I find most pressing is whether or not it is necessary for us to adopt a framework - a structuralist tool - in the context of which we view this world. For example, consider the statement "The sun rises in the east after it has set in the west." This means that an eastern sunrise follows a western sunset, ergo there's east and west and there's a sun. All these answers are within the framework of the statement. However, a question like "Is there really a sun?" prompts us to question the validity of the framework itself, thereby asking us to step outside and evaluate it. Now, how do we evaluate it?

That's about it. Sorry again about the length of this mail. I know there's a good chance of me having come off as a bore.

And I've queued a whole bunch of articles by Habermas and Butler. Thanks for the tip!

Good night and regards,

Vasu

Retort from Radha         

great issues to think about. i don'r get the amor fati connection which to me has to do with the eternal return. do read my history, the human, and the world between for more on temporality and historicity.

I think you can arrive at bounded rationality through various ways.  computational linguistics is clearly one path. i am no big fan of chomsky.  i am a fan of chomsky the activist, not the epistemologist.  i am not sure of the connection you are making between universal grammar and b rationality.

Is microplitical to macropliotical simiar to what subjectivism is to objectivity is an interesting trajectory.  Feminists, Foucaultians, and Marxists have much to contribute here.

BTW, i have a bunch opf published stuff in these and related areas, should you at any point read any of it, do feel free to comment, critique.  cheers,

Radha