Royce in America

TL:DR -- Wild people coming into America and going west. We look at one family. The parents venture out to California where the Gold Rush was starting up. They both die there. Their son ends up in UC and then goes back to Johns Hopkins. Then, he goes back to Berkeley to teach and transfers to Harvard. At the time that an LLD was conferred upon him, Royce gave a series of lectures where are pertinent to today's turmoils of technology. All of this because of the importance of the concept of the map not being the territory. Or, better, the territory is never the map.  

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In pursing our theme of technology, from all angles, we were tracking down the path of map-territory's (Wikipedia) domain and all of its characteristics. There were lots of articles over the years which have touched upon the subject. But, none of these expressed anything to do with "being" and its importance. 

Before going further, let's pause to look at related posts that are attributable to our work: 

• Territory and map -- at 7'oops 7 (02 Oct 2007)
• Territory, map, truth -- at Truth Engineering (05 Oct 2007)
• Map-map -- at FEDaerated (20 May 2014) 

These post cover our own thoughts about how the topic applies to the themes of the post. The post at FEDaerated was motivated by Alan Greenspan's book on the topic. Now, we are addressing the concept from the totality of AIn't and the problems related to its appearance in Nov of 2022. Whicn means that we will be looking, in depth, at computing and its mathematical bases. 

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Actually, later, we found one reference to "being" in the Wikipedia article. It pointed to this reference of a series of lectures given at a College in Scotland. 

• The World and the Individual, First Series/Lecture 1 -- Josiah Royce, Jr. 
  

On looking at the article, we saw a reference to early California: California, from the conquest in 1846 to the second vigilance committee in San Francisco [1856] A study of American character. This book was published in 1886 by Josiah Royce. 

Per usual, we went to look at his family and summarize their journey to the West Coast. 

Josiah's parents were Sarah Bayliss (1819 - 1891) and Josiah Royce, Sr. Sarah was born in England and came over with her parents when she was "six weeks old" where she went to school. She and Josiah (who was an immigrant, as well) married in 1847. They headed west and got to Iowa in 1849 but trailed the wagon train of Gold Rushers (who were in a hurry). This got them into the "desert west of the Great Salt Lake" in October of 1849 and got caught in the winter of "the Sierra Nevada mountain range." They were rescued and arrived in before snow closed the pass. 

Josiah, Sr died in 1889. Sarah kept a diary and wrote Pilgrim Diary ("republished in 1932 as A Frontier Lady"). This work "chronicled her family's journey to California during the gold rush." Sarah died in 1891. 

The Royces had three children, one of which was Josiah, Jr who became a philosopher and taught at Harvard. 

Wild Woman of the West:
Sarah Royce

Now, about their son, we have lots of material to refer to. Harvard wrote of his death. He attended UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins. He started to teach at Harvard in 1892 after a stint of teaching at Berkeley. An LL.D "was conferred upon him" by the University of Aberdeen where the above-referenced Lectures were given. He also received honorary degrees from Yale and Oxford. 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) provides an in-depth review of his work and thoughts which could involve lots of time. But rather than wander that road, let's consider his view on the map-territory concept and some indication of its use. Namely, technology brings the issue to fore: When the map becomes the territory; Alfred Korzybski and Gestalt Therapy. 

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Connections? His advisors included William James and Charles Sanders Peirce, both of whom are of New England, related various ways, and about whom we have written. Especially, on Peirce and his father. 

Remarks: Modified: 04/27/2024

04/27/2024 -- Referenced this post in terms of MSET+.