altonhare wrote:Including your inability to define "object" in a non-circular, observer-free way?
Since concepts are observer-dependent, by definition, and my claim is that object are defined in terms of concepts--the inescapable result is that objects are defined by observers. This is common sense, as I'll demonstrate shortly. But the irony is that you do exactly the same thing with your definition of an object as a shape--because there isn't any shape that you can define without observing what it is. Define a circle, without using anything that relies on an observation. You can't do it. Try...
A circle is a closed plane arc that is equidistant at all points from a center point.
But what is an [arc]? How do you figure that out without any observations? You define it with something else, which again you have to define. All the definitions in the world tell you nothing unless somewhere along the line you've experienced some observations that make the terms used in the definition mean something.
Sure, an object has a unique shape. Fine... but what is it? How do you compare it to other shapes? How do you say anything at all about it... with entirely observer-free language. It is impossible. So all you've said is that [x] is [x].
First of all, that doesn't actually tell me anything... and secondly it is the exact same thing that I've said repeatedly from my DS perspective. So once again, your criticism is lame and I don't think going over this again and again is getting us anywhere.
How We Learn
Composite Photography is a technique whereby an ordinary piece of film is exposed with several overlapping images. Each image is of a similar [type of object]. For instance, composite photography is sometimes used to create a composite image of all the members in a given family. Each portrait is taken from the same distance and angle so that when the film is developed the same basic features of each person will appear (as much as possible) in the same place on the film.
The result is that those features that the family members hold in common will be reinforced, while those features that are different will be deemphasize. If the family has very similar features, the resulting image will be relatively sharp and well defined; if their features vary widely, then the image will be a fuzzier blend of all the shades and colors that were exposed to that part of the film. Pictures made with such negatives may look as if they were taken slightly out of focus, but for the most part, if you place the [composite picture] beside [ordinary pictures] of all the family members, you might have to look rather closely to pick out which picture was the composite photograph—particularly if you aren’t familiar with the family.
I believe that a very similar
mental technique is used (primarily by children) to learn the meaning of concepts and the names of objects. Suppose, for instance, that a young child is being raised in a family that has a Persian [cat]. If this is the only [cat] that the child has ever seen, then the collection of images that the child uses to define [what it means to be a cat] is quite sharp—since the images are entirely unmuddied by examples of any other [types of cats]. But the child’s actual concept of [what it means to be a cat] is still quite vague, because the [one sampling of cat] is insufficient to clarify what it is about this particular animal that makes it a cat.
Suppose, however, that the child sees a small [dog] for the very first time. He can certainly recognize that the [dog] is different from the other animals he’s learned to call cats, but several of the cats were quite different from one another as well. For instance, to his young mind, the [Siamese cat] that he saw recently, may have looked considerably less like the [Persian cat] than this [dog] does.
But when he points at the [dog] and says, “Cat!” his mother gently corrects him by saying, “No honey, that’s a dog,” he is forced to make new evaluations about [what a cat is] and [what a cat is not]. The [image of the dog] goes into the [collective whole that is the child’s concept of NOT cat], forcing him to reexamine his collective memories and decide what exactly it is about this new animal that prevents it from being a [cat].
As the child sees more examples of [cats] the composite image of what it means to be a cat becomes stronger, as the essential qualities are reinforced and the non-essential qualities become more and more blurred. And because this process of composite holography is primarily irrational in nature, it is also largely automatic. It is not something we have to think about in order to do. Instead, it is a simple matter of the overlapping images producing a sharper and sharper mental composite. In this way, the child learns to associate certain [groupings of irrational mental images] with a [particular rational term]. And while the term itself, may be rational (meaning that it is under concious control), the composite image created by all the mental images is not.
Perhaps what is most important to recognize is that the individual [mental images] and the [composite of those mental images] are reciprocal aspects of thinking. We can visualize these reciprocal aspects using the illustration below. (sorry about the poor quality.
- Class: with set and element aspects
- pix-1.JPG (3.65 KiB) Viewed 12697 times
The larger circle, labeled (I), represents the composite image that is associated with a single term, such as the word [cat], while collectely, all of the smaller circles, labeled (R), represent the [individual mental images of a cat] that the child has seen.
The larger circle, (I), is a singular, abstract thing, which we can represent using the abstraction set {x: x is y}, where [y] is a unique property or set of properties that only the smaller circles possess. Keep in mind that the larger circle necessarily includes all of the smaller circles, but it does not include them as individuals—just as a [composite photo ]includes [images of all the photos that were used to create it], but is not itself an image of any of the [individual photos]. The result is that, just as we can add new photos to a [composite photo], so too we can mentally add (or subtract) the smaller mental circles from the larger mental circle without changing the basic nature of the larger mental circle.
For instance, if we let (I) stand for the concept, [parts of my body], then the smaller circles that comprise (R) would be such things as [my head], [my arms], [my legs], and so forth.
Now then, we can represent the larger circle using the abstraction set:
(I)B {x: x is a part of my body}
And the smaller circles can be represented by the enumeration set:
(R)B {[my head], [my right arm], [my left arm], [my torso],…}
As a set, (I)B, contains but a single element, [parts of my body]; while (R)B contains several different elements. If we add another element to (R)B—say by distinguishing for the first time between the [upper arm] and the [fore arm]—we do not change the element that (I)B contains. Its single element is still [parts of my body]. Thus, in a very real sense, (I) and (R) are independent of one another, since one can change while the other does not; and yet in another sense, they are intimately interconnected--because one defines the other.
When we are thinking properly, each [kind of mind] serves as feedback to keep the other [kind of mind] working at top efficiency. This is true at virtually every possible level: for the two, [reciprocal kinds of mind] share an intimate and co-dependent relationship, with both aspects being equally necessary. Notice also that each of the smaller circles in [R], is its own larger circles in a different diagram—while the large circle is a small circle in another diagram.
In addition, each of these diagrams are interconnected in a vast and complex network of ideas, which we might call a
mind set. The illustration below gives a vastly over-simplified visual representation.
- mindset: a network of overlapping conceputal classes
- pix2.JPG (5.17 KiB) Viewed 12699 times
The larger boxes (which are labeled with letters) represent [terms the child has learned and associated with a composite mental image]; while the smaller circles (labeled with numbers) represent the [individual mental images that go into creating those composite images].
Clearly, these [composite images] overlap and interact in rather complex ways. For example, while a dog and cat may share such characteristics as four legs and fur, a dog may be the same color as the family’s pet turtle, while Snowball, their pet cat, may be the same color as a child’s ball. A child first begins to develop these mental correlations because each time his mother corrects him she is teaching him which mental images belong together in the same composite images.
Common Sense
At the same time that the child is learning to match names and objects together, they are learning other, subtler relational correlations. This learning occurs in much the same way: by repeatedly encountering similar things (which are none-the-less different) and different things (which are somehow the same), and building from these individual instances a collective, irrational concept that defines the whole picture. We sometimes call this collective body of irrational concepts
common sense.
For the most part, these relational rules are so obvious (and in some cases, so subtle) that we rarely stop to think about what they really are. If asked, we would generally be hard pressed to put them into words—not surprising, given their holistic and irrational nature. Common sense is constructed from the composite “images” of our mental concepts, so just as we can recognize a person’s face even though we can’t adequately describe what they look like in words, we can generally recognize common sense when we see it, even though we are quite often unable to put it adequately into words. When we try, our words frequently tend to fall far short of the mark. Moreover, when philosophers try to examine their attempts closely enough, it always seems that they eventually lead to paradox.
According to the DS theory, most paradoxes are produced because we are trying to take the [holistic nature of common sense] and break it into [rational bits] that we can examine as individual elements of the whole. When we do this we commonly produce two apparently incompatible [bits of common sense] which are both equally satisfied by the same scenario. Since neither [bit of common sense] gives rise to a chain of logic that is less appropriate than the other, we are unable to simply discount one bit in favor of the other. But trying to define the scenario strictly in terms of one of these bits (but not the other), invariably leads to one paradox or another.
This idea, that common sense is less than obvious, is not an entirely new thought. For example, Sorensen expresses a very similar idea when he says:
… common sense is reactive. We do not bother to defend (or even think about) the proposition that the future resembles the past until David Hume formulates the problem of induction. Paradoxes illuminate common sense by provoking bits of it into consciousness. As more paradoxes are discovered, more of common sense becomes visible. Without a provocateur, common sense is faceless.
Apparently, common sense is faceless precisely because it is the type of thought which is most hidden from our rational minds, and it is our rational mind that we are typically most aware of. What is not so apparent, however, is why common sense should primarily be a [product of our irrational mind] in the first place.
Modern men are creatures who are dominated by their rational minds. We utilize our reason to puzzle out the consequences of believing in and acting on our common sense notions. In the real world, the reason this is such a crucial skill is because humans are weaker and slower than many other animals. Our main advantage is our faculty for applying rational thought to hypothetical situations that can allow us make decisions not on [what is happening], but rather on [what might happen]. By making such predictions, we are able to avoid potentially dangerous situation and invent new and better ways to do things.
In this sense, we might think of reason as the [rules by which we apply common sense to create new mental structures], which can in turned be modified by reason to produce newer and yet more subtle concepts. Often times, however, the complex interrelated, and cyclic nature of this process makes it very difficult to distinguish between what is common sense and what is reason. For example, according to Roy Sorensen, “
G. E. Moore, admitted that common sense underestimates the distance from the earth to other heavenly bodies.”
I would suggest, however, that Sorensen and Moore seem to be confusing common sense with
simplistic (or perhaps even flawed) reasoning. I don’t think there is anything at all about common sense that would lend itself to predicting the distance to the planets or the stars.
What common sense can tell us is,
1. Because a [small object that is close to us] can appear larger than a [large object that is far away], we can’t possibly determine how far heavenly bodies are from us without knowing the relative size of the object in question, and
2. Because it becomes increasingly difficult to judge the size of an object the further away from us it is, if astronomical objects are very far from us, it will not be possible to accurately judge their relative size or distance.
To me, these are bits of common sense.
Trying to estimating the distance to heavenly bodies (despite these bits of common sense) is an exercise of flawed reason.
This may seem a bit backwards. We commonly suppose that rational thinking is the source that gives accuracy and clarity to our mental ruminations, but just as we saw with the Broken Clock analogy, where it is only possible to deal with something in an absolute sense when we have defined [what it is to be absolute] in a relative way. It is only possible to [think rationally] because we have used our irrational minds to define [our rational] ideas.
In Western philosophy, the goal seems to be to express everything in increasingly rational terms. Thus, we rely on our reason to help us figure out what our common sense is telling us—but because these faculties stem from very different ways of thinking, this process is often a complete failure, or it meets with very limited success.
For example, our common sense tells us that every proposition is either [true] or [false]. But, as we’ve seen, this only names one aspect of that particular bit of common sense—the very same application of common sense also tells us that virtually every [ostensibly true] proposition is [true in one way and false in another]. So when I say, “It’s exactly twelve o’clock,” the statement is [true] but it is also [false]—each in its own way. It is true in relative terms--but false in absolute terms.
The apparent paradox results because we are not looking at the whole picture of common sense, but only at partial snippets of the whole. As we’ve seen, treating these incomplete snippets as if they were the whole frequently leads to paradoxical conclusions—it can also sometimes lead to deductions that are the opposite of what they should be. This is not unlike the situation that can occur when you’re looking out the front window of a moving car on an exceptionally humid day. You see fat beads of water splattering on the windshield, so you assume that it is raining. But if you change your perspective, by stopping the car (or by looking out the side window), you suddenly realize that it isn’t raining at all.
What keeps these observations from being truly inconsistent is that they involve a change in our perspective. As Aristotle pointed out,
no [single thing] is ever both [true and false] in exactly same way at exactly same time. By changing our perspective from looking out the front window to looking out the side window, we have changed something about the specific scenario and thus changed whether we must believe the [claim that it is raining] to be true or false.
Collective Common Sense
What we normally tend to refer to as [common sense] (in everyday speech) is actually the [set of more-or-less shared beliefs that are common to the majority of people]. This kind of [collective common sense] is the opposite of an individuals [common sense] in many ways. In fact, about the only thing they have in common is that they both involve a [holistic aspect]. Individual [common sense] is holistic because of the [way a person’s irrational mind processes it]. The [collective common sense], on the other hand, is holistic in terms of being a statistical averaging (so to speak) of the rational ideas of all the individuals in the whole community.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that these two bodies of belief are not identical. In fact, I would suggest that there are probably more [ways in which they are different] than there are [ways in which they are the same]. Certainly, there are some ways in which they capture the same information: the longer you stick your hand into a flame, the worse you get burned. Experience has taught us this general principle, and it is easy enough to put it into rational thought.
Other experiences, however, are not so easy to convert from irrational to rational thought—as we saw with the Broken Clock Analogy, for instance. For example, there was a time when the [collective common sense] held that the [earth was flat]. This was such a commonly held belief that it was rarely if ever questioned. To the rational mind of these ancient people it seemed to make sense, after all whenever the surface of the earth is free from valleys or mountains (which are just surface features, after all) the earth appears to be flat for as far as we can see.
What individual [common sense] actually tells us is more like the following, however:
1. What we can see of the world appears to be more or less flat.
2. Something that has a particular characteristic at one place will sometimes continue to have that characteristic at another place.
3. The world extends beyond what we can actually see.
4. We cannot know for certain what is beyond what we’ve seen.
5. Sometimes our senses can appear to tell us things that are not true.
Using these elements of [individual common sense], we can make a flawed rational deduction that [the world is flat], but only because we choose to focus on certain parts of the whole. The rational deductions we should make from these [common sense] principals are as follows:
1. the world may be flat (1, 2)
2. it may not be flat (3, 4, 5)
The reason we tend not to reach these conclusions is because the foremost nature of the rational mind is primarily to see things in absolute certainties—not relative possibilities.
This goes back to the two needs of decision making that I mentioned a few posts back: speed and accuracy. The rational and the irrational mind both have their strengths. But the way they work together is that the irrational mind sees things in terms of the big picture--or in shades of gray. While the rational mind focuses on the individual parts--or in terms of black and white. Since the rational mind is not suited to seeing the subtlties of the relative perspective, it is not adept at accepting that both possibilities might be valid. It wants to pick one possibility or the other so that it can make a decision about the world. That, after all, is its job.
