Ignorant questions on metaphysics and cognition

Great Debates
1

Metaphysics is an area that I know litle about, hence I’m drawn, like a moth to the light, to humiliate myself with ignorant comments/questions. I doubt that I’m alone, but one never knows … anything apparently.

My first is regarding the nature of the logic of the arguments, which seems, to my brief readings, to be full of extremely linear equality statements. A is a member of B therefore C, etc. Yet membership in sets is rarely sharp edged. Yes, I know about fuzzy set theory (and have found it of limited utility, but that may only reveal that I do not understand it well enough) but even that does not catch the flavor of real human perception and, consequently of human thought.

A concept is a blurry thing.

It is based on our experience with multiple past exemplars and never defined de novo. Out of multiple past exemplars we create a prototype and a space around that prototype that extends a probability cloud along various perceptual and cognitive dimensions. Color, shape, size, smell, function, current drive significance: all these and many others, are dimensions of varying relevence to any particular concept that we form. A is classified as a B because it is more densely in B’s conceptual space cloud than in any other’s. This is a nonlinear process. The point that is the prototype, and the exact shape of the cloud, changes with the addition of new exemplars to the data set.

None of us acquire knowledge by constant learning of X equals B plus C; we learn by experiencing examples. Neither has society learned a set of static definitions as it acquires knowledge.

So the questions: Is there an extant epistemology that is based less on the linear mathematics of traditional formalized logic, and instead utilizes nonlinear systems theory as a tool? Or to ask in a different way, that models cultural knowledge acquistion on the mechanisms utilized by individuals in real life? Are the principles of epistemolgy comparable for individuals and society? Or have I merely restated induction?

3

Seid,

It sounds to me like you’re talking about consciousness, rather than either metaphysics or epistemology. That is, you seem to be dealing with how the mind processes reality, instead of either reality itself or the nature of knowledge. One book that might be meaningful to you is Stairway to the Mind : The Controversial New Science of Consciousness by Alwyn Scott, whose particular interest is in nonlinear systems. In the book, he develops a nonlinear model of consciousness as it emerges from the quantum level on up. It’s a great read for the lay scientist.

Phantom,

Stop playing with your turds.

4

Phantom,

Are suggest Viagra for my vocabulary, accusing me of a limp lexicon?

Lib,

Not really. I’m suggesting that the two and inextrictably linked. Here I know that I’m not the first to do so. Knowledge, as you’ve pointed out, is never reality, but is instead our perception of reality. It is thus fundamentally based on the means by which we as individuals percieve and develop our concepts.

5

I dunno much about formalized epistomologies, but are you familiar with Alfred Korzybski’s “general semantics”? He’s the fellow that’s the source of the eminently common-sense maxim that “a map is not the territory.” The central bit of his theory was the “structural differential,” a visual diagram about the process we perceive things.

It rested on the observations that perception works by abstracting things, and thus so does knowledge–we observe/experience a thing, and that thing is an event with practically infinite (or finite to such a large number that it makes no difference) characteristics. The limited nature of our senses–eyes only react to a certain range of light, ears to a limited range of sounds, brains that process that input in ways still mysterious–builds an internal object from that event, with a large but finite set of qualities. From event to object, a huge number of characteristics have been abstracted, in the sense of the word meaning “removed”.

That internal object is pre-verbal; a linguistic/narrative model of that object is built out of a web of labels that are attached to it. Again, some characteristics are abstracted out; some labels are attached more directly to characteristics of that internal object, some are attached to other labels only, and those latter are sometimes not attached to that actual sense object at all, but get pulled in by association.

The differential usually used to illustrate this sort of thing is of course simplistic. Concepts at the pre-verbal and verbal levels are connected to each other by memory, and I doubt that the line between a pre-verbal inner model and the narrative ones is particularly distinct. Still, it resonates for me at a basic common-sense level, that perception and knowledge are very close things, and abstraction, things being removed, happens all the time.

6

Interested in Taoism?

*Artisan Ch’ui could draw as true a compass or a T square because his fingers changed along with things and he didn’t let his mind get in the way. Therefore his mind remained unified and unobstructed.

You forget your feet when your shoes are comfortable.
You forget your waist when the belt is comfortable. Understanding forgets right and wrong when the mind is comfortable.
There is no change on the inside, no change on the outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable.
You begin with what s comfortable and never experience what is uncomfortable when you know the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable.* ~Chuang Tzu

This always makes me smile.

7

Drastic, Thanks for the Korzybski reference. I like the quote.

These are not totally new concepts. Didn’t Thomas Aquinas touch on how meanings are in the mind, not in the objects? I’ve bastardized shamelesslessly from Peter Gardenfors’ “Conceptual Spaces.” (He is also mainly interested in semantic processes). I’ve also been stealing from Jacob Bronowski’s “The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination.” (He’s my hero!!) I think that Stephen Pinker’s books, esp “Words and Rules”, Walter Freeman’s “How Brains Make Up Their Minds” (tries to bring in Chaos theory as a tool for understanding the development of “private meaning” and touches on its interface with “public knowledge”), and the huge body of work by Steve Grossberg on Adaptive Resonance Theory (a certifiable genius, located at Boston University, who is one of the developers of neural network theory and broadly accomplished in developing models for artificial intelligence, in addition to the understanding of how human minds work), are great reads for anyone interested. And I am also unsure about that seperation of preverbal and verbal, most cognitive neuroscience work now talks more about a “what/where” split (handled by ventral and dorsal processing streams) … but we digress.

Several of these references approach the subject, but only take it so far.

I really just plain accept that private meaning is reality filtered and processed by our perceptual streams, past experiences, and current needs, with a concomminant reduction in dimensionality. Public knowledge is an emergent property, and is thus fundamentally contigent on the mechanisms of human perception and cognition.

My dumb question remains. I’ll rephrase it. Is the reductionist approach valuable here? Are the system processes of public knowledge acquisition metaphorically similar to those within individuals? If so, then it seems that some of the basic tools used by philosphers (lineal logic constructs) are poorly chosen for the task and a different paradigm may be more useful.

8

Dusts off his Philosophy degree

Um…tricky question. (By the way, for something you know ‘little about’ you’ve got a pretty good grasp…unless you’re just a natural at jargon.) In my experience, philosophers these days do not adhere to an epistemolgy, or a single ethical theory or metaphysical theory for that matter. It is debatable even whether old Plato himself ever really committed himsefl to his theory of the Forms, or whether it was just a few ideas he cobbled together to get a debate started. Epistemology and methodology (philosophy of science) are activities that investigate the nature of our knowledge. Ther are as much attempts to describe how we do come to know things as they are attempts to define how we should come to know things. (Excuse the repetitive style: but I have found that if things are not stated as clearly as possible that someone will misinterpret the most innocent looking phrase.)

To answer one of your questions: No, there is no orthodox philosophical theory which deals with non-linear logic. Having said that, the very disciplines which tell us the world is not strictly linear/logical, i.e. physics, chemistry and biology, are offshoots of philosophy anyway.

Logic is not meant to deal with the world that much anyway. No one expects us to be able to see an object A, in situation B, and reason that event C will take place. Logic, like a lot of philosophy, is a negative discipline in that it criticises and deconstructs other things. Logic will not help you learn something about the world, but it will help you see if a theory about the world is contradictory or otherwise flawed. (Another ‘function’ of logic has been to revolutionise mathematics over the last century, leading to exactly the sort of developments, i.e. chaos theory, that seem to interest you.)

The point about logic is that it is not modelled on anything: it does not reflect our real cognitive processes because it is not based on them.
Alex B

9

And more importantly, epistemology specifically. We’ve had an implicit epistemological rule for aquiring knowledge, of which the scientific method is just a part. If what we learn from a logic-based epistemology is that epistemology shouldn’t be based on deductive or inductive logic, have we really learned anything?

Some might even say (and have!) that we can never know anything about epistemology. What do you think about that?

In that case, hold this flaming red poker for me just a sec.

I disagree, but if you hold the above to be true I cannot explain what I think, only why you are wrong. Do you still wish to hold that position?

Isn’t it? most people seem to have a very intuitive graps of elementary logical concepts, especially set theoretical logic. They may never have seen a backwards capital E before but can certainly appreciate the phrase “There exists a number between one and three.”

10

Ah, erislover, my old nemesis.

No, I’m not stupid. Stupidity has little to do with logic. You’re confusing being sensible with being logical. An easy but fatal mistake.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to. You’ll have to be more explicit.

Allow me to re-phrase. What makes logic useful is not that it is based on human cognitive abilities. Maths is not based on our innate abilities either, but people can grasp “2+2=4” pretty easily.

I’d buy them another drink.
My point about logic is this: That abstract reasoning cannot teach you something new about the world. To paraphrase Hume, there is nothing in the pure idea of two pool balls that will tell you what happens when one of them hits the other. It is experience that teaches us stuff. Logic simply helps us to order our experiences a little better.
Alex B

11

hi! :slight_smile:

Given A, then B. Logical proposition. Given hot poker from fire then I burn my hand. Logic applied to the real world. Without logic you would be burning your hand quite a bit, as each experience teaches and implies nothing; it simply is. Without logic we are reduces to accepting a series of meaningless phenomenon. No? This is especially true (for you) given the following statement:

I disagree with this proposition. However, I can only demonstrate my disagreement with a logical statement, or series of statements. Since you’ve already accepted logic will not help you understand the real world, there is nothing I can do to explain my disagreement. I am reduced to simply disagreeing.

Any clearer? (stupid typos)

A little better? It seems to me like the phrasing should be “at all.” Phenomena are useless without some integration technique. Wouldn’t you agree? If the only way we understadn the real world is to apply logic (implicitly or explicitly) to phenomena then neither is useless, and both are equally useful.

12

DSeid:
Give a reference, get back ten. I like that kind of exchange rate. :slight_smile:

Could you clarify what you mean by “public knowledge acquisition”? It seems to me, though, that what is public is simply the network of relationships between individuals, in this case multiple individuals gaining knowledge if I’m getting what you mean clearly enough (it may not be a dumb question, it may just be a dumb listener), so whatever those system processes are, they’re not so much metaphorically similar as they incorporate the individuals’ processes.

Alex B:

Two things. One, a hmmmm.

Second, not really an argument but what’s probably an unrelated tangent to what you’re getting at. I once read (somewhere. I believe in a decent layman’s cosmology book. I think I’m going to begin taking notes on everything at this point) that the mathematics of quantum physics don’t so much describe what reality’s doing at those levels, but are instead is a rigorous system of we must think in order to begin to grasp what it’s doing. It was a take on mathematics I hadn’t ever heard before; I don’t know if I buy it too strongly, but I’m not set against purchasing it either.

A similar thing occurs to me about logic and “real” cognitive processes. Seems to me that logic is something that cognitive processes can be trained to become, at least in part. Did you ever have the argument of trying to speak rationally with someone who just throws up logical fallacy after logical fallacy after logical fallacy? And not deliberately, but quite naturally? I’d pretty much agree in cases like that, logic is something that’s definitely not modelled after Sir Fallacious’ real cognitive processes–but the rcp of the soul who sees them for what they are might be another story.

13

But make no mistake: no system of logic is an accurate picture of the cognitive processes that made me type that particular sequence of words. Crikey. Let’s try:

…but is instead a rigorous system of how we must think…etc.

14

AlexB

First, thank you, but I fear my ignorance will soon become clear enough.

Second, can you elaborate on methodology (philosophy of science) as distinct from epistemolgy. erislover is stating that the scientific method is part of epistemology. I’d like to use terms precisely if I can.

Third, as to your position that abstract reasoning cannot teach us anything new, etc… But isn’t that the heart of the scientific method, which has taught us a lot that is new? We reduce dimensionality and recognize a pattern, a shape in the data points. We hold that abstract shape in mind, enlarge it, reduce it, rotate it, and find that parts of it fit another set of data points surprisingly well. An unexpected good fit. We smile and hypothesis that perhaps the rest of the shape will fit this second set as well. So primed, we look for those aspects and, by so doing, test our hypothesis. If those aspects are there we induce that more similarities may hold true as well, make more predictions, modifying the shape as it applies to the new set, as needed (creative topology). Said simply, with the use of abstract reasoning we create and apply metaphors which in turn allow us to make predictions which have the potential to teach us something new. Metaphors are the heart of the acquisition of knowledge.

drastic

By “public knowledge acquisition” I refer to what I think the philosophers call epistemology … how we as a society have, through the years, come to “know” what we know. And, as AlexB points out, “should” come to know it. (Yo, you with the dusted of philosophy degree! Is this right?) Minimally, the group process is based on individual processes over many generations, which is based on the perceptual and cognitive tools that biology has given us. But does the process stay similar at different scales of analyses?

Is it like many other complicated nonlinear processes which have fractal solution sets that maintain self-similarity at different arbitrary scales? If so, then philosophers may be well advised to look to principles of cognitive psychology for inspiration. (See, logic has its uses! An “If … then” clause!)

To all, can someone explain the term “praxis” to me. My dictionary merely tells me that it means a practice excercise, but lib and others seem to use it in another way.

15

Much to my possible embarrassment, this thread goes a long way into one poster’s view of epistemology which I found both frustrating and, in hindsight (that is, multiple readings!), enlightening. I am still struggling with many of the implications, and some day I think I’ll revive it from the dead or start a new thread as a continuation of it.

Anyone who wasn’t a lurker or poster in the thread, titled “Thinks we can’t ‘know’ directly,” would be amused by a reading. It only goes four pages :slight_smile:

DSeid

You’d have to just plain accept it, really. Once you’ve acknowledged that what we know are distortions of reality seen through filters of sense, world-views, and other tools of cognition you’re stuck, seemingly, in Decartes’ world of perpetual doubt. Accepting an epistemology counters that by telling you (almost literally) what you do, don’t, can, and cannot know. Well, it could do those things, anyway, depending on how much power you give it and what methods you allow it.

A good example from the other thread is the following short and sweet epistemology, collapsed into one statement: “All sentences that end in vowels are false.” It still amuses me to now end, and has metaphorically allowed me to see the difficulties (well, thinking on paradoxes in general has, anyway) involved in accepting certain propositions a priori.

I remain in the dark about the order of contructing a suitable philosophy. should one begin with ontology? Epistemology? :shrug: If we start with ontology we simply make assertions and can never know anything about the phenomenon of being other than “it exists,” and even that was, itself, a simple assertion. If we start with epistemology, though, then we can never “know” anything about epistemologies themselves because no such thing exists until ontology!

Long live the paradox. Hail Eris, etc

Through cursory readings of Descartes, Rand (some may shudder at such a mention in the world of real philosophers ;)), Sartre, Hobbes, and glances through quoted works of Hume, Kant, and many others (though these in very small volmes— more like summaries, really) I find that they implicitly or explicitly assume many things, like existence, man’s being, etc, etc. Some say that Wittgenstein developed two complete philosophies, and he is certianly next on my list of readings, but I’m interested in the semantics of “complete.” :slight_smile:

But hell, I can’t even define “consciousness” (winks at drastic).

The core question is, should we be able to know ourselves? In what manner would a system be able to contain itself? We know that when something as “simple” as a set can contain itself we end up with paradoxes and/or undecidable propositions. Why, then, would we expect that anything more complex than set theory should be able to explain itself?

16

erislover

I at least began to peruse that thread and I readily admit that I’d need to do some background reading before being able to get a lot of it. Some of this I’m vaugely familar with, but not at this level of discourse. I’m more of a science junkie than a philosopher, and I quickly get in over my head here.

I guess I’m still at the level of understanding what is meant by epistemology. One of the points made in that thread was you cannot have a “natural” epistemolgy because you start with an intelligence that accepts postulates and goes from there. IMHO this is as false of a concept as the seperation of the means of consciousness from the study of the formation of knowledge within societies. These are the issues that I feel are artificially created by imposing a lineal construct on a nonlinear system.

Was I at all lucid with the “exemplars to prototypes and back again” construct? Start with the individual just born. Does this newborn accept a postulate in order to learn? Or do concepts evolve? Even the prewired patterns of recognition and of motor activity are not de novo, but the product of eons of evolution. I propose that the same basic principles that describe our cognitive growth as individual organisms, and as species, can be applied to the formation of knowledge within societies and epistemology in general. If you want the start point you gotta go back to the beginnings of life on this planet, and watch how brains evolve, you gotta observe a baby grow to understand what you understand and sometimes more.

17

Sure; philosophy is largely reflective in nature. Unless we take the proposition that philosophy has always existed, even befor man, we are left with the question of bottoming out. Where comes the first point of understanding?

Perhaps you should attempt to trudge through “G&oum;del Escher Bach” by Douglas Hofstader. He deals, almost entirely, with the concept of “bottoming out,” though he certainly leaves much to be thought on by the reader. I don’t recall that he actually explicitly put forward a theory of consciousness in the face of empirical data.

But even if initial understanding comes naturally—that is, it is “hard-wired” into our brains—do you feel it is impossible to override that through reflection? Whether our ultimate method of understanding is linear or not makes not one iota of difference if we are sufficiently fluid, consciousness-wise, to change our ways of understanding and learning throughout the entire spectrum afforded to us physiologically (and I mean “physiologically” in the “5 senses” sense, here).

Perhaps i am missing exactly what you mean by “non-linear.” Can you give me an example of something you would consider true that you cannot reduce into a linear thought process?

Even assuming we do use a non-linear “logic” as a hard-wired base for understanding, an increasingly complex linear system should be sufficient to achieve a level of understanding in which the objective difference between the two can be as small as we desire. Hmm, how to phrase that more eloquently… when I wrote that i was thinking of Fourier series, where a complex curve is seen as being a composite function of the literal addition of a series of less-complex curves (in the general case, I believe, cosine functions of varying amplitude and phase are used). In this way, even using linear systems, we are only limited by our capacity to construct linear systems of sufficient complexity.

Did that make any sense to anyone?

Of course, philisophically speaking, what makes you think we are non-linearly understanding creatures in the first place? Isn’t that observation itself reflective in nature and subject to the same pitfalls you ascribe to linearity?

18

I use it in the manner that it was used by Ludwig von Mises in his magnum opus, Human Action, a tome that some call a book on economics, but it is actually a book on the philosophy of humanity. Basically, a praxis is a free and deliberate action or inaction. If either condition is removed, freedom or will, then it is not a praxis.

Examples:

blinking — not a praxis

smoking — a praxis

not smoking — a praxis

Praxeology is the very foundation of Austrian Economics.

Incredibly, the full text of the book is online, by Table of Contents, by Index, for Palm Pilot, Microsoft Reader, and PDF.

19

erislover

Anything that boils down to a chicken and the egg conundrum is much better approached by nonlinear methods. You hit the bottoming out issue because you are applying the wrong construct.

I’m not an expert mathematician, any more than a philosopher (one of my problems, I know just enough about enough to get me into trouble), but to quote from Steven Stroatz’s “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos”:

Lib

Thank you for the explanation. That helps.

20

Am I even understanding what epistemolgy is?

What scale does it refer to?

21

You might try checking this out for a very brief historical perspective of epistemology. Here is a load of specific articles. This also has quite a few links.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge: how we know what is true and what is false. The scientific method very clearly falls into this category, though again, it is merely a subset of what I consider implicit epistemology: things are true if they feel true. Explicit epistemology would flat out tell you what was true (roughly speaking).

As far as non-linear systems go, I’m not sure what to tell you. Unless the universe is completely finite and classical (not likely, obviously) we can never know everything and our models must represent only parts of existence. Of course, even fractal patterns can become incredibly complex but the formula which guides it is very simple. That doesn’t make the whole effort futile, just ongoing. And the study of non-linear systems is still done logically; that is, there are still rules governing the behavior of such interactions.

I guess I’m still not sure what you’re looking for. You say,

I honestly have never heard of one. I am not sure what “non-linear logic” would look like, but I’ve never thought about it, really.