EPISTEMOLOGY PART 4: HIGHER LEVEL CONCEPTS
In the last post, we made the important discovery that our first-level concepts are directly based off of a mathematical observation of reality by our senses, but our brain is able to "throw out" the mathematical measurements and give us a distinctly human view of reality by forming concepts. Remember, even though concepts are a human means of understanding reality, it does NOT mean that they are arbitrary or illusions. If formed properly, concepts are based in reality and can be trusted as an objective means of viewing existence. Of course, it should be abundantly clear that not everyone forms concepts properly and there are plenty of egregious errors! We'll get more into how to avoid or correct errors later, but first let's expand on our first-level concepts from the last post.
I think it's safe to say a conceptual error has occured!
Hey, I'm a shyster lawyer and a sleazy politician!
HIGHER LEVEL CONCEPTS
After a child has developed certain first-level concepts by direct observation (and measurement omission) they are able to take these concepts and abstract on them. For example, a child may form the concept of "human", "dog", or "cat" early on, and then later expand this into wider concepts like "mammal", "animal", and eventually "organism". The child may also narrow the concept of human to "doctor", "firefighter", "teacher", and eventually "porn star", "shyster lawyer" and "sleazy politician". Notice, you can't directly observe a concept like "mammal" or "organism", you can only observe cats, dogs, jellyfish, oak trees, etc. The only way to come up with something like "organism", is to integrate a bunch of concepts and then group them together by their similar characteristics. Similar to our brain taking the shape of that chair and omitting the exact measurements of it to create a concept of "chair", our brain can take "cat", "dog", "jellyfish", "oak tree" and omit all the "measurements" to find the crucial characteristics and make a new concept, "organism".
At this stage of concept formation, we have arrived at a very advanced state of knowledge, one that so far is unique only to humans. Despite the fact that we like to think the world of our pets, there's no way for a dog to understand that it is a mammal. In order to get to these higher level concepts, it's important to understand that it takes volition and thought. A child has to purposely focus and think in order to integrate their concepts together, it doesn't just happen by magic or osmosis. Often it can be very frustrating, as we can all remember struggling in school. At every opportunity, the child has the ability to stop thinking and give up. "I don't understand organisms. Oh well, this is stupid anyway, I'd rather watch Pokemon!" Obviously, this is the crucial role of a parent or teacher to interfere and encourage the child to learn. It's invaluable for a person to learn from someone else who has already formed and integrated their concepts. It's very difficult for a person to learn something correctly entirely on their own, and it often takes a genius to advance knowledge from the unknown to known initially.
Another thing to note about these higher level concepts, in particular, is that errors can be made! Perhaps a child mistakenly puts "television" in with the concept "organism" because it makes sounds and seems to be alive. Hopefully a teacher or parent is there to correct this, and show why a TV is not alive. Otherwise the child will have an error in their "file folder" and it will be left to them to correct it someday. Even in adults, errors or misunderstandings run rampant. How many adults correctly understand the concept "republic" vs. "democracy"? Or "capitalism" and "inflation". These kind of errors become explicit, and even dangerous, when it turns into a protester railing against government bailouts as an indictment on capitalism, or people rioting over increasing food prices and demand government bring them down!
After a child has developed certain first-level concepts by direct observation (and measurement omission) they are able to take these concepts and abstract on them. For example, a child may form the concept of "human", "dog", or "cat" early on, and then later expand this into wider concepts like "mammal", "animal", and eventually "organism". The child may also narrow the concept of human to "doctor", "firefighter", "teacher", and eventually "porn star", "shyster lawyer" and "sleazy politician". Notice, you can't directly observe a concept like "mammal" or "organism", you can only observe cats, dogs, jellyfish, oak trees, etc. The only way to come up with something like "organism", is to integrate a bunch of concepts and then group them together by their similar characteristics. Similar to our brain taking the shape of that chair and omitting the exact measurements of it to create a concept of "chair", our brain can take "cat", "dog", "jellyfish", "oak tree" and omit all the "measurements" to find the crucial characteristics and make a new concept, "organism".
At this stage of concept formation, we have arrived at a very advanced state of knowledge, one that so far is unique only to humans. Despite the fact that we like to think the world of our pets, there's no way for a dog to understand that it is a mammal. In order to get to these higher level concepts, it's important to understand that it takes volition and thought. A child has to purposely focus and think in order to integrate their concepts together, it doesn't just happen by magic or osmosis. Often it can be very frustrating, as we can all remember struggling in school. At every opportunity, the child has the ability to stop thinking and give up. "I don't understand organisms. Oh well, this is stupid anyway, I'd rather watch Pokemon!" Obviously, this is the crucial role of a parent or teacher to interfere and encourage the child to learn. It's invaluable for a person to learn from someone else who has already formed and integrated their concepts. It's very difficult for a person to learn something correctly entirely on their own, and it often takes a genius to advance knowledge from the unknown to known initially.
Another thing to note about these higher level concepts, in particular, is that errors can be made! Perhaps a child mistakenly puts "television" in with the concept "organism" because it makes sounds and seems to be alive. Hopefully a teacher or parent is there to correct this, and show why a TV is not alive. Otherwise the child will have an error in their "file folder" and it will be left to them to correct it someday. Even in adults, errors or misunderstandings run rampant. How many adults correctly understand the concept "republic" vs. "democracy"? Or "capitalism" and "inflation". These kind of errors become explicit, and even dangerous, when it turns into a protester railing against government bailouts as an indictment on capitalism, or people rioting over increasing food prices and demand government bring them down!
CONCEPTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
I have to admit, these still make my mind spin to think about, but I'll do my best to explain it if you hang in there!
Concepts of consciousness refer to words like "thought", "memory" and "love". They come from our ability to be able to view our own consciousness, and can only come from introspection. You cannot use your senses to view the outside world and come up with something like "thought", or "love", as they exist in our consciousness and not in the outside world. This is where many people who are logical and love science make a crucial philosophical error. Science does a great job of explaining the physical world, and has the ability to unlock virtually all the mysteries of our universe and existence. However, science doesn't have the ability to study concepts of consciousness as they don't exist in the physical world. You may hear things from your science loving friends like, "love and sadness is just an illusion, just a bunch of subatomic particles dancing around giving you the sense that you love something, but it's not real". By saying this, they are in essence saying that consciousness isn't real, and as we learned in Metaphysics Part 1, that violates the axiom of consciousness and is absurd. Fortunately, what most of us knew for as long as we can remember, things like love and sadness ARE real, they're just really hard to explain!
We'll start with the concept of "thought", as that's one of the more simple concepts of consciousness. When we start forming concepts as children, we are also able to step back and look at our own consciousness at work. A child might notice that when he goes to school, he gets lessons in arithmetic and has to work and focus in order to come up with solutions, like 2+2= 4. Then he notices that when he gets home and plays with Legos, he is working and focusing in order to make a house or spaceship out of them. These two mental processes are obviously different, and one is almost certainly more enjoyable than the other, but they are also similar in the fact that each is a purposeful pursuit of knowledge.
But how can we measure thought? After all, we justified our concept of chair because of measurement omission.
"Thought" involves two aspects, content and intensity. Content could be almost anything, from numbers to legos, but it is something. Content is also something that is measurable and can be defined in reality. Intensity is also measurable, although we don't have a scientific way of measuring it (that I know of). Intensity means how much effort it takes to think about something. For instance, it takes a lot more effort to read this post than it does to decide what to wear tomorrow (unless you're Kim Kardashian!). Just like in the last lesson with the chair, our brain recognizes the similarities and then uses measurement omission to throw out the exact measurements. "Thought" can mean any content, but it must mean some content. It can have any intensity, but it must have some intensity. This, in a nutshell, is how we came up with the concept of "thought". Notice, it still has a basis in reality, but it requires us to analyze our own consciousness, not the outside world.
I have to admit, these still make my mind spin to think about, but I'll do my best to explain it if you hang in there!
Concepts of consciousness refer to words like "thought", "memory" and "love". They come from our ability to be able to view our own consciousness, and can only come from introspection. You cannot use your senses to view the outside world and come up with something like "thought", or "love", as they exist in our consciousness and not in the outside world. This is where many people who are logical and love science make a crucial philosophical error. Science does a great job of explaining the physical world, and has the ability to unlock virtually all the mysteries of our universe and existence. However, science doesn't have the ability to study concepts of consciousness as they don't exist in the physical world. You may hear things from your science loving friends like, "love and sadness is just an illusion, just a bunch of subatomic particles dancing around giving you the sense that you love something, but it's not real". By saying this, they are in essence saying that consciousness isn't real, and as we learned in Metaphysics Part 1, that violates the axiom of consciousness and is absurd. Fortunately, what most of us knew for as long as we can remember, things like love and sadness ARE real, they're just really hard to explain!
We'll start with the concept of "thought", as that's one of the more simple concepts of consciousness. When we start forming concepts as children, we are also able to step back and look at our own consciousness at work. A child might notice that when he goes to school, he gets lessons in arithmetic and has to work and focus in order to come up with solutions, like 2+2= 4. Then he notices that when he gets home and plays with Legos, he is working and focusing in order to make a house or spaceship out of them. These two mental processes are obviously different, and one is almost certainly more enjoyable than the other, but they are also similar in the fact that each is a purposeful pursuit of knowledge.
But how can we measure thought? After all, we justified our concept of chair because of measurement omission.
"Thought" involves two aspects, content and intensity. Content could be almost anything, from numbers to legos, but it is something. Content is also something that is measurable and can be defined in reality. Intensity is also measurable, although we don't have a scientific way of measuring it (that I know of). Intensity means how much effort it takes to think about something. For instance, it takes a lot more effort to read this post than it does to decide what to wear tomorrow (unless you're Kim Kardashian!). Just like in the last lesson with the chair, our brain recognizes the similarities and then uses measurement omission to throw out the exact measurements. "Thought" can mean any content, but it must mean some content. It can have any intensity, but it must have some intensity. This, in a nutshell, is how we came up with the concept of "thought". Notice, it still has a basis in reality, but it requires us to analyze our own consciousness, not the outside world.
Just as we can group our "real world" concepts into wider areas like "mammal", or narrower ones like "fireman", so we can with concepts of consciousness. We could divide "thought" into narrower categories depending on their characteristics of its intensity like "engrossed" or "distracted". Or divide it based on content of thought, like "scientific" and "artistic". We could also take concepts like "hate" and "love" and organize them into wider concepts like "emotions". As with our "real world" concepts, there is seemingly endless concepts of consciousness we can create.
Just like with our other concepts, we are certainly error prone when it comes to concepts of consciousness. We might erroneously think something like love is only based on feelings, but if we define it improperly it can lead to errors, and errors in something like love can be devastating. An extreme example would be falling in "love" with your kidnapper. The way to check for and avoid errors in our concepts is the subject of the next post, which goes into the last crucial step of concept formation, definitions. Understanding what a proper definition is, and how to make one is crucial to having rational knowledge.
Just like with our other concepts, we are certainly error prone when it comes to concepts of consciousness. We might erroneously think something like love is only based on feelings, but if we define it improperly it can lead to errors, and errors in something like love can be devastating. An extreme example would be falling in "love" with your kidnapper. The way to check for and avoid errors in our concepts is the subject of the next post, which goes into the last crucial step of concept formation, definitions. Understanding what a proper definition is, and how to make one is crucial to having rational knowledge.