Ostensive definitions

[sjw]

This is perhaps the matter that separates the dogmatists from the actually rational thinkers.

For the dogmatists, their perceptions are their unquestioned presumptions and are the end of the philosophical road for them. Because Nature is not perverse, they often appear to be correct; but because she is sometimes subtle, they can often be found persistently stuck in delusions. And nothing will help them with the latter; it appears to be fundamental to how they are using their minds, including how they use them while you try to get them unstuck.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

This is perhaps the matter that separates the dogmatists from the actually rational thinkers.

For the dogmatists, their perceptions are their unquestioned presumptions and are the end of the philosophical road for them. Because Nature is not perverse, they often appear to be correct; but because she is sometimes subtle, they can often be found persistently stuck in delusions. And nothing will help them with the latter; it appears to be fundamental to how they are using their minds, including how they use them while you try to get them unstuck.

Shayne

Now, you gotta like anybody who calls you a "kid." I'm 67 and I'm waiting for same with great anticipation.

--Brant

break out the bubbly!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This rings a bell.

There was a person on one of the forums somewhere (I don't remember who or where right now) who was saying some outrageous thing or other, then said, "You listen here, young man."

I immediately stopped arguing and thanked the person.

And I ended the discussion on that note.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

Go away, kid, and stop pestering me.

Here's what happens to unruly kids.

[sjw]

I'd call that psychologically revealing, if I didn't already have some kind of sense for Ninth's psychology.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Go away, kid, and stop pestering me.

Here's what happens to unruly kids.

[video deleted]

I said to myself, Don't watch this video. You won't like it. It will make you cringe, so don't watch it.

Then I watched it.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

I said to myself, Don't watch this video. You won't like it. It will make you cringe, so don't watch it.

Then I watched it.

Well that's what it's like to read something like this:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9765&view=findpost&p=117984

However the reader's reaction varies depending on how much sympathy he has for the kid.

[George H. Smith]

I said to myself, Don't watch this video. You won't like it. It will make you cringe, so don't watch it. Then I watched it.

Well that's what it's like to read something like this: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9765&view=findpost&p=117984 However the reader's reaction varies depending on how much sympathy he has for the kid.

Empathy, not sympathy, is the appropriate word here.

Ghs

[sjw]

You're such a petty little sniveling coward Ninth. How long have you held this grudge since I kicked your ass in debate? Hasn't it been over a year now? You'd think you'd get over it by now. But no, it's still cowardly snipe here and cowardly snipe there.

I didn't watch your little home video of yourself getting neutered, the after effects are off-putting enough as it is.

Shayne

[samr]

Samr,

Welcome to OL.

I have my own take on this problem.

Check your premise. You are making an implicit assumption that man is one thing and reality is another, that there is some way to get down to the most fundamental conceptual level and there will still be a division. A starting point, so to speak.

Try a different assumption: we are made out of the same stuff the rest of the universe is--including our perception and abstraction faculties. Thus, being made out of the same stuff, they are perfectly suited to process reality for the purposes of the organism they serve (the individual human being).

This means that we don't start out with a blank mind, then start filling it with reality. We start with a mind already full of reality. The separation that later develops is a product of growth, not an innate starting point.

If you want a visual metaphor for this, think about a circle. Where does it start? Basically it starts at any point you wish. But there is one absolute truth--the starting point you choose will also be the end point after you go around the circle.

So what is that point you chose? The start of the circle or the end of it?

It's both. It can't be one without being the other in a complete circle.

In other words, stuff like that exists.

With an ostensive definition, it doesn't matter if you start with the mind, or start with the act of swinging your arm around and saying, "I mean this." The point is that where they meet, it doesn't matter which comes first. One cannot exist without the other and still have you think about it.

If you want another metaphor, think of an ostensive definition in the same manner you do an axiomatic concept--as the existential interface between the mind and the rest of reality. In order to imagine not using it, you have to use it.

This bothered me for the longest time. I became at peace about it once I came up with this explanation.

Your mileage may vary, but it makes perfect sense to me without anything left over.

Michael

Hi.

What you say is really beautiful. It is a beautiful metaphor.

But I have found out that metaphors, even if they "make sense" at the time I read them, and even though they are beautiful, I am unable to "really believe in them", and to apply them later. I am unable to integrate them to my world-view.

(Thanks).

[samr]

From http://aynrandlexico...definition.html

To define the meaning of the concept “blue,” for instance, one must point to some blue objects to signify, in effect: “I mean this.” Such an identification of a concept is known as an “ostensive definition.”

That we we cannot do in order to make the distinction between a perception and its object. Since I can't see without seeing something, and I can't see something without seeing, how can I distinguish between "seeing" and "what I see" using an ostensive definition?

I don't understand why you raise the issue of ostensive definitions in this context. They have nothing to do with the distinction between perception and the object of perception. This distinction is already clear before we use ostensive definitions.

Suppose I point to a blue object and say, Look at that. That color is what I mean by "blue." Here I am inviting a person to direct his vision at an external blue object so he can perceive the color for himself. My directions would make no sense, however, unless the other person already understood the difference between a perception and the object of perception. He already understands that is perceiving an object external to himself.

Ghs

I raised ostensive definitions because they _seem_ a way to rescue my mind from the endless game of trying to find an end to the endless chain of asking "But how do you know that", for every possible question.

And I think they fail.

I think that a person that doesn't believe in the existance of an object external to himself can reply to you

"When the person asks me "to look at that", he believes that there is an external object to myself. However, I know, that all there is are perceptions. So, what I will do is generate a new appearence of "blue" in my head, without it refering to anything real. When a person teaches me the meaning of "blue", I learn how to name a new appearence, not something external to myself. ".

As to your reply to BaalChatzaf

How do we "construct" entities? With legos? Tinkertoys? And if your "self" is a "construct" that can never be perceived, then who the hell has been writing your posts? An imperceptible bundle of random, causeless sensations?

It was with good reason that Hume admitted that his epistemology was a cognitive dead end, something that no reasonable person could truly believe or act upon. As Hume put it, his epistemology implies that we should "reject all belief and reasoning, and...look upon no opinion as more probable or likely than another." His epistemology, if taken seriously, will leave us "in the most deplorable condition imaginable, [e]nvironed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty. (Treatise of Human Nature, I.IV.)

Do you reject "all belief and reasoning"? Do you believe that no opinion is more probable than any other? If so, why argue for anything?

I am sorry to hear that you are in the "deplorable condition" that Hume described. Perhaps a little sound reasoning about epistemology will help out.

I am not sure that this is a valid argument. It is more like an appeal to consequences. You argue that it is a bad belief to hold, but not that it is untrue.

Samr

[George H. Smith]

I raised ostensive definitions because they _seem_ a way to rescue my mind from the endless game of trying to find an end to the endless chain of asking "But how do you know that", for every possible question. And I think they fail. I think that a person that doesn't believe in the existance of an object external to himself can reply to you "When the person asks me "to look at that", he believes that there is an external object to myself. However, I know, that all there is are perceptions. So, what I will do is generate a new appearence of "blue" in my head, without it refering to anything real. When a person teaches me the meaning of "blue", I learn how to name a new appearence, not something external to myself. ".

Does your skeptic concede that his interlocutor exists as an external object? If he does, then the skeptic is clearly able to distinguish perceptions from external objects, so he need only apply the same standard to other situations.

If the skeptic does not concede this -- if he truly believes that the other person is merely a perception in his head -- then he is talking to himself, and I suggest that he be left alone to carry on the conversation.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Samr,

It's OK to dismiss the metaphor. (I found your use of the word "believe" telling. )

But I notice that you did not mention how a person is supposed to define something fundamental like existence by taking his brain and walking away from it.

To be clear, I see your questioning as trying to define existence without actually existing,

We are part of existence. It's not the other way around.

In formal terms, we are holons--individual things with a specific nature (human individuals) that are part of something bigger (the human species, but ultimately the universe).

So you either accept that your mental equipment abstracts forms, attributes, actions, etc., to accurately reflect what exists because it is made out of the same stuff, or you imagine your abstracting faculties as a unique reality apart from everything else.

In other words, you and I do not carry different realities around in our different heads. We carry around our own abstractions of the same reality. Granted, our individuality makes them different to the extent that we are different individuals, but the abstractions are basically the same formally, especially seeing as how we both are part of the same existence and we both belong to the same species.

You worry that you perceive your abstraction of blue differently than I do mine? OK. But don't ignore the fact that we both can find blue on the spectrum. That means something, right?

Note that our abstracting faculty works fundamentally the same, but the details can be different. And when there is a huge difference, like with a mentally deficient person, that does not negate our commonality. Just because a rare baby is born with only one leg, this does not invalidate the fact that normal healthy human beings have two legs. And more on point, normal healthy human beings have the same kind of mental equipment.

There's both different ground and common ground between the existence of you and I. (And all people, of course.) It's not either-or. It's both. Where the different part ends, the common part begins, and vice-versa, sort of like a circle... (there I go with the metaphor again )

btw - If you have the patience to watch a lecture that is within this ball park, but a different game, here is a mind-blower: see here. It's a lecture by Bruce Lipton called The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet. You will understand perception and abstraction a whole lot more. You also won't find that kind of stuff easily on sites devoted to discussing Objectivist ideas.

Michael

[samr]

I raised ostensive definitions because they _seem_ a way to rescue my mind from the endless game of trying to find an end to the endless chain of asking "But how do you know that", for every possible question. And I think they fail. I think that a person that doesn't believe in the existance of an object external to himself can reply to you "When the person asks me "to look at that", he believes that there is an external object to myself. However, I know, that all there is are perceptions. So, what I will do is generate a new appearence of "blue" in my head, without it refering to anything real. When a person teaches me the meaning of "blue", I learn how to name a new appearence, not something external to myself. ".

Does your skeptic concede that his interlocutor exists as an external object? If he does, then the skeptic is clearly able to distinguish perceptions from external objects, so he need only apply the same standard to other situations.

If the skeptic does not concede this -- if he truly believes that the other person is merely a perception in his head -- then he is talking to himself, and I suggest that he be left alone to carry on the conversation.

Ghs

Hm... I think even a person that believes that there is no external world,can distinguish between different types of perceptions - those that continue along time (you), and those that do not (dreams).

But isn't there a logical problem with your argument (a more important one)? Suppose that you actually can show that for a solipsist it would be ridiculous to try and convince you of solipsism, and what I say above (in this post) isn't true.

You would prove that a solipsist has no reason to try and convince you of his position - but not that his position is untrue.

Showing that arguing for something necessarily implies a contradiction in motivation doesn't necessarily imply that what he argues for is wrong - only that it would be ridiculous to act upon this belief.

At least using what I have learned about in logic.

[George H. Smith]

I raised ostensive definitions because they _seem_ a way to rescue my mind from the endless game of trying to find an end to the endless chain of asking "But how do you know that", for every possible question. And I think they fail. I think that a person that doesn't believe in the existance of an object external to himself can reply to you "When the person asks me "to look at that", he believes that there is an external object to myself. However, I know, that all there is are perceptions. So, what I will do is generate a new appearence of "blue" in my head, without it refering to anything real. When a person teaches me the meaning of "blue", I learn how to name a new appearence, not something external to myself. ".

Does your skeptic concede that his interlocutor exists as an external object? If he does, then the skeptic is clearly able to distinguish perceptions from external objects, so he need only apply the same standard to other situations.

If the skeptic does not concede this -- if he truly believes that the other person is merely a perception in his head -- then he is talking to himself, and I suggest that he be left alone to carry on the conversation.

Ghs

Hm... I think even a person that believes that there is no external world,can distinguish between different types of perceptions - those that continue along time (you), and those that do not (dreams).

But isn't there a logical problem with your argument (a more important one)? Suppose that you actually can show that for a solipsist it would be ridiculous to try and convince you of solipsism, and what I say above (in this post) isn't true.

You would prove that a solipsist has no reason to try and convince you of his position - but not that his position is untrue.

Showing that arguing for something necessarily implies a contradiction in motivation doesn't necessarily imply that what he argues for is wrong - only that it would be ridiculous to act upon this belief.

At least using what I have learned about in logic.

This has nothing to do with motives. It is impermissible in argument to assume as true, as the foundation of your argument. the very point you wish to refute.

Bertrand Russell once reported that he had received a letter from a logician stating that she was a solipsist, and she was surprised that there were no other solipsists. As Russell put it, "Coming from a logician, this surprise surprised me."

If a supposed solipsist wishes to engage me in an argument, I will ask, "To whom are you addressing your remarks?" If he then concedes that I exist, which I must to argue with him, he has refuted himself. If he then cannot figure out how he is able to determine that I actually exist, then that is his problem, not mine.

In truth, solipsism is not a serious philosophical position. It is the sort of thing that freshman philosophy students like to argue about.

Ghs

[samr]

Ghs,

I see what you mean. Sometimes the conclusions of an argument can contradict the presuppositions of its premises - which makes the argument invalid.

I don't understand why you raise the issue of ostensive definitions in this context. They have nothing to do with the distinction between perception and the object of perception. This distinction is already clear before we use ostensive definitions.

Suppose I point to a blue object and say, Look at that. That color is what I mean by "blue." Here I am inviting a person to direct his vision at an external blue object so he can perceive the color for himself. My directions would make no sense, however, unless the other person already understood the difference between a perception and the object of perception. He already understands that is perceiving an object external to himself.

Ghs

Alright. But how is it possible for a person to make that distinction (between perceptions, and objects of perceptions) in the first place? How can you form two universals, one for perception, one for its objects, without being able to observe one without the other?

Do you have a theory?

[George H. Smith]

Ghs, I see what you mean. Sometimes the conclusions of an argument can contradict the presuppositions of its premises - which makes the argument invalid.

I don't understand why you raise the issue of ostensive definitions in this context. They have nothing to do with the distinction between perception and the object of perception. This distinction is already clear before we use ostensive definitions. Suppose I point to a blue object and say, Look at that. That color is what I mean by "blue." Here I am inviting a person to direct his vision at an external blue object so he can perceive the color for himself. My directions would make no sense, however, unless the other person already understood the difference between a perception and the object of perception. He already understands that is perceiving an object external to himself. Ghs

Alright. But how is it possible for a person to make that distinction (between perceptions, and objects of perceptions) in the first place? How can you form two universals, one for perception, one for its objects, without being able to observe one without the other? Do you have a theory?

I don't need to give you a theory. Are you able, in most cases, to distinguish hallucinations, illusions, etc. from veridical perceptions? Or do you go through life hopelessly confused?

If you are able to make this distinction, then you tell me how you do it in everyday life. Therein lies the answer, or "theory," that you seek.

Ghs

[samr]

It is pretty hard to find out how to distinguish between a perception and what the perception perceives, and how to define each of the terms in a coherent way. I am not talking of a way to differentiate between illusions and perceptions, but of seeing versus what-we-see.

I cannot find it out using introspection since it isn't possible to observe the content of a perception without a perception.

When I tried yesterday to make a realistic theory (not a solipsistic one), I came up with something like that :

Things can be cognized directly or indirectly.

Indirectly would be like seeing a photo of Bob, knowing that it is a reliable photo . You would know something about Bob. But you wouldn't have a direct perception of Bob himself.

Kant seems to think (as far as I understand Rand) that our senses present us with photoes of the world, not with "direct perception".

I guess that you could object to this, maintaing that that the concept of "seeing a picture " implies that you see it directly, and that a person who says that one can see a picture admits that direct perception is in fact possible.

Buddhists would say that conceptual thought cognizes things indirectly (via concepts\words), and I think they are right.

As to my original thesis, I could say that it is just given. Every perception necessarily (by its nature) has its object, and every thought has its object. You cannot have them one without the other, so the way you distinguish between them is not like between a dog and a cat. How, it is still a mystery to me. How you use conceptual thinking to differentiate between them is a mystery to me, since conceptual thinking is supposed to rest upon perception.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Samr,

Once again I suggest you get familiar with the mechanism of perception. I gave you a really easy lecture to watch. It's not boring at all, although it does look like it is before you get into it. It's one of the easiest to follow I have seen so far.

You seem to want to prove things about mentally abstracting physical stuff solely by introspecting or manipulating logic. It's a lot easier when you get your hands dirty with how cells process sensory data and abstraction actually occurs.

There's a reason observation is the ultimate form of validation.

But you'll never discover it by syllogism alone.

Michael

[Xray]

I raised ostensive definitions because they _seem_ a way to rescue my mind from the endless game of trying to find an end to the endless chain of asking "But how do you know that", for every possible question.

If mankind had never engaged in this epistemological chain of asking, no progress would have occurred.

The evolvement of the human mind has made man an inquiring being.

<...> However, I know, that all there is are perceptions.

And how do you 'know' that?

I'm afraid your mind won't be 'rescued' from trying to find an end here.

I personally would not want to have my mind rescued from all that question-asking. On the contary, I'm grateful to be able to ask questions, even if I may not always get satsfying answers. My focus is on more on existence itself as a dynamic process.

Am I correct in assuming that you are religious person, Sam? (I have only scanned briefly the thread you opened on religion, but got this impresion there as well).

So maybe the impetus driving your mind and soul is less of epistemological, but more of religious nature.

(But as always, don't hesitate to point out errors in anything I post here. OL is real good place for discussion and mutual exchange).

[George H. Smith]

Sam,

Maybe this will help....

I have long recommended that O'ist types read various Thomistic works on epistemology. My favorite overall textbook in this area, which I quoted in ATCAG, is Celestine N. Bittle, Reality and the Mind (Bruce Publishing, 1936). Among other things, Bittle gives concise accounts and critiques of various theories of perception, and the following passage (pp. 171-73) is relevant to your inquiry. You have focused on vision, but Bittle (like many philosophers) begins with the sense of touch. He only brings in sight later on.(Italics in original; boldfacing is mine.)

Unquestionably, much of our knowledge of the external world, which we ordinarily consider directly given in sense perception, is acquired though a very complicated process of perception, intellectual abstraction, and mental inference. We are not brutes, but intellectual beings; we not only perceive, but think. Consequently, it is not always easy to distinguish what is due to direct sense-perception from that which is the result of our interpreting judgment. Nevertheless, the primary facts are plain and simple. The very data which reveal to us our body as real and intra-Ego [bittle covers this topic earlier], reveal to us concretely at the same way that bodies exist which are extra-subjective and extra-Ego: they possess the feature of externality and otherness.

The sense of touch is fundamental in this respect. When I move my hand over parts of my body, I perceive that my hand is distinct from those parts. At the same time, however, I also perceive that the parts touched are not foreign to my being but belong to it as well as my hand does: they are all parts and members of the same organic, structural whole. But when my hand touches a book, a desk, an apple, a building, a tree, a human body (other than my own), it is immediately clear to me that these things do not belong to my being; they are 'other,' extra-Ego, external, something totally different from my self. All the objects which I contact while moving through space are thus perceived to possess this characteristic of 'otherness.' I can move my own bodily members from place to place, but I observe a definite resistance exerted against my body by many things. I cannot walk through them, neither can I surmount them or move them aside; they are unyielding objects which block my path, so that I am obliged to walk around them. I thus experience objects with triple dimensions, with solidity, with weight, with impenetrability, with permanence and stability.

Besides this passive resistance to my body, I also experience the active influence of other bodies upon my own. Fire burns it, water wets it, a stone bruises it, dirt soils it, a heavy object breaks and crushes it. These things are not perceived by me to belong to my organism as a part of my being and self; on the contrary, just because my organism is clearly intuited as consisting of definite members occupying definite limits of space, I concretely perceive at the same time that these 'other' objects are external to me, having a real existence for themselves independent of my own.

The sense of sight also reveals 'externality' and 'otherness,' when taken in conjunction with the sense of touch and assisted by conscious experience. I soon learn to interpret the visual picture according to the more immediate perceptions of touch. My right hand touches my left arm; and my visual image coincides so completely with my tactual experience, that I thereby discover that the 'thing' touching is my right hand, while the 'thing touched' is my left arm. A number of such experiments helps me to 'identify' visually the various parts of my body with accuracy and security. Once this identification is an established fact, my sight unerringly distinguishes between my own body and objects external to my body....When sight and touch are united in perception, the result provides an overwhelming amount of data which reveal an evidently real and existing material world of 'external' objects....

Ghs

[thomtg]

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[9thdoctor]

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