Another Simple Question

[BaalChatzaf]

Did Ayn Rand ever give any weight to analogizing as a mode of concept formation? Speaking for my self, I have found analogy as a way of extending concepts I know and formulating new ones. I have also used it with my children and grandchildren and I have found it is a handy dandy way a extending prior meanings to new words and extending the reference of generic terms.

For example with my then two year old grand-daughter Julia : Julia. Do you know what this is? (Point to a glove). This is a glove. A glove is for your hand like a sock is for your foot. And so on.... It works rather well. And it is readier and more useful than measurement omission.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited January 5, 2011 by BaalChatzaf

[Reidy]

Not, to my knowledge, explicitly at the theoretical level. An example from her fiction is the process by which Rearden comes to see the analogy between his work life and his sex life. Roark sees the priciple behind the Dean and extends it to politics. You could probably find others. This would be a good dissertation topic.

She called herself an admirer or Aristotle, who frequently, on numerous questions, cites aanalogy and homonymy as ways of extending our understanding and relating it back to core, focal meanings. Presumably she would endorse what he said.

[merjet]

Not, to my knowledge, explicitly at the theoretical level.

I agree.

Analogy is especially useful in identifying relational similarities. For example, hammer/nail and screwdriver/screw.

A good book on analogy is Mental Leaps.

[Reidy]

A bit further from the original question, Rand used analogies quite a bit. This implies that she considered them a sound way of acquiring understanding. Bankruptcy in For the New Intellectual and road travel in "The Anatomy of Compromise" come to mind.

[kiaer.ts]

This is a method of definition, not of concept formation per se. It still relies on measurement omission, in that all gloves of any size or material for all hands are like all socks for all feet. The analogy lies in the genus 'soft, conforming covering for the extremity' with the differentia being 'for the arm' and 'for the leg.' You are not doing away with measurement omission when using analogy - just removing it a step by leaving it implicit in the basis you have chosen for your analogy - such as sock - whose origin you do not address.

Once again this question shows a lack of understanding of Rand's ideas (why is measurement omission supposedly problematic?) and an attempt at an end run that in no way invalidates or replaces her formulations.

Are you incapable, Bob, of writing a few paragraphs explaining what you think Rand's ideas actually are, and of stating your questions within that context? I am sure the execrise would at least have the effect of possibly making your own ideas more clear to yourself. If you can't state her arguments in their strongest forms you can hardly think you are criticizing or discussing them.

BTW, where is the promised equation-filled refutation of Harriman? Is that the point of these questions? If so, why not reread ItOE with an end of understanding it before trying to refute it?

[BaalChatzaf]

BTW, where is the promised equation-filled refutation of Harriman? Is that the point of these questions? If so, why not reread ItOE with an end of understanding it before trying to refute it?

Working on it. Doing my homework. My current line is to show Harriman's development would not have lead to either the discovery of the displacement current (by Maxwell) or the prediction and discovery of the neutrino by Wolfgang Pauli. I agree with Harriman wholeheartedly that the springboard for a new scientific theory is the phenomena (n the sense Newton meant the word). In fact Newton's rules of science given as a preface to book 3 of -Principia Mathematica- is a better introduction to induction than Harriman's book. Why? Harriman has hung the Rand theory of concept formation about his neck like an albatross and ignored metaphor (which is NOT measurement omission, by the way). Metaphor, as I will show eventually is one of the more important drivers to the discovery of new concepts and the fruitful extension of prior concepts. Harriman was quite accurate in noting the integration of new phenomena suggest by experiments with prior concepts. Very few scientific theories are total breaks from what has gone before so integration is necessary. However, as I said, there are other drivers toward new theories which Harriman does not address.

Harriman's flaws, as I see them, is an incomplete grasp of how new ideas are invented and woven into the tapestry of thought (ha! there is a metaphor!) to produce important new theories. Harriman was also incorrect in criticizing Kelvin for not giving full weight to facts (or findings) claimed by the geologists pertaining to a greater age for earth than a simple combustion model of the Sun would allow for. The accuracy of geology at that time was questionable. It was not until Beqrel discovered radioactivity (not the Curies, note that) that a possible source of energy for the Sun was discovered which would allow time for evolution of varieties of life on Eartth to occur. It turned out there is much more energy locked in atoms than can be realized by chemical actions, fact not fully realized until the connection between mass and energy was developed by Einstein.

I intend to do a fair critique of Harriman's book. I have read through it twice. I have not found "howlers" or outright blunders. What I have find were omissions. He does not have a complete scheme for producing new science. In fact, I thought his summary of Kepler's work on the ephemeris of Mars was rather good.

I intend to write for a non-mathematical audience, but I will refer to math as I need to. For physicists math is a tool and the ideas and relationships of ideas are the primary thing. However mathematical consequences have driven physics in some instances. For example Dirac's generalization of Schroedinger's equation lead to the prediction of anti-matter two years before it was actually observed in cloud chambers (the positive electron, or positron). Adherence to conservation laws (which are really symmetries) lead Wolfgang Pauli to predict neutrino's for which there was not a scintilla of empirical evidence, at the time. Neutrinos are so anti-social and non-interactive with other matter that it took nearly 30 years to actually find one. Pauli stuck his neck out for primarily mathematical reasons. And he was damned worried that he would become a laughing stock because of his proposed particle. He delayed publishing for over a year trying to get experimentalists to give him a sliver of hope. And so on....

The work proceeds and it will be done when it is done.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited January 5, 2011 by BaalChatzaf

[sjw]

Did Ayn Rand ever give any weight to analogizing as a mode of concept formation? Speaking for my self, I have found analogy as a way of extending concepts I know and formulating new ones. I have also used it with my children and grandchildren and I have found it is a handy dandy way a extending prior meanings to new words and extending the reference of generic terms.

For example with my then two year old grand-daughter Julia : Julia. Do you know what this is? (Point to a glove). This is a glove. A glove is for your hand like a sock is for your foot. And so on.... It works rather well. And it is readier and more useful than measurement omission.

Ba'al Chatzaf

At best analogy and metaphor are conveniences or artistic devices, at worst they are a severe handicap to actually knowing what you are talking about.

Shayne

[BaalChatzaf]

Did Ayn Rand ever give any weight to analogizing as a mode of concept formation? Speaking for my self, I have found analogy as a way of extending concepts I know and formulating new ones. I have also used it with my children and grandchildren and I have found it is a handy dandy way a extending prior meanings to new words and extending the reference of generic terms.

For example with my then two year old grand-daughter Julia : Julia. Do you know what this is? (Point to a glove). This is a glove. A glove is for your hand like a sock is for your foot. And so on.... It works rather well. And it is readier and more useful than measurement omission.

Ba'al Chatzaf

At best analogy and metaphor are conveniences or artistic devices, at worst they are a severe handicap to actually knowing what you are talking about.

Shayne

I have used analogies and metaphors with 4 children and 5 grandchildren. It speeds up their understanding.

Metaphor is a cutting edge of scientific creativity.Einstein's "thought experiments" and fantasies of running neck and neck with a light wave was instrumental in his development of electrodynamic theory (aka Special Theory of Relativity). There are more ways of brewing up concepts than compare/contrast and hierarchies of definition classes. Aristotle's model of definitions and ideas does not nearly cover the ground completely.

The severe handicap of metaphor (a snake swallowing its tail) led Kelkule to the discovery of the benzine ring. I suspect he knew what he was talking about.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[sjw]

The severe handicap of metaphor (a snake swallowing its tail) led Kelkule to the discovery of the benzine ring. I suspect he knew what he was talking about.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Argument from authority. Anyway, I never said one shouldn't employ metaphor or analogy. I never said they weren't useful devices. The problem is when people substitute the device for actual knowledge. The analogy or metaphor gives a hint at conceptual structure, but one must arrive at a point where one can confirm what the analogy/metaphor is suggesting, independently of the analogy/metaphor, otherwise what one has could be nothing more than a mirage. Of course, this satisfies a good fraction of mankind, who don't care if they know, but only if they think they know.

Shayne

[Xray]

Not, to my knowledge, explicitly at the theoretical level. An example from her fiction is the process by which Rearden comes to see the analogy between his work life and his sex life. Roark sees the priciple behind the Dean and extends it to politics. You could probably find others. This would be a good dissertation topic.

She called herself an admirer or Aristotle, who frequently, on numerous questions, cites aanalogy and homonymy as ways of extending our understanding and relating it back to core, focal meanings. Presumably she would endorse what he said.

Could you give an example of an Aristotelian "homonymy" serving to extend understanding and relating it back to core, focal meanings?

In linguistics, homonyms are terms having the same sound chain and spelling (the "signifier"/called "le signifiant" by F. de Saussure, the "father" of modern linguistics), but different meaning (the "signified"/called le "signifié" by F. de Saussure).

Example: "bear" (noun) and [to] "bear" (verb).

This is a method of definition, not of concept formation per se.

I would not call using analogies "a method of definition". Definitions serve the purpose of differentiating, whereas analogies serve the purpose of establishing similarities.

As for Rand's 'concept formation', it is mostly about forming lexical classes and subclasses (called hypernyms and hyponyms in linguistics - "animal" for example is the hypernym of the hyponym "bear").

As to how humans form "concepts", Rand was wrong in claiming that a child having "yet no knowledge of words" is able to theorize about a concept like e.g. "length", which in her opinion is among the simplest concepts. Which is wrong as well. What may seem simple for an adult is far from simple for a child. If Rand had had more experience with children, she would have found out that even children who do already have knowledge of words, five to six year olds for example, when shown "a ruler, a pencil and a stick", will react a bit differently (to put it mildly) to these items than how she thought.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Xray

[BaalChatzaf]

The severe handicap of metaphor (a snake swallowing its tail) led Kelkule to the discovery of the benzine ring. I suspect he knew what he was talking about.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Argument from authority.

He invented the benzine ring. That is the authority of accomplishment.

If you want to learn how science is done, go to the Masters and learn. Look unto the Rock from which you were hewn.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[merjet]

Harriman's flaws, as I see them, is an incomplete grasp of how new ideas are invented and woven into the tapestry of thought (ha! there is a metaphor!) to produce important new theories.

I think this is a good point. I can't recall Harriman saying anything in The Logical Leap about the role of analogy in new scientific theories. Analogies have been quite prevalent. Isaac Newton saw an analogy between objects falling to earth and the orbits of planets. The developers of the wave theory of light relied on analogies between light and sound. Darwin made an analogy between natural selection and artificial selection by breeders.

I have a book titled Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery. Analogy has a significant role in the authors' view of induction. They cite the above examples. It also includes the following:

Another well-documented use of analogy in theoretical discovery is what James Clerk Maxwell called his method of physical analogy: "that partial similarity between the laws of one science and those of another which makes each of them illustrate the other" (Maxwell 1952, p. 156; see also Nersessian 1984). Emulating Kelvin, who used analogies between heat and electrostatics and between light and the vibrations of an elastic medium, Maxwell uses a mechanical analogy concerning stresses in a fluid medium to arrive at his celebrated equations for electromagnetic fields. By virtue of the use of such analogies, the theory or mental model for a new domain need not be built up from scratch but can derive fundamental facts of its structure from other, already functioning mental models.