The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy

[Daniel Barnes]

Rodney:

>Daniel, the only contribution I attempted to make was to point out your wrongheaded interpretation of the "length" passage. The rest was tangential things in which I was mainly addressing Objectivists here.

Simply not true. You made no attempt whatsoever to argue why my interpretation was wrong, you merely pontificated on your absurd, fact-free theory and made silly allusions to the "blindness" of my "flawed" consciousness, comparing it with your own "near congenital" firsthandedness.

>I have put forth pro-capitalism on the Carole King board.

The Carole King board, no less!

>I feel very insulted by your remarks.

Such are the wages of substituting wishful self-aggrandisement for argument. You wind up looking both vain and empty. Perhaps you will know better next time.

Edited June 8, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

Well, you have only partially convinced me. I see applications where there is a fact/idea connection and others where there is none. For example, I certainly would not use falsification as a method of teaching a skill. I might use it to highlight the effectiveness of what is to be imparted, but not to do the actual imparting. That has to be in a more positive form. And that's just one instance.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>I certainly would not use falsification as a method of teaching a skill.

One would hope not, as you don't know anything about Popper's theory. You seem to think "falsification" is all there is to it.

Actually it consists of conjecture as well as refutation.

Why not spare us your conjectures until you've done some reading? It will save me some refutations.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

I would not use conjecture or refutation for teaching a skill either. I would use solid information ("do this to get that result" and "practice it until it is second nature"). A critical approach is counterproductive in acquiring a skill. Once the skill is acquired, there is plenty of time for a critical approach.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>I agree that trying to build the house out of atoms and molecules would be ludicrous.

So you say in one breath, and yet you persist in the next! My very argument is that these bricks are quite sturdy enough for our purposes - they are fine under certain tolerances and pressures, so long as we do not place too much on them. Now let us try and build something practical and worthwhile with them - an argument, a theory, a proposal.

But you insist that we cannot even begin to build anything until the brick's last detail is analysed in precise detail. We must study it until we have grasped its "essentials." We must know exactly what we mean by every component, and every component of every component....Now you're claiming that making such analysis unlimited is "ludicrous" but when I asked you where the logical place to stop is, you've never answered. I've told you what I think. All you've done is repeat your call for a moratorium on any building until we have completed this supposedly vital preliminary project. This according to you, is the way of Objectivism, and anything else is evasion.

My reply is: you are welcome to such blather. But if you are looking for an explanation as to why all around you it is far and away still the non-Objectivists lifting the skyscrapers; and why, meanwhile, in the 50 years since 'Atlas Shrugged,' the Objectivists still cavil and bicker over the sketchy outline of their site plan, producing endless discussions and forums and conferences and schisms over it, and perhaps now and again lifting a single brick or two whilst emitting heartfelt cries over the decades of paralysis; if you want to know why this is, well, I suggest you look no further.

Edited June 8, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Jonathan]

>I have put forth pro-capitalism on the Carole King board.

The Carole King board, no less!

Heh.

Maybe the following should go on the "Forty Years..." or "Passing the Torch" thread but...

You know, I haven't seen many Objectivists (who claim to be interested in "spreading Objectivism") spending much time and effort discussing ideas with others on non-Objectivist blogs and sites. I've been surprised that O'ists haven't done so frequently en masse. Such excursions into high-visibility "enemy territory" could be a great way of persuading others and, more importantly, of learning how to persuade others.

But then again, most of the rare instances in which I've seen O'ists venture into non-O'ist territory online weren't too successful, and not because their adversaries were "evil" or "closed to reason" or anything like that, but because the O'ists were pretty inept — due mostly to difficulty in controlling their emotions, acting as if quoting Rand would end all arguments, refusing to recognize their own errors or lack of knowledge, making fools of themselves by clinging to preposterous, self-contradictory positions that their opponents had shredded, or simply disappearing from conversations when their positions had clearly become untenable (sometimes while pretending that doing so was a heroic act of refusing to "sanction evil" or waste their time with people whose "minds were closed anyway").

So, maybe most Objectivists don't get out much because, despite high-fiving each other for their failed attempts, something in them recognizes that they're getting their asses kicked, deservedly being laughed at, and doing more harm than good to their cause?

Can you envision the average gang of online Objectivist "activists" working together to gather a list of high-visibility blogs and other discussion sites where they might go and make their case, posting on those sites and trying to politely persuade others with intelligent arguments, returning to their Objectivist lairs to critique each other's effectiveness (or lack thereof) rather than the "enemy's" level of evil, and focusing on what they could do better? I can't.

J

[Jonathan]

Is Brendan next going to try to tell us that we can't observe green or the smoothness of a table as I rub my fingers on it?

You can observe that a table is green by rubbing your fingers on it? Neat!

J

[Daniel Barnes]

Jonathan:

>You know, I haven't seen many Objectivists (who claim to be interested in "spreading Objectivism") spending much time and effort discussing ideas with others on non-Objectivist blogs and sites.

Ditto. I've belonged to a wide variety of discussion groups over the past decade or more. Objectivists rarely if ever show up. When they do they don't stay. They follow exactly the pattern you describe. I have heard the excuse that because they are faced with a terrible, irrationalist world day to day, they need their virtual Atlantises to repair to, to keep their irreplaceable sparks alight. To ask them to then go forth and take their case to the rest of the world is just too much; the masses are too stupid and the intellectuals too corrupted anyway. They might argue fiercely at a dinner party or at the water cooler, but the thought of the sustained effort you need to get your point across seems just too much.

Obviously the larger organisations do it to some extent. Most others are clearly content to conquer hearts and minds by sporadic pensees on capitalism in the ferocious atmosphere of the Carole King board. It's a shame, I think this tendency to intellectual insularity is a handicap.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

Come on. Invent your own metaphor instead of imputing a contrary meaning to mine. You know perfectly well that I consider theory = wall, not brick. It sounds lame when you try to do that with a metaphor without an exceptional bon mot to accompany it. It insinuates a lack of creativity, and I know that is not your case.

In case you missed it, I consider brick = concept.

Are you guys talking about Carole King like in like that marvelous wonderful magnificent Tapestry songwriter and singer? She has a site that discusses capitalism? Do you have a link? Hell, she can be a Commie and pervert for all I care. That woman is pre-forgiven for anything and everything.

Michael

[Brendan Hutching]

Daniel: “Sadly for you, this process is almost certainly irreversible.”

Sadly, I fear you are right, Daniel. In fact, I have secretly known this for some time, albeit dimly, but have sought to evade the knowledge in the hope that another reading of Atlas Shrugged might provide the key, the entrance to the life that is mine for the taking. But the words invariably trudge across the page and fall to the floor.

I have now resigned myself to the not-yet, the tepid cup followed by the bitter dregs. And yet, in its own way, this provides consolation. My expectations may be low, but they’re never disappointed.

Brendan

[Brendan Hutching]

Michael: “Are you using the term "relationship" only epistemologically, then claiming that this is poor metaphysics?”

Not to be pedantic, but relationships are a matter of ontology, the sub-set of metaphysics whose subject of enquiry is the types of things that exist. I’m claiming that your epistemology and your metaphysics are in contradiction. However, it may be that your wording was unclear.

“You mentioned innate knowledge.”

I did not mention innate knowledge.

“…you hold that the mind provides fundamental cognitive information that exists only in the mind and imposes this information on the perception of existents in order to organize thinking about them better.”

By its nature, “cognitive information” can only exist in the mind, but what I would say is that the mind acts in a way that “orders” or regulates our experience, including to a degree sense experience. But the use of terms such as “distort” and “foreign” cannot but prejudice the argument, so I would prefer that you don’t use them.

Brendan

[Brendan Hutching]

General semanticist: “First of all, there is no such thing as a 'mind', all we have is brains or nervous systems.”

No, there is no such object as a “mind”. I use mind as a collective term to refer to the mental activities of human beings, perhaps higher animals.

Brendan

[Brendan Hutching]

Merlon: “It fails to distinguish between an instance of similarity and the concept similarity.”

You would need to clarify what you mean by “instance”. The original point at issue was the claim that it is possible to perceive similarity. I am claiming that perception per ser is insufficient to establish similarity, that a mental judgement is also required.

“Is Brendan next going to try to tell us that we can't observe green or the smoothness of a table as I rub my fingers on it?”

Why should I do that? I can perceive greenness or smoothness. I cannot perceive similarity.

Brendan

[tjohnson]

Brendan wrote;

"I use mind as a collective term to refer to the mental activities of human beings"

And previously wrote;

"The act of comparison occurs in the mind, not the senses"

I see a problem here since 'mental activities' does not differentiate between 'mind' and 'senses', and so includes senses or perception. So basically you have included 'senses' in the 'mind' category in one sentence and excluded it in another. In general semantics this is avoided by using the terms 'lower' and 'higher' order abstractions of our nervous systems.

[BaalChatzaf]

Brendan wrote;

"I use mind as a collective term to refer to the mental activities of human beings"

And previously wrote;

"The act of comparison occurs in the mind, not the senses"

I see a problem here since 'mental activities' does not differentiate between 'mind' and 'senses', and so includes senses or perception. So basically you have included 'senses' in the 'mind' category in one sentence and excluded it in another. In general semantics this is avoided by using the terms 'lower' and 'higher' order abstractions of our nervous systems.

There is no Bright Line between brain and sensory organs. The retina of the human eye is the forward extension of the visual cortex which sits in the back of the brain. There is no Mind. There is only brains, nerve tissue and other sticky wet gooey stuff.

Humans have been cut up, sliced, diced autopsied and postmortemed for thousands of years. A Mind has never been found. Not once. No one has ever seen a mind in a body he did not own.

No matter, never mind.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>In case you missed it, I consider brick = concept.

Ok, so you're not interested in analysing concepts after all. Welcome to the club.

Edited June 9, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[william.scherk]

Consider a lump of knowledge as given by Daniel (theory, etc.) a house.

With respect, Michael, no. This analogy doesn't work for me, as it does not seem to correspond to the matter at hand. I see very few ways in which a lump of knowledge is like a house. So, since there are many ways in which knowledge is not like a house, I don't grant your premise. Put another way, my mind strains and stalls while parsing the entailments, so I must take another route or reboot.

The quote from ITOE is clear: Rand believed that her description was accurate, that the process of concept-formation in a pre-verbal child was this and such.** I find her description interesting and a tool for further thought.

I seem stalled at the outset and hear the victory celebrations from the next valley.

Is this over?

- From Disheartened at the starting line, BC

** will add further ayes and nays later today.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Since ‘similarity’ cannot be present in the perception of objects, it must be inferred or thought. In that case, in the above example, the child is not “seeing” something similar, but rather thinking “something similar”. Therefore, ‘similarity’ must already be present in the mind and brought to the experience of observing the three objects.

I did not mention innate knowledge.

Brendan.

How do I reconcile these two statements? (My bold in the first.)

Mike:

>In case you missed it, I consider brick = concept.

Ok, so you're not interested in analysing concepts after all. Welcome to the club.

Daniel,

I goofed. Brick = percept and possibly primary concept. (See how easy it is to say "I goofed"? It didn't hurt at all. )

This analogy doesn't work for me, as it does not seem to correspond to the matter at hand. I see very few ways in which a lump of knowledge is like a house. So, since there are many ways in which knowledge is not like a house, I don't grant your premise. Put another way, my mind strains and stalls while parsing the entailments, so I must take another route or reboot.

William,

This is the problem with metaphors. Sometimes a poor one is chosen in the heat of things, and they can get too vague.

The house metaphor only works to show that a concept is made up of different smaller parts put together by a system based on the nature of them and the nature of the whole, and that those parts and the system can be identified without becoming meaningless. Beyond that, I agree that the metaphor is a poor one. It requires too selective a focus to work. A lot of other implications can be drawn from it.

Michael

[Brendan Hutching]

General Semanticist: I see a problem here since 'mental activities' does not differentiate between 'mind' and 'senses'...”

Fair comment. I should have more clearly distinguished between sense perception and ‘other’ types of mental activities, such as reasoning, memory, imagination, emotion.

Brendan

[merjet]

You would need to clarify what you mean by “instance”. The original point at issue was the claim that it is possible to perceive similarity. I am claiming that perception per ser is insufficient to establish similarity, that a mental judgement is also required.

I used "instance" to mean a single case of similarity, especially one that is perceived. What's crucial is whether or not more than perception is always required. You (seem to) say 'yes'; Rand and I say 'no'. Suppose somebody shows you side-by-side two identical or nearly identical leaves from the same tree. Do you need a "mental judgment" to say they are similar? Before saying 'yes', consider the images on your retina and the neural processing that's going on. The processing of two distinct parts - the two leaves - of the visual field is undoubtedly similar. In other words, similarity is a given by perception in this case. In Rand's length example, the similarity requires a little more selective focus, but the similarity really there and perceived. I take that to be her point, and that similarity is not an a priori concept, which is in effect what you have argued. If she had used for her example three pencils identical except in length, less selective focus is required. Nothing more than selective focus, i.e. attention, is required in many cases.

If you hold that more than perception and selective focus -- some kind of mental judgment -- is required, then I submit you must hold that for infants and other species as well. Does an infant make a mental judgment that mommy now is the same person seen hours earlier? Must an eagle make some sort of mental judgment that the hare it sees today is similar to the hare it preyed on earlier.

Why should I do that? I can perceive greenness or smoothness. I cannot perceive similarity.

My question was provocative. Perceiving greenness or smoothness, like similarity, does require selective focus.

[Brendan Hutching]

Ba'al Chatzaf: “There is no Bright Line between brain and sensory organs.”

I agree that there is a physiological component to mental activities, but I do not believe that one is reducible to the other, nor that there is necessarily a “hard-wiring” between mind and matter.

The other day I was reading a newspaper article about some scientists who claimed to have validated the memory-based explanation for the experience we call deja vu. That is, déjà vu occurs when a current experience has marked similarities with a past experience, and the brain/mind compares the two experiences. The experience is often accompanied by an ‘eerie’ or ‘weird’ feeling.

My 11-year old daughter also read the article and became quite excited, explaining the déjà vu experience as a “prickly feeling in the back of the neck”. Like most people, I have experienced this phenomenon, but have noticed that its impact tends to lessen with age.

Why is this? My explanation is that over the years I have adopted a prosaic rather than esoteric explanation for the phenomenon, and have also stored a great many more memories, so that deja vu-style experiences have less impact. Hence, the physiological accompaniment, the prickly feeling, also diminishes. And a “prickly feeling in the back of the neck” can also accompany other experiences, such as a creepy sequence in a horror movie.

In other words, physiology is not necessarily hard-wired to mental experience.

Brendan

[Brendan Hutching]

Since ‘similarity’ cannot be present in the perception of objects, it must be inferred or thought. In that case, in the above example, the child is not “seeing” something similar, but rather thinking “something similar”. Therefore, ‘similarity’ must already be present in the mind and brought to the experience of observing the three objects.

I did not mention innate knowledge.

Brendan.

How do I reconcile these two statements? (My bold in the first.)

My comments should be taken in the context of critiquing Rand’s argument. I’m saying that her argument leads to the conclusion that: “Therefore, ‘similarity’ must already be present in the mind and brought to the experience of observing the three objects.” And this, of course, is inconsistent with Rand’s claim re tabula rasa.

Perhaps I should have spelled it out, but this is a standard method of criticism: draw out the implications of a claim to show where it is mistaken on its own terms.

Brendan

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>I goofed. Brick = percept and possibly primary concept.

Well, if analysing concepts really is your idea of an important thing to do - and you're far from alone; Wolf f'rinstance seems to think almost every concept the human race currently possesses needs to be reviewed and correctly defined - I am sure there is more than enough to keep whole armies of Objectivists working nights far into the foreseeable future. Just don't be suprised if you look up from your labours many years hence to find a by-now-rather-ancient Phil Coates lamenting Objectivism's failure to thrive over the previous 80 years...

I think I've explained my reasoning about as much as I can.

[BaalChatzaf]

My question was provocative. Perceiving greenness or smoothness, like similarity, does require selective focus.

One does not perceive -greenness-. One perceives and green this or a green that. Greenness is an abstraction manufactured by the brain as a result of perceiving a lot of green thises and thats.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

In other words, physiology is not necessarily hard-wired to mental experience.

Brendan

Mental experience is your brain in operation. There is no Mind (as a substance or stand-alone object). There is brain and related tissue, organs and glands.

A postmortem has never ever revealed a Mind. And postmortems have been done for thousands of years.

Mind is right up there with Soul, God, Ghosts and Spirits. Abstractions produced by human brains.

Ba'al Chatzaf