Stolen Concept

[tjohnson]

Hey Micheal, guess what? I found an example of 'stolen concept' in Science and Sanity but the idea originated with a professor named Josiah Royce;

Royce shows that there are certain activities which we reinstate and verify through the very fact of attempting to assume that these forms of activity do not exist, or that these laws are not valid. If any one attempts to say that there are no

classes whatsoever in his world, he thereby inevitably classifies. If any one denies

the existence of relations, and, in particular, a semantic relation between affirmation

and denial, or affirms that ‘yes’ and ‘no’ have one meaning, in that breath he affirms

and denies. He makes a difference between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and emphatically asserts

relational equivalence even in denying the difference between ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

And

Without objects conceived as unique individuals, we can have no Classes. Without classes we can, as we have seen, define no Relations, without relations we can have no Order. But to be reasonable is to conceive of order-systems, real or ideal.

Therefore, we have an absolute logical need to conceive of individual objects as the

elements of our ideal order systems. This postulate is the condition of defining

clearly any theoretical conception whatever. The further metaphysical aspects of the

concept of an individual we may here ignore. To conceive of individual objects is a

necessary presupposition of all orderly activity.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

This is absolutely right.

In the second statement, there is an implied metaphysical condition for classifying (making "order-systems" in Royce-speak) and it most definitely should not be ignored, otherwise it will fall into the error mentioned in the first quote.

That metaphysical condition is called the law of identity: A thing is what it is and not something else and a thing has a specific nature that can be identified (including being mentally dissected).

I suspect there are many parallels between GS and Objectivism, but I have already perceived from your posts there are some serious differences.

Michael

[tjohnson]

GS,

This is absolutely right.

In the second statement, there is an implied metaphysical condition for classifying (making "order-systems" in Royce-speak) and it most definitely should not be ignored, otherwise it will fall into the error mentioned in the first quote.

That metaphysical condition is called the law of identity: A thing is what it is and not something else and a thing has a specific nature that can be identified (including being mentally dissected).

I suspect there are many parallels between GS and Objectivism, but I have already perceived from your posts there are some serious differences.

Michael

I would like to address another issue. what do you mean by 'concept'? Korzybski discouraged the use of this word since he considered it ambiguous. We have perceptions, thoughts, ideas, etc. and we have words to represent them so where does concept fit in? I think you will agree that ultimately it must be some sort of neural structure or reproducible nervous activity, such as a visualization, memory, etc.?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

When you think "concept," think "software" as in computer program. That might help.

Michael

[tjohnson]

For instance (to state the example once again), you can measure consciousness by comparing the range of rational (man) to the range of the perceptual (dog). There you have a measurement. Rational is the "essential" characteristic because out of a range of possible measurements (consciousness being the standard), it is different. Its reach is greater than other levels of consciousness. Rationality is an end-point of a sliding scale, not a unique "essence" unrelated to all else in reality. This is what the CDD is all about.

You cannot measure "manness" or "tableness" or even "rationalness" or "toeness" or "eyeness" or "earthness" or "treeness" or any of that no matter how you do it.

Now here is the really hard part your posts show that you are having difficulty accepting. Just because focus is on measurable attributes so a classification can be made, the concept still includes all of the other characteristics of the existents in that group. These characteristics are merely not included in the definition, which, along with the word (mental "tag"), is only a manner of making the concept a concrete thing, a mental form, we can use.

I brought this quote from the 'induction' thread because I want to use it to compare to GS. I think there are striking similarities but the wording is quite different. Below is a diagram used to illustrate Korzybski's theory of abstracting.

The parabola, E, represents "reality" or WIGO (What Is Going On) around us - that which we perceive from. The circle labeled Oh represents what we "get" or perceive from WIGO. Notice some strings are attached and others are connected, this means that we don't "get" all of WIGO, for instance we only see a small band of EM waves- visible light. The rectangle L represents a word or label used to represent the perception in Oh and again some strings hang loose and some are connected. This is because some characteristics are included in our definitions and some are not - we are only interested in the 'essential" ones for some purpose.

The other circle Oa represents an animal's existence. he knows nothing of WIGO (you need science for that) and has no (or severely limited) language to discuss his experience. There is more but I'll let you digest this before saying more.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Tut, tut. Please, no 'Polish diagram' jokes. Thank you.

:getlost:

[tjohnson]

I believe "cows run in herds", yes. But the word 'cow', for example, could mean at least 4 different things.

1. the "real" thing we can touch, milk, etc. (outside our skin)

2. our perception of it that we get with all our senses (inside our skin)

3. a mental image of it, a memory, visualization (you might call 'concept')

4. a verbal definition of 'cow'

Your statement that "cows run in herds" belongs on level 4 and as such, yes, it represents an inference in a general way, albeit, as rather simple one. But as our language becomes abstract (like in zoology) it becomes more inferential, further removed from level 1.

No it doesn't. Pure Level 1. The real things run in herds whether we want them to or not or whether we perceive this or not. They do it. That is why we can perceive it and categorize it.

I know I said the discussion was over but what the hay, I'll try another way. Do you not accept that these 4 levels exist? If so, can you see these as differences in levels of human consciousness?

[tjohnson]

Since no two events are identical, every atom, molecule, organism, personality, and society is an

emergent and, at least to some extent, a novelty. And these emergents are concatenated in such a

way as to form vast ramifying systems, only certain ideal sections of which seem to have elicited the

attention of philosophers, owing to their avowedly anthropocentric and anthropodoxic interests.

(555) WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER

This alludes to the different levels Korzybski talks about. Strange, the word "anthropodoxic" seems to have only ever been used by Wheeler. Anyone know what it means?

[John Dailey]

gs:

~ Apparently, only Wheeler knows...and he ain't tellin' anyone. Googling 'The Web' shows only 2 sites where he used the term: a PDF of his Science and Sanity, and an article in ScienceMag (membership req for accessing.)

~ Best I could find (in the Google; it asked if THIS is what I 'meant') is that what maybe was 'really' meant was apodictic. Prob is, the former sure don't seem the latter.

~ Do all you non-Aristotelians talk this way?

LLAP

J:D

Edited October 9, 2007 by John Dailey

[BaalChatzaf]

Since no two events are identical, every atom, molecule, organism, personality, and society is an

emergent and, at least to some extent, a novelty. And these emergents are concatenated in such a

way as to form vast ramifying systems, only certain ideal sections of which seem to have elicited the

attention of philosophers, owing to their avowedly anthropocentric and anthropodoxic interests.

(555) WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER

This alludes to the different levels Korzybski talks about. Strange, the word "anthropodoxic" seems to have only ever been used by Wheeler. Anyone know what it means?

The root Doxa or Doxi means opinion in Greek. I assume anthropodoxic means human opinion, the kind of opinions that humans have as opposed to true Ideas in the classical philosophical sense. Aristotle and Plato often contrasted opinion with true ideas or true principles.

I am taking a course in Aristotle's philosophy (mostly Ethics, Politics and some Metaphysics). I run into these Greek terms frequently. One needs to know some of the original Greek terminology to make any sense out of the translations.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Baal:

~ Gotta be careful with 'translations', as well may you know, whether the interpretations were personally induced [!] by you, or were accepted of/from others'. --- Look at what havoc in history was caused by disagreements of such re Mary being a mere 'maiden' for some, and for others a bona-fide 'virgin.'

LLAP

J:D

Edited October 12, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

When you get a wrong translation, in terms of making an intellectual critique (and in the inestimable words of Brazilian folk wisdom), a vaca foi pro brejo. In other words, the cow went to the swamp.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Bob,

Make sure Aristotle's "subtle and sophisticated" statements aren't your professor's.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

Make sure Aristotle's "subtle and sophisticated" statements aren't your professor's.

--Brant

Since I do not have Attic Greek sufficiently, I use four different translations concurrently. If the arguments show up the same in the various translations, I have to attribute them to the Original Author.

My favorite translator is Joe Sachs. His translation of Aristotle is down to earth and not drenched with the kind of Latinisms that accumulated during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Sachs has made it a point to avoid the Latinate translations whenever possible.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[C. Jordan]

"Anthropodoxic" means something like "the ideas/norms of human beings". Anthropos=human. I'm basing my reading of "-doxic" based on the underlying meaning of the words "heterodox" and "orthodox."

For a better translation, you would have to pay money. :tongue:

For the rest of you, I have never seen the definition of "cow" more finely cut. But it is true that a real cow is not identical to my memory of that cow which differs from the picture of the cow which differs from the dictionary definition which is not the same as my idea and that in turn is bound to be different from your idea (Michael) or your idea (Barbara) or yours (Dragonfly) or yours (BaalChatzaf).

Why only split a hair 16 ways when we can eventually slice it down to its component quanta?

I liked that diagram. I've been using the concepts of infrared light (a million times more frequencies than visible light) or for that mater ultrasonics to prove that there is a world we cannot percieve. And it's not an illusion. Far from it. Would we know of these things if we lacked reason?

[C. Jordan]

The perfect "stolen concept" argument I have heard runs something like this:

If someone says he/she is against reason, then ask him/her if he/she is making a reasonable argument, or an unreasonable argument. If the first answer, say no more: your opponent has proved your point. If the second answer, say no more: your opponent is not open to reason.

[william.scherk]

I would like to address another issue. what do you mean by 'concept'? Korzybski discouraged the use of this word since he considered it ambiguous. We have perceptions, thoughts, ideas, etc. and we have words to represent them so where does concept fit in? I think you will agree that ultimately it must be some sort of neural structure or reproducible nervous activity, such as a visualization, memory, etc.?

Another danged book recommendation, Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought." I thought I could pique your interest by noting that he posits a "language of thought," and wraps that notion up in the idea of Conceptual Semantics. Gee, Semantics and Concepts, hmmm. See review quote from Hofstadter, below**.

Mind you, if you really are a Canuckistani, and you really are in New Scotland, you probably have already checked it out from your excellent local library in Antigonish.

If not, Amazon.ca, and some reviews:

LA Times review by Douglas Hofstadter

The Guardian review by Deborah Cameron

New York Times review by William Saletan

**In "The Stuff of Thought," celebrated Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker sets out to explain how language reveals our inner nature. Terming us "verbivores, a species that lives on words," Pinker argues that our verbivorous, highly biased perception of reality differs radically from the findings of science yet allows us to thrive in a complex universe. The meanings of words matter profoundly, for words determine our reality, or at least a large part of it. Semantics is no arcane intellectual quibble; it lies at the core of our existence.

Re: Stolen Concepts, the only reaction I have is, "There are two kinds of people in the world, those who think there are only two kinds of people in the world, and those who do not." Except for the fallacy of the excluded middle, my reasoned answer to all dichotomizers.

[tjohnson]

Mind you, if you really are a Canuckistani, and you really are in New Scotland, you probably have already checked it out from your excellent local library in Antigonish.

**In "The Stuff of Thought," celebrated Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker sets out to explain how language reveals our inner nature. Terming us "verbivores, a species that lives on words," Pinker argues that our verbivorous, highly biased perception of reality differs radically from the findings of science yet allows us to thrive in a complex universe. The meanings of words matter profoundly, for words determine our reality, or at least a large part of it. Semantics is no arcane intellectual quibble; it lies at the core of our existence.

Try New Brunswick, not Nova Scotia, Not a Pinker fan either, too academic for my taste. Korzybski tries to make a "science of man" with general semantics, very unlike the academic pursuit of linguistics or semantics.

Edited December 9, 2007 by general semanticist

[william.scherk]

Not a Pinker fan either, too academic for my taste. Korzybski tries to make a "science of man" with general semantics, very unlike the academic pursuit of linguistics or semantics.

No problem; I thought you might find it fun that Pinker introduces "Conceptual Semantics" and the language of the brain as being concepts, in light of your "I think you will agree that ultimately [concept] must be some sort of neural structure or reproducible nervous activity." Talk about stealing!

Which of Pinker's books had you struggled through before becoming a non-fan?

[BaalChatzaf]

Not a Pinker fan either, too academic for my taste. Korzybski tries to make a "science of man" with general semantics, very unlike the academic pursuit of linguistics or semantics.

No problem; I thought you might find it fun that Pinker introduces "Conceptual Semantics" and the language of the brain as being concepts, in light of your "I think you will agree that ultimately [concept] must be some sort of neural structure or reproducible nervous activity." Talk about stealing!

Stealing???? That is right on the mark. Do you think thoughts are ghostly entities? They are either material or the physical effects of material processes.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[william.scherk]

Stealing???? That is right on the mark.

I dunno. No skin off my teeth, but I wish someone besides me would read Pinker's new frigging book, so we could tie discussion of language and concepts back to someone who influences the larger contemporary debate . . . I like that Thomas (GS) is here and active, but my post there was a tease. Why not read the book, fercryingoutloud(?). He spends a lot of time here reading people who don't have a chair at MIT, and folk who don't publish books that sell a million . . . (forgive me, I have gone over my caffeine limit today). Not to single out Thomas, or anyone, but I get the impression from several O-forums that some books and articles in the world are 'tainted.' At its worst, this attitude suggest to me that some objectivists live/work/think in a cul-de-sac, as the world roars by . . .

Do you think thoughts are ghostly entities?

No. But plenty of folk do.

They are either material or the physical effects of material processes.

No kidding. Mind you, there is still a great puzzle on how the fact of what you note is translated to the feeling of what I think. Have you read any of Damasio's work?

If you don't mind a personal question, have you considered publishing some of your rants? You have a powerful polemical style.

[BaalChatzaf]

If you don't mind a personal question, have you considered publishing some of your rants? You have a powerful polemical style.

No. Have you ever heard a Simon and Garfunkel number: The Sound of Silence?

"But my words, like silent dew drops fell, all in a well, in a well of Silence".

I am not going to waste too much of my limited time. If I published I would either be preaching to the choir or busting my head against a stone wall. I am on record in favor of materialism and physicalism. The facts are on my side. There is no empirical grounding for dualism at all. Not a single fact. What does that leave? I am as right as rain.

If people want to believe in ghosts, goblins, spirits, minds and gods, they will, and no reason-based argument will discourage them.

I have a speculation about why this is true. It is only a speculation. If we are lucky we will live about 30,000 days. If unlucky, fewer. After which we become worm food or calcinated ash. The physicalist/materialist position acknowledges that we are worm-food in waiting. Most people dislike that idea a great deal. They are afraid of dying. So they cling to the notion there is something immaterial about their being, therefore something beyond death and dying. I have done the arithmetic. I have multiplied 365.25 by 80 (what an optimist I am!) and have come up with 29,220 and I round up to the nearest thousand. If one eats right, exercises, avoids body polluting substance and is reasonably cautious, living to 80 or thereabouts is not that unlikely. Of course one can be unlucky and have a fatal accident. Or one could have a genetic time bomb ticking within. That is a risk we all share.

Anyway, having done the arithmetic and accepting with a whole heart and operating brain that my days are numbered (quite literally) and being closer to my end than my beginning I have accepted that I will go the way of all flesh. That is because I am all flesh. There is not one blessed immaterial immortal thing about me.

I have bequeathed my journals containing my thoughts on how to be less insane than most of the others round about, to my grandchildren. They will receive my journals on their 25th birthday (by which time they should have a world view that they can live with). What I wrote will outlast me by a little. That is as much immortality and shelf life as I am going to get.

And there it is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

No problem; I thought you might find it fun that Pinker introduces "Conceptual Semantics" and the language of the brain as being concepts, in light of your "I think you will agree that ultimately [concept] must be some sort of neural structure or reproducible nervous activity." Talk about stealing!

Which of Pinker's books had you struggled through before becoming a non-fan?

I've only read bits and pieces of Pinker and what I read totally turned me off. Perhaps you would like to introduce some of his ideas from your perspective and we could discuss?

[bmacwilliam]

I am on record in favor of materialism and physicalism.

Leaving out one more little 'ism aren't we?

[Robert Campbell]

WSS,

I'm interested enough in Pinker's latest to read it, but it will have to fight its way to the top of the stack.

I am not a fan of the "language of thought" notion. Pinker got it from Jerry Fodor and Jerrold Katz (two first-generation followers of Noam Chomsky). Fodor and Katz, in turn, picked up where G. W. F. von Leibniz and a bunch of less famous thinkers from the 1600s and 1700s left off.

I suspect Pinker will have his hands full

* Accounting for the evolution of the language of thought

* Accounting for the semantics of this purported language

Fodor doesn't care much about the evolutionary aspect, but he has struggled mightily with the meaning issues. Now maybe Pinker has figured out a solution that Fodor overlooked... but Fodor has been pretty smart and pretty thorough.

Robert Campbell