Author Archives: HMBH

Jabberwockians Part 2: Creatures in the Mind and Those in the World

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This is a continuation of Part 1, which can be read here.

We could also talk about the itch on the sole of my foot as something that occurs “in my imagination”. It is not that I imagine the itch — the itch is very real, all encompassing for me! But I agree that it is different in many or most respects from the lamp-post. We refer to items in our imagination in two ways: (a) as independent of anything that is happening in the world (b) as something which also has a counterpart in our objective world.

To give an example: the Jabberwocky, described by Lewis Carrol in Alice through the Looking Glass, is an imagined creature that has no counterpart in our normal world although it is kith and kin to other imagined creatures of the “monster class”. Compare this to a predatory tiger which stalks the open fields in search of a prey. This tiger is not described by “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” but can be described in many ways in ordinary language. We can therefore talk about an AJ creature — short for Anti-Jabberwockians — as well as a J creature, which may have “eyes of flame,” whiffles as it moves and “burbles” too. It had a neck! The rest is left to our imagination, stimulated by the sounds of a set of non-descriptive words. Such creatures only exist in our minds, in our imagination and have no counterparts in nature. Don’t look for them! One can add to their attributes, but we do not expect that the same additional attributes will be discovered by other people as they roam through their imaginations.

This difference in the conditions under which one believes in the reality of things between J’s and AJ’s is important.

What is an AJ? What is a J?

Those of us who are J’s are traditional believers; their beliefs could include that Jabberwockies exist, so that if there is one presumably there are many! This conclusions follows from the more abstract belief that all creatures have parents even when these have not been sighted, i.e. they could be sighted, could be discovered, are discoverable — therefore must be found!

AJ’s, on the other hand are believers who demand that on every occasion solid grounds must be given for things/events in which we are asked to believe. They advocate a rigorous acceptance-principle, which is applied to every instance where a belief is actively promoted. Such beliefs are often promoted by an interest group — of which there are very many! I think Alice herself is an AJ. Even very young little North American girls (and boys, of course) often become convinced AJ’s quite early in their lives, e.g. most believe in Father Christmas, as toddlers, or in the tooth-fairy, but both beliefs are gradually shed.

Furthermore, AJ’s adopt moveable, flexible demarcation criteria, which change over time and experience. Thus, they tend to be comfortable with the idea that what was “ true” — and therefore real — yesterday (!) may not be so tomorrow. Indeed reality itself becomes a changing idea: the world may not be a sea of chaos — as many philosophers once surmised — but it is not a like a sheet of calm unruffled water either.

AJ’s therefore reserve judgements about whether creatures of the imagination can (or do) retain their legitimacy for long or whether legitimacy implies that there are strictly enforcable legitimation rules which are unbreakable, and cannot be revised. Of course, such rules need to be justified on other grounds than that these are mere momentary convenience! Much of the work by contemporary philosophers of science (a separate breed!) has been devoted to this task. Often their work has de-legitimized earlier research by demonstrating that so-called firm conclusions were prematurely reached, since the methods of data collection and date treatment was unwarranted, that is, cannot be justified by today’s standards. Medical research has been particularly hard hit since all too often studies on, for example, the short and long term effects of medication, require elaborate designs and procedures which could endanger the subjects of the investigations — and could therefore not be undertaken at this time.

But placing restrictions on what can be done in an experiment also places limits on the interpretation of the data collected on such occasions: the jury is out, so to speak! Of course, when this is so it limits the validity and generality of any conclusion reached at the end of the investigation. “The jury is out” is in fact an important contribution to research: it limits what can be concluded, what matters can be temporarily included in the “Book of Truths”!

It therefore immediately influences the integrity of any model which was involved in the inquiry itself and therefore also of the theory being “tested” directly or indirectly by the experimental investigation. From one point of view, this scenario is a downer for researchers, for people who are usually committed to the theory being tested. To be sure, there are those whose primary interest is in “discovery” — or as is often said “in the facts” — whereas others are tuned into the validity of the theory which generated the predictions being tested. Theories — one could say — are not discovered, but created, whereas facts are uncovered.

It seems from all this that Jabberwockians (the J’s) are the salt of the earth given that they are willing to entertain a world which is by no means coherent, and are those who are willing to walk into positions which are not laced up by tight strands of logic. Anti-Jabberwockians (AJ’s), on the other hand, can be insufferable because they insist that creatures like the Jabberwocky don’t make sense, that creatures of the imagination always have to stand the test of logical coherence before these creatures can be declared as real. It is not a matter of “value”, but a matter of what furniture has been placed into each room in our complex living space and of how flexible we are in our demands for attains the best of all possible worlds.

This is the second of a 3-part blog. Part 3 will appear in a few days.

Jabberwockians Part 1: The Concept of Jabberwockians and Anti-Jabberwockians

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This is the first of a three-part blog. Parts 2 and 3 will appear in a few days.

There are two sorts of people: The Jabberwockians (the J’s of this world) and Anti-Jabberwokians (the AJ’s). The former are all those who believe that the Jabberwocky described by Lewis Carrol in Alice through the Looking Glass is a real creature and is as described! Anti-Jabberwokians, by contrast, believe that this creature is a hoax, does not exist except in the minds of young children and infantile adults.

The J’s therefore believe in the (real) possible existence of creatures of their imagination, just as they believe in their own existence (I think therefore I am) but also in the reality of butterflies. The follow-up question is, “What creatures in their imagination do not exist and are therefore imaginary?” This question demands that we submit a set of criteria which demarcates creatures that are officially real from those deemed non-real. By what standards can these two classes of creatures be reliably identified?

The truth is that even the most committed solipsist will wander up and down the boulevard declaring that some objects encountered are real whereas others are not, i.e., are unreal. At least, they may express doubts whether all things on their walk were as perceived or not. We wish to know, however, by what standards does the solipsist makes his/her judgements because we are often placed in a position where we need to decide for ourselves whether specific claims made are justified or seem to be ill supported. We do not argue that indeed there are more imaginary creatures than objects encountered on our walk — at least that may be so for some people.

Two classes of creatures? Surely there are more categories? Some are more likely than others to have the required attributes. We often also assume there is a dimension which helps us to distinquish matters, so that our choice is not confined to either/or! Ther may be many choices that have to made. Therefore, If we confine ourselves to two anchor-points, we join the group of either/or thinkers, those who bifurcate, for whom the world is left/right, up/down, right/wrong, where the notion of dimension has no place. For me such a world is unthinkable, although it was the dominant mode of thought for long periods. We ask, is “exist/does-not-exist” part of this world? I think not, because we have always allowed room for the category of “could exist”, for possibilities, and in recent times we have encouraged the habit of suspended judgements.

When Macbeth exclaims, “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” the audience realizes that there is no miraculous dagger suspended before him as he believes; that the dagger is imagined by him, or as we commonly say, “in his mind”. The audience can tell — and knows — the convention whereby matters or common objects are regularly identified and also on what occasions this is possible and feasible. In short, we have all learned to distinguish things we think about — which are deemed to be private — from things which are public, which are assumed to be available for everyone to see and sense.

It would be more correct to talk about “private as well as public”, given that matters can be private and NOT be public. “My toothache” is a case in point, but so is “to my mind”. The statement “I think of Jeannie with the light brown hair” is private because there maybe no such person as Jeannie! Whatever is referred to as “in my thoughts” is therefore private unless a claim is attached that it is also assumed to be public! Such a claim is a game-changer.

We know therefore that others — occasionally we ourselves — see and detect matters without cause, so that we can usually (but not always) tell or distinguish the real from illusion. Example: “(I thought) I heard a burglar in the bathroom, and therefore shot my gun in that direction.” The cause to action in this case is the presumed burglar, and we are asked to accept that this was a reasonable thought to have under the circumstances and — all things considered — not just an illusion or an aberration.

Here is the critical question which arises from the above example: what is the status of events which we agree are “private” compared to those we accept as “public” events? The lamp-post at the corner of our street is a public event/object. We assume it will stand there regardless of whether it is seen by anyone or not. It has endurance, a lasting presence. It does not “will itself” to stand! It was placed there by someone and probably for some reason. In this respect the lamp-post is quite different from an itch on the sole of my foot.

More to come in Part 2 in a few days!

Newton’s Atomic Theory and the Divine Will

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Newton advocated the view that atoms, conceived as small indivisible particles of matter (substance) and the void together accounted for the physical world as we, its observers, experienced it. A similar suggestion had been made two thousand year earlier by the Greek natural philosophers, e.g. Democritus (c. 400 BC), and was reaffirmed repeatedly by other Western philosophers without adding any observations or experimental investigations to support this view.

It had received support from both Plato and Aristotle although it was clear to them — and to others — that the supposition that the world was constituted in such a manner would have to remain entirely speculative. Methods to test whether indeed such “entitites” as atoms could be discovered — were not available. However there were some who believed that sooner or later suitable instruments would be invented to do so, a hope which helped sustain the wide-spread cosmological view that nature in its physical manifestations could be “revealed”, that the appropriate information would ultimately become available to us.

This optimistic notion received support from discoveries during the mid-17th century that microscopic single-cell organisms had been observed and studied by Leewenhoek in Delft, Holland, by adapting the earlier discovered telescope which had been successfully used to studied far-distant celestial bodies. It therefore seemed plausible to some to also assume that whatever governs the motions of stellar bodies also govern those on earth, that the quest for a unified, general theory of why and how bodies suspended in any media could be satisfied. Newton certainly cast his support for this position, as shown in his comments in his widely studied thesis on “Opticks” (1704-1706), a work which was to dominate natural philosophy for the next few hundred years.

Newton wrote:

It seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter in solid moveable particle of such sizes and figure and with such other properties and in such other propertied, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles being solid are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God had made in one in the first creation. While the particles continue entire, they may compose bodies of one and the same nature and texture in all ages; but should they wear away or break in pieces the nature of things depending on them would be changed….And therefore that nature may be lasting, the changes of corporeal things are to be placed only in the various separations and new associations and motions of these permanent particles; compounded bodies being apt to break not in the midst of solid particles, but where those particles are laid together and only touch in a few points.

Readers will see to what extent this passage from Newton confirms his life-long commitment to a theological position which he had taken over from official dogma and doctrine. He not only refers to the pivotal position of the Hebrew God as a Creator of the universe but also his conviction — also found in Aristotle’s metaphysical writings — that whatever is observed as a genuine item of this world is part of a teleological narrative. It is the message articulate earlier — and better — that “There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will” although its truth is equally debatable ( “Hamlet”, Act V) .

This narrative is not only pre-emptive, but strikes in advance of any pertinent evidence which could call it into question. It is formulated in a manner which cannot be contested either logically — or whose contradiction could be formulated in a way that makes these into issues which could be tested (checked) by physicalistic means, i.e. experimentally and in accordance with the strictures of experimental science, which Newton and many of his contemporaries believed were foundational to studying the “Book of Nature”.

The Form of Things: A Timeless Problem

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Entities Part 2B: A note on THE FORM OF THINGS: a timeless problem

What allows us to recognize “bare and higher truths”, truths that emerge only after we have logically tested conclusions against specific principles, those we agree would also lay bare falsehoods? Every truth publicly declared also declares its opposite, namely, what is false. It creates a universe of opposites — of truths and falsehoods — which may lead to the conclusion that whatever is NOT true, must be false!

One may call this imperative falsity, that something is held to be untrue/false because its truth-value has been inferred, not empirically demonstrated. Because we lack reliable, tested, or documented means which allow us to decide between what is false and what is true (ultimately) it may force us logically to talk about “possibilities” rather than with “truths”.

This inadvertently creates a new universe, the world of Possibilities. Possibilities, however, are a form of “speculations”, something done by humans, which is quite strong in some individuals although weak — even absent — in most others. An example of a speculative product is the notion, at first timidly suggested by Greeks during the Iron Age (prior to 600 BC) that the world as known to them had a past, a history during which humans interacted with Gods, who were themselves somewhat “human-like” except that they were opined to have greater powers of control over many more features of the world, e.g. the condition of the seas, the calmness or turmoil of the “elements”, the life and death of other creatures including their existence, even the extinction of all living things. Enter an early version of “Science Fiction”!

Thus, the atoms of Democritus, small, unobservable, and presumably indestructible entities invented c. 600 BC, were entirely speculative. Their nature was unknown but were guessed at. Democritus put out ideas, based on speculations of earlier thinkers, including seers and poets, which others of course were free to accept on the basis of its intuitive appeal, as well as any force of arguments advanced in their favour!

Democritus had very few followers, but his ideas resonated with other teachers and poets, and did not, as far as is known, draw ire from the religious establishment of his time. Thought-control — although rampant and widely practised throughout preliterate societies — was mainly enforced about matters which affected public policy and religious matters. However, efforts to divert discordant ideas and expunge these from the market place required some form of “thought police”.

As the later history of the Jews shows, the formation and acceptance of a thought-police required a shift in the social status of “prophets” from individuals who were accepted as spokespeople of a God — like Moses was — or of Gods — or of being super-natural forces themselves, those who loudly proclaimed themselves to be superior to existing authorities, on the grounds that they were directly in contact with supernatural forces.

From phenomenological, personal insights to possessing public knowledge: the impossible path

The problem which early thinkers addressed was how the complex phenomenological world — the world of daily experience, the world of our encounters which we claim to know — could be construed from visible but also invisible, inherently insensate, events, the things seen and those behind the screen! How do we develop ideas about a world which contains both solids and ephemerals, which could also influence, or “cause”, other events? “The gods at play” are of the latter kind: we guess at their existence on the evidence that things are not as anticipated.

Our anticipations are based on what has happened reliably in the past: however, we need to distinguish *signs* from *omens*. *Signs* presage a future based on earlier experience. *Omens* on the other hand, indicate that the future is likely — or is apt — to depart from the past, that the future is not like the past. So we start from the outset with a view of a corruptible world, where the future is not necessarily like the past.

We do not know what accounts for corruptions. Is there an answer? Early thinkers were bold enough to answer such questions affirmatively: they often were certain that their unique answers were correct! But such guesses were based on insupportable sources of inspiration — and therefore could not survive criticisms. These would fall apart whenever visions of the future fail to materialize which has been all to often — and with great frequency.

Comments on foundational substances

Plato, as successor to Pythagoras, and shortly thereafter Aristotle — thought by many as perhaps the most influential philosopher in Western history and himself a former student of Plato — suggested that regardless of conjectures about foundational substances — the building blocks, like the atoms of Democritus — there were also forms.

Forms serve to give structure to the perceived (subjective) world, a world which necessarily include objects. Some objects were pre-determined, whereas other were “construed”, or seen as themselves products of the elusive mind. But which?

One could argue that structure, the form objects assume, was inherent in these, or one could assume that forms was an attribute assigned to events by the “mind”. Of course, the concept of “becoming assigned” was itself problematic and generated much debate for the next two thousand years. Structure — it seemed to many — was something which was imposed on raw materials, on the analogy that the statue of Athena in Athens was hewn from formless stone. Indeed this analogy is deeply embedded also in the story of the Creation as told by many peoples during the Iron Age, and which was also recorded in their enduring myths.

It seems such myths are part of the history of our own current search for explanations, the search for what is, how things are, and how things become over time: “the past, present, and the indefinite future” as this applies to any event. It appears that during an undetermined earlier moment in our past we transitioned from accepting that some events were indeed time-bound, whereas others others were not. It assumed that some matters were “basic” and “fundamental”, that these events owed their origin to super-human or pre-human agents.

Its history therefore remains beyond our reach — and an explanation for its existence remains on the front-burner of human inquiry, even as I write. We somehow expect that the answers to our root-questions can be gotten. It seems that for the moment, we overlook that any questions raised are themselves culturally determined and that answers to these are therefore “cultural products”, which come and go with time and fashion. (To be sure, there are no fundamental questions — only passing ones and answers: each make their entrances and exits.)

Comments on structure and form

A final word about structure and content: From the point of view outlined so far, the concept of Structure is not self-supporting but is part of a duo: Structure and content are viewed as facets of how we perceive our world. (Note: see also comments in other blogs on “cognize.)

Think of *left* and *right*. But there is also *up* and *down*— and these four concepts define one version of space. The world appears fractionated to us because we employ this perceptual stratagem which permits us to focus on two, four, or more aspects of any experience without regard to raising issue of the origin, or future of the event.

As a result, we invariably create (construct) a world which has self-imposed, limited, dimensions and we therefore deliberately omit two of these — namely, change and passage of time. This creates a contrary-to-fact stance: namely that time stands still, can be tethered but also that the structure of an event can be viewed as timeless, and is close to an “enduring reality”. But is this not a case of the Humpty-Dumpty problem: how to put the pieces together retrospectively, post-hoc, after fall?

One solution may be to accept what had happened and only then back-track, to a pre-event period, before one attempts to reconstruct the world as it was before its fall off the wall and before we construct an alternative end-game, a narrative of its future. In doing so we accept that as observers we have the capacity to write alternative scenarios, no matter at what point the old story was interrupted and diverted.

If form is viewed as that feature of a narrative which gives a story its logical coherence — its rationale — it should be easy to see that any narrative consists of a series of vignettes which could occur in any sequence, or in any order except for the order itself. A story may emerge, but this may happen by chance, like the famed chimps pounding a keyboard and producing the text of Hamlet. Perhaps — but most unlikely.

Structure, it therefore seems, is a property of all things, should be viewed as a universal quality. The world is inconceivable (but only by us) without it, but no more so than a world which is bereft of distinct “instances”. Nevertheless, this world is a convenient fiction whose convenience- value needs to be clearly stated in terms which include the historical moment itself. Thus both Forms and its complementary notion, Substances, are inherently stable but only within limits. That is the conclusion reached here — and it bypasses the religious (pre-empirical) catechism that this is as was ordained! Our conclusion: our perceptions are constrained, but not ordained.

Form and Constructivism (Part 1)

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A definition of *entities* given in 1596 states that the word derives from the Latin entitas and was proposed by Julius Caesar as Present Perfect of esse, *to be*.

I interpret this to mean that anything claimed “to be” also exists. Note that terms like *entity*, *substance*, and *object* were already used by Greek writers (before 450 BC) and continued to be used as a vital part of the vocabulary by philosophers from then until the present day. Of course the meaning has changed over time. However our uninterrupted use of the term indicates that we are able to make good use of the it even when its meaning (as in interpretation) changes. As with so many words meaning and interpretations change often, even imperceptibly, throughout the past hundreds of years.

Words are like like sewage pipes: they have to be cleaned out periodically, preferably by certified plumbers. Thus Greek thinkers enjoyed speculating about the nature of “Nature” and raised questions about how and by whom the Nature they knew had been composed and organized. Often they avoided questions about its origin because they lacked acceptable standards of getting clear and authoritative answers to their questions. Indeed, some writers have claimed that the continuing task of philosophers is to propose standards and methods by which we can come to know what is justified and true.

Thus, asking relevant questions without having an effective technology to move these beyond what was already known at the common sense level seemed futile. Yet it was (and still is!) a game compulsively played despite its significant and recognized hazards. Some answers were deemed to be better than none! Incorrect solutions or unpopular solutions were actually dangerous — for such might offend the Gods and their worldly representatives, or so it was opined. (Socrates was neither the first nor the last person to face expulsion from his home, even death, for raising such “origin” questions!) By casting doubt on an existing — perhaps even a powerful religious — order and its doctrines, one also cast doubts on the existing socio-political order, an order, it was thought, that was dictated by the Gods and therefore part of a “Divine Order”.

Questions about how the world is composed are, generally speaking, raised by peole who are prone and inspired to give different answers to those already accepted within a community — by so-called dissidents. Surely such men and women are inherently dangerous, and therefore deserve to be neutralized! These questions could easily unravel the tightly woven explanatory tapestry which was completed with great care and over many centuries by wise (but of course not disinterested) thinkers!

An early example of such a challenge occurred in approximately 550 BC when several Ionian thinkers suggested that the physical world — the world of physical objects and their interactions — had been constructed by unknown forces from one or more basic fundamental materials, i.e. atoms, the indivisibles. Two factors were speculated: one, material objects in their most fundamental, most primitive forms; and two, the manner by which these were structurally related. The former (*atoms*) were not considered by Greek thinkers to be pliable, whereas *forms* or *structures*, it was assumed, were. It was not clear by what rules these “atoms” has been assembled to become new entities, new phenomena, but it was assumed that knowledge about how this happened could ultimately be gained — although not how this knowledge could be gathered.

Conceptually Ionian ideas represent an advance over earlier ideas about the origin of the Cosmos, including proposals made within traditional mythologies, such as the widely held suggestion that one or more super-humans had “engineered” and assembled the cosmos! (The origin of science fiction?) Thus with very little evidence to support their ideas, Ionian philosophers put forward a constructivist theory of the origin and composition of nature, about the world of its entities as these exist throughout space and time! The issue about which principles were involved to produce this staggering result was unclear, but the issue was discussed more and more amongst learned and enlightened men, some of who had been officially entrusted by their contemporaries with “speculating about deep matters”, by priests and the lovers of wisdom, those who make good judgements.

constructivist
Others also participated in these discussions. They offered varying solutions which caused a massive problem, namely, how to adjudicate between different solutions proffered to problems, both problems about the material structure of the world and about how to make good judgements about human actions. How can this be done without first enumerating principles according to which decisions between alternatives can be taken? How does one evaluate alternate solutions offered to such problems? To do so was clearly the task of a meta-discipline, whose task would be to lay down what was possible in all possible worlds. What had to be recognized was that their own thinking was inescapably multidimensional, and therefore not only move forward and backward in time, but could also moved up and down within a multi-dimensional hypothesized conceptual space.

Humans accepted on many occasions that there is an immediate and even a far distant past, and that this does not depend entirely on experience. On the contrary, our experience mainly appears to reflect something that takes place independently of us. But there are also steps which do not involve the passage of time, but which reflect that different events entail one another, in the sense that a strong fierce wind for example is viewed as part of a more extended event, i.e., a storm. The event itself (the storm) has many discernible attributes, but with a certain amount of effort these can be ordered so that some events stand at a different level to others.

When this is done we have the bare bones of a structure of an event. A common example of this is when someone describes the skeleton of a deceased person, perhaps a skeleton found in a burial site in a cave in a district where is is known from other evidence, that humans deposited their dead thousands of years ago. Here is a case where an image of the past is reconstructed from the scattered fragments (remains) found during the dig. The reconstructed image is then the product of someone’s imagination which has been guided by much background knowledge. Of course, it is also subject to commonly accepted corrective standards, such as those incorporated in any currently-espoused methodology of the sciences.

Nouns as Contrasts: Opposites and Differences

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There are many terms that draw contrasts between opposites and many terms which are used to distinguish degrees of difference between things which are alike.

The terms “light” and “dark”, or “hot” and “cold” refer to relative contrasts; whereas “dead” and “alive” refer to opposite and exclusive contrasts of states, or conditions. We also contrast between events by using the adjectival form of a noun, as when we refer to a piece of bread — unquestionably an object — as “stone-hard” or perhaps as “doughy”. In short, nouns are often adapted to serve as adjectives, as qualifiers.

“Dough” is an object-name; “doughy” a quality ascribed to dough. In its adjectival form the word establishes a link between certain accepted features of an object and some other event which does not carry the description implied by the adjective. One may not oneself know all the attributes of a stone — a task assigned to geologist — but there are conventions that apply at moments in our history which allow us to create a “list of attributes” deemed appropriate to the object being discussed. When one attributes a new quality to a familiar object, previous meanings of this “object “ become modified and extended. This is dramatically illustrated by contemporary dictionaries dedicated to slang!

Which come first, the noun or the adjective? I suspect nouns do: these are often names of objects and as such serve as primary signals. But whether names come first or not is not a matter of importance. It may be easier to teach some species that a sound signifies an action rather than an object; similarly some species may more likely learn to associate a sound with an object, or that there may be stages in development which favor the acquisition of an association of a signal with an object rather than with distinct actions which the subject is required to perform. Is there a general rule which applies to every species or are we talking about species-related matters, a la Ethologists? Pavlov and many others declared the former — but their assumption is not longer accepted as a general rule. Most modern biologists prefer the ethological position that species are quite limited in their perceptual and behavioral repertoire and that such limitations reflect much about their evolutionary history as a species.

What we need to be clear about is that our language from childhood onward distinguishes between names of objects — however such “objects” may be defined — and the likeness these objects have to each other — or to other features of our experience, features for which we already have forged names. Thus, “apples” are different from “oranges” and both are different from stones. The former two are edible (when ripe) whereas stones are never perceived as edible. Apple-seeds and orange-pips however are edible, although these could be mistaken as “small stones”! Each of us language-users learn which things are alike (or similar), to what degree this is so, and wherein lie the differences between them. It avoids confusion humans learn from an early age what “likeness” means and under what conditions one takes precautions against assuming that likeness is the same as equivalence. It is not always easy to do so.

Habilitated-Beliefs #2

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One usually becomes a member of a group which is empowered to give expression to an idea in a quasi-official manner through happenstance, not by making carefully considered deliberate choices. By stating or declaring that one is for example a physicist does not entitle one to declare what statements about the world, particularly what explanations of its phenomena, are to be taken as authentic!

The emphasis is on “authentic”, which requires the explicit consent of others. It is often difficult to attain. There are exceptions, as when someone converts from one religious group to another, which involves an overt switch between highly differentiated social groups — each of which may hold strong and competing views about about specific areas of a common world.

At present the health field is a good example of this. Here disagreements about the curative effects of herbs and pharmaceuticals have become quite strident, yet the data on its belief-base are not. At least, so it seems. An equally contentious area is the role and the effects of therapeutic procedures on the so-called mental health of individuals. The old debates about the effectiveness of psycho-therapeutic procedures versus those that solely involve “physical interventions” continues.

How are such conflicts to be resolved? There is an end point, namely, whether a patient has improved in accordance with agreed standards. A similar issue concerns the truth about global warming, what to do about such trends, and what are its likely long-term effects. There have been major disagreements within the ranks of scientific pundits about what conclusions can be reached on the basis of current evidence (and methods of inquiry) and what would tilt the case in one direction or another. These issues are not resolved by a popular vote, by employing questionable and contentious polling procedures (such as opinion-polls based on a representative sample of all graduates holding a first level science-degree!). Issues need first to be resolved at the most basic level within the previously mentioned empowered group, the existing group of acknowledged experts in the field.

This is where the concept of *habilitation* becomes useful. Habilitation specifically refers to a process of generating agreement among people who accept each other as qualified to express opinions about the status of specific issues. It does not mean that this is sufficient to elevate any conclusion reached as being indisputable, but it explicitly states that conclusions are the best at the present time. It may be necessary to state under what conditions such conclusion could be challenged or reversed.

In short, any issue or matter habilitated can also be challenged in future, and therefore it could ultimately be de-habilitated. This requires several steps. What does not follow is that whenever a position is de-habilitated it also automatically returns all former positions from whence these came, or that such a change in status automatically re-adjusts other positions. There is no predictable radiating ripple effect, but there usually follows a series of adjustments in several cognate areas whereby all matters are viewable as part of a compatible world: incompatibilities need to be fine-tuned! Compatibility furthermore means that in the final analysis contradictions have been eliminated!

The World as a Picture or Collage

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In an earlier blog I introduced the term *collage* and distinguished it from related nouns, picture and presentation. A collage, as commonly used, includes recognizable objects but also the arrangements and juxtapositions of items in an unexpected, spurious, curious manner. The collage itself may also include spaces between objects — blank spaces which have no identity except for their hue or lack of form, their formlessness. Look at the sky at night. Twinkles, some larger objects, some streaks of light moving at speed, respectively named stars, planets, airplanes or spacecrafts. Also much darkness, emptiness.

So when we look outside ourselves we invent names for every item we can distinguish from its indifferent (black?) background. We make special efforts to do so, to order and arrange our perceptual world. Whenever we are unwilling or unable to identify a pin-of-light, a manifestation of an object we tend to speak of “the void” — and secretly treat it as an object! But — as we have learned — today’s “void” may be tomorrow’s treasure-chest, filled with fascinating objects which hold secrets to our understanding of our universe!

The history of science illustrates how fickle we are in this regard. The history of ourselves also tells how determined we are to complete a story — a fantasy — once begun. We seek “understanding”, not only recognition. We recognize the latter, but when this fails we create objects, but also we invent processes to help and assist our understanding. This has been the pattern since Aristotle raised “understanding” as our highest goal, the hallmark of our god-like nature.

The objects we distinguish around us may have clear relations to each other. Thus, several philosophers — and more recently some scientists — have urged that we study the act of perception and other attributes ascribes to human (e.g. R.S. Peters: Motivation and D. Armstrong: Perception) more critically than our predecessors since it does not follow that everyday descriptions of ourselves, though old, are necessary faultless or correct. Common sense, it is claimed, is not a good guide in these matters. We have been repeatedly warned not to assume that our current self-descriptions and especially those of our so-called “states of mind” have greater accuracy or authority than our descriptions of “the external world” (G. Ryle: The Concept of Mind) but that these are subject to great hazards. Better to be than certain!

The trend throughout the 20th century has been to view descriptions of the external world as a scaffold which rest on the certainty of our perception of our own inner experiences, but one should remember that descriptions are invariably constrained by limits which reflect the descriptive habits of far earlier periods, periods which have promote their own “wisdom” and “habits of thought” and which are untainted by contemporary knowledge! History is only a record of our past achievements, which includes its failures to describe ourselves and our attributes well. A health system based on well-tried prescriptions from the past, list of uncritically accepted cures?

The world as a picture therefore includes some temporary successes but primarily failures to describe “matters of current interest” in terms of dated concepts. This does not mean that the pictures of the past make sense, but only that some aspects of the composite may. The paintings of Marc Chagall are replete with suggestions of self-contained episodes — and this can also be said of paintings by surrealists, yet we regard each as self-contained, not as an episode of pictures whose outlines have never been seen!

Successful achievements and failures to achieve may just happen to come together — under the same umbrella, so to speak — like pedestrians seeking temporary shelter during a flash rain-storm. In that respect these form a collage. The term *collage*, furthermore, is not currently part of the elaborate vocabulary of philosophy, or of cosmology, but is more at home in the arts than in formal disciplines. It stands for the idea that we normally judge something after “scanning”, that the idea of a moment is imprecise and covers too many judgements based on a succession of temporary impressions and viewed as a composite. In philosophy itself the term “theory” has long been been elevated to a paramount position to contrast with formlessness, with the notion that the pieces in hand cannot be assembles into a whole. The emphasis is on an “integration” of seemingly coherent parts into a wider, more comprehensible position, of bringing “ideas” together (see a classic of the genre, namely, A.N. Whitehead: The Adventure of Ideas, 1933). Perhaps *collage* should become part of the working vocabulary of philosophy?

Philosophers have often claimed that they were concerned with eternal verities, about matters which not confined by the limits of time, matters which have lasting values. As self-declared lovers of wisdom, philosophers are often assumed by others to be priests without a formal religion. They were bound to their own beliefs and therefore carried an obligation to defend these against the multitudes, the “common people”, as well as others equally skilled in handling thoughts and speculations. They were said to theorize, to discuss theories as objects, just as scientists discuss their methods of inquiry and what it is they have already achieved or hope to achieve through the rigorous application of such methods. By common consent these methods were the rewards of discovery. Their methods were viewed as tools of discovery which could be ordered, a process which demands that each move gets evaluated by agreed criteria. For scientists then, the discovery of a method was a “rightful tool” which had as much significant as a miniature screwdriver has for a watchmaker, or a needle for a tailor. (Threads or strands of fibres existed before needles!) Two centuries ago we discovered and developed the tools of statistical analysis, how aggregates of measures of a trend can be used productively and how this helped to change our studies and investigations of “natural” but also of “social” phenomena (appearances). It is useful to keep this analogy in mind whenever we discuss “science” and what it suggests to us about the nature of Nature (Aristotle’s quest).

Philosophers have singled out logic and the analyses of arguments as their primary tools. Logic has been used to analyze the consistency of existing arguments, or of fragments of an argument, especially beliefs widely held by others. It is used to show where an argument would lead to if it were pursued rigorously, or to demonstrate that a particular argument may be itself be based on empirically false premises. For centuries there has been an understanding that sooner or later errors in logical derivations from premises would surface sooner or later, and that this would automatically lead to the rejection of the argument as a whole! This has happened occasionally, but not consistently or always. More recently there have been discoveries of a contradiction which had remained undiscovered but that the argument had terminated too early for the discovery of such contradictions to be made. This potential fault line may have been dealt with by translating any argument into a mathematical form and testing it with the help of high-speed computers. The results to date have only shown that all things considered that the chances of identifying a contradiction are disturbingly high. It means, in effect, that we cannot guarantee — as was initially required — that an argument is logically faultless and was impervious to contradiction. Yet without this the aim of a logical analysis cannot be guaranteed that it is itself faultless — that is represents an unbroken line from given premises to conclusion. A conjecture can be correct even if an argument to support it is faulty.

Many early philosophers, unlike priests, were not inclined to employ arguments to support a viewpoint for which they could not find independent support: their task was being primarily critical. One states the premises and then works out the implications. The model was that an argument starts with some widely held and unchallenged conclusion — e.g., “eating pork is bad for your health” — and then proceeds to demonstrate that the conclusion has been reached by following authorized logical procedures. In this respect philosophers have acted more like teachers and sages than defenders of an official faith — a habilitated-belief — something which might set them on a collision course with a viewpoint of a powerful “establishment”, where official views were backed by an enforcement agency. Habilitated-beliefs are a new concept and will be discussed in a separate blog.

(for Tim)

How To Map a New Word

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Neologism

In a previous blog I suggested that any new English words, or neologisms, could be submitted to a computer search of the digitalized English literature, say from Beowulf onward, in order to discover whether the term of interest had previously been used. In what manner was its earlier use, its context of use, different from what is now proposed?

New words are often proposed as replacements for a current expression on the understanding that this neologism would be accompanied by clear guidelines for its use. Such guidelines are also referred to a definitions, or re-definitions. What was earlier called “a temporary bunch of words” may now qualify as a new single word. Its meaning would then be viewed as the area partially covered by each of the words originally tied together to form a bunch or an expression.

The following example may help: The first letters of each of the following words,“Dependable, Redoubtable, Unimpeachable” spells *dru*. It is a new term. Objects like trees would be automatically excluded as being “inappropriate”, whereas one could for example say, “John Dewey is a dru person”. It would give a reasonably clear image of the kind of person this great American philosopher was! (Of course, the statement may be regarded as a good or a poor description of the person.)

However, a composite word like *dru* should not be viewed (as was done formerly) as a one-dimensional overlap of qualities, like a series of circles which overlap a common area, but as covering a meeting point in multidimensional space, which may also extend over time, in which case one should state the temporal parameters. This is what “mapping a word” is all about.

Conjectures and Neologisms

We are living at a time when we are frequently asked to transcend the limits of conjecture. *Be inventive*, *be creative*, *stretch the envelope* are expressions widely used to refer to this. More and more of our thinking is directed towards situations which need to be described in terms of sequences, or as involving successive different processes, rather than as individual (hence stable) events, frozen in time like pottery in a Victorian display case.

By contrast, many early Greek thinkers — often mentioned as founders of our philosophical tradition — espoused the view that time and change are unreal, that there is indeed a real world from which process and progress are excluded, and belong to a chimaeral world (see Plato’s discussions of these issues in Timaeus).

In our own time the more common view runs in the opposite direction: it is suggested that we are the agents (the guilty party, as it were!) that freeze events. By doing so, we create a notion of change which in turn requires us to invent agents of change. We invent causes when we feel trapped, without explanations for events, and do so in order to account for our discomfort. Not to have an explanation is experienced by many as a deficiency, whereas a process of reification, whereby we impose stability and structure on a world, is often viewed as living in a predictable world! We invent and stipulate (conjecture?) processes which give flesh and bones to events, and often create homunculi with great powers to lift and shift events “out of their orbit” (a pre-Newtonian concept).

Indeed, Western philosophy — under which I include what some Greeks thinkers referred to as *natural philosophy*, or the study of natural phenomena, is haunted by the image of two worlds: a world of nature, which obeys and follows its own eternal rules (discoverable by us), but also a world made by us, one which is mostly beyond and unaffected by naturalistic rules, which are commanded by what Gilbert Ryle referred to as “ghosts in machines”. This world supposedly lacks universal rules but develops from emerging trends, is modish, unpredictable yet yields some of its secrets post-hoc, when we reflect on our past. There is an ever-growing literature which interprets the work of some of our major artists (past and present), a trend which is most likely to continue for the foreseeable future, even by our descendants when living in outer space, off-earth.

The picture is confused but may become more coherent during future discussions, and in step with an increase in our understanding of how human-thinking emerged from simple interacting neural networks to the complex storage and processing organ it has become, whose own limits of growth (internal or external) and capabilities are at present unknown. (Robots could be viewed as external drives, extensions to the living brain.)

There are few (if any) natural phenomena of which it can be said that these remain unaffected throughout the passage of time, or the procession of events. On the contrary: the question is to estimate to what extent events have already changed, although the names of these events have been retained, and to estimate to what extent these events are likely to be transformed in future. Some events appear to remain unchanged over time, whereas others transform. The current debate about *climate change* is an example. To cite a different example: *The Battle of Waterloo* is viewed as a stable event, although writers disagree about what happened on the battlefield, and disagree about details. The Battle of Waterloo is a historical concept, but what is discussed amongst historians are features of this event, not whether the event occurred.

To illustrate the difference between a concept and its meaning I have chosen the term *human family* which serves as the name of a phenomenon but which is also recognized by those working in the area of human relationships and institutions as a moveable feast, something which has changed throughout the course of our history.

The Human Family

*Family* is the name given to a common feature of all human societies. It is a concept which represents an event which has temporal as well as structural and functional properties. The task of any writer/reporter is to create a portrait of the family which permits readers to analyze the relationship between members. A society may prescribe what is permissible or not to those included within a family in contrast to those external to it, e.g., whether members within a family can marry, or whether marriage must necessarily be endogenous. Whatever the rules, these can change and the conditions under which such change occur would then be viewed as factors influencing family structure.

It is important that a structure of an event is correctly portrayed, that it is attributed to an event which occurred as stated earlier. The birth of a male or female child is celebrated differently in most societies and is also influenced by the order of birth — both are structural factors. To what extent does birth order play a role in determining the future of a male? Which son of a large landowner is likely to be encouraged to follow a career in the Church? (Answer: probably the third in Britain throughout many centuries.)

Birth order is a temporal factor whereas male/female is functional, that is, determines what roles will most likely be assigned to a person and when. When? The passage of time is viewed as an independent factor, not as something doled out as fleeting timeless moments, but more like a ceaseless conveyer belt. The term *moments* therefore carries with it interpretative problems, as indeed have such terms as *childhood*.

Admittedly, the above is vague. We do not normally take an arbitrary selection of words, words which are unrelated, then stitch these together: our selection is more orderly, more contrived. What is clear however is that humans appear to be continuously engaged in extending their language, to stretch the limits of what they already have. It is their response to current prevailing circumstances, to being members of a community which appears to seek and build new environments to inhabit, which secures and preserve their existence, extends their survival rather than abandons these. We need to remind ourselves how relatively short has been the past of our species measured against the estimated life of our planet and solar system and how minute has been what we often refer to as “the life of the mind” and how fragile are the conditions which sustain our species.

We introduce new words with increasing frequency. Neologisms may be viewed as transformative tools which in the past have extended our control over many but not every discernible feature of our world. There is of course no guarantee that such creative actions can continue unabated as has happened in our recent past. Our creativity has also produced conditions which threaten our continued existence. Other species have become extinct although (as far as we know) inadvertently, not through self-destruction. Many species have lost control over their environmental niche. Humans, however, have gotten perilously close to doing so, and many now claim that we have interfered with environmental factors to an irreversible extent so that the earth will be unable to support human life.

The meanings of many words are unquestionably related to their effectiveness in identifying events but there is an additional dimension which is related to the historical context of their use, the role a word plays in mapping the world for its current users. Such referential words, new or old, help to define the contours as well as the interior features of our culture, something which applies even to those words which seemingly are entirely referential.

Associative Nets (Again)

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*Associative nets* is an empirical term. It refers to something which can be demonstrated or illustrated. The illustration used in the earlier blog is particularly useful in showing what this concept refers to and for this reason is repeated here!

One can select any number of terms in our everyday vocabulary and draw a network of how each term is (or is not) related to some (but not all) other terms of the language. By the same token, if you select any term within an extant language you can show to what other terms in that language it is related. One can use distance, as well as the size of the area covered by a term, or the direction of the connecting link to “map” the relationship between different term. However the nets are multi-directional; the space is n-directional. I add another feature: temporality, that is that nets develop over time so that a shift in the net may influence large areas, a kind of ripple effect which spread from an impact point to distant places, yet does not extend over all surfaces.

If this image of an associative net is moderately correct, it should be clear that it is almost impossible to treat a language-in-use as a stable unit. Such a language deserves to be viewed as a river into which one cannot step twice, yet for practical purposes one views it as the same river. If one builds a dam in the river to store its waters, then later converts the dam to also serve as a source of power, the river retains its name and even most of its contours from source to end. One may revise one’s private image of the river, but this is optional and depends on the situation itself. In fact, we are aware that matters have changed and we accommodate our thoughts accordingly. We use our language not as an object made in heaven, but as a flexible tool which will serve our purposes.