Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Response to the Role of Lies/ Humbug
In offering knowledge, it think that lying and humbug play a detrimental role. Lying is the worse of the two, I think, because the liar is at least partially knowledgeable about the subject at hand; otherwise he would not be capable of creating a complete inaccuracy, in which case he would be spewing humbug. (It is true, of course, that someone who has no knowledge of a subject can give a compete inaccuracy when speaking of it, but rather unlikely). The liar must have a specific purpose for creating falsities. Generally, this purpose is to deceive (either in what is viewed as a malicious or a helpful way). Therefore, the liar is knowingly offering incorrect knowledge. This is detrimental to any issue of knowledge because a discussion can not develop unless there is active and ethical (trustworthy) participation. He who 'humbugs' should be viewed in a less intense light because he is not specifically trying to harm anyone, but only advance his own purpose or protect himself from consequences. It is generally clear, however, when something is a load of b.s. because, unless the culprit is a highly trained expert, the ideas of the argument will not connect and thus there will be no coherence. For the person who is seeking knowledge, it should be reasonably clear whether or not the informant is honest or just b.s'ing. Furthermore, it is the knowledge-seeker's responsibility to not openly accept the information of an unknown (or known!) individual, but to search for expert opinions or findings that support his claim.
Man really is the one and only Measure
Throughout the last 3 presentations during TOK, one idea has remained the key and constant, and that is that our senses/perceptions are the basis for all we know. Whether it be called sense datum, perception, hearing-as, or seeing-as, whether it be based off of a belief, convention, or a name previously given, we humans have taken a step beyond the cold, hard reality-to make our lives simpler. We HAVE ignored extra possibilities and we HAVE skipped the tedious listing of all plausible instances. We have done this, because none of that matters! Today, when the group showed the ladder of categories, referring to the farmer and Elsie and Bessie the cows, it was crystal clear that generalizations were being made. Bessie was being categorized as a cow, and then an animal, then an asset, then wealth. (that's probably not completely accurate, sorry!) If, later, the farmer refers to his cow as his asset, he has skipped a few necessary levels of categorizing.
BUT here is the key: the number of conflicts that actually arise from a lack of categorization explanation, I assure you, is fewer than the number that would arise if everybody was forced to review each and every level of categorization of any one thing before actually referring to that thing.
Yes, when we humans make inferences, name things, or even just believe things, we are skipping steps, steps, and more steps. We are assuming, presuming, inferring, and referring back to our own faulty beliefs, which were based on even more faulty assumptions. And, all of a sudden, we seem to be living in a world that we actually know NOTHING about! How can we do this?; how can we live, day by day, year by year, just being A-OK with all the faulty/lack of reasoning around us??? DO WE REALLY KNOW ANYTHING?
The answer is simple. No, we do not. We know absolutely nothing about anything. And here is where you pick your path: you can trust the world your fellow human-beings have created, pleasantly questioning your own existence every so often, recognizing the faults of the human's perception, yet staying at least semi-content with the way of the world. Or, you can get rid of every last scrap of knowledge you possess, burn all your books, abandon your house, go find a tree, scrap your clothes (how do you really even know that they are clothes???), and start at the beginning, observing life through the eyes (whoops! that's a sense!) of someone void of all emotion, personality, all senses, etc.
In further reading of Abel's, "Matn is the Measure," we will most likely read about more problems of knowledge in our world. And rather than test out each new theory, each new exposure of humanity's faults, we can recognize and understand that we human's are not perfect. Any further hypothesizing and "what-if"fing" is an unnecessary use of time and energy that could be used trying to advance the world we have created, faulty or not.
so, I guess if you want one sentence for that, "ya gotta trust, or you're bust!"
BUT here is the key: the number of conflicts that actually arise from a lack of categorization explanation, I assure you, is fewer than the number that would arise if everybody was forced to review each and every level of categorization of any one thing before actually referring to that thing.
Yes, when we humans make inferences, name things, or even just believe things, we are skipping steps, steps, and more steps. We are assuming, presuming, inferring, and referring back to our own faulty beliefs, which were based on even more faulty assumptions. And, all of a sudden, we seem to be living in a world that we actually know NOTHING about! How can we do this?; how can we live, day by day, year by year, just being A-OK with all the faulty/lack of reasoning around us??? DO WE REALLY KNOW ANYTHING?
The answer is simple. No, we do not. We know absolutely nothing about anything. And here is where you pick your path: you can trust the world your fellow human-beings have created, pleasantly questioning your own existence every so often, recognizing the faults of the human's perception, yet staying at least semi-content with the way of the world. Or, you can get rid of every last scrap of knowledge you possess, burn all your books, abandon your house, go find a tree, scrap your clothes (how do you really even know that they are clothes???), and start at the beginning, observing life through the eyes (whoops! that's a sense!) of someone void of all emotion, personality, all senses, etc.
In further reading of Abel's, "Matn is the Measure," we will most likely read about more problems of knowledge in our world. And rather than test out each new theory, each new exposure of humanity's faults, we can recognize and understand that we human's are not perfect. Any further hypothesizing and "what-if"fing" is an unnecessary use of time and energy that could be used trying to advance the world we have created, faulty or not.
so, I guess if you want one sentence for that, "ya gotta trust, or you're bust!"
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Futility and (keep reading) Relative Perceptual Accuracy
We lost some class time today. It simply vanished, was sucked into the abyss. That abyss was the isolated pit of futile theorizing. This pit sucks you in through brain-in-a-vat scenarios and personally created realities and once you're in, it's hard to get out. It's isolated because it seems to have no practical application, so no connection to our lives. It's the pinnacle of perverse examples and counterexamples that seem to exist only in philosophical discussion and not in daily life. Basically, it's a maelstrom out of which nothing constructive may emerge. Pretentious diction and crappy metaphors aside, it's a waste of time.
When we cross the line from language, thought, and perception into "how do we know that we know that we know that we know that we know", no good can come of it. So, getting back to where we should have been - if our perception is always wrong, and our perception is the closest we can come to reality, then we can never know reality. I use the term reality with the assumption that we are not brains in vats but rather that we are brains in environments that are, more or less, what we think they [environments] are.
Yet despite that fact that we don't experience reality directly, (it's masked by our flawed perceptions and corrupted by interpretations from prior knowledge), we seem to do pretty well moving about the world. For instance, I don't know that what I see as red is the real color of an object. Given some "objective reality", I don't even know if the object has color in any way that we understand the concept - but it doesn't matter. It's not important that my perception is "accurate", but rather that it's constant. I'll do a pretty good job identifying colors on a test as long what I perceive as red doesn't change to green; as long as how I experience depth and distance stays the same as it's been for my life so far, I think I can do pretty well not getting hit by a car and picking objects up off of tables. Therefore, the concept of objective accuracy of perception is irrelevant. There is such a vast amount that we can't be very sure about, let alone know, that we can't go by comparing what we perceive to what is supposed to really be there.
So given that objective accuracy is irrelevant we've got to find something about perceptual accuracy that is relevant. Ladies and gentlemen, behold relative accuracy. My perception in relation to an objective reality doesn't matter as long as my perception is constant relative to itself. Rather than be sucked into the abyss of objective perception, brain-in-a-vat, and electrical manifestation, let's stick to something that matters- relative perceptual accuracy.
Edit: So I realized something- my statements about relative perceptual accuracy are only right for internal things like color perception. It DOES matter if my relative perception doesn't line up with objective reality in some (many) external cases- even if I always perceive depth and distance a certain way, my mode of perception could be inaccurate in such a way that I perceive a car as far away with constant and accurate relative perception, but such that the car is, in an objective sense, about to hit me. Point is, even though my sight met my qualifications for relative perceptual accuracy, it wasn't right objectively, and the car hit me [How's that for practical application]. Therefore, revised with this in mind: Given that my perception's inaccuracies with respect to my objective environment are either slight or internal [I could be wrong with my perception of distance by a small portion of the distance, and my perception of color might not be the objective color], my perception is good enough.
-OR-
Split perception up into internal and external [internal is something like color and external is something like position and velocity]. Concerning internal perceptions, relative accuracy is the only thing that matters. Concerning external perceptions, relative accuracy is good enough with the assumption that the inaccuracies of senses are slight enough to not make a difference.
When we cross the line from language, thought, and perception into "how do we know that we know that we know that we know that we know", no good can come of it. So, getting back to where we should have been - if our perception is always wrong, and our perception is the closest we can come to reality, then we can never know reality. I use the term reality with the assumption that we are not brains in vats but rather that we are brains in environments that are, more or less, what we think they [environments] are.
Yet despite that fact that we don't experience reality directly, (it's masked by our flawed perceptions and corrupted by interpretations from prior knowledge), we seem to do pretty well moving about the world. For instance, I don't know that what I see as red is the real color of an object. Given some "objective reality", I don't even know if the object has color in any way that we understand the concept - but it doesn't matter. It's not important that my perception is "accurate", but rather that it's constant. I'll do a pretty good job identifying colors on a test as long what I perceive as red doesn't change to green; as long as how I experience depth and distance stays the same as it's been for my life so far, I think I can do pretty well not getting hit by a car and picking objects up off of tables. Therefore, the concept of objective accuracy of perception is irrelevant. There is such a vast amount that we can't be very sure about, let alone know, that we can't go by comparing what we perceive to what is supposed to really be there.
So given that objective accuracy is irrelevant we've got to find something about perceptual accuracy that is relevant. Ladies and gentlemen, behold relative accuracy. My perception in relation to an objective reality doesn't matter as long as my perception is constant relative to itself. Rather than be sucked into the abyss of objective perception, brain-in-a-vat, and electrical manifestation, let's stick to something that matters- relative perceptual accuracy.
Edit: So I realized something- my statements about relative perceptual accuracy are only right for internal things like color perception. It DOES matter if my relative perception doesn't line up with objective reality in some (many) external cases- even if I always perceive depth and distance a certain way, my mode of perception could be inaccurate in such a way that I perceive a car as far away with constant and accurate relative perception, but such that the car is, in an objective sense, about to hit me. Point is, even though my sight met my qualifications for relative perceptual accuracy, it wasn't right objectively, and the car hit me [How's that for practical application]. Therefore, revised with this in mind: Given that my perception's inaccuracies with respect to my objective environment are either slight or internal [I could be wrong with my perception of distance by a small portion of the distance, and my perception of color might not be the objective color], my perception is good enough.
-OR-
Split perception up into internal and external [internal is something like color and external is something like position and velocity]. Concerning internal perceptions, relative accuracy is the only thing that matters. Concerning external perceptions, relative accuracy is good enough with the assumption that the inaccuracies of senses are slight enough to not make a difference.
Knowledge through senses?
I just have a further example to add to today's topic of whether or not one can gain knowledge through one's senses. There is an illusion I found online a few weeks back that claims to be visually arbitrary--that is, one person sees it one way, another sees it another way, but not both. We've all seen this in optical illusions, but this illusion was different: it differed from person to person in its direction of rotation! I looked at it quite skeptically at first. It is the figure of a woman rotating clockwise. It was undoubtedly clockwise; there was no question in my mind about its rotation. My friend came in after I had watched it a few moments and said "That's a silly illusion; there's no question about the way it's spinning. Counter-clockwise." I was absolutely shocked. We tried for a while fruitlessly to convince eachother that the figure was spinning the opposite direction. We each had this firm "knowledge"--but neither of us was either right or wrong. After watching it a while, I was surprised when I actually witnessed the figure change rotational direction. One can actually force their visual system to reconstruct the image. This fits in very nicely with today's discussion; what I witnessed when viewing the figure wasn't true knowledge at all, though I was convinced that it was. My senses gave me knowledge that was neither true nor false; the figure may rotate either way. Then again, this rotation is constructed from simply alternating images and is not rotating at all, so perhaps the interpretation was indeed false. Either way, my senses did not lead me to absolute knowledge, which leads me to wonder: If my senses can mislead me in such a trivial fashion, do they mislead me in much larger ways every day? I now see that as an entirely plausible idea. And if anyone wants to try the illusion, here's a link, along with a great article about it: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php?p=27 (I suppose as a warning, it is indeed the figure of a woman. Not graphic but a bit detailed.)
Key for TOK Writing
A key feature in writing for TOK, both on exams and in the paper you will write your senior year, is the counterclaim. You must increasingly develop an awareness of and ability to deal with counterclaims to a thesis you are advancing. I was put in mind of this when I read the following wonderful statement by Steven Pinker, the Harvard linguist and author of The Stuff of Thought.
Not only is it a matter of fairness to acknowledge alternatives to the theory I am advancing; it's a matter of clarity and discovery. Much can be gained by contrasting a theory with its alternatives.... (The Stuff of Thought, p. 91)
Show me that you have read this by having it displayed in some big, bold, even permanent way in or on your TOK notebook.
Not only is it a matter of fairness to acknowledge alternatives to the theory I am advancing; it's a matter of clarity and discovery. Much can be gained by contrasting a theory with its alternatives.... (The Stuff of Thought, p. 91)
Show me that you have read this by having it displayed in some big, bold, even permanent way in or on your TOK notebook.
Friday, November 2, 2007
LIES BUILD KNOWLEDGE!!!
I believe lies have many shapes and definitions. There are lies that are for deceptive purposes, and there are lies that are not deceptive but rather are more like arrows pointing to another source of knowledge. Lying for deceptive purposes have moral and ethical concerns, but what if you lie for reasons that are not deceptive, what if you're lying to preserve a secret, that actually might devastate another person in ways irretrievable if spoken truthfully? What if your lie aid another person through ways that cannot be attained through telling the mere truth? Does that make lying wrong? I DON'T THINK SO.....
Lying can be an outlet for keeping secrets that would hurt another and point others to a safe haven that is intangible through telling the truth; when i was a child, i had multiple pets, and as animals, they all share one thing in common, mortality---. When that moment came, that moment that they died, my parents would come up with a lie to soothe and comfort me in ways the truth would never had matched up to.
Think back to when you were i don't know 5, and you got this new dog, would you not feel devastated if you learned that your dear companion died. Parents cover up these devastations with lies not for the purpose to poke at and make fun of your emotions, they do this to preserve your health and well being, for most children in the early years of youth death is not always something that is easily comprehended, its in the child's best interest that these problems are locked up and prevented when necessary, and if necessary brought up when the child have developed some sort of more complex and helpful coping mechanism to get through times as such, if you deny this fact, just imagine yourself stepping into the shoes of a parent, and have to explained to little Suzie why Lassie died yesterday by a drunk driver in the middle of the night.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
On Lying and Humbug
I want to offer two areas of language use for your consideration: lying and humbug, the latter being a synonym for the concept more typically expressed in American slang with barnyard metaphor relating to bovine excrement. I trust that your vocabulary will allow you to decipher my circumlocution.
It is considered lying when I know that the amount of money in my pocket is $22.45, yet I tell you I have no money. It is considered humbug when I tell you that Sally has put your check in the mail, yet I have no knowledge of whether or not she has done so. According to Princeton professor emeritus of philosophy Harry Frankfurt, "It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as the essence of [humbug]."
What is the role of lying and what is the role of humbug in gaining or offering knowledge? What issues regarding truth are you led to consider by exploring these two distinct uses of language?
It is considered lying when I know that the amount of money in my pocket is $22.45, yet I tell you I have no money. It is considered humbug when I tell you that Sally has put your check in the mail, yet I have no knowledge of whether or not she has done so. According to Princeton professor emeritus of philosophy Harry Frankfurt, "It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as the essence of [humbug]."
What is the role of lying and what is the role of humbug in gaining or offering knowledge? What issues regarding truth are you led to consider by exploring these two distinct uses of language?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
