Is everything a kind of thing?

[coberst]

Reality is a Rainbow

Is there a demarcation boundary between instinct and reason? Is there a demarcation boundary between anything between here and the Big Bang? Is demarcation boundary a part of nature or is it a necessity of human comprehension? Is category a fact of nature or is category a necessity of human comprehension? Is anything different in kind from anything else? Is everything different only in degree from everything else?

I conclude that demarcation boundary is not an essential characteristic of nature but is an essential characteristic of human comprehension. Everything is a seamless flow from the Big Bang to now. Only in our mind do we have a difference in kind.

I wrote the first two paragraphs of the OP several days ago and only 24 hours later did I fall off my horse. Lightening struck and I realized, finally, what I had written. This realization has led to a large number of connections for me. I was convinced of certain fragments of knowledge and only when I was knocked off my horse did I find these fragments became a synthesis that I shall have to realize by writing more essays.


To recognize as true that reality is a rainbow allows me to comprehend the error of classical metaphysical realism, which is the foundation of Western society’s comprehension of reality. This may not be true for you but it is true for me.

Reality is a rainbow but we humans perceive reality as a myriad of containers! We perceive reality as containers because our “gut” tells us so and because classical metaphysics tells us so. Reality without demarcation boundaries means that everything is a seamless reality from everything else. It means that everything is not a kind of thing with its own necessary and sufficient nature but that all reality runs together and it is only in our minds that these containers exist.

 

[MRC_Hans]

The general assumption is that you are right. Most assume that there exists a grand unifying theory (although we do not, as of yet, know it). Thus, the only universally true category is the one that encompasses everything.

Whether catrgories are a property of human perception is, however, debatable. In my opinion, the use of categories is a convinience. When I speak of the rainbow colors as red, yellow, green, and purple, I do so for convinience, not because I am unaware, or unable to perceive, that the spectrum is really continuous.

Hans

 

[Z]

I would say that categorization, like iconography, is a method by which the limited human brain can deal with its sensory input and insufficient memory. If we had to know the specific properties of every object we've ever encountered, we would rapidly run out of memory and be unable to function. Instead, our minds categorize and iconicize everything we encounter. That way, all we need recall is that we've encountered another instance of [category] with specific properties of {x, y, z}.

For example, the category [drinking glass] allows me to deal simply enough with the 42 glasses in my cabinet; adding a brief descriptor such as {the POM glass} allows me to know which objects I'm working with without having to recall all the specific properties that make up [drinking glasses] etc. And, of course, the internal mental image of a glass is a simple icon, used when referring to any drinking glass, and expanded only as necessary.

So I'd say categorization is a convenience and a memory-saving trick - like an autocompressor of memory for our meat-brains.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Zaayrdragon:

I agree. We put things in categories for convinient handling. However, such categories are arbitrary and individual. According to our needs and interests, our personal categories are more or less finely defined.

Hans

 

[Dancing David]

Well, a rainbow is yet another categorization or analogy, since the brain is an associative serach engine, or I heard 'anthill' yesterday.

So rainbow is just another attempt to approximate the behavior of the observable universe. All approximations are equaly true, some just seem to have a much higher predictive validity than others.

The anthil analogy came from a talk radio show titled "ANALOGY AS THE CORE OF COGNITION
Douglas Hofstadter".

 

[Z]

Zaayrdragon:

I agree. We put things in categories for convinient handling. However, such categories are arbitrary and individual. According to our needs and interests, our personal categories are more or less finely defined.

Hans

Agreed. For example, being generally uninteresed in sports, I pretty much lump all football (The American variety, of course) players into that single, broad category; I couldn't tell one from another. Someone else, though, might be able to differentiate between half-backs, quarter-backs, running backs, short stops, etc., or be able to pick out a Cardinal, RedSkin, Steeler, Celtic, etc. I cannot. Toys, on the other hand, are a speciality of mine, while I honestly feel my wife lumps all toys into that single category, with no particular differentiation between them.

 

[Tricky]

Reality is a Rainbow.

That is a catachresis.

Is there a demarcation boundary between instinct and reason?

Probably not a recognizable one. What we call "reason" includes many factors, one of which is "gut feeling".

Is there a demarcation boundary between anything between here and the Big Bang?

Yes, there are lots of them. Vast areas of empty space between stars, galaxies, nebulae etc. The changes of phase between solid, liquid and gas. Electron shells. Boundaries are everywhere.

Is demarcation boundary a part of nature or is it a necessity of human comprehension?

I'd say it's a necessary part of nature. For example, a cell wall is a very important demarcation boundary, as is the Cretaceous/Tertiary unconformity in geology. While it is true that classification systems are man-made, they classify real things.

I conclude that demarcation boundary is not an essential characteristic of nature but is an essential characteristic of human comprehension. Everything is a seamless flow from the Big Bang to now. Only in our mind do we have a difference in kind.

I strongly disagree with your conclusion. There are plenty of seams. While our minds are (fairly) good at recognizing differences in kind, we could not recognize them if they weren't there.

I wrote the first two paragraphs of the OP several days ago and only 24 hours later did I fall off my horse. Lightening struck and I realized, finally, what I had written. This realization has led to a large number of connections for me. I was convinced of certain fragments of knowledge and only when I was knocked off my horse did I find these fragments became a synthesis that I shall have to realize by writing more essays.

Get back on your horse. Put neosporin on your lightning burns. Whatever epiphany this revelation sparked for you, it is entirely personal. It is no particularly great discovery that systems are not dichotomous, but have a range of values. Go ahead and write essays, but do so because you like it, not because you think this is a world-changing concept.

To recognize as true that reality is a rainbow allows me to comprehend the error of classical metaphysical realism, which is the foundation of Western society’s comprehension of reality. This may not be true for you but it is true for me.

I disagree with the concept of "true for me". Truth is universal. You cannot have truths which contradict each other, because that would mean that one (or both) of them is not "true". What you have discovered is a metaphor that you like a lot. I'm happy for you.

Reality is a rainbow but we humans perceive reality as a myriad of containers! We perceive reality as containers because our “gut” tells us so and because classical metaphysics tells us so. Reality without demarcation boundaries means that everything is a seamless reality from everything else.

This metaphor really has only limited application. There are some things (like the visible spectrum on which your metaphor is based) which are "seamless" continuities, but most things about reality are more full of seams than a pantsuit for a millipede.

It means that everything is not a kind of thing with its own necessary and sufficient nature but that all reality runs together and it is only in our minds that these containers exist.

No, the containers exist. We recognize some (though not all) of them. The more we learn, the more containers we recognize.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Agreed. For example, being generally uninteresed in sports, I pretty much lump all football (The American variety, of course) players into that single, broad category; I couldn't tell one from another. Someone else, though, might be able to differentiate between half-backs, quarter-backs, running backs, short stops, etc., or be able to pick out a Cardinal, RedSkin, Steeler, Celtic, etc. I cannot. Toys, on the other hand, are a speciality of mine, while I honestly feel my wife lumps all toys into that single category, with no particular differentiation between them.

Exactly! I was about to go on about veteran prop planes, but thought you people had already heard enough about my particular obsession .

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Tricky: You have a point, but many of the boundaries you mention are arbitrary and man-made. For instance, we distinguish between a red giant star and empty space, but if we were to look at actual densities, the red giant (at least the upper few millions of miles of it), is much more akin to empty space than, say, water.

However, at the very least, quantum mechanics denote some very real and unarbitrary boundaries and categories.

Hans

 

[Z]

Exactly! I was about to go on about veteran prop planes, but thought you people had already heard enough about my particular obsession .

Hans

PM me - I don't know much about them myself, but I love to learn... and I've always been interested in flying machines. You could probably teach me a LOT...

Ahem... sorry, didn't mean to derail...

 

[Z]

Tricky: You have a point, but many of the boundaries you mention are arbitrary and man-made. For instance, we distinguish between a red giant star and empty space, but if we were to look at actual densities, the red giant (at least the upper few millions of miles of it), is much more akin to empty space than, say, water.

However, at the very least, quantum mechanics denote some very real and unarbitrary boundaries and categories.

Hans

But those boundaries and demarcations seem to smooth out, when we look at everything as wrinkles in spacetime...

I guess it's all in how you look at something.

 

[coberst]

Zaayrdragon:

I agree. We put things in categories for convinient handling. However, such categories are arbitrary and individual. According to our needs and interests, our personal categories are more or less finely defined.

Hans

I do not think that our categories are arbitrary and individual. It appears to me that our categories are a function of our bodies and how our bodies interact with the world. Many of our categories are basic to human existence and these categories determine how we see the world.


Consider the category hierarchies: {furniture--chair—rocker} and {vehicle--car—sedan}. The middle categories--chair and car--have been discovered to be “basic”—they have a cognitive priority. “Basic-level categories are distinguished from subordinate categories by aspects of our bodies, brains, and minds: mental images, gestalt perception, motor programs, and knowledge structure.”

The basic level is characterized by at least four conditions: 1) It is the highest level at which a single mental image can represent the entire category (you can’t get a mental image of vehicle or furniture). 2) It is the highest level at which category members have a similarly perceived overall shape. 3) It is the highest level at which a person uses similar motor actions for interacting with category members. 4) It is the level at which most of our knowledge is organized.

The division between basic and non-basic level is body-based. It is based upon gestalt (overall part-whole structure) perception, motor programs, and mental images. The basic-level is that level at which people more optimally interact with their environment.

The basic-level does not merely apply to objects. “There are basic-level actions, actions for which we have conventional mental images and motor programs, like swimming, walking, and grasping. We also have basic-level concepts, like families, clubs, and baseball teams, as well as basic-level social actions, like arguing. And there are basic-level emotions, like happiness, anger, and sadness.”

“Our categories arise from the fact that we are neural beings, from the nature of our bodily capacities, from our experience interacting in the world, and from our evolved capacity for basic-level categorization—a level at which we optimally interact with the world. Evolution has not required us to be as accurate above and below the basic level as at the basic level, and so we are not.”

We have a gut feeling about some things because our sense of correctness comes from our bodies. When Newton provided us with his theory of physics we could “feel” the correctness of much of it because he was using such concepts as acceleration, momentum, distance and velocity all of which we knew because we could intuit them, we could “feel in our gut” these concepts. Such was not the case when the physicist attacked the problem of quantum physics. Who has a gut feeling for the inner workings of the atom?

Our “gut feeling” constantly informs us as to the ‘correctness’ of some phenomenon. This gut feeling is an attitude; it is one of many types of attitudes. What can we say about this gut feeling?

“Philosophy in The Flesh” says a great deal about this gut feeling. Metaphor theory, the underlying theory of cognitive science contained in this book explains how our knowledge is ‘grounded’ in a manner in which we optimally interact with the world.

 

[Wudang]

Tricky: You have a point, but many of the boundaries you mention are arbitrary and man-made. For instance, we distinguish between a red giant star and empty space, but if we were to look at actual densities, the red giant (at least the upper few millions of miles of it), is much more akin to empty space than, say, water.

Because the boundaries are diffuse does that mean they don't exist?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Because the boundaries are diffuse does that mean they don't exist?

Well, for the scope of this discussion, I would say yes. The OP posits that everything is a continuum, and all boundaries are manmade, for our convinience and/or due to our limitations.

Thus, the falsification of this will require clear universal boundaries, IMO.

Hans

 

[Wudang]

In that case, isn't the claim in the "true but banal" category? The only boundaries then are at the quantum level which doesn't help us at all at the macro level. The example I keep trotting out from a logic book years ago - there are >= 3 definitions of sunset yet we still recognise the difference between night and day.
Or as Mason said to Dixon "You have to draw the line somewhere".

 

[roger]

White is almost light light gray.
light light gray is almost light gray
light gray is almost gray
gray is almost dark gray
dark gray is almost dark dark gray
dark dark gray is almost black.

Thus white is almost black.

It's trivial to differentiate between the coke can on my desk from my desk and from me. Yes, if we went down to the atom level we might just start quibbling about whether a specific atom is part of the coke can or not. An atom of Al may have scraped of and resides on the desk, or whatever. But a simple analysis shows a big pile of Al, which is a very discrete, non-continuous element (defined by proton/neutrons), and that pile is distributed in a very specific way. This is not dependent on human mind. Put it in a computer scanner, and the scanner will distinguish the shape. Give it to an alien, the alien will distinguish the shape. Give it to a dog, and the dog will not mistakenly bite the table when trying to pick it up with his mouth. It really is a bunch of aluminum shaped a specific way, and the nature of solids means all but the outermost atoms move with the can when it is moved.

It's a coke can. It's different from me. This is not an artiface of the human mind. Even if I try to conceptualize it as something else, it will act like a coke can. If I am on LSD, it may look differerent to me, but any test done it will still result in it testing as a coke can.

It's a coke can.

 

[Z]

So coberst first proclaims that reality is a continuous dynamic, then changes speed by identifying 'basic level' knowledge - which is a boundary, and which, he claims, is 'universal'.

Sadly, he's wrong on that one, too. Basic level knowledge is only minimally biological in nature; it is as much trained / taught as natural.

And, yes, some people can manage broad-scale mental images such as 'vehicle'. A few of us unfortunates manage ALL concepts via mental image, and have to spend an interval translating image to words. I'm one such being. For me, every concept is a mental image - from the most simple, concrete objects to the most ephemeral, abstract notions.

(This, of course, led to some difficulty learning the English language - you try coming up with a mental image that makes sense of words like 'from', 'the', etc.!)

On the other hand, since words are, themselves, images as well, I became a natural proof-reader. Where some people have to work out a word letter by letter, and others just skim and assume it's right, I see words as a whole, and any variation makes the word unfamiliar. It's funny... and I'm rambling.

 

[coberst]

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”.

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm

 

[Ladewig]

We have a gut feeling about some things because our sense of correctness comes from our bodies. When Newton provided us with his theory of physics we could “feel” the correctness of much of it because he was using such concepts as acceleration, momentum, distance and velocity all of which we knew because we could intuit them, we could “feel in our gut” these concepts. Such was not the case when the physicist attacked the problem of quantum physics. Who has a gut feeling for the inner workings of the atom?

Our “gut feeling” constantly informs us as to the ‘correctness’ of some phenomenon. This gut feeling is an attitude; it is one of many types of attitudes. What can we say about this gut feeling?

I'm having a hard time accepting the claim that "we could 'feel' the correctness of much of [Newton's] theory of physics." When you say "we" are you talking about citizens of industrialized countries in the 21st century or are you talking about folks in the 17th century or are you talking about someone else? I know a fair number of people who do not understand Newton's laws of motion much less "feel" their correctness.

 

[Bikewer]

From Star Trek: (possibly paraphrased)

Kirk "what just happened?"

Spock "We passed through a boundary layer."

Kirk "What kind of boundary?"

Spock "Between where we were, and where we are."