Defining the Moment...

Estudia: Hey Phi, I’m back and I’ve got a question for you.

Philo: Shoot.

Estudia: You explained how the perceptual stage of consciousness is automatic and is an integration of sense perceptions which are the direct result of a stimulus/response interaction between us and concrete things or existents in reality.

Philo: Right, and then we talked about how these abstractions are integrated by our minds to form concepts.

Estudia: Exactly, so concepts are detached from existents. That is my question. Shouldn’t there be some way to connect a concept with what it represents in reality?

Philo: Yes there should be and there is a way to assure that they are connected. But most of us use concepts like they are something that exists out there in reality. Ayn Rand called these “floating abstractions”. They are not an integration of factual data but are represented in a persons mind as a mish-mash of language, poorly defined words, random concrete images, feelings and habits. We use the concepts like a ventriloquist’s dummy mouthing words all the time our minds are out of focus. Concepts have to be tied to reality and be related by unit reduction to something important enough to have been selected for conceptualization.

Estudia: Wait a minute ... just one minute here. How are we going to tie a concept to reality?

Philo: Tying a concept to reality is the primary function of a definition. Ayn Rand said a definition must “...distinguish a concept from all other concepts and thus ...keep its units differentiated from all other existents.”

Estudia: We can’t do this as children. We don’t have words at first and yet you showed me how a child forms concepts.

Philo: Right, a child points as he learns the words to associate with a concept. The “chair” concept is communicated by pointing at any chair when the child wants to draw attention to a chair for what ever reason. This works for a while, but soon there are too many simple concepts to deal with and as higher level abstractions occur, there is no way to point at a concrete existent. This is certainly true for concepts of consciousness. At this stage definitions become necessary.

Estudia: Hummm... But axiomatic concepts like “existence”, and concepts of the senses like “red” can’t be defined can then?

Philo: Only ostensively. You point and say, “This is what I mean by red” and so on, but for any other kind of concept a definition is needed. A definition doesn’t list all the characteristics of the units involved but must specify the unit’s essential characteristics.

Estudia: What’s essential mean here?

Philo: Some fundamental property that makes the units what they are and differentiates the units from all other existents. A proper definition will have a “genus” which is the wider category of things we are isolating our concept from. This might be furniture in the case of the concept “chair”. We are isolating chairs from tables, couches, beds, etc. Beside the genus, a good definition will have a “differentia” which is the distinguishing characteristic like “a seat with a back and four legs”. The genus and differentia tells us what makes the units distinct and from what larger group of things we are separating our concept. The definition itself is a condensed brief statement that indicates this concept forming process.

Estudia: So how are definitions actually determined?

Philo: By the facts of reality but limited by the context of what you know. For example the concept “planet” might at a certain time be defined as “any of the celestial bodies that revolve around the sun”. This would work until you realize comets fit into this definition so you’d have to refine it. Then you might worry about asteroids and just how big does a planet have to be to differentiate it from a satellite and can a planet be revolving in some plane tilled far from the plane on the other planets in the “current” solar system. So as your knowledge grows you have to refine your concept. But even through definitions are contextual, they aren’t arbitrary. You must use the facts of reality to determine the distinguishing characteristics of a concept. Any new definition won’t contradict an older one; it simply refines a distinction based on the new knowledge available to those who are using the concept.

Estudia: So a definition is determined by the facts known about reality but within the context of our knowledge. Definitions are contextual. Definitions are brief statements distinguishing the units defined from a wider group of things.

Philo: Yes, and those two properties of definitions, reality (those facts) and the context of our knowledge, are very important. These properties relate to existence and to consciousness. But there is also another rule of definitions needed in order to clarify what we mean by an “essential” measure of the unit being distinguished. The rule is called the “rule of fundamentality”

Estudia: You said we select the characteristic of the units that is essential to distinguish it from all other units of the wider context. Why the need to be fundamental? Isn’t essential the same thing here?

Philo: In a simple case yes, but when the units of a concept have more than one distinctive characteristic, the definition should state the one that really distinguishes it and this must be the fundamental characteristic. If you want a concept to be retainable in your mind and hence serve as a useful tool for further thinking, you must not let it turn into a floating abstraction. You can retain all the similarities, differences so you select the essential characteristic to serve for all the others and condense the ideas into the concept. If you use non-essentials you effectively detach a concept from its units and wind up with a floating abstraction.

Estudia: Can you give me an example of what you are talking about?

Philo: Sure, that might help. Consider the definition that exists today for “chair”. It goes something like this: “a seat typically having four legs and a back for one person”. But that ignores some non-essentials like “rigid” or “with feet” or “with or without arms” or “with cushioned or hard seat” and so on. The fundamental is “a seat” from the class of furniture, “legs” and “back” and “one person”, are non-essentials as indicated by the “typically”. The “typically” allows for solid base or pedestal or three legs and so on and indicates that all those things following are non-essentials. Now if the definition was made using a non-essential you might be limiting yourself to only rigid, four legged items with backs. A seat is the only thing fundamental here and it is defined as “a chair, stool, or bench intended to be sat in or on”. So, something intended to be sat in or on is fundamental to the concept “seat” and hence to “chair”. You would not want to define “chair” in terms of a “four-legged rigid object”. That would leave out too much. A concept isn’t the same as its definition. They can’t be interchanged even if a definition is correct. “Chair” does not mean “seat” and anything that is a seat is not necessarily a chair.

Estudia: I’m not sure that helps, but I get the gist of what you are trying to tell me. A concept is an open-ended group or file of units with some essential fundamental characteristic that lets us consider them as all related, but those units have lots of other characteristics that aren’t so important. Painting a chair red doesn’t turn it into a new concept of red-chairs, or steel-chairs, or whatever. I know about all kinds of chairs and someone else may have never seen a steel chair or a deck-chair or numerous other chairs yet we can discuss chairs and communicate the concept even when we have vastly different knowledge of chairs.

Philo: That’s right. Concepts have stability and universality. They are stable in a given content even though they can be expanded with new knowledge and even sometimes discarded and replaced. They have universality among all those who are using the same concept in their thinking. And they must be carefully defined and grounded in your mind to the facts of reality for which they stand.

Estudia: Enough. Tell me more later.

Philo: With pleasure. Take care.

Beyond Elementary Math...

Philo: Hey Stew, welcome back. How’re your studies going?

Estudia: Great I think. I’ve really learned a lot, but I still have some questions. Like, just what is the difference between a concept like “chair” and one like “furniture” which includes chairs, tables and lots of other things?

Philo: That’s it. A “first-level” concept is one that you can develop directly from perceptual information. You can form higher level concepts by abstracting further. You take a bunch of concepts and abstract them into a wider concept which will involve more knowledge. For example, say the concept of a “solar system” which involves the integration of concepts like “sun”, “planet”, “moon”, “asteroid”, “comet”, etc. Or you could take a first-level concept into narrower concepts such as “tree” into “evergreens”, “deciduous”, “ginkgos”.

Estudia: So a higher level concept represents an advanced state of knowledge obviously?

Philo: Right, you have to do a lot of conceptualization before you can unify things into a larger concept. The concepts themselves, like “society” or “democracy” are things that you can’t point to so they aren’t available on a perceptual level. Even the concept of “family” is tough as there are all types of relationships that can constitute any given family. But, this process of abstracting on abstractions goes on and on to reach very high level concepts that are far removed from the perceptual level. But every concept can be understood in terms of measurement-omission and a lot more can be said about this. If you’re really interested, you ought to study the book titled, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” by Ayn Rand.

Estudia: Well, I just might do that, but I get the gist of what you are implying. The concept “family” involves all sizes and types of arrangements and when I use that concept I am omitting any particular count or measurement of size of arrangement. But, what about concepts like “idea” or “memory” or “friendship” and others that are just in our minds.

Philo: They are referred to as concepts of consciousness. Concepts such as “thought”, “imagination” and “dream” also fall into this category. These types of concepts have two fundamental attributes. One of these attributes is content.

Estudia: By content I assume you are talking about what is in our consciousness or at least what we are aware of.

Philo: Yes, something we are aware of, either directly or indirectly—something that is some state of existence which we are aware by introspection or extrospection. “Dream” is an introspective awareness. The content of a dream can vary widely from pleasurable to nightmarish, from a simple image to a vivid and complex scenario. All these possible contents would be included in the concept “dream”. Now, in addition to the attribute of content, all concepts of consciousness have a second attribute which is “action.”

Estudia: What does that mean?

Philo: By action we are talking what consciousness does with regard to the content. You would do something like think, or recall things, see images in your mind, or carry on imaginary conversations and so forth. For the concept “dream” you do the pictures, sounds and other sensations without actual stimulation of the senses.

Estudia: That’s something to think about. I can see that their all sorts of categories of concepts. Some of them are a combination of existential concepts and concepts of consciousness. Things like “love birds”, or “friends”, or “creative writer”. There I can see that you would be integrating things you can’t perceive directly but include high-level concepts like “value”, “affection”, “imagination” and lots of others.

Philo: Yes, those kinds of concepts are very important in philosophical discussions and I’m sure we will want to consider them more thoroughly as we meet them in our discussions. But, for now, you just need to understand that such abstractions from abstractions exist and wonder at the power of your reasoning faculties.

Estudia: Oh, I do! Believe me, and I am very impressed with the work of Ayn Rand. Later, alligator.