Conceptual Functionality...

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

Philo: Go ‘head.

Estudia: So just what is the function of concepts? I understand that a concept takes a group of percepts and extracts the fundamental unit of similarity and integrates that into one new whole. What’s the point?

Philo: That’s it. Concepts compress content whether it is precepts or other concepts. They reduce lots of information into a smaller number of units. You can’t, because of the finite nature of consciousness, hold in mind an unlimited number of concretes. This is referred to as the crow epistemology.

Estudia: I’ve heard of that. It comes from the fact that crows can’t count very high apparently. If more than four people cross a field and go into the woods, the crows will return to the field when three leave. The fourth, fifth of sixth or whatever additional person can remain in the woods and the crows won’t be aware. For one, or two, or three people, the crows can remember how many have to come out. But four or more is just too much for them to handle.

Philo: We are similar. Without grouping or counting, you can’t hold in your mind more than about ten individual units. Beyond that the number is just “many”.

Estudia: Really. I wonder if that has anything to do with the number of toes we have. I seem to think a crow only has three front toes but I’m not sure of that.

Philo: I have no idea but I’m pretty sure crows have four toes on each foot. Whatever the limit of our minds, we need to compress or condense in order to retain the units in our mind and think about them. A definition also compresses the data by focusing on the fundamental characteristics. You have to do this with all your knowledge as it grows especially with higher level concepts which compress conceptual units into broader concepts. Like “furniture” includes “chairs”, “tables”, “beds”, “sofas”, etc. and “interior decorating includes “furniture”, “accessories”, “color-schemes”, etc. The most important thing to observe is that concepts must be based on reality. The facts of reality are referenced by a mathematical relationship between the fundamental units of the concept in question.

Estudia: So concepts correspond to reality and are constructs of our consciousness which allow us to retain and think about the world. I can see how this idea of concept formation is so important, but I swear; I must be suffering from the crow epistemology because the more I try to grasp what you are telling me the more I feel that I am losing pieces from the beginning. I like it when we can summaries the topic in a simple sentence so that I’m not trying to hold all these ideas in mind at one time.
Philo: We are trying to compress these ideas as we go along here. We want to have what is called unit-economy by condensing lots of ideas into one concept or simple statement that we can retain. Still, at times you are going to have to go over this material before it is integrated into your own mind. Keep at it and I think you will succeed.

Estudia: Thanks. What do we do with this understanding of concept formation and proper definition development?

Philo: Now we want to discuss the important concept of objectivity. You must understand the full implications of this concept if you are to improve the quality of your thinking. There are certain rules we must follow in our thinking if we want to gain knowledge. But we’ll work on the concept of objectivity the next time we get together.

Estudia: Great. Later.