Survey I. (Philosophical)
Answer the following questions:
1) What is more important: your perceptual experience of the world, or your conceptual understanding of it?
2) If a thing changes, then, after the change, the thing is no longer identical with itself, and thus it seems problematic to say that that thing has changed. How do we have to understand change in order for it to make sense that a thing changes, and yet preserves its identity?
3) Are there ethical truths, and if so, what kinds of truths are they? Are they analytic (or in any way neccessary) truths, like the truths of mathematics or logic, or are they synthetic 'truths', like the 'truths' of science (which, of course, are not really truths at all, rather, explanitory hypotheses).
4) What would it mean to say that an answer to a question here posted is right or correct?
7 Comments:
1) I believe that perception and understanding are inextricably intertwined. You must have both to be a functional entity, and both phenomenon are invariably unique to the individual. You could, on the one hand, say that perception is more important since without it you could never have understanding at all. It is the framework upon which understanding is based. But then again, perception is simply the recognition of filtered sensory information, and perhaps what is more "important", or profound is the internal world that brains create--a unique, customized and vibrant model of the world that is probably more exciting than the true, unfiltered, reality, if there is such a thing. Of course, it would help to define in greater detail what is meant by "more important”. Bear in mind that the above discussion takes the traditional world view where there is an actual universe outside of ourselves, of which we are observers, and in which we participate. If you take a different angle, it could very well be the case that your conceptual understanding of things IS the universe, and traditional perception is just an illusion. So in summation I have to take the agnostic position that this is a question which we simply cannot answer, even if we were able to understand it.
2) There are lots of things at play here. First off, are you speaking of a physical object when you say a thing, or are you covering the more abstract “thing” which could be a concept, idea, or the like? If we are talking about physical matter, then you must first come to an understanding of what an actual “thing” is--an object that we are somehow conceptually separating from the rest of the universe and putting into isolation. The subatomic reality of course is that everything is just a bunch of goo, pulsating and undulating around. It is always moving and “changing”. In this view it is the macroscopic structure that we care about. More specifically it is all about the internal representation for the object we have created in our minds. A change corresponds to a noticeable physical reconfiguration of the object, but such that our brain is still able to recognize it as the original thing. At some point the discussion over whether it is the same thing becomes a matter of opinion. This is especially true of ideas, and concepts. Think of stories passed down orally through the generations. They are gonna change quite a bit, and past a certain point, some might argue it isn’t even the same thing anymore. Someone else might feel that the core of the story is still intact. So once again, as with all things, it really boils down to your own internal mind model.
3) That’s a tough one. I believe ethics is a social construct that has it roots in the evolution of animal group behavior. Animals can be said to have some form of ethics, but only as given by evolution. In humans, I believe that the very base feelings of what is right and wrong still come from our evolutionary history. However we have added a higher level of socially engrained ethics. We have taken ethical considerations to the next level with our desire to advance culture and society. We establish laws and rules which allow our society to reach higher levels of order and power. Even so, who’s to say that this ability is not still the result of evolution. Indeed it has made us successful. There may indeed by ethical truths in the sense that there is some ideal, ethical code which will result in the maximum level of cultural development, but then I wouldn't so much call them truths, as just optimal rules for growth. To reiterate, I believe there are biological ethical imperatives shared by various creatures on planet earth, and I believe these form the basis for some of our higher ethics. But I also believe mankind established a rigid ethical system to increase its power. And remember, ethics only has meaning if there are conscious creatures around that can think about it. So you can’t really call animal group behavior “ethics”, it’s just the group behavior that evolved which just so happens to be the foundation for and a mirror of our human ethics which we can understand and think about.
4) That would be silly. The best thing you could probably say would be “he has an understanding of the basic issues” or, “he knows enough to know that you can’t answer any of those questions cut and dry”.
BTW this is Cody.
1) Cody is right when he says that the two (perception and conception) are inextricably intertwined in the sense that both really upon each other for their functioning and (evolutionary) development. In this way, both can be seen to be equally important. However, there is one relation between the two that I am going to take, at least for the duration of this response, as indicating precadence of one over the other. Imagine the worlds of manifold content for both perception and conception. Within the perceptual manifold, we see only what some philosophers have called 'qualia', that is, directly sensible data, oraganized in patterns that we call our well-ordered experience. Within the conceptual manifold, we have much more: I can conceptualize a vector space of infinite dimensions, or and infinite set, or simply a number; all entities which themselves are not available by rule within the perceptual manifold. More importantly, within the coneptual manifold is contained all that may be neccesarry for interpretation of the manifold content of the perceptual world. Another way to put this is the following. Our perceptual experience is theory laden, that is, organized or ordered only by some other coneptual understanding. In the case of 'understanding' the bounded form of a closed surface before you, the understanding is primarily physiological, that is, the interpretive mechanisms for 'rendering' the closed surface are pre-intellectual: presumably our animal ancestors needed to be sufficently profiecient in dealing with various surfaces they would encounter. In the case of understanding quantum phenomenon, however, the 'understanding' will be primarily intellectual, as this process requires the casting of intellectual entities (like a vector space of infinite dimensions) in an (emprically) representary role. To sum up, we can only perceive the world as far as we can concieve, though we should usually be able to concieve of the world far greater than we can percieve it.
2) Why did I ask this one? It is obvious that in certain situations the object changing will have changed sufficiently to warrant a new identity. So lets focus on the case where a thing has undergone some 'minor' change, and thus it makes sense that we would want to call it the same thing. A thing is essentially the same when its constituent, substantial components endure some formal transformation that perserves their substantial existence. Likewise, a thing is essentially the same when its form endures through some substantial transformation. An example of the first change would be a candle melting into wax: it is the same candle because the wax is still there, only melted. A case of the second sort of change would be a human being changing over the course of his life. Even though the actual, substantial matter that comprises the individual at one point may be absent at another, the form of the individual persists (for the most part) as the individual reconstitutes itself substantially.
3) Ethical 'truths' are like scientific truths: they are not neccessary. We have to all agree on ethical truths as though they were convention. Boring.... Will someone please give a contrarian answer to this question????!!!
4) This answer is not correct.
Arg, I thought this was an easy survey! These are essay questions!
-Josh
Holy shit! You can conceptualize a vector space of infinite dimension? Can you actually see it in your mind the same way most people see three-space? I don't think humans are supposed to be able to wrap their minds around infinity.
If we could do that then we would ascend to the next level of the Shrabnor.
-Larry Cockinface
In order to 'percieve' a certain aspect of the quantum reality, we have to understand it in terms of things like vector spaces of infinite dimensions. Likewise, in order to 'perceive' aspects of the classical world (like the kinematic interactions of everyday objects), we have to understand it in terms of things like three-space.
Most of us can theoretically grasp the neccessity and implications of higher dimensional spaces and infinity. But few of us, if any, can actually visualize such a thing. What I was really asking was this: Can you visualize an object of more than three spatial dimensions in your noggin?
No, if by visualization you mean a rendering that contains information organized into the three dimensions. It seems that this is implied by the term 'visualization'. I can however, conceptualize a three-dimensional object extended through a 4th time dimension. Not a true visualization, but a cognition of some sort no doubt. Similarly, I can conveive of the afore mentioned vector space, if only in a confused way.
That the mental representations of such things to us should be sometimes clear, sometimes confused, should not detract from their significance. Mathematicians have been studying numbers for millenia and still we do not know what a number really is. Yet a number is one of the most significant representary entities.
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