[Wittrs] Re: On the Mechanism of Understanding
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:29:25 -0700
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Stuart W. Mirsky<SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:
<< SNIP >>
>> That's OK. I was doing Cult of Athena earlier on this list, have a
>> whole blog about it I've cited. But you're not necessarily the guy
>> I'm counting on to make sense of it all. Sorry for these tangents,
>> but I've got work to do here. You're welcome to lurk of course.
>>
>
> Hmmm, I thought I had actually started this thread and so might possibly
> have an interest in some of what gets said here! But you're right. At this
> point you've kind of taken it in a different direction. Maybe I'll drop back
> into lurker status as you suggest, pending responses that are more related
> to what I was initially talking about.
I'm interested in some of what you talk about and bounce off it but
always pay attention to "thread ownership" -- too much overhead to
keep track. I just a scroll streaming by, each of us jumping in when
we feel moved to do so.
It's like shuffling multiple decks of cards together, what we do.
My model is a coffee shop or restaurant, people around tables, lots of
meandering discussion, no set agenda.
Sean is a referee of sorts, and a chief promulgator / advertiser for
the list ("Wittgenstein-trained people think more clearly!"), as well
as a discussant.
Sean, if you're reading this: I steer clear of PHP, as well as Visual Basic.
>> I have no clear idea what you mean by "the issues we commenced with"
>> and I don't know what you mean by stream of consciousness. If you're
>> implying I don't work hard on these posts, that's incorrect. I'm
>> being meticulous and to the point (my points, but in a dialog format,
>> connecting to your points as I see fit).
>>
>
> Yes, you certainly can do it your way. It's just that it no longer seems to
> have much to do with what I started talking about. I'll shift into lurk mode
> then as per your suggestion.
I want to inject new content, sometimes without starting a separate thread.
I'll branch off to new topics *within* a thread -- convenient for me,
and I'm not the only one doing it am I?
>> >> You see I'm being internally consistent yes? As I say above, I've so
>> >> far seen nothing but fiction from Hawkins, science fiction.
>> >>
>>
>> Guess not?
>>
> Looks like you're responding to your own comment?
>
Guessing about your response, but yeah, just talking to myself there.
>> If a person avers he has no ability to fly a plane, doesn't understand
>> how to do it, we wouldn't put him at the controls of a plane (most
>> likely).
>>
>
> Maybe he's just being modest? Or trying to avoid being asked to take over?
>
Maybe. Like a shrinking violet type.
Other people in the room could fly just as well, he'd rather pose as a
"non-pilot".
Yeah sure, makes sense.
"Is there a doctor in the house?" Sometimes there's more than one,
but not all are equally eager to become involved.
>> But even if a person avers he *does* have that ability, we likely
>> still need to test, no matter how vociferously (zealously) he
>> proclaims to understand how to pilot (unless we're already in the air,
>> no one else stepping forward -- prepare for a thrill ride then, lots
>> of movies go like this).
>>
>> Endless similar other examples...
>>
>
> But not to the point of what I was speaking about (i.e., what constitutes
> understanding something, not how many different ways can we use
> "understanding" and how do they relate to one another?). But endless, yes .
> . .
This is a Wittgenstein list, so you should be used to this by now:
when we ask what constitutes "understanding" we think that means
something like "what does it mean to understand?" or "what does
understanding mean?"
As Wittgenstein-trained folks, we're habituated (positively
reinforced, trained) to then do like an anthropological analysis where
we call up "use cases" we think are generic enough and ordinary enough
that people might relate to them ("yes, that's how we talk"), and yet
are on target enough that some aspect of the grammar is revealed
(examples should be selected with some care).
Teacher: 1, 12, 42, 92... what's next.
Student: um, um, um.... I don't get it.
Teacher: hint: cuboctahedron.
Student: oh yeah, duh... 162.
Teacher: Excellent! You seem to understand. How about the next number?
(and so on)
The typical "patient in need of therapy" that Wittgenstein casts
himself as trying to assist, will come forward with such expressions
as "understanding is an ephemeral brain-hosted process that goes on
privately in a mental space with only one observer, the cogito".
That's *exactly* the kind of thinking the PI is designed to "clear up"
(as in "dispel").
Your presence on this list is valuable in part because you're good at
providing a living example of what we're trained to look for.
I feel like rubbing my hands in Mr. Burns fashion and saying
"Excellent!" every time I read one of your introspective analyses of
what "understanding" means. Who could ask for better grist for the
mill?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irtsm7mLG5k (over 22K views as of today)
>> Is my mind "synthetic"?
>>
>
> Depends what you mean by the term, and what I do. Given the meaning I have
> been using here, the right answer is no. But knowing your penchant for
> innovative thinking I'd expect you would demur. I suppose one might say that
> if you're oriented towards putting things together or making things, rather
> than taking them apart, you have a synthetic mind. It wouldn't mean the same
> thing as my use but the word is the same (spelled the same, pronounced the
> same, sounds the same and with enough family resemblances between the two
> uses to allow us to slip a bit between them).
I think if you opened my head and found a bunch of rubber tubing, then
you'd say I had a synthetic mind. A lot depends on what we find in
the head.
I go back to The Turk, which beat Napoleon at chess. They'd open the
doors on this contraption and show only gears. You could look through
it. This was an early magician's trick.
People didn't know what to say. Debates raged.
Nowadays we know there was a "little man" (a literal dwarf) inside,
but then we have Big Blue or, more accessibly, $30 chess playing
devices that would likely beat Napoleon just as handily (I'm guessing
he was no grand master, more average, like me).
But no one worries today's chess playing computers might be conscious.
That's not on the table.
>
>> You mean like polyester isn't a natural fiber but a man-made one, are
>> applying this meme in the realm of cognitive "science" to conjure some
>> imagery (fantasies). Anything more?
>>
>
> "Manufactured" might do it. Or "constructed". "Man-made" is another
> possibility.
>
If I had the time and the talent, I might write a science fiction
novel in which whales finally figure out a way to "jam" human
frequencies and/or control their thoughts, learn how to steal
elections. They've been wanting to do this ever since the navy
started hurting them with ear-splitting sonar.
For several cycles, we humans suspect nothing, then one of the whales
defects and explains how the last eight USA presidents have been put
there by the whales (it communicates through dreams, to a select group
of children).
Of course that invokes all kinds of grammars that "modern science" in
the west dismisses out of hand. On the other hand, I've met Chinese
bankers who insist large companies would go under without telepathy,
but then the Chinese character for "telepathy" doesn't exactly map to
any English concept (not the first time that's happened).
http://www.opentcm.com/Article1198.html
telepathy
(名) 心靈感應, 傳心術 (getting this Unicode OK?)
http://www.eudict.com/?lang=engall&word=telepathy
>> He was denying the "aha moment" in itself constitutes "the meaning" of
>> "understanding". He explains why. The explanations are cogent but
>> have been repeated here too many times already so I won't do it again
>> (until another post maybe).
>>
>
> I wasn't talking about the meaning of "understanding" in all its
> ramifications or even in ordinary language applications. I was specifically
> focusing on explaining the phenomenon we call "understanding' in organisms
> with brains so that we could see if it was replicable, i.e., what happens in
> brains that is this understanding. That we often use "understand" in a
> variety of ways is only tangentially of interest in such a discussion.
See, this is the whole point of our seeming "disagreement". But
surely you're used to this. This is a *Wittgenstein* list for crying
out loud.
I'm going to put words in Wittgenstein's mouth (picture a sock
puppet). You're more than welcome to say I'm misrepresenting his
thinking.
Wittgenstein: to think of "understanding" as a phenomenon, some
"process" that happens in the brain, is a misuse of the word that
betrays a misunderstanding of its meaning.
Now, to go find something I can quote... (don't wanna be too lazy)...
"""
This introduces two more themes which dominate his later philosophy.
One is the variety of different modes of meaning, and the other is the
therapeutic character of philosophy, which frees us from the grip of
false analogies.
The second theme is especially important in the philosophy of mind.
Take, for example, his treatment of the phenomenon of understanding.
It is only too easy to be misled by the following piece of analogical
reasoning. If A uses an ordinary word like 'blue', and B understands
it, his understanding must be a mental process because it is not a
physical one. Now we can often explain a physical process by pointing
to some physical event that produces it. So in order to explain
understanding, we should look for an introspectible mental event. The
most likely candidate is the occurrence of an image of the colour in
B's mind. So we are led to conclude that understanding essentially
involves mental images.
Wittgenstein's therapeutic treatment of this case starts from the
familiar fact, forgotten by this theory, that quite often B has no
mental image. Then he argues that, even when B has one, its occurrence
does not explain his understanding. For in order to get the right
image and know that he has got it, B must already understand the word
'blue', unless, of course, he got the right image by luck. But in that
case he might have taken the word 'blue' to mean 'coloured' or
anything under the sun.
More generally, Wittgenstein claims that understanding is not really a
mental process at all. If you silently run through the dates of the
kings of England, that is a mental process. But often there is nothing
introspectible to mark the achievement of understanding. What counts
is B's ability to operate with the word 'blue'. The idea that at the
moment of understanding there must be mental events too quick to be
introspected is a myth. It is the false analogy with physical
phenomena that generates the myth, and the cure is to remind ourselves
of the familiar facts of our mental lives, from which the analogy has
alienated us. This is not behaviourism. Wittgenstein's point is not
that there are no mental events or processes, but rather that we
exaggerate their frequency, because we credit them with more
explanatory power than they actually possess.
"""
[ http://www.answers.com/topic/wittgenstein-s-philosophy-of-mind ]
That's really quite good I think, and pretty standard. I emphasize:
Wittgenstein claims that understanding is not really a mental process
at all.
Here's another one I like, quote often (#97):
We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound, essential,
in our investigation, resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable
essence of language. That is, the order existing between the concepts
of proposition, word, proof, truth, experience, and so on. This order
is a super-order between --so to speak-- super-concepts. Whereas, of
course, if the words "language", "experience", "world", have a use, it
must be as humble a one as that of the words "table", "lamp", "door".
> Hawkins makes no claim to be doing philosophy. He claims to be doing
> science. I haven't gotten very deep into his book and he is new to me so I
> can't comment extensively on him. But I thought he made a very interesting
> point about how human memory works and that 1) it seemed to jibe with what
> happened to me in the anecdote I recounted and with some other common
> phenomena and 2) it plays a role in what we mean by "understanding" in
> relation to what brains do when understanding occurs (since memory is part
> of this).
There was some storytelling around memory you quoted, didn't see any
science there. Let's apply the Popperian test: what experiment would
falsify Hawkins theories about what constitutes understanding? There
should be an easy answer, or lets agree this isn't science. You can't
be right about something, unless it also makes sense to be wrong about
it.
>> No, because you have your canned response to this issue.
>>
>
> I never have "canned responses". I always try to bring in my real life
> experiences. Sometimes, of course, I will bring up the same experiences more
> than once because I am taken with the connections. But that strikes me as a
> pretty fair way to proceed. If I think there are important issues to be
> uncovered, why not repeat?
>
OK, I retract "canned" -- you're not just cutting and pasting, except
maybe that one time with that newspaper article about your heart
attack experience (nothing wrong with doing that, either, I read the
whole thing with interest).
You have a fairly standardized way of insisting that "understanding"
is a mental process, whereas I can assure you I have no experience of
such a process, don't ever introspect and say "ah, there's that
understanding thing happening". I can *imagine* thinking that way,
but it's just not the way I think.
>> You insist there's a separate but equally important meaning of
>> "understanding" that adheres to internal brain processes and/or
>> introspected private mental events, somehow connected (threads about
>> "causation" attach here).
>>
>> You have no intention of being talked out of that view (Wittgenstein
>> would be the ticket, were you ever to tire of it).
>>
>> It's a core belief you have. We're up against dogma.
>>
>> So what else is new right?
>>
>
> Well I've changed my views on this a few times, actually. That's not usually
> typical of "dogma".
Well yes, a dogmatic person might flip. And I don't deny that I'm
non-dogmatic about anything myself i.e. I'm dogmatic sometimes,
tenaciously cling to various beliefs e.g. that pre-college students
need to learn about Mites at least (if not Sytes) -- talking about
some geometric shoptalk involving primitive polyhedra.
> Do I "insist" there's a meaning of "understanding" that is particularly
> relevant here, a meaning having to do with science? Yes, I guess I do. I'm
I'm not persuaded that it's in any way "scientific" to cling to this
fantasy of an interior process that is "the mental process of
understanding". That's like believing in ghosts in my book (I'm more
open to ghost talk actually, or talk about muses).
Like I can imagine a big red eye and say "that's the eye of my cogito,
the mind's eye people talk about" (sort of Lord of the Rings). But I
don't really *believe* in such a big red eye (nor in a small blue one
either, nor any "eye" at all).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wukSatWQJI (the cogito, observing its
private mental landscape)
What you're calling science in this context I call "science fiction"
and/or "old skool philosophy" and/or "anemic metaphysics".
> interested in what constitues the things we recognize as being conscious, as
> having consciousness, and how the brain does them. That we use the word
> "understand" in a number of ways is interesting, too. But I am using it in
> this PARTICULAR way in this thread (or I was, since I'm now supposed to be
> lurking). The question at hand is NOT how do we use "understand" across a
> range of cases but how does what we call "understanding" happen in a brain?
I guess I'd say "I don't believe in that science" or "I am confidant
there's no 'process in the brain' we might identify as 'the
understanding process' or "this doesn't come across as 'science' to
me".
What I think isn't all that debatable is this: my response along
these lines is *par for the course* among people who've read and
understood the PI, i.e. my understanding of Wittgenstein is in no way
freakish or unusual in this regard. You can take that to the bank.
>> OK, so you talked yourself into without that much help from Hawkins.
>> Congrats then.
>>
>
> Or perhaps I discovered an interesting aspect (at least interesting to me)
> of what it means when we do what we call understand?
>
I see you as this inventive narrator in a fantasy world, imagining all
these ephemeral processes and writing about them as if you were a kind
of naturalist explorer, a pioneer in some inner world. I'm reminded
of Narnia.
In olden times, people believed in gods (goddesses!) and angels.
These would visit and one would converse with them. These days, the
inner world is more lonely, as only the solo cogito inhabits it, privy
to its isolated "mental theater" as Gilbert Ryle calls it.
The grammar is malleable though. If we bring in telepathy or thought
control or any number of competing science fiction ideas into the mix
(as distinct from the more standard "solitary cogito" fantasy (fairy
tale)) then we get changes in ethnicity (as I'd put it). We become
more Chinese in our thinking, or more North American (as distinct from
Anglo-European). Or maybe we're simply "crazy" (a catch all for
people who wear tin foil hats cuzza HAARP or whatever -- Patrick and I
are planning a beer by that brand, with the tag line: mind control:
inexpensive, not cheap).
>>
>> With or without the benefit of Wittgenstein's insights, yes.
>>
>
> Always with the benefit of Wittgensteinian insights but not to the point of
> denying new insights or new information or the search for these.
>
I get the feeling you'd consider telepathy out of bounds, but are OK
with "understanding" being an introspective process. I have a
different set of biases, obviously (I'm out of the closet Asian in
some blog posts, fair warning -- picture me as a Chinaman, long beard
(goes with that martial arts image we were yakking about, earlier in
this thread)).
Kirby as Asian:
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/07/outta-da-closet.html
>> It's more like if there's stuff I'd like to say, about other matters
>> besides the points you bring up, then here is an OK and/or convenient
>> place to do it.
>>
>
> Yes, of course, feel free. I wasn't suggesting you aren't free to free
> associate or say whatever is of interest to you. It was just that I had been
> under the impression that you were responding to me and the items I'd put on
> the table. When I realized you weren't, I noted that. It's not a criticism
> or meant to be pejorative. If you're doing a different thing here, there's
> no reason to worry about my opinion. I can do the lurker thing as you
> suggest (though I'm not yet doing it very well -- but I'm going to try
> harder for sure).
It's not that I'm not responding to you, it's that I'm *also* bouncing
off your walls (from outside), populating a searchable electronic
archive with stuff about our Coffee Shops Network for example.
I'm chief marketing officer (CMO) for said outfit and since
Wittgenstein is a hero of mine, it's kinda like I wanna be "buried"
here, in the sense of leaving auditable content in a Wittgensteinian
"bone yard". You're in a nearby grave (sorry to be so Halloweeny), so
hey, lets chatter and be friendly.
>> You seem to think something similar in that you're tracking the
>> cog-sci people, applaud their efforts as amateur philosophers trying
>> to solve the mind-body problem all over again.
>>
>
> Say rather that I am interested in their efforts and the information they
> develop because of the insights into the world I think it portends.
>
Not holding my breath there, think cog-sci is mostly a fad, not a
science. If it were honest about not being a science, I think it'd
last longer, but in calling it cog-sci, it's already too late for
that.
>> I'm personally not invested in that agenda, but feel I should say why.
>> Responding to your posts gives valuable context and contrast. Hope
>> ya don't mind. You make a good foil.
>>
>
> No, I don't, of course. It's just that I have a tendency to keep responding
> and sometimes don't realize when the issues on the table are no longer
> connected with what prompted my involvement. I'll follow your comments
> though. You're always interesting and imaginative and certainly bring a
> creative flair to the world of Wittgensteinian exegesis.
>
I'm also trying to establish, that in saying "understanding is not a
mental process" that I'm providing what many would call mainline
exegesis, i.e. this isn't some quirky curious
only-Kirby-thinks-that-way reading. Hence the lengthy quote above, me
approving.
That being said, I'll cop to *also* sharing some quirky curious
only-Kirby-thinks-that-way stuff.
<tangent>
When I went to E.J. Applewhite's Georgetown apartment that time he was
sorting stuff for the Stanford archive, he had a large stack of my
stuff on one of the chairs. Included in that pile was a manila
envelope marked "quirky" and inside were a lot of my most quirky
writings. Did I want that to go to Stanford? Nah. Well, maybe this
one thing (transferred it). The rest came home in my brief case.
That was many years ago (he's since died).
You'll see Applewhite's name on this Youtube I just did (if curious to
hear what I sound like -- doesn't show my face though (other Youtubes
do that)):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SwOrnCY4TE
</tangent>
>> However, I don't think Wittgenstein should be cast as some kind of
>> prototypical cognitive scientists. Rather, I think cognitive
>> scientists sound a lot like the old mind-body problem folks, dressed
>> up in slightly newer clothing.
>>
>
> Where do you think I cast Wittgenstein as a proto-cognitive scientist?
I don't. Just putting it out there as an independent reading.
> Following Sean's mandate I am talking here about things that interest or
> concern me and bringing my interest in and understanding of Wittgenstein
> (such at it is) to bear as seems appropriate.
Yes, not being critical of your doing that. Plus I welcome your doing
it for reasons stated above: I think in having "understanding" being
some interior introspective "mind's eye" type process, you're
providing valuable contrast vis-a-vis those who don't entertain such
notions (including other Wittgenstein-trained analysts besides me, I'm
sure of it).
>> Their science fiction (metaphysics) has computers in it now, is
>> probably the main difference from the 1800s version of this stuff.
>>
>> I have the advantage of being rather up on computers so am not easily
>> snowed by hand wavy AI.
>>
>
> I see a lot of this business about "handwaving" on lists like these. It's a
> favorite condemnatory remark of people from all schools of philosophy. I
> guess it sounds good, offers an interesting image and resonates or
> something. Personally, I don't see much handwaving in a guy like Hawkins who
> seems pretty down to earth and direct. Edelman could have used Hawkins
> co-author, I think.
Yeah, good call.
I agree with your analysis re "hand wavy" as a kind of clever put
down, makes me feel smarter when I say it (though in using that
expression, I'm *not* imputing the existence, in any scientific sense,
of an internal "smart meter" that I consult, like a barometer, to
figure out my "smartness level" (another internal "brain device" --
like the controls in some cockpit (fun science fiction though))).
>> I'm remembering how Wittgenstein was in the army, was a POW, taught
>> elementary school... (is that what it was). At least he didn't live
>> in some cubicle-cave in some office building.
>
> He also put in some time as a monk wannabe in a monastery and lived in
> isolation on the coast of Norway and western Ireland for long stints. While
> at Cambridge, though popular with a certain class of students, he seems to
> have kept himself apart from most of the other faculty and was disliked by
> many of them.
Yeah, glad to get these bio points on the map. Thanks for putting
those dots out there. Monastery in what sect I wonder. Did they keep
their traps shut? Did he do any writing there? I really don't know
his bio as well as some other readers here, is my thinking.
>> If a philosophy completely ignores the great resource that is
>> hypertext... well, I'd be skeptical of its value, lets just leave it
>> at that.
>>
>
> So you're doing the Lord's work keeping Wittgenstein alive on the Internet.
> Well, I guess somebody's gotta do it!
Yeah! I get lots of help too.
>
> Thanks for the good wishes. I'll try to be a better lurker!
>
> SWM
These days I'm reading just about everything posted to this list,
including your dialogs with others, like Gerardo. Sometimes I just
lurk, other times I butt in. But I'm not really keeping track of who
started which thread or what the "dominant theme" of a thread may be.
I do try to keep my remarks somewhat apropos, even as I go off on
quirky tangents. I'm walking my talk, practicing what I preach, in
deploying a kind of web, using "hypertext" to communicate my meanings.
For example, I did work to connect zen to Centers Network (a business,
since disappeared), have some Python weaving through, especially in
dialog with Josh, plus have so far made probably 10-20 references to
"4D" and "4D geometry".
I also name drop, e.g. recently mentioned Kathy, who went to Prague in
her Linfield College days to study Kafka. I was connecting Kafka to
Stephen King to gothic writers more generally. She's a Quaker, like
me, and one of my projects within Quakerism is to make links to
American Transcendentalism on the one hand (e.g. Margaret Fuller
Osoli) and to Gothic writers on the other (e.g. Poe). Kathy Hyzy
(also a blog character).
In other words, I'm working to sustain various threads *within* my
posting history, so if someone were to compile just my posts, they'd
find lots of interconnections i.e. if they knew my writings from other
contexts, they'd feel rewarded, e.g. people who appreciate my
marketing for Coffee Shops Network wouldn't feel I'd simply turned my
back on 'em, now that I'm frequenting this Wittgenstein list.
Put another way, I feel I owe it to my fans, my trackers and backers,
to keep elaborating on certain themes. I'm not "at liberty" (per my
own self discipline) to just drop all that other stuff when posting to
this list. I'm very much *not* on vacation these days. I"m a
professional juggler (Dymaxion Clown).
We each have our work and interests, and asynchronous archival lists
are a good place to pursue them, sometimes in partially overlapping
ways.
More power to us then,
Kirby
Other related posts:
