[Wittrs] Re: On the Mechanism of Understanding
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:58:06 -0700
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 7:34 AM, Stuart W. Mirsky<SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:
<< SNIP >>
>> Hey thanks for responding. I think it was actually Hawkins I was
>> thinking of, but in a long quote from you (wasn't it?). That thing
>> about how one knows, reading a novel, that one understands it, e.g.
>> Robinson Crusoe doesn't have to wait until he gets of the island to
>> know he understood the twelve books washed ashore with him -- or at
>> least he maybe understood eleven of them, this 'Philosophical
>> Investigations' thing was maybe a stumper. He'll check in with some
>> others if he's ever rescued, maybe find out if he understood it at
>> all. He's especially intrigued by the "private language" stuff!
>>
>
> Yes, it was Hawkins and I did post the text. I wasn't sure who you meant
> though. It could have been my own comments since, from time to time, I've
> been accused of something like that, i.e., equating a thought with an image.
> In fact, of course, I don't and neither as far as I can see does Hawkins.
>
> What Hawkins does do, which I'm inclined to agree with, is recognize the
> role mental images play in our thinking processes. I would just cite, again,
> my anecdote about seeing the sign, not getting it and then realizing what it
> meant on the drive up through the Carolinas. What happened there? Was it a
> behavioral response as Gerardo or Glen might want to say? Was it something
> that simply doesn't fit our grammar, as you might say?
Yes, I have no problem with recognizing the role of mental images, as
long as one also accepts that sometimes these have no role i.e. let's
not over-generalize about their role.
I'm able to understand about road signs without a lot of "mentation"
we might say. When I'm playing a computer game, the imagery is right
there in front of me, so what's the point of imagining yet more crap
"off to the side" as it were -- or maybe I'm thinking about the cup of
coffee I lust after...
The point being, thinking and understanding shouldn't be hard-wired to
this idea of "a private mental process" (Wittgenstein goes to a lot of
work to break the hold of that bewitching and misleading image). To
say images *play a role* in understanding is not to *identify* them
with the concept of understanding (at the risk of not seeing the
actual grammar around "understand" i.e. at the risk of not seeing how
we actually use the word).
To say "understanding is a mental process" is a first turn off the
main road into some little side streets neighborhood, an ethnic
conclave of some kind.
Likewise to say mental imagery is a kind of "behavior" is a dialect, a
village talk -- not how we think in the big city (you were making that
point to Gerardo and I agree with you).
>
> In fact, of course, I can describe what happened pretty well (suggesting
> that grammar is perfectly functional here): I saw a sign, wondered about it
> (the wording had initially stumped me), then, in an instant, it made sense
> and I had a whole slew of mental images run past me, images that related to
> following the words on the sign or to not following it. There was no change
> in my behavior. I just kept driving (indeed I was already doing what the
> sign required) and I didn't turn to my wife and say, ah, now I understand
> that sign. The only changes involved the mental images I suddenly had, the
> connections I made to my stored memories.
>
Fine, but the next guy I interview reports no mental imagery. He was
yakking with his wife the whole way, understood all the signs with no
thoughts about them. He understood just as surely. So when it comes
to understanding what's meant by "understanding", I don't take your
lengthy and detailed account as my one true account. It's more grist
for the mill, raw intelligence for my database.
Your accounts tend to be introverted, focused on your process. You
have a track record of doing "internal landscape journalism", are good
at it, enjoy exercising that skill that you have. But we don't
*require* such accounts to anchor our meanings, don't need everyone to
be gifted in the way you are.
A lot of people think, understand, know, otherwise get through their
day, without making such accounts a big part of it. In studying the
grammar around these words (or I could say: in studying these
concepts), we learn what's critical to the language game, versus
what's maybe relevant, maybe not, depending on circumstances and who
we're interviewing.
I'm being faithful to Wittgenstein here. He often points out how you
might have *no* mental images where other times you do, hence their
dispensability to "the meaning" in some logical (grammatical) sense.
I get the feeling that "brain people" (loosely defined) are more than
average focused on their interior lives and so want to "suck down"
words like understanding to make them names of "mental processes"
which they then suppose "run on the brain" (just as processes and
threads run within operating systems). That's an analogy they've
"suckered for" (willingly), and there's no way to talk 'em out of it.
Those associations are "hard wired".
> But I am not suggesting that any of those images, or even the complete
> panoply of connected images, were the meaning per se (that they were the
> same images as the writer of the sign had had in mind). Indeed, I would
> doubt that any two of us ever have the same images much less the same
> network of connected images. If you saw the sign and understood it, I expect
> you would have other mental images reflecting your comprehension. It's not
> the images but something else at work.
Of course when we go to the movies or watch Youtubes, we get to share
a lot of the same imagery -- partly why I cite YouTubes a lot, wanting
to build up a database of "clips in common". You could call this a
"shared mental process" and get away with it in some circles. Others
would raise objections, saying that's not the "right way" to talk.
It's important to our civilization that we know a lot of us watch the
same TV programs. Having a high school aged kid helps remind me of
that fact. Not every civilization is like that. Shared texts (e.g.
the Bible) is also critical. So much of classical western civ writing
assumes readers will be able to conjure imagery around Greek and/or
Hebrew mythos, otherwise how could we write about the Apollonian
versus the Dionysian and hope to be understood? Important in
Nietzsche etc.
> A memory or an instant of understanding does not consist of particular
> images but of a complex of images, held together in a certain way, and
> shared understanding OF THIS TYPE occurs when two or more of us have roughly
> similar complex networks. This is in keeping with Edelman's interesting
> point that human memory is not like a computer's. (A point Hawkins makes,
> too.) Computers must call up a precise replication of what is to be recalled
> each time or they are deficient in their operation. As Hawkins notes, if a
> picture is stored in a computer's memory, it must be precisely the same each
> time it's summoned onto the screen. But human memory doesn't work like that.
> Edelman points out that human memory is rough, fluid and always different
> with each instance (think Rashomon). Each time it is called up new
> associations are added and maybe some fall away or lose significance. So
> human memory involves constantly reconstructing complex pictures and that
> process, that of construction, is different than simple replication.
Yeah, there's somewhat different grammar involved, when we impute
"memory" to computers versus impute it to humans.
The idea of an "instant of understanding" is what I was noting earlier
as an "aha!" experience, then following Wittgenstein in reminding the
reader that one may have such an experience -- yet not understand.
Turns out later this wasn't an instant of understanding but of
misunderstanding.
"...does not consist of particular images but of a complex of images"
needs to be balanced with "no images whatsoever" in some cases, i.e.
don't fall for the notion that mental images *must* be there, for
someone to understand.
Understanding is more about passing tests, meeting criteria, e.g.
getting on TV and saying coherent things that other people consider
insightful. "Private mental imagery" may be of little interest in
this context given we're all watching the same shared clips from the
video database (Youtubes etc.).
> Hawkins actually explains it this way: The human brain, unlike a computer,
> he says, doesn't store every bit of data it receives. It works by storing
> the general structure, an adumbration of the pictures it is holding onto but
> not a "pixel" by "pixel" deposit in the storage bank. When called back to
> active duty, it's that structure that the human brain pulls up. Other parts
> of the brain, with other stored images, are relied on to plug in details.
>
To me this sounds like someone making stuff up out of whole cloth. I
could write similar stuff, fill books with it, but I'm not sure I'd
regard it as work. I shouldn't be paid for it. I should get a
work-study stipend, yes, but not for this "work" in particular.
I'd encourage Hawkins to move into a more productive area, were he on
my team (which he isn't). Probably they wouldn't assign him to me as
his manager, as I have low tolerance for "brain people" (Buzz knows
this, but we overlap on iPhone talk, which seems more productive).
> This helps explain why, when I had blacked out after sitting for a prolonged
> period at my computer watching an image on the screen, the first thing I
> "saw" as I was coming to was that same image. But, when I tried to focus on
> the details, they weren't there and the image began to fade too! It was like
> an afterimage, just a rough picture of the overall structure, the look of
> the actual screen "page" I had been working on but not the page with all the
> details on it, itself. Since it wasn't a real image, there were no details
> present and I had no details in storage to plug in. But it looked perfectly
> real, just as true to me in my half-wakened state anyhow as the real thing,
> until I began to look for the details.
>
> This may also explain the phenomenon of photographic memory. Most of us
> don't have it but perhaps the brains of some of us do have the ability to
> capture detail to a far greater extent than most of us (or a better ability
> to use other brain areas to rebuild lost detail when structure is recalled
> and associations summoned up to plug details in).
>
I have a reputation for having a good memory, will sometimes warn
people that I do. But then I forget names and stuff...
Anyway, what I think the behaviorists are right about is they put a
lot of emphasis on what I'd call "3rd person accounts" where one is
like this omniscient camera floating about (like a movie camera) and
not "getting into the heads" of the people one observes. You listen
to what they say about mental images, about whether they understand or
not, you hear their disputes, and that way you build up a sense of
their meanings, their conceptual apparatus. You're more an observer
of others than an observer of yourself.
This switch to the 3rd person is important for philosophical
investigations of the Wittgensteinian variety. That's not to say you
shouldn't go 1st person from time to time, but even here, it's wise to
see yourself "from the outside" when you talk about your interior
life, as that's how everyone else sees you and there's more of them
than there are of you (saying that somewhat tongue in cheek -- but not
because it's untrue).
"Don't be too selfish, or you'll never understand anything!" might be
my enjoinder to a newbie philosopher. But then we say "know thyself"
which seems to invite navel-gazing. Philosophy accommodates all of
these tendencies. "Stay nimble!" might be the better advice (as in
"keep switching points of view, don't get stuck in a rut").
> I know that I've always had a pretty good memory though it is hardly
> photographic. I was always great at meetings, never taking notes. Colleagues
> used to assiduously scribble down the comments being made, the details of
> responses, etc. I would occasionally note something interesting but
> otherwise just sit quietly listening (or join in). Yet, afterwards, I could
> reconstruct the meetings in great detail. Not verbatim to be sure, but in a
> way that resulted in my eventually doing away with notetakers at meetings I
> ran (staff assigned to take down the proceedings) since I could do it better
> than they could and found them coming to me for details after the meetings
> anyway.
>
Part of what makes you good at interior journalism (if we might call
it that). But your colleagues who rely more on notes are also
entitled to say they understood the proceedings. We don't say "she
didn't understand what went on, because she had to take notes about
it" although the "had to" in that sentence does suggest a kind of
disability, applies a negative spin.
In our Quaker business process, we take minutes because that's a
stated goal of the business process i.e. to leave an auditable trail.
We might say: if you didn't get written minutes out of the meeting,
then you don't understand what it means to have a business meeting,
were just goofing off. Having a video recording would not be a
substitute. Minutes are distilled, to the point, easy to consult.
Videos of meetings are ponderous, not pithy, especially if unedited.
On the other hand, sometimes we meet behind closed doors about private
matters and have learned a way of minute taking that doesn't violate
(betray) confidences. We need to be public and yet keep secrets.
That's a big part of language, this knowing something others don't
(pictures of boxes, closets, closed rooms.... so many analogies).
Nietzsche considered "secret keeping" the beginnings of the individual
ego (as a linguistic institution).
If you suppose angels spy on your thoughts, then go tell the Pope,
that blows privacy all to hell, leaves one "naked" to religious
authorities. Some parents (nasty ones in my book) would deliberately
encourage children to have such beliefs. This children would readily
confess and confide, rather than have the angels tell on them
(religion as "thought cop").
Folk culture has always had this fear of "mind readers" who might
ferret out our deepest secrets even though we're hell bent on
protecting them. The polygraph machine plays an iconographic role in
this grammar. Some people might fear an MRI will reveal their
thoughts and it's easy to imagine a police station where they
encourage this way of thinking. A lot of televised cop shows are
designed to imbue viewers with this sense that police have
superpowers. There's this show on today about this guy who "just
knows" if you're lying (in my book, that makes him a liar, the
screenwriters too -- so the show has an ironic flavor).
All of the above is quite important if you're doing a serious
investigation of this "public" versus "private" stuff, wanna explore
that grammar. You need to explore "violation of privacy" in many
situations, if you wanna develop a clear sense of what "privacy"
means.
> My ability to do this worked in a way consistent with Hawkins' proposal,
> i.e., I would simply start reconstructing the meeting in my mind and who
> said what would start to come back to me. Remember I wasn't producing a
> verbatim record but mine was so thorough that it tended to replace most
> efforts to be verbatim. It was better than a tape recorder which captured
> all the chaff as well -- mine was already edited and since I was pretty good
> on the details and always tried to be focused and fair, people came to trust
> and rely on my recaps. (It also gave me the ability to shape the record, of
> course, an added benefit in any business or bureaucratic environment,
> especially when I thought important matters had been left out or
> inadequately stated).
>
I don't see Hawkins as proposing or explaining. I see him as
storytelling, with the brain as his heroic protagonist, his principal
agent. He's a myth maker.
I think it's easy to piggy-back on ordinary language to spiel out such
stuff. I don't consider it science so much as engaging (to some)
science fiction.
But then I think science fiction is critically important, not just
fluff. It's an important aspect of our culture that we used to have
more positive futurism (e.g. about this "freeway system" we were gonna
have, and now do) but ever since 'Blade Runner' have mostly indulged
in making the near future seem dark. That's edgier, more thrilling.
More like a roller coaster, less like a merry-go-round.
> What I wrote tended to become what everyone later referred back to. It also
> became the basis for my own expectations from participants (both of staff
> and colleagues). The phenomenon I'm describing was possible NOT because I
> could or did recall every detail but because I recalled enough of the
> general meeting structure which would trigger my plugging in enough details
> to create a convincing and satisfying record of the proceeding. I suspect
> that Hawkins' comment on structural recall as opposed to computational
> recall is as good an explanation of how this aspect of our thinking works as
> any as I've seen.
>
I don't see much in the way of "explanation". I'd use the word
"account" maybe. Way too much 1st person for my taste. I don't think
the meanings of words like "understanding" and "thinking" are revealed
in first person mode alone. We don't each have privileged / private
access to what these words mean. Their meanings have grown up between
us, in a shared space.
Wittgenstein is a lot about curing us of this tendency to find the
meanings of words by introspection. Given how introspective you are,
I'm thinking you're drawn to Wittgenstein because his school of
thought seems to challenge yours at some level and you want to quell
any doubts you may have on that score i.e. you seek to put his
philosophy to rest, so that you might be even more at peace with your
style of cogitation.
Any truth to that assessment? Not a criticism. Lots of people are
drawn to a given philosophy because it seems to run counter to theirs.
Many died-in-the-wool capitalists will read Marx in the closet, not
because they secretly agree with him, are closet Marxists, but because
they want to fight it more effectively. Marxists read Adam Smith for
the same reason.
"Knowing thy enemy" is probably intrinsic to "Knowing thyself" (we
define ourselves by what we oppose).
>> > > Although I've made it a point to note that understanding in my own
>> > experience is not always accompanied by actions and is often solely
>> > internal, characterized, say, by a feeling of "getting it" which is also
>> > usually accompanied by various images, thoughts, etc., I have also been
>> > quite clear to note that I am not arguing that any PARTICULAR image,
>> > thought, etc., IS that understanding. What I've suggested is that
>> > knowing
>> > anything (and this includes understanding anything) seems to consist of
>> > a
>> > complex set of relationships reflected in various mental mappings by
>> > which
>> > we hold together pictures of different aspects of the world we
>> > experience.
>> > (See my moment of insight on the road through the Carolinas.)
>> >
>>
>> I'd go further and saw "no picture at all" is often just as well, i.e.
>> "I understand the traffic laws of the state of Oregon" is sort of
>> tacitly assumed by the fact that I have a drivers license. I don't
>> only understand these laws when I'm thinking about them or driving my
>> car. People can say "Kirby understands the rules of the road in
>> Oregon" without pausing to consider what I might be reflecting on at
>> that moment. The grammar of "understand" is a lot more like that of
>> having a badge or award of some kind.
>>
>> To take another example, I'll walk up to an elevator and simply use
>> it, punching buttons while yakking about something else. I understand
>> how to use an elevator, but there's nothing whatsoever I feel I need
>> to report about mental states or mental pictures or anything. I'm
>> actually thinking about a meeting I'm about to have.
>>
>> There's really know time to reflect on all the stuff I understand as I
>> go through my day, yet understand I do.
>>
>
> Yes, not all of memory involves images. Many times we remember things
> physically (my fingers typing away on this keyboard, hitting mostly the
> right keys for instance).
>
Or people will remember that Jesus saved some woman from being stoned
to death by some assholy hypocritical mob, and picture all this stuff,
but then hey, they don't know what Jesus really looked like, or the
woman, or any of the details. It's all "staged in the head" and yet
they'll say "I remember that...". I remember Shakespeare wrote Hamlet
which I recall includes a soliloquy with the words "To be, or not to
be, that is the question". Do my mental images matter at all? Do *I*
even care about them? It's not clear that I do.
Sometimes when I listen to a person tell me a story, maybe a true
story from their own lives, I observe all the mental imagery I conjure
and dismiss it as fluff, thinking to myself "I'm just supplying infill
and that's a lot of garbage, a lot of crap, given I wasn't there and
really have no idea what the honest documentary would be like". In
other words, to use more Hawkins-like language, I frequently catch my
brain lying, churning out fictitious crappola in response to another's
story. Mental imagery gets in the way of understanding because it's
98% BS at least 50% of the time.
Yes, I think Wittgenstein's philo has helped raise my "suspicion
quotient" (made me more of a private eye, in the sense of detective).
He's always having us fight the bewitching effects of mental images.
Unless one develops deep suspicion of these mental pictures, I don't
think one has cultivated the necessary mindset for "getting" the
Investigations. Being *proud* of one's interior process is not what
one needs here. Be *skeptical*. See how mental imagery might *get in
the way* of understanding and thinking.
This is especially clear when it comes to listening. You can easily
tell when you're dealing with a poor listener. They glaze over. Why?
Because they're thinking hard about what they're going to say next.
We've all met these people in meetings. They look at you blankly,
spinning their wheels about their own little speech. That's partly
why their recall is so poor.
Among Quakers, we like to cultivate spontaneity. We tend to ridicule
the "monkey on your back" little voice in the head (often equated with
"a thought process"), the "yama yama" as some call it. If you're busy
listening to "the internal shithead" (shop talk) instead of tuning in
the other person, then how will you ever be an effective clerk of the
meeting? Bloody unlikely you'll ever get nominated, as people will
see you're caught up in your own process, tune others out. We call
that "selfishness" and don't value it highly.
> Your point about understanding even when you're sleeping or not engaged in
> whatever it is you are said to understand is a good one but not quite to the
> point here. The issue I was raising re: understanding had to do with the
> instant or condition of getting something, of grasping a meaning, etc. While
> we use "understand" to also refer to longer term dispositions to act in
> certain ways, etc., that use isn't at issue here. The fact that we can use
> words in different ways (as we manifestly can with "understand" here)
> doesn't eliminate the interest we may have in a particular use.
You say "the point" as if it were some objective thing between us we
could both refer to, but of course it works both ways.
If the point is to understand Wittgenstein, then I think one needs to
wean oneself from so much 1st person obsession with one's mental life.
That may be an endless source of fascination for one but it's like
reading a novel (by Hawkins?) while on a tour bus driving through
Italy. One is going to miss seeing Italy.
>> Speaking of elevators, there's a new kind catching on with all the
>> buttons on the outside i.e. you commit to a floor before you get on.
>> Once on the elevator, no buttons inside. Wild eh?
>>
>> > Any given individual's instance of understanding something will
>> > certainly be
>> > accompanied by understanding behavior when appropriate but, while it
>> > will
>> > not be identifiable with any single image or even the same image that
>> > others
>> > have, I want to say that it looks to me like we make a lot of
>> > connections in
>>
>> ... or any image at all mind you, let's not anchor understanding to
>> any ghostly or interior process, *not* because it's somehow illegal or
>> irrelevant to mention such things (as I've already said, those "aha!"
>> moments enter into it) but because the grammar evidently (on the face
>> of it) follows a different pattern.
>>
>
> Depends which use of "understand" we're interested in. Understanding as
> getting it, as having a moment of insight or realization is not the same as
> when we speak of understanding a language or of how to do something even
> when we're not doing it.
>
I'm saying you don't want to artificially enumerate these as separable
meanings of "understanding", imagining some fictitious dictionary
where "my meaning" (the "selfish" 1st person one) always rises to the
top as "the point" whereas what people actually mean by
"understanding" in the great by and large (Italy) just flies by out
the window, of no particular interest.
Wittgenstein goes to a lot of work to divorce "understanding" from any
specific "aha!" experience. You can have those, and still
misunderstand, ergo these experiences are not "the meaning" of the
term, may just get in the way. Be suspicious. At least just for a
day, learn to "hate" your internal process. That might be impossible
for you, but it's good advice I'm thinking, if the point is to grasp
the PI. Put Hawkins and Minsky aside. They're getting in your way.
You can always go back to them, once you've had the gestalt switches
Wittgenstein is hoping to induce (yes, more "aha!" experiences -- not
denying their importance, not for a moment, but different philosophies
require different ways of looking and we know from the Necker Cube
etc. that it's hard to see "both ways at once" (and there are more
than "two ways" where philosophy is concerned)).
Example: if you think "race" is a useful concept, you learn to see
people as "pure" or "mixed" specimens, and this colors your world. On
the other hand, if you know a lot of genetics, know there's not 'race
gene', nor any secure basis for the concept in science, then after
awhile you stop seeing 'pure' and 'mixed' people -- what a crazy idea!
You can see the world as "flat" and not know it, then fly around the
globe, go into space, have some other experiences, and report later "I
never realized it, but I used to think of the world as 'flat' -- I
couldn't go back to that way of seeing even if I wanted to at this
point" (like looking at words in a language you know, and being
*unable* to see it as "just squiggles" -- "the brain has changed!" I
can hear Hawkins saying).
Wittgenstein wants to radically rewire your brain. You can fight
that, say he's got it wrong, or you can take the red pill (you may
remember I suggested taping one to the back of the PI as a marketing
gimmick (it's just a placebo, doesn't really get you out of The Matrix
(that'll take work!))).
>> If you read a lot of political stuff, you'll see propositions like
>> "UNDP failed to grasp the implications of these funding changes and
>> continued its spending spree" i.e. we easily involve corporations,
>> NGOs, agencies in the grammar of "understanding" ("failing to grasp"
>> is a kind of misunderstanding). You might say "oh no, I'm talking
>> only about what humans do, not agencies" but that's to simply slice
>> away a big piece of the grammar and our goal is not to twist the
>> meaning of "understand" but to accept standard usage and investigate
>> accordingly.
>>
>> > our networked map-pictures (which constitute a level of representing --
>> > a
>> > nod here to Gerardo) and that it is the rough connections, types of
>> > linkings, etc., that are the internal experience of understanding
>> > something.
>>
>> Not everyone is so navel-gazey about this stuff. Introspective types,
>> always fascinated by their interior processes as we call them, are
>> probably not the most qualified to investigate meanings per
>> Wittgenstein's philo. The PI is always taking us out of these first
>> person scenarios and reminding us of when *other people* get to say we
>> understand or not -- and they *do* get to, i.e. it's grammatically
>> correct to say stuff like: "I don't care about your process, I just
>> want to know if you understand or not, and for that, I don't need to
>> give a fig about your 'mental life' as that's entirely irrelevant to
>> my making my assessment" (that might be a driving instructor).
>>
>> Indeed, you'll get these defensive people who, when you tell them they
>> don't understand something, like to fall back on lengthy descriptions
>> of some mental process that led them to conclude thus and so. Who
>> cares really? They don't understand, nuff said.
>>
>
> I think the evidence shows Wittgenstein was a pretty introverted guy! More,
Yes, he was, but he worked long and hard to overcome its bewitching
aspects. "Takes one to know one" we might say, re solipsists (funny).
> much of his thinking arises from long bouts of solitude or intensive
> thinking about how his own mind works. The private language argument, for
... or how one's own mind *deceives*, is a sucker for misleading
pictures. He's taking on hundreds if not thousands of years of
philosophy, shifting the context. He's like a super duper athlete in
some ways, had to work out intensively. The PI is philosophy on
steroids compared to most of the anemic metaphysics you'll get from
the bully pulpits.
> instance, (an insight, really, more than an "argument") could only be
> constructed if one thought carefully about what one is doing when using a
> language and compared that in different scenarios including a private one.
>
I'd use "radically" in place of "carefully".
>> > In keeping with Edelman's point about memory, I would suggest that when
>> > we
>> > share understandings with others it isn't because we have the exact same
>> > linked representations, the same map connectors in play but, rather that
>> > there is enough similarity for each to understand the other (even if
>> > particular mental images differ as they very likely to).
>> >
>>
>> I can't think of any mental images that'd be important to "prove" I
>> understand the rules of the road in Oregon. I can play a "mental
>> YouTube" of me stopping at a red light, putting out a flare when
>> broken down, signalling before turning, but these all seem gratuitous
>> and beside the point, to you as well I would suppose. Like, who cares
>> what I imagine? This is about understanding, not what I'm imagining
>> -- distinct concepts with different grammars.
>>
>> We don't say: she's sleeping now, so for the next few hours she has
>> no understanding of politics or driving a car. How peculiar and
>> strange that would sound, really goes against the way we use the word
>> "understanding". Anyone talking in such a bizarre fashion is likely a
>> philosopher or AI guy of some kind (a euphemism for "vaguely retarded"
>> in some circles).
>>
>
> Same point as I made above. This really refers to a different use of
> "understand". I am asking about what it means to get something at the
> instant one gets it, not what it means to have demonstrated an ongoing
> ability to do or get something.
"I'm not talking about the knight moving, just the bishops and the
king" -- that's how the above sounds to me. You're very deliberately
dissecting the grammar to keep just that little piece of it you
consider "the point" (the "beef tip") and don't want to factor in the
fact that these "instants of understanding" are complemented,
intrinsically, by 3rd person viewpoints. You can have all the "aha!"
experiences of understanding you like, and still not understand -- is
how the grammar actually works, no ifs ands or buts.
>> > Edelman's point that human memory is rough, approximate, constantly
>> > changing, unlike computer memory, and that it thus operates differently
>> > than
>> > computer memory does, seems to me to be key here. Understanding, which
>> > certainly relies on the memory function, is imprecise and fuzzy in the
>> > same
>> > way. This explains a lot, including our frequent uncertainty about what
>> > others mean, the difficulties inherent in translating between languages
>> > and
>> > our own shifting grasps of things. Understanding is like shooting at a
>> > moving target though, as we know in the world outside ourselves, such
>> > targets are often successfully hit and some of us are better than others
>> > at
>> > doing so. Moreover, despite inherent capacities, our skills level can
>> > often
>> > be improved by practice and dedication.
>>
>> I don't think Edelman's focus on memory is especially explanatory w/r
>> to "understanding". He's drawing us back to thinking the meaning of
>> "understanding" is some first person ghostly process we can introspect
>> about and point to with our mind's eye. That's so not helpful.
>> Introverts who endlessly obsesses about their interior life shouldn't
>> be allowed to drive a Wittgensteinian car as they'll just hit the
>> first tree they come to. They won't understand.
>>
>> Kirby
>>
Kirby
>> > SWM
>> >
>> >
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