In the Beginning We see Dogginess, not Fido

[coberst]

In the Beginning We see Dogginess, not Fido

A father tells of brushing his shoes when his child comes in and wants to help. The child holds the brush, imitates his father’s motions, walks out, and comes back with his hair brush to help again.

Cognitive science has introduced a new way of viewing the world and our self by declaring a new paradigm which is called the embodied mind. The primary focus is upon the fact that there is no mind/body duality but that there is indeed an integrated mind and body. The mind and body are as integrated as is the heart and the cardiovascular system. Mind and body form a gestalt (a structure so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts).

The human thought process is dominated by the characteristic of our integrated body. The sensorimotor neural network is an integral part of mind. The neural network that makes movement and perception possible is the same network that processes our thinking.

The unconscious categories that guide our human response to the world are constructed in the same way as are the categories that make it possible of other animals to survive in the world. We form categories both consciously and unconsciously.

Why do we feel that both our consciously created and unconsciously created categories fit the world?

Our consciously formed concepts fit the world, more or less, because we consciously examine the world with our senses and our reason and classify that world into these concepts we call categories.

Our unconsciously formed categories are a different matter. Our unconsciously formed categories fit our world because these basic-level categories “have evolved to form at least one important class of categories that optimally fit our bodily experiences of entities and certain extremely important differences in the natural environment”.

Our perceptual system has little difficulty distinguishing between dogs and cows or rats and squirrels. Investigation of this matter makes clear that we distinguish most readily those folk versions of biological genera, i.e. those “that have evolved significantly distinct shapes so as to take advantage of different features of their environment.”

If we move down to subordinate levels of the biological hierarchy we find the distinguishing ability deteriorates quickly. It is more difficult to distinguish one species of elephant from another than from distinguishing an elephant from a buffalo. It is easy to distinguish a boat from a car but more difficult distinguishing one type of car from another.

“Consider the categories chair and car which are in the middle of the category hierarchies furniture—chair—rocking chair and vehicle—car—sports car. In the mid-1970s, Brent Berlin, Eleanor Rosch, Carolyn Mervis, and their coworkers discovered that such mid-level categories are cogently “basic”—i.e. they have a kind of cognitive priority, as contrasted with “superordinate” categories like furniture and vehicle and with “subordinate” categories like rocking chair and sports car” (Berlin et al 1974 “Principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification”; Mervis and Rosch 1981 Categorization of Natural Objects, “Annual Review of Psychology” 32: 89-115))

The differences between basic-level and non basic-level categories is based upon bodily characteristics. The basic-level categories are dependent upon gestalt perception, sensorimotor programs, and mental images. We can easily see that these facts make it the case that classical metaphysical realism cannot be true; the properties of many categories are mediated by the body rather than determined directly by a mind-independent reality.

“Try the following thought experiment: Close your eyes and picture a chair. Now, close your eyes and try to picture a furniture. You cannot—at least not one that isn’t a basic level object such as a lamp, table, or chair. The reasons are, first, that one can perceive lamps, tables, or chairs in terms of a single overall shape, but there is no overall shape for pieces of furniture in general…Second we have special motor programs for interacting with basic-level objects such as lamps, tables, and chairs but no motor program for pieces of furniture in general.”

In humans basic level categories are developed primarily based upon our bodily configuration and its interrelationship with the environment. For other animals almost all, if not all, categories are basic-level categories.

Quotes from “A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind” by Steven L. Winter

 

[SaintPhotios]

I'm not sure how this damages the metaphysical realist's position -- that is, that reality exists independently of our perception of it. Would you mind putting that in some sort of deductive form, because anti-realism doesn't seem to follow from that article.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

So this is all an elaborate way of saying that the human mind parses up its sensory input according to the way that is most useful to the human based on how the human is able to interact with the environment.

So if I had two "distinct" items X and Y but there was no way (as a human) I could do anything that would in fact display that there was some difference between X and Y, then I (the human) would parse the world so that X and Y are the same thing.

Basically this is an instrumentalist view that the human mind parses things according to how they are useful to the human and not based on any sort of absolute criteria.

Fine.

Now what conclusion is this supposed to lead to on a philosophy forum?

 

[coberst]

Categorization, the first level of abstraction from “Reality” is our first level of conceptualization and thus of knowing. Seeing is a process that includes categorization, we see something as an interaction between the seer and what is seen. “Seeing typically involves categorization.”

Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.

Human categories, the stuff of experience, are reasoned about in many different ways. These differing ways of reasoning, these different conceptualizations, are called prototypes and represent the second level of conceptualization

Typical-case prototype conceptualization modes are “used in drawing inferences about category members in the absence of any special contextual information. Ideal-case prototypes allow us to evaluate category members relative to some conceptual standard…Social stereotypes are used to make snap judgments…Salient exemplars (well-known examples) are used for making probability judgments…Reasoning with prototypes is, indeed, so common that it is inconceivable that we could function for long without them.”

When we conceptualize categories in this fashion we often envision them using spatial metaphors. Spatial relation metaphors form the heart of our ability to perceive, conceive, and to move about in space. We unconsciously form spatial relation contexts for entities: ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘about’, ‘across from’ some other entity are common relationships that make it possible for us to function in our normal manner.

When we perceive a black cat and do not wish to cross its path our imagination conceives container shapes such that we do not penetrate the container space occupied by the cat at some time in its journey. We function in space and the container schema is a normal means we have for reasoning about action in space. Such imaginings are not conscious but most of our perception and conception is an automatic unconscious force for functioning in the world.

Our manner of using language to explain experience provides us with an insight into our cognitive structuring process. Perceptual cues are mapped onto cognitive spaces wherein a representation of the experience is structured onto our spatial-relation contour. There is no direct connection between perception and language.

The claim of SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) is “that the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and the body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”—Lakoff and Johnson

 

[Axioma]

Okay, we've determined you're capable of copy pasting. Now, can you speak?

 

[Washington]

So if I had two "distinct" items X and Y but there was no way (as a human) I could do anything that would in fact display that there was some difference between X and Y, then I (the human) would parse the world so that X and Y are the same thing.
Basically this is an instrumentalist view that the human mind parses things according to how they are useful to the human and not based on any sort of absolute criteria.

How did usefulness get into the equation?

 

[ArnautDaniel]

How did usefulness get into the equation?

I intended "useful" in a very general sense.

It is "useful" to the brain in the sense that it is a disinction worth making due to experience - that is because you encounter situations where making such a distinction actually matters then it is "useful" for the brain to bother to make the distinction.

If you never encounter a situation where it matters if you make a certain distinction then there is no need for the brain to bother to make the distinction.

Your brain isn't simply parsing the environment, it is parsing the environment based on your interactions with the environment.

If you can't interact with the environment in a way that makes a given distinction useful, there is no point in using up valuable brain bandwidth to make the distinction.