To Explore How You Know What You Know….

• Is to decide what reality is…and is not…

• Is to decide what role language plays in the shaping of our certainty…

• Is to decide what certainty feels like….

• Is to decide how much of knowing is feeling…or whether feeling is too subjective to align with certainty

• Is to decide whether certainty of the future already exists with us catching up to it, or whether certainty is unfolding…

• Is to decide what might be lost when certainty is gained…

POSSIBLE POSSIBLE ASSUMPTIONSASSUMPTIONS

Regarding this talk of how we Regarding this talk of how we know what we know….know what we know….

A cognitive model might unite your way and my way

To know (to be certain) is a good thing

There are degrees of knowing

• RELATIVISM ~ all points of view equally valid• PHILOSOPHICAL SKEPTICISM ~ (as opposed

to ordinary incredulity) where grounds for doubt CAN NOT be removed but rather where all grounds are equally assailable

To quote Wittgenstein, "A doubt without an end is not even a doubt“~ a doubt removed reveals an idea held fast

Can we KNOW something and be wrong about it –is there a Truth with an existence independent of

our knowing of it?

AugustineAugustine• Count, if you can how many there are: . . if there is one sun (only), there are not

two; one and the same soul cannot die and still be immortal;

man cannot at the same time be happy and unhappy; we are now either awake or asleep; either there is a body which I seem to see or there is not a body.

Through dialectic I have learned that these and many other things which it would take too long to mention are true; no matter in what condition our senses may be, these things are true of themselves.

It has taught me that, if the antecedent of any of those statements which I just placed before you in logical connection were assumed, it would be necessary to deduce that which was connected with it . ~

Augustine, Contra Academicos, III, XIII, 29.

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW?

1CERTAINLY NOT!

2MAYBE NOT

3No Opinion/Neutral

4MOST LIKELY

5CERTAINLY!!

1 CERTAINLY NOT!2 MAYBE NOT

3 No opinion Neutral4 MOST LIKELY5 CERTAINLY!!

1) You are running...are you running?

2) You are asleep...you dream of running, are you running?

3) You are in a coma...you think of running, are you running?

4) You have multiple personalities...one of them is running...are you running?

5) You have amnesia and don’t know who you are or where you are or anything… You start running...are you running?

6) You are an amputee without legs...you have the feeling you are running while you are sitting, are you running?

7) You are paralyzed...a machine helps you run..…when it does, are you running?

What VALIDATES our What VALIDATES our KNOWING…What contributes to KNOWING…What contributes to

being being moremore CERTAIN? CERTAIN?

Corroboration

Physical or emotional Sensation

Persistent Memory

Consistent results align with pattern of experience

Precise Language

An unaltered consciousness

Integrated Self

ALL ARE SUBJECTIVE – from the point of view of the subject

Yet, objectivity not supremeYet, objectivity not supreme

• As Hofstadter noted, lack of objectivity need not be insurmoutable if the end is best understood as the replication of specific cognitive models rather than a universal or generic model meant to mirror generic activities (2002).

• So, if we wish to use our thinking to better know ourselves (how I know what I know), then the issue of objectivity/subjectivity is less paralyzing

OUR GOALOUR GOAL

As is keeping with the writings of Husserl, the father of transcendental phenomenological philosophy……. phenomenology should always bring a scientific spirit to analyzed introspection (1937).

Language defined…?Language defined…?

• A discrete representative system externalizing thought

• An instinct, even an organ! (Pinker)

What is the “glue” for the system – what allows the parsing? What gives language an instinctive familiarity?

Study of linguisticsStudy of linguistics

• psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists agree to discount written language because of its secondary and derivative nature (Miller, 1991).

Spoken language = the system of greater interest

Shift in historic linguisticsShift in historic linguistics

• Ferdinand de Saussure, commonly considered the “father of modern linguistics,” established a fundamental distinction between the historical or diachronic linguistics and synchronic linguistics concerned with the means by which language impacts the minds of the language users (Miller).

This movement followed one in which linguistic anthropologists deconstructed language for the larger purpose of learning new languages. It is this very shift in focus that gives language its relevance to the study of thought and consciousness.

Syntax – versus - SemanticsSyntax – versus - Semantics

• chicken and egg question wherein some theories regard the value and emerging phenomenon of structure (syntax) over meaning (semantics) while other theories value meaning over structure.

Language gestaltLanguage gestalt

• Not a one-to-one relationship of word to idea or language to thought

- Bertrand Russell’s Theory of DenotationWords, as the denominative unit of meaningful language, are often considered insufficient to describe a single concept or thought.

to what extent does language enable thought? To what extant is language thought itself? (language shapes what we know….versus…language is what we know)

Waves in linguistic schoolsWaves in linguistic schoolsEarly turn of century

BEHAVIORIST

LANGUAGE LEARNED BY REPETITION

LEXICON

1950’s - CHOMSKY

and a universal generative grammar

STRUCTURE or rules

Current – Pinker, Thomassello, et al.

LANGUAGE INTEGRAL COMPONENT to

CONSCIOUSNESSpredilection for

recognizing/building patterns

Proposed an LAD (Language Acquisition Device)

Recognizing patterns – core of intelligence (Hostadler)

SENSATION

INSTINCTor /VOLITION

LANGUAGE

EMOTION

HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW

Emotion

LanguageSensation

InstinctVolition

Minsky – “armchair postulation”

Penrose – awareness transcends simply “thought”

Humphrey’s sensation theory X’d by Dennett for relying on external validation

Hobson (1999). Scientific American Library. Consciousness.

Emotion

Question of the Computational Question of the Computational ModelModel

• Is there a language of the mind – a “mentalese” through which thought is translated into language, or is this unnecessary because thought is language in a sense? DENNETT and the CENTRAL MEANER? Cartesean theatre?

•Language defined by transcending self?Mentalese cannot transcend self…

• TURING MACHINE…next week?

Kludges and ConglomeratesKludges and Conglomerates

• Not quite so clean!

Language-patterned thought areas

• Cognitive processes and scripts

Power of WordsPower of Words

• Pinker credits words!

“remarkable, shared bidirectional symbols in which meaning as well as the pragmatics of appropriate exchanges, settings, implications, and responses are generally understood with precision “

Linguistic Determinism Linguistic Determinism limitations of lexicon limitations of lexicon

culture impacting lang. abilityculture impacting lang. ability• of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf

According to the tenants of linguistic determinism, an individual’s thoughts are partly influenced by his or her available language and its cultural parameters

It is implied in the linguistic determinist philosophy that both the content and expression of thought are predictive in accordance with the parameters of one’s inherited language system.

““Conventional Absurdity” - PinkerConventional Absurdity” - Pinker

• Equating language to thought is for Pinker absurd

• For Pinker, language works because it is a discrete computational system with

Distrust of language?Distrust of language?

• Wittgenstein – language constricts our thought, ends the thinking process prematurely

Philosophical problems solved when we fall out of our habits of language

Language component central?Language component central?

• If central to consciousness, then language would have to forward or even define thought

• Could not impede thought as some theorists hold

Knowing w/ Certainty vs. AmbiguityKnowing w/ Certainty vs. Ambiguity

• Nurtures openness, allowing for ease of re-assignment in the cognitive scaffolding

• Allows for multiple interpretations and/or synthesis of interpretations

• Can illuminate and add meaning (Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas)…

• Can keep us in the information gathering stage longer