Vik

We need facts as well as concepts, but you are right to emphasize concepts. Not everyone attaches conceptual thought to "reasoning". It suggests how organisms evolved the levels of awareness leading up to concept-formation. The child has knowledge but not a concept of knowledge as such. That's formed much later. Both an epistemologist and a layperson understand how knowledge differs from such things as fantasy, error, arbitrary speculation and so on. The concepts are the same. What's different is the level of knowledge about the nature of the units. It isn't conjecture to grasp that a concept of knowledge isn't possible without a concept of entities. Some things are necessarily implied and don't require specialized scientific knowledge to grasp. However, I would be happy to hear a cognitive science perspective.

"Many other things we'd know by implication to grasp the concept. We'd have to know that our minds don't create reality (rejection of subjectivism) and that our minds are not passive perceivers of reality (rejection of intrinsicism) and that we can't accept ideas on faith without evidence (rejection of mysticism). " 1 depends on a concept of error. The concept of error depends on the recognition of accidental wrong action or false statement. That in turn depends on distinguishing actions of consciousness and comparing mental content against perceptual evidence. 2 depends on a concept of mental processes, which can be formed by isolating the fact that consciousness can act while omitting the particular contents involved. 3 is a heuristic and depends on a lot of advanced knowledge.

Mindy, I mean that the concept of knowledge didn't spring out of perceptual experience. We can't point at knowledge like we point at computer screens. In order to form the concept of knowledge, it is necessary to have already formed a set of concepts about things we can perceive. Also, it took a long chain of reasoning to get to the concept of knowledge. We first had to know a chain of facts terminating in the evidence of the senses.

What must we know before we can have a concept of knowledge? (The Objectivist definition of "knowledge" can be found below) We can have mental contents. Perception can provide some of that content. Content can be derived from other content. Beliefs don't always match reality, marking the boundary between a mental grasp of reality and the production of fantasy, wish, arbitrary speculation, etc. What else? Ayn Rand, ITOE, pg. 35

I will show my method of reducing concepts and my method of reducing principles. The processes are related, so I've included both. Since concepts are easier to reduce than principles, I'll show the one for concepts first. Concept: fragility. Chain leading to perceptual level: Fragility refers to a potential of materials. That can serve as the genus. Objects fracture when sufficient force separates constituents. This object fractured when it fell off the shelf. Examples of fragility: fragility of a ceramic mug, fragility of glass, fragility of concrete, etc. Non-examples: ceramic mug survives hammer, glass survives fall to carpet, normal stability of concrete, etc. This gives us the differentia, so now we have: potential of constituents to separate from each other along a course subjected to sufficient stress Principle: Styrofoam is brittle. Chain leading to the perceptual level: lower-level principle: Subjecting a sample of styrofoam to bending or compressive forces causes it to break. test results: When styrofoam is subjected to forces of certain quantities, the results are so and so. tentative principle: Pushing something through styrofoam causes cracks. etc. observation: When I pulled out a new gadget hastily from a box, part of the styrofoam caught on the edge, bent, and broke off. Although this chain helps us get to the perceptual level, they don't firmly connect the PROPERTY of brittleness to the perceptual level. That is accomplished by by means of causal reasoning. Brittleness can be measured by fracture toughness. Fracture toughness of materials varies according to composition, mixture of multiple substances under certain conditions, pre-existing cracks, porosity, etc. Material potentials are a consequence of constitutive properties, i.e. of bonding, intermolecular forces, etc. Any principle we name is made possible by concepts. In this example, we needed such concepts as fragility, composition, etc. A complete reduction will include reducing every key concept we uncover, as outlined at the beginning of this post. I've mentioned lower-level principles vs higher-level principles. I see four levels before I reach the level of ordinary observations: 4. The level of generalization about property, aka the level of inductive inference. 3. The level of particular causations, where you perform causal reasoning. 2. The level of rigorous testing, where you have a clear idea of the relationship involved. 1. The level of play, where you come up with tentative principles. 0. Observation of a chance event. As I go through these levels, I write down notes. This makes three things explicit: the hierarchy of principles, the hierarchy of concepts, including explicit mention of genus and differentia a map of causality. The hierarchy of concepts includes genus and differentia. The map of causality isn't necessary for reducing the principle itself, but it is necessary for reducing the explanation associated with the principle. After all, intermolecular forces are NOT on the every-day perceptual level. And energy is so abstract that we can't talk about it without invoking mathematics. By forcing myself to study existents and re-engineer every concept I come across between the principle and the perceptual level, I guarantee valid definition for every concept identified. This makes my method superior to simply defining a chain of terms without thinking clearly about the existents involved.

I wouldn't call it a "tendency". I'd call it a "potential". "Tendency" implies that statistical dominance is beyond volition. And that's as deterministic as "hard-wired". As a human being, you have the potential for doing X, Y, and Z. You then make choices in regard to that potential. Religious people can become atheists. Communists can become capitalists. It only takes logic applied to the facts gained through experience--an act that every human being with a functioning brain can do.

Why "hard-wired" is hand-waving: It's saying that people do something just because.

An explanation shows how an action, process or state of affairs could logically follow from causes. But actions, processes, and states do not exist apart from entities. A complete explanation of an entity's action will include the *properties* of the entity that are responsible for the action. "Hard-wired" isn't a proper explanation. It's hand-waving and it flies in the face of the fact that we are capable of correcting our assumptions. The fact that our brains are *capable* of misinterpreting events as "signs from god" and emotions as "religious experience" does not mean that we are incapable of becoming atheists. Likewise, the fact that we can interact with people does not mean that we will be altruists. We can grasp the dangers of self-sacrifice and make an effort to change our habits.

There is a branch of ontology called mereology. Existents can have the same characteristics in different measure or degree. This is key to understanding her theory of similarity. Ref page 13. Also, abstraction from abstractions depends on omitting distinguishing characteristics from the constituent units, i.e. from the lower-level concepts. Ref page 23. I agree that the mental isolation of shape can be either a characteristic or a property depending on what you're doing with it.

Whether something is "fundamental" is a contextual issue, yes. I think we're talking passed each other. There is a difference between the entity itself, its components, etc., and the relationships among the attributes of those components. For Ayn Rand, shape is a characteristic (pg 12). I'm thinking that characteristics represent measurement-omissions and constitute our mental grasp of properties. Would you say that causation is an interaction among entities according to their constitutive properties?

Recap: There is a claim that properties are "intrinsic attributes" while characteristics are "dynamic and relational attributes" I'm claiming that "intrinsic attribute" vs "dynamical/relational attribute" is an arbitrary distinction that leads to conclusions that are incompatible with Objectivism. I wasn't thinking that Grames believed in the "necessary vs contingent" dichotomy. But I do feel that "intrinsic vs dynamical/relational" sounds a lot like the distinction of "intrinsic vs dispositional". I think it's worth mentioning that the latter was exploded on pg. 282-287 of ITOE Agreed, but I don't see how it's relevant to the claim I'm objecting to or my objection to it.

Fundamental characteristics are supposed to explain the most others. If they are themselves explained by properties, then they explain less than the properties. Do you really think Ayn Rand meant THAT? A structure is a configuration of constituents, not the quantitative relationships among those constituents. That's arrested knowledge. What if someone discovered that mass changed depending on certain conditions? We used to think mass was independent of velocity. Now we have invariant mass vs relativistic mass.

Also, I don't see how the classification of an entity constitutes a characteristic of that entity. What characterizes turtles as reptiles is the fact that they're scaled tetrapods that lay tough-shelled amniotic eggs. But THAT they are reptiles is simply a way of saying they have the same properties as certain other organisms. I don't see how that qualifies as a separate characteristic on top of those properties.

Molecular structure is a property (pg. 284) but it can't be measured. Consider BH3. It has a trigonal planar structure. You can measure the bond angle. But you can't measure structure as such. The unit of the conceptual common denominator of color is wavelength. "Blue" designates a measurement-range. All attributes are grasped through measurement-omission. OTOH, "color" refers to all wavelengths visible to human beings and therefore it's a measurement range too--a quantitative subcategory of the electromagnetic spectrum. Weight is a gravitational force exerted by the earth on an object possessing mass. Electrons have a specific mass which distinguishes them from other leptons. That mass quantity serves as a distinguishing characteristic. But mass could still be a property as well. Hm...

Quite right. Definitions name the essential, distinguishing characteristics. Actually, that was another problem I had with Grames' concept of characteristics. It doesn't seem to fit any of the places where the term "characteristic" appears in chapter 1.

Do you or do you not hold that characteristics refer to the dynamic and relational attributes of things? If you do, then, logically, fundamental characteristics must be the result of properties. Which means that some attributes constituting the identity of a thing aren't included in the concept about that thing. I do not believe that the concept of characteristics you have elucidated is compatible with Rand's writings. I will be moving on.

Also: Fundamental characteristics are supposed to explain the most others. If characteristics are defined as being the result of properties, then fundamental characteristics must be the result of properties. Which means that some attributes constituting the identity of a thing aren't included in the concept about that thing. The view of characteristics given to me must be incorrect.

So if an attribute is the result of another attribute, it's a characteristic? Then what's left to classify as "properties"? This is starting to sound like the "dispositional properties" discussion on pg. 282-288 all over again...

I am having difficulty reconciling this definition of characteristics with AR's writings. Again, I am trying to figure out why Rand mentioned both properties and characteristics. Consider this: "As living beings of a certain kind, they possess innumerable characteristics in common: the same shape, the same range of size..." ~ITOE pg.17 How do these characteristics reflect what human beings DO?

I wouldn't call them "intrinsic". "Intrinsic" suggests a distinction between "dispositional properties" and "intrinsic properties". Such a distinction puts a wedge between constituent properties and potentialities for action. That denies the nature of causality. I think what you're trying to say is that properties such as structure MAKE a thing what it is and ENABLE it to interact with other things, while characteristics IDENTIFY what a thing is and GUIDES conceptual processes. But do properties subsume characteristics? Or are characteristics and properties simply attributes viewed or used in different ways?

Distinguishing characteristics represent a specified category of measurements within the CCD involved, but I am not sure what to make of characteristics in general. The Law of Causality means that: 1) action must be attributed to constitutive properties and 2) what something with certain properties will do are potentials for action, not properties in their own right But I am still fuzzy on what constitutive properties ARE.

What is the basis for your distinction?

"Vik, since it pertains to this discussion about whether or not trans-sexualism is a disorder, what do you mean by a brain with very masculine traits?" Statistically speaking, there are physical differences between male brains and female brains. For example, men have more gray matter and less white matter than women. "Masculinized" brains and "feminized" brains are statistical outliers. Could neurological differences make it difficult for them to understand and relate to other members of their biological gender? That's a question best left for science. Does that necessarily mean the condition is a disorder? Only if it inhibits proper function of the organism, which is the essential characteristic of disorders.

Ok, now we're starting to define the concept. What if a person had a similar condition without the resulting dissonance? Would it still be a disorder?

There are cases where biologically female individuals develop brains with very masculine traits while still in the womb. This correlates with certain medications taken by the mother during pregnancy.