Conceptual lineage

[Grames]

Some living things (trees) do not move and do not react when poked with sticks.   Limbs are good for recognizing the animate/inanimate distinction, which is not quite the same as alive/dead (study Eiuol linked to previously).

 

The angle that interested me was whether or not life was an axiomatic concept.  I have concluded that it is for reasons that parallel why consciousness is axiomatic.  

 

An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.

 

Certainly being alive is implicit in being conscious and of knowing any and all facts.  There is another test Rand posited for axiomatic concepts:

 

Since axiomatic concepts refer to facts of reality and are not a matter of “faith” or of man’s arbitrary choice, there is a way to ascertain whether a given concept is axiomatic or not: one ascertains it by observing the fact that an axiomatic concept cannot be escaped, that it is implicit in all knowledge, that it has to be accepted and used even in the process of any attempt to deny it.

 

Only a living being could attempt to deny life.  Being alive is as axiomatic as being conscious by this test.

 

Another property of an axiomatic concepts is that the only way to define one is ostensively:

 

Since axiomatic concepts are identifications of irreducible primaries, the only way to define one is by means of an ostensive definition—e.g., to define “existence,” one would have to sweep one’s arm around and say: “I mean this.”

 

Life is notorious for being very slippery to define, and to date can only be described.  Life at Wikipedia, Plato.stanford.edu.  Even Rand's formulation that life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action has the difficulty of slotting life into the genus of action, yet actions are actions by entities, organisms in this case, and organisms are not actions.  The kind of actions that organisms engage in are the essential in distinguishing between what is alive and what is not alive, yet the referents of the concept of life are primarily the organisms that act and not the actions themselves considered apart from entities that act.  

 

We recognize life by the way an entity acts over time, and definitions of life are crafted to encompass what we already recognize.  Life is not a particular action of an organism, it is the organism and all of its actions.  The recognition and the concept come first, attempts to define come later.  

 

An irreducible primary is a fact which cannot be analyzed (i.e., broken into components) or derived from antecedent facts.

 

The analysis Rand refers to here is epistemological, i.e. there are no other concepts logically required to create this concept.  Existence is an irreducible primary and Rand would never deny that existence presents itself to us as separate entities or in other words as parts of existence, parts that may in a particular person even have been separately conceptualized before the broad integration that is 'existence' was formed .  Life is also an irreducible primary in this epistemological fashion.  Life refers to all organisms and not concepts of organisms.  

 

Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.

Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness—are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end. Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the axioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it.

Consciousness is an irreducible primary even though one must be conscious of many things before becoming conscious of one's own consciousness.   Likewise, life is an irreducible primary even though one must be alive for some time and accomplish several things before being able to grasp explicitly "I am alive".  Grasping that existence exists also implies as a corollary axiom that one is alive as that is inherent in consciousness.

 

Harrison Danneskjold asked:

Does this mean that "life" is a second-tier concept, because it cannot be defined without referring to "living entities"?

That would be at risk of serious circularity, as the question is which entities are the living ones?

Edited July 17, 2013 by Grames

[tadmjones]

Is there a difference acknowledged between implicit grasp and 'formal' explicit delineation of hierachical necessicity as it demonstrates proof  in the context of 'technical' epistemology?

[Grames]

tadmjones:

An implicit concept is a potential concept: one has acquaintance with what would be the referents of a concept but one has just not yet integrated them together. I don't see how an implicit concept could ever be used in a proof, which requires explicitness by the nature of proof.

I hope I've not misunderstood the question.

[tadmjones]

tadmjones:

An implicit concept is a potential concept: one has acquaintance with what would be the referents of a concept but one has just not yet integrated them together. I don't see how an implicit concept could ever be used in a proof, which requires explicitness by the nature of proof.

I hope I've not misunderstood the question.

It was poorly phrased near rhetoric question. That is the idea I was trying to convey , when forming new concepts some antcedent concepts can simply be held implicitly.

When discussing techinal epistemology one usually assumes a broader context of knowledge and then can show which 'fully' formed concepts are dependent on others in order to 'prove' one has the hierachy correct, to allow further logical integration ie cause and effect.

 

I understand the broad overview akin to the rational faculty being innate while the content of the mind is self generated.

Edited July 18, 2013 by tadmjones

[Plasmatic]

On the issue of which can come first if a logically prior concept was implicit etc. Ms Rand affirms the statement in a few places that hierarchy is only determinable after one has established several mature concepts and then looks backward down the hierarchy:

"it true that while there is a certain area of option,

chronologically speaking, as to which concept is

formed first and which is formed by derivation,

either by subdivision or as a wider integration, it is

nevertheless true that once the conceptual

apparatus has been developed and you establish a

logical hierarchy, that hierarchy is invariant for

human beings, being dictated by the nature of the

concepts, with no option as to which concept is

higher-level and which is lower-level?" ITOE

She says to the above: "Agreed"

Edited July 18, 2013 by Plasmatic

[Vik]

Because the concept life can be defined ostensively, wordlessly, by pointing out its referents.  The meaning of a concept is its referents, not its definition.  Of course we still need the word "life" to have a concept at all but a wordy definition can be dispensed with.

 

One can define ANY entity ostensively.

 

Why do you think that the definition can be dispensed with?

Edited July 18, 2013 by Vik

[Plasmatic]

One cannot define nouns without verb concepts etc.

[Vik]

For Grames:

1. Do you think that life is at the base of man's knowledge in the way that "existence", "identity", and "consciousness" are?

2. What do you think makes a concept implicit?

3. It is my understanding that Rand's formulation of "life" was about distinguishing living things as *living* things.  You seem to want to focus on the fact that they are living *things*.  Could you clarify what you're trying to do here?

4. What do you think makes something an irreducible primary?

[Vik]

For Harrison:

 

Do you think "value" is LESS abstract than "friend"?

 

When you hear the word "friend", do you think of one?  Do you think of the friends of people you know?  How quickly can you name non-friend acquaintances?  What characteristics distinguish friends from non-friends?  How about friends from strangers?  These classifications are all within a wider group of concretes. 

 

If you stretch your memory, can you recall events with a past friend that highlighted your friendship?  Can you think of any events that were involved in them transitioning from a mere acquaintance to a friend? 

 

When you hear the word "friend", does any emotional content flash through your mind?  If so, what concrete facts were highlighted?  What did the emotions point at?  I am not advocating that you regard emotions as a tool of cognition.  I am only wondering what you do with them.

 

After thinking about all of the above, what concrete situations does the concept of friend *integrate*?

 

To what facts does your concept of "friend" refer to in reality? 

 

What facts give rise to the concept of "friend"?

 

The answers to the last two questions are the end results of hierarchical reduction.

 

As you know, concepts are hierarchical.  Some are more abstract than others.  Therefore earlier explicit concepts are *less* abstract than later concepts.  Therefore, it can be helpful to process a level of abstraction before peeling it back to reach earlier knowledge.  The bottom of this hierarchy ought to be perceptual-concretes.

 

This method involves traversing the levels of abstraction in the *reverse* order of what was needed to reach the idea.  Each stage of this method of reduction could be summarized by the questions:

 

What did I need to know before I could get to the level I'm considering? 

Is there *another* level before *that* knowledge?

[Grames]

One can define ANY entity ostensively.

 

Why do you think that the definition can be dispensed with?

When a definition in terms of other concepts is not required to specify what it is that a concept refers to, that concept is first level. Life is such a concept.

[Grames]

For Grames:

1. Do you think that life is at the base of man's knowledge in the way that "existence", "identity", and "consciousness" are?

2. What do you think makes a concept implicit?

3. It is my understanding that Rand's formulation of "life" was about distinguishing living things as *living* things.  You seem to want to focus on the fact that they are living *things*.  Could you clarify what you're trying to do here?

4. What do you think makes something an irreducible primary?

1. Yes. Rand insisted consciousness had identity, and that furthermore having an identity could not be a disqualifying factor that distorts perception and conception of reality thereby making objective knowledge impossible. Knowing that knowledge is an attribute of living beings and only living beings would be helpful axiomatic guidance against all forms of supernaturalism, and I wish more people to know it.

2. See #28.

3. Yes, living things are living *things*. Action never exists apart from a thing acting.

4. I'll stick to what Rand wrote and I quoted above, "An irreducible primary is a fact which cannot be analyzed (i.e., broken into components) or derived from antecedent facts." Another angle on this fact which I did not bring up in post #26 is that life in an emergent phenomenon, just as consciousness is. No neuron is conscious but somehow a whole brain of neurons is. No molecule is alive but somehow a cell is. Irreducible and emergent are different ways of looking at the same phenomena, flip sides of the same coin.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Do you think "value" is LESS abstract than "friend"?

No. . . ?

Alright; as I currently understand it, value is MORE abstract than friend (by two levels?) because it's closer to axiomatic knowledge, and axioms are the widest abstractions possible.

 

But I'm still fairly new to this concept and not yet ready to give accurately informed opinions.

 

 

I am not advocating that you regard emotions as a tool of cognition.  I am only wondering what you do with them.

Well, 'benevolence' (good will) 'excitement' and 'intellectually stimulating' come to mind. . . I just thought they should all fall neatly under 'mutual valuation' since everything I associate with 'friend' is also of value to me.

 

I suppose there's an implicit premise tucked in there, that anyone whom I value would also value me (hence the mutual bit), probably stemming from my indisputable awesomeness.  ;D

 

But that's basically how I went from 'friend' to 'mutual valuation'.  Obviously 'mutual' shouldn't be part of it, strictly speaking, but is anything else wrong with that?

Edited July 19, 2013 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Vik]

When a definition in terms of other concepts is not required to specify what it is that a concept refers to, that concept is first level. Life is such a concept.

 

I don't see life as first-level.

 

Before I had "life", I had "people", "goldfish", "trees", and so on.  Life strikes me as a wider integration than any mammals, fish, or plants.

 

I do not regard "people", "goldfish", or "trees" as more abstract, more precise differentiations of "life".  They are things I grouped together as "living things".

[Eiuol]

 

Before I had "life", I had "people", "goldfish", "trees", and so on.  Life strikes me as a wider integration than any mammals, fish, or plants.

Okay, but how are you concluding that you know that you had the concept "goldfish" before "life"? Grames was approaching it from an angle of life being axiomatic, while earlier I was talking about ways that you have it backwards. Although I mentioned animacy, I'm thinking that the concept animacy is being too specific for a child's conceptual hierarchy and it actually comes from a need to distinguish further within the concept life what can and cannot move. You seem to be focusing on conceptual hierarchy in terms of how you categorize after a considerable amount of knowledge, while I was thinking it in terms of conceptual development as lineage implies.

[tadmjones]

On a just a chronologic basis, which comes first self awareness or the identification of one's being alive? or is it nearly simultaneous or the same thing?

Edited July 19, 2013 by tadmjones

[Vik]

Okay, but how are you concluding that you know that you had the concept "goldfish" before "life"? Grames was approaching it from an angle of life being axiomatic, while earlier I was talking about ways that you have it backwards. Although I mentioned animacy, I'm thinking that the concept animacy is being too specific for a child's conceptual hierarchy and it actually comes from a need to distinguish further within the concept life what can and cannot move. You seem to be focusing on conceptual hierarchy in terms of how you categorize after a considerable amount of knowledge, while I was thinking it in terms of conceptual development as lineage implies.

 

The positive claim here is that "life" is a first-level concept.  I remember specifically NOT knowing what people meant by "life" until I focused on several kinds of organisms that I knew of.  This is a very different experience from having a vague sense of the referents of "existence" and "identity" before learning the words. 

 

If "life" really is a first-level concept the way that tables and chairs are, I need convincing.

[Vik]

Okay, but how are you concluding that you know that you had the concept "goldfish" before "life"? Grames was approaching it from an angle of life being axiomatic, while earlier I was talking about ways that you have it backwards. Although I mentioned animacy, I'm thinking that the concept animacy is being too specific for a child's conceptual hierarchy and it actually comes from a need to distinguish further within the concept life what can and cannot move. You seem to be focusing on conceptual hierarchy in terms of how you categorize after a considerable amount of knowledge, while I was thinking it in terms of conceptual development as lineage implies.

 

Also, when I hear "lineage" I think "antecedent knowledge" and search what I know of chronological development.

 

If this isn't what's meant, I need clarification.

[Vik]

1. I have no problem seeing that life is implied by consciousness.  But I don't see "life" as a base of all other concepts, all axioms, propositions and thought.  Existence is unavoidably a logical foundation for concepts (of existents), axioms (about what), propositions (conceptual subsets of units), thoughts (of something).  Consciousness is unavoidably a logical foundation for concepts, axioms, propositions, thoughts because  consciousness has mental contents.  But I see "life" only as a remote causal requirement, not a logical foundation. 

 

 

 

1. Yes. Rand insisted consciousness had identity, and that furthermore having an identity could not be a disqualifying factor that distorts perception and conception of reality thereby making objective knowledge impossible. Knowing that knowledge is an attribute of living beings and only living beings would be helpful axiomatic guidance against all forms of supernaturalism, and I wish more people to know it.
2. See #28.
3. Yes, living things are living *things*. Action never exists apart from a thing acting.
4. I'll stick to what Rand wrote and I quoted above, "An irreducible primary is a fact which cannot be analyzed (i.e., broken into components) or derived from antecedent facts." Another angle on this fact which I did not bring up in post #26 is that life in an emergent phenomenon, just as consciousness is. No neuron is conscious but somehow a whole brain of neurons is. No molecule is alive but somehow a cell is. Irreducible and emergent are different ways of looking at the same phenomena, flip sides of the same coin.

[Vik]

Yes, "value" is a higher-level abstraction than "friend".  You have to know about entities before you can isolate their actions.

 

Could "mutual valuation" be the genus?  There's nothing wrong with the genus being more abstract.  Sometimes the genus is reached *after* knowing about various species.  You learned about "furniture" after you learned about tables and chairs.

 

The purpose of reduction is to clarify abstract ideas and reclaim objectivity.  Definition can be useful in that it helps you reach concretes, which are the foundation of objectivity and a prerequisite for clarification.  This fact gives rise to a few guidelines: You reduce the highest level abstractions in your definitions.  You ensure that your differentia contains *less* abstract concepts than the one you're trying to define.  You keep your mental eye on what you're ultimately after: the facts of reality that give rise to the cognitive necessity for having the concept.  And so on.

 

Valuation is rather abstract.  You saw that you needed to reduce that one.

 

You also saw that value is more abstract than friend.

 

You are trying to fulfill the third guideline I mentioned, but I've only seen a middle step of that process: an attempt at definition.

 

I'm curious about what your final results will be.

 

 

Alright; as I currently understand it, value is MORE abstract than friend (by two levels?) because it's closer to axiomatic knowledge, and axioms are the widest abstractions possible.

 

 

Well, 'benevolence' (good will) 'excitement' and 'intellectually stimulating' come to mind. . . I just thought they should all fall neatly under 'mutual valuation' since everything I associate with 'friend' is also of value to me.

 

I suppose there's an implicit premise tucked in there, that anyone whom I value would also value me (hence the mutual bit), probably stemming from my indisputable awesomeness.  ;D

 

But that's basically how I went from 'friend' to 'mutual valuation'.  Obviously 'mutual' shouldn't be part of it, strictly speaking, but is anything else wrong with that?

[Grames]

1. I have no problem seeing that life is implied by consciousness.  But I don't see "life" as a base of all other concepts, all axioms, propositions and thought.  Existence is unavoidably a logical foundation for concepts (of existents), axioms (about what), propositions (conceptual subsets of units), thoughts (of something).  Consciousness is unavoidably a logical foundation for concepts, axioms, propositions, thoughts because  consciousness has mental contents.  But I see "life" only as a remote causal requirement, not a logical foundation.

Epistemology requires knowing subjects, i.e. living beings that perform the act of knowing. This is not a remote causal requirement but an intimate and ongoing causal requirement.

As an aside, it is not correct to put causality aside in a separate compartment from logic. Logic is essentially the Law of Identity, and includes all of the immediate corollaries of the Law of Identity including the Law of Causality. A causal requirement is a logical requirement.

There is an interesting aside in ITOE on the formation of the concept of consciousness, that it was not done until Augustine.

 

AR: To reach axiomatic concepts consciously, you have to have a certain amount of knowledge about epistemology. You do not need knowledge of a full, philosophical theory of epistemology, but you have to have the self-consciousness to identify explicitly certain elements in your knowledge which have been implicit up to then. It requires a sufficient amount of knowledge and a very significant degree of introspection. The ability to introspect is necessary to begin to identify the implicit explicitly. And for that there has to be the material of introspection. So you have to have a sufficient knowledge both of the outside world and of the process of your own consciousness before you can begin to identify the widest abstractions.

Prof. E: In the development of the human race philosophically, the three axiomatic concepts were explicitly grasped for the first time at definitely different periods of history and in a definite order: "existence" by Parmenides, "identity" by Aristotle, and "consciousness," as far as I know, not until Augustine.

AR: Why would you say not until Augustine?

Prof. E: I don't think there was any actual concept of "consciousness" in Greek philosophy.

AR: But what of Aristotle's psychology, with the concept of "soul" as consciousness?

Prof. E: Yes, but "soul" as he used it is more of a biological concept than a mental one.

Prof. B: Aristotle has "thinking," he has "feeling," he has "imagining," but he doesn't seem to have "consciousness" as an integration of those. The next level of abstraction <ioe2_263> for him is "soul," which applies to all living things qua living.

AR: You mean Augustine was the first to isolate "consciousness" as a concept in the Cartesian sense?

Prof. E: Yes. "Si fallor, sum."

AR: Oh, that's interesting.

What's this? Ayn Rand is accepting as uncontroversial the premise that the concept of consciousness is an integration of several mental states. Yet this is no barrier to the concept of consciousness being axiomatic. By parallel reasoning, that life is an integration across several organisms is no barrier to the concept of life being axiomatic.

 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Could "mutual valuation" be the genus?  There's nothing wrong with the genus being more abstract.  Sometimes the genus is reached *after* knowing about various species.  You learned about "furniture" after you learned about tables and chairs.

Yes; 'mutual valuation' is the genus of which 'friend' is the differentia.

 

The genus/differentia distinction is much more familiar and intuitive for me and, in reducing 'friend' I traced its genus backwards several steps into broader categories (higher abstractions). . . Which is what Leonard Peikoff did as well, and seems to go in the opposite direction from the perceptually given.

 

Should I be trying to go the other way?  Not into broader categories, but narrower subdivisions (until I can ostensibly refer to THIS friend or THAT friend)?

 

 

You are trying to fulfill the third guideline I mentioned, but I've only seen a middle step of that process: an attempt at definition.

I really don't mean to be repetitive, but could you mention explicitly which guidelines the other two consisted of?

[Harrison Danneskjold]

I don't fully understand all of the principles involved yet, so please correct me if I'm wrong. . .

But shouldn't "life" simply be an extension of (corollary) the axiom of consciousness?

 

I don't know if only carbon-based organisms are capable of consciousness (I think AI is entirely possible) so it might not be implicit in ALL concepts and propositions, unless by "life" you denote all self-sustaining and self-perpetuating action (anti-entropy) in which case "life" is simply the perfect molecular analogue to self-initiated and self-perpetuated learning, i.e. reason, i.e. Consciousness.

 

And if you consider life to be all self-perpetuating action, as such, then any machine potentially capable of self-perpetuated learning would necessarily be alive, somehow.

It might not be biological in the sense which we usually conceive of it as, but it must be alive in that broader sense.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Vik]

Narrower subdivisions can be as abstract as wider integrations.  I can tell you several kinds of computer processors, but they don't get you any closer to understanding WHAT a computer processor is or what it's for.

 

What you want are the facts that give rise to the concept.  You want *less* abstract, not more abstract.  More precise differentiations can be more abstract, depending on what you abstracted them from.

 

If you already have a good definition, reduce the highest level abstractions in your definitions.  

 

If you don't, ensure that your differentia contains *less* abstract concepts than the one you're trying to define. 

 

Either way, keep your mental eye on what you're ultimately after: the facts of reality that give rise to the cognitive necessity for having the concept.  Don't get caught up in definitions at the expense of concrete examples.  Don't get caught up in generalizations at the expense of antecedent knowledge.

 

 

 

Should I be trying to go the other way?  Not into broader categories, but narrower subdivisions (until I can ostensibly refer to THIS friend or THAT friend)?

 

 

I really don't mean to be repetitive, but could you mention explicitly which guidelines the other two consisted of?

[Vik]

The requirement of a knowing subject is NOT the same thing as the kinds of relationships that  "consciousness" bears to "concept", "axiom", "propositions", "thought". 

Those relationships have more in common with the kinds of relationships that "existence" bears to "concept", "axiom", "proposition", "thought".

 

I identified several concepts that I believe I need to form before I can form the concept of "life".   I emphasize that it took me a long time and a lot of knowledge before I was able to distinguish living organisms from non-living but animate matter.   In the face of that evidence, I do NOT see how life can be first-level for the reason that I could NOT make the conceptual distinction implicitly or otherwise.

 

There are other problems with the idea that "life" is axiomatic.  Axiomatic concepts forbid alternatives because axiomatic concepts represent an integration of ALL existents.  Life does NOT integrate all existents.  At best, it can only imply them through consciousness by the virtue that consciousness is not possible without life. 

 

 

Epistemology requires knowing subjects, i.e. living beings that perform the act of knowing. This is not a remote causal requirement but an intimate and ongoing causal requirement.

As an aside, it is not correct to put causality aside in a separate compartment from logic. Logic is essentially the Law of Identity, and includes all of the immediate corollaries of the Law of Identity including the Law of Causality. A causal requirement is a logical requirement.

There is an interesting aside in ITOE on the formation of the concept of consciousness, that it was not done until Augustine.
 

What's this? Ayn Rand is accepting as uncontroversial the premise that the concept of consciousness is an integration of several mental states. Yet this is no barrier to the concept of consciousness being axiomatic. By parallel reasoning, that life is an integration across several organisms is no barrier to the concept of life being axiomatic.
 

[Vik]

Mere causal requirement is NOT the same thing as logical foundation.  They do NOT completely overlap.

 

It is not integration that makes me think that the concept "life" is formed later.  It's that I need knowledge about specific kinds of organisms before I can abstract the actions that make them LIVING organisms.  Again, I could NOT distinguish life from non-living animate matter without a great deal of knowledge.  And neither could you.

 

Epistemology requires knowing subjects, i.e. living beings that perform the act of knowing. This is not a remote causal requirement but an intimate and ongoing causal requirement.

As an aside, it is not correct to put causality aside in a separate compartment from logic. Logic is essentially the Law of Identity, and includes all of the immediate corollaries of the Law of Identity including the Law of Causality. A causal requirement is a logical requirement.

There is an interesting aside in ITOE on the formation of the concept of consciousness, that it was not done until Augustine.
 

What's this? Ayn Rand is accepting as uncontroversial the premise that the concept of consciousness is an integration of several mental states. Yet this is no barrier to the concept of consciousness being axiomatic. By parallel reasoning, that life is an integration across several organisms is no barrier to the concept of life being axiomatic.