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Objectivist and Popperian Epistemology

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Then how, exactly, do human infants ever learn that one side of their mother's face is connected to the other

 

 

 

Seriously, wtf, are infants imbued with a perception that shows them the world a la Picasso ??

 

When do infants have to 'learn' direct percepts? we all do have to learn from perceptions, but are you here claimin that perception is a distorted view of reality, or did you just type real fast?

Edited by tadmjones
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Both. 

It is the ONLY way of getting general ideas (because the alternative to induction is omniscience) and happens to generalize from finite observations.

 

This is a false alternative where you assume as a premise there's only two possibilities. If you don't accept X, your alternative is Y. Never mind that I said I choose Z. That's not a reasonable way to respond to someone trying to explain a third alternative. And preemptively writing posts about false dichotomies and package deals to try to not get replies like this.

 

Correlation doesn't necessitate causation, but it sure as Hell implies it.

 

This is a standard fallacy.

 

One thing you're ignoring is that there are always very large numbers of correlations and you think most of them do not imply causation. For example, does this correlation imply causation? http://www.curi.us/1436-aspergers-syndrome

 

There's also a very large number of correlations just involving pirates.

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When do infants have to 'learn' direct percepts? we all do have to learn from perceptions, but are you here claimin that perception is a distorted view of reality, or did you just type real fast?

 Perception is in no way distorted, but neither is it direct sensation.  It is automatically learned, but it must be LEARNED in infancy; Ayn Rand specifically mentioned this several times.

The fact that perception is a filtered view of reality is what allows magicians to fool a single person, under any circumstances; let alone earn a living that way.  If the mass and continuity of solid objects were a matter of direct sensation then infants would be fully capable of walking as soon as their legs could support them; it would simply happen one morning.

 

 

This is a standard fallacy.

 

One thing you're ignoring is that there are always very large numbers of correlations and you think most of them do not imply causation.

I specifically said that correlation does not NECESSITATE causality (coincidence happens frequently) but it does imply it.  The difference happens to fit nicely across your entire objection.

 

And if I'm handing you false alternatives then I invite you to explain your non-inductive method of "guessing at" or "thinking about" explanations.

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 Perception is in no way distorted, but neither is it direct sensation.  It is automatically learned, but it must be LEARNED in infancy; Ayn Rand specifically mentioned this several times.

The fact that perception is a filtered view of reality is what allows magicians to fool a single person, under any circumstances; let alone earn a living that way.  If the mass and continuity of solid objects were a matter of direct sensation then infants would be fully capable of walking as soon as their legs could support them; it would simply happen one morning.

 

The thrust of my comment was more about the example, it seemed to suggest that infants would have a cubist perception and not see a face as a whole.

 

The way I understand percepts and Sensation is not quite as interchangable as your explanation suggests. I can see how they are similar but,  I think of a sensation as purely what happens 'in' the mind almost like a feeling, and that percepts /perception more refer ,specifically, to the entities and the apprehesion of them.

 

As an example the experience of brigh sunlight when going outdoors. When it 'hits' you is the sensation,  almost an simultaneous awareness of the various bodily reactions(eyes squinting, hands going up to shield , and the ..well.perception of the warmth). But if I were to speak about the perception of sunlight I would mean actually seeing the light, the mechanics of sight . Perhaps this is sloppy thinking on my part.

 

Regardless of our different uses of the term, perception(my use here) is not filtered. Rand said that the senses are man's only cognitive source of information about reality.

 

As to magicians , I don't recall exactly where but I think I remember Rand speaking about 'optical illusions' and how some would try and use this as proof of the senses giving a distorted view of reality. Paraphrasing hugely here, but what she described was seeing a stick enter water and then looking like it was bent. Some would say ''see there! we know it isn't really bent, our eyes are fooling us , we can't trust sight for giving us the 'real' picture" And then she goes on to explain that even if you are not consciously (conceptually?) aware of the properties of light refraction , your senses automatically apprehend it. Light does what it does and our eyes show it to us.

Edited by tadmjones
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it seemed to suggest that infants would have a cubist perception and not see a face as a whole.

Not exactly, but I think it's likely that when they see one side of something (because your field of vision is two-dimensional), whereas perceptually-operating adults automatically infer the opposite side and any number of other things, infants might simply see what is literally visible and nothing more.

 

 

Rand said that the senses are man's only cognitive source of information about reality.

And they are.

I'm sorry if I was ambiguous; I didn't mean to imply that reality is 'filtered' as in distorted or obscured.  I meant something more like a computerized information-feed that 'filters' through the raw data in order to provide more coherence.

And I really don't think Rand ever did mention magicians.  That was all me.

But what I was trying to point out about magicians is exactly the difference between sensations and perceptions, because if you think about it, every trick they perform amounts to an exploitation of the nature of perceptions.

For example, when you think you see someone being sawed in half, you don't literally see that; you see a head and feet and a saw inbetween and automatically sort those sensations into an unbelievable perception.

So it's a good demonstration of the way we work on a perceptual level.

 

And the only reason I really brought up perception in the first place is that we form sensations into perceptions by the same method we organize them into concepts: induction.  The only difference is that it's intentional on the conceptual level.

 

But volitional or not, they're both induction.  If generalization is invalid, in full, then there is absolutely no logical reason to believe that the moon is three-dimensional or that "meow" noises correlate to cats or that the opposite side of your computer screen exists, at all.

And if you check the back of your computer screen to make sure, how can you be sure that it still exists when you aren't looking?

 

Without generalizing from specifics, knowledge isn't simply unattainable- it's incommunicable.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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For one ,induction can not be nonvolitional, it is a conscious , directed type of reasoning.

 

 

 Perhaps we should distinguish two different forms of induction; volitional and nonvolitional, respectively.

 

Because generalizing from specifics is something we do on multiple levels without even realizing it (the other day I read that it might be involved in perception; certain parts of your brain take raw, undifferentiated sensations and blend them into whatever you ultimately experience, making certain educated guesses along the way).  And that's what I mean by induction; literally 'generalizing from specifics.'

However, the difference between an automatic and an intentional action is not to be omitted (lest we form anticoncepts in the process) and so we should probably make a clear division between 'automatized generalization' and 'deliberate generalization', because of the massive difference between their referents.

 

Now, having done so we may dispute whether or not there actually IS any 'automatized generalization,' but at least we could do so clearly and precisely.

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No, it does not imply it. That is a basic logical fallacy.

Then how could anyone begin to form the very concept of causality?

 

Again; let's say you eat at a certain restaurant several times, and each time you're violently ill afterwards.  That's a correlation between eating there and being sick, which I contend would lead any rational person to suspect a causal relation at work.

 

If not then by what method can anyone ever find the cause of anything at all?

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If not then by what method can anyone ever find the cause of anything at all?

You could wonder if the two may be connected, but it doesn't even imply a causal relationship. Causality makes more sense in terms of essentials - events won't say much on their own. Correlation is weak, and weak for induction, as Hume even acknowledged centuries ago (but he took it as the *way* people reason). You'd have to think about the nature of the restaurant, like the food it serves or the quality. You'd also have to think about the nature of your sickness, like your symptoms. The decision to suspect a causal relationship at least depends on the two entities being related in some manner. All you said is two events happen near each other in time.

 

Of course you could reason that way if you want, but not even rats do that. I know of an experiment that is about your example - rats drank from some water which had a mild poisoning that causes sickness a long while later, sometimes combined with electric shocks or loud noises right after drinking. Getting to the point (I summarized it in another thread, I'll repost this part), rats are able to figure out that poison causes the sickness, although the only thing that happened was the shock. Of course, events must occur to point out causal relationships, but correlation or association doesn't work well.

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The decision to suspect a causal relationship at least depends on the two entities being related in some manner. All you said is two events happen near each other in time.

 Yes, and I didn't clarify it any further, but I thought that the relationship between diet and gastrointestinal well-being was implicit.

 

If I had suggested a correlation between eating at a certain restaurant and Obama's reelection, THAT would be arbitrary- but I would contend that even that distinction, between what qualifies as relevant to a certain event or not, is a broader generalization of countless observed correlations.  (All implicit, of course)

 

 

You'd have to think about the nature of the restaurant, like the food it serves or the quality. You'd also have to think about the nature of your sickness, like your symptoms.

 Yes.  I agree.

However, even if the food was masterfully prepared, if you were to become ill after each visit wouldn't you lose your taste for it anyway?  (The implicit premise, of course, being "I don't want to endure that again" regardless of actual accuracy)

 

To clarify: I'm not saying that extrapolating causality from consistent correlation alone is GOOD epistemology; one should attempt some deeper analysis.  What I do think is that, for better or for worse, that's the way human beings think to some extent or another.

Correlation isn't sufficient for causation, but isn't it an absolute necessity?  I don't see how anything could cause what it doesn't correlate with, in the first place.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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Consistent correlation implies causation, but is insufficient for it; to identify causal relationships requires one to integrate them without contradiction into the sum of one's knowledge?

That would make sense to me because the most blatant examples of false-causes (racism, sexism, behaviorism) seem to stem from context-dropping.

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Some relevant quotes:

 

"In other words, Kant saw with perfect clarity that the history of science had refuted the Baconian myth that we must begin with observations in order to derive our theories from them. And Kant also realized very clearly that behind this historical fact lay a logical fact; that there were logical reasons why this kind of thing did not occur in the history of science: that it was logically impossible to derive theories from observations" (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, P. 256)

 

"Kant also showed that what holds for Newtonian Theory must hold for everyday experience, though not, perhaps, quite to the same extent: that everyday experience, too goes far beyond all observation. Everyday experience too must interpret observation; for without theoretical interpretation, observation reminds blind-uninformative. Everyday experience constantly operates with abstract ideas, such as that of cause and effect, and so it cannot be derived from observations" (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, P. 257)

 

"And we can now see the whole riddle of experience- the paradox of the empirical sciences as discovered by Kant: Newton's dynamics goes essentially beyond all observations. It is universal, exact; it arose historically out of myths; and we can show by purely logical means that it is not derivable from observation-statements." (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, P. 257)

 

"My third point- the contention that it is logically impossible to derive Newton's theory from observations- follows immediately from Hume's critique of the validity of inductive inferences, as pointed out by Kant." (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, P. 256)

 

 

 

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