Category Archives: Knowledge

Compass

3 Replies

I feel we are at a point where we can begin to address the questions posed in the first postings of the blog.  Namely, what do we make of a world that can accommodate a wide diversity of cultures and of ways of perceiving and engaging with it; and, since we can actually change our way of living in the world, is there any sense in which certain ways may be preferable?  The previous posts can be distilled into three main points, which I feel describe our common human experience of living in the world.

  1. First, we are aware of very little, of a tiny sliver, of the world.  This is of course commonplace, but this lack of awareness extends to our own bodies and what they are continuously doing to support and sustain our perception and actions.  Reality is in excess, here and now, always and everywhere.  And of the very little we are aware of, we can put into words even less, a point beautifully made by Bian the wheelwright.
  2. Second, all knowledge about the world is the result of hard work.  It involves the effort to learn to perceive and recognize specific patterns, so as to orient ourselves and guide our actions accordingly.  It also involves the effort to learn how to carry out specific activities successfully.  An important aspect of this hard work is the standardization of perception and performance, which provides the basis of our socialization into particular communities.  It is through this standardization that knowledge – and the work of multitudes that it is based upon – is transmitted across space and time.  A lot of related work goes into structuring and organizing the environment to support and guide our perceptions and conduct.  And it is the extension of standardization across times and places that the power of science emanates from.
  3. Third, our knowledge of the world defines us. Knowledge amounts to discipline of perception and conduct. This disciplining of our bodies makes us who we are – knowing amounts to being in a certain way.  Our knowledge rests on our abilities to perceive and act in specific ways, how we place and orient ourselves in the world and how we engage with it.  With knowledge being the result of hard work, the effort we expend on learning how to perceive and act is precisely the effort that disciplines our bodies and shapes us into particular beings.

I view the three points above as a compass with which to orient ourselves in the world we live in.  First, it is important to keep in mind that our knowledge about the world and about ourselves, even our awareness about what we do here and now, is very limited.  Second, when we consider what is presented as knowledge, including our own knowledge, a most relevant question is where did this knowledge come from, how, through what effort was it developed?  And third, that knowledge also reflects who the knower is, their understanding of themselves and in relation to the world, and how they conduct themselves.

One might feel that the compass lacks specifics, but specifics can only be the outcome of work, which is always particular to a place and time and associated with a way of being.  When we embark on learning something new or on developing new knowledge, this effort also shapes us in novel ways.  In future posts I will be shifting my focus to specifics, to maps, which by their nature will be particular to my own vantage point, my own place in the world.

Knowledge, Ability, Discipline

Leave a reply

The posts on the Duhem-Quine Thesis and on the Power of Science pointed to the standardization of performance and of tools as the basis for engaging consistently with the world.  The examples about how to measure scientifically the color of an object or determine the species of an animal highlighted the role played by training in bringing about this standardization.  We are of course all familiar with training, with the instruction, repetition and practice, with the supervision and the checking and cross-checking that goes into achieving mastery of a performance.  For example, the scientific determination of the color of an object depends on the rigorous training of the individuals who carry out the measurements, training that ensures consistency of performance and results. 

Of course, this process of training is not limited to the scientific ways of doing things; it is how we learn virtually all of what we do on a daily basis.  This is how I learned the use of chopsticks, by watching my friends, then trying on my own under their guidance, kept on practicing, and finally managed to eat successfully using them.  This is how we learn a language, listening and speaking, reading and writing, with others who already know it correcting us, and eventually using it to communicate successfully. The standardization of perception and behavior through training is at the basis of our socialization into a community: from learning the language, to using eating utensils and exhibiting proper table manners, to following dress codes and traffic rules when driving…  Similar standardization underlies the socialization into a community of people with specialized abilities, such as doctors, nurses, teachers, soldiers, pilots, lawyers, or farmers.  Guilds of course come to mind.  A scientific community is but one example of people with specialized abilities acquired through training.

We are all familiar with this process of training, with how we get to acquire abilities and skills, with how we learn.  It takes discipline, discipline of perception and of behavior.  Ability and knowledge involve the development of a disciplined performance through the patterning of perception and behavior.  It is on the basis of this patterning that we foreground particular features of our environment, recognize and manipulate objects, behave in a certain way, so that a stable, consistent interaction with our environment can come about.

Of course, as we are all aware, socialization is not the only way that we develop stable and consistent interactions with our environment: we also do it individually, on our own.  Sometimes during play, or while we are going about doing something else, we become aware of a novel pattern, a pattern that we pursue; sometimes, while tinkering, trying to solve a problem, things fall into place and new, unexpected configurations of actions emerge.  Then we fashion these novel patterns and actions into a stable interaction with the world by standardizing our performance, essentially by training ourselves on our own through individual direct engagement with our environment.  A newly developed ability can then be communicated and shared with others, who might adopt or modify it, pick it up or ignore it.  All stable interactions with the world, whether learned through socialization or de novo through self-learning, are based on a consistency of performance, a consistency that we achieve through discipline.  The disciplining of performance, of perception and action, is at the basis of any ability.

Knowing amounts to perceiving certain patterns and acting in particular ways.  It is the assimilation of these specific patterns and actions, this patterning of our perceptions and behavior that constitutes our abilities.  At the same time, this patterning is exactly us, amounts to what we are.  In other words, in order to develop a stable interaction with the world, we have to perceive the world and conduct ourselves in specific ways, we have to be in a certain way.  The abilities that underlie our knowledge are constitutive of who, of what we are.   We are what we know, we are what we do. And we make frequent use of this connection, as when we note the way a soldier carries himself, a lawyer talks, or a farmer looks at a garden.  This connection further means that by virtue of having acquired knowledge in a particular domain, other domains of human knowledge would not be readily accessible to us.  I have previously used the rabbit/duck image to point to this sense of mutual exclusion; a more compelling real-life example was the case of somatization of marital problems among Hindus, a somatization that would not occur in the same way among, say, Christians.  So, being able to perceive and do something entails being unable to perceive and do something else.  Knowing certain things also means not knowing – not having the ability to know – other things.

Some Thoughts On Human Nature

Leave a reply

Nikos has brought up a few questions, about “human nature” and “universals” across cultures, along with a question regarding a “language instinct.”

I think it is fairly obvious – meaning that we would all agree, across cultures – that there is something that we refer to as “human nature.”  The basis for this agreement is the common experience of the capacities, potentialities, dispositions present in newborns across cultures (hence the possibility of adoptions across cultures), as well as our ability, even in adult life, to join a different culture.  We are all born with “something,” which then develops and crystallizes through our interaction with our environment, as we have discussed before .  It is important to keep in mind that the shaping of our potentialities (our central nervous system if you like) through interaction with the environment begins very soon after birth.  In addition, the first few years of life are a critical period for providing the basis for the continuing development of abilities that are important in later life (like language skills) – if the environment does not provide sufficient resources during this early period, it is very difficult to “catch up” later.  The importance of this early period for our development suggests that when we look at someone’s abilities in later life we cannot readily attribute them to what the person was born with or what their environment provided.  Even in cases where we can identify a problem with the infant at birth, their future development may well reflect inadequacies of their environment (for example, vision or hearing problems that though treatable were not addressed).

It is difficult to stress enough that “nature” develops discernible features through “nurture.”  I find the nature/nurture dichotomy deeply misleading, as there is a dynamic interplay between the two.  An example I find helpful for highlighting this point is imprinting in ducks: ducklings will follow as their mother the first object they see after hatching.  Their brain circuitry is primed to be shaped through the experience of the first moving object provided by their environment – and if this object happens to be Konrad Lorenz, that’s who they follow.  A related example is provided by reed warbler mothers that feed cuckoo bird chicks whose eggs hatched in their nest.  Their brain circuitry is looking for something to feed – and if this object happens to be a cuckoo bird chick, that’s who they will feed.

Konrad Lorenz followed by ducklings
Reed warbler feeding a cuckoo chick

In terms of “universals” across human cultures, we would all agree I think about the existence of similarities.  Humans share a common biology (fairly evident as we can reproduce across cultures), and this common biology involves a long period of postnatal development and maturation and living in communities in the same material world.  Cultures will likely encounter similar challenges and may well develop similar tools to tackle them.  Of course we will find similarities across cultures!  At the same time, the challenges and solutions may well reflect the specifics of the particular environment of a culture, as well as the specifics of the particular population.  But I am not sure what “universals” in the abstract might be referring to.

Along the same lines, we may well agree that language is found across human cultures.  Communication is necessary for living in a community and we have several combinations of sensory and motor channels we could and do use: auditory, visual, haptic (touch) for example for sensory; vocal chords and mouth, hands and fingers for motor, etc.  Becoming and being part of a community is vital for the survival of a human being, hence the presence of a strong drive for communication and the priming of our nervous system to be shaped through communication (someone might call this “language instinct” I guess) – shaped through the receiving of sensory inputs and the providing of corresponding motor outputs.  The communication tools are of course refined, developed, and standardized over time, depending on needs, challenges, or newly available technologies.  It is also important to keep in mind that we use plenty of sensorimotor information during communication (body posture, facial expressions, tone of voice, and so on), and not only what we may strictly refer to as language.

Some final thoughts that I feel are important for maintaining perspective when talking about “human nature,” “universals” and “language instinct.”  One is that plenty of animals live in groups and we may well find several interesting similarities with them – see for example Frans de Waal’s work about other primates.  Another is that animals that live in groups engage in communication, providing interesting examples to consider when thinking about language, the dissemination of whale songs across pods coming to mind.  And last but not least, Alex, the African Grey parrot who learned how to talk, reaching the level of a human toddler.

The Power of Science

2 Replies

The previous three posts on Truth, Science, and the Duhem-Quine Thesis make a strong, even obvious, argument for the importance of our socialization in our engagement with the material world.  Our socialization is a constituent part of our knowledge, of our ways of going about in the world.  What is more, these posts make the case for scientific knowledge itself being the product of socialization into particular communities, scientific communities, which have their own specialized ways of engaging with the world.  It is the specialized abilities developed by the different scientific communities that underlie scientific knowledge.  The abilities, for example, that allow us to measure the color of an object, or extract and analyze the DNA of an animal.

But if scientific knowledge is the product of socialization, of specialized abilities developed within particular communities, then scientific knowledge is actually local knowledge, knowledge that is specific to these particular communities.  How do we then account for the indisputable power of Science, for scientific knowledge being the basis of so many aspects of our lives, a basis independent of our own socialization?

The discussion of the examples in the previous post, measuring the color of an object and analyzing the DNA of an animal, point to what is going on.  The scientific approach may involve the specialized abilities of individuals, but these abilities have been acquired through supervised training, with the explicit goal of ensuring consistency, that is, of getting the same results regardless of the individual – what matters is doing things according to the training.  The performance reflecting these abilities has been checked and cross-checked many times, by different individuals, at different places, and at different times, and the performance has been adjusted and fine-tuned as necessary. Along with this standardized performance of trained individuals, scientific measurements involve the use of standardized equipment, equipment that has been constructed, checked and cross-checked to perform consistently at different places and at different times.  Indeed, there are standardized procedures (frequently referred to as calibration) that ensure that the equipment is performing as expected. 

It is this standardization of individual performances and tools that underlies the extension of scientific knowledge beyond the boundaries of the particular communities.  And this extension takes a tremendous amount of effort to put in place and subsequently maintain it.  One way to think of scientific knowledge is in terms of the development and dissemination of standards, of immutable mobiles, things that remain unchanged as we take them to different places to assist us in ensuring consistency.  Tools, machines, or chemicals readily come to mind, as we continuously ship them around, regularly exchanging them, allowing the comparison of our actions and experiences across locales and times.  Integral to the successful diffusion of these standards is of course the availability of appropriately trained individuals with the abilities to use them.

And so this is where Science derives its power from: not from special access to the world or a special way of engaging with it, but from the systematic hard work across times and places to standardize our interaction with the world – the scale is immense indeed, indicating the enormous amount of work involved.  The scientific approach achieves that by the standardizing of abilities and conduct through training, and by developing tools, machines, chemicals, and other standards, to ensure the consistency of our interaction with the world.  When considering the scale of effort that goes into this standardization, it is important to keep in mind an essential element of the scientific approach, namely its emphasis on communication, on expressing scientific knowledge in forms that can be easily communicated and shared.  And what is being shared ranges from methods and protocols, what we might call how-to’s, to theories and maps, descriptions that is, to organize our experience and guide what we do.  This communicability allows not only for sharing, but also for the accumulation of scientific knowledge – in some form at least – and its transmission across time and space.  There is a cumulative effect in other words that helps sustain the immense scale over which scientific knowledge is applicable.

We are actually fairly familiar with the importance of standardization, as breakdowns that result from incompatibilities in standards are not an uncommon experience.  There are plenty of Bureaus of Weights and Measures across the world, institutes that store standards and instruments developed by scientific communities.  These standards and instruments allow the comparison of someone’s scales for measuring, length, time, weight, electricity, and so on, with those of others, elsewhere.  In this way, items made in one place can be used elsewhere, the threads of a screw made in Illinois will match the threads of hole in a car assembled in Michigan, the weight of vegetables put in a package in Mexico will match the weight measured in a grocery store in Canada, the cell phone chargers made in Korea will work in Europe, and so on. And there are continuous efforts to work out agreements and establish standards that will ensure compatibility in areas of manufacturing, electronics, communications.

The Duhem-Quine Thesis

Leave a reply

Let’s take a look at some of the difficulties I described before (What About Truth?) and see how a scientific approach could attempt to resolve them.   For example, even though we disagree with a Hanunoo about the color of freshly cut bamboo, we could settle the disagreement through Science.  We can measure the wavelengths of light, the spectrum, reflected by the bamboo, and this spectrum would be its color, whatever name we want to give it.  And we can repeat the measurement a few times to alleviate any concerns of a fluke.  Pretty straightforward, right?  Similarly, any confusion about a scorpion being a lobster can be cleared by taking a small piece of the animal, extracting and analyzing its DNA, comparing the results with those obtained from other animals.  Then we classify it according to what the result matches with, whatever we want to call it.  Again, pretty straightforward.

But when we actually go through the motions, questions begin to arise.  To measure the spectrum of reflected light we need someone who actually knows how to do it.  They will use a specialized piece of equipment, which we assume is working properly, that is, its performance has been checked to ensure it conforms to certain specified criteria.  Moreover, we assume that the person operating the equipment knows how to use it properly, that is, has been trained to use it and their ability to do so has been ascertained accordingly.  Similar considerations apply to using DNA analysis to decide whether an animal is a scorpion: we will need specialized equipment as well as someone who is trained in how to obtain the DNA and use the equipment to analyze it.  In general, in order to scientifically measure a feature of the world, be it the spectrum of reflected light, the kind of animal, or something else, we need tools and equipment along with a trained operator.  The operator has been taught the proper use of the equipment, the proper way of measuring the feature of the world we are interested in: they have been socialized by the scientific community that has developed the way of measuring and the equipment to use.

The knowledge generated by any scientific community has been developed through engagement with the material world, selecting and foregrounding certain features of experience while ignoring others, agreeing on which features to select as, say, the spectrum of reflected light, constructing equipment that would measure these features, and agreeing on what constitutes proper performance and operation of the equipment.  In the same vein, there is agreement on what constitutes DNA, how to operate equipment to analyze it, what patterns to accept as representative of a scorpion.  The organization of the experience of the world in terms of spectra or DNA rests on a constellation of abilities accepted and learned within particular scientific communities.  In other words, “this is a scorpion” or “this color is red” is always checked within a framework of abilities and socialization.

The point has been made before in very many ways, and is often referred to as the Duhem-Quine thesis.  Pierre Duhem pointed out that the truth of any statement about the world always rests on “auxiliary assumptions”, such as appropriate know-how, the proper functioning of equipment, and so on.  The result is that, if, say, we find that a statement fails to correspond to our experience of the world, we can always attribute the failure to some of the “auxiliary assumptions” and adjust these assumptions to rescue the truth of the original statement.  W.V.O. Quine made a similar argument (in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”), pointing out that “our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually, but only as a corporate body,” and “Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system.”

We can put this insight in more general terms, namely that truth and knowledge are embedded in and are part of the way in which we engage with the world.  And this insight encompasses all kinds of truth and knowledge, including the scientific.  A general way to express the basis for this insight is that in order to check the truth of any statement about the world, we need to know how to check it, we need to ensure that we check it correctly.  The methods and the abilities through which we check are established and accepted within the community in which we have been socialized.  This uncertainty about methods and abilities comes to the fore whenever we develop new knowledge: is our new finding a feature of the world, or we are doing something wrong?  Or, when we fail to come up with the new finds we were expecting, is it because they were not there or because we were not doing things right?

Two Basic Observations

Leave a reply

Most of us I think would agree with the following two basic observations about us and the world we live in.

First, we all live in the same world, we are all part of the same reality, and this reality is understood differently, is experienced differently by different people.  And these differences in understanding can be extreme.  We understand and go about our lives in different ways, and the reality we live in can accommodate all these very different ways of engaging with it.  It is within the context of these particular modes of engagement with the world that we ascribe meaning to and pursue our lives and actions.  I do not intend this basic observation to be construed as an argument for relativism, but rather as a statement of common human experience –  based on our experience about us and the world we live in.  It is the realization that we might as well have been in someone else’s shoes, leading their way of life, perhaps very different from our own.  This observation gives rise to an uneasy feeling and questions: How am I to find my way around in a reality that manifests itself in so many different ways?  Are there ways of understanding the world that are better than others?  What am I to make of a life that can be lived in so many different ways?  Are there particular ways of life that are superior to others?

Second, our understanding of and the ways we engage with the world can and do change.  Our understanding and means of engagement are initially forged through our early socialization within our family and culture.  This understanding evolves and develops further as we grow older, as we get to interact with more and different people, acquire training and education, as we move and adapt to a new place, or as we embrace other people’s ways.  Such a change is not always trivial.  We invest a lot of effort in developing our own particular ways and the flow of everyday life hinges on them.  Radical change can and does happen and can involve a different perception of the world, concomitant with novel purposes, motivations, activities, and meaning for one’s life.  And, of course, efforts at change could fail.  This second observation, of the possibility of change, underscores the importance of the questions brought up by the first observation: given that change is possible, is there a superior understanding of the world to inform the way to lead one’s life?

These observations may sound familiar and trivial.  In practical terms, they are typically not taken seriously because of the tremendous effort it would take to change one’s way of life and everything that follows along with it.  And we have already invested a tremendous amount of effort to acquire the abilities to lead our current lives, and we continue to expend a lot of effort to maintain them as well.  But these observations do bring to the fore that we have choices in the ways in which we go about our everyday affairs, the way we experience and understand the world, the meaning and purpose we imbue our lives with.  Not a complete freedom of choice of course, but a wide range for sure.

Our cultures do not provide us with tools to even consider the possibilities offered by such choices.  This is not surprising, as our perceptions of the world and our actions are actively guided and coordinated to produce social organization and ensure its stability.  Exercising choices might well destabilize the social structures and networks that after all support and sustain our everyday lives.

In this blog I will cover topics that I hope will provide a guide and tools for how to place and orient ourselves in our world.  A world that can be experienced in multiple ways and can accommodate many different ways of life, a world in which we can change and transform our lives, but also a world where we have learned to prize our own received ways.