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The Meta-structure of Knowledge and the Explanatory Gap Object, Time, Concept, Meaning, Reference and Perception Jos M. Matas jmmatias@uvigo.es TSC, Stockholm May 3th, 2011 http://webs.uvigo.es/jmmatias/knowledge/knowledge.htm Outline
jmmatias@uvigo.es
TSC, Stockholm – May 3th, 2011 Object, Time, Concept, Meaning, Reference and Perception
http://webs.uvigo.es/jmmatias/knowledge/knowledge.htm
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 2
We see the world as a set of objects and subjects placed in a spatio- temporal container. Objects and subjects are subject to change by the action of time
Some difficult (still unanswered) questions:
Which objects do exist? (simples, ordinary objects, subjects,…) How can an object/subject persist through time? How/when can an object/subject start/cease to exist?
Since the origins of philosophy we have been trying to resolve the conflict between identity and change
We have been considering identity as unquestionable while relegating change to a
secondary role
But maintaining identity through change results in complex and not wholly accepted
theories
Do the structure of our knowledge coincide with the structure of the world? At least, we can check the coherence of the former
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 3
Our world view
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Two main positions about time: Presentism: only the present exists; only present things exist Eternalism: time is a dimension; the world is 4D (timeless) But we can’t experience the past or the future. Objection: we do feel the past Reply: when I remember something I am having a present
sensation
Thus, we should deny the existence of the time dimension And what remains of time if there is no past or future? A world
Let’s assume this hypothesis and explore its implications: we
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 4
Our world view
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Time
The Object
Object and Time as decomposition of change.
Key question. Who is the owner of change:
The World: there are no objects; there is only change The Objects: endurantism (common-sense view); change is discretised into objects
While change is undeniable, objects are the centre of many controversies:
Problems: constitution, composition, causal redundancy, sorites paradoxes, … Positions: nihilism, ordinary objects, universalism, conceptualism, conventionalism, …
If the owners of change are the objects, what is the immutable component
Where does the substrate/bundle live? Have we ever experienced the
substrate/bundle?
Answer: yes, we perceive objects Reply: but everything we perceive about the object is subject to change (e.g. an apple) If the substrates/bundles were clear to everybody we would agree about ontology Furthermore, what happen to the substrate/bundle when the object ceases to exist? José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 5
Time
The Object
Objects in a timeless changing world
Object and Time as decomposition of change.
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
If we burn a table, when exactly the table ceases to be the table? We end up sifting through the meaning of the word ‘table’ to assess
precisely when the table no longer met our specifications
It seems that the table’s persistence is the persistence of its value
(meaning) for us
But if objects depend on a meaning, they would not exist in the
world on their own
We may say ‘the wave hit the beach’’ – but why consider the ocean
wave to be an object?
What is an object?. We could define an object as something that
retains its identity through change
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 6
Time
The Object
Objects in a timeless changing world
Object and Time as decomposition of change.
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
How in a timeless changing world were we able to build objects?
Our interaction with the world shows areas with different rates of
change; when slower than our perception system, a sense of permanence results that triggers us to mark them with an identity
The object belongs to our interaction with the rest of the world, not to
the world itself
When interacting at new scales (with new instruments) we define
different objects (ontological redundancy)
And how did we manage to build time?
We chose a reference object (clock) whose (periodic) change served to
frame the change in other objects
We then gradually abstracted the concept, quantified it and made it
independent of the reference object to convert it into a numeric axis: the time dimension
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 7
Time
The Object
Objects in a timeless changing world
Object and Time as decomposition of change
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Therefore, we cannot conceive time without first having conceived
the object
Thus there is not a problem of persistence: object comes first We segment the overall change into objects and their changes, i.e.,
into objects and their times
Instead of recognising objects that exist in their own right, we look
for value (meaning) in the world and record this information in our conceptual system
Once established, this self-same conceptual system guides this
segmentation, thereby closing the loop
Note that without objects the world would look exactly the same as it
does (except for our mind and our non-instinctive behaviour)
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 8
Time
The Object
Objects in a timeless changing world
Object and Time as decomposition of change
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
But what about the subject? We would say that the subject shares
the persistence in change in that sense, is yet another object
Then, the subject could not exist unless it existed in a different world We have two options:
Either the subject is really an object in a mental (not physical) world
containing objects (perhaps souls)
Or the subject also relies on meaning and concept
The first option requires an explanation of how two worlds with
different laws could come into contact or, indeed, what could be the meaning of “two worlds” (dualism)
The second option suggests a problem of circularity: how could it be
that my identity and my persistence rely on the meaning I have regarding myself?
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 9
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Persistence of the subject
Identity of the subject
1 Until further notice we will use the word ‘sensation’ with its everyday meaning
In principle, we say that there is change on the mental side, but we also say that we very clearly feel our persistence in this change
We would say that persisting in this change is, at least, our past, our history, which is immutable (incremental) and represents our persistence in change
But when we remember our past, our feelings are present. Such memories are not the same feelings as the original sensations that we want to recall
The former point to the latter in some way but they are not the same They can occupy the same place in our history, in our meaning, but they are not the
same
We easily confuse recall sensations with recalled sensations
Therefore, subjects do not have the temporal space necessary to persist
Even the smallest act of perception or thought requires change (time) The subject would be like a song: a song doesn’t exist, only the notes played in each
instant
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 10
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Persistence of the subject
Identity of the subject
But the subject could be a flow of consciousness differentiated from the rest
in change
However, such differentiation presupposes a hole in the physical world – a
discontinuity – from which sensation emerges.
Sensation would be isolated from the rest of the world, forming a differentiated world:
dualism
But if the mind is not isolated from the body (the binding problem), any boundary between them is conceptual
Subjects, therefore, are not isolated from the rest of the world and their history don’t exist
That history that doesn’t exist is what we call subject, which, therefore, is merely a concept
The concept ‘I’: The union of all our recorded interactions between our body and the
rest of the world with value (meaning) for us
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 11
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Persistence of the subject
Identity of the subject
Our hypothesis of a timeless changing world without objects has survived thanks to continuing reliance on meaning and concept
What are concepts and how are they possible in this world?
When we remember something we are feeling our memory: we are reading records of our experiences resulting from interactions between our body and the rest of the world
These records are linked so as to form agglomerated sub-structures: concepts
Thus, records of my experiences with this table are connected somehow in a sub-
structure which constitutes my concept of this table
There are also links to more abstract concepts, like my ‘table’ (universal) concept and
my ‘I’ concept as a concept-subject counterpart of all the concepts in my life
Neuroscientists tell us that memory functions correspond to areas of the cerebral cortex. Therefore, our conceptual structure reside in our brain, i.e.,
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 12
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Physical and phenomenal concepts
Concept and sensation of concept
Meaning of the concept
The objectual meta-structure of memory
Perception of the object and the subject
Our conceptual structure includes not only physical but also mental
concepts, for instance, ‘headache’.
When we see a red car the same sensation simultaneously updates
the concepts ‘red’ and ‘car’
When I feel a pain in my nose, I update the concept of my nose and
my concept of pain
Therefore, our conceptual system is dual, recording the same
experience twice over (as in double-entry bookkeeping) in physical concepts (assets accounts) and phenomenal concepts (liabilities accounts)
This results in two parallel worlds which, by construction, can never
come into contact (the physical side and the mental side)
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 13
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Physical and phenomenal concepts
Concept and sensation of concept
Meaning of the concept
The objectual meta-structure of memory
Perception of the object and the subject
In feeling a concept we cannot sense its totality all at once.
If this were not the case, if we had to remember a concept
It is therefore necessary to differentiate between the concept
Following this perception metaphor, our access to memory is
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 14
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Physical and phenomenal concepts
Concept and sensation of concept
Meaning of the concept
The objectual meta-structure of memory
Perception of the object and the subject
The above does not mean that we cannot report the entire concept If someone asked us what we meant by a concept we would
describe it by referring to its connections with other concepts relevant to the particular context
We cannot transmit the sensations (the qualia of experiences) that
(connections) between the concepts involved
These relationships are the meaning of the concept. Hence, the
meaning of the concept is its relative position in (a part-context of)
Logically, concepts have different meanings in different contexts and
mean different things to different individuals
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 15
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Physical and phenomenal concepts
Concept and sensation of concept
Meaning of the concept
The objectual meta-structure of memory
Perception of the object and the subject
The above very descriptively explains how we record change by decomposing it into
Internal change in the object is recorded in this system through the incremental recording
We know that the referents of these past records don’t exist but these past records play a key role, because without them the concept – the object – cannot be built
Psychological Time. Typically, our experiences do not involve one, but many, objects.
Each experience simultaneously ‘updates’ objects by including in each a record of its new state and new relationships with others
These connections between simultaneous records allow us to build the history of objects, thereby constituting a temporal pseudo-dimension where they belong
In this way can we build entities with a temporal depth (objects) in a timeless world
Therefore, objects are concepts. And their persistence in change, their history and thus time, results from the conceptual (objectual) meta-structure of memory
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 16
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Physical and phenomenal concepts
Concept and sensation of concept
Meaning of the concept
The objectual meta-structure of memory
Perception of the object and the subject
Perception of the object. The impression we have of perceiving an object is the result of superimposition on the raw sensation, of the sensation of the concept that best fits with the new data (so that new data are recorded in that concept)
This superimposition is really an interpretation of the raw sensation within our conceptual framework in terms of the chosen concept (intentional object)
Sensation of being a subject. If we are dealing with a conscious perception, the sensation of the concept ‘I’ is included in the superimposition as a concept-subject counterpart giving us the impression of being a conscious subject who perceives the object
Hence, our strong sensation of subject is just a way of thinking, a mental behaviour, an ideology
Therefore, the perception of the object (and the subject) is not a passive act of discovery; rather, it is an act of re-cognition that seeks confirmation of the existing conceptual
We confuse necessary conditions for the concept with sufficient conditions for the
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 17
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Physical and phenomenal concepts
Concept and sensation of concept
Meaning of the concept
The objectual meta-structure of memory
Perception of the object and the subject
What we feel as meaning-referent is nothing less than the sensation of a sub-structure (concept) located in our memory
In the recall process, this sensation would be the sensation of the concept (of certain records of the concept and its relationships to other concepts)
In perception, the sensation of the concept is the raw sensation as it is being interpreted and recorded in the concept
During this interpretation process, the raw sensation refers to, represents and confirms
the object-concept
Therefore,
the signifier would be the sensation (of the concept) its referent is the self-same concept (the intentional object) according to which the
sensation is interpreted
its meaning is its relative position in the conceptual structure José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 18
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Meaning, reference and sensation
The sensation as material signifier
The Explanatory Gap
Since there is no subject-observer the sensation cannot be a mere
perspective of the physical, but the material signifier of all our concepts, the clay with which we shape our representations of the world
However, it is impossible to represent the clay itself using clay as
the material signifier: signifier would be confused (transparent) with signified, the lead with the soldier; two parallel planes of representation would exist that could never meet
The physical world of science is a world of soldiers, of meanings –
the objective world. Which is why it changes so much
Sensation cannot, therefore, be represented in this conceptual
world
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 19
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Meaning, reference and sensation
The sensation as material signifier
The Explanatory Gap
To accept the physical and deny the sensation is to accept
The explanatory gap is nothing more than the un-closeable
The gap can only be closed when filled with material signifier:
There is not inside/outside: the objective is no longer only
Thus, ironically, qualia ontologically emerge when the subject
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 20
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Meaning, reference and sensation
The sensation as material signifier
The Explanatory Gap
Once closed the gap, the world is merely matter
without discontinuities (objects or subjects), where representation/observation can not be
but where a conceptual system is possible whose referent
José M. Matías – The Meta-structure of Knowledge 21
Our world view and its problems
The physical side. The object
The mental side. The subject
The Conceptual Structure
The Explanatory Gap
Meaning, reference and sensation
The sensation as material signifier
The Explanatory Gap