Mental Conception - How It Might Broaden Perspective

BrianW

I'm reading a book, it's about humans with special abilities like flying, running at speeds faster than sound, conjuring phenomena with magic, etc. Personally, I don't believe humans can accomplish such feats because it's not part of my experience. However, I realise something curious occurring within my mind as I traverse that world of literary fancy. I realise I can see it all in my mind! My faculty of mental conception (imagination) allows me to create events that are not a part of my 'normal' experience. And because I can see it in my mind I can develop perspective with respect to the events of that world.

Later on, it hits me, that there's more to conception than just a book. For example, a person wants to build a big and beautiful home for his family. However, they do not have the expertise to do it themselves. So, they decide they will hire the necessary professionals for the job. They visit an architect and explain to them what their idea of the home is. And, curious enough, the architect creates a model off of that information. Then, from what the architect has created, they tweak it with additions and subtractions here and there until the owner-to-be is satisfied that it is exactly what they want.

So, these two examples get me thinking, in the first case, that world and those magnificent people are not the people of my world whom I interact with everyday. Yet, from the narrative they have a great deal of resemblance. From the second case, I realise the model home will not be the actual home of that person even though that's what they want. The model is just a representation not the actual home. However, the model and the actual home will have a great deal of resemblance.

After such considerations of concepts and actual phenomena, only one question remained to be answered. That is...

With respect to knowledge, what is the difference between the information of the concept and the actual phenomena?

I've often thought that all knowledge is based on information acquired. But, if that's the case, then knowledge of conceptual and actual phenomena differ only with regard to the source of the information. And, if the information from two different sources is identical and the method of processing is constant then the output will be identical. For example, someone living over two thousand millennia ago conceptualized that all things were composed of smaller things which were also made of even smaller things, and so on ad infinitum. About two millennia later, someone conceptualized the same model but with a greater amount of additional supporting information from actual phenomena. However, they are both models. Both are approximations even though one is a lot further in development. And yet, both are equally significant for without a starting point (with some fundamental accuracy) there could be no further points. A much better case could be made with respect to gravity.

In conclusion, I now realise what Einstein meant when he said,

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. — Albert Einstein (In Cosmic Religion: With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931))

For me, knowledge is limited when the means of acquiring information is limited. And while experience and practice are limited, when coupled with imagination (mental conception) and processed through logic and proper reason, then the outcome will be a greater functional representation of whatever phenomena is examined. How else could philosophy have existed this long?

BrianW

Albert Einstein is also quoted as having said,

How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? — Albert Einstein (From the lecture, 'Geometry and Experience').

Mww

How else could philosophy have existed this long? — BrianW

While the thesis is pretty good, the answers lay in what proper reason is, and, the danger for “greater functional representation” becoming too much greater, arising from what proper reason isn’t.

Philosophy....at least speculative epistemological philosophy.....has lasted this long because of the inherent circularity in reason itself, insofar as the only possible way to examine it, is in the use of it. Given that irreconcilable obstacle, we are always impeded in our investigations by both what we don’t know and are trying to figure out, and the care that must be taken to prevent reason from unjustifiably influencing the results. Philosophy has lasted this long because of the serious lack of agreement on the basics.

Einstein wouldn’t enlist himself in the Kantian booster club, and it shows in your quotes. Mathematics is indeed a product of human thought, hence independent of human experience for its rules, but is nonetheless always dependent exclusively on human experience for its proofs. Depending on where one stands between the extremes of empiricism and rationalism, the case can be made that math isn’t appropriate to the objects of reality so much as the objects of reality are appropriate to math. Especially nowadays, when the theoretical predictions are strictly mathematically grounded, which requires our experimentation to be set up in accordance to that which the math determines we should discover.

As far as imagination is concerned, Kant imbues imagination as a full-fledged rational faculty, just as much as understanding, representation, intuition and the rest, but holds imagination to be very far less important than knowledge, it being the source of our illusions.

Final note: all conceptions are mental, but imagination is not a concept producing faculty, according to at least one well-established purely speculative philosophy.

Good subject; hope you get some worthwhile comments, down the road.

Galuchat

My faculty of mental conception (imagination) allows me to create events that are not a part of my 'normal' experience. — BrianW

You conflate imagination and mental conception.

Conception is the process of conceiving (generally, creating and/or developing) an idea, plan, understanding, or zygote. So, you have qualified conception with the adjective "mental" to narrow the range of possible meanings.

Whereas, I:
1) Prefer to use the word "conceptualisation" to refer to the creation and/or development of a concept (class-representative idea), which presupposes abstraction (deduction, pure reasoning, theory) or generalisation (induction, empirical reasoning, experiment).

2) Wouldn't conflate imagination (faculty which entails insight or creativity) and conceptualisation, because while imagination entails insight (metacognitive comprehension), it doesn't entail understanding (experiential comprehension). Reflection (examination of experience) entails understanding.

Insight entails pure knowledge (logical semantic information), and understanding entails empirical knowledge (factual semantic information).

BrianW

↪Mww

↪Galuchat

I already see the beginnings of the circularity which infects most philosophical discussions and which is often a product of the different meanings we assign to the words we use. Fundamentally, I see nothing wrong with your arguments though they seem to want to be counter-facts to mine. In reply, I would simplify my original statement to the following:

Knowledge extracted solely from experiential and practical information is much deficient than that which has been imbued with creativity. Higher human intelligence constantly endeavours more towards creative processes of knowledge (through insight and intuition) than mere translation of experiences. And as Einstein puts it, it's because the creative processes are not as limited as those dependent on experience or empiricism.

Our knowledge (and perspective) always seeks to expand. Therefore, fundamental to that need is a faculty that cannot be limited in its expansion. Unfortunately, and as with all resources under human management, with great power comes great responsibility, and many a man has fallen victim to their own lack of discipline towards mastering their creative abilities. As I see it, it is the only reason to want to distinguish between conceptualization and imagination, or in a much simpler parlance, to distinguish between the man of high intelligence and the daydreamer. It's not a question of different faculties but of mastery or appreciation of its utility. (The daydreamers are analogous to the perpetual drunks getting wasted in the name of fun while the man of high intelligence is a connoisseur of fine alcoholic drinks. Both drink, but in different ways and to different ends - just as we all conceptualize (imagine) but differently.)

BrianW

Mathematics is indeed a product of human thought, hence independent of human experience for its rules, but is nonetheless always dependent exclusively on human experience for its proofs. Depending on where one stands between the extremes of empiricism and rationalism, the case can be made that math isn’t appropriate to the objects of reality so much as the objects of reality are appropriate to math. Especially nowadays, when the theoretical predictions are strictly mathematically grounded, which requires our experimentation to be set up in accordance to that which the math determines we should discover. — Mww

The point is that mathematics is used creatively as well as empirically. I'm not advocating for one against the other. Like Einstein, I've just realised that mental conception (creativity) has much greater potential to knowledge processes than I had been applying.

Galuchat

Experience is the springboard of imagination (Einstein's pure thought).

The axiomatic structure (A, Systems of Axioms) of a theory is built psychologically on the experiences (E, Totality of Sense Experiences) of the world of perceptions. Inductive logic cannot lead from the (E) to the (A). The (E) need not be restricted to experimental data, nor to perceptions; rather, the (E) may include the data of Gendanken experiments. Pure reason (i.e., mathematics) connects (A) to theorems (S, Deduced Laws). But pure reason can grasp neither the world of perceptions nor the ultimate physical reality because there is no procedure that can be reduced to the rules of logic to connect the (A) to the (E). — Einstein, A. (7 May 1952). Letter to Maurice Solovine

Less certain, continued Einstein, is the connection between the (S) and the (E). If at least one correspondence cannot be made between the (A) and (S) and the (E), then the scientific theory is only a mathematical exercise. Einstein referred to the demarcation between concepts or axioms and perceptions or data as the 'metaphysical original sin' (1949); and his defense of it was its usefulness. For whereas the problem of the relation between perceptions and mental images or concepts may well be interesting physiologically (e.g., How do neural firings lead to images?) or philosophically (e.g., philosophy of mind or metaphysics), it is of no concern to the working scientist - at least not to Einstein, who also displayed a good nose for philosophical problems. — Miller, Arthur I. 1984. Imagery in Scientific Thought Creating 20th Century Physics. Boston. Birkhauser, pp. 45-46.

Physical reality can be grasped not by pure reason (as Kant has asserted), but by pure thought. — Einstein, A. (1933). On the Method of Theoretical Physics. Lecture delivered on 10 June 1933 at Oxford University.

Gnomon

After such considerations of concepts and actual phenomena, only one question remained to be answered. That is...
"With respect to knowledge, what is the difference between the information of the concept and the actual phenomena?" — BrianW

Cognitive researcher Donald Hoffman, in his recent book, The Case Against Reality, offers an interesting metaphor that may shed some light on your question. He calls it "the interface theory of perception (ITP)". By analogy to the display screen (interface) of your computer or phone, he notes that the icons you see are not the "actual phenomena", but merely symbols that you interpret as-if they are the hidden mechanisms inside the computer that do the actual work, and the ideas that are encoded in the original document.

What he means by that analogy is that what you take for reality (percepts) are merely triggers for imagination (concepts). You see the symbol of a generic file folder with label (32bits, 16 pixels), which represents a link to the digital information on your hard drive (32Kbits), which in turn represents a page of text on paper (wood pulp & ink), in a language you already know how to interpret.

By analogy, what you see before you (physical object) is also a symbol representing a concept that is meaningful to you, and which in turn refers to some metaphysical information underlying the "actual phenomena". Hence, you never see the ding an sich with your eyes, but merely a collection of photons that are converted to chemical and electrical codes that in turn remind your brain of a similar "object" that you have experienced before. The abstract memory of that prior experience is then conceived in your imagination as-if it was a concrete thing. But, as you and Einstein have noted, imaginary Ideality is not constrained by the physical laws of Reality.

Here's my interpretation of the ITP theory : Imagination (inner-sight) can conjure past events and future possibilities, while the eyes can only see the ephemeral here & now. Unconstrained Imagination can even combine past empirical experiences into physically impossible or improbable concepts, such as a unicorn. Both the information of the concept (horse + horn), and the information of the past experience (horses and goats) are essentially unreal mathematical probability calculations in your brain. The imaginary unicorn functions as an example of the mystical magical possibilities of the vast unknown world. Yet it's possible that, by combining your imagination and genetic technology, you could produce the "actual phenomena" of a horse with a horn --- lacking only the magical qualities.

Information is meaningful difference. And the difference between Percept and Concept is also meaningful : what you think you see, and what caused that mental image. As Hoffman has concluded, the ultimate "reality" we assume to be out there, is nothing like the symbols and icons we perceive, or the meanings we conceive. However, for all practical purposes (non-theoretical), we are justified for behaving as-if what we see is what's real.

PS___If my brief description of the Interface Theory of Perception doesn't make sense to you, I highly recommend the book. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/dp/0393254690

creativesoul

How else could philosophy have existed this long? — BrianW

Philosophy is the result of taking very careful account of the world and/or ourselves.

creativesoul

Hence, you never see the ding an sich with your eyes, but merely a collection of photons that are converted to chemical and electrical codes that in turn remind your brain of a similar "object" that you have experienced before. — Gnomon

A photon is a thing in and of itself. We do not see photons though, at least not with the bare naked eye. We can see the tree outside in the yard. The tree is not photons. Photons are not what's being seen. Trees are. Photons play a role.

creativesoul

Mathematics is indeed a product of human thought, hence independent of human experience for its rules... — Mww

:brow:

BrianW

↪Gnomon

Thanks. This ITP is taking my mind places.

Galuchat

Donald Hoffman and Conscious Realism

Mww

↪creativesoul

An icon? All I get is a stupid ICON!!! I feel so....so....diminished.

creativesoul

↪Mww

What you wrote presupposes that there can be human thought so complicated as to have resulted in mathematics that somehow does not count as human experience.

:brow:

Mww

↪creativesoul

And what you wrote presupposes complicated human thought qualifies as experience.

(Insert icon here)

creativesoul

↪Mww

There you go. You believe that thinking is not experience, and I believe that it is. Now what?

Mww

↪creativesoul

Our mutual dialectical precedent suggests the clash of the analytic mindset with the continental mindset presents the audience with naught but an abundance of subjectivist hand-waving, despite the propriety of being “....sufficiently cautious in the construction of our fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account....”.

While I have the utmost respect for your argumentative prowess, it is at the same time quite obvious to me our metaphysical sparring won’t satisfy either of us, nor anyone else with barely a superficial interest in abstract critical thought.

Because you made the first comment, you’ve earned the last as well.

Peace.

creativesoul

↪Mww

I maintain the belief that you and I will make headway... somehow... somewhere... not here!

:wink:

Until next time, be well! Know the show of respect is mutual and very much appreciated!

Cheers!

unenlightened

I think there is no question but that an architect imagines a building that does not exist. The skill is to do so sufficiently realistically that when the brickys, chippys and spreads try to realise her imaginings, the reality does not collapse immediately.

I imagine a man who imagines he can fly flinging himself off a high building, and crashing to the ground. Either my imagination or his is lacking in skill. But your imagination will tell you which.

Mww

↪unenlightened

Yours.

1.) The possibility of crashing is not given from none other than the imagination of flying. A man imagining flying does not conceive crashing. You, imaging a man imagining flying and imagining the same man crashing, contradicts your imaging the man only imagining he can fly.

2.) given the way the human imagination works, it is impossible to imagine a man imaging, that isn’t reducible to just you.

Do I get a cookie?

unenlightened

↪Mww

Half a cookie, for being right but talking confusion. Mine is the only real imagination, so if the man's imagination fails him it is only in my imagination.

Unless you're volunteering to realise my imagining...?

Mww

↪unenlightened

Half a cookie!?!? Jeez....what a cheapskate!!!

I covered what you said in my 2.)

I imagine you letting loose of the other half of MY cookie.

Sir Philo Sophia

Information is meaningful difference — Gnomon

I don't believe that is true. I think information primarily about detecting a useful or causal difference. Many differences are only thing useful or causal yet have no intelligible meaning to us.

Sir Philo Sophia

2) Wouldn't conflate imagination (faculty which entails insight or creativity) and conceptualisation, because while imagination entails insight (metacognitive comprehension), it doesn't entail understanding (experiential comprehension). Reflection (examination of experience) entails understanding. — Galuchat

I can appreciate your intuition as to why those may feel/seem different, yet I disagree. I think imagination is mostly, if not completely, degrees of less constrained, more abstracted, reality. You simply cannot imagine anything completely outside of analogical experience. For example, when you imagine you can fly, you are simply conceptualizing yourself ‘as is’ except with the ability to fly like birds or planes. No insight there, just less constrained by the ‘reality’ of gravity, as if you were in space.

ZhouBoTong

For example, when you imagine you can fly, you are simply conceptualizing yourself ‘as is’ except with the ability to fly like birds or planes. No insight there, just less constrained by the ‘reality’ of gravity, as if you were in space. — Sir Philo Sophia

Didn't you just give us ideas on how to "imagine" things even more distant from our conceptual reality? I think I mostly agree with you...but what about the "beings of pure energy" that appear in a lot of fiction? I get they still are connected to the psychological "I" and they are still individuals, but then there are some shared "overmind" type concepts. I agree there must be limits on imagination...but to me it seems that as you describe the limits, you have given your mind a way to think beyond them.

Sir Philo Sophia

but to me it seems that as you describe the limits, you have given your mind a way to think beyond them. — ZhouBoTong

not really. I can imaging the concept of infinity, but can never enable my mind/imagination to in any way experience it. we just imagine it as an overwhelming amount of what ever we already know (gains of sand on earth, etc.).

I'd be very interested if anyone as even one example of anything imagined that is not some analogical morphing/variant/extension of (combination) something(s) known/experienced. Sadly, I don't think it exists.

I suspect that the kind of disconnected "blue sky" creative imagination you seem to be reaching for might be more in the subconscious than conscious minds. However, the definition of that I strongly suspect would not fit the ones you proposed above. I have not given much thought (yet) to modeling all forms/sources of creativity.

ZhouBoTong

I can imaging the concept of infinity, but can never enable my mind/imagination to in any way experience it. — Sir Philo Sophia

Well as we are talking about what can be imagined, not experienced, it seems you can imagine infinity. Whether your imagined experience matches an actual experience is impossible to know as no one can experience infinity. I also cannot experience travelling faster than the speed of light, and yet that is very regularly imagined.

I'd be very interested if anyone as even one example of anything imagined that is not some analogical morphing/variant/extension of (combination) something(s) known/experienced. — Sir Philo Sophia

To me, this is just saying that we can't describe something that can't be described. Seems fair but barely relevant. Why would we care to imagine nonsense? If we did, notice that we couldn't put in into words, as those words are part of some "analogical morphing/variant/extension of (combination) something(s) known/experienced." So I just imagined something outside the framework you mentioned, but I can't prove it to you because it would require words (or pictures/symbols, etc)...and once put into words it is no longer separate from "some analogical morphing/variant/extension of (combination) something(s) known/experienced."

Sir Philo Sophia

Well as we are talking about what can be imagined, not experienced, it seems you can imagine infinity. — ZhouBoTong

So, you think 'imagination' is about math formulas and recursive algorithms (such as limits to infinity), and not about simulating the experience?

To me, this is just saying that we can't describe something that can't be described. — ZhouBoTong

I do not believe that is correct. The theory of relativity is completely imaginable by the human faculties, right? However, the Greeks could never imagine even the basic concepts of space-time or quantum mechanics on their own, despite the fact that they would have had the words (same language we have, don't need the math) to express the concepts back then even if they did imagine it.

In this way, I'm saying that the only reason that Einstein could imagine space-time fabric relativity is because he existed and learned in an environment where the public imagination included sufficiently close knowledge and metaphors for him to imagine how to incrementally do some analogical morphing/variant/extension of (combination) of the thing(s) that were known/experienced at the time. Had Einstein lived in the time of the Greeks, I am saying there is no way he could have imagined even the basic concepts of relativity, not for lack of language or faculty of imagination, but for the handicap that Human imagination is (almost strictly) limited to evolutionary thought grounded by the framework of what is known/experienced by the culture around you.

ZhouBoTong

So, you think 'imagination' is about math formulas and recursive algorithms (such as limits to infinity), and not about simulating the experience? — Sir Philo Sophia

No, I am saying I can absolutely simulate that experience in my imagination. I just have no idea how accurate my simulation is. I can imagine walking forever. I need to add in assumptions like immortality and understand that there is no reason that anyone/anything would want or need to walk forever. It is likely nonsense (similar to infinity) in our known reality. But that doesn't mean I can't imagine it. I am not imagining math or formulas I am imagining myself walking. Then I think about long walks. Then I think I would need fancy shoes or my feet start bleeding. Then I would need to live forever or I would be dead within 100 years. And wouldn't it get boring? This is all part of imagining.

In this way, I'm saying that the only reason that Einstein could imagine space-time fabric relativity is because he existed and learned in an environment where the public imagination included sufficiently close knowledge and metaphors for him to imagine how to incrementally do some analogical morphing/variant/extension of (combination) of the thing(s) that were known/experienced at the time. Had Einstein lived in the time of the Greeks, I am saying there is no way he could have imagined even the basic concepts of relativity, not for lack of language or faculty of imagination, but for the handicap that Human imagination is (almost strictly) limited to evolutionary thought grounded by the framework of what is known/experienced by the culture around you. — Sir Philo Sophia

This seems to describe learning/knowledge as much as imagination? I agree that some knowledge is needed before more can be discovered. Counting is a requirement before one can conceive of addition or multiplication. I think we are describing 2 very different types of imagination.

Your example certainly describes imagination, but it seems to be just one limited practical aspect of imagination.

We can imagine anything, but individuals are limited by genetic and environmental factors...and imagining what life would be like if I was made of space butterflies is a lot different than imagining a better way to deliver groceries (Einstein's "imagination" is much closer to the grocery example).

You are describing "imagination" that could serve a scientific purpose. Much of the imagination I am describing would have an artistic purpose AT MOST (it would often just be nonsense - a la imagining what it would feel like to walk forever).

Mental Conception - How It Might Broaden Perspective

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