In fairytale his universal grammar of, Chomsky, style in a close coming the to UG has he in mind, faithfully being to imperative grammar the, that it's possible to make a "perfect copy" of you and me of your genetic material (and, so he claims, as we approach the atomic level, we are all the same...). How convenient for his theory!

Universal Grammar... As silly an attempt to catch human language as the attempt to find a theory of everything in nature. Though such a theory (a ToE) is useful in the realm of the singularity, it completely fails in everyday reality. True, looking with a microscope, you will see time reversible motion of Planck-sized geometrical massless structures, with magical charges, loving and hating each other under the safe guidance in the sea of hidden variables we call space, but if we zoom out new, irreducible and irreversible structures come into focus.

Likewise for language. While common features can be found by studying phonetic patterns, and while we all have a brain that obviously has to be organized, and commonalities can be found in them, it's an illusion that a universal grammar is to be found in them. Though at the basic level we are all a bunch of elementary particles...

I think it is obvious that understanding is not close to being exhausted by theoretical accounts. And I also think it is equally obvious that we don’t really understand much of anything, hence the infinite "why" questions, which must be answered with a “that's the way it is” type replies. Because we just don’t know. — Manuel

But this is different from claiming we can't gain an understanding of how consciousness works. That claim could be based on the belief that we can have no vantage point on consciousness. Is that what you're thinking?

Close. I think we may get to the point in which we have some type of theory of consciousness, perhaps someone discovers which brain regions are strictly necessary for it - though we have anesthesia - or someone may come up with a model as to how certain patterns in brain matter lead to experience. Maybe.

But it's not going to be in a way in which we're going to say "I get it". If we look at matter outside our bodies, we have no idea how that stuff out there, could have experience in certain configurations.

So we may get a theory, perhaps, but how can something "objective" could lead to something "subjective", goes beyond our comprehension, it seems to me.

So we may get a theory, perhaps, but how can something "objective" could lead to something "subjective", goes beyond our comprehension, it seems to me. — Manuel

Sure. I think Chalmers suggests accepting consciousness as an entity in its own right, in pretty much the same way Newton put gravity forward as something we know about, but haven't explained yet.

He sees this as the first step in creating a theory of consciousness.

The point I saw Chomsky making about this was that Chalmers' approach seems to suggest that we understand matter as thoroughly as possible, and we don't. I don't think Chalmers does assume that. He's a soft ontological anti-realist, so there's mysterianism in that. We have no vantage point on the physical/mental divide, so these terms aren't drawn from observation, they're just useful residents of thought. See what I mean?

The point I saw Chomsky making about this was that Chalmers' approach seems to suggest that we understand matter as thoroughly as possible, and we don't. I don't think Chalmers does assume that. — frank

The first sentence is crucial, in that we do not "understand matter as thoroughly as possible." That is exactly right. In fact, as Strawson and Chomsky point out, it was precisely this very assumption that made Descartes postulate a second substance, res cogitans.

It turns out he was wrong then, Dennett and the Churchlands are making the same mistake now, only with updated physics.

See what I mean? — frank

In the essay, he doesn't pick put Chalmers specifically, he quotes the "hard problem". So while Chalmers may have been the one to coin it in this manner, Chomsky's comments need not be directed at him at all.

For Chomsky, as these terms are commonly used today, "physical" stands in for what we more or less theoretically understand, physics, biology, etc.

"Non-physical" stand in for those things we don't understand the mind, consciousness, thinking, etc.

It turns out he was wrong then, Dennett and the Churchlands are making the same mistake now, only with updated physics, — Manuel

Maybe it's normal to try to push our present conceptual scheme to its limits before giving up and calling for new ways of thinking.

I'm pretty unsatisfied with Dennett because he doesn't really push the envelope. His ambitions seem to be limited to casting doubt that we need new ideas.

For Chomsky, as these terms are commonly used today, "physical" stands in for what we more or less theoretically understand, physics, biology, etc.

"Non-physical" stand in for those things we don't understand the mind, consciousness, thinking, etc — Manuel

So in the past, "physical" was things like billiard balls. Now it covers the whole range of the objects of theory. :up: If we don't have a theory for it, it's non-physical.

Maybe it's normal to try to push our present conceptual scheme to its limits before giving up and calling for new ways of thinking.

I'm pretty unsatisfied with Dennett because he doesn't really push the envelope. His ambitions seem to be limited to casting doubt that we need new ideas. — frank

I mean, one thing is to read his essays. But to listen to his lectures or interviews, I find it pretty remarkable. He's like "it's obvious that this and this will happen in such systems" and "of course this will happen given natural selection."

He even said regarding Chomsky and mysteries-for-humans, something like "it doesn't follow, I mean, do apes have language, can they ask all the questions we can ask?"

As if being able to ask a question means we can answer them. I find it embarrassing. But, many like him and think it's worth pursuing his ideas.

So in the past, "physical" was things like billiard balls. Now it covers the whole range of the objects of theory. :up: If we don't have a theory for it, it's non-physical. — frank

Yep, exactly.

mean, one thing is to read his essays. But to listen to his lectures or interviews, I find it pretty remarkable. He's like "it's obvious that this and this will happen in such systems" and "of course this will happen given natural selection." — Manuel

Yep. Same with his ideas about morality: all bluster and nothing of substance behind it.

Ah right so you're just restating your claims without addressing anything I said. — StreetlightX

Yes, because you haven't demonstrated a great understanding of what's being claimed, nor displayed a tone of openness to the ideas.

The authorities you cite may very well be correct, but in order for me to really know I'd have to read responses from Chomsky and proponents of his theory, see if what they say makes sense, cite them, etc. This then becomes a game of two internet forum members trying to out-do one another by citing works from a field they're not themselves experts in. We could do the same thing with quantum mechanics as well. I'd rather not play that game, as interesting as it may be.

I'm not a linguist, and frankly don't care very much whether Chomsky is right or wrong on this issue -- I'll let the experts in that field work that out with new evidence and new theories. What I object to specifically in your claims, is the characterization of his work as "creationist" and "theological," which still strikes me as completely unsubstantiated, and pretty clearly motivated by other factors.

Yes, because you haven't demonstrated a great understanding of what's being claimed, nor displayed a tone of openness to the ideas. — Xtrix

Yes, because I don't believe that religion ought to be accorded any respect whatsoever, especially religion masquerading as science, still less religion that has effectively set back linguistics by an order of decades. You may not like that Chomsky is a closet creationist, or that his writing is indistinguishable from theology, or the fact that you are an effective temple devotee - but that is your problem, not mine.

Dor again is worth quoting as usual (emphasis in the original!):

After fifty years of research, all that is left is the original assumption of infinite generativity—the idea that everything we ever do and experience, which is finite by definition, is always an arbitrary obstacle on our way toward the fulfillment and understanding of our infinite linguistic potential. This is a philosophical assumption, actually a religious assumption, that goes against the very idea of science. In this sense, the series of articles by Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch might be more favorably read as joint statements of resignation: we have tried to find common ground between linguistics and evolutionary science; as far as the periphery of language is concerned, we believe there is no real problem; at its core, however, language still seems to defy the mode of explanation that is at the core of evolutionary theory; maybe, only maybe, what we believe about the core of language might be reconciled with something at the periphery of evolutionary theory; but beyond that, we really have nothing to offer. The mystery is there to stay.

Hence my original claim that the article in the OP is nothing other than a bunch of scaffolding to justify Chomsky's linguistic creationism.

I don't believe that religion ought to be accorded any respect whatsoever — StreetlightX

I disagree with this in general.

Regarding Chomsky's work as "religion" or "pseudoscience," I have yet to see any substantiation from you. Again, parroting a handful of experts doesn't prove anything except that you have -- for whatever reason -- chosen to believe that this is "the" truth. What it is, in reality, is a genuine scientific debate, so far as I can see. I've often heard Chomsky use "dogma" to describe gradualism in evolutionary theory, which is also not too helpful. But I wouldn't consider traditional Darwinists to be on the level of creationists.

Ironically enough, you're using the same tactics actual creationists use against "evolutionists" -- and with the same conviction. They also gladly seize upon genuine scientific debate as a means to paint it all as religious.

After fifty years of research, all that is left is the original assumption of infinite generativity

Hardly true. Which you'd know if you read anything outside of Tomasello, Dor, and Everett.

the idea that everything we ever do and experience, which is finite by definition, is always an arbitrary obstacle on our way toward the fulfillment and understanding of our infinite linguistic potential. This is a philosophical assumption, actually a religious assumption

Maybe. But unfortunately for Dor, this has nothing to do with digital infinity or recursive enumeration. I doubt Dor himself knows what "infinite linguistic potential" even means. You won't find any such claims in Chomsky.

This is why I think this discussion -- and most discussions with you -- are pointless. Unfortunate, given that we share similar interests. So it goes.

Which you'd know if you read anything outside the Tomasello, Dor, and Everett. — Xtrix

One day you'll cite someone other than Chomsky, and then you'll be allowed to talk.

"Here the best starting point for distinguishing between the two usages is to note that the animate and the inanimate often elicit different linguistic treatment. Languages, for instance, tend to structure narratives from the perspective of people (especially the first person), rather than things, so people are more likely to be sentence subjects, things to be objects."

-- How Dead Languages Work by Coulter George

So languages tend to be structured to distinguish animate from inanimate, and to specify a pov. That would be a reason to lean toward a soft mysterianism. We'd have to transcend our own language structure to embrace any kind of monism without basically belying it with every sentence.

So this is Sapir-Whorf territory. The movie Arrival is about that. Plus early USSR poets thought a drastic linguistic change would have to accompany their new culture.

Sapir-Whorf has been studied for decades, it turns out to not hold up to scrutiny, which is not to say that different languages may express very specific things differently, for instance, the Aboriginals instead of having a word for "red" say "like blood", and so on. Similar curiosities arise in different cultures.

Sure. A soft version of Sapir-Whorf is generally accepted by linguists. It's the hard version that's rejected.

ds

It's the simple view that there are things we can know and things we cannot, given that we are natural creatures. Not in this essay, but in a different one, he distinguishes between "problems" and "mysteries", problems are those questions we can ask and (hopefully) answer. "Mysteries" are those we can ask and not answer, such as say, free will or how is it possible for matter to think? Then there are questions we can't even ask, because we don't know how to phrase them.

This would give an "updated" view on the intuitive aspect:

https://cprtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/COMPLETE-REPORT-Goswami-Childrens-Cognitive-Development-and-Learning.pdf

Particularly "naive physics" p.6. — Manuel

Yes, there is an interesting body of research in psychology and education regarding "folk" or "naive" conceptions of the world and their relation to science. What has been found is that folk have fairly robust beliefs and (arguably) theories concerning the operation of the physical world, that they often conflict with the scientific view, and that they are resistant to modification via scientific instruction (though the extent of their incorrigibility is debated). Is this what you think Chomsky means with his "mysteries"?

The claim itself is unremarkable, considering that it has been known and studied for decades. But the implication of the unintelligibility of the world and impossibility of knowledge is nonsense. Intelligibility and knowledge aren't about innate intuitions, or else we would have to say that pretty much our entire body of so-called knowledge isn't actually intelligible to us! This is just language on holiday.

The 17th century scientific revolution was a reaction to Aristotelean physics, which postulated occult forces that no longer made sense. But of course, Aristotle was taken very seriously and was considered by many to be among the greatest of thinkers, no doubt about that. Aristotle was likely highlighting other aspects of our innate "folk psychology", putting emphasis on different aspects of the world, which were not satisfactory for many of the 17th century figures. — Manuel

The conception of the world as a mechanical contraption, which Chomsky identifies with materialism and contrasts with later scientific ideas, such as Newton's gravity, is actually pretty specific to that time and place on which he dwells the most. I am sure that it has connections with folk physics, but I don't think that it is identical to it. Those materialists were pretty sophisticated folk, for better or for worse.

I'd only quibble that I don't think physicists have intuitions about how gravity works, they have intuitions about how theories about gravity work and how they can relate to other phenomena in the world. The intuition would be on the theory side. — Manuel

Point taken, these are not identical to physical intuitions, as those psychology studies that we've been referring to show.

The main topic of the essay, as I read it, is that we've lowered the standards of science, we no longer seek to understand the world, but seek theories about aspects of the world. That's a big lowering of standards of explanation. — Manuel

But whose standards are these? Who ever thought that a newborn babe, so to speak, could intuitively grasp how the world works, down to the very foundations?

This is why I am skeptical that this is really what Chomsky was driving at - that he was even driving at any such specific thesis. He seems perfectly happy and engaged with his dilettante notes on the history and philosophy of science, but I don't see him pushing hard for some grand claim.

As for your last question, I think, in the end, the point is going to be person dependent. For me, it's quite crazy that we understand so little and that the world exists at all, it's baffling to me. There's no reason to expect any species to evolve having a capacity to ask and answer questions about the world at all, there's no obvious benefit to doing these things. — Manuel

Well, evolution is notorious for its lack of foresight. I also don't think that there was any simple and specific reason for this outcome.

Is this what you think Chomsky means with his "mysteries"? — SophistiCat

It's studying what the classics - up till Newton - and a bit beyond him, took to be a fact about the world, that we could understand it. We can't. What we can understand are theories about the world, which do give us interesting insights - as seen by modern physics. But it's way less than what they (Descartes, Newton, Locke, Hume, Leibniz, etc.) would have wanted and thought possible.

So that we can't understand the world, as opposed to theories about it, is the mystery. Now as you say, we take it for granted, it's not a surprise, because we've gotten used to it.

The claim itself is unremarkable, considering that it has been known and studied for decades. But the implication of the unintelligibility of the world and impossibility of knowledge is nonsense. Intelligibility and knowledge aren't about innate intuitions, or else we would have to say that pretty much our entire body of so-called knowledge isn't actually intelligible to us! This is just language on holiday. — SophistiCat

That's true, now. Not then.

I also agree it is nonsense to argue about the "impossibility of knowledge". Chomsky doesn't say that at all. Otherwise, why would he bother developing linguistics?

Unintelligibility of the world, not about theories concerning it.

He written a decent amount about "language going on holiday". This video is less than an hour long, but he discusses much of what he takes to be confusions in contemporary philosophy, largely based on mistaken technical notions. I'll post it here for anyone interested, but I don't expect anyone to see it all, there's already too much in the essay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHS1NraVsAc

But whose standards are these? Who ever thought that a newborn babe, so to speak, could intuitively grasp how the world works, down to the very foundations?

This is why I am skeptical that this is really what Chomsky was driving at - that he was even driving at any such specific thesis. He seems perfectly happy and engaged with his dilettante notes on the history and philosophy of science, but I don't see him pushing hard for some grand claim. — SophistiCat

By the standards of essentially all the early modern scientists. They had what we still have, an innate "mechanistic" understanding of the world, they thought the world worked like this.

Chomsky is simply quoting distinguished figures from Descartes to Newton, implying he agrees with them. The sources he gives are easy to find and I think back up his interpretation.

It's perhaps difficult now, because we've advanced quite a lot in science, in terms of technique and theory formation. We take too much for granted.

I suppose one should keep in mind that they lived in a time in which they believed in God and that the world existed for a reason. It wouldn't make sense for God to create a world which we can't understand - save by theories about it. We now don't use God.

I think the same arguments can be rephrased by using "nature" instead of God. But this may be a reason for thinking this essay is missing something.

Well, evolution is notorious for its lack of foresight. I also don't think that there was any simple and specific reason for this outcome. — SophistiCat

Yep. Maybe no reasons at all, just chance and luck. If we are the only creature with the capacity for knowledge in the entire universe, which could be the case, then that's pretty mind boggling to me.

I want to say, first, that I approve of your sense of wonder.

@SophistiCat, I read a lot of what you post and generally find it both well-informed and level-headed, but as long as I’ve been reading you, you have remained, shall we say, unimpressed by such expressions of wonder and bafflement. For you, if there’s a theory that works, all strangeness of the phenomena accounted for is banished, and no strangeness attaches to a theory that is successful. I’m exaggerating, I suppose, but have I mistaken your attitude?

I'll venture out on a limb. What I often find most interesting in philosophy is something that looks like it might not be philosophy at all, but rather “psychology of philosophy”. I’m thinking of the way Wittgenstein describes us as held captive by a picture we have of how language works, or Sellars’s discussion of the myth of the given or of the manifest and scientific images of man. It seems more and more to me that the “deep structure”, if I may put it that way, of philosophy (because, of thought) is not really logical at all, but something more like this. This might be in the neighborhood of Lakoff with his metaphors, or even Jung with his myths and archetypes. As I said, I’m out on a limb here.

Now, @Manuel, when you say that today’s scientists, and by extension those of us who have realigned our worldview to theirs, to whatever degree, only understand their theories, not the world, I wonder if we could take this as an inability to form a new picture (or metaphor) to go with the theory. “Inability” would support the idea of a limit to what we can understand; perhaps it’s enough to say that we haven’t yet come up with such a picture. The old picture still holds us captive, and perhaps we’re stuck with it, as a bequest from Darwin. (Sellars thought it was inevitable that the manifest image be replaced by the scientific image, but that it was an uncomfortable process, and he advocated a “stereoscopic vision”.) Or perhaps not. But these things tend to be old, and, until someone brings them to light, unnoticed. Jung specifically places this sort of thing in the unconscious, apparently with good reason, so you have to wonder just how much they are within our “control”. (And of course Wittgenstein is widely read as suggesting that what’s needed to deal with such a complex is therapy.)

It does seem to me that understanding might find its home around here, in this sort of pre-logical, perhaps metaphorical or pictorial layer, and this is worlds away from knowing how to operate a theory like a bit of machinery.

I want to say, first, that I approve of your sense of wonder. — Srap Tasmaner

Thanks. I fully agree with Raymond Tallis when he says "In the beginning was astonishment."



That looks accurate to me and it makes sense, once we move away from intuitions - including "naïve realism" - to see what's "really" there, we lack the capacity to form a good picture as it forces us into a world which we don't experience as science describes.

We see red and blue, not photons hitting the eye. We see stable objects, not objects in two states at once, etc.

As for us yet not having a good metaphor, that's true. We cannot shrink to QM scales and are forced to use analogies from the manifest image, like dropping a pebble on a lake, and speaking of "waves" in the quantum world in a similar-ish manner, just to get a picture.

Even this image is not quite correct, so we need to get an even stranger analogy and distort that to some extent, to even get any "picture" at all.

Here's actually a very good video directed at newbies to QM (I'm not far from being one), but I think the imagery used here may approximate what you have in mind. He's an excellent popularizer, I think:

The "useful imagery" begins at 3:00 min, but especially at 4:40.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlEovwE1oHI&t=500s

As for your last sentence, that's likely really crucial. This is where Cartesian "creativity" comes in or the "imagination" as Hume uses the phrase.

Descartes in no small measure postulated his second substance in an attempt to try and make sense of this, as even by his standards, mechanistic materialism could not explain it. For Hume, the imagination is a mystery.

But it's fundamental to human beings, maybe our most unique trait. It's what we do almost all the time. When it's done by smart people, it can lead to deeper understanding - as Einstein's "happiest thought" demonstrated.

Apropos of some of the ideas discussed this thread, if not of Chomsky in particular, I've found an intriguing chapter by Neal Stephenson, well known as a sci-fi and fantasy author, but in this case concerning the metaphysical implications of Liebniz' and Newton's debates. It can be found here http://faculty.cord.edu/andersod/Stephenson-Metaphysics.pdf

If I remember correctly, the biggest dispute between Leibniz and Newton was concerning the importance of Newton's "momentum", mass times velocity, which Leibniz called dead force, in relation to Leibniz's "vis viva" (living force), which he expressed as mass times velocity squared. It turned out that the two principles are not incompatible, but Leibniz's principle became far more useful, and central to the concept of energy.

There’s an essay I read many years ago, I think it must have been by Howard Nemerov, where he defines poetry as “getting something right in language”. His example, if I recall correctly, came from a journal of Audubon’s — I forget the details, but it was something like this: he described some species of bluebird as looking just like a sparrow that had been dipped in blue ink. Now, of course, that’s not something one could actually do with a living bird, and even with a dead one it would not have the effect Audubon suggests, and yet as an image it strikes home. We understand it, and Nemerov seizes on just this sort of feat of imagination as characteristic of poetry. (Perhaps in this essay or in another, he devotes several pages to Herbert’s metaphorical description of prayer as “reversed thunder”.)

So yes I agree that imagination belongs here, and in particular as a perhaps unlikely source of understanding — “unlikely” because we might be tempted to align understanding with, you know, reality, and imagination not. Or we might say something about the value of hypothetical thinking (in counterfactual reasoning, prediction, and so on) and reduce imagination to a sort of technique we use for grasping reality analytically. But it could very well be the other way around, that it’s imaginative understanding we seek, and in some cases analysis can help us achieve that — if it provides a way to leverage understanding we already possess.

It's very hard to say. Hume, for instance, argues that what we get are perceptions and form ideas out of these. But for many ideas, the imagination must play a role, such as registering an object as being the same throughout time.

So we could have a realism in which we take what we directly experience as "more true" to what's in the world than what our ideas add to this. But one must imagine that when great new theories are put forth, it's only possible because of our imagination, thus, there's something about it which is more accurate as to the nature of the world than perception.

Animals can't formulate theories and are stuck in the present. As we gain sophistication in terms of mental power, we pierce further in the universe.

So I don't know. Maybe imagination has nothing to do with what's out there, and what matters are theories that get things right, we happen to get help by ways of using it. On the other hand, perhaps there's no understanding at all, without imagination.

We don't know enough to be able to say definitely in such a dense topic.

But one must imagine that when great new theories are put forth, it's only possible because of our imagination, thus, there's something about it which is more accurate as to the nature of the world than perception. — Manuel

As we gain sophistication in terms of mental power, we pierce further in the universe. — Manuel

This is a good point, and one that hadn't occurred to me. But the question seems to be whether we can form a "clear and distinct idea" of what we theorize. And, as you suggest, maybe we can't, but that's just the way it is, and the products of our imagination, in one sense, reach beyond what we can imagine, in another sense. If so, that in itself is an interesting result. That something like this goes on is old news -- mathematicians routinely deal with many-dimensional spaces that they cannot picture, and so in that sense can't imagine, for instance. What remains at issue would be the claim that in doing so we understand the theory, not the object treated of by the theory.

On the other hand, the cognitive scientists are going to tell us that all we've ever understood are theories we generate unconsciously. But there may still be a difference in kind, if our "native" theorizing hooks up to particular cognitive capacities that our scientific theories don't.

And, as you suggest, maybe we can't, but that's just the way it is, and the products of our imagination, in one sense, reach beyond what we can imagine, in another sense. If so, that in itself is an interesting result. — Srap Tasmaner

I think so.

I mean, it's the question Hawking asks: "what breathes fire into the equations"? They're mathematical theories that happen to link up with the world, somehow. That's modern physics.

We can come up with nice artistic illustrations that may help a bit. I like them, seeing equations only few people get doesn't really excite my mind.

On the other hand, the cognitive scientists are going to tell us that all we've ever understood are theories we generate unconsciously. But there may still be a difference in kind, if our "native" theorizing hooks up to particular cognitive capacities that our scientific theories don't. — Srap Tasmaner

It's hard to doubt that most of what we "process" goes on outside our immediate awareness.

For me, as pertaining to this essay and how I view the subject, is this: say you're at a park, seeing some people play football (soccer). They pass the ball one to other. We see a foot strike the ball with a certain force, we project the ball will go to the other person.

Say one of the people playing kicks the ball really hard and the ball goes off in the distance, that's not confusing. We get that, we "understand" at this level, that if a person kicks a rubber object, these things will follow.

The problem starts when we become puzzled about this common sense. It may even begin by seeing an apple falling from a tree and asking why does it drop instead of going up or shooting sideways?

After that, all bets are off.

The problem starts when we become puzzled about this common sense. — Manuel

Yes, one result of this sort of thing might be a scientific theory that works, whether we exactly understand it or not, or do in some senses but not others. (It's Asimov, right? Discoveries begin not with "Eureka!" but with "That's funny...")

On the other hand, you might note that the apple falling makes sense to you, but shouldn't.

In both science and philosophy, theorizing ought to save the appearances, even when that's our own habitual worldview. For example, a theory that we have nothing like what we think of as free will ought also to explain why it seems to us that we do. Or, in the case of the falling apple, there ought to be an explanation for why we don't find its behavior surprising.

But first there's the imaginative leap (something like Pound's "Make it new!") of seeing the ordinary as strange. It's the crucial step for everything from science to poetry to political activism. And by definition, that step is all about us, about, at the very least, our expectations and prejudices. You can see this beautifully in Plato's dialogues, when Socrates's interlocutors so often experience a sort of vertigo. ("I thought I knew what love is, but now that you ask, I don't know.") And there again it's a question of how our various capacities hook up one with another -- not everything you understand can readily be put into words, for instance.

What then, after all, are we up to when doing philosophy?

On the other hand, you might note that the apple falling makes sense to you, but shouldn't. — Srap Tasmaner

It's close to this, not exactly though. The apple falling does make sense to us and probably should, given (probably, I'm totally guessing) elementary survival needs. If we needed to question the need for apples falling, we would probably be killed.

Or, in the case of the falling apple, there ought to be an explanation for why we don't find its behavior surprising. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes.

We see surprise in other intelligent animals rather intermittently and for very few phenomena.

The issue becomes if we begin to question this. Why do apples fall and not rise? There's nothing in experience that guarantees that apples won't go up next time they "break away" from a tree.

It's a bit tough to phrase out, but you more than get the gist here. I'm impressed. It's really about being baffled, I think. Most people - this isn't a criticism by the way - just aren't. Things work the way they do because that's what they do.

I get that attitude too, but it misses out or overlooks on important aspects about ourselves and the world.

And there again it's a question of how our various capacities hook up one with another -- not everything you understand can readily be put into words, for instance.

What then, after all, are we up to when doing philosophy? — Srap Tasmaner

Everybody has different interests. Some like to have clarity of thought, others want to unite the sciences. Many care about ethics, etc, etc.

Speaking for myself, I suppose it's taking the given and seeing that it's extremely far from being a "free lunch".

The apple falling does make sense to us and probably should — Manuel

There's nothing in experience that guarantees that apples won't go up next time they "break away" from a tree. — Manuel

I guess in our context here, the idea is that we can see no reason for the apple to fall, but we have observed the constant conjunction of <apple detaching> and <apple falling> so we have induction to justify the reasonableness of the apple falling — but nothing justifies our use of induction. This is tricky territory if we expect making sense and being justified always to go together. Or maybe not — if we allow that induction itself doesn’t actually make sense!

The wonder thing — it’s got two sides: there’s mystery, the confrontation with what exceeds our understanding; but then there’s seeing what’s familiar in a new light, and that involves a step of defamiliarizing — the temporary mystery — but the experience is completed in an illumination of the familiar, a deeper understanding of what we had understood somewhat superficially. We can, sometimes, through discipline, defamiliarize the ordinary, but that’s not the final goal. (I’ll keep quoting poets, this time Eliot from Four Quartets: “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”)

At a glance, it looks like the first sort would be primary, and that we defamiliarize the ordinary because we have had the experience of confronting something new, and then learning to understand it. We aim to mimic that experience by making the familiar new. Sometimes this may be more or less forced upon us — if we’re brought up short, if our expectations of how something familiar would be behave are not met. But it’s hard to see how we could mimic that experience. Instead, it looks like we need to begin with something like a suspicion that perhaps there is more here than meets the eye. We have to imagine that our understanding — which has proven its adequacy — is incomplete. That’s a curious thing. Having merely opened the door there, it’s generally not hard to begin asking questions that are difficult to answer. — But maybe it takes no such effort of imagination; maybe most of our beliefs show themselves inadequate at some point, and we’re just adept at ignoring their shortcomings. In that case, the trick would be catching yourself in the act of sweeping problems under the rug.

Historically, simplifying a great deal and looking at tendencies while skipping major figures, I think that Descartes invoked God as an assurance that we can't obviously be mistaken about our common beliefs. Though we can't explain mind, we can say a great deal about bodes.

Along comes Locke and says, we can't go that far, yes, ultimately, we are in the hands of the Almighty for ultimate causes, because we just don't understand them.

But already there are seeds that, by merely looking at ordinary objects, we have trouble, we can't really say if secondary qualities exist in the objects or not, but it doesn't matter for our practical affairs. Nor do we know essences - if they even exist.

Then Hume comes along and says, all we have empirical verifiable evidence for is constant conjunction, but this does not mean that's all there is to causality, it's merely what we can say with confidence about it.

Many things, including experiencing one object being the same after two different instances of perception are a "fiction" - his word - meaning, more than can be empirically verified, but a sensible postulate. Along with this, he points out that our individuating objects as one being different from another, is another fiction, useful, but not at all certain.

Beyond that, going through Kant and beyond, the project seems to me to simultaneously show how little we can say confidently about the world, while sticking to causal relations, connected by us and assumed to belong to the world - and we've had great success.

But as each major figure advances, the key is, as you say, being utterly baffled by what we assume to be true and realizing, after close scrutiny, that our common sense beliefs do not hold up to the mind-independent world. I think the case is both, our understanding is in fact incomplete and we have to catch ourselves from sweeping things under the rug. Today we hear people say "that obviously follows from learning/natural selection/laws of physics".

The problem here, is that the gap between physics and biology to the psychology of a human being, in terms of complexity, is just massive.

Instead of (one of the versions of) the epistle I could post here, I'll just say this: your principal concern seems to be with the perceived conflict between our everyday understanding of things and the scientific view; my principal concern is that we don't generally understand our everyday view at all. For me, the value of the step of wonder or bafflement is to see the everyday view as a view, to scrub off the patina of "natural" it has acquired. (Really don't like the word "view" here, much less "theory", but there you go.)