Yes, I've had to explore the organic, that which doesn't develop logically. Evolution is perhaps the best example but also morality, a product of evolution.Do you think any thought would qualify as insight if it wasn't logical? — TheMadFool
Nah, vision doesn't use logic and the processes are essentially the same.The bottomline is that logic is a necessary part of the definition of insight. No logic, no insight. — TheMadFool
Nah again. A problem with insight is that it is a pattern recognition mechanism and the human mind will sometimes create patterns when there isn't one or even produce tautologies. Then those insights can be examined with logic to confirm them or disprove them or show them to be logical fluff like tautologies. Obviously then insight occurs before logic. Sight does not use logic and neither does insight.of our intuition that to be an insight it is necessary for it to be logical. — TheMadFool
That's your privilege. Einstein believed that, but then he fell by the wayside of theoretical physics as quantum physics explained that some things did occur randomly.I believe in a deterministic world, where every action was caused by something else. — ep3265
Fine, but what is the function of the neural net in biology and machines then? What does it do? I refer to its output as insight. What do you call it?Insight in my opinion is a educated guess done by a somewhat ignorant person. — christian2017
They do contradict each other. That is why I asked how much insight was considered as a source for philosophy. If insight precedes logic and can provide understandings that that logic can only communicate but not produce, how do you consider logic preeminent?These two statements seem to be contradicting each other or if not, it clearly asserts the preeminence of logic. — TheMadFool
There is a lot that follows insight but like sight or a computer neural net, it is pattern recognition. In both of those cases, there are existing structures to recognize the elements, but they work together to make a whole. With sight, there is no partial perception before recognition. Before insight there may be perception that there is a flawed pattern, but I think that is still the same pattern recognition function of the neural net.Although we started off by associating pattern recognition with insight, I think there's something more to it than just that. — TheMadFool
Very good. This is a case where logical analysis would solve a problem. Cyber crimes themselves are fairly easy to spot, but then again, the first ransomware was the AIDS Trojan in 1989. I bet it puzzled the heck out of some people until they had the insight to figure out what caused it. Even if they were to analyze it and figure out the mechanism of it, it was insight that put together that it was from the floppy disk given out at the AIDS conference.Cyber-crime is a recent development and when the first laws were drafted there were no precedents - no patterns. In such cases we would need to identify the critical and nonessential elements of cyber-crime and work from these to laws that make sense. — TheMadFool
- Thank you...While logic seems to be the demonstrably best tool for philosophy, that doesn't mean intuition and other things can't be used even if they end up being ultimately judged by logic. — Qmeri
What I was asking... I think they should become aware of it though.Fundamentally, I don't think that most philosophers care where an idea came from. — Qmeri
Not necessarily. It's easy to get into a tautology without realizing it. It can take quite a while to work through the logic before you find that you are comparing A to A which is useless rather than A to B which may show something new.Logic never gets it wrong — Siti
I didn't say that all patterns led to understandings, but understandings do come from recognizing patterns. Patterns are how humans understand. Are they reflections of reality? Probably. Just as Hegel pointed out that atomic theory said that our perceptions of objects are relatively objective, so too an understanding of biology can lead to some objective understanding of life.What on earth is a pattern anyway? — TheMadFool
I agree with the second part, but the point is I don't think the first part is very true. Logic is very limited (like computer programs) due to complexity. Insight is far more revealing, but then must be converted to logic. It is far more likely that insight rather than logic showed Newton the relationship between heavenly bodies and the falling apple. He then had to explain it to others logically.logic is basically a pattern of thinking that leads to truths. Logic is a codification of valid forms of argumentation which are basically patterns of "correct" thinking. — TheMadFool
Your mention of Newton would be a perfect example if he figured them out at the same time using the data from both. That's unlikely though. The story about the apple is more likely in the sense that he had an insight... then you tend to have a cascade of insights.What do you mean by "super patterns"? — TheMadFool
- Actually, it probably does take a lot of time, but it is not processing you can perceive. If you go through a logical process in your mind, you are very aware of it. You are no more aware of the process leading to insight than you are to sight, It also takes repeated insights. The insights build, but they are not in a form that human memory is good at retaining. Then visual memory is quite limited as well. At some point though, the person can retain the insight enough to start converting it to words. Also, there will be uncertainties to it which can be logically resolved. Those processes are automatically triggered and you can sometimes be aware of them, but they also can be out of the mind's sight or you can work on them consciously. First though must come the insight. Without it, there is nothing for the logic to try to resolve. Now consider that I said I had an insight that the pursuit of perfection (Perfect Forms) described by Plato was what resulted in the weird nature of God described by the Medieval Catholics (how many angels dancing on the head of a pin). I logically leveraged that to say that I think my friend was looking for perfection (multiplying by infinity) in his diatribes about machine intelligence (the singularity). The first understanding took insight, the second was a logical extension of the first... the apple falling, heavenly bodies orbiting...I don't know why you brought up the notion of suddenness into insight
-- ... Uhhhh, no. I mentioned the pattern recognition of the neural net, biological or machine as a pattern recognition function. I guess it removes what is not part of the pattern, but the point is it "sees" the pattern. It just ignores the clutter. Focus on the pattern is absolute. I should have compared insight to sight because they are the same mechanism, a neural net, and vision is more familiar. With sight, you just look and it sees the pattern or it doesn't. Vision research shows that you see the outlines, then the elements, then the location of the elements in the outline, etc., but it's all pretty fast and automatic. If you don't see the pattern, it's usually easier to blink and start over than to work on it. Even if you concentrate on something to figure out parts of what you are seeing, it will still be the neural net that suddenly picks up the pattern and shows it to you.Insight would, in this context, be the ability to identify such elements, separate the wheat from the chaff and once that's done you can hope for a more productive engagement. — TheMadFool
-- Such a fascinating view, and sometimes applicable, but usually secondarily. There is the flash of insight that recognizes a single pattern. Any recognition of related patterns and relatedness can only follow, but yes, it does. An insight leads to other insights. It can be quite a high, the ecstasy of understanding.I don't know how related insight is to pattern recognition but the latter brings to the table a very powerful tool to philosophical investigations because of how the recognition of a common pattern between two entirely different problems will enable the solution to one applicable, at least in principle, to the other. — TheMadFool
Insight, to me is that flash of understanding we have. Not logic, not analysis, but the almost instant function of recognition of the mind. It is not unique to humans either nor just to highly intelligent humans, though it's highest function is what is typically called genius.I'm a little bit confused by the OP linking "insight" (whatever that is) with "pattern recognition", which is sometimes, it seems to me, the opposite of "insightfulness". For example: — Siti
That is sight, not insight. As I said, it is extremely similar to insight. It is the opposite of apophenia. It is the perception of one thing, an integral object.One person sees a face, another sees a natural rock formation. Which observer has "insight" and which is recognizing patterns? — Siti
Quite true. Insight existed long before language, but until it is converted into cultural tools such as language or mathematics that can be communicated, it's not useful and is even hard to remember. Once converted to cultural tools, the insight can be communicated and also then evaluated logically. It can also then transmit the understanding that the insight created in the first place. I just wonder how often in philosophy, after an understanding has been explained with cultural tools (language) is it recognized that it was not logic that led to the understanding. It only led to the communication and verification of the understanding. I only ask because I've repeatedly read that philosophy is only advanced by logic and reason, but I think understanding is primarily advanced by insights from the neural net, which are not based on logic. Logic only follows.I guess any such insight would have to be shown to conform to logic before it could be established as a "philosophical advance". Wouldn't it? — Siti