Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Durnavich
In these types of discussions, when I think that somebody is trying to reduce meaning (or most any mental concept) to a singular something, perhaps in the head, I try to widen the focus to also include the environment and our achievements in that environment.
|
But that is not at all what you are doing in this discussion, ergo the objections you face. Had you actually been doing that, you would have been trying to bring attention to "the environment and achievements" related to making models. You would also have found out dramatically such modeling has assisted us in reaching these achievements, and gave us power over our environment. Instead, you have steadfastly and mysteriously attempted to downgrade the extreme importance of understanding and using models. That is where you have run into considerable difficulty here.
Quote:
|
For purposes of illustration, we might say that the meaning of something is smeared out a bit over space and time.
|
Fine, you are welcome to "smear" the meaning of "model" over space and time if you like-- but that still in no way refutes what models are and how completely we rely on them. Models are simplified descriptions that we create in our minds to unify what we view as the relevant or important elements of disparate complex phenomena. They can be vague if they are only informing vague predictions, or they can be mathematically precise and quantitative if they are informing quantitative predictions. That's just what they are, "smear them over space and time" all you like. In science, we tend to prefer the latter type, so we focus on situations where we can accomplish that.
Quote:
|
You sometimes counter that is too complex and risks involving too much, whereas I think our talent as understanders is that we can manage such subtle complexities.
|
And the way we do that is almost entirely by making models. You are even doing it yourself right now, when you say we "learn from context"-- you have a model in mind for what that means, otherwise, the words say nothing other than "we live". We already knew that part.
Quote:
|
Are models (or consciousness, or selves, or perceptions, or anything else you and I bicker about endlessly) something I should be immediately and intuitively grasping through some special faculty of insight?
|
Well, you are certainly using them. So it only means, "pay attention to what you are doing when you think".
Quote:
|
Instead of detailing models themselves, you just talk about what models supposedly enable people to do.
|
That's a preposterous claim. I have in countless instances defined what models
are, and indeed did so again just above. Equally obvious is that what they enable us to do is part of what they are-- they allow us to unify experiences and make predictions at a useful level of reliability.
Quote:
|
But if all you can really talk about is human action, well, then that pretty much becomes my point that it is the action, and the contexts it occurs in, that matters here.
|
This is also just a game of words. Obviously every model I can cite was made by people, because I know nothing of how other animals, make models. Furthermore, we use our minds to make models, and we are therefore
doing something. Thus your position here amounts to the tautology that the action of making a model is a human behavior. That tells me exactly nothing about models, but is pretty obvious, yes.