From Subjective Facts to Objective Facts

[Agent Smith]

Did he have a predicament?
Which one was that?

Believe me, you don't wanna know.

I don't do belief.
So tell me!

Perhaps it's me fooling me.

[Sculptor]

Believe me, you don't wanna know.

I don't do belief.
So tell me!

Perhaps it's me fooling me.

It seems like you are blowing yourself

[Skepdick]

I mean sure, in a colloquial sense I am describing that the coffee cup on my desk is red. That is to say it's this color.

And in the sense that they get a description. They may use this in a number of ways. Some perhaps fit my purposes. Some not.
[/quote]
And they use my description in a way that fails to satisfy some purpose, does that mean they didn't get a description?

So, my prescription, which may be down to 'think of it like this' may lead to a range of actions. They get a potential resource - one that may or may not work and to various degrees in different contexts - whatever my intentions.

Yes, but if we already agree on the range of actions we are interested in; or the specific outcomes we are pursuing that already constrains my descriptions only to the subset relevant to the actions in question.

Without such constraints in place there's an infinitude of descriptions. Some incompatible with one another.

I can go along with that, with the proviso that descriptions can be used in ways beyond the scope of my intentions.

That's not really a useful statement. If I don't know what your intentions are - I have no idea how to make sense of your description.

For the question of "WHY are you describing it that particular way from infinitudes of all possible; and potentially incompatible ways?" continues to puzzle me.

But the descriptive element may rest in them and be used later in a variety of ways. Sometimes this will lead to problems because the description doesn't work outside the context where it did work. But some descriptions give a wider range of applications. And some describers get good or bad reputations due to, yes, the appropriateness of their description/prescription to context, but also in some cases because their (intended to be to some degree general) descriptions can be used in a variety of contexts. Sort of like some models/theories in science lead to better hypotheses used in research. Some don't.

But this is the crux of the issue. It's only worthy being called a description in the context of yoru original intention.
At best, it's only worthy of being called a description within contexts which sufficiently overlap with your original intention.
It's most definitely not a description (and could even be construed as a lie) for some other; different intentions.

Effectively, you are saying that descriptions have a domain; or scope; or context of validity. Outside of this scope; or context - they are not worthy of being called "descriptions".

That's at the extreme end of generality.

Obviously. The "extreme end" of generality is the generally general truths. And if truth is the ideal of description then generally general truths are pragmatically useless.

Might it not be the case that stuff more in the middle of spectrum can offer a wide range of applications.

It seems to me that the further you move away from generality (truth) the further away from (ideal of) description we get.

What's in the middle? Half-truth or half lie?

If we are in a cave and I hear a bear grumble and move towards me and my sun in the dark and I know he has no idea what a bear is, me shouting 'run' fiercely is a good prescriptive option. However sitting with him at the homestead, describing this as a large omnivorous and dangerous animal with the following habits I know and reaction they have coming near their cubs and some generalities about their goals, habits and concerns could allow my son to deal with some future situations that are specific but I don't know those specifics. I'm not, as you say, going down to the quantum level, but he doesn't need that.

Of course my description above is not context free. I am generally giving him a how to survive bear encounters information.

But it's more context free than some descriptions. I'm trying to load him up with something to work with in general. Perhaps as an expert I know how bears tend to differentiate between very specific environments (this kind of grove, swampland, banks of rivers) and very specific information about body language or whatever.

But I try to give him a core base description that increases safety now.

But even here it's a pretty focused encounter. I know something generally I want to get in my kid's mind.

For the purpose of survival - even if it's not a bear, it's worth being cautious. Some errors in judgment are more costly than others.

But here you are using "generally" in a funny and context-specific way.

You are "generally" giving him a how to survive bear encounters, but you aren't generally giving him a how to survive. I imagine a "general how to" would be a pretty useful thing, but then again - "know how" and "know that" are viewed very differently by philosophers.

What philosophers tend to call "facts" is know-that, not know-how.

But humans are also exploring with less clear goals and contexts. Building up stores of info and models. This can be useful but the encounter may be elicited by someone wanting to building up a range of knowledge, a lot of descriptions. Which will then be field tested by life and encounters with books, researchers, people, building sites, microscope use, whatever.

Just as your knowledge of programming is finding a wider range of applications than you might have intended. And, yes, you pass this on in specific contexts, but they may now be used by use in the future in ways unintended and not connected.

Well, yes - we have a name for this issue in programming. We call it "the expression problem"

We find it difficult to express how a particular action/operation/verb (e.g know how) can transpose in applicability to different situations.
This was the core/essence of me pointing out that the verb "+" in Mathematics takes on very different behaviours in different situations.

It's one and the same general issue: How to behave in the universe.

For the purposes of keeping your carpet dry that seems like a sufficient description of what's going on.

OK, yes, a description.

But devoid of purpose - is it still a description?
For the purposes of growing carrots - is it still a description?

Aren't our efforts with ourselves and others also to get at description?

For its own sake? I hope not!

I generally agree, though I am just plain curious. Now my curiosity may be an effective trait. I end up gathering stuff, enough of which is useful (taken in the broadest sense) to offset the energy put in to finding out stuff that never is. So, what may see like for it's own sake (curiosity) may be useful. Or it may be useful to follow one'se curiosity even if one has not the slightest idea why it may be useful and without that motivation (as far as we can tell involved).

Also learning about one thing, I dunno tanning hides, may never lead to my tanning hides, but the particular process of learning about it might teach me something about learning. Or it might be a useful analogy for something. Or I might realize years later that while I never developed the slightest interest in tanning hides, I learned something from the way this guy described the process - what he focused on and why, or his passion and what this lead to, or how he dealt with problems. And while none of these thing directly translated into my novel writing process, they modeled something else about art/craft or whatever that was helpful.

I'm going on and on a bit and I realize that you may find none of this has any disagreement with what your saying. In a way I am checking to see that or if it does go against or seem to things you've said.
[/quote]
It's not about agreement or disagreement. It just seems a little - pointless.

Do what you do not knowig why you do it. Seems devoid of clear criteria. It's a bit like searching for truth - how would you even know if you found it if you don't know what it is?

I would say in this specific situation, where I had a fairly specific goal - find out the source of the noise and make sure it's not something problematic for my carpets or a break in, then my description is tailor suited to those possibilities I am trying to rule out.

I would say that if you were enjoying a thunderstorm on your porch with a glass of wine you wouldn't even describe it as "noise".

But because you want me to feel the uncertainty and distress you are feeling... you chose that word.

But, in other parts of life, without a specific stimulus that I want to understand more about immediately, I may be building up pools of information and models, I guess with a built in heuristic/urge (curiosity) that this will be helpful or merely enjoyable.

So what does "understanding" entail? Understanding for its own sake, without any clear goals or criteria. What does such understanding entail?

Curiosity guides this.

That seems incomplete. Curiosity can make you examine and re-examine something ad infinitum. At what point do you stop being curious? What satisfies the curiosity?

Then often contexts and problems arise in the process and I am curious about these or do realize an application. But I have a fairly opened ended approach when seeking descriptions...sometimes. Other times I am looking for something more specific and I likely know in advance the level of detail I want.

And when you arrive at level of detail of our best available knowledge - how do you tell if it's enough without some pragmatic test for sufficiency?

If you don't know any of these things - you have no relevance filter. Which knowledge is relevant and which is irrelevant? You'd just be acquiring general knowledge. Know-that. Not know-how.

Well, some know that is know how. Or can help with know how. I'm not interested in a bunch of disassociate facts, generally. I don't do well at Trivial Pursuit compared to those who are interested in those things. My mind ignores names a lot. I do not know the name of the street I see out my front windows. I know the one that t-squares it, which is my address street. Some street names seep in, like if they are important bus stops. But I am hilariously terrible at understanding directions by street names. They have to give me visual directions, what I will see. And I know my city of residence better than most people as far as getting lost or navigating between places.

If I know 'a bunch of facts' that I think I generally have a lot of interconnecting information. I did terribly on history tests in school that focused on the names of Kings, but well on essays focusing on topics, trends, related events (though not the dates).

I think it was Feynman who said that knowing the names of things doesn't constitute knowledge. Unless you understand behaviour and interaction in real time you probably know nothing about a system. Still, historians will call history "knowledge".

Pardon. I'm exploring this about, which is thinking out loud, which may be rude. I'm just trying to see what I think and do here.

I guess the main point I want to raise is that I think general somewhat contextless descriptions and seeking them out is both natural and useful. And even if I do not have a conscious context for the knowledge, this is not a reason to rule it out. I guess another way to put this is learning models and approaches without clear goals may provide use later, directly or in ways that are unlikely to be predicted (my meeting the great tanner example). So, I think there is value for heading out with descriptions even if the context, goal and prescriptions related to that are not yet known.

But maybe there is a way I need to challenge my approach to learning things. And there have been shifts as I age.

The older I get - the less curious I become. Or rather - I don't allow curiosity to control me - for there is far more knowledge than I have time. I learn intentionally, not on autopilot.

We have a computational term for that - JIT. Just in time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation

[popeye1945]

There is nothing objective but unmanifested energy, that which is manifest is a subjective creation.

[Iwannaplato]

double post

[Iwannaplato]

And they use my description in a way that fails to satisfy some purpose, does that mean they didn't get a description?

Possibly, but not necessarily. I mean, you say they are using your description. That entails that they got a description. But 'get' can mean 'understood' or it can mean 'received' and one can certainly manage not to do those things even if a descriptions others might use have gotten.

Yes, but if we already agree on the range of actions we are interested in; or the specific outcomes we are pursuing that already constrains my descriptions only to the subset relevant to the actions in question.

Without such constraints in place there's an infinitude of descriptions. Some incompatible with one another.

Sure. But I think that in general it can be useful to gather models and more specific descriptions.

That's not really a useful statement. If I don't know what your intentions are - I have no idea how to make sense of your description.

I am not sure if my intentions must matter. You're sitting at a cafe and at another table some guy is holding forth on penguins. He's not a bad speaker and you're generally interested in animals, so you listen. Years later you are reading about global warming in a newspaper, and you realize that the information relayed in the article contradicts something that guy at the cafe said. So, this leads you to do research and find that the article or opinion piece is manipulating research. Or what he says about penguins make you, a pyschologist, think differently about behavior. Or.....

I certainly agree that contexts and intentions are important. And tailor suiting information is key for all sorts of contexts. However I think to some degree we gather a lot of information and models and this is generally good, because it gives us a fluency to deal with information - contexts that may help deal with bits of information - models that we have no use for now but may later and so on.

For the question of "WHY are you describing it that particular way from infinitudes of all possible; and potentially incompatible ways?" continues to puzzle me.

Do you mean that you're being puzzled leads to that question, that that question comes out of your puzzlement? Or do you mean you are puzzled that someone would ask that question? It seems to me given what your saying elsewhere it must be the first, but I'm checking given the wording.

But this is the crux of the issue. It's only worthy being called a description in the context of yoru original intention.
At best, it's only worthy of being called a description within contexts which sufficiently overlap with your original intention.
It's most definitely not a description (and could even be construed as a lie) for some other; different intentions.

I can only say that things I've read heard watched in one context (including happenstance or bored so I grab a magazine on a train, say) have later proved useful in contexts I didn't think of then and certainly had nothing to do with the intentions of those whose articles videos books films I experienced.

Effectively, you are saying that descriptions have a domain; or scope; or context of validity. Outside of this scope; or context - they are not worthy of being called "descriptions".

Do you think I am saying both those sentences or just the first and you are reacting in the second to the first?

I disagree. I think a model given to me about something can be useful in other contexts. If someone is telling me about how to be a good team member on my football team, I may later apply this to all sorts of things. I may recognize something in my research of baboons or in my marriage or at work.

Then the whole use of analogies. That aid thinking in brainstorming, in prehypothesis steps.

In science we have models that later lead to hypotheses in areas not thought of in the original shaping of the model. It's no guarantee that the hypothesis created will then be correct, but it gives a direction for later hypotheses.

And strong models seem to manage to escape their original contexts.

What's in the middle? Half-truth or half lie?

Depends on the context. But those in the middle can be useful.

For the purpose of survival - even if it's not a bear, it's worth being cautious. Some errors in judgment are more costly than others.

But here you are using "generally" in a funny and context-specific way.

You are "generally" giving him a how to survive bear encounters, but you aren't generally giving him a how to survive. I imagine a "general how to" would be a pretty useful thing, but then again - "know how" and "know that" are viewed very differently by philosophers.

What philosophers tend to call "facts" is know-that, not know-how.[/quote]I think actually philosophers (though perhaps not online groupies) have a more complicated view. But I don't think I'm particular confident with the word 'facts', but certainly knowledge in philosophy includes things like tacit knowledge, which has a lot to do with know how. Also abilities are included. And then the pragmatists in different ways tend to look at know how and often screen knowledge through or constitute it as being able to do things.

Well, yes - we have a name for this issue in programming. We call it "the expression problem"

We find it difficult to express how a particular action/operation/verb (e.g know how) can transpose in applicability to different situations.
This was the core/essence of me pointing out that the verb "+" in Mathematics takes on very different behaviours in different situations.

It's one and the same general issue: How to behave in the universe.

Yes, and what I am finding very useful about this discussion is it is making relook at how I take in information. I tend to be both very focused - I want to know about X because I want to do. I have even been looked down on for having a kind of pragmatic approach to knowledge (by peers with academic backgrounds). But then I also just let things grab my attention. I see a book title that just sounds interesting. I read it and get unexpected knowledge about how to. Or models that later are useful. But then also, likely am wasting my time with some. Same with people and other sources of descriptions and prescriptions.

So, I am taking a look at all this, in a different way, now.

I do think there is a problem if one always allows the conscious mind [mild terror at using that term here] decide and thus have conscious intentions for all learning and conscious application contexts when taking in information. I think that allows for too much mental incest. Even just the act of living in another culture - both times in my life there was some randomness in the choice (one romantic, the other due to a connection with someone who had move to that country - so, it ended up being in the East rather than the more natural choice I'd been thinking of in Europe). In these places I encountered ideas, customs, skills, viewpoints and changes in daily habits that I did not plan for, but nevertheless they gave me a lot of know that and know how that later became useful in ways I couldn't have predicted.

I think some significant percentage of learning should be like that. Some from following intuition. Some from being open to new experiences.

But devoid of purpose - is it still a description?
For the purposes of growing carrots - is it still a description?

Perhaps if I am designing a new kind of greenhouse. But, yeah, I get your point. For a little kid however, moving immediately to check things that might cause damage or harm is a more generalized model the kid gets from dad doing this here and then doing something else in another context. Here we have what for most adults is so basic - hear noise at night probably good to check. But I've given examples of how specific descriptions can be used in new contexts elsewhere.

It's not about agreement or disagreement. It just seems a little - pointless.

Do what you do not knowig why you do it. Seems devoid of clear criteria. It's a bit like searching for truth - how would you even know if you found it if you don't know what it is?

I don't go out and 'search for truth'. I follow my curiosity, in many of the situations I am describing. And it may be a long time before I realize the usefulness.

I would say that if you were enjoying a thunderstorm on your porch with a glass of wine you wouldn't even describe it as "noise".

But because you want me to feel the uncertainty and distress you are feeling... you chose that word.

Sure. I'm not arguing that tailoring descriptions and prescriptions is wrong or unnecessary. I am not taking the opposite position. I don't try just anything. I have yet to fling myself out of windows to learn about gravity. I just think a large part of life is not consciously directed and that this is a good thing to include.

So what does "understanding" entail? Understanding for its own sake, without any clear goals or criteria. What does such understanding entail?

I got interesting in Traditional Chinese Medicine, just because it was a different way of looking at bodies and selves. Later in life I noticed in one illness the pattern of symptoms and remembered how this would be viewed in TCM. It was chronic and so I self-treated using Western herbs that I thought or knew (some cross talk between Western and Eastern herbalists had already taken place) and the problem went away. Anectdotal of course, but this became a more regular way I assessed physical problems (also). It also seems to highlight certain patterns in the behavior of people for me.

Years ago I read about narcissism as a label of a batch of behaviors some people prioritize. A person joined a cultural group I was in and I recognized the pattern. Not my original intent for reading about it. I was just curious. I took measures and distance in relation to this person. Somewhat against my habit. The person was charming and not aggressive the begining, but the combination of my memory of the model for narcissism and the feeling that something was off combined to make me more wary than I would have been with just the feeling.

As if happened I also made some predictions about which people would bond with her and why and this turned out to also be true. I got a better jujitsu to deal with the situation than I would have had.

Ever hear of Synectics? It's a kind of specific way to brainstorm and it's a company, where they gather together experts in fields not directly related to those of their clients. So, some company wants to come up with a better toothbrush. To give a really quick take on what they might do, they then ask the client to come up with an oxymoron for the ideal toothbrush. Touchless cleaning or whatever. Then the experts try to thing of phenomena and 'things' in their fields that could be described as having this quality. There are other steps to the process but at some point they come back to the toothbrush and the experts in toothbrushes, teeth and so on brainstorm solutions based on processes adn things they heard about.

My experience with this is that it is very effective at getting people out of the habits they have in their own fields of expertise. Of course that's a very specific use of the process of bringing in other, to some degree random, descriptions and making use of them. But my point is more that I think this happens over time and without intention. Stuff percolates and can be useful. And also can be called by and be useful outside it's area.

And, actually, I see your presence as doing that, at least for me, here in the forum.

You are viewing this via programming (to some degree). I certainly had a vague understading of 'situations where addition is more like 1+1=1. But I did not have a word - idempotency for it and a clearer concept. I'm not interested in programming and I haven't read much in that field. But I've had similar experiences where reading about something without a clear goal has given me concepts from a field I have little knowledge of (and that was all of them at some point and still is in nearly all now). Ideas that I could use elsewhere.

That seems incomplete. Curiosity can make you examine and re-examine something ad infinitum. At what point do you stop being curious? What satisfies the curiosity?

It varies. I mean, I don't want to be facile here, but some things I do come back to again and again. Some I don't.

The point is if I am curious, I will explore someone's descriptions and prescriptions. I do not start with a conscious context. I think many people are not very curious, or keep their curiosity for very limited areas. That may work well for some, probably some specialists, though there are other specialists who also look around. And I do think we all do this. I think this is good. I don't think the conscious mind knows everything that is good for us.

This description does not help someone who wants specific heuristics for using their curiosity or allowing it free reign or how much reign. I would not have liked life as much so far if I had always had specific goals and contexts for why I tried to learn from other people's descriptions and prescriptions.

I do have some areas of focus: psychology is one, big as that whale is. And generally that allows for immediate applications on myself, encounters with others and given my friends have interest there it contributes socially and into contexts of analytical and exploratory conversations.

But I will then be grabbed by things outside my majors, meaning that metaphorically.

And when you arrive at level of detail of our best available knowledge - how do you tell if it's enough without some pragmatic test for sufficiency?

Curiosity has its own direct evaluations. So, given that I nurture my curiosity and in some ways I treat it as an end in itself or satisfying it, the pragmatic test is if I am enjoying the process of reading, listening, trying out, getting trained in. Then yes, later secondary effects depend on pragmatic applications.

So far, deluded or not, I am really glad I have cast my net wide.

I think it was Feynman who said that knowing the names of things doesn't constitute knowledge. Unless you understand behaviour and interaction in real time you probably know nothing about a system. Still, historians will call history "knowledge".

Agreed. Much of the pedagogy I encountered was terrible. Truly horrendous.

The older I get - the less curious I become. Or rather - I don't allow curiosity to control me. I learn intentionally, not on autopilot.

I have noticed some of that trend in myself. Professionally I wish I'd focused more, especially now living outside my native country. I wish I had some extremely clear skills to attach to specific jobs. But in general, I'm glad I've cast wide.

Another angle is the whole learning from literature and other art forms. I don't think literature, for example, is only a hedonistic activity. I think I do get knowledge out of reading it and mulling over it. But it is harder to pin down exact uses.

Similarly, open-ended discussions with (intelligent) others.