We reason with pattern because...

[coberst]

We reason with pattern because pattern is in the world.

Plato uses the metaphor ‘essence is idea’ (not explicitly but implicitly). Likewise, Aristotle uses the metaphor ‘idea is essence’. Plato considers that the highest reality consists in ideas while Aristotle places reality ultimately in the world. The difference in thinking by these two giants of thought rests on the basic axiom deduced from the question ‘does the world take its shape from ideas or do ideas take their shape from the world’. Plato’s axiom is ‘the world takes its shape from ideas’ while Aristotle’s axiom is ‘idea takes its shape from the world’.

Aristotle would say that the structure of rationality is in the world. This conjecture leads to the primary axiom of classical symbolic logic NOT [f(a) and NOT f(a)]. This is the law of non contradiction. “It is not the case that an entity a both has the property F and does not have the property F”. This is not only a truth about reason but is also a truth about the world.

Aristotle the “Father of Logic” says that ‘logic is the logic of the world’. In other words “the principles of reason are the principles of the world”. The principles by which the human mind functions are derived from the principles that underlay the world.

Ontology, what exists, comes before epistemology, what we know and how we know it. The law of non contradiction is an epistemological principle because it is first an ontological principle. Mother Nature molds the body to fit the world. The mind is embodied thus the mind is molded to fit the world. The mind can grasp the world directly because the mind came into existence just as the body came into existence; both the body and the embodied mind together are an extension of the world.

[TheFaithfulStone]

One of your better posts, coberst, and a pretty interesting characterization of Plato as prefiguring structuralism by several thousand years.



TFS

[coberst]

Aristotle concludes that to perceive something is to actualize that form into mind. Aristotle is “using the common metaphors The Mind is a Container, Understanding is Grasping, and Ideas are Physical Objects.”

From all of this Aristotle created what we might call “container logic”. He equates predication with ‘inclusion’ within a category; he provides us with the implicit metaphor Predication is Containment.

“Containers are image schemas with logical constraints built into their very structure. They are not physical containers, but rather conceptualizations that we impose on space.” Some of these constraints are:
• Given a container and an entity, the entity is either inside or outside and not both at once.
• If Container A is inside Container B, and Entity C is inside Container A, then Entity C is inside Container B.
• If Container A is inside Container B and Entity C is outside Container B, then Entity C is outside Container A.

All of these form the basis for the well known logical principles “The Law of Excluded Middle”, “Modus Ponens”, and “Modus Tollens”. These laws form the basics of syllogisms, which is the fundamental form of reasoning. The syllogism is the central engine of scientific explanation.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh” Lakoff and Johnson

[InfiniteNow]

Perhaps it comes down directly to the machinery of reasoning, neural networks themselves are a pattern, and there is an emergence of this structure in our reasoning. Perhaps...

[coberst]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Perhaps it comes down directly to the machinery of reasoning, neural networks themselves are a pattern, and there is an emergence of this structure in our reasoning. Perhaps...

Cognitive science has empirical evidence that proves that the sensorimotor neural system that controls the movement of the body and controls the senses has the capacity to conceptualize and to infer. In other words, the neural system required to allow a creature to move and survive in space has the capacity to reason. This is a capacity that exists and it is reasonable to assume that biology would not duplicate this for the capacity to reason since it already existed..

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by coberst

Cognitive science has empirical evidence that proves that the sensorimotor neural system that controls the movement of the body and controls the senses has the capacity to conceptualize and to infer. In other words, the neural system required to allow a creature to move and survive in space has the capacity to reason. This is a capacity that exists and it is reasonable to assume that biology would not duplicate this for the capacity to reason since it already existed..

Can you offer a link so I may learn more about this empirical evidence to which you refer? Cheers.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Originally Posted by coberst

Aristotle concludes that to perceive something is to actualize that form into mind. Aristotle is “using the common metaphors The Mind is a Container, Understanding is Grasping, and Ideas are Physical Objects.”

From all of this Aristotle created what we might call “container logic”. He equates predication with ‘inclusion’ within a category; he provides us with the implicit metaphor Predication is Containment.

Ahh, but does he? Or is that just the way he is translated? Does ancient greek have the same metaphorical structure as Modern English?

Excluded middle and the Modus's, can be independent of the container structure.

Can you think of a way to talk about the Mind as a say... tree? Given that something is on branch A it cannot also be on branch B.

Perhaps we reason with patterns because reasoning without patterns wouldn't be reasoning? Or at least, not as we would define it. Is it possible to THINK without said structures? Lakoff and Johnson would say no - the structure not only makes it possible to conceptualize the world, it also limits your conceptualization of it.

Thus - you cannot help but think of an argument as war, or logic as a series of containers - unless you think in a different language.

The structure which enables you TO think simultaneously constrains your thinking to it's bounds. (See?!)

TFS

[coberst]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Can you offer a link so I may learn more about this empirical evidence to which you refer? Cheers.

The book gives as reference Bailey, D., Feldman, Modeling Embodied Lexical Development. In M.G. Shafto and P. Langley, eds. "Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society".

The book has many pages of various references. I have not attempted to find a web reference for this data.

[coberst]

Faithfulstone

These metaphors are not words from Aristotle's mouth but are deductions based upon Ariststle's theories. The structures they speak of are the structures of thinking and of perceiving. As I understand the matter these schemas of thinking are also the schemas of perceiving and of motion. The neural structures of the very first creatures are the source of our ability to think as we do. As the fin is the begining of the hand these neural structures are the begining of human reasoning ability.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by coberst

The book has many pages of various references. I have not attempted to find a web reference for this data.

Your tone implies that you care not to inspire others with an interest in the topic equal to your own. Very well. Thanks for the truncated response anyhow.


Cheers.