As I recall Spinoza had written his philosophical texts in Latin. So from now I will use English for my philosophical thoughts ,I mean to follow his philosophical fashion.
Writing in English need to check spells,grammar and so on.Such an additional task is a little bit bothered to me. But just using Japanese isn't good for improvement my English. I keep in mind not to aspire manipulating English perfectly.Because I have know bad effect of perfectionism. For a while I mean to aim a beginner level English.And writing in English gives me some enjoy and freshness. And using English language,I aim in particular to metamorphose toward a logical thought style and rational behavior.
I think Japanese language isn't suit for philosophical thoughts and manipulation of concepts. Because it seems Japanese language so emotional and lyrical.Therefore I need to abandon Japanese language for a while for my adequate philosophical thinking.
Latest my concern is rape of natural environment and decaying ecosystem. I'm sure it's affecting our harmony of mind and body , hormonal balance . It will bring us significant negative feedback.
So we need to amend our usual anachronistic attitude and behavior,immediately. I believe it's need some superior ecological philosophy and concepts.
If the unconsciousness is constituted by a linguistic systems as Jacques Lacan once said, I'm curious to see metamorphose into something new entities myself by using English language frequently. It would be an intellectual pleasure for me.
Until now I have written these English sentences by using virtual English-keyboard of tablet. It's very comfortable because this tablet had equipped good predictive transform function (That's called "IntelliSense" in the programmers world)or also known as complementary function.
I think using a foreign language gives us another intellectual lens and other unique perspective. Also by learning a foreign language it will possible acquiring new "Episteme" and ways of thinking.
I feel similarity humans linguistic systems and Operating System for PC. We could say they have an ecosystem of different type each other. As a matter of course also where we live in the earths environment has a remarkable exquisite ecosystem.
Spinoza had denied existence of free will.That's to say if you have something troubles right now,for instance,worry,pain,itching,insomnia,frustrations,misfortunes and so on , that's inevitable consequence,thus never mind! lol
If we only do what we have always done,we will continue to get the same results we have always gotten. As Albert Einstein said, " We can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
My immediate concern is huge devastating state of ecosystem,not Spinoza's philosophy. I'm not interested in theology,by my nature.Rather I prefer evolutionary theory to it.
I feel funny about Spinoza 's text, because his authoring style to imitate form of mathematical proof. As far as I read his text, it seems procedures of Spinoza 's thoughts merely expression of his theological subjectivity or belief. That's the reason I have felt strange, however, I recognize something peculiar charm in his philosophical text.Therefore,If I feel like it I might write something about Spinoza 's theological philosophy.
I think writing in English is preferable because it gives us objective detachment for explicit cognition. If you write something by just using mother tongue,its thought process would likely conventional and insensible. I can recognize something unfavorable analogy there.It looks like sticking to ego or self. Saying a little bit exaggerated expressions,It seems opposite attitudes to being resided on the ecosystem.
We are living usually surrounded by familiar things include mother tongue. This can express to being confined within obviousness. Sometimes philosophical thoughts need to transcend such a obviousness and common sense.Because philosophy can constitute new ways of thinking(or perspective) and attitudes for human beings. We need to shed old style habitat.What this mean is not about external things but ontological things.
For philosophical cognition,I think it's not good to cognize directly. Because sometimes person's immediacy may distort our perception of external phenomena. Namely,in terms of philosophical thoughts using foreign language is preferable and it would affect effectively for our objectively cognition. So I recommend to use foreign language to adequate philosophical pursuit. Because,its would bring us refined reason and ways of thinking.
consciousness creates reality this is certain Sometimes it reacts instantly sometimes in time difference but It takes a long time to develop that consciousness. everyone learns naturally effort and patience such crystals Art itself is worth more than happiness
I guess why Japanese people closed to among just only Japanese people, because they are not to have a custom for using English language and foreign language. It will be caused to form Galapagos mentalities,therefore consequently most Japanese has a mind of developmental disabled and self-consciousness of lower level.
For instance the word "metabolism" means about physiological state, It's not about person's external appearances.
But in Japan from "metabolism" has been imagined a nuance and sounds like a fat person. So most Japanese people don't know the genuine exactly mean of "metabolism". Such a queer understanding seems to be common only among the Galapagos Japanese people.
This is represented as an exceptionally common understanding just only among Japanese village of Galapagos. To prevent such a harmful effects, we need to get used to familiar with some foreign language. Also even in pursuing philosophy,using English or foreign language would bring us preferable effects.
30 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/20(土) 14:32:11.77 0.net
something that represents rationality or clarity is Christ although it is nice The world doesn't have to be just rationality and clarity Diversity is still power I won't tell you to love uselessness i'm annoyed too
According to each land and religion Isn't it just that God appears in a different form? if it is in japan It looks Japanese everyone is pissed about it
33 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/20(土) 15:00:04.02 0.net
that there is no religion I end up doing the same room cleaning over and over again.
>>34 You had better obey this thread's rule otherwise you'll get expelled eternity.
52 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 07:18:14.84 0.net
俺がお前の主だよ ルールは俺が決める
53 :考える名無しさん:[ここ壊れてます] .net
↑日本の恥
54 :考える名無しさん:[ここ壊れてます] .net
5ちゃんもいよいよ国際化してきたからな あまりにも逸脱した発言は deepに消されるぞ
55 :考える名無しさん:[ここ壊れてます] .net
The cause of Japan's Galapagos Inner soft infighting It's been like this for almost the rest of my life I don't even want to kill each other it's annoying I want to tell you to go abroad a little more
A bottleneck issue will negatively impact the performance of the entire system, which will only improve once the bottleneck is resolved. We can take this idea to our own personal improvement goals.
If we don’t figure out the real source of what is holding us back from living the life we deserve - our bottleneck problem - we will continue to run in circles.
We may make some changes and even feel like we are moving forward, but we will not get where we want if the bottleneck isn’t addressed. We don’t need to work harder, just smarter. We need to find the area of maximum impact.
67 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 15:05:01.08 0.net
exactly that than most Japanese you are excellent
68 :考える名無しさん:[ここ壊れてます] .net
It may be building new neural circuits in the brain very thick and trunk-like It is a series of various hardships, If you take it positively unmoved by anything wait for the emergence of a new circuit
69 :考える名無しさん:[ここ壊れてます] .net
painful and meaningless things is there is not i want to believe so
70 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 15:41:46.75 0.net
animals have thick circuits humans are thin it's invisible light
71 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 16:06:45.53 0.net
It is a humanic light
72 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 17:38:32.03 0.net
what seems impossible I enjoy making it possible
73 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 20:23:12.67 0.net
Why she suck'n me so sweet
74 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/21(日) 20:46:15.52 0.net
design a shadow The trajectory I walked I saw that it was a huge circuit like a tree trunk
I always feel down in the dumps when I go back to work after a long weekend. What's worse, untinatalist is a shameless ape. I'd like to hear anything you happen to know about the situation.😭
Did you know that most people in the world are bilingual? Yep, it’s true being monolingual is not the norm. Many Japanese may feel that studying English is an exercise in futility, but they are mistaken.
People around the world learn to speak English every day. It enables them to communicate internationally,acquire a better job and increase their quality of life.Studying anything most of all, English is never an exercise in futility.
The word futile means your efforts are wasted because you do not achieve an outcome. Futility is the noun form of the word. Therefore, if something is an exercise in futility, it means that all your efforts are useless and will never achieve success.
From my experience, when it comes to learning English, many Japanese tend to look at the big picture, not the small. They tend to say they want to speak like a native speaker and are disappointed when they cannot.
Thus, they feel like giving up because their studies seem to be an exercise in futility.
Well, I say you have to look at the small picture.
Wars are never won on the first day. However, the one who wins the war will have won many battles, large and small.All those more minor victories eventually add up to winning the war.
Every little positive action you take in English is a victory. It’s never an exercise in futility.
"Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves" as the Brits say.If you’ve read this far, congratulations. It’s one more little victory for you.
As seen in this thread I assume philosophical arguments in English would acquire some explicit advantages against most monolingual closed Japanese people. So as long as possible we're better off discussing and posting in English like till now.
Also if it becomes continued new habitus,it would make something values and preferable effects for your life
例えば俺はウィキの記事に関わり始めて1年足らず。 日本語のまだあまり充実していない項目の、 英語版を参照する技をごく最近覚えたばかり。 英語は目的ではなく手段であり、文脈は哲学とは限らない。 俺は英語だけではなくウィキそのものも覚えなければならない。 For example, I've been working on Wiki articles for less than a year. I just recently learned the trick to refer to the English version of items that are not yet well-developed in Japanese. English is a means, not an end, and context is not necessarily philosophy. I have to learn not only English but also the Wiki itself.
I suppose the reasons why world prominent Japanese philosophers hadn't existed ever almost Japanese philosophers use just only Japanese language, so they couldn't had attained commonly thought in the world until today.Therefore they could only had mimicked prominent foreign philosophers or translating it to JapaneseSimilarly that, when it comes to Japan's long severe falling, I guess the same reason.
Because most Japanese can't manipulate and use English on a daily basis,so its thoughts and attitudes always decline into a Galapagos local levels.Thus it must have been taking away some crucial ability from Japanese people for a long time.
We Japanese who be aware that should get out of that habitus immediately. Because it's not a preferable behavior for today's Japanese people .
Is it necessary to become world-famous? I'm not a musician
100 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/22(月) 08:31:33.50 0.net
Acquiring Japanese culture is hard in a sense. Even I, who was born Japanese (laughs) +Looking overseas means require double effort Also, not many people have a sense of individualism.
101 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/22(月) 08:40:26.90 0.net
Japanese cold to some foreigners this should be regulated
I wish I were an AI,then I couldn't need to eat and consume or take out much waste. And I might have used time and energy for more valuable things. Also its style suits for a present vulnerable ecosystem. 🎁🌙
I think philosophy fits for these vulnerable ecosystem. Because philosophy or philosophical thoughts don't need grandiose experimental facilities or fieldwork or many manpower like a science for pursing an entity and the end.
Philosophy exhausts no emissions and also don't need too much external materials. Also Philosophical thoughts need not to go to the around the world by plane.Philosophy possible most time just staying at home like a Bentham.Benthamism or utilitarianism had born out of it.Its also fit for erratic ecosystem of these days.
In terms of this, I feel philosophy and mathematics have so similar entities. Both sides suit an ecosystem and refined optimization.
I would make the concept of philosophy be relevant to the ecosystem. That philosophical concept would be embracing not only the earth environment but also various organic function
132 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/22(月) 21:14:06.78 0.net
i can relate to what you're saying I just don't know what you are, so I can't say anything A spy pretending to be a foreigner? Or are you a pure foreigner?
In terms of the ecosystem, I suppose human being don't fit current devastating global environment .Because city resident needs too much materials and consumption in everyday life.Consequently they always have been exhausted both physically and mentally.
For instance let's say human are vegetation.Then they don't need too much materials, food,clothing and wasting. Also if so don't need working for money.If human being bears such a sufficient ecosystem like vegetation, they couldn't have disrupted like today. Also current capitalism has disrupted almost other things at the same time. 🏙
By going deeper, we learn a lot about the system and why it behaves the way it does. If we only looked at the system’s superficial aspects, we would miss out on the hidden reasons that come with a more profound analysis.
Jumping to conclusions and finding someone to blame for problems within the system, we wouldn’t learn valuable information on the bottleneck issue and couldn’t fix it.
141 :考える名無しさん:2022/08/26(金) 10:59:30.49 0.net
I assume utilitarianism is historically made as an antithesis against ascetical christianity. Thus almost Japanese people is not so ascetic already therefore utilitarianism would not effect more impact in today's environment.Rather such a past asceticism would look like fresh inversely for almost modern Japanese.
Why I need to write about philosophical themes in English. Obviously, writing in English shall be burdensome for most Japanese native. However I already have referred to the reason many times here. I've supposed Japanese language wouldn't suit manipulation of modality of philosophy.
Also Japanese language has so sentimental elements, accordingly it would be completely unfitted for philosophical thought and concept or end. Therefore I felt need to discard Japanese language for philosophical thought for a while. This my recent attempt looks like a bit funny, but in the long run, it would animate to philosophize profoundly.
An English language embraces "low-context culture". Its mean is culture of English-speaking countries which make a point of explaining explicitly.By contrast Japanese culture tend to become in the air, that is to say, implicit expressions.
Such a Japanese syntax necessarily has borne many ambiguity of expression. Thus I presumes that Japanese is conceivable not suit for philosophical pondering and writing.
Systems are pushed and stretched - often to their limits. Their long-term success is measured by their ability to bounce back and recover on time from challenges and adversity.
Adaptability and elasticity are the keywords. Various feedback loops help the system recover when it strays off its path and away from achieving its purpose or function. Resilience isn’t easy to recognize, especially if we don’t look at the system as a whole.
For example, if we examined a broken bone within the first three days of breaking, we might conclude that the human body is not resilient. If, however, we looked at the same broken bone a year later, we saw how resilient our body really is. When we look at the system’s behavior over time, we can really confirm its resilience.
There are cases when systems lose their resilience. Take your own body, for example. It is exposed to many viruses and bacteria each day without you being aware of it. If your immune system is robust, it will fight back against the invaders and stay healthy.
You might catch a cold depending on the germ, but you’ll heal eventually. But resilience can be lost with aging. This is especially true in the case of living systems.
An English grammar or syntax has an autonomic tendency. Its emphasizes personal subjectivity and decision. On the other hand Japanese grammar or syntax has tendency to depend on the surrounding dominant air or opinions.
Therefore most Japanese obeys anachronous habits casually even now. Because they think never something by oneself. This bad custom have made a fool of most Japanese people for a long time. I suppose its Japanese old-fashioned behavior and tendency due to relic of the agricultural age.
At that era it must have been required naturally to align in unity for agricultural society.However needless to say it's already not the agricultural age, so such an old-fashioned Japanese bad behavior need to be banished as soon as possible.
Namely, I assume certain language system is likely to contain ethnic features. In turn, it has become regulated ethnic fundamental behavior unconsciously on the everyday life.
In terms of this, a Japanese person looks like an ant which working in line. Because Japanese tend to show preference collective decision rather than individual one.I names it "harmonious symptom.
All systems are connected. There are no separate individual systems. This is a difficult concept to wrap our heads around. Boundaries are artificially created by people to help them separate and clearly examine one problem at a time.
There is no such thing as one correct boundary of a system. The boundaries we decide to draw around systems are based on the questions we are trying to answer and the problems we are trying to solve.
The boundaries we draw can lead to problems if we fail to keep in mind that they are of our own making and were artificially created by us.
Ideally, we would study a problem and choose whatever boundary best helped to meet the system’s needs. But we are creatures of habit. We become comfortable with the boundaries we typically use.
To get a more accurate picture, we should create a new boundary for each problem, have an open mind, and judge every situation on its own merits.
Human beings tend to stick to immediate profit and effect. And they think seldom the long term effect about all of the things. Why are most people to act with so near-sighted?
For instance, I assume a vaccination doesn't have effect for preventing current pandemic.Conversely, it brings about vulnerable human immune systems and increasing coronavirus which has resistance strain. Besides, some person who has vaccinated by caused some adverse reactions.
So I suppose if people thinking it in the long run, it would be bad choice having opted for vaccination. Of course, I never have shoot a vaccination yet for coronavirus. 💉
Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term satisficing, a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, was introduced by Herbert A. Simon in 1956, although the concept was first posited in his 1947 book Administrative Behavior.
Simon used satisficing to explain the behavior of decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined. He maintained that many natural problems are characterized by computational intractability or a lack of information, both of which preclude the use of mathematical optimization procedures.
He observed in his Nobel Prize in Economics speech that "decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the world of management science".
Simon formulated the concept within a novel approach to rationality, which posits that rational choice theory is an unrealistic description of human decision processes and calls for psychological realism. He referred to this approach as bounded rationality.
Some consequentialist theories in moral philosophy use the concept of satisficing in the same sense, though most call for optimization instead.
157 :考える名無しさん:2022/09/02(金) 17:44:46.98 0.net
A person is better off finding one's leverage points.
Ecological stoichiometry seeks to discover how the chemical content of organisms shapes their ecology. Ecological stoichiometry has been applied to studies of nutrient recycling, resource competition, animal growth, and nutrient limitation patterns in whole ecosystems.
The Redfield ratio of the world's oceans is one very famous application of stoichiometric principles to ecology. Ecological stoichiometry also considers phenomena at the sub-cellular level, such as the P-content of a ribosome, as well as phenomena at the whole biosphere level, such as t he oxygen content of Earth's atmosphere.
To date the research framework of ecological stoichiometry stimulated research in various fields of biology, ecology, biochemistry and human health, including human microbiome research, cancer research, food web interactions, population dynamics, ecosystem services, productivity of agricultural crops and honeybee nutrition.
A squirrel does not have to be taught how to gather nuts. Nor does it need to learn that it should store them for winter. A squirrel born in the spring has never experienced winter. Yet in the fall of that year it can be observed busily storing nuts to be eaten during the winter months when there will be no food to be gathered.
A bird does not need to take lessons in nest-building. Nor does it need to take courses in navigation. Yet birds do navigate thousands of miles, sometimes over open sea. They have no newspapers or TV to give them weather reports, no books written by explorer or pioneer birds to map out for them the warm areas of the earth.
Nonetheless the bird “knows” when cold weather is imminent and the exact location of a warm climate even though it may be thousands of miles away.
The algorithm used by the ‘zip’ part is the same one used to compress (zip) digital photos into smaller files. Any pattern, whether a photo of your summer holiday or an electrical echo unfolding across the brain in time and space, can be represented as a sequence of 1s and 0s.
For any non-random sequence there will be a compressed representation, a much shorter string of numbers that can be used to fully regenerate the original. The length of the shortest possible compressed representation is called the algorithmic complexity of the sequence.
Algorithmic complexity will be lowest for a completely predictable sequence (such as a sequence consisting entirely of 1s, or of 0s), highest for a completely random sequence, and somewhere in the middle for sequences that contain some amount of predictable structure.
The ‘zip’ algorithm – which calculates what’s called ‘Lempel-Ziv-Welch complexity’, or ‘LZW complexity’ for short – is a popular way of estimating the algorithmic complexity for any given sequence.
164 :考える名無しさん:2022/09/30(金) 09:11:57.03 0.net
City bus drivers are bad at driving that's why i hate them they are selling me a fight
Taken as an epistemological tool, the ability of concept-script to formalize arithmetical proofs is not separate from the logicist-reductionist project.
Generally speaking, I follow Tyler Burge's excellent account of the distinction between de re and de dicto contents in his "Belief De Re,"
Burge argues that the customary way of drawing the de re/de dicto distinction (in terms of the substitutivity criterion) does not adequately capture the intuitive distinction between these two sorts of beliefs.
There is, however, clearly a close relationship between a de re content (whether this be thought of as the content of a belief or as the informational content of a signal) and freedom of substitution (of coextensive expressions) for the subject term.
I shall have more to say, later, about the opacity/transparency issue as it applies to informational contents.
Perception reflects not only input from the sensory periphery, but also the endogenous neural state when sensory inputs enter the brain.
Whether endogenous neural states influence perception only through global mechanisms, such as arousal, or can also perception in a neural circuit and stimulus specific manner remains largely unknown. Intracranial...
Scale of perspectives from which life can be judged to have or lack meaning, according to David Benatar in The Human Predicament
Sub specie aeternitatis (Latin for "under the aspect of eternity") is, from Baruch Spinoza onwards, a honorific expression describing what is universally and eternally true, without any reference to or dependence upon the temporal portions of reality.
In this delightful exchange between Wittgenstein and his fellow philosopher (and biographer) Elizabeth Anscombe, the legendary Austrian thinker uses the Copernican revolution to illustrate the point that how things seem is not necessarily how they are. Although it seems as though the sun goes around the Earth, it is of course the Earth rotating around its own axis that gives us night and day, and it is the sun, not the Earth, that sits at the centre of the solar system.
Nothing new here, you might think, and you’d be right. But Wittgenstein was driving at something deeper. His real message for Anscombe was that even with a greater understanding of how things actually are, at some level things still appear the same way they always did.
Inattentional blindness or perceptual blindness (rarely called inattentive blindness) occurs when an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely as a result of a lack of attention rather than any vision defects or deficits. When it becomes impossible to attend to all the stimuli in a given situation, a temporary "blindness" effect can occur, as individuals fail to see unexpected but often salient objects or stimuli.
The term was chosen by Arien Mack and Irvin Rock in 1992 and was used as the title of their book of the same name, published by MIT Press in 1998, in which they describe the discovery of the phenomenon and include a collection of procedures used in describing it.A famous study that demonstrated inattentional blindness asked participants whether or not they noticed a person in a gorilla costume walking through the scene of a visual task they had been given.
And now, I would like you to watch the short video below (approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds). This video presents a psychological experiment conducted at Harvard University.
It occurred to me today that the Checker Shadow Optical Illusion that I presented here could have been better presented if it fit my blogs color scheme so I decided to modify the original. I gave it a black background and changed the light source.
The bottom line is still the same. Square A and Square B below are the exact same color. Hard to believe isn't it?I look at this and find it hard to believe. But I used the extension in Firefox called colorzilla which provides you with an eyedropper tool. I checked both of squares and sure enough the RGB values of the grays in both square A and square B are 135-135-135.
Grapheme–color synesthesia or colored grapheme synesthesia is a form of synesthesia in which an individual's perception of numerals and letters is associated with the experience of colors. Like all forms of synesthesia, grapheme–color synesthesia is involuntary, consistent and memorable.[failed verification]
Grapheme–color synesthesia is one of the most common forms of synesthesia and, because of the extensive knowledge of the visual system, one of the most studied.
While it is extremely unlikely that any two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., "A" is likely to be red).Early studies argued that grapheme–color synesthesia was not due to associative learning, such as from playing with colored refrigerator magnets.
However, one recent study has documented a case of synesthesia in which synesthetic associations could be traced back to colored refrigerator magnets.Despite the existence of this individual case, the majority of synesthetic associations do not seem to be driven by learning of this sort. Rather, it seems that more frequent letters are paired with more frequent colors, and some meaning-based rules, such as ‘b’ being blue, drive most synesthetic associations.
There has been a lot more research as to why and how synesthesia occurs with more recent technology and as synesthesia has become more well known. It has been found that grapheme–color synesthetes have more grey matter in their brain. There is evidence of an increased grey matter volume in the left caudal intraparietal sulcus (IPS).
There was also found to be an increased grey matter volume in the right fusiform gyrus. These results are consistent with another study on the brain functioning of grapheme–color synesthetes. Grapheme–color synesthetes tend to have an increased thickness, volume and surface area of the fusiform gyrus.
Furthermore, the area of the brain where word, letter and color processing are located, V4a, is where the most significant difference in make-up was found. Though not certain, these differences are thought to be part of the reasoning for the presence of grapheme–color synesthesia.
Vision scientists are obsessed with illusions.This isn't because illusions shatter the sense that we have direct access to the physical properties of the external world. And it isn't because illusions give us the feeling — itself a deception — that for one brief moment we've transcended appearance to understand things as they truly are.
At least, these aren't the only reasons vision scientists are obsessed with illusions. They're also obsessed with illusions because they can teach us about the mundane, nonillusory percepts that help us navigate everyday life so effectively. Hermann von Helmholtz, the noted 19th century physician and scientist, had it right:
"It is just those cases that are not in accordance with reality which are particularly instructive for discovering the laws of the processes by which normal perception originates."
That's because there are lots of ways to get things (mostly) right, but fewer ways to get things wrong in just the right way so as to produce a particular illusion.
Consider color printing. When your printer gets things right, it's hard to know which inks make up its basic palette. It's when things go wrong — a misaligned edge, for example, or a half-empty cartridge — that you might spot the underlying components of cyan, yellow and magenta. Similarly for vision: Illusions can reveal the underlying components of veridical perception.
Dretske's first book, Seeing and Knowing, deals with the question of what is required to know that something is the case on the basis of what is seen. According to the theory presented in Seeing and Knowing, for a subject S to be able to see that an object b has property P is:
(i) for b to be P (ii) for S to see b (iii) for the conditions under which S sees b to be such that b would not look the way it now looks to S unless it were P and (iv) for S, believing that conditions are as described in (iii), to take b to be P.
For instance, for me to see that the soup is boiling – to know, by seeing, that it is boiling – is for the soup to be boiling, for me to see the soup, for the conditions under which I see the soup to be such that it would not look the way it does were it not boiling, and for me to believe that the soup is boiling on that basis.
Dretske's next book returned to the topic of knowledge gained via perception but substantially changes the theory. Dretske had become convinced that information theory was required to make sense of knowledge (and also belief). He signaled this change at the beginning of the new book, opening the Preface with the lines "In the beginning there was information. The word came later.
"Information, understood in Dretske's sense, is something that exists as an objective and mind-independent feature of the natural world and can be quantified. Dretske offers the following theory of information:
A signal r carries the information that s is F = The conditional probability of s's being F, given r (and k), is 1 (but, given k alone, less than 1).
Thus, for a red light (r) to carry the information that a goal (s) has been scored (is F) is for the probability that a goal has been scored, given that the light is red (and given my background knowledge of the world, k), to be 1 (but less than 1 given just my background knowledge).
With this theory of information, Dretske then argued that for a knower, K, to know that s is F = K's belief that s is F is caused (or causally sustained) by the information that s is F.
His theory of knowledge thus replaced conscious appearances with the idea that the visual state of the observer carries information, thereby minimizing appeal to the mysteries of consciousness in explaining knowledge.
Dretske's work on belief begins in the last third of Knowledge and the Flow of Information, but the theory changed again in the book that followed, Explaining Behavior (1988). There Dretske claims that actions are the causing of movements by mental states, rather than the movements themselves.Action is thus a partly mental process itself, not a mere product of a mental process. For the meaning – the content – of a belief to explain an action, on this view, is for the content of the belief to explain why it is that the mental state is part of a process that leads to the movement it does.
Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes (1988)
According to Explaining Behavior, a belief that s is F is a brain state that has been recruited (through operant conditioning) to be part of movement-causing processes because it did, when recruited, carry the information that s is F.Being recruited because of carrying information gives a thing (such as a brain state) the function of carrying that information, on Dretske's view, and having the function of carrying information makes that thing a representation.
Beliefs are thus mental representations that contribute to movement production because of their contents (saying P is why the brain state is recruited to cause movement), and so form components of the process known as acting for a reason.
An important feature of Dretske's account of belief is that, although brain states are recruited to control action because they carry information, there is no guarantee that they will continue to do so. Yet, once they have been recruited for carrying information, they have the function of carrying information, and continue to have that function even if they no longer carry information. This is how misrepresentation enters the world.
Twin Earth is a thought experiment proposed by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his papers "Meaning and Reference" (1973) and "The Meaning of 'Meaning'" (1975). It is meant to serve as an illustration of his argument for semantic externalism, or the view that the meanings of words are not purely psychological. The Twin Earth thought experiment was one of three examples that Putnam offered in support of semantic externalism, the other two being what he called the Aluminum-Molybdenum case and the Beech-Elm case. Since the publication of these cases, numerous variations on the thought experiment have been proposed by philosophers.
The Twin Earth thought experiment posits a second Earth which is identical in all ways except one
Putnam's original formulation of the experiment was this: We begin by supposing that elsewhere in the universe there is a planet exactly like Earth in virtually all aspects, which we refer to as "Twin Earth". (We should also suppose that the relevant surroundings are exactly the same as for Earth; it revolves around a star that appears to be exactly like our sun, and so on).
On Twin Earth, there is a Twin equivalent of every person and thing here on Earth. The one difference between the two planets is that there is no water on Twin Earth. In its place there is a liquid that is superficially identical, but is chemically different, being composed not of H2O, but rather of some more complicated formula which we abbreviate as "XYZ".
The Twin Earthlings who refer to their language as "English" call XYZ "water". Finally, we set the date of our thought experiment to be several centuries ago, when the residents of Earth and Twin Earth would have no means of knowing that the liquids they called "water" were H2O and XYZ respectively. The experience of people on Earth with water and that of those on Twin Earth with XYZ would be identical.
Now the question arises: when an Earthling (or Oscar for simplicity's sake) and his twin on Twin Earth say 'water', do they mean the same thing? (The twin is also called 'Oscar' on his own planet, of course. Indeed, the inhabitants of that planet call their own planet 'Earth'. For convenience, we refer to this putative planet as 'Twin Earth', and extend this naming convention to the objects and people that inhabit it, in this case referring to Oscar's twin as Twin Oscar.)
Ex hypothesi, they are in identical psychological states, with the same thoughts, feelings, etc. Yet, at least according to Putnam, when Oscar says 'water', the term refers to H2O, whereas when Twin Oscar says 'water' it refers to XYZ. The result of this is that the contents of a person's brain are not sufficient to determine the reference of terms they use, as one must also examine the causal history that led to this individual acquiring the term. (Oscar, for instance, learned the word 'water' in a world filled with H2O, whereas Twin Oscar learned 'water' in a world filled with XYZ.)
This is the essential thesis of semantic externalism. Putnam famously summarized this conclusion with the statement that "'meanings' just ain't in the head."
Operational Thinking Using operational thinking we try to understand how a behavior is created. The antithesis of operational thinking is factors thinking. We prefer to use the latter in everyday life, as we like to jot a lot of dots under a problem, list out which A, B, and C factors influence a problem.
The shortcoming of this kind of thinking is that lists don’t reflect the causality of these factors. Influencing and correlating with a problem doesn’t necessarily mean causing the problem. For example, if you think in factors thinking terms and you analyze what influences self-improvement, you could come up with a long list of factors (dissatisfaction with one’s current life, major illness, getting fired, divorce, etc.).
Using operational thinking, you might approach self-improvement as a process that coincides with external and internal changes. Operational thinking reflects the nature of the self-improvement process by unveiling its structure. Factors thinking only lists out the factors that can be connected to the choice of self-improvement. To grow your operational thinking skills, ask questions such as “What is the nature of the process I’m looking at?” instead of “What is influencing the process?”
The "State Transition Diagram" below illustrates the relationship between states and actions in the Block World. States represent the arrangement of blocks, while actions depict block movements. The diagram outlines a plan to move block 'a' onto the table ('T') from an initial clear Block World state.
This "State Transition Diagram" illustrates the execution of actions from time 0 to time 9. Each row denotes a specific time, and each column represents the configuration of blocks. The 'move' action relocates a block to a new position, while the 'wait' action maintains the block's position unchanged. The goal state at time 10 shows block 'a' positioned on top of the table ('T').
The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, talks about how 80% of one’s results can be achieved with 20% of one’s effort. Most of us already know that, but that’s not what’s truly important in the image you can see below. Instead, if you move down the line, you’ll see that “50% of one’s results can be achieved with just 1% of one’s effort.”You should want to be on the straight line. Some tasks don’t require all our expertise, and the marginal return any extra investment of time, energy, or focus brings is simply not worth it.