[Hans Blom, 970326c]
The following are quotes from sociologist Norbert Elias' "An essay on
time". Some catchwords are: meaning, knowledge, abstraction, (self)
control, perception, relations, (un)certainty, memory, prediction,
regularities, synthesis. I think of what he calls "concepts" as
complex "internal models"; you may not. Anyway, the quotes may be
interesting in their own right.
Greetings,
Hans
Earlier societies assigned very different meanings to so-called
'simple' concepts like 'moon', 'star', 'tree' or 'wolf'. Let us look
at one of these: the knowledge domain that is silently implied in the
current concept of 'wolf'. It implies that one knows that a wolf is
an animal, a mammal, born out of a female wolf, has been young, has
become an adult, grows old and will once die, and all that in a
regular, unchangeable manner. This knowledge is almost automatically
evoked in any member of our current continuum of knowledge who
observes a shape that is diagnosed as a 'wolf'. It gives someone, who
has learned this concept of 'wolf' an absolute certainty that a wolf
cannot change itself or be changed into a man or vice versa. But
people outside the stream and thrust of our long continuum of
knowledge and learning would have neither that knowledge nor that
certainty. How long ago was it, that the general belief in werewolves
disappeared in Europe? And how general, how irrefutable is the
absolute certainty that werewolves are fantasy now?
Memory plays a role in seeing at one time what in fact happens at
different times; it allows a general ability to connect events.
Martin P. Nilsson, 'Primitive Time-reckoning', Lund, 1920: Primitive
time-reckoning had a discrete and discontinuous nature and a need to
bodily witness the time indicator (sun, moon), because prediction,
based on known regularities in motion, was still unknown.
Some fundamental preconceptions are so deeply enmeshed in the general
ways of speech and thought, that they are no longer experienced as
something that can be doubted or changed.
Mankind has in its long history developed symbols in an ever more
complex synthesis. This demanded great powers of abstraction. In
societal development there are stages in which men have symbols for
'four cows', 'four apples' and such, all object-related, but not for
'four', a symbol unrelated to specific objects and therefore
applicable to a multitude of different objects. Mathematics is
applicable in many different domains and all sorts of relations can
mathematically be described using pure, context-free relational
symbols. Such pure relational symbols are easily manipulated on
paper, in our minds or in a computer, very differently from relations
between specific objects or persons. But then the result of these
symbolic manipulations can again be applied to specific objects or
persons.
All these high level abstractions, invented and improved throughout
mankind's long history, belong to what has been called 'second
nature', the social habitus which characterizes the individuality of
every human being. Second nature, one acquired, is so compelling that
it seems part of our 'human nature'. Differences in social habitus
between members of different societies often cause trouble (surprise,
unbelief) and sometimes even prevent communication (these troubles
are frequently amplified by the use of inexact and ambiguous terms
like 'ethnic differences'). An example: in Western societies, we are
often obsessed by the needs 'not to waste time' and always 'to be on
time', and the lack of punctually of some members of our culture or
of complete societies is easily interpreted as a personal insult or
lack of responsibility [Hall, 1959].
Everyone has, since his childhood, been shaped, in his own personal
way, by what he has learned from others and from society.
Acts more in terms of current needs than in terms of the future
demand less self-control; acting with the future in mind and planning
demand an ability to subordinate current needs to future gains.
One of the reasons of the high degree of uncertainty that marks the
knowledge, and thus the life, of people in earlier societies is the
relatively low level of synthesis in their concepts.
All high level abstractions rest on perceived data.
Pythagoras did not invent his theorem; Babylonians had known those
same properties of triangles. But he reached a new level of
synthesis: where Babylonian mathematicians needed to remember a great
many cases, a Greek mathematician needed just one formula,
Pythagoras's.