[From Bill Powers (950324.0905 MST)]
Martin Taylor (950323 18:40) --
We have a wildly different set of perceptions corresponding to the
label "category." I think this one really is worth pursuing...
A word is simply a configuration (visual) or an event (auditory).
I find this an astonishing statement, rather on a par with saying
that a piano is a collection of wood and wire. To me, a word is a
category ...
The point of the levels in HPCT is to dissect experiences into different
non-redundant levels of representation and functioning. When you see a
bouncing red ball, the experience is unitary: the color, the shape, the
motions, and the events all appear in experience together. There is no
obvious evidence that the whole experience comes apart into
hierarchically related components. Only by considering alternatives can
we see that the event-ness of a bounce depends absolutely on the
presence of the motions, shape, color, etc., that the motions could not
exist if it were not for the object being in different locations, that
the object could not exist if it were not for the sensations, both of
the ball and of the background, and that the sensations depend
absolutely on the existence of some non-zero intensities.
When we go to the higher levels, this dissection becomes even more
difficult. It also becomes even more a matter of personal investigation
of experience. We can communicate much more easily about the lower
levels in the hierarchy. When we start talking about things like
categories, we are talking about the very systems we use for
communication and thought, so taking these levels apart to see how they
are related becomes confusing.
To me, a word is a category, based on a variety of possible
configurations or events, but in its category because of its
context and a lot else. It is no relation to another word that
might sound or look the same: a BANK of a river is quite a
different word than the BANK in which one keeps money, though the
configuration is the same. It's a different category.
This is a hint as to how to go about the dissection. As you say, the
same configuration, BANK, can be used to refer to two very different
things, the bank of a river and the bank in which you keep money. To
those we can add the bank of a turning airplane and the actions we call
banking a fire or banking a billiard shot off the side-cushion. As we
normally use the word BANK, it seems to participate in the thing we are
talking about; it almost IS the thing we are talking about. It is as
much a part of the main subject as the ball's shape is part of the
bouncing.
Yet when we use the same word in these different contexts, two things
happen: the word repeats, but its meaning does not. The meaning shifts
with context. In one case you get a picture or an idea of some sort of
edifice; in another you get a picture or idea of a tilted airplane. The
word itself, BANK, is exactly the same in the two cases, yet something
that is not BANK has changed. That something is the meaning of the word,
the perception to which the word is used to point.
A lot of things pointed me toward finding a way of dissecting these
higher-level phenomena. One was the writings of Korzybksi and his
followers in General Semantics, which helped me to start distinguishing
between a word and the object it designates, then the word and (more
generally) its meaning. Another was the writings of Eastern
philosophers, who had done many explorations of subjective phenomena at
higher levels. And another was a period of dabbling (I used the word
advisedly) in meditation techniques, particularly Transcendental
Meditation which was basically (for me) a practical course in how to
turn off the monkey-chatter and observe wordlessly. All this (plus the
developing hierarchical model) led to the Method of Levels, in which one
practices in a systematic way shifting points of view from one level to
another, seeing each point of view first as if it is the Observer, and
then as if it is the Observed.
The main trick I learned was to consider the meaning of a word
separately from the word: to look at an airplane turning, and observe
the angle of the wings while not thinking "bank." This is actually quite
easy to do once you get the hang of it. All that is required is not to
think or imagine the object or situation that looks like the word BANK,
and to focus instead on the perceptions to which this term refers. (*) I
just went upstairs to check the fire in the fireplace (chilly day) and
noticed a nice example. We have eight identical chairs around our big
circular table, which you will remember. I glanced at the chairs, and
realized I was looking at a category. All the chairs seemed similar,
even though each appeared at a different visual angle and each was
different from the others -- at the configuration level. The category
perception was momentarily visible by itself, in that short space
between noticing the similarity and the time when I thought "chairs."
And then I thought "I'll have to tell Martin about that," and here I am
doing it. (*) Only what went on in my thoughts was not that literal
sentence, "I'll have to tell Martin...". It was just a sort of "Ah."
There was something about the unfinished message on the screen of the
computer downstairs, a sense of the general topic, and the little
experience of the wordless category. It has taken me 162 words (between
the (*) marks) to put together a description of what happened within
less than a second.
At the moment, you feel (or felt when you wrote) that a word _is_ a
category. My claim is that a word is simply a low-level perception that
_is used to point to_ a category perception, and that the category
perception itself is not a word. I don't know of any logical way to
resolve this difference. The observation involved is purely subjective.
Perhaps if you were to consider your experiences with words and their
meanings further, along the lines I have suggested, you might come to
agree that you observe the same thing. Or you may not. I have no means
of persuasion other than that.
···
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Kent McClelland (950323)--
Darn it, that's two who will not be coming to the CSG meeting, you and
Dag. However, I suppose I should be glad that you will be carrying the
good work abroad among the heathen of the British Isles. Perhaps you'll
be able to get in touch with some of the missionaries who were at the
Wales conference. I look forward to your sabbatical year and your Grand
Reunification Theory of Sociology which, from your prevue in Wales,
should set the course of sociology well into the 21st century.
I'm sure Paul Stokes would be happy to hear from you and get a copy of
your paper (as would I: also, Clark McPhail, I would like to see the
paper you mentioned in a direct post).
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Bill Leach (950323.21:32 EST)--
I would like to see if I really am following you here. A red light
in our visual field would generate some set of spacially related
intensity signals from the eyes. These signals would be combined
and compared as they 'stepped' up through the hiearchy.
At some point in the hiearchy there will exist an intensity signal
for what we call or label as 'red'. Now this signal exists
independently of any conscious awareness and independently of the
existance of any "word" to represent it.
Yes. And not only the particular light in your visual field, but any red
light. At the category level, any light within a certain range of colors
will yield the SAME signal, what I call a category signal. You will
experience all the different kinds of redness that your lower-level
perceptual functions generate _as if they were the same thing_. In the
same way, when you perceive many different individual dogs, at the level
we are speaking of any of those dog-signals would generate the _same_
signal, indicating that "a dog" is present. What the category level does
is permit us to treat many different perceptions from lower levels,
which can be seen as different, as if they were examples of the same
thing. When I get out "a coffee cup," I may end up with the cup that has
a picture of Stonehenge on it, but any other cup would have done as
well. I don't have to say to myself in words that I'm going to grasp "a
cup." I simple set a reference signal for the category-perception that
arises when any cup is selected.
When we 'assign' a word to be used to describe the sensation
associated with this signal, what happens then is that the control
loop created to deal with the word will have an output that goes as
an input to the same "final processing element" that is the source
of the signal?
A picture is worth...
> category signal (wordless)
>
===========
>> OR ||
>> function ||
===========
/ / / \
/ / / \
perceptions word-
being configuration
categorized (name)
Any one of the perceptions being categorized together will give rise to
the same category signal. The word-configuration will also give rise to
the same category signal. So hearing, seeing, or imagining the word-
configuration will evoke the sense of category just as will hearing,
seeing, or imagining any of the perceptions on the left side, which are
not words. So the perceptions being categorized become the meanings of
the word-configuration.
If you now imagine that there are many of these arrangements at a given
level, each categorizing different sets of perceptions and involving
different words, it's clear that by manipulating words we can create
category perceptions just as if the equivalent nonverbal experiences
were occurring. Then, since we can have not only words, but word-events
(phrases) and word-relationships (word-order and so forth), and since
the perceptions being categorized are also of many possible lower
levels, we can construct quite complex experiences at the category level
(and on up) just by using words.
The above arrangement isn't the only possible one; even if it exists, it
doesn't rule out other functional arrangements that work in different
ways. Basically all I'm trying to do is model how words can come to
designate categories.
OTOH, the process to bring up the word 'red' does not necessarily
require any perception of the actual color. So the word and the
perception could possibly be only 'loosely' linked. I can (barely)
imagine that I can see red when I attempt to do.
Thinking the category pointed to by "red" is much easier for most people
than imagining a sensation of redness. It's like remembering THAT a
certain shirt is red, without being able to see it, literally, as a
sensation of redness. I think we often talk about this as the _concept_
of redness, where "concept" is an attempt to refer to an experience of
something at a level above that of the detailed lower-level perceptions.
I for example am, I believe, a very poor 'imager' from imagination.
Just now I tried to visualize a traffic light and could not 'see'
the image though I could describe in detail the particular traffic
light that I wished to 'image'.
I would claim that what you are describing are categories rather than
configurations and sensations. If you were to write out the description,
I think you would find that the description is almost completely in
terms of categories, plus many modifications that are more categories
which are to be intersected with the category being modified. For
example, "the rectangular object near the top of the pole" intersects
categories like rectangular, object, near, top, and pole to narrow down
_which_ rectangular object you are referring to. This can all be done at
the category level, with a little help from lower-level imagination.
Your account of that striking experience with the final examination, by
the way, is clear evidence that imagination and memory association do
exist and do work at lower perceptual levels. The puzzle is why, when
they can be so useful, so few of us have everyday conscious access to
such processes. You're in a good position to consider this, since you
reside in the more normal world most of the time yet have this memory of
having functioned in a very different way. There are people who have,
they say, _never_ experienced low-level imagination, and tend to scoff
at the idea that it even exists (they might even say "it's all in your
head" which in this particular case would be a rather self-defeating
idea).
On the other hand, maybe there is a simple secret to turning on the low-
level imagination capability, which is being suppressed by a gas
disseminated by the movie, tv, VCR, music, and art industries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Best to all,
Bill P.
