The Epiphany of the Absurd (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23571.0) thread got me thinking about some things, especially the discussion of Shrunkenheadspace's neuron-based argument for the incomprehensibility of the cosmos (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23571.msg804297#msg804297).
It might sound like I'm begging the question, but I'm just trying to describe this stuff. Scout's honor.
Quote from: Brotep on January 06, 2010, 07:53:52 PMA more convincing argument [for a hard-wired human inability to comprehend the universe] might be made by saying we perceive our surroundings in terms of what we can do with them. It's not just the limitations of having five senses, but being human-shaped and human-sized.
Our perception of a chair will be far more focused on sitting than a rhinoceros' perception of the same chair.
We're not really wired to understand the universe, then--just what we can do with it.
This is pretty much the concept of
affordances from ecological psychology, organism-proportioned properties of things in the environment. And they pop out at us.
Ecological psychology says they're real, they're out in the world. Which is weird, because that means "sittability" is an actual property of chairs. What's more, sittability is as obvious to us as mate in one to a chess player.
At the time I was taught this, I wanted to object that affordances are relational (between organism and object) and therefore not out there in the world, but I realized chemical properties are relational, too. "Water-soluble" doesn't mean a damn thing without water; if affordances are all in our heads, then chemical properties are all in our heads, too.
I guess properties are often a kind of bottled causation. Action A with object Alpha yields result Aleph. Macros in the fabric of reality, if you will. (And I might.)
Anyway, our understanding of our environment is heavily biased toward the things we can do with it. There are all these neglected ways of perceiving the environment--namely, the things we cannot possibly do with it.
Mind you, I believe "understanding the universe" is philosophically unintelligible to begin with.
Sure, you can be all pragmatic and say the only important way of understanding the universe is in relation to us. Sounds like a pretty one-sided relationship if you ask me, but yeah, you can science the shit out of it.
Well first, what do you mean by "understanding" ? If we know that gravity exists (etc) does that count as understanding the universe or are you talking about something else?
And speaking of definitions, is this a good working definition for affordances?
QuoteAn affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.
Assuming that the answer is yes and assuming that affordances are real, I think we've gone way beyond weird here. If "sittability" is real, doesn't that mean that every object has an infinite amount of qualities? There seems to be something wrong with that idea. And what about objects that were once used for one purpose and are now used for something else (or are not used at all) ? How does something like a vestigal organ fit into the concept of affordances? And how far are you really willing to go with this idea of "sittability" ? Is "fuckability" a quality of attractive women? Can affordances be objectively measured? If so, wouldn't that mean that we could actually measure art in some way? And if affordances aren't measurable, in what sense are they "real"?
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 06, 2010, 11:41:36 PM
Well first, what do you mean by "understanding" ? If we know that gravity exists (etc) does that count as understanding the universe or are you talking about something else?'
That would count as understanding something about the universe. I just mean that we can never get the whole picture (and ultimately I am saying that there isn't such a thing as a whole picture to get).
QuoteAnd speaking of definitions, is this a good working definition for affordances?
QuoteAn affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.
More or less, if you include that they are relational and say "organism" rather than "individual".
QuoteAssuming that the answer is yes and assuming that affordances are real, I think we've gone way beyond weird here.
I think you're right.
QuoteIf "sittability" is real, doesn't that mean that every object has an infinite amount of qualities?
Exactly. However, the ones that matter to us are probably finite in quantity.
QuoteThere seems to be something wrong with that idea. And what about objects that were once used for one purpose and are now used for something else (or are not used at all)?
It's a weird idea, yes. But can you extricate other kinds of properties, like solubility, from this?
As for objects that were once used for one purpose and are now used for something else, or not at all:
The old uses might not pop out to us the same way as current uses would, but they would still have those properties.
A mini-fridge affords sitting, even though that is not its intended purpose. Because of that, and because it doesn't afford sitting as well as a chair, we generally sit on chairs instead of mini-fridges.
QuoteHow does something like a vestigal organ fit into the concept of affordances?
I don't think it does. Affordances have to do with action. Autonomic bodily functions wouldn't apply.
QuoteAnd how far are you really willing to go with this idea of "sittability" ?
To second base but no further. I'm saving myself for marriage.
QuoteIs "fuckability" a quality of attractive women?
Fuckability is a quality of anyone or anything that you can fuck.
QuoteCan affordances be objectively measured?
Yes, with what is known as critical and optimal pi numbers. These numbers are ratios between the organism and the object. In the case of stairs, the pi numbers are a ratio between leg length and step height. The critical pi number refers to the ratio beyond which the stairs would be unclimbable. The optimal pi number is the ratio at which one needs to expend the least energy to climb the stairs.
QuoteIf so, wouldn't that mean that we could actually measure art in some way?
I don't think so...How do you mean?
So if there's no Big Picture what Is out there? Just a bunch of tiny, occasionally overlapping Polaroids? Or are you taking the stance that the Universe is literally Chaos (which I would say counts as a Big Picture)?
Does this revised definition of affordance mean that objects have different properties in relation to different organism? Or does it hold all of those properties at once (with the majority just being useless to any particular organism) ?
The art question was directed towards the hypothetical property of appreciability. In theory a masterpiece has a high appreciability (etc). So if affordance actually exists and can be objectively measured, this suggests that some sort of scientific test exists that man measure the level of appreciability in a piece of art. I have no idea how that would work, but then again, I'm still trying to figure out the stair thing.
We should start a "Way Beyond Weirdness" forum.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 07, 2010, 02:30:54 AM
So if there's no Big Picture what Is out there? Just a bunch of tiny, occasionally overlapping Polaroids? Or are you taking the stance that the Universe is literally Chaos (which I would say counts as a Big Picture)?
I'm just saying we can only understand the universe in terms of stuff we can do to it and stuff it does.
QuoteDoes this revised definition of affordance mean that objects have different properties in relation to different organism? Or does it hold all of those properties at once (with the majority just being useless to any particular organism) ?
I haven't revised the definition--just explained it a little better. A barstool affords sitting for people but not for cheetahs. It still affords sitting for people when a cheetah is looking at it...So yes, an object holds all such properties at once.
QuoteThe art question was directed towards the hypothetical property of appreciability. In theory a masterpiece has a high appreciability (etc). So if affordance actually exists and can be objectively measured, this suggests that some sort of scientific test exists that man measure the level of appreciability in a piece of art. I have no idea how that would work, but then again, I'm still trying to figure out the stair thing.
Ah, okay. That's stretching the concept pretty far. It's one thing to say "these stair steps are too high for people; they don't afford stepping". It's another to say "this painting is too ugly; it doesn't afford appreciation".
QuoteWe should start a "Way Beyond Weirdness" forum.
Nah, it's business as usual around these parts.
I once had a similar thought; How a couch floating in space would be just a bunch of atoms not really "being" a couch, cause it's only a couch by the virtue of humans being able to sit on it and know it's a couch.
There's probably some kind of philosophical school of thought about this, and a whole bunch of arguments against it.
From what I gather, this seems to be the Aneristic illusion writ large.
We are pattern makers; we can make patterns. Pragmatically, we tend to make patterns out of things that may be useful to us.
But I don't think you can extrapolate this to say that's the only way we can perceive the universe. It might explain why we can see certain patterns more easily than others.
If an object can be used in whatever way our pattern-making heads come up with, then the "affordability" isn't in the object, it's in our pattern-makers. So to say the universe is made up of "affordabilities" seems to project an internal solipsism onto the universe.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 06, 2010, 11:41:36 PM
There seems to be something wrong with that idea.
Quote from: LMNO on January 07, 2010, 02:15:50 PM
If an object can be used in whatever way our pattern-making heads come up with, then the "affordability" isn't in the object, it's in our pattern-makers. So to say the universe is made up of "affordabilities" seems to project an internal solipsism onto the universe.
There ya go. That's what I was trying to think of . What he said.
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 07, 2010, 02:02:26 PM
I once had a similar thought; How a couch floating in space would be just a bunch of atoms not really "being" a couch, cause it's only a couch by the virtue of humans being able to sit on it and know it's a couch.
There's probably some kind of philosophical school of thought about this, and a whole bunch of arguments against it.
A couch is a couch regardless of whether or not there's anybody around to recognize it. When we dig up an ancient artifact, it doesn't cease to be whatever it was originally just because we don't know what it is. The idea you're referencing though is from Aristotle or Plato. I'd have to dig through my notes to find the name, but it's vaguely teleological; a thing
is what
it does. And yeah, there's a bunch of arguments against it but mostly people have stopped arguing that point.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 07, 2010, 05:02:22 PM
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 06, 2010, 11:41:36 PM
There seems to be something wrong with that idea.
Quote from: LMNO on January 07, 2010, 02:15:50 PM
If an object can be used in whatever way our pattern-making heads come up with, then the "affordability" isn't in the object, it's in our pattern-makers. So to say the universe is made up of "affordabilities" seems to project an internal solipsism onto the universe.
There ya go. That's what I was trying to think of . What he said.
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 07, 2010, 02:02:26 PM
I once had a similar thought; How a couch floating in space would be just a bunch of atoms not really "being" a couch, cause it's only a couch by the virtue of humans being able to sit on it and know it's a couch.
There's probably some kind of philosophical school of thought about this, and a whole bunch of arguments against it.
A couch is a couch regardless of whether or not there's anybody around to recognize it. When we dig up an ancient artifact, it doesn't cease to be whatever it was originally just because we don't know what it is. The idea you're referencing though is from Aristotle or Plato. I'd have to dig through my notes to find the name, but it's vaguely teleological; a thing is what it does. And yeah, there's a bunch of arguments against it but mostly people have stopped arguing that point.
Quote2+2 is truth; 2+2=4 is a lie
QuoteA couch is a couch regardless of whether or not there's anybody around to recognize it.
I would argue that a couch with no one around is simply wood and cloth and stuffing... or (insert chemical formula for couches here).. The label "couch" is simply a semantic one that ties the idea of "a thing you sit on" with a particular kind of physical object.
It exists as the sum of its parts, but not as a couch (sum of parts + semantic connection [label] about what to do with said parts)
There's another tendency which factors in -- the tendency for things to find uses for other things. Imaginary numbers and boolean algebra were entirely useless for quite some time, if I understand correctly. They are now, of course, used pretty constantly (your computer was built on the principles of boolean algebra, and imaginary numbers are used in electronics somehow). If you found some arbitrary non-human-made object that you had never seen before, but you could sit on it and you lacked a chair, you'd probably sit on it.
I might argue that a couch is never a couch. The physical couch is just itself; the set of couches and its belonging to the set of couches is something that humans have invented so that they can more easily communicate about couches. If you name a thing, you can talk about it, and if you reuse names for similar things, you don't run out of short pronouncable names as quickly.
Goddammit.
Every once in a while, you're somewhat coherent, and it pisses me off I can't just write you off as a total loss.
Quote from: LMNO on January 07, 2010, 08:33:41 PM
Goddammit.
Every once in a while, you're somewhat coherent, and it pisses me off I can't just write you off as a total loss.
I can. I'd rather have a car that I knew wouldn't start, rather than a car that would start just often enough to keep me from junking it.
Remember Peanuts? Lucy would have been more effective if she let Charlie Brown kick the ball once in a while.
Just saying.
Quote from: LMNO on January 07, 2010, 08:33:41 PM
Goddammit.
Every once in a while, you're somewhat coherent, and it pisses me off I can't just write you off as a total loss.
Which part was coherent -- the part about imaginary numbers, or the part where I said couches weren't couches?
Not telling -- knowing you, you'd deliberately avoid doing it again.
:lulz:
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 07, 2010, 02:02:26 PM
I once had a similar thought; How a couch floating in space would be just a bunch of atoms not really "being" a couch, cause it's only a couch by the virtue of humans being able to sit on it and know it's a couch.
There's probably some kind of philosophical school of thought about this, and a whole bunch of arguments against it.
By any chance were you listening to Zappa at the time?
Quote from: LMNO on January 07, 2010, 02:15:50 PM
From what I gather, this seems to be the Aneristic illusion writ large.
We are pattern makers; we can make patterns. Pragmatically, we tend to make patterns out of things that may be useful to us.
I'm with you so far.
QuoteBut I don't think you can extrapolate this to say that's the onlyway we can perceive the universe. It might explain why we can see certain patterns more easily than others.
A fair point.
QuoteIf an object can be used in whatever way our pattern-making heads come up with, then the "affordability" isn't in the object, it's in our pattern-makers. So to say the universe is made up of "affordabilities" seems to project an internal solipsism onto the universe.
I see what you're saying about
affordances, but a chair
affords sitting whether we think about it or not. That is, there is a fit between object and organism conducive to certain things.
Affordability is in wholesale, my friend. 8)
It's not that the universe is made up of
affordances, but rather that they are actual properties of objects in the universe. A sofa still
affords sitting or lying down even if there is no one there to do it, it's just not very relevant in such a context.
If
affordances are just in our heads,
solubility and
melting point and such are just in our heads, too.
Fuck that. Any resonably horizontal surface in an environment with gravity "affords" sitting.
The horizontal surface doesn't mean squat. It's the way the joints in our ankles, knees, and hips that create a sitting action. The horizontal surface just gets in the way.
To the OP: Affordances are map based assumptions. In other words, they aren't the territory. A couch is only a couch because we recognize it as one due to our experience and indoctrination with such things. If we dig up a couch and recognize it as such it is only because we have a /shared human/ experience with the original owner/maker. A tool/craft/human creation is just the sum total of it's components until we inbue more to it with a name and a purpose...which leads me to think you are projecting some sort of cathexis and assuming it's an intrinsic rather than extrinsic property of objects.
I'm not really sure if you are arguing for or against what I said on the previous page, but be assured there is nothing "intrinsic" about my realization.
It's just that, if you had a couch, or the matter making up a couch, in the shape of a couch, but it would float somewhere in the vast emptiness of space, without any human ever able to get there or even observe it [it being small and light centuries far away].
Then IMO it would make more sense to me to think of such a thing as "matter in the shape of a couch" or "something that would be a couch if someone were around to use or even appreciate it as such", even if it were materially identical to a nice Chesterfield.
Because it would really be a meaningless clump of atoms, rather than "a couch".
I don't think this is so much about something intrinsic to the object, but more something intrinsic to the way we think of the verb "to be", oh shit E-Prime, I dont wanna go there, sorry. It just struck me as really profound the moment I was mulling over it.
Let's look at an example. If you were walking through the Oceana exhibit in the Smithsonian, you'd see a wooden structure. It's about a foot high, with a slightly convex surface about 6 inches by 8 inches, with either three or four legs supporting it.
If you saw it, you'd think it was a very short stool. But it's actually a pillow. The natives would sleep with their heads supported on this hard wooden platform.
We do not recognize it as a pillow because we do not have the experience of sleeping with our heads jacked up on a piece of wood. Instead, we recognize it as a stool, because that is what we are taught that this kind of structure "means".
Yes. So you agree with me, right?
Except it got even more confusing, when I realized when there's nobody around to attach this meaning, there is still the clump of matter making up the object, and even though it "is" nothing [meaningful], it's still there, being it's shape and atoms and shit.
Allow me to make some assumptions:
This couch-shaped thing is not a naturally occuring thing; that is, it's not a meteorite that has one horizontal surface, and two perpendicular surfaces parallel to the first, or anything. It's a constructed amalgamation of fabric, wood, and metal springs.
If so, then it was constructed with a pattern in mind. Because of this, I would say it's still a couch.
If it's some sort of weird naturally-occuring thing, then I would say it's "couch-like", or (more specifically), "it has some properties that are oddly couch-like".
This is all too fucking complicated. I have a couch. I know it's a couch because I can sit on it, because it looks like a couch, and because that's what the invoice said when I bought it.
What more do I need to know? Couches are for three things:
1. Sitting on.
2. Fucking on.
3. Napping on.
Couches are NOT for mental masturbation about how we know if they're real or not. It occurs to me that there are plenty of weird Damnthings in the universe to spend time thinking about, rather than how you "know" whether or not your couch is a couch.
For fuck's sake.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 08, 2010, 03:53:09 PM
This is all too fucking complicated. I have a couch. I know it's a couch because I can sit on it, because it looks like a couch, and because that's what the invoice said when I bought it.
What more do I need to know? Couches are for three things:
1. Sitting on.
2. Fucking on.
3. Napping on.
4. A weapon.
Couches are NOT for mental masturbation about how we know if they're real or not. It occurs to me that there are plenty of weird Damnthings in the universe to spend time thinking about, rather than how you "know" whether or not your couch is a couch.
For fuck's sake.
Addendum.
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2010, 03:55:02 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 08, 2010, 03:53:09 PM
This is all too fucking complicated. I have a couch. I know it's a couch because I can sit on it, because it looks like a couch, and because that's what the invoice said when I bought it.
What more do I need to know? Couches are for three things:
1. Sitting on.
2. Fucking on.
3. Napping on.
4. A weapon.
Couches are NOT for mental masturbation about how we know if they're real or not. It occurs to me that there are plenty of weird Damnthings in the universe to spend time thinking about, rather than how you "know" whether or not your couch is a couch.
For fuck's sake.
Addendum.
True.
But my point stands. All the rest is a collection of solopsisms. If you can't be sure the couch exists, get a new couch. If THAT one seems iffy, lift it 3' up and drop one of the legs of the couch onto the top of your foot, just below the ankle. The reality or non-reality of the couch will become self-evident.
TGRR,
Refutes it thus.
I was gonna write a long post, filled with analogies and metaphors, and then end it with:
:barstool:
But then I decided I have better things to do.
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 08, 2010, 03:04:46 PM
I'm not really sure if you are arguing for or against what I said on the previous page, but be assured there is nothing "intrinsic" about my realization.
It's just that, if you had a couch, or the matter making up a couch, in the shape of a couch, but it would float somewhere in the vast emptiness of space, without any human ever able to get there or even observe it [it being small and light centuries far away].
Then IMO it would make more sense to me to think of such a thing as "matter in the shape of a couch" or "something that would be a couch if someone were around to use or even appreciate it as such", even if it were materially identical to a nice Chesterfield.
Because it would really be a meaningless clump of atoms, rather than "a couch".
I don't think this is so much about something intrinsic to the object, but more something intrinsic to the way we think of the verb "to be", oh shit E-Prime, I dont wanna go there, sorry. It just struck me as really profound the moment I was mulling over it.
I was talking to the Original Poster, and their idea of affordances, which are essentially just concepts, and not real qualities of objects (like electromagnetism and shape and composition).
yeah, I think the last handful of posters here are in agreement with each other, and disagree with the OP.
I hate when philosophy majors try for a PhD.
Aw crap, it's a reductio ad super cool story bro. We learned about those in that online philosophy class I took seven years ago.
TripZip, whether or not your floating clump of matter is a couch, one could sit upon it if it drifted over to this planet and hung out somewhere around ground level. Not worried about metaphysical essences here, just stuff you can do to stuff.
Kai, once again...How is the physical relation entailed by an affordance less real than the physical relation entailed by a chemical property?
Because the "physical relation" occurs in the brain of the observer. Not in the object.
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2010, 03:23:41 PMAllow me to make some assumptions:
This couch-shaped thing is not a naturally occuring thing; that is, it's not a meteorite that has one horizontal surface, and two perpendicular surfaces parallel to the first, or anything. It's a constructed amalgamation of fabric, wood, and metal springs.
If so, then it was constructed with a pattern in mind. Because of this, I would say it's still a couch.
If it's some sort of weird naturally-occuring thing, then I would say it's "couch-like", or (more specifically), "it has some properties that are oddly couch-like".
Well yeah, when I had that thought I was also thinking of a more HHGTTG-like universe, hence the Chesterfield.
^nice
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2010, 07:34:03 PM
Because the "physical relation" occurs in the brain of the observer. Not in the object.
So like, if you climb something, it's just in your head that you're climbing something, whereas if you dissolve salt in water, that's out in the world? :?
Quote from: Brotep on January 09, 2010, 02:54:09 AM
^nice
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2010, 07:34:03 PM
Because the "physical relation" occurs in the brain of the observer. Not in the object.
So like, if you climb something, it's just in your head that you're climbing something, whereas if you dissolve salt in water, that's out in the world? :?
You really need to learn the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic. Please.
Quote from: Brotep on January 09, 2010, 02:54:09 AM
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2010, 07:34:03 PM
Because the "physical relation" occurs in the brain of the observer. Not in the object.
So like, if you climb something, it's just in your head that you're climbing something, whereas if you dissolve salt in water, that's out in the world? :?
Wow. Just when I thought the thread couldn't get any stupider...
Quote from: Brotep on January 09, 2010, 02:54:09 AM
^nice
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2010, 07:34:03 PM
Because the "physical relation" occurs in the brain of the observer. Not in the object.
So like, if you climb something, it's just in your head that you're climbing something, whereas if you dissolve salt in water, that's out in the world? :?
The mountain you climb is not the mountain you talk about climbing.
The salt you dissolve is not the salt you speak of dissolving.
Separate the map and the territory and then you will find that there is a mountain you're climbing in your head AND a mountain in reality... there's salt and water in your head... AND there's the salt and water in reality.
Related, but not the same.
Splitting hairs, ITT.
Water solubility is literally a physical property of certain objects. It's essentially a lock that's opened by the key of water. Water exists in the world and so do these substances. When these real world objects come into contact with real world water, they dissolve. And this occurs regardless of human existence. Stairs on the other hand, require humans to invent them and use them. There's no such thing as "the intrinsic properties of stairs" because "stair" is a concept. If we decided to call them something else or to use them for something else, "stair" ceases to "exist". Water solubility on the other hand ain't goin' nowhere.