Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

Common sense or, as cognitive science labels it, folk theory informs us that “all things are a kind of thing”. All things have in common with other things certain characteristics; i.e. all things belong in categories with other like things. Things are categorized together based upon what they have in common. It might be worth while to think of category as being a container.

In classical or conventional terms we categorize things in accordance with what are regarded as being that which is essential to that kind of thing. All things that are essentially the same fall into the same category. What is essential to a tree is that which is necessary and sufficient for that thing to be classified as a tree. To categorize a thing, i.e. define a thing, is to give its essential characteristics.

In some way or another all creatures must categorize. At a minimum all creatures must distinguish friend from foe or eat and not eat. Categorization is part of the fundamental needs for survival of the creature. If the mouse mistakes a snake for a stick that mouse becomes toast; the same categorization problem applies to the lion and to the man.

Categorization is meaningful. Meaning is not a thing; something is meaningful for a creature only when there is an association between that thing and the creature. “Meaningfulness derives from the experience of functioning as a being of a certain sort in an environment of a certain sort.” It is meaningful to a soldier when s/he mistakenly categorizes a tank to be only a harmless tree or an enemy to be a friend.

There is nothing more meaningful for a creatures’ survival than correct categorization of the world in which that creature lives.

When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

Quotes from “Metaphors We Live By” George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

I think you forgot to show why the Pro Choice and Pro Life categories are meaningful. I am not saying they are not, but since it is your thesis, it is odd you did not back it up in any way. You post does not relate to the topic, except in the last question, which actually shows an unclear understanding of how the categorizations you first mention actually work. The Prochoice group is not categorizing the issue in the way the question does.

So how do you see those categories as meaningful. prochoice and prolife.

Also members of both these groups have long since noticed the problems with their traditional ways of framing the issue and have used the other sides catergories against them.

For example: traditional prolife people have long shifted to also criticising pro-choice as anti-choice for the fetuses and the men. They have also attacked the abortion itself as anti-choice since you cannot choose to unabort but you can have the baby and choose to give it up for adoption. traditional pro-choice people have focused on the anti-life beliefs of their oponents: the pro-war, pro death penalty beliefs of their opponents for example. The anti-life stance inherent in a lot of the childrearing practices and, for example, fundamentalist christian notions of life here on earth being a mere preparatory testing ground for the after-life. This being a kind of death worship.

both sides have long since realized the strategic weakness of their dominant metaphors. But still, it perhaps is telling where they began. In what ways do you think it is telling?

There may be no specifiable, universal moment when a person begins, just as there is no such moment when a person ends.

You may have to make your decisions on other grounds.

The title is about the meaningfulness of categories. The question is to provide a vivid example of the meaningfulness of categorization.

Cognitive science has provided us with a new paradigm about consciousness. This new paradigm is focused upon helping us to understand how we think. Categorization is something all creatures do and thus if we can begin to comprehend how all animals create categories we can begin to comprehend how we conceive and perceive, i.e. how we think.

Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

Common sense or, as cognitive science labels it, folk theory informs us that “all things are a kind of thing”. All things have in common with other things certain characteristics; i.e. all things belong in categories with other like things. Things are categorized together based upon what they have in common. It might be worth while to think of category as being a container.

In classical or conventional terms we categorize things in accordance with what are regarded as being that which is essential to that kind of thing. All things that are essentially the same fall into the same category. What is essential to a tree is that which is necessary and sufficient for that thing to be classified as a tree. To categorize a thing, i.e. define a thing, is to give its essential characteristics.

In some way or another all creatures must categorize. At a minimum all creatures must distinguish friend from foe or eat and not eat. Categorization is part of the fundamental needs for survival of the creature. If the mouse mistakes a snake for a stick that mouse becomes toast; the same categorization problem applies to the lion and to the man.

Categorization is meaningful. Meaning is not a thing; something is meaningful for a creature only when there is an association between that thing and the creature. “Meaningfulness derives from the experience of functioning as a being of a certain sort in an environment of a certain sort.” It is meaningful to a soldier when s/he mistakenly categorizes a tank to be only a harmless tree or an enemy to be a friend.

There is nothing more meaningful for a creatures’ survival than correct categorization of the world in which that creature lives.

When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

Quotes from “Metaphors We Live By” George Lakoff and Mark Johnson



This topic is interesting. Quantum Physics makes no beliefs or assumptions. So until we perceive each other we cannot be absolutely sure that everyone else exists or is conscious. Yet, we may assume that everyone else exists or is conscious. Only they would know. So the consciousness itself must be the one. Thus all conscious beings are one conscious being living in parallel.

Cortex

I would argue that all sciences are based upon assumptions. I will not try to argue with the rest of your post.

Can you know whether or not I exist when you are not looking?

Can you know whether or not I exist when you are not looking?


Yes, you can know whether or not something exists when you do not see it, sight is not the only form of perception.

Then you would be making an assumption based on memory. That is what you would be doing.

Then you would be making an assumption based on memory. That is what you would be doing.

What if another person who you can see informs you that upon looking away there is still someone behind you, this is not on topic at all btw.:shrug:

Even that would be an assumption, albeit a learned one for the sense of security. But the only absolute is probability. The only certainty is uncertainty. This applies to perceptual information, which is limited.

Well then start yet another thread about it and i will be happy to discuss it with you there, or link me to one you already started.

I would argue that all sciences are based upon assumptions. I will not try to argue with the rest of your post.Yes. The fundamental principle of science, as I have posted elsewhere, is that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be understood and predicted by using theories that are derived logically from empirical observations of its past and present behavior.

But that principle is not an assumption. The scientific method has been tested constantly for 500 years, and it has not been disproved. To say that science will continue to unlock the mysteries of the universe is not an assumption. It is a reasoned statement based on centuries of evidence and testing. Since scientific theories can never be proven true (unlike mathematical theories which deal with pure abstractions), there is always the chance that any particular theory will one day be falsified. But to suggest that so many of them will be falsified that it will shatter the foundations of science is an extraordinary hypothesis. To borrow the language of law, science in aggregate is "true beyond a reasonable doubt."

In other words, to doubt science is unreasonable.

Not that this necessarily relates to the terribly ambiguous topic at hand but, CC brings up an interesting point....


...
The only certainty is uncertainty.


First, note that this is a contradiction.
Second, and most importantly, the certainty of uncertainty may very well be uncertain. However, it is entirely possible for it to be certain, and one not know that it is so......

The point being that certainty is only certain contingent upon two conditions:
One, post hoc. The facticity of a given situation can only be verified after the fact.
Two, subjectivity. The facticity of a given situation is entirely contingent upon the public verifiability of one's perception of the situation (amongst numerous other factors..).

Yes. The fundamental principle of science, as I have posted elsewhere, is that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be understood and predicted by using theories that are derived logically from empirical observations of its past and present behavior.

But that principle is not an assumption. The scientific method has been tested constantly for 500 years, and it has not been disproved. To say that science will continue to unlock the mysteries of the universe is not an assumption. It is a reasoned statement based on centuries of evidence and testing. Since scientific theories can never be proven true (unlike mathematical theories which deal with pure abstractions), there is always the chance that any particular theory will one day be falsified. But to suggest that so many of them will be falsified that it will shatter the foundations of science is an extraordinary hypothesis. To borrow the language of law, science in aggregate is "true beyond a reasonable doubt."

In other words, to doubt science is unreasonable.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”. Folk theories are assumptions.

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm


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Humans categorize both consciously and unconsciously; all other creatures categorize only unconsciously.

The important matter that needs attention are these unconscious categories and the brain processes associated with them that are part of the animal nature that we humans inherit.

When we learn how categories are created by our ancestors, the other animals, we will better understand why we do what we do. The empirical work done in the last 30 years by cognitive science has uncovered these matters and we are now in the position to better understand our brain activities as we try to comprehend the world we live in.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding.Yes. And as I explained, that is not an "assumption" or a "presupposition." We have been testing that hypothesis since the Enlightenment and not only has it never been disproved, but it continues to gather more supporting evidence.

Remember that the universe does not exist for us. That is human hubris, the fundamental sin upon which most religions are based: the belief that these particular blobs of protoplasm that we call "Oscar" and "Gracie" are categorically different from all other blobs of protoplasm, and indeed from all other matter. The universe got along just fine without us for roughly 99.97 percent of its existence. There are no special paranormal forces that swing into action when a human walks into the room, changing the way the universe behaves.

The title is about the meaningfulness of categories.

So when you say in the title
Categories are meaningful
it is about the meaninglessness of categories?

So when you say in the title

it is about the meaninglessness of categories?

No, we live and die based upon some of the categories that we create. All animals depend upon a minimum of correct categorization or they cannot survive.

Cognitive science has introduced a new way of viewing the world and our self by declaring a new paradigm which I call the embodied mind. The [primary focus is upon the fact that there is no mind/body duality but that there is indeed an integrated mind and body. The mind and body are as integrated as is the heart and the body.

The human thought process is dominated by the characteristic of our integrated body. The sensorimotor neural network is an integral part of our mind. The neural network that makes movement and perception possible is the same network that processes our thinking.

The unconscious categories that guide our human response to the world are constructed in the same way as are the categories that make it possible of other animals to survive in the world. We form categories both consciously and unconsciously.

Why do we feel that both our consciously created and unconsciously created categories fit the world?

Our consciously formed concepts fit the world, more or less, because we consciously examine the world with our senses and our reason and classify that world into these concepts we call categories.

Our unconsciously formed categories are a different matter. Our unconsciously formed categories fit our world because these basic-level categories “have evolved to form at least one important class of categories that optimally fit our bodily experiences of entities and certain extremely important differences in the natural environment”.

Our perceptual system has little difficulty distinguishing between dogs and cows or rats and squirrels. Investigation of this matter makes clear that we distinguish most readily those folk versions of biological genera, i.e. those “that have evolved significantly distinct shapes so as to take advantage of different features of their environment.”

If we move down to subordinate levels of the biological hierarchy we find the distinguishing ability deteriorates quickly. It is more difficult to distinguish one species of elephant from another than from distinguishing an elephant from a buffalo. It is easy to distinguish a boat from a car but more difficult distinguishing one type of car from another.

“Consider the categories chair and car which are in the middle of the category hierarchies furniture—chair—rocking chair and vehicle—car—sports car. In the mid-1970s, Brent Berlin, Eleanor Rosch, Carolyn Mervis, and their coworkers discovered that such mid-level categories are cogently “basic”—i.e. they have a kind of cognitive priority, as contrasted with “superordinate” categories like furniture and vehicle and with “subordinate” categories like rocking chair and sports car” (Berlin et al 1974 “Principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification”; Mervis and Rosch 1981 Categorization of Natural Objects, “Annual Review of Psychology” 32: 89-115))

The differences between basic-level and non basic-level categories is based upon bodily characteristics. The basic-level categories are dependent upon gestalt perception, sensorimotor programs, and mental images. “Because of this, classical metaphysical realism cannot be true, since the properties of categories are mediated by the body rather than determined directly by a mind-independent reality”

In humans basic level categories are developed primarily based upon our bodily configuration and its interrelationship with the environment. For other animals almost all, if not all, categories are basic-level categories.

What is classical metaphysical realism?

Quotes from "Philosophy in the Flesh" by Lakoff and Johnson

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