At 10:58 PM 2/16/99 -0800, you wrote:
............
>
>I'd say that the enlightenment we seek is developmental or evolutionary in
>nature. Our visions of "reality" and models start out somewhat vague and
>with time gain more clarity. With our early steps we only stumble on
>things that seem to be axioms -- very specific statements that also general.
>For example, I learned 3+5=8, before I learned a+b=c. It seems that by
>extension we might expect emergent ideas to appear through some kind of
>study/immersion/threshold effect. More so anyway, I think, than with
>issues of generalities or specifics.
I did what I considered a careful analysis of this kind of learning process
from 1988-1991 and came up with a "punctuated" model for scientific
learning. I also realized at the time that it could as well be a model for
evolution of species considered from the perspective of information. I
think it can help exlain punctuated equilibrium phenomena in evolution
popularized by SJ Gould. The model is discussed at:
http://www.bayside.net/NPO/BMI/autevol/ghw_epi.htm
paragraph operates only WITHIN a given worldview (set of assumptions). It
is the everyday mode of normal science (or normal living) and it proceeds
until the logical space has been covered, i.e., the explanatory power of
that particular view has been exhausted. About that time important
paradoxes begin to appear which indicate the limits of that worldview. The
next stage is a psychological or philosophical crisis, where the old
assumptions don't work. But the resolution involves new assumptions that
include, rather than discard, the previously conflicting ideas, yet under
which the conflict disappears. This is a proposed mechanism for Thomas
Kuhn's scientific revolutions, which are a well-known phenomena.
>
>This, IMO, is an axiom: "we don't know what we don't know".
In philosophy there is something called the "K-K thesis." It states that
knowledge is composed of more than knowing something. The additional
requirement is "knowing that you know." The same idea can be extended to
knowing what you don't know. In fact, many have written that awareness of
our ignorance is the beginning of knowledge.
>If this is
>true, then how can we grasp the general without understanding how it relates
>to specifics? That is, it may be we've been exposed to generalities over
>and over but never saw the generality because we've never been exposed to
>the context (specifics).
>
Yes! precisely. This is inherent in the model I mentioned above. However,
some "specifics" run around within the same set of assumptions and never
challenge them. "Paradoxes" are a special kind of specifics; they
explicitly show where the assumptions break down and thus they help
stimulate the transition to a new view. I see Rosen's view in this way -
it's necessity is brought about by the contraditions in traditional views,
yet it is not itself in conflict with those views; it just shows where
their limits are and gives clues as to how we might continue beyond them.
-----------------------------------------------
John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
National Geophysical Data Center
325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
Boulder, Colorado 80303 USA
(303) 497-6900 (phone)
(303) 497-6513 (fax)
jjk@ngdc.noaa.gov (email)