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degringolade
Artists / Necmeddin Okyay/ Floral Ebru
Getting back to the norm of my life. If such a thing can be said to be done. This phase of my life is pretty short term. Forty-one days total. Twelve weekends to be subtracted make for twenty-nine days on the hill. Three federal holidays gives me twenty six. I have five days of annual leave that brings me down to twenty-one days on the hill. I also have ten sick days. These are problematic as the fuckhead “managers” have decided that spite and vindictiveness are their long suits so these will need to be used strategically and judiciously. I am thinking that I will try to use these up but shouldn’t get too married to the theoretical eleven days that these represent.
But rest assured that I will make every effort to minimize my days on the hill.
Michael and I have been speaking of the concept of “self-evident”. He has stated that he follows the precepts of A.N. Whitehead as he has and use the definition promulgated by this august philosopher. This threw me for a loop as I have never read the chap. So yesterday I made my last book purchase from Amazon (more to follow on that later) and as a lark I purchased a “word book” which provides me definitions of technical terms.
So, In my soon-to-be expansive free time, I will take as my first dragon to be slain is my view of “self-evident”. Currently, this view is quite bilious as it seems to your humble correspondent that “self-evident” is usually presaged by hand-waving and an allusion to the person using the phrase being oh-so-much smarter/observant than I.
But, as I respect Michael's opinions on most issue, it isn’t across the board. The fact that he uses the phrase tips me off to the fact that there may be things I haven’t considered and definitions that limit my perception and allow me to think about the concept.
THE MEANING OF "SELF-EVIDENT"
Date: 2021-12-11 07:39 pm (UTC)The reason to have both, is there must be degrees to understanding because everybody knows there is. If something is understood fully, the reason for the “fully” is that the understanding is self-evident.
The model for self-evidence is mathematics. If you understand that 2+2=4, then what you understand is self-evident within the realm of mathematical science. If a scenario in the real world can be understood fully using mathematics, then the self-evidence applies. So, 2 apples and two more makes 4 apples in the bag. If mathematics is used to solve a modeling equation, then the answer is not self-evident unless somebody believes that every step of the theory is self-evident.
So here is where the difficulty might appear with the idea of self-evident. The reply to this concern is that it is beside the point for understanding what is meant by self-evident. Being self-evident is the reason that somebody understands what they think they understand fully. If you think that you understand something fully, then whatever it is, has become self-evident to you. In other words, you understand what you do, for the same reason that you understand how many apples are in the bag.
If something is self-evident to somebody else, then you do not get to say it is not and be right. The point of science and mathematics is to get around this problem by getting everybody to agree about what is self-evident. But just because the world is more complicated and confusing, does not mean that the possibility of things being self-evident is removed.
The point of all this is to show why there is no call to question whether something can be self-evident because things can be by definition. At root, the concept is necessary due to language in words. What is understood is put into words, and what a word means has to be self-evident for a communicated understanding to be self-evident. A statement meant to be self-evident must be worded carefully. This is another problem taken care of by numbers.
The other reason to have the description "self-evident" is to define understanding that is deeper and superior to any understanding that results from a proof. This is what Whitehead says about the relative status of something that is proved and something that is self-evident:
"We now come to the notion of “proof”. The thesis that I am developing conceives proof, in the strict sense of that term, as a feeble second-rate procedure. When the word proof has been uttered, the next notion to enter the mind is half-heartedness. Unless proof has produced self-evidence, and thereby rendered itself unnecessary, it has issued in a second-rate state of mind, producing action devoid of understanding. Self-evidence is the basic fact on which all greatness supports itself. But proof is one of the routes by which self-evidence is often obtained."
Re: THE MEANING OF "SELF-EVIDENT"
Date: 2021-12-11 07:49 pm (UTC)Withholding judgment until more reading/thinking is done.
Re: THE MEANING OF "SELF-EVIDENT" todays associated chapter from the Tao Te Ching
Date: 2021-12-11 07:54 pm (UTC)Leguin
The sick mind
To know without knowing is best.
Not knowing without knowing it is sick.
To be sick of sickness
is the only cure.
The wise aren’t sick.
They’re sick of sickness,
so they’re well.
Legge
To know and yet think we do not know is the highest attainment; not to know and yet think we do know is a disease.
It is simply by being pained at the thought of having this disease that we are preserved from it. The sage has not the disease. He knows the pain that would be inseparable from it, and therefore he does not have it.
Re: THE MEANING OF "SELF-EVIDENT"
Date: 2021-12-11 07:57 pm (UTC)71 /Leguin/ /The sick mind/ To know without knowing is best. Not knowing without knowing it is sick. To be sick of sickness is the only cure. The wise aren’t sick. They’re sick of sickness, so they’re well.
/Legge/ To know and yet think we do not know is the highest attainment; not to know and yet think we do know is a disease. It is simply by being pained at the thought of having this disease that we are preserved from it. The sage has not the disease. He knows the pain that would be inseparable from it, and therefore he does not have it.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-11 08:23 pm (UTC)Is the above self-evident?
It is if this guy defines it as the highest attainment.
So let me convert this new definition using the concept of self-evidence.
If something is self-evident, do not think you are right.
It seems to me that somebody is overcomplicating things. Within the realm of mathematical science, to think that 2+2 does not equal 4, is not that great of an attainment.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-11 09:33 pm (UTC)YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT THESE CHINESE GUYS, I HEAR
Date: 2021-12-12 01:31 am (UTC)But in the modern (post-Einstein) world, Whitehead’s philosophy was aimed square at the scientific viewpoint – specifically, to clarify the limited nature of scientific understanding. Perhaps the fundamental limitation that Whitehead calls abstraction is the same limitation that Lao Tse was concerned about.
“Thought unable to embrace totality” means that a person or science can consider only a limited amount of all the factors in the universe that effect what happens; so, all thinking and experimenting and theorizing involves an abstraction - that hopefully contains enough to provide a non-catastrophic conclusion to be reached.
Whitehead was already a renowned mathematician before being a philosopher, so his analysis was primarily about the project of striving for understanding that approaches the finality of being self-evident – as is possible with mathematics.
I’m guessing that Lao Tse, like Whitehead, had things to say about how to become wise in the first place; in other words, he must have also covered how “to know”.
"To know and yet think we do not know is the highest attainment"
The problem I have with Lao Tse’s words, is they make me distrust him. He sounds like somebody who wants people to think he is a God or at least a Leader who knows more than other humans. He sounds to me like somebody interested in having power over other people.
I am supposed to believe that he is the only man who does not have to follow his own advice.
If he is not God, then according to him, we should assume that he does not know what he is talking about and advise him to follow his own advice.
The reason why we should do this, is that what he says is not self-evident – or even close. So, I have to conclude that he is God, which I am reluctant to do. Americans today have been told that you have to be careful about these Chinese guys.
How about this simple version for starters: “Remember that you are always at least partially full of shit, and try not to be an ass”.
SUSPICIOUS
Date: 2021-12-12 02:17 am (UTC)Is he trying to get us to think we do not know how to design a decent guidance system for a missile?
Well, I hope not.