We have just finished talking about our senses and our sensory-perceptions -- our bridges and/or gateway between our inner and outer world, as well as between our subjective and objective world.
As philosophically impossible as it may be to separate our 'subjective' and 'objective' worlds (or in Kant's terminology, our 'phenomenal' and 'noumenal' worlds, respectively), still it is just about equally impossible to walk away from this distinction and pretend it doesn't exist.
We ignore, deny, disown, or are simply not aware of the (or 'our') 'objective' world around and in us -- at our own peril. This objective world is quite different from the more 'subjective' world of our own senses and cognitive-evaluative processes that have the critical function of 'mapping out' in our 'awareness or consciousness' or what I am calling our 'Central Ego' the objective world that we live in, that we need to live in -- and that we need to survive in.
Thus, as Alfred Korzybski has stated in his classic book on epistemology and language, 'Science and Sanity' (1933, you can find a nice, short synopsis of it here: http://www.worldtrans.org/essay/scisanity.html), our 'subjective', ('intensional', 'phenomenal') world of consciousness relates to our more 'objective' ('extensional', 'noumenal') world that we have to live in to survive, just like a 'map' relates to the 'territory' that map is supposed to usefully/functionally represent.
In this regard, if there is a significant 'misrepresentation' in terms of an 'error' that is made in the construction and the layout of the map that does not accurately correspond to the internal or external territory that this map is supposed to represent -- well then, we are going to make a 'wrong turn' because of this error and the map can be viewed as 'dysfunctional' to its 'structural misrepresentation' of the territory that it is supposed to be 'accurately representing'.
Now, no 'map' or 'model' or 'theory' or 'word' or 'symbol' or 'abstraction' or 'generalization' is every going to perfectly represent the 'objective territory' that it is supposed to represent. All maps are going to entail a certain degree of imperfections, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the precision and expertise of the 'map-maker'. In addition, every different person who tries to put together a map of the same, or similar, 'objective territory' is going to have their own private motivations, personal interests and in short -- 'subjective, narcissistic bias'. This also then, is going to impact the outcome of the structure of each person's individual conceptual-cognitve map, meaning that every persons cogntive-conceptual maps even of the supposedly 'same objective territory' are going to be at least partly different, and often times, radically different based on the 'functional intent' of the map.
It is in this world of similar and different -- sometimes radically different -- individual and collective, conceptual-cognitive maps, that different people are going to try -- or not try -- to agree with each other in the similarity and/or differences of their individual/group/cultural/religious/economic/philosophical/psychological/political/artistic maps...
Individual and group bias, as well as different ways of 'abstracting' or 'viewing' things can cause great difficulty in both human communication, and in human agreement.
Two different people can look at exactly the same picture or the same scene and see or experience something totally different based on the nature of their particular 'internal, subjective, conceptual-cognitive-emotional world'...
As soon as we start to appreciate these individual and collective differences in our conceptual-cogntive-emotional maps, and realize that people's individual and collective perspectives are based as much on our 'interpretations and evaluations of the alleged facts', as they are on 'the assumed facts' themselves, the sooner we can move in a communication and action direction that may help us to overcome and/or tolerate these differences with our neighbour. Or not. Humans like to get their own way.
To a greater or lesser extent, we are all 'control freaks' who expend great energy on controlling our internal and/or external worlds. Sometimes this 'control fixation' is functional, other times it may be dysfunctional, neurotic, pathological, depending on the context of the situation and how far overboard we go...
The opposite of 'over-control' -- what Freud called the 'anal personality' is 'under-control' which in Freudian terminology we might call the 'oral personality'. Like the prototype of the 'feeding baby', the oral personality type always wants to be 'fed'...food, sex, drugs, alchohol, money, property, material goods, attention...and so on...
The oral peronality type tends to be 'impulsive' and 'spontaneous' as opposed to the very 'self-controlled' and 'planning' nature of the anal personality type. 'The bi-polar anal-oral type' swings back and forth both ways between opposite ends of the spectrum...controlled, controlled, controlled...and then perhaps under the influence of alchohol....let loose, let loose, let loose...Ideally, we should all be able to swing flexibly back and forth along all parts of the 'oral-anal bi-polar spectrum' according to the context of the situation, and without the extreme levels of 'dysfunctionality' that are usually attached to the 'neurotic or pathological bi-polar personality type'...
Similarily, 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity' can reflect opposite ends of another bi-polar spectrum...
And so too can the opposite bi-polarities of 'association' and 'distinction'.
We associate together what we view as being similar, while we distinguish apart what we view as being different. In this regard, both 'associative' and 'differential' thinking are essential to the overall well-being of the rational-empirical, map-making human being...and in this regard also, we need to distinguish between our ability to 'abstractify and generalize' on the one hand, vs. 'specify' or 'concretize' on the other hand...
I have used, and will continue to use, the term 'subjective-objective world' to show the dialectic, integrative nature of these two worlds -- i.e. we live in them both simultaneously and they are impossible to separate except by concepts.
Still, if I am walking across the road and get hit by a car that I didn't see coming, you can very easily see that our 'subjective, cognitive (sensory-perceptual) or conceptual map' of the world that this 'map' is supposed to be representing -- i.e., our 'inside or outside 'objective' world' -- is not always right. Indeed, it can be 'dead wrong' and we can be dead on the ground because our internal cognitive-conceptual maps were at serious odds with what was or wasn't really happening in our objective world. We missed the car fast approaching us on the street and in circumstances like this our objective, 'real' world can have the 'last word' on us -- in terms of serious, even life-threatening consequences.
Thus, the importance of our 'sensory-perceptual system' in terms of giving us 'the raw data' from our outside world (or inside bodily world) that we need to act -- and sometimes act very quickly -- on in order to save ourselves from serious, sometimes even life-threatening consequences.
In this regard, our sensory-perceptual system is crtically important to us in terms of providing our 'Central Ego' with the information it/we need to make important decisisons in our life.
Room 400: Inferences, Interpretations, Generalizations, Associations, Distinctions, Differences...
Next up, after our sensory-perceptual system -- as we proceed up 'the abstraction ladder' to our 'reasoning process' is our system of inferences, interpretations, generalizations, associations...the process by which we make a 'jump into the interpretive or inferential unknown' based on 'connecting' or 'associating' the information we are seeing or hearing in front of our face or ears with our always evolving network of 'past experiences' and the 'generalizations' that we have made -- or are making now -- based on these past experiences.
The older we get, the vaster this 'network' or 'template' of past experiences along with 'any associated generalizations and/or interpretations connected with them' becomes. Some of these generalizations and associations can be very functional, and very important in our current decision-making process. Others of these, can be very 'neurotic', 'dysfunctional', and/or 'pathological'.
It all depends on our 'reasoning process' -- the reasoning process of our Central Ego, and how 'rational-empirical' this process was and whether it is still relevant in this current 'here and now situation'. At some point in our experiential history, we made a 'cognitive leap' from 'Observation A' to 'Interpretation A'. Is the interpretive assumption that we made at this time, and/or are making now, still relevant -- or is it outdated, and/or relevant to a different context and/or setting and/or different set of circumstances? These are important 'learning' and/or 'reasoning' factors that may or may not be critically important to the situation at hand that we are judging now.
If we want our decision-making, problem-solving, and/or conflict-resolving judgements to be 'good', to be 'functional', to be 'pragmatic', to be 'ethical', etc. to us (whatever 'ethical value system' we may want to use after we have all the 'raw sensory' and then 'sensory-perceptual' and 'interpretive' data available to us), then we need all of our sensory information, our sensory-perceptions, and our interpretive-assumptions' to provide a 'rock solid foundation' for the type of value judgements and decision-making choices that we are about to apply to this ideally and hopefully 'solid information base' that we are utilizing to help us make a good decision.
If our 'foundational sensory-perceptual-interpretive information' is not good, then how can our decision-making process be good after it? Everything builds on the strength and/or weakness of the information below it and preceding it as we 'pyramid upwards into the more abstractive levels of our reasoning and evaluation process'...
What we leave out and/or what we misinterpret and/or misjudge -- depending on the importance of the problem under evaluation -- may be capable of coming back to haunt us which is why it is imperative relative to certain critical problem-issues to get our facts, assumptions, interpretations, generalizations, associations, extrapolations, distinctions right...or at least 'good enough' to efficiently 'move us in the right direction' of solving our problem, and/or resolving our conflict that is causing us grief...
-- dgb, Dec. 12th, 14th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
