Processing of information, building of truth
[gL.edu] This article gathers contributions being developed by Florian Noller, within the context of the Conceptual clarification about "Information, Knowledge and Philosophy", under the supervisión of J.M. Díaz Nafría.
Teacher's Comments: This article requires the corrections indicated below:
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Overview
The process of transforming some kind of information or data into a belief is something that happens everyday in our lives. These generated beliefes not only change our perception of reality and our point of view but also influence our decisionmaking which highlights the importance of their correctness. Historically there were a lot of beliefs that couldnt be properly processed into justified beliefs at first because of a lack of a suitable systematic approach. This article introduces different kinds of apporaches to assist in justifying beliefs and highlights difficulties that can occur and influence the building of truths to highten the awareness for false beliefs and manipulation and increase the amount of justified believes in our lives.
Basics
Before we dive into the topic its necessary to clarify a few terms.
Data
Origniates from latin "dare" which means to give. Data gives us hints of problems that arent formulated yet, which is why we need to find correlations in order to give data a meaning and therefore convert it into information.
Information
In colloquial speech information is referred to as data, code or text that is saved, transmitted or recieved in any kind of way. In this article information is referred to as a part of a non centralized network of related concepts of various disciplines.
Extensiveness
Information emerges from interaction(measure, count, etc) and implements the concept of additivity, which means two independet datasets posses twice the amount of information. Also structural and mathematical rules can be applied to find more complex correlations.
Reduction of uncertainty
Generally means that if the amount of information concerning something is higher then the amount of uncertainty is lower(Locke, Hume). The empiricist Locke described it as an linear function(100%information --> 0% uncertainty). The amount of information possible to obtain in reality is always lower than 1 which is deeply connected to the impossibility of measuring the exact impuls and location of a particle(Heisenberg) which goes against the determination explained by the concept of the Laplace Demon(A demon that can gather every possible information, so it should be possible to detemine everything that happens from the beginning to the end of the time if all variables at one point are known)(Laplace).
Belief
Most philosophers describe a belief as a propositional attitude so a belief refers to the attitude of thinking something is the case or something is true, therefore a belief doesent necessarily need to be refelected or thought through. In conclusion two propositional attitudes are the same if they provide the same meaning even if its formulated differently and they can be true or untrue.
Truth
The term truth is one of the central subjects of philosophy. In an epistomological sense the question "What is truth and what makes something true?" was worked on in many different ways and produced a magnitude of different opinions on how to define truth. In order to understand how our beliefs become truths and knowledge its of utmost importance to understand how our beliefs can be justified and how truth can be defined and where the differences in these definitions lie. This understanding can assist us in recognizing where errors in our beliefs can ocurr and how we can avoid these. In modern philosophy there are three main stances on how truth can be defined: Namely correspondence, coherence and pragmatism.
Correspondence
A belief is called true when there exists an appropriate entity to which it corresponds. In conclusion the world will provide us the information necessary to prove our proposition. For example: Proposition: Tommy goes home after school. World: Tommy went home after school had ended. The proposition was supported by what happened in reality later on, therfore the proposition is true(world proves belief - physical). Two philosophers of this school are Russel and Wittgenstein.
Coherence
A belief is true when it is part of a coherent system of beliefs, so current beliefs are completely justified and further beliefs can be justified by using the current beliefs. Therefor truth is a matter of how beliefs are related to each other. For example: Current belief: Commuative law: While adding numbers, the sum of the numbers doesent change regardless of their order. New belief: 3+5+2 = 2+3+5 The new belief is true because the current belief of the commutative law is also true(belief proves belief - metaphysical). Two philosophers of this school are Blanshard and Joachim.
Pragmatism
A true belief in the sense of pragmatism is "concluded with the end of the inquiry"(Hartshorn) while not in conflict with the subsequent beliefs of the person. In conclusion the experiences of the person itself will decide if the belief is true or not. For example: Inquiry: Do all trees have green leaves? "Person walks around and only finds trees with green leaves." In the sense of pragmatism the inquiry "Do all trees have green leaves?" is true, because the person only has knowlege of trees with green leaves at the end of its inquiry.
Inter-/Multidisciplinary
In an interdisziplinary way different scientific disciplines are used to examine an object. While doing so they will develop a concept together to measure the object before comparing their results. In contrast using a multidisziplinary approach will result in working whithout exchanging at first, they only compare the results of their research.
Methological approaches - processing information, building of truth
With the course of time science developed and society changed. New effects in physics were discovered and new concepts to explain the world were needed, giving rise to a magnitude of different opinions and explainations. In a methodological sense the question arose: How can these changes and effects be described the best? While being developed to process information and find the truth for certain problems the concepts behind these explainations may work for problems in our lifes as well. There are two major ways to approach topics in general: In an analytical or systemic approach. An analytical approach is characterized by the attempt to focus philosophical reflection on smaller problems that lead to answer bigger questions. In this case a question is split into smaller problems which can be solved independently. Later on logical and mathematical tools will be applied to answer the question based on the solutions of the smaller problems. In contrast a systemic approach highlights the totality and unity of a system meaning some important characteristics of the explanation would be lost if the system was split. Therefore the system needs to be seen and analysed as a whole.
Major Theories
In the following I will present some approaches that can be easiely adopted in daily life.
Systemic perspectives
Spinoza
He is one of the most radical philosophers of the 17th century because he proclamates that there is no trinity of god. Instead he defines god/nature as a singular self subsistent substance that everything is made of. Matter and thought and everything you can think of are part of this substance and its modifications. In conclusion everything is tied to this substance and everything is related to each other trough the connection with the substance. He defines intutional knowledge as the highest kind because its directly related to the ability of the human intellect to intuit lnowledge based on the accumulated understanding of the world. The aim of his pilosophy is to find the true goal of life out of a bunch of illusionary goals to give him sustainable, satisfatorial happiness. The most imporant part for the adaptation to real life is his emphasis on the unity of the world and the connections between all things that happen. If you take the near east conflict as an example its easier to understand why certain events happen if you take a analytical point of view but the momentum of the conflict which is also an important part of the understanding will be lost in the process of splitting the timeline into certain events. In this case its important to see the conflict as a whole and as a part of whats happening in the world to understand it in its entirety.
Leibniz
Leibniz is called one of the last genius of his time. His activity ranges from philosophy to mathematics to history and geology and much more. He developed 6 principles which are axioms for his explainations namely two great and four lesser principles: The great ones are the principle of the best and the principle of the predicate in notion. The principle of the best consists of the idea that god exists and is perfect and that knowledge comes from the perfect god therfore a human can gain infinite knowledge by researching the way of god. The principle of the predicate in notion states that there is a "distinct definition of truth and in every true proposition, the notion of the predicate is in some way included in that of the subject"(Leibniz). The principle of contradiction concerns the bipolarity of truth, it can be either true or untrue but not both at the same time. The principle of sufficient reasoning states that nothing happens without a reason so there can be no effect without a cause so it should be possible to explain anything if enough information is known. The principle of the identity of indiscernibles states that if and only if two substances share the same properties they are identical. This excludes properties that arent needed in the comparison, for example: While comparing two lumps of matter, the time and location of these shouldnt influence the comparison. The principle of continuity is described best by a quote of Leibniz himself: “Nothing takes place suddenly, and it is one of my great and best confirmed maxims that nature never makes leaps”(Leibniz 2). More exactly Leibniz believes that this law or principle implies that any change passes through some intermediate change. The Principle of Continuity will be employed to show that no motion can arise from a state of complete rest and that there are precursors for everything that happens. In all of these maximes I think the most interesting ones for politics are the principle of continuity and the principle of sufficient reasoning. In this trail of mind this means there is no event happening suddenly and without a reason, so it should be possible to explain everything that happens and even see a little bit into the future if enough information is acquired. Another concept of Leibniz I find very interesting is his concept of unity. It relies mainly on his definition for substance, stating that nothing that is divisable can be substance, so substance should be the smallest possible unit that everything is made of. Likewise Spinoza Leibniz believes that everything comes together at one point. While Spinoza tries to take a glance at the world as a whole, Leibniz tries to find the foundation of the world in substance as a point of origin. This wish to find the smallest unit containing information and taking it as a foundation to understand the whole is something contains the essence of modern science in a systemic interpretation.
Analytical Perspectives
Descartes
Descartes is the founder of the modern analytical version of science and one of the most acknowledged scientific thinkers and metaphysicians of his time. Despite being born in a time, when science made a difference between terrestial and celestial bodys under a dogmatic view of the church he developed a new methodology of science. Descartes believes that the world consists of god, matter and mind. While the essence of god is perfection, the essence of matter is its spatial extensiveness and the essence of mind is thought. His theories on the nature of reality, truth and a worldview composed of science without a dominant god are particulary interesting. Descartes assumed that there is a benevolent god that created the matter with few fundamental properties and laws that the properties interact to accordingly and universically and the mind with a perception and a free will. The differnetiation in matter and thought concerns the Mind-Body Dualism. After that god doesent interfer with the world anymore. For Descartes the truth can be found if a problem is split into clear and distinctive parts. The perception of the clear and distinctive parts is true, "if, when we consider it, we cannot doubt it."(Descartes) In the face of genuine clear and distinct perception, our affirmation of it cannot be shaken, even by a concerted effort. The analytical point of view to split everything up until it is possible to explain properly in a universial way without being adermant to fit it into a religious context brought him to a cold, rationalistic and calculative conception of human beings and reality which is dominant in the modern science. The idea to split complex problems to understand and explain them gives us the possibility to devide the workload and understand even the most complex problems. The thorough understanding of the parts makes it easier to spot errors in our beliefs and makes it possible to acertain the amount of damage to our befliefs if an error is found.
Influencing factors - gathering of information
We are gathering a lot of information every day. The correlations of this information can or cannot fit into our network. If we analyse the concerned information in a multidisciplinary way we might find out that the kind of reality that is projected by our newly generated belief of this new information clashes with our current belief of reality based on other information gathered earlier. This would put us into a situation where we in a pragmatical sense have two different truths of the same situation where only one can be really called true. So what can we do at this turning point to find out which of the beliefs is true and which is untrue? Where does the error lie? Are the correlations drawn untrue? At this point we begin to doubt the new information/belief as well as all of our current knowledge. There is no universal approach to solve the ambivalence of the situation completely, but there is a method called critical thinking. It forces us to review our train of thought and the whole situation again and again in order to hopefully find the inconsistencies. This process takes up a lot of time and can even be painful sometimes when the own point of view begins to crumble; on the other hand it can be really beautifully because it can cause a better understanding and a more justified point of view which will also benefit our perception of reality. The following concept should highten the awarness of points where we can go wrong to assist in the process of critical thinking:
Dimensions
I propose a concept of four steps to assist in finding faults:
(i) Perception
"Perception refers to the organization and interpretation of the incoming information(in our case data) to our brain and body."(http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/glossary/perception) Its founded on the concept of sensation, which is the stimulation of our senses and the interpretation of the stimulation based on our experience. There are two main points where perception can go wrong: Illusion: We dont percieve an object that is actually there or percieve it in a different quality then it actually is. Hallucination: We percieve an object that isnt actually there. This faults can be observed when looking at crime scene reports: Person A and B are both at the same scene but percieve it differently because of their different positions and experiences. In case there are many persons at the scene the reports would be analysed to find intersecting statements which have a higher chance of being true. The process of searching for different "opinions" can be used to consolidate what really happened. This concept refers to the idea of Hume that the amount of uncertainty would shrink as the amount of information rises. In case there would only be one person at the scene it could be analysed how the perception of this person works and what the person might have missed in the situation based on their position and experience. A good example how the point of view and experience can change our perception is "The Guardian's 1986 'Points of view' advert". (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SsccRkLLzU) If we think about the uncertainty relation of Heisenberg it gets clear that we will never be able to experience a situation completely which will eventually lead to some misconceptions of reality. Therefore the critical thinking to consolidate our knowledge will never loose its importance because there will always be misconceptions based on wrong perception.
(ii) Communication
In an informalists conception communication takes place between an emitter and a reciepiant. The emitter intentionally emits a message with a content in a code that the reciepiant knows through a channel. There are a lot of things that can go wrong while communicating: The message consists of a content and a code, so the content of the message can be intentionally or unintentionally wrong, some content may be added or lost while adding/subtracting the code or the code cannot be/can be wrongly understood by the reciepiant. Additionally the channel that is used could also influence the message if some parts are for example lost in the transition. The problems concerning the code(understanding and loss of information) and channel can be solved by discussing the message vice versa to make clear if both sides have the same understanding of the topic. The content can only be reviewed after it got interpreted.
(iii) Interpretation
It is the most important step. In the interpretation the information or the explaination of a belief of a other person will be used to create a own belief. This belief should be thoroughly thought trough in order to become a justified belief that can be taken as truth. The justification of the belief can commence in a coherent way(current knowledge as foundation) or corresponent way(comparing it to what happened). If the belief is satifactorially justified it should be possible to use Leibniz concept of continuity and sufficient reasoning to explain how it commenced. If this is not possible it may be necessary to collect more related information or in order to reduce the uncertainty and increase the justification of the belief(Hume). Alternatively it could be tried to break the belief down in order to find clear and distictive ideas to enhance it(Decarte).
(iv) Integration
This is the last possible moment to realize if there is a misconception in our belief by trying to find out if the related concepts of our current knoewledge fit with the new belief. If this is the case then the new belief will be integrated into the network of knowledge.
References
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/#Uni
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/#MetComPhyRev
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/#ProPer
http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/glossary/perception
http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/Home/comunicacion/comunication
Locke: Locke, John, 1689, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, J. W. Yolton (ed.), London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1961.
Hume: 1748, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Reprinted in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1777 which was reprinted, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888
Hartshorn: Hartshorne, C., Weiss, P., and Burks, A. W. (eds.), 1931–58, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 1–8, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Leibniz: Die philosophischen Schriften II 56/L 337, 7 vols. Edited by C. I. Gerhardt. Berlin, 1875–90. Reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965.
Leibniz 2:A VI vi 56/RB 56, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Edited by the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Darmstadt, 1923 ff., Leipzig, 1938 ff., Berlin, 1950 ff. Cited by Series (Reihe) and Volume (Band). (To date the _Akademie_ edition, Series VI, has the philosophical writings to 1690, plus the _New Essays_, as well as, in Series II, Leibniz's philosophical correspondence to 1685.)
Descartes: Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia & animae humanae à corpore distinctio demonstrantur: his adjunctae sunt variae objectiones doctorum virorum in istas de Deo & anima demonstrationes, cum responsionibus authoris, 2dn edn. Amsterdam: Elzevir. The main title was changed from the first edition, which had promised to demonstrate “the immortality of the soul”; this edition promises to demonstrate “the distinction of the human soul from the body.” The seventh set of Objections and Replies first appeared in the second edition.