The meaning of words

Where we differ is most likely in our view of concepts. If you believe that the meaning of a concept is its referents, you’re going to have difficulty in arguing for precision in measurement, since you won’t find precise measurements in material objects. But if you believe that the meaning of a concept is found in its definition, you can accept lack of precision in material objects, while still claiming that abstract measurement can be precise.

Brendan,

I have been arguing that as far as material objects are concerned, measurement is imprecise.

With respect to what?

In using a material object as a standard, you are opting for imprecision from the get-go, since material objects are imprecise in measurement. On the other hand, the abstract formula is a precise standard.

"Imprecise" material units may be, but with material units one can in reality specify a relationship in length, albeit one with limited precision, as I've mentioned before.  Suppose one has the abstract idea of a meter in one's head, but no instruments.  Will you be able to measure the height of a skyscraper in meters?

But if the unit is an abstraction, only consciousness can determine the relationship between the unit and reality. If you’re arguing that the unit is a material object, you’re stuck with imprecision again.

See the above-- if one could merely compare an idealized meter to some object to determine it's length in meters, we wouldn't need to measure: we could just automatically obtain relationships by immediate perception.

Let's be perfectly clear-- consciousness comes into the picture by recognizing the relationship between material objects.  However, no amount of wishing will change that relationship, because it exists in reality as a material relationship.  And yes, it may be quite messy and imprecise-- but the important thing is you can always tell how imprecise it is.

The proof is in the pudding. If the standard does the job we ask it to do, then it’s a valid standard. If you want to build a house, use one standard, if you want to fly to Jupiter, you use a more precise standard.

So you're saying that a measurement is valid if it works?  How can we tell if it works-- is it if the frame of the house is square?  Suppose one makes a mistake in one's measurement-- is this the fault of the measurer or the standard?  Is there any way to know, if one's standard is purely abstract?

Nate T.

With the respect to the standard.

And by what mystical process are you going to compare the idea of the perefect meter to an iron rod, exactly?  I've addressed this already-- you cannot use an abstract idea alone to measure things.  Ultimately, you must measure in terms of instruments.

At last! Thanks Nate. It’s been a long hard slog, but you’ve finally come to agree that the measurement of material objects is imprecise. If so, then it cannot be “absolutely precise”, and that is the whole point of this discussion.

I don't appreciate your condescension.  I've already admitted several times that Rand's choice of the term "absolutely precise" is inappropriate for the context.  However, had she replaced that term with the term "precise," I would have had no problems with her statement.

To make it perfectly plain: the type of measurement Rand describes is the only valid type of quantifiable linear measurement possible to man.  This is how it's done-- if you think this is false, I'd like to hear another way that does not ultimately depend on the way I've given.

I can define a unit of length, the 'Nate-Brendan standard', say, which is equal to exactly one millionth of the distance between the tip of your nose to the tip of mine as of midnight tonight.  Would there be a point in making such a definition?  If not, why not?

No amount of appealing to abstract units will ever suffice to measure anything-- you have to roll up your sleeves and go out and invent a measuring instrument with a precision as I've described above and go measure something.  You can invent just as many abstract units as you please, but if it doesn't correspond to something material in reality, it is useless.

No. If it “works” means: does it perform the function for which it is intended? If the house stands up, the measurement is valid, because it “works”.

Ah, I see.  Suppose a probe intended to land in Mars functions perfectly except for the fact that it misses the planet entirely.  Tell me, were the measurements involved in constructing and sending the probe invalid, or was it the fault of the engineers and physicists who constructed the probe in the first place?

You’re still confusing the material with the abstract. “Square” is also an abstraction. You’re asking whether the empirical test – how it “works” – should be measured against the abstract standard.

Yes, I'm asking whether such a test is possible.  If it's not, you've very nicely divided all human measurements along the Analytic/Synthetic lines-- perfect and useless abstract measurements on one hand, practical, unknowably imprecise measurements on the other.

No Brendan, it is you who is confusing the abstract and the material.  You claim to be able to measure a length of string by invoking the abstract idea of a meter defined in terms of light waves, while carefully leaving out the details of the huge advancements of science and technology necessary to actually measure light waves precisely enough to make a definition possible, and ignoring the work of all of those scientists who made such instruments possible.  It is only by their work that we are actually able to measure on par with light waves and give a definition of the meter based upon light.

You cannot compare incommensurables.  No relationship between an abstract standard and a material object is possible, because abstract standards do not themselves have extension.  An abstract standard is essentially a recipe which allows one to make material standards within some known precision, but one needs instruments to do it.

But that’s got it back to front. Ultimately, the abstract standard is judged against the empirical outcome – the outcome is not judged by how well it conforms to the standard, but by how well it performs its function.

What if the precision you've chosen for your job doesn't suffice tomorrow?  What if, in constructing a ruler, one suffices to build bicycles and one does not?  Are the makers of sqaure rulers expected to build a house with every individual square ruler they make to be sure it's precise?

Sure, the skilled craftsman will try to ensure that his measurements are as close as possible to the standard, via his instruments, but the ultimate end is a structurally sound house, not one that is “perfectly square”.

I'd like to know how exactly the craftsman (or more directly, the designer of the ruler) knows how close it is to this abstract standard.

What's more, you should by now know better than to characterize my position as claiming that something is "perfectly square."  The measurement of angles is another type of measurement, and by trigonometry is subject to the same limitations and errors as I've described for length.

Oh, that we could build houses out of ideas instead of wood.  Alas, this is not how reality works.

Since the standard is precise, if there’s a mistake in measurement, it’s the fault of the measurer and/or his instruments.

How do you know?  You certainly can't directly compare the abstract standard to the thing being measured, can you?  Couldn't it just as easily be a flaw in the process of measurement itself?

A mistake occurs when the measurer is careless in the use of his instruments, but if he is a careful craftsman, the imprecision will be a feature, not a mistake.

Oh, a feature?  So .. are you now admitting that one can control the error involved in measuring?  If so, how?  I'd certainly like to know how you can control an inherently unknowable error.

If you can't tell, I'm beginning to lose patience here.  If your goal in discussing the measurement problem is to further your knowledge of it, fine; that's my purpose too.  But if your purpose is to score points in a debate (as your above gloating suggests), you ought to know better than to waste your time, and had ought to come clean and stop wasting mine.

Nate T.

Perhaps it would be better if I put it in the form of an imaginative example.

Imagine Stoneage Nate decides to adopt this piece of wood as a way of helping solve the practical problem of building a crude wall. This is a *subjective* decision - it could be any one different rough blocks - but is of course not *random*. But what if he wants his neighbours to help build it? Obviously it would be entirely useless if each of his neighbours used her own subjective standard of measurement. So, after discussion, everyone agrees (as you say, a "convention") that the block becomes a standard measurement. Now as well as Nate's subjective standard, it is now an *objective* standard that exists independently of him.

Further, Stoneage Ed cleverly notices that Nate's block has uses Nate did not think of - it can be roughly marked to indicate smaller lengths. Primitive Brian notices that they can also be copied and laid end to end to make larger units.
As a result, the tribe's walls become better, and thus it survives better. And eventually Nate's original block rots away, but by now it is approximated by a piece of stone, which will last longer. The markings from Nate's block have been painstakingly reproduced - in fact, due to better tools, and the growing importance of Nate's block to the tribe, much effort has been put into making even divisions far clearer and more regularly spaced than on the original. It is not exact - they have not been able to get the halfpoint *exactly* in half of the stone - but it is better than it was.

Equally puzzlingly, it seems they could keep marking it into ever smaller pieces if they had sharp enough tools - more pieces than any of them could ever think of! And they dimly realise that you could in principle, make ever larger units, without end.

But then tragedy strikes. A plague hits the village and kills everyone in it. Some years pass. Animals enter the ruin. They pass by Nate's Stone (as it became known) but the markings on it mean nothing to them. Finally, another tribe come across the village. One of the more observant ones notices this strangely marked stone. After some discussion, they begin to realise what it *means*, *what the markings symbolise* - saving them years of trial and error innovation themselves.

They take it back to their village, where it forms the basis of their system, new variations are added, etc. and their walls, houses, wells etc *are formed on the basis of it*

So we have a 3 way interactive system. The objective W3 first emerges as the byproduct of a single subjective consciousness interacting with the physical world. Once *objectively expressed* - in a piece of wood, or in markings on it, or on a piece of stone - other minds can use it for their own individual subjective purposes, even if they are *entirely separated from the original inventors*, and those inventors have been eliminated. Further, these are no mere marks on a piece of stone - these have *meaning* and this abstract meaning can be *interpreted*. 

Thus they are more than just their physical existence.

Further, while we can use them, they have unexpected qualities (number, precision, extension) that transcend what is physically possible - they are "superhuman" in this sense, despite the fact we have originated them.

Thus they are more than just *figments of our individual consciousness*.

Finally, human decisions *shape* and *are shaped* by them, and subsequently feedback to *shape the physical world W1* (anyone who has flown over natural forest and seen it abruptly change in to cultivated land will immediately be stuck by this). This discovery of objective abstractions has given us an evolutionary advantage that places us far ahead of other animals.

This is what I mean when I say *I believe abstract standards exist*.

OK. Can you then show why if, say, 2mm can only be approximated between the range of 1mm and 3mm, *why these two defining points on the range are not similar approximations*?

I don’t think I was being condescending, merely appreciating your comments that the relationship between objects can be “messy and imprecise”, hence any measurement will be likewise.

“You cannot compare incommensurables.  No relationship between an abstract standard and a material object is possible, because abstract standards do not themselves have extension.”

The concept “chair” is an abstraction. Are you saying this concept has no relation to real chairs? If it were impossible to relate abstractions and material objects, we would find it impossible to navigate our way around the world.

I think the question you’re asking here involves interactionism: what is the relationship between mental events and physical events? That’s a whole different other subject., and not for this thread. But briefly, take the example of a burn causing pain.

We can explain a burn by appealing to the relevant physical laws of the effect of heat on the skin, how this produces electrical impulse in nerves, which then travel to the brain, causing patterns of brain waves and so on.

But none of this is sufficient to explain the experience: “feeling the pain of a burn”. To do that we have to use a different type of explanation, the language of mental events – “It hurts bad, feels like fire etc”. But the different explanation doesn’t negate a connection between the two events. 

Brendan

I don’t think I was being condescending ...

I do.

... merely appreciating your comments that the relationship between objects can be “messy and imprecise”, hence any measurement will be likewise.

You know that isn't my position.  Precision is always accompanied by a context. A lay person would call approximating the length of a skyscraper with a meterstick "messy and imprecise."  However, if they thought about it, they would realize that it is in the nature of measurment for there to be error, and the kind of precision that I've offered is the only kind possible.

The concept “chair” is an abstraction. Are you saying this concept has no relation to real chairs?

No.  Do not equate standard of measurement with concept-- that was the equivocation that Daniel was making earlier between his "abstract meter" and the concept of a meter (we're still trying to get to the bottom of it).  I'm saying that without some kind of way to relate your abstract standard to the perceptual level, your abstract standard is useless to measure things.  And merely stating that it is the length a beam of light travels in 1/300 000 000th of a second is not sufficient-- you must show me you have a way to distinguish lengths that small.

If it were impossible to relate abstractions and material objects, we would find it impossible to navigate our way around the world.

Correct.

I think the question you’re asking here involves interactionism: what is the relationship between mental events and physical events? That’s a whole different other subject., and not for this thread. But briefly, take the example of a burn causing pain.

Which question of mine is this supposed to address?  I've posed a number of them to you.

We can explain a burn by appealing to the relevant physical laws of the effect of heat on the skin, how this produces electrical impulse in nerves, which then travel to the brain, causing patterns of brain waves and so on.

 

But none of this is sufficient to explain the experience: “feeling the pain of a burn”. To do that we have to use a different type of explanation, the language of mental events – “It hurts bad, feels like fire etc”. But the different explanation doesn’t negate a connection between the two events.

We need not explain the physical cause of burns in order to refer to them, nor to realize that they are caused when you stick your hand in a fire.  After all, we're referring to them right now by using the word "burn."  In any case, I agree that this is best discussed in another thread.

Nate T.

Yes. We Popperians complain that philosophers, including Rand, do not sufficiently distinguish between the *subjective* and the *objective* (not that I want to belabour those terms). So let me just probe this point a bit further.

For clarity, could I adapt your definition to highlight just *what* is corresponding to external reality in Rand's theory? So your statement would read roughly:

"Rand defines 'objective'...as...(the external reality) 'outside of one's consciousness'...(and)...*an internal state or consciousness* corresponding to external reality".

(Rand) "produced by man's consciousness in accordance with the facts of reality, as mental integration of factual data computed by man-- as the products of a cognitive method of classification whose processes must be performed by man, but whose content is dictated by reality."

Further, would I be correct in thinking that the more *exact* the correspondence between consciousness and reality, the more *objective* that consciousness is?