| | Adam,
I think you're mistaken about the relationship between the nature of measurement and the epistemological theory of "measurement omission" in the formation of concepts.
Have you taken your speculation to anyone more versed in science and Objectivism? You might try the Forum4AynRandFans.
In the meantime, let me think out loud here. Dangerous business on a forum, but here goes.
On a purely philosophical basis:
First question: why does -- indeed is it true that -- measurement is a comparison that requires a context controlled to eliminate the possibility of illusion? Why is illusion an issue?
First, measurement is a comparison -- of a known quantity against an unknown quantity of the same characteristic. (see IOE pg 7 revised and expanded version for Rand's discussion).
But this is not what happens in the formation of concepts. When I am forming the concept "table" it is not the case that I take out a ruler of any kind and measure the top and legs and compare them. The idea of "measurement omission" presupposes the concept "measurement" and thus the possibility of performing the operation just alluded to, but it is not the operation itself. (see IOE pg 11 et seq for Rand's discussion)
Second question: what is a perceptual illusion? Well, without looking in a dictionary, an illusion is a perceptual "mistake." "Illusion" is a relational concept -- like all awareness. The object is the way it is (A is A) and our perceptual apparatus is the way it is.But our perceptual apparatus in relation to the object provides incomplete or (in a case like the bent stick in water) complete information about a characteristic (refracted light) for which we have only perceptual evidence.
Take the two line illusion. Looks something like this: <--> >--<. I'm not entirely sure what characteristic of the lines or the eyes causes the illusion, perhaps it is the phenomenon of gestalt boundaries (my words for the fact that the entire object includes the wedges and it is difficult to perceptually isolate the lines), but typically we see the two line segments as differing in length. Thus our unaided perception gives us an inaccurate measurement. How, ultimately, do we know the measurement is inaccurate? We take a ruler and measure the lines in isolation -- i.e. ignoring the gestalt boundaries provided by the wedges.
But, of course, if we include the wedges our perception was accurate. The length of each object (each 'illusion') IS different.
So perhaps a better formulation would be: accurate measurement is a comparison that requires a context in which the possibility of illusion is taken into account.
So, if I am to even arrive at the concept 'illusion' (hierarchically) I must know that a difference exists between an accurate and inaccurate (perceptual) measurement. That is, the concept of "illusion" presupposes the possibility of contextual miscues. It is, in fact, in reality, impossible to have an illusion (and therefore to form the concept) in the absence of contextual miscues. It would be like imagining the bent stick in water phenomenon in the absence of the phenomena associated with light in relation to our visual mechanism.
I note that the absence of the phenomenon of contextual miscues (if that is, indeed, a proper characterization of the relationship between the object and any given perceptual mechanism -- is "color blindness" the result of a contextual miscue?) and the resulting inability to form the concept "illusion" and the resulting absence of the need to take them into account -- were that the scientific fact as you postulate -- would not affect my ability as a conceptual being to form concepts by means of "measurement omission" as articulated by Rand.
In short, accurate measurement is not required to say of the height of the legs of a table "the height must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity." Any quantity includes ones in which the measurement is inaccurate for any reason -- influence of temperature on the length of the ruler, gestalt phenomena, blindness (Helen Keller), or any contextual miscue.
Bottom line, I fail to see how the postulated new scientific fact -- even if it were possible -- would effect the core of Objectivist epistemology.
The bottom line reason is that concept formation does not require actual, much less accurate, measurements to perform as Rand's theory postulates. An other way of putting this is to say that the fundamental building block of Objectivist epistemology is the concept of measurement, which requires that measurements must exist in some quantity but may exist in any quantity (accurate or not). Science, of course, requires accurate measurement
Beyond that, I am unable to go at present. But I would welcome knowing your objections if you have them.
Thanks for the opportunity to chew on Objectivist epistemology for a while.
Tom
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