Atomic Thought (Part 4)

This follows on from the previous post and its antecedents.

I suppose that in line with Wittgenstein, we should limit the context for every discipline if we are to find any useful atomic concepts at all. There are some pretty good ones which are near-universal, but the purists will probably say that since they aren't universal, they are not atomic.

But why have this discussion at all? How is it useful in a practical sense?

I think the main point is that in a discourse within a discipline, we pretty much have to be able to use a vocabulary with some basic building blocks or concepts. To describe every outcome in its own terms means that you are actually creating a situation in which there is no basis for comparison.

For example, if you compare a poem by Wilfred Owen (e.g. Strange Meeting) and a poem by Robert Frost (e.g. Mending Wall), you must have some basis in the first place for identifying them as poems. Then you must have some specific things to look at within the structure of each poem. And lastly, you need to look at the language used and its effects. If you use a different set of criteria for each poem, then you have created two sub-disciplines which you might as well call Wilfredowenology and Robertfrostology. So some criteria or critical principles should remain constant. This is the idea behind traditional literary criticism. Postmodern literary criticism has attempted to bypass this, but has ended up merely creating a different basis.

The same argument applies to establishing meaning in music, dance or art. Somehow, we need to use a language with enough common descriptive basis to show points of similarity or difference. Sure, we can describe each individual performance or piece, but without a comparison to something else, that description is probably not meaningful (or not as usefully meaningful as it should be).

Atomic Thought (Part 3)

This follows on from the previous post and comments made there.

The question that was implicit and is now explicit is, "What do we mean when we talk about 'atomism' – and more exactly, the 'atomic concept' of a discipline?"

I think so far we've come up with several points which must be included in our definition of an 'atomic concept' within a discipline:

1. It is part of the rational basis of that discipline, as one of the entities that virtually all transactions or ideas within a discipline must include.
2. It has social currency – it must be easily grasped; intuitively, people should be able to accept it as a conceptual building-block.
3. It has cultural currency; that is, people can use it in everyday communication without seeming unbearably wonkish, geekish or nerdish.
4. It has iconic currency; that is, if used as a symbolic instance (or converted into a graphic symbol), it stands a good chance of representing its discipline.

The list can probably be extended.

But are there really such 'atomic concepts' in common use?

I think that for chemistry, the simple model of the atom is one such atomic concept. It passes all four tests. In biology, the simple model of the cell also passes all these tests (more or less). In mathematics, the idea of number; in history, the idea of a 'date' – a specific time-marker for a given event. In language or literature, the idea of a 'word' can probably fulfill that function, but this might vary between languages or literary forms. Universal constants, as the Galoisien has queried, probably don't meet these criteria, except for π, which is a fairly universal iconic representation of 'numerical symbol'.

So, how about economics, sociology, music, and other human activities?

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Updates:

1) NBL offers this page of ring icons which shows the kind of iconography that MIT graduate students believe should meet the fourth test above. It's interesting to see that in some cases, the rationale for adopting such an icon can also be used to meet other tests. But most icons don't. What's interesting is that at this page you can also see what other ideas were proposed and rejected. All this helps with the sciences, but do the arts remain mysterious?

2) Augie raises the idea of iconic colours. You do tend to see this in university graduation robes and institutions. For example, the blue/gold pair is often seen as descriptive of the spiritual/material dichotomy, or sky/earth or sea/sun and so on. The main problem is that colour by itself conveys too many things. At the same time, some colour combinations are pretty commonly used. I'm sure Peter and other artistic people would have something to say here.

3) Phil raises the idea of the pawn as a symbol for chess. It's a good point; the pawn is the basic unit of material value calculation in chess (although space and time are as important in different ways). I would say the pawn indeed fulfills all the criteria for a chess 'atom', but I'm not so sure it directly fulfills all the criteria for 'atomic concept', which in such a game is probably 'square' (i.e. a space) or 'move' (i.e. a game dynamic and unit of time) – unless you use 'pawn' as synonymous with 'basic unit of material value'.

Atomic Thought (Part 1)

The idea that things can be reduced to 'indivisibles' has been around for millennia. Two kinds of 'indivisible' concept predominate: either you find things so small that nothing is smaller (i.e. fundamental particles and the concomitant idea of 'quantum' – the smallest gap or difference in things) or you find that the whole universe is one thing expressed in different ways (i.e. one indivisible continuum with odd snarls in it like a twisted multidimensional blanket).

In more recent times, people like Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein sought in various ways to reduce thought to basic elements, with which all other thoughts could be expressed – forlorn endeavours but still an interesting kind of project.

But there must be some basics, surely?

Yes, I suppose there are. Having had the occasion to teach literature, economics, history, chemistry, physics, mathematics and computer science over the years, I must confess to a few bad habits.

Firstly, I've always tried to figure out what the basics (or 'first things') of each discipline are.

Secondly, I've always tried to link them together in some sort of coherent narrative for each discipline.

Thirdly, I've always tried to link these basics across disciplines.

Why 'bad habits'? I think that in many cases, even if I was successful, elements of the narrative constitute wishful thinking. You can create a beautiful narrative that works on many levels, but it still might not be true. Take a simple conceptualisation of science, for example.

Supposing I observe a million things and craft a theory that accounts for all these observations. Well, what I've done is join the dots, which doesn't necessarily constitute truth. But what if I then predict the next 100,000 observations successfully using my theory? Well, then I might still be joining more of the same dots. But what if I then create an experiment specifically to disprove my theory and fail? Wow, that's... science, for now.

The problem is that a lot of our criteria are flagrantly metaphysical, and we don't acknowledge that. The ideas of what to observe, what to eliminate, what to build upon, what to try and prove incorrect; a lot of these things require us to make value judgements and use our intuition. The reason people get conflicted and find error in science is that at the heart of it, science is a human endeavour. It has all the variability of the human condition, desperately kept under some sort of control.

So where do we go from here? I'll be taking a quick look at basics as I scan this year's Theory of Knowledge essay questions and leave some thoughts on them.