A basic framework for the mind

So we have total data – the entirety of existence. I would now like to move on from there to talk about humans, and our capacity to apprehend.

It is my belief that the only thing humans are capable of working with is knowledge. Where we’re talking about logic, history, shopping lists, faith, or hatred, all of this I’ defining as knowledge – the contents of the mind. The analogy of binary – the 1’s and 0’s a computer uses – helps to illustrate what I mean. The exclusive and internal language or processing. Yes, the category of knowledge is far more abstract, open to debate, and uncertain as far as any fundamental property is concerned, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that a mind can only use knowledge. This would seem to be somewhat self-evident – the mind creates and interprets knowledge, and in turn, knowledge only exists in the mind.

I believe that there are different kinds of knowledge. Kant helps us again here with his categories of understanding. I won’t get into them now, but let’s just say that they would fit into what we typically call rationale, or what one might call logic knowledge. There is in our human experience, emotional knowledge. In a later series, I’ll share some thoughts I have on the different kinds of knowledge, or as I call them, the ways of knowing. For now though, let’s tighten the focus of the discussion as it relates to the scientific method.

We return to the Kantian concept of the phenomenal – that which is perceived – or, what our senses present to the mind.

I am a bit cautious in using the term phenomenal as it can get confusing, especially when talking about something like science. I would like to define an alternate term which describes the input we receive through the senses, after being interpreted by the mind. The term is particulate
knowledge.

The function of all our senses is rooted in particle interactions. Every scientific question and test, essentially, is grounded in the particulate. When we observe results, those results are strictly particulate, that is, having to do with particles.

I would also like to make one important distinction between Kant’s phenomenon and what I’m calling particulate knowledge. With the mention of “phenomenon,” we are typically speaking about the manifestations that take place in the senses. When I use the term particulate knowledge, this implies a larger chain of processing that takes place in the mind, after the mind has received the raw sensory input.

I’m not sure if Kant would say that phenomenon are restricted to senses alone – I believe he might have viewed the senses and the mind as one unified system – I do not know. I am proposing that our minds in fact process sensory input secondarily, and often subjectively, based on our likes and dislikes, our preferences, our preconceptions, our worries, our hopes, etc. In other words, what we think we sense is not only limited by virtue of the fact that our senses are limited, but is limited because the mind transforms input through a range of completely subjective and non-empirical filters.

Here is an excerpt from my first attempt at this article, to reinforce the point about the limitations and insufficiency of particulate knowledge.

When total data – what is – enters the mind, the translation is not 1:1. Things must be compressed, reconfigured, and trimmed. The only way the translation from all of existence to the container of our minds could be completely fidelitous is if the entire everything could exist inside our minds in its entirely, without modification to its scale, behaviour, or composition.

A camera without a lens and without a shutter presents an unintelligible, overwhelmingly bright image to the film – in fact it destroys the film. So too, the human cannot interface with physical reality apart from the senses and the mind. Pure information must be stepped down and filtered for it to make sense. Again, this processing results in data loss. The end result (particulate knowledge) is incomplete and very much not the data itself.

So, I am not asserting that all knowledge is inherently fallible, nor am I suggesting that particulate knowledge – knowledge gained about physical objects and behaviours through sensation – is always wrong. What I am saying is that it is not complete. I am suggesting that in fact there are other ways of knowing that might be just as reliable, if not more so, and should in fact speak into the scientific method where as up until now, this has been largely discouraged.

tags: knowledge, particulate knowledge, phenomenal, phenomenon, philosophy, science, ways of knowing