[Fis] concrete and abstract mental models

Sun Mar 25 13:01:04 CEST 2018

Interesting. An interesting paper on Russell and Wittgenstein's views is 
give by

  Bertrand Russell's the analysis of matter: Its historical context and
  contemporary interest
  <https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=DEMBRT&proxyId=&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1086%2F289281>

William Demopoulos 
<https://philpapers.org/s/William%20Demopoulos>&Michael Friedman 
<https://philpapers.org/s/Michael%20Friedman>
/Philosophy of Science <https://philpapers.org/asearch.pl?pub=827>/52 
(4):621-639 (1985)

They argue that their argument undermines Wittgenstein's views, but not 
Russell's structuralism.

John

On 2018/03/24 10:09 PM, Krassimir Markov wrote:
>
> DearColleagues,
>

>   In previous post I had pointed that, in the Wittgenstein’s “picture” 
> theory of the meaning of language [Wittgenstein, 1922], the picture 
> has a structure that corresponds to the structure of what it represent.
>
> In the introduction of [Wittgenstein, 1922], Bertrand Russell, F.R.S., 
> had pointed that:
>
> “Mr. Wittgenstein begins his theory of Symbolism with the statement 
> (2.1): "We make to ourselves pictures of facts." A picture, he says, 
> is a model of the reality, and to the objects in the reality 
> correspond the elements of the picture: the picture itself is a fact. 
> The fact that things have a certain relation to each other is 
> represented by the fact that in the picture, its elements have a 
> certain relation to one another. "In the picture and the pictured 
> there must be something identical in order that the one can be a 
> picture of the other at all. What the picture must have in common with 
> reality in order to be able to represent it after its manner—rightly 
> or falsely—is its form of representation" (2.161, 2.17).”
>
> Very important is that Wittgenstein specially point that “it is clear 
> that however different from the real one an imagined world may be, it 
> must have something—a form—in common with the real world (2.022).” For 
> him, “An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things) 
> (2.01)” and “We make to ourselves pictures of facts (2.1)”. Finally, 
> “The picture is a model of reality (2.12).” and “The elements of the 
> picture stand, in the picture, for the objects (2.131)” [Wittgenstein, 
> 1922].
>
> Now we are ready to go further.
>
> Infos reflects reality and, as a result, the reflections of objects 
> and relationships between them form the “concrete mental models” in 
> its memory. Usually, the concrete mental models’ structure corresponds 
> to the reality one. What is important, the concrete mental models are 
> the basis for creating the “abstract mental models”, which represent 
> 'concepts' and relationships between them. About the formal aspects of 
> this Wittgenstein had pointed: “The thought is the significant 
> proposition (4). The totality of propositions is the language (4.001). 
> The proposition is a picture of reality. The proposition is a model of 
> the reality as we think it is. (4.01)” [Wittgenstein, 1922].
>
> The difference between concrete and abstract mental models we may see 
> in the Wittgenstein’s sentence: “What can be shown cannot be said. 
> (4.1212)” [Wittgenstein, 1922].
>
> Twenty years later, in 1943, Kenneth Craik had written:
>
> “... a man observes some external event or process and arrives at some 
> 'conclusion' or 'prediction' expressed in words or numbers that 'mean' 
> or refer to or describe some external event or process which comes to 
> pass if the man's reasoning was correct. During the process of 
> reasoning, he may also have availed himself of words or numbers. Here 
> there are three essential processes:
>
> (1)'Translation' of external process into words, numbers or other symbols,
>
> (2)Arrival at other symbols by a process of 'reasoning', deduction, 
> inference, etc., and
>
> (3) ' Retranslation' of these symbols into external processes (as in 
> building a bridge to a design) or at least recognition of the 
> correspondence between these symbols and external events (as in 
> realizing that a prediction is fulfilled). [Craik, 1943, page 50].
>
> The three processes of translation, inference, and retranslation then 
> become the translation of external events into some kind of neural 
> patterns by stimulation of the sense-organs, the interaction and 
> stimulation of other neural patterns as in 'association', and the 
> excitation by these of effectors or motor organs. [Craik, 1943, page 53].
>
> Causality in the external world would be represented by some (causal) 
> process of interaction between excited elements in our own brains. As 
> a result of such interactive or associative processes we might have, 
> for example, A=B, B=C, A=C, where A, B and C are neural patterns 
> claiming to represent external things or processes. These patterns 
> clearly cannot all remain simultaneously excited; inconsistency means 
> a clash in the interaction of patterns. [Craik, 1943, page 57]
>
> To be continued...
>
> Friendly greetings
>
> Krassimir
>
> *References*
>
> [Craik, 1943] Kenneth James Williams Craik. The Nature of Explanation. 
> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1943) . Reprinted: October 
> 1967, ISBN: 9780521094450. 136 pages. 
> http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/cognition/nature-explanation?format=PB&isbn=9780521094450#cM4ptICCc6vUTlK0.97
>
> [Wittgenstein, 1922] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus 
> Logico-Philosophicus, translated C. K. Ogden, London: Kegan Paul, 
> Trench, Trubner & CO., New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company,1922 (in 
> English). 
> https://monoskop.org/File:Wittgenstein_Ludwig_Tractatus_Logico_Philosophicus_1922.pdf) 
>
>
> *From:* Krassimir Markov <mailto:markov at foibg.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 17, 2018 6:59 PM
> *To:* FIS <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Subject:* [Fis] a short survey on the “mental models”
>
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> The Plato’s allegory about prisoners in the cave (maybe!) is one of 
> the first attempts to pay attention to consciousness models [Plato, 
> 2002, Book VII, p. 373]. Let remember that the best candidate for such 
> kind of prisoner is the brain, including ones of all kinds of Infoses. 
> (To avoid misunderstandings with concepts Subject, agent, animal, 
> human, society, humanity, living creatures, etc., we use the abstract 
> concept “INFOS” to denote every of them as well as all of artificial 
> creatures which has features similar to the former ones [Markov et al, 
> 2007]).
>
> There are at least two types of models created by and in the Infos’ 
> consciousness - isomorphic (correspond) to the structure of input from 
> the sensors (called in cognitive science “mental models” 
> [Johnson-Laird, 1983]) and not isomorphic (textual in any language) 
> (called “deductive, analytic, or logical models” [Wittgenstein, 1922]).
>
> Both models are very important but the second type (deductive) exists 
> only at the high level and very complex organized Infoses (humans, 
> societies, humanity). For deductive modeling one needs a language as a 
> tool for modeling. Maybe some animals have some language possibilities 
> but they are not enough for deductive modeling.
>
> Now I shall continue with a short survey on the “mental models”.
>
> In the next post I shall discuss the deductive models.
>
> For humans, the mental models are psychological representations of 
> real, hypothetical, or imaginary situations.
>
> The mental model theory was established by Philip Johnson-Laird in 
> [Johnson-Laird, 1983] and has proven extremely powerful in predicting 
> and explaining higher-level cognition in humans [MMRW, 2018].
>
> For other types of Infoses, the mental models correspond to the level 
> of consciousness organization, for instance art is a kind of “social 
> mental model”.
>
> In 1896, the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce had 
> postulated that reasoning is a process by which a human: “examines the 
> state of things asserted in the premises, forms a diagram of that 
> state of things, perceives in the parts of the diagram relations not 
> explicitly mentioned in the premises, satisfies itself by mental 
> experiments upon the diagram that these relations would always 
> subsist, or at least would do so in a certain proportion of cases, and 
> concludes their necessary, or probable, truth.” [Peirce, 1896].
>
> In Wittgenstein’s “picture” theory of the meaning of language, mental 
> models have a structure that corresponds to the structure of what they 
> represent [Wittgenstein, 1922]. They are accordingly akin to 
> architects’ models of buildings, to molecular biologists’ models of 
> complex molecules, and to physicists’ diagrams of particle interactions.
>
> In 1943, the Scottish psychologist Kenneth Craik had proposed a 
> similar idea:
>
> “... human thought has a definite function; it provides a convenient 
> small-scale model of a process so that we can, for instance, design a 
> bridge in our minds and know that it will bear a train passing over it 
> instead of having to conduct a number of full-scale experiments; and 
> the thinking of animals represents on a more restricted scale the 
> ability to represent, say, danger before it comes and leads to 
> avoidance instead of repeated bitter experience” [Craik, 1943, page59].
>
> “If the organism carries a 'small-scale model' of external reality and 
> of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out 
> various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to 
> future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past 
> events in dealing with the present and future, and in every way to 
> react in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner to the 
> emergencies which face it” [Craik, 1943, page 61].
>
> Since Craik’s insight, cognitive scientists have argued that the mind 
> constructs mental models as a result of perception, imagination and 
> knowledge, and the comprehension of discourse. They study how children 
> develop such models, how to design artifacts and computer systems for 
> which it is easy to acquire a model, how a model of one domain may 
> serve as analogy for another domain, and how models engender thoughts, 
> inferences, and feelings [MMRW, 2018].
>
> To be continued...
>
> Friendly greetings
>
> Krassimir
>
> *References*
>
> [Craik, 1943] Kenneth James Williams Craik. The Nature of Explanation. 
> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1943) . Reprinted: October 
> 1967, ISBN: 9780521094450. 136 pages. 
> http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/cognition/nature-explanation?format=PB&isbn=9780521094450#cM4ptICCc6vUTlK0.97
>
> [Johnson-Laird, 1983]Mental Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University 
> Press. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Italian 
> translation by Alberto Mazzocco, Il Mulino, 1988. Japanese 
> translation, Japan UNI Agency,1989.
>
> [Johnson-Laird, 1995] Philip N. Johnson-Laird. Mental models, 
> deductive reasoning, and the brain. (1995) In Gazzaniga, M.S. (Ed.) 
> The Cognitive Neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 999-1008.
>
> [Markov et al, 2007] Kr. Markov, Kr. Ivanova, I. Mitov. Basic 
> Structure of the General Information Theory. IJ ITA, Vol.14, No.: 1, 
> 2007. pp. 5-19.
>
> [MMRW, 2018]Mental Models and Reasoning website (MMRW). 
> http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/about/what-are-mental-models/
>
> [Peirce, 1896], Charles Sanders. Principles of Philosophy, 10. Kinds 
> of reasoning, 66. Deduction. page 28 in Collected Papers of Charles 
> Sanders Peirce, Volume 1. Harvard University Press, 1931. 1932, 1959, 
> 1960, 1974 - 535 pages. ISBN 0-674-13800-7. 
> https://books.google.bg/books?id=HoRfcRUtpnEC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=%22forms+a+diagram+of+that+state+of+things%22&source=bl&ots=I0XHZ5xFGs&sig=B2TdRiv8dMsgG9ti9fcp79OEDDo&hl=bg&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxgKno0O7ZAhXkYJoKHbBVBa8Q6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=%22forms%20a%20diagram%20of%20that%20state%20of%20things%22&f=false; 
> see also: 
> http://wittgensteinrepository.org/agora-ontos/article/viewFile/2200/2462
>
> [Plato, 2002] Plato. The Republic. IDPH. 
> http://www.idph.net/conteudos/ebooks/republic.pdf
>
> [Wittgenstein, 1922] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus 
> Logico-Philosophicus, translated C. K. Ogden, London: Kegan Paul, 
> Trench, Trubner & CO., New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company,1922 (in 
> English). 
> https://monoskop.org/File:Wittgenstein_Ludwig_Tractatus_Logico_Philosophicus_1922.pdf) 
>
>
> **
> **
> **
> **
> **
> *From:* Krassimir Markov <mailto:markov at foibg.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, March 12, 2018 12:34 AM
> ...
>
> Infos has possibility to reflect the reality via receptors and to 
> operate with received reflections in its memory. The opposite is 
> possible - via effectors Infos has possibility to realize in reality 
> some of its (self-) reflections from its consciousness.
>
> The commutative diagram on Figure 1 represents modeling relations. In 
> the frame of diagram:
>
> - in reality: real models: s is a model of r,
>
> - in consciousness: mental models: s_i is a mental model of r_i ;
>
> - between reality and consciousness: perceiving data and creating 
> mental models: triple (s_i , e_i , r_i ) is a mental model of triple 
> (s, e, r).
>
> It is easy to imagine the case when the Infos realizes its reflections 
> using its effectors, i.e. relation between consciousness and reality: 
> realizing mental models and creating data. In this case the receptors’ 
> arrows should be replaces by opposite effectors’ arrows. In this case 
> triple (s, e, r) is a realization of the mental model (s_i , e_i , r_i ).
>
> clip_image002
>
> Figure 1
>
> After creating the mental model it may be reflected by other levels of 
> consciousness. In literature several such levels are described. For 
> instance, in [2], six levels are separated for humans (Figure 2). The 
> complexity of Infos determines the levels. For instance, for societies 
> the levels are much more, for animals with no neo-cortex the levels a 
> less.
>
> image
>
> Figure 2.   [2]
>
> This means that the mental models are on different consciousness 
> levels and different types (for instance - touch, audition, vision).
>
> In [2], Jeff Hawkins had remarked: “The transformation— from fast 
> changing to slow changing and from spatially specific to spatially 
> invariant— is well documented for vision. And although there is a 
> smaller body of evidence to prove it, many neuroscientists believe 
> you'd find the same thing happening in all the sensory areas of your 
> cortex, not just in vision” [2].
>
> As it is shown on Figure 2 mental models are in very large range from 
> spatially specific to spatially invariant; from fast changing to slow 
> changing; from “features” and “details” to objects”.
>
> To be continued...
>
> *...*
>
> **
>
> Friendly greetings
>
> Krassimir
>
> References
>
> [1] Kr. Markov, Kr. Ivanova, I. Mitov. Basic Structure of the General 
> Information Theory. IJ ITA, Vol.14, No.: 1, 2007. pp. 5-19.
>
> [2] Hawkins, Jeff (2004). On Intelligence (1st ed.). Times Books. p. 
> 272. ISBN 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number>0805074562 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0805074562>.
>
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-- 
John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Collier web page <http://web.ncf.ca/collier>
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