Friday, 29 March 2024 ------------------------ Hello. All is well. Chapter seven talks about contextualism. That says words are context sensitive. That knowledge isn't absolute but depends on context. I think I agree with this, I seem to babble on and on about context. For me, it has almost become a traumatic response from talking with people. A lot of people don't consider or care about context, but for me, my brain malfunctions if I don't consider context. Unless it's daily life talking, then specifying context is not really necessary. The goal is not necessarily knowledge but social rapport / synchronization. The book goes on about making context explicit. I think this is preferred, but as I wrote in earlier writing, it can be tedious, and if I feel like having a quicker flow of thoughts, I will leave it to the reader to consider the context. l think contextualism is the pragmatic, middle ground view of knowledge, but I also take the stance that the concept of knowledge is pointless without context. To see how odd the concept of unbounded, absolute knowledge is, does the universe have physical boundaries? What is beyond? Can you comprehend the unbounded? If you don't know the absoluteness of reality, then how do you know absolute knowledge? Is infinity absolute or relative? How can knowledge both be absolute and unbounded from relativity? I can only think of one exception. The only thing we can know now, absolutely and unbounded, is our experience of something somewhere. Of course, I can only claim this for my own experience. On what level is experience a property of reality? That's interesting to ponder about. Practically, I think the point isn't that we should always explicitly state context, but be considerate/sensitive to the context when listening to others. My experience is that a lot of misunderstandings arise from assuming incorrect context. Mostly people do this unintentionally, but if you spot a pattern of someone doing it, possibly intentionally, I think it's wise to stay away from them to preserve your sanity. If unsure, just ask them. I've been guilty of too quickly assuming people are acting in bad faith, but by simply inquiring them, I many times realize it isn't intentional. But I think it's a skill, and how to go about it depends on the context. If it's someone you don't know well, the social rules aren't synchronized, then you want to tread more carefully. I think the debate about free will has this issue. I can't believe in unbounded free will. That debate is quite nonsensical to start with when you think about it. Using language as a practical tool to describe reality in context, I believe we can talk about free will. For example, humans have more free will than a starfish. I remember the emotion book talked about neurons in starfish respond one to one (input to output) whereas us humans have neurons in between allowing for more variation in output, what I call free will in practice. I'm not making any statement of unbounded free will just in the sensible context of physical matter. To deny free will, is to assume we're talking nonsensical from the get go. Then again, because we easily fall into that trap, it may be best to be more specific, but we lose efficiency. So it's a balance. Perhaps there are better words, but I think they'll fall into the same issue really, unless you add the context in the word itself, haha, not sure if that's much of an improvement for efficiency though. Regardless, I think it may be a bit irresponsible to deny free will without proper context, because it may rewire a human to lose agency in practice, causing them harm. Again, the line between physical and mental is an abstraction. It's incredibly difficult to get right, if not impossible, so I want to be clear I only say this as something to be mindful of, not to blame anyone. I am very guilty of this myself. I think this could also relate to how we may wire differently. We may not realize how more hardwired and abstract other people's perceptions become, making it more important to not get "wrong" input in from the start, if that makes sense? This made me think about levels of abstraction for information. We say a picture is worth a thousand words. The higher level of abstraction, the more compact and loose the information is. What is the order of levels? What's the most abstract type of information? Can a word containing a complex concept be more abstract than a picture? I guess the level of abstraction in the medium is relative to the receiver. As we discussed with top-down process, we start with an abstract function, and then cascade down from there. External stimuli simply triggers that process after bottom-up processing. I read somewhere that we process stimuli in different speeds. I think I'm able to abstract but slowly. I don't know how I may deviate top-down, but bottom-up, I think I'm slower, perhaps because I have less rigid wiring / pattern matching. This is pure speculation, basing from my experience and small bits of information from different places. I'll probably look more into it sometime. I find that I act more normal in dreams in someways. I like reading fiction books because I can process it in my speed, from a single source. I can have intense emotions when I read fiction or by loving kindness meditation. In the real world, I receive too much stimulus at once to be able to express myself. I come across either as hostile or foolish. I'm not saddened by this. I was when I had other expectations. Yes, I can look more competent by conscious effort. I've been successful monetarily in life because of this but at the cost of losing my will to live. I don't want to hurt people, so I choose to distance myself. You can't expect reality to fit you. You must be practical. I find joy from reading and writing. I find ways to enjoy the outside, not by deluding myself, but enjoying the small things, like the waves of the ocean, the stars in the night sky, the leaves on the trees. There's many wonders in life when you allow yourself to enjoy them.