Part Two
THE THEORY OF THE INTELLECT
The intellect
is the compendium of all understandings achieved by the individual in his or
her lifetime. Experience is the basis of the understanding and the intellect
is the sum total of everything that has been learned by the individual from
experience.
In this part the nature of the intellect and
its workings are explored. Knowledge of the functioning of the intellect
aids the understanding of the problem solving process. The intellect drives
all mental and physical behaviour and it follows that observable behaviour
is the indicator of the quality of the intellect. Intellectual quality is of
social as well as personal importance. How an individual behaves in the
community is a consequence of his intellectual achievement.
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The
Study of Intellects
The understanding of the process of
knowledge acquisition must account for the formation and functioning of
intellects and the psychological processes by which intellects acquire new
understandings. The investigation of intellects has to face the problem of
the difficulty of examining the arrangements of individual minds when
introspection is ruled out as a method of procedure. In a behaviourist
strategy one can start only with the facts of experience and behaviour.
Following the approach of the cognitive psychologists the form and functions
of cognitive constructs may be defined and conclusions may be drawn to
support the thesis that subjective knowledge can be investigated by the
analysis of behaviour, and can be explained as resulting from the processing
of experience.
Top
Experience
and Knowledge of Reality
The Theory of The Intellect
Chapter One
THE ACCOUNT OF THE
INTELLECT
Human behaviour
may be explained by the existence of an intellect which comprises a set of
understandings. The intellect and the understanding are the basic
theoretical constructs. Understandings are formed as the result of personal
experience, and may be investigated through the problem solving method.
The formula is:-
PROBLEM OF
EXPERIENCE...> UNDERSTANDING...> BEHAVIOUR
The processing of the
problems of experience gives solutions which are understandings, based on
which intellectual and physical behaviours may be defined and selected.
Understanding, as a problem solution, is therefore the cognitive construct
which relates experience and behaviour.
The intellect is formed within the
individual, starting from a state of virtually no understanding, and is
self-created in response to experience. The intellect develops in more or
less the same way for all individuals until the intellect achieves maturity,
which is defined as self-management. The intellect meets the individual's
need to understand and act in the world, by giving the ability to explain
past experience, deal with current experience, and to predict future
experience in some limited way. A competent intellect is one which produces
satisfaction and happiness in the individual. An incompetent intellect leads
to confusion, frustration and self-defeat. Problems are the signal that the
intellect is inadequate.
The self-managing intellect organises its
behaviour to achieve its own purposes, and diversity of purposes causes
intellectual differences. A typical purpose of the intellect is the
improvement of its own ability to deal with experience by extending its
understanding of reality. This requires the seeking of knowledge. The
development of the mature intellect is no longer subject to the chance of
experience but is under the control of the intellect itself. The fully
developed intellect can determine its future by choosing the problems it
solves and thereby changing both itself and its reality in chosen ways.
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The
Development of the New Intellect
The theory of
intellectual development explains how intellects develop from
virtually nothing to a level of self-management and self-creation. The
intellect develops through the extension and improvement of its constituent
understandings and models of reality in response to experience. Experience
may be in its preprocessed form of education.
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How
the Intellect forms from nothing.
In the world of computers there is a process
called Booting which takes place every time a computer is restarted. In the
start-up process the computer is transformed from an inactive state to a
fully operating system. The problem of achieving operational status in
computers is solved quite simply since the computer on restart will always
bring into operation the software that gives it the required functionality.
The human intellect has no such preprogrammed path into operational status.
The initial state of the human being is that
of an intelligent self with no understanding at all. The intelligent self,
at birth, is capable of distinguishing simple differences and remembering
them. The intellect is founded on this capability. The working hypothesis
that explains the ability to make distinctions at birth relies upon the
baby's experience in the womb. The unborn infant can sense the mother's
heartbeat and becomes familiar with the pattern of beat- no beat, event - no
event, yes - no. This simple ability is enough to account for a primitive
understanding structured on binary logic. It is possible that in its
prenatal state the infant can distinguish combinations of events, giving
event AND event, event AND NOT event, and event OR event, thus creating the
rudiments of Boolean logic. This hypothesis postulates that the child enters
the world with an intellect equipped with sufficient logical ability in the
form of understandings, to make at least simple distinctions.
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The
New Intellect and Experience
The newborn infant is confronted by a
reality in which there are few distinctions. He is aware of noise, light,
and bodily feeling to some limited extent, and little more. The infant
analyses the flow of experience and makes distinctions based on those
experiences. He begins to create an ideal or mental model of the world that
is differentiated. This is the beginning of the Personal Environment Model
which in successively modified forms remains the primary reality of the
individual for life.
The first distinction is that the
"I" is differentiated from the "not-I". All
"I" experiences and their understandings define "me".
All "not-I" experiences and their understandings are distinct
from, and related to "me". Once that distinction is made it
remains in the intellect throughout life as the fundamental form of
organisation of the intellect and of reality.
External reality is broken down by sets of
distinctions into environments, objects, and actions. Rooms, garden, and the
neighbourhood take shape as different, but linked, environments which have
space as the common factor. The form of linking is directional. Objects such
as people, animals, chairs, tables, and toys have existences in space, and
are separate from each other. They can be thought about as distinct from all
other objects and as possessing characteristics in the form of distinctions.
Actions, such as smiles, laughter, and speech are distinguished.
The infant learns that common distinction
sets have names. An object is called a man. Another object is also called a
man. He must see that this man is more like that man than either of them are
like a toy, or animal. He sees that the man is one of a class of like
things. He must create this, and every other class in his intellect as part
of his learning of language. The naming of things is a creative act of the
intellect. These class distinctions are understandings and language is a set
of named understandings based on common classifications. Thus, identifying
an object as a man is a process of recognition in which the object's
distinctive characteristics are compared with standard sets of distinctions
until a matching set is found.
The understanding of the class of
"Men" is built up over some months or years to allow for men of
all colours, sizes, and ages but to exclude women, children, and so on. A
young child may make mistakes based on incomplete distinction sets. For
example, if a chow dog has never previously been seen it may be classified
as a lion, based on superficial similarities of colour, shape, mane, and
size.
The child thinks in terms of classes of
things and everything is described in terms of classes. Classes are rational
constructions of the intellect and have no equivalent objects in cosmic
reality. They are models constructed out of experience. These models are the
normal models of understanding.
Things themselves do not create their class
understandings in the intellect, and the understanding is not a copy of some
other understanding, as a computer program may be a copy of another. The
individual creates his own understanding and does it well or poorly.
Language is the basic form of organisation
of the intellect. The child's intellectual processes become ordered from the
time it acquires a working knowledge of a language. Children construct their
understandings of how reality is, based on models in the form of distinction
sets which are related to experience as observed, and which are named for
communication purposes. Using their models of reality children become
capable of thinking about and talking about places, objects, and actions not
present to their senses.
According to Jean Piaget it is a mistake to
suppose that a child acquires the notion of number and other mathematical
concepts just from teaching. On the contrary he develops them himself,
independently and spontaneously. He must first understand the problem and
then the solution. The solution becomes meaningful only in the light of the
problem understanding. Each understanding, as a model or distinction set,
must be created within the child's intellect from the materials of
experience given by the teacher. Mathematics is essentially constructed, or
re-invented, by the child himself.
The child is engaging in a continuous
process of problem solving in which every new event of experience
constitutes a new problem. Problems must be structured by distinctions and
solved. The problem solving method as such, cannot be complicated. It
follows that a simple interest in the problem and a desire to understand is
sufficient to produce an understanding. Further experience tests and perhaps
modifies that understanding. The child develops from its own inner
resources, not only basic logic, language and mathematics, but everything it
understands. Real comprehension of an understanding or theory implies the
reinvention of this understanding or theory by the subject. The intellect is
the child's own creation.
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The
Study of Cognitive Development.
Piaget has developed a theory to explain the
development of understanding in children from birth to maturity. There are
stages of development through which all children must pass in a definite
order between birth and adulthood. In the same way that physical
developments proceed through successive stages, so intellectual achievements
tend to follow one another in a predictable order, the achievements of each
stage preparing the ground for the next one.
The successive stages of development are
characterised by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of
"reality". The child's intellect acquires new models of reality,
and models are expanded to include more possibilities. More is understood,
in the form of enhanced distinction sets, about all possibilities. The range
and depth of modelling improves with each stage.
According to Piaget, the ability to
coordinate means and ends marks the beginning of intelligent activity. The
child begins to evolve a subjective philosophy by relating his
self-understanding to his understanding of reality and forming purposes. The
capacity to represent actions mentally results in intentional, goal-directed
behaviour. The child's behaviour indicates that he understands the problem
and its solution. The child is able to select behaviours which improve its
chances of success. At this stage the child has the capacity to understand
the situation based on a model of reality which has developed to the stage
of being useful.
The model of reality acquires a future state
and the individual is capable, by ten or eleven years of age, of pursuing
goals some months distant in time. At sixteen the individual is able to
construct models of possible future realities and to consider their
practicability and desirability. This is a process whereby the individual
develops intellectual resources which are not only adapted to the demands of
reality in the form of experience but can influence and shape future states
of reality.
The development of individual intellects has
as its aim the improvement of the ability of the individual to function in
the world. Intellectual development is evolution towards what the individual
needs to know to achieve self-management and self-responsibility. The newly
mature intellect can formulate those purposes and objectives which will
support its independent existence within the culture, and it has the
necessary understandings to select and execute those behaviours which will
achieve those objectives. The individual will understand how to maintain
himself and pursue his interests, and he will also understand how to avoid
dangers and misfortunes generally.
In this analysis of intellectual development
it is possible to see the structure of the intellect taking shape. On the
simple logic that distinguishes "this" from "that" the
intellect learns the rudiments of his sensible environment. For example, the
preschool child develops understandings of time, space, physical objects,
the self as a body, other people as bodies, language, and conventional
behavioural procedures as separate modules based on a set of models of
reality.
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Education
and the Intellect
The individual intellect develops within the
culture. An intellect, in the course of its development, absorbs a large
amount of cultural wisdom. The problems and solutions of the culture provide
the environment which shapes the individual intellect. The experience of the
individual as he lives his life and copes with his problems is always
related to the culture. An individual who becomes separated from his culture
is helpless, at least until he can acquire the rudiments of another culture.
Knowledge, which is itself the product of
expert understandings, accelerates and controls the development of the
growing intellect. It increases the power of the developing intellect to
cope with extended environments. It provides the student intellect with
intellectual structures as well as knowledge content, and also provides the
immature intellect with criteria for judging what is and is not knowledge.
The process of learning, and the gaining of
new understandings, proceeds from a basic or primitive level to the more
advanced and there cannot be omissions of significant understandings from
the progression. The intellect has a definite level of capability and power
at any stage of its development. Students who have not completed their basic
education may be disqualified from undertaking more advanced education
because the strata of understanding necessary to support the advanced course
are not present. Educationalists understand this order of intellectual
development and plan courses of study which fit the current need. Within the
courses the order of lessons is similarly determined. In preparing his
lessons the teacher is doing what a computer programmer does. The programmer
translates the program specification into a code that the computer can
process. In the teaching situation the lesson material, suitably
communicated by the teacher, takes the form, within the student intellect,
of a program to control the internal processing of specific problems.
The study of Maths requires the
understanding of a Language. An understanding of algebra, or geometry,
requires a prior understanding of arithmetic. The understanding of numbers
precedes any understanding of even the simple operations of arithmetic.
Arithmetic however, does not require the prior understanding of algebra or
geometry. This order of simple to advanced understandings, in the case of
Maths, can be found in any good textbook on mathematics since it coincides
with the best order of presentation of the material.
If a physics textbook is examined it will
quickly become clear that a good understanding of all branches of
mathematics is necessary before any significant progress can be made in the
understanding of physics. The successive layers of understanding and
knowledge required to enable the study of physical science can be
established by simple analysis of the required textbooks. In general, the
layers or strata of knowledge need the presence of the antecedent strata
beneath them in order to be properly understood. Other disciplines and
technologies rest in a like manner on an understanding of physics.
The presence of levels of understanding is
transparent to the intellect. In Physics, access to and selection of
mathematical understandings is possible without consciously crossing
intellectual boundaries. In History, access to and selection of geographical
understandings is similarly possible. The whole set of understandings is
available to the solution of any problem.
The structure of understandings based on
formal learning is fairly easily defined and this structure is built on the
basic understandings gained in infancy. Knowledge of the structure and
content of the immature intellect can therefore be predicted, and the theory
can be compared with reality by the normal tests of education.
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Learning
Problems
The human intellect
differs from the
computer in having an independent will, and being subject to emotional
influences. The intellect cannot be divorced from the emotions in the
development of the young. J. Bowlby, in "How Personalities
Develop", claims that deprivation of love results in a damaged and
alienated personality, and these alienated individuals cannot, in later
life, comprehend the reality of love. Fear and not love forms the
individual's basic attitude to experience. Jon Holt, in "Why Children
Fail" claims that individuals who fail to make the full developmental
progression are often insecure and afraid. Bad intellectual and emotional
development results in damaged personalities. The disinclination to study,
resulting from an attitude of defeat and apathy, obstructs the teaching
process and produces intellects unprepared for more advanced learning. In
this situation emotional causes are to be understood as understandings which
are not capable of being expressed verbally by the individual. They may be
compared to analogue data, where expressible understandings are digital.
Lacking form, they are not analysable by the individual and are not
therefore subject to the understanding of truth. This makes them irrational
and beyond modification by argument. The understanding of his emotions by
the individual provides a means of control but not of cure. For this reason,
the protection of the child's emotional being is a first priority if normal
intellectual development is to be achieved.
The conclusions of the study are that the
individual creates his or her own intellect, the intellect has a definite
structure and content, this structure and content are necessary to correct
development, and direction and the rate of development are more or less
common for all immature individuals within Western culture. The developing
intellect may be mapped fairly precisely and the minimum standard of
intellectual development of people in general as they reach maturity may be
defined.
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The
Intellectual Development of Mature Individuals
The intellect is an operating system based
on a set of models of the various environments apparent to the individual
and it gives the power to deal with those environments. The intellect
should, ideally, emerge from its immature phase, adequate in every way to
cope with the adult cultural environment.
The fully developed intellect can determine
its future by choosing the problems it solves and thereby changing its
reality in chosen ways. The intellectual philosophy sees itself, as a mature
individual, to be a self-managing entity, responsible for setting and
pursuing its own objectives.
The intellect management function includes
responsibility for its own development through learning, and ensuring that
intellectual activities are conducted on the basis of truth and knowledge.
The intellect in its activities calls upon understandings to instigate
behaviours, intellectual and physical. Where those behaviours don't exist,
or are inappropriate, the intellect calls other routines to set problem
solving behaviours in process. The problems of the future require special
understandings based on predictive models of reality.
The life-situation of the mature individual
is the consequence of his set of understandings and models of reality, and
the behaviours that these require, and it changes as these factors change.
Social limitations constraining the individual such as social rank are no
longer effective in Western culture. Success and failure are the result of
intellectual quality. The degree of success the individual has in dealing
with experience is founded on the faithfulness of his model of reality to
reality. Success is measured by the degree of achievement of the
individual's purposes. In business terms, for example, if the individual
thoroughly understands his reality, which is his market, and pursues
business objectives consistent with the market realities, he will be
successful.
Reality is rarely static and changes create
new problems and opportunities. A progressive and efficient intellect
produces a continual flow of new insights and understandings in the
direction of the interests being pursued by the individual. The failure to
achieve individual aims is always accompanied by the presence of anomalies
and problems which indicate failure of understanding and an incompetent
intellect. In practice all individual intellects lie somewhere on the scale
between competency and incompetency. Success in one sphere of activity, such
as business or politics, can often go together with failure in other areas
such as family relationships. An intellect broadly based on experience of
all types has the power to understand and act in all areas of human
experience.
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Top
Experience
and Knowledge of Reality
The Theory of The Intellect
Chapter
Two
THE ACCOUNT OF
UNDERSTANDINGS
The understanding is created, or modified,
as the result of the solving of a problem of experience. Once a particular
problem has been solved within an intellect the means to deal with
repetitions of the same problem exist within that intellect as automatically
invoked routines in the form of understandings. The set of understandings is
equivalent to the library of programs maintained within a computer and it
gives the functionality required by individuals to operate in the world.
The subjective understanding entity may be
studied through expressions of this understanding. These expressions are a
form of behaviour and the studies conform to behaviourist theory.
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The
Relationship of Understandings to Reality
The understanding is a representation of
reality as experienced, and the set of understandings model the world as
experienced by the individual. The understanding as a model of reality,
provides the database from which behavioural, including verbal, expressions
of understanding may be drawn. The understanding is therefore both a
representation of reality in the form of one or more models and a procedure
to be executed.
The understanding follows from the problem
of experience and the operation of the problem solving method. The solution,
as understanding, is normally a model of reality, an explanation of that
model and a behavioural set which dynamically transforms a recurrence of the
problem state into the solution state. The explanation defines what the
model means. The conscious recognition of a known problem automatically
leads to the consciousness of its solution in the form of the understanding
of the problem and its solution and the mental and physical behaviour
necessary to deal with it purposefully. For example, the event of experience
of a problem in the form of an arithmetic equation is followed almost
immediately by the recognition of its meaning and the understanding of how
to solve it. The purpose to solve the equation sets in process a behavioural
sequence consisting of mental operations and physical actions.
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The
Procedural Structure of Understandings
Understandings have a procedure by which the
solution is achieved from the problem. This procedure is expressed as mental
and physical behaviour where mental behaviour includes structured thinking
and physical behaviour includes, amongst other forms, speech. The procedure
recognises and conforms to the processes of the model and the quality of the
model determines the quality of the procedural output. For example, a poor
understanding of the operation of a motor vehicle restricts the behavioural
ability of the individual to diagnose faults and to perform repairs.
The understanding is an item of processive
logic. A computer program is also an item of processive logic and it is the
program's logic that determines the processing of the computer. It is the
logic of understanding that determines the selection and execution of human
behaviour. This logic is always subject to intellectual choice and judgment.
The summing of a series of five digit numbers may be carried out manually
using the columnar method. If an electronic calculator is available, that
may be selected instead and a different set of mental and physical actions
will be performed.
Structured thinking processes are possible
because the understanding or logical entity is structured. These thinking
processes are behaviour and are governed by the structure and meaning of the
model being expressed. For example, the ability to solve arithmetic problems
is based on a set of models which define number systems, and the several
arithmetic operations. The individual, when multiplying positive and
negative numbers, will mentally invoke the models for determining the sign
of the product. The capability of the individual to think constructively and
deeply depends on the quality of the philosophical models of reality which
synthesise the total experience of that individual.
The bounds of the logical entity of
understanding are determined by the problems of experience that it
addresses, and the purpose of the individual in solving those problems. The
development of understandings progresses from small beginnings.
Understandings are not necessarily complete at any phase of their existence
and may be augmented by further experience. The understanding is therefore
built up in stages, earlier forms of the understanding being modified to
annex new learning. This progression occurs in all learning. A child's
understanding of physics may be limited to a small number of mechanical
problem solutions. The professional physicist's understanding comprehends
many more problem solutions, but includes the child's understanding in some
form.
The understanding has parts and these parts
may be accessed, changed, and deleted without the necessity of deleting and
replacing the whole understanding. Extra steps or subroutines may be added
to an already known internal procedure or program and the modification may
be brought into operation at the desired point in the execution of that
procedure. The physical behaviour of an individual may be modified, for
example, by requiring that individual to notify the fact verbally when a
divisor in any calculation within a series is zero. The individual must
modify his mental behaviour to monitor the procedure by testing at
appropriate points for the presence of the designated condition and to call
into operation the special physical behaviour when the condition is
satisfied. Internal processing of problem solution procedures appears to
differ from computer processing only in the fact that the conscious
intellect can make modifications in real time.
Procedures may be conscious or subconscious.
When one is learning to drive a car, all behaviours are governed by
conscious thought. Since thinking takes time, and the time available for
behavioural responses to sensory information is limited, mental
concentration on driving is intense. With practice, driving behaviours
become automatic and may be relegated to the subconscious. Most repetitive
behaviours are initiated and controlled outside the conscious intellect.
Conscious control may be re-established by choice, or may be forced by the
inability of the automatic procedures to handle emergencies or other
non-standard states of affairs. When intellectual processing fails, and
psychological processes must be invoked, processing time increases
significantly, and time constraints may force the intellect into best
guessing or even panic.
Short-circuiting the conscious thought
mechanism out of behavioural procedures improves response times and
efficiency. The effect of conscious interference in automatic procedures may
be seen in, for example, stuttering where the individual is consciously
monitoring and attempting to modify normally non-conscious vocalisation of
thought. In trying to execute two procedures, vocalisation and monitoring,
concurrently the stutterer is overloading the resources in relation to time,
and the predicament causes anxiety. Emotions such as fear and anxiety
disintegrate intellectual processes and waste resources.
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The
Understanding as a Model of Reality
The set of understandings
function as models
of reality which, among other things, define the set of possibilities that
may exist in the world of the individual and the relations between these
possibilities. The understanding or meaning is integral with the model.
The
Idea of Models
A model can be any entity which has some or
all of the characteristics of another entity or state of affairs, taken as
reality. Models are formed in the course of problem solving and are made for
a purpose, or purposes. Wittgenstein described the Paris traffic accident
model which defined and communicated the facts of road accidents. Solar
system models and molecule structure models show students the essential
features of the real world entities. Wind tunnel models show scientists how
real world objects will behave at high speeds.
Some models are not physical. Mathematical
models which are used by scientists to analyse and predict, exist only as
mathematical terms. System behaviour models which are used to analyse and
predict conditions within particular systems, such as the electricity supply
network, exist as mathematical and logical terms, usually within a computer
program. Commonly used models may also be non-physical. People who use a
public transport system are usually familiar with its characteristics. This
understanding, and the model which supports it, is learned through
experience and retained intellectually, and called up whenever the problem
of travel by public transport occurs.
Static
and Dynamic Models
The mental model
may be static or dynamic.
The dynamic nature of a model may be obtained by concatenating a series of
static models. In a mental model of an internal combustion engine all the
stages of fuel input, compression, ignition and gas expansion, and gas
exhaustion can be visualised as occurring consecutively. The dynamic model
may represent discrete change in the model over time, but it also may be
visualised purely as a dynamic system. A car travelling along a road, or a
moving pendulum are of this type. Mental models of reality take the dynamic
nature of the reality into account.
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The
Structure of Models of Understanding
In all cases of understanding of perception,
where the perception changes due to changes in viewpoint, light quality, and
growth or deterioration, individuals can easily accommodate their
understandings to the current state of affairs and see unities in the series
of changes. In a simple case, a coin may be examined. As the coin is turned
over it apparently changes shape. Starting as a circle it becomes oval, and
then progressively flatter until it appears as a thin rectangle. This
sequence is a series of views of the same object and all views are never
seen simultaneously. Individuals are, nevertheless, able to integrate these
views into one model, such that they are always able to recognise the object
as a coin irrespective of the particular shape that they are currently
viewing. They are quite capable of visualising a model of a coin within
their intellects in which the coin is spinning, quickly or slowly. The
individual, through his model, both understands the relationship between
successive views and has the ability to explain the successive differences.
From this account it may be seen that such a
model consists of
1. a description of the entity, process or state of
affairs,
2. a predictive capability based on an observed regular process or
behaviour and
3. an explanation which reflects a purpose or purposes
The description comprises the features of
the coin that distinguish it from all other non-coin objects. The process
consists in the changes of apparent shape as the viewpoint changes. There is
an order involved in these changes which, broadly speaking, is circle - oval
- rectangle - oval - circle. It is never any other sequence. This order
enables the prediction of the next state in the sequence and of all states
in the correct sequence. The explanation may, for example, reconcile the
apparent changes in shape with the fact that no changes occur to the
physical characteristics of the coin.
In problem solving, a state of affairs, not
understood by the individual, is examined and analysed and a predictive
model is built from the observations. The asking of a question, as the
result of a purpose, produces the explanation which is understanding. For
example, the experience of seeing the lid of a kettle moving leads to the
examination of the kettle in its various states and the conclusion that the
lid only moves when the water is boiling. The question of what power moves
the lid leads to the understanding of steam power. The explanation for the
phenomenon is therefore based on the understanding of the power of steam.
Further questions may be asked based on the same general model. These
inquiries may be concerned with the precise conditions for the occurrence of
the phenomenon, in terms of steam pressure measurements.
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Models
and Realities
Understandings have a structure which
defines:-
1. The reality in which it exists
2. Its internal reality
3. The
input or problem state
4. The output or solution state
5. The behavioural
steps by which the problem is translated into the solution.
The reality in which the understanding
exists is the understanding of the reality in which the problem of
experience revealed itself. Its internal reality is given by one or more
models of reality which are defined by the problem analysis. The input or
problem state is that event of experience which triggers the execution of
the understanding and the output state is that state of affairs required by
the individual's purpose in solving the problem. The behavioural steps form
an executable program consistent with the understanding of reality and the
purpose being pursued.
Understandings therefore have models of
their external and internal realities. The external model is specified in a
preamble which points to that general segment of reality to which the
understanding belongs. It's meaning is therefore given by that general
model. For example, the understanding of a physical object must be viewed
from the general understanding of space and matter, whereas the
understanding of a model of understanding must be comprehended from the
perspectives of the intellect and the universe of ideas.
Not all understandings are linked to a more
general understanding external to themselves. In these cases the
understanding is free-floating and constitutes a compartment of the
intellect. For example, an individual may have received a rudimentary
religious education at school. He may not subsequently be able to relate
this understanding to any other reality of his personal experience and it
forms an independent compartment within his intellect. All intellectual
compartments have unsecured, or dangling, external interfaces and the
psychological inability to follow a logical path between compartments makes
inter-compartmental processing impossible.
The internal model of reality describes a
particular natural subset of the field of experience in such a way that
rules may be derived. These rules are predictive, and the ability to
predict, to some extent, the processes of reality constitutes, in part, the
individual's understanding of it.
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General
solutions
An understanding is the solution to a
problem or a set of problems of the same type. A project to solve a class of
problems must consider elements of reality common to every problem and
define the problem set in terms of this generalised reality. The solution
gives a model of the field of understanding having a generalised and
skeletonised form, which may be classed as a prototype. The prototypical
model leaves specific distinctions, or variables, undetermined, to be
decided in particular circumstances by information. Information enables the
intellect to relate its prototypical models to specific real states of
affairs.
For example the prototypical model of
"man" will allow individuals with a range of skin pigmentations
but will disallow other abnormal colours. No man is blue. Skin colour is a
limited variable. Information enables a particular man to be distinguished
from the set of men by determining all the variables.
An understanding, whether specific or
prototypical, defines its external and internal realities. Prototypes do not
exist in the real or external world of experience and therefore can exist
only in a constructed ideal or virtual reality. Virtual realities may be
envisaged as skeletonised versions of the real world states of affairs. They
are defined by those essential characteristics which are common to the set
of real world situations in which the forms, modelled by the prototype,
occur. The sea, unspecified and therefore virtual, is the background reality
to ships of all types, but not to castles. In effect, the virtual reality is
a prototypical model of the reality in which the object under examination
occurs. As with all models, only those characteristics of reality relevant
to the problem in solution are built into the prototype.
For example, Newton's picture of a physical
reality in which a body can exist and not be subject to impressed forces, is
virtual. The body, unspecified, is a prototype.
All understandings of languages are based on
prototypes. The word "castle" is not specific and models all those
characteristics which distinguish castles in general from not-castles.
Prototypes model classes of entities or actions rather than specific cases.
It is information, either in the form of sensory data, or as a specified
context, which realises the virtual. The word "castle" refers to
any castle and no particular castle. The word in the context of
"Windsor" fixes the understanding to the ground. The label
"Windsor Castle" refers to a specific castle.
Predetermined behaviours are often based on
virtual realities and prototypes. For example, an individual who is
qualified to drive a car on public roads cannot possibly have models of all
the roads in the country but will have models of typical road features.
These are models of intersections, curves in the road, T-junctions, and so
on. These models do not refer to actual cases but represent all the relevant
characteristics of these typical road situations. They are prototypes and
exist in virtual realities. They are selected and reduced to understandings
of actual roads in the reality of experience by sensory information. These
prototypical models plus sensory data take intellectual form as puzzles
which intellectual procedures reduce to solutions which are the
understandings of the real roads. These then become the realities which
govern driving behaviours.
People who drive on a particular road
frequently, will remember every detail of that road. This intellectual
record, if true, amounts to knowledge of the road. Knowledge of this type
reduces intellectual puzzle solving and often permits automatic or
semi-automatic behaviours. A driver who knows a road may do so while
thinking of matters other than the conditions of the road.
Scientific knowledge is founded on the
ability of the intellect to abstract models of the common elements of the
problem reality and form prototype solutions. With this method, problem and
solution situations may be generalised, either in their essential form as
prototypes, or in their exemplary form as paradigms. Physical models are
normally prototypical and mathematical. Cultural models are often based on
paradigms.
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Power
and control
The problems perceived with reality give
rise to models which attempt to emulate that reality. The more accurate the
modelling, the more accurate will be the predictions based on that model.
Valid explanations of sets of experiences, based on accurate models,
constitute knowledge, and give rise to correct and effective behaviours,
both mental and physical. Validity requires the correct application of the
problem solving method.
Every true understanding is the consequence
of the correct processing of the problems of experience and gives the power
to solve specific problems. True understandings, which are knowledge,
therefore enable the individual to achieve objectives in life through
correct and therefore effective mental and physical behaviours, and from
this power the capability for self-management. In general, the power of
understandings is limited by the range of past experience. For this reason
immature intellects are too limited to enable intellectual self-management.
The range and quality of understandings is an important factor in
intellectual competency and the purposeful seeking of a wide range of
experience, as recommended by Descartes, results in a broad spectrum of
powerful understandings.
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Top
Experience
and Knowledge of Reality
The Theory of The Intellect
Chapter Three
THE INTEGRATION
OF THE INTELLECT
The
Problem of Fragmentation
Understandings are solutions to the problems
of experience. In an uncontrolled situation the intellect may have one
solution in the form of an understanding for every problem it has solved.
Each understanding has a model of reality and this is formed from the
understanding of the problem. Since every problem is different every model
of reality incorporated into the solutions will be different, and the
different models of reality will be incompatible with each other. The net
result is that the intellect possesses a non-integrated collection of
understandings. In this state it is unable to understand reality as a whole.
This situation is comparable to the state of
traditional science in which problems are solved independently of each
other, by different workers, and at different times. The result is a
collection of theories that have no common base in reality and do not hang
together. The intellect endeavours to overcome this problem by searching for
higher level understandings that explain some part of the set of
understandings of experience. The ultimate goal is an "understanding of
everything" which provides a common platform for dealing with all
experience.
The structuring of experience is aided by
the nature of education which imposes order on the teaching matter. This
order is most developed in the field of intellectual tools such as language
and mathematics. In the learning of mathematics the student, in starting
with number systems, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division
and so on, is grouping understandings into modules. These modules form
layers in the understanding of mathematics, where every layer, in the
sequence as taught, is a prerequisite for all subsequent layers. The set of
modules is integrated and structured into an understanding of mathematics by
the knowledge of the teacher. In education the student benefits from the
expert organisation of the set of understandings.
Complete integration on this basis is not
possible since the theory system is incomplete. Education is dependent on
the state of knowledge, and where knowledge does not exist the student is
deprived of the necessary understandings and intellectual structures.
In Western culture the student intellect has
only limited support from objective knowledge and must structure its
collection of understandings, true and false, in the best manner possible.
In this, the intellect is guided by the natural divisions of experience. In
thinking about experience and knowledge the intellect endeavours to explain
each natural division of reality, and reality as a whole. The nature of
these divisions provides assistance to the integration process. Physical
experiences, for example, are easily distinguished from all other types and
may be grouped together.
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The
Structure of a General Model of Reality
The general model of reality is based on,
but not limited by, experience, since the model goes beyond experience to
make claims of universal truth. General models may exist of mental,
cultural, moral, and spiritual realities in addition to the physical. There
may be a general model of fundamental reality which subsumes every other
model.
Diagram 1.2.1 shows the structure of a
general model of reality. The general model of reality is supported
evidentially by the highest levels of submodels (SM) which in their turn are
supported by lower level submodels. At the lowest level the whole structure
is warranted by the set of experiences that it represents. The general model
may represent the personal environment of the individual. Its overall
reality may be divided into models of the individual's residential,
employment, and shopping environments. The residential model distinguishes
the individual's home from every other home in the area, and that home is
further subdivided into rooms and contents. The whole edifice is built upon
personal experience. The individual is perfectly capable of describing his
or her home, and giving directions for finding it, from the understandings
supplied by the general model.

THE GENERAL MODEL OF REALITY
Diagram 1.2.1
Alternatively, the model may represent a
theory system. The general model of reality, given by the fundamental
theory, may be divided into models of the physical, cultural, moral, ideal,
and supernatural subrealities. These in turn may be divided into a number of
scientific theories which describe what is known about these environments.
Every theory incorporates one or more models of reality. The structure rests
on defined sets of experiences.
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Top
Down Integration
If an integrated set of understandings is
examined the relationship between the higher and lower levels of
understanding may be discovered. For example, within the general model of
physical reality every entity model which has physical characteristics has a
place. The definition, or model, of a particular physical entity carries a
preamble which states that it should be viewed according to the
characteristics of the physical universe. No physical object has any meaning
outside the general model of the Cosmos. Particles can only be understood
within the context of the theory that defines them, and that theory can only
make sense within the quantum understanding of physical reality. The
meanings of submodels in a general model of reality are therefore
conditioned by the higher level models, and their meanings might be very
different if the higher level models were different. In short, the general
model of reality determines the meaning of every constituent of that
reality.
The same is true for all general models of
reality. The spirit is an entity of the reality of God and must be
understood within that general reality. A moral law is an entity of the
Moral Universe and the characteristics of this domain must be understood
prior to a full evaluation of the specific law.
This rule carries a number of implications.
The first implication is that the general model is prior to its subsidiary
models. It functions in the problem solving method by supplying the criteria
of truth. In effect, the problem solver stipulates that the general model is
true and the subsidiary model must be compatible with it. This is the rule
of top-down development. The integration of understandings proceeds on the
basis that the general model is true. If it is false every subsidiary model
is also false and the integrated structure has little value as knowledge.
Experience is the common test of truth.
A second implication is that if there is no
general understanding of the field its collection of subsidiary
understandings cannot be integrated. It will also be the case that these
subsidiary models will be incompatible with each other. Thomas Kuhn shows
that this non-integrated state is a characteristic of knowledge schools in
the predisciplinary stage. However, it is also the state of physics at this
time since that discipline has no general theory and only incompatible
subsidiary theories.
A third implication is that if the intellect
is to be integrated on the basis of truth the general understanding must
explain all human experience. Where general models of partial sets of
experience exist with no overarching general model, there is no way of
determining if these partial understandings are true.
For example, Physics, in modern times, has
had its Cartesian/Newtonian model, its relativity model, and its quantum
model. It is likely that both models of reality currently used by physics
will be replaced by a model which integrates the discipline's knowledge
structure. However, a series of general physical models is possible in the
future with no means of determining the truth of any of them. Even if a
final physical theory is achieved which accounts for every physical
phenomenon it still may be false. This may be seen by the examination of a
possible higher level theory.
If the problem of mind and matter is
considered any explanation of their interaction must be given from the
standpoint of a higher level theory. To amalgamate the intellectual and
physical realities into one overall general model of reality a concept of
reality is required in which physical objects and idea sets are both
possibilities. Such a higher level theory could disqualify the then current
theories of the mind and the physical universe.
An intellect without a general understanding
of fundamental reality cannot be integrated. An individual intellect, in its
fragmented state, may have more than one general model of reality. There may
be, for example, understandings of the physical universe, the inner world of
the mind, and the Moral Universe with the rules governing personal
relationships. The general models of these subrealities may defy integration
and the individual will compartmentalise each general model version to avoid
confusion.
In its unintegrated state the intellect has
no assurance of the truth of any of its constituency of understandings. It
is likely to be wrong to some degree in every aspect of its mental and
physical behaviours and these errors cause failures in the pursuit of
objectives. This state is mentally confusing and self-defeating. The
solution must be to solve the problem of fundamental reality and to derive
the common model for the explanation of all experience from it. The
development of fundamental and general understandings is a specialist
problem beyond the capabilities of most intellects. The proper development
of the set of intellects is therefore dependent on adequate objective
knowledge unified by a fundamental theory of reality.
Rationality, as formulated by Rene
Descartes, is the endeavour to secure the intellect in knowledge and truth
as the prerequisite for correct dealings with the affairs of life. Rational
integration of the intellect is dependent on absolute objective knowledge in
the form of a fundamental theory which models and explains both the set of
general understandings of the natural divisions of reality and the
fundamental and absolute reality that underpins them all.
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