Abel Questions

1. According to Abel, perception is an"active inquiry, not passive reception...acts of perceiving as something."

2. When Abel says "seeing as," he means how we see everything, how it has a certain meaning to each person. "...Hamlet got Polonius to agree that a cloud looked like a camel, a weasel and a whale. Two people will stumble over a bit of hard clay, but only one of them will it as a fragment of a Greek vase."

3. To see what is the case requires:

a. Context- The setting; the surrounding information  that helps to understand the meaning of a specific thing.

b. Inference-that which is derived by reasoning; concluding or judging on the premises of evidence.

c. Concepts- General notions or ideas

d. Experience- instances of personally undergoing, or encountering something.

e. Interpretation- one's personal meaning for a piece, an idea, a thought.

4. What Nietzsche meant by "the fallacy of the immaculate conception" is that there is no "innocent eye", or one single, correct view of seeing-as. Psychologist Joseph Jastrow proves this point using "a  well-known drawing--it is a figure that can be seen either as a rabbit or a duck, and it shifts from one to the other as you look at it;it can never be seen as both and neither interpretation is 'correct.'" We did this in class when we looked at the three world maps, which were three different perspectives: one of how the world is normally shown, one of all the continents streched vertically, and one with the continents upside-down and the sizes of the countries skewed.

5. What Abel means by "there is no sharp dividing line between perception and illusion" is that "perception is 'multistable.' The ambiguity or avaiable choices are not always evident in an image and cannot always be isolated," so we can not always differentiate between what we percive and what we illuse.

6. Perception is selective by nature because "the number of sensory stimuli, or possible messages from outside, is greater than we can receive and process. The channels of communication to us are crowded and noisy; we must filter stimuli."

7. What Abel means by "to perceive is to solve a problem," is that we "'find strands of permanence in the tumult of changing  appearances' (Polyani) " so that what we perceive and what we have already perceived, helps us to identify what is always changing.

8. The role of social conditioning in deciding how things "naturally" look is important. "Realism" is used in art to describe how realistic and/or familiar something is to us. "each society relies on its own visual schemata; it takes for granted its own 'disorientations and 'distractions.'"

9. The  significance of the Durher rhinoceros is that although he had never seen one, he did a wood cut that became so popular it became the model for rhinoceroses in textbooks. His interpretation, however, was found to be incorrect by James Bruce, who traveled to Africa. But when Bruce illustrated it, it "was so strongly influenced by his [convention] of what a rhinoceros ought to look like (i.e., like Durher's woodcut) that no zoologist can identify what Bruce actually saw!" The influence of convention is demonstrated when a photograph is given to some African tribes in that they do not understand what is in the picture, even if they have seen it before, because they do not understand how photographs work, or even what a photograph is. What they see when they look at a photograph is varying shades of colors, or blacks, whites and grays, not an actual picture.

10. Convention influences perspective drawing because the artist must find a way to convey three dimensions on a two dimensional media. " The laws of optics and geometry  do not entail our conventional manner of showing distance nor did it occur to other generations, or cultures."

11. When Abel writes "believing is seeing" he means that if you can be convinced to believe something, you can be convinced to see it as well. "'Stooges' in experiments can get subjects in experiments to agree that they see unequal lines as equal, or that a fixed candlelight in a dark room is moving."

12. What Abel means by "hearing-as" is what we hear and what was actually said, maybe different, based on our perceptions. "If you are told, 'Bert was sleepy, so he went to bed,' almost any consonant can be substituted for the b in bed, with no change in what the brain reports."

Blink #2

1. Three Fatal Mistakes

Three Fatal Mistakes is related to our study of Perception, in that it showed the three ways that the four police officers' brains had "misses," which happened to be fatal in Diallo's case. Their brains received signal's telling them that Diallo "looked suspicious," "was brazen," and "was dangerous." However, the signals were incorrect. Diallo was "getting a breathe of fresh air, "was curious," and later, "was terrified." 

2. The Theory of Mind Reading

In this section, we learn about how two scientists manage to "read people's minds" by anaylzing their facial expressions. This relates to our study of Perception because it shows us that through learning about how the brain works, here specifically how our facial expressions relate to what we are feeling, we are able to understand the information we receive, and analyze it better.

3. The Naked Face

In this section, Gladwell goes on to show how Ekman uses FACS, to decipher facial expressions. Using his intensive knowledge of FACS, he uses his Perception of facial expressions to "mind read." This is related to our study, showing us how we know what we know, through our Perception, here: in facial expressions.

4. A Man,  A Woman, and A Lightswitch

In this section, Gladwell explores how, through autism, literal "mind-blindness" or lack of "mind-reading" ability. This shows how an autisitc person's perception is different, so they pull a different meaning out of something that an non-autistic person would. It relates to our study because we see how each person's perception is different, but also we see how each person receives that information to come to that perception.

5. Arguing With a Dog

This section is very much related to our study of Perception. Using information from the past couple of sections, Gladwell shows his readers how our perception changes with our mood, particularly with an adreneline rush. Our Perception changes and we are unable to "mid-read" because our "vision and thinking narrowed."

6. Running Out of White Space

In this section, Gladwell discusses how are you perceptions and how we act on them depend on the time we have to react to our perceptions. The more time we have, the more qualified we are to make a decision, based on our perceptions. We're not stressed for time, for a decision.

7. Something in my mind...

This section was extremely relevant to our study of Perception. Gladwell talked about really using your perception, but also thinking clearly on your perceptions, so that you fully understand your percetions and what they mean.

8. Tragedy on Wheeler Ave.

In this last section, Gladwell combines everything he has mentioned abut perception in the last seven sections. He puts its all together, effectively showing his readers how one  acts on their perception, and how one comes to that perception, particularly in moments of brief time, and stress, where one can become  effectively "mind-blind" and not read signs that show something different from what the instant perception says.

The Biology of Perception

Although I did not finish the test, my impression was that it was to sort of test our perceptions, how our individual brains receive information. I thought that some parts of it moved too quickly, but I'm sure that was the point, so that we, as students could better understand how important those first signals of the brain are.

I think the average person should know the basics of how our brains perceive information. I believe that this will help everyone understand our lives, and how and why we think better. The average person may be able to obtain more information, or more accurate information, if they understand the way their brain receives information.

The Warren Harding Error (Blink #1)

1. In 1899, Harding met Daugherty while having his shoes shined.  Harding was a newspaper editor at the time, who was "a week away from winning the Ohio state senate." He was "elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914." Harding "addressed the 1916 Republican presidential convention", because Daugherty believed that people only had to hear Harding's voice "to be convinced of his worthiness for higher office." In the summer of 1920, Harding entered the Republican convention as the sixth, and least likely possible candidate. The Party was "deadlocked" between two main candidates, and Harding ended up being the Republican Party Candidate for President because he "radiated common sense and dignity and all that was presidential."

2. The author believes that people were in error in promoting Harding to higher office because Harding "was not a particularly intelligent man. He liked to play poker and golf and to drink, and most of all to chase women...As he rose form one political office to another, he never distinguished himself. He was vague and ambivalent on matters of policy...He was absent from debates on women's suffrage and Prohibition--two of the biggest political issues of his time...In 1920, Daugherty convinced Harding, against Harding's better judgement, to run for the White House...[Harding] was, most historians agree,one of the worst presidents in American History." This evidence shows that author believes people were in error in promoting Harding to higher office because he was not very smart, a womanizer, absent from politics in general, had to be convinced to run, and is generally know to be one of the country's worst presidents.

3. The point of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was to show how the mind "makes connections much more quickly with pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds, than we do between ideas that are unfamiliar to us."

4. The advantages to completing an IAT on a computer are "that the responses are measurable down to a millisecond, and those measurements are used in assigning the test taker's score." The IAT has become "so popular in recent years" is because "the effects it is measuring are not subtle; the IAT is the kind of tool that hits you over the head with its conclusions." Which is another way of saying that the conclusions are very surprising, yet obvious.

5. Gladwell became mortified upon completion of the first part of the IAT on race because he was having more difficulty placing words when "Bad" was paired with "European  American" and "Good" was paired with "African American." On the second part of the IAT test, the categories were reversed, and Gladwell had no trouble placing the words in the categories. 

6. It did not matter how many times Gladwell took the test, it didn't make any difference. The author believes the reason for our answers on the IAT is "our second level of attitude...on an unconscious level."

7. ("If  Gladwell is correct, I would not consider this to be my true self. This is because, although my unconscious "crunches all the data...and forms an opinion," I consciously make the effort to make a fair opinion based on what I believe is right, not just on all the data that passes before my eyes, because it is possible that not all that data is true, or correct.

8. Gladwell feels that it does matter. ("Does it matter?of course it does.") An example of why it does matter, is an interview. If you interview a black applicant, and your unconscious makes you a little distant from the applicant, that will upset his confidence, and will ultimately "throw the interview hopelessly off-course."

9. The Warren Harding error impacts the business world in a small way that makes a big difference.  Statistics show that most CEOs are tall, and in the business world, "an inch is worth $789 [more] a year in salary. That means that a person who is six feet tall, but otherwise identical to someone who is five feet five will make on average $5,525 more a year...we see a tall person and we swoon."

10. Bob Golomb's strategy, "he tries never to judge anyone one the basis of his or her appearance,"defeats the Warren Harding error because he gives everyone an equal chance. Golomb's strategy prevents him from making an error in decision based on appearance, "because sometimes the most unlikely person is in the flush." This means that he will help any customer, no matter his/her appearance because they have just as an equal chance of buying a car as anyone else.

11. The results of Ayres's study were that "women and blacks were lay-downs." (Lay-downs are the people who pay the sticker price for a car.)"[The car dealers] saw someone who wasn't a white male and thought to themselves, 'Aha! This person is so stupid and naive that I can make a lot of money off them.'" In actuality. the dealers' unconscious simply said that women and minorities are "suckers".

12. Gladwell believes that you can change your score on the race IAT by looking over articles that are positive to black people, like articles on MLK Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and this positive force will help improve your times. We can apply this by "changing the experiences that compromise those [first] impressions...Taking rapid cognition seriously--requires that we take active steps to manage and control those impressions." I do agree. I think if we take the steps to associate ourselves with all different types of people, and to become comfortable with all types of people, than our first impressions, our unconscious impressions, will reflect our conscious ones.

The Mouse That Ate The Cheese

Based on class conversations, the point of the story of the story "The Mouse That Ate The Cheese" is to show ToK students how we know what we know, and the different types of knowledge. It also shows how our belief system works. How we know what we is shown two different ways in this story. "Bill knew that the mouse mouse had eaten the cheese. He had seen it with his own eyes, and he wasn't dreaming...or hallucinating." One way of knowing something is seeing it. Another way of knowing is being told knowledge by someone with the original knowledge. "Bill obviously wasn't joking, his story was plausible enough and [Virginia] knew him well enough to accept his evidence as reliable...By now three people, Bill, Virginia and Adrian knew that the mouse had eaten the cheese." In "The Mouse That Ate The Cheese" three different belief systems are shown. Only one results in knowledge. Alice, who saw that the cheese had dropped to the floor, but did not actually see the mouse eat the cheese, rationalized that a mouse must have eaten the cheese, because it was the "only logical explanation." However, because she did not see it, and because Bill, the only one who did see the mouse eat the cheese, did not tell her so, she did not actually know that the mouse had eaten the cheese, she only believed it. Virginia and Adrian, although they did not see the mouse eat the cheese, knew that it had, because they chose to believe, Bill who had seen the cheese being eaten by the mouse. By believing Bill, his knowledge was transferred to them. George, who was told by Bill that a mouse had eaten the cheese, chose not to believe him. Therefore he did not know that the mouse had eaten the cheese, but he also didn't know that the mouse hadn't eaten the cheese, he only believed it, because he hadn't seen it, and he hadn't been told by someone watching the cheese, that it hadn't been eaten by a mouse.

Class Notes

Who Knows More?

-- A male OB/GYN with 25 years experience?

or

--A woman with 5 children?

Is one type of knowledge more valuable than another?

Each knows more than the other, in the different types of knowledge. The male OB/GYN will know the mechanics, the processes, the medical, scientific part of childbirth, while the woman with five kids will know more about the what it feels like, how it will affects a woman emotionally.

MOTHER:

-she knows more about the emotions

-PAIN

-more about 'childbirth' itself, but not the delivery

-experience is key

-introspection, knowing how

-Does she know, scientific knowledge?

-knowing how

-empirical/personal

-knowledge by intstinct

-knowledge by practice-->after 5 children

-direct and immediate

OB/GYN:

-who knows more

-biological aspects

-how to deliver baby

-the childbirth experience may vary depending on woman

-Empirical (it depends on what kind childbirth, but not birth itself)

-Knowing that

-knowing by description

Knowledge by practice--> after 25 years

Abel: The Basis of Knowledge

How does Bertrand Russell differentiate between "knowledge by acqauintance" and "knowledge by description? "Knowledge by acquaintance" is "direct and immediate and consists of 'raw feels.' We are acquainted with a person, or with a place, or with a food." "knowledge by description" is "knowledge of a fact."

How does Abel distinguish between "knowing how" and "knowing that"? "Knowing how" is "[unable] to describe[d in] exactly how one does things." "Knowing that" is "propositional" and can be explained precisely, and "can be computerized."

What does he mean when he asks "can knowing how theoretically always be reduced to knowing that?" What is Abel's answer? What do you think? He means can knowing how to do something be "articulated precisely in propositions, and formulated as a computer program." Abel's answer is "knowing how to do these things perhaps cannot be fully specified in propositional knowing that."  I agree with Abel. I believe that there are some things that can't be put into exact, specific, propositions and computerized.

How does language become a problem of knowledge? Language becomes a problem of knowledge when our language cannot effectively communicate our ideas and what we know, to ourselves and to others.

What do you think William James means when he says: "life defies our phrases?" I think he means that life changes, is mysterious and continuous, and our phrases cannot fully describe it. I understand this from his words, "Life defies our phrases...it is infinitely continuous and subtle and shaded,, whilst our verbal terms are discrete, rude, and few..."

What, according to Abel, is the difference between "experience" and "propositional knowledge"? "Experience is a very wide philosophical term:it includes everything we do and everything that happens to us." "Propositional Knowledge," according to Abel, "is not the function to duplicate knowledge, but to describe it."

What are Abel's Four Conditions for propositional knowledge? Where have we seen this before? Why does he add a Fourth Condition? The Four Conditions are "1. That p [any propositions]be true...2. That I believe that p....That I have good reasons, or sufficient evidence  for my belief that p; my belief must be justified...4. That i have no other evidence that might undermine my belief." We have seen this before in our discussions about the types of knowledge. He adds a Fourth Condition because  it is necessary to make it a justified, true belief.

What are Abel's Nine Good Reasons or Evidence which serves as the Basis of Knowledge?

1. Sense Perception-evidence for our knowledge of the world. I know what Africa is shaped like because I've seen it on different maps, and it looks the same.

2. Logic-the basis of our analytical knowledge. I know that two plus two is four because if i have two apples and my sister has two apples, and she gives me her apples, than I have four apples.

3. Intuition-inner convictions of certainty. I know that it is wrong to steal because my intuition tells me so.

4. Self-awareness-knowing one's own "'self-presenting' states." I know I am tired because I feel like I'm about to fall asleep. 

5. Memory-knowledge of the past. I know that I went to school yesterday, because I remember  it.

6. Authority-a knowledgeable source passing on their knowledge. I know that there is magma in the center of the Earth, because the geologists said so.

7. Consensus Gentium-common knowledge. I know that Kirby is weird because everyone says he is.

8. Revelation-God revealing something. I know that there will be a flood, and I need to build an ark, because God told me.

9. Faith-not knowledge! relying on belief, which is a requisite for knowledge, but not a guarantee of it. I knew that I would go to heaven when I died, because I had faith that I did God's work during my life.