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Sunday, February 8, 2004 - 1:21pm

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Here's my problem I can't seem to find an answer to it.

When we speak, write or think we are using rapid calculation, we are judging right and wrong, true and false, the correct tone, concepts pronounciation, and the context. We are undergoing an amzing and extremly fast process of caluclation, recollection, imagination etc even to understand this text.

My query is that seeing as speaking, writing and thinking are based on rapid calculation, how can we be sure we are using the correct method of calculation.

I've began to think that it happens so fast that we simply have to trust it because we have no other altenative. Because in order to check rapid calculation we would have to step outside the realm of rapid calculation which would make it impossible to understand the process.

Also what is understanding exactly, I understand what the law of identity is but I can't descibe what exactly understanding is. For me it's intuitive I feel when I undertand something there is a feeling of relief.

Post 1

Sunday, February 8, 2004 - 2:10pm

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Marcus: I think the act of learning allows us to have trust in what we are doing rapidly in the background, without our conscious attention to the process. In fact, I think it is virtually impossible to monitor some of these pocesses such as reading. Moreover, it is impossible to unlearn them. For instance, one cannot drive along the highway and not "read" a road sign. Once written symbols are learned one cannot again see them as meaningless squiggles as are, say, Arabic script. I would imagine that only physical damage to the brain could accomplish that.

Post 2

Monday, February 9, 2004 - 5:08am

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Marcus,

This is a good question, and very important. It is also one Ayn Rand addressed.

The basic answer to your question is that all of those things you do "automatically" when thinking, reading, writing, and speaking, are only automatic now that you know how to do them, but originally all had to be learned. Since so much of what we learn is while we are very young, and we do not usually pay much attention to how we are learning those things we usually forget how we came to know and understand so much.

But the whole question is one of epistemology. There is a very precise and complete answer to your question, but there is no short one.

Question: Have you read Ayn Rand's, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology? Your interesting question points out how important the subject of epistemology is.

Epistemology is absolutely essential to understanding how we know anything, especially all those things we take for granted. As adults we know "automatically" that 6 X 7 is 42. We forget the agony and effort it required to learn that concept and automize it.

Regi

A philosophical problem; Help me