Map and Territory: Navigating Language

March 22, 2011 11 Comments

Three philosophy grad students were stranded on an abandoned island. They started wandering around exploring, making a map of the territory. To make it easier to talk about, they labeled the northern part of the island “Section A” and the southern part “Section B”, writing it in big letters on the top and bottom of the map.

After exploring a bit, Chris called out excitedly. “I found a radio in Section A! Check it out, we’re saved!” His friends came running.

“This is in Section B, not Section A,” said Bruce. “It’s south of the tree line, which is the obvious division between north and south.”
“Of course it’s Section A,” replied Alice. “This is north of the river, which is the way to divide the island.”

Chris shrugged. “I guess we never decided exactly what the border was; I just assumed we were using the river. It’s not like the radio moves based on what section we call this. We agree that it’s north of the river and south of the trees. It’s Section A if we use the river, Section B if we use the forest. Let’s just decide to use one or the other. Neither way is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; we’re making them up.”

Alice and Bruce weren’t buying it.

“What do you mean, we’re just making it up? The forest is real and the river is real. One of them makes the real boundary between Section A and Section B!”

Chris sat down to use the radio to call for help, leaving his two friends to their bickering.

Alice and Bruce were experiencing the “map and territory” confusion. A map is a mind-made categorization of real things in the territory. It doesn’t make sense to say that the decision to divide the territory in one way or another is “right” or “wrong”, only more or less useful in different contexts.

This comes up all too often in language. Like sections on a map, words are societal tools we use to categorize and communicate the real things we experience. Our society has some well-defined words like ‘hydrogen’ – we have a good shared understanding of exactly which conditions must be met to determine whether or not we should call something ‘hydrogen’.

But the boundaries around other words are hazier. People argue over whether to call something ‘love’, whether to call it ‘art’, and (one of the most contentious) whether to call it ‘moral’. By some definitions, a urinal on a pedestal qualifies as art, by other definitions it doesn’t. Society hasn’t agreed upon clear-cut boundaries for which feelings, objects, or actions fit into those categories. But the arguments are not about reality itself – they’re over the labels, the language map.

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Why Asking Why Isn’t Enough

February 19, 2011 Leave a comment

The question “Why?” is an impressively vague word. Used without context, it can be almost useless. I got contacted by the makers of the documentary “The Nature of Existence” whose trailer starts with the filmmaker saying “We all have one thing in common: We exist. But why?” What a nebulous question. It’s met by a stream of responses on completely different topics. When it comes to provoking thought, it’s fine. If you actually want particular information… it’s terrible. (That said, if I can get over my frustration at the ambiguity they’re reveling in, it looks like the film has potential.)

You need to apply some context to the question of “Why?” before it’s even possible to think about as a question. It’s just a request for more information, some information, any information somehow related! “Why do we exist?” is a pretty vague question, so they got a huge range of responses. Let’s take one with a bit more context. When my mom used to ask me “Jesse, why are your dishes still on the living room floor?” sometimes I would answer “Because they lack the capacity to move for themselves.” (Yes, I was an annoying smart-ass. I like to think I’ve gotten over it. Mostly.) I could have also answered “Because gravity is exerting a downward force on them.” From the context of our previous conversations, however, I think the answer she REALLY wanted was “Because I forgot about them when I went upstairs. Sorry.”

But even when you know the context, “Why?” can be a frustrating question. Once you have the desired information, that information can be examined. There’s an excellent video of Richard Feynman explaining how tough it is to answer ‘why’ questions like “why do magnets repel?” I think I’ve posted that before, and Julia found a hilarious clip that makes the point. Enter Louis C.K. trying to answer his daughter’s questions (Language slightly NSFW – what did you expect; it’s Louis C.K.!)

Video below the fold:
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Filed under Humor, Philosophy of science, Video

Stuck in Your Head: Communicating Badly

February 9, 2011 6 Comments

If I’ve learned anything from blogging, it’s that I’m not writing for myself. Maybe other people treat their blogs as diaries, but I see blogging as a way to communicate my ideas to others. No surprise there; it’s what I do. I’m a communications director at heart, not just for a job. When I see crappy communication causing confusion or controversy, I feel compelled to counter it. (Ok, that alliteration WAS for me.)

Case in point: a poorly-received joke at the awesome and inspiring Southeast Regional Atheist Meetup resulted in a women running from the room in tears. I was at the event but missed that part, so I’m piecing the story together. During a heated discussion about how to make women feel more comfortable at atheist events, a visibly frustrated woman asked why the panel kept using the word ‘females’, since that made her feel like they were discussing livestock instead of people. Someone on the panel joked “What do you want us to say, ‘the weaker sex?'”

I’m pretty sure the panelist intended it to be funny. But the result was that the woman – who already felt marginalized and dismissed – got fed up and left crying. Probably not the result he intended. That’s the question we need to ask ourselves: What do we want to accomplish with what we’re saying?

A trick I’ve found to communicating well is to get out of your head. It’s tempting argue the way you find persuasive, make references you understand, and tell jokes you find funny. That’s great – if you’re talking to people like yourself. Communicating isn’t simply a matter of expressing a thought. It’s about having other people understand the message the way you want. And that requires us to take into account who we’re talking to and how they’re likely to take different statements. The “I’ll say what I think, damn the consequences!” attitude has never made much sense to me.

Before I’m accused of being an accomodationist – whatever that word means these days – I’m NOT saying we have to change the substance of our message to pander to people. Sometimes the desired goal IS to have others see us disrespecting their “sacred” cows. But there’s a difference between the substance of a point and the way to make it understood. It’s only rational to adjust our tactic to our audience – or audiences. Once we choose the substance of our message, we should figure out how to make people hear it. In a nutshell: make sure you’re being effective.

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Filed under Language

Which Best Explanation?

January 21, 2011 Leave a comment

I rarely come across a source of interesting material as dense and extensive as Edge‘s World Question Center. I’ve been diving into their 2011 question: “WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY’S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?” Go take a look: One hundred sixty four intelligent people answering in quick essay format. Excuse me while I get a paper towel; I’m drooling.

I’m still going through them, but here’s a taste from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s answer Inference To The Best Explanation:

There is that judgmental phrase, the best, sitting out in the open, shamelessly invoking standards. Not all explanations are created equal; some are objectively better than others… We decide among the remainder using such criteria as: which is the simpler, which does less violence to established beliefs, which is less ad hoc, which explains the most, which is the loveliest. There are times when these criteria clash with one another.
…
Many of our most rancorous scientific debates — say, over string theory or foundations of quantum mechanics — have been over which competing criteria for judging explanations the best ought to prevail. So, too, have debates that many of us have been having over scientific versus religious explanations. These debates could be sharpened by bringing to bear on them the rationality-steeped notion of inference to the best explanation, its invocation of the sorts of standards that make some explanations objectively better than others, beginning with Peirce’s enjoiner that extraordinary hypotheses be ranked far away from the best.

Goldstein is right; it’s useful to recognize cases in which the same phrase — here, “best explanation” — can be used to mean different things at different times. Offhand, I’d say that when I’ve been calling something the “better explanation”, I’m usually referring to the explanation’s ability to empower me to make correct predictions in as many situations as possible. If I’m wondering why water is falling from the sky, a story about petulant storm gods can be fun and poetic, but I’d consider one about low pressure systems better. When our instruments detect low pressure systems, I have a pretty good rate of success predicting that my feet will soon be wet.
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Filed under Philosophy of science

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