BOCK@INTELLICORP.ARPA (Conrad Bock) (06/10/88)
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 88 16:51 EDT From: Conrad Bock <BOCK@INTELLICORP.ARPA> Subject: Hypostatization To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu I agree with Pat Hayes that the problem of the existence of the world is not as important as it used to be, but I think the more general question about the relation of mind and world is still worthwhile. As Hayes pointed out, such questions are entirely worthless if we stay close to observation and never forget, as McCarthy suggests, that we are postulating theoretical entities and their properties from our input output data. Such an observational attitude is always aware that there are no ``labels'' on our inputs and outputs that tell us where they come from or where they go. Sadly, such keen powers of observation are constantly endangered by the mind's own activity. After inventing a theoretical entity, the mind begins to treat it as raw observation, that is, the entities become part of the world as far as the mind is concerned. The mind, in a sense, becomes divided from its own creations. If the mind is lucky, new observations will push it out of its complacency, but it is precisely the mind's attachment to its creations that dulls the ability to observe. Hayes is correct that some forms of Western religion are particularly prone to this process (called ``hypostatization''), but some eastern religions are very careful about it. Kant devastated traditional metaphysics by drawing attention to it. Freud and Marx were directly concerned with hypostatization, though only Marx had the philosophical training to know that that was what he was doing. I'd interested to know from someone familiar with the learning literature whether hypostatization is a problem there. It would take the form of assuming the structure of the world that is being learned about before it is learned. Conrad Bock -------