Can we be clear about our assumptions?

[coberst]

Can we be clear about our assumptions?

 

Why is it important for us to be clear about the ideas that we assume to be true as we analyze how we think?

 

All reasoning must begin with some idea that is assumed to be true. These assumptions affect the rest of our thinking about the matter in question; these assumptions are what we accept as being true.

 

Often we make more than one assumption, in which case these two or more assumptions must be consistent with one another. I suspect most errors in thinking result from assumptions that are accepted with little or no reflection, analysis or comprehension.

 

Even philosophers must make assumptions.

 

When written history began five thousand years ago humans had already developed a great deal of knowledge. Much of that knowledge was of a very practical nature such as how to use animal skins for clothing, how to weave wool, how to hunt and fish etc. A large part of human knowledge was directed toward how to kill and torture fellow humans. I guess things never really change all that much.

 

In several parts of the world civilizations developed wherein people learned to create laws and to rule vast numbers of people. Some measure of peace and stability developed but there was yet no means for securing the people from their rulers. I guess things never really change all that much.

 

Almost everywhere priests joined rulers in attempts to control the population. Despite these continual wars both of external and internal nature the human population managed to flourish. Egypt was probably one of the first long lasting and stable civilizations to grow up along the large rivers. Egypt survived almost unchanged for three thousand years. This success is attributed to its geographical location that gave it freedom from competition and fertile lands that were constantly replenished by the river overflowing its banks and thus depositing new fertile soil for farming.

 

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

 

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

 

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes (assumes) that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as Folk Theories.

 

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World

The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

 

The Folk Theory of General Kinds

Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

 

The Folk Theory of Essences

Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

 

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences are:

 

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics

Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

 

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

 

Cognitive science has uncovered these assumptions that they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such commonly accepted assumptions seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

 

The information about Folk Theory comes from “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson

[Michaelangelica]

I doubt it; sometimes we don't even know what our assumptions are.

 

It is interesting to look at the work of Rosenthal, Zimbardo and other social psychologists that show how even very minor assumptions, or comments by others, can change the world in ways that can be statistically measured.

[Glenn Lyvers]

Can we be clear about our assumptions...

 

Yes, we can be clear about our assumptions - that is to say we can learn what kinds of things we "assume" but it is less certain that we can establish the validity of all our assumptions. It is, of course, needed to have certain assumable judgments in order for us to make progress in thinking. Without such things, all our time would be spent questioning the fundamentals of our lives and never reaching beyond them.

 

I assume you know what I mean.

[Michaelangelica]

Our assumptions about the world are deeply embedded in our psyche so it is difficult to know how they influence our attitudes and behaviour.

 

The values we learnt as a child from our parents, teachers, peer group, social group, are so much apart of our life we rarely examine them even if we could.

 

We may even have a genetic or biological predisposition to certain assumptions or at very least the biological limitations of our senses limit what we see hear small and taste of reality. We can only hear certain sounds, see only certain wavelengths of light.

 

Smell is a particularly privative, old sense and via it women choose a mate or synchronise their menstrual cycles with women they live with. These assumptions are hardly conscious. Women are rarely aware that they are choosing a mate because he smells the most genetically different from them. They would rationalise their choice in other ways "cute butt", 'handsome,' 'wealthy,' 'powerful,' 'good with kids' etc.. If you asked them, these they would tell you, are the assumptions they have.

 

Freud talks about the ability of people to operate on two diametrically, logically-opposed sets of assumptions (born again Christians, fundamental Islamic?)

 

Rosenthal talks about our attitudes to "white lab coats " and how these unconscious assumptions influence our behaviour and the outcome of scientific experiments

He shows how, by merely changing the "labels" given to kids, different educational and even IQ results can be achieved.

My story

I could not see until I was 12. The world was always a beautiful Monet painting to me.

I was a quite, polite, helpful, big kid who was never any trouble. I sat at the back of the class of 60+ kids and lived in my own dream world. I always got the special jobs-especially when they involved heavy lifting. i was often sent off to weed the garden which i enjoyed. My life was calm serene, no one picked on me (I was 6' tall at 12 ) and I picked on no-one. I generally kept to myself or one or two close friends. My teachers were always kind and nice to me. One named me "Gentleman John."

Then the NSW State Department of Health came to visit the school. They did eye tests, hearing, IQ and araft of other tests. ( "They hold your balls and make you cough" was whispered from one kid to another- we thought this a most strange ritual)

I got glasses and discovered trees had individual leaves that made up the green bit at the top.

I was enthralled at my new world and for the first time started to write poems on the beauty around me.

But something changed, I was moved to the front of the class. I was picked on by the teachers who suddenly became aggressive, nit-picking and angry. Telling me I was "lazy" and "didn't try". I wasn't allowed to run messages or do my gardening any more, and was given no more 'special' jobs. My work was examined minutely and I was told I was "messy' and 'untidy'

.

I developed severe stomach pains at home to try and get out of school. Finally my Dad, sick of my malingering, took me to the doctor. The Doc.said I had appendicitis and wonderfully I escaped the last term of school. I had a great time talking to all the old ladies in the hospital; showing my huge appendix (put in a jar by the Doc at my request. It really was not inflamed) to my visiting Aunts , who at that point, often had to run out of the room. I was fed every three hours and often got free biscuits (AKA cookies") from the other patients or nurses. Life was a beautiful adventure. Everyone loved me again. I never did learn my eight times table though.

 

So obviously my teacher's assumptions about me had changed. At the time I was mystified and hurt by the change. But knowing me, here on Hypography, you can probably make assumptions about what the IQ test showed.

 

Zimbardo in his famous Stanford Prison Experiment showed that, scratch the middle class college student, and you find underneath a Nazi, authoritarian, cruel, bulling dictator or a week submissive person who submits to brutality. These behaviours can be quickly developed just by a change in the social structure. This structure is all around us ever day.We bathe in a social structure, corporate structure, national structure all of which have their own ways of channelling behaviour. Then at another level all these have their own "scrips" or assumptions.

 

It is interesting to see corporations trying to re-write their scripts or "Corporate Responsibilities" (and attitudes) or "Mission Statements". All well intentioned I am sure, but doomed to failure when the pressure is on, and your structure is the same as the Ancient Roman Legions or the Catholic Church. Very rigid, clever structures designed to make people conform and root out any dissenters (In corporations, unfortunately, these include creative people, the innovative, the perceptive and predictive ,the change agents who can help the organistion evolve in it's relationships with customers and markets, those with a different set of assumptions, and 'whistle blowers'). We are seeing examples of this all about us now with the Global Economic Meltdown.

 

Our assumptions are like the air we breathe, and like the air, we are rarely aware of how it influences us in our perceptions of "reality", or behaviour or attitudes.

 

In the early 1940's a sociologist named Merton coined the phrase 'self-fulfilling prophecy', by which he meant expectations that create reality. Robert Rosenthal proved the point when he altered records to make dull students appear bright. To everyone's surprise, unsuspecting teachers gave the masquerading dullards high marks. In the bright light of hindsight, Rosenthal's findings are self-evident. Expectations, especially expectations we have for ourselves, influence behavior. We resist a vision of behavior as a function of belief. It eradicates 'eternal' truths gleaned from experience. Instead of coherence, we are left with momentary reaction, vague and inconstant.

 

We call the self-images of self-image psychology and the expectations behind self-fulfilling prophecies 'knowledge', things we think we 'know'. Knowledge varies from culture to culture, but whatever it is, it reaches us through senses.

MORE here:-

Self Image Psychology

[coberst]

I would say that there are levels of assumptions.

 

Assumptions are statements that are accepted as true without proof or demonstration. They generally are unconscious and operate on our thinking “below the radar”.

 

On the first level is axiom or postulate, which is a proposition that cannot be proved or demonstrated and is considered to be self-evident. The “Folk Theories” that are in my OP qualify as axioms or postulates.

 

Much of our errors are a result of assumptions. Many, if not all, of our biases and prejudices are assumptions.

 

Some very important assumptions are just the result of ignorance. Color, for example, that we assume to be in the object are much the result of our mental operation upon the input from our eyes.

 

We perceive dogginess rather than Fido, that is to say, we perceive generality rather than specificity generally.

 

We think in frames, for example a “pro-life” person thinks in terms of “life begins at conception” whereas the pro-choice person thinks in terms of ‘freedom of choice’.