The spirit of the Fun Criterion
See full discussionLog in or sign up to participate in this discussion.
With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.There we said we have three types of knowledge or three categories of knowledge. have our statements, which are our explicit knowledge. We can express fully in words. We have intuitions, which are know how skills we know how to do it, but
we cannot articulate it fully in words but we can approximate it and then the third category is our drives which are completely unconscious knowledge
We have no idea what's driving it, but they make themselves known to our consciousness via our feelings.
Deutsch uses the terms explicit, inexplicit, and unconscious.
Are you saying intuitions are synonymous with inexplicit knowledge, or are you saying they’re an example of it?
Are you saying drives are synonymous with unconscious knowledge, or are you saying they’re an example of it?
Synonymous indeed. In a previous video I labeled Deutsch's terms to make them easier to discuss and get a better sense for. You're correct that the specific mapping I use is:
Statements = explicit knowledge
Intuitions = inexplicit knowledge
Drives = unconscious knowledge
I wonder if ‘drive’ is really a good word for unconscious ideas. In this context, my Dictionary app says:
an innate, biologically determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need: emotional and sexual drives.
and
determination and ambition to achieve something: her drive has sustained her through some shattering personal experiences.
But neither of those is unconscious. People are aware of their sexual and emotional drives and their ambitions.
In addition, there are other types of unconscious knowledge. As you say in your video, habitualization is a source of unconscious knowledge.
When I hear the word ‘drive’, I think of determination and ambition, which take lots of conscious effort. I don’t think of habitualized knowledge, which by definition takes no effort.
It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:
Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep urge whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.
If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if one of your core value is non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.
I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutsch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology
If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.
If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!
For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.
What you describe here sounds like an urge, not a drive.
The part where I describe the conscious feeling or sensation may sound like an urge, but I use the term Drive because a Drive is not always consciously experienced. Drives are forms of unconscious knowledge that cause many automatic actions and effects, most of which occur without our awareness. An “urge” only arises when a Drive comes into conflict with something else. This is why I find Drive remains the more fitting term.
An “urge” only arises when a Drive comes into conflict with something else
That’s not what an urge is. An urge is “a strong desire or impulse” according to my Dictionary app. A strong desire or impulse doesn’t imply a conflict.
I think it does imply a conflict. I think every emotional sensation — including urges — arises from problems in the Popperian sense: two or more incompatible theories in conflict.
For example, consider hunger. One theory (Drive A) is that we don’t want to be hungry, while another signals that we are hungry (from ephemeral sense data (which could itself be viewed as a Drive, though that’s not important here)). The conflict between these theories produces the urge — in this case, the sensation of hunger.
I explain these conflicts in more detail, with further examples of Drives, Intuitions, and Statements, in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEcR_0GbzRE
[E]very emotional sensation — including urges — arises from problems […]
If that’s true, a conflict is behind every positive emotion as well. What’s the conflict behind joy, say?
(If you’re wondering why I’m marking this a criticism even though it’s phrased as a question: it means that a satisfactory answer would address the criticism; such an answer should itself be marked a criticism.)
If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!
My suggestion is to just stick with Deutsch’s terms. He is already using “the nearest existing term[s]” to what he means. That implies that there’s already a change (in usage, not in words).
Changing the words on top of his change is going to be difficult without moving further away from what he means, even if you explain your changes. It’s just going to confuse people and make the concepts harder to discuss, not easier.
You set out to make the concepts easier to discuss but I think you’ve inadvertently caused the opposite effect.
If I were having a technical discussion with DD, Lulie, or you, I’d stick with those terms, since they’re the most technically accurate and you already understand them. However, when explaining the different types of knowledge to people who don’t quite grasp it yet or struggle to picture what it is, I’ve found that these labels help. These labels already have a meaning that is more commonly associated to sensations in the mind.
Well, if you have empirically found that your new labels have helped you explain these concepts, then I’d normally be inclined to agree with you. But then I saw this part:
These labels already have a meaning that is more commonly associated to sensations in the mind.
But you use your labels with new meanings they aren’t commonly associated with. Like calling sudden sadness a drive, as I point out in #1704. Nobody would call that a drive.
Is this maybe because you’re not a native speaker? I don’t mean to get personal here, I’m just trying to look for alternate explanations.
I’ve added a comment on #1704 to clarify my point. I don’t think my English is the issue here. If/where we disagree, it’s more likely due to a gap in mutual understanding or an error in the substance of my knowledge.
Your new comment notwithstanding, I invite you to be more critical of your English. I’ve pointed out several issues already (which, to your credit, you did fix), and you’ve since made more mistakes (eg see #1729, and in a recent DM you wrote “criticizems”). A typo of that magnitude plausibly indicates deeper issues.
Again, I don’t mean to get too personal here – forgive me if that’s how it comes across.
A sudden feeling of sadness isn’t a drive. That makes no sense.
What I mean is this: if you feel sadness without having any conscious theory in mind—whether explicit or inexplicit—then the sadness must arise from a conflict or problem (in the Popperian sense) involving unconscious knowledge, i.e. a Drive.
I do not mean that the feeling of sadness is a Drive. Rather, I’m saying that when sadness appears without an accompanying theory to explain it, its source must be a Drive.