From the End of a Dream No One Knows: A Description of the Philosophy of Relations and Information

2024年1月20日 13:32

If you want to know who I am, Click here for the introduction about me.

Although the importance of it, as a problem of philosophy, I guess the concept of “relation” has not been given much attention—though I can’t rely on my poor knowledge.

As far as I know, Ernst Cassirer took up it almost as the subject in “SUBSTANZBEGRIFF UND FUNKTIONSBEGRIFF.” He argued that the development of science as the concept of substance to the concept of function, but he didn’t question “What is the ‘relation’ itself in the first place?”

In this paper, I question “What is the ‘relation’?,” and argue its relation to some disciplines. Because I think it’s the primordial problem for intellect.

What is the “relation?” As it turns out directly, it’s “knowledge” itself, and for humans, it’s the form of the world itself. “Knowledge” is, “the world” is, “the network of various relations.” Why can I conclude that?

If we express “knowing something” by the simplest form in principle, we can call it “the state of having the ability to select the correct answer.” You can consider the simplest test and its answer which examines one’s knowledge, for example multiple choice quiz games…etc.

In the question “What is 2×2?,” if one selects “4,” we would judge that one knows the multiplication table, for example, if one chooses “5,” we would judge that one doesn’t know it. Except for some special cases, for example in the case one has malice, we can distinguish one’s knowledge state by whether one “selects the correct answers.”

In other words, we can call those activities as picking up “the correct element” from “the set of potential answers.” Though there are exceptions such as flukes,we can judge that one knows something when one can pick up the correct element.

The principle, which is “knowing something” is “the state of having the ability to select the correct answer,” is not different about free writing questions. For example, the proposition “Soseki Natsume*1 is a human” is true, when the terms in this proposition are used in general use. If we change the selection of the word, like “Soseki Natsume is a cat,” it becomes false.The selection of words determine the meanings of the whole sentence, so they are the variables that decide whether the propositions are true or false. I think it’s common among all the propositions.

*1 Soseki Natsume(漱石夏目) is a famous Japanese novelist. He wrote the novel “I Am a Cat(Wagahai wa Neko de Aru 吾輩は猫である).”

Same as multiple choice quiz games, in the proposition, “the correct selection” is the criteria of the distinction for “knowing something.” However, depending on the question, whether we regard the answer as true or not has some allowable ranges. For example, if we change “humans” to “men,” though they have different values in language, we can see almost the same meanings, and truth value. But at least, “sequences of selection” determine the truth values.

The correctness of the whole is determined by sequences of selections, it’s the same in the case of sequences of sentence and sentence, theory and theory, context and context, in however high classes. The most fundamental unit has such structure, and for example, the matter “the meaning changes depending on contexts” clearly shows it. The meanings of the words lie in “sequences of selections.” Or conversely it also shows that until the “sequences” end, we can’t completely understand the meaning of something.

And such “sequence of selection,” which we give a name to, is no other than “relation.” In fact, if we consider various “relations,” we understand that the nature of them is “sequence of selection.”

For example, consider “the parent and child relation.” Though we cannot regard it as a completely universal example, among a family, we generally call the relation between the one who bore the child and the child “the parent and child relation.” “The parent and child relation” is recognized in the selection of two members. For example, that relation is not recognized between a child and another child, and the relation between those two members is called “sisters” or “brothers.” For example, there may be disowning, so when we see the unique relation in the realty, the above case is not completely universal. But generally speaking, when we choose two members from kinship members, “the relation” between them is determined.

Or it’s the same in the correlation. When a value is interlocking to another, we see the correlation. It can be said of interlocking of “selections” in other words, so we see the relation between the selection of those two members. And if we can see “cause and effect” in it, we regard it as “the causal relation.” Or if we change the selection and new members are not interlocking, we would regard it “unrelated.” Though it is also a higher class “relation.”

If you doubt the above definition of relation, consider any relationship among two or more members on a trial basis. And consider whether the nature of that relation you choose is depending on the selection of two or more members which surround it or not. “The relation,” the nature of it which is formed between one and another, can never be independent of the terms which surround it in principle. ”The relation” exists among “selections.”

And “the relation” and “the selection” are the nature of “intellect.” The principle of my argument about this is based on the definition of the amount of information in information theory. I can show the function of “the ruler” as a simple example.

The concept of the most fundamental amount of information in information theory is expressed as “probability that a certain state occurs out of multiple states.” It expresses “the difficulty to predict selection,” when something is selected from the set of possible values. In my understanding, it unerringly expresses the situation “knowing/not knowing,” and makes it possible to measure the quantity of “how much not knowing.”

The definition of the amount of information discovers and expresses the following.“Knowing” means “being able to make the right selection from the options.” And the more options in the “set of options” from which to make a selection, the less we know the tendency of selection, the bigger the quantity of “how much not knowing.” And when we can make the right selection from more options, the value of information which we use at that time is higher. By this definition, information theory established one way to quantitatively measure “intellect,” and found the nature of “intellect,” the selection.

I can show the function of “the ruler” as one of the most familiar examples to understand the above nature of “intellect.” Considering the reason we use a “ruler,” we can easily understand the above. We use “the ruler,” because we don’t know the length of an object, that is, because we don't know which is selected from the array of “1cm,2cm,3cm….” And by measuring something, we see which value is selected. Or generally speaking, we don’t need to measure something again which is already known to be “5cm.” The most fundamental principle of “cognizing,” or “knowing” is “the selection from the possible values.”

And when we define the nature of “intellect” in this way, we can understand “the knowledge” is “the relations,” which is interlocking of the selections. That is, it’s no other than increasing “knowledge” that we track the “relation,” in which an information = a selection is interlocking to the next information = the next selection. The “intellect” is the network of the relations.

Humans who cognize the world through information cannot transcend the principle of “intellect.” This structure is common to sensory organs, measuring instruments, language…at any classes of recognition. So humans cannot distinguish between it and the form of the world, we can’t help but regard it as the form of the world.

We can regard “selection” and “relation” as the general form of any type of intellect and the world. I build the above hypothesis. The relation is “the form of the world.” The relation and in-form-ation are the form of forms, so to speak, the king of forms.

The argument about the relation is not only relevant to the general formistic argument about intellect, but to the topics about existing philosophy and sermons preached by some religions. In this paper, I’ll discuss such arguments in detail, over some disciplines, around the relation.

Specifically, at the chapter 2, about the world of information, about the relation in the discipline of intellect, at the chapter 3, about the physical world, about the discipline of society, politics and ecology, at the chapter 4, about the relevance to questioning, at the chapter 5, about the relevance to the truth of science and religion, I will argue.

Next chapter : 1.Introduction—The Primordial Problem of Intellect

This cluster of essays may be too long to read. If you have no time, I recommend you to read 2-5.Money of Intellect. I think it's the most interesting section.