The Categorization Imperative

[luckyme]

This arises every so often on this forum.
What is it about the necessity to categorize our environment so we can deal with it more effectively that gives it such recursive power.

My puppy has a large category called, "things I can chew and give the death shake". When ET arrives will he see that category ( without meeting puppy) as he itemizes things?
Many categories we create have no defined boundaries, they are defined by comparison to a standard model but our categories don't exist externally with boundaries delineated.
As our mood improves when do we switch from unhappy to happy? If I were rich, what amount exactly makes me so?

kerowo's comment in DS's thread "Which Of These Three Starements Do You Reject? (Abortion Related) "-
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Because we don't know where the point is or how to determine it now doesn't mean there isn't one. It doesn't take much of an imagination to realize that on the journey from goo to you there was a point where you changed from primarily not human to primarily human.

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It's the claim of the necessity for a boundary simply because there is a category that I find no basis for. Never mind the specific topic, am I missing something with my no-boundary claim for many categories?
Night-day, young-old, are simple examples of the concept, but many macro level categories are of the no-boundary type, the more complex the more likely it has no boundary.

luckyme

[Taraz]

Almost all categories have arbitrary boundaries. In general they are just useful to us and let us work faster and more efficiently.

Basically, you're right.

[kerowo]

Not setting these boundaries is lazy thinking. Take a stand or stop using poorly defined concepts as points in your arguments.

[chezlaw]

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Not setting these boundaries is lazy thinking. Take a stand or stop using poorly defined concepts as points in your arguments.

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No the reverse is true. Concepts are not ours to define they are an attempt to capture the nature of the world.

chez

[vhawk01]

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Not setting these boundaries is lazy thinking. Take a stand or stop using poorly defined concepts as points in your arguments.

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This is exactly backwards. Boundaries, in these no-boundary cases, are lazy thinking. Spend some time arguing with evolution-deniers and you will receive all the proof you need.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not setting these boundaries is lazy thinking. Take a stand or stop using poorly defined concepts as points in your arguments.

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This is exactly backwards. Boundaries, in these no-boundary cases, are lazy thinking. Spend some time arguing with evolution-deniers and you will receive all the proof you need.

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I agree with vhawk. What I really dislike is when people categorize, or pigeonhole me. They know a little about me so in order to simplify and dismiss me they categorize me in some way that is usually a poor representation of who I am and what I am capable of. Rather than admit they don't know the full truth and need to continue discovery of it, they take the lazy way out and settle on a simplistic category so they can efficiently apply their ignorance to the situation.

PairTheBoard

[aeest400]

Categorization is fundamental to cognition but many of the things we seek to categorize cannot be defined beyond the judgments of an informed native speaker. In some ways all versions of pragmatism as a philosophical position start with this, and the action is in trying to "differentiate" the contours of a pragmatist position from any of the various baby-out-with-the-bathwater forms of relativism. Lakoff's Woman, Fire, and Dangerous Things, What Categories Reveal about the Mind has an excellent discussion of categorization and its links to truth, language, etc.


Also, agree with the previous two posts. When I run into folks, usually those trained in fields like math and engineering, who have crazy/dumb ideas like AC, it appears to me that it's because they dislike uncertainty and nuance in their approach to the world and want to believe there is some simple, definable solution to whatever issue is at hand (I would place DS among these people). Just a random, undeveloped cheap shot.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Categorization is fundamental to cognition but many of the things we seek to categorize cannot be defined beyond the judgments of an informed native speaker. In some ways all versions of pragmatism as a philosophical position start with this, and the action is in trying to "differentiate" the contours of a pragmatist position from any of the various baby-out-with-the-bathwater forms of relativism. Lakoff's Woman, Fire, and Dangerous Things, What Categories Reveal about the Mind has an excellent discussion of categorization and its links to truth, language, etc.


Also, agree with the previous two posts. When I run into folks, usually those trained in fields like math and engineering, who have crazy/dumb ideas like AC, it appears to me that it's because they dislike uncertainty and nuance in their approach to the world and want to believe there is some simple, definable solution to whatever issue is at hand (I would place DS among these people). Just a random, undeveloped cheap shot.

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Funny, I like AC but for the opposite reasons you've mentioned here. But I've also never made any pro-AC posts, either here or in Politics.

[soon2bepro]

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EVERY SINGLE possible category is fundamentally based on arbitrary boundaries. In general they are just useful to us and let us work faster and more efficiently.

Basically, you're right.

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FYP.

[chezlaw]

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It's the claim of the necessity for a boundary simply because there is a category that I find no basis for.

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boundaries are necessaty for rules/laws etc or at least they appear to be necessary though I'd like to believe a wiser system is possible.

Then people need to believe that these bondaries reflect reality otherwise they can't justify their rules/legal system.

There's no basis for any of it but folk are fragile.

chez