logic, page 434 ff

the cell

Webster:

cell

= a small, usually microscopic, mass of protoplasm bounded externally by a semipermeable membrane, usu. including one or more nuclei and various not-living products, capable alone or interacting with other cells of performing all the fundamental functions of life, and forming the least structural unit of living matter capable of functioning independently.

A formidable entity. A community could be called a cell, that is, bound by analogous principles. A cell with associative parts or cooperative members, a cell of cells. Though we term the parts according to their function.

I don't want to stretch the analogy. We can bear it in mind without letting ourselves get caught pushing the similarities beyond their inductive value. It was said that an analogy cannot go on all fours. We cannot take it literally. The temptation exists and has hamstrung philosophy over the generations.

The debate over definitions terrorizes and confounds. "Quality" and "characteristic", "part" and "whole". attendant with their qualifications, until we are blinded to the simplicity a detached insight reveals. What is an idea? The context must reveal what is meant by the word. If we approach it knowing already what it means and close our minds to the possibility that " idea" may include what we had not forseen, or even, may discount what we know, in short, use it as a closed generality, then understanding will be hampered, if not precluded.

The ability to keep our options open and our generalities from generalizing must be practiced continually. "I am a general music-lover." She loves music in general, much music she may be indifferent to or detest. "I am a particular music-lover." No doubt he excluded a universal love of music. We know very well that "general" has its qualifications. Logic must come to terms with this inexactitude and acknowledge the validity of pragmatical usage. Exceptions should govern the rule.

Every experiment is a guess. A test or trial. A practically-based inductive inference. Not yet a hypothesis, for it is not proved, it is the process, moving towards assurance or denial, or doubt of the hypothesis (should there be one). If we knew what was going to happen, it would not be an experiment.

Webster:

guess

= to form an opinion from little or no evidence
= to arrive at a correct conclusion about by conjecture, chance, or intuition

We see the blind leap translated into a realizable move. Quite a difference. A difference in perspective, before or after the operation. Our eyes swivel and we don't notice! If the leaper fails. How stupid! If the leaper succeeds, fait accompli, how clever! Or even, how obvious! By hindsight.

We imagine everything to be driven by design, by laws or principles. Because of hindsight. Or because we close our minds, wink at the possibility of the breakdown in "design" as we identify it and declare: the sun will come up tomorrow, the sun travels in a circle, the sun is ponderable, the sun cannot travel faster than the speed of light.

Well and good. We predict and feel pleased with ourselves. Uniformity. Universality. God's in His Heaven, all's well with our world.

Things don't change as knowledge. That is, knowledge itself doesn't change. How can it? It has no form, no substance. It is a representation. A shadow that adumbrates. Reality changes. Our experience of reality changes. Things change independently of us. We change our generalities to suit what happens. Generalities being how we shape experience into knowledge. Yes, we have names for things. But those names, say as identifying signs, must stand for something in our heads (or minds) which can change as the experience of the thing changes. True, not all our experience is direct. Some of it, nay, most of it exists as pure knowledge, representations of realities, or real identities, but these representations are themselves served by generalities to allow adaptability. Incomplete generalities. Open generalities. Whose particulars or members or cases or instances collect uniformly, agreeably so as to make simpler our task of recollection, but regardless of bias, or prescription, or sheer stubbornness there must be flexibility, room for expansion (inclusion) or development (change in form) and so on.

I stated knowledge doesn't change. We change knowledge to conform with our expectations, our insights, our understanding of what goes on. God has resigned from grandmaster designship as we know it, we design. Imperfectly and by guess. The design in hindsight looks truly marvellous. Godlike. Well, why not? We invented the idea of God to correspond with what we experienced and felt. QED. Admire!

ŠLaurie Ashton, 1999
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