Michael Polanyi on Objectivity and Tacit Knowledge

[@get9320]

Very good talk on Polanyi. There are so many implications for tacit knowledge in society, the legal system, education, etc. We want certainty in all areas, so we may wink in the direction of tacit knowledge but it is too subjective, and as the young man said, there is a fear/apprehension of knowledge in any field that is less than certain - yet certainty about many things is thought to be a myth. We may intuitively know something is wrong, but that intuition is thought to be suspect in the public sphere - wisdom is often intuitive, but there is no new wisdom that has not already been thought of in a time long ago when we did not have the sciences to reduce all knowledge to a proposition.

[@markmorrise]

In The Tacit Dimension, Polanyi quotes St. Augustine, “Unless you believe, you shall not understand.” (This might not be precisely what Augustine said; the Internet tells me that Augustine said, “I believe in order to understand” (credo ut intelligam).) I fear that what society is teaching today, which is mostly post-modern disbelief, is leading to a loss of understanding about even the basics of what it means to be human, male, female, etc. It seems to me that over-reliance on technology, such as the Internet and artificial intelligence, is to some extent creating a tacit knowledge gap, in that young people are learning less and less about life from their parents, grandparents, etc., who traditionally taught by example some things they knew but could not tell, and are trusting more and more in their devices, which lack wisdom and tacit knowledge. I think there is a need for Michael Polanyi’s ideas to be taught today, perhaps even more than when he was alive.

[@ryue65]

Excellent contribution.

[@tgrogan6049]

It is not supernatural folks. "Our ancestors did not need to know that a bear-representation was currently active in their brains or that they were currently attending to an internal state representing a slowly approaching wolf. Thus neither image required them to burn precious sugar. All they needed to know was “Bear over there!” or “Wolf approaching from the left!” Knowing that all of this was just a model of the world and of the Now was not necessary for survival. This additional kind of knowledge would have required the formation of what philosophers call metarepresentations, or images about other images, thoughts about thoughts. It would have required additional hardware in the brain and more fuel." Metzinger, Thomas. The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self (p. 43). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

[@tgrogan6049]

6:06 We can train AI to recognize faces better than people can. Just because we cannot articulate how we can do it ourselves because our brain processes are not available to us it doesn't make it magical or something.

[@fr.johnbayer1905]

@tgrogan6049, I don't think anyone said anything about anything magical. The point is that our knowledge cannot be fully systematized. To know anything consciously or explicitly, much else must remain hidden ("tacit") from our awareness. That doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with magic. For what it's worth, I don't think it makes sense to say that AI is able to "recognize faces better than people can." I know that we can make computers (or networks of logic gates opening and shutting on the basis of various inputs), and that the input of certain pixels will lead to a specific output that we find useful for classifying pictures ... but that doesn't mean the computer or AI "recognized" something. After all, you wouldn't say that a scale "recognizes" one weight is heavier than another as the scale tips. What is happening is simply physics (laws of forces). There is no knower or recognizer. Just physics. Similarly, we shouldn't say that AI "recognized" a picture. The input led to an output because of, well, physics (laws of electricity). There is no knower. Room lights turn on not because they "know" it is time to turn on; "they" turn on because the circuit is complete. No knower. Just physics. But when it comes to human beings, there is a knower! A single unit who knows the truth. Now, that really is something worth marveling about (even if it is not magic, nature with its metaphysical diversity is quite marvelous). I hope that helps!

[@tgrogan6049]

@@fr.johnbayer1905 Yes, I think the human mind works exactly the same way by physical laws. There are synaptic relays and neural networks in the brain that create the mind. A Century of neuroscience supports this theory what you seem to be harkening back to is the ghost in the machine.

[@fr.johnbayer1905]

@tgrogan6049 Well, I certainly don't want to argue for dualism ("ghost in the machine")! I disagree that neuroscience "supports" physical reductionism. Certainly, there are physical conditions and effects taking place, but if it is only physics then there is no knower. Did you appreciate that point in my last comment? Or do you think a scale "knows" that one weight is heavier than another? Or that a lightning switch "knows" to turn on when a circuit is complete? To me that sounds silly to say. Wouldn't you agree? But if you are no more than the scale or circuit, it would be just as silly to say that you or I know anything. What I am trying to argue for is a classical natural philosophy which is neither dualist nor reductive. Check out this little article! school.cistercian.org/a-word-to-enkindle-we-are-more-than-the-sum-of-our-parts/

[@tgrogan6049]

@@fr.johnbayer1905 After what manner, therefore, do they belong to self; and how are they connected with it? For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. David Hume

[@Jomarina11]

So what is the truth here?