Applying Differentiations and Intensity Of Differentiation
From
what was said up until now the possibility of identity of two things
comes from the sameness of their determination – determination of two
different cognitive contexts via one and the same differentiation tree
which makes up the concept.
Differentiation was seen as a possibility to “divide” a whole in
certain aspect - a principle which is second to the whole and which is
“guilty” for the parts.
But there is one possibility which complicates things a little. Take
for example a wall with shade on it. (That I tried to depict in the
above image). It is a fact that we can be aware of the wall as a whole,
but also to be aware of the shade on it as a separate. As both such
abstractions would be based on same differentiation (differentiation
based on color difference), the simple differentiation can’t be used to
explain how we are able to abstract both things.
I propose that there is such thing as intensity of differentiation, and
that when we are trying to apply a certain differentiation, it can be
applied with different intensity.
So in the above example:
1. We can use “stronger” (in relative sense)
differentiation, hence “noticing” (determining, comprehending) the
shadows
2. We can use a “weaker” (in relative sense)
differentiation, hence comprehending the wall as one (by that aspect)
In same sense we can use “stronger differentiation” to differentiate a
“quiet” sound, or a “weaker one” to differentiate a “loud” sound from
the surrounding noise.
Here we can return to the question of “possibility to apply a
differentiation on cognitive context”, which is one of the basic
moments of this model, but was introduced as a finished thing. Let’s
try to analyze and define it some more, in the light of this hypothesis.
In this model it is implicit that there is possibility to apply
different differentiation trees on cognitive context, or to
conceptualize the context differently.
One time one can conceptualize the context as “wall”, and other time
conceptualize the same context as “wall with a shadow”.
We said that differentiations are abstractions, which put richer
information of the cognitive context in their specific perspective.
But what does it mean that “we can apply” differentiation on the
context, if the differentiation isn’t IN the context, and if it is not
triggered automatically (and it can’t be triggered that way)? How
do we come to the differentiation to apply?
First, we must have some “undetermined” cognitive context.
Second, the fact that it is “undetermined” must somehow carry in it the
“trigger” which would require determination.
Third, the differentiations that don’t determine the context should
leave the context “undetermined”, so they would not succeed to “affect”
the context.
So we see that if we suppose some “need” to determine the context, we
are left with the question of what happens when certain differentiation
“affects” the cognitive context, and it seems to me that the answer is,
that the differentiation receives into itself the wealth of the
context, removing the details from the direct existence in the context,
but instead changes it with existence of the concept in the context,
and with the concept holding in it the details.
Saying this we can imagine differentiations as filters for specific
content, which filter some things out of the cognitive context, and
change them with an “organized” conceptualized content.
Now a parallel could be made with intensity as a “width” of a filter.
So let’s say we have a “loud sound” in the context (of course it
wouldn’t be loud sound until determined), and we try to apply
differentiation with a large intensity (in fact if we will use the
terms large or small here is just a matter of agreement. Here I will
use large intensity for differentiations used to “catch” what we
determine as qualities which are less significant, e.g. quiet sounds,
smaller variations of colors etc…).
When we apply that large intensity differentiation, it will not manage
to filter out (capture) the whole of the cognitive context in that
certain aspect. That would show that the differentiation can be
applied, but that it needs other intensity, so by fixing the strength
of differentiation, we end up determining that certain part of whole,
and changing it with the differentiation tree used which is the concept
of sound.
The other case is when we use a “small” intensity differentiation. The
differentiation will fail to recognize the low-level specific sound
from the overall context sound, hence the cognitive context will be
determined, but some quiet sound will not be recognized as separate.
There is one difficulty here when talking about context as actually
containing some determined concepts, and that is that when I say that
there is loud sound in the cognitive context, in fact I can say that
after I have already determined the context, so in fact I can’t show
you an example which would be accurate description of what happens. But
of course that is to be expected when using concepts to describe a
sub-conceptual model of Mind, and on other hands trying to restrict and
somehow “clean” up the model from such “inconsistencies” can probably
make the model more bulletproof, but much less understandable. So
instead, I will keep noting those problematical places, and hope that
my explanations would help to deliver the idea to the reader.
