If you don't mind an introduction using some poppy philosophical thinking, please indulge me as I channel Alan Watts. Correct me if I am wrong but if I remember Watts once spoke or written about how we misconstrue our representations of things for the actual things. In extension of that,...
Jakob Von Uexkull, like many thinkers, introduced a new meaning for a familiar term. The German biologist used the everyday German word 'umwelt' which means surrounding environment to be an organisms inner world. It's some sort of a subjective representation of things outside the 'body' according to what Dennett calls...
Oh, it's not pretty much front page worthy the way I wrote it. There's no question about that. It's pretty conversational (rambly as you guys say) and is using persuasion at the end. I think that's a big no-no to be on the front page.
Also, I'm new here. And I'm glad to have to have found this online. I actually thought that one has to "submit" to the mods something to be considered to be in the front page. I was looking for that button when I wrote my first article which I think was front-page material. I really wanted it to be considered for the front page. It got... (read more)
If you don't mind an introduction using some poppy philosophical thinking, please indulge me as I channel Alan Watts. Correct me if I am wrong but if I remember Watts once spoke or written about how we misconstrue our representations of things for the actual things. In extension of that, we can also say (as we measure) that we also misconstrue our 'valuation' of things to be the things themselves.
Watts gave out a quite clever example of this which involves wood (natural resource) and inches (measurement). Let me roughly paraphrase through this anecdote (adding some creative flair or more honestly winging it without watering down the gist).
There's a foreman and... (read 1894 more words →)
Jakob Von Uexkull, like many thinkers, introduced a new meaning for a familiar term. The German biologist used the everyday German word 'umwelt' which means surrounding environment to be an organisms inner world. It's some sort of a subjective representation of things outside the 'body' according to what Dennett calls an organism's 'affordances'.
Affordances are things that an organism can hide in, sit on, fly to, mate with, and others. These are, firstly, the things that matter most to an organism.
Uexkull discussed his concept of the Umwelt through the tick. In the tick's internal representation of the world, there are just (mostly) a few things that matters. Imagine a tick hanging... (read 1362 more words →)
I'm glad you find it interesting! I think it's a helpful concept in closing the gap between "subjectivist" and the "objectivist" chasm. What's also interesting is that if thought about more, two views on information emerges. One, it's everywhere like everything is information! We can only perceive what our biology affords us to detect (and in what quality). Second, it's all inside us. There is no information out there in the real world! It's all generated by us (even the value). This is quite counter-intuitive. And pretty scary when used in education. It's just all in your heads! But, for now, I think holds more water. It just needs to be treated more a more sophisticated manner than many social constructivists do.