| So, another option, is that our concepts arent really about their targets. For example, my "pen" is actually a bundle of largely motor techniquess (also: emotional regulation technquies etc.) which is about how I coordinate myself. In a sense all my concepts are about me. We might say that in congition we abstract these "primal concepts" into properties which are then about their targets, sure. This is why cognition is a bit of a charlatan. In being able to regulate my own imagination, motor skills, emotions etc. with these techniques, I can actually discover new things about the "abstract concepts" that they imply. Since my "pen" isnt really anything like "a pen" nor even my experiences of pens... it is rather, "a way of me moving everything within me" -- I can simulate these movements and discover new things about their implied abstractions. Indeed, I can do this in the world: I can explore actual pens by moving my body differently. This is one of the big issues with the AI paradigm as it has always existed: researchers are still talking about environments as if they had properties which were already there. Everything is formualted as-if the problem were solved. The world is just some bundle of facts (data, propositions, etc.) and representations are just subsets of these. This misses, you know, the world. The thing that hits you. And it misses, entirely, what happens when it hits you. |
I'm not, though, that I agree about the pen example. I mean, you're completely correct in your description of all these different elements of your "pen". But to the extent that a concept of/about something is really never anything like the thing, it's not a particularly important aspect of concepts. I think that what's important is that all of these embodied, semi-reflective elements of your "pen" concept sit in parallel with some abstract concepts about pens. Pens do have properties that are already there, but in many contexts as you note, these are less important than the ones embodied by you.