Is abstraction possible without perception
The impossibility of abstract thinking without the processes of perception is a highly debated issue in the literature of the philosophy of mind. Contentious arguments are galore in the research corrigendum of whether such a possibility of abstract thinking without the processes of perceptional experience, or pure perception is possible or not. I extend my theory and a complementary explanation that the issue still remains unresolved, but in terms of artificial thinking and artificial perception, the proposition holds good that there is no abstraction possible without the process of perception, and that perception is an independent process which is essential for abstract thinking, albeit in AI thinking. But what about in humans?
Thanks Voris, yes I have already read about Helen Keller since I was in school. Her experience of the real world was based on her power of abstraction and perception without having functional senses like hearing and vision and she has always been the guiding light to persons with similar disabilities. I am looking for such things could be emulated in machines; thoughts without perception.
Best Regards,
Sidharta
However, let us not forget that perception means not only visual or auditory perception. There are other senses as well such as tactile, haptic, kinesthetic, taste, smell, ... All this is information, structured in space and time and feeding memory representations in relation to adaptive responses to external stimuli. As far as such stimuli include consistent regularities, plus stimulations stered by socialized minds (of other people), blind-and-deaf persons are capable of becoming intellectual subjects with capabilities to think in terms of abstract symbols and rules of thought. But I agree that as prerequisites, perceptual experiences (even without vision and/or hearing) are necessary for abstract thinking. Imagination that comes based on memory representations owes to former accumulating perceptual experience. So developmentally, abstract thought is impossible without perception. However a present-moment act of abstract thought can proceed without any current related sensory input and actual perception. (Still, imagery and perception share brain structures necessary for both of these processes.)
John,
You are right -- "perception" should not be restricted to vision and audition. But as for the Kantian (and perhaps earlier) ideas about pre-ontogenetic basic ideas -- this is a tough task for behavioural/neuroscientific research to prove by traditional research methods. But as I am not a philosopher, I better will not try go into some well-informed discussion on these matters.
According to the formalism we have proposed (see my publications), perception is just an early biological manifestation of a very universal (inductive) informational mechanism pervasive throughout the Universe, which might / should predate the emergence of organisms.
Lev:
Is your inductive informational mechanism in opposition with Gestalt approach'es "whole-before-elements" notion, consistent with it, or irrelevant to the theoretical foundations proposed by gestaltists? (As far as I remember, Gestalt theorists considered their laws also as universal, not only related to individual psychology.)
Talis:
No, it is not in opposition to it. If anything it clarifies it.
Gestalt theorists were just "talking": they have not proposed anything concrete for science. That is why it didn't go anywhere.
We have proposed a fundamentally new (structural) representational formalism to replace the millennia old numeric forms of representation.
Dear Sidharta
I missed a very direct answer to your question: yes, it is impossible, simply because evolutionary reality says so, but also because "abstraction" without any contact with reality is absolutely meaningless.
Actually, the main meaning of "abstraction" is related to "generalization", i.e. to the process that must begin with something relatively "concrete".
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