From Mental Images to Truth: The Role of Goals and Emotions in Knowledge

On the different systems of knowledge depending on the goals that a given individual has and on urges and emotions as the ultimate source of truth.

Let me describe to you a natural phenomenon that I observed. It is a very weird one - at one moment it is green, but at the second it fades to black and then it becomes invisible. I suspect it can take some other colors too… It sometimes produces sounds too, but here is no way you can tell what it is going to do next. Such phenomena may very well exist (it might be completely random or it might be governed by some laws, that we just cannot perceive), but there is neither a way for us to know that it does exist, nor a reason for us to be interested in it. Because this phenomenon does not repeat itself in a way that we can perceive, it cannot be mapped by any mental images, and we can only perceive the world through mental images.

1. A mental image (or dogma) is a set of impressions combined into a single perceptible entity. All objects and events we perceive are actually just mental images.

Because the of fact that we only see mental images implies reality as we perceive it is not objective, many (weird) philosophers have argued that we are actually living in a dream or a simulation of some kind, and that reality as we perceive it is not at all related to the reality that actually exists. But for me that is clearly not true - while mental images themselves do not say anything about the real world, the fact that we have gotten the habit of creating mental images does say something - their existence is a proof (the only proof?) that the world is not completely random.

So we are put in a really weird situation:

• Mental images would only make sense only in a non-random world (in a world that is completely random there will be no point nor reason to combine several things as one).

• The concentration on different aspects of reality and the usage of different sets of mental images results in widely different interpretations of reality (none of which are correct).

So, 1) there exist some truth in this world, but at the same time 2) we can never know this truth is. The collision between those two statements has naturally led to many philosophers to despair.

To reconcile this paradox, we should consider what truth really is, as our current everyday notion of it is obviously wrong - truth does not exist in the world, truth is subjective. Reality is like a canvas that contains the form of the world, but it is up to the observer, to us, to draw the contours: we circle one spot and say “This is A”. Then we take another picture and search for where A went, or for other instances of A. It is through these contours, that the unknowable, becomes knowable.

But where does A originate from initially? What provokes us to start perceiving the world in terms of A-s and B-s and not just gaze at it and wonder what the hell is happening all the time? Up until now, we spoke a lot about the subjective aspect of knowledge, but we never said anything about the subject AKA the human, animal, robot, god or other lifeform that/who actually perceives reality, makes these assertions and has these thoughts. But how do we even define what a subject is in this context? I claim (you will see why shortly) that it is defined by the things they want - their will, urges, wishes, emotions etc. or their “goals” as I will call them here.

Now, a goal is not a specific state of affairs of the world - there may be many states of affairs that constitute the realization of a given goal - rather a goal is a kind of mental image that a given observer has, with one more detail, that it is associated with feelings of pleasure.

1. A goal is a mental image representing a state of affairs which is for some reason desirable for an individual, or the opposite - undesirable.

With that in mind, let’s go back to the distinction between dogmatic and empirical thinking. As we said, when thinking empirically, we obtain information about the world, and when thinking dogmatically are we able to use the information that we gained. We said that empirical and dogmatic thinking go hand in hand, that you cannot have one without the other, but another way to look at it is that they are actually in conflict - one makes you smarter, but at the expense of your inaction (you are not unable to do anything) — the other turns you into a mindless machine that can only chase windmills.

Furthermore, when comparing the two modes of thinking, we might say that the empirical part is somewhat more “legit” than the dogmatic one. When thinking empirically, we enrich our representation of the world. If we have goals, empirical thinking helps us find more ways of achieving them. If our aim is knowledge and precision, we should only think empirically and practice suspension of judgment, collecting all information and enriching our knowledge without trying to unite and structure it, as every structure is a simplification.

We think dogmatically simply because of our (living beings’) modus operandi — sometimes, we just have to act. The situation becomes “do or die” for some of these goals, as abstract as they may be, and sometimes our whole existence depends on achieving them.

If this factor wasn’t there, our whole world would be different — we would just observe reality forever, studying it, becoming more intimately knowledgeable with the way it works, but doing nothing more. But we get hungry. And when that moment comes, we have to assume we know enough and switch to dogmatic mode in order to catch some prey or get to the grocery store. It is at this moment that the mental image is formed. The image of food is a product of the fact that we get hungry. In general, any mental image is a product of a goal:

1. All mental images that a given individual forms are either desirable or undesirable. So all mental images are trivially associated with, or are themselves, goals (or anti-goals).

A corollary of that is:

1. No mental image or piece of knowledge that relies on mental images is objective — they are all actually a product of the individual’s characteristics.

For example, the pistol and glass example is associated with the desire to break the glass for some reason.

As we said, mental images are not, by themselves, true or false. This is because (let’s reiterate it once more) we can assess whether a given mental image works only by applying it and interpreting the result, but we can only do that using other mental images. We cannot see reality outside of the mental images, so, when considered by itself, we cannot call an image true or false. We cannot even compare one image to another and say which is better or closer to the “real world” (because, again, we only perceive the “real world” through images). This idea is laid out in Wittgenstein’s essay “On Certainty,” especially the opening sentence, which was written in response to G. E. Moore’s argument against skepticism, where he raised his hands and said, “I know that this is a hand, and that this is another one.” Wittgenstein’s response is apt: “If you do know that here is one hand, we’ll grant you all the rest.” That is, if we have a starting point — if there is one thing that we know to be true — then everything else can indeed follow from it. But we do not have such a starting point, which is why mental images are, by themselves, neither true nor false.

The situation changes when we observe mental images in connection to goals. Goals are, by definition, desirable (or undesirable), they cause pain (or pleasure), they make us fed (or hungry). And it is based on these sentiments that we deem the mental images that correspond to them true (or false).

1. A mental image has a degree of reality that can be equated with the degree to which its corresponding goal is desirable for the individual (based on the individual’s own subjective criteria). Comparing mental images with one another is a converged way of comparing the goals for which they stand.

Notice that I don’t say that truth can be equated with how often the goal is successfully achieved by the individual. This is because achieving a goal is abstract; having it influence our worldview is not.

In our everyday thinking, we don’t always associate truth with pleasure and falsity with pain. For example, we have expressions like “truth hurts,” representing the conflict between mental images and reality. Let’s discuss how perception evolved to reach that point.

Evolutionary Perspective

The behavior of the simplest organisms, those with no brain or a rudimentary one, can be described by the stimulus-reaction model — they perceive an object (called a stimuli, as it stimulates their senses) and react to it immediately in the manner they are predisposed to, with natural selection clearing out inadequate responses.

A little more complex, but still simple, are organisms that can also judge whether a given reaction was “good” or not (e.g., by using pain detectors) and store good stimulus/reaction pairs in their brain (e.g. seeing a predator and running away). These pairs resemble rudimentary memories, but unlike real memories, they don’t require an organism to have concepts of time, causality, or other related concepts in order to be recorded, as:

• They do not constitute sequences of actions or events.
• They are not related to one another in any way, i.e., there is no before and after.

Such organisms would also be able to process concepts, though in their case, a concept is simply a collection of similar memories. However, these organisms remain quite simple, as for them, the concepts of truth and falsity — if we can even call them that — are equivalent to feelings of pleasure and pain.

More complex are organisms that possess the ability — or perhaps it’s more accurate to say “ambition” — to predict the future. These organisms have a concept of both the future and the past, as the notion of prediction precedes the concept of the future itself. Predicting the future requires more than just recalling past experiences and reacting accordingly, it requires the organism to understand the concept of a “world” (or “substance,” as it is sometimes called). This allows them to produce mental images that:

• Involve multiple steps leading toward a common goal.
• Can be organized into a hierarchy, where one goal serves as a step toward a larger goal.
• Are self-reinforcing (more on that later).

The main distinction between those two types of organisms lies in the types of knowledge they possess. Simple organisms hold knowledge with a limited scope, while more complex ones have knowledge that is universally valid. These two types of knowledge correspond to two types of Aristotelian syllogisms:

• Some A-s are B (limited scope)
• All A-s are B (universal)

When we consider how these types of knowledge are acquired, we see that, although comparable, they are fundamentally different:

For a simple organism that thinks in terms of statements with limited scope, thoughts are merely tools for achieving more favorable outcomes in reality. Their significance is limited. For example, a simple organism that encounters a sour apple may be “unhappy” with the taste, but it would never be unhappy about the fact that its assumption turned out to be false. A simple organism discards an idea as soon as it feels wrong. Being wrong doesn’t lower its self-esteem, cause an existential crisis, or force it to abandon related ideas. Furthermore, a simple organism doesn’t feel the need to unify different phenomena under a common cause, nor does it ponder why things are the way they are instead of some other way (as I currently do). The simple organism is humble — it doesn’t hope to ever truly know the nature of things, so it doesn’t concern itself with them.

If simple organisms assume they are wrong by default, whereas we, because we are “smarter,” assume we are correct by default.

1. Statements with limited scope can only be justified by observation. If I observe two or three objects that I categorize as As (e.g., “apples”) and find that they possess the property B (e.g., “tasty”), I can conclude that Some A-s are B based on those observations alone, relying on my instincts.

On the other hand, statements with universal scope are axiomatic by nature — they shape reality as much as they describe it. My basis for asserting All A-s are B is not fundamentally different from my basis for saying Some A-s are B. What differs is my decision to assume that this piece of knowledge is universal.

References

• The idea that mental images are goals is likely influenced by Immanuel Kant, who suggests that concepts resemble rules of perception. From this, one could speculate that these rules define goals.
• The notion that everything is uncertain due to the lack of a starting point in our thoughts and judgments has been around for a long time but was articulated most effectively by Wittgenstein. Later, related ideas were formalized by Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing, both of whom were influenced by him.
• David Hume wrote extensively about emotions (“passions”) in the second part of his Treatise of Human Nature.
• For more on the evolutionary perspective, consider Robert Sapolsky’s work.

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