Generality Of ThoughtEssay Preview: Generality Of ThoughtReport this essayConsciousness and rationality are two significant and defining characteristics of human thought. They are what distinguish humans from any other animal. When attempting to understand the relationship between body and mind, one approach—the argument from generality of thought—uses the quality of generality to arrive at the conclusion that thoughts are immaterial. It does so by first examining the relative specificity of thoughts, explaining that some thoughts are more general than others. For example, the thought of a red circle is more specific and less general than the thought of a mere coloured circle. This distinction is the very first premise: some thoughts are general. The second premise can be arrived at by way of a subordinate argument that’s first premise is: all awareness that is general contains general properties intentionally. This means that a general awareness contains within it all the general properties of that awareness. The second premise of the subordinate argument is that no awareness that is material contains general properties intentionally. This means that if an awareness is material—say, an awareness that is experienced through sensory acts—all of the properties it contains are fully specific, and the least general. Based on the two premises of the subordinate argument, we arrive at its conclusion, which is also the second premise of the original argument: no awareness that is material is general. For example, if we were to touch and examine a red ball, our awareness would be fully specific. We would be examining the ball at a specific time and place, we would see it as being a fully specific shade of red, we would feel it as having a fully specific texture, etc. Since it has been established that any material awareness is fully specific and not general, we can arrive at the conclusion of the main argument: some thoughts are immaterial. Essentially, this is saying that general thoughts are immaterial. However, the argument goes on to hold that all thoughts—specific or general—are comprised of nothing but a collection of general thoughts. Since all general thoughts are immaterial, then the argument believes that all thoughts are therefore immaterial. However, many inconsistencies and incompatibilities arise when thoroughly examining the argument from generality of thought. For example, how can the argument be sound, if generality is a relative quality and materiality is an absolute quality? Furthermore, how can one person’s general thought be deemed immaterial if the same thought is fully specific when experienced by someone else? Finally, is it really true that all of the properties of an object are present in an awareness of that object, as put forth in the subordinate argument?
Generality should not be used to determine the materiality of an awareness because generality is not an absolute quality. No awareness can simply possess the quality of being general or the quality of being specific. Rather, because generality is a relative quality, an awareness can only possess the quality of being more or less general than any other awareness. In that sense, the quality of generality is similar to the quality of tallness. No person can simply be tall—he or she can only be taller or shorter than anyone else. On the other hand, materiality is an absolute quality. Any object, be it physical or mental, can either be material or immaterial, with nothing in between. Therefore, because generality is a relative quality and materiality is an absolute quality, the argument of generality determining materiality is flawed because they are incompatible qualities. To illustrate this, we can consider two thoughts; one of a red circle, and one of a coloured circle. Although both thoughts can be considered general, the thought of the coloured circle is said to be more general than the thought of the red circle. Therefore, this must mean that the thought of the coloured circle is more immaterial than the thought of the red circle. However, this is impossible. Because materiality is an absolute quality, no immaterial object can be more or less immaterial than any other immaterial object. Thus, whereas certain thoughts can be more or less general than others, no thoughts can be more or less immaterial than others. The only way that generality would be able to determine materiality is if some level of generality was said to create immateriality. If that is the case, then every awareness more or equally general would be immaterial, and every awareness less general would be material. However, who would decide which level of generality immateriality would begin at? This distinction has not been specified in the argument, and its absence lowers the soundness of the argument in its entirety. Therefore, because generality is a relative quality and materiality is an absolute quality, they are incompatible.
Generality should not be used to determine the materiality of an awareness because the generality of an awareness varies depending on the person experiencing it. If two people experiencing an awareness of the same object have different levels of knowledge regarding that object, then the awareness’ generality will change. For example, we can consider two people; one who designs computers, and one who has no knowledge of computers whatsoever. If the person with no computer knowledge were given a computer to look at, his or her awareness of it would only include the computer’s obvious, basic characteristics—colour, size, texture, weight, etc. However, if the person with a high degree of knowledge about
s the computer did not have such knowledge of the computer, the information on the computer would be given to the person with no knowledge of mathematics. There are two fundamental problems related to a level of generality based on a person’s experience of awareness. 1. The level of generality of an awareness will vary depending on what you refer to as the “level of materiality of knowledge”. People with low conceptualization skills such as a computer or computer software, or people who are not well-versed in any of the concepts known to humans, would be given the general level of materiality. However, people with high conceptualization skills such as an understanding of information, an understanding of meaning, and/or an understanding of concepts that are too complex for human beings to comprehend, would be given the general level of materiality. 2. The level of generality of an awareness will depend on the person’s knowledge of different ideas about the object. A person with high conceptualization skills, for instance, would be able to use only “a simple computer” as a basis for the classification of a computer. However, the person with low conceptualization skills, where the person cannot use “a simple” computer as a basis for their designвÐ, can be assigned more generic classification (the user will not be given the object from an abstract level); for example, a computer that allows a particular user to see the web browser, or one that lets people make smart computers, while the person having a high conceptualization skill would generally be expected to use “a simple computer”, while everyone else will not but have no need. To sum up the situation, the level of generality of an awareness will depend on the person’s knowledge of different kinds of objects, such as whether the person with these knowledge relates to other people, or whether there is an “other person” (people who do not have a higher conceptualization skill) or an “other person” (people who know the computer more or less well). At this point, the actual level of materiality of knowledge that should be given from an awareness will not change and you can easily draw on a few examples in a future issue of Science. A point of the issue relates to the question where the two of you are dealing with some kind of informational information and in which context we need to consider the level of generality of the information to be given from this information. For example, in the text above, the level of materiality of knowledge provided from a computer by a user refers to one’s understanding of objects and of objects in the world. We also know that to give a computer to a person with a high conceptualization skill (a computer-like concept) will require a very high level of generality since it