Concepts
New concepts are linked to existing concepts.
A caveman discovers fire by throwing a rock into a field which hits another rock and causes a spark that in turn ignites the dry grass and a fire is born. The cave man sees the fire but has no concept of what a fire is. He walks closer to it and feels the heat, he has a concept of heat and immediately links fire to heat. He walks closer and reaches his hand toward the flame and is burned. He has a concept of being burned by the heat of the sun and links being burned to his evolving concept of fire. He watches as the dry grass is consumed by the fire and understands that the fire is consuming the dry grass and connects this with his concept of consumption which is already linked to his concept of eating. As he begins linking existing concepts, concepts that are already cross-linked, he begins building a complete concept of fire. He takes off his heavy garment and places it over the flame and the flame dies out. He considers this and using existing concepts he concludes the flame needs air to live. He considers all of this and concludes that the fire was alive and that he brought it to life. The fire ate and breathed and as it did it grew so it must have been alive. Could he talk to it? If he had not placed his garment over the fire would it have walked? Although his concept of fire is nearly accurate some of his existing concepts cause him to arrive at some wrong conclusions or at least conclusions which are not entirely accurate. To him his conveyed concept of fire is valid.
Now lets assume he meets caveman2, who also has no concept of fire. Caveman1 begins to convey to him his concept of fire. Caveman2 however has a different concept of life and when he tries to link the concept of fire to life he is unable to. As the concept of fire is conveyed to him he constructs a similar concept of fire except he understands that the fire is not truly alive within the scope of his concept of life. So his conveyed concept of fire is similar but also has a stark difference.
This is also true when speaking of religion. All monotheists have a conveyed concept of God and religion, but each monothiest's conveyed concept of God differs.
Not all concepts are conveyed to us. It is possible to give birth to a new concept by creating links internally. But with conveyed concept we are talking about a concept being conveyed from an external media or communication and then constructing our conveyed concept based on that information and existing concepts we have developed.
Read more about this topic: Conveyed Concept
Famous quotes containing the word concepts:
“Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)
“Once one is caught up into the material world not one person in ten thousand finds the time to form literary taste, to examine the validity of philosophic concepts for himself, or to form what, for lack of a better phrase, I might call the wise and tragic sense of life.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)