Chapter 5                      The Joys and Woes of Empiricism

   

                John Locke, empiricist philosopher (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

                                        

 

 

                      

            

                David Hume, empiricist philosopher (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

Empiricism is a way of thinking about thinking and what we mean when we say we “know” something. It is the logical base of Science, and it claims it begins only from sense data, i.e. what we touch, see, hear, taste, and smell.

 

Empiricism assumes that all we know is sensory experiences and memories of them. This includes even the concepts that enable us to sort and save those experiences and memories, plan responses to events in the world, and then enact the plans. For empiricists, concepts are labels for bunches of memories that we think look alike. Concepts enable us to sort through, and respond to, real life events. We keep and use those concepts that have reliably guided us in the past to less pain and more joy. We drop ones that have proved useless.

 

According to Empiricism, our sense organs are continually feeding bits of information into our minds about the sizes, textures, colours, shapes, sounds, aromas, and flavors of things we encounter. Even when we are not consciously paying attention, at other, deeper levels our minds are taking in these details. “The eye – it cannot choose but see. We cannot bid the ear be still. Our bodies feel where’er they be, against or with our will.” (Wordsworth)

 

For example, I know when I hear noises outside of a car approaching or a dog barking. Even in my sleep, I detect gravel crunching sounds in the driveway. One spouse awakes to the baby’s crying; the other dozes on. One wakes when the furnace is not cutting out as it should; the other sleeps. The ship’s engineer sleeps through steam turbines roaring and props churning, but she wakes up when one bearing begins to hum a bit above its normal pitch. She wakes up because she knows something is wrong. A bearing is running hot. Empiricism is a modern way of understanding our complex information-processing system – the human body, its brain, and the mind that brain holds.

 

In the Empiricist model, the mind notices how certain patterns of details keep recurring in some situations. When we notice a pattern of details in encounter after encounter with a familiar situation or object, we make mental files – for example, for round things, red things, sweet ones, or edible ones. We then save the information about that type of object in our memories. The next time we encounter an object of that type, we simply go to our memory files. There, by cross-referencing, we get: “Fruit. Good to eat.” Empiricists say all general concepts are built up in this way. Store, review, hypothesize, test, label, repeat.

 

Scientists now believe this Empiricist model is only part of the full picture. In fact, most of the concepts we use to recognize and respond to reality are not learned by each of us on our own, but instead are concepts we were taught as children. Our childhood programming teaches us how to cognize things. After that, almost always, we don’t cognize things, only recognize them. (We will explore why our parents and teachers program us in the ways that they do in upcoming chapters.) Also note that when we encounter a thing that doesn’t fit any of our familiar concepts, we grow wary. (“What’s that?! Stay back!”)

 

But, empiricists claim that all human thinking and knowing happens in the experienced-based way. Watch the world. Notice patterns that repeat. Create labels (concepts) for the patterns that you keep encountering, especially those that signify hazard or opportunity. Store them up in memories. Pull the concepts out when they fit, then use them to deal with life events. Remember what works. Keep trying.

 

For individuals and nations, according to the empiricists, that’s how life goes. And the most effective way of life for us, the way that makes this common-sense process rigorous, and that keeps getting good results, is Science.