Tag: concepts

Categories
- Empowerment - Language Development Expansion & Consolidation Human Nature

Releasing the Deep Reservoirs that Young People Possess

Commitment

“Throughout the world, across all classes and social groups, there has been a ready response from youth who are invited to examine the forces shaping their society and their role in contributing to its constructive transformation through service as animators of junior youth groups. Time and again it has been seen that consideration of, and reflection upon, the profound concepts addressed in Book 5 of the Ruhi Institute release the deep reservoirs of commitment to significant social change that young people possess. Engaging their fertile minds in an exploration of such ideas gives rise to profound conversations that leave their mark and find expression in action. Those who are inclined to establish a junior youth group are assisted to do so, and in this way, the program’s reach in a town or neighborhood is expanded in a relatively short period, even if there are only a limited number of human resources available within the Bahá’í community.”  – 14 November 2012, The Universal House of Justice

 

Commitment
Commitment

 

Forces – spiritual, social, intellectual, and physical – are irresistibly moving humanity.  Towards what direction?  Who are the protagonists of this movement?  How can humanity’s inherent capacities be harnessed?

In the young people of the world lies a reservoir of capacity to transform society waiting to be tapped. How are these deep reservoirs of commitment to significant social change that young people possess released?

Look at the verbs: examine, consider, reflect upon, explore – what do they mean and how are they used?  Look at the ideas: the forces shaping society, a youth’s role in contributing to society’s constructive transformation, the profound concepts addressed in Book 5 of the Ruhi Institute.  Look at the outcome: a sense of two-fold purpose, to develop their inherent potentialities and to contribute to the transformation of society – through service as animators of junior youth groups.  What are the means?  Conversations and mutual assistance.

What are some forces shaping our society?  Some, constructive and positive, include love for truth, thirst for knowledge, attraction to beauty, and unity.  Some, destructive and negative, include materialism, self-centeredness, prejudice, and ignorance.

What are some of the concepts addressed in Book 5 of the Ruhi Institute?  In addition to addressing the forces shaping society and a youth’s role in society’s constructive transformation, some other concepts include: coherence, two-fold moral purpose, the age of junior youth, spiritual perception, the dual-nature of self, language, the power of expression, hope, service, and empowerment.

Any serious attempt at civilization-building cannot ignore the role of young people in working with those younger than themselves, analyzing these forces, understanding these concepts, and taking on the identity of a life-long servant of humanity.

 

Categories
- Language - Science

Objectivity and Reality

Notwithstanding that all social conventions, including language, are built from shared understanding that are to some extent ontologically subjective, they are not completely arbitrary. Language – as well as social reality – is built upon objective reality itself. Words and conventions have become abstract representations and codifications, respectively, of the complex dynamics of human beings within reality. There are a number of realities that interact together to form social reality. Both physical reality and its forces along with spiritual reality and its forces influence human thought – which is the reality of a human being. These three realities come together to shape social reality, which itself also influences human thought. Language both builds and is built upon this reciprocal interplay between human thought and society – and ultimately, rests upon the objective spiritual and physical realities themselves.

Let us take our previous post’s somewhat objective statement a bit further. Instead of simply claiming the color of something to be “green”, the property of an object that determines it to be “green” can be explained:
The color of a thing arises from its interaction with light. In order for something to be visible, light – composed of packets of energy called photons or particles – hits an object, interacts with it, and emits photons back into our eyes. Visible white light from the sun (or a bulb) is actually a mixture of a range of frequencies by which its photons vibrate – each one corresponding to a color on a spectrum. Frequencies are measured by the photon’s wave cycles per second. When this white light interacts with something, some frequencies are absorbed and others are reflected. The frequency of the reflected photons determine what color this object appears to be in a beholder’s eye.

This explanation that accompanies the statement “that thing is green” is much more objective. It’s true, this paragraph – as with all of language – includes many names that are based on social convention. For instance, why is it named “light” or “frequency”? However, the naming included in this previous paragraph is not simply subjective social convention – there must be some agreement as to the underlying reality on which these names are based. One who agrees with this paragraph must have at least a basic level of understanding of physics to understand that “light” is made up of “energy packets” characterized by “frequency”. Furthermore, this paragraph goes beyond naming – it establishes relationships between concepts (X is composed of Y which is characterized by Z) and attempts to explain them a bit (Z is some unit of space per time). Regardless of the naming, these relationships and explanations are objective. To agree with this paragraph is not a matter of convention – it is based on reality itself.

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Categories
- Language - Science

Clarity

Human beings understand reality through conceptualization.  For material and concrete objects, language naturally defines them easily.  As concepts become more abstract – such as regarding the social and spiritual reality – this becomes more and more difficult.  The language of science, however, is well equipped to meet this challenge, for it progressively moves towards precision and clarity when describing concepts.  As its methods to achieve clarity, science uses repetition of language with slight alterations each time, identification of subtleties and implications in word choices, realization of possible logical contradictions at a later time, and a vision to take creative and calculated leaps forward.  Gradually, using these processes, the language that science uses in understanding a concept becomes unambiguous and takes on unique meaning.

The quest of scientific language to be precise is not a mechanical, cold, and sterile set of operations; nor is it mutually exclusive with certain spiritual faculties that have always aided in scientific discovery.  The role of imagination, intuition, and attraction to beauty have always characterized the scientific enterprise.  After all, the role of science – just like the role of religion – is to unravel the mysteries of reality and witness the marvelous beauty inherent in the order of the universe.

Inseparable from clarity of language is clarity of thought.  Many of the requisite characteristics of successful consultation are also needed for clear thinking. These include eliminating false dichotomies, tolerating temporary ambiguity, being detached and dispassionate with one’s ideas, thinking in terms of process, being flexible and open-minded in considering views, relating the practical to the principle, adopting a wider vision, attention to details, and very importantly, the ability to understand and identify causality on a complex level.

What are your thoughts regarding the clarity of current speech?  In education?  In politics?  In medicine?  In music and entertainment?  In relationships?  In family?  In friendship?

 

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Categories
- Language

The Concept of a Concept

All human beings are endowed with certain basic spiritual capacities – derived from the soul, which is the element of the individual that is responsible for spiritual nature. Chief among these capacities is that of intellect, consciousness, the power of thought. In fact, the human mind (a faculty of the soul) cannot exist without thinking. Try it. Try not thinking. When these thoughts, most of which are vague and fleeting, start to take shape, form, structure, and substance, they give rise to ideas. What, really, is an idea?

One particularly important idea is a concept. It allows a mind to distinguish one named thing from another named thing. There is the concept of a “keyboard”, for instance, that is different from a “monitor”, though both can be included in the concept of “computer device”. Most things are associated with multiple concepts – and their uniqueness becomes apparent in the particulars of the interaction of combinations of concepts. These concepts have formed after countless observations using the mind’s ability to categorize according to patterns, commonalities, and characteristics, . Over thousands of years, using language, individuals are able to discuss and refine their conceptions of objects of study, to the point where, now, we have names and definitions for everything – and with concrete objects, like a lamp, only a few words suffice to share one mind’s understanding with another.

With abstract objects of study, however, it is much harder to precisely define them with a handful of words; yet these abstract things are arguably much more important. The concept of space, for instance, is fundamental to thought – it is within a specific position or location that observable phenomena take place. We cannot think outside of the concept of space. Similarly with the concept of time – it is indispensable to human thought. All things are observed to change, and change implies time. Our understanding of reality cannot exist outside the concept of time. And finally, and very closely related, is the concept of causality, which enables the mind to understand relationships between multiple objects within space and time. Otherwise, the world would be a collection of disconnected events.

Concepts, just like language, are social constructs; albeit highly important ones. They help organize thoughts and words so that groups of individuals can reach shared understandings, can form relationships, can build communities, can raise social structures – civilization, on one level, is the expression of concepts into social reality.

What is your conception of a “concept”?

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Categories
Human Nature Knowledge

Information, Understanding, Wisdom

Knowledge is distinct from information.  Facts are the raw materials of knowledge – just as brick and wood do not, in themselves, constitute the building itself but are shaped into a structure, so is knowledge a structured system.  The system of knowledge includes facts and information, and also includes concepts, hierarchies, connections, patterns, and concepts.
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Knowledge and understanding are also not the same, though this distinction is subtle.  Understanding is a latent spiritual capacity bestowed upon every human being, through which an individual can gain knowledge; knowledge is only meaningful if accompanied with understanding.  For instance, there are laws and an order to nature – say, the physical universe.  Nature, obviously, cannot know the meaning of these laws, and is not conscious of this order; it simply abides.  Humanity, on the other hand, not only can know the laws of physics, but understand the meaning underlying their existence.  To know them is not enough; to understand them is to penetrate to their meaning.  Because the reality of human nature is the soul, and because understanding is a quality and faculty of the soul, the search for knowledge is concerned both with sharpening the powers of the mind and the powers of the soul.  A learning mode implies and requires a constant endeavor to develop one’s spiritual qualities.
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An awareness of the powers and capacities of the soul, and their role in both knowledge acquisition and understanding, helps prevent an individual from adopting dangerous habits of thought – one in particular being the false dichotomy between mind and heart.  Though designations are useful in language to aid in comprehension of complex concepts, such as will, understanding, and knowing, rigid categorization only serves to limit the development of human potentialities – the human being is one; its diverse abilities are all coherent.
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Wisdom is the result of knowledge accompanied by understanding; it connects knowledge with action and enables one to apply knowledge in various ways to a range of situations.  Thus, striving for wisdom is striving to fulfill one’s two-fold purpose in life: to develop spiritual capacities and qualities in the context of contributing to society and serving humanity.
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How do you see information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom interact in daily life?