02Concept

1.0

A concept is a relation between TWO objects

As with the word

object

, o

ur philosophers have also had little luck telling us unambiguously what a

concept

is. Specifically,

they

still have trouble clarifying unambiguously how a concept differs from an object.

“ A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a

corres-

ponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of

the objects in

a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena,

or relationships

between them. Concepts are abstract in that they omit the

differences of the things

in their extension, treating them as if they wer

identical. They are universal in that

they apply equally to every thing in their

extension.”

[

]

“ Frege rigidly distinguished objects from functions…Frege took functional

application

‘ƒ(x)’ as the

principal operation for forming complex names of

objects in his language.

The expression ‘ƒ(x)’

denotes the object to which

the function ƒ maps the object x.

Frege called the object x the

‘argument’ of

the

function ƒ and called ƒ(x) the ‘value’ of

the function. Since Frege also

recognized

two special objects he called truth-values

(The True and The

False), he defined a concept to be any

function that always maps

its argu

ments to truth-values. For example, whereas ‘x2 +3’ and ‘father-of

(x)’ denote

ordinary functions, the expressions ‘Happy(x)’ and ‘x > 5’ denote concepts.

The

former

denotes a concept which maps any object that is happy to The

True and all

other objects to The

False; the latter denotes a concept that

maps any object that is

greater than 5 to The True and all

other objects to

The False.”

[

]

“ ‘Socrates is a philosopher’ consists of ‘Socrates’, which signifies the Object

Socrates,

and ‘is a philosopher’, which signifies the Concept of being a

philosopher.”

[2]

[

Socrates is an object? Perhaps Man is an object or a human is an object, but

Socrates

is a concept. We

named this man

Socrates

to distinguish him from

Plato and Euclid. The

word

Socrates

embodies a relation. When you point and

say

Socrates

, the ET just sees

Man.

]

In other words, the experts are saying that a concept is a concept! Great! What have we learned?

If, as the philosophers argue, a concept is an abstract idea that I have in my mind, is the leprechaun I am

thinking about at

this moment an object or a concept? Isn’t a leprechaun ultimately just a little man?

Doesn’t

this little man have shape? Isn’t a

centaur just a strange kind of horse? Isn’t a tribar just a weird

geometric

figure

(

Fig. 1

)

? Does the fact that I visualize them in

my mind rather than have them in front of

me change their

status as objects? The definition the philosophers propose does

not clarify how to

distinguish an abstract

object from an abstract concept. The listener can visualize the abstract object

because it has shape. We

cannot visualize that which doesn’t. There is no excuse for confusing objects

with concepts

cience.

What distinguishes a concept from an object is that a concept is artificial (man-made) and invokes a

minimum

of two

objects

(

Fig.

)

All concepts, without exceptions, were invented by Man.

In other words, the definition

of the word

concept

is predicated on the

definition of the

word

object

. If you are marooned on an island in the

middle of nowhere

with an

, before

you can

communicate concepts to him, you must teach him the name of

the objects. You point and

say

rock,

tree,

coconut.

Before he understands verbs such as climb, knock,

break, eat, and survive you

must

absolutely

have a physical intermediary. Only then can you communicate to

him sophisticated

dynamic concepts, for

example, that he should climb the tree and knock the coconut to the

ground where

you will break it with a

rock so that

you can both eat and thus survive.

concept

: A word that embodies or invokes more than one object or location.

(Syn.: notion, idea,

mathematical object, particulars, member of a set

, relation, to relate

The philosophers were always hovering around the correct definitions of the words

object

and

concept

They

eventually

came to realize somewhat vaguely that object has to do with the

number 1

“ Natural objects are, philosophically speaking, individuals; they are involved as

units in dynamic,

causal

processes.”

[

]

What they failed to realize is that a concept has to do with the number 2. So no cigar!

concept

is a relation between two or more things or locations, and this guarantees that we can find its

antonym or

something with which it contrasts. Hot is the opposite of cold, on is the opposite of not on,

and

mass is the opposite

of mass-less. Run is a comparison between two locations of one object which

effectively

amounts to a comparison

between two objects: one real and one imaginary. We are

considering a minimum

of two frames, each of which contains

the same object at different locations. We

can just as well assume that

we are staring at two different objects. We are also

implicitly contrasting run

against walk, jump, and swim,

and thus treating it as a category of motion. You point and say

‘run’, but the

ET only sees boy. The prosecutor

must necessarily explain to an ET what run alludes to. Even the

‘categories’ object and space are themselves

concepts, the former meaning shape and the latter meaning

no shape. On

the other hand, not a single

standalone shape has an opposite. Cat is not the

opposite of

dog and tree is not the opposite

of rock or of

tree-less. The word cat becomes a concept

when you treat it

as a category of animals: when you contrast it

against a dog or a fish. When you point to

a shape and say

cat, you are identifying an object. The

extraterrestrial identifies

the word

cat

with the

designated shape. A

concept is something the prosecutor of a

theory has to

explain

and the jury, in

the

best of cases,

understands

. An object is a shape the

prosecutor

points to and names. The juror

visualizes

(i.e., sees)

the

object and identifies it with the sound you just

vocalized.

QUICK! Get a bucket
of water, you
dummy! I'm just a
concept!
BUT NOT MY DRESS!

2.0 Static versus dynamic concepts

There are two general types of concepts,

static and dynamic. For example, a

ratio

is a static concept. We

can

look at a circle

with a line drawn down the center and conceptualize the concept

in a single image

or frame.

In order to conceptualize a

dynamic concept such as a

rate

, we need to see the thing move for

two or more

frames. A concept such as

large

is also

static. We don't need to see anything move to

conceptualize

large

largest

. We just need to compare two or more objects

within a single image. On the

other hand, the concept

inflation

by its very nature invokes

motion. True

adjectives

(flat,

continuous,

unbounded, straight) and

prepositions of location (at, on, in, below/above, behind, among

) are

conceptually

static. True

adverbs

(rectilinear, constant,

perpetual, incessant) and prepositions such as

(to, under - over, forward,

through,

along, nearby) are inherently dynamic.

tatic concepts

also

include nouns

of ordinary speech

such as

direction,

dimension, length,

and

point particle. Dynamic concepts include almost all

the 'mathematical

objects' of Mathematical

Physics: energy, mass, time, field, force, vector, number,

volume,

singularity

black

hole, dark matter,

wave, space-time.

The idiots of Mathematics summarily

convert these

dynamic

concepts

into

static

objects when they

inadvertently

begin

to move them around.

he following words exemplify the manner in which

some of these

concepts embody two objects or

locations:

(static concept): irremediably invokes two entities (e.g., a glass above and in contact with a table).

You can’t use

unless you implicitly or explicitly allude to two objects.

energy

(dynamic concept): involves motion or a comparison (e.g., potential energy has velocity

embedded in the

equation.

volume

(

dynamic concept)

the mathematicians routinely confuse this concept for an object. For

example, a cube is

object and becomes a concept when used, compared, or defined in some way.

volume, on the

other hand, will

forever remain a concept. We use units such as ‘cubic meters’ (m

)

identify a

volume. Now try it with a cube. What

meaning would it have to append units to a cube?

If the

prosecutors want the ET to know what a cube is, they cannot present an expression such as

3 m

and hope that

the alien ‘understands’ what they are talking about. The prosecutors have no

choice

but

to point to a cube and say

‘cube.’ Only then can the ET visualize the object in question

and

identify it

with the sound. If the prosecutors want the

ET to understand the ‘concept’ cube, they

have

no choice

but to introduce other objects such as a sphere, a square,

or a chair. Conversely, a

volume makes no

provision for shape. As far as Mathematics is concerned, we can have

distinct

geometric figures –

cubes, spheres and pyramids – with the same volume. A volume is all motion

and no

substance. The

word volume represents a dynamic concept. A volume is ‘extension’ in

space: the amount of water

that

the rubber ducky displaces inside the tub. From a conceptual point

of view, the word volume means that

the

surface of a 3D object expanded to occupy a certain

amount of space.

To summarize, an object can only be illustrated and visualized. The only way to present an object is by

pointing to Exhibit A

and uttering a word. Until then, the prosecutor has done nothing with the word. He

hasn’t moved the object, used it in a

sentence, or compared it against anything else. Only in this context

are

we dealing with objects. All the examples I gave

earlier – leprechaun, centaur, tribar – are, first and

foremost,

objects. You point to a picture of a leprechaun, say

“leprechaun,” and the ET just sees a man.

You could have

said “X” and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. It is when

you categorize the green

little elf and contrast

him against other objects that the ET understands the

meaning

of the concept

‘leprechaun’. The

concept

leprechaun

condenses noun, adjectives, and adverbs in a single word.

Objects belong exclusively to the

hypothesis

stage of the scientifi

c method. They form a part of

the initial

scene of a scientific

theory. The jury visualizes this scene in order to understand the

explanation that fo

llows.

Any use beyond the hypothesis

summarily converts an object into a concept.

Of course, if you buy into my definition of the word

object

, the pertinent question is whether space-time

qualifies as an object.

The reason a wall can exist without white is that a wall has shape. White doesn’t. So

the

question is, ‘Is it possible to paint

space-time white?’ Is it possible to visualize space-time from a bird’

s-eye

perspective?’

now

that we

have the definitions in place

, perhaps we can finally

resolve

unambiguously

whether

some of

the

borderline

words

that the philosophers have been debating for hundreds of years are objects

concepts. Is a

hole

an object or a

concept? Is a

shadow

object

or a concept? How about fire, gas, an

ocean?

We have no trouble deciding whether a

chair or a rock is

an object. It is the borderline cases we

have

problems with.

Fig. 2 Object versus Concept

static

(e.g., direction, on, that)

CONCEPT (2 objects or locations)

Fig. 1 The object ‘tribar’

Module man page:

Exist

is the most important word in Science

his

module

After 3000 years, t

morons

of Philosophy

still

have no idea what a

concept

Pages in this module:

Is a hole an object or a concept?

Is a shadow an object or a concept?

Are air, wind, fire, ocean, and gases objects or concepts?

Mathematical objects are

concepts,

not objects

The object is what you see at face value
– the outline – and that you associate with
a word. An object only has an outer
perimeter or surface. It is when you try to
make sense of the figure (i.e., understand
it) that it becomes a concept. A concept
involves a relation.

dynamic

(e.g., over, infinite, energy)

Object
(shape + background)
(static)