RE: Social construct.
December 22, 2022 at 9:41 am
(This post was last modified: December 22, 2022 at 9:55 am by Anomalocaris.)
The physical organism exists or does not exist as the case may be, irrespective of any social construct. But that we bucket that thing with “tree” is mostly a social construct born out cognative framework and the need to share such framework. The bucketing in a cognitive framework may reflect physical distinction deep or shallow, or distinctions that is without a difference to a only very slightly altered cognative framework, But even if the bucketing reflects fundamental physical distinctions, it is still no less a social construct. If our perceptual cognative framework is different, we can conceivably have no conception of that prickly woody thing that stands before us is anything other than an gross unevenness in the ground, despite deep differences in organization and molecular make up. here the ground is smoother, there it repletes with highly complex fractal-ish prickly topology
I think there is a tendency to connect “social construct” with made up, which is the case, but what is made up is the construct, not the thing to which it applies. The social construct allows us to communicate better and model our world better in our minds. It is the social construct we menipulate in our brains, that construct can be an close analogy, a partial analogy or lose analogy or entirely without parallel to parts of the physical reality we can observe and menipulate.
I think there is a tendency to connect “social construct” with made up, which is the case, but what is made up is the construct, not the thing to which it applies. The social construct allows us to communicate better and model our world better in our minds. It is the social construct we menipulate in our brains, that construct can be an close analogy, a partial analogy or lose analogy or entirely without parallel to parts of the physical reality we can observe and menipulate.
