glyph 584: learning, perception, novelty, emergent conjecture ... Michael Strong, F. A. Hayek, Socrates ... pedagogy ... philosophy, epistemology ... psychology

The fact that we don't know what we don't know has been a paradox from the time of Socrates. It has not been adequately appreciated that, for Socrates, that paradox was the impetus for developing new understandings.

Hayek adds to this paradox by providing a plausible empirical model for how we gain understanding: our brain is actually re-wired to create new perceptions and concepts when we acknowledge inconsistencies in our experience or thoughts and then create new perceptions and concepts to reconcile those inconsistencies (The 'Socratic method,' properly understood, is a matter of bringing inconsistencies to light - and therefore enabling Hayekian creativity).

Hayek provides a coherent account of novel perception that includes:

• How our intellectual and perceptual categories tend towards homeostasis and thus prevent the casual recognition of novelty.
• How a commitment to intellectual consistency, either on an individual or a social basis, can lead to recognitions of gaps in the consistency of our thought and thus to new insights.
• Why therefore it is important to allow non-expert individuals to engage in activities in which they might discover new phenomena that cannot be adequately accounted for by the existing perceptions and conceptual categories of the experts.
• Why competing organizations, rather than monopolistic government-sanctioned organizations, are therefore the best means of structuring society if we care about the creative advance of society.

Of practical import is the consequence of learning Hayekian theory: i.e., incorporating a Hayekian perceptual frame into the way in which one views the world. I will try to articulate a few of the consequence of incorporating such a frame in the remainder of this paper.

The complete paper: Perceptual Salience and the Creative Powers of a Free Civilization

https://explorersfoundation.org/glyphery/584.html
November 3, 2017; edited/updated July 15, 2020