Mt Rainier

Mt Rainier
Mt Rainier

Friday, January 8, 2010

The Fog of Concept (or the Concept of Fog)


Concepts, thoughts, and ideas are mental constructs. They are expressed in our environment in a myriad of ways. A concept evokes perceptions and aids internal processes in forward thinking risk assessment.


Two or more separate concepts may be associated with the same name. This can cause confusion if we are trying to draw an association with one particular concept. Disambiguation exists to solve this confusion. For example, the concept “orange” can refer to the fruit or to the color. Disambiguation would ask for clarification as to which was meant.


Concepts can have expression in the physical and mental spheres. An example is the concept of fog. The image I show was taken near Cayuse Pass, Mt Rainier National Park in the mid morning. Fog is a cloud at ground level. The temperature is sufficiently close to the dew point such that moisture has condensed into droplets impeding visibility.


The image shows little except fog and the road and the ghost of a motorcyclist. It gives the companion senses of risk, lack of visibility and the unknown.


On the other side of the mental/physical construct we have the mental fog -- a state of mental confusion or awareness. We are surrounded by too many options but cannot choose between them. They are too complicated, and the weighting of options present nearly equal risks and rewards that confound us. We are stuck going backwards and forwards. We have lost our sense of direction.


The motorcyclist in the image has made a conscious decision to continue into the (physical) fog. He will have used risk assessment to decide whether to continue into the fog based on experiences which are different than those of others. Thus we see that concepts are experienced in different ways by different people, with different outcomes.

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