Nothing we know is truly independent of context

Recently, I read a sentance written by Laren, Ellen J. Langer, psychology professor at Harvard University in an article available at [1]. The sentence is: "Nothing we know is truly independent of context". The more I went through it, the more interesting it became. As a result, I decided to share it through my blog. I hope you will enjoy reading this blog post.

What we learned in our school mathematics is that 1 plus 1 make 2. I stored this statement in my mind as an axiom. But once I read the article, I don't keep this statement as an axiom without a context. In orther words, I don't believe that one plus one make two in all of the cases. As an example, 1 plus 1 make two in base-10 systems. However, if the base is other than 10, then the statement is not true. For example, 1 plus 1 in base-16 make 32 in base-10 system.

There is another example that helps to understand the sentence more easily. One cup plus one cup doesn't always equal two cups. For example, mixing one cup of vinegar with a cup of baking soda solution creates a mixture of less than two cups as some of the molecules combine and form gas and release to air.

From these examples, we can clearly say that a fact is always associated with contexts. Without it, the fact wouldn't be correct. We have seen that one plus one equal two is true for some contexts and false for some other contexts. Thus, there is no such a wrong answer irrespective of context. Hence Laren's sentence "Nothing we know is truely independent of context" is perfectly reasonable.

References:

[1] When 1 and 1 Are Not 2, Harvard University. Last accessed on July 26,2009 in

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/01.16/When1and1AreNot.html.