Where do basic concepts come from?

Question:From interaction with and apprehension of our particular geospatial orb.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: From interaction with and apprehension of our particular geospatial orb.

I believe that basic concepts are learned from our environment and that we are at first enveloped in total and utter utopia. Then as we get older, we are slowly conditioned into thinking that this world is a terrible place and that it would be better off destroyed.

Basic concepts are formed after man experiences it.
I believe that, like St. Thomas, nothing in th mind comes without passing through the senses.

Those basic concepts are called 'universals.'
"According to Aristotle, that which by its nature is fit to be predicated of many."
http://www.ditext.com/runes/u.html

Aristotle like to use the word "table" to demonstrate this. "Table" means anything that has a flat surface and legs to hold it up. That is universal. But the opposite is "particulars", so a particular table could be a coffee table, a pool table, etc.

That is very generalized idea of "universals." When it comes to such things as "being," and "becoming," and "ethics," the concept is the same, but of course the subjects get harder to understand.

"Let us now examine the process of forming the simplest concept, the concept of a single attribute [ ]—for instance, the concept "length." If a child considers a match, a pencil and a stick, he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. The difference is one of measurement. In order to form the concept "length," the child's mind retains the attribute and omits its particular measurements. Or, more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: "Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity."

"The child does not think in such words (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly. "
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 12