I like to re-use older threads, but the Rationalist thread is full of bad karma, so I am creating a new one for this topic.
But no one pays attention to the pre socratics these days.
Not quite true: Among other things, some pre-Socratic Greek Stoics did creditable work on what we now call the sentential calculus; that the logic of the syllogism eclipsed it is a fact of history that I think retarded both science and logic/mathematics…
Disregarding the ahistoricity of the view that there were any Stoics before Socrates, what makes the syllogism inferior and the propositional calculus superior? Specifically and at length please. And in your own words, no links to external writers thankyouverymuch.
Or, since the argument from authority seems to be inevitable for you, let's try this way too:
(Yes, I do think that the "modern" first-order predicate calculus should have been recognized and formalized in the Middle Ages. Instead, we had to wait until 1879… :) )(Popper himself said this (http://cscs.res.in/dataarchive/textfiles/textfile.2010-08-25.9419571534/file).*)
In a few summarising sentences, what did Popper say as per you? And why should the first-order predicate calculus have been invented in the middle ages? What seemed to be leading up to it? What necessitated it? Or what would have been the benefits, had it been invented?
(Mind you, in my native language it's a strict impossibility to use "invent" in this way. Logic and its glory can only be a discovery, not invention. To speak of invention here is like saying that Columbus invented America.)
Do numbers "exist" before they are constructed? Was the square root of two (or negative one) an entity before someone considered them?
Consider π: We do really know that it is an irrational and transcendental number. (Don't we?) And that it is merely the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter… (Not an unusual nor certainly bizarre notion!) Why is it thus?
It's to do with the nature of things. The ratio of the circumference to the diameter is what it is independent of your opinion. It also stays as it is regardless of your inventions, reinventions and attempts to improve it.
Have you recanted your belief in Platonic ideas, and accepted the Nominalism of common sense? :)
Can you state the basic tenets of Nominalism and explain in a few words why it's better than Platonic ideas? Then I will follow up with questions how and why nominalism should be regarded as common sense.
You've tasked me severely,
ersi! :) And insulted me and my intelligence a few times along the way, all in one post… Still, I'll make the attempt. It will be by fits and starts, as the mood strikes me, as my schedule permits. (And, well you should know, I'm apt to edit -specially by addition- at any time everything I write.)
Okay with you? :)
To begin with: Did you never wonder why I rejected the work of Algazel you steered me to? All his arguments stopped at his dogmatic Islam, and -for him- to question or contradict Islam was proof of error.
Not much there, for me, unless I was willing to join up! I wasn't. I'm still not.
I don't accept that kind of Authority…
So, here we go:
what makes the syllogism inferior and the propositional calculus superior? Specifically and at length please. And in your own words, no links to external writers thankyouverymuch.
A combinatorial formulation of generality with the sentence connectives was unnecessary: The few (valid) modes of the syllogism were idolized as the epitome of logic…suitable for doctrinal squabbles, from received dogma; but not much else.
The focus on the terms of the syllogistic culminated in what I'd call "the logical suppositories"… But the silliness of
existential import was already enough to beg for a better formalism!
(I suspect you'll dislike "my own words" but, then, you asked for them… :) )
The predicate calculus was that better formalism.
Oak, maybe you need this ?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/201406/how-spot-and-stop-manipulators
IMHO , for this case Satire is better than explanation .
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You've tasked me severely, ersi! :) And insulted me and my intelligence a few times along the way, all in one post…
You welcome.
To begin with: Did you never wonder why I rejected the work of Algazel you steered me to?
No, I never wondered, because the answer is easily found. There are only two viable explanations: Either you have a different formal logic which is more suitable for your temperament or you don't have logic at all, even though you pretend to have it. The latter option always seemed more likely. Take it as an insult if you wish, but the post you provided right now confirmed my hunch once again, as I kindly explain below.
All his arguments stopped at his dogmatic Islam, and -for him- to question or contradict Islam was proof of error.
Not much there, for me, unless I was willing to join up! I wasn't. I'm still not.
I don't accept that kind of Authority…
I view philosophy strictly as a formal system. The terms within the system are merely indicative. Essentially it doesn't matter what the terms are. What matters is their mutual consistency and coherence. I surrender to the authority of coherence. Al-Ghazali represents the same view for me. The fact that he praises Islam at every turn is just a superficial issue. If you cannot bite through the surface, then true philosophy is probably not for you.
So, here we go:
what makes the syllogism inferior and the propositional calculus superior? Specifically and at length please. And in your own words, no links to external writers thankyouverymuch.
A combinatorial formulation of generality with the sentence connectives was unnecessary: The few (valid) modes of the syllogism were idolized as the epitome of logic…suitable for doctrinal squabbles, from received dogma; but not much else.
The focus on the terms of the syllogistic culminated in what I'd call "the logical suppositories"… But the silliness of existential import was already enough to beg for a better formalism!
(I suspect you'll dislike "my own words" but, then, you asked for them… :) )
The predicate calculus was that better formalism.
The question remains: How is the predicate calculus better? You attack the syllogism, but you are not providing an alternative, and you are not revealing why you opt for the alternative.
To me it looks like your attack is a thinly veiled satire of the institutional history of Aristotelianism, as it occurred amidst European Medieval theologians, instead of a properly critical analysis of the syllogistic logic that Aristotle formalised. Try again, please.
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Donc, Il doit existre!!
Respondez, Monsieur!
:)
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Donc, Il doit existre!!
Respondez, Monsieur!
:)
+!&**#(**)!
:drunk:
All my previous questions stand as long as you haven't answered. And here's some more.
To begin with: Did you never wonder why I rejected the work of Algazel you steered me to? All his arguments stopped at his dogmatic Islam, and -for him- to question or contradict Islam was proof of error.
This begs the question: What is the purpose of logic for you?
For me the purpose is exactly the clear standard of proof. Proof of error and correctness is the purpose of logic.
For example, 2+2=4 is not just a random statement among others. It's a mathematical statement standing as true based on mathematical proof (i.e. the statement is systemically coherent). If someone asserted that 2+2=5 and that this supposedly lends support to some other statements, then there's no way to think that we might be witnessing some amazing scientific breakthrough. Instead, we have absolutely certain proof that he is talking BS.
The meaning and value of 2+2=4 is universal, even though the statement would look different when written in a different writing system. Similarly, Islam in Ghazali's writings is just a notation system, whereas the underlying logic is universal. Superficially he is writing about Allah and quoting Koran, but this can be viewed as a formal tool to illustrate the nature of deductive proof.
Some kind of terms or tools are necessary to provide the lesson and to convey the teaching. As Belfrager demonstrated, the notation system can consist of symbolic marks, but in Ghazali's case, the terms found in Koran serve the purpose.
It's particularly evident in "The Just Balance" how Ghazali interprets select verses as expandable to complete syllogisms, then he analyses the syllogisms and concludes that that's the meaning of Koran. It should go without saying that Koran is merely an instrument for a didactical purpose in this process. The purpose is to rehearse the logic, to train the mind to see the unseen, viz. the universals.
Mathematical terms work the same way, terms such as the objects of arithmetic, geometry, algebra, set theory, etc. Same again with metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, theology, ethics, and other fields of philosophy. They all consist of formal objects arranged by the same underlying logic. The common characteristic in them is internal consistency. The standard of proof is the same in all.
So, what is the purpose of logic for you? I hope you do not use it only as a handy device to howl "Foul!" on fellow beings just for occasional fun, without any further commitment.
Let's repeat the smaller questions too here for your convenience:
- What makes the syllogism inferior and the propositional calculus superior?
- Why should the first-order predicate calculus have been invented in the middle ages? What would have been the benefits?
- What does Nominalism entail that makes it superior to Platonism? What's objectionable about Platonism?
Just a little busy work for you, ersi: Kindly recast Gödel's incompleteness theorems in your preferred formalism…
I'll wait. :)
Just a little busy work for you, ersi: Kindly recast Gödel's incompleteness theorems in your preferred formalism…
I'll wait. :)
No need to wait. I have already done that, and I will demonstrate it to you at the bottom of this post.
First things first. We both know that you are not busy with work. Any thinker of your age, if he can be called a thinker, has thought things through deeply enough to be able to give, at any moment, the answers to the little baby questions I asked. We both know that the answers are not forthcoming. You hate to reveal yourself. You never put your ideas to test and you won't let anyone else do it either. As long as you haven't answered, my sad assumptions that I spelled out in the previous post in this thread stand confirmed.
Instead of thoroughly testing ideas against ideas, you like to bash other minds. I got the answer to all I wanted to know from another thread.
I long ago gave up the search for unassailable warrants.
Those who still want (! both senses !: lack and desire…) unassailable warrants mystify me! (That is, I don't understand what they want (ask) of me. Is nodding my head whenever they speak sufficient? Repeating their particular verbal formulations? Giving them access to my bank accounts? :) )
It's not mystifying at all that your hypocrisy spoils your environment, particularly when on other occasions you continue to ridicule people for their beliefs and character whenever they differ from yours. There are many explanations why this is so and should be so. For example:
Why are my personal, eccentric pronouncements not given the primacy and potency of -say- Gautama? Because no statues of me exist?
Because, according to the standard of proof, you fail. That's why Gautama stands high and you lie low.
The Mystical experience is another form of discovering
Or as Sparta so eloquently puts it: BS!
See, this is exactly what I am talking about. You are an intelligent man. You have the capacity of understanding. You know what coherence is. You know what proof is. But what do you do with all this? You don't give coherent proof of anything, you merely spew sarcastic ridicule and you think it's funny. Actually, it
is funny that you think that with this kind of attitude you should be considered equal to the Buddha, or anybody of consequence for that matter.
When you have intellect and wisdom at a workable level, the rest depends on attitude. You knew this, but you have chosen to live your life differently.
Now Gödel. To understand how to solve the seeming dilemma arising from Gödel's incompleteness theorem, you have to realise that the theorem itself is not everything. First let's clear away the fallacy of conflating the label with the thing, the description with the event, a statement about the fact with the fact. The label is one thing, the thing itself is another. Gödel's theorems apply to the formal systems, i.e. the labels and statements, not to things, events, and facts.
Given this distinction, it is evident that internal consistency is not the only basis on which to prove the validity of a formal system. Internal consistency is necessary and inevitable when you want to have a valid formal system, but there's an additional consideration which makes the system truly unshakable, namely matching it against facts. And facts are not merely physical empirical facts, but obviously also things such as mathematical objects.
Gödel's theorem applies to internal coherence of formal systems, but doesn't apply to the additional verification against facts. And naturally I consider mathematical objects as facts, whereas math as a formal system is a list of statements about those objects. Moreover, notice how Gödel was able to prove his own theorem, against the odds of the theorem.
The dilemma doesn't really exist, because Gödel's theorem is just another formal proof that has been run successfully, thus confirming the usefulness of formal proofs. Tacitly, wiser minds already knew that no set of axioms is complete in itself, and are subject to change. Why? Because any formal system is a set of statements not about itself, but about something else. The set of axioms must ultimately be chosen appropriately according to the circumstances, circumstances such as the nature of the problem in question, the capacity of the person/community confronting the problem, the language workable as the means of communication to convey the solution, etc. That's why in addition to science and math also philosophy and religion exist, to cater to all the different needs and provide all the solutions to the different problems that people confront.
Anyway, you didn't even mention any dilemma. You were probably just being irrelevant as per usual. I will be happy to be proven wrong. Maybe you assume I like to be right, but you'd have to prove that too, if you want your assumption to have proper validity. Unfortunately we have seen that proof is really not your thing. I don't like to be right in this, but I must surrender to facts.
ersi, fact and truth is different world .
sometimes , fact can blur the truth .
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So, you hope no one will notice that you made no attempt to recast Gödel's theorems in syllogistic logic? Okay.
About the rest, it's your usual mode of discourse; I'm used to it, and will treat it accordingly. But one thing you said is worthy of prompt comment:
Any thinker of your age, if he can be called a thinker, has thought things through deeply enough to be able to give, at any moment, the answers to the little baby questions I asked.
Rote is not my "thing"… What answers I've thought I had seldom stay bright! Upon further reflection, I usually feel I've failed to express my thoughts well enough or that I've let go unnoticed difficulties in their formulation that no better rendering will fix.
Over many years I've acquired some few
scruples, I should like to call them:
- Never fail to give empirical data its due.
- Use the best analytical tools available.
- Take the arguments of others at face value, and
- Seek the best interpretation of them.
I sometimes talk to children as if they were adults. Sometimes, I talk to adults as if they were children. The circumstance matters. Sometimes I talk to adults as if they were adults; I usually regret it — and they seldom appreciate it.
Your tirade did sting a little… But you might just as well have told me my nose is too big, and ugly!
What do you think of Pascal's Wager? I'll give my (almost) off-the-cuff: It's a futile gesture. Belief isn't a matter of choice… And sincerity can't be faked, if one's audience is God!
(If I'm wrong, the Creator and I will toss back a couple of cold ones before I'm sent to Hell… :) )
—————————————————
BTW: I think we can credit
Sparta's BS as meaning something like "unproved hypothetical"… Or perhaps "interesting guess" or "airy words"… What do you think,
ersi? :)
So, you hope no one will notice that you made no attempt to recast Gödel's theorems in syllogistic logic? Okay.
This is not what you asked. You asked it be recast in my preferred formalism. You only assume that I prefer Aristotelian syllogism, whereas in fact my absolute favourite never-failing system is Saussurean structuralism.
What answers I've thought I had seldom stay bright! Upon further reflection, I usually feel I've failed to express my thoughts well enough or that I've let go unnoticed difficulties in their formulation that no better rendering will fix.
This settles my curiosity for a loooong time. Thanks.
I'll consider Pascal's Wager (which seems to be yet another thing that interests you more than me) some other day.
Rest well from the hard work.
which seems to be yet another thing that interests you more than me
There you've hit upon the nub of our back-and-forth: Sometimes something you say leads me to find something which interests me… But not often.
I'm sorry that you don't much interest me. (Since that seems to offend you. Such was not my intent.) Still, that's your fault, isn't it? Perhaps it's the venue: We must converse in English, and I am more than conversant… Also, I'm "into" disputation — for what it brings out, that would otherwise remain hidden.
Likewise, I don't see why you'd find me interesting… (Either you don't understand or you won't. I'm not asking you to become my disciple!)
While you were waiting on my reply I had a house full of people (mostly, kin) whose ages ranged some three score years… I like most of them, most times; they (most of them, sometimes) like me. Most of them I've known their entire lives: I grant them attention whenever they seem to require it. The "old ones" (my cadre) only get serious or joking moments that require our shared status…
No, I wasn't "working" in the sense of being employed by another to perform tasks for pay. But your presumption is what it is; you are who you are.
And I am who I am: I'd gladly let a "great and glorious" thought escape me, to respond to the cry of a child of mine… Priorities,
ya know?
Oh! But of course you meant that Pascal's Wager seems to interest me more than it does you... Mostly un-inflected languages like English often display such ambiguity. Still, I should not have presumed the less likely meaning: But you seem to take everything so personally! :)
____________________________________________
Structuralism is not, as I understand it, a formalism of logic. I don't consider it such, and -besides you- I doubt anyone else would.
Now Gödel. To understand how to solve the seeming dilemma arising from Gödel's incompleteness theorem, [and on and on, to missing the point...]
Gödel's incompleteness theorem is itself a mathematical object! And the logistic thesis was, prior to its (the theorem's) derivation*, considered a real(izable) possibility.Alan Turing's work on the Halting Problem, similarly, reached the same conclusion: The logistic thesis is not viable._______________________________________________* I chose 'derivation' so as not offend anyone with opinions about the create/discover issue...
What do you think of Pascal's Wager? I'll give my (almost) off-the-cuff: It's a futile gesture. Belief isn't a matter of choice… And sincerity can't be faked, if one's audience is God!
As I said (and you understood in the end), the wager never attracted my interest. Pascal may have been a philosopher of some importance otherwise (I have his
Pensées on my shelf, but the book seems just a mass of random scattered notes of highly unequal value, so I won't ever bother to read it properly), but this particular bit is not his brightest moment. For me the wager does not connect at all. I am not a man of beliefs. Much less a man of just-in-case beliefs. I am a methodical problem-solver, and Pascal's Wager poses an ethical problem, exactly as you describe - sincerity cannot be faked.
The wager is a problem, not a solution. To choose to believe just in case is, as you point out, insincere, hence it won't work for sincere people. The wager seems to be meant for people of doubt, not for people of faith. Christian faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1. It is confidence (NIV) or evidence (KJV), not blind faith. The wager is for people without confidence, without capacity to secure evidence. Pascal offers them to resort to the final straw of just-in-case belief. Sad option, really.
I choose confidence in evidence over just-in-case belief any day. Works for me.
If you actually meant to ask why I am a believer, then the answer follows from above: I make sure that I know things for sure, so that I don't have to resort to beliefs. But more likely I have again answered far more than you are able to appreciate.
Structuralism is not, as I understand it, a formalism of logic. I don't consider it such, and -besides you- I doubt anyone else would.
The basic tenet of structuralism can be formulated as: Analysable reality is made of distinctions.
This is exactly how I approached the Gödel theorem issue you posed above.
Gödel's incompleteness theorem is itself a mathematical object!
This is exactly what I concluded in my analysis, unless you misread something again.
And the logistic thesis was, prior to its (the theorem's) derivation*, considered a real(izable) possibility.
Okay, so it used to be a problem somehow in historical literature. Whatever. It doesn't matter. I solved it. If certain people see no solution when they should know better, then that's their problem, not mine.
In a few summarising sentences, what did Popper say as per you?
Yes, this is fairly easy: He credited the Ionian Schools with two innovations. One,
cosmological theorizing; and, two, a disputational method -- as opposed to exegesis. And he believed (well, he
said he did...) that these two innovations were necessary for what we now call science.
On a related matter: I believe that, were it not for the historical accident of the
veneration given to Aristotelian texts upon their re-introduction to Europe (in other words, the rejection of the Ionian disputational method...), a natural extension of sentence-logic (as opposed to term-logic) involving a compatible notation for generality was easily within reach...
This is merely a counter-factual, historical argument. You yourself,
ersi, are competent to critically consider it.
Okay, so it used to be a problem somehow in historical literature. Whatever. It doesn't matter. I solved it
:) Your "proof" requires a Medieval mind-set... If it doesn't fit with "approved" texts, its details and import are negligible! Except that I think you go a bit farther: If you don't "like" it, it's unimportant...
Am I entirely wrong?
The results that Gödel proved have been important to computer science.
In a few summarising sentences, what did Popper say as per you?
Yes, this is fairly easy: He credited the Ionian Schools with two innovations. One, cosmological theorizing; and, two, a disputational method -- as opposed to exegesis. And he believed (well, he said he did...) that these two innovations were necessary for what we now call science.
Indeed, these two points seem to be necessary for academical science. However, how are they missing in the syllogism? I see now that I was perfectly right when I said you were deriding the institution and politics of medieval academia rather than the logic that the medievals used. Moreover, the syllogism is perfectly alive and well in modern debates and disputes in cosmology - as it has always been. I repeat, that's disputes, not exegesis, and cosmology, not only theology.
Okay, so it used to be a problem somehow in historical literature. Whatever. It doesn't matter. I solved it
:) Your "proof" requires a Medieval mind-set... If it doesn't fit with "approved" texts, its details and import are negligible! Except that I think you go a bit farther: If you don't "like" it, it's unimportant...
Am I entirely wrong?
Yes, I must say you are entirely wrong. First, I began this thread by remarking my opposition to argument from authority, and thus far I have not identified any approved texts. It's true that I am rejecting certain arguments of yours, but never on the grounds of argument from authority. I argue based on my own argumentation that is always in plain sight here for you. When I reject your arguments, even when I say "literature", it's not a rejection of the texts you refer to, but of arguments you say they contain. Mind you, you didn't even identify the pre-Gödelian texts or authors in question, so how could I reject them?
Edit:
Gödel's incompleteness theorem is itself a mathematical object!
This is exactly what I concluded in my analysis, unless you misread something again.
Seems that you thought your interjection proved some point of yours, or proved that I missed some important point. I have been thinking how this could be, and came up with this:
Being a nominalist, you probably assume that mathematical objects come into existence as someone writes about them. Similarly, you assume that prior to Gödel nobody had any clue of the coherence problem, i.e. the mathematically provable systemic incompleteness of axiomatics as demonstrated by Gödel. As per you, this issue became known only after Gödel had written about it and others had read his texts. You say:
And the logistic thesis was, prior to its (the theorem's) derivation*, considered a real(izable) possibility.
[...]
* I chose 'derivation' so as not offend anyone with opinions about the create/discover issue...
Except that you didn't manage to circumvent the create/discover issue.
You said "Gödel's incompleteness theorem is itself a mathematical object!" as if this proved that Gödel's theorem is NOT a statement about the mathematical object and consequently my distinction is false. This shows that you didn't grasp the distinction, and you didn't grasp it for the reason that in your view the object came into existence by means of Gödel's formulation and didn't exist prior to the formulation. Hence you still presuppose the individual creation theory of mathematical objects and didn't evade the theory despite your explicit qualifications in print.
Let me explain again how the distinction works. There are facts, such as mathematical objects, on one side, and statements about them on the other. Gödel's theorem is a mathematical object alright (even though it's not a simple object like a circle, but more like a complex object or event, but this doesn't change the nature of the distinction), but Gödel's formulation about it is a statement about the object. The object exists no matter if Gödel wrote about it or not, but Gödel's formulation is how we know what we are talking about. Got it?
Another example: When I say "dog", my word is ABOUT some dog, but the word itself is not the dog. The dog does not come into existence when I talk about it. Rather, when I mention the dog, you find out that I have discovered the dog, whereas you may have discovered the dog independently without mention. For non-nominalists, this analogy applies in case of mathematical objects equally well.
Now you must have grasped this. And feel free to elaborate on the nominalist perspective. I'm always happy to learn new fascinating stuff, if it turns out to be such.
The results that Gödel proved have been important to computer science.
And/or go ahead and elaborate on this point, how you conclude this and how it is relevant to anything.
Interlude:
OakdaleFTL said "I chose 'derivation' so as not offend anyone with opinions about the create/discover issue..."
Except that you didn't manage to circumvent the create/discover issue.
There's not really much of an "issue" is there? A proof of Fermat's Last Theorem exists, before anyone has created it, and -on your tack- the theorem was always true, even though it
might have been false?
Wouldn't you have to say that it couldn't have been false? In that case, of what matter are mathematical proofs? Are they all-but pointless exercises, only meant to convince the recalcitrant mind of that which could and
should have been
merely apprehended?
In other words, we might just as well have taken Fermat's marginalia as the theorem's warrant…
Good luck getting any mathematician to acquiesce in that method!
I have been thinking how this could be, and came up with this:
Being a nominalist, you probably assume that mathematical objects come into existence as someone writes about them. Similarly, you assume that prior to Gödel nobody had any clue of the coherence problem, i.e. the mathematically provable systemic incompleteness of axiomatics as demonstrated by Gödel. As per you, this issue became known only after Gödel had written about it and others had read his texts.
You
seem to conflate musings and (un-warranted) beliefs with proofs… Let's try a thought-experiment:
Can you
know something that isn't true?
—————————————————————————————
Let me explain again how the distinction works. There are facts, such as mathematical objects, on one side, and statements about them on the other. Gödel's theorem is a mathematical object alright […]*, but Gödel's formulation about it is a statement about the object. The object exists no matter if Gödel wrote about it or not, but Gödel's formulation is how we know what we are talking about. Got it?
Another example: When I say "dog", my word is ABOUT some dog, but the word itself is not the dog. The dog does not come into existence when I talk about it. Rather, when I mention the dog, you find out that I have discovered the dog, whereas you may have discovered the dog independently without mention. For non-nominalists, this analogy applies in case of mathematical objects equally well.
To take your second "example" first: How am I to know you are not just hallucinating, or babbling? :) I'm well aware of the distinction between use and mention; it is ancient, but much has been made of it — since Frege's formalization of quantification… (Before that, not so much; and it was -and is!- easy to forget it, when -say- using term logic.) So, when
you say "Gödel's Theorem" I can't be sure you mean by
mathematical object what I'd mean…
There's evidence against that: The theorem is indeed a
meta-mathematical object, in the sense that it has a proof (or was coherently posited so as to be capable of proof or disproof…), and it is merely talking
about some certain (! both senses !) ways of mathematical proof — namely, axiomatizations.
I'd agree that a dog is an object, in the usual sense; so is "dog"… But I wouldn't say a dog has three letters; nor would I say that that (
sic!) "dog" bites!
Further, I wouldn't say "dog" existed, before it was ever uttered (or thought, if you prefer); but that dogs likely did.
So, which is it? Is the theorem more like a dog or more like a "dog"? I'd want to argue, the latter…
It seems to me that you'd prefer to argue the former… (
Balfrager, for instance, would put the cart before the horse, er, the "dog" before the dog! In a sense, I think you would too.) Indeed, wouldn't you have to say that
2 + 2 = 5 is a mathematical object no less than
2 + 2 = 4 is, rather than simply saying that it is false?
Is then this mysterious realm of existence filled with objects each individually and indistinguishably privileged? In other words, the Is of predication is, indeed, the Is of existence…?
To elaborate (rather than just refer you to
my shelf at the Universal Library (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Library#The_universal_library_in_fiction)…), we'd likely agree that "2 + 2 = 5" is false, and that "'2 + 2 = 5' is false" is true.
What we mean by the former is that 2 + 2 does not equal 5; by the latter, the same. No? How, then, to explain the
discovery of "2 + 2 = 5"?
I'd suspect some mis-communication of the rules, first. What would you presume? (Or would you just
know? In which case,
what would you know?) BTW: IIRC, Gödel's first theorem doesn't even require that the axiomatization only include
true statements…
why should the first-order predicate calculus have been invented in the middle ages? What seemed to be leading up to it? What necessitated it? Or what would have been the benefits, had it been invented?
1. Because most of the work in logic done by some admittedly brilliant men for centuries was inconsequential! (Some people still today haven't learned the little that they presented… Ambiguity and syllogisms using classes with no members, being the most obvious difficulties.) I'd prefer the syntax of a formalization of logic to make plain or obviate most semantic impediments to reasoning correctly! But you and I have different definitions of "reasoning correctly":
I only require that one's premises require one's conclusion; from there, we can talk about the reasons for accepting or rejecting those premises. From numerous examples, I've determined that you require others to accept your premises…
2. Oops! I've just answered your other questions, too! My bad.
Without a formalism of logic that helps us to analyze terms, the "syllogizers" are often content to "spin their wheels" and, one would have thought, they'd have noticed how thread-bare their tires had become…
Didn't De Saussure argue that the meaning of particular words in particular languages were essentially arbitrary? Which is to say, your "in my native language it's a strict impossibility to use 'invent' in this way. Logic and its glory can only be a discovery, not invention" is mere ignorance or subterfuge on your part: You can't claim that the distinction is not permitted, because "your" language -so far as you know- doesn't have a ready-to-hand expression for it!
One possibility that occurs to me is that you lack access to the common store of ideas you yourself (and
Balfrager!) have posited, but not explained — to my satisfaction… So: There are ideas that you can't understand because
your language doesn't have a word for them?
How would you gain an un-impeded access? Who or what were you impeded by? And why…?
Or are you content to say
your language is best, mine inferior; hence, you don't need to understand what I'm saying to refute it?
There's a reason why most mystics are hermits…
You might as well argue that I changed your meaning by replacing your double-quote signs with single-quote signs around your
invent above… Either we are communicating, one or both of us won't, or one or both of us can't.
That, too, I find an interesting situation! One worthy of exploring…
————————————————
"There are ideas that you can't understand because
your language doesn't have a word for them?"
Alternatively, "because you don't know a word for it, the idea expressed is nonsense or wrong?" How is that explained, in terms of eternal, ideal objects that pre-exist linguistic expression?
@ersi: You might want to skim this article (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ancient/)… :)
The Stanford Encyclopedia is a fun resource! But, of course, I prefer what comes my way via whim, happenstance, and pointers from people I've actually talked to. My life and well-being are not dependent upon a philosophical "position" beyond common sense, I believe; so, I'm an unlikely candidate for any school…
A proof of Fermat's Last Theorem exists, before anyone has created it, and -on your tack- the theorem was always true, even though it might have been false?
There are two things: One thing is the theorem (as a real mathematical object regardless of formulation, i.e. purely ontological issue), the other is our knowledge about it (epistemological issue). Our determination of truth or falsity crucially depends on whether we know about the theorem and how well we know about it (i.e. purely epistemological issue). If we don't know about the theorem, it doesn't per se change anything about the ontology of the theorem. Rather, it makes the question about its truth or falsity nonsensical. When there's a part of ontology that we have no clue about, and someone asks us about its truth or falsity, then the question fails to connect for us. That's it.
Wouldn't you have to say that it couldn't have been false? In that case, of what matter are mathematical proofs? Are they all-but pointless exercises, only meant to convince the recalcitrant mind of that which could and should have been merely apprehended?
The purpose of proofs is practical. First, when your mind is sluggish with the sort of things as the theorem, you will have to clarify its truth or falsity to yourself by means of meticulous thought process, perhaps verifying on paper too, and arrive at a conclusion. This is the phase of proving it to yourself. Then, if you are an academic and your job is to present the proof you arrived at, you have to lay out the complete formulation on paper, to prove it to others too. Practical purposes, you see.
You seem to conflate musings and (un-warranted) beliefs with proofs… Let's try a thought-experiment:
Can you know something that isn't true?
Your question has at least two meanings, which itself can only happen due to conflation. You do it often. But let's try an answer in good faith.
The first meaning: There's something untrue, but I falsely believe it to be true. This would indeed be an un-warranted belief. However, due to the reality of objects of belief, any false belief can be proven wrong eventually. On the outset, all un-warranted beliefs can be avoided, or detected early enough and corrected, with a properly trained intellect that runs the process of discovery of truths smoothly and flawlessly.
The second meaning: There's something that isn't true (and/or doesn't exist?) and I know for sure that this is so. From your nominalist point of view, you probably think you are throwing a dilemma at me, because if something isn't true (and/or doesn't exist?) then how can I "know", i.e. detect? The answer is that, from the human point of view, knowledge is not existence. Knowledge is ABOUT existence. Knowledge occurs when you *wrap your mind around* something. This something exists, and when you wrap your mind around it, you acquire a mirror image of it. This mirror image in the mind is called knowledge. Like in a real mirror, the image of reality is really perceptible in the mind (by introspection) and, if the mirror (mind) is perfect, the reflection will be perfect, termed true.
Now, let's suppose there's sufficiently true knowledge of a sufficiently extensive scope in my mind this way, and that my mind reflects reality well enough. Then you throw a dubious statement at me, or a false thought enters my mind by whichever means. How do I "know" it's false? On some reflection, it doesn't fit the picture, that's how. There's already some carefully crafted picture in the mind, and if the new idea doesn't fit, it "feels" out of place and calls for examination. If the examination is honest, then I consider both the prior image and the new idea impartially and then I decide on either correction/clarification of the image or rejection of the new idea.
And the dilemma of the falsity's existence (the implicit question How can false/untrue/nonexistent things exist?) doesn't even enter the picture, because the false statement or idea is firmly on the mirror-image side of things, not on the existence side. Like in case of a real mirror, the mind-as-mirror itself exists, whereas the image in it is just a reflection. The image is perceptible, but not real the way the reflected existence is. Got it?
So, which is it? Is the theorem more like a dog or more like a "dog"? I'd want to argue, the latter…
To me it's a false dichotomy. E.g. 1 is neither purely the digit nor purely the intended meaning of the digit. When arguing which one is really there, then the realist argument goes that if there's no reality corresponding to the digit, then the digit can only be meaningless, in which case the digit may be there, detectable and visible, but without the meaning it has no value. From the digit alone, without any context, you don't know if to interpret it as "one" or "I", a misprint or a random unintended scratch on paper, or avoid any interpretation altogether. Yet, inasmuch as the digit has a meaning, there's a corresponding reality to which the digit refers to. And any reality, meaningfully defined, stays real regardless if we mention it or not.
In conclusion, from the realist perspective, the bigger reality is on the meaning side, not on the statement side. To make the mirror analogy again: Language, statements, formulations is not the reality, but a reflection of reality.
You could say that there's an enormous practical task of matching language with reality to be done individually, but, to be really realistic and practical, let's consider the vocabulary, syntax, and semantics of any given language that we grew up with as possibly being about reality. Our language mostly works and gets us through life well enough, and it's wrong (i.e. in need of correction) only inasmuch as inconsistencies are revealed. Then again, unworkable conclusions of the analysis, e.g. proposed deletion of whole word classes, such as adjectives, is a practical inconsistency itself, impairing communication which is the true purpose of language, and therefore such conclusions must be considered self-defeating wrong results, themselves in need of correction and subject to further checking against reality. The realist perspective naturally states that the tabula rasa thesis is false, unworkable.
Indeed, wouldn't you have to say that 2 + 2 = 5 is a mathematical object no less than 2 + 2 = 4 is, rather than simply saying that it is false?
Once again, let's draw the distinctions. 2+2=5 and 2+2=4 may be perfectly equal when considered without their meanings, as mere scribble on paper. But when considered against their meanings, then it can be seen (and proven) that 2+2=4 makes sense and has a true meaning, i.e. it has its context, it's in harmony with the rest of arithmetics, whereas 2+2=5, considered with its possible meaning, can be seen (and proven) to have no meaning, no purpose. Further, to keep asserting 2+2=5 alongside with 2+2=4 leads to inconsistency, and the acceptance of 2+2=5 by some individual will create REAL confusion in the mind of the individual, until rectified. It will be an extremely lucky individual who believes 2+2=5 but NEVER lands in a situation where he has to make use of the knowledge and is proven wrong. Extremely lucky and extremely unlikely.
Knowledge is no mystery at all. Ignorance is a bit of a mystery, but becomes manageable as soon as you affirm and confirm the existence of your own mind and make the effort to observe its workings. Ignorance is imperfections in the mind. False statements, doubts, dilemmas, etc. are real imperfections in the mind which is intended to be the reflector of reality. A bad mirror reflects badly and may show things that are not there. The cure to this is honest and careful self-correction.
Is then this mysterious realm of existence filled with objects each individually and indistinguishably privileged? In other words, the Is of predication is, indeed, the Is of existence…?
It's the Is of reflection. The reflector is real. And the mirror image is perceptible, i.e. real enough to be reckoned with. It's not real in the same sense as existence, but real enough for practical purposes, because without it you'd have a blank mind, you wouldn't function in the society, i.e. you wouldn't exist for practical purposes.
Ever walked into a huge glass door thinking that nothing is there? Or into a mirror thinking it's the door to another room? Mirrors and glasses are no joke, I'm telling you, if by some miracle you haven't found this out already.
To elaborate (rather than just refer you to my shelf at the Universal Library (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Library#The_universal_library_in_fiction)…), we'd likely agree that "2 + 2 = 5" is false, and that "'2 + 2 = 5' is false" is true.
What we mean by the former is that 2 + 2 does not equal 5; by the latter, the same. No? How, then, to explain the discovery of "2 + 2 = 5"?
Let's go over the distinction again. There are two statements:
A. 2+2=5
B. '2+2=5' is false.
As scribble on paper or as bits on the interwebz, both A and B are statements on a par. But when considered against their meanings - which for you seems to be embedded in and inseparable from the statements, but to me is easily separable for analysis - one of these "makes sense", "rings true", "matches the facts" or such, whereas the other doesn't. And that's all there is to truth: It makes sense in analysis so solidly that it can be determined to fit reality.
One more analogy to demonstrate how meaning is analytically separable. Consider two paper labels. On one it says CAT, on the other it says DOG. So, we have two labels:
A. CAT
B. DOG
On the face of it, which one is true and which one is false? The truth/falsity doesn't even enter the picture! The question is nonsensical! This holds both with your A and B above, and my A and B here. The truth/falsity enters the picture only against further context.
Now the further context. Let's say there's a dog in the lab where we are doing our experiment with the paper labels. Since we are dealing with paper labels here, we can with equal ease attach either label on the dog. Finally, placed on the dog, the label CAT (given that our language is English) can be said to be false, whereas the label DOG is said to be true.
Similarly, even your "'2+2=5' is false" has zero truth value as long as it has not been matched against an analytically separable reality. If you are not able to analytically consider that reality, it is, from realist perspective, a REAL defect of your intellect, namely a lack of analytical skills.
Metaphysical realism leads to the commitment of psychological realism. I take this commitment seriously. Evidently you (that's you, Oakdale) hate this kind of commitment, so you prefer to fool around with other kinds of metaphysics with near-complete lack of commitment, more suitable to your character.
--------
Thanks for some explanation of the way logic works for you. Let's go over that too.
I only require that one's premises require one's conclusion; from there, we can talk about the reasons for accepting or rejecting those premises. From numerous examples, I've determined that you require others to accept your premises…
Actually, it's the same for both of us. You are simply too prejudiced. Here's how:
The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. If the premises are committal (i.e. the premises are conclusions of separate autonomous syllogisms), then so is the conclusion.
You can find me saying here that I am not here to convince anyone. I am here merely demonstrating on what grounds I adhere to what I adhere to.
It's true that I adhere to my conclusions based on the premises I hold. At the same time, I realise that someone else may hold completely different premises. Would you say I am enforcing my premises on you or rather that I am explaining my premises to you? At no point do I demand you accept my premises. I only lay them out for you, while at the same time I go through the work of identifying your premises, inasmuch as you fail to lay them out of your own accord.
I am ready to reconsider my premises as soon as better premises are provided, but this *requires* that you explicitly lay your premises out for comparison and critical scrutiny. Same as you, I am not accepting anything uncritically and won't reconsider anything uncritically either. It's just common sense.
Didn't De Saussure argue that the meaning of particular words in particular languages were essentially arbitrary?
Arbitrary doesn't mean the same as random or inconsequential. Language is a
formal system. On one hand it's formal, i.e. its components are a mere formality, but on the other it's a system, i.e. the components must be ordered systematically, coherently, in a structured way. Hence structuralism. It's a completely analytical philosophy.
In a very broad sense it essentially doesn't matter if the dog is called "dog", "Hund", "chien", or whatever, but the word in question becomes relevant as soon as you consider the rest of the vocabulary, phonology, morphology, orthography, etc. in the language. When you consider language as such (like Kant's Ding an sich), the particular word is just a symbolic notation replaceable with anything, but as soon as you enter the level of particular languages, say English, it makes a crucial difference if you say "dog" or "chien".
Here's what Saussure actually meant. Over generations, words change shape, particularly pronunciation changes, and semantic shifts occur in any particular language and in this sense the relationship of a word and its meaning is arbitrary, because the shape of the word itself is ultimately arbitrary. This is called the diachronic (historical) dimension of language. However, whenever you speak to someone else, you are employing the synchronic dimesion of the language, using it as a means of communication with the current and immediately adjacent generations, in which case it makes quite a difference whether you utter "dog" or "chien" or something in between.
So, your problem is focusing on *arbitrary*, forgetting how it works in the system. You get attached to isolated words, forgetting what they mean in context. When you deliberately toy this way with language long enough, it may result (I'd say has already resulted) in lack of structured and methodical thinking.
Consequently, this -
Which is to say, your "in my native language it's a strict impossibility to use 'invent' in this way. Logic and its glory can only be a discovery, not invention" is mere ignorance or subterfuge on your part: You can't claim that the distinction is not permitted, because "your" language -so far as you know- doesn't have a ready-to-hand expression for it!
- doesn't follow.
How would you gain an un-impeded access [to knowledge]? Who or what were you impeded by? And why…?
How to gain access? Practise methodical thinking. Know that the way you think has a real effect on your mind. The mind is real, knowledge is its real content, and the existence of that about which your knowledge is is also real.
Or are you content to say your language is best, mine inferior;
Wrong can be proven wrong. Wrong occurs in case of inferior thinking. Edit: It's not the language per se which is wrong. It's the way you use it. Just like food in itself is neither good or bad, but overeating or malnutrition make the difference.
hence, you don't need to understand what I'm saying to refute it?
When you can't explain what you're saying, it's its own self-refutation.
There's a reason why most mystics are hermits…
Indeed, because knowledge is ultimately about what's really there, not about what can be argued to be there. Ultimate knowledge is a strictly individual quest.
Alternatively, "because you don't know a word for it, the idea expressed is nonsense or wrong?" How is that explained, in terms of eternal, ideal objects that pre-exist linguistic expression?
Nobody's a tabula rasa. There's always something pre-existing in the image of the mind, and the new concept looks for its place somewhere and it can fit appropriately, making the mind with its images a better navigation tool in reality - or it can be proven inappropriate.
From the point of view of the individual, knowledge is a dynamic process. Since I don't have the same prejudices against the syllogism as you, I am able to learn by means of them. Structuralism provides a much deeper and flexible insight, but you have not even grasped the significance of the syllogism yet. Marred by prejudice against the syllogism as it is, your exposition of sentential logic unfortunately didn't come across as much of an exposition. Perhaps you can try again - on your own, not by making me read stuff that may be interesting, but don't really contribute to the discussion.
So:
Now there's a mirror-reality that "reflects" the
real reality. It's objects,
reflections, are sometimes
almost as real as the
real reality; but sometimes the
mirror is just an analogy... One compares what one sees in the mirror with what one sees in reality and, if the objects compared are similar, congruent or otherwise
good reflections (simpatico?), then we've correctly apprehended the
real reality?
Except, perhaps, when the mirror is only an analogy...
How does one see this interior mirror, let alone see in it? Of course, "see" is just an analogy? No light needed, but there's likely an inner eye... Really real objects shine! Is that it?
You've done an admirable job of explaining -to yourself- why and how your system is consistent, using the tools of ambiguity and unwarranted reification... That is, the terms you accept into your premises are necessary to your system but their justification is precisely and only such necessity: Coherence. But because of how you'd use them their meanings shift about, will-he, nil-he: So, your system's coherence is an illusion.
However satisfying it may be, as a tool or physic to quiet your mind, it is not knowledge but belief... And, as such, capable of easy and telling criticism and incapable of adequate defense.
But surely you know this!
(I'm sorry this seems so negative... I tired of marking the many words whose meanings vacillated, so it could have been worse! :) But I don't expect you to be much bothered by it: You have a closed, incoherent system that satisfies you somehow, and -as you said- you won't reject it until and unless you are presented with another that you're convinced is better... That is, one that provides the same satisfactions. Put plainly: You prefer the error you know to a pursuit of a piece-meal truth.)
Nobody's a tabula rasa. There's always something pre-existing in the image of the mind, and the new concept looks for its place somewhere and it can fit appropriately, making the mind with its images a better navigation tool in reality - or it can be proven inappropriate.
I'd agree with the first sentence. But, as usual, you have images, ambulatory and discriminating concepts; or inappropriate ones that play you false, pigeon holes ready made, and an "outside" reality -- how exactly do you justify that?
No, never mind: Unless your answer is
It just is! you'd have problems with your system, beyond those that you already ignore. And if that is your answer, you haven't offered one, really.
Ohm!
You've done an admirable job of explaining -to yourself- why and how your system is consistent, using the tools of ambiguity and unwarranted reification... That is, the terms you accept into your premises are necessary to your system but their justification is precisely and only such necessity: Coherence. But because of how you'd use them their meanings shift about, will-he, nil-he: So, your system's coherence is an illusion.
He smashed your argumentation entirely Oakdale. Simple as that.
I admire his patience as well as his methodical reasoning in order to do such a crystal clear formulation.
Congratulations, ersi. That was an extraordinary post.
Pay attention, gentlemen, Oakdale's not beaten. He just started the last round with a French Savate technique, "
Now there's a mirror-reality that "reflects" the real reality"... how will ersi react to that? another series of demolishing jabs? :)
Stay tuned... this is a heavy weight combat brought to you by DnD. :)
This is jousting, play in the form of combat... :) If for no other reason than that I can't maintain ersi's level of seeming-seriousness! No harm is intended, and if any occurs it should be reckoned accidental and incidental.
But, yes, one must admire ersi persistence! (Even upon being "reminded" that he's forgotten his horse, he perseveres. On with the joust!)
Thanks for the emotional support, Befrager. Nice to know that someone else is also reading my posts besides, hmm, me :)
Despite all of his lack of substance otherwise, Oakdale hit one nail on the head. Namely, the metaphysics as I laid it out requires the concept of *degrees of reality* and not everyone is able to stomach this. Oakdale identified this point, correctly (standing ovations), so I'm going to elaborate on it, even though nobody asked me to. (If you already have mental indigestion, Oakdale, then stop reading now.)
I maintain that the concept of degrees of reality is sufficiently represented in common-sense experience, so anyone can get accustomed to it. One easy example is again the mirror. The reflection in a good mirror may easily be confused with reality. So, from the point of view of perception, the mirror image is real (or, more accurately, real enough), but when one approaches the image with the intention of doing with it what one would do with the real thing, the nature of the illusion is uncovered.
Now, careless thinkers off-handedly equate "illusion" with "unreal", but on metaphysical realism (as opposed to nominalism), illusion is real enough. The technical term is *relative reality*. Some common-sense examples how illusion is real enough are memory, night-dream, imagination, hallucination, visualisation, etc. Some of these are are so-called normal psychological functions while others are pathological, but they all serve to exemplify the point. Also some physical phenomena, such as rainbow and hologram, go to exemplify the same point.
For example, night-dream may bring to us images of nightmare which results in real fear and corresponding physiological effects, such as sweat, trembling, etc. In the name of consistency, it makes sense to acknowledge that since the effects (fear and sweat) are real, the cause (the contents of the dream) is also real. Obviously, the contents of the dream is not physically real, but since the effects are undeniably real, it's consistent to say the dream is also real. Hence psychological reality is a form of reality. It's less tangible and more elusive than the physical reality, but in dreams we undeniably experience the connection of these two relative realities, the dream world and the physical world.
The physical world is also a relative reality, not ultimate, because things in the physical world are limited in various ways, such as size, life span, and horizon of perception. On the concept of degrees of reality, temporary fleeting things are less real, so to say, whereas eternal things are more real. The physical world is basically as unreliable as the dream world. When one wakes up, the dream world ceases and the physical world begins, and when one goes to sleep, the physical world ceases and the dream world begins. Hence these two worlds mutually delimit each other as relatively real.
Then there's also the ultimate reality, which relates to relative reality like temperature relates to cold and warm, or like density relates to gaseous, liquid, and solid objects. One is universal, omnipresent, and the other is as if different modes of the universal. (I'd probably need to elaborate further on ultimate reality in order to not appear a Spinozan or Berkeleyan, but this is already more than enough to a hostile audience.)
How does one see this interior mirror, let alone see in it? Of course, "see" is just an analogy? No light needed, but there's likely an inner eye... Really real objects shine! Is that it?
[...]
However satisfying it may be, as a tool or physic to quiet your mind, it is not knowledge but belief...
Introspection, mind, self-reflection, and even soul are standard concepts in psychology. If you deny this, you are making two errors. One is the error of denying ordinary everyday science that performs an officially authorised function in the society. The other, more serious error, is denying your own mind along with any possibility of rationality and intellect. Why should anyone listen to some self-admitted irrational mindless rambler?
Here's a hint on how to perceive the mind: Anything you think, it's your mind that is doing it! The mind is the thinker, observer, perceiver. Probably you acknowledge that you are reading some text in front of you, but who is reading and understanding? The mind. If the text is real, then so is the mind, because your experience of perception is real, continuous, ongoing, and the mind is the logically necessary precondition to this experience.
Another hint: Thoughts and emotions are (psychologically, inevitably) real. Observation of one's own thoughts is observation of the mind. Too bad for you that the mind is not a physical entity and that you cannot read the minds of others, but it's better to put an end to the reductionist perspective rather sooner than later.
But, as usual, you have images, ambulatory and discriminating concepts; or inappropriate ones that play you false, pigeon holes ready made, and an "outside" reality -- how exactly do you justify that?
No, never mind: Unless your answer is It just is! you'd have problems with your system, beyond those that you already ignore. And if that is your answer, you haven't offered one, really.
Ohm!
Let's get a tiny little fact straight. Given how hostile you are, I naturally have NOT laid out even half of the things I know (or, from your perspective, believe in). Even so, I have opened up - and consequently made myself vulnerable to attack - massively more than you have. All you do in return is criticise and ridicule me while you keep your own system conveniently hidden. By now I know the reason too:
My life and well-being are not dependent upon a philosophical "position" beyond common sense, I believe; so, I'm an unlikely candidate for any school…
So, you take pride in having no system, and playing the game "you can't put me in any of your boxes! neener! neener!" - which of course puts you in the inconsistent-incoherent-irrational box, for the time being. You are a smart man. You can climb out of it any time you choose.
ersi:
I am truly sorry that you take these little back-and-forths so personally. And I am grateful for your "opening up"... I appreciate your position much better today than I did even just yesterday. (But I never presumed that others, more likely to benefit from your posts than I, were not always somewhat interested; and now, since you're being more forthcoming, their interest should grow!) You are, of course, correct in charging that I have no "grand system" to offer... If that means your utter lack of interest (in what I do believe, and why), sobeit. And if you think that fact disqualifies me as a critic, sobeit.
I can no more profess or proffer such, for your critical attention, than I can accept Pascal's Wager: I'd not be that insincere and I'm not afraid of the Mobs.
An interlude from Far Afield (of ersi, and Belfrager… But "close to home" for me, given my age and education) — which can arguably be blamed on our host, Frenzie [Yes, he thought of that handle's connotations in many languages before he committed himself on-line to it! Or -once again- serendipity has triumphed!] for pointing me to the site… :) Read Smell All About It! (http://www.consciousentities.com/?p=1666)
Social structures are still not well understood. And I think Burke (and later Oakeshott) came closest to capturing the West's (or England's and America's) essential urges toward conservatism…which I can't help but recognize and applaud.
Is this assumption "safe": Belfrager, ersi and I are all considered "conservative" by the others here? :) __________________
Similarly (with analyses of social structers…), the heap paradox doesn't puzzle most people. I could easily and reasonably leave to ersi the explication of this paradox's misunderstandings… What I'd say and what he'd say might be incompatible; but we'd make the same point by similar means:
A heap is not a definite, specifically quantified or quantifiable entity… (I hope we'd agree): In much the same way as (aleph-null)-1 = aleph-null, a heap of sand minus a grain of sand is still a heap. The difference being the obviously finite multitudes consisting of heaps and no-longer heaps…
(Obviously, the bolded "-1" above is -at least- ambiguous… But bear with me:)
We're no longer dealing with (in terms of) only one definition: We're crossing boundaries of meaning, in the most obvious of ways.
The speaker of language A who says "This is a heap" who contradicts the speaker of language B who says "No, it isn't" must be confused… The application and use of such terms don't permit such fine distinctions; the mystery, the paradox, is entirely due to the mis-use of a common language.
That is, that they mis-understand each other.
ersi recently said something like "I'd beat you about the head and ears, were I not so nice!" I didn't react to his statement, because I am also male: Whether it's testosterone (or anything else), I am familiar with that reaction. (I've had it, myself!) I've sometimes felt similar inclinations!
But it's his intellect I'd engage, not his armament or physical prowess.
And if he kills me, even on his own theories, my posits and arguments will persist…since they always were! So, I've no fear of that.
I'd ascend (or descend, as others' metaphysics prefer) to the merely verbal communication of such facts: When vagueness is "built into" the definition of a term (…not necessarily a defect!), the point of specification is beside the point! Only metaphysicians and anti-metaphysicians find a cause for argument: Everyone else easily makes understanding the metric and meaning of such scales…
[I'm tired, and drunk! I need sleep…]
Similarly (with analyses of social structers…), the heap paradox doesn't puzzle most people. I could easily and reasonably leave to ersi the explication of this paradox's misunderstandings… What I'd say and what he'd say might be incompatible; but we'd make the same point by similar means:
[...]
We're no longer dealing with (in terms of) only one definition: We're crossing boundaries of meaning, in the most obvious of ways.
Your quantification analysis, which I omitted, made sense, but your last statement here doesn't follow nor apply. In semantics the way I studied it, there are no solid boundaries of meaning the way you seem to assume. There are two ways words acquire meanings, and the relevant way to consider now is contradistinction, e.g. the word "cold" has a meaning in contradistinction from "warm". You know very well that there is no solid boundary between the two. Cold and warm are themselves subject to the heap paradox: Where does cold end and warm begin? Given just this set of vocabulary, the answer is: Cold ends where warm begins, and warm ends where cold begins.
The speaker of language A who says "This is a heap" who contradicts the speaker of language B who says "No, it isn't" must be confused… The application and use of such terms don't permit such fine distinctions; the mystery, the paradox, is entirely due to the mis-use of a common language.
Given my own analysis, the conclusion is that the paradox is built into language. If the intention of language is to express the infinite via finite means, there's no mystery about it. It should be so and cannot be any other way.
That is, that they mis-understand each other.
In your example about speakers, they seemed to speak the same language (despite your attempts to make it appear otherwise), so how did they misunderstand each other? One took the point of view that there's a heap, the other took the point of view that there's no heap, they both expressed their point of view and got through with their respective messages. There's no misunderstanding whatsoever. Without any misunderstanding, they delivered their contrary opinions. It was just a case of disagreement among the speakers of the same language. The assumption that everybody must agree is itself a huge fallacy, possibly a variation of Nirvana Fallacy or some such.
In English, there are words for lake, sea, and ocean. In Semitic languages, there used to be just one word for those. Surely you noticed how your Bible calls on the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee seas, while on the maps they are actually average lakes. The "mysterious" reason to this is that there's a single word for it (meaning lake-sea-ocean) in Semitic languages and it was translated the same way at all times. This is the same paradox of the heap all over again, but it really becomes a paradox only by making some further distinctions, as happens in translation.
The semantic field is a continuum. Words are labels attached to different ultimately arbitrary areas of it, and arbitrarily reattacheable. To make sense of this requires methodical thinking, i.e. not to arrange your labels at random, but methodically, systematically. You may want them to stick and remain, but it's realistic to keep in mind that ultimately words are still just labels and can shift of their own accord when you are not looking, because you don't own the language.
When vagueness is "built into" the definition of a term (…not necessarily a defect!), the point of specification is beside the point!
The vagueness as you call it is there for a reason, and makes specification work in a different way. It's not exactly working the way you want it - i.e. by means of reductionism, by removing vagueness and leaving only specification - but this doesn't mean that it's not working full stop. Both vagueness and specification work just fine side by side. It works! Some are mystified by this, some puzzled and annoyed, but some can make sense of this and make rational use of what's given.
There are two ways words acquire meanings
That's just silly! There are more ways than we can count… Nobody yet has come up with an acceptable (certainly, not an unassailable)
theory of meaning!
The main thing science has (had? :) ) going for it was that it was somehow tethered to everyday experience…
Do I have to be the one to say
Oops! here? :)
——————————————————
There's a silliness essentially involved in human rationality that is pervasive, perennial and pernicious: We
need to know more than we can warrant…even to ourselves.
Am I the only one that would explore this
need, as an object worthy of study?
I don't think contemporary (or past) versions of psychology help much. Philosophy meanders, as always… Other sciences are incapable of contributing much, because they won't use reasonably justified statistical logic.
(Imagine
physics accepting the modes of justification used by sociology? :) )
——————————————————
I'm quite willing to begin with epistemology. But I not only don't require absolute surety; I reject it, as a reasonable goal… (Hence, I avoid Descarte's dualism difficulties by fiat. They're not my problem!) So:
Shall we begin again?
There are two ways words acquire meanings
That's just silly! There are more ways than we can count…
List five. Or four. Or three. Let's have a look.
Nobody yet has come up with an acceptable (certainly, not an unassailable) theory of meaning!
Apart from those used in linguistics, maybe. But those work just fine for me. I employed it in the previous post. You have not shown yet how it was unassailable.
The main thing science has (had? :) ) going for it was that it was somehow tethered to everyday experience…
Do I have to be the one to say Oops! here? :)
——————————————————
There's a silliness essentially involved in human rationality that is pervasive, perennial and pernicious: We need to know more than we can warrant…even to ourselves.
Perhaps you can reformulate this when you get sober again.
Oak , it seems you know very huge amount of Hilarious Words -- like pervasive, perennial and pernicious :eyes:
btw what is the right term n/or english for -- Knowing the right place ?
i mean something like , know where must to use physics in physics
Pyschology in Psychology
satire in satire , etc :right:
Perhaps you can reformulate this when you get sober again.
No need to wait! :)
List five.
Ostensibly. Pointing — not often a very useful tack. (What is the meaning of "is"?)
Intentionally. Recourse to "ideas" — which need, first, to be conveyed…
Synonymy. Presumes previously understood meaning, which is arrived at — how?
Definitionally. Ditto.
Mystically: You just
grok it! (You're preferred mode,
ersi? :) )
But there's more: Operationally, which is of use to science. And its bane!
Linguistics has languished, for good reason: Adequate theories are lacking. Some people seriously argue (seriously!) that Chomsky's Transformational Generative Grammar
must be wrong, because it's too hard to program a computer to use it! (Liefrink's
Semantico-Syntax has been called "pre-theoretical," and that's not the worst of it… As I'd have Logic's syntax take as much as possible of semantics, he'd have semantics permeate syntax. But our goals are likely not the same.) And philosophers vacillate between picture theories and coherence theories; the few retrograde fellows who follow Plato imagine an entirely separate realm of existence that -somehow, never quite explainably- "connects" reference and referents: Ideas, ideals; universals and abstract entities…
Want more?
Sarcastically!
Mnemonically.
Prosodically.
Preternaturally…
btw what is the right term n/or in english for -- Knowing the right place ?
"Appropriate" is the common one… But people often appropriate the appropriate word, for other uses (http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/appropriate)… :)
Please explain compound interest to an infant, and then tell it why its college fund is gone! Is that two different "definitions" of "explanation"?
it's something like - Social skills / ability to be Appropriate ( Appropriatability , Fitability ) :faint:
lemme try to describe it .
ability to know the situation , environment , nature , n/or with who we Speak and then adjust n/or react with the right manners and attitude .
yeah it's a bad description , meh .. :doh:
No, Sparta, I've never had to placate the "powers that be" — so I can, if I choose, speak my mind in whatever way amuses me! I don't feel compelled to use "appropriate" language, just to seem pleading or fawning, for those who expect their opinions to be respected — because of who they are, or who they think they are…
Here, it's just words! Slippery, slovenly, somnolent, prim, priapic, pseudoscientific, mystic, manic, myopic, moronic, meme-isms of not much meaning. In context, perhaps sometimes interesting; technical terms of science and philosophy, intermingled with the everyday and -on Sundays- poetic usages: In short, conversation from a rude, crude, semi-literate American.
Perhaps I understand what you posted from Popper (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=387.0) better than I thought I did: I have no compulsion to convince anyone, so I don't take the expected social pains to sway their opinion toward mine.
On a related matter: I don't think most people "change" their minds via argument; nor even evidence that they're wrong…
So: What were we talking about? :)
Oh, yes: ersi said "There are two ways words acquire meanings, […] contradistinction" and some other (unspecified) way… One wonders what that other way was that he had in mind?
Perhaps, by "acquire" he and I mean different things?
Oh, yes: ersi said "There are two ways words acquire meanings, […] contradistinction" and some other (unspecified) way… One wonders what that other way was that he had in mind?
Regular distinction? :P
@Sparta: perhaps the words "context" or "scope" would help.
So: What were we talking about?
of course about
Philosophy, Logic, Formal Systems .
well ..
i guess, i have difficulty with terminology , or probably lost in translation in this cross-culture communication .
i do not intend to do some
circular reasoning .
but, how your people express something like ,
--understanding the situation and condition .
--wherever earth stepped , lift the heaven there
-- adapt with the place , not change the place based on habits . ( something like Flexibility )
i/e
--it's seems not the right place to speak about Science , politics , etc in family area .
--in a thread about science , is not a good manner / attitude to red herring / hijack the topic to religion , politic , etc .
@Oakdale
Your list obviously stems from lack of rigorous theory. But it's okay, because this way you have lots of happy discoveries ahead of you.
Ostensibly. Pointing — not often a very useful tack. (What is the meaning of "is"?)
Words function by pointing to the meaning. It's a metaphor to describe how language operates. Consequently, when you say "Operationally, which is of use to science" then that's no different.
Intentionally. Recourse to "ideas" — which need, first, to be conveyed…
The ideas don't have to be conveyed. They have to be merely conceived in order to have a word to point to them. And there's no differene in pointing to a physical thing or pointing to an idea. So, pointing and "intentionally" are also the same thing. Anyway, your list lacks any common denominator or unifying theory, so it's not properly analysable.
As I'd have Logic's syntax take as much as possible of semantics, he'd have semantics permeate syntax. But our goals are likely not the same.
You want "syntax take of semantics" instead of "semantics permeate syntax"? Do you know the distinction properly? By "properly" I mean: Do you have a clear idea why you cannot have it your way? You most likely have the wrong goal altogether. To me it was clear already when you wanted to do away with vagueness and only have specificity.
And philosophers vacillate between picture theories and coherence theories; the few retrograde fellows who follow Plato imagine an entirely separate realm of existence that -somehow, never quite explainably- "connects" reference and referents: Ideas, ideals; universals and abstract entities…
There's nothing wrong with the theories when they work. The reason why they are not working for you is that you mix up the conceptual world with the physical.
Structuralist linguistics is not dead. Here's a little insight into how terminologies (I hope this counts as specificity for you) operate (http://www.ontology.buffalo.edu/concepts/ConceptsandOntologies.pdf). One of the intermediate conlusions there is that when you confuse taxonomy for ontology, you'll end up in trouble.
I am partial to the continuum theory of semantics. Semantic field is the continuum, essentially indivisible. What makes the apparent divisions is the set of vocabulary. When vocabulary is organised into syntax and subdivided into morphology, orthography, etc., it appears as if words and sentences have meanings in themselves, but this is the wrong impression. Does "I" in separation have any meaning? Without any context, can you tell if it means anything or is it a mispring or an unintended scratch on paper? Meanings only occur with reference to the indivisible semantic field. Indivisible here entails that the meanings of the words, when each word is considered in separation, are illimitable, i.e. "vague". Meanings of words are only specified via contradistinction, i.e. vis-a-vis other words.
The other way to derive meaning is the list of properties or attributes of the referent. Atomists would prefer this latter way to be the only way, but it has its problems, because it presupposes prior knowledge of the referent, which cannot always be had, and the list of properties is essentially illimitable, i.e. "vague" again.
Continuum theory or atomism - which one makes more sense?
Mod edit: fixed link.
@Oak
i guess i figured it , with lesser margin of error .
but not sure too if it is what it is . :sst:
"situational approach"
B = F ( P.E )
Behavior is the Function of Personality x Environment .
Personality theories = The Trait Approach, The Situational Approach, The Interactional Approach
to Situational approach .
it need ability to diagnose / identify the situation / environment :sherlock: , flexibility , and social skills .
know the situation , know the condition , know speak with who
then Speak with appropriate language and react with appropriate behaviour .
since , in different land there are different grasshopper , and in different lake there are different fish.
btw , this dude is fabulous .
he translate almost in the same term with what my ancestor used to say .
Understand b'cos ask to someone .
Can b'cos imitate / modelling
Smart b'cos socialize
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi62.tinypic.com%2F2myrzwx.png&hash=eff67814f979a21579c63ed120ac25ef" rel="cached" data-hash="eff67814f979a21579c63ed120ac25ef" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i62.tinypic.com/2myrzwx.png)
Continuum theory or atomism - which one makes more sense?
They both make a lot of sense. But neither makes enough sense… I don't believe I have this mania for specificity you ascribe to me; but I am certainly not so enamored of theories that lead to absurdities as you are… :)
[More, in a bit]Many years ago I was hired by the Universal Life Church to prepare for publication a great mass of sermons and other writings of the Rev. Kirby Hensley. They owned a behemoth of an electronic system, which made editing quite easy. But I soon found an insuperable problem: The text itself -the good Reverend's words- usually rambled off into disjointed nonsense, either because that's how he spoke/thought or because that's how they were transcribed...
When I asked for guidance, from some authoritative source, I was refused, and told to just "let it go" the way it was!
I told them they neither wanted nor needed an editor, showed them which buttons to push to format what they had for printing, and promptly quit their employ.
So: Was that "paper" only 12 pages long? Was it incompetently transcribed? Was it a court document obligingly prepared by a "patient" in a committal hearing?
I'd guess the latter, since it seemed to me hardly more than
word salad. And, yet, I can somehow believe that a government paid someone to write it!
Am I too cynical? :)
——————————————————————
@
mod: Thanks for fixing the link; saved me a little effort… :)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi57.tinypic.com%2F29ohour.png&hash=445add30fc75d26282d1690af8ec3f28" rel="cached" data-hash="445add30fc75d26282d1690af8ec3f28" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i57.tinypic.com/29ohour.png)
Donc, Il doit existre!!
Respondez, Monsieur!
:)
+!&**#(**)!
:drunk:
:cheers:
Continuum theory or atomism - which one makes more sense?
They both make a lot of sense. But neither makes enough sense…
Since you self-admittedly have quit trying to make sense of things, how is that a problem?
I don't believe I have this mania for specificity you ascribe to me; but I am certainly not so enamored of theories that lead to absurdities as you are… :)
Absurdities such as?
And I did not ascribe the mania for specificity to you. You demonstrated it in the post where you were trying to get rid of vagueness without taking the time to understand how semantics works. Or maybe you understand it but you just don't like how it works. Well, for everyone of us there are aspects of reality we don't like. You are not special in any way here. Like it or not, you still have to live with reality, because this is what reality means.
To me the answer to your issues is obvious. It's the underlying non-philosophy that you hold which leads you to these problems. When you don't properly believe in *meaning* in the first place, you obviously cannot make *enough* sense of things, because it's *meaning* which makes sense of things, but you don't believe in it, so you are left with "word salad" and, without a theory of semantics, you cannot properly tell if it's your own projection or not.
Your own system doesn't work (obviously, because you have no system), you are not making *enough* effort to comprehend any other system and accept a few necessary facts (such as the fact that in order to make sense of anything a system is inevitable), and then you blame other systems for not making sense. This attitude doesn't itself make sense. First, acquire yourself a system that works, so you can demonstrate how any other system doesn't work.
Am I too cynical? :)
Maybe, if you insist. But more evidently you are self-conflicted. Instead of cynicism, I detect futile whining and stubborn unwillingness to go through the necessary motions of proving any claims you have. In this case the claim that neither continuum theory or atomism make enough sense for you (how much is enough sense? what does "make sense" mean to you at all?), and absurdities where some theories lead (which theory and which absurdity?). You have to demonstrate it. Until then, you remain on the level of word salad.
PS. Right, I didn't properly close the link, but I noticed it myself and I fixed it (or thought I did) as soon as I could. Probably me and mod were doing it at the same time.
Question to the mod: Does an unclosed tag like this have an effect only to the end of the post or would it ruin the whole forum page? In the latter case some tweaking of the forum engine may be necessary...
i just wish there are upvote / downvote button in this DND .
so , i can downvote every argumentum ad hominem , aka poisoning the well .
so , i can downvote every argumentum ad hominem , aka poisoning the well .
But then others could downvote unconstructive posts that don't contribute to the topic. You see the problem? When you get to downvote, everybody will...
When you get to downvote, everybody will...
that is pretty Brutal ..
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi60.tinypic.com%2F2czvoki.jpg&hash=0b8907f3664c027692411f514f9ac064" rel="cached" data-hash="0b8907f3664c027692411f514f9ac064" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i60.tinypic.com/2czvoki.jpg)
but also interesting ...
in my perspective , that's not a big deal .
timendi causa est nescire .
i just wish there are upvote / downvote button in this DND .
Maybe tea and cucumber sandwiches should be served... We could each take a turn staying away, so the others could talk about us. :)
__________________________________________________
trying to get rid of vagueness without taking the time to understand how semantics works
If one doesn't understand..., semantics doesn't work!
One could make the term
heap a little less vague. (For example, call it a pile of like items too many to count by a glance. Most people would agree with that.) But the term is meant to be vague! I don't have a problem with such. I do have a problem with the sort of "reasoning" that then seriously asks if one, zero (or negative) items can still be a heap:
To me, that indicates a misunderstanding of the word. Or, worse, a deficient logic...
Because one
can analyze a language into syntax and semantics (some add
pragmatics -- for no good reason, I think...) doesn't mean that that language consists of such separate entities (or call them, if you wish, categories). Our theories about language are on a par with our physical theories: They treat of our experience, attempting to systematize what might very well be chaotic, stochastic or -this we hope!- law-bound.
The difficulty I often see is that we come to prefer our theories over our experience before too long. What usually happens then is that we make
ad hoc adjustments (consider the case of Ptolemaic epicycles...) to the theory, which becomes less and less reasonable.
Idiomatic speech as a lone example should suffice to convince anyone that language is not entirely law-bound; at least as far as it is creative, its uses and rules of usage are free of any static system.
i guess Jseaton is right , it's all about physics .
so the Formula is something like :
For those who understand , no explanation is needed .
For those who do not understand , no explanation is possible .
that's how to never argue with someone that just want to hear , what they want to hear .
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mememaker.net%2Fstatic%2Fimages%2Fmemes%2F3647010.jpg&hash=77b36551433978eb7217b195aca5e5a9" rel="cached" data-hash="77b36551433978eb7217b195aca5e5a9" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.mememaker.net/static/images/memes/3647010.jpg)
trying to get rid of vagueness without taking the time to understand how semantics works
If one doesn't understand..., semantics doesn't work!
Is it semantics or communication? A relevant distinction...
Because one can analyze a language into syntax and semantics (some add pragmatics -- for no good reason, I think...) doesn't mean that that language consists of such separate entities (or call them, if you wish, categories).
Whatever you call them, the problem that you see here is specifically yours. You are an atomist. You (tend to) see separate entities everywhere. For me, everything is a uniform continuum, wherein we inevitably make distinctions for our own purposes, knowingly or unknowingly, trying to make sense of things, to grasp, to communicate. I never forget the continuum, but the only way to communicate is by means of relevant distinctions.
The difficulty I often see is that we come to prefer our theories over our experience before too long.
Or reject all theories vehemently, thus ending up with no sensible experience - and complaining about it to boot.
Idiomatic speech as a lone example should suffice to convince anyone that language is not entirely law-bound; at least as far as it is creative, its uses and rules of usage are free of any static system.
Of course it's a dynamic system. Why would you want it to be static?
Language is entirely law-bound as soon as you have the right definition of law. There are no real exceptions in language, because the rule that "every rule has its exceptions" is also a law. Language is made of distinct units. They are not real in the immutable sense the way you'd like, but they are distinguishable and relevant, thus real enough for practical purposes. I am perfectly okay with the definition of reality deflated this way. Not my problem if reality refuses to play your game.
Is it semantics or communication? A relevant distinction...
I stopped right there,
ersi… If semantics is not crucial to (but
after!) communication, it is a sham!
Is it semantics or communication? A relevant distinction...
I stopped right there, ersi… If semantics is not crucial to (but after!) communication, it is a sham!
Semantics is crucial to communication. I was not saying anything about it either way.
What I was saying was the answer to the claim that semantics doesn't work. It's really communication which is not working. For example right now you read your own interpretations into my words and stopped for no good reason. It's not a problem of semantics, but of communication. Semantics is crucial to communication, but there's no problem with my semantics, and not even with yours. The problem is with (mis)interpretation, (mis)communication, (mis)representation. The mind may be clear enough, but attitude presents issues.
stopped for no good reason.
he have
ersi , pardon my porn language .
i dont give a shit .
but ..
from this thread about Philosophy, Logic, Formal Systems
what do you want exactly ?
please explain , and describe it ..
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mememaker.net%2Fstatic%2Fimages%2Fmemes%2F3647075.jpg&hash=a1440cec2df6f573e1e6dbbce42c4845" rel="cached" data-hash="a1440cec2df6f573e1e6dbbce42c4845" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.mememaker.net/static/images/memes/3647075.jpg)
Not up to me to pardon your porn language, Sparta.
Re: Language, separable into syntax and semantics — as theoretical entities or categorial constructs…
Whatever you call them, the problem that you see here is specifically yours. You are an atomist. You (tend to) see separate entities everywhere.
You (tend to)
create entities to facilitate the maintenance of your pet theories…
What, pray tell, is this "uniform continuum" you speak of? Yet another realm of existence, inhabited by "creatures" more removed from everyday experience than Plato's
ideas?
Which is my crude way of asking, Why don't you just accept the evidence as constituting your
field of study…? And, pointedly, why must you require an all-but
political hegemony among
other theorists?
I am, in fact, not happy with most theories — of anything!
When I tell a child not to attempt to cross the street unless he's holding my hand, I don't expect he understands
why: If he did, he would soon be
allowed to cross the street by himself…
(Sorry, if the example offends you; that wasn't my intent: I deal regularly nowadays with a 4- and 6-year old, and I'm old and tired! :) You already know my
mind is a severely limited organ! And I do it no favors, drinking beer whenever I can… I'm about to open my second 40 tonight -a rare occurrence!- so, you are fore-warned… Hm. Is there any other way to be
warned? What would be the point? :) )
Another example: The scientist's Cosmological Argument for the Non-Existence of God…
James pointed me to it in a related thread, and it invokes the "very best" science, from a partisan view!
He won't recognize the partisan -what's the word I want? It means "rooted in partisan rhetoric" or something like that…
He's (the author, and his ilk; because they're a clan or cabal or would-be oligarchy) seeking something… But he doesn't say what!
[I've just been informed: 4 posts have intervened, since I began "typing" — as the
bot so delicately put it! (I might have been doing any number of other things; including
thinking, but let's not go there! :) )]
Let me
post this, before the world ends! "Guys! We're trying to understand something that may be important? Or perhaps just each other? Each other's views…? (Isn't that enough?)"
Probably not. The motives of others are as mysterious as are our own.
———————————
OK. Read those 4 posts: Nothing said, that matters.
p.s.,
Sparta, are you an ineptly programmed
bot or an aptly educated
moron? :) (I'll cite sources, if I must…)
well ,
we live in the Era where people used to answer , not to understand. :drunk:
btw, Oak ..
i have a very Fabulous Question .
is in this World there are rules n/or law
that not allow anyone to not Stupid , retarded , n/or have mental illness ?
Question to the mod: Does an unclosed tag like this have an effect only to the end of the post or would it ruin the whole forum page? In the latter case some tweaking of the forum engine may be necessary...
Just the post. The engine automatically closes all unclosed elements at the end of the post, I believe.
…I won't bother to quote bits and pieces of Sparta's post: There's nothing there.
Please, whoever you are, continue taking your meds: Your ties to reality and others seem, to me, tenuous at best…
You can take me at my word, and pm or email me. I will respond. (But I've not a good "track record" — which is to say, don't bet the farm on me!) Do you suspect I can be of help?
I'm mostly an idiot when it comes to why people "lose touch" with reality. I don't "get it" and I don't know how to… But whenever I've confronted an individual — a-hem!! A person! — who asked me what I thought, I answered truthfully.
My Bad!
I don''t know enough about psychology to answer many specific questions. I do know enough to answer most general questions… (Think about that, for a while…) Why, I'd ask, do you ask me?
[I pause, because I must sleep: I'm too drunk to continue and I have things to do, but a few hours hence…]
Just a thought: The Turing Test (etc.) is supposed to determine if an AI "simulates" human intelligence, no?
Wouldn't it be more than difficult to program a machine to become -at some point- exasperated? :)
In short: If a simulacrum says "Fuck off!" it is -likely- human… Unless it was programmed to say that…at some point…
As Sparta will likely say, "Wow!" Thumbs sideways… Can we amend the forum software? :)
take your time m8 .
i am not in a hurry to get the answer .
my question is not a slippery slope , n/or another logical fallacies shitty .
and ofc , i understand if we live in different times .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
well,
it's must be annoying to answer a Question .
since in my science , afaik..
mind that full of answer , will make the feel unhappy
trying to answer will bring sensation of unhappiness , in some case exasperated
-------------------------------------------
btw how if we skip the Psyche part , and back to Logic , and philosophs ?
as we know , there are no rules n/or laws that not allow anyone to not Stupid , retard n/or have mental illness .
the vice versa should be , also there are no rules n/or law that not allow to not Smart , genius, n/or Mentally healthy .
in the other Word , it's a Choice .
isn't that Humanright's part to choose be anything ?
why we dont respect the Choice of another people ?
unless their Stupidity , Retard-factor , and Psychopathy causing them broke the Laws of some Country , then they have to deal with the law .
sometimes consequences , is the only way to Stop the Manipulators .
--------------------------------------------
on the other hand ,
i also do not believe if there is Human that have no ignorance .
as Human have emotion , like Fear of something .
Human will always have ignorance .
You (tend to) create entities to facilitate the maintenance of your pet theories…
And you don't? Everybody does it necessarily. Take it as the price of doing philosophy and science. It's better to be aware that you are doing it and do it considerately rather than to do it and at the same time imagine having nothing to do with it.
What, pray tell, is this "uniform continuum" you speak of? Yet another realm of existence, inhabited by "creatures" more removed from everyday experience than Plato's ideas?
What, pray tell, is the
field in the field theory?
evolution in the evolution theory?
strings in the string theory?
atoms in atomism?
matter in materialism? When you find the appropriate Hilarious Word to denote those, then that's what continuum is to the continuum theory too.
Which is my crude way of asking, Why don't you just accept the evidence as constituting your field of study…?
Surely I accept speech and writing as the data (if that's what you mean by evidence) for linguistics. Whatever gave you a different impression? But from there, assuming that the data is supposed to
mean anything, a theory of semantics is the next necessary step. And when semantics is acknowledged as a necessary part of the field of study this way, it cannot be assumed that it (=semantics or the semantic field) is unreal. If it's unreal then how can it be an object of study?
I am, in fact, not happy with most theories — of anything!
Yeah, yeah. Move on to the next relevant questions: Why not happy? Because they are
theories? What would you be happy with? What is happiness? Does it exist? If yes, maybe go buy more of it downtown.
I'm about to open my second 40 tonight -a rare occurrence!- so, you are fore-warned…
I see, that's the happiness you were talking about. Indeed, hard to find it in any theory.
@
Sparta: Since you refused my request that you post (sometimes...) in your native language, will you at least offer some definition of the term "n/or" as you mean it?
It seems, to me, most like "like" in the, like, you know?, like the lingo of contemporary teenagers: Valley Girl-speak... But I'd rather be wrong!
Still, I'm
dying to know if you prefer ketchup and onions or mustard and relish on your hot dog! (We can leave for later the merits of sauerkraut...)
_______________________________________________
Surely I accept speech and writing as the data (if that's what you mean by evidence) for linguistics. Whatever gave you a different impression? But from there, assuming that the data is supposed to mean anything, a theory of semantics is the next necessary step. And when semantics is acknowledged as a necessary part of the field of study this way, it cannot be assumed that it (=semantics or the semantic field) is unreal. If it's unreal then how can it be an object of study?
I would have thought
syntax preceded
semantics... But, seriously, the data is more real than the theory, isn't it?
Perhaps, not for you...
I've browsed various sources (on the net) to glean the meaning (the import) of
infomatics. And, as near as I can tell, it's most like
womens studies, African American
studies,
sociology and other disciplines that essentially involve navel-gazing and basket-weaving: Bureaucratic busy-work for the semi-literate would-be functionary...
Would someone please explain how any employed adult needs a handbook to determine what, exactly, is meant in a given context by the term "concept"? :)
Now: What gave me the impression that the data worthy of study (on
this we agree?) is less important to you than theories? Your usage of,
e.g., labels like
semantics!
How, you ask, do some (most!) theories lead to absurdities? And you'd like me to list some such... Fair enough.
Let's start with the meaning of, say,
red. Call it a property of physical objects... Define it scientifically or socially. I'm okay with that. But to create a mysterious realm of eternal, perfect
things -- so that their instantiations, then, make sense?
Instantiations? Isn't the word a
little silly? Is anyone really confused by color terms? And, if so, how are they the wiser for "knowing" that the "red" of an apple and the "red" of yon lassie's lips and the "red" of a fire engine are all but imperfect instantiations of the eternal
Red?
I would have thought syntax preceded semantics... But, seriously, the data is more real than the theory, isn't it?
Perhaps, not for you...
It's precisely the other way round for me. How could it escape you for so long?
But it's a bit subtler. It's not data versus theory. It's data versus its meaning. The theory is the method to analyse both the data and the meaning. The theory is the method to attribute the appropriate meaning to the data. Without the method of analysis, the data is senseless, purposeless, meaningless. There may be 2+2=4 or 2+2=5 written somewhere, but when you cannot read, this data makes absolutely no difference.
I've described how concepts acquire meaning. The description of how concepts acquire meaning is the theory. A well-rehearsed theory is the same thing as practice. A well-trained semanticist can identify the relative meaning of a concept or the nature/structure of a concept system swiftly and solidly, while an untrained reader/thinker struggles painfully with meanings and purposes. It's the lack of practice which is painful. It's also intellectually painful to perceive some meaning, but not to be able to grasp or formulate it properly. These processes are psychologically real, not unreal.
Attributing some meaning or other to things is not just a useful fiction, but a practical inevitability. You may ignore the meaning side of some event, and lucky you if the event really is meaningless enough, but this is not always the case. Reality makes itself painfully felt on occasion. Therefore meaning or purpose is an undeniable aspect of reality. It's a practical survival skill to attribute the appropriate meaning to things and events.
When a tiger is approaching, you'd better escape, if you don't want to get eaten. It's not the data that matters, but its meaning, the end, purpose or goal. To put it another way, what you see doesn't matter that much, but it matters what you should do about it. Much stuff is pointless enough so as to require no action, but some other stuff calls for resolute intervention for a certain purpose.
Reality as a whole is a dynamic system, not static as plain data would imply on the face of it, uninterpreted. This fact (that reality is dynamic, not static) hugely diminishes the value of plain data in my eyes and makes me ask: Why does reality/universe appear animate rather than inanimate? Animation appears even in matter and atoms that are supposed to be inert and mechanistic as per materialism and atomism. Consequently, it doesn't make sense for me to accept materialist and atomist tendency to worship inanimate matter as the ontological basis of everything. I'd rather investigate that which animates matter and atoms. The materialist and atomist account of reality is self-evidently counterfactual to me.
From this there's still some leap to the continuum theory, but I never made the leap, so it would be a bit insincere of me to describe it. Instead, I have been through an excruciating mental journey trying to comprehend atomism and materialism - because the thing called dialectical materialism was the official religion in the country where I grew up and atomism is the central theory of every respected scientist of our age - only to discover their utter futility.
Would someone please explain how any employed adult needs a handbook to determine what, exactly, is meant in a given context by the term "concept"? :)
Concept means the same as word - but with meaning -, as distinguished from the word's orthography or the word as a sound sequence. This is the standard definition of concept in linguistics and that's the way I use it.
So, the paper you linked to was one that you haven't read? :)
Without the method of analysis, the data is senseless, purposeless, meaningless.
There's the nub of our misunderstanding: Were what you say of
data true, no theory could add sense, purpose or meaning to them!
But appreciate (as well as I can...) your experiences with dialectical materialism, and applaud your rejection of it!
________________________________________
Materialism (and what you call
atomism) are -sometimes- very useful theories. Taken beyond their obvious usefulness, they rather quickly become pernicious. No?
So, the paper you linked to was one that you haven't read? :)
You mean what it says about "concept" compared to what I say about it?
If you note the authors, one is a medical terminologist, and the other a methodical philosopher linked to information science, and they tell about their practical task, namely standardisation of medical terminology, which prompted the paper. Therefore the paper is not committed to the specifically linguistic definition of "concept". Instead, they introduce the topic by reviewing the various definitions of "concept" that have emerged in the discussions. And then they present their understanding of how concepts relate to meanings and referents ("ontologies"). They don't tell anything different than I do. They are just more thorough.
Anyway, you dismissed the paper as "word salad". Why pretend now that you were able to make any sense of it?
Without the method of analysis, the data is senseless, purposeless, meaningless.
There's the nub of our misunderstanding: Were what you say of data true, no theory could add sense, purpose or meaning to them!
There's the nub of your misunderstanding all right. As I said already in the first post in this thread, we discover meanings rather than add. On my semantic theory (which is the
only theory as long as you come up with one - which you won't) it's also possible to speak of extracting and attributing the meaning, but the point of the theory is to do so with maximum relevance, to minimise misattribution and misinterpretation. To think of meaning as something added is precisely wrong way to go about it. You may hate the fact that semantics pervades the data, but it will remain fact - just to annoy you, if for no other reason.
A long time ago, some philosophers mis-understood
gravity… One (me, at any rate!) doubts that many people were unsure, how to respond to situations where gravity might matter.
On my semantic theory […] it's also possible to speak of extracting and attributing the meaning, but the point of the theory is to do so with maximum relevance, to minimise misattribution and misinterpretation.
Do you issue Certificates? :) Congratulations: You've invented the wheel, and Mankind will forever be in your debt!
(Bet the Maya would have appreciated your input!)
To think of meaning as something added is precisely wrong way to go about it. You may hate the fact that semantics pervades the data, but it will remain fact - just to annoy you, if for no other reason.
I think you're arguing with someone else, usually… (Perhaps, yourself?) Semantics is a discipline separated from syntax, for the purpose of "creating" an adequate theory of meaning… That that purpose wasn't achieved is no criticism: That some think the purpose
was achieved, is.
It's not a situation analogous to Craig's Theorem. Or is it? :)
———————————————————
BTW: I really do want to know if that paper was only 12 pages long… (If it was actually 128 or 512 or 1024… Well, I'd reserve (withhold) my judgement!)
In the meantime, watch this: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13455
@Oak , my native language is Java .
in Java there are different language for different People , Situation , condition , and environment .
i/e Speak With Friends , and Speak With older People is using different Type Of java Language .
basically there 3 type .
for daily ---> Normal Java Language
For Older People ---> Mild Java language
for " Sir " / Nobles / Government Officers / etc ---> Super Mild Java language
i dont think , translator engine can translate accurately .
btw ,
i tried to translate this phrase --> Empan papan .
To think of meaning as something added is precisely wrong way to go about it. [...]
I think you're arguing with someone else, usually… (Perhaps, yourself?)
I was arguing with this statement: Were what you say of
data true, no theory could
add sense, purpose or meaning to them!
Now, who was the author of this statement? Hmm?
You said one other interesting thing meanwhile, but I got your point: You don't
mean anything what you say.
Happens every time when you are drunk. My bad when I assume you are not.
moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with better cognitive (thinking and reasoning)
but in your case , ersi .
not recommended .
just one thing , please reduce the Manipulative behaviour .
it's related with M-factor ( if you know what i mean )
in the other word , you aint stop until people follow your way and point of view .
i dont think , translator engine can translate accurately .
I did a simple Google search, which led me, after a bit, to here (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=id&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmechtadeera.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F11%2F08%2Fempan-papan%2F)… Not too terribly bad a job of translation, for a machine/algorithm, eh? :)
I liked the essay "Dendam positif"
…(Forgive me: When I first saw "Java" I immediately thought of Sun/Oracle's programming language and its virtual machine… Would that your language were as easy!)
It does help (me…) to know that Javanese is your native language; and I can -eventually- come to know more of the culture that so permeates the language. Of course, I'll still make the occasional joke at your expense! That's part of my way of speaking/writing. But I hope you don't take offense…
—————————————————————
You don't mean anything what you say.
I doubt,
ersi, that there's really a communication problem between us… Perhaps when you reach my age you'll understand more easily. But maybe not.
And you are mistaken: I mean most of what I say.
in my ancestor point of view , and Java culture / tradition
language and behavior is essence .
Manners and attitude is expressed with language .
it's ok to cursing with friends / close friends , but always humble with older people ,elder , strangers , or probably with government officers, etc.
using bad words and inappropiate language in the Wrong place , situation and condition in their perspective can causing conflicts .
if in this modern World probably something like , can causing triggers for some people with mental health issues .
or can make another people have mental health issues :rolleyes:
-------------------------------------------------
it's kinda complicated ..
Java is ethnic , language , also a verb ( Java ethnic , Java language , and Java )
the definition of Java = Sane , understand , understanding , have manners
in Java ethnic , kids /children that have no manners and have bad attitudes the People will say something like " you're not Java "
Also People that insane , cant understanding another , do whatever they want , have no tolerance , impulsive , Manipulative , etc
the People will express something like " that's The Java people that have lost their Java "
@Sparta
Rigidity with manners is a very tough stress factor. Don't lose your Java.
And you are mistaken: I mean most of what I say.
By now there's just one way to interpret this: You really mean to undermine your own integrity by the growing list of misrepresentations, inconsistencies and absurdities that I have been pointing out, and you really mean to keep adding to it and never rectify anything.
Prove me wrong by making amends point by point. Be methodical and specific. Until then I am right.
You really mean to undermine your own integrity […]
Hm. Let me define a type of philosophy,
Garfunkelism: Interpretation of systematic schemes via idiosyncratic obscurity…
•The practitioners of this type of philosophy take the creative (often exploratory or speculative) work of others and "dogmatize" it; then spend the rest of their time defending their own misunderstandings!
Is everyone here familiar with the musical duo Simon and Garfunkel? The later was often asked, by fans, which he was responsible for: the words or the music? Of course, Paul Simon was the composer of both, and the guitar player (accompanist). Art was a vocal performer, an interpretive artist…and a quite good one! Wasn't that enough?
That others expected more of him did pique Art Garfunkel… But he didn't take the final step of
Garfunkelism: Thinking that he'd actually created Paul Simon's songs — by singing them well… And, thence, being angry at the world at large for not recognizing his "contribution"…
ersi, you require -psychologically- a closed system, answers to all questions derivable, questions to be either easily answered or deemed incoherent… You're not that different from the Logical Positivists.
You avoid their fate by boxing (putting in a box) your views and ignoring anything outside of your box.
When I say I have strong nominalistic tendencies, I do indeed mean that I see no reason to accept Platonic (Metaphysical) Realism… (Or Idealism: the terms are equivalent!) But, before that, I mean that I've heard people speak, read what they've written; and I've rejected
theories that require full knowledge of some systemization of linguistics, before I (or anyone else) can understand such.
Quine's
holism makes much sense; but it, too, is deficient… (I mention him, since you seem to think I argue from Authority… :) ) As someone once said, cogently, "The map is not the territory."
Why must
Red be granted existential superiority? Can we not just
see how "red" is used…?
(And can't the blind student of physics and physiology still understand electromagnetic radiation and optics?)
Why must a mathematician who poses a problem and, then, its solution…be coerced to say, "I didn't
create anything… I just stumbled across something left there unnoticed, before."
Because -as you said, in "your" language, the distinction is differently apprehended? LOL! Is that the
fault of your language or of your understanding? I don't know… Perhaps your socialization was particularly harsh, and you absolutely
have to be
right — meaning, whoever disagrees with you (your
formulations) must be wrong!
I'd demur… That is, I don't have to be right; but our common experience must be accounted for. And –this is my predilection– that no more than necessary be introduced (invented!) to accommodate such accountings.
You accuse me of incoherence or "bad faith"… Back at you, I call you an autocrat.
————————————————————————————
* My apologies to Art! (The singer Garfunkel, whose performances are joyful and enjoyable.)
Hm. Let me define a type of philosophy, Garfunkelism: Interpretation of systematic schemes via idiosyncratic obscurity…•
The practitioners of this type of philosophy take the creative (often exploratory or speculative) work of others and "dogmatize" it; then spend the rest of their time defending their own misunderstandings!
What is it that I keep emphasising throughout? Purpose! Without a purpose, your talk is just buzzing of the flies. You buzz a lot, but it's just buzzing. Now you gave your style a Hilarious Word: Garfunkelism.
ersi, you require -psychologically- a closed system, answers to all questions derivable, questions to be either easily answered or deemed incoherent… You're not that different from the Logical Positivists.
You avoid their fate by boxing (putting in a box) your views and ignoring anything outside of your box.
What's the other thing I keep emphasising throughout? Demonstrate! You don't get to just assert, you have to build a full argument to demonstrate your case. Otherwise your talk is just buzzing of the flies a.k.a. Garfunkelism.
When I say I have strong nominalistic tendencies, I do indeed mean that I see no reason to accept Platonic (Metaphysical) Realism… (Or Idealism: the terms are equivalent!) But, before that, I mean that I've heard people speak, read what they've written; and I've rejected theories that require full knowledge of some systemization of linguistics, before I (or anyone else) can understand such.
And what did I say in the first post in this thread? I said: Can you state the basic tenets of Nominalism and explain in a few words why it's better than Platonic ideas? You never got to that, and you never will.
Edit: For now you are on the level of "I like A and I don't like B" - and this is your ENTIRE reasoning. For me, this is not reasoning to begin with.
You may have read a lot and even thought many things through, but what's the point of mentioning it when you give no demonstration or evidence of it?
Quine's holism makes much sense; but it, too, is deficient… (I mention him, since you seem to think I argue from Authority… :) ) As someone once said, cogently, "The map is not the territory."
Okay, added to the list of things you reject for flimsy reasons.
Edit: ANY theory is a map. Are maps useless? Problems begin when you forget they are maps - and also when you demand map be the territory. Why do you want a map that
is the territory, hence impossible to carry around and to safely learn from before one goes out into the wild?
Why must Red be granted existential superiority? Can we not just see how "red" is used…?
(And can't the blind student of physics and physiology still understand electromagnetic radiation and optics?)
In terms of electromagnetic radiation and optics there's no red. There is just a continuous scale of wave frequencies. As long as electromagentism and optics is the only definition of red for you, the blind student will remain blind to red.
Why must a mathematician who poses a problem and, then, its solution…be coerced to say, "I didn't create anything… I just stumbled across something left there unnoticed, before."
Because -as you said, in "your" language, the distinction is differently apprehended? LOL! Is that the fault of your language or of your understanding? I don't know… Perhaps your socialization was particularly harsh, and you absolutely have to be right — meaning, whoever disagrees with you (your formulations) must be wrong!
I said a whole lotta more meanwhile that you have already conveniently forgotten even though I said it repeatedly. I am tired of being the only one to make full points. I won't do your job for you. I just keep pointing out that you are not doing your job. When you are not listening to what I say, you keep returning to the same irrelevant wrong-headed soundbites that were already refuted and replaced long ago. That's the power of projection on your part - you have a so effectively closed mind that you think everybody else is closed-minded except you. Ah, no point. I have already demonstrated your projection to you and you did not listen to this either.
I'd demur… That is, I don't have to be right; but our common experience must be accounted for.
Indeed, but here's what you are doing: You don't account for common experience yourself (most lately you just denounced red!) yet you think it's everybody else who fails to take common experience into account, despite proof and evidence to the contrary. The proof and evidence you simply ignore...
Try again. Try harder, better. Try the right way. Surely you have read a book about how to make a point. Use it!
(Edited to better point out to you how to begin to make a point, since your books haven't taught you this yet.)
Can you state the basic tenets of Nominalism and explain in a few words why it's better than Platonic ideas?
It's not a school or a doctrine in your sense,
ersi; so I doubt you can understand… But I'll try again to explain…
(To me, you seem like a bright high school student — or a dim high school teacher. I'd prefer to discuss things with interested, interesting adults, but
c'est la vie!)
Let's start with Platonic Ideas, even though even you'd have to admit we actually start with a nominalistic viewpoint…
How would you determine that someone didn't believe in Platonic Entities, if they never discussed "philosophy"? That is, on what evidence might you conclude that they didn't understand how to use the word "red" — because they didn't
grok Redness?
(Yes, I'm asking you to actually think about it… :) )
In terms of electromagnetic radiation and optics there's no red. There is just a continuous scale of wave frequencies. So physics is not what red is about, and the blind student will remain blind to red, if this is the only definition.
If you mean to say that the blind student will remain blind, you're probably right… But
per Plato why would physical blindness hamper "perception" in the non-physical realm of Ideas? You have yet to display any means to connect the physical with the non-physical. (I blame Descartes, primarily… But that's another argument.) But shouldn't you argue,
contra ersi, that the blind student must have the same access, as a matter of logic?
I find it uncontroversial that people easily agree that some
thing is red; so, I don't see the need of
Redness too, specially not as an eternal perfect entity.
I also find it hard to believe that you find it controversial that people agree that some
thing is red; and so much so that you think another realm of being is required to quell such qualms, yours and theirs!
Would you describe this controversy for me? (I'll accept hear-say evidence…)
Perhaps you'd like to argue that the blind student has not experienced the instantiations of
Redness and, so, cannot "connect" his
higher perceptions to his senses… But I don't think that really works: the physics and optics are adequate tethers for
Redness, if such exists!
And if it doesn't, they are adequate tethers for the way of speaking that has most people agree that some
thing is red… Even the blind student can see that.
——————————————
Another task: How would you explain a merely color-blind student's deficient apprehension of the non-physical
Redness? How many different ways can the world of Platonic Ideas become unavailable, via physical disability?
Better put, the question becomes, How many different ways is the world of Platonic Ideas a chimera? And how confused does one have to become to see such cryptozoological specimens as real?
It's not a school or a doctrine in your sense, ersi; so I doubt you can understand… But I'll try again to explain…
And you have no problem with how *vague* you are? Only with how *vague* others are? Okay, I will still try my best to not dismiss your stance as irrelevant and unworkable the way I have dismissed e.g. postmodernism, a very bad and sad twist of fate in the affairs of philosophy. I will try to be as patient with you the way I am with the American horridly undefined thing called Pragmatism, which seems to be the umbrella under which congregate postmodernists who shun the label of postmodernism.
I will do my best to be patient and see how you little by little give an exposition of your system. But wait, you didn't give any exposition. All you do is criticise Platonism, without showing any better alternative. '
You are just plain hopeless. I will get back to you when I'm done with more important things. Meanwhile get your act together and present some positive substance to go with all the demolition of Platonism that you attempt here. You constantly pretend that nothing in the world is good enough for you, but this is just sheer Garfunkelism as long as you have not laid out your standard based on which you determine what *good* means.
Destructive criticism is okay, when done competently (which you haven't - and I'll get back to that), but constructive criticism - a better alternative - is always better. If you disagree, then accept that I am dealing with you accordingly - as with someone not okay.
You have manoeuvred me to formulate a defence for Platonism, but it necessarily comes with qualifications. I am not a Platonist, certainly not the kind of Platonist that you assume. This is the main qualification.
When you assume the multiplicity of Platonic forms, that the forms inhabit a certain spatial dimension, etc. this is entirely false. It's not just false concerning me, but also false concerning Plato. As much as I have read Plato, I did not manage to read such assumptions into his writings. I consider "forms" the wrong translation of the word "idea" which Plato actually used. This translation issue is a specifically Anglophone problem which doesn't exist in continental Europe. I consider the true Platonism to be basically the same as Neoplatonism as per Plotinus, and that's what I am defending. And from this perspective your criticism is completely incompetent.
How would you determine that someone didn't believe in Platonic Entities, if they never discussed "philosophy"? That is, on what evidence might you conclude that they didn't understand how to use the word "red" — because they didn't grok Redness?
(Yes, I'm asking you to actually think about it… :) )
Why should it matter what someone thinks? It matters what things are. When it comes to understanding things, then for oneself it matters to take note how the mind and the senses operate, whereas in relation to others it matters to be sufficiently precise and relevant with formulations. And when these things are in order, there's not too much of a problem.
In other words: What is your question about? Are you pretending to get anywhere or have you stopped pretending?
In terms of electromagnetic radiation and optics there's no red. There is just a continuous scale of wave frequencies. So physics is not what red is about, and the blind student will remain blind to red, if this is the only definition.
If you mean to say that the blind student will remain blind, you're probably right… But per Plato why would physical blindness hamper "perception" in the non-physical realm of Ideas?
To speak specifically about redness, there's no such thing. The so-called realm of ideas is completely different than you imagine. It's a single homogeneous continuum comprising everything conceivable. For a sluggish stubborn particularist (like yourself) it will necessarily look like an ocean stuffed with dead fish and industrial junk - and you would be forever stuck on those items and talking about them - but it won't change the fact that the imagined boundaries between things are not really there.
If you desire possessions, you can always separate an area of space and label it "my house" or "my castle" - even get a certificate from authorities that the place yours - but this won't change the fact that it's really indivisible space where ultimately anyone and anything can come and go.
You have yet to display any means to connect the physical with the non-physical. (I blame Descartes, primarily… But that's another argument.) But shouldn't you argue, contra ersi, that the blind student must have the same access, as a matter of logic?
I find it uncontroversial that people easily agree that something is red; so, I don't see the need of Redness too, specially not as an eternal perfect entity.
I also find it hard to believe that you find it controversial that people agree that something is red; and so much so that you think another realm of being is required to quell such qualms, yours and theirs!
Would you describe this controversy for me? (I'll accept hear-say evidence…)
The controversy only exists as long as you think that redness is another thing in another realm that should somehow be connected with this realm. And that's what you think, but I don't, so the controversy is yours alone.
The so-called other realm of Platonic ideas (and of mathematical objects and of metaphysical categories) is *analytically separable,* but ontologically everything everywhere is the same single realm. I have given you an example earlier how to separate the meaning from the word analytically, but you could not grasp it due to your astonishing lack of analytical skills. The example is still available in this thread. Go and repeat the lesson until you get it.
Perhaps you'd like to argue that the blind student has not experienced the instantiations of Redness and, so, cannot "connect" his higher perceptions to his senses… But I don't think that really works: the physics and optics are adequate tethers for Redness, if such exists!
The adequate tether to connect an object to the subject is the live senses and the mind. The tether is not physics and optics. The tether is not the senses alone. The active mind by itself
can serve as the sufficient tether to the objects, but the objects would look totally different without the mediation of the senses. Instead of Euclidian, they would look topological. Instead of Epicurean, the experience is annoyingly Platonic without the senses. Specifically, Platonic the way I understand it, not the way you try to vilify.
For the sake of argument let's for the moment concede that redness exists. On Platonic epistemology, redness (assuming that it exists) pertains to the senses, not directly to the mind. Therefore, on Platonic psychology, redness moves from the senses to the mind, not from the mind to the senses the way you keep falsely assuming.
And if it doesn't, they are adequate tethers for the way of speaking that has most people agree that something is red… Even the blind student can see that.
The senses are the organs of input and the mind is the organ of digestion of the input. There's also some input directly to the live mind, but without the mediation of the senses there's no *direct perception* of redness and, as already said contrary to your false assumptions, redness as a Platonic object in some other realm mysteriously connectible with this realm does not exist - and if you insist we shoud talk about redness anyway, then on Platonism it's construed to pertain to the sense of vision, not directly to the mind.
Therefore the blind student, lacking sense of vision, would remain without the experience of redness, just like a person who is tube-fed directly into the stomach remains without the taste of food, even though he gets fed, whereas the person whose stomach ceased functioning would die of hunger no matter how well and how long you explain the biological function of digestion to him.
"Suchness" exists in Aristotelian theory of forms, but this would be another argument. And I am much less an Aristotelian than I am Platonist. I find Platonism defensible, but not Aristotelianism.
Another task: How would you explain a merely color-blind student's deficient apprehension of the non-physical Redness? How many different ways can the world of Platonic Ideas become unavailable, via physical disability?
Looks like the same task. I already handled it.
Better put, the question becomes, How many different ways is the world of Platonic Ideas a chimera? And how confused does one have to become to see such cryptozoological specimens as real?
This is not better put. Thus far at your worst you used to make some remote sense, but this time you outdid yourself.
I'd certainly agree with your estimation of Postmodernism! But some of Charles Sanders Pierce's work was good, for its time… Pragmatism does have -like all philosophical systems- some serious logical problems.
While I take your point about constructive criticism, per se, I reject it as an adequate method for philosophy… The closest I think we can come to a complete and comprehensive system is to be found within science, mathematics and logic. So, I won't likely be offering you yet another set of metaphysical speculations — to fill the psychological void left by the rejection of Platonic Idealism.
But you knew that; I've certainly said it often enough!
I'm sorry you find my "destructive" criticism incompetent. But I'm not charging you to peruse my rambling thoughts, am I? :)
I've long restrained myself from the obvious comment about Plotinus's "philosophy": Is it more than a bad reaction to a traumatic potty-training? :)
Hmm, I thought you didn't want to comment on my defence of Platonism because it contained analogies, which you seem to dislike on principle, but now it turns out it's because it doesn't contain enough insults to your taste. Okay, you win on insults.
As to the philosophy itself, it formally stands because you offer no refutation or alternative.
In a debating situation one should explicitly set out one's terms. If you value insults higher than argumentation, then say so, and I will do my best to accommodate to your terms. It's basic civility, you see :)
If you enjoy cage fights in insults, try #philosophy @efnet and #scripture @undernet (IRC channels) but be careful, it's so hardcore there that you may be beaten to dust very early. I won't be there helping you out.
------------------------
For me, analogies and thought experiments are a legitimate formal tool, fitting this thread too, among others. Here's a thought experiment against utilitarian theory of morality.
On utilitarianism, maximisation of utility is the greatest good. Let's say someone in a sufficient position of power is sincerely implementing a policy that genuinely maximises utility. Say the official is now turning to you so that you would be a participant in the implementation of the policy. Since maximisation of utility is the greatest good, you cannot say no, when you are a utilitarian. As the maximisation of utility spreads further this way in the society, more and more people are drawn along into this, whether they want it or not. Those who say no are to be forced, because they are not maximising utility, and on utilitarianism the coercion of such people by whatever means is morally good, because it leads to the greatest good - maximisation of utility. Surely you get the idea by now.
For me, the task of a satisfactory moral theory is to define good in the way that coercion is moderated and balanced against other factors. Utilitarianism fails according to this thought experiment. This thought experiment is easily modified to target any ethical theory where the concept of moral good is defined in whichever reductive way.
Now, either demonstrate that your moral theory is free from this trap or insult the thought experiment. As you please.
If you enjoy cage fights in insults, try #philosophy @efnet and #scripture @undernet (IRC channels) but be careful, it's so hardcore there that you may be beaten to dust very early. I won't be there helping you out.
Hmm... we should organize a punitive DnD expedition there.. theists attack by the right side, atheists by the left, we siege them in a classic move and massacre them all. :) :knight:
In a debating situation one should explicitly set out one's terms.
In conversation, one shouldn't… :)
For me, analogies and thought experiments are a legitimate formal tool, fitting this thread too, among others. Here's a thought experiment against utilitarian theory of morality.
Ah, yet another Grand Theory! That is, an
analogy — pushed beyond reasonable application…
I'm not surprised you find it easy to caricature
systems you don't like. (I attempted something similar with Platonism. :) ) But I'd reject all "Greatest Good" systems…
For me, the task of a satisfactory moral theory is to define good in the way that coercion is moderated and balanced against other factors.
For me, the task of a theory of morality is to
explain the moral facts "on the ground" as it were…
a) It's your moral duty to try "saving the world" no matter what the result would be. Morality it's not the same as utility.
b) Is the world wanting to be saved a pre condition for a)? good question. The answer can't be a rational but an emotive one, I believe so.
You actually made me think here for a minute. It doesn't happen often :)
I'd say that the world wanting to be saved is not a precondition to our moral duty. Our moral duty is to be compassionate in any case, and act out of it whenever possible. However, the world wanting to be saved is a precondition to the effective completion of the duty. Even the Buddha's compassion is not enough to save the world that doesn't want to be saved. If the world doesn't want to be saved, it won't affect the Buddha's compassion, but it diminishes the world's chances to be actually saved.
And the result actually matters. The result should not be no matter what. The impulse to action should be moral and the outcome should also be moral. Then it's properly moral.
My apologies for finding a rational answer again.
Most atheists (so I don't say all of them) are atheists by no rational reasoning but because emotions. Like teenagers they need to be against, just that. There is God will trigger No, there isn't and there you have the best of atheism - disguising emotive impulsions under a pseudo scientific cover.
Where God is at the heights and men at their knees, atheists want to change it. God must knee in front of The Atheist,in front of Man. Wow.
[...]
A civilizational war is happening using well intentioned atheists that don't understand how their emotions are being used.
I find this to be so spot-on that even (rational) atheists cannot deny this.
I'm not surprised you find it easy to caricature systems you don't like. (I attempted something similar with Platonism. :) )
The trick is to understand what you are rejecting. Understand the system sufficiently first, so that you know if it fits or not, what its consequences are etc., then you can accept or reject it. You didn't get over the first hurdle.
But I'd reject all "Greatest Good" systems…
Then you are left with no moral system at all. If you believe you still have it, explain how.
For me, the task of a satisfactory moral theory is to define good in the way that coercion is moderated and balanced against other factors.
For me, the task of a theory of morality is to explain the moral facts "on the ground" as it were…
Explain as opposed to define? Doesn't a good definition also exhaustively explain?
After rejecting greatest good, what moral facts are you left with? And what is ""on the ground" as it were"?
Then you are left with no moral system at all. If you believe you still have it, explain how.
As I mentioned in other contexts, I was raised by
people — so I have some understanding of their ways… :)
Understand the system sufficiently first, so that you know if it fits or not, what its consequences are etc., then you can accept or reject it. You didn't get over the first hurdle.
You seem to require me to return to my high school BS sessions; as if I missed something important! Indeed, I may have. But no philosopher of morality has yet to show me something I'd not already considered. (There are a few exceptions, that I consider unremarkable: For instance, this (http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/PeerOpinion.htm)… You have to laugh, or you'd cry! :) ) But sometimes even I'm surprised: What would be required for a machine intelligence to be moral? I find that question to be quite interesting.
Do you think morality is imposed? (By
nature or God…) Or is it innate? (A pre-set or evolving group of behaviors…) Or is it just what those currently in power require, for their own ends?
Me, I think it's all of those. And more. But arguing about
systems won't do much to explain "morality" — unless you're willing to settle for the lexicographer's efforts. (Start with definitions, eh?) You seem to argue as if dictionaries and grammars exist prior to language… To me, this is an absurd position.
"The Greatest Good"? Do we even speak a common language? Do we even live in the same world?
As I mentioned in other contexts, I was raised by people — so I have some understanding of their ways… :)
Sorry to say this, but as you demonstrate very inconsistent signs of comprehension of humanity, you will have to make more effort to convince me.
You seem to require me to return to my high school BS sessions; as if I missed something important! Indeed, I may have.
Indeed.
What would be required for a machine intelligence to be moral? I find that question to be quite interesting.
Wouldn't you perhaps know the answer to this one, had you paid attention at high school BS sessions?
Do you think morality is imposed? (By nature or God…) Or is it innate? (A pre-set or evolving group of behaviors…) Or is it just what those currently in power require, for their own ends?
Me, I think it's all of those. And more.
When it's all those and more, then what prevents you from calling it the greatest good? You have very awkward reactions to certain words, particularly considering that you are a nominalist so words should not matter to you. Words are not *reality*, or how is it? Somehow your mind short-circuits at certain words. Is there a discernible pattern to those words? Have you discovered the pattern of your mental short-circuits? (Serious question.)
You seem to argue as if dictionaries and grammars exist prior to language… To me, this is an absurd position.
It's an absurd position to assume that I argue this way. The basic distinction of the form and meaning in concepts that I have been over and over in this thread has still not reached you. (A formal presentation of this approach in structuralism is Louis Hjelmslev's Prolegomena, but you'd probably find it a "word salad".) Your incapacity to digest high school BS is showing.
PS Sorry for not directly answering your surprisingly quite topical link at this point. I noticed it's about one of those dilemmas again that is dilemma specifically for you, not for me. My exposition of Platonism actually answers this one too, with a simple adjustment of a few concepts. That's how formal systems work - for me, not for you.
I don't know if this is the appropriate forum, but here goes.
Can anyone remind me who was the twentieth-century British philosopher who was stridently atheistic and found religion late in life? I haven't been able to phrase a query in a way that Google will answer. He was doctrinaire, scornful, and had very little in the sense-of-humour department.
Thank you all.
Some other engine than Google turned up this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew
Thanks for that. It's not the guy I'm looking for (indeed I'd never heard of him) but is interesting.
You might find this interesting,
ersi… (Indeed, you'd likely have got three or four pages into the paper before you realized what it said! :) )
Linguists, in referring to attitudes toward grammatical analyses, have
sometimes made a distinction between the "God's Truth" view and the "hocus-
pocus" view (Householder 1952). When a linguist makes his investigation and
writes his grammar, is he discovering something about the language which is
"out there" waiting to be described and recorded or is he simply formulating a
set of rules which somehow work? Similarly, when an anthropologist under-
takes a semantic analysis, is he discovering some "psychological reality" which
speakers are presumed to have or is he simply working out a set of rules which
somehow take account of the observed phenomena? The attitude taken in
this paper is far over on the "hocus-pocus" side. It is always tempting to
attribute something more important to one's work tha a tinkering with a
rough set of operational devices. It certainly sounds more exciting to say we are
"discovering the cognitive system of the people" than to admit that we are just
fiddling with a set of rules which allow us to use terms the way others do.
Nevertheless, I think the latter is a realistic goal, while the former is not. I
believe we should be content with the less exciting objective of showing how
terms in language are applied to objects in the world, and stop pursuing the
illusory goal of cognitive structures.
(the concluding paragraph of Cognition and Componential Analysis: God's Truth or Hocus-Pocus?
by Robbins Burling (UPenn) - American Anthropologist New Series, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Feb 1964), pp. 20-28)
@tt92
One more find http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._E._M._Joad
Both names are formerly unknown to me.
@Oakdale
Uninteresting. It would be interesting if the choice between the two options were justified by something more than "I believe". "I believe" is an unacceptable basis for choice from multiple options in any case, but particularly so when we are talking science and selecting from multiple working models and testing their scope. Jeez.
It would be interesting if the choice between the two options were justified by something more than "I believe".
An expected response from someone of reason. Not a reasonable response from someone with an "intuition antenna" as a guiding force, tho.
@tt92: You might be thinking of Wittgenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Loss_of_faith)… It's quite easy to find him humorless! :) But you couldn't possibly be thinking of Russell, who never "recanted" his atheism and of whom not even his fiercest critics would say he lacked wit and humor.
it seems , he lacked of humor probably because of his mental illness .
if in nowadays World , character like wittgenstein used to called with bipolarity .
or probably more worst .
--schizotypy ,schizoaffective , or Schizophrenia .
Uninteresting. It would be interesting if the choice between the two options were justified by something more than "I believe".
You could, of course, "trouble" yourself to read the whole paper — it's 8 pages, including notes. :) You might learn something…
—————————————————
@
Sparta: Of course. But what of it? :)
Not Joad and not Wittgenstein. I wonder if I am unduly dignifying him with the title "philosopher". Perhaps "pundit" might be more apt.
mentall illness aka Psychopathy , is hormonal and chemical imbalance in brain .
of course that's not something like in Movies , like Hanibal lecter , etc .
Bipolar / manic -depressive , usually it is caused by Genetics ,
some probably caused by Environment , foods , or Events .
When in Manic episode , usually the symtomps : have many ideas , have many energy , etc
but when in Depresive episode it used to have , anxiety , depressed , suicidal thoughts , etc
witgenstein and his brothers have that .
probably witgenstein is the strongest from their brothers .
since he dont commite suicide , but he very satisfied when he know he will die soon .
and , that's quite interesting ...
about how he survive with that kind of condition in that time .
probably because he have deep Knowlegde in Philosophy ?
:coffee:
[Do I] unduly dignify[] him with the title "philosopher". Perhaps "pundit" might be more apt.
Oh, but that makes him (whoever he is) so much less interesting! It might be Benny Hill… :)
—————————————
@
Sparta:
mental illness aka Psychopathy , is hormonal and chemical imbalance in brain .
Of course, you know such a contention is problematical? Not everyone agrees, and those who do often have insufficient evidence to support the supposition…
there is no evidence , since it's just based on stories and histories .
or probably my english is not good enough .
Probably JSeaton can explain and describe that better .
but if this kind of argument causing triggers .
just let me know ..
i didnt mind to delete my post .
Sparta, I've been an adult for probably twice as long as you've been alive… I don't have "triggers" and I don't much consider that others might: If one has to consider the adverse effects of, say, calling "red" something other than an instantiation of Redness, then we might just as well resort to hurling spitballs at each other! :)
then we might just as well resort to hurling spitballs at each other! :)
Or come to the southeast. :whistle:
"triggers" it is not what it is .
it is just terminology for , triggers that can trigger Manic , or depressive episode .
it can be anything , Topics , arguments [ mostly are argumentum ad hominems ] , events , etc .
it's not about you of course , it's not always about you .
btw ,
nevermind it , probably i just too fear if my ignorance just be a burden for another people. :sst:
Uninteresting. It would be interesting if the choice between the two options were justified by something more than "I believe".
You could, of course, "trouble" yourself to read the whole paper — it's 8 pages, including notes. :) You might learn something…
You mean I might learn something different about the quality of the author's approach to methodology than what your quote demonstrated? No thanks. The quote was telling enough. If you disagree, excerpt a quote that proves me wrong.
An expected response from someone of reason. Not a reasonable response from someone with an "intuition antenna" as a guiding force, tho.
Atheists are notoriously bad at defining intuition. I am sincerely interested in seeing how you define it.
As per my own definition, I demonstrate exclusively intellect here in the forums. No intuition. On occasion my intellect is so blazing fast that even I cannot keep up with it, but this doesn't make it intuition.
Please give your definition first, then we'll compare.
You mean I might learn something different about the quality of the author's approach to methodology than what your quote demonstrated? No thanks.
They say a broken clock is right, twice a day… But the fact that those two times are 12 hours apart doesn't tell much, does it? :)
intelligence is ability to understand or to learn .
so what's the definition of intellect ?
i dont think using complicated language , flip and twist , is definition of intelect .
They say a broken clock is right, twice a day… But the fact that those two times are 12 hours apart doesn't tell much, does it? :)
Makes some remote sense if your analogy refers to the article you quoted. Otherwise you are garfunkelling again.
i dont think using complicated language , flip and twist , is definition of intelect .
He goes out of his way to do that. Seems it takes him longer to come to the wrong conclusions about what he reads then assumes everyone else is too slow because they didn't arrive at the same explanation... Or some such.
Atheists are notoriously bad at defining intuition. I am sincerely interested in seeing how you define it.
You could just need a dictionary? But don't think I don't know your problem with that word. I picked it specifically. You could try to understand what I meant... If you can squash the feelings it provoked long enough. ;)
On occasion my intellect is so blazing fast that even I cannot keep up with it, but this doesn't make it intuition.
Course not, to be blazing fast wrong differs a bit from being intuitively right.. :)
Intuition it's always linked to being right. If not, it's not intuition but a mere "guess". Intuition's nature it's a tricky thing and many times intuition it's not even intuition at all.
I believe intuition to be the mind equivalent to the theory of Chaos, an hidden order inside an apparent disorder in what refers to reasoning. It happens to be like that but we don't know why.
Atheists are notoriously bad at defining intuition. I am sincerely interested in seeing how you define it.
You could just need a dictionary? But don't think I don't know your problem with that word. I picked it specifically. You could try to understand what I meant...
I'm not a dictionary type of guy. I am a concept system type of guy. And from this perspective the quick unfailing conclusion is that you didn't mean much anything besides hoping to stir up some supposed controversy for entertainment purposes.
Belfrager nailed it. And made all further explanation futile.
I'm not a dictionary type of guy.
Of that I have no doubt.
And from this perspective the quick unfailing conclusion is that you didn't mean much anything besides hoping to stir up some supposed controversy for entertainment purposes.
Not exactly. There's a greater point maybe others will get? But if that's all that comes of it, I'm fine with it.
*(We never did finish
our conversation you telling me about reasoning.)
Belfrager nailed it. And made all further explanation futile.
You've done picked your escape anyway.
And from this perspective the quick unfailing conclusion is that you didn't mean much anything besides hoping to stir up some supposed controversy for entertainment purposes.
Not exactly. There's a greater point maybe others will get?
Others just might get it without further explanation if they are of the same culture as you. Based on what do you determine that I am, could be or should be of the same culture as you? The culture over here is up front. Your culture is giggles behind the back without explanation. What's the reason I should switch over?
Dictionary helps nothing in cases like this.
so what's the definition of intellect ?
Intellect is the ability to tickle oneself!
BTW: Just happened upon the orchestrated version of Ravel's
Ma mère l'oye on the radio… Always a treat; but always -in my opinion- played too slowly. (The piano four-hands original performed by Walter and Beatriz Klien remains unsurpassed!) Music combines intellect and emotion, no? :)
————————————————
Others just might get it without further explanation if they are of the same culture as you. Based on what do you determine that I am, could be or should be of the same culture as you?
Oh? :) It seems it is you,
ersi, who hasn't understood Hjelmslev's Prolegomena… (Would you like to read the review (http://web.vu.lt/flf/g.judzentyte/files/2014/01/Prolegomena-to-a-Theory-of-Language-by-Luis-Hjmeslev.pdf) I've just finished?)
Or would you now say something like:
Die sprache ist also ihrem Wesen nach eine soziale Institution, ein "fait social" in Sinne Durkheims … In der Nichtberücksichtigung dieses wesentlichsten Kennzeichens der Sprache, nämlich ihres sozialen Charakters, scheint mir die eigentlich Ursache der sehr abstrakten Auffassung zu liegen, die Hjelmslev vertritt, einer rein formalen Theorie, die nur der kalkülmässigen Seite der geschichtlich und sozial gewordenen Sprache gerecht wird, nicht aber der sprachlichen Ganzheit in ihrer phänomenologischen Wirklichkeit
Your culture is giggles behind the back without explanation. What's the reason I should switch over?
My point is to fallacies you make. You'll just twist it up if I try a more direct approach. We've been down that road. My aim is to call out some BS, funny or giggling isn't my feelings here. You have no idea how to relate to an obvious attempt to call you out on reasoning. Wanna bitch more or get a hold of yourself and reason? (Emotional control, remember?)
Dictionary helps nothing in cases like this.
Is that because you don't have a use for it or it doesn't help your case..? Help me out here, my cultural background can't help me figure out how this is about you.
My point is to fallacies you make.
Point out the fallacy directly and we'll talk.
You'll just twist it up if I try a more direct approach.
As long as you haven't pointed out anything directly, it's you twisting it up. Avoiding direct confrontation
is twisting it up.
No problem, sir.
Directly I'm seeing if you'll eat spiders. Okay, more directly, if you'll practice what you preach.
You've already went against several pages you've written. The point of this isn't to show you anything. I've no doubt you'll convolute context to no end. I would like to hear your definition of truth? And if it's pages of what I think you expect, you'll need to start by answer that. But maybe at the very least you can try to actually make me giggle? Why that should matter to you is beyond me, though, you said it didn't.
You've already went against several pages you've written.
This is exactly what is at issue right now. If I did this, you can demonstrate it.
I would like to hear your definition of truth?
You would? Deal with the first thing first, then you will have it.
This is exactly what is at issue right now. If I did this, you can demonstrate it.
I've no doubt you'll convolute context to no end.
Looks like we're done here. Again, the point wasn't to you. Maybe one or two people will take you a little less seriously now? or not? Ethier way you haven't proven an ability to eat spiders and move forward at will.
This is exactly what is at issue right now. If I did this, you can demonstrate it.
I've no doubt you'll convolute context to no end.
The culture over here is up front. Your culture is giggles behind the back without explanation.
Seriously, as long as you don't have any facts to point out, you simply have no case.
type fast , only prove if have anger issues .
definition of anger ---> when typing is faster than thinking .
:beard:
Seriously, as long asyou don't have any facts to point out, you simply have no case.
Ooh!
Bad Eliza… :) (Isn't this where we stopped talking, the last time?)
BTW: The radio is playing the Dolly Suite, piano four-hands! (Too slow to be the Kliens — but still good…)
—————————————————
(I agree, I've likely let this go too long… But
anywho :) ):
Intuition it's always linked to being right. If not, it's not intuition but a mere "guess". Intuition's nature it's a tricky thing and many times intuition it's not even intuition at all.
I believe intuition to be the mind equivalent to the theory of Chaos, an hidden order inside an apparent disorder in what refers to reasoning. It happens to be like that but we don't know why.
If (A) intuition is always right and (B) only after the fact can one determine it was right, and hence, an intuition… (C) How is it distinguishable from a "lucky guess"?
ABCs,
Belfrager…
Wouldn't it be simpler to recognize lucky guesses (however they're explained…) than to posit
intuitions?
There's an inordinate amount of "psychologism" already going 'round! (Of course, you might respond with something like this (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/#PurLogMeaIntFulInt)… :) )
If (A) intuition is always right and (B) only after the fact can one determine it was right, and hence, an intuition… (C) How is it distinguishable from a "lucky guess"?
ABCs, Belfrager…
Your (B) it's wrong - there's no "hence", and it should had been obvious to you, no need to me to use Husserl.
However,
the intersubjective constitution of objectivity has a certain appeal... I'll use it some other day.
Do you remember an origins of language thread back on MyOpera, started by jax? A few posts there mentioned Pirahã (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirahã_language)… What, as a linguist, is your opinion about the possibility of a language without recursion?
First off, drop any adherence to the strong version of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Native language doesn't limit one's cognitive abilities. Instead, native language is a working tool with which to conceptualise both the world and one's own cognitive abilities (one's own cognition being another world conceptualised by means of language). The result can be enhanced beyond any specific limit. The mind is the limit.
For example in Uralic languages there's no future tense. Does this mean that Uralic peoples have no idea of the future?
My professional opinion on Piraha is that since it's poorly studied, there are many ways in which it may have been wrongly interpreted.
Edit: As to a language without (much) recursion (lists of adjectives and possessives), my own native language sets limits on these too. There's nothing weird about it. All languages make use of the principle of economy or parsimony in their own way, deviating from this principle as soon as the point of necessary distinctions is threatened.
These are the two opposite principles operating in every language. Language is a dynamic system - a system, but dynamic. And formal on top of that.
These are the two opposite principles operating in every language.
You mentioned one, the principle of economy, what is the other that is opposite to this one?
Asking for curiosity, not as a discussion.
Necessary distinctions. Language exists to make a difference :)
For example there's A and B. There cannot be only A and nothing else. There must be both A and B - to make any sense of anything at all. Only A would be more economical, but with only A and with nothing else there's no way to make sense of anything. (Edit: Imagine dog and cat and cow and pigeon all be named "dog" - economical from the point of view of vocabulary, but intolerable for semantic purposes.) "Make sense" is achieved by making a distinction, i.e. using at least two elements.
This is how the principle of economy and the principle of distinctions seemingly oppose each other, but actually cooperate for a higher purpose.
Ah, yes.
Making a difference with the less effort... :)
First off, drop any adherence to the strong version of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Easily done: I never "bought" it… :)
My professional opinion on Piraha is that since it's poorly studied, there are many ways in which it may have been wrongly interpreted.
My amateur opinion is the same, and I can't help but consider the possibility that the Pirahã have a subtle sense of humor! (Everett's supposed attempt to teach them basic arithmetic seems unlikely in the extreme…) Still, I've found nothing newer than last year -on the web- about them.
(Only a few short papers to read! :) )
You mentioned one, the principle of economy, what is the other that is opposite to this one?
Asking for curiosity, not as a discussion.
The principle of optimal communicative function stands opposed to the principle of the least effort. This works at probably all levels of language. For instance, phonologically speaking, it's the principle of easing production versus the principle of easing perception.
Simplistically speaking, easing production means vowels are reduced to schwas whenever possible, while easing perception means that if all you're uttering is a bunch of schwas no one will understand a word you're saying.
(I know ersi already posted the same thing while I was writing this, but I don't want to waste my minor effort.)
Ok, those are some of the technical aspects of language's inner structure.
I have a war on languages but relating to the political and social functions of languages.
My country it's my language.
The defense of purism and denial of language "dynamism and evolution", as well as deviations, as means of preserving independence and identity.
You might (dis)like this video:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NU0DMjv0Y[/video]
You might (dis)like this video:
Well Frenzie... you let me with mixed feelings, what should I think about people that finds their own weaknesses to be... funny?
Since they're not my people, I like it.
Since many of my own people acts the same way, I don't like it.
On dictionaries (re Frenzie's video)
It actually is funny how English-speaking people tend to think "Is that even a word?" when the word is missing in the dictionary. In my own native language derivation (of adjectives from nouns, deverbalising, etc.) is so lively and rich that it makes no sense to include all such words in the dictionary. It would be pointless ballast because such derivation is a perfectly regular function and the meanings are straightforward. (You could just as well try to make a dictionary of all possible sentences in the language.) What makes sense to include in the dictionary is words with lexicalised meanings.
English is no different: it's just the spelling that is less receptive to compound spellings. In Dutch this is an internetforum; in English it's an internet forum. I wouldn't expect to find either in the dictionary. Verbing and nouning (;)) also occur constantly. The problem is just that especially Americans are whacked around the ears with nonsensical usage advice by the likes of Strunk & White, who blatantly disregard just about everything they say in order to produce what is actually fairly decent prose. The problem with the utterly nonsensical "advice" and "rules" is that no one knows what's what and is insecure about using stranded prepositions, passives, and whatnot. Not that anyone knows what a passive is, of course.
English is no different: it's just the spelling that is less receptive to compound spellings. In Dutch this is an internetforum; in English it's an internet forum. I wouldn't expect to find either in the dictionary.
You speak about compounding, I spoke about morphological derivation. Different things. Here we have lots of strictures and inflexibility in compounding so the languages seriously differ in this aspect.
And yes, compounding is so rich and vibrant in English that there's no chance for dictionaries to reflect this aspect of the language. It's the job for grammar books.
Verbing and nouning (;)) also occur constantly.
But in English the word doesn't need to change its spelling when you change its grammatical category. Here it's inevitable to add/drop some suffixes. In principle like in German all infinitives end in -en, and when you make a verb out of some noun, -en needs to be attached. Edit: Right, exactly the way you add -ing in English to form a gerund, but here we have many more such suffixes just to denote the syntactic function of the word.
beach please , :drunk:
in Java you speak in Java language .
and it have totally different Language for differrent People .
it's will be like ,
Speak with friends with english
Speak with Older People With Spanish
and Speak with a Sir with Latin
it's will be like ,
Speak with friends with english
Speak with Older People With Spanish
and Speak with a Sir with Latin
In my language we also use different vocatives and the correspondent different verbal modes depending on the social relation you have with your interlocutor. Factors as age, degree of intimacy or social status are always present, it's called "to have manners". Increasingly, many don't.
Also written language it's very different from verbal language, it's much more formal and elaborated. However, computers are destroying it and people start writing the way they speak.
Barbarism it's arriving at full force.
People here still speak vowels out. :lol: But it won't last long... :right:
:cheers:
People here still speak vowels out. :lol: But it won't last long... :right:
:cheers:
If up to me, I would lead a linguist crusade against Brasil as a punishment for what you're doing to the Portuguese language... languagecide, it's what it is :)
Desconseguir?? for Christ's sake... what saves you is that when a gorgeous
mulata starts talking I immediately can't resist surrendering into her arms... :)
I have never seen such word, but here (http://www.infopedia.pt/lingua-portuguesa/desconseguir) it seems not to be an exclusively Brazilian aberration.
pq? blz vlw :)
blz vlw :)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=425.140;msg=24435)
hmm... can't get it.
Anyway, the point being that, to my dissatisfaction, the language that wrote the epic of epics, the Lusíadas, it's falling apart. As everything else.
Better to stick to philosophies...
:yes: :spock:
Belfrager, why bother to speak to others — if you can't proscribe their means of expression? :)
The deterioration of language has been a constant topic, since -at least- the written word was invented… And, surely, long before; ugh!
I really mean it: Ugh!
Belfrager, why bother to speak to others — if you can't proscribe their means of expression? :)
The deterioration of language has been a constant topic, since -at least- the written word was invented… And, surely, long before; ugh!
I really mean it: Ugh!
Oakdale, while you ugh the caravan passes...
At my caravan, it's me who decides how things are.
I'll give you an annoying example of seemingly ungrammatical English: Me and my friends went...
A great many people say such nowadays, specially the young. But few -perhaps none- would say *Me went... So, might they have a different pattern in mind than the simple Noun-Verb combination?
Consider: We, me and my friends, went... Appositional phrases are not uncommon! And there's some sense to dropping the superfluous plural noun. No? :)
There's much to be said for style, I'd agree. But sense is more important. Isn't it?
it's called "to have manners". Increasingly, many don't.
Aristotle said something quite similar to this of the younger generation--it is timeless and a matter of perspective. At times I see an abundance of good manners and at others, almost a complete lack of them. :knight: :cheers:
Well, ersi, since I mentioned "statistical reasoning" in another thread and you, correctly, surmised that I was referring to Probability Theory…
What are your views? What are their sources? How would you handle the various "problems" with (at least, your favorite) such theories as are known? (I.e., have been created… Or, alternately, "so far discovered" — BTW: How does one "discover" something that isn't true? :) )
Or is there a Medieval text that precludes questions?
However, computers are destroying it and people start writing the way they speak.
People writing as they speak is not new. However, one way to tell a new, amateurish author is precisely that he writes his stories in a stiff formal manner using vocabulary and phrases never found outside books. That isn't to say you should writing should be exactly like speech because the spoken language is often very poor. It should be like speech, but refined and cleaned up considerably.
What are your views? What are their sources?
There was a course on statistics in the university, mainly important for those who would do their thesis as a kind of poll. This kind of thesis was not in my plans, so I didn't care any deeper about the statistical theories and their sources. I simply remember what was taught.
How would you handle the various "problems" with (at least, your favorite) such theories as are known? (I.e., have been created… Or, alternately, "so far discovered" —
What problem? It's not enough that you say there's a problem. You have to describe the problem. Every problem contains its own solution. In your case, problems are either defective formulations or completely imaginary.
BTW: How does one "discover" something that isn't true? :)
Those things are invented. Just like Columbus invented America. He didn't even know it was America, so whatever he thought it was was a complete invention.
Or is there a Medieval text that precludes questions?
There are medieval texts that provide answers. As long as you scoff at the idea, the answers won't reach you.
I gathered from your reply that you had no interest in the subject… But —
As Ronald Fisher said (in the beginning of a "recent" paper in 1955 (http://www.phil.vt.edu/dmayo/personal_website/Fisher-1955.pdf)):
[…] a more complete understanding has been reached of the structure and peculiarities of inductive logic — that is of reasoning from the sample to the population from which the sample was drawn, from consequences to causes, or in more logical terms, from the particular to the general.
He was referring to the last century.
If you would,
ersi, read this paper. If you won't, know that -no matter your predilection for terminological niceties- what I call
statistical reasoning is in a quandary: As a field of mathematics, its foundations are controversial. As a practical science, utter nonsense is accepted by academics and their journals. As a science applicable to real-world problems, it hardly surfaces above the sea of politics…
And yet you see no problems!
Perhaps you think Probability only refers to the "toy" games of chance upon which, four centuries ago, brilliant mathematicians speculated… But I doubt you are familiar with such.
Still, you may be able to think something through:
In what sense does a single event have a probability?
———————————————————————————
There are, of course, other questions: How do we instantiate finite subsets of the infinite underpinnings of Frequentist theories of probability? (The same "problem" exists for every finitist version… Hume asked some good questions!)
How, if probability is
merely a personal propensity to believe, do we understand science, when it is statistical?
When do we say that something is probable, if we can't agree on what "probable" means?
I gathered from your reply that you had no interest in the subject… But —
I'm interested in meaningful discussion. I won't waste much time on false theories. Particularly, I have no time to look into the details of unfamiliar false theories. Ronald Fisher is false, if he indeed thinks that understanding evolves as the theoretical rigour of published treatises solidifies according to his taste. I know you see the gradual improvement of historical track record of human knowledge as a real development of collective human mentality - yet it's sheer delusion to see things this way.
My theory is that the evolution of knowledge occurs within a given ontology. From this perspective, the evolution is seen to be a mere rearrangement of aspects of the same thing. The evolution is a mere distraction. That which evolves is the real thing, except that it's the same thing all along and only appears to evolve.
Still, you may be able to think something through:
In what sense does a single event have a probability?
To be technically correct, it doesn't have probability. It
is probable to such-and-such degree or magnitude. Either you presented me with a trick question or your presuppositions are showing through.
How, if probability is merely a personal propensity to believe, do we understand science, when it is statistical?
Why would probability be a personal propensity to believe?
When do we say that something is probable, if we can't agree on what "probable" means?
Probability is what it is. You don't have to agree, but this won't change what it is. Or maybe I don't understand the question :)
My theory is that the evolution of knowledge occurs within a given ontology.
Here's some elaboration. When we learn things, individually it seems we are acquiring new knowledge. Therefore there exists the theory that we create new knowledge from scratch. The theory allows one to say that we invent objects of knowledge, both true and false objects.
But I adhere to the other theory. Given that knowledge is preferably about reality, relevant knowledge should reflect reality. Reality is not invented. Reality is pre-existent and the process of knowledge is a process of discovery of what pre-exists. On this view, "invention" only applies to irrelevancies and falsities.
If you remove the "from scratch" you are left with nothing to say… ersi, you don't recognize the crucial role epistemology plays.
But it's worse: Your "ontology" has it that everything that can be thought truly must pre-exist as a true thought…as an object of knowledge. But thoughts require thinkers. And, like it or no, thinkers are -at their best- creative!
Your conception would have to relegate all of science to the "irrelevancies and falsities" category. (Do you see why?) Science can't claim certitude, because its methods don't give any warrant for absolute certainty. It does, however, claim better and better understanding of the objects it investigates.
Are these objects real? Well, that's part of the investigation. Isn't it?
Where does one start?
For you, one starts by being taught what to think. For some others, one starts by being taught how to think. (The odd thing is that you don't recognize the difference… Or, at least, you've never transgressed the boundaries of what you were taught to think! That is, you're only a reactionary.) That how does matter: Science is a technique of acquiring knowledge…
But, for you, it can't be. Because "true" knowledge is beyond its grasp.
If you'd think it through yourself you'd see that your ontological precepts preclude knowledge, except by direct revelation… Are you sure you want to go there?
Put more succinctly: Your precepts preclude your percepts. It should be the other way around…
At least. that's what I think.
Science can't claim certitude, because its methods don't give any warrant for absolute certainty. It does, however, claim better and better understanding of the objects it investigates.
Are these objects real? Well, that's part of the investigation. Isn't it?
There's a situation I'm familiar with that is analogous to this:
Naive Set Theory vs the Iterative Conception of Sets. Would you talk about such things?
But it's worse: Your "ontology" has it that everything that can be thought truly must pre-exist as a true thought…as an object of knowledge.
Reality pre-exists in the sense that reality exists, full stop. You may want to make a turn and (pre-)suppose a multiplicity of objects of knowledge, but there's really just one true object of knowledge - reality itself. Everything else is derivative, secondary, contingent, contextual, less relevant, and at some point plain wrong.
Reality is not a multiplicity. According to the continuum theory, reality is a unity. "Everything" only exists as divisions of it and in it.
But thoughts require thinkers. And, like it or no, thinkers are -at their best- creative!
The creativity, if it is to remain relevant, only occurs as a subdivision or subset of the singular original reality. If creativity fails to take note where it's coming from and where it's going, then it spirals into irrelevancy and is better called deviation or malfunction.
From your point of view, bugs would be creative features of software, but I make a distinction between relevant features and those detrimental to usability.
For you, one starts by being taught what to think. For some others, one starts by being taught how to think. (The odd thing is that you don't recognize the difference… )
As I just demonstrated, it's precisely the other way round. As soon as you say anything, it's usually a given that you are wrong. The thing left to see is how you manage to keep adding to it. Then at other times you are not even wrong, but irrelevant.
Science can't claim certitude, because its methods don't give any warrant for absolute certainty. It does, however, claim better and better understanding of the objects it investigates.
Are these objects real? Well, that's part of the investigation. Isn't it?
If you aim to defend science this way, then you should have toned down everything you said hitherto. Why? Because you can't claim certitude, that's why. Announcing boldly and with absolute certainty that there is no certainty is plain hypocrisy. Nobody likes hypocrites.
My view is that science is investigation. The result of investigation is knowledge. And knowledge is real, because truth can be told apart from falsity. Certainty can be had, but naturally it's not for those with faulty epistemology who prefer to assume that certainty cannot be had. It's basic common sense that those who run away from knowledge of reality will remain ignorant in direct proportion to their effort.
Naive Set Theory vs the Iterative Conception of Sets. Would you talk about such things?
Sure I would, but knowing you, I ask you first to spell them out, what they are and how are they "vs" each other, and if they really are the only options available on the topic (and what is the topic, btw? probability theory or set theory?). And knowing you, a coherent exposition is not going to happen.
The creativity, if it is to remain relevant, only occurs as a subdivision or subset of the singular original reality. If creativity fails to take note where it's coming from and where it's going, then it spirals into irrelevancy and is better called deviation or malfunction.
All that it's very very debatable...
Reality, unity and creativity, as well as malfunction, are not concepts of the same order, we must be cautious when trying to connect them all. A singular original reality that encompasses everything that is and that could be leaves no space to difference, it's monolithic and leads to an alley with no way out. Unity makes sense if connecting difference.
Unity makes sense if connecting difference.
How would such unity work? What would be the result of the unification? And when unity works and the result is unity, is the difference really a difference?
My answer is that differences can be unified because there's the potential unity in the first place. And the result of unification is unity, cessation of difference. The difference is just a temporary appearance.
My answer is that differences can be unified because there's the potential unity in the first place. And the result of unification is unity, cessation of difference. The difference is just a temporary appearance.
In that case you defend the confluence for a sole, universal, united and unifying being.
Then, why things appears to be, even temporarily, outside of such being, that would be a very mysterious thing indeed.
Unless of course, your words are meant to be an interpretation of the typical religious view where the "original sin" would be that temporarily appearance of divergence. It can work that way...
It can work that way...
It does work. Trust me :)
The problem with it is that when expressed with formal precision, it sounds like a mere theory. Then again, anything communicated is necessarily a mere theory. What is needed is some corresponding experience so that the listener can relate to what is being conveyed. How the listener relates to it is very much dependent on the listener. Some respond better to the obscure way the scriptures express it, whereas others respond better formalised methodical presentations.
I personally shun watered-down popular or cultish stuff inasmuch as I detect lack of intellectual rigour in them, but it's undeniable that appeal to emotion via some simple fluffy metaphor can work miracles for some people. Even watered-down self-help is better than the aimless physicalism devoid of morality. Not too bad as long as people won't get abused.
The problem for intellectuals like me is that I easily end up arguing and disputing. Ability to follow a path and be devoted is only possible after the disputes have ended. But the disputes can end only when things make complete sense, when everything is indisputable beyond any doubt.
A coherent system may look too tidy to be true, but for me truth is necessarily tidy. Otherwise it's unmotivating, doesn't call for commitment.
it seems that is not intellectual .
that is more like Trolling .
and trolling does not really need intellectuall thingy .
and if that is really intellectual like you have mentioned .
for sure you can intelligence nor understand what belf, oak , James , and frenzie talking about .
in another word ..
that is just somekind of stupidity .
On the other hand , constant talker is really an Emotion Vampires .
It does work. Trust me :)
Congratulations you just founded Ersisism.
Now, you just need a Prophet... later we can think about a Pope. :)
Since my system includes the realisation that it's not for everyone, all that external fluff and bloat is unnecessary. For me the barebones minimum suffices. If you need more, ersisism is not for you.
aint nothing can be realization , without really have realization in it .
it is OK , to talking BS .
but , aslong also aware if talking about BS .
@Sparta
It approaches BS fast when you don't realize you are losing your Java.
that kind of red herring aint gonna work .
If you need more, ersisism is not for you.
Wrong marketing... :)
You will not sell too much books.
However I have good news for your system, it's very good for a movie. I mean those European experimental movies that concurs to obscure festivals and no one understands... :)
The reason I'm saying this is to do a transition for something very rare to be discussed here, the aesthetics of ideas.
Your system (well, let's call it yours) aspires to an aesthetic nudity, striped from adornments and superfluous symbolism. If this was architecture, you'll be very much Bauhaus - Home hygiene without home atmosphere.
The marketing looks wrong to you and the aesthetics sterile because I have spent zero attention on those aspects. Bauhaus is an unexpectedly apt description, but completely unintended...
Edit: I don't do aesthetics. However, Kant (one of those philosophers whom I half-openly admire) does aesthetics. Okay, I will also give it a try :)
Edit2: But seriously, you understand that this "ersisism" is by no means unique to me, but a straightforward corollary to a standard solution to the problem of universals? With slight modifications its adherents are Kant, Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, Plotinus, Plato, ...
Edit2: But seriously, you understand that this "ersisism" is by no means unique to me, but a straightforward corollary to a standard solution to the problem of universals? With slight modifications its adherents are Kant, Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, Plotinus, Plato, ...
That's a legitimate thing to you to think but at a forum it's up to the others to accept it or not... :)
I'm still not convinced. And I'm not convinced for a reason, a particular reason that made me to evoke aesthetics - why beauty matters. (http://documentaryaddict.com/Why+Beauty+Matters-542-doc.html)
(sorry, that was the only link I could find. At Youtube, symptomatically, it's not anymore available... please see it, at least for a while if it catches your attention...)
For long that I've abandoned any attempt of explaining universals that doesn't takes into consideration and recognizes human differences and, very specially, the human capacity for enchantment.
Some of the authors you mention realized it. :)
For long that I've abandoned any attempt of explaining universals that doesn't takes into consideration and recognizes human differences and, very specially, the human capacity for enchantment.
Some of the authors you mention realized it. :)
Aesthetics is a truly dark area for me. I have atrophied perception of colour, taste and smell, so, for example, I honestly don't grasp the point when someone says "warm colour" and "cold colour". I realize that such concepts (or percepts rather) are necessary elements in individual aesthetics, and I am quite aware that I don't have it. Like a man without legs can see others walking and form a fair idea of what walking is, but he spends his own life without walking, I have spent my life without a proper sense of aesthetics.
As a result you think I am missing something important, whereas from my own point of view I am doing okay. Let's say my entire sense or organ of aesthetics is missing. In this case I probably cannot even have the relevant "taste" and it's useless of you to try to convey to me that it's missing. It would not grow the organ for me. Organs are not grown by talking about them. Moreover, it won't be very convincing to tell me that the organ of aesthetics is something overly vital, when I already spent my life without it just fine.
Of course I know that there are philosophers with an elaborate theory of aesthetics. I just never saw any use to it. You will have to explain it to me in baby steps, if you will, just like work life and parenthood are explained to children. I will try to find time for the documentary too some weekend.
On the other hand, I am quite sure that you on your part are missing the way I account for human differences. My treatment of universals may seem sweeping, but this only because you overlook the nuances, and you overlook the nuances because you don't have the eye for them :) The fact that my expression is not aesthetical enough to your taste (and how could my expression be aesthetical when I don't have the organ for it?) only augments the discord you perceive. To solve this, identify properly what feels out of place for you and I will prove to you that it only seems this way.
-------------------
Now to something completely different. I found the website thelogician.net which contains the writings of a spiritual logician. This is not a theologian in the direct sense, but a propounder of formal logic going over theological and spiritual concepts. At first sight, the most interesting sections of the website are Buddhist Illogic and Logic of Causation.
I have already read Buddhist Illogic and I have a very high opinion of the author's rigour and of his sense of didactics. At every step he makes it lucidly clear what techniques he uses, why and how. The Buddhist text under critique is by Nagarjuna, which I am familiar with, but I think the critique is readable even without having read Nagarjuna.
The website makes a perfect introduction into formal logic. Not for beginners really, but for those who really plan to use it and live accordingly. I personally disagree with some of the ways he construes the implications of the basic axioms of logic, but the exposition is so lucid and clear that I don't hesitate to recommend it unreservedly. I will never become such a clear writer. If you are interested, I can write up some longer comments about what I have gathered from there. It will be about technicalities of logic, perfectly topical to this thread.
I'm still not convinced. And I'm not convinced for a reason, a particular reason that made me to evoke aesthetics - why beauty matters. (http://documentaryaddict.com/Why+Beauty+Matters-542-doc.html)
Incidentally, I also added Vimeo embedding back when I added the functionality for YouTube.
[video]http://vimeo.com/55784152[/video]
On the other hand, I am quite sure that you on your part are missing the way I account for human differences. My treatment of universals may seem sweeping, but this only because you overlook the nuances, and you overlook the nuances because you don't have the eye for them :) The fact that my expression is not aesthetical enough to your taste (and how could my expression be aesthetical when I don't have the organ for it?) only augments the discord you perceive. To solve this, identify properly what feels out of place for you and I will prove to you that it only seems this way.
Simply put, the world it's made of inanimate matter, life and ideas. You address matter with the continuum theory and a part of ideas with logic. Very well, but none of those two (continuum and logics) explains the rest.
Life it's not a matter of electro magnetic forces and ideas are far from circumscribing to logic, therefore my call to aesthetics and Art.
It results at a partial, unbalanced, incomplete vision that, in my opinion, can't satisfy. By means of logic you arrive to God - and that's done in a right way but it's a very special kind of God, a logic-mechanicist God that is much more close to the Mason Great Architect than to the
God made Man that suffers.
You seek explanation as if explanation were a synonymous of inexorability, when it's not. Ultimate explanation must go beyond pure logic-blocks-Lego-playing and go right into the wholeness of Mystery because Man doesn't serve explanations it's the explanation that must serve Man in his entirety.
I'm sure you have our own ideas about what I'm saying but it was never any substantial, if even ever present, part of your writings.
I found the website thelogician.net which contains the writings of a spiritual logician.
Which contains the writings of an analytic philosopher.
You'll have to discuss it with Oakdale :) He's the one defending analytic philosophy, I lean much more for the Continental tradition.
Anyway, I'll give the Buddhist sophistry a look.
@Frenzie
Thank you for inserting the video, I saw that link to Vimeo but I thought it would be with subtitles in Portuguese or Spanish. Hope you like it.
I honestly don't grasp the point when someone says "warm colour" and "cold colour".
If you want to read something that isn't full of baseless personal opinions that muddle the water, check here (http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color12.html).
By assigning warm color depth and mood effects to lightness and chroma, it might seem that the warm/cool contrast is illusory, just a crude way to summarize the lightness and saturation differences between different hues.
But that's the wrong conclusion. The depth and mood effects were grafted onto the warm/cool contrast by late 18th and 19th century "color theorists"; they were not part of the contrast as it was applied in Baroque landscape painting. So we still have the fourth question to answer: why is the warm/cool contrast fundamental to our visual response to color and to the manipulation of colors in painting?
The first step to an answer is that the warm/cool contrast originates in diurnal or climatic changes in illumination, specifically as seen in landscape settings. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary describes 18th century usage to include:
Cold - applied to tints or colouring which suggest a cold sunless day, or the colder effect of evening; esp. to blue and grey, and tints akin to these.
Warm - suggestive of warmth, said especially of red or yellow ... to become 'warmer' or more ruddy: "On a bright morning of July, when the grey of the sky was just beginning to warm with the rising day".
Of course, I should probably add that this all aligns perfectly well with my own personal opinion: that most claims of "warmth" are more about saturation and intensity than color and that the only way to use the terms in a meaningful fashion is to have them refer to the colors associated with warmer and colder seasons or parts of day.
Of course, I should probably add that this all aligns perfectly well with my own personal opinion: that most claims of "warmth" are more about saturation and intensity than color and that the only way to use the terms in a meaningful fashion is to have them refer to the colors associated with warmer and colder seasons or parts of day.
Not exactly. Warm and cold comes originally from photography and it expresses what is known as color "temperature" and it's simply the color measured in kelvin degrees, basically the level of the light specter. Red, orange or yellow have higher values than blue or green.
It happens that by morning and end of day, because the sun being lower, colors tends much more to higher values, to be more redish and orange. At noon colors are less saturated and withish.
Simply put, the world it's made of inanimate matter, life and ideas. You address matter with the continuum theory and a part of ideas with logic. Very well, but none of those two (continuum and logics) explains the rest.
I sort of see why you would think so, but actually this is not a fair summary of how I construe reality and existence. The continuum theory is not meant to describe only material existence, but all of existence, while logic is used to address the evident structure of reality and distinct entities therein. There is no antagonistic dichotomy between the continuum theory and logic, but cooperation between them.
Let's see if there's a way to describe it better than I have thus far. Scientists have been debating whether matter fundamentally is waves or particles. As per the continuum theory, waves would be waves
of something and particles would be particles
of something, i.e. fundamentally there would be the continuum, mathematically modelled e.g. as the field in the field theory. This describes the matter.
Matter is the objective aspect of reality, the observed aspect. There's also the observer aspect of reality. Let's say the observer, such as some scientist, observes particles and waves. If he's a rational scientist, he'd logically deduce that all spatiotemporally detected phenomena imply corresponding undetected phenomena. Some of it is undetected because it's in spatiotemporal locations not currently observed. Some of it is undetected because the observed phenomena are phenomena
of something, implying the existence of
something which they are phenomena of. (The same way as physicians only observe symptoms of the disease, whereas what they are really getting at is the disease, which they can never observe directly, only via symptoms. Similarly physicists should know they are observing phenomena of reality, not directly the reality; or let's call it phenomenal reality which logically should invite to consider the underlying or concurrent non-phenomenal reality.) And some of it is undetected because it's on the observer side of reality, not on the observed side.
Do you notice how all this is uncovered easily by means of dialectic, but there's at no point any contradiction with the continuum theory? These two work together. And it doesn't end here.
The observer side of reality should not be downplayed or dismissed without investigation, if the scientist is to remain scientific. Let's suggest some ways to investigate the observer side. Common experience informs us that the manner in which we observe determines the kind of stuff we detect. E.g. we don't detect sound with eyes, but this doesn't mean that sound doesn't exist. It means that we use something else, namely ears, to detect sound. Soldiers looking for mines with metal detectors would fail to detect stone-age traps, which might just as well be there. This highlights the fact that the manner in which to investigate, i.e. the correctly chosen method and attitude, becomes all-important as we move on. Thus far we were considering the objective side of reality, investigated by means of objective empirical methods. When investigating the subjective side of reality, we will have to use the corresponding subjective cognitive methods. Composed mind, sincere attitude, calm introspection, careful attention, prudent caution, these are the methods.
It results at a partial, unbalanced, incomplete vision that, in my opinion, can't satisfy. By means of logic you arrive to God - and that's done in a right way but it's a very special kind of God, a logic-mechanicist God that is much more close to the Mason Great Architect than to the God made Man that suffers.
You seek explanation as if explanation were a synonymous of inexorability, when it's not. Ultimate explanation must go beyond pure logic-blocks-Lego-playing and go right into the wholeness of Mystery because Man doesn't serve explanations it's the explanation that must serve Man in his entirety.
I didn't go all the way to God in my above analysis, but if you take it further on your own, it should be clear that I cannot be accused of a mechanistic Lego-block concept of God. Instead, I am guilty of what Oakdale blames me of, namely
grokking. He uses it pejoratively of course, but grokking is really the correct method to explore the subjective aspect of reality, the internal world. It is also the ethical way, to acknowledge what one cognises, and to be silent of what one does not cognise or what cannot be conveyed.
Surely you understand that the exploration of the internal world is not mechanistic. Also, the elements and aspects of the internal world are not speculative logical constructs, not normative, but rather analogically and metaphorically descriptive approximations. They inevitably appear speculative to those completely unfamiliar with the internal world, but they are really as alive as one's own soul is. They are the description of the structure and nature of the soul. They make sense in proportion to the mental adequacy and intellectual clarity of the cogniser.
What I admit though is that some aesthetic packaging would make it all look better and enable possibly to convey an additional dimension of the experience. Maybe trying to put together some theory of colours, which already came up here, would enable me to grok aesthetics. That would be merry jolly :) Unfortunately I have not yet managed to get too far into the documentary. Towards the beginning it shows some icky l'art moderne which makes me wanna puke. I have to recover from this and try again some other time to learn the lesson of beauty.
I found the website thelogician.net which contains the writings of a spiritual logician.
Which contains the writings of an analytic philosopher.
You'll have to discuss it with Oakdale :) He's the one defending analytic philosophy, I lean much more for the Continental tradition.
Maybe it makes no sense to you, but I really don't see the continental and analytic philosophies as irreconcilable. Analysis and method is central to both. Aristotle is one of the fathers of the exposition of logical analysis and fundamental to any and all philosophies (except maybe Nietzsche whose texts consist entirely in emotional pressing points and moral judgements based on aesthetics rather than ethics; let Nietzsche be the unique exception). My own background is classical sructuralism, a continental philosophy focused on analytical dialectic. When I see so many essential common points throughout, I cannot take sides. I simply don't see sides here.
Anyway, I'll give the Buddhist sophistry a look.
It will basically teach you everything there is to know about Aristotelian syllogism :)
Cold - applied to tints or colouring which suggest a cold sunless day, or the colder effect of evening; esp. to blue and grey, and tints akin to these.
Warm - suggestive of warmth, said especially of red or yellow ... to become 'warmer' or more ruddy: "On a bright morning of July, when the grey of the sky was just beginning to warm with the rising day".
Of course, I should probably add that this all aligns perfectly well with my own personal opinion: that most claims of "warmth" are more about saturation and intensity than color and that the only way to use the terms in a meaningful fashion is to have them refer to the colors associated with warmer and colder seasons or parts of day.
This amazingly makes sense, somewhat. However, I have never associated cold and warm to colours of the day this way. To me actual warmth or cold is not very readily relatable to times of day. Could it be partly because I live almost in the subarctic climate zone? Clear day (high pressure area) in winter means precisely extra harsh cold, while it means extra hot in summer. I can perceive the current weather front (or whatever it's called in English) which is either warm or cold, but it doesn't seem to bring about corresponding colour changes in nature. Well, I'll just have to pay more attention, I guess.
I don't mean to intrude here, but a thought occurred to me while reading jseaton's post (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=33.msg26080#msg26080) (which was, meanwhile, responded to…while I was typing, and thinking…):
The reason I prefer and hold to an Objective Bayesian interpretation of probability (and statistical reasoning) is straightforward: Confirmatory evidence needs be pertinent. And probabilities without evidence are but "toy" examples… (Indeed, they just hide the evidence! Like stage magicians, they don't fool many people. Or do they? :) )
Every statement of probability has evidence upon which it is posited. The centuries' old "problem" of green flamingos somehow being evidence for (or against) "All crows are black" is, of course, silly… Yet it persists.
The Vienna Circle's analyses of probability took a big hit from Popper's falsification criterion. But frequentism somehow still survives! (I suspect that is in reaction to Subjective Beyesianism: Rather than take probability as an individual, personal warrant of belief, even metaphysical nonsense is to be preferred!)
Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about… So: Carry on!
The continuum theory is not meant to describe only material existence, but all of existence, while logic is used to address the evident structure of reality and distinct entities therein. There is no antagonistic dichotomy between the continuum theory and logic, but cooperation between them.
Let's see if there's a way to describe it better than I have thus far. Scientists have been debating whether matter fundamentally is waves or particles. As per the continuum theory, waves would be waves of something and particles would be particles of something, i.e. fundamentally there would be the continuum, mathematically modelled e.g. as the field in the field theory. This describes the matter.
Nope.
The reason continuum theory to be modelled as a field it's because there's simply no matter at all but potential different states depending on localized differences of strength along one single and continual field. Unless you pretend to resume conscience to be fruit of electro magnetic variations and life to be the same thing (which would be a mere materialist vision updated in order to substitute a classic vision of particles by physical forces), continuum theory only respects to the problem of matter, not the existence of life and even less conscience.
Matter is the objective aspect of reality, the observed aspect. There's also the observer aspect of reality. Let's say the observer, such as some scientist, observes particles and waves. If he's a rational scientist, he'd logically deduce that all spatiotemporally detected phenomena imply corresponding undetected phenomena. Some of it is undetected because it's in spatiotemporal locations not currently observed. Some of it is undetected because the observed phenomena are phenomena of something, implying the existence of something which they are phenomena of. (The same way as physicians only observe symptoms of the disease, whereas what they are really getting at is the disease, which they can never observe directly, only via symptoms. Similarly physicists should know they are observing phenomena of reality, not directly the reality; or let's call it phenomenal reality which logically should invite to consider the underlying or concurrent non-phenomenal reality.) And some of it is undetected because it's on the observer side of reality, not on the observed side.
That is correct and what the continuum theory definitively breaks with it's the observer's mental interpretation of "small things that orbits around small things".
Towards the beginning it shows some icky l'art moderne which makes me wanna puke. I have to recover from this and try again some other time to learn the lesson of beauty.
It's there for you to puke.
The interesting part is the explanation why you and everybody else should puke, that's why beauty matters.
That's the problem with videos, an entire hour just to say what could be said in ten minutes.
Maybe it makes no sense to you, but I really don't see the continental and analytic philosophies as irreconcilable. Analysis and method is central to both.
It's not what is common but what is different.
Reading this (http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/analytic.asp) will make anyone understand the differences but I reject the vision of complementarity between the two. Clearly one leads, the other being merely subsidiary.
You write very long posts, by the way. I appreciate the style, very professorial and didactic, but it turns difficult to answer to everything. There's much more to be said but forums are like soap operas, tomorrow there will be another episode.
@Oakdale
So for you the whole issue of "statistical reasoning" is about the debate between the so-called objective and subjective interpretation, whereas I don't get the debate in the first place to be able to take sides in it. What is it about?
I think I made my own view on probabilities clear enough in this post (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=33.msg25233#msg25233), but I will make the same point again now. Statistics addresses reality (or relevance or truth) by means of inductive reasoning: The more it occurs in the statistics, the more real/relevant/true it is. This "statistical reasoning" says at best *that it occurs* but it doesn't say *what occurs* and therefore it's of very limited utility.
*What* occurs is accounted for by means of logical analysis of the apparent elements in the system or in the model that is being studied. The "probability" in the process of this analysis is to get the definitions and labels straight and relevant. To get the delimiting definitions wrong is to make the elements in the system inconsistent, "improbable", "unlikely". This is the domain of deduction.
For example there's the statistical measuring of weather phenomena. The data on wind speed, temperature and precipitation is the domain of your "statistical reasoning". It only tells that stuff is going on, but it tells nothing about what speed, temperature, and precipitation are.
To tell *what* is going on is a whole different analysis. In order to get to this, substances are posited, i.e. there's speed, temperature, and precipitation
of something and the study of this
something becomes possible only after it is posited and defined. In this approach, probability does not exist per se ipso facto prima facie, but only exists as
probability of something. And at this point I think it's evident that the whole objective versus subjective debate within the Bayesian framework is transcended.
Then further there's also the question *why it occurs* but this is beyond the scope of probabilities.
The reason continuum theory to be modelled as a field it's because there's simply no matter at all...
This would be my conclusion too :) but my modest aim was to demonstrate the process of analysis, not to provide the conclusion. The process of analysis will take you to a/the conclusion sure enough, but thou shalt not jump to conclusions prematurely. Patience and rigour will ensure you that the conclusion you get is the right/appropriate one.
And I see I must spend more care on proving that the continuum theory does not break at any point. The same way as it reconciles the wave and particle by taking them both to be different aspects of the continuum, it also reconciles the observed and observer aspects of reality. It's just that the unification of objective and subjective is trickier to describe. I thought my mentioning about the synthesis of seeing and hearing, and about metal detectors failing to detect stone-age traps which must also be accounted for would get the point across, but evidently not.
It's not what is common but what is different.
Reading this (http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/analytic.asp) will make anyone understand the differences but I reject the vision of complementarity between the two. Clearly one leads, the other being merely subsidiary.
Well, I happen to see that the common points are leading the way. To me the differences are more cultural than methodical, more aesthetical than ethical. I am yet to see the relevance of culture and aesthetics to science and philosophy. I see the relevance of it to some scientists and philosophers, but not to science and philosophy as such.
(Belfrager: Thanks for the link to Leiter's blog!)
*What* occurs is accounted for by means of logical analysis of the apparent elements in the system or in the model that is being studied. The "probability" in the process of this analysis is to get the definitions and labels straight and relevant. To get the delimiting definitions wrong is to make the elements in the system inconsistent, "improbable", "unlikely". This is the domain of deduction.
I don't have any serious qualms about this way of putting it… But there
really are some who deny the necessity of the model (premises) as a vehicle for deduction! They're hung up on the phrase "knowledge is warranted belief" in conjunction with "science is provisional"… The whole
being right, for the wrong reason trope.
It's hours since I should have been a-bed. But, tomorrow (actually, later today!), I'll try to find the paper I most recently read — as an example of what I mean; since I don't think I've made the position clear… Also, because I don't quite understand it myself!
For me, probability is conditional on premises. Always. (And statistics -statistical reasoning, if you will- is a deductive discipline… A form of mathematics.)
I am yet to see the relevance of culture and aesthetics to science and philosophy.
Fundamental to philosophy, apparently not so much for science (exact sciences).
Both are not the strict result of methods, as I believe you defend, but the result of particular men using such methods which is a different thing. It seems an evidence but it has deep consequences.
Each man carries a reflection of it's own culture and there's no way philosophy - nothing but the reasoning about the perennial questions - not to reflect it. Even the questions would be formulated differently leading to different answers.
It happens at all the philosophical disciplines from ethics to metaphysics. Different languages adds huge complexity to that. Some, as Heidegger's case, would even assume German being the only language enough elaborated to allow a man to really think... :)
Logics are a particular and special case. For some reason it is studied by two different disciplines, philosophy and mathematics, each using it's own form of notation, the content being the same.
Each man carries a reflection of it's own culture and there's no way philosophy - nothing but the reasoning about the perennial questions - not to reflect it. Even the questions would be formulated differently leading to different answers.
Sure, but doesn't the fact that we can see and understand this provide an opportunity to transcend the problem and synthesise the essence of variegated cultures, experiences, and ways of inquiry? I seriously don't get it when one is able to generalise to the fact that "everybody is different" and then doesn't see the gateway opening to the unity. It shouldn't be too hard to generalise towards an actual generality, just like cold and warm are ordinarily considered opposites, but both are temperature.
Logics are a particular and special case. For some reason it is studied by two different disciplines, philosophy and mathematics, each using it's own form of notation, the content being the same.
And isn't this realisation too in and of itself a stepping-stone to unite the two?
ersi, here's an example of the sort of thing I meant: (1997) Duhem's Problem, the Bayesian Way, and Error Statistics, or "What's Belief Got to Do with It?" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/188306)
Since the paper is behind a pay-wall, I'll give you a pertinent taste…
In a nutshell, the subjective Bayesian model of confirmation says that evidence e confirms hypothesis H to the extent that an agent's degree of belief in H is higher given evidence e than what it was or would be without evidence e. Probability measures subjective degree of belief. The agent's degree of belief in H after evidence e is called the posterior probability assignment. The degrees of belief an agent has in a hypothesis H and its alternatives without evidence e are the prior degree of belief assignments. Inductive inference from evidence is a matter of updating one's degree of belief to yield a posterior degree of belief so as to cohere with Bayes' theorem.
Sure, but doesn't the fact that we can see and understand this provide an opportunity to transcend the problem and synthesise the essence of variegated cultures, experiences, and ways of inquiry? I seriously don't get it when one is able to generalise to the fact that "everybody is different" and then doesn't see the gateway opening to the unity. It shouldn't be too hard to generalise towards an actual generality, just like cold and warm are ordinarily considered opposites, but both are temperature
Where you see a gateway to unity, I see tension. A dynamic tension that fuels thought.
Synthesis can't exist without thesis and antithesis.
And isn't this realisation too in and of itself a stepping-stone to unite the two?
I'm not familiarized with philosophy of mathematics meaning for example
why and
how mathematical thinking differs from philosophical reflection at it's inner structure.
However, it's simple enough to realize that both are tools but besides the area of logics both tools don't dig the same terrains.
@ersi: I drop this here, because it's unlikely to intrude… Perhaps it helps to explain (my views).
Inspiration : )
What is the meaning of coincidence?
It's depth doesn't matter. Even mere lack,
simple juxtaposition, takes me back
to a simple truth: What there is of sense
in my musings is mostly reverie…
I don't think myself incapable of
real connected thought; only, that I love
"found objects" — and that they matter to me,
as parts of the whole. Inconsequential,
perhaps. But, then, who's to finally know?
One takes inspiration where it will go.
(That is, if one needs such! to feel so full
that he sloshes, like his mumbled-many
glass of beer, as he searches for any…
Roger Scruton says, "At any time between 1750 and 1930, if you would have asked educated people to describe the aim of poetry, art, or music, they would have replied: Beauty. And if you had asked the point of that, you would have learned that beauty is a value as important as truth and goodness." There's nothing to disagree with about this. Except that I have questions like why only between 1750 and 1930, and why only limited to poetry, art (=painting, I suppose) or music.
What would "educated people" have answered about the aim of poetry, art or music outside that time frame? Do considerations of beauty apply only to poetry, art or music or can it be considered wider?
The documentary is not short of insights, even though it had hardly anything to add to what I already know. More importantly, it had nothing to add to what I already do in terms of beauty or art. I am probably too well educated to learn much from the Roger Scruton. The sorry state of modern art hasn't affected me. I simply don't go to art galleries to watch modern crap. I go to museums instead. And among movies I do my best to make informed choices.
The aspect in modern culture (I'd really make this about culture, not art, not even art in broad sense, but rather culture in broad sense) that has affected me though is architecture. Modern architecture sucks in every way imaginable. Not just in terms of beauty, which is not to be found in concrete and glass, but also in terms of building quality and even in terms of straightforward function. In a way it's cool when architecture is replaceable and modifiable Lego-style, but the idea to create a building soon to be replaced is stupid to the core. And those buildings should really serve a purpose. To house some tolerable office environment isn't much of a requirement to begin with, but they fail to live up to even this low expectation. Centuries-old ruins look much more attractive than newly-finished modern bank headquarters. Anyway, luckily I haven't lived in cities too long and I'm not planning to.
According to my definition, art is an aspect of culture in general. Sometimes, like in fiction literature or painting, art seems to acquire an autonomous function, but it never becomes a separate entity. The modernist thesis "art for art's sake" is false and postmodernist extremist derivatives built on this thesis are worse than false. I see art (=beauty) in many everyday things. For example I take delight in well-designed timetables, something where others never look for art or which they don't associate with culture in any way. Well designed in a timetable means easily graspable function and content, and this may be achieved by means of layout and colour.
Conscious consideration of options of layout in a timetable and application of colour to emphasise or clarify its contents easily qualifies as art for me, particularly when the result has the intended effect. This kind of "practical art" can be seen as the way to bring forth beauty in many everyday things, be it by means of harmony of proportions and details in architecture or of the material and function of most ordinary hand-tools. In my opinion, carpenters and masons who build amazing things have similarly amazing tools that they use to build the things with.
The same way, even though I can write computer code only on a very basic level myself, I understand very well what hackers mean by "beautiful code". There's harmony in code, and beauty when it's both economic (well-trimmed in terms of layout, non-redundant and minimal in workarounds). and functional. It's the same as the harmony in mathematics and language (understood as functionality of grammar).
Mathematics permeates the fabric of the universe and is the essence of harmony in nature. Art is art (=beauty) inasmuch as it comprehends and conveys this harmony. This is indeed how I understand the unity of truth and beauty. Here's a little example what I am talking about:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0[/video]
I agree with Roger Scruton in that of course beauty matters and it's important to not lose it, but on the other hand I have not seen a way to extricate or abstract it as an independent function apart from other functions. Somehow I can see truth or ethical virtue as worth pursuing for its own sake, but not beauty. "Art for art's sake" has been tried and, as expected, does not work, whereas truth for truth's sake and virtue for virtue's sake works because the essence of how things work (i.e. how things function)
is truth and goodness. And it works even better when truth and virtue are understood as inherent functions relative to the material which is supposed to function, and cannot be imposed to everything everywhere.
For me it's self-evident in the definitions of truth and virtue that they cannot be imposed indiscriminately, because if some potentials are inherent in the material and other potentials are not, then it follows that when one is working on the material there are ways to go against its nature, while there are other ways to be in harmony with its nature. It's wrong and false to go against nature, while it's true and right to be in harmony with nature and, incidentally, it highlights the beauty of the material when it's worked in harmony. There's no question
if beauty matters (of course it matters) or
why it matters (it matters because it inheres in the fabric of the universe). For me, understanding
how beauty matters answers the other two questions.
You write very long posts, by the way. I appreciate the style, very professorial and didactic, but it turns difficult to answer to everything. There's much more to be said but forums are like soap operas, tomorrow there will be another episode.
If text matters (and it does), then it matters to make it readable. I use browsers to make internet readable for me on screen. Things like setting the minimum font size or to apply a custom font face make most internet palatable to the eyes. Even better is to use a text browser in a console. This displays the entire internet your preferred way and not any other way. It's an esthetical choice that works miracles :)
Btw, I have been thinking about a theory of colour, and I guess the best I can do is this: I tend to think of colours in terms of wavelength (a la Newton's theory of light) or in terms of HTML colour chart (http://www.pagetutor.com/common/bgcolors1536.png). It's easy to understand the correlation of colour-perception vis-a-vis different wavelengths. It's easy to see a calculus/equation underlying the colour chart. It's much harder to see the "depth" of colours, its saturation, its associations with other sensations (warmths and coldness), and with emotions (pleasant versus unpleasant). For me depth is primarily a spatial (geometrical) dimension.
At best I could come up with a way to describe colours in terms of contrasts, like red contrasted with green roughly the same way as light gray is contrasted with dark gray. Not sure if for you it would sound complete to describe colours in terms of light and shade, but to me it would do the trick of "depth" in colours.
So, in addition to different wavelengths on a continuum, colours can be described as contrasts vis-a-vis each other. Some contrasts result in better discernibility. Legibility is a function of colours, isn't it? Though there's more, such as the play of light and shadows, shapes and contours, and reflection (the function of mirror), which are all affected by colours. Colours can, by means of contrast or lack of it, emphasise or hide shapes and contours. Colours cause optical illusions when they are laid out in certain shapes or shades. I guess it's good enough to mention it and not go into unnecessary detail :)
Very well...
Regarding the chosen time frame set, I understand why the upper limit, because that's when modernism appears in art but I also don't understand the lower limit. Probably it's just a matter of History of Art chronology considering such period as the golden age of western artistic culture. It's obvious that prior to 1750 the answer would not be different just maybe more sparse and occasional. But then we have antiquity and all those masterpieces :)
Regarding the intellectual level of the documentary it's a very good signal that many people don't learn nothing new with that documentary, unfortunately such documentary it's absolutely fundamental for all the rest. If nothing else to make them actually think while looking to an "object of art".
I disagree entirely with art (and beauty) as a mere expression of culture. Of course the Moais from Easter Island are different from the paintings of Australian aborigines, different from Bruger paintings or Beethoven's music and, considered just as such, a demonstration of cultural diversity but what is the point is to reflect what makes an "art object" to be an art object and not just another object.
My believe is that there's nothing of diversity on that but the very same quest for the same thing.
Mathematics seeks beauty.
The relation between art, truth and virtue it's very much the entering for a superior state of conscience that art can provide and human beings always searched for because it's inserted into our nature. Beauty is so perturbing because it expresses truth and virtue at a direct, impactive way that overcomes the necessity for Reason and escapes the constraints of verbal or written communication.
The very nature of beauty can only be the same very nature of spiritual realm and how it works has to be a fusion between subject and object. Art transforms and unite the observing subject and the observed object.
There's no other explanation.
Btw, I have been thinking about a theory of colour, and I guess the best I can do is this: I tend to think of colours in terms of wavelength (a la Newton's theory of light) or in terms of HTML colour chart (http://www.pagetutor.com/common/bgcolors1536.png). It's easy to understand the correlation of colour-perception vis-a-vis different wavelengths. It's easy to see a calculus/equation underlying the colour chart. It's much harder to see the "depth" of colours, its saturation, its associations with other sensations (warmths and coldness), and with emotions (pleasant versus unpleasant). For me depth is primarily a spatial (geometrical) dimension.
At best I could come up with a way to describe colours in terms of contrasts, like red contrasted with green roughly the same way as light gray is contrasted with dark gray. Not sure if for you it would sound complete to describe colours in terms of light and shade, but to me it would do the trick of "depth" in colours.
So, a world in black and white would make no difference to you? you realize that you can say exactly the same thing about sounds and turn music into a uselessness thing...
In fact, I very much do it with many musics, just the melody gives me nausea. :)
The relation between art, truth and virtue it's very much the entering for a superior state of conscience that art can provide and human beings always searched for because it's inserted into our nature. Beauty is so perturbing because it expresses truth and virtue at a direct, impactive way that overcomes the necessity for Reason and escapes the constraints of verbal or written communication.
The very nature of beauty can only be the same very nature of spiritual realm and how it works has to be a fusion between subject and object. Art transforms and unite the observing subject and the observed object.
There's no other explanation.
The thing is that I see ethics ("goodness") and truth (comprehension of reality) perform the exact same function. They are of the spiritual realm and they create fusion between subject and object. They have a transformative and unifying effect. It's easy to understand that truth is transcendent, isn't it? And the idea of "objective morality" means transcendence rather than empirical objectivity. Art, truth, and ethics are all transcendent, and consequently they are aspects of the same thing, essentially non-different from each other.
However, an experience of transcendence is intellectually easy to understand and conceptually simple to convey when it concerns ethics or truth, but much harder when it concerns beauty and art. Art is for several reasons quite debatable. For example depiction of nudity, no matter how "tasteful" or "modest" can cause widely varying reactions, whereas mathematical truths evoke hardly any emotions and can be therefore applied to conveyed abstract ideas more reliably. This is why I talk less about art and beauty. Not that art matters less, it's just that the same essential ideas can be communicated simpler by means of other less controversial means.
So, a world in black and white would make no difference to you? you realize that you can say exactly the same thing about sounds and turn music into a uselessness thing...
In fact, I very much do it with many musics, just the melody gives me nausea. :)
You mean you shut music out when it annoys you? I do the same with all aspects of the external world. When there's overexposure, I turn the external world off - sound, colour, sometimes even sense of time. What will be left is the internal world. Internal world and external world are ultimately not that different, but the benefit of the internal world is that it's readily malleable at will. There may be cacophony or disarray in the internal world, but when the external world is shut out, the internal world can be fixed in an instant.
So, it's not that I don't care about colours or sounds. It's that when they come from outside, they are imperfect, they can be annoying (just like Roger Scruton finds defective modern art dangerous, I find the external world in general disappointing), and there's danger of overexposure. Not so with internal world where one can create structure, coherence, light and beauty at will. It's all inside and in a better way. When the external world is maddening, it helps one to stay sane to turn inside.
The thing is that I see ethics ("goodness") and truth (comprehension of reality) perform the exact same function. They are of the spiritual realm and they create fusion between subject and object. They have a transformative and unifying effect.
Yes, that's the fundamental point. I can only say if we are speaking of two different ways to achieve the same or different ways leading to different things by doing and experiencing both.
That's why I think that a good teaching system must include both Reason and Art (emotions). Art not being totally intuitive (it is not a matter of simple "taste") also needs education.
Give those children paintings, music, theater, teach them that not computers.
You mean you shut music out when it annoys you?
Of course but more than that. The music worthwhile of being listened it's the music out of my reach in terms of full comprehension and I'm aware of that. The music I can understand and predict I have no patience for.
I find visual arts much more malleable for wandering inside it and more open to discovery.
Maybe it's just a matter of individual tuning with particular ways of ethereal realities.
So, it's not that I don't care about colours or sounds. It's that when they come from outside, they are imperfect, they can be annoying (just like Roger Scruton finds defective modern art dangerous, I find the external world in general disappointing), and there's danger of overexposure. Not so with internal world where one can create structure, coherence, light and beauty at will. It's all inside and in a better way. When the external world is maddening, it helps one to stay sane to turn inside.
Yes, I suppose so but "autism" is not the way. I know that wanting to change the world seems démodé but... what else can people try?
Things are turning simultaneously disappointing and dangerous and alternative solutions and lifestyles must be found.
Moments of solitude are like food for the soul, a recharge for batteries, but no one can live always in solitude.
Action, praxis, interaction, liberates man and builds new realities. (this was my moment of materialism... :) )
Give those children paintings, music, theater, teach them that not computers.
This summer I took my family to this place (5 pics) (http://www.concierge.com/tools/travelawards/goldlist/2008/hotels/photos/slideshow?slideShowId=20300&pos=0&play=false&loop=0&cnt=13). Aesthetical enough?
I find visual arts much more malleable for wandering inside it and more open to discovery.
Maybe it's just a matter of individual tuning with particular ways of ethereal realities.
For me literature (both good fiction and non-fiction) works best. Some select movies are good too. What you call ethereal realities are completely inside for me. Internal is the only visual world needed. External is just a distraction.
There's another treatment of aesthetics that I am familiar with, namely
The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera. There he speaks up against what he calls kitsch. Unfortunately, since he is rather close to (post-)modernist himself, he does not scientifically define what he means by kitsch, but educated people can educatedly guess through various hints and examples he gives.
Lately it's particularly evident in the art of cinema how style gets detached from substance. Style gets consciously presented as a sort of substance all by itself. For example the works of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez clearly apply this "method". In Europe I'd say some new-wavers experimented with "pure style" already in the sixties, but not in a nostalgic referential way the way Hollywood does, but in an avanguardist nonsensical way (which was destined to fade away as a silly curiosity). Also, mannerism in painting (I believe it was an actual self-conscious school) represents kitsch. And those old French sentimentalist pointless overrated novels a la Manon Lescaut.
Not everything old is good. Presenting style as a substance in itself is never good. It always appears hollow and fake to me. Tear-jerking sentimentalism for no cathartic purpose is also fake. Sometimes it works to an extent, as camp-ness or emo or goth or melodrama, but only inasmuch as some redeeming quality of real art is present.
Then again, it's annoying that impressions are subjective and can differ widely in art. Different works by even the same author can have different quality. It's not formal or objective enough! For example Fassbinder's
Petra von Kant is a pointless exercise in silly poseuring, while
Veronika Voss, which presents essentially the same female character, seems to have maturity and depth. From the latter I learned a thing or two about women, while the former was neither entertaining in any way, interesting in any sense, or illustrative of anything.
Then again, it's annoying that impressions are subjective and can differ widely in art.
Annoying? :) Impressions are the essence of art.
A portrait in painting it's not a mere photograph (in the sense of record, registry). It aims to transmit the impressions the model person triggered into the painter, necessarily different and subjective varying from painter to painter.
Impressionism, as a school of painting, realized this and wanted to go in the direction I've mentioned in opposition to a certain idea of formalism that characterizes the "classicists" who believed that they were able of capturing how the person really was regardless the impression the person caused. Be it portrait, landscape or any other motive.
Impressionism kept on going through other schools until reality didn't matter anymore and everything that matters were the impressions.
I stop at Impressionism, the rest doesn't interest me because it opens the door to disregard technique and relativize quality.
I really like Manet, Monet, Renoir, etc. the same way I like the Dutch or the Italian painting masters. All them are amazingly good and exceptional artists.
Anyway all this it's not too much rigid. For example I appreciate very much some works of hyper realism and consider that it seeks impressions not, how many people thinks, reality at its higher level. Or even further, watch Dali's melted clocks and dream like landscapes for the first time and how to not get impressed? :)
You mention literature and cinema. Both are an endless subject at their own merit, literature much more than cinema, and can't be compared. Literature has "tricks" other arts can't use.
From Kundera I've read more about his works (or better saying The Unbearable Lightness of Being) than his own writings back at the eighties.
As for Tarantino (more than Rodriguez) I don't think he substitutes substance for style, at the first movies the only ones I find good, very good, he has his own style, namely with multi narratives from different characters that converge for a final climax (nothing too much original, has been done in literature for ages) as well as a jumping camera for a lively almost hysterical rhythm but there's always substance present - the reinterpretation of violence and how it relates with "normal" people. His killers are nice guys that even tells jokes.
Pulp Fiction can and should be considered a classic of cinema even if much more mainstream than Reservoir Dogs probably his masterpiece.
But yes, I agree that presenting style for substance it's what who has no substance needs to do to get some fame. Art doesn't needs fame in theory... but it helps. :)
Then again, it's annoying that impressions are subjective and can differ widely in art.
Annoying? :) Impressions are the essence of art.
They are annoying inasmuch as they cannot be formalised, for example mathematically. Mathematical formalisation is the way I see harmony. Mathematical formalisation also makes art reliably conveyable from teacher to student and from art critic to public.
This is what I attempted to convey with the little video on Fibonacci numbers. Mathematical geometry applies to nature and it's beautiful. I know Renaissance masters applied numbers similarly, to argue for and to practically achieve harmony in their own art.
Basically I am annoyed by the fact how postmodernism, which rose to the status of philosophy, even though it only deserves the status of sloppy art criticism, de-constructed all specific purpose away from works of art. Postmodernism, both postmodernist art and art criticism from postmodernist perspective, did away with morals of stories, beauty of images, educative purpose, methodical approach to material and medium. With all those aspects of art out of the window, only annoying kind of art was allowed to remain.
A portrait in painting it's not a mere photograph (in the sense of record, registry). It aims to transmit the impressions the model person triggered into the painter, necessarily different and subjective varying from painter to painter.
In cubism and abstractionism, portrait as a genre of painting lost its meaning altogether. Cubism and abstractionism may "transmit the impressions triggered into the painter", but to claim even this much is claiming too much. Annoying.
I stop at Impressionism, the rest doesn't interest me because it opens the door to disregard technique and relativize quality.
I really like Manet, Monet, Renoir, etc. the same way I like the Dutch or the Italian painting masters. All them are amazingly good and exceptional artists.
Anyway all this it's not too much rigid. For example I appreciate very much some works of hyper realism and consider that it seeks impressions not, how many people thinks, reality at its higher level. Or even further, watch Dali's melted clocks and dream like landscapes for the first time and how to not get impressed? :)
I like coherence, matter-of-factness, consistency, relevance - realism. Impressionists are still realistic enough. Too much distortion of reality for no apparent purpose gets annoying. Dream-like landscapes have their own logic, which is something I happen to understand, but it's not easy to convey.
As for Tarantino (more than Rodriguez) I don't think he substitutes substance for style, at the first movies the only ones I find good, very good, he has his own style, namely with multi narratives from different characters that converge for a final climax (nothing too much original, has been done in literature for ages) as well as a jumping camera for a lively almost hysterical rhythm but there's always substance present - the reinterpretation of violence and how it relates with "normal" people. His killers are nice guys that even tells jokes.
Pulp Fiction can and should be considered a classic of cinema even if much more mainstream than Reservoir Dogs probably his masterpiece.
Rodriguez also has at least one such stylistically impressive work: Sin City. But it's expressionism rather than impressionism. It resembles German cinema up to Metropolis, and the later film noir, and it has discontinued story-lines too. The style has its undeniable effect.
What I object to in Tarantino and Rodriguez is the lack of morality. In the first works it's in mild form. The characters act on common "human" impulses based on that the world is grim or cold or such, and all that matters is the instinct of survival. In later works the lack of morality gets more blatant as among the characters there are clearly glorified heroes who still act on the same impulses of revenge, violence, etc. morally non-different from their enemies.
Be warned about Sin City. If you are younger than me, it might change your world. Actually, I'm not saying that you are younger than me. Just saying that you should not inadvertently recommend it to someone younger before having taken a look yourself. But I am not even recommending it to you to take a look. If you think that good old uncle Ersi is recommending Sin City to you, then remember that this came with a warning. But if you have seen Pulp Fiction, True Romance, and Natural Born Killers - these titles are all scripted by Tarantino - and survived them easily, then you should be able to stomach Sin City too.
But yes, I agree that presenting style for substance it's what who has no substance needs to do to get some fame. Art doesn't needs fame in theory... but it helps. :)
What art needs is at least some clarification of its method and purpose, because there already are examples that it might get out of hand. I guess it's evident enough that Scruton's film is precisely about how art is running amock.
The parts where Scruton spoke about architecture were most insightful for me. Art needs a synthesis of function and beauty. Function makes it practical to keep around. Beauty makes it tolerable to live with even after the original purpose may be lost.
In terms of architecture, it's not enough to have some kind of walls around and some kind of roof above. It really matters what kind of walls are around and what kind of roof is above. It matters how well the house keeps the outside things away. This means that the material matters, and it matters how the materials are assembled. It matters how long it will last. And how long it will last also depends on how long people want to live in there. And how long people want to live in there depends on how pretty it is and if it ages nicely. This all makes it good architecture.
The same principle applies to all art, in my opinion. Spoons, chairs, cars, gardens, bookbindings (yes, I actually look at those), etc.
And the same principles can be extended to formal logic too. It is not enough that a conclusion follows necessarily. It matters what the conclusion is about and if it's consistent with other conclusions already arrived at. Formal logic may look pretty by itself to some, but relevance and consistency give formal logic its function. Actually, for me the impression has been a bit different - all the attraction of logic is in its relevance and consistency for me. Its functionality is its beauty. It's only now thanks to Scruton that I hopefully discern beauty a bit better :)
Formal logic is not an end in itself, but a tool for a purpose. The purpose of logic is to pick up one's own scattered ideas and to methodically build a harmonious world view, one's own philosophy always reliable, always at hand. Does this not sound like a worthwhile entreprise?
I don't want to reply with a strict structure of point by point since it seems to me that we're agreeing at the fundamental thing - modernism has conduced Art to an alley with no exit.
We'll disagree however about any attempt of subjection, hierarchicalization or submission of Arts to Logics. I'll defend the liberation of arts versus the inexorability of logics.
Some points that comes to my mind:
The lack of morality in Tarantino and Rodriguez is not too much important to me, I don't expect them to be moralizing missionaries. What happens is that there's no evolution from first works, but just a sort of continual repeating of a formula that works with the public. It's incredible difficult to be a genius constantly during the entire life...
I know Sin City, what interested me is how an adaption of a "noir" comics book could be done. Excellent.
I'm interested about cinema narrative, time and rythm and literature owns narrative and how to adapt one to the other.
I like very much architecture, I've worked with it for a longtime, I have several architects in my family and I reflect about it many times (and that's why I "vociferate" so often at jax's thread with that Chinese nightmare).
I'm not sure if Architecture it's pure art. It has to fulfill practical requirements but at the same time opens the door to much more elevated horizons.
I remember an American architect's (the irony...) words when praised how his houses were so rightly made to the dimension, the scale of man:
I don't project houses to the dimension of man but to the dimension of his spirit...
Finally, about "good old uncle Ersi", well, I never thought you to be a teenager but at my early fifties I like to convince myself that I can understand both extremes of human age. If not now, then when?
(I drop this in, without having read much here lately. My intention is to read and relish the exchanges… But not just now; I'm otherwise engaged. I remembered some of what went before, and wanted to add this:)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fimgs.xkcd.com%2Fcomics%2Fpillar.jpg&hash=6c4321abda5e85a63d30694ac9c79e12" rel="cached" data-hash="6c4321abda5e85a63d30694ac9c79e12" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pillar.jpg)
There was a Greek philosopher, that I don't remember the name but was one of those pre Socratics, that decided exactly to live at the top of a column in the middle of a public square.
From the top of it, he entertained himself throwing his own excrement over the passing by passers.
Much more effective at raising consciousness than asking for help for descending down.
Other times, other philosophers...
He had style.
We'll disagree however about any attempt of subjection, hierarchicalization or submission of Arts to Logics. I'll defend the liberation of arts versus the inexorability of logics.
I never meant to subject arts to logic. What I meant was to imply that both can be modelled the same way. The distinction is not too subtle, so it should be graspable.
If I wanted to subject logic to art, I'd posit a hierarchy where logic is more important than art. But I didn't do this. Instead, my thinking went roughly like this:
Logic obviously has structure. In order to extract a valid conclusion, the premises have to be shaped a certain way. Similarly, art has structure, which means that in order to give rise to valuable/everlasting art, certain conditions have to be met, such as the right material, the right shape, consideration of purpose, etc. If the appropriate conditions are not considered properly, the art will not be best possible. Just like in logic, if the premises are faulty, the conclusion will also be faulty.
To model things does not mean to subject them to logic. Modelling is an approach to make things manageable, whatever the things may be, logic, art, entities, systems or processes.
The lack of morality in Tarantino and Rodriguez is not too much important to me, I don't expect them to be moralizing missionaries.
It would be very silly to expect them to be moralising missionaries. I would be okay if they were morally neutral, ambivalent or ambiguous, like old film noir is. The thing is that they are
demoralising missionaries.
Finally, about "good old uncle Ersi", well, I never thought you to be a teenager but at my early fifties I like to convince myself that I can understand both extremes of human age. If not now, then when?
Due to my circumstances, I always had to play the authority, to order others around. It was not properly in my nature to do it, but I had to do it, so I thought about social roles, about their meaning - and especially about their inherent meaninglessness - at a very early age. When I was young, I was already old.
He had style.
If Bel meant this guy, then style was even in his name and he spawned generations of other stylists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites
Thank you. I didn't really expect anyone to get it. :up:
I would be okay if they were morally neutral, ambivalent or ambiguous, like old film noir is. The thing is that they are demoralising missionaries.
Hollywood. post modernist Hollywood and probably supported and financed by Jewish money.
Message in art, or through art, it's a complex thing and even much more at cinema that is a particularly adequate media for that.
Sometimes, when artists are good, we can say ok, it's pure propaganda but it's damn good.
Such was the case of Leni Riefenstahl and her pro nazi movies. She was a genius.
One doesn't change that with artistic production censorship but with a rigorous education for the masses so they can understand what they are watching and that way turn immune to the propaganda.
Logic obviously has structure. In order to extract a valid conclusion, the premises have to be shaped a certain way. Similarly, art has structure, which means that in order to give rise to valuable/everlasting art, certain conditions have to be met, such as the right material, the right shape, consideration of purpose, etc. If the appropriate conditions are not considered properly, the art will not be best possible. Just like in logic, if the premises are faulty, the conclusion will also be faulty.
To model things does not mean to subject them to logic. Modelling is an approach to make things manageable, whatever the things may be, logic, art, entities, systems or processes.
You're wrong on that approach. Art doesn't has those internal mechanisms that regulates and conditions it's output, in other words no rational modelling of art it's possible.
If it was possible you could have art by mass production but you can't.
You do well however about questioning art's inner structure in the sense of what makes an object of art to create a feeling on the observer that makes him differentiate and perceive such object as something with a different nature from regular objects.
Or for example, to ask ourselves where does art resides, at the object, inside us or somewhere in between?
Those are the big questions of aesthetics.
You're wrong on that approach. Art doesn't has those internal mechanisms that regulates and conditions it's output, in other words no rational modelling of art it's possible.
If it was possible you could have art by mass production but you can't.
Somehow mass art or art-as-industry are well-acknowledged concepts. And I tend to see art from the same angle. Did you know how USSR children adored foreign chewing gum wraps? :) I did not have access to foreign wraps, but I have collected maps and atlases since childhood. Also train timetables occasionally qualify as art for me. I think I've already mentioned it in this thread.
And architecture is surely an example of art that is formalisable and strictly regulated. Architecture is necessarily a practical art. Houses are not made merely as a facade to look at, but they are meant for people to actually live in, and therefore the architect never has undue liberties. Except when designing for some ghastly rich entity who doesn't know any better, but then the result has less chance to qualify as art too.
In short, art should be understood holistically. It's of course difficult to formalise a holistic approach, but there are some ways, and if the art object is also meant as a pragmatic object, regulations are inevitable.
@Oakdale
I still don't know what you mean by problems of "statistical reasoning", but I found something probably related to talk about.
THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
Heisenberg discovered this principle as an impossibility to measure a particle's location and momentum (velocity) at the same time. For some reason it's said that the principle is counter-intuitive (the Wikipedia page also says this), but to me it always made perfect sense.
To me it always made perfect sense that it's false to assume the location as a mathematical point that should be possible to track down with infinitesimal precision. On a map, towns may be indicated as dots, but when you are there on the spot, you see that the town is actually an area. No town is a dot. They are all areas. Therefore common sense dictates that *physical location* is actually an area with a fluid centre of gravity, not a mathematical point.
Same with momentum or velocity. In the name of absolute precision one may want to envisage velocity as a mathematical vector, but in reality *the body that moves* is a space with a shape, never a mathematical point. Therefore the vector can only be an approximation, not a precise description.
Moreover, common-sense observation informs us that there are no strict lines in nature to show where one thing ends and another begins. Things don't have solid borders. There are no real solids. Entities are better seen as drops of fluids, clumps of energy, or whiffs of air. This perfectly applies in quantum mechanics. And there's nothing counter-intuitive about it. The scale of ordinary sense-experience conveys all the necessary clues to understand the uncertainty principle.
On a map, towns may be indicated as dots, but when you are there on the spot, you see that the town is actually an area. No town is a dot. They are all areas. Therefore common sense dictates that *physical location* is actually an area with a fluid centre of gravity, not a mathematical point.
How long did it take you to figure out that Kiev wasn't a gigantic dot?!! And pray tell, what is a fluid center of gravity in a solid?
Same with momentum or velocity. In the name of absolute precision one may want to envisage velocity as a mathematical vector, but in reality *the body that moves* is a space with a shape, never a mathematical point.
Velocity is always measured in terms of one point in relation to another point and in terms of onboard or outside observers if one system is moving in relation to another (theory of relativity). However, the major flaw in your understanding of the uncertainty principle, as far as measuring velocity and location simultaneously, is that location is measured at a fixed moment in time while velocity is measured over a period of time and you can't do both together. For example: You are in a car traveling at some speed. The car may or may not move in a straight line, and your speed may or may not be constant. While you can measure your speed or location, you can't do (know), both at the same time. To measure your speed, your location must be changing and to measure your location, your speed must be ignored or assumed rather than measured.
Now--does Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle render omniscience impossible? Since it's impossible to know the location and the velocity (or the direction), of an electron at the same time and omniscience would require intimate knowledge of every single subatomic particle in the universe, wouldn't omniscience require something that is necessarily impossible? Furthermore, given the role that probability plays in the location and behavior of subatomic particles, wouldn't that make omniscience even more of an impossibility? Or are you claiming that your god can predict and/or is controlling these apparently probabilistic events? This of course begs the question, why is he doing this? Why is he controlling it in a way that seems probabilistic? Why give the illusion of randomness? How does that fit in with his divine plan?
If you want to say the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle doesn't apply to your god, please specify which god you are referring to and what evidence you have to support the notion that the rules do not apply to him/her. Simply stating that god has declared himself outside the laws of time and space (or that you have declared this for him by proxy), does not count. :knight: :cheers:
Simply stating that god has declared himself outside the laws of time and space (or that you have declared this for him by proxy), does not count.
But that's the very definition of Him. :left:
But that's the very definition of Him.
Who made up that definition--it certainly wasn't god? :knight: :cheers:
However, the major flaw in your understanding of the uncertainty principle, as far as measuring velocity and location simultaneously, is that location is measured at a fixed moment in time while velocity is measured over a period of time and you can't do both together. For example: You are in a car traveling at some speed. The car may or may not move in a straight line, and your speed may or may not be constant. While you can measure your speed or location, you can't do (know), both at the same time. To measure your speed, your location must be changing and to measure your location, your speed must be ignored or assumed rather than measured.
Actually, this is precisely what I said, but it went over your head.
Now--does Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle render omniscience impossible?
What is omniscience as per you? Doesn't perfect knowledge of laws of nature qualify?
What is omniscience as per you? Doesn't perfect knowledge of laws of nature qualify?
No, it doesn't. For what you're saying, you'd also need perfect knowledge of everything in the universe at least at one particular point in time.
Okay. I resisted as long as I could… I jump in at this point in defense of philosophy (including philosophy of science…).
The Uncertainty Principle states that an elementary particle's position and velocity can't both be measured at the same time to an arbitrary accuracy. (We don't need to belabor what "arbitrary accuracy" means, do we?)
What Heisenberg was talking about was the interpretation of quantum theory. Some have noticed that the "laws" of QED, etc., are statistical in nature (the same can be said for thermodynamics; so don't give me too much grief over this!); hence, "wavicles" are a little slippery…
(Schrôdinger's Cat, anyone? :) )
When a physical theory (a theory of physics…) resorts to statistics as its basis, of necessity it has renounced causality. Who doesn't understand this point doesn't understand statistical reasoning…
Actually, this is precisely what I said, but it went over your head.
You 'precisely' said no such thing--and Oakdale is mostly correct. I would guess he is into his cups though, because he is hugely vague.
What is omniscience as per you? Doesn't perfect knowledge of laws of nature qualify?
Interesting that you should ask. I believe that theoretically there could be an omniscient entity in some universes, but not in our universe if we are to maintain that we have been given free will by a creator god. We cannot have free will if it is known beforehand what we will do. If the future is etched in divine stone somewhere, then we are mere puppets on a string, dancing to some god's prearranged tune. A god who grants free will to beings or anything else of his creation (rocks, electrons et al), could not always accurately predict what will happen in the next moment of time.
Perfect knowledge of the laws of nature by an entity could only occur in a universe that excludes the existence of anything with free will. :knight: :cheers:
Oakdale is mostly correct. I would guess he is into his cups though, because he is hugely vague.
The "vagueness" you refer to is built into statistical reasoning; any
science that relies upon such has, perforce, renounced causality. If you don't like that conclusion, it's no use saying anyone who points it out is drunk… :)
Drunk or sober, my understanding of science is based upon long study… If I mis-speak, correct me. If you don't like what I say, counter it with an argument; and then support your alternative with a
sciency argument!
James, please explain -to me, and others- how statistical reasoning gets to
causality… In other words, how correlation escapes its mere co-occurrence, and becomes causative? :)
(You can play too,
ersi!)
The fact that I'm "in my cups" is beside the point; and you know it. You mention it, because you have nothing else…
What is omniscience as per you? Doesn't perfect knowledge of laws of nature qualify?
No, it doesn't. For what you're saying, you'd also need perfect knowledge of everything in the universe at least at one particular point in time.
Yes, if you think in Newtonian or Einsteinian terms. Not so, if you think in quantum mechanics terms.
I'm not sure of everything what Oakdale means, but this is a point I would make:
When a physical theory (a theory of physics…) resorts to statistics as its basis, of necessity it has renounced causality. Who doesn't understand this point doesn't understand statistical reasoning…
Except I would perhaps rephrase it a bit: When a theory of physics resorts to approximations and critical thresholds as its basis, it has renounced direct causality. Who doesn't understand this point doesn't understand quantum mechanics.
(I still don't have much clue what he means by "statistical reasoning". Maybe "probabilistic" is statistical enough. When I think of statistics, such as "trends" in economy, I'd say things are moving this or that way and this or that "could" be the outcome, but at the same time it's granted that the trend can be changed by acknowledging it and taking specific measures. There's nothing specifically "statistical" in it. It's perfectly accommodated within the rest of logic, ordinary laws of nature, and the usual ways of the world.)
Perfect knowledge of the laws of nature by an entity could only occur in a universe that excludes the existence of anything with free will. :knight: :cheers:
What if free will is relative, not absolute? Just like bodies are relative, limited in time and space. With your free will you can imagine anything, but to actually get something done requires auspicious preconditions, understanding those conditions and using them to the advantage the aim.
And maybe it's helpful to distinguish between two kinds of theologies. The prevalent theology these days is mechanistic-voluntaristic. According to it, God set things going "in the beginning", gave a nudge to the Big Bang. Everything that followed has supposedly unfolded naturally by itself with God intervening now and then miraculously to make amends or to reward and punish.
Whereas according to classical theology God sustains the universe incessantly. There's no distinction between "natural" and "miraculous". Everything looks natural (=causally related) because there's a logical basis (=God) sustaining everything all the time, but at times it's revealed that the logical basis is all there really is and the things with their causal relations and structure are actually empty in themselves, insubstantial and inconsequential. The causal relations seem to exist because we'd like them to be there, and the world lends itself to such interpretation, until we realise it's just an interpretation, not an observation true in itself.
The first kind of theology feels more natural to people with mechanistic particularist thinking, which includes every rank-and-file theist and atheist I know, and is easily reconciled with physics from Aristotle to Einstein. The other theology expounds God-of-the-philosophers and the universe of quantum physicists and mystics.
Except I would perhaps rephrase it a bit: When a theory of physics resorts to approximations and critical thresholds as its basis, it has renounced direct causality. Who doesn't understand this point doesn't understand quantum mechanics.
As much as I appreciate the help against an admitted "
scidolator"… I have an obvious quibble:
If the Laws of Nature are -to the scientists- statistical in formulation, necessarily, then causality is beyond their compass. No? :)
If the Laws of Nature are -to the scientists- statistical in formulation, necessarily, then causality is beyond their compass. No? :)
What does this even mean? Do you mean that since we measure once at a time and not in continuity, then we necessarily cannot determine causality, only remote comparability? This is not so. We actually have continuity. We have definitions and specifications according to which we can tell we are measuring the same thing at different times. Moreover, analogy, correlation, causality, etc. are themselves entirely conceptual definitions, so the same way as analogy and correlation are terms that have their use, the same with causality too. I agree that causality is overdetermined, but I don't agree that it's a useless concept.
And maybe it's helpful to distinguish between two kinds of theologies. The prevalent theology these days is mechanistic-voluntaristic. According to it, God set things going "in the beginning", gave a nudge to the Big Bang. Everything that followed has supposedly unfolded naturally by itself with God intervening now and then miraculously to make amends or to reward and punish.
Whereas according to classical theology God sustains the universe incessantly. There's no distinction between "natural" and "miraculous". Everything looks natural (=causally related) because there's a logical basis (=God) sustaining everything all the time, but at times it's revealed that the logical basis is all there really is and the things with their causal relations and structure are actually empty in themselves, insubstantial and inconsequential. The causal relations seem to exist because we'd like them to be there, and the world lends itself to such interpretation, until we realise it's just an interpretation, not an observation true in itself.
The first kind of theology feels more natural to people with mechanistic particularist thinking, which includes every rank-and-file theist and atheist I know, and is easily reconciled with physics from Aristotle to Einstein. The other theology expounds God-of-the-philosophers and the universe of quantum physicists and mystics.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=425.210;msg=28286)
Very well said, congratulations, but not complete. God plays at both dimensions, sustaining incessantly and performing miracles by the simple reason that God is beyond rational dichotomies. He's one and all.
I agree that causality is overdetermined(*), but I don't agree that it's a useless concept.
But you're not agreeing with me: I think causality is under-determined by current theories! I accept such as an empirical result, the best we can get, given how far we've come… Our modern science is heavily prejudiced by the realities of our epistemology; and our epistemology is rational.
You'd prefer it be otherwise. I don't know how we can overcome this difference… :)
QED doesn't say Reality is beyond our ken. It says Reality is what we can access… And it eschews causality, in essence. (
Why questions are not addressed by statistical equations…) Einstein was wrong when he said "God doesn't play dice…". We only hope that He plays fair!
Causality isn't a "useless" concept. It is merely one of limited applicability. (Stomp your feet and hurl derisive epithets all you want! Surely, God makes you do it, and you can't help yourself.) Modern science (physics) won't care.
Your reasons for doing so are not "scientific," and a form of "sour grapes"…
I'm not opposed to poetry and mysticism: Only don't try to supplant science with either! You won't like the result.
—————————————————————————
* I'm pretty sure you meant "erroneously ascribed" and not "overdetermined"… Please correct me, if I'm wrong.
I agree that causality is overdetermined(*), but I don't agree that it's a useless concept.
But you're not agreeing with me: I think causality is under-determined by current theories!
I meant: Causality gets overemphasised, it tends to be seen in too many places. What you probably mean is that causality is ill-defined. With specifics added, I may agree on that too.
Our modern science is heavily prejudiced by the realities of our epistemology; and our epistemology is rational.
You'd prefer it be otherwise. I don't know how we can overcome this difference… :)
You mean I'd prefer our epistemology to be irrational? Actually, I prefer our epistemology to depend less on empiricism, but still completely depend on rationality. Rationality itself is unempirical! (When did you last "detect intelligence" as promised by the Intelligent Design theory?) This may come as a surprise to you if you never thought of this before, but this only means you were not rational enough.
QED doesn't say Reality is beyond our ken. It says Reality is what we can access… And it eschews causality, in essence. (Why questions are not addressed by statistical equations…)
Indeed. However, even the basic empirical how-questions are inevitably framed by some kind of metaphysics. Given sufficiently (and rationally) elaborated metaphysics, also why-questions are satisfactorily answered.
Einstein was wrong when he said "God doesn't play dice…". We only hope that He plays fair!
"God plays dice" is an incomplete (i.e. wrong) way to put it.
If there's free will, then reality inevitably looks like a game of dice, but this only looks so from the perspective of free will, of free choice. Whereas from the omniscient perspective there can only be a single true path marked by right choices. Free will (like crossroads with many options where the choice is like a roll of dice) entails lack of omniscience.
Causality isn't a "useless" concept. It is merely one of limited applicability.
Completely agreed here...
(Stomp your feet and hurl derisive epithets all you want! Surely, God makes you do it, and you can't help yourself.) Modern science (physics) won't care.
Your reasons for doing so are not "scientific," and a form of "sour grapes"…
...but looks like our attitude and corollaries differ wildly, even when we agree on something rather fundamental.
I'm not opposed to poetry and mysticism: Only don't try to supplant science with either! You won't like the result.
Already been there, done that, and I know and like the result. Of course I can see that you don't like it, but this is not my problem.
* I'm pretty sure you meant "erroneously ascribed" and not "overdetermined"… Please correct me, if I'm wrong.
You are right :)
(When did you last "detect intelligence" as promised by the Intelligent Design theory?)
The Intelligent Design theory is a prime example of rationality, divorced from a
sensible empiricism... :)
Given sufficiently (and rationally) elaborated metaphysics, also why-questions are satisfactorily answered.
True, so true! Most often, they're answered by Just So Stories.
If there's free will, then reality inevitably looks like a game of dice, but this only looks so from the perspective of free will, of free choice. Whereas from the omniscient perspective
Ahem! From an "omnicient perspective" neither science nor statistics is possible; but they're unnecessary, too -- all knowledge is "direct" in that case.
Fantastic! No? :)
Regarding photons: Are you claiming that
they have free will? Or do you prefer the equally odd claim, that
chance is a causative agent? Or (this is more likely, I think) that our free will, which indeed must preclude
our having omnicience, also crafts and limits our science? Our epistemology? Our reality?
We're back to Just So Stories... :)
(It's possible that you're unfamiliar with Kipling's Just So Stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_So_Stories)?)
(When did you last "detect intelligence" as promised by the Intelligent Design theory?)
The Intelligent Design theory is a prime example of rationality, divorced from a sensible empiricism... :)
Quite the opposite. It's empiricism irrationally overblown, just like it is in materialism (physicalism). ID theory shares with materialism the point of view that intellect, mind and consciousness are epiphenomena on brain functions and should be directly observable/measurable in some way.
Given sufficiently (and rationally) elaborated metaphysics, also why-questions are satisfactorily answered.
True, so true! Most often, they're answered by Just So Stories.
Whereas your thesis is that why-questions are not allowed? I have not seen you behave in accordance with it. But this is not really your fault. Nobody can keep such an impossible commitment.
If there's free will, then reality inevitably looks like a game of dice, but this only looks so from the perspective of free will, of free choice. Whereas from the omniscient perspective
Ahem! From an "omnicient perspective" neither science nor statistics is possible; but they're unnecessary, too -- all knowledge is "direct" in that case.
Fantastic! No? :)
Science and statistics are quite possible from omniscient perspective, but they are unnecessary. For those who don't care about the omniscient perspective, i.e. who readily dismiss the possibility of a complete end-all of scientific investigation, such as yourself, science and statistics will remain ever-relevant. Enjoy them.
Regarding photons: Are you claiming that they have free will? Or do you prefer the equally odd claim, that chance is a causative agent? Or (this is more likely, I think) that our free will, which indeed must preclude our having omnicience, also crafts and limits our science? Our epistemology? Our reality?
We're back to Just So Stories... :)
Let me see. You don't like free will. You find statistical chance problematic. Causation disconcerts you. You ridicule omniscience. Then what are you left with besides Just So Stories?
Tell me your story of photons, then I will tell you mine.
ID theory shares with materialism the point of view that intellect, mind and consciousness are epiphenomena on brain functions and should be directly observable/measurable in some way.
If you substitute "in-directly," I'd agree about the last part. "Epiphenomenal" is an unsupportable presumption (though popular...) that mires science in mere argument.
ID theory is a
rationalization, pure and simple...
Whereas your thesis is that why-questions are not allowed? I have not seen you behave in accordance with it. But this is not really your fault. Nobody can keep such an impossible commitment.
I agree that such a commitment would be impossible to keep... But my "thesis" isn't that
Why questions aren't or shouldn't be allowed; only that they aren't answerable by statistics.
ence and statistics are quite possible from omniscient perspective, but they are unnecessary.
No, sir. Omniscience entails complete and direct knowledge... Science and statistics deal with mediated knowledge; the former, of reality and the latter, of our ignorance.
Let me see. You don't like free will. You find statistical chance problematic. Causation disconcerts you. You ridicule omniscience.
A-hem! I'm fine with free will! Chance (or randomness, if you prefer...) is, I think, a meaningless concept... Causation is -when it can be explained- is the surest and most satisfying sort of knowledge! I don't ridicule omniscience; I am simply unacquainted with it, except as a fantasy.
So... What? :)
ID theory is a rationalization, pure and simple...
And you think that since the word shares the root with "rationality" then rationalisation is rational? You'd be surprised to hear what words are used on such occasion in some other languages.
Whereas your thesis is that why-questions are not allowed? I have not seen you behave in accordance with it. But this is not really your fault. Nobody can keep such an impossible commitment.
I agree that such a commitment would be impossible to keep... But my "thesis" isn't that Why questions aren't or shouldn't be allowed; only that they aren't answerable by statistics.
If not by statistics, then the answer must lie elsewhere. I am okay with metaphysics.
ence and statistics are quite possible from omniscient perspective, but they are unnecessary.
No, sir. Omniscience entails complete and direct knowledge... Science and statistics deal with mediated knowledge; the former, of reality and the latter, of our ignorance.
At first you demonstrated utter unwillingness to deal with the omniscient perspective, but now you pretend you know something about it. Okay, I call this progress.
Given omniscience, which is complete and direct knowledge, can you say that the notion of mediated knowledge is excluded from the omniscient mind? That if you mention or bring up mediated knowledge, then the omniscient mind would have no clue about it? Obviously, omniscient mind would know all about mediated and unmediated, complete and deficient, scientific, statistical, and metaphysical. It would know, but would have no use for any of it. All such things are crutches for the limited minds.
So... What? :)
You were about to share some story about photons.
Obviously, omniscient mind would know all about mediated and unmediated, complete and deficient, scientific, statistical, and metaphysical. It would know, but would have no use for any of it. All such things are crutches for the limited minds.
Would have no use for any of it because the omniscient being "
is" entirely, when
needing to use, you
aren't entirely.
BS = BR2
BS = Energy to produce BS .
BR = energy to refute BS
Given omniscience, which is complete and direct knowledge, can you say that the notion of mediated knowledge is excluded from the omniscient mind?
No: I say that, given the definition of
omniscience, mediated knowledge is precluded…for the omniscient being.
The switch to talk of
notions makes as much sense as claiming that since I understand the word
omniscience I must believe in an omniscient being! You see why that is unwarranted, don't you?
No, Oakdale. I didn't ask you to believe anything. It's only requested of you to acknowledge the logical relations and distinctions of notions. No beings and no beliefs required.
Omniscience is a perspective. Any metaphysically inclined human can consider the omniscient perspective, calmly and rationally as with any other perspective, just as a thought experiment. You almost did it, but you got pissed at something that was not mentioned and not even implied. That's unwarranted.
I merely stated that science and probability have no meaning, when applied to an omniscient being… In fact, they (these disciplines…) would be beyond the "power" of an omniscient being.
It's not my fault, if your logic is deficient: Omniscience is perfect, direct knowledge; if you mean something else, name or describe it…
Put another way:
It's only requested of you to acknowledge the logical relations and distinctions of notions.
If you won't -and you think I'm at fault for actually doing so- how do we proceed? :)
You'd need to argue your case, not just assert it. We both know that our metaphysics differ, so without proper elaboration we run the risk of conveying literally nonsense to each other.
But if it is too hard for you to clarify your metaphysics, then let's deal with simpler things. The story of photons, please. People are waiting.
Have you read Feynman's QED booklet…? (Or -heavens forfend!- Whitehead's Process and Reality? :) )
Never mind: Just tell me if you think photons have free will… (I don't need to know where you're coming from; only where you are. Are you a committed animist?) I'll tell you why I think they don't…
Fair enough? :)
Have you read Feynman's QED booklet…? (Or -heavens forfend!- Whitehead's Process and Reality? :) )
And you have? Then you have a story of photons up your sleeve, yet you are not sharing it. How disappointing. And typical of you.
Never mind: Just tell me if you think photons have free will… (I don't need to know where you're coming from; only where you are. Are you a committed animist?) I'll tell you why I think they don't…
Fair enough? :)
No, not fair at all. First, you are eminently prepared, having read some topical storybooks. Second, even though you are eminently prepared and I am not, you still operate under hidden flawed presuppositions. For example, where do you get I'd say photons have free will? Isn't it obvious that we have a different perspectives to free will, different theories of the scope and entailments of free will, different definitions of what it means to be a photon and what it means to be an animist? Yes, it's all so glaringly obvious that it would only be fair of you to serve up your story right now. Anyway, I simply take note that you are not fair. It's no news either.
Okay, so here's my little story of photons. From your former quibble about "statistical reasoning" I infer that by bringing up photons you have in mind the double slit experiment, which some scientists interpret as if photons had free will. For me the experiment is in full conformity with determinism, given that the view on *determinants* (the properties that determine the behaviour and nature of the photon) is modified. Despite the impression that one shoots photons from the source of light particle by particle, photons still primarily tend to have wave-like nature. They collapse into particles only given other further determinants, such as the bombardment by particles which are used to "observe" the movement and position of photons.
Or, as is so often the case, you didn't give me enough background information so I could give the kind of account you intended to get. This only adds to the unfairness of the situation. You really should have given your story first.
Would have no use for any of it because the omniscient being "is" entirely, when needing to use, you aren't entirely.
Ah, I see now. It was you who brought up "omniscient being" that got Oakdale annoyed and scared all over. You have to be careful with this. Americans have the Halloween and zombie movies. Omniscient beings are like that to them.
Ah, I see now. It was you who brought up "omniscient being" that got Oakdale annoyed and scared all over. You have to be careful with this. Americans have the Halloween and zombie movies. Omniscient beings are like that to them.
Yes, indeed.
Watch for "The Omniscient strikes again" soon at a cinema next to you. Better than Rambo.
If you mean the famous Omniscient Wars series, then the correct title was The Omniscient Strikes Back. Oakdale seems to be under the spell of the prequels, most obviously Episode I: The Phantom Omniscient.
[This part was in keeping with a thread in My Opera's Lounge "Change one word in the movie title..." Now for something completely different.]
Oakdale has his problems with "statistical reasoning". The real problem is that he never explains what his problems are. And my problem is that there are a bunch of solutions, but Oakdale is not accepting solutions. Either because the solutions are not applicable (could be, because he never clarifies the problem in the first place) or, more likely in my opinion, he likes problems and hates solutions.
Here's an article I found about the quantum weirdness problem. The problem, as stated in the article, is that physicists understand the mathematics of quantum mechanics, but not the ontology. Mathematical measurements give a statistical approximative solution about how objects appear. On quantum level objects appear bilocated. According to the article, this is because of metaphysical presuppositions that started with at least Descartes.
On Cartesian ontology, reality consists of
res extensae (extended objective things) on one hand and
res cogitantes ("thinking entities") on the other. The issue with the ontology is the tacit supposition that
res extensae, whose paradigmatic example is inert objects, are describable in purely quantitative terms. Objects are supposed to be absolutely bereft of the
cogitans quality. This philosophical view is what Whitehead termed "bifurcation". The result of bifurcationism is "many world hypothesis" and other such ad hoc explanations of "quantum weirdness".
...to resolve the semblance of paradox one needs but to relinquish a certain philosophic postulate foisted upon us by Galileo and Descartes. Quantum paradox, it appears, is Nature's way of repudiating a spurious philosophy.
We need thus to take a second look at quantum mechanics, this time from a nonbifurcationist point of view. Now, to deny bifurcation is to affirm the objective reality of the perceived entity: the red apple, thus, is once again recognized as an external object. That perceptible entity, moreover, is to be distinguished from what may be called the "molecular apple," a thing that, clearly, cannot be perceived, but can be known only through the methods of physics. One is consequently led to distinguish between two kinds of external objects: corporeal objects, which can be perceived, and physical objects, which can only be observed indirectly through the modus operandi of the experimental physicist. The two ontological domains are of course closely related, failing which there could be no science of the physical at all. The basic fact is this: Every corporeal object X is associated with a physical object SX from which it derives all of its quantitative attributes. The red apple, for example, derives its weight from the molecular. The crucial point, however, is that the two are not the same thing; X and SX belong to different ontological planes--to different worlds, one could almost say.
The bifurcationist, obviously, does not recognize this distinction, since he denies the existence of the corporeal object X; but in so doing, he implicitly identifies X with SX. The credo of bifurcation thus entails a reduction of the corporeal to the physical. And in that reductionism, I say, lies the fundamental fallacy--the illusion, if you will--of the prevailing Weltanschauung.
So, on nobifurcationist (and nonreductionist) view, there's a distinction of corporeal world accessible by means of the senses on one hand and subcorporeal (quantum or microscale physics) world accessible by means of the experimental physics on the other. The distinction should make sense, because it makes sense to suppose that descriptions of ontology perceived by different means should yield different descriptions. For example, the world as presented through the sense of vision is a whole different kind than the world as presented through the auditory sense alone. Or though the olfactory sense alone. Or through the tactile sense alone. And this happens to be the common-sense fact that quantum physics has discovered.
Now, the author Jan A Smith is a Thomist (Aristotelian) and therefore goes on to propose an Aristotelian solution to explain quantum weirdness. There's also the Platonist solution in simple accord with common sense. The solution is not there only for those who like problems too much.
The solution is clear, but will of course sound problematic for particularist atheistic thinkers of modern age. Namely, the solution, whether Aristotelian or Platonist, unconditionally entails that atomism is false.
...if cats and cricket balls were "made of individual particles," they would indeed be able to exist in unrestricted states of superposition; but the point is that they are not thus made. From a nonbifurcationist point of view, corporeal objects, as we have seen, are not simply aggregates of particles, but something more. We need therefore to inquire what it is that differentiates X from SX; and for this we shall turn to Thomistic ontology.
On atomism, things are made of particles - and that's it. No mind. No ineffable conscious stuff at all. Only epiphenomena of particles. Everything is particles. This is atomism, and this is what's false.
On the solution, however, particles are particles
of something, and upon the consideration of the
something the quantum weirdness begins to dissolve. I personally never bought into atomism, so for me quantum physics never had any weirdness.
And the problem of "statistical reasoning" will also dissolve as soon as false Oakdalean presuppositions are cleared away. We are still yet to hear his story of photons.
Everything is more than the sum of its parts, being those parts just particles, particles and spirit or just spirit/conscience doesn't matter. Everything is itself plus it's circumstance.
You,ersi -and some few others- go to great pains, to convince me of things I already believe… Why, I wonder?
Perhaps because you don't believe them, yourselves!? :)
[Thank you for the link: It includes reasoned discourse! I don't find such often… I have more to read. Of course, I will return!}
What Whitehead said is, of course, open to interpretation… (i was idiot enough to read Process and Reality a few times… And he didn't make his weird philosophy in any way amenable to reason! He became a mystic…) I'm not saying that that's a bad thing; only that it is a non-scientific and non-rational thinking.
(Again, I state -for the record- that such is not necessarily wrong; only, that it is unsupported by argument or evidence… Other than ejaculations!)
Would you reject both science and rationality? :)
I think you would.
You,ersi -and some few others- go to great pains, to convince me of things I already believe… Why, I wonder?
Perhaps because you don't believe them, yourselves!? :)
And what is it that you believe? As far as I have figured out, you don't believe much and you don't care to know either. When you say things, you say incompletely. Btw, where's your story of photons?
What Whitehead said is, of course, open to interpretation… (i was idiot enough to read Process and Reality a few times… And he didn't make his weird philosophy in any way amenable to reason! He became a mystic…) I'm not saying that that's a bad thing; only that it is a non-scientific and non-rational thinking.
And how do you interpret Whitehead? What do you consider non-scientific and non-rational?
I have myself not read Whitehead, except for short quotes like in the article I linked. Btw, where's your story of photons?
Would you reject both science and rationality? :)
I think you would.
As much as I know about you, it's quite certain that you are talking about some other science and rationality than what is normally meant by those words. Btw, where's your story of photons?
Here's something more about
SOMETHING.
How to approach the
something I talked about last time? One way to put it is to say that particles are particles
of something. Just like waves are the way the ocean appears on the surface, so also particles are the way matter appears. And it's just the surface.
It's really important to distinguish the surface from the core, and appearance from (true) reality. What we perceive is just the surface. To put it another way, what we perceive is just a part of reality. The world perceived only through hearing is a partial reality, an auditory experience. It's the same through any other sense, including the measurements of experimental physics. The measurements of experimental physics is just another sense that gives a limited picture of the world the same way as any other sense does.
Moreover, it's the same even through all the various senses combined. All this is appearance, but it's appearance
of something, namely of reality. This conclusion is not arrived at by means of the senses, but by means of rational mind and intuition. There's no lesson or wisdom in sense-data unless rationally organised. It's the rational mind that organises sense-data. The senses themselves don't do it. The measurement results of physics tell nothing by themselves. They have to be interpreted and it's the interpretation that tells something.
So, we get the idea that appearance is appearance
of something. To verify this idea we can consider its antithesis: Appearance is all there is - there's no further anything. But if there's no further anything, then why does it exist? How can it exist? The why and how questions are typically not answered by sense-data, but by rational mind and intuition after sufficient organisation and digestion of the sense-data. If why and how questions are important and are to be answered, then the thesis that appearance is distinct from reality is inevitable.
Another way to approach the
something is through (what I call) logic. Supposing our senses are not deceiving us, we call our sense-perception real. This thing we perceive, whatever it is, an apple or the universe or an atom, is real. However, as soon as we posit any such thing, we are logically tacitly positing also another thing, that from which we extracted or delimited the thing we posited.
The other thing is logically different from the thing we posited. When we explicitly posit an apple, we implicitly posit non-apple. When we explicitly posit, through concrete sense-perception, a particular specific apple, we automatically exclude the rest of reality as other-than-this-apple. This is a logical necessity. There's no way around it.
Taking this logical necessity seriously, we can consider what we are implicitly positing when we explicitly posit particles or atoms. Atoms are a multiplicity, hence the other thing is single. Atoms are particular (like grains of sand), hence the other thing is uniform. Atoms are detected and objectively observed, hence the other thing is not - it's the observer rather than observed. Etc. This is both scientific and rational.
Btw, where's your story of photons?
The reason Heisenberg said that is not possible to be aware where a particle is, to determinate simultaneously location and speed, was because to observing it the observer influences the phenomena. (by way of needing to project light - or any other form of energy on it.)
I said this very same thing earlier when I said in this thread, "Despite the impression that one shoots photons from the source of light particle by particle, photons still primarily tend to have wave-like nature. They collapse into particles only given other further determinants, such as the bombardment by particles which are used to "observe" the movement and position of photons."
Here I say that photons are waves rather than particles, but during "observation" the poor little photons are bombarded with other particles which are as big and as heavy as photons, in order to determine where the photons are. This bombardment obviously causes photons to collapse from their more normal wave-like nature into a particular (particle-like) shape. This should be common sense. Similarly on our macroevel, when we want to know about the physiology of an animal, we cut the animal up and it dies. Things like this happen all the time.
From such simple statement I've seen things written that goes until particles a) are at two different places simultaneously; or b) our mind determines where particles are;
Etc, etc.
Yes. Somehow in reporting about quantum experiments, the idea that "observation determines where the partice is" has become dominant. In documentaries I have gotten used to seeing physicists scared out of their minds when they talk about these things. The scientists are incapable of helping people understand quantum physics, because they themselves don't understand even the ludicrously simple double slit experiment. In the article that I just told about in this thread, the author implies that bilocation is really bifurcation - double vision :)
Btw, Oakdale, where's your story of photons? Science proves that photons have free will, right?
Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.
Yes, I want to reply. This was a good thread and I wait for Oakdale's answer about photons having free will.
What would happen if photons decided to travel slower than the speed of light!?!
Happens all the time, Jaybro. (The medium is -if not the message itself- at least, well, the medium! :) ) …You've heard of diffraction, I imagine?
So, we get the idea that appearance is appearance of something. To verify this idea we can consider its antithesis: Appearance is all there is - there's no further anything. But if there's no further anything, then why does it exist? How can it exist?
Oh?! You
still want to use the Ontological Argument? :)
The why and how questions are typically not answered by sense-data, but by rational mind and intuition after sufficient organisation and digestion of the sense-data. If why and how questions are important and are to be answered, then the thesis that appearance is distinct from reality is inevitable.
"Sense-data" (and
qualia, too!) are not likely more than convenient "theoretical" constructs… (You'll note: Not much has come from the
posited "sense-data".) But common sense seems ever to be resorted to, even by theoretical physicists.
Oh?! You still want to use the Ontological Argument? :)
I use everything that works. Show me it doesn't work.
"Sense-data" (and qualia, too!) are not likely more than convenient "theoretical" constructs…
So there's no difference between the two? And how is this hypothesis useful? What benefit does it have over the hypothesis that sense-data are one thing and their theoretically constructive organisation is another?
Oh?! You still want to use the Ontological Argument? :)
I use everything that works. Show me it doesn't work.
If wishes were horses, we'd all be riding…
Good I wasn't expecting anything sensical. This is the only way you don't disappoint.
Quote from: Belfrager on 2014-11-08, 23:37:18 (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=33.msg29548#msg29548)The reason Heisenberg said that is not possible to be aware where a particle is, to determinate simultaneously location and speed, was because to observing it the observer influences the phenomena. (by way of needing to project light - or any other form of energy on it.)
I said this very same thing earlier when I said in this thread, "Despite the impression that one shoots photons from the source of light particle by particle, photons still primarily tend to have wave-like nature. They collapse into particles only given other further determinants, such as the bombardment by particles which are used to "observe" the movement and position of photons."
I wish to interject that the Heisenberg Principle should not be confused with the observer effect. The observer effect asserts that the act of observing a system will influence that which is being observed. Although this is important in understanding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the two are not interchangeable. The wave-particle duality states that any energy exhibits both particle and wave-like behavior. As a result, in quantum mechanics, a particle cannot have both a definite position and momentum. Consequently, the limitations described by Heisenberg are a natural occurrence and have nothing to do with any limitations of the empirical (observed) system. :knight: :cheers:
I wish to interject that the Heisenberg Principle should not be confused with the observer effect. The observer effect asserts that the act of observing a system will influence that which is being observed. Although this is important in understanding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the two are not interchangeable. The wave-particle duality states that any energy exhibits both particle and wave-like behavior. As a result, in quantum mechanics, a particle cannot have both a definite position and momentum. Consequently, the limitations described by Heisenberg are a natural occurrence and have nothing to do with any limitations of the empirical (observed) system.
The fact that energy exhibits both particle and wave-like behavior doesn't invalidates what you call the "observer's effect". Therefore your conclusion is wrong.
I hold and maintain that Heisenberg was referring to what you call the observer's effect. Dual states can be so much affected (or probably even more) by external interference and there's no way an observer can observe but by interfering with energy.
Such confusions are at the very base of the imbecilities being written by the media about quantics.
I hold and maintain that Heisenberg was referring to what you call the observer's effect.
That's funny: Heisenberg
didn't… But, of course,
you know better! :)
That's funny: Heisenberg didn't…
Course not, the principle of uncertainty was postulated many moons ago by Big Chief Sitting Writer.
After he invented writing. Or even before, I'm not sure.
What you mean to say is -I take it- you don't understand; and that makes you ill at ease, and confrontational. Okay.
Are you still a Freudian? You can have a lot of fun with it, then! :)
Wave/particle duality is not a function of observer effects… It's a fact of quantum reality.
Wave/particle duality is not a function of observer effects… It's a fact of quantum reality.
Since when quantum "reality" (as if you know what quantum reality is...) is not afected by the observer effect?
You really have a problem with the very basic logics. Not good to someone pretending to dominate it's highest levels...
And even worst, you keep on being a materialist, as clearly shown.
I'm a fan of causality, Bel. I'd like to see -at least- physics preserve it, as a guiding principle. (Are you "on board" with this? :) I doubt it — but there's hope for your kind of subjectivity, if you're not keen on logic!)
ersi, you've repeatedly asked for "my story" of the photon… (I asked a simple question: Does a photon have "free will"? Of course, you didn't answer.) So -having given you more than ample time to find your answer- I'll give you a hint: Wheeler.
(Bel, you won't take hints: You don't care — for arguments, evidence, or truth. :) )
I'm a fan of causality, Bel. I'd like to see -at least- physics preserve it, as a guiding principle.
What is causality as per Oakdale?
The rest of what you say makes frankly no sense at all. Definitions first, then we can discuss.
(Bel, you won't take hints: You don't care — for arguments, evidence, or truth. :) )
What a nonsense Oakdale.
My subjectivity, as you call it, doesn't lies in any intellectual method per itself but in the nature of the observer's diversity facing a non existing material "reality".
You keep using Logics as your battle horse but after all these years of discussions and entertainment I doubt very much about your riding capacities. Have you ever learned the basics? I believe you jump it directly simply to fall into an endless cascade of errors.
Meanwhile I'm not restricted to logics and I enjoy to play a bit of "theater of absurd". It's reinvigorating and gives the otherwise boring discussion a certain charm. :)
I understand that many people are too much earth-to-earth to appreciate it.
I think the word you're looking for is ennui… The perfect motivation, for a nihilist. :)
No, no, I'm no Nihilist. At all.
Such ennui is the certain result of assisting to European's decadence under the emerging of total emptiness.
Post Modernism is the nec plus ultra of Nihilism.
We'll turn nothing but a vague and indistinct memory of past times of glory and grandeur. Probably considered guilty by the New History insects.
Who cares...
My nostalgia makes me care, Belfrager… And my optimism, blunted and buffeted as it has been: The civilization from which my country spawned is not one I'd like to see submerged in the muck, and asphyxiated…
Since we still live in a civilized way, (I don't know for how long) have a drink... :wine:
Cheers :)
Since we still live in a civilized way, (I don't know for how long) have a drink... :wine:
Wine takes too long (and whiskey too short) a time, so I drink :beer: and go on, day after day.
Logic tells us what we should believe.
Experience confutes it, often as not.
Science is a method and a knot
to be untied, by the ancient sieve
of truth. So:
What do we hold to, and have to hold to?
What works! Silly as it seems, that's it;
what works allows us to nearly fit
reality, and our perceptions. You
would be hard pressed to find another
criterion that would do as well.
Of course, most wouldn't and few would tell
us anything, except what our mother
taught us: Milk is sweet; or sour. Knowing
which, we learn where we are going…
And Truth? Not that. No.
Wine takes too long (and whiskey too short) a time, so I drink :beer: and go on, day after day.
It explains it all...
Between tantra sex and precoce ejaculation you prefer to turn impotent... :lol:
Philosophically of course.
This video is a review and critique of Misali's seximal system (https://googology.fandom.com/wiki/Misalian_seximal_system), which according to Misali is the best way to count. The video argues that the binary system is far better. After watching it, I am convinced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDDaEVcwIJM
What I find most impressive about the video is that it even makes the binary system palatable as a human-language system (Chapter 6 at 1:00:15). However, at this point I slightly disagree because I got inspired to invent a slightly modified system that would work better in my opinion, even though my system would not match the notation as neatly as the system proposed in the video. I will probably spend the weekend testing my system out.
Arithmetic never was my strong suit. This is exactly why I went to work at a bank: I heard they have computers for counting so that I don't have to do any of it. Unfortunately we are in civilisational decline and crappy Microsoft products are increasingly not up to the simple tasks of counting and computing. A few years ago I had to buy a soroban (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=116.msg87048#msg87048) to physically start practising arithmetic in order to be able to get work done.
By the way, soroban computing is a fantastic skill to possess. It can be easily adapted to any base.
Arithmetic never was my strong suit.
Nor was logic, despite your pretensions! :)
There's much to be said in favor of the logistic thesis — but nothing that requires or forbids the grade-school learning of abilities, such as basic arithmetic! If you have difficulties with such, it's a matter of memory and apperception... Since you claim to be a philosopher of sorts, shouldn't you recognize and explicate your weird reasoning for rejecting modern logic?
Choosing a base for arithmetic is trivially inconsequential. Unless one is -shall we say- idiosyncratic? (I mean, of course, idiopathic!)
I'd not have commented here but for your recent post! But dear
ersi I stand by my inane verse (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=425.msg48993#msg48993)!
But you've given me yet another chance to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6OaYPVueW4
I'd agree that one needn't be a wiz at arithmetic to deal with dollars and cents. But innumeracy is indeed a debilitation...
such as basic arithmetic! If you have difficulties with such, it's a matter of memory and apperception...
I passed, so I did not have difficulties to any significant degree. And I may be underestimating myself, since I am comparing myself to my primary school deskmate who was the school
primus, particularly in arithmetic, being able to calculate large numbers in his head and even play blind chess.
Anyway, there are several areas in math, arithmetic being one, geometry being another. I was excellent in geometry.