For me I thought of the "in which case" clauses as having the P xor ~P "distributed over" them, emphasizing the "Either" at the beginning, and these were functioning like a definition of terms.

So if P then Q, xor if ~P then R
Q = "in which case there can be no cognition of noumena"
R = "in which case cognition is not essentially cognition of appearance"


But it's confusing to me because of the words "there can be" and "not essentially", and then they both read like restatements of the original position -- if all cognition is of appearances, in that very case there can be no cognition of noumena (since noumena aren't appearances), whereas if cognition is not only applicable to the appearances, then in that very case cognition applies to more than the appearances (i.e., it is not "essential" to it).

At least, that's what I was thinking in reducing it to a simple P or not P. Maybe it's too simple, though. (I agree with your rendition, too, just felt the need to explain my thought process)

My worldview has grown steadily more eschatological. The future, in my mind, is now measured in mere years. Due to climate change, exponentially worse and more destructive weather events, and ecological collapse, a devastating Malthusian crisis seems imminent. The future is dark and full of dread. I will not have children, I would never impose the burden of beginning a life at this late, late year. I will quit my job soon... why work for a future that has been stolen?... and spend away my savings travelling, extracting what joy and fulfillment in life remains. Alternately, I can devote myself to activism, for whatever good that would do. These are the available paths to me. My status quo is no longer tenable.

Is this irrational of me? Or is this a rational confrontation of what is? Is the collective turning our heads away the true irrationality, the enabler of this crisis?

Psychologically, how can we confront this terminal historical moment we have all been thrust into? — hypericin

I think eschatological thinking tends to be irrational. It's not just one's own death, but the death of everything, the death of being -- the fear of death turned into a myth of the future, then believed inevitable. This sort of fear, as I interpret him, is what Epicurus addresses: Death is nothing to us. We never experience our own death. We fear this death character like it can hurt us, yet we never meet death. So what is this fear really based on? Imagination -- rather than a particular fear of something, it is a general fear that applies everywhere. And given that the future is open, and we know that death is inevitable, it's easy to put our fears of death into the future. And if the world itself is uneasy, or there are forces that would like us to feel like the world is uneasy (because fearful and anxious people are easier to control), then our minds can very easily build up fears of things we'll never meet, fears of things that never are, fears of things which only have control over us because. . . we fear them.

That isn't to say the status quo is acceptable. It's not.

But if we're to do anything about it, I'd say that escapism into small pleasures is a good place to start -- since we have control over such things -- but the future isn't inevitable either. It's just not something we can do all unto ourselves. It's not a moral project which deals with our character or right or wrong, it's a political project which requires enough of humanity to work together towards preventing the worst possible future.

My logic is very rusty, I have given it a shot below, but not sure if it is correct. feedback appreciated!

"Either all cognition is cognition of appearance, in which case there can be no cognition of noumena, or there can be cognition of the noumenon, in which case cognition is not essentially cognition of appearance" — KantDane21

Honestly I'd render this as "P or not P" where..
P = There cannot be cognition of noumena
or
P = All cognition is of appearance

If cognition applies to appearances only, then cognition does not apply to the noumena.
If cognition applies to the noumena, then cognition does not apply to the appearances only

Maybe in the wider context it's different, but I wouldn't call this sentence an argument as much as a clarification or a definition of two mutually exclusive beliefs (at least according to Kant)

heh, fair enough. It may just be the wrong question, really. It's not that things cannot be poems, but rather, if it isn't one it's a sort of challenge for the poet to turn it into one. So there's no point in delimiting the category, given it's a creative category and will expand as poets continue.

Oof. That's a sad one to read, but good. I connected to the last stanzas the most --

I was walking more slowly now
in the presence of the compassion
the dead were extending to a comrade,

plus I was in no hurry to return
to the kitchen, where I would have to tell you
all about Terry and the bananas and the bread. — mcdoodle

I can feel myself slowing down before going home as I read it, from everything before.

(I've heard of a teacher providing a shopping list as an example of a poem, encouraging analysis. It's not something I've come up with. I wish I still had the reference, but it's just something I heard in a course a long time ago.) — Dawnstorm

Well, today I need to do a bit of shopping.

Bagels
Cream Cheese
cleaning rags


I may add more later. But what makes this not a poem, may be an interesting question too?

The curiosity being if we treated it like a poem then it'd be hard to really mark a distinction between it and poetry. They certainly look similar, even though we think of them as not.

I think there may be a fear here in that we don't want to limit poetry, too. I believe it likely that people have already published shopping lists on more than one occasion to claim it as poetry. So it may be of no interest to delimit poetry, on that basis. Just worth noting that it didn't occur to me as a reader, or to note that I'm not sure what I'm getting out of treating a shopping list like a poem or why I'd want to other than the play with the notion of poem -- which just seems a bit unsatisfying to my mind.

Heh. I'm having a ball. So you're welcome, and I'm having a good time too. I wasn't even sure if this would generate any conversation, it seeming such a queer line of thinking. So I'm glad that there's been a sounding board for my ideas and being able to comb through other thoughts rather than just thinking on my own.


***

Something I am wondering about, from your article and others across the interwebs, is the moral dimension of poetry being emphasized. I think I can get along with a spiritual dimension to poetry -- the experience itself seems ethereal, given to sensitivities and feelings that are often hard to describe. That's an understandable word to me, at least.

But I wonder about poetry's supposed moral educational propensities. It seems to beg the question, on its face -- those with a poetic feeling will say there's a moral to be learned from poetry, and those without it will say there's nothing there but sweet sounding words that need to be relegated to the topics of proper morals so as not to mislead people, and neither poets nor Socrates will see one another's viewpoint.

And I would say -- if poetry could teach morals, then people would be a lot better than they are, given how long it's been about. So while I understand that the feelings evoked by poetry are semi-mystical... I can't say that I'd equate it with moral.

That was a pleasure to listen to -- there are parts of the poem that I couldn't quite sound out right, and Alec Guinness is great, of course :)

His choices throughout really add a depth I didn't get through a first read. I think I was mostly drifting along the level of images and the emotions which various sounds would invoke.

In particular I loved his rendition of the bar room conversation -- I could read the words and knew what it was, but Alec breathed the life into it that I was having a hard time doing. His reading really did sound like a bar room conversation!

Previously, I posted poetry about current Ukranian war by female poets. Who read or responded?
I was trying to move beyond English male-dominated, traditional poems. — Amity

Sorry, while this pursuit is noble, I found them really hard to read is all. The Ukrainian war being so... now. And USians cheering on the whole affair like it's a football match... it's just hard for me to comment on stuff like that. (there's a reason I avoid the Ukraine thread)

Combing through posts to respond in kind --

This Be The Verse

By Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself. — Tom Storm

I am unfortunately in the mood for gallous humor more often than not, so I laughed -- but it's kind of a mirthless laugh (that's still funny for all that, but dark)

While I'm no anti-natalist, I'd be surprised if there weren't people these days that haven't had these thoughts. And sometimes it's better to belt them out than ignore them, even if I know, deep down, I'd not follow through.

So I basically can't even trust my initial take anymore. — Dawnstorm

:D -- I feel this sentence. But I think that's OK, too. It's not so bad to be wrong, as long as we understand ourselves fallible, and are willing to change -- then it's actually not bad at all. It's just a part of being human.

(Trust me, I even looked about to figure out why I thought the 10-line form was a sonnet, and according to the internet it was an invention of my own mind ;) )

I haven't read The Wasteland, have to admit I'd never even heard of it.
I'm interested in 'the sound of the poem', so I searched Librivox:

There are quite a few readings but this one sounds good to my ears. It is last in a selection of 60.
(I was delighted to find 'The Owl and the Pussycat', a childhood favourite, easy to remember and recite.)

https://librivox.org/poetic-duets-by-various/ — Amity

I was planning on listening to this this morning (Monday's at work tend to be slow) -- but it was blocked. I"ll have to settle for listening at home. (Maybe when I mark out time to type out that essay to share...)

Well, I'm not sure that you can make a general claim about 'modern poets' from a single, stand out example of 'Modernism':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land

But I don't really understand what point you are trying to make.
Meaning is there, no matter the form. — Amity

I may be making a point to no one at all, at least in this discussion. And, definitely -- I'm over-generalizing. All the bad habits of someone trying to figure something out. I think I'd get along well enough with "Meaning is there, no matter the form" though. In fact I think that's what I'm getting at. The form isn't a necessity for meaning. (though I'd say it's a part, or something. Form seems to be a place where meaning can get generated)

But yes, one couldn't make a general claim from a single example. I agree with that. I'm just trying to start from somewhere.... (I'll try and type out the essay from my book to share... it's probably a lot of where this is coming from)

Your post seems more like an explanation of how the poet has used language to help us share that experience. — T Clark

Heh, it's hard for me to separate the two -- I read poems like that, but sloppier than @Dawnstorm -- the figure is as important as the content.

However, this here -- this is what interests me. When I read @Dawnstorm's interpretation of the poem, I found myself able to re-read the poem and feel that interpretation there. In a sense, because of the interpretation, I was able to share in the meaning created.

So I think I'd like to say that the experience of the person reading or listening to a poem is where meaning starts, but there might be more to it than that. There's this element of meaning that can be shared, and is not related to sharing the world, but rather sharing the meaning of the poem together.

Keeping with rule 1, I'll have a go at adding an interpretation rather than just wacky ideas --

***
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

***

First time I came across this poem was at a poetry reading we used to do back in college for fun -- gather round a circle at someone's home with some poetry books and go round-robin sharing poems. It was also my introduction to Williams Carlos Williams.

It was so short, in relation to all the poems we were reading, it immediately made me laugh. Ever since I've returned to read it I don't even know how many times now, and it still makes me smile.

For me the breaks serve as one beat pauses, and the breaks between stanzas serve as two beat pauses -- though reading it again I think I actually give a three beat pause for the second break. When I read it like this, it's like the way the speaker would have said it, had they been there -- sheepish, slow, guilty -- but not so guilty, because the prize really was just that nice. The first two stanzas read like that slow admission of guilt, but then right after asking forgiveness, by way of explaining himself, the speaker relishes in the memory of the stolen plums, and finishes with that memory.

It makes me think of a close relationship you have with someone, and you know them so well that you know their favorite things -- and somehow along the way they kind of became your favorite things, too. So it sort of serves as a poem of familiarity and friendship, even though it's highlighting that part of familiarity where people are maybe too familiar.

Pretty much guaranteed to make me smile every time.

Always a pleasure to read someone's thoughts with substantive background. This was beautiful to read. Exactly what I'm after.

Also, a beautiful poem. I'm clearly colored by your reading ;), but nothing wrong with that -- I can feel that tension between how the poem reads, slower and contemplative, savoring the ideas, and then a conclusion drawn in the same way that stands in stark contrast to the way the poem reads. Very cool affect on me.

Is that still a poem? If not, what made Williams' version one? The pauses at the end of each line? The way it flowed differently? The way it looks? What about the stanzas? Were the breaks between them just for visual purposes. — T Clark

Music to my ears. The exact sort of thing I'm asking after.

:) Thank goodness. I didn't want any bad blood after so much good interaction. And I appreciate being corrected. It's always better to change beliefs to what's true than hold onto what we think is false.

Love him.

I went to look at his page on Poetry Foundation and didn't like any of the poems they had on offer as much as This is Just To Say:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

One of my favorite gems.

Heh, yes, feel free to skip over the wacky thoughts. :D I appreciate everything you've contributed, and definitely do not want to lose that feeling of poetry, or the interpretation of poetry, in the wacky thoughts.

Sorry. I don't mean to be dismissive. You're right that it's important to get the facts correct, and I made a mistake. I was hoping the mistake wasn't critical, though, to the point -- but apparently I was wrong there too.

Yup yup, true. Even the example sonnet 108 I gave doesn't follow what I said, too. (does it really surprise you that a person whose fine without form would forget forms? :D But they're still useful to think through) -- and there are other forms of the sonnet, like you mention.

But surely you see what I mean by form now, though? The rhythm-rhyme scheme, at a minimum, defines a poetic form.

So again, a clear-cut example of what your first sentence means would be helpful.
Clarity is necessary for understanding. How will unclear abstract theories provide this? — Amity

Ah! I'm lifting the term from computer science.

So, as the wiki shows, "This is a string!" is a string.

And if it is a sequence then, to make things more abstract, any set of characters with members greater than 1 would count as a string, I think. <-- Keeping it here cuz I started here, but re-reading I think this is a tangeant.

So in positing the question "How many phrases are in a string?" I'm asking is for a rule that would allow a computer to compute some number given any string -- so it couldn't be infinite, but it could be any combination of characters, including spaces and indentations and dashes and every bit that we'd consider in reading a string (as these themselves were added later).

Also, I added the information about direction of reading because we're dealing with poetry which is itself not necessarily digital. It's written on an open page, and the notions of space aren't as easy to define when we have a whole page to write on vs. some line that might include "paragraph break" as a character in its alphabet, which means "new plank of meaning", or something like that -- time to consider something else.

So one rule I could propose in counting phrases would be "every time there is a paragraph break, add one" -- and with the sonnet we'd get a definite number of "10" this way. However, in looking at the content, we'd probably contend this derivation in some poems. Thinking here of lines that invoke two contrasting ideas or feelings or meanings within the same line -- we'd likely, as humans, count those as two phrases instead of 1. Actually I should highlight here just how odd my line of questioning is, because as humans reading a poem we wouldn't usually ask "How many phrases are in this poem?" -- such a question seems to entirely miss the point!

So yes, of course, there is always a combination of subjectivity and objectivity in any text; poem or art.
The 'subjective' is not 'left over'. — Amity

Yes, very true. This is by way of trying to delineate what I'm attempting to get at. I agree that it's not actually left over -- hence why I could see how someone would call into question my little thought experiment, claiming that it is not as innocent as I'm proposing.

But I'm not sure how else to get at what I mean other than by contrasting...

I appreciate all the time and energy spent in responding to my queries. — Amity

Heh, I'm just glad there's enough interest here that I'm able to think through my wacky thoughts. :)

Heh. Sorry. I may have even lost myself. Feel free to skip the philosophy-bits, as they may well just be nonsense anyways :D

What kind of a phrase?
https://natureofwriting.com/courses/sentence-structure/lessons/phrases/topic/phrases/ — Amity

Hopefully any of those, and more, given that poems tend to invent their own phrase kinds.

What kind of a string? Examples?

Well, for now, I just mean a set of characters with some kind of single-dimensional direction that has a place where it begins and a place where it ends -- speaking more formally, basically. When I'm speaking as abstractly at the level of "strings" I'm kind of coming at the question "from the other side" of feeling -- attempting to put down abstract theories that provide clarity.

What is left where... in a poem? What is a 'truth-condition'? Why would a poem need one? — Amity

A poem would certainly not need one -- that's why I thought it a good topic! :D I'll try to explain responding to this:

I struggle to understand what is at issue. Even after I read the following: — Amity

I suppose I'd say that truth-conditions do not exhaust the meaning of even sentences in the form of a statement. The meaning of a statement may include truth-conditions, but my impression is that something is left out, that there is some remainder of meaning not included in such a definition of meaning. I don't think I'm even at a point where anything is quite at issue -- I'm still forming nascent thoughts.

But one of the things I'm trying to do is focus on the bits of language that truth-conditional semantics doesn't. So poetry, and its evaluation, as @SrapTasmaner pointed out earlier, is a concrete topic under which we might come up with distinctions to figure out what this "left over" is -- if we think there's more to meaning that the truth of statements at least. While I don't think that (EDIT, for clarity: I don't think that the meaning of a statement can be reduced to truth-conditions), if someone does then they'd likely see this endeavor as "following from" truth-conditional theories of meaning, where poetry is parasitic upon the truth embedded withing language.

Or the opposite, if someone is more given over to this notion of sentences simply meaning (like myself) and not needing a theory of meaning, though I'm obviously not satisfied else I wouldn't be creating threads like this -- then it would seem all the logical constructions are extraneous, superflous, unhelpful. (but they are interesting!)

Another kind of logic question, grammatical: — Amity

Perfect! That's exactly the sort of question I'm asking after. What does "do" do? Here we're asking about the meaning of the word within a sentence rather than the conditions under which it would be true. What is up with that?

Nothing is obvious to me, perhaps I missed it. If you could explain again, I'd be grateful. — Amity

heh, fair.

I think that the approach which prefers to talk about meaning in terms of a Language "L", such that we're speaking about language in the abstract rather than a particular natural language (like German or English or..), would say that the actual sound of a given unit of meaning is not important. But the phonic structure of a poem is part and parcell to poetry, even when it's not one of the forms.

A linguist would say that you could say--

"Snow is white" is true iff Schnee ist weiß

Has the same meaning because the conditions under which either sentence is spoken are the same. So the phonic structure is "accidental", or could be any other phonic structure insofar that the truth-conditions are somehow "attached" to this phonic bit or plank.

A poet wouldn't. Poets frequently complain about the impossibility of translating poetry. And one of the main complaints in translating poetry is exactly the phonic structure of the poem, and the relations that invokes within the spoken language.

That is -- it's not just the truth conditions that brings about the total meaning of a phrase, it's also all the relationships it holds with the other meaning-bits or meaning-planks (mostly making a distinction here based upon whether one might prefer analytic or holistic "units" of meaning -- the "unit" being undefined at this point because poems don't define things in terms of a sentence, for instance)

What do you mean by 'reasonable delimitation on generality'? — Amity

I mean the domain under consideration. So rather than all languages, I'd at least limit myself to a particular, natural language. But I wouldn't make a theory so specific such that it could only interpret the 108's sonnet of Shakespeare.

What are the 'rules for interpreting a sonnet'?

Iambic pentameter, 3 stanzas. Rhymes as follows: ABAB, CDCD, EE
And then with respect to the question "how many phrases are in a sonnet?" I think we could propose something like 10 phrases. Though there are constructions which would require us to look at the content, as opposed to the form -- so that's not quite a steadfast rule either, only the closest thing to a formal answer to the question. (also itself not necessary for providing an actual interpretation of a poem, which I've agreed is more about feeling and sharing and connecting than this attempt at making something formal)

What is the importance of this question, in any case, when it comes to understanding meaning?
Wouldn't looking at the content be just as helpful? — Amity

Heh, I'm sort of looking at meaning from two sides -- but with respect to poetry I think you're right to say that looking at the content is even more helpful than these questions I'm asking. I guess I'm starting to dip into the philosophy side of the question here, more than the poetic feeling side (though I also want to keep the poetic feeling side going -- rule 1 holds for me still)

Again, do you have a source for your claim about 'modern poets' - who are they and where do they assert that 'formalities are not necessary to convey meaning? — Amity

Mostly just using T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland as a standin for the category, since the essay I read pretty much treated it as a sort of revolutionary moment in poetry, where I thought it was clear he was inventing his own form and following it -- and certainly I felt the meaning that was there, the mood, the imagery... assertion isn't the right word, but I'm claiming that T.S. Elliot shows with this poem that we don't need the classical forms to convey meaning, (though maybe that's controversial! Others might say that it's clearly meaningless because it doesn't follow the forms....)

(EDIT: Just to be clear, the essay wasn't anything fancy -- literally just the introduction to a collected works I own, written by someone who works in the academy in New York at the time in the 80's, from the sound of it. It was a good essay on poetry in general, I thought, though... might type it up to share. Doubt I could find the exact one online)

A poem might initially be 'felt' by a simple read; not fully engaging the mental faculties.
However, to reach any obscure or symbolic meaning requires us to go beyond.
To read again. With care. To connect with our own 'truths'. — Amity

True. So we can't just say, what Davidson calls a "first reading", is the true reading -- the real meaning. And I completely agree that this is part of the interpretive process for poems. We connect to it with our own 'truths', as you say.

Do you see why, then, poetry serves as a good contrast case for truth-conditions to explore the nature of meaning?

A thought on demarcation between poetic and truth-conditional meaning --

Would it be possible to develop a logic of phrases? (heh, probably anathema to the two camps who'd usually ponder one side or the other of that question)

I dont think this would help in interpreting a poem. Mostly still just looking at that "what's left, if we are able to conceptually "take away" truth-conditions?" question.

In particular, it'd be interesting to simply answer the question "what constitutes a phrase?" when we take a string -- is it possible to devise a relationship between a string and how many phrases are in a string?

One thing that should be obvious from my approach is that I don't think there'd be a general answer for all languages, given that poetic meaning -- as I've been rendering it thus far at least -- includes phonic structure. So the question would be about, first, what is a reasonable delimitation on generality such that it's still interesting, and not just a set of rules for interpreting a sonnet?

That's what form does for us, in a way -- it tells us exactly how many phrases a poem will have, and some of its internal structure. In a way poetic form is a logic for answering the question "What constitutes a phrase?" -- and the modern poets basically assert that such formalities are not necessary to convey meaning (thus making it much harder to answer the original question, but taking us back to the original impetus -- the feeling of poetry)

EDIT: Just as an example using the first four indentations of The Wasteland -- you could count 4 phrases, based on indentation, or any number of phrases based upon how you interpret them (like I noted how April itself was also breeding, adding another phrase). But this procedure, right now, isn't even as robust as "guess and check", since there's no necessary answer to the question. Hence, not quite a logic with respect to modern poetry, but possibly a very weak and un-interesting one in the case of defined forms -- still, the focus on counting phrases is interesting for compare/contrast, i think -- perhaps this could count as showing a difference in approaches to meaning.

I can recommend the same recommendation that was given me -- don't worry too much about the scholarly side, just feel it like you would any other poem. I looked up a couple of things along the way, but not much, and enjoyed reading it at that level.

Having added some modern poetry to our list of poems, I automatically feel the need to invoke something classical -- so browsing Shakespeare's sonnets I decided upon --

108

What’s in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What’s new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.

In Elliot we get something personal, something purposefully undefined -- but a definite mood, I'd say. The essay I read wanted me to read The Wasteland like it would change me, even -- like it was a spiritual experience. With Shakespeare we get a classic form, well executed, on a classic subject -- love and aging. Something familiar re-addressed, re-spoken, and re-assessed.

One of the parts of the sonnet that is like The Psalms is the relationship between the first and second stanza -- it can be put to multiple uses, but usually the 2nd stanza either repeats the first stanza, or it states something which develops the first stanza, or it states something which is in some kind of opposition or contrasting stance to the first stanza. The Psalms use this method to develop meaning -- repetition, development, or opposition.

Something that's different about the sonnet is the couplet which puts a bow on it -- though sometimes that's put to the opposite effect too.

While browsing for poems -- I have never before ventured down the path of The Wasteland until now. And I really did love it. I read an essay beforehand, knowing that the poem is notoriously difficult, and she suggested to sit at home with the sound of the poem rather than starting out with the analytic approach of trying to understand all the references, or even all the images! I can feel the cohesive mood in the poem, but the ending mystifies me.

However, one technique Elliot uses I want to highlight in this thread, because it's a good example of poetic meaning - and it's from the first lines of the first stanza! :D

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Here the line-breaks give the lines a double meaning, a really common poetic technique. Whereas truth-condition type meaning attempts to set out a meaning, poetic meaning frequently attempts to employ multiple meanings to give a kind of resonance or mood or theme, or to compare ideas and moods and feelings at the same time with the exact same set of words as they are spoken or read.

So as I read it the first line "April is the cruellest month, breeding" -- clearly "breeding" forms a phrase with "Lilicas out of the dead land", but also April itself is breeding (what is it breeding? Well, the rest of the poem fills that out, somewhat, but only through images and sounds and feelings)

Funny - "that which has no distinction" is what Lao Tzu would probably call "non-being." — T Clark

well, they are sort of similar -- since being applies to everything that is, it's not like we can say it's like this or that thing. It's everything. And when I look at everything -- what on earth is in common? Nothing.

Or maybe it is the aspect of being we can notice, even if we don't right now. — T Clark

I'm fine with this way of talking too.

"Aspect" is probably the wrong word, now that I'm thinking on it. Sounds like "property", and it's probably better to say "mode": A kind of way which we encounter being. Ways? What is a way? (Dasein's comportant...)

Agreed. I guess that's the point of this discussion - if you're going to use the words, make sure you let us all know what you mean. — T Clark

Heh. It'd be nice, but I think that usually we just assume we know what we mean with "real" -- and that's not too weird, either. We don't go about proving reality, more often than not. Maybe whether a statement is true, but not reality. Reality doesn't admit of proof or disproof. And if that's so, is it even amenable to reason?

It's almost more weird to set out the term in the first place :D -- which is why such talk gets so confusing, I think. Too many possibilities at this level of abstraction, and without some kind of text or tradition or something -- it's just not definable. It requires some philosophic tools to define. But in so doing we are already sort of begging the question in defining it by defining it by such-and-such as being real.

To bring this back to quantum weirdness -- It's fascinating unto itself, but yeah, I take it that most QM-weird discussions are -- perhaps unknowingly -- begging the question, and pointing at this weird thing to say "Look, if this weird thing exists, then my weird thing exists"

I don't understand this — T Clark

Oh, I may not either -- but I think I got a gist at least. And I'm just stretching, really -- attempting to make use of concepts more widely than in their interpretive home (while mid-reading no less -- so there be danger here!)

I'll try to un-jargonize the above here --

Reality is that aspect of being we notice. I'm cool with just drawing a distinction between being and reality -- good enough for me.

Being is that which has no distinction. If it were distinct then it'd be individuated then it wouldn't apply to some existence. There are no predicates, but the very basis upon which predicates can be stated. Reality, then, is that which is cared about.

And, more generally, we are free to set out what we mean by reality. It changes depending upon the philosopher.

The idea of “real” or “reality” comes up frequently on the forum, often in relation to quantum mechanics. It has struck me the concept is not usually defined explicitly or carefully. — T Clark

I used to think of reality as having a relationship to existence as having a relationship to being, where "the real" refers to lived experience, existence refers to judgments of statements, and being does not refer but is the most fundamental -- one might be tempted to say there's a Hegelian relationship between being and the other two. Something rougly along those lines.


Recently having been revisiting Levinas I came across a term he uses: the there is. The opening paragraph of chapter 2 in the Levinas reader, a pdf which I found through the graces of google:

Let us imagine all beings, things and persons , reverting to nothingness.
One cannot put this return to nothingness outside of all events. But what of
this nothingness itself? Something would happen, if only night and the
silence of nothingness. The indeterminateness of this 'something is happening'
is not the indeterminateness of a subject and does not refer to a
substantive . Like the third person pronoun in the impersonal form of a
verb , it designates not the uncertainly known author of the action, but the
characteristic of this action itself which somehow has no author . This
impersonal, anonymous, yet inextinguishable 'consummation' of being,
which murmurs in the depths of nothingness itself we shall designate by the
term there is. The there is, inasmuch as it resists a personal form, is 'being in
general' — Levinas

To stretch my mind a bit -- I might say reality is related to the self in the selfs projects or pictures, or more fundamentally, in the selfs enjoyment of grasping the world for itself -- and being able to do so without falling into the usual traps by use of the there is. But here, reality isn't playing the linguistic role that @Banno sets out (which I'm also drawn to -- honestly those were my first thoughts. OLP has had its way with me! :D ) -- and here's where I'd say I think we get along, because as he says reality plays many roles, and it depends upon the philosopher. It's just a matter of setting it out.

Cool, much thanks -- I was focusing on pong being played, for sure, and you've helped in pointing out that's not the point, but rather to demonstrate a model's prediction of neuron-network behavior.

heh, yeah, glad I just asked :D.

So no instant-karate-brain-chips in the next year or so, I suppose, but one step closer to the cyberpunk future.

This is super cool. So many neat intersections. It'd be interesting to look at the original paper, but it'd probably read funny to me -- i.e. the pop-version is probably just as good.

One thing the pop article made me wonder about was the notion of coherent/white-noise in relation to a dishbrain. The technical side going on in this set of sentences:

To allow the brain cells to play the game, the computer sent signals to them indicating where the bouncing ball was. At the same time, it began monitoring information coming from the cells in the form of electrical pulses.

"We took that information and we allowed it to influence this Pong game that they were playing," Kagan says. "So they could move the paddle around."

At first, the cells didn't understand the signals coming from the computer, or know what signals to send the other direction. They also had no reason to play the game.

So the scientists tried to motivate the cells using electrical stimulation: a nicely organized burst of electrical activity if they got it right. When they got it wrong, the result was a chaotic stream of white noise.

is where the meat of the argument would be. "That information and we allowed it to...", "sent signals indicating", and "chaotic/organized electrical activity" -- in some way I wonder if it'd been any different if the dishpan was hooked up to a series of lights and if the experimenter had just shocked the cells or anytime it guessed the wrong light -- but there's a lot of intentional conduct being implemented by the experimenters, and I wouldn't know how to tell if it's the cells in the dish-brain or the cells in the bone-pan that's making the inferences.

So let's just say I agree with all this. What now? We wait until we die, persuade others not to reproduce, and thats it. Do I have that right?

Eh, all I can claim is sincerity on my part. I'm making attempts, but sometimes those are mis-fires, mistakes, confusions -- probably about where we're at at the moment.

Both, if I think about it. But I'm ok with just saying metaphysics, since I suspect that's what you'd object to.

I think emphasis is what's at stake, or at least recognition of emphasis. Rather than philosophy being thought of as only speculation on the nature of reality or the logic of being, it could also be something else.

I'm including speculative physics. I'm saying there's more to metaphysics, not that it's not included.

The examples would be from around here abouts. I've indluged too, and even still do so.

No, that sounds like a definition. I was answering what is at stake. Speculative physcis isn't. RIght?

That's not helping my confusion as much as adding to it.

Start over with this question?

Is metaphysics a method of inquiry aimed at some goal, or is it merely a history of intellectual accidents? — apokrisis

Is that the issue at stake? Am I not answering the question in saying it is neither of these things, but something else? Couldn't that be civics?

That ellipsis is the important stuff. It is what can only be shown, and also what cannot be shared at all. — Banno

The bug still bites, at times, and I try. Tempted to call the philosophy bug a beetle...

I've been known to make mistakes, and tend to prefer to own them and learn from them. I'm not sure I follow your meaning, though.

Looking back, I've moved from seeing philosophy as serious play towards seeing it as plumbing. They're not mutually exclusive, though. — Banno

I think I'm in that position I get to where I feel like anything I say on the matter looks wrong a moment after saying it -- at least in terms of looking at philosophy. Serious play, plumbing -- yes! and.... :D

For me I think the whole "way of life" rendition of philosophy will always have appeal, even though I recognize that the institutional philosophy isn't really pursuing that. I think my interest in this subject comes from trying to understanding philosophy in these two terms -- because in spite of my relationship to philosophy being different from that, I clearly still benefit from, or at least owe a debt to, institutional philosophy.