Well, if he doesn't know how to count he probably doesn't know that there are two things. He knows that there is a difference and that they are separated in space, that one thing is not the other, that they are similar, etc. Then perhaps a proto-two will appear in his mind that will then finally be objectified and solidified as knowledge thanks to teaching and learning. But obviously "the two" will not have arisen from the thing itself, rather it is something that happens to the thing when it enters into a relationship with someone who defines the measure and sees the difference between the two, and the Lollipops.

If this is something you cannot know — ucarr

I have said "I have" as I can say "I have counted." To you it seems that apples and oranges are numbers, to me their numeration may simply be external properties that are only acquired in relationship. The latter is true and the former is false (due to impossibility to identify the number and the numbered).

then your argument above has no grounding in fact and therefore no logically attainable truth content, only blind guesswork. On that basis, why should I accept it? — ucarr

Because I have also indicated something that I do know: That the apples and oranges have been counted and have been subjected to number. And because they are differentiated (they are in a different place, for example, or do not share the same space) they can be counted.

You say number stands apart from apples and oranges . When we look at number five apart from them, we know nothing about their number. How do you know both have number five? — ucarr

We do not know. "Have" refers to property. I prefer to say apples and oranges can be counted as something potential. We learn to count. But first things appear differentiated. The number is also differentiated, and in that case we would speak of isomorphism.

Since number five, in abstraction, tells us nothing about apples, oranges or any other physically real thing, that tells us pure math, in order to be physically real and thus inhere within particular, physical things, and thus be existentially significant, meaningful and useful, must evaluate down to physical particulars. Universals are emergent from particulars, but they are not existentially meaningful in abstraction. — ucarr

Well, they always tell us something significant and meaningful about themselves. Whether they are useful or not would be something extrinsic.

Physical: anything subject to the spacetime warpage of gravitational fields — ucarr

How is number 5 deformed by gravitational fields

I don't mean given in the sense of something given once and for all without the need for explanation. I am referring to something given in a historically validated scientific field. When you learn mathematics you access demonstrations, laws, necessary relationships and so on that you can practice without having to think about a supposedly more fundamental reality (let's say physics). That it is unnecessary is proof of an autonomy of the sciences and of the discontinuity in knowledge as a whole.

If I have 5 oranges in one basket and I have 5 apples in another basket, the 5 does not seem to participate in Appleness nor the orangeness. So the number is not the same as numbered things. "5" is not oranges, nor apples, it only applies extrinsically. Therefore is wrong to say that "5" is physical "because apples and oranges are physical". You must say that numbers are physical things by itself to the extent of numbered things (apples and oranges).

Then it is necessary to define what you mean by a physical thing.

I see what you mean. But what I’m wanting to differentiate is the sensory from the intellectual. Numbers and the like can only be apprehended by a rational intelligence that is capable of counting. It is that faculty which I claim that physicalism cannot meaningfully account for. — Wayfarer

If I understand correctly, you are referring to something similar to Kant's categories. In this case to the quantity category. Well, I'm not a big fan of nativism. Although I consider that there is certainly a disposition of consciousness that allows access to mathematical knowledge without many problems. That is, consciousness is not primarily a tabula rasa but is already in a certain continuity with a differentiated world (here differentiation would be a genesis of the category of quantity). The mathematical knowledge that we learn as children shapes this disposition of the human intellect to the point that we can conceive a mathematical object in itself and in its ideality. I speak of an objective and historically rooted constructivism.

Now, the history, this history since I am born and molded to the point of being able to conceive mathematical objects in their ideality and objectivity cannot be described in terms of physics. It is like founding epistemology from quantum physics. That doesn't make any sense. In this sense the whole is more than what we believe its parts to be. Even the idea that we talk about a whole and its parts seems to falter. We may have to talk about different realities in relationship where no reality is more fundamental than the other. This would be a materialism, but a materialism of the Platonic Symploke without substance and without fundamentalism in order to respect the relative autonomy and irreducibility of the dimensions of reality evidenced by the sciences.

I mean phenomena in the sense that they are objects that are presented and prepared for scientific work. These objects, however, may be the product of a historical construction, but at some point in their history they are given in an epistemological cut from which they are presented as a category in the process of closure and establishment of sui generis circular relationships. In general, when we try to learn a science that is already historically established and solidified, the objects we learn are also solidly established. These objects are not given to us as something dependent on a more fundamental reality (say, physics) but as sui generis objects, arranged in a body with a certain autonomy and ontological discontinuity with respect to other objects of a different kind. When we learn mathematics we do not learn "the neurochemical composition of numbers", nor is it necessary to do so to access its scientific nature: We access demonstrations, laws, necessary relationships, etc. given in a gnoseological and ultimately ontological discontinuity.

If this is the case, and things can start to exist, for no prior reason (they are uncaused), then why don't we see more things starting to exist at different times? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Actually we do see many new things appear: new stars, new human beings, new social problems, new diseases, new hopes, new philosophies, new theories, new films, new technologies, etc. What is not common is that something new arises out of nothing and for no reason. It always seems that if something new comes into existence (and that did not exist before) we are obliged to think about it in the order of coexistence and in the order of relation. In other words, we are obliged to think about the new among other things that precede its existence and with which it is related in some way. This is perhaps the most rational aspect of existence: That nothing comes from nothing.

I think you're echoing Chalmers, but going beyond asking for a theory of consciousness to asking for a theory of abstractions (like math) as well. He said we should start with just proposing phenomenal consciousness as a thing to be explained by science, similarly to the way gravity was added, with no insistence that science as it is has to be able to answer it. It could be that we have to wait for more quantum theory answers? Or maybe a type of physics that we haven't thought of yet. — frank

Certainly what I have said is close to what Chalmers thinks. Although I would not go so far as to talk about the mental, the mathematical, etc. as something fundamental in the sense that simple fundamental particles exist. I would simply say that there are phenomena that are given. And we are fortunate that to the extent that we work with these phenomena, other things appear: laws, relationships, correlations, demonstrations, and certain epistemological closures (or categorical closures) that make a set of phenomena and objects something exclusive to a science. : Physics does not have language as its object of study, nor the rational actors of the economy, nor the Pythagorean theorem, etc.

Something that generally happens to reductionism when it fails to carry out a reduction is that it tries to proceed by presupposing semantically, phenomenologically, and practically what it intends to reduce. To take an example: If we imagine that thanks to some kind of super advanced experiment we can associate a certain experience (say, seeing a dog) with some quantum determination in the brain, we have to talk to our guinea pig in terms different from those of physics so that we can carry out the association: "Think of a dog", or "see this picture of a dog" we say to the subject of the experiment. But without the semantic content of those words and the knowledge of what an experience is (without using terms from physics) we would not be able to carry out the experiment or any association between the experience and "brain physics."

As result these things that appear to us in scientific practice (relations, correlations, discoveries, demonstrations, principles, laws, etc.) are also literally reduced to nothing if we carry out a physicalist reduction. The result is that we have a poorer, reduced and scarce knowledge of the world.

I don't think this is the place to discuss the reductionism involved in conceiving meaning as simple brain processes. There is an association but no identification; and the association cannot be carried out without semantically, operationally and phenomenologically presupposing the term with which we want to associate the brain processes. Association is not identification. In any case it is quite off-topic to talk about this here.

Yes: without the need for this reduction we can access truths, demonstrations, deductions, correlations, empirical verifications, and so many other scientific validations through other sciences.

The question is whether physicalism should be founded on knowledge. Founded on the knowledge provided by our sciences. Otherwise, ironically, physicalism would be anti-scientific. At this point we can ask ourselves if the multiplicity of sciences can give us an idea or evidence of how the world is constituted. No longer taking each science separately but all the sciences as a whole, and taking irreducibility as evidence.

And of course this evidence must be explained: Why can't we reduce mathematics to physics? And most importantly: How is it that without the need for this reduction we can access truths, demonstrations, correlations, empirical verifications, and so many other scientific validations?. Physicalism, consequently, when put into practice, restricts us from knowing many things and knowing many truths about the world. In this sense I think it can be said that physicalism is scientifically false.

I'm more interested in whether we can get an idea of how the definitive argument from physicalism would work with which it could be demonstrated to be true.

But more than an argument it would actually be an operation. The operation would consist of an effective reduction of all the contents of the world objectified by the sciences [biology, economics, psychology, sociology, logic, mathematics, phenomenology, philosophy, etc.] to phenomena, terms, relations, correlations, operations and demonstrations of that specific science that is physics.

For example, a physical theory of supply and demand that reduces it to relationships between, so to speak, their masses and their covalent bonds. A physical theory of the Pythagorean theorem that reduces it to relationships between atoms of some element, etc.

Is that something impossible? If it is impossible then we need another ontology. A more pluralistic ontology that can identify genres and irreducible categories. But also an ontology that identifies how these genres and categories of what exists are related to each other.

However, the message, the information is not complete and until the sender completes it. (Indeed, a frustrated "Let me finish, please" may come in if the listener interrupts the speaker.) — Alkis Piskas

I think I understand what you mean. You try to think of the situation as a whole. However, keep in mind that communication is never complete at once, it must be built. I can tell you something, but always, for whatever reason, my words may not reach their recipient. Perhaps the mistake is to conceive the meaning and information retroactively once the whole is constituted (as when a listener hears a sender and says "this is what he had thought", when in reality it cannot be the same). I prefer to say that the whole is a meaningful relationship where meaning emerges in various parts but is not the whole. Retroactivity is an erroneous causal inversion, where we imagine that the result (the message) was at the beginning.

Meaning is part of the whole, but it is not the whole. I think we both mean the same thing when you talk about a complete message. For it is certainly completed when it has meaningful effects. When I hear you, when I think I understand you, the message is already complete, but because it has already had its effects and a significant relationship has been established. However, I think it is impossible to say that the message is distributed among the interlocutors. Instead of the message I talk about the messages, in plural. The only thing that is maintained is the mutual relationship with respect to a third thing that is constantly being determined and differentiated.

If you ask me something and I answer you, my answer in terms of exchange is as "empty" as your question. You may reply to me "but then there is no communication."
— JuanZu
Can't get this — Alkis Piskas

What I mean is that the sounds, the ink marks, the file, the pixels, are empty in that they are devoid of meaning. They provoke meaning as soon as they enter into a relationship with a system of signs distinct in each case.

Well, I find all this a little too complicated. And why you keep rescticting communucation in oral form? — Alkis Piskas

Oral communication is just one example among others. I can also speak in the same way about letters. When you read a letter of mine that I have sent you (or an email), you imagine that the meaning you generate is the same as that of the sender (me). But in reality, because it is generated and created at the time of reading, it cannot be the same. Hence, I have raised the need to think about something that appears third and indeterminate.

Can't get this either. Sorry. Affectation implies pretense and/or conspicuousness. How does this enter in a simple, straightforward communication? In commmunication in its general sense, as it is commonly and widely used? — Alkis Piskas

If we talk about a letter, I mean that the ink marks affect you and produce effects on you (like another system of signs, in this case alive). These effects are the meaning, your inner language is affected and caused to be determined in x way: Something specific appears in your thought, some specific words arranged in a specific way.

Again I agree with everything, except for one thing:

Now, again, one could disagree and say, e.g. "But JuanZu has communated something to you, independently of whether you receive it, read it, reply to it, etc.". And again, yes, but only loosely speaking. No communication (exchange) can take place until the other part replies to the message, in whatever form, time and place. Even with just an "OK" or a symbol, like an emoji. And even without actually reading and obtaining the conveyed information. Well, this would not be of course the best one could expect from a communication, but it would still be a communication. There would be an exchange of information. — Alkis Piskas

I have problems with this. When we talk about exchange we talk about something that passes from one side to the other while being the same. Like money, or a commodity. However, that does not happen with meaning and information. If I talk to you, no matter how much you respond to me, your words (like sounds, sound waves) do not contain any meaning that travels through the air with them. In each moment the meaning is created as something new (that is why there can always be error in interpretation, a "wrong" meaning because it is always new).

If you ask me something and I answer you, my answer in terms of exchange is as "empty" as your question. You may reply to me "but then there is no communication." And there certainly isn't if we continue to think of communication as representation. That is to say, normally when I hear your words – whether in the form of a question or in the form of an answer – I imagine that I am thinking the same thing as you but duplicated. However, that is not true, if we assume that meaning does not fly with sounds, nor is it transported in ink marks, etc., a fortiori we cannot say that I think the same as you.

So what is communication? This is my approach: Communication in this case is a mutual affectation where multiple meanings are created, but nothing is exchanged. It is a relationship of affectation around a third thing, but not of representation. The meaning, in the case of two speakers, is the third thing that maintains the relationship, it is an indeterminate third that is always differentiating and determining itself. It only appears and repeats itself as a third place, being pure virtuality. And if it is a third for two speakers, it is the fourth for three, and so on. Our interpretations of what the other person says [in the case of two speakers] refer to a third in terms of its pure tertiary, but indeterminated. Inside you and me this indeterminate virtual thirdness happens, and we gravitate to that, so to speak. That is the only thing that is repeated and remains the same: the third, the fourth, etc. for each case. We don't think the same [ I can always missunderstand you and think something totally different] but we share this thirdness as mutually happens to us.

I agree with everything. I would just like to clarify that a system of signs is not necessarily a living system of signs [this would be demonstrated by computation]. As for "exchanging information" I have always wondered what is being exchanged. That is, continuing with the example of this forum, you see these marks on a screen, they are pixels. Where is the information and meaning of these marks? I can use a magnifying glass or a microscope to examine these pixels and probably won't find anything like meaning. It is because of this problem that I speak of meaning as an effect of an effective and active relationship between signs. It follows that nothing is exchanged, but is constantly produced as something new. Right now, when you read this, you are creating meaning as an effect of "my" words. But I am certainly not sending you anything, I am simply provoking something in you in a technologically mediated relationship. This is very counterintuitive.

(The sign language you are talking about is a special form of language that uses visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words (and other symbols contained in written language.) — Alkis Piskas

I agree. There are sign systems of all kinds. When I talk about sign systems I do so in a more or less formal sense. There are written, spoken, thought, machined and many more types of systems in nature.

I wonder what mess would have been created if he was taking that alo into consideration! :grin: — Alkis Piskas

Given Wittgenstein's character, I prefer not to think about what he would answer. It makes me anxious.



Have a great new year too.

The biggest difference I have with Wittgenstein is what I said in my response to @AlkisPiskas:

"Thus, taking the example of a book (a book-dictionary), the written marks enter into a relationship with our language sedimented in our memory. But the book cannot be ignored as an active element in the production of meaning. Wittgenstein's theory would ignore the book as an active agent and give primacy to the subject as the producer of meaning as he uses his learned language".

I claim that there is a certain autonomy of signs that explain how another system of signs is affected. For example, when we read a book, some specific linguistic signs appear in our thoughts and not others. This effect cannot be justified simply by the intentional use of the reading individual without the active intervention of the book. In a certain sense I say that the book writes in the subject and triggers a series of effects that individualize the language we use and with which we think and speak in general. This explains the fact that we can learn new words through a dictionary, without needing to see someone, another subject, using them. This implies that the relationship called "reading" is not saturated by the use learned by the subject. Which explains the possibility of error, misuse and disuse.

In fact, if we follow one of Wittgenstein's theses on private languages, the thesis that there is a public language implies an impersonal and supra-subjective element where a language seems to escape the intentional use of the subject [psychoanalysis is based on this theory]. In this sense, language is a system of signs with a certain autonomy beyond the use of individuals. Which obviously makes it possible to treat language in a more objective way. Is the intentional element necessarily linked to language use? So, if the intentional element is exceeded, we cannot continue talking about use, but, in a certain sense, we must talk about language acting by itself, we talk about a living system of signs, as opposed to a dead one, like that of a machine –but still a system of signs–. It is no coincidence that you speak of something "dead" of a system of signs understood beyond intentional use. I claim that signification always has a dead but totally active face.

I think that you are talking about how one uses a language in general and not esp. definitions, which is our subject. Because if one does not follow the grammar and syntax rules of one's language, this will be reflected in everything one says or writes, wouldn't it?

Your ideas on the subject of language sound quite original and maybe there's something really interesting and useful here. However, I admit that they are not clear to me. — Alkis Piskas

Use is part of the meaning but it is not everything. Wittgenstein's theory is incomplete without a theory of the sign. That is why I talk about sign systems. Instead of saying that a system of signs is always being used in order to have meaning, I would say that a system of signs is always in effective relationship with another system of signs in order to have meaning. Thus, taking the example of a book (a book-dictionary), the written marks enter into a relationship with our language sedimented in our memory. But the book cannot be ignored as an active element in the production of meaning. Wittgenstein's theory would ignore the book as an active agent and give primacy to the subject as the producer of meaning as he uses his learned language.

But emotions are not and should not be part of or belong to definitions. I brought up "emojies" in the context of written language in general. — Alkis Piskas

I understand. What I wanted to point out is that there is a reason why there are no emoji-type expressions, casual expressions and so on. The reason is that there is the intention of objectivity, of the concept and of the universal. I also wanted to point out that according to the theory of the sign that I work on (which refers to the texts of Peirce, Derrida, Saussure among others) it is always, in a certain sense, universalizing: Leaving itself and having effects on the other (in another system of signs), as if becoming a ghost, extending his identity towards the other. The meaning would be the effects of the signs extending their spatiality and temporality. A good book (or a good dictionary) is remembered by many: Its being and its effects seem to transcend its particular spatiality and temporality.

I wasn't referring to a conscious being either. But it is necessary that this thing be a creator which causes something from nothingness. However the question remains: How does this solitary cause affect nothingness to create something? It is necessary to affect in order to cause. Otherwise we only have succession without causality (that is why saying that one thing is prior to another thing does not tell us anything about causality; if I say that my older brother is prior to my existence that does not mean that my brother be the cause of my existence).

If we accept that affecting nothingness and creating something from it is irrational, then we must admit that this first cause is in the order of coexistence, coexisting with other things that it can affect. But this implies that the first cause is not actually the first cause but a cause between others.

That is why I have said that to correctly state the first cause, it must be stated as a creation from nothing, that is, as a first thing creating a second thing, affecting nothingness in some way. But nothingness cannot be affected. So, the conclusion is that the notion of first cause is also inconsistent. To cause something you need affect something; and to affect something you must belong to the order of coexistence (and it is no coincidence that to represent causality we need planes, Cartesian or not).

Here is my contribution:

First of all, it seems to me that to raise the possibility of a first cause one must start from a simple entity [non-composite: since if it is composite we cannot speak of a cause in the singular but of causes in the plural].

Secondly, the creation of the world [as an effect] must be treated as a binary relationship Where A causes B. More than two make several causes, and not a single cause.

Thirdly, this binary relationship must be understood as creation from nothing [as God is supposed to have created the universe from nothing: Creatio ex nihilo]. Since if there were a thing B affected by a thing A, B would have to be presupposed coexisting with A.

Fourthly, the first cause cannot be a single thing differentiating itself (monism) or being the cause of itself. That destroys the difference between cause and effect. The creator and the created.

_______________________________

So:

How can the first cause affect nothingness to produce the world?

Can not. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

From my point of view, what we call causality in its minimum expression is the power of an agent A to affect a thing B, achieving an effect C [but there can be more agents A, and more things B. And C can be a third thing itself or C as B altered by A]. Three elements are necessary for there to be a causal relationship. Consequently, we cannot say that a first cause has caused the world as if one thing A had created a second thing B distinct from it without the intervention of a pre-existing B already to produce C. Taking an analogy as an example, It is as if somehow a mother A gives birth C without the need for a man B, or a sperm, etc [And not only that but also as saying that the father , or the sperm, is created by the Mother] . And if someone argues that a cell can divide itself, it must be pointed out that it is because a cell is a composite thing, and there is a causality inside that is also tripartite.

Conclusion: The notion of first cause can only consist of creatio ex nihilo [Something affecting nothingness]. But that is merely irrational.

I think meaning is something that happens to a system of signs. Something that happens to the medium, so to speak. When two sign systems meet, they establish certain relationships where one affects the other actively and passively. These relationships are the meaning. For example, when we read a definition in a dictionary, we are affected by its system and its specific configuration (word order, spacing, syntax, etc.); The meaning is created in this relationship and this is determined as the certain configuring effects in our system of signs. That is, the letters affect our learned and memorized language, they resonate within it and individualize it (and this can be said a fortiori for someone using the language and speaking to us) Not so much in the sense that the medium is the message, but that the message is a relationship between the mediums. And meaning (as something iterable, repeatable, that survives through mediums) depends on the spatial and temporal stability of sign systems and their relationships.

In a dictionary there are usually no "emojis" or the facial expressions of the writer. But this is due to our intention of objectivity and the suitability of the medium for this purpose. Dictionaries have on their part the permanence and durability of ink in some cases, which can transcend the vocal sounds that are carried away by the wind (Socrates did not write, but we know about him thanks to Plato's ink). When we think about objectivity, theory, concept and universality (which characterize science and philosophy) we choose the most appropriate means for its realization. How important was Albert Einstein's mood at the time he first spoke about the theory of relativity? Not very important, in the paper there is no indication of his humor, there is no emoji—just like there isn't one in a dictionary. That is why for the theoretical and universalist intention of science and philosophy the empirical and contingent element is subtracted or abstracted dictionary-like. And what is said about a dictionary can also be said about any medium that gives us a definition or a concept: A paper, a manual, a recorded sound, a recorded explanation from someone, etc.

Right. But I consider empirical descriptions --i.e. examples of how a concept works in practice, in life, etc.-- quite important, since they make an abstract idea better undestandable --more concrete and more "visible" and tangible-- by giving flesh and bones to it. — Alkis Piskas

Yes me too.

Every time we apply the concept more broadly (in daily life, in practical examples, analogies, metaphors, etc.) we are doing something that is supposed to be its essence: Universality and its application to many cases at different space and time. And according to what was said above, our theories, concepts, definitions and laws (just like meaning, and other "universal" things that are repeated through space and time) are relationships between sign systems of great stability in space and time. The ink in a dictionary is not carried away by the wind, as can happen with spoken sounds. That is why the dictionary as a written medium is more suitable than speech to realize universality. And a fortiori the same can be said of computers, SSD, "the cloud", etc.

Why would you want to live in a world alone where everything, including people, is fictional? Sounds terrifying. It is also very disrespectful to the people you love and people who love you. I can't think of anything more selfish.

What are "digital marks on the internet"? E.g. emojis, icons, buttons, etc.?
Also, what dou you mean by "a digital philosophy forum"? I can think of two kinds of (any) fora: online and offline. — Alkis Piskas

Yes. You can say that they are simply pixel-marks. In any case, in general, due to context limitations, we can only resort to other digital marks to make ourselves understood by other people. In this context we cannot make ostensive definitions, nor can we make gestures with the body, nor resort to the situation that surrounds us and we perceive with our senses. The above are empirical determinations of the context that are supplied and exceeded by the nature of the marks-signs that function even when these determinations (ostensive definitions, etc.) are not presented. We can call them ab-presence marks: Marks that can function without the presence of subjects.


When I talk to you in this forum I do not see your body, nor do I hear your words, nor do I see your gestures, I only see your ab-presence marks-signs in the space provided by the internet. But thanks to the abstraction of these empirical determinations we can establish a more universal, intercontinental, etc. communication. But above all, conceptual communication. And this works in a similar way to how a dictionary works: to make explicit what we want to say we have to use words that refer to other words, without being able to access many empirical and practical determinations of meaning.


Maybe now what I said is more understandable:


“Here there are no practical examples that indicate the use of words, but, similar to a dictionary, we have to work only with marks referring to each other.”


This is why the use of dictionaries is so useful in these contexts (such as in a philosophy forum). That is, a definition through marks is more universal and conceptual (and it is no coincidence that the concept and the universal are related, differentiating themselves from particularity and empirical limitation).


______________________________


However, philosophical discussions are not common as everyday conversations are. That is why I have referred to philosophical discussion as non-normal or non-common discussion. Because in philosophical discussion we work with concepts and the concepts themselves are thematized. It has a universal approach that the everyday use of language does not have. For this, a more abstract and global medium such as ab-presence marks-signs, whether physical or digital, is useful. Dictionaries work well in these contexts because they are composed of the abstract element of the concept: A dictionary can be used to understand another person even in the non-presence of the participants, at a distance (far from gestures, and from various empirical determinations), even when that person has already died.

Also, I'm talking esp. about basic, key terms used in a subject of the discussion. And that a "speaker" who is using them has to make it clear what they mean by them and how they use them, either by giving their definition or description and/or (practical) examples of their use.
Which, in most cases, is not ... the case. :smile: — Alkis Piskas

This is interesting because we can take our own case as an example: Our communication through digital marks on the internet. How can the use of words appear here, for example, in a digital philosophy forum? Here there are no practical examples that indicate the use of words, but, similar to a dictionary, we have to work only with marks referring to each other.

This can be constituted as a criticism of the notion of practical meaning that is based on empirical use. Well, the internet space breaks with the direct (live in person), empirical and practical use of words. But not only that, it reaches a greater and global space of understanding, as global as the Internet. In fact, one can speak of greater universality achieved by the digital space. Isn't this universality of meaning (signs or marks referring to each other, abstracted from experience and practical and everyday use) a greater possibility for philosophy?

It is very common in this context (that of philosophy) to say "I say this in this sense"), as a non-normal and non-everyday sense. And the perfect example is the neologism. Using words in their mostly differential and referential sense with respect to other words outside of the many specific contexts that delimit them opens the space for greater intelligibility and understanding. This is very similar to what Saussure called "langue" as opposed to "parole." This nature of words as signs is capable of breaking contexts and uses, offering the possibility of translation, intercommunication on a global scale and the creation of new meanings and uses. And philosophy finds this very useful.

Common sense tells me that there is a difference between reflection and what is reflected. Isn't the event horizon of a black hole just a reflection of what's inside the hole? If so, the metaphysical holographic principle consists of confusing the cause with the effect, and not only that, but it tries to eliminate the cause to be left with only the effect.


There also seems to be confusion about what "information" means. In physics, information is nothing other than the more or less ordered arrangement of different objects. Whether they are waves, whether they are entangled particles, etc. And I mention these last two cases because it is how it has been theorized that information exists in the event horizon.

I would say that the article is a bit irrelevant to what I have said and about the topic. Among all the mental juggling attempted in the article there is no mention of deontology, ethics, morality, or something related to is-ought problem (things which is what determines how nihilism and humanism can be raised and developed as relevant issues). I mean, first cause is not equivalent to a benevolent God, nor equivalent to God as the foundation of the meaning of life. We could talk about Aristotle's unmoved mover and there wouldn't be much difference. We could not deduce an ethical and moral theory from that. I think you should read my response to the OP again.

When we participate in meaningful communication we enter a dimension that we do not control at will. Language functions as a social law, kinda. For there to be understanding between two people they must share a language that they both understand (and the rules, uses, semantics and sintaxis of those languages are learned and not actively generated by the participants). There is no communication if each participant has a private language, as Wittgenstein would say.

Dictionaries are the written form of social law (digitally written for digital philosophers :) ). It functions as a "third" between two communication participants, and as a "fourth" if there are three participants. If some type of understanding is expected between the participants, it is always necessary to resort to the common law. Sometimes this law is embodied in dictionaries.

It seems to me that in the OP lies the dilemma between practical reason (morality, the meaning of life, ethics) and objective reason in Kant's philosophy. In practical reason, God can be related to a necessary idea but not demonstrable, as a physical law can be demonstrated. God is just an idea that seems to function as a foundation but without objective reality.

From this it can be followed, by a desire of objective reason, that in the objective world the prescriptive nature cannot be proven, nor does the ought-be, otherwise as physical law can. From this point it is easy to fall in nihilism, thanks to the objectivist reason that hoped to determine God in the same way that ancient theology determined him. Consequently, the meaning of life as a teleological expression of the law only finds its foundation in something unproven and undemonstrable. It can only be determinated as a necessary assumption at most.

Nietzsche would say that the idea of God belongs to the field of necessary fictions that guide our actions. But at the end of the day fictions. With which all objective foundation of the moral law disappears (like the order of how to act and what to pursue in our lives). Thus, what we understand by "meaning of life" would not have an objective foundation as pre-Kantian philosophy believed (theology, atomism, etc.)

From here it is easily understandable why the OP goes so far as to say that the world is irrational. Not because it is irrational in the descriptive sense (physics and objective sciences are rational because describes legaliform-properties of the world) but in the prescriptive sense.

That everyday dialogues involve no exchanges of information is a curious claim extremely counter-intuitive if true. — ucarr

Yes. What I'm claiming is extremely counterintuitive. But I hope that counterintuitiveness doesn't mean something bad or delegitimize what I'm saying.

In my common sense understanding, I have no question about this being an instance wherein an interweaving relationship is unfolding through the process of information exchange between two speakers having a conversation. — ucarr

Well, I wouldn't say that two people are exchanging information. I say that there is actually an act of informing the other (another person). In the sense that you are in-forming-other. You are forming something in the other person, making them interpret you, translate you, transcribe you.

How am I ever going to know what someone else is thinking? I will never know. My claim also affects what we call "representation", "knowledge", "truth" (adequation). Instead of knowing, what we do is interpret, produce something in us (even if it is related to something else); That relationship, however, is not one of similarity, it is not original-copy, etc. It's something else, I already call it in general terms "transcription".

But in your above quote, you acknowledge that utterances in dialogues are both logically inflected and aurally modulated. — ucarr

Yeah. The sounds uttered by a speaker may be ordered, spaced in time, accented, etc., but they do not imply any information until a system of signs interprets it. If sounds are the cause of information (what another person informs me) then we must differentiate the cause from the effect.

That this thinking and communicating is a physical, objective exchange of information through spacetime is evidenced by the generations of newborn humans who acquire language skills. — ucarr

I think you're talking about tradition. However, tradition can no longer be understood based on people transmitting something to each other; It must be understood based on the permanence of relationships and the sedimentation of signs. That is, a person puts his thoughts into a book: If another person who has the same language reads the book, it is most likely that it will have effects "in his head" similar to what a third person would have if he also read the book and has same language . If something is maintained is due to repetition and isomorphism. If there is isomorphism, there is resonance, then the three people (the writer of the book, and the two readers) understand each other.

Hence, as your statements may suggest (emphasis in bold mine), only an active mind can generate and then process information? — ucarr

Not at all. I have already said before that the concept of sign can be generalized to the non-living as long as we talk about informative relations. The relation between sign systems can be entirely physical; In each case we must deal with at least one relation between two or more sign systems which are affected by each other (without prejudice to the direction or dominance of the relation) and determine their specific relations. But above all, if we fall into the illusion of representation, we must determine what it is what we believe is transferred and elucidate the specific causality.

Is language something innate? I wouldn't go that far. But I would say that there is an aptitude in humans for language. And this is verified in the vocal apparatus and the ability to articulate, vocalize, modulate, accentuate, etc. sounds which actually are innate. Seems that once we utter the sound, this utterance creates pathways through the psyche's person, building what will ultimately be the mother tongue (sedimented language) through which the sound (or electrical signals) can pass with or without resistance – and this would determine the difference between understanding a person with our same language and not understanding a person with a different language.

So, the "scientific evidence" is also simulated. That's kinda a liar's paradox. :joke:

This is a reminder of why we need philosophy of science accompanying metaphysical speculations (grounded on some scientific approaches, but arbitrarily chosen) about world's ontology.

The basic question is this: are words more than their word-form? — NOS4A2

Well, yes. When a written mark (word) enters in a specific con-text, such as the story of a book, where it is related to other written marks (other words), it stops being simply an isolated mark and becomes the story (just like an individual enters in relation with others individuals and become society, the individual becomes something more than individual: a citizen). The whole is the story, and the signifiers (the parts) are retroactively affected by the story. A sign always, in a certain sense, "stands in place of something else"; It can be said that it refers us to something absent. And it becomes absent when it enters into relation with another sign that affects. For example, a descriptive language is in place of what it attempts to represent; and in this case what is represented seems to unfold, extend its essence beyond what it actually is. In this sense, a sign is not only a sign in itself, but a thing virtualizing itself and becoming another, surviving in the other, like a sign becomes a story in its relation with other signs.

It is relatively easy to give examples on the matter. I have already given several, as in the case of two people who speak the same language. The sounds uttered by each individual are nothing more than sound waves with a certain structure (this includes syntax). But in themselves, these waves do not contain information: if we assume that we have supertechnology with which we can isolate some sound wave and analyze it, we will not find anything other than sound -because is in abstent of relation.


Returning to our case, the sound uttered by one individual reaches the ears of another individual; This individual makes an acoustic image (just as Saussure understands it) of what he has heard; but now what appears is the language that the listener individual possesses. It means something to him: the sound uttered (one system of signs) has effects on another system of signs (the language sedimented in the listener's memory). The information in this case is nothing other than the specific configuration that the listener's language has acquired: "hello, how are you" our listening friend understands. They are specific effects in the listener's language due to the more or less ordered structure of the sound waves uttered by the speaker.


But in a communication between two persons we cannot think of this specific configuration ("hello, how are you") without a cause, and equally we cannot think of this specific configuration as something mysteriously contained in sound while it flies through the air. Given these two impossibilities, the conclusion, evidently, is that the effect suffered by the listener's is produced and not transferred.

I think it is wrong to make computer language the universal language in which all types of knowledge would be expressed. For example, if we assume that we know something, and we remember it, this knowledge is not presented in a binary way. This knowledge is presented in the form of images, sounds, words, experiences, etc. also the "processing" of that information doesn't work through binary expressions.


Someone may say: But all of that can be translated into a binary computer language. That's true, kinda, the same thing happens with formal logic. But the translation from one language to another does not imply identity between the two languages, nor a substitution that allows us to determine that one language is better than another for representing something. No matter how much we wish it, a numerical expression is not a memory. Ultimately, knowledge as información is subordinated to the representative activity of the subject. I prefer to say that knowledge is a representation; but not in the sense of copy o resemblance of something. It is more like a relation among sign systems where the cognoscent-sign-system (subject) is just affected and transformed by other sign system (object).


Information is not just knowledge either. A fiction book file may be saved on a computer. In that sense, knowledge is a type of information. And likewise, binary language is just one more language among others in which information can be expressed. It cannot be said that computer language is the substrate of all forms of information.


I think you are making an analogy. You are using a computational metaphor to understand all possible knowledge, like a kind of metalanguage. However, it remains a metaphor and an analogy that cannot be confused with how we are aware of knowledge, or how it is presented in our subjectivity. If we try to confuse it we will lose a lot of information and knowledge.

This effect is generated by what cause? What is the location of this effect? (If you're theorizing an effect without a cause, elaborate essential details of this phenomenon). — ucarr

The cause is the relation between sign systems and the encounter between those. The effect is something that happens inside each sign system. For example, if we talk about a book, ink marks have an effect on human language, something like a story appears in subjectivity, or what we call knowledge appears, depending on the context of the book, it's a different relation each case. It even has effects on our imagination, we create images as we read, we listen to the inner narrative as we read, etc. They are effects on sign systems from other sign systems.

If we imagine that something happens to the book: it is scratched, it is burned, or any misfortune, then the book, as writing, no longer has effects on subjectivity. What's left? Something remains in memory, but memory is a different system of signs already configured at the moment we had read the absent book ( This said, in the event that there is no longer writing). What happens in the case of a blank book? In that case the book becomes a different sign; It could mean different things: That someone left it there for a reader to construct his own story; or it can be a postmodern book which expresses silence as a theme and as a blank page, etc.

Also, imagine that nothing transits from the blank pages to the reader's brain. How does the reader glean a narrative from the book? — ucarr

In fact, it doesn't transfer anything. A resonance happens, so to speak. One thing produces effects on another. For Example by analogy: The physical light of a book, the photons (as wave), does not transit to the brain, but makes contact with the eyes, and then the eyes with the brain, etc. Nothing is transferred, there are simply translations, transcriptions, interpretations, etc

A blank mind cannot enter into a especific meaningful relation, to the extent that there is no especific resonance, or not resonance at all. Resonance is a process of differentiation in which a relation becomes specific and differentiates itself from other relation. But the lack of specific relation does not imply the absence of any relation. This is the case when we read a book wrote in an unknown language: It does not resonate in a way it usually does if the reader speak same language, there is no determined contact (translation relation), but not the absence of any contact or any relation: since in any case if we see a book we assume that "it means something" or it is something with which we could enter into a meaningful relation.

Regarding the interface linking object with observer, we have the question: What does each correspondent contribute to the interface?

If the observed object, in this case the sign, contributes no information to the interface, then we’re back to claiming the human mind dreams the details of the sign internally. This explanation must then further explain how, or if, any mind makes contact with an objective reality beyond itself. — ucarr

I claim that the sign by itself does not "contribute" information at all. But, equally, the subject does not contribute information either. The information would not be something that passes or transits from one system to another (between a book and a reader), but rather it is generated. That is, it is not cause but effect.

In Our everyday, when we talk about information, we say that a book has information, we also say that among all the ink marks there is something that, however, those ink marks are not. How is that possible? It is not possible to think such a thing unless we fall into a kind of Platonism, which, according to, the history of the book, or knowledge, is inside like an ideal and fantastic form in the middle of the ink mark; and somehow jumps from the ink marks to our head.

To avoid this type of Platonism, it is necessary to say that the information is not found there, neither in the book nor in the reader, but is produced as both systems of signs enter into some type of relation.

"Intelligible" simply means "able to be understood," as with the example of a book. Do you think something devoid of information can be understood? — ucarr

I understand. However, I believe that a sign can become unintelligible. In the sense that a sign can always not enter into a relation with human understanding; or can be erased, like a footprint in the beach. That's why I find it difficult to say that there is such a thing as an intelligible sign. It may be, but also may not be. I prefer to say that a sign is always ready to enter into a sign-ificative relation.

As to the first part of your quote, regarding language applied to physical processes, as to that, I say, "language is physical."

How language is physical and what structure supports the physicality of language are two questions that have been under consideration and attacked in debate for at least the last two millennia.

I’ll venture an intuitive conjecture that we, too, have really been considering the physicality of language. — ucarr

The physical dimension of language cannot be ignored. Just as you cannot ignore the sounds uttered by speakers and interlocutors in a communication. But you can't ignore the sound-perception, nor the symbolic, nor the meaning either. Some of those, however, cannot be spoken of in physical terms, and some in subjective terms either. That is why it seems necessary to understand language as a multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses different genres, or categories if you will.

Consequently, the generalization of the concept of sign is very useful here. Since it refers to the relation, to being-in-place-of, and to a teleological process that jumps from one system to another. We cannot however, given specific limitations, assign a substance to language. That is, reduce it to a substance called "physical", "subjective", "ideal", etc. A theory of the sign (such as the one required) seems that it must be formal, in the sense that it must respect the differences and relative autonomies of the indicated dimensions. Some will say: Genres of plural materiality.

the intelligibility of a sign. — ucarr

This baffles me a little. Doesn't the term "Intelligibility" refer to an "intellect" or a "mind"? Isn't that giving mental properties to the sign? But a sign may never be addressed by a human; and for this reason the essential intelligibility of a sign cannot be implied except for some type of mentalism, or an anthropic principle (even the idea of intelligent design). I can't agree with that. I claim that a sign does not possess intelligibility prior to its relation with a human intellect.

For these reasons, I claim that information is ambiguously internal-and-external to both the physical signification and the physical Agent Intellect who decodes the information and meaning of the former. — ucarr

I think it can be said that the information is internal to a whole that encompasses different moments: sound, symbolic subjectivity, and meaning. That is, it is internal at all moments as a whole, but it is external for each moment. Information is produced when these moments come into relation. It must be an insubstantial relation (due to the limits of reductionism mentioned above).

For those of you who are proposing your own models of consciouness and information I have a stress test for you. Does your model account for energy and mass specific to the problem. To me it seems you disregard the physical realities. — Mark Nyquist

Have you not considered that, perhaps, some approach published on this topic covers what you mention, since these approaches are, kinda, ontological approaches?

Since order has no intersection (common ground) with information, there's the question whether organized nature, prior to the signing of sentient humans, entails dynamical processes that support signing before the advent of the human species. In short, the question asks whether organized nature sans humanity is a potentially language-bearing environment. Does pre-human nature possess language-bearing properties, albeit in latent form? — ucarr

If you want to make a generalization of the idea of language to apply it to physical processes [beyond human existence] I have no problem. In fact I'm doing the same thing, kinda, with the idea of meaning and sign system (because the nature of language and field-signs seems to exceed the field of subjectivity and, in fact, is an important component of its constitution). The difference is that we both have different ideas of how something called "information" takes place for a language, or for a sign system.


I claim that information is a relational property. To take an analogical example: if we have two people with a given height, and we compare them, we find that someone is taller and someone is shorter. "Taller" and "shorter" are properties that do not take place before the relation, in this case a comparison relation. I claim that information takes place or appears in a similar way between at least two sign systems.


So, for example, a footprint on the beach (a sign). In itself it does not have information; The information takes place once the human enters the scene. But not for being human with a mind, but for being a field-signs, just as you said. The information is then not an internal property of the foot print, nor internal to the human-sign-field. Information is produced, therefore, in the relation.

If pre-human, organized nature contains no information_language-bearing dynamical processes, then human, holding possession of such within itself — ucarr

Now we can eliminate the term "itself" or "intrinsic" (which refers to the Platonic essence), and replace it with "extrinsic." Furthermore, it is not correct to say "possesses" either. Instead it is necessary to say "produces in relation to".

This is a process of daydreaming reality into existence as an information_language-bearing dynamical reality. This is an instance as mind as the ground of matter. This is Plato's transcendent realm of ideal things. This is Berkeley's Idealism. — ucarr

Well, once we both can generalize the ideas of language and sign-field beyond human subjectivity, I don't see how Berkeley can have any place in the discussion. Plato, on the other hand, does have a lot to do with this topic. Since, although we can no longer speak of information as essence, or as something inherent that thing possess in itself, information still seems to be another plane or to be another dimension (as it ideally persists through different systems of signs or languages); A dimension that I think belongs to the topic of the virtual of external relations. But that's another topic. The important thing for me is to remove the Platonism of information as something intrinsic and essential.

Do you not agree that signal transmission involves the process of reduction of the improbability of the reiteration of the same signal again and again, and that the information conveyed by the signal is not only the intended communication conveyed by the signs, but also what's conveyed by the aforementioned reduction of improbability. This reduced improbability of randomization of a signal transmission (noise) creates an absence (of infinite other possible transmission content) that constrains signal transmission to a specific set of signs that therefore possesses meaning. — ucarr

What I am claiming is that a signal like that has no information, no matter how organized that signal is. I consider that Information and order are not the same thing. The information would arise when that signal is received and enters into relation with any environment that is constituted by a system of signs.

can you argue that the first-born sentient did not dream itself into an organized reality of signal transmission via absential constraint with attached meaning? — ucarr

I think you have misunderstood me. I never said that the physical elements, whether ordered or not, that precede the generation of information, can be something generated by the human imagination.

As I read your above quote, I'm thinking maybe you're positing a rather pure form of idealism of the George Berkeley variety. My rationale for this interpretation: if reality has no inherent meaning apart from a perceiving sentient, then said reality, necessarily fabulist, must be dreamed into existence by said sentient. — ucarr

I'm not saying that. I have said that information only exists to the extent that there are at least two sign systems in relation (and therefore when we believe we are in the presence of information, we are actually generating it from the relation between our sign system, [language, our memories, etc] and other sign system). They do not necessarily have to be sentient beings. It may even be the relation between the signal you mention above and a machine that transcribes that signal.

I was surprised by the comparison with Berkeley's philosophy. Since I believe that my position could not be further from Berkeley. Berkeley needed God's perception for the existence of things outside my mind (Can we say existence as information? I'm not quite sure). I, on the other hand, can maintain the "objectivity" of information without the need for God, I only need two systems of signs.

I am not discussing a certain ideality of information, which is the same ideality of meaning. I'm discussing the ontological status of information, in the sense of "how something like information is mysteriously contained in a footprint, and jumps from there into our thinking." Stating that it is "contained" is invalid from the moment the process of its production in the relation is evident. The information is not contained, but is produced in the correlation [interpreter/interpreted], [representant/represented], [translator/translated], [transcriber/ transcribed]. I.E in the relation between sign systems.