Existence Precedes Essence

ucarr

This morning I got a good flow of ideas and understandings, so I’m going to let fly. You will excuse my arrogance in starting yet another thread on our consideration of Dasein.

Existence precedes essence

Back in 1945, when Sartre uttered his existentialist credo, in my opinion he was tapping into QM.

“Human, the one chosen for birth into nothingness, enters life condemned to freedom.”

With the above, it appears that Sartre has also tapped into Locke’s tabula rasa, which, of late, has been opposed by Chomsky’s theory of deep speech which, in his declarations, arises from genetic hard-wiring. That’s why, according to Chomsky, toddlers are such apt pupils of language.

I say let’s do a little revisionist history and postulate Locke, Sartre and Chomsky shaking hands and agreeing to conflate the two positions into a heady QM mystery.

Since we’re talking about existence, the one property whereby the highest and the lowest of humanity, with all points in between included, possess undoubtable equality, let me re-label human freedom. Instead of human nothingness, I say, human undecidedness. As, by this standard, any besotted groundling equals Shakespeare, I conclude we should not call it nothingness.

How differs human undecidedness from human nothingness?

Answer – Instant Eternity

Each human enters the world as an instant immortal , having always existed, and being always to exist. This is the innate POV of all sentience.

You say, “Sentient beings know they will die.” Yes. But this knowing death is just another part of life.

The Question of (Human) Origins Is Always Mysterious

This is so because no sentient being ever borns the self. Likewise, no sentient being ever dies the self. If you’re scratching your head and wondering, “What about suicide?” Dear reader, please see the above.

Proceeding from here, I observe that sentience, like being, can neither be approached toward nor departed from. Both are instantaneous and eternal.

Now I must give you my upshot. Knowing and being are coupled (inextricably)*. For this reason, I declare Sartre’s dictum is half the equation. Instead, I say that Socrates and Sartre, together, have it whole.

*(I have my closing adverb in parentheses so that when I’m proven wrong, my dejection will be mitigated.)

Proposition – Sentience and being, by light of QM, are coequal and coeternal.

What does this mean? Well, for starters, how about, wherever there’s being, there’s sentience, and vice-versa?

A second upshot says, being is always consciousness-bearing.

So, what’s the difference between a stone and my head? Ask my mother and she’ll tell you, “Not much.” And now, many moons after mom’s departure (Did your mom ever say to your girlfriend, “He’d forget his head if it weren’t attached”?), I have arrived at…(drum-roll) the same conclusion! To the extent there is a discernable difference, it’s this: after years of undecidable status, my head has evolved upwards to the freedom of Sartre’s decision-making. The stone in the backyard bearing my initials has not. Aside from its willingness to partner with my fancy, thus casting it in the role of necking stool whilst girlfriend is visiting, it remains steadfast in its undecidability.

The Big Problem

According to appearances, as in peering at the world through the lens of QM, with Chalmers clarifying for us via The Hard Problem, sentience and being are simultaneously incommensurate and inseparable or, more plainly speaking, simultaneously without common or independent ground.

What are we to make of this big, fat, knarly paradox?

Thought Experiment – Let’s picture a universe of material objects without sentience. Does this universe know itself? “Silly question,” you say. “How could this universe know itself in the absence of selfhood?” But a universe of material objects showing being in the absence of selfhood doesn’t sound right. Okay. Let’s intro one sentient being into this universe. So now there’s a self who knows this universe. Does this knowing-self impart self-awareness to this universe? Well, how could the self look at the stones in this universe without converting the formerly potential stones into existing stones? This question allows me to riff on Sartre with, Being seen is being. (I like to think Oscar Wilde would give me an “Amen!” here.) The conversion seems to suggest that the self gives the potential stones their actuality by allowing them to borrow the sentience of the knowing-self for their own use.

These speculations land us smack in the center of QM, wherein the observer compels substance-form-objectivity onto the observed.

Playing God – When the solitary sentient being looks upon the undecided universe of our thought experiment, what follows is a Let there be light moment. This exemplifies Sartre’s dictum; human looks into the mental mirror, makes some decisions and thereby decides the boundaries of the self. Hence Existence precedes Essence.

But how does the light that sparks being get ignited? Well, by the sentient being, of course. Where did the sentient being get its light? Now we’re ensnarled within the nightmare of the infinite regress.

The State of Genius Terminal – It seems we can’t precede the sentient being in our quest for the ultimate origin story. Let’s blame it on the geniuses.

Genius – a person for whom word (sentience) and deed (being) are as one. As legend has it, in New York, sometime in the 20s, Babe Ruth correctly placed a homerun ball before hitting it.

Logos -- John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

“If we imagine God as the first genius, then the subsequent earthly geniuses are tributaries leading back to Genius 1.”
“Wait a minute. That’s the arrogance of Babel. Why, it’s blasphemy, or something.”
“You’re forgetting human’s escape clause; ‘Human was made in God’s image.’”

John 1:1 announces arrival at our answer. It’s the Instant Eternity of The State of Genius (Heaven) that lands us within the Moebius Strip of our sentience-being continuum.

Nix on the “Voila!” with crashing cymbals because it’s long been known our universe has neither center nor boundary.

Now we dart over to Wittgenstein’s insuperable language games, which games sentient beings must play because being alive means grappling with the big, fat, knarly paradox.

No Sentience <> No Being.

Perplexed Sentience <> Perplexed Being

Non-sentience is the only escape from language games. “Wait a minute! Didn’t you just say we bestow sentience upon the selfless on loan-out?” Bollocks! See the spaghetti above and have yourself a nice Florentine lunch.

Kant’s Question

Does unseen falling tree make a sound?

Answer

Unseen falling tree makes a proto-sound.

It’s there, but undecidedly. Just add sentience.

Sentience and Essence

Sentience is the primary essence of the material universe, as consciousness is the greatest of all creations. It is an essence adorned with laurel.

As marriage is an honorable institution, sentience, being likewise, flourishes ascendant, crowned and enshrined in the union of souls.

And now, the court of public opinion being assembled,

Conclusion

Sartre’s Existence precedes essence becomes

Existence and Essence trans-rationally semi-symmetrify each other (trans-rational = traditional logic after it’s been worked over by QM; semi-symmetrify = partial equalization of dissimilar things).

This just in, Falstaff, up in the peanut gallery, having just quaffed a pint, calls down this revision, Existence and essence superposition each other.

Chief Blogger – “Well, that’s better, but keep working on it.”

Mikie

With the above, it appears that Sartre has also tapped into Locke’s tabula rasa, which, of late, has been opposed by Chomsky’s theory of deep speech which, in his declarations, arises from genetic hard-wiring. That’s why, according to Chomsky, toddlers are such apt pupils of language. — ucarr

What Chomsky points out is trivial -- he's saying there's a genetic component to language, and that's all. I've never understood why this is controversial. Of course it's hard-wired into us somehow, in the same way our visual system is. How could it be otherwise? I don't think Locke would ever truly argue that we're completely a blank slate, which as absurd as saying we have no genetic structure whatsoever. If we have genetic structure, we're not a blank slate. The environment is necessary to acquire language, yes -- just as stimulation of the retina in early years is important to the development of vision.

So it's not that toddlers are apt pupils of language any more than they're apt pupils of vision -- it's something that simply develops under normal conditions. An ape isn't a "bad pupil" of language, for example, any more than a starfish is an inept pupil of seeing.

Great essay, by the way.

boagie

Emergent existents from the implicit to the explicit, essence is the implicit workings of manifestation, that being forth the existence, the explicit. So, essence is prior to existence.

tim wood

Back in 1945, when Sartre uttered his existentialist credo, in my opinion he was tapping into QM. — ucarr

And on what was - is - your opinion based? More opinion? Or something - anything - of any substance?

boagie

It is a bit like, when does a condition become a thing. There are processes to anything which becomes manifest. It is true this is just speculation, and if you cannot tolerate that, well, to bad. Does it really sound that unreasonable? Actually its influence was something I remembered from a David Bohm lecture.

ucarr

Back in 1945, when Sartre uttered his existentialist credo, in my opinion he was tapping into QM.
— ucarr
And on what was - is - your opinion based? More opinion? Or something - anything - of any substance? — tim wood

I like to believe my opinion is based upon some observed phenomena established by repeated experimental observations performed by various researchers within the QM community.

Here's the key phenomenon, observed and examined repeatedly throughout the 20th century and ongoing: superposition. My basic conception is that Sartre, with his Existentialism, has argued for the matching bookend to Plato's (Socrates) Theory of Forms. The trick involved is that there's no necessary debate over one or the other being right, as suggested by the Principle of Non-Contradiction, as QM has (with conditions) toppled that principle.

By asserting super-position into my analysis, I'm declaring that Plato (Socrates) and Sartre are both correct in their observations, with Niels Bohr, et al putting a bow onto the matched set via QM.

Harry Hindu

Well, for starters, how about, wherever there’s being, there’s sentience, and vice-versa? — ucarr

How do you know this?

Each human enters the world as an instant immortal , having always existed, and being always to exist. This is the innate POV of all sentience. — ucarr

This makes no sense. If a human enters the world, then the world preceded the human entering it, and didn't always exist unless there is somewhere else other than the world from which they came that does always exist. Sounds like the typical philosophical misuse of words in an effort to awe others with their world salad.

Sentience is the primary essence of the material universe, as consciousness is the greatest of all creations. It is an essence adorned with laurel. — ucarr

Sentience is a view and a view is simply an arrangement of information - of information about states of the world relative to the state of your body. In other words, sentience is simply an arrangement of relative essences, like the temperature of your body relative to the temperature of the air around you. When we speak of existence, we're really talking about the existence of essences. If not, then what else could you be referring to when you use the word, "existence"?

ucarr

↪Xtrix

Yeah. It should be understood that Locke's Tabula Rasa comes with a limitations and conditions clause.

ucarr

↪Harry Hindu

Well, for starters, how about, wherever there’s being, there’s sentience, and vice-versa?
— ucarr
How do you know this? — Harry Hindu

This is the gist of my argument. Boiled down to its core -- the lotus blossom in my garden -- it asserts that perception and its referent (an event that shapes the perception) are super-positioned into a seamless and undecidable duality. For my source, I cite one of the cornerstones of QM Physics -- the quantum-mechanical property of being regardable as both a wave and a particle.

Each human enters the world as an instant immortal , having always existed, and being always to exist. This is the innate POV of all sentience.
— ucarr
This makes no sense. If a human enters the world, then the world preceded the human entering it, and didn't always exist unless there is somewhere else other than the world from which they came that does always exist. Sounds like the typical philosophical misuse of words in an effort to awe others with their world salad. — Harry Hindu

Please oblige me by sharing your first-hand account of your parents' courtship and conception of you. Next, please share your first-hand account of your death and burial. Mind you, you first account will be a retelling of what you witnessed, first-hand, before you were born. Your second account will be a retelling of what you witnessed, first-hand, after you died.

Sentience is the primary essence of the material universe, as consciousness is the greatest of all creations. It is an essence adorned with laurel.
— ucarr
Sentience is a view and a view is simply an arrangement of information - of information about states of the world relative to the state of your body. In other words, sentience is simply an arrangement of relative essences, like the temperature of your body relative to the temperature of the air around you. When we speak of existence, we're really talking about the existence of essences. If not, then what else could you be referring to when you use the word, "existence"? — Harry Hindu

This is the hard one. You seem to be saying sentience is simply a point-of-view (hereafter, POV) on various arrangements of sensory and conceptual data. Let us now take our hats off to David Chalmers for his short paper on

The Hard Problem

Yeah. Science examines arrangements of data via individual scientists conducting said investigations. World libraries are overflowing with such data. You and I are not science. We might be scientists, but we aren't science. You and I never experience neutral collections of data because there's something that it's like to be Harry, or to be Uriah that shapes our view of collections of data into a personal experience of said collections. There are no generic human individuals. It is this personal POV that shapes data ingestion into a self perceiving it. The personal, perceiving self, so far, has been left out of scientific descriptions of sentience. When you get personal, which is the condition of every iteration of real-world sentience, you're now talking about the POV on the POV.

My examination of Sartre's Existentialism (Existence Precedes Essence) herein is limited to the structural. First things first. I want to super-position Sartre's Existentialism & Plato's Theory of Forms because my gut tells me scientific examination of the POV on the POV requires a whangdoodle game-changer, namely, QM's embrace of paradoxicality.

By the way, you're right regarding my claim for the innate immortality of sentience when you say, This makes no sense.. It makes no sense, that is, as long as you keep your mind bound to that foundational, scientific article of faith: The Principle of Non-Contradiction. If you'll start to allow yourself to believe that (y)our sentience, by its nature, is a perplexed duality, you might one day rejoice in the paradoxicality of that sublime, bounded infinity, your life.

180 Proof

The equations of e.g. linear algebra and functional analysis used for describing phenomena in superposition are founded on symbolic logic with axioms such as the LNC (i.e. bivalence) and therefore any claim that 'symbolic logic is refuted or invalidated by the very mathematical formalisms which are founded on symbolic logic' refutes itself with a performative contradiction (i.e. you're sawing-off the branch on which you're sitting).

Harry Hindu

We might be scientists, but we aren't science. You and I never experience neutral collections of data because there's something that it's like to be Harry, or to be Uriah that shapes our view of collections of data into a personal experience of said collections. There are no generic human individuals. It is this personal POV that shapes data ingestion into a self perceiving it. The personal, perceiving self, so far, has been left out of scientific descriptions of sentience. When you get personal, which is the condition of every iteration of real-world sentience, you're now talking about the POV on the POV. — ucarr

Well sure, we each have access to a unique set of sensory data and memories that makes us individuals. That is the what it is like to be me - my unique data set and memories compared to yours.

The duality of particles vs wave is the result of two different views being made of the same thing. A view is a structure of information as well as a measurement. Minds digitize an analog world to create the meat of thought. Objects of the mind are the result. I believe that the world is process, relationships, or information, not physical. The idea that physical objects exist is the result of this digitization of the world into discrete forms in space-time. Turning your thoughts back on themselves in like the camera looking back at the monitor it is connected to. It creates a feedback loop - an infinite corridor - one akin to the void one peers into when running away with the thought of thinking about one's thoughts.

ucarr

Your comments here are packed with astute observations.

Minds digitize an analog world to create the meat of thought. Objects of the mind are the result. I believe that the world is process, relationships, or information, not physical. — Harry Hindu

I'm drawn to the notion that physics boils down to manipulated information, however, our so-called physical world, real or not, constantly demands attention. Ask any highway patrol-person, s/he'll tell you horror stories about the costs of inattention within our sham-physical world.

The idea that physical objects exist is the result of this digitization of the world into discrete forms in space-time. — Harry Hindu

Since you're invested in an information-based reality, it surprises me to learn you think binary cogitation leads to discrete forms in space-time. As we the people of the earth descend ever more deeply into virtual reality, the hard boundaries of material objects continue to melt away. Don't they?

Turning your thoughts back on themselves in like the camera looking back at the monitor it is connected to. It creates a feedback loop - an infinite corridor - one akin to the void one peers into when running away with the thought of thinking about one's thoughts. — Harry Hindu

Wait a minute! You, Harry Hindu, a person who weighs in on a thread concerning the essence of human, make an ingenious metaphor mocking human reflections within the mirrors of thought?! This, after asserting an information-based reality? Your metaphor suggests a position of anti-reflection.

Well now, my friend, you won't likely in future convince me you're not intimate with some of the paradoxes of the human condition. Look at yourself.

ucarr

↪180 Proof

Are you telling me logicians have no conceptual bone to pick with paradoxicality or, if you prefer, undecidability?* Are you also telling me the PNC is a relic of the pre-QM past?

*By the way, I seems to me, at least at first glance, these terms are NOT bi-valence but, rather, the conflation of bivalence.

P.S. - My math is terrible so, demolish away.

180 Proof

Are you telling me logicians have no conceptual bone to pick with paradoxicality or, if you prefer, undecidability? — ucarr

Three-valued logic accounts for "undecidability" and Pyrrhonians (et al) have practiced epochē for nearly two and a half millennia. Btw, "paradoxes" are only apparent contradictions, usually unraveled by clarifying (reformulating) faulty premises.

Are you also telling me the PNC is a relic of the pre-QM past?

I'm only pointing out that your OP commits a performative contradiction rendering its conclusion nonsensical. I provided a link in my previous post which explains that the superposition principle predates QM (& the "Schrödinger's Cat" gendankenexperiment) by nearly two centuries.

ucarr

Are you also telling me the PNC is a relic of the pre-QM past?
I'm only pointing out that your OP commits a performative contradiction rendering its conclusion nonsensical. I provided a link in my previous post which explains that the superposition principle predates QM (& "Schrödinger's Cat" gendankenexperiment) by nearly two centuries. — 180 Proof

Is my OP (Operating Premise?) nonsensical within the context of Three-valued logic?

The equations of e.g. linear algebra and functional analysis used for describing phenomena in superposition are founded on symbolic logic with axioms such as the LNC (i.e. bivalence) and therefore any claim that 'symbolic logic is refuted or invalidated by the very mathematical formalisms which are founded on symbolic logic' refutes itself with a performative contradiction (i.e. you saw-off the branch on which you're sitting). — 180 Proof

Perhaps you've done me a service by enlightening some of my ignorance & error or, on the contrary, by validating my validity by spotlighting the performative self-refutation of my claim.

After all, my point, as you know, is that one particle being in two places at once is performative self-refutation. Nonetheless, the particle occupies two places at once i.e., "I'm here_I'm not here." "I'm there_I'm not there." Henceforth, it's smooth sailing to "I'm sitting suspended on this branch I just sawed through."

I'm supposing that the quantum computing code writers (Google employees?) are making bank with performative self-refutations that threaten to slice through pre-QM computing encryption standards.

I provided a link in my previous post which explains that the superposition principle predates QM (& "Schrödinger's Cat" gendankenexperiment) by nearly two centuries. — 180 Proof

Perhaps the heart of our kerfuffle is the age of your superposition data. My perusal of the link suggests (to my math ignorance) a discrete parsing of bi-valence, with simple additive and subtractive effects. These are the very things QM perplexes.

You have helped me with the info re: Three-valued logic and, for that, I thank you.

P.S. I'm wondering what our jurists do when a defense lawyer takes recourse to Three-valued logic, considering our system of jurisprudence and its reliance upon self-contradiction as proof of invalidity.

Gregory

when Sartre uttered his existentialist credo, in my opinion he was tapping into QM. — ucarr

We don't experience waves or potentiality. We experience actuality and particles. Waves are what we call that we can't experience

Gregory

I think essence and existence are like 2 segments and their angle. But which are the segments and which is the angle. Plato might say the form shapes existence but doesn't a form have to exist in order to form? And what is bare existence without a form. When we see the world we probably see forms or substances that exist. They exist, they don't have existence and this difference in language is important. Sartre basically wanted to know how fluid our bodily natures are in how we act in culture

boagie

When does a condition become a thing? Is there not a complexity of conditions prior to say the formation of a cloud. Is there not a chaos of complexity in the formation of an individual organism. Was there not cosmic chaos, read complexity, in the formations of the planets. Well, you get the idea.

ucarr

We don't experience waves or potentiality. We experience actuality and particles. Waves are what we call that we can't experience — Gregory

Regarding experience -- I think one functional picture of experience is that we persist in time as a kind of macro-sized distribution across said time. Although I may be stretching the definition outrageously, I dare say this distribution approximates what might be called human experience of time passing as human experience of waves. We can make closer approach to this phenomenon by noting the elusive nature of the now. Might it be a probablistic wave-distribution across the interface of past-present-future, an asymptotical manifestation of the elusive now?

Regarding potentiality -- In my struggles to conceptualize energy, I'm presently positioned at the following definition -- energy -- the ability to move. As such, energy is potential motion. This, i.e., potentiality-as-energy, certainly we experience daily.

Regarding actuality -- How this should be defined (as pertains to human) is what is in play here in this discussion. Traditionally, actuality is set in contrast to intentionality. In other words, the question is whether what we see before us in fact conforms to the idea conceived in our heads.

Now, the elaborate intentionality of the human mind, vis-a-vis material human is the very relationship about which, in my opinion, QM has something important to say. I think QM allows us to speculate about humans being, like wave-particle duals, non-local (see human experience of passing time above).

Digression -- Could it be that human non-locality contains a clue about the way humans might time-travel? I'm speculating about a probability dislocation in time that moves us around temporally. Such travel would, however, be dangerous, as liquefaction of time might prove hopelessly confusing. Moreover, the time traveler, in the mode of an oscillating blur, might prove hard to relate to. And still more moreover, contact with time traveler might throw another person into a non-linear time progression, also hopelessly confusing. Dissolving the rigidity of here-and-nowness is not something to undertake lightly.

Regarding particles -- recently I resolved for myself the following, the signature of a material object is its mass. Now, as I'm speculating, mass is the everyday experience of particle-wave duality. I say this because of the following question. Where, in everyday reality, is the mass of a physical thing located? It's in the transition of a material object into and out of a state of rest. If true, then particles, although they seem to be discrete, are really, in actuality, no more rigid than waves.

ucarr

↪boagie

I'm not denying Sartre's claim that existence precedes essence. Instead, I'm situating it within a larger complex than the one he assumes. Viewing our world through the lens of QM impacts deeply our conceptions of boundary lines.

boagie

↪ucarr

I am not familiar with QM"s perspective, but it goes against my instincts, to think that there is not something before the manifestation of matter, If all life is process, which I believe it is, there can be no exception here. UNTIL IT'S PROVED OTHERWISE- - lol!!!

ucarr

it goes against my instincts, to think that there is not something before the manifestation of matter — boagie

Is it correct to say you believe the material universe arises from a priori cognitive design?

Do you, like me, understand that such a configuration assumes the existence of a sentient creator who weaves teleological creations?

Do you think intentional creativity, even if effected via evolutionary forces, posits consciousness as an essential whose existence is axiomatic?

Do you put stock in the following phrase? Sentience only from prior sentience

boagie

↪ucarr

I do tend to believe in panpsychism, but as far as priori cognitive design, no, it sounds like your looking for a god within the great mystery. I believe consciousness is something that permeates all matter whether observable or not. Like I have already stated, all process, at what point in the process is consciousness said to manifest, I am saying, manifestation is consciousness.

TheMadFool

What Chomsky points out is trivial -- he's saying there's a genetic component to language, and that's all. I've never understood why this is controversial. Of course it's hard-wired into us somehow — Xtrix

Last I checked, genes, and their components DNA/RNA, constitute a language. The bases - Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G) - are the letters and the words are base triplets (ATG for example), each triplet coding a specific amino acid. Google for more information.

Also, what of Galileo's claim that "the Book of Nature is written in mathematical language"? Genes are, what?, a chapter in the Book of Nature and that means...since the universe needed a language, a mathematical one...Chomsky is wrong - language precedes genes.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. — John 1:1

Mikie

What Chomsky points out is trivial -- he's saying there's a genetic component to language, and that's all. I've never understood why this is controversial. Of course it's hard-wired into us somehow
— Xtrix

Last I checked, genes, and their components DNA/RNA, constitute a language. The bases - Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G) - are the letters and the words are base triplets (ATG for example), each triplet coding a specific amino acid. Google for more information.

Also, what of Galileo's claim that "the Book of Nature is written in mathematical language"? Genes are, what?, a chapter in the Book of Nature and that means...since the universe needed a language, a mathematical one...Chomsky is wrong - language precedes genes. — TheMadFool

I can't tell if this is serious or not, which isn't a great sign I guess.

Assuming it's serious: the structure of DNA and the naming of nucleotides as "A," "T," etc., is an analogy. Yes, we impose this structure on what we see. We impose form on music and on the world through our concepts, numbers, etc.

Saying "language precedes genes" is like saying "vision precedes genes" or "the liver precedes genes." Really? Does walking precede legs? These are what was once described as "endowments" of nature, which today we think of in terms of DNA and genes. But it's describing a biological truism: there's a genetic component to vision, just as there's a reason we grow arms and not wings. Likewise for the faculty of language.

If we deny this we're really off in space, in some idealistic reality where everything is "language." Absurd, in my view, but so be it.

TheMadFool

↪Xtrix

The universe follows the so-called laws of nature. Laws are akin to if not actual instructions on how nature should behave. Instructions are given in a language.

Did the laws of nature precede nature itself?

To build nature, one needs a language to do so and hence, here to, language precedes nature.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. — John 1:1

Think of the simulation hypothesis. Before I can create a simulated reality, I need a language to encode the information necessary to undertake the task. Coding 101.

Since genes are, in this context, part of the simulation, the language used to create the simulation came much before genes ever saw the light of day on earth and, presumably, other planets/words.

John was right on the money, I suppose.

Mikie

To build nature, one needs a language to do — TheMadFool

No you don’t. Nature is what is. We can call it anything we like, impose on it rules and symbols, think about it this way or that way. Language is a human faculty, like seeing. There’s every reason to believe, and no reason not to believe, that the brain is involved in these systems.

Incidentally, non-human animals and babies (pre-linguistic) interact with the world just fine without language. Many aspects of human activity, from habits to sleeping, doesn’t involve language. Language itself is simply expression of thought. So if we’re searching for a ground, language seems like a shaky one indeed.

TheMadFool

No you don’t. Nature is what is. We can call it anything we like, impose on it rules and symbols, think about it this way or that way. Language is a human faculty, like seeing. There’s every reason to believe, and no reason not to believe, that the brain is involved in these systems.

Incidentally, non-human animals and babies (pre-linguistic) interact with the world just fine without language. Many aspects of human activity, from habits to sleeping, doesn’t involve language. Language itself is simply expression of thought. So if we’re searching for a ground, language seems like a shaky one indeed. — Xtrix

I was offering a theo-technological point of view - God as the creator of the universe (the coder who created the simulation). It seems my thesis immediately runs into a problem - the chicken and egg situation.

Returning to more mundane, down-to-earth theories, I suppose there's no real reason to oppose Chomsky's idea of the gene-language connection although, from what I know, he's probably incapable of giving a detailed exposition of how exactly genes and language interact; what he's done is merely propose a thesis topic and chances are he's hoping someone will prove his point for him à la mathematicians and their conjectures.

Joshs

↪Xtrix

Nature is what is. We can call it anything we like, impose on it rules and symbols, think about it this way or that way. Language is a human faculty, like seeing. There’s every reason to believe, and no reason not to believe, that the brain is involved in these systems. — Xtrix

Formal language , as a capacity humans possess due to brain structures , is one thing , but language understood in a much broader sense has been claimed as an ontological a priori For instance, Heidegger considers discourse as equiprimordial with mood , understanding and temporality. Derrida was famous for his phrase “there is nothing outside the text”, which was often misinterpreted as claiming that there was nothing outside of formal language. Derrida had instead a a priori notion of text and writing as context, following upon Heidegger’s formulation of Dasein.
Pansemitotics after Peirce offers an a priori integrating physics biology and psychology. Piaget also offers an a priori organizing principle that ties together physical nature , biology and culture on the basis of a kind of ‘coding’.

Mikie

Returning to more mundane, down-to-earth theories, I suppose there's no real reason to oppose Chomsky's idea of the gene-language connection although, from what I know, he's probably incapable of giving a detailed exposition of how exactly genes and language interact; what he's done is merely propose a thesis topic and chances are he's hoping someone will prove his point for him à la mathematicians and their conjectures. — TheMadFool

There has been interesting research from neurolinguistics about the brain's role in language, and some research about genes involved, but I wouldn't say it's detailed or extremely well understood. What's also interesting is the work that was done on language acquisition in children, some of which conducted by Chomsky's late wife.

Formal language , as a capacity humans possess due to brain structures , is one thing , but language understood in a much broader sense has been claimed as an ontological a priori — Joshs

I'm meaning the former, yes. Language itself, however, is still a "property" of the human being, and so there is an ontological grounding to it as well.

TheMadFool

Chomsky's late wife. — Xtrix

Husband-wife team! What could possibly go wrong!?

Existence Precedes Essence

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