...how the world was interpreted when the "timeline" is turned back to 3 billion years ago — Terrapin Station

I understand that. It shows a misunderstanding of what is being said. That the world is always already interpreted means that there is a world to be interpreted.

So I prefer to avoid the inconsistency and say that the uninterpreted, indeterminate conditions during what we call the Mesozoic were such that, if we had been there, we would have seen dinosaurs. I think all we could be arguing over here are two different ways of talking about the same thing. — Janus

If you like. I'd just shorten that to "There were dinos in the Mesozoic".

Leaving aside any desire to analyze the situation to discover philosophical caveats I totally agree. I mean what sense could it possibly have, other than the sense of nonsense or ignorance, to say there were no dinos in the Mesozoic, right?

all religions and philosophies, whether idealist or realist, physicalist, anti-realist, or nominalist have their genesis in acts of deciding, and as such always miss the mark — Janus

whereas you don't, right?

Don't what?

miss the mark!

There is principle in Indian philosophy, and probably in traditional philosophy generally, that philosophical teachings, generally, are simply an antidote to an ailment. But the ailment is endemic to the human condition, and if you reject the treatment whilst still suffering the ailment, then cure is impossible.

Well I could not miss the mark if I fail to fire the imaginary arrow at the imaginary target, could I? In any case I doubt we would agree about what either the ailment or the antidote are.

I would say the "ailment" which you say is "endemic" to human life isn't really endemic to human life at all; it is shared also by animals. The ailment is simply the inevitable decay and illness that comes with organic life. We humans are doubly cursed insofar as we are, courtesy of symbolic language, reflexively aware of our plight. This awareness greatly amplifies the suffering; we suffer even when nothing in particular is wrong; we suffer just because we realize we are mortal, and all the more so the more we think about it!

On a more philosophical level, which arguably does not concern the majority of our fellow humans, the exacerbation of the ailment consists in the attempt to find an imaginary cure, that is to hit an imaginary mark, rather than simply learning to live with it and accepting our share of ordinary suffering. In this sense most salvific religions and philosophies are, apart from their conceptual beauty and interest, nothing more than systems of life denial.

That is my view, anyway, for what it is worth. "Not much" I can almost hear you saying!

I wasn't speaking about "perceiving meaning" but perceiving meaningful things or perceiving things meaningfully. Have you ever perceived anything meaningless? — Janus

Things have meaning only because and only insofar as people think about them in the associative way I outlined.

So the only way I can make sense of a "meaningful thing" is that either we're talking about perceiving something that we then think about in the pertinent associative ways (though it's not literally the thing we're perceiving that's meaningful, but the way that we think about what we perceive), or we're talking about perceiving the sorts of things that ascribe meaning to things--namely, other people.

This awareness greatly amplifies the suffering; we suffer even when nothing in particular is wrong; we suffer just because we realize we are mortal, and all the more so the more we think about it! — Janus

easy to say, but very difficult to see!

You still haven't answered the question: have you ever perceived anything that is meaningless to you ( IE, you didn't know what it is)? This is just to say that the world is always already interpreted. Things are always seen as something. This is the inherent meaningfulness of things prior to any further subjective ascription of meaning.

You still haven't answered the question: have you ever perceived anything that is meaningless to you ( IE, you didn't know what it is)? — Janus

The vast majority of things that I perceive I do not think about in a way that involves meaning.

If that's what you're asking.

I can't imagine that anyone thinks about things in terms of meaning for most things they perceive.

I don't know about you, but I see or feel that process in myself more or less constantly.

Also, when I do think about things I perceive in ways involving meaning, that's not wrapped up in the perception--well, at least not usually. It's ancillary to it.

It's not a matter of thinking about it; Things are meaningful, in the sense that we identify them, or better, recognize them, prior to any thought.

It's not a matter of thinking about it; — Janus

Meaning is a way of thinking about something. So, yes it is. I already explained this above.

Re identifying things--for example, if you're thinking about applying a name to something (which is a way of thinking about it), I do not think about what I name the vast majority of things that I perceive. Again, I can't even imagine how someone could do that. For example, where I'm sitting at the moment, I can see hundreds of things. There's no way I could think about the names of all of that at the same time. Yet I see all of that stuff.

That the world is always already interpreted means that there is a world to be interpreted. — Banno

"3 billion years ago, there is a world to be interpreted"

wouldn't normally be saying the same thing as

"3 billion years ago, the world is already interpreted"

"to be" in the above sentence would be future continuous tense.

"already" suggests something that has happened in the past. If you wanted to say it's "all ready to be interpreted" that would be different.

Given your belief in meaning as mind-furniture, I don't see where a discussion with you would be helpful.

We can talk about the world of 3 billion years ago. That is considerably earlier than the Mesozoic, for instance.

Were there folk around 3 billion years ago who could talk about their world? I don't know.

What's Terrapin worried about? Not sure. He seems to think he is showing something...

Meaning is a way of thinking about something. — Terrapin Station

No, it isn't.

You are misunderstanding the different ideas of meaning. I have already explained it; the inherent meaning of things consists in us knowing what they are, which includes but is not limited to knowing what they are called. Animals know what the "affordances" in their environment are without needing names. We don't have to consciously or deliberately name things or think about them as being named for this meaning to be there in the objects themselves.

Were there folk around 3 billion years ago who could talk about their world? — Banno

No. Hence why I specified that as the time frame.

What's Terrapin worried about? — Banno

Just trying to get us to say things that make sense.

You are misunderstanding the different ideas of meaning. I have already explained it; the inherent meaning of things consists in us knowing what they are, which includes but is not limited to knowing what they are called. Animals know what the "affordances" in their environment are without needing names. We don't have to consciously or deliberately name things or think about them as being named for this meaning to be there in the objects themselves. — Janus

But I don't buy that there is any inherent meaning. That notion is incorrect.

"Knowing what something is" is another way of talking about a person applying the name they use to things. That's often influenced by what other people call things, but it's still just what individuals call things. It's a conscious process.

Re "affordances" I don't understand the way you're using that term. If you're using it in a "should" sense, the only animals that think about anything that way are animals with mental capacities.

The notion that the names of things are somehow in the things is wacky and very wrong. Names are part of your concept of the thing in question. It's a way that you think about whatever it is.

No, it isn't. — Banno

Yeah, it is.

The notion that the names of things are somehow in the things is wacky and very wrong. — Terrapin Station

You thinking I said that is what is "wacky and very wrong". Knowing what things are is not (just or even necessarily) knowing what they are called; it is knowing what kinds of things they, what uses they have, what they look like and so on.

An example of an affordance is a dog knowing what its food bowl is. The bowl has meaning for the dog insofar as it recognizes it as the place food will be presented.

Just trying to get us to say things that make sense. — Terrapin Station

Me, too.

@Janus seems now to be arguing that the Mesozoic was interpreted because the dinosaurs interpreted it.

That seems a bit odd to me.

I don't know about you, but I see or feel that process in myself more or less constantly. — Janus

that's what keeps us on philosophy forums, isn't it? :wink:

Janus seems now to be arguing that the Mesozoic was interpreted because the dinosaurs interpreted it.

That seems a bit odd to me. — Banno

That's not really what I have been arguing, although I can see why you might be led to think that by the 'dog and bowl' example. I imagine the dinosaurs would have interpreted their environment, at least to some minimal animal degree, but I wouldn't say that they interpreted it in any human sense such as to be consistent with the statement "there are dinosaurs".

It's a fairly silly, pedantic thing to be arguing about anyway, given that what or how much animals do or do not interpret is a matter of mere speculation, don't you think? To return to the more pedestrian 'dog and bowl' example, would you say that the dog's bowl has no meaning, in the basic sense of significance, for her?

Yes, it's probably one factor at least... :smile:

but it's not that silly. H. Sapiens alone really 'interprets' things, because of language, abstraction and reason. Only humans can be subject to delusion as a consequence. Dinosaurs might have fallen victim to some kind of cognitive disorder, but never a delusion.

That's true; I think it would be absurd to attribute delusions to animals. Cognitive disorders or mistakes certainly.

Heidegger actually distinguishes between interpretation and understanding. So, in line with Heidegger humans and animals have basic understandings of their environments on which further interpretations are based.

I don't see anything wrong or inconsistent in thinking that the basic understandings of both humans and animals are interpretative, although not (obviously in the case of animals) and not always or necessarily (in the case of humans) linguistically so. But again it comes down to terminological preferences more than anything else, I think.

again it comes down to terminological preferences more than anything else, — Janus

that's what all your 'plain language' philosophers would like to think. It brings the whole issue down from airy-fairy meta-nonsense to the kinds of things sensible chaps can write on whiteboards.

Anecdote: I studied David Hume under David Stove, who became quite well-known posthumously. He was a great guy and very good lecturer. But I was a starry-eyed, new-age type, and he gently took me aside one day and said, in his own gruff kind of way, 'I can see what you're looking for - some healing type of understanding. Marvelous. But you won't find what you're seeking in the philosophy department, you know'. Wink. I went on to major in comparative religion, although I found it only indirectly there, also.