I insisted that Apokrisis has this turned around, what constrains interpretation is the habits of the individual who is interpreting. In relation to interpretation, the words are just a passive thing being interpreted, and the interpretation depends on how the individual recognizes them. So all constraints on interpretation must be in the mind of the interpreter.
Apokrisis turns final cause around, such that it is not associated with the will and intent of the individual, but it is supposed to be the function of some phantom being, called "society", as if society has its own intentions and thereby constrains individuals to do what it wills. — Metaphysician Undercover
But what is this thing which is called "information", which is supposed to be somehow independent from the act of informing? is it just the form itself, or is it something other than the form? — Metaphysician Undercover
I think the everyday understanding is that information is "meaning." But what is meaning? And what is the "is" here? I suggest that we approach the irreducible with these questions. — t0m
The 'pure' individual is an abstraction, just as 'pure' society is an abstraction. — t0m
So, for me, information is relational data. — Galuchat
I think that in the strictest sense, meaning is defined as "what is meant". — Metaphysician Undercover
This implies interpretation. I believe it is important to keep these two senses separate, and not to equivocate, because the first requires an author, the second does not. So in the second sense, things have meaning to me which I do not believe have an author. Also, in communication there is often a difference between what is meant by the author, and what it means to me, due to difficulties in expressing, and difficulties in interpreting. — Metaphysician Undercover
I do not think that "the individual" is an abstraction. I believe it is a logical principle posited for the sake of intelligibility, i.e.it is necessary to assume individuals in order to understand reality. — Metaphysician Undercover
The unit is the basis for all mathematics — Metaphysician Undercover
If I understand, your hypothesis is close to Kant's, which claims that the perceived data is modified in the mind, and is therefore different from the raw data from outside the mind? But then how do you explain that when both you and I read the message "Montréal is in Québec", we both perceive the same information, such that we can have a coherent conversation about it? It seems to me that the simplest hypothesis is that we are both observing the same outer object. — Samuel Lacrampe
I'm asking what it means for something to mean something in the first place, apart from the difficulties of communication and interpretation. — t0m
I agree that the notion of the pure subject is basic to common sense. But you neglected to address the context in which I made this statement. We meet reality in terms of a language that is social, shared. So I am perhaps mostly 'us' in the way I unveil reality. Language is central here. — t0m
There is a 'primary intuition' of unity. It can't be pointed to in the environment. It's 'there' in the way the environment is interpreted as 'circles within circles.' — t0m
The 'totality' is the circle we draw around everything. It's a digression, but I contend that this largest circle (the totality) has to be 'brute fact' to the degree that explanations are understood as deductions from postulated necessary relationships between entities. This unity is connected to that unity in particular way. The unity of all these unities can be related to nothing apart from itself, since by definition there is no such thing. — t0m
I don't see how you get "I am mostly us" out of this. Yes, it's true that we are influenced by language and other human beings, but we are also influenced by everything else around us, and each person is a unique individual. — Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore you must say "I am part of us". And by doing this you give logical priority to the individual "I". This logical priority is established because reason proceeds from the more certain toward the lesser certain. — Metaphysician Undercover
Concepts exist systematically. 'I' learn how to use the word 'I,' just as I learn to use the word 'fair' or 'good,' but I'm not so sure that there are crystalline entities that correspond the intelligibly distinct symbols. — t0m
You seem to take the subject as an absolute without understanding the subject as a sign or concept that only gets its content or meaning via its relations to other concepts. — t0m
I don't understand what you're saying here. Perhaps you could explain. As far as I understand, a sign is created, and therefore there must be a subject prior to the existence of the sign, such that it is impossible for the subject to be a sign. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is close to the heart of the matter. The question is about the reality of concepts. According to (old school) realism, it is the mind's ability to understand universals that is the basis for rational judgement; that is what is meant by 'intelligibility'; and universals are real, not simply 'in the mind'. That is what leads to all of the conundrums about 'where they are', and the sense in which they can be said to exist. Nowadays we say that what exists is 'out there somewhere'; which illustrates how we can only conceive of things that exist within space-time. Whereas, universals precede space-time. — Wayfarer
The view I favour is that universals are actually inherent in the structure of reality - they're not simply concepts, because they're predictive of features of reality that otherwise we couldn't know. — Wayfarer
Do you remember a time 'before language,' before being immersed in signs? Do you remember being a pure subject without access to the sign? — t0m
An anti-wonder is at work. Wonder is suspect — t0m
I'd go so far to suggest that 'universals' (functioning together as the field of meaning) are the structure of reality. — t0m
I see the structure of reality in particular entities. The human mind understands in terms of universals, but this is the deficiency of the human mind, — Metaphysician Undercover
Ergo, the information I have stolen must be non-physical. — Samuel Lacrampe
..which is similar to what nominalism says, although it speaks about it in terms of concepts or names - hence, ‘nominalism’ - not necessarily a deficiency. But you are generally coming from a nominalist position in many of your comments. And hey, relax - I’m not accusing you of anything, it’s a philosophical dialogue. — Wayfarer
I take it you are playing devil's advocate, but I don't see how your statement refutes my argument. If ideas exist in brains and brains are physical, then by the same rationale, it is logically impossible to steal other people's ideas: Just as my brain cells are mine and not yours, ideas in my brain are mine and not yours. Yet, there is such a thing as intellectual property, which implies ideas can be stolen. How do physicalists explain this?Right - ideas aren’t physical. But physicalists will say that ideas exist in brains and brains are physical, therefore they’re also physical - no matter what you argue. — Wayfarer
If ideas exist in brains and brains are physical, then by the same rationale, it is logically impossible to steal other people's ideas: — Samuel Lacrampe
If ideas exist in brains and brains are physical, then by the same rationale, it is logically impossible to steal other people's ideas: Just as my brain cells are mine and not yours, ideas in my brain are mine and not yours. Yet, there is such a thing as intellectual property, which implies ideas can be stolen. How do physicalists explain this? — Samuel Lacrampe
But the basic notion I'm working on is that some kinds of ideas are real, and that they constitute the 'archetypes' or forms of existing things. Where I think there is a fundamental error, is to assert that therefore these ideas exist. They don't exist - trees and mountains and rivers exist, and animals and people exist, but the ideas are purely and only intelligible. That's why they're properly described as 'transcendental'; and here a distinction needs to be made between 'what is real' and 'what exists'. I think there's a version of that in Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena - 'noumena' means really 'the ideal object' which is I'm sure Platonic in origin. — Wayfarer
The only definition of 'real object' I can think of that isn't a circular definition and that doesn't beg-the-question of the existence of a mind-independent word, and that cannot be doubted by the skeptic, is that a 'real object' is purely a synonym for an object associated with feelings of compulsion. — sime
I think there's a version of that in Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena - 'noumena' means really 'the ideal object' which is I'm sure Platonic in origin. In the secondary literature I see hardly any reference to this kind of interpretation. — Wayfarer
You might say that 'stealing' is simply a metaphor for what is actually copying. — Wayfarer
Yes, I think that you are both correct; that my argument falls apart if the term 'stealing' really means 'copying'. I see now I also made the mistake of using a song as an example in my argument, which is a kind of meaningless information, as I already conceded that meaningless information is visibly only physical; that only meaningful information has the potential of being non-physical, because only this kind of information points to concepts.For a physicalist, an idea is a pattern of physical matter. So stealing (i.e., the illegal copying of) an idea entails the occurence of the same pattern in different physical matter, not the transfer of matter. — Andrew M
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