And again, just to preempt any further misunderstanding of what I have been saying; I am not claiming that science or math do not also involve the more indeterminate kind of poetic knowing). — Janus
It seems that there may be a bit of indirect perception bubbling forth... that is to conflate physiological sensory perception and thought/belief by virtue of talking about perception as if it is informed by language.
— creativesoul
Is there a strict boundary? I'm not so sure there is. — macrosoft
Given semantic holism as I understand, none of our supposed-to-be explicit categories cut very sharply...
There is also the dictionary problem. One word is defined in terms of others. And these others are still defined in terms of others. All a dictionary can do is aid someone who is already partially 'inside' a language. Correct usage is tested against how people treat us in response. There is no obvious connection to pure meaning. I do not in the least doubt the consciousness of meaning, but I think it is more of a flow with feedback and projection. The meaning is like electrons running through a string of words as their wire. Individual words just stared at do have some meaning. Or we can quickly fish for some by coming up with typical uses. But every serious thinking is immensely complex in the way that meaning rushes through it with memory and expectation. The very complexity involved in our background linguistic know-how outstrips the complexity of the thoughts so delivered. Explicit systems are sad little shadows of that which makes them possible in terms of sophistication.
I speculate that our phonetic alphabet and the spaces between words are misleading. Our dominant visual sense (which takes static objects as its ideal object) encourages us to 'visualize' thinking and meaning, despite their more plausible connection to the temporality of music/hearing.
Another motive that holds atomic meaning fast (as a default semi-automatic approach to be dismantled) is the common project of making a knock-down argument --often for the projection of authority. We need atomic meaning, as stable as possible, to do 'math' with words and build explicit metaphysical/epistemological systems. So our fear of groundlessness (or of just relying on the inexplicit ground we started with) also encourages an ignorance of a semantic holism that might otherwise be obvious. — macrosoft
Fascinating. Does time get into the picture here? — macrosoft
An inexplicit ground is a direct threat to the project of the perfect system, which would like to be its own explicit ground. Uncomfortably, the operating system is quietly functioning, out of reach for the most part, big and soft (hence 'macrosoft'.) — macrosoft
I am down with chance being fundamental. Is there chance without time? — macrosoft
Again, here I think that I agree wholeheartedly that the attribution of meaning is largely mischaracterized and misunderstood by many of not most philosophers. I think you said earlier that all of them have something to add(to our understanding?) but none of them got it right. — creativesoul
Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc.,etc.---they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc.,etc.
Does a child believe that milk exists?
Are we to say that the knowledge that there are physical things comes very late or very early? — Wittgenstein
Time curls into tiny balls along with space so that the fluctuations are temporal wormholes. — apokrisis
Again, here I think that I agree wholeheartedly that the attribution of meaning is largely mischaracterized and misunderstood by many of not most philosophers. I think you said earlier that all of them have something to add(to our understanding?) but none of them got it right.
— creativesoul
It's nice that someone else sees where I'm coming from on this issue. Yes, I think explicit accounts tend to emphasize some aspect in a useful way. But the explicit accounts get entangled, hence the endless arguments between those who assume an explicit account is possible. — macrosoft
I find that when one knows what they're talking about they can speak clearly about it. Speaking clearly requires consistent language use. One dominant trend in philosophy proper was to clearly define one's terms. That trend is indispensable. It is absolutely necessary for reading comprehension. — creativesoul
I would say that no such entanglement is inevitable. It's not fait accompli. I would also point out that it quite simply does not follow from the fact that different schools in philosophy proper hold quite different - seemingly incommensurate - explicit accounts of meaning that there is no such account possible... — creativesoul
We have to discover, determine, and/or otherwise clearly establish that they share the same set of basic elemental constituents. Then we have to consider this set of basic elemental constituents in a different light. — creativesoul
I really want to say that a language-game is only possible if one trusts something (I did not say 'can trust something').
It is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there---like our life. — Wittgenstein
Meaning time is the time of intelligibility, the time it takes to read this sentence. — macrosoft
Physics would have its own version in the holographic and lightcone structure of the Universe. It takes time to arrive at a state of coherence across a spatial interval. If the sun dematerialised right now, it would take about eight minutes to discover that its light and gravity had gone.
So there is a baked in causal issue that defines cogency. If something happens way over there, it takes a time for it to have any effect over here. It takes time to observe a change or read that difference. — apokrisis
It's to some degree a random walk and in other ways dialectical necessity. — macrosoft
Statistics always expresses patterns. And really, there are only two statistical patterns ruling nature. Either Gaussian - the single-scale bell curve kind - or fractal, the log/log scalefree kind that is in fact more primal because it has one fewer linear constraints.
A random walk expresses fractal intermittency. It resembles nature - a nature understood in dissipative process terms - far more accurately. — apokrisis
I think our main point of misunderstanding is that maybe I'm more on the semantic holist side. I think explicit accounts need to use the same word in a different context, hence the problem. Each account builds up its own mini-language — macrosoft
I'm suggesting something like a pre-human 'bottom' of our mind/language. Some things are just so automatic that we live rather than see them. With difficultly we can get a vague sense of them, by looking at certain problems in attempts at explicit accounts. — macrosoft
This is of course a good idea, but one must already be in a language to begin with. Similarly I think one has to feel one's way into another personality. While there's no truly private language. I also think the perfectly public language is an abstraction. A second concern is that even if we could define our terms perfectly, such a concern overlooks the way words join together. Can I define every relation between every word? The assumption might be that definition takes care of this, but I'm not so sure. If I can use words differently in the first place, why can I not understand their combination differently? — macrosoft
We have to discover, determine, and/or otherwise clearly establish that they share the same set of basic elemental constituents. Then we have to consider this set of basic elemental constituents in a different light.
— creativesoul
For me these would be part of that knowledge touched on in On Certainty. — macrosoft
I would strongly argue that all mind/language requires thought/belief, but not all thought/belief requires mind/language(unless one equates mind with thought/belief, and I wouldn't object). — creativesoul
But I'm suggesting a strange thing, that physics time is (at least for human cognition) derivative from a more basic experience of time. — macrosoft
But how do we experience time? I mean I understand the neuroscience of it. But I'm not getting how you think we experience it in any pre-theoretical sense. How do you think an animal "experiences time"? — apokrisis
A second concern is that even if we could define our terms perfectly, such a concern overlooks the way words join together. Can I define every relation between every word? The assumption might be that definition takes care of this, but I'm not so sure. If I can use words differently in the first place, why can I not understand their combination differently? — macrosoft
I would strongly argue that all mind/language requires thought/belief, but not all thought/belief requires mind/language(unless one equates mind with thought/belief, and I wouldn't object).
— creativesoul
I think we agree on this point. What surprises me is that you think we can capture this animal pre-thinking in an explicit account. I think it's too pre-lingual to drag into the light. I have the sense that the operating system we use to do so is just staggering complex and yet incredibly smooth and elusive. We look through it like clean glass or as a fish through water.
I want to say that the quest is like trying to put walking into words. I believe we discussed the phenomenon of 'true for us.' People debate theories of truth in the light of this 'blind' assumption that something like true-for-us is already there. — macrosoft
Witt would never agree that all meaning has the same basic elemental constituency, would he??? — creativesoul
What does being pre-lingual have to do with our knowledge of it, or rather the capability and/or possibility of us to acquire knowledge of that which is pre-lingual? — creativesoul
Mt. Everest is pre-lingual. — creativesoul
Yeah, I kinda got the feeling that you had such a position... — creativesoul
I think we can get some knowledge of it, but we are talking about the most complicated object in the known universe. Or rather it is talking about itself. — macrosoft
Strong agreement here as well... — creativesoul
So, we agree that we can get some knowledge of pre-lingual thought/belief. That's good. Is there any good reason to hold that we cannot acquire knowledge of what all thought/belief consist in/of?
That certainly does not require omniscience. — creativesoul
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