What are rules themselves existentially dependent upon?
What do the rules themselves consist in/of?
Are these two answers the same? — creativesoul
Alright, enlighten me then, smarty-pants. Gimmie the lowdown. — S
It's trivially true that language originated in humans, but it was not "invented" as if there was some conscious effort at design involved. Language develops organically. The world's most recently developed language, Nicaraguan Sign Language, is a case in point. The route from creole to full language occurred through the children of parents who used the creole and added grammatical complexity spontaneously.
So the process there is something like rudimentary tools of communication being automatically transformed into a language, which allows for more advanced communication and from which rules are retroactively inferred and codification occurrs. The communication comes first then becomes more complex. And only at that point can you start to talk about a set of rules which defines how the language functions.
So, the quote
With English, in a nutshell, it seems to me that people invented the language, made up the rules, agreed on them, started speaking it, started using it as a tool for communication
β quoted in the OP, unattributed
is senseless from a linguistic point of view (and really from any point of view to the extent it implies people invented and debated rules with each other before using language as a tool for communication).
It's true we don't know for sure how quickly or gradually language developed (there are competing theories), but there does seem to be an in-built capacity that kicks in with children to the extent that they can unconsciously create complex linguistic form. It's important though to stress the lack of purposeful design / agreement.
Why not play slow and tight with your words, instead of putting them out there in a way that almost guarantees misinterpretation? — csalisbury
We all make mistakes. But I think you were suggesting a very specific kind of situation, and are backing out w/ plausible deniability. — csalisbury
The clue is in the title. It says "Ontology", not "Origins". — S
Am I dense... — csalisbury
Am I dense for focusing on the text of the OP rather than the title? All the 'ontology' here is bound up with 'origins.' There's no mystery here. That's how the OP was structured. It's a poisoned well. — csalisbury
So, what the heck is a set of rules, ontologically? What's what? How do the ontological relations work? — S
Terrapin Station and Metaphysician Undercover: Which part of that seems to disagree with anything Janus and @S have been saying? I see no requirement of consequences and it is explicitly stated that it does NOT have to be explicitly stated (notice "or understood"). — ZhouBoTong
Alright, so, bracketing genesis, and given that a language exists --- a set of rules is a set of rules. Ontologically? I guess the being of a set of rules is the being of a set of rules?
Are you asking if rules have heft? — csalisbury
A set of rules, ontologically, requires meaning assignments, and that only happens via people thinking about the utterances, the text, etc. in specific ways--which is their brain functioning in particular ways. — Terrapin Station
Re our meaning dispute, I'm not sure if you're imagining people literally being taken out of the picture. If we have something like a dictionary, say, where there are ink marks like this: "dog - a domesticated carnivorous mammal that typically has a long snout, an acute sense of smell, nonretractable claws, and a barking, howling, or whining voice," if people are literally out of the picture, how do those ink marks amount to anything other than a set of ink marks on paper? — Terrapin Station
Because it's also a statement, a definition, and it means something. — S
That's your claim. The question is how it does any of that when we just have a set of ink marks on paper and no people exist. The justification for my position is the complete absence of any account or explanation how it amounts to anything aside from a set of ink marks on paper. — Terrapin Station
You know my argument, though. Or you should do — S
I don't remember you ever trying to explain just how it would be/become something other than a set of ink marks on paper. — Terrapin Station
I can give you countless examples of rules which exist in the form of language, and could not exist without language to express them. In order to disprove my inductive conclusion, that rules require language to express them, you need to present some rules which do not require language to express them, or demonstrate how the rules which we express in language could exist without language. Otherwise you might reject my inductive conclusion, but your rejection is rather meaningless. And, an inductive conclusion is based in observation and reason, it is not a matter of "begging the question" as you are wont to say. — Metaphysician Undercover
An abstraction requires language, because a symbol is required to represent the thing abstracted. Otherwise the thing abstracted has no presence, and there is no such thing as the abstraction. You are using "abstraction" as a noun, not a verb. — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, I think this is the important point here. And to relate this to what I say above, it is this expression in language which gives the principle, or rule its particularity and this is its existence as a thing. That's what I told S, in the question about abstraction. An abstraction only exists as a thing, if there is a symbol. The symbol is what allows the abstraction to have actual existence as a thing. One might try to separate the principle or rule, from the language which expresses it, like one might try to separate the abstraction from the symbol which represents it, but there is no sense to this unless we allow that the symbol is prior to the principle represented, and then what is the symbol at that time before it represents something? It can't be said to be a symbol. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, I agreed with Janus on this point. But not all cases of behavioural patterns are cases of rule following. So the premise "if there is behavioural patterns, there is rule following" is not a true premise. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't see your argument here. Both, "he has eggs for breakfast", and, "people should respect others and wait their turns", are written in words. The fact that you say "it is an unwritten rule" does not negate the fact that it is actually written in words.
Try this. Take away the words "he has eggs for breakfast", Now, the person gets up every morning and has eggs for breakfast, nice pattern. How does this pattern become a rule, unless it is stated as such? Or do you think the person gets up and thinks there is a rule that I must have eggs every morning for breakfast therefore I must have eggs, and so decides to have eggs? And try the other, so-called unwritten rule, "people should respect others and wait there turn". Take away those words, and what are you left with? It's certainly not "a rule". — Metaphysician Undercover
What are rules themselves existentially dependent upon?
β creativesoul
The rules would have to depend on some kind of communication. Otherwise they cannot be shared. — Echarmion
The rules then consist of a bunch of connections of symbols (in any form) to observations, and connections of symbols to other connections and other symbols. — Echarmion
My argument set out what it was beforehand and rejected that it would magically change. The only possible reason for it to change without magic is if your hidden premise is true, but if you haven't justified your hidden premise and I can find no justification by my own assessment, then I have no reasonable basis for believing your hidden premise to be true. — S
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