Words restrict Reality?

Robee321

Human Understanding is now restricted within the confines of the Modern 'Word'?
Obviously. The Human 'Matrix' of understanding is very necessary for modern Humans to function in a Modern world.
But Words are in fact just a part of an 'Identification software reality'? That has been 'developed' to make sense of the Modern Psychological/Physical Reality Humans exist in.
Human Understanding of 'Everything' is based on Collective agreement of what words mean.
If all Humans Disappeared. Everything else would still exist as it always has. But without Human words for Identification, Value and Meaning for the benefit of Humans.
As things stand. Everything exists from the 'standpoint' of its own existence.
For example: A Tree exists without knowing its a Tree. Its only a Tree because Humans collectively agree to identify it as a Tree. Same goes for just about everything Non human.
It is the same for Humans too. Every word a Human Knows. Is the result of Human Collective agreement to the same knowing.
So. To understand the Individual reality of all 'things' We need to remove the Human Identification/Meaning Label? We need the ability to temporarily remove the Human Identification and Meaning to understand something from the 'standpoint of its own Individual Existence? Some kind of. New form of Empathic Understanding??

fresco

No.
You ignore the fact that 'existence' is a word like any other whose meaning is also contextually dependent. The alternative, that 'existence' has an 'absolute' sense, is no different to a religious claim.

Pantagruel

↪Robee321

To understand the Individual reality of all 'things' We need to remove the Human Identification/Meaning Label? We need the ability to temporarily remove the Human Identification and Meaning to understand something from the 'standpoint of its own Individual Existence? Some kind of. New form of Empathic Understanding??

Well, this is kind of the goal of the phenomenolgical reduction or epoche. To reduce the vagaries of perspective to the lowest common denominator of consciousness.

T Clark

Human Understanding of 'Everything' is based on Collective agreement of what words mean.
If all Humans Disappeared. Everything else would still exist as it always has. But without Human words for Identification, Value and Meaning for the benefit of Humans.
As things stand. Everything exists from the 'standpoint' of its own existence.
For example: A Tree exists without knowing its a Tree. Its only a Tree because Humans collectively agree to identify it as a Tree. Same goes for just about everything Non human.
It is the same for Humans too. Every word a Human Knows. Is the result of Human Collective agreement to the same knowing. — Robee321

There is a sense in which words bring the universe into existence. Before that, there is something unnamed which isn't really anything at all. Trees are not trees until we, or somebody, calls them that. Lao Tzu wrote "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." I guess you could paraphrase - The World that can be spoken is not the eternal World.

Coming to terms with that truth has changed the way I think about reality, truth, and knowledge.

Fine Doubter

Thomas Sebeok points out that it is through language that humans offer models.

Hence, the value in always attempting to use synonyms, paraphrases, periphrasis and the like. Language has infinite scope for offering a new lens to view the continually appearing facets of things. It offers scope for creativity within tradition.

I believe phenomenological epoche has various basic practical uses during our logical analyses, but Heidegger and his followers perverted this.

As to the time-honoured subjective-objective "conundrum" in Berkeley et al, Arthur Young reminds us that things have been "projective" i.e out there and in here in our heads, both at the same time, all along.

Harry Hindu

There is a sense in which words bring the universe into existence. Before that, there is something unnamed which isn't really anything at all. Trees are not trees until we, or somebody, calls them that. Lao Tzu wrote "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." I guess you could paraphrase - The World that can be spoken is not the eternal World.

Coming to terms with that truth has changed the way I think about reality, truth, and knowledge. — T Clark

It's not that words brings the universe into existence. Words make the universe communicable. The word, "tree" is a word. A tree is not. A tree looks nothing like a string of scribbles, yet a particular string of scribbles for a particular group of humans on Earth invokes the image of a tree in their minds. How did you learn to use the word, "tree"?

Words don't make you understand a tree any better than just observing a tree. Your words simply reflect your observations of the tree. I don't need words to observe a tree grow, or shed it's leaves over time. I just need eyes. I need words if I wanted to communicate things of a tree to you when you can't observe it yourself. If you could observe it yourself, why would you need me to tell you that trees grow and shed leaves?

In teaching you the word, "tree", I'm not teaching you anything about the tree. I'm teaching you how to communicate non-verbal properties of trees.

Harry Hindu

No.
You ignore the fact that 'existence' is a word like any other whose meaning is also contextually dependent. The alternative, that 'existence' has an 'absolute' sense, is no different to a religious claim. — fresco

Exactly. Words are contextually dependent upon the things that they are about, which are not words themselves.

T Clark

It's not that the universe brings the world into existence. Words make the universe communicable. The word, "tree" is a word. A tree is not. A tree looks nothing like a string of scribbles, yet a particular string of scribbles for a particular group of humans on Earth invokes the image of a tree in their minds. How did you learn to use the word, "tree"? — Harry Hindu

Lao Tzu wrote:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

And

All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.

And

The Tao is older than God.

Harry Hindu

↪T Clark

Your post is all just scribbles to me.

In other words, I have no idea what you are talking about. Your scribbles did not invoke any images in my mind (other than the image of the scribbles themselves). I'm sure they have meaning independent of my lack of understanding for how they are being used. It's just I'm unable to use those scribbles to get at the idea you're trying to convey (what you or Lao Tzu mean by them).

fresco

↪Harry Hindu

Exactly. Words are contextually dependent upon the things that they are about, which are not words themselves.

Not exactly....about 'things' which are 'affordances for interaction' which, for humans are, 'marked' by 'words'.
By saying that a word marks an affordance I am using the phenomenolocial idea that a word can trigger, or re-presents an interaction possibility. The 'tree' in my garden does not 'exist' as an 'object in its own right'....its existence depends on my shifting relationship with it including those affordances which involve the benefits and duties of 'ownership', but since those affordances shift in the praxis of living, so does the tree's 'existence'. What I called 'tree', may not 'exist' as such for a bird, say, who might be looking for the affordance of 'perches' or 'food finding' in which the 'tree as object' is meaningless.

Terrapin Station

Are we being invaded by badly-programmed AI?

BC

Logos. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Another take on words.

↪Terrapin Station

We are but some of us less badly programmed than others.

Words restrict Reality?

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