Because ongoing experience is a carrying forward of a past. That past enters into, participates in, what occurs into it, even as that past is changed by what occurs into it. That’s why there can be neither absolute novelty nor absolute identity.

If I follow my aesthetics while gardening, am I using the scene around me to transmit information about my neurological states? — frank

Initially I missed your point. Yes, I would say the scene around you and your neural states are the same thing. And this is what is so fascinating, and so difficult to get about information, in that it has its origins in, as you say, the distinction, or the perturbations, the distinctive patterns, or that it is "the difference that makes a difference" -Bateson..

** It is the integration of these differences that creates consciousness.

Hang on; put that together: "To convey a meaning is to alter what is expressed, hence there is, must always be something that is expressed, something that is repeated because ongoing experience is a carrying forward of a past."

That doesn't seem to follow. Even granting that ongoing experience carries a something forward, it does not follow that there is a something that is expressed.

The implication is that there is something that is the same in each expression. This is an assumed, almost unconscious transcendental argument: You understood the meaning of my utterance, therefore there must be a thing that we call the meaning of that utterance that has been transfered from you to me.

Look a the way @Frank and @Pop almost desperately propose a "pattern" as their best candidate for the thing that moves... as if we each have a pattern in our brain waves that is somehow the same as the pattern in the Mona Lisa.

But perhaps all that is going on is not individual but public. It's clear that there are shared activities around our utterances. We might look to these rather than to an inferred private item that is transferred from one to the other.

But perhaps all that is going on is not individual but public. It's clear that there are shared activities around our utterances. We might look to these rather than to an inferred private item that is transferred from one to the other. — Banno

A piece of art is like a single child who grows up to be a million different people, each in its own psychic universe. — frank

The implication is that there is something that is the same in each expression. This is an assumed, almost unconscious transcendental argument: You understood the meaning of my utterance, therefore there must be a thing that we call the meaning of that utterance that has been transfered from you to me. — Banno

My understanding of the meaning of your utterance is just a sense that is produced via my construal of your utterance. That sense may include my assuming that what you mean to say is exactly the same as what I am construing as the recipient of your utterance. Or I might make no such supposition. I may instead assume that I construe something that is likely similar enough to what you intended to convey that we can have a useful interaction , but whether that is in fact the case must be born out by my observation of your subsequent behavior. I may later decide that you intended to convey something very different from what I was assuming and I will either have to resign myself to concluding that your utterance is incomprehensible to me or begin exploring ways of making sense of your utterance that is useful to me.
So nothing has been transferred from you to me. You fell into an utterance , and I received an utterance that was somewhat different from what you experienced ( or so we can both demonstrate to each other by repeatedly surprising each other with mutually unpredictable behaviors ) but close enough for both of us to be able to benefit from the interchange.


“ For about three centuries now Anglo-Saxon man has labored under the somewhat mislead-ing assumption that knowledge is transmitted through the senses. This was John Locke's great notion in 1690' In expressing it, he provided the essential spade work for both modern experi-mental psychology and the courageous empiricism of Sigmund Freud. But great ideas, like great men, sometimes have a way of eventually blocking the very progress they once so coura-geously initiated. Thus it is, even after continued experience in psychotherapy, most of us still hold doggedly to the belief that one man's understanding of the universe can be somehow encoded within a signal system and then transmitted intact to another man via the senses. The signal system is often called "language." Indeed, Pavlov's psychological term for "language" was simply "the second signal system.” George Kelly

Initially I missed your point. Yes, I would say the scene around you and your neural states are the same thing. And this is what is so fascinating, and so difficult to get about information, in that it has its origins in, as you say, the distinction, or the perturbations, the distinctive patterns, or that it is "the difference that makes a difference" -Bateson.. — Pop

So you're saying that things like the desire and sorrow of a certain person at a certain time are equivalent to a unique neurological signature, the associated information of which can be transmitted over some (lossy) media.

I think you'd like Integrateted Information theory. Have you read about it?

I'm pretty sure you and I are the only ones in the thread who know something about information theory. I don't think there's any point in trying to explain it.

So you're saying that things like the desire and sorrow of a certain person at a certain time are equivalent to a unique neurological signature, the associated information of which can be transmitted over some (lossy) media.

I think you'd like Integrateted Information theory. Have you read about it? — frank

Yes, we have discussed IIT.

The pattern is one aspect of consciousness. There is also a force acting on the neurological patterning. The form the pattern takes, how it is integrated, is driven by an emotional force. What this emotional force is precisely is a mystery. But it is significant to note, the emotional force is not equal to the pattern. Cannot be conceptualized as a pattern can be. Rather is something causing the pattern to integrate in a certain way.

Oh! Why can't it be conceptualized as a pattern?

If the rest of the folks on the thread would like us to take this discussion elsewhere, let us know.

Emotions and concepts are not miscible. There is no agreement as to what emotions are. I have a theory, but so do many others.

The issue as I see it, is what makes information integrate? And I postulate the anthropic principle ( the combined laws of the universe ) makes information integrate. So what we feel is those laws making our information integrate.

Seems we have a rough sort of agreement.

What was your point here?

The issue as I see it, is what makes information integrate? And I postulate the anthropic principle ( the combined laws of the universe ) makes information integrate. So what we feel is those laws making our information integrate. — Pop

Ah. Well this really would be a separate thread if you're interested.

Information is not meaning.

I think it must be so. If not, what’s the point in the old adage “think before you speak”. Besides, while thinking is a necessary human condition, language is merely a contingent human invention. — Mww

If you think before you speak, how could you do so if not rehearsing what will say; that is by "speaking" inwardly? I don't deny that there is the 'animal' kind of thought I mentioned earlier, which my consist in various kinds of "visualization" or imagining; visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile, as well as motor, proprioceptive (have I left anything out?). These are all concrete kinds of thinking, but I question the possibility of abstractive thought absent language.

HA!!! Exactly what I tell the missus when the sauce didn’t turn out quite right. — Mww

:grin:

I have to go now, but I will make a thread on information in the next few days, so perhaps we can take it up again there.

Information is not meaning. — Banno

I think Joshs covered it well.

have to go now, but I will make a thread on information in the next few days, so perhaps we can take it up again there. — Pop

Sounds good.

If you think before you speak, how could you do so if not rehearsing what you will say — Janus

By composing what you will say. Can’t rehearse what hasn’t been composed.

I question the possibility of abstractive thought absent language. — Janus

Assuming abstractive thought to mean the understanding of conceptions that have no immediate correlation to concrete things, we must first grant that understanding is an activity in general, without a necessary regard for concrete things. The absence of concrete things is nothing more than the absence of perceptions, hence absence of intuitions, or, phenomena.

There’s a famous artist from the Pacific Northwest named Dale Chuhuli. He has a display at Seattle Center, full of utterly amazing....and VERY expensive.....stuff. Complex. Wonderful, even. He names them, but the casual observer, just looking, may cognize the beauty within, without ever assigning a name to the object. Now, granting that beauty is a judgement predicated on feelings, thus are not cognitions, the conditions which satisfy the feeling, must be themselves cognitions. Hence, abstractive thinking, re: understanding concepts belonging to a feeling of beauty, and not to a concrete object in the form of a glass sculpture. All without the necessity for language.

I would certainly need language to tell you about it, but that’s not the same as thinking about it.

By composing what you will say. Can’t rehearse what hasn’t been composed. — Mww

OK, 'composing' will do. as I was thinking of it rehearsing and composing are the same. Whatever you want to call 'thinking before you speak' the composing is done in language, though, no? I know that's how I do it; I guess I can't speak for anyone else. But I find it impossible how one cou;f for example, compose a poem mentally if not in language

Assuming abstractive thought to mean the understanding of conceptions that have no immediate correlation to concrete things, we must first grant that understanding is an activity in general, without a necessary regard for concrete things. The absence of concrete things is nothing more than the absence of perceptions, hence absence of intuitions, or, phenomena. — Mww

That explanation seems fair enough, but I don't see what argument you are wishing to support here.

Hence, abstractive thinking, re: understanding concepts belonging to a feeling of beauty, and not to a concrete object in the form of a glass sculpture. All without the necessity for language.

I would certainly need language to tell you about it, but that’s not the same as thinking about it. — Mww

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Is it that the feelings and imaginative associations evoked by the work are abstractions?

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