Now, "In the beginning was the Word" never made sense to me since the first time I heard it in school. It still doesn't, if I connect "Word" to and with the meaning of speech. If you echange the words, the saying becomes: "In the beginning was Speech". (Not as elegant, of course, but it shows the point.) It certainly doesn't make sense. Yet, Jews and Christians managed to keep alive this meaning with all sorts of explanations, the most important of which are that God created the world by (the power of) his word, that God's Word became flesh (Christ being that Word), etc. Still, all that doesn't make much sense, does it? Instead, I believe that logic and reasoning (the second meaning of "logos") make much more sense ... "In the beginning was Reason". This can be easily extended to mean "Consciousness", something which a lot of thinkers today consider as governing the Universe. "Consciousness" has no language, no face, no location and not time. — Alkis Piskas

Is speech material? Anyway, so you think conscious thought and its reason was there in the beginning of all things? As if God were a rational being who set out to create something? You take issue with the Word, but I think few take this literally. It is more about what you think: in the beginning was the rational creator who fashioned all things according to a rational plan, and so forth. But you know there are terrible flaws in this reasoning: You have to deal with Kierkegaard who argues against this Hegelian view by pointing out that the world of actuality bears nothing of the rationality that is supposed to be its defining feature. The stuff of things is qualittively different from reason. And the ethics of this world, grounded in being kicked around by viruses and other diseases, and all the lovely torments we know so well, as well as the joys indulgences: this has nothing at all that is rational about it. Falling in love is not a rational affair. Of course, you are saying that God's (just a place holder term, really) reason is not apparent to us, but then there is the matter of following the bread crumbs of life: one begins with the world, and infers from it what is the case metaphysically (in order for metaphysics to be at least prima facie adequate). And this world/creation is not rational. WE are rational, and WE are ethical. Then God created US?? But where is there evidence for something like this?
I don't buy into creation myths at all. But you do say consciousness has no language, location or time. No language? Language is logic and meaning. No language, no logos, for language is the bearer of logos, the evidence for positing logos that comes before us giving rise to inquiry at all. So you can't say outside of language. TIme? But it takes time to utter this, and time to conceive at all. How is reason and logic supposed to be outside of this necessary condition? Location? Same objection.

The elephant as you've described it here is the phenomena, not the noumena. If not, how do you distinguish the phenomenal and noumenal? — Hanover

Well, you have touched on the very point: Kant was wrong to make this prohibitive distinction. The noumenal is the most inclusive concept imaginable, and this present moment of p henomenological plenum is inherently noumenal; we just don't see it this way because we are too, well, busy. It's philosophy's job to undercut all this by asking foundational questions. It is a destructive enterprise. As to what noumena is when one finally realizes it is there, in the touch, the sights and so on of the phenomenal world, this is presently out of bounds to our concepts, NOT because the world is different from reason (which it is), but because language is a shared exchange of meaning, and this, call it mystical engagement, has not been collectively realized. This, however, in no way diminishes what it is.

I taste oysters only with my tongue, and hence I never taste oysters as they really are.

As if this meant one never tastes oysters.

SO there's the problem with the OP. If you adhere to Stove's Gem, if you never taste oysters, of course you can't recognise the beginning.

The alternative is to recognise that you do taste the oysters. The noumenal is a misleading nonsense. — Banno

No, no, no...That's not it. It is certainly not the case that I do not taste oysters when I taste oysters. But point here to see that the tasting is one thing, the proposition is another. The latter is an interpretation of the affair before you. So, if the matter is contextualized such that talk about oysters and how they taste makes sense, then you have a seamless (roughly) contingent account using the familiar vocabulary. But take the matter to the order of philosophical inquiry, THEN interpretations change, and here, since we are in the throes of what I call "good metaphysics" contextual conditions become very different, extraordinary. The tasting, and even the propositional counterpart, become subsumed under the metaphysics, and the metaphysics is not merely a dialectical spinning of wheels: it is real, in the encounter.

Is speech material? — Constance

What else could it be?
Definition of "speech" by Oxford LEXICO: "The expression of or the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulate sounds." Aren't sounds material?

so you think conscious thought and its reason was there in the beginning of all things? — Constance

No, I din't say that. I only said the "Word" ("logos") as "speech" doesn't make sense in ths famous Christian quote and I just tried to give a better explanation by considering the meaning that word "logos" acquired with time, and that was "reason" ("logiki"). This is much more plausible since reason is beyond any borders imposed by languages (speech), religions and civilizations. And this because its nature is mental, spiritual and not material. The expression "conscious thought" which you are using is very close to it. The word "Consciousness" that I used, is also very closely connected to "Thought".

Yet, as plausible as this "version" may be, I cannot claim anything more about it, since I have not has any realization about Consciousness being "the beginning of all things" as you say. A lot of thinkers calim or believe that, though.

Anyway, once more and to conclude: I am not a proponent of the idea or theory that the Universe was created by Reason. I just brought up "reason" (logiki, from logos) as a better interpretation of the word "Word", interpreted as "speech" in the Christian world.

Sure. But in a more realistic way, we can ask how it is that language, "the word", constructs meaning that makes it possible at all to conceive of anything at all. The tree in the Eden was a knowledge tree, so what is knowledge? It is the power of language and logic. We were kicked out of Eden because we developed that supreme violation of comfort and familiarity: the ability to inquire. Nothing but trouble from there.
Language "creates" the world. Prior to this, there is no world; there is what cannot be said, but talking like this raises Wittgenstein's, and the Buddhist's, ire. But once acquired, language is the backdrop of understanding that constitutes a person, who can then drop the explicit, move back into the primordial through the regressive (call it) method of yoga, and let the world speak as it once did. — Constance

So you want to do philosophy of language, but vaguely back it up and give it a sense of authority with references to the Bible (and other assorted scriptures)?

Ok. The Big Bang is a better story than Genesis. With Genesis the story is given, and folk spend their time trying to make the world fit the story. With physics, the world is given, and we change the story to fit the world. One story closes off further discussion, the other opens it up. — Banno

No. For the ordinary person, they are the same.
For the ordinary person, with physics, the story is a given too, and one spends one's time trying to make the world fit the story.

Hi again. I'm sorry, I had not enough time to respond to your whole comment. But here's more of me! :smile:

in the beginning was the rational creator who fashioned all things according to a rational plan, and so forth. — Constance

OK, but is this actually an interpretation of "In the beginning was the Word" or just an opinion about some being (creator) who created the world? See, there are a lot of such interpretations, esp. coming from East. So, we have to stick to our Christian quote and esp. the word "Word" or "logos". At least, this is how I understood your topic ...

You have to deal with Kierkegaard who argues against this Hegelian view by pointing out that the world of actuality bears nothing of the rationality ... — Constance

Idem.

I don't buy into creation myths at all. — Constance

Good! I don't either. And "In the beginning was the Word" is one more of 'em! :smile:

But you do say consciousness has no language, location or time. No language? — Constance

Good that you mentioned this! I didn't think at the moment that "has no language" could be taken to mean that it does not contain language. Of course it does! And it is affected by it. But what I mean is that consciousness is beyond language. Just think this: Man has been always gifted with consciousness, well before he created languages. Language is not the main content of consciousness. Consciousness contains all sorts of things: knowledge, ideas, feelings, etc., which may be common to any two persons on the planet, independently of their native language.

No language, no logos — Constance

Exactly! This is exactly where the quote "In the beginning was the Word" fails. When "Word" is interpreted as "language". BTW, I just read that this quote comes from the Gospel of John, which like all Gospels was written in Greek. So, by "Word" did he refer to the Greek language? That God spoke in Greek? Of course all this is ridiculous talk, but it shows the confusion around the word "Word". And this is more pronounced in English, in which the main meaning of the word "word" is "A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed." (Oxford LEXICO)
In Greek at least , the corresp. and original word "logos" can be interpreted with in another meaning than speech, as reason ("logiki").

I really wonder why haven't they translated the Greek quote at least as "In the beginning was the Reason" ... This would have saved us a lot of time in discussing it! :grin:

But point here to see that the tasting is one thing, the proposition is another. — Constance

What proposition, exactly?

My claim (borrowed, put together) is that this conception can only lead to one conclusion: that cat on the sofa is really not a cat on a sofa at all, but I cannot see this because I understand the world only through my cognitive and sensory limitations — Constance

So you are saying that the cat being on the mat is one thing, the proposition "the cat is on the mat", a different thing? And yet "the cat is on the mat" is true only if the cat is on the mat.

Of course the world is always, already interpreted. Your reaching for, talk of, an uninterpreted world is a conceptual mistake.

Of course the world is always, already interpreted. Your reaching for, talk of, an uninterpreted world is a conceptual mistake. — Banno

How does that observation relate to Wittgenstein recognizing the limits of his enterprise against the background of what has been left out?

Seems to me to be the same point. All talk occurs within language games; all language games are embed in -constitute - the world, what can be said. @Constance is puzzling over ways to talk about the world without using language. You can't. But you might act in the world - do something; paint a picture, demonstrate a kindness, make a sacrifice.

Meaning is doing.

don't have any theory that must hold sway. I was asking sincerely how one would remember things without language. I'm not sure how that would happen. Like muscle memory? Like the memory of an aroma where you literally smell it again by the magic if cranial nerves? — frank

So funny you should ask. I'm out of town for the long holiday weekend and the new pet sitter called, apparently upset my dogs cornered her and left her running for safety. Appears they didn't know her and didn't like her visiting the yard. I called my son and had him take over the duties. They know him and remember him.

However they remember him, I don't know, but they do.

Well, you have touched on the very point: Kant was wrong to make this prohibitive distinction. The noumenal is the most inclusive concept imaginable, and this present moment of p henomenological plenum is inherently noumenal; we just don't see it this way because we are too, well, busy — Constance

I just don't understand what you're saying. If you're saying the phenomenal is all there is, then you're either arguing idealism or you're taking an anti-metaphysical Wittgenstein type stance, but I detect neither in what you're saying.

However they remember him, I don't know, but they do. — Hanover

Sure. I don't either. But I was wondering about the memory of events. How do you remember that "the dogs cornered me when I went over to feed them" without language?

Smart to use a sitter. Kennels are expensive.

like a new color (as unimaginable as this is) would remain what it is, but would be understood contextualized in the usual way. — Constance

I've had dreams that defied contextualization of the usual kind. Forcing it, an image appeared, but I knew some of the dream had slipped through my minds fingers.

Maybe we're surrounded by such images. The cross, the star of David, the yin-yang?

How do you remember that "the dogs cornered me when I went over to feed them" without language — frank

I just do. This idea that every mundane thought must be articulated into language and spoken to oneself is absurd. Perhaps you're describing your own mental processes, but not mine, and surely not Fred's, who clearly remembered "that lady is a stranger, but that young man is not, "

This empirical claim regarding how thoughts must occur pervades so much discussion on this site, it has become sort of a given that then motivates a philosophical position regarding how we're to deal with knowledge, but it's just plainly empirically false. I truly do not think every thought in language, nor is that limited to "how to" thoughts, which seems to be a distinction often made motivated to salvage this nonsense position.

just do. This idea that every mundane thought must be articulated into language and spoken to oneself is absurd. — Hanover

The word 'language' is based on the word 'tongue', and it frequently refers to a format for speech, but we can also use the word to refer to symbols of other kinds, pictures, and what not.

I'm guessing that when you remember being cornered, there is some modeling going on (it's the state of the art scientific view, so not a hair brained philosophical stance).

What you're proposing is modeling without any sort of symbolism? Or at least that's the intriguing notion I'm taking from you.

@Isaac
Can modeling happen without any linguistic or symbolic component? If so, could you explain how?

This empirical claim regarding how thoughts must occur pervades so much discussion on this site, it has become sort of a given that then motivates a philosophical position regarding how we're to deal with knowledge, but it's just plainly empirically false. — Hanover

True, there are those who robotically trot out the same sequence of behaviorist memes in response to whatever they come across on this forum. They are frustrating until they just fall off your radar and you return to real philosophy.

Isaac
Can modeling happen without any linguistic or symbolic component? If so, could you explain how? — frank

Linguistic, the answer is an easy yes. Aphasia doesn't preclude modelling (although it disrupts it - so there's a link). Symbolically, I'd say it depends on the type of model. Your sensory inputs follow two main streams of model hierarchy, one deals with object manipulation, the other with object recognition. The object recognition stream will have what might be called a 'symbol' as the input for each stage (even if that's just the symbol 'edge', or the symbol 'light'), so yeah indispensable here. The manipulation stage I'm not sure (outside my area of expertise - such as it is) I think it's more process driven, so maybe not describable in symbols? Not sure I'm afraid.

Well, that's not what I would have supposed, although care is needed here. Russell commented that "Mr Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said". Much of the Investigations, and also of On Certainty, touches on this topic, which his biographers agree was for him or the highest importance. Wittgenstein's enterprise is targeted at the enterprise of scientism; for him what is of the greatest import is what is unsaid. — Banno

But he is he uncompromising in the matter of discussing what is not to be discussed. He would turn his chair, e.g., to face the wall when the attempt to discuss the foundations of ethics (metaethics) came up. Then see his Lecture on Ethics as well as the Tractatus: No doubt, Witt takes God and religion very seriously (in his notebooks: What is Good is Divine too. That, strangely enough, sums up my ethics.).

My issue lies with his insistence not to talk about the matter, or better, not to talk "around" it, elucidating the periphery, the region where words make partial, even nebulous and obscure, intrusions into the place where familiarity loses its grip.
Language games, I am sure, is derivative of Dewey and the pragmatists and Heidegger, all who came before Philosophical Investigations, and for whom categorical thinking was dismissed in favor of a more fundamental analysis, which is pragmatism, essentially. This is the way I see it: Pragmatism is one of the most defining insights in philosophy of the past century (that I have read. I don't read much analytic philosophy, though. I read Quine and found his Radical Indeterminacy. Indeterminacy in language is a principle theme in post modern thought and Quine and Derrida were saying very similar things, differently).
Any way, there is nothing I can see in Witt that makes the extraordinary qualitative move into discussion about the kind of existential threshold indeterminacy I want to defend.

I believe the world has bad and good elements. Just like God, or the universe, or whatever, it's just the essence of reality — Gregory

Well, sure. I would bring in certain analyses that divides the playing field to make it more enlightening. I mean, you suggest that these terms are somehow equalized by their being in the world, and being differently regarded, and this difference equalizes; which may be true if the matter is handled with an eye on just utility. God is a useful term, used to wipe out civilizations or to bring solace to suffering.
But if one desires to know things at a level of basic questions, doors are opened that are otherwise closed.
I argue that the more one gives the world analysis at the basic level, the more basic level assumptions falter, and this leads to something revelatory, something by the standards of utility is really beyond charted territory.

We can either deconstruct to achieve insight, or construct a big picture consistent with science and physics which I prefer to do. And when I do I find it is all about the evolution of forms. These forms are all self organizing, and they are made of endlessly variable informational structure. So really, everything can be reduced to the self organization of information. We know what information is - the evolutionary interaction of form, but we don't know what self organization is. We know self organization is what creates order in the universe, from which structure and life evolves.

When I consider this issue, I find that if I say self organization is caused by God, or physics, or the anthropic principle, etc. I do not change what it is, but I change myself. I limit my ability to experience reality. It becomes something like Wit's word game, or as I prefer to call it information game. Ultimately this becomes a process of information, where what occurs is an interaction of forms. :smile: So we cannot escape the fact that everything is information, because everything is information from every perspective.

So it makes sense to me not to define the source of self organization, rather to call it consciousness, and this way there is consciousness and information in its many forms. This way I do not limit my ability to experience reality, and in this knowledge I also learn to respect the various forms of reality of others. — Pop

Not sure what you mean when you state at the beginning that you are not interested in insight, so I am reluctant to bring in a response to the rest. After all, philosophy without the pursuit of insight is like a wheel without a carriage.

Aphasia doesn't preclude modelling (although it disrupts it - so there's a link). — Isaac

I don't think an aphasic person is really language-less, are they?

People who recover report knowing what they wanted to say, but just couldn't access the right words.

If someone was truly language-less, how would we know modeling was happening? By their behavior?

I don't think an aphasic person is really language-less, are they?

People who recover report knowing what they wanted to say, but just couldn't access the right words. — frank

I was using it as an example. Most aphasics suffer damage to one of the two main language regions, they don't lose them entirely. The point is that it does seems to affect modelling, but not proportionate to the loss, indicating that if they lost all capacity, some modelling would remain.

If someone was truly language-less, how would we know modeling was happening? By their behavior? — frank

Mainly, if we see modelling in experimental data from language capable people who can express their thoughts, we can then map similar behaviour over to similar regions in language-less people and make a reasonable inference that it represents the same processes. That way we can make a judgement about what is and is not impacted by the loss of language.

Possibility/impossibility points to the quality or diversity of the idea(l) - what do you think logic constructs its concepts out of? Itself? And construction requires a source of energy. Perfect relation is paradox, because nothing else is necessary. And if this paradox exists, then any and all of them do. — Possibility

The paradox you mention is between logic and the actuality. If you go by Hegel, then the real's rational nature is only imperfectly realized in our current Zeit Geist: it approaches perfection in God's self realization, and because we see only as our unevolved reason permits, contradictions rise up. But all this is awaiting so sort of divine completion in which contradictions fall away. So, all relations do have the stamp of paradox, for one can easily find contradictions everywhere since knowledge falls apart with inquiry at the basic level. This is what, by Hegel's standard, contingency is all about: the imperfection of realizing God's perfect rationality.
Hegel was essentially on your side because he agreed that reaosn in the abstract had no great value. Kant's pure reason is not very important here. What is important is the way reason grapples with what is given, making science what it is. Hegel doesn't separate things from reason: they are parts of the same grand disclosure of Truth in God.
I think Hegel is interesting. Continental philosophers take him seriously (though not as he would like); analytic philosophers don't talk about him except in philosophy history classes. You have to go through Kierkegaard: reason and objects are qualitatively completely different. To me this goes directly to ethics: That pain in your side where you were assaulted with a baseball bat: THIS is rational?? No. It has nothing to do with reason.

Mainly, if we see modelling in experimental data from language capable people who can express their thoughts, we can then map similar behaviour over to similar regions in language-less people and make a reasonable inference that it represents the same processes. That way we can make a judgement about what is and is not impacted by the loss of language. — Isaac

Would it be reasonable to guess that a dog, with very similar neuro anatomy and physiology to a human, is modeling without language?

Could that kind of modeling show up in a dog's memories?

What you're proposing is modeling without any sort of symbolism? Or at least that's the intriguing notion I'm taking from you. — frank

Case in point: in another thread, someone commented to you and you responded that they should read my response to that same question because I articulated it better than you. Such is a common occurrence: that you hear or read someone express your own beliefs in a manner better than you could have linguistically expressed them.

This very idea that you can have complex thoughts that you have not and cannot fully linguistically express means those thoughts pre-existed their linguistic expression. That is, you know what you want to say, but you just can't get it exactly right. That 'knowing what you want to say" is primary. The saying it secondary.

Case in point: in another thread, someone commented to you and you responded that they should read my response to that same question because I articulated it better than you. Such is a common occurrence: that you hear or read someone express your own beliefs in a manner better than you could have linguistically expressed them. — Hanover

But that's in line with my suggestion that nonverbal mental content may be emotional in character.

My belief that you have to protect people when they're vulnerable is heavy on emotion, light on intellect. So when my opponents asked for an argument, I floundered and was just left wondering 'what is wrong with you people?'

Your eloquence came through where my emotion was silent.

This very idea that you can have complex thoughts that you have not and cannot fully linguistically express means those thoughts pre-existed their linguistic expression. — Hanover

Maybe. The non-linguistic modeling Isaac talked about might explain how that's possible.

Maybe. The non-linguistic modeling Isaac talked about might explain how that's possible. — frank

Why do you reject my claim to you that I have complex mental ideas and thoughts without them being reduced to language? I'm sharing with you empirical data that proves the empirical claim.

Either (1) you don't believe me, or (2) you don't believe the dispute is over an empirical claim. If #2, then we're arguing over definitions and your claim is tautological. Is that what this is?

Why do you reject my claim to you that I have complex mental ideas and thoughts without them being reduced to language? — Hanover

I mentioned before that it has to do with the inability to express negation without fairly precise symbolism that would qualify as language.

If I were coaching you to communicate well with someone who has limited intellectual capabilities, I would tell you that they hear with their bodies, so to speak. The body doesn't understand "don't" or "not." So give directions in positives. Tell them what to do instead of what not to do.

Tell your dog to sit and stay.

Don't tell the dog not to attack the sitter.

If I'm right that dogs can't understand the significance of "not", and I think I am, can you see why that would limit its ability to form complex thoughts?

Stray dogs, I distinctly recall, sleeping/lounging on the road get up and move to safety when they see an oncoming vehicle. My guesstimate is that they're thinking, "do not stay in a vehicle's path. It's dangerous." Nobody tells/orders strays using a positive command to behave this way and nor do these dogs act in ways that suggest they wanted to do something instead of not wanting to do what they were doing. What say you?

See, when I mentioned this to Constance, she was like, 'Yea, Hegel.'. And I was like, to myself, 'Yea, she understands that without negation, there are no propositions because a P is the negation of a negation.'

So it's not just emotion that makes me silent here, it's that somebody on the planet understood and that's enough?