No. Something existed prior to our naming practices — Isaac
All the stuff existed prior to our naming, but the fact about what was 'the cell' and what wasn't 'the cell' didn't exist prior to our naming it. — Isaac
Are you really objecting to anyone claiming that humans had experience prior to language use?
Wow.
So then, no sex, no eating, no being full of fear at the sound of the bear, etc? Really? — creativesoul
I'd say that what we count as the toddler's experience depends on how we define the word "experience". The toddler's experience is what it is regardless of how we define it. — Janus
...there is no fact of the matter concerning whether experience is internal, a combination of internal and external or neither internal nor external... — Janus
Are you sure about the last statement above? — creativesoul
So, just so I understand this...
Are you really objecting to anyone claiming that humans had experience prior to language use? — creativesoul
Isaac will correct me if I've misunderstood, but I don't think that's what he means. At least that is not what we've been discussing, which is the various ways of defining experience, not whether it exists without language. — Janus
Now, did those three Xs exist prior to my naming them? Yes. — Isaac
If you think I've contradicted myself then all you have to do is quote the purportedly contradictory statements I've made and we can look at it. — Janus
how could non-verbal images be used to symbolize abstract notions.....generality — Janus
specificity — Janus
exception — Janus
pattern — Janus
Now my claim has just been that a complex argument or train of thought involving abstract concepts cannot be followed except in symbolic language terms. — Janus
No, if some thought does not need words then the proposition "some thought does not need words" is true. "Thought does not need words" is a blanket statement which is equivalent to "all thought does not need words". — Janus
Some things we think about are themselves existentially dependent upon words. — creativesoul
the content of that toddler's experience depends upon how we define the word "experience". That cannot be right. — creativesoul
Those and many other experiences existed in their entirety prior to our naming and descriptive practices.
— creativesoul
No. Something existed prior to our naming practices. — Isaac
That which is a mere something, is phenomenon; that which is named, is conception, which may or may not be given from phenomenon, but is so necessarily with respect to real objects. — Mww
We select from among a range of options which phenomena, to use (possibly abuse) your terminology, we are to make a concept. — Isaac
The boundary separating tree from not-tree is real, a phenomena we sense, but it is not the only available real boundary. — Isaac
we do, on the other hand, select from a range of options what constitutes each phenomenon, which is the purview of the productive imagination, so there is a selection process in there. — Mww
Each property of any object has its own boundary/limitation, the totality of them determining te phenomenon as such, and from that, how the object is to be named.
Something like that? — Mww
I think a major sticking point between Old Guys and New Guys is.....where are phenomena to be found, in the complete picture. — Mww
The way I think about signs has been influenced by Peirce. To give a basic account: according to Peirce a symbol is something that signifies something else but does not resemble it. An ikon is something that signifies something else by resemblance or representation. And a basic sign, such as smoke being a sign of fire for example, signifies by material association acquired by inference or expectation from the experience of constant conjunctions of things.
Words are symbols in this sense that they do not resemble or have any material associations, but do have conventional associations, with the things they represent. So not all signs are symbols in this understanding. — Janus
Now my claim has just been that a complex argument or train of thought involving abstract concepts cannot be followed except in symbolic language terms. That said, I don't totally rule out the possibility, but I know I can't do it, and I cannot imagine how others could. But even if it were possible, how could it be shown to be such in any case? — Janus
So, just so I understand this...
Are you really objecting to anyone claiming that humans had experience prior to language use?
— creativesoul
No. — Isaac
Isaac will correct me if I've misunderstood, but I don't think that's what he means. At least that is not what we've been discussing, which is the various ways of defining experience, not whether it exists without language.
— Janus
That's it, yes.
since they did, and did so long before the term was coined, it only follows that human experience existed in its entirety prior to the term "experience". — creativesoul
It’s been established that some thoughts need words....thoughts with words as their object. — Mww
We didn't have cell theory back in the 14th century. So did the people back then have cells? — Isaac
Agreed, with the caveat “cannot be followed”. It remains that while it is rather absurd to suppose I have a complex argument with myself, I can nonetheless have a complex chain of thought comprised of a series of conjoined images, which, of course, no one else could follow. — Mww
Derrida’s analyses of language attempted to show that what you are calling word symbols, and what Peirce calls ikon, have both conventional and inherently meaningful expressive relations with what they stand for . There is research corroborating Derrida’s claim that word symbols are not as strictly conventional as you might think. For instance , auditory characteristics of phonemes have been found to be non-arbitrarily linked to the meanings they symbolize. — Joshs
Would you grant that a music composer is creating abstract concepts through their medium , and may consider music to be a more effective way , and perhaps the only, way to produce the deepest form of abstract thinking? — Joshs
We can create thought experiments and invent new ideas well before we are able to find new word names. — Joshs
I put it to you that whether or not experience is external, internal, and/or both is something that is not up to us any more than whether or not our biological machinery, the tree, leaves, and light are. Would you agree with that as well?
— creativesoul
No, I think it's just a matter of definition, nothing more. — Janus
The toddler's experience is what it is regardless of how we define it.
— Janus — creativesoul
No, for me music (without lyrics) conveys only feeling. Abstract concepts are determinate; I don't think music, like so-called "abstract" art, is rightly thought of as being abstract, but is non-representational and concrete. — Janus
You've claimed that experience is a matter of definition and nothing more, and that experience is what it is regardless of how we define it. — creativesoul
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