Try this...

Thought/belief is prior to language.
Some pre-linguistic thought/belief is true.
True thought/belief is existentially contingent upon truth.
Thus, some truth is prior to language.

All thought and belief, not reflexive cognitive reaction, is informed by and shaped in language.
There is no pre-linguistic thought/belief that is true, or any actual pre-linguistic thought belief at all.
True thought/belief is existentially contingent upon accurate observation or true as determined by linguistic discourses, not any metaphysical "Truth."
Thus no Truth is prior to language, only the material world as it is prior to observation.

Here's one thing that's curious: "true" takes that-clauses like the propositional attitudes, modal operators, all that intensional stuff. But "true" remains transparent in just the way the other that-clause governors don't. Example:

• It's interesting that the number of planets in our solar system is less than 9; there are 8 planets in our solar system; but it is not interesting that 8 is less than 9.
• It's true that the number of planets in our solar system is less than 9; there are 8 planets in our solar system; and it is true that 8 is less than 9.

The only other expression I can think of that takes that-clauses and is transparent is "fact."

You wrote:

All thought and belief, not reflexive cognitive reaction, is informed by and shaped in language. There is no pre-linguistic thought/belief that is true, or any actual pre-linguistic thought belief at all.

There's the rub, yes?

We work from conflicting notions of what exactly counts as thought/belief. You're arguing by definitional fiat, it seems. It follows from what you say here that no creature without language forms and/or holds thought/belief. I disagree.

How do we reconcile this difference?

All statements of thought/belief consist in/of predication. All predication is correlation. Not all correlation is predication. All correlation is thought/belief.

We reconcile the difference by defining what you mean by human thought. As of now you equate it with animal thought. I, on the other hand, see similarities but do not equate them.

I could define what I mean by it, too.

All thought/belief consists entirely in/of mental correlations drawn 'between' 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself(the creature's state of 'mind').

That holds good for humans and other beasties alike.

All thought/belief consists entirely in/of mental correlations drawn 'between' 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself(the creature's state of 'mind').

That holds good for humans and other beasties alike.

No, all thought/belief consists of contemplation and conception of mental correlations drawn between objects of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself. Using your definition, ants attacking other ants or snakes striking rats would be thinking like humans, they're not.

So, the same does not apply to humans and beasties alike.

That doesn't make much sense to me sand. What is contemplation and conception if not mental correlation? They're typically more complex than simple correlation, but nonetheless they consist in/of mental correlation(s).

Nothing in that definition supports the idea that ants and rats would be thinking like humans. The difference between human and beastie is one of complexity, both of the correlations and states of mind, not of elemental constituents.

That doesn't make much sense to me sand. What is contemplation and conception if not mental correlation? They're typically more complex than simple correlation, but nonetheless they consist in/of mental correlation(s).

It makes perfect sense, Creative. Mental correlation is the mere attaching objects to other objects such as the snake seeing a rat and correlating it with food and its feeling of hunger. (So, yes, your definition does support the idea that rats and ants would think like humans, since you claim that is all there is to thought). There is no conception of what that means or any contemplation over whether or not it is right and wrong to eat that rat. Human contemplation and conception has the ability to move beyond that simple correlation and think about (contemplate/conceive) what is happening, decide its meaning to the world and themselves, and even give an ethical judgment of it. Rats and snakes and ants depending solely on what you define as thought cannot do that.

The difference between human and beastie is one of complexity, both of the correlations and states of mind, not of elemental constituents.

No, as I've shown above, it's more than a matter of complexity, its a matter of elemental constituents of thought the beasties don't have and the humans do.

You wrote:

That something which is not meaningful could be true, is contrary to what you said earlier. So this new position of yours, "not all truth is dependent on meaning", is something you'll need to clarify. Obviously, we had agreement earlier that meaning is required for the truth of a statement. A sentence which is meaningless cannot be true. Are you rescinding your agreement?

Not all correspondence(truth) is dependent upon meaning. That was the claim. I stand by it. I also stand by the agreement that meaning is required for a statement's correspondence(truth). Those two claims are not contradictory. Furthermore, I stand by the claim that not all meaning depends on interpretation.

You wrote:

I don't see how non-linguistic thought/belief affects my argument...

Non-linguistic thought/belief doesn't consist of language. Your argument concerns only that which does. That's how...

You wrote:

Well, I really don't know what you mean by "true thought/belief is existentially contingent on truth"...

That is a matter of logic Meta. Whenever there is true thought/belief there must be truth.

You wrote:

What is truth other than a concept?

Correspondence is a relationship that is necessarily presupposed within all thought/belief formation itself. All concepts consist of thought/belief. All concepts presuppose correspondence.

Truth is correspondence.

You wrote:

Are you claiming here, that if there is a true belief, then there must be an existing concept of "truth"? How is that a viable premise? If there was green plants on the earth prior to human beings, then the concept of "green" must have existed prior to human beings?

Let's say that there was green plants prior to language, why would these green plants be existentially contingent on the concept of greenness? Likewise, if there was true thought/belief prior to language, why would this be existentially contingent on truth (trueness)?

Conceptions of "truth" require language. Correspondence does not.

I wrote:

What is contemplation and conception if not mental correlation? They're typically more complex than simple correlation, but nonetheless they consist in/of mental correlation(s). The difference between human and beastie is one of complexity, both of the correlations and states of mind, not of elemental constituents.

You replied:

Mental correlation is the mere attaching objects to other objects such as the snake seeing a rat and correlating it with food and its feeling of hunger. (So, yes, your definition does support the idea that rats and ants would think like humans, since you claim that is all there is to thought). There is no conception of what that means or any contemplation over whether or not it is right and wrong to eat that rat.

I would concur, aside from the bit in parenthesis.

Human contemplation and conception has the ability to move beyond that simple correlation and think about (contemplate/conceive) what is happening, decide its meaning to the world and themselves, and even give an ethical judgment of it. Rats and snakes and ants depending solely on what you define as thought cannot do that.

Again, I would concur.

You then continued:

...as I've shown above, it's more than a matter of complexity, its a matter of elemental constituents of thought the beasties don't have and the humans do.

Here's where the issue lies, as far as I can surmise.

On my view, contemplation and conception are comprised entirely of much simpler correlations. In other words, contemplation and conception are complex correlations.

It seems you disagree?

I wouldn't say "ants and snakes think like humans." I would say that all thought/belief consists entirely in/of mental correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself(state of 'mind').

I take it that true nails down the particulars of the particular. What does truth do? . — tim wood

I believe it is as I said to creativesoul, truth is the universal, the concept of what it means to be true. So for example, we have individual green things, like we have individual true statements, and we have the concept of what it means to be green, greenness, like we have the concept of what it means to be true, "truth".

When one argues for an independent truth, they are arguing platonic realism.

Not all correspondence(truth) is dependent upon meaning. — creativesoul

Ok, then give me an example of an instance of correspondence which is not meaningful.

Non-linguistic thought/belief doesn't consist of language. Your argument concerns only that which does. That's how... — creativesoul

That my argument only concerns language, is only true if you define "meaningful" in such a way that only language is meaningful. But that's simply begging the question with a false premise. Many things other than language are meaningful, and false premises produce false conclusions.

That is a matter of logic Meta. Whenever there is true thought/belief there must be truth. — creativesoul

You mean a matter of logical fallacy don't you? As I said, truth is the concept of what it means to be true, "the quality or state of being true". Wherever there is something green, is there necessarily the concept of greenness?

Correspondence is a relationship that is necessarily presupposed within all thought/belief formation itself — creativesoul

Simply put, if truth=correspondence as your definition indicates, and there is correspondence within all thought/belief formation, then there is truth within all thought/belief. For the sake of argument, I will assume that this is the case. That is completely consistent with my claim that truth is subjective (of the subject). How would you proceed to get truth out of the subject's mind, to make it objective? Your argument only allows that truth is a part of thought/belief formation, it is something presupposed by the thinking subject, therefore within the mind of the subject.

Conceptions of "truth" require language. Correspondence does not. — creativesoul

But "Truth is correspondence" is a conception of truth. An instance of something corresponding is an instance of something being true, it is not truth itself. Correspondence is truth, but correspondence is the concept of what it means to correspond, so you have equated one concept with the other, "correspondence", and "truth".

On my view, contemplation and conception are comprised entirely of much simpler correlations. In other words, contemplation and conception are complex correlations.

It seems you disagree?

Firstly, it's good we have come to some agreement; that is always value in itself. However, there are two problems with your seeing contemplation as merely correlations, albeit complex ones, between objects:

1. Contemplation means profound thought, and profound thought is always thought beyond mere correlation; it is drawing meaning from those correlations and moving into concepts.

2. Human contemplation goes way beyond correlation of objects, which is as far as animals can go. For example, in the following sentence--"We Americans need to defeat the Nazis before they spread their evil they showed in the Holocaust and fully destroy freedom"--we see concepts expounding on and moving beyond mere objects. "We" are no longer just the objects in a group, they are defined by the concept of nationhood: not an object. The same goes with the ideological concepts of evil and freedom, which have no clear object correspondent; they are concepts that have moved beyond them. And we haven't even discussed the lingusistic dynamics giving all these words meaning beyond their object correspondents.

So, human contemplation is not just complex correlations of objects; it is a mode of thinking above it.

"...false premises produce false conclusions."

All posts by MU are less than 100 words
This is a post by MU
Therefore this post is less than 100 words

Two false premises, valid reasoning, true conclusion.

I believe it is as I said to creativesoul, truth is the universal, the concept of what it means to be true. So for example, we have individual green things, like we have individual true statements, and we have the concept of what it means to be green, greenness, like we have the concept of what it means to be true, "truth". — Metaphysician Undercover

MU giveth, and MU taketh away. As to your understanding of truth, this from my second post on page 1:

It seems to me that true is a quality that some propositions have, calling them here meaningful sentences (MSs). But I cannot do any better with truth than to say that truth is simply, and only, the abstract generalization of true taken across all true statements. It's a little like saying number means quantity, but that (clearly) "number" provides no clue as to any particular quantity. — timw

As to giving and taking, you seem to say truth really just collapses into true. Seem to. What you really say is that truth "is the "concept of what it means to be true." Just like the concept of what it means to be green.

Concept of what it means? Where and how does "concept of what it means" come to ground? What does it mean?

Had you said "truth" is just the generalization of true, akin to "green" as a generalization of greenness in green things, then no problems here. But as you have expressed it, I can't figure it out. No doubt a failure on my part. Would you craft an edit for greater precision?

When a sentence is said to be "objectively true", the interpretation of the sentence is judged as corresponding with the interpretation of the objective reality (how the objective reality appears to us). So we cannot say that the sentence is "objectively true", in the sense of implying that the meaning of the sentence actually corresponds with the assumed objective reality, but that it corresponds with how the objective reality appears to us, our interpretation of it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have a lot to say about this, but it will suffice for now just to note that nothing in what you said (in this quote or in the rest of your post) proves that our 'interpretations' of reality (whatever that means) don't actually correspond with the reality which they interpret. The most that it can show is that we do not know whether out interpretations correspond with reality, but it doesn't prove that they in fact do not.

This means that if our 'interpretations' of reality happen to be the correct ones, and they 'correspond' to our interpretations of sentences, then it is perfectly possible that our sentences are objectively true (correctly represent reality). And nothing that you said proves that this is not the case.

Compare this with the case of believing something you don't know. I believe that somewhere in the universe there's intelligent extraterrestrial life. Now, I do not know whether it exists, but it doesn't prove that if I say "intelligent extraterrestrial life exist" that I said something false, because it might very well be true for all that I know. Ignorance doesn't prove anything about the objectivity of what you are ignorant about.

Here's one thing that's curious: "true" takes that-clauses like the propositional attitudes, modal operators, all that intensional stuff. But "true" remains transparent in just the way the other that-clause governors don't. — Srap Tasmaner

This is because, as Frege already noted, adding 'true' to a sentence doesn't change its meaning, and in fact adds nothing over and above what you get when you simply assert the sentence. "Snow is white" and "it is true that snow is white" mean exactly the same thing.

This is because, as Frege already noted, adding 'true' to a sentence doesn't change its meaning, and in fact adds nothing over and above what you get when you simply assert the sentence. "Snow is white" and "it is true that snow is white" mean exactly the same thing. — Fafner

Do "it is true that snow is white" and "'snow is white' is true" mean the same thing?

Do "it is true that snow is white" and "'snow is white' is true" mean the same thing? — Michael

As far as their truth conditions are concerned, yes. The two sentence are true or false in exactly the same circumstances, so therefore they assert the very same thing about the world.

This is because, as Frege already noted, adding 'true' to a sentence doesn't change its meaning, and in fact adds nothing over and above what you get when you simply assert the sentence. — Fafner

1. You can assert the equivalence in truth-value of "P" and "P is true," but if you want to explain meaning in terms of truth conditions, then you cannot treat that equivalence as an account of truth (i.e., the redundancy theory). You just have to be careful here.

2. What I was thinking was something like this: start with a statement S that you treat as purely extensional in the usual way; most ways of making a new sentence S' out of S by prefacing it with something that governs "that S" change the S part of S' from extensional to intensional -- you lose substitution salva veritate. "I think that," "It is known that," "You believe that," and so on, all do this; but "It is true that," and "It is a fact that" don't effect such a change. (Modal operators are also intensional if you don't have possible worlds.)

That suggests that ordinary language treats truth as a purely extensional notion, unlike belief, judgment, etc. There are at least two ways to take that: maybe ordinary language is on the right track, and there is a fundamental difference here; or maybe ordinary language is misleading and that's why it can be so hard to make sense of truth (and facts). (Frege entrenches the extensional view of truth in an obvious way, and it is further entrenched by Tarski, etc.)

1. You can assert the equivalence in truth-value of "P" and "P is true," but if you want to explain meaning in terms of truth conditions, then you cannot treat that equivalence as an account of truth (i.e., the redundancy theory). You just have to be careful here. — Srap Tasmaner

What I said doesn't amount to a redundancy theory though. I was just repeating something that Frege himself said, and surely Frege wasn't a 'redundancy' theorist (or deflationist, or however you call it).

And btw, you don't have to use the predicate 'true' to talk about truth conditions either.

most ways of making a new sentence S' out of S by prefacing it with something that governs "that S" change the S part of S' from extensional to intensional -- you lose substitution salva veritate. — Srap Tasmaner

It is more complicated than this (because you also have de-dicto and de-re interpretations etc.).

or maybe ordinary language is misleading and that's why it can be so hard to make sense of truth (and facts). — Srap Tasmaner

I'm not quite sure what you have in mind here, because it doesn't really makes sense to speak about truth intensionally (if by 'intensional' you mean expressions not being substitutable salva veritate). After all substitution salva veritate simply means the preservation of truth (literally), and of course the prefix 'true' is going to preserve truth no matter what. If 'P' is true then obviously 'it is true that P' must be true as well - it is a kind of a tautology really.

As to giving and taking, you seem to say truth really just collapses into true. Seem to. What you really say is that truth "is the "concept of what it means to be true." Just like the concept of what it means to be green. — tim wood

I wouldn't say that truth collapses into true, because there is a distinction to be made, between the particular instance, something which is true, and the generalization, truth. I admit, that there is a very difficult task to separate these two, especially if we adhere to the principles which I've been insisting on, because both the particular, and the general, are produced by the minds of the subject, so it is quite difficult to avoid category error.

Concept of what it means? Where and how does "concept of what it means" come to ground? What does it mean?

Had you said "truth" is just the generalization of true, akin to "green" as a generalization of greenness in green things, then no problems here. But as you have expressed it, I can't figure it out. No doubt a failure on my part. Would you craft an edit for greater precision? — tim wood

Remember when I described justification. In my opinion, this is how we get objective concepts, objective knowledge, trough agreement amongst us. This is what is accepted as right, correct. It is objective in the sense of "inter-subjective", so it is not a true objectivity in the sense of "of the object", independent of the subject. It is created by a unification of subjects through communication, and I call this justification because it comes about through the demonstration of what is believed to be the correct way to use words. A concept may come into existence and evolve, as the correct way of using words evolves, and this process is a justification of that usage which is accepted as the correct usage. This is contrary to platonic realism, which places concepts as independent of subjects, making them more truly objective, in the sense of "of the object", resulting in the need to assume eternal concepts or ideas.

So I don't see any immediate difference between "concept of what it means to be true", and "generalization of true". Both seem to express the same thing. But what we refer to as "the concept", or "the generalization", is really the accepted use of the word. So there is an accepted idea of what it means to be true, correspondence with reality, and this is the objective, justified concept of "truth".

The difficulty comes about, as is the case with other abstractions or generalizations, when the thing being conceptualized, or represented by the concept, is not well understood, such that the generalization, the concept, is not an adequate representation of the thing. Or, as is the case in this type of discussion, it becomes evident that there is more than one accepted, justified, and therefore objective concept of the same thing, "truth' in this case. This might signify inconsistency, or perhaps distinct ways in which something could be true.

This means that we have to visit, and analyze the particular instances of being true, to determine exactly why the concept of "truth" is divided, and where the misunderstandings lie. It is extremely difficult, because the only guidance we have to find and identify the particular instances of being true, is our concept of truth. If our concept doesn't give us an adequate representation of what it means to be true, we will be misguided in our effort to identify particular instances of being true.

This is the problem which Plato demonstrates in the "Theaetetus", with respect to the concept of "knowledge". They seek particular instances of knowledge, in order that they may analyze them to learn what knowledge actually is. However, they are unable to find any real instances of knowledge, and they realize at the end, that they had a preconceived notion of "knowledge" which was an inadequate description of how knowledge really is, as it exists. They identified things which might be called knowledge, but found that they were really not knowledge according to the preconceived conditions. So the mistake was that they thought that to be knowledge required that something fulfill the conditions of their preconceived notion, when in reality, what was being called knowledge, and existed as knowledge, could not fulfill the conditions of their preconceived notion. In short, there concept of "knowledge" did not correspond to the existing thing which was being called knowledge. The concept was based in an inadequate understanding of the thing called knowledge.

By the way, the inadequate, preconceived notion of knowledge, which led them astray, was the idea that knowledge had to exclude falsity. They could not find a way that knowledge as we know it could exclude falsity. And we can bring this to bear upon our search for instances of "being true". Should "being true" exclude the possibility that the thing which is true, is false? Is it correct to oppose true with false? It appears to me, like the reason why we can't determine what "being true" means, is that we adhere to this (perhaps untrue) notion that being true is opposed to being false.

I have a lot to say about this, but it will suffice for now just to note that nothing in what you said (in this quote or in the rest of your post) proves that our 'interpretations' of reality (whatever that means) don't actually correspond with the reality which they interpret. The most that it can show is that we do not know whether out interpretations correspond with reality, but it doesn't prove that they in fact do not. — Fafner

This may be true, but if it is the case that we can never know whether our interpretations correspond with reality, then what is the point in defining "truth" in this way? This renders the word "true" useless. If, when we use the word "true" to refer to a sentence, we know that there is the possibility that the sentence is actually false, then why would we use "true", other than to deceive?

This means that if our 'interpretations' of reality happen to be the correct ones, and they 'correspond' to our interpretations of sentences, then it is perfectly possible that our sentences are objectively true (correctly represent reality). And nothing that you said proves that this is not the case. — Fafner

That it is "perfectly possible that our sentences are objectively true", does not justify using the word "true" to refer to those sentences. We need something more than "it is possible that the sentence is true", before we judge it as true, and say that it is true. If we cannot get beyond this possibility, then the word "true" is rendered useless.

Compare this with the case of believing something you don't know. I believe that somewhere in the universe there's intelligent extraterrestrial life. Now, I do not know whether it exists, but it doesn't prove that if I say "intelligent extraterrestrial life exist" that I said something false, because it might very well be true for all that I know. Ignorance doesn't prove anything about the objectivity of what you are ignorant about. — Fafner

Right, you cannot say that it is true that extraterrestrial life exists, even though you believe it does. Now extrapolate this example to assume that everything concerning reality is like this. You cannot say that anything is true, despite the fact that you believe things. The word "true" is completely useless unless you were trying to pretend that you knew something which you didn't.

I wrote:

Not all correspondence(truth) is dependent upon meaning.

You replied:

Ok, then give me an example of an instance of correspondence which is not meaningful.

Every instance when meaning is first attributed.


What follows is a bit more self-contradiction on your part. You asked me how not taking an account of non and/or pre-linguistic thought/belief affected your position/argument. I answered as follows...

I wrote:

Non-linguistic thought/belief doesn't consist of language. Your argument concerns only that which does. That's how...

You then replied:

That my argument only concerns language, is only true if you define "meaningful" in such a way that only language is meaningful. Many things other than language are meaningful...

Here's the argument...

p1. Truth is dependent on meaning
p2. Meaning is dependent on interpretation
C1. Truth is dependent on interpretation.

The issue Meta, was whether or not truth is dependent upon language. I claimed it's not. You argued otherwise as above. Now you're saying that meaning isn't dependent upon language. If there is meaning without language, then truth is as well.

Sophistry.

You wrote:

Firstly, it's good we have come to some agreement; that is always value in itself. However, there are two problems with your seeing contemplation as merely correlations, albeit complex ones, between objects:

I didn't say that. I said that all thought/belief consists in/of mental correlations drawn 'between' 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself(state of 'mind'). I'll address the purported problems anyway, for clarity's sake alone...

1. Contemplation means profound thought, and profound thought is always thought beyond mere correlation; it is drawing meaning from those correlations and moving into concepts.

Here you're affirming the consequent. You're assuming precisely what needs argued for. That said, I wholeheartedly agree that human thought/belief as we know it is far more complex than mere simple correlations. The ability for abstract thought and conceptualization is proof of that. However, it still boils down to mental correlations, no matter how you slice it.

Profound thought is nothing more and nothing less than novel correlation. Conceptualization is often described in terms of a concept being the container, and it's content being everything ever thought/belief and/or attributed to the concept. Again, that starts simply and gains complexity.

I find myself wondering why you keep on saying 'mere correlation'. Complex correlations are not simple ones. Simple ones could be called 'mere' I suppose, but I wouldn't see the point in doing so, except as a display of attitude. I understand that you do not agree with what I'm arguing here, and that's ok. I'm more than willing to answer any and all relevant questions. I'm equally ok with bearing any burden of proof that my claims 'carry'.

2. Human contemplation goes way beyond correlation of objects, which is as far as animals can go...

I cut this out of the rest for two reasons. First, (some)animals draw mental correlations between more than just 'objects' of physiological sensory perception. They too have states of 'mind'. Those scare-quotes are deliberate. I do not like to use the word "mind" for it carries far too much philosophical baggage along with it. Be that as it may, animals have mental ongoings, and mental states as a result. The state is determined solely by virtue of what has arrested it's attention. That holds good for human and beastie alike.

Second, I've agree that human contemplation can and often does consist in/of more than mental correlations drawn between objects. I've never claimed otherwise, nor does that necessarily follow from anything I've claimed.

You're arguing against an opponent borne of your own imagination.

For example, in the following sentence--"We Americans need to defeat the Nazis before they spread their evil they showed in the Holocaust and fully destroy freedom"--we see concepts expounding on and moving beyond mere objects. "We" are no longer just the objects in a group, they are defined by the concept of nationhood: not an object. The same goes with the ideological concepts of evil and freedom, which have no clear object correspondent; they are concepts that have moved beyond them. And we haven't even discussed the lingusistic dynamics giving all these words meaning beyond their object correspondents.

Again, moving beyond 'mere' objects isn't a problem for my position. Getting to very complex notions without those consisting in/of more simple one would be.

Do you figure that that statement just arose out of thin air, in it's entirety? Surely, you get my point here?

1. Contemplation means profound thought, and profound thought is always thought beyond mere correlation; it is drawing meaning from those correlations and moving into concepts.

Here you're affirming the consequent. You're assuming precisely what needs argued for. That said, I wholeheartedly agree that human thought/belief as we know it is far more complex than mere simple correlations. The ability for abstract thought and conceptualization is proof of that. However, it still boils down to mental correlations, no matter how you slice it.

No, I'm not. I'm working from the established definition. We do have to do that in these discussions. So, it goes beyond just mental correlations.

There's something to be said about our ability to become aware of that which is not existentially contingent upon our awareness of it.

Correspondence is one such thing. Thus, calling correspondence a concept would be equivalent to calling anything else that is not existentially contingent upon our awareness of it... a concept.

Correspondence is presupposed within all thought/belief, including but not limited to pre and/or non-linguistic. Correspondence is not "correspondence". The former is the relationship that the latter takes an account of. It doesn't require being taken an account of.

Profound thought is nothing more and nothing less than novel correlation. Conceptualization is often described in terms of a concept being the container, and it's content being everything ever thought/belief and/or attributed to the concept. Again, that starts simply and gains complexity.

That's what you incorrectly say. The definitions of profound and profundity assign much more to it than novel correlation, your personal but erroneous definition. Again, that goes beyond starting simply and gaining complexity.

I find myself wondering why you keep on saying 'mere correlation'.

I keep on saying "mere correlation" because human thought goes beyond mere correlations.

Sigh. Offer an example and I'll gladly deconstruct it for you. I've seen no definition which claims what you've stated...