Sounds like Early Wittgenstein's picture theory of language.
What if we did not use words, but communicated with math?
— Athena
How would that work, basically? — Lionino
Interesting idea. Logicians might be able to do this, but math people use words and symbols. I have never heard of a math research paper written in math symbols only. Thinking in mathematical terms is common amongst my colleagues, but even there one talks to oneself with words. — jgill
This makes me think about the distinction, particularly in quantum mechanics, between the unmeasured and the measured.So a string of bits or the numberline exist in the happy world where we can just take this paradoxical division between the continuous and the discrete for granted. Continuums are constructible. Don't ask further questions. Get on with counting your numbers and bits. — apokrisis
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but this seems counter-intuitive considering that we must categorize objects by their similarities, not their differences or what they are not. Objects that are similar fall into some category and it is only then that we can assert that there is a quantity of similar objects. If everything was unique and there are no categories of similar objects then what use are quantities? If there is only one of everything what use is math?It is easy to assume things are just what they are. But that depends on them being in fact not what they are not. — apokrisis
Where are the numbers and how did they get there?Similarly, numbers in themselves are not information, because they do not encode any message - they are just there. — SophistiCat
Objects that are similar fall into some category and it is only then that we can assert that there is a quantity of similar objects. — Harry Hindu
Why does 2+2=4? Some may say that this is logically sound statement, but why? What makes some string of scribbles true? — Harry Hindu
Forms are ideas, not in the sense of concepts or abstractions, but in that they are realities apprehended by thought rather than by sense. — Perl, Thinking Being
Animals obviously recognize forms. Should we say they are rational? — Janus
Semiosis would say that animals are rational at the level of genetic and neural encoding. — apokrisis
Numbers are then just the form that information takes at the level of a complete semiotic abstraction in terms of the self that is aiming to regulate its world by the business of constructing states of constraint. — apokrisis
But I think animals have a sense of number. — Janus
The word "form" in information seems to reflect the relationship between information and form. — Janus
But that is not the same as counting. Just the reason why we struggle with holding number strings longer than seven in our working memories. — apokrisis
I have come across reports that suggest some animals can learn to do basic small number counting. — Janus
I've been thinking more about this. At first I thought I was just mistaken in my op. The set of all possible arrangements of bits is countable, so it is no wonder that we can uniquely assign a whole number to every arrangement. Just because bits are countable, doesn't establish some kind of identity between bits and numbers. — hypericin
Sure. Information is everywhere causes leave effects. What information is relevant, or attended to, depends on the goal in the mind.So reality is like this. There are always further distinctions to be had. Even two electrons might be identical in every way, except they are in different places. But equally, the differences can cease to matter from a higher level that sees instead the sameness of a statistical regularity. Sameness and difference are connected by the third thing of where in scale we choose to stand in measuring the properties of a system. — apokrisis
I don't know if I agree with what you're saying here. What does it mean for something to be useful but not real? What does it mean for something to be useful if not having some element of being real? It seems to me that survival is the best incentive for getting things right. The environment selects traits that benefit the survival and reproductive fitness of organisms. Our highly evolved brain must have been selected for a reason and there must be a reason why humans have been so successful in spreading across the planet and out into space. Are those reasons unreal? Do your many words point to real states of reality? Am I to gain some advantage by reading your words? If not, then why read them?So numbers and information are part of a new way of speaking about the world that is very useful in proportion to the degree that it is also unreal. It is a language of atomised reductionism that places itself outside even space, time and energy as those are the physical generalities it now aspires to take algorithmic control over. — apokrisis
How does one even learn a language without apprehending the scribbles and sounds in the present and reflecting on how those same scribbles and sounds were used before? I could argue that language use is just more complex learned behavior. Animals communicate with each other using sounds, smells and visual markings. Animals understand that there is more to the markings than just the form the marking takes. It informs them of some state of affairs, like this is another's territory, not mine and in essence has some form of self-model.I was addressing the quoted text from Perl. I haven't read his work but have received the impression that "apprehending form via the rational intellect" was the thought in play there. I guess it depends on whether you think "apprehending form" means recognizing it or reflecting on it. I would agree with you that the latter requires symbolic language and I don't think that is at all controversial. — Janus
What does it mean for something to be useful but not real? — Harry Hindu
I could argue that language use is just more complex learned behavior. Animals communicate with each other using sounds, smells and visual markings. — Harry Hindu
To be clear, yes of course information storage as genes or words has some entropic cost. To scratch a mark on a rock is an effort. Heat is produced. Making DNA bases or pushing out the air to say a word are all physical acts.
But the trick of a code is that it zeroes this physical cost to make it always the same and as least costly as possible. I can say raven or I can say cosmos or god. The vocal act is physical. But the degree of meaning involved is not tied to that. I can speak nonsense or wisdom and from an entropic point of view it amounts to the same thing,
As they say, infinite variety from finite means. A virtual reality can be conjured up that physical reality can no longer get at with its constraints. But then of course, whether the encoded information is nonsense or wisdom starts to matter when it is used to regulate the physics of the world. It has to cover its small running cost by its effectiveness in keeping the organism alive and intact. — apokrisis
There are grades of semiosis. Indexes, icons and then symbols. So I was talking about symbols when I talk about codes. Marks that bear no physical resemblance to what they are meant to represent.
Animals communicate with signs that are genetically fixed. A peacock has a tail it can raise. But that one sign doesn’t become a complex language for talking about anything a peacock wants.
A language is a system of symbolic gestures. Articulate and syntactically structured. A machinery for producing an unlimited variety of mark combinations. Quite different in its ability to generate endless novelty. — apokrisis
It takes more mental power to get at the meaning of "philosophy" than "photograph" even though both words contain the same amount of letters. — Harry Hindu
I could argue that the display of the peacock's tail says something about the Big Bang, as there would not be a peacocks if there wasn't a Big Bang. — Harry Hindu
It's really just a difference in degrees. More complex brains can use more complex representations and get at more complex causal relations. — Harry Hindu
Did you communicate this message with numbers? — Apustimelogist
Rational thought or the cognition, the apprehension of pattern, it is grounded in? Animals obviously recognize forms. Should we say they are rational? — Janus
.Rational behavior is used to describe a decision-making process that results in the optimal level of benefit, or alternatively, the maximum amount of utility. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/career-map/sell-side/capital-markets/rational-behavior/#:~:text=What%20is%20Rational%20Behavior%3F,highest%20amount%20of%20personal%20satisfaction
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