And what does that have to do with learning grammar as a path to learning higher-order logic thinking skills? I could be wrong but I think the discussion has confused language with logical thinking. — Athena

At an early point in this conversation - I think before your entrance - some correspondents - now dropped out - attacked my claim that logical thinking does not occur outside of language. From there, the argument went to a possible refutation of my argument via example of animal behavior deemed possible logical thinking outside of language (the crow displacement video). Henceforth, the conversation centered on a debate whether non-humans practice language.

I now have some agreement, I think, to the effect that the entire animal kingdom practices language, logical thought and behavior, whereas humans alone also practice verbal language: spoken and written.

...our schools are not preparing our young to be logical thinkers — Athena

I've been mulling over the question whether logical thinking is taught in the schools. I think I can deduce that some measure of such is being taught because I see no way to teach anything without lessons based in logical thinking. I think it true that lessons in logical thinking need to be much more robust, especially in the primary grades. This would ensure that students immediately set about building a strong foundation for becoming life-long learners in all endeavors.

This has been the goal of formal education since the beginning. That's why primary schools are also known as grammar schools. The problem is not the mission, but the execution of it.

Even if a school caters to low-income students, it can empower such students to success with rigorous grammar lessons because logically thinking students of low income, no less than logically thinking students of high income, can successfully compete in the job market.

Alas, with respect to grammar lessons, mass media entertainments are the enemy.

In summary, both non-human animals and humans communicate using language. Non-human animal language is non-verbal, human language is both non-verbal and verbal. — RussellA

:smile: :up:

If we suppose the opposite, namely, that a human individual sustains damage to the brain's language component, might we suppose such person could still think logically and thus form grammatical utterances in the mind's ear? However, thinking in this way would now be lopped off from the ability to voice aloud these utterances, thus requiring the person to write their communications?
— ucarr

Now you are too focused on language. — Athena

I should have written, "sustains damage to the brain's speech component..."

I think the gist of the argument of RussellA and me (apologies if I misrepresent RussellA) is that language_general has a long run up to language_verbal, which latter requires abstract thinking, such as what you and I are doing when we read and interpret, via abstract thought, the symbolic marks displayed on our computer screens. We're arguing the entire animal kingdom participates in language_general, with various examples given. The crux of our argument is that the boundary line between animal kingdom and humans is not non-language/language but, rather, language_general/language_verbal. Only humans speak, write and read words, which is to say, comprehend abstract symbols that signify specific experiences of the natural world. The animal kingdom does not appear to have the cognitive processing power necessary to navigate symbolic word signifiers abstracted from experiences of the natural world. The animal kingdom is thus non-verbal and non-literate. That's a long way, in our view, from saying the animal kingdom is non-linguistic.

Animals evolved about 750 million years ago, yet human language only began about 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Was there a magical spark that gave language to humans? It seems more sensible to believe that human language developed from something pre-existing in non-human animals. — RussellA

Since I agree with the above, I think you and I are walking the same path in our journeys through this conversation.

Birds being engineered by evolution sounds remarkably teleological. Were feathers engineered by evolution for flight, or did animals having feathers discover they could fly. — RussellA

With the above, we come to the gnarly question of teleology vis-a-vis natural processes operating on a life-bearing planet.

Now I ask myself whether arguing existence of a foundation for modern, human, verbal language that predates humanity contains some flavor of the teleological POV re: evolution.

I'm gawking at the formidable switch at the center of a highly-charged, long-standing debate:

Explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve Vs explanation of phenomena in terms of the cause by which they arise

As I gawk, I'm reminded of Goethe's claim that interest lies embedded within the switch between conflicting claims, both of which are true. This is a handy guideline for steering a course towards non-binary thinking, another principal inflamed by debate.

I'm also reminded of a super-gnarly concept of my own: origin boundary ontology. It's an attempt to plot a metaphysical course of action touring the terrain of the chicken/egg question.

Just now, I'm leaping over that bog.

How about this question: If a process is logical, is it necessarily teleological? If logic is motion that's ordered and specific, and thus directional rather than random, how can it not have a purpose? From here we move on to asking, "Are natural processes logical, or random collisions? We know from chemistry that two specific elements combine in specific ways? In this situation, does specificity look like intention and purpose?

Even if two specific elements can be proven to have combined by random chance, as in the case of a highway accident wherein a truck carrying chlorine collides with a truck carrying sodium and the result is a flood of sodium chloride spilling across all four lanes. Since the two elements are highly specific in their chemistry, can the production of sodium chloride by accidental collision be legitimately deemed random?

Does earth evolution example natural logic?

Let's suppose a situation of totally random collisions between elements inhabiting a cosmic gas cloud spanning several galaxies worth of volume. The end result, after eons, produces coalescence into a new star. Since the new star will subsequently produce elements that, dispersing, eventually coalesce into planets orbiting the star, thus forming a solar system that, eventually, produces a life-bearing planet, can we assert the counter-intuitive conclusion that randomness sometimes transitions into logic that, in turn, transitions into life and therefore into purpose?

If you can say it, you can think it. — ucarr

When we do not have a word for our thought we can't think that thought, we can not communicate that thought to ourselves or others. — Athena

:smile: Alright. We're on the same page re: grammar_logic_(intentional) communication.

If we suppose a human individual sustains damage to the brain's logical component, might we suppose such person could still make grammatical utterances? However, speaking this way would now be powered by rote memory without comprehension in the manner of a parrot?

If we suppose the opposite, namely, that a human individual sustains damage to the brain's language component, might we suppose such person could still think logically and thus form grammatical utterances in the mind's ear? However, thinking in this way would now be lopped off from the ability to voice aloud these utterances, thus requiring the person to write their communications?

I pose these two situations in an effort to assess the degree of interweave between grammar_logic_(intentional) communication.

If we're looking at a permanent triad of interlinked co-functions, then it feels reasonable to conclude language permeates the entire animal kingdom.

This conclusion leads us to the following comparison:

Language = (intentional) communication via signifiers

Entire Animal Kingdom -- grammar_logic_(intentional) communication via signifiers

Humanity -- grammar_logic_(intentional) communication via signifiers_abstract_(intentional) communication via abstract signifiers

Humanity alone (apparently) possesses sufficient cerebral processing power to decode abstract signifiers, both spoken and written. Only humans can produce objective recordings of experience that, via abstract signifiers, communicate lengthy, complex narratives (books, movies, etc.).

...the lexical layer, eg found in bees. — RussellA

In this context, does lexical layer refer to a range of movements bees can make?

I can understand human language, etc as a by-product of evolution rather than an evolutionary adaptation, in that whilst feathers evolved for warmth, as a by-product could be used for flight. — RussellA

I'm experiencing a natural impulse to balk at construing by-product-of-evolution as being a broadly inclusive, natural phenomenon. In your example of bird feathers being engineered by evolution for warmth, I think of bird legs. They accommodate walking very poorly. It seems to me birds have but minimal adaptation to life upon the ground. Overall bird design, with its wings, weak legs, lack of arms and beak instead of mouth, suggests a life form engineered by evolution for life in the air. If evolution targeted warmth through wing design for birds, it's strangely indirect and inefficient, as a heavy coat for warmth scarcely needs wing design, a specific, aerodynamic form. However, walking on feeble, unarticulated legs, even with a warm coat, offers little promise of survival on the ground. It seems arse backwards to supply wings for slow, wobbly walking, making flightless birds easy pickings for predators. Evolution appears more on point for supplying wings as a survival mechanism through flight.

Do you understand hyohamous... — Athena

Can you provide a definition of "hyohamous"?

Being a human with cognitive abilities does not necessarily mean thinking conceptionally and only that ability separates humans from the rest of the animals. — Athena

So, in your view, mental manipulation of abstract concepts is the marker distinguishing humans within animal kingdom.

However, brain damage can also prevent us from having the ability to reason, so reasoning is more than having language. — Athena

Are you suggesting, with the above, that negative effect on reasoning can sometimes occur without negative effect on language?

IE, human language is not of a different kind to animal communication, but rather, human language has built on what already pre-existed. — RussellA

:up:

The gist of my argument herein comes down to the following pithy claim:

logic = motion + intent

The scope of this claim is broadly inclusive. It begs the question of how the academic disciplines are inter-related.

Let me address this question.

My arguments have lead me to an all is motion point of view. I know this is a trap baited by the lure of panacea found. Let me protect my ego with a strong dose of skepticism towards ultimate Eureka! moments.

All is NOT motion. I know. I’m digressing, as usual for my mind, a rambling forager. Alright, but just a quick moment for this:

The sciences examine motion existentially; the arts and humanities examine motion qualitatively. In short, the former measures things; the latter munches on those measurements. There. That’s how I address the begged question of how the academic disciplines are inter-related under the rubric of,

logic = motion + intent

So now, if you be cognitive individual, you practice motion + intent. Speaking in the vernacular, we call this finding food, shelter & fire. Following closely upon the tail of the basic three come the secondary three: finding love, family & community. The lotus in the garden of the magic seven is, finally, finding cosmos, which means, colloquially, practicing unselfish love for others.

All cognitive individuals possess language because, as you know, all cognitive beings seek the magic seven listed above and, as you know, none of the above happen outside of language games.

Language and its inherent logic are cerebration of motion, which is intelligence.

Consciousness and its emergent property, intelligence, are the two greatest creations of our universe.

So now, as you might surmise, I speak to the great, cosmic love-in: The Big Bang Animation, an all-inclusive universal narrative. This narrative, the voice of God, operates so broadly inclusively, it easily contains, even if paradoxically, our community of theists_atheists. That’s right. Theism & atheism are sub-divisions of one source, the universal narrative. I digress.

The Big Bang Tango, universal background radiation, headwaters the lines-of-force motion that cognitive individuals are sourced from and bound unto.

Well now, the night is late, the campfire bright and the claim uttered: We are motion!

Chatter, anyone? Some chatter before bedtime?

“We are motion? What is motion?”
“No! E-motion. We are E-motion.”
“Now wait a minute. I think –"

Hello, Athena,

Animals can not know logos because they do not have the complex language as humans have complex languages that can express reasoning. — Athena

Animals do not have gods and neither did early man because a god is a concept, and is not manifested in nature. — Athena

What about pets? Out of the whole animal kingdom, about 150 species can be domesticated for life alongside humans in friendship.

We're told humans have dominion over animals. Maybe pets receive God's presence through humans? When a pet takes instruction from human to do a good deed, or when a pet, on its own initiative, does a good deed, such as save an endangered human, is that not a pet_God connection?

What I'd really like here, I suppose, is to help avoid a descent into pseudo-science. Linguistics, like any other science, has certain principles that ought to be recognized. — Baden

Speculation Vs Scholarship > Your cautionary alert is appropriate and good. Of course we rabble come to public forums to cluck cluck like roosters having a little bit of fun. Maybe more a than a few hot breezes circulating the public houses have prevented more than a few wars, no?

↪ucarr

Maybe try to be a little more focused? My problem has always been what appears to be yours: profundity. You or I might be smart, but it is difficult to write profoundly all the time. I find that I get the best product if I stay down to earth and then expand on what I'm writing.
20 hours ago — ToothyMaw

I agree with this. It's good advice. Plain English is the best approach and I'm working on it.

Anyone who wants to label me profound is welcome to do so, as I consider it high praise. Thank-you.

If, by chance, by profundity you mean obscurity, then yes. That's a profound fault, as it means my attempts at communication are failing fundamentally.

Even so, intuitive leaps are a permanent part of my mental landscape. Even as I work towards plain speaking, I accept this part of myself. Moreover, folks (including me) are always complaining about narratives that aren't simple as pie. As for writing populist philosophy, that's a tall order, but striving for the impossible is an item on my to do list.

The sentence "come here" doesn't contain any preposition, yet signifies a spatio-temporal relation.
— RussellA

Yes, and can form a "complete thought" due to the fact that it fulfils at minimum the necessary requirements of a clause, i. e. it contains a verb and everything necessary for the verb in its syntactical context (its complements). And a clause whether singularly acting as a sentence or doing so in conjunction with other clauses, forms the most important semantic building block of language. Here again, the verb is central, and prepositions peripheral. — Baden

"Come here," being a command, contains the implied subject "you." If we're stretching definitions here, then I say that a better characterization is the claim that the verb "come" is a complement of the implied subject "you," as it makes (an implied) claim about the subject: you are a conscious individual who can obey my command.

The main point, however, is that "come here" is only a complete thought because of both the verb and the subject. Verb_Subject is the building block of grammar, unless you can cite a language that lacks one or both of these.

As to the peripheral status of prepositions, can you cite a language that never signifies spatial and temporal relationships between nouns? RussellA's Chinese quote (somehow) signifies the preposition; I suppose it's implied.

I'm trying to follow along here a little, but I don't understand any of this. What could logic have to do with spacetime, for instance? The OP speculates people are introduced to logic through language, and thus logic and language are irreducible. They then must have developed alongside each other from some proto-language, and for some reason this means that spacetime is the ultimate conjunction between ... ? — ToothyMaw

Yeah. My attempt at reasoning herein lies sprawled across a long block chain of (supposedly) connected ideas. See below where Hallucinogen does an excellent job of compacting the block chain into a short paragraph, with links to articles that elaborate.

The nature of spacetime must ultimately be language, since language is the most general algebraic structure. For something to obey rules it's got to conform to the rules of language otherwise it's unintelligible. In spacetime you've got objects, these correspond to nouns, you've got time, which correspond to verbs and functions and you've got space which is prepositional. There isn't anything in spacetime that isn't describable in language. Notice how all attempts to unify the sciences involve trying to boil them all down to one language within a unified grammar. The thoughts we model reality with must also be continuous with that reality and continuity implies shared structure. In the CTMU this is called the metaformal system and it couples that which you describe the universe with that which structures it.

https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Principle_of_Linguistic_Reducibility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIv4GiDGOk - language of spacetime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXvUyrhAaN8 - reality is a language — Hallucinogen

That's animal communication not language. Conveying information is not a high enough bar for language.
— Baden

What is language for if not conveying information ? — RussellA

Exactly. No conscious individual in possession of information needful of communication exits without simultaneous possession of language.

:smile: :up: :100:

...if we are to take it that language evolved over time, we ought to make conceptual room for a theorised primitive proto-language. — Baden

Okay. Here's your recognition of upwardly developmental language across a continuum.

there is no serious consideration given in academic linguistics to incorporating crow behaviour or tea-making behaviour under even the broadest umbrella understanding of language. — Baden

lin·guis·tics | liNGˈɡwistiks |
plural noun [treated as singular]
the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.

__The Apple Dictionary

One of the foundational reasons I'm making my claims herein is the desire to make the following change to the above definition,

the scientific study of ^ verbal ^ language

So, yes. In reference to the non-homo sapiens animal kingdom, language is more properly the study of psychology than academic linguistics.

I don't know whether ucarr is saying that logic or language came first. — RussellA

I think language and logic are contemporaneous co-functions. I intuit this because, in my experience, a healthy, functional brain cannot long operate illogically. Environmental forces soon put illogical behavior in check along the axis of survival. The purposeful individual, being conscious, must proceed under guidance of some degree of foundational common sense, otherwise death. There is no viable intent apart from a foundation within logic. Translated broadly, this means an individual must move about with purpose within his-her environment. Within the crucible of survival, logic and language are forged jointly as co-equals. As such, both logic and language emerge as non-random animation.

Homo sapiens differs from the rest of the animal kingdom not in terms of a quantum leap forward from non-language to language, but rather from non-verbal langue to verbal langue.

In its broadest generality, langue_logic is motion organized by need_intent_purpose.

It's the degree of supportable abstraction that separates non-verbal langue from verbal langue. The animal kingdom, although linguistic, is non-verbal, therefore non-literate. It uses the language of purposeful animation within the immediate context of personally physicalized expression of intent. Unlike homo sapiens, it cannot record complex, intricate motion-with-intent as a continuity of abstract signification i.e., a book. It cannot take a book and, via internalized motion (which is a good definition of the operation of intellect) reanimate, via the imagination, complex signification of same.

I'm trying to articulate supporting arguments for (2) claims : a) grammar introduces all speakers to logic; b) spacetime is the ultimate conjunction.

My conceptualization of logic is based on this premise: logic is a synonym for continuity and, moreover, logical operations (such as language) are concerned with the parsing of continuity. Logical operations, therefore, express themselves as systematic analyses of a whole for the sake of manipulation-with-intention. This said manipulation, ultimately, must gravitate back to its source. Analysis always has a gravitational orientation back to its source, the whole. Language, viewed thus, expresses itself as a systematically modulated medium of derivatives in search of a whole.

Let me illustrate with a parallel. When a prism parses the visible light spectrum into a rainbow of colors, white light, the whole, gets parsed into a language, as it were, of color derivatives in search of the whole from whence they came.

All of this is to say that the grammar of language, no matter how cognitive & cerebral, remains rooted in the physicality of spacetime.

Now I can present my foundational premise: logic = continuity = (literal, physical) motion.

As a general statement about logic (and therefore about language), I claim that it is a concomitant of motion.

Of course my above claim is subject to cogent refutation.

Baden, RussellA and alan1000 have made responses of essential importance.

So, American Sign Language, for example, is a perfectly valid language but me making a cup of tea or physically showing you how to do that, more analogical to your crow example, is not. — Baden

Our views differ in terms of the quantum vs. the continuum. Baden says the boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic is quantum; I say it is continuum.

There are two main theories as to how language evolved. Either i) as an evolutionary adaptation or ii) a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. — RussellA

Is the human brain hard-wired for language, or did it reconfigure itself for language in response to environmental prompts? Since the entire animal kingdom encounters environmental prompts, I lean towards believing the high-cognition version of language that is human is hard-wired.

I think he (ucarr) would agree that the perception of logical connection is essentially non-verbal, and language follows later as an attempt to communicate the logical connection to others. — alan1000

Yes. Language arises directly from the physical environment of animation, and remains rooted there, no matter how refined into abstract cerebration it becomes.

I quote these important observations of correspondents in order to acknowledge their impact upon my arguments which, given the cogency of the observations, must presently remain tentative.

Causal understanding of water displacement by a crow

It seems that the crow is using cognition. If the crow has no language, then it is using cognition outside of language. — RussellA

I infer you've concluded the video shows no practice of language by the crow.

In this context, I note that language is expanded in scope to include all of the sensory forms of signification (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). — ucarr

If you can say it, you can think it — ucarr

With my two above quotes of myself I lay foundation for making the claim that a broadly inclusive definition of language allows language production via the five senses. Bearing this in mind, I claim the crow understands and practices the visual language of water displacement towards making the desired object reachable.

From the evidence of the crow's purposeful behavior, I infer the claimed visual language was learned through observation. The visual objects within the frame are the syntax of the visual language and the displacement effect (with acquisition of desired object) is the semantics of the visual language.

In making my claim, I'm stretching the common usage of "language" in an effort to make it suitable as evidence and support.

I argue that my use of the stretch is not pettifogging and foolish because it's of a piece with claiming that language is not limited to verbal practitioners. I claim, instead, that the distribution of language capacity is not binary: humans linguistic; remainder (of animal kingdom) non-linguistic. The distribution of language practice comprises a range that possesses no sharp and distinct boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic. From here I proceed to claiming perception_cognition_language are not discreet.

You might argue the crow had no intention to communicate a method for acquiring the desired object via water displacement, and thus makes no practice of language on behalf of the observer. I acknowledge the range of language practice has discernible levels of sophistication, especially as it pertains to intentional communication.

...logic is not a language, but a component of language... — Hanover

Logic, then, being an attribute of language, stands subordinate to language. This feels intuitively like something useful to my argument, but, first, I must ask how symbolic logic can stand alone (which it can) without being its own language?

Language and formal logic are no more synonyms than language and fortran. — Joshs

As I see the above, it's not a refutation, but rather, a call for greater precision. Suppose I revise my claim to say, "grammar, the inferential platform and medium of language, is synonymous with logic"?

Language is a human extension of perceptual interaction with the world, and is continuous with perception, which is already conceptual and cognitive prior to the learning of a language. — Joshs

Let's look at a piece of what you've written above.

...perceptual_already conceptual and cognitive prior to_language. — Joshs

Let's look at definitions of three of your important words.

con·cept | ˈkänˌsept |
noun
an abstract idea; a general notion: structuralism is a difficult concept | the concept of justice.

• Philosophy an idea or mental picture of a group or class of objects formed by combining all their aspects.

cog·ni·tion | ˌkäɡˈniSH(ə)n |
noun
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
• a result of this; a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition.

per·cep·tion | pərˈsepSH(ə)n |
noun
the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses: the normal limits to human perception.


__The Apple Dictionary

Do you deny that perception and abstraction are opposites?

Do you deny that perception does not imply knowledge?

Do you deny that the pre-language period of a toddler invokes the hard problem of communicating what it's like to be an experiencing individual with an innate POV?*

*Toddlers intentionally modulate their cries, grunts, moans, chuckles etc. in service to parents trying to decipher the wants and needs generated by their child's innate POV. This, I claim, exemplifies the child's linguistification of the crude "words" listed above.

How does the child, untaught, know how to modulate his crude "words" into intelligible signifiers? I claim such knowledge derives from the child's hard-wired, deep-speech aptitude, articulated by Chomsky.

If you claim that deep speech aptitude in pre-language toddlers shows that perception is conceptual and cognitive prior to language, then I claim that it simultaneously shows that its power of linguistification establishes perception, cognition and language as not discreet and thus temporal priority goes out the window.

'To deliberately inflict and prolong, willfully ignore or derive pleasure from suffering' is my quick & dirty idea of evil. — 180 Proof

Your definition, as I see it, exemplifies anti-empathy.

Is not the genre of Dystopian Sci-Fi essentially nationalistic?
— ucarr

Is it? — Tom Storm

The citizen of civil society maintains a dual interest: a) individual interest; b) group interest. The two interests stand locked within a yin-yang of creative conflict and, as such, are the rich ground of drama. Dystopian Sci-Fi examines the decline into toxicity of an empire_civilization under the adverse influence of a systemic imbalance between the individual interest & the group interest. Usually, it's a case of the individual interest overbearing the group interest such that a consortium of power brokers enslaves the masses to a system of values that upholds & enhances their power while condemning multitudes to servile self-denial & misery. Metropolis examples this configuration. The opposite configuration, not as common, has the masses imposing their benighted will upon a lone wolf alarmist whose narrative of impending doom they scoff at & dismiss. Superman examples this configuration.

Not sure why complaining came up or even matters. I dislike Marvel films for their shrill, derivative banality. The point is that they are not Eisenstein or Lang. But this is a matter of personal taste. — Tom Storm

the fascism is in the aesthetics, the fetishisation of weapons, uniforms and the body beautiful, posed and choreographed mawkishly the way Leni Riefenstahl posed her Nazi superheroes. — Tom Storm

I this isn't a complaint against the narcissism & overweening of fascism, then I don't know the meaning of the words.

Consider this. Not to think about Herrmann doesn't mean he isn't a primary reason for the film's success, as Hitchcock himself felt. The genius in a score is that it is felt and often remains undetected... — Tom Storm

The issue here is determination which is more foundational: a) the audio-visual narrative; b) the musical narrative. While it's true both narratives can stand alone as satisfying artistic experiences, when examining the merits of a movie, an audio-visual narrative whose themes & plot points are enhanced by the score, clearly, the audio-visual narrative is the principal & the score is the subordinate. Being that it occupies a support role, it's merely appropriate that the score's impact be mostly subliminal. Therefore, in this context, being subliminal is not a good yardstick for being sublime.

It's not power as such; the fascism is in the aesthetics, the fetishisation of weapons, uniforms and the body beautiful, posed and choreographed mawkishly the way Leni Riefenstahl posed her Nazi superheroes... — Tom Storm

Human nature being such as it is, what with the individual intimately concerned with issues of power and, moreover, each individual, living within a civil society compartmentalized by specialization, also interested in the power of the group, allowance must be made for the celebration (if not exaltation) of state power within the arts & entertainment.

The people's will to power will be honored. The aesthetics of fascism is power in another mode: the fetishizing of weapons (predominantly phallic), the pageantry of full military dress, the dash & storm of athletic soldiers, these attributes are the golden gleam of martial might. They are the essence of the rhetoric-cum-propaganda that wins the hearts & minds of the masses.

These glorifications within the arts date from Homer to Tolstoy to Riefenstahl. Regarding toxic hero-worship of warfare, I measure culpability of Nietzsche greater than that of Riefenstahl.

Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkim & Lang's Metropolis are celebrated classics. Well, both pictures have nationalism folded into their aesthetics. Has anyone complained about this?

Is not the genre of Dystopian Sci-Fi essentially nationalistic?

Heath Ledger & Joaquin Phoenix have done excellent work as the Joker. The Dark Knight & Joker, however, are dramas about a super-villain, a genre distinct from the militarism of the superhero genre.

The protagonists hit each other until one side can't. — Banno

And thus the popularity of the boxing match. Humanity will never resist entirely the hot blood of the slain bull.

The reality is that most movies would be utterly diminished without the sound effects and music - the cues which give the visuals their power. — Tom Storm

With your statement, you have tossed me a dilemma. I see a lot of truth in what you say, however, personally speaking, I don't feel it all the way down.

I understand Hitchcock is the director the cognoscente love to hate. I hope you're not denying he was a genius filmmaker. Boy, if I had a choice between being a rarely seen darling of the critics vs. being a perennial favorite of the masses, I'd side with Hitchcock immediately.

When the title Psycho is uttered, does anyone first think of Bernard Herrmann?

As for the fascism of the American superhero movie (does anyone else make them?), you never get a thrill of power and preeminence when USA unloads a heep of whoop-ass onto the enemy?

You make an important point about the essential role of music scores. Where would Jaws be without those periodic, bowed bass notes? And that's why I think the eardrum-threatening splendor of the music of world-crunching mayhem is important catharsis for gadget-crazy America.

You can only assault someone's ears if they have other senses remaining. — Paul

If I can't see, touch, smell or taste, then my hearing is desensitized? I've heard that lack of sight, for example, increases aural sensitivity.

Just wild guessing> Did you mean for your statement to be a negative, but you forgot to include the negative?> You can only assault someone's ears if they don't have other senses remaining?

I need help understanding this.

It's true of 99% of post-1930 movies that you'll get more out of listening to it with your eyes closed than watching it with your ears plugged and captions off. — Paul

Interesting. Are you saying that verbal learners outnumber visual learners by a wide margin, or that movie sound design surpasses movie graphic design by a wide margin?

For the sake of clarification,

Audio design - the audio prelap which is so popular right now; recurring musical theme>the bowed notes on bass violin in Jaws

Graphic design - some basic graphic design grammar of the movies: a) wide angle for establishing; b) reverse overs for conversation; c) singles for deep emotions

Yes, it is reasonable to infer that the procedure and proof of the essay is necessarily that of temporal relations (sequences in succession of one another). The important thing is that, as of now, I find such a conclusion (i.e., derivation or the principle of regulation is temporal) to only be found by importation of other axioms (or, in my terms, superordinate principles which are not apart of the standard terminology nor proof explicated in the essay. — Bob Ross

I don’t find time to be a consideration necessary to prove PoR as a sine qua non and, furthermore, any assertion of atemporality, temporality, spatial references, etc. is via PoR (thereby dependent on it). As I alluded to earlier, I think for the sake of the essay it may be best to conceive of a sine qua non as neither in time nor not in time. — Bob Ross

I asked my questions about time vis-a-vis PoR because I want to know who does PoR as sine qua non have as his neighbors? I was conjecturing that time is one of PoR's neighbors. As such, time does not prove PoR as sine qua non. Instead, time is one of PoR's neighbors, which is to say time & PoR are a matched set. One always implies the other.

I haven't forgotten your explanation to the effect that, by definition, two sine qua nons are mutually exclusive and thus cannot both belong to one set.

Some other candidates for neighbors of PoR might be superordinate & subordinate rules? This would mean PoR's neighborhood is divided by class, with the superordinates as elites & the subordinates as commoners? PoR, totally aloof, sits on high & reigns over both? Even if this is the case, the lowliest subordinate rule nonetheless stands a comrade alongside PoR. This is so because, by force of the premise> universe is the limit of system, without which, not is, in fact, bi-directional. In other words, no object inhabits absolute isolation. Therefore, speaking extremely broadly, all things are equal.

With the following, I will try to show why I suspect sine qua nons cannot be mutually exclusive.

If PoR has no neighbors, then for me a fundamental question arises pertaining to relationship. Derivation & meta-derivation, as I presently understand them, imply inter-relatedness i.e. relationship.

If PoR has no neighbors, how can it fulfill the role of sine qua non in total isolation?

Moreover, if PoR has no peers, that is, no other sine qua nons as neighbors, how can he be an unbounded infinite? Haven't you established a causal agent confined to a single set as a bounded infinity?

As I alluded to earlier, I think for the sake of the essay it may be best to conceive of a sine qua non as neither in time nor not in time. — Bob Ross

I'm wondering if the above assertion (that sine qua non WRT temporality is undecidable) raises a question of foundational metaphysics> When the temporality of an object is undecidable, is not the location of said object also undecidable?

If the answer is yes, then how can sine qua non fill the role of foundational cause of derivation?

My underlying premise here is that even a purely cognitive "object," holding a priori status, by force of causality (inter-relatedness) obtains location. In this example, location of sine qua non is first member of a sequence.

I'm starting to suspect that sine qua non, as absolute solitary, without neighbors covering peers & subordinates alike, in parallel to the singularity of the Big Bang, cries out for conceptual revamping that addresses the deeply problematical boundary ontology of origins.

WRT = with respect to

I think that the two biggest cruces are (1) whether the individual at hand can transcend their own context…

Context ≅ Environment. In my thinking, environment suggests state of affairs, which suggests reality.

In your usage here, is individual… can transcend their own context an action symbolic or literal?

(2) whether the idea of the essay preceding “logical languages” (or theories of logic)…

My thinking proceeds from foundational assumptions that bump up against some foundational assumptions employed herein by you.

• An essay is, at bottom, the logical language of argumentation

• The stuff of logic is a continuum of conditionals that unfold sequentially, thus implying a temporal process

• Although logical expressions can be conceptualized as atemporal mental objects, continuity is always empirical & temporal

…a sine qua non has no prepositions…

…a context that is universal I really wouldn’t constitute as a context…

If, as I interpret you to be saying with the above two claims, sine qua non is not of anything, and, moreover, is not at all contextual, then I get the impression the whereness of sine qua non is more mysterious than the position of an orbiting electron at any given moment. Is that the case?

Firstly, a sine qua non is “without which, not” (where “not” is an unbounded infinite negative) and, therefore, the possibility of “without PoR, not derivation” invalidates “derivation” as being a sine qua non. Secondly, this is exactly why, derivation not being a sine qua non, produces the possibility that someone can completely remove it within their derivation (no matter how irrational it may be, as someone else could easily mention that I just literally said “someone can remove derivation from their derivation”), whereas they cannot remove PoR without utilizing it.

The above section of paragraph is wonderfully clear and thus it makes me hope I’m beginning to get some real grounding within your essay.

I now have an impression of your essay’s essence via use of a helpful metaphor wherein your sine qua non holds status akin to the singularity that precedes the Big Bang.

If there’s even a particle of truth in application of my pre-Big Bang metaphor to your metaphysical claim, then hopefully I can proceed to an understanding you’re wrestling with the boundary ontology of origin.

Boundary Ontology of Origin – continuity via hyper-logic across the super-position of a non-localized QM event.

The above definition is my best-to-date exposition of a hairy beast of a concept that is one of my works-in-progress. I won’t elaborate it’s possible pertinence to your essay because that would entail an inappropriate digression from your work. I will say I expect it to inform some of my commentary upon your work henceforth.

Likewise, time is by no means something one can posit as sine qua non, as “without PoR, not time” and, honestly, there are many principles that are required for it to be affirmed in the first place (i.e., faculties of reason which allow one to determine that time is enveloping of oneself, or that there is a non-temporal true claim, or neither true nor false, etc.).

Since you reject time_sine qua non, I think it imperative you state (If you have not done so) whether PoR_sine qua non is temporal, or atemporal.

I’ve been understanding regulation in the everyday sense of a transitive verb that controls & shapes an object under its influence. I don’t presently see this function as being atemporal.

Answering the question of sine qua non’s relationship to time entails whether or not your universe is static or dynamic. Does a universe without motion make any sense?

Likewise, you may have also noticed that it isn’t logically…coherent…to claim multiple sine qua nons as true—for if there existed two then they are thereby not sine qua nons (that’s a contradiction). In other words, if a sine qua non is “without which not”, if we allow ourselves the importation of useful logical axioms, then only one can be true by definition (otherwise we have a situation where two principles are supposed to be negatable in relation to one another, but yet the source of an unbounded infinite of negations respectively).

Your above statement, speaking potentially, has a lot to say to the project to bring the rules of inference into congruence with QM.

Please elaborate how regulate & modulate compare.

By “modulate”, what are you referring to? I am not completely following.

My Apple Dictionary tells me regulate & modulate are synonyms. I’ll buy that. However, I sense that modulate, more so than regulate, gets into the deep interior of language.

Language -- a collective, or gestalt of the systematic boundary permutations of a context or medium; a record of the systematic boundary permutations of a narrative medium.

If the above claim contains a particle of truth, then your sine qua non, as presently perceived by me, embodies something akin to the Original Utterance, itself, in turn, akin to the pre-Big Bang Singularity, itself, in turn, akin to God’s “Let there be light!”

I hope you’ll forgive the tincture of theism_Jungian psychology pooling into my assessment of your essay.

Might sine qua non, per your essay, be your Logos?

Can I posit a context sans PoR? No, and that is my point. — Bob Ross

I entertain hope that your above claim expresses a/the crux of your essay's purpose. In line with this assessment, your premise says,

PoR can never be excluded from context. Proving this logically renders PoR as sine qua non WRT context.

Does this imply the concomitant> Derivation can never be excluded from context.

Does this lead us to> Context contains at least (2) sine qua nons: PoR & Derivation

Does this lead us to> Context contains at least (3) sine qua nons: PoR, Derivation & Time

If you can prove this, do you have a set foundational to logic?

Since these questions are whoppers, let's focus on PoR.

Please elaborate how regulate & modulate compare.

Please elaborate how PoR & PoM compare.

How does one do Gnosis and can you provide an example of it in action? — Tom Storm

I have an example that comes from literature. It's a short story that places you into the ballpark of gnosis.

I have one distillation of the technique of gnosis that might be enlightening. Literature that conveys gnosis to the reader oftentimes makes use of metaphor in a very specific way. Via metaphor, it elaborates a link between the everyday world & the uncanny dimension of creation. The result is a narrative ambiguity that imparts awareness of duality of being of existing things.

The effect is environmental as the reader is partially transported out of the everyday world into a complex position with one foot on solid ground & the other foot landed within a dreamscape. Once inside the realm of duality, created things assume a high vibrational energy that perplexes the whereness of reality.

One genre label for this type of dual narrative is magical realism.

Our recently concluded Short Story Competition 3 includes such a story.

Dream of the Flood, by Tobias. Use the link below.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13187/dream-of-the-flood-by-tobias

There are also questioning sorts of interests that are hard even to formulate as simple questions. For instance, language seems to work, but what it even works at is not clear, what it even does is confusing. And there are ways of conceiving of language that suggest it cannot possibly work at whatever it's doing, which we still don't know. I don't think I'm ever going to shake my fascination with that little knot. — Srap Tasmaner

Writing in everyday, imprecise English, I advance one proposed answer to what language works at and does. Entertainment.

Lots of folks have experienced pleasure when imbibing a narrative that arouses & holds their interest with personal truths, dazzles their imagination with vibrant revelations, expels their breath with uncanny yet logical surprises and elevates their understanding with useful information.

I don't know if language has its own intentions apart from its impacts via application, but I trust many will grant the above as true description of their experience of good storytelling.

axiomatized logic — Srap Tasmaner

The juxtaposition of the above two words is an example of my experience of a bit of language as entertainment.

Firstly, how do you pronounce the participle? Secondly, is it a neo-logism of the writer? Thirdly, is the two-word phrase paradoxical?

As to the thirdly, how do you arbitrarily make inferential statements?

An asymptotic relationship requires a function g(x) where Lim f(x)/g(x) =1 as x becomes infinite. Or something similar.

The “gravitational” force of an infinite volume curves its own graphic progression to such an extreme it never achieves “escape velocity” to the next whole integer.
— ucarr

A reference for this would help an awful lot. — jgill

There's no reference for my line above. It was produced by my act of imagination that attempts to parallel your elaboration of asymptotic relationship in line one above with Einstein's General Relativity. I'm trying to say that infinite volume, like infinite gravitational field, warps neighboring spacetime (in this metaphor spacetime = the number line) into a field so curved neighboring objects cannot achieve escape velocity from its grasp. "Material" evidence of this warpage herein is the asymptotic graph of numerical progression rendered as "curved numbers."

Re: g(x) where Lim f(x)/g(x) =1 as x becomes infinite. Let's suppose this to be numerical time dilation, with the progression of the value towards infinity being "time." This numerical dilation grounds an intentional maneuver that makes an equation start rendering an infinite value. We might think of this maneuver as the act of dropping a graviton into an equation in order to intentionally make it go infinite.

Foraging around for an application of the numerical graviton maneuver, I come up with using the graviton maneuver to effect a numerical time dilation that facilitates topological examination of boundary equations for First Causes.

Note -- Curved numbers have some type of relationship to imaginary numbers. I sense this because imaginary numbers, being displaced from the set of real numbers, exhibit something in common with curved numbers, extreme warpage.

If someone can further distill this relationship into clarity, I trust it will prove to be mathematically lucrative.

The set [0,1] is uncountably infinite with no asymptotes. Clueless what you mean.

Perhaps curiously, an infinite value "warps" a (conceptual) boundary into a "curved space" that functions as an unspecified boundary in that it is a boundary that is never reached.
— ucarr

Give an example, please. — jgill

Regarding {0,1} graph {x = 0.1 + 0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0001 + 0…nth.1 < 1}.

Above is my attempt to show a counting series from 0 towards 1 for values of x that graphs as an asymptotic progression.

The “gravitational” force of an infinite volume curves its own graphic progression to such an extreme it never achieves “escape velocity” to the next whole integer.

If by “key elements” you mean key terms being used in the essay, then I think that most of your list is fine. Except:

{Infinite Series} bound, unbound, indeterminate

There is no “indeterminate” category proposed for infinities: it is indefiniteness—which I wouldn’t hold means the exact same thing (but if you just mean that in the sense that the bounds in undetermined, as opposed to indeterminate, then I think that is fine). For me, I am defining “indeterminate” as not able to be determined, whereas “undetermined” simply means it hasn’t yet been determined. — Bob Ross

I differentiate indefinite from indeterminate thus, the former means not specified whereas the latter means cannot be specified.

It may lie outside the scope of your project, but I want to broach the topic of infinity as it is conceptualized by you vis-a-vis how it is conceptualized by me.

I define infinite as volume unspecifiable. This is a way of saying infinities cannot be made explicit. I believe this truth persists even in the instance of hierarchies of infinities.

If {x_?} = infinity and P = {x_?} and IFF_not = if and only if negated and if {x} = bounded set, then P ⇒ IFF_not for {x}.

The above argument is predicated upon boundary = territorial limit.

Positing an infinite value (unspecifiable volume) within bounds is tricky because, in my opinion, territorial limit takes on a special meaning such that limit transforms into asymptote.

Perhaps curiously, an infinite value "warps" a (conceptual) boundary into a "curved space" that functions as an unspecified boundary in that it is a boundary that is never reached.

Is an unreachable boundary really a boundary?

In the instance of a bounded infinity, whose unspecifiable volume is quite free to expand forever, can we truthfully claim that it is contained?

It occurs to my visualization that a bounded infinity is a configuration wherein an unspecifiable volume has PoR as a neighbor who speaks another language and thus, there is no dialogue between the two. In this situation, can we truthfully say PoR acts as modulator of unspecifiable volume?

The ultimate problem is that I believe you have not shown that the PoR is something true universally. As noted above, I'm not sure its something you can either. — Philosophim

That being said, it may be that there are things I still don't understand, so please correct me if I'm in error. — Philosophim

I also think the PoR is a fine principle within bounded contexts, and see nothing overtly wrong with it within these bounded contexts. I just don't think at this time that you've provided what is needed to show it is true universally, and not just within the contexts you've been thinking in. — Philosophim

To far greater extent than Philosophim, there's much I neither know nor understand, thus I might be egregiously wrong when I use my argument above to expand Philosophim's doubt to include bounded contexts.

Having said that, I admit I do, now, have the audacity to entertain nascent doubt about the PoR's ability to modulate a bounded infinity.

Note – The core logic of my argument is the following premise,

Premise – the inherent unspecifiability of an infinite volume implies its expansion towards a boundary is necessarily asymptotic.

It is really a question of whether derivation is arbitrary (i.e., axiomatic) or grounded in a sine qua non — Bob Ross

With a view towards answering the above question, I'm making an attempt to get my general bearings within your project by elaborating the overview below. Let me know if it's sufficiently accurate to be helpful.

Schematic of Foundational Metaphysics of Derivation

A scheme to establish an algorithm for expressing & establishing a causal chain of derivatives culminating in a conclusion. This algorithm will be expressed in terms of the widest generality.

Some key elements that hold priority within the scheme:

• The principle of regulation

• The sine qua non

• Superordinate rules

• Subordinate rules

• {Infinite Series} bound, unbound, indeterminate

• {Ground} not subjective, not objective

By convention, the derivatives are configured in accordance with the established rules of inference.

The upshot of the scheme is elaboration of a plan applicable to the entire edifice of derivation to a conclusion.

Successful execution of the scheme will, by design, entail the establishment of a foundational metaphysics of derivation to a conclusion.

This foundational algorithm will embody a logical imperative for all derivations to conclusion.

My principle interpretation of your essay says>examination of derivation-of-derivation means establishing continuity between phenomenal experience and first causes.

An example is Aristotle’s unmoved mover as the cause of all motion.

A close second to my principle interpretation of your essay says>analysis & derivation share important common ground to the effect that derivation is a type of analysis.

Let me assert a premise – All origins are paradoxes.

Your narrative ventures into paradox.

“1” and “1” are identical but not indiscernible. This implies that “1” simultaneously
is/is-not itself, a paradox.

You support the above with,

It must also be regarded, briefly, that law of noncontradiction can possibly be negated by the individual at hand by means of this principle of regulation and, therefore, the principle of regulation can be regarded as the most abstract form of the law of noncontradiction.

At this point, principle of regulation has expanded its scope to encompass the super-position of QM (in cognitive mode). Importantly, in so doing, it contradicts itself super-positionally.

Now your essay seems poised to utilize higher-order logic henceforth. However, instead of this, its progress appears to snag on some basic questions.

{Infinity} bound/unbound/indeterminate are solely objects of a priori cognition. As such, they exemplify ideals along the lines of Plato’s Ideal Forms. I question placement of ideal objects at the foundation of metaphysics as it is supposed to examine the real, not the ideal.

Maybe you can refute some implications of my following questions.

What’s the difference between a bounded finite & a bounded infinity? I ask this question because, at one point, you say,

“… the content of an indefinite could possibly have bounds (thereby be finite)…”

This statement declares that bounding entails being finite, so how bounded infinity?

You also say,

“Now, the bounded infinite noted before should be clarified as not pertaining to the content of the infinite but, rather, its form and, therefore, does not constitute as indefinite.”

Is content sans form intelligible? Is there a type of form that has no boundaries? What’s an example of boundaryless form? If there can a content without boundaries, how is it differentiable from other contents? How is a set composed of boundaryless contents intelligible as a set of discrete things?

The existence of a thing = all attributes of a thing, including its content & form. In separation from each other, content & form are unintelligible.

Can you visualize content that is discrete & perceivable and without form?

Can you visualize form that is composed of nothing?

Any intelligible description of infinite volume i.e., set of infinite volume>bounded infinity is merely reification to (asymptotic) sample as infinite is a cognitive abstraction that, when paired with a boundary, signifies a paradox> the limited limitless.

Consider the set of all natural numbers. Imagine the set is a bag & the natural numbers are colored balls being thrown into the bag. This can be but an asymptotic approach to bounded infinity, as any specifiable boundary cannot hold or bind an unspecifiably large volume.

First causes, I assert, possess transcendent boundaries, which is to say, non-local boundaries. As such, these boundaries of first causes require examination by higher-order analysis.

Metaphysics necessarily concerns itself with examination of the paradoxes of non-local boundaries.

If it’s true that all origins have paradoxical boundaries, which is to say, all origins have non-local boundaries, then derivation from origins (sin qua nons) is trans-logical, and thus epistemic, logical & ontological disciplines are only axiomatically justified by local origins (sin qua nons).

There is a gap separating local origins from analysis_derivation to phenomena. Theories that support analysis_derivation to phenomena must rest upon unanalyzable axioms.

Axioms are the metaphysical boundaries of 3-space phenomena.

If the above is true, then analysis, in the instance of derivation from non-local origins, must be higher-order analysis, which means a multi-dimensional matrix above our 3-space matrix. This higher-order matrix is the tesseract, a 4-space matrix + time.