You've lost me. I have no idea what it could mean for words to "have essences".

"Water" doesn't have one essential meaning , but various associated meanings according to what people use the word for.

Consider these:

" I had water on the knee" referring to some fluid not H2O

" I need to get the dirty water off my chest" referring to ? Mucous? A bad feeling?

Of course these usages are related to the usage of 'water' to refer to H2O. That's why Wittgenstein uses the notion of family resemblances. — Janus

Let's meet at the halfway point.

1. Words do possess essences. [traditional view]

2. Words can be assigned any set of essences. [meaning is use]

Stop flatulating to move the goal posts. We're discussing "truth" and "logic", not knowledge (i.e. epistemology). Oh yeah and "truthiness" (doxa or bias) too. — 180 Proof

:lol:

My question is simple:

Are there proof-independent qualities truth possesses?

If yes, we could find them and then use them as a criteria for discovering truths completely independent of arguments/proofs.

Epistemology is relevant because we're here talking about truths, its stock-in-trade.

right, yes, coincidental congruence, ...
A bit technical, though. :)
But 2 could fail on that. — jorndoe

Coincidence?! :chin:

That messes things up doesn't it? No good reason why we all arrived at the same conclusion in re moral codes - it was just a fluke!

Just a fluke? :point: Synchronicity

In Eastern philosophy causality incorporates chance.

There are no accidents. — Master Oogway

To Boldy Go
Where No Nonagenarian
Has Gone Before
(Stardate 12.10.21)

https://deadline.com/2021/10/william-shatner-terrified-space-trip-jeff-bezos-1234852430/ :monkey: — 180 Proof

:lol: What happened to all the talk about how astronauts have to be in peak physical & mental condition for spaceflights?

I think the biggest obstacle is the speed of light. — T Clark

I'm about 99.99% certain that there's a workaround for that problem. Hint: To change location from point A to point B, do we really have to literally traverse the distance AB?

And Larry Niven's Ringworld. — tim wood

:ok:

A fairly simple idea: how people use words shows their meanings. — Janus

It isn't as simple as that. The claim meaning is use is ambiguous. As far as I can tell, Wittgenstein made that declaration as a refutation of the idea that words have an essence.

My problem is if words do possess an essence, we still use words - to stand for, to refer to that essence. Wittgenstein doesn't clarify how the word "use" in his claim that meaning is use differs from the word "use" in I'm now going to use the word "water" for that clear liquid that we drink, cook with, wash with, put out fires with. Notice how there's an essence to the word "water" in the latter (bolded) and yet I still use the word "water"

Actually, I'm asking you to think smaller, not bigger. I'm not even challenging conventional wisdom about how reason works. Merely that there is a limit. That limit is that the infinitesimal cannot be deemed negligible without cost. That cost is the synthetic term. Everything. All that meaning is. If we must start with the familiar to find the stranger, in ourselves and each other, but require complete conservation of all terms relevant to a rational progression, then ignorance is enforce upon us. But if estrangement from that continuity of terms is the most rigorous product of that commitment to it, then we can only meet ourselves and each other as that estrangement. That is, the change in ourselves we each bring to the moment of that estrangement of the continuity if terms is met as a contrariety as much to that continuity as to each other. We make ourselves a community in contrariety to conventional terms is a character of change that itself has no term that can ever become convention, but is symmetrically opposed between us. That symmetry would, and in some ways does, become itself a kind of edifice of conventional terms, but is thwarted by the simple case that any continued exchanges are not only already modified by the moment we share, in the character of that community we make ourselves there, but, so altered from the body of terms antecedent to it, and so disparate in the character each of us is in it, that the moment of estrangement that then ensues cannot be symmetrically related to its antecedent. The stranger does not augment mechanically, but grows organically. Each moment as unprecedented as bewilderment always is, but each moment more contrary to the limit of reason than to who we are together at that limit. But if you have not a clue what this means, I don't see how you can expect me to supply all of them. And, as you might say, I am without a clue too. Yes, we do need to suppose our terms are synchronized some to begin to speak, but to limit ourselves to that throws out the project of speech wholesale.

How small a thing is it that we differ? How small a thing can we afford to make it before silence does prevail? If the smallest thing of all, the tiniest difference we can possibly hope to neglect at the end of rigor, is all the differing we are capable of articulating fully and competently, then it damn well behooves us to relish the moment of it, for the rest is babble. Only as that moment do we recognize ourselves and each other. And, of that moment, do we only recognize ourselves through each other, as the symmetry of difference each is there to the garbage we always carry with us to discourse.

Time is the characterology of change. All ideas devolve from the drama of this. But there is no language, nor any term in any language, that can bring us as near that characterology as the moment of estrangement, from the terms of enduring time language always is, that we share as we vie with each other not to differ from the terms we feel we must continually and without beginning be familiar with. And so, we diminish the stranger to a limited term, but ultimately find the stranger is always who we really are. And the least term of that estrangement is always more comprehensive, and comprehensively real, than the limiting of it. Ideas are not structural units than can be assembled into edifices of 'justified' ignorance and run through mechanistic rituals of induction. We can and do rely on an ability to do this, but ignore the wilderness as the final and least term of that ignorance at our peril. The peril not only of losing our way ahead, but of losing the meaning of our origin. But if you attribute some vague sweeping intent on my part you're not paying attention. Nothing could be more precisely delineated than that moment where bewilderment is proved our differing with each other more united us than any supposed synchrony of terms. Of that moment we each recognize the worth each brings to the differing of all terms that, structurally, enforce ignorance and neglect of that worth. If for you language is a construct you really are bereft of clues. The worth of human effort in all this is the whole story. That effort is not a term at all. There is no clue I can give you. — Gary M Washburn

You've changed your tune I see. :up:

So how can we tell whether or not they have truthiness? — Amalac

That, my friend, is the right question. — Dr. Lanning (I Robot)

My mind draws a blank except for the widely held belief that truth has an aesthetic quality and elegance to it that would put women to shame.

Why does e to the i π + 1= 0 have truthiness, but not e to the i Φ + 1 = 0 ? — Amalac

Euler's identity is a classic example. I mentioned it because unlike other formulae, its status insofar as truthiness is concerned, is not so controversial to mess up my thesis.

I have only given "good reasons" that show your claims are false. — 180 Proof

Yes, proving my point that epistemology is under the sway of rationality (proof/evidence/logic). Could you, surely something a man as erudite as you can do, be a tad bit poetic and tell me, as rudely as you can but...in the most eloquent way too that...I'm talking, as you once said, out of my bung hole. :grin:

I bet you would say the same thing if the golden ratio, or any other important mathematical constant, was there instead of pi, and didn’t already know Euler’s identity is true. — Amalac

Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Having only caught but a glimpse of that side - its innate beauty - I'm not in a position to state anything definitive. The OP was meant to be exploratory - could truths have qualities besides logic that make them true? As far as I could tell, beauty & elegance seem worthy candidates. So, if a proposition P is aesthetically pleasing and graceful in form, it possesses truthiness and will be declared true sans proof/evidence.

So a good person is one who is dogmatic and guided by blind faith? — Amalac

Truthiness is not fideistic. The objective is to come up with criteria for truthiness that make sense.

Does it not occur to them that at least some of their moral laws might be flawed? — Amalac

Those propositions that are mistakes will lack truthiness.

The first virus discovered was the Tobacco Mosaic Virus. Both tobacco (inhaled form - cigarettes, cigars) and pandemic-causing viruses (influenza & COVID-19) attack the respiratory system (lungs). Non-smokers, especially hardcore anti-smoking folks, are put off, even disgusted to the point of retching and vomiting, by the smell of burning tobacco (death sticks) and one of the symptoms of COVID-19 is anosmia (nose malfunction). Coincidence?! :chin:

Does the coronavirus want us to smoke and tolerate smokers?

I think it follows that if God is not anything then God is nothing, to put it slightly differently if God is not any thing then God is no thing. Of course that just means God is not a thing, so then the thing is, what is a thing? But then maybe God is a thing; maybe God is a feeling. If you have a feeling, is that, or is that not, a thing? You know the colloquialism as expressed in examples like "Wearing red, is that a thing?". Meaning is given by use, right? — Janus

No! Your post is wrong from beginning to end! :grin: I've been wanting to say that for ages. I picked it up from a book, forgot the title, just a coupla weeks ago (ages? go figure!)

Apophasis, at the end of the day, is simply denial on steroids. Nothing you say about what it is you want to say something about is right! The idea, it appears, is to end the discussion before it even starts. :chin: Talking but actually not talking.

As for meaning is use, I haven't really grasped what it is Wittgenstein wanted to convey.

But to know what isn't in the texts, one has to read them first. — baker

Sure. And again: To know what isn't in the texts, one has to read them first. — baker

You're right. To know what is not asserted (in documents), I have to know what is asserted (in the documents).

What I meant to point out was the argument from silence itself contains no premises that are taken from the source documents (Pali Canon in our case).

Anything for a cute tidbit, eh! — baker

Just thought it might come in handy for you some day.

Those who have actually studied at least some of the Pali Canon have some knowledge about which inferences are warranted or likely warranted, and which are not. — baker

Of course, but argumentum ex silentio is made on the basis of what isn't in canonical texts. That's the whole point.

One learns this from studying many suttas and learning how they are interconnected, how one sutta can provide the context of or further detail for another sutta. — baker

I don't doubt the profundity of the truths in Buddhist suttas. All I'm saying is that what I mentioned earlier - drawing conclusions from what was said and unsaid by the Buddha - is a perfectly legitimate hermeneutic technique.

Those who have not studied the suttas simply don't have this knowledge. Some of those people instead have vivid imaginations and they rather invent things and make their own extrapolations from the little they do know. — baker

Argumentum ex silentio is based on what isn't in scriptures (documents) - consulting them would be pointless.

Nobody is disputing their freedom to do so. It's just that what they're doing has no bearing on Buddhist doctrine. — baker

Why not? Arguments from silence are based off of what's missing in documents, in our case suttas, that are Buddhist in nature, philosophically speaking.

By the way, the previous post wasn't meant as a challenge; rather I felt you might find the concept of argumentum ex silentio interesting, you know, a cute tidbit of sorts.

@baker

Monks, these two slander the Tathagata. Which two? He who explains what was not said or spoken by the Tathagata as said or spoken by the Tathagata. And he who explains what was said or spoken by the Tathagata as not said or spoken by the Tathagata. These are two who slander the Tathagata."

Thought you might find this :point: Argument From Silence (argumentum ex silentio) interesting.

[Argument from silence is] To make an argument from silence (Latin: argumentum ex silentio) is to express a conclusion that is based on the absence of statements in historical documents, rather than their presence. — Wikipedia

All I can say is that my intuition tells me not to accept Morgan Luck's argument that if virtual murder is not a problem (it isn't), virtual pedophilia should be a non-issue. It makes sense of course by virtue of the argument from parturition (sorry I'm bad at coining phrases) which is that if the head of the baby fits the birth canal, the rest of the body will too [if the worst offense - (virtual) murder- is permitted, so is a lesser offense - (virtual ) pedophilia]. The argument would work too if, in terms of gravity of the offense, (virtual) murder = (virtual) pedophilia. I dunno!

Sure I can, because it is not, Fool. Proof only obtains in logic or mathematics. Empirical claims, for instance, only require corroborative evidence (so logic is not "a prerequisite' :roll:) and/or sound inferences. I exist – no argument is required, but nothing expressed by that proposition is in question. And a tautology are necessarily true without argument — 180 Proof

Logic is absolutely necessary to establish truth, at least under the current epistemological paradigm - rationality. How could you object to that? Unless of course you have good reasons to do so. See?

Well, I'm an immanentist (re: Spinoza, Zapffe, Camus, Rosset ... ) :death: :flower: — 180 Proof

:up: This reminds me of a frequently asked question regarding the US space program: Why put so much into space exploration when all that money could be used to solve more earthly, more presssing, problems?

Neil deGrasse Tyson's response (paraphrasing): We spend more money on lip balm than we do on NASA.

There can be nothing wrong with it because there is nothing to it. QED — Janus

Well, apophatically, God is not anything so, is God nothing? You know the answer to that question.

More to the point, it's the problem of objectification which is the major issue. Through the sensory abilities, we know about things that exist as objects for us. And that 'objective field' includes - well, pretty well everything that we can conceive of, from the sub-atomic to the galactic. If it's not part of that field, then it must, the reasoning goes, be 'in here' - an artefact of thought.

As if the two domains are totally separable. — Wayfarer

Indeed. The traditional division of reality into physical and mental, however they may be related, is inadequate, apophatically speaking. For sure God is not physical but then is God mental (nonphysical)? No, not even nonphysical (mental).

Truth =/= proof. "Truthiness" is, at best, redundant – merely an avowal or disposition, expectation or bias, or ... and not, in any non-subjective, corroborated, way, true. — 180 Proof

Of course $truth \neq proof$ but you can't deny that proof is a necessary and sufficient condition for the truth of claims; another way of saying that is logic (argumentation) is key to, a prerequisite for, the veracity of a proposition.

What I want to know is whether there are other non-logical determinants of truth? In other words can I formulate a proof-independent set of criteria to establish the truth of a claim, one that does not require me to use deduction/induction/abduction? I provided two candidate conditions (beauty and elegance) that could help us in deciding whether a proposition is a truth. While I must admit that some logic is involved - checking whether a proposition satisfies the criteria set down - it's not the same as inferring to the proposition (the conclusion) from some premises.

An example should help illustrate my point:

Logic mode
1.IF P THEN Q
2. P
Ergo,
3. Q [1, 2 Modus Ponens]

Truthiness mode
1. Truth has the qualities w, x, y [proof is not included among these qualities]
2. Q has the qualities w, x, y
Ergo,
3. Q [1, 2]

I'm anti-labor (servile drudgery) because I'm pro-work (applied creativity). We thrive from the latter and merely survive by the former. Homeostasis, more more than class, is the "forced choice". A socioeconomy which consists of only labor for the vast majority of people and work for relatively few (e.g. Capitalism in all of its stages) is structurally exploitative (reductively brutalizing) and unjust (totalitarian). This is a historical / political condition, however, not an ineluctable existential fact. — 180 Proof

:fire:

$Bare Necessities \rightarrow [...] \rightarrow Self \mbox{-} actualization \rightarrow Transcendence$

Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs

Amazing. If mathematical life were only so simple. :roll: — jgill

Why not? We could, if we ever discover those proof-independent qualities of truth, we could skip all the tedious logical deductions (burden of proof) and, you know, cut to the chase.

Then the question becomes "Is God" and the answer is "No" or "God is...not". Or if you are a fan of dialetheism, the answers to the question would be "Neither yes nor no" and/or "both yes and no", and then " Both "Neither yes nor no" and "Both yes and no" and neither ""Neither yes nor no" nor "Both yes and no"". And then...see where this is going? Where does this leave us...and God?

Is Apo phat or phin or in crisis? — Janus

There really is no problem with the apophatic technique if you will allow me to call it such. Nagarjuna's tetralemma comes to mind.

If you fail to explain the connection you think you see. or address the difference I noted, in a convincing way, it isn't my fault is it?

Edit: I apologize, I misread you. I thought you were saying something else: and I think see what you were getting at now — Janus

The immaterial is the first step - one answers the question, "is God material?" with a no!. The next question, naturally, is "is God immaterial?' and the answer to that is also no! We're now in apophatic theological territory.

Making-shit-up-iness is a perfect synonym — 180 Proof

That's being just dismissive of the idea (the good kinda truthiness) I want to discuss.

The usual way things are done, propositions/claims are held/deemed to be true, is by proving them, using arguments. That's the philosophical way of handling assertions of all kinds.

What I want to know is whether truth itself has certain proof-independent, non-argumentative qualities that can be utilized to identify them. Speaking for myself, some such properties of truth are:

1. Beauty (you get a reading on your beauty-meter)
2. Elegance (they are graceful in form)

So, if I see a claim e.g. festina lente (make haste slowly), I don't feel the need for a proof for why this is true. It just feels right, it makes sense despite no evidence being offered. There's a truthiness to it that's got nothing to do with logic.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty. - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. — John Keats

Even those uber-altruists might be driven by a sense of moral superiority they get from helping other. :) But still we are talking about the majority of people. ) — stoicHoneyBadger

I dunno! Your guess is as good as mine. :smile:

people always act in their own interest. — stoicHoneyBadger

It's NOT a joke!

How can I help you if I myself need help? Be reasonable peeps. Self & not-self (other) feels (more) natural, easier on our intutions, compared to other and not-other (self).

That said, I can't rule out über-altruistic nutcases who break the beautiful pattern of selfishness and, thereby, mess up our calculations.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. — Oscar Levant

Wisdom Of The Fool

You're equivocating. To say that C is black and circular is to say that C has the colour-property black and the shape-property circle. Colour properties cannot have shape-properties (as per 2), but objects can have both shape- and colour-properties. — Michael

I thought so too. Thanks for noticing my error.

Is this meant dismissively? You seem to think language is a one-way street. It's not the content of our assertions that engenders meaning, it is the drama that ensues that alters our terms. If that alteration is the product of a rigorous process meant to conserve our terms, then the generated change cannot be less rigorous than the attempt at conservation of terms. And if the exchange is reciprocal the change is more shared between interlocutors than the original terms of assertion are the property of each alone. That is, we cannot know what we are saying until we know each other. The meaning of terms is intimated, not explicated — Gary M Washburn

Not so, It was a compliment. You wrote, how many now?, at a minimum 5 medium-length paragraphs and yet you were like a chopper - hovering over important issues in language but never really touching down. It's quite impossible to deduce what it is exactly that you wish to convey. Perhaps you need to be more specific or maybe fix some points of reference that others like me (novice here) would be familiar with before you bring up esoteric concepts in language. I dunno!

Something is true when it is the state-of-affairs. When we find the cat is on the mat, we aren’t satisfying definitions, it is simply the case that the cat is on the mat. Part of what this post is about is highlighting the equivocation between true by virtue of state of affairs and true by virtue of definition (but entirely avoiding the analytic/synthetic framework). Maybe we can refer to this version of truth as “rTrue” (for realist truth). — Ennui Elucidator

You claim that a proposition is true when it is a "state of affairs". What exactly do you mean by that? I ask because you seem to be implying there's no logic involved in such truths. The only variety of truths I know of that require no arguments for their veracity are so-called self-evident propositions.

Come now to self-evident propositions. Let's take your "cat on the mat" example. You claim that this (the cat is on the mat) is a state of affairs deal. I'll give you that but you have to admit that "the cat is on the mat" can be true only if that sentence is semantically loaded. That's not all, the meanings (of the words) come togther to give the meaning of the sentence and that I believe is an inference (logic).

I believe language applies to complex forms of communication that use words, syntax and are able to express the most abstract thoughts. — Vince

Gestures can have syntax: :yawn: :point: TheMadFool

I'm probably off the mark but natural languages seem to possess flexible syntax which, if we think about it, is synonymous with no syntax (poetry).

Abstract thought? :chin: You know how it's possible to use a smartphone even if you have zero knowledge about the inner workings and complexities of one. Language maybe similar. We rely on abstractions to render the sentence, "this car is worth the money" but it (the sentence) itself seems to be concrete.

Here's an abstraction for you: a # b = (a × b) + a
Here's the concrete instance: 1 # 2 = (1 × 2) + 1 = 3

In other words, abstraction seems to be simply a step we have to make, grudgingly, to get our hands on the prize (the concrete).

Khaby Lame seems to have intuited that language (abstraction or no abstraction) just wasn't going to cut it. The problem is probably not in the abstractions themselves but with language - words are arbitrary in that there really is no logical necessity e.g. there exists no reason why the clear, cool liquid we drink, use to cook, and bathe in should be called "water".

Given this is so, interstellar communication with aliens can only be about aspectsof reality that's universal or common to all life all over the universe (math? physics? chemistry?). This so that the language can decoded to get to the message.

1. if you're incapable of passing moral judgment on the Quran, then you're not an autonomous moral agent
2. if you can pass moral judgment on the Quran, then the Quran cannot be the definition of morals
3. therefore, you're not an autonomous moral agent, or the Quran cannot be the definition of morals — jorndoe

Proposition 2 is not necessarily true. What if your (autonomous moral agent) moral judgments are exactly congruent (letter for letter, word for word) with the Quran? I believe this - two people arriving at the same conclusion - happens quite often, not as often as we'd like but it does happen.

Nevertheless, there's something, how shall I put it?, unfree, restrictive, coercive, forced about convergence of all kinds, including, in our case, the concordance of moral truths. It's as if we don't have a choice. Remember that freedom can be viewed as an ability to diverge given a decision node consisting of multiple choices.

In the Philebus, Plato raises the problem of the “indeterminate dyad” . The limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron) is, as Aristotle called it, an indeterminate dyad.

These dyads include:

Limited and Unlimited

Same and Other

One and Many

Rest and Change

Eternity and Time

Good and Bad

Thinking and Being

Being and Non-being — Fooloso4

At first glance, prima facie, I thought dyads were opposites (one and many, same and other, good and bad, being and non-being, limited and unlimited) and then these (thinking and being, rest and change, eternity and time) come along to disrupt the yin-yang pattern unless...thinking is non-being or being is unthinking and change is regarded as motion and eternity is timelessness.

Raises some interesting possibilities:

1. Thinking = Non-being & Being = Unthinking.

Cogito ergo sum [I think. Therefore, I am (being)] — René Descartes

2. Is change = motion? There seems to be something fundamental about movement. Is it the examplar of change or does it carry a deeper meaning in that all change is motion?

3. Eternity = Timelessness. In a sense, yes; after all, if something is eternal, time is meaningless for that thing. To live forever is to, in a sense, be outside of time.

Indeed the whole defies predication (is indeterminate) for it is, as an example, both "this and not this" and on pain of contradiction, necessarily that we must divvy up the whole into parts but then we're no longer talking about the whole.

:joke:

1. Either the cat is on the mat or the cat is in the tree.

2. The cat is not in the tree.

Ergo,

3. The cat is on the mat. [1, 2 Disjunctive Syllogism]

The statement "the cat is on the mat" is logically true i.e. it's an inference.

The statement "the cat is on the mat" is definitionally true by virtue of the meanings of the words in the statement. This too requires logic i.e. it's an inference.

See anything relevant?

Do you "feel" that the "two are related" or think it? :wink: The difference with Cantor's idea that infinities can be larger or smaller is this can be shown logically, so I don't think the analogy is really appropriate — Janus

Well, if you fail to see the connection it isn't my fault is it?

If we think of God in apophatic terms as being nothing we can think of, then it follows that we cannot think of God even as being, since being is something we can think of. The same goes for the idea that God does not exist, but is real; that claim, when I think about it, makes no sense. What is the sense in saying that something is real and yet non-existent? — Janus

And thus :point:

I'm not convinced that the idea of an immaterial being seems outlandish at all to many or most of those who haven't thought about it much (which is not say I think it necessarily should seem outlandish to have thought about it a lot)..

Naively, many of us seem to imagine ourselves as immaterial beings who "have" or "inhabit" the body.
— Janus

The immaterial, speculatively is perfectly normal of course but once you try to prove it, you begin to realize how crazy the idea is. — TheMadFool

To imagine the immaterial is nearly as nonsensical (to you) as to conceive of the inconceivable and I feel the two are related, like Cantor's infinities, one bigger than the other.

I said "form of communication" because body language is not technically a language, and "universal" was meant to apply to known life forms. — Vince

Why? What is the definition of language?

I just learned a word, kinesics, "the interpretation of body motion communication such as facial expressions and gestures, nonverbal behavior related to movement of any part of the body or the body as a whole. The equivalent popular culture term is body language", according to Wikipedia — Vince

:ok: Khaby Lame uses gestures as I made a point of mentioning. He says that he wants to reach out to as many people as possible and that meant, for him, he was not to utter a single word. Why?

I like to expand the definition of body language beyond visual cues. Bodies can communicate information with sounds, whether they're simple or complex. There's also olfactive communication, and ultimately physical contact.
So if you have troubles telling an alien you mean business, just kick him in the butt, once you've found it. — Vince

Yes, there are many kinds of communication. The question is how does Khaby Lame's tactic/strategy fit in with your observation?

The problem I see with saying that God is not anything you can think of, is that it follows that God is therefore...not anything. — Janus

How? A well-crafted argument would go a long way towards making your case. Remember there are two points to consider: relative limit (what we can say/think) and absolute limit (what can be said/thought).

We can think that there's an x that we can't think of but that doesn't mean we can think of x.

SETI

Voyager Golden Record

Arecibo Message

Earth's Radio Bubble

Silence: No one is broadcasting OR everyone is broadcasting SILENCE.

If the former, we maybe alone or aliens are technologically backward or aliens are using a different form of communication or...

If the latter, math is probably not the right choice, as a language, to communicate in i.e. math maybe a very primitive way of looking at the world.

How can we tell the difference between meaningless silence and meaningful silence?

I don't hear words but I see a lot of body language, which I believe to be a universal form of communication. Human bodies speak volumes, and unlike their owners, they're usually very truthful. — Vince

The type of gesture came by chance, but the silence didn't. I thought of a way to reach as many people as possible. And the best way was not to speak. — Khaby Lame

What kinda gestures are aliens making across intergalactic space? Are gestures themselves of limited utility given how alien biology may differ from our own? How can life perform a gesture that betrays its existence?