What does it mean to be real?

Aren't these qualities dependent on you, and what the ice cream cone is in it self quite different. — Cavacava

What the ice cream cone is in itself is an incoherent concept.

The thread is about the last word here, on this thread. Not the last word at the end of the world or even your life. — Sir2u

This is what you want the last word at the end of the world to be? And not me either, but I'm talking about that last word, but now this, now this. Aaaahhh!

I was at a party and someone said shit to my bitch, and I was like wuuut no you diii-uuu, and just as I showed him my sharpened penis that I had to a fine point from rubbing it along the concrete, dude pulls out a gun, jams the shit in my ear (deep in the aural canal near the cochlear and shit), and I'm twisting like a mother fucker trying to prick him with my pokey pecker. He squeezes off a round and my brain goes spraying on the stainless steel refrigerator (Whirlpool 800987 with water and ice dispenser) like a spray of glass cleaner.

I'm just saying I've had a hard day, so let me at least get the big piece of chicken. I mean God damn. At least that.

My point: If fate should have it that you will be the chosen soul to have the last word, don't strive for profound or even loving, but instead for the most divine of all traits. Creativity. The first thing God did was create, after all. Make it your last.

I have been able to build a gun entirely out of rawhide. It shoots frozen marrow pellets. Not only am I able to get it through the metal detector, my puppy Fred Barkowitz will destroy the evidence for me. Even if he doesn't eat the whole thing, no investigator is going to pick up a slimy chewed rawhide. That's way nasty.

If you grew up where I did (I lived under a dumpster where grey dumpster stew would pour into my mouth), you'd understand why I needed a rawhide gun in the airport. I used to fight the rats for food back then, but we fought with our words, not our fists, because we weren't philistines.

One thing we'd calmly discuss back then is what the fuck that last sentence is doing in this already fucked up post. This level of post unpredictabilty further proves the lunacy of climate change (as if we know which way the next poetic wind will blow). Proof of point: I'm standing on my head next time the Pope hands out his crackers at a football game. That'll stop the molestation.

Take everything in your head, stir it up, and piss it out your mouth I always say. Always.

Our understanding nature is not the same as nature, — Cavacava

Our understanding of nature is indistinguishable from nature.

One of my favorite experiences is to walk outside when the weather is really cold - low single digits or below 0 F. The air is very dry and has a bright look and sound to it. The sound of a jet flying 30,000 feet overhead is sharp and brittle. One of the things that makes me think climate change is real is the rarity of these types of days compared to the 1970s and 1980s. — T Clark

The average temperature change since the 70s is less than 1 degree Fahrenheit. So now when you bake in the 1 degree winter heat, you can reminisce about the frigid 0 degree winters of your youth.

If I say "yes" (to seeking a just punishment) all the criminals in the world will think they're justified in punishing their victims, because their punishment is just (in their minds) - hence more violence. — Agustino

Most justice systems (Western ones to be sure) place little to no authority on the victim to seek punishment. The authority of the prosecution rests with the state, not the victim. Any person personally or emotionally affected would be disqualified from dispensing justice.

The point being that forgiveness and punishment rest in different people's hands, meaning you can openly forgive your oppressor for whatever reason you want, but the District Attorney won't care.

Additionally, the violence exacted by the state as punishment on the victim typically leads to the suppression of additional violence because when a community believes the punishment is fair, they respect the outcome as opposed to rebelling against it. Otherwise, you'd have the absurd conclusion that the eradication of societal violence would be achieved by the release of our most violent criminals.

I'd also point out that just like the state monopolizes the power of punishment, the victim ought monopolize the power of forgiveness, meaning no one can forgive you for your sins against me other than me. That's at least the rule in Judaism, and I suspect it's the rule of other systems as well.

I agree. The moon landing was a giant step for mankind.

I found this article from 1899 that addresses your question. I didn't read it. I just wished to show my Google mastery. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27699089

A different view of forgiveness:

"ONE year ago today, a shooter entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa., dismissed all but 10 girls, and fired at them execution-style, killing five before shooting himself.

Within hours, the Amish community forgave the killer and his family. "

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/2007/1002/p09s02-coop.html

Something truly inspiring really.

Have I forgiven her because of my own experiences that enabled me to understand her better or have I forgiven her because she acknowledged her wrongdoing? — TimeLine

Those things and because you love her.

That's simply reifying ape behaviour into a concept. — Banno

And we reify the abstract behaviors of a wrench into the concrete term "wrench." Such is the purpose of language. The questions are: (1) did the wrench preexist the "wrench," and (2) is the ape's knowledge of the wrench of a different type (as opposed to degree) than the person's?

I've never understood how #1 couldn't be answered in the affirmative, but that's your thesis.

Regarding #2, you would hold that a languageless mechanical savant, gifted in nothing but the ability to repair all that is broken, who is a maestro with everything wrench like, knows less of the wrench in his hand than a helpless child who is simply able to recite the word "wrench" when his father holds various wrenches in front of him?

What does our child know of the wrench in our savant's hand than does of our savant other than that wrenches have names?

Show that one can use a spanner and an adjustable wrench and a pipe wrench does not tell us how each of these is related in such a way that the one word can be applied to all. That requires language. — Banno

You're just making up distinctions. An ape gets hungry and seeks food. It has a concept of food without a word for food and understands a similarity between bananas and berries in that both satisfy hunger. In fact, to understand that one banana is similar to another banana is to understand a relation between two distinct objects. The ape gets sick from eating a mushroom, so he eats no more mushrooms. Such requires appreciating mushroomness, the abstract notion of mushrooms, yet all without language.

Hanover seems to think that an ape that uses a wrench to fix a leaking pipe knows what a wrench is. — Banno

You seem to think that you know what a wrench is. An ape knows it knocks bananas out of trees. You know it tightens the nut on your drawer handle. A mechanic knows how it replaces an alternator. Perhaps an engineer knows something about the wrench I know nothing about. Either we say that unless you know everything about wrenches then you now nothing about wrenches, or we say if you know something about wrenches, then you know, in part, what wrenches are.

Do you know more about wrenches than an ape? Sure. Is part of your superior knowledge the result of the knowledge expanding power of language? Of course. Does this mean that knowledge of the wrench is dependent on language? Of course not.

It's all a matter of degree.

Yeah, you're supposed to say, "what's updog?" to which I say, "not much dog, how bout you?"

Play along!

Have any of you ever seen updog?

"I want to fuck you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to fuck you like an animal
my whole existence is flawed"

9 Inch Nails

Humor, not humour.

Pertaining to this:

In my opinion I would rather have a post of mine deleted than changed. If you don't like what I write, delete me or ban me. But don't change my words. The original title was perfectly clear and refers to a quote of Einstein. And the moderators of this site are clearly no Einsteins. — fishfry

I'll weigh in because I'm an expert in all that is American. So you know, when this issue first arose, I posted in the mod section that I thought the dustup between Fishfry and Sap was unnecessarily combative, and I thought Sap was being testy. (Yes, we bitch at each other). It's clear now there was a significant miscommunication. I like Fishfry didn't get it.

I don't know if it has to do with grammar as much as American bravado or defiance, but it's not to be taken literally. It simply seeks to emphasize how important it is to Fishfry that you not fuck with his posts. As in "Coach, play me or trade me." If the Coach said, "I'll neither play you nor trade you except as I see fit," the player would think, "Why is this peckerhead ignoring my plea [ yes, definitely a plea, not a directive] to get some playtime."

When Sap took it literally and said (as I took it), "Don't tell me what to do; I'll change shit as I see fit because you're like everyone else," I thought "Damn, who pissed in Sap's Cheerios this morning?" I truly did. I'm now relieved to learn though that Sap and Baden are rational and tempered, despite their functional illiteracy.

Carry on - as you guys say.

The days of sneaking away someone's dad's Playboy seem like such innocent times compared to today's internet. Whatever damage he did by publishing his R rated pictures is unrecognizable by the damage done by the porn now openly available.

Surely. Don't you?

Perhaps you could distinguish red from other colours before you learned the word. More likely you learned the word and the colour at the same time as you were encouraged to pick up the red block. — Banno

And how important is this empirical point to your general language theory? If I could know red prior to language, does your whole philosophy unravel? I'm just asking because you seem to hinge a tremendous amount on some sociological language learning theory studies that are ambiguous at best. My cat Gumbo greets Ginger, her lifelong dog friend, but hisses at Fred Barkowitz, the new puppy invading her home. How is it that Gumbo can distinguish Ginger from Fred without language but Hanover the toddler couldn't even tell red from the midnight sky?

Is that just "knowing that..." against "knowing how..."? If so, my point is that this does not go far enough. "Knowing that..." is a form of "knowing how..."; knowing that the cup is red is just knowing how to distinguish that cup from other cups. Knowing that something is the case is just knowing how to use words correctly. — Banno

I did already take your position as you have clarified here, which is that you're not just claiming that I might know how to fix broken pipe without language, but that I can't even tell a pipe from a wrench without language.

Would you be conformable with saying that this synthetic (bottom-up obtained) and analytic (in cog.sci . terms: top-down attained, i.e. (genotypically) predetermined toward learned) conflux of meaning can be inherited in all things that can perceive?

For my part, I’m accustomed to using other terms to express such behavioral inheritance of meaning. But I’m curious to know how one would address this same form of inheritance of meaning(s) in lesser animals via formal epistemological philosophy—this such as via the synthetic / analytic distinction. — javra

I'm told monkeys are born with a fear of heights and snakes, and I can say that my sheepdog has a herding instinct that I certainly never taught him. This goes along with your goose example.

My use of the synthetic/analytic language comes from my recent re-reading of Quine, who argued the non-existence of the distinction. It dawned on me that there is a distinction between observing the world and performing logic on the world, but the two are always intertwined. I cannot just look at an object without imposing my sense of reason on it. That's what knowledge is. I think animals do that as well, and I don't think it's really significant whether the reasoning ability has developed over time and was learned or whether it comes hard wired. In either event we see the world and we impose the reasoning of our mind onto it, and sometimes that includes using language and sometimes it doesn't.

He said that one could distinguish between two colors but not know that one was red. I still don't know what that means. He's saying I can know that I have two distinct colors, but I don't know that one is different than the other. Had he said one could distinguish between two colors and not know that one was "red," then I'd understand it to mean the person just didn't know how to correlate his sensation to language.

You changed the example to be that I could know that two people were standing side by side but not know they were husband and wife. Obviously I can know some things about an object but not others. I could know that my computer has a USB port but not a CD drive. I could also know that two objects are husband and wife but not know they were people. I could also know they were husband and wife and not know they were standing side by side. I could also see something and not know that there were two of them. My question still being why are there some things I can know without language (like that there are two people standing there), but there are others that require language (like they're husband and wife).

If the words in a given sequence of words are intelligible - understandable – how do you get past that to something else and preserve the qualification?" — tim wood

Those who hold the bible is the word of God believe every word is impregnated with divine meaning and would therefore demand scholarly interpretation of every passage, with recognition their interpretation may be flawed. Such traditions often rely upon sages or particularly learned people for biblical interpretation.

My turn. No song memories, but you made me reminisce, and so here it is. I suppose this explains me as good as anything...

I remember the long hot Georgia summers where you never wore shoes and you wandered off into the woods to the creek and looked for elusive crawdads, coming home for supper ("dinner" was the big meal mid day on Sunday) only when the street lights came on. Lightening bugs never lost their entertainment value. You wore Tough Skins from Sears Roebuck all with orange knees from the red Georgia clay.

The best spot at Grandmama's house (which was even farther south) was next to the blowing AC window unit. If the heat didn't keep you awake at night, the clatter of the crickets would.

Every man was a sir and every woman a m'am, no matter their standing. You stood for the national anthem, you bowed your head for the prayer, and closed your eyes as tight as you could. You never told on anyone, and you hit back hard. Dads told you to be honest and work hard and moms always reminded you to "be sweet," because you often weren't.

As I get older I convince myself my memories are all real. I think some really are. I suppose every generation laments the loss of their world.

It seems fitting these posts are found in the Last Word thread.

If you mean it is not the word of God, then either that is your opinion (that I share), or you can prove it. If the latter, please do so. — tim wood

See, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis.

The OT is a combination of a number of writings that were written over many years.

By way of example, there are two entirely seperate Noah stories strewn contradictorily together in Genesis, providing proof these were two works pieced together by an editor. http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/torah/flood.html

I assume he meant it in the sense that I can distinguish one person from another but not know that one of them was your wife. — Michael

I don't follow this distinction. If you can distinguish one person from the other, you must have an unspoken definition of person. The only distinction between the definition of person and wife is that the latter is more complex. Are you committing to some arbitrary delineation between simple and complex definitions? What is it?

It strikes me as possible for a dog to recognize a wife, especially one that has interacted with enough human couples to where the dog might fully expect a swat from a particular man if he nips at a particular woman. In fact, adult cats don't interact with other's kittens because they understand what a mother is (and how she acts).

I'd go further and suggest that all objects of perception contain indistiguishable elements of the synthetic and analytic. A bird flying overhead synthetically is some amount of raw data, but reason imposes so much upon it, one can never know what that raw data is. Analytically, we add our defintions to it, so that it is expected to act a certain way, from flapping its wings to being a predator.

How we analyze is in part instinctual, and, as we are a higher organism, in part deliberate. Our perhaps best tool for analysis is language, but that's all it is - a tool. This leads to an indirect realist metaphysic, simply saying we know our world only through interpretation, some being the way the eye works, some the brain, and some language.

I don't see that as supportive of the idea that language is the primary determinant of knowledge, but only that culture, environment, language, and I'm sure a multitude of other factors play a role in shaping one's understanding of the world. It's not as if animals, devoid of all language, are unable to form a conception of reality. I'd expect that monkeys from Asia have differing perspectives of similar events than do monkeys from Africa, simply due to the environmental differences. I also think it's obvious that any sort of formalized thought about ordinary events will result in a deeper understanding of those events, meaning that if I study colors (which includes reducing my thoughts to language), I will be more knowledgeable about the different types of colors than someone who doesn't.

I'd say you could distinguish one colour from another, but still did not know that one of them was red." — Banno

I note that "red" isn't in quotes. What does this comment even mean? I could distinguish red from green, but not know they were different?

Here I suspect we meet an impasse. I'd say you could distinguish one colour from another, but still did not know that one of them was red. Witness the Greek's "bronze sky", and the Himba seeing different colours to you or I. Language crystallises perception. — Banno

This really makes no sense. Are you suggesting that the Himba fail to see the full array of colors that you do because they live in a language deficient environment? That seems hopelessly backwards. The reason the Himba fail to see the full array of colors you do is because they live in a color deficient environment, and since they can't see those colors, they never created words for them. It's not like the Himba are just particularly bad wordsmiths when it comes to labeling colors, and now the Himba can't see colors everyone else can.

I'll certainly admit that pointing things out, discussing them, analyzing them, and thinking about them clarifies them and brings forth knowledge you would have never otherwise known. So if that's what you mean by "language crystalizes perception," I agree. Thought increases our knowledge, thought occurs with language; therefore language increases knowledge. So sometimes language precedes knowledge, sometimes not.

To the real question here, are you actually asserting that your language theory is an empirical one, and this isn't a matter of philosophy as much as it is a scientific one?

So in order to know what "red" means, you must already know what sort of things are red. Yet to know which things are red, you must know what "red" means.

What do you make of this puzzle? — Banno

The second sentence doesn't follow. I knew red prior to knowing the word "red."

What does that mean? That you learned that the cup is red in a different way to how you learn that I learned that the cup is red? — Banno

That (1) the cup is red and (2) you have an experience the cup is red. I learned #1 by seeing the cup. I learned #2 by your telling me. I have no way to verify #2.

Did you learn about the cup and I, or did you learn about how we use the word "red"? — Banno

I learned about the cup by seeing it. I learned about how we use the word "red" by hearing it.

Part of your learning that the cup is red is your learning how to use the word "red". — Banno

Obviously for me to label it red, I must know what "red" means. But if it had a peculiar odor for which I had no name, I'd just as much know that smell name or no name.

That supposed distinction between internal and external, subjective and objective, breaks down on close inspection. — Banno

I don't follow this at all.

Indeed, a cat/dog dualist might insist on their being incommensurate. A cat/dog monist might insist that cats and dogs are both mammals.

These are not distinct epistemologies, so much as distinct ways of talking about cats and dogs. — Banno

And do you not concede though that when speaking of mental states versus external states that they are epistemologically distinct?

I know the cup is red by sensing it. I don't know your phenomenal state of the cup is red by sensing it.

Disagree. Definitely on topic. The OP references "mechanism," which is his word for physicalism, which he then argues negates free will, all of which is metaphysics.

Doesn't the atheistic monist have to deal with the same question of when consciousness (i.e. that something extra) begins and ends during a life cycle?

Why? Rather, a monist would reject that very distinction. The "must" is what a dualist might think the monist must do. Monists might well disagree. — Banno

A monist can no more reject a distinction between a mental state and a physical state than he can a cat and a dog. They are different things. The problem for the monist though when distinguishing between mental phenomena and objects is that, unlike cats and dogs, they are different in class, not just different in degree. Mental phenomena of rocks are subjective, rocks are objects.

Doesn't the fact that you can't show me your phenomenal state of the rock but you can show me the the actual rock offer a meaningful distinction between the two? So the monist tells me that one is composed of Element A and the other of Element B, but those are both subtypes of Substance A. The dualist says the same thing, he just doesn't acknowledge the two types are of the same substance. I say there's no real difference between the two positions.

That's not even close to what metaphysics is. This is not the place to go into that. — T Clark

If one is a physicalist, then metaphysics would in fact be that which physics has yet to explain.