It’s axiomatic that no thoughtful resolution of the abortion [or any other] question is going to issue from glib pronouncements of gloating liberals but only from heartrending deliberations of humbled conservatives.
I’ve long ceased commenting on current affairs for lack of any discernible meaning, and instead turned my attention to the theoretical, with an eye to a brighter tomorrow. Well, the 2012 elections may well prove to be an exception, a portent of something new, something different. No, not because the Democrats have won, but because the Republicans have lost!…
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126 - Glenn Contrarian
troll -
Doc's right - binary isn't a language in the same way that the dots and dashes used in Morse Code aren't in and of themselves the language. Even the letters I'm typing right now aren't a language, just as hammers and nails and two-by-fours are not themselves construction, but are only the tools and materials used in construction. The ones and zeros, the dots and dashes, and the letters are tools to construct the language and nothing more.
127 - troll
there is more to a code than its symbols
128 - roger nowosielski
An interesting aside: Even though notation (e.g., as in logic) isn't properly speaking a language per se, significant contributions were made to the field by virtue of a change in mere notation.
129 - Dr Dreadful
while binary objects are not languages in themselves codes are aren't they?
Yes, troll, but that's somewhat beside the point I've been trying to make.
Roger claims that mathematics is a language, that language is inadequate to formulate an accurate perception of the universe, and that therefore we cannot even know for certain that this number of asterisks **** is four.
But the point has often been made by scientists who have pondered the question that an alien civilization, even if its language (or whatever it used for communication) was completely incompatible and mutually unintelligible with human language, they would still know math. The problem would be how to communicate that knowledge.
In Carl Sagan's novel Contact, aliens overcome this problem by broadcasting the sequence of prime numbers: a sequence that will be instantly understood by any listener that knows math, no matter what notation they use to work with math.
and what would a proof that a tree falls in the absence of language look like?
1. There would be a dead tree on the ground. 2. Although we do not know for sure whether the tree ever stood in the vertical position, enough trees have been observed to stand vertically while they are alive for us to be able to conclude provisionally that this one did too. 3. Although no-one was present when it fell, enough trees have been observed in the past to make a sound when they fall, and enough is known about the wave energy propagation properties of air, that we can be reasonably confident that this one did, also, make a sound. 4. And yes, I do realize the irony that I've just explained all this using language. You need to use a bit of imagination here.
130 - Cindy
You need to use a bit of imagination here.
I think that is a good point. When failing to understand another's proposal is a problem, a bit of imagination and/or "going along with" that proposition might help bridge the gap. As, it seems things are neither this nor that but interpreted in different contexts.
Perhaps if all of us attempt to take what we doubt as true (since several people with functioning brains can sense there is truth in each proposition) and act as if it is true. That is, perhaps it may help to try to defend the position with which we disagree.
Just a thought.
131 - Dr Dreadful
Just "going along with it" doesn't suffice, though. You have to ask yourself: "If this proposition is true, what effects should I expect to observe? Do I, in fact, observe them?" A proposition that isn't testable is no better than nonsense.
132 - roger nowosielski
That's not the irony. The irony is that grown-up, able-bodied native interlocutors insist on making vacuous, pointless statements and keep on peddling them as though they were cogent and in perfect working order. They're not because there is no point in asking the question as to whether anything exists apart from language, just as there is no point in saying "I know I am in pain." In both instances, we don't know what would count as proof or disproof. Both are examples of linguistic nonsense.
There is of course the hidden or not so hidden agenda which makes the perpetrators mouth off such utterances: in the former instance, it's a certain discomfort with a perfectly ordinary notion that our language is more than adequate in our dealings with reality, that somehow it leaves something to be desired, that we need something more, something over and beyond; and to these perpetrators, science, the fantastic conception of science, is the answer and their religion. (They forget of course that sciences themselves are specialized languages.)
In any case, it's a misguided notion. Language is all we have, and we can do nothing about it. So no, Cindy, I don't think it's lack of imagination that is the culprit here but some kind of angst. We're dealing with true believers in the thoroughly secularized age.
133 - roger nowosielski
"Roger claims that mathematics is a language, that language is inadequate to formulate an accurate perception of the universe ..."
@129 - from the mouth of Dreadful
Roger never claimed the latter part, about the inaccuracy, that is. All Roger claimed is that all our claims are contingent on our life-form. To say they're contingent is not to say inaccurate; it's only to qualify the conditions of accuracy.
134 - Cindy
131,
Given that Roger and troll and I all seem able to comprehend the sense of what Roger is saying, I think it goes without saying that if you "just don't get it", you are not actually trying.
135 - Cindy
That was to D.
My point being that our biases often cause us to fail to see another's reasoning. In order to facilitate the effort in good faith you'd have to take for granted that either a) there is some sense there to be gotten, or b) troll, Roger, and I are complete idiots, able to dream sense into the nonsensical.
136 - Cindy
Sorry for the garbled comment. You know what I mean, I'm sure.
137 - Cindy
You have to ask yourself: "If this proposition is true, what effects should I expect to observe? Do I, in fact, observe them?"
My point being that you will not be able to answer that question, with a comprehension of Roger's perspective if you do not grant that things contain different contexts and make sense in more than one way.
Thus, the thing you need to do is to ask yourself, "Is there another way this can be analyzed that might make sense?" Because, I can answer your above questions with relation to my perspective, even though you cannot .
138 - Cindy
If Roger's proposition is true, I expect to observe certain effects. I, do, in fact observe those effects. It's why I understand what he's saying.
139 - roger nowosielski
In fairness, Cindy, there was a time when verification theory of meaning was in vogue; it was crafted by Ayer, in an attempt to rid the language of certain metaphysical statements by declaring them meaningless for lack of knowing what would constitute proof or disproof. Ayer's program was ambitious and meant to include all emotive, value-laden statements as well; needless to say, there are some problems with that theory, which isn't to say it's all wrong. Of course, Dreadful is taking this to a wholly different level, and whatever it is he's trying to apply "the verification principle" I have no idea.
By the same token, Wittgenstein also tried to take metaphysics out of philosophy, albeit on different, linguistic grounds, in terms of "grammatical nonsense." "I know I'm in pain" is an example. To say I know such as such must allow for the possibility of doubt. Well, doubt falls out of consideration with respect to knowledge claims about our sensations.
140 - Dr Dreadful
Language is all we have, and we can do nothing about it.
Rather a neat encapsulation of why philosophy is mostly useless, if I may say so.
If you're saying reality isn't necessarily what we say it is, but it's impossible to verify this proposition one way or the other, then we might as well proceed on the assumption that it is the way we describe it.
141 - roger nowosielski
The proposition you cites has a status of a metalinguistic statement: it's an observation about the life form and language as circumscribing its limits. One may agree or disagree with the proposition, but that doesn't render it meaningless. Neither were Godel's observations meaningless about the properties of a number system.
Why should this observation render philosophy useless? It is perplexing that you should be posing such a question? Is our literature useless because it is made of our language use? I should think, rather, that philosophy would indeed be useless if it tried to do away with language. And that's not the same as pushing the limits of language, of trying to say the ineffable.
As to "reality," again, all I'm saying that our understanding of it is contingent upon and necessitated by our life form. I wouldn't know how "necessarily" is supposed to function in that context. I don't have access to other life forms or other ways of perceiving reality.
Lastly, I wouldn't have qualms with saying that our reality is the way we describe it.
142 - roger nowosielski
I believe the main stumbling block between us: you happen to think we see with our eyes; I contend that language is our eyesight.
143 - Anarcissie
Wittgenstein's On Certainty might be helpful, although I got out of it something different from what Wikipedia did. There's a pointer to a PDF of the text in the article.
In other news, the Many-Worlds interpretation of Quantum uncertainty makes it possible to view the universe as both deterministic and non-deterministic -- a sort of mental superposition which seems happily appropriate.
In yet other news, I conferred just now with a mathematician friend and we concluded that, while mathematics as talked and written about is a language, it looks at something which is not a language (mostly), just natural language looks at something -- the world -- which is not a language (mostly).
144 - roger nowosielskibnb
Surely there is the world, there's no denying it; otherwise, there'd be no sensations, no thoughts, no feelings (unless we believe in the evil genius who makes all these things happen).
I think the right kind of question is, what sense can we make of the world apart from language?
145 - Cindy
Okay, so far we have the alphabet alone is not a language and languages do not look at themselves, but look at "worlds".
Continue...
(Just having some fun.)
;-)
146 - roger nowosielski
Languages also look at themselves. That's where the paradoxes come from - for example, the set of all sets.
Does the set of all sets includes itself as well?