Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:22 pm
Logik wrote:
That's it! I must try to remember .Performative contradiction?
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That's it! I must try to remember .Performative contradiction?
I know that when I say, "When we say 'think' do we include that?" that I am thinking. That's not the same as saying that when I do that thing where the cube changes face forward, when I am not saying anything or thinking in words, whether we include that under the category of "thinking".Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 2:51 pm Justintruth wrote:
The answer to your own question is the sentence itself. Logik has a two word phrase for that and I forget what the phrase is. Every phrase in your sentence quoted above is conceptual language. For instance the very words "forward" and "cube" name concepts. If you were sleep walking and performed those movements with the object you would not be thinking that's to say not using the part of your brain-mind which conceptualises.Take for example a line drawing of a cube. One looks at it and it seems that one or the other face is in the back. Then one might try to bring the other forward and suddenly it switches and the rear face is now forward. All that happens without language. When we say "think" do we include that?
Yes, it can. However you cannot even use metalanguage without using language.Justintruth wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:33 pmI know that when I say, "When we say 'think' do we include that?" that I am thinking. That's not the same as saying that when I do that thing where the cube changes face forward, when I am not saying anything or thinking in words, whether we include that under the category of "thinking".Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 2:51 pm Justintruth wrote:
The answer to your own question is the sentence itself. Logik has a two word phrase for that and I forget what the phrase is. Every phrase in your sentence quoted above is conceptual language. For instance the very words "forward" and "cube" name concepts. If you were sleep walking and performed those movements with the object you would not be thinking that's to say not using the part of your brain-mind which conceptualises.Take for example a line drawing of a cube. One looks at it and it seems that one or the other face is in the back. Then one might try to bring the other forward and suddenly it switches and the rear face is now forward. All that happens without language. When we say "think" do we include that?
It's not a performative contradiction because the term "thinking" can be "defined" to exclude the kind of action I was refering to and include the kind of thing you are referring to as what I do when I write my post.
The example I am referring to uses neither meta-language nor language. To my knowledge, no one changes the cubes apparent configuration by saying anything at all. Incantation just doesn't work with this. And yet we can try to do it another way and it works. A mental process for sure. One not using language for sure. (Sure for me anyway).Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:40 pmYes, it can. However you cannot even use metalanguage without using language.Justintruth wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:33 pmI know that when I say, "When we say 'think' do we include that?" that I am thinking. That's not the same as saying that when I do that thing where the cube changes face forward, when I am not saying anything or thinking in words, whether we include that under the category of "thinking".Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 2:51 pm Justintruth wrote:
The answer to your own question is the sentence itself. Logik has a two word phrase for that and I forget what the phrase is. Every phrase in your sentence quoted above is conceptual language. For instance the very words "forward" and "cube" name concepts. If you were sleep walking and performed those movements with the object you would not be thinking that's to say not using the part of your brain-mind which conceptualises.
It's not a performative contradiction because the term "thinking" can be "defined" to exclude the kind of action I was refering to and include the kind of thing you are referring to as what I do when I write my post.
Actually... I read this paper today: https://philpapers.org/archive/ALVLIM-3.pdf Title: LOGIC IS METAPHYSICS
With reference especially to your first paragraph above I understand it as language as part of human social behaviour.As human social behaviour the meaning of the utterance is social meaning.Social meanings refer to shared experiences which are not linguistic but are practical for instance the social group shares the knowledge of what food is in the fridge and when Jane gets the chocolate out of the fridge the others know that she will be getting a little fatter. Or when the farmer harnesses the horse in July the others know he's going to make hay. The prevailing ideology is seldom talked about and the actions 'speak louder than words'.I believe that most statements in any language are meaningless without experiences that are not linguistic. Specifically I mean any statement that is not about language itself. In a very real sense, for a large class of utterances, the meaning of the utterance cannot be found in the language itself. Rather other experiences exist that are associated with the utterance. That allows someone to know the meaning. Then, if they also know the meaning in a second language, the translation can be provided.
I think it is impossible to say in english what a word means in say Spanish (ignoring the eptymology), just by knowing the utterances capable in Spanish. There is no way to correlate it. That was why they *needed* the Rosetta stone. They knew one languages meaning. They had from the stone the correlation to the other language. From that they were able to decipher. Not saying that is the only way but it illustrates the problem.
This thread refers to thinking.Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 11:54 pm JustinTruth wrote:
With reference especially to your first paragraph above I understand it as language as part of human social behaviour.As human social behaviour the meaning of the utterance is social meaning.Social meanings refer to shared experiences which are not linguistic but are practical for instance the social group shares the knowledge of what food is in the fridge and when Jane gets the chocolate out of the fridge the others know that she will be getting a little fatter. Or when the farmer harnesses the horse in July the others know he's going to make hay. The prevailing ideology is seldom talked about and the actions 'speak louder than words'.I believe that most statements in any language are meaningless without experiences that are not linguistic. Specifically I mean any statement that is not about language itself. In a very real sense, for a large class of utterances, the meaning of the utterance cannot be found in the language itself. Rather other experiences exist that are associated with the utterance. That allows someone to know the meaning. Then, if they also know the meaning in a second language, the translation can be provided.
I think it is impossible to say in english what a word means in say Spanish (ignoring the eptymology), just by knowing the utterances capable in Spanish. There is no way to correlate it. That was why they *needed* the Rosetta stone. They knew one languages meaning. They had from the stone the correlation to the other language. From that they were able to decipher. Not saying that is the only way but it illustrates the problem.
With reference to your second paragraph , when in Spain one will not understand the language until one has felt what it's like to be a Spaniard, for similar reasons. The Rosetta Stone is relevant only like some augmented dictionary unless it was used as a historical primary source.
I don't know if this is what you meant.
No, and I dropped it - didn't pay it any mind until decades latter.
You write "have fun" and it reminds me that me thinking about thinking and the nature of consciousness is part of my effort to not think about the approaching cessation of most life on Earth.In what, twenty, fifty years?Justintruth wrote: ↑Thu Feb 14, 2019 4:25 pmNo, and I dropped it - didn't pay it any mind until decades latter.
Then I was having a debate over Dennet's American flag illusion. You stare at a screen for a while and then the image is turned off and you still see the afterimage for a while but in the red, white, and blue colors. Dennet was basically saying it shows that what you call "quale", and the continent calls "phenomena", are not real. But I had a problem with that as I was *really* seeing them or as I learned to say, I was really them seeing. Calling them smply not there fails to distinguish between the case of "American flag seeing actually occurring" and an "American flag seeing not actually occurring'. Also, calling them illusions is false. That fails to distinguish the case when you thought it was a real flag but then realized that it was just "American flag seeing" so you say it was an illusion that I was seeing an American flag. I was actually just American flag seeing. If you say it was an illusion that I was seeing an American flag I was just seeing an American flag you do less well communicating. It was then I began to see how powerful the word "just" is- how you can say "It's just your brain" etc and become hopelessly confused.
I believe all of this occurs becasue of the incarnate facts of nature - that our peception is "in" a body that can be percieved - where here "in" must be carefully disambiguated with its usual use. That incarnation can lead to where a perception does not correspond to other perceptions and we say that the perception was "just an illusion" - there is that "just" again - and was not real.
But either it was or was not really an illusion and then you have the case where you are not "illuded" if that is a word, and you are just refering to the condition of seeing something - a state I now call "_____ seeing" (fill in the blank). I think it works nicely and I think it holds promise for experiences that are not sensory, like experiences of validity, maybe even experiences of Love, God, Beauty, pain etc.
When I said "I see an American flag" someone would inevitably strawman me and say something like "Oh you think there is an American flag there and somehow staring at the screen allowed you to finaly see it!" and I would moan "Noooo1 Of course I don't think that but I still think I am seeing an American flag" and they would persist and say something like "Oh, you think there are American flags in your head, right?!" "Noooooo!" I would moan, you know already I don't think that. And then they would fein modesty and ask "So, help me, where is this American flag you are seeing" and I would say it wasn't anywhere because as I move my head it moves. So, I realized that I did not think that in that afterimage case there really was an American flag somewhere that I was perceiving but nevertheless I either was or was not American flag seeing and that was a real fact and the character of that seeing was real and that defeats everything Dennet is trying to do I think - incuding his anti-religious pogrom.
So I learned a trick. Instead of saying "I see an American flag" I would say, "I am American flag seeing". I then remembered a long time ago saying "The green was greening". Really it is a kind of awareness that a human can have. Some people call it thinking but I think that calling metaphysics "thinking" can have its own problems. When a face in a line drawing of a cube moves forward it "happens". In the same way profound metaphysical awareness like Satori in Zen or whatever actually are something that happens in a mind not so much something it does. It is not connected with the will in the same way. In fact, defeating the will in metaphysics is the necessary insight. In a sense achieving that awareness occurs by ceasing an activity not performing that. But nowhere I can find are people discussing this. They can't seem to free themselves from repeating Copernicus over and over. They can look back very well but cannot see what is now comming upon us. Check out "I see lights breakinng upon us" you may be one of the few people able to dismiss its flaws and see the insight in it.
https://www.amazon.com/You-See-Lights-B ... 096254311X
Don't agree with all of it but love the idea of looking forward into the age that is coming.
You can use your will to try to see it that way and after a time it changes. For a short time I was able to switch and have mystical experience then remove it then have it just like a line drawing of a cube! I am not sure I would believe me if I was you but I assure you it was true.
The change is not instantaneous. You try and at first nothing happens then ...it changes.. experiencing is not experiencing experiencing in the same way. In the same way the phenomenal basis of phenomenology, the metaphyiscs of phenomenology, is not thinking but something that happens to thinking as a result perhaps of thinking, that is what happened to me, but others have it in other ways, by concentrating on not thinking for example. Either way, if it happens it happens to you and it is a fact whether it happens or not. Some perception it gets...again not of some thing but a change in percieving nevertheless. These changes are real. They are facts. They are first person, true, but whether they occur or not is a fact.
A lot of philosophy can be unpacked this way but in the end how you consider the result is still not in the culture. We have a few, Nietzche for example, or maybe WIttgenstein who claim the answer but they were just wrong. Heiddegger looked forward. There is some doubt whether we can reach the new era but I think once we get engineering control over our brains we have a very good chance. Yes it is purely speculative. We are not there yet.
Have fun
You write "have fun" and it reminds me that me thinking about thinking and the nature of consciousness is part of my effort to not think about the approaching cessation of most life on Earth.In what, twenty, fifty years?Justintruth wrote: ↑Thu Feb 14, 2019 4:25 pmNo, and I dropped it - didn't pay it any mind until decades latter.
Then I was having a debate over Dennet's American flag illusion. You stare at a screen for a while and then the image is turned off and you still see the afterimage for a while but in the red, white, and blue colors. Dennet was basically saying it shows that what you call "quale", and the continent calls "phenomena", are not real. But I had a problem with that as I was *really* seeing them or as I learned to say, I was really them seeing. Calling them smply not there fails to distinguish between the case of "American flag seeing actually occurring" and an "American flag seeing not actually occurring'. Also, calling them illusions is false. That fails to distinguish the case when you thought it was a real flag but then realized that it was just "American flag seeing" so you say it was an illusion that I was seeing an American flag. I was actually just American flag seeing. If you say it was an illusion that I was seeing an American flag I was just seeing an American flag you do less well communicating. It was then I began to see how powerful the word "just" is- how you can say "It's just your brain" etc and become hopelessly confused.
I believe all of this occurs becasue of the incarnate facts of nature - that our peception is "in" a body that can be percieved - where here "in" must be carefully disambiguated with its usual use. That incarnation can lead to where a perception does not correspond to other perceptions and we say that the perception was "just an illusion" - there is that "just" again - and was not real.
But either it was or was not really an illusion and then you have the case where you are not "illuded" if that is a word, and you are just refering to the condition of seeing something - a state I now call "_____ seeing" (fill in the blank). I think it works nicely and I think it holds promise for experiences that are not sensory, like experiences of validity, maybe even experiences of Love, God, Beauty, pain etc.
When I said "I see an American flag" someone would inevitably strawman me and say something like "Oh you think there is an American flag there and somehow staring at the screen allowed you to finaly see it!" and I would moan "Noooo1 Of course I don't think that but I still think I am seeing an American flag" and they would persist and say something like "Oh, you think there are American flags in your head, right?!" "Noooooo!" I would moan, you know already I don't think that. And then they would fein modesty and ask "So, help me, where is this American flag you are seeing" and I would say it wasn't anywhere because as I move my head it moves. So, I realized that I did not think that in that afterimage case there really was an American flag somewhere that I was perceiving but nevertheless I either was or was not American flag seeing and that was a real fact and the character of that seeing was real and that defeats everything Dennet is trying to do I think - incuding his anti-religious pogrom.
So I learned a trick. Instead of saying "I see an American flag" I would say, "I am American flag seeing". I then remembered a long time ago saying "The green was greening". Really it is a kind of awareness that a human can have. Some people call it thinking but I think that calling metaphysics "thinking" can have its own problems. When a face in a line drawing of a cube moves forward it "happens". In the same way profound metaphysical awareness like Satori in Zen or whatever actually are something that happens in a mind not so much something it does. It is not connected with the will in the same way. In fact, defeating the will in metaphysics is the necessary insight. In a sense achieving that awareness occurs by ceasing an activity not performing that. But nowhere I can find are people discussing this. They can't seem to free themselves from repeating Copernicus over and over. They can look back very well but cannot see what is now comming upon us. Check out "I see lights breakinng upon us" you may be one of the few people able to dismiss its flaws and see the insight in it.
https://www.amazon.com/You-See-Lights-B ... 096254311X
Don't agree with all of it but love the idea of looking forward into the age that is coming.
You can use your will to try to see it that way and after a time it changes. For a short time I was able to switch and have mystical experience then remove it then have it just like a line drawing of a cube! I am not sure I would believe me if I was you but I assure you it was true.
The change is not instantaneous. You try and at first nothing happens then ...it changes.. experiencing is not experiencing experiencing in the same way. In the same way the phenomenal basis of phenomenology, the metaphyiscs of phenomenology, is not thinking but something that happens to thinking as a result perhaps of thinking, that is what happened to me, but others have it in other ways, by concentrating on not thinking for example. Either way, if it happens it happens to you and it is a fact whether it happens or not. Some perception it gets...again not of some thing but a change in percieving nevertheless. These changes are real. They are facts. They are first person, true, but whether they occur or not is a fact.
A lot of philosophy can be unpacked this way but in the end how you consider the result is still not in the culture. We have a few, Nietzche for example, or maybe WIttgenstein who claim the answer but they were just wrong. Heiddegger looked forward. There is some doubt whether we can reach the new era but I think once we get engineering control over our brains we have a very good chance. Yes it is purely speculative. We are not there yet.
Have fun
So here is where i am at. I was wrong. Averroes is right.Averroes wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:12 am To all members of the forum who are interested:
A statement was made but the claimer found himself/herself incapable of backing it up even when challenged. It was claimed that there can be thoughts which cannot be expressed in language. Here is one of the statements:
And further, it was claimed that the statement that there are “thoughts which cannot be expressed in language” can be proved in intuitionist logic thus:TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:49 pm And yet is precisely the thoughts which I can't express THROUGH any medium are the ones which you require evidence for...
How might one convince you that such thoughts exist?
My question to you all is as follows:TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Nov 03, 2018 1:50 pm The only way I know how to prove a negative is to abandon Aristotelian logic and embrace constructive/intuitionistic logic.
Can anyone here prove (or disprove) these claims either from classical logic or from intuitionist logic? One can use English or whatever formal or computer language that one wants to prove (or disprove) this claim.
I give you two months for that, but extensions will be given if required! In a nutshell, you have all your time, I am not in a hurry!
Maybe. I will ponder on this.