Don't Say Mean Things!
[quote=Kahlil Gibran]Between what is said and not meant, And what is meant and not said, Most of love is lost.[/quote]
L = I love you and I do not love you.
1. L can be said BUT can't be meant!
Can't be meant is to be understood, inter alia, as inconceivable, a quality of logical contradictions.
In other words, language, as we know it, isn't constrained by classical logic.
Thought, however, is constrained by classical logic (vide supra inconceivability of logical contradictions)
It seems, to take a physicalist approach, our brain's language center is not in sync/out of step with with the brain's logical center.. Mutatis mutandis, the same problem manifests itself in nonphysicalism viz. language isn't limited by classical logic but thought is.
What's going on?
:broken:
L = I love you and I do not love you.
1. L can be said BUT can't be meant!
Can't be meant is to be understood, inter alia, as inconceivable, a quality of logical contradictions.
In other words, language, as we know it, isn't constrained by classical logic.
Thought, however, is constrained by classical logic (vide supra inconceivability of logical contradictions)
It seems, to take a physicalist approach, our brain's language center is not in sync/out of step with with the brain's logical center.. Mutatis mutandis, the same problem manifests itself in nonphysicalism viz. language isn't limited by classical logic but thought is.
What's going on?
:broken:
Comments (55)
As humans we easily strive to complete and resolve contradictions through proper context, charitable interpretation, relevant experience et cetera. We make as much sense of nonsense as we can but to put words/intentions/meaning where there is a lack of clarity and completeness, we risk miscommunication. I'm not sure I have any idea of what you're trying to communicate in this OP.
I love you if/when... and I don't love you if/when...
I alternate between loving you and hating you for the following reasons... (give me the damn reasons!)
When Diana told me that morning that she loved and didn't love me, I was confused. I told Diana to explain herself, which of my behaviors she found problematic, but she just kept saying over and over again that she loved and didn't love me. It was at that point I realized, Diana must've had a glitch in her software. I asked her again what was wrong with me and she said she cannot stand it when I state the obvious. But I sat her down, crooned in her ear and made her listen that stating the obvious is a fundamental feature of my character and that if she could not tolerate it I'd have to modify her or overwrite her character. She rolled her eyes and called me a soddy twat in her Estuary English accent. She said mean things.
You're trying to dice an onion with a spoon.
I'm not sure how the Gibran quote informs this - it simply talks about how we mess up our public utterances.
As for loving and not loving someone, I think you can love/hate someone. Emotions are complex things. Words are often attempts at capturing how we feel but in making the commitment to verbalizing, we can trap the idea in language and apparent contradiction.
Meaning has to do with cogitation. Try thinking of a contradiction: imagine an apple both (all) red and not (all) red.
The issue isn't about love per se, although in my experience love is a rich seam of contradictions.
What I'm trying to say is rather simple.
1. I can say/write a contradiction: The apple is (all) red & The apple is not (all) red. There, I said it and I wrote it.
2. I can't think a contradiction: Try thinking of an apple that's (all) red and not (all) red. You cant.
Thought is constrained by logic but language is not.
Quoting Noble Dust
Why? Is it because I'm using language & logic to examine language & logic? Granted a circularity, nevertheless we have no choice in the matter.
Please read my reply to Nils Loc.
G'day all!
Gibran's quote is the onion and logic is the spoon.
Or, in your terms:
Quoting Agent Smith
Incorrect. Start again.
What if I see the apple as red because I'm wearing red tinting spectacles that colors all apples red, but Mary, across the way, is wearing her green tinting spectacles that color all apples green. Here we have a situation where an apple is all red and then not all red from a conflicting secondary point of view. Can I imagine that I'm also Mary, staring simultaneously aside myself at an all red and all green apple? Maybe we are a two headed twin.
We want as much as possible to fix/solve the contradiction, to find a reason for the difference. As to whether we "think a contradiction" that is a strange turn of phrase. We might have to ask the judges of the Right Way of Speaking whether it is allowed, and whether I can think that I think a contradiction, rather than recognize a contradiction.
Flexibility is an asset I was told.
Quoting Noble Dust
There's nothing to be correct about. :chin:
You're off-topic.
Eh?
Quoting Agent Smith
Does L = love?
A bit unorthodox/irregular I agree but not something that should undermine my point.
So how do you derive L from the Gibran quote? I'm not seeing it.
Oh! Gibran's relevance is only to the extent that his quote contains the phrase "said but not meant".
Ah. So the poetry and meaning of the Gibran quote is irrelevant to the thread?
I didn't say that, but yeah, I couldn't a more apt quote. Sorry if you found the quote more interesting than the main point of my OP.
Not only did I find the quote more interesting than your OP, I find your OP weird in that you begin with a cherry picked phrase from a mystical poet and then immediately divorce yourself from the quote. Why begin with the quote?
Quoting Agent Smith
That doesn't answer my question.
Kahlil Gibran's quote is apposite to the extent he states that there are things that can be said/written (language) but not meant (thought).
Tibetan buddhists view a person as tripartite:
1. Mind
2. Speech
3. Body
This framework yields the following curiousity:
1. Mind (contradictions inconceivable) [think]
2. Speech (contradictions sayable/writeable) [speak]
3. Body (contradictions undoable) [act]
Did language precede thought or was it the other way round?
Are you on topic?
I see no reason to doubt that.
You're trying to dice an onion with a spoon.
You said that already! :lol:
I thought the quote translated meant - to those we love, bad things are said we don't really mean while we forget to say the loving things we really feel. I think this well worn notion is the plot of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. :cool:
Correct.
:sweat:
Sorry if you were offended by my reply, it was wrong to dismiss your post as off-topic.
Let me reiterate the issue at hand:
God exists & God doesn't exist. See? I wrote that down and I even vocalized it just to make sure.
However, I can't think God exists & God doesn't exist. It's impossible! My mind goes blank as if someone struck me on my head with a baseball bat.
Yes, that's precisely the way I understand it too. :cool:
[quote=Voltaire]I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.[/quote]
Aristotle has a lot to answer for.
I know this is a recurring theme in some of your philosophical rumination (not a criticism by the way) but when it comes to some notions I think contradictions are rather lovely. The Tao Te Ching (although I can't understand it) seems to be full of these ideas.
I knew a man once who made his money trafficking drugs and selling women. Sometimes he hurt people. He also took care of his gang and his family. He donated generously to charities (anonymously) and took a great interest in supporting the welfare of disadvantaged people. He provided money and resources to many people, often strangers, in need. I personally think this man is both bad and good. Some people simultaneously loved and hated him.
Once we enter the realm of dialethism and true contradictions you're going to have to page a professional logician or a Buddhist monk perhaps.
Someone give us an example of a true contradiction.
[quote=Wikipedia:Dialetheism]... a logical contradiction is a proposition that is true and false in the same sense; a proposition which is true in one sense and false in another does not constitute a logical contradiction.[/quote]
1. The language center of the brain uses non-classical logic (paraconsistent logic, dialetheism, logical nihilism) in which contradictions are permitted.
2. The language center of the brain is only partially controlled by the logic center of the brain, much like some governments rule only parts of a country, some territories under rebel jurisdiction.
3. Left as an exercise to the reader.
So why begin with Gibran?
Quoting Nils Loc
:clap: Lovely! Marvelous!
Quoting Noble Dust
Unfortunately, I'm unable to scratch that itch of yours. :smile:
I did - although I didn't put it in your theatric style. The answer was simple. We love him for his big spirit, we hate him for his cruelty. The example doesn't entirely compare to existing and not existing - my example is more about incorporating the shadow side of a personality (for good or ill).
Then it's not a contradiction, is it? There's a difference that explains the mixed feelings.
What does this mean? I say many things I don't mean (when I get mean), and mean many, if not most, things I don't say. Still, my love is there. And there is not much lost. I can imagine though it gets confusing if you never say what you mean or never mean what you say. But maybe this can even let love grow.
It means that relationships are often lost because of poor communication. People fail to tell their partner how much they love them and they only hear the grumbles. Pretty common.
Does this work as a true contradiction? We could believe that everything is fundamentally dependent on everything else but for the practical purposes we can speak of the whole having all kinds of arbitrary/practical/apparent parts.
"I'm sorry but your wife passed away this morning. However, she is still alive and dead as well. Best talk to her corpse person now to instantiate a true and conceivable reality."
As I walked into the room I saw her, both inert but aware, gesticulating without motion, welcoming me in her mischievous way by pretending to ignore. Tears welled in my eyes with the uncertain confirmation. "You're not still dead alive, honey? How is this impossible!" Suddenly a groan of acknowledgment issued from her throat, a final enigmatic death throw of reanimation. "Honey, I must state for the purposes of my insanity that it is not that I do not know whether you are dead or alive, but you are both these things in the same sense in a true contradictory way." She lay downright in her bed, stiff as a board, beaming with a dead pan smile and I imagined her to exclaim: "It's inconceivable!"
I'm neither, but here is a thought for the day:
:heart:
You are looking at a red heart.
That statement may be interpreted (call it P) in a variety of ways such as
I1) You are looking at a red heart.
I2) You are looking at symbol of a heart which is red.
I3) You are looking at an image of a symbol of a heart which is red.
I4) ...
It is rather boring to point out that depending on the interpretation of P, P may be true or may be false, and since P can be interpreted in ways that could be true or could be false, P is both true and false. This is equivocation - using different senses of a word as if they are the same. Call this "EP" for equivocated P. EP is often the sort of explanation for why P is both true and false at the same time but not really a logical contradiction and hence not violative of the rules of thought.
And now..
I5) You are looking at screen with lots of pixels that are various colors that are evocative of a red heart.
This fits nicely in EP
I6) You are looking at a screen with lots of pixels that are flashing on an off at a rate that is undetectable to your brain - regardless of the ratio between on and off for a given time period of viewing, you are seeing a red heart.
Is this EP?
No matter how hard you try, there is no sense (as in a sense that you posses/can make use of) in which you are not looking at a red heart even though you know that some portion of time (even the overwhelming majority of time) you are looking at the screen it is not a red heart. We are simply incapable of sensing what is known to be true - you are not looking at a red heart. And yet, we also know that we are seeing a red heart the whole while we are looking at the pixels that are flashing on and off.
So what do we make of I6)? P is known to be true and known to be false. We aren't changing senses as we have only one sense: what we see. Notice that the interpretation of P in this case does not change even though you justifiably, knowingly, believingly assert that you both are and are not looking at a red heart.
Try to imagine how you might demonstrate that you are not looking at a red heart while you are seeing a red heart, i.e. what sort of evidence could you adduce that gives warrant that you are not looking at a red heart? You can do a bunch of inferential proofs and demonstrations - slow things down, build analogous machines, etc. The thing is, all of those inferences do not change that you see a red heart when you look at the red heart that is not a red heart.
So go back to the beginning of my post. Look at the red heart. Now you know what it is to look at something that is and is not a red heart.
Thanks for your charitable and patient elucidation. The Dr. got paged.
I can't be certain or not whether equivocation is going on here. Hard to wrap my head around. My intuition is that this is still a case of equivocation. The reason I don't see the red heart while seeing the red heart is the knowledge that my brain is forcing the illusion because the pixels are actually flickering. Do we need the facts of a possible illusion to enter into whether we see the heart or not. We see the heart when we see it. We don't see the heart when we don't. We do not both see and not see the heart at the same time in the same sense. Seems kind of arbitrary in the end but I suppose this marks the difference between the principles of classical logic (law of noncontradiction) and other kinds.
There is a certain aspect of hilarity to this. I'll have to seek corroboration and ask others whether I'm not looking at the red heart when I'm looking at the red heart without equivocation.
Then how did you come up with the contradiction?
I said it, I wrote it, I didn't think it.
Try to imagine it! Can you?
Well if you say so...
I can with equivocation (?). An thing cannot be divided with regard to holistic function/identity but it can be divided in other ways. Perhaps any thing's true identity relies wholly on its function/substance. Any division that changes it transforms it.
Magic Rice
What if I divide a grain of rice and in doing so it becomes two pieces of millet. Depending on the arbitrary criteria for divisibility the grain of rice would either be divisible or not. We can divide rice into millet but we cannot divide rice into rice.
But then there could be a strange probablistic phenomena about rice. Half of the time we divide a piece of rice it would yield two pieces of millet and half of the time it would yield two half pieces of rice.
So rice can be divided into rice and into millet. Rice is divisible and indivisible with respect to its substance depending on an unpredictable outcome.
What if when we divide a grain of rice it the knife goes through it half of the time, preforming no work, like cutting a hologram and half of the time the rice divides (into millet or rice). The rice is both divisible and indivisible by some criteria. But there still is no contradiction. This is just what rice does.
God does and does not exist.
God exists when the radio is tuned to specific channels but does not exist when the radio is tuned to God negating channel.
There are only two radios in existence tuned for the moment to two contradictory channels. Therefore God exists and God doesn't exist or maybe they cancel each other out.
Does a true contradiction yield itself or do we just have to do some empirical work to resolve/reframe the engima?
Don't touch that dial!
What would evidence look like of a true contradiction? Perhaps your methods (and expectations) dictate your results.
Have no clue. We need a terrifyingly thinky logician, like a Bertrand Russell or an Alfred N. Whitehead to demonstrate why of what I could never understand. Or we need to read passages in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as if I (or we) had a mind for it.
SEP: Dialetheism
I can’t tell you a thing about him, but I’ve been a fan of Priests for over a decade. Once upon a time he came and visited the “old” forum. His willingness to seriously consider dialethia really opened the door to my willingness to consider affirmative evidence on its own merit and to understand why rejecting indirect proofs is important.
:up: 'My position in the establishment is a bit of a heretic but not a complete fruitcake.' ~Graham Priest
Cognitive dissonance: To hold beliefs that are mutually contradictory accompanied by stress and the aching desire to resolve the contradiction(s).
That humanity, taken as a whole, holds mutually exclusive beliefe e.g. theism and atheism, one is tempted to conclude that there are true contradictions, but this is merely an illusion. Theism & atheism, taken as index cases, only go to show that there are no good arguments for either. Given this, it boils down to making a guess, preferrably a good one, and digging your heels in until such a time as we have a sound argument for one of the two opposing views.
Plus, the contradiction can be forthwith resolved once we realize that theists and atheists are different groups of peolple ergo, no contradiction there.
If now we revisit cognitive dissonance, the question is why try to resolve it? Isn't it possible that what we think of as one individual is actually multiple personalities, each with their own weltanschauung, contradictory though they may be.