The Nuance Underlying Being Existentially Dependent Upon Humans

Rudimentary human thought and belief is already happening long before we are able to carefully consider it by virtue of identifying it and then isolating it for the purposes of further consideration. To do this, we use language and the terms "thought", "belief", and what have you. I'm talking about all rudimentary level mental ongoings. Call them what you wish, as long as they meet the criterion I'm setting out. The point I'm raising here is that thinking about one's own mental ongoings(metacognition) requires a creature with a common and rather complex written language.

Thinking about one's own mental ongoings is required in order to acquire knowledge of them. Thus, language is required in order to acquire knowledge of our own rudimentary thought and belief. It is not required for the existence thereof. Whatever rudimentary thought and belief consists of, it is not language. It is existentially dependent upon neither our awareness of it, nor our means for becoming so. We can know that much for certain.

We have arrived at a point where a bit of summarizing seems needed. There is no argument that humans have rather complex thought and belief systems. There is also no argument than rudimentary thought and belief cannot possibly meet a complex criterion. So, it seems necessary for a couple of reasons to be able to parse out all complex thought and belief in the same terms that successfully parses the simple.

The first reason would be to maintain consistency/coherency while avoiding equivocation. It would be rather unintelligible if not all thought and belief had the same basic elemental constituents, and yet I insisted upon calling them all by the same namesake. I mean, all thought and belief must have something or other in common in order to qualify as more than just a language game akin to Witt's notion of game where the only thing all games have in common is that we call them such. Thought and belief are no such thing.

Games are inventions of humans. Thought and belief are not. The only commonality relevant here is that they are both existentially dependent upon humans. The remarkable difference is that games are created/invented by us, whereas human thought and belief is discovered. Games are existentially dependent upon both, our awareness of them and our existence, whereas rudimentary thought and belief is only existentially dependent upon our existence.

I also do not want to posit a bunch of what has been historically referred to as 'mental furniture'. Rather, if this is to have any bite, it must be able to effectively exhaust all those archaic notions. It must be able to provide a very basic level, upon which everything ever thought, believed, written, and/or spoken could arise from. It ought be amenable to many a conventional viewpoint, and even those which disagree with it ought be able to be effectively explained and thus exhausted by virtue of employing it. These are tremendous justificatory burdens. The method and language is crucial.

The terms used to parse out all thought and belief(simple through the most complex) must be talking about that which is not existentially dependent our awareness, but is adequate for providing a basic outline capable of exhausting the complex as well as the simple. In the OP the second group of things that exist in their entirety, things that we discover, includes this basic outline of what all thought and belief have in common. At their fundamental core level of irreducibility, everything ever thought, believed, spoken, and/or written consists of and is therefore existentially dependent upon physiological sensory perception, spatiotemporal distinction, and the attribution/recognition of both, causality and meaning.

I want to be perfectly clear here.

Those three things are not existentially dependent upon humans in any way whatsoever. That is, all human thought and belief consists of these. We can establish these things are happening with other creatures too. Given that we already know that we were not the first creatures on the planet with the biological make-up required to accomodate these things, it only follows that they are not existentially dependent upon us in any way whatsoever. Our own thought and belief is most certainly existentially dependent upon us. The mechanisms for how it arises within us are not. Those are the basic mechanisms of all thought and belief. All thought and belief consists in/of these things. The differences arise in levels of complexity. The basics remain unchanged.

I've boldly asserted that everything ever thought, believed, spoken, and/or written consists of and is therefore existentially dependent upon physiological sensory perception, spatiotemporal distinction, and the attribution/recognition of both - causality and meaning. I've further asserted that none of these are existentially dependent upon humans. There's a burden that deserves to be carried here. These things need argued for.

The first is rather uncontentious, but I want to to be clear here. Do not confuse physiological sensory perception with complex historical notions of 'perception' that include a complex thought and belief system replete with language that it is informed by. I'm not talking about that. It is rather, that which includes any and all biological structures replete with basic physiological sensory apparati. We would all agree that things like venus flytraps have some basic kind of physiological sensory perception, as do bacteria and viruses. Plants have even been shown to detect sunlight and water, and have measurably different growth responses to different auditory stimuli despite not having an auditory faculty. This is basic physiological sensory perception, and it is common to all thinking/believing creatures. Humans are commonly said to possess vision, hearing, tactile, olfactory, and taste. A means of detection/perception seems to be necessary - but insufficient - for thought and belief. All obvious and known examples are of creatures replete with this capability, albeit on various and differing levels of complexity.

Spatiotemporal distinction is a bit more complex. However, it is actually exhausted by the attribution/recognition of causality and meaning for the latter necessarily presupposes the former. All thought and belief must be meaningful to the thinking/believing creature. All meaning is attributed. Current convention places all theories of meaning into two groups, both of which presuppose symbolism. Working from that, we can say that all meaning is attributed by virtue of a creature capable of drawing a mental correlation, association, and/or connection between different 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or itself. Any and all creatures that successfully 'perform' this mental task have actively formed rudimentary thought and belief.

These mental ongoings require neither, the creature's own awareness that they themselves are forming/remembering meaningful thought and belief, nor that we become aware of them. They only require the ability to attribute/recognize causality and/or meaning.

Rudimentary thought and belief are formed by virtue of the attribution/recognition of both causality and meaning. All attribution/recognition of causality is sufficient for simple thought and belief formation. All meaningful attribution involves something to become symbol and something to be become symbolized. Any mental correlation between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the creature itself will do here.

When mental correlations are drawn between different things; when creatures associate between different things; when physiological sensory perception autonomously fuses innate feelings with ongoing events, it does so by virtue of drawing correlations between all or some of the particular external 'objects' within the events themselves and the emotional state of mind of that creature at that time. When creatures are drawing such simple mental correlations and you are watching it all happen, you're witnessing rudimentary thought and belief formation in process.

So, I read it all; but, no question was posited. I can't but help as though the grand conclusion is that whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent?

Or that existentially independent entities entail noumenal features and that those noumenal features are justified through the incompleteness of our sensory apparatuses.

Reply to Posty McPostface

I've been actively editing it Posty. If you're interested, I'd be more than happy to discuss this in as much or little depth as you like. This is pretty much a summary of a decade worth of my own critical thinking. It's basically about thought and belief. That said, I'm not clear if I'm happy with it yet.

How does that particular Witt phrase apply?

Quoting creativesoul

How does that particular Witt phrase apply?

Well, I feel as though the limits of what can be said, via sensory information or input, is what you seem to be talking about. Or to pose the question otherwise if a tree falls down and no sensory apparatuses are around to percieve it falling, then nothing can be said about the tree.

Dunno if that helped or was detrimental...

Quoting creativesoul

Some things are not created/invented by us, but are - most certainly - existentially dependent upon us. However, these things are also discovered by us. They also exist, in their entirety prior to our discovery of them. Rudimentary level human thought, belief, emotion, wants, and needs are all fine examples of these sorts of things. These are the sorts of things I'm interested in.

Can you expand on this?

Quoting Posty McPostface

So, I read it all; but, no question was posited. I can't but help as though the grand conclusion is that whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent?

Witt poses no problem for that which has no precisely measurable spatiotemporal location. Nor is there any reason to believe that we cannot know about such things.

Quoting Posty McPostface

Some things are not created/invented by us, but are - most certainly - existentially dependent upon us. However, these things are also discovered by us. They also exist, in their entirety prior to our discovery of them. Rudimentary level human thought, belief, emotion, wants, and needs are all fine examples of these sorts of things. These are the sorts of things I'm interested in.
— creativesoul

Can you expand on this?

What part would you like to see elaborated upon? The rest of the thread has been slowly and steadily elaborating upon exactly those things...

I'm unsure where you are with regards to understanding.

Quoting Posty McPostface

...if a tree falls down and no sensory apparatuses are around to percieve it falling, then nothing can be said about the tree.

And yet... you just did.

Quoting creativesoul

What part would like to see elaborated upon? The rest of the thread has been slowly and steadily elaborating upon exactly those things...

I'm uncertain about what kinds of things are those which are so rudimentary even need discovering. They just are given. Anyhow, I don't want to bug you down with my uncertainties, so I'll just re-read this sometime again and things might click then. Sorry for bothering.

It's no bother Posty...

:smile:

It doesn't follow from the fact that some sounds find no ear that we cannot talk about such things.

Quoting Posty McPostface

I'm uncertain about what kinds of things are those which are so rudimentary even need discovering. They just are given.

Rudimentary as in - is not existentially dependent upon our awareness that they exist.

Nothing at the baseline of all thought and belief is a given, on my view. Unless by "given" you mean something like pre-dating human existence.

I'm working from an unspoken premise. At conception, there is no thought and belief. Belief must begin. There is no reason to suppose that complex thought and belief can be formed by a creature prior to more simple, given what we know about our own knowledge base. Therefore, thought and belief begin simply and grow in complexity.

Does that help orient you?

Quoting creativesoul

Rudimentary as in - is not existentially dependent upon our awareness that they exist.

But they're a sine qua non, they just are.

Quoting creativesoul

Nothing at the baseline of all thought and belief is a given, on my view. Unless by "given" you mean something like pre-dating human existence.

But thought and belief are just given, one cannot doubt that one is doubting.

Quoting creativesoul

I'm working from an unspoken premise. At conception, there is no thought and belief. Belief must begin. There is no reason to suppose that complex thought and belief can be formed by a creature prior to more simple, given what we know about our own knowledge base. Therefore, thought and belief begin simply and grow in complexity.

But this is confusing. Belief and thought cannot be talked about before their existence. It would be as if one we're to talk about thinking without ever having a thought to begin with. Simply futile?

Quoting Posty McPostface

I'm working from an unspoken premise. At conception, there is no thought and belief. Belief must begin. There is no reason to suppose that complex thought and belief can be formed by a creature prior to more simple, given what we know about our own knowledge base. Therefore, thought and belief begin simply and grow in complexity.
— creativesoul

But this is confusing. Belief and thought cannot be talked about before their existence. It would be as if one we're to talk about thinking without ever having a thought to begin with. Simply futile?

I'm not sure what's confusing. Nothing I've said is incommensurate with the objection. That tells me that perhaps there's a misunderstanding at work here.

Talking about thinking requires complex written language. Thinking does not. One cannot talk about thinking without ever having had a thought to begin with. That is in agreement with all this.

We talk about things we discover all the time. All of these things existed prior to discovery. Rudimentary thought and belief are no different.

Talking about one's own thought and belief comes after having it.

Not to be too flippant but isn't this just a rehashing of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities?

Reply to StreetlightX

If it is it is by pure accident. I've not thought in such terms here.

Quoting Posty McPostface

But thought and belief are just given, one cannot doubt that one is doubting.

How are these two claims applicable here? The first is a bald assertion. I've already argued for the negative of that claim. I've no reason to believe a bald assertion over the argument I've provided. The second is irrelevant to what's been written thus far.

One need not doubt that one is doubting in order for anything I've said here to be true.

Reply to creativesoul

I feel like I'm at an impasse here, creative. I don't know how to carry on this discussion with so much misunderstanding.

May be best to have a better re-read later...

Have I left any objection uncovered?

If I'm missing a valid objection, by all means, please let me know. I do not like doing that.

Re-read it, and have some simple questions if you will:

Quoting creativesoul

Call them what you wish, as long as they meet the criterion I'm setting out. The point I'm raising here is that thinking about one's own mental ongoings(metacognition) requires a creature with a common and rather complex written language.

What do you mean by that?

Quoting creativesoul

Whatever rudimentary thought and belief consists of, it is not language. It is existentially dependent upon neither our awareness of it, nor our means for becoming so. We can know that much for certain.

Ok, then what are they?

Quoting creativesoul

I mean, all thought and belief must have something or other in common in order to qualify as more than just a language game akin to Witt's notion of game where the only thing all games have in common is that we call them such. Thought and belief are no such thing.

So, again what are they?

Quoting creativesoul

Games are inventions of humans. Thought and belief are not. The only commonality relevant here is that they are both existentially dependent upon humans. The remarkable difference is that games are created/invented by us, whereas human thought and belief is discovered. Games are existentially dependent upon both, our awareness of them and our existence, whereas rudimentary thought and belief is only existentially dependent upon our existence.

I don't see how they are at the same time existentially dependent upon our existence and at the same time independent of being discovered. If you want to use the term, then they are emergent properties, while culminate within our existence.

Quoting Posty McPostface

Re-read it, and have some simple questions if you will:

Notta problem Posty.

Call them what you wish, as long as they meet the criterion I'm setting out.

Quoting Posty McPostface

What do you mean by that?

I'm setting out a criterion which - when met - counts as being thought and belief. I am claiming that all thought and belief are existentially dependent upon physiological sensory perception, pre-existing spatiotemporal distinction and the attribution/recognition of meaning and/or causality.

Games are inventions of humans. Thought and belief are not. The only commonality relevant here is that they are both existentially dependent upon humans. The remarkable difference is that games are created/invented by us, whereas human thought and belief is discovered. Games are existentially dependent upon both, our awareness of them and our existence, whereas rudimentary thought and belief is only existentially dependent upon our existence. — creativesoul

I don't see how they are at the same time existentially dependent upon our existence and at the same time independent of being discovered.

We form thought and belief prior to being able to talk about thought and belief. Thought and belief are mental ongoings. We discover things that existed - in their entirety - prior to our discovery. Our awareness of our own mental ongoings requires language. That is how it's able to be discovered and independent of discovery prior to it.

Human thought and belief could not have ever existed if humans had not. That's how it is existentially dependent upon us.

All thought and belief consists of the attribution/recognition of causality/meaning. We say this because all known examples do. There are no exceptions. If we are to remain sensible, any future discovery of thought and belief would be a novel candidate that includes the attribution/recognition of causality/meaning.

This all happened prior to language. It had to have. Otherwise, there could be no rudimentary(pre-linguistic) thought and belief to be taken account of later. But we clearly think about our own thought and belief. It clearly existed prior to our taking account of it. We had best get it right.

Our considerations increase in interesting ways when setting out what the attribution/recognition of causality and meaning consists in/of. Whatever it takes, rudimentary thought and belief includes it. Rudimentary thought and belief are prior to language acquisition. Whatever rudimentary thought and belief consist of, it is something that exists prior to language, but it also included in thought and belief during and after language acquisition.

The creature is drawing correlations between different 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and itself, That is more than adequate for attributing meaning and causality. All correlation presupposes the exist of it's own content(regardless of subsequent qualifications). That's the presupposition of correspondence inherent to all thought and belief, including but not limited to statements thereof.

Reply to creativesoul

I think dependence and independence are just ways to imply relationships. Fundamentally, everything in LIFE relates/interconnects to each other in one way or another. LIFE does not exclude. When two things are said to negate each other, it just means they have a particular kind of relationship (perhaps antagonistic; or, one in which the distance between them, from a certain perspective, seems to be greater than expected or on the increase). Even human inventions and creations just mean new 'configurations' of already existing material (and are only new, at least, from our perspective).

There is nothing new under the sun and no man is an island.

If the relationship between things is of current import or we are aware of it in real-time, we often use the word dependence; if the relationship is not of current import or we are not aware of it, we use the term independence.

I think we have always been dependent on LIFE and everything in it. We just have a different outlook of it from our perspectives. For, example, we have always depended on tools - at one time they were fingers, hands, teeth, etc. At some other times, sticks, ropes, fire, wheels, pulleys, gears, machines... Nonetheless, tools.

We may notice the distance/difference/distinction between the various aspects of LIFE, but they are not permanent, hence not real. Subjectivity is about limiting perspective or being aware of the relative aspects of LIFE; while objectivity is about unification into wholes, the ultimate being LIFE itself.

Therefore, anything that seems to depend on another, is itself depended upon by that other.

Reply to BrianW

Are you objecting, agreeing, or both? It is unclear to me.

Are you denying or agreeing that some things are existentially dependent upon humans and others are not?

Are you denying or agreeing that some things are existentially dependent upon our awareness and others are not?

Are you denying or agreeing that some things are existentially dependent upon both, our existence and our awareness, and others are not?

Are you denying or agreeing that we can acquire knowledge of existential dependency?

Is there some other relevancy within your post that I'm missing?

Reply to creativesoul

Through the processes of creation, invention, dependence, etc., humans are neither the first nor last in that chain of cause and effect. I understand the term 'existentially dependent upon' to imply 'owing existence to'. My point is nothing owes its existence to humans. Life is the pattern we are a part of; it determines us, we do not determine it.

Quoting BrianW

Through the processes of creation, invention, dependence, etc., humans are neither the first nor last in that chain of cause and effect. I understand the term 'existentially dependent upon' to imply 'owing existence to'. My point is nothing owes its existence to humans. Life is the pattern we are a part of; it determines us, we do not determine it.

This looks like an 'argument' for strict determinism.

I'll take issue with the bit about "nothing owes it's existence to humans"...

I hope the notion of "owes" isn't the issue here. That said...

Books, type writers, computers, human thought and belief, social(human) constructs...

Are you claiming that these things are not existentially dependent upon humans?

Reply to creativesoul

I'm not saying we don't have things we call 'inventions' and 'creations'. But they are all imitations of some function already existing in nature.
Books, typewriters, computers -> imitations of some brain functions.
Human thought and belief, social constructs -> we had them before we were consciously aware of mental process. They are instinctive. We didn't create or invent instincts.

As much as we think they depend on us, we also depend on them. That is my point.

Reply to BrianW

There is considerable disagreement here, but that isn't my interest. My interest is setting out human thought and belief. One means is existential dependency. I am quite hesitant to employ the notion of "instincts". It's historically a catch all phrase for autonomous behaviours and the like. It's an ad hoc explanation that fills in all the gaps of our ignorance regarding where causality meets pre-linguistic basic human behaviour(s).

Are you claiming that hard determinism is incompatible with the notion of being existentially dependent upon humans?

Reply to creativesoul

I'm not pro determinism or any other -ism. (I hate -isms, they limit philosophy to human bias)

You seem stuck on dependence; on humans being some kind of 'gods' or on exemplifying human genius.
My point is interdependence. Thought and belief are part of human activity. If they were created or invented at some point, wouldn't that mean there was a time when they didn't exist? Is that your point? That, there was a time, prior to their creation/invention, when thoughts and beliefs didn't exist?

My point is that thoughts and beliefs are part of the human process. We did not invent/create them, we just realised we had such capacities and applied them deliberately.

Quoting BrianW

I'm not pro determinism or any other -ism.

Ok.

So, there is no common historical school of thought that you find agreeable/amenable to your own worldview in enough ways that you would self-identify with it.



Quoting BrianW

You seem stuck on dependence; on humans being some kind of 'gods' or on exemplifying human genius.

None of this follows from what I've written. I'm afraid you've misunderstood.



Quoting BrianW

My point is interdependence. Thought and belief are part of human activity. If they were created or invented at some point, wouldn't that mean there was a time when they didn't exist? Is that your point?

No.

Rudimentary human thought and belief are neither invented nor created by us. That I can say emphatically.



Quoting BrianW

...there was a time, prior to their creation/invention, when thoughts and beliefs didn't exist?

Agreed if we change "prior to their creation/invention" to "prior to their existence". That would be a rather trivial claim though.


Quoting BrianW

My point is that thoughts and beliefs are part of the human process. We did not invent/create them, we just realised we had such capacities and applied them deliberately.

There is nothing prima facie disagreeable here.

What is thought? And what is it that thinks?

Reply to creativesoul
In an existential affirmation of freedom, the freedom of Dasein is as such, alongside the fact of the existentiele Dasein-with.

Quoting creativesoul

So, there is no common historical school of thought that you find agreeable/amenable to your own worldview in enough ways that you would self-identify with it.

Was Jesus a Christian? Was Buddha a Buddhist?

It's okay to learn from others as long as we remember our duty to ourselves. Understanding is an individual aspect no matter from whom or where it is learned. I do learn from notable philosophers but I do not pretend that my thought processes are aligned with (or limited to) theirs. Most of those we learn from were not limited to the schools of thought they have been ascribed to. So far, these distinctions to knowledge seem to be a modern and progressive theme. Moving back towards antiquity, we find a unification of disciplines where philosophy, mathematics, alchemy, science, astronomy, astrology, spiritualism/religion, metaphysics, etc were all part of the same discipline.
Presently, most of the -isms we have are just shades of fanaticism. Schools have become like religion -> they want to be special in an exclusive way. (I don't mean specialization. Even in the olden days it was possible to specialize without the exclusion of other disciplines. Also, most great scholars and philosophers had multiple fields of study, experience and practice.)

Quoting BrianW

Was Jesus a Christian? Was Buddha a Buddhist?

It's okay to learn from others as long as we remember our duty to ourselves. Understanding is an individual aspect no matter from whom or where it is learned. I do learn from notable philosophers but I do not pretend that my thought processes are aligned with (or limited to) theirs.

Understood. We are alike in this way.

It is my well considered opinion that no discipline has gotten thought and belief right. Thus, the thrust of this thread is to correctly set out thought and belief as the first step in establishing the consequential scope that that has had.

By virtue of getting thought and belief wrong, we've gotten something or other wrong about everything ever thought, believed, spoken, and/or written...

Reply to creativesoul Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed. William Blake

Reply to creativesoul But what is knowledge? Can knowledge give truth?

Reply to Blue Lux

I am of the strongly held position that how we use language affects/effects how we subsequently think. Poor language use results in poor thinking. Conventional notions of thought and belief lead to poor thinking.

Your use of the term "truth" is exemplary of this.

A proper understanding of thought and belief reveals much about truth.

Reply to creativesoul mmm
And what is knowledge of something other than the 'truth' of that something? If I say, I see the sky. The sky is blue. The sky contains birds. The sky is mostly nitrogen. If I say all these things, do they not give me some knowledge of that which is the object of it? Wouldn't it be the case that the truth of something is the object of the knowledge of it? If not, then what? Untruth? Relativistic idealism?

Reply to creativesoul How you use language will not dictate how you think. How you think will dictate how you use language.

Reply to creativesoul And yes, I am aware. I personally choose Heidegger's explication of Aletheia to understand truth.

I personally use the method of understanding thought and belief, and then apply that understanding as a means to help determine whether or not some account or another warrants my assent/agreement.

Reply to creativesoul What is truth?

It's a word that has several different acceptable uses.

Reply to creativesoul Does it have a being of its own? If so, is that being ascertainable? Is it at all? Or does this fall under an ontological argument?

Quoting Blue Lux

How you use language will not dictate how you think. How you think will dictate how you use language.

I'd love to have a formal debate about this. There is a sub-forum here just for that sort of thing.

Reply to creativesoul How do I do that? I am new to this forum.

Does the word truth have a being of it's own?

Is that what you're asking me?

Reply to creativesoul If truth is, then what is the 'is'?

Reply to creativesoul The word reflects a truth does it not? The Truth of Truth is something. What is it?

Quoting Blue Lux

If truth is, then what is the 'is'?

What sort of question is this?

"If truth is"

???

If truth is... what exactly?

Reply to creativesoul ...

Knowledge consists of an endeavor to truth. Perhaps I am speaking too generally?
Knowledge seeks truth or to establish truth or to characterize the truth of whatever is the focal point of a knowledge (asking a question about something implies that that something is capable of being questioned and therefore has some type of being). If truth is presupposed then knowledge is presupposed and then what? What does knowledge represent if not truth?
I am asking you. What is Truth? If truth is not; that is, truth is inascertainable or incapable of being apprehended by knowledge then knowledge is completely incapable of giving any actual substantiation or credible account of something. That is the purpose of asking if truth has any being of its own or is completely imaginary or an abstraction.

Quoting Blue Lux

The word reflects a truth does it not?

It does not. The word reflects - if we must talk like that - nothing specific whatsoever.

Different people use the word "truth" in different ways. All of which are accepted senses of the word. Not all of which can survive valid scrutiny. Some senses of the word take account of that which requires no language. Others do not.

As it pertains to the thread, if rudimentary thought and belief is prior to language, then soo too is everything it is existentially dependent upon. The presupposition of truth(as correspondence to fact/reality) is one such thing.

Quoting Blue Lux

The Truth of Truth is something. What is it?

"The Truth of Truth" is a language use that I find no use for.

Reply to creativesoul So truth represents nothing specific... But it does in the case of knowledge. For what could be the intentionality of a consciousness of knowledge other than the truth of what would be that knowledge?

Quoting Blue Lux

So truth represents nothing specific... But it does in the case of knowledge. For what could be the intentionality of a consciousness of knowledge other than the truth of what would be that knowledge?

I said the word "truth" reflects nothing specific...

Reply to creativesoul But it must be something specific, for it is itself something...
Are you saying it is fragmented? Then what would knowledge be then?
Knowledge would be thus nonspecific... And therefore incapable of delivering any specification at all.
Knowledge would be de trop.

Is this the case?

Quoting Blue Lux

I am asking you. What is Truth?

I answered. It's a word that has several different accepted uses. Here, you've capitalized it. Why on earth would you do that?

Reply to creativesoul I'm not talking about some sort of Truth as in divine...

Ideal of truth.
If something is... A word for instance... A bird... What is the truth of a bird?
Abstraction.
Truth is therefore abstraction?
And therefore knowledge is abstraction?

Quoting Blue Lux

But it must be something specific, for it is itself something...
Are you saying it is fragmented? Then what would knowledge be then?
Knowledge would be thus nonspecific... And therefore incapable of delivering any specification at all.
Knowledge would be de trop.

I'm just attempting to pave the way for a better method of understanding truth, by virtue of acknowledging that the word has several different uses.

Do you recognize that that is the case?

Reply to creativesoul It doesn't matter if it has several different uses. I am using it in an easily understandable sense.

Reply to creativesoul "A method of understanding truth," is knowledge. And thus there must be a truth of knowledge. If this truth of knowledge is absolutely incapable of being apprehended (by means of knowledge itself) then what does this imply?
Knowledge is absolutely devoid of meaning?
But what characterizes thought other than meaning?
Is knowledge not limited to thought?
Then how could we even ask the question?
How could we ask the question if there will never be an answer?

Reply to creativesoul I have been led to think that one can not know by virtue of knowledge alone... And therefore knowledge has absolutely no primacy over being... Being is unknowable.

You ask a question such as "What is Truth?"...

I answer by telling you that "truth" is a word that has several different accepted uses.

You say that doesn't matter. What else would?

We must first acknowledge that there are different uses, then we can set them out as a means to see which one, if any, are applicable to the discussion... and how.

This particular topic is about rudimentary thought and belief. Have you read the thread in it's entirety?

Reply to creativesoul I've read your introduction.

What does 'existentially dependent' on 'us' mean? Who is us? Is this idle talk?

Physiological sensations... These things are only metaphorically correlated with the experience of colors, sounds, etc... It might as well be non-sequitur to assert that there is a relationship between the experience of something and the nerve impulse. That gap has never been bridged.

These things must be discovered?
Discovered by whom?
What is it that discovers? Are you sure that that which discovers could ever be represented so to be known?

And there we have the problem of knowledge I have been speaking about.

Reply to creativesoul Origin of truth:

Old English tr?ewth, tr?owth ‘faithfulness, constancy’

That is the definition I am referring to.

Re-read the first page of the thread...

Pay closer attention to the words I'm actually using.

Reply to creativesoul Knowledge is not dependent on thought... And language is akin to a technology. There is a mechanism of thought for those whom have never learned language. It is not specific... But the specificity of thought has been shown to be nonexistent. Nothing is finite without an infinite reference point.

Quoting Blue Lux

Knowledge is not dependent on thought...

Knowledge of thought and belief is.

Reply to creativesoul Knowledge of thought and belief... Is that possible?

Of course it's possible. Why wouldn't it be?

We're both discussing what we think and believe, respectively, right here and right now.

The thread is about thought and belief prior to language(rudimentary thought and belief), and thus, I'm setting out that which is prior to thinking about thought and belief. Thinking about thought and belief requires language. Knowledge of thought and belief requires thinking about it. Knowledge of thought and belief requires language. Not all thought and belief requires language. Some does.

All thought and belief is meaningful to the creature forming and/or 'holding' it. All thought, belief, and statements thereof presupposes it's own truth(as correspondence).

Rudimentary thought and belief presupposes correspondence to fact; reality; events; the way things are or were; etc. It is only this sense of "truth" that helps to correctly set out what thought and belief is. Correspondence to fact/reality does not require language.

Reply to creativesoul What would a knowledge of thought and belief be?

Reply to creativesoul Thinking about thought and belief requires nothing other than consciousness. Language could be whatever a person defines it to be. Furthermore, language will always say more affectually than what is analytically ascertainable.

Reply to creativesoul Why would a knowledge of thought and belief require language?

Reply to creativesoul What about counting? Counting is thought. Knowledge of counting would be consciousness of counting. In order to count there must be a faculty that counts and does not reflect. If one asked the question... One could say "I am counting", but only then, after it was reflected upon, would that counting become counting. Language is representation, not reflection. One can reflect on something and thus have a knowledge in thought of thought or of something that was believed to be without using words or having any reference to language. Fantasies, too...

All language acquisition requires learning
All learning requires thought and belief
All language acquisition requires thought and belief
All language acquisition requires correctly attributing meaning
Correctly attributing meaning requires drawing the same correlation(s) that has/have already been drawn between things by the other speakers of that language
All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content(truth as correspondence)
All meaningful attribution requires the presupposition of truth(as correspondence)
All language acquisition requires the presupposition of truth(as correspondence)

Reply to creativesoul Seems legit.

But does belief not require learning?

Quoting creativesoul

Correctly attributing meaning requires drawing the same correlation(s) that has/have already been drawn between things by the other speakers of that language

Hmmmm.

But what about neologisms? If I create a word, I am attributing meaning correctly but not with reference to any correlation previously drawn before by both myself and others. But... Then again... In order to understand that neologism... I would have to correctly attribute the meaning of my understanding to correlations already drawn between things.

But what of a new philosophy? Or of a new understanding? Or of a new meaning? Say... A new meaning of a friendship or a relationship, a meaning that is with reference to nothing anyone else has ever understood before, something incomparably personal and unique.

Ahh... And back to my problem of language. Meaning is never authentically communicated in language is it?
All that is in language is abstraction. A structure of glimpses and metaphor.

Quoting Blue Lux

But does belief not require learning?

Well, on my view some belief is virtually indistinguishable from learning. Particularly, rudimentary(nonlinguistic) belief such as the attribution/recognition of causality.

I agree with regard to novelty. New(original) correlations cannot be rightfully called "correct".

Your use of "seems legit" reminds me of apokrisis...

:wink:

p1 When something is existentially dependent upon something else, the latter always exists prior to the former
p2 All thinking about thought and belief(metacognition henceforth) is existentially dependent upon(requires henceforth) pre-existing thought and belief
C1 Some thought and belief exists prior to metacognition(from p1, p2)
p3 All metacognition requires the ability to identify, isolate, and subsequently consider pre-existing thought and belief as it's own subject matter
p4 The ability to identify, isolate, and subsequently consider pre-existing thought and belief as it's own subject matter requires complex written language
C2 All metacognition requires complex written language(from p3, p4)
C3 Complex written language is prior to metacognition(from C2, p1)
p5 Some thought and belief is existentially prior to complex written language
p6 That which is existentially prior to complex written language cannot consist of it
C4 Some thought and belief cannot consist of complex written language

Reply to creativesoul Quoting creativesoul

When something is existentially dependent upon something else, the latter always exists prior to the former

What do you mean?

Something that is existentially dependent on another thing exists prior to that which it is existentially dependent on? How is that the case?

I have it right. Not sure how you've arrived at the opposite of what was claimed...

"The latter" refers to "something else". "The former" refers to "something".

When something is existentially dependent upon something else, the latter always exists prior to the former

Change "something" to X and "something else" to Y.

When X is existentially dependent upon Y, Y always exists prior to X.

Change X to apple strudel. Change Y to apples.

Reply to creativesoul I read it wrong.

Nah. It was a bit confusing. "Former" and "latter" refer to temporal sequence. Self-referential claims ought be improved.

:wink:

Reply to creativesoul But then again is anything really existentially dependent on anything else? One could surely object to causality or aetiology.

One can object to whatever they wish. Doesn't make the objection worth listening and/or assenting to.

Reply to creativesoul But that is not conducive to an interdependence now is it?