The significance of meaning
Probability maths says that given infinity, a random character generator producing upper and lower case letters, spaces and punctuation marks will reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare. Think monkeys and typewriters, if you like.
Shakespeare is wheeled on for this thought experiment rather than, say, Charles Dickens because he’s the supposed apogee of literary creativity. The reductionist probabilitarians are saying: you think Shakespeare’s the greatest – well, he can be reproduced by empty randomness.
You can kind of see what they mean, and there’s probably not much point arguing with a probability mathematician (though there are valid questions about the abstract concept of infinity) – but it just seems wrong, doesn’t it? The first sentence or two, maybe – but the whole thing? Maybe some things will never happen by chance, even in infinty.
Then there’s the origin of DNA. Scientists say it can be explained by random chemical events occurring over a very long time. There are several different theories as to how this might have happened, but none of them sounds remotely plausible. As with the randomly reproduced Shakespeare, it just seems impossible.
I know it sounds like I’m on a slippery slope via intelligent design to creationism, but I’m not. I’m suggesting that the crucial element in both cases is meaning.
The works of Shakespeare exist because they have meaning. That meaning comes from human consciousness and its medium, language. The unique sequence of six million characters comprising that product of meaning could never be reproduced by chance, I’d suggest.
Wikipedia says that DNA is a molecule that carries the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms. Most DNA molecules consist of two strands coiled around each other to form a double helix. Both strands store the same biological information, which is replicated when the two strands separate.
Does that sound like something that came about by chemicals randomly bumping into each other?
Perhaps DNA came into existence because the universe (or multiverse if you like) has meaning, perhaps deriving from universal consciousness. Again, I’d suggest that meaning is never the product of random processes.
It must, of course, be admitted that random genetic mutation fueled the natural selection that led from the first living organisms to humans capable of pondering the meaning of meaning. Nevertheless, randomness and meaning are worlds apart.
Or perhaps, rather, they’re part of a hierarchy, with randomness subject to probability, and probability subject to meaning.
Try as it may, maths and science can’t yet explain the origin of life, what consciousness is, or the ultimate nature of the universe.
I’d love maths and science to have an explanation for everything; but perhaps some things are ineffable. Perhaps maths, for all its fundamental beauty, is the scaffolding rather than the building.
Shakespeare is wheeled on for this thought experiment rather than, say, Charles Dickens because he’s the supposed apogee of literary creativity. The reductionist probabilitarians are saying: you think Shakespeare’s the greatest – well, he can be reproduced by empty randomness.
You can kind of see what they mean, and there’s probably not much point arguing with a probability mathematician (though there are valid questions about the abstract concept of infinity) – but it just seems wrong, doesn’t it? The first sentence or two, maybe – but the whole thing? Maybe some things will never happen by chance, even in infinty.
Then there’s the origin of DNA. Scientists say it can be explained by random chemical events occurring over a very long time. There are several different theories as to how this might have happened, but none of them sounds remotely plausible. As with the randomly reproduced Shakespeare, it just seems impossible.
I know it sounds like I’m on a slippery slope via intelligent design to creationism, but I’m not. I’m suggesting that the crucial element in both cases is meaning.
The works of Shakespeare exist because they have meaning. That meaning comes from human consciousness and its medium, language. The unique sequence of six million characters comprising that product of meaning could never be reproduced by chance, I’d suggest.
Wikipedia says that DNA is a molecule that carries the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms. Most DNA molecules consist of two strands coiled around each other to form a double helix. Both strands store the same biological information, which is replicated when the two strands separate.
Does that sound like something that came about by chemicals randomly bumping into each other?
Perhaps DNA came into existence because the universe (or multiverse if you like) has meaning, perhaps deriving from universal consciousness. Again, I’d suggest that meaning is never the product of random processes.
It must, of course, be admitted that random genetic mutation fueled the natural selection that led from the first living organisms to humans capable of pondering the meaning of meaning. Nevertheless, randomness and meaning are worlds apart.
Or perhaps, rather, they’re part of a hierarchy, with randomness subject to probability, and probability subject to meaning.
Try as it may, maths and science can’t yet explain the origin of life, what consciousness is, or the ultimate nature of the universe.
I’d love maths and science to have an explanation for everything; but perhaps some things are ineffable. Perhaps maths, for all its fundamental beauty, is the scaffolding rather than the building.
Comments (141)
Likewise, it would be really really improbable for a random number generator to randomly produce exactly the complete works of Shakespeare, but if random output was filtered through its readability by humans, then you'd have much better chances of coming up with some kind of natural-sounding, sense-making text, albeit still not probably exactly the complete works of Shakespeare.
Will write more about abiogenesis later.
Actually non-linear dynamics goes a long way beyond what standard calculus and probability can do. It's worth a look if you like math, especially when applied to highly complex and living systems.
The meaning is in the words. If they were not, we wouldnt be able to understand without Shakespeare (or his mind at least) present. Meaning ultimately comes from minds, but through words as well. A mind is the detection apparatus used, but the medium contains the meaning the mimd is detecting.
This puts the cart before the horse...
Without the attribution of meaning(thought and belief formation), there is no mind/consciousness. Mind/consciousness consists - in very large part - of meaningful thought and belief.
Not really. I mean this example is one of the least weird examples of infinity. What makes it seem wrong to you?
Quoting Chris Hughes
Perhaps what might help here is considering other very unlikely events that we know happen. Like winning the lottery. A great metaphor I have read about winning the lottery: Imagine a highway many miles long, and somewhere along that highway, there is a board stuck in the ground at the side of the road, say 1 metre wide. Playing the lottery is like driving down that highway, blindfolded, and trying to hit the board with a single shot from a pistol fired out a window of the car. Completely absurd, yet people do win the lottery.
Quoting Chris Hughes
It's probably more accurate to say that "the works of Shakespeare" are the meaning of a body of text.
Quoting Chris Hughes
I think there is a contradiction here. If the meaning "comes from" consciousness, it cannot at the same time be "comprised" by the characters on paper.
Quoting Chris Hughes
That's a difficult statement to untangle. It would be true insofar as meaning is a mental interpretation and the mind isn't "random". But, humans are evidently capable of seeing meaning in random occurrences: the shape of clouds, the pattern tea leaves make in a cup etc.
And linking to abiogenesis - I just read about an experiment in constructing simple cells from inorganic elements. The idea was to create a solution containing 90 elements necessary for a very simple cell, along with lipids to create the necessary cell membrane. Stochastically/statistically, it was completely improbable (impossible) that any containers would form containing all 90 elements. Nevertheless, they did form. What happened was that some containers formed with zero elements, while others formed with the requisite 90 elements. This can be explained if there is an attractor governing (representing?) a stable system state corresponding to the existence of the "cells". i.e. the elements have an "affinity" for one another in some complex, but measurable/calculable sense. Overriding stochastic behaviour.
Nice Op Chris. In addition to mathematics, other metaphysical probabilities from consciousness include:
1. Music
2. Wonderment
3. Good and Bad
4. The Will
5. Love
And any other human abstract (axiom) that doesn't confer biological advantage.
Nothing is random. I would like to see a "something" that comes into existence by itself without any past, present or future connections.
Random, luck and chance are just common language for patterns beyond our understanding.
Hey Brian what's your take on 'the stream of consciousness'? You know, random thought's that one has while , say, driving a car, resting, meditating, etc. etc..
I think what you might say is that randomness in consciousness, may simply be an empirical phenomena resulting from past experience ideas/imagery that one collects and enters into their database, etc.. , there's a fairly comprehensive theory of Quantum Consciousness:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/
As it relates to the OP of Meaning though, as you suggest, maybe things like the Will, seem to remain a mystery or at least appear to be beyond our understanding...
For me, ultimately, consciousness is a connection/relation to the greater life; a link between me and everything. But our thoughts are not ultimate and neither are our memories. What we refer to as consciousness is like a hint in a story - through the hint we become aware of the possibility of a something but the hint is not the something. And yet, without the hint, we cannot infer the something. Furthermore, both the hint and the something are part of the unfolding story, each with its own place.
To me, random is an idea like 'nothing'. It is just a mental tool we use for comparative thinking.
Or, said in another way, are abstract's in and of themselves, provide for some level of meaningful existence(?). I would say yes. Music and math would be some examples of abstract's providing for meaningful existence.
Is meaning indivisible from conscious existence, and the metaphysical Will in nature, are both good topics that Schopenhauer studied:
"Man defines as a metaphysical animal, able to marvel at his own existence and the sight of the world, aspiring to be absolute.
– The term “metaphysical animal ” has remained famous.
– As for the term metaphysical taken substantively, it means[to], Schopenhauer, a discipline which claims to be knowledge and experience beyond the given phenomena (as defined by Kant), claiming a speculative rise above lessons of experience
Hence arises the metaphysical? It is rooted in surprise and suggests that is absolute behind nature.
– But man is not only a metaphysical animal: it is a religious being, which focuses on mysteries, understood as dogmas which can not be clearly captured by thought."
The fun part is trying to understand such things and try to work out the nuts and bolts of how things could have occurred.
Understanding is a bottomless pit. When people say they understand something what they mean is that they have made progress in finding a better theory to fit the data. But there is most likely a better theory lurking underneath.
If we accept, as I think we do, that the Earth was created some 4.5 billion years ago when there was no life and that now there is a abundance and variation of life then there must be some process by which that life appeared. Evolution is the obvious process. Most of the variation in life forms were created in the past 500 million years which still allows for 3 billion years (allowing a billion years for the Earth to cool and the oceans to appear.) for something like the DNA molecule to evolve. Doesn't seem too hard for me to believe.
I don't really know. Perhaps it is a problem awaiting your brilliance and insight to solve, or perhaps there is insufficient data..or perhaps undertaking experiments in the laboratory that take billions of years to conduct is just too hard..
All I know is that one needs to start with some form of replicating molecule..but what that would look like I don't know.. and yeah it is surprising that no one has managed to identify a simple replicating organic molecule.. or maybe they have and I just don't know about it..
If I may quote from my OP:
My point being: The origin of DNA can't be materialisticaly brushed aside. As long as it can't be explained, it must be acknowledged a mystery.
There are many many mysteries in the world, and I agree with you that the origins of DNA is one worthy of further investigation.
What makes you believe that?
:brow:
There's also disagreement about whether or not mind/consciousness produces meaning.
I know how.
:wink:
I'd say it's not a matter of belief - rather one of common sense.
How?
That's what I aim to find out for myself, with a little help from you. I personally do not think it makes any sense at all, let alone common sense...
Shakespeare's dead right? His mind is dead as well. Yet, the meaning has transcended the man and his mind. So, if what you say were true, this could not be the case. But it is...
Right?
For me the issue is why we need or trust the manifestation of DNA to tell us that life is an experiment or a gift. As humans we can consider both possibilities and many others. Perhaps we would like something like DNA to save us from the angst of too many possibilities.
On the other hand, life is perhaps more fascinating as a sphinx that can't answer its own questions.
It may be worth taking on board that ‘impossible’ means extremely unlikely - it is impossible for a monkey to write the entire work of Shakespeare (meaning it is probabilistically so improbable that statistically we say it is ‘impossible’). It is also possible that on some given beach the wind will blow the sand to for a perfectly constructed scale model of the Taj Mahal ... yet this has, and will, never happen.
Clearly DNA is more than a statistical possibility!
I don't see the problem here. The works of Shakespeare (the product of his mind) are the subject of the monkeys/typewriters thought experiment, which is used by many scientists to defend the idea that DNA code could arise by chance, given a very long time.
Talking about the ‘meaning’ of DNA is like talking about the ‘meaning’ of electrons or gold.
Clearly DNA is not impossible? What are you talking about?
How do you explain the origin of DNA, then?
Clearly, I'm talking about the idea that the universe is imbued with meaning; that DNA and our goldilocks planet are not the product of chance. This is the forum for metaphysical speculation, isn't it?
There are theories about how DNA forms over time, but it does remain a mystery. We know enough about chemistry to to infer it came about without some ‘supernatural’ intervention. It was impossible for Stone Age man to get to the Moon too, yet today we can go to the Moon - it is possible that I will go to the Moon even if it is highly unlikely (point being I cannot give you an accurate prediction as to how likely as I cannot see into the future).
Teleological claims aren’t really anything other than ‘human’. Ontological claims are more or less scientific of epistemic issues. The origin of DNA is a scientific issue not a philosophical one. If your question is ontological and/or teleological the I can only ask what you mean by ‘origin’ and/or ‘purpose’ - hence the epistemic issue cannot be avoided.
Words can be used to obfuscate. Is my OP unworthy of acknowledgement and response? If so, perhaps it should be deleted.
If you want it may help to distinguish different ‘types’ of meaning? Can there be meaning without humans? I don’t see how and if there can be then what do/could we mean by saying this?
Personally I cannot comprehend 1000 years let alone a million or more. To talk about ontological ‘meaning’ in those terms is always bound by my present finite existence (soon to be non-existent).
Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge. Meaning - the meaning of meaning, if you like - isn't confined to that field.
Perhaps someone else can help you move the discussion along?
Fair enough. :worry:
The monkeys typing Shakespeare is impossible, not probable, because monkeys don't live for an infinite period of time. Probabilities are only probable when you don't incorporate all the facts.
Meaning is the relationship between some effect and some cause(s). When you read a post (the effect), you're able to get at the causes via meaning. The cause is the idea in someone's head and their intent to communicate it on a forum. So in reading words, you are getting at the idea in someone's head.
Actual monkeys and typewriters aren't needed for the thought experiment. Mechanistic probabilitarians are imagining random character generation which can continue indefinitely.
Meaning, in this context, is a metaphysical property. The improbability of DNA ocurring by chance raises the question: does its ocurrence have cosmic meaning?
How do you distinguish a thought experiment from imagination?
There is a difference between random character generation, and processes that can only build on what it has in the present. "Random" characters generated are random precisely because they aren't taking into account the present conditions, or state-of-affairs, that exists and that natural selection has to work with. Natural selection doesn't just add another two legs to an organism. It can only filter or promote conditions that exist in the present, into the next generation. Mutations can only happen to existing DNA structures, not make up completely new ones out of thin air.
Meaning, in this context, is that effects are about their causes, and not randomly generated. If they were, there would be no such thing as meaning, even for us human beings.
The thought experiment is: imagine a device producing random characters indefinitely. Probablity maths says it'll reproduce the works of Shakespeare.
Which has nothing to do with how the universe works from existing states to new states. The universe does not consist of new states coming about completely on their own without any prior cause, or present state-of-affairs, shaping what comes next.
It's similar to how you get from primeval soup to DNA. Until the ocurrence of DNA there was no evolution, so how did that amazingly complex molecule come to exist?
Random chemical interactions took place over a very long time (like the imagined random character generator). Some may have resulted in proto-DNA structures, but without evolution (and without the benefit of the thought experiment's infinity), how would the huge number of exact steps needed go arrive at self-replicating life-forms have ocurred?
Exactly - and my metaphysical question is: if the effect was DNA, and it was not randomly generated, was its cause cosmic meaning?
Energy put into the a stable system.
Think of natural selection as an environmental feedback mechanism where the current state-of-affairs of the environment influences the development of the individual things within that environment. Predators are individuals in an environment, but are part of the environment and influence the evolution of prey, and are themselves evolving based on how the prey evolves. You cannot have change in one without the influence of the other.
Quoting Chris Hughes
They weren't random. They were based on existing conditions.
Quoting Chris Hughes
The pre-existing conditions of slightly less complex molecules coming together to form more complex ones thanks to the stable energy and environment that existed at that time.
Yet once you have life it isn't at all simply random. Mutations can be random, but what life forms adapt and prosper and what become extinct isn't at all random. The Darwinian aspect of evolution isn't at all random. You might say that an asteroid hitting the Earth 66 million years ago was a random event, but that small animals survived the extinction event and large animals couldn't cope with the dramatic changes isn't something random.
I would say life itself creates predictability and meaning. And as you pointed out, it doesn't necessarily need a designer.
I hope you mean evolution, not genetic modification. Either way, I'm asking about what meaning DNA's improbable ocurrence might have.
Yes - DNA is life, which evolves meaningfully. Was the evolution of humans, able to think about this, predictable?
What do you mean?
You might be able to build a similar argument using information instead, but you will still have to avoid the further objection of teleology. Causation does not work backwards; The desirability of a certain outcome does not bring that outcome about.
Once an animal species gets the ability to use complex language and furthermore use written language, then it's quite predictable that we will have these discussions in some way.
Thats just silly. :wink:
Was it predictable that a life form would get the ability to use complex language?
If you mean we should assume there's separate DNA life elsewhere in the universe, then yes, the ocurrence of DNA is less improbable. That's kind of circular, though
Yes, we should - and we are. And we can help each other.
The problem was that statement about the meaning of Shakespeare's works being in his head. That's just not the case, and we know that beyond a reasonable doubt. So...
Oh, I get it now... you're a true believer... That makes sense. The argument about monkeys and typewriters has the exact same ground as any and all arguments for God. Logical possibility.
No, I'm not - I'm an agnostic. I'm speculating that, given the improbability of the ocurrence of DNA, there may be a design-like process analagous to evolution at work in the universe.
Do you think this is the kind of process that science could explore? If not, why not? You mentioned maths being the mere scaffolding.
But even if maths/science doesn't give us the kind of answers we want, they seem more trustworthy than more poetic answers that may make us feel better. When I hear critiques of science in regards to origins or ultimate meanings, I often get the impression that those criticizing would somehow like the trustworthiness of science on the side of their preferred poetic 'explanations.'
No such inference is justified by any empirical facts or set of facts. The opposite is true; the empirical facts and our lack of comprehensive understanding of them give us no reason to infer any "supernatural intervention".
Quoting I like sushi
Epistemology deals with empirical investigation and observation. Semantics deals with definition and stipulation. So, what is meaning is dealt with by the latter, not the former.
Design presupposes a designer... Same ground. Logical possibility.
No it doesn't. Evolution is a brilliant design process that requires no designer.
How true! We pompously say, "science hasn't yet discovered...". Yes, I like to imagine that, say, cosmology or particle physics will (eventually!) confirm my metaphysical speculation.
I haven't invoked supernatural intervention. (However, as an agnostic, I don't rule it out.)
Re "meaning" and which academic field it belongs to, I'm suggesting that the improbablity of the occurrence of DNA inplies the possibility of a meaningful universal consciousness - and that that "meaning" is the same quality as that behind the creation of the works of Shakespeare, which makes their reproduction by randomness as improbable as the ocurrence of DNA.
Good luck :)
Thanks. :cool:
When we have just one example, a fairly difficult question. Just as difficult as the question how probable is life to emerge when a planet has the ingredients needed for life (as we know it) and is in the "goldilocks-zone".
Any kind of trace of life (past or present) in our solar system would obviously radically change our ideas about this.
Quoting Chris Hughes
Quoting Harry Hindu
How do you know how probable, or possible, the occurrence of DNA is? It doesn't seem to occur out in the vacuum of space, but on certain planets with certain conditions, it seems certain that it does.
Quoting Chris Hughes
You're asking a very tough question. No one knows the answer right now, but we also didn't know that we evolved until someone did the hard work of observing nature for many years and documenting everything and offering up the idea that has now been tested for a 160 years. Doing a quick Google came up with this that seems to suggest that viruses may have had a role to play:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK6360/
If the complexity of some system requires a designer, then why wouldn't the designer require a designer? The design argument leads to an infinite regress of designers.
It seems like a better explanation would be that the (multi-)universe is a certain way and is all there is, and we are discovering (through consistent observation and trying to limit our biases of how we want it to be) how things are. When I say that it's a certain way, I don't mean to imply that it could be any other way. That would just be our anthropomorphic tendency to project our imagination onto the universe and use our ignorance as a basis for the existence of possibilities, which are really just imaginings that don't take into consideration, or have access to, how things actually are.
It's high improbability arises from the difficulty of getting from the component chemicals to the highly complex molecule without the benefit of evolution (which is, of course, only possible with DNA).
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
What do you mean by "use"?
"Use" for me entails causation. You conceive of a goal, then you use your brain, words, screwdriver, etc. to achieve the goal, observe the effects of your action and if the goal hasn't been realized then adjust your plan and repeat until it is.
Desire, or intent, does play a role in the outcomes of the world - or else how can you accuse people of say, racism?
Meaning/information is an inherent part of reality as the relationship between cause and effect, and as being part of this reality we are effects of prior causes and are causes of new effects. The rings in the tree stump mean the age of the tree because of how the tree grows throughout the year, whether some observer is there using that information to achieve some goal or not.
Difficulty is another anthropomorphic projection. Difficulty lies in our ability to understand the processes that actually did happen due to the lack of observational evidence, not in the actual process.
The difficulty with tbe origin of DNA lies not in the (inevitable!) lack of observation, but in the lack of a plausible theory.
Is it a matter of epistemology as to whether "what 'knowledge' means" is a matter of epistemology? How would you determine a definitive answer? It's a matter of interpretation: a semantic, hermeneutical or phenomenological matter, I would say. Or you might say it is a meta-epistemological matter.
Quoting Chris Hughes
Read the exchange again.
Quoting Janus
I haven't said you invoked supernatural intervention. You said we know enough about chemistry to infer that no supernatural intervention is involved. I said that we do not know enough to infer that, and that, on the contrary, the empirical facts we do know and the fact of our lack of comprehensive understanding of those facts give us no reason to invoke supernatural intervention.
I am not opposed to "magical thinking"; on the contrary I think it is indispensable to human life; what I am opposed to is the reification of magical thinking exemplified in such ideas as "the supernatural".
I don't know what this even means, let alone whether I think it is true or not. Perhaps your notion of "randomness' or chaos is somewhat literal, that is unnuanced?
meaning is meaningless
meaning is mysticism
anytime anyone is talking about meaning (mental masturbation) they are not talking about what actually exists and in what way it exists.
language has no intrinsic meaning, its just shapes and sounds.
knowledge has no meaning its just a map of the territory
there is no meaning outside of the mind nor inside of it. its just an ambiguous word used by the ignorant to support their magical mysticism.
when people talk about meaning its like talking about superman. sure you can talk about it but its not actually real. the smart thing to do would be to break meaning down into what it actually is. explain the processes of the mind and how they work.
Evolution isn't impossible without DNA. I posted about this upthread, let me quote myself:
Quoting Pfhorrest
Or, also popular, properties attributed to the Designer that we can't really make sense of. An explanation that's no longer intelligible is no longer an explanation. And that offends because it dresses up we-don't-know in the trappings of clarification.
Theories are based on observations.
Quoting Chris Hughes
The problem isn't that others aren't getting what you are saying. If that was the problem, then why didn't you say so earlier rather than respond to me as if I understood what you were saying? You never led me to believe that I didn't understand what you were saying. There comes a point where you should re-think your position - not grip tighter to a position that is fallacious.
Quoting Chris Hughes
By who?
Quoting Eee
Yes, that too. :up: It offends me because it insults my intelligence to use explanations that aren't intelligible.
To clarify the offensiveness, perhaps it's also about the apparent self-deception of those that employ it. I am invested in not being self-deceived --or at least minimizing self-deception.So it pains me to see unclarity presented as rationality. I don't believe perfect clarity is possible, but the pursuit of clarity seems to distinguish philosophy from religion.
You could use the property of Quantum Mechanical systems to evolve through time through the simple act of observation. Hope that's not too New Age for your sensibilities. A lot of physicists hate people doing this, and I don't really get why...
Indeed. I started from belief, brought up a certain way. But, as Zizek jokes somewhere, it's the believers that the faith should watch out for. Because the believers, if they are possessed by the philosophical urge for clarity, will actually think about those beliefs. And that's when they fall apart.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I agree, and I think this should be obvious. But the confused concept of the supernatural obscures how religion organizes group activity in the real world in the same way that a politics based on unquestioned secular concept/ideals does. Transcendence, justice, freedom, fairness, etc. Their force remains, even if one withdraws a traditional religious imagery from them.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I relate to this, though it's complex. As a philosopher, I feel that I must be, in some sense, apolitical. I need distance from the fevers that insist on taking this or that 'magic word' for granted, as unquestionable, as an absolute. At the same time, I still vote for the lesser evil, knowing, however, that my vote is highly unlikely to make a difference. I worry far more about how I spend my money and treat others within my tiny little piece of the world.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I think sometimes how simple the situation is. All the working people, the vast majority of us, could just tax the rich more. But the culture war distracts and seduces us. I think this is because: Once a person attains a certain level of material comfort, they tend to prioritize symbols of virtual superiority. You mention that we are made to exaggerate our differences. While I do think our tendency to do so serves the elite, I also think it's a natural tendency, a natural human vanity. We need an out-group. Perhaps the essence of any group is not what it includes but what it excludes.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I agree. Behind it all, I see humanism, even if it doesn't go by that name. Feuerbach & Stirner offer a portrait of the conflict at its birth or rebirth. And I too, a philosophy-loving atheist, am also a humanist. So, from my point of view, our position is an internal criticism. I 'accuse' (with a triple smile) some of my fellow humanists of being insufficiently self-conscious.
Alksdf 34 kawdf!!!!!@lm asdfm35 34 $#.
Quoting OmniscientNihilist
Explain using meaningless mystical meanings, I suppose? These 'people' you mention...are they all philosophers but your own supreme, omniscient, [s]mystical[/s] self? Or ain't that what we bodies are engaged in here? Explaining the mind, thinking about thinking.
Pretending to doubt everything is all too easy, as are three word epigrams that project profundity. I don't mean to insult you but only to challenge you.
no
explain what the mind is in substance and how it works in process
forget "meaning"
Thanks for responding.
We're already here doing that. Feel free to look at my past posts and debate this or that point. I like Derrida. I think he might be your cup of tea also.
if you cant bulid a mind yet, then you still dont really understand it
Perhaps. And what's your reason for saying so? That we understand only what we make? And does that inference require an understanding of the mind? 'We understand only what we can make.' OK, prove it. Support it. You saw on the branch you sing from. What is the foundation of your authority or insight?
I don't claim to have a finished, bullet-proof theory. I suspect that such a theory is impossible. I challenge you as someone who pretends to be in on a secret.
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
? Friedrich Nietzsche
ego prevents people from seeing themselves for what they really are. which blocks true knowledge of what the mind is and how it works, which prevents the construction of A.I.
I love the old artilleryman. But sometimes people also deceive themselves in terms of aphorisms like those. Conspiracy theory is full of that stuff. The first are actually last, despite appearances. People who don't recognize my brilliance are simply afraid of the truth! Yeah, that's it. Or.... Let's really extend the suspicion. Let's suspect especially the suspicions that flatter us. As you say, ego is indeed a factor. Vanity is my favorite sin.
Quoting OmniscientNihilist
An maybe 'ego' also whispers to us about some true nature that isn't really there. As far as AI goes, I actually know something about the field. And it's not really that exciting. Read some papers and see if it delivers that mystic feeling. IMO it's just another version of the angel/alien archetype. A techno-myth.
the above is caused by the below
Quoting Eee
I don't want to hijack the thread with this digression, but I will add one more point. What you don't give an account of is the transformation from an inferior perspective to a superior perspective. We both agree that ego or self-love is involved in distortion. This is in fact a old idea. 'Objective' means unbiased. But who is it that sees without distortion? The 'true self'? And how is this 'true self' connected to the community at large?
As Wittgenstein and others make clear (though the realization is much older than that), meaning is a public or shared phenomenon. The individual brain is (to overstate it) incapable of meaning, since languages evolve among groups of human beings. The group is primary, and yet language/meaning obviously also requires the individual, living brain. What I like about Derrida is his investigation of the idea of a 'pure meaning' that lives 'behind' the 'dead' symbols and sounds we say that we use to 'transmit' this 'meaning.' Where you and I and he seem to agree is that meaning is a 'mystical' concept. The idea that God is spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and truth is connected to the idea of pure meaning. And the idea of pure meaning is connected to the idea of a pure ego or subject that gazes on or has direct access to this pure meaning. (Note that 'subject' and 'meaning' are themselves signs caught up in this game.)
To me it seems that Derrida shows how this framework breaks down, despite its initial plausibility. The pure subject and pure meaning aren't really there. And yet they are at the heart of the philosophical mission. Timeless truth must be unstained by the exteriority of signs, ultimately independent of the 'flesh' of language, merely using it as a vehicle.
forget all that talk of "meaning"
the word doesnt stand for anything.
language is nothing but sounds and shapes that get associated to recorded sense data in the mind
I can't, and neither can you, else you'd have no role to play here. Like the rest of us, you need a foil to shine against.
Quoting OmniscientNihilist
Well it does and it doesn't. But these grandiose one-liners don't clearly stand for anything. If you want to develop your mask, I suggest looking into pragmatism. It also likes to 'dissolve' problems by conspicuously being 'uninterested' in them.
Quoting OmniscientNihilist
That's a terrible theory, easily and long ago refuted. You need the concept of language in order to (implicit) deny concept itself. Consider the possibility of your own vanity. I understand the appeal of 'nothing is true' and 'it's all lies/confusion' positions. They don't require one to have read much, since they negate the value of books from the outset. But perhaps it's an anti-intellectual position that hopes to sell itself as the supreme intellectual position.
Maybe we're all dying, pretentious dogs. But we mostly die slow, and it's fun to talk about talking.
if meaning and language dont exist then im not using them and therefore its not self refuting to say they dont exist.
what am i using? something else nobody seems to have found yet. because:
"false knowledge is a greater impediment to truth then ignorance"
Aad aroim fsgomsrgb sdfpmsefvmoksfgbfsv ?
Quoting OmniscientNihilist
To me it's your false knowledge (your 'omniscience') that impedes your movement toward something truthier than your current position. As I read the situation, you're going to keep working that shtick until you give up on winning recognition with it and/or get bored. You'll even start using capital letters. The self schemes to spread its memes.
Where we agree is that 'ego' is a blinding force. The young, vain spirit tries for the shortcut, reaches for the bogus absolutes. This patricidal approach makes sense. It's almost impossible to carve in interesting mask until you've studied hundreds of them. That's the old man's primary advantage. He's fat with ingested personalities. He's tried the shortcuts and knows them better than the current shortcutters do.
But maybe we're just dying monkeys passing the time with spiritual/intellectual cosplay.
my mind has not associated these shapes(sense data) to any other sense data
therefore i dont know what you "mean"
I argue this very point in like the second paragraph of my book so thumbs up to both of you for making it too. All appeal to authority is fideistic. The supernatural only demands fideism because there is no evidence possible from which to reason about it.
I like this theme. I've been writing about the patricidal fraternity of reason, which is an indulgent way to describe the good philosopher as eschewing appeals to authority, and in fact point out and negating such appeals.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I think I know what you mean. The supernatural offends the 'fraternity' as the prototypical absent father, appealed to in the real world by viceroys or sons whose authority derives from an imagined proximity to this father. And this father can also be a secret 'trans-conceptual' 'knowledge.'
In politics, especially on the atheist left (which I mostly claim), the authority is a set of dangerously vague concepts.
Well said. What we can't seem to avoid is a faith in 'properly critical reason' itself. That to me is the implicit humanism in philosophy. What do we mean by reason? It's a rich concept.
[quote=Kant]
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance.
...
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor.
[/quote]
Quoting Pfhorrest
I agree that an appeal to intuition is appeal to faith. But I agree with Kant that enlightenment is the courage of thinking for one's self. What is it in the self that is not intuition? It's basically concept or language, which is intrinsically a public phenomenon. So the person that reasons properly cannot be the lonely ego. This lonely ego is itself 'spoken by language' or a sign within the system of public signs.
[quote=Feuerbach]
Language is nothing other than the realization of the species; i.e., the “I” is mediated with the “You” in order, by eliminating their individual separateness, to manifest the unity of the species.
...
[T]he urge to communicate is a fundamental urge – the urge for truth. We become conscious and certain of truth only through the other, even if not through this or that accidental other. That which is true belongs neither to me nor exclusively to you, but is common to all.
[/quote]
So basically we have a tension between the adult/enlightened ego that thinks for itself and the rejection of mere opinion founded on merely private intuitions. We do accept valid private reasoning, but my suggestion is that this validity is public, and that therefore reason isn't essentially private --even if it needs particular human brains as its 'hosts.' We are, it seems to me, the supremely social species, with an eerily liberated ability to use signs to organize our environment, including our symbolic environment.
The answer to this might be found in the library of babel? https://libraryofbabel.info/
'There is no reference to monkeys or typewriters in "The Library of Babel", although Borges had mentioned that analogy in "The Total Library": "[A] half-dozen monkeys provided with typewriters would, in a few eternities, produce all the books in the British Museum."'
Wikipedia goes on to say;
'In The Library of Babel, Borges interpolates Italian mathematician Bonaventura Cavalieri's suggestion that any solid body could be conceptualized as the superimposition of an infinite number of planes.
'The concept of the library is also overtly analogous to the view of the universe as a sphere having its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere. The mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal employed this metaphor, and in an earlier essay Borges noted that Pascal's manuscript called the sphere effroyable, or "frightful".
'In any case, a library containing all possible books, arranged at random, might as well be a library containing zero books, as any true information would be buried in, and rendered indistinguishable from, all possible forms of false information; the experience of opening to any page of any of the library's books has been simulated by websites which create screenfuls of random letters.'
Not sure what that means (if anything!) in the context of my OP.