On The Deflationary Theory

[mfbukowski]

Star Trek is pretty cool, but I reject the idea that there is any place where NO man has gone before.

Because if we had been there it would be a "place" we had defined

 

It is "no place" until we define it as a "place"

 

Kind of like Columbus "discovering" America or scientists "discovering" a new species IN A FISH MARKET. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33046869

 

 

"I started seeing a lot of species and I was going, 'What the heck is this?' And in many cases it was a known species but we didn't know it occurred here. Then I realised there were some species we didn't even have names for, they weren't even known about, and here people were catching them and selling them," he says, remembering his first visit.

 

Edited July 13, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Thanks, I'll check that out, too. 

 

BTW, it is true what Nagel said about bats.  We had one in our house last month and I could NOT handle it. Just, knowing it was there was too much.  Snakes, spiders, mice...I can cope...

 

I don't think I was born to understand, although I probably live in my head to excess, but I love literature and the sciences and majored in True Logic (maths) at university.

 

And I watch Star Trek.

My son is now finishing up degrees in math and physics.  I try to understand him.

 

He is smart

He can make it go.

(I know you will get that reference)

[mfbukowski]

Star Trek is pretty cool, but I reject the idea that there is any place where NO man has gone before.

Because if we had been there it would be a "place" we had defined
 
It is "no place" until we define it as a "place"
 
Kind of like Columbus "discovering" America or scientists "discovering" a new species IN A FISH MARKET. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33046869
 

 
"I started seeing a lot of species and I was going, 'What the heck is this?' And in many cases it was a known species but we didn't know it occurred here. Then I realised there were some species we didn't even have names for, they weren't even known about, and here people were catching them and selling them," he says, remembering his first visit.

 

If it doesn't have a name it doesn't "exist".   Or does it?

 

Depends on what you want to say.  That's why I hate the word "exists".  Do unicorns "exist"?  We know all about them!??!  In one sense yes, in another no!

 

Do fictional characters "exist"?   Can a fictional work be "true"?  (Let's not go there for this thread, but I just want to show that it is all in the definitions, nothing more , nothing less

[mfbukowski]

Bonus Round

 

and why this could be important.

 

Here is just a feel for the kind of discussions around this topic which concern "real philosophers".

 

http://www.waggish.org/2007/richard-rorty-philosophy-and-the-mirror-of-nature/

 

For me, this because an issue of the "contingency of the self".  In short, if there are no "raw feels" and if ALL experience is conditioned by language, and if there is NO pre-linguistic experience- a position taken ultimately by Rorty,  then all our thoughts are programmed into us, and we are cultural robots.

 

In Mormon terms, we divide the universe into "things which act" and "things which are acted upon".  Essentially the question becomes "free agency".

 

If we are programmed completely by language there is no "we" there- there is just language.  We are little robots spitting out our programming.

 

If as I said in a previous post, we "know" what beauty and truth are BEFORE the word even occurs to us - if we have pre-linguistic experiences- then we are not robots, we are free beings who USE language to express- as nearly as we can- experiences but we are NOT programmed by language.

 

So this is where I depart from Rorty, and perhaps this is where Rorty is ultimately incompatible with Mormonism, in that M teaches obviously that we are free agents, who are "actors" and not "acted upon"

 

So ultimately this idea that our thoughts are completely programmed by language, in my opinion, cannot be the case.

 

This has vast implications for Rorty.  Because we are programmed by language and culture, we need politically to have "Solidarity" with humanity and essentially need to have some form of socialism and a collective political system because we are after all just members of a hive, going forward with cultural programming that gets "into our heads" through language.

 

I disagree with that, I think that indeed we do have pre-linguistic "raw feels" which we analyze and define and use language to communicate them, perhaps adequately for a purpose or not.

 

So is language a tool for free agent humans, or are we so programmed by it that to even think we can escape it an illusion?  That is of course a compression of a very complex question I have deliberately "dissected" and distorted to present in a few words, but that is the kernel of the argument.

 

I just think it is wrong to say that there are no pre-linguistic experiences

 

What is my goal here in doing all this here as opposed to somewhere else?  I want to make this accessible to the folks here so they understand something more about philosophical issues which affect Mormons.

 

We tend to be totally ignorant of contemporary philosophy and it drives me crazy when we talk about three people in one God and three is three and not equal to one.

 

It drives my crazy when we talk about Platonism in this day and age!   That stuff is dead and gone- I just want to raise the consciousness a little hereabouts so that we do not sound like idiots in a real philosophical discussion.   So I hope this helps.

 

This ain't "theology" but it helps explain why theology is not necessary for Mormons.  Our scriptures do not need "theology" because those questions are dead questions argued by sectarians straight out of bible college, who have never been in a "real" philosophy class in their lives.  That's all I see on the other threads quite frankly.

 

Once we know the basis for the common sense that Mormonism is, we will be able to defend it against all the poorly defined mushy thinking out there.  The atheists are just as stuck in the mushy thinking as the sectarians are!  

 

"God doesn't exist because we have no evidence"!!   What does that even MEAN once you understand those words and where they are coming from?

 

What do these words mean: "god", "exists" and "evidence"??  Once you see this stuff you understand how absurd the discussion even is.

 

End of bonus round.  We will now resume our usual programming. 

[ERayR]

Bonus Round

 

and why this could be important.

 

Here is just a feel for the kind of discussions around this topic which concern "real philosophers".

 

http://www.waggish.org/2007/richard-rorty-philosophy-and-the-mirror-of-nature/

 

For me, this because an issue of the "contingency of the self".  In short, if there are no "raw feels" and if ALL experience is conditioned by language, and if there is NO pre-linguistic experience- a position taken ultimately by Rorty,  then all our thoughts are programmed into us, and we are cultural robots.

 

In Mormon terms, we divide the universe into "things which act" and "things which are acted upon".  Essentially the question becomes "free agency".

 

If we are programmed completely by language there is no "we" there- there is just language.  We are little robots spitting out our programming.

 

If as I said in a previous post, we "know" what beauty and truth are BEFORE the word even occurs to us - if we have pre-linguistic experiences- then we are not robots, we are free beings who USE language to express- as nearly as we can- experiences but we are NOT programmed by language.

 

So this is where I depart from Rorty, and perhaps this is where Rorty is ultimately incompatible with Mormonism, in that M teaches obviously that we are free agents, who are "actors" and not "acted upon"

 

So ultimately this idea that our thoughts are completely programmed by language, in my opinion, cannot be the case.

 

This has vast implications for Rorty.  Because we are programmed by language and culture, we need politically to have "Solidarity" with humanity and essentially need to have some form of socialism and a collective political system because we are after all just members of a hive, going forward with cultural programming that gets "into our heads" through language.

 

I disagree with that, I think that indeed we do have pre-linguistic "raw feels" which we analyze and define and use language to communicate them, perhaps adequately for a purpose or not.

 

So is language a tool for free agent humans, or are we so programmed by it that to even think we can escape it an illusion?  That is of course a compression of a very complex question I have deliberately "dissected" and distorted to present in a few words, but that is the kernel of the argument.

 

I just think it is wrong to say that there are no pre-linguistic experiences

 

What is my goal here in doing all this here as opposed to somewhere else?  I want to make this accessible to the folks here so they understand something more about philosophical issues which affect Mormons.

 

We tend to be totally ignorant of contemporary philosophy and it drives me crazy when we talk about three people in one God and three is three and not equal to one.

 

It drives my crazy when we talk about Platonism in this day and age!   That stuff is dead and gone- I just want to raise the consciousness a little hereabouts so that we do not sound like idiots in a real philosophical discussion.   So I hope this helps.

 

This ain't "theology" but it helps explain why theology is not necessary for Mormons.  Our scriptures do not need "theology" because those questions are dead questions argued by sectarians straight out of bible college, who have never been in a "real" philosophy class in their lives.  That's all I see on the other threads quite frankly.

 

Once we know the basis for the common sense that Mormonism is, we will be able to defend it against all the poorly defined mushy thinking out there.  The atheists are just as stuck in the mushy thinking as the sectarians are!  

 

"God doesn't exist because we have no evidence"!!   What does that even MEAN once you understand those words and where they are coming from?

 

What do these words mean: "god", "exists" and "evidence"??  Once you see this stuff you understand how absurd the discussion even is.

 

End of bonus round.  We will now resume our usual programming. 

 

As an LDS I propose that we bring (what you have labeled pre-language experiences) with us. Wordsworths words from Ode describe it for me.

 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:  

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

          Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

          And cometh from afar:          

 Not in entire forgetfulness,           

And not in utter nakedness,  

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

         From God, who is our home:

Edited July 13, 2015 by ERayR

[tagriffy]

Bonus Round

 

and why this could be important.

 

Here is just a feel for the kind of discussions around this topic which concern "real philosophers".

 

http://www.waggish.org/2007/richard-rorty-philosophy-and-the-mir-of-narroture/

 

For me, this because an issue of the "contingency of the self".  In short, if there are no "raw feels" and if ALL experience is conditioned by language, and if there is NO pre-linguistic experience- a position taken ultimately by Rorty,  then all our thoughts are programmed into us, and we are cultural robots.

 

In Mormon terms, we divide the universe into "things which act" and "things which are acted upon".  Essentially the question becomes "free agency".

 

If we are programmed completely by language there is no "we" there- there is just language.  We are little robots spitting out our programming.

 

If as I said in a previous post, we "know" what beauty and truth are BEFORE the word even occurs to us - if we have pre-linguistic experiences- then we are not robots, we are free beings who USE language to express- as nearly as we can- experiences but we are NOT programmed by language.

 

So this is where I depart from Rorty, and perhaps this is where Rorty is ultimately incompatible with Mormonism, in that M teaches obviously that we are free agents, who are "actors" and not "acted upon"

 

So ultimately this idea that our thoughts are completely programmed by language, in my opinion, cannot be the case.

 

This has vast implications for Rorty.  Because we are programmed by language and culture, we need politically to have "Solidarity" with humanity and essentially need to have some form of socialism and a collective political system because we are after all just members of a hive, going forward with cultural programming that gets "into our heads" through language.

 

I disagree with that, I think that indeed we do have pre-linguistic "raw feels" which we analyze and define and use language to communicate them, perhaps adequately for a purpose or not.

 

So is language a tool for free agent humans, or are we so programmed by it that to even think we can escape it an illusion?  That is of course a compression of a very complex question I have deliberately "dissected" and distorted to present in a few words, but that is the kernel of the argument.

 

I just think it is wrong to say that there are no pre-linguistic experiences

 

 

That might well be the problem I'm having here. I agree with you it is wrong to say there are no pre-linguistic experiences. Language is an adaptive tool developed to deal with something. We wrangle on forever about what that something is, but insofar as Deflationary Theory says everything is just words, it becomes too reductionist.

 

Am I correct in thinking deflationists are not exactly relativists?

[mfbukowski]

That might well be the problem I'm having here. I agree with you it is wrong to say there are no pre-linguistic experiences. Language is an adaptive tool developed to deal with something. We wrangle on forever about what that something is, but insofar as Deflationary Theory says everything is just words, it becomes too reductionist.

 

Am I correct in thinking deflationists are not exactly relativists?

Well it depends on what you mean by.....

 

I would say they are definitely buddies with relativists and fellow travelers but strictly speaking one does not imply the other.  To be a deflationist, really just says that the word "truth" is undefinable and therefore not worth worrying about.

 

They might say that "there are principles which never change" and I would agree with that, it's just that to say that to call such principles "true" doesn't say very much.

 

For example. I believe that "Murder is always wrong".  Period, no exceptions.  Of course the law has definitions for "murder" and "manslaughter" etc and I would accept those defintiions, for the most part.

 

Then we have the question of abortion which is a grey area for many people.  But I think that it is clear that those who believe in abortion would definitely exclude abortion from the category of "murder".

 

So essentially I can affirm that it is "always right to keep the commandments" with the proviso that some definitions there need slicing and dicing to "get it right"

 

Incidentally I think that principles that "never change" are because we have defined the principles so that they are tautologies.  "Wrong" is kind of a collection of culturally based ideas that society cannot tolerate and "murder" as defined by society is always "wrong" in a way similar to A=A, because the way I define "wrong behaviors INCLUDES "murder" as a category.

 

I believe that we have evolved with certain categories of perception and civilization which the species has found to be indispensable for survival, and these are the principles which never change for a civilized society.

 

Cliffs are always to be avoided unless wearing an apparatus which enables one to be safe.

One does not drink poison.

One does not kill etc- the commandments.

One does not mess with the IRS. 

 

Doing any of these things interferes with one's health and welfare and makes life "nasty brutish and short".  We don't like nasty brutish and short lives, we want nice peaceful happy and long lives with lots of happy healty babies to bounce on the knee.  (at least that is "best" for the species....)

 

So is that "relativism"?  I dunno.

 

These are not True Principles written in Stone or floating out there in the Realm of Forms as Forms of Goodness to which other principles "correspond" or mirror or are shadowy replicas of.  They are not Eternal Substances or Beings or Natures, they are just principles which always "work" for a happy and long life.

 

They are common sense and don't require a lot of abstract thinking which usually means verbal confusion and nothing much more than that.

 

They are models and paradigms which are altered from time to time as circumstances demand, theoretically.   So I guess that abortion might be one in a grey area right now.  I personally do not think that abortion is acceptable but I understand the case of those who do, and put fences and borders on their definitions and have good reason for doing so.

 

I am not God and it is not my job to judge anyone.  I also disagree with gay marriage for reasons I have made clear elsewhere but we don't need to bring that up here.  I do not care what people do in their bedrooms but that is also not my business and I think that they are accountable to God for what they do in private.

 

So is that "relativism?"  I don't know.

 

It is also NOT the belief that "everything is just words", it is the belief that some behaviors and actions and sentences work for one purpose but not another and it is important that we don't use the wrong tool for the job to be done.

 

I guess "use the right tool" would be one of those principles that never changes.

[tagriffy]

It is also NOT the belief that "everything is just words", it is the belief that some behaviors and actions and sentences work for one purpose but not another and it is important that we don't use the wrong tool for the job to be done.

 

I guess "use the right tool" would be one of those principles that never changes.

 

Thank you for your response on the relationship between deflationists and relativists. I sensed there was a difference, which is why I never used arguments against relativism despite the overlap. I certainly noticed the overlap, but insofar as Ahab seemed to be relativism, I knew he wasn't really addressing what you were trying to say.

 

Right now, it is your last two sentences that are of great interest to me. One other I keep noticing is that we do seem to be much more closely aligned than what may be thought when we start talking "truth," "reality," "language," and whatnot. We're both agreed that we don't want to use the wrong tool for the job at hand. Do you think we just disagree with what the job at hand is?

[mfbukowski]

Thank you for your response on the relationship between deflationists and relativists. I sensed there was a difference, which is why I never used arguments against relativism despite the overlap. I certainly noticed the overlap, but insofar as Ahab seemed to be relativism, I knew he wasn't really addressing what you were trying to say.

 

Right now, it is your last two sentences that are of great interest to me. One other I keep noticing is that we do seem to be much more closely aligned than what may be thought when we start talking "truth," "reality," "language," and whatnot. We're both agreed that we don't want to use the wrong tool for the job at hand. Do you think we just disagree with what the job at hand is?

Who is "we"?  You and me?  The church and deflationists?  You and Ahab?

 

Deflationism is actually a very narrow premise.  "All" it says technically is that there is little to be said about the word  "truth".  We know what it means when we ask Johnny if he is telling the truth, we know what it means in court to "tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth".  But again, even in court what we tell is our STORY.  "I saw a guy that looked like the defendant doing thus and so".   We describe an experience- and do not discuss whether or not it is the "truth".

 

The jury takes a vote and DECIDES - by vote- what the "facts" are.  The facts are determined socially by what 12 people think is probably "right".   Truth is not some abstract notion of "correspondence with reality"- even in court when a decision can change lives, it is just essentially a unanimous vote by very flawed and imperfect humans.

[mfbukowski]

As an LDS I propose that we bring (what you have labeled pre-language experiences) with us. Wordsworths words from Ode describe it for me.

 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:  

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

          Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

          And cometh from afar:          

 Not in entire forgetfulness,           

And not in utter nakedness,  

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

         From God, who is our home:

Somehow I missed this post, and I think it is an excellent point.  It is clear to me that we come ready to organize our own realities or as we say organize matter unorganized.

 

God has created us to be his children and Mormonism is poised to tell the story like no other faith CAN tell it.

 

It seems that what separates us from other creatures is this ability to use language to create cultures.  We create humanized environments and at this stage in our development cannot even survive in a "natural" environment without special training.  And it all boils down to the ability to pool the knowledge of all humans through language.  You read National Geographic and suddenly you yourself can nearly experience Antarctica without getting off your couch.  If someone on the other side of the world makes a breakthrough your life can be directly impacted because of the pool of knowledge we have based in language.

 

Few of us could survive being dropped naked in a forest with no tools or food.   We cannot deal with nature anymore- we need our humanized environments to even survive.  Our babies are born unable to function on their own until they are teenagers.  That in itself presupposes a "civilized" environment with parents who love them and teach them how to function as humans and most importantly teach them language and the rules of their cultures.

 

There is no longer such thing as a "reality" which we know which is independent of our creations.  Our very perceptions and the way we think are conditioned by- the very way we think.

 

We look out into "nature" and all we see is our own image looking back. 

 

We are the most adaptable of all animals and with our cultural tools and the culture behind us, we can survive on the moon and send probes to Pluto,  We have altered the world to make it suitable for us and live in a man created universe.  In a sense, natural selection stops here and instead we have human selection deciding much of what happens to the planet itself, for better or worse.

[mfbukowski]

Thank you for your response on the relationship between deflationists and relativists. I sensed there was a difference, which is why I never used arguments against relativism despite the overlap. I certainly noticed the overlap, but insofar as Ahab seemed to be relativism, I knew he wasn't really addressing what you were trying to say.

 

Right now, it is your last two sentences that are of great interest to me. One other I keep noticing is that we do seem to be much more closely aligned than what may be thought when we start talking "truth," "reality," "language," and whatnot. We're both agreed that we don't want to use the wrong tool for the job at hand. Do you think we just disagree with what the job at hand is?

I really would like to understand this better if you have time

[Meadowchik]

I have always wondered how the writers imagined how to communicate new experiences of a highly technical nature (complicated inventions).

 

Also did they have math?  Surely must have in order to be technically advance for space travel, but how would they have expressed it in their language.

 

How does a language incorporate new experiences when it is communicated solely through past experiences (anecdotes)?  And how much information can actually be shared?

 

Yup, bringing up this episode made me think about how improbable their language seems to be.

 

On the other hand, perhaps such a language attempts to do less "cutting" than a one-to-one language does, where names and actions are identified so that endless combinations can be created.  Yet, those names and other single words had to preceed the use of metaphor, so it appears that some liguistic dogma must have set in somewhere to inhibit categorizing and emphasize experiences, processes, and relationships.

 

I think one thing this illustrates is the dichotomy of language.  It has to be formulated in little broken pieces in order to make more larger cohesive wholes, and endless possibilities of those.

 

Perhaps what's important while we're doing the cutting is just realizing that we're cutting, and while doing so, we're limiting and restricting meaning by virtue of using words. 

 

BTW, this is precisely the thing that happened to Jill Bolte Taylor when she had a stroke.  The hemmorage occurred in the left side of her brain, the side of language, logic, category, and memory,  leaving the right side of her brain as the functioning hemisphere.  The right side of the brain is the one as she says which lives and responds to the grand whole of the moment. So Taylor realized the "cutting" that the left side of her brain did, once it no longer worked.  She witnessed what the world looks like without that, without the logistic and categorical functions of our perception working.

 

The thing she says about the right side of the brain is incredibly moving.  She says,

 

"Our right human hemisphere is all about this present moment. It's all about right here, right now.  Our right hemisphere thinks in pictures and it learns kinisthetically through the movement of our body. Information in the form of energy streams in through all our sensory systems, and it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like, and what it sounds like.  I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere.  We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family.  And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place.  And in this moment, we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful." Source: https://youtu.be/QTrJqmKoveU

 

So, suppose we compare the use of language to the way we use our brains!

 

One side of the brain is open to all stimulation, to receiving everything. The other side is categorizing this information, storing it, drawing conclusions from it, and planning because of it, then using that work to again perceive more information.  We become powerhouses of intellect when they work together like this.

 

The key for us is to use both sides.  In language, perhaps the key to using it well is possessing a humility in our use of it, remembering that it is limited and limiting, and not confining ourselves to it, in acknowledging that language is not the world, it is not reality.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Meadowchik

[Meadowchik]

My point is illustrated by the fact that Picard was able to get to the point where he could understand what those aliens meant when they were communicating with them. He was able to get it! And we can too, in reality.

Sometimes I wonder if that stone/crystal that some of us will be getting will have a spirit to spirit interface that will convey emotions and internal thoughts to each person with one that will communicate things we can't fathom right now. Like making it possible for a man to feel and think what a woman feels and thinks while she is pregnant, and giving birth, and living her life as a Mom. And while still being a man while thinking and feeling like a man at the same time. Bonding with another person without missing out on anything.

Star Trek is pretty cool, but I reject the idea that there is any place where NO man has gone before.

 

I'm not really sure I understand what you're saying. 

 

There are unknowable things.  For example, what would have happened to me if I'd not gone to BYU? That's unknowable, at least in the human sense. 

 

Exactly how does my husband love me? Would he pine forever if I died? Would he die for me? Would he visit me if I was in jail? Would he support me if I became the president of the United States? Those are unknowable, too, without those things happening to me.

 

Precisely how many living things are on this planet at this exact moment?  You could develop instruments to measure this, perhaps one day, but they wouldn't likely measure during one singularity of time, they'd measure over a period of time, however small, and that number of living things would change in that moment.  Such instruments, if existing, would only approximate answers. In fact, most measurements are merely approximations.

 

Another example, is how long is the coast of Britain?  We don't know the answer. And, it is changing all the time.  Measurements depend on how we decide the perimeter of the coast itself, and then during what period we are measuring.  Use a yardstick to connect points on the perimeter, and you'll get an approximation.  Use a micrometer, and you'll get a longer coastline, but it still won't be exact, because there are bits of coastline smaller than what it can measure.  In reality, the exact length is some number with a whole bunch of variability after the decimal level, potentially going on forever like the number Pi. Except, we have a simple expression for Pi, but can only approximate the length of the coastline for a given time period.

 

Then there are math problems...

 

It seems to me that there are infinite unknowables, but I don't see a problem with that.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Meadowchik

[mfbukowski]

I think we need to define it better than "there are unknowable things".

 

That works fine in ordinary conversation but by saying that we certainly do not want to create some kind of world of "things" floating around which are "unknowable".  That is actually the problem of "correspondence" in postulating there is a "reality" independent of human experience.  Correspondence is actually what creates the IDEA that "there are unknowable things"

 

Reality and things are out there waiting to be known?  How could we know that?

 

So maybe it is better to call them "phenomena to be defined" or something like that.  Even math problems awaiting solutions are in that category I think.  They are awaiting a new paradigm which will explain them.  So it's not like there is a "problem" floating around in an unobservable world waiting to be solved.

 

There are apparent contradictions awaiting resolution,

[Ahab]

I'm not really sure I understand what you're saying.

There are unknowable things. For example, what would have happened to me if I'd not gone to BYU? That's unknowable, at least in the human sense.

Exactly how does my husband love me? Would he pine forever if I died? Would he die for me? Would he visit me if I was in jail? Would he support me if I became the president of the United States? Those are unknowable, too, without those things happening to me.

Precisely how many living things are on this planet at this exact moment? You could develop instruments to measure this, perhaps one day, but they wouldn't likely measure during one singularity of time, they'd measure over a period of time, however small, and that number of living things would change in that moment. Such instruments, if existing, would only approximate answers. In fact, most measurements are merely approximations.

Another example, is how long is the coast of Britain? We don't know the answer. And, it is changing all the time. Measurements depend on how we decide the perimeter of the coast itself, and then during what period we are measuring. Use a yardstick to connect points on the perimeter, and you'll get an approximation. Use a micrometer, and you'll get a longer coastline, but it still won't be exact, because there are bits of coastline smaller than what it can measure. In reality, the exact length is some number with a whole bunch of variability after the decimal level, potentially going on forever like the number Pi. Except, we have a simple expression for Pi, but can only approximate the length of the coastline for a given time period.

Then there are math problems...

It seems to me that there are infinite unknowables, but I don't see a problem with that.

What you're talking about reminds me of a lot of other ideas associated with theoretical physics. Things that are not and yet people talk about them as if they are.

Looking again at your first example in this post I see that you're wondering what would have happened had you NOT gone to BYU. Well either you did or you didn't. That's all that can be known on that issue. So the issue is not that you can't know what would have happened if you had NOT gone. You know you did go, if you did, and that's that. To know you did NOT go would require that you did not go, and YOU can never know that now. But I can because I did not go.

It's a little like wondering how the universe would be if God was a turtle. Pointless to consider because God in truth and reality is not a turtle. If he was though then we could know that.

Or like asking how life would be if 2 + 2 = 7. It's not, though, so that doesn't matter since we can know only what can be known., which is anything real or true.

Any other questions you want to ask about things that really are not as if they really could be or are?

When wondering about the measurements of things just keep in mind that they are just as big or long or in number as many as there truly are. They're not any bigger, or any smaller, or any fewer than there are.

God knows the number of planets and stars and even the names of everything that he has created even though to us they are as innumerable as the grains of sand on a seashore. So that means they really are not innumerable, even though they may seem to be to us. There are only as many as there truly are.

P.s. just thought of this: an inch is still an inch no matter how small you divide the pieces

Edited July 16, 2015 by Ahab

[Ahab]

I think we need to define it better than "there are unknowable things".

That works fine in ordinary conversation but by saying that we certainly do not want to create some kind of world of "things" floating around which are "unknowable". That is actually the problem of "correspondence" in postulating there is a "reality" independent of human experience. Correspondence is actually what creates the IDEA that "there are unknowable things"

Reality and things are out there waiting to be known? How could we know that?

So maybe it is better to call them "phenomena to be defined" or something like that. Even math problems awaiting solutions are in that category I think. They are awaiting a new paradigm which will explain them. So it's not like there is a "problem" floating around in an unobservable world waiting to be solved.

There are apparent contradictions awaiting resolution,

They are simply things that are not. Not real. Not true. Lies. The opposite of what there really is and was and will be. Things that can't be known, if you want to think of them that way, because they are not here or there or any other place such as "out there" except as an idea/thing that really is not.

I usually just refer to them as things that are false or wrong or not true, even though some other people think they really are real.

[tagriffy]

I really would like to understand this better if you have time

 

I notice you and I often wind up in the same place for similar reasons, at least once we start talking about matters beyond empirical observation. There is a lot of what you say that I do agree with, particularly with respect to the limitations of language. You're getting there via deflationary theory and I'm getting there by distinguishing between logos and mythos. We both use Alma 32 in very similar ways. We both even take William James as a starting point. Once we set aside our respective thoughts about whether the notion of truth is meaningful, we don't really have a disagreement.

 

I do think I'm ready to answer the question that started this whole discussion. Come to think of it, it is the answer I should have given in the first place.

[Spammer]

Yup, bringing up this episode made me think about how improbable their language seems to be.

 

On the other hand, perhaps such a language attempts to do less "cutting" than a one-to-one language does, where names and actions are identified so that endless combinations can be created.  Yet, those names and other single words had to preceed the use of metaphor, so it appears that some liguistic dogma must have set in somewhere to inhibit categorizing and emphasize experiences, processes, and relationships.

 

I think one thing this illustrates is the dichotomy of language.  It has to be formulated in little broken pieces in order to make more larger cohesive wholes, and endless possibilities of those.

 

Perhaps what's important while we're doing the cutting is just realizing that we're cutting, and while doing so, we're limiting and restricting meaning by virtue of using words. 

 

BTW, this is precisely the thing that happened to Jill Bolte Taylor when she had a stroke.  The hemmorage occurred in the left side of her brain, the side of language, logic, category, and memory,  leaving the right side of her brain as the functioning hemisphere.  The right side of the brain is the one as she says which lives and responds to the grand whole of the moment. So Taylor realized the "cutting" that the left side of her brain did, once it no longer worked.  She witnessed what the world looks like without that, without the logistic and categorical functions of our perception working.

 

The thing she says about the right side of the brain is incredibly moving.  She says,

 

"Our right human hemisphere is all about this present moment. It's all about right here, right now.  Our right hemisphere thinks in pictures and it learns kinisthetically through the movement of our body. Information in the form of energy streams in through all our sensory systems, and it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like, and what it sounds like.  I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere.  We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family.  And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place.  And in this moment, we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful." Source: https://youtu.be/QTrJqmKoveU

 

So, suppose we compare the use of language to the way we use our brains!

 

One side of the brain is open to all stimulation, to receiving everything. The other side is categorizing this information, storing it, drawing conclusions from it, and planning because of it, then using that work to again perceive more information.  We become powerhouses of intellect when they work together like this.

 

The key for us is to use both sides.  In language, perhaps the key to using it well is possessing a humility in our use of it, remembering that it is limited and limiting, and not confining ourselves to it, in acknowledging that language is not the world, it is not reality.

 

I love this post.

[mfbukowski]

I love this post.

Me too.  You get a rep point for correctness. 

[mfbukowski]

I notice you and I often wind up in the same place for similar reasons, at least once we start talking about matters beyond empirical observation. There is a lot of what you say that I do agree with, particularly with respect to the limitations of language. You're getting there via deflationary theory and I'm getting there by distinguishing between logos and mythos. We both use Alma 32 in very similar ways. We both even take William James as a starting point. Once we set aside our respective thoughts about whether the notion of truth is meaningful, we don't really have a disagreement.

 

I do think I'm ready to answer the question that started this whole discussion. Come to think of it, it is the answer I should have given in the first place.

Well I think after all this it might indeed be useful to go back to the beginning

 

Moving away from the relative discussion into a discussion what what truth is, my first reaction is that it is irrelevant whether truth is a property. The statements "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" and "The earth revolves around the sun" are both true, and insofar as it goes, that is enough. It doesn't really matter whether they have a shared explanation for why they are true. Both statements correspond with "facts" (note the quote marks) and that would seem to be enough.

 And now the quote from Rorty, p 5 of "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity"

 

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there.  To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

I suppose as always "it depends on what you mean by" in this case the word "facts"

 

You chose some interesting examples of "facts" in light of the Rorty quote.

 

For me, the question boils down to "Can truth exist independent of the human mind?"  THAT appears to be the nugget here.  Does the human mind create truth or is it "out there" and ultimately that becomes a question about language- if there is non linguistic "truth"

 

Your example- "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" might be a good starting point. 

 

So if truth is "correspondence to the facts" and "facts" only exist in the human mind, we agree in principle. My problem with that though is that that usage makes it sound like you think you are saying something about the world which is independent of the human mind when you are not.

 

"Caracas" is the name of a human city.  It is the government center- the "capital" of a country humans have invented and the name for that country is "Venezuela"

 

So the truth of that statement is definitional.  It is a tautology like "A=A".  What we MEAN by the word "Caracas" IS the "the capital of Venezuela".  It tells us nothing about the world outside of human definitions.  If no humans, then no Caracas,  no Venezuela, no governments, so no "capitals"

 

So all the "facts" here are human inventions, saying the sentence is saying something about human activity.  Saying "It is true that Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" adds nothing to the original statement.  Suppose Boston was the capital of Venezuela.  Then the sentence would be "false" not because of something independent of human invention, but the statement would be "false" because WITHIN the realm of human invention, Boston IS NOT named as "the capital of Venezuela".   The name of the capital is different.  It's like saying "The letter in bold here is the letter R, : S.  That is a false statement because we have called the letter by the wrong name in the humanly invented naming system for the letters.

 

Yet is it possible that some weird dictator comes to power and decides to change the name of "Caracas" to "Boston"?   A weird notion admittedly, but what has changed about the world in that case?  Nothing but the definition of one word!  The "fact" has changed, not because of the world but because of human invention and in this case CON-vention.

 

The "fact" is not independent of human invention, it relies on human invention to be true or false, and it says nothing about the world independent of human invention. 

 

Let's cut to the chase and keep the next one simple.  Your next example: "The earth revolves around the sun"

 

I would suggest that in the final analysis this statement is actually of  the same KIND as the first.  We have a whole system of language which describes "the earth" and ultimately the "fact" exists only in terminology and not in the world.

 

What I MEAN by "the earth"(definiton) is that it "rotates"(definition) around (definition) "the sun" (definition),

 

The "fact" resides in the definitions of the words.  Substitute other words and the "fact" goes away.

 

So if you are saying that "FACTS" correspond to the definitions of words, I am with you, but the problem is that THAT makes it sound like you are saying something else, because for 2000 years it HAS meant something else.

 

So that is the quandary as far as I see it.  

[Ahab]

"Can truth exist independent of the human mind?"

In your own mind, is that question about the same thing as this one?:

Do the things that exist exist independent of a human mind knowing about it?

Or, does a tree fall in the woods if nobody knows about it?

To my way of thinking, things that are really are even if nobody knows they are, or how they are, or how they came to be, or how they will be.

Truth is independent... what was that again?

Truth is independent, even if God had not "placed it" in any sphere... whether in the past, present, or future.

Whatever is IS. Even if none of us knew what really is.

We can go on trying to share and communicate and ordee and place things in terms and conditions to try to make those things known to others but regardless of how successful we are at sharing and communicating the things that are will be the way they are whenever and however they are in existence.

Hold on a minute. I'm channeling Doris Day now.

Que Sera, Sera...

P.s. that moment is past now. I'm not channeling Doris Day anymore.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Ahab

[tagriffy]

For me, the question boils down to "Can truth exist independent of the human mind?"  THAT appears to be the nugget here.  Does the human mind create truth or is it "out there" and ultimately that becomes a question about language- if there is non linguistic "truth"

 

 

Interesting. For me the question is not whether truth can exist independent of the human mind, but whether it does. If it does exist independent of the human mind, obviously it can. [Look everyone! A chiasmus! ] When it comes to the question of whether truth does exist independent of the human mind, the limitations of language will certainly come into play, but it seems to me that those limitations only mean we will never be able to answer the question definitively. That I can live with.

 

Does the human mind create truth or is it "out there?" I don't know. I would question whether it is either/or. I'm going to try (and probably fail miserably) to show why I would question the dichotomy. And here, the statement "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" is the perfect starting point.

 

 

Your example- "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" might be a good starting point. 

 

So if truth is "correspondence to the facts" and "facts" only exist in the human mind, we agree in principle. My problem with that though is that that usage makes it sound like you think you are saying something about the world which is independent of the human mind when you are not.

 

"Caracas" is the name of a human city.  It is the government center- the "capital" of a country humans have invented and the name for that country is "Venezuela"

 

So the truth of that statement is definitional.  It is a tautology like "A=A".  What we MEAN by the word "Caracas" IS the "the capital of Venezuela".  It tells us nothing about the world outside of human definitions.  If no humans, then no Caracas,  no Venezuela, no governments, so no "capitals"

 

So all the "facts" here are human inventions, saying the sentence is saying something about human activity.  Saying "It is true that Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" adds nothing to the original statement.  Suppose Boston was the capital of Venezuela.  Then the sentence would be "false" not because of something independent of human invention, but the statement would be "false" because WITHIN the realm of human invention, Boston IS NOT named as "the capital of Venezuela".   The name of the capital is different.  It's like saying "The letter in bold here is the letter R, : S.  That is a false statement because we have called the letter by the wrong name in the humanly invented naming system for the letters.

 

Yet is it possible that some weird dictator comes to power and decides to change the name of "Caracas" to "Boston"?   A weird notion admittedly, but what has changed about the world in that case?  Nothing but the definition of one word!  The "fact" has changed, not because of the world but because of human invention and in this case CON-vention.

 

The "fact" is not independent of human invention, it relies on human invention to be true or false, and it says nothing about the world independent of human invention. 

 

No doubts here that the "fact" Caracas is the capital of Venezuela is not independent of human invention. "Caracas" is the human-invented name of a human-built city that is part of a country humans have defined and named "Venezuela." It is also true that if some weird dictator comes to power and decides to change the name of "Caracas" to "Boston," then it will be "true" that Boston is the capital of Venezuela. What would have changed about the world? Nothing. And everything.

 

You are absolutely correct that "If no humans, then no Caracas,  no Venezuela, no governments, so no 'capitals.'" But there are humans, and they engaged in activities that resulted in a world in which "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" and further activities could well make Boston the capital of Venezuela. My point is this: Why should human activity mean human-created facts are not part of the world? It may not be "out there" in the same way "The earth revolves around the sun" might be considered "out there," but they are still facts that a given statement might be measured against for truth or falsity.

 

 

Let's cut to the chase and keep the next one simple.  Your next example: "The earth revolves around the sun"

 

I would suggest that in the final analysis this statement is actually of  the same KIND as the first.  We have a whole system of language which describes "the earth" and ultimately the "fact" exists only in terminology and not in the world.

 

What I MEAN by "the earth"(definiton) is that it "rotates"(definition) around (definition) "the sun" (definition),

 

The "fact" resides in the definitions of the words.  Substitute other words and the "fact" goes away.

 

Does it? I wonder about that. Substitute other words and the world is still out there. "The earth moves around the sun" may well be a miserable, extremely weak way of describing the world that is "out there." And yet it moves.

 

 

So if you are saying that "FACTS" correspond to the definitions of words, I am with you, but the problem is that THAT makes it sound like you are saying something else, because for 2000 years it HAS meant something else.

 

So that is the quandary as far as I see it.  

 

Speaking of the limitations of language.... I said it seemed to me that whether truth is a property is irrelevant, I still think it is irrelevant. But it is difficult to avoid sounding like I am saying it is a property when we've had 2000 years where "truth" has been defined as a property. It makes things as difficult for me as it does you.

 

No, I am not saying facts correspond to the definition of words (though the definition of words does have its role), but I'm not saying facts are something else altogether either. The best way I can think of saying it is something like "Facts are more than the definition of words." Ask questions, and I might be able to work it out--both for myself and for you.

[mfbukowski]

Interesting. For me the question is not whether truth can exist independent of the human mind, but whether it does. If it does exist independent of the human mind, obviously it can. [Look everyone! A chiasmus! ] When it comes to the question of whether truth does exist independent of the human mind, the limitations of language will certainly come into play, but it seems to me that those limitations only mean we will never be able to answer the question definitively. That I can live with.

 

Does the human mind create truth or is it "out there?" I don't know. I would question whether it is either/or. I'm going to try (and probably fail miserably) to show why I would question the dichotomy. And here, the statement "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" is the perfect starting point.

 

 

No doubts here that the "fact" Caracas is the capital of Venezuela is not independent of human invention. "Caracas" is the human-invented name of a human-built city that is part of a country humans have defined and named "Venezuela." It is also true that if some weird dictator comes to power and decides to change the name of "Caracas" to "Boston," then it will be "true" that Boston is the capital of Venezuela. What would have changed about the world? Nothing. And everything.

 

You are absolutely correct that "If no humans, then no Caracas,  no Venezuela, no governments, so no 'capitals.'" But there are humans, and they engaged in activities that resulted in a world in which "Caracas is the capital of Venezuela" and further activities could well make Boston the capital of Venezuela. My point is this: Why should human activity mean human-created facts are not part of the world? It may not be "out there" in the same way "The earth revolves around the sun" might be considered "out there," but they are still facts that a given statement might be measured against for truth or falsity.

 

 

Does it? I wonder about that. Substitute other words and the world is still out there. "The earth moves around the sun" may well be a miserable, extremely weak way of describing the world that is "out there." And yet it moves.

 

 

Speaking of the limitations of language.... I said it seemed to me that whether truth is a property is irrelevant, I still think it is irrelevant. But it is difficult to avoid sounding like I am saying it is a property when we've had 2000 years where "truth" has been defined as a property. It makes things as difficult for me as it does you.

 

No, I am not saying facts correspond to the definition of words (though the definition of words does have its role), but I'm not saying facts are something else altogether either. The best way I can think of saying it is something like "Facts are more than the definition of words." Ask questions, and I might be able to work it out--both for myself and for you.

Well I have been a pragmatist for about 45 years and so I am not so sure I have anything to work out about that- I am thoroughly convinced Rorty is right, as was William James and John Dewey before him. 

As Rorty said

 

We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there.  To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

Frankly I can't see it any other way.

 

Everything we know is ..... wait for it.... part of "what humans know", what is "in a human mind".   There is nothing outside of "what humans know" that we know.

 

We cannot escape human perception, we cannot see things the way dolphins or whales do, nor can we see things as God does.  We are human and all we know is part of what humans can know and do know.

 

I mean that seems so obvious to me that I cannot see it any other way.  All of reality as we know it is reality as humans know it.  How is that disputable?  Reality as we know it is NOT as we know it?  Reality as we know it is something OTHER than what humans have in their minds?  How can that be?

 

Do we deny that our hearing only includes a range of frequencies that our bodies can hear?  Does "sound" exist above or below those frequencies?  Do we deny that we cannot see infrared ?  What color are radio waves?  We don't "know" anything about that. 

 

No we do not CONTROL forces outside of ourselves.  As Rorty says, that is just part of common sense.  Yes there are cliffs and auto accidents and diseases and the actions of others.

 

But we all experience that as a human experiences that.  If we fall down a cliff, we know what it is like to fall down a cliff as a human.  We don't know what it is like to fall down a cliff for a gorilla or a dog.

 

Someone once said to me that "Yeah- it's all in your mind until you walk into a wall"- he was a very intelligent guy who you have probably heard of, and he was educated in theology.

 

Do you see what's wrong with that?  The point is that we experience walking into walls the way  humans experience walking into walls.  All we can know about walking into walls is what humans are capable of knowing about walking into walls.

 

He totally missed the point.

 

Look at this again, and again if necessary

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.

 

How can that be disputed?

 

Isn't truth always expressed as a sentence- yes or no?  "Such and such is true"  That is a sentence.  Indisputable. ANYTIME we say "x is true" THAT is a human sentence, created by a human mind.   It cannot be otherwise.

 

Yes the world is out there- cliffs and walls and accidents and no we cannot fly,  We mighty humans will never know what a little sparrow knows about flying.  We will never feel the air the way they do, or what it is to soar like even a sea gull.

 

Can we describe that?  Of course not.  Can we say something about what it is like to fly- to never fear heights, to look down at the world from 1000 feet with nothing below you but air and be perfectly safe and comfortable?

 

No we cannot describe that, and never will be able to.  That is part of the world- part of what some creatures experience but not us.  Can a statement about what it is like to fly be true or false?   How could we ever know if it is or not?

 

We can only describe what we have experienced and we can only experience the way humans experience.  We cannot escape being human.  We cannot know the world "as it is" and we certainly cannot describe what we cannot experience..

 

To me it doesn't even make sense to speak of the world "as it is" other than the way we experience it.  In fact that is the way I read the scriptures.  The world as it is is the way we experience it.  It cannot be more or less than that.

 

So to summarize, I cannot see it any other way.

[Ahab]

Everything we know is ..... wait for it.... part of "what humans know", what is "in a human mind". There is nothing outside of "what humans know" that we know.

I agree that is truth/reality but only because you know and I know you know that God our Father is included in what you mean by " human", otherwise I would think you are off your rocker if I thought you thought the word "human" referred to only the mortal people on this planet and that we know everything there is to be known.

We cannot escape human perception, we cannot see things the way dolphins or whales do, nor can we see things as God does. We are human and all we know is part of what humans can know and do know.

Now I'm thinking you are off your rocker because you seem to be thinking that there is not more to be known that can be known beyond what mortal people on this planet know right now.

I mean that seems so obvious to me that I cannot see it any other way. All of reality as we know it is reality as humans know it. How is that disputable? Reality as we know it is NOT as we know it? Reality as we know it is something OTHER than what humans have in their minds? How can that be?

Maybe you should stick to shorter sentences and shorter posts until you know for sure that everyone who reads what you write is thinking the same thing you mean by each word.

Do we deny that our hearing only includes a range of frequencies that our bodies can hear? Does "sound" exist above or below those frequencies?

No, and then Yes.

Do we deny that we cannot see infrared ? What color are radio waves? We don't "know" anything about that.

Who do you mean by "we"? Some of us know that some of us know everything, and I'm sure that if any of us can know, then God knows.

...

So to summarize, I cannot see it any other way.

Yeah some of us already know that you can only see things the way you see them. Just be open to the truth/reality that other people who are the same kind of being as you are seeing more than you can see right now

[mfbukowski]

Fortunately as you point out, they are also human. And yes, I am including God as a glorified Human in a glorified human family.

The whole point of this exercise is to take away sectarian dualism, which has resulted culturally in the "death of god", and replace it with a way of seeing based on the restoration.

For me personally, this view has the power to resolve all the theological nonsense we have seen for the last 1800 years, and has dramatically changed my life in transforming me from the atheist I was into the unshakable True Believing Mormon I am today.

Some see it and some don't, but I am not alone in this view, thank God, and I see signs that I find very encouraging.