Posted by alexandra_k on June 8, 2005, at 0:55:44
In reply to Re: not that strong » alexandra_k, posted by Gabbi-x-2 on June 8, 2005, at 0:06:06
> Again, I think it's concretizing the impossible.
> Perhaps one day I'll think enough of self ordained "thinkers" (not you) to hazard an answer.ok. i didn't really want to argue about that. i was just trying to convey how the process goes of setting an argument up into standard form and evaluating it with respect to validity and then the truth of the premises. just to convey the general spirit of the story. the trouble comes with translating what people say into standard form (the process of translation). and of course this process only applies to arguments. not to expressions of experience or reports of ideas or anything else aside from arguments. on all the other things we do with language it is silent.
im not sure what you mean by 'concretizing the impossible'. do you mean that deriving the standard form from what people actually say is impossible??? (i would say that maybe one needs to check ones interpretation back with the person before going on to evaluate it). or do you mean that we will never be in a position to know whether the premises are true? we could take P1 and use it as a conclusion and construct an argument for P1. premises in one context can be conclusions in another and conclusions in one context can be premises in another..
The real interest in arguments (for me) is that if someone does accept the premises as true and the argument form is valid then they are contradicting themselves in denying the conclusion. So often we don't need to worry about whether the premises actually are true, we just need to worry about whether our audience will accept them as true. nobody has a perfectly consistent belief network. everybody endorses contradictory beliefs. and a contradiction describes the world in a way that it is impossible for the world to be. contradictions are necessarily false. i just find this interesting i suppose.
but i should remember.. that other people do not
> Oh, I did not mean "What reason is there for it"
> Not at all, reasons are so very personal.
> I meant the application to the world,oh. well... contradictions describe the world in a way that it is impossible for the world to be. its application... imo... it attempts to describe the structure / nature of rational thought. we have an intuitive understanding of what follows from what and what count as good reasons and not so good reasons relevant reasons and not so relevant reasons. it systematises that. it subsumes the indefinately many different arguments we could have into finitely many different kinds of argument. it describes general rules or laws that apply to rational thought processes or the laws of what follows from what.
it teaches us something of the limits of human thinking. for us contradictions and dissonance is aversive. but surely it is possible that there could be beings for whom dissonance is a delight (wittgenstein said that). for us as human beings logic constrains our thoughts and theories and contradictions are fatal. but logic is something that thought and propositions (sentances) has. logic is a fact about us as human beings about the nature of human rationality. there could be beings with different logics. they would have a very different conception of the world indeed.
so how much of the world can we know or comprehend when all of it is filtered via thought and language. we can't conceive of a contradtory state of affairs.
is that a limit of us
of our kinds of minds
or is it reflective of the structure of the world
do we see the world in that way because the world is that way
or is our thought constrained like that from without
becaue those constraints apply to reality
im not making much sense now
(not even to me)
but the relationship between logic and the world is puzzling indeed...
as is the relationship between thought and language
and thought and the world
and language and the world...>and only because you had mentioned that it alienates you from people and you seemed uncomfortable with that, but I could well be wrong.
yeah.
i need to get better there...
im never going to stop thinking this stuff
but i guess you are right that there are more or less appropriate places and ways with respect to expressing it>And I do find it odd when people (not you) can debate for hours how best to help people, when they could actually be helping people.
Ah.
But how can you help people before you know what you have to do to help them?
Or what counts as helping?
etc etc
i do get your point
i think the idea is...
that i have limitations
i might be helping in an indirect way
but that is where my skill / ability lies
other people are more practically minded
their strength lies there
but not me
though i should improve there too hopefully> > others say we need to improve logic so it more acurately reflects english
> And this is that type of philisophical quandry
> that I become irrationally irritated by.Ah. thats about where my eyes light up.
> I think of the old boys network having a meeting, drinking coffee, discussing how the world should be, becuase of course they already know just *how* it is..
ah.
hmm.
it can be a little like that...
but with respect to reforming language...
if we reform english to bring it into line with logic then that might f*ck up english's ability to do all those other things we use language to do. it might not be so good for expressing our thoughts or telling jokes. :-(
progress is being made...
do you feel the same way about physicists?
what if they said that people should stop saying 'the sun rises and sets' because they are wrong - i mean the earth goes round the sun it isn't that the sun goes up and down. the physicists get to tell us about the world. they study it. that is what they do. they are authorative in a certain way. which is not to say that they couldn't be mistaken and it is pointless to question them. but they are more likely to have it right than the people who don't really think about such things.and similarly... why can't the logicians be considered authoratitive (to a point) with respect to the structure of thought and the laws of what follows from what? which isn't to say that we can't question them. just that they are more likely to be right becaue they think about it really hard and systematically whereas the average person doesn't give a sh*t.
i care about this stuff.
i know some people don't.
but i do care.
and in studying what you are doing is reading what other people have to say.
other people who cared enough about it to write a book on what they thought about the issue.
and there are many books
and the idea is to take what you perceive to be the good stuff out of everything you have read
and leave behind what you consider sh*t
and construct the best story you can
and progress is made
though it would be fair to say that some issues have been around for centuries...
> Now that, was me. That was not intended to offend, or sneakily insult.. that's just my vision when I hear statements like that.i know. and thats ok.
> > emotions
> > how to fit them in to the picture
> > logic is about the structure of thought
> > emotions might have more to do with desires or goals
> > more to do with reasons for action
> > what motivates us to move
> > i don't know...
>
> Too bad you have to kill a butterfly to get it to lie still under a microscope.hmm.
do you mean that there is a mystery about life that you like
and that you are afraid that if everything can be explained
then that sense of mystery
of wonder
will dissapate
and so that is a very bad thing indeed???
is that it?
if so
then you are not alone.
other people have said this too.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:500533
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050530/msgs/509487.html