Is not a description of a thing itself a thing?

Is not a description of a thing itself a thing?

I’d expect you would all agree that a description of a thing is only ever partially true, due to it always being representative concerning what is describes.

But a description is a thing as much as any other thing, I mean, its not, not-a-thing, no? this information right here that we are reading is as false/real as the physical text describing it to you.

An informational object is something, a physical object is something, by what is one thing less of a thing than the next?

And so, a thing is not a thing, because a descriptive object is representative and yet is equal to all other things in its realness or lack of. That is if we can say information is an object, but then what do we mean by the term ‘object’ or thing-ness, is-ness or whatever. If we attempt to pin down even a physical object we soon find elements of it elsewhere. To begin with a physical object has to describe what it is in informational terms in relation to another physical object, such that a causal link be made I.e. a relationship betwixt the given object/objects, and so part of it at least is informational [without even getting into the idea that an object is a holographic representation of information].

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Yes.

No.

It is the “thing” we call “a description”. And it is exactly 100% that, else it isn’t a description, perhaps merely a partial description.

No.

Principles of grammar. In a logic, the form is a given, the material difference must be supplied. The material is not in the form.

In an analogic, the material is a given and the form must be applied. The form is not in the material.

Thus, “a language is not a thing,” if one is viewing the writting, the records as the language. The material it is recorded in or on is, but the language qua language is not that which is written. The material for a language resides within the sapient that uses the givens, thus,

how do I say this,

What is written in a book is not language, not by the principles of language. The written portion of the language is only part of the language, just like surface is part of a table, but by itself is not the table.

Language is a medium for communication. As such, it is a “thing”. A medium is a “thing” although not an “object” except in rare usages.

hmmmm

perhaps the question of “is a description a thing” is too abstract to peg to a yes or no answer in a universal context

we must not lose sight of what a description is … or rather what its used for. it’s a representation of the concepts, information, associated some original idea

it is perhaps correct to say a description of a thing is also a thing… it seems to be falling in the ‘noun’ part of speech

but it might be misleading to think of a description as a thing as one thing in the same way the object was a thing

…

if i describe this remote control as a black rectangular prism… that’s not an incorrect description

if i describe this remote control as a electronics with buttons 0-9… that’s also not an incorrect description

but what i’ve done is created two descriptions for the original object

it’s not correct to say that all black rectangular prisms are also electronics with buttons 0-9… it’s also not correct to say that a remote control is a telephone, because they both have buttons 0-9

sometimes it will make sense to ask “is this a black rectangular prism?”

sometimes it will make sense to ask “does it have buttons 0-9?”

but sometimes it makes sense that they are the same thing…remote controls built into cell phones is certainly a technology that exists

we can perhaps come up with infinite descriptions of a remote control… do we have infinite ‘things’?

sure, if its useful

reasoning? that’s what we were doing in the first place when we made the description

that being said

we are, via this thread, attempting to describe a description

is it useful? i’d say so

but not nearly as useful as simplifying descriptions of everyday things, actions, and building upon them

…

from a computer science perspective…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-ori … rogramming
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_%28 … science%29
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_% … ramming%29

i think its why we spend much more time, as a species, writing, rewriting, and designing programs… models… descriptions… in a given language rather than redefining the language

when we can identify a flaw in the language that… through its widespread adoption, prevents us from doing something… that’s when we’ll get serious about changing it. when the term ‘description’ becomes to narrow to be useful… that’s when a thread like this will be taken seriously by the masses

What if logic itself is wrong? What if using rules of grammar changes the context of what you are saying, surely we should then break the rules. Give an example of my ‘incorrect’ grammar where this is not the case?

Material difference? Have you heard of the holographic theory? We don’t know, but it is probably so that the material itself is a holographic representation of background information! In such a case it is if anything the info that confers the greater reality.

Language is a thing, information is a language; there are two main kinds of language, representative and actual e.g. binary code is actual, it tells the processor how to ‘think’. gene code is actual, it’s eidos tells form how to take shape, it can be made into info and converted back into gene-code. The language we use to talk about gene code is representative ~ except when it exactly describes the code [though I am unsure if we can achieve that as yet, but I think its possible].

isn’t information a thing as much as an object is, depends on how we define thing-ness I suppose. Info isn’t always descriptive, an electrical impulse from a chemical in your brain confers info, such that I would say the information itself part of the entire process. How then can we distinguish between a physical and informational reality? its just a set of things changing, some informational and other ‘physical’.
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Then it wasn’t logic.
By definition, logic is whatever is right/correct.

You might as well ask, “what if 2 isn’t 2?”

Mr. Saint,

What do you make of the practical example where logic is wrong: take any argument in symbolic logic where the premises are false and the conclusion is false, yet the argument itself is formally valid? Thus the logical validity of the argument is no guarantee that its conclusions are true.

This is a classic situation where the use of correct logics leads to wrong. A rural observer then may say, in disdain, that logic itself is wrong if such a thing is allowed and tolerated in it. Contemptible, the entire mechanism of logical reason can be “spun” this way or that, simply by dictating the premises such that the desired conclusion will follow? How can anybody in their right mind trust such a tool if their task is discovering the truth, and the life?

-WL

I asked that same question back when I first joined ilp–it was never answered.

Is a description of a thing a thing? Are you asking, quetz, if words used in a certain order constitute a reality? I usually think of a ‘thing’ as having some sort of observable, measureable, sensory existence. Do descriptive words have such a life? Or do I not understand your question?

Something many people don’t realize about proper logic is that EVERY argument in logic is an “If…then” statement.
Every axiom or premise has an assumed, if not stated, “If this is true…” preceding it;
“If this is true… then this must also be true.”

Proper Logic Presentation
and
Definitional Logic

Thus even if the premise states something that is false, the LOGIC is still right/correct because every premise/axiom is conditional to the truth of it. An axiom is merely to be taken as true during the logic argument. If the premise was not actually true, the conclusion might not be true. The logic makes no claim concerning the condition if the axiom was actually false.

WL

Interesting input, and it puts things in a perspective I couldn’t - thanks!

I just thought logic was wrong because everything is in a state of change e.g. if A = apple, an apple is constantly changing, it chemicals change and all informations are constantly being re-written, especially on the QM level. If all the factors in logic are changing then it can only be correct in an instance, then you’d have to write a different description.

liz

Not so much words, more information e.g. an informational thought in your mind is perhaps more real to you than the electrical impulse from the neuron it derived from.

When we put everything else up against ‘reality‘ whilst stating that to be greater than things, then everything other than it are comparatively not real, not reality itself.

In that case an information is equal to a physical object. We need only look at how info works in computing and our minds to see there is an equivalent exchange ~ they are both equally real/not-real.

James S Saint

Sure, if logic is something like math or holistic thinking then it is metaphoric, and sure we can use that and it will be right as far as metaphor can describe non-metaphor. ….which is most often very accurate.

What if we are attempting to envelope/describe ‘real’s’ though [realities], or get closer to that by using a more subtle language. We tend to describe things by reducing them to matter [Bertrand Russel kinda philosophy if I remember correctly], because we take matter to be the real and hence the labels only need pertain to that.

Here I am taking ‘reality’ out of the hands of matter - so to speak, then primarily denoting reality as itself and itself only. Thus in contrast ‘existence’ [matter/energy] has no greater aggregate than say information or qualia [we can leave qualia out of it for now as info and matter are all we need for the comparative ~ we know they exist or ‘are’ in some way].

Ergo; ‘the description of a thing [information], is itself a thing’-ness as much as anything else is.

sorry, its perhaps far more simple than you all had hoped for.
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