Everytime I see anything categorized, classified, and put into some systematic sequence I see the consequence of everything losing it’s distinction or identity through systematic reasoning.
It would seem that through the utilization of logic or reasoning we displace actuality and existence with our own ideas of it where eventually natural existence and actuality will be nothing beyond our ideas pertaining to them.
I believe all of this to be a consequence of language mostly.
Nope. In fact, this happens before the level of cogitation. It happens as soon as sense data hits our primary sensory cortices and becomes perception. I perceive a pen even though one could say there is only plastic, ink, and a small metalic spring there - and it can be broken down even further.
I disagree. It is the process of abstraction and generalisation that we undertake when we call it a pen which creates the meaning. The meaning of the word “pen” is abstracted from all that other stuff.
Well, okay, but I’m speaking from a neurological point of view. The neurosciences tell us that there are areas in the brain that seem to be responsible for our perception of whole objects (as opposed to points, lines, simple shapes, and colors) and there’s other areas responsible for recognizing familiar objects. In fact, if you’ve ever read about the case of the man who mistook his wife for a hat (he literally did), you’ll see that this area of the brain - the one for recognizing familiar objects - can be damaged even though one’s ability to think about and understand the meaning of words/concepts like “hat” or “wife” seem to be fully functional.
The general picture that the neurosciences seem to be painting is one of sensory data transforming through several stages, getting more and more abstract as it goes along, until it becomes cognitive/conceptual - as opposed to two simple stages: sensation, thought.
Gib - until we can name it. It gets abstracted until we can name it. And we can perform abstractions of abstractions. Neuroscience is mirrored by language. I am not disagreeing with that. Meaning is the result of abstraction. Abstraction doesn’t remove meaning, it creates it.
I am a fan of whoever it was that said (I think it was me) that, “If you can’t say what you mean, you don’t know what you mean.”
That said, there are more forms of language than just words, such as body “language”, <<punctuation, math, art and just simply communicating by example. All of these are methods of “saying” what you mean. So the consequences of logic and reasoning can only be positive if we just don’t limit our implements of expression and understanding.
Yes, I’ll agree with that, but I’m also saying that before the stage of abstraction where words and meaning get associated with our sensory experience, there are stages that sensory information go through before meaning enters the picture, stages that build up the raw sensory data into more sophisticated perceptions. I can reach out and grab my pen, even amongst other pens, when instructed to do so even though I don’t have to consciously think “that’s my pen” - that is, I don’t have to use the abstract concept “pen”. But what am I recognizing when I grab my pen? Is there really such a thing as a “pen” out there, or has my mind created something more out of the elementary lines, points, shapes, colors, etc., something that works insofar as my being able to work with the outer world but is nonetheless as sort of “semi-abstraction” (if you prefer) that is midway between raw elementary sensory data and cognitive/conceptual abstraction.
Yeah, you can do that, but for you to know it is a pen, whatever you call it, you have identified its purpose - the range of uses for it and your own specific purpose. You don’t have to name it, but, at that point, you can name it.
