I tried this somewhere else and never got a response. maybe I’m just ghastly unclear.
I read this quote a long while ago that says:
“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind; All I know is all I have words for.”
I didn’t agree with it for the longest time without any real solid reason why. but after a very long time I came to the conclusion that the mind is not dependant on words, but words are dependant on the mind.
this led me to further thinking:
You think in mediums of what you know.
Can you have thoughts about things that you’ve never encountered in your own life?
Inventions are expansions of previous knowledge.
what is expansion? what is needed for expansion of thought?
what is logic?
there are those that believe that we are nothing but blank slates and that everything we know and will ever know have to be drawn into us through experiance.
then there are those that think otherwise.
I read one man’s opinion about such things that said that a greater understanding of things is inherent to us.
Socrates believed in that all we knew and would ever know is simply remembering things that we knew from a past, more perfect, life.
so what do you think?
can you fill in my above questions?
When you said this, I felt the urge to response. Tell me how it goes.
It seems to me that you are capitvated by the quote you were given, and you are starting to realize and think seriously, opening the doors of enlightenment. I think the questions you asked are totally useless, but it is just a effect you are going through, if you just started to actually study and become more of a serious thinker. Just as I am going through now.
I will tell you the truth, if one person gives a quote of a philosopher, innumerbale effects takes place. Go and read more of the founders.
“If you just give one quote , the soul of a person is save. If you put it into practice you will attain great merit. The teacher is sitting of the greatest vehcile towards of attaining perfect enlightenment” Lotus Sutra
The end
but see, you wouldn’t be able to come up with a unicorn if you didn’t first understand the concept of a horse like creature, or a horn. creativity branches off of what we already know in real life, right?
for instance, there are many more colors in the world that we can’t see. because we have never encountered such colors, we cant’ even fathom or comprehend what they may be like to look at. theres no way we could imagine such a thing. all we know is what we’ve already encountered and anything beyond that is based off of that foundational knowledge.
I think I’ve lost my point, but I had fun thinking about it. it made my brain itch
quesiton:
why do you think my questions are useless?
and yes, I was captivated by the quote. but mostly because I stared at it on the wall for 2 hours during a really boring class and by the time I left the room it bore a whole in me. or I in it…I’m not really sure which.
i’m really sorry but how do you know if there are colours we can’t see.
realistically you could just as equally argue that there are no things beyond what we already know that’s why we can’t imagine them, rather than that we can can’t imagine them because we’ve never encountered them.
also i’m really sorry but the first person who came up with the idea of a car? where exactly from the things he already knew did he get this idea? it’s all very well saying unicorn = horse + cart, but i don’t think that you can say that every idea stems from combining existing things.
sara
(ps. it’s 5:30 am, and i haven’t been to bed yet… so if this is utter rubbish i’ll look again in the morning)
we know that there are other colors out there the same way that we know there are other sounds out there that we can’t hear (or see): specialized instruments can pick up on different light rays or different noise octives that we ourself cannot hear or see.
cars are very complex, but theres no way you could say that the inventor had the idea of them just spring out of nowhere. inventions take logical science (things that we’ve already figured out) and apply them to ideas or ideals.
logically, the inventor (I’m sorry, I really dont know who it was), thought “hey, if I could create a propulsion mechenism strong enough, I could create a vehicle that could carry me around with out being physically pulled by animals!”
that thought in itself demonstrates a world of prior knowledge that can be built on to invent such a thing as a car.
does that make sense?
Wittgenstein. A development from his earlier work.
The Tractatus is full of problems, but it’s an excellent book.
The mind does what it does, words or no words. Thoughts can also take the form of imagined images, sounds, smells, tastes and so on. Words are only a very small part of the rich texture of thought.
Can a mind exist without words? Yes, of course, it just can’t be described. Can words exist without minds? Not that I’ve seen, though there’s no a priori reason why they couldn’t.
Dusty - We have the ability to make abstractions - words themselves are abstractions. We cause meaning by limiting our focus. We can then change the focus - in or out. We can generalise, which is a second-order abstraction. We have the ability to include and exclude - we can make sets.
We can also walk, run and fart.
Farting is not one act, it is the result of many.
Expansion is not as useful a word for this as is abstraction (in two directions, but that requires an additional word that I do not know), but if expansion means furthering a process, then okay. It’s the process itself that you should be looking at, and not simply that it is one.
We are blank slates until the senses develop. What’s the exact dividing line? I don’t know. I don’t remeber much about the womb.
There are no blank slates. I remember the womb every time I feel at one with the universe in a warm bath or in a comfortable fetal position for sleeping after a day’s stress. Very neurotic or psychotic individuals utilize this comforting reference to the womb time when all needs were met. They assume the fetal position. Sometimes I feel the set of my father’s jaw in my own facial expressions as one of many genetic inheritances. What is more of these parent to child passings on is still a matter of controversy
Mind is, as faust correctly stated elsewhere, an almost meaningless concept by viture of its multiple definitions. The word is like a dead horse expanding from maggots. Realizing that, in determining how concepts are set in opposition, mind/matter for example, often false dichotomies based on one of the many interpretations of either word mean more than they can deliver.
Ierrellus - Good for you. I can’t seem to remeber anything earlier than about age five. First day of kindergarten.
Your statement about inherited traits - and perhaps inherited feelings, bears expansion. I really have to get the hell out of the house. Really. But I wonder if you could elaborate a bit. Sounds very fruitful.
Was that from the trauma of being put in the time-out box within the first ten minutes?
I too would like to hear more about inherited feelings. Is this based on Dawkins inherited memes? I’ve managed to kinda sorta accept genetically transferred proclivities that seem to mimic progenitors, but I’m still having real problems with genetically transferred memes.
This is very deep Christianity and I don’t know the comnotation of that word for you. But you may see some answers in it plus get an indication of the source of what is called "human perspective. From the Journal of Father sylvan:
Bottom-Line: There is still nothing new under the sun. Our abilities to think and reason “prevent us” (so to speak) from thinking of something for which we have no ability to describe. I personally believe that language is the fundamental partner to our thought-process. The two are virtually inseperable(sp?).
The best of philosophers are those who teach themselves how to answer their own questions. My advise is to do some reasearch. At the very best, you will be able to find a satisfactory answer to your questions. At the very worst, you will have at least expanded your field of knowledge in the area of philosophy. You can’t lose. Go for it.
Suppose we had a program run on Windows in the format of C++, and then we had a program run on a MacOS in the format of J+…
Suppose these programs each did the same thing on the surface, but deep down inside they were completely different?
On the Windows system, the same program could be called “Real”, because it existed first, and the copy which was something else to the same end, upon the MacOS, would be called a “copy”.
Thoughts are little symbolic copies of reality or potentiality.
Thoughts are compressed formats of motion, mostly in the form of potential energy. Dreams instead of reality. Plans without actuation.