Words have no Meaning

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by BeHereNow, Feb 24, 2008.

  1. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    I was conscious of it. I still saw greenness and the outline. I'll admit that if I was about to evaluate the quality of the apple I wouldn't have done what I did. In fact I would say I was observing it to a degree. But I felt like his generalization was false and I have thought about a much better example.

    I used to play catch a lot with frisbees as a teenager. One game we play was to insert a smaller frisbee in a larger and toss both at once at the other person. The frisbees would separate and the challenge was to catch both, sometimes simulataneously. My trick was to focus my conscious concentration on my non dominant hand, my left. My left caught the frisbee, often, then, and my right hand handled the catching of the other frisbee 'on its own'. I went out yesterday with my son. I decided to test whether I could imagine catching a frisbee with my left hand while my right hand did it job. Nice to see age hasn't eliminated something. I could - I could also catch both reall ones simultaneously.

    In the instance above I managed to focus on something else and complete a task. I could think about the imaginary object AND successfully interact with a physical one. I could engage in both processes. Somebody was thinking about that right hand frisbee. Someone was doing calculus, considering angles and trajectories.

    Glaucon's 'thinking' has seemed to me to mean a kind of brain activity, period. Whatever brain activity is necessary to catch a frisbee was occuring in two different ways simultaneously. I say this because he asserted that if you are engaged in any activity you are thinking, whatever your experience of 'silence' - my paraphrase, perhaps unfair. If he means by thinking awareness, I can certainly be aware of two different kinds of activities at once. I can monitor the movements of a person while worrying about something else.

    Perhaps this example is off. I'd be interested in seeing what your two definitions of thinking are. I am not sure they are the same as each other or the same as mine.
     
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  3. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    You've just made my point.
    You had a mental image of a green apple while observing a green apple.




    I was merely pointing out what I've laid out above: when observing a material object, one always has an attendant mental image of it. However, we do not necessarily have to be observing a material object to form a mental image ( as you've provided above with respect to a red apple..).

    I would posit that yes, that is thinking.

    And so, it looks as if we will have to differentiate between pure thinking and elective (active, purposive, etc.) thinking.
     
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  5. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Exactly.
     
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  7. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    I think we also need to differentiate between thinking and perceiving (the 'awareness you mention above).
    If we can.... (which I suspect is impossible...).
     
  8. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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  9. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Which, I think means, you do not limit the word 'thinking' to the ways in which the word is commonly used. We are always thinking, it seems in your view. In essence thinking and experiencing are the same.
     
  10. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Note how you say you did have an image of a green apple....
    The attendant mental image is always present.
    You're failing to distinguish between recollection and perception.




    Indeed it does.
    I'm not sure what you mean by "mental verbal activity", so I can't really comment on this first case. As to the second case, that is not thinking simpliciter rather, it is imaginative or recollective thinking.


    I would agree with that position, yes.
     
  11. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    I saw both apples simultaneously.





    I meant thinking in words. 'Ah, shit maybe I should have...do think if I stare at the apple, hey, look it is....' and so on.




    I still think I can. I find this odd, that's why I assume we are talking at cross purposes. I can experience seeing my car and notice my thoughts about it at the same time.

    Are you saying we cannot be aware of more than one 'thing' at a time?

    Please take a look at my frisbee example above. Was not my right hand being thought about? If it was not, then I can be not thinking when I am running.
     
  12. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    No you did not.

    One was a recollected mental image purely.

    The other was also materially existent.



    Ah
    Well, I can't really comment then, as I don't do that.

    In any case, it's close to abstract reasoning, so it's still imaginative thinking.





    Again, you prove my point: while observing it, you do have a thought of it.


    Define "aware"....

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    That would be a contradiction. Being thought about is having a thought.
     
  13. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, I make no other claims. But in response to your

    I find the quote above puts a limit I don't seem to have. I imagined a red appled, or recollected it, AND I saw the green apple at the same time.


    OK. Imaginitive thinking, which would include not vocalized abstract reasoning is what I generally refer to as thinking.







    Please read those two quotes of yours carefully and see if you can at least see where I am getting confused.








    What is the contradiction. I think I need fuller answers, because something basic is confusing me about what you have said. The key is those two quotes I juxtaposed just prior to this last one.
     
  14. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    I can't see where you're getting confused. They both say the same thing: any observation necessarily entails a mental image.
     
  15. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Entails or is.
    Can I see my car and think of something else at the same time?
    Can I see my car and think of my car being about to need major repairs?
    Can I see my car while thinking of my wife's car and gnashing my teeth?
    Must I have one image only at a time? (and I would be careful with the word image since it tends to mean visual)
    Am I forming images when I am not thinking aobut what I am looking at of the thing I am looking at?
     
  16. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    As I said, entails.
     
  17. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    Hi Be-here-now:

    If you word your words in that manner. You will achieve nothing unless you are forming some sort of an opinion on the matter.

    So please. Tell me:
    seperate from the individuals trying to find that meaning.
    Required.
    To find, that, meaning.
    Hmmm.
    What do you think, Be, here, Now?
    Appologies on the vodka;
    when one has extreme buisness to attend to he isn't well equiped. You know this more than anyone does:
    Yes, Behere, your value attached to that statement makes me consider things. You may say, perhaps, that outside of an individual there exists words. In their words pressented, you have "consideration"; in "consideration", you have "what do they mean."
    Perhaps they have an existence "outside" of an individaul


    Anyhow that is the necessary requiremssents there Behere now. Do th ey have a sperate existence.
    That is a pretty profound question and inspirese insight into many different forms of philsophy. Yeah. Let's do some philosophy!

    Let's see how about having... hwoe about i just fucking answer your question to beign with huh. Hah~
    \
    Seperate, Beherenow, would be having a meaning that is sperate from using the words aquired. Perhaps, they "may." have some form, of existence attached to them. But seperate from and aquired to has a lot of positions to atain to on the scale of how the debate would come forth and as well how one would discuss the debate.

    If you had seen eariler, in one of my posts perhps page 6 y ou may find that the post "given" was apporiate to the content given.

    In every case "seperate,from" is a question of indifference to me. I wouldn't be sure about the topic concerned here.
    I, personally would be more concerned with the other means; the ideas which involve meaning in the individual.

    You know, the indiviaul can have many qualities.
    Answering your question about soly outside side of the indivudal.
    Hmph.

    Damnit.



    Okay. After some thought then, I decide that meanings would havev their own representation.
    Meanings would have their own qualities.

    Since the day of mankind we have invinted words to describe th ings. A huh, HURH, would be what the fuck.

    Establish this first and then we can perhaps find out what words may actually mean when aquired a definatition in the individual.
     
  18. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Entails, especially since it now seems distinguished from 'is', seems to indicate that the image is a consequence or simultaneous phenomenon but not the same phenomenon.
     
  19. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Ya'll,

    I am going to quit this discussion. I'm sorry.

    It seems it's just once more the old irreconcilable conflict between
    on the hand realism/essentialism/objectivism,
    and on the other hand relativism/constructivism/holism.

    I've been there several times, and I know the debate forwards and backwards, and I've just had enough of it, at least for a few weeks.


    Cheers.

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  20. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    lol. Greenberg.
    Don't leave man. You gotta tell me how stupid I am, remember.

    Besides what else could it possibly be about but just words. Fuck it; althought it makes me want to puke as well... sadly;
     
  21. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    hehe.
     
  22. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Isn't this an essentialist review?
    Ah, well. Just joshing.
     
  23. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    I should have quietly watched from the sidelines. I am interested in seeing where glaucon and greenberg would have gotten. I think their senses of thinking are different, amongst other things.

    Don't ya love reification.
     

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