The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language'

the author's site ^ | 1972 | Dallas Willard

[unspun]

The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language'

This paper has been read to the University of Southern California philosophy group and the Boston 1972 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, as well as to the Houston meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society. Appeared in The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, IV(1973), pp. 125-132. Numbers in "<>" refer to this journal.

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Among the principal assumptions of major portions of philosophy in recent decades have been: (1) That philosophy somehow consists of (some sort of) logic, and (2) that logic is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language. There, of course, follows from these a third assumption: (3) That philosophy is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language--though this implication should not be taken as representing any phase of the historical development of recent philosophizing. Instead of listing these three points as assumptions, it would probably be more correct to regard them as categories or complexes of assumptions; or perhaps, more vaguely still, as 'tendencies' or proclivities of recent philosophical thinking. But precision of these points need not be put in issue here, as this paper does not seek any large-scale resolution of the problem area in question. The aim here is to examine only one proposition which plays a role in the clearly existent tendencies referred to: Namely, the proposition that we think in or with language. I hope to show, first, that we do not always think in or with language; and then, second, that the very conception of thinking in or with language involves an absurdity. What implications this has for broader philosophical assumptions or tendencies will not be dealt with here, though the implications in question seem to me to be extremely important ones. That human beings think in language is explicitly stated in such diverse places as ordinary newspapers, the more sophisticated popular magazines and journals, and serious discourse in the humanities and the social sciences, as well as in the technical writings of philosophers. To prove this broad range of consensus would be idle; but, in order to have the philosophical context clearly before us, we may give a few brief quotations. <126>       (1) Man, like every living creature, thinks unceasingly, but does not know it: the thinking which becomes conscious of itself is only the smallest part thereof. And, we may say, the worst part:--for this conscious thinking alone is done in words, that is to say, in the symbols for communication, by means of which the origin of consciousness is revealed. (Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom, sub-sec. # 354)      (2) Let no one be contemptuous of symbols! A good deal depends upon a practical selection of them. Furthermore, their value is not diminished by the fact that after much practice, we no longer really need to call forth a symbol, we do not need to speak out loud in order to think. The fact remains that we think in words or, when not in words, then in mathematical or other symbols. (Frege, Mind, Vol. 73, p. 156)      (3) It is misleading then to talk of thinking as of a 'mental activity'. We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. This activity is performed by the hand, when we think by writing; by the mouth and larynx, when we think by speaking; and if we think by imagining signs or pictures, I can give you no agent that thinks. If then you say that in such cases the mind thinks, I would only draw your attention to the fact that you are using a metaphor, that here the mind is an agent in a different sense from that in which the hand can be said to be an agent in writing. (Wittgenstein, Blue Book, pp. 6-7)      (4) ... The woof and warp of all thought and all research is symbols, and the life of thought and science is the life inherent in symbols; so that it is wrong to say that a good language is important to good thought, merely; for it is of the essence of it. (C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, II, p. 129)      (5) Words only matter because words are what we think with. (H. H. Price, Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. XIX, p. 7)      (6) Theorizing is an activity which most people can and normally do conduct in silence. They articulate in sentences the theories that they construct, but they do not most of the time speak these sentences out loud. They say them to themselves.... Much of our ordinary thinking is conducted in internal monologue or silent soliloquy, usually accompanied by an internal cinematograph-show of visual imagery.... This trick of talking to oneself in silence is acquired neither quickly nor without effort.... (Ryle, Concept of Mind, p. 27. See also pp. 282-83 and 296-97) <127>      (7)This helps to elucidate the well-known difficulty of thinking without words. Certain kinds of thinking are pieces of intelligent talking to oneself. Consider the way in which I 'thinkingly' wrote the last sentence. I can no more do the 'thinking' part without the talking (or writing) part than a man can do the being graceful part of walking apart from the walking (or some equivalent activity). (J.J.C. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism, p. 89) These quotations will suffice to establish the context within which philosophers speak of thinking in language (or with language). Many other quotations could be added from the literature.1 It is not assumed here that the persons quoted all occupy the same position with reference to the relationship between thought and language. Yet it would be interesting to see what any of these thinkers, or others who suppose that human beings think in language, could save of their position from the critique which follows. Uneasiness about the conception of thinking in or with language has been expressed by a number of writers, but only over limited aspects of it.2 Here we shall consider arguments which purport to call the conception into question entirely and in principle. First, consider a reason for rejecting the view that we always think in language. It consists in the fact that thinking often occurs without the production, manipulation, or perception of sense-perceptible signs, without which there is no use of language. Such occurrences often provoke offers of 'A penny for your thoughts.' Thinking: Whatever we may decide to call them, and however it is that we are conscious of them, there are intentional states of persons, more or less fixed or fleeting, which do not require for their obtaining that what they are about or of be perceived by, or be impinging causally upon, the person involved. In order to think of3 Henry the Eighth, <128> of the first auto one owned, of the Pythagorean theorem, or of the Mississippi River, it is not required that they should disturb my nervous system. Such states (t-states) of persons are often called 'thoughts', especially in contrast with 'perceptions', and being in such a state is one of the things more commonly called 'thinking'. One no more needs to be going through a change of such states in order to be thinking, than he needs to be changing his bodily position in order to be sitting or lying or sleeping. Rarely if ever--as is alleged in the case of mystic contemplation--are these t-states unchanging. Usually they flow, at varying rates, intermingled with person states of many sorts, governed by such transitional structures as inference, goal orientation, objective structures given in perception or in other ways, and elemental association of 'ideas', among others. In what follows, we shall use 'thinking' to cover both the single t-state and the flow of such states, without regard to how intermingled with other person states. Language: Sense perceptible signs or symbols are an essential constituent of language. It is always false to say that language is present or in use where no signs are present or in use. And, whatever else a sign may be, it is something which is apprehendable via its sensible qualities. That is, it is something which can be either seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled. Moreover, the use of language requires some level of actual sensuous apprehension of the signs which are in use on the occasion. (Confusion or distortion of this sensuous feedback can render a subject incapable of writing or speaking; and, of course, without perception of the sign-sequences emitted, one cannot understand the person emitting language.) Now cases can be produced almost at will where thinking occurs without language being present or in use. This, of course, is something which everyone--including the proponent of thinking-in-language--very well knows. It is these cases which, together with the assumption that we always think in language, create what in (7) was called "the well-known difficulty of thinking without words." If, as in (3), "thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs," then when there are no signs--and when, consequently, the means by which we produce, manipulate, or perceive signs are not functioning--we do have a difficulty. In fact, a difficulty so severe that it amounts to a proof that thinking is not essentially the activity of operating with signs, and that often we think entirely without language. One cannot operate with signs where there are no signs. <129>  As the above quotations indicate, the most common move made to save 'thinking in language' at this point is the shift to 'silent soliloquy,' as in (6), or to 'pieces of intelligent talking to oneself,' as in (7). These are latter-day shades of John Watson's 'sub-vocal language.' Of course one can talk to oneself or write to onself. But talking and writing to oneself require the production and perception of sensuous signs just as much as talking and writing to another. The realization of this is what drives the thinking-in-language advocate to silent soliloquy or to nonvocal speaking--the written counterpart of which would be invisible writing. That is, they are driven to flat absurdities. A silent soliloquy--that is, silent speaking--is precisely on a par with a silent trumpet solo, for example, or silent thunder. A poet may say:        Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard             Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;        Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,             Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;...                (Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn) But there are in fact no unhearable melodies, no ears other than the "sensual," no ditties of no tone. What those who speak of silent discourse have in mind is, no doubt, the fact that interlaced with our thinking of or about things is a great deal of imaging of linguistic entities. (This is especially true of academics or intellectuals in general, because of their great concern with expression of thought. Probably an adequate phenomenology of thinking would exhibit great contrast between them and other classes of persons precisely at the relation between thinking and degree of activity in imaging linguistic entities and events.) But imaging a word is not using a word, any more than imaging a horse is using a horse. Moreover, imaging a word, phrase, or sentence is not producing or perceiving a word, phrase, or sentence any more than imaging a horse is producing or perceiving--or otherwise 'having'--a horse. To image a linguistic sequence is not to have it in a special sort of place--the mind--nor is it to have a special sort of linguistic sequence. To image is to exemplify a certain sort of thinking or intentional state, and a sort which does have interesting relationships with other kinds of thinking. But there is no reason at all to suppose that all kinds of thinking necessarily involve or are accompanied by this kind of thinking (imaging) directed upon language segments. And if there were, it still would not follow that all thinking requires language, since this kind of thinking about language segments is not itself language at all. Nor does it require any <130> language present in order for it to come to pass, since intentional inexistence applies to mental events when language segments are the objects, as well as when sticks and stones and animals are. Having considered a reason for rejecting the proposition that human beings always think in language, let us now consider whether they ever do. In fact, the difficulty is not, as Smart (above) and others have thought, in seeing how one can think without language, but in seeing how one would think with it. Thinking with or in language must consist in doing something with symbols, and so necessarily involves doing something to them--e.g., producing, altering, or perceiving them. If we would do something with the knife (e.g., cut the bread), we must do something to the knife, (e.g., clasp it in our hands). But, as we have seen, thinking occurs where nothing at all is being done to or with signs, there not being any signs in these cases. The power or act of having or changing t-states--that is, the power or act of thinking--is, then, not a power or act of having or altering linguistic symbols. (It is not, in fact, a power of doing anything with or in anything at all. The profound difference in kinds of powers and acts involved here is what Wittgenstein calls attention to in the last sentence of (3) above.) Thought is, of course, practical, in that it exercises an influence upon, or makes some difference in, the world of sense particulars. But it alone is not capable of acting with the sorts of particulars used in linguistic behavior as its immediate instruments. It is just this incapacity which makes it impossible for the advocates of thinking-in-language to give any account of the mechanisms or the 'how' by which the words in which we, allegedly, think are produced, manipulated, and gotten rid of--though they must be produced (or stored and hauled out), manipulated, and, in some sense, gotten rid of, if we are to think with and in them as our tools or instruments. Merely to ask the question of how, in detail, this is done in the course of thinking reveals, I believe, the absurdity of 'thinking in language'. Mere thinking can do nothing to signs which might be used in a language, and hence it can do nothing with such signs, or in the act of modifying the conditions of such signs. It is absurd to suppose that one can do x with y without in some way bringing about a change in the condition, state, relations, or properties of y. It is this and only this that I put by saying that it is absurd to suppose that one can do something with y while doing nothing to y. If it is replied that, of course, the mind or thought does not do these things, but that when we write, speak, hear, see, and otherwise relate to actual words in the actual employment of language, we then are thinking, with bodily parts managing the symbols involved, then it <131> must be pointed out that, while we may indeed also be thinking in such cases, we are not simply thinking. The total event here, to which language certainly is essential, is not thinking. Correct use of language can even occur, as has been pointed out by Wittgenstein, without the occurrence of any peculiarly relevant t-states. On the other hand, thinking does occur without the use of hands, mouth, ears, eyes, fingers in any appropriately relevant manner. Hence, what can only occur by the use of these is not the same as thinking, though it may somehow involve or influence thinking. Smart remarks in (7) that, when he thinkingly wrote the sentence, "Certain kinds of thinking are pieces of intelligent talking to oneself," he could "no more do the 'thinking' part without the talking (or writing) part than a man can do the being graceful part of walking apart from the walking." This may be true of thinkingly writing the sentence (whatever that means). But it does not follow that one cannot think that certain kinds of thinking are pieces of intelligent talking to oneself without the use of language, though Smart clearly thinks that it does. Of course one cannot thinkingly write without writing. But that is nothing to the point of whether or not we can and do think with or without words. Also, the comparison to graceful walking is not apt. We do, as above shown, sometimes think without words or symbols, while no cases of grace without behavior are known. Now it is very certainly true that some processes clearly involving thinking as described above depend for their occurrence upon linguistic behavior and the sensible signs which it involves, for example, the processes of learning algebra or the history of the Basques, or learning how to counsel emotionally upset persons. But it is to be noted that these are not themselves processes of thinking, but rather are extremely complex processes involving all kinds of events and entities other than language and other than thinking--e.g., feelings, perceptions, buildings, other persons, days and nights, books, and so on. None of these processes is a process of thinking; and for that reason alone it is invalid to infer from them that thinking is linguistic behavior, or that one thinks with language. What is essential to things or events of a certain sort must be shown essential to them taken by themselves, not in combination with many other things. With reference to the involved processes in question, it might be more appropriate (though it would still be wrong) to say--as some have said in recent years--that we live in or with language. Nevertheless, it is certain that some kind of dependence relation--probably similar to feedback mechanisms--exists between linguistic processes and their sensuous signs, on the one hand, and certain sequences of t-states on the other. What, exactly, this relation <132> of dependence is continues to be veiled by, among other things, a priori assumptions about what thinking and language must be and do. One such assumption is that which holds thinking essentially to be an operation with signs or symbols, or doing something with--or in--linguistic processes or entities. The view that we (necessarily) think without language is, today, regarded as so outlandish as not to merit serious consideration. But this is not due to a lack of arguments to support it. My object here has been to focus upon certain arguments purporting to show the absurdity of thinking in language. The main points in these arguments are: Thinking does occur without any accompanying language whatsoever, and thus shows itself not to be a power or act of managing linguistic signs, once it is clear what such a sign is. Thinking, as distinct from behavioral processes involving it, can do nothing to signs or symbols, and hence can do nothing with them. NOTES See for example, Ramsey's Foundations of Mathematics, p. 138, and Kneale's remarks in Feigl and Sellars, Readings in Philosophical Analysis, p. 42. Return to text. See S. Morris Engel, "Thought and Language," Dialogue, Vol. 3, 1964, 160-170; Jerome Shaffer, "Recent Work on the Mind-Body Problem," American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. II, 1965, esp. p. 83; R. Kirk, "Rationality Without Language," Mind, 1967, pp. 369-368; G. Ryle, "A Puzzling Element in the Notion of Thinking," in Studies in the Philosophy of Thought and Action, P. F. Strawson, ed., (Oxford: 1968), pp. 7-23. Interesting remarks on the issues here are also found in Bruce Aune's Knowledge, Mind and Nature, chap. VIII and H. H. Price's Thinking and Experience, Chap. X.  See also Wm. James, "Thought Before Language; A Deaf Mute's Recollections," Mind, Vol. I, 1892; and see Wittgenstein's comments on this in Philosophical Investigations, No. 342. Return to text. I use only think here, for simplicity; but think that and other structures of such intentional states (and sequences thereof) might also be mentioned. Specifically, I would also wish to hold that instances of thinking that, in the sense of inferring or puzzling something out, occur in the absence of appropriate linguistic entities or activities. Return to text.

[Hank Kerchief]

Thanks man of Yosemite.

Besides, I have had indigestion many times, and this isn't it. Also, people who have dementia can be clearly diagnosed with mental disorder and frequently are incapable of functioning in society.

I am sure you would know the state of your own physiology and psychology. I do not believe everyone who has, "faith," is psychotic, but certainly many people fully "believe" what is not true. For whatever reason one holds a belief that is not true, if that view is not tested by reason, it is held as superstition, with rational basis.

We have no other faculty for testing our beliefs except critical reason. Feelings and "experience" do not explain themselves. Only reason provides explanation.

Hank

[PGalt]

Bump for later read.

[Hank Kerchief]

Thanks, tortoise.

That is an awkward statement, seeing as how "rational" is usually defined in terms of algorithmic information theory.

No doubt, "rational is usually defined in terms of algorithmic information theory" by AI types who have absolutely no grounding in epistemology. Within that field, as well as mathematics, the word "rational" is contextually unrelated to "rational" in epistemology. (If it had not been for B. Russell and others, this mistake might have been avoided.)

Human rationality is not statistical, not random, not the result of the introduction of "chaos" (fractals and strange attractors) into complex mathematical algorithms. Human rationality is volitional conciousness. It is consciousness no machine, formula, or algorithm can produce, or even simulate.

It might be possible to produce a technology that approximates the sophistication of my kitty's behavior, (and my kitty is conscious, but not rational), but to suggest that information theory is even relevant to reason, as an aspect of human consciousness, is absurd.

I don't know about "divine" terms (I never get mystical when talking math and science)

Since the question was originally about whether the inferior mind (of man) could infer that God's mind was superior, not being able to comprehend it, and your response was in reply to that question, this protest seems less than ingenuous, unless you don't mind invoking science in defense of the mystical.

I don't think "deterministic" means what you think it means; it does not mean "like how a computer works".

It doesn't?

I don't have much to say ...

OK.

Hank

[Consort]

Knowledge pertains to one person at a time. Someone else's knowledge is irrelavent.

Everything is relevant. The trouble, whether personal, national, or international, starts when we subscribe to one ism (political, social, religious, philosophical, etc...) and declare all the others to be irrevelant.

Assumes creation, or that there is a beginning. This assumption is false. There cannot be a beginning. Thus no faith, in the sense you mean it, is required. What is, does not have to be taken on faith, you can go walk on it.

My response in Post #1114 did not assume anything; it was meant to imply all possibilities. Again, in place of God, and creation or faith or whatever, you can substitute your own preferences.

Or, in place of reality, you can substitute God, or Allah, or any other superstition that requires the suspension of critical reason, that is faith.

That was also implied in my response.

What do you mean by "reality"?

[unspun]

Knowledge pertains to one person at a time. Someone else's knowledge is irrelavent.

Not if you acknowledge that others know more about certain things than you do and you admit you have to trust them. The pilot of an airplane's knowledge is very relevant to you, when you fly in the plane. Also, the knowledge of the plane's designers, suppliers, builders, and maintainers; also the knowledge of the air traffic controllers and all those who participate in the systems they use; also the knowledge of the flight attendants, airport security guards, and many others, even the knowledge of the taxi driver who will pick you up at the airport (or will he?) then the knowledge of the people who make the cars and roads and traffic lights, and, well maybe you get the point.

Then there's the knowledge of the one who designed all the energy and systems and mechanisms and lives and minds (and HEARTS) included in all of this....

Do you think we might understand while freely admitting that we cannot comprehend, much to our relief, that this mind might be greater than Hank Kerchief's, for instance? We have no other faculty for testing our beliefs except critical reason. Feelings and "experience" do not explain themselves. Only reason provides explanation.

Inner knowing about that which is perceived either directly or reasoned about prior, or usually both, is another very critical faculty. Feelings and experience do not explain. Neither does reason. Reason is the use of the mind to follow* the relationships of factors. Reason does not explain them, it is a process used in order to analyze and explain them. Persons explain them. Reason does not have a life of its own. Persons are holistic, whether they reasonably understand (while sanely admitting they do not comprehend it) it or not.

Life may seem to be about a recursive, inward bent spiral of denial to some, but not to those who choose to acknowledge all of their faculties, as well as their limitations.

BTW, perhaps we should ask ourselves if we want a good bit of FreeRepublic.com be Hank Kerchief's personal test environment, in what seems to me to be his efforts to formulate, test, and propagate his philosophy. (You're into tests by reason, HK, don't you think this would be an appropriate analysis?) I'm not giving an answer, merely posing the question.

__________________________________________
* "follow" - a word of subjectivity, one to that which is around him and is undeniably greater than himself

[Doctor Stochastic]

I read the article. The article seemed to have little to do with either thinking or language.

However to answer your questions:

Reply Question One: I do not always think in language. I just use mathematical concepts directly, not the words that describe them. (Similarly for musical concepts and in other places.)

Reply Question Two: I often do think in language. This usually occurs when carrying on an imaginary dialogue in order to explain concepts to other people. (Usually I think of myself as Aloysius and the other people collectively as Josephus.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post, unspun!

I’ve been very active on the forum for over 5 years now and have observed several apparent motivations for posting here:

1. To inform others
2. To learn
3. To assemble and lobby
4. To research
5. To indoctrinate
6. To provoke
7. To solicit
The last three are met with with great resistance on the forum and occasionally, banning or removal. For instance, monetary solicitations for other than Free Republic, provocation by liberal trolls and attempts to indoctrinate to racist or violent ends are met with banning and removal.

Notwithstanding Jim Robinson’s tolerance, most of the forum wars and underpinning bitterness I’ve observed are in the area of indoctrination. This is where the post goes beyond the “let me explain to you what I believe and why” to the “I alone am right, and here’s why all of you are wrong.”

IMHO, that is by far the least persuasive method and in fact often causes others to bristle and harden into the opposing view. Nevertheless, it continues – whether a religious belief, a scientific belief, a political belief or a philosophy. It gets especially contentious during campaigns as the supporters of minority views exhaustively try to turn the tide in their own candidate’s favor.

IMHO the reason betty boop’s posts are so heavily read and well received is that she is always respectful of others and persuasive – not by indoctrination – but by informing.

[unspun]

I'd also say a motive is to "toss out" one's opinions and even maxims and see how they measure up. That seems very appropriate to me too, but not dissembling or saying things at one point that contradict what one says at another (unless it is the act of one who has changed his mind).

In my case, I use FR to spout out things in a hurry. ;-)

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, you are absolutely correct! The list needs to include:

8. Testing
9. Test Marketing
Thank you and hugs!!!

[tortoise]

Interestingly, although I am not religous, I have conceived of a universe where God does NOT know all outcomes, but creates events that balance all factors, such that each of us is put in situations that gives us exactly the same "chance" at redemption. Of course this would imply costant balancing - by not knowing outcomes, and therefore not knowing how they would impact other events, this would be a full time job (and of course requires negation of a pretty sacred cow -all knowing).

Yes, this is essentially the ELBF view of God that I was talking about. It integrates well with most popular doctrine and doesn't disagree with most people's actual conception of God. There is an interesting consequence to this that most people don't consider that I don't even want to insert into this discussion, but maybe someone else will bring it up.

[tortoise]

No doubt, "rational is usually defined in terms of algorithmic information theory" by AI types who have absolutely no grounding in epistemology. Within that field, as well as mathematics, the word "rational" is contextually unrelated to "rational" in epistemology.

No, this simply false. "Rational" in some epistemologies (such as Bartley's truly excellent pan-critical rationalism that has been squeezing out objectivism) has the exact same basis as "rational" in information theory. The only difference is that the epistemological version isn't formalized (and is therefore easier to read). Your assertion may be true in many cases and on a historical basis, but it is NOT true with respect to the current state-of-the-art in the field of "AI".

As a general note, most people nominally working in the field of AI should be taken with a mountain-sized grain of salt. The vast majority of people in that field are working without a theoretical basis and therefore are looking for answers without even defining the problem. As the old engineering mantra goes, 90% of the answer is precisely defining the problem, and most haven't done this yet.

Human rationality is not statistical, not random, not the result of the introduction of "chaos" (fractals and strange attractors) into complex mathematical algorithms. Human rationality is volitional conciousness. It is consciousness no machine, formula, or algorithm can produce, or even simulate.

This represents a gross misunderstanding of the foundations of the subject. If rationality is regular (and it has to be for us to perceive it in any meaningful sense), then it has a finite Kolmogorov complexity. Period. You can't have it any other way. Which is it? I don't make the rules, I only enforce them.

Beside which, rationality is fantastically simple and doesn't require chaos, fractals, strange attractors, or any of that nonsense.

Since the question was originally about whether the inferior mind (of man) could infer that God's mind was superior, not being able to comprehend it, and your response was in reply to that question, this protest seems less than ingenuous, unless you don't mind invoking science in defense of the mystical.

The "mystical" was by connotation only, and was given well-defined mathematical properties, so my defense of it was in this context, not in a mystical one. If aspects of God are well-defined in rigorous terms, those aspects can be critically analyzed in a purely rational framework.

[Hank Kerchief]

I said: Knowledge pertains to one person at a time. Someone else's knowledge is irrelavent.

You said, Everything is relevant. ...

Both you and unspun have taken the statement completely out of context. The context was, "All adventure and learning require the unknown" to which Consort said, "That could be relative, e.g., a person can embark on a journey of discover and adventure to a land new to him but well known to others." The point is, learning and adventure are individual experiences, and it is the knowledge or ignorance of the individual doing the learning or having the adventure that is relavent to that individual's experience.

I does not matter if everyone on the whole world knows something, if I do not know it, it is still something for me to learn. Others' knowledge is irrelevant to my own knowledge and experience, and mine is irrelavent to theirs.

I made no other reference to the relevance or irrelavance of other's knowledge in any other regard. Your comments addressed something I never said.

What do you mean by "reality"?

Reality is all that is the way it is.

"Reality is what is so, whether anybody knows what is so or not. Reality includes everything that is and excludes everything that is not. It includes everything, not as a random collection of unrelated things but every entity, every event and every relationship between them. It includes fictional things as fictions, hallucinations as hallucinations, historical things as historical things, and material things as material things. Reality does not include fictions (such as Santa Claus) as material or historical facts. It does include the fact that Santa Claus is a common fiction used for the enjoyment of Children at the Christmas season."

Hank

[Consort]

Others' knowledge is irrelevant to my own knowledge and experience, and mine is irrelavent to theirs.

No man is an island.

"Reality is what is so..."

That statement is a reflection of what one or more persons thought about reality and what you and many others and maybe I think it is, as well. We think it's everything we know and everything we don't know.

Which goes back to my Post #53 of this thread: Reality is whatever we THINK it is. Some people use THINK in the passive sense (reflecting on creation) and others use it in the active sense (we actually create our reality).

[Hank Kerchief]

This represents a gross misunderstanding of the foundations of the subject. If rationality is regular (and it has to be for us to perceive it in any meaningful sense), then it has a finite Kolmogorov complexity. Period. You can't have it any other way. Which is it? I don't make the rules, I only enforce them.

No! Information theory does not explain or describe human rationality, which cannot be divorced from consciousness and volition. First there is consciousness. If you and I do not come to agreement on what consciousness is, there will be nothing else to discuss. What do you mean by consciousness?

Your language is incorrect. You cannot "perceive" rationality. Perception is direct consciousness of existence. Reason takes place at the conceptual level of consciousness and proceeds by means of concepts. You cannot "see" (a percept) "ideas" (concepts).

All that you are talking about only addresses the tiniest aspect of human rationality, that which deals with mathematics and symbolic logic. Those major aspects of human rationality that deal with values, aesthetics, ethics, meaning, purpose, justice, etc. are excluded. To call symbolic logic, information theory, and randomness "rationality," is both a stolen concept and commits the fallacy of reification.

What do you mean by consciousness? We must begin here.

(I am very interested in you answer, since I consider this the one of the major philosophical issues of the day.

Hank

[betty boop]

Thanks so much for your kind words, Alamo-Girl. I, too, have been pretty active here for the past 5+ years. The great attraction for me is the opportunity for learning. I can't tell you how many books I've read in this time, that I probably would never have thought of reading, just because FReepers recommended them. Plus I learn from the posts that people put up -- people who are interested in subjects other than my own favorites, in many cases. Being here has been a very broadening experience for me, and I'm grateful to the many people who take the time and trouble to correspond.

[js1138]

What do you mean by consciousness? We must begin here.

I am also interested in consciousness. I am curious if anyone shares my view that we are conscious when we dream.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply!

People have teased us for thanking them for their posts, but we are sincere. After all, dialogue is the best way to learn (IMHO.)

Hugs!

[Hank Kerchief]

"Reality is what is so..."

That statement is a reflection of what one or more persons thought about reality ...

No. You again take what I said out of context, by the partial quote. It exactly says, "Reality is what is so, whether anybody knows what is so or not." Reality is not dependent on anyone's opinion, thoughts, or beliefs. Reality is what is, independent of anyone's awareness of it or understanding of it.

Furthermore, an island is exactly what every human being is. One's consciousness is entirely private and cannot be share. You cannot feel what anyone else is subjectively feeling. They may describe their feelings to you, you may assume that description is the same as what you are feeling, but you cannot actually feel their feelings. Nor can you directly experience what anyone else experiences. Every human consciousness is an isolated island that can communicate with other islands, but no one can go from their own island (consciousness) to anyone else's.

Hank

[unspun]

Both you and unspun have taken the statement completely out of context.

Seriously man, have you considered the possibility that you are taking yourself out of context?

[betty boop]

...dialogue is the best way to learn....

Oh, I do agree, A-G! It forces you to think through your premises, and exposes you to opposing points of view -- to get the benefit of other people's experience. Hugs, girl!