WJ

Hi John!

"Objective truth does not, it exists within us. All truth is relative/subjective but you can eliminate the degree of subjectivity by: a) making observations from a number of standpoints; b) comparing notes with other observers and c) by examining cause and effect under experimental conditions to verify that the 'truth' in question is repeatable - which is essentially what a truth is! "

We agree. However, I'm not clear on how objective truths exist within us. In physics we know that mathematics works very well in describing and discovering the laws of nature viz. physical existence. Yet mathematics itself (its essence) is an abstract unemotional (objective)analytical process that bears little resemblence to the essence of human consciousness (whatever that may comprise since it is unknown). But, is mathematics a subjective invention or a discovery of something that already objectively exists? Did mathematical truths exist independent of our discovery? In this sense, is God a mathematician, one can only wonder?

The question for me goes back to the mysteries of consciousness. If we can somehow use mathematics to discover how and why consciousness works, it would seem that there would be no mystery left, which in turn might enable man to create human's from innert matter(?). If that has any merit and would be a possibility, then truth remains 'out there' as a process of eventual discovery/uncovery. Or the other alternative is that truth was 'in there' as an invention. But if so, then why can't we invent a human (consciousness) out of 'nothing'?

I think either way, whether physical truth is an invention or discovery/uncovery, the answer will remain 'outside' of the sphere of human reason (conscious ability to comprehend the discoveries made by applying both math and reason to problems and unknowns relative to the design/creation of consciousness). That is what I think comprises an 'objective truth', because now I can proclaim to the world I can create an object human out of nothing. And I can futher make him/her subjectivly unique (genetically) and different than all other human's. Of course the next question or task might be can I create a universe from nothing?

Since the answer to these somewhat unlearn-ed questions shall remain a mystery, this is why 'truth is Subjectivity' remains a brute fact of physical existence, or at least provides for its concept to exist. Otherwise, from an epistemological standpoint, everything becomes an objective truth. And theoretically, only a God (a creator-human or otherwise) can claim that all truth is Objectivity or can be objectively known and realized by thinking alone. Make sense?

I agree to your assertion that there really exists no mind-body problem. Perhaps this is just another brute fact of reality upon which no amount of scientific discovery/uncovery, let alone philosophical thinking, will provide for an other answer.

And I do hold the simple idea that our consciousness uses our physical matter as a medium to simply effect our existence in the way it was naturally intended. The word 'natural' though, would be a cause of some concern because what after all is natural about human consciousness? Are we back to trees and meaning? (There are gaps in the Darwinian sense between human consciousness and lower life forms. And those gaps open the door for man just 'appearing'.)


Until objective truth can match-up with subjective truths and consciousness, the mystery behind the meaning of existence shall remain its very own brute fact (of truth).

I know I've made a few leaps here. What do you think?

walrus

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

crocodile deathroll

I am of the view that It is not so much the words themselves but it is syntax.
The ability to string words together into a sentence, or syntax is a property that I think is genetically programmed into us. We I child makes a demand he automatically computes all the sounds which symbolize action such as "throw" "give" "wash" and words that symbolize themselves which may be pronouns like "me" "I" "my" or their own name and and sounds the symbolize other people like "mommy" "daddy" objects like "ball" "car" "train" "Thomas". So you may walk into any group of children and be very familiar with the syntactic patterns and I can give you a common example of a two year old child running up to you crying "I bumped my head on the table ". For a two year old get those seven simple words in correct order are not as easy as you think. When we taught language we are only are only taught the individual words, we are not taught to string them together in a meaningful sentence. This natural ability for all the words to fall into to the right place is I think is genetically programmed into us and sure saves parents a whole lot of trouble. That child may well of run up to you screaming "the bumped head table I on my" or perhaps even "talks that me tree to" the kid would of said all the appropriate words, but they make no sense. When a child tells you that "that tree talks to me" he/she may just using his/her imagination to amuse you with skill they just come naturally to him/her.
Syntax, It is a natural as walking

John Page

Croc:

I can't go with you on this one. I have difficulty with the "genetically programmed" bit. While some research seems to confirm specialization within the brain (the one I've read about is how color recognition develops) as the brain develops, the multiplicity of languages and grammatical structures makes me dubious of a claim that syntax/language is innate.

I would perhaps agree that our genes produce (flexible) brain structures that are able to make sense of their environment, but I can't see that language is hard wired. If you have a research links to the contrary I'd be very interested.

If I had to bet, I'd say the subject,object relation aspect of language is driven by reality and that's the source of any "hard wiring".

Cheers.

PS. I've tried reading Derrida and I couldn't find any coherent or convincing arguments.

John Page

Mathematics is analysis rather than process oriented and as you point out it has very limited "range". I think humankind will need to synthesize many disciplines to penetrate the workings of the mind. Mystical explanations have been around longer than science and the advent of the latter has signaled rapid progress! Maybe we're still at the stage of a dinosaur being asked to understand how a computer works.

Billions of years in the lab and even when you've made one you still have to train them... I just think we need to keep researching.

What's the quote... "The impossible just takes a little longer."

I think we have to learn more to decrease our subjectivity. You can have objectivity without supposed absolute (god-like) objectivity. The latter is still a concept in the ideas lab. In any event I don't see that acquiring absolute objectivity (if there really is such a thing) is a pre-requisite for understanding consciousness etc. We only just discovered relational calculus!

I don't understand the bit about the way our existence was naturally intended - by whom?

Don't worry about the gap between homo sapiens sapiens and the rest of the guys, we're so smart we just wiped out all the rivals before they really got started. While the fossil record is incomplete, I haven't heard of anything thats an evolution killer.

Existence just is, it doesn't need any meaning. The need for a meaning is inferred by human consciousness because the mind is trying to figure out cause and effect, functional purpose etc.

Cheers.

copernicus

John, few scholars question whether language is a genetically programmed instinct in humans. The only real question is how much is innate. While there have been many thousands of languages throughout human existence, there is also a remarkable amount of similarity across all languages--what linguists call "linguistic universals". Moreover, humans appear to need environmental triggers to acquire language naturally. All human communities have language. There are no exceptions. Writing, which must be learned, is not universal to all communities. Moreover, language learning follows a predictable schedule of stages, and humans that fail to be exposed to language by a "critical age" fail to acquire language perfectly. These are signs of innate, as opposed to learned, behavior. At the age of puberty, humans seem suddenly to lose the ability to acquire flawless pronunciation in a language or dialect. By the late teens or early twenties, humans lose the ability to acquire a new language with flawless grammatical structure. Croc is right. Language is a genetically programmed form of behavior in humans. Just as birds learn the birdsong "dialect" of their region, so humans acquire the language of the community that they grow up in.

John Page

Copernicus:

Thank you for educating me. I hadn't really thought of the difference between "language as a form of behavior" and language/syntax being hardwired. I'll happily agree about the genetic predisposition for languages and this is supported by body language that's even more hard wired and very difficult to fake at any age!

Croc's points include this one "For a two year old get those seven simple words in correct order are not as easy as you think." It seems to me that youngsters acquire knowledge at a rapid rate and the order of the words varies significantly between languages. Having been asked "Are you order to ready" in a Moscow, Russia restaurant for example makes me dubious.

Thanks again.

crocodile deathroll

The neurons are genetically programmed to migrate to their respective specialized positions in the brain and it as at a crucial phase of genetic organization of neurons that we acquire our language in the correct syntactic order, but if we are not at all exposed to language at this early phase of our lives then we may never be able to put words in syntax for the rest of our lives. Whilst genes are governing this organization we babbling as a result and as such we acquire all the raw building blocks for language
I am not stating language is "hard wired" (the baby babbling may well be, and I am sure there is a genetic basis for this) I am just stating that there is a pattern to arrange words into their most coherent order to make ourselves better understood.
There may also be a chronological order of the situation it is describing. If you make a silent movie of a three child throwing a ball and write some imaginary script to a dialogue of what that child may be saying then you may find chronological order is a good prompt to getting words onto syntactic order. The dialoge may be better understood if they match the activity of the child in this chronological order.

CD

John Page

Yes, I remember now, the migration of neurons appears partially or fully "pre-programmed". This seems reasonable, I haven't heard anybody claim that hearts, bones etc. are primarily developed by experience (muscles?). However, I thought that the connectivity between neurons was highly "plastic" so that the "blank" mind can be populated. Seems to me that there is a lot of "chicken and egg" on what is driving what.

At this point I think I'd concede that we may be genetically set up to establish the "syntax of syntax", but the variety of languages indicates that specific syntaxes (and therefore contextual relations between words) must be learned. Also, that we lose some ability to acquire langauge later in life doesn't necessarily prove genetic programming.

Take Hungarian, it has 8 cases. If these were genetically inherited wouldn't it mean that a non-Hungarian could never learn to speak using the 8 cases?

This is how I see it as a layman - do I have my facts wrong?

Cheers.

WJ

Hi John!

In an effort to respond to some of your questions/concerns I offer the following;

Many [physicists] believe there are no connections to a human's ability in absorbing the higher knowledge from the laws of physics relative to surviving in the jungle or avoiding falling objects (laws of gravity, etc.). It is believed, that both birds and humans don't need to know mathematical laws in order to avoid being hit by objects, yet we do anyway.

"What we use are previous experiences with similar situations. The physical phenomena taking place in the external world is mirrored in our minds because our brains construct an internal mental model of the world in which an entity corresponding to the object [stone] is percieved to move through three demensional space; we see the stone fall."

Apparently, we don't integrate equasions of motion in order to avoid falling objects.

Point being, one piece of the puzzle with regard to what is going on "inside" and how it relates to a thing's meaning seems to come from experiencing the surroundings. Though I'll refrain from moving the discussion to biological evolution v. creation, the uncanny thing is that human's posses the unique ability in understanding the laws of nature independent of the fact that at the same time we, and other lower life forms, apparently don't need that higher knowledge to survive.

With regard to one concept of TMC, in this case 'meaning', it suggests a 'higher' purpose of some sort. And because science has discerned that there are no biological advantages to the integration of gravity equasions in the mind of birds and humans and other animals, it is striking to conclude that there must be a reason for this higher level of consciousness (intellect) to only exist in humans.

This doesn't even account for sentience and volitional existence, etc., etc, and so, I'm still focused on the 'meaning' aspect of objects themselves. Further, I believe there is a huge macro sense of interconnectness (physical and mental) as well as the 'silly' notion that all life forms have a 'conscious existence'(in design only) in that they are part of a related chain to support human consciousness (eg, trees give oxygen).

With regard to mathematics viz.the laws of nature, it only suggests that the world is ordered and/or rational. However, from a consciousness-meaning perspective, we know that rationality is not an absolute science. (FL cannot handle issues of Being)

Thoughts?

Walrus

John Page

Hi Walrus:

I'm not comfortable with the higher and lower life forms thing. If light were to disappear from this world bats and suchlike could be better equippped to inherit the earth. We cannot perform the feats of navigation that birds can. Myabe not great examples but I think they convey the point that there is no inherent hierarchy of being - any such hierarchy is the implication of our human analysis.

Further, when we get to "meaning" I remain convinced that there is no "higher" purpose for the same reasons there is no inherent hierarchy within living beings. Any "meaning" is implied by us humans.

Because an entity's "meaning" is subjective to our own individual frames of reference, our perceptions of how meaning comes about will differ. Hence we are able to have a debate on the topic.

Makes sense?