NialScorva

Completely irrelavent. Empirical means coming from the senses, and whether it's a dream or it's real, you are still percieving it. As Descartes noted in his meditations, at the time you percieve them, you cannot be sure that you are dreaming or experiencing reality, which lead to his skepticism.

However, this is a bit of a red herring. The point I was addressing was your comment about truths being knowable without empirical sensation, and the source of such empirical sensation is not pertinent to the discussion.


Ah, but that's not the question. It's not an issue of identity, it's an issue of truth. Can you make true claims about a circle if you do not have a name for it?

Francois Tremblay

Uh, no. You proved my point that all the information needed is empirical. How exactly do you expect to know what a circle, a square, and the laws of logic are without the senses ?

Draygomb

NialScorva

Yes, most definately. First comes the concept then comes the name. A circle by any other name is still as round.

Franc Use of mental faculties.

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Draygomb ]</p>

Francois Tremblay

I don't want to make an ad hominem here, but I'm pretty sure you know that's absurd. The mind alone without the senses could not grasp the concepts of circles, squares, or logic. You need to perceive circles, squares, or their definition, and the laws of logic, before being able to use them. There is no innate idea in our minds about such things.

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Franc28 ]</p>

Mageth

Stepping in here, but depriving the mind of sensory input for a long enough time will result in hallucinations, and eventually insanity (there's empirical evidence to back this up).

Note that some patients who suffer injuries depriving them of color vision (or all vision) after a while lose the very concept of colors. Other brain injured patients have lost such concepts as "leftness."

IMO, every concept we have is a construct built from sensory input. Deprive the input prior to development and the concept doesn't develop. Deprive the input after development and the concept may eventually be lost.

A person blind from birth likely has a completely different concept of "triangle" or "circle" than a sigted person, built on the sense of touch rather than sight. For one thing, concepts such as "distance" and "depth" have little if any meaning (other than a dictionary one) for them. They tend to think more in terms of "time." Not "how far is it to the restaurant?" but "how long will it take me to get to the restaurant?" The trip is measured not in distance, but in time. Sighted people have no problem with either concept, but the first is a difficult if not impossible one to someone sight-deprived from birth.

To summarize, without sensory input (i.e. a "body"), "I" would be nothing, and would not be able to conceive of a circle, a triangle or any other concept.

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Kharakov

I really wonder what Helen Keller thought about before her parents hooked her up with Anne Sulivan.

Here is an excerpt that Helen Keller wrote about her first experience with language:

"It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. The morning after my teacher came she gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letter for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. One day [a month later],while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow. "
Helen Keller

I got the quote from this webpage: <a href="http://www.percepp.demon.co.uk/hkeller.htm" target="_blank">http://www.percepp.demon.co.uk/hkeller.htm</a>
which is sorta cool.

Umm, hrmm, I think Helen Keller is lying to further the cause of the empiricists! Although she did get language from another person . Maybe language is just a consequence of not being alone?

Francois Tremblay

I already know about Keller's experiences. How does it relate to anything I said ? She still had some senses left, obviously, since she could feel.

theophilus

All you have related here is PAST personal experience. The hot iron burned you in the past, but you can't know that the future will be like the past and you can't know that it was, in fact, the iron that burned you. It could have been a coincidental phenomenon of which you have no perception. Finally, you can't know that, just because it burned you, it would burn anyone else, so your exchange of information becomes meaningless. Someone else may "say" that the iron burned them but, since you can't experience their experience, you can't know what they mean by that.
This renders the possibility of knowledge at 0%.

Mageth

Franky, theophilus, that's a load of crap. How can we function thinking that experiences aren't repeatable? If I live my life thinking that I can learn nothing from my own or others' experiences, where does that leave me? Even a two-year-old can grasp that concept. As a child gets older, it soon learns that it doesn't have to experience something itself; it can take the words of those "in the know." (those that don't learn this concept early often don't live to adulthood) For example, my 5-year old son has never experienced being run over by a car; he knows, because I taught him at an early age, that playing in the street is not a good idea.

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Kharakov

I thought it did. It seemed interesting that she experienced the first glimmering of her mind (language) only after learning to correlate the sensation of the word drawn on her hand with another sensation (that of running water). Just like you were saying about circles/etc. That we need something else to correlate something to, even if it is just another word.