[lit-ideas] "The Cat Was On The Mat; And What He Did There."

In a message dated 4/27/2009 10:01:07 A.M.  Eastern Daylight Time, 
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
should therefore  give a said or stated example of just such a "simple": 
for if their claim is  true why could they not state an example? In the 
absence of any such example, it  may be safest to conclude that for W in the 
TLP 
the existence of such "simples"  is another one of those things that can be 
shown but not  said.

-----

Donal takes as a simple ('simplex' in  Latin):

catus matus

-- the cat is on the  mat.

As he notes:

"That's ambiguous. Surely it's the bones and the  skin that are on the 
French suede mat. It's never as simple as  that".

Indeed, and it's best to talk of _complex_. "The cat is on the  mat" is a 
_complex_. One test for complexity I use is:

"Can Geary think  of it?"

If the anwer is "no", it's a simple. 

Since Geary _can_  think that the cat is on the mat, it's a complex.

The complex  is

BEL (Geary (proposition, 'the cat is on the mat')), where 'Bel' means  
"BELIEVES".

"Geary believes butterflies"

on the other hand, is a  simple. Geary _cannot_ believe butterflies, 
_ceteris paribus_. 

Now, in  symbols, the Austrian engineer would say, "As a logician, all I 
need is a few  symbols, "C" for cat and "M" for mat: the rest is vacuous  
formalism:

(ix)Cx & Mx

There is an x such that it is a cat and  it's on the mat.

If your grandmother adds,

"Surely his flies were  _over_ tha mat there. Your cat is full of them"

"But not _on_ the  mat".

"No. _Over_ the mat"

Now if you can think or believe that,  the complex is a different one:

"The cat's flies were over the  mat"

(ix)CFx & OMx

Etc.

Still, I would think  Wittgenstein, like Russell, did take _atoms_ 
seriously. They possibly thought,  like Democritus, that all there is _is_ 
atoms.

Cheers,

JLS  

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