--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:

> --- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > The problem is you're still looking for the non-physical entity within
> the physical one,
>
> You know better. I don't think in terms of entities.

Obviously I'm suggesting that you do, even if you don't see it.

> But you do. If the
> brain causes the self, then the self has to be a something.

A "something"? Well, a baseball game is something as is an idea and a flash of lightning and a rainbow but that would not mean that we thought they were entities or even entity-like. On the other hand a corporation or other institution may be what we would want to call an "entity" under certain conditions. But it would not be a physical entity. The problem arises when we think ah, "mind" is to something as "brain" is to the gray matter inside our skulls. And then we look for the comparable something. But what if the something in question isn't comparable, doesn't have the characteristics we associate with an entity at all?

Then we have to think about it a different way don't we?

> Even if it
> isn't a solid entity, it must be gas, a wave, some form of matter, or
> perhaps a non-physical entity.
>

That, I am suggesting, is the problem with your picture. You presume a divide because you see two distinct entity-like somethings existing in some parallel relation: brains and minds.

The view I have been pressing here is that this is not about parallelism or co-existence.

> > The operating brain does many things, including producing various
> pictures
>
> for me to see?

Sometimes.

> Where am I in this picture?

Which picture? The one of the landscape before your eyes or the one you recall when you close your eyes or the one of you recalling the image you saw when your eyes were open?

> Do I see the picture the
> brain makes exactly as it makes it or can I distort it?

If you smoke a little grass, or something stronger, no doubt you can distort it. Or take a sip of whisky. Sometimes, if you engage in certain meditational practices or even a little self-hypnosis, you can also distort it. If you look at the world through rose colored glasses, this too would be an example of you acting to distort some picture you have. Perhaps, insofar as the picture is just a mental one, say a map of a city you have committed to memory, you can consciously alter the features and distort that, too. So you can do lots of things to distort your pictures (at least in part because you have pictures of many different types). However, speaking of you distorting something by choice isn't the same as speaking about what you are as a function of your brain.

You don't use your brain (as you like to put it) to be you. Your brain just operates in a certain way and one of the outcomes of that is that you are you.

I am suggesting that we can describe some of the operations of the brain as picturing (as in developing, retaining and connecting) various representational mappings of the inputs of our world (which include external sensory inputs, internal sensory inputs, retained and recalled inputs, etc.). But I've said all this before, i.e., we can conceive of the mental domain of our existence as being a function of this picturing and connecting activity that brains perform which, when combined on a complex enough level, yields the experiences we have, the selves we take ourselves to be, etc.

But this is a particular view, a particular model of how mind works, of course, and it stands in sharp contradistinction to a picture (a concept) of mind as an unperceived perceiver (a transparent point of consciousness that somehow exists within or in tandem with the brain and everything it does. It also is a different view than the one that says that consciousness is just certain non-physical properties that some physical events or objects have (which last is, I think, a less coherent view than the one that presumes consciousness is equivalent with a self that is transparent to itself).

> If I can distort
> it, then you have a ghost in the machine.
>

Note my comments about what it means to say "I can distort it" above.

The fact that you keep insisting on a "ghost in the machine" is evidence of my point, that you persist in conceiving of this in entity-like terms. A ghost is certainly an entity because it is seen to have a certain fixed presence, defined by certain borders of itself, etc. Thus it is a perfect example of thinking about mind in the wrong way.

Here is a dictionary definition of "entity":

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entity

1 a : being, existence; especially : independent, separate, or self- contained existence
b : the existence of a thing as contrasted with its attributes

2 : something that has separate and distinct existence and objective or conceptual reality

3 : an organization (as a business or governmental unit) that has an identity separate from those of its members

> > ....when certain operations within the brain are shut down..features
> of the conscious mind we are familiar with go away.
>
> Correct. Now explain why. If my visual cortex is damaged.....
>
> 1. It doesn't make pictures and I, the ghost in the machine, am in the
> dark.
>

That's a question for neural science, don't you think? I don't pretend to have complete knowledge of how brains work. But note that if the parts of the brain get shut down one by one, certain associated features of consciousness follow. When enough go, we can no longer say consciousness is present. Of course, we don't quite know where the threshold is but my view is that that is because there may be no precise threshold but only a continuum and that recognition of the distinctions occurs more readily the farther apart on the continuum the features we are considering are to be found.

> 2. I can't use my brain to see the world. The "I" in this stance doesn't
> refer to any entity. Just a description of how I'm able to do what I do.
>
> bruce
>

You can "use your brain" as in pausing to think about something or to think more deeply than usual and, in so doing, announce 'I am using my brain here, give me a minute to think!' But that doesn't mean you can speak of using your brain to be you.

Your brain has parts that process visual information for instance (since above you are referencing seeing as in having pictures). Ramachandran describes this feature of sight as actually consisting of multiple parts and processes with visual information coming through the retina and the optic nerve and then being routed to different areas within the brain.

One part, he suggests, involves "how" questions, as in how one operates in the world using the inputted information. The other part, he suggests, involves "what" questions, as in what am I seeing and how is it related to other things I see and know, i.e., the semantic aspect (meanings)? This latter part he equates with the conscious level of seeing.

He describes a woman who lost her sight due to carbon monoxide poisoning yet, in studying her, he discovered that she could "see" at a certain level even though she had no awareness that she was seeing or of what she was seeing. But she could function as though she was seeing objects in front of her. This prompted his suggestion that the visual information fed into our brains follows different pathways, according to its type. Thus this woman could "see" in a limited way without knowing she was seeing because only the "higher", conscious pathways in her brain had been damaged in the accident. Claims of extrasensory perception could be a function of this phenomenon by the way.

Another interesting thing this suggests is that lower forms of animal, without the brain parts we have, may simply have this kind of sight exclusively, i.e., they may only be able to see at a level that allows survival appropriate behavioral responses without any awareness of what is being seen at all. It's strange to conceive but if the patient Ramachandran wrote about could have this kind of "sight" because her higher order brain pathways were damaged in the accident, why would an animal (say a lizard) which lacked those pathways see any more fully than this woman? In that case, would we be justified in considering such animals automatons?

So here vision, in humans at least, is seen as a multiplicity of processes and functions, distinct brain sub-systems which work together in a coordinated way to yield the apparently seamless phenomenon we think of as sight. But they are still separable, that is they are not really as seamless as they look to us.

The self may be like that, too. Anyway, that is the point of this model, to suggest that the unified self we recognize in ourselves may just be a medley of many different functionalities working together in an overarching system like this and can thus be teased apart conceptually and, maybe even practically. Maybe many of the things that happen to humans pathologically (say multiple personality disorder) are functions of this method the brain has of generating a sense of being a self.

Ramachandran (and others) proposes ways we can and do tease this apart conceptually. Such a view is in diametric opposition to the idea that the self is some mental entity, some "ghost in the machine", somehow sharing time and space, co-located with the physical object we call the brain. But as long as we insist that mind can only be explained by accounting for the unified self as we "see it", that is as unified at a basic level, then we are hanging onto the "ghost in the machine" scenario.

SWM

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(CJ)

... very nicely done.  Thank you for that.
 

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

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(J)

I'm not sure you and I have any hope of connecting up on this thread in its current form. The replies you sent to me slightly have some of the features we had talked with Stuart about. Some come too quickly before the point is absorbed.  I think you might have sent them out in a rush. But there are very good things here and there, and several questions that I have -- along with a few things that I think quite problematic. Here's what I will do in the next few days. I'm going to separate out many of the issues here into their own threads and launch them. They won't mention you per se (at least, not the separate ones), so you will be free to join in or not, depending upon what your considerate view might be. 

Also, let me say this as a preliminary matter: I think that to the extent you and I will disagree, it would be the result of how to approach the Tractatus. I cannot accept your teleological approach in this context, because I am writing a (very) brief history of Tractatarian thought for my manuscript. What I am interested in is the historical Tractatus -- the Tractatus that existed in the mind of Wittgenstein before what of it crumbled and fell. So I'm not looking at it through the lens of latter Wittgensteinian thought. That right there might be the thing that separates us.

But if you do have any sources or insight regarding what I am about to say, for the purposes that I am saying it, your input is always appreciated.

(Mails coming soon. For about 24 hrs. No need to rush in reply, if at all)  
 
Regards.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

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SW,

A few quick comments.

The rapidity with which my responses were posted owes not to my having dashed off responses to each but to my have waited to post any of them until I'd had a chance to consider each of them in light of the others. I wanted to reply to each one and then after doing so to re-read them from that point of view. That's why all of the responses hit at once.

I would grant that the approach I take to the Tractatus may color my interpretation in ways that I'm not aware but I don't know that any particular principle I follow has an effect on this discussion. It could be though. I'd have to see.

Actually, my sense is that you may be appealing to elements of Wittgenstein's later remarks on religion in your attempt to distinguish different kinds of nonsense.

I want to direct your attention to a latter Wittgenstein wrote to Ludwig von Ficker, editor of "Der Brenner", regarding the Tractatus:

"The book's point is an ethical one. I once meant to include in the preface a sentence which is not in fact there now but which I will write out for you here because it will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant to write, then, was this: My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book will say a great deal that you yourself want to say. Only perhaps you won't see that it is said in the book. For now, I would recommend you to read the preface and the conclusion, because they contain the most direct _expression_ of the point of the book."

Note that he refers to "gassing" and his own attempt to avoid gassing by being silent. If nothing else, this suggests to me that we should question whether he would have considered much religious talk to be nonsense pure and simple. Which is not to say that there may not be something important behind it.

My point remains that "nonsense" as a logical concept does not admit of kinds in the way you suggest. But "nonsense!" as a rebuke might be avoided for other reasons. And to that extent, I agree that there are distinctions we might try to draw (doing a lot of speculation) between things Wittgenstein would DISMISS as nonsense and things he would recognize as nonsense but would not simply dismiss.

Again, a difference between the logical point - it's all nonsense - and the psychological/religious/aesthetic/ethical point(s) about the inclination to say certain things.

The 1929 Lecture on Ethics is still awhile after the Tractatus, so we use this at our peril. Still, I think it may shed some light here.

"Now the answer to all this will seem perfectly clear to many of you. You will say: Well, if certain experiences constantly tempt us to attribute a quality to them which we call absolute or ethical value and importance, this simply shows that by these words we don't mean nonsense, that after all what we mean by saying that an experience has absolute value is just a fact like other facts and that all it comes to is that we have not yet succeeded in finding the correct logical analysis of what we mean by our ethical and religious expressions. Now when this is urged against me I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject every significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance."

"That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and, I believe, the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language."

"This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it."

He clearly does call these ways of speaking "nonsense". But he denies any willingness to ridicule those tendencies in the human mind that give rise to them.

There is nonsense with which he is sympathetic and presumably nonsense with which he is unsympathetic, but it's still in the same logical category of nonsense.

Whether the "gassing" of which he spoke in the letter to Ficker would be something he would ridicule in 1929 is an interesting question. I suspect that he'd be less inclined to speak of "gassing" when others attempted to make points he thought he'd made better by being silent once he began to see that his way of setting out the boundaries was problematic. But this is just a surmise with no textual basis.

We might also distinguish between his unwillingness to ridicule the human tendency that nonsense and gassing document from whether he'd ridicule the particular expressions of that tendency.

JPDeMouy

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... gosh J, good stuff in here. Really good stuff. Let's parse this out. I've printed the quotes again below my signature for reference. 

First, note that he speaks of his work drawing a limit to the ethical sphere. This means that something lies within the limit and something lies OUTSIDE the limit. Notice also that he says that the limit is drawn from "the inside,"  which apparently means from within the ethical itself or within the person claiming to feel it (which I believe are one in the same). What is meant by this is to say that he has not drawn the limit from some outside source, which would be, for example, saying that postulate-type A are of one sort, postulate-type B of another. It's not a division based on CONTENT (or substance). This would square with Monk's recording of how devoutly he was hit with spirituality when he wrote props 6. The limit comes from within. It is felt. This is how the ethical shows itself.

Note the existential implications: all of the problems of life (that require silence) hit you like this -- joy, love, anguish, remorse, etc. These things hit you as though they are other-worldly. They can be transformative. They can shake you.  Note also that these things are characterized as EXTRA-WORLDLY.

Now the issues: (a) what can you talk about, and in what sense?; and (b) what are the consequences if you violate this? I want to suggest the following answers:

1. You can't speak of extra-worldliness in any manner because it is beyond language. But this only means you can't get it right (completely understand). It doesn't mean it doesn't show itself. It doesn't mean it isn't felt. If you try to speak of it in any manner you will end up with nonsense in the 1st degree (felony). It's gassing.

2. But if you speak of metaphysics that is NOT extra-worldly (not devout, not felt, not shown in the form of life), then what of this? You seem here to have spoken of something that not only not a proposition, but also not encumbered by being beyond your language. Under the Tractarian view, this clearly is nonsense of a different sort. It's seems to resemble gibberish. Gibberish is language at your control that is pointless.  

I wonder if that doesn't do it? If your ethic or aesthetic is refined or devout -- of the kind that is shown to the form of life -- assertions of it are always unacceptably impoverished. But if your ethic or aesthetic is NOT refined or devout (or shown in life),  it's a kind of gibberish. So, some metaphysics are a kind of stupidity while others are a kind of random noise. The difference, I think, is that at least someone is "home" in the former. I want to say (although it is very crude), that one sentence is treated as a kind of stupidity and the other as a kind of retardation. Talking only about the sentences, not people!

How about this: one is treated as erroneous (perpetually), the other as noise (perpetually). That's it!!  Doesn't that do it??

Devoutly-felt spiritual statements must be regarded as per-se erroneous under Tractarian thought -- not because God is false or absent -- but because the form of life cannot language outside of itself (the extra-worldly cannot be understood). But non-devoutly felt metaphysics of the sort not revealed to us must be perpetually regarded as noise.

You on board here, J?           

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

WITTGENSTEIN QUOTES

 "My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book will say a great deal that you yourself want to say. Only perhaps you won't see that it is said in the book. For now, I would recommend you to read the preface and the conclusion, because they contain the most direct _expression_ of the point of the book."

"You will say: Well, if certain experiences constantly tempt us to attribute a quality to them which we call absolute or ethical value and importance, this simply shows that by these words we don't mean nonsense, that after all what we mean by saying that an experience has absolute value is just a fact like other facts and that all it comes to is that we have not yet succeeded in finding the correct logical analysis of what we mean by our ethical and religious expressions. Now when this is urged against me I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject every significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance."

"That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and, I believe, the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language."

"This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it."

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[sending this again to clear up a few things -- sw]
 
... gosh J, good stuff in here. Really good stuff. Let's parse this out. I've printed the quotes again below my signature for reference. 

First, note that he speaks of his work drawing a limit to the ethical sphere. This means that something lies within the limit and something lies OUTSIDE the limit. Notice also that he says that the limit is drawn from "the inside,"  which apparently means from within the ethical itself or within the person claiming to feel it (which I believe are one in the same). What is meant by this is to say that he has not drawn the limit from some outside source, which would be, for example, saying that postulate-type A are of one sort, postulate-type B of another. It's not a division based on CONTENT (or substance). This would square with Monk's recording of how devoutly he was hit with spirituality when he wrote props 6. The limit comes from within. It is felt. This is how the ethical shows itself.

Note the existential implications: all of the problems of life (that require silence) hit you like this -- joy, love, anguish, remorse, etc. These things hit you as though they are other-worldly. They can be transformative. They can shake you.  Note also that these things are characterized as EXTRA-WORLDLY.

Now the issues:

1. You can't speak of extra-worldliness in any manner because it is beyond language. But this only means you can't get it right (completely understand). It doesn't mean it doesn't show itself. It doesn't mean it isn't felt. If you try to speak of it in any manner you will end up with nonsense in the sense of being incorrect.

2. But if you speak of metaphysics that is NOT extra-worldly (not devout, not felt, not shown in the form of life), then what of this? You seem here to have spoken of something that is not only NOT a proposition, but also not encumbered by being beyond your language. Under the Tractarian view, this clearly is nonsense of a different sort. It's seems to resemble gibberish. Gibberish is language at your control that is pointless.  

I wonder if that doesn't do it? If your ethic or aesthetic is refined or devout -- of the kind that is shown to the form of life -- assertions of it are always unacceptably impoverished. But if your ethic or aesthetic is NOT refined or devout (or shown in life),  it's a kind of gibberish. So, some metaphysics are a kind of stupidity while others are a kind of random noise. The difference, I think, is that at least someone is "home" in the former. I want to say (although it is very crude), that one sentence is treated as a kind of stupidity and the other as a kind of retardation. Talking only about the sentences, not people!

How about this: one is treated as erroneous (perpetually), the other as noise (perpetually). That's it!!  Doesn't that do it??

Devoutly-felt spiritual statements must be regarded as per-se erroneous under Tractarian thought -- not because God is false or absent -- but because the form of life cannot language outside of itself (the extra-worldly cannot be understood). But non-devoutly felt metaphysics of the sort not revealed to us must be perpetually regarded as noise.

You on board here, J?           

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

WITTGENSTEIN QUOTES

 "My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book will say a great deal that you yourself want to say. Only perhaps you won't see that it is said in the book. For now, I would recommend you to read the preface and the conclusion, because they contain the most direct _expression_ of the point of the book."

"You will say: Well, if certain experiences constantly tempt us to attribute a quality to them which we call absolute or ethical value and importance, this simply shows that by these words we don't mean nonsense, that after all what we mean by saying that an experience has absolute value is just a fact like other facts and that all it comes to is that we have not yet succeeded in finding the correct logical analysis of what we mean by our ethical and religious expressions. Now when this is urged against me I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject every significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance."

"That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and, I believe, the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language."

"This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it."

=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

=========================================
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Siobhan Roberts has this excellent new biography out
entitled 'King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the
Man Who Saved Geometry' Walker and Company 2006.

I will excerpt from her text (pages 106 - 107)

"""
The reclusive Wittgenstein had taken a liking to Coxeter
when he was a student, and they kept in touch. "I had tea
with Wittgenstein yesterday," he recorded in his diary.
"He talked very interestingly about blindness and deafness,
and why you get seasick on a camel but not on a horse.
He doesn't seem any more abnormal than before."

Coxeter had enrolled in Wittgenstein's "Philosophy of
Mathematicians" lecture for the 1933-4 year. To
Wittgenstein's horror, so did a total of forty students,
far too many for the intimate lecture he was willing to
deliver. "There are too many of you," the philosopher
protested. "Will three or four please leave?" After
only a few weeks, Wittgenstein informed his still too
numerous students that the class would continue no
longer. He deigned to lecture for only a chosen few.
He would dictate his thoughts, and his select students
were instructed to copy the notes and distribute them
to the rest of the class in what became known as his
Blue Books. The select group included Wittgenstein's
five favorite students: Francis Skinner (a promising
mathematics student who became Wittgenstein's
constanct companion, confidante, and collaborator);
applied mathematician Louis Goodstein; philosopher
Margaret Masterman (a pioneer in the field of
computational linguistics, her beliefs about language
processing by computers were ahead of their time
and are now fundamental to the field of artificial
intelligence); philosopher Alice Ambrose (of the
analytic school, who also wrote papers on pi,
mathematics, and the mind); and Coxeter.
"""

Roberts goes on to talk about how LW didn't like the
lecture hall setting and they instead retired to Coxeter's
sitting room. Coxeter was actually impatient with
LW's style and didn't feel he was able to grasp the
substance, so stopped attending the classes -- even
while they kept meeting in his room.

Donald Coxeter's scenario is important in my technical writing
and storytelling in part because it overlaps the scenarios of
two philosophers I've studied: Ludwig Wittgenstein's and
Buckminster Fuller's.

There's a lot more on the Fuller-Coxeter relationship in this
book. I was connecting some of these dots for readers of
edu-sig just last night:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2010-January/009722.html

How I connect Fuller and Wittgenstein is through this notion
of namespaces and invention. "Meaning as use" connects to
"meaning as spin" (one changes the meaning by changing the
spin -- hence "spin doctor" in popular parlance). LW spun the
meaning of the word "philosophy" (to bring us a new / remade
version of the discipline). Fuller imparted spin to a lot of key
words in his own invented namespace, which I categorize as
philosophical (with good reason). I actually own a four volume
dictionary that helps me map Fuller's meanings (called 'Synergetics
Dictionary' and a gift from the author, E.J. Applewhite).

Thesis:

I think the "doing" nature of the PI, versus the more passive
"describing" nature of the TLP, brings the PI closer to
contemporary computer science and its machine-executing
languages.

I am especially interested in connecting LW's idea of
"language games" to "namespaces", as I've discussed in
many previous posts already.

A language game tends to impart its own spin (meaning)
to its "names" (memes, monikers, tokens) which is why
we consider "namespaces" to be "containers for meaning"
i.e. a namespace, like a language game, supplies a
context.

A challenge in philosophy, and in scholarship more generally,
is sorting out these partially overlapping meanings and
tracing them back to their original contexts. Unless one is
sensitized to the multiplicity of namespaces, one is in
danger of assuming that what X means by Y is what Z
means by Y, simply because they're both using Y. All
nuance and specificity go out the door once you treat
all Ys as "global" (i.e. as having some fixed objective
meaning we all share irrespective of context).

This work of providing context is called :"disambiguation"
in some circles and is an important exercise whenever
the waters get too muddy (as often happens in
philosophical discourse, as well as in diplomacy).

To take an example (from Wikipedia), we have two
authors using the word "Synergetics" to describe their
work, yet their respective namespaces are really quite
remote from one another:

"""
Synergetics can refer to:

* Synergetics (Fuller), a school of thought on
thinking and geometry developed by Buckminster Fuller
* Synergetics (Haken), a school of thought on
thermodynamics and other systems phenomena
developed by Hermann Haken
"""

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergetics ]

Of course lots of "spin doctors" work it the other way too
and deliberately take connotations and denotations
from one namespace and apply them in another -- what's
called taking something "out of context".

Per Arthur Koestler, this may actually be a creative act
and gets used all the time in advertising. Wittgenstein's
notion of philosophy as a series of jokes (deeply
grammatical?) would connect here (Koestler explores
jokes in 'The Act of Creation').

I suspect we're all guilty of cross-breeding meanings
across namespaces. That's part of what we do as tool
users, as "memetic engineers." Stuart Kauffman's
thinking on exaptations would enter in at this juncture:
the unforeseen or unanticipated re-purposing of
something takes us into the space of the "adjacent
possible" i.e. some "other tomorrow."

http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=636

One could mine the TLP here as well, for ideas about
possibility vs. what's actually the case. However this
post is already plenty long.

Kirby

"Flies fly back into fly bottles every day."
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One of the interesting questions that has been raised is whether religion had an effect on Wittgenstein when writing the Tractatus. We all know what affect spirituality had upon later Wittgenstein, but what about early? Here are some accounts:

1. Although Wittgenstein was agnostic in Cambridge, he became quite religious during his stint in World War I, as early, I believe, as 1914. Ray Monk attributes this to reading Tolstoy's Gospel in Brief. He says it saved Wittgenstein from suicide (115) and that Wittgenstein "carried it wherever he went, and read it so often that he came to know whole passages of it by heart. He became known to his comrades as 'the man with the gospels.' For a time he ... became not only a true believer, but an evangelist, recommending Tolstoy's Gospel to anyone in distress. (116). Monk continues:

"... this fervently held faith was bound to have an influence on his work. And it eventually did -- transforming it from an analysis of logical symbolism in the spirit of Frege and Russell into the curiously hybrid work which we know today, combining as it does logical theory with religious mysticism." (116)

2. When stationed near the Russian border toward the end of March 1916, Wittgenstein writes (I think in his journal), "God enlighten me. God enlighten me. God enlighten my soul." (137). After the Brusilov Offensive which resulted in many Austrian casualties to Wittgenstein's regiment, Monk notes, "it was precisely this time that the nature of Wittgenstein's work changed." (He continues on 140-141 with reflections about God and the meaning of life).
   
3. There is an important notebook entry on July 8th: "To believe in a God means to understand the meaning of life. To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning. The world is given me, i.e., my will enters the world completely from the outside as into something that is already there." (141)

HERE IS THE POINT:

Wittgenstein's inclusion of the mystical in the Tractatus happen at this point in his life. Props 6 are derived from these experiences. Hence, we now have a better understanding of the following:

1. That the mystical shows itself, but cannot be asserted as a proposition. That ethics and aesthetics operate in this realm as well. And that these matters are different from other kinds of assertions that cannot be propositions -- namely, simple nonsense or senselessness. That is, if a metaphysical statement is not under the rubric of spirituality, ethics, or aesthetics -- and if it is not of a devout sort of thing that is felt (shown) in the form of life -- then it seems to have a more harsh status.

Here is what I want to say. Before the mystical is retrofitted into the Tractatus, you have something that the Vienna Circle can claim as a legitimate vehicle for dissing metaphysics. But after the mystical is added, you seem to have TWO KINDS OF METAPHYSICS. Only if metaphysics shows itself in the form of life and is a kind of devout form of spirituality, a refined aesthetic or a deeply felt ethic, is it given the status of being from "outside the world" and is thus potentially LARGER than propositions. But our form of life cannot assert them as such. And that they therefore require silence (in assertion). Metaphysical statements that do not fit this rubric are more harsh --  a kid of "gas," I would think.

So Christian spirituality may indeed have a higher place in Tractarian thought compared to other kinds of metaphysics.  

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html

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SW,

> So Christian spirituality may indeed have a higher place in Tractarian thought compared to other kinds of metaphysics.  

Not only Christian but Indian religious thought as well could have significance, given what he would have absorbed via Schophenhauer and given his enthusiasm for the works of Rabindranath Tagore.

And though I know of no evidence to support any historical link, the Jewish thought of Moses Maimonides has some strong affinities with Tractarian thought.

JPDeMouy

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--- In Wittrs@yahoogroups.com, "J D" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:

>> Analytic: true by virtue of the meanings of the terms used.

> Note: this formulation and the earlier formulation involving a
> containment metaphor, i.e. the predicate is contained in the subject,
> both involve what Wittgenstein stigmatized as the Bedeutungskorper
> (meaning-body) picture of meaning.

That's not my idea of meaning.

> Wittgenstein would actually have agreed with Quine in his attack
> on analyticity, though not with Quine's conclusion.

In a way, I also agree with Quine. That is, I agree with his criticism
of the way analyticity had been used. I don't agree with his rejection
of the notion.

> Saying that the meanings of the terms involved makes the proposition
> true leaves "meaning" as something mysterious.

I'm not seeing that.

> Contrast with grammatical remarks, the truth of which are
> constitutive of the meanings of the words for whose usage the remark
> expresses a rule.

The attempt to base meaning on truth conditions is what leaves meaning
as something mysterious.

I perhaps need to clarify. I was talking about statements, rather than
about propositions. If you are using "proposition" to just mean
statement, then fine. If you see propositions as distinct from
statements, then we might be miscommunicating.

>> Incidently, an alternative definition of
>> "analytic", as I am using
>> the term, would be "true by virtue of empirical
>> practices."

> And I take this to amount to the something like Wittgenstein's
> methodological propositions.

Based on a google search for "methodological propositions", I would
have to guess that we are talking past one another.

Regards,
Neil

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314. Imagine that the schoolboy really did ask "and is there a table there even when I turn round, and even when no
one is there to see it?" Is the teacher to reassure him--and say "of course there is!"?
Page 40
Perhaps the teacher will get a bit impatient, but think that the boy will grow out of asking such questions.
Page 40
315. That is to say, the teacher will feel that this is not really a legitimate question at all.
And it would be just the same if the pupil cast doubt on the uniformity of nature, that is to say on the
justification of inductive arguments.--The teacher would feel that this was only holding them up, that this way the
pupil would only get stuck and make no progress.--And he would be right. It would be as if someone were looking
for some object in a room; he opens a drawer and doesn't see it there; then he closes it again, waits, and opens it
once more to see if perhaps it isn't there now, and keeps on like that. He has not learned to look for things. And in
the same way this pupil has not learned how to ask questions. He has not learned the game that we are trying to
teach him.
Page 40
316. And isn't it the same as if the pupil were to hold up his history lesson with doubts as to whether the earth
really....?
Page Break 41
Page 41
317. This doubt isn't one of the doubts in our game. (But not as if we chose this game!)
Page 41
12.3.51
318. 'The question doesn't arise at all.' Its answer would characterize a method. But there is no sharp boundary
between methodological propositions and propositions within a method.
Page 41
319. But wouldn't one have to say then, that there is no sharp boundary between propositions of logic and empirical
propositions? The lack of sharpness is that of the boundary between rule and empirical proposition.
Page 41
320. Here one must, I believe, remember that the concept 'proposition' itself is not a sharp one.
Page 41
321. Isn't what I am saying: any empirical proposition can be transformed into a postulate--and then becomes a
norm of description. But I am suspicious even of this. The sentence is too general. One almost wants to say "any
empirical proposition can, theoretically, be transformed...", but what does "theoretically" mean here? It sounds all
too reminiscent of the Tractatus.

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Neil,

>
> >> Incidently, an alternative definition of
> >> "analytic", as I am using
> >> the term, would be "true by virtue of empirical
> >> practices."
>
>
> > And I take this to amount to the something like
> Wittgenstein's
> > methodological propositions.
>
> Based on a google search for "methodological propositions",
> I would
> have to guess that we are talking past one another.

Could be.

Did you come across this:

(from PI pt. II)

One judges the length of a rod and can look for and find some method of judging it more exactly or more
reliably. So--you say--what is judged here is independent of the method of judging it. What length is cannot be
defined by the method of determining length.--To think like this is to make a mistake. What mistake?--To say "The
height of Mont Blanc depends on how one climbs it" would be queer. And one wants to compare 'ever more
accurate measurement of length' with the nearer and nearer approach to an object. But in certain cases it is, and in
certain cases it is not, clear what "approaching nearer to the length of an object" means. What "determining the
length" means is not learned by learning what length and determining are; the meaning of the word "length" is
learnt by learning, among other things, what it is to determine length.

(For this reason the word "methodology" has a double meaning. Not only a physical investigation, but also a
conceptual one, can be called "methodological investigation".)

and

(from OC)

314. Imagine that the schoolboy really did ask "and is there a table there even when I turn round, and even when no
one is there to see it?" Is the teacher to reassure him--and say "of course there is!"?

Perhaps the teacher will get a bit impatient, but think that the boy will grow out of asking such questions.

315. That is to say, the teacher will feel that this is not really a legitimate question at all.
And it would be just the same if the pupil cast doubt on the uniformity of nature, that is to say on the
justification of inductive arguments.--The teacher would feel that this was only holding them up, that this way the
pupil would only get stuck and make no progress.--And he would be right. It would be as if someone were looking
for some object in a room; he opens a drawer and doesn't see it there; then he closes it again, waits, and opens it
once more to see if perhaps it isn't there now, and keeps on like that. He has not learned to look for things. And in
the same way this pupil has not learned how to ask questions. He has not learned the game that we are trying to
teach him.

316. And isn't it the same as if the pupil were to hold up his history lesson with doubts as to whether the earth
really....?

317. This doubt isn't one of the doubts in our game. (But not as if we chose this game!)

12.3.51
318. 'The question doesn't arise at all.' Its answer would characterize a method. But there is no sharp boundary
between methodological propositions and propositions within a method.

319. But wouldn't one have to say then, that there is no sharp boundary between propositions of logic and empirical
propositions? The lack of sharpness is that of the boundary between rule and empirical proposition.

320. Here one must, I believe, remember that the concept 'proposition' itself is not a sharp one.

321. Isn't what I am saying: any empirical proposition can be transformed into a postulate--and then becomes a
norm of description. But I am suspicious even of this. The sentence is too general. One almost wants to say "any
empirical proposition can, theoretically, be transformed...", but what does "theoretically" mean here? It sounds all
too reminiscent of the Tractatus.

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BruceD wrote:

>Joseph Polanik wrote:

>>BruceD wrote:

>>>we experience ourselves as agents of purposeful activity; but,
>>>neuroscientists measuring the brain activity correlated with
>>>experiences of intentional actions have a separate vocabulary for
>>>describing brain activity.

>>that's predicate dualism

>Question: Is it predicate dualism only if one thinks that the
>neuroscientist and the ordinary person are talking about the same
>thing, two different properties of the same thing?

that there are two vocabularies is an empirical fact.

according to the article at SEP, predicate dualism is the belief that
there are two vocabularies (mental predicates and physical predicates)
because neither set is reducible to the other.

>What compels me to insist that they are "two sides of a coin", aspects
>of an underlying substance?

nothing. you get to choose your own theory to explain the fact that
there are two vocabularies.

read the SEP article. the author is treating property dualism and
substance dualism as stronger forms of dualism that each try to explain
what lesser forms do not.

Joe

--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@

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Cayuse wrote:

> Joseph Polanik wrote:

>> I suggest that you take a look at a paper by Suarez,
>> Nonlocal "Realistic" Leggett Models Can be Considered
>> Refuted by the Before-Before Experiment.
>> http://www.quantumphil.org/SuarezFOOP201R2.pdf
>
> In the face of this result how can it still be maintained that
> "consciousness cause the collapse of the wave function"?

by which interpretation?

Joe

--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
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Joseph Polanik wrote:
> Cayuse wrote:
>> Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>> http://www.quantumphil.org/SuarezFOOP201R2.pdf
>>
>> In the face of this result how can it still be maintained that
>> "consciousness cause the collapse of the wave function"?
>
> by which interpretation?

What kind of interpretation would admit of consciousness
"causing the collapse of the wave function" given this result?
Which of the two consciousness "did it"?

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