joigus

Interesting reflections, Studiot. Thank you. It seems that we need several levels of context to ascertain meaning to the point we think we understand what the other means. Another one is historical (idioms.) Aha! Nice examples. I suppose your first problem would be solved with a comma: "lane ends, merge left" versus, "lane ends merge, left" You can suggest that with your voice, but you can't with written language, unless you use punctuation! Interesting...

The only thing that looks "cohesive" to me on this thread are the cohesive attempts by members of the forums to have you explain --with a default-minimum maths, if possible-- how you can see a force in Schrödinger's equation; and what's more, how you can see any interactions that show up as "cohesive." The DeBroglie-Bohm model does not display cohesiveness either, BTW. The wave acts on the particle by means of the quantum potential in an equation that's formally a Hamilton-Jacobi formulation of dynamics; while the particle does not act on the wave. The wave goes its own way. That's the main reason why Einstein didn't like the model, BTW.

This would be the first level at which meaning could be hard to find. This is the aspect that interests me most. Another extreme example is --taking up @Genady on their suggestion of pragmatics: An intimate couple talking to each other can have a conversation like, --Really? --Nah There aren't many identifyable pieces of information there. Only they know what they're talking about. I suppose we interpret messages in some kind of optimisation strategy. There must be something like a critical time until you find the best match. An interesting example, perhaps. Consider the same couple who are very intimate. One of them, suddenly utters: "Every moon of every planet goes round and round" It's OK as to meaning, I suppose, but the other one would probably say, "what do you mean?" So meaning is --perhaps-- not exactly, or necessarily, about parsing a sentence and going, OK, I see no syntax mistakes, semantic mistakes, and so on.

I see your point. I didn't mean being serious when using it. I know real life speech is very much the way you depicted it in your @Genady depicted it in their example, which is a perfect example of pragmatics at work. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Otherwise daily conversation would be unsufferable. When I said "being serious" I meant it philosophically/scientifically. Edited: Sorry. It was @Genady who mentioned pragmatics, and gave the example.

Could you, please, elaborate? I'm prepared to accept that until we commit what we think to either paper, screen, or air --speech--, we're still not in the realm of meaning. It's only when there are at least two thinking agents that the question of meaning really arises. Is that anything like what you mean? There I go again. Thanks everybody for your contributions. I'll be reflecting on them ASAP. Interesting points here. Thank you. At first I translated, of course; but soon I realised that I'd better make it dynamic, emotionally involved, and intellectually involved, or else I would never acquire the language. Language needs to be a tool. Otherwise it's like learning lists, and logical trees, with no connection to any level of experience. And, as I've pointed out before in these forums, the brain is a very costly organ in energetic terms. Your brain is not going to commit. I do have a tendency to thinks maths in Spanish, but at some point I started forcing myself to do it in English. Now I can do it, although not as dexterously as in my mother tongue, of course. Maths in Italian must sound really charming.

Very interesting comments. Thank you all for your feedback. I even wonder if meaning (or perhaps information) is in our heads, even. I have the picture of a cat in my head. I say 'cat.' Immediately, a picture of a cat is conjured up in your head. Does information (or meaning, as the case may be) transcend even such deeply ingrained concepts as locality? Was something there from the very beginning that play the role of ultimate congruences, against which we must contrast our conceptions? In the case of a cat, to me, it's very clear that: No, cats appeared historically. They are contingent. I mean something more primitive, like the rules of logic, abstract structures. Something acting, as it were, like a solid material that gives consistence to our fleeting impressions. A cat, after all, is a fleeting impression. I was more trying to Wittgenstein the subject, but that's a good departing point: Plato. So what are the shadows the cast of?

Ah. That sounds interesting. Meaning has a bunch of implications that go beyond simple (digitised, perhaps?) information. Thanks for the contribution.

Back in 2010 I wrote this brief essay on language and meaning. Please bear with me, as I wrote it back when I was still learning to make my English more accurate and efficient at conveying meaning. So it's perhaps peppered with cliches, and other stylistic sins. And, curiously enough, meaning is all it's about. My preoccupation with meaning. Is it, in the last analysis, something unreachable? Do we have to make do with an internal 'prop', so that we can keep communicating? What I'm interested in here is meaning. Does anyone among you share this preoccupation with language that, if you're serious about it, it has the potential to send you into an infinite loop of ultimately un-discernible layers of meaning? Like a monumental chess game played backwards: What was the meaning of the previous sentence? From a practical point of view, speakers of a language have to impose some kind of cutting-off mechanism, so that the sentence doesn't become an un-decipherable sequence. So perhaps, in a sense, we make meaning as we go along. From what I remember of philosophy, Wittgenstein was one of the great thinkers on the topic, so any pointers to what he had to say about this would be welcome. Also, any own reflections that you may have to offer. Yours truly, Joigus PS: As back then, I dedicate this to Katie, the American English teacher who taught me that 'toast' and 'input' are uncountable nouns. I wonder what's become of her.

Quantum mechanics has nothing in the way of a cohesive force. Schrödinger's equation is more like a heat equation, but with an imaginary "heat capacity." And it's generally dispersive.

Before I get more heavily involved in this thread... Could you please clarify these points?: If you want to make a wavepacket reduction possible, you must make the Schrödinger equation either non-linear or non-unitary. Which one is it? It's been tried before in a linear and unitary way: Coleman-Hepp. Criticised by John Bell, very eloquently I think. Weinberg also tried to generalise quantum mechanics to a non-linear dynamical theory. Without much success.

Interference has been described correctly several times, including by David Bohm and Louis DeBroglie (with a "realistic" theory). So it's not the bone of contention, IMO. Anything that has waves will give you interference. Copenhagen's QM too. I also think you should always try to be conservative in your scientific claims, because Nature has a way of doing what we don't expect. And that's all I can say at this point.

Good one. Simultaneity is frame-dependent.

I look much worse when I just wake up. You gotta love lions and lionesses. Wild animals have it very hard. Even a humble magpie. None of us would wanna trade deals with them. Cheers mate! And thanks for the wonderful photos and info.

LOL. I always use Bach to tell the time.

This is definitely worth \( e^{i2\pi} \) reputation.

Thanks a lot. I did miss the "vertical caption."

Help yourself.

As a Zen master would put it: Just wake up!

To those involved in this thread, please try to add some info about the thing. You don't have to write a PhD dissertation, a pointer would be enough. Thank you.

Actually, Wonderful Life is more about Cambrian, although it does talk about Ediacaran. To me, Edicacaran is even more fascinating. The more primitive, the more fascinating.

Rocks and shrimp, very nice. I wonder if the shrimp is venomous. Blue is generally associated to venomous.

I know, I know. I didn't mean to say that these membrane proteins were there at the beginning. I just meant that the "minimum common factor for life" so to speak, is a pathway in which electron carriers (molecules that capture electrons, but not too strongly, so they can be "robbed" of them, are very mobile, etc) play the role of taking these electrons to the ultimate electron acceptor, and get recycled so as to get the cyclic pathway going. ATP synthase and the similar membrane-protein machine in photosynthesis (I forget the name now) are big, sophisticated proton-pumping machines that must have arisen much, much later. But the common theme is (seems to me to be): Some "light" electron acceptors act as electron carriers, while some protein in the pathway graciously takes these electrons and consummates the final oxidative reaction. Is that picture anything like right?

Here's where we disagree. Remember the Aztecs believed in Quetzalcoatl since time immemorial, then came Hernán Cortés, and they immediately identified him with the feathered-serpent-god. Did he look at all like a serpent? No. But myths have a way of hovering there for centuries, and even millenia, in people's minds, until something happens that breaths life into them again. I think there's an element here of how myths operate in the mind of people. It's as if they're there waiting for something significant, memorable, to happen, and "fit the bill."

(My emphasis.) Yes!! Very interesting. Thank you. The most important factor of life is the controlled use of electron carriers in a recyclable way (photosynthesis, ATP production by ATP-synthase.) If you take a look --schematically-- at the chemical pathways, these electron carriers always go round and round and get recycled, getting ready to carry electrons again. I think RNA must be part of the picture too. I'll take a look at the main salient aspects ASAP.

True story.