Which is the true reality?

[joigus]

12 hours ago, studiot said:

cogito ergo sum,

Yes Descartes wrote in teh language of learning of his day  - Latin
I don't know how many here studied Latin but you distinguish the first person singular (I) in this.

 

1 hour ago, Eise said:

French: 

Quote

Et remarquant que cette vérité, je pense, donc je suis

In Latin:

Quote

ego cogito, ergo sum

So both referring to 'I'. I don't know why it is always cited as just 'cogito, ergo sum'. Missing the 'I', resp 'ego' in it.

Just a note about language. In English pronoun+tense give you all the information you need, but you need the pronoun to remove ambiguity. In Latin you kind of have the pronoun incorporated in the verb: Cogito (I think), cogitas (you think), cogitat (he/she thinks), cogitant (they think), cogitamus (we think), cogitant (they think). It's very much like Italian and Spanish. You can use the pronoun, but it sounds emphatic. In the nominative case the pronouns usually don't appear.

It's therefore not natural to say "ego cogito, ergo ego sum."

I might be missing finer points. It's been a while since I last talked to an ancient Roman.

Edited December 19, 2022 by joigus
minor correction

[Genady]

45 minutes ago, joigus said:

Just a note about language. In English pronoun+tense give you all the information you need, but you need the pronoun to remove ambiguity. In Latin you kind of have the pronoun incorporated in the verb: Cogito (I think), cogitas (you think), cogitat (he/she thinks), cogitant (they think), cogitamus (we think), cogitant (they think). It's very much like Italian and Spanish.

Russian is like Latin, Italian, and Spanish in this respect, but it needs the pronoun in past tense. While in Hebrew you need the pronoun in present tense and don't need it in past or future. Papiamentu is like English.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Genady
correction re past tense in Russian

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

Russian is like Latin, Italian, and Spanish in this respect, but it needs the pronoun in past tense. While in Hebrew you need the pronoun in present tense and don't need it in past or future. Papiamentu is like English.

Maybe because of those particular tenses being less specific? French is strange though. Their verbs are person-specific, and yet they use the pronoun all the time. Je suis, tu es, elle est,... Je google, donc je sais  

[Genady]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

Maybe because of those particular tenses being less specific? French is strange though. Their verbs are person-specific, and yet they use the pronoun all the time. Je suis, tu es, elle est,... Je google, donc je sais  

As the French language evolves, they could either stop using pronouns, or start using simpler forms of verbs. In Hebrew, for example, children and less educated adults would say, "Were you looking for me?", while a literary form is one word (achipastani?), which contains the verb, the tense, the subject, the object, and the question.

[Markus Hanke]

3 hours ago, Genady said:

Russian is like Latin, Italian, and Spanish in this respect, but it needs the pronoun in past tense. While in Hebrew you need the pronoun in present tense and don't need it in past or future. Papiamentu is like English.

In Thai and Chinese, as well as some other Asian languages, verbs are not inflected at all, and pronouns are used only if absolutely necessary to avoid misunderstanding, ie if the information is not already implied by the context. So for example, in Chinese, 去 might mean “to go”, “I go”, “we went”, “you’ll go” etc, depending on context. These languages thus simply express the idea of “going from here to someplace else”, and leave the rest up to context. You can, of course, add specifics if you want to, but unlike in many European languages, those are optional. In Thai in particular, there’s quite some emphasis on not being specific, unless strictly necessary.

[Genady]

1 hour ago, Markus Hanke said:

In Thai and Chinese, as well as some other Asian languages, verbs are not inflected at all, and pronouns are used only if absolutely necessary to avoid misunderstanding, ie if the information is not already implied by the context. So for example, in Chinese, 去 might mean “to go”, “I go”, “we went”, “you’ll go” etc, depending on context. These languages thus simply express the idea of “going from here to someplace else”, and leave the rest up to context. You can, of course, add specifics if you want to, but unlike in many European languages, those are optional. In Thai in particular, there’s quite some emphasis on not being specific, unless strictly necessary.

I understand that the sign 去 is vague. My question is if what they say is as vague as the writing?

[naitche]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:28 AM, joigus said:

 

It would be very interesting to know if/how people who are constantly on the run, barely trying to survive one more day, with faces and landscapes being forgotten in a matter of weeks, would be able to develop a notion of "I" in a similar way than we do. My feeling is that they wouldn't. They would be far too busy with the "something is happening" aspect of things. I don't know about Brentano and Husserl a great deal, TBH.

An interesting thought. Or  Maybe, the sense of self would be increased with little opportunity to familiarize or recognize place or relationship within their reality or environment. 

 

I don't believe that consciousness is required for subjectivity, only for its recognition.

ie a computer is an objective reality. Its value is One, reality, subtracted from its realtionships to any other objective reality, Its environment.

Any other measurable value, beyond that existence is subjective. Components, ownership, brand, damage are all relative. The computer is still subject to time, weather, damage, components and use etc. whether or not its conscious of those.

Its objective identification as a computer is independent of all other values beyond its being One.

All beyond self/ identification is relative, external reality. Including the housing. They are conditions of an existence or reality to which the object is subject to. Environment. 

Edited December 20, 2022 by naitche

[naitche]

No reality with out  constituent parts to express the values relative to its being. Subjectivity is imperative to direct any expression of reality

 

To observe some thing 'objectively' is to separate your 'self' from  relationship to to the object, not the object from its relationships. It will remain an object while  independently  defined.  The relationships it has or can form, are all subject to its constituents and the values expressed to define its being.

A duality. No reality with out subjectivity- An expression of values, in relationship to something.

A value must be expressed, subjectively. A rock is an object. It does not form or deteriorate independently, but by the subjective expression of its constituent parts. Its being is dependent on subjective values.

Form follows function.

Edited December 20, 2022 by naitche

[Genady]

5 hours ago, naitche said:

No reality with out  constituent parts to express the values relative to its being. Subjectivity is imperative to direct any expression of reality

 

To observe some thing 'objectively' is to separate your 'self' from  relationship to to the object, not the object from its relationships. It will remain an object while  independently  defined.  The relationships it has or can form, are all subject to its constituents and the values expressed to define its being.

A duality. No reality with out subjectivity- An expression of values, in relationship to something.

A value must be expressed, subjectively. A rock is an object. It does not form or deteriorate independently, but by the subjective expression of its constituent parts. Its being is dependent on subjective values.

Form follows function.

How does it apply to, e.g., electron?

[joigus]

11 hours ago, naitche said:

Or  Maybe, the sense of self would be increased with little opportunity to familiarize or recognize place or relationship within their reality or environment. 

I don't think it would. What I'm assuming here is that this notion of self must be acquired based on recursive references in the experience. If nothing repeats so as to form patterns, no construct of self would be possible to build. Arguably, and furthermore, no construct of any other notion or concept would be possible to build. Yet, we can picture this individual as having a stream of experiences. This individual would be a temporal "congruence" of flashes of colour, sound, and other sensorial imput with no cohesion, no correlations, so it would be incapable of forming a construct for itself.

Does that make sense?

[Markus Hanke]

22 hours ago, Genady said:

I understand that the sign 去 is vague. My question is if what they say is as vague as the writing?

Yes, the vagueness is inherent in the languages themselves, not just an artefact of the writing system. But as I mentioned, you can make things more precise by adding extra elements to the sentence, if that’s required - e.g. 我去 adds “I” (as opposed to you, they etc) as a subject who performs the act of going someplace, yet still without any indication of tense or modality. But the tendency is always towards ‘minimalism’ in a sense - you don’t explicitly say what is already known from context, unless you strictly need to.

[Genady]

44 minutes ago, Markus Hanke said:

Yes, the vagueness is inherent in the languages themselves, not just an artefact of the writing system. But as I mentioned, you can make things more precise by adding extra elements to the sentence, if that’s required - e.g. 我去 adds “I” (as opposed to you, they etc) as a subject who performs the act of going someplace, yet still without any indication of tense or modality. But the tendency is always towards ‘minimalism’ in a sense - you don’t explicitly say what is already known from context, unless you strictly need to.

The same tendency is inherent in ASL, I think (as little as I know it.) Specifics can be signed but are signed only when necessary.

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Markus Hanke said:

Yes, the vagueness is inherent in the languages themselves, not just an artefact of the writing system. But as I mentioned, you can make things more precise by adding extra elements to the sentence, if that’s required - e.g. 我去 adds “I” (as opposed to you, they etc) as a subject who performs the act of going someplace, yet still without any indication of tense or modality. But the tendency is always towards ‘minimalism’ in a sense - you don’t explicitly say what is already known from context, unless you strictly need to.

Hell, I wish I knew a little bit more about Asian languages. I tried my best, but failed.

This question about vagueness gets me thinking about language every other day. I think it becomes a real challenge when the language you're trying to learn uses different words for different concepts that your native language assigns the same word to. Somehow your brain shifts from one concept to another without ever realising it's actually a different concept. A particularly nice example I've found between English and Spanish is the word "time" vs the word "tiempo" in Spanish. There is polysemy in both words, in English and Spanish as well. But the problem is both polysemies are impossible to coordinate. So,

English: time (uncountable), as in "time goes by" vs time (countable) as in "how many times have I told you..."

Spanish: tiempo (uncountable) as in "el tiempo pasa" = "times goes by" vs tiempo = "weather" as in "hace buen tiempo hoy" = "we have good weather today."

For countable "time" we have "vez" or "veces" (pl.) While for "tiempo" English-speaking people have "weather."

That's why I always say, if you want to really learn another language, you must in a way become a child again, and learn it from scratch, by as direct association as possible.

50 minutes ago, Genady said:

The same tendency is inherent in ASL, I think (as little as I know it.) Specifics can be signed but are signed only when necessary.

Yes, there's context, and also cultural entendres. In ASL, "pasteurized milk" is represented by having the sign for "milk" go past your eyes. Thereby: "past your eyes milk."

How a coding that's understandable only if[?] you have an idea of the sounds makes its way to a sign language is a total mystery to me.

So I would say: You don't need to explain too much if the other person is aware of enough context. And you don't need to explain the connection to the particular symbols if everybody knows those symbols are what the convention has established.

I think it was Ferdinand de Saussure who first pointed out that symbols are quite arbitrary. What's amazing to me is that this arbitrariness can be extended to all kinds of languages --even SL's-- even when the original connection was sound-based. Also amazing that most people can so quickly catch on to this... And even more amazing, that this correspondence can be extended to idioms and other combinations of words.

[Genady]

9 hours ago, joigus said:

That's why I always say, if you want to really learn another language, you must in a way become a child again, and learn it from scratch, by as direct association as possible.

Absolutely agree. I learn languages by using them, NOT via translation. Moreover, it might be personal issue, but while I easily switch in conversation or when reading between the languages I know, I have a very hard time if I'm asked to translate what was said from one of the languages to another. This requires huge mental effort. It's like when I switch to a language the brain switches to a different mode and there is no direct connection between the modes.

BTW, here is the ASL sign you've mentioned: PAST-YOUR-EYES-MILK-[pasteurized-milk]-[pun] - YouTube

 

[naitche]

14 hours ago, Genady said:

How does it apply to, e.g., electron?

Good question. Hope my language skills are up to it.

It has measurable properties inherent to its definition.  Those measurements are subject to the electrons existence. I am assuming those are expressed as an electron due to past actions or value expression attributed subjectively to other phenomena or objective.

11 hours ago, joigus said:

I don't think it would. What I'm assuming here is that this notion of self must be acquired based on recursive references in the experience. If nothing repeats so as to form patterns, no construct of self would be possible to build. Arguably, and furthermore, no construct of any other notion or concept would be possible to build. Yet, we can picture this individual as having a stream of experiences. This individual would be a temporal "congruence" of flashes of colour, sound, and other sensorial imput with no cohesion, no correlations, so it would be incapable of forming a construct for itself.

Does that make sense?

Yes, very much. I'm just trying to imagine the lack of pattern or continuity and the effects of that on the mind. Incapable of forming a self construct, yes I can easily imagine that.

I was thinking with out recognition or familiarity with external conditions to maintain integrity of being, the only constant would be 'self'.  Trying to imagine how the subject could possibly respond to that.

[Genady]

19 minutes ago, naitche said:

It has measurable properties inherent to its definition.  Those measurements are subject to the electrons existence. I am assuming those are expressed as an electron due to past actions or value expression attributed subjectively to other phenomena or objective.

I'm afraid it does not answer my question. A previous idea focused on constituent parts: (my emphasis)

22 hours ago, naitche said:

No reality with out  constituent parts to express the values relative to its being. ... The relationships it has or can form, are all subject to its constituents  ... A rock ... does not form or deteriorate independently, but by the subjective expression of its constituent parts.

My question regarding application of this idea to electron is, what are the constituent parts of electron?

[Markus Hanke]

5 hours ago, Genady said:

Moreover, it might be personal issue, but while I easily switch in conversation or when reading between the languages I know, I have a very hard time if I'm asked to translate what was said from one of the languages to another. This requires huge mental effort.

Completely agree, I’ve got the same experience.

[naitche]

10 hours ago, Genady said:

I'm afraid it does not answer my question. A previous idea focused on constituent parts: (my emphasis)

My question regarding application of this idea to electron is, what are the constituent parts of electron?

Apologies. You are right of course. Finding the words I need while applying what I see to separate fields doesn't come easy to me.

In this context, I believe its constituent properties would have been more apt. I might find the more inclusive term holds in any context, so thank you.

[TheVat]

"Know" is a really vague and context-dependent verb in English.  Many languages have multiple and specific terms, like German with wissen and kennen.  Wissen is used for knowing something for a fact, while kennen means knowledge that is based on experience and familiarity.  This kind of specificity probably makes languages like German especially suitable for philosophy.  And if you were translating "I know Hanna, and I know how much Hanna weighs," your mind would have to take the extra step of finding two different verbs for know.  (Interesting sidebar on language, given how much it shapes our concepts like reality and the self)

[Markus Hanke]

To sum up, “true reality” is clearly subjective, and meaningful only relative to a given observer:

 

I’ll get my coat.

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

To sum up, “true reality” is clearly subjective, and meaningful only relative to a given observer:

 

I’ll get my coat.

I think the closest we can get can be described as 'intersubjective consensus', where we share our findings and agree  as a group such-and-such is the case.

Edited December 23, 2022 by StringJunky

[naitche]

On 12/24/2022 at 2:39 AM, StringJunky said:

I think the closest we can get can be described as 'intersubjective consensus', where we share our findings and agree  as a group such-and-such is the case.

I think there is only Objective, or Subjective.

The identified group is the object/reality to which the value accrues, increasing  its domain in application of positive response to the relationship recognized/achieved, or tipping the balance towards the negative and entropy when value is applied  Objectively.

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by naitche

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, naitche said:

I think there is only Objective, or Subjective.

The identified group is the object/reality to which the value accrues, increasing  its domain in application of positive response to the relationship recognized/achieved, or tipping the balance towards the negative and entropy when value is applied  Objectively.

This reads like a random paragraph from Finnegan's Wake. Only without the poetry.

[naitche]

Yes. 

The nature of Reality still eludes. We haven't found the language to express it easily, though its in front of us.

 

If poetry makes it easier to bear-

i believe I have a workable duality. No reality without subjectivity. Property.

The Objective is to state. A single value, subtracted from all relationships beyond its being, as defined.

One. Reality.

Subject to direction. Of the property that  directs its definition in statehood.

A single reality of opposing values in balance.

All value is Subjective. To relationship.

The Objective is beyond relationship.

They exist in balance, or in entropy, depending on which application correctly benefits the 'true' objective  served. Because incorrect application is belief, or cognitive dissonance. Not sustainable reality.

The difference matters, to the reality or Objective you 'Realy' serve.

I haven't found anything to discredit this yet.

My definitions don't seem to negate or contradict anything already understood as far as I can see.

Just expand recognition.

Edited January 20, 2023 by naitche