Looking for grounds

[tar]

If you take a thing literally, and explain it figuratively. And you take a thing figuratively and explain it literally. And you look at both of your explanations and find a thing that is the same from both perspectives, don't you then "know" that thing that is the same? And would that thing, not have to be true?

[Schrödinger's hat]

I..uhh. You're going to have to give me an example.

[tar]

take the thought in TAR's head of the moon, for instance

 

If there is "something" that is the same after running it through your understanding, and running it through my understanding...of what is figurative and what is literal...that same thing must be both literally and figuratively true.

 

That thing which is the same exists both in your model of the world, and in the world. It must be true. It must "really" exist.

 

I am trying to suggest that there is a "god's" eye perspective that we take, automatically, to understand reality.

And we can take it, as soon as we can "put ourselves in someone else's shoes".

 

A third perspective we can take, once we realize our own perspective, is not the only one, and one can take another's perspective, and that there indeed is yet this "other" way to look at it when the first person and the second person view, are taken together. A third person view.

 

Whether this third person view is taken literally or figuratively may be part of the difference between a scientific view and a religious view. Yet the view itself is true, if one has it. Regardless of which parts of it are deemed to be literal, or which parts of it are deemed to be figuative...by another...who may have, or who must have, a "different" first person view to begin with. (but importantly a view of the "same" reality, using the "same" basic "human" equipment)

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited December 10, 2011 by tar

[immortal]

Astrologers claim that the position of planets will affect events happening in our lives and scientists would obviously deny that view since it has no basis. I, a third person can claim that the gods present inside our bodies stimulate our minds and control everything from our thoughts to things happening in our lives and the position of planets merely give us a prediction as to how these gods might stimulate us from behind since we can not see gods with our normal eyes.

 

The astrologers view is figurative and the view of the scientists is taken as literal. A third person can have a view which is part literal and part figurative and claim that there is something really out there which makes those things happen. I was always a believer that god's knowledge of things is very much different from ours, one has to have god's perception of things (god's eye) to understand his words.

[tar]

Immortal,

 

Yes, but there are "literal" ways that the planets effect us and the things around us, the planet's gravities are "in the same literal direction" when they are aligned. Do you literally "think" differently when this is the case? That would be a matter for science to investigate. To see if perhaps people's thoughts and other literal aspects of reality are affected by the pull of gravity, and if so, in what ways. The assignment of an agent responsible that fulfills both literal and figurative requirements is in order. But it doesn't have to be the agent we imagine.

 

If my OP statement is to be a workable one, at finding logical grounds upon which to determine truth...the requirement would be met only when a thing was valid in a literal sense AND in a figurative one. Then only the thing that is the SAME thing in both arguments would be the truth that had grounds.

 

Here I would like to still keep the rules of logic, and of reason. I am not looking to overturn anything that has already been found to be the case, and is already reasonable and is already deemed to be real.

 

I am only after finding grounds upon which we can all agree on the "truth". And have started this thread with the understanding that we have already done an incredible amount of truth finding and have established some very good ways, to together, go about it.

 

And on a selfish note am looking to test my ideas, my guesses, as to what is both literally and figuratively true about the universe, and about our collective view of it, and about my personal view of it.

 

This has already been done. By many, if not all humans automatically. And by many in a very careful and thoughtful and systematic way.

 

Just looking to make a contribution. Have no clue what that might be, or if I am capable of making such. Just seems that we have some "problems" to solve. And I am a troubleshooter by trade. And I feel that when valid arguments come up with contradictory conclusions, something has been taken in the wrong sense. (literal/figurative) And I am, by this particle thread, trying to sort it out in a way that would be grounded. As to looking at it, in a "true" way, that is both valid, and sound.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

Well I have no particular clue, but I think it might be in the area of "the meaning behind language" so that is where I am looking.

[tar]

Immortal,

 

I am not thinking that You can take the third person role in my example. You are second person to me. And the things that you take literally and figuratively are different than the way I take them, so you are only second person to me when we agree. Where and when we disagree we can not consider the same things literal and the same things figuratively, we can not agree on what is literal and figurative in the first place, so it is hard to apply the "taken literally" and "taken figuratively" in the same fashion as is my intent in the OP.

 

So my OP statement definitely needs some work. It does not work as stands. I have not clarified the meanings, and it in no way was intended to give a first person the rights to third person status. In fact it is an argument "against" having the ability to arrive at the third person grounds, by yourself. You can not even arrive at the second person without somebody else to take a look at you and for you to take a look at.

 

I am willing to let this thread go. The thought I had might be workable. But my expression of it was very very weak.

And the assumptions I was making are not universally held.

 

Sorry.

[immortal]

Immortal,

 

I am not thinking that You can take the third person role in my example. You are second person to me. And the things that you take literally and figuratively are different than the way I take them, so you are only second person to me when we agree. Where and when we disagree we can not consider the same things literal and the same things figuratively, we can not agree on what is literal and figurative in the first place, so it is hard to apply the "taken literally" and "taken figuratively" in the same fashion as is my intent in the OP.

 

Ah!, now I see it, so you want to know of a thing that is both figurative as well as literal (a same entity) which we all can agree upon and see the truth of it. So the thing which is there as a model in my brain figuratively also exists in the outside world literally. I'm not sure we can have many examples of it. For example:- Colour only exist inside our minds as a figurative thing it doesn't exist in the physical world, in the physical world it is just electrons jumping back and forth from energy gaps eliminating a photon of a particular wavelength and frequency, so it doesn't exist literally in the outside world.

 

It seems that the mental elements are different from physical elements, the problem is more inherent and not in just our thought processes.

 

So my OP statement definitely needs some work. It does not work as stands. I have not clarified the meanings, and it in no way was intended to give a first person the rights to third person status. In fact it is an argument "against" having the ability to arrive at the third person grounds, by yourself. You can not even arrive at the second person without somebody else to take a look at you and for you to take a look at.

 

I am willing to let this thread go. The thought I had might be workable. But my expression of it was very very weak.

And the assumptions I was making are not universally held.

 

Sorry.

 

It was not my intentions to diverge the topic of this thread, sorry if I had confused you, I just thought of understanding what you meant in your OP by asking it through my own example as to "is this what was there in your mind when you posted your OP". You can take your own time and come back and open this thread again when your thoughts are more rightly placed, we'll always be there to contribute something to it.

[tar]

Ah!, now I see it, so you want to know of a thing that is both figurative as well as literal (a same entity) which we all can agree upon and see the truth of it. So the thing which is there as a model in my brain figuratively also exists in the outside world literally. I'm not sure we can have many examples of it. For example:- Colour only exist inside our minds as a figurative thing it doesn't exist in the physical world, in the physical world it is just electrons jumping back and forth from energy gaps eliminating a photon of a particular wavelength and frequency, so it doesn't exist literally in the outside world.

 

It seems that the mental elements are different from physical elements, the problem is more inherent and not in just our thought processes.

 

 

 

It was not my intentions to diverge the topic of this thread, sorry if I had confused you, I just thought of understanding what you meant in your OP by asking it through my own example as to "is this what was there in your mind when you posted your OP". You can take your own time and come back and open this thread again when your thoughts are more rightly placed, we'll always be there to contribute something to it.

 

Immortal,

 

Thank you for that response. I thought for the moment that we were each talking about something different than the other.

 

Had an insight a number of months ago, can't put a date on it, 'cause it includes thoughts I had prior the insight and has been a component of thoughts I have had since.

 

But it went like this. We take our thoughts from the world we internalize through our senses. Our thoughts are analogies of what actually is. Really, really good analogies, that match exactly on a number of scores. I did not detail the scores but considered that basically we mirror the outside, on the inside, and therefore our "thoughts" are made up of the "stuff" on the outside. The patterns, the timing, the distances, the scale, the relationships, the forms and shapes AND colors and textures, actually reproduced in a rather intact fashion in the folds and connections and firings of our brains. When we make an analogy on a higher level, we do it with the analogies we have already collected and stored.

 

So my thinking is now, that figurative things, abstract thoughts have some basis in reality. Not only are they made up of literal things, but they are made up IN a literal brain. Enough basis in my mind, to consider that which we take literally to actually be real and true by default. And that which we take figuratively to be an internal "manipulation" of, or imaginary inspection of, literal things.

 

When we drive past a tree every day, and one day it is knocked down it is literally knocked down, and our mental model of the world is immediately adjusted to match reality.

 

But in our imaginations we can still see the tree as it stood. Even though, it is no longer "really" there. If we changed our route the following day, a year later we might even "forget" that the tree was knocked down, and still have the image of it standing, and be "surprised" for a moment when we turn the corner for the first time in a year and find it missing. "That's right! It blew down in a storm, last year."

 

Reality trumps memory, we have no problem with that, its automatic. But it gives a basis for making a literal distinction between literal thoughts and figurative thoughts, even though they are both had "representationally" and are not in and of themselves the thing as it is that is being thought. We still know the difference. At least as far as we are concerned there is perception, there is concrete thought, there is abstract thought. Things can be taken literally and things can be taken figuratively.

 

But if it is taken at all, there must be some truth to it, it must have a referent, be it a literal referent or a figurative one.

 

It is with these thoughts in mind, that I started the thread.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited December 11, 2011 by tar

[tar]

Further muses along this line,

 

Immortal,

 

It seems that the mental elements are different from physical elements, the problem is more inherent and not in just our thought processes.

 

Well yes, but this "problem" is solved, or becomes not so much a problem, but a description of what is actually going on, once you "have" the problem. And still and yet, the universe remains as huge and timeless as it is...and still and yet it is reflected in your limited self.

 

Why to we have such a term as "insight", unless we actually have them on occasion. And although the "content" of an insight may or may not be the same as another insight of the same mind, or a different human mind, there is a "sameness" in the process of finding or seeing something you had not noticed before, using no actual new inputs from your eyes, but "seeing" something new about reality, just "looking at" your "model" of it.

 

Many threads on this forum have the theme "I have found the answer, that everybody else has been missing".

 

Not likely. Not even in this threads case. There have been too many good minds, noticing real stuff, for too long, for any obvious stuff to have gone so unnoticed.

 

But this hints at the "nature" of "third person" conceptions. That any one of us, could consider that we could "contain" or know that which is "outside" our knowledge...without even leaving our own first person.

 

Has to be some multiple senses in which the third person can be taken.

 

Regards, TAR2

[immortal]

Further muses along this line,

 

Immortal,

 

Why to we have such a term as "insight", unless we actually have them on occasion. And although the "content" of an insight may or may not be the same as another insight of the same mind, or a different human mind, there is a "sameness" in the process of finding or seeing something you had not noticed before, using no actual new inputs from your eyes, but "seeing" something new about reality, just "looking at" your "model" of it.

 

The term "insight" or "intuition" is not very well understood in the neurobiological sciences as to my knowledge of it is concerned. I agree with your representation part that we have internal structures (synaptic plasticity) which maps based on a one-to -one function of what is there in the real world to an internal representation of every factor that is involved. There is no problem here and the brain accomplishes this with the process of learning. This is something what the first person and the second person can easily see.

 

As you said earlier the process of insight is similar in all of us even though different content might originate when we think deeply. But we don't know what this process is, the best attempt to explain of what the hell is happening here was given by Roger Penrose, see his work on Penrose Tilings. A computer can only do what it has been programmed to do, it can not have its own insight, it can not think, therefore they can not answer problems where we have to make decisions of 'yes' or 'no' and no algorithm exists to decide on the answer, but human beings with their insights can solve those problems and hence penrose claims that the thought processes in our minds had to have non-computable essence to it. Since we yet don't know much of this non-computable physics we're not sure as to what this process is.

 

 

Therefore a third person can come up with a new insight, a new knowledge which the first person and the second person don't see it.

 

Many threads on this forum have the theme "I have found the answer, that everybody else has been missing".

 

Not likely. Not even in this threads case. There have been too many good minds, noticing real stuff, for too long, for any obvious stuff to have gone so unnoticed.

 

But this hints at the "nature" of "third person" conceptions. That any one of us, could consider that we could "contain" or know that which is "outside" our knowledge...without even leaving our own first person.

 

Has to be some multiple senses in which the third person can be taken.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

Yes this would mean that the third person has to have a knowledge which is logically consistent with the knowledge of the first person and the second person mean to say his persepective of what he takes as literal and figurative must be the same with the persepctive of the first person and second person, only then an increase in knowledge can be possible and this how much of the science works. Note that the third person can go and put himself on the shoes of the first person as well as the second person and understand them (from his internal representation of the brain) and also go on to have a new insight ignoring the first person and the second person and claim increase in knowledge which both the the first person and the second person could easily see the truth of it and we all can agree on it.

 

 

 

[tar]

Immortal,

 

Thanks. I think we are talking about the same thing.

 

And if understood or "taken" in this fashion science is our(second person) collective third peson...literally, although it is figurative in nature...that is, has no substance, outside of "establishments" and institutions that stand for it.

 

And God is also a third person, for any 1st person according to their personal take, and collectively for any group of people(second person "we") that have the "same" take on the nature of the third person.

 

Seems in any case, that I am in and of reality, we are in and of reality, and he, she and it, are definitely real as well.

 

One can not question the take of another person, without denying the reality on/in which the questionable take is grounded. There is enough room to simply shift a few facts/concepts across the literal/figurative line to "understand" where another 1st person might be "coming from". That does not mean you(we) have to agree on where the lines are actually drawn. In fact it assures that they are indeed drawn differently, in different minds.

 

Which leaves me personally to feel that science and philosophy and religion are each grounded in the person they attempt to understand. In this thought, Science would be grounded in the third person (emperical reality), philosophy in the second (logic/theory) and religion in the first person's direct (unthought) connection and grounding to reality(GOD).

 

I would not consider any part of the elephant, completely descriptive of the whole elephant. They each explain each other. We should probably remember that if we focus only ahead, we lose sight of what is behind, figuratively speaking.

 

And since each of us DOES take a third person view, whether it be grounded in ourselves at times, in others, or in a direct "understanding" of the thing we are of and in, there must at least be "something" that we literally/figuratively have in common. Whatever our take. It is real and true.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited December 12, 2011 by tar