This is a bit different for me

[TheGeckomancer]

Are there NON-HUMAN concepts, that cannot be approached rationally? Some come to mind, nothingness being the big one.

[John Cuthber]

Are there NON-HUMAN concepts, that cannot be approached rationally? Some come to mind, nothingness being the big one.

Nobody knows.

If something comes to mind, it is necessarily a concept.

[cladking]

Are there NON-HUMAN concepts, that cannot be approached rationally? Some come to mind, nothingness being the big one.

 

As you appear to mean your terms ALL nonhuman concepts can not be approached rationally. This is the root of our near total inability to communicate with animals.

 

Of course if space faring aliens exist some or many of them will reason as we do. Shaka and Temba at rest.

[Strange]

Are there NON-HUMAN concepts, that cannot be approached rationally? Some come to mind, nothingness being the big one.

 

Why can nothingness not be approached rationally?

[Ophiolite]

 

This is the root of our near total inability to communicate with animals.

I have had no difficulty communicating with dogs, cats and budgerigars. They do not seem to have had much difficulty communicating with me. I confess I have not enjoyed the same success with invertebrates, or my wife. Make of that what you will.

[TheGeckomancer]

Maybe you can. I cannot approach nothingness rationally. I can dance around it with logic and reason, but I can't actually visualize real nothingness. I guess a better way of saying this is what concepts do you have trouble wrapping your mind around.

[cladking]

I have had no difficulty communicating with dogs, cats and budgerigars. They do not seem to have had much difficulty communicating with me. I confess I have not enjoyed the same success with invertebrates, or my wife. Make of that what you will.

 

Men and women speak distinct languages. Then there are distinct languages spoken by those who think intuitively and those who speak logically; poets and newsmen, singers and dancers, doers and dreamers, and scholars and laymen. Indeed, it might be saidd there are seven billion languages and growing.

 

Invertebrates!!! I can't even get through to the cold blooded (like the wife).

[Strange]

Maybe you can. I cannot approach nothingness rationally. I can dance around it with logic and reason, but I can't actually visualize real nothingness. I guess a better way of saying this is what concepts do you have trouble wrapping your mind around.

 

Ah, so you didn't mean "rationally"; but rather what can you imagine or visualise?

 

Men and women speak distinct languages. Then there are distinct languages spoken by those who think intuitively and those who speak logically; poets and newsmen, singers and dancers, doers and dreamers, and scholars and laymen. Indeed, it might be saidd there are seven billion languages and growing.

 

While it is true that every group and even individual has their own dialect, to describe these as separate languages is such an exaggeration as to be almost dishonest.

[TheGeckomancer]

 

Ah, so you didn't mean "rationally"; but rather what can you imagine or visualise?

 

While it is true that every group and even individual has their own dialect, to describe these as separate languages is such an exaggeration as to be almost dishonest.

 

 

I am having a lot more difficulty figuring out how to phrase this question than I thought I would.

 

I am trying to look at the ideas that we deal with, that are conceptually understood, and people know what they mean, but they can't really be analyzed properly. There are tons of human ideas, like love and stuff. Which is why I said specifically non human concepts.

[cladking]

 

 

While it is true that every group and even individual has their own dialect, to describe these as separate languages is such an exaggeration as to be almost dishonest.

 

Languages by definition aren't mutually intelligible. If French were the same as English we could understand one another and the French wouldn't spend great effort trying to expunge English words. Even dialects of the same language are sometimes mutually unintelligible so there are thousands of languages all sharing some characteristics with others. It's not terribly unusual for me to overhear a conversation where the two parties are discussing different subjects! For ALL practical purposes they are speaking different languages despite the fact that they each believe they understand one another and most if not all of their words exist in the exact same dictionary.

 

Ancient people described people using modern language as "confused". I'm just giving us the benefit of the doubt and suggesting we use different languages. None of us are necessarily confused but we have grave difficulty communicating with others.

If there were a concept that couldn't be approached rationally (understood) then the individual who invented this concept would have to translate it for others. This is an absurdity.

 

All concepts can be put into words but the chances of them being understood are sometimes very poor. And this applies to all non-human concepts: They are easily comprehensible only in natural logic which humans no longer possess.

 

 

I am having a lot more difficulty figuring out how to phrase this question than I thought I would.

 

I am trying to look at the ideas that we deal with, that are conceptually understood, and people know what they mean, but they can't really be analyzed properly. There are tons of human ideas, like love and stuff. Which is why I said specifically non human concepts.

 

 

I fear you're going to find that this is virtually a null set because we invent explanations for everything. You can find an anomaly but it will be explained when you communicate it. We know why water runs downhill but its "wetness" is somewhat more ephemeral. Who knows why it's a holy thing or why animals drink it with contamination and don't get sick. You can invent countless explanations for such things but the reality will be far more complex.

[Phi for All]

I am trying to look at the ideas that we deal with, that are conceptually understood, and people know what they mean, but they can't really be analyzed properly. There are tons of human ideas, like love and stuff. Which is why I said specifically non human concepts.

 

I think "the ideas that we deal with" are automatically human concepts. I don't even see how "nothingness" is a non-human concept.

 

What is a non-human concept? Is it something that we just don't do, that other creatures/things do, but we just know about? Are you talking about something like the concept of "never moving under your own force", like a rock? Or the concept of asexual reproduction that a sea star undergoes?

[TheGeckomancer]

 

I think "the ideas that we deal with" are automatically human concepts. I don't even see how "nothingness" is a non-human concept.

 

What is a non-human concept? Is it something that we just don't do, that other creatures/things do, but we just know about? Are you talking about something like the concept of "never moving under your own force", like a rock? Or the concept of asexual reproduction that a sea star undergoes?

 

 

I don't see how nothingness is a human concept. We don't in any way ever interact with nothingness. In fact I would go so far as to say no human ever has. But it's something people have thought about since ancient times.

[Strange]

I don't see how nothingness is a human concept. We don't in any way ever interact with nothingness. In fact I would go so far as to say no human ever has. But it's something people have thought about since ancient times.

 

You say (imply) that "nothingness" does not exist (which may be true) but that people have often thought about it. Isn't that the very definition of a human concept?

 

One could argue that, for example, a mountain is not a human concept because they exist "out there". But of course, our ideas of what a mountain is are based entirely on our own (human) concepts.

[Phi for All]

I don't see how nothingness is a human concept. We don't in any way ever interact with nothingness. In fact I would go so far as to say no human ever has. But it's something people have thought about since ancient times.

 

You have to use the definition of nothingness that means "absence of existence" to get close to a non-human concept. And even then I can imagine it. We interact with it as an opposite to everything we have that we deem important.

 

And death, a biological death for a specific creature certainly approaches the concept of nothingness. When I die, it will be all I have, which won't make a bit of difference to me.

[imatfaal]

This is an interesting book on zero (is that nothingness?) in mathematics

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero:_The_Biography_of_a_Dangerous_Idea

 

Odd that in some pronunciations the author's name matches the hebrew for zero.

[TheGeckomancer]

 

You have to use the definition of nothingness that means "absence of existence" to get close to a non-human concept. And even then I can imagine it. We interact with it as an opposite to everything we have that we deem important.

 

And death, a biological death for a specific creature certainly approaches the concept of nothingness. When I die, it will be all I have, which won't make a bit of difference to me.

 

I thought about giving death as an example alongside nothingness in my opening post. But I deemed that as too much approaching a human concept because it only exists personally. You can imagine the death of other things no problem, it's only the with the self that death becomes unapproachable.

Edited December 8, 2015 by TheGeckomancer

[Strange]

Odd that in some pronunciations the author's name matches the hebrew for zero.

 

I hadn't realised before that zero comes from the same root as cipher (and that they are are both from Arabic).

Edited December 8, 2015 by Strange

[imatfaal]

 

I thought about giving death as an example alongside nothingness in my opening post. But I deemed that as too much approaching a human concept because it only exists personally. You can imagine the death of other things no problem, it's only the with the self that death becomes unapproachable.

 

Difficult - and possibly one's conceptualization will be completely flawed - but by no means unapproachable. One's own lack of existence is a harder pill to swallow - but Frank Capra managed a conceptualization (even if it is too saccharine for my tastes) many years ago. They will start showing it on TV pretty soon as Christmas approaches.

 

I hadn't realised before that zero comes from the same root as cipher (and that they are are both from Arabic).

 

I seem to have lost a post - if it turns up then hey-ho

 

It seems it is Arabic and not Hebrew from everything I can find on the internet; I would have sworn-blind it was Hebrew. Moooey! Where are you when we need an expert on ancient Hebrew? My chain of thought was as follows - Sephiroth are the bits of the kabbalah, they take their name from the Hebrew for counting Sephira which is turn comes from the word for zero . But I can find no back up for this

[Phi for All]

You can imagine the death of other things no problem, it's only the with the self that death becomes unapproachable.

 

You've never been under general anesthesia, I take it. The time between when you go fully under until the loss of consciousness is reversed is as close to being dead as you'll experience. You remember being asked to count backwards, and the next point of consciousness is hours later, with no sense that the time has passed. For you, at that time, nothing happened, you experienced nothingness.

[Strange]

It seems it is Arabic and not Hebrew from everything I can find on the internet; I would have sworn-blind it was Hebrew. Moooey! Where are you when we need an expert on ancient Hebrew? My chain of thought was as follows - Sephiroth are the bits of the kabbalah, they take their name from the Hebrew for counting Sephira which is turn comes from the word for zero . But I can find no back up for this

 

Well, they are both Semitic languages and so it is not surprising if they have cognate terms for zero.

 

You've never been under general anesthesia, I take it. The time between when you go fully under until the loss of consciousness is reversed is as close to being dead as you'll experience. You remember being asked to count backwards, and the next point of consciousness is hours later, with no sense that the time has passed. For you, at that time, nothing happened, you experienced nothingness.

 

When I came round I was trying to say "three" with a mouth full of stitches ...

[Phi for All]

 

When I came round I was trying to say "three" with a mouth full of stitches ...

 

Would you describe the time between "two" and "three" as nothingness from your perspective?

[Strange]

 

Would you describe the time between "two" and "three" as nothingness from your perspective?

 

I would say there was no time between 2 and 3. Is that "nothingness"? I don't know.

[Phi for All]

 

I would say there was no time between 2 and 3. Is that "nothingness"? I don't know.

 

During the surgery, your body experienced time normally. Your mind was not conscious of the passage of time, though.

 

If you aren't aware of anything (unlike sleep where you can be aware of a loud noise or a serious change in temperature), that seems to fulfill the definitions of nothingness we're using here. The gap between awareness episodes is an almost palpable experience, possibly heightened by the knowledge of everything that went on around you while you were unaware.

[Strange]

 

During the surgery, your body experienced time normally. Your mind was not conscious of the passage of time, though.

 

If you aren't aware of anything (unlike sleep where you can be aware of a loud noise or a serious change in temperature), that seems to fulfill the definitions of nothingness we're using here.

 

That occurred to me after I posted. The other difference is that with sleep you can feel yourself drifting off and then coming to. With anaesthesia it was like being turned off and then on again. (Maybe that is what fixes the problem, rather than the surgery!)

[Phi for All]

 

That occurred to me after I posted. The other difference is that with sleep you can feel yourself drifting off and then coming to. With anaesthesia it was like being turned off and then on again. (Maybe that is what fixes the problem, rather than the surgery!)

 

LOL, existential restart!