Wednesday, 1 December 2010
The Twentieth Century
"The twentieth century . . . "
"What about it?"
"I don't think much of it."
"But two world wars! . . . "
"I didn't think much of them."
"The Wall Street Crash?!"
"I didn't think much of that either."
"You're a hard man to please."
"What about it?"
"I don't think much of it."
"But two world wars! . . . "
"I didn't think much of them."
"The Wall Street Crash?!"
"I didn't think much of that either."
"You're a hard man to please."
Monday, 29 November 2010
Schrodinger's Cat 'Paradox'
For some reason the thought-piece known as Schrodinger's Cat came to mind last night, and and with just about enough interest to set to virtual ink the arising thoughts, here I go. I have no knowledge of the scientific background that brought the idea into existence in the first place, and if you want to familiarise yourself with it that's up to you, but for all that's really necessary here I've copied the following from elsewhere:
The Schrödingers cat consists of a cat in a box. The Schrödingers cat paradox is based around two events and a state.
The first event is a random event. This is the release of a poisonous gas by a radioactive particle, which will kill the cat.
The second event is an observer who will look inside the box.
The state considered is the state of the cat: live or dead. The paradox is: the cat is only in a particular state after "you" have opened the box and looked inside. Before that moment the cat is not in one or the other state.
So it seems to be saying that the act of human observation creates or is alleged to create the inner state of the observed creature, and prior to the act of human observation the cat is in a state of unreality or perhaps two mutually contradictory states simultaneously.
The essence of all the confusion here is all a matter of bad language, and comparable to an earlier post Russell, Berkeley, There is a House. There I looked at a thought, or attempted thought, of Bertrand Russell:
'"There is a house which noone perceives." Whether this proposition is true or false, I do not know; but I am sure that it cannot be shown to be self-contradictory.'
So here it is stated as an objective fact that there is a house which exists but is unperceived. This, to emphasise, is stated as a fact, not as a possibility. And for it to be declared a fact it must be known to be so, and how is the existence of this house known to be a fact but only through observation. Without this observation or perception it cannot be a known fact. And so it makes no sense to say there is a house which is unperceived. To assert that the house is is to say it is a fact based on observation; so by stating that there is a house that is not perceived, one is stating as a fact that which one is simultaneously stating cannot be a known fact.'
So the essence of the above is that one cannot make statements of fact about unobserved phenomena. If I put a coin in a drawer of some piece of furniture, the Schrodinger's Cat variation is to say that the coin both is and isn't in a state of existence within the drawer until the drawer is again opened and there it is, or less likely, isn't. This though is parallel to the Russell piece above. There is a famous line by Wittgenstein: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent...." and this is the problem here. One cannot legitimately talk of the unobserved phenomenon in terms of fact or precise argument. One has denied oneself the necessary act of observation but instead of shutting up about the unobserved, as one must do, one talks on about the coin being in some twilight zone of existence until the drawer is opened. I am not, in terms of absolute logic, at liberty to say anything about it and my theorising about the cat or coin is worthless.
With the coin in the drawer, which is perhaps a much better and simpler case than the needlessly complex cat notion, one might speak as following: I put it in the drawer, I do not take it out, I later open the drawer, there is the coin. So it might be claimed I knew all along it was in the drawer, and there was no increase in knowledge when the drawer was opened and there it was. I merely continue to know what I knew all along: ie that the coin was in the drawer.
However this is never a matter of knowledge. I may have left the room whereupon someone quickly steals in and takes the coin, and so when I open the drawer the coin is no more there. Then again that someone may five minutes after taking it have replaced it and so when I re-open the drawer and there it is, in truth it was not there all along despite my imagining.
If I do not leave the room perhaps it slips down some crack in the drawer and so despite my certainty it remains in the drawer it has departed. When I re-open the drawer when a coin is there where expected perhaps it is a different coin. Perhaps there is a secret panel enabling someone access to the drawer. . . .
The Schrödingers cat consists of a cat in a box. The Schrödingers cat paradox is based around two events and a state.
The first event is a random event. This is the release of a poisonous gas by a radioactive particle, which will kill the cat.
The second event is an observer who will look inside the box.
The state considered is the state of the cat: live or dead. The paradox is: the cat is only in a particular state after "you" have opened the box and looked inside. Before that moment the cat is not in one or the other state.
So it seems to be saying that the act of human observation creates or is alleged to create the inner state of the observed creature, and prior to the act of human observation the cat is in a state of unreality or perhaps two mutually contradictory states simultaneously.
The essence of all the confusion here is all a matter of bad language, and comparable to an earlier post Russell, Berkeley, There is a House. There I looked at a thought, or attempted thought, of Bertrand Russell:
'"There is a house which noone perceives." Whether this proposition is true or false, I do not know; but I am sure that it cannot be shown to be self-contradictory.'
So here it is stated as an objective fact that there is a house which exists but is unperceived. This, to emphasise, is stated as a fact, not as a possibility. And for it to be declared a fact it must be known to be so, and how is the existence of this house known to be a fact but only through observation. Without this observation or perception it cannot be a known fact. And so it makes no sense to say there is a house which is unperceived. To assert that the house is is to say it is a fact based on observation; so by stating that there is a house that is not perceived, one is stating as a fact that which one is simultaneously stating cannot be a known fact.'
So the essence of the above is that one cannot make statements of fact about unobserved phenomena. If I put a coin in a drawer of some piece of furniture, the Schrodinger's Cat variation is to say that the coin both is and isn't in a state of existence within the drawer until the drawer is again opened and there it is, or less likely, isn't. This though is parallel to the Russell piece above. There is a famous line by Wittgenstein: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent...." and this is the problem here. One cannot legitimately talk of the unobserved phenomenon in terms of fact or precise argument. One has denied oneself the necessary act of observation but instead of shutting up about the unobserved, as one must do, one talks on about the coin being in some twilight zone of existence until the drawer is opened. I am not, in terms of absolute logic, at liberty to say anything about it and my theorising about the cat or coin is worthless.
With the coin in the drawer, which is perhaps a much better and simpler case than the needlessly complex cat notion, one might speak as following: I put it in the drawer, I do not take it out, I later open the drawer, there is the coin. So it might be claimed I knew all along it was in the drawer, and there was no increase in knowledge when the drawer was opened and there it was. I merely continue to know what I knew all along: ie that the coin was in the drawer.
However this is never a matter of knowledge. I may have left the room whereupon someone quickly steals in and takes the coin, and so when I open the drawer the coin is no more there. Then again that someone may five minutes after taking it have replaced it and so when I re-open the drawer and there it is, in truth it was not there all along despite my imagining.
If I do not leave the room perhaps it slips down some crack in the drawer and so despite my certainty it remains in the drawer it has departed. When I re-open the drawer when a coin is there where expected perhaps it is a different coin. Perhaps there is a secret panel enabling someone access to the drawer. . . .
And so on. One can say whatever one likes about what is going on in the unobserved drawer, for example that the coin has been transformed into a goose and then just before the drawer is opened it transforms back: all such statements about the unobserved coin are equally valid in the sense of being equally worthless - stressing that this is language being used in a scientific or absolute intellectual sense rather than an everyday one.
So in essence, I am not in a position to say anything as a matter of truth about the unobserved phenomena, and this talking of the cat or coin as being in this or that state of existence is all a matter of illegitimate language; illegitimate because one cannot attempt to make statements of fact whilst simultaneously denying nseself the necessary foundation to make such statements. There is no paradox with Schrodinger's Cat. It is not a case of creating the state of existence of the observed phenomena; it is merely that with the renewing of observation upon looking into the box or opening of the drawer one is now in a position where definite statements are again permitted one. One is now again in a state of certainty regarding the observed phenomenon, and the 'paradox' amounts to having not accepted the fact of being in a state of uncertainty when this was the only legitimate intellectual position - instead waffling on about what may be going on in the unobserved box.
To add: in my 2 minute reseach into Schrodinger's Cat I saw that Schrodinger intended his piece as a Reductio ad absurdum; i.e. form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence. And so Schrodinger is alleged to be disproving whatever the relevant theory because of the absurd implications. This however seems to me utterly inadequate, and that the final arrival point of an argument leads to a destination one finds untenable is in itself no disproof. This is an example of the appalling vista argument - whether the phrase is simply my own or in use I'm not sure - but in short Schrodinger's thought piece, even if its logic made sense, which it doesn't, despite perhaps his imagining, disproves nothing. All he does is to take the presumed logic of some theory and alleges it shows it to have very odd implications.
A further look at Schrodinger's idea-piece here.
So in essence, I am not in a position to say anything as a matter of truth about the unobserved phenomena, and this talking of the cat or coin as being in this or that state of existence is all a matter of illegitimate language; illegitimate because one cannot attempt to make statements of fact whilst simultaneously denying nseself the necessary foundation to make such statements. There is no paradox with Schrodinger's Cat. It is not a case of creating the state of existence of the observed phenomena; it is merely that with the renewing of observation upon looking into the box or opening of the drawer one is now in a position where definite statements are again permitted one. One is now again in a state of certainty regarding the observed phenomenon, and the 'paradox' amounts to having not accepted the fact of being in a state of uncertainty when this was the only legitimate intellectual position - instead waffling on about what may be going on in the unobserved box.
To add: in my 2 minute reseach into Schrodinger's Cat I saw that Schrodinger intended his piece as a Reductio ad absurdum; i.e. form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence. And so Schrodinger is alleged to be disproving whatever the relevant theory because of the absurd implications. This however seems to me utterly inadequate, and that the final arrival point of an argument leads to a destination one finds untenable is in itself no disproof. This is an example of the appalling vista argument - whether the phrase is simply my own or in use I'm not sure - but in short Schrodinger's thought piece, even if its logic made sense, which it doesn't, despite perhaps his imagining, disproves nothing. All he does is to take the presumed logic of some theory and alleges it shows it to have very odd implications.
A further look at Schrodinger's idea-piece here.
Science & Language
Science, in all its manifestations, is not an autonomous or 'pure' discipline, but is encompassed within, or is a branch of Language. This can't be stressed enough though prior to this I'm not sure it's been stressed at all. What science, or true science, consists of is true language statements, and so the first principle of science is the innate and intrinsic meaningfulness of correct language; and science in all its applications also demonstrably shows the intrinsic truth and power of correct language, while also emphasising the absolute necessity of the language's correctness and precision.
'Meaning' never soars free from the language, contrary to what seems to be often imagined in the field of language termed philosophy, as shown for example in this look at the notion of Eternal Recurrence. Again to stress, philosophy, like science, and as with all language disciplines - history, etc, is existentially a matter of language.
'Meaning' never soars free from the language, contrary to what seems to be often imagined in the field of language termed philosophy, as shown for example in this look at the notion of Eternal Recurrence. Again to stress, philosophy, like science, and as with all language disciplines - history, etc, is existentially a matter of language.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Monday, 15 November 2010
Genius
"There was this genius - "
"Oh great, I love geniuses."
"You're in luck so. So anyway, there was this genius and he - "
"Does he have to be a genius?"
"Sorry?"
"Why can't he just be an ordinary person?"
"I thought you loved geniuses."
"You can have enough of them."
"Well he was a genius because being one that's who he was."
"Right so, right so. Go on."
"There was this genius - "
"Just to say this is really good stuff."
"Oh great, I love geniuses."
"You're in luck so. So anyway, there was this genius and he - "
"Does he have to be a genius?"
"Sorry?"
"Why can't he just be an ordinary person?"
"I thought you loved geniuses."
"You can have enough of them."
"Well he was a genius because being one that's who he was."
"Right so, right so. Go on."
"There was this genius - "
"Just to say this is really good stuff."
Saturday, 13 November 2010
'Abstract Art' Considered
According to Wikipedia, "In 1913 the poet Guillaume Appollinaire named the work of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Orphism. He defined it as, the art of painting new structures out of elements that have not been borrowed from the visual sphere, but had been created entirely by the artist...it is a pure art."
So the notion is of an art abstracted from the world of reality, and in the process becoming pure. To look at the logic of this: what are these art works composed of in the most existential form - ie what are the artistic materials themselves? On paper or canvas or wooden board, etc, which is to say elements of the world of reality, are pressed colours or charcoal or inks etc , again extracted from the world of external reality. So on this most existential and fundamental level 'abstract art' as a philosophical concept is nonsensical.
Beyond this, has the artist somehow conjured up of himself the world of colour? Obviously not.And how specifically are these the images of this 'abstract art' unrelated to sense perception? Does the artist enforce a kind of self-lobotomising where he forgets the existence of forms like circles in nature or all the rectangles and various lines and shapes he has witnessed in his life?
The use of the phrase "pure art" is interesting here, in that music is seen as this pure abstracted realm towards which the other arts enviously aspire. This all relates to this post where I write of Plato's basically gnostic attraction towards the notion of the void as reality in its purest form:
The Greek void by contrast (to the void of Eastern philosophy) is specifically a language form, an intellectual creation or form, and revels in the fact of its existence as such. Why are the likes of Plato drawn to this concept of the void as an absolute - the thought which sits atop all other thoughts, the ascendant within the mental hierarchy? It is because, as said, the world of the senses has been decided to be unreal - this in itself of course an idea - and so what is most real should partake least of all of the sensory world, and what partakes least of all being apparently an idea. Ideas are stated to be the purest of substances, and the most pure of these substances is an idea which is utterly self-referential and distinct from the debased world of external reality. And so the void: a pure self-contained idea without reference to the debased world of sense perception. Hence through the ages, and still, the exaltation of the imagined holy landscape of Pure Reason.
And so the exaltation and attraction of the senseless concept of Abstract Art as a pure art, having supposedly escaped the world of impure matter. This pessimistic gnosticism - in its damning sense of physical reality might be imagined, by those relative few who even know of it, as an ancient way of thinking, long irrelevant, an intellectual fossil, but it is the essence of modern material atheism, where reality is asserted to be meaningless, ie fallen, but now unlike the gnostics there is no escape route from its hostile clutches, though tellingly with the same emphasis on Reason as Plato in his 'intellectual' version of pessimistic gnosticism - not of course that emphasising reason is in any way a guarantee that one's own 'reasoning' is anything but facile.
So the notion is of an art abstracted from the world of reality, and in the process becoming pure. To look at the logic of this: what are these art works composed of in the most existential form - ie what are the artistic materials themselves? On paper or canvas or wooden board, etc, which is to say elements of the world of reality, are pressed colours or charcoal or inks etc , again extracted from the world of external reality. So on this most existential and fundamental level 'abstract art' as a philosophical concept is nonsensical.
Beyond this, has the artist somehow conjured up of himself the world of colour? Obviously not.And how specifically are these the images of this 'abstract art' unrelated to sense perception? Does the artist enforce a kind of self-lobotomising where he forgets the existence of forms like circles in nature or all the rectangles and various lines and shapes he has witnessed in his life?
The use of the phrase "pure art" is interesting here, in that music is seen as this pure abstracted realm towards which the other arts enviously aspire. This all relates to this post where I write of Plato's basically gnostic attraction towards the notion of the void as reality in its purest form:
The Greek void by contrast (to the void of Eastern philosophy) is specifically a language form, an intellectual creation or form, and revels in the fact of its existence as such. Why are the likes of Plato drawn to this concept of the void as an absolute - the thought which sits atop all other thoughts, the ascendant within the mental hierarchy? It is because, as said, the world of the senses has been decided to be unreal - this in itself of course an idea - and so what is most real should partake least of all of the sensory world, and what partakes least of all being apparently an idea. Ideas are stated to be the purest of substances, and the most pure of these substances is an idea which is utterly self-referential and distinct from the debased world of external reality. And so the void: a pure self-contained idea without reference to the debased world of sense perception. Hence through the ages, and still, the exaltation of the imagined holy landscape of Pure Reason.
And so the exaltation and attraction of the senseless concept of Abstract Art as a pure art, having supposedly escaped the world of impure matter. This pessimistic gnosticism - in its damning sense of physical reality might be imagined, by those relative few who even know of it, as an ancient way of thinking, long irrelevant, an intellectual fossil, but it is the essence of modern material atheism, where reality is asserted to be meaningless, ie fallen, but now unlike the gnostics there is no escape route from its hostile clutches, though tellingly with the same emphasis on Reason as Plato in his 'intellectual' version of pessimistic gnosticism - not of course that emphasising reason is in any way a guarantee that one's own 'reasoning' is anything but facile.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Banal But Persistent
Yes, they were banal, but in fairness to them they were persistent.
"But mightn't their persistence have been just another attribute of their banality?"
Yes maybe, but still, you have to be fair.
"But mightn't their persistence have been just another attribute of their banality?"
Yes maybe, but still, you have to be fair.
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Art Perception
Static two-dimensional pictorial art - traditional drawing and painting - is the only art where the whole can be perceived in a single, simultaneous act of perception. With literature the mind scans along some point within the whole, as with music, film, theatre, ballet, etc. The act of perception with those forms is time-bound or related. They could be likened to streams progressing from A, the start, to B, the finish, and both the piece and one's mind are progressing together along the journey. Perhaps one can form some kind of inchoate sense of the total form after the event, a bird's eye view of the whole, but this is obviously not a direct act of perception. With these time forms all kinds of digressions are possible to the artist, harmful or not to the unity of the whole. but with the traditional pictorial forms, since the whole can be perceived simultaneously a greater rigidity is required, there is more absolute necessity for unity. Just to add that this simultaneity of perception of the whole is no longer there when the viewer focuses in on certain details and, because of the nature of perception, attention is now centred on aspects of the whole. In the creative process this focusing on details is where the artist may lose himself in 'digressions' - at the more obvious levels, say very intricately painting an eye but not standing back from his work to see that that eye is not positioned correctly.
That the static visual forms may be perceived directly as a whole is not meant as a value judgement - it is simply the way things are, though there is certainly an aesthetically satisfying aspect to this. Just to mention that the three-dimensional forms of sculpture do not quite exist in the same simultaneous way as objects of perception as naturally if one is looking at the front of a piece one cannot simultaneously be looking at the back of it.
That the static visual forms may be perceived directly as a whole is not meant as a value judgement - it is simply the way things are, though there is certainly an aesthetically satisfying aspect to this. Just to mention that the three-dimensional forms of sculpture do not quite exist in the same simultaneous way as objects of perception as naturally if one is looking at the front of a piece one cannot simultaneously be looking at the back of it.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Language and Life
As written previously on the nature of language, the meaningfulness of this language if correctly used is inescapable, and to even attempt to question this involves the acceptance that the language used in the questioning is a meaningful act, and so to question language's meaningfulness is a self-contradictory, false and impossible act. This is in the same sense that to involve oneself in mathematics inescapably rests on the intrinsic truthfulness of the language of mathematics.
It would be wrong so imagine that this meaningfulness of language is at any point a subject of debate, a rational truth towards which one reasons, and once if successfully done, the point from which one can then meaningfully proceed with further reasoning. One doesn't need nor ever needed to prove mathematics to be true before engaging in it; instead its meaningfulness is an inescapable given, and it is the same with this language of words. The argument as to its meaningfulness has already proceeded as a matter of course from the imagined conclusion, that is, its meaningfulness.
It might be argued that language is true because it mirrors external life. To look at a case of a farmer with two fields in which are cows. In the first field are 35 cows, in the second 42. If all those from the second are brought into the first, one knows for certain if no cows have been added to or departed from their fields, that there are now 77 cows in that field - as a matter of language, one comes to this conclusion, since 35 added to 42 comes to 77. To stress also that this truth is not a servile but an autonomous one, by which I mean it is not some historical matter of observed truth that 35 and 42 are 77, and we then proceed into future time with this realised. Instead it is purely a matter of language. Language needs no observation of external reality to make such deductions; instead such truths are embedded within language. People might balk at this as mystical, but that would be because they are at odds with the intrinsic meaningfulness of life, have painted themselves into some false corner.
So the internal laws of language reveal this unquestionable truth, and if subsquent to this mental arithmetic the slightly sceptical farmer, to be asbsolutely sure, then counts all the cattle, the pleasing truth that external observation and logical deduction will be seen to correspond perfectly. Language and 'external truth' correspond as a matter of course. In this above instance though things are perhaps a little subtler than superficially appears, as the 'observed truths' of there being 35 and 42 cows are themselves matters of language before any arithmetic occurs. Obviously perception is the first mover of this process but to count to 35 is itself a linguistic matter. Perception is not able to stand alone in the matter of any observed truths. Language is always involved in matters that end in linguistic statements!
As a general and absolute principle, the perfect correspondence or co-existence of properly functioning language and life is not an idea regarding which one has an opinion. It is not up for debate, the same as it is intellectually impermissible to question 2+2=4. Any engagement in language, such as the attempted cannot but accept itself as a meaningful act within life. As I wrote here "The position of Doubt is a nihilistic intellectual proposition in the true sense, within the framework of which one cannot grant oneself the liberty of believing language to be real and intrinsically meaningful. And so, within this framework of doubt the question of doubt cannot be asked, as to ask the question requires an acceptance of the very reality or meaningfulness of language which Doubt, if true to itself, must doubt. And so, since the question of doubt cannot be formed, then doubt cannot exist, as doubt requires a mind utilising language so as to doubt."
The mathematical scenario with the cows is a very simple and clear example of this correspondence of language and truth, but this correspondence extends without limits, though of course with absolute dependence on the correctness of the language. Again to illustrate using mathematics, this world of numbers 'invented' in and by our minds, at no matter how seemingly abstract and complex the levels, always corresponds to internal truths of the external world. And why? Because life is not self-contradictory but intelligent, and seamlessly so. And this is where the relationship of life and language begins to deepen. This language of words is far subtler than the mathematical one, but if correctly used it will inescapably correspond to some truth of life. Though on the one hand language can be autonomous, self-sufficient as a truth-tool, it does not exist autonomously; that is, language dwells in life and without life naturally there would be no language.
However, a rampant mistake is to talk of life, or reality, and language as distinct. Reality is all that exists within itself, and in fact there is no within itself - what is 'within reality' is reality. And so language as dwelling within reality is inescapably part of reality, and thus the perfect correspondence of the two, if correctly used - for language is apparently capable of error and so creating illusory 'realities', things that seem to be but are not, even if believed by any numbers of people. Also, pedantic as it might superficially seem, 'reality' or 'life' are themselves words, and one cannot talk of these as though they were not words, nor pretend that the total realities to which such all-inclusive words like 'life' referred even somehow excluded those words as comprising inseparable aspects of those realities. There is no life existing independently of language, the same as there is no life independent of anything that forms part of the whole that is life, including for example the glass near my hand, or my hand or you yourself. To talk of life as though it did exist separately of the words being used to talk of it is meaningless language, where the integral relationship of words and that to which they refer has broken down, and one is merely left with linguistic unreal illusion.
So language and life are not distinct from each other, in fact there is no 'and' about it. Instead language - mathematical and linguisic - are extensions and deepenings of that life, and thus the lack of inner contradiction between them. Language does not dwell in some compartment apart!
It would be wrong so imagine that this meaningfulness of language is at any point a subject of debate, a rational truth towards which one reasons, and once if successfully done, the point from which one can then meaningfully proceed with further reasoning. One doesn't need nor ever needed to prove mathematics to be true before engaging in it; instead its meaningfulness is an inescapable given, and it is the same with this language of words. The argument as to its meaningfulness has already proceeded as a matter of course from the imagined conclusion, that is, its meaningfulness.
It might be argued that language is true because it mirrors external life. To look at a case of a farmer with two fields in which are cows. In the first field are 35 cows, in the second 42. If all those from the second are brought into the first, one knows for certain if no cows have been added to or departed from their fields, that there are now 77 cows in that field - as a matter of language, one comes to this conclusion, since 35 added to 42 comes to 77. To stress also that this truth is not a servile but an autonomous one, by which I mean it is not some historical matter of observed truth that 35 and 42 are 77, and we then proceed into future time with this realised. Instead it is purely a matter of language. Language needs no observation of external reality to make such deductions; instead such truths are embedded within language. People might balk at this as mystical, but that would be because they are at odds with the intrinsic meaningfulness of life, have painted themselves into some false corner.
So the internal laws of language reveal this unquestionable truth, and if subsquent to this mental arithmetic the slightly sceptical farmer, to be asbsolutely sure, then counts all the cattle, the pleasing truth that external observation and logical deduction will be seen to correspond perfectly. Language and 'external truth' correspond as a matter of course. In this above instance though things are perhaps a little subtler than superficially appears, as the 'observed truths' of there being 35 and 42 cows are themselves matters of language before any arithmetic occurs. Obviously perception is the first mover of this process but to count to 35 is itself a linguistic matter. Perception is not able to stand alone in the matter of any observed truths. Language is always involved in matters that end in linguistic statements!
As a general and absolute principle, the perfect correspondence or co-existence of properly functioning language and life is not an idea regarding which one has an opinion. It is not up for debate, the same as it is intellectually impermissible to question 2+2=4. Any engagement in language, such as the attempted cannot but accept itself as a meaningful act within life. As I wrote here "The position of Doubt is a nihilistic intellectual proposition in the true sense, within the framework of which one cannot grant oneself the liberty of believing language to be real and intrinsically meaningful. And so, within this framework of doubt the question of doubt cannot be asked, as to ask the question requires an acceptance of the very reality or meaningfulness of language which Doubt, if true to itself, must doubt. And so, since the question of doubt cannot be formed, then doubt cannot exist, as doubt requires a mind utilising language so as to doubt."
The mathematical scenario with the cows is a very simple and clear example of this correspondence of language and truth, but this correspondence extends without limits, though of course with absolute dependence on the correctness of the language. Again to illustrate using mathematics, this world of numbers 'invented' in and by our minds, at no matter how seemingly abstract and complex the levels, always corresponds to internal truths of the external world. And why? Because life is not self-contradictory but intelligent, and seamlessly so. And this is where the relationship of life and language begins to deepen. This language of words is far subtler than the mathematical one, but if correctly used it will inescapably correspond to some truth of life. Though on the one hand language can be autonomous, self-sufficient as a truth-tool, it does not exist autonomously; that is, language dwells in life and without life naturally there would be no language.
However, a rampant mistake is to talk of life, or reality, and language as distinct. Reality is all that exists within itself, and in fact there is no within itself - what is 'within reality' is reality. And so language as dwelling within reality is inescapably part of reality, and thus the perfect correspondence of the two, if correctly used - for language is apparently capable of error and so creating illusory 'realities', things that seem to be but are not, even if believed by any numbers of people. Also, pedantic as it might superficially seem, 'reality' or 'life' are themselves words, and one cannot talk of these as though they were not words, nor pretend that the total realities to which such all-inclusive words like 'life' referred even somehow excluded those words as comprising inseparable aspects of those realities. There is no life existing independently of language, the same as there is no life independent of anything that forms part of the whole that is life, including for example the glass near my hand, or my hand or you yourself. To talk of life as though it did exist separately of the words being used to talk of it is meaningless language, where the integral relationship of words and that to which they refer has broken down, and one is merely left with linguistic unreal illusion.
So language and life are not distinct from each other, in fact there is no 'and' about it. Instead language - mathematical and linguisic - are extensions and deepenings of that life, and thus the lack of inner contradiction between them. Language does not dwell in some compartment apart!
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Monday, 18 October 2010
Trapdoors
Trapdoors, the place was full of trapdoors; and the funny thing was that even after placing oneself unfortunately right above one of these trapdoors and the trapdoor swinging open and down one going, one didn't even notice it had opened nor down which the going. And as for the odd and unpleasant place one had gone and ended up . . . one didn't seem to notice that either.
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Friday, 15 October 2010
Art
"Tell us about your art."
"They're pictures that you look at."
"But what are they about?"
"Themselves."
"They're pictures that you look at."
"But what are they about?"
"Themselves."
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Monday, 11 October 2010
Saturday, 9 October 2010
On the March
"They were on the march again."
"Again?! They'd never stopped."
"True, but now they were visible in their marching."
"Visible? They were always visible."
"Yes, but now they were more visible."
"And where were they off to this time?"
"The same place as always."
"Again?! They'd never stopped."
"True, but now they were visible in their marching."
"Visible? They were always visible."
"Yes, but now they were more visible."
"And where were they off to this time?"
"The same place as always."
Friday, 8 October 2010
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Any Good
"Someone else's words - what good are they? No good."
"Well what about your own words? Are they any good?"
"No, they're no good either."
"Well what about your own words? Are they any good?"
"No, they're no good either."
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Monday, 4 October 2010
Friday, 24 September 2010
A and B
A man was in the habit of travelling from A to B. A little later he would follow this by coming back. Time spent in A, then back to B, and so on.The pauses between movement varied a little but not greatly, as did the durations of travelling between each. If when on the journey the man was asked where he was, say he'd been phoned by his wife, he would promptly respond, 'I am between A and B', or if on the return journey, 'I am between B and A.' Where on the journey he might be was irrelevant, near the start or finish, the answer would always be the same: between one point and the other. If his wife rang when he had arrived at B, 'I am at B' is what he would happily inform.
One day he set out from A, informed his wife along the way where he was - between A and B - but when he got to the place where B always was there was no B. B and the place had of course been inseparable, one and the same, but now there was only the place, though in the absence of B you could hardly recognise it, and with the difficulty in recognising this was the unconvincing solace he tried to offer himself, that he wasn't in the right place, and B was in truth somewhere else around, in the spot it always was. His wife called in the midst of all his perplexity - 'Where are you now?' she asking, but there was no response. From his end just quietness. Baffling.
Though he wandered on and around, hoping that he had indeed somehow erred, there was no mistake and B failed or refused to surface. Finally and disconsolately he turned to return to A. Again while in transit his wife rang, asking the usual question on the way but again, stymied presumably by the impossibility of telling her he was between B and A, she met with silence. He did though, to her relief and perhaps his, arrive home, and the first thing he did upon entering was to say, was it with a little defiance and without his customary lightness of tone, 'I am in A!' He knew, whatever you tried to claim, exactly where he was. He hadn't even been asked.
One day he set out from A, informed his wife along the way where he was - between A and B - but when he got to the place where B always was there was no B. B and the place had of course been inseparable, one and the same, but now there was only the place, though in the absence of B you could hardly recognise it, and with the difficulty in recognising this was the unconvincing solace he tried to offer himself, that he wasn't in the right place, and B was in truth somewhere else around, in the spot it always was. His wife called in the midst of all his perplexity - 'Where are you now?' she asking, but there was no response. From his end just quietness. Baffling.
Though he wandered on and around, hoping that he had indeed somehow erred, there was no mistake and B failed or refused to surface. Finally and disconsolately he turned to return to A. Again while in transit his wife rang, asking the usual question on the way but again, stymied presumably by the impossibility of telling her he was between B and A, she met with silence. He did though, to her relief and perhaps his, arrive home, and the first thing he did upon entering was to say, was it with a little defiance and without his customary lightness of tone, 'I am in A!' He knew, whatever you tried to claim, exactly where he was. He hadn't even been asked.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Full Stop
A man reached a full stop. 'And what did he do when he got there?' He stopped, what else could he do. 'He might have tried to climb over it.' No,there was no climbing over. He accepted it.
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Generous
They were very generous: they ascribed greatness to those they perceived as precursors to themselves. They had shown, those precious few and however dimly, the way.
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