Philosophical Ramblings Thread

Formal semantics purports to be something like 'the study of structured meaning in human linguistic communication', I suppose.

However, "all grammars leak". Our "meanings" are actually more idiosyncratic, more irregular, and (somehow) less ambiguous than formal semantics lets on, which is to say that the formalisms of semantics only loosely constrain communicative reality.

But to say that entails (:wacko:) that it does constrain reality in some manner. This fact seems to manifest in a very strange way:

Semantics, like mathematics, is not an 'evolved discovery' of some independent external thing or "law" but the outcome of rough cognitive patterns noticing rough cognitive patterns. This limits what we can say about the existence of formal semantics to the concrete; it really exists only in the brains that know of it, in other words. The aforementioned rough patterns are progressively refined and given further layers of abstraction - by these same brains.

What I'm getting at is, formal semantics is inward-looking, and this impinges on productive, communicative semantics. The one continuously modulates the other, and moreover this happens automatically.

Putting together all of the above, we come to the realization that formal semantics is ultimately the study of the effect of formal semantics on formal semantics. Semantics is actually meta-semantics, and so on.

:dizzy2:

Feedback?

Get Monty his PhD in post-modernism immediately.

Kids, stay away from linguistic studies. Do drugs instead.

But yeah, I do agree with your conclusion that the study of formal semantics is only a study of the effects of formal semantics on formal semantics. I can't see it having much of a connection to reality(unlike maths). That's the main reason I dropped out of my masters last fall, I need real-world application in what I'm studying.

Yeah, it does smack somewhat of sophistry, maybe in a post-modernistic way, so I wanted to know if anyone could unravel any fallacies, omissions, or conflations in my reasoning. I mean, my exposure to semantics as a field is limited to a couple of old papers I happen to have read, so it could be that my cogitations have an insubstantial basis, in addition to being too many parts roughage than otherwise.

Horetore, my impression was that you were doing a degree like Theory and Criticism, something under the heading of Philosophy at any rate. Or am I off-base? What was your exposure to linguistics?

Disclosure: I'm at somewhere related to "clinical" linguistics at the moment. I'll get back to you all within the next few years if I can make it through to some sort of practice.

If not, there's always contracting I suppose...

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Feedback?

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En sten kan ikke flyve; Mor Lille kan ikke flyve; Altså er Mor Lille en sten.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Yeah, it does smack somewhat of sophistry, maybe in a post-modernistic way, so I wanted to know if anyone could unravel any fallacies, omissions, or conflations in my reasoning. I mean, my exposure to semantics as a field is limited to a couple of old papers I happen to have read, so it could be that my cogitations have an insubstantial basis, in addition to being too many parts roughage than otherwise.

Horetore, my impression was that you were doing a degree like Theory and Criticism, something under the heading of Philosophy at any rate. Or am I off-base? What was your exposure to linguistics?

Disclosure: I'm at somewhere related to "clinical" linguistics at the moment. I'll get back to you all within the next few years if I can make it through to some sort of practice.

If not, there's always contracting I suppose...

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My degree was called "International education", so I assumed it would be concerned with different educational systems, pedagogical philosophies and such challenges in different parts of the world. What it turned out to be, however, was constant nonsense about language trivialities, like why the human rights declaration is wrong because it isn't worded like a, say, african would want it(because, somehow, that's "oppression"). It was about form, not substance, which I see as a major feature of post-modernist and linguistic studies, particularly those where they try to influence reality. It was also so blatantly leftist it made me sick.

Anyway, I don't see much of a problem with your OP. It's a logical conclusion to me. I'm sure a proper post-modernist will burn you at the stake for using gender-based oppressive discourse.


God, how I hate the term 'discourse'

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Originally Posted by Sigurd

En sten kan ikke flyve; Mor Lille kan ikke flyve; Altså er Mor Lille en sten.

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That was a critique of scholasticism, though.

A post-modernist would question your assumption that the term "mother" can be applied to an individual. We must understand her as an individual entity with relations to other individual entities! And we must of course question the discourse which enabled you to refer to a rock as a stone.

@Sigurd:

You're saying misuse of the transitive property, I guess. But I don't see that I even used the transitive property at all?

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It was about form, not substance, which I see as a major feature of post-modernist and linguistic studies, particularly those where they try to influence reality. It was also so blatantly leftist it made me sick.

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I think what you encountered would be called semiotics rather than linguistics (by the people involved, to get around the fact that linguistics could probably be considered a subset of semiotics), or maybe even something rather different.

My impression is that most linguists are just interested in describing regularities within and between languages, and how people use them.

Interestingly enough very young children can distinguish seperate languages if they are raised in families with more languages, they will start speaking both naturally. I think it has more to do with the rythem of the spoken language.

Has little to do with your question of course, but language is math alright.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

I think what you encountered would be called semiotics rather than linguistics (by the people involved, to get around the fact that linguistics could probably be considered a subset of semiotics), or maybe even something rather different.

My impression is that most linguists are just interested in describing regularities within and between languages, and how people use them.

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Yeah, it was sociologists who tried to use linguistics as a tool for understanding the workings of society.

Keep to your books, nerds.

I really object to the trend where every disipline seems to try to make their disipline universal. Pedagogy, for example, isn't just confined to the classroom according to pedagogs. Oh no, pedagogy should be seen as the ultimate philosophy of life. I've lost count of the number of times I showed up to pedagogy lectures only to listen to nonsense about how pedagogy solves everything in society.

The way academic work is financed these days should take a large part of the blame for that, though. When you get more money for this sort of behaviour, of course we will end up seeing more of it.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Yeah, it was sociologists who tried to use linguistics as a tool for understanding the workings of society.

Keep to your books, nerds.

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They kinda did, they studied proverbs mostly, you don't think of it as they are now deeply rooted in society. If you look at seafairing nations like the English and the Netherlands and pay attention to it you can find a lot of the everyday lingo comming from a seafairing/trading society. A lot of proverbs in American English are related to the civil-war and the age of colonism. A lot can be found in language if you are looking for it.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

They kinda did, they studied proverbs mostly, you don't think of it as they are now deeply rooted in society. If you look at seafairing nations like the English and the Netherlands and pay attention to it you can find a lot of the everyday lingo comming from a seafairing/trading society. A lot of proverbs in American English are related to the civil-war and the age of colonism. A lot can be found in language if you are looking for it.

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Linguists are of course mainly concerned with the study of language and literature.

The problem is that a hefty number of them, like Derrida, wants to use the methods used for analyzing literature to study society. This has lead to all sorts of nonsense, like giving support to alternative medicine and other pseudo-science cranks.

There ought to be more dissociation between conceptions of literary studies and linguistics.

There's a fairly large difference between something like this, and some high-falutin interpretation of Proust - and syntax and phonology might as well be perpendicular.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Linguists are of course mainly concerned with the study of language and literature.

The problem is that a hefty number of them, like Derrida, wants to use the methods used for analyzing literature to study society. This has lead to all sorts of nonsense, like giving support to alternative medicine and other pseudo-science cranks.

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I never heard of Derrida so can't comment on that. But studying the literature of the time as it uses. I often completily mistaked dead serious with sarcasm and irony, does paint a picture of society. My favorite screwup, forgot which book it is, but the author was mocking the fact that a young boy was buying a pickle, something someone with some standing never ought to do. I mistook it for sarcasm but my teacher explained that it wasn't sarcasm at all, the author was serious about it. Count the times that you use an expression without knowing where it actually came from. You will need an extra hand to count them.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

I never heard of Derrida so can't comment on that. But studying the literature of the time as it uses. I often completily mistaked dead serious with sarcasm and irony, does paint a picture of society. My favorite screwup, forgot which book it is, but the author was mocking the fact that a young boy was buying a pickle, something someone with some standing never ought to do. I mistook it for sarcasm but my teacher explained that it wasn't sarcasm at all, the author was serious about it. Count the times that you use an expression without knowing where it actually came from. You will need an extra hand to count them.

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This isn't what I'm talking about.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

This isn't what I'm talking about.

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I know, but working around facts to come to a conclusion isn't very new no. Of course there is a lot of nonsense floating around. But I wouldn't dismiss things all too fast, it can tell a lot, even if it's nonsense it's still of value. These musings don't really belong in the thread, save for communicative language and actual language.

Monty, the way I look at it...

Semantics has not evolved through studies (like math)... Instead the language has evolved, and semantics are doing it's best to explain and categorize it.

It's an artificial structure used to explain something very much NOT artificial, that also is evolving (language, in all its forms).

Also, I see language a little as a garden. You try to control it, but no garden will ever look the same, the year after. No matter how much you try.

Does that mean we should do no gardening? Of course not! The gardening is needed to be able to communicate ourselves to our surrounding, with any hope of being understood.

Thus, semantics isn't useless, still. It's very much needed.

If it changes the way we think... Of course it does.

The semantics we used, are what we have learnt that most people around us would accept as being [whatever].

Take "water", being raised in Hawaii, you see it as warm and bath friendly. Possibly shark infected. Move to Sweden, and the same word translates to something that is cold, often icy, and not shark infested. Move to the Sahara, and you learn that it's sparse and getting enough of it can be a problem...

Moving back to Hawaii, you will still use the word "water", but your own concept of what it is has changed tremendously... And you will react when people around you still automatically refer to it as something warm and plentiful, as it now contradicts with your understanding of it.

A silly example, but I hope it helps explaining my point.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Formal semantics purports to be something like 'the study of structured meaning in human linguistic communication', I suppose.

However, "all grammars leak". Our "meanings" are actually more idiosyncratic, more irregular, and (somehow) less ambiguous than formal semantics lets on, which is to say that the formalisms of semantics only loosely constrain communicative reality.

But to say that entails (:wacko:) that it does constrain reality in some manner. This fact seems to manifest in a very strange way:

Semantics, like mathematics, is not an 'evolved discovery' of some independent external thing or "law" but the outcome of rough cognitive patterns noticing rough cognitive patterns. This limits what we can say about the existence of formal semantics to the concrete; it really exists only in the brains that know of it, in other words. The aforementioned rough patterns are progressively refined and given further layers of abstraction - by these same brains.

What I'm getting at is, formal semantics is inward-looking, and this impinges on productive, communicative semantics. The one continuously modulates the other, and moreover this happens automatically.

Putting together all of the above, we come to the realization that formal semantics is ultimately the study of the effect of formal semantics on formal semantics. Semantics is actually meta-semantics, and so on.

:dizzy2:

Feedback?

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Martin and Nakayama summarize these efforts as falling into four sets of "rules."

Semantics -- the study of meaning attached to a single word/term

Pragmatics -- how meaning is created in the mind of the receiver of such terms

Syntactics -- how words are put together into utterances

Phonetics -- how the sounds of these words are formed


Your comment strikes me that you are blending semantics and pragmatics

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Martin and Nakayama summarize these efforts as falling into four sets of "rules."

Semantics -- the study of meaning attached to a single word/term

Pragmatics -- how meaning is created in the mind of the receiver of such terms

Syntactics -- how words are put together into utterances

Phonetics -- how the sounds of these words are formed


Your comment strikes me that you are blending semantics and pragmatics

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Good example. I think most people read him right, YOU however think he was too vague in his use of "semantics".

I guess not everyone categorize the word the same way Martin and Nakayama does, right?

In effect however, his use of "semantics" have been more useful than your suggestion of "pragmatics", as he if using that then would have lost quite a few members behind (like me).

I'll add to what I mean, but it's also a new thought:

We add more advanced structures depending on the target audience, and how well we think they will understand what we try to put across, from my brain to the receivers brain.

"Uh, gimme that" works wonders sitting with a GF at a breakfast table, when you want her to pass the salt.

"Excuse me, Sir. Would you mind passing the salt" would do the same job at a formal dinner setting with someone random.

I never seen such courtesy in speech as between allied military contingents meeting. Most likely because everyone has a sharp loaded rifle at hand, so people really want to make sure to be understood correctly and non-offensively.

Why do you think the army or police teach their members to call pretty much anyone "ma'm" or "sir", or the equivalence?



Semantics has more to do with the situation, and how well we know our target audience... Than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Your comment strikes me that you are blending semantics and pragmatics

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I think I see why you got that impression. However, I see it as a principled distinction between formal semantics - a system for describing verbal meaning - that is derived at and abstracted from communicative semantics, or the concrete verbal meaning induced in both listener and speaker/conveyor by a particular utterance or other such linguistic unit.

The difference between communicative semantics and pragmatics is that pragmatics is context, particularly social context, serving as a filter for formal semantics, while communicative semantics (as I am conceiving of it) is the archetype from which formal semantics emerges, just as the axioms of deductive logic emerge from concrete experiences of some regularities present in natural phenomena. My idea is that whereas deductive logic is analogous to causality, formal semantics is analogous to itself, such that it inherently forms a sort of recursive spiral into itself. Thus, formal semantics is really only studying how formal semantics affects communicative semantics in a metasemantic way, and how this in turn affects formal semantics to transform formal semantics...but what does all that tell us about meaning 'in the wild'?

It might help to rephrase my original notion in terms of the Sub-Goldilocks Principle and cognitive insensitivity:

The human brain is sensitive to patterns, more so than most any other creature, yet it is simultaneously dull. Suffice to say here that being good enough to discern complex regularities in the environment while being crude enough to gloss over the true variation that abounds is highly advantageous for us humans.

Now, take the circle. In our environment, there are only what we will come to call ovals, yet by analyzing the properties of what we will come to call ovals we are able to arrive at the conception of a special oval with special properties. On the other hand, we then see no problem in labeling some of the ovals around us circles, because approximation is not just tolerable but necessary - we are perpetually Sub-Goldilocks. Thus ovals become ovals become circles.

To schematize the idea, then: concrete > (concrete-as-)abstract > abstract-as-concrete

With formal semantics, then, I suggest that the case is that the shape of the concrete melds into an especially broad generalization - but there are no ovals for this generalization, only circles, and the circles are actually spirals turned on their side, so to speak. Thus Meaning becomes Meaning' becomes Meaning'', but inward-looking unlike the sort of meaning that is exchanged between communicators.

Hence, formal semantics as a system representing linguistic meaning is a 'gerrymandered compromise with itself'.

That's my understanding at the moment.


@Kadagar: OK, but that's not really what I was getting at.

Isn't the title a tautology?

~;)

Monty, would you then, in layman's terms, explain your thinking....

Preferably in English, OR any semantics, that is adequate on an international board with English used as a rule.

It starts to look like a circle jerk of people of English speaking heritage being somewhat to obsessed with their own intellectual superiority, for having read a book somewhere, possibly without having actually understood it.

I always thought true genius (specially on semantics) is making something incomprehensible be comprehensible.

Do I error?

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Isn't the title a tautology?

~;)

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If you dig deep enough into most philosophical theories (and not a few in the social sciences) you will see that they DO boil down to a tautology or at least a tautological assumption.

Assume to make an ass of u and me.

We call these hypothesis in science ~:)

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Originally Posted by Sigurd

En sten kan ikke flyve; Mor Lille kan ikke flyve; Altså er Mor Lille en sten.

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All I can say is that my Swedish derived surname is Stenbeck.

"Semantics, like mathematics, is not an 'evolved discovery' of some independent external thing or "law" but the outcome of rough cognitive patterns noticing rough cognitive patterns. This limits what we can say about the existence of formal semantics to the concrete; it really exists only in the brains that know of it, in other words. The aforementioned rough patterns are progressively refined and given further layers of abstraction - by these same brains."

I think the part about maths is a fallacy. Semantics are going to be highly culturally linked. Maths will be lightly linked.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Putting together all of the above, we come to the realization that formal semantics is ultimately the study of the effect of formal semantics on formal semantics. Semantics is actually meta-semantics, and so on.

:dizzy2:

Feedback?

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I think when we combine this with what we learned about the TTBS this basically means that formal semantics are self-conscious.

And this in turn implicates that either we have found another sentient species or humans are formal semantics.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

All I can say is that my Swedish derived surname is Stenbeck.

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All I can say is that you tell it to a Norwegian.

You really want a cookie?

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Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV

All I can say is that you tell it to a Norwegian.

You really want a cookie?

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Sten is stone in both. Yes or No?
Much like my first name is Welsh but the phonics is seen more often in Irish names.

Since this is about semantics we see how environments shape cultures and how neighboring languages share languages, ideas and idealogies. It's not like Norwegians aren't fellow Nordic people's and on the scale of the world the differentiation between Norwegians and Swedes is only readily visible to those inside those countries.

Cousie Bros are Cousie Bros eh Bro.

Stenbeck is either Swedish or Swedish-influenced Norwegian.

The c doesn't fit with Norwegian.

....And the Norwegian word for stone is "stein". "Sten" is an older spelling, not used today.

I see this thread as having as much to do with Philosophy as a band of marauding “pro bono” proctologists descending on a dixi klo has to do with coprology.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Stenbeck is either Swedish or Swedish-influenced Norwegian.

The c doesn't fit with Norwegian.

....And the Norwegian word for stone is "stein". "Sten" is an older spelling, not used today.

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Also the German word for stone ... the plot thickens ....

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Originally Posted by totalkimbrough

Also the German word for stone ... the plot thickens ....

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Obvious nazi link is obvious.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Sten is stone in both. Yes or No?
Much like my first name is Welsh but the phonics is seen more often in Irish names.

Since this is about semantics we see how environments shape cultures and how neighboring languages share languages, ideas and idealogies. It's not like Norwegians aren't fellow Nordic people's and on the scale of the world the differentiation between Norwegians and Swedes is only readily visible to those inside those countries.

Cousie Bros are Cousie Bros eh Bro.

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Stenbäck means stonecreek in Swedish. We got a bunch of those combine two nature words together surnames.

Beck is an alternative spelling of bäck and is more correct than back. Alternative spellings in surnames are quite common. Beck feels a bit Norwegian, but their spelling is bekk.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

Stenbäck means stonecreek in Swedish. We got a bunch of those combine two nature words together surnames.

Beck is an alternative spelling of bäck and is more correct than back. Alternative spellings in surnames are quite common. Beck feels a bit Norwegian, but their spelling is bekk.

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My hunch says that 'bek' is more common in surnames than 'bekk'.

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Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV

I always thought true genius (specially on semantics) is making something incomprehensible be comprehensible.

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I've never claimed to be a genius. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

"Semantics, like mathematics, is not an 'evolved discovery' of some independent external thing or "law" but the outcome of rough cognitive patterns noticing rough cognitive patterns. This limits what we can say about the existence of formal semantics to the concrete; it really exists only in the brains that know of it, in other words. The aforementioned rough patterns are progressively refined and given further layers of abstraction - by these same brains."

I think the part about maths is a fallacy. Semantics are going to be highly culturally linked. Maths will be lightly linked.

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That's beside the point, isn't it? By the reference to mathematics, I'm merely implying a rejection of the assumption that the abstract is non-physical.

I'm not saying that mathematics is bad or useless. Hell, I'm not even saying that formal semantics is.

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Originally Posted by Husar

I think when we combine this with what we learned about the TTBS this basically means that formal semantics are self-conscious.

And this in turn implicates that either we have found another sentient species or humans are formal semantics.

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I don't see it. Formal semantics only exists in the people that know it.

"That's beside the point, isn't it? By the reference to mathematics, I'm merely implying a rejection of the assumption that the abstract is non-physical."

So you wish to change the definitions of abstract and you wonder why semantics is so fuzzy.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

I've never claimed to be a genius. :tongue:

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I never argued against that.

Regardless, would you mind actually explaining your line of thought in a manner that is comprehensible on an international forum?

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So you wish to change the definitions of abstract and you wonder why semantics is so fuzzy.

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Er, no?

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Regardless, would you mind actually explaining your line of thought in a manner that is comprehensible on an international forum?

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Your command of English is perfectly sufficient for this thread, as far as I can tell.

It just goes to show, though - formal semantics would predict that you would be able to understand my posts compositionally, from piece-to-piece, word-to-word, phrase-to-phrase, and so-on.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

I don't see it. Formal semantics only exists in the people that know it.

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You need to think outside the box.

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You need to think outside the box.

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So you were mocking me?

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

So you were mocking me?

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Welcome to the life of the scholar.

Definition of abstract:
"existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence."

Your thesis:
" I'm merely implying a rejection of the assumption that the abstract is non-physical."

"Existing in thought" - so abstractness is a construction of thought, as opposed to a physical entity or having a physical realization.

But if you assume that thought is physical, then the physicality of abstractness follows automatically.

So I'm not using a different formal sense of the term, but am instead implicitly adopting a different account of the nature of thought.

In other words, even the "concept" of abstractness has a different concrete realization from person to person.

Oh boy, i hope Mont gets drunk again soon and posts further ramblings - I, for one, can't wait. :jumping:

Foresight is the only insight. All else is confabulation. :disappointed:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Foresight is the only insight. All else is confabulation. :disappointed:

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In hindsight you are correct :smoking:

My impression of contemporary feminism is that it is rotten to the core with sociologism and libertarianism, but there is still something of value in it.

The full economic and cultural potential of women can not be realized with current assumptions and expectations in place. Gender roles/valuations between and within genders must be re-examined, but above all must be given space to change so that the "feminine" is not restricted to low-value activities and so that (typically "feminine") low-value activities can be more appreciated reflective of their true contribution.

We must completely rewrite our approach to sexual or intimate violence and coercion. Aside from the impinging of aforementioned gender roles, there are general cultural norms and taboos that contribute to relatively-high levels of violence and "intimate terrorism" by both sexes, even if as the 'weaker sex' women tend to be more vulnerable or come off worse.

I think primarily the above as general guiding principles are what we should take away from the typical feminist agenda.

A specific case-study:

For all the talk of sexual liberation of women, little has occurred but a deepening of willing slavery. Now that females are sanctioned to actively compete for mates, what we see is that women self-objectify and bend their existence ever more towards producing pleasure for men. Leaving aside lingering gender mores that simultaneously penalize aggressive or self-interested women along with disengaged or independent women for the moment, what this means is that women in general subordinate themselves to men as "accessories to penises". On the other end, this manifests as an ever-intensifying 'contest' between men to "hunt" for suitable females, with unworthy females considered beneath interacting with on any level. This complex situation then demeans both men and women and perpetuates a climate in which many experience long-lasting dissatisfaction and anomie for not being able to conform to standards of "love". Furthermore, as hinted at the situation for women increasingly is made to be one of dependence upon men.

The solution is to curtail opposing gender norms in "romance" and foster a climate of cooperation, partnership, and mutual interdependence as socially more just and productive and psychologically more healthy.

Above, I speak very broadly and coarsely out of deference to the nature of the thread. I don't really have much more to say specifically, at least without prompt.

If A mortally wounds B, and it takes B two days to die, once B has died at what point can we say that A became a killer?

Around the time of B's death? Around the time of the wounding? Somewhere in between?

I'm sure there's plenty of work with bearing on this, so links would be fine.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

If A mortally wounds B, and it takes B two days to die, once B has died at what point can we say that A became a killer?

Around the time of B's death? Around the time of the wounding? Somewhere in between?

I'm sure there's plenty of work with bearing on this, so links would be fine.

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Time of death. That's because before that, we can't be certain that the wound was in fact lethal. A is a potential killer since the wounding though. You can then retroactivly apply the killer title to the time of the wounding if you want, but the moment of change is still B's death.

That applies even with the case with death is due to neglect from the hospital services, as long as the neglect wasn't worse than no help at all. Realistically forseen consequences and all that.

Morality is purported to be a system for accomplishing "right" goals or undertaking actions that "should" be taken. Actions that are somehow "moral" will ostensibly have relatively high value.

Already the immediate circularity of the concept is apparent. Underlying it is the same incoherent, hazy essentialism associated with "free will", "intentionality", "volition", or "agency".

Similarly, it is a confabulation that has arisen naturally from the functional organization of complex organisms, here attempting to regulate the behavior of not just others, but of themselves and of the very world as well.

No metaphysical account of morality, not even a theogenic model, has developed a concept that could be judged either true or untrue as a complete and contingent idea, due to the fundamental inability of such mythmaking to emerge from the mire of intuition, which hopes as its own branch to stand upon.

Indeed, it is thus that humans have generally been eager, whatever their backgrounds, to affirm the name of this agenerate shell. There has been no need - or perhaps capacity - to think things through and thereby discover that morality has not even achieved the status of a hypothetical, and that furthermore no amount of padding or circumlocution could create - never mind salvage - what is at its core an utter non-entity.

So much for this vexed and vexatious otiosity. :sick:

I understood only half of that, but it sounds good. :creep:

Careful, Erasmus.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Morality is purported to be a system for accomplishing "right" goals or undertaking actions that "should" be taken. Actions that are somehow "moral" will ostensibly have relatively high value.

Already the immediate circularity of the concept is apparent. Underlying it is the same incoherent, hazy essentialism associated with "free will", "intentionality", "volition", or "agency".

Similarly, it is a confabulation that has arisen naturally from the functional organization of complex organisms, here attempting to regulate the behavior of not just others, but of themselves and of the very world as well.

No metaphysical account of morality, not even a theogenic model, has developed a concept that could be judged either true or untrue as a complete and contingent idea, due to the fundamental inability of such mythmaking to emerge from the mire of intuition, which hopes as its own branch to stand upon.

Indeed, it is thus that humans have generally been eager, whatever their backgrounds, to affirm the name of this agenerate shell. There has been no need - or perhaps capacity - to think things through and thereby discover that morality has not even achieved the status of a hypothetical, and that furthermore no amount of padding or circumlocution could create - never mind salvage - what is at its core an utter non-entity.

So much for this vexed and vexatious otiosity. :sick:

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So I don't need to feel guilty for killing my girlfriend's newborn baby cause I didn't want to pay child support?

No, but you don't need not to either.

No man must must, if you will. :wink:

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

No, but you don't need not to either.

No man must must, if you will. :wink:

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Simon a ramona wey! It feels good to be liberated from my oppressive Christian morals. Now I'm off to go do whatever I feel like, without getting caught.

A good start, then!

Ship of Theseus: Not only is measure unceasing, it is continual as well.

I'll be posting another de-anthropic screed once it has faded out of meatspace memory.

Nah, it's not like they're piqued. Here you go:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note. however, that though I largely agree here with respect to a mutual redefinition and collapse of emotion and reason in terms of their characteristic impact on cognitive processing and function, my position in general is that the tacit assumption underlying this research that there are such things as decisions is untenable. This concept is an artefact of traditional, mentalistic, formulations of human action and do not denote or correspond to any veridical biological or physical process. It is empathetically straightforward to see how such a concept could arise from the murky and seemingly-irreducible depths of intuition, while leaving aside even the issue of intentionality (if only for a moment): the motor output of animals in general, and of humans in particular, appears in our observation to be engendered by a discontinuous proximate factor. That is to say, our folk understanding of decision is that either there is a point in some unspecified stages of cognition at which that which was previously undetermined or underdetermined becomes integrated into some larger causal chain, or motor impulses - perhaps even entire motor plans - emerge fully-formed and all-at-once as functional entities with neurobehavioral consequences. What is retained between the two proffered interpretations is the fact of discontinuity; in both cases, there is a sense that there is a single point at which a "decision" appears deus ex machina, as though from some black box, and uniquely divides the past from the future in some way. These are basically the ways in which human conduct is understood and articulated when it comes to the concept in question.

In the first case, there is clearly a connection to the similar intuitions underlying notions of intentionality. This is understandable given that decision is understood to be precisely the mechanism through which intentionality can be exercised or expressed. As I have already dealt elsewhere with the problems plaguing concepts of volitional cognition, I will focus here on separate considerations leading one to abandon this interpretation. The articulation of the second case is more suitable for the cognitive sciences in that it attempts to present decision-making as a physiological process, rather than an ineffable or mystical one. However, it is typical for theories of decision (e.g. Barnes & Thagard 1996) to describe some series of events as participating in the "decision-making process" 'leading up to' the decision, while ultimately leaving the decision itself as some sort of discrete and irreducible intuitional item. Ultimately, we see that this interpretation is merely the first given the fig leaf of elaboration within a scientific context.

The problem here is that a basic understanding of the activity of the nervous system is inevitably in conflict with any description of its function that introduces discontinuities. If one acknowledges that physical causality - and this is the only sort that has been credibly elaborated - is a continuous process of the regular interaction in properties of matter-energy, then one can not unhypocritically admit scenarios in which causality somehow disengages momentarily, and certainly not on the basis of anthropocentric special pleading. The like would be to infer from the information given by a computerized graphical interface that the processor itself generates continual impulses of electric potential from within that result directly in the display that we readily observe. The units of the brain, then, are ever in action, and the continuous fluctuation of neuronal activity produces continuous fluctuation in and modulation of both cognitive and motoric activity. There is no sense in which the system features a build-up of activity toward some conclusive release that creates a "pre-coordinated" behavior, nor is there some metaphysically-marked bubble in which an unspecified selectional mechanism mysteriously spared from vicious regress commits to such a formulated and formalized "plan" at the beginning of Time, at every instance.

Fundamentally, the problem is with basic philosophical concepts. The fact of the matter is that the notion of "decision", in attempting to account for how we come to do what we do, actually hand-waves away this very thing while merely describing - from a buffered position of etiological ignorance - observable output. For instance, when we say,

"John decided to buy a pizza, so (that's why) he bought a pizza"

we are simply invoking a potential motor-orientation to a potential future to retroactively explain a concluded event, e.g. the buying of pizza by John, with reference to what must serve as a First Cause (i.e. the decision). We likely do so in some sense on the basis of and in analogy to our own private, and likely phylogenetically conserved and shared, intuitions and assumptions about our so-called "inner lives". Moreover, as we can not directly observe the immediate or long-term functioning of the nervous systems of "decision-makers" (i.e. "agents" or "actors"), even our own, we can not perceive how readily-observable (i.e. "overt") events, such as the movement of objects under gravitational force, impinge dramatically and continuously on brain function and physiology such that all events, covert (i.e. "mental") and overt, are determined by them.

Thus, the idea of "decision-making" is a heuristic for attributing an etiology to the output of so-called "actors" that is envisioned as open qua cause yet closed qua caused. This open-closed system may in fact be the same structure of our consciousness, a proposal that if correct would parsimoniously and mutually account for why humans have developed these concepts of "decision" and "volition". Hopefully, a program of "the de-anthropomorphization of man" will allow humanity to think past its intuitions and finally dismiss notions for which there is not and can not be a mechanistic conceptualization.

Related: Is thinking behavior?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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In describing thinking there is a lack of external conformation possible that any observer or the free-floating reinforcements can access. Thus, there is no connection between a specific covert behavior and a potential reinforcer. Thus, there is no way to show an increase in the future probability of occurrence of a target covert behavior occurring when the potential reinforcer was delivered.

Our covert behavior [including thinking] has several problems as a behavior class.

1. it is not sensed and can’t be verified or falsified
2. it does not have standard units of measurement
3. results will depend on the way it is measured
4. it is experiences through filters that transducer it to something else based on history and context

1. vocabulary
2. environment context
3. culture
4. in articulation of aspect (what parts are of interest – dreams, impulses, value, etc.)
5. unknown empirical properties

Ultimately, the products of processes generated from within the ‘vault’ of the listener are routed and locked there. Everyone will continue to investigate how and what is going on there with whatever methods that can be mustered. Today the neurosciences are taking their shot at deciphering the relationships between what is going on inside our head and what we experience. To that end they are using 19th century models of man and behavior mixed with decrepit autonomous man inklings and sophisticated 21st century technology and chemistry. For some there is value in how they postulate the working of man and his mind. Those values are the same as postulated 2000 years ago and haven’t benefited our species as much as science methods have benefited biology, chemistry and anthropology. The value to science will depend more on changes in approach to man than the power of the magnet used in a portable fMRI.

Any set of the things related to what happens when someone is thinking is all just that, related to thinking for that person and not thinking itself. All the covert events can be related to things associated with other behaviors done when a person is not thinking as well as when some are thinking. The set of responses become associated as events related to a state that may be referred to as ‘thinking’ for that person who, when asked, “What are you doing?” or “Why don’t you answer me?” may report, “I was thinking…” and otherwise communicate something the other person will probably relate to as a set of private covert actions (events) that can be arbitrarily called ‘thinking.’

[...]

Great thinkers as well as the delusional philosophers, pontiffs, despots and princes and even the man and woman on the street have been reinforced for reporting their internal covert musings in subjective and fantasy terms focusing on the exhaust of the human thinking process – emotions and feelings. These 3 thousand years of focus has outdistanced the empirical study of thinking by overlooking histories of the individuals and the use of the least productive research methods NOT found in 17th century science! In the not-so-grand scale of things, it is more interesting for the lay person and the scientist alike to be enamored by the fantasy than by the environmental contingencies. We pay for that interest every day we live on this earth.

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decrepit autonomous man inklings

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That's bloody brilliant. I'll use it forever.

ACIN, would you agree that there is no such thing as "life"?

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Originally Posted by Fool

Steameth not this city with the fumes of slaughtered spirit?

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Originally Posted by Zarathustra

What was it that first made thee grunt? Because no one sufficiently FLATTERED thee:—therefore didst thou seat thyself beside this filth, that thou mightest have cause for much grunting.
—
That thou mightest have cause for much VENGEANCE! For vengeance, thou vain fool, is all thy foaming; I have divined thee well!
But thy fools'-word injureth ME, even when thou art right! And even if Zarathustra's word WERE a hundred times justified, thou wouldst ever—DO wrong with my word!
Thus spake Zarathustra. Then did he look on the great city and sighed, and was long silent. At last he spake thus:
I loathe also this great city, and not only this fool. Here and there— there is nothing to better, nothing to worsen.
Woe to this great city!—And I would that I already saw the pillar of fire in which it will be consumed!
For such pillars of fire must precede the great noontide. But this hath its time and its own fate.—

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:deal2:

Have you converted to Zoroastrianism because noone here has the intellectual ability to answer your questions? ~;)