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Originally Posted by Doctordick
I have been reading this thread because it seems to be heavily used. I don’t join in because I don’t find it to be very serious; however, arkain101 has been pressuring me for comments. With regard to that I have found your responses to him to be quite in line with my impressions. You seem to be a very logical and thoughtful person. For that reason, I was moved to respond to your current post.
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I am honoured (no sarcasm intended). I've read your threads with some interest, but I've not contriubuted because the maths goes over my head!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctordick
You should remember that the are actually guaranteed to be meaningful only to the human who has dreamed them up. When someone tries to explain a concept they have in mind, they are required to communicate through earlier concepts already presumed to be understood. When the listener decides that he understands the new concept, that decision is based on the assumption that the earlier concepts were correctly understood. You should keep in mind the fact that these are all assumptions.
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Agreed. But that does not change the fact that concepts ARE meaningful. For example, the vast majority of people (myself included) are never going to understand tensor calculus in detail. That does not make it meaningless (except to us).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctordick
Yes, and it is an assumption that these associations are correct. All we can actually say is that there is an apparent isomorphism between what we are thinking and what the other party is thinking. We cannot “know" this isomorphism is correct because our ideas are always based upon assumptions which could very well be in error. |
The problem you cite is real, you cannot directly communicate concepts. But I believe the issue can be overcome in certain circumstances. Firstly, the listened has to have the potential to understand the concept you are trying to communicate. Without that you will never succeed. Then by feeding back what you (the listener) have understood of what the other person has said, it gives him/her the opportunity to put it in different words, or use a different metaphor, to get the message across.
I have experienced that myself. I believe that there are (at least) two people on the planet that understand my simultaneity-time concept of space and time. Myself, and the editor of the journal it was published in. By feeding back to me suggestions of where my description could be improved, it was clear to me that he had genuinely grasped what I was saying (and expressed it better than I had).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctordick
Other than that, I have no serious complaints with your position (arkain101, please take most of what jedaisoul says as essentially isomorphic to my position  ). I just thought that you might be able to comprehend the dilemma I have just laid out. To date, Anssi seems to be the only person, other than myself, to really include that concept in his world view. |
As I've said, I agree that it is a problem. I just don't regard it as insurmountable, in some cases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctordick
This is one of the reasons I put so much emphasis on mathematics. Mathematics is perhaps the only language within which we can be pretty well be confident of the existence of a real isomorphism between what is in your head and what is in my head. All other languages are pretty well confusing on the fundamental level.
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I acknowledge the superiority of mathematics, in that respect, but I am largely illiterate mathematically. That was, to some extent, a choice on my part. When doing maths at GCE A level, I took pure and applied maths as separate subjects. Applied maths was no problem, but I felt that pure maths, even at a pre-degree level, was, potentially, affecting my world view. I did not want to acquire the world view of a mathematician, so I did not pursue pure maths any further. By the way, I felt the same about philosophy, and have only come to it later on in life, when my world view is pretty well set.
Anyway, thanks for your comments. My apologies to
arkain101 if, in this post, I have drifted somewhat from the subject of his thread...
