Well, I have been back for several weeks now (been pretty busy with "Katrina" problems) but I haven't looked at this thread because no one had posted to it since I left.
Since "Qfwfq" seems to have lost interest in in my comments (see the "Defining the nature of rational discussion!" thread on the "philosophy of science" division) I thought I would take a look at how this thread had been left. It seems I owe an answer to Erasmus00.
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Originally Posted by Erasmus00
This sounds a great deal like the philosphical language that John Wilkins proposed in the 17th century. He tied meanings to characters in the hope of creating a language where any true sentence would be a guaranteed mathematical certainty
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You are wrong, it is not at all similar to John Wilkins proposition. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.
One of the problems with philosophy is that, as far as I am aware, all philosophers do exactly what you say John Wilkins proposed. They fundamentally waste their time trying to carefully tie meanings to characters in the hope of creating a language where any [seemingly] true sentence would be guaranteed to be valid. Think about it for a moment. Is not the idea of establishing the right meanings for the words (which are symbols by the way) a perfect description of the common approach of all philosophers trying to clarify what they mean?
Take a look at my opening post to "Defining the nature of rational discussion!" In that post I try to clarify the difference between two specific modes of thought which I refer to as "squirrel" thought and "logical" thought. So far I don't think anyone has comprehended why I make so much noise about the separation. The issue is actually quite simple: "logical" or "deductive" thought is so patently limited in scope as to be, for all practical purposes, worthless while "squirrel" or "inductive" (think intuitive or Zen) thought is clearly impossible to defend as valid. It is only with the combined power of both that we are able to come up with the powerful and quite defendable ideas upon which our modern scientific perspective is built.
What I have discovered (and have been unable to communicate to anyone) is a very effective method of handling the very real difficulty that squirrel thought can not be defended as valid. The very first step (which is apparently very difficult for anyone to comprehend) is to fully recognize that language (and by language, I mean the act of tying meanings to words) is in itself a "squirrel" construct. Powerful as it may be, one can never be assured that the interpretation they put on a sentence is the one the speaker intended. Languages are inherently vague as one can only come to understand a language through induction and, as any decent philosopher will admit, inductive conclusions can not be deemed certain. This is the very crux of the difficulty avoided by all.
Clearly, denying one the right attach meanings eliminates language itself; but, without language, communication is impossible. This is a serious dilemma and we are forced to work with something we cannot prove is valid. However, as Popper has pointed out, the term reliable is another characteristic of communications which is of great value. We are quite lucky in that great thinkers have spent thousands of years fabricating a language which is just about as empty of vague definitions as is conceivable. That language is called mathematics!
In fact, I personally define mathematics as the invention and study of internally consistent systems. As Feynman is noted for saying, "mathematics is the distilled essence of logic". Without mathematics, logical thought is constrained to roughly three or four steps (what we can keep in our conscious mind simultaneously); with mathematics, logical thought can be extended to relationships hard for the mind to comprehend.
So, although logic and mathematics are themselves squirrel constructs and thus inductive and unprovable, they are (as Popper would say) "reliable". That is, they are understood by many people and, of all the languages known to man, the most apt to achieve agreement. What is important here is that, even if the concept of some mathematical relationship in your head differs from the concept in my head, there always exists an isomorphism with a one to one mapping between the two. That is to say, there is sufficient agreement upon the definitions of basic entities and embedded procedures that we can have extreamly high confidence that, following some specific mathematical prescription where our starting entities were mapped to one another, our finishing entities will also map to one another: i.e., agreement on the consequences of our logic will very probably be achieved. If it cannot be achieved, there are clearly either entities or procedures thought to be part of mathematics which must be removed (the ones which lead to that disagreement). Note that this step is deductive and not inductive so its validity can be investigated.
The point here is that, although being a squirrel construct and thus possibly invalid, we have very strong evidence that it is a construct not yet proved invalid. (It is indeed the language Wilkins was trying to construct he just didn't think it was sufficient to his needs.)
However, once one limits oneself to mathematics as the only internally consistent language available it be comes quite clear that omitting general squirrel constructs (induction) is so limiting that nothing can be accomplished. In fact, the situation is an absolute impasse so long as we try to use these tools as independent entities; which is exactly what every philosopher I have ever read does.
All they do is stir the pot of those vaguely defined terms (presuming this or that is a valid concept) in the fond hope that something of use will float to the top. Well, valuable concepts do occasionally float to the top
(that's the whole source of scientific progress) but the results must always be doubtful.
What all the philosophers seem to miss is that the error occurs not with the squirrel constructs themselves but with our assumption they are valid. It follows that the only solution is to move these constructs into an abstract form such that no meanings whatsoever are attached to the associated symbols. By this means, the squirrel constructs may be included in our analysis without worrying about their validity (it can be left to a later examination: i.e., by keeping the constructs abstract, we have overtly held on to the fact that we have not assumed they are valid).
What is important here is that serious logical analysis can be done from that basis without presuming any of these squirrel constructs are valid (except for mathematics which is being used only for communication purposes). It is the result of this logical analysis so constrained which I am trying to get under discussion but, so far, I can't even get anyone to consider the thing.
As soon as I get even close to laying out the logic, everyone disappears into the wood work.
Is there no one out there with any confidence in their ability to think at all?
No one willing to give the slightest attention to what I am saying?
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Originally Posted by CraigD
Please have patience – I hope my leisure time will take a upward turn in the next few days, and I can give your work the attention it deserves.
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Again, I would really appreciate that.
Have fun -- Dick
Knowledge is Power
and the most common abuse of that power is to use it to hide stupidity
