i would add to your definition of a concept something that is derrivable (concievable?) from what you have already defined as a concept. perhaps more, i’m not sure exactly what i would like to call a “concept” at this point.
ok, so i agree that we can say something is a contradiction, and we can have a definition of a contradiction. are you suggesting that it is impossible for a computer to have a working definition of a contradiction?
I have heard (I can’t remember where) that for a computer, a contradiction is a closed gate. A tautology, then, would be an open gate.
Or, if you prefer, a definition would be an open gate.
Liberatarian:
Well, for those of us who don’t feel like going out and getting a book, and since we’re here anyway, it would be nice to hear your opinion…
That’s true, but irrelevant once over. My point wasn’t about general negation but the specific negation of the existence of the entity being defined, and even if that did have some bearing on my point, you are agreeing with me, so there would be no reason to discuss this.
Erislover:
If I may step in here for a second, no. To say that something has a physical representation already implies a difference between the concept and the physical world - in other words, dualism.
If we think of the human brain as more like a computer and less like a divine metaphysical entity, this makes sense - in fact, if we take your argument and replace “brain” with “computer”, it is easy to see how it is not true. If you ask a calculator the square root of a negative number, it doesn’t contradict itself and instantly disappear in a poof. It spits out “error”. (We’re ignoring imaginary numbers here for the moment.) The reason is that it never really “represented” the imaginary number - it added ones and zeros according to its input and then gave an output. Likewise, the brain takes input, does whatever complex processes it does to that information, and spits out an output. Assuming any more is to assume dualism. And while we don’t know these processes, there is no evidence to make us think they don’t exist.
No it doestn’, yes I do think of the brain like a computer when I think of this sort of stuff. 11011 represents 27. That is, the behavior of this number in number-like circumstances is like the behavior of 27. We lose the transcendence of 27, big deal (I never thought it was there anyway).
That’s right, David, except for the fact that “input” and “output” are representations of computers to us, not real things to real computers.
And no one is denying them.
Ramanjan
Not a chance. I am suggesting that it cannot be a contradiction. That is, I am suggesting that the word “contradiction” cannot represent “an impossible circumstance” without physically manifesting an impossible circumstance (or without dualism being true). So what does “contradiction” mean?
What makes you think that?
Working with computer chips.
do you think the neurosurgeon feels the same way about brains?
i was going to ask you that…
to me, a contradiction does not represent an impossible thought (that’s impossible!), but something that is always, inherently even, false, and as such implies everything.
Somehow I do not understand how “input” is supposed to be an input but miraculously “contradiction” is not supposed to be a contradiction. Perhaps you see the quandry when I phrase it like that.
a contradiction doesn’t need to be contradictory. is it not possible to represent a certain statement that is always false?
i’m not sure what you mean about input though.
I’m going to represent emphasized words as “[word]”, the concepts the words refer to as ‘[word]’, and hopefully muddle through everything else clearly in the context. Also, {[phrase]} shall represent a process in the brain that causes us to say “[some other phrase]”.
When we say, for example, that this is an input, we mean that there is something about it that qualifies it as being appropriately decribed by “input”. It really is an input. But there is no such thing as an input, there are things we consider to be inputs because of ‘input’. That is, it is described as an “input” because that is what it is to us.
A computer has what we call “inputs”. There is nothing that is an input to a computer because there is no such qualifier “to a computer”. It is the unspoken assumption of dualism that gives us such qualifiers as, “To me” or “to him” or even “to it” (when referring to animals of unknown sex, for example). It is a presumption of consciousness that allows subjectivity.
But our task here isn’t to eliminate subjectivity, but to explain it. And so our words have a problem. They mean something. And when we are talking about things we often find ourselves using words’ meaning in an ‘object and designation’ mode; that is:
“Word” -> ‘word’ -> word.
When I say, “There is a ball here,” I really mean there is a ball here. My meaning does not stop short of the fact; a ball is there as I describe it. And so we want to give the same kind of account of thoughts as we do of balls. This presents us with all sorts of problems because “There is a ball here” is somehow supposed to represent that there is a ball here factually.
We do not suppose that there is actually a ball in my head. We suppose instead that
ball -> {sight/awareness of ball} ->
“There is a ball here” -> ‘There is a ball here’ -> ball.
Notice this mapping cannot be in the case of a contradiction. Instead we have
[???] -> {recognition of a contradiction} ->
“That’s impossible” -> ‘impossibility’ -> [???]
Of course [???] exists. Let us say it is the following symbols:
~(A = A)
So we fill in as such
“~(A = A)” -> {recognition of a contradiction} ->
“That’s impossible” -> ‘impossibility’ -> “~(A = A)”
But we haven’t really filled in [???] in this case. Indeed we cannot, if it is true that contradictions cannot exist. But it seems clear to us that a description of a contradiction can exist. So what is it describing? And what is its manifestation if not itself?
A computer can pump out a signal to a monitor to display a pattern as such:
~(a = a)
of which someone will say, “That’s a representation of a contradiction.” Yes, to us. But to explain such phenomenon physically, we must remove all the implicit “to us” qualifiers.
It is my point that this cannot be done without removing all “object and designation” meaning, which (so far as I can gather) removes the possibility of truth conditions. All your sentences are ontologically worthless. Including the claim that “everything is physical.”
[God I hope this was clear so at least I can be shown that I’m wrong clearly, lol]
how about:
false -> {recognition of a contradiction} ->
“That’s impossible” -> ‘impossibility’ -> false
does that work? or is it impossible, in your mind, for something false to exist? i see that you could say that “does not exist in this state” could be a definition of false. do you conclude then, that our ability to conceive of things that do not exist is dualist in nature?
If by “exist” you mean “is physcially manifested” then not necessarily, but it points me there, yes.
Falsity is a property of propositions. It is interpreted. Yes, false things do not exist. That is one of the conditions we use for falsity if we can logically derive it.
so what if we define falsity as the necessary lack of truth? that is, the lack of a proposition’s ability to be true? is this lacking dualist in nature? does the fact that we define darkness point to our dualist nature?
What do you mean, what if? What if we define darkness as the absence of light? The problem for me isn’t one of how we represent it to ourselves, but how it is in fact manifested.
if we define it as i did, it is not in fact manifested.
so let’s say we define it in that manner. it still works in all regards the way “falsity” is supposed to work. but it need not be represented by anything physical.
i guess my argument would then be that we actually do define falsity as the necessary lack of truth, but it is convenient to pretend it exists, much the way we do with darkness.
I’m not claiming falsity is manifested; indeed I agree that it isn’t. What our brain uses to represent falsity is manifested. This is of interest to me as map and territory start to lose their seperation if meaning is to be maintained. If it isn’t, if the statement “There is a ball here” always stops short of the fact that there is a ball here. Which is fine. But so does the statement, “Everything is physical.”
If “A” is a statement, and A is a contradiction, then you can conceive “A”, but you cannot conceive A.
“My green ball is red.” Even a child will immediately protest, “Huh? How can that be?”.
There has to be some mitigating resolution, such as “Well, it used to be green, but I painted it red.” Without any resolution, the truth-bearer is irreconcilable.