• hypericin
    1.5k
    It's not ineffable. It's "ride the bike".Banno

    As if "ride the bike" were the same as riding the bike. :roll:

    Reading "ride the bike", the effable part, will not add an iota of knowledge of how to ride the bike. One has to ride the bike.
  • Moliere
    4k
    Neither @Banno or me are saying those are the same. If I'm reading @Banno correctly at least.

    I think we're saying they're not the same. So it seems curious to myself, at least, that you'd include riding the bike as ineffable.
  • Luke
    2.6k
    Any tacit knowledge can be made explicit.Banno

    Then why isn't this knowledge included in the exhaustive list of instructions?

    Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no.Banno

    Why wouldn't we know how to ride after reading a list of instructions "to whatever detail we desire"? Unless there is some knowledge gained from riding the bike. But you say that there isn't.

    Can "whatever detail we desire" include all the tacit knowledge (made explicit)? Then we would know how to ride a bike only from the instructions.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    My ‘knowing’ you is a situated, perspectival unfolding of anticipative engagement, an I-thou interplay of guesses and corrections evolving into a patterned rhythm.Joshs

    This is to
    Give me an example of a public narrative and I’ll
    try to show how it’s not public in quite the way you may suppose.
    ??

    With all these biblical references I'm uncomfortable about your claim of "knowing" me...

    Not without dinner.

    But it seems you claim to know me only privately (on your own). Suit yourself. Even as to the rhythm.

    But haven't you hereby made your private life public? Perhaps even over-sharing...
  • frank
    14.5k
    All those years of seminary paying off... :DMoliere

    Did you actually go to a seminary? But yeah, as Christopher Walken said in that movie, "It was the iron age. You had to do a lot of bad stuff just to survive."
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Yep.



    One last try. A list of "how to ride a bike" can never be completed.
  • Moliere
    4k
    Morman seminary, at least. That's my background. And I lucked out and got the classes that focused on the bible, rather than the fictional accounts of Joseph Smith.

    And you had to do a lot of bad stuff to survive, but I'd go further and say you really had to care about things that weren't right to not only survive, but also have a written legacy that still influences the world.

    Thing is, it ain't as different now as people like to believe. At least in my estimation.
  • Luke
    2.6k
    One last try. A list of "how to ride a bike" can never be completed.Banno

    Why not?
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Thanks for the chat.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    There's a difference between a list that could never, in principle, be completed. and one which is potentially finite, but large enough that we could never find the time to complete it, or be able to tell if it was complete.
  • frank
    14.5k
    Thing is, it ain't as different now as people like to believe. At least in my estimation.Moliere

    Human nature probably hasn't changed, but the need to write down moral principles would be much more important during a relatively chaotic time like the Iron Age. We take the stability of the global political scene for granted. We need no cultural anchor in the form of an arch of the covenant.

    This ties in with what @Hanover pointed out in his thread on freedom of speech. Moses and God fiercely punish Hebrews for exercising religious freedom and freedom of speech. Moses has to control the narrative for the sake of the survival his adopted culture.
  • hypericin
    1.5k
    Neither Banno or me are saying those are the same. If I'm reading @Banno correctly at least.Moliere

    ep. So for you adding "ride the bike" to the instructions is just a way of completing them.Banno

    If they are not the same (which they are obviously not), the words "ride the bike" won't complete anything, when what is needed is riding the bike.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Thanks, makes sense.

    . But in social interchange that involves a much more complex and specific set of ideas, such a politics , religion, philosophy or intimate personal engagement, we are constantly reminded that we are dealing with an other, that our expectations of their response to our communications frequently have to be adjusted , that there will be aspects of the relationship that will have to be less intimate than others, due to gaps in mutual understanding that will never be filled inJoshs

    These gaps in mutual understanding sound like they are almost insurmountable. Are there ways you recommend we manage gaps such as these, or perhaps some essay about this you can direct me to?

    It sounds more the case that we have to manage ourselves in relation to other people with different values and worldviews. Which is challenging when they, for instance, stack the Supreme Court and fire away at the rights of minorities. This seems to be when the rubber meets the road and, perhaps, it's when the ineffable becomes a gun. :worry:
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Here's a complete list of what you need to do in order to ride a bike:

    • Ride the bike.

    Why not?Luke
    I stand corrected.

    Now fuck eff off, both of you. :kiss:
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Fine. Seems an odd thing to point out though.
  • hypericin
    1.5k
    Now fuck off, both of you. :razz:Banno
    "eff off" is the preferred usage in this thread.
  • Luke
    2.6k
    Thanks for the chat.Banno

    One last try. A list of "how to ride a bike" can never be completed.
    — Banno

    Why not?
    — Luke

    I stand corrected.

    Now fuck eff off, both of you
    Banno

    Great argument. Then I suppose the list of instructions isn't, as you stated, "to whatever detail we desire".
  • javra
    2.4k
    There's a difference between a list that could never, in principle, be completed. and one which is potentially finite, but large enough that we could never find the time to complete it, ...Janus

    Either way, wouldn’t the full list be never completed, hence never expressed, hence remain inexpressible?

    :razz:

    ... But there's always more to be expressed in relation to much ado about nothing, no doubt.

    ... Ever wonder if the frog thinks that everything worthy of expression can be expressed in croaks, this in principle if not in practice? Hmm, a humorous way of trying to draw attention to the possibility that a hundred thousand years from now they might be conveying information in manners that human words as we know them can't, thereby allowing for the public conceptualization of ideas we humans cannot conceive of.

    But back to: if you think some things are inexpressible in words then prove it expressing in words that which you deem to so be inexpressible in words. :joke:
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Great argument.Luke

    Thank you, but due credit to my interlocutors, who elicit such stuff; my comments are but a pale reflection of their brilliance.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    Many things seem to be "odd" according to you. Says more about you than the things. In any case, I think it is salient, even if oddly so,since it would only be that which is uncompleteable in principle, which is philosophically relevant.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Says more about you than the things.Janus

    Why, thank you. Very kind. It's true, many things seem odd to me that seem ordinary to others.

    It just was unclear what your purpose was with that post.

    Tea time.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    Either way, wouldn’t the full list be never completed, hence never expressed, hence remain inexpressible?javra

    Well, I did say that a list might be complete, yet we be unable to tell that it is.

    As you say there may be forms of expression we cannot imagine.

    But back to: if you think some things are inexpressible in words then prove it expressing in words that which you deem to so be inexpressible in wordsjavra

    :lol: Should I waste my time trying to rise to an impossible challenge?

    Why, thank you. Very kind. It's true, many things seem odd to me that seem ordinary to others.Banno

    That's probably a good thing...don't take anything for granted.

    Tea time.

    I'm having tea as I type this, but I swear there is something inexpressible about the taste...
  • Luke
    2.6k
    Thank youBanno

    Dodging the argument again.

    Then I suppose the list of instructions isn't, as you stated, "to whatever detail we desire".Luke
  • Hanover
    12k
    This ties in with what Hanover pointed out in his thread on freedom of speech. Moses and God fiercely punish Hebrews for exercising religious freedom and freedom of speech. Moses has to control the narrative for the sake of the survival his adopted culture.frank

    Actually, what makes the Hebrew Bible unusual is that argument with God is acceptable and even shown to be effective. Two prime examples are Genesis 18:16 to 33 when Abraham pleas for God to spare the inhabitants of Sodom and Gemmorah (he fails) and Exodus 32:9 to 14 when Moses pleas for God to spare the Hebrews from total destruction from building the golden calf (he succeeds).

    And let us not forget Jacob's fight with the angel in Genesis 32:28 to 29. It was there he was renamed "Israel," which literally means to have fought with God and prevailed.

    But I do agree, God doesn't permit the worship of idols or having other gods before him, both being violations of the 10 commandments.
  • frank
    14.5k
    Actually, what makes the Hebrew Bible unusual is that argument with God is acceptable and even shown to be effective.Hanover

    Proto civil rights
  • Hanover
    12k
    Proto civil rightsfrank

    Speaking truth to power.
  • Moliere
    4k
    And let us not forget Jacob's fight with the angel in Genesis 32:28 to 29. It was there he was renamed "Israel," which literally means to have fought with God and prevailed.Hanover

    One of my favorite verses -- when a man beats God at wrestling, God promises good stuff on one condition (or more than one, when you get technical)

    Morman's didn't focus on that verse, for some reason.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    I like to take ponderous metaphors like this, and bring them home: here I am, cat on sofa, clouds and trees and houses outside. Now, what IS the Good? It is here, in the actuality of the lived event that this question has its authenticity, I hold. To your point: If the good makes the intelligible, intelligible, then the good is logic and language, something Kantian? Plato is called a rational realist, and so I always thought along these lines. But the affectivity, this is happiness, joy, love, bliss, ecstasy, rapture, and other words that mean essentially the same thing. How does this "Good" effect knowledge, I want to ask. Not that it doesn't, but to characterize somehow is a worthy question.Constance

    I think "the good", in the Platonic tradition, is what is desired, or wanted, described by Aristotle as "the end", or final cause. It is the cause of knowledge in the sense that when something is wanted we learn the means to get it. So all knowledge is produced in this way, as the means to an end, even if that end is the quest for truth.

    But the good, in itself, always presents itself as this or that particular thing, which is wanted, and in this way the good seems to be well known, I know what I want for dinner for example. However, like Aristotle explained, particular goods always end up being desired for the sake of something else, the means to a further end, so the true good escapes our grasp. And when we look for the meaning of "the good" in the general sense, as final cause, it escapes our grasp completely.

    I agree with this, but there one has to get by the difficulties. One is this: Consider states of affairs as a temporal dynamic, and not as a spatial one.Constance

    This is exactly where the difficulty lies, in the attempt to give states of affairs a temporal dynamic, in order to make them something real. Temporal dynamic, as active change, is fundamentally incompatible with a "state" which is static. So it's really impossible to consider states of affairs as a temporal dynamic, because of this inconsistency. And this is the same inconsistency I talked about, between the general principles, and the particular. General principles tend to state "what is", as a static principle, a truth, but in the particular situation, things are changing continuously.

    Thus, what it means to have an encounter in the world at all has a temporal model to work out, for when we talk about general principles' failure to grasp the palpable realities before us, the "before us" is a "presence" in time, in which the past and the future are a unity where recollection (history) offers the basic existence conditions out of which a future is constructed, and this occurs as a spontaneous production of our Being There. In this, the present vanishes. All that lies before me is bound to this past-future dynamic.Constance

    This may be the case, that the present vanishes into a unity of past and future, as you say, but the analysis must be continued further. We call them by different names, "past" and "future", because they surely are different. And if they are different, then there must be something that separates them, so we are back to the logical conclusion of a present. Again, we have the same inconsistency rearing its head, from the one perspective the temporal model has the present disappear into a unity of past and future, but that very premise, that there is a past and future to be united, necessitates the conclusion of a present which allows them to be distinct in the first place.

    I say, true, yet put a spear in my kidney and the is not an historical event. Or listen to music, fall in love,, and all of the affective spontaneities that are always already there as well, and THIS declares the present., the Real with a capital 'R'. I defend a kind of value-ontology: the determination as to what is Real lies in the felt sense, and this sense of not epistemic; rather, the "raw feels" of the world are aesthetic. The "features of the particular circumstances" you speak of have their ineffability in the desire, the interest, the satisfaction, the gratification, and so on, that saturate experience.Constance

    This is the same conclusion I described, the present is the Real, and I derived this as a logical necessity. But then, what becomes of this unity of the past and future, which seems to make the present vanish? It is not just an illusion, the fact that past and future are unified in being, this is equally Real. So where does this leave us? The past and future are necessarily separated, due to the vast and substantial difference between the two. Yet equally, the past and future are united as one in the existence of what has being at the present. So it's a conundrum, how two things which are necessarily separated also exist together as a unity all at the same time, the present..
  • hypericin
    1.5k
    @Luke
    Your argument applies to any kinesthetic skill: who would claim to know how to play the guitar after reading "How To Play the Guitar", even if the last instruction were: "Now, go play the guitar!"
    The problem is that even when you have the skill, you don't know how you do it, you just do it. Or rather, you don't know how to verbalize it.

    Dodging the argument again.Luke

    He has a talent!
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