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  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Very simply, I think Morality practices 'nonreciprocal harm-prevention/reduction' whereas Art explores 'catharsis from existential limits/failures of morality' – they are complements (dialectical), not opposites (binary) – pace Nietzsche.180 Proof

    This is excellent. Thank-you for making it available herein.

    Yes, the existent makes adaptive choices for survival and otherwise and, of necessity, must sometimes compromise moral restrictions in conflict with doing so. The necessity resides within the fact blooming creation is too full of value to allow the sentient total passage through life without doing harm to the innocent.

    So, the drama in life is no less about redressing wrongs than about avoiding them.

    Now we come to the hard part: art is about seeking out the shrewd deformity that mysteriously and judiciously transforms the ordinary into the beautiful.

    Singularity is the heart of aesthetics. As such, it produces a gravitational field around itself that bends, warps and distorts the conventionality of established morality. A viable singularity makes necessary an adjustment in the established morality. Morals must be modified and tailored to the new existential demands of the singularity.

    The singularity has two aspects: positive/negative.

    Just now we're witnessing singularity in its negative aspect: the ascension to power of a destroyer. The process is warping morality to an extent making the masses dizzy.

    Two centuries ago, we witnessed singularity in its positive aspect: the ascension to power of a savior. The process warped morality to an extent making the masses dizzy.

    The destroyer/savior switch is the lotus blossom in the center of the garden of the expression.*

    The switch keeps us perplexed about the distinction between good and evil.

    *The vital artist reaches beyond success to failure.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    So existence without life is not interesting and besides, no human knows anything about it.ucarr

    Anything other than ideas in human minds carry nothing moral.AmadeusD

    This is a useless supposition because no human lives in a world without human minds. That being the case, the world outside of human minds is irrelevant to usucarr

    Yet, it dismantles your premise. So, clearly, its relevant to us in demarcating what is moral...You seem to admit this, but deny its relevance?AmadeusD

    Why do you think setting the boundary of morality (within the mind) dismantles my premise (my quote at the top)? Of course what's interesting, or not, depends upon minds.

    Here we have an opportunity to define "interest" in an interesting way: it is bias towards one thing or another. Bias presupposes a sentient individual with an enduring point of view accompanied by a set of needs and desires and goals. These things comprise interest and the interesting. I can artificially imagine a world without life. There's no interest and nothing interesting on such a world because there's no bias anywhere. When the wind blows the rocks hither and thither, there's no reaction, no goals achieved or thwarted. All events are a matter of indifference. In short, on a lifeless planet, there's no bias toward desires, no dramatic suspense awaiting outcomes, i.e., no interest, nothing interesting.

    If anything, your demarcation of the scope of morality aides my premise by clarifying its theater of action: the mind. Thank-you.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Am looking forward to Robert Eggers Nosferatu, and the premise is related, pushed to the limit. A young bride is being possessed to the horror of everyone around her, by a really awful demon that wants to copulate with her and she with it (my assumption based on trailer).Nils Loc

    :up:

    He [Girard] draws a line between unanimous expulsion of the scapegoat, to the sacrificial rites as what imbues archaic culture with its powers to keep order.Nils Loc

    Yes. The struggle is both external and internal. As for the external struggle, there's a monster out there lurking, on the hunt for victims (Frankenstein). Morality is correct behavior forestalling victimization.

    As to the internal struggle, the monster dwells within and morality is stern repression of its emergence. (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

    When the existence of the monster is just being discovered, and it still evokes terror within the masses, it is the artist who ventures into the dark cave of destruction with open eyes, ready to escape after close observation, bringing back an account to the people (Oedipus).
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    There’s an endless war between art and morality.ucarr

    Instead of art and morality being juxtaposed, is it possible to look at morality as a subset (or genre) of art? Someone living a “moral life” (define this as you will) can be viewed like a type of “performance art” – alongside of dance, theater and opera.Thales

    You have an excellent idea going here. What's to be made of the lives of the saints when they are viewed through the lens of aesthetics? Poet Keats declared, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all." Was his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" also a tribute to lives dedicated to the eternal afterlife?

    Looking on the flip side, I confess to struggling with the idealism of the painterly lovers on the urn with their forever unruffled hair. I take too much repose in the mess of real life to feel completely comfortable inside museums wherein look but don't touch is the rule of law.

    Is she a good girl if she let's you muss her hair? I say, "yes."
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    You think it sinful to see beauty in ugliness?praxis

    On the contrary, I see virtue in the mind's transformation of ugliness into beauty. This process is essential to human perception encountering the radically new: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, polytonal and violently complex, aurally speaking, sent its virgin audience into fits of violence, their introduction to the transformation process.

    Is there a parallel in science with Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation vís-a-vís Einstein's Denounciation?
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    ...we see the spirit of the age wavering between perversity and brutality, between unnaturalness and mere nature, between superstition and moral unbelief; and it is only through an equilibrium of evils that it is still sometimes kept within bounds. (NA XX, 320–21/E 97)

    To the extent that it [The Play Drive] deprives feelings and passions of their dynamic power, it will bring them into harmony with the ideas of reason; and to the extent that it deprives the laws of reason of their moral compulsion, it will reconcile them with the interests of the senses. (NA XX, 352/E 127)
    Schiller

    :up:

    Thank-you for bringing my attention to Schiller's pertinent ideas.

    It is the equilibrium of evils, vitality/constraint, that compound into beauty, the peak of inspiration. The motive force of highest inspiration becomes an evil when it lacks the proper context for its expression.

    Yes, beauty becomes itself when it partakes of, in part, deformity. It's the element of deformation making beauty singular that distinguishes it from the merely symmetrical and pleasingly pretty.

    No we see that beauty is closely allied with freedom. Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, both beautiful individuals, together made a bid for freedom from the moral precepts of matrimony, an honorable institution. Ultimately, they were not strong enough in their own time to achieve escape velocity, but look at the assertive promiscuity of continental society today.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    So far it seems that the only thing you have to be grateful for is the direction to fear. I for one would not be grateful for that. Perhaps you’ve received more than the advice to fear a higher power?praxis

    It's true I'm a very fearful person, however, I've received deliverance to a quality of life beyond my own merits, and for that I'm grateful. It took me a long time to realize how much is being done on my behalf by the people in my life, and I'm grateful for my awakening to this truth.

    I'm struck by how next to nothing I am outside of society. I think I understand correctly that short time in a deprivation tank and I'd even forget my own name. The human brain can be mighty, but it never stops being frail.

    Pain (war) is another instrument of revelation. It forces us to see our real limitations. The depiction of pain is central to art because it is such a powerful driver of human behavior, both towards and away from goodness. Tragedy, that sharpens the focus on the tragic flaw of the noble person, and the self destruction it causes, functions as one of humanity's greatest art forms.

    Pleasure (love) is the counterpart to pain and it too highlights our catastrophic limitations: Othello murders his beloved, Desdemona.

    I repeat, morality is a derivative of dynamic and forceful lives, and thus it is the handmaid of vitality, not its judge.

    Would you choose moral restraints upon the dynamic leader of the people over unrestrained vitality as their motive force?
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Oh, what direction has a higher power given you?praxis

    Firstly, I've received the direction that I should fear the higher-power. Without my fear, my arrogance would have me at the bottom of the oubliette before sundown.

    God is pretty much whatever someone needs to dream up, I think.praxis

    That's a tempting thing to say, but if you've ever been delivered from your limitations into a situation you could never earn you way into, it's more fitting to feel gratitude towards a higher power.

    We see beauty in ugliness through aesthetic experience (art).praxis

    Yes.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Life on earth is interesting, and art and morality, in turn, are also interesting to the extent they remain connected to life.ucarr

    This seems to be just your opinion. I think distilling this, though, we can say that existence is. Life can be. When they coincide in time, interest arises.AmadeusD

    Well said. We're agreeing interest arises when human life within an existing world passes time with adventures. To this I add further interest by seeing how much humans can get away with in their behavior.

    Love and war are the two big adventures. Can I kiss the girl? Can I shoot the enemy? Everyone who lives pushes against moral boundaries in their effort at living. As you've said, "Life simply is."

    Well, the naked fact of being in life as a human individual has no boundaries so absolute we cannot attempt to lie our way out of them. This attempt to lie, cheat, slip and slide our way out of moral boundaries in life, by my observation, is necessary, and that's what I'm trying to focus on here.

    Anyone not frequently tempted to lie, cheat and steal their way through life is probably a low-vitality person who is not interesting.

    And thus the church shows its wisdom when it declares human nature corrupt from the git-go.


    Even the rare, authentically righteous person has to fend off fiercely their temptations toward pride of person regarding their rectitude. For us humans, Eden without the snake is unthinkable.

    When the slithering demon comes on stage, that's when the interest begins.

    You say we humans aren't sinful by our natures and that our art likewise -- though sourced from us -- is not sinful. Have you not found that a movie depicting a beautiful sun setting its glow over a vuluptuous woman with soul-stirring music on the soundtrack puts you to sleep after ten minutes if something doesn't go wrong, thus threatening the woman's happiness?

    ...the fight between a more inclusive narrative of human reality and the edited version that's morality-friendly...ucarr

    This is one of my best forward passes with the lance of my wit. It is another one of my central points of focus: the artist wants to threaten the beautiful woman with something of interest menacing her composure. If a man doesn't take delight in this rousing of the feminine will to survive, that man belongs in the vestry with the robes and the sashes.

    I've underlined all of my central points of focus.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Wagner, who so alienated Nietzsche, composed sublime music...canonical names glorified within the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin.ucarr

    This reads like uninspired journalism.Tom Storm
    I plead guilty.

    I would argue the points made are moot.Tom Storm
    I acknowledge that they are. I posted here because I need to have my points examined critically.

    ...the sentences seem archaic in structure and the inflated style - reads like early 20th century pamphleteering.Tom Storm
    I plead guilty.

    In the end you seem to be making the commonplace observations that good art can be made by flawed people.Tom Storm
    Yes, I am repeating the commonplace observations. Here's how my statement tries to diverge: my claim goes on to imply good art softens moral condemnation by arousing sympathy for the human condition in a dramatic situation with circumstances pushing the individual beyond his limits: Hamlet, bedeviled by the demands of the ghost, the assignations of his mother, the vulnerabilities of his girlfriend and the protests of his adversary, murders Polonius.

    You didn't answer any of my points. How about one at random?Tom Storm

    The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally.ucarr

    Shakespeare, in writing Hamlet, lives Hamlet's life non-judgmentally. He walks through his many trials and, in the end, gives Hamlet a soliloquy about choosing suicide over and above the terror of the unknown and even worse, the unearned ruin of Job's lengthy suffering.

    It's non-judgment in the rendering of a life that extends art beyond the scope of morals. As AmadeusD says, "Life simply is."
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    However, some things in life bump against the filter with more force than other things.ucarr

    Yes, but that changes from person to person, culture to culture, institution to institution. Says nothing moral, of itself.AmadeusD

    On a planet with no life, nothing interesting happens.

    Life on earth is interesting, and art and morality, in turn, are also interesting to the extent they remain connected to life. So existence without life is not interesting and besides, no human knows anything about it.

    Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds.AmadeusD

    This is a useless supposition because no human lives in a world without human minds. That being the case, the world outside of human minds is irrelevant to us.

    Since we can't escape morality, reference to a world without it yields us nothing.

    What I claim to be interesting is the proposition life is bigger than moral life, its derivative. Now, if art is sinful by nature because humans are likewise sinful by nature, and if art, following the lead of human nature, enacts the audacity to be more inclusive than moral life, then the fight between a more inclusive narrative of human reality and the edited version that's morality-friendly amounts to being a fight between true representation and reductive, idealized representation.

    Art looks past the ideal towards telling a more complete truth about who we are.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Is this an anfractuous way of saying that God is ugly?praxis

    While the human individual lives s/he struggles with what is best to do going forward. Having a higher power to take direction from provides comfort. Is God a sub-division of human psychology? Well, the savior was fully human, so I'm on solid ground answering "yes."

    Ugliness is quite rare and instructive -- it makes us rethink what constitutes good (The Elephant Man) -- so a deformed higher-power might possess ugliness as one of its infrequent aspects that only the stalwart person can bear to witness.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    There’s an endless war between art and morality.ucarr

    I don't think so. Culture wars are frequent - certain groups/people will utilize moral arguments against art they don't understand or like. The most infamous of course being the Ziegler's Degenerate Art exhibition in 1937.Tom Storm

    As humanity survives across the march of time, human nature continues to open new chapters of revelation. The artist works to present substantial details of the revelation. The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally. The more substantial the revelation, the more likely conflict between what is revealed and the local culture's commitments to what human behavior should be. This is the conflict and the war.

    Perhaps there is now no new human behavior under the sun, and thus the revelations are repetitions of prior revelations. In that case, art enables us to remember what we've forgotten, and perhaps what we wish to remain forgotten.

    If human history continues to be unique going forward, with human nature in new situations revealing heretofore unseen facets of itself, then we can surmise human nature is bigger than local codes governing behavior.

    Perhaps the Nazi holocaust shows us nothing new about the murderous impulses of aspiring men, but their hoarding up of the art pieces denounced publicly and treasured privately alerts us to something interesting about the connection between hatred and envy. This peculiar relationship is today still being examined in documentary movies.

    From all of this we know that the artist is the town crier who tries to get away with shouting as much carnal truth about the human nature of sin as possible.ucarr

    I think most people will find this anachronistic thinking. Art as sin might fit into some old Christian worldviews. Perhaps you had a fundamentalist childhood?Tom Storm

    The human individual will do things to adapt to immediate circumstances and therefore, killing -- even murder -- are not off the table. This is what art reveals when the story features a murderer up against society's disapproval for taking the life of a pawnbroker. He wants the victim's money to finance his greatness of character and its attendant, albeit as yet unrealized, greatness of achievement.

    Herein we see a curious contradiction: our job as proper human individuals is to hew closely to the modeling of the savior, and yet we mustn’t get too close to the ways of the savior lest we become full of ourselves and thereby deify ourselves.ucarr

    I would say this is nonsense...Tom Storm

    Sometimes moral correctness allows only a narrow tolerance between ice and open flame. Of course we're all sinners in the game of steering a course midway between love and hate.

    Why don't you simply start with the premise that you are a conservative thinker with some traditional ideas about Christianity which you are projecting upon the world of art within a Western context.Tom Storm

    The scriptures are a narrative and the higher power is a character within it. Not even the higher power escapes violation of its own prescriptions for right behavior: the older stories include transgressing individuals struck down for what today we count as infractions.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    Very interesting post but you should've left this out if you don't want us to ask what this controversial escape clause is.Nils Loc

    You have caught me in the act of writing pretentiously.
  • Art Lies Beyond Morality


    NMorality is a mental habitAmadeusD

    What is NMorality?

    Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds.AmadeusD

    This is true. However, some things in life bump against the filter with more force than other things.

    Pain. It may not be moral in of itself, but let a human individual experience it beyond a certain level of intensity and s/he becomes hard-pressed not to scream out in rage and despair against that heartless neutrality.

    Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire and burned up in protest against political oppression. Although a superb demonstration of life's indifference, it was used as an alarm awakening the minds of the complacent public who are, after all, simply life, albeit life aware of itself.
  • The Subject/Object Interweave


    ...philosophy considers very subtle questions, that are beyond the scope of science not because they're incredibly complicated, but because they're generally very simple questions with a lot of depth.Wayfarer

    ideology | ˌidēˈäləjē, ˌīdēˈäləjē |
    noun (plural ideologies)
    2 archaic the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.
    The Apple Dictionary

    I'm wondering if the archaic definition of ideology most especially applies to the philosophical project: the examination of the origin, nature and truth content of ideas.

    Buttressing my supposition is my perspective on a simple question with a lot of depth: if the simple question addresses something fundamental, then it's no surprise if the complexity of the question's answer is large.
  • The relationship of the statue to the clay


    From your post I see a triad of three things: substance - a raw material with the potential to take on form (I note that a raw material has an innate inclination towards taking on a form that expresses its nature: this is Aritsotle’s recognition of chemistry: the innate form of gold differs from the innate form of lead); a form that expresses an organizing principle imparting a specificity of shape and function to a substance (an iron hammer); content - an implicit narrative about the natural world received by a comprehending mind (the Madonna with child statue conveys the role of women as nurturers and protectors of children).

    Form and content are distinct from substance because they are closer in proximity to mind.
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities


    You ask about the back and forth of human conversation, a phenomenon that argues for itself as being the highest creation of the universe to date.

    Consider a handful of sand gathered on the beach. The silica within the sand supports the making of glass.

    Consider a crystal chandelier and a handful of sand.

    Consider the moon’s orbit around the Earth and a conversation between two humans.

    The crystal chandelier is to the sand what the conversation is to the moon’s orbit around the earth.

    The chandelier and the conversation respectively, are each a work up or deluxe version of the two basic things i.e., the sand and moon’s orbit around the earth.

    A human conversation at bottom is the same thing as the moon orbiting around the earth.

    Consciousness is rooted within the interaction of two gravitational fields.

    As the moon’s gravitational field raises earth’s tides, and the earth stabilizes the moon’s location, so two conversants enrich and de-localize each other.

    Where are two conversants engaged in conversation? We might see where their bodies are located in space, but we don’t really know where they are until we hear what they’re saying to each other, and that might place them anywhere within the universe.
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities


    Of what stuff are dreams made?

    Just as there is gastronomic digestion of the stomach, there is cognitive digestion of the brain.

    Food in the digestive tract will break down in a certain way and, likewise, cognition will break down in a certain way.

    Sometimes a dream is a coherent piece of a larger cognition breaking down. Other times a dream is a motley stew of small pieces jumbled together incoherently.

    The power of dreams stems from them being bits of awareness and thus a stew of not completely localized experience.

    Where you, the sentient are, is a good measure of who you are. Well, cognition opens wide the reality of where you are. Thus it opens wide the questions of who you are.

    If you want to know someone’s location in identity, it becomes important to know what they’re thinking.

    Now what might a person be thinking? The answer to that question might encompass the whole world , or even the whole universe!

    This possibility points up the power and the depth of meaning to identity and location of a person of imaginative thinking.
  • The Subject/Object Interweave


    I appreciate your response to my note asking you to extend your correspondence with me, however briefly.

    It seems you’ve picked up on some of the ideas swirling around the internet… and are trying to fashion them into a coherent system of thought…Wayfarer

    Yes. A would-be theoretician needs some thought-provoking feedback. Here are some of your points directing me towards additional thought:

    ‘Consciousness being non-local because of superposition’ ??Wayfarer

    … the subject of philosophy is the human condition and the place of w/man in nature.Wayfarer

    Philosophy… is very much a matter of stance and attitude.Wayfarer

    …philosophy considers very subtle questions… they're generally very simple questions with a lot of depth.
    Wayfarer
    … one of the fundamental assumptions of science since Galileo, that the domain of science is what is objectively observable and measurable. That ought not to be a controversial statement. And the reason ‘consciousness’… is intractable within that framework, is because it is not objective.Wayfarer

    Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness, David Chalmers

    When David Chalmers talks about 'what it is like to be...', he's referring to being. And being is not an object.Wayfarer

    Ideas and time; these are my valuable things.
  • The Subject/Object Interweave


    Agent intellect meets intelligibility (Aristotle) is a duet with each correspondent fully active.

    Like water and its fluidity, substance and its form are distinct yet inseparable.

    For this conversation, my point of attack upon the question of the place held by consciousness within physics focuses upon a thought experiment about the perfect and complete replication of a human individual, Sean Carroll, as discussed by Kuhn and Carroll himself within the video.

    When Carroll talks about his replication being an ordinary event that high technology might eventually effect, with each Carroll going his own way and thereafter having separate experiences, I think he makes a mistake in his reasoning. This is a bit complicated, so let me say I think Carroll is correct about consciousness being fully within the capacity of physicalist science to replicate.

    The mistake stems from Carroll trying to contain consciousness locally. Consciousness, being non-local in the sense of superposition, possesses in its own format, the wave/particle duality. Therefore, when you perfectly and completely replicate Carroll, you don’t have two Carrolls able to go their separate ways, as he assumes. Instead, you have one Carroll now in superposition.

    Carroll in superposition is one type of contradiction, a paradox of self/not self as expressed by one identity in two different places simultaneously. It’s important to understand the profound difference between this state of superposition of one self versus two identical selves existing independently.

    I argue that the latter state of two identical selves existing independently, which Carroll assumes as part of his claim there’s nothing special about the ontic state of consciousness i.e., it’s just more physics, presents as an impossible contradiction, whereas the former state of one self in superposition i.e., simultaneously in two places at once presents as a possible contradiction.

    Here’s the complicated business: speaking theoretically, I claim superposition isn’t really a contradiction in hyper-cubic space; it’s only a contradiction in cubic space. Hyper-cubic space is bounded by cubic space, so it affords material things an additional dimension of spatial expansion, and this addition allows a superpositioned material thing to unfold its four-space configuration.

    A paradox is a higher-dimensional configuration in collapsed form at a lower-dimensional expansion.

    The crux of my argument says that physics cannot replicate the non-locality of consciousness within a three-space reality. In order to complete the replication, physics must upwardly evolve the paradox of superposition. This is expressed as the ascension from cubic space to hyper-cubic space, wherein the collapsed higher-dimensional configuration in collapsed state as a paradox unfolds into full expansion, thus resolving the paradox.

    The critical issue herein is that the physicality of consciousness, like the critical line of the zeta function that organizes prime numbers, requires a higher order of complexity.

    Also, the requisite higher order of complexity (for physicalist replication of consciousness) evidences the fact that the singularity of a human individual is preserved across the ascension from cubic space to hyper-cubic space.

    Consciousness does possess an innate stamp of individuality. At The level of cubic space, which is the level of our human world, the individuality of the human individual cannot be fully replicated without invoking superposition. This is to say that such a replication at the level of cubic space preserves one individual, albeit in paradoxical superposition. At normal energy levels for humans within our cubic reality, and given the entanglement of observer and observed, macro-scale superposition is improbable.
  • The overwhelmingly vast majority of truth cannot be expressed by language


    Nothing new in this insight – approximating, not "incompleteness…"180 Proof

    Approximation can be incomplete, as in the case of pi. More to the point, strategic incompleteness doesn’t have a specified boundary it can approach; all correspondences operating under strategic incompleteness are relative without any universal standard of reference, so the field of epistemology as defined by its grammar is such that no one can speak final words about what the attributes of the abstract form should be.

    Reification has only a weak form under strategic incompleteness because no systems are finalized into hard boundaries.

    Since strategic incompleteness posits only unfinished parts of different sizes incompletely related, with no finalization of systemization:

    parts (e.g. reason) cannot equal, let alone exceed, the whole (e.g. reality) to which they belong (i.e. in which they are inscribed-entangled) – i.e. reality is in our reach yet also exceeds our grasp because we are real and nothing more…180 Proof

    The above doesn’t stand as its counter-narrative. The argument that parts cannot exceed their whole is foundational to strategic incompleteness. This limitation is the reason why systemization is incomplete; if not, the part would be able to contain the whole of itself, a paradox. This is why there is no rational origin of anything (and why your Deist god is necessary to initiate existence), and thus the point of view of strategic incompleteness says there is no beginning and no end, only partial approaches to same.
  • The Subject/Object Interweave
    OP Part 3

    The hyper-cubism of my speculation throws fog on the subject/object interweave, but its introduction takes us back to the interweave by showing us how objective examination of subjectivity involves an enlightening manipulation of the two modes: subjective/objective such that the symmetry linking the two modes is preserved across dimensional expansion with respect to an emergent property: consciousness. The causal power of consciousness as an emergent property is the stamp of singularity it imprints upon the individual in possession of it.

    All of my science-fiction sounding speculation posits a situation wherein exact replication can be approached, but not finalized: one Carroll simultaneously in two positions is an essentially non-local identity that cannot be contained spatially (physically speaking) or proven axiomatically (cognitively speaking).

    If Gödel, Schrödinger, Heisenberg apply at the level of four-space, then we have incompleteness, non-locality and uncertainty integrated into a unified wholeness hard if not impossible for us to imagine at the level of our three-space experience.

    This four-space wholeness suggests a superlative freedom of being wherein the “whereness” of a unified, four-space being is, by our standards, unimaginably rich.

    Russell’s Paradox, with the ascension to four-space, ceases to be a paradoxical prison, instead transforming into a liberation into a more complex utilization of the space all around us.
  • The Subject/Object Interweave
    OP Part 2

    My argument that supports leaning far over towards Kuhn and far away from Carroll without, however, reaching a binary conclusion about one man being right and the other man being wrong, is based upon an imaginative speculation about what might happen if technology actually replicates perfectly and completely Sean Carroll.

    Assuming the replication to be a process over time, I speculate the replication will progress to near completion with nothing out of the ordinary occurring. However, when the process crosses the critical threshold dividing approximate replication in progress to perfect and complete replication, I speculate that something extraordinary might happen: the absolutely identitical two Sean Carrolls, occupying two different places simultaneously, will merge into one Sean Carroll, albeit one Sean Carroll paradoxically occupying two different positions simultaneously. This is what it means to perfectly and completely replicate one human individual.

    These two individuals will not, as Carroll claims in the video, go their separate ways and have their independent experiences. The paradox dictates: one Sean Carroll simultaneously in two different positions. To talk about them having independent experiences is to talk in contradiction. Two almost identical Carrolls can have independent experiences; one Carroll in two positions simultaneously cannot.

    In order for one Carroll in two positions simultaneously to be functional as opposed to being a physical non-starter, the two Carrolls as one must explode upwardly into a higher spatial dimensional matrix. Specifically, the two Carrolls as one must ascend upward from cubic space into hyper-cubic space.

    The extra spatial dimension will be required to resolve the non-functional paradox at our level of cubic space. At our level, the hyper-cubism of one Carroll in two positions simultaneously is the hyper-cubic version of one Carroll in two positions simultaneously in its collapsed, non-functional state.

    At the level of hyper-cubic spatial extension, the paradox can be resolved with the unfolding of the hyper-cubic Carroll in two positions simultaneously as a four-space human individual.

    At our present cubic spatial extension experience, we can’t talk empirically about a four-space human experience of the world. I do suspect, however, that at the hyper-cubic level, Carroll in two positions simultaneously is just three-space talk with little bearing on the reality of four-space cognitive experience.
  • The overwhelmingly vast majority of truth cannot be expressed by language


    I’m thinking Tarskian is trying to tell you that the inexpressible truth is the paradox of a Ricardian number being simultaneously: a member of the natural numbers/not being a member of the natural numbers, as based upon the unresolvable paradox.

    If you claim the paradox itself is the statement of the “inexpressible” truth, then you’re trashing the principle of non-contradiction, and your logical systems crash.
  • The overwhelmingly vast majority of truth cannot be expressed by language


    The overwhelmingly vast majority of truth cannot be expressed by languageTarskian

    Assuming this statement is true, what do you think is its philosophical significance?180 Proof

    Here’s my unsolicited attempt to answer your question: writing tentatively, with the need for corrective refutation:

    Tarskian’s premise suggests to our understanding that: the mapping from verbal language to experience is categorically incomplete.

    In turn, this tells us that sine qua non rules about the volume and thoroughness of verbal databases of information evolve without completion, and that therefore the epistemological project is likewise an evolving project without completion.

    One of the important consequences of an epistemological project that never completes is knowledge of truths that cannot be proven. This leads to speculation about the science, math and language databases all being open. If so, it may be the case there is no complete systemization.

    If it can be surmised that no systemization of science, math and language can be complete, then it might follow that no correspondence between them can be complete.

    In turn, this might suggest the need for a radical overhaul of our definition(s) of truth: if correspondence is always incomplete, then the cognitive vector (thinking about science, math and language) like the physical vector, with its position and momentum coordinates, might be uncertain per Heisenberg.
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    Please write the OP and I’ll join the conversation.
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    Abstract objects are things like numbers, sets, and propositions. Mass is a physical property.frank

    I'd have to go with Schopenhauer and say that subject and object are two sides of the same coin.frank

    Do we see from the above that mass and abstraction, like form and content*, are interwoven?

    *The interweave of form and content entails higher-order perception: the perceiver’s perception of the perceiver’s perceptivity.
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    Abstract objects are things like numbers, sets, and propositions.frank

    What role does the observer play in the construction of an abstract object? To clarify what I’m asking, consider this related question: Can/does an abstract object exist without an observer who perceives natural things and then constructs a composite abstraction based upon repeated viewings of similar things?
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    …there seems to be a profound misapprehension concerning what logic is, underpinning the Kimhi's work and much of the writing on this thread.Banno

    I've no high aptitude for logic. Just a rough comprehension of the basicsBanno

    I’m not thoroughly convinced your first quote (underlined) is consistent with your second quote. Your first quote, if it be authoritative, suggests a very considerable depth of experience.

    Lest you be further embarrassed by what you think flattery, perhaps you can help me understand something for me basic:

    The subject (or argument, in Frege’s terminology) is what Julian Roberts in The Logic of Reflection calls “an empty center.” Roberts goes on, “And the ‛object’ which fills that [empty] subject position, accordingly, is not a collection of attributes (featureless). It is a ‛thing’ only to the extent that the function makes it into one.”J

    “There is, ultimately, something rather raffish about a function (predicate); it wanders the world, hoping to connect, but may well never succeed. There is nothing in the function that establishes it as a part of reality (unreal).”Roberts

    If the subject is empty, the object is featureless, and the predicate is unreal, then that’s a triad of zeroes, and I don’t see how a function linking three zeroes can produce a non-zero product.ucarr

    In the J quote and the Roberts quote above, they seem to be establishing an interpretation of predicate logic that boils down to a triad of zeroes. That takes us to the primordial question: How existence? Well, science asks for one gimme: something spontaneously arising from nothing. “After we have something, we’ll figure out the rest,” says science.

    Are Frege, Kimhi, Roberts, J, et al really sourcing predicate logic back to the supernatural gimme? I’m not inclined to think so, but that’s how I read them as quoted here.

    I’m asking you to give me some tips on understanding how my reading of the quotes is fundamentally wrong.
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    First of all, thanks for your helpful response.

    It's hard to be sure, but there seems to be a profound misapprehension concerning what logic is, underpinning the Kimhi's work and much of the writing on this thread. I'm not inspired to go down that path.Banno

    The common misunderstanding of logic is why I’m asking you to stay involved in this thread. This website is a type of public school for enthusiastic amateurs who need teachers. High aptitude for formal logic is rare, and therefore you can do much good by sharing some fruits of your gift.

    Oftentimes it appears as if the nose-bleed section isn’t listening to the dugout, but they are.
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities


    Wow! A man of knowledge! I am keeping this reference (Carlos Castañeda) in mind moving forward…Kizzy

    I'm on it already! I will post my complete response as soon as I can.Kizzy

    Castañeda has many scholarly naysayers who have dismissed his books as new-agey populist fiction. Therefore, you owe it to yourself to explore some of Castañeda’s critics in order to develop an unbiased and balanced view of his writing.

    One prominent Castañeda critic is Richard de Mille. His book is Castañeda’s Journey: The Power and the Allegory (1976).
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    If not assertion or illocution or denotation, then what is force? There is still no clear account of what this thread is about.Banno

    If the figurative use of force (as in “force of personality”) can be linked to physical force (as in: “gale force winds”), then we can start with the physical definition of force: force is a type of energy; energy is the ability to move; energy has two states: sharply bounded energy (as in the animation of a material object); softly bounded energy (as in the animation of an electromagnetic field).

    We can parallel the two states of energy with the two states of sub-atomic elementary matter: a) the particle form of elementary matter; b) the waveform of elementary matter. At the scale of human experience it’s the comparison of a block of ice with a room filled with steam.

    The binding phenomenon linking figurative force with physical force is consciousness.

    The binding gravitational force (physical) linking the firgurative force of supposedly abstract language (also physical) is the consciousness of the sentient individual using language to design a plan of action to fulfill its intentions.

    So, the focus of this thread, as implied by references to Julian Roberts, examines verbal and sentential logic through the lens of the gravitational force of consciousness as it links language to physical phenomena via observation. The gravitationality of language herein made explicit is implied in other posts in this thread.

    The above paragraph is a compact wealth of complexity, and thus it’s hard to state in simple language what is the focus of this conversation.
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    The subject (or argument, in Frege’s terminology) is what Julian Roberts in The Logic of Reflection calls “an empty center.” Roberts goes on, “And the ‛object’ which fills that [empty] subject position, accordingly, is not a collection of attributes (featureless). It is a ‛thing’ only to the extent that the function makes it into one.”J

    “There is, ultimately, something rather raffish about a function (predicate); it wanders the world, hoping to connect, but may well never succeed. There is nothing in the function that establishes it as a part of reality (unreal).”Roberts

    If the subject is empty, the object is featureless, and the predicate is unreal, then that’s a triad of zeroes, and I don’t see how a function linking three zeroes can produce a non-zero product.

    All that logic can do is show us the grammar of predication, along with rules of inference that will hold when a subject/argument is added to the functional, predicative formula.J

    Formalizations of subject_object_predicate strings of syntax without a goal-oriented observer making public, measurable, and repeatable predications are useless and meaningless permutations of non-referential markings.

    The sentient individual as observer with perceptions and intentions has standing in the world, and it goes about making predications. The predications, curved by the force of the observations, acquire usefulness and meaning through their attachment to the observer.
  • A challenge to Frege on assertion


    “There is, ultimately, something rather raffish about a function; it wanders the world, hoping to connect, but may well never succeed. There is nothing in the function that establishes it as a part of reality.”J

    What if the function, once seized upon by the sentient individual with intent to use it, becomes something essential to what exists? This because under the influence of the sentient controlling it, it acquires the property of “how it’s being used” such that specifically, that “how” is the sentient being’s willful decision to ascribe perceived attributes to the previously empty subject.

    A generalization from the above claims that sentient individuals construct reality from possibilities by willfully predicating empty subjects (possibilities) with attributes meaningful and therefore useful to sentients.

    The “how” of predication practiced by sentients attaches perceived attributes to otherwise empty subjects. The specifics of this ascribed “how” is determined by the sentient’s natural impulses. This leads us to conclude that the conscious worlds of sentients are extensions of themselves.
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities


    Hello correspondents,

    I’m asking you to examine my arguments and comment upon their merits, or lack thereof
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities
    What should not be underestimated is the depth of the meaning of the near-intangibility of consciousness (NI=Natural Intelligence).

    That the human individual can imagine herself to be anything the imagination can conjure and manipulate means that the position and momentum of the NI-bearing sentient is always hedged against the closure of a finalized system.

    This is one of the subtle meanings of (the centrality of) the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

    Both position and momentum are essential to system, so their uncertainty, acting as a defense of future creativity via strategic incompleteness, mandates entropy and its function: non-closure of system.

    —————————————————————————————————————————————-

    Imagine a planetary system with a duet of suns orbiting each other.

    Also imagine two human individuals in conversation.

    These two events are parallel to each other; they are two examples of the same phenomenon. The first event is the basic form, the second event is the deluxe form.

    Human conversation exemplifies NI, and NI is rooted in interacting gravitational fields.

    Interacting gravitational fields- and humans in conversation- exemplify non-local position and momentum of charged particles which, at the human scale of experience, are material objects rendered with discrete boundaries due to the disequilibrium of thermodynamical constraints.

    Humans, like elementary particles, are not completely localized discretely; instead, they too have a waveform mode of being; that waveform mode of being is NI.

    ——————————————————————————————————————————————

    Because humans have a waveform state of being in NI, their position and momentum has to be calculated; they are not confined to discrete position and momentum; that would be the death-trap of complete systemization.

    Because humans have a waveform state of being, their calculated probability of position and momentum acts as an anchor for their identity. This is a rather scientific-sounding way of talking about the human soul and its necessity.

    Topology studies manifolding of geometric spaces across symmetry, with a constant, the invariant point that anchors a geometric space as intelligible. This property of topology applied to anchoring of human as waveform is a scientific-sounding way of talking about the necessity of the human soul.
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities


    Most criminal offenses that were newly and recently defined in modern times require the defendant to prove that he is innocent.

    Reversing the burden of evidence is in fact exactly what allowed to define these new modern offenses.

    It is indeed unreasonable to expect the defendant to prove his innocence.
    Tarskian

    I think I see this is something akin to a scientist not being able to prove her theory correct. However, a naysayer to the theory, acting in the role of prosecutor, might succeed in disproving it.

    The presumption of innocence or correctness can be possibly disproven, but the reverse, requiring proof across unlimited time and space, renders unfair.

    So, in our courts we have two unfair situations: a) a prosecutor who knows the defendant is guilty, but loses the case due to lack of evidence; b) the defense attorney who knows the defendant is innocent, but loses the case due to lack of evidence.

    Now the challenge is to see how this situation in our courts connects with Gödel’s Incompleteness and, going forward from there, to understand the meaning of the disconnection between truth and proof.