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backfromthedead
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Wittgenstein
#8052450 - 02/21/08 03:53 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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"Wittgenstein uses, as an analogy, the field of vision. Our field of vision does not, for us, have a visual boundary, just because there is nothing outside it, and in like manner our logical world has no logical boundary because our logic knows of nothing outside it. These considerations lead him to a somewhat curious discussion of Solipsism. Logic, he says, fills the world. The boundaries of the world are also its boundaries. In logic, therefore, we cannot say, there is this and this in the world, but not that, for to say so would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the boundaries of the world as if it could contemplate these boundaries from the other side also. What we cannot think we cannot think, therefore we also cannot say what we cannot think."
from Wittgenstein Tractus Logico-Philosophicus
Any thoughts?? How might Logic explore the thoughts that usually aren't there??
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backfromthedead
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More:
"Mr. Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said, thus suggesting to the skeptical reader that possibly there may be some loophole through a hierarchy of languages, or by some other exit. The whole subject of ethics, for example, is placed by Mr. Wittgenstein in the mystical inexpressible region. Never the less he is capable of conveying his ethical opinions. His defence would be that what he calls the mystical can be shown, although it cannot be said."
Any ideas on language hierarchies or other exits?? Do you agree or disagree??
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Entropymancer


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I admit I'm a little high, but this quote lost me right off the bat... what does he mean
Quote:
backfromthedead said: "Our field of vision does not, for us, have a visual boundary, just because there is nothing outside it"
I just don't get it... my field of vision has a boundary. I can't see behind my head, I can't see past the mountain in front of me.
I'm confuzzled.
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Sophistic Radiance
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There's no line showing you where your vision ends, like the box of a TV screen. It's just stuff that is not there.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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Entropymancer


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Maybe there's not an explicitly defined black line drawn at the point behind which I can no longer see...
But it's really like there is: my hair. My hair hangs in my peripheral vision, so it's very clear where exactly that point is: it's where my hair dissapears. Or even with my hair pulled back; there's a very definite line along the wall next to me behind which I cannot see without turning my eyes or head... That's not a boundary to my field of vision?
I don't know, the whole analogy falls apart for me as I read it; I just can't parse what it's trying to say.
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backfromthedead
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I knew that would be an issue. Logic...
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NiamhNyx
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I tend to agree with the OP. There is no sharp delination between my field of vision and that which is outside of it. It sort of fades out and when I try and focus my awareness on the edge, I can't make out the specific point at which it stops. It's just a lot harder to focus there, and the temptation is to shift my eyes to compensate.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Wittgenstein [Re: NiamhNyx]
#8053249 - 02/21/08 06:54 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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My field of vision is very sharply delineated.
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backfromthedead
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No wonder you seem to see everything in black and white. That's just a prop. POP.
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Orbus
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Wittgenstein = Actually understanding Wittgenstein =
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------------------------------------------------------ Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together. - Alan Watts
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BlueCoyote
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I don't know if logic transcends our world. If I used Wittgenstein's analogy, we also only assume to see outside of our field of vision, what we have seen before. But that is an evolutionary process, as small kids haven't seen so much and assume a monster behind every corner, in the edit:closet and under the bed. Later we are able to relearn to think the unassumable. Maybe to extend logic beyond human context.
So for me, sometimes it's good to loose one's naivety of a kid, in other cases it's that what brings us a step ahead.
Edited by BlueCoyote (02/23/08 03:38 PM)
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backfromthedead
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Wells... I hear you. I was kind of into the idea that with the aid of some psychedelics... You push the 'field of vision' wide open thus allowing immediate experience of what is beyond usual boundaries. The mystical, I guess. Or what has been called God. Easy to see really. Hard to word logically and convincingly.
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BlueCoyote
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Yes. One would have to write all books of the world to describe g*d. It's much easier to focus on some aspects, then it's hard enough to find a logical conclusion - not saying it's impossible
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backfromthedead
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'not saying it's impossible'
Right o. Seems easy enough to come to certain conclusions regarding what is outside of our immediate reality or consciousness when ingesting certain chemicals... Hard though to actually say anything about this 'area'. However, these things can be thought... Therefore they exist in some sense. I just wonder what the best model describing this reality is. I've had a lot of experience dealing with this 'spillover' of info using the mental health community's model. Talk of misfiring neurons and cross firing... Shamanism seems a worthy study. Is it logical to assume that the spirit world exists in any other sense than during illness?? Or is illness logically the result of being reunited unexpectedly with some immediate yet 'outside' event, experience, or data??
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deimya
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I think the question is moot: logic through thinking is part of the world and thus does not and cannot transcend it. If said logic is not found in objects, then it is at least found in one's head. Yet this is saying the same thing really since the only objective thing you can say about a human's reality is that everything is subjective, everything is a first person experience through the senses and the mind. What you cannot experience you cannot know, cannot think and therefore cannot say without being wrong. Simply put the world is as big as the mind's reach. The further the mind reaches into it, the deeper it roots into the mind. Somehow it is an integral system where there's no embedded hierarchy.
Yeah, one's universe is made of thinking and perceiving goo. Alas the goo only fools itself when it thinks otherwise, for this fallacy is born of inductions and assumptions.
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deimya
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Unless the world accepts an infinite level of recursion, every "right" model of reality will only be right in the sense that it is a good approximation. What would it require of reality for it to think of itself and to embed itself into an absolute model ? Such a model should at least explain how it came out with a model of itself in the first place.
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Re: Wittgenstein [Re: deimya]
#8062045 - 02/23/08 07:13 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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'Simply put the world is as big as the mind's reach.'
So the objective world is a sum of subjective experiences??
'What would it require of reality for it to think of itself and to embed itself into an absolute model ?'
All possibilities accounted for.
'Such a model should at least explain how it came out with a model of itself in the first place.'
The model should or the thinker??
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deimya
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Quote:
backfromthedead said: So the objective world is a sum of subjective experiences??
A human's objective world is, yes. How did we came up with this concept in the first place ? Counterexamples are welcome. I find it irrelevant to ask whether there's an "external" objective world or not since we could never have direct access to it. Only we think we have. There's this clever saying which explains it better: I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. 
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backfromthedead said: The model should or the thinker??
Yes, the thinker for one should find the thinker in the model. The model will never do anything by itself, it is just a representation of the thinker's thought patterns.
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backfromthedead
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Re: Wittgenstein [Re: deimya]
#8063598 - 02/24/08 08:32 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Right on.
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backfromthedead
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'logic through thinking is part of the world and thus does not and cannot transcend it.'
What about when thinking logically on those experiences that seemingly lie outside of our normal awareness?? Those transcendental experiences. I'd say that Logic is a part of the subjective experience. Of mind. Therefore Logic can dive deeply into transcendence, no??
But then again, those experiences are part of this verifiable world I guess. Just not here now.
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deimya
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I tend to agree with what you said. I don't see any reason in imposing an hierarchy of experiences. I don't know whether it is a form of puritanism and of protection of the sacred, but I think it would be rather natural to try and apply logic, of a different kind or not, and to question it. There's no valid logical reason to dismiss these experiences or to set them apart, only taboos and dogmas.
This is no hail at reductionism, only a call for understanding.
Edited by deimya (02/24/08 11:13 AM)
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Neanderthal
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Re: Wittgenstein [Re: deimya]
#8098608 - 03/03/08 05:21 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Wittgenstein debunks himself. Read Philosophical Investigations, instead.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
Wittgenstein debunks himself.
I know the feeling - then I got a girlfriend.
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Neanderthal
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
Wittgenstein debunks himself.
I know the feeling - then I got a girlfriend.
-------------------- "I will give you consciousness expansion that will turn your blood to ice water." -- Terence McKenna
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