Logic is a tautology calculator, but human discourse is not tautological/numerical. "Exist" has no precise meaning. To put the later Wittgenstein in a nutshell w/ Hamlet: word is not like number. It's analogy-based, continuous, blurry. With very few exceptions, it can only give you "truth," not Truth.

Words are simultaneously digital and continuous. Concepts unify qualia and other concepts. But this unification is never perfect. It's analogical. Wittgenstein says half of this in TLP. At some point I'll post it. Joyce implied as much in FW. Hegel supplemented Kant. Dialectical logic is the logic of Word as Word, not Word as Number.

Of course. Why didn't you think of that, Z.? Especially that "truth" not truth thing.

Evolution? What else? But what has that to do with it?

What if, via evolution, we developed the capacity for consciousness, but consciousness, whatever it might be, was a latent characteristic of the universe at large?

This would mean that mind, or intelligence, was not dependent upon the brain, but visca versa.

How does evolution account for minds?

What if, via evolution, we developed the capacity for consciousness, but consciousness, whatever it might be, was a latent characteristic of the universe at large?

This would mean that mind, or intelligence, was not dependent upon the brain, but visca versa.

Of course. Why didn't you think of that, Z.? Especially that "truth" not truth thing.

Can you rephrase the question?

Logic can give you Truth, yes. Because logic is a truism. In realm of discourse applied to spatial-temporal experience, there is only "truth."

It's really quite simple upon reflection. Man is both transcendental as the structuring agent of his experience, and incidental, as this experience is continuous flux. Man can only practice philosophy to the degree that his discourse is both transcendental and incidental. His discourse is first a naming of things and slowly the synthesis of abstraction, which is accomplished by the negation of particulars. By means of abstraction, men such as Kant achieved transcendental self-consciousness.

Science is concerned with the empirical, the hypothetical. What it borrows from philosophy is number. Number is nakedly transcendental, for those with eyes to see. But the scientific method is engered by discourse, which is dialectical as logos, unlike number, is a twin-transcendental--both digital and continuous/analogical. I'm practicing philosophy right now exactly by distinguishing/presenting transcendentals. Noumena is only a negation.

To the degree that philosophy abandons the transcendental, pragmatism is its superior manifestation. Pragmatism has sense to admit this abandonment of the transcendental, to more fully embrace the temporal.
Parmenides on one end. Nietzsche on the other. Truth or metaphor. Truth is 1. Metaphor is -1, or 0. <--We have one number, ladies and gentlemen. And also a minus sign. Appearance = 1. Reality = not.

What if, indeed!

In the meantime, what about my argument?

I'll try to remember all this. But it would help if you connected it with the ongoing conversation. I am a little hazy about that connection.

Now, logic exists outside of human knowledge and perception in some netherworld I suppose. Ha, ha!!

Appearance and reality. From a logical/digital point of view, appearence is one and reality is negation. Remember, noumena is a limiting concept. It's like the god of negative theology.

From a dialectical point of view, the reality-appearance relation is a polar spectrum. Word cannot draw a line twixt "reality" and "appearance."

Logic is numerical is digital. Word is concrete is metaphorical is continuous. (But word is also numerical, but this is obscured by its concreteness.)

To discuss this distinction dialectically is to write on water. For words are water when what you want is stone. The "stone" Truth of the matter is Appearence = 1, Reality = negation.

Are you all right?

But, as philosophers and rational people, shouldn't we look for good reasons to believe things?

Please restate your argument.

Especially that "truth" not truth thing.

Condencension aside, consider this. We are told that the key driver for the development of our intellectual faculties (and everything else we are) is adaptive necessity, acting about chance mutations.

So (1) why should we have any notion of truth whatever, aside from that which is relevant to the purpose of the propogation of the genome? Adaptive necessity cares not one whit for any kind of truth, something which its most enthusiastic advocate Dawkins has admitted. And (2) why should it be that evolution has produced in us the ability to deduce on the basis of thought-experiments and mathematical logic, the origin of the cosmos and the existence of objects which cannot be detected?

These are not scientific questions at all. Science assumes mathematics, but science has no explanation of why mathematics works as it does. The Greeks had a theory about this - it was the imprint of the divine intelligence in the soul of man. Our little minds are but a small reflection of the great intelligence which underlies all creation.

Now you don't have to believe this. But it is a traditional argument for idalism, and I think, a very good one.

The trouble is, of course, that if Idealism implies that the Moon does not antedate people, no argument for Idealism means much, since the conclusion of any such argument would be false.

and I say again that the view that idealism means that 'the world exists in only the mind of people' is a false depiction of idealism. It is not now and never has been the idealist position.

[SIZE=+1]What Idealism Is Not[/SIZE]
First, let me dispel one of the greatest myths about idealism: Idealism does not deny the reality of the observable world.

No idealist (at least no sensible idealist) has believed that there is no observable world - that the world we see, hear, touch, smell and taste is not there at all.

Idealists typically believe in the existence of the observable world, just like everyone else. They do not regard the observable world as a figment of anyone's imagination. What makes idealists different is their understanding of the nature of the observable world. Most people think of the observable world as something independent of minds - something that could continue to exist even if all minds were to disappear from the universe. Idealists go beyond this view; they think of the observable world as depending, in some way or other, on minds and the activities of minds. According to the idealist view of reality, if there had never been any minds of any sort in the universe, then there would not have been a universe at all. But the observable world is not merely something that people dream up. Some idealists (especially Berkeley, whom I discuss below) even have claimed that there is no matter - but by "matter" these idealists generally mean a non-mental, mind-independent substance. Claiming that the world is dependent on minds isn't the same as claiming that the world isn't really there!

Another common belief about idealism is that it is contrary to reason - or, as some people put it, "crazy." This too is a myth that needs to be put to rest. Most idealistic thought, particularly in the West, is based on logical arguments of various sorts. In itself, idealism isn't contrary to reason or logic. The worst that might be said is that it's contrary to common sense. But this same charge can be leveled at many of our beliefs about the world - such as the true belief that the Sun is a star, which contradicts the common-sense observation that the Sun is just too big to be a star!


Still another myth about idealism is that idealism is contrary to science.

Actually, the idealistic concept of the material world is logically compatible with the scientific view of matter. Idealism does not say that the natural world is unreal; it does not say that the laws of nature are mere inventions of the human mind; it does not say we can change the world magically by thinking differently. Nor does idealism place humanity at the center of the universe; it merely assigns conscious minds (of any kind, human or nonhuman) to a rather important role in the universe. Most of the best-known idealists of the western world have been either scientists or scientifically oriented philosophers. And as anyone knows who follows the popular scientific literature, some scientists start sounding like idealists when they discuss the picture of reality provided by quantum physics.
Also, idealism does not have any direct relation to the idea of "mind over matter." Although idealism affirms that matter depends on mind, idealism does NOT require you to believe that your own mental processes (or even everyone's mental processes together) can affect the actual course of material events. Some individuals who regard themselves as skeptics have associated idealism with belief in paranormal phenomena, and have tried to tar both beliefs with the same brush. Actually this is silly, since idealism neither supports nor contradicts belief in the paranormal.