and the deep structure is based on the alignment of the brain and body to allow an energy flow

Ostensive doesn't necessarily mean literally pointing. It can mean just providing examples and there are many ways to provide examples from holding up objects to pantomime to writing sentences on a chalk board. I tend to think immediately of a pointing finger but this limits ostension too much.

When we provide examples of how "if" is used in a sentence we are pointing at the deep grammatical structures that the sign "if" plays a part in representing.

I'm not sure if Chomsky said anything about this but it sounds interesting. Can you explain further?

How do we learn the "meaning" of a word like "if?"

Or of "and" in the logical sense? Or of "not?" You can't point at an "and" or a "not" if a child asks you what these words mean. I think we take this for granted.

Are we born ready to use certain logical "operators"? How much of our philosophy is based upon these "operators"? What do we know about them? Can we even question them without using them? (I know this sort of question isn't new, but it interests me.)

Linguistics is a field of study. What I think you're getting at is something like "could we be chasing our own tails because we unconsciously use a set of operators". I think language can certainly confuse, but not to that extent.

Language may confuse us, of course. But why is that language's fault? Wittgenstein wrote that when philosophers are confused by language it reminded him of an anthropologist who is trying to learn the language of an exotic tribe who puts the queerest constructions on the ordinary things said by people in that tribe. They, of course, don't mean anything like what the anthropologist thinks they mean.

I wonder if 'if' is the ultimate expression of biological imperative. If so, reducing it to, as you say, "lower terms", is the most basic of instincts for living entities to keep on existing and as such transcends language and becomes a non-verbal cause-and-effect mechanism. There's your atom, right there. No words, just action or non-action.

What I think you're getting at is something like "could we be chasing our own tails because we unconsciously use a set of operators". I think language can certainly confuse, but not to that extent.

They are just sounds to which we've assigned a certain agreed upon meaning for purposes of explanation within our tribe.

What would W. have said about Chomsky's deep grammatical structure? The theory offers a unifying structure, perhaps even a sort of rule book, to Wittgenstein's disparate language games. Would he have considered Chomsky a confused and overreaching anthropologist?

Or of "and" in the logical sense? Or of "not?" You can't point at an "and" or a "not" if a child asks you what these words mean. I think we take this for granted.

At any rate, if I went with what I believe is the case, if isn't the referent of "if" since "if" has no referent; hence, there is nothing in this world to instantiate the word "if".

The Transcendental Logic is that part of the Critique where Kant investigates the understanding and its role in constituting our knowledge. The understanding is defined as the faculty of the mind which deals with concepts (A51-52/B75-76).

I think I see where you are going. But perhaps you don't see what I'm trying at. We use words like "if" successfully. And what is the referent of "if"? "If" is a way to connect phrases logically. Would you agree? What is the referent of "not"? What does "not" add to a phrase? How does one express such a thing? Do you see what I mean? How does one express that notion of unity. Of oneness. "This is this and not that." I think we are dealing with intuitive concepts of identity and negation.

"Not" is one (and the most used) way of expressing the negation operator. The negation operator simply reverses the truth value of the proposition on which it operates. There is nothing deep or metaphysical about it, other than what you invent. There may be metaphysical mysteries, but that is not one of them.

Hey there, Ken! I hope we can get along now....

I don't mind if you disagree with me on this. I hope you don't mind if I disagree with you. I know how we use this negation operator, of course. But that, in my view, is a formalization of something intuitive.

Hey, if you don't like the word "metaphysics," we can leave it out. I enjoyed playing with it precisely because it was so out of fashion. This was a bit vain. But so are most philosopher types.

I don't mind if you don't like Kant. I don't agree with everything he says either. But I think his investigation of what remains constant in human thoughts is fascinating. I don't see how we can point to andness, notness, ifness, and the like, even though we have undoubtedly formalized their use.

This is subject is not necessarily any more "metaphysical" than a discussion of how the brain processes information from the optic nerves. Of course there is a blind spot in each eye, where the nerve connects to the retina.

I think formal logic helps reveal the sort of "atomic" intuitions I'm looking at. If we remove everything contingent and try to look at the most general structure of human thought, I think we discover something. I'm not saying it is necessary for life on earth to investigate such things, but I find it interesting. You are of course welcome not to, or to call the game a hoax.

Logic is a priori. We cannot think of it being otherwise.

But then again maybe Im wrong haha.

Well, we are near the same page. Are you saying you don't find the a priori interesting? But this "a prior" is another way of saying the eternal, at least so far as man is concerned. For me, the existence of even a small bit of the eternal among all that changes is quite fascinating, and worthy of investigation.

Of course I should stress that rather than being troubled by such questions, I feel enriched by them. In my opinion, the world is all too often perceived as boring, obvious, etc. Some of our simplest concepts are perhaps the most mysterious of all. Perhaps it's only our constant successful use of them that obscures their strangeness.

I do not think there is a mystery here per se; we have words to express the logic of what we want to say. The words themselves function according to our thought, as they are representation of thought. Our thoughts are logical, at least from Kant's Transcendental Categories (Reality, Negation, Limitation), and also others who would assent to our thought being logical (Wittgenstein for example). We can only think in terms of logic. Negation is just another form or thought that we use . Do not see a whole lot of mystery there. Logic is a priori. We cannot think of it being otherwise.

But then again maybe Im wrong haha.

Oh the world is not boring to me; at least it has not been for the past two years (which coincidentally was around the time I picked up John Locke's Essay Concerning Human understanding, and began my plunge into philosophy).

The a priori is always interesting; unfortunately I havent investigated enough, and if I do I always end up at Kant (for some odd reason).

The eternal... I wonder what people mean by that sometimes. Im not a big fan of using it. I do not feel as though I have a firm grasp of it (but who does?).

I enjoy the questions, as well as the thrashing I get sometimes from people when I do, or talk about philosophy. They are enriching... the questions that is.

"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring. " -L.W.

The word if might refer to an evaluation of a hypothetical event. "If I paint the bathroom wall blue... will it be wonderful or atrocious?" So we're imagining a possible future event. It seems that logic is circling the drain here. Is it logical that the future will unfold in some meaningful way... that future events will be governed by the same principles that we see in the present? Is it logic or just assumption at work? Answer: assumption. What accounts for that type of assumption? Dogs do it... at least they appear to.

The word if might refer to an evaluation of a hypothetical event. "If I paint the bathroom wall blue... will it be wonderful or atrocious?" So we're imagining a possible future event. It seems that logic is circling the drain here. Is it logical that the future will unfold in some meaningful way... that future events will be governed by the same principles that we see in the present? Is it logic or just assumption at work? Answer: assumption. What accounts for that type of assumption? Dogs do it... at least they appear to.

I know I always say this, but I think you would love Kojeve's book, because he traces eternity, time, and the concept from Parmenides to Hegel. And he writes brilliantly on Kant. To me, "eternal" just means timeless. The "a priori" is timeless, right? So Kant is really talking about the relationship between time and eternity. Or that's my opinion. And that's why questions like this amuse me. Carl Jung looked at a priori spiritual instincts, to put it in a clumsy way. I think we philosopher types in general want our the truth we seek to be as timeless as possible. Otherwise we would probably look at more directly applied subjects. Just my thought.
Of course I know "eternal" has certain associations that make it questionable. But let's call a spade a spade, say I. The transcendental is the eternal. I offer this humbly. I like to think of the transcendental as a sort of cooky cutter that experience has to pass thru before we are conscious of it. But this "cooky cutter" and the philosophy of Kant for instance are all of course part of our conscious experience. So the interesting task is looking at our conscious experience to find its unchanging structure. I feel that's what Kant had to do. He said somewhere that coming up with those categories was one of the more dififcult things a philosopher could accomplish. Nietzsche quoted him on this so I don't know where Kant said it.
I know I've sometimes compared Kant unfavorably with Hegel, but Hegel is impossible without Kant. Still, Hegel explains the genesis of philosophical self-consciousness, the structure of TIME. I'll shut up, thought. I''m getting off topic...

which is the eternity (or not) of logical operators like "if or and not":flowers:

The word if might refer to an evaluation of a hypothetical event. "If I paint the bathroom wall blue... will it be wonderful or atrocious?" So we're imagining a possible future event. It seems that logic is circling the drain here. Is it logical that the future will unfold in some meaningful way... that future events will be governed by the same principles that we see in the present? Is it logic or just assumption at work? Answer: assumption. What accounts for that type of assumption? Dogs do it... at least they appear to.