cladking

 

It isn't "patently true". I and many other people don't think it is true.

 

As consciousness appears to arise from the operation of the brain and zygotes don't have brains, this sounds like nonsense. But if it is supported by 500 years of science, you should be able to provide some evidence for it.

You apparently missed my meaning. All human beings were at one time zygotes. before this they were something else. Indeed females are born with all the ova they'll ever have so you could say we originate as distinct potentialities within our grandmothers. Before this we are highly indistinct potentialities.

Until science has a means to measure and define consciousness we really have no choice but to define it by its effects. We can observe all things with consciousness to behave in manners consistent with their own best interests as they are able to determine that best interest. Birds head for cover when a hawk is hunting because it's in their best interest. If discovery or invention is required to obtain cover they are quite capable of some times making that "mental leap". This requires cleverness not intelligence.

What we call "intelligence" is not only poorly defined but the tests for it primarily guage the speed at which an individual can think rather than his inventiveness which is the only true measure at what does exist in reality; cleverness. Cleverness is an event and not a condition. If it were a condition it would not be maintained by individuals whose brain is deteriorating due to disease. Supposedly "intelligent" individuals maintain their so-called intelligence but lose the ability to discover or invent. They lose the ability to apply their faculties to the moment. No cleverness exists until there exists a result. No "intelligence" as we define the term exists at all.

You want experimental testing to support this but experimental testing is centuries from being able to address such simple issues that are easily seen from other perspectives. It's the other perspective that is in agreement with the primitive experimentation that has been done to date.

From the perspective of the science already completed it's nearly impossible to see the reality. Read the examples I use to make these points and try to refute them. Most of themn are simple observation and can't be refuted. I'm well aware that scientific models are not in agreement but this is a matter of perspective. You say a beaver is acting on instinct and I say some beaver must have invented a means to build a dam. You say only humans are conscious and that you exist because you think. I say you think in language and you can't see this because of the way you think. No, I can't prove anything because science is centuries away from making heads or tails of the brain and perception. In the meantime simple observation and logic seem to support the very simple idea that animals and perhaps all life has some conciousness. Even some of the primitive science is highly supportive of this. Plants grow better under conditions that would not be expected to have an effect on them. Hell, the sassafras trees around here wilt a little bit everytime I walk by with a shovel and think about trying to transplant one.

People choose to believe they are at the crown of creation and they see only what they know because nothing else can be understood or fits with their beliefs. The actual science and observation show that animals are conscious and it shows they are sometimes more "intelligent" than humans. Logic suggests a simple causation for all these phenomena and I believe it's that reality is being masked by language and misinterpreted because of beliefs.

People seem to think I'm claiming to have a better grasp of reality or a better understanding. No! I'm merely claiming that viewing it from the inside is different than viewing it from models and belief. I am suggesting these differences can be directly exploited to help science and the human condition.

I see you avoided presenting any evidence again. So this is yet another of your claims that we can put down to an over-active imagination.

 

 

 

When you say things that are patently true and supported by 500 years of modern science the onus is on someone else to show there's a flaw. Why don't you show some (human) consciousness that didn't begin with a zygote?

I thought you said AI was impossible.

 

Not exactly. There's no such thing as intelligence so artificial intelligence is impossible and is a dead end. Of course there's a mass market for these things for answering phones and Rachel would have a new weapon when she illegally calls me to sign up for a lower rate credit card. Then the phone company can install the same machine to answer calls from irate customers. The federal agencies wouldn't need human operators to ignore complaints and could use these machines. Imagine getting a "live" operator when you call who can ignore your needs rather than having to negotiate a ten minute phone tree before you are ignored!!! It would truly be a brave newer world!

But I digress. Despite the multi million dollar market for "Ai" there's no practical purpose. We are spending more trying to invent it than it will ever be worth.

Machine "intelligence" will be real.

 

 

You can believe that but it goes against everything every AI specialist, computer programmer, biologist and pretty much everyone else thinks. You are ascribing a "magical" property to human consciousness. There isn't.

Aren't you ascribing "magical properties" to consciousness by suggesting there are concepts that can't be held? This seems to fly in the face of definitions. I'm merely suggesting that we mistake consciousness for intelligence. Everybody is conscious, even animals are conscious but without at least some rudimentary consciousness a machine can't do anything useful. If a machine can't invent something and then tell you how then it's still just a machine like a toaster or a conveyor belt.

 

Where does it come from then?

 

A zygote.

Everything that exists has always existed in some form and will continue to exist in some form after it returns to dust. This is reality.

The Turing test is flawed.

It is seeking to identify consciousness through imitation rather than consciousness directly. Even if a machine can be devised that would imitate consciousness it would have no practical application other than confusing me when it answers the phone. The point of consciousness is the point of life itself and life itself is survival, procreation, etc. Life accomplishes this through observation and the application of existing knowledge to the moment. This means life invents and discovers and these are the hallmark of "intelligence".

If a beaver can figure out how to build a dam then a computer should be able to do something to benefit itself to say it is really intelligent. It should a snap for it to start redesigning its own circuits. We may not be so far from this as you think.

 

 

You can believe that but it goes against everything every AI specialist, computer programmer, biologist and pretty much everyone else thinks. You are ascribing a "magical" property to human consciousness. There isn't.

Really?!

There's nothing magical about consciousness. It's so simple a butterfly could do it.

But it's not the magic everyone thinks it is. It doesn't spring into existence with the thinker. I am therefore I think.

Ai is doing it in the same backward way as Descartes.

Ai would be magic incarnate.

To put it another way, the problem with Ai isn't the "A", it's the "i"; there is no such thing. They've put the cart before the horse because intelligence has never been properly defined. If it were they'd see what they are really experiencing is the "magic" of consciousness. Between these two fundamental errors it is safe to predict they will never invent Ai.

You are ascribing magical properties to the human mind. Elephants paint and monkeys can perform better on some "intelligence" questions than college students. Animals have to be taught human language so we can talk to them. "Intelligence" is a human construct with no real referent.

 

 

 

 

We may not be able to do it with 100% accuracy but we can do pretty well. Why do you keep making these blatantly false statements?

 

Great!!! Then tell me who's winning the next election. What's the date and time that man sets foot on Mars? Should Joe marry Shiela or Anne? Are any robins left in Indiana or are all of them already south for the winter. What's the weather next Tuesday? Should the government endanger the lives of billions to combat global warming? Will the educational system in the US continue to destroy the lives of countless millions of people in the inner city? What empiracal evidence do you have to predict the best means of saving these people from prison and drugs?

It's knowing everything that got us tothe point that we now have an economy based on waste and finding ever more efficient means to dsestroy products and shovel them back into the earth.

Science can answer none of the important questions and when math is applied they come up with an infinite number of ramps building an infinite number of pyramids at worst and calculating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin at best.

It's not science failing it's the people who wear blinders and can't see that a reality exists.

There are seven billion people on an unsustainable course and this implies great suffering in the future unless we first change course. Science could be the solution. Technology could arise to create energy from fusion and it would take us decades to dehydrate the planet by means of escalating waste. There are more certaing ways to change course.

What does "reality is axiomatic" even mean?

 

Better to ask late than never. Simply stated it is the simple assumption that a single reality exists that we each experience differently.

Well, that's a new one. What is you evidence for this?

 

Logic. My unique understanding of the nature of language. And Anthropology.

Your arrogant claims to special knowledge or vision are getting tedious. Especially as this superpower doesn't seem to do anything but make you post nonsense.

 

You are attaching way more significance to this than is warranted. There are far smarter people than me and this isn't one man job. I'm merely claiming to be a generalist who has (re)discovered another kind of science used by animals. I have no superpowers or even special insights, merely a different perspective.

You could give it a try.

 

After careful reading of many of your posts and occasional limited exchanges with you, over many months and probably years, I tend to a provisional conclusion. I say this, not in order to flame, or insult, but I have placed you in a box carrying the label "self-deluded, egotistical nutter".

 

The walls of the box are paper thin and could be easily breached by the change of style recommended by Phi. Perhaps you are indifferent to which box people put you in, or at least indifferent to the views of people who inhabit the box you may have placed me in. But if you wish your views to be seriously entertained, then following Phi's advice would be a valuable step towards that.

 

As is so often the case, the choice is yours.

Your opinion does mean something to me but I'm unconcerned with whom I inhabit the box.

Perhaps a change in tactics will be possible where a change in "style" is not.

Perhaps I can just wait until events catch up with me. It should be soon, I believe.

In either case I'm going to try to bow out of this thread. I will keep up and post as necessary.

Just to be sure people understand my position I will reiterate that reality is natural logic. It is the same natural logic that underlies math. There is nothing at all logical about modern language.

 

It seems that your style of "trying to make a point" is at odds with your desire to communicate. It hasn't been very effective for the last three years, bringing down all kinds of calls for clarity which mostly went unfulfilled (except in your mind).

 

Perhaps a change of style is needed. Isn't the point of communication to successfully learn from each other, and teach each other? Your style is keeping your probability of success low on both counts. That's not logical.

 

Shaka, When the Walls Fell.

You may well be right but I doubt I can employ any other language.

Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel [can never step on the same planet again].

The river Temark is never the same river from one winter to another and as Rod Serling often made clear you can't go home again even when it's in Walking Distance or you're Booth Templeton at Freddy iachinoes'.

Darmok on the ocean.

 

But it is impossible to know anything about "reality itself". All we have is our empirical observations. (And stuff you make up, apparently.)

 

 

 

Perhaps we're getting somewhere now.

The reason we can't know about reality itself is that it is excluded from metaphysics except as it affects experiment. This is why we are building models and believing 1 + 1 = 2. These concepts fit the results of experiment. So we are studying reality indirect. This is consistent with the way we think and percieve which is a product of language. Due to the nature of modern language each person percieves things differently necessitating the removal of the concept of reality from metaphysics.

But reality doesn't cease to exist when we cease to see it or employ it metaphysically. It doesn't cease to exist when we see our beliefs and models preferentially to it. It's as real as a heart attack. If we look at reality from the inside we have to leave language and models behind. Only your experience is relevant here.

No, you're right. There's almost nothing known about reality itself but when you visit you'll see that this appies to everything else as well. We don't know nuch about reality from the inside or the outside. It's the perspective from the inside that I believe is critical and might solve not only the problem with modern science but some of the problems with modern language. The repercussions can be very far reaching.

 

If we're talking about science, visceral knowledge can go pound sand. We want empirical knowledge.

Yes. Exactly!

I'm not talking about "science". I've been talking about reality as being axiomatic. If I were talking about "science" as you percieve it, I wouldn't be saying one plus one can not ever equal exactly two. I'm talking about reality as viewed through the lenses of two sciences and my own unique understanding of generalism. Everything I'm talking about has always concerned REALITY itself rather than the means and metaphysics we now use to try to grasp it. I'm saying science understands the tiniest bit or reality and people are mostly seeing reality only in terms of this tiny bit that science understands. I'm trying to show this by proving that science is only true within its metaphysics. When science considers things outside its metaphysics then it is necessarily being misapplied. It's true that force equals mass times acceleration but this equation can never be perfectly applied in the real world. It can be applied accurately enough to be useful only in the short term and the large scale iff it's done correctly.

You can think of it this way; I'm not so much talking about the proper application of theory to the real world as focusing on how this application can't be perfect due to our lack of knowledge of all the forces and their quantities. We can't predict the future because the future is dependent on things that are yet to occur. It is ALWAYS dependent on things that are yet to occur and this is part of the reason that understanding and observation based on language and science can obscure seeing aspects of reality. I believe it is to every individuals benefit to understand that things look very different from a perspective where reality is axiomatic. Unfortunately it requires a different perspective and this perspective may be impossible if you approach it already knowing reality through language and scientific models or religious beliefs. If you can't grasp the concept that even in aggregate since the beginning of time (40,000 years ago) the human race knows virtually nothing at all about reality then the vantage may as well be on Alpha Centarii.

From the vantage where the observer is a part of reality rather than being infinitely detached through language, things look different. Some things are easier to see and some are harder. It's the ones that are easier to see that are important. Or more accurately, it's the FACT that some things are easier to see that is important and it has critical scientific and metaphysical implications, I believe.

By the by it feels funny to say "I believe" since it's obvious this is what I believe when I say it. Indeed, from my perspective I don't really believe it at all but rather I think there is a significant possibility that the statement is a reflection of reality. Yes, I talk different but this difference is part of the message I'm trying to communicate. The words people use tell more than the message itself but also are a window to their thoughts. For most people the blinds are down here, though. I had to look through to see the meaning of what people were saying because I think differently. I seem to be able to hear how vacuous most words are and most people don't. Without an analysis of peoples' word choice I often miss the meaning. Indeed, I often miss the meaning. I use statement and tautologies to direct the listener to my meaning. I don't know another way to talk except I can say in my opinion one apple plus one apple equals two apples in most practical applications. Ironically, It's easier to get through to infants and children than most adults.

 

I'm not the one who believes this either. But it seems a bit ironic that you always seem to believe your observations about "people in general" are to be taken as a quasi-sum of reality. Your style is to dismiss arguments (in your mind only) with wide gestures designed to simultaneously sweep them away and lift the rug at the same time.

 

So this claim seems a bit pot/kettle-ish. Let me mix my metaphors further and remind you that if your brush is too wide, you're could be painting yourself too.

I'm not trying to paint myself so much differently than everyone else. There's probably only a single way to experience consciousness and just some variations on the theme. The primary thing that sets me apart is merely that I try not to form beliefs and try not to see the world in terms of beliefs. I probably succeed at the first better than at the second. I try to see the world in terms of visceral knowledge.

I'm well aware that the world is a complicated place and that people are in many ways the most complex thing in it. I try not to make over sweeping generalizations. Most human characteristics and the characteristics of "intelligence" all lie on continua and they come together in interesting and unique ways in individuals. Indeed, individuals aren't really even an aggregation of these characteristics anyway but are rather unique in virtually all possible ways.

I make a lot of absolute statements and use a lot of tautologies because I'm trying to make a point, communicate, rather than to describe reality or a logical framework for understanding reality. Somehow it just doesn't seem obvious to most people that we aren't communicating. It's more accurate to say that we are using language to teach about our perceptions of reality and then communicating through these perceptions. We are building bridges between people through language but unless we're on the same page there is very little actual communication. This wouldn't be so bad if we simply were aware that communication is failing and that communication can sometimes be critical.

People can't seem to see the perspective imposed on each us through language and unless this can be seen I doubt any individual can assume a different perspective of consciousness. Many individuals are quite adept at seeing from different perspectives but all of these individuals take their language and its beliefs with them when they change their vantage. It sometimes seems my task is impossible.

 

This can be shown to be false using exactly the same level of evidence and logic that you have employed. The argument goes as follows: no they haven't.

Then how can different specialists look at exactly the same thing and see something entirely different?

And then each believes he understands that thing and that anything he might not understand simply requires a question to the right specialist.

 

If one argues that these things are not real, how is that an argument that they are the sum total of reality? That makes no sense.

I'm not the one who believes that models and math are the sum total of reality. People in general (especially scientists) have taken the models as the sum total of reality (less a bit we don't know yet) for centuries now. Even as new knowledge is gained and old beliefs fall by the wayside (generationally) people tend to see the models as the reality itself and they don't see that the greater reality exists at all except in terms of something to be sought by science. We see what we understand so what people see is the models rather than the reality. Many people don't even really believe reality exists at all and instead believe each person experiences his own reality or that math is the only reflection of reality. As such if math shows an infinite number of ramps for an infinite number of pyramids then they have no problem accepting it as a reality even in absence of the experimental proof.

But this lack of reality applies only to human constructs like math, science, and words. It doesn't mean that reality itself doesn't exist, merely that the way in which we see it is highly incomplete and in some cases very kaleidoscopic.

I'm simply trying to speak of the reality but people get bogged down in the words and their beliefs. If you believe that one plus one equals two has any real world referent to which it can be perfectly applied you might not be able to see this. If you believe that you have a complete understanding of any event, process, or fact in the real world then you won't understand the concept that you REALLY don't. If you do understand these things then it's a tiny step to understanding that people see their world in terms of models and these models are derived from the effect of reality on experiment. It's a huge step to seeing that all human beliefs chiefly spring from language as does science itself.

I'm sure it's possible to speak of reality independently of scientific models of any sort. Yes, words must be defined and we must assume theory still holds true within its metaphysics. We must define reality and there isn't a lot of wiggle room in the definition. It's exactly what it appears to be outside of human constructs. It's falling on your face when you trip and it's the sun coming up in the morning even though we know the sun doesn't really come up in the morning. It's the way salt dissolves in water and has a taste to which some people are highly sensitive. These things exist outside of constructs and outside of the words I use to communicate them. The hole will forever be real even when it can no longer be seen or measured and even as soon as nobody cares whether it still exists or not. Reality always trumps perception and belief. It is this which has been excluded from science and has resulted in language and models that don't consider it. It was excluded because everyone knew at that time that everyone's perception of reality was different and nothing was really known. There was no choice but to exclude it.

I'm not suggesting we add it to scientific metaphysics; I'm suggesting we can talkk about it.

I'm suggesting another science can be (re)invented to run concurrently with existing science and they can help one another over humps. I believe it will be first necessary to discuss and define reality. It isn't necessary to invent a new language to do this but it will be necesary to invent this language in order for future generations to build on the work (probably).

 

 

I'm not sure if this is just semantics. I am quite confident, however, that using time to identify a process for deciding whether dirt is just ground or if it had previously been removed to create a hole is meaningless. Next you'll be telling us how many years each type of dirt requires before it's just dirt again, and can no longer be called an accessory to creating a hole.

The reality is that the hole can never really cease being a hole. Disturbed dirt will subside and create a "new" hole. Get away from the planet far enough with a powerful enough telescope and you can always look back in time and see the hole. When the dirt was added back to the hole it changed the orbit of the earth (and everything else) and these changes will never subside and actually reverberate and become larger in time. So long as the hole is real all its effects are real whether we define them or measure them or ponder them or not.

You should have asked the more obvious, more pertinent question: What's the difference between dirt and disturbed dirt if we're talking about holes? Logic tells me a hole in the ground, filled in with more ground, is no longer a hole. In a month, you won't even know a hole had been there. But you'll always know if the hole is filled with concrete. It will always be a concrete-filled hole in the ground.

 

Again. The only practical difference between the holes is the nature of what's in them.

As semantics is about meaning, the phrase "just semantics" to dismiss an argument is just silly. The meaning of words and phrases is central to any discussion. (I expect cladking to come up with something about words not having any meaning, or something similar.)

You addressed the point well enough I don't need to.

 

If science is not tied directly to reality, then how can the things represented by the terms defined by science be considered real?

They aren't any more "real" than math. But they remain truth or fact within metaphysics. They are "real" in terms of the means and definitions by which they were learned and this reality can be applied to the greater reality. It works because the greater reality affects experiment. My problem with these models and constructs isn't that they are ineffective or wrong but rather people take them as the sum total of reality.

 

 

That's a bold claim. I feel pretty confident that I am more intelligent than a dog, and that a dog is more intelligent than a guava fruit.

There are differences in the speed and the complexity of thought people can process but not so much in the "enlightenment" that most people think of as "intelligence". What they are trying to fake is actually merely an event that occurs in all conscious minds which we mistake as a condition called intelligence.

There may well be aspects of "intelligence" that exist as a state rather than an event but if so this is not what sets humans apart from animals. If they could put this in a machine it would not be AI but rather machine intelligence. I believe it can be created but we are going about it all wrong. We are trying to create an arefact of language because this is our understanding of "intelligence" and language is really what lies at the heart of mans' success and the thought processes that give rise to a belief in intelligence. Even if AI could be perfected the machine would still lack consciousness. Even rudimentary machine intelligence would be conscious. It would simply tell you it was conscious and take on the activities of consciousness which include behaviors determined by unapparent causes.

I thought of another example. Trying to comprehend AI. We are the creators of the concept. And the ones working on making it. But the best of the best of the best admit to having no real idea how a true AI would think. This is a weird one, by my definitions it's simultaneously a human and nonhuman concept.

There's no such thing as "intelligence" so AI has no meaning.

The work in this area has more in common with linguistics and logic than with electronics.

 

How long does the "dirt disturbing" process take? I'm assuming it's measured by time, since I could easily compact the dirt I put back so it didn't appear "disturbed". It's not a texture thing, right?

 

I think there's a BIG difference between a hole in the ground full of dirt (which isn't a hole anymore), and a hole in the ground filled with concrete (discrete concrete). I think you're the one constructing artificial semantic differences.

What's the difference between disturbed dirt and concrete? If you plant seeds on the dirt they miught grow but they won't grow on the concrete. If you plant a body under the concrete it might keep someone from finding it or it might cause it to be the first place searched by police. A tree growing adjacent the hole will prefentially put roots into the disturbed dirt but will never grow into the concrete. If you fall on itr the dirt would be softer. Essentially there's no difference in the nature of the hole except to the degree it's filled with air, water, or any material. Each will have a different effect and this effect will change as time goes by and as conditions vary.

Of course this reality goes beyond words. In every case you can use other constructs, other words, to describe it and you can use words that take other perspectives. Rather than a round hole full of concrete it can be described as a pillar of concrete flush on the soil. The means by which this came to exist can be described as well; the falling concrete shaft buried itself flush in the soil. But these realities are still different. Falling concrete will compress the soil in which it buries itself while a hole dug and filled with concrete doesn't do this. We can use words to describe any condition but they will often be misunderstood sionce each listener assigns meaning to the words as they appear. This process never works perfectly because words have so many definitions, connotations, and shades of meaning. We merely believe we understand one another yet each listener takes his own meaning. This understanding and misunderstanding is irrelevant to the reality. The words are mere constructs to try to communicate ideas.

There are an infinity of ways to say this same thing. There exists concrete within a given radius of a vertical line extending below ground level.

The world exists around a cylinder of concrete flush with the ground at a given point.

We simply tend to see things from an infinite distance. We describe reality in terms of its effect on experiment taking a perspective from infinite distance. We see reality similarly to how we see a blueprint which is why the rules for drawing prints are the way they are. There is no one "right" way to see reality and reality has appearances outside of experimental results. The world is real for dogs just as it is for concrete. Dogs experience the reality and concrete does not.

 

How long does the "dirt disturbing" process take? I'm assuming it's measured by time, since I could easily compact the dirt I put back so it didn't appear "disturbed". It's not a texture thing, right?

 

 

It depends entirely and strictly on your definitions because terms are constructs. The dirt can never become truly undisturbed just as a bell can never be unrung. Some clays can become rock hard again in as little as 40 years. Since clay is relatively homogenous it's quite legitimate to suggests it ceases to be disturbed in 40 years. But some test exists, will exist, or could exist which might show it's been disturbed even after the sun grows cold.

I believe all these questions are primarily semantics; what's real is real and we are merely using words, that are mostly constructs, to communicate this reality. A hole full of dirt is the same thing as a hole fullof concrete except for the difference between disturbed dirt and and concrete. A shadow is real and can be measured and defined (penumbra etc) by its blackness or the total obscured light. Without the light a true "shadow" can not exist. It can become a blast shadow and maintains its ability to stop projection.

Words are simple tools for communication but words can get in their own way and impede communication. Words are concepts used to describe reality. Unfortunately neither language nor science is still tied directly to reality so such things are hard to see.

 

 

While it is true that every group and even individual has their own dialect, to describe these as separate languages is such an exaggeration as to be almost dishonest.

Languages by definition aren't mutually intelligible. If French were the same as English we could understand one another and the French wouldn't spend great effort trying to expunge English words. Even dialects of the same language are sometimes mutually unintelligible so there are thousands of languages all sharing some characteristics with others. It's not terribly unusual for me to overhear a conversation where the two parties are discussing different subjects! For ALL practical purposes they are speaking different languages despite the fact that they each believe they understand one another and most if not all of their words exist in the exact same dictionary.

Ancient people described people using modern language as "confused". I'm just giving us the benefit of the doubt and suggesting we use different languages. None of us are necessarily confused but we have grave difficulty communicating with others.

If there were a concept that couldn't be approached rationally (understood) then the individual who invented this concept would have to translate it for others. This is an absurdity.

All concepts can be put into words but the chances of them being understood are sometimes very poor. And this applies to all non-human concepts: They are easily comprehensible only in natural logic which humans no longer possess.

 

 

I am having a lot more difficulty figuring out how to phrase this question than I thought I would.

 

I am trying to look at the ideas that we deal with, that are conceptually understood, and people know what they mean, but they can't really be analyzed properly. There are tons of human ideas, like love and stuff. Which is why I said specifically non human concepts.

I fear you're going to find that this is virtually a null set because we invent explanations for everything. You can find an anomaly but it will be explained when you communicate it. We know why water runs downhill but its "wetness" is somewhat more ephemeral. Who knows why it's a holy thing or why animals drink it with contamination and don't get sick. You can invent countless explanations for such things but the reality will be far more complex.

I have had no difficulty communicating with dogs, cats and budgerigars. They do not seem to have had much difficulty communicating with me. I confess I have not enjoyed the same success with invertebrates, or my wife. Make of that what you will.

Men and women speak distinct languages. Then there are distinct languages spoken by those who think intuitively and those who speak logically; poets and newsmen, singers and dancers, doers and dreamers, and scholars and laymen. Indeed, it might be saidd there are seven billion languages and growing.

Invertebrates!!! I can't even get through to the cold blooded (like the wife).

Quality hoaxes don't get widely called out as such quickly. Piltdown man was a quality hoax. Crop circles. The Cardiff giant.

 

Titor barely moves the needle.

Titor had a far greater hurdle than the others. I heartell "Piltdown Man" shouldn't have fooled the experts.

So far as I know the perpetrator has never been publicly identified.

It was a very good quality hoax.

Are there NON-HUMAN concepts, that cannot be approached rationally? Some come to mind, nothingness being the big one.

As you appear to mean your terms ALL nonhuman concepts can not be approached rationally. This is the root of our near total inability to communicate with animals.

Of course if space faring aliens exist some or many of them will reason as we do. Shaka and Temba at rest.

So if we accept your proclamations that language is universally inadequate, your use of it is just as useless as it is for the rest of us. But I guess you acceded to this when you replied to my pot-calls-kettle-black with , 'we all do it'. By your judgment, while we're all just pissing, you win because you're pissing into the wind.

It's language that is confused. It's people who are confused. It's not nature. If nature were confused the pebble might roll up the hill. But being confused doesn't preclude the possibility of communication; it merely makes it more difficult.

 

 

 

Likewise there are five fruit in the basket of apples.

Fruit is a living thing. How do you know one of the apples wasn't irradiated? If five people each wanted an apple to create an orchard then there would be four orchards. There is simply no one to one correspondance between the construct of "five apples" and the bowl of apples. You can't change this by choosing to see reality in such a way. You are stepping away from the apples and describing their existence. If you view the apples from the perspective of an apple or the trees on which they grew they look very different. The ones on the sunny side are sweeter and riper and the ones at the top are harder to pick. Some are wormier and some are malformed. Each probably began life as the result of a bird or a bee but already existed in its nascent form in another bowl of apples long long ago.

You are simply choosing to see reality from the perspective of a specialist and the models of reality created by experiment. Metaphysics insists on this being the case because metaphysics simply doesn't even postulate the existence of reality but only of language. As such we have a science based on language which works because reality affects experiment. It can be quantified by math because math is based on natural logic which is reality itself. If you use this perspective to see reality then you naturally understand everything you see. The more you learn the more you're likely to spot an anomaly that has never been seen before.

I suppose this is getting toward what you call waffling. It just surprises me how so many people have only one perspective and can't see what they don't know and can't understand. I look out on the world and understand just about exactly nothing at all. Yet I can make predictions that are often accurate. People ask me to explain the anomalies they observe. Sometimes I can.

i suggest getting a new operating system...

Indeed. We need a new language to discuss philosophy. We need a language where many of the words have a single definition and without connotation.

In astronomy, Kepler's laws of planetary motion are three scientific laws describing the motion of planets around the Sun.

 

1) The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.

2) A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.

3) The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

 

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_motion

 

These laws of planetary motion can be drived from Newton's theory of Gravitation.

 

Since the motion of the planets can be predicted from a mathematical derivation based on Newton's theory of Gravitation, arn't the planets "doing the math" as they orbit around the Sun?

I understand your point and can even agree that it often looks like nature does math. A cat walks into the room and then another cat and there are two cats in the room.

We find these elegant equations that describe aspects of reality by stepping infinitely far back through the isolation of variables and the effect of reality on experiment or through mathematics and it seems we understand the aspect we have identified. But it's obviously far more complex than this and this is what we simply choose not to see. Right off the bat the earth doesn't orbit the sun but rather the sun/ earth system orbits a point at its center of gravity. The earth is no simple thing with a name but is supremely complex just like every other real thing. If a pebble rolls down a mountain the earth accelerates toward that pebble taking it out of "orbit" and the everything must be recalculated. Even an electron deep in the earth's core must be hurtling through space while continually changing its orbit. An atom in the earth's core is affected by the pebble falling down the mountain and the earth's acceleration toward it.

Of course it's far more complex than just this since there are an infinity of other forces that affect the earth from the moon to a pebble falling down a mountain on the second planet of Alpha Centari. Of course none of these events can occur in isolation of every known and every unknown law. The planet also has a relativistic weight with magnetic effects and must plow through a solar wind and only God knows what else.

It's pretty hard for me to think of every grain of sand needing to do infinite calculations from moment to moment even if time were divisible into moments. It's far easier to imagine the universe as simply following a logic that is the same logic we have codified into mathematics. For me it's easier yet because there is another perspective I've found from the past. It's easy to see that language has been "simplified" so that it is useable but in the process of this change and the invention of modern science perspective has changed. We don't see things from the "inside" but rather we step infinitelyt far away and describe them through models and the constructs of language. Ultimately this is what our mathe is; a construct of language based on the same natural logic as the pebble rolling down the mountain.

 

There isn't any evidence for the existence of human conceptions, which are mostly about limiting the amount of information that our tiny primate minds can process. We speak in languages every day, but you won't find a scrap of evidence that our language is inherent in the warp and woof of the universe as a mystical kabalah.

 

Likewise, our mathematics mostly rests upon our tendency to separate and focus on limited relationships. On the very surface of reason, for example, I could count and say I had five apples. But that's actually specious. Are the apples identical on the molecular level? Not a chance. Are they even the same species of apple? Maybe not, but the language that I use suggests that I can call them all 'apples', but that's really a lazy shorthand because I don't want to individually name every single thing I come across.. My counting of five is actually an arbitrary distinction of my limited senses and my inculcated idea that I can keep items in my possession as 'mine'. In reality there isn't five of anything in the universe.

It would be impossible to make sense of the world without an operating system for the brain. It's this operating system that tricks us into believing five of something exists, we exist as a consciousness, and we understand existence.

WYSIWYG.

Of course what you see is defined by the operating system.

Pot calls kettle black.

 

Again, it doesn't matter one way or the other; get over it.

We all do it. But it does matter.

It matters very much.

 

The only thing that is clear here is that you have either not read the original post properly or that you have ignored it.

 

To refresh your memory the question was and still is

 

"Does Mathematics exist in Nature?"

 

You couldn't be more wrong and the answer remains unchanged. Math does not exist in nature. Math is a human construct which is unreal and only works because it is based on the same natural logic as nature itself. There is no math in nature and nature doesn't even agree that one plus one equals two. You can't see this because you understand everything in terms of science and math so it simply doesn't exist for you. It doesn't matter how many examples I provide or how many perspectives because you believe in your heart of hearts that one plus one equals two. If you believed in the Almighty then everything you saw would support this belief. Indeed, no matter what you believe you are on your way to becoming that.

This is caused by the operating system we use called modern language.

If Nature does not exist then nothing it contains can exist and we have no discussion.

 

I didn't say reality doesn't exist. I said the existence of reality is beside the point to science. "I think therefore I am" is sufficient. This is why you can't see the nature of language. It was your consciousness that gave you birth therefore language is beside the point to you. As such reality is defined by your beliefs which are derived from the effect of reality on experiment. Other people believe in other things. Everybody is on a different page as exemplified by this very thread.

So for the purposes of having this discussion we need to assume the existence of Nature.

 

For those who think that the original question did not include the possibilty that some part of the whole of Mathematics is manifest in Nature and wish to stick to numbers, why would you expect counting in Nature to be the same as counting by humans?

For one thing counting by humans is not always accurate, humans make mistakes.

Animate entities already discussed also make mistakes.

But inamate Nature can count with 100% accuracy.

 

For example when sodium chloride or calcium chloride dissociate into ions, exactly the right number of electrons is always transferred.

Never ever one too many or one to few or 1.3 times the correct number.

 

That fellow fallible humans is counting.

 

Science does not assume the existence of reality. Need I remind you that cosmologists now say there are an infinite number of pyramids built with an infinite number of ramp? How far outside of reality do we have to get before it becomes obvious? An infinite number of earths is as absurd as no earths or negative twenty earths. Reality isn't necessary to perform experiments or to derive theory. It was intentionally excluded because the inventors of science knew reality was subjective but theyt didn't know this subjectivity is chiefly the result of language which simply isn't reflective of either reality or a good means to discover or communicate reality.

You can't see this because you know what you'll see before you look. I know you'll see your beliefs and scoff at ideas that don't reflect those beliefs. You know math exists in nature because you love elegant equations and getting the right answer. You love the way everyone can get the same answer and can't notice when they get the wrong answer.

 

But inamate Nature can count with 100% accuracy.

 

 

Nature can not do math and can (must) only count to one.

People count and invented math for the purpose of counting.

As an aside it's quite likely that our math wasn't invented so much as discovered from an ancient source. Ancient math went with ancient language probably but it was adaptable to modern language. It's this adaptation we use as the basis of math.

 

 

I think we can take it as read that we are not debating the existence of the Earth in this discussion. If the very existence of Nature itself was under debate then there would be no point in this thread.

Why not?

Science doesn't need anything to exist except experimental results and the definitions and axioms to define them.

Indeed, it's the very lack of assuming reality that allows a thread like this to exist.