Definition of Reality

I would say it's traditionally looked at as more than a metaphor for human interaction.

Its probably more historically accurate to say that the word "mind" has become a metaphor for individual brain activity.

That doesn't answer my question. What I meant is that it is only a metaphor for human interaction unless there is some good reason to believe we are all part of a universal mind.

Good. What other meaning is it supposed to have?

6.2 Mathematics is a logical method. The propositions of mathematics are
equations, and therefore pseudo-propositions.


6.21 A proposition of mathematics does not express a thought.

Do you understand that pure logic and math are transcendental? In the TLP, Wittgenstein seems to get tangled in the difficult relationship twixt logos and logic/mathema. The only perfect correspondence is tautology.

Natural science is transcendental math affixed to dynamic logos. In other words, it's math is pure, but it's concept is flexible, open-ended. Logos and mathema are essentially different.

If all you want to do is get along w/ the man on the street or talk about politics, you really don't need transcendental philosophy. And this is why Rorty dissolves dichotomies in his pragmatic holism. It just seems to me that he consciously embraces his pragmatism, whereas you pretend (or not?) to a truth beyond use and consensus.

The majority of philosophers have, to some extent, agreed that there is some intellect greater than the individual mind which contributes to the process of life. The essence of that mind may differ throughout time, however, it still exists in one form or another.

If "reality" has both a transcendental and a pragmatic meaning, then why doesn't "table"? Or does it?

Another way of looking at this is that all humans are mentally similar in some aspects, while varying in others. The universal mind is not something that we are in, but something that is in us.

For instance, mathematics and the automatic(or transcendental) experience of time and space as singular continuities, which are different than our mathematics/logic which are digital/tautological, and not continuous.

Logos, word, is the intersection of the digital and the continuous. Words as concepts are tautologies or unifications. But they unify qualia, which are contingent or incidental, and they develop "organically" in social practice, which is largely contingent, or incidental.

I think I see where you are going, but as I see it, the universal mind is outside of any one human, or any one particular entity at all for that matter. Which may or may not be disagreeing with you, as it is also always in every mind.

This is why Aristotle emphasized the difference between passive (matter) and active intellect (Logos), as for life to exist, it must necessarily have both. He would've agreed with you that form must always have matter to exist, but the form transcends any one mind, which to me makes it larger and independent.

It could be we are saying the same thing, I am just curious whether or not you see the Logos as mind-dependent?

Logos is the meeting of the transcendental and the incidental. Or the meeting of number & qualia. I think that number (or nous) is mind dependent, but that the world of experience flows from an unknown and unknowable source. From what I understand, Plato wanted to see the mind's transcendental as the transcendental of the universe. But this is a mistake in my opinion, and a form of superstition. Kant's noumena is the negation of this projection. Hegel argued that man is afraid to see himself as Logos because he is afraid to accept his death.

If the transcendental is in us, then the transcendental is as mortal as the species....and we cannot know w/ certainty anything other than the structure of our own mind. But this structure can only be discovered thru time, by means of a dialectical synthesis that abstracts this structure from its immersion in qualia, or the flux of the experience whose source we cannot claim to know (excepting the mystic, which Hegel is not, but Plato seems to be.)

This difference twixt philosophy & mysticism is that philosophy denies the transcendence of reason. The mystic implies that the Truth is beyond words. I disagree. I think that the beauty of truth is beyond words, but not the Truth itself. And this Truth is only perfect truth to the degree that it stays with the humanly incarnate transcendental.

As soon as we leave the transcendental for the incidental (non human natural reality), certainty is lost & pragmatism Rorty-style is king. The two perfect philosophies are trancendental "wisdom," and neopragmatism. Truth and truthlessness. I was into pragmatism until the beauty of the transcendental pulled me in......(Kojeve on Hegel is the best, bro.)

Another way of looking at this is that all humans are mentally similar in some aspects, while varying in others. The universal mind is not something that we are in, but something that is in us.

For instance, mathematics and the automatic(or transcendental) experience of time and space as singular continuities, which are different than our mathematics/logic which are digital/tautological, and not continuous.

Logos, word, is the intersection of the digital and the continuous. Words as concepts are tautologies or unifications. But they unify qualia, which are contingent or incidental, and they develop "organically" in social practice, which is largely contingent, or incidental.

---------- Post added 03-01-2010 at 09:22 PM ----------



Actually it does. As a unification, it has a mathematical core. All concept is to some degree number, and number is invented by negating the contingent aspect of logos/word, leaving only the pure concept of quantity, which is identical to number, and identical to identity.....

Many people believe Aristotle to be criticizing Plato's philosophy, but I see it as merely expanding upon it. What many people view as mysticism is in my opinion just a radical one world theory.

Yes, you are kidding. Or you are using a nonsense machine. Bye.

I know Plato is popularly read as adhering to a two-world model, but I read him as even more one world than Aristotle, as he makes no distinction at all between Logos and matter. It seems to me that everything for him was Logos, and everything was striving towards a unified purpose, and this purpose was far greater than any particular mind could imagine.

My point was that calling it a metaphor doesn't do it justice. The Stoic idea of the Logos, Aristotle's Active Intellect, and Hegel's Bildung are all much too conceptually complex to be referred to as a metaphor for human interaction, even though it may appear so at first glance.

For them, especially the earlier ones, these concepts were the only mind to speak of, as we are all just individual particulars of it.

How does this idea approach isolation? Can there be isolation from the universal mind?

---------- Post added 03-01-2010 at 10:31 PM ----------



How sad it is! And you will go around quoting Wittgenstein no doubt, who operates on just these themes, the tautology of number & the contingency of language......

For some philosophy. For others kommon cents.

---------- Post added 03-01-2010 at 10:32 PM ----------


.

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but it's issue I'm obsessed with. Human existence is dual, or synthetic. We exist in a transcendentally intuited space and time, both of which as continuous. Our transcendental concept of number is exactly the opposite of continuous. It's also within space and time that we encounter incident, which cannot be trancendentally explained but only structured.....

You aren't kidding, and it isn't a nonsense machine? Where did W. say that number was a tautology? Obviously, what we say is contingent on lots of things, if that is what you mean. But, who knows what you mean.

6.234 Mathematics is a method of logic.

6.2341 It is the essential characteristic of mathematical method that
it employs equations. For it is because of this method that every
proposition of mathematics must go without saying.

6.2 Mathematics is a logical method. The propositions of mathematics are
equations, and therefore pseudo-propositions.

6.21 A proposition of mathematics does not express a thought.

But who said space-time was continuous? or how do you mean this?

Albert Einstein, on the other hand, stated that "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."[6]

Jesus, Ken. How many times do I have to quote him saying this? I did so earlier tonight and it wasn't the first time......

This is just some of it. The rest you can find yourself, as it's one of the most important notions in the TLP.

Eh, where's the tautology? Or, is that what you are talking about?

6.13 Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world.
Logic is transcendental.


6.2 Mathematics is a logical method. The propositions of mathematics are
equations, and therefore pseudo-propositions.


6.21 A proposition of mathematics does not express a thought.


6.211 Indeed in real life a mathematical proposition is never what
we want. Rather, we make use of mathematical propositions only in
inferences from propositions that do not belong to mathematics to others
that likewise do not belong to mathematics. (In philosophy the question,
'What do we actually use this word or this proposition for?' repeatedly
leads to valuable insights.)


6.22 The logic of the world, which is shown in tautologies by the
propositions of logic, is shown in equations by mathematics.


6.23 If two expressions are combined by means of the sign of equality,
that means that they can be substituted for one another. But it must be
manifest in the two expressions themselves whether this is the case
or not. When two expressions can be substituted for one another, that
characterizes their logical form.


6.231 It is a property of affirmation that it can be construed as double
negation. It is a property of '1 + 1 + 1 + 1' that it can be construed
as '(1 + 1) + (1 + 1)'.


6.232 Frege says that the two expressions have the same meaning but
different senses. But the essential point about an equation is that it
is not necessary in order to show that the two expressions connected by
the sign of equality have the same meaning, since this can be seen from
the two expressions themselves.


6.2321 And the possibility of proving the propositions of mathematics
means simply that their correctness can be perceived without its being
necessary that what they express should itself be compared with the
facts in order to determine its correctness.


6.2322 It is impossible to assert the identity of meaning of two
expressions. For in order to be able to assert anything about their
meaning, I must know their meaning, and I cannot know their meaning
without knowing whether what they mean is the same or different.


6.2323 An equation merely marks the point of view from which I consider
the two expressions: it marks their equivalence in meaning.


6.233 The question whether intuition is needed for the solution of
mathematical problems must be given the answer that in this case
language itself provides the necessary intuition.


6.2331 The process of calculating serves to bring about that intuition.
Calculation is not an experiment.


6.234 Mathematics is a method of logic.


6.2341 It is the essential characteristic of mathematical method that
it employs equations. For it is because of this method that every
proposition of mathematics must go without saying.

By the way, Wittgenstein was no stranger to the transcendental.....

in other words he liked philosophy...

Eh, could you point out where he says that numbers are tautologies? I can't find it in the passages you quoted. By the way, you do know, don't you, that Wittgenstein repudiated the TLP in favor of the Investigations. He remarked that he thought of his job as cleaning up the slums of metaphysical nonsense. He liked philosophy, of course. But not nonsense masquerading as philosophy. He despised and ridiculed that.

The TLP was only wrong concerning logos. Wittgenstein realized eventually that logos was related to something that number was not. Logos is context-bound, continuous. Meaning is a spectrum, which is the opposite of a tautology.

Witt did not despise "nonsense, etc." You don't understand him. Sorry. He loved Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. You're going to have to face it that your boy was a German, and quite concerned with the trancendental. It's just that logos cannot be reduced to that. As Hegel knew. You're a sophist in denial, methinks.