'Why anything?'

Perhaps the purpose of the question is not an answer, perhaps the questioner seeks to identify?
Observe the question, do you then identify with the questioner?

I have learnt a great deal from everyone's posts and am greatful for everyone's thoughts on this thread. Fresco is indeed right by saying I'm on a 'stretching exercise' but I would also add that I'm on a 'cutting back exercise' too, if you will. 'Procrustes' is a metaphor for this balance of ideas. Nothing is wrong or right; lets just see what we learn from each other... Speaking of, someone has to teach me how to do the quote box trick.

All the buttons above the reply box operate as in WORD. Just select copy and paste text to reply box then click one of the buttons whilst the text is highlighted.

I'm not sure what you mean by cutting back, so I'll make an assumption.
Thoreau makes the observation, "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify", which I kind of like.
Most of the time the purpose of our descriptions and questions is simply to identify with another, to feel akin in our observations.
The shared sunrise is as good a metaphor as any, if we shared a sunrise we would not need complex descriptions to achieve our goal. I could say "Red", you could nod and say "Purple", I could say "Wow", you could say "Awesome", in this simple manner we would achieve the goal of identifying in our observations.

Above your reply box, open the bbcode editor, press the quote button, copy and paste your desired quote within the brackets, be sure to type your response outside the brackets or it will appear in the box also.

I'm not sure that purpose is absolute, just like anything in life. Perhaps the only plausible expectation to have is that expectations may never be fully realised. I don't like the idea people dictating people lives, yet I know that some can tend to have that habit. I think people are different from moment to moment, but i will argue that things can stick to people like glue. These things aren't necessarily permanent, but sometimes they linger and perhaps after a long while they can 'detach'. How these things 'stick' is really up to the discernment of an individual (or perhaps the environment). Purpose may seem tyrannical but I would also say that it may be pliable. How one creates purpose, is also up to the discernment of an individual (and perhaps by nature). Sometimes purpose will find an individual, sometimes an individual will purposefully deter themselves from holding onto a purpose. Purpose can last one second or a whole life time. I'm no authority and know nothing of others lives yet I see people everyday that are driven by something for some reason.. I'm not sure what to call it.. Drive? Instinct? God? Buddah? Allah? Purpose? The meanings get tangled up in this semantic stew that often makes finding the proper meaning difficult. So I would say it doesn't matter if you weren't aware of a purpose. It is neither a good or bad thing. Yet if one had a sense of purpose, perhaps it would be different.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FRESCO!!!

The "stretching and cutting" metaphor for communicative exchange is one possible recipe for sustained thread dynamics. As such, it may be limited to abstract or "philosophical" questions in which "factuality" can be suspended. Cynically, it may be merely a form of intellectual "dancing" which Wittgenstein amongst others labelled Geshwatz (idle chatter).

Thanks wayne. Language is a funny beast. Have a look at this video from a series of videos called RSA animates. This delves into what I think your getting at. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU

Thanks, that's a good video.
Language is indeed a funny beast, it reflects the complexities of the human mind.
I think the video is on the far end of the spectrum I meant to suggest, on the other end is an ability to which we don't pay much attention. A flock of birds can be seen to act in unison with no apparent communication, I cannot help but think we possess a degree of this ability ourselves.

Fresco, you are spot on with the quotes. Healthy cynicsm serves a function too. And just like poetry, our minds are good at filling in the blanks.

...probably there is a reasonable (natural necessary) explanation on why our minds are good at filling in the blanks the way they do...more, I find this entire divorcé thing between the mind and the world very amusing to say the least once the world itself in its ongoing phenomenal process is written in several layers of emerging "languages" functionally computed by deeper levels of reality...

As an aside......
You really should have a look at the current work on "embodied cognition".
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/
I think Dreyfus is cited in this as rejecting "computation" because it always implies "representation" which has become a no go area for modern philosophers .(Quine, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Rorty et al) . Since this phrase is your ultimate fallback position on nearly every thread, you should take seriously its potential lack of substance.

You see "computation" as I put it is not a feature of the mind in particular but a general feature of anything which deals with information (which is all there is around)...I haven´t read it all yet, but as usual this guy´s often trade in allot of confusion when dealing with empirical subjects...

..."representational" means "****", you can well apply that bursting bubble to anything which lacks a fundamental clear enough mechanical model...
...one might as well just give in turn a justification employing an expression like "emergent phenomena" out of the layers of computation instead of using words like "representational" to confuse the matter even further...

...bottom line you are asking how is it that A + A brings about B...well just ask "God" and he might answer you on that one...

(...you people ought to think better and further...)

...alas therein lies the circularity which we have discussed before....since for me (amongst others) "information" always requires "mind" to define or to specify the "goals" of a subsystem which "utilises" it...but you won't have that so we can go no further.

Id est, information has no intrinsic meaning: http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper140.html

Any significance of an in-form-ation act arises from and is dependent upon whatever functioning relational structure (memory complex, operating system, firmware, etc.) receives the inputted patterns. "Form impressed upon the comprehending wax".

Many thanks for that reference.
(despite the fact that I have always thought the point to be self-evident!)

I have cited "non-informational" models (Maturana's autopoiesis for example) on other threads concerning ontology and epistemology.

...and some of you people call yourself s idealists ? Geee...you are the ones making a gross (mistaken) distinction in between "things" and "representations"...I don´t see it anywhere I look, anyway whatever...
...only want to say that is obvious information alone has no more meaning then a number alone has meaning...meaning here is what arises from the rules of nature operating with information and creating systems just like in maths...functions work the way they work given the major law´s who organize information in category´s...either objects, or representations upon something else, are irrelevant as a form in itself, actually I am convinced they are the same... to whom am I a human anyway, to a bunch of atoms ?...representations true form like in a message which is either written in English or in Portuguese arises from the functionality which is established between two operators, and not necessarily with minds...say something works as a "square" in between two operators it passes the message of "squareness" no matter that for a third operator the same string might work as a "triangle" due to the particularity´s of this operator algorithmic processing...I go one step further and say that an object is nothing but an emerging message as a system between systems...objects and messages are convertible...as for meaning, meaning is only said to be representational because functionality is relative and not absolute and not because representations are transcendent objects themselves to whom we attribute the value we want...we want nothing, we react as any other system !...actually this thing of philosophy of the mind it is we, we, we, all day long...boring not to mention naive !
( the problem is not about us getting the world out there the problem is not to see that the world and us work exactly under the same system and rules... danm to whom am I preaching anyway... )

...the more I get older the more I am convinced to grab the all 3000 years of philosophy and trash it down without regrets ! There, I said it !
(...50 years more down the line and it will become the laughing stock of generations to come...)

...to where I stand there is only one "good" way in "my" Philosophy, and that is to keep on reducing and reducing without any respect for barriers, culture, History or whatever else...again just keep on and on till one gets to the most absurdly simplest of the forms, to the most basic possible concept, where finally we can confidently derive some natural unitarian bond who itself is transcendent to any kind of need for justification...that is my personnel quest with philosophy, I actually have no other major interest in it, but this one...I don´t give a damn about Ethics, Moral, the development of the species, the future of mankind, and such like minor concerns...to me is all about ultimate nature...since young age it was the calling spell in the mystery of Metaphysics that always interested me...it is not about "God", no...but rather about tranquillity...what else is there to strive for ?

Beyond Geometry: (functions as forms)
(it explains nothing but lets in the "intuition" of fresh air)


...it would prove a "squary" bit fitting a circle in a perfectly round world of squares...
why ?
...because there is roundness when squares deal with squares and squareness when circles fall within...


PS - (...I actually jumped out of bed to write off this ****...imagine that...and yeah I am sober...I guess...)