James wrote...



You are so missing the point here.

That identification process(whatever individual elements it may consist of) IS language, just not the kind that you are thinking of when that term is being used. Labels apply to formal human language. That is not the only kind.

As soon as you understand that you should re-read the thread.

Oh please give me a break Michael.

Even if I grant you that much semantic leeway on the word language then you'd just have to confess that to merely be aware of something would constitute language.

To become aware of something would be to identify with the fact that something is happening and therefore even awareness would qualify as language by that definition.

If you demand that broad of a shotgun definition for the word language then how could you claim to have made any significant points at all?

All you've done was totally destroy the semantics of the word language for the sake of attempting to make it appear that your original assertion was correct.

I'm sorry Michael but this thread had been nothing but a total waste of my time.

All you're out to do is somehow claim that your orginal assertion stands no matter what. In fact if you redefine language to simlpy mean the recognition of any possible experience, then your orginal assertion is utterly meaningless anyway. Even pure awareness would qualify as language by that definition.

All you've done is desperately destroy the semantics of the word language to make it somehow appear as though you've actually made a coherent point.

This has truly been one of the most absurd discussions I've ever participated in.

Now I fully understand what Richard Feynman was saying when he said,

"We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers, who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, 'You don't know what you are talking about!' The second one says 'What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?', and so on." - Richard Feynman

He described this futile semantic aspect of philosopy in langauge.

Now I've just experienced it live in this thread.

I truly don't care anymore.

As far as I'm concerned you never had a valid point to begin with.

In order to maintain your original assertion you need to totally destroy the semantic meaning of the word language plus it doesn't help your cause anyway because by doing this you would need to conclude that even pure awareness constitutes language by that semantic definition. But you had already asserted that thought and awareness are not the same thing.

So your semantic mumbo jumbo doesn't work anyway.

Better luck next thread.

If you are "your brain" or if 'self' were "the brain" you would not be referring to your brain as "my brain" you would be referring to it as "me."

Also, if we are only brains, then to become 'self aware' would be a matter of becoming aware of our brains. How many people are aware of their brains? I am more aware of my big toe than my brain. I have no idea what goes on up there. LOL

I am confident that under hypnosis I could probably recall every detail, or with the aid of brain manipulation that the memory is still there in tact with every perfect detail.

Consciously, and realistically, however, I'm lucky if I remember where I put my car keys. LOL

Unless we have what has been called perfect recall or photographic memory, (which is a disorder, not a talent) no we can't remember every event perfectly accurate or complete. To have that kind of memory would be a curse actually because your subconscious mind would regard every experience and every scrap of information as equal.

If every scrap of information and experience is equal, you would be more like a machine when solving problems, wasting time with unimportant details instead of going to the more important ones.

So again, who does the editing? YOU DO. Whether you realize it or not, YOU decide what is important.. in an instant, and the rest gets put somewhere inaccessible by your conscious mind.

So HOW do you decide what is most important? The answer to that is in the Law of attraction. The things you pay attention to are more important, the things you think about are more important, the things you notice above others is more important. These decisions are made every second of every day and are recorded by the mind and a pattern develops. It is a pattern and process of organizing thoughts and perceptions so as not to overload the sensory organs and their perceptions. Sensory overload can totally drive a person crazy and to total distraction to a point they can't function in the normal sense. People with obsessive compulsive disorders are people who can't prioritize and organize sensory input.

"Forgetting details" is as important and necessary as remembering them. But all of the information has been received and is accessible if you know how to access it.

James...

I am still deliberating this topic in my own thoughts according to that which has been written here.

Your Ad hominem approaches do not make up for a lack of substance in your argument. You may confuse yourself and some others who do not know better, but you do not confuse me. I am consciously avoiding a public display by which I would expose the vulnerability of your entire stance, as you have been unsuccessfully attempting to do to mine. All who know better know at least that much. All one has to do is read this thread from the start.

You are making claims about my claims and my personal intent that are completely unsubstantiated by actuality... they are untrue. I know this and you do not. This has been the major theme throughout this thread contained in nearly every post belonging to you. The obvious presuppositional blindness in your own thinking can only be clear to me because of what I just wrote. It is however, quite clear, and your unconscious projection of that onto my view clearly shows that you are unaware of this feature in your own perceptual faculty. That alone is a disgrace to the relevance of human understanding, and retards the ability to effectively communicate. It is a shame. You should at least know that much. All of the issues that you have been applying to my thoughts on language belong to your own interpretation of it.

You have avoided the most pertinent connections in this discussion, and I can't help but to wonder if this is being consciously done. All of the different facets need to be contemplated in oder to gain a more complete understanding of the function of language, thought, and belief. Focusing on the preconception of specific absolutes in your own belief system and applying the underlying causes to another has rendered your thought paralyzed.

It is becoming your m.o. to accuse me of that which you, yourself are guilty of.

As for Creative,

I wonder why I have such a difficult time understanding anything you say or why you say it. If this were the case with everyone I would think that I was at fault, but it is pretty much only your posts I have a problem understanding. I understand some of them, but mostly I am at a loss as to what you are talking about or attempting to illustrate or accomplish.

I don't understand him either to be quite honest. I really try hard but it never ends well. Now he's accusing me of Ad hominem. The lastest Internet fad.

I was directly addressing his semantic approach to philosophy and why I feel it is useless. That's not Ad hominem. That's just a direct statement about the arguments he's been presenting.

And I'm not even arguing with him really. I don't care if he wants to think that thought is language. He's certainly entitled to that view.

I came into the thread because I thought it was a question. All I've done is attempt to explain why I hold the views I hold. I'm not attempting to prove anything to anyone, nor am I demanding that anyone else agree with me, including Creative.

He keeps trying to prove his view to me, and I keep giving him reasons why I don't accept it.

I guess I should just quit responding.

That's probably the best thing to do at this point.

I can see why this could be the case, and it emphasizes the relevance of common language and it's role in the belief structure which everyone has. That structure is the filter between actuality and reality. While it mostly exists in the realm of the unconscious, it affects thinking in major ways. It underscores the function that presupposition holds in language and the consequences reflected in one's thinking. Nearly all belief contains presuppositional elements.

The number of correlations that can be recognized between the individual elements contained in that which is being perceived constitute the depth of understanding. Whether those connections are recognized in relation to each other and/or the perceiver makes the difference between looking out through the filter, or looking in to identify it.

Or it could just be that you are totally lost in this particular analysis which holds no interest for other people.

That would explain it just as well.

please forgive this but I must...

THIS IS UTTER NONSENSE.

Language is what we use to ATTEMPT to portray the thought that we think but it is not the thought itself.

Language is not nor has it ever been the internal method of the thought process... THAT STILL IS NOT UNDERSTOOD, IS WIDELY MISUNDERSTOOD, and is often used to form smoke like theroies and tout them as real.

I detect an attitude of 'oh my... if you can't understand the way this one reasons you are less than this one cause this one is smart' what bs.

and to waste so much written language attempting to 'prove' something that can not be proven is an exercise in futilile panderings

Muddy thinking yeilds muddy results.

Exactly.

And this isn't an Ad hominem argument either. In fact it's not an argument at all. It's just an observation of behavior. It's a comment concerning a perception of what appears to be going on.

Michael,

You start a thread asking a question if people think that thought is unspoken language. Then whey they offer their reasons why they feel this isn't the case, you demand that is't not a question at all, but an assertion of fact. You even go so far as to demand that it's a grave human error that other people don't see this.

You've claimed to be open to the views of others, but when they offer their views you tell them, "It's impossible to think like that and your only kidding yourself if you think that way".

How arrogant is that?

All you have is an empty, and totally unproven claim based on semantics that has deteriorated beyond any recognition of the meaning of language.

You're down to an extremely desperate semantic claim that language is merely the perception and recognition of an experience.

You argue:



This is just a semantic plea to grant you an all-compassioning definition of the word language just so we are forced to concede that your semantic assertion has to be true.

But even this is empty and devoid of meaning because even if we grant you such a semantic liberty, by this new semantic definition of the word langauge we'd have to conclude that any awareness of experience constitutes language.

Two things are horribly wrong with this:

1. This flies in the very face of your own assertion that thought and awareness are seperate and distinct things.

2. With this utterly distorted definition of language, then to simply exist and percieve anything would be language.

But what would be gained by such an absurd semantic catastrophy?

All you did was murder the word language to save face in the claim that you have some undeniable assertion that has been the grave human error of everyone else to not have recognized.

But to what POINT?

That's what everyone is asking.

Now that you've murdered the word language what do we gain from being introduced to its ghost?

What profound insight arises from this semantic catastrophy?

What is it that humans have misunderstood that is such a grave human error other than the recognition that they might be able to get away with murdering the meaning of a word just to proclaim that they have made some indisputable semantic assertion of truth that no one can deny, nor make any sense of?

Your entire argument rests on the need to use the word language in a way that is so abstract it has utterly no meaning at all.

That's not an Ad hominem argument on my part. That's just a direct confrontation to precisely the arguments that are asserting.

What insight is gained by giving the word language such a wide abstract berth of meaning that it basically ends up having no specific meaning at all?

What was gained by that?

(other than you could claim victory in some make-believe war of semantics?)

Any kind of awareness at all would need to be language by your new definition. It's a moot semantic argument that holds utterly no value at all. Yet you're trying to claim that this is some revelation that is so profound it equates to "a grave human error" in understanding.

I just don't see it at all.

All I see you doing is playing with the semantics of words in an attempt to prove an utterly meaningless and feeble semantic assertion that holds no logical value whatsoever.

That's just my honest perspective. No Ad hominem argument implied or intended. I'm just addressing the assertions that you have been making all though this thread.

From my point of view your arguments are a logical catastrophy based on nothing more than a truly lame need to redefine the word language until it has no specific meaning at all anymore just so you can claim that your original semantic asssertion that thought is unspoken language can be proclaimed as utterly and undeniably true.

That banana was so happy because he thought this thread would finally wind down.

Oh well. Can't please everyone.

If I were still living and breathing the wordly fingerprint, I would most likely feel the unconscious need to defend myself from the wrongful and unwarranted remarks which are riddled with presupposition about my integrity and/or character. I know myself better than that.

I notice, and that is good enough for me.

We each see through our own filters which have their own grounds. I find it remarkable that my own defense of myself from the incorrect assessments regarding my intent are complete;y dismissed in lieu of the absolute self-confidence that those who live with those perceptions have in their own presuppositional beliefs. It highlights, once again, the inextricable link between perception, language/thought, belief, knowledge, and reality.

Sorry if your understanding differs from my own regarding what I write. Such is the case with perceptual interpretation and that which gives it structure... language/thought/belief.

James,

I humbly ask you, whenever you respond to me, specifically...

When you want to make a claim regarding mine - quote me, because I am really tired of spending all of my effort undoing your own misinterpretation and subsequent misconstruction of what I do write. This entire thread has been an exercise of my having to burn your strawman responses. I cannot remember whether or not you have ever quoted me correctly in this thread.

Are we even having the same conversation? Does communication require listening?

You have repeatedly mis-quoted me. You have repeatedly made incorrect claims and attributed them to me. This has emboldened your sense of whatever it is that you feel, but it is and has been but your own illusion. You are disputing your own interpretation of the words I write. That interpretation does not match my thoughts and/or words written about them. That might be the reason why you have no idea what I am saying.

Your perceptual faculty is in your own way.

Quote me and address that, leave your interpretation to develop your own thoughts... mine will develop mine.

Ok?

AB wrote...



I am not talking about formal language.

I have reason to believe that language/thought/belief are so inextricably linked that they are basically inseparable. If you believe that to be utter nonsense, than that is ok too. Everyone has their own grounding.



Ab... I have made the link between thought necessarily containing the emergent property of understanding, at least on a very basic level, such as the recognition of correlation/relationship. This means that without understanding *something*, thought does not - cannot - exist. What is thought without understanding at least that that which is being thought about exists. That constitutes the most basic form of relationship that I can think of. An unidentified thing cannot be thought about nor understood. Therefore, prior to the possibility for understanding, an identification of that which is being perceived must be had. The identification of a thing requires the perceived correlation of that thing to another thing, even if the other thing is the perceiver itself. One thing cannot exist entirely alone in thought. The recognition of at least one correlation between separate elements contained within an experience constitutes understanding. The more correlations are made, the greater the depth of understanding. Therefore, understanding - which must be had for thought to exist - necessitates the prior or simultaneous identification of at least some of the elements contained within that experience.

Identification is the root of all language. Identification and organization are the function of language. It enables the organization and further recollection of memory.



That perception is yours, that attitude does not live within me.



I have been proving that I am being mis-quoted... Therefore, I have no idea what you mean here.



I would concur.

Creative, nobody talks like this.

Speaking for myself, my belief structure has nothing to do with trying to unravel your words. It's just a bunch of intellectual blah blah blah to me, in long sentences that put me in a trance by the time I get to the end of them.

I am sure that you understand what you are saying, but I don't think anybody else does. Therefore, you aren't speaking 'our' language.

I can't identify the name of your language but I am tempted to call it 'rhetoric.' You are writing to yourself, nobody else.

If you want people to understand you, try speaking their language.

Try speaking in simple short coherent and common sentences. Stop trying to flaunt your vocabulary.

But do you really want to communicate or are you just talking to yourself?

Sorry. That is just so funny in this particular thread.

A thread where the author claims that all thought is language, yet he can't even communicate his very own ideas using language.

This thread just gets sillier and sillier as time goes by.

I could always 'talk' to someone capable of understanding...

Slight difference of opinion.

A newborn thinks yet has no language skills. Language is not linked to said newborns ability to think... It is only necessary for the newborn to learn the language that is spoken by those arround it in order to be able to communicate.

Yet still it thinks BEFORE it has developed language skills.

Therefore it MIGHT be safe to assume that language is a learned skill whereas thought is present even when language is not.