GENIUS FORUMS

When people say "i understand something" I dont beleive that they have said anything "meaningfull" .(note the "").

What i beleive is that what is actually happening is that there is an equivalence between one set and another and that brings about the "Aha" moment.

That either of the two sets has an objective "meaning" is false.

There is no such thing as meaning.
An aha moment is just as valid as a non aha moment.

To be pragmatic we know that some "knowledge" is more usefull than other knowledge because somehow it conforms to the "real world". (i'm not sure if the "" are necessary)
What i beleive is that when we are born we have some in built psychological structures (in built memorys) and that these form the basis of all relationships between understanding and non understanding.These built in structures would have been placed in us by the univerese and so we still see that all it means is that A=A and not any usefull information.I.e that we are the clay in the univereses hands And so we reflect the imprints of those hands back.
If there was another univerese (brane in string theory) with different rules we would "understand" things differently.

When we say that you understanding something , what you really mean is that there is an equivalence between those structures in your head and the new information that you receive.

Alternatively you could think of this as your mind is the ball while knowledge is the socket.
When these two meet and couple we say that we understand something.

There would be many different types of "balls" in your head and each one would require a particular type of information "socket" for there to be any understanding for that information.

I know that some smart aleck is going to ask me what i am trying to give them since as i said there is no such thing as meaning but you know what i mean. :)

chikoka wrote:When people say "i understand something" I dont beleive that they have said anything "meaningfull" .(note the "").

What i beleive is that what is actually happening is that there is an equivalence between one set and another and that brings about the "Aha" moment.

That either of the two sets has an objective "meaning" is false.

There is no such thing as meaning.
An aha moment is just as valid as a non aha moment.

This seems equivalent to the "our universe might be a computer simulation" argument to question things like absolute objectivity or universal meaning.

Truth appears always relative to us. So any "equivalence between those structures in your head and the new information that you receive" is an application in the practical sense of logic and reason itself. Equivalence relations already submit to identity relations, don't they? It doesn't matter how 'true' or 'sound' the structures and information are as there's no ultimate way of knowing that. We can still draw conclusions about the process itself however.

Then remains the question how useful these conclusions are for your aims in life.

[PS who said that meaning is anything else than the reflecting back of imprints of the universe? Although that's nicely put: aren't you just introducing a straw man argument to knock over?]

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This seems equivalent to the "our universe might be a computer simulation" argument to question things like absolute objectivity or universal meaning.

I,m not sure what you mean by "computer simulation".
If what you are saying is what i think it is then i think the opposite .
I say that we could not build a computer simulation of the univerese because there would be no axioms that are consistent enough to do so.
Not consistent in terms of godell but that there will be no universal meaning as you put it.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:We can still draw conclusions about the process itself however.

Could you state out some of these.

chikoka wrote: I say that we could not build a computer simulation of the univerese because there would be no axioms that are consistent enough to do so/

My point was that it can never be proven beyond doubt that we are not already part of a simulation which created axioms like a computer program follows its rules. There would be no rational way to be certain of its existence or non-existence. Making the issue irrelevant in this context apart from being a useful thought experiment.

Useful in the sense that it points to the truth that all meaning we might establish is merely provisional. Which is hardly contested in this day and age and certainly nothing earth shaking to say.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:We can still draw conclusions about the process itself however.

Could you state out some of these.

You could start with non-contradiction as requirement to any signification.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:You could start with non-contradiction as requirement to any signification.

Quantum physics already allows for contradiction in that A can be veiwed as B in some cases while it can be viewed as C in the same cases but B is not = C.

Perhaps you could start then with brushing up your Quantum Physics :) It doesn't say what you think it's saying. You're at most talking about merely one of the many possible interpretations. And even then, you're confusing appearances with 'a thing in itself', an imagined A, B and C that objectively must exist somewhere, according to your logic.

The same argument pops up with the conclusion about causality. Here's David Quinn's inquiry into the matter.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:And even then, you're confusing appearances with 'a thing in itself', an imagined A, B and C that objectively must exist somewhere, according to your logic

What i am saying is that A , B and C are different situations.
Treating them as If they exist is correct because situations can exist.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The same argument pops up with the conclusion about causality. Here's David Quinn's inquiry into the matter.

I have already made my attempt to disprove the concept of causality in another thread.Which i duplicate here for your convenience.

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When you say we are caused to think the things we think , are you implying that there is a phyisical causality in that one molecule hits another leading to a different thought.
If that was so i would think that that would mean that thoughts ,since they are presumably abstractions from the physical representations, should not follow any fixed pattern because that would be a huge coincidence that a sequence of thoughts (which can be shown to be "determined" in that one thought naturally leads to the next), would also follow a second level of determinisms , that of the physical representations of the thought.

I am saying that either the train of thoughts are determined or the physical representations of the thoughts are , and that if both are true that would be highly unlikely since if you think one thought (A) then immediately after that you think a thought (B).you can imagine thinking the thought (A) perhaps at a later stage and then thinking thought (C) after that meaning that physical determinism was not happening.

This would be proof that things are not determined , at least physically.
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chikoka wrote: What i am saying is that A , B and C are different situations.

If they are different than the situations are not contradicting each other. A does not suddenly equal and not equal B. For example one can say some measurement appears to behave like a particle would and at another time as a wave function. They are not particle and wave in exactly the same context.

chikoka wrote: I have already made my attempt to disprove the concept of causality in another thread.Which i duplicate here for your convenience.

My remark was just about your statement that Quantum Mechanics wouldn't allow for fundamental "conclusions" like non-contradiction and causality. Which is totally false.