Boris, There are words without exact products and products without exact words. No two minds experience,sense or values things, words, images ,sounds. exactly alike. close perhaps! mando
From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, July 9, 2010 9:44:26 AM Subject: Re: The "trinary" view of "what there is". I thought that words are products of images in the brain. Boris Shoshensky ---------- Original Message ---------- From: ARMANDO BAEZA <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: The "trinary" view of "what there is". Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 12:31:32 -0700 (PDT) Could the problem here, be, that Boris,basically communicates with images and Cheerskep always with words. ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, July 7, 2010 11:45:05 AM Subject: Re: The "trinary" view of "what there is". Boris sends a good posting aimed at clarifying what he has in mind with some key terms in his position. He writes: "External is everything (info) outside of a specific notion or thought even the analysis as a total process is going on in the same head." I drastically misconstrued what Boris had in mind when he used the word 'external'. My last posting said: "I feel sure that with 'external' you mean to convey "outside the head entirely", and I agreed with that: I accept that there is an external material rock, and external light rays." To help you follow what I say below, I need to summarize some stuff from old postings: I use the term 'notion' for one's total flow of consciousness. You may recall my frequently writing that notion is "IIMT" - indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex and transitory. Picture a notional wave. How many notional drops are there in that notional wave? It's indeterminate - not just unknowable, but not a fixed number at all. How long is it? It's indefinite - it does not have fixed perimeters. (Bertrand Russell once asked a shrewd question: "How long is an event?") All notion - not just the notional wave - can, in a Zeno-like way, be seen as yielding "parts" (though each "part" is indefinite.) How many "parts" does your face have? Thus the notional wave is "multiplex". About "transitory". When I first asserted that notion is transitory, I said, "It is constantly morphing like a writhing cloud." (So when Boris writes, " WE cannot have exactly or absolutely the same notion more then once, next second it is different," we're obviously in agreement.) So, given all that as the background that I bring to reading Boris, when he says this I have reservations: "External is everything (info) outside of a specific notion or thought even the analysis as a total process is going on in the same head," Boris evidently thinks of "particular" notions/thoughts/ideas as discrete one from another, and thus each is "external" to the other. I think they are distinguished from one another but I don't agree that they are discrete. There is too much overlap, too little that's sharply perimetered, too much that's indeterminate to claim one can exclude all and only what's in a allegedly given notion. Note: Boris's usage is not "wrong". I can assert only that it leaves him liable to too much misinterpretation. Whenever a writer uses a word without describing then and there what he has in mind with the word, a major part of his grade -- measure of approval for his use of the word -- should be how much the notion the writer stirs in the other guy's mind approximates what the writer had in mind. I maintain that most people tend to interpret the word "external" in this context to convey "outside of the mind entirely", as in "the external world". So I'd also claim that Boris's use of 'external' to convey "outside this particular notion but not outside the head" will seldom result his stirring that intended notion in other minds. So I'd urge Boris to avoid using 'external' in this context - maybe try a form of 'discrete from' instead. With that same sort of reservation in mind, I feel Boris is liable to be widely misinterpreted when he says: "Signal is an any information sensed. Signal sent by stone is it's existence (light reflected by it), if stone is looked at and recognized." For one thing, most readers who read the word 'signal' will find that the notion stirred in their minds involves "communication intention". The idea that a stone "intends" to communicate its "existence" will feel silly to them. Contrast "signal of its existence" with "evidence of its existence". The common reader's notion of "signal" comes with the feeling that a "signal" does not have to be "sensed". Consider a lighthouse on a night no one is looking at it. Summoning up "Information Theory" to authenticate Boris's usage wouldn't work, for two reasons. First, not many common readers are knowledgeable enough about Information Theory to justify relying on its familiarity. Second, you can find the following in a widely-read explication of Information Theory: "For example, in information theory, a signal is a codified message, that is, the sequence of states in a communication channel that encodes a message." What do they have in mind with 'message'? Again, I'm not saying that Boris is wrong; I merely maintain that when he uses these words with his particular idiosyncratic notions in mind, it's unlikely his readers will find the same notion stirring in their minds. It's also worth noting that Boris uses the scription 'info' many times, but only once tries to convey what he has in mind. That's right at the top where he writes, "External is everything (info) outside of a specific notion or thought even the analysis as a total process is going on in the same head." I don't think he means that "info" is everything inside the head except the subject notion. My guess is he's saying that "external" includes ALL THE INFORMATION outside the subject notion but inside the head. But that doesn't convey what he has in mind with the term 'information'. None of this is to say that I'm any less ambiguous or misleading in my choice of lingo on this forum. And I have Boris to thank for my now seeing how faulty I've been in using 'notion' as a label for the entire flow of consciousness. Boris says, "I use notion as a view, conception, theory (in this instance), not as impression or feeling." I have to concede that the predominant use of 'notion' is indeed to label what I'll call "Ideas" as distinguished from feelings, tastes, attitudes. So Boris's usage has virtue that mine doesn't. Moreover, I have to admit that those who might accept 'notion' as a label for the entire stream of consciousness are nevertheless inclined to talk about "parts" of consciousness as "notions" - my notions of Abraham Lincoln, of Islam, of "aesthetic experience", of a book publishing strategy, of the best highway route to Vermont from New York City. I might remark that each of those "particular" notions is as indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex and transitory as the totality of notion - all consciousness. As I reflect on such a remark it only confirms that I'm unwise to try to use 'notion' as the label for both the totality and for alleged "parts". I need to get better. I'll save for a later posting further comments on Boris's remarks.
