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#72539 06/14/02 09:32 AM
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I think the question is more along the lines of -
"okay, we have things like concrete and we have things like love and we have things like dreams. It's a noun, so we know it's a thing. But is a 'force' a thing like love or a thing like concrete or is it something entirely different?"

"okay, we have this bunch of equations that describes something we're observing pretty well. Now of course those equations are real, per se, but are they *the* reality or is there something else that's *the* reality and these equations are just fortuitous?"

I guess Popper would say they are part of the third level of reality - objective knowledge. But maybe what we want to know is are they a part of physical reality. Maybe I'll just browse that book a bit.


k



#72540 06/14/02 01:29 PM
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i haven't been insulting says of-troy.

?

Hey, Kenny boy. Have you run out of words to put in front of your quotations? Not even a limerick or a song for us? Tut, tut.

Whenever will you join the land of the living? What a schmuck you are!


#72541 06/15/02 01:58 PM
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Dear Mind workers at large, I don't think I can shoot down wsieber's wild goose with a single-shot rifle, so here I go, bourbon in hand, with a shotgun approach to wsieber's question.

***The thing ~~//~~> selected sensory extraction from the totality of the environment. ~~//~~> the formulation of a vocal sound for the referent. ~~//~~> the creation of written symbols that represents the sound symbols that represents the selected sensory essence of the thing. ~~//~~> the integration of the spoken symbol for the referent into the mind-system of a sapient being ~~//~~> the integration of the written symbol into the belief system of the reader.

~~> = transfer of information
// = filtering of information.

Point: The miracle of communication is that it works at all.

***The howler monkey does not see the lion stretching and yawning over by the waterhole so he doesn't cry out the monkey signal scream for lion. What he sees is a big yellow furry mass rolling in the grass. A lion is something different. A lion has hungry eyes and moves with stealth and intent and can erupt any moment into a blur of slashing claws and gouging teeth. A snake is different. Dead or alive, slithering or sunning, when a howler monkey sees one of these sticks with a crook he screams with great bloodcurl the monkey word for snake and all hell breaks loose.

Point: In innate monkey philosophy a lion is merely an affect of the environment, while the snake is an entity that exists through time, the monkey beginnings of Personality Theory.

***Are words real? Yes. In every way we apply the term "realness". Physical electro-chemical processes occur in the brain and sound waves are emitted from the mouth. We can literally eat words if we eat a book. Are their meanings real? Gravity is real and can kill. Gravity waves have yet to be detected, we know gravity by it's effect. Turn on your TV and see the flames of the Mideast. Words and meanings by any definition are as real as a brick.

Point: I must leave and get a haircut but I will be back.




#72542 06/15/02 02:48 PM
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Will you bring back the haircut with you or do you leave the haircut there?

Is the haircut the hair remaining on your head in it's new shape? Or is the haircut that hair that is no longer an attached extension of yourself, now swept into the barbers' circular file? You could bring the cut hair back with you, and you would have the "whole" haircut with you. But, if the the haircut exists as two parts 'current hair' and 'cut hair', then the hair cut is defined by something of the past and present. We had the action and have the results of a haircut simultaneously. Not to mention (of course) that the hair is continually growing and the haircut fades is *gone at the moment of the next haircut.

If noone knows what you looked like before, don't you loose the "haircut" and gain a "style"?


#72543 06/16/02 12:08 AM
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Wow, musick i never though about all that before...When some one tells me they are getting a hair cut, i just usually ask Which one?


#72544 06/16/02 01:11 AM
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see http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=73229 (which I think applies here; I may be mistaken)

Of-troy's repetitive post, immediately below, simply proves my point once again.


#72545 06/16/02 01:13 AM
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the person know as Keiva, who recently posted on this thread, was banned, for flaming. he forced his way back into this forum by implied threats to Anu Garg, the founder of AWAD. this same person has also been know, for certain, to post under the names AphonicRants and KeivaCarpal.


#72546 06/16/02 01:30 AM
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Are words real? Yes. In every way we apply the term "realness". Physical electro-chemical processes occur in the brain and sound waves are emitted from the mouth. We can literally eat words if we eat a book. Are their meanings real? Gravity is real and can kill. Gravity waves have yet to be detected, we know gravity by it's effect. Turn on your TV and see the flames of the Mideast. Words and meanings by any definition are as real as a brick.

And bricks can kill--so be careful how and where you hurl them.






#72547 06/16/02 01:44 AM
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Keiva, go away. You are not welcome here.


#72548 06/17/02 05:23 PM
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Dear wsieber,

Then perhaps the question is to ask what is meant by "reality." I mean that, first of all, in the true-blue awadian school: it's historical meanings and ethymology. Heidegger discusses this with reference the real in "What is a Thing?" Which, to the extent I can remember it, deals with the Kantian forumulation of the real, which relates to "realm" (something mapable (describable)? relating to property?). In Kant (as I remember) according to that reading (as I remember) the real is the entirety of all those things that can be known. To be known, in that sense (as I remember) would be to be described in terms of number or of cause and effect. The real, then, is the mechanical universe, and all it's parts (including thoughts) are things. That may not satisfy, however, and it is possible that the real is a concept that exceeds itself.


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