[FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 198, Issue 15
Prof David West
profwest at fastmail.fm
Fri Dec 20 13:00:26 EST 2019
yes I have. A long list of agents causing same in various degrees. Strangely, caffeine has never been one of them. my reaction to anti-histamines might be somewhat comparable to your caffeine.
On Fri, Dec 20, 2019, at 6:01 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> When I drink caffeine it stimulates my visual cortex in a way that causes hallucinations. Perhaps you've had similar experiences.
>
> -----------------------------------
> Frank Wimberly
>
> My memoir:
> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>
> My scientific publications:
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 8:36 AM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> __
>> "Seeing" is the consequence of patterned neural activity in the cerebral cortex?
>>
>> what is the relevance of "constraints," "enhancements," "inputs (electrical impulses or hormones or chemicals that excite/inhibit synaptic firing)," that are in any sense "required" for the patterns to form?
>>
>> please note these are questions, not assertions.
>>
>> davew
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 20, 2019, at 2:57 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>> For me it has to involve the visual cortex. I see things in my dreams and I see hallucinations when I drink caffeinated coffee. So I'm not saying it's what my eyes do.
>>>
>>> -----------------------------------
>>> Frank Wimberly
>>>
>>> My memoir:
>>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>>>
>>> My scientific publications:
>>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>>>
>>> Phone (505) 670-9918
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 11:18 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Which raises the question, what is your definition of "see". To me, seeing is building a three dimensional model of the world around you from your point of view. So, a blind man sees with his cane. You see with a television. You saw trump tonight on the television.
>>>>
>>>> Before you laugh at me, try to build a different definition of "see". It's harder than you might suppose. Whatever my eyes do, won't do.
>>>>
>>>> Nick
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 9:52 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I don't mean to answer for Bruce. That UV light may cause some response from my skin but that does not fall within my definition of "see". Not even close.
>>>>>
>>>>> Frsnk
>>>>>
>>>>> -----------------------------------
>>>>> Frank Wimberly
>>>>>
>>>>> My memoir:
>>>>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>>>>>
>>>>> My scientific publications:
>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>>>>>
>>>>> Phone (505) 670-9918
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 9:14 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Hi, Bruce, ____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> I finally found this. Email grief. Sorry to be so slow in answering. ____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> Nick Thompson____
>>>>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology____
>>>>>> Clark University____
>>>>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com____
>>>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>>
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Bruce Simon
>>>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 11, 2019 1:44 PM
>>>>>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 198, Issue 15____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> Birds and bees see ultraviolet light but I don't. ____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] Well, your skin sees it, right? If you transduce it down to wavelengths that your eye can respond to, you will see it with your eyes, right? So all of this hangs on your definition of “see”. ____**
>>>>>> Flowers give off UV but I can't have the experience of it. A spectrophotometer can detect UV and I can see the dial move but that is not the same as experiencing it. **[NST===>] Again, that hangs on a definition of “see”. **“ Suppose God gave me the ability to see like a bird. Could I describe to you what the flower looks like (re. UV?). ____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] You mean, I can never experience the world as a bird experiences the world, right? But, on your account, as I understand it, we don’t have to appeal to the birds and the bees to reach this conclusion: I can never experience the world as YOU experience it, because each persons experience is ineffably his own. But isn’t there a strange regress going on here.____**
>>>>>> **__ __**
>>>>>> **Bruce: I experience that flower.____**
>>>>>> **__ __**
>>>>>> **Nick: I, too, experience that flower.____**
>>>>>> **__ __**
>>>>>> **Bruce: But you don’t experience my experience of that flower.____**
>>>>>> **__ __**
>>>>>> **Nick: Non-sense. I am experiencing your experience of that flower as we speak! Otherwise we could not be speaking of it. ____**
>>>>>> ** you y ____**
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> On Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 12:23:29 PM MST, friam-request at redfish.com <friam-request at redfish.com> wrote: ____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> Send Friam mailing list submissions to____
>>>>>> friam at redfish.com____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit____
>>>>>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com____
>>>>>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to____
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>>>>>> __ __
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>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific____
>>>>>> than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."____
>>>>>> Today's Topics:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Re: [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind? (u?l? ?)
>>>>>> 2. Re: [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind? (Frank Wimberly)
>>>>>> 3. Re: [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind? (u?l? ?)
>>>>>> 4. Re: [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
>>>>>> (thompnickson2 at gmail.com)____
>>>>>> It seems like you're asking a question with the ???? at the end. But it's unclear to me what the question is. If the question is:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can a thing-occurance exist/be-real even if any attempt to describe it in any language will be a false description?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Phrased that way, it's unclear how anyone could say "No". I enjoy quoting Gödel's interpretation of what von Neumann said [†] to demonstrate one way that could happen:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> von Neumann: But in the complicated parts of formal logic it is always one order of magnitude harder to tell what an object can do than to produce the object.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Gödel: However, what von Neumann perhaps had in mind appears more clearly from the universal Turing machine. There it might be said that the complete description of its behavior is infinite because, in view of the non-existence of a decision procedure predicting its behavior, the complete description could be given only by an enumeration of all instances. Of course this presupposes that only decidable descriptions are considered to be complete descriptions, but this is in line with the finitistic way of thinking. The universal Turing machine, where the ratio of the two complexities is infinity, might then be considered to be a limiting case of other finite mechanisms. This immediately leads to von Neumann's conjecture.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By this reasoning, it's relatively easy to see why *any* description will fall short of the thing described, at least in this levels-of-types conception.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [†] Or what Burks says Gödel said anyway -- Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 12/11/19 1:58 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was the inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > God is therefore real and extant?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > But wait ...
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of course, the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I was raised.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience." None of these implied relations are accurate or complete, or even differentiable from each other.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before and after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and experience — from the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color," the filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences is dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" — is altered as well, although often not expressible beyond, "there's something different about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits, possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm the prediction of effects.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > "Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Despite being, in every way ineffable — in that no words capture its totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are false-to-fact.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > ????
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > dave west
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
>>>>>> >> Ok.... I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I want to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I want to describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some reasonable use of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that I saw a turtle, I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly what the experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not convinced there is anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to express his "feelings" to his granddaughter... and with that out of the way I will return to what I think is the broader issue.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might as well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of is, in some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is _in principle_ conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed adequately - whether by words or any other means of expression - concepts can be expressed, and so anything real can be expressed.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The bigger question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic maxim covers that as well. Things that have effects are _in principle_ we may presume there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means to detect, but anything that has effects could, under some circumstances, be detectable. So the limits of what _is_ are the same as the limits of what can in principle be known. Postulation of things that are existing but which can't, under any circumstances, be known is internally contradictory.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Was that a better reply? It felt more thorough at least...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>>>> ________
>>>>>> I'm surprised no one has quoted Wittgenstein:____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> Wovon Mann nicht sprechen kann daruber muss Mann schweigen.____
>>>>>> -----------------------------------
>>>>>> Frank Wimberly
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My memoir:
>>>>>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My scientific publications:
>>>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Phone (505) 670-9918____
>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 11:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:____
>>>>>>> It seems like you're asking a question with the ???? at the end. But it's unclear to me what the question is. If the question is:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can a thing-occurance exist/be-real even if any attempt to describe it in any language will be a false description?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Phrased that way, it's unclear how anyone could say "No". I enjoy quoting Gödel's interpretation of what von Neumann said [†] to demonstrate one way that could happen:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> von Neumann: But in the complicated parts of formal logic it is always one order of magnitude harder to tell what an object can do than to produce the object.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Gödel: However, what von Neumann perhaps had in mind appears more clearly from the universal Turing machine. There it might be said that the complete description of its behavior is infinite because, in view of the non-existence of a decision procedure predicting its behavior, the complete description could be given only by an enumeration of all instances. Of course this presupposes that only decidable descriptions are considered to be complete descriptions, but this is in line with the finitistic way of thinking. The universal Turing machine, where the ratio of the two complexities is infinity, might then be considered to be a limiting case of other finite mechanisms. This immediately leads to von Neumann's conjecture.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> By this reasoning, it's relatively easy to see why *any* description will fall short of the thing described, at least in this levels-of-types conception.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [†] Or what Burks says Gödel said anyway -- Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 12/11/19 1:58 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was the inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > God is therefore real and extant?
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > But wait ...
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of course, the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I was raised.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience." None of these implied relations are accurate or complete, or even differentiable from each other.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before and after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and experience — from the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color," the filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences is dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" — is altered as well, although often not expressible beyond, "there's something different about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits, possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm the prediction of effects.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > "Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing?
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Despite being, in every way ineffable — in that no words capture its totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are false-to-fact.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > ????
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > dave west
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
>>>>>>> >> Ok.... I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I want to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I want to describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some reasonable use of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that I saw a turtle, I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly what the experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not convinced there is anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to express his "feelings" to his granddaughter... and with that out of the way I will return to what I think is the broader issue.
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might as well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue.
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of is, in some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is _in principle_ conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed adequately - whether by words or any other means of expression - concepts can be expressed, and so anything real can be expressed.
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The bigger question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic maxim covers that as well. Things that have effects are _in principle_ we may presume there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means to detect, but anything that has effects could, under some circumstances, be detectable. So the limits of what _is_ are the same as the limits of what can in principle be known. Postulation of things that are existing but which can't, under any circumstances, be known is internally contradictory.
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> Was that a better reply? It felt more thorough at least...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ============================================================
>>>>>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>>>>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>>>>>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>>>>>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>>>>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove____
>>>>>> I'm not. Wittgenstein was very cool. But he wasn't a *builder*. (... as far as I know. I'd be happy to be wrong.) The thing that (in my ignorant opinion) distinguishes people like Wittgenstein from people like Gödel, von Neumann, Feynman, etc. ... even Penrose with the tilings and such, is that they *build* things. Until the hoity-toity results from the unification theorem come percolating down to morons like me, I'll continue treating constructive proofs as better and more real/existing than classical proofs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 12/11/19 10:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>>>>> > I'm surprised no one has quoted Wittgenstein:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Wovon Mann nicht sprechen kann daruber muss Mann schweigen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>>>>> ________
>>>>>> Hi, Dave, and thanks, Frank. See Larding Below:____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> Nick Thompson____
>>>>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology____
>>>>>> Clark University____
>>>>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com____
>>>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>>>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 11, 2019 2:58 AM
>>>>>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was the inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] My Larder is only half working on this computer. **____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> God is therefore real and extant?____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] Does God “prove out”? In order to answer that question, we would have to have a conception of God that could possibly “prove out”. I say that God is the Wizard in Wizard of Oz. An old guy who hides in a closet and manipulates our experience with giant levers. That conception is probably “prove-out-able” but probably doesn’t prove out. Or, ringed around with sufficient special meanings, it could become circular, and therefore not “prove-out-able”. So, **____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> But wait ...____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of course, the form of all those words and effects is but____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] Why “but”, Dave? It’s an artifact of culture. It’s an experience that proves out only with in the framework of a culture. As long as you stay within the culture, it proves out pretty good. When you moved away from home, it didn’t prove out. **____
>>>>>> an artifact of the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I was raised.____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is false-to-fact.____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] Stipulated**____
>>>>>> What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience." None of these implied relations are accurate or complete, or even differentiable from each other.____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before and after "It" are measurable and comparable. ____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] Not sure what all this brain talk is doing. What experiences does brain talk represent. Were you looking at an MRI while all of this was happening? **____
>>>>>> Behavior and experience — from the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color," the filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences is dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" — is altered as well, although often not expressible beyond, "there's something different about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] The outsidedness and the insidedness of experiences are themselves experiences which prove out in markedly different ways. **____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits, possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm the prediction of effects.____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> "Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing? ____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> Despite being, in every way ineffable — in that no words capture its totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are false-to-fact.____
>>>>>> **[NST===>] Hang on, Dave. We are starting to talk as if ANYTHING is effable. Let’s agree on an example of proper, unambiguous effing that we can use as a model, a case where you, and I, and all members of FRIAM can agree, “Nick and Dave really effed that sucker!” In the meantime, please have a look at the attached text, pp 4-8. **____
>>>>>> ** **____
>>>>>> **Here, for the lazy amongst you, is a “gist”**____
>>>>>> ** **____
>>>>>> Working through thought-experiments like the one above leads us to conclude that all descriptions, particularly satisfying ones, are inevitably explanatory and that all explanations are descriptive. And yet, you cannot explain something until you have something to explain – so all explanations must be based on prior descriptions. The only reasonable conclusion, if you take both of these claims at face value, is that all explanations are based on prior explanations! The distinction between description and explanation concerns their position in an argument, not their objectivity or subjectivity in some enduring sense. Whether a statement is explanatory or descriptive depends upon the understandings that exist between the speaker and his or her audience at the time the statement is made. *Descriptions are explanations that the speaker and the audience take to be true for the purpose of seeking further explanations*.[1] <https://www.fastmail.com/mail/compose/Mee5383895d2fbec2cf2ef5c6?u=f61741a2&domain=fastmail.fm#m_2376827421255797964_m_3115841449660933792_m_-7189693114313297488_m_-881266309841501019_m_-6995609592522041570__ftn1> ____
>>>>>> ** **____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> ????____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> dave west____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> ____
>>>>>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:____
>>>>>>> Ok.... I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I want to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I want to describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some reasonable use of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that I saw a turtle, I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly what the experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not convinced there is anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to express his "feelings" to his granddaughter... and with that out of the way I will return to what I think is the broader issue.____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might as well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue. ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of is, in some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is _in principle_ conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed adequately - whether by words or any other means of expression - concepts can be expressed, and so anything real can be expressed.____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The bigger question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic maxim covers that as well. Things that have effects are _in principle_ we may presume there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means to detect, but anything that has effects could, under some circumstances, be detectable. So the limits of what _is_ are the same as the limits of what can in principle be known. Postulation of things that are existing but which can't, under any circumstances, be known is internally contradictory. ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> Was that a better reply? It felt more thorough at least...____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> -----------____
>>>>>>> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.____
>>>>>>> Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist____
>>>>>>> American University - Adjunct Instructor____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 7:36 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:____
>>>>>>>> I intend to respond to both Nick's and EricC's comments about "faith in convergence" at some point. But I've been caught up in other things. So, in the meantime, ...____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> "Irony and Outrage," part 2: Why Colbert got serious — and why Donald Trump isn't funny____
>>>>>>>> https://www.salon.com/2019/12/08/irony-and-outrage-part-2-why-colbert-got-serious-and-why-donald-trump-isnt-funny/____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> There are 2 interesting tangents touching this thread:____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> 1) Re: ineffability -- "But also that the mere logic of the humorous juxtaposition eludes him — the notion that you do not issue the argument, you create a juxtaposition that invites the audience to issue an argument."____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> I'll argue that the content of a (good) joke is *ineffable*. The whole purpose of the joke teller is to communicate something without actually *saying* it. If you explain a joke, it breaks the joke.____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> And 2) Re: limits to epistemology limiting ontology -- "That, to me, is illustrative of that broader point I try to make about how when a threat is salient to you, it becomes hard to enter the state of play, ..."____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> I *would* argue that pluralists will be more able to enter the "state of play" Goldthwaite describes (and I've described on this list a number of times as variations of "suspension of disbelief", "empathetic listening", and being willing to play games others set up) than monists. I think monists should TEND to be more committed to their way of thinking than pluralists ... more willing to believe their own or others' brain farts. At least in my case, being a pluralist means, in part, that I refuse to *commit* to ontological assertions of any kind. I'll play with various types of monism just as readily as I'll play with 3-tupleisms ... or 17-tupleisms. I think that's what makes me a simulant of passing competence. You just need to tell me *what* -ism you want to simulate.____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> As such, it seems that maybe Dave's got the cart before the horse. It's the failure of ontology that's mandating voids in epistemology. We should work toward robust *ways of knowing* and loosen up a bit on whatever it is we think we know. I say "would argue" of course because, being totally ignorant of philosophy, I'm probably just confused about everything.____
>>>>>>>> ____
>>>>>>>> On 12/10/19 12:43 PM, Prof David West wrote:____
>>>>>>>> > Both your anecdotes support, my assertion that lots of things and lots of experiences are ineffable. This does not mean they are not "expressible" nor "communicable, merely that they cannot be expressed with words nor communicated using words.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > Words fail! Indeed!____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > Entire languages fail. Entire epistemological philosophies fail.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > You "rendered" the ineffable to your grand-daughter, but you did NOT render them to me with words. You you words to circumscribe and speak about an experience of a kind that you believe I might have first hand, equally ineffable, experience of and that your indirect words would move me to make a connection. At best, your words, your language, worked like a game of Charades or Pictionary as a means of limning the space wherein I might find my own experience of like kind.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > A "mystic" engages an experience that is ineffable, and then utters thousands, book volumes worth, of words attempting to limn a space wherein you too might engage the same experience — or, if an optimist, might awaken in you a recognition of what you have already experienced. More Charades and Pictionary — spewing forth words ABOUT the experience; never expressing, in words or language, the experience itself.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > At least some ineffable experiences can be expressed directly using a language of voltages and wave forms, (Neurotheology), but not words or mathematical symbols or such-based languages.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > The question remains: why does a failure of epistemology mandate voids in ontology?____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > I love your etymological daffiness, I share it.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > The definitions cited reflect an arrogance of the "enlightened" in the notion "too great for words." A lot of mystics make this, what I believe to be, error, attempting to grant an ontological status of REAL that does not follow from the simple fact that it cannot be expressed in words.____
>>>>>>>> > ____
>>>>>>>> > And another sidenote — something might be "ineffable" simply because you are not allowed to use a word, ala Carlin's seven dirty words, or the "N-Word" or the "C-Word."____
>>>>>>>> <span style="font-fa
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