Podcast #50: RPE and AGW Theology

[Matthew_888]

Boiling down what I said into that sentence doesn't quite cut it. We already implicitly agree that words invoke certain associations and "meanings". The person who came up with that idea or at least wrote it all down was Ferdinand De Saussure. He argued that the meanings words convey is based on (socially constructed) conventions. For example, you and I indirectly, implicitly agree that the thinking form "tree" refers to the thinking form of an image of a tree. However, we don't sit at a table and go over the entire lexicon before entering into conversation. Rather through countless usage of the thinking form "tree" and its use to refer to the thinking form of an image of a tree, we have all come to agree upon the thinking form and its usage simply by using it ourselves.

More interesting, however, is the idea that language is a purely mental activity. Language, according to De Saussure, is used to order amorphous blobs in our minds into more coherent blobs. Thus, the word "tree" doesn't refer directly to a tree or the trees. Instead, the word tree, itself a purely "fictitious" entity in that it and its relevance exists only in our English-speaking minds, refers to what we believe a tree to be. In imagery, this would show up as the word "tree" with the equals symbol followed by a thought bubble of a tree, not an image of a tree. This is an important distinction to make because language cannot directly affect reality, merely alter perspective of reality. Action, ultimately, is the thing that affects reality and action is always interpreted in the mind through language.

Link with the thread: meaninglessness is where climatewarmists hide to make you
pay taxes on the air you breath (carbon tax) with your illusionary consent.



_All_ color's names refer to an experience.

It is _impossible_ to tell someone what the color "red" is like, idem for the
taste of salt and so many other primitive experiences.

The guy should have the association (red,Experience of a color) so that anytime
you say "red", he can substitute the word "red" by the corresponding experience
in his head and get a step closer to what you are talking about in the real
world.

Sometimes, "red" _means_ something else i.e. the associated thing is not an
experience of a color but maybe a tactical plan, for example: "Red Code!".

What matters is that a useful way of thinking about _meaning_ is: "X means Y" is
equivalent to say: "whenever you encounter the symbol X, you may replace it, in
context, by the thing Y."

A context is nothing else that an ordered sequence of associations. For example,
depending on the context, "I need a flexible person for this job." has widely ≠
meanings.

A symbol w/o an associated meaning is… meaningless: it just means itself. You
cannot replace it by anything else but itself. For example: given the context:

(Red , Experience of Red)
(Green , Experience of Green)
(Blue , Experience of Blue)

the expression `0.5×Red + 0.2×Green + 0.3×Blue` is meaningless unless you get
more context on `×` and `+`. You could also get an experience of `0.5×Red +
0.2×Green + 0.3×Blue` in which case you end up with a new context:

(Red , Experience of Red)
(Green , Experience of Green)
(Blue , Experience of Blue)
(0.5×Red + 0.2×Green + 0.3×Blue , Experience of 0.5×Red + 0.2×Green + 0.3×Blue)

If you've got meanings of `×` and `+` instead, you may have been able to
"compute" so that `0.5×Red + 0.2×Green + 0.3×Blue` → `Dark Purple` → Experience
of Dark Purple.

Either way, you _always_ end up with an experience, statistical in
nature. Statistical because all these experiences must be close enough so that
speaking about them has a meaning, else it's useless. If these experiences were
random then nothing could have a meaning. For example, is "taste of salt" would
refer sometimes to chicken or cat food or filet mignon it would be equivalent to
"any taste" i.e. no specific taste in particular.

To sum it up: experiences are similar enough so that giving them names is
meaningful. The "social construction" concerns only the symbols (alphabet,
grammatical rules, vocabulary, …) that refer to them. Any symbol that does not
refer to an experience is meaningless.

Note that meaningless symbols are still useful: they act as placeholders for
meanings to come so that the sentence may or may not resolve to an experience in
the future. One can think of it as a suspended computation. Given the above,
what is a lie? What is an ambiguity? Are they the same? _Meaninglessness dig
holes in which lies hide._

[Scaldrew]

The problem with believing that symbols have meaning is that then it has to be decided which contradictory "meaning" is to be removed. Take for instance the very contentious Confederate Flag. To contemporary liberals, the flag is a symbol of racism and hatred while to conservatives and the South, it's merely a symbol of defiance, possibly against government oppression, and fighting for what's yours. This latter category disputes the idea that racism is a part of this defiance and self-preservation. If you believe that a symbol holds meaning, then these two conflicting ideas cannot coexist in relation to the symbol. If, however, you posit that symbols merely evoke meaning, then this problem disappears. Any person in the South could say "well, to some it's a symbol of racism, but to me it's a symbol of sticking it to the man". For better or worse, the reverse is also true; any liberal could say the opposite and be "equally correct". Hence I think it's more productive to enquire what people think (and how) instead of jumping to conclusions based on "what I know a symbol 'means' ". And the way to deal with possible outrage is to consider how willing you are to deal with it and simply not take any risks if it's not worth it to you.

This isn't universally true, however. In law, symbols have meaning. This is why someone like Bill Clinton can say "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and still be telling the truth, depending on which meaning he has decided to evoke through language. Though language is language no matter where you are, in a court of law (or impeachment process) this kind of stuff happens all the time and lawyers are trained to be concerned about these sorts of minutiae. In mathematics, too, symbols have meaning. You can write down 1 + 1 = 2 and say that 1 + 1 is literally equal to 2. Note that conflicting outcomes do not remain linked with the symbols as with language. 1 + 1 can only equal 2, not 3 or 4 or 5 etc. And that's literally the only two examples from different fields I know, so moving on.

Though it may seem self-defeating to conclude that "well, symbols don't have meaning so they mean nothing and everything they mean at the same time", but I agree (and few would disagree) with your point that "imperfect symbols" are better than none. The usefulness of language, I think, is hard to dispute, especially since it has allowed mankind to achieve and fail everything in and before history, even if the symbols they used carried no inherent meaning. There's a lot more in your response, Mr. 888, that I disagree with and language studies disagrees with, but they're more or less details next to this core principle. Once you get that meaning is created by humans in interaction with objects/symbols, the rest is easily figured out.

[Matthew_888]

I'll rock your boat, try to rock mine.

Action, ultimately, is the thing that affects reality and action is always interpreted in the mind through language.

XXX: The divide between actions and thoughts is meaningless: it refers to nothing in particular in the outside world, but merely an arbitrary (that exists in one's mind) cut in what is out there (note: from there one can reach your BA paper already).
How much of a blueprint exists in the corresponding building? When?
What gives rise to a blueprint?
Thoughts agglomerate to take the form of a blueprint that is then turned into an actual building.
You cannot have a building w/o some kind of blueprint or at the very least some thoughts.
Therefore, "thoughts" and "actions" are the _same_.
i.e. you cannot have actions w/o thoughts and thoughts w/o actions are meaningless.
This is why people are murderers, not guns.
Interestingly, it is meaningless but useful to think of an action as "the thing that affects reality" i.e.
artificially separated from the thought b/c our mind are too small to hold everything: we have to
have a degraded version (a map) of what is out there to think at all. Taking the map for the territory is
the real bummer.

As far as solipsism is concerned, it seems to me to be a real stretch to go from "self-constructed meaning" to solipsism.
To conclude, then, that all of this is merely symptomatic of solipsism seems to me to be both reductionist and far-fetched.

Solipsism is when you take your map for the territory: you fill up what you can't/don't want to grasp with whatever BS comes
out of your mind. The only way to know if it's BS or not is to test your expectations w/ what is out there.
For example, in our French presidential election, we really add a show of manipulations by the media and our manlet.
His favorite words are: "at the same time". "We will lower the taxes here and at the same time raise them there."
Solipsists just remember the part they want to:
- "He will lower the taxes for me, I will vote for him!" (good for you if the state depends on you)
- "He will raise the taxes for me, I will vote for him!" (good for you if you depend on the state)
And then, you have a festival of morons with contradictory convictions thinking they vote for the same candidate... when in fact,
should the images of the same candidate they have in mind come to live, they would probably gut each others.

For one, saying that everything merely exists in one person's mind is to say that the entire universe could be conjured up by just one person. I think that's a bit too much brain power for any one man to hold.

You clearly did not interpret solipsism as I do. The above should clarify.

But in excluding "bad" examples through subjective criteria,

When I say: "there is no bad science, there is science" it means that good or bad do not apply to science like a knife is never a murderer.
See above.

1 + 1 can only equal 2, not 3 or 4 or 5 etc. And that's literally the only two examples from different fields I know, so moving on.

This clearly show that your understanding of symbols and meanings is to be improved.

Everything else being equal, let's agree that the character `+` has the same meaning as the subtraction operation.
Then, "1+1" refers to "0". I will let you complete the equation: " 1+1= <your answer here> " (Hint: "2" is wrong)
What I did is just change the context: changed the meaning associated to the symbol `+`.

Finally, going back to the line XXX above and what I think your BA paper is about, one _extracts_ meaning from what is out there
and affects what is out there in return... just by observing it! The reason being that we _are_ what is out there.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Matthew is an accomplished typist.

[spacediver]

I've held back for a while on saying this, but I'll put it out there.

I find it very difficult to parse Matthew's writing/thoughts. I don't think there's been a single post he's written that I've been able to follow. I think it's a combination of the odd text layout and stream of consciousness style.

[MBasic]

When I get back. I'm out of town till next week, can't see the chart from here.

. .the chart? link?

I feel this would dispel many arguments at my work, wife's work, etc

or at least cause people to think about things differently.

[Scaldrew]

Matthew is an accomplished typist.

Sadly not a very coherent one. I cannot make sense of it, if there's any sense behind it at all. By the by, I get that its fashionable to shit on the humanities, but, no, you couldn't magically arrive at a coherent paper in "my" field, Mr. 888, even if you had a dozen rooms each with a dozen monkeys and one typewriter with you at the helm. But do continue to tell me what your personal stances are. I'd rather talk about how people think, though, not what, so I'm going to give you the last word and check out other threads instead.

[Mark Rippetoe]

. .the chart? link?

I'm out of town again. Remind me next week.

[Pluripotent]

. .the chart? link?

I feel this would dispel many arguments at my work, wife's work, etc

or at least cause people to think about things differently.

This is very optimistic of you.

[JFord]

My pain scale goes to 11. For when I need that extra push over the cliff...