Why do so many people mistake language for reality?

Doesn't everything that is conscious, and reacts to reality, have to be conscious at step 1?
The reality is step 2.
Vegetables react to reality by growing according to the available nutrients, but don't have the facility to alter it.... run from herbivores, etc, while the herbivore can pick and choose to lunch, or not lunch.
 
HansMustermann said:
I wouldn't say thinking necessarily happens in words, but nevertheless, I find that if you can picture something clearly in your head -- and doubly so if something actually exists -- then you can find words to translate its defining properties into.

E.g., ok, if you're a visual type, maybe you'll picture that crankshaft in your head. But you can still translate that into words. Maybe it looks like something else you can picture in your mind, and you can tell me what other thing it resembles. You can tell me if it's shiny, and about how big it is, and a bunch of other stuff. Worst case scenario we can sit together with a piece of paper and a pencil and you could help me draw one. Which still involves verbal communication, if assisted by a visual aide.

Ok, maybe you're the tactile type. Then you can tell me what something feels like to the touch. Is it smooth? Is it rough? Sticky? Cold? Again, being the tactile type, no doubt you have a reasonable 'database' in your head of other stuff that you can compare to, in that aspect. Does it feel like fir tree bark? Satin? Smooth plastic? Etched glass? Or what?
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It's possible to translate, just as it's possible to translate between languages. But that's a far cry from saying that the thinking is always done in words, which claim I see far too often.
 
epepke said:
It's possible to translate, just as it's possible to translate between languages. But that's a far cry from saying that the thinking is always done in words, which claim I see far too often.
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Wait, what? Does this mean that none of us thinks always in words, even if we also use other forms of cognition to assist? Then what's that constant running dialogue in my head? Please clarify, in case I'm misunderstanding.
 
Does this mean that none of us thinks always in words, even if we also use other forms of cognition to assist?
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My interpretation is that both verbal and non-verbal cognition occur in almost everyone, if not everyone. It has nothing to do with whether or not one always has a running thread of verbal cognition--you CAN have other threads running (as I demonstrate each time I do a survey transect).

"Y occurs" does not necessarily "X does not occur".
 
JoeBentley said:
Okay obviously this is somewhat a response to the plethora of beyond even solipsist level navel gazing posts that have hit the board recently, but it did lead me to a serious train of thought because the "I can't describe it linguistically, ergo it doesn't exist" argument is used a lot as a seriously philosophical argument.

Basically there seems to be this idea amongst some people that everything can't use the language to describe perfectly can't exist, and everything they can use the language to describe has to exist.

For instance a while back I dismissed the classic "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object" paradox as meaningless. It doesn't hold up to even a brief thought. It's just a semantic trap, nothing more. The concept of an "immovable object" is dependent on there not existing an "unstoppable force" and vice versa. It only rates thought because our language is capable of defining the concept of an unstoppable force and simultaneously defining the concept of an immovable object, something our reality can't actually do. There is no deep mystical puzzle that we can solve to understand the universe better.

I dismissed solipsism the same way. Stripped of all its philosophical baggage a solipsistic question basically boils down to "What would reality be like if reality didn't exist?" Well it wouldn't... problem solved. Again only the language makes it possible, by being capable of creating linguistic concepts like "beyond reality" or "outside reality" when by definition reality is already an all encompassing concept.

Basically a lot of "coffee shop" philosophers (and some more educated and experienced ones) are doing this. They take advantage of the fact that it's possible to create linguistically paradoxical statements and act like that gives them some kind of intellectual weight.
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I couldn't agree more. This is my main beef with most philosophy. Why, as matter of fact, just last night I was having the same conversation with a friend of mine who's taking philosophy classes and I was explaining to him that a lot of what people call "philosophy exercises" are nothing more and nothing less than mere semantic games.

These semantic games seem to be one of the main issues most human beings have. Not only when trying to be philosophical but also when trying to hide their dishonesty behind different variations on the semantic game. It's a very snide, dishonest trap and I personally have no sympathy for it and I enjoy catching people on their cheat whenever I get a chance to do it.
 
slingblade said:
Wait, what? Does this mean that none of us thinks always in words, even if we also use other forms of cognition to assist? Then what's that constant running dialogue in my head? Please clarify, in case I'm misunderstanding.
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Not at all. I do mean that not everyone is like this. I'm not, for instance.

Still, I think that there are instances where everybody who does it thinks primarily non-symbolically. Driving a motor vehicle, for instance, is almost entirely visual and tactile. Good thing, too, as there isn't enough time for most brains to react to an emergency condition by processing language. It also probably has something to do with how most drivers can safely listen to NPR.

I also mean that there seems to be a tendency amongst people who use the symbolic modality primarily, such as some philosophers, not to understand that there are other modalities. Either that, or they dismiss them as not thinking. I've heard the folk term "muscle memory," which I find a bit silly, because I think it's really just training parts of the brain that are good at tactile thinking.
 
I Ratant said:
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Last century suffered 100s of millions of needless deaths due to the "philosophy" of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
I regard philosophers as parasites on society, feeding off the easily fooled with bumper sticker solutions to serious problems.
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I think you mistake politics for the **** politicians blame stuff on, Stalin did what Stalin did, you can't blame Marx for what Stalin did. Nor can you blame Adam Smith for starvation of children in Victorian england and current day africa.
 
Dancing David said:
I think you mistake politics for the **** politicians blame stuff on, Stalin did what Stalin did, you can't blame Marx for what Stalin did. Nor can you blame Adam Smith for starvation of children in Victorian england and current day africa.
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Of course I can blame them guys.
Fuzzy thinking from the disconnect with reality that such schmos come up with is never found to be practical.
The applications can tend to be inimical to the unfortunate recipients.
"What governs best governs least", but anarchy can't work either.
A sensible and pragmatic government seems to be one of representative capitalism, with the governed setting the limits of what the governors are permitted to do.
Modern day problems in Africa aren't the outcome of Adam Smith's ideas, it's man's inhumanity to man, a human situation that will probably never get cured, until we obliterate ourselves.
 
Why is everyone hammering away at the ridiculousness of a Zen koan that was never supposed to have an answer in the first place? Buddhists don't sit around pondering what the answer could be. The whole point is to shock you out of your quotidian "monkey mind" rambling, the inner monologue (dialogue?) that slingblade mentioned.
 
Concepts are as much part of "reality" as percepts.

Knowledge on the other hand is when a concept has a corresponding percept.

Philosophy is not only about knowledge it is about the full human experience. And a fundamental part of that experience is language or symbolic representations.

Understanding how language works has been the work of philosophers for some time culminating in Wittgenstein's work on the relationship between language and thought.

By exploring the logical boundaries of language Wittgenstein believed he would discover the boundaries of thought. Ultimately though Wittgenstein realized that studying the logical rules of language were exercises in futility and ordinary language which related to daily life was far more interesting.

Phenomenologists knew this all along.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
I couldn't agree more. This is my main beef with most philosophy. Why, as matter of fact, just last night I was having the same conversation with a friend of mine who's taking philosophy classes and I was explaining to him that a lot of what people call "philosophy exercises" are nothing more and nothing less than mere semantic games.
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And anyone who takes more than the introductory level philosophy classes will probably already know this.

Do you guys get your impressions of philosophers from the stoner-sessions on "That 70's Show"? We're not all like that. I promise.
 
!Kaggen said:
Knowledge on the other hand is when a concept has a corresponding percept.
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Case in point. That certainly sounds deep, but it's obviously false.

I have knowledge that 2 + 2 = 4. What's the percept to correspond to this concept?
 
Philosaur said:
And anyone who takes more than the introductory level philosophy classes will probably already know this.

Do you guys get your impressions of philosophers from the stoner-sessions on "That 70's Show"? We're not all like that. I promise.
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Earlier than that...
"Animal House"....
Donald Sutherland as Professor Dave Jennings: A bored English professor who tries to turn his students on to left-wing politics and drug use.
 
Philosaur said:
And anyone who takes more than the introductory level philosophy classes will probably already know this.
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Well, apparently not everyone my friend. Not judging from what my friend who's currently taking philosophy class, tells me.
 
Philosaur said:
Do you guys get your impressions of philosophers from the stoner-sessions on "That 70's Show"? We're not all like that. I promise.
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It's a conspiracy of non-philosophers to jam on philosophers for no reason whatsoever.

And, oh, by the way, BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA! Not to mention deedle deedle queep.
 
epepke said:
It's a conspiracy of non-philosophers to jam on philosophers for no reason whatsoever.

And, oh, by the way, BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA! Not to mention deedle deedle queep.
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"Neener!"
I say "Neener, neener, neener" to you, sir!
 
Philosaur said:
Why is everyone hammering away at the ridiculousness of a Zen koan that was never supposed to have an answer in the first place? Buddhists don't sit around pondering what the answer could be. The whole point is to shock you out of your quotidian "monkey mind" rambling, the inner monologue (dialogue?) that slingblade mentioned.
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If the words are as meaningless as all that, then what does that sentence teach?
That words can assembled in the noun, verb, object configuration and transmit no intelligence?
Many of us finger that out before encountering that nonsense phrase.
The fields of politics and religion thrive on such nonsense.
 
I Ratant said:
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Last century suffered 100s of millions of needless deaths due to the "philosophy" of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
I regard philosophers as parasites on society, feeding off the easily fooled with bumper sticker solutions to serious problems.
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Many people died under Communism, Communism is a philosophy, therefore many people died under philosophy, therefore philosophers are the parasites on society?

That's essentially the logic of your post with a few extra bare assertions that philosophy is made up of "bumper stickers" for gullible people.

What "bumper stickers" did Plato come up with? Or Frege?
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Well, apparently not everyone my friend. Not judging from what my friend who's currently taking philosophy class, tells me.
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Which is why I said "probably". In my experience, intro philosophy students who don't figure this out don't go much further in the department.
 
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