Yes, same here. I try to validate whenever facing new claims or views. But we seem different in trusting machines. I tend to not to trust machines too much. Because machines can fail or betray through time.
For trusting experts as well. I tend to challenge them rather than trust. I believe challenging the establishment or traditional values or systems can make philosophy to progress for the new world spirit according to Hegelian dialectic principle.
Let me ask you a tricky question.
How does sound from a human mouth “correspond” with the location of pirate treasure ?
I understand that somehow the sounds from other humans’ mouths can help me find a pirate treasure. But how ?
I don’t think you want to say that sound “corresponds” with a chest of gold coins.
That sounds reasonable to me. For theoretical reasons I prefer to avoid the word “truth.”
I’d say that it’s good to offer our beliefs up to criticism. It is good to know about the beliefs of others, that we may decide are better than the ones we currently have. I see us as updating our beliefs. And these beliefs can be thought of as strategies for acting in the world.
If the sound from a human mouth carried a meaning (something like - by the beach look underneath the horse head shaped rock) to denote the real location of pirate treasure, and if it corresponded to the fact, and then is a truth.
But my friend it’s just this “carrying meaning” that I am curious about. What is meaning ? And is the meaning "inside the sounds " ? And does the numeral “contain” or “carry” the number ?
Different languages uses different sounds for the same-enough role. That suggests that the particular sounds aren’t important, though we need some sound or another, if we stick with speech.
Does it help if we think of vervet monkeys ? They have a particular cry that they make when an eagle is spotted. Is the “meaning” of that cry “inside the sound” ?
Yes this is interesting point. I am not well read in linguistics and meanings, so my idea comes from purely my impromptu thoughts on it.
Just bought my first linguistic book which arrived this morning via post. - “Saussure and His Interpreters” by Roy Harris. Amazon.co.uk
But I feel that sound must carry its meanings when spoken by the folks to mean something. The sound is not just random sound, but it would be within the rules and conventions of the language they have learnt and been using within the society to be meaningul.
I agree that different countries speak different languages, and the sound they make to speak something would be totally different.
For instance, “Please pass me the sault.” in English when spoken to another folk who can understand the language would know what it means, and will give you the salt.
But in Chinese or Japanese or some African languages, I am sure the sound they make to mean the same meaning would be totally different. We have to accept folks use different sound system to mean the same thing.
So, sound we make to mean something is not just mere random sound which other animals like monkeys or dogs making. It is the cultivated, agreed and habited system of sounds which carried meaning and intention.
When you say “I would like to listen to some blues music.” Any English speakers would know what you meant, and even your intention or mood, that you want put on some blues music to listen to.
In that respect, yes sounds of speaking carries the meanings that the speaker intending to pass on to the listeners. And when the meaning corresponds to the external world it describes, we can say the sound of the speech was a truth.
Very cool ! I have read at least one book by Roy Harris, and it was great. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Saussure.
I think the “carry” metaphor has its pros and cons. If the sound doesn’t get to the right ear, then the message fails. So the sound “takes” the message to the ear in some sense.
Following Heidegger and Wittgenstein, I’ll give you my take. People learn to “follow” a pointing finger. Dogs are one of the few non-human animals that can also follow human fingers like this. If I point at your untied shoe, then the “meaning” of my pointing is not “inside my finger.” The pointing finger operates as “meaningful” in the wide context of organisms in their environment who have been trained to react to pointing fingers by following the geometric ray suggested by that finger.
I think it’s the same with sounds. Walker Percy is great on this stuff. He became obsessed with the moment that Helen Keller “understood what language was.” The spelling of W-A-T-E-R was being tapped into one of her hands while the other was held under running water. She was blind and deaf, so you can imagine how hard it would be for her to “get language.” But she did, and she went on to write a book about her adventure. She was ecstatic when she finally “had language.”
Percy insists that in some sense the noun “water” is water. Obviously marks and noises aren’t “really” what they indicate, but they work because we treat them that way. If someone tells me “your house is on fire,” then I react as if I perceived my burning house directly. So signs can give us “fake perceptions” that can save our lives, etc. The warning cry of the vervet monkey is “treated as” an incoming eagle, in the sense that the hearing monkey looks at the sky to plan evasive action.
We agree. For theoretical reasons I prefer “significance” to “meaning.” When I perceive the sign, my own expectation is a factor in how it “radiates” a situation in the world. This gets us back into the time stuff.
There is definitely the boundaries where sounds become language. Sure not all sounds are language, but sounds made according to the convention, under grammatical rules denoting what is evident phenomenologically and empirically between the speaker and listener, the sounds utter under the frame is not only heard, but also translated into language, which can be understood as meaningful messages, requests, signs for actions and intentions for dispositions etc.
In that sense, the sounds uttered within the formal frames are seen as carrying underlying meanings in them. The underlying meanings carried by the sounds would be totally missed if heard by agents who cannot understand the language, even if the meaning carried was clear and evident.
“Carried” seems to also suite well for the situation, because the sound uttered must be reached to the listener like a parcel is handed over to the online buyer by the courier or postman, otherwise the parcel would be lost and reported as missing or undelivered, and likewise the meaning in the sound would be lost, if not physically heard, or misunderstood or totally dropped out by the listener due to inability to understand the language.
Pointing to untied shoes can also be seen as carrying messages, but not lucid or rich in its expression or understandability. The message the act of pointing can carry is limited by the object it is pointing to. Hence the pointing has to rely on the imagination of the agent who is seeing the pointing, which can be unclear in the nature of the message it is trying to convey.
Also pointing to the objects or situations would require actual objects or situations such as the real untied shoes or burning house in the real world to make sense or be meaningful for the act of pointing, whereas sound can convey the meaning without them just by making the sound. Hence sound system in language would be much more powerful and rich in its practical uses.
Imagine trying to tell a long story just by hand signals or pointing. Whereas, it can be done easily by telling a story by making sounds to understanding listeners.
Why logical rather than empirical?
Which things are more perfect? What is the basis for being more perfect? Perfect in what sense?
Do you mean numbers came before objects? Or objects came before numbers? What would be the role of imagination in the conceiving? Why do you need imagination for conceiving from real existent particulars?