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Psilocyborg
climber
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Nov 17, 2016 - 01:56pm PT
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You guys are usually 10 steps ahead of me, but DMTs post got me thinking that language itself is just a big a part of subjective VS objective realities as anything else.
A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.
But if you called your rose bush a bed of daisey's your friends won't have a correct understanding of what you are describing.
If your friends had never experienced a rose, they would either have to have faith in your testimony, be apathetic, or call you a liar.
Infinite angles of confusion when describing complex philosophical experiences, sort of like a fractal. A language fractal. A word salad.
If a rose exists in a place that lies outside consensus reality you might get burned at the stake trying to describe it.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 17, 2016 - 03:31pm PT
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I appreciate your informative reply about infinitesimals and the Planck Scale, Ed. I wrote the question half-seriously, then looked at it and thought, well, maybe there is something there. Infinitesimals were proposed by Leibniz and in fact go back in a rough sense to Archimedes. But for quite a long time they were viewed askance as perhaps not fitting into the evolving real number system. In the mid 20th century that fear was dispelled and a consistent mathematical system developed incorporating these strange little iotas.
Hyperreal number(Wiki)
I have no clue if they might be useful in physics or other sciences. They are fun to play with but seem pretty abstract to me. On the other hand, I have heard that beginning calculus students find the concepts not unpalatable and sometimes easier to follow than epsilons and deltas.
zeugma, as compared or contrasted to
I keep learning things on this thread. Never heard of this critter. And the link you provided shows a staggeringly complex categorization of metaphors that boggles the mind. I suppose there must be a reason for the proliferation of distinctions, other than to test PhD candidates in linguistics. I bow humbly before Lakoff and colleagues.
Infinite angles of confusion when describing complex philosophical experiences, sort of like a fractal. A language fractal. A word salad
I think you might be referring to chaotic unpredictability. Fractals, in the mathematical sense, are orderly and determined by relatively simple mathematical iterations, even though the graphs are amazingly complex.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 17, 2016 - 08:14pm PT
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a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet
How do you propose to test this hypothesis?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 17, 2016 - 09:13pm PT
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^^^I thought it was mentioned here as a metaphor about metaphors...
context indeed...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 17, 2016 - 09:55pm PT
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Sycorax is focused on literature and may not perceive a larger picture.
I thought this clip from Andy's link might have some relevance to the search for mind:
"Making the strange familiar:
Sometimes you are faced with a difficult situation that is hard to understand. A useful creative act is then to make the strange familiar, bringing the thing that is difficult to conceptualize into a domain where understanding improves, inferences may be made and creative leaps are easier.
*A scientist is investigating the way a virus behaves in attaching itself to a healthy cell. She takes the metaphor of rape and uses this to explore notions of trauma, repulsion and revenge by the attacked organism.
*An engineer is looking for a way to hold together a multi-part machine in a high-vibration environment. He takes the metaphor of shivering with cold and comes up with ideas for encasing the system in a flexible jacket.
*Einstein did 'thought experiments' and played with the idea of riding on a beam of light when developing his theory of relativity.
*There is a famous story of explorers, lost in unfamiliar mountains, who found their way out using a map -- only to find later that they were using a map of a completely different area."
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 18, 2016 - 04:29am PT
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explorers, lost in unfamiliar mountains, who find their way out using a map of a completely different area
Actually that does sound a bit like what mathematicians do from time to time.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 18, 2016 - 04:39am PT
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On the other hand, after they've found their way out they finish up by proving unequivocally that the map they used is in fact isomorphic to a map of the previously unknown terrain, thus establishing the use was logically justified (after the fact). The proving stuff is part of the job.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 18, 2016 - 08:15am PT
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And climbers have made first ascents doing routes that were already in a guidebook. Including me. The explanation we got from the wrongly attributed first ascent personnel was that they summited in poor weather, couldn't be sure which spire they were on, and guessed wrong.
edit:
And my mistake was to see a very good match between the features as described in the guide and what I saw on the rock. My partner, a lapsed physicist who made a career in computer science, told me as we were looking, "This is not the North Face." Meaning the route we were looking for. But it was a north face. Nevertheless, I could see a line above my partner's words, a convention indicating negation.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Nov 18, 2016 - 12:30pm PT
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Very early in my climbing career my two companions and I followed guide book instructions for the OS route on the Grand Teton . . . And found ourselves on the summit of the Middle Teton.
;>)
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 18, 2016 - 01:11pm PT
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Just think of the Middle as a metaphor for the Grand.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 18, 2016 - 08:15pm PT
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To the next poster who drops by to make fun of us for going in circles and otherwise not getting anywhere:
Would I do it again, knowing the journey and how it ends?
Yes.
Seems a fittingly meditative reflection on coming into this world and then leaving it. Please don't come after me for copyright infringement.
And anyway, I think that Plato or Einstein or D Lama long ago solved the mind/body problem, if there was one.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 18, 2016 - 08:18pm PT
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That would be synecdoche
Cotard was one of Philip Hoffman's more engaging roles. He left the stage too soon at age 47.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Nov 19, 2016 - 12:55pm PT
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Edge of the light
Derric and Becca are rather tedious.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 20, 2016 - 09:02pm PT
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The aura or halo mentioned on the other thread certainly pertains to mind. The question is whether the appearance is external or internal to the perceiver. Here is what Wiki says:
"Tests of psychic abilities to observe alleged aura emanations have repeatedly met with failure. One test involved placing people in a dark room and asking the psychic to state how many auras she could observe. Only chance results were obtained."
Certain eye conditions might be responsible in some instances, as well as psychosis.
What does Sasha have to do with mind? Edit: OK, I watched it and she found a state of calm. Good for her.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 20, 2016 - 10:43pm PT
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From the mind of my computer . . . A self-generating reverse continued fraction in the complex plane (not a fractal)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 21, 2016 - 10:46am PT
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Good image.
After seeing the future, it looks like computers might re-invigorate mathematics and take it to domains beyond rigorous proof. So say Shalosh B. Ekhad and its human collaborator Doron Zeilberger.
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/%7Ezeilberg/PG/Introduction.html
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 21, 2016 - 03:43pm PT
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In science and math solving a problem may involve a lot of conscious effort, then, with the intent established, letting go and hoping something bubbles up from the subconscious. Here, the computer analogy is to devise a program, input formulae and parameters - thus establishing intent - and see what bubbles up from those nano-depths. As for replacing theoretical analysis with computer productivity, its a question of deciding what can and cannot be accomplished from the former, in a reasonable amount of time, and what is so technical, with so many facets, that a computer approach is advisable.
A little like a professor whose PhD student needs a thesis topic or problem to solve and must formulate one for that student that is of some degree of importance yet solvable within a certain time frame. Unfortunately, academia is littered with the mistakes of this nature, to the misfortune of students.
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