Philosophy Now Forum

I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

This is just one example but suffices to explain how we begin to associate things symbolically for communication. The term, "denote" is de- (of) + note (notice) and is the act of pointing out or assigning some label to some person, place, thing, concept, etc.

In time it is impossible to communicate to everyone each time by denoting. Because of this limitation, we require "assuming" which begs between two or more people some pretense of understanding necessary to communicate effectively. In logic, something we all do to 'connect' two or more pieces of data to some other piece of data, "assumptions" are the pretended agreed input data to deduce from OR are the guesses of what some unknown or uncertain inputs we may induce and test to see if they hold.

So we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols. Definitions are the associations of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I'll stop at this and see if this helps with Age's concerns and for anyone else interested in digressing on this.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

This is just one example but suffices to explain how we begin to associate things symbolically for communication. The term, "denote" is de- (of) + note (notice) and is the act of pointing out or assigning some label to some person, place, thing, concept, etc.

In time it is impossible to communicate to everyone each time by denoting. Because of this limitation, we require "assuming" which begs between two or more people some pretense of understanding necessary to communicate effectively. In logic, something we all do to 'connect' two or more pieces of data to some other piece of data, "assumptions" are the pretended agreed input data to deduce from OR are the guesses of what some unknown or uncertain inputs we may induce and test to see if they hold.

So we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols. Definitions are the associations of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I'll stop at this and see if this helps with Age's concerns and for anyone else interested in digressing on this.

From what you are saying, I understand that, as a result of interaction with Age, you are opening this thread to discuss the distinction between denoting and assuming. You said that denoting is the process of associating simultaneous but distinct sensations in such a way that one can serve as a symbol of the other.

You also said that assuming begs between two or more people the pretense of understanding. And I believe you said that we need initially to learn by denoting and later by assuming the association between denotation and alignment with symbols.

I think you concluded by saying that definitions are the association of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I need to ask you if I got any of this right. Did I?

commonsense wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 3:37 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

This is just one example but suffices to explain how we begin to associate things symbolically for communication. The term, "denote" is de- (of) + note (notice) and is the act of pointing out or assigning some label to some person, place, thing, concept, etc.

In time it is impossible to communicate to everyone each time by denoting. Because of this limitation, we require "assuming" which begs between two or more people some pretense of understanding necessary to communicate effectively. In logic, something we all do to 'connect' two or more pieces of data to some other piece of data, "assumptions" are the pretended agreed input data to deduce from OR are the guesses of what some unknown or uncertain inputs we may induce and test to see if they hold.

So we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols. Definitions are the associations of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I'll stop at this and see if this helps with Age's concerns and for anyone else interested in digressing on this.

From what you are saying, I understand that, as a result of interaction with Age, you are opening this thread to discuss the distinction between denoting and assuming. You said that denoting is the process of associating simultaneous but distinct sensations in such a way that one can serve as a symbol of the other.

You also said that assuming begs between two or more people the pretense of understanding. And I believe you said that we need initially to learn by denoting and later by assuming the association between denotation and alignment with symbols.

I think you concluded by saying that definitions are the association of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I need to ask you if I got any of this right. Did I?

Yes. I defined denoting (denotation) AS 'alignment with symbols' (your words) or association of two sensations (one a symbol, the other the referent). I'm just making sure you didn't mean to separate them as distinct. You could associate a real image of a chair to the sound of the word, "chair" spoken. One could be the symbol arbitrarily but for things like language, we would learn correctly to treat the word as the symbol and not the other way around. In essence though, it CAN be reversed though would be odd in this example for one to be able to do so.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

I think a baby instinctively cries INITIALLY when the body is feeling hungry/uncomfortable. Is this the 'reflex', which you alluded to? Or, did you have some other reason for the crying "reflex".

I see the baby does NOT "then" begin to associate its own crying to resolve its discomfort and hunger. To me a baby NATURALLY cries when it is in discomfort and/or hunger, in the beginning. But I could be totally WRONG.

If a new born baby is NOT crying for these reasons initially, but is crying "as a reflex", as you say, then what do you propose is the reason or the cause for this "reflex"? WHY would a human baby have a "reflex" to cry if it was NOT for SOME REASON?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmThis is just one example but suffices to explain how we begin to associate things symbolically for communication. The term, "denote" is de- (of) + note (notice) and is the act of pointing out or assigning some label to some person, place, thing, concept, etc.

Okay all well and good.

But if you are going to use a 'crying youngster', as an example, with an 'association' of things 'symbolically' 'for communication', then I would move on to those children, and separate them, who have quickly associated 'crying' with the 'symbolically for communication message', of getting what they WANT, from those who are just crying to get what they ACTUALLY NEED for their survival.

Of course youngster will CRY to get what they NEED to live. We ALL did it. It is a built in, natural and instinctive, survival mechanism. However, CRYING just to get what one WANTS, is where associating 'symbols', words, 'for communication', being heard/listened to, comes in. How one gets what they WANT, however, is learned through or associated with how they behavior or misbehavior. If a child gets what they WANT from and through CRYING and MISBEHAVING, then OBVIOUSLY they are going to continue on with that 'associating'. And, if the MORE they CRY and/or MORE they MISBEHAVE and the MORE they are GIVEN, then the MORE they will continue to do this.

Words, themselves, are, after all, just symbols of "things", and it is through words (and language) communication is formed, in order to get what we WANT and what we NEED.

What is ACTUALLY heard and understood when these symbols/words are expressed, is another matter though.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmIn time it is impossible to communicate to everyone each time by denoting. Because of this limitation, we require "assuming" which begs between two or more people some pretense of understanding necessary to communicate effectively. In logic, something we all do to 'connect' two or more pieces of data to some other piece of data, "assumptions" are the pretended agreed input data to deduce from OR are the guesses of what some unknown or uncertain inputs we may induce and test to see if they hold.

This appears to me to be some convoluted way of just saying we human beings just assume we know what the other is saying by the words they use.

Of course people have an ASSUMPTION of what "another" is saying/meaning when they use a word, or more. But that in NO way implies nor infers that people HAVE TO have an ASSUMPTION. We ALL have a perception or interpretation of what a word means or how it is defined, BUT ASSUMING that 'THAT' definition is the RIGHT and ONLY one does a gross injustice to the action of communication AND UNDERSTANDING.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmSo we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols.

Could you simplify this for simple people, like me?

Surely there is a way you could put this into words/symbols so that a fifth grader like me could understand, and it STILL MEAN the EXACT SAME thing?

Do we really NEED to 'initially' denote? Or, do we, as very young children, just NATURALLY denote, the "world" around us, anyway, from the initial stages of birth?

And then, do we just NATURALLY 'assume' that the words, which are expressed to us, have meaning? And, totally unconsciously we, as very young children upwards TAKE ON 'that meaning', definition of the words be used, without that definition/meaning EVER ACTUALLY BEING EXPRESSED TO US, but we still understand the alignment of that word/symbol, with A definition, which we have unconsciously "taken on", and keep ASSUMING that 'that' definition and meaning is the actual TRUE and RIGHT definition and meaning?

Leaving us 'associating' that (actually unconsciously known) definition/meaning with a particular word, even when "another" is using that word with a completely different and some times opposing definition and meaning.

A 'word' is, literally, just a symbol, or label, that we have placed onto, or de-noted with, "some thing", which we have, unconsciously, gained a definition/meaning for also, which is denoted onto that word.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm Definitions are the associations of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

Agreed, but sadly I have to read writings like this a half a dozen times before they even begin to make sense to me.

Learning how to use words in way that is very succinct and which can be understood by EVERY one, and NOT just by some, is what I really want to gain here.

Definitions, IN JUST ABOUT ALL COMMUNICATION, are just a GUESS or just an ASSUMPTION of what the speaker/writer is saying/writing or what the listener/reader is hearing/reading. For example if I say, I don't want to argue with you, then what DEFINITION am I using and what do you THINK I am meaning?

I will tell you the answer; whatever DEFINITION you give it will be WRONG. This is because you have absolutely NO IDEA of what definition I am using, and therefore you also have absolutely NO IDEA of what I am actually saying and/or meaning here now. Although whatever answer you THINK, 'that', itself, can NOT be wrong, in the sense that whatever definition YOU HAVE, then that is just THEE definition that you have associated with that word.

Just like YOUR 'definition' can NOT be WRONG because that is YOUR 'association' between symbol and definition/meaning that you have grown up experiencing so to is NO "other's" definition could be WRONG as well. But without KNOWING the "others" 'association' between word and definition, (symbol and meaning), then we NEVER really KNOW what it is. We can ASSUME, but we KNOW just how easily ASSUMPTIONS can BE WRONG.

WITHOUT a clarifying question, you WILL NEVER KNOW what my 'ASSOCIATION' IS between the word 'argue' and the definition I HAVE for it.

The ONLY TRUE way to FULLY UNDERSTAND what "another" is saying and/or meaning is through two-way OPEN and Honest unambiguous and CLEAR clarification. Until that is HAPPENING, then all that is really HAPPENING is just ASSUMPTIONS are being made, which OBVIOUSLY could be WRONG, or partly wrong.

However, in saying all of this OF COURSE there is a degree of ASSUMING that goes on in what the "other" is saying, which is NECESSARY. That is; IF we do NOT want to take FOREVER, to UNDERSTAND each "other" COMPLETELY and FULLY.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmI'll stop at this and see if this helps with Age's concerns and for anyone else interested in digressing on this.

What do you ASSUME my "concerns" ACTUALLY ARE?

And how did you THINK what you had written would help me?

I have NO actual "concerns" as such. All I have been alluding to is for you to consider that IF you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that a friend or acquaintance, for example, did some thing, but that person is TRYING TO explain to you that they did NOT, then how well are you seriously going to listen to them, and listen to what they have to say and/or are saying?

The same applies to IF you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that the sun revolves around the earth IS TRUE, or that the earth IS FLAT, IS TRUE, then how well are you going to seriously listen to "another" and to what they have to say and/or are saying, which OPPOSES this ASSUMPTION/BELIEF?

This can also apply to IF you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that the Universe IS expanding IS TRUE, then how well are you going to seriously listen to what "another" who is OPPOSING this ASSUMPTION/BELIEF and proposing that it might NOT BE TRUE at all.

How well do adult human beings LISTEN to "another" who is saying that from another perspective the actual and real Truth can be SEEN, from what you ASSUME/BELIEVE is ALREADY TRUE?

If you ASSUME some thing IS ALREADY TRUE, then WHY would you be OPEN at all to any thing opposing this VIEW/ASSUMPTION/BELIEF?

The word 'fact' denotes to some thing, which is ALREADY known or proven to be true. Whereas, the word 'assumption' denotes to some thing, which is NOT ALREADY known or proven to be true but is ASSUME to be true. And, the word 'belief' denotes to some thing, which is ALREADY believed to be true. After all you are NOT going to believe some thing is true if it is NOT true, are you? So, whatever you BELIEVE IS True, MUST BE, unconsciously, TRUE and without any doubt at all, to you. And, whatever you ASSUME to be true, MUST BE TRUE, because it has NOT yet proven to be true. If it is still UNKNOWN to be true, then it is ONLY ASSUMED to be true, by you.

Is the Universe expanding an unambiguous fact, which is irrefutable?

If yes, then great.
If no, then it is either ASSUMED to be true.
BELIEVED to be true. Or,
It is just a saying without any ACTUAL fact for it yet.

Now, OBVIOUSLY if some one is ASSUMING and/or BELIEVING some thing, which has NOT YET been proven to be true, then they are just being CLOSED OFF, to the actual and real Truth of things.

If, however, if some one is WAITING for the ACTUAL fact of some thing to come about FIRST, BEFORE they ASSUME or BELIEVE any thing, then they are OPEN to the actual and real Truth of things. Only when you are OPEN can you discover and learn MORE, and anew.

This is just from my perspective only, which could be WRONG. Your perspective might hold far more Truth than I could even imagine. But if I ASSUMED or BELIEVED that my perspective was TRUE or RIGHT, then I would NOT be OPEN to your perspective, and then I could NOT learn any more nor any thing new as well.

Age wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2019 7:35 am

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

I think a baby instinctively cries INITIALLY when the body is feeling hungry/uncomfortable. Is this the 'reflex', which you alluded to? Or, did you have some other reason for the crying "reflex".

I see the baby does NOT "then" begin to associate its own crying to resolve its discomfort and hunger. To me a baby NATURALLY cries when it is in discomfort and/or hunger, in the beginning. But I could be totally WRONG.

If a new born baby is NOT crying for these reasons initially, but is crying "as a reflex", as you say, then what do you propose is the reason or the cause for this "reflex"? WHY would a human baby have a "reflex" to cry if it was NOT for SOME REASON?

I default to treating nature as uncaring of humans uniquely. As such, I don't want to assume a baby has an apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything. I am basing this reasoning on a more neutral unbiased nature and the most non-presuming (or least presuming) is to derive any 'feeling' to a logical consequence of an arbitrary evolution of animals (any) to survive by merely accidental matching of some genetic factor to some environmental one.

To say a baby cries for some prior emotional hardwiring begs that emotions are somehow magically popped into the hardwiring (our genetic chemistry) with some 'purpose'. By presuming a reality that is 'neutral', it just reduces the guessing more openly.

Given that a baby 'cries' upon birth and is usually what assures the doctor it is alive, suggests that the baby's first noises are a result of a reflex to clear out their lungs of amniotic fluids. This sound is 'crying' but has no emotional meaning of 'sadness' to the baby OR, if it does, we could not determine this without our own memory of that event to back up which is or is not true.

I use this 'story' as a possible rationale that anyone can relate to and chose it specifically because we can derive emotions as an accidental 'assignment' rather than some mystical imposition by some magical god implanting our emotions. Thus we 'favor' things NOT because they are 'favorable' to the Universe's sense of superior favoritism of some things in an absolute way, but to a relative way.

This is what Darwin's evolutionary theory proposed about why any animal advances over others. If say you had NO emotional preference but selected whatever you first sense, then IF that assigned thing happens to make the environment NOT DISFAVOR you by killing you off for having the 'wrong' fitness, then that BECOMES your emotional assignment to SEEK.

A good example of this is drug addiction. Most of us are not born as literal addicts although it tends to be something we are prone to become addicted to IF we tried the drug we could potentially become addicted to. So, if you have never tried heroin, for instance, for it not existing IN your environment, you do NOT 'favor' nor 'disfavor' it because you lacked an experience of it to judge it personally as 'true' nor 'false'.

Now a baby doesn't have the POWER to choose what its environmental parent(s) would offer it to survive. If the first drink of its mother's milk was toxic, it might react to it and die. This then makes the environment responsible for selecting those things that first take something poisonous. The baby doesn't have to experience it as 'pain' because it has no prior experience to draw from just as we are not normally in the presence of heroin at the beginning. So the baby's assignment to favor something is assigned in tiny steps between waking and sleep cycles no different than a computer without a real sense of 'favor' nor 'disfavor'.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmThis is just one example but suffices to explain how we begin to associate things symbolically for communication. The term, "denote" is de- (of) + note (notice) and is the act of pointing out or assigning some label to some person, place, thing, concept, etc.

Okay all well and good.

But if you are going to use a 'crying youngster', as an example, with an 'association' of things 'symbolically' 'for communication', then I would move on to those children, and separate them, who have quickly associated 'crying' with the 'symbolically for communication message', of getting what they WANT, from those who are just crying to get what they ACTUALLY NEED for their survival.

Of course youngster will CRY to get what they NEED to live. We ALL did it. It is a built in, natural and instinctive, survival mechanism. However, CRYING just to get what one WANTS, is where associating 'symbols', words, 'for communication', being heard/listened to, comes in. How one gets what they WANT, however, is learned through or associated with how they behavior or misbehavior. If a child gets what they WANT from and through CRYING and MISBEHAVING, then OBVIOUSLY they are going to continue on with that 'associating'. And, if the MORE they CRY and/or MORE they MISBEHAVE and the MORE they are GIVEN, then the MORE they will continue to do this.

Words, themselves, are, after all, just symbols of "things", and it is through words (and language) communication is formed, in order to get what we WANT and what we NEED.

What is ACTUALLY heard and understood when these symbols/words are expressed, is another matter though.

Exactly. I was using the explanation to attempt a derivation of favorable versus unfavorable things that is then later used to make the child associate those other things later as 'good' when it pleases their emotions versus 'bad' when it doesn't. It makes the initial assignment an arbitrary DENOTED factor by nature to set the stage for learning more complex things.

The first human a baby usually see on its first days are its mother's face. It is arbitrary that some face's image is pre-installed into the baby's brain. How would a baby 'favor' something complexly visual prior to having sight to judge without some intervening 'god' to supply this? I thus begin this argument to give a non-emotional origin to emotions. Then the emotional sensations IMPRINT upon the baby those beings, like its mother, to try to make sense of with comfort. Thus if Mommy isn't giving what it needs initially, AND because it hasn't learned yet to speak, it associates the crying to getting MORE of what it favors MORE often.

Our mothers' interpret this as 'sadness' when this is just a faulty but functional illusion. The mother then responding to the baby's crying is also an environmental factor that leads the child to DENOTE it as its first 'symbolic' means to relay "Come here you mommy-looking thing and give me more of what I want".

The baby's multiple associations get narrowed down to specifically distinct symbols later. But at first, the baby cries for EVERY need because that is the only successful symbol it can use that it learns works.

We later associate crying also to anything confusing and then to 'sadness'. But the stages originates without bias to 'assumptions' in the same way you like and why I explain it as such. (It may be wrong too but is a more 'open' one than assuming some SPECIAL significance to favoring things. The favored associations to our mothers makes us learn to pay attention to other more distinct symbols. But the baby's initial LEXICON (dictionary) is the act of crying ONLY at first, and then it REDEFINES things it figures out how to speak or communicate in more distinct ways.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmIn time it is impossible to communicate to everyone each time by denoting. Because of this limitation, we require "assuming" which begs between two or more people some pretense of understanding necessary to communicate effectively. In logic, something we all do to 'connect' two or more pieces of data to some other piece of data, "assumptions" are the pretended agreed input data to deduce from OR are the guesses of what some unknown or uncertain inputs we may induce and test to see if they hold.

This appears to me to be some convoluted way of just saying we human beings just assume we know what the other is saying by the words they use.

Of course people have an ASSUMPTION of what "another" is saying/meaning when they use a word, or more. But that in NO way implies nor infers that people HAVE TO have an ASSUMPTION. We ALL have a perception or interpretation of what a word means or how it is defined, BUT ASSUMING that 'THAT' definition is the RIGHT and ONLY one does a gross injustice to the action of communication AND UNDERSTANDING.

The 'assuming' begins when the symbol is guessed at. The symbol is NOT the things a baby wants, they want the objective reality of the things that the action of presenting the symbol provides closure for them. If crying doesn't work, then the baby would have no need to use it effectively. It learns to 'guess' things or accidentally associates an accidental sound it made WHEN it was wanting something. If a baby burped and its mother reacted by feeding it, the baby would learn to associate the symbol, burping, to be the word that appeals to its mother to feed it.

So the symbol is arbitrary. If it wasn't, we'd have the exact same language anywhere and everywhere without a need to learn. The 'assuming' is the act of taking its PRIOR learned symbols and tweaking them by adding or subtracting from them arbitrarily to narrow down which things MIGHT get its environment to 'feed' it what it wants. This is why I used the idea of "assuming" to remind us of "as you to me" meaning that, like the baby learning to communicate, we try to MATCH our understanding to others by trial and error. Once both are in sync with approval back and forth, then each of the parties has determined which symbols they share to reference other things in common.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmSo we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols.

Could you simplify this for simple people, like me?

Surely there is a way you could put this into words/symbols so that a fifth grader like me could understand, and it STILL MEAN the EXACT SAME thing?

Do we really NEED to 'initially' denote? Or, do we, as very young children, just NATURALLY denote, the "world" around us, anyway, from the initial stages of birth?

And then, do we just NATURALLY 'assume' that the words, which are expressed to us, have meaning? And, totally unconsciously we, as very young children upwards TAKE ON 'that meaning', definition of the words be used, without that definition/meaning EVER ACTUALLY BEING EXPRESSED TO US, but we still understand the alignment of that word/symbol, with A definition, which we have unconsciously "taken on", and keep ASSUMING that 'that' definition and meaning is the actual TRUE and RIGHT definition and meaning?

Leaving us 'associating' that (actually unconsciously known) definition/meaning with a particular word, even when "another" is using that word with a completely different and some times opposing definition and meaning.

A 'word' is, literally, just a symbol, or label, that we have placed onto, or de-noted with, "some thing", which we have, unconsciously, gained a definition/meaning for also, which is denoted onto that word.

I think you completely understand and while I may not be explaining it the best, I seem to understand you confirming back to me what I'm thinking. THAT is, I am 'assuming' that you follow what I'm saying because you fed back to me what you think I meant. And IF I can also get you to nod when I feedback what I think you meant, you assume that I share the same meaning.

But you or I could be accidentally thinking wrong of the other but just seem to appear as though we do until we run into a new contradiction. For instance, pretend that I have never been outside but appear to share the meaning of the symbol, "sky" (a word symbol). I might have learned by denoting that UP is what 'sky' means. You may have been outside and have a more precise meaning. But if both of us are talking and USING the symbols THINKING we share the same meaning, it could be due to a fitness in a PART of the meaning, like 'up'. Because the sky IS something that we deem is 'up', we may both use the word in that context until you say something that 'assumes' I denoted the word in the same way you do.

For example, using the same example, let's say we already have been USING the term 'sky' with no real problem. But then we had some other conversation about the another symbol, "blue". One day you and I are discussing things when you came over to my place for coffee (Remember that I never went outside and so forced you to come to me to visit.) Pretend that I happen to be wearing all blue colored clothes and you suddenly compliment me that I am as "bright as the sky today." Furthermore, pretend that the ceiling in my place is all white. When you said that I all of a sudden become confused at what you mean by the word, "sky", because I associated the meaning to be 'up' but the only color 'up' to me is 'white'. So I missed the extra detail of the more precise meaning you have that I lack.

Thus, you may tell me that the sky is blue. I disagree and point up to my ceiling and say, "but the color of the sky is white." Now, either I have to assume YOUR meaning or get you to assume my meaning. If I doubt you that there could be such thing as any 'sky' that has the property, 'blue', right? Thus you beg me that you are the one who is correct and that I have to trust you on this 'fact'. I can gamble that you are telling the truth when you provide an explanation that my 'sky' is just a 'ceiling'. It too is 'up' but you tell me that not all things 'up' has the same color as your limited experience of something 'up'.

Does this example make sense? You cannot 'denote' to me THAT the sky is blue but CAN tell me that what you know outside of my place has a 'sky' that is "not white" and that it has the color of the clothes I'm wearing. There is thus no 'correct' way to select the words. YOU could opt to give up trying to convince me that the sky is anything but white knowing that I've never been outside. In this way, you COULD assume MY definition of the symbol by using the word, "sky" to refer to 'ceiling' for my sake and agree not to associate 'blue' as having the property of that symbol. It doesn't change the FACT of the real sky being blue. It just means that you adopted to my word for something that I understand because you know that I'm limited to actually being able to see what you know is or is not 'true'.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm Definitions are the associations of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

Agreed, but sadly I have to read writings like this a half a dozen times before they even begin to make sense to me.

Learning how to use words in way that is very succinct and which can be understood by EVERY one, and NOT just by some, is what I really want to gain here.

Definitions, IN JUST ABOUT ALL COMMUNICATION, are just a GUESS or just an ASSUMPTION of what the speaker/writer is saying/writing or what the listener/reader is hearing/reading. For example if I say, I don't want to argue with you, then what DEFINITION am I using and what do you THINK I am meaning?

I will tell you the answer; whatever DEFINITION you give it will be WRONG. This is because you have absolutely NO IDEA of what definition I am using, and therefore you also have absolutely NO IDEA of what I am actually saying and/or meaning here now. Although whatever answer you THINK, 'that', itself, can NOT be wrong, in the sense that whatever definition YOU HAVE, then that is just THEE definition that you have associated with that word.

Just like YOUR 'definition' can NOT be WRONG because that is YOUR 'association' between symbol and definition/meaning that you have grown up experiencing so to is NO "other's" definition could be WRONG as well. But without KNOWING the "others" 'association' between word and definition, (symbol and meaning), then we NEVER really KNOW what it is. We can ASSUME, but we KNOW just how easily ASSUMPTIONS can BE WRONG.

WITHOUT a clarifying question, you WILL NEVER KNOW what my 'ASSOCIATION' IS between the word 'argue' and the definition I HAVE for it.

The ONLY TRUE way to FULLY UNDERSTAND what "another" is saying and/or meaning is through two-way OPEN and Honest unambiguous and CLEAR clarification. Until that is HAPPENING, then all that is really HAPPENING is just ASSUMPTIONS are being made, which OBVIOUSLY could be WRONG, or partly wrong.

However, in saying all of this OF COURSE there is a degree of ASSUMING that goes on in what the "other" is saying, which is NECESSARY. That is; IF we do NOT want to take FOREVER, to UNDERSTAND each "other" COMPLETELY and FULLY.

I think we are in complete agreement. But I too have to pause and think for the same reasons to absorb what you say and so apologize if or where I may not initially understand. So don't think you are at any fault. May I beg that you are 'not simple' also? I mean that I do not think that anything I may know is more superior to your own background but just different. You are helping me learn to improve my communications as much as any value that you take of us speaking here.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmI'll stop at this and see if this helps with Age's concerns and for anyone else interested in digressing on this.

What do you ASSUME my "concerns" ACTUALLY ARE?

And how did you THINK what you had written would help me?

I have NO actual "concerns" as such. All I have been alluding to is for you to consider that IF you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that a friend or acquaintance, for example, did some thing, but that person is TRYING TO explain to you that they did NOT, then how well are you seriously going to listen to them, and listen to what they have to say and/or are saying?

The same applies to IF you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that the sun revolves around the earth IS TRUE, or that the earth IS FLAT, IS TRUE, then how well are you going to seriously listen to "another" and to what they have to say and/or are saying, which OPPOSES this ASSUMPTION/BELIEF?

This can also apply to IF you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that the Universe IS expanding IS TRUE, then how well are you going to seriously listen to what "another" who is OPPOSING this ASSUMPTION/BELIEF and proposing that it might NOT BE TRUE at all.

How well do adult human beings LISTEN to "another" who is saying that from another perspective the actual and real Truth can be SEEN, from what you ASSUME/BELIEVE is ALREADY TRUE?

If you ASSUME some thing IS ALREADY TRUE, then WHY would you be OPEN at all to any thing opposing this VIEW/ASSUMPTION/BELIEF?

The word 'fact' denotes to some thing, which is ALREADY known or proven to be true. Whereas, the word 'assumption' denotes to some thing, which is NOT ALREADY known or proven to be true but is ASSUME to be true. And, the word 'belief' denotes to some thing, which is ALREADY believed to be true. After all you are NOT going to believe some thing is true if it is NOT true, are you? So, whatever you BELIEVE IS True, MUST BE, unconsciously, TRUE and without any doubt at all, to you. And, whatever you ASSUME to be true, MUST BE TRUE, because it has NOT yet proven to be true. If it is still UNKNOWN to be true, then it is ONLY ASSUMED to be true, by you.

Is the Universe expanding an unambiguous fact, which is irrefutable?

If yes, then great.
If no, then it is either ASSUMED to be true.
BELIEVED to be true. Or,
It is just a saying without any ACTUAL fact for it yet.

Now, OBVIOUSLY if some one is ASSUMING and/or BELIEVING some thing, which has NOT YET been proven to be true, then they are just being CLOSED OFF, to the actual and real Truth of things.

If, however, if some one is WAITING for the ACTUAL fact of some thing to come about FIRST, BEFORE they ASSUME or BELIEVE any thing, then they are OPEN to the actual and real Truth of things. Only when you are OPEN can you discover and learn MORE, and anew.

This is just from my perspective only, which could be WRONG. Your perspective might hold far more Truth than I could even imagine. But if I ASSUMED or BELIEVED that my perspective was TRUE or RIGHT, then I would NOT be OPEN to your perspective, and then I could NOT learn any more nor any thing new as well.

Again, I understand and agree to everything you said here. I don't think you do anything 'wrong' for how you discussed anything in the other thread(s) but felt it was overwhelming for many to deal with because you have more questions that others, including myself, felt needed to be digressed to beyond Will's intent to that thread. Here is good to discuss it in more depth without getting Will or others frustrated on the topic of 'assumptions'. So thank you for at least coming here to discuss this separately. I hold no disrespect for your approach as I think we all do this in different ways and different times.

I AGREE to not assuming anything when discussing science. What gets missed is like the example I gave about me not sharing the meaning of 'sky' with you in that imaginary scenario. I also notice that AFTER I respond that you raise the very same points in anticipated thinking. [I responded prior to reading your whole post but see that given you responded in ways that coincide to the way I responded tells me that you understand me as I do you.

P.S. I'm going to be responding to the posts in the thread on expansion but just need time to read and write. I'm hoping that you don't mind. I'm in no rush and hope that you aren't.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am

Age wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2019 7:35 am

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

I think a baby instinctively cries INITIALLY when the body is feeling hungry/uncomfortable. Is this the 'reflex', which you alluded to? Or, did you have some other reason for the crying "reflex".

I see the baby does NOT "then" begin to associate its own crying to resolve its discomfort and hunger. To me a baby NATURALLY cries when it is in discomfort and/or hunger, in the beginning. But I could be totally WRONG.

If a new born baby is NOT crying for these reasons initially, but is crying "as a reflex", as you say, then what do you propose is the reason or the cause for this "reflex"? WHY would a human baby have a "reflex" to cry if it was NOT for SOME REASON?

I default to treating nature as uncaring of humans uniquely.

I default to Honesty and Openness.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am As such, I don't want to assume a baby has an apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything.

I do NOT want to assume any thing, and I certainly do NOT assume a newly born 'baby', human being or person, is born with a prior sense of 'feeling' for nor against any thing. But, to me, from what I have observed a newly born human body has knowledge/information (I am still undecided which word I will being going to use but for now it is) built in within the genes. This "dna genetic code", if you like, is hardwired in the actual body of EVERY species, for its continued survival.

There are ONLY four things the human species NEEDS to keep living. (Every thing else are just WANTS). A newborn human body will naturally cry to get these NEEDS met.

Some species, like turtles, alligators, et cetera just break of the egg and walk away and can survive on their own. The human species, however, NEEDS attention for its, continued, survival. If a newborn human body does NOT get attention, then it will, naturally, die. Crying, from the earliest stages, is a natural instinct for the human species to get attention. Crying is nature's way for the human species to be heard, or listened to.

To me, CRYING is a very natural instinct, of the human species. Crying, to get what one NEEDS, in order for it to keep living/surviving, is encoded into the genes of the human body. As A species continually survives, the 'knowledge or information', which is built into the genes, has formed, and continually forms, from past experiences, to instruct that species the best, and most fittest, way to keep this species alive, in order to keep procreating, for its continued survival.

Seeing that the human animal is about one of the most weakest animals on this planet, in physical strength, relative to its size and shape, the human species NEEDS each other. The human animal NEEDS attention, and how it evolved or adapted to do this most successfully is to CRY, from the initial stages of the birth of its "self". The human being species, literally, NEEDS to be heard, and listened to, that is: if it WANTS to keep living and surviving.

(Now that I have waffled on for so long, my 'self', I apologize as I am sure some one could write this far more succinctly then I have here).

But to summarize, to me, a 'baby', is a word denoting the being within the human body, which has NOT evolved into a 'person' yet, so the human 'baby', literally, has no apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything' yet. However, the human body has instincts within its dna/genes, which drives it to keep surviving. Each species genetically has naturally evolved, and keeps naturally evolving, to KEEP LIVING and KEEP SURVIVING. The human species just does this by being listened to, which obviously for a new born human body this is achieved by CRYING, for what it literally NEEDS to KEEP LIVING. For every new living creation there is a built in information/knowledge mechanism within its physicality, which is a KNOWING of what is best for its continual survival.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amI am basing this reasoning on a more neutral unbiased nature and the most non-presuming (or least presuming) is to derive any 'feeling' to a logical consequence of an arbitrary evolution of animals (any) to survive by merely accidental matching of some genetic factor to some environmental one.

I just see a natural intertwined, non-dual, matching of genetics with the environment, as One. This physical environment is after all made up of the same thing, which is genes/genetics. Just in a different order or form.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amTo say a baby cries for some prior emotional hardwiring begs that emotions are somehow magically popped into the hardwiring (our genetic chemistry) with some 'purpose'. By presuming a reality that is 'neutral', it just reduces the guessing more openly.

I prefer to just NEVER assume/presume any thing, and just stay OPEN always observing what IS just naturally occurring.

The views that are formed, are just what I express, which could be WRONG, or partly wrong. But then I NEVER express them nor propose them as being Right in the first place. I just express what I observe. (Or, try to anyway.)

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amGiven that a baby 'cries' upon birth and is usually what assures the doctor it is alive, suggests that the baby's first noises are a result of a reflex to clear out their lungs of amniotic fluids.

Or, unfortunately, due to a smack or hit, from the so called "doctor" to make SURE it is alive.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am This sound is 'crying' but has no emotional meaning of 'sadness' to the baby OR, if it does, we could not determine this without our own memory of that event to back up which is or is not true.

Yes agree that this sound of 'crying' has no emotional meaning to it, but it is either the result/reflex to clear out its lungs, or because of the pain it just felt from being physically abused. (If a new born human body NEEDS to be hit/smacked in order for it to be brought back to life, then that is one thing, but if that brand newly born body is being hit/smacked just so its 'cry' can be heard, just to 'reassure' the "doctor", then that is another thing).

I use this 'story' as a possible rationale that anyone can relate to and chose it specifically because we can derive emotions as an accidental 'assignment' rather than some mystical imposition by some magical god implanting our emotions. Thus we 'favor' things NOT because they are 'favorable' to the Universe's sense of superior favoritism of some things in an absolute way, but to a relative way. [/quote]

I found when some people have a BELIEF in or BELIEVE some thing, then no matter what you say, that will NOT change their views anyway.

This is what Darwin's evolutionary theory proposed about why any animal advances over others. If say you had NO emotional preference but selected whatever you first sense, then IF that assigned thing happens to make the environment NOT DISFAVOR you by killing you off for having the 'wrong' fitness, then that BECOMES your emotional assignment to SEEK.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amA good example of this is drug addiction. Most of us are not born as literal addicts

From what I observe EVERY human is born, literally, "addicted", or better worded 'needing'. They are born addicted to, or needing, attention. As they grow up and if they do NOT get attention, or get the attention that they want and need, then they can so easily become addicted to/needing other things. For example, ALL of things that just about ALL, and if not, then ALL adult human beings are addicted to.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am although it tends to be something we are prone to become addicted to IF we tried the drug we could potentially become addicted to. So, if you have never tried heroin, for instance, for it not existing IN your environment, you do NOT 'favor' nor 'disfavor' it because you lacked an experience of it to judge it personally as 'true' nor 'false'.

I see the saying; 'See no evil', 'Hear no evil', 'Speak no evil', to just mean IF, and WHEN, adult human beings get the actual attention that they NEED and WANT, then they will STOP producing the things, which they use to support their now addictions, like heroin, drugs, alcohol, gambling, money, porn/sex, et cetera, et cetera, then children will See no evil, Hear no evil, and then will grow up Speaking/Doing no evil, themselves. All adult human beings were born with an addiction to (wanting/needing to) feel loved, and because they have been neglected/starved of this kind (of) attention as children, and older, they have replaced the addiction/needing 'to feel loved', with the 'love of', other things.

Human beings are born addicted 'to love', which is just the right kind (of) attention. When they do not receive that love they replace it with the 'love of' some other thing. The biggest one probably being the love of money. So, when adults are doing, for the 'love of' some thing, especially money, they are 'desiring' and 'chasing' that, instead of doing what is far more by 'being there' for their children, who are now being neglected/starved 'of love', just like they were when they were children or younger, and the abuse cycle continues.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amNow a baby doesn't have the POWER to choose what its environmental parent(s) would offer it to survive.

VERY TRUE. Parents bring children into this world/environment, children do NOT necessarily want to brought into this world/environment. (and if the Truth be known, how many would want to be brought into this very greedy, war-torn, polluted, and stress-full world as it is now, then who would really want to come?)

Considering it is adults who have created the "world", the way it is now, and NO ONE else. And, considering it is parents who bring children into this "world", then this would suggest that it adult's who have ALL of the POWER, and therefore it is adults who are meant have ALL of the responsibility. But, sadly and unfortunately, adults pass this responsibility onto children by making them 'feel' responsible, for, after all, ONLY from what they are 'copying' what adults, themselves, do.

There is so much more I could go into detail with here but I will leave it for now.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am If the first drink of its mother's milk was toxic, it might react to it and die. This then makes the environment responsible for selecting those things that first take something poisonous.

I do NOT see the 'environment' as being responsible nor for having any responsibility. The 'environment', itself, evolves, creating ALL things so, in this sense, the environment is "responsible" for EVERY thing, but to me it has NO such responsibility like adult human beings have and do, who have created this "world", and as such the environment, in the way that it is in now, which OBVIOUSLY could be MUCH BETTER than it is in now.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amThe baby doesn't have to experience it as 'pain' because it has no prior experience to draw from just as we are not normally in the presence of heroin at the beginning. So the baby's assignment to favor something is assigned in tiny steps between waking and sleep cycles no different than a computer without a real sense of 'favor' nor 'disfavor'.

Except, I would suggest, that the new born human body can 'feel' or 'sense' if the nourishment that it is getting/receiving from breast or bottled milk, and the kind of attention that it is getting/receiving is, in a way, bad or good and/or right and wrong. But I may be WRONG?

These things of right and wrong, and good and bad, may be 'felt/sensed' as early on as from that first smack/hit that a new born human receives at birth. There may be no prior experience of 'pain', before that smack, but I could imagine that 'pain' is quickly experienced, with that smack. A new born human may not be born having an apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything, but I can easily imagine that they can get a sense of 'feeling' pain very early after birth.

Breathing ever so gently onto the face a new born humans might just as easily, and quickly, startle them into crying, as being held upside down and hit/smacked does. The saying, 'the giver of breath, and life' might have more literal meanings behind it than first realized?

But who am 'I' to suggest what could be right and wrong, in this "world"?

(I will get to the rest later).

Age wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 3:11 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am I default to treating nature as uncaring of humans uniquely.

I default to Honesty and Openness.

I'm saying that nature has no emotion and so lacks concern about love, hate, pleasure, nor pain. So the chemistry that makes up our biology doesn't 'feel' but gives us the illusion of it AFTER we are conceived. Genetics prepares the body to act or react but the brains of animals that consciousness is from has to determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed.

This can work, as it does for computing A.I. by forcing it to SEEK for value IN the environment. A type of proof supporting this is how some people are born to NOT feel pain. One kind of 'disease' most popularly known in time is "leprosy". The 'disease' is NOT an actual disease by nature. It is just some factor of the environment that incidentally affects the assignment value of pain to mean nothing. When the development period in the womb is assigning pain/pleasure sensations, if a bug, virus, or some chemical, acts affects the process of assigning these values, it can flip or remove the first values that indicate what to do when the cells normally inform the brain of something destructive. When one is cut, for instance, a pressure neuron in the skin normally fires rapidly when its connections to the sensors are broken. The brain usually assigns this signal as 'pain'. But for those with these types of 'diseases' can make one feel nothing or even feel pleasure.

If one can't feel when one is cut as 'pain', this gets ignored and enables one to get infected with ease. This then creates the deformities and eventually kills the person with this counter assignment.

By the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am As such, I don't want to assume a baby has an apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything.

I do NOT want to assume any thing, and I certainly do NOT assume a newly born 'baby', human being or person, is born with a prior sense of 'feeling' for nor against any thing. But, to me, from what I have observed a newly born human body has knowledge/information (I am still undecided which word I will being going to use but for now it is) built in within the genes. This "dna genetic code", if you like, is hardwired in the actual body of EVERY species, for its continued survival.

There are ONLY four things the human species NEEDS to keep living. (Every thing else are just WANTS). A newborn human body will naturally cry to get these NEEDS met.

The genes only make the proteins that then build structure. We don't even have consciousness until we have brain cells. When turned on, they are NOT the 'senses' outside the brain and so have to learn to interpret meaning of the signals. Thus I doubt they can 'know' pain nor pleasure prior to something until they are 'taught'.

In a sense it is like how baby ducks have a hardwired program that FOLLOWS THE FIRST THING IT SEES. This simple program is an 'assigning' program that then assigns the thing it follows as 'good' and 'pleasurable' thing IF that thing it follows doesn't kill it. Obviously if it follows something that assigns it 'good' when it is actually something that kills it, the things that threaten its life don't get passed on since they die.

Some species, like turtles, alligators, et cetera just break of the egg and walk away and can survive on their own. The human species, however, NEEDS attention for its, continued, survival. If a newborn human body does NOT get attention, then it will, naturally, die. Crying, from the earliest stages, is a natural instinct for the human species to get attention. Crying is nature's way for the human species to be heard, or listened to.

To me, CRYING is a very natural instinct, of the human species. Crying, to get what one NEEDS, in order for it to keep living/surviving, is encoded into the genes of the human body. As A species continually survives, the 'knowledge or information', which is built into the genes, has formed, and continually forms, from past experiences, to instruct that species the best, and most fittest, way to keep this species alive, in order to keep procreating, for its continued survival.

Seeing that the human animal is about one of the most weakest animals on this planet, in physical strength, relative to its size and shape, the human species NEEDS each other. The human animal NEEDS attention, and how it evolved or adapted to do this most successfully is to CRY, from the initial stages of the birth of its "self". The human being species, literally, NEEDS to be heard, and listened to, that is: if it WANTS to keep living and surviving.

(Now that I have waffled on for so long, my 'self', I apologize as I am sure some one could write this far more succinctly then I have here).

But to summarize, to me, a 'baby', is a word denoting the being within the human body, which has NOT evolved into a 'person' yet, so the human 'baby', literally, has no apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything' yet. However, the human body has instincts within its dna/genes, which drives it to keep surviving. Each species genetically has naturally evolved, and keeps naturally evolving, to KEEP LIVING and KEEP SURVIVING. The human species just does this by being listened to, which obviously for a new born human body this is achieved by CRYING, for what it literally NEEDS to KEEP LIVING. For every new living creation there is a built in information/knowledge mechanism within its physicality, which is a KNOWING of what is best for its continual survival. [/quote] The simpler species lack a NEED for the extent of emotions we need. Usually more vulnerable animals require it. Things like alligators don't and if they DID assign value to things more, it might not be willing to eat things it finds competing values in.

There has been some studies before that demonstrated how depriving a baby emotions leads to death. But they don't feel 'pain' as they die and very soon lose the need to cry at all.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amI am basing this reasoning on a more neutral unbiased nature and the most non-presuming (or least presuming) is to derive any 'feeling' to a logical consequence of an arbitrary evolution of animals (any) to survive by merely accidental matching of some genetic factor to some environmental one.

I just see a natural intertwined, non-dual, matching of genetics with the environment, as One. This physical environment is after all made up of the same thing, which is genes/genetics. Just in a different order or form.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amTo say a baby cries for some prior emotional hardwiring begs that emotions are somehow magically popped into the hardwiring (our genetic chemistry) with some 'purpose'. By presuming a reality that is 'neutral', it just reduces the guessing more openly.

I prefer to just NEVER assume/presume any thing, and just stay OPEN always observing what IS just naturally occurring.

The views that are formed, are just what I express, which could be WRONG, or partly wrong. But then I NEVER express them nor propose them as being Right in the first place. I just express what I observe. (Or, try to anyway.)

I was setting this background up to show that nature presumes nothing in the initial birth of animals and only defines pain and pleasure, loves and hates, afterwards.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pmSo we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols.

Could you simplify this for simple people, like me?

Surely there is a way you could put this into words/symbols so that a fifth grader like me could understand, and it STILL MEAN the EXACT SAME thing?

Do we really NEED to 'initially' denote? Or, do we, as very young children, just NATURALLY denote, the "world" around us, anyway, from the initial stages of birth?

And then, do we just NATURALLY 'assume' that the words, which are expressed to us, have meaning? And, totally unconsciously we, as very young children upwards TAKE ON 'that meaning', definition of the words be used, without that definition/meaning EVER ACTUALLY BEING EXPRESSED TO US, but we still understand the alignment of that word/symbol, with A definition, which we have unconsciously "taken on", and keep ASSUMING that 'that' definition and meaning is the actual TRUE and RIGHT definition and meaning?

Leaving us 'associating' that (actually unconsciously known) definition/meaning with a particular word, even when "another" is using that word with a completely different and some times opposing definition and meaning.

A 'word' is, literally, just a symbol, or label, that we have placed onto, or de-noted with, "some thing", which we have, unconsciously, gained a definition/meaning for also, which is denoted onto that word.

I think you completely understand and while I may not be explaining it the best, I seem to understand you confirming back to me what I'm thinking. THAT is, I am 'assuming' that you follow what I'm saying because you fed back to me what you think I meant.

If I want to Truly understand what another is saying, I found that gaining clarity of what that "other" is saying works far better then just 'assuming' what the "other" is saying does.

And, I found that just asking clarifying questions is the quickest, simplest, and easiest way to gain clarity. That is, of course, if the "other" provides and answer to the actual question.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amAnd IF I can also get you to nod when I feedback what I think you meant, you assume that I share the same meaning.

Yes that would be true. Or, I could just stay OPEN by NOT assuming any thing and just ask you some more clarifying questions to make SURE that we have the same meaning instead.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amBut you or I could be accidentally thinking wrong of the other but just seem to appear as though we do until we run into a new contradiction.

This is the exact reason I found it better to NEVER assume any thing.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am For instance, pretend that I have never been outside but appear to share the meaning of the symbol, "sky" (a word symbol). I might have learned by denoting that UP is what 'sky' means. You may have been outside and have a more precise meaning. But if both of us are talking and USING the symbols THINKING we share the same meaning, it could be due to a fitness in a PART of the meaning, like 'up'. Because the sky IS something that we deem is 'up', we may both use the word in that context until you say something that 'assumes' I denoted the word in the same way you do.

If I 'pretended' to do this, then I would be 'assuming', and then misunderstanding and confusion could to easily set in.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amFor example, using the same example, let's say we already have been USING the term 'sky' with no real problem. But then we had some other conversation about the another symbol, "blue". One day you and I are discussing things when you came over to my place for coffee (Remember that I never went outside and so forced you to come to me to visit.) Pretend that I happen to be wearing all blue colored clothes and you suddenly compliment me that I am as "bright as the sky today." Furthermore, pretend that the ceiling in my place is all white. When you said that I all of a sudden become confused at what you mean by the word, "sky", because I associated the meaning to be 'up' but the only color 'up' to me is 'white'. So I missed the extra detail of the more precise meaning you have that I lack.

You seem to be making arguments and providing example for what I am saying. That is; To gain a True understanding, then it is much better NOT to assume any thing.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amThus, you may tell me that the sky is blue.

But I would ONLY tell you that the 'sky IS blue' if, and only if, I BELIEVED or ASSUMED that the 'sky IS blue'. I much prefer to stay OPEN always so instead of telling you what some thing IS, i would express 'that' from what I have observed this is just a view I have, which could be WRONG or partly wrong. I TRY TO NEVER say what some thing IS but rather just express the views that I have gained, along the way.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am I disagree and point up to my ceiling and say, "but the color of the sky is white."

And I would say and ask some thing like, "If that is what you say it IS, then that is what it MUST BE, correct?

I might also explain that from outside of the walls of this you are in now what i have observed is different.

I might also explain that we will NEVER know, for SURE, what the actual color IS to each other, because 'your' green might be 'my' purple and/or 'your' white might be 'my' silver for example. But what we CAN AGREE ON is 'that' what we agree on. So, if I now point to the ceiling and ask you is that color, on the ceiling, 'white' to you, then I could say that yes I agree that that is white, but if you come out here i will show you what the 'sky' is, to me, which is NOT what the 'ceiling' is, to me.

Through asking clarifying questions it could become very relatively quickly KNOWN that what I call a 'ceiling' is just what you call 'sky'. Also, if the color is the exact same to each other, from an absolutely True perspective, we will NEVER know, but we can at least agree on the same name/label we are designating to that color.

Now, either I have to assume YOUR meaning or get you to assume my meaning. If I doubt you that there could be such thing as any 'sky' that has the property, 'blue', right? Thus you beg me that you are the one who is correct and that I have to trust you on this 'fact'. I can gamble that you are telling the truth when you provide an explanation that my 'sky' is just a 'ceiling'. It too is 'up' but you tell me that not all things 'up' has the same color as your limited experience of something 'up'.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amDoes this example make sense?

Yes, that is; IF you are just saying what I have been saying all along anyway. If, however, you think/assume/believe you are saying some thing different than I have, then what is that exactly?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amYou cannot 'denote' to me THAT the sky is blue but CAN tell me that what you know outside of my place has a 'sky' that is "not white" and that it has the color of the clothes I'm wearing. There is thus no 'correct' way to select the words.

But you did just select words in a much MORE correct way in the latter part of your sentence than you did in the former ten words. Well from my perspective you did anyway.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amYOU could opt to give up trying to convince me that the sky is anything but white knowing that I've never been outside.

But from the outset here, or from the outset even in your pretend scenario I would NEVER TRY TO 'convince' you, nor any one else, of ANY thing.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 amIn this way, you COULD assume MY definition of the symbol by using the word, "sky" to refer to 'ceiling' for my sake and agree not to associate 'blue' as having the property of that symbol. It doesn't change the FACT of the real sky being blue.

What do you mean by 'real' sky being 'blue'?

I thought you just through explaining to me how ANY thing can be relative to the observer. Did you not just do that?

If absolutely EVERY thing is relative to the observer, then how do you KNOW what is 'real' and what is not, and how do you KNOW what the color of any thing IS 'really'?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am It just means that you adopted to my word for something that I understand because you know that I'm limited to actually being able to see what you know is or is not 'true'.

But if I was to ALWAYS 'adopt' to "others" words for things that they understand, then I would NOT be able to ILLUSTRATE and SHOW them my VIEW of things.

Imagine how I could explain that the 'Universe can NOT expand' to "others" if I was to ALWAYS 'adopt' the words that use and that they understand. If human beings understand (assume or believe) that the sun revolves around the earth, and I was only to use the words they use for understanding, then how could I express and explain otherwise? How could I explain to these people that REALLY the earth revolves around the sun if I was NOT to adopt new words for things so that they could understand MORE?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am

Age wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 3:11 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am I default to treating nature as uncaring of humans uniquely.

I default to Honesty and Openness.

I'm saying that nature has no emotion and so lacks concern about love, hate, pleasure, nor pain.

Depending on your definition for the word 'nature' this will have a bearing on whether this statement is true or false.

To me, absolutely EVERY thing is a part of Nature. The word 'Nature' is another word for the WHOLE Everything. There is NO thing apart, beyond, out of Nature, so although I can understand what you indicting here, there is also the view that emotion, which is a part of the human being, which is a part of Nature, and therefore it could be said that 'Nature HAS emotion'.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amSo the chemistry that makes up our biology doesn't 'feel' but gives us the illusion of it AFTER we are conceived.

Yes I have agreed with this in my previous post here in this thread.

To me, the human body is created without thoughts and emotions (feelings), but these evolve as the human body grows and evolves. So, just like you state here, I agree that the chemistry that makes up the biology of the human body does NOT 'feel', until AFTER a human body is conceived. At what EXACT point in the life cycle of a human body do thoughts and emotional feelings begin, I do NOT know, but for sake of any argument regarding this issue I prefer to just say; At birth the human body has NO thoughts nor emotions (internal feelings). Of course they may begin earlier but just for arguments sake i say this.

Also, I think using the 'illusion' word regarding what is 'felt' may NOT help this discussion. It does NOT come across to well to a mother of child who has just been killed that how she is now 'feeling' now is just an illusion, and thus 'not real'. Adult human beings, I have noticed, do NOT take to well to being told that how they are 'feeling' now is just an illusion or NOT REAL.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am Genetics prepares the body to act or react but the brains of animals that consciousness is from has to determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed.

I agree, except that from my view 'consciousness' is NOT from the brain, and the brain does NOT 'have to' determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed, but rather from experiences HOW one 'feels' is HOW the brain is "developing"? That is; the 'environment' of which a human body is born into, and grows up/evolves in, influences that brain to 'think' and 'feel' certain ways, which is HOW the brain is said to have "developed/developing".

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amThis can work, as it does for computing A.I. by forcing it to SEEK for value IN the environment.

To me, ai is just that, it is 'artificial' 'intelligence'. It is NOT and can NOT be 'intelligence'. 'Intelligence' to me, just means having the ability to learn, understand, and reason ANY thing and EVERY thing. ONLY human beings have intelligence, and as far as i am aware of, when this is written, there is NO other species with intelligence, as this moment.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am A type of proof supporting this is how some people are born to NOT feel pain. One kind of 'disease' most popularly known in time is "leprosy". The 'disease' is NOT an actual disease by nature. It is just some factor of the environment that incidentally affects the assignment value of pain to mean nothing. When the development period in the womb is assigning pain/pleasure sensations, if a bug, virus, or some chemical, acts affects the process of assigning these values, it can flip or remove the first values that indicate what to do when the cells normally inform the brain of something destructive. When one is cut, for instance, a pressure neuron in the skin normally fires rapidly when its connections to the sensors are broken. The brain usually assigns this signal as 'pain'. But for those with these types of 'diseases' can make one feel nothing or even feel pleasure.

You are talking ONLY about physical feelings, and I am not sure that any human body has ever been born to NOT feel pain/pleasure in absolutely EVERY part of the body, but, as I say, I might be completely WRONG.

This, however, does NOT have much to do with being "assigned" pain/pleasure sensations of a person or human being, them self. I would suggest that EVERY human body is born with the ABILITY to 'feel', internally or emotionally, pleasure and pain. Although the physical genetics may NOT be created/conceived with a 'feel' sensation, these emotional feelings certainly come into play, at some stage.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amIf one can't feel when one is cut as 'pain', this gets ignored and enables one to get infected with ease. This then creates the deformities and eventually kills the person with this counter assignment.

Yes the human body may eventually stop breathing and pumping blood, but this is just a physical issue regarding the physical body, which, to me, does NOT really have that much at all to do with people, themselves.

For example when I LOOK AT and SEE a 'person' or 'people' I do NOT LOOK AT nor SEE a human body. I SEE the 'person' for who they are, instead.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amBy the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

But emotions do NOT have that much to do with what you have been talking about here in regards to 'feeling' PHYSICAL pleasure and pain ONLY.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 5:26 am The genes only make the proteins that then build structure. We don't even have consciousness until we have brain cells. When turned on, they are NOT the 'senses' outside the brain and so have to learn to interpret meaning of the signals. Thus I doubt they can 'know' pain nor pleasure prior to something until they are 'taught'.

In a sense it is like how baby ducks have a hardwired program that FOLLOWS THE FIRST THING IT SEES. This simple program is an 'assigning' program that then assigns the thing it follows as 'good' and 'pleasurable' thing IF that thing it follows doesn't kill it. Obviously if it follows something that assigns it 'good' when it is actually something that kills it, the things that threaten its life don't get passed on since they die.

Some species, like turtles, alligators, et cetera just break of the egg and walk away and can survive on their own. The human species, however, NEEDS attention for its, continued, survival. If a newborn human body does NOT get attention, then it will, naturally, die. Crying, from the earliest stages, is a natural instinct for the human species to get attention. Crying is nature's way for the human species to be heard, or listened to.

To me, CRYING is a very natural instinct, of the human species. Crying, to get what one NEEDS, in order for it to keep living/surviving, is encoded into the genes of the human body. As A species continually survives, the 'knowledge or information', which is built into the genes, has formed, and continually forms, from past experiences, to instruct that species the best, and most fittest, way to keep this species alive, in order to keep procreating, for its continued survival.

Seeing that the human animal is about one of the most weakest animals on this planet, in physical strength, relative to its size and shape, the human species NEEDS each other. The human animal NEEDS attention, and how it evolved or adapted to do this most successfully is to CRY, from the initial stages of the birth of its "self". The human being species, literally, NEEDS to be heard, and listened to, that is: if it WANTS to keep living and surviving.

(Now that I have waffled on for so long, my 'self', I apologize as I am sure some one could write this far more succinctly then I have here).

But to summarize, to me, a 'baby', is a word denoting the being within the human body, which has NOT evolved into a 'person' yet, so the human 'baby', literally, has no apriori sense of 'feeling' for nor against anything' yet. However, the human body has instincts within its dna/genes, which drives it to keep surviving. Each species genetically has naturally evolved, and keeps naturally evolving, to KEEP LIVING and KEEP SURVIVING. The human species just does this by being listened to, which obviously for a new born human body this is achieved by CRYING, for what it literally NEEDS to KEEP LIVING. For every new living creation there is a built in information/knowledge mechanism within its physicality, which is a KNOWING of what is best for its continual survival.

The simpler species lack a NEED for the extent of emotions we need.

You know you just wrote: By the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

If "we" NEED 'emotions', then I am NOT sure that they are just "accidental factors" that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive. If 'evolution' is true, and 'survival of the fittest' is also true, then naturally emotions have evolved in order to keep the human species remaining alive. Nature, Itself, may NOT place virtue in emotions, but Nature has created, through evolution, a species that places virtue in emotions, and NEEDS emotions for its continued survival. This is from my perspective only, obviously.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am Usually more vulnerable animals require it. Things like alligators don't and if they DID assign value to things more, it might not be willing to eat things it finds competing values in.

Although ALL human beings have roughly the exact same number of emotions (around about 450 or so of them, some suggest) and are probably the most emotional animal, human beings have still ended up successfully probably killing, some, of absolutely, EVERY species there is, and even to this day, when this is written, STILL kill their OWN kind. And does NOT even matter if it finds, and ALREADY KNOWS, "competing" values in them. Human beings are the only KNOWN animal that kills its own species out of just 'hatred', which is after all just hatred for its own self.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amThere has been some studies before that demonstrated how depriving a baby emotions leads to death.

I am NOT sure what this SHOWS you, but this SHOWS me just how STUPID and CRUEL adult human beings can be, in the PRETENSE of being "WISE", and in the pursuit of "LEARNING" to become "WISER".

OBVIOUSLY, if you do NOT give a human being emotional recognition/nourishment, then they (the person) will DIE, that is; the person feels, and thus literally, becomes worthless and useless, and does NOT flourishes, and therefore withers and passes away. And, if you do NOT give a human body physical recognition/nourishment, then they (the body) will 'DIE', that is; the body stops breathing and stops pumping blood, then decays, withers, and/or passes away.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amBut they don't feel 'pain' as they die and very soon lose the need to cry at all.

How cruel can a species actually be to even think about doing this, let alone actually doing this, and allowing this TO ACTUALLY HAPPEN, to their OWN children?

By the way, from experience, I could have told you that this is EXACTLY what happens.

Hopefully, very soon, you adult human beings will STOP doing this to your OWN children.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am

Age wrote:

I just see a natural intertwined, non-dual, matching of genetics with the environment, as One. This physical environment is after all made up of the same thing, which is genes/genetics. Just in a different order or form.

I prefer to just NEVER assume/presume any thing, and just stay OPEN always observing what IS just naturally occurring.

The views that are formed, are just what I express, which could be WRONG, or partly wrong. But then I NEVER express them nor propose them as being Right in the first place. I just express what I observe. (Or, try to anyway.)

I was setting this background up to show that nature presumes nothing in the initial birth of animals and only defines pain and pleasure, loves and hates, afterwards.

To me, 'nature' does NOT 'think' any thing, which including 'presuming'.

Also, in a sense, what you were 'setting up to show' I did NOT necessarily disagree with before at all. There are, however, just some clarity on the definitions of the words we are using that just helps if obtained beforehand.

By the way, what is the actual purpose for 'showing that nature presumes nothing'?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 7:03 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 3:37 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:33 pm I am opening this thread to separate some concerns by Age here. He has issues with some of the other threads that can be valid but needs to be separated apart from them. This topic belongs to a few different headings, like language, epistemology, and logic. However, this is so basic but often not studied by the average lay person without self-motivation into reading introductory texts on philosophy. Even these are so varying that it is understandable for those not looking up the syllabus for a full university course.

Anyways, this topic I opened is to discuss the distinctions between our initial learning through the concept of 'denoting' and why we have to 'assume' understandings between people AFTER we've learned the languages we have. This topic is also about "definitions" but to keep it simple, lets' begin at least on the meaning of "denoting"

Denoting is the initial process of any conscious being to observe simultaneous, but distinct sensations in which one sensation will be used as a SYMBOL when it can be copied through language or gesture and anything else in the present environment to which one is learning. Much of this is done in childhood and we have certain limits of time usually where the flexibility of the mind to learn the significant symbols are no longer able to be absorbed. This is controversial to some degree but is summed up by the aphorism, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Denoting is process of "association" but the act of ingraining the correct matches to assigned symbols for language or gestures is the specific type. Our own first reactions of crying as a baby is one that initiates our mothers to attend to us. While we may likely be crying initially only as a reflex, this causes the mother to want to stop the noise and one of the initial types of 'cures' for this is to feed the baby. The baby then begins to associate its own actions of crying as a 'symbol' to resolving the discomfort of hunger and/or the comfort of the relief of those sensations that permit it to complete its first cycles (a baby's 'day' that begins in being awake to sleep).

This is just one example but suffices to explain how we begin to associate things symbolically for communication. The term, "denote" is de- (of) + note (notice) and is the act of pointing out or assigning some label to some person, place, thing, concept, etc.

In time it is impossible to communicate to everyone each time by denoting. Because of this limitation, we require "assuming" which begs between two or more people some pretense of understanding necessary to communicate effectively. In logic, something we all do to 'connect' two or more pieces of data to some other piece of data, "assumptions" are the pretended agreed input data to deduce from OR are the guesses of what some unknown or uncertain inputs we may induce and test to see if they hold.

So we need to initially denote and THEN assume the understood alignment to some simple symbols. Definitions are the associations of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I'll stop at this and see if this helps with Age's concerns and for anyone else interested in digressing on this.

From what you are saying, I understand that, as a result of interaction with Age, you are opening this thread to discuss the distinction between denoting and assuming. You said that denoting is the process of associating simultaneous but distinct sensations in such a way that one can serve as a symbol of the other.

You also said that assuming begs between two or more people the pretense of understanding. And I believe you said that we need initially to learn by denoting and later by assuming the association between denotation and alignment with symbols.

I think you concluded by saying that definitions are the association of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I need to ask you if I got any of this right. Did I?

Yes. I defined denoting (denotation) AS 'alignment with symbols' (your words) or association of two sensations (one a symbol, the other the referent). I'm just making sure you didn't mean to separate them as distinct. You could associate a real image of a chair to the sound of the word, "chair" spoken. One could be the symbol arbitrarily but for things like language, we would learn correctly to treat the word as the symbol and not the other way around. In essence though, it CAN be reversed though would be odd in this example for one to be able to do so.

I take it that denoting must occur before connoting, which means that definitions, must come before interpretations.

It seems that your meanings are beginning to meld with mine. This is one way to address the problem of differing assumptions.

How does this support or detract from your argument?

Age wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 1:49 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am

Age wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 3:11 pm

I default to Honesty and Openness.

I'm saying that nature has no emotion and so lacks concern about love, hate, pleasure, nor pain.

Depending on your definition for the word 'nature' this will have a bearing on whether this statement is true or false.

To me, absolutely EVERY thing is a part of Nature. The word 'Nature' is another word for the WHOLE Everything. There is NO thing apart, beyond, out of Nature, so although I can understand what you indicting here, there is also the view that emotion, which is a part of the human being, which is a part of Nature, and therefore it could be said that 'Nature HAS emotion'.

I already agree to this. You are getting ahead of the argument. Emotional beings are a PART of the whole, but NOT the whole. So my reference of Nature is ABOUT the whole here. (I'll capitalize it when referring to it or call it Totality interchangeably to avoid confusion. I'll use the small case then to reference from now on ANY part which CAN include the whole but respects the parts.)

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amSo the chemistry that makes up our biology doesn't 'feel' but gives us the illusion of it AFTER we are conceived.

Yes I have agreed with this in my previous post here in this thread.

To me, the human body is created without thoughts and emotions (feelings), but these evolve as the human body grows and evolves. So, just like you state here, I agree that the chemistry that makes up the biology of the human body does NOT 'feel', until AFTER a human body is conceived. At what EXACT point in the life cycle of a human body do thoughts and emotional feelings begin, I do NOT know, but for sake of any argument regarding this issue I prefer to just say; At birth the human body has NO thoughts nor emotions (internal feelings). Of course they may begin earlier but just for arguments sake i say this.

Also, I think using the 'illusion' word regarding what is 'felt' may NOT help this discussion. It does NOT come across to well to a mother of child who has just been killed that how she is now 'feeling' now is just an illusion, and thus 'not real'. Adult human beings, I have noticed, do NOT take to well to being told that how they are 'feeling' now is just an illusion or NOT REAL.

Again, illusions ARE 'real' but AS being parts of Totality. This isn't to mean I think the illusion isn't a functional reality; it is just NOT the objective (shared) reality outside of ones' subjective sensations.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am Genetics prepares the body to act or react but the brains of animals that consciousness is from has to determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed.

I agree, except that from my view 'consciousness' is NOT from the brain, and the brain does NOT 'have to' determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed, but rather from experiences HOW one 'feels' is HOW the brain is "developing"? That is; the 'environment' of which a human body is born into, and grows up/evolves in, influences that brain to 'think' and 'feel' certain ways, which is HOW the brain is said to have "developed/developing".

I'm uncertain of your interpretation here. Do you believe in some 'soul'? The brain is at least essential for sensing 'consciousness'. But to prove this just begs how could this be done without HAVING some afterlife perspective to deem whether this is true or not. The ACTIVITY of the brain (and NOT all of it all the time) IS our seat of consciousness at minimal.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amThis can work, as it does for computing A.I. by forcing it to SEEK for value IN the environment.

To me, ai is just that, it is 'artificial' 'intelligence'. It is NOT and can NOT be 'intelligence'. 'Intelligence' to me, just means having the ability to learn, understand, and reason ANY thing and EVERY thing. ONLY human beings have intelligence, and as far as i am aware of, when this is written, there is NO other species with intelligence, as this moment.

I just disagree on this. I am knowledgeable of this field sufficiently. I understand computer architecture AND how significant neurological processes operate to know we CAN recreate a conscious entity. While this may seem improbable from a subjective perspective, it would be hard to disprove EVEN if we had a successful A.I. because we just cannot escape our own consciousness to 'feel' what such a mechanism could feel without BEING it.

Humans are also NOT the only intelligence. All animals that have a brain think and feel to some degree. You are extending your own subjective sensation in faith to all humans but dismiss this of other species merely out of a bias of happenstance of BEING a species in present potential power to affect a lot of things in our world. We are NOT the most 'successful' living thing on this Earth. Birds are living dinosaurs that while apparently 'dumb' by human standards, is not by bird standards.

Bacteria is also MORE historically proven to be 'superior' if you rate success as due to what survives. "Survival of the Fittest" is NOT Spenser's Social Darwinist interpretation of some literal 'superior' concept of 'fitness'. I often have to take caution to use the word 'match' rather than 'fit' to appropriately express the meaning. While they relate, the meaning of Darwin's is only saying that whatever works, regardless of actual alternative superior capacities, is FIT when is survives ONLY, not THAT its survival PROVES one is 'fit' (in superior standing).

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am A type of proof supporting this is how some people are born to NOT feel pain. One kind of 'disease' most popularly known in time is "leprosy". The 'disease' is NOT an actual disease by nature. It is just some factor of the environment that incidentally affects the assignment value of pain to mean nothing. When the development period in the womb is assigning pain/pleasure sensations, if a bug, virus, or some chemical, acts affects the process of assigning these values, it can flip or remove the first values that indicate what to do when the cells normally inform the brain of something destructive. When one is cut, for instance, a pressure neuron in the skin normally fires rapidly when its connections to the sensors are broken. The brain usually assigns this signal as 'pain'. But for those with these types of 'diseases' can make one feel nothing or even feel pleasure.

You are talking ONLY about physical feelings, and I am not sure that any human body has ever been born to NOT feel pain/pleasure in absolutely EVERY part of the body, but, as I say, I might be completely WRONG.

This, however, does NOT have much to do with being "assigned" pain/pleasure sensations of a person or human being, them self. I would suggest that EVERY human body is born with the ABILITY to 'feel', internally or emotionally, pleasure and pain. Although the physical genetics may NOT be created/conceived with a 'feel' sensation, these emotional feelings certainly come into play, at some stage.

It is a bias to presume the reflective 'values' of sensations of pleasure and pain are not related in kind to the more complex associative emotions of happiness or sadness. The distinction is about the complexity. Happiness would be something COMPLEXLY derived of the UNITS of collective sensations of Pleasant sensations.

Also, apparently 'neutral' sensations are also even more basic and provide the units that compose the values of 'pleasure' (or pain, etc). We may see something green as distinct from blue as being neutral. But this is just because they have structural assignments that are more basic and variable. There is many different colors but we often think that specific emotions as binary-valued, like 'good' versus 'bad' whereas this is harder to assert of sensations that are more than a clear binary value. Note for instance that certain colors by some animals DOES elicit CLEAR binary preferences. Certain unique shades of RED literally IS something that gets associated by many animals to be triggering aggression or mating or ...etc. That we lack what seems to be unified favor to colors is only because we perceive a larger variety of them and people can thus VARY how they relate these sensations as linked directly to some common association of pain versus pleasure, or lover versus hate.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amIf one can't feel when one is cut as 'pain', this gets ignored and enables one to get infected with ease. This then creates the deformities and eventually kills the person with this counter assignment.

Yes the human body may eventually stop breathing and pumping blood, but this is just a physical issue regarding the physical body, which, to me, does NOT really have that much at all to do with people, themselves.

For example when I LOOK AT and SEE a 'person' or 'people' I do NOT LOOK AT nor SEE a human body. I SEE the 'person' for who they are, instead.

I don't know what you mean here at all. Again as with the question of 'soul', are you interpreting something spiritual or physical? What do you mean by seeing a person for 'who they are' as though you can FEEL through them as though you WERE them? We can get in SYNC with other humans because we are of a similar structure and can communicate this among each other.

I'm not sure how you even connected your thoughts to the point I was making about things like leprosy? I was saying that there are real assignment values that people (and an conscious being) that associates values UN-FIT (un-matched, that is) to the environment it is in. A newly hatched duck associates ANYTHING it first senses as moving as something to follow. Then this first impression gets a default assignment of 'good' regardless if the reality of that environmental thing is its real mother or a predatory creature, or even something else that may move artificially. The FIRST associations that get impressed are DEFINING what is 'good' to new beings.

If follows a logic not dissimilar to Newton's first law of inertia that says in general to this application, anything that exists in some INITIAL state, remains in that initial state until some force from outside that state affects it. Then once that force has affected it, it then presumes that new state as its 'expected' norm. The baby hatchling has a genetic neutral command instruction that says, follow the first thing you see. That IS 'good'.

This is a development 'window' that closes after a relatively short period and entrenches that impression in its brain permanently no matter how good or bad that thing is to it afterwards. We do this too and is how we learn values. After the period of development closes, certain values are set for life. Those that have impressions that the majority of people dislike are then what we deem as socially deviant in some way, such as a psychopath.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amBy the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

But emotions do NOT have that much to do with what you have been talking about here in regards to 'feeling' PHYSICAL pleasure and pain ONLY.

I already wrote now on this above. I disagree and it requires another digression if this is what you need to get past.

Age wrote: (Now that I have waffled on for so long, my 'self', I apologize as I am sure some one could write this far more succinctly then I have here).

Scott Mayers wrote: The simpler species lack a NEED for the extent of emotions we need.

You know you just wrote: By the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

If "we" NEED 'emotions', then I am NOT sure that they are just "accidental factors" that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive. If 'evolution' is true, and 'survival of the fittest' is also true, then naturally emotions have evolved in order to keep the human species remaining alive. Nature, Itself, may NOT place virtue in emotions, but Nature has created, through evolution, a species that places virtue in emotions, and NEEDS emotions for its continued survival. This is from my perspective only, obviously.

I addressed the point above in this post the confusion you are making about 'fitness' and so will wait to see if you've changed this position in light of that.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am Usually more vulnerable animals require it. Things like alligators don't and if they DID assign value to things more, it might not be willing to eat things it finds competing values in.

Although ALL human beings have roughly the exact same number of emotions (around about 450 or so of them, some suggest) and are probably the most emotional animal, human beings have still ended up successfully probably killing, some, of absolutely, EVERY species there is, and even to this day, when this is written, STILL kill their OWN kind. And does NOT even matter if it finds, and ALREADY KNOWS, "competing" values in them. Human beings are the only KNOWN animal that kills its own species out of just 'hatred', which is after all just hatred for its own self.

I know this may be hard to believe that we are UNUSUALLY unique in how we feel. But this is not true and needs both a discussion on evolution and TIME to absorb before it can be appreciated by my perspective. So I'll have to leave this be again.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amThere has been some studies before that demonstrated how depriving a baby emotions leads to death.

I am NOT sure what this SHOWS you, but this SHOWS me just how STUPID and CRUEL adult human beings can be, in the PRETENSE of being "WISE", and in the pursuit of "LEARNING" to become "WISER".

OBVIOUSLY, if you do NOT give a human being emotional recognition/nourishment, then they (the person) will DIE, that is; the person feels, and thus literally, becomes worthless and useless, and does NOT flourishes, and therefore withers and passes away. And, if you do NOT give a human body physical recognition/nourishment, then they (the body) will 'DIE', that is; the body stops breathing and stops pumping blood, then decays, withers, and/or passes away.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amBut they don't feel 'pain' as they die and very soon lose the need to cry at all.

How cruel can a species actually be to even think about doing this, let alone actually doing this, and allowing this TO ACTUALLY HAPPEN, to their OWN children?

By the way, from experience, I could have told you that this is EXACTLY what happens.

Hopefully, very soon, you adult human beings will STOP doing this to your OWN children.

I read of this originally from a psychology text where the experiment was dropped OR was one of those similar Nazi-experiments on real people we no longer permit in today's 'humane' society. We DID however follow up with this using monkeys as subjects and these monkeys died in this way. They no longer permit experiments of this kind for even monkeys now of course. But unfortunately, much knowledge is restricted by our own rules of such limitations to the point we cannot be ALLOWED to prove many things regardless. It prevents the 'openness' to discovery that counters your own position of neutrality. This kind of proves a point about our limitations where we are stuck to permanent non-resolution and thus are forced to 'guess' or ASSUME many things.

But I agree to your point. It is still a real psychology study that presented scientific backing to the logic both you and I agree on this point at least.

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am

Age wrote: I just see a natural intertwined, non-dual, matching of genetics with the environment, as One. This physical environment is after all made up of the same thing, which is genes/genetics. Just in a different order or form.

I prefer to just NEVER assume/presume any thing, and just stay OPEN always observing what IS just naturally occurring.

The views that are formed, are just what I express, which could be WRONG, or partly wrong. But then I NEVER express them nor propose them as being Right in the first place. I just express what I observe. (Or, try to anyway.)

I was setting this background up to show that nature presumes nothing in the initial birth of animals and only defines pain and pleasure, loves and hates, afterwards.

To me, 'nature' does NOT 'think' any thing, which including 'presuming'.

Also, in a sense, what you were 'setting up to show' I did NOT necessarily disagree with before at all. There are, however, just some clarity on the definitions of the words we are using that just helps if obtained beforehand.

By the way, what is the actual purpose for 'showing that nature presumes nothing'?

To derive ASSUMPTIONS as necessary from Denoting and that Denoting is a neutral initial step indifferent to how we learn anything by value.

But I too would have to know step back to be sure because my brain is numb from all this. And now I'll need a break too because my neck and back are sore from this not to mention my eyesight. I need to step away from the computer for a bit.

commonsense wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 7:03 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 3:37 pm

From what you are saying, I understand that, as a result of interaction with Age, you are opening this thread to discuss the distinction between denoting and assuming. You said that denoting is the process of associating simultaneous but distinct sensations in such a way that one can serve as a symbol of the other.

You also said that assuming begs between two or more people the pretense of understanding. And I believe you said that we need initially to learn by denoting and later by assuming the association between denotation and alignment with symbols.

I think you concluded by saying that definitions are the association of symbols using the denoted set of prior learned associations.

I need to ask you if I got any of this right. Did I?

Yes. I defined denoting (denotation) AS 'alignment with symbols' (your words) or association of two sensations (one a symbol, the other the referent). I'm just making sure you didn't mean to separate them as distinct. You could associate a real image of a chair to the sound of the word, "chair" spoken. One could be the symbol arbitrarily but for things like language, we would learn correctly to treat the word as the symbol and not the other way around. In essence though, it CAN be reversed though would be odd in this example for one to be able to do so.

I take it that denoting must occur before connoting, which means that definitions, must come before interpretations.

It seems that your meanings are beginning to meld with mine. This is one way to address the problem of differing assumptions.

How does this support or detract from your argument?

I'm in sync with this. Connoting also adds meaning by indirect reference or suggestive associations which become or are those interpretations.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am Genetics prepares the body to act or react but the brains of animals that consciousness is from has to determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed.

I agree, except that from my view 'consciousness' is NOT from the brain, and the brain does NOT 'have to' determine HOW to 'feel' after it is developed, but rather from experiences HOW one 'feels' is HOW the brain is "developing"? That is; the 'environment' of which a human body is born into, and grows up/evolves in, influences that brain to 'think' and 'feel' certain ways, which is HOW the brain is said to have "developed/developing".

I'm uncertain of your interpretation here.

Okay that is fair enough. What is it EXACTLY that you are uncertain of. IF you would like to ask some clarifying questions, then i could clear up your uncertainty, as well as clarify for you.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm Do you believe in some 'soul'?

Two things here:

1. Have you previously read my words here, in this forum, when I have written: I neither believe nor disbelieve any thing?

If yes, then how do you interpret that and,/or what does that mean to you?
If no, then now you have.

In case you are uncertain of what I actually mean, then what I mean is; I neither believe nor disbelieve absolutely ANY thing. So, for the rest of eternity asking me questions that start with; Do you believe ...? is just a complete waste of time. (But in saying that there is one thing 'I believe in', but at the rate we are going, when I am ready to divulge that it seems like it will be eternity anyway.)

2. WHY did you bring the 'soul' word into this?

If I asked you Do you believe in some 'spirit', because that having absolutely NOTHING in regards to what we have been discussing I have absolutely NO concept of what you mean by 'soul' as you ALSO have absolutely NO concept of what I mean by 'spirit'. Therefore, even if the 'believe' word was NOT in your question I still could NOT answer your question without asking two clarifying questions: 1) WHY bring this word into the discussion now? 2) What is your definition of the word 'soul' EXACTLY?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm The brain is at least essential for sensing 'consciousness'.But to prove this just begs how could this be done without HAVING some afterlife perspective to deem whether this is true or not. The ACTIVITY of the brain (and NOT all of it all the time) IS our seat of consciousness at minimal.

If you say so.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amThis can work, as it does for computing A.I. by forcing it to SEEK for value IN the environment.

To me, ai is just that, it is 'artificial' 'intelligence'. It is NOT and can NOT be 'intelligence'. 'Intelligence' to me, just means having the ability to learn, understand, and reason ANY thing and EVERY thing. ONLY human beings have intelligence, and as far as i am aware of, when this is written, there is NO other species with intelligence, as this moment.

I just disagree on this.

That is fine and okay. That just means that you have a different version of a definition for the word 'intelligence'. I have ALREADY shared with you my version. Now would you care to share your version also?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm I am knowledgeable of this field sufficiently. I understand computer architecture AND how significant neurological processes operate to know we CAN recreate a conscious entity.

So far absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with the word 'intelligence', from the only definition offered up, in regards to a conscious entity being recreated. Other than of course that it would be recreated from the ONLY Truly 'intelligent' being, which the human being CAN BE. A conscious entity is NOT necessarily an 'intelligent' one.

While this may seem improbable from a subjective perspective,

NO it does NOT seem at all improbable, from this subject perspective anyway.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm it would be hard to disprove EVEN if we had a successful A.I. because we just cannot escape our own consciousness to 'feel' what such a mechanism could feel without BEING it.

Again, what does the word 'intelligent' mean to you, and now that you brought it up, how do you also define the word 'consciousness'?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmHumans are also NOT the only intelligence.

Really?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmAll animals that have a brain think and feel to some degree.

As far as I am aware I could agree with this. But NOT much at all do with 'intelligence' really.

A thinking and feeling animal has NOT much to do with 'intelligence', from my perspective and definition.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmYou are extending your own subjective sensation in faith to all humans

Am I?

And what is this supposed 'subjective sensation' which YOU say I am 'extending'?

Also, what 'faith' are YOU saying I have, which I am extending to all humans?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm but dismiss this of other species merely out of a bias of happenstance of BEING a species in present potential power to affect a lot of things in our world.

If the actual and real Truth be KNOWN the 'I' is NOT even a human being, therefore when I say that: ONLY human beings have intelligence, and as far as i am aware of, when this is written, there is NO other species with intelligence, as this moment. then I am being EXTREMELY generous to them because the adult of the human being species RARELY, if EVER, SHOWS the 'intelligence' that they HAVE, which NO other species on the planet earth has.

What you have ASSUMED here probably could NOT be any further from the Truth of things. To me, adult human beings although HAVING intelligence are STILL the most STUPID creature on planet earth. NO other animal goes down a path of destruction that not only is wiping themselves out but also the one and only KNOWN livable homes in the WHOLE Universe, which would then wipe out EVERY other known creature with a brain.

So, to me, although the human being species CAN be the most 'intelligent' animal and creature in the KNOWN Universe they ARE also the MOST STUPID animal and creature in the KNOWN Universe.

I certainly do NOT see a bias to the human species as I have NEVER met a more stupid species in my WHOLE entire Life.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm We are NOT the most 'successful' living thing on this Earth. Birds are living dinosaurs that while apparently 'dumb' by human standards, is not by bird standards.

I certainly would NOT call birds nor dinosaurs "dumb" by human standards. I OBSERVE far MORE 'dumb' things that adult human beings actually DO every day that birds nor dinosaurs would or could EVER do.

As for 'successful' living things on earth, lets just hope you human beings do NOT wipe birds out completely like you have done with other species of animals. Considering for how long birds have survived without human beings interference. It would seem a real shame, AND PRETTY DUMB, if human beings did wipe any other species, especially like one like birds, in really just a relatively very short few years.

Bacteria is also MORE historically proven to be 'superior' if you rate success as due to what survives. "Survival of the Fittest" is NOT Spenser's Social Darwinist interpretation of some literal 'superior' concept of 'fitness'. I often have to take caution to use the word 'match' rather than 'fit' to appropriately express the meaning. While they relate, the meaning of Darwin's is only saying that whatever works, regardless of actual alternative superior capacities, is FIT when is survives ONLY, not THAT its survival PROVES one is 'fit' (in superior standing). [/quote]

Which is exactly the definition that I come from also when discussing this issue.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am A type of proof supporting this is how some people are born to NOT feel pain. One kind of 'disease' most popularly known in time is "leprosy". The 'disease' is NOT an actual disease by nature. It is just some factor of the environment that incidentally affects the assignment value of pain to mean nothing. When the development period in the womb is assigning pain/pleasure sensations, if a bug, virus, or some chemical, acts affects the process of assigning these values, it can flip or remove the first values that indicate what to do when the cells normally inform the brain of something destructive. When one is cut, for instance, a pressure neuron in the skin normally fires rapidly when its connections to the sensors are broken. The brain usually assigns this signal as 'pain'. But for those with these types of 'diseases' can make one feel nothing or even feel pleasure.

You are talking ONLY about physical feelings, and I am not sure that any human body has ever been born to NOT feel pain/pleasure in absolutely EVERY part of the body, but, as I say, I might be completely WRONG.

This, however, does NOT have much to do with being "assigned" pain/pleasure sensations of a person or human being, them self. I would suggest that EVERY human body is born with the ABILITY to 'feel', internally or emotionally, pleasure and pain. Although the physical genetics may NOT be created/conceived with a 'feel' sensation, these emotional feelings certainly come into play, at some stage.

It is a bias to presume the reflective 'values' of sensations of pleasure and pain are not related in kind to the more complex associative emotions of happiness or sadness. The distinction is about the complexity. Happiness would be something COMPLEXLY derived of the UNITS of collective sensations of Pleasant sensations.

Well LUCKILY I was NOT 'presuming' any thing like that at all. So this is all moot.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmAlso, apparently 'neutral' sensations are also even more basic and provide the units that compose the values of 'pleasure' (or pain, etc). We may see something green as distinct from blue as being neutral. But this is just because they have structural assignments that are more basic and variable. There is many different colors but we often think that specific emotions as binary-valued, like 'good' versus 'bad' whereas this is harder to assert of sensations that are more than a clear binary value. Note for instance that certain colors by some animals DOES elicit CLEAR binary preferences. Certain unique shades of RED literally IS something that gets associated by many animals to be triggering aggression or mating or ...etc. That we lack what seems to be unified favor to colors is only because we perceive a larger variety of them and people can thus VARY how they relate these sensations as linked directly to some common association of pain versus pleasure, or lover versus hate.

Besides the very natural and instinctual actions human beings do to obtain their NEEDS, just about EVERY thing else is learned and gained, from one's past experiences.

EVERY animal has very natural and instinctual actions to obtain what they NEED for their survival, and human beings are NOT different in this regard. The ONLY difference that separates the human animal from ALL other animals is the human animal HAS the ABILITY to learn, understand, and reason ANY and EVERY thing. No other animal, here on earth, has this ability. This 'ability' is, to me, called 'intelligence'.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amIf one can't feel when one is cut as 'pain', this gets ignored and enables one to get infected with ease. This then creates the deformities and eventually kills the person with this counter assignment.

Yes the human body may eventually stop breathing and pumping blood, but this is just a physical issue regarding the physical body, which, to me, does NOT really have that much at all to do with people, themselves.

For example when I LOOK AT and SEE a 'person' or 'people' I do NOT LOOK AT nor SEE a human body. I SEE the 'person' for who they are, instead.

I don't know what you mean here at all. Again as with the question of 'soul', are you interpreting something spiritual or physical?

Have you noticed that when you do NOT know what I mean at all, it is when you are ASSUMING some thing, like you are here with 'souls' and 'spirits', which I have NEVER even brought into the discussion by the way?

I am NOT interpreting any thing at all other than what I OBSERVE. What I OBSERVE I interpret with the words and language that I am accustomed to. What I have OBSERVED I just share, with the words and language I am accustomed to and use, and some times with the definitions of the words I use, and on even rarer occasions with the meanings behind those definitions.

If you want me to answer your questions here Honestly and OPENLY, thus properly and correctly, then I would NEED to KNOW 'your definitions' for the words used in your questions.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm What do you mean by seeing a person for 'who they are' as though you can FEEL through them as though you WERE them?

Probably EXACTLY what you just said here.

Because I know the actual True and Right answer to the question; Who am 'I'? I also KNOW the answer to who/what the 'you' IS, as well. So, in a sense I can SEE, UNDERSTAND, and FEEL ALL of US.

Discovering, and then KNOWING, who/what 'I' Truly am means that 'I' KNOW who/what EVERY one IS also.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmWe can get in SYNC with other humans because we are of a similar structure and can communicate this among each other.

If you say so. But if you understand and KNOW your True self and Self, then that 'you' can be, and that 'I' IS, in SYNC with ALL.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmI'm not sure how you even connected your thoughts to the point I was making about things like leprosy?

Considering this is NOT a clarifying question I could say "okay", and leave it at. But considering there is a question mark at the end, which makes me wonder, I will ask a clarifying question, because I do NOT like to ASSUME any thing, would you like to KNOW how I connected those thoughts to the point about leprosy?

If yes, then leprosy effects the physical visible human body. And, the visible human body is NOT the invisible human being, to me anyway.
If no, then just disregard the last sentence I wrote.

If, however, you would seriously like to understand more about where I am coming from, then I suggest just asking clear and simple straightforward clarifying questions.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm I was saying that there are real assignment values that people (and an conscious being) that associates values UN-FIT (un-matched, that is) to the environment it is in. A newly hatched duck associates ANYTHING it first senses as moving as something to follow. Then this first impression gets a default assignment of 'good' regardless if the reality of that environmental thing is its real mother or a predatory creature, or even something else that may move artificially.

And what are you basing that a duck gets a default assignment of 'good' from?

Could the duck just be doing what it is 'genetically instructed' to do, without any 'good' or 'bad' being associated any where? After all I KNOW many adult human beings who STILL have NO actual way of KNOWING what is 'good' from what is 'bad'. There are even some adult human beings who discuss within 'philosophical groups', who by the way are some of the ones who think that they are the most intellectual groups of ALL human beings, but anyway I KNOW some in these groups who INSIST and TRY TO 'argue' that there is NO 'good' nor 'bad'. So, if some of the most, self-proclaimed, "intellectual" human beings on the planet earth, say that there IS NO 'good' nor 'bad', then I am NOT sure you would think that a duck gets a 'default assignment' of 'good'. To me, the duck is just doing what the duck is genetically designed to do.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmThe FIRST associations that get impressed are DEFINING what is 'good' to new beings.

Are you suggesting that that first smack/hit a brand newly born human body some times gets is an associate impression, or, because it as far as I am aware that smack/hit would NOT be associated with an impression of a 'good' definition, and therefore it is NOT the FIRST association that gets "impressed", to you?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmIf follows a logic not dissimilar to Newton's first law of inertia that says in general to this application, anything that exists in some INITIAL state, remains in that initial state until some force from outside that state affects it.

Yes this could be said and agreed with here.

But I am still unsure WHY only the FIRST associations that get impressed are DEFINING ONLY what is 'good' to new beings. Can 'bad' be the FIRST association that gets impressed and DEFINED, or is it only 'good' that is the FIRST?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm Then once that force has affected it, it then presumes that new state as its 'expected' norm. The baby hatchling has a genetic neutral command instruction that says, follow the first thing you see. That IS 'good'.

But it might NOT be 'good' at all. 'Good' and 'bad' as far as I am aware are ONLY human being perceptions. Although some adult human beings would disagree with this, anyway, to me, IF a genetic NEUTRAL instruction TELLS a physical animal to do some thing, then that would be the 'best' for the continued survival of that species. By the use of the word 'NEUTRAL' that to me would mean that whatever the instruction is for it would NEITHER be a 'good' nor a 'bad' instruction, in any moral or ethical sense of the word, nor in even any sense of the word. A genetic NEUTRAL instruction would just be for "NECESSITY" of survival, which would remain in that state until outside influences change the genetic make up to instruct that animal/species to act/react in another particular way, which, by the way, this change is in continual motion.

Now, it could be "argued" that the 'genetic neutral command instruction' is for the 'good' of the species, for its continual survival, but I do NOT think any animal's first impression is associated with 'good', nor even 'bad'. ALL first impressions, to me, are probably just associated with 'that is how it is here' (wherever here is). Obviously that would NOT be the 'impression' as there is NO impression/thinking with language and words in a newly born animal of any kind. Only older human beings start gaining impressions of and thinking of 'good' and 'bad' and associating that with other things.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmThis is a development 'window' that closes after a relatively short period and entrenches that impression in its brain permanently no matter how good or bad that thing is to it afterwards. We do this too and is how we learn values.

To me, human beings learn values, and every thing else, because there is a Mind, which is Truly OPEN to absolutely EVERY thing, and an amazing brain that is able to gather, capture, and store information and knowledge that it receives.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmAfter the period of development closes, certain values are set for life.

ONLY IF one BELIEVES in them and/or ASSUMES them to be true. If, however, one remains completely OPEN, then there is NO closure, and then NO thing is 'set for life'.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmThose that have impressions that the majority of people dislike are then what we deem as socially deviant in some way, such as a psychopath.

If you say so.

But, If by 'we' you mean you human beings who deem some 'impressions' as socially deviant, then it may be found, that they, themselves, are the ones who have impressions, which are classed as 'disliked' by other people also, as well as it is ALL of those human beings who are YET to discover the actual and real True causes of WHY ALL of you adult human beings have 'impressions' that the majority of people dislike.

It could even be argued that ALL of you adult human beings are psychopaths in one way or another. In fact the more I LOOK INTO this now the MORE OBVIOUS it becomes of just how psychopathic ALL of you adult human beings are. But there is NO use in me even bringing this up. Who of you adult human beings is really going to LOOK AT this OPENLY and Honestly anyway?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amBy the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

But emotions do NOT have that much to do with what you have been talking about here in regards to 'feeling' PHYSICAL pleasure and pain ONLY.

I already wrote now on this above. I disagree and it requires another digression if this is what you need to get past.

You are talking about the physical parts of a human body.

What is your definition for 'person' and 'human being'?

By the way just saying, "I disagree" is really NOT helpful at all, that is; in a Truly OPEN and Honest discussion, in order to find the actual and real Truth of things knowing WHY you 'disagree' is more helpful.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote: (Now that I have waffled on for so long, my 'self', I apologize as I am sure some one could write this far more succinctly then I have here).

Scott Mayers wrote: The simpler species lack a NEED for the extent of emotions we need.

You know you just wrote: By the way, Nature IS 'honest' in that it doesn't place virtue in emotions. Emotions are just accidental factors that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive.

If "we" NEED 'emotions', then I am NOT sure that they are just "accidental factors" that increase the likelihood of someone to remain alive. If 'evolution' is true, and 'survival of the fittest' is also true, then naturally emotions have evolved in order to keep the human species remaining alive. Nature, Itself, may NOT place virtue in emotions, but Nature has created, through evolution, a species that places virtue in emotions, and NEEDS emotions for its continued survival. This is from my perspective only, obviously.

I addressed the point above in this post the confusion you are making about 'fitness' and so will wait to see if you've changed this position in light of that.

You have NOT addressed any thing at all in regards to what I am saying here. Besides the fact that I have roughly the same view as you have regarding 'fitness', so the ASSUMPTION you have about the confusion I supposedly have is WRONG, BUT that was NOT what is in question here anyway.

My point here was and STILL is: You wrote, more or less, that 'emotions are just ACCIDENTAL factors, which implies they are NOT 'NEEDED'. If some thing comes about by ACCIDENT, then that implies, well to me it does, that 'it' was NOT needed, and just came about by ACCIDENT. Yet you also say that emotions are NEEDED by human beings, and simpler species lack a NEED for the 'extent' of emotions that 'we', human beings, NEED.

What I am wanting to POINT OUT and SHOW, which I OBVIOUSLY am NOT at all doing well to some, is that one time you are presenting the word NEED and another time you present to word ACCIDENT, the two can be see in contradiction of each other.

To me, there are NO "accidents". There is, however, a series of occurrences, which created a species that has evolved into "intelligent" enough that is able to consider things, and with enough curiosity also to wonder about its existence, and ponder over how it actually came about, has come to where it is NOW, (wherever that may be).

Now, HOW absolutely EVERY thing is now, maybe a result of "accidents", but NOT "accidents" in the sense of being able to be 'prevented'. If what one thing is, whatever that may be, it is because it is a result of ALL previous things that happened. Now, anything that exists in some INITIAL state, remains in that initial state until some force from outside that state affects it, therefore, in a sense, NO thing is in the state it is, because of some "accident" but rather because of some outside force that has effected it to be the way, which it is NOW.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 am Usually more vulnerable animals require it. Things like alligators don't and if they DID assign value to things more, it might not be willing to eat things it finds competing values in.

Although ALL human beings have roughly the exact same number of emotions (around about 450 or so of them, some suggest) and are probably the most emotional animal, human beings have still ended up successfully probably killing, some, of absolutely, EVERY species there is, and even to this day, when this is written, STILL kill their OWN kind. And does NOT even matter if it finds, and ALREADY KNOWS, "competing" values in them. Human beings are the only KNOWN animal that kills its own species out of just 'hatred', which is after all just hatred for its own self.

I know this may be hard to believe that we are UNUSUALLY unique in how we feel. But this is not true and needs both a discussion on evolution and TIME to absorb before it can be appreciated by my perspective. So I'll have to leave this be again.

Maybe you think it is "hard to believe" that 'this' is NOT true, but this might be because you do NOT have any actual evidence that it is NOT true. WHY leave it be "again"? If you have some actual reason and/or evidence that human beings do NOT have more emotions than other animals have, or do NOT have more emotional feeling than other animals have, then when would you like to share that with us, if not now?

When you say, 'in how we feel' are you talking in relation to 'emotional feel' or 'physical nerve ending feel'? If it is the latter, then of course human beings are NOT UNUSUALLY unique 'in how they feel'. But if it is the former, then HOW are human beings NOT UNUSUALLY unique 'in how they feel'?

This may be the only reason we appear to be in disagreement here?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm

Age wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 2:36 amThere has been some studies before that demonstrated how depriving a baby emotions leads to death.

I am NOT sure what this SHOWS you, but this SHOWS me just how STUPID and CRUEL adult human beings can be, in the PRETENSE of being "WISE", and in the pursuit of "LEARNING" to become "WISER".

OBVIOUSLY, if you do NOT give a human being emotional recognition/nourishment, then they (the person) will DIE, that is; the person feels, and thus literally, becomes worthless and useless, and does NOT flourishes, and therefore withers and passes away. And, if you do NOT give a human body physical recognition/nourishment, then they (the body) will 'DIE', that is; the body stops breathing and stops pumping blood, then decays, withers, and/or passes away.

I read of this originally from a psychology text where the experiment was dropped OR was one of those similar Nazi-experiments on real people we no longer permit in today's 'humane' society. We DID however follow up with this using monkeys as subjects and these monkeys died in this way. They no longer permit experiments of this kind for even monkeys now of course. But unfortunately, much knowledge is restricted by our own rules of such limitations to the point we cannot be ALLOWED to prove many things regardless. It prevents the 'openness' to discovery that counters your own position of neutrality. This kind of proves a point about our limitations where we are stuck to permanent non-resolution and thus are forced to 'guess' or ASSUME many things.

Not at all really as what I was saying is regards to; Hopefully, you adult human beings stop depriving your own children of attention and emotions, which is OBVIOUSLY what continually happens in this day and age, of when this is written. I certainly did NOT mean that you adult human beings are doing this to extreme of allowing children to do hitherto. Although even this could be argued against.

How many children die a year because of starvation?

Just from being deprived of a bit of food, and in a sense also being deprived of emotions, leads to death.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmBut I agree to your point. It is still a real psychology study that presented scientific backing to the logic both you and I agree on this point at least.

It may have been a real psychology study that presented scientific backing BUT I discovered this EXACT SAME through my own past experiences, which could have been relayed without the unnecessary allowing/causing of children (or monkeys) to die. After I discovered this same thing, it was only then I was told of a study done that had "proved" this.

I can PROVE this, and many other things, without the supposed "NEED" of studies to verify and prove things, but just by and through simple and very easy 'logical reasoning'.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pm To derive ASSUMPTIONS as necessary from Denoting and that Denoting is a neutral initial step indifferent to how we learn anything by value.

If ALL OF THIS is just to prove that ASSUMPTIONS are NECESSARY, then just give an example of SOME ASSUMPTIONS that you deem 'NECESSARY'. Also, how about defining what the word 'necessary' actually means to you. The word 'necessary' when NOT in relation to any thing in particular, to me, denotes to Life, and living.

And for this reason this might be the only reason we seem to be disagreeing here.

I say; ASSUMPTIONS are NOT necessary, to keep on living, and in a way ASSUMPTIONS are a prevention to live the way that we all want to live.

You say; ASSUMPTIONS are necessary ....

I will let you fill in the rest.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmBut I too would have to know step back to be sure because my brain is numb from all this.

What do you mean that you 'TOO would have to know step back to be sure'?

Is the word 'know' meant to be now? And if yes, then what do you mean by with the use of the word 'TOO'.

Who else was stepping back? I certainly was and am NOT.

Or, did you mean some thing else entirely different here?

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 4:20 pmAnd now I'll need a break too because my neck and back are sore from this not to mention my eyesight. I need to step away from the computer for a bit.

There is that 'TOO' word again.

What is that word in relation to exactly?

Who else or what else 'needs a break also'?

Age wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2019 2:08 pm I neither believe nor disbelieve absolutely ANY thing. So, for the rest of eternity asking me questions that start with; Do you believe ...? is just a complete waste of time.

I’m glad that I am not the only one who thinks like this.

Age wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2019 2:08 pm (But in saying that there one thing 'I believe in', but at the rate we are going, when I am ready to divulge that it seems like it will be eternity anyway.)

As an aside, I’d like to hazard a guess as to what is the one thing that you believe in (at least it’s the one thing for me).

The only thing to believe in is uncertainty. In other words, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty itself.

How close am I in making this guess?