Where does meaning come from?

A scientist could not say whether their experiment was real or not because real is not a scientific concept as I have already stated
We use real to describe what we perceive and experience but there is no reliable methodology for determining if it is actually real
Sense organs do not experience everything and perception is entirely subjective and so we cannot be entirely certain about reality
Despite this we take our experiences and perceptions to be true since they are so convincing that we accept them unconditionally
But being convinced of something has no bearing on how true it actually is

We aren’t talking about whether science is actually correct or true. We are talking about whether they believe in a reality with which they are experimenting. They know that even if they are wrong, they could only be wrong if there was a “right” to be wrong about. That “right” would be the “real”. They cannot experiment on the unreal, nonexistent. And they know that. So they most certainly believe in a reality, whether they can ever understand it properly or not. Realism is the stance that there is “A Reality” to at least try to understand.

Else you have a really strange definition of “reality”.

All I am saying is that science only investigates observable phenomena not reality. Less you are a solipsist or an idealist you will accept what you experience
as reality and this is just as true of scientists as anyone else. But when they are doing actual science then the notion of reality becomes irrelevant. Science
is the most exacting discipline outside of mathematics so terms have to be as precise as possible. Reality is a philosophical term as the nature of existence
is philosophical while the study of observable phenomena is scientific. And this distinction is important as science and philosophy are different disciplines

You seem to have the terms a bit backwards.

The solipsist is the one who accepts ONLY what he experiences as the only form of reality. His “experiences” are all in his mind. There is no “outside reality”. And that is the exact opposite of the realist who claims that there is a reality “out there”

Nonsense. A scientist has no need to study an unreal phenomenon. His entire purpose and intent is to discover what is or is not real. It is sheer nonsense to think that a scientist doesn’t care about what is real or not.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Science is one particular philosophy, a philosophy of verification of hypotheses about Reality. Science studies the nature of reality by observing phenomenon. What did you think General Relativity was all about? And the statistics involved? And when they go to form a hypothesis, what is the hypothesis going to be about, if not about reality?

What is your definition of “reality”? Because you are not making any sense at all concerning scientists and what they do.

And how can a phenomenon even exist and yet not be part of reality?

You are correct, reality does not equate to experience and experience is more related to perception.

Experience and perception are parts of reality . . .

Science only studies observable phenomena and nothing else
Whether they be part of reality or not is irrelevant to science

Ahh…

As I’ve stated before, if you state all the positives and negatives, you are left with no truth, and that is a truth, so truth always wins.

In terms of the topic at hand, something is really what it is or it is a real mirage of what it is, either way it is real.

Don’t :laughing: too soon.
You are merely demonstrating your views are stupid [philosophically].

As I had stated ‘Philosophical Realism’ a philosophical view which claim its view are representing reality. The claim of ‘Philosophical Realism’ that there is a reality independent of the human conditions in not a possibility and absurd.

Philosophically, a Philosophical Realist [like yourself] is merely an empirical idealist, as what is really ‘real’ to the so-claimed 'realist [philosophical] is only restricted to the processed sense-data in the mind. What is claimed as the real thing, i.e. outside the mind is merely a speculation and an impossibility to be real to the philosophical realist.

What is realistic must be justified as ‘real’ i.e.
real = actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact.
“Exist” is not a predicate, so it must be predicated on some grounds.
Thus ‘real’ must be predicated to a ground.

What is real to Science is Scientific Reality and never ‘reality’ per se.
Scientific reality is always conditioned to its Framework and System. As far as scientific theories are concern, they do not represent reality per se but merely scientific reality.

What is real to the common layman is the conditioned by common sense.
What is real to a philosopher is dependent on the philosophical perspective adopted for consideration.

A scientist who is a parent will not adopt a scientific reality framework when interacting with his/her babies, toddlers and those alikes. A scientist will only wears the scientist hat for his scientific works.

Show me a ‘thing’ you claimed as real that is absolutely & totally unconditioned by any Framework and System of Cognition. If you can do so you would have proven Kant’s central thesis i.e. “no thing-in-itself” wrong.

You need to differentiate the perspective of the scientists and the Philosophy of Science.

Scientists per se do not give a damn with Philosophy of Science but merely will comply with the requirements of the Scientific Framework and System [Methods, peer pressure, etc.]
Within the Scientific Framework and System there is only the ASSUMPTION of total reality [as defined by scientists not philosophers]. Science has no grounds to claim such an ASSUMEd total reality exists except for the parts of it that is proven from their theories.

As far as Scientists are concern, note surreptitious75’s

From a philosophical POV, re Popper, scientific theories are at best polished conjectures [hypothesis] open to further polishing or be discarded. Thus whatever the concept of reality one attributed to Science, it is a conditioned reality never reality per-se.

Another point is, Science ASSUMED there is total reality but it is implied [humbly] such a total reality will never be known fully by Science.

Yeah, it is merely about an ASSUMED reality that is an impossibility to be really real but merely qualified to scientific theories which are at best polished conjectures.

Oh I’m afraid that you beat me to that one.

Totally irrelevant (and thus “stupid”).

Science’s assumption is their philosophical stance - “Realism”.

Interesting, understandable concept. Given this insolubility, do PtA and PHT ever finally intersect in your understanding?

You accept the status quo definition of truth as a relation. I think my approach—truth as an actual, dynamic quality that inhabits the essence of things and powers existence—has created a lot difficulties in trying to discuss the idea, probably also due to the fact [among others] that I tend to mix ontological and epistemological issues like most non-philosophers.

Point of convergence was just reference to subject matter of question in previous paragraph.

I think I’d better back off posting and study further, apparently am not putting pieces of AO together correctly.

I’ve been tinkering with this approach to understanding reality lately:

what what a thing is
how how things work
why why things work as they do

such that in the world I picture….
What truth as dynamic potential (force)
How provides thatness to particulars by producing dynamic point-locales (from Particularity) [energies; particulars] populated by assets (from Value)[forces; qualities, attributes, properties] of two kinds:
i. descriptive forces (physical properties)
ii. prescriptive forces (moral properties)
Why existence arranged due to truth’s fundamental organizing, coordinating nature (cohere, unify, fit together, unite, coalesce, etc.) Its forces form particulars (abstract and concrete) at point-locales, bundles of energies and forces whose interactions are an orchestration of internal or value-bearing energies (existents) with external force (Form). Truth as force forms factual energies, all of which bear descriptive assets, and some of which [organics] also bear prescriptive assets.

I’ve taken your descriptions of how AO uses PtA, PHT, Affectance [what] and its mechanics (above average ambient PtA=positive, below = negative, balanced = neutral, etc.) as “how”, but don’t understand “why” it works the way it does. What and how are ontological parameters, maybe why is more epistemological. Another possible problem is that how (methodology) is often framed in or leads to intuitive “whys”, but these are just parts of how things work and isn’t the sort of why I’m trying to understand.

In my thinking, placing truth as a fundamental cause [why] rather than relation [mental construct associated with “how”] seems to provide an explanatory model for the “what-how-why” prototype. If things develop naturally they just “are” and “why” need not exist; whats and hows are sufficient, why is just because stuff “is” and works as it does, e.g., laws of science. For example (though I know you have a disagreement in function here) to the observer, equal numbers of electrons and protons produce a stable atom due to attract-repel electromagnetic forces at work. The whats are protons and electrons as points combined into a particle, intuitive how is emf, with whats and hows populating each successive step. I just can’t grasp the why.

I was watching your 2D videos when this thought crossed my mind, was trying to imagine Affectance formation and its fundamental workings from different angles or viewpoints on the grid. One interesting idea I got from videos—if I have it right—is that of the universe as a pool or grid of PtA essentially “holding still” while affectance “affect upon affect” is merely fashioned and populates different/successive points on the grid, suggesting the illusion of movement. Somewhat like the hole theory of electrical current [electron] “movement” in a conductor?

life advances into its own purpose; the experience of its own existence.

Well certainly. PHT could never exist without PtA.

And perhaps it would be helpful, from the information standpoint, to think about the fact that data propagation causes delays in data propagation, right (affect upon affect)? Congestion in data flow, as experienced by ISPs for example, forms a inertia that requires time to move from where ever it is (assuming one doesn’t merely unplug the system). That is the exact same thing that is going on in physics that causes subatomic particles to exist that have inertia. Rather than data, the universe propagates affectance (or ultra-minuscule EMR pulses, if you prefer). The only difference is that data is a higher construct than mere affect and thus dependent upon lower constructs.

And that is the exact same way it is with PHT. The mind is a higher construct, requiring a lower construct to be built upon.

Very astute and accurate. although do keep in mind that the “grid” is purely mental. A “point” is merely a chosen location, not an object. There is no set distance between actual points. They can be chosen to be infinitely close or miles apart. The universe is a continuum containing segregable “objects”, not formed of objects.

Don’t know if En-De is around any more, but been mulling over how meaning would factor into the informational universe I play in. Along the lines of is there sound when an unobserved tree falls to the ground in the forest, I wonder: is meaning still there [in existents] without at least one mind to grasp it? For the moment I’m defaulting to “no”, but certainly not dogmatically.

Among the many problems I have trying to bring concepts about information into focus is trying to find coherent paths for explaining, 1. information just is value, and, 2. value just is force or energy. Occurred to me last few days that meaning plays a glaring role here, need to find out where it fits. I’d hoped that reducing factual and moral reality to “value” might negate the p - ~p chasm, but it’s still there, obviously. Not as harshly as we feel it in macro existence, but still there. View from meaning is the same: still divided.

I digress…could prescriptive(-force) and descriptive(-energy) values–whatever they might be when someone’s not thinking about them–be meanings, just from another perspective? Assuming that evaluations/measurements of any kind, factual or moral, are fundamental value expressions/meanings—might meaning be values acquired and encoded or structured into information arrangements which are then decoded in cognition and mapped to language [words]? In this scenario meaning and value are identical…is meaning just another word for value? Just rambling.

Oh yes, I am still around - hopefully I will be around for a long time yet. I am in a stage of deep thought, plus I have been working on ways to improve my website - this all takes time and sometimes I get writers block or something like that.

My state of deep thought is surrounded by the presence of seeking an answer to the question: what to write next? Eddington also says something similar to: the truth shines ahead as a beacon showing us the path.

I do enjoy your posts, very much. Interestingly your last post reminded me of a conversation I am having with Meno in the Reality vs Perception thread, of which I will not get into too much here. We are talking about a universal intelligence - perhaps it is the mind to grasp the fallen tree.

Perhaps just mental gymnastics . . . who knows ? . . this is the realm I have visited lately and I do desire a way out but only through resolution of what has sent me into deep thought. There are so many analogies that act as a beacon to show us the path.

I will think more about your post and post a more complete and pertinent answer. :smiley:

Meanwhile, keep smiling . . .

I enjoy you posts also…your answers never take paths I expect, but always provide fresh material to mull over.

I’ll probably incur the wrath of James for this, but the quote above touched something I’ve been thinking about for some years now. I accept operating within a single reality in life currently lived, but have wondered for some time if intellects have some limited power to create their own reality–a sort of “stored” modification of reality not accessible (or only partly accessible) in this life. The creation would not be wholly separate from existing reality, but would be more like using the resources of an existing piece of land [the one reality] to plant crops and build houses of our own design [new additions to the one reality]. Your comment that the one’s are still remembered after the equation is completed made me think this might be analogous to the way an author, for example, creates in her fictional characters and landscapes a quasi-reality which is somewhere reduced to mathematical precision whose meaning–which was taken and designed from materials at her disposal in this lived reality–is then stored and can later [after physical life] be accessed and participated in. This would hold true of all intellectual creativity (except that derived from the false, which would find no place in a landscape of true information). The idea is mostly theological, depends on a particular type of value available to intellectual operation that’s absent in other kinds of intelligence and other qualifying data, but your comments about stored memory seem to fit the overall concept.

No need to comment on previous post: beyond my belief that meaning, like information, inheres all existents and is necessary component of fabric of reality, have no idea where to place it. Beginning to suspect it’s too big to be “placed” anyway, which renders previous meanderings irrelevant.

Anomaly654

Interesting thoughts . . .

This is an example of material that requires deeper thought to analyse, that is, you can not briefly read it without thought and expect to understand where you are coming from. It is like a feeling in that it can be hard to express but we know it is there somehow. It also shows how external reality is stronger than internal reality - with a bit of luck you can see where I am coming from here. I am saying that there is some limited power to create a stored modification of reality but in the face of external reality it becomes decayed to a limited extent.

Interesting thought . . . accessing the ones would require us to playback reality in reverse to get at them from this reality. The author is already playing reality in reverse to get at her quasi-reality or should I say that in a way she reverse engineers physical life to store for future participation. She is not so much storing things in reverse as she is rearranging the new reality as she is going along.

Again we have more material that requires deeper thought to analyse and is actually relevant to the discussion. This fits my model of how cognition comes about in the first place and I like the way you say mapped to language. Backing up, I like the perspective you have presented here and I feel that meaning must have its mirror value in external reality so that when things do happen without the observer they still contain meaning. When you stumble across the fallen tree, it can be determined that the tree has fallen id est the ones have been remembered and further, meaning the tree was once standing.

Been thinking about meaning. Realized was limiting myself to supposing that meaning is a specific, ready-made quality or attribute within all existents, material or immaterial, waiting to be picked up on by a mind in contact with them. I’ve settled on a modification (for now) that meaning is only in things [in information] in latent form, as latent heat not available to a room thermometer is present in water vapor. Meaning is produced or brought into fruition or clarity in the mind, produced in apprehension by extraction from the information of the existent[s] being perceived–in ways similar to how the ear hears different sounds when different bells are struck, or color is meaning extracted from light at various wavelengths.

Of course I reserve the right to change my mind without notice…