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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (37730)	5/10/1999 12:57:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I believe that philosophy must begin with an objective view of reality. But you just argued that that is impossible. There IS no true objectivity -- only degrees of subjectivity. We can and do think about things we cannot articulate. It happens all of the time. Deaf mutes are perfect examples. But deaf mutes still have language. They don't express it through vibrations in the air, but they still have it. I used "articulate" in its wide sense, not narrow. When I think in my mind, I view that as internal articulation. I contend that there is no pure thought -- that all thought uses language of some sort, defining language not just as alphabet language but including music, mathematics, art, all as languages. We cannot think separate from the vehicles in which we form the thoughts, and the vehicles we use define the limits of what we can think. The number 7 is a prime regardless of whether it is represented in binary, octal, decimal or hexadecimal notation. It is universal. How do you know? You can't argue philosophy based on a movie -- humans wrote Contact. Just as bats can hear sounds our bodies aren't capable of hearing, aliens may be able to think mathematics that we aren't capable of thinking because our brains aren't wired that way. You're the one who's doing the sloppy anthrocentric thinking if you think that human truth is the only truth, or that other cultures have to define mathematics the same way we do.