Re: 'prepare' njc

[sl . m]

If I say truth is an idea, that is not the same as saying all ideas are true. Orange is a colour, but not all colours are orange.

The "truth" is not that which exists. Truth is a concept, a human construct.

What is, is. It is neither true nor false.

 > The idea of "the Good" is not an image in the memory banks

 of anyone's brain.

You are saying an idea is not an idea?


No, I am saying an idea is not an image in anyone's memory banks. I think abstract ideas exist independently of whether anyone has them in their memory banks.

I am arguing, following Wittgenstein, that the world is everything that is the case. And that this (what is the case) is a human construct, a quality of language. And we can't say anything beyond that, because we can't say anything beyond language. We can't know "the tree" because we have no direct access to it.

As W. said, "Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, dar|ber muss man schweigen." Whereof we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.

Sarah




At 10:33 PM -0800 01/06/2003, Randy Remote wrote:

At the risk of boring everyone with philosophical dissection:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I didn't say idea = truth.  Not all ideas are true.

 I said truth is a quality that attaches to propositions, not to the world.

You also said
"What do you take "truth" to be, if not an idea?"

In other words, truth is about LANGUAGE and perhaps thought. It is about us.

It is correct to say that the idea of a tree is not a tree. But
there is nothing about a tree (or a waterfall) that is connected to
truth.

There are more meanings to the word "truth" than the meaning you
are giving it, as in 'something is true or false' (within the confines of
logical thought).
The truth is that which is. That which exists.

  It would be meaningless to say "this tree is true".

I bumped my head on one once (which explains alot). The tree
was the truth.

 Things in the world cannot be true or false.  Only propositions can
 be true or false.  The world as we know it (as we think and talk
 about it) is a series of facts and ideas,

the world as we know, or concieve of it, is our image of it
filtered through thought. It is not the world.

 which we express as
 propositions.  So "this tree is green" may be true.  But that is a
 sentence (a proposition), which is a human construct.  It is not the
 world.  It is not the tree.

 We do not have any direct knowledge of the world.

When I bumped into the tree I did! The reason we are removed
from the truth of the world is because our brains conceptualize it.
We live in a false world of mentation which we separate and call
reality, or ourselves, ego, etc.

 I would also say that an idea is not an image in the memory banks of
 the brain.

The brain, keeper of ideas, is a memory bank.

 > The idea of "the Good" is not an image in the memory banks

 of anyone's brain.

You are saying an idea is not an idea?
I would have to completely disagree with that. The idea of the
'good' is an idea, based on past programming about what we
have been taught is good, or an image used to simplify, like the
guy in the white hat. That's not to say that there is not real good
(an orange, a samaritan) or real bad (violence, cruelty).

 It may be something that people think about, but

 > it is not the same thing as their thought processes.
 >
 > Sarah