On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 19:32:57 -0400, Rodrigo Rizzi Starr
rodrigo.starr@poli.usp.br> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

Just to help a little, i think that Saussarre (is it written like this?)
said that a sign exists only due to its difference from every other
sign, and not by itself. I think it leaves you surely in level 3 :)

Regards - Rodrigo

Well Rodrigo I speak a little operatic italian but not much more and
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Sussarre.

Just to help a little, i think that Saussarre (is it written like this?)
said that a sign exists only due to its difference from every other
sign, and not by itself. I think it leaves you surely in level 3 :)

Regards - Rodrigo

Lester Zick wrote:
Four Laws of Ideation
---------

Four laws which describe the experimental properties of an
intellectual condensate are:

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.

I'm probably somewhere between #1 and #3 with my idea of differences
as the universal cause for all things known and knowable and
differences between differences as the universal cause of sentience.
However with sufficient perseverance I'm sure I'll get to #4 soon
enough.

Regards - Lester

Four Laws of Ideation
---------

Four laws which describe the experimental properties of an
intellectual condensate are:

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.

I'm probably somewhere between #1 and #3 with my idea of differences
as the universal cause for all things known and knowable and
differences between differences as the universal cause of sentience.
However with sufficient perseverance I'm sure I'll get to #4 soon
enough.

Regards - Lester

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 19:32:57 -0400, Rodrigo Rizzi Starr
rodrigo.starr@poli.usp.br> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:


Just to help a little, i think that Saussarre (is it written like this?)
said that a sign exists only due to its difference from every other
sign, and not by itself. I think it leaves you surely in level 3 :)

Regards - Rodrigo


Well Rodrigo I speak a little operatic italian but not much more and
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Sussarre. Do you happen to know when
he wrote and whether he developed the idea you mention further? My
contention all along has not been that this notion has never been
noted in passing but that it has not been extrapolated into any self
consistent approach to knowledge in general. Ciao.


Lester Zick wrote:

Four Laws of Ideation
---------

Four laws which describe the experimental properties of an
intellectual condensate are:

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.

I'm probably somewhere between #1 and #3 with my idea of differences
as the universal cause for all things known and knowable and
differences between differences as the universal cause of sentience.
However with sufficient perseverance I'm sure I'll get to #4 soon
enough.

Regards - Lester




Regards - Lester

I'm sorry for the mistake. The correct spelling is Saussure. He was the
founder of what I think can be called european semiotics (i think some
prefer to call it semiology). I have just a very small knowledge of his
theories, as I've read about it in an very introductory book, but at
that time this notion cathed up my attention. As semiotics (or
semiology) tries to be a theory of signs (it began with Saussure, and it
was to be a theory of language, but now it has broadenned to all kinds
of signs), it ends up approaching the field of knowledge, because it
discuss the ways that it can be represented and passed on.
Unfortunately, this is about all that I know on the subject, and I have
no readings to advise you. But I'm sure that you can find more if you
look for semiotics or semiology. Other authors that you can look for are
Pierce (who has a different approach to the same subject, and is the
founder of the "american" semiotics), Jacobson (whose work is, as far as
I know, more related to linguistics).

Anyway, Saussure wrote his theories in the beginning of the XX's, and
his most important work is "Course in General Linguistics" (1916).

Regards - Rodrigo

PS: By the way, I'm brazilian ;)

My apologies. I should have checked the email address. But I

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 21:39:37 GMT, Lester Zick wrote:

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 19:32:57 -0400, Rodrigo Rizzi Starr
rodrigo.starr@poli.usp.br> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

Just to help a little, i think that Saussarre (is it written like this?)
said that a sign exists only due to its difference from every other
sign, and not by itself. I think it leaves you surely in level 3 :)

Regards - Rodrigo

Well Rodrigo I speak a little operatic italian but not much more and
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Sussarre.

IIRC, it's Saussure, and he's French.

Thanks. I can check the web for references.

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.


It seems as though we have gone from #1 to #2 to #3 with our discussion, but
your 'laws' are dysphemisms. I see things more like this:

#1 I seek to understand your idea by re-phrasing what you say and asking
questions. If your sentences are indecipherable to me, I let you know. This
should be valuable feed-back since successfully explaining your idea to people
is key.

#2 When I think I understand at least part of it, I might disagree with or play
the devils advocate to challenge it. I don't do this because I want to prove
you wrong, I do this because I want to see how good your idea is - I'm
interested in it. If it is a good one, it will stand up to the challenges.
This is also your opportunity to challenge my presuppositions, which you have
done.

#3 When I think I understand most of it, or a global theme starts to emerge, I
think of other people who have put forward a similar theory, and ask how it
differs from theirs. Not to criticise you for lack of originality, but to help
me (leveraging what I know) to understand your idea more fully.

#4 I'm sure you did think of it first! It might be a (distant?) cousin to
theories like "all things change" (where change in its most general sense is
difference or non-identity [1]), but your particular formulation might be what
is missing in theirs, and more besides.


----
[1] Mortensen, Chris. "Change". In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/change/, 2002.

Jason - I apologize if you consider that these canons were directed

I'm sorry for the mistake. The correct spelling is Saussure. He was the
founder of what I think can be called european semiotics (i think some
prefer to call it semiology). I have just a very small knowledge of his
theories, as I've read about it in an very introductory book, but at
that time this notion cathed up my attention. As semiotics (or
semiology) tries to be a theory of signs (it began with Saussure, and it
was to be a theory of language, but now it has broadenned to all kinds
of signs), it ends up approaching the field of knowledge, because it
discuss the ways that it can be represented and passed on.
Unfortunately, this is about all that I know on the subject, and I have
no readings to advise you. But I'm sure that you can find more if you
look for semiotics or semiology. Other authors that you can look for are
Pierce (who has a different approach to the same subject, and is the
founder of the "american" semiotics), Jacobson (whose work is, as far as
I know, more related to linguistics).

Anyway, Saussure wrote his theories in the beginning of the XX's, and
his most important work is "Course in General Linguistics" (1916).

Regards - Rodrigo

PS: By the way, I'm brazilian ;)

Rodrigo - I appreciate the reference. I've read up on Saussurre's

Four Laws of Ideation
---------

Four laws which describe the experimental properties of an
intellectual condensate are:

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.

I'm probably somewhere between #1 and #3 with my idea of differences
as the universal cause for all things known and knowable and
differences between differences as the universal cause of sentience.
However with sufficient perseverance I'm sure I'll get to #4 soon
enough.

Regards - Lester

Except that the unknown could be knowable. So I think we have to
restrict your concern to the unknowable.

lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote in message news:<401d2a3b.23784866@netnews.att.net>...
Four Laws of Ideation
---------

Four laws which describe the experimental properties of an
intellectual condensate are:

#1 Your idea is indecipherable - and if not

#2 Your idea is wrong - and if not

#3 Your idea is not original - and if not

#4 I thought of it first.

I'm probably somewhere between #1 and #3 with my idea of differences
as the universal cause for all things known and knowable and
differences between differences as the universal cause of sentience.
However with sufficient perseverance I'm sure I'll get to #4 soon
enough.

Regards - Lester


Lester,
If differences are the cause for all things known and knowable,
this still leaves the unknown and the unknowable as possibly being
caused by something else.

I won't be so cheeky as to ask you to give
me an example of something you don't know; however, what sort of
things can you think of that might fall into the category of
"unknowable"?

If there aren't any, then it just leaves the unknown as
possibly being caused by something else. But, of course, when we
define a member of that set, it automatically becomes known and
"becomes" caused by differences. Therefore, the unknown can be
eliminated from "what might be caused by something other than
differences". Still we have the unknowable!! Is it possible to
discuss the unknowable? Or do we end up sounding like H.P. Lovecraft
and his "From Beyond"? Is the unknowable that which science can not
delineate? Or is it simply things like "A can never know exactly what
B's dreams are like"? But B might be able to write the dream down and
share the experience. Then, B might be blind yet still dream in
colour. How would B know?

Also, that which caused things to be different might be
considered to be omnipotent. That is, whatever performed the first
differentiation or, indeed, differentiated itself into that which is
knowable through differentiation could well be deemed God from this
perspective. That perspective is VERY kabbalistic in origin. You
might do yourself a favour by taking a look at kabbalistic theory, in
that it serves as a basis for defining everything with respect to how
it formed from the differentiation of the unity that is God and how
that unity formed from nothing. It's something I've studied for about
25 years now and I still feel like I'm only scratching the surface, as
there's 3500+ years of material at which to look.

Jason - I apologize if you consider that these canons were directed
at you. They certainly weren't. They're more on the order of gallows
humor or as Mad magazine used to put it humor in a jugular vein.

I've always found our exchanges and those of others interesting and
valuable because they force me to refine arguments dramatically to
address misunderstandings that occur.

"Wolf Kirchmeir" <wwolfkir@sympatico.can> wrote in message news:<jbysxveflzcngvpbpna.hsjisr0.pminews@news1.sympatico.ca>...
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 23:28:55 GMT, Lester Zick wrote:

Except that the unknown could be knowable. So I think we have to
restrict your concern to the unknowable.

Assuming that "known" and "knowable" are disjoint, ie, neither property
entails the other, there are four possibilities:
1. known and knowable
2. known and unknowable
3. unknown and knowable
4. unknown and unknowable

Since case 2 is absurd, "known" and "knowable" are not disjoint. Back to the
drawing board....

Wolf,
All you've proven is that your premise that known and unknowable
are disjoint is incorrect, which is almost bleeding obvious. Of
course something that is known can be knowable, otherwise you wouldn't
be able to know it. So "known" certainly entails "knowable". Back to
your own drawing board, I'm afraid.
Cheers,
Pat