Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑August 1st, 2022, 7:44 am
Empiricist-Bruno wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 2:44 pm
… new understanding/discovery of 'thought' as opposed to 'speech' … understanding of communication … failure to differentiate speech from thought.
a conversation presuppose speech back and forth between two individuals. bloggers writing on computers and pressing 'enter' to 'speak' is a misuse of "speak"/"speech".
people confuse speech and thought. … as you press 'send', you allow the computer to send but
you aren't sending anything
if I am not communicating to you, then what am I doing? — [logging] imaginary speech (the speech that's drawable from thoughts) onto the computer. … the reader may assess the logged speech (thought) and use imagination to come up with 'my speech' … you may still have a conversation with me this way … It's like reading a fiction book where the characters may be questioned and answer
I hope
you'll forgive my savage editing of your words, but I found it difficult to distinguish your points from other connective words.
Your first point is that you believe people fail to distinguish speech and thought.
Thoughts are the original, the reference. They are (imperfectly) encoded as language so that they can be sent to others.
Conversation is a dialogue between people, comprising speech and body language. But communication is not limited to conversation. Remote communication is possible too, via video link, email, letter, or posts on a philosophy forum, using spoken
or written language. Keyboards, computers, and the internet don't 'send' anything.
I do the sending,
using those tools.
As communication becomes more remote, body language, intonation, and the rhythm/pace of conversation are lost. But the words remain, carrying (encoded) thoughts. More remote = less precise. As the hearer decodes the words into thoughts once more, the losses are considerable, but far from complete.
Then we proceed to your final thoughts:
Empiricist-Bruno wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 2:44 pm
thought is directed at the imaginary whereas speech is meant to cover non-fiction and address issues that will impact [real] living beings.
a written will should have no power as it is logged speech and therefore thought and the realm of thought is the imagination and if you start applying thought to the non-fictional world, then obviously the thoughts are being taken as words … [this] legitimizes untruthfulness
I
think thoughts are directed here, there,
and everywhere, not just at "the imaginary".
Speech applies to "non-fiction" and fiction too. Consider story-tellers.
A
written will is a compromise; all thoughts encoded as language are a compromise. Written words are encoded thoughts, as is speech. It's the thoughts that are the original, the master, the reference. The words, spoken or written, encode and represent the thoughts.
I, an enthusiast for honesty, can see no link here to any form of untruthfulness.
It certainly isn't that which forms your biggest offense to me; In fact, I don't mind that editing. Actually, I am impressed and appreciative that you're willing to take the bull by the horn here, thank you for that. Most people would just dismiss my views. Being considered worthy of a reply is the best thing I can hope for.
So you now say that
thoughts are the original. My problem with this is that when you are trying to put your finger onto what "thought" actually is, you need to use not 'thoughts' but words to say what it is. Think about it, can you say what a thought is? You seem to suggest that yes, you can. I argue that a said 'thought' is an opinion. Is an opinion a thought? Can you use thoughts to define 'thought'? I mean definitions (written words) are the ultimate reference, and you look up dictionaries for that. But here you say that thoughts are the reference. This is apparently unhinged.
What if the thing we are trying to define (put into words) refers to something that is prohibited from being put into words? What if the act of putting something into words metamorphoses it into something else? What if there truly was such a thing? How could we then talk about it or say what it is? We obviously couldn't. And that's what a 'thought' is. I mean, I used to consider this my opinion but now I realize this is a fact and presenting this fact is the main question of this thread.
So, when you mention that thoughts are the original, the reference, I feel that you are out of line as you cannot use words to 'picture' what 'thought' is. You can use words to say that what is beyond our power to describe with words are 'thoughts'. So, we can still know a little about thoughts but we certainly can't use words to define them because we know one thing about them: they can't be put in words and that's how we know about them. Some of our thoughts are so clear to us that we when we have them, we may have difficulty differentiating them from a voice. When that happens, we at least know that no one can hear us thinking (of course not--by definition) but the person thinking believes that they have access to words when the actual process taking place is that they transform thought into inner speech, a form of speech that can be logged. You can remember your inner voice but can't remember your thoughts and so you need to transform them into inner speech so you have a memory of what you've been thinking about. There, I hope this helps.
Your attempt to reason with me using the
example of story telling (presumably using 'speech' to relay 'though') was definitely anticipated and certainly does not refute my position. It does however show that you are fully here and really trying to follow my concepts (I was going to use the traditional expression 'train of thoughts' here but I now find I need to find better words, ha ha.). And I appreciate this.
Thought is believed to appear in sync with the moment a decision (speech) is made. And although there is such a thing as 'evidence of a decision' there can be no logged evidence of thought; in can only be inferred. We cannot live in a world where fictive thinking is impossible for people to have. How would fiction exists if only reality exists for real?
The story teller performs an art. It's called oratory art. Art can communicate to you and so can the consequences of global warming. So, not all forms of communication involve language. Sometimes, only your intelligence is needed to get the message. The story teller acts as the mind that contains the world and that takes its audience along the way for a mind ride. It should be understood as the story teller 'speaks' that many of his/her thoughts aren't the story teller's own thoughts because the story teller may appear to speak from a mind that knows everything about all things. This is a key cue for the reader not to hear the speech as speech but to 'hear' it as if it were inner speech.
Also, would you consider the words spoken by someone speaking into a cellphone as they walk down the street as forming speech? I don't because I define speech as talking now about the current situation to people who are here to hear you. Passively logging words into a cellphone isn't speech and so it's not because you open your mouth an utter sounds that may make sense to someone that you are actually speaking. I guess one could argue that unhinged speech is still speech. I reject that notion.
You keep saying that thoughts are encoded in language. I am uncertain where you are going with this as it's just boldly assert contradictory principles from mine. I take that as simple rejection of what I am saying by asserting your differing point of view which is not compatible with mine.
But as I re-read your comments,
The words, spoken or written, encode and represent the thoughts. I get to wonder, don't thoughts drive the words rather then represent them? If you have no thoughts to drive what you say, how can you say it? And if your thoughts do indeed drive what you say, then why do you insist the words represent the thought? Does the hand playing the puppet is being represented by the puppet? To me, that's just plain non-sense.
I am quite certain that you (if you agree to consider yourself a blogger and not a computer) don't send anything using a computer. So, the two of us certainly aren't on the same page, and I'm not sure I'll be able to make you realize this or that you have any interest in seeing the truth here, even if you claim to enjoy it. But your viewpoint is expected because when you are willing to compromise a lot, you end up compromising the truth too and then the truth isn't the truth any more, just a compromise. I am no longer willing to accept the compromise and will keep being a whistle blower on this topic.
So, you do the sending, right? The electricity going down the wire, it's been driven there by Pattern-chaser, right? You keep appropriating as yours the deeds of machines. That is so unhinged, if you ask me.
There are a few some circumstances where written words (logged speech) is something that's beyond mere thought. For instance, the stop sign you see on a street sign has almost power of speech. It has legal power. What is more important, speech or logged thinking? That's another side question that would be welcome here for debate.
My own thought has never been directed. My thoughts always direct, always in the present. The fact that you appear to think that thinking needs direction (and from what? certainly not from thought because you suggest it's in need of direction). You cannot speak of my past thoughts because I disown past thoughts as I believe they go with the wind. Only what is logged does have an author and so, I agree to past things that I have authored but it would be unfair to me to recognize as my own the thoughts that were mine in a time that is no longer now because that's spreading a misunderstanding about the nature of thoughts.
After writing all this, I realize that there is quite a big heap of things the two of us can't agree with. Still, this is an important topic as thinking matters and if we don't know know or can't agree as to what it means, it would certainly be worth our time to take a moment to getting our act together.