Hi Harv,
I put it to you that you are misunderstanding me.
I assume by "Ding an sich" you mean "things in themselves"?
It seems to be well known that "language" involves "labels"; these labels might be in Chinese, in English, in Swiss, in whatever.
An alternative to saying that languages involve an "approximate" reduction to "aproximate" realities:
obviously there is a "generalisation" aspect to language; words in a dictionary partially define other words.
Take "car"; you can have the "onion" effect perspective; seeing more precisely a definition of "car" as you qualify it more by intersecting it with more categories. But in fact there is a re-juggling freedom which means the old category intersections that supposedly "refine" "car" via additional categories might potentially re-generalise (or specify?)the definition of "car"?
A newly-added category (e.g. "things transported on spaceships") might re-expand "ways cars can happen" if an earlier category "on the Earth" were qualified to allow an exception.
Certainly one might have the impression of usual narrowing but John Hospers book tells us how definitions are made from broadening and narrowing of categories.
A juggling act?
What if: take category "car"; intersect with "has wheels", intersect with "metal": now "car" has been specified as having wheels that contain metal; intersect with "has seats".
"Car" was narrowed down here to "has wheels, containing metal" and "has seats". Or has it expanded to include these things? Which way is this "onion" going?
So Chris Langan writes of "conspansive duality"; Dr. Dick writes of "data transmission as part of the explanation"; I write of "voluntary counting"; Jesus Christ tells us that as we measure, so we are measured?
In other words: I can show that the only substance to the supposed onion effect is purely voluntary; the only real "onion" is pure consciousness itself. But pure consciousness is an ocean in which to swim...
I am not "caught up in tautologies". I am interested in reality without evasion; so every voice can be heard.
What is "narrow"? What is "broad"? What is "counting"? I like to explore beyond number.
Every interaction is real; not approximation: but real. Even "approximations" are real approximations, surely?
Regards,
Alan |