Child playing with pawns-- Is communication possible?

[Kyriakos]

I am saddened when noting how people try to carve up some pre-emptive impression about them, in a number of ways. For example a clerk in the library was anxious due to not finding any of 10 books some person just asked her to search for in the database (many of them rather popular books too), and then acted with even more anxiety when i asked about one book (a dialogue by Plato).
Another example was in my own presentation in the library, when one of the people there thought it would be super-cool to introduce his words by saying "i am a Physicist, you know".
Last by not least, there is my own anxiety.

But i dislike all those power-games, mostly because in reality it seems obvious they are not about actually getting some power either, but just so that one won't feel even more threatened.

I guess it is also why i prefer keeping my deeper thoughts to myself, cause i do not see the point of trying to communicate when mostly it ends up being a struggle in a tabletop game (or rather each person has his own tabletop game as well, and moves pawns there, as if those pawns are himself and the other people).

-Do you think there is any actual point in communicating something when it appears that you have turned for the other to yet one more figure in a game where your words and claims echoe through corridors or flat and painted surfaces of the game, and you won't be able to avoid thinking that the distance between yourself and that impression of you is exactly infinite?

Btw, i am a Physicist, you know. :\

 

[bhavv]

Shouldn't RD threads at least have a thread title and OP that make some sense?

 

[Borachio]

So, it's all mind games?

That's certainly not why I ever attempt to communicate. Mostly it's about me trying to clarify my own thoughts. If someone says something that rings true to me, that's a bonus, but it isn't my chief aim.

I'm certainly not in it to show someone else what's what (as if I could!), or score points. Life's too short for that.

 

[Kyriakos]

^I think it is, yes. The 'child playing with pawns' is alluding to a saying by Heraklitos of Ephesos. It seems in his philosophy that the only certain thing is that if you start being able to observe something it means you already are away from its reality forever. (you may recall a similar phrase by Kafka).

 

[Borachio]

OK. So you're saying if you're far enough away from something so as to be able observe it, you're... too far away from it to be able to apprehend it properly?

That seems a strange thing to say. I'm not sure it's right.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And here I was expecting a thread about teaching children how to play chess...

 

[Kyriakos]

OK. So you're saying if you far enough away from something so as to be able observe it, you're... too far away from it to be able to apprehend it properly?

That seems a strange thing to say. I'm not sure it's right.

It is not only a parallel to distance, eg if you observe a box from the other side of the yard, or a mountain from some kilometer away. It also is about notions of knowing something when that something seems to only provide a 'shadow' (metaphorically), or something picked up by your senses (or way of thought) as akin to a translation of the 'original' thing by itself.

For example you can look at a box of matches and note it has a specific form, which itself is sort of modelled after the ideal of a rectangle and straight lines (without the actual object in space being perfect in that account, for it has non-perfect lines etc). But even the size and shape of the object are picked up by your sight- or other senses, eg touch. The view on the element of size, shape, color etc are furthermore tainted by whatever mental idea you have about those qualities. Aren't we therefore just arbitrarily carving images in a cave-wall, of some thing we saw not as itself is but as it would be if it was located in our (3d) wall or block of stone for sculpting?

 

[Borachio]

Well. Don't know.

Aren't you just saying that we don't know objects in themselves, but only our perceptions of those objects? Only our form of knowledge of them? And isn't this an inescapable fact of life?

We can't reach outside our own brains and apprehend objects directly, can we?

 

[Kyriakos]

Well. Don't know.

Aren't you just saying that we don't know objects in themselves, but only our perceptions of those objects? Only our form of knowledge of them? And isn't this an inescapable fact of life?

It is, yes. I am saying that, as you observed. Doesn't it follow from it, though, that we are only looking back at our own world of the mind when looking at anything outside?

 

[Borachio]

Absolutely. I've never claimed otherwise.

Which is why I don't tend to get upset by what other people say.

I mean, if you push me hard enough, I will get upset. But then that's just me upsetting myself.

It's nicely solipsistic. In a weak way. I do think other people exist, but my opinions about them, and what they say, are my own.

 

[Kyriakos]

Absolutely. I've never claimed otherwise.

Which is why I don't tend to get upset by what other people say.

I mean, if you push me hard enough, I will get upset. But then that's just me upsetting myself.

It's nicely solipsistic. In a weak way. I do think other people exist, but my opinions on them are my own.

Yes, i am in that position too. I too think that both external space and other people etc do exist, but they are only translated to 0's and 1's in my own code, which is not the exact as their own either, as happens with any human.

If one examines with curiosity the web of a spider, i think he was drawn to look at some balance hidden in patterns of his own mind. The spider is more than an infinity away from his perception, much like any iota of the web, or the grains of sand or concrete bits he walks upon, or all the rest.

(ps: this is not solipsism, but another idealism. Solipsism presupposes that the person thinks he is the only conscious entity, or only actual entity there).

 

[Gori the Grey]

Well, communication works as well as it does. If you ask someone to hand you a pack of matches, and they do, they obviously understood the pack of matches in a way sufficiently similar to the way that you do to comply with your request. Do both of your understandings of pack of matches exactly correspond? Probably not. But does it matter? Seemingly not.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, communication works as well as it does. If you ask someone to hand you a pack of matches, and they do, they obviously understood the pack of matches in a way sufficiently similar to the way that you do to comply with your request. Do both of your understandings of pack of matches exactly correspond? Probably not. But does it matter? Seemingly not.

True, but isn't that more of a convention-based use of the term (and practical/sufficient reality of) 'communication', rather than one serving as a basis for "knowledge"? (moreso of supposedly 'scientific' or other inherently prone to become intricate, matters).

Edit: Even in non-directly "knowledge" seeking communication, there are very visible differences between how one communicates, eg a bad actor can be very unconvincing, and a bad novelist can be boring, and so on). But were they bad because they were further from a "truth" of what they were to present, or because they were just further from a mental state which would likely produce a better impression, but itself is not really tied to a "truth" anyway?

 

[Gori the Grey]

True, but isn't that more of a convention-based use of the term (and practical/sufficient reality of) 'communication', rather than one serving as a basis for "knowledge"? (moreso of supposedly 'scientific' or other inherently prone to become intricate, matters).

Well, I don't know. I think a good bit of your knowledge of a pack of matches either is accompanied by, or simply is, linguistic. You hold your knowledge of the book of matches partly (or entirely?) as a set of words about it. So if you now say to someone, "no, the bigger pack of matches" and they hand you the one you want, well, now both of your ideas about what bigness means would seem to correspond. Scientists need even more precise descriptions so they use mathematical formulas, but formulas that communicate the same thing about the item in question to both people using them. Again, exactly the same thing? No. Every breakdown in communication shows that our underderstandings aren't exactly matched. But every successful act of communication shows there's some congruence.

 

[warpus]

A child with pawns is easier to communicate with than a man wielding a queen and two rooks.

 

[Borachio]

Check, mate.

Spoiler :

Not "check mate", but "check, mate".

 

[Kyriakos]

Just got back from the second (and final for this week) presentation of the first part of the second circle, in the other library.

It went GREAT

(by contrast, the one in the previous library, the previous Monday, was HORRIBLE).

I am happy, though There was some discussion and i noted that the library program is not about defining what is correct in the philosophical statements examined, given they are naturally sensed/understood/reshaped differently by each person.

We talked of objects (material), ideas, math and axioms, whether this or that philosopher claimed we can ever have knowledge, and if there is a higher bringer of knowledge (eg some over-ideal, or even something godlike) in each system (eg Socratic, Eleatic, Heraklitan etc).
I felt like it was an honest and nice hour and something in the library, talking with 15 people there and not giving an endless lecture...

 

[Kyriakos]

Btw, a very cool animation for the Cave Allegory...: (in English narration in the video).


Link to video.

 

[dusters]

I do believe that i'm the man with 9 queens and 2 rooks sometimes (it's chessically possible) and people get scared and try to avoid me at all costs.

However, i can still be wielding 9 queens and be polite. What about "Hello, i'm a martial artist who has been learning how to kill people all his life (20+ years) and i can kill you in 15 seconds. But I won't. Actually i really like you"

 

[Borachio]

9 queens and 2 rooks may be chessically possible. But it's not very chessically interesting. I presume you've got a king as well, otherwise that's just not chess. So, you've got 2 rooks, one king, and 5 queens on the back row. And 4 queens and 4 pawns on the second row.

Or do you mean, the standard back row, plus 8 queens, all pawns promoted? Yeah. That makes more sense. Don't see how you reach that, though, without willful cooperation from your opponent.

(Good word that, chessically.)