[MD] Truth and the Linguistic Turn

[David M]

DM: I wonder. Is there more to thinking than language? Is language all SQ, 
all repeatability and
recurrence? Maybe. Maybe where language is not enough we need DQ, we need 
thining, where
by talking about thinking we evoke DQ, the need for something new, new 
metaphors,
new language. There is always DQ, the unique, the new, the yet to be 
captured by language-SQ.
When the same again, the familiar, SQ, is not enough we need inspiration, we 
need to seek
for something more than what is already to hand. To think, to really think, 
requires making
time and room for DQ to emerge. Such is creative thinking perhaps?




Krimel said:
One thing that strikes me about you comments here is that as you describe it 
and whatever form we give to reality or our conceptions of reality it 
eventually assumes a kind of binary form. Extremes are indentified. I can 
not account for why this is but this bifurcation seems nearly universal. Our 
concepts seem to always assume this binary polarity. Why not triads or 
quartettes? To me this strikes at the heart of the Taoist metaphysics that 
Pirsig adopts. We see patterns in terms of their extreme manifestations; 
their poles. We construct opposites out of whatever phenomena present 
themselves to us whether actual or conceptual. I am torn as to whether this 
is a metaphysical or a psychological principle or whether a distinction 
between the two is even possible.

Matt:
I think it's because splitting things into two is the most basic form of 
reasoning in abstraction (as Pirsig noted with his "analytic knife").  As 
soon as humans acquired the ability to think abstractly, they eventually 
discovered the rules of logic and negation is one of the basic things you 
need for reasoning to even occur.  The differentiation process can only 
happen if you can distinguish between a thing and a not-thing.  Like truth, 
binaries are fundamental, but not nearly as interesting or powerful as Plato 
thought.