Can inanimate objects carry expressive meaning?

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coberst

Symmetric Chaos
Yes.

See Portal and Wall-E.

Mindship

Quincy
Wilson

Mairuzu
michael jackson

inimalist
doesn't the concept of "expressing" require "volition"?

Shouldn't the question be, Can inanimate objects have meaning in and of themselves?

The question, as it stands now, is can inanimate objects express meaning to you, when what you are trying to say is that you interpret meaning based on sensory phenomena.

Honestly, buy some intro psych text books.

http://www.amazon.ca/Sensation-Perception-Dr-Bruce-Goldstein/dp/0534558100/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a/190-7656740-0341320

^^^good choice smile

Lord Lucien
Who... cares? If it's inanimate, it's not alive and has no chance of possessing nor conveying emotions of any kind via speech or gesture. It will only carry meaning if one chooses to see meaning in it. My TV is full of expressive meaning only because I say so. Don't make it so.

leonheartmm
if your a naive realist, then yes. oddly, parts of your own body can be "alive" and aware seperately from you, as can the earth{gai theory} as can the whole universe. heck there CUD possibly be a conciousness in time for every combination of two or more than two interacting phenomenon/structures.

but im not a naive realist. so i dont know.

Lord Lucien
Originally posted by leonheartmm
if your a naive realist, then yes. oddly, parts of your own body can be "alive" and aware seperately from you, as can the earth{gai theory} as can the whole universe. heck there CUD possibly be a conciousness in time for every combination of two or more than two interacting phenomenon/structures.

but im not a naive realist. so i dont know. "Coulds" and "perhapses" are frankly unimaginative. Anything "could" be, "perhaps." Finding the beauty in the clear and tangible is always more rewarding.

And your body is alive, in the literal sense. Your limbs and organs function and react of their own "free will" for lack of a more impressive phrase. But being the result of energy oscillations and sentient manipulations makes them, like the "perhapses," quite boring. They follow commands and react according to their physics. Anything that follows such patterns is predictable and tedious.

Purpose and meaning as we discuss them is subjective and abstract, a "human construct", to quote Dogma. Finding expression and emotion in that which doesn't possess the capacity to portray them is the realm of the foolish and hopeless dreamers. Not to be confused with beauty, though, which doesn't require a host with cells.

leonheartmm
r u a niave realist?

and if so, how can anything be "subjective" when all that exists in a hardline material world are objects.

Lord Lucien
Originally posted by leonheartmm
r u a niave realist?

and if so, how can anything be "subjective" when all that exists in a hardline material world are objects. You think in the extremes. I see things as absolute and unarguable when that is what they are. Gravity, matter, this computer. They are there, they can be measured, calculated, and manipulated in clear and tangible ways.

The mind is not a physical object. The ability to accurately measure and equate that which can not be perceived by anyone except your self places the mind beyond the rules of realism. To an extent. When it comes to the intangible, the incorporeal, the spiritual, and the ethereal... absolutes and certainty have no place. The mind and its intricacies fall under that category. But as humans, we still possess the ability to predict and analyze the mind.

If you see something meaningful and expressive in a lifeless rock that was formed as a direct result of energy and matter interacting with one another, then fine. But the rock lacks the necessary requisites to accumulate and experience these things for itself.

leonheartmm
^cudnt it be both though? cudnt your conciousness be at the same time a product of and simultaneously seperate FROM the physical objects and their physical process which give RISE to it? one doesnt have to necessarily beleive in the supernatural to beleive in qualia. i say that because it is simultaneously evident to me that my conciousness is a self evident entity not necessarily representing its physical constituents to itself, while also, being utterly dependant and predicted/affected by the physical processed inside the brain which give rise to it {due to neuroscience/physical death/physical pain/effects of chemicals on the brain etc}. it seems like a contradictory standpoint which is hard to reconcile, but thats the way i see. kinda like reletivity and quantum mechanics.

Lord Lucien
Originally posted by leonheartmm
^cudnt it be both though? cudnt your conciousness be at the same time a product of and simultaneously seperate FROM the physical objects and their physical process which give RISE to it? one doesnt have to necessarily beleive in the supernatural to beleive in qualia. i say that because it is simultaneously evident to me that my conciousness is a self evident entity not necessarily representing its physical constituents to itself, while also, being utterly dependant and predicted/affected by the physical processed inside the brain which give rise to it {due to neuroscience/physical death/physical pain/effects of chemicals on the brain etc}. it seems like a contradictory standpoint which is hard to reconcile, but thats the way i see. kinda like reletivity and quantum mechanics. I'll let the apatheist in me speak.

Whether this... supernatural(?) side exists to the universe or not, I don't know how to care. I care about beauty in that which I can perceive, and meaning in that which can be measured. I personally couldn't care less about the purpose of existence, or the mystery of the presence of life. My lack of belief in permanence or a cosmic plan forces me to see the eventual destruction of life and this universe as the end of purpose, because to me, purpose comes from we sentients.

GCG
No. My ex was inanimate devoid of expressions

leonheartmm
^true, however, if u were a materialist, ud have to accept the very real possibility that the entire fabric of existance was "sentient". and that wud imply that the universe CUD have a purpose implicit in itself/its own existance.

Lord Lucien
I accept that possibility, but like faith in a creator or a purpose, I put no stock in it.

Mindship
density:gravity::complexity:awareness

If (- IF -) this is true, then all things possess some degree of awareness, whether we can detect it or not (just as all things possess some degree of gravity, whether we can detect it or not).

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