Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is known for his contributions to philosophical logic and the interpretation of truth tables, and for the use theory of linguistic meaning. He influenced logical positivism, analytic philosophy and natural language philosophy, all important streams in 20th century thought.
Wittgenstein finally rejects the rule-based interpretation of linguistic meaning and its construction, opting instead for a vague and general view of "game" wherein people and societies set up meanings and reach understandings by means of ostensive demonstrations and agreements. These institutions are subject to transformation over time, resulting in nothing more precise for social science than "family resemblences" among various social practices and general "forms of life" in anthropology. The role played by logic in these language games was of particular importance to Wittgenstein, but he repudiated the notion that logic could play the central role in constructing human intuition, human understanding and human meaning.
Games
What is a game?
To Wittgenstein, the question seemed impossible to answer precisely. We know a game when we see one, but there are so many kinds of game - ball games, children's games, girls' games, adventure games, gambling, games like chess, solitary games, cooperative games - that it seems impossible to characterize games in general.
I want to explore the idea that all games involve physical resonance in the body or in the objects one plays with. Clearly this is the case with high level athletic performance. Soccer players, tennis players, baseball players, golfers all search for a "sweet spot" in their instruments. Hitting a soccer ball just right satisfies with a sensation of power and energy. A tennis racket and a golf club both have a resonance frequency that the athlete learns to control and with which he (she) can transfer energy to the ball in a satisfying way.
I want to suggest that all human games involve a search for resonance frequencies either inside or outside the body. What do people think about this idea?
This novel definition of game, of course, will include conversation.
A Game People are Trying to Play
Jeff, thanks for your post on Wittgenstein over on the Freedom thread. I'd like to take up and extend what you say there here on this thread, because what you say about rules, intuition and logic shows an excellent understanding of Wittgenstein, and can be read by anyone as a good introduction to what Wittgenstein is about.
The fact remains, regardless of Wittgenstein's critique, that rules are the best way we have to characterize games in general. While it is true that some games just don't seem to be played by following rules, there is a scientific rejoinder. The rejoinder is that some games are more complicated than they look, and we need to invoke lots of rules to analyze them. This is the approach I've taken to conversation. I'm claiming that something that doesn't appear really to be a game, because it doesn't appear to follow a well-defined set of rules, actually is, pace Wittgenstein, a game of a very complicated sort. The complications involve the fact that conversation involves satisfying spiritual impulses, realities and intuitions as well as fulfilling practical requirements. I call these spiritual dimensions of conversation conversational ontologies.
With anthroposophical conversation, we are in a position to exploit a very well-defined spiritual ontology. With anthroposphy, we can reasonably expect anyone showing up for a formal conversation to be thinking of himself (herself) as a transcendental, sense-free being with the capacity to intuit a dimension of reality completely different from that of ordinary space and time. We can expect that person to behave in such a way as to disclose that dimension of reality in his (her) comportment toward others, in his (her) choice of words and thoughts, in his (her) mode of self-presentation, for the sake of a much greater order of reality than the sort ordinary consciousness is committed to. These expectations we reasonably have of what an anthroposophist is and how an anthroposophist behaves are what I am calling the rules of the game of anthroposophical conversation.
I can't see that Wittgenstein would object to this scenario. With anthroposophical conversation, we are not talking about ordinary language use. We are talking about an artistic and highly cooperative use of language. We are not talking about the plodding day to day reality of the self-possessed ego. We are talking about a game that people are trying to play for the sake of transcending that ego. Ultimately, however, and again, pace Wittgenstein, I think that science will conclude that everyone, even those in the plodding day to day, are trying to play this game.
Co-creativity
I have found that the idea - or ideal if you prefer - of co-creativity is of central importance in shifting personal perception towards healthy clairvoyance. I love Schiller's premise that we are most human when we play.
If we call co-creativity a game, what are its distinctive characteristics? If the current thread of our converse holds good, these distinctions may show that conscious converse is a specific instance of co-creativity. Anthroposophy is a specific context of co-creativity.
My complete set of rules for co-creativity read thus:
Accept what appears specifically in the field of perception and reorganise yourself for maximal potential of the whole field. It could also be reposition yourself but that lacks the inner changes that are part of the game. The limitation is perception of potential, including the perception of the other players and their several perceptions.
What is missing here? It works for me so far - as much as I can embody it - on this site.
The Singularity
OK, John, that's good.
Now 'accept' is going to have some nuance. Sometimes it's going to be total acquiescence. Sometimes it's going to be 'yes, and there's more.' Sometimes it's going to be a reproduction, perhaps because there was something there you didn't like, or because you want to bring out something you find particularly important.
Something similar for 'reorganize.' Perhaps it will be a change of position in space relative to the speaker. Maybe it will be something energetic and mental. Maybe it will be something mechanical along your spinal column or your diaphragm.
The idea is that each of these specificities will amount to a proposition (a maxim) of some sort, and thus constitute a rule. These rules, once experienced, remain available to one into the future. The combinatorial possibilities of these rules is what we generally call our freedom.
The idea of conversation theory is to make as many as these rules and combinations as possible explicit and to file them in a data base. At some point we'll be wearing wireless implants, so a system of artificial intelligence will be able to recognize what our circumstance is and tell us which rule to use. You've heard of the technological singularity?
Now some of us are going to prefer the natural approach to conversation. We're going to want to handle our freedom ourselves. To do this, we're going to need to be able to do everything the Singularity can do, and more, if we're going to maintain our status as the most intelligent beings on the planet. So conscious conversation will be an adaptive mechanism against our engineered creations.
Sorry to introduce this jump, but it's important to keep Ahriman in the picture. Got to run.
Looking before leaping
I accept all of your variants, Carl, and add shape-changing to the reorganising. Freedom, as I see it, is quite something more than what you describe.
Your expectation of wireless implants is quite amusing and assumes that a predictive logic will be available that can be programmed into a computer. I would not assume that logic is part of the rules, even today, not even a fractal pattern. The creation of entirely new patterns is an obvious expectation, that will transcend mechanical or organic physicality. I have not heard of technological singularity.
I do not assume that humanity is the most intelligent state of being on this or any other planet. Co-creation is not against our engineered creations in my 'maxim' stated above. The reorganising movements would place us in relation to such creations to maximise their and our potential. This game does not have a competetive component, but accepts competetive players for their potential co-creativity. Likewise Ahriman and Lucifer, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all... (reference to an old song) We can include what exists and what will exist, so long as we do not get sidetracked from maximising potential in the detail of wiring ourselves up too early. Hence the phrase what appears specifically.
Acceptability includes errors - remembering the weakest link. Destructive processes are a part of the longer strategy of maximal potential. Entry of the annihilator is one possible endgame. Unreproducibility is also quite acceptable. It has to be as long as there is only one Carl or one killer of Carl.
Uniqueness of generated meaning is too valuable to rule out. You may rule me out at the same time as I rule you in.
See - this is already fun, but it does not have to be...
The Old Grey Mare and Old Uncle Tom Cobbley
I'm being naughtily digressive here... :-)
The humorous song John is referring to (Widdecombe Fair) tells how a poor old mare is loaded down with "Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Davey, Dan'l Widden, Harry Hawke... old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all..." to go to the fair. She dies of course...
Carl I have this constant feeling that a theory of conversation, or even worse a database of principles programmed into some kind of supercomputer would be like that old grey mare... ending up dying somewhere along the road because it's loaded up with too many expectations. Perhaps it's just my own realism (or cynicism some might say) with respect to computers and logical systems of abstract principles from having to work with them for so many years.
Resonance as a test of
Resonance as a test of connectedness. It is a feeling coming following or during an interaction.
You could characterise hitting the sweet spot as perfectly connecting (therfore highly resonant) between the spirit-guided player and the physical-ball.
I find it interesting that the goal of an athlete is to perfectly divide the person-game interface divide in two: first, the physical-body and second the thinking-I.
The less the thinking-I is concerned with the physical moment the better, because left to itself, the reflexes and timing of the physical-body are so much more accurate, effective and efficient.
On the other side, an awareness of the game, in other words, thinking about what is happening, is the job of the thinking-I. Not many sports players do both. I find cricket a very revealing fot this as the game occurs "slowly" there is huge potential for the thinking aspect to be seen.
Cricket is physically about bowling, batting and fielding. In cricket the captain may not have top level skills in any of these areas. If the captain has sufficient thinking-I skills, both in terms of game strategy and team leadership, then he may well still be a great success. Mike Brealy is a good example from the 70s. He wasn't a great batsman, but he was a hugely successful captain. He is a professor of psycholoy now .
It seems to me that there is a problem with the game metaphor. Game, as it is widely used, is about competition, about winning. Here we connect with the very interesting threads that Tim introduced some time ago about competition being an aspect of the Spiritual realm. The need to "win" does however push the competition firmly in to the rivalry zone, where the opponent must be defeated.
So "game" as a metaphor for life is powerful, not least, because it confronts us with the competition - rivalry polarity. This site is a case in point of course. All the contributors are both collaborating and competing. That element of competition is a barrier-to-entry, creating fear of rivalry, and therefore preventing people from visiting.
Look at the way so many of your contributions have played out. People reading them must be left thinking, "I don't know who I agree with, but if it's that tough the I'm not going to join in".
Conversation is part of life too, and all this therefore relates to conversation as much as to anything else. In the case of your conversation system, all the "rules" move the comparison to game away from the metaphorical and towards the literal. How does your system fit with competition and rivalry?
A Culture of Clairvoyance
Yo Sebastian,
I take it as more or less axiomatic that a healthy clairvoyance (call it HC) is something not many people in the current epoch are going to accomplish in their lifetime. For reasons having nothing to do with me, the bar is set very high.
However, I do think an individual's chances of making progress with his (her) own HC program are considerably improved and supported if a culture of relevant games can be added to what he (she) does in life. I believe that Goethean conversations are a form of practical magic, and as such have the potential to induce clairvoyant capacities in a balanced and healthy way. They are an invocation of the spiritual world that can be accomplished by groups of people who work together regularly and soberly on the basis of a language game.
The requirements intrinsic to these sorts of social performances are probably somewhat easier to meet than the requirements intrinsic to anthroposophical exercises practiced in isolation. Really, both sets of requirements work together, each making the other more meaningful and easier to implement. It's a true paradox of spiritual practice that by adding material to one's workload, the work is lightened.
The aim of the conversation game is that everyone win, that everyone benefit from the resonances that are discovered and that penetrate the higher bodies. It's a kind of brotherhood game where we feed one another energy just by being who we really are.
Competition and rivalry are natural impulses that will play out in a culture of Goethean conversation. Hierarchies will be established in setting agendas and examples and in enforcing rules, but the capacities of the weakest link are what actually govern the performances. What you get in these conversations is a unity of feeling and purpose that simply transcends any misgivings about natural inequalities of clairvoyant or organizational capacity.
Resonant feedback
I am with you here Sebastian.
Resonance as a defining feature of games seems a better reason to play than to chase after the thrill of winning. The ultimate game for some may be to cheat death – at least temporarily – but perhaps it is obvious to the PoF community why this materialistic selfishness is not worthy of our effort. Yet this deep impulse may define competitiveness.
The value I recognise in Carl’s theme here is that it points to the significance of resonance for self-awareness and self-esteem. I seek resonance of my experience of the world in what lives in my embodied experience. This contributes to my feeling of belonging. You have covered this.
I have noticed the intimate entrainment of bodily rhythms and gestures in converse, even in apparently superficial encounters. This is confirmed by several researchers. So play is a great way of developing the ability to tune into the world through the physical sensory body. Converse is of course a royal road to social attunement and entrainment: it is truly The Beautiful Game – not football as my English compatriots will have it. When the linguistic and thoughtful activity of mutual interaction incorporates spiritual attunement – at least in thinking – then we achieve the kind of conversation that Carl is seeking to promote. This idea of resonance is reminiscent of the language of those who describe the higher vibrations of spiritual beings. Steiner seems to distance himself from such language.
I vaguely remember reading something in a Steiner lecture (no idea for referencing this) about resonance in the muscles being a part of our ability to remember. The spiritual activity of perception appears to include a process of entraining percept and bodily memory through thinking and sensing. I do not have an experience that allows me to say the same of percept and body-free concept. Is this what Rudolf Steiner means when he speaks of Inspiration as a development of consciousness?
This thread is contributing to the exploration of the musical element in converse that inhabits my life at the moment. I am beginning to sense in my mind that the Music of the Spheres is emerging in a new paradigm.
Thank you Carl and Sebastian for this.
Competitive Conversations
Once again, very interesting thoughts...
I have two commonly read literary sources in mind, both of which contain many examples of "competitive" conversations.
The Gospels. For example, Christ's conversations with Caiphas, Pilate, the woman caught in adultery and the crowd who wished to stone her, the question about paying taxes to Caesar, etc. etc. The Farewell discourses in the Gospel of John. And so on.
Plato. In the dialogues, Socrates usually "slaughters" most of the opposition (often including himself) dialectically in arriving at a revelation of truth.
There may be resonance but there are also a few goals scored. As Sebastian says, there needs to be a polarity, a creative tension in a conversation. It's not just all about nice resonances, people humming in tune and strumming on their etheric harps. Truth is also the two-edged sword...
Semantic Fields
OK, great responses. I actually think we may be on to something important if we can develop the theory and practice of resonant fields in social situations. One well-known and competent physiologist is showing an interest in this approach which may pan out in terms of some physiological experiments we are trying to design.
My basic proposal is that there are semantic fields. These are resonances that constitute the meaning or the truth of various linguistic expressions and even of thoughts themselves. On this theory, meaning and truth are energy.
One can exercise one's imagination in thinking about a culture in which the energy of language is taken as a primary ontological feature of what a human being is. It would be a floating, semi-material culture, it seems to me. Literal spirits in the presence of other literal spirits. Etheric objects and material objects in community with one another. What a wonder! Self-conscious intelligences in control of material nature but whose values are focused entirely outside that world. For them, material nature would have an entirely different ontological status.
I think this is the basic picture of our future evolution, and I think we have a chance to take material actions that will lead us to it.
A Tractarian-Style Analysis of Human Striving
Wittgenstein's Tractatus is an exercise in the philosophy of logical atomism. Because logical atoms are probably fundamental to Goethean conversation, I offer the following as an analysis of human intelligence in the spirit of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.
A Tractarian-Style Analysis of Human Striving
1.0 Biological intelligence is a set of recursive functions on natural numbers.
1.1 Insofar as biological intelligence is propositional, semantic or otherwise self-conscious, it is a computable, formal system; i.e. natural language and other brain functions, such as the control of the body, are computable functions of natural numbers.
1.2 Conscious intelligence is a spiritual search mechanism. Internally, we are continually searching for the state of self-consciousness that satisfies the contingencies of the moment. The brain and peripheral nervous system are the machinery of that search.
2.0 Satisfaction is comfort.
2.1 Comfort is a function of the blood circulation.
3.0 The skeleton and the architecture of the body give form to consciousness.
3.1 The connective tissue gives posture to the form of the body.
3.2 The posture of the body produces states of consciousness.
4.0 Language is an exercise of the spiritual search mechanism.
4.1 Expressed contents in language are recursive proofs of combinations of familiar, atomic contents.
4.11 Expressed contents in conversation are recursive proofs of universally acceptable contents.
4.111 The provables are complex.
4.112 The provables each have a Godel number.
4.113 The provables correspond to facts in the world. The logic of language mirrors the logic of the world (this is the Tractarian theory of language).
4.1131 The provables have truth conditions.
4.1132 The truth condition of some provables is their collective acceptance, their satisfaction of a collective intelligence.
4.1133 Collective intelligence is an exercise of the spiritual search mechanism.
4.1134 Collective intelligence simultaneously depicts both a complex proposition and a complex fact.
4.11341 Collective intelligence talks about or tries to talk about some provable.
4.11342 Collective acceptance is satisfied only by a depiction.
4.114 The ideal form of universally acceptable content is identity. The relation between separate mental contents (i.e. the pictures or propositions in individual minds) under conditions of universality is identity.
4.12 Universally acceptable contents are social relations.
4.121 Human self-consciousness in language is a set of recursive functions on social relations.
4.122 Social relations are deontic sanctions. They are commitments and entitlements to certain actions.
4.2 Society and social life are a set of recursive relations.
4.3 Numinal contents in meditation and certain dreams are theorems of the spiritual search mechanism that the language of the mechanism can’t prove.
4.31 Numinal contents are surprising, strange and seem to come from a higher order of existence.
4.32 Ideal conversation tries to locate contents not provable in the known social order.
4.321 The unprovables are logical atoms. They are atomic facts and atomic propositions unfamiliar and unknown to ordinary social life.
4.322 There are complex unprovables
4.323 The complex unprovables correspond to facts in a spiritual world.
4.4 Numerical relations all have a geometrical analog.
4.41 Social relations are geometrical relations
4.42 Numinal contents in meditation, dreams and conversation have a geometrical form.
4.43 Projective geometry can depict existences and forms of higher order.
4.44 The facts in the spiritual world can be treated by geometry.
5.0 Reality is one.
5.1 Neutral monism is the best philosophy.