All!

Dumb, adjective:

a (of a person) unable to speak, usu. because of a congenital defect or deafness.
b (of an animal) naturally unable to speak (our dumb friends).
2 silenced by surprise, fear, etc. (struck dumb by this revelation).
3 taciturn or reticent, esp. insultingly (dumb insolence).
4 (of an action etc.) performed without speech.
5 (often in comb.) giving no sound; without voice or some other property normally belonging to things of the name (a dumb piano).
6 esp. US colloq.often offens. stupid; ignorant.
7 (usu. of a class, population, etc.) having no voice in government; inarticulate (the dumb masses).
8 (esp. of a computer terminal) able only to transmit data to or receive data from a computer; not programmable

Ok, call me crazy but [my thesis], as so often happens, we find words are either misused, misunderstood, or do not capture the essence of what we think we understand of a certain reality. What does it mean for a person or thing to be dumb? Is it the same as ignorance or stupidity? Apparently not. The definition of dumb relates mainly to the inability to articulate through normal speech. It would not be accurate to call someone dumb if they posses the ability to speak. But what about sign language? What about speaking thru an instrument or a canvas?

Ok, so maybe all this is simply a brief lesson in the proper uses and applications of human speech, expression and comunication. What do trees or other physical objects have to do with this? Likewise, what if you encounter someone or thing that can't speak. And without letting the object express itself, how can we assume anything? We can't, the object is considered 'inanimate' until one either examines it or provokes it into a form of expression. But why would the object want to interact to begin with?

If it were human we assume it would want to interact or communicate because of its primacy of sentience or sentent existence. It first feels, then expresses its need to articulate. And if there exists some innate need to interact and express itself/oneself, how do we determine its intelligence? Or, in this case, do trees simply have their own intelligent language different than ours?

Perhaps the simple answer is that higher forms of consciousness, among other things, posses the ability to think, feel, reason, and posses volitional existence. But, what if say, the materialist and determinist (just using them as an example) claim that trees are another form of consciousness that we simply cannot understand. Would they be wrong? Could they make a strong case by reason alone?

Do words by themselves, adequately capture the meaning of existence? Does the definition of consciousness even help? What if you were a child and were told trees could talk, would or should you believe it?

Thoughts?

WJ

Actually, trees do breath. They also grow in terms of their mass through rather complex, and subtle set of processes. In college, years ago, on a stormy, blustery night, I sat out on the back porch, watching the trees blowing. One tree, in particular, seemed to sort of speak to me...sort of in a waivy, blustery way...much like I would imagine Jimmy Hendrix's Mom, with a non-psychedelic Afro. But, then again, it was all probably due to the fact that I had dropped a hit and a half of window paine acid...and we all know what happens after that:) As I was talking and communing with the trees...my roommate was being arrested downstairs on the street...for conversing with those damned parked cars! (Hell, even I knew that unlike trees parked cars were narcs:) G-man

Gman!

I gotta tell you your monistat thing still has me rollin. Smile. Did I spell that right? As you can imagine, my wife, at this point in our relationship, just rolls her eyes and shakes her head when I check under the hood for problems such as these! I'm just a boy in a man's body anyway. Or perhaps a 'dog' is a better way to frame it!

Too, on a lighter side (the point of all this, of course, is critiquing the apriori), going to and from work morning and evening is thru the countryside. I have since had this erie feeling that trees were looking and laughing at me as I drove by them. Perhaps another hit of LSD will help.

cookochachoo,
Walrus

Hi WJ, G-man, All,

I think the answer to your question regarding how intelligence expresses itself in non-communicative, or dumb, life forms, from a philosophical point of view, is perhaps best expressed in its 'isness'.

What I mean by this is that each living thing, conscious and communicative, or alive but dumb, has a propensity for its aliveness in relation to its being the final point of 'being energy' within the context of its existence. Because each living thing is the final product of a whole chain of events, from which it learns to survive, and descended from a very long continuum of live predecessors, it would seem that this live being is a final point of all those forces that have brought it to the present. This is what it is. And within that 'isness' is registered all those forces of life from the beginning of life to now that render it to be alive and conscious at some level. So, where does the 'intelligence' reside in this case? Is it in the being alive, or is it at some cosmic level that has 'communicated' itself into that being? My answer is that it is both: consciousness resides in each living thing because that is how it has communicated itself through all the living forces that have manifest in each living thing, there and then.

The problem I envision with this line of reasoning is that we have no way of knowing what that consciousness, or intelligence, is except to observe how it had manifest in the thing alive. So this means that each living thing participates in this manifest consciousness as it resides within its being; but in each living being it is distributed differently, according to its relationship with all those living forces that have made it into what it is. Philosophically, its 'isness' is thus defined objectively by its relationship to its greater existence; whereas this existence is now also defined in its 'whoness', or its subjective 'who it is'. And if so, then we have here a situation where 'intelligence' is now defined objectively by its 'isness', but 'consciousness' is defined subjectively by its 'whoness'.

Now, what does this mean? It would appear that we can measure objectively a certain level of intelligence any life form is able to exhibit, by measuring its responses to various tests, to stimuli, to 'communications' from us. But we can measure its 'whoness' only by how it is able to 'communicate' with us, if it is inclined to do so. And what about if it is truly 'dumb'? Well, then we simply do not know, except to accept that living things have some cosmic value within themselves, which is then known only to the Totality of its being. To us humans, we usually give this Totality the name, for lack of a better word, God.

Hope this 'communication' adds something of value to our search for meaningful 'being' in an otherwise 'dumb' universe.

I talk to my plants ... and sometimes, I could swear they talk to me!

Ivan

Ivan!

...'communication' adds something of value to our search for meaningful 'being' in an otherwise 'dumb' universe."

I think that serves as a good summation to the [one] problem, anyway!

We were designed to comunicate our being in some way or another? More on the implications later...

Peace bros,
WJ

I once knew a kid in school named Izzy. He was actually rather brilliant...but not school-wise. He could figure out puzzles, chess moves...but could never score better than a B- on a test. And he himself knew why. He'd say, "I can't remember all the stuff I need to in order to ace tests." And yet, he could crack just about any code. Intelligence (how we go about solving), and Knowledge (remembering facts) may not be the same. In terms of how we epistemically understand what 'Knowledge' is, how much of a role does memory play. versus processing skills? G-man

G! (all)

Very good question. I have asked this myself. Someone was quoted saying that all there was to knowledge was memory. If intelligence includes the intuitive brain storms that solve problems (Paul Davies says this is how discoveries are made in physics despite all the virtues of deduction/induction), then there is a 'thing' that just pops into the conscious mind from the subconscious, which only manifests or appears when the mind is ready to receive it.

I've done some studies in creative thinking and the psychologist's basically agree to that same phenomenon, occuring in the mind.

Walrus
---------
Omega the unknowable

No words exist that can do justice or provide adequate expression to the feelings and energies eminating from "trees". Why single out any form that exists-our difficulties in coming to terms with our own mysterious being is sufficient enough for this life form.

Per Husserl, "To be conscious, always, is to be conscious of something..." (i.e., pain...). Which suggests a sort of feedback or registry at work. (Oops, my leg was just shorn off...ouch!) Does such 'registry' require a 'brain'? Indeed, do trees (not to mention plants and vegetables) feel a certain 'ouch!' following seasonal pruning? (And if so, are there any long-term karmic impacts on those exacting such pruning?:) G-man

Hi G!

Where did you find the Husserl text?

Walrus

Ivan, all!

For a continuation of this discussion viz. Davie's thoughts on meaning, see:

http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=56


All the best,
Walrus