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A yellow peg with attached paper eyes does not a mother gull make!!

Csteel, I doubt whether there would be a person on the planet who would assert that this peg IS a mother gull! It is obviously a very crude imitation of mum gull, good enough for the chicks, but not good enough for even the dumbest human to be fooled by it!

But as for that old Belgian codger Magritte’s pipe; it is definitely a pipe! Obviously it is an illustration. Then once we all understand that, which everyone does straight away, then we can assert that it is a pipe! And I doubt that there would be a person on the planet who would say that it isn’t!

Whether you call it an illustration of a pipe or you call it a pipe while knowing full well that it is an illustration and not the actual object, but also knowing that this is so obvious that you don’t need to say it, is surely moot.

Surrealists and abstract artists do have the habit of making things less than obvious. So a lot of the time they might paint an object but make it a bit cryptic, in which case you can’t really assert that it is the object that it might appear to be.

I can assert that the sun is shining where I am right now. But there are very thin white clouds around. If one comes across the sun, I am not actually sure whether I could say that the sun is still shining, partly shining or not shining. But the undeniable truth is that it IS shining right now, here on Aldinga Beach, Adelaide.

There are shades of grey all over the place.

But Magritte’s pipe is crystal clear.

It IS a pipe. It IZZ a pipe. IT IZZZZ A PIPE!! !! !! { :>0

Dear Ludwig,

It is apparent that the concept of a name or depiction of an object is not the object named or depicted is a difficult concept for you to make explicit. You are not alone in that difficulty even though I am sure that implicitly you understand it.

A computer memory has various cells which contain numbers. Each cell has an address. If we want to place a number in the cell or examine a number that is in the cell we must refer to the memory address. A command might be equivalent to: Place the contents of cell 302 in cell 857. The address of cell 302 is not the same as the contents of cell 302. Beginning computer programmers may find this concept difficult. It is one cause of programming errors.

In the language we speak we need not make the distinction between the name or designation of an entity and the entity itself. We can be understood without clearly making the distinction. In looking at family photos someone may say, “That’s Uncle Harry in the backyard.” We know quite well that it is a picture and not actually Harry in the backyard because we get the meaning. We have taken a logical step that the machine language of a computer is unable to take. Magritte merely has made it explicit that a picture of an object is not the object that is pictured.

Some forms of magic depend on this confusion. A doll can be made to resemble a person, and pins are stuck in the doll. A person will not be affected by that if he or she does not know about it. However, if the person knows about it, believes that in some way there is an actual identity between himself or herself and the doll the person will be affected by it.

The mass where a wafer is assumed to somehow become the body and blood of Jesus is similar magic.

A pipe is a pipe. A picture of a pipe is not a pipe.

The mass where a wafer is assumed to somehow become the body and blood of Jesus is similar magic.

A pipe is a pipe. A picture of a pipe is not a pipe.
david f.
one is symbolical the other is fact. both of them are the truth.
just like an educated person is not necessarily intelligent but the uneducated blue collar worker is. that too is truth.

Dear Ludwig,

To paraphrase your good self without any slight being intended;

'Ludwig, I doubt whether there would be many on the planet who would assert that this pipe IS a pipe! It is obviously a very crude imitation of pipe, good enough some, but not good enough for even the dumbest humanities student to be fooled by it!'

The artist himself declared this was not a pipe.

We are telling you this is not a pipe.

Are you not being a tad gull-able?

Although perhaps in your dreams...but then this would make it a pipe dream.

Sorry.

To your sun. Given it takes about 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach out planet there is a chance that some quirk in the time continuum or quantum probability may have completely obliterated it from our universe, yet you remain blissfully unaware of its absence while making your assertion that “But the undeniable truth is that it IS shining right now, here on Aldinga Beach, Adelaide.”.

The best you can contend as an undeniable truth is that there is sunlight reaching you, not that the sun is shining right now. What you are experiencing is an image of something that may or may not be there.

Margritte's pipe may be entirely the product of his imagination with no actual model being used. Is the collection of brain cells that holds this stylised image of a pipe within his brain a pipe? No.

This is still not a pipe.

This is not Magritte.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wolleh_magritte.jpg

(but it is a photographic representation of him)

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Dear David, George, and Ludwig,

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Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you.

Of course if we examine David's grandfather's tautology as such (a pure exercise in logic) it is true.

However, pure exercises in logic do not exist in nature independently of mankind (as I think Ludwig was attempting to demonstrate).

David's initial presentation was: "my grandfather used to say ..." Understand: it amused him to appear to be making some profound reflection while, in fact, simply invoking the possibilities regarding rain today. In other words, he was simply joking.

However, if David's grandfather were to be taken seriously, the question is not whether the tautology is true or not but if David's grandfather was expressing his true thoughts or not.

If, for example, he had a long and intimate experience of the micro-climate of the region in which he lived and recognized all the signs which indicated that rain was imminent and, indeed, considered it was about to rain, then, in saying what he did, he "voluntarily deformed information at the time of emission". His statement, albeit a tautology, did not represent his intimate conviction and was, therefore, not the truth.

The fact that we can only agree with what David's grandfather said (the tautology) does not mean that it is the truth. The qualifying factor of truth is not the sense of a statement in itself (considered in isolation) but whether it corresponds, or not, to what the person making the statement ("emitting the information"), considers to be the truth, to the best of his knowledge and ability.

In the same manner that truth and reality are two different notions, truth and credibility are also two different notions, though we often have to settle for credibility as the best we can achieve at any particular point of time.

Regarding the term "information" which George mentioned, I understand it in a slightly broader sense than he suggests, as an intelligent system of signs and symbols designed to convey a message, including, for example, body language, which I think Ludwig also suggested.

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