Yes ! That’s the fundamental contradiction of the Word. A word is using something to represent something it is not . It _identifies_ (pretends ) something with something it is not by definition. This is why Logic must begin with contradiction as Hegel does ; not with identity as formal logic does . ( See what I discovered -smiles) <


Formal logic and mathematics fall into contradiction eventually ( Russell , Goedel, Zeno ) because they are words , symbolic signs , which are contradictory by definition ; words are symbolic signs which use something to represent something that they are not.


I have Ilyenkov’s _Dialectical Logic_ . I read it some , but didn’t get much . I’ll look again .

By the way , I’m understanding Smaller Logic much better now . Does he use a lot of synonyms ? God = Freedom = Spirit = Idea = Absolute. When I read it like that I get. Plus , I think anthropology-linguistics-semiotics has a deeper understanding of thought than he now . So, I’m critiquing him with the concept ( notion ?) of symbolic signs - arbitrary relation between sign and thing signified concept . mental _pictures_ would be iconographic signs , symbolic, but not fully arbitrary. Symbolic because the picture is not what it represents; not arbitrary because they resemble what they represent.


This is from Andy Blunden’s “The meaning of Hegel’s Logic “


I would substitute for “spirit “ or “God” , “Culture -Language -Custom-Tradition” . Objective reality , the World, Nature are not made by these. But humans conceive of objective reality in terms of language and culture .


“In The Science of Logic and the later and more accessible Shorter Logic the subject is "Logic". As Ilyenkov explains in his essays From the History of Dialectics, Hegel created a revolution in the understanding of Logic by, among other things, widening the field of observation from "propositional algebra" (formal rules governing how the truth of one proposition follows from that of another) to the whole field of materialisation of human practice - social-historical development, science, religion, industry. Consequently, in elaborating the general laws exhibited in the development of human practice, he necessarily also uncovered objective laws true to the objective material world as a whole. "Thought" in the sense in which Hegel is dealing with it, is not just the consciousness of individuals, or even concepts as social-historical products, but rather an intangible "spirit" which corresponds to these most general forms, and enters consciousness as something objective.”


Blunden should say “spirit “ _is_ a socio-historical product that objectively enters consciousness, the brain , by learning language and culture.

The Notion is the Word , I’m thinking ; or the Sentence, the Paragraph, the Book.

Notion = Alphabetic Writing

A human Self , a human Brain has in its memory words -sentences-stories that represent the experiences of many , many other brains, alive and dead brains . We humans uniquely can share our experiences with each other . Human individual thought is thereby “ universal “ , to use one of Hegel’s terms .

A word or sentence gives a human brain the ability to know about things , events , processes that are _displaced_ from the individual’s concrete , immediate experiences, here and now .


The fact that words are not what they represent is what allows them to give a Self , an individual brain to experience the displaced ( I discovered this ; the other concepts are basic anthropology- linguistics - semiotics. I put them together to derive the last proposition)


How does the arbitrary relationship between sign and signified give this capacity to experience the displaced, that which the individual brain has not directly heard , smelled, tasted , touched or seen ? Here’s how I explain it in class. I write my name on the black board - Charles Brown . I point to the letters and say those marks are not me . But they are used to represent me. That’s using something to represent something it is not . It’s identifying differences ; it is the most fundamental unity of opposites , because this is the most fundamental unit of human thought; pace Hegel.


But I digress . My great grand father Brown is dead . But because his name is not dead , it can survive him ( give him a certain immortality). Survive him and pass on to me . He is displaced from me in time , not in my immediate experience. But his name gives me mediated experience of him or his name mediates my experience of him .


Or take almost any word , dog . Contained in dog or dog in sentences or paragraphs or biology text books gives me access to the displaced experiences of millions of others of dogs . I have a certain access to the “universal experience “ which I can’t get from my individual experience.

Displaced = abstract

Abstract experience / Concrete experience Displaced experience/ Concrete immediate experience

( Latin root for abstract is “take from” or “ take away from”; to displace , almost literally. )

Notion = Alphabetic Writing

Here’s a blog on this :

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/05/identifying-something-with-something-it.html Here’s a scientific conclusion about the difference between Hegel’s “ Man” and “brutes”: https://owlcation.com/stem/The-difference-between-animal-and-human-communication Something else I noticed: http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/04/words-are-little-communisms.html Another on same topics : http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/03/theory-of-structure-of-symbols-and.html . Here’s a rough brain model From: Charles Brown Date: July 7, 2021 at 8:17:28 PM EDT To: marxism-thaxis@lists.riseup.net Subject: Philosophical and psychological anthropology  Finally , I add a fifth and sixth sub fields to the conventional 4 : philosophical anthropology raising questions like "What is life ? " , "What is human life and human nature ?", etc. 5: Anthropological psychology Anthropological psychology because psychology is study of the Individual , the Self, that idol of American culture and symbolic inheritance . So, learning about individuals is automatically more relevant to individual student's interests , which is of course , especially in themSELVES. Anthropological Psychology ,is especially in opposition to evolutionary psychology, socio/biology , all social phony "darwinisms". Anthropological psychology places emphasis on culture , language and inter and intra - generational memories in the psyches and personalities of individual humans : the "We" in the "I". The human "I " is more "We" than other animal species' "I"'s BUT NOT ABSOLUTELY DETERMINED BY THE "WE. "; not absolutely _socially_ constructed. What is unique about the individual human psyche as compared to other primate or mammal individual's psyches , minds, brains , memories, perceptions ? The human difference is so many of our memories are symbols , words, drawings , music, dance. Symbolic communication The whole collection of memories held in our INDIVIDUAL minds: Each human individual has her WHOLE language and culture and symbols in her MEMORY ; and memories directly imitative ( not symbolic) of sensations or perceptions of the world outside her individual mind, of objective reality . We have memories. We also have direct sensation of our immediate , here and now , surroundings . BUT most of the time that we see or hear or smell or touch something or somethings there must right way come to our mind a MEMORY of it or something like it or a SYMBOL OF IT. at the same time. Why ?Because it's familiar . We recognize it. Otherwise we would constantly feel lost . Every new sensation would be strange . A main current new thought for me here is to focus on memories. Most thought is memories not perceptions and sensations of your individual external surroundings However this is true of all animals ! All individual animals have most of their thoughts as MEMORIES ! Chimps have lots of picture similar images proportionately . We have proportionately more symbolic memories: words , sentences, conversations . Anthropological Psychology : Self On the Self, I'd say every individual animal has an instinct of SELF-preservation , and therefore a self. Every brain is a Self. Humans have a personality , which is a cultural , symbolic self, with a name; an individual . It is socially constructed in association with other people; in communication between brains. The Self is in the brain, consisting of memories in brain cells. Language is in brain cells, memory cells. When you say "you" exist in language , that means "you" exist in brain cells, memory cells specifically. Sent from my iPhone On Oct 28, 2021, at 7:58 AM, Peggy Dobbins wrote:  On Oct 27, 2021, at 10:53 PM, Charles Brown (via marxism-thaxis Mailing List) wrote: To Hegel, . . . . the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought." That's pretty clear. Now here's my question. About dialectics, a logic? About logic, an idea or a thought, brain matter thinking about matter changing? About bi-sexual reproduction and other matter binomial: Things divide in two, but shatter in many pieces. I heard about splitting the atom. That would be into two. Was the atom split or splintered? peggy old Women In Time Change History