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APPENDIX + : Walking a Mile in Wittgenstein’s Shoes. [note, this is a remix by Roy M. Taylor as-Doerk. I’m sure Witty is cool with it.]

[Aka “In Defense of Love 3: The Fusion”]

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

by

Ludwig Wittgenstein [ed: remixed as mentioned. I’m using the red voice. Please also “note” what I pass over in silence and see if I missed anything, would you, Professor?]

Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself

already had the thoughts that are expressed in it–or at least similar

thoughts.–So it is not a textbook.–Its purpose would be achieved if it

gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.

The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that

the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language

is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be summed up the

following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we

cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.

Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather–not to

thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw

a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit

thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what

lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense. [ed. bzzzt, ART WORKS!!! WITH MATH TOO!!!]

I do not wish to judge how far my efforts coincide with those of other

philosophers. Indeed, what I have written here makes no claim to novelty in

detail, and the reason why I give no sources is that it is a matter of

indifference to me whether the thoughts that I have had have been

anticipated by someone else. [ed. Bzzzzt, Cite your resources, as well as you can remember them. Give much credit in thought, and it will be returned to you ten-fold.]

I will only mention that I am indebted to Frege’s great works and of the

writings of my friend Mr Bertrand Russell for much of the stimulation of my

thoughts. [oh, well..yea…pick a couple people, that works for me. I did something similar in my first real book. When I was searching for a better teacher than myself.]

If this work has any value, it consists in two things: the first is that

thoughts are expressed in it, and on this score the better the thoughts are

expressed–the more the nail has been hit on the head–the greater will be

its value.–Here I am conscious of having fallen a long way short of what

is possible. Simply because my powers are too slight for the accomplishment

of the task.–May others come and do it better.

On the other hand the truth of the thoughts that are here communicated

seems to me unassailable and definitive. I therefore believe myself to have

found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems. And if

I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which the of

this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these

problems are solved. [bzzzt, solving “logic” can have great and glorious consequences, you sad young/old man. Wait a second, did you just skip a word? Why is his book translated like this? “the second thing in which the of this work consists?” WTF?! Watching a War and Dreaming of God?! How many times did you see its face? Bless your heart. And I hope you are resting in Peace.]

L.W. Vienna, 1918 [R. M. Taylor, Uptown, Dallas, December 2008]

1. The world is all that is the case. [ed note: oh, he totally uses a bunch of different terms than I do, and his “Model” is based in language and I think it should be based more in art. It’s what people see in their heads, after all. I just wanted to share this because I found it fascinating to read. When I hear the “tone” of this Work, it resonates in my head as Truth. When I read about how Ludwig could whistle like the dickens, I just starting laughing again, and basking in the tone of his words. He’s describing the model, I am sure of it.]

1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.

1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the

facts.

1.12 For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also

whatever is not the case.

1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.

1.2 The world divides into facts.

1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else

remains the same.

2. What is the case–a fact–is the existence of states of affairs.

2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects

(things).

2.011 It is essential to things that they should be possible constituents

of states of affairs.

2.012 In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of

affairs, the possibility of the state of affairs must be written into the

thing itself.

2.0121 It would seem to be a sort of accident, if it turned out that a

situation would fit a thing that could already exist entirely on its own.

If things can occur in states of affairs, this possibility must be in them

from the beginning. (Nothing in the province of logic can be merely

possible. Logic deals with every possibility and all possibilities are its

facts.) Just as we are quite unable to imagine spatial objects outside

space or temporal objects outside time, so too there is no object that we

can imagine excluded from the possibility of combining with others. [ed. Wait a second, that’s kind of easy. It’s just thinking in four dimensions and being open to change in one’s life.]

If I can imagine objects combined in states of affairs, I cannot imagine them

excluded from the possibility of such combinations.[ed: they can be included and excluded as the same time in a self-referential infinite loop.]

2.0122 Things are independent in so far as they can occur in all possible

situations, but this form of independence is a form of connexion with

states of affairs, a form of dependence. (It is impossible for words to

appear in two different roles: by themselves, and in propositions.) [ed: woah, you are way off here. Form and function and purpose can be defined in single conversations amoungst folk. We can speak at various levels at once and means many things with a simple ‘word’.]

2.0123 If I know an object I also know all its possible occurrences in

states of affairs. (Every one of these possibilities must be part of the

nature of the object.) A new possibility cannot be discovered later.

2.01231 If I am to know an object, thought I need not know its external

properties, I must know all its internal properties.

2.0124 If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states

of affairs are also given.

2.013 Each thing is, as it were, in a space of possible states of affairs.

This space I can imagine empty, but I cannot imagine the thing without the

space. [ed note. Indeed. The thing and the space it is in define each other, simultaneously, at the speed of light. Roughly.]

2.0131 A spatial object must be situated in infinite space. (A spatial

point is an argument-place.) A speck in the visual field, thought it

need not be red, must have some colour: it is, so to speak, surrounded

by colour-space. Notes must have some pitch, objects of the sense of

touch some degree of hardness, and so on.

2.014 Objects contain the possibility of all situations. [ed note: Wit: “=Objects” * Wah: “=minds” = The Model]

2.0141 The possibility of its occurring in states of affairs is the form of

an object.

2.02 Objects are simple.[ed note. Indeed. Wonderfully put.]

2.0201 Every statement about complexes can be resolved into a statement

about their constituents and into the propositions that describe the

complexes completely.

2.021 Objects make up the substance of the world. That is why they cannot

be composite. [ed note. What do you mean my “composite?”]

2.0211 If they world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense

would depend on whether another proposition was true.

2.0212 In that case we could not sketch any picture of the world (true or

false). [ed note: False, it’s easy to draw, if you practice correctly. I once saw this guy draw a perfect circle in under a second. IT’S on YouTube.]

2.022 It is obvious that an imagined world, however difference it may be

from the real one, must have something–a form–in common with it.

2.023 Objects are just what constitute this unalterable form.

2.0231 The substance of the world can only determine a form, and not any

material properties. For it is only by means of propositions that material

properties are represented–only by the configuration of objects that they

are produced.

2.0232 In a manner of speaking, objects are colourless. [ed note: “So to Speak”]

2.0233 If two objects have the same logical form, the only distinction

between them, apart from their external properties, is that they are

different. [ed note: Yes, it’s called an isomorphism nowadays.]

2.02331 Either a thing has properties that nothing else has, in which case

we can immediately use a description to distinguish it from the others and

refer to it; or, on the other hand, there are several things that have the

whole set of their properties in common, in which case it is quite

impossible to indicate one of them. For it there is nothing to distinguish

a thing, I cannot distinguish it, since otherwise it would be distinguished

after all. [ed note: ooooohhhhhmmmmmm]

2.024 The substance is what subsists independently of what is the case.

2.025 It is form and content.

2.0251 Space, time, colour (being coloured) are forms of objects.

2.026 There must be objects, if the world is to have unalterable form.

2.027 Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same.

2.0271 Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration

is what is changing and unstable.

2.0272 The configuration of objects produces states of affairs.

2.03 In a state of affairs objects fit into one another like the links of a

chain.

2.031 In a state of affairs objects stand in a determinate relation to one

another.

2.032 The determinate way in which objects are connected in a state of

affairs is the structure of the state of affairs.

2.033 Form is the possibility of structure.

2.034 The structure of a fact consists of the structures of states of

affairs.

2.04 The totality of existing states of affairs is the world.

2.05 The totality of existing states of affairs also determines which

states of affairs do not exist.

2.06 The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality.

(We call the existence of states of affairs a positive fact, and their

non-existence a negative fact.)

2.061 States of affairs are independent of one another. [ed note: Wit: “=State of affairs” * Wah: “=Individual Human Perceptions of Reality” = 1]

2.062 From the existence or non-existence of one state of affairs it is

impossible to infer the existence or non-existence of another. [ed note: Unless you know, frakin’ talk to ‘em dude. Go make some friends. Jeeez. You spoiled little brat.]

2.063 The sum-total of reality is the world. [ed note: ooohhhhhmmmm]

2.1 We picture facts to ourselves.

2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and

non-existence of states of affairs.

2.12 A picture is a model of reality. [ed note: A picture = An Iteration of the Model]

2.13 In a picture objects have the elements of the picture corresponding to

them.

2.131 In a picture the elements of the picture are the representatives of

objects.

2.14 What constitutes a picture is that its elements are related to one

another in a determinate way.

2.141 A picture is a fact. [ed note: A Fact = An Iteration of the Model]

2.15 The fact that the elements of a picture are related to one another in

a determinate way represents that things are related to one another in the

same way. Let us call this connexion of its elements the structure of the

picture, and let us call the possibility of this structure the pictorial

form of the picture.

2.151 Pictorial form is the possibility that things are related to one

another in the same way as the elements of the picture.

2.1511 That is how a picture is attached to reality; it reaches right out

to it.

2.1512 It is laid against reality like a measure.

2.15121 Only the end-points of the graduating lines actually touch the

object that is to be measured.

2.1514 So a picture, conceived in this way, also includes the pictorial

relationship, which makes it into a picture.

2.1515 These correlations are, as it were, the feelers of the picture’s

elements, with which the picture touches reality.

2.16 If a fact is to be a picture, it must have something in common with

what it depicts.

2.161 There must be something identical in a picture and what it depicts,

to enable the one to be a picture of the other at all.

2.17 What a picture must have in common with reality, in order to be able

to depict it–correctly or incorrectly–in the way that it does, is its

pictorial form.

2.171 A picture can depict any reality whose form it has. A spatial picture

can depict anything spatial, a coloured one anything coloured, etc. [ed note: This is great work. You are talking about “N Dimensional Thinking”. How many more dimensions can you imagine? Space and Color are good starts. How about softness, or opacity? Resonance? What else? Expand on this, it’s a cool idea.]

2.172 A picture cannot, however, depict its pictorial form: it displays it. [ed note: What? Just feel the picture. Feel the thought. Describe it as precisely as possible using the Model and the Dialectic. Oh, that’s what you meant by “displays”. My bad. Define your terms a bit better. Keep trying to use them context to yourself. And go get laid or something, you seem too uptight.]

2.173 A picture represents its subject from a position outside it. (Its

standpoint is its representational form.) That is why a picture represents

its subject correctly or incorrectly.

2.174 A picture cannot, however, place itself outside its representational

form. [ed note: It’s a picture. If it wasn’t a picture, it wouldn’t be a picture. It’s a picture. Dee dee dee.]

2.18 What any picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality,

in order to be able to depict it–correctly or incorrectly–in any way at

all, is logical form, i.e. the form of reality.

2.181 A picture whose pictorial form is logical form is called a logical

picture.

2.182 Every picture is at the same time a logical one. (On the other hand,

not every picture is, for example, a spatial one.)

2.19 Logical pictures can depict the world.[ed note: Duh, that’s what The Model looks like, smart ass.]

2.2 A picture has logico-pictorial form in common with what it depicts.

2.201 A picture depicts reality by representing a possibility of existence

and non-existence of states of affairs.

2.202 A picture contains the possibility of the situation that it

represents.

2.203 A picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or

incorrect, true or false.

2.22 What a picture represents it represents independently of its truth or

falsity, by means of its pictorial form.

2.221 What a picture represents is its sense.

2.222 The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes

its truth or falsity.

2.223 In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare

it with reality. [ed note: Reality as perceived by another, you mean. Seriously, go get laid. It will help you think clearer.]

2.224 It is impossible to tell from the picture alone whether it is true or

false. [ed note: translation “I need to get laid” I hear ya dude, go with the flow.]

2.225 There are no pictures that are true a priori.

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.

3.001 ‘A state of affairs is thinkable’: what this means is that we can

picture it to ourselves.

3.01 The totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world.

3.02 A thought contains the possibility of the situation of which it is the

thought. What is thinkable is possible too.

3.03 Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we

should have to think illogically. [ed note: False thoughts can be illogical, that is why they are false, i.e. not thoughts. Just as false notes are both notes and false.]

3.031 It used to be said that God could create anything except what would

be contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is that we could not say what an

‘illogical’ world would look like. [ed note: It would be quite different from our own. It’s a very scary place. Or a beautiful One. Kind of a choice really.]

3.032 It is as impossible to represent in language anything that

‘contradicts logic’ as it is in geometry to represent by its coordinates a

figure that contradicts the laws of space, or to give the coordinates of a

point that does not exist. [ed note: The only point that “exists” is the Origin. With that and the Limits, the Proper Geometry Draws itself. How many times do I have to repeat myself before you get this? You exist, my young friend. I can see your picture, floating in front of my eyes.]

3.0321 Though a state of affairs that would contravene the laws of physics

can be represented by us spatially, one that would contravene the laws of

geometry cannot.

3.04 It a thought were correct a priori, it would be a thought whose

possibility ensured its truth. [ed note: a pure thought]

3.05 A priori knowledge that a thought was true would be possible only it

its truth were recognizable from the thought itself (without anything a to

compare it with). [ed note: a to compare it with? WTF?!]

3.1 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by

the senses. [ed note: “Action” is a shorter word than “Proposition” and it means the same thing.]

3.11 We use the perceptible sign of a proposition (spoken or written, etc.)

as a projection of a possible situation. The method of projection is to

think of the sense of the proposition.

3.12 I call the sign with which we express a thought a propositional

sign. And a proposition is a propositional sign in its projective relation

to the world.

3.13 A proposition, therefore, does not actually contain its sense, but

does contain the possibility of expressing it. (‘The content of a

proposition’ means the content of a proposition that has sense.) A

proposition contains the form, but not the content, of its sense.

3.14 What constitutes a propositional sign is that in its elements (the

words) stand in a determinate relation to one another. A propositional sign

is a fact.

3.141 A proposition is not a blend of words.(Just as a theme in music is

not a blend of notes.) A proposition is articulate.

3.142 Only facts can express a sense, a set of names cannot. [ed note: What is your name again? Does it not tell your story?]

3.143 Although a propositional sign is a fact, this is obscured by the

usual form of expression in writing or print. For in a printed proposition,

for example, no essential difference is apparent between a propositional

sign and a word. (That is what made it possible for Frege to call a

proposition a composite name.)

3.1431 The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we

imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books)

instead of written signs.

3.1432 Instead of, ‘The complex sign “aRb” says that a stands to b in the

relation R’ we ought to put, ‘That “a” stands to “b” in a certain relation

says that aRb.’

3.144 Situations can be described but not given names. [ed note: Go get laid again. You’ll figure it out eventually. The “Others” exist, and might one day be your friends.]

3.2 In a proposition a thought can be expressed in such a way that elements

of the propositional sign correspond to the objects of the thought.

3.201 I call such elements ‘simple signs’, and such a proposition ‘complete

analysed’.

3.202 The simple signs employed in propositions are called names.

3.203 A name means an object. The object is its meaning. (‘A’ is the same

sign as ‘A’.) [ed note: You know you sound like a psychopath now, right? Talking about people as objects? Maybe that “go get laid” advice isn’t the best for you. What’s really eating your soul, young man?]

3.21 The configuration of objects in a situation corresponds to the

configuration of simple signs in the propositional sign.

3.221 Objects can only be named. Signs are their representatives. I can

only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Propositions can only

say how things are, not what they are. [ed note: You can find better words, with practice. And you know, actually talking to other people like you *really* give a shit about their story. That’s how you “make” friends. You don’t have to only have “Make Believe” friends. You can be honest, IRL. It’s okay.]

3.23 The requirement that simple signs be possible is the requirement that

sense be determinate.

3.24 A proposition about a complex stands in an internal relation to a

proposition about a constituent of the complex. A complex can be given only

by its description, which will be right or wrong. A proposition that

mentions a complex will not be nonsensical, if the complex does not exits,

but simply false. When a propositional element signifies a complex, this

can be seen from an indeterminateness in the propositions in which it

occurs. In such cases we know that the proposition leaves something

undetermined. (In fact the notation for generality contains a prototype.)

The contraction of a symbol for a complex into a simple symbol can be

expressed in a definition.

3.25 A proposition cannot be dissected any further by means of a

definition: it is a primitive sign.

3.261 Every sign that has a definition signifies via the signs that serve

to define it; and the definitions point the way. Two signs cannot signify

in the same manner if one is primitive and the other is defined by means of

primitive signs. Names cannot be anatomized by means of definitions. (Nor

can any sign that has a meaning independently and on its own.)

3.262 What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur

over, their application says clearly.

3.263 The meanings of primitive signs can be explained by means of

elucidations. Elucidations are propositions that stood if the meanings of

those signs are already known.

3.3 Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a

name have meaning.

3.31 I call any part of a proposition that characterizes its sense an

expression (or a symbol). (A proposition is itself an expression.)

Everything essential to their sense that propositions can have in common

with one another is an expression. An expression is the mark of a form and

a content.

3.311 An expression presupposes the forms of all the propositions in which

it can occur. It is the common characteristic mark of a class of

propositions.

3.312 It is therefore presented by means of the general form of the

propositions that it characterizes. In fact, in this form the expression

will be constant and everything else variable. [ed note: You’ve been repeating yourself for a while now, snap out of it.]

3.313 Thus an expression is presented by means of a variable whose values

are the propositions that contain the expression. (In the limiting case the

variable becomes a constant, the expression becomes a proposition.) I call

such a variable a ‘propositional variable’.

3.314 An expression has meaning only in a proposition. All variables can be

construed as propositional variables. (Even variable names.)

3.315 If we turn a constituent of a proposition into a variable, there is a

class of propositions all of which are values of the resulting variable

proposition. In general, this class too will be dependent on the meaning

that our arbitrary conventions have given to parts of the original

proposition. But if all the signs in it that have arbitrarily determined

meanings are turned into variables, we shall still get a class of this

kind. This one, however, is not dependent on any convention, but solely on

the nature of the pro position. It corresponds to a logical form–a logical

prototype. [ed note: a logical prototype = “The Model” = “God”]

3.316 What values a propositional variable may take is something that is

stipulated. The stipulation of values is the variable.

3.317 To stipulate values for a propositional variable is to give the

propositions whose common characteristic the variable is. The stipulation

is a description of those propositions. The stipulation will therefore be

concerned only with symbols, not with their meaning. And the only thing

essential to the stipulation is that it is merely a description of symbols

and states nothing about what is signified. How the description of the

propositions is produced is not essential.

3.318 Like Frege and Russell I construe a proposition as a function of the

expressions contained in it. [ed note: Change it to “Like Wittgenstein and Hofstadter and Adams..”..like a lot of other people, I think the “soul” or “personality” or …lots of other things, exists.  It is what tells us who we are. It is the green function. Truth. Life. It’s reflected all around us, like a billion shining green men.  Aliens, if you will, shouting out the answer after having calculated it for billions of years. Plants. Green. 42.  You know what else is really funny about my story?  “Russell” is my father’s middle name and very close to that of my brother.  Weird, huh? I stopped reading this book the first time I ran across *that* one.  It was a bit much at the time. Too funny.  It’s too funny to read your life in someone elses.  And it’s pretty easy once you figure out what you are really looking at.  Light. The mirror.  I wrote this critique “on the fly” last night, and it was very tiring.  Sometimes I can’t sleep when all I can hear is that beautiful green, perfect tone in my head.  It can be defeaning and blinding.  But it’s pretty cool once you get to know it.  And catch up to its speed.]

3.32 A sign is what can be perceived of a symbol.

3.321 So one and the same sign (written or spoken, etc.) can be common to

two different symbols–in which case they will signify in different ways.

3.322 Our use of the same sign to signify two different objects can never

indicate a common characteristic of the two, if we use it with two

different modes of signification. For the sign, of course, is arbitrary. So

we could choose two different signs instead, and then what would be left in

common on the signifying side?

3.323 In everyday language it very frequently happens that the same word

has different modes of signification–and so belongs to different symbols–

or that two words that have different modes of signification are employed

in propositions in what is superficially the same way. Thus the word ‘is’

figures as the copula, as a sign for identity, and as an expression for

existence; ‘exist’ figures as an intransitive verb like ‘go’, and

‘identical’ as an adjective; we speak of something, but also of something’s

happening. (In the proposition, ‘Green is green’–where the first word is

the proper name of a person and the last an adjective–these words do not

merely have different meanings: they are different symbols.)

3.324 In this way the most fundamental confusions are easily produced (the

whole of philosophy is full of them). [ed note: Good point. It’s a good idea to keep terms clear. That’s what the Model is for. “God’s Order” if you will. Joel. Your turn.]

3.325 In order to avoid such errors we must make use of a sign-language

that excludes them by not using the same sign for different symbols and by

not using in a superficially similar way signs that have different modes of

signification: that is to say, a sign-language that is governed by logical

grammar–by logical syntax. (The conceptual notation of Frege and Russell

is such a language, though, it is true, it fails to exclude all mistakes.)

3.326 In order to recognize a symbol by its sign we must observe how it is

used with a sense.

3.327 A sign does not determine a logical form unless it is taken together

with its logico-syntactical employment.

3.328 If a sign is useless, it is meaningless. That is the point of Occam’s

maxim. (If everything behaves as if a sign had meaning, then it does have

meaning.)

3.33 In logical syntax the meaning of a sign should never play a role. It

must be possible to establish logical syntax without mentioning the meaning

of a sign: only the description of expressions may be presupposed.

3.331 From this observation we turn to Russell’s ‘theory of types’. It can

be seen that Russell must be wrong, because he had to mention the meaning

of signs when establishing the rules for them.

3.332 No proposition can make a statement about itself, because a

propositional sign cannot be contained in itself (that is the whole of the

‘theory of types’).

3.333 The reason why a function cannot be its own argument is that the sign

for a function already contains the prototype of its argument, and it

cannot contain itself. For let us suppose that the function F(fx) could be

its own argument: in that case there would be a proposition ‘F(F(fx))’, in

which the outer function F and the inner function F must have different

meanings, since the inner one has the form O(f(x)) and the outer one has

the form Y(O(fx)). Only the letter ‘F’ is common to the two functions, but

the letter by itself signifies nothing. This immediately becomes clear if

instead of ‘F(Fu)’ we write ‘(do) : F(Ou) . Ou = Fu’. That disposes of

Russell’s paradox.

3.334 The rules of logical syntax must go without saying, once we know how

each individual sign signifies.

3.34 A proposition possesses essential and accidental features. Accidental

features are those that result from the particular way in which the

propositional sign is produced. Essential features are those without which

the proposition could not express its sense.

3.341 So what is essential in a proposition is what all propositions that

can express the same sense have in common. And similarly, in general, what

is essential in a symbol is what all symbols that can serve the same

purpose have in common.

3.3411 So one could say that the real name of an object was what all

symbols that signified it had in common. Thus, one by one, all kinds of

composition would prove to be unessential to a name.

3.342 Although there is something arbitrary in our notations, this much is

not arbitrary–that when we have determined one thing arbitrarily,

something else is necessarily the case. (This derives from the essence of

notation.)

3.3421 A particular mode of signifying may be unimportant but it is always

important that it is a possible mode of signifying. And that is generally

so in philosophy: again and again the individual case turns out to be

unimportant, but the possibility of each individual case discloses

something about the essence of the world.

3.343 Definitions are rules for translating from one language into another.

Any correct sign-language must be translatable into any other in accordance

with such rules: it is this that they all have in common.

3.344 What signifies in a symbol is what is common to all the symbols that

the rules of logical syntax allow us to substitute for it.

3.3441 For instance, we can express what is common to all notations for

truth-functions in the following way: they have in common that, for

example, the notation that uses ‘Pp’ (‘not p’) and ‘p C g’ (‘p or g’) can

be substituted for any of them. (This serves to characterize the way in

which something general can be disclosed by the possibility of a specific

notation.)

3.3442 Nor does analysis resolve the sign for a complex in an arbitrary

way, so that it would have a different resolution every time that it was

incorporated in a different proposition.

3.4 A proposition determines a place in logical space. The existence

of this logical place is guaranteed by the mere existence of the

constituents–by the existence of the proposition with a sense.

3.41 The propositional sign with logical coordinates–that is the logical

place.

3.411 In geometry and logic alike a place is a possibility: something can

exist in it.

3.42 A proposition can determine only one place in logical space:

nevertheless the whole of logical space must already be given by it.

(Otherwise negation, logical sum, logical product, etc., would introduce

more and more new elements in co-ordination.) (The logical scaffolding

surrounding a picture determines logical space. The force of a proposition

reaches through the whole of logical space.)

3.5 A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought.

4. A thought is a proposition with a sense.

4.001 The totality of propositions is language.

4.022 Man possesses the ability to construct languages capable of

expressing every sense, without having any idea how each word has meaning

or what its meaning is–just as people speak without knowing how the

individual sounds are produced. Everyday language is a part of the human

organism and is no less complicated than it. It is not humanly possible to

gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language

disguises thought. So much so, that from the outward form of the clothing

it is impossible to infer the form of the thought beneath it, because the

outward form of the clothing is not designed to reveal the form of the

body, but for entirely different purposes. The tacit conventions on which

the understanding of everyday language depends are enormously complicated.

4.003 Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical

works are not false but nonsensical. Consequently we cannot give any answer

to questions of this kind, but can only point out that they are

nonsensical. Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise

from our failure to understand the logic of our language. (They belong to

the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical

than the beautiful.) And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are

in fact not problems at all.

4.0031 All philosophy is a ‘critique of language’ (though not in Mauthner’s

sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the

apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one.

4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality. A proposition is a model of

reality as we imagine it.

And this is where we diverge a bit. Wittgenstein’s formal system of logic worked for him (so much so that he never wrote another full philosophical treatise), but I find The Model™ to be an improved version when used to generalize and compare direct thoughts and propositions. The idea being that each member in a discussion could provide their own sense of the subject being discussed, as generalized to the model, and then discussion can begin in comparing the resulting diagrams or argument about the nature of the axes and limits.

I believe the model, as explored in Chapter XX: N-Dimensional thinking and in Appendix XL: Expanding The Model™, can be expanded in order to communicate any conceivable proposition with any other thinking and feeling being.

The process continues in waves of discussion until an agreement is reached, even if that agreement is a non-resolution of the argument at hand (i.e. agreeing to disagree). At which case participants are asked to go back and sleep/study/pray on the subject and if a desire for resolution continues to exist, another attempt at resolution should be arranged.

To return quickly to Wittgenstien’s conclusion, he offers the best answer to the most questions possible in an incredibly succinct statement.

7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

The way I usually phrase this concept is that the best and most accurate answer to the vast majority of possible questions (many of which can be non-sensical, making the universe of possible questions pragmatically infinite) is simply, “I don’t know.”

I think silence in response to a question is a bit rude, as I am a fan of the courteous dialectic, but I think saying “I don’t know,” would satisfy Wittgenstein as being functionally equivalent to his shortest and perhaps greatest, philosophical achievement.

There are a number of great points he makes AFTER 4.01. I don’t want to unnecessarily extend this work, however, by including a bunch more of his, now public domain, work. Let me see if I can find 100 propositions of his that I think describe my (his) adorable model accurately. He was proud of his work, and should have been.

By the way, the “voice” follows Wittgenstein’s logic and not my preferences. Which is to say, when I ask the wrong question, my answer is silence. Just so you know.

-Roy M. Taylor, In Defense of Love, Part 3: The Fusion.

Do we agree now, Joel, on what “God’s Order” actually is? And by that I mean, LOGIC. LOGOS. The Tone of Truth?