Just to comment about what I understand by a "point of view", which is neither the same as "opinion" nor as "believe"; because, whilst an opinion may be a generalization of a point of view, a believe may be an illogical generalization of a point of view, so that a point of view is a singular or a general statement, -but it is not a generalization-, and has a logical sense or is a part of a logical theory. If we wish to develop a logical theory of points of view, we may start by remembering one of the oldest theories, the logical theory of the Jain religion, based upon the principles of: anekanta vada (non-one-sided talk), syat vada (may-be talk), and the seven sides paralogism (may be is; may be is not; may be, undecidably, is and is not; may be is or is not; may be, undecidably, is; may be, undecidably, is not; may be, undecidably, is or is not).

     European thinkers might be said to have started to think in a logical theory of points of view with Gottlob Frege's notion of "mode of presentation", in which "the morning star" and "the evening star" both referring to "Venus" are taken to be different modes of presentation.

     I like the idea of talking of a non-linear logic and relating it to a theory of chaos, there are at least two other related names which may be mentioned: "informal logic" and "paraconsistent logic". As well there is the science called Pragmatics of Language which might deal well with a theory of points of view. Nevertheless, I may take a more philosophical than mathematically formal approach.

GARY. C. MOORE:
I am trying to approach a problem of personal human point of view from an aspect whose focus is assumed outside of that point of view which, as I have always said, factually and materially means MY point of view, meaning *point of view* always and necessarily, in materialist terms, must mean MY point of view since that is the only perceptual point of view I can physically possess.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
In my view, as there is not a physical subject who might the possessor of the point of view, because "subject" is a term within a logical theory, -a subject is not a reality, it is not an object-, I understand that the term "possess", above, has a logical sense too, equivalent to say: the physical locus which 'determines' the logical point of view. Then, I talk about a 'physical locus' as being the determinant of a point of view, and not a 'physical entity'; so that, say, for example: what determines your point of view is not your body, but the place of your body. This would be different for an 'opinion', in my view, an opinion is determined by a physical entity, say, for example: your body, where emotions, perceptions and conceptions are conditionings of opinions; opinions are not determined just by physical loci. Now, if what determines a point of view is a physical locus, then several questions arise:

     As long as we can not fix a physical locus for a body say: for our body the is an ever changing location and an ever changing constituent matter, therefore "my" point of view is ever changing, then, a point of view may not be fixed even for a single observer. I am ever losing a point of view to take another, or, in other words: my self lacks of a consistent physical locus; and it is not that my self has another locus than a physical one, think, it is that its physical locus can not be determined because it is a plainly conditioned locus, any condition you may think is a condition of the self's locus.

     Also, as long as the size of a physical locus is not determined, say, for example: by our body, so that, it is undetermined, say, we may have a physical locus embracing several observers giving, therefore, a common perception or a shared point of view; for example: as we all are in Earth we have a common earthly point of view; thus there may be material general statements; notice, that the point of view of a shared physical locus is not a generalization, but a general point of view, not a single person can perceive it, but all sharing the locus perceive it.

     To easy things, it can be used the term "may be" as well as the term "point of view" as technical terms intended to mark a statement as an 'undecidable truth', as something which can not be said openly. Say, for example: "May be cows exist", to include the cases in which by "cows" we understand a word, a drawing, a concept, a class,... which do not exists, nevertheless cows exist, as long as we take the "cows" to have a referent, in reality, different than any of those mentioned (word, drawing, concept, class,...). Again, as any statement, being a representation, purports ambiguity, any statement may be marked with a "may be", else, we may take any statement as having implicated a 'may be' mark. Notice, that this is may be a way to avoid reifications, -or false generalizations.

     Again, you might say, that 'your' point of view is the point of view 'located in the place indicated by the word "you"' which may be pertinently interpreted, in this case, to be the same as the locus "Gary" or, may be, of the DNA+finger prints-GARY. C. MOORE: Now, if this is so, think, then, that we may be unable to say openly what is the referent of Gary, because there is not a universal -or general- manner to determine it. Again: we may know Gary, but we may not be able to acknowledge such knowledge openly, we may not be able to demonstrate that we know Gary, even in the event of being able to say things about him or to point to him, because we can not be in -or can not know- the same particular point of view which Gary possess; we may not share with him his particular physical locus... Or, also, we may share a particular physical locus different than his locus or my locus... this depends on which physical locus are we talking about. There may be truths which can not be said openly, -or as mathematicians say: "undecidable truths"- about Gary, truths which even think we may know them, we can not put them within a theory -or a system- by means of which we might decide what is true and what is false.

     Resuming. I think that there is more than one point of view possible, physically speaking, I can not have the same particular point of view as you have, in a body bounded physical sense, in another of those views I communicate with you, and this communication act is in fact -or physically- sharing a space and time which determines a common physical locus, a locus of you and me, which imply to have an, undecidable, same point of view. This common, to both -you and me-, point of view is not a question of agreeing or disagreeing, it is a question of being in the same physical locus; which is not the locus of the body, it is, for example, the locus of communication. In my logical theory about points of view, physical loci are not restricted to bodies, and knowledge is not restricted to what happens inside a brain, as there are senses by which physical communication happens. Communication means continuity between loci, therefore there can not be communication between different loci, we talk, metaphorically, about a communication between loci when there is a common locus of two or more loci; it my be said that each personal loci, your, mine, other, is a part of a common locus of us. When you express your point of view, and I interpret your expression there is a point of view, different of the expressed point of view and different of the interpreted point of view which is a point of view of both of us. Another example of a non-person bounded point of view, as long as we share to be physically in an Earth bounded physical sense, we may share a same general point of view; this an ontological question not an epistemological one.

GARY. C. MOORE:
Now automatically, as you well know, such a pin pointed determination brings objections that there must be other points of view. However, materially, such so-called points of view are physically impossible to an actual human being and are mere abstractions, likenesses made from my perceptual point of view made on the assumption that, other human beings seeming physically like me and more or less communicating information that can be corroberated factually or logically, they also have perceptual points of view exactly like mine. However, I can never ever EXPERIENCE this as a physical fact. One makes deductions from language but that is where it must remain.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
I agree, that I can not possess other people personal points of view, as long as perception can not be the same, nevertheless, as a point of view can be communicated by means of its expression I may know such other point of view either in a physical sense or in a cognitive sense (but, not in a perceptual sense) and not as a mere abstraction. The case would be, that I may give to other people point of view, either a general interpretation -due to a common physical space- or a personal interpretation -due to perception. In view, there is abstraction when a particular perception is generalized, in another sense, to perceive the same because sharing a common physical space is not abstraction. It might be said that the notion of 'common physical space' is an abstraction -or is a theory-, nevertheless, in such abstract theory the shared perception is conceived as not being an abstraction.

     The point of this discussion which I think is relevant to be focused, is that perceptual points of view are not less physical, and may be said 'not less objective' too, than common points of view are. Nevertheless, this implies that -logical- contradictions may rise in speech when talking about reality, even think what is being said is true in all cases! Just because different points of view, having different observers' physical location may be contradictory and true for a cognition of the same object, at the same time of the object, the same mode of the object and same space of the object.

GARY. C. MOORE:
wrote: So one fictionally, that is, abstractly assumes there are perceptual points of view other than one's own. They seem exactly alike in quality and ability - generally in *normal* people - but many differences arise from different mathematically diagrammed vantage points. There is also the problem of what is *important*, that is, what is worth paying attention to. This sometimes notably *warps* - not really meant derogatorially but rather simply factually - transmitted information from another's point of to to be integrated into my own.

     It is essentially the FUNDAMENTAL meaning of the concept *importance* I am trying to delineate, attempting a historical portrayal of how it came about as something different from the strictly, physically personal and uniquely individual. After all, even many animals regard their mates and offspring, as it seems, *naturally* as IMPORTANT. But it is not the lion as a SPECIES that values its progeny but the lion as a UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL supposedly just like me. THIS lion values ONLY its own progeny and eats anothers. THEREFORE is there the possibility of ploting a non-linear vector outside my personal point of perceptual view? I think it is all too easy to say *Of course!* since such a conclusion is emotionally comforting, but you know very well that is NOT what I want. I want facts. I want MATERIALLY or LOGICALLY ascertainable FACTS. *Matter* may possibly be out of the question here, though, and the logic seems to be getting away from the digital and wandering into the analogical. Analogically, I can put myself in the lion's point of view - but not factually.

     And here determinism comes in, but not quite as obviously as it might seem to be at first glance. With a lion, is there really any such thing as instinct - which it would seem to immediately put it beyond my purview - or is the lion's brain essentially like mine in all aspects? It is the point of instinct, that is, automatic appropriate action, that is the sticking point. However, I have never, using Occam's razor, ever seen to need to make that assumption. Instinct assumes qualities above and beyond mere nerve reflex so I see no comparison between to two whatsoever. Instinct has to be selective for whatever reason, by whatever cause, whereas reflex ALWAYS occurs with the proper stimulus. So there is a physical chain of causation in a lion's actions, but, going by the simplest explanation of the matter, it operates just like mine. You can corroberate point of view even with a lion to a certain degree.

But you can see many of these arguments are merely approximations as compared to an absolute fact such as a normal mathematical equation. Therefore I was wondering about non-linear thinking, something I got from Malcom and his chaos theory in reviewing JURASSIC PARK, and its appropriatness in dealing with problems like - I *believe* other human beings are very much like me but I do not KNOW this.

MARIANO dV. C-T: Well, in my view, the consequence of not being able to possess the same point of view you, me, and any other is not that I have to choose views by their importance... so that I may need criteria of what is important... The notion of importance may be better given to opinions. There are opinions more and less important, and there may be criteria to choose opinions, as it is the criteria of authority, the criteria of confidence, etcetera.

     Now, in my view, a point of view even a personally possessed point of view can be communicated, logically speaking, there is not a physical obstacle for communicating points of view! Therefore the wise thing to conclude of a theory of points of view, may be, is the need of communicating our points of view to be able to understand reality without a personal siding.

     The Jain have a story which you may know very well, that story of the seven blind people of a village that heard about an elephant coming to the village, and as they did not know what an elephant was, they went to try to know it by means of touching the elephant with their hands. When they were going back home, they were talking about how was the elephant, and one said it was like a column (having touched a leg), other one that it was like a rope (having touched the tail), another that it was like a carpet
(having touched the ear), and so on starting and endless discussion about who was telling how is, truly, an elephant. The intended conclusion of this story is neither that there is a point of view which surpasses all other in objectivity, nor that all of them lack of objectivity, it is that even think the different points of view look contradictory, all views are objective and by sharing all of them they would get a greater understanding of the elephant. This is a story, for a more serious attempt of explanation I have given above my opinions. {smile}

     I hope that my writing is enough clear as to get something relevant, or at least, to inspire. {smile} Thank you.

GARY. C. MOORE: All. Hello. {smile}

Thank you for your kind answer {smile}, it is a pleasure to read you. I may be unable to write in a doctorate manner about this subject, nevertheless I wish to attempt a clarification of some particular things.

"WHAT WE CANNOT SPEAK ABOUT WE MUST PASS OVER IN SILENCE"

GARY. C. MOORE:
No. It is proposition 7] of the TRATATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS and MUST be read in context.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
In this statements I wish to call attention about two things, what is it mean by "must" and what is it "context". In view it may be said that to read in context is 'unavoidable', -that, it is an ontological compulsion-, the question is what context does you or me, or whoever choose to read it in?

GARY. C. MOORE:
Good point, and one which I have touched on lately in my reply to Jud on Schopenhauer and non-linearity. One point is, there are possibly several logical points of view by which to approach something, anything whatsoever, that must be distinguished from irrational ones. Many times first impressions of something distorts our point of view because there is some point already in the subject matter we know to be irrational. This was the point on Ding-an-sich in Schopenhauer I brought up with Jud which, though I have exactly the same sticking point on the matter as Jud does and probably have not read as much Schopenhauer as he has even – even though I very presumptuously proceed to lecture him upon it. It is irrational to assume one can know there is something real and specific that one cannot know. How could you know it is real and specific if you cannot know it?

However, there are other rational ways to approach the subject matter because, although it is incorrectly put, nonetheless it does point to something that intellectually teases us with elements that are factual and logical but which are still elements, that is, bits and pieces that belong to no recognizable whole AND YET STILL SEEM TO IMPLY ONE! Another problem in the same letter points to the theological origin and original basis of abstractions as such. This is clearly present in Plato and several of the Pre-Socratics, Pythagoras for one but hardly the only one. Aristotle does try to de-theologize abstractions to a large extent, but, after a long and detailed confrontation on the matter with a Athony Crifasi Jud Evans can tell you all about in which each of us sort of thought we were the winner, Crifasi did at least convince me there still was some presence of a real Idea in an Aristotlean abstraction and that it was not entirely a linguistic construct. At the time, such a slender point, a really tiny point, of success on Crifasi's part seemed incredibly trivial to me. However, it does point out the tremendous persistence of theology in abstractions even in such an intelligent and diligent mind even purposively trying to delete them.

Of course, in Aristotle, there are complications. He does talk of God as a first initiating cause and final cause, even calling it *love*, but these are all part of a materialist physics, and the *love* an Empedoklean physical force. And that discussion occurs in books [within books] constructed from manuscripts not edited by the author, temporally out of place, discrepancies unexplained, etc – an intellectual archeologist's nightmare. And, on top of that, just like Socrates, just like Plato, Aristotle stated the traditional gods are the legal gods and those athiests who deny them should be put to death. But this is simply, as with Socrates and Plato, a statement of moral community with the nation and its traditions. Nowhere do any of these three argue seriously for the actual existence of the pagan pantheon.

But here I have bought up the very birth mothers and midwives of abstraction and theology is in every single microscopic crack and, instead of getting less and less as time goes by, in fact became immensely more so that it seems obvious to me today that simply in trying to logically analyze language, you necessarily swim in a theological lake thousands of years old if not hundreds of thousands. I think one can successfully argue theology itself was born from the science of astronomy long before it became astrology because of the necessity of determining the placement of the stars and planets to discover times for planting and harvesting and animal migrations. So I think concluding we have ANYWHERE NEAR cleaned up language in fifty or sixty years of its utterly overwhelming theological implications naive in the extreme.

On top of that, I have been reading DAME Frances A Yates [died 1981] of how science came out of astrology [also argued by Arthur Koestler], alchemy [this was Issac Newton's passion, astronomical physics an important sideline beside his interpretation of the book of Revelations], magic and all other kinds of occultism. Doctor John Dee, a magical and hermetic Magus, in England was a major figure in this very slow changeover starting in Elizabethan England and supposedly culminating in the founding of the Royal Academy of Science by parliament under Charles II except many of the things that society continued to study were still related to what we call the occult. There is a whole line of scientifically compromised figures going up to and past Newtoi – Michael the Scot, Cudworth, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Henry More and many more. The evolution was not only slow, gradual, but there is no reason to conclude it is any where near finished OR EVER WILL BE.

So one can historically, logically, mathematically, etc, see that changing vantage points and points of view of exactly the same subject – and that has to be in one fashion or another always human being – are constantly operating throughout history as well as right now like my string model of non-linearity where, from one known point pinned down both figuratively and literally, the string of uniform length is stretched into numerous very different shapes, encompassing many more and different points of logical validity starting from absolutely solid to merely vaguely pointing in a direction as Schopenhauer/Kant's Ding-an-sich more or less did.

There is also the God point of view that is extremely useful at times but, it seems, no one wants to confront directly. The God point of view, concisely, is knowing all about something. This is historically, personally, logically impossible and operates just like the Ding-an-sich. It is useful in that one can talk about the universe [about which one can know very little], about the solar system [something coming slightly more into our intellectual grasp but puffs one up when one does not keep in one how much is factually unknown], or determinism [THAT everything has a cause can be known from the very nature of logical – the only kind – comprehension, that one can know every specific cause of anything absolutely impossible. Reverse this thinking. Consider the conflict between the Copernican and Ptolemaic astronomy systems. Astrologers find the Ptolemaic system much more practical for their purposes. Everyone else more or less finds the Copernican system much more practical BECAUSE IT IS SIMPLER than the Ptolemaic. Why did Ptolemy develop his astronomical system? A] It seem perfectly obvious to every human eye – only when you had to plot the entire courses of the planets over time did one possibly perceive a problem. B] His sole practical purpose was for it to be a helpmate to astrology. Astrology believes the positions of the planets and the stars determine our fates. Scientists say this is absurd. But a CONSISTENT determinist HAS TO admit, however small and insignificant that influence may be, the stars and planets must necessarily have SOME effect upon us.]

So as to - And whether the relevant context of interpretation for a reading is closed and, therefore, fixed forever, universal. - A reading can be fixed forever and universal, but it necessarily remains only one among other possible reading just as the string figure I mentioned is stretched to include different points and make different shapes.

Now, Wittgenstein in the TRACTATUS truly was trying to find a fixed and universal point of view necessary for all humans to accept who desired to be rational. Within that fixed frame, or picture as he might say, he accomplished such a degree of success there are still many people who say that is his only real accomplishment in philosophy and that the rest he did was all a degeneration from that point. Others say, the TRACTATUS merely accomplished establishing a strawman for the OPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS to knock down. I say the first represents a passion almost every human being has for total comprehension, the necessary metaphysical desire Kant talked about, whereas the second describes how that desire actually came to exist with different human beings in different contexts pursuing different goals, that is, real life. Kant acknowledged the passion to construct a metaphysical system can be overpowering and that one could make great discoveries constructing one as Wittgenstein did, but that man cannot have God's point of view which is absolutely necessary for a metaphysical system, that factual information, the only thing logic can work with – there can be no deduction without induction in real life – is ALWAYS INCOMPLETE – AND SINCE INCOMPLETENESS POINTS TO SOMETHING TRULY UNKNOWN AND THEREFORE UNOBSERVABLE AND UNMEASURABLE, just like a Ding-an-sich, THE DEGREE OF THAT IGNORANCE IS UNKNOWABLE. Does that make sense?

Ciao, Gary