@PhilipKlöcking Yes, I agree with you. But disregarding representation entirely, are there limitations on thinking of a world that is composed of two elements?

I don't remember the philosopher's name. (Possibly Plato or Socrates, but definitely a western thinker.) He proposed that to compare two ideas there must always be three things: two of them are opposing ideas and a third is some metaphysical media on which the comparison is made.

Or maybe that is your point that there is always a representation that isn't entirely true to the actual information. :)

@JosephWeissman There are some good graph libraries for neural networks. I built a neat UI representation for one that constructs itself as it receives new information. Oddly enough it tended to grow into two hemispheres before using all of the memory on my computer.

@Chris kinda like the human brain. It's the interactions between these two halves that we perceive as thoughts.

@Chris: that sounds like Plato...but I'm not sure.

@MoziburUllah probably

@chris: I think its the third man argument where this is expanded on...

@Chris: Plato's argument for the necessity of ideas as real entities. But my argument actually is twofold: First, a representation has to be the representation of something. And insofar it is the representation of something, it is either 100% identical, or has less information, but all of it corresponding, or has information that is not corresponding. The latter case means that it is not part of the representation insofar it represents, but something different.

Second, since identity is hardly called representation, all that remains is containing less information that is actually corresponding to the represented entity than the entity itself contains. Hence, representation necessarily contains less information than the entity it represents insofar it represents that entity. q.e.d.

Yes. I'm not sure how much of it still applies today. I wouldn't want to argue that thoughts are emergent attributes of a physical brain, for example. I would rather argue that thoughts are attributes of the mind.

The idea about binary representation misses the point since with these two digits appear in combined entities that are infinitely combinable. These "combined entities" are already abstracting from the fact that they are physically represented in binary systems

The point of rejecting emergent attributes rings positively with me. I hate that kind of language since it presupposes physicalism. But one should actually be careful in thinking of "mind" and "brain" as different ontological entities. This only leads back to Cartesian dualism

I'd say that thoughts are attributed to minds rather than attributes of them.

I think because, like @PhilipKlöcking: says because that kind of language is reminscent of physicalism.

They (mind and thought) are on the same "plane" or in the same "sphere" or "category" of experience would be my description. The physical/scientific one is just a different kind of experience and both have their phenomenological reality. One should just be careful in thinking that any one of them reveals reality in its entirety, or that one is describing reality and the other is not or only in a derivative sense etc.

@PhilipKlöcking: I'd agree with that.

Okay, then I should draw the conclusion that Cartesian dualism is a step backwards from Aristotle's the third man argument. Also binary is the best representation because a trinary representation has four parts, which just leads back to binary and hence Cartesian dualism.

At least according to Western philosophy.

@JackOfBlades: I think it's a tactic in discussion where I dichotomy is offered which badly mischaracterises the situation under consideration; for example, it misses a lot of nuance. It's why some people frown on 'binary' thinking.

Where a dichotomy is offered ...

Does it have a name?

@JackOfBlades: not one that I'm aware of; but most likely it does.

A poem that I wrote a couple of weeks ago ;).

I'm not a misogynist, by the way...

@JackOfBlades False dichotomy?

Or false dilemma

I may have been begging the question though.. speaking of fallacies

Dilemma = di + lemma = two lemmas ...!

@PhilipKlöcking is there any tangible evidence to support your belief that thoughts and perceptions are on the same plain?

Evidence is on the plane of physicality/science. How could there possibly be evidence for that which can only be experienced in one's mind? That is the core of the objection: asking for 'evidence' for e.g. free will is begging the question.

How about a logic based argument?

I may have picked the wrong side on this one

There must be at least some interaction between thoughts and perceptions or Plato would never have escaped from his cave.