Sources:
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein at http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f95logg/TLF/Robot Script I : Read in English by a dreamy but authoritative male voice.
The world is all that is the case.The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.
For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case.
The facts in logical space are the world.
The world divides into facts.
Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same.
What is the case--a fact--is the existence of states of affairs.
A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things).
It is essential to things that they should be possible constituents of states of affairs.
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.
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.
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.
If I can imagine objects combined in states of affairs, I cannot imagine them excluded from the possibility of such combinations.
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.)
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. If I am to know an object, though I need not know its external properties, I must know all its internal properties.
If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states of affairs are also given.
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.
Is that all there is?I thought there was more.
But is it true?
It isn't any more than the sum of its facts?
If the facts are objectified, are they not then rendered "things"? The "things" are nested in the "facts"? The world is divided into facts in equal parts? oh!
how big are the smallest ones?
there's an "everything else"? What is it?
imagine them excluded from the possibility of such combinations.
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.If I am to know an object, though I need not know its external properties, I must know all its internal properties.
If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states of affairs are also given.
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.
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, object s of the sense of touch some degree of hardness, and so on.
Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
The possibility of its occurring in states of affairs is the form of an object.
But pure yellow too is lighter than pure, saturated red, or blue. And is this proposition a matter of experience? -- I dont know, for example, whether red (i.e., pure red) is lighter or darker than blue; to be able to say, I would have to see them. And yet, if I had seen them, I would know the answer once and for all, like th e result of an arithmetical calculation.Aber auch das reine Gelb ist heller als das reine, satte Rot, oder Blau. Und ist dies ein Satz der Erfahrung? - Ich weiS z.B. nicht, ob Rot (d.h. das reine) heller oder dunkler ist als Blau; ich muSte sie sehen, um es sagen zu konnen. Und doch, wennich es gesehen hatte, so wuste ich's nun ein fur alle mal, wie das Resultat einer Rechnung.
Where do we draw the line here between logic and experience?
Wo trennen sich hier Logik und Erfahrung (Empirie)?
My feeling is that blue obliterates yellow, -- but why shouldn't I call a somewhat greenish yellow a "blu ish yellow" and green an intermediary colour between blue and yellow, and a strongly blush green and somewhat yellowish blue?
Meinum Gefuhl nach loscht Blau das Gelb aus, -- aber warum solte ich nicht ein etwas grunliches Gelb ein "blauliches Gelb" nennen und Grun eine Zwischenfarbe von Blau und Gelb, und ein stark blauliches Grun ein etwas gelbliches Blau?
What advantage would someone have over me who knew a direct route from blue to yellow? And what shows that I don't know such a path? --Does everything depend on my range of possible language-ga mes with the form "...ish?"
Was hatte Einer vor mir voraus, der ennen direkten Farbenweg zwischen Blau und Gelb kennte? Und wie zeigt es sich, das ich so einen Weg nicht kenne? - Liegt alles an den mir moglichen Sprachspi elen mit der Form "...lich"?
The child was not at all precocious in his intellectual development.At the age of one and a half he could say only a few comprehensive words; he could also make use of a number of sounds which expressed a meaning intelligible to those around him.
He was, however, on good terms with his parents and their one servant-girl, and tributes were paid to his being a "good boy".
He did not disturb his parents at night, he conscientiously obeyed orders not to touch certain things or go into certain rooms, and above all he never cried when his mother left him for a few hours.
At the same time, he was greatly attached to his mother, who had not only fed him herself but had also looked after him without any outside help. This good little boy, however, had an occasional disturbing habit of taking any small objects he could get h old of and throwing them away from him into a corner, under the bed, and so on, so that hunting for his toys and picking them up was often quite a business.
As he did this he gave vent to a loud, long-drawn-out "o-o-o-o", accompanied by an expression of interest and satisfaction. His mother [and I] were agreed in thinking that this was not a mere interjection but represented the German word "fort" ["gone"]. I eventually realized that it was a game and that the only use he made of any of his toys was to play "gone" with them.
One day I made an observation which confirmed my view. The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string tied around it. It never occurred to him to pull it along the floor behind him, for instance, and play at its being a carriage. What he did was to hold the reel by the string and very skillfully throw it over the edge of his curtained cot, so that it disappeared into it, at the same time uttering his expressive "o-o-o-o". He then pulled the reel out of the cot again by the string and hailed its re appearance with a joyful "da" ["there"].
This, then, was the complete game - disappearance and return. As a rule one only witnessed its first act, which was repeated untiringly as a game in itself, thought there is no doubt that the greater pleasure was attached to the second act.
The Interpretation of the game then became obvious. It was related to the child's great cultural achievement - the instinctual renunciation (that is, the renunciation of instinctual satisfaction) which he had made in allowing his mother to go away withou t protesting. He compensated himself for this, as it were, by himself staging the disappearance and return of the objects within his reach.
