Mini-Tractatus or Tractatus Logico-philosophicus made easy

'Verbal language' = 'life simplified to local words'. Extreme simplism that easily leads to fascism.

In the beginning of the 20th century at the age of 19 Ludwig Wittgenstein, son of rich Jewish Austrian industrials, did not become an aeronautical engineer (as planned) but he studied the foundations of mathematics under Bertrand Russell. Instead of flying through reality this young man started showing that verbal language is simplified local sense communication of the life-form 'human'. Only communicating what LOCALLY is sensed by human animals. Senses specialize in sensing the local environment.
Soon after start of the world war I as Austrian inhabitant young Wittgenstein became soldier on the side of the Germans. This decision to follow his cultural roots made him politically dubious in English/French view. In the trenches of WWI Wittgenstein realized the danger of using simple logic as language. A dual logic might easily ends in fascism and started his dissertation. He finished it in 1922 in an Italian prison camp. It was Wittgenstein's only work published during his lifetime, but it became very influential. This Tractatus Logico Philosophicus made him famous.

A brilliant mathematically trained 'scientist' realized in the trenches of WWI that miscommunication even can cause genocide of 'brothers and sisters' (apartheid, slavery, alienism, discrimination, war). With eyes clouded with Western 'rationality', without his help and without knowledge about pre WWI European thinking (much more than only 'rational') it is VERY difficult to penetrate the unstable 'thoughts' of this developing Austrian culture philosopher. It seems that the student Wittgenstein wanted to prove that only common sense makes sense. His "Tractatus" shows the limitations of 'rational' language = life reduced to 'rational' words.

To prevent mistakes: like shown in his Investigations, Wittgenstein later rejected 1 basic assumption of his Tractatus. The condition that EVERY statement is a picture of reality. This dubious 'rational' concept 'logical atomism' he had inherited from his teacher Bertrand Russel and considers every 'thought' as mirror-image of the world. ... Later Wittgenstein realized that most logics are non-sense. The non-sense (abstract 'ideas') "slavery", "nazism", "apartheid" "management" indeed TEMPORARY created Western World sub-realities, BUT only after being widely promoted (freedom of speech executed by Western mass media). They BECAME Western snapshots of reality, but not unlike temporarily and popular Western movies. Instead of a Germany full of Nazis, one MIGHT create a UK crowded with Bonds and Bond-girls, and a US full of Bambi's, Rambo's, Terminators and Porn Queens. Although any reality MIGHT be created, any created reality is lived fully. Time is a conceptual idea to tackle change, and 'time travel' is wishfull thinking that 1 person might stop at any time his/her own CREATED fantasy. You can only stop the 'avalanche' caused by the ritual 'argumentation' by keeping the 'arguments' in your head. The 'delete function' of brains is 'forgetting'. Persons can be in different cultures 'after' another. Then in their 'picture of reality' many 'new' dimensions of unlimited 'truth' MIGHT pop up. Because 'time' is only an idea, 'after another' is in many logics without the linear INTERPRETATION of change just a description of sequence. The ritual 'argumention' creates a 'bubble of thought', a 'fantasy' flying into the shared reality. Fantasies attack life spreading like air-born viruses. A fine reason for the common sense limitation of freedom of speech. Dying is getting outdated, your brain has not sufficient reactions anymore to cope with the continuing world (got outdated). Very old healthy animals support the theory that 'age' is mainly limited by brain-processes. That 'age' has a fixed simple relation to the pumping-speed of hearts, is a TEMPORARY 'rational' EXPLANATION Dying below age 200 is NO physical necessity, 'wear' practically always shows physical traits that correspond with the 17th century CONCEPT 'age'. Albert Einstein in the tradition following Enlightenment thinkers INVENTED the relation 'relativity' between space (position) and time (as decription of 'change'). It was convenient for him to DEFINE space as circular and lightspeed as absolute speed. That gave Fiction like 'Big Bang' and 'Time Travel'. Evolution doesn't 'need' Time, and seeing lightspeed as limit and explain energy only with mass is looking at 'light' wearing 'rational' sunglasses.

Myth Understanding

Mistake 1:
Logic (Mathematics) creates understanding.
Though 'Philosophy' can speed up a lot by looking at Mathematical Logic, shuffling with knowledge is not creativity.

Mistake 2:
Mathematical logic solved 'language' (arrogance).

Mistake 3:
The semantics of logical notations is a major subject in the Tractatus.

Mistake 4:
The Tractatus is mainly math. (It is creative thinking, written in mathematical notation).

Wittgenstein wrote: The goal of philosophy is logical explanation of thoughts. A philosophical work consists of explanations. The result of philosophy is not the writing of 'philosophical' sentences, but the 'enlightenment' of the subject in question. Philosophy should sharply explain thoughts, that remain otherwise hidden and unclear. Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1933) on page 32. I'll try to live up his expectations.

I can vividly imagine the aggression of Wittgenstein against the bulk of formal philosophers, but this was useless, and only in these circles hindered his acceptance.

Tractatus in 10 statements

Any summary risks being called presumptuous, and therefore 80 years after the original I wrote my own much shorter version. It helped that like obviously Wittgenstein I too have a mathematically skilled mind, and his work gave me a great start. Let's consider my piece as a kind of 10 commandments for my language-religion. It is constructed around the following pair of concepts: (mind-world, language).

As logic the Tractatus gives a clear message: Language is a PICTURE of truth, and as any picture is only a mapping of local reality. Nor does language change reality. Any truth about reality is possible and can have many languages (science fictions). A proposition = a priori and cannot be explained by means of logical form. Language is a picture of reality, and cannot be explained by means of another picture of reality.

1. A mind-world is a logical space containing only 'pictures' called 'statements' or 'propositions'. All these pictures reveal independent basic statements.

2. Every mind-world can split into two or more adjacent mind-worlds around any of its statements.
Any picture has many negatives.

3. A statement (in any language) is only meaningful for members of some mind-worlds, as a comprehensible mix of symbols.
(The Joker: for Aboriginals some melodies are like language).

4.Every statement can be denied

5.The totality of statements in some mind-world is called language

6. Humans can construct languages capable of expressing every statement.

7.A society or super-culture is a group of mind-worlds in which people agree on a set of basic statements (basic commandments or basic constitution).

8.Two adjacent societies can be joined, by agreeing upon a bargaining-language and then on changing the definition of basic words in the two basic constitutions in that language (slightly changing the meaning in order to reach consensus).

9. All real philosophy is 'critique of language', and is aiming at combining two or more closely related societies.

10."What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" (Wittgenstein)

Explanations 1-3

Ad1) To make things a lot easier unlike the young student Wittgenstein I don't differentiate between facts and propositions (fact and fiction). In fact he forces himself to do that by his statement: "any proposition is a picture of reality". The result of ignoring that statement is that it becomes impossible to distinguish fiction and reality, but that peculiarity doesn't bother me. It only implies that abstract and 'real' worlds can't be distinguished. That means that abstract thought is like 'real'. That also implies that abstract thinking (like rationalism) can be VERY dangerous, because abstract fiction about reality makes only sense in technology (if you fantasize that moving on vehicles with wheels in a desert is smart, THEN you might end up with 4-wheel drives. And with a Paris-Dakar Ralley).
Unlimited Freedom of Speech is ignorant, Adolf Hitler already 'proved' so. Note that this means that I leave the empiricist viewpoint, that truth is absolute (and that local experience reveals universal truth). In following work Wittgenstein does as well. So statements are either caused by facts or by other statements, and facts might be related to 'reality' or just completely abstract hallucinations caused by religions. 

Ad2) In the original mind-world this splitting statement is considered true and in the others it is denied. Everything else remains the same. (The Joker: especially fundamentalist protestant ministers were topmagicians in dividing sense reality. A different interpreting of 1 line or word in the bible for them was enough for starting another branch of protestant church)

Ad3 a) Even if members of other mind-worlds 'understand' this language, they might give this statement in their own language a slightly or completely different explanation. But be careful in destroying languages, they represent cultures that may have strong sides.
Ad3 b) If I know an adjective or noun in a certain language, then I also know how to use it in millions of sentences (so this must be inherent in its definition). Mind that you almost never use really elementary words. Maybe the word 'cat' to you seems quite elementary, but in fact it refers to thousands of other propositions. It shows that language became very complex. In practice we made new propositions that act as elementary ones, but in fact are made up of many other ones.
Ad3 c) An 'elementary' proposition is saying that some statement using basic words is true or false. Any proposition is in theory a combination of 'elementary' propositions. Think of statements like: "all stones are grey".
Ad3 d) A proposition is a truth-function of 'elementary' propositions. (An 'elementary' proposition is a truth-function of itself.) A statement nobody will deny in this and related mind-worlds, like: "Most stones are grey".
Ad3 e) Statements are either true or false. Many of them are similar. Both situations always occur, so there is at least one mind-world in which this combination is called true and vice versa (in the related mind-worlds an essentially different proposition is called true. ("Most stones are white" or "Most stones are black").

Ad3 f) A mental picture of a statement is a thought

Explanations 4-8

Ad4) Even this one, but better don't do if you want to prevent getting a headache

Ad5 a) Language must be seen as mind-culture . So mind-culture1 and mind-world1 are identical. But because there are limitless mind-worlds based on the same basic language is more comfortable to distinguish both language and mind-world.

Ad5 b) A combination of statements is thinkable if there is somebody who finds that it's true (who is in a mind-world where this is considered to be true).

Ad5 c) The totality of thoughts that you consider being true forms your mind-world. For instance in the Roman Christian World something is considered TRUE as in some way it can be found in the Roman Christian Bible. In the Rational Roman Christian subworld statements are since Enlightenment considered TRUE if they are rational and scientifically TRUE. That way you arrive in Rational subworld like Industrialism and Capitalism

Ad7 a) As the word says any society can consists of many cultures. Mass media are for the mind what pesticides are for the physical body. They 'kill' part of mind-worlds, by not paying attention to them. It is the vast diversity in mind-worlds and physic that always was the strength of humanity.

Ad7 b) Lawyers work out what basic commandments mean in daily life.

Ad8 a) Let's take the hypothetical case that you want to combine two almost identical societies. They are similar except that in society1 some statement is considered true and in the other false. Then it seems that you have a problem, however this is not the case. Remember that the split originated in language. For instance something is called 'terrorism' in one way of thought (say Western thought) and in the other 'struggle' for survival' (say in Muslim thought). This may result in proposition1 saying that some conduct is terrorism (conduct = terrorism is true) and in proposition2 that this conduct is 'struggle' for survival (conduct = terrorism is false). Then it is clear you have to go back to the language used, to focus on the definition of the word 'terrorism'. That was cause of the split because in society1 'terrorism' is possibly seen as every brute force aimed at itself, while in society2 one makes the distinction between force necessary for defending oneself and unnecessary force. I worked this idea out in a biography of Osama bin Laden.
Similar exercises can be done using the words: euthanasia, abortion and so on. Such differences in thought can easily become very complex, especially if the two societies use very different languages. Have a look at my article about the israel-palestine-conflict for getting an idea of how mind conflicts can cause war.
But it doesn't take something as difficult as time-travels to explore these adjacent super-cultures, just study of language.

Ad8 b) Criminal law decides if somebody is living mostly in his or her own mind-world (and deserves treatment) or in the dominant super-culture (and deserves punishment)

Explanations 9-10

Ad9 a) I.e. proposing something as true that is called false in the present dominating society. If not then it is just making a 'shortcut' within a language. I.e. this 'philosophy' only expresses in a simpler way an existing proposition. Making things easier of course is a duty of philosophers, but not the main one.

Ad9 b) An extension of the dominant paradigm (adding of a basic statement) is a Kuhnian Paradigm Shift (named after thinker Thomas Kuhn). The present pace of an accelerating evolution seems to be having 2 or 3 such mind-breakers in a century. That is when talking about slightly expanding the locally dominant paradigms (for instance Einstein's relativity theory only in Science). The last Reality Redesign was 20 centuries ago and was caused by Jesus, influencing all of society. But Da Vinci and Galilei came near to being great minds. This Nietzsche meant by saying that evolution until then only created 5 or 6 great human minds. Nietzsche himself was one of those. The others might be Zarathustra (Zoroaster), Buddha, Jesus and Immanuel Kant.

Rationalism in essence is 'Exploitation' made into logic and can be seen as Terror of the Mind. Since Enlightenment the most fierce fighter of exploitation ('rational' thought) was Friedrich Nietzsche He might in this period be seen as the only a really great Western World thinker. Enlightenment started in the Western World the dualist thinking in terms of body and spirit (an 'exploitation' fantasy dating from Aristotle). 'Exploitation' was made into the logic rational thinking (Exploitation of Reality). 'Exploitation' (as fundamental protestantism) was banned from Europe to The New World, but ages later returned after WWII as 'rationalism', 'taylorism', 'capitalism', .... In the 21st century the communist government of China buys all copper in Peru for open air mining. An ecological disaster. Exploitation radically differed serving nature found EVERYWHERE in common sense outside the Western World. World History shows that Zoroastrian Christianity (the original message of Jesus) didn't distinguish body and mind. Only Mohammedanism was based on Roman Christian thinking as found in Syrian monasteries (Mohammed was 'recognized' as 'spiritual' leader by a Syrian Catholic monk.) It is widely taken for granted in 'philosophy' that 'reason' (superiority thinking = creationism) is able to divide reality in GOOD and EVIL (TRUE and FALSE). That only makes sense if such ritual thinking is seen as local and temporary. 'Reason' uses 'knowledge' to distinguish 'relaxed/friendly' from 'defensive/dangerous'. Wittgenstein: ANY statement about reality is TRUE or FALSE, depending of the used logic. Locally attaching a definitive label TRUE to some set of statements (='philosophical' system='doctrine') is absolutism. (The One: In countries like Cambodja, Bosnia, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, US, .... 'absolutism' became murderous.). Seeing 'philosophy' as meta-cultural mental activity implies realizing that being a 'philosopher' should be expressed by relative behavior. NOT by a belief in 'spirits' (souls) and a rigid believing in THE Laws of Nature. Not by IRRITATING and inherently arrogant statements like: "your irrational view is SLIGHTLY beside THE Truth". Egoistic purchasing of an individual 'fata morgana' by Roman Christianity temporarily caused a treacherous gap between 'have-lots' and 'have-nots'. And leads to worlwide ecological disaster.