We transform colourless, soundless phenomena and turn them automatically into the blue of the ocean and a symphony respectively. — Manuel

Or does the process work backwards? Or in both directions? We could also say that certain devices can be made in our vivid and smelly world if we play this weird game of math and colorless concepts. It's that important practically, but I find the leap from useful models to metaphysical foundations unnecessary. The unconscious metaphor seems to be something like Neo seeing the code of the matrix. It flatters the physicist if ordinary life is 'really' made of mathematical abstractions. But doesn't that lead to a mess? Mathematical abstractions are (we'd be tempted to say) 'mental.' And code, in the matrix example, is a human convention that we build in to hardware in the first place.

there is the world we experience, what science says about it and whatever else we simply cannot assimilate or register in any way, which happens to be quite important. — Manuel

:up:

That sounds right, and this could be framed as us being likely to keep finding more useful patterns in experience (or rather inventing, projecting, and learning to trust such patterns.)

I know first hand what people who advocate "to look inside" tend to be like, and it doesn't fill me with enthusiasm for the project of "self-examination". Too often, I've seen the proponents of the "examined life" simply championing their ideology, and dismissing everything else as "unexamined life". So I've become rather bitter and distrustful for the project of "self-examination".

This is not to say that every proponent of the "examined life" is like this. At this point, I'm just not sure there is an objective, ideologically neutral way to "examine one's life". But that instead, "living an examined life" goes hand in hand with embracing a particular ideology. — baker

:up:

To me this is also the dark side of philosophy. 'I care about truth more than you.' Socrates can be grating, a self-righteous, falsely modest clown. But maybe that's the game, and we're stuck doing versions of it. Virtue-signaling might come in every flavor but none, which is not to say that all flavors are equal.

I loved the first. I could pick holes in it now, but it was just pure entertainment during that first view (almost alone in the theatre for a matinee, with blaring speakers.) The following two were just weak, though the action scenes were still state of the art (from what I remember.)

Shannon, whose position eventually prevailed, defined information in terms of the transmission of the signal and was not concerned with the meaning. The problem with MacKay’s definition was that meaning could not be measured or quantified and as a result the Shannon definition won out and changed the development of information science". People that shared MacKay’s position
complained that Shannon’s definition of information did not fully describe communication. Shannon
did not disagree–he “frequently cautioned that the theory was meant to apply only to certain technical
situations, not to communication in general". — Pop

Shannon's warning is basically my original point. It's technical concept. In fact we do want to transmit bits effectively, and part of that is coming up with a framework for quantifying how well we are doing and how well we could possibly do.

Lots of humans want more than technical knowhow, but they like technical jargon, and so it's common that technical jargon gets blended with traditional spirituality into something new. Or something that seems new. To me, 'all is information' is something like 'all is mind.' 'Matter' is an illusion or a misunderstanding or simply a concept in the system of concepts (and there is only concept-information-mind, something like that.) In general it's not testable, but it's not for digging ditches to begin with but rather (seems to me) for its pleasant psycho-active effects. Perhaps it's answer to the perceived threat of materialism. My question is: does it give us an afterlife we didn't have already? Will it usher in the age of Aquarius? Will we stop waging war, putting carbon in the air? Because we are enlightened finally with the final master word?

We all have some sense of what a mind is, enough to communicate about it every day. If you have some idea of what it may be already, it's probably something like that. If you don't, then we can try dictionaries...? — Olivier5

I agree that there's a vague 'background' notion of 'mind' that we pick up from all the uses of the word. It's like the metaphysics of ordinary language. It's like a tangle of metaphors. A mind is the something that a thing can be in, like a container. It can be made up. It can be sliced in two. It can be lost, fed, wasted, blown. Then philosophers take over and try to do the job seriously, clean up and organize the metaphors, practice a new kind of science of entities like knowledge, truth, being, and so on. A science not of the words (that would be too banal, mere linguistics) but rather of the supposed referents of these words in their crystalline splendor. The whole enterprise should be logical, like math, but the 'theorems' should be of cosmic significance, as if religion and science had a baby.

Wittgenstein, it seems, was especially affected by the word "game." He realized that, in truth, no one really knows how to define it but then everyone uses it and uses it correctly. It's actually a paradox very similar to St. Augustine's time paradox:

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.
— St. Augustine (on time) — TheMadFool

Good quote. That's W in a nutshell, perhaps. 'Knowing what it is' is something banal like knowing how and when to invoke and respond to the familiar token. We can know what time it is without knowing what time is (if we insist on believing that time must be something in the first place...something more than a useful token.)

Introducing QM to a thread is a surefire way to ensure it goes for another twenty pages without being at all helpful. — Banno

I was explaining what I thought a case could be made either way, but recall that I also called it clever game, so I'm not trying to work through those 20 pages. As I see it, it's that kind of worry that Wittgenstein was trying to free himself and others from. There's no practical context here where the height matters, so it seems to be an expression of usage preference. No practical context leaves us with a free-for-all. The 'meaning' that most interests me is the noises and marks that climbers might use to survive together. What ought they do to avoid death? How do marks and noises figure into their total adaptive behavior ?

It does still feel a little funny having words like "truth" and "fact" around we've given definitions we can only aspire to use and never reach. I used to think a lot about the role of the ideal, as something that does have practical use. I'll have more time later tonight. — Srap Tasmaner

I do think 'truth' and 'fact' do lots of solid work in the real world, tho. It's us philosophers who can't help trying to do math with them, 'clarify' them, find some hidden center, understand them to point at something unreachable. You mention the ideal having a practical use. That makes sense to me, though maybe it's fairly indirect. I think of birds decorating their nests, suggestions of status, sophistication, sensitivity.

OK, I'll move. Your relentless optimism reminds me of a program, featured perhaps in a scene cut from The Matrix. Don't get me wrong. You add value. Another vegetable in the soup.

That's very close to how I look at it. Forced to choose, to act, to place our bets, to say one thing rather than another and then be accountable for what we say. All that.

I do still find it slightly curious that this shows up at the language level, but I probably just haven't thought about it hard enough. — Srap Tasmaner

I speculate that actual usage is just too complex for more than sketches. English runs on a brain with brains for neurons. Another example: how many bits are necessary to encode the skill of driving safely? Tesla might answer that for us, or at least give us an upper bound.

We won't be able to walk through the wall, no matter what we call it. That's all. — Banno

Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.

Sure, scepticism has been the fashion for quite some time. If it were kept as an attitude, as a method, there might be no issue. But folk talk of it as if it were a metaphysics; as if Everest really did not have a height until it was measured. — Banno

I'm no expert on QM, but...strictly speaking, scientifically...does it have height? One could also mumble about how Everest is not the same from moment to moment. If it has a height, its height varies, etc. But climber wouldn't need to worry about all these niceties. They'd just need a trustworthy estimate that allows them to bring the right amount of food and oxygen, etc.

We had a long discussion years ago in which he insisted that Mount Everest did not have a height until it was actually measured. — Banno

I think one could make a case either way, and that it would be a clever game. A particular practical context would treat the issue differently. Perhaps a probability distribution would be used to model the height.

We put the world in order by the way we talk about it. There are apples and chairs because that is what we say there are. We might have spoken differently.

But that's not to invite relativism; the world still inflicts itself upon us; what is the case will be the case regardless of how we express ourselves. We have to divide the world up somehow, we commit to the divisions handed to us by our community because they work. — Banno

I basically agree with you, but the 'what will be the case' part doesn't fit well with the rest IMO. I guess you can imagine some proto-matter thing-in-itself stuff that chugs along in the same way under all of our naming, but I'd stress that we live largely in the significant noises and marks we make. Those are even physical differences, right? But that's a small quibble.

We use inherited divisions that have worked, and we tinker with them to make them better or just to entertain ourselves. The world does indeed inflict itself on us, and that seems to be the real foundation of meaning. It's not just a game, though it's cute and illuminating to call it a (language) game. Predators that use signs to coordinate their hunting so that their cubs don't starve aren't playing a game. I think language is just a basic for us, though philosophers operate on the more well-fed playful end for the most part.

This is problematic for those who want there only to be belief - perhaps that's T Clark and @Olivier5; If all there is, is belief, then Kelly-Anne Conway wins, since her belief is as valid as theirs.

Throw out truth at your peril. — Banno

I think the thesis that there's only belief is more an expression of attitude. Because it's itself not offered as a mere belief but as a truth about facts or their absence. 'Call it what you will,' but we sometimes bring statements to the tribe that we want believed and acted upon.

Someone mentioned wagers. I think that's a good way to measure confidence/certainty. The practical world is central here, seems to me.

No matter how convinced we might be about reality eluding our beliefs about it, we have no choice but to talk in terms of facts and truth and what is the case. — Srap Tasmaner

Perhaps it has something to do with animals being forced to move, forced to act. 'Reality' is something like the model an animal is most likely to act on. The 'total sceptic' could only be some fantasy animal that wasn't forced to act and manifest something like belief.

I can imagine a valid sociological question in there somewhere. Perhaps that's what you have in mind.

Fun digression tho.

The green knight awaits.

How do facts obtain as true?

That question is what I wonder about facts... — Shawn

What form do you imagine a satisfactory answer to that question to have? To me it's very different than: 'how do helicopters manage to fly?' An answer to helicopter question can help someone build their own. But knowing 'how facts obtain as true' would be useful in what way?

To me such questions are almost like grunts, screeches, chirps...which is to say expressions of mood.

The upshot is that the sense is in a state of flux. Nevertheless we can maintain a distinction between what is the case, and what is believed to be the case; and mark this distinction with care by distinguishing fact from belief.Choose whatever words you will, this distinction must remain, since without it there can be no error, and without error we cannot improve our understanding. — Banno

:up:

Yeah, this distinction is too important to go away. I'd expect it to be found in every language.

Actually, I've always thought that hanging would be a good way to commit suicide if I ever want to do so. When I picture it, I always just tie a slip knot. It is my understanding the fancy-schmancy hangman's noose was developed as a way to break the hangee's neck when they are dropped from a gallows. — T Clark

I think pain pills and hypothermia might be interesting, a whole psychedelic death journey, with my last moments being perhaps the most exciting. If I did have to hang, I think I'd want to the broken neck. I'd prefer the guillotine though, if I had to offer my neck.

No that does not follow, imo. You will have to contend with a growing realization that everything is information. — Pop

Before I do a deep dive, would you mind arguing for its practical relevance for me? Or for the species?

To some extent that would be the case. But more specifically there is no way you can use Shannon info theory, to understand why information is such a valuable quantity today. How information shapes us. How it can be weaponized. How it can be used to control people, etc. — Pop

My sense is that now you are talking about data and AI. This stuff has obvious practical-political relevance.

How do we use knowledge - adequately justified beliefs? We use them to make decisions about possible actions.
...
First off, we don't generally need to establish facts "beyond a reasonable doubt." Sometimes we do, but not usually. Choosing the level of allowable doubt is a matter of human of judgement. You have to take into account the amount of uncertainty and the consequences of being wrong. This is something people do all the time. It's nothing exotic or even particularly philosophical. — T Clark

:up: :up: :up:

I think that you make an important point about blindspots. One model which I am aware of is Johari' s model , which involves various aspects of which we may be conscious of certain aspects about ourselves, and how feedback can increase our own knowledge about ourselves . I think self knowledge and awareness are an important aspect as a starting point for further and deeper knowledge of everything else. Indeed, our own blindspots, and understanding of them, may be an essential part of finding greater depth of knowledge. — Jack Cummins

Yeah, I agree with all of this. If you want self-knowledge, talk to lots of other people. Even the meaning of the words we use doesn't belong to us. The boundary between us and others is a legal fiction, one might say. The boundary between self and world is a useful evolving convention, and so on.

There are always divergent vested interests at play. I'm sure mathematicians, physicists, and engineers would have found Shannon's quantification of information more useful. However, this has resulted in much confusion about what information is, and what role it plays in life. — Pop

Temperamentally I'm in the pragmatist-positivist-instrumentalist camp. I don't deny that metaphysical talk can make people happier or even help genuine science at times. Nevertheless I can't help but object to 'everything is information.' If everything is, then nothing is (a difference that makes no difference.)

but because of Shannon's meaningless definition of information, many people are clueless as to what information is. — Pop

If that's the case (and I think it is), it's because info theory isn't sexy to those who aren't technically minded. Error correcting codes appeal to chess players, code golfers, etc. The precision is the appeal. It isn't smoke and hype. Currently I don't see how 'meaningful' uses of information are more than 'feel good' coats of verbal paint on the same old practical reality.

I don't recommend this. It's like when people teach themselves piano, — Antony Nickles

Well, I prefer (so far) to just pick up Wittgenstein. Or actually, once W breaks the ice, to just start paying more attention to the barks and moans and tweets we do. But this thread has largely focused on what X said about W.

Hacker will just reinforce a reading of Witt that is limited and unconsciously driven by the same forces Witt is trying to investigate. I would suggest Cavell's The Claim of Reason, in which he discusses Hacker, or, easier, the very short essay The Availability of the Later Wittgenstein. — Antony Nickles

I do appreciate your input, but this is more of 'X gets W right, unlike Y.' Ultimately I think we want to talk about reality. But we keep stacking on layers. Like what C said about H said about W said about reality. I'm not against that game in principle (sometimes its great), but in this context we all have access to the data. We all speak English. We can all just look, give examples and counterexamples.

That's kind of a personal preference. How do you evaluate any of that? — Shawn

The boring but honest answer is to just try it out. People go through phases and crazes, identifying with this or that heroic term or ism. Sometimes something sticks, and maybe 'it' has no name, doesn't need one, and is some vague fusion of all that's been tried.

I remember some philosopher being described as "asking ordinary questions about peculiar things and peculiar questions about ordinary things." I aspire to be so described. — Srap Tasmaner

I like that. I also like the idea of philosophy as a way to cut through the fog, be less confused, or, when confusion is inevitable, to be aware that one is confused. Calcified confusion can sound like common sense, as long as everyone is confused together.

In general, I agree, but in this case there is no science possible without some faith in the capacities of the human mind to understand the world. — Olivier5

I'd say that, yes, we manifest something like faith in our ability to adapt as we try to make sense of things. This 'faith' seems innate. Perhaps 'need' also works. We are thrown into this mess, with needs/motives we didn't choose. I need to eat something that won't make me sick and that will stop the hunger. I need to figure out how to chew my food without chewing my tongue. Eventually I need to program a satellite so that calls don't drop, so that I don't lose my job, etc.

.

I'm with you on that. Shannon's definition of informatiom as resolution of uncertainty doesn't go into meaning, in that it's deficient. — TheMadFool

To have gone into meaning would have made him another opining poet-philosopher. Imagine sending a stream of bits elsewhere with each bit having a 1/5 chance of flipping along the way. What would you do to counteract that noise? Crude solution: send each bit 9 times in a row. Decode nine-bit blocks by a majority rule. Now what's the chance of losing that bit? It's the chance that 5 or more of the bits are flipped, far smaller than 1/5, but at the cost of 1/9 the speed in transmission. This detail if offered to suggest the flavor of the enterprise. Adding metaphysical blah-blah about 'meaning' would have contaminated it.

Hey, speak for yourself. Your mind might be obscure, but mine isn't. — Olivier5

:smile:

I mean that the concept of mind has allowed philosophers to generate centuries of argument without obtaining consensus as to what, if anything, they are even talking about.

Is 'being funny' material? Can humour be weighted or measured in any way? We don't even know what humour is, and yet we couldn't live without it. — Olivier5

If you are asking semi-seriously, then I'd say that we don't tend to paste the word 'material' on funny stuff. We use the word for things like old tired, an egg sandwich. Then 'immaterial' is used for other cases...something like that. For me there's the first issue of what we want to call which and the second issue how seriously we take this labeling game. 'Anti-metaphysical' philosophy, as I see it, is not focused on calling this or that metaphysical claim incorrect. Instead it tries to show the entire game of such claims in a new light. Just because we have a noun, doesn't mean we have a new entity we can be quasi-scientific about. It's all too easy to be arguing about appropriate usage as if some profound investigation of hidden things is involved.

How do we tell good philosophy from bad philosophy? More philosophy? — Tom Storm

Good question. How do we tell good food from bad food? Good art from bad art? It's something like: makes you happier, more effective. But what is 'happy' and 'effective'? Something plays out beyond all the barks and tweets we make.

I'm stealing that. — Banno

Thx. :party: :death:

You think? I find it a bit sad that those hereabouts are so ready to dispatch truth to the backroom. — Banno

To me the everyday uses of 'truth' are safe and sound. It's one of those primary words. You just gotta know how to use and react to it. I guess the issue is whether the study of truth (and/or 'truth') should belong to philosophers or linguists.

...but pragmatism would have us throw out the sketch and draw something else. Failing to see the distinction between truth and belief they see belief can change and decide nothing is true. — Banno

Pragmatism is a big tent though. And I relate more to empiricism anyway, in the broad sense of look and see. I think we humans can't help but care about truth, call it what we will. Even the suicidal want to tie a good noose.

Are philosophers experts on some strange entity known as 'truth'? Or are they experts on a particular conversation ? Do they use 'truth' more effectively than others in the world outside this specialized conversation ? I don't know. But it doesn't seem like the same skill.

I have said that a fact is what's asserted by a true proposition. Now, if you disagree then kindly tell me what you'd call what's asserted by a true proposition. — Bartricks

I don't dislike that definition in particular. The point is how you came up with it. Instead of talking about how a token tends to be exchanged, it's as if you are pronouncing truths about the supposed referents of these tokens. On what authority? In the real world, I have to worry about the many, many ways that 'fact' might be used by all kinds of people...and very little about the views of 'specialists' in such matters. (The idea of a 'specialist' in such a basic competence is a little absurd, like a professional chewer or walker.)

I don't know if you've come across Bartricks in your wandering through the forum yet. He likes to insult people rather than engage in a collegial discussion. — T Clark

I find his insults amusing, to tell the truth. He's the straight man in his philosophical earnestness, and yet he'll shift into Tony Clifton when annoyed or frustrated. Fascinating combination.

There's an ambiguity to the word 'is' that makes questions such as "what is a fact?" ambiguous. — Bartricks

Yes, ambiguity. I agree. I suspect it's only practical concern that keeps us from floating away in the fog of our language. A beaver builds dams. We write novels, sure that there's some extra dimension of 'meaning' involved. But what if we view our tokens (words) like sticks that a monkey might use to fish out a grub? What if some final clarity was itself the vaguest of projects?

insight into what a fact is made of, so to speak. — Bartricks

So to speak, figurative language. A metaphor. What are little boys facts made of? Statements and truth. That's what facts are made of. Does that satisfy? Facts are strings of iterable tokens, spoken or written or telepathically transmitted in their pure transparent non-linguistic form.

Are you making empirical claims? Inferences from assumptions?? What case do you make ? My big point is that none of us control the use of these tokens. They are like the furniture of the social world. In that sense, we are in meaning, navigating signs that indicate promise and danger.

To my ears, talk about 'facts' and 'propositions' that isn't about usage is like talk about knights, bishops, and queens in chess. How are facts studied examined directly, as opposed to analyzing actual usage?

It's akin to answering the philosophical question "what is yellow" with "bananas". — Bartricks

That's another zinger. There's an anti-metaphysician within you, clawing its way out.

Even if it were true, it would not tell us what a fact itself 'is'. — Bartricks

But you'll have to fix the sentence above. As I asked elsewhere, what is the form of the answer that could tell you what a fact is? What more can you ask for than a definition...a context-relevant description of usage? What's a shovel? Well, we use it to dig, see. No, I mean what is a shovel, really? It's as if there's an ultra-vague Beyond that haunts metaphysics.