That's about metaphysical de re/de dicto. That's a question about whether what I believe about you is a property of you, or is it just a relation between me and a proposition. Or something like that.

De re is about something. — Shawn

It sure is.

That's you about to get pooped on.

It's like a medical syndrome. If you have 5 of 8 symptoms, you have ADHD, but no one is essential. — Hanover

I think you at least have to have a common origin for all the possible versions of you. Like could you have been born female?

Not in de re modality. — Shawn

I don't think "de re" is a kind of modality. It's an aspect of intensional speech, like "Brian believes someone likes potato chips."

This seems the answer implicit in the phrase "identity and necessity." That which we identify and define as a specific entity, by necessity is that specific thing, existing in but one world. To allow it in other worlds, eliminates its identity — Hanover

True, although there seems to be a spectrum from a completely defined entity (like Superman as we know him) all the way to a Superman who is radically different from ours, so that the rigid designator, "Superman" is almost devoid of any essential properties. I think @Banno likes the latter extreme where rigid designators are hollowed out, although I think he would agree that we can't hollow them out completely because that would become meaningless.

For the most part, we do have some essential properties in mind when we talk about hypotheticals.
Those properties may be specifically mentioned, or we may discern them from context. But however those essential properties are specified, they become necessary in the context of the statements in which they appear, even though we also know they're contingent.

The point of it is just to explore the way we think and speak.

De re modality, to answer your question... — Shawn

De re and de dicto are about how one interprets an ambiguous statement. How does that tell us something about how some guy in an alternate universe is Superman?

So what makes Superman be Superman, if not for his being also Clark Kent? — Hanover

Imagine Lois travels to an alternate universe where Superman landed in Mexico instead of Iowa. He was raised by the Cortez family and they named him Julio.

So what makes this guy Superman?

In the early part he's basically explaining the problems with looking at proper names as descriptions.

We learn empirically that Hesperus is Phosphorus. This couldn't be so if those two words were descriptions.

Surely the quote by Bohr implies idealism, ie everything is consciousness. That’s certainly what Mr Wayfarer seemed to think. — Tom Storm

Probably, but I wasn't talking about idealism or the measurement problem. I was talking about using quantum theory to explain how the brain works. That's what Penrose was doing.

Penrose is a Mathematical Platonist, isn’t he? Does this make him an idealist more generally? — Tom Storm

Mathematical platonism is the default among mathematicians. It doesn't mean he's an idealist. It's just a stance about whether math reduces to particular instances of calculation or if it's a field we discover.

Far as I know it goes back to the very foundations of QM - Niels Bohr was a kind of idealist and often seen as a mystic (certainly by Einstein) and often quoted here by wayfarer. A Bohr quote that launched a thousand Deepak Chopras — Tom Storm

I'm not talking about the measurement problem. Penrose speculated that we should look to quantum mechanics for a theory of how consciousness works. Those speculations continue.

I don't read much pop sci; — Janus

But you know that people have been thinking about a possible link between consciousness and quantum mechanics at least since Penrose.

I'm not sure what that could mean, but if it is so, we don't know about it anyway. — Janus

There's a theory. Don't you read pop sci?

The beetle may actually be public due to quantum entanglement.

In particular, the axiom of regularity precludes certain kinds of sets that otherwise would be consistent to say they exist. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Like what?

And you seem to be "enthralled" by some vague recollection of shards and snippets of the life of A.E. Waite (you called him "some guy" earlier). — Ying

It wasn't Waite. Waite was a Golden Dawn guy. The tarot had become attached to the occult before the Golden Dawn even existed. It was some French guy who was supposed to have seen the cards being used by gypsies.

Anyway, yeah, I focus on the issue that tarot cards are playing cards. Because it might just be relevant to the discussion. Or, we could just talk about imaginary tarot cards with a made up history or something. I know I'm bowing out then. — Ying

It's vaguely related that the cards were originally for games. There are people now who use regular card decks to do divination. It's that the four suits align nicely with the four elements and the face cards line up with the three states (known in India as the three gunas).

Notice 4 suits x 3 face cards = 12

12 has been a significant symbolic number for ages: 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, 13 signs of the zodiac, etc.

My guess is that the creators of the cards dropped into worn cultural grooves. That made them ripe for later profound symbolism.

Some guy described the cards as God's Chessboard. It's a garden of symbolism that goes on and on. It's really pretty fascinating.

ds

Yes. It was originally a deck for card games. You appear to be enthralled by that fact. :lol:

What I'm saying is that those cards started out as playing cards. — Ying

Yeah, I know. They almost disappeared altogether until some guy saw gypsies using them for divination and he decided they must be ancient wisdom from Egypt (I guess because the gypsies he knew were Egyptian.). Through him the cards travelled into occult groups like the Golden Dawn.

Any deck you see now is decorated with symbols that link them up to astrology and/or cabalism, so Benj is correct that as we've received them, tarot decks are designed to ping archetypes as they appear in astrology.

nlb

Gypsies used the old game decks for divination before they were adopted by occult people. Obviously the deck has been redesigned a thousand times since then, so Benj is correct.

Perhaps a thread on Identity and necessity? — Banno

Sounds fun!

Oh, yes. But the lectern is identified via it's description - being wood - so in effect he is saying "the wooden lectern is necessarily made of wood".

The example is found in the article Identity and necessity, not Naming and Necessity. Bottom of p.178. (the link is a dreadful PDF - anyone have a better copy?). — Banno

Oh. Thanks for the correction.

According Kripke, his wooden lectern is made of wood in every possible world where that lectern exists. There are all sorts of properties we could change and still have the same lectern, but being wooden isn't one of them.

It's an essential property. Do you disagree with him about this?

Kripke brought up possible worlds as an aid to understanding how modality works. There are ways of parsing modal expressions that turn them into nonsense, and I think MU would be inclined to do that. He'd say we can't assert that Nixon could have lost, because if he lost, that wouldn't be Nixon.

I think this confusion arises from trying to do something ontological with modal expressions, when that's not the intent behind them. We're generally just playing with logical or metaphysical possibility, and that's the way possible worlds should be taken: as logical hypotheses.

That was pre-pandemic. I'm not the same person I was then.

I'm surprised you remember. I think there's something specific you wanted out of it and you ignored the rest.

We were talking about Naming and Necessity, by Kripke. Banno got the naming part, the necessity part, not so much.

:lol: Read the essay.

But if his memory is what determines that "Mww" refers to Mww, — Banno

I didn't say that. The intentions of the speaker determines what "Mww" refers to.

We know that a rigid designator picks out the very same individual every possible world. — Banno

In every possible world where that individual occurs. When we say Nixon might have lost the election, the only possible worlds we're looking at are the ones in which he ran. That he ran for office is made essential to "Nixon" by the intentions of the speaker.

I'm not going to explain that again. Just read the essay.

It looks like you're trying to pin down "Mww" to the same meaning in every statement.
— frank
Well, that's the point of using rigid designators. — Banno

Oh dear.

The homunculus is what allows oneself to adapt to such a wide range of environmental factors, like what you describe. — Metaphysician Undercover

It looks like you're pretty firmly wedded to the idea of a Cartesian theatre. I'm not, but it does occasionally jar me to know that I'm a product of chemicals and customs. :grimace:

"Mww" is a rigid designator. It picks out the same individual in every possible world. It picks out Mww in those possible worlds in which Mww lost his memory. — Banno

Remember that possible world semantics is about analyzing particular statements. This starts with understanding what a speaker intends.

It looks like you're trying to pin down "Mww" to the same meaning in every statement. It doesn't work that way.

Hence we might say "Mww lost his memory", and not resort to "There was someone who was once Mww, but they lost their memory, and so are no longer Mww". — Banno

Sure. This does not preclude the making of statements in which a particular memory, or a particular evolution of memory is essential to the subject of the statement.

But then Mww would cease to be an individual, rigidly designated by "Mww". — Banno

That's incorrect. It appears that you ignored most of the essay.

When we say his memories are essential, we're saying that in all possible worlds where this particular Mww exists, he has these memories. It's basically part of our definition of him.

Just like Kripke's wood lectern. In every possible world where that lectern exists, it's wood. That's why wood becomes essential. It's a matter of the object of the statement.

If Mww subsequently loses his memory, what is now essential? It's all a matter of what we're trying to say.

Hence his memories are not essential to his being Mww. — Banno

They are if they're essential to the Mww we're talking about. Look back at the aposteriori necessity.

Oh good grief.

Yes. If being made of wood is essential to what you mean by "that lectern" then that's an essential property, even though you learn about it a posteriori.

Mww and I were just talking about long-term memory, and we could say Mww's evolving memory is an essential feature of the guy in question, even though things could have been different.

It's tricky, but cool.

Individuals need not have an essence. — Banno

According to Kripke, they always do.

And is there any chance that an immigrant in a no-go area stuggling to make ends meet taking multiple jobs, a striving family father in a lower middle class area, an a middle-aged woman, born in a habitat rich on cultural and social capital having chosen an occupation of interest and following progressive values to do something good with her life, could three persons like that be unified as a ”people”? — Ansiktsburk

Whether the last two can both see themselves as members of the same group depends on the circumstances. There has to be a basis for unity like religion, ethnicity, or nationalism. Sometimes exterior threats unify people across economic lines.

The immigrants are a different story. They can be like invisible members of the community. For instance, there is slavery in the US, but few know about it. It's immigrants who have fallen prey to exploiters. Even if law enforcement tries to help them, they lie about the conditions they're in because they've been threatened. They have little hope except to know that their children will be American citizens.

One of the reasons they come to the US is that their own countries are in turmoil. In many cases this stems from previous American action designed to cripple them.

So ultimately, there needs to be a global authority who can put a stop to behavior of the kind the US has demonstrated. That would help immigrants everywhere.

Yes. We were talking about his organization, not his goals.

I’ve had a dozen occupations, both professional and incidental, yet I’m still just lil’ ol’ me. — Mww

There are certain kinds of childhood trauma that result in dissociative personality disorder. People who have that don't report what you do.

The fact that you do indicates that you didn't have that trauma, and your short term memory is being stored properly. A lot of this happens when you're asleep. That's just the tip of the iceberg of environmental, cultural, and biological elements that go hand in hand when your sense of self. So it's just hard to imagine how your self could be independent of your body.

Can the interest which makes one good at something, and conversely the lack of it that makes him not so good, be predicated on cultural or environmental influences? — Mww

Sometimes. If you teach a girl that females are bad at math, voila, she doesn't put any effort into it, and subsequently sucks at it.