Thank you very much. I can get my teeth into this. I won't complain that you've sent me too much. I just hope that my reply isn't too much and that we don't lose too much in the course of discussion.

The present state of my general descriptions of the two great modes: science/humanities goes as follows: science asks: what is existence? Humanities asks: how is human? — ucarr

So that's why you posited "What" and "How" at the beginning! (I'm still wondering where "Why?" fits in).

For science the focal point is on measurement. For humanities the focal point is on consciousness. — ucarr

I like the first sentence, because it explains why mathematics is so necessary to science. It is the methodological decision at the start of what we now call science.
I'm less happy with the second sentence, for reasons that may appear later.

When you measure something you contain it. Containment of existing things drives toward understanding. — ucarr

H'm.

When you experience something you assemble a continuity of knowing-what-it’s-like into a narrative of an enduring point of view, your personal history. — ucarr

That's true. But is it relevant? I suppose we'll see.
I may be naive, but I thought the whole point of "knowing-what-it's-like" is that it can't be turned into propositional knowledge and hence not into a narrative.
I would have thought that if you were going to ask this kind of question, you would have looked at the existentialists. That's exactly their point - that the start of understanding is the lived world into which we are thrown. But I hope you are not going to turn the Humanities into a matter of personal history.

Every human individual is both scientist and artist. The human individual needs both the understanding of measurement and the knowing-what-it’s-like of a personal history in order to live. No understanding? No personal history? No life. — ucarr

In a sense, that's true. As a matter of history, it can't be. Or are you saying that no-one before the Egyptians invented arithmetic had a personal history? I don't think so. So it needs a bit more explanation.

The scientist measures, i.e., she sounds the dimensions of a thing, thereby revealing the what of a mysterious thing that mystifies her own knowledge of the what of her being until she finally surrenders her understanding to a radically new picture of the what of the state of being of herself. — ucarr

So if you assemble enough measurements, you'll develop a new understanding of yourself? I would have thought you need more than that.
Why and how did you start measuring in the first place?
Where did your pre-measurement picture of the what of the state of your own being come from?

The artist assembles a continuity of knowing-what-it’s-like into an arc of change and discovery that is a personal history through the start of adventures, the middle section assessing battles won/lost and finally reaching the summit/plateau of a new state of the how of her being. — ucarr

I can see how you are developing your starting-point. But this is perilously close to a stipulated definition. I have a feeling that it would not correspond to the actual life and practice of actual artists, never mind what they might say if you ask them.

Logic and math cover the two great modes thus: scientifically they mark and track the what of the position of the state of being; artistically they narrate a continuity of the direction of the how of being towards a conclusion of the what-it’s-like to reside in validity-as-truth, or not. — ucarr

I'm glad you are locating logic and math as an exception in the what/how dualism and sad that you're just combining the two. I think that what you say boils down to the idea that logic and math underpin both "what" and "how", defining the permanent framework of possibility for both. Is that what you are saying?

In each mode, one of the greatest mysteries is the location of the inflection point linking the immaterial and the material. This linkage and its circumambient mystery establish the wholely picture of life: substance grounding immanent form endlessly variable, albeit grounded within the ambiguity that animates the what and the how. — ucarr

Not quite the hard problem, but close.
The urgent questions here are:-
Are these mysteries soluble or not?
If not, how are we to live with them? (There's no question of understanding them, is there?)
If they are, is it the artist or the scientist or both who will "solve" them? Or do we each solve them for ourselves when we construct our personal histories?

The idea that science and art are both necessary for what Aristotle would call a good human life is fine by me. ("No life" is a bit extreme, don't you think?)

My big trouble with this is that you seem to be pursuing a quite different project from the one in the title. The Humanities are not pursuing a personal project. They don't have and they don't pursue what you might call scientific objectivity. How could they? Why should they? But they do have their methods and their standards. You don't recognize that and so confuse the Humanities disciplines with the practices of the arts, which the Humanities study, but do not perform.

The idea that each of constructs a personal history based on our experience has a lot to be said for it.
But it doesn't touch any of the Humanities disciplines.
Historians would likely not call that history, but memoir - because it does not even try to be objective; nor should it. It's fine as it is. An objective personal history would be a biography, and that's a different enterprise. Memoir is a literary form and so is open to study by Literature, but it isn't the study of Literature. You seem to have forgotten that philosophy belongs here, and I'm sure you don't think that is a matter of constructing a memoir.

To be sure, the Sciences start from measurement, but measurement on its own is just data. The sciences develop theories to enable us to understand the data and it is no more than stamp-collecting without it. (Stamp-collecting isn't just gathering stamps into albums either - or at least it can become more, but that's another story).

I think you are being misled by the binary distinction between objective (science) and subjective (everything else) and by the rhetorical effect of ("What is it like to be a bat?"). That question is genius. It manages to persuade us that it can be answered yet cannot be at the same time.

Speaking of looking through lenses, someone who studies humanities would likely disagree with the idea that science deals with "what" and humanities deal with "how". From a certain perspective, if humanities is the focal point, then it is the what, and science is just about understanding the universe in which events happen. — Igitur

I do like the lens metaphor - it seems to me to be very useful and I shall use it at every opportunity.

There are clearly hidden depths to the definition that @ucarr gave. Whether it is somehow about self-reference or formalisms, there are interesting and important issues at play. But I have a sense that this is a definition from the perspective of science. So here is a perspective from someone who studies humanities (if the term can be applied to at least some of philosophy).

Our sense that science and the humanities are different arises from the fact that there are different ontologies (which are defined by their practices and languages) in play. However, ontologies and practices don't necessarily line up neatly with the standard catalogue of subjects - or even with each other. Academic departments are, presumably, formed on the assumption that each subject/discipline is an interest group and/or a collegial group. That is not false, but it is well to remember that each subject/discipline/academic group is itself riven with battles of all sorts, in which the definition of the group itself may be at stake.
It's an intellectual mess - but then, that's a field of special interest to philosophy. From my point of view, we do well to ask, before getting embroiled in this marsh, what, in Wittgenstein's terms, our real needs are. To understand that, we need to go back to the historical (and legendary) time when the distinction was formulated, when the intellectual and framework and space for what we now call "science" was developed. This was also, at the same time, an intellectual and social battle.
Since then science has become dominant in our lives, and it is the intellectual and social space for the humanities that is at stake. (I won't mention cuckoos and eggs). The issue has not changed much. But I wonder if we would find it easier to make progress if we stopped amalgamating a complicated and multi-dimensional issue into one, and treated the various sub-issues piecemeal, leaving the grand distinction to fall into place (or to fall into disuse) as it may. That may seem boringly familiar, but I would have thought that analytic philosophers would find it of interest.

Science is about understanding the universe, humanities are about understanding our past (generally) and philosophy is about understanding where we, either as individuals or as a larger group, fit into that universe. — Igitur

It would, surely, be more accurate to say the science is about understanding the universe conceived of as a machine, or the universe insofar as mathematics can be applied to it. Philosophy certainly includes how we fit in, but also includes the question how far the scientific project fits in to the universe. Are you assuming that the study of literature and history are essentially philosophical? That's an interesting thought. I think there's a case to be made.

There are discussions that don't aim to answer that question, but I feel as though that particular "Why" is the main reason people try to create or improve philosophies, or feel drawn to it. — Igitur

You may be right. But, surely, in the end, the question why people are drawn to philosophy is empirical.

Formalisms measure regularities of nature. You say (above) regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact. Since formalisms measure regularities of nature, and regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact, formalisms measure concrete matters of fact. — ucarr

No they don't. As I wrote: formalisms ARE USED to measure or describe the regularities of nature (e.g. arithmetic IS USED to count apples in a barrel). — 180 Proof

Are you both sure that the difference between you is not just a question of language. I can't see what is at stake here.

Yes, true; though they still have a correspondence to the same area of reality, which injects redundancy. — Apustimelogist

Well, yes. It is redundancy in one sense, but it has a point, which makes it not entirely redundant. There has to be something that the picture/map have in common, to establish that they are different pictures/maps/models of the same thing. So we seem to be agreed.

If I may, I would like to try another example. When your flat-pack arrives, it is not a bookcase, but a set of parts for a bookcase. We can lay them all out on the floor, count them, check them. Now, what needs to happen to make it a bookcase? All the parts are there. Nothing needs to be added. What’s the problem? Easy, the parts need to be put together as designed.

So the list of parts of the bookcase is complete, but leaves out something. But it doesn't leave out another part. It leaves out the design. The design is not a physical object; it is an abstract object - it belongs in a different category from the parts. Yet it is not less basic or more fundamental than the parts.

Well I don't want to take this example too seriously but surely these distinctions are more or less at the same scale or granularity? At the same time, the mapping of a whole grain is mapping to the same part of reality as mappings to different parts of the grain so there is a redundancy. The parts mapping is mapping to the same part only it makes more distinctions, more information. The coarser grain mapping ignores distinctions that exist. — Apustimelogist

Yes, but the coarser grain mapping enables you to supply what the fine grain mapping leaves out - the whole that the fine grain mapping can't present. Think seeing the wood (coarse grain) and seeing the trees (fine grain). The two mappings are interdependent and both necessary for a comprehensive understanding.

You're trolling me now. — fishfry

Not intentionally. If I've upset you, I apologize.

You could post something on the public area, at least that way we'd get some fresh meat once in a while. — fishfry

Yes, that would be good. But maybe other people prefer something noisier - more exciting.

I used to be a liberal too. Something happened over the years. — fishfry

That's what happened to me.

My vote literally doesn't count. — fishfry

True. I still vote, but my expectations are low. It's more of a ritual than anything real. And yet...

Now we're into building regulations? — fishfry

It's just that I'm so angry about the total mess and the expectation it won't be solved.

I can sum it up in a cartoon I saw the other day. — fishfry

Here's my most depressing thought. Tyranny and freedom are not opposites. What's tyranny to you is freedom to someone else. What's freedom to you is tyranny to someone else. Oversimplified, I know - there's always compromise. Which is not a solution, just a way of making do.

You are justifying evil by saying there's always been evil. Fine. — fishfry

NOT justifying, I'm trying to work out how to live with omnipresent evil, without indulging in cop-out evasions - blaming Government or Capital or Original Sin. I think I'm closest to Voltaire's "Candide"? Or Kurt Vonnegut's "so it goes" - or perhaps Hamlet's "The rest is silence". Yet obstinately and stupidly, life goes on. It's better than the alternative, I suppose.

I haven't anything better to do!! LOL. Am I leaving too soon for your taste? I don't mean to be short. I just haven't got anything else to say. — fishfry

You've been saying that for a while now. I'm in the same boat. So now we're talking about the fact that neither of us has anything else to say. Absurd, and yet, here we are.

Recent developments in the West are very concerning. Robert Reich, Clinton's Secretary of Labor, just called for "reining in" Elon Musk. — fishfry

Why does that concern you? Everybody who has power has an opposition. The opposition always thinks that those with power should be "reined in" or crushed. (Actually, if you think about it, that's really a very mild comment compared with what some people say). Most people with power are either "reined in" by the opposition or their own failures. I've no idea whether Musk will be reined or crash and burn. At the moment, it's impossible to tell which it is to be. The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned. There'll only be another like him afterwards.

There are many other examples. You talk about Putin and Xi but you don't seem concerned about the creeping -- actually now galloping -- authoritarianism and censorship in the west. I'm very concerned; you much less so. So I don't think my point was unfair. For a Brit to ignore these issues lately I find very strange. They're putting people in jail in your country for very anodyne online comments. — fishfry

It depends what you think is anodyne. Compared to the way that some people carry on (without being thrown in jail), it probably is anodyne. But most people's comments are just hot air - unpleasant, but not harmful. Look at the consequences.
There was a famous speech in the 60's by a Conservative politician named Enoch Powell, in which he drew everyone's attention to the flood of immigration into Britain, painted a terrible picture of the abolition of the "British way of life" and announced that there would be "rivers of blood" in the end. Was he reporting? Or was he inciting? I don't know what his motivation was, but I know what happened as a result. It wasn't rivers of blood, but it did involve bloodshed and it was very ugly.
You may have seen the reports of the report released about the fire in Grenfell Tower. Everybody is very shocked and horrified. In a way, so am I. But I have known it was coming ever since the then Government relaxed the building regulations. It was only ever a matter of when and where. It was obvious. It was also always obvious that when it happened most people involved would say it was not their fault, even though it is obvious that they all contributed. No clean hands.
There has never been a golden age when there was no censorship, no authoritarian squelching of opposition. It was ever so, it will always be so.
I'm a somewhat old-fashioned middle-of-the-road liberal and I felt more comfortable 20 or 30 years ago. I grew up in the post-WW2 consensus/settlement. It was never what it seemed to be and it fell apart anyway. (If you want a date, it was the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 that did it.) Once that has happened to you, you never, ever buy in to anything else with the same innocent, deluded conviction.

I'm kind of running out of steam on this site. Might need to wrap this up soon. — fishfry

If you do decide not to continue, that's fair enough. I wouldn't want to (couldn't) detain you if you have better things to do. So long as you aren't leaving for the same reason that you left the Lounge. Better to let me know when you make your decision, so's I know what's going on. If and when I make the same decision, I will let you know. OK?

A master or slave in isolation would be like a part disconnected from the whole, and in both cases the lack of cooperation or communion will make their lives worse than what they otherwise would be. — Leontiskos

Why do you assume that a natural leader with no people to lead and a slave without a master to serve will inevitably live in isolation. Why cannot they live in society?
Come to think of it, he divides Greek society into two groups "the many" and "the few", natural slave and natural leaders. Natural slavery is not necessarily legal slavery and vice versa, it would seem. So maybe that is what he is thinking. I'm finding this very confusing. I think this would all have been a lot clearer if we could just drop the bit about slavery and talk about leaders and followers. It is at least plausible that anyone who is not a leader is a follower. Then we could say, with a clear conscience that natural leaders with natural followers makes for a peaceful society and the people who are not natural leaders may become leaders, but they will be poor leaders, and vice versa for followers. There would still be arguments about it, but at least what is at stake would be clear and make sense.

Yes, I agree. — Leontiskos

I'm glad about that.

It seems to me that universal equality means that the same things are appropriate to each. Or at least it often means this, or leans in this direction. A kind of classlessness. — Leontiskos

But now I'm a bit confused. It is just obvious that there are some things that are in common between all human beings (whether by essence (definition) or by accident (empirically)) and other things that are not. So yes, everyone is equally entitled to vote and equally entitled to a fair trial.
So perhaps I should reformulate a principle of non-discrimination, which requires that people are not discriminated either in favour or against on irrelevant grounds. Aristotle specifically picks out the case of Helen of Troy claiming that the fact that her parents were divine meant that she had special privileges. Aristotle rejects that. So it looks as if he believed in that principle. Does that help?
I'm all for classlessness. But there's nothing wrong with distinguishing between classes of people when the criterion of membership is relevant. (People who are sick and people who are well).

What I mean by information here is purely about distinctions one can signal that map to distinctions in reality. — Apustimelogist

So a map of a single grain of sand cannot signal distinctions between grains, and a map of the inside of a grain cannot signal the whole grain, and a map of part of the beach cannot signal the dune at the back of the beach.

What I am saying isn't to do with the pragmatics of navigating one's picture of the universe. It is not really about strong reductions as in the wikipedia descriptions I gave. — Apustimelogist

Well, I'm picking up what you said about large-scale and small-scale models/maps/descriptions/theories.
Now, I don't understant what your doctrines are to do with. They are not to do with navigating the scale of them or about strong reductions. Yet you keep saying things that look like strong reductions and then denying that they are. What is what you are saying to do with? I'm at a loss to understand.

I'm not sure whether you are saying that the analysis of water as H2O captures all the information about it.
— Ludwig V
I'm just saying when you make observations at finer, smaller scale, you get more information. — Apustimelogist

You really hate an example, don't you? Nothing but large-scale generalizations. So you miss the detail.

In the sense of distinctions. Finer-grained observations make distinctions that do not exist for coarse-grained observations even though they may be mapping to the same sets of events. — Apustimelogist

Yes, they certainly do. But then you don't get the bigger (larger-scale) picture. Then you can't see the wood for the trees. You may know the wood is there, but that's only because you've looked at a larger scale picture. The larger-scale picture doesn't tells you about the wood, but not the trees. The smaller-scale picture tells you about the trees, but not the wood.

Its not about information in the picture but information about the unobservable reality beyond. — Apustimelogist

You don't get information about the unobservable reality beyond the picture. It's unobservable in the picture. So it is observable, but only in a different picture.

Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities. — Apustimelogist

That seems to fit what you are saying pretty well.
But I do accept that you are not claiming that because a glass of water consists of H2O, the water doesn't really exist.
I'm not sure whether you are saying that the analysis of water as H2O captures all the information about it. But I do think you might be.

On the other hand, it seems almost tautologically the case that if you examine reality at the finest details, you will have more information about it in the sense of being able to make distinctions - specifically in the sense of correspondence ideas about truth. — Apustimelogist

What do you mean "more information"?

Larger scale maps have less detail than smaller scale maps, but wider scope. I wouldn't know how to answer which has more information. Ditto pictures.
A picture of something close up which is 5" x 7" or 100,000 pixels has the same amount of information whether it is a picture of a landscape or a picture of a molecule.

An X-ray gives us information that we cannot get without it. But it loses information that an ordinary camera does capture. A camera cannot capture smells and sounds. A microphone cannot capture the weather (or not all of the weather. Different kinds of information are relevant.

When you think of a bishop threatening a king, your are thinking of the bishop in a wider context than if you are thinking of the bishop as an aesthetic or historic object. When you are thinking of a bishop as a physical object, you lose the context of the actual game and the aesthetic and historical context, but gain the physical properties of the bishop - down to its molecular constitution.

With that said, Aristotle is great once you get the hang of him. — Leontiskos

I agree. He is not easy, however. It is a mistake to think that you can read him once and get your head around. Everything is interconnected. Very little is easy to grasp from a contemporary view-point. The contrast is very instructive.

Maybe. Impatience is a big driver of the way that debates go. The media (or their readers) do not have the patience for going slowly and paying attention to detail. Everything has to be a slogan - three words - preferably monosyllables and no more than two syllables.

My theory is that the people who might make a fist of the job are reluctant to take it one. One of the things that has changed in the last 3 or 4 decades is that the media scrutiny is much more effective and much, much noisier.

To clarify and or get rid of certain words or tendencies that prevent discussion from advancing.
This applies to a lot of metaphysics and a part of epistemology.
But as for ethics or aesthetics, I don't think ordinary language helps much, because we are dealing with facets of life which we have less depth of insight. And when there is depth of insight, what we can say about it amounts to very little: — Manuel

I'm inclined to agree with you.

Why should we be just?
Why should we not do evil?
Why is this beautiful?
These questions have answers which don't give much depth of insight. They tend to be rather trivial but are nonetheless crucial issues for life. — Manuel

Yes. I'm inclined to think that the problem is that they are too general. People do manage to have better discussions about specific issues within (and sometimes between) those categories.

My first example was 'we only ever see indirectly' – a claim that 'seeing' is always, with no exception, indirect. And my second example was the one you raised: 'all bachelors are unmarried'. These are both claims that admit of no exception. But to me, one of them seems like nonsense and the other one seems meaningful (in a limited way). I'm trying to work out why that is. — cherryorchard

At first, I thought that I would say that your second example is grammatical - a la Wittgenstein - and the second is not. But a second thought gives me pause. Remember, we have that argument that there is a contrast - seeing a sense-datum/experience/impression is seeing directly. So your first example becomes "Seeing an object is always, with no exception, indirect". But then experiences (etc.) are objects ("I see a red patch"), so it becomes "Seeing a physical object is always, without exception, indirect." So it looks empirical, until we realize that there is nothing that would count as seeing a physical object directly, and then it becomes grammatical. There are complications with the first that we do not find with the second. (Though I could invent some, if you want to explore an entirely trivial rabbit-hole.) The reason the first is nonsense to you is that you have a philosophical position (a grammar) and so interpret the first in a certain way. This reflects back on the contrast theory and explains why the philosophers who are accused of holding it by Gellner never articulated it.

Seeing something in a mirror is another example – e.g., 'From where I was sitting, I couldn't see the door directly, but I could see it in the mirror.' That sounds like ordinary language to me. — cherryorchard

I'll buy that.

ysyti'I couldn't see the airplane directly but I could see it with my binoculars' does not strike me as a familiar use of the word 'directly'. If you wanted to explain that you could only see the plane with binoculars, you might say something like: 'it wasn't visible with the naked eye'. The word 'directly' wouldn't ordinarily be used like that. But I suppose if someone was just chatting and not being mindful of how they expressed themselves, they might say 'I couldn't see it directly'. — cherryorchard

Good point.

I suppose elucidating the specific usage suggests that 'directly' and 'indirectly' only work in contrast to one another. But it doesn't prove as much. Or does it? — cherryorchard

What it suggests is that when we look at examples carefully, we find that a yes/no answer is difficult to impossible to sustain. That is a position that Gellner does not seem to recognize.

My point in offering the example is not to prove a point, but to help articulate what we are talking about. You suggest seeing with the naked eye - i.e. without equipment. Which makes perfect sense. Except that it hands an opening to the sense-datum theories to ask whether my eye is not the equipment by means of which I see. So it needs to be formulated more carefully. I think that dualism is the philosophical doctrine (actually assumption) behind the entire argument.

Oops!. Perhaps the example we are looking for is the philosophical doctrine of monism. Not necessarily, provided we don't deny dualism. That's why these philosophers tend not to actually deny dualism.

Can anyone think of any word that is meaningful without a contrast? I haven't seen an example yet. — cherryorchard

No-one seems to have come up with one yet. And yet I don't think anyone has decisively endorsed or rejected Gellner's theory.

It does not pay to assume that a word must have an opposite, or one opposite, — Austin,

I think that Austin has it exactly right. Notice that he does give examples - and there are plenty more - "grumpy", "uncouth". It's a question of what you do next. He doesn't jump to a theory but considers what questions to explore. Very different from Gellner.

That is, it appears that in thinking of Wittgenstein or Austin as advocating any theory of meaning, Gellner shows he has not understood what they are up to. — Banno

Absolutely.

If so, then it is a sensible approach. It would be hard to believe that ethical or aesthetic considerations could be eliminated. — Manuel

I/m sorry. What's a sensible approach? What cannot ethical or aesthetic considerations be eliminated from?

Sometimes, universal statements about a particular term are meaningful. But why is that so? — cherryorchard

I'm sorry. I can't work out exactly what you mean. Can you give an example - or two?

And while the word 'indirectly' does have a hypothetical antithesis ('directly'), it's very hard to see how that might apply to anything in this specific case. Someone who wasn't sure what the word 'see' meant would not be helped along if we told them 'we only ever see things indirectly'. — cherryorchard

Austin gives an example I think is helpful. But I can't remember the details, so I'll adapt it. Air traffic control radar shows a blip on the screen, with the flight number attached on a little label. The controller says "I can see flight 417", and so he does, but the visitor who peers anxiously out of the window is puzzled. The controller can see flight 417 indirectly. The visitor thinks the controller meant directly. Clearly, seeing flight 417 through the window is seeing it directly (despite the fact that it is through the window). Suppose the visitor gets out a pair of binoculars, sweeps them round a bit and says "Aha! There it is!". Does the visitor see flight 417 directly?
The last point - the unanswerable, doubtful case is quite important to me. There's no point in pretending that this stuff is cut and dried.
Now think about why you gave the answer you did give to each case. I think you'll find you understand how directly and indirectly could be applied in this case. I agree I don't think it would help anyone who doesn't already know what "see" means, but it does help us, in our situation, so that's all right.
Austin does raise the question why anyone would worry about the difference in normal life - did you feel the same when you read the example? He's sort of saying that, despite the example, he's not at all sure that "direct" and "indirect" to "see".

I'm not sure this deals conclusively with the problem, though... — cherryorchard

Neither am I. Philosophers always pretend they are sure of their answers. I don't see any harm in tagging something "not sure". Something may happen later that will help.

Maybe it's because the sentence 'all bachelors are unmarried' is a way of defining the term 'bachelor'. — cherryorchard

Yes, that's what I meant about paying attention to the kind of statement it is - its purpose and context. That's always part of the meaning, isn't it?

In any case, thank you for the quotation from Ryle! I will look up that book. — cherryorchard

It's good philosophy and a good read. You're welcome.

Right, and when I tried to bridge your thread with the thread discussing whether we see colors or only our perceptions of colors I ran into this same problem — Leontiskos

There's a quick put-down available, I think. Our perception of colours is our seeing of the colours. Your "opponent" is being misled by the common philosophical tendency to assume that every noun denotes an object.

that is what driving a car consists of. 'Indirect' (or indeed 'direct') doesn't enter into it, unless there are two varieties of driving (real or imagined) that can actually be classified using those words. — cherryorchard

See
One possibility is to challenge your opponent to explain what "direct" means, if not using the steering wheel and pedals. Remote control of the car would be indirect, I think.

There are direct experiences (mental and physical sensations, feelings, thoughts) and indirect experiences of the outer world (sights, smells) — cherryorchard

This is one of those very difficult muddles that are very hard to articulate. "Indirect experiences" is a rather peculiar phrase. In the cases of sight and smell (and hearing), what is seen etc. is at a distance, but the sense-datum is experienced directly; what is experienced indirectly is the object of the experience, not the experience itself (the sense-datum). Mind you, if that is what he meant, I would say that this is another example of assuming that a noun always denotes an object. But "sense-datum" or "experience" is not an object, it is an event. A common mistake in philosophy.

I'm interested that you call Gellner's 'paradox' argument a 'slam-dunk'. I confess I can't make sense of what he means at all. — cherryorchard

i call it a slam-dunk, because some people try to apply the format to all sorts of statements. It's formulaic and refutes without attempting to understand, which, for me, is debating, not philosophy. "We can never be certain of anything" is an example, but the reply "Are you certain of that?" suppresses the argument rather than exposing where it has gone wrong. (Mind you, in that case, the argument is sound.)

whether we can meaningfully make such statements as 'we only ever see things indirectly' or 'we can never be certain of anything'. — cherryorchard

You have to consider that Gellner might believe one or both of those propositions. You don't. So Gellner would think that these are examples of contrast-free statements. If he did so, he would, of course, be begging the question, which is whether those claims are meaningful.

My point about logic was not clear enough. Take any analytic statement, "All bachelors are unmarried" is a nice stock example. It is not possible for any bachelor to be married. It is contrast free. Ryle's examples below don't apply and Gellner has a case for saying that this is an example of a contrast-free statement, and, in a sense, it is. But that isn't paying attention to the kind of statement it is, and to the point that of course there are some people who are not bachelors. It's just that there are no married bachelors.

This is interesting, thank you. I haven't read Ryle – do you remember where this idea comes up in his work? It strikes me as reminiscent of passage 345 in Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations': — cherryorchard

I agree with you about that passage.

A country which had no coinage· would offer no scope to counterfeiters. There would be nothing for them to manufacture or pass counterfeits of. They could, if they wished, manufacture and give away decorated discs of brass or lead, which the public might be pleased to get. But these would not be false coins. There can be false coins only where there are coins made of the proper materials by the proper authorities.
In a country where there is a coinage, false coins can be manufactured and passed; and the counterfeiting might be so efficient that an ordinary citizen, unable to tell which were false and which were genuine coins, might become suspicious of the genuineness of any particular coin that he received. But however general his suspicions might be, there remains one proposition which he cannot entertain, the proposition, namely, that it is possible that all coins are counterfeits. For there must be an answer to the question 'Counterfeits of what?' Or a judge, who has found all too many witnesses in the past inaccurate and dishonest, may be right to expect today's testimonies to break down under examination; but he cannot declare that there are no such things as accuracy and sincerity in testifying. Even to consider whether this witness has been insincere or inaccurate involves considering what would be the honest or precise thing to say. Ice could not be thin if ice could not be thick. — Ryle, Dilemmas, pp. 94, 95

This would be something that Gellner might elevate to a theory. But Ryle does not present the claim that all concepts must be like this.

Sure - words can be problematic in philosophy. People get stuck discussing words rather than ideas all the time, so there is room for "ordinary language philosophy". — Manuel

Actually, Austin is quite modest about ordinary language philosophy, only claiming that it is an important preparation. He does not explicitly rule out the possibility that some philosophy may survive the fire and need further consideration. But he does not explore what that further consideration might consist of, so perhaps he thought it was a purely theoretical possibility.

That's a very good post. Gellner made a great splash with "Words and Things". I think it was rather a marmite book. You either loved it or hated it. Personally, I hated it.

(The Contrast Theory when made explicit leads to a neat paradox; on its own grounds, a language should sometimes be usable without contrast, so that "contrast" may have a contrast.)

That's a kind of argument that's very popular with philosophers, because it is a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, such arguments are usually mistake, because they have over-simplified the issue.

In this case, there is a slam-dunk reply. You can obtain a contrast to any assertion by inserting "not". So the contrast to the contrast theory:-

a term and its denial between them do not exhaust the universe, or at least a universe of discourse.

Here, I'm following Gellner's argumentative tactic. It doesn't help much, does it?

Actually, I'm more than a bit puzzled about his claim that ordinary language philosophers, who rejected the idea that philosophy was about theories or doctrines, had any theory of meaning, as such. I don't recall this theory from my (admittedly not exhaustive) reading of them. If this is Gellner's summary, the possibility that there is distortion here cannot be ruled out. Where is the quotation that would back his claim up?

So where did he get the idea that ordinary language philosophers did have this theory of meaning?

One possibility is that he is distorting something that they do say - that a given concept will always be part of a structure, or family and so not comprehensible outside that structure. So you cannot understand what "north" means unless you understand what "south" means (what often gets left out is the you also need to understand what "east" and "west" and how the other main points like "south-west" are constructed from the basic framework). Understanding the use of the word means understanding the use of it in the context of its family.

Another possibility is that he is picking up on an argument of, I think, Ryle, that it is not possible for all coins to be fake. If there is no such thing as a real coin, there is nothing to fake and so "fake" has no meaning. As I remember it, this was intended to apply to sense-datum theory, because that theory essentially claims that my belief that everything that I see is a three-dimensional object located in space-time is an illusion. In this case, at least, "fake" or "unreal" are defined in relation to "genuine" or "real", so there is a contrast here.

A third possibility is that he is picking up on an argument that was popular with analytic philosophers, but not necessarily with ordinary language philosophers. This is about logic. In truth-functional calculus, an analytic statement turns out to be true in all possible circumstances. This was described as not asserting anything and hence not denying anything. (Empirical, contingent statements do, of course, deny something in asserting something.) So analytic (logically true) statements were labelled "trivial". That was the basis for Logical Positivism. Traditional philosophy expected philosophically true statements to be logically true (or necessarily) true, so all traditional philosophy could be labelled trivial - unless they were false in which case they were meaningless or nonsense.

BTW Any ordinary language philosopher worth his salt would ask "Does Gellner ever give an example of a term that does not have a contrast?". That's the basis of a good counter-argument, because just one example would refute the theory. So, does he?

In my view, both philosophy and the sciences describe reality. — Joshs

Well, yes, in a sense that's true. But, in that context, I thought that further explanation of what was intended would help to clarify.
PS I meant to say that I wanted to know what Apustimelogist would say.

It's time to be a bit more helpful, but I'm going to take a break here and post that later. — Ludwig V

Here's the promised continuation from my last post. I hope it is somewhat helpful.

I’m not a fan of hasty generalization, or of generalization without examples. Generalization is all very well, in its place. But I’m just going to discuss three examples, with the aim of showing the variety of relationships that there are between levels of description or scales of models. One size definitely does not fit all.

A (sandy) beach. Lots of sand accumulated along the edge of the sea or a river. One might think that nothing changes as one zooms in, until one can discern the individual grains. But it’s not as simple as that.
Zoom in so as to cut out the sea. You have a sandbank – sand banked up over and against the underlying geology. Not much has changed, in a way, but it clearly is not a beach any more. Descriptions are often a question of wider and narrower contexts, or of focus, if you like.
Zoom in closer. In a way, there’s no obvious level between the bank and the grains, but we can identify a heap of sand and a volume of sand as segments of a bank or beach – I call them segments because they can be cut out and removed from the bank. But the sand that we remove does not constitute a bank or a beach. So, in a sense, nothing has changed.
Yet closer, and finally we arrive at the grains of sands, which are independently existing components in the sense that they can be individually separated from the beach or bank.
The game changes at this point, so I’ll move on.

A flat-pack bookcase When it arrives, it is not a bookcase, but a set of parts for a bookcase. We can lay them all out on the floor, count them, check them. Now, what needs to happen to make it a bookcase? All the parts are there. Nothing needs to be added. What’s the problem? Easy, the parts needs to be put together as designed. But the design specifies the structure of the finished article; it is not a missing element that needs to be added to the parts.
But the bookcase has a top and bottom, a left side and right side, a front and a back. These are all parts of the bookcase. Where did they come from? They were not laid out on the bench, although the part that was to become the top was there, and it is called the top because when it is where it is supposed to be. Its top will be the top of the bookcase. Each shelf – and the part that will form the bottom - also has its own top, but the bottom of this part will also be the bottom of the bookcase. But the point here is that these parts are not components that can be separated from the bookcase and laid out on the floor or work-bench.
Holism. Levels of description are interdependent. One cannot understand what the parts are without understanding the role they play in the whole, which conditions their physical properties like shape, size, composition, etc.
I’ll leave out all the other dimensions (descriptive systems) that the beach is part of. Aesthetics, politics, economics. Zooming in and out won’t ever capture them. But that's not a problem - it's a feature.

A rainbow A bookcase is special because it is a human artifact, with a purpose. A rainbow does not, it is a very different from a sandy beach. It has parts, but not separable parts. There is the shape, the bands of colour, but that’s more or less it. So is it a physical object? In a sense, yes, but it would be less misleading to describe it as a physical phenomenon.
To understand what a rainbow is, we look to physics. To view a rainbow, your back must be to the sun as you look at an approximately 40 degree angle above the ground into a region of the atmosphere with suspended droplets of water or even a light mist. Each individual droplet of water acts as a tiny prism that both disperses the light and reflects it back to your eye. As you sight into the sky, wavelengths of light associated with a specific color arrive at your eye from the collection of droplets.
I’m sure you know the rest of the story. But there is a very complex step about the explanation why we see a single large arc instead of multiple small ones. I've gathered that it involves fractals, so it is likely beyond me, though I would love to understand it. But it is very relevant because it is a holistic effect, not a compound of the individual reflections from the individual rain-drops.
One might say that this is an explanation of the cause of the rainbow, but that generates a huge metaphysical issue about what the rainbow is, and a distinct temptation to say that it is not a physical object, but a mental one. Unless one wishes to embrace dualism, we need to say that the explanation in physics is an analysis of the rainbow, not a cause. (In the same way that we would say that the physics of a single grain of sand is an analysis, not a cause – thought it does of course cause the behaviour of the grain.)

I’m not arguing that we have to abandon the large-scale, small-scale model or the idea that physics explains everything, just that we recognize there are several ways that levels of description (scale) and categories of objects map on to each other and that the domain of physics is, well, the physical. So other forms of explanation also have their non-hierachical place.

I mean redundant more in the informational sense wherein it just means that these descriptions are already repeating information about reality (in a correspondence theory of truth sense) that is already in the smaller scale descriptions. — Apustimelogist

How is that not reduction? All the information is given the smallest scale description.

all the different descriptive perspectives that are available to us dovetail neatly into a single hierarchy. — Ludwig V

It is intended to re-describe your large-scale, small scale image.

Well I am just implying that her work isn't actual physics, its philosophy and what she is saying is not a description of reality with scientific consensus which is relevant because it means that introducing her into a comparison with newtoenian physics is more or less just postulation. — Apustimelogist

We all agree on that this work of hers is not physics, I think. But then, I thought that describing reality was essentially a job for physics. Philosophy might ask what reality is, but it wouldn't necessarily be particularly interested in describing it. I didn't read that part of the discussion about Newtonian science. I thought it was probably beyond my competence. I wonder if maybe you are applying the criteria for science to philosophy?

I've only got 10 minutes, which is a shame. So, initial comments.

Philosopher of science Joseph Rouse is one of Barad’s biggest champions. He considers her notion of materialism to be a version of naturalism that avoids the pitfallls of other naturalistic conceptions of nature. — Joshs

I like naturalism. But I've regarded it as materialism without the ontological and conceptual dogma. So there's room in my head for something more accurate.

I take Barad to claim instead that nature as revealed by the sciences is itself normatively constituted.

Well, the concept of nature is obviously normatively constituted. So far it's just a beginning of an analysis. Not a criticism - just a reservation.

First, she argues for the ontological priority of “phenomena” over objects.

That's an ancient piece of philosophy. Here, there's some need for discussion to sort out just what phenomena are. Data?

She then argues that phenomena in this sense must incorporate conceptual-discursive normativity. Conceptual-discursive norms are not something imposed upon phenomena “by” us, however. On the contrary, we ourselves only become agents/knowers as material components of the larger patterns of natural phenomena.

This bothers me. Phenomenologists have this habit of saying something and taking it back. I realize that description is a bit crude. But it expresses my feeling that I'm being offered dogmatic assertion rather than argumentation. I think the idea is that what she writes should be seen as so obvious that it needs no argument. (as in both Wittgenstein and Heidegger. I'm not claiming such writing is impossible, but, for me, this isn't it. More needs to be said.

Thus, Barad neither reduces conceptual-discursive normativity to anormative causal relations, nor imposes already-articulated conceptual norms upon the material world. Instead, she is arguing that the natural world only acquires definite boundaries, and concepts only acquire definite content, together.

I think I can agree that the discourse of the sciences is the product of interaction with the phenomena, if that's what she's getting at. But I don't see the necessary explanation that the concept of science is like the lens through which we encounter the world. One requirement of that lens is that what we encounter and the way we encounter it must be norm-free. I've just been tangling with Aristotle's metaphysics, which is a splendid example of what I hope we have left behind. It isn't science or at least, not what we require of science.

Once that conception is in place, Barad goes on to argue that our participation in the phenomena we understand scientifically makes ethical and political responsibility integral to conceptual-discursive normativity as well.

Well, it could only need saying to an audience of scientists, but for normal people that's just obvious. But, I repeat, the practice and theory of science must be as norm-free as we can make it. Otherwise, there's no point.

I mean, clearly she is not a physicist and there is no mathematical model here. It's just speculative interpretation withiut the benefit of a formal model that demonstrates anything tangible. — Apustimelogist

Well, it is seems reasonable to recognize that she is a physicist but a physicist who is not, when she writes what is quoted, doing physics. That's allowed. What I object to is that while her perspective may be interesting and relevant and legitimate, it has no special authority just because she is writing from the perspective of a physicist. To be fair, I don't think she would claim that. But I'm encourated to believe that a mere philosopher might have something to contribute.

but the model of causality it expresses is designed to apply equally to the micro and the macro level — Joshs

I don't know about "designed", but certainly it is expected that it will. That expectation may be disappointed, but all too often, the existence of anything that it does not apply to, is denied.

I don't think the "model of causality" is as much at stake as the question of whether models at one scale can give satisfying explanations of higher levels. — Apustimelogist

Well, we both think they can. Our difference is about the concept of "level". Specifically whether the assumption that all the different descriptive perspectives that are available to us dovetail neatly into a single hierarchy.

It matters which cuts are enacted: different cuts enact different materialized becomings…. — Barad

This is much closer to my perspective, but it neglects the complication introduced by the apparent limitation of "becomings" to "materialized". From my perspective, some varieties of becomings are introduced, not by materialization, but by interpretation. (as in puzzle pictures.)

any kind of observation or perhaps description about the smallest scales of reality will have more information about reality than all the scales upwards simply by the fact that descriptions on higher scales necessarily coarse-grain over details, while at the same time all the observations on higher scales are effectively redundant in terms of how they would correspond to a mind-independent reality. — Apustimelogist

If that isn't reductionism, I'll eat my hat. It's the "higher scales are effectively redundant" that does it.

Now let’s take a non-linear model of a particular sort, an account which begins from the assumption that no attributes of a physical object pre-exist its actual interactions with other objects, and that each actual interaction subtly changes the qualitative properties of the objects involved. — Joshs

My word! This is very close to Berkeley. It would be interesting to dissect the differences, but I guess you would find that irrelevant, and perhaps it is.

Barad is fascinating. It is very close to philosophy. From the language, I reckon she has been reading phenomenology. Nothing wrong with that. But it also echoes a familiar issues from Berkeley and Ayer. First you say it:-

In my agential realist account, scientific practices do not reveal what is already there; rather, what is ‘‘disclosed’’ is the effect of the intra-active engagements of our participation with/in and as part of the world’s differential becoming. — Barad

... and then you take it back:-

Which is not to say that humans are the condition of possibility for the existence of phenomena. Phenomena do not require cognizing minds for their existence; on the contrary, ‘‘minds’’ are themselves material phenomena that emerge through specific intra-actions. Phenomena are real material beings. What is made manifest through technoscientific practices is an expression of the objective existence of particular material phenomena. — Barad

Yes, I have been reading Austin.
There is an unusual - to me - twist to this, however, in the phrase "material phenomena". There's a perfectly respectable use of the word in science to mean "that which needs to be explained" or, possibly "data". But the limitation of phenomena to "material phenomena" is unusual, and puzzling. I scent reductionist tendencies here.

It's time to be a bit more helpful, but I'm going to take a break here and post that later.

You are agreeing that free speech is a virtue then. Yet you don't seem too bothered by the globalist war on free speech. — fishfry

That's not quite fair. I do agree that free speech is a Good Thing. So I am bothered by Putin and Xi Jinping. But I don't think that criminals should be allowed free access to their victims

It's a great heresy to be against the environmentalists these days. But of course IMO one can be against the environmentalists yet for the environment. That would be me. — fishfry

The song but not the singer. I don't disapprove of some enivironmentalists, but I do get bored with them.

The effects are virtue signaling among the first world elite; and terrible suffering in the third world, out of sight. This is my point. I oppose the environmentalists. — fishfry

The truly depressing thing is that the poor are screwed by climate change and by the attempts to reduce it.

I don't know how we got here but environmentalism isn't one of my favorite conversational topics. I know what I think and I don't bother to talk about it much. — fishfry

I'll shut up about it then (after this reply!)

Right. But most longtime liberals haven't noticed. They've gone from gay rights (good) to transing the kids (bad) without missing a beat. — fishfry

Well, not to go on about it, I can accept that there is some work around trans people to be done. But the recent publicity has been provoked by some thoroughly objectionable trans people (and some "trans" people). My partner has some acquaintance in those circles and tells me that many trans people just want a quiet life and are horrified by them.

Did you see the Kamala "interview?" If the Democrats get away with this the country is doomed. Not just policy-wise. But that Americans would have validated the four year Biden swindle, propping up a senile candidate who campaigned from his basement; and then swapping in the historically unpopular Harris, hiding her from the press while her fans swooned. It's very bad if they get away with this. And honestly, not too much better if Trump wins. He's past his prime for sure. — fishfry

The really basic question is why there is no decent candidate on either side. All the people who might have make a good shot at an impossible job seem to have taken a back seat.

A disease is contrary to human nature. That is the point. If it were not contrary to human nature then the human will and immune system would not oppose it. It is not being said that disease is contrary to Nature in some absolute sense. — Leontiskos

I'll abandon the example of disease and this point until and unless l can work out a better way of putting it.

Voluntary slavery is not a contradiction if we attend to Aristotle's terms. Indeed, it is not clear that voluntary slavery of any kind is an analytical contradiction. — Leontiskos

Simpson's point in the quote you provide is that it is not necessary to enslave them (nor to not-enslave them). — Leontiskos

You are right, Aristotle's slavery is not a sufficient condition of forcible enslavement. I was naive, then, to assume that all slaves are imprisoned by force and kept imprisoned by force as long as they are slaves. It should have been obvious, natural slaves are slaves whether anyone is forcing them to do things or not. (That's implicit in the discussion of the rules of war, where it is envisaged that the defeated army will be composed of a mixture of slaves and non-slaves.) Ordinary slavery, then, is a state quite different from Aristotle's slavery.
There's another difference which I might as well bring up here.

The condition that makes the natural slave need not be permanent

Details are given on the same page. The natural slave might cease to be irrational. Presumably, one should release them at the point.
So a slave is just a servant. It seems that masters of tame animals are supposed to look to their welfare, and presumably the same applies to servant-slaves.
I left with just two questions. How do natural slaves who have no master live? How do natural rulers who have no people to rule live?

For Aristotle a slave is a natural dependent in that they require the economia of a master to flourish. — Leontiskos

Does the master not require the slave to flourish? Mutual dependency, common good. Positively inspiring!

The difference is that Henry Ford is capable of performing the manual laborer's job — Leontiskos

Perhaps. He may well not be. He probably doesn't have the time, what with running the whole show.

This maps to a proficiency with the mind vs. a proficiency with the body, — Leontiskos

Yes. Intellectuals do tend to down-grade physical work. They might have more respect for it if they did some for a week or two.

I understand that some people think that Aristotle's argument demonstrates that universal human equality is nonsense. It is indeed nonsense if it means that everyone is the same. But Aristotle's argument demonstrates what it does mean. For the motivating assumption of the argument is that everyone should be treated in the way that is appropriate to them. Irrelevant circumstances (such as Hecuba's birth - Simpson p. 12) should not come into play. The only issue is what is appropriate to who. That's what universal equality means.

There's safety in free speech and a limited, Constitutional republic. Me and Thomas Jefferson against the world. — fishfry

There is, indeed. It may not be perfect, but some arrangement like that is all there is.

Sigh. I probably shouldn't reduce your esteem for me any more than I already have — fishfry

Don't be ridiculous.

I'm not much of a climate fanatic, either. The question is whether we should wreck our economy and throw billions into poverty to effect a hypothetical fraction of a percent change in the average global temperature, which is ridiculously hard to measure anyway. — fishfry

It was always obvious that dealing with climate change would be a mess, and that it might well be ineffective. We can probably organize some response after the event. There will be some mitigation, but nothing less that world-wide panic will trigger serious attempts at mitigation and that won't happen until serious climate change has kicked in. As usual, the poorer countries will suffer most, and much of their population will leave, looking for somewhere safer to live. There'll be a lot of trouble.

The air and water are a lot cleaner than in the 1970s, so I'm all for the environment. I love the environment. Just not the radical environmentalists. — fishfry

Fair enough. We can achieve things. It's just that it takes a disproportionate amount of shouting and shoving to make things happen. It helps when people can see the effects themselves. (see above)

Besides, warmer temps are GOOD for life and colder temps are BAD for life. — fishfry

Yes. Temperate. So too hot and too cold are both problems and climate change will cause more of both. But the temperate north and south of the world will be less badly affected than the equator and tropics - apart from the effects of sea level rise and the increase in extreme weather events.

You know Christopher Lasch's book. The Revolt of the Elites? — fishfry

No. I looked at the wikipedia article. It seems quite plausible. But I'm very difficult to convert. I'm going to be reading "Techofeudalism" soon, in a futile attempt to keep up to date.

I don't know about you, of course, but I was liberal when liberals were a minority and thought to be insane. Then things starting going our way. Splendid - until I realized that younger generations would want to push everything further. I've gone some way with them, but not all the way. Much of what they are pushing for now seems to be dubious, at best. They don't remember what it was like to be what it is to be an oppressed minority, so they feel no need to compromise and make room for different views. But hey! no-one listens to doubts and compromises any more.

But he's all we've got against the continuation of what's been going on. — fishfry

Now that Biden has gone, the context has changed. He looks different in a different context. I think you'll find that the right wing will get some of what it wants - not all. That's what's happened to liberalism. Life has to go on and forces compromises. Remember, liberals are as fearful as conservatives.

The proof makes use of infinite ordinals. Transfinite numbers are not defined in Peano arithmetic, pushing the proof outside the capabilities of this theory. The difficulty is to prove that the proof must make use of them. — Tarskian

OK. I think understand what is going on, even though I cannot understand the proofs. Thanks.

Examples for Godel's theorem are in fact always such contorted corner cases. — Tarskian

I'm not surprised.

That is why arithmetical reality appears so orderly to us, while in reality, it is highly chaotic, just like physical reality. We just cannot see the chaos. — Tarskian

I've been changing my view of mathematics for a couple of years now - since I came back to it, in fact. I no longer think of it as an eternally peaceful, ordered world, as in Plato's heaven. (Although they did already know about the irrationality of sqrt2). As you say, it's coming to look much more like physical reality.

Therefore, having a sound theory to prove a given fact from is a necessary condition to assess its provability but not a sufficient one. — Tarskian

What if a given fact is unprovable within a given theory, but provable within another one. Would that be consistent with Godel?

Links to renderings: — ucarr

Thanks. It would be quite a festival to play all of those at the same time.

NORTH KOREAN VERSION!!!

I know the song well - have done for years. It always gets a smile. Don't know if it's Art Garfunkel's rendering. How many are there?

In the grapevine mesh of existing things, for each thing, there's always one observer who sees that thing as it is in truth. Is this not a charming article of faith warding off depression? — ucarr

Yes, it is.

I need your help in understanding how I'm being unfair. — ucarr

Yes, our experience is rooted within interrelationships. There seems not to be any existing thing utterly isolated and alone. There's always the hope of being understood. — ucarr

You seemed a bit depressed when you said this. I was trying to be encouraging. "Be fair" is an expression I use - perhaps it is not as widely used as I thought - to signal that there is a brighter side to what seems so depressing. It's not an accusation or criticism.

Not today. Today, he's putting people in jail who express ideas you don't express. So you let me know when an authoritarian regime has ever known when to stop. As he was consolidating power, Stalin killed his most fervent supporters. Hitler did the same. — fishfry

All digital communicates get stored. Nobody looks at them till your friend's friend's friend's friend whom the government doesn't like, steps out of line. Then they roll up the whole chain. Like I say. Find me an authoritarian regime that ever knew when to stop. — fishfry

History has not been kind to that argument. — fishfry

Yes. I do worry about that argument. But since Stalin was on the left and Hitler on the right, it seems like there's no safety anywhere. Any more than there is against the possibility of all-out nuclear war (or indeed against the reality of climate change) These things are hard to predict.

I absolutely and without reservation share his bleats. Even liberal legal scholars have been outraged by the New York 34-felony case. It's a legal travesty, the kind of thing you see in banana republics. — fishfry

Yes. I expressed myself badly. Perhaps I was in a bad temper. My point was that most people are sore losers and it's very hard to tell when a protest like that is valid.

I saw this today. — fishfry

I'm afraid the Telegraph has been tracking my viewing of its articles. There's a limit on free views of them and I've hit it. But I do know that there was a case like that and there was a lot of reporting of it. I don't pretend to know the rights and wrongs.

Man I've been hearing this leftist claptrap since 2016. Enough already. I don't begrudge you your beliefs. I do choose not to engage with them. — fishfry

I have never persuaded anyone of anything in decades online :-) — fishfry

Maybe it's all lies. How would I know, right? — fishfry

I rather think you have a bad day. I'm sorry about that.

Thank you very much for this. I hope you won't mind if someone who is neither mathematician or logician makes some ignorant comments - purely in a spirit of enquiry. Perhaps it's worth saying that I don't really have an opinion about whether Godel is right or not. It doesn't offend my sensibilities. It's way above my pay grade, so that's a legitimate possibility for me.

"This is not provable."
Assuming that this sentence is decidable, it is true or false.
If it is true, then it is (true and unprovable).
If it is false, then it is (false and provable).
Hence, the sentence is (true and unprovable) or (false and provable). Therefore, it is a legitimate existence witness for his theorem. — Tarskian

This is not contorted. It's perfectly straightforward. Self-reference. I've long held the heretical view that the "witness" is not decidable. Is there any reason to suppose it must be? Of course, you could assign a third truth value to undecidable sentences, but I suppose that would be cheating.

A better example, Goodstein's theorem, was later discovered for which the theorem itself can be expressed in Peano arithmetic but the proof cannot, making it (true and unprovable) in that context. — Tarskian

Yes. I thought that something along these lines would probably work. However, you seem to be assuming that if a theorem can be expressed, it must be true. In which case, if that assumption is correct, it is provable. Or is that idea just an assumption or an axiom or something?

Godelian sentences are fiendishly difficult to detect in arithmetical reality because in that context we systematically use soundness to discover truth: the sentence at hand is true because it is provable. Arithmetical vision requires calculation. It is virtually impossible to detect an arithmetical fact without calculation. — Tarskian

Yes. That's what puzzled me.

On the other hand, if we had a copy of the theory of the physical universe, observing physical Godelian facts would be trivially easy.
Unlike in arithmetical reality, in physical reality we do not need to know why exactly a physical fact occurs in order to be able to observe it. — Tarskian

But not knowing why my observation is true is not the same as its being unprovable. Surely that will only work if what I observe is incapable of being proved, as opposed to my not knowing how to prove it. If I knew that it was unprovable, I think I would either not believe my eyes or at least suspend judgement.

Our eyes do not have to calculate a fact in order to see it. Our eyes just see it. We are perfectly able to see things with our eyes that we do not understand or cannot possibly predict (up to a point, of course). — Tarskian

Well, maybe. I think most people believe that my brain does the calculations. I can see where the ball is going to land and catch it, without consciously doing any calculations or being aware of any calculation going on in my head. It's a tricky philosophical issue.
In any case, wouldn't calculations after the event prove that I did see what I saw?

(By the way, this is a simplification because our eyes may also use "calculations" in order to "see".) — Tarskian

I'm sorry I don't understand that. Do you mean that my eyes may follow heuristic principles, rather than calculations? Quite likely. But then my seeing would be an educated guess, which could be proved right (or wrong) after the event.

Right, "Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule," does not mean that Aristotle says that every Greek is fit to rule. — Leontiskos

Well, I think it is ambiguous and I didn't recognize that. However, because he says the "the many" are not fit to rule and therefore implies that some, but not all, are fit to rule, I should have realized that your interpretation is correct. So you are right.

I'm in a bit of a quandary here. There are two conclusions in this argument. One is about leaders. I don't have any violent objection to that argument. I think it's false, but I'm not sure that I can be bothered to refute it. In practice, it wouldn't make any difference. The other is about slaves, and I cannot accept that it is right, or even all right, to enslave any human being. So I need to show that that conclusion does not follow from the argument. Briefly.

A. If we can identify characteristics that make someone fit to rule, then it follows that people who do not possess those characteristics are not fit to rule; it does not follow that they are slaves, or fit to be slaves. We could, instead, characterize them as natural followers or maybe natural independents (compare Simpson on tame and wild animals p.4)

B. You may be mistaken, however, to think that "the rational are more fit rulers than the irrational" is empirical. I may be wrong, but I think that, for Aristotle at least, reason is the faculty that enables us to get things right. A leader needs to decide the best thing to do and how to do it; so, by definition leaders need to be rational.

C.

All he (sc. Aristotle) says is that it is unjust to enslave those who are not natural slaves. — Simpson - p.13

So who is a natural slave and what is the index of being one?
1 Aristotle thinks the index is irrationality. Is there anyone whose life does not include some irrationality? And some rationality? This is not a clear criterion.
2 If slavery comes naturally to some people, why is it necessary to enslave them? One doesn't have to force a natural musician to play or a natural leader to lead. One only needs to enforce something that is against nature - irrational. A natural slave would accept slavery when it was offered. Voluntary slavery is a contradiction in terms.

D.

A thing is manifestly contrary to nature when it is not as its nature requires it to be, but is losing or has lost that nature. Disease is contrary to nature, in that sense. — Simpson - p.4

That's a most confusing sense of "nature". In the real world, disease is entirely natural. That's why we take many artificial measures to restore us to health.
We are in two minds about nature. Sometimes we consider that what is natural is good. Sometimes we consider that it is bad. It depends on the case. No general evaluation can stand up to the facts.

the new bottle perturbs the old news into something interesting: — ucarr

I'm suggesting that it has been over-hyped and is rather less interesting than one would have thought, given all the fuss.

There's always the hope of being understood. — ucarr

Be fair. Sometimes we are understood, and sometimes we manage to sort out misunderstandings.

"Basic" as the criterion for "simple" expresses an ideal of efficiency and clarity and certainty. — ucarr

Well, those are all good things.

True, but I'm not saying they're components of themselves. They're components of the architecture. — jkop

Perhaps my problem is a verbal one. "Components" suggests that they are parts of the building in the sense that the roof and the windows are parts of the building. But they aren't. I would much prefer "aspects" of the building, or of the architecture, whichever you prefer.

Their own components result in practical, beautiful, and sustainable parts of a building, but the building won't be successful as a building by merely having such parts.
These, in turn, must be composed (e.g. balanced or distributed) in ways that make the building successful as a building. — jkop

Yes, you could have parts of the building that meet those critieria. But the basic point, I think, is that they are holistic. If we say that the frontage of the building is beautiful, that's a description of the whole frontage not of any part or segment of it. If we say that the building is very practical, we mean that the building as a whole is practical.

Short version - holistic aspects of the building.

Neural information encodes — apokrisis

That's like saying that a phone encodes the information passing down it. (Let's assume an old-fashioned phone that is connected by a wire without computers interfering). Then I can say that what is passing down the wire is the causal consequence of the sounds at the end of the line and the "decoding" is a reversion to the sounds at the other end. In a sense, it is just like a fancy megaphone. So what you are doing is treating what is passing down the wire as information. I can see nothing wrong with that, except it's a stretched sense of "code" - probably the result of the misleading analogy with information processing machines.
I do get the point, though, at least I think I do. Biology is not reducible to physics because a living body, though it is a physical object, cannot be explained without reference to concepts that have no place in physics. They cannot be understood without taking a holistic view of the organism and what helps to keep it alive - a concept that physics has no room for.
Except I heard that some physicists are talking of causality as information. But I don't know anything about the background.

I don't have a criterion for existence but my assumptions from what science and philosophy seems to say to me is that: there is a single realm of existence; — Apustimelogist

I agree with that.

I think we construct mathematical objects and impose them on the world enactively, which is not really any different from any other concepts or knowledge we use. — Apustimelogist

But you didn't get the memo about categories. I'm afraid the news is that there are many different kinds of existence.
I wouldn't use the word "impose". It has all the wrong connotations. "Apply" would be better.
No, it isn't any different from any other concepts or knowledge we have/use. Including physics.

Because emotions are much more than just hormones. — Apustimelogist

Oh, to be sure they are. My brain is heavily involved. But the point is that my brain is not the whole story. Same applies to plus tasks.

From my perspective anyway, everything I am experiencing is literally what it is like to be some kind of higher level, higher scale functional structure in the vicinity of that part of existence which we might label my brain. — Apustimelogist

You seriously mean that you live in your head? I'm sorry. If I knew how to let you out, I would rush to the rescue. (That may seem a bit sarcastic, but it isn't meant to be. It's an attempt to get you to see how you are misusing language here.)
The idea that the self or the person is another creature like us inside our heads was the founding mistake of dualism. Now you are positing that there is particular physical structure inside my head which is the real me. The only difference is that your internal person is a physical structure. That won't explain anything, will it?

So the distinction does not seem so big from my perspective. — Apustimelogist

And yet you defend your brain tirelessly. So it must be important to you even if it is not big.

Yes, I get that and I have never excluded those things, after all that is the level at which we engage with the world in everyday life. But I think a distinction can be made between: the use of different explanatory frameworks and ways we engage with the world that are perspective-dependent for various reasons; and then the concept of ontological grounding in principle - that behaviors described at one scale will be grounded in those on smaller scales, even if I require different explanatory frameworks to make sense of the world in any pragmatic way. — Apustimelogist

So the concept of ontological grounding is not perspective-dependent? H'm.

Well then the only criteria I see for the plus task is that it is performed correctly in the way regular people deem it correct. A calculator can plus correctly imo. — Apustimelogist

Oh, I agree with you. Some people wouldn't. But I have to note an important difference. The calculator neither knows not cares whether it is correct. It cannot evaluate its own answer, in the sense of trying to correct wrong answers.

You may not want to say a brain is doing what you are doing but lets see what happens when we stop the brain doing what its doing and knockout that occipital lobe - how that affects what you are doing. — Apustimelogist

Try stopping your heart or draining your blood. Same result.

Let me try again. Consider what philosophers have said:-
1 Everything is physics
2 Everything is language
3 Everything is experienced
All true. They are all perspectives and there can be more than one perspective on anything. Physics, from my perspective, is not unique in any respect.

In this sense, they are both emergent properties and components of the architecture. — jkop

I don't understand why you include components when I thought you were saying (correctly) that utility, beauty and sustainability are the result of other components, but not one of them. I think this may be a category issue.

The special sciences won't answer how they causally emerge, nor how a balanced or distributed composition satisfies the success of a building. Yet every effect has a cause, and for millennia we have known that buildings should be practical, beautiful, and sustainable. — jkop

"Every effect has a cause" may be true, in a way. But it does not follow that every effect must have a cause which is a specific component of the building. The cause of utility might be an effect of the totality of the building as built, rather than as a collection of components.

QM tells us the observer perturbs what s/he observes. — ucarr

Isn't that old news in a new bottle? Only physicists needed QM to tell them about the specificity of observation and its distortion in the process of communication.

Well, as I've been saying, no one reads a given text exactly as another reads it. This because each individual perturbs what s/he observes individually. — ucarr

You are looking at only one side of the coin. We learn to read from each other (and we learn the language that we read and communicate in) and we learn all the skills of knowledge. Sharing and correcting
.

I suppose it means that in a given time period for a foundational theory, no one can discover a form more basic. — ucarr

So "simple" means "more basic"?

Okay. Proceeding from the observer as an always local person, if we bind the thinking of an always local person to that always local person, then it too, is always local, and the abstraction of abstract thinking starts dissolving. — ucarr

I don't know what you mean by "bind". If a local person indulges in abstract thinking, and shares that thinking with other local and non-local thinkers, how does the abstraction of abstract thinking dissolve?
(Don't forget that is the abstract dissolves, so does the concrete.)
I have no problem with the idea that mathematical objects are real or that we can generalize from the particular to the general.

The simple binary of concrete/abstract hasn’t dissolved away to nothing, but it has become faint. — ucarr

I didn't understand a lot of the intervening ideas. But this inclines me to retort that perhaps it needs to become faint. Binary oppositions are almost always less clear and definitie than some people would like to think.

Might it be an ability to see how cognitive objects such as language, and cognition itself, per Gödel, will generate valid statements unprovable with the boundaries of supposedly axiomatic systems? — ucarr

I have a lot of difficulty with the idea of something true but unprovable. How could we know that such things exist, and if we do, how do know what they are? But this is a bit more specific and so it helps. I still haven't seen an example of such a truth and would love to do so.

There may not be any elegant simplicity axiomatic to everything. — ucarr

Perhaps there isn't. But isn't that just a methodological principle that applies when there are competing theories in play? In any case, it only requires us to choose the simplest of available theories, so it would be hard to refute. By the way, what is the criterion for simplicity? Kolgorov complexity?

Which is all very interesting and important. I mean that.

However, it occurred to me that, as a definition, "Statements about statements" captures far too much, but we've been over that. More important is this - Berkeley's Dialogues for example can be read as a philosophical text, but also as a historical or religious text. The difference is not in the text, but in the approach to the text. Philosophy is not simply matter of texts, but of an activity, a skill, a language game, or several language games. The disciplines are different ways of reading (in the large sense) and responding to them.

PS One can also read Berkeley as an exercise in rhetoric. The text is riddled with it.