It is our ordinary ways of telling an accident from a mistake--the criteria of their identity and employment (grammar), and all I can say at this point is it is a term to hold a space opposite of how philosophy sets up the traditional criteria (certainty, universality, etc.) it wants for the concepts of meaning, knowledge, understanding, etc. — Antony Nickles

I'll repeat then, what I've said from the beginning, there is no such thing as the ordinary way of distinguishing an accident from a mistake. Each particular incident, in each set of circumstances, must be judged according to the available evidence, and there is no such thing as the "ordinary criteria", to be applied in a particular situation. That's why a judge in a court of law has a difficult task. And one only gets to the point of being a judge through an extended period of experience. The experience does not teach the judge the criteria, it gives the judge many examples to compare with. These are known as precedents. We say that the judge upholds the law, in many unique circumstances, but this is not really done through reference to criteria, it's done through the experience of many precedents.

Yes, but you're probably not going to be happy about it because it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution. OLP is investigating our concepts to show that desire in our philosophy by showing that our concepts have ordinary (various, individual) ways in which they work and ways in which they fail, and, at some point, they involve our involvement, accepting, denying, asking, walking away, etc. and in ways that reflect on us, or require us to change ourselves, our world, or extend these concepts into new contexts, a new culture, perhaps to make a word include a change in our lives, perhaps to re-awaken it to old contexts. — Antony Nickles

If this notion of "ordinary criteria" is your proposed solution, then it's quite clear to me that you do not have a solution at all. And if philosophy appears to be trying to take itself out of "the solution", you might take this as a hint, that the supposed solution is not acceptable to philosophers.

I was speaking of epistemology as the investigation of knowledge. OLP gives us a knowledge of our concepts that we did not have, of their ordinary criteria. Now justification is a trickier subject as we can say our criteria align with the ways in which our lives are, but that is not to say our forms of life are the bedrock of our criteria or that we "agree" on our criteria. And also not to say that radical skepticism is the outcome either. The truth of skepticism is that knowledge only takes us so far and then we are left with ourselves, you and me to work out the failings and clarifications that our criteria/lives lack the necessity, conclusiveness, completeness, etc. to ensure. Our concepts are breakable, indefensible but also open-ended (justice) and extendable into new contexts (freedom of speech). — Antony Nickles

So it appears to me, like OLP is a lot of idle talk with no justification for what is said. See, you are claiming that OLP give us knowledge of our concepts, which we didn't have, through reference to their "ordinary criteria". But you cannot even justify this assumption that there is such a thing as ordinary criteria. If you cannot even point to any instances of ordinary criteria, how are we ever going to get a better understanding of our concepts through examining their ordinary criteria?

Maybe it is better to say concepts have different criteria for the different ways (and different contexts in which) they are used (the sense in which they are used). So they have more possibilities than under the fixed standards (one picture) that philosophy wants. So in a sense they ARE different "games we play" with a concept, but a concept is not just about "words" or even expressions, because concepts are not "conceptual" or "ideas" as opposed to the world as philosophy's picture of certainty creates. — Antony Nickles

All you are doing here is attempting to validate equivocation. If you allow that the same concept has different criteria according to different contexts, you are saying that the word refers to the same concept despite having a different meaning. Using the word with different meanings, and insisting that the different meanings constitute the same concept is equivocation.

Criteria are not like rules, they are not always fixed, or unbreachable, or determinative. — Antony Nickles

A criterion is a principle or standard used for judgement. There is no ambiguity there. Either a person is following the criteria or not. It makes no sense to say that the person is at the same time adhering to the standard, yet also not adhering to the standard. The thing which you don't seem to be acknowledging is that in the vast majority of "ordinary" situations, the circumstances are unique and peculiar, such that a judgement cannot be made on the basis of criteria. There might be some criteria which would serve as some sort of guideline, but the real judgement is made by some process other than referencing the criteria.

Take the judge in the court of law, in my example above. Let's say that the law is the principle or standard which the judge uses, so the written law is the criterion in this example. There must be a judgement as to whether or not the person is within, or outside the criteria (law). The work of the judge is interpretation, interpret the person's actions, and interpret the law. Interpretation cannot done solely through reference to criteria, because the criteria itself has to be interpreted. So we find the true nature of judgement in interpretation, not in criteria, and interpretation cannot be dependent on criteria.

One thought on application is that, even unconsiously, we know the criteria of an action to ask "You know you smirked when you apologized." not because we explicitly are thinking of the criteria, but that we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc. — Antony Nickles

Reflect on this action, your example here: "You know you smirked when you apologized." I think you'll agree with me that what is referred to is a matter of interpretation. What is at issue though, is what does interpretation consist of? If it is a matter of "we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc.", then it is a matter of an emotional reaction rather than a matter of criteria. So this is why I am arguing that we must make sure that we get our principles straight here. "Criteria" implies that we are employing principles of reason, but if these basic kernels of meaning are really emotional reactions, then the use of "criteria" is really misleading to us.

Well two small tweaks. I take epistemology not as the search for grounds for knowledge, but as the search for knowledge, and that looking at what we say to see our criteria, as in to make them explicit--known from the unknown--is a way of knowing ourselves since our lives (what is important to us, what should count as a thing, judging, making distinctions) are our criteria. And that sometimes, we are responsible for our claims to aversion, to our extension of a concept asserting a new context, (politically, culturally) creating a new context. — Antony Nickles

I'm sure that wherever we have criteria, they are important to us, that would be the reason for having them. But if we assume that there is criteria where there is none, then if something goes wrong, don't we confuse an accident with a mistake? We'd accuse a person of not adhering to the principle, not correctly following the criteria, when the person was not even following any criteria in the first place.

I'll leave"applying criteria" alone for now (still not sure what to do with it), only to say that criteria could be described as "unexamined" (not unconscious exactly) which means we are maybe missing the fact that criteria are just all the ordinary ways we might judge someone as doing or saying this well, how we show in this case how it matters to us, what counts as an instance of it, etc. These things are not mental constructs, or created standards (though there are those too), these are our lives of doing these things like apologizing, thinking, knowing, threatening, identifying a dog, etc. — Antony Nickles

Do you see how it may be the case that "criteria" is not the right word here? But if we go to replace it, then what would we replace it with? We are entering into the realm where words will most often fail us. But this does not mean that we ought to use words like "criteria" which might give the wrong impression. Nor do I think it means that we ought not try to describe what we find here. It just means that we must choose our words very carefully. And I think, this is why it often appears like philosophers do not use ordinary language, it's because they choose their words carefully.

Types have identities, just as tokens do. So the type <dog> has an identity as a kind, just as an individual dog has an identity as an individual. — Janus

You may say that a type has an identity, but a rule is not a type, even if it defines a type.

There has to be more to perceived self-relationality of the’I’ than just temporal and spatial continuity. For instance, schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’. So in this case absolute temporal and spatial
proximity is not enough to have a sense being one’s own ‘I’. — Joshs

I'm not so sure that schizophrenia can be characterized in this way. The issue I see would be whether or not the person knows the voice to be coming from one's own head. The voice might be within one's own head, but one's own head is not necessarily the source of the voice. It might be the case that the voice is coming from God or some other source like that. So it wouldn't be correct to say that the person knows the voice to be "coming from their own head", if in fact they believe that the voice has a different source.

Inductive, yes, henceforth from the establishment of the rule. The rule is the identity, the reasoning is either deductive in the establishment of the rule by which a thing becomes known, or inductively, by which subsequent perceptions are identified as possessing sufficient correspondence to the original. — Mww

I don't see how a rule is an identity. It might be a principle that a person would use in an effort to identify something, but that does not make the rule itself an identity.

My “synthesis of the plurality of phenomena” indicates the establishment of the rule, phenomena herein, not the number of objects perceived, but rather, the variety of properties the matter of some particular object exhibits, and the synthesis being the reduction from all possible properties held in intuition, against only those exhibited by the object, which is deductive and leads to the rule from which the representation follows as its conception, in turn represented by its name. The rule thus established by which all following instances of sufficient similarity are identified, those all represented as schema of the original conception. Family, genus, species, member. Simple as that. — Mww

Do you really believe that when a child is learning to call a dog a dog, it goes through a synthesis/reduction process of possible properties, as you describe? I think that's far fetched.

When sufficient properties exhibited by the subsequent perception correspond to the properties of the original — Mww

Let's suppose "sufficient properties" is the case. You neglected the influence of social relevance. So if a judgement of "sufficient properties" is what is the case, then what is "sufficient" must be determined by social interaction. But this is not what we observe in practise. The child is not taught which properties are sufficient to distinguish an animal as a dog rather than a cat, the child is told that's not a dog, it's a cat, when it is wrong. The issue of which properties are sufficient is not demonstrated in such ostensive learning. In fact, I don't think i could even name which properties are sufficient to distinguish a dog from a cat, if I tried. So I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

The premises are behind the scenes, the conclusion is present to conscious thought. — Mww

That can't be right though. Deductive logic is formal logic which follows a very strict method. It's impossible that there can be unstated premises, or else the logic would not be valid. One cannot make a valid deductive argument which relies on premises which are not stated, or "behind the scenes". If this were the case, that the premises were somewhere outside the conscious mind, we'd be out of the realm of logic, and we might just say that the person dreamed up the conclusion from nothing. How does it make sense to you, to talk about a form of conscious logic which uses premises which are unknown to the conscious mind performing the logic? How could the conscious mind be using these premises if it has no knowledge of them?

Oh absolutely. It’s all speculative theory, and could be all catastrophically wrongheaded. But as in all theory, all it has to do is be internally consistent and not in conflict with observation. In which case, one theory is no better or worse than any other; none of them being susceptible to empirical proofs, even if they stand as logically coherent. — Mww

I think the part about sufficient properties clearly conflicts with observation. And the part about premises behind the scenes is inconsistent with how we normally understand "logic", therefore it conflicts with observation as well, the observed nature of logic.

Ethics is about value, in its essence: If you want to really get the center of ethics, you have to give it its due analysis, after all, an ethical case is a thing of parts. — Constance

Are you familiar with Plato's Euthyphro dilemma? We could ask a very similar question here, concerning the relationship between value and ethics. Is value based in ethics, or is ethics based in value. The answer would determine which of the two is more likely to be absolute. We have to consider the conditions carefully before we answer this question. We cannot just refer to examples like pain and pleasure, and conclude that value is primary, because Plato has already demonstrated that there is no necessary relationship between pleasure or pain, and value. So for example, an athlete will subject oneself to pain in training, for the sake of a goal which is valued. So pleasure and pain might be things which are given a positive or negative value, but this doesn't say much about value itself.

The question is, what makes the ethical shoulds and shouldn'ts what they are? Ethical goodness and badness, and we will simply call this ethical value and, are not like contingent value and judgment. A good knife is good, say, because it is sharp and cuts well, but this virtue entirely rests with the cutting, the goodness, if you will, defers to the cutting context. But change the conditions of the context and the good can easily become the opposite of good, if, e.g., the knife is to be used for a Macbeth production. Here, sharpness is the very opposite of good, for someone could get hurt. This is how contingency works, this deferring to other contextual features for goodness or badness to be determined. — Constance

OK, I agree with the principle here, the knife is the means to an end, cutting. The sharpness is judged as good in relation to that end. So goodness and badness are relative, judged in relation to an end.

Ethical value, on the other hand, is very different, for once the context is taken away, and no contextual deference possible, there is the metavalue "presence" remaining. — Constance

So you are proposing a "metavalue" which you call "presence". I assume that this would be the end to all ends, like Aristotle suggested happiness as. Is "presence" like existence? The problem with this type of proposal is that we already have presence, and we might already have happiness. So this type of end cannot incline us to act morally, because actions as means, are carried out for the purpose of bringing about the desired end. If we already have what is needed, presence, or happiness, then there is no need to act morally. So as much as you might insist that there ought to be a metavalue, or ultimate end, the absolute within which value is based, I think that this is just a pie in the sky ideal, imaginary, and without any bearing on real people living their real lives.

And I don't see how your example of torturing children is relevant.

But, if you want to use this language, value-qualia is certainly not nonsense, for apply a lighted match to your finger for a few seconds, review the experience, and remove all contingencies, all talk that could contextualize it entirely out of the analysis, and there is the remaining "presence" of the non natural quality of value/ethical badness and goodness. It cannot be observed, but that burning finger is more than Wittgensteinian "fact" (and Wittgenstein knew this) like the fact that my shoe is untired of that the sun is a ball of fusion. — Constance

As I said above, it's been a well known fact, since the time of Plato, that value is not grounded in pleasure or pain. It is something distinct from these, as we will forego pleasure for something of value, and we will also subject ourselves to pain, for something of value. Therefore your example, which says something about the "presence" of pain, would only be misconstrued if it were taken to be demonstrating something about the nature of value.

If we think about it enough, we realize that the relativity of relativity is relative. Which is just a snarky way of saying that, for example, while a dollar is worth a dollar, and that relative and subject to all kinds of adjustments, never-the-less there is something absolute about the idea of that value, and even its quantity. — tim wood

I don't see anything absolute about the value of a dollar. And I don't see how you can make such an assertion.

And the way that seems to work is to acknowledge a framework or set of rules within which the value is absolute. Outside of the framework, maybe not. — tim wood

Don't you see that the supposed value is relative to that framework? Therefore it is not absolute. In what sense could you possibly be using "absolute" here, when you are saying that the value is relative (to this framework), therefore it is absolute? It's like you are saying X is unconditional within these conditions. It's contradiction pure and simple.

I believe that the difference between the first person perspective (that of science), and the third person perspective (the one I propose), is best understood through acknowledging the difference between determinism and free will.

If we start from the human perspective, you can see that we observe the activities associated with the passing of time, and we make generalizations, inductive principles, concerning these activities. At the base of these generalizations, I'll call them 'laws', is the fundamental assumption that things will continue to be as they have been in the past. One form of this, is Newton's first law, but what I'm talking about is even more fundamental, everything must continue as it has, so Newton's first law is more of a specialized form of this fundamental assumption.

The fundamental assumption is based in observation, and is itself an inductive conclusion. It is produced for a purpose, and that purpose is the predictions which it supports. That itself is extremely useful. Now, notice that the fundamental assumption is based in good induction, very true, and prediction can only occur if it is true, therefore it is self-confirming in its truth through accurate predictions. However, it is created for a purpose, therefore fundamentally subjective. So it can be described as the first person perspective, how a human being naturally grasps time.

If we move to the third person perspective, we must look at the complete human being, living and acting in time. Now we must consider not just the capacity to predict, but the use of the predictions. We have a problem here, that of the unpredictability of human actions. This unpredictability is grounded in freedom of choice which is contrary to the determinism that is supported by the assumed inductive laws created for the purpose of prediction. So this third person perspective gives us evidence of an aspect of reality which is outside of, or in violation of the fundamental assumption.

So we have the fundamental assumption about the passing of time, which is that things (physical bodies) will continue to exist as they have, while time passes, and change must be "caused" by an interaction with another physical body. That's the determinist sense of "cause". To account for free will, we need to look at exceptions to the fundamental assumption. The fact that there are exceptions indicates that there is something deficient in this fundamental assumption, it's not really representing reality properly. So let's consider the nature of the exceptions, to see what they show us.

Let's magnify the exceptions to the extreme, and see what happens. The fundamental assumption, or law, dictates a continuity of existence as time passes. The free will indicates that at any moment as time is passing, this continuity of existence can be broken. Therefore the continuity which we observe, and is responsible for the fundamental assumption, is not a necessity. It appears as a necessity because it is based in logic, but it is inductive logic, therefore probabilistic. If we magnify the exception, we can see that at any moment as time is passing. a free willing agent might annihilate any continuously existing object. That continuity of existence, expressed as inertia, which is fundamental to determinist causation, is not necessary, it may be broken at any moment by a free willing act.

If this continuity is not necessary, it must therefore be contingent. This means that it is caused. Therefore all these things that we take for granted, that the world will still be there tomorrow morning, etc., are necessarily dependent on a cause. Furthermore, that cause must be active at each moment of passing time. If, at any moment of passing time, the entire physical universe might cease to continue existence in the same predictable way that it has, we must assume that at each moment of passing time a cause acts to reinstate its existence in that predictable way

I defend a rather impossible thesis: within the self there is the oddest thing imaginable, which is value. I claim that value, like the pain a spear in my kidney causes, is absolute, and the self is therefore absolute. — Constance

You're right that this is an impossible thesis. Value is by definition relative, as the worthiness of something is always dependent on a purpose, or something other than itself which it is judged in comparison to. How do you conceive value as something absolute?

Taken from today's news headlines. So, loosely translated, the Canadian government is tracking our cell phones....awesome. I feel so safe, with my government tracking my movements. — Book273

That's nothing new, they've always tracked phone records. Wait until they suspect you of committing a crime, they'll be all over your phone records. The public airwaves are not private, it's much wider transmission than going outside and shouting at the top of your lungs. If you can't handle it don't use a phone. And I don't think the US will give you anything better.

We are, on the other hand, only concerned with the conceptual notion of identity, which has to do with the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule. — Mww

OK, but the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule is called inductive reasoning, it's not identity.

First... he knows they are not the thing while knowing they are different instances of the same kind of thing; he knows all this because the synthesis of contradictory predicates is held in abeyance. Or, the principle of non-contradiction inheres in the cognition. — Mww

What is at issue is how does he know that they are the same kind of thing. When he is speaking, he calls them each a dog, but does he even recognize that "dog" is a type? He might not even know what it means to be a type. So when he is speaking, why would we assume that he applies some criteria to determine that the thing is a type of animal called a dog, and therefore call it that?

I don't see how the principle of non-contradiction is relevant, because he can see that the two things, have contradictory properties (different colour, or different size, for example), yet he still calls them by the same name, "dog". In this action, is he designating them as both the same type, or has he just developed some habit whereby he calls these similar animals by that same name? We are interested in why the person calls both of the two animals "dog", or two different buildings houses, or two things cars, etc. If we ask the person why, the person might rationalize, and give some reasons as "criteria", but the question is whether the person applies criteria when speaking, in referring to the thing as a car, or a house, or a dog.

Second..... two different dogs can have different properties, but those properties cannot contradict the general conception under which they are all subsumed. One dog can have four legs another have only three without being thought as different concepts. — Mww

All this indicates is that when the criteria for the concept of "dog" is stipulated, the inductive reasoning is carried out to the point of ensuring that there will not be a dog which contradicts the concept. Of course we have some failures in our capacities in this respect, and that's evident in cross breeds and the in between links in evolution. As per your example, if "four legs" is a stated criteria in the concept, then the dog which has three legs will demonstrate a fault in that concept.

Third....two different dogs cannot have contradicting properties and still both be conceived as dogs. — Mww

Yes they can have contradicting properties as in my examples above, different colour, different size, etc.. In Aristotelian logic these are accidental properties. With the so-called essential properties the thing must have that property. But what we find is that there is even exceptions to the essential properties, or questions as to whether such and such properties are essential or not, such as the three legged dog. This is more evidence that the basis for natural conceptualization is not criteria. When we look to pure reason, like mathematics, we might find that criteria is the basis. But then we are faced with the question of whether mathematical principles are supernatural, or artificial, and we still do not have the basis for natural conceptualization, if there is such a thing. That's the further issue, maybe the idea of "natural conceptualization", or "ordinary conceptualization", however you want to call it, is misguided in the first place..

No one should fault you for that. So what....there isn’t any behind the scenes going on, or there is but it doesn’t manifest in applying criteria? There must be a behind the scenes or the notion of being conscious is meaningless. So it reduces to.....what is going on behind the scenes if not the application of criteria? — Mww

What is going on behind the scenes remains as unknown, and that's why we have so much difficulty agreeing on metaphysical principles. So if someone proposes that what's going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria, and requests that we agree on this so that we might use this proposition as starting point or a premise for an epistemology, we ought to reject it as unsound. We need an epistemology which starts with the assumption that what's going on behind the scenes is unknown, and this acknowledges the need for metaphysics.

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes. — Mww

I don't see how the principle of identity is called for here. If a person sees a dog, and calls it a dog, then sees a different dog, and calls it a dog, then clearly the person is not applying the principle of identity, because they are seen as different things, not the same. The person would only be using the principle of identity if the two different dogs were seen as the same dog.

And since the person knows that the two different thing which are called by the name "dog" are not the same thing, the principle of non-contradiction is not even relevant. The two different dogs might have contradicting properties.

Or, it is applying criteria behind the scenes, without ever being conscious of it. — Mww

The point was that "applying criteria" is a conscious act. If the subconscious, or unconscious, is doing something which might be in some way similar to "applying criteria", then we ought to acknowledge the difference, rather than asserting that the unconscious is applying criteria. Until we have a complete description of what the unconscious is doing, which at first glance, appears to be similar to "applying criteria", we ought not simply assume that it is applying criteria. This way of thinking leads to panpsychism, and ideas such as the notion that quantum particles are deciding what to do.

Makes sense actually; regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished. — Mww

The reality of the situation, is that the cognitive system is engaged in many more things than simply applying criteria. So there is no need to assume that if it were active doing something other than applying criteria, it would need to be awoken from an inactive state in order to start applying criteria. What would be required would simply be a coming to one's attention of a need to apply criteria, then the cognitive system would engage itself in applying criteria.

So....my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense, but that the criteria for our conceptions, operating “behind the scenes”, and therefore not “regularly” known as belonging to our knowledge structure, is not. — Mww

My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. That is just an assumption which OLP supporters like Antony might make in an attempt to facilitate a misguided epistemology. It's a matter of 'we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, so let's just assume some type of applying criteria goes on, because this is convenient for a simplified epistemology. However, the evidence brought forward, especially by Wittgenstein, through the notions of family resemblance, and a fundamental lack of boundaries to word usage, indicates that what is "operating behind the scenes" is not even similar to "applying criteria". In fact, as I described earlier in the thread, I believe that what is happening behind the scenes is completely incompatible with "applying criteria". And so the conscious human being must suppress the natural inclination, which is other than applying criteria, with will power, in order to actually apply criteria.

When would one use a word like self except in order to contrast it with a person who is not myself? What other use is there? I can have a use of ‘I’ and ‘self’ which only considers ipsiety as background to a figure that appears before ‘me’ . The ‘me’ is nothing but whatever this background part of the current context is. What occurs into the ‘me’ .’ I see, I do, I feel’ :these terms just are talking about how the background is changed. There is no ‘I’ without the background but there is also never an ‘I’ without what appears to it, changes it , interrogates it, expresses it. The ‘I’’s ‘ ‘voluntary’ actions also interrogate it, so that the ‘I’ finds itself deciding or acting. It doesn’t decide to decide or decide to desire. The matter confronting it interrogates it , decides for it. — Joshs

This is exactly why (expressed in a different way than I), Antony's proposal of "ordinary criteria" is unacceptable. If we take a step beyond Descartes, for whom the 'I' finds itself being, to see the 'I' finding itself deciding, acting, and therefore changing, we cannot assign to this deciding, or acting, a method of applying criteria. You say, the matter confronting the 'I' decides for it, making the 'I' a part of the background, in a determinist way. I would give the 'I' some degree of autonomy, free will, to decide for itself. In each case though, the decision is not criterion based. Antony is proceeding with a faulty assumption.

Furthermore, we ought to be able to see, from this difference of opinion, which we all have concerning this matter, that we cannot produce a sound epistemology which is not based in solid metaphysical principles. If we cannot agree on the principles which drive a decision or judgement, and justification is based in agreement, then we have no means for justification.

There is no definite distinction between my talking to myself and my talking to another person. Both experiences are forms
of talking to another who interrogates the ‘I’. — Joshs

I disagree with you on this matter as well. There is a difference between talking to myself and taking to another, and this difference is based in the fundamental assumption, of a continuity of 'self', what we call identity. Whether the assumption is true or not, is irrelevant, because just in being there, it provides substance to the difference in attitude between talking to myself and talking to another, making each distinguishable from the other, as a distinct type of language act. So despite the ever changing difference of 'I', which you aptly describe, there is an underlying attitude of sameness, identity, within the 'I' which gives the 'I' of yesterday a special relationship with the 'I' of today, in comparison with the relationship between the 'I' of today, and any other person. This attitude, which is grounded in the difference between the temporal separation between the 'I' and itself, and the spatial separation between the 'I' and others, substantiates the difference between talking to oneself and talking to another.

The picture view that Witt problematizes hides all differences from context to context in what it believes to be the same meaning, the same standard or origin that supposedly exists apart from
those changing contexts. — Joshs

This issue may be associated with the question of the temporal continuity of the 'I', identity. If we assume the existence of a standard, or as Antony would say, a criterion, which remains the same, maintains its identity, regardless of the context of particular circumstances, then we need to support the existence of such a standard, with some sort of ontology, if we want others to agree. We cannot simply assume independent Platonic Forms, as the substance for such an assumption.

The attempt to describe spatial continuity of such a standard, different people in different places holding the exact same standard, fails, due to the observed deficiencies in language. And if we turn to temporal continuity, to see if the same person holds the same standard throughout an extended period of time, we'll find that this fails as well, due to the changing activity of the 'I' which you describe, as well as the significant differences between contextual circumstances, which would render "the same" standard as ineffectual. This is why we cannot describe this capacity which human beings have, to understand that incessant procession of differences, changes, through the intuition of an ideal sameness, as a matter of referring to the same standards.

Anarchists are definitionally left, but so much further left than Democrats that Democrats are scarcely better than Republicans in their eyes. — Pfhorrest

I think you should look into the ideology of libertarianism. There's a lot of deluded right anarchists out there today.

tried to make clear above that OLP does not mean "ordinary" as in everyday language, or just language generally, or that people actually discuss these criteria (though they may have to) in making judgements, though OLP is drawing out the ways in which we are making judgements about our concepts such as "whether or not one has correctly understood." — Antony Nickles

I really don't know what you mean by "ordinary" then. It seems like your attempts to define "ordinary" "ordinarily", and in your usage I see nothing to indicate anything other than everyday language. I'm hoping you will enlighten me concerning this other type of "ordinary language" which you are concerned with.

So if I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a way to make judgements as to whether or not our concepts are misunderstandings without referencing metaphysical principles.

And, second, yes, this is epistemology. It is a method to discover the unexamined ways in which our concepts work, their grammar. (And also an ethics of epistemology, a comment that the way in which we seek knowledge, and the type of knowledge we seek (the criteria for it), reflects on us.) — Antony Nickles

As far as I understand, epistemology is grounded in metaphysics, so if you can demonstrate an epistemology which is not, yet is well grounded anyway, I'm ready to consider it.

Now this is where I am trying to point out the philosophy that differs from OLP. Instead of "imposing" criteria to "escape" the pitfalls, OLP is trying to show all the ways we have to carry on in the face of these pitfalls, and that we can not escape and shouldn't impose, but look and work within (or extending beyond). There is no philosophical solution for this failure (nor the implied radical skepticism)--it is our human condition. I tried to work through this with Joshs above in relation to when words fail us. — Antony Nickles

I view philosophy as an effort toward a higher understanding. If you are trying to tell me, to just forget about it, a higher understanding is impossible, I simply will not listen to you, and continue to do philosophy in disregard of what you say. If you're saying that a higher understanding is possible within the existing conceptual structure, I will argue that as contradictory. To proceed toward a higher understanding requires amendments to the existing understanding, therefore we need to impose changes. So which do you think it is? Is philosophy an effort toward higher understanding, in which case we need to impose standards, or is a higher understanding impossible, and philosophers should do something else?

Again, this is not philosophy using or justifying "ordinary" language or our games, in the sense of regular, unquestioned, etc., but to say that these games (Witt uses concepts to generalize here) have criteria for how they work, their grammar; these are our ordinary criteria for these concepts. Looking at our ordinary criteria gives us an idea of why philosophers react to solve "the gap" that skepticism takes as absolute and world-ending, by imposing particular (universal) criteria to ensure understanding. But OLP also sees that we are separate and that we do sometimes fail, but that who we are is responsible for our expressions and for our answerability to the Other, our misunderstandings along the regular ways we already have. — Antony Nickles

Now you've completely lost me. You've already stated that you don't mean "ordinary" in the sense of everyday, so how are you using it here? What do you mean by "ordinary criteria". If ordinary criteria is not criteria imposed by some philosophical principles, and it is not everyday criteria (which I've argued is incoherent), what do you mean by this?

One thing I realized I need to clear up. The term "language-game" is to say the games we play with a "concept"--what criteria/grammar describe. — Antony Nickles

Again, I don't see what you're trying to say here. You've converted a singular, "language game", to a plural, "games we play", in your description. What Wittgenstein showed was that the same word has different meaning in different contexts, hence it is employed in different language games. Since the same word has different meaning in different language games, then if we are going to say that the word refers to a concept, we need to say that it is a different concept in each different language game. Since a concept would consist of rules or boundaries (criteria), and the rules would be different for different games, then we cannot say that it is the same concept. So these are not games we play with "a concept", they are games we play with a word. In other words, word games.

Now it is not the point here, but he is not saying that the concept of "game" has no ordinary criteria. One is that it is, as he says, "not closed by a frontier" (he later says it is the kind of concept that has blurred edges (#71)--that is another one of the ways it works, its grammar). He directly says, "And this is how we use the word 'game'." Another criteria, or grammar, for games is that its boundaries and rules are drawn--not set ahead of time. Another is that "What still counts as a game and what no longer does?" is answered by us (that is part of the way the concept of a "game" works). "That's not a game! You're just playing with a tennis racket!" but then I could counter that we are balancing it (a skill) and seeing how long we can (a measure of winning)--are these not some of the criteria of (set for) a game? and do they not allow for a discussion of what counts (criteria) and what matters? Witt is calling out the fear that if rules and boundaries can sometimes be drawn by us, we can't count on anything,which leads to the fixation to have rules take our place. — Antony Nickles

What Witt explicitly says in that section, is that there is no boundaries for the supposed concept of "game", but this does not prevent him from understanding what is meant by the word when it is used. Further one can draw boundaries for a particular purpose, if a person wants to. So he is saying that criteria (being boundaries) are not necessary, but can be imposed for particular purposes.

Again, we can remove "in ordinary language" because we are not opposing that to any other language. — Antony Nickles

OK, so why not just leave out the word "ordinary" altogether, if it serves no purpose. You've already said that it doesn't indicate everyday, and now it doesn't seem to qualify "language" in any way, so let's just drop it, and we'll start talking about language philosophy, or philosophy of language. But we have a problem, and this is that you seem to want to derive a foundation for epistemology from a philosophy of language.

The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were), — Antony Nickles

Oh come on, this is nonsense. You are saying that people apply criteria without knowing that they apply criteria. But if this were the case, then we could not call this applying criteria, because applying criteria is to make a conscious judgement in relation to the criteria. Let's look at the reality of the situation. People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. So let's just forget this unrealistic notion that people are applying criteria for the concepts involved with each of the words when they are talking. That doesn't make any sense at all.

Right, not investigating "what we do in ordinary language use", but "investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept", which is to say, as you do, OLP is doing philosophy. Its method is to investigate an instance (example) of a concept by looking at: when we say "I know___" to understand what counts, what matters, where the distinctions are made, etc., i.e., the criteria for the concept. — Antony Nickles

If you are distinguishing between "it rained this morning", and "I know it rained this morning", saying that the latter must be justified by conceptual criteria, then how are you going to justify standards for what "rain" means, or what "morning" means without ontology?

I think I've got another misconception. It is not that what we say is an example of the structure of our concepts. We take an example of what we say when to investigate the structure of our concepts--the criteria hidden in what we say when. And, it is exactly philosophy's "standards" for [the explanation of] criteria (universality, certainty, predetermined, "normative") which causes the loss of our ordinary criteria and any use of their context. — Antony Nickles

The problem is, that there is no such criteria "hidden in what we say". It's very obvious, we speak out of habit, use words which are familiar to us, without applying criteria. That's what Wittgenstein was showing in that passage. There are no boundaries to the use of the word "game", yet we understand each other when we use it. "Can I give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn." Then he further explains, that when we do draw a boundary, it is for a particular purpose. This is when we apply criteria, it is for a particular purpose, like doing philosophy.

So when philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, or whoever, apply criteria, this does not cause the "loss of our ordinary criteria". There never was any ordinary criteria, just habitual, yet inherently free, usage of words. It is a misrepresentation to say that there is criteria being applied when we commonly speak .

Let me paraphrase where I think we're at. You are claiming that there is a type of epistemology which is grounded in some type of criteria other than metaphysical criteria. You call this "ordinary criteria"? This is not criteria in the sense of some philosophical principles, but in the sense of some grammar. Can you demonstrate to me, how we might ground epistemology in grammar? For instance, if a proposition was composed according to proper grammatical form, would it be necessarily true?

Imagining being a stone is easier. It just requires imagining being dead. Imagining being another person requires annihilating this person then creating a new person that is different. But all I have to draw on, in creating that new person, is this person, so it wouldn't really be a different person. If I try to imagine being a different person, all I get is this same person in a different location.

One's mother?

NOS is Trump. Who would defend another, to the extend that NOS has defended Trump, except for oneself?

Let's make it simple. I think you can imagine (roughly) being another person (e.g. John Malkovich). Can you also imagine being all actors at the same time? — SolarWind

Sorry, I find it very difficult to imagine being another person. I find it logically insignificant as to whether I am me, or you, or John Malkovich, but i find it impossible to imagine actually being another person. Logic can take me places where imagination can't go.

Will Continued Social Distancing Ultimately Destroy All Human Life on this Planet?

Of course it will. reproduction demands a certain intimacy, and without reproduction, human life will of course come to an end. But the bad news is that we are not all total wankers, and enough of us will flout the rules to keep the population growing. — unenlightened

There appears to be something significantly wrong if the ones who go against the rules of morality are the ones who populate the planet. But I guess if birth control hasn't been extremely efficient, that's probably already happened every time there's a sexual revolution. So, maybe there's nothing to worry about anyway.

Why is it harder to imagine oneself as a school of fish than just as a fish. To imagine being a fish requires imagining oneself to be in water, breathing through gills, and swimming. That itself is a difficult task. How is that less difficult then imagining that each one of my cells, or each one of my molecules is a fish?

Well I guess I haven't done a good enough job with the examples I've tried to give above (re knowledge, apologies). I know that forms of life and family resemblances hold a big place in the investigations, and what I am saying does not detract or take the place of his point in bringing those up. But if you check the index there is 3/4 of a column of references to criteria of how to tell one thing from another or how a thing works: for raising your arm #625; learning a shape p. 158; of meaning #190, #692; of a mistake #51, etc. There is also the central role of the term Grammar for the concept of how and what ordinary criteria tell us about our concepts. — Antony Nickles

None of these examples is an instance of "ordinary language". Each involves a case of judgement as to whether or not one has correctly understood, and is therefore a specialized epistemological use of language. Criteria for judgement as to whether or not one is correct, knows such and such, or understands such and such, is epistemology, and therefore specialized language, not examples of "ordinary language". So the examples really do not justify your claim of "ordinary criteria".

Do you see the difference I am pointing to? In ordinary language use we communicate with each other and carry on with our activities respectfully, without hesitation, questioning, or otherwise doubting what the other has said. Understanding is assumed, taken for granted, and we carry on without issue. However, if misunderstanding occurs, it creates a problem, and the problem might be greatly magnified because understanding was assumed, and the person carried on under the assumption of having understood, and therefore proceed into doing the wrong thing which might constitute a significant difference.

If we want to prevent such mistaken activity, which could have very serious consequences in some circumstances, we look for a way to ensure that the person understands. Now, "criteria" comes into play, as providing the means for making a judgement as to whether or not a person adequately understands. However, we are now into a specialized, philosophized, language game, better known as epistemology, we are no longer in the realm of ordinary language. We impose criteria to escape the pitfalls of ordinary language.

The point is to emphasize the two distinct attitudes which underlie these two distinct types of language game. The person engaged in the "ordinary" language game proceeds in activities with a certitude, assuming to have understood what others have said, and that the others understand what oneself has said. There is no doubt here. In the epistemological language game, doubt is a fundamental feature because a higher level of certainty is requested. Therefore we need to produce criteria to ensure that we understand each other.

If we had to employ such criteria in ordinary language, it would become extremely inefficient. We'd be doubting everything each other said, using this type of criteria to confirm that we understood each other, all the time, and this would greatly restrict our activities. So, there is a break, a gap, between ordinary language use, which proceeds with an attitude of certainty, and philosophical language use which proceeds with an attitude of skepticism. If you think that there is such a thing as OLP, then you need to demonstrate how this gap might be closed, to demonstrate consistency between the confidence displayed in the ordinary language game, and the lack of confidence displayed in philosophical language game.

From a systems perspective, we are an amalgam of elements, very much like a school of fish. It is organization that creates a self ( self organization ). The school of fish becomes a self. The synergy of the school forms a self. The self of the school of fish is an emergent self driven property. — Pop

Sure, the organization is a "self", but the question is what causes the elements to organize in this way. You cannot say that the "self" is the cause, because you've already said that the "self" is the effect. It doesn't seem like an understanding to me.

What do you mean by chemical reactions? — Pop

If I'm not mistaken, a chemical reaction is a change in substance, where substance is determined by the molecules. So a chemical reaction would change a bunch of molecules into other molecules. This usually is associated with the various types of bonding between atoms, through the positioning of electrons.

Philosophy is, however, often about revolutionizing, or re-envisioning, philosophy itself. Where do we get Nietszche from if not in response to Kant? and Kant from Hume, etc. And so OLP must first clear up the grounds. So when I say "philosophy" does this or that, I am referring to a specific "type of philosophy". — Antony Nickles

I don't see this at all. If Nietzsche's philosophy comes from Kant, and Kant's comes from Hume, then there is a continuum here, not a revolutionizing or re-envisioning, despite the fact that each philosopher claims one's own philosophy to be unique.

he refusal, the standard, the bar, are what I mean by criteria set by these philosophers (certainty, universality, pre-determined, infallible, or only fallible in predictable ways, etc.). Now OLP, instead of setting those standards (for the description of our "concepts"--knowledge, intention, ad infinitum), looks for the standards (criteria) to judge what it is to be those concepts and what is important to us about them, by investigating when we say those things, "When we say...", i.e, When I say "I know you are in pain" one example is that I acknowledge, accept that you are in pain. — Antony Nickles

The problem though, is that as Wittgenstein pointed out, in what you're calling ordinary language, there is no such standards or criteria. There need be no boundaries for me to understand what "game" means. So meaning in its fundamental state (that of ordinary language) exists through the understanding of family resemblances, not through understanding standards and criteria. Therefore if concepts exist through standards and criteria, ordinary language does not rely on concepts. If you want to investigate the standards (criteria) involved when we say "..." in ordinary language, you are imposing a philosophical perspective somewhere where it does not belong. In other words you proceed from a false premise, that there are criteria and standards invlolved when someone says "..." in ordinary language.

Now, philosophy, by its very nature of what it is, as the description of what philosophers do, is to impose such standards and criteria, as philosophy relies on concepts. It is a specific type of activity with a specific goal, so standards and criteria are imposed toward that goal. Therefore there is a fundamental difference, an incompatibility between what philosophers do with language, and what ordinary people do with language, in the ordinary sense. You might insist that there is a "type of philosophy" which proceeds in this way, the way of ordinary language, but all that you would be doing with such an insistence would be practising the other type of philosophy (what I'd call ordinary philosophy), by insisting on such a standard or criteria. That's why it becomes hypocritical. By insisting that there is a special type of philosophy, distinguishable from other types of philosophy, as OLP, you are just practising ordinary philosophy, because every philosopher asserts that theirs is a special philosophy.

I will grant you that "criteria" for Witt is a term, not all the applications are used--I would say (his term) Grammar is interchangeable--and I admit I have not done a good-enough job differentiating it from all the other senses of "criteria" (I will edit this in at the bottom when I can). But criteria do not "create" (from the PI): having a toothache, sitting in a chair, playing a game of chess, following a rule, believing, seeing, thinking, hoping, etc., but the idea of them as boundaries is well taken, because criteria tell us what type of thing those are. PI # 373. We are investigating what we say when about a concept in order to understand what counts as an instance of it, how it works, what matters to us about it, how we judge under it, etc., which gives us a way of understanding them, ourselves, and philosophy's issues. — Antony Nickles

The point is, that we do not judge the meaning of a word, in ordinary language use, through reference to criteria, or whether the thing referred to counts as an instance of some concept. Either we understand what the person is saying, or we misunderstand. If you are investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept, then you are doing philosophy, and this is not what we do in ordinary language use. You cannot make the two compatible, they are two completely different ways of using language. Ordinary language use has the goal of efficiently getting one through the current situation, philosophy has the goal of a higher understanding.

OLP is literally letting language--what we say--explain itself. Taking the typical as exemplary; looking at what we typically mean with what we say as exemplary of the structure of our concepts. — Antony Nickles

What you don't seem to grasp, is that ordinary language usage is not exemplary of the structure of our concepts. In ordinary language use, we learn how language is used from observation and practise. This does not involve any standards or criteria. And, if we seek the source of meaning in this way of using words, we are led into the maze of family resemblances, not standards or criteria. However, there is a special type of language use, philosophy, which employs standards and criteria. This is exemplary of the structure of our concepts. So, just like mathematics is a special way of using language, which works with concepts, so is philosophy a special way of using language to work with concepts. But we cannot say this about ordinary language, because it doesn't necessarily use concepts.

Now, the challenge might be to use only ordinary language in an attempt to describe what mathematicians and philosophers are doing with language, so that we might readily understand what mathematics and philosophy are. But this would not actually be a case of doing philosophy. It would be a case of describing what philosophy is.

I am asking that you rethink the "specialized activity with a particular goal" that is the method of a tradition of some analytic — Antony Nickles

If you change the goal, then you do not have the same activity. Therefore you ought not call that activity by the same name. And, since you are suggesting a move from a more specific goal to a more general goal, we cannot call the more general a type of the more specific. You are moving in the wrong direction. We might be able to say that philosophy, as a "specialized activity with a particular goal", is a type of ordinary language use, but we cannot turn this around to make ordinary language a type of philosophy.

1.The synergy of atoms combined forms molecules
2. The synergy of molecules combined forms amino acids
3. the synergy of amino acids combined forms proteins: (100% confidence level) — Pop

An amino acid is a molecule. A protein is a molecule. So your so-called synergy is not a matter of combining molecules, it's a matter of creating more complex molecules.

We might ask why. What purpose does it serve to have a more complicated molecule? The answer might be that it allows for a greater variety of possibilities, those being possible chemical reactions.

Now their will be other ways conversation breaks down, and now it would seem to be helpful to examine each of those through what we say when we have a misunderstanding. And OLP would say: imagine examples of when we say something about misunderstanding, and we can investigate the context and criteria and learn what it says about understanding better. Instead, we take our "guilt, hostility, and stress" (our desperate skepticism) out on our ordinary criteria, and abandon them. The step is made because the ordinary ways are subject to failure, and we want something--"a way to understand each other better than we do". Not to make ourselves better, but to start the way langauge works over from scratch and build from the criteria we want. But then we understand everything in one way, built to address or solve all our misunderstandings, at once (dispell or solve our skepticism). And this instead of seeing and learning about the many ways we have come up with over the life of our trying to understand, through what we say when we talk of our misunderstandings (even in idioms). — Antony Nickles

You continue in your relentless efforts to misrepresent philosophy, in an attempt to validate your claim that there could be such a thing as OLP.

First, I think you need to distinguish between the intention involved with describing what philosophers are doing, and the intention involved with doing philosophy. If you do not allow for this distinction, then "doing philosophy" is an act of describing what philosophers are doing, which is describing what other philosophers are doing, onward ad infinitum, without ever taking into account what a true philosopher is actually doing.

So let's start with the assumption that a philosopher is seeking to understand, attempting to dispel misunderstanding. Misunderstanding, in general, can be characterized as a failure of communication. When there is a failure of communication, what we do is question the speaker, request a clarification on particular matters which are unclear. This is why philosophy is often described as an inquiry, it is an act of questioning. So here we have the foundation for a fundamental distinction between describing philosophy, and doing philosophy. When we describe, we assume to know what is going on, as a fundamental attitude of certainty, allowing one to put words toward making a description. When we do philosophy, we assume not to know, we are seeking knowledge, therefore we request, or ask for descriptions from those who appear more certain, we inquire, in order to dispel one's own misunderstanding.

On that premise, the philosopher does not proceed with any "criteria". Criteria are principles, or rules, for the application of words in description. The philosopher is proceeding from the premise of misunderstanding, to inquire, request a clarification, in order to bring oneself out of misunderstanding into understanding. Therefore no criteria is assumed. The premise is that criteria has failed, the description given, which may or may not have been based in criteria, is insufficient for understanding, so the philosopher is seeking a better description. Criteria is not the answer, to misunderstanding, familiarity is the answer.

At this point, you ought to see how you are making a clean break from Wittgensteinian principles, by seeking criteria for concepts, rather than seeking family resemblances. True understanding is not produced from criteria and concepts, it is produced from the use of words which have a familiarity. So-called "ordinary language' is not based in criteria and concepts. The use of criteria to create concepts, which Wittgenstein called boundaries, is carried out for a particular purpose. That purpose is not the goal of understanding, as I explained above, the goal of understanding involves questioning to develop familiarity. At the base of understanding, in so-called "ordinary language use" is familiarity, not criteria.

The important part here is not that they are common (ordinary) words (@Pantagruel); the point of OLP is that words "embody" the unconscious, unexamined ordinary criteria (not made-up, or philosophically-important criteria)--all of the richness that is buried in them of all the different ways we live. — Antony Nickles

Witt uses OLP to figure out the reason (spoiler: certainty in the face of skepticism) that metaphysics and positivism remove any context and replace our ordinary criteria. He does this by putting their claims/terms back into a context of when we say: "doubt" or "mean" or "mental picture". His other goal (and Austin's) is to show the variety of criteria for different concepts (the different ways concepts are meaningful, how differently they judge, what matters to us in their distinctions), and that each concept has their own ways they work (as opposed to word=world as Witt's nemesis, and that every statement is true/false for Austin). — Antony Nickles

o, to try this again, we are not using an ordinary dialogue or talking about ordinary (non-philosophical) content; that's fine it's just not analytical philosophy. We are examining what the ordinary criteria and context are when we say such-and-such philosophical claim. With "ordinary" maybe not as, conventional, so much as opposed to metaphysical abstract (absent) contexts and pre-determined criteria (the irony that Ordinary Language Philosophy has a weird version of ordinary is not lost on me--they didn't pick the name). Any "force of meaning" here is that if we can agree on the examples and the criteria, you might see what I see--see for yourself. — Antony Nickles

ut by investigating our ordinary criteria for each concept and how they allow for change is to see that it sometimes changes with our (cultural, practical) lives, but also to see that the ordinary criteria of senses of a concept can be extended into new contexts. With the example above, "thought" is externalized (see late Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?) not as limited to/by language, but that our desire for its "originality" and change is a possibility of (within) our concepts because of their criteria and the ordinary ways in which their "conformity" can be broken or pushed against or revitalized (in degenerate times). I guess this is to say I am, "my" "thought" is, not special, so much as, if I want what I say to be special, I am responsible to make that intelligible (which is a possibility of/from our ordinary criteria). — Antony Nickles

In all these quotes, you are speaking of "ordinary criteria". There is no such thing. Criteria only exists in specialized language, logical languages, which are designed for specific purposes. Criteria is designed for a specific purpose, therefore it is not part of "ordinary language". Criteria is not a part of what we call "ordinary". In "ordinary language", understanding occurs through familiarity with the words, not through criteria or concepts.

The reason why OLP becomes self-contradictory, or hypocritical, is that the activity of philosophy, as a quest to dispel misunderstanding in favour of understanding, is itself a specialized activity with a particular goal. Therefore criteria and concepts will of necessity be employed toward that end, and the OL part (relying solely on familiarity) is necessarily rejected as supporting misunderstanding, and not conducive to understanding. If you remove the specific goal (understanding) from philosophy, then it becomes consistent with OL, but that's not philosophy. So OLP is oxymoronic.

Since past and future are concepts of the mind and are ultimately illusory, then the only real "time" will always be the present. — Thinking

If you cannot get beyond the idea that past and future are illusory, you'll never understand causation.

It allows you to see things in a more objective light, while calming the nerves. :cool: — Harry Hindu

Isn't thinking that you see things in a more objective light the very same thing as hallucinating?

Is there any tricks to perceive this world of causes that you know of, like the Sages of yore? If so this is the discussion to give and receive such knowledge. — Thinking

Causation is a temporal concept. To understand it properly requires a true representation of time.

Here's my proposal. Start with a temporal line, as a representation, with a divisor representing the present. Let's say that the left side of the divisor is the past, and the right side is the future. The divisor, which represents the present, is not static in this representation, it is always moving toward the right, such that the left side, the past, is always growing bigger.

The past is the world of sensation, and empirical knowledge. Everything, by the time it has been sensed, is in the past, in relation to the sentient consciousness, which is experiencing the sensations. Further, empirical knowledge, inductive reasoning, gives us a principle of contingency, telling us that everything which has come to be, in the past, has come to be for a reason, has been caused. This might be called the principle of sufficient reason.

Now we have a past which is continuously expanding, growing bigger, being filled with things that are coming into being, or existence, at the present. We also see that the principle of contingency dictates that this world of things coming into being at the present requires a cause. According to the concept of causation, the cause of a thing is prior in time to the effect. In this representation (what I call the true representation of time), the future is prior to the past. This is because the divisor, which is the present, is always moving up the line into the future, as the part of the line which was formerly the future becomes the past. You can see how the part of this line, that is the future, is the future first, then later becomes the past, as the divisor moves. Therefore the future is prior to the past in the true representation of time.

There is another slightly different representation you could make. We could assume that the divisor, the present is completely static. In this representation, "the world" which is the future, is being forced through the static divisor, to become "the world" of the past. This, "the world of the future being forced through the divisor to become the world of the past", is what we observe as activity at the present. Notice that there are two distinct worlds, the world of the future, and the world of the past, and the act of being forced through the static divisor creates a transformation of one into the other. Again, you can see that in this representation, "the future world" is prior to "the past world", in the sense that whatever will come to be in the past world, was already in the future world, in a different form, being transformed by being forced through the present. In the true representation of time, the future world is prior to the past world, as the past world comes to be from the future world.

You ought to be able to see now, that the "world of causes" which you refer to is the future world. True causation can only be represented in this way because we have to be able to account for how possibilities which exist in our representations of the future, are selected for, and transformed into actualities in the past. The scientific way, which looks only at the world of the past, empirical knowledge gathered from sense data, and assumes that the past will continue indefinitely into the future, in the exact same way as it has in the past, is deficient because it does not allow for real change. Real change is denied by the assumption that the future will continue in the exact same way as the past. In other words, it's deterministic, and does not allow for the real change which is brought about by free willing choices. This scientific representation, which shows "the cause" as what arrives at the present before "the effect" is really not objective, because it is derived from the subjective perspective of an observer at the present. The true objective perspective removes the observer, to see time itself passing the present, thus recognizing that the observer dependent perspective creates an inversion which makes the true effect into the cause, for the purpose of prediction. Such prediction cannot account for the cause of real change though.

Smoke a joint or something. — Harry Hindu

Mushrooms might be better. Micro-dosing is the latest trend. Just don't inject the mycelium directly.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7573815/magic-mushrooms-blood-injection/

Perhaps we can move it to the lounge instead. — Wheatley

That's a good idea. When he's no longer commander-in-chief he'll be impotent, and his psychosis not a significant threat. Talk about him will be idle chatter.

If time is passing, what exactly is it passing? — Present awareness

It's a form of change, going by. We measure the going by of time, which is called passing. Since time is always passing (changing), a "zero point" cannot be determined, and it is simply assumed. An assumed point is lacking in truth. Therefore if a zero point is needed for measuring time, but the one employed is just assumed, the measurements are inaccurate.

wonder if those molecules with some sort of consciousness have philosophical discussions on to what part of them, and how their consciousness connects to their physical existence. — god must be atheist

Well, the Wikipedia article on homologous recombination describes enzymes as being recruited. So I guess this implies that each particular enzyme makes a free will choice as to whether or not to go into service.

The complexity of living organisms is staggering, and it is quite sobering to note that we currently lack even the tiniest hint of what the function might be for more than 10,000 of the proteins that have thus far been identified in the human genome. — The Shape and Structure of Proteins

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26830/

This is a process, run by enzymes, (single but complex molecules), which are observed to seemingly identify a double break in the DNA strand; then find a suitable piece of alternate DNA to compare it to; align the remnants of the strands with the whole 'template'; perfectly in-fill any gap (which can be of varying length on either strand); and then re-connect the broken strands, without mixing them up. — Gary Enfield

An enzyme is a catalyst. A catalyst is not the cause of a chemical reaction, it is an enabler, accelerating the reaction. It is only because of this faulty representation, that the enzymes are the cause of the activity, that you see the need to posit awareness in the catalyst, as if the enzyme knows what it is doing. But the enzyme is just there as an enabler, it is not actually performing the activity. The problem which your op demonstrates, is the problem with any attempt to separate a specified cellular activity, and represent it as an independent activity, separate from the rest of the cell. This could make it appear like the catalyst is actually the cause of the activity.

I am told that this process only runs on a few enzymes - far fewer than the logical steps we can all appreciate from this process.

There are no known chemical signals to form any known form of feedback loop, and no basic chemistry like a catalyst to explain the varying rationale either.

This is truly remarkable but scientifically proven.

So could this repeatable process, (which resolves problems that can vary on each occasion, yet produce the complex but predictable outcomes), be evidence of a degree of awareness in a single molecule? — Gary Enfield

It really doesn't mean much to say that there is only a few enzymes involved. A protein is an extremely complex molecule, and maybe I need to emphasize 'extremely'. So it's like you're amazed that a complex task can be carried out by just a few computers, when a computer is a very complex thing in itself. But since there is a large number of protein molecules in any given cell, it's unlikely that this process you refer to only involves a few.

Like all measurements, one needs a zero point to measure from and that zero point is the present moment. — Present awareness

How can the present be a point, when time is always passing?

Infinite monkey theory is the best defense against an accusation of plagiarism. I'm just a monkey typing random stuff, so what if it happened to be the same as someone else. Seat a bunch of monkeys at type writers, and eventually they'll find your phrase. I think it's a form of the principle of plenitude.

No wonder the ops looked like a bunch of random sentences copied from various different places and tossed together into a salad.

I hear there's plagiarism bots which University professors use. Having been around for some time now, I imagine they're quite sophisticated, and have access to God knows what, using who knows what comparison techniques. As a flock, the less we know, the better. I'm sure Michael's got that all worked out though.

There is no such thing as "ordinary language", it is an oxymoron, and that is what Wittgenstein demonstrated. The so-called "ordinary language philosophy" is a reaction to what Wittgenstein did.

"Ordinary" is a generalization, but what is implied by "ordinary language" is reference to the specific instances of use, occurring in unique and particular circumstances. So we have the self-contradicting concept, that the peculiar and unique instances of language usage, can be described or spoken of, under the generalization of "ordinary language".

The philosophical issue which arises is the need to distinguish between what a person appears to be saying, and what a person appears to be doing, in order to avoid deception. If we assume that a person is speaking any sort of "ordinary language", then we assume a fixed meaning to the terms, consistent with this generalization, validated by concepts, and the person is interpreted as speaking ordinary language accordingly. This allows that what the person is doing with the words, within the particularities of the unique circumstances, is actually somewhat different from what the words say, according to the assumed concepts of the "ordinary language". Therefore the person who interprets under the assumption of "ordinary language" is capable of being deceived, if the speaker is doing something different from what the assumed concepts say the speaker is doing. We can call this deception a form of hypocrisy, saying something (as interpreted through the assumed concepts of "ordinary language"), while the person is in the midst of doing something completely contrary to what is being said.

Wittgenstein was a master at this form of hypocrisy, actually taking it to a higher level, by attacking the foundations of it, with it, implying that what he was doing with the words is actually the same thing as what he was saying with the words, while actually demonstrating that he was saying something different with the words from what he was doing with the words. The result of course, is multiple levels of ambiguity, and an impossibility of agreement in interpretation.

And again, the claim of OLP is hyperbolic, it is voiced to include everyone (though impossible), as if to move past resorting only to the individual and approaching a sense of the universal without erasing the context of the particular--Nietzsche will appear righteous and unabashedly anarchistic; Austin, contemptuous or condescending; and Wittgenstein, enigmatic, curt, presumptuous (as I've said elsewhere, the lion quote is used as an uncontested fact). — Antony Nickles

I see you have an inkling of the issue right here, with the reference to hyperbole. All you need to do is carry this analysis one step further, and OLP is seen as oxymoronic rather than hyperbolic. Until you relinquish the idea that there is any such thing as what a person is saying with words (ordinary language), and replace that idea with the idea that there is only what the person is doing with words (as philosophy is an instance doing something with words), you will always leave yourself exposed to the possibility off deception. President Trump provides a very good example, 'I kept telling those people not to use violence in our fight to prevent the election from being stolen from us'.

I believe Austin's point is the richness of what we ordinarily mean by what we say is the distinctions between one concept and another that are imbedded in their criteria for OLP to find that reflect what is worthy about that concept for us--what is meaningful about it to us: why it matters to draw that distinction, what counts for inclusion, why we would assume a connection to something else or between us, etc. — Antony Nickles

The first thing you need to do is dispense with this idea that there is such a thing as "a concept". This notion, of what Banno would call mental furniture is what is misleading you. When you think that there is a concept, then you think that there is some sort of "ordinary language" which consists of a relationship between word and concept. If you rid yourself of this notion, you will see that each instance of language use is particular to the circumstances, and the assumption that there is "a concept" which poses as the medium between the words, and what the person is doing with the words, is really an unnecessary attitude which renders you vulnerable to deception.

We are oceans apart. A culture's form (imperfectly) determines the nature of the individual, constituent, human psyches it, as a culture, is composed of - language and its semantics as one example. But nowhere does a culture have "describable physical conditions". — javra

I thought we were sticking to "form" in the sense of Aristotle's hylomorphism.

The article of impeachment is "incitement of insurrection". — NOS4A2

Right, and we all know that Trump is guilty, whether he intended to incite insurrection or not, because even if he did not intend to incite insurrection, the insurrection occurred, and he is guilty of inciting that insurrection through the concept of criminal negligence, regardless of his intent.

The members of the mob that attacked the Capitol and beat a police officer to death last week were not desperate. They were there because they believed they had been unjustly stripped of their inviolable right to rule. They believed that not only because of the third-generation real-estate tycoon who incited them, but also because of the wealthy Ivy Leaguers who encouraged them to think that the election had been stolen." — StreetlightX

Theft may be prevented with violence in the libertarian code of ethics.

Refers" is an inadequate term here. "Socrates" refers to Socrates, and not just any man. Likewise "animal" refers to animals, and not just any living being (plants, for example). — javra

You misunderstand. The word refers to the object in some circumstances, but we're talking about the concept here, the concept of "Socrates". To say what Socrates is, the concept of Socrates, is to refer to "man". To say what a man is, is to refer to "animal". The issue was whether or not a concept is a whole. And since each concept is defined by something more general, which makes the definition get more and more vague, without closure, as we proceed in defining the terms, a concept cannot properly be called a whole.

I'm glad that this is evident. In short, when in search of absolutes - such as in a complete and absolute intelligibility, to paraphrase from this quote - absolute wholeness does not occur for givens, be they conceptual or physical. Nevertheless we cognize givens as bounded entireties. For example, a rock is cognized as a bounded entirety, as a whole given. Not as two or more givens; and not as an amorphous process. Even "a process" is cognized as a bounded entirety, and can thereby be discerned to be one of two or more processes. — javra

The problem with this is that we see a physical object as a bounded whole. The spatial boundaries are very evident to our vision, so we have some reason to believe that there is some reality to these boundaries. Therefore we assume that physical objects are wholes. In the case of concepts we cannot find those boundaries. One concept is defined in relation to another, which is defined in relation to another, and so on, and we cannot find any true boundaries. So we might insert arbitrary ones. This is the same with "a process". If there is a temporal duration, we cannot really discern when one process stops and the next starts, so we insert arbitrary boundaries. Temporal processes are like that. When we look for the beginning or ending of a particular, identifiable object, the precise moment that it starts to exist or ends existing is arbitrary.

So I think that our conceptions of boundaries are based in spatial concepts, being derived from our sensations of spatial boundaries, and we don't really have any real, applicable principles toward understanding temporal boundaries. We can readily understand that the present makes a boundary between the past and future, but we have very little if any understanding of what this means.

Maybe you're looking for the absolute, fundamental nature of individual things that dwells behind our awareness of them, so to speak. Whereas I'm addressing the very nature of how we cognize givens: by cognizing each individual given to hold the attribute of oneness. — javra

I must admit that I am not familiar with your use of "givens", and I don't think I understand what you mean with it. Maybe you can explain.

What then do you make of formal causation? — javra

I would describe formal causation as the restriction imposed on the possibility of change, by the actual physical conditions present at the time. So at any given time, any situation is describable in formal terms. The describable physical conditions which are present act as a constraint on the possibility of future situations, therefore this present form, is in that sense, a cause of future situations.

I also note that while a flower is neither an unopened bud nor the stem off of which all petals have fallen, it yet remains the same (numerically identical) flower throughout the time period in-between, despite considerable changes in its matter over this span of time. Its identity nevertheless remains static in its form - again, despite the changes in its matter - such that form accounts for the temporal continuity of the object, and therefore its identity. — javra

I think this is incorrect. The flower changes its form. The form is what is describable, and the changed form is describable. The matter only changes to the extent that such changes, material changes, are describable, but if they are describable, then they are formal changes. So by definition, the matter does not change. As Aristotle says in his Physics, it is what a thing comes from, and persists afterward. So by definition it is what does not change. Only the form changes. If there was a prime matter, it would be the fundamental elements or particles out of which all existing things are made. These fundamental particles would never themselves change, they would just keep existing in different configurations, and this would account for all possible change. However, this is the conception which Aristotle demonstrates as fundamentally incoherent in his Metaphysics. He shows how matter itself must come to be from some type of teleological form, therefore we need to seek the Divine Will, as the cause of matter and temporal continuity.

Its identity nevertheless remains static in its form - again, despite the changes in its matter - such that form accounts for the temporal continuity of the object, and therefore its identity. — javra

The form of a thing does not remain static, it is always changing, and is by definition what is "actual". The matter, as "potential" is static, because despite changes the potential remains the same (conservation laws in modern physics). And by definition, the matter is what existed prior to a change, and persists after the change.