Explicitly stated.... — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm jumping in here not because anyone needs my help, but instead because I have questions pending before you that you have not even attempted to answer, and because of your claims and lack of substantive response I hold you obliged to answer them. You will find them above on page 20 where you left them.

So, I'm curious. Do you have a bare minimum criterion for what counts and/or what it takes for any and/or all examples of giving purpose to something to count as such? — creativesoul

An excellent question! I had to read it more than once to understand what you were asking. Not, what are the minima for a purpose to be a purpose, but rather, as you have already granted that purpose is granted, given, assigned, what is the least that a grantor does that establishes the purpose as a purpose? I assume, here, that grantor and grantee can be the same person.

And it seems to me that absent articulation and communication, there can be no purpose. Or, expressible and expressed. And it seems just that simple, between grantor and grantee.

But this may, can, and does present problems for an observer. He may suppose purpose where there is none, none where there is at least one, and where there is at least one, he or she may very well misinterpret it or fail entirely to understand it. Example: a man entering an office is gestured to a chair and invited to sit down. And here a small constellation of purposes that would be simple though tedious to lay out. Now suppose exactly the same scene, but the man entering is blind. This a different set of purposes! The blind man might well say to himself that he would like to sit down, but first he had better find the chair and then orient himself to it.

And here enters the notion of incremental purpose (not to be confused with subordinate purposes), which may elude the observer entirely. The sighted man articulates his purpose as to to take a seat in the chair, probably without giving any thought to his subordinate purposes of moving his feet and legs in a coordinated alternation to the chair and then sitting down. Rather he's got it all plump in one step, or one purpose.

But the blind man cannot do that. His progress is necessarily incremental - and so forth. And if the observer doesn't get it, then his testimony is worthless with respect to any purpose of the blind man, except perhaps his final purpose, which by the time he gets to it, may only merely resemble the sighted man's purpose without being quite the same.

For brevity's sake, I leave to you filling in the gaps, here, and understanding the caveats about attributing, as an observer, purpose.

And what that leaves, in many cases where purpose is the topic, is the question as to exactly what for the purposes of the discussion purpose is - and then writing down that answer and not forgetting it.

.

edit - deleted, unfinished

If it could predict its end, then the physical universe is effectively a finite structure, which cannot participate in a multiverse. — Tarskian

Why not? As to the uni-verse, the predictions are for either a hot death or a cold death. The multiverse I understand as a "place" where universes exist much as galaxies in the universe.

Further, you have not actually ruled out prediction, but merely noted what you think would be consequences, the which you don't like.

Edit: What exactly do you think "infinite" means as applied in any way to what we might here call cosmology?

I knew there was a good reason I didn't live in Sydney!

i recognize there are lots of ways to attack a problem, but at the same time it's useful to remember that the attack itself can be even entirely destructive of the ground contested. Bird migration is a mystery. Near as I can tell, we know only that a bird is here at one time, and later is very far away there, and later still here again, and there again, until for any of nature's or man's reasons it can't.

Newton theorized that gravity was a force operating over distance (apparently himself understanding better than most this was problematic). But in terms of human travel, this is reasonable. I wish to go from Boston to San Francisco, or maybe Sydney to Perth, my destination, then, exerting a "force" That is, I can cognize my destination in reasonable ways and terms.

But what is this for a certain hawk that makes the annual round-trip from Alaska nearly to Tierrra del Fuego? Or any other such bird? My bias is that we know what, but little or nothing about how. And until we do, descriptive language must be suspect, come with warning label attached so to peak. "Will," "intention," "knowledge," while seeming efficacious, at the same time likely misleading and of sense, destructive.

Does a bird intend as a matter of will his purpose to be a long trip, or any trip at all? Imho such language must be abandoned as being obstructive of real understanding, as in a manner of speaking gravity is abandoned in favor of curved spacetime, hurdling in an insight all of Newton's problems.

Question (without a question mark): The word "infinite" is often used in connection with understandings of the universe. Sime, here, may have already answered, but I'd like to nail it down on all four corners. Mathematical infinity has nothing to do with any study of the universe (except as it may appear in some of the mathematics that describe the physics of the universe).

And this for reasons I think so obvious as to be not even worth wasting time on.

You and I have a completely different understanding of the nature of "a relation". We could not even find grounds to start any agreement, to converse. Consequently you'll understand "relation" in your way, and I'll understand "relation" in my way. Since "order" is a specific type of relation, any discussion about order, between us, will be rife with misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I have repeatedly made it clear that you can have your beliefs, your understandings, all day long no complaints from me.

But you insist that these beliefs of yours constitute facts about the world and then refuse any substantive engagement about them as facts, dodging, avoiding, and evading. You hold a relation is an independently existing immaterial real thing, explicitly not an idea or product of mind, yet you offer no account of its existence or of how you know it exists. You say that of groups of things, there is one and one only order of them, their natural order (dependent on their circumstance), but you give neither account nor explanation, nor answer direct questions about how any of that works or what any of it means.

And you wax long on everything else but substance when substance would be cleaner, shorter, and presumably conclusive.

You're the man who insists that 2+2=5. Which is fine for you in your sandbox. But as an adult it is incumbent on you to recognize you're not in your sandbox, and to stop acting petulantly as if you were a child in one. Now, I had thought you were attempting to salvage a little dignity by quitting the discussion. Alas, not so.

Just above I offered some questions, which so far you have ducked. Why not give them a try?

Assuming you could vote -I'm thinking you're British and cannot - do you vote for Biden or Trump?

Birds and other animals surely exhibit intentional behaviour. What they don’t exhibit is the rational, abstract and meta-cognitive awareness of h. sapiens. But the excerpt shows how intentional, purposeful acts don't necessarily require the latter and that intentionality has a much broader scope than what we think of as conscious intentionality. — Wayfarer

I'm of two minds on using "intention." Informally, sure. Formally, not so sure. It is as much as said that the animal's behaviour "intends" while the animal itself cannot. - and that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Now to be sure, I hold and agree that lots of animals can intend and learn, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. And there's too much evidence to deny that most animals have a quality of life. But we also learned that some animal behaviour is "hard-wired," instinctual - I do not know if that is still a valid viewpoint - and if so, then it seems fair to ask at such times what exactly is doing the intending or what it even means.

I accept the description as given. But likely you even better than the author can see problems with any claims made about the bird's behavior - even with the author's own caveats in the second paragraph.

I was after clear signs of just plain intelligence, a measure of humor added - videos of examples of which number in the thousands on Youtube.

No. I had two cats. One an outdoor master of the neighborhood. I'd observe it lying hidden in a bush observing something intently, and it took me quite awhile to see that in two yards across the street, in two separate bushes, were two other cats, each observing the others with what appeared to be equal intensity and attention. The other cat a master of indoors and of people. The sidewalk being a main walkway for that neighborhood to the transit station, this cat would go out and lie on the sidewalk and "collect" pets, belly-rubs, and scratches from folks going to work in the morning and returning home in the evening.

An old house, the doors were hung in such a way as to slowly swing closed if left open - without latching. And sometimes the cats would be trapped in a bedroom. Indoor cat figured out to reach under the door to pull it open, and to quickly slip through before it swung closed again. Outdoor cat, even after watching this a number of times, never got it. And a dog, a border collie, that at the playground understood instantly a game that was proposed to her, and was eager to play.

I'm sure most pet owners can tell many like stories, clear examples of intelligence and even a sense of humor. And trained animals can do amazing things. So I do not limit such behaviour to people, but I do think it makes sense to speak in terms of people on the assumption that at least at first there may be greater clarity.

You appear to be mixing up the natural order — Metaphysician Undercover

Three billiard balls on a billiard table: what is their "natural" order? Three battleships at sea, what is their "natural" order? Three horses in a field, what is their "natural" order? Or, one billiard ball, one battleship, one horse, what is their "natural" order? What is "natural" order? And if there is one only and no other order, and that order depends upon their "context," their "relation" to other objects, or their "environment," what exactly are "context" and "environment," and "relation" that they are so singularly determinative? How do these disparate things establish one and one only order? And how do you know?

The substance of these questions has been before you repeatedly and you make no substantive answer.

An object does not exist in a multitude of distinct contexts at the same time, — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course it does. Or, if you are quite sure it doesn't, which one is right and how do you know?

Your words, MU:

However those objects relate to other objects, the context, or environment they are in, dictates their order. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is either one order or there are many. Which?

I'm not trying to be toxic, only I have no idea of what you are trying to express. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your words

If a set consists of concrete objects, then it has the order that those concrete objects have, and no other order
— Metaphysician Undercover

And exactly what order is that?
— tim wood

However those objects relate to other objects, the context, or environment they are in, dictates their order.
— Metaphysician Undercover — tim wood

You say, a set of objects has an order and no other order. I ask what that order is, and you say, however they relate to other things. As they can relate in multiple ways, it would seem, according to you, they can have more than one order. Thus you say they have one order and no other, and yet many. And then when asked about that, you play dumb. Not the first time. And that is why I call you toxic.

Your views and opinions become nonsensical and self-contradictory, a waste of time. And maybe your views and opinions always have been. Or in short you play a dishonest and toxic game.

It appears, then, that one and one and no other is actually a many.
— tim wood

Sorry tim, I'm not picking up what you're putting down. — Metaphysician Undercover

Very nice. How toxic of you, MU. But note that what I "put down" is just what you put down, I merely asking you to make sense of it.

If a set consists of concrete objects, then it has the order that those concrete objects have, and no other order
— Metaphysician Undercover

And exactly what order is that? — tim wood

However those objects relate to other objects, the context, or environment they are in, dictates their order. — Metaphysician Undercover

It appears, then, that one and no other is actually a many. Hard to make sense of that.

If a set consists of concrete objects, then it has the order that those concrete objects have, and no other order — Metaphysician Undercover

And exactly what order is that?

Thank you for the offer and the thought.
Let's - or let me - try to take a closer look at relation. I think it must be pretty clear that any expression of the relation is just the expression of an idea. Because 1) the expression is not the relation, 2) and any such idea is at best an approximation, because not itself exactly and precisely corresponding to any relation.

I think language provides a clue into the nature of relations. We say of things that they are. This is that; these are those. Relations, one the other hand, are dynamic; something is happening.

With our E(arth) and M(oon) in mind, let's imagine a snapshot of our local space - no time passing. There are the E and M. Where is, what is, the relation between them? It does not exist - it does not exist in the moment. Relation appears to be a happening as a function of time. But not of time itself, because of its claim of independent existence - which claim itself does not survive its dependence on time.

If relation does not exist in the moment, it is hard to see how it can come into independent, immaterial existence in any sequence of moments. Easy-peezy as an idea, but not the independent immaterial existence.

Your claim, then, seems to be nothing more than a claim - a belief on your part. And I give beliefs as beliefs a pass. If you want more, you shall have to make clear how it can be more.

I didn't say inapplicable. Applicability and application are in the eye of the beholder.

I don't think Godel's has anything to do with natural languages. What is your target, here?

The first key element of aristotelian ethics, is looking upon everything in life through the lens of telos and seeing the good as things living up thereto. A good eye is an eye that can see well; a good clock is one that can tell the time well; etc. — Bob Ross

No. That's the "virtue" of the thing. The ethics in Nicomachean,,, is about balance/mean between extremes. As to the influence of Nietzschean thought, more immediate is stupidity and ignorance, through the failures of general education.

I'll bite. Non-formal language is descriptive, as such useful - "true" - wrt certain criteria, and as such never itself the truth. And the same for formal/technical language, the difference being that those users usually do not worry about truth.

All this contained in Bacon's "putting nature to the question." What nature returns is an answer to the question.

What's nonsense is having barely read the SCOTUS opinion is you having such strong opinions about it. The decision is fine and fully in line with what I would expect coming from a Dutch legal background. — Benkei

I didn't say I barely read it; I said I read it quickly. And I noted that to my eye they appeared to have entirely sidestepped common sense.

"Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts." Trump v. United States, July 1, 2024.

"In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such an inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose, thereby intruding on the Article II interests that immunity seeks to protect."

"The essence of immunity “is its possessor’s entitlement not to have to answer for his conduct” in court. Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 525. Presidents therefore cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution."

" The Government asserts that these weighty concerns can be managed by the District Court through the use of “evidentiary rulings” and “jury instructions.” Brief for United States 46. But such tools are unlikely to protect adequately the President’s constitutional prerogatives. Presidential acts frequently deal with “matters likely to ‘arouse the most intense feelings.’ ” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 752 (quoting Pierson, 386 U. S., at 554). Allowing prosecutors to ask or suggest that the jury probe official acts for which the President is immune would thus raise a unique risk that the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of the President’s policies and performance while in office. The prosaic tools on which the Government would have courts rely are an inadequate safeguard against the peculiar constitutional concerns implicated in the prosecution of a former President."

"These safeguards, though important, do not alleviate the need for pretrial review. They fail to address the fact that under our system of separated powers, criminal prohibitions cannot apply to certain Presidential conduct to begin with. As we have explained, when the President acts pursuant to his exclusive constitutional powers, Congress cannot—as a structural matter—regulate such actions, and courts cannot review them."

"As for the Government’s assurances that prosecutors and grand juries will not permit political or baseless prosecutions from advancing in the first place, those assurances are available to every criminal defendant and fail to account for the President’s “unique position in the constitutional scheme.”

--------------------

These just a few excerpts. I invite gentle reader to both discern the common sense in it - or lack thereof, and also to try to articulate the actual sense of it. And a little after these, Roberts is happy to read into the Constitution text that is not there, as well as minimize the significance of text that is there. Starting with this, "The principal dissent’s starting premise—that unlike Speech and Debate Clause immunity, no constitutional text supports Presidential immunity, see post, at 4–6 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.)—is one that the Court rejected decades ago as “unpersuasive.”"

In sum, can't prosecute, can't indict, can't investigate, can't ask - and the "ordinary" protections afforded citizens inadequate for the protection of the office of the presidency. Those old enough will hear clear echoes of Nixon's defenses, viz, that he, Nixon, was shielded by the need to protect "the office of the presidency." And one does well to remember to ask from whom or what the "office of the presidency" needs/needed protection from, the answer in both cases being the president himself!

I suggest you read the article with a little more critical care. Imho, it's nonsense. We can slice and dice to see how it's nonsense, but I don't think that's worth our time. And I think it should be clear to you.

All well said and orderly. But what what was "understood" is now codified - they fixed what wasn't broken - and usually that's not a good thing. Um, as to vaccinations, in most if not all of the US, your child does not go to school unless he or she is vaccinated.

What I do not like about the SCOTUS ruling - I read it (quickly) - is that they appear to have completely sidestepped common sense.

"The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office." — Benkei

Sure. But why would anyone need immunity from prosecution? Because they broke the law. Why would anyone want immunity? Because they did and they will.

Would you ever say to a parent, "Acting as a parent, you can not be prosecuted for anything you do to your child"?

Ok. I see it. Thank you.

The semantics, i.e.the truth about rr, lies elsewhere than in any of the syntactic consequences provable from T. Furthermore, it requires a specific mathematical process to unveil such semantics. — Tarskian

Agreed - except that I do not see a mathematical process unveiling meaning - how could it?

Yes, moral-aesthetic sense. What you quoted is me translating A2. — Lionino

Which is not-so-amenable to pure affirmation/negation.

A1 is an axiom, so it is not tautological, — Lionino

Then maybe it should be expressed in a different form - excluding the "both"? You did not object to my rendering of it.

we can rest quite easy in claiming — creativesoul

We can always rest easy claiming - but that all the more reason to remember it's just a claim. And good claims work - but none of that makes them true. It's not easy to describe any animal action in terms that do not tend either to anthropomorphize or make hasty assumptions. My cat meows at the door; obviously it wants to go out. The evidence being that it goes out - except when it doesn't. Cat owners all share the experience of their cat, once the door opens, standing in the doorway, or lying down in the doorway, for an extended sampling of the day, no matter the weather. So what is the cat about? Who knows? All we get is the probability/possibility of certain behaviours.

You can't easily convert to truth tables. — Lionino

Let's try A1. You can tell me where/how this truth table fails. I render A1 as

(p -> ~q) <=> ~(p -> q)

I can't put in the table - it won't format. But it's a 90 second exercise to see that it doesn't hold when p is false - if p is false, the left side is true but the right side is false.

which are whether it necessarily implies or is implied by a not positive property, — Lionino

Maybe I'm reading in too much. By positive/negative do you mean purely affirmation and negation. - which really won't do for your, "Gödel's original "positive properties" is to be interpreted in a moral-aesthetic sense only."

Collingwood took on Anselm's proof directly, characterizing it (my words, not his) as preaching to the choir, and as such unassailable (An Essay on Metaphysics, pp. 189 - 190, accessible online).

I don't know. Do we have a standard? If winning WW2 was positive, may we not say that the winning was a positive property? Not arguing, here. More asking what a property is. In the notation in A2, a bit formidable, P is abstract, so any value assigned to P would seem to require the same qualities as P itself, in this sense to be free of ambiguity or equivocation. Sense?

There's always something that one is ambitious about regardless of the complexity of the desired outcome. — creativesoul

I accept the correction. A person can be hungry without knowing what he wants, but at least he's hungry.

X has purpose in strict relation to a creature — creativesoul

Imho best to limit this to people because, so far as I know, there is no adequate language for making clear just what exactly animals are doing. As to your distinction between purpose on one side and meaning and significance on the other, l don't quite get it. But I have no reason to think I would disagree with you. I assume you mean that a dim bulb can illuminate meaning and significance, but that it takes something brighter to execute purpose. In any case I think none of it exists absent an agent in which it is thought/supposed.

A1) What is "positive" and why not both?
— tim wood

See note. If being all-knowing is positive, being not-all-knowing is not positive. Beautiful, not beautiful. — Lionino

Which overlooks - ignores - the conditional. At least two problems, then: the logic, and the definitions. I'm not much interested in the details of the argument. If you want to go through them step-by-step I reckon I won't be the only person to learn from the exercise. But categorical statements are a bear. If they're important, then they need to be proved to be true - and that can be difficult to impossible.

Let's try an example to see if and how it works. Winning WW2 was positive (presumably). The firebombing of Dresden is a necessary implication of winning WW2. So the firebombing of Dresden is positive???

You really are a child, nos4. I think you live in England; why don't you grab a bat and try bashing your way into Parliament - see how far that gets you. We'll watch for news of you.

Anyone reading the language of the proof will - ought to - have questions as to what exactly is being affirmed in each step of the proof. For example:
A1) What is "positive" and why not both?
A2) How does that work?
D1) Martin Luther apparently did not think so.
A3) Depends on who you ask.

And so forth. I cannot tell if the form of the argument is valid: if I convert it to truth tables, it is not. And what is meant here by "exist."

Like ideas, they are immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover

You win. And the queen is a biscuit.

intent on hiding the fact that you actually believe there is a real relation between the earth and moon? — Metaphysician Undercover

^sigh* That is exactly what I do not do. The question is the nature of the existence of that relationship. You as an independent-of-mind separately existing you-don't-know-what, and me as an idea. And of course if relations exist in your way, there are an uncountably infinite number of them. They wouldn't fit in the universe - on the assumption they take up space, however small!