But most of us would find it useful to think it is the same thing, now in a different shape. — Coben

Sure. But that's just an example of abstraction.

I'm not just assuming for no reason that possible worlds can't exist nonmaterially. It's via reasoning that we justify that they can't exist nonmaterially.

In any event, this has nothing to do with whether it's circular.

I thought it was interesting that on the new William Shatner-hosted "Unxplained" show, the episode on unusual manifestations of consciousness--it covered things like unusual cases of "genius," remote viewing, etc., it was simply assumed for the vast majority of the show that consciousness was a factor of brain function.

This is a show that has no reservations about positing the wildest paranormal/supernatural/etc. theories they can broach.

Not that I'd say it has much to do with telling us what possibilities are--those are arguments about whether possibilities are material or nonmaterial. That doesn't tell us what possibilities are or how they obtain exactly. But for whatever reason, you want to focus on whether they're material or not. I don't think it's worth arguing whether they're material or not, because the whole idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. It's not worth bothering with.

(And this has also had nothing whatsoever to do with nominalism, conceptualism, etc. for awhile)

1.There are possibilities
2. They can’t be grounded nonmaterially in the nonphysical world
3. So they must be an upshot of material facts
4. If they’re upshots of material facts, they can’t exist in the nonphysical world but must exist in the physical world

If yours isn't circular, that isn't either.

Wait you dont think reason plays a part at all? — DingoJones

People will reason from stances that they take to be foundational in a given instance (what people treat that way can change on different occasions).

That someone has a moral stance that is contradictory and illogical doesnt matter to you at all, cuz they cant be right or wring about such things? — DingoJones

They can't be right or wrong, correct, because the foundational stances can't be right or wrong. As an analogy to logic, we can't have sound arguments in ethics (stemming from premises that are ethical stances), because we can't have true premises--and every single ethical argument, no matter the content, is valid because of this, because validity obtains when it's impossible for premises to be true. (At least in traditional logics rather than relevance logics.)

Usually when people have moral views that seem contradictory or illogical relative to whatever they'd consider foundational views, it's a matter of the views not being expressed in a way that's qualified with respect to what their disposition actually is.

People can have contradictory dispositions, but that's not as common.

But I have actually shown them (in a non-circular fashion) to be groundable that way, in the divine intellect. — AJJ

You've made claims to that effect, sure. I've made claims you don't agree with, too.

So I suspect what you’d be doing there is begging the question, i.e. more circularity. — AJJ

What is wrong with you? It's the exact same thing you're doing. Are you trolling?

Wait, I could just state mine as:

1. There are possibilities
2. They can't be grounded in the nonmaterial world

Then

And do the exact same thing

I disagree. I’m not saying they can’t be grounded in the physical world by simply assuming they can’t; rather I’m offering you the chance to disprove the premise - if the justification was circular it wouldn’t be open to that disproof. If you were to offer one and I rejected it by simply assuming the premise then in that case it would be circular. — AJJ

???

It's circular because your support for 2 is just a restatement of 2.

Circularity has nothing to do with other people disproving anything, etc.

I’ve demonstrated mine is. — AJJ

I don't even think that your view is coherent.

So we agree that it's not right to allow hate speech? We agree that you're not right about that? — S

It's neither correct nor incorrect to allow or disallow hate speech. Correct/incorrect is a category error here.

It's impossible to get to any stance being right or wrong without the moral feeling which drives us towards right or wrong — S

You're not equivocating moral right/wrong and right/wrong in the sense or correct/incorrect or accurate/in error here, are you? When I say that this is the sort of stuff that we can't get right or wrong I'm saying that we can't say something accurate or in error about it (insofar as moral stances go, where we're not simply reporting what moral stances people happen to have). I'm not saying that we don't have moral dispositions, that we don't think that various things aren't right or wrong.

So the reason yours is circular and mine isn’t is our justifications for 2 in each case. I justify my 2 by showing that you seemingly can’t describe the way possibilities are grounded in the physical world, or that you do so simply by arguing in a circle. — AJJ

Your 2 is that one can't describe the way that possibilities are grounded in the physical world, so if that's your justification for 2, that's circular.

It seems almost like you're reading that possibilities are something in the material/physical world into your (1) by the way. And then you're seeing the rest of your argument as explaining how this can be the case by positing them as something other than things in the material/physical world. It seems like you're thinking of it as a parallel to religious-oriented cosmogenesis arguments.

Wait, we're not really getting to why you're thinking that physicalists would be determinists, though.

Are you thinking of physicalism as being or having some sort of dedication or subservience to the scientific discipline of physics? (And you're thinking of physics as deterministic, with the possible exception of quantum mechanics?)

I cannot see how physicalism can be coherently separated from determinism. — Janus

I don't know why you'd be thinking that physicalists have to be determinists. Could you give some info on how you arrived at that conclusion?

Hypothetically. What's your point? — S

If they can be any stance imaginable, how do we get to any being right or wrong via reason?

Oh dear. It's kind of funny that you're wrong on multiple levels. You're "right" only in your imaginary world, in which you are "king", and in which there are "criminal threats" which exclude threats which in the real world very much are criminal. — S

?? If I don't think that this is something that it's possible to be right/wrong about, then obviously I don't think that I'm right.

Because, on this one, they're right and you're wrong. — S

Obviously I don't agree that I'm wrong and others are right. I don't believe this is something that it's even possible to be right or wrong about.

So possibilities are both "non-actual" and "concrete facts"? Can you explain how that could be a coherent assertion? — Janus

Sure, it's the concrete fact--a specific, material fact about a specific event, that it isn't causally deterministic.

Well, sure, there are stances that I'd call correct, and I arrive at them through reason. But reason isn't the driving force. Moral emotions are the driving force. And obviously I don't mean correct in a useless, imaginary objectivist sense. Maybe you adopt that interpretation in order to say that there's no correct answer, but that seems wrongheaded to me. — S

Can't moral emotions be any stance imaginable?

Hold on a minute, now you're being sensible again. How can you just switch it up like that? You're like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. — S

I don't think you really believe that ethical stances are simply ways that individuals feel about interpersonal behavior. You seem to think that there are correct stances via reason.

Hmm, so if I were to think that my explanation is a logical necessity, then it wouldn't be circular.

Of course, then we're just disagreeing on whether different things are logical necessities. You'd say your explanation is; I'd say my explanation is.

By the way, on my view, possibilities/possible worlds aren't conceptions, though we have conceptions about them.

How can I put this delicately? You are "different" to the rest of us. — S

And of course I'm not someone who thinks that different is a bad thing.

Why in the world do you think I would defer to others' opinions rather than stating my own?

It seems to me the circularity is avoided by the abstract objects existing necessarily within a Platonic third realm or the divine intellect. — AJJ

Okay . . . but it's a mystery why you'd think that. You'd need to explain why that would make something noncircular versus alternatives.

While we're at it, here's my criteria for 'criminial rape':

It must require two or more people.
They must come into contact with each other.
An act must take place.
And that's it.

I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking, "But what about forced nonconsensual sex?!". Well, I don't include that in my criteria. — S

What I'd think is, "Okay, those are your criteria." I wouldn't argue that your criteria are something you didn't state.

Hi,

I would like comments on the following statements. It is about change.

Statement 1:

A circle is never the same as anything that is not a circle. Therefore, a circle is something that is never anything that is not a circle.

Statement 2:

Something existent is never the same as something non-existent. Therefore, something existent is something that is never non-existent. — elucid

When changes occur, the stuff that changed isn't the same after the change as it was before the change, sure. That's the whole idea of change. If it were the same, then it wouldn't be the case that it changed.

But I am interested. I'm interested why I can't get through to you, in spite of talking perfect sense. — S

Aren't you aware that different people think different things are "perfect sense"?

then you would probably agree that if I were to say that I was going to stab you to death, then that would be a threat. — S

I'm not saying that's not a threat. It's not what I'd consider a criminal threat; it's not anything that should be legislated against. Merely making a verbal threat is not at all sufficient for that in my opinion.

And yeah, I'm not trying to persuade anyone to a different position. That's a whole can of worms that has to do with all sorts of psychological, social, etc. issues, and it's especially futile on the Internet in forums like this.

You’ll have to clearer yourself, I don’t know exactly what you’re saying there. — AJJ

You're saying that on your view your explanation isn't circular. Is that only because you're positing abstract objects as something "within the divine intellect," or would it not be circular if we're positing abstract objects period (so even if not "within the divine intellect")?

It seems a frame of reference problem: one who is confused need not necessarily know/understand or feel they are confused. I think a part of confusion is in the being unaware one is themselves confused. — A Gnostic Agnostic

I don't think it's coherent to say that someone can be in a state of confusion without knowing that they are.

That it's wrong to take the hypothetical law you provided and assign it a category, such as "laws that limit speech"? — Echarmion

That's not what I was saying, but as I asked, what would you give as an example of a law that limits speech where speech isn't even necessary for it?

The reason my explanation doesn’t wind up being circular is that abstract objects can be said to obtain within the divine intellect, which (if abstract objects exist) must exist necessarily unless abstract objects can be said to exist otherwise. — AJJ

I can't even make sense out of it, really. If abstract objects exist aside from "the divine intellect," and that's what we're talking about re possibilities being abstract objects, is that circular?

Well, and under what I'd have as "criminal threatening," speech isn't even necessarily part of it.

Could one not confuse good for evil and evil for good based on a "belief" that one is the other, and the other is the one? — A Gnostic Agnostic

There's a difference between the phenomenon of confusion--of someone saying, "I'm confused," and saying that someone else is confused. The latter doesn't amount to the person in question feeling confused.

When we say that someone else is confused, what we usually have in mind is (a) the idea that they should be conforming to some extent to conventional concepts, and (b) per those conventional concepts, they're getting things wrong in some way, mixing them up, not making distinctions, etc. And sure, we could have in mind that they're misidentifying something.

But "one being in a state of confusion" is someone saying "I'm confused." Not someone else thinking that the person has something wrong.

It might also not be clear (although it seems to me like it should be), that the context of "I'd consider certain things 'criminal threatening'--here's how I define that/what my criteria would be" is "If I were king and creating laws from scratch, here's what I'd do."

since they can’t depend on the present world for that — AJJ

You wouldn't think that an explanation has to conclude that something can't depend on the present world, would you?

If the explanation concludes "being concrete objects is what allows possible worlds to exist, since they CAN depend on the present world for that," why wouldn't that be an explanation just like yours, simply with a different conclusion?

That's, frankly, absurd. The act is a) criminal and b) a speech act. According to your logic, the vast majority of laws concerning insults and hate speech aren't actually about speech. So I guess the free speech utopia is already here. — Echarmion

It seems like you're not understanding me at all.

I'm not saying anything about existent laws and "what they're actually about."

I'm saying that if someone says, "I'd consider certain things 'criminal insults,'" and they give you a specific outline, specific criteria for what they're referring to by that term, then trying to argue from a broader perspective based on other conventions isn't going to work. You'd need to just look at the criteria they spelled out, and the criteria could be anything. It's possible for their criteria to not even be about speech at all.

I'm naming something "criminal threatening." I could have named it anything. What's problematic about it, why I'd make it illegal, in my opinion, is exactly what I spelled out--a particular, limited set of physical circumstances. Speech isn't even required for it. The whole motivation for it is that I agree that there are particular physical circumstances that are problematic that aren't someone actually applying significant nonconsensual physical force to someone else. It's simply a set of situations where there's a high probability (so including a good reason to believe) that significant, immediate nonconsensual physical force would be applied, whether intentionally or accidentally/via negligence, because there are implements/instruments present, in use, that can easily produce significant nonconsensual physical force, and there's no practical means of relatively easily escaping the immediate risk of force from those implements/instruments.

So calling someone an "asshole" would not be a criminal speech act (we'll assume it's demeaning)? — Echarmion

Not if someone is defining "criminal insult" so that it has nothing to do with speech.

Maybe this would be easier: what would you say is an example of a law prohibiting any speech where it's not necessary to utter (or write, etc.) any speech?