How can something essentially inadequate to a task perform the task? — Dfpolis

Explain, please. — SophistiCat

Of course. The PSR is an observation about the nature of contingent reality -- not an arbitrary posit.

We see that changes happen. We ask how can this be? Parmenides argued:
Every change requires the emergence of something new. Either this new reality comes from something or it comes from nothing. It cannot come from nothing because from nothing, nothing comes. But, nether can it come from something, for if it did it would already exist and so not be new. Since the new aspect can neither come from nothing nor from something, change is impossible.

Aristotle explained Parmenides error by observing that just because a new aspect comes from something does not mean that it actually preexists the change. It can be potential, rather than actual, in what it comes from. So, our experience of change implies the reality of potential existence -- not as a mere logical possibility, but as the foundation in reality for what is actualized in change.

What has this to do with the PSR? While what is potential is real, it is not yet actual (not yet operational). As the actualization of a potential is an operation, no potential can actualize itself because it is not yet operational. So, it must be actualized by something already operational/actual, its concurrent cause. (Concurrent because it has to operate at the time and place the potential is made actual.) So, every potency that is actualized is actualized by a concurrent ("essential") cause.

(Note that essential causes, which act concurrently, are not the kind of causes soundly criticized by Hume and inadequately discussed by Kant. That kind of cause is known as an "accidental cause" and is time-sequence by rule. Essential causality differs by occurring in a single event (the actualization of a potential), while accidental causality links two successive events.)

We have now established the necessity for an operative agent (essential cause) in the actualization of any potency. All the PSR says is that this agent must be sufficient or adequate to the task of actualization. This adds nothing to the analysis. It merely makes explicit what was implicit, for the claim that an agent inadequate to actualizing a potential actualizes that potential is an oxymoron.

What we know about reality is not a closed, axiomatic system. One may formulate some subset of what we know into an axiomatic system, but reality is always ready to surprise us, violating our expectations with unpredictable information. Thus, the PSR is not an axiom of a formal system, but an observation about the nature of contingent reality.

It's difficult for me to see what the attraction of an unrestricted PSR is — SophistiCat

Logical consistency. How can something essentially inadequate to a task perform the task?

Whatever explains something explains it in light what it is -- it is the kind of thing that can effect what needs an explanation. So, if something is to be self-explaining, what it is must entail that it is.

What can this mean? Following Plato's hint in the Sophist, we can say that anything that can act in any way exists. This makes existence convertible with the unspecified ability to act. Correlatively, what a thing is (its essence) can be explicated as the specification of its possible acts.

So, for what something is (its essence), to explain that it is (its existence) requires that the specification of its possible acts entails the unspecified ability to act. In other words, what it is can place no limitations on its capacity to act. Thus, it must be able to do any logically possible act (be omnipotent).

Maybe Pantinga didn't reply to you at the actual world but I'm fairly sure he did at some other possible worlds. — Pierre-Normand

Unfortunately, all my mail comes to the real world.

I think you knew in which way I meant the word, so let's move on. — HuggetZukker

Yes, I do. I was suggesting an alternate conceptual framework.

If we can be aware of some intelligibility that does not require neural encoding to make itself present, then there is no reason why awareness cannot continue after the brain ceases to function. After reading W. T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, I am convinced that we can be aware of such intelligibility. — Dfpolis

Can you clarify what you believe about such knowledge, which does not require "neural encoding?" — HuggetZukker

Yes. Stace found that there were two classes of mystical experience that were reported throughout history and across cultures. He calls these "introvertive" and "extrovertive." The characteristics Stace found to be cross-culturally shared are, in the case of extrovertive mysticism:

1. The unifying vision, expressed abstractly by the formula “All is One.” The One is, in extrovertive mysticism, perceived through the physical senses, in or through the multiplicity of objects.
2. The more concrete apprehension of the One as being an inner subjectivity in all things, described variously as life, consciousness, or a living Presence. The discovery that nothing is “really” dead.
3. Sense of objectivity or reality.
4. Feeling of blessedness, joy, happiness, satisfaction, etc.
5. Feeling that what is apprehended is holy, or sacred, or divine. This is the quality which gives rise to the interpretation of the experience as being an experience of “God.” It is the specifically religious element in the experience. It is closely intertwined with, but not identical with, the previously listed characteristic of blessedness and joy.
6. Paradoxicality.
Another characteristic may be mentioned with reservations, namely,
7. Alleged by mystics to be ineffable, incapable of being described in words, etc. — Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, p. 79

For introvertive experiences, points 1 and 2 become:

1. The Unitary Consciousness; the One, the Void; pure consciousness.
2. Nonspatial, nontemporal. — Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, p. 131

Now it happens to be the case that this total suppression of the whole empirical content of consciousness is precisely what the introvertive mystic claims to achieve. And he claims that what happens is not that all consciousness disappears but that only the ordinary sensory-intellectual consciousness disappears and is replaced by an entirely new kind of consciousness, the mystical consciousness. — Stace, The Teachings of the Mysitcs, p. 18

Since the brain evolved to process sensory content, especially in the case of introvertive mysticism, which is devoid of sensory content, no neural processing is required.

Do you believe that it might require "encoding" in a way, which cannot be described as "neural"? — HuggetZukker

I think awareness is awareness of intelligibility, but that not all intelligibility qualifies as information. I know that sounds confused, but let me explain. Claude Shannon, the founder of information theory, defined information as the reduction of possibility. The kind of possibility he had in mind was logical possibility. The reception of each new bit reduces the number of logically possible messages until we finally know the actual message. The intelligibility in Stace's introvertive mysticism does not reduce what is logically possible. If anything, it increases our sense of what is possible. Still, mystics insist it is the awareness of intelligibility. Without "proving" the existence of God, the experience comports with the philosophical conclusion that God's essence does not limit His existence -- so that awareness of God would necessarily be uninformative by Shannnon's definition. Such intelligibility cannot be encoded, because only information can be encoded.

can you offer an example, even a hypothetical one, of a relation between such knowledge after the cessation of brain function, and something else? — HuggetZukker

If mystical experience is awareness of a transcendent reality, which virtually all mystics claim (even atheists such as Bucke in his Cosmic Consciousness), then there is no reason one couldn't continue to stand as a subject with respect to it in the absence of brain function. That is exactly the claim of many who have had near death experiences (NDEs).

I am not arguing that NDEs "prove" anything. I'm merely saying they're part of the pool of experience we need to reflect upon. While descriptions of NDEs often fix on the tunnel of light and meeting loved ones, most NDEs also involve the kind of transcendent awareness described by mystics. And, while people with NDEs haven't "really" died, in many cases we have empirical observations of a cessation of brain function -- which is the point at issue here.

I'm not asking anyone to give credence to the thought experiment. — HuggetZukker

Thought experiments are designed to make us reflect on what we think we know. Sometimes they present a paradox. Still, whatever problem or insight they present has to be resolved in terms of what we can discover from our experience of the actual world. With specific reference to the duplication Gedankenexperiment, a theory that is perfectly adequate to reality may be quite inadequate with respect to an imagined world. A theory adequate to occurent human activity would probably fail miserably in explaining Professor Minerva McGonagall's transmogrification powers. So, I do not see why we would need to modify our understanding of personal identity to account for a case that never actually occurs and is most likely impossible.

But you have not convinced me that the physicalist approach is inadequate. You may say that awareness transforms information from being latent in the physical world into being active in logical order, but "logical order" needs not be founded in a non-physical realm. "Logical order" may well be abstract, but so is the internet, yet has no operational existence independantly of running servers. — HuggetZukker

I have not tried to convince you that physicalism is inadequate, but even if I could not, it is a leap of faith to assume that it is adequate.

Here are a few reasons why it is inadequate.

While every act of knowing has both a knowing subject and a known object, we begin natural science with a fundamental abstraction in which we fix our attention on known physical objects to the exclusion of the knowing subject. We care about what Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton and Hubble saw, to the exclusion of their intentional experience (their experience as knowing subjects) in seeing it. This is a perfectly rational methodological move if our interest is physical objects, but it separates in thought what is inseparable in reality (the known object and the knowing subject). It also leaves the natural sciences bereft of the data and concepts required to address the knowing subject and correlative issues. Lacking these data and concepts, natural science can make no connections between what it knows of the physical world and concepts revolving around the subject (such as subjective awareness, intentionality and meaning).

Forgetting that natural science does not deal with all intelligible reality, but only with an abstracted subset, as physicalists do, is an example of Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. It is treating and abstraction as though it is the contextualized whole.

The other inadequacies of physicalism, such as its supposing that consciousness can be reduced to a physical basis (Chalmer's "Hard Problem"), its failure to account for the contingent forms of awareness (qualia), its lack of a theory of intentionality (Brentano's "aboutness) and meaning, its inability to explain our experience of free choice and the confusion of neural representations with ideas -- all of these follow from forgetting that natural science addresses only a subset of human experience.

"logical order" needs not be founded in a non-physical realm — HuggetZukker

Yes, but not completely. The logical order is founded on the actualization of the intelligibility of physical reality. It is mentally distinct from the physical order, but dynamically linked to it. Thus, it brings together subject and object. What the logical order adds is the knowing subject -- exactly what is excluded from natural science by its fundamental abstraction.

A subjective probability of 50% would mean in half the possible worlds. — Dfpolis

Rubbish. — Banno

I wrote Plantiga to that effect, but he declined to respond.

Good point. So, we can agree that the real world is logically prior to any possible world. — Dfpolis

Not logically prior (logically, all worlds are on par, it's the metaphysics where the differences come, e.g. being actual). It's prior in the sense that it's the world I start with and possibility will often be understood with respect to it. — MindForged

Logical priority is does not relate to epistic value. It is about the flow of information. In a sound syllogism, the conclusion has as much epistic value as the premises, but the premises are logically prior because they are the ground for the conclusion.

So, when you say "if the laws of physics were different," you are excluding from S any proposition specifying the actual laws of physics, the evidence leading us to them and their implications. Thus, my definition is perfectly suited to your example. — Dfpolis

Can you clarify? I can't understand what you're saying here. — MindForged

Yes. Let me work with the latest version of my definition because, while the idea is the same, the formulation is clearer:

p is possible with respect to a set of propositions, S, if p does not contradict the propositions of S.

If we don't specify the kind of possibility, we usually mean that p is possible given all I know. Then S = {propositions expressing facts I know}. In your example, S = {propositions expressing facts I know} - {propositions expressing or implying the actual laws of physics} + {propositions expressing your alternate laws of physics}. I'm not sure if you want to assume your alternate laws, or judge their possibility. If you want to judge their possibility, they would not be included in S.

Of course if I'm talking alternate laws of physics I'm excluding the actual laws of physics, that's a trivial observation. — MindForged

I am not trying to be complex, only to explain how my definition applies.

Not all possibilities are, contrary to your definition, possible simply by being consistent with the set of facts of the actual world. — MindForged

That is why I have allowed S to be constructed however you wish.

if, for example, God's existence is possible (that is, if God exists in at least one possible world) then we can prove in S5 modal logic that God must also exist in the actual world. ... I just picked a fun one (even if I don't think the argument is sound) — MindForged

Only if one assumes the validity of S5 modal logic. I have reservations relative to the axiom (◻A → ◻◻A & A → ◻◊A).

Since you think the "proof" is unsound, even you don't think it adds to our knowledge of the real world by the considering imagined worlds.

"I see nothing to prevent me from being a doctor" ... — Dfpolis

Because modal statements are not like non-modal statements. "I am a doctor" has obviously clear truth conditions (true when I am in fact a doctor). But modal statements are often (even usually) about the way the actual world is not. Even your own rendering of it is just sneaking in a modal notion. "Nothing to prevent me" is just a longer way of saying "it's possible that X" ("prevent" specifically is being used modally), which is the very circularity we are trying to avoid. — MindForged

My statement, "I see nothing to prevent me from being a doctor," is not modal. It simply describes my state of knowledge -- a purely categorical assertion. In your argument for why my use of "prevent" is modal, you leave out the words ("I see nothing") that make my statement a categorical description of my state of knowledge. There is nothing counterfactual in it.

But, even if it were modal, I have defined "possible" independently of imagined worlds.

There's no assumption that any arbitrary world is consistent. In fact, world which are not consistent are deemed impossible worlds. But this has no relevance in the use of PW semantics unless you think that it somehow renders various possibilities impossible. — MindForged

There is an implicit assumption. The only world we know to be self-consistent is ours. As soon as we engage in possible worlds talk, we assume that there are other self-consistent worlds when all we actually know is that there are other imaginable worlds. The situation only worsens when we assume that there are possible worlds with specific counterfactual attributes.

"Our sensory representation of an object" is just another name for the modification to our sensory state brought about by sensing that object. What else can it be? — Dfpolis

Our sensory apparatus is not the same as our sensory state (our perceptual experience). By assumption, our perceptual experience changes due to what our sensory organs being modified by the world and that's translated in the brain as our experience of the world. But that representation is in no way perfect and we can even tell that we miss a lot of what's out there. — MindForged

I did not say our sensory apparatus is the same as our sensory state, nor did I say our sensory representation is prefect. So, what that I actually said do you object to?

We don't have a noisy connection so much as we have an experience of a representation of a partially received phone call from our mother. — MindForged

Did I say otherwise? I hold that all human knowledge is a projection (a dimensionally diminished map) of reality.

I've explained many times now that since they are not actual, possible worlds aren't "there." I've made it clear that their only existence is intentional -- the unparsimonious imaginings of overwrought philosophical minds. — Dfpolis

You're changing the argument again. Just previously your criticism was that W being a possible world was what made it possible that P (not true). Look:

It is the name of the concept because the employment of the tool requires one to construct, or at least recognize, worlds that are possible. — MindForged

I never defined possibility in terms of a world being possible. Also, to say that "possible" worlds are imagined is compatible with saying are constructs. The recognition i referred to is of other's imaginings or constructs.

you've got it way wrong. If P is false at a world W, P is still possible so long as there is at least one accessible world W* (determined by the accessibility relation of the modal logic in use) that can be reached from world W. And to say appealing to modal logic is a misdirection is frigging ridiculous. The whole point of PW semantics is to give semantics to modal logic. — MindForged

We are not talking about being false in an imagined world, but about being false in the actual world. These are not equivalent, as the actual world informs us, while we inform the imagined world. Further, no imagined world is "accessible," except in our imagination. The only way to "reach" an imagined world from the actual world is via imagination.

I stand by my claim that, when discussing what is actual, appealing to modal logic is irrelevant misdirection and distraction.

"Venus" picks out multiple objects (one real, many imagined) and so it is a universal, not a proper name. The only alternative is to say that an imagined Venus is numerically identical with the actual Venus -- but to say this is to deny the difference between reality and fiction. — Dfpolis

No, Venus is a name for an object in the actual world. We surely agree on this. What Venus's in other possible worlds are, are simply variations on Venus in, essentially, different situations; it's still the same underlying object. — MindForged

Yes, in reference to the actual world considered in isolation, "Venus" is a proper name. The problem occurs when you talk about alternate Venuses (or is it "Veni"?)

The essential question is: Is the imagined Venus identical with the actual Venus or not? If it is, then there is no difference between the imagined and real Venus, and all of their properties are identical. If it is not, "Venus" is predicated universally, and not as a proper name. I see no other option, do you?

Let's ask: What is the count of Venuses? If each has different properties, we can tell them apart and assign different integers to each. So, their count is more than 1, whether they reflect one underlying object or not. So, "Venus" is a universal, not a proper name.

There may be only one Venus in each imagined world, but, when we consider multiple worlds at the same time, "Venus" has multiple referents, which means that "Venus" is universally predicated.

What is designated by proper names is fixed across worlds — MindForged

Is this a faith claim, a hypothesis, an arbitrary stipulation, or the supposed conclusion some argument?

As I have pointed out, if it is fixed, it is either fixed by a well-defined sent of criterion, in which case it is a universal whose sense is specified by that criterion, or it is not -- in which case its reference is arbitrarily specified and of no objective import.

But definite descriptions are just one way of seeing who or what a term refers to, but it could never give them meaning of what proper names are. If we simply call a new second planet Venus, that's obviously not the same Venus we were quantifying over when we made modal statements about the actual Venus. — MindForged

This does not resolve the issue. It only repeats the problem. How do we know which is the "new second planet"? Either the assignment is on the basis of a well-defined criterion, or it is by fiat.

The possession of inclinations is actual — MindForged

Thank you.

And inclinations certainly aren't like laws of nature. — MindForged

I agree. We have free will and human responses are too complex for single factor analysis. Still, the basis for saying "John would have enjoyed the trip, had he gone," is not the certainty that John would have enjoyed it (because we can't be certain), but his inclinations as revealed by past events. It does not need, nor does one normally use, the apparatus of possible worlds to judge <John would have enjoyed the trip>.

(1) speech is not about meaning, but about purpose. We make a speech act in order to achieve something. — andrewk

I do not see why this has to be an either-or situation. As Aristotle pointed out there are many modes of explanation. Just because Wittgenstein focuses on final causality does not mean that speech cannot be considered in terms of efficient, formal and material causality. The formal projection of speech deals with its meaning without denying its purposes.

(2) parsing speech acts, while occasionally useful, is often misleading and can lead to wrong conclusions, because often the act as a whole has an impact or intention that differs from what might be inferred by zooming in on constituent parts. — andrewk

Yes, that is why we need many projections of the same reality -- of which Aristotle's modes of explanation provide four. Parsing, as reduction to parts, is a material approach to speech. Approach ing speech in terms of efficient causality involves considering the role of the speaker in generating speech acts.

You haven’t non-circularly told what you mean by “reality”, “exist” or “actual”. — Michael Ossipoff

I have said that real objects can act, and some act to inform knowers. I have contrasted this with hypothetical systems which are informed by those positing them and which have no power to act independently of those considering them.

I did not say "actually act." That was your phrasing. Instead, I pointed out that the characters in stories do not act independently of the story tellers and readers thinking them.

If you cannot see that this response is non-circular, I am happy to agree to disagree.

What you said sounds like it’s related to the Cosmological Argument. — Michael Ossipoff

It depends on what you mean by the cosmological argument. The Kalam argument based on accidental or Humean-Kantian, time sequenced causality is unsound. Arguments based on essential or concurrent causality such as those of Aristotle, ibn Sina and Aquinas are sound. The notion that in a necessary being essence and existence are identical is due to Aquinas.

For me, it was a matter of an impression that what-is, is good, and that there’s good intent behind what is, and that Reality is Benevolence itself. I’ve posted about reasons that point to that impression. — Michael Ossipoff

I can see these being reasonable grounds.

But, for one thing, I agree with those who don’t use the word “Being” in that context. We aren’t talking about one of various beings, sharing that noun-description with them. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, "being" does not mean the same thing. Language is poorly suited to the discussion.

In earlier times, such as Medieval times, there was a desire and perceived need to invoke God as the direct explanation for the events of the physical world, and it was considered heresy to speak of physics as the direct explanation for physical events, for example. — Michael Ossipoff

This is a factual error. The study of nature was encouraged and the foundations of mathematical physics were laid. Robert Grosseteste, a bishop, studied geometric optics and laid down canons of the scientific method as we now have it, including the need for controlled experiments. Others advanced botany, developed the ideas of inertia and instantaneous velocity, and laid the foundations of calculus. Copernicus was a priest. Jesuits published 2/3 of the early papers on electricity.

So, natural science was actively promoted by theologians who believed that by studying creation, we learn about the Creator. It is only with the advent of fundamentalism that natural scienc came to be seen as an enemy of religion. I suggest you read James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, or some other recent book on medieval science.

neither did He need to contravene logic to make there be what describably is. — Michael Ossipoff

As I see it, logic, as the science of correct thinking, is based on the laws of being. If we want our conclusions to apply to reality, we had better take the structure of reality into account when we think.

I disagree with the Medieval claim that physical law was contravened to create us. — Michael Ossipoff

I think you need to hold this claim in suspension until you find an actual medieval source for it. Not knowing the details of the creative process is not the same as saying God violated his own laws of nature to create us. The Idea of fixed laws of nature first appears in Western literature in Jeremiah (a generation before Thales). So, it has deep roots in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

Your objective physical reality is a brute-fact. — Michael Ossipoff

No, it is a contingent reality held in being by the uncaused cause.

I base my metaphysics on the experience of being.

I am unsure why you would straddle Kripke with this binary choice. — Pierre-Normand

I'm really not picking on him. I am merely looking for the foundation in reality, if any, for naming imagined objects.

Kripke doesn't view proper names as devices that primarily elicit mental states, with or without objective purport, and with or without associated "well-defined criteria". Kripke rather views proper names as public handles into social practices. — Pierre-Normand

Kripke's or Evan's view may work for real individuals, provided that one realizes that social practices reflect rational processing by community members. It can't work for imagined individuals who are not socially available. Naming them can only result from mental processes in the person who imagines them. By the principle of excluded middle, those choices can only be based on fixed criteria or not. (Note that, unlike tomorrow's sea battle and imagined objects, those choices exist in the real world and so are covered by the principle.)

If the naming choice is not based on fixed criteria, we may rationally call it subjective and arbitrary. Suppose, for example, that in an imagined world, there are three inner planets, with the outer two equally distant from the orbit of the actual Venus. Is the second from the sun, or that closest to the earth's orbit, to be called "Venus"? I see no reason for choosing one over the other. So, how is the binary choice to be avoided for imagined individuals?

We may be reaching an impasse. I do not see how proper names can function in the way Kripke thinks they must.

Either a proper name can be assigned to an imagined object in light of some well-defined criteria, or it is assigned by a purely subjective fiat. If it is on the basis of well-defined criteria, the sense of the name is that set of criteria -- a description in your terms. If it is by subjective fiat, then any conclusion that follows from the assignment (such as the necessity of certain propositions) inherits that subjectivity and has no claim to being objective.

Either way, Kripke's analysis does not work.

I'm unsure what work the word "intends" does here. — Pierre-Normand

It means signifies.

If I judge that it is raining outside (because I looked though the window and saw that it is raining) then I am holding the proposition that it is raining outside to be true. — Pierre-Normand

You are confusing two movements of thought. First, you judge <Rain is falling>. This signifies/intends the physical state outside your window and is based on awareness of that state. In the second movement, you turn your attention to the judgement (which did not exist prior to the completion of the first movement) <Rain is falling> and make a judgement about it, viz. <<Rain is falling> is true>. This does not signify something about the physical state alone, but about the relation between your intentional state (the judgement <Rain is falling>) and the physical state, rain is falling -- namely that the judgement is adequate to the reality. (Note how my angle brackets make the shift to the intentional order clear.)

So, when you judge, it may be implicit that what you judge is true, but you are not actually holding it to be true before the second movement is complete.

That's one possible attitude that I can have towards that proposition. — Pierre-Normand

Yes, but, as I just showed, this attitude toward the proposition is not the proposition.

Thus, the proposition is not in the same category as the various "attitudes" you mentioned.

Pardon my mistyping "copula."

The 'is' of identity isn't the copula. — Pierre-Normand

I think you misread my claim. I am not speaking of the "is" of identity. I am saying the copula "is" of "The apple is green" expresses an identity not of concept, but of the source of the concepts. If the same object that evokes the concept <the apple> is not identically the object that evokes <green>, then the judgement is false.

What justifies predicating "green" of the apple, if not that the object evoking <the apple> is identically the object evoking <green>? If one object evoked <the apple>, while a numerically distinct object evoked <green>, the predication would be unjustified. The recognition of identity is essential to the judgement expressed..

its function isn't to signify the numerical identity between the references of "the apple" and of "green" — Pierre-Normand

This relates to the main point. The referent of "apple" is an ostensible unity (ousia = substance). The referent of "green" is an accident inhering in the apple. An accident does not inhere in a substance as a raisin in a pudding -- so that if we ate all the raisins we'd still have substance pudding left -- but as a subset of the overall, perceived intelligibility of the substance. The overall, perceived intelligibility of the substance evokes <the apple>, while a subset evokes <green>. These sets of notes of intelligibility are the referents of the corresponding concepts and terms. Obviously, the "green" subset is not identical to the whole intelligibility, but if were not a contained subset, the apple would not be green.

So, the identity here is that of the pool of intelligibility eliciting coupled the concepts. Of course, the notes of intelligibility have no independent existence. They are merely different aspects of an object.

But if they are object dependent, as Kripke argue is the case for proper names, then they are rigid designators and the identity expressed by "A is B" is necessary. — Pierre-Normand

I think I am attacking Kripke's claim directly.

Two things can be can be dependent on the same, singular object, but still depend on different aspects of that object. If so, then what they depend on may be physically inseparable, but logically distinct. We can't physically separate Clark Kent from Superman, or Hesperus from Phosphorus, but we can see that being a reporter is not being a man of steel, and that appearing in the evening is not appearing in the morning.

So being dependent on the same singular object is insufficient to establish conceptual identity.

it can be the very same thing (that P) that is being feared, hoped or judged. — Pierre-Normand

Yes. My point is that judging is not an attitude. It intends a real state in a way that the attitudes you enumerate need not.

I meant that I can no longer see reasons to believe in this immutable, reified essence of being (or let's just say the word - soul) behind the scenes to make us the same in essence from day to day. I certainly didn't mean to reject the lifelong personal identity. — HuggetZukker

But that is all that a soul is. Aristotle define a soul as the actuality of a potentially living body, and Aquinas seconded him. To have a soul is simply to be alive. It is neither some kind of "stuff" nor a "thing" living within us.

This definition leaves open, as definitions should, the question of whether any aspect of life, such as awareness, survives physical death. If something does, it is not a holistic person, but the remanent of a person.

If we can be aware of some intelligibility that does not require neural encoding to make itself present, then there is no reason why awareness cannot continue after the brain ceases to function. After reading W. T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, I am convinced that we can be aware of such intelligibility.

Imagine that you can make two carbon copies of me, but only by destroying the original in the process. Now you can ask whether or not I will survive, and if I will, which one of the copies will I become? — HuggetZukker

One can imagine virtually anything. Imagining a "world" does not mean that it is actually self-consistent, for many "worlds" we may think possible have covert contradictions, For example, one may imagine a world in which life evolved, but in which the physical constants are slightly different than in ours. This seems very possible, but the calculations underlying the fine-tuning argument shows it is physically impossible. So, I give no credence to experiments that cannot be performed, or to experiments in which the result is assumed, not observed. The whole point of experimenting is to allow nature to shock us out of our misconceptions.

Devoting attention to imagined issues diverts attention from what we actually know and experience -- which alone should be the basis of our theorizing.

In my view "self" has many concentric meanings (and a few others as well). Starting at one extreme we have what I call our radiance of action (all the things we have acted upon). We see this idea when one says things like "He lives on in his work" or "She will live forever in my heart." Next, we have the self as a holistic organism capable of both physical and intentional acts. Moving in, we come to the self defined by our remembered history. (I am the person who did x and y). This is fragile, even in life, for we can loose our "defining" memories. Finally, we come to the self as the, the center of subjectivity -- as that which is aware and gives or withholds love. Some mystics refer to this as the burglein the little castle which is the last refuge of selfhood. In addition there is the narrative self -- the story, true or false, that we tell ourselves about who we are.

I think any account of selfhood needs to include all these projections of self.

I can't find where I may have suggested that physics should have the competencies to explain such transformations — HuggetZukker

I am not saying you did. I am saying that the physicalist approach is inadequate.

It's true that we are sometimes unaware of what names mean — Snakes Alive

I think here we come to the heart of the matter. On my model, which I think reflects the insights of Aristotle, Peirce and Frege, words mean the concepts they evoke, and concepts mean the intelligibility that evokes them. This allows for both reference and sense. A concept's reference is the set of intelligible instances that can evoke them. Its sense specifies the kind of intelligibility that will evoke it. .

Under this model, it is hard to see how anyone could not know, implicitly at least, the meaning of the names they know how to use.

I assume that you have a different model of meaning -- one that allows names to function when their meaning is unknown. Do you see the meaning of a term as having some kind of abstract existence? Or do you see proper names as having a different kind of meaning than other terms?

I see the meaning of terms changing as we learn more. The original concept of a planet was a wonderer in the sky. Today our concept of a planet has changed so much that we hardly think of them as wondering the sky. It the meanings of terms can change, there is no reason the meaning of proper names can't change as well.

I am not subsuming the hope that P under the same category as P. — Pierre-Normand

I am glad to hear that, but it seems to me you did:

judgements are intentional attitudes ... the very same proposition P can be the content of different sorts attitudes other than judgements, such as the hope that P, the fear that P, ... — Pierre-Normand

In this account p, the hope that p, the fear that P, etc. are all equally in the category of attitudes. Have I misunderstood, or have you changed your position?

Judgements don't make assertions. People make judgements and assertions, and they can assert the contents of the judgements that they are making. They can also assert the negation of a judgement that they are making, in which case they are lying. — Pierre-Normand

This is a quibble over words, not a substantive difference. I agree that judgements are not agents, nor, in the sense I am using "judgement," need judgements be expressed; nevertheless, they can affirm, which is the first meaning of "assert." As language primarily deals with intersubjectively observable reality, in dealing with mental states we often use analogical predication. Such is the case here. "Assertion" is being predicated by an analogy of attribution as judgements are the source of linguistic assertions.

To judge <A is B> is to think that the source of concept <A> is identically the source of concept <B>, so the cupola in the proposition expressing a judgement expresses identity, not between A and B, but in the source of A and B. Similarly, to judge <A is not B> is to think that the source of concept <A> is not identically the source of concept <B>.

Sorry for the late response, busy few days. — MindForged

No problem some of these matters have waited decades or even millennia. A few days doesn't matter.

Except that our justification about what's possible and what's not is usually grounded in the same thing as what we justify our belief about the actual world. — MindForged

Good point. So, we can agree that the real world is logically prior to any possible world.

P is possible with respect to a set of facts or propositions, S, if P does not contradict S.

I do think "facts" should be restricted to intelligible reality. — Dfpolis

This makes total nonsense of everyday uses of modality. — MindForged

You misunderstand the "or" here is not a clarification, but indicates "alternatively." So, when you say "if the laws of physics were different," you are excluding from S any proposition specifying the actual laws of physics, the evidence leading us to them and their implications. Thus, my definition is perfectly suited to your example.

gnoring the fact that outside of modal realism possible worlds aren't postulated to be literal places, your criticism is clearly that lack of epistemic access to possible worlds is a problem for using possible world semantics. — MindForged

No. That is not my objection. I assume that we know what we imagine possible worlds to be (even though we can't know that they're self-consistent). My objection is that the construction of possible worlds does not add to our knowledge of the real world, which remains the same (except for our mental state) no matter what we imagine. In other words, imagining a possible world can give us no new data on the real world, which alone is relevant to understanding our experience consistently. So, while we have more factors to process, we have no more information than we started with.

Saying we have no epistic access to a possible world means that while we can inform it, and know how we are informing it, it can't inform us, because it does not exist. As a result we are tempted to to use imagined data as real data. My example is a possible world in which life evolved, but in which the physical constants are slightly different. The calculations underlying the fine tuning argument show such a world is not self-consistent -- even though it appears quite possible when we imagine it. The real world can surprise us and tell us that what we imagine is not so. Imagined worlds can't.

My point was that we don't have direct access to the actual world either — MindForged

I rebutted this objection, and you ignored my answer. If you are going to persist in asserting this dogmatic claim, please do me the courtesy of responding to my rebuttal. It is in my 5th post of this tread.

So if I'm eight years old and I say "I could be a doctor", this can be understood as saying that there is some possible world (however you understand those to be) where I am in fact an MD. — MindForged

Why bring in a construct of dubious ontological status? Why not be more parsimonious and say it means "I see nothing to prevent me from being a doctor"? What does the construct add to this besides an unnecessary discussion of the ontological status and semantics of possible worlds?

And then say I eventually do become a doctor, meaning the actual world is one such possible world where my claim turned out true. Well that's perfectly obvious justification for my original modal statement being thought true. — MindForged

Yes, but not in any essential way. Think of all the things we imagine that do not turn out. That some imagined possibilities become actual does not justify the claim that all imagined worlds are possible or self-consistent.

Whether it's conceivability or similarity or perception, there are any number of proposed ways one can access possible worlds — MindForged

None of these access possible worlds because you cannot "access" what does not exist. We can and do access our thoughts, including our imaginings. To call our imaginings "worlds" is misdirection -- precisely what I'm complaining about. They have no more epistic value than normal (non-modal) epistemology can give imaginings.

"access" here is not causal, other worlds aren't "out there" acting on us in the actual world any more than other abstract objects act on us to give us access to them. — MindForged

If you think knowledge is causally justified true belief, this should give you pause. I think knowing is awareness of dynamically present intelligibility, but the same conclusion follows on my account. The only thing dynamically present is our own thoughts, and so any knowledge garnered is of our subjective state -- not of the external world.

There's no reason to suppose that our sensory representation of an object is identical to how our sense's are modified by the object in question — MindForged

Yes there is: The Principle of Identity. A modifying B is identically B being modified by A. "Our sensory representation of an object" is just another name for the modification to our sensory state brought about by sensing that object. What else can it be?

It's not identical, you're simply pointing out an inverse relationship — MindForged

The inverse relationship is the reason for the identity. Lest you be confused, I am not saying A is identically B. I am saying the event (A modifying B) is identically the event (B being modified by A). So, my being informed (by an object) is identically the object informing me. Because these are identical there is no space for an epistic gap between the object's informing action and my being informed.

But the point being made is there's absolutely no way to know that our representation of the small amount of sensory data our representational apparatus uses to construct our perception is infallibly done. — MindForged

You are confusing two issues: The infallibility of the sensory datum, and the fallibility of consequent judgements. We perceive infallibly. The object necessarily has the power to present its self as it does present itself. That does not mean that we class the presentation infallibly. I mistook a horse for a dog once and it scared the hell out of me! That does not mean that i was wrong in perceiving something suddenly appearing over my shoulder.

Even if we suffer from delusions, there is something (say a trauma or intoxication) that is adequate to cause what we perceive. It is just a matter judging what kind of thing it is -- and that comes from experience. In A Beautiful Mind we see how John Nash learned to recognize his delusions as such, and so avoid being deceived by them.

Without that infallibility, we don't have even quasi-access to the world. — MindForged

Of course, this is blatantly false. It's like saying, if we have a noisy connection, we aren't talking to our mother. In other words, it's nonsense.

Oh my god, so your argument is, literally, that the world "possible" is there. — MindForged

Hardly! I've explained many times now that since they are not actual, possible worlds aren't "there." I've made it clear that their only existence is intentional -- the unparsimonious imaginings of overwrought philosophical minds.

P is possible if there is at least one world in which P is the case — MindForged
— Dfpolis

Still, they are not our world, as, if they are different in any way, they are not identical to our actual world. Any world that is not identical to our world is a different world. As each is a different world, each (actual or potential) object in them is a different object from any object in out actual world. — Dfpolis


The worlds aren't identical, that wasn't my claim. But the object with the name "Venus" is picked out by the same name no matter the world. — MindForged

This is inadequate as, unless P is actually true, there is no world in which P is the case. What you need to say is "P is possible if there is at least one possible world in which P is the case" -- and that is circular. — Dfpolis

You aren't making any sense. In modal logic, "truth" is always relativized to worlds in which the proposition is true or not.

My point is simple: Independently of whether or not there is such a thing as modal logic, only one world exists simpliciter -- ours. Thus, unless you do add "possible" to "world," consideration is restricted to our actual world. So, using your definition, if p is false in this world, it is impossible. Appealing to modal logic is irrelevant misdirection and distraction.

Still, they are not our world, as, if they are different in any way, they are not identical to our actual world. Any world that is not identical to our world is a different world. As each is a different world, each (actual or potential) object in them is a different object from any object in out actual world. — Dfpolis

The worlds aren't identical, that wasn't my claim. But the object with the name "Venus" is picked out by the same name no matter the world. — MindForged

Which means that "Venus" picks out multiple objects (one real, many imagined) and so it is a universal, not a proper name. The only alternative is to say that an imagined Venus is numerically identical with the actual Venus -- but to say this is to deny the difference between reality and fiction.

"The oldest child [in a particular family]" is description, not a proper name, — MindForged

I understand that. But, it may still be the condition that specifies to whom the proper name is assigned. If we are to pick out which object to call "Dennis" or "Venus" in a modified world we need a well-defined set of criteria. Lacking such criteria, who or what is designated by these names in some possible world is indeterminate. What if we imagine a new second planet; is it, or the third planet, to be called "Venus"? You may choose to ignore such niceties, but if you do, the possible worlds construct is ill-defined.

"Disposed" is a modal notion itself, meaning to be "inclined towards" or something one might do given their characteristics. — MindForged

Inclinations are not a species of modality. They are actual. They determine how an object will act in well-defined circumstances. They are no more "modal" than the laws of nature. If we bring two particles of the same charge next to each other, they will exert a repulsive force according to Coulomb's law. That is a fact about the contingent structure of nature which requires no reference ot possible worlds.

Does this sentence literally mean that "gato" means "cat?" No – it just means "the cat is sleeping." However, from the true utterance of that sentence in that context, I learn something other than the literal content of the sentence, viz. something about how the words used to express its literal content are used. — Snakes Alive

OK. That is quite sensible. I am not sure it is applicable here.

And indeed in saying such a thing, my primary intention may to to impart this information, not the (trivial) necessary proposition. — Snakes Alive

I would say that, in normal intercourse, the contingent meaning is the literal meaning. In fact, until the contingent meaning is grasped, the trivial necessary meaning cannot be grasped.

You have not commented on my claim that proper names need not refer to individuals simpliciter, but to individuals as known -- because covert guises do not elicit the idea expressed by the name.

I was thinking of propositions as Fregean propositions: or as ways the world (or aspects of the world) might conceivably be thought to be. — Pierre-Normand

How would one distinguish Fregean propositions from judgements? If they aren't judgements, what reality do they have?

Of course, the very same proposition P can be the content of different sorts attitudes other than judgements, such as the hope that P, the fear that P, the conjecture that P, the antecedent of the conditional judgement that if P then Q, etc. — Pierre-Normand

Putting, "the hope that p" in the same category as p is surely an error. Why? Because <the hope that p> is a concept, while <p> is a judgement. Judgements make assertions about states of affairs and so can be true or false, but concepts make no assertions and can be neither true nor false, only instantiated or not. Thus, the judgement <p> has a very different logical status than the concept <the hope that p>.

We can correct this by comparing p to "I hope that p," which expresses the judgement <I am hoping that p>, where "am" is a cupola. The only way to put expressions of "propositional attitude" in the same category as p is to convert them into judgements that can be true or false -- judgements about attitudes toward propositions. While the content of p is, say, the reality of some world state, the content of "I hope p" is not the reality of that world state, but the reality of an intentional state.

So, the contents of these various forms differ. The are not elicited by physical states, but by intentional states so they do not reference the same state as p. Thus, they are not different "attitudes" they are different concepts actualizing different kinds of intelligibility in intentional states.

It seems to me that proper names (and every other sort of singular referring expression or device, such as demonstratives, indexicals, definite descriptions, etc.) can be construed both as referring to particulars and to intelligible aspects of reality. — Pierre-Normand

I would say intelligible aspects of particulars. My model of meaning is that a concept refers to the intelligibility that can properly elicit it. ("Properly" is meant to exclude psychological aberrations and the like.) This seems a simple and reasonable operational definition of reference.

Since, even under ideal circumstances, Jorel's son in the guise of the man of steel does not elicit the idea <Clark Kent> in one ignorant of the secret identity, "Clack Kent" does not designate Jorel's son in the guise of the man of steel. If one learns the secret identity, the eliciting conditions change, and with it the reference of "Clark Kent."

There is no way, on my view, to refer to any empirical object other than referring to it as an intelligible aspect of reality. — Pierre-Normand

Agreed.

we can't refer to (or think of) a determinate object without subsuming it under some determinate sortal concept that expresses this object's specific criteria of persistence and individuation. — Pierre-Normand

I agree that to communicate about an an object, we often need sortal terms to direct attention to this rather than that. I do not see them as absolutely necessary as we can just point at an object to indicate "this." In the same way when we have a unique new experience, we may not have any other experiences to group it with, and so no applicable sortal concepts.

I am sure how a sortal concept "expresses this object's specific criteria of persistence and individuation." Concepts do not imply existence, let alone persistence. Further, sortal concepts are universal, and so have abstracted away all individuating notes of intelligibility.

that although the references of both names don't change (and still remain numerically identical to each other), the user of those names, who previously was using them with distinct senses, now comes to be able to (and indeed becomes rationally obligated) to use them both with the same Fregean sense since she can no longer rationally judge something to be truly predicated of one without her also judging it to be truly predicated of the other. — Pierre-Normand

My point is that the reference of a name is not the object simpliciter, but those aspects of the object that elicit the idea associated with the name. So, as we learn more, the reference changes. "Sense" is, of course, different than reference. Reference spans all the instances that can elicit the concept. Sense is the intellectual analysis of the eliciting conditions. As eliciting conditions are not eliciting instances, these are distinct concepts. Still, nether requires that referenced objects elicit concepts simpliciter, but only according to the sense of the concept.

I think the difficulty here is the same as Descartes's in thinking that "body" and "mind" had to reference two things instead of two aspects of the same thing.

It seems to me that you are using "materially the same" and "formally the same" roughly in the same way in which a Fregean would use "having the same reference" and "having the same sense", respectively. — Pierre-Normand

No, these terms are different. A name materially considered is the name itself (the words), a name formally considered is what is named (its reference).

I am unsure how this follows since I don't hold the world (or objects) to be something other than the intelligible world (or intelligible objects). We don't have empirical or cognitive access to pure noumena. — Pierre-Normand

I addressed this in my 5th post on this thread. We have dynamic access to noumenal reality. The object informing the subject is identically the subject being informed by the object. So, there is no room to insert an epistemic gap. What we do not have is God-like, exhaustive access.

However, the cognitive significance of a sentence, i.e. what we're capable of learning from the fact that the sentence expresses a true proposition, outruns its literal semantic content. — Snakes Alive

This seems a contradiction in terms. Semantically, we have a sign (the sentence), the interpretation (the intentional state elicited by the sentence), and reference (the object state intended by the intentional state). So, I do not see how it is possible to say that what we learn "outruns" the literal semantic content, when what we learn (the intentional state elicited) we learn from the literal semantic content. What cpuld you possibly mean by "literal semantic content" other than the intentional state that a literal reading elicits? It seems to me that any division of the elicited content is arbitrary and artificial, and not based on any facts of the matter.

Also, you did not comment on my key claim: that the reference of a proper name is not an individual simpliciter, but to an individual under a certain aspect (only to certain notes of intelligibility). Thus, the reference of "Clark Kent" is not the reference of "Superman" unless one knows they are the same person -- and learning that they are changes the reference of the terms.

This has been my point from the beginning, i.e. that "Hesperus" and "Phosphorus" do not designate Venus simpliciter, but Venus as appearing at certain times. This is not explained by the distinction of sense and reference, because the reference is not an object, but only certain intelligible aspects of an object.

I have no doubt that the two readings express different judgements (intentional existents). Still I have several questions.

Can one distinguish two identically written propositions without reference to the intentional states they express? If one can't, isn't linguistic analysis (formal or informal) derivative on intentional analysis? Alternately, to what does "proposition" refer, if not to judgements?

I think the underlying problem here is the assumption that proper names refer to things, rather than to intelligible aspects of reality. "Clark Kent" refers to Jorel's son in his guise of newspaper reporter, not to Jorel's son simpliciter. "Superman" refers to Jorel's son in his guise of the man of steel. By ignoring the aspect under which Jorel's son is designated, the notion of rigid designator distorts the intent of the designating agent.

It is not even true that Jorel's son in the guise of newspaper reporter is Jorel's son in the guise of the man of steel -- even though both designate Jorel's son. In other words, when one learns that Clark Kent is superman, the conditions of designation of each term change. What "Clark Kent" means to the speaker after leaning that Clark Kent is superman is more than what it meant before. So, while "Clark Kent" is materially the same before and after the revelation, it is formally different. This is seen by examining its scope of application. Before the revelation, the speaker would not apply "Clark Kent" to Jorel's son in the guise of the man of steel, but would after the revelation.

I conclude that the analysis of rigid designation is defective because it it mischaracterizes what proper names refer to. They do not refer to objects, but to intelligible aspects of objects.

There is confusion because ethics is not about convincing people what to do. It is about deciding what is the right thing to do. Plato believed that if a person knew the good, that person would invariably do good. There is no evidence that this is so.

Every person's fundamental option is between seeking the good and and being free from the constraint of good and evil. Aquinas speaks of it as a commitment to God. To be committed to God, one does not need to know that it is God that one is committed to. This distinction is made in the judgement story of Matthew 25, where many of those judged did not know who they "served." (I'm not making a faith claim, but citing a historical example of the distinction.)

A second problem is the contemporary belief in Hume's, or in G. E. Moore's, "Naturalistic Fallacy." Hume believed that one could not conclude what "ought" to be from what "is." Moore believed that "good" could not be defined in terms of what is. This effectively disconnects morality from cognition. Since we can only know what is, we can't know what is good.

A third problem is the prevalence of irrational ethical theories. I am thinking specifically of various forms of utilitarianism and consequentialism. Utilitarians insist on optimizing some utility function, assuming without warrant that it is meaningful to speak of optimizing something that cannot be measured, or in many cases, even rank-ordered. Consequentialists want to judge moral decisions on the basis of consequences that, in many cases, are unknowable at decision time.

Our concern for the good need not be "disinterested." For one who has chosen the fundamental option of seeking the good, seeking it is the essential to self-realization.

You might still convince me if you clarified what you mean by "objective" and provided a rational argument instead of a dogma to be accepted.

For me, being "objective" is being an object in a possible subject-object relation. As all knowing involves both a knowing subject and a known object, every act of knowing is both objective and subjective. Thus, it is an oxymoron to say knowledge is not objective.

It really does not matter what I believe, what matters is what it is rational to believe.

Exactly. By specifying S we can easily define what we mean by possibility in various contexts.

Given that they co-refer or not, they express necessarily true or necessarily false propositions. That you are unaware of which it is, and that this depends on the meaning of the words, is where the feeling of contingency comes from. For it is contingent whether the sentence expresses a necessarily true or necessarily false proposition. — Snakes Alive

It seems to me that this analysis is incomplete. It's surely true that Donald Trump is Donald Trump, no matter what you call him. So, if you read the terms in "Donald is Mr. Trump" formally (as referring to the person), this is simply an instance of the Principle of Identity and so necessarily true. The problem is that is not the only reading. One could read it as "The name 'Donald' refers to the same person as the name 'Mr. Trump.'" In that case, it speaks of a contingent reality, for naming conventions are contingent -- this person could well have another name, like "John Smith" -- or even "David Dennison."

The justification is that we don't have Objective access to "the world". — Pattern-chaser

So, I am to accept this as a faith claim? And, with no explanation of what you even mean by "Objective access to 'the world'" -- despite my explicit request that you tell me what you mean by "objective" so that I could address your concern?

As a faith claim, I do not find it worthy of belief.

most philosophers do not think that possible worlds are literally real worlds that they inquire about. They think of possible worlds as more akin to logically consistent stories about how things might be. — PossibleAaran

I have been thinking about this since I started the thread. In never thought of possible worlds as real, because what is merely possible is not actual. I did, however, think of them as numerically distinct modified replicas of this world. I have been told on this thread, by those more familiar with the matter than I, that this is not how Kripke thinks of them. If I understand aright, he thinks of them as this one world as it might have been.

That got me thinking of the Sea Battle problem in Aristotle, which is resolved by saying that the Principle of Excluded Middle applies to actual existents, but not to future contingents because they have no actual existence. This means that while multiple futures as possible, no present or past but those actually obtaining are possible.

My current definition of possible is:
p is possible with respect to a set of propositions, S, if p does not contradict the propositions of S..

S may be defined either explicitly, or as the set of propositions expressing a set of facts, F. This allows the definition to be applied to both factual and counterfactual situations.

Putting these pieces together, with respect to ontological possibility (meaning F is the actual world), no world other than the actual world (F) is ontologically possible. This is because altering some fact f, expressed by p, into f' expressed by ~p will invariably contradict p ∈ F.

But what about the notion of it could have been? This is expressed by the subjunctive mood, which can express imaginings as well as possibilities. Since we have just ruled out possibilities, we are left with imaginings. So, insofar as we we are considering what is possible with respect to the actual world, there are no other worlds are ontologically possible. Still, many imagined worlds are possible.

There is no reason why we cannot imagine another world just like ours, with objects called by the same name (rigidly designated), as long as we do not think they are ontologically possible.

Some philosophers think that Philosophy involves making "discoveries" about "possible worlds" — PossibleAaran

I think philosophy is the attempt to develop a consistent framework for understanding of all types of human experience.

I think possible worlds talk is usually intended as talk about logical possibility. I can't remember an article in which that isn't quite clear. — PossibleAaran

I had an exchange with Alvin Plantinga in the early 1990s in which he appealed to possible worlds to justify Bayesian probability.

philosophers will use technical language where plain language would do, and this has the effect of making philosophy seem incredibly convoluted to those outside of it, and even leads to errors for those within it. I think possible worlds talk is like this. — PossibleAaran

We agree.

we don't have Objective access, so everything you say about "the world" is necessarily speculative, and will always be so. — Pattern-chaser

You have to define what you mean by "objective" before I can agree or disagree with the premise. As for the conclusion, it is clearly in error. As it is unargued, I can't direct my response to the cause of the error. So, please justify your claim.

without the jargon, can you say what it would mean to say that this physical world has physical or ontological reality or existence that the hypothetical logical system that I described doesn't have? — Michael Ossipoff

The "symbolic jargon" was not used to define the real world, but "possible."

I have said earlier, that the referent of "reality" is what is experienced in reliable experience. there is nothing exotic about "reliable" here. It just means that our experience is not delusion as commonly understood in psychology and medicine.

Yet, even the experience of a pink elephant is an experience of reality. It's just not an experience of external reality. The reality experienced in the pink elephant case is probably the effect of alcohol intoxication. A person familiar with severe alcoholism would interpret it so.

The sense of "real" is being capable of acting in any way. So, what acts to inform me is real by this definition.

So, I know physical reality is real because it can act on my senses (is sensible). Hypothetical systems cannot act on my senses in that way, and so have no reality outside the mind thinking them.

Is there a physics experiment that can establish that this physical world is other than a logical system, a system of logical and mathematical relation--as physicist Michael Faraday suggested in 1844? — Michael Ossipoff

Metaphysical questions are outside the competence of physics. However, every laboratory experiment observes actions and so confirms the reality of is objects.

And if you say that the difference is that this physical world is "actual", then of course I'll ask what you mean by "actual". — Michael Ossipoff

I already said, "By 'actual' I mean operational or able to act."

You asked if actors acting are actual. Of course they are. They're doing things.

If you want to know if mental constructs (hypothetical systems) are actual, of course they are, but as intentional, not physical, objects. They do not act on our senses, but in our minds.

or even independently.

I interpret that as referring to other possibility-worlds, logical systems. — Michael Ossipoff

That is not what I meant. I meant that there could be universes with no dynamic connection to ours in which things act on each other -- as opposed to the the mere possibility of such a system.

As David Lewis suggested, each such physical possibility-world is “actual” for its inhabitants (if it has any). The word “actual” is best defined as an adjective to denote the physical possibility-world in which the speaker resides. — Michael Ossipoff

No one resides in merely possible universes for the simple reason that "merely possible" means that they do not actually exist or contain actual objects. In other words, there are no actions or operations happening in them. Their only reality is intentional -- in the mind imagining them.

I am only saying that, as we are not in dynamic contact with them, they are epistemologically irrelevant.

…whatever that means. Their “existence” as systems of inter-referring abstract implications is uncontroversial. They’re relevant because we live in one of them. — Michael Ossipoff

It means that only objects we are in dynamic contact with can act on us to inform us. So, objects that cannot act on us (that we are dynamically isolated from) can't inform us and so are epistemologically irrelevant.

Of course abstractions do not interact. They can only inform our mind, so that our mind (not the abstractions) acts in a certain way. Therefore your claim is baseless.

It is unparsimonious to posit the existence of objects that can't act to inform us.

We live in a universe that can act to inform us -- not one that cannot.

By your definition, then, hypothetical physical worlds are real, because their constituent things act on eachother — Michael Ossipoff

This is incorrect. Since hypotheticals have only intentional existence, they have no acts of their own. Any acts associated with them are the acts of the mind thinking them -- not acts of the hypotheticals. If you conceive them to have acts, the only real act is you conceiving.

That’s circular. It assumes that your experience-story itself isn’t an abstract logical system. — Michael Ossipoff

Abstractions are the result of attending to some notes of intelligibility present in experience to the exclusion of others. So, the existence of abstractions, and of abstract systems, is logically dependent upon the existence of intelligible experiences. Thus, the experienced world is logically prior to any abstract world you may hypothesize.

Looked at in a different way, my experience of reality is that reality informs me -- sometimes in very surprising ways. My experience of hypotheticals is that I inform them our of my wealth of experience and am never surprised.

That hardly can be given as a reason to say that it’s more than a hypothetical story about you and your surroundings’ interaction with you. — Michael Ossipoff

I have just explained why experience is prior to any hypothetical story.

Of course they can. They can and do act on other hypotheticals, — Michael Ossipoff

No, they don't. Any action you hypothesize is your action, not the action of the hypothetical.

”Do you believe in unparsimonious brute-facts and unverfiable, unfalsifiable propositions?” — Michael Ossipoff
.
No.

Good. Then you don’t believe in an “objectively existent” (as opposed to hypothetical) physical world whose existence you can’t explain, and whose more-than-hypothetical “reality” and “objective physical existence” you can’t define. — Michael Ossipoff

Of course I know (not merely believe) that there is an objective reality because I am involved in any number of subject-object relations that could not exist absent object that can act to inform me.

As for explaining the existence of contingent reality, sound deduction shows that it is maintained in being by a necessary Being whose essence is its existence.

I have defined all of the terms you have questioned and pointed out phenomenological differences between reality and your hypothetical systems.

Finally, no, I am not a materialist. I maintain the existence of intentional operations irreducible to physical operations.

Right at the beginning, you include assumptions such as "actual world" and "real world". What are these worlds, and where is your justification for their "real" or "actual" existence? — Pattern-chaser

I responded to this question at length in my 5th post on the thread (a response to MindForged). He did not respond to the points I made on this topic. If you wish to respond to those points, I will be happy to discuss them with you.

I want to thank all the participants of the thread for an illuminating discussion and some of you for correcting some ignorant misunderstandings on my part.

Dennis

But you don't know what you mean by "actual". Or, if you do know what you mean by it, you're keeping it to yourself. — Michael Ossipoff

By "actual" I mean operational or able to act.

As mere hypotheticals can't act, the aren't actually facts.

"Fact" is often or usually defined as a relation among things, or as a state-of-affairs. — Michael Ossipoff

OK. As long as the things and states are actual, I have no problem with this.

in what regard, in what manner, do you think this physical world is different from merely the setting for your hypothetical life-experience-story, consisting of a hypothetical logical system such as I've described? — Michael Ossipoff

Because a hypothetical story represents actions and states of affairs that did not occur.

Saying that something is metaphysically possible just is to say that it isn't inconsistent with the way things can be in accordance with the constitutive rules that govern how those things fall under concepts. (For instance, it is a constitutive rule of bishops, in chess, that such pieces only moves legally along diagonals; and it is a constitutive rule of the concept of a human being that it is an animal). — Pierre-Normand

I understand what you are saying, but it is not how I'd define "metaphysically necessary." There is no metaphysical reason a chess bishop can't move like a knight, rook or in any other way. It is merely a convention.

I would say that metaphysical necessity can make no reference to contingent constrains. It is what is required by the nature of existence per se. For example, it is metaphysically necessary that a potential be actualized by something already actual, because actualization is an act, and only actual beings can act.

I think it can be shown that if "A" and "B" are meant to function in the way ordinary proper names are used, and they both actually name the same individual, then it is metaphysically necessary that A and B are numerically identical. — Pierre-Normand

I agree, because this is just an application of the ontological principle of identity.

You seem very sensible, and I don't object to what you are saying.

I have no problem in saying that if I'm talking about possibilities with respect to an individual, I am still talking about that individual -- and that is true whether I am naming the individual or describing the individual. It does not matter if I say "Pierre," or "the man on the corner with the tan jacket." Even if the man moves and changes his jacket, I am still intending the same person.

My objection is a practical one against bringing in the unnecessary baggage of possible worlds to express such a simple idea.

Kripke would readily agree that the statement "Hesperus is Phosphorus" expresses a contingent identity in the case where "Hesperus" and "Phosphorus" are shorthand expressions for definite descriptions that merely happen to have the same reference in the actual world. — Pierre-Normand

ok

It was that, and hence my response regarding how you do not have direct epistemic access. If this access isn't infallible then there's no particularly superior access to your purported knowledge of the actual world over what is possible. — MindForged

This is like saying that a map with a misprint is not worth anymore than a possible map.

Do you ever stick to what you say or do you change it on a dime when an objection surfaces? Here's what you said before:

Yes, I used "possible" -- not essentially, but to avoid circumlocution. So, here's the same definition restated: "P is possible with respect to a set of facts, S, if P does not contradict the propositions expressing S." — MindForged

Touche! Fair enough. I was imprecise. Mea culpa. I had my doubts about "facts" when I typed it, but couldn't think of a better term. I thought of "set of propositions," but I wanted to be open facts in reality not yet discovered. So, try this one:

P is possible with respect to a set of facts or propositions, S, if P does not contradict S.

I do think "facts" should be restricted to intelligible reality.

The reason why you required infallibility (whether you acknowledge it or not) is because your initial claim in the OP was this:

First, it is unnecessary. As we can have no epistemic access to any world but our own, actual world, anything we can learn, we can learn from the real world. — MindForged

There is no claim of infallibility here. If you think there is, explain how.

The actual world is actual because it acts to inform us. Merely possible worlds do not act, let alone act to inform us. Instead, we inform (or perhaps misinform) them.

My point was that we don't have any better epistemic access to the actual world because of the limitations of perception. Without infallible means of accessing the states of affairs of the actual world, what we perceive to be the case can easily fail to be so. Whatever you mean by "direct access" is completely opaque, and so recourse to reliability here is equally so — MindForged

We have no access to any possible world. We only have access to our imagination, which can easily be inconsistent. What we know of the actual world cannot "easily fail" if we exercise due diligence. It fails occasionally, but it is usually interpretations and constructs that fail rather than experiential data.

I have said exactly what I mean by "direct access." I said that a sensory object's modification of our sensory state is identically our sensory representation of the object. I said that the object informing the subject is identically the subject being informed by the object. I said that a single act actualizes both the object's intelligibility and the subject's capacity to be informed. You have objected to none of these claims.

Possible worlds can do none of these things, because, being merely possible, they cannot act to inform us.

Possible worlds as a means to give semantics for possibility is not circular. The only way you could claim that is because the word "possible" is part of the name of the concept. — MindForged

It is the name of the concept because the employment of the tool requires one to construct, or at least recognize, worlds that are possible.

P is possible if there is at least one world in which P is the case — MindForged

This is inadequate as, unless P is actually true, there is no world in which P is the case. What you need to say is "P is possible if there is at least one possible world in which P is the case" -- and that is circular.

Possible worlds are not (unless you're David Lewis) being posited as literal other worlds in the same sense as the actual world. It's right there in the name, there's only one actual world. Venus in another possible world is still Venus as it might have been, the individuation conditions return the same object (that's why the names are a rigid designator). — MindForged

Obviously, possible worlds are not actual worlds. I do not imagine them to be so. Still, they are not our world, as, if they are different in any way, they are not identical to our actual world. Any world that is not identical to our world is a different world. As each is a different world, each (actual or potential) object in them is a different object from any object in out actual world.

Venus in another possible world is still Venus as it might have been, the individuation conditions return the same object (that's why the names are a rigid designator). — MindForged

Objects are individuated by the network of relations that contextualize them. If you change one relatum, you change the object's individuation conditions. So, the individuation conditions may not return the same object. E.g. if I am the oldest child in the real world and in the possible world I have an older brother, the individuation condition of being the oldest child will not return me.

Further, Venus as it might have been is no longer possible. Future contingents are possible. Past contingents have already past into necessity. It is possible that there will be a sea battle tomorrow or not, but the battle of the Coral Sea is history. Only in other worlds may similar events turn out differently.

"Second planet" and "morning/evening stars" are not proper names. — MindForged

No, they are not. There are the kinds of properties you called upon to justify the "rigid designator" property of a term many posts ago -- what you're calling "individuation conditions." (Which are relational descriptions.) And, in the case of my example, they do not return objects supporting your case.

the identity holds across worlds (i.e. trans-world identity) because they have the same essential properties which make it Venus. — MindForged

If they are properties, we can describe them.

Counterfactual propositions can be judged on the basis of real-world potencies. Steve would have enjoyed the trip even if he did not go on it because he is actually disposed to enjoy such trips. If we did not know his relevant dispositions, we could not say whether he enjoyed the trip or not. So, there is no need for possible worlds talk to deal with counterfactuals.

You are under the impression that a rigid designator is a term that could not have meant anything other than what it actually means. — Snakes Alive

No, I am not under that impression. I think all terms are conventional. Only ideas cannot mean anything but what they mean, because their whole being is meaning what they signify.

It depends on how you define "same". Lewis's suggestion was that "same" doesn't meaningfully apply to someone or something in a different possibility world, It's a different world, necessarily with different (even if identical) things. — Michael Ossipoff

Exactly. Therefore, they can't have the same proper name, only homonymous proper names.