That is not how I read the word pernicious, which to me implies that there is something untoward in the question. Otherwise all questions of philosophy would be pernicious: they are all about what criteria to use to judge things or categorize them. So "what is a chair?" would be just as pernicious as "what is a number?". — Olivier5

That's not quite the question originally asked. Let me quote Hacker to set the context:

Careful scrutiny of the use of the word ‘mind’ will enable us to resist, at least pro tempore, the temptation to answer the philosophical question ‘What is the mind?’ by giving a definition. ‘The mind’ being a nominal, ‘What is the mind?’ is commonly construed as ‘What sort of entity is the mind?’ But this is as pernicious a question as ‘What sort of entity is a number?’ It raises the wrong kind of expectations, and sends us along the wrong paths before we have had a chance to get our bearings. So the first step to take is to examine the use of the noun ‘mind’. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

Note Hacker's italicization of entity above. Here's the Lexico definition for entity:

1 A thing with distinct and independent existence.

1.1 [mass noun] Existence; being.

A chair meets the criteria for an entity in the first sense. So it needn't be problematic to investigate what kind of entity it is, assuming some distinguishing criteria (animal, vegetable, or mineral, say).

But does mind and number meet that criteria? See how chairs (and other ordinary things we observe like trees and rocks, etc.) set our expectations? If we don't first understand how these words are used in their ordinary context, it's easy to start imagining minds and numbers as things with distinct and independent existence. Before we have a chance to get our bearings, we're thinking of minds without bodies, and numbers in Platonic realms. That's why the question is pernicious.

Now suppose a child comes to you and asks "What is a number?" The ordinary answer involves looking at how we use numbers, in counting and as quantities, which is what I attempted to do with the apples example. Similarly, the ordinary answer of "What is a mind?" is that it has an idiomatic usage - it's an abstraction over our intellectual abilities and their exercise. But to ascribe substance or agency or independence to an abstraction is a conceptual confusion, and that's the legacy of the mind/body problem.

I suspect Hacker has a specific problem with concepts.

So do you, apparently. In your example of the basket of apples, the basket functions as a set, whose cardinality is the number of apples. When you add an apple to the basket, you are adding an element to a set. And a set is a concept. — Olivier5

First, Hacker uses the terms "concept" and "conceptual" throughout his essay in a conventional way, so I don't think he finds concepts problematic. And neither do I. Second, the word concept derives from the Latin conceptum, meaning "something conceived". It's also related to thought and imagination. So to claim that a set or a number is a concept is to create a dependence on human thought (in a way that trees and rocks apparently aren't - i.e., are they concepts?) Yet a water molecule was composed of three atoms prior to the emergence of humans in the universe, violating that dependency.

One's body and mind aren't entities that "work together" any more than the wax "works together" with the impression on it
— Andrew M

It does. The impressions change the shape of the wax. Wax accepts impressions, can be impressed. Aristotle chose the example of wax for a reason: because among all the materials that he could think of, wax was the most easily malleable. A piece of wood (xyle in greek, a word which Aristotle often used for his concept of matter) would not "work" as well in this metaphor. — Olivier5

:up: I can "work" with that! The point for me here is that the Aristotelian (holistic) conception of form and matter is fundamentally different to the Cartesian (dualistic) conception of mind and body.

That you disagree with my thinking about numbers doesn't prove I am wrong, though. You don't actually argue a rival category: you don't say what type of entity you think a number is, — Olivier5

As mentioned, this is the problem of universals. Your position, conceptualism, is one of the many possible views that people have held about numbers, and universals generally. My position on universals is Aristotle's immanent realism which I describe here.

But note that Hacker said that asking what sort of entity a number is is a pernicious question. Which is to say, is it a question that is decidable according to some obvious or accepted criteria, or is it just a matter of deciding in favor of one's preferred philosophy (say, idealism or materialism)?

Hacker, following Wittgenstein, would suggest looking at how we use numbers in our language and activities. One use is when counting things. For example, I look in the fruit bowl and count three apples. The number three, here, is a quantity.

In the Categories, Aristotle considered the kinds of things that can be the subject or predicate of a proposition - quantity is one of those categories. As used in the apples example above, the quantity three is said of the apples. The quantity of apples in the fruit bowl doesn't depend on any person's mind hence it's real, not nominal or conceptual. If an apple is added to the fruit bowl, the quantity changes, so the quantity is immanent in the apples. Hence Aristotle's immanent realism.

One could still validly ask: how come Mr Hacker has a body AND a mind, and how do these two work together (or not) within the entity called "Mr Hacker"? So the problem has not disappeared at all. It was just a slight of hands... — Olivier5

I don't think you're appreciating that the ordinary use of the word "mind" is idiomatic (I changed my mind, I'm of two minds, that was a mindless act, etc.). One's body and mind aren't entities that "work together" any more than the wax "works together" with the impression on it. As Hacker puts it:

To repeat, to say that our ordinary talk of the mind is a mere façon de parler, or that it is a logical construction, is not to say there are no minds. On the contrary, it is to say that there are, only that they are not kinds of things. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

What's the square root of the real number -4? — jgill

I love Scott Aaronson's comments on this:

Why did God go with the complex numbers and not the real numbers?

Years ago, at Berkeley, I was hanging out with some math grad students -- I fell in with the wrong crowd -- and I asked them that exact question. The mathematicians just snickered. "Give us a break -- the complex numbers are algebraically closed!" To them it wasn't a mystery at all.

But to me it is sort of strange. I mean, complex numbers were seen for centuries as fictitious entities that human beings made up, in order that every quadratic equation should have a root. (That's why we talk about their "imaginary" parts.) So why should Nature, at its most fundamental level, run on something that we invented for our convenience?

Answer: Well, if you want every unitary operation to have a square root, then you have to go to the complex numbers...

Scott: Dammit, you're getting ahead of me!

Alright, yeah: suppose we require that, for every linear transformation U that we can apply to a state, there must be another transformation V such that V^2 = U. This is basically a continuity assumption: we're saying that, if it makes sense to apply an operation for one second, then it ought to make sense to apply that same operation for only half a second. — PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum - Scott Aaronson

But this is as pernicious a question as ‘What sort of entity is a number?’
— Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

A number is simply a concept. There's no difficulty that I can see here. — Olivier5

I don't agree that a number is a concept. However I have a concept of a number, just as I have a concept of a tree, and also a concept of a unicorn.

I see no difficulty either, yet we have a different opinion on this. This gets into the problem of universals.

The mind/body problem is insoluble.
— Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

That sounds both defeatist and strangely preposterous. — Olivier5

A problem can be insoluble if it is badly formulated or has false assumptions. In this case, the mind/body problem has Cartesian assumptions which can be questioned and potentially rejected.

Hacker is pointing out that the Cartesian mind/body conception is broken and offers an alternative
Aristotelian conception:

Talk of the mind is concerned with the distinctive rational powers of human beings and their exercise.

Once this is clear, it becomes evident that the domain of the idiom of ‘mind’ coincides roughly not with that of the Cartesian mind – the domain of consciousness, but with that of the Aristotelian rational psuche. The Aristotelian psuche is not a kind of entity, and the question of whether the organism and its mind are one thing or two is, according to Aristotle, as absurd as the question of whether the wax and the impression on it are one thing or two. The possessor of a mind is an animal of a certain kind, namely a human being. To have a mind is not to be in possession of a kind of entity. It is rather to possess a distinctive range of powers. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

..

The mind is not an entity that could stand in a relationship to anything. All talk of the mind that a human being has and of its characteristics is talk of the intellectual and volitional powers that he has, and of their exercise.
— Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

That is true, but so what? 'The mind is not an object'. Nevertheless we all possess one, or are one. So, 'the mind', which is not an object, is the ground of everything we know, including objects. — Wayfarer

The 'so-what' is that the mind/body problem misleads. We're human beings first and foremost, and our experience and reasoning as human beings is the ground of everything we know.

I think ordinary language should be the default starting position. J.L.Austin explains why:
— Andrew M

Yes. Start with that and the familiar world which doesn't even have to reduce to mind or matter or anything else. Why take such a project for granted? Especially after so many have shown what's questionable about it... Call it the 'lifeworld' or whatever. It's where we talk and what we talk about. — norm

:up:

As Peter Hacker (co-author of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience) says:

Careful scrutiny of the use of the word ‘mind’ will enable us to resist, at least pro tempore, the temptation to answer the philosophical question ‘What is the mind?’ by giving a definition. ‘The mind’ being a nominal, ‘What is the mind?’ is commonly construed as ‘What sort of entity is the mind?’ But this is as pernicious a question as ‘What sort of entity is a number?’ It raises the wrong kind of expectations, and sends us along the wrong paths before we have had a chance to get our bearings. So the first step to take is to examine the use of the noun ‘mind’."
...
What then is the relationship between the mind and the body? The mind/body problem is insoluble. For it is a hopelessly confused residue of the Platonic/Augustinian/Cartesian tradition. It cannot be solved; but it can be dissolved. The mind is not an entity that could stand in a relationship to anything. All talk of the mind that a human being has and of its characteristics is talk of the intellectual and volitional powers that he has, and of their exercise. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

Assume you know nothing about reality except that you exist and you have a conscious mind — RogueAI

I don't think words such as "conscious", "mind" and "exist" would be meaningful to you if you otherwise knew nothing about reality.

Idealism and dualism suffer too from explanatory gaps. However, in an a priori state of knowledge, we know that ideas and at least one mind exists, so to claim reality is made of mind(s)/thoughts begs a lot of interesting questions that don't have answers, but it has one crucial advantage over materialism: the existence of mind and ideas can't be doubted. The existence of external physical stuff can be. — RogueAI

By the time we begin to think philosophically, we have a vast amount of knowledge, language and experience that underpins our philosophical thoughts. The point of philosophy just is to develop a framework for bringing order to what we know. What can or can't be doubted depends itself on one's philosophical assumptions (which may be implicit). Materialists do doubt mind (at least in the Cartesian sense), just as idealists do doubt external physical stuff. Which leads to your final comment...

Idealism should be the default starting position. — RogueAI

I think ordinary language should be the default starting position. J.L.Austin explains why:

Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing. It embodies, indeed, something better than the metaphysics of the Stone Age, namely… the inherited experience and acumen of many generations of men. But then, that acumen has been concentrated primarily upon the practical business of life. If a distinction works well for practical purposes in ordinary life (no mean feat, for even ordinary life is full of hard cases), it will not mark nothing: yet this is likely enough to be not the best way of arranging things if our interests are more extensive or intellectual than the ordinary… Certainly, then, ordinary language is not the last word: in principle it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded. Only remember, it is the first word. (And forget, for once and for a while, that other curious question “Is it true?” May we?) (1956, pp. 185 and fn 2 in parentheses) — J.L. Austin - A plea for excuses (via Ordinary Language Philosophy - IEP)

A position known as ‘instrumentalism’, I believe. — Wayfarer

No, one could be either a realist or an instrumentalist about particles. As with Rovelli, I think that if you can detect it then it's real.

The question is: Is a particle just a wave function, or is it a description of a probability wave, over time? In trying to visualize how we can detect a "particle", it seems the observion must take place over time - not just a point in time. — Don Wade

To quote Carlo Rovelli, "particles are the objects revealed by detectors". We build up a representation of those objects (and the probabilities of measuring specific values) over repeated observations.

Note that familiar, macroscopic things such as cats and the moon are themselves particle systems, and subject to the same quantum/wave function considerations.

The problem is trying to describe a "nebulous-point" - and it doesn't seem to exist in our language. So we end up trying to define a point-particle as a non-intuitive thing. Is this a language problem? — Don Wade

I don't think it's a problem of language. It's more a matter of thinking carefully about our underlying assumptions regarding reality, locality, determinism, etc., which are also at issue with macroscopic objects even if it's not so obvious.

We have not proven whether the universe is fundamentally deterministic or not. But if any of it is indeterministic then it all is, if you get me, because if you have a chain of events in a system that is deterministic but for one part, then the overall outcome is indeterministic. That's what I'm trying to get at. — Paul S

Agreed, we don't have proof.

Regarding Einstein's view as described in your OP:

Above is an example of Born's statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics. Einstein would have argued that no matter which point is selected, even if its not in the largest (most probable) area, there is still some other underlying deterministic reason why this value would emerge beyond just a throw of the dice, whereas Born would say it was part randomly selected. It's the probability amplitude that made Einstein uncomfortable. — Paul S

Einstein viewed nature as ultimately intelligible. To paraphrase Einstein, the Born rule works, "but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one.'"

The device is flipping it. You can make a deterministic device to flip something, at least deterministic at the macro level, so then it's just a question of the determinism or lack of with the coin, and it's environment. Can you make it land in the same place to the namometer? That would be more of a challenge, regardless of how the flipper is and the smoothness of the surface, the polish of the coin etc? But to just make it land on heads is not too difficult, even more a human, with the right discipline and conditions for the experiment. But it's questionable whether humans are deterministic to do it with the same accuracy as a machine can. — Paul S

I don't see the question of your OP as merely a practical one (but perhaps you do?) A quantum coin can be represented by a qubit, just as a classical coin can be represented by a bit. Just as we can pseudo-randomize a bit via an algorithm, so we can psuedo-randomize a qubit by an appropriate transformation such that if the qubit were measured it would be equally likely to return a 0 or a 1. But the qubit's state is not truly random, as evidenced by the fact that the same transformation can be applied to the qubit a second time, and the original state of the qubit is restored.

I then flip the coin, i.e., transform it into a superposition of heads-up and heads-down.
— Andrew M
Then you're not flipping it. — Paul S

Why not?

My question
Do you believe the universe is inherently deterministic or indeterministic (and why)?
(Do you believe God/the universe/your chosen deity plays dice?) — Paul S

In some quantum experiments, it is possible to both play dice and predict the measured outcome with certainty. For example, suppose I prepare a quantum coin as heads-up. I then flip the coin, i.e., transform it into a superposition of heads-up and heads-down. Without measuring the coin orientation (which, if I did, would be equally likely to be heads-up or tails-up), I then flip the coin a second time. Now I measure the coin orientation and find that it is heads-up. Further, on repeating the experiment I find the coin always oriented heads-up after two flips. I can similarly design an experiment where the outcome of the double-flip is always tails-up (when initially heads-up). In each case, the outcome is completely determined by the coin's initial state and evolution.

Note that the measured outcome of the second coin flip would be unpredictable for someone who did not have knowledge of the coin's initial state and evolution. In this case, what seems like playing dice from that person's perspective is predictable with certainty from a broader and more informed perspective.

There's no mention of the disadvantages of lockdowns. One cannot make an argument in favour of an approach by only looking at the advantages of it. It's obviously going to look like the best option that way. — Isaac

My argument was that elimination is possible (i.e., what could be achieved at larger scales of infection) as against your claim that "zero cases is literally impossible to achieve".

I expect we agree about the disadvantages of lockdowns. The choice though is not between lockdown and no lockdown. It's between targeted, quick lockdowns (used in conjunction with other measures including border controls and contact tracing), or enduring repeated lockdowns every time cases (and deaths) spiral out of control.

I'm not fond of arguing by analogy, but even this doesn't work. we fight factory fires by showering them with water. When we meet something on the scale of a bushfire, we change tactics. It's too big to fight by showering it with water and it would be dangerous to rely on that. We cut firebreaks, make strategic burn, evacuate people from areas that we've lost... — Isaac

... and finally extinguish it. The point is that COVID spread is a multiplicative process just as bushfire spread is.

That's the same thing. The WHO are advising we prepare for endemic status, you're advising otherwise. — Isaac

No, of course we should prepare - that's the direction things are currently going. But endemic status is neither desirable nor inevitable. The outcome is a choice, not a fate.

Up until last year, what was your position on the world's response to TB? HIV/AIDS? Poverty related food shortages? Suicide? Motor vehicle safety? Were they all similarly single-issue, elimination-focussed? — Isaac

The coronavirus pandemic is a systemic risk - unchecked, it grows rapidly, mutates and is highly unpredictable in terms of eventual deaths, health, and economic costs. So the precautionary principle applies.

There's no comparable risk with motor vehicle accidents. Outcomes are fairly predictable.

Now for a country experiencing an HIV epidemic or food shortages where they face an existential threat, they also should apply the precautionary principle.

The results achieved in Australia and NZ are successful tests of it at that scale, and so are instructive for what could be achieved in other regions.
— Andrew M

No they're not. They're examples of success in regions with a low community infection source, which is the one type of environment we already know these approaches work well in (why we all should have done them to start with). Neither give an example of the approach working in an environment with a high seroprevalence. — Isaac

My comment was ambiguous. They were successful tests at the scales of infection in Australia and NZ, and therefore instructive (i.e., useful and informative, not proof) for what could be achieved at larger scales of infection.

So here's the argument.

We've seen that lockdown and border controls have been effective at significantly reducing case numbers in regions with lots of daily cases. The point at issue is that almost invariably, once they feel they've "mitigated" the effects of the virus, they stop. And so the cases soon ramp up again and the cycle continues.

During August last year, Australia's state of Victoria (population 6.6 million) was getting around 400 new cases a day yet Australia was subsequently able to achieve elimination. That's a significant test.

More than half of the states in the US had less than 1000 new cases yesterday - they are comparable circumstances to Victoria's in August last year (including the same season - end of Winter).

At different points in time, many US states have been able to significantly reduce daily case numbers if they've tried. For example, daily cases in New York fell from 10,000 during April to under 900 through the summer. So they ended up in comparable circumstances to Victoria's.

That same analysis can be applied to Europe. If mobility is reduced, the daily cases rapidly fall.

You were earlier advocating a 'precautionary approach', now you're suggesting we dismiss the view of the World Health Organisation and instead pursue a policy devised by some fringe data scientists? Why the change of tune? — Isaac

If a fire is spreading, you don't mitigate it, you put it out. That's the precautionary approach.

I'm not dismissing what the WHO says. I'm making the case for an alternative strategy. And it's a strategy that people have been seen to get on board with.

Actually I think we have a good sense of what would happen if we are able to properly and fully insulate the vulnerable (and those who choose to identify as such) from those for whom the threat poses no real risk (i.e. 99% of the population)...there would be no great disaster, the virus would eventually become endemic for 99% of the population and the vulnerable will be protected once they are all vaccinated. — dazed

Also need to factor in long COVID, length of immunity and the potential effects of emerging variants (for example, the new B117 variant appears to be 30% more deadly).

The only tricky part to this solution as I see it is:

How would enforcement of isolation for those who COULD have contact with the vulnerable be maintained? Would the health workers and others who might have contact with the vulnerable be required to have a tracking device such that if they moved outside of certain parameters at certain times enforcement would occurr? — dazed

So the issue is whether this or any other proposal is robust enough to stop the virus leaking through. If it is not, then vulnerable people will die. If there is a chance that the virus can get through then, sooner or later, it will get through. As we've seen with the recent outbreaks in Australia, despite hotel quarantine.

So a precautionary approach is necessary. Such as the multilayered, or "Swiss-cheese," model of pandemic defense mentioned here. Implementing that model means the virus may get through one or two layers, but can still be stopped by other layers. It is much more robust to human error.

:grin: Mars: where the greenhouse effect is a good thing! — frank

And, better yet, no Democrats, RINO's or CNN!

Make your alternative reality come true. Donate here!

We need someone to terraform mars. It could be a global initiative. — frank

Make Mars great again!

So all you have to do is ignite the boosters and blast spaceship Australia and NZ into space. Then you'll be free! — frank

It can be Elon Musk's next project...

You've either misunderstood those papers or misunderstood my comment. It's not clear which. Neither of those papers are suggesting we will end up in a situation where it is no longer necessary to respond to outbreaks of covid-19. The green zone type responses are about local elimination - shutting down outbreaks quickly and decisively, not about creating a world in which there are no such outbreaks. — Isaac

The NO-COVID/CovidZero strategy outlined by those papers is a multiscale approach - applicable to large geographical regions such as the US and Europe as well as smaller states and communities. That outbreaks can still subsequently happen after a geographical region gets to zero due to imported cases is, of course, true - it's the reason why Australia and NZ have experienced outbreaks at all in recent months.

Excerpting from your provided quotes:

It appears the destiny of SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] is to become endemic...

...will permit us to learn to live with Covid-19.

The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus... — Isaac

That is indeed the goal and expected outcome of the usual "mitigation" strategy that most countries employ, and is exactly what the NO-COVID/CovidZero strategy is an alternative to. As Bar-Yam says:

CovidZero is an exit strategy. It is unlike the usual strategy called living with the virus, mitigation, flattening the curve, or allowing the disease to become endemic with or without a vaccine which is passive, reactive, ineffective and massively costly in lives, long term health, and the economy. — Yaneer Bar-Yam, CovidZero: How to end the pandemic in 5 weeks, New England Complex Systems Institute (January 8, 2021)

I admire some of the work coming out of the New England Complex Systems Institute, but you have to recognise that this is a cutting edge application of novel statistical models to an emerging situation. Taleb and co are pushing a very new and untested methodology. I think it's got a tremendous amount of potential, but we should not be treating it as if it were rock solid evidence. — Isaac

The results achieved in Australia and NZ are successful tests of it at that scale, and so are instructive for what could be achieved in other regions. Their methodology has also been successfully applied to Ebola epidemics in West Africa:

The results were dramatic. The epidemic that was exponentially growing, fell exponentially [17] (see Fig. 5). To the confusion of some international observers, the expected number of sick people weren’t showing up at the special Ebola care facilities constructed in Liberia. Even two months later, reports in the news were saying that they didn’t know where bodies were, that they must be being hidden [18,19].
...
While early on there was a strong resistance to quarantines, by the following summer with the Ebola epidemic still a problem in Guinea, news reports were talking about how communities welcomed quarantine to finally get rid of the disease [25]. — Yaneer Bar-Yam, How community response stopped Ebola, New England Complex Systems Institute (July 11, 2016)

So far. This collection of viruses is with us long-term now. It's easily conceivable that from the vantage point of a century, it will make little difference which route was taken by whom. — frank

Could be. It's also easily conceivable that a much more deadly pandemic hits us in the future, and nothing was learnt from this one...

The virus would spread through the non-vulnerable and eventually play itself out as immunity across the healthy population increases. The vulnerable would be protected from the virus as they isolate and avoid contact.

The only tricky part of this plan is making sure those who come into contact with the vulnerable also shelter in place and stay locked down. It may well be that the impracticality of this is the barrier to implementation... — dazed

Indeed, and there is little room for error:

Achieving herd immunity through natural infection, to me, is very dangerous,” said Walter A. Orenstein, MD, the associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center and director of Emory Vaccine Policy and Development, in Atlanta. “And I don’t see how that would be protective, because basically you are allowing uncontrolled infection to go on. And when infection is uncontrolled, it can hit vulnerable populations, like nursing home residents, because all you need is one introduction. — COVID-19: Great Debates, Sweden and Herd Immunity

As I see it, Katz fails to acknowledge the unknown risk in pursuing herd immunity. Maybe it will work out for the best, as Sweden hoped for early on. Or maybe it will be an unmitigated disaster.

Faced with unknown risk, one should take a precautionary approach. As it turns out, those countries that did so - such as Australia, NZ, Vietnam, Taiwan and others - are the countries that have been the most successful at minimizing harm.

Didn't Aus and NZ have a bit of an advantage in that they're 'a bit out of the way' and not as much of an international travel hub compared to Europe? Their use of lockdowns has been impressive but they've been afforded by such an advantage. — The Opposite

It's an important point. Bar-Yam addresses it here:

Implement travel restrictions and quarantines. Prevent importing cases into nations, states, communities, neighborhoods, even city blocks through strict travel restrictions. The smaller the local area protected by travel restrictions the faster is the process of getting to zero locally. Then use a Green Zone Exit Strategy opening up protected CovidZero areas and connecting them by travel progressively over a few weeks. — Yaneer Bar-Yam, CovidZero: How to end the pandemic in 5 weeks, New England Complex Systems Institute (January 8, 2021)

Lockdowns would have to be much longer to work (months not days), and lockdowns will be less effective (zero cases is literally impossible to achieve, the target is lower hospital admissions). — Isaac

For an alternative point of view:

After more than 2 million deaths worldwide, perhaps there is an emerging agreement that the elimination of this coronavirus is not only necessary but also achievable. — Richard Horton, Lancet editor-in-chief (January 30, 2021)

The discussed paper:

The NO-COVID target and the Green Zone strategy, for which we advocate, have already been applied successfully in several countries, thereby enabling their populations to return to a nearly normal life situation. For the Federal Republic of Germany and other European countries this path is both possible and optimal. — A proactive approach to fight SARS-CoV-2 in Germany and Europe

Also the five week CovidZero plan from Yaneer Bar-Yam at the New England Complex Systems Institute:

CovidZero is adaptive based upon the local conditions and the strengths and capabilities of the community. Setting the goal and using all available capabilities to get there has been shown to work in Australia, China, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Atlantic Canada.
...
This [CovidZero] strategy is robust to social conflict as individual communities can achieve success for themselves. It is robust to individual behavior and doesn’t require 100% compliance. Most people care about their families and communities and given the opportunity to get to a clearly desirable goal will do their part, especially if it can be done rapidly. — Yaneer Bar-Yam, CovidZero: How to end the pandemic in 5 weeks, New England Complex Systems Institute (January 8, 2021)

Bar-Yam (along with Norman and Taleb) stressed the need to reduce mobility right at the beginning of the pandemic, which is just as necessary today:

It will cost something to reduce mobility in the short term, but to fail do so will eventually cost everything—if not from this event, then one in the future. Outbreaks are inevitable, but an appropriately precautionary response can mitigate systemic risk to the globe at large. But policy- and decision-makers must act swiftly and avoid the fallacy that to have an appropriate respect for uncertainty in the face of possible irreversible catastrophe amounts to "paranoia," or the converse a belief that nothing can be done. — Joseph Norman, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Systemic risk of pandemic via novel pathogens – Coronavirus: A note, New England Complex Systems Institute (January 26, 2020)

:100:

anyone care to point to flaws in this approach?

I can;t see any and think it would work well, I don't see it ever actually being followed due to its complexity. — dazed

If a plan is complex, then it will have many potential points of failure. Consider a complex piece of software that has never been tested. Would you risk your life on it working?

In contrast, consider Australia's and New Zealand's COVID strategies. Those countries had a clear objective, which was zero community transmission. People understand the strategies needed to get there, and it has been demonstrated to work.

These countries adopted a precautionary strategy from the start, versus a "let's try what we think might work and see what happens" strategy. The latter is fine when people's lives and well-being don't depend on the plan working. But a precautionary strategy is necessary when they do. It's always possible to adjust that strategy as new data comes in, as Australia and other similarly situated countries are doing.

Apparently Perth's lockdown worked. No new cases, lockdown finishes in a few hours. — Banno

Yep. Australian states have a clear objective, which is to get community cases to zero and keep it that way. Then life returns to normal.

If they can improve hotel quarantine procedures, then they may be able to avoid the need for lockdown altogether. For example, to quarantine in less populated areas and/or have permanent on-site (or fly-in/fly-out) quarantine workers.

Another test. One case in Perth. Two million people locked down for five days. — Banno

It's worth noting that the state had been free of community transmission for ten months, and the rest of Australia currently has no known community transmission.

Here's an NYT article about it as well:

The lockdown in Perth and the surrounding area followed similar efforts in Brisbane and Sydney, where a handful of infections led to steep ramp-ups in restrictions, a subdued virus and a rapid return to near normalcy. Ask Australians about the approach, and they might just shrug. Instead of loneliness and grief or outcries over impingements on their freedom, they’ve gotten used to a routine of short-term pain for collective gain.
...
“We have a way to save lives, open up our economies and avoid all this fear and hassle,” said Ian Mackay, a virologist at the University of Queensland who developed a multilayered, or “Swiss cheese,” model of pandemic defense that has been widely circulated. “Everyone can learn from us, but not all are willing to learn.”
...
Australia’s geographic isolation offers it one great advantage. Still, it has taken a number of decisive steps. Australia has strictly limited interstate travel while mandating hotel quarantine for international arrivals since last March. Britain and the United States are only now seeking to make quarantine mandatory for people coming from coronavirus hot spots.

Australia has also maintained a strong system of contact tracing, even as other countries have essentially given up. In the Perth case, contact tracers had already tested the man’s housemates (negative so far) by the time the lockdown was announced and placed them under 14-day quarantine at a state-run facility. The authorities also listed more than a dozen locations where the security guard might have touched or breathed on someone.
...
Dr. Mackay, who has worked closely with Australian government officials, called it “the hammer and the dance.”
— One Case, Total Lockdown: Australia’s Lessons for a Pandemic World

The binding of terms (not simply as referring phrases, but universals, existence claims) depends on the precise context. — simeonz

:up:

If Strawson wants to interpret claims of ordinary sentences in the intuitionistic sense, as indicated from the "neither true nor false" remark, the two statements above are not complementary, but "there exists no king of France" is still not the opposite of "exists a bald king of France" and doesn't prevent Russell from inferring (however frivolously) that there is some implicit existential quantifier in the original sentence. — simeonz

I think Strawson is just saying that such a statement isn't propositional (due to a false presupposition), rather than interpreting in the intuitionistic sense. As he puts it:

And this comes out from the fact that when, in response to his statement, we say (as we should) "There is no king of France", we should certainly not say we were contradicting the statement that the king of France is wise. We are certainly not saying that it's false. We are, rather, giving a reason for saying that the question of whether it's true or false simply doesn't arise. — On Referring, p330 - P. F. Strawson

This idea can be found in traditional (Aristotelian) logic, as Strawson notes in Introduction to Logical Theory (where, in this case, he's discussing vacuous statements):

The more realistic view seems to be that the existence of children of John's is a necessary precondition not merely of the truth of what is said, but of its being either true or false. And this suggests the possibility of interpreting all the four Aristotelian forms [A, E, I, O] on these lines: that is, as forms such that the question of whether statements exemplifying them are true or false is one that does not arise unless the subject-class has members. — Introduction to Logical Theory, p174 - P. F. Strawson

Strawson goes on further to distinguish between sentences and statements:

It is important to understand why people have hesitated to adopt such a view of at least some general statements. It is probably the operation of the trichotomy 'either true or false or meaningless', as applied to statements, which is to blame. For this trichotomy contains a confusion: the confusion between sentence and statement. Of course, the sentence 'All John's children are asleep' is not meaningless. It is perfectly significant. But it is senseless to ask, of the sentence, whether it is true or false. One must distinguish between what can be said about the sentence, and what can be said about the statements made, on different occasions, by the use of the sentence. It is about statements only that the question of truth or falsity can arise; and about these it can sometimes fail to arise. — Introduction to Logical Theory, p174 - P. F. Strawson

Fair enough. This makes an interesting point that mathematical and ordinary language have different objectives, which result in different kinds of senses of the word "useful". — simeonz

It seems so. Certainly with ordinary language, the focus is on what is said by someone on a specific occasion (i.e., the use of a sentence).

Maybe the first translation to predicate logic would satisfy your objections (edit: because existence is not entailed by it, just material implication in case of actual existence). I am not sure. — simeonz

Yes, my translation would just be the first. The background to my original comment was Russell's analysis of definite descriptions and Strawson's criticism of it:

P. F. Strawson argued that Russell had failed to correctly represent what one means when one says a sentence in the form of "the current Emperor of Kentucky is gray." According to Strawson, this sentence is not contradicted by "No one is the current Emperor of Kentucky", for the former sentence contains not an existential assertion, but attempts to use "the current Emperor of Kentucky" as a referring (or denoting) phrase. Since there is no current Emperor of Kentucky, the phrase fails to refer to anything, and so the sentence is neither true nor false. — Criticism of Russell's analysis - P.F.Strawson

Obviously, I could invent context that indicates such meaning. But altogether, my point was that our everyday language does not produce encapsulated sentences with individual semantics, a la mathematical logic. We could only guess what the most probable meaning was as we anticipate the surrounding context. — simeonz

I think your spaceship example captured the ordinary meaning just fine. As the above Wikipedia quote suggests, we would ordinarily use such a sentence as a referring phrase. So to use it today would, in effect, be a misuse.

The question may have been about soundness vs validity in ordinary language and I may have misunderstood. About whether ordinary sentences require actual application to be considered meaningful or can they have vacuously correct meaning. — simeonz

So my view here is that ordinary sentences require actual application to be true (or false). The issue is not so much one of meaningfulness (i.e., we know what the sentence means, as your spaceship example shows) as one of usefulness (i.e., if the sentence is non-referring, it doesn't have a use). My view is similar for so-called vacuous truths - they also fail to refer to anything and so are also neither true nor false.

Again, rather out of cuff interjection. How do we know which parts of the sentence are existentially bound and which refer to particulars. The sentence could mean that one well known presently ruling king of France is bald. It could mean that such a king presently exists and is bald. Or in some point in time (prior to reading the statement), a king of France existed and was bald. In fact, it could mean that a country named France existed at some point, that country had a person acting in a particular capacity, called king, he had a condition, which for lack of a better term was named baldness, and that person had it. It seems to me that the battle for revealing propositions behind isolated sentences is obscured by linguistic inadequacy, if we are talking about ordinary language and without context that implies the intent of the author. The result is speculation. — simeonz

Yes, so context matters. That sentence had an obvious use in a time when a French King existed. But it doesn't have that use now.

Those perceived differences are what our talk is grounded in, i.e., they provide the context for our talk.
— Andrew M

If you'll permit me to be a bit socratic, when you say that they "provide the context for our talk", and that this context "grounds" the use of language, I was wondering if you could comment on:

(1) How speech acts are assigned to contexts; how do you tell which context a speech act is in? — fdrake

Speech acts occur in a context. So part of the context in the hypothetical I presented was that it was raining. How you tell what the context is is both a matter of looking (as Alice did) and being correct (as Alice was).

(2) Whether the context of a given speech act doesn't just "ground" but also determines some component of its meaning - or in a more pragmatic vocabulary, if the context the speech act arises in influences the norms of use of the speech act? — fdrake

If I understand you then, yes. If someone were unclear about what rain was, then it could be ostensively demonstrated. If someone claims that it is raining, then they are identifying their situation as being that kind of situation.

I agree that speech acts both contextualise norms of language use and arise in contexts, what I think this does is stop them from being appealed to as a ground at one moment and as an expression in that ground the next. — fdrake

I don't follow. Can you give an example here?

Those experiences are what ground the use of that language
— Andrew M

Yes, what do you mean by "ground", how does it work? — fdrake

It's the context for our talk. Language doesn't arise in a vacuum, but in our interactions with the world (our experiences). We perceive a difference between wet weather and dry weather, say, and when being aware of such differences is useful for our purposes, language is created and used. Those perceived differences are what our talk is grounded in, i.e., they provide the context for our talk.

I'd like to present a hypothetical scenario, which I'll analyze in my own words, and then perhaps you can point out any problems, as you see it.

The scenario is that it is raining and Alice, after looking out her window, says that it is raining.

What is occurring (that it is raining) is just what Alice says is occurring. Her statement is true.

Now people wouldn't normally make statements about rain if they (and others) didn't know what rain was, at least in some rudimentary sense. Their knowledge about rain arises from their interactions with the world. They have experienced wet weather (as distinguished from dry weather) and, collectively, have found it noteworthy enough to create language about it.

Those experiences are what ground the use of that language. So when Alice says that it is raining, she is saying that the particular situation she is currently in is a wet weather situation - something that she is familiar with in her experience. Whether she speaks truly or not depends on whether it is a wet weather situation. If it weren't raining and, instead, Bob were on the roof hosing water, then her statement would be false (unbeknownst to her, at least for now).

I don't see anything mysterious or problematic with this. It's just how the language game operates (in ordinary, everyday communications, at least).

Creative is left with the absurdity that
(1) The mouse ran behind the tree.
— Andrew M
is not a proposition. — Banno

I think he agrees that my statement of the event is a proposition. He just disagrees that the event itself is a proposition. But I think you would agree with @creativesoul about that as well.

Anyway, if that helps...

If the purported event is representable in language and it meets the public usage criteria for an event, then it is an event.
— Andrew M

It strikes me that if there are a class of things that are "purported events", that must be "representable in language" and "meet public usage criteria" to count as events, it would then follow that those purported events do not fall under DPC despite being occurrent: — fdrake

Purported is a qualifier on an event, not another kind of event. Whether or not a purported event is an event depends just on whether it meets the specified criteria for an event.

For example, that there is a purported earthquake does not imply that there is an earthquake. There may be no earthquake at all. If not, then nothing occurred.

I'd be interested in hearing your argument for how you get from:

If a purported event were not representable in language, then we would find ourselves up against the private language argument. We would have no grounds for calling it an event.
— Andrew M

To: for every event E possibly there exists a statement S(E) such that E is the truth maker for S(E). — fdrake

If the purported event is representable in language and it meets the public usage criteria for an event, then it is an event.

It seems to me that it then follows that it is possible, in principle, for someone to state that the event did (or did not) occur. And, if so, the event would be the truth maker for that person's statement.

What does wondering whether or not we could possibly represent some state of the world in language have to do with the content of language-less belief? — creativesoul

My purpose there was to distinguish them in a dependency sense. First-order beliefs are about the world. Second-order beliefs are about statements about the world.

Most states of the world are not directly perceptible. All language-less belief is about directly perceptible things. — creativesoul

OK, so consider the scenario where a cat watched a mouse run behind a tree and then chased after it.

That the cat chased after the mouse suggests that the cat believed that the mouse ran behind the tree.

If we agree about that, then the question is what to make of the that-clause "the mouse ran behind the tree". I think we would agree that it describes an event that occurred independently of the cat's belief, and also independently of language.

Now I think that is what you mean by language-less belief. And also that this characterizes much of human belief as well. Is that correct?

No. An event does need to be representable in language, in principle (i.e., such that language users could potentially make a statement S(E)). But it need not actually be represented by someone in practice, now or ever.
— Andrew M

So your claim's more like:

(DPC) For every event E possibly there exists a statement S( E ) such that E is the truth maker for S( E ).

? — fdrake

Yes, that seems OK.

Any event can be characterized by a statement. Whether or not it ever is, is a separate matter.

(DPC) For every (*) event E there exists (**) a statement S( E ) such that E is the truth maker for S( E )

Do you agree with that formulation? — fdrake

No. An event does need to be representable in language, in principle (i.e., such that language users could potentially make a statement S(E)). But it need not actually be represented by someone in practice, now or ever.

If a purported event were not representable in language, then we would find ourselves up against the private language argument. We would have no grounds for calling it an event.

This raises a question of time. — fdrake

As you note, many events occurred billions of years ago which haven't been (and perhaps never will be) represented by anyone. Given the language criterion above, there can be such events and they will have state independently of anyone's representations. That's just how we've set up the language game.

Loaded questions



You seem to be looking to disagree on things that, as far as I can tell, we have no real disagreement about.

The content of a true belief is a state of the world which we, as human beings, can potentially represent in language. Would you agree with that?