As far as I can tell there is no possible world argument such that it is necessarily true that truth depends upon minds and only minds. — m-theory

NO ONE IS CLAIMING THIS!

Ok then it is not true that there are no truths. — m-theory

That is irrelevant. Do you agree that the following statement is NOT self-contradictory?

If there were no minds in our actual world, then there would be no truths in our actual world. — aletheist

Note that I am NOT asking you whether you agree that this statement is true; it can still be false even if it is not self-contradictory.

Maybe we should try formulating a straightforward counterfactual claim, rather than talking about possible worlds. This is what I understand @Terrapin Station to be advocating:

If there were no minds in our actual world, then there would be no truths in our actual world.

The only way that an if-then statement can be self-contradictory is if the antecedent is P and the consequent is not-P. That is not the case here, so there is no self-contradiction.

You are saying that world y contains world x. — m-theory

No one is saying this. You are now claiming that any propositions about world x can only be asserted in a world that contains world x. This is not how possible worlds work.

It is true that at one point in this world there were no minds, so world x is just a reference to that point in time in this world. — m-theory

And according to @Terrapin Station, at that point in time in this world, there were no truths. But he is asserting that now, when there are minds and truths. Obviously no one asserted it back then.

No if you claim it is true about world world x that there are no truths that is a contradiction because it is the case about world x that there are no truths. — m-theory

I do not understand this sentence. Let P = "there are no truths in world x." What you seem to be saying is, "If you claim it is true that P, that is a contradiction because it is the case that P." This looks like exactly the opposite of a contradiction to me.

Only if I claim that it is true in world y that there are no truths. There is no contradiction when I claim (within world y) that it is true in world x that there are no truths.

The fact that a proposition has no truth value in world x does not entail that it also has no truth value in all other possible worlds. Likewise, the fact that a proposition is true in world y does not entail that it is true in all other possible worlds. The whole point of positing possible worlds at all is that the truth values for the same proposition can be different in different worlds.

So in world y it can't true about world x that in world x there are no truths, that would be a contradiction about world x. — m-theory

Why would that be a contradiction?

P = In world x there are no truths.
not-P = In world x there are some truths.

@Terrapin Station is asserting P. He is not asserting not-P. Therefore, there is no contradiction. To get one, you have to add another premiss; for example, "If there are no truths within world x, then there are no truths (in any possible world) about world x."

... perhaps you guys should consider the possibility that you cannot prove the things that you believe with logic. — m-theory

My beliefs have nothing to do with anything being discussed here. I am only evaluating the formal logic, not the propositions themselves.

This cannot be true in logic without contradiction. — m-theory

There is no logic in world x. There is logic in our actual world, and thus we can assert in our actual world that nothing is true in world x. The only way to contradict this is to assert in our actual world that something is true in world x. @Terrapin Station is not asserting this, so his view is not self-contradictory - which, again, is not to say that it is correct.

In fact, you are the only one asserting that something is true in world x, because you believe that truth is mind-independent; i.e., there are truths in all possible worlds. That is why you see a contradiction - you are (perhaps unconsciously) imposing your own view as a hidden premiss, rather than sticking to what @Terrapin Station is actually advocating.

The argument is still a contradiction, even if the conditions of the argument are not met. — m-theory

There is no contradiction whatsoever in my last post.

Yes but we are talking about world x not world y — m-theory

We are talking about world x within world y (our actual world), where there are minds, truths, logic, etc. Obviously no one would be talking about world x within world x, where there are no minds.

How could it be true that there is no logic in world x if there is no logic in world x? — m-theory

If truth is mind-dependent, and there are no minds in world x, then:

• it is true in our actual world (where there are minds) that there is no logic in world x; and
• it is not true in world x that there is no logic in world x, because nothing is true in world x.

Here is what you said in your post #484.

I am talking contrapositives where there is no truth value. — m-theory

What does this have to do with my summary? We are having this discussion in the actual world, where there are minds. Obviously we could not be having it in a world without minds - it would be impossible.

Yes I know I pointed out the issues with that already. — m-theory

Issues with what? With which part of my last post do you disagree, and why?

I have explained it as clearly as I can. — m-theory

You think that truth is mind-independent. Therefore, you think that there is truth in a world without minds. @Terrapin Station thinks that truth is mind-dependent. Therefore, he thinks that there is no truth in a world without minds. You think that this is a contradiction, because it would have to be a truth in a world without minds that there is no truth in that world. But that is not what @Terrapin Station is claiming; he is merely saying that in the actual world, where there are minds, it is a (mind-dependent) truth that there would be no truth in a world without minds.

No, interaction corresponds to existence. Peirce's definition of "real" is having predicates independently of the thought of any individual person or finite collection of people. It thus includes possibilities and regularities, qualities and laws/habits, not just actualities.

It seems to me that the disagreement here is over the very definition of truth, which is tied to the nature of propositions. On your (mind-independent) view, there are truths in a world without minds, including the proposition that there are no minds. On @Terrapin Station's (mind-dependent) view, there are no truths in a world without minds, because (I gather) there are no propositions (true or false) in such a world. The latter is only a contradiction given your definition of truth; it is not a contradiction given @Terrapin Station's definition. In other words, you cannot simply refute his definition by presupposing yours.

Answering his yes-or-no question will reveal whether you fully understand his position, so I encourage you to do so. Admitting that his view is not self-contradictory does not entail that it is correct; you can still reasonably disagree with it (as I do), but on other grounds.

Please identify at least one specific view put forth in this thread by @Terrapin Station that leads to contradiction. Even if you believe that you have already done so, this might help clarify where things stand at this point. Do not explain (yet) why you think it leads to contradiction, just restate what you perceive to be his position.

Is there a written version? I am a reader, not a watcher. I did enjoy Kahneman's book (with Tversky), Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Would something like this work as a paraphrase of the general idea: "There are different actual properties, each unique, but where comparatively they are more or less similar, and we form conceptual abstractions where something like 'sphericity' is a range of those comparative similarities. Many not(-yet) actualized, similar-but-unique properties can be actualized that we count as sphericity, where those similarities are ideally in-between, in terms if relative similarities and differences, other actualized examples of the sphericity concept." — Terrapin Station

No, because it still seems to be expressing a version of nominalism, rather than realism. There are different actualizations of a property, each unique but falling within the same inexhaustible continuum of that property's potential manifestations - all of which are real, even those that never have been and never will be actualized.

Are we disagreeing? We (involuntarily) perceive the objects as they are presented to us, then we think about representations of them.

Maybe, but I appreciate the dialogue as an opportunity to sort out my own approach to these matters. As the saying goes, "I write to find out what I think."

Really it ought to be clear that it makes discussion pointless. — Wayfarer

Just to be clear - what makes discussion pointless?

I perceived objects and states of affairs, which produced a percept, which disappeared immediately. The perceptual judgment that followed is what I have been thinking about subsequently. In that sense, the actual objects and states of affairs that I perceived constitute the real object of those thoughts - i.e., representations.

I believe this is similar to a point repeatedly made by Peirce with respect to the difference between what exists and what is real. — Wayfarer

Yes, and @Terrapin Station is aware that I make the same distinction. That is why we switched to <<whatever>> in the course of the exchange, to avoid implying any commitments either way regarding existence vs. reality vs. being etc. We also stumbled over his initial use of "separate" to describe the relation between potential and actual points on a truly continuous line. In other words, it is proving difficult to come up with neutral terminology, rather than expressing things in ways that inherently reflect our different positions.

It depends on what exactly we mean by "repeatable or recurrent entities." I would say that there are no individuals that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things, but there are continua that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. Each such instantiation or exemplification is a different manifestation of the same continuum.

Do you think that there is any significance to the fact that Peirce preferred the term "general" to "universal" for this notion?

The whole point is that a universal is not an individual. People talk about the earth, the moon, basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs, marbles, etc. as "spherical" even though none of these - in fact, no actual thing at all - is perfectly spherical. Likewise, there is no paradigmatic chair or shade of green, either; just a range of things that qualify as chairs, and a range of colors that qualify as green.

Right - you perceive (non-representationally) the objects and states of affairs, and then you judge (representationally) what you have perceived. In other words, perception is presentation, and any subsequent thought about it is representation, since the original percept itself is no longer present.

That is one aspect; there is a continuum of shapes that are roughly spherical, including the actual shape of the earth. Even for genuine spheres, there is a continuum of potential sizes, since any individual sphere has a particular diameter.

The experience of an object that one perceives does not represent or symbolize some other non-perceptible object; the experience is the presentation of the object that you perceive. — jkop

But it is followed immediately by a perceptual judgment, the involuntary (i.e., acritical) representation of the percept in thought. Much like a retroductive conjecture, this then serves as the first premiss for any further reasoning about the percept, since the percept itself is gone as soon as it is experienced.

This doesn't follow because engineering isn't in the business of enhancing the material well-being of people. — Agustino

You are conflating its proper purpose with how it is actually (instrumentally) employed in most cases. My suggestion is that enhancing the material well-being of all people is the ideal for which all engineers should strive, from an ethical standpoint.

I spoke of pragmatic not necessarily in the philosophical sense, but in the practical one. — Agustino

I understood that - hence the smiley in my response.

I have already explained it as best as I can at this point.

Those who see it as the laws of nature, see it as efficient cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see it as the laws of nature, and I see it as final cause. If there were no final causes, then there could be no laws of nature - no predictable regularities in the universe. "Final causation without efficient causation is helpless; mere calling for parts is what a Hotspur, or any man, may do; but they will not come without efficient causation. Efficient causation without final causation, however, is worse than helpless, by far; it is mere chaos; and chaos is not even so much as chaos, without final causation; it is blank nothing." (Peirce)

Engineering is purely pragmatic. — Agustino

You say that like it's a bad thing. Pragmatism is a perfectly respectable school of philosophy. :D

It's modelled based on what works, it doesn't care at all about why it works, except in-so-far as why it works may help to ensure that it works. — Agustino

Engineering may not care, but at least some engineers do. I care!

Understanding isn't the final cause of engineering - building is — Agustino

I advocate viewing the final cause of engineering as enhancing the material well-being of all people; at least, that is what it should be, its proper purpose from an ethical standpoint.

When something like the ball on the hill is ordered towards an end, it is God who is doing this ordering. — Metaphysician Undercover

The laws of nature are what order it toward that end. God is one explanation of those laws, but obviously not the only one. The final cause would still be there, even if it turned out that there is no God; belief in final causes does not entail theism. Final causation has to do with regularities in the universe, not just the intentions of intelligent agents.

... we can say that "the match is ordered towards the end of fire", by the will of the human being who struck the match. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, the match is ordered towards the end of fire by its chemical composition and the phenomenon of friction. After all, it is conceivable (though unlikely) that a match could be struck without any human involvement at all. Alternatively, think of a lightning strike in a dry forest - it is also ordered towards the end of fire by the laws of nature. With that in mind, are you prepared to say that the will of God is the final cause of all natural disasters?

This frankly suggests to me that you can't understand what you read. I don't know how else to explain it. — Terrapin Station

And here I thought we were having a pleasant, respectful conversation despite our evident disagreements. I simply pointed out that you added the word "identically."

A particular is what exhibits a(n instantiation of a) property. It has nothing to do with anything being continuous or discrete. — Terrapin Station

It does if a property is itself a real continuum and its instantiations are discrete individuals actualized on it. This is an (admittedly non-standard) attempt at explaining how universals might work.

Would you say that there can't be change or motion if time and/or space aren't discrete? — Terrapin Station

No, just that space and time cannot consist entirely of individual locations and instants.

Peirce had an interesting take on the relations between parts and whole in terms of causation: "Efficient causation is that kind of causation whereby the parts compose the whole; final causation is that kind of causation whereby the whole calls out its parts." The whole, in his way of thinking, is greater than the sum of its parts in the sense that a true continuum includes potential individuals far in excess of its actual individuals.

I would not say that a ball which roles down a hill is caused to do this by a final cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would, and so would others. Per Wikipedia, citing Edward Feser's book on Aquinas: "Finality thus understood is not purpose but that end towards which a thing is ordered. When a match is rubbed against the side of a matchbox, the effect is not the appearance of an elephant or the sounding of a drum, but fire. The effect is not arbitrary because the match is ordered towards the end of fire which is realized through efficient causes."

Imagine that everything is continuous. Well, under nominalism, then, all particulars are continuous. — Terrapin Station

This is incoherent to me. Particulars cannot be continuous; anything that is truly continuous can only be general. In Peirce's words, "Generality, then, is logically the same as continuity."

The only thing that makes a difference for universalism versus nominalism is whether we're saying that there are properties that somehow obtain where they can be identically instantiated, multiple times, in numerically distinct instances. — Terrapin Station

This is not what Wikipedia actually says - not in what you quoted, and not anywhere else in the same article. One of the points that I have been trying to make all along is that a property does not have to be identically instantiated multiple times in order to be a universal; hence the whole notion that a universal is an inexhaustible continuum of potential properties, only some of which are ever actualized in particulars.

In other words, re green, whether we're saying that green can be identically instantiated multiple times. — Terrapin Station

I am saying that the green in one chair is not identical to the green in the other one, no matter how closely the two colors may resemble each other. Nevertheless, they are two different actualizations of the same continuum - the universal, green. Likewise, the two chairs are obviously not identical; but they are two different actualizations of the same continuum - the universal, chair.

Each change or motion results in the "thing" in question being different/non-identical to what it was. — Terrapin Station

I am suggesting that this requires a discrete step, since each change or motion constitutes the actualization of a new individual.

Intention is defined by purpose, and I see that living things in general, act with purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

Non-living things, such as a ball at the top of an incline, do not have intentions or act with purpose; yet they have final causes, such as coming to rest at the bottom of the incline.

As I understand it, nominalism holds that only individuals are real; therefore, space and time must consist of discrete locations and instants, respectively, rather than being truly continuous in the sense that I have been trying to describe. Are you suggesting instead that space and time are individuals - or rather, that space-time as a whole is an individual? If so, how would that square with your definition of time as change? I thought that your view was that each instant of time - each discrete change - introduces a new particular.

In any case, the approach to universals that I have been exploring ultimately entails that everything is continuous; there is no such thing as an individual continuum. This goes back to the thesis that a continuum is "that, every part of which has parts, in the same sense."

First, the stuff above this comment--your first two paragraphs--is about mathematical thinking and/or the conventions of mathematical thinking ... What does that have to do with anything that's not itself mathematical thinking? — Terrapin Station

All forms of reasoning depend upon necessary reasoning, and all necessary reasoning is mathematical reasoning, and all mathematical reasoning is diagrammatic reasoning. It tells us all that we can ever know about hypothetical states of things; i.e., whatever is logically possible.

Also, if a "multitude" refers to an infinity(?) of potential numbers in between two "actual numbers," how the heck would we "exceed" that? That seems incoherent to me. — Terrapin Station

It has taken me a while to wrap my head around it, and I may or may not have explained it properly. If you are interested, besides Peirce's own writings about it, you could look into Cantor's theory of cardinal numbers, which Peirce considered to be a somewhat erroneous notion of multitude.

Nominalism isn't about discrete versus continuous ... — Terrapin Station

It is about individual versus general, or particular versus universal - right? Discrete versus continuous is another expression of the same contrast. If only (discrete) individuals are real, then nothing is really continuous (general).

I'd need to be convinced that it's not just nonsense. — Terrapin Station

Sure, and I am not likely ever to convince you - especially since I am still at the stage of trying these ideas out as a working hypothesis, and seeing how far I can take them.