• The imperfect transporter
    Your answers are basically just asserting your position again. — Mijin

    If the question is
    what makes the particular atoms that you are made of special, — Mijin

    then how is "nothing" not an answer? Perhaps you meant,

    assuming there is something special (and sufficient!) about the particular atoms that you are made of (or at least, something special about their physical configuration), such that putting them together (or correctly putting together any others) creates a continuation of (a part of) the original, rather than a facsimile, then what is that?

    Is that what you meant? There must be something special (and sufficient) but what is it?

    What I am trying to get at, is why. — Mijin

    Why is there nothing special? Or, why is the special thing special?

    like why it would make a difference if I move your atoms from point A to point B in one piece or separated for a nanosecond. — Mijin

    Like why bother distinguish between different tokens of a linguistic type? Between original and facsimile?
  • Virtues and Good Manners
    I like this AI explanation: — Athena

    Isn't this kind of thing against the forum rules?

    Begging your pardon, of course.
  • The imperfect transporter
    Another entity could be qualitatively identical to me, but if he is not numerically identical to me, then he's arguably Mijin but not me. If you stick a pin in him, I don't feel a thing. And when I'm lights out, I have no reason to believe I will suddenly have his conscious experiences. — Mijin

    Exactly. Perhaps arguing that he is Mijin doesn't add clarity. "Mijin 2" better.
  • The imperfect transporter
    I'll ask again: what makes the particular atoms that you are made of special, — Mijin

    I'll answer again: nothing; only my continued corporeal integrity matters.

    and how many of your own atoms need to be incorporated into an entity for you to survive in any form? — Mijin

    And so, all of them would be not enough, if you rebuild me from scratch.

    If assembling your own atoms back into the configuration that they were in isn't you, then what is missing? — Mijin

    I.e. Why isn't

    a facsimile an original?" — LuckyR

    ??
  • The imperfect transporter
    If we believe that there is some persistence of consciousness from moment to moment then — Mijin

    It seems more realistic to infer episodes of relative coherence among otherwise fleeting and unconnected moments of consciousness?

    They deserve identifying with (or as) one person because they arose in that particular (spatiotemporally continuous) brain and body.

    My memory of Waterloo, however vivid and historically accurate, did not.
  • The imperfect transporter
    Spatiotemporal continuity (with me).
    — bongo fury

    Why does that matter?     — Mijin

    It seems crucial to the viability and identity of an organism, at least? Pre-sci-fi, of course.

    And how, precisely, do we define it? — Mijin

    Mereologically? Topological closure? :yikes:

    whether I as an organism have spatiotemporal continuity with an entity at a past state of the universe is something less clear. — Mijin

    Really? I suppose there are edge cases, like that of conjoined twins? But generally we, like the ship of Theseus, maintain our personal identity by losing and replacing a few planks at a time. Whereas, we lose it by being rebuilt from scratch. That produces only copies. More or less different: perhaps identical. But spatiotemporally non-overlapping. Lacking the spatiotemporal continuity that connects the "time-slices" of you.

    Maybe we attach too much importance to this kind of identity? Perhaps we should regard our biological relatives, or our Star Trek duplicates, as equally entitled to our memories?

    And I deserve Napoleon's?
  • The imperfect transporter
    "no continuity even before the transporter" — Mijin

    How not?

    ... By way of focusing on consciousness? I don't see that as crucial to the question whether I am personally continuous with spatiotemporally non-overlapping replicas.
  • The imperfect transporter
    an IME thing — Mijin

    Independent medical exam?

    What does the person at the destination lack in order to be you? — Mijin

    Spatiotemporal continuity (with me).

    If it makes a difference whether we literally move the individual atoms, does that mean you're suggesting that the atoms held the soul?" — Mijin

    Held the continuity, yes. I suppose a one atom at a time transportation would destroy it, though. (Is this what Parfitt discusses?)
  • The imperfect transporter
    what happened to the original; whether they were in some sense "transported" or simply killed. — Mijin

    My original question was (because I'm curious), if we answer "quite obviously the latter", how does that convict us of

    believing in souls. — Mijin

    ?
  • The imperfect transporter
    where the transporter makes perfect copies, it's a given that the person at the destination is identical in every way to the person went in, such that Kirk's colleagues see no discontinuity in their interaction with him, and Kirk is convinced he's just been transported. — Mijin

    But so (by hypothesis) will any number of duplicates be convinced of their continuity with Kirk. So what? I'm convinced I'm Napoleon.
  • The imperfect transporter
    humorously, both sides of the debate tend to accuse the other of believing in souls. — Mijin

    Asking for a friend... I personally wouldn't dare chip in without having yet got around to reading Parfitt. But your clear exposition got me, sorry, got my friend thinking that if I politely decline use of your machine it's because I know full well that anyone waking up in a different (spatiotemporally non-overlapping) body and/or world is mistaken if they believe they are a continuation of me?

    I'm a material token, not a type? So not a soul botherer?
  • Assertion
    ↪Michael
    No worries.

    Do you think that those sentence strings mean those different things as they stand? Or do you only mean that they will end up meaning the different things if and when they are later on asserted?
  • Assertion
    Haha, 3 a step too far?

    Are you back peddling on 1 also? Its being a claim and an assertion, even while lacking a prefix to that effect?

    You seemed to provide confirmation on the point. But there may have been a misunderstanding.
  • Assertion
    What type of action did you have in mind? I was thinking predication. The pointing of a predicate at a thing. By means of a conventional agreement that the predicate term gets pointed by the sentence at the object identified by the subject term.

    If that's silly (I think Geach pours scorn on it?) maybe it's unnecessary for present purposes anyway.
  • Assertion
    ↪frank
    In the game of language, yes.
  • Assertion
    the act and the performing of it as distinct things. — bongo fury

    Whatever narrower psychological sense of "perform" or "assert" makes us disqualify an otherwise appropriate sound event from being a performance, or an assertion string from being an assertion. (Is what I feared was being reified.)
  • Assertion
    That the score and a performance can't be identical is shown by the fact that we can have many performances of the same score. What's being reified? — frank

    Yes, we have many performances of the same song (from copies of the same score). Let's reify tokens vs type.

    But no, they aren't later on disqualified (unperformed) when we are distracted by some narrower psychological sense of "perform".

    Yes, many utterances and inscriptions of the same assertion (assertions of the same claim, if you like), but no, these not disqualified (as tokens of the same claim or assertion or proposition or declaration or sentence or predication) upon reification of some more specific aspect.
  • Assertion
    If you like; They have acted. — Banno

    My point is, there you almost go... reifying the act and the performing of it as distinct things.
  • Assertion
    But then we'd need a different term to refer to the way assertions are commonly demarcated -- that is, as occurrences of sentences where some individual is using them to judge the content as true. — J

    Well, we do have "the question whether or not... "
  • Assertion
    their having performed that act. — Banno

    Why not performed that performance, acted that act, etc...

    Austin names some of them phonic, phatic, rhetic, which together form the locutionary act and lead on to the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. — Banno

    Human linguistic behaviour is no doubt infinitely varied, but let's look for system where there is apparently system. Declarative sentences seem to fit an interesting pattern (logic). Perhaps what confounds our attempts to define that pattern is the inscrutability: the sentence is a machine for pointing predicates at things, but it doesn't really happen, it's all made up. We have to interpret, as you say. And there's no ultimate right interpretation of the game.

    So why multiply entities and forces as though they are physical fact?
  • Assertion
    Nor could we fit the idea of "occurrence of a sentence" into our actual lives, — J

    I'm trying to see why you think this. Have you considered referring to the "string of words"? Thus casting it as a linguistic entity of (speaking loosely) lower type?

    Somewhat like referring to the table as a pile of wood?
  • Assertion
    the mere occurrence of a sentence does not amount to an assertion of that sentence. — Banno

    I would say, the mere occurrence of an assertion (claim, statement etc) doesn't amount to an assertion (claim, statement etc) of or about that assertion (claim, statement etc), but that doesn't in the least prevent it from being an instance of that very kind of linguistic entity.
  • Assertion
    Okay, well these are clearly two different claims:

    1. The cat is on the mat
    2. I think that the cat is on the mat     — Michael

    Yes. In other words, two different assertions? — bongo fury

    Yes. — Michael

    And 1. is no less a claim (or assertion) for lacking a personal endorsement (or other assertion sign).

    And the string "the cat is on the mat" is no less a claim (etc.) even for being embedded in

    3. It's false that the cat is on the mat.
  • Assertion
    So if I say: "an example of a proposition is: 'The cat is on the mat.'" I am saying something like: "it is true that S is an example of P," but crucially, not asserting S. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    Rather, I think that, if you say: "an example of a proposition (assertion etc) is: 'The cat is on the mat.'" you are saying something like: "it is true that S is an example of a proposition (assertion etc) but, crucially, one that I don't necessarily endorse."
  • Assertion
    It's an assertion about a "name" right. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    What is? I don't follow. My "it" wasn't a name, and it wasn't about a name. It was your example token of the assertion "the cat is on the mat". You had seemed to suggest that its being used as an example of an assertion prevented it from being an assertion. I question that suggestion.

    Incidentally, I doubt whether using it as an example of a declarative sentence or of a statement or of a proposition or of a claim prevents it being any of those. Indeed, it clouds the issue to take any clear distinction between any of those varieties of hot air for granted.

    On the other hand, names seem to stand apart as a different kind of hot air. No? (E.g. they seem to be generally simpler in semantic structure and function.) And I wondered whether considering the situation of using a name as an example of a name, and this not appearing to cause it to cease being a name, might lead you to reconsider your reasoning in the case of assertions.

    Perhaps I ought to have chosen a different analogy. Is a table not a table when presented as an example of a table?

    If I use it mostly as a chair, perhaps it ceases being a table. But then I'm hardly presenting it as an example of a table.
  • Assertion
    two different claims: — Michael

    Yes. In other words, two different assertions?
  • Assertion
    Of course, if "the cat is on the mat," is used as an example, it isn't being asserted, — Count Timothy von Icarus

    Is it then not an assertion? Is a name not a name when it's an example?
  • Assertion
    I don't think this thread will ultimately get away from those sorts of puzzles, namely the puzzles of how and why the boundaries between the meta-language and object-language exist, and whether they ought to. — Leontiskos

    :100:

    It is interesting, though, that Banno thinks Frege's judgment-stroke is a functional symbol that can simply be nested contextually. So his difference with Frege has to do with whether the judgment-stroke belongs to the object language. — Leontiskos

    Does this help with the puzzles of how and why and whether they ought?
  • Assertion
    There are so many points people have made that I'm highly disposed to agreeing or disagreeing with at length. In the end, I prefer one move of chess (cooperative chess :wink: ) at a time, so I won't. But thanks for all contributions.
  • Assertion
    (I wrote a bit about the general topic in <this post>, which is another thread where it came up.) — Leontiskos

    Great, I invite people to bring that kind of thing here, if it's off topic there (or wherever).
  • Assertion
    Okay, and what are the questions that are at stake? — Leontiskos

    Yep, I'll be trying to contribute.
  • Assertion
    let's not worry about whether it fits Frege's vision. The prefix, however we phrase it - "I hereby assert that...", "I think that...", "I judge that..." etc - does seem to iterate naturally. — bongo fury
  • Assertion
    Haha, no, for me it's actually philosophy big deal number one. Lately.
  • Assertion
    ↪Leontiskos


    I agree that it (the solution) must be about recognising the interplay of object- and meta-language.
  • Assertion
    ↪J
    Haha, no, I do (unironically) think a sentence is an assertion sign. Alright... a naming sign.
  • Assertion
    You know the answer to that. — J

    I have the vaguest inkling (as yet) of it being due to the inscrutability of reference.

    What answer should I have known?
  • Assertion
    ↪J


    Right. I think (judge!) that distinguishing a thought from a judgement is an unnecessary complication. Hence my liking for @Banno's framing.
  • Assertion
    I'm suggesting we play with it how we please. You can define clearer rules if you like?

    Srap Tasmaner I was using the turnstile as a shorthand for Frege's judgement stroke, so read "⊢⊢the cat is on the mat" as "I think that I think..." or "I think that I judge..." or whatever. Not as "...is derivable from..." — Banno
  • Must Do Better
    .
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    So in terms of syntax, de dicto is most similar to ☐∃(x)f(x) and de re, to ∃(x)☐(fx), [...] — Banno

    Agreed.

    [...] while in terms of semantics de dicto understands necessity as "true in every possible world"... — Banno

    Agreed, e.g.

    Note that [problematic statements] (30) and (31) are not to be confused with:

    Necessarily (∃x) (x > 7),

    Necessarily (∃x) (if there is life on the Evening Star then there is life on x),

    which present no problem of interpretation comparable to that presented by (30) and (31). The difference may be accentuated by a change of example: in a game of a type admitting of no tie it is necessary that some one of the players will win, ...     — Quine p.147

    (There is a winner in each play of the game, there is a richest man in each world, there is always a number greater than 7, or etc.)

    Evidently Quine is ok with the kind of reading you (and Wiki) are calling de dicto.

    However, not so sure about:

    [...] while de re might understand necessity as "true in this (or some) world", a cumbersome notion incompatible with S5. — Banno

    Whereas (I think) Quine's objection is to a typical de re reading, that there should be

    ... one player of whom it may be said to be necessary that he win. — Quine p.147

    Not because such a reading (there existing a winner of all possible plays of the game or a richest in all worlds or a greater than 7 in all worlds) is self-evidently non-sensical but because it has arisen through referential opacity, and hence behaves incoherently. E.g.

    What is this number which, according to ["(∃x)(x is necessarily is greater than 7"], is necessarily greater than 7? According to ["9 is necessarily greater than 7"], from which ["(∃x)(x is necessarily is greater than 7"] was inferred, it was 9, that is, the number of planets; but to suppose this would conflict with the fact that ["the number of planets is necessarily greater than 7"] is false. — Quine p.148

    Does this objection hold up? If not why not?

    ... Hmm, chapter 6 of this book is called "Quine on de re and de dicto modality". :nerd:
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