...the consequences are permanent infertility and sexual dysfunction. — frank

That's a bit like saying that giving blood causes Myocardial infarction. It happens, but not often.

Again, this forum is not the place to evaluate the evidence, and we are not the people to do the evaluation. Instant expert syndrome is at play here.

What we can conclude is that that there are issues, and urge caution. In both directions.

As a philosopher, I'm slightly inclined to say that this is not a type of supervenience. — J

Pretty clear that $\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T$ is an equivalence. The "=" bit.

Taking a measurement is a whole language game. There's quite a bit to say about such a simple task. Malcolm added to this with the other article mentioned, Kripke and the Standard Metre. At the heart of that article is whether a stipulation is necessary or contingent. Lots of material here. Do we go into all that?

Ah, well. The lounge provides me with a nice echo chamber.

"moderates are hijacking the devastating election loss to suit their agenda" according to Four Corners.

And so it begins...

Now there is a rather large and growing body of evidence concerning puberty blockers.
— Banno

Okay, share it. — Jeremy Murray

So the logic of your argument is much the same as that used to reject the fact of famine in Bangladesh: "You say thousands are starving, but can't name one".

Pretending that there is no evidence in support of the efficacy of puberty blockers is pretty poor.

I have seen a great deal of evidence to the contrary. — Jeremy Murray

Confirmation bias is an amazing thing.

I believe I have been following the issue longer than you have — Jeremy Murray

Presumptive. And a poor argument. I was professionally involved with Trans children for decades.

You compared a drug to gender affirmative treatment. — Jeremy Murray

No I didn't. You are confabulating.

You 'presume' I dislike trans people. — Jeremy Murray

I'm glad to hear you have "skin in the game", albeit from a distance.

I'm not seeing anything interesting accruing from this discussion.

Hear, hear.

OK, you are refusing to accept what Hanover called "temporal necessity". — Metaphysician Undercover

That's quite a misrepresentation, given that what I did was to point to how temporal necessity can itself be accommodated by formal modal logic. Here's more on Prior’s basic tense logic TL from SEP, including a section on how it uses a Kripke-style semantics.

The other supposed objections you raise have either been or can be dealt with within the standard framework. In particular, the treatment of accessibility answers your main misunderstanding. Explaining this repeatedly is tedious.

You are slipping into nonsensical babble. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's not me.

Not sure you are reading what I write. — Jeremy Murray

Oh, I read your reply. But I haven't read this whole thread, for obvious reasons. You are quite presumptive in your response. That to me does not bode well for your claims of being open to argument.

I didn't use an analogy. Drugs do not do anything until they are used, and it is that use that has moral import.

As you say, "this much smaller OG trans demographic group COULD benefit from puberty blockers", but you support their not having access to these drugs? I disagree.

Now there is a rather large and growing body of evidence concerning puberty blockers. If you think the evidence is not there for examination, then you are wrong. If you think that this philosophy forum is the pace to evaluate that body of evidence, then you are wrong again.

If your move is just the rhetorical one of calling evidence with which you disagree, "dogma", then there is no point in showing you the evidence.

Is there a consensus? No. This is quite a different thing to there being no evidence. And in the mean time we have cases where puberty blockers will help remit pressing and substantive problems.

If a Truly True sentence is supposed to be one that is uttered without a context, I don't know what that would be. — J

The view from nowhere. The god's-eye view. What's being asked is, might there be some alternative? There's. lot to unravel there, but we can't start from assuming monism.

Does he suggest "supervenience" as another possible way of cashing out the notion of "identity"? — J

No, although he might be considered as anticipating such things.

Kripke was too lax with his use of "heat". Hence the suggestion of moving to temperature, which is less ambiguous.

I don't see that we can say that, to follow through, heat supervenes on the mean energy of the item's molecules. The temperature, and so the mean energy of the molecules, of a wooden and a metal spoon may be the same, but the spoon will feel colder. The sensation of heat does not supervene on temperature, not vice versa.


Added: the article is at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9205.1980.tb00409.x

(in this case, many possible worlds can be designed — A Christian Philosophy

Better to see them as stipulated.

But yes, free will implies the capacity to make a choice. What do you want me to conclude from that?

What remains is that the OG (a dreadful phrase) can't do the job it was invented for. That god can create any possible world does not explain why he created this one. And if god created this world out of necessity, then it could not be other than it is. Modal collapse.

There are bad actors self-identifying as trans to take advantage of vulnerable women. — Jeremy Murray

And the problem here - is it that they take advantage of vulnerable women, or is it that they are trans?

Let's make sure we are addressing the right issue.


A drug is not immoral. It's a drug. What's done with it might be. Do you think that the State ought legislate to override the professional decisions of a child's carers and doctors, as well as parents, with a general piece of legislation that cannot take into account the context in which that decision is made?

Thanks. That's an excellent post. I have great respect for Malcolm, his work always gives me pause. Kripke on Heat and Sensations of Heat and Kripke and the Standard Metre are amongst the most challenging responses to PWS and Naming and Necessity.

And I think much of his criticism is spot on. I think he shows us that Kripke's ideas about necessity have been misapplied when he comes to use them to talk about minds and sensations.

I would first like to ask you a question. The aim here is to make sure that we are addressing the same problem. So if you will, consider this.

Malcolm, I think quite rightly, takes Kripke to task for equating a sensation and a physical characteristic. So consider this: What if Kripke had argued instead that the temperature of a sample was the mean kinetic energy of its molecules? Now the problems of sensation have been removed, and we have an equivalence between two physical expressions. We then also, as you mentioned, have the maths linking mean kinetic energy directly to temperature:

$\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T$

My question is, if we make this change, does the objection you have in mind dissipate? Or are the problems that Malcolm suggests still there?

Again, this is by way of checking for agreement. I hope this removes Kripke's error of equating a sensation and a physical characteristic. Is there still an objection, after this? I think that much of the metaphysical stuff Kripke suggests still stands.

Thanks. It's fun to move past just explaining Kripke to some real critique.

Let's take a look at how PWS deals with Caesar.

"Caesar crossed the Rubicon" is possible, but not necessary.

That is, there are possible worlds in which Caesar crossed the Rubicon; and there are possible worlds in which Caesar did not cross the Rubicon. There are also possible worlds in which there is no Caesar, and possible worlds in which there is no Rubicon.

The possible worlds in which Caesar crossed the Rubicon include the actual world.

Now from this actual world, in 2025, we can't access any possible world in which Caesar did not cross the Rubicon.

But from the actual world, in 48BC, prior to his crossing, we could access those possible worlds in which he didn't cross the Rubicon.

And, to top it all off, in none of all of those possible worlds, the ones in which Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the ones in which Caesar did not cross the Rubicon, the ones without a Caesar and the ones without a Rubicon, did Caesar both cross and not cross the Rubicon.

So there is no contradiction here.

And notice that, since we can supose "Caesar" to be a rigid designator, we are talking about the very same individual in each of those possible worlds in which he exists. We are not supposing that someone else, who happened to be very much like Caesar, crossed the Rubicon.

Doing that would be to move from a Kripke-style response to Lewis's counterparts.

Aren't you contradicting yourself? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, no. Rather, you haven't been able to understand what is being said.

And again, this is not just my view. It is the standard approach to modality.

You still don't understand what I am saying about the relevance of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I do. I also think that your view is mistaken.

Looking backward in time, all things are necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then it was a necessity that Caesar crossed the Rubicon - it could not have been otherwise. Again, if it is necessarily true, it is true in all circumstances. And if that is so, Caesar had no choice.

You want to claim that it is not necessarily true until it becomes a past event. This is mistaking modality for temporality.

Again, plainly we can consider what might have occurred had Caesar not crossed the Rubicon. Therefore it is possible that Caesar not have crossed the Rubicon. If this were not so, we would not be able to consider the possibility.

But it could not have be otherwise in the actual world. Once he crossed the Rubicon, his, and indeed our, fates were set.

And this is not a contradiction becasue Caesar crossed the Rubicon in the actual world, but we can stipulate another in which he didn't.

All the imagined contradictions you ply us with dissipate when modal logic and possible world semantics are understood.

So again, I think both and I have a very good grasp of what you are trying to claim, but that we have a better grasp of the Possible World Semantics you refuse to read about, and so can see where you are mistaken.

I don't think anyone here has denied that there are true sentences.

Certainly not I.

@J?

@Moliere?

So now you allow for necessary truths that could have been otherwise. That's not what a necessary truth is.
— Banno

That's what you think. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. It's what "necessity" is. Something is necessarily so if it could not have been otherwise.

And more. Check out the SEP article on modal logic and you will see that the modal framework can be use din deontological and temporal situations; indeed, it has a general applicability. So those alternate"senses" you want to appeal to are also well catered for by modal logic.

..all things are contingent... — Metaphysician Undercover

Not if p(x)⊃□p(x), which is what you claimed at the start. :roll:

The bit in which you change your claims, not to correct yourself but to contradict those who point out your own errors.

I don't know if you are sincere or just a contrarian bot.

But there is a reason I usually ignore your posts.

Yes, hence my whole point that the water goes before the 'water'.* Without some contact with water the sign 'water' has nothing to signify. — Leontiskos

If I've understood you, you are saying that water is around before we learn about it. Yep.

What I've suggested is that learning what water is and learning to wash, cook drink and talk about water are the same.

That suggestion does not rely on water not being around until we learn to wash, drink and talk about it.

I hope that's clear. — Banno

...you want to take issue with the Aristotelian approach... — Leontiskos

Me? Never! :lol:

If dogs don't understand water, why do they go to the bowl? How is it that ducks manage to land on the pond so much more often than do Cockatoos? Random movement? You don't have a dog, I hope.

But now we can entertain the idea that the OG is a designer with free will, which is something the OP points to. — A Christian Philosophy

You've got bigger problems than that.

The OG is supposed to explain why things are as they are. If the OG is compatible with every possible world, it can't do this. If, the reason any particular university is as it is, is the OG made it so, then the OG can't explain why this universe rather than some other.

The problem here is that it commits you to the idea that dogs and ducks understand water, when in fact they don't. — Leontiskos

We'll have to disagree here.

Walker Percy's study of Helen Keller vis-a-vis his own deaf daughter bears out the fact that Helen's understanding of water was not present until she was seven years old—long after she had been interacting with water. — Leontiskos

That's a somewhat ableist misinterpretation.

“As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness...and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.”

Notice "my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers", not "my whole attention fixed upon the cool stream gushed over one hand". Keller understood the difference between having water on her hand and not having water on her hand prior to understanding the sign for water. Percy emphasises that though Keller had felt water before, she lacked the symbolic framework—the naming of water via language—until that pivotal moment.

Ableist, becasue it minimises the intelligence and perceptiveness of pre-linguistic or non-verbal individuals, and misses the real problem, which is isolation from language, not failure to understand the world.

If I've understood you, you are saying that water is around before we learn about it. Yep.

What I've suggested is that learning what water is and learning to wash, cook drink and talk about water are the same.

That suggestion does not rely on water not being around until we learn to wash, drink and talk about it.

I hope that's clear.

Nice try.

Why do you think I deny that? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because you sad as much.

I haven't proposed a system. I'm just pointing out potential problems of application and interpretation of modal logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have proposed a system. We've been pointing out that the consequences of that system.

What has been shown is that you have a profound misunderstanding of modality, that you are incapable of recognising.

Oh, well.

Everything which has reached the present and is progressing into the past is necessarily the case. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yet

"X could have been otherwise", and "X is necessarily true" are not inconsistent. — Metaphysician Undercover

So now you allow for necessary truths that could have been otherwise. That's not what a necessary truth is.

The bit where I said:

I'd caution agains attempting to show that there is an inconsistency in Meta's logic. He may simple add ad hoc hypotheses in order to escape. — Banno

Again, there is a point wee our conversation becomes too ridiculous to continue.

Perhaps. What is it the critic wants to conclude - that our use of the word is grounded in a pre-linguistic understanding of what water is? Perhaps we learn to drink and wash before we learn to speak. But learning to drink and wash is itself learning what water is. There is no neat pre-linguistic concept standing behind the word, only the way we interact with water as embodied beings embedded in and interacting with the world. Our interaction with water is our understanding of water.

So on one hand we have a triadic {water – concept-of-water – use of water}; on the other just water being used.

It's an obviously Wittgensteinian approach, focusing on the use rather than invoking a perhaps mythical "concept of water". It's also much closer to how we learn - by doing.

Since we are talking about Searle an Semiotics, it is worth noting that Searle's formalisation of speech acts - a semiotic theory - has had considerable influence in areas of AI. It's apparently widely used in dialogue systems, multi-agent communication, natural language processing, and in formal languages. You might enjoy this: What is Speech Act Theory in AI?

There seems to be an assumption amongst some folk here that we have to understand what water is before we can begin to make use of the word "water". That either we understand what water is, and then learn to use the word, or we have the word, and learn to apply it.

But is that right? That "Water before word" or "Word before water" exhausts all the possibilities?

Couldn't we learning to use the word be learning what water is? So being given a glass of water and told "this is water", or being asked to "go and draw some water at the creek" or someone saying "I have warmed the water in the bath for you" - these are both learning what water is and learning how "water" is used.

I'd suggest, and have done previously, that learning to use a name and learning what it is it stands for are pretty much the same thing.

And I'll stretch this to concepts in general.

If I'm right, we might be dubious about triadic models that want to have a third thing between the name and the named. But this is a whole 'nuther thing.

(added: This is basically Wittgensteinian, but good constructivist pedagogy, too. )

There are other examples we can use. Hesperus=Phosphorus is common; concluding that the star seen in the evening is the same object as that seen later in the morning required some astute observation and plotting of the position of the star. Now we think that ☐(Hesperus=Phosphorus).

Or that Gold has atomic number 79. Not known until the notion of atomic numbers was developed and found useful. But thereafter a necessary fact.

What's salient is that being gold, or Hesperus, or water, is not determined in the same way as having atomic number 79, or being Phosphorus, or being H₂O. It's discovered, by looking about the world. Previously modal theorists had supposed that no necessities were to be discovered in this way, supposing instead that they were all artefacts of language, and so found just by thinking.

Does that help?

So support that contention.

Or leave the vague ad hominem hanging, in your increasingly tedious passive aggressive fashion.

John Searle says, “I take it to be an analytic truth about language that whatever can be meant can be said.” — Richard B

He visited us here, long ago. I asked him about that aphorism, and if I recall correctly he expressed some regret towards it, not becasue it was wrong but becasue it caused considerable misunderstanding. I understood him to be saying that many folk had misunderstood him as claiming that for instance children could not use meanings becasue they had not developed the ability to use language. That is, folk missed the implicit conditional - if it can be meant then it can be said - to be claiming that only speech had meaning.

Must have been in the previous incarnation of this forum.

added: the stuff just said appeared while I was writing this post - another coincidence. It may be an example of the sort of thing Searle was complaining about.

I'll take this a step further and say that at least arguably, supposing that analytic methods are exclusive to Analytic philosophy is to misunderstand the state of philosophy today. Analytic methods haven’t disappeared—they’ve become ubiquitous. Their success in clarifying argument, uncovering presuppositions, and enforcing rigor made them so effective that even their critics adopted them. The real consequence is not that philosophy is split into Analytic and non-Analytic camps, but that the distinction itself has lost relevance. What matters now is not whether someone is ‘Analytic’ but whether they’re philosophically serious—and that seriousness nearly always involves some analytic rigor.

I don't think I agree with this. The nature o time explains both, why things could have been otherwise, and also why whatever is, is necessarily the case. Everything which has reached the present and is progressing into the past is necessarily the case. The past cannot be changed. However, the future is full of possibility, so there was the possibility that before the last bit of time passed, different possibilities could have been actualized, therefore things could have been otherwise. — Metaphysician Undercover

Events in the past are not necessarily true. They still might have been otherwise. You might not have written the thread to which this is a response, for example. It makes sense to discuss such possibilities, and to make inferences about them. So if you had not written that post, I would not be writing this reply. That's a sound argument. The sort of sound argument that your system denies.

For someone who argues that formalisms are merely tools selected for based on usefulness, you sure do like to appeal to them a lot as sources of authority and arbiters of metaphysics a lot though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, they are very good tools. And used not so much for authority as clarity and coherence.

The suggestion that formal logic is restricted to analytic philosophy is demonstrably ridiculous

I stand by that, and the rest, even if you pull funny faces at me.

Please, fell free to address my arguments, when you have time.

Go on then, point them out.

I assume the unstated premises here are that the "One True Explanation of Everything" isn't really true and is only not criticized out of force, otherwise, it sounds like a world that would be immeasurably better—a world free from error and ignorance and in harmony. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's the thing. Supose I come across the One True Explanation of Everything, and I convince everyone else that I'm right - after all, if it is the One True Explanation of Everything, I am right.

But supose also that you think we are wrong.

What should I do? Is it OK for us to just shoot you, in order to eliminate dissent? Should we do what the One True Explanation of Everything demands, even if that leads to abomination?

Or should we adopt a bit of humility, and perhaps entertain the possibility that we might be mistaken?

Authoritarianism or Liberalism?

Funny, how here we are now moving over to the ideas entertained in the thread on Faith. I wonder why.

I think the reason Analytic philosophy likes "possible worlds" is because its reified formalism is logically manipulable in a very straightforward way. — Leontiskos

Trouble with this is that the folk you and Tim are are fond of citing are making use of formal modal logic and possible world semantics. Please understand that possible world semantics is wha shows that the formalisations are consistent. If your academic friends did not make use of the formal systems, their work would have very little standing in the community of philosophers.

You and Tim objecting to formal modal logic robs you both of the opportunity to present your arguments clearly.

The suggestion that formal logic is restricted to analytic philosophy is demonstrably ridiculous. Moreover, the people you cite make use of analytic techniques.

Sometimes I think that all of this resembles the functioning of road rules. They are somewhat arbitrary, but they work if applied consistently and are understood by the community of road users. They change over time, as situations change. They are an ongoing conversation. We seek to avoid accidents and death and aim to get to places efficiently and the road rules facilitate this, but none of this means the road rules have a transcendent origin. Nor can they be explained away as subjective and therefore lacking in utility. — Tom Storm

Think I'll steal that analogy.

It's not a stone tablet, it's a conversation.

I think @Janus' question remains. — J

Yeah. But perhaps what we can agree on is that there are ambiguities in asking "what if water had none of the characteristics it actually has?" that need ironing out in order to understand what is being asked.

Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! — J

Yep. That's what I'm after.

Sure.

I imagine you’re unlikely to be a Rorty fan — Tom Storm

Not likely.

I like my chances against Rorty since I still have a heart beat — Count Timothy von Icarus

I rather think his influence will outweigh your heart beat.

Weighing in on "But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't" is a good move. I was going to point out that this again presumes a merely binary logic, but your response covers that.

Yes, that the one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sometimes it is better to go with a clear stipulation than to muddle around in ambiguity.

If what you mean by "one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial" is that it doesn't lead to the confusion of forms or triviality of what makes it what it is, then I will take that as an advantage to the stipulation.

And it doesn't presume nominalism.

You're not keen on taking up any of the seven counterpoints I made? Good, that'll save time.