• Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪Joshs
    Seems we pretty much agree, except that I don't think calling this an "intuition" is at all helpful, since it hints at private mental phenomena. It's not about intuition, it's about action - following a rule is something we do, not a "special sense".

    But then I reject such a phenomenological approach.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    If the name changes but she is still the very same person, then a name cannot be an essential property — J
    indeed, because a name is not a property...

    (Though I don't really see why 'is called Elizabeth by everyone who knows her' can't be a property. How is it different from 'has red hair'?) — J
    Property or predicate? How does the use of each differ? Extensionally, a name picks out an individual, and a predicate is a group (set, class...) of individuals. What is a property?

    Supose we took a sample from Elizabeth's body and found that she could not have been the daughter of Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon... Who did we take the sample from? I think that as you specify your example with greater precession, you will find that the antinomy dissipates. Further, if it does not dissipate, then that very fact shows that you have not yet clearly stipulated what you are saying.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    The Private Language argument indicates that there's no way for you to know what rules you've been following up till now. Check out Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language by Saul Kripke. — frank

    There's just nothing you can point to and say, "See, this is the rule I've been following for the use of this phrase." — frank

    Funny that this came up here just after I had used it in another thread.

    Kripke misunderstood Wittgenstein's answer, found in PI §201
    What this shews is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it" in actual cases.

    It's what we do that is of import. If Kripke were correct, you would not know how to count, yet you do know what it is to count, and by twos and threes as well as by ones. You understand what it is to carry on in the same way, and while you cannot say what this is, you cna show it by counting. This is the import behind the now cliched appeal: "Don't look to meaning, look to use".

    If we’re talking about Wittgenstein on rule-following here, then there is no intelligible meaning without rules, criteria, forms of life. — Joshs
    Don't look for an abstract thing called "the meaning". Look instead at what one is doing as a participant in the various activities that make up our daily lives. Then at least you will have a better idea of what Wittgenstein said.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    his name is not anything like an essential property. — J
    Well yes it is, becasue we make it so.

    That's what Kripke did in positing possible world semantics as a way to give meaning to modal utterances. When you ask "What if Elizabeth had not had Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (such an English name...) as her mother", you are thereby asking about Elizabeth... becasue you make it so.

    And of course her name might have been Kate. In which case she would still be the very same person.

    A name is not a property at all. That's why properties are represented as f,g,h and individuals as a,b,c... and names as "a","b","c"... Why? Becasue this is how the game is played; why does hitting the ball to the boundary count as a four? Why do to five cards of the same suit count as a flush? Becasue it's what we do. "What this shews is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it" in actual cases."

    The point may have been missed, so I'll restate it. "Independent determination" is irrelevant; what counts is that the folk in the conversation are talking about the same thing, to their own satisfaction. That is what it is to have effectively named an individual.

    I read Kripke as talking about an entirely different, ontological independence. — J
    Kripke didn't understand Wittgenstein. That's why he felt obligated to write his other book, a book that was important for being so wrong.
  • Kicking and Dreaming
    ↪J


    Or maybe, given all the evidence presented here, there is no causal relation between dream and kick.

    We are enamoured of causality, a figment of our rationalisations. We supose that if only we find the cause, all will be well. We rely on causes to explain the way things are, but when pushed we can't clearly explain what causes are. Most especially in the case of disturbances of the mind, which is what both nocturnal kicking and dreaming are.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪RussellA
    Changing notation does not remove the fact that π is an irrational number.
  • Kicking and Dreaming
    ↪J
    of course it could also be restless leg syndrome or Periodic Limb Movements of Sleep (PLMS)

    Cannabinoids can help.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    There are infinitely more irrational numbers then there are rational ones — T Clark
    Oh, far more than just that... :nerd:
  • Australian politics
    While Rupert Murdoch struggles to give his fail-son the company that runs Australian politics, Kerry Stokes’ attempt to swoop in and take over WA has ended in a humiliating defeat with the Liberal Party losing in a landslide.
    The Channel 7 boss tried a different tactic to Murdoch’s style of just backing whoever will win, by instead trying to back a dying political party and install former employee Basil Zempilas to a leadership position. A plan based on 7 media’s extensive experience in completely backing unlikeable men.
    Barely incoming MP Zempilas, took a break from spending the entire election talking over his female party leader to centre himself and literally yelling over the top of a female panelist during 7’s election coverage after she suggested he had a problem with women, to claim that the reasons people dislike him were unfounded.
    “Clearly the reason our party lost is because of the amount of recourses the other side had,” claimed Zempilas after years of free promotion from a media company with a stranglehold on the state.
    “It was a conspiracy against me and my party by weaponising the things I have said and done in my time as Lord Mayor.”
    Voters have now questioned why Seven Media chose to push such an unlikeable Sunrise host instead of the Cash Cow.     — Channel 7 loses WA election
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    To my circle of thinking that ends in . .. circles... of thinking...... — Moliere
    Appropriate, given the topic...

    Second page, and still no pi/pie joke...
  • Australian politics
    Albanese says 'unjustified' US tariffs on Australia poor way to treat a friend

    Well, mate, just wait until you ask them for a submarine...
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ...it'd be right to point out those difficulties in relation to a philosophical question. — Moliere
    I agree, but feel like I shouldn't...
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    That's just blatant idealism. — frank

    How rude.

    :smile:
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪DifferentiatingEgg
    The joke wasn't for you, so much as on you... :wink:
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    Does that sound rational to you? — frank

    Yep. It's an extension of "the world is all that is the case".
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪DifferentiatingEgg
    Sad, that you think that worth writing.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪frank
    Well, tell us something particular that we cannot know...

    ↪Janus
    :wink:
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪Banno You're right, we can perhaps know some things completely. But we cannot know everything. so 'everything' should have been there instead of "anything completely". — Janus
    Interesting thing is that while we cannot know everything, there is (arguably) nothing in particular that we could not know.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    Funny thing is, if I'd started a thread that said we can know pi in its entirety, you would have said that ridiculous. :confused: — frank

    :lol:

    True, that.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪frank Wasn't it already obvious that we could never know anything completely? — Janus
    You are completely correct...

    or not.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    It's not a joke. It goes on forever, so you can never know it completely. — frank

    Yeah we can. the ratio of the radius to the circumference of a circle; that is it exactly and entirely. There are other ways to say the same thing, such as the aforementioned mentioned smallest positive number where the sine function is equal to zero or π=ln(−1)/i from Euler's identity or Cd/2LP for Buffon’s Needle or any number of other neat-o calculations.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪Moliere
    Which joke - that π is beyond our grasp or that Nietzsche is difficult?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    A neat little article explaining why Ukraine has so much of what the ridiculous orange emperor calls "raw" earth...

    What’s so special about Ukraine’s minerals? A geologist explains
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪Moliere
    Indeed, I think we could go on for another few pages at least.
    ↪DifferentiatingEgg
    doesn't appear to have seen the joke, for a start.
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    ↪Moliere
    Indeed, what is it that we do not grasp? That we might not know the trillionth digit? (Wolfram was no help...) But knowing that Pi is the smallest positive number where the sine function is equal to zero - that's cool.

    What else could "grasping" consist in such that we don't grasp pi in the manner @ucarr says above? — Moliere
    Yep.

    I'd suggest we stop at the point we are satisfied, while knowing that the procedure can carry on. — Moliere
    Stop which - the calculation, or the thread?
  • Is the number pi beyond our grasp?
    Is the number pi beyond our grasp? — frank

    Well, here we are, talking about π - so, no, it is not beyond our grasp...

    At least for some of us.

    And what that AI describes as "the philosophy of Pi", isn't - any more than are the outbreaks of verse that sometimes litter these fora. Fluffy nonsense, like knowing the millionth digit of Pi. (5, according to Wolfram Alpha).
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    2) Presumably there can be a possible world in which “that cloud” occurs but I do not. Does the cloud remain rigidly designated? There seems something odd about this. Do we want to say that, because I appear in a different possible world to baptize the cloud, my action carries over in some way to a world in which I never did so? There must be a better way to understand this. — J

    Similarly, perhaps the reference still works in your absence becasue the reference is communal. "That cloud" remains a rigid designator. I doubt Kripke would agree with this.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    So now we are in a position to perhaps address this:
    1) Is the “origin story” here simply a matter of my pointing and declaring? Doesn’t that seem the same as simply declaring a proper name, which Kripke says is circular? Then, if the “independent determination of the referent” is something else in the case of “that cloud”, what is it? Do we have to start talking in terms of molecular structure? But that is very un-Kripkean; that would be like “using a telescope” to identify a table; it’s not how we designate things. — J
    A name is successful if it is used consistently and coherently by a community, and this regardless of the origin myth. The “independent determination of the referent” is the use in the community. Or if you prefer, and I think this amounts to much the same thing, we could use Davidson here, and say that the correct use of a name or a demonstrative is that which makes the vast majority of expressions that include it, true.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    If one was determining the referent of a name like ‛Glunk’ to himself and made the following decision, “I shall use the term ‛Glunk’ to refer to the man that I call ‛Glunk’,” this would get one nowhere. One had better have some independent determination of the referent of ‛Glunk.’ This is a good example of a blatantly circular determination. — Naming and Necessity, 73

    This occurs as part of an extended discussion. Kripke does offer the causal theory as a solution, but there are problems.

    I'd take a different track in characterising the failure to name Glunk as "Glunk" here. The issue at hand is what it might be to have effectively named an individual. It is worth stating something that is I hope quite obvious, but which tends to get lost in these considerations. A proper name works only if those in the community agree as to it's use. If a proper name does not in our conversations pick out an individual unambiguously, then it has failed to be a name.

    The problem isn't the circularity - circular arguments are not invalid, just unsatisfactory, unconvincing. An individual might well decide to use "Glunk" to refer to that individual they call Glunk, but then they would be subject to the difficulties noted by Wittgenstein - yes, private language. Kripke is quite right that we need something else to "better have some independent determination of the referent of ‛Glunk’". But that determination need not be the origin story, as Kripke suggests. We might just as well depend on the community in which "Glunk" picks out Glunk. If we agree that "Glunk" picks out Glunk, the presence or absence of an origin story is irrelevant.

    Here I am departing from agreement with Kripke.

    Here I am using much the same argument that I have used to reject Kripkenstein.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    A proper name, according to Kripke, is a rigid designator. It picks out the thing named in all possible worlds. This does not mean, of course, that the thing named occurs in all possible worlds. It merely means that, if Banno exists in a world, the name must designate him and not some other. — J
    We need to be clear that, in those possible worlds in which I do not exist, "Banno" does not refer to anything.

    Now go back to
    To be a bound variable in modal logic is to entail a choice of some necessary predicate(s)" — J
    In standard possible world semantics, the domain will be different in some possible worlds. In those worlds there need not be an x that is P. That is, ∃xP(x) would be false. It would not be the case that in every possible world something is P. If the domain is fixed - the same in all possible worlds - then a bound variable might have necessary properties; we might have ∃xP(x) in every possible world.

    When the domain varies, quantification does not necessarily imply that x has any essential properties, since x may not exist in all worlds.

    So in the varying domain of standard modal logic, to be a bound variable does not entail a choice of some necessary predicates.

    But I can see where this may come from. The Barcan formula, ∀x □P(x) → □∀x P(x), also relies on a fixed domain.
    ↪Count Timothy von Icarus
    may also be implicitly making use of a fixed domain - it is hard to say.

    Kripke is not using a fixed domain.

    Hence the need to note that there are possible worlds not blessed with my presence.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Benkei
    well, let's wait and see.
  • Kicking and Dreaming
    ↪J
    One of the curious things about confabulating is that folk do not realise that is what they are doing - the confabulation is, for them, quite genuine. We might picture dreams as the confabulated result of an attempt to make reasonable and coherent the more or less haphazard triggered events of a sleeping brain. That is, we need not choose between dreams being either lived in real time or a confabulated memory created on waking - these are not mutually exclusive. perhaps they a re some combination.

    This by way of an explanation for your (3) in the OP.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Yes. — frank
    Ok. :rofl:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    When it comes to trade, Americans are much more heavily regulated that Europeans, or really just about anybody else in the world. — frank

    Seriously?


    But again, the question I asked was not if Trump might control the markets, but the extent to whciht he markets might control Trump.

    The ongoing slump in Wall Street, the result of policy chaos.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    ↪sime
    I might reply to this by going back to the point I made a while ago, that there is a difference between probability and possibility, in terms of what we are doing. See if you agree.

    Supose we put the beads in the image above in a bag, and pull out a bead. We know, since we know the number of beads, that there is one chance in three of the bead we pull out being red.This is classical, a priori probability. If we did not know the arrangement of the beads, we might apply some probability theory to an experiment in which we pull out a bead and return it to the bag, and over time we see that one in three of the beads we pull out is red. This is frequentist probability. A third, related approach might be to decide that there is a fifty-fifty chance of picking out a red bead, then to pick out and return the beads, adjusting one's estimation of the probability of picking out a red bead on the basis of the result. This is the Bayesian approach.

    These are the sorts of things we do when reasoning about probability. We go out and experiment on the way things are, and describe the result one way or the other.

    When we reason about modality, we do something a bit different. We stipulate, rather then experiment. We say things like "Supose you pull out a red bead..." We are not concerned with how the world actually behaves, but with how it might behave.

    The similarity in models between probability and modality may lead us not to notice that what we are doing in each case is somewhat different. The one is an activity of discovery, the other an activity of stipulation.
  • On eternal oblivion
    I'm not sure they do. — bert1

    Ok. Others will be. :wink:
  • On eternal oblivion
    ↪Paine
    We are still on that topic.
  • On eternal oblivion
    ...re-birth could consist in the continuation of one’s moral concerns and commitments in future personas. — Wayfarer
    ...which may well happen without any recourse to mystical notions... those with whom you have interacted may carry on in kind; see Hofstadter's I am a strange loop, an odd but quite appealing little book.

    But that is not what you are gesturing towards, is it? Again, if that is all you are saying, then there is little with which I might disagree.
  • On eternal oblivion
    the deeds of the most heinous criminal and those the most altruistic philanthropist are all equally negated as there are no consequences for them — Wayfarer
    So Indian religion is an elaborate confabulation from the yearning for justice? Fine - as Lennon sang, whatever gets you through the night, it's alright.



    There's more than just the Tractatus, from where your quotes come, to consider. We make it so with the games we play. What we value is - well, valuable. We are the source of value. And the "we" is intentional, not the "I" of Nietzsche.
  • On eternal oblivion
    ↪bert1
    If it's not my consciousness that continues, what is the point? Other consciousnesses will continue after you are dead - is that the recompense? But we don't need reincarnation for that.
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