So... who is "he"?

Who's "he"?

Objective reality, in some sense, would be different from subjective reality. — Arcane Sandwich

Can you say how?

But also, you now have two realities. Contrast that with the view that there is at most one reality. Which do you prefer?

I won't disagree with that.

A third alternative is that the notion of an objective reality can't be maintained.

It's true that you are reading this screen. What more is said by "It is objectively true that you are reading this screen"?

People who think only physical stuff exists -- materialists, in other words -- are the same people who often want to say that "rights" and "truth" and "justice" also don't exist. — J

So wouldn't what you say provide reason for going in the other direction - for showing that rights and truth and justice do exist?

Ok. I'll leave you to it.

The dude is more or less arguing against communication just because language isn't perfect and neither is translation. — Darkneos

Quine? No, he isn't arguing against communication. More that he's pointing out that communication takes place despite such issues.

Seems to be much ado about not so much.

Any many-placed predicate is reducible to a monadic predicate. "The cat is on the mat" can be parsed as a binary predicate "Is on (cat, mat)" and so as a relation, or as a monadic predicate "On the mat(cat)". Relations are many-placed predicates.

But both "Honey is sweet" and "Honey has sweetness" are parsed as the monadic Sweet(honey).

The temptation is to hypostatize sweetness by treating it as an individual rather than as a predicate, by saying that "Honey has sweetness" is a relation between sweetness and honey. Best avoided. TO see why, try setting out what that relation - "has" - is.

While we can treat many-placed predicates as monadic, treating monadic predicates as relations is problematic.

The IEP has an article on The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation., with much more background, but which is perhaps a bit too sympathetic to Dennett. It has an explanation of Putnam's Model-Theoretic Argument, from Lewis' stance.

:wink: Thanks.

Ok, so by way of explaining what he was getting at, have you read the gavagai example?

See, for example, https://medium.com/@ranjanrgia/thought-experiment-1-gavagai-70ae1bfc792a

What do you make of it?

I came across this little bit of brilliance, which you might enjoy

If we were not in communication with others, there would be nothing on which to base the idea of being wrong, or, therefore, of being right, either in what we say or in what we think. — Davidson, Indeterminism and Antirealism

Yeah, the Wiki page is pretty dreadful, too obtuse. I re-read the SEP article and browsed a couple of Davidson's papers before posting: Indeterminism and Antirealism, and The Inscrutability of Reference. Davidson bypasses downplays indeterminism using charity – despite not being certain, we can be pretty damn confident.

It just says that one cannot be certain as to which name refers to which thing. Not so much about multiple words for the same thing so much as one word potentially referring to various things - so gavagai might refer to a rabbit, a rabbit's tail, a rabbit leg or a potential hot meal. For Quine, there is no fact of the mater. Others differ. Putnam seems to have suggested that since we couldn't refer with certainty, there was nothing to refer to. Odd.

There's a bit more to it, especially to do with interpreting formal systems using notions of satisfaction, and few sources that are written clearly.

I'll leave this chat there. I'm not following you at all, again.

I pretty much agree with Malet. It's perhaps easier to hope its all in your imagination if you are stuck in a basement in Moscow rather than pumping water from tank to tank in thirty degree heat (my morning's work). The water and the tank and especially the heat become undeniable.

How's that political?

About you equivocating between fact and fiction. — bongo fury

Where?

Just the usual. That you continue this conversation implies all sorts of expectations and assumptions on your part. Like that you understood my reply, that you think it inadequate, that you would like me to give more by way of explanation, that we both understand English, that this is a conversation about language and not V8 supercars, and so on.

Unless, of corse, you are a LLM.

But even then, there is a background of assumed language.

What I am doubting is that it is a logical impossibility for language to exist in the case of solipsism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Did someone suggest that?

Then I havn't understood your post. That's fairly normal.

What bit of your post is where you think we differ?

Ok.

Are we in agreement? Might be a first!

We went over that previously. Yes, Pegasus exists, in that Pegasus is the subject of a quantification. But nothing in that proof implies that Pegasus is physical.

If folk want to say that, in addition, Pegasus is in the stables down the road, it's up to them to present their case. If they want to say that primes have physicality, it's over to them to show how. If they claim that infinitesimals exist in the "Platonic"sense, then they can explain what they mean.

But we can all affirm and agree that there are numbers.

Does it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. As your asking me that very question implies that you understood my post and what to do about it. Doubt sits in a background of certainty. That's a step beyond the insincere affectation, into the nature of discourse.

As if one might have a large language model without a large language.

What? I'm not buying it. — Arcane Sandwich

Me either. It should be

2 is a number
Therefore there are numbers.
Hence numbers exist.

Which is an instance of f(a) ⊢ ∃x(f(x))

I thought we'd agreed on this.

Well, there's a quibble here about what it is to express something. I don't think we've said something that is ineffable. We might have waved at something ineffable. That was the reservation I wanted to capture, when I said:

If something is inexpressible, then by that very fact one cannot say why... Doing so would be to give expression to the inexpressible. — Banno

In that spirit, we haven't explained its inexpressibility as much as exhibited it.

There will be plenty of folk who say Moore has proven that there is a hand, and others who say he has done no such thing, just as there are folk who see the duck but no the rabbit.

Well, if you want disagreement, then I'll disagree with this:

To exist is to exist at some place, and at some time. — Arcane Sandwich

Numbers exist. 2 is a number, therefore there are numbers. But it is difficult to make sense of the idea of 2 existing only at some place and some time.

I'll grant, at least provisionally, that to be physical is to exist at some place and some time. As good a definition as any. But there is a difference between existing and being physical.

Then what are we even arguing about? — Arcane Sandwich

Are we arguing? I thought we were agreeing.

Hmm. So you doubt your senses. Therefore you have senses. And you have doubt. Indeed, doubting requires a foundation from which to doubt. That you ask a question implies that there are folk to ask that question of; that you use language implies that you are part of a language community.

You will only doubt the existence of the sandwich until you get hungry.

And he succeeded — Arcane Sandwich

Well, he wasn't wrong.

That's good, as far as it goes. — J

@Arcane Sandwich has agreed with a part of what I had to say. He focused on that we can treat them as individuals in virtue of being able to quantify over them. I also suggested that numbers are more something we do rather than individuals, although we can treat them as individuals. See . So I agree that they are not physical, and add that we can show how they nevertheless come to be treated as individuals by quantification. It's a "counts as..." thing, an act performed in language. These are of course things that exist but are not physical. Money and property and so on.

Let's lean into that a little. — J

Asking someone to justify "Here is a hand" is inane in that it misunderstands what is going on in the illocution. In a way "This is a hand" is like "This counts as a hand", it's not part of the language game so much as setting up the language game. But Moore wanted to go a step further, wanting to use the illocution to demonstrate that the world exists. This is the step too far that Wittgenstein examines. Moore takes himself to having proved that there is a world, but rather, that there is a world is already supposed by his demonstration. It's not that Moore has proved the existence of a hand, but that treating this as a hand is what we do. And that doing is not expressible, but, to paraphrase PI§201, "What this shews is that there is a way to grasp that this is a hand which is not a conclusion, but which is exhibited in what we do in actual cases"

And that is not expressed, but performed. Ineffable, yet understood.

How's that?

:wink:

Yep. Surprise, agreement and error - the trinity of realism.

Australia finally has fuel efficiency standards. Or at least, it will tomorrow.

What I'm suggesting is that everyone (not just Australians) should stop referring to Australia as a continent. — Arcane Sandwich

Yeah, ok. Tough. A couple of caveats should tide you over. It's not an issue of much import.

You know about New Australia? Paraguay had more success at attracting Australians than Argentina.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about what might be "inexpressible in Wittgensteinese." — J

You'd like me to set out what sort of things re inexpressible? To give reasons for the ineffable? To answer for Wittgenstein the question I asked you? :wink:

Well, why not. Trouble is, it'd be a thesis, not a post. Indeed, a series of theses.

I read the Tractatus as saying that things can't be said - It's propositions that are said, "the world is what is the case"; there are things only in so far as they are the subject of a proposition - a view few others seem to hold nowdays, but it fits his notion of logical atomism. Hence the extended discussion of proper names in the earlier part of the last century. That's probably salient to the nascent discussion of Bung and Kripke.

And values are not said, so much as enacted. Ethics is about what we do, which is why he has so little to say about it. Instead he worked as a hospital orderly and watched cheap crime thrillers.

Hinge propositions are said, but never quite rightly. "Here is a hand" isn't justified, at least not by other propositions. It's shown. "If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest".

So I keep coming back to PI §201. What's not expressible may nevertheless be enacted. Not just in following a rule, but in using language, deciding what to do, and generally in what he called a "form of life". You don't say it, you do it.

Any comments, @Sam26? I suspect this is an older reading of Wittgenstein than is popular now.

You described Bung as introducing a relational operator for existence. I hope I shed some doubt on the necessity of doing so, by describing ontological commitment in terms of specifying the domain. That is, to say that something exists is little more than to talk about it. That's different to saying that it is a greek myth or a physical object or a number.

So, as I think you agreed, the answer to 's question is that infinitesimals can be the subject of a quantifier, and in that way, they exist; they can be in the domain of discourse. If there is something more to their existence, some "platonic" existence, then it's up to the advocates to set out what that amounts to.

Just read the man instead of working yourself up into a tizzy — Joshs

Cheers. It's not me who is worked up. I am unable to make sense of your notion of the thing in itself. It's obviously important to you, but to me is an example of Antigonish language.

It doesn't do anything.

Can I blame Banno? Absolutely. :eyes: — javi2541997

Yeah, I did it. I planted the Eucalypts.

Australia had a unique biome at colonisation. In urban areas, much of that has been replaced by European, and indeed global, flora. Much of the rest is what might be described as "park land", cultivated and deforested and used for sheep and cattle.

Eucalyptus drop bark, not just leaves. The result takes longer to break down into soil than other types of tree. The natural result is a much more friable top layer of partially broken down bark and leaf, hardly soil at all. That layer might easily be a foot thick. Prior to colonisation, the largest animals were soft-footed humans and 'roos, who did not help much to break the soil. After colonisation, the trees were removed and the 'roos replaced by ungulates, which break the humus and compress the soil. The result is a compacted, thin layer of material with little organic matter, poor at absorbing water.

Hence much of Australia's soils are quite poor, especially on the plains. Coastal areas faired better. Australia produces large quantities of agricultural products, not becasue of the quality of its soil, but becasue it's big.

This by way of agreeing with the theme that introducing foreign species might not be such a good idea.

...here's the main problem that I have with mainstream Australian politics — Arcane Sandwich

That seems to be a problem with Australian geography rather then with it's politics. Sure, Papua and New Guinea are part of the Australian continent - should we take back New Guinea and invade Indonesia?

I'm not at all sure what you are suggesting.

What he sees is similar but not identical to what every other observer of the ‘same’ butterflies see... " 'The" thing itself is actually that which no one experiences as really seen" — Joshs

If the butterflies-in-themselves are never seen, then he's probably right, and we can't say in which direction they fly. But we don't seem to need butterflies-in-themselves to have a simple chat about the direction in which butterflies fly.

That is, Husserl appears to be talking shite.

Greek myth(Pegasus)
For all x, Greek Myth(x) ≢ Aztec myth(x)
Hence
~ Aztec myth(Pegasus) — Banno

It'd be

https://www.umsu.de/trees/#Gp,~6x~3((Gx~5Ax)~1(Ax~5Gx))|=~3Ap