But who decides what being right is? — baker

Natural selection?

No, just that since everyone is subject to death anyway, death is nothing special, not a sign of failure.

Becoming extinct is a failure in terms of a species. But dying, as an individual, is not failure, because everyone dies anyway. — baker

99% of all species that have existed are now extinct. We could say the same for every individual that has existed.. Who's to say that all species are destined to become extinct like individuals are destined to die?

Nah. I used all to refer to my faculties of perception, and hence my unique experience. In other words, I wanted to encompass the various modes of perception under the quantifier 'all'. It was not a statement about the universality of perception for other entities (human or otherwise). — emancipate

But your faculties of perception are not all faculties of perception. You seem to have a problem with how to use words, or are simply moving the goal posts.

OC2 is relativism. Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions. What is true for me might not be true for you; what counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might not do so from another; what is true at one time is false at another. — T H E

Does this statement not assert the absolute truth about Relativism? Statements like this defeat themselves. In asserting the truth that there is no truth, you end up pulling the rug out from under your own argument.

OC2: Truth and knowledge are relative in that they are dependent on the language game in which the claims of truth or knowledge occur. — Banno

This statement defeats itself. This statement's truth value is dependent on the language game being used and isn't useful outside of this language game. What is basically being said is that this statement isn't true outside of the use of English. So this statement would not be true for Spanish speakers, yet we can translate this statement to Spanish.
:roll:

Subjective statements are categorical errors, insofar as statements are technically empirical objects in the world, hence are not contained in the mind....or brain, if you wish....hence not subjective. — Mww

I'm talking about what the statements are about. The statements are implied to be about other empirical objects and states-of-affairs, not the personal feelings and emotional states of the person making the statement. That is the category error - when a statement is asserted to be about the empircal state-of-affairs when it is really about the person's feelings or emotional state.

I just figured it went without saying, that because perception and understanding are faculties belonging to all humans in general and thereby to each human in particular, then it follows necessarily that the objects of those faculties belongs to any human in possession of them. Which is sufficient reason to claim perception and understanding of reality, or anything at all in fact, is entirely subjective, — Mww

Which part of this statement is subjective? Which part is objective? What reason would you have of making subjective statements to others? What use would they be to others and why? If we both can only speak from our subjectivity, then aren't we simply talking past each other - talking about our own subjective states rather than the objective states of the world?

What could be more important than winning?? — baker

Being right.

Just look at humans vs neanderthals. Who is now extinct?
Everyone has to die at some point. This is not a consolation. — baker

Then your point is that no one ever actually wins?

It is partially true that all perception and understanding of reality is subjective. Is my previous statement objective or subjective? — emancipate

Objective. Again you are asserting a state-of-affairs that exists for ALL, and you are implying that this state-of-affairs is true even if no one knows it is true. Any time you try to make a case for what reality is, and how it is, then you are making an objective statement.

If it were subjective, you would only be speaking for yourself and your perception and understanding, not about others perception and understanding.

Obviously I'm not talking about the symbol. It's the number it references, not whatever we use to denote it. 19 is just a symbol. It represents a quantity which is also prime. — Marchesk

Where is the number/quantity 19 in relation to the symbol 19?

Math is about the mathematical objects the symbols represent. Numbers, sets, proofs, functions, graphs, whatever. Realism is asking whether any of those objects are real, not the symbols. The symbols we came up with to represent the objects. — Marchesk

But numbers are just symbols. Where in reality is there a number that the symbol points to? Quantities are always OF something, not something that can exist on its own. Math is merely a comparison of measurements.

I agree, by the way. All perception and understanding of reality is subjective. How could it be otherwise. Doesn’t mean reality is itself subjective. — Mww

The statement is an objective claim about the ontology of perception and understanding, which is just another way of saying epistemology. Any time you make a statement that asserts how some state of affairs exists for all humans, not just yourself, like what perception and understanding is for all humans, you are making a objective statement.

Even stating how things are for just you is objective as you are part of this reality and any statement that is true regardless if others disagree is objective. Stating that you like strawberries is objective. It is objectively true that you like strawberries even if I were to disagree.

What is subjective is when you project qualities of yourself onto an object that has no such properties. When you say strawberries are good, you are projecting your feeling that you have when eating strawberries, not asserting anything true about the strawberries. To me strawberries are bad, but that is just a projection. Harry Hindu doesn't like strawberries is objective because I am now correctly stating that the property has more to do with me than the strawberries.

In a nutshell, subjective statements are category errors.

If all (perception and understanding of) reality is subjective then the burden of proof is not on the claimant but on the disagreer. — New2K2

But the disagreer has a subjective reality too. Which subjective reality is the disagreer disagreeing with? Ultimately they'd both be talking past each other.

So might makes right. Some people become the winners, some the losers. — baker

What do you mean by "right"? Winning something does not make one right. It simply makes one a winner. There is more than one way to win at something -brains can win out over brawn in many instances. Just look at humans vs neanderthals. Who is now extinct?

You're clearly not trying, if it makes no sense to you. Have you ever "grasped" the idea that you do not understand something? That's what I mean. When someone speaks a foreign language for instance, you might apprehend that you do not understand what the person is saying. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or you're clearly not trying if it makes no sense to me. Someone speaking a different language to me clearly does not understand that I don't understand that language. Speaking and writing requires an understanding of your audiences understanding of the words you are using. It requires two or more following the same protocols to communicate. How you might communicate with a child or a person just learning English will be different than how you communicate with an adult that speaks English fluently.

So you're saying that your dualism isn't one of mind vs. body, rather one of understanding vs mis-understanding? I still don't get it.

In the ontology which I respect, concepts are artificial. Do you not respect the difference between natural and artificial? "Artificial" is commonly defined as produced by human act or effort rather than originating naturally. — Metaphysician Undercover

And humans and their actions are outcomes of natural processes. The only reason you'd want to distinguish between what humans do and what everything else does is because you believe in the antiquated idea that humans are specially created or created separate from nature.

I don't see any principle, other than 'what was intended by the author', whereby we'd distinguish a wrong interpretation from a right interpretation of a symbol. Therefore your claim that a natural effect symbolizes its cause (without an appeal to intention), is just as likely to be incorrect as correct. So it's a worthless assertion. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't excluded intent. As a matter of fact I told Wayfarer that their posts symbolize their idea and their intent to communicate it, which are causes for there being scribbles on the screen that we can observe. Tree rings symbolize the age of the tree because of how the tree grows throughout the year, not anything to do with the intent of some human. Humans come along and observe the tree rings and their intent is to understand what the tree rings are. The human attempts to grasp what is already there and the processes that produced the tree rings. This is how the human comes to understand what the tree rings are, which is what they mean. This is what humans do, we attempt to understand what exists by explaining the causal processes involved in producing what we observe.

It is not concepts all the way down, I am dualist, so I see (apprehend with my mind), that there are aspects of the sensible world which cannot be conceptualized. That is the incompatibility between the intelligible and the sensible, which gives the need for dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

This makes no sense. How can you apprehend something which cannot be conceptualized? Apprehend and conceptualize are synonyms. Both are akin to "grasping" something mentally.

A concept is not a symbol. So a symbol can represent a concept which can represent a natural thing. But a symbol cannot represent a natural thing directly because it is required that a mind establishes the relation required in order that something can be a symbol. Therefore, it is necessary that a mind acts as a medium, between the symbol and the thing, in order that the symbol can be a symbol. This is what it means to be a "symbol" to be related to soemthing by a mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are not concepts natural things?? You seem to be making a special case for human minds, as if human minds are seperate from nature, when minds are just another causal relationship, like everything else.

No, that's nonsensical. A symbol must be interpreted to represent anything, and what it represents is a function of the interpretation — Metaphysician Undercover

What if it's interpreted wrong? Is it still a symbol? It seems more accurate, and less religious, to say effects represent/symbolize their causes.

You’re working within the representative realist notion where ideas stand for, or represent, things. — Wayfarer

Not just ideas, but everything. Effects stand for, or represent, their preceding causes. The scribbles in your post represent your idea yesterday that you intended to communicate to me.Your idea represents an actual state-of-affairs that exist independent of you and I talking about it. At least, that is what you are asserting. If that is not what you are asserting, then what are you talking and thinking about?

Physicists went out to explore just those ‘objects and their processes’, confident that they existed independently of anything said about them. But that was just what was called into question by what they discovered. They discovered that the answer to the question 'is an electron a wave or particle' depended on how you asked the question, and that it was impossible to say that an electron 'really is' either of them. — Wayfarer

But what about the physicists themselves? What are they composed of - waves or particles? You seem confident that these physicists and their discoveries exist independent of your observation of them. I assume that the physicists you are talking about aren't scribbles on a screen, but human beings, which are objects just like everything else that we observe. This idea that you're asserting that these physicists have contradicts the very thing that they are trying to show.

Whether or not an electron is a wave or particle is dependent upon the view you are taking and the causal sequence that lead to that particular observation. The observer is part of the very universe that the physicist is describing and part of the causal sequence that manifests as the effect in the mind.

The realist argument is that those numbers and symbols are about something which exists independent of us. — Marchesk

Right. So is math the numbers and symbols, or the thing the the numbers and symbols are about, or the relationship between the numbers and symbols and what they are about?

For us to do the math. Does that mean prime numbers only came to exist when mathematical language was created? I'm not so sure about that. — Marchesk

Are you asking if the actual scribble, 19, came to exist when mathematical language was created or what it represents came to exist when mathematical language came to exist? What is the scribble, 19? What does it represent? Is not, "prime number" a word in a language?

don't know what a fundamental particle is. I do know that its properties are described mathematically. Tegmark's point is that all physical properties are mathematical. I don't know whether that just means we have to understand them that way, or that there is real mathematical structure.

The challenge to the anti-realist here is to come up with a way of describing electrons that doesn't use math but is still faithful to the experimental results and predictions. — Marchesk

To describe something is to use symbols to represent that thing. Does it really matter if we use math, English or Spanish? Claiming that all physical properties are mathematical is akin to claiming that physical properties is information, or that physical properties are measurable. Math makes use of measurements. That's what the numbers represent. Being that languge precedes math, therefore is more fundamental than math, then isn't it more accurate to just say that physical properties be represented using symbols?

No, I'm dualist, I apprehend both, with a fundamental incompatibility between the objects which I see, and the concepts which I understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't understand. You apprehend both what? What is incompatible?

It goes both ways. Some scientists try model the behaviour of natural things using concepts, but artificial things are representations of concepts. Fundamentally, symbols always represent something mental. — Metaphysician Undercover

It don't see how fundamentally, symbols always represent something mental when you just said that concepts can represent natural things, unless you're saying that natural things are mental, but then that would make you an idealist/pansychist, not a dualist.

Do tree rings represent the age if the tree independent of someone looking at the tree rings?

When you look at the world what do you see?

Is it concepts all the way down?

Do objects and their behaviors symbolize mathematical concepts or do mathematical concepts symbolize objects and their behaviors?

I agree that individually we are born with the ability to (pre-)reason and learn a language. I can't agree that language is just scribbles and sounds. Language is something like a set of conventions. — T H E

It is just scribbles and sounds that children learn to imitate. Using language is a behavior, and just like all other behaviors we learn to interpret them.

And prime numbers would have never been discovered without math. — Marchesk

So you agree that language is necessary for math?

They typically describe the history of some important experiments and physicists leading to the development of QM along with the various interpretations and the authors opinion. But they also include a few equations, with a note that QM is describing a world of the microphysical we don't experience.

I'll revise my question. Can you replace the equations in QM with English making no reference to mathematical concepts? — Marchesk

Sure, because the mathematical concepts refer to states of affairs that isn't just more math. What is a mathematical concept, if not words in a language? Are you saying that it's mathematical concepts all the way down? Are you an idealist? The universe isn't made of numbers and function symbols. It is composed of objects and their processes. The scribbles on paper refer to those objects and their processes. Are electrons numbers or objects or processes? Are tables and chairs composed of numbers or electrons?

That's what mathematicians claim, so I would think there is some truth to it. If there is anything more than math, being referred to, this is dependent on application. — Metaphysician Undercover

So when you look at reality you see numbers and mathematical function symbols, not objects and their processes? F=ma refers to a state of affairs that isn't just more math.

Math would have never been discovered without language.

So are you saying that the mathematical symbols don't refer to anything that isn't just more math? What does the math say about reality?

Never read a layman's book on QM?

If math was the only language that could be used to explain QM then what need would there be for an interpretation?

You can say your numbers in English, you can say the function symbols in English, so I don't see the problem you guys are having here. The numbers and symbols represent something. What do they represent - more math?

Bertrand Russell said that 'physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. — Wayfarer

Mathematics is just another language and is therefore invented and arbitrary. It uses scribbles to represent some state if affairs, just like other languages. You can even translate the scribbles into English or some other language. What you can say with mathematics you can say in English.

Scientific method relies on the ability to capture just those attributes of objects in such a way as to be able to make quantitative predictions about them. This is characteristic of Galilean science, in particular, which distinguished those characteristics of bodies that can be made subject to rigourous quantification. These are designated the 'primary attributes' of objects, and distinguished, by both Galileo and Locke, from their 'secondary attributes', which are held to be in the mind of the observer. They are also, and not coincidentally, the very characteristics which were the primary attributes of the objects studied by physics, in the first place. — Wayfarer

Words are like numbers in that they allow you to make quantitative predictions, too. Words represent how we view the world as quantified objects. The mind is a measuring device.

He did not, not any more that some biblical prophet understood your particular predicament when you happen to read his verses and find them useful. The reader is only using the book as clues to understand himself. — Olivier5

So when you read people's posts on this forum you're not trying to understand what the writer meant when they authored those posts? If you're only projecting your own interpretation, then you're basically putting your own words in the writer's mouth. What would be the point of communicating with you?

That is only one of the many possible meanings of "speaking in metaphors", and not the one I intended. I meant the Freudian interpretation of dreams as expressing ideas (desires, fears usually) via a sort of confused theatrical play, often with composite characters. — Olivier5

So you just mean the language of shapes, colors, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings - the language of nature that "selected" the vocabulary we all understand and use to be informed of the state of the world, and that was passed down to subsequent generations through heredity?

I think I understand what you are saying, but IMV thinking itself is (counter-intuitively) not a private act. I say this because we think in and through a public language and through the 'lens' of an education. Also consider that any interest in trust seems to reference some reality that transcends the individual. The goal is true-for-anyone and not just true-for-me. To find these true-for-all propositions is also to work in a shared language. I do see that we can quietly talk to ourselves and have insights that lead scientific revolutions. — T H E

This simply can't be the case. Newborn infants have to learn the language and learning anything requires an ability to reason. The ability to reason exists prior to learning a language. Language is just visual scribbles and sounds, like most everything else, and we interpret our visual and auditory sensations individually. Actions speak louder than words because actions are visual, like words, and can be interpreted, and provide more accurate information than words can. It's more difficult to lie with your actions than with your words.

And I'm saying you're kidding yourself if you think the "ontological distinction between mind and brain" is independent of language. — Janus

You're fooling yourself if you think that the distinction between how you observe your own mind vs. other minds is a difference in the scribbles and sound you make. Is the distinction between scribbles and sounds also dependent on language? Hearing is distinctly different than seeing, without using words.

Because reading a book involves a certain amount of self projection, of interpretation. Some people get their insight from reading the bible, others from reading the stars. I have nothing against it, I myself draw insights from books, including on dreams. The part I disagree with is when you say that "some book can interpret your dreams for you". This is having it vice versa: the reader interprets the book, and uses the book as a source of clues to try and interpret his dreams. — Olivier5

But the book is in a public language, written by someone else with their own private language, so how did author else come to understand the readers private language?

According to Freud it's the subconscious part of me speaking in metaphors. Does that count as a private language? — Olivier5

Speaking in metaphors means that you are using the native public language that you learned. So you're saying that your private language is your publuc native language?

I agree. When we think about evolution, we sometimes forget that life alters its own environments, sometimes drastically. The nurturing being is embedded in nature, part of it. — frank

Yes, or another way of looking at it is that we are all social individuals. We are individuals that find happiness in being social. It's why we can agree on many ethical standards except when it comes to choosing the group over the individual and vice versa (collectivism vs individualism).

If you're having trouble interpreting the private language in your head, then maybe it's YOUR private language.
— Harry Hindu

Well yes, I guess that's the point. — Olivier5

I mistyped. I meant to say it's NOT your private language if you're having trouble understanding it.

If others claim that a book on dreams does give them insight into their dreams, who are you to say that it didn't? — Harry Hindu

I never said that it didn't. — Olivier5

Yes you did:

That proves very little. There are many books written about aliens from another planet too, or about ghosts. It doesn't mean these books are right in everything they say. — Olivier5

If a book helps a person gain insight into their dream then how is that not proof that the book was right in what it said?

Perfectly private 'observation' is (or seems to be) scientifically irrelevant. What I'm questioning is this starting point of the private dream. This makes the brain a mere part of the dream, so then so is the dream a part of the dream. (?) — T H E

Science Identifies and integrates sensory evidence which is the nature of reason. Science is essentially based, not on experiment, but on observation and logic. Looking under a rock or into a telescope are both scientific acts. So is the act of observing and thinking about your own mental processes - a scientific act is private. Proof of one's conclusions to others comes later, but that is argumentative, not inquisitive.

Brains are just information in minds. Some might call this idealism or panpsychism, but I reject the idea that information is inherently mental (or physical). Information is fundamental and mental and physical are both information.

I'm not advocating dualism, but semantic pluralism. You don't seem to be able to get out of your own dualistic framework of thinking in order to understand what I'm saying, so there's no point continuing. — Janus

You're confused again. I'm not the dualist. If you had been reading my posts, youd understand that I'm arguing against dualism.

Again, we're talking past each other. Your taking about the meaning of scribbles and sounds (semantic pluralism), and I'm talking about the ontological "distinction" between mind and brain - what exists independent of language and how we use scribbles and sounds to refer to things.

That proves very little. There are many books written about aliens from another planet too, or about ghosts. It doesn't mean these books are right in everything they say. — Olivier5

LOL. How do you know what they're saying if it's about a private experience? If others claim that a book on dreams does give them insight into their dreams, who are you to say that it didn't? Either way you lose the private language argument.

My native language is French. I can try to describe my dreams, irrespective of the language used for that. I can even try to decipher them, or somebody else's. But it's not easy. — Olivier5

Why not, if it's YOUR OWN PRIVATE LANGUAGE? If you're having trouble interpreting the private language in your head, then maybe it's YOUR private language.

BTW, what forms do the symbols of your private language take? A public language takes the form of visual shapes and colors, and sounds. How do you know you have a private language? What form does it take for you to be aware of it?

Coming from a trumpy, card carrying member of the Dunning-Kruger Gang . — 180 Proof

Coming from a guy that doesn't know me and can only create a fictitious image of me to help him sleep at night. :roll:

In short, the idea is that we communicate because of common biological structure, not because we share a society where language facilitates group activities.

See what I mean? — frank

If what you are saying is that we mentally represent the world in similar ways thanks to our similar biological functions, then sure, that seems obvious and is similar to what I have argued with people like Banno about before. But then you have to account for how the brain shapes itself when learning a language. Brains physically change when they learn. Once you learn one language some sounds become difficult to make in another language because of how your brain and tongue and lips have become accustomed to communicating in certain ways. For instance, many Hebrew speakers have trouble with the English R. It's not that they aren't hearing it like English speakers can, it's more to do with training your brain, tongue and lips to make the sound.

Personally, I think that this argument of nature vs nurture is absurd. It's really both working together, not just one or the other.

Stick to politics/religion, 180. You're in over your head.

What about processes in the brain that do not involve conceptual thought? The information in your consciousness was processed in the brain before appearing in consciousness. Are those not mental processes?
— Harry Hindu

Are you claiming there are no subconscious thought processes? — Janus

I'm asking questions about what you have claimed. I'm trying to understand what you are claiming. You said that mental processes involve conceptual thought. I'm asking about those processes that occur in the brain stem, pituitary gland, basal ganglia, the lower brain, etc,. From what I know, those processes do not involve conceptual thought, so I'm basically asking if you know something that the neurologists don't.

Are you saying that all mental processes are conscious processes - from sub-conscious to full-fledged consciousness? Would there be parts of the brain that you would point to to show which parts are sub-conscious and fully conscious? Would that not indicate that the physical parts correspond to the conscious parts?


Then you're saying that mental states are physical states -mind is the brain and vice versa? How is does the non-mental process of tendonitis become a mental conceptual thought?
— Harry Hindu

No, I'm not saying that at all. In all I've said I've been arguing that the mind is not the brain simply because there is a valid distinction between the two concepts. — Janus

Then we are talking past each other. You're talking about a difference in concepts (conceptual thoughts), which are mental processes and I'm talking about a difference mind vs brain. Are you saying that everything is mind and brains are just another idea, or concept, not a actual "physical" thing?

The mind becomes aware of the pain caused by tendonitis. The tendonitis could have earlier been incipient and no pain felt, so there would have been no awareness of the tendonitis. To know (that is to come to believe under good authority) that I have tendonitis I have to research the symptoms or seek expert advice. — Janus

I'm asking how do you become mentally aware of a physical state.

It seems to me that to assert that the mind and brain are not one and the same, or at least the mind is at least part of the brain and there are other non-conscious processes in the brain, is dualistic and dualism's problem is in explaining how two different things can interact.

Physical states (or better, processes) — Janus

Here you seem to be saying that processes (like mind) are the same as the physical state (brain).

What I am saying is that they are the same, just from different perspectives - being the state vs observing the state.

There's a little bit of research on the biological basis of it, but what does it really tell me if my motor cortex is active when I'm silently humming? Shrug. — frank

That maybe they are one and the same phenomena, just from different perspectives - one from the process of observing yourself outside of your body (like in a mirror or MRI scan), while the other is the process of being your body. Think about how different a grandfather clock looks from outside of it vs inside of it. You're looking at the same thing, just from different perspectives, so you get different information from different perspectives, and it appears as if you are looking at two distinctly different things, but that is because the information is different. Think about how your pet cat/dog appears to your different senses. Your senses provide different information about the same thing, so hearing your dog bark is different than seeing your dog bark, but it provides information about the same thing.

I seem to have this uncanny ability to sing in my head too.

Another thing I can do is dream, when I am asleep.

And these things I dream of, they sometimes seem to have meaning. As if I were talking to myself in some secret language. — Olivier5

Then why are there so many books written that claim to be able to interpret your dreams for you, and many people claim that those books have provided insight into their dreams and lives?

What is this secret language? Can it be translated into English, or is already in English because that is your native language?

There's one big difference though. I can check the frequency I'm humming. Only I know the sound of internal humming.
— frank
What does it mean to know the sound of internal humming when you can't check its frequency? If you need to know the frequency to know the sound and you can't check the frequency of the sound in your mind then how can you say that you know the sound in your mind? — Harry Hindu

You're not good to address this?

You can't tell the frequency of the sound in your mind because frequencies have to do with wavelenghts. If the sound in your head doesn't have a frequency, it doesn't have a wavelength, so it comes down to how to distinguish between external wavelengths of vibrating air molecules and the mental representation of those frequencies and wavelengths as sound in the mind.

Are you a naive realist?
— Harry Hindu
Are you? — 180 Proof

Nope.

I was the one that asked you the question because of what you claimed,, not me, and because you can't answer it without appearing naive, you just throw the question back at me. Pathetic.

So it appears that your immaturity doesn't just become apparent when you are shown to be inconsistent in politics, but also in metaphysics? So no one can have serious "conversation" with you unless they agree with everything you say?

There's one big difference though. I can check the frequency I'm humming. Only I know the sound of internal humming. — frank

What does it mean to know the sound of internal humming when you can't check its frequency? If you need to know the frequency to know the sound and you can't check the frequency of the sound in your mind then how can you say that you know the sound in your mind?

I could access the computer's registers and light up a display of LEDs to show me the binary code for the password. I can't do that with an internal image of a password.

Maybe we just don't have the technology for that yet. Maybe one day. — frank

There are programs that can display a stored passwords. When you tell someone your password you convert memory to sound and another hears it an coverts the sound to their memory. They are then able to access your data. How did they get the correct password if the internal sound of your password is different than what is heard?