What are facts, though? — bongo fury

True statements made about things in the world, that evidently are capable - somehow - of existing in their entirety, of being believed to be true, and of being true, without ever once being uttered/made/heard.

There's a lot of philosophy that says that mental states play no part in what speech acts express... — fdrake

And it leads to ignoring that Smith was talking about himself.

Hey Sam!!!

Good to 'see' you. Hope this finds you well.

:smile:

I have not claimed that beliefs are in the mind.
— creativesoul

?
I didn’t say you did. I said you try to dismantle that. — khaled

Actually, if you re-read the debate, I've ignored it altogether along with all sorts of other problematic stuff Banno's (mis)attributing to me.

When Banno said "All beliefs have propositional content" Creativeoul (and I suspect most people) heard "All beliefs are statements in our minds" so Creativesoul tries to dismantle that. — khaled

This could not be much farther from truth.

Beliefs have no spatiotemporal location, because it would need to cover the entire area between internal and external content. I have not claimed that beliefs are in the mind.

That's been Banno's imaginary opponent.

All conscious experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Consciousness is the ability to attribute meaning. The 'hard problem' of consciousness is simply that there has yet to have been an acceptable theory of meaning or mind that is capable of taking proper account how meaning is first attributed and continues to grow and evolve thereafter. "Proper" here indicating amenability to an evolutionary timeline and scientific peer reviewed study.

The frameworks themselves are incapable of taking account of that which consists of both external and internal things, and the correlations drawn between such things... and that is how consciousness emerges and evolves. The subject/object and physical/mental dichotomies are both used by folk guilty of taking a whole, arbitrarily dissecting it and then pondering over the dissection, without ever realizing that consciousness consists of both, and more

Ce la vie.

Guess what one of the core tenets of my position is?

This is an excellent accompaniment Banno. Prime.

I would be completely onboard with the idea that language users keep a culture alive, for it is language that transcends generations keeping them all connected to the same parts of the world that each respective culture may find uniquely valuable/important...

Good questions, but I'm unwilling to discuss the debate here and now, while it's still in process. I will say that the bit about "the way things are" was introduced by Banno. I merely obliged by arguing how my position does not result in denying that statements can be about the way things are. Some clearly are. I do prefer different terminology, but my preferences are usually set aside when discussing this stuff with Banno. I would not introduce "states of affairs" either.

One lies about what they believe. One is not lying if they believe what they are saying is true. Whether or not it is true doesn't matter.

The only way to unwittingly spread a lie that one believes is true is by virtue of trusting the truthfulness of another's testimony, when the other is saying things that they do not believe(when the other is lying unbeknownst to you);Spreading another's lie.

Proof of another creature's belief?

:brow:

What would count as proof of that for you?

There is an actual difference between a belief and a report/account thereof. Do not conflate the two. We put our reports of another's belief into statement form, we do not put another's belief into statement form. Only they can do that, if they're capable of expressing their belief with language.

That's the jist of it.

In order to lie you have to know the truth, or else what are you going to lie about? — FreeEmotion

One lies about what they believe. One need not know the truth in order to lie.

Is this acceptable?

I do wonder about the topic being a question, but I'm willing to critique your OP, provided it answers the debate question in the affirmative. If the debate focuses upon your answer and my critique thereof, we may only need three posts each. We could still reduce the response time to 72 hours.

Three is not enough. 1500 sounds good. We could shorten the response time to 72 hrs.

Three is not enough.

Three or five posts each?

You changed that... or I misread???

All that sounds good. Minimum/maximum word count per post?

Let's do it.

We need to agree on the debate topic/statement, then set the parameters, right? I'm attempting to get the ball rolling here...

I've offered a list of candidates. Perhaps you missed it?

I would be willing to argue in the affirmative for "Not all beliefs are about statements", "Beliefs are not always about statements", "Not all belief has propositional content", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a proposition", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a statement", "Not all belief consists of propositional attitude", "Not all belief consists of statements", "Not all belief consists of propositions"...

Or you could argue in the affirmative of any of these by removing the "not". — creativesoul

We also need some type of administrative intervention so as to set up the place. So, I suspect when you and I agree on the debate topic and the parameters of the debate, that the appropriate actions will be taken by the administrators to help facilitate it.

IF I were to open, my bit would be a copy-and-paste from my profile. So I'll ceed the opening post to creativesoul, who can address that profile.

As for definitions, the point of a philosophical debate can be, and I suspect in this case will be, setting out a definition.

SO I suggest we start with creative pointing to my errors in the profile. — Banno

My esteemed and revered interlocutor, for whom I hold much respect, you are talking about what using the term "belief" requires. You are talking about all of the different ways that you are using the term.

I could critique that terminological usage in terms of it's coherency and/or lack of self-contradiction. If it is consistent, it lacks self-contradiction, and as a result I ought be able to swap any particular use of the term with the definition offered(whether that be by name or description) and not suffer a loss in meaningful content or arrive at mutually exclusive definitions/senses of the term "belief"(self-contradiction).

That would be a very short debate.

I would be willing to argue in the affirmative for "Not all beliefs are about statements", "Beliefs are not always about statements", "Not all belief has propositional content", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a proposition", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a statement", "Not all belief consists of propositional attitude", "Not all belief consists of statements", "Not all belief consists of propositions"...

Or you could argue in the affirmative of any of these by removing the "not".

Millions of doses were purchased by the federal government prior to the FDA approval. Should this be concerning?

If you want me to critique the profile, that would end up being an entirely different debate.

Ok Banno. So, in order to do this proper(and I'm certain we can), we'll need to get approval from the mods and/or administrators, set the parameters of the debate(the actual debate topic, who opens, length of posts, timeframe between replies, and whether or not there is a hard fast end). In addition, the administrators will need to create a place for us to proceed without interruption from those following the debate. The other site had two threads, one for participants following and discussing the debate, and one specifically reserved for the exclusive use of the participants.

The title of the debate proposal has a few folk hereabouts worried about the ambiguity of key terms. Given the 'nature' of language use, I think some ambiguity is inevitable, and that that ambiguity is part of what makes debates interesting. I'd be surprised if you didn't want to retain a certain amount of ambiguity, and that's ok by me.

However, has since suggested a change in the topic sentence, and given his own reasons for doing so. From where I sit, it doesn't seem to negatively effect/affect my approach to a debate about belief content.

The only real sticking point that I see regards your earlier suggestion that you would basically copy and paste your profile here as an opening argument, or that that's what I ought respond to in my opening argument. The problem is that there's nothing in your profile about the content of belief. So, there's really nothing for me to respond to regarding the debate topic.

So, perhaps it's best if we take the advice/suggestion of fdrake and debate "Beliefs are always about statements"?

What do you think?

As to the potential long-term effects, we'll probably never know. Beyond a few years, the compounding factors mount up in any cohort making isolation of subtle effect difficult, if not impossible. With a small enough cohort it might be possible, but the more people involved in the first wave of take-up, the more confounding factors become likely to materialise in that group from possibly external sources. — Isaac

Isn't that the reason for long term studies? I mean, isn't it the case that the reason we'll probably never know(this time around) is because we've neglected public safety protocols that have been in place for decades because we already know that such measures are necessary to insure we're doing everything we can to provide the safest possible treatment(s)?

The OP is meant as a debate proposal, specifically towards . Although, we've yet to have hammered out a few details. That ought be done in the other proposal thread, because it seems that that's where we're proceeding.

Perfect. So, we have a topic. Aren't you the one arguing the affirmative?

Perhaps it's been discussed heretofore, but shouldn't we all have very serious concerns over the drastic shortening of the duration of the field trials of the vaccine?

This 'warp speed' notion...

How can science shorten field trial periods from multiple years to less than a year, and remain confident that any significant, possibly deadly, side effects from a treatment have shown themselves?

If there are side effects that do not show immediately, but rather take years, and a very broad sampling size, to show themselves, then it is literally impossible to know about them over a much shorter duration with smaller less diverse sample sizes...



May I ask what your opinion is on this?

, get in the ring...

This one...

Come on . Here's your big chance to officially "mop the floor" with my ideas...

:kiss:

Anyone interested in a more formal approach to this? It's the contention underwriting a few recent threads.

My first response was meant to point out the appeal to omniscience inherent/implicit in so many arguments regarding "seeing the world as it is". My second was meant to point out that we certainly can see some things as they are.

Now I'll point out yet another issue with the idea... it's untenability.

In order to know that we cannot see the world as it is, we must know the world as it is, the world as we see it, and the differences between the two.

The cat is on the mat? The cup is in the cupboard? The lights are on the Christmas tree? I'm typing on my computer? We're talking about whether or not we can see some things as they are?

I conclude that nobody can see the world as it is. — Daemon

Need we be able to see everything in the world as it is in order to be able to see anything as it is?

Meaning existed prior to our knowledge and/or awareness of our own thought and belief about the world and/or ourselves(conscious experience), and did so as a direct result of creatures capable of drawing correlations between different things doing so.
— creativesoul

So meaning has become a thing; How sad. — Banno

"Meaning" is a noun. All nouns are persons, places, or things. That's how English works. Your response is cowardly.

All belief is meaningful to the creature forming/having the belief. — creativesoul

Do you agree?

The linguistic turn ought not result in forgetting that all sorts of stuff existed prior to the accounting practices specifically designed as a means to explain them. Meaning existed prior to our knowledge and/or awareness of our own thought and belief about the world and/or ourselves(conscious experience), and did so as a direct result of creatures capable of drawing correlations between different things doing so. Many many correlations were drawn between different directly perceptible things long before we learned how to talk about it via language use.

Some correlations were and continue being drawn between directly perceptible aspects of language use, and had to have been, in order for language creation and subsequent use.

If our accounting practices regarding how things become meaningful to us cannot be used to bridge the gap between language less conscious experience and conscious experience informed by language, then we cannot possibly hope to offer an adequate account of belief, whereas what counts as being "adequate" would require building an explanatory bridge between non linguistic language less belief, beliefs formed from simple naming and descriptive practices, and the uber complex metacognitive varieties of belief products like logical notation, predicate calculus, general historical accounts, and metaphilosophy.

When applied to cats, belief as propositional attitude bears a striking resemblance to the little man that wasn't there.

All belief is meaningful to the creature forming/having the belief.