I'm still here. Nothing really to add at the moment.

I'm more interested in consistency across possible worlds, as people get hung up on this.

Yes, but how do you mesh modal realism with Godel's Incompleteness Theorems?

Every imaginable proposition is true ... in some possible world. — Agent Smith

Try Godel's incompleteness theorem. :fear:

You should read Max Tegmark's Multiverse theory.

It resonates strongly here.

Meinongs jungle... :clap:

What kind of strange things hide there is a mystery.

Philosophy is the enterprise of using reason to try and find out what's true. It is not the enterprise of trying to make people happy or successful or psychologically robust — Bartricks

Tell Plato that. :roll:

Happy with this thread so far? — Banno

Not really. I already said what I thought worth mentioning.

The folk who really need to read the article have just voiced their opinions, again, without addressing, and probably without even reading, the article. — Banno

I tried, you tried. There's nothing more to address here. I consider the thread finished before we even started.

Thought not. — Banno

And if you can't, do you actually understand it? OR are you sliding along an ambiguity? — Banno

Even though I can't formalize my statement. I believe I understand it. :smile:

So can you phrase that in terms of boxes and diamonds? — Banno

Nope.

Sure. The answer, at least for modal issues, is to drop talk of de re and de dicto and use diamonds and boxes and brackets to keep the scope explicit. — Banno

I'm not sure everyone knows that. But just to clarify we usually appeal to de dicto (from our world) and then stipulate a de re about Superman in a possible world, as a counterpart or counterfactual from the world where we came to know about him.

Just wanted to make sure we're quantifying correctly here about Superman's identity obtaining even from de re modalities, with respect to de dicto knowledge we have about him in our world.

Thanks.

It's important because people get somewhat confused when stipulating a de re modality in a possible world whilst believing that the identity of the individual only obtains de dicto, in our world.

Are you too seeing that?

Necessity de re: is a controversial form of necessity which assumes that it can be stated about objects whether or not they necessarily have certain properties. The counter position is that necessity can only be assumed de dicto, i.e. as a property of the linguistic forms with which can be spoken about objects. See also de dicto, de re, planet example.

- de dicto de re

I don't think "de re" is a kind of modality. — frank

De re is about something. Have you read the wiki on de re-de dicto?

Sure, meaning can be altered by time. But, more often than not the original meaning holds true over time also.

That which we identify and define as a specific entity, by necessity is that specific thing, existing in but one world. To allow it in other worlds, eliminates its identity. — Hanover

Not in de re modality.

De re and de dicto are about how one interprets an ambiguous statement. How does that tell us something about how some guy in an alternate universe is Superman? — frank

Because when we speak about Superman, we can posit his existence in a possible world as a counterpart or a counterfactual. Whereas, people claim that this is impossible because they're thinking about the whole issue as de dicto, Superman couldn't be anything other than himself as we have come to know of him in our world.

Imagine Lois travels to an alternate universe where Superman landed in Mexico instead of Iowa. He was raised by the Cortez family and they named him Julio.

So what makes this guy Superman? — frank

De re modality, to answer your question...

That's my reading to bottom of p.166. Kripke then passes on to proper names. — Banno

Yes, and I think this is where it gets interesting...

Note 5? — Banno

Note 4.

The ambiguity dissipates because the scope of the existential and modal quantifiers is explicit. — Banno

Can you elaborate about the scope? There is a large footnote about this in the text.

No, in Identity and Necessity — Banno

Oh, okay.

The discussion on p.164 is to the effect that if we can have necessary properties for individuals then (1) must hold; that (1) says the same as that F(x), even if F is (x)(x=x). — Banno

I think it's important to make a distinction here about properties of objects and properties of individuals. Would it be accurate to label descriptions as also constituting properties also?

The discussion on p.164 is to the effect that if we can have necessary properties for individuals then (1) must hold; that (1) says the same as that F(x), even if F is (x)(x=x).

So that page is mostly a justification for the soundness of the argument (1-4). — Banno

The discussion on pg. 164 in N&N?

If you really need a physical grounding for entertaining the notion of possible worlds, then assume the many worlds interpretation...AND there's no issue with things being deterministic given the MWI. You can still have counterparts and alternate versions of you.

@Benkei, but it's not nice to do so.

Anyways, since the issue raised by @litewave often crops up in these discussions, here's a link. Fraught with controversy, I believe:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-transworld/

But a world with a different outcome of a quantum measurement would be a different world, with a different identity, than our world. — litewave

Yes, a world which is called a possible world ...

And I cannot be in both worlds, if by "I" we understand someone who is conscious of being only in one world. The "I" in the different world would be my copy, a counterpart. — litewave

The issue of personal identity is somewhat justified by the fact that my identity is consistent with the world that my personal I obeys causality in. The degree to which I have influence over the causal chain of events culminating in my identity is not a philosophical question, in my opinion.

I would argue that that is too strictly a transcendental argument. Every day we make choices where seemingly we could have done something otherwise. Even taking your argument to the extreme, there could be a possible world where causality would have allowed for a different event cone to allow a counterfactual to arise.

That's the pull of the argument attributed to David Wiggins. — Banno

Could you provide that argument? I'm reading the paper again and see that Wiggins argument seems to point out the fact that sometimes we refer to the same object with two different proper names. But, he (Kripke) goes on to say that we discover these truths after observation, as in the case of Hesperus and Phosphorus being Venus.

Right, and our spacetime is necessarily what it is and could not have been different. Bye bye free will? — litewave

Could you elaborate?

As regards contingent identity statements, such as "Hesperus is Phosphorus", from Hume's principle of constant conjunction, we logically infer that Hesperus is Phosphorus, and therefore is logically contingent rather than logically necessary. — RussellA

Sorry, but if you read the paper, Kripke posits the logicality on the empirical finding that Hesperus is Phosphorus. It's only a contingent identity statement upon observation that would allow us to conclude that it is Venus, in fact. Hence it is de facto a synthetic a priori upon examination via observation.

Sorry, but it's entirely legitimate to ascribe the predicate of existence of Mary in a possible world. Why is there so much confusion about counterpart theory or possible world semantics?

Generally we distinguish between things which we like due to personal preference, and things which we like due to higher quality. Personal preference does not equate with higher quality for most of us. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's a humdrum!

Parsing counterfactuals in terms of possible world semantics makes explicit the relation involved in the counterfactual... — Banno

...with respect to our world.

I just needed to finish that sentence to avoid confusion.

I'm on page 15 out of 30. It's an easy read if you're aquatinted with Naming and Necessity, which you can find here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4545/naming-and-necessity-reading-group

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4857/naming-and-necessity-lecture-three/p1

Some thoughts about terminology. Kripke introduces the term de re modality, which I think to newcomers can be confusing. Care to address this @Banno?

Further, on around page 15, Kripke brings up the statement, that the the 37'th president of the United States is non-rigid and Nixon is rigid. This would sound confusing to someone at first. I can attempt answering this on the basis that one doesn't need to invoke their imagination too wildly and simply designate that there could be a possible world where Humphrey won the election, thus it is contingent. However within the reference frame of our world Nixon won the the 37 elections for the president of the United States, making him a rigid designator. It's important to note that the possibility of 37th election of the United States sets up the possibility that out (this is our criteria condition for identity) of two possible candidates one or the other won. So, following from this we can only reference who won based on the feature of the world obeying causality (Kripke relies on a causal theory of reference).

I'm not sure if this is a good place to start, so please let me know @Banno.

Edit:

I would like to reiterate where people go on a wild goose chase, that counterfactuals like Nixon could have lost the binary relation of either winning or losing the presidency or winning it with respect to the causal chain of events in our world, not some other, and hence the status of Nixon being a rigid designator is assigned by our world not any other. That's just one instance where a counterfactual could have arisen given the epistemic criteria that fulfills the condition of him winning or losing the election. Treat everything else as et. cetera.

And, if it needs to be said in the positive that, yes, the causal chain of events would be the framing relation that allows Nixon to obtain as a rigid designator, in our world.

:cheer:

Well, shoot. I was looking forward to that thread. I wish I could start it...

I suppose we can elect @busycuttingcrap to moderate the thread. I'm looking forward to it.

I only mentioned the beetle in a box because of the mention of what you alluded to as some aspect of meaning that isn't expressed, the intensionality that is.

What the speaker intension and the receivers interpretation. But, things like this happen every day, so it's not a surprise to me.

Anyway, carry on. :smile:

@Banno proposed reading Identity and Necessity by Kripke.

Anyone?

Perhaps a thread on Identity and necessity? — Banno

Yes please.