Is a dinosaur a word or a type of extinct organism?I agree that how humans use language is a state of affairs, but is there an ultimate arbiter of the truth of certain statements about the world, for example about the truth of empirical propositions? Are there objective
truths about physical nature, or are these truths relative to contingent and conventional linguistic states of affairs?
Is the claim that dinosaurs existed before anybody talked about them incoherent? What if we instead say that SOMETHING existed before language-using communities named and defined them, but we can’t say that they were dinosaurs , since that is a conceptual convention? — Joshs
If boundaries are arbitrary then the boundary between fact and convention is arbitrary. The boundary between letters, words, and sentences on this screen are arbitrary.But let us take a look at this so-called natural kind. Natural kinds, when we examine them, almost always turn out to have boundaries which are to some degree arbitrary, even if the degree of arbitrariness is much less than in the case of a completely conventional kind
like “constellation”. — Joshs
You're focusing too much on the boundaries as if they are more important than what is within those boundaries. Does the fact that the boundaries are blurry mean that everything else that isn't at the boundaries are arbitrary? There are many objects that fit neatly into the category, "star", while there are a few that lie on the boundary of that category because they share some visual characteristics with stars and also share some visual characteristics with planets. Not every object that we call, "star" lies on the boundary. When we talk about "stars" we are not talking about what is on the boundary, but what lies easily within it. The fact that similarities exist and that some objects share more similarities than differences with other objects is not something humans created. It is what allows us to categorize and use words as representations in the first place. If everything had an equal number of similarities and differences in relation to everything else then I could see language, and categories in general, being much less useful than they are now.Stars are clouds of glowing gas,glowing because of thermonuclear reactions which are caused by the gravitational field of the star itself, but not every cloud of glowing gas is considered a star; some such clouds fall into other astronomical categories, and some stars do not glow at all. Is it not we who group together all these different objects into a single category “star” with our inclusions and exclusions? It is true that we did not make the stars as a carpenter makes a table, but didn't we, after all, make them stars? — Joshs
There's a difference between making the stars and making the scribble that refers to stars as a means of communicating. Is a star a word or scribble or utterance, or is a star a thermonuclear globe of hydrogen and helium gas?Now Goodman makes a daring extrapolation. He proposes that in the sense illustrated by these examples, the sense in which we “make” certain things the Big Dipper and make certain things stars, there is nothing that we did not make to be what it is. (Theologically, one might say that Goodman makes man the Creator.) If, for example, you say that we didn't make the elementary particles, Goodman can point to the present situation in
quantum mechanics and ask whether you really want to view elementary particles as a mind-independent reality. It is clear that if we try to beat Goodman at his own game, by trying to name some “mind-independent stuff”, we shall be in deep trouble.” — Joshs
And neither is a table on the rug the cat being on the mat. Words are not cats. Cats are not dogs. Mats are not tables. Saying a cat is not a word is no different than saying a cat is not a mat. Words, mats, cats, tables and dogs all exist in the world and are distinguished visually and audibly. There is nothing special about words in this regard that would make one think that they are separate from the world.I think you're being too literal in your reading. They're just saying that the utterance "the cat is on the mat" is not the cat being on the mat. — Michael
There is nothing special about words in this regard that would make one think that they are separate from the world. — Harry Hindu
As I pointed out before, the map is part of the territory, not separate. If the ones that are using the term, "separate" don't mean it literally, then they don't really mean that language is separate from the world, then what is it they do mean? Why use the term, "separate" if that isn't what they mean? Seems to me that there would be a different term that they could use - like what they actually do mean, if not separate.And again, you're just being too literal in your reading. When others talk about a distinction between language and the world understand it as your oft-quoted distinction between a map and the territory. — Michael
As I pointed out before, the map is part of the territory, not separate. — Harry Hindu
If the ones that are using the term, "separate" don't mean it literally, then they don't really mean that language is separate from the world, then what is it they do mean? — Harry Hindu
You've denied any objective truth as correspondence, but now you say there is some sense of real truth, a "deeper notion of truth", but you haven't given any indication of what it is. Is it a subjective truth? If truth is simply "intricate and intimate interconnections in the way we interact with the world and each other", then the way I understand my relationship with you and the world is completely different from the way that you understand this relationship, and truth, it appears, would be completely subjective. Or do you propose some objectivity to these relations? In which case, I think we're back to what you denied above. — Metaphysician Undercover
In this instance "not part" means not in the U.S. which is a spatial relationship and "seperate" in this sense is the literal sense. I already pointed out words are not special in this regard.Well, I have a map of the United States which is definitely not a part of the United States. — Michael
This doesn't address what I said. If you dont mean "separate" in the same way you mean "not part", then what do you mean? If you don't literally mean what you say, then what do you mean literally? The relationship between the scribbles and the cat and the mat is one of representation, not seperate. If you want to say that the scribbles are not the cat on the mat, that is trivial and useless to the conversation. Representation is what joins the scribbles and the cat and the mat, not separates them.Exactly what I said before; the utterance "the cat is on the mat" is separate to the cat being on the mat. — Michael
Then your posts are objective because your posts are fixed descriptions about sone aspect of nature or reality, like the relations between writers, readers, words and what they represent.Intersubjectivity is different than objectivity. The former is a dynamic pattern of interconnective relationality that cannot be captured by a formula or rule capturing the whole. The latter looks for a rule, law , fixed description applying to some aspect of nature. Objectivity tries to ground fluid self-organization on some content external to it which is not fluid — Joshs
:up: Well said!Philosophers create problems by misusing language. — Harry Hindu
I’ve heard this many times. Where on earth do you get the idea that it is the far right in the U.S. that believes truth is something made up?
— Joshs
Kellyanne Conway denies Trump press secretary lied: 'He offered alternative facts' — Michael
If you want to say that the scribbles are not the cat on the mat, that is trivial and useless to the conversation — Harry Hindu
Then your posts are objective because your posts are fixed descriptions about sone aspect of nature or reality, like the relations between writers, readers, words and what they represent. — Harry Hindu
It's the other way around. Every negation holds within it its own assertion. — Harry Hindu
It makes no sense to say that language is in the world but separate from the world. — Harry Hindu
What does it mean to be about something? Aboutness is a causal relationship. — Harry Hindu
Where on earth do you get the idea that it is the far right in the U.S. that believes truth is something made up? — Joshs
I really wonder and cannot believe how could such a trivial and without real value or use --for me, of course-- question, the answer to which is more than obvious,, could arise such a huge interest and create such a huge discussion! — Alkis Piskas
I’m proposing an idea of truth as intersubjective , not simply subjective. Yes, each of us enters into relations of communication with others bringing with us our own personal perspective , but the ever evolving ‘intricate and intimate interconnections in the way we interact with the world and each other’ I described allows for a gradual convergence among personal perspectives , but not the complete disappearance of subjective perspective. Think of this subjectivity within intersubjectivity as variations on a common theme. They would be no basis for communication with anyone else if our inner perspectives were all at all times completely different from each other. — Joshs
Not when you're arguing against certain brands of anti-realism which deny the "trivial" distinction that realists take for granted. — Michael
Objectivity is not limited to static pictures. You can describe an event objectively as well. Objectivity is simply a description of how things are and is independent of other people's agreement or disagreement with you. Are you not telling us how things are for everyone even if we don't agree with you?Here’s the difference between an objective truth claim and a postmodern assertion. The former invokes a picture of the way things are. This picture consists of a specific, arbitrary content. The postmodernist is not offering a picture containing an arbitrary content. They argue that we are constant moving from one picture, one value content to another. It is not the particular claims, schemes, worldviews , objective definitions that the postmodernist is interested in describing , but the movement. And saying that they are ‘describing’ something is not quite accurate, as if they stood outside of this flow. Rather, the postmodernist is enacting change and movement in talking about it. Their assertions are self-reflexive, already caught up in and changed by the flow. — Joshs
I think most of it hasn't been to discuss whether or not an external material world exists, but what everyone means by, "external", "material" and "world". Threads like this tend to go on forever because we are all talking past each other and misusing terms. Some are artfully (not literally) using terms in playing word games and don't seem to have the intention of saying much of anything useful.I am posting this on page 33 of the topic "Is there an external material world?", which is very close to 1000 responses!
I really wonder and cannot believe how could such a trivial and without real value or use --for me, of course-- question, the answer to which is more than obvious,, could arise such a huge interest and create such a huge discussion! — Alkis Piskas
Objectivity is not limited to static pictures. You can describe an event objectively as well. Objectivity is simply a description of how things are and is independent of other people's agreement or disagreement with you. Are you not telling us how things are for everyone even if we don't agree with you? — Harry Hindu
Subjectivity is a category error where you confuse some aspect of the world with some aspect of yourself.
If truths were subjective then what reason would you have to share your subjective knowledge with someone else? After all we would subjectivity interpret your scribbles on the screen so there is no true or false way of reading the scribbles. No one can ever be wrong if truths are subjective, which is one reason some people find solace in believing in subjective truths - so they can avoid the stress of being wrong. — Harry Hindu
I agree that how humans use language is a state of affairs, but is there an ultimate arbiter of the truth of certain statements about the world, for example about the truth of empirical propositions? Are there objective truths about physical nature, or are these truths relative to contingent and conventional linguistic states of affairs?
Is the claim that dinosaurs existed before anybody talked about them incoherent? What if we instead say that SOMETHING existed before language-using communities named and defined them, but we can’t say that they were dinosaurs , since that is a conceptual convention? — Joshs
Science represent a widely shared niche within which we can come to agreement on practices of behavior. The essence of truth is in the relative stability and pragmatic usefulness of agreed upon conventions of practice, rather than in conformity of our representations with ‘intrinsic’ objective features of a world. — Joshs
First, he noted that our sensations can only be said to be giving us some awareness of an external world if they in some way resemble it. If our sensations in no way resemble the world they're supposed to be telling us about, how do they give us any awareness of it? — Bartricks
it was self-evident to reason that a sensation can only resemble another sensation. Sounds are like sounds, smells like smells, textures like textures and so on. — Bartricks
Next he held that it was also self-evident that sensations are essentially sensed. That is, they cannot exist unsensed.
Next, sensations are always and everywhere sensed by a mind of some kind. For any sensation, there is a sensor, and the sensor is a mind. — Bartricks
Then it's not clear what you mean by saying that if there is a model of a cup then there must be a cup. — Michael
No, I'm not saying we model the model. The point is that the perception itself is understood as a model, or more accurately a process of modelling, and the end result is seeing what has been modeled. — Janus
1) a Bayesian predictive modelling stage where the cause is inferred based on prior expectations (and, importantly) data is filtered according to those prior expectation as means of noise-reduction) — Isaac
Along with the researchers Carlton Caves and Rüdiger Schack, he interpreted the wave function’s probabilities as Bayesian probabilities — that is, as subjective degrees of belief about the system. Bayesian probabilities could be thought of as gambling attitudes for placing bets on measurement outcomes, attitudes that are updated as new data come to light. In other words, Fuchs argued, the wave function does not describe the world — it describes the observer. “Quantum mechanics,” he says, “is a law of thought.”
Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism as Fuchs now calls it, solves many of quantum theory’s deepest mysteries. Take, for instance, the infamous “collapse of the wave function,” wherein the quantum system inexplicably transitions from multiple simultaneous states to a single actuality. According to QBism, the wave function’s “collapse” is simply the observer updating his or her beliefs after making a measurement. Spooky action at a distance, wherein one observer’s measurement of a particle right here collapses the wave function of a particle way over there, turns out not to be so spooky — the measurement here simply provides information that the observer can use to bet on the state of the distant particle, should she come into contact with it. But how, we might ask, does her measurement here affect the outcome of a measurement a second observer will make over there? In fact, it doesn’t. Since the wavefunction doesn’t belong to the system itself, each observer has her own. My wavefunction doesn’t have to align with yours.
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