Words are used for communicating what is the case to someone that lacks the knowledge of what is the case — Harry Hindu
This is so confused. It implies that no two things can ever be related — Luke
Q1: If relations exist in a mind-independent world, how can the mere fact of a relation between a rock on Earth and a rock on Alpha Centauri cause changes to either ? — RussellA
Q2: If relations don't cause changes in the world, then why do we think that relations exist in the world ? — RussellA
The difference between a predicate and an individual is clear in Wittgenstein's aRb, which makes use of Frege's logic — Banno
the incidental truth in RussellA's analysis is that predicates do not exist...RussellA's picture is perhaps a form of Platonism............Holding to such a picture would make understanding the Tractatus impossible.. — Banno
That it is written is a condition for me to comment not a cause that leads necessarily to me commenting. — Fooloso4
Intellectual dishonesty and cherry-picking. All of this ignores what I said in the same post you are replying to:That I was born is by change. The ability to comment is a necessary condition for me to do so, but my being born is not the cause of me commenting. — Fooloso4
So you are arguing with a straw-man.You seem to think that a single distant cause must necessarily determine a single effect in the future. The further back in time you go from some effect, the more causes become necessary for that effect to occur, not just one. If you want to talk about the cause that directly precedes you leaving a comment on this forum, then we'd be pointing to the last step in the process which would be something like the software the forum is running on working correctly in displaying your comment after you clicked the submit button. — Harry Hindu
:rofl: You aren't even aware that you keep contradicting yourself. If causes are not necessary, then what your parents or their parents did or what the first humans did would have no necessary causal relation with your birth, but here you assumed that it does, or else why would you have mentioned these causes (which was not part of my list of causes) if they don't necessarily cause your birth? And you want to lecture me on logical necessity? :brow:I am not commenting because of what my parents did or their parents or what the first human did or because of life itself or that out of which life emerged. — Fooloso4
And if they didn't happen this way then we would find different reasons or causes as to why it happened differently.Right. We can in some grossly inadequate way trace what happened back to other things that happened. That is as far as we can go. That things did happen this way is not the same as claiming they necessarily had to happen this way. — Fooloso4
And you have yet to show an example of the same event that follows different causes. The problem is that every event is unique and so are their causes, but that isn't to say that events and their causes cannot be similar and it is the similarity that allows us to make predictions in the first place.Because those causes do not lead to a single necessary outcome. It is only after the fact that we can say what that outcome was. Again, the same conditions might have led to a different outcome. What happens is only one of the possibilities of what might have happened. — Fooloso4
What does it mean to follow, if not to be caused?The conclusion follows from the premises, the premises do not cause a certain conclusion. — Fooloso4
3.12 The sign through which we express the thought I call the propositional sign. And the proposition is the propositional sign in its projective relation to the world.
How do you get from "the proposition is the propositional sign" to "propositional signs are distinct from propositions"? — Harry Hindu
:roll: Did I hit a nerve? So you're saying that Witt is contradicting himself? I wouldn't have so much difficulty if you weren't just pulling your assertions out of your nether regions.This is why you have so much difficulty, Harry. A proposition is distinct from a propositional sign in that a proposition projects out into the world — Banno
You certainly haven't been any help in freeing me from this position because you can't adequately answer questions you should be asking yourself, so you'll remain stuck at "meaning is scribble games".So you remain stuck at "meaning is reference". — Banno
I really can't understand the need assert language as being external or distinct from the world or what it references. We can translate another language because it refers to the same world as the language we're translating to. It's a lame attempt to reject meaning as reference - a causal relation. Meaning is a causal relation. Language-use requires a medium and that medium is the world. Those the decipher languages exist in the world. The ideas that generate language use are in the world. You can't have it both ways. Language can't be part of the world AND external to it.I agree, language needs both description and acquaintance. Neither is sufficient by itself.
The Rosetta Stone couldn't be deciphered without there being something external to it. As Wittgenstein wrote 5.61 Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits, We cannot say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not. For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also. — RussellA
Q1: If relations exist in a mind-independent world, how can the mere fact of a relation between a rock on Earth and a rock on Alpha Centauri cause changes to either ?
— RussellA
What is the relation between them?
— Luke
Exactly, what is it ? — RussellA
Q2: If relations don't cause changes in the world, then why do we think that relations exist in the world ?
— RussellA
Why must the existence of relations cause changes in the world?
— Luke
Exactly, if relations don't cause changes in the world then how do we know about them ? — RussellA
Again, it was your presupposition that the existence of relations must cause changes in the world. I'm asking you why that must be. — Luke
I have seen evidence that changes in the world have been caused by forces between things, but forces are a different thing to relations. — RussellA
...Frege treats relations and universals as objects. For Frege, a property, a special kind of function, is not part of the object possessing it... — RussellA
There's your basic issue in understanding the Tractatus, since you are trying to work in two worlds while the Tractaus has exactly one - the conjunction of facts.I know there is a world in my mind and I believe there is also a world that is mind-independent. — RussellA
Well, no, since the latter has a parsing in first order logic, while "the relation C is an individual" cannot be parsed. Again, first order logic does not allow quantification over predicates. It only allows quantification over individual variables.The statement "the relation C is an individual" may be compared to "the King of France is bald", — RussellA
Where — Banno
This means that what can be said are only propositions of natural science and leaves out of the realm of sense a daunting number of statements which are made and used in language.
"There are, first, the propositions of logic itself. These do not represent states of affairs, and the logical constants do not stand for objects. “ — Tate
No, it does not. At most it says logic is senseless. Logic shows the structure of propositions, some of which picture the world. — Banno
It follows that only factual states of affairs which can be pictured can be represented by meaningful propositions. — SEP
There are, first, the propositions of logic itself. These do not represent states of affairs, — SEP
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.