One may describe what a neural net does in propositional terms, post hoc. But there are no propositions present in neural nets. Neural networks do not function by making use of propositions — Banno
More ellipsis. — Banno
sometimes we use propositions. — Banno
There is some number n where n >= 0 such that “there are n coins in the jar” is true even if nobody has counted them. — Michael
And how do you account for two people making contradictory judgements, much like you and I here? Is it just the case that we disagree or is it also the case that one of us is right and one of us is wrong? — Michael
Neural networks are not von neumann machines. They do not manipulate symbols, they modify weightings.
We agree on that, at least? — Banno
I believe there is a Kantian distinction between the "thing in itself" and noumena..... — Janus
the former is a purely formal or logical requirement to the effect that if there is something as perceived there must be a corresponding thing as it is in itself...... — Janus
.....Noumena I take to signify the general hidden or invisible nature of what is affecting us pre-cognitively such as to manifest as perceptual phenomena. — Janus
A flat-earther can claim to know that the world is flat. He nonetheless doesn't know that.
— Andrew M
That's what you say. He says he knows it, you say he does not know it. It's your word against his. We can move to analyze the justification, and show that your belief is better justified than his, but this still doesn't tell us whether one or the other is true. And if you argue that his is not knowledge, it's not because his belief is not true that it's not knowledge, it's because it's not justified. So we cannot establish the relationship between knowledge and true, in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover
If anything which may turn out to be false in the future cannot be correctly called knowledge, then there is no such thing as knowledge, because we cannot exclude the possibility of mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover
It's more accurate to define "knowledge" as the principles that one holds and believes, which they apply in making decisions. That is a person's knowledge, regardless of the fact that it may later turn out to be wrong. This way, we don't have to decide at a later date that the knowledge we held before wasn't really knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover
And the knowledge we hold now will later turn out to be not knowledge, onward and onward so that there is no such thing as something we can truly call "knowledge" because we can never exclude the possibility of mistake — Metaphysician Undercover
Ok. I would rather think the ding an sich as merely an ontological necessity; if there is an affect on us by a thing, the thing-in-itself is given immediately by it. The only difference between a thing and a thing-in-itself.....is us. So your notion of formal and logical requirement is too strong, methinks. — Mww
It doesn’t hurt anything to think noumena as you say, but that wouldn’t the Kantian distinction. Simply put, phenomena arise legitimately according to rules. Noumena arise illegitimately by overstepping the rules. Noumena are possible iff what we consider as rules by which our intelligence works, are themselves unfounded, which is of course, quite impossible to prove. Which leaves them as entirely possible to another kind of intelligence altogether. Who knows....maybe that stupid lion thinks in terms of non-sensuous intuition, such that for his kind noumena are the standard. Too bad we can’t just ask him, huh? — Mww
Infallibility isn't a condition of knowledge, as ordinarily defined and used. — Andrew M
f it is later decided that your "knowledge" was wrong, then that just is to decide that you didn't have knowledge, as ordinarily understood. Thus we have a translation between ordinary usage and your way of speaking. — Andrew M
What do you think....is there a definition other than the nominal, that defines what truth is? — Mww
There seems to be a contradiction here. The second quoted passage seems to be saying that if what we thought was knowledge turns out not to be true, then it was never knowledge in the first place. Doesn't it follow that knowledge (as distinct from what we might think is knowledge) cannot be false; and thus that it is infallible? — Janus
So infallibility is not a condition of knowledge, whereas truth is. Another way of putting it is that Cartesian certainty isn't a condition of knowledge. — Andrew M
But isn't truth infallible in the sense of its being incapable of being false? Your reference to Cartesian certainty suggests to me that we may be talking at cross proposes, so I'm not proposing that possessing knowledge means that one knows one is infallibly correct, but that the knowledge we possess, if it is to be knowledge, must be infallible. — Janus
I have wondered whether it ought to be said that we possess knowledge in cases where we cannot be certain, that is when we do not know that we know, but that is a whole other can of worms. — Janus
Infallibility isn't a condition of knowledge, as ordinarily defined and used. — Andrew M
I'm not proposing that possessing knowledge means that one knows one is infallibly correct, but that the knowledge we possess, if it is to be knowledge, must be infallible. — Janus
So given that, from your description of "hidden states" -- I'd say these things are absolutely not connected. First we don't even have concepts with your neural model, that's sort of just "assumed" to ride along with the firing of neurons. And then with all the causal language being used "noumena" seems wholly innappropriate as a boundary condition for this discussion. I'd say this falls under "empirical psychology", so the transcendental conditions of knowledge won't effect what we have to say here even if we are Kantians. — Moliere
I suppose the error theorist's task, then, is to lay out what discriminates a fantasy from a purposeful story -- "story" in the sense of our ability to parse the world into story form, ala "purposeful fiction". — Moliere
it is also evident, to me at least, that our language and how we conceive mentality does not match up, in any simple way, with this description. Now what? — Srap Tasmaner
What I think we need to be careful about, is thinking the mismatch between a particular scientific model, on the one hand, and a philosophical one, on the other, indicates that one has not sufficiently slurped up the other yet, but it will. It's that "if all you have is a hammer" thing. — Srap Tasmaner
"purposeful fictions" still contains the problematic "fiction"; I wonder if "narrative" would be better, leaping from non-symbolic to symbolic representation. Or perhaps "invention", we invent the kettle from the hidden state; but that loses something of the cooperative aspect. — Banno
We must at some stage look for a bone of contention between us; It'll be something to do with the move from a neural net to a narrative. To my eye, building on Searle, at some stage there is a move from a hidden state to a narrative about a kettle, that has a logical form something like "This hidden state counts as a kettle"... — Banno
I believe there is a Kantian distinction between the "thing in itself" and noumena; the former is a purely formal or logical requirement to the effect that if there is something as perceived there must be a corresponding thing as it is in itself. .'Noumena' I take to signify the general hidden or invisible nature of what is affecting us pre-cognitively such as to manifest as perceptual phenomena. — Janus
But until someone does, there is no such thing as the number of coins in the jar. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are just begging the question Michael. — Metaphysician Undercover
The flat earther will say he is justified in making his claim, you say he is not justified. It's your word against his. — Andrew M
Infallibility isn't a condition of knowledge, as ordinarily defined and used. — Andrew M
If it is later decided that your "knowledge" was wrong, then that just is to decide that you didn't have knowledge, as ordinarily understood. — Andrew M
By that argument, there is also no such thing as something we can truly call a "kettle" because we can never exclude the possibility of mistake. — Andrew M
So are you saying that the number of coins in the jar is in some sort of superposition of all possible numbers until someone counts them? — Michael
Forget the word "true" for the moment: what kind of (meta)physics are you suggesting describes the nature of the world? — Michael
I am asserting what our best understanding of the world entails. You brought up quantum mechanics earlier to support your argument, so you appear to accept the findings of scientific enquiry, and the findings of scientific enquiry are that the number of coins in the jar isn't in a superposition of all possible numbers until counted.
I would say that you are begging the question, saying that "there is no such thing as the number of coins in the jar [until counted]" without any evidence or reasoning. — Michael
Surely we know our collective fiction (which is the model, which is the world) in exactly the same way, and with the same level of surety, that we know Aragorn was king of Gondor. So, whence surprise?
— Luke
From hidden states. — Isaac
Who said anything about the world surprising us? — Isaac
Since it is possible that our model could be false in at least some respects, and that we could be surprised, it follows that there is more to truth than a mere "collective fiction".
— Luke
This is only true if the terms are interchangeable (that truth is about the model being surprising), otherwise your conclusion doesn't follow, hence you begged the question by assuming that relation in your argument for it. — Isaac
I take the position of redundancy to be that there are no matters outside of language, and that the model is equivalent to the world, whether that is your personal view or not.
— Luke
I really don't know where you're getting that idea from. — Isaac
There is no number already assigned to the coins prior to being counted, just like there is no location already assigned to the electron prior to being determined. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now do you honestly believe that a particular number has already been singled out, and related to the quantity of coins in the jar, prior to them being counted? — Metaphysician Undercover
he says that if there are representations, then there must be something that is represented....... — Janus
.......I had interpreted this as being seen by Kant as a logical entailment. You seem to be saying it is an ontological entailment, so I'm wondering if there is a difference. — Janus
I took noumena to signify what is unknowable, beyond even being thought of as thing or things. — Janus
what are the implications of Kant's ideas, what we might think is implicit in them — Janus
I am no Kant scholar, merely someone who has read some of his CPR and secondary sources about it.... — Janus
What do you think....is there a definition other than the nominal, that defines what truth is?
— Mww
I don't think so. Regarding your question, what do you think? — Andrew M
The truth of the phrase "the number of coins in the jar" implies that there is one specific number attached to, associated with, or related to, the quantity of coins in the jar. Can you agree with that? Now do you honestly believe that a particular number has already been singled out, and related to the quantity of coins in the jar, prior to them being counted? How is that possible? — Metaphysician Undercover
I am linking description (space of reasons, account, value system) , to scheme , scheme to pattern and pattern to reciprocal network of relations. Tying all of these together within an enactivist approach are a connected set of concepts characteristic of autonomous living systems: organizational and operation closure and sensory-motor structural coupling between organism and environment.Good. So we agree to moving away from a computational, representational approach to neural networking.
Then in what way does
description-dependence (go) all the way down.
— Joshs — Banno
I am linking description (space of reasons, account, value system) , to scheme , scheme to pattern and pattern to reciprocal network of relations. — Joshs
Even here though... I like '...counts as'. — Isaac
would be to claim that neural science is imaginary...In contrast, the latter thinks that Davidsonian "physical properties" and "the micro-structural level" are just theoretical suppositions that are meaningful only within a description or vocabulary. — Joshs
David Lewis has a paper that addresses infallibility. I've not read it yet. — Srap Tasmaner
Lewis argues that S knows that p is true iff S is in a position to rule out all possibilities in which p is false. But when we say S knows that p, we don’t mean to quantify over all possibilities there are, only over the salient possibilities.
...
The kind of position Lewis defends here, which came to be known as contextualism, has been a central focus of inquiry in epistemology for the last fifteen years. “Elusive Knowledge”, along with papers such as Cohen (1986) and DeRose (1995) founded this research program. — David Lewis - SEP
The flat earther will say he is justified in making his claim, you say he is not justified. It's your word against his.
— Andrew M
Right, but saying "I'm justified" is not acceptable justification. Nor is an appeal to authority, or to the norms of our society. — Metaphysician Undercover
Infallibility is a condition of "truth" as you use it, and "truth" is a condition of knowledge. So infallibility is a condition of knowledge, under those terms. — Metaphysician Undercover
I define "true" with honesty. So if one honestly believes the item is "a kettle" then the person will truly call it a kettle, despite the fact that someone else might truly call it "une bouilloire". — Metaphysician Undercover
Excluding the possibility of mistake is not required for a human being to speak truthfully. That is supposed to be a feature of God, but not human beings. — Metaphysician Undercover
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