I believe in the outside world because Carmen is just too damn cute to not believe in! : — Vaskane

Damn, do you take care of this squirrel?

That is amazing.

A question popped up in my head. Are the facts part of the physical world?

By facts do you mean propositions or the state of affairs?

By facts do you mean propositions or the state of affairs? — Lionino

Both.

When it comes to propositions, the ink down on the paper is, but the propositional content represented by it is not. But a physicalist will say that there is only the ink down on the paper, and that any content represented by it exists as chemical reactions in our mind. Obviously, if the state of affairs that that fact talks about is about the physical world (and for physicalists that is the only state of affairs there is), the fact would be physical too.
So for physicalists, facts are physical or there are no facts; otherwise it would depend on whether you are talking about the type or the token, or whether the guy you are asking is an idealist, or what the fact is talking about.

So for physicalists, facts are physical or there are no facts — Lionino

So the physicalist has to claim that in a mindless -sorry!- brainless universe, facts still exist. That, to me, seems absurd, but the physicalist can say that an old Encyclopedia Brittanica book still contains facts, even if all the brains in the universe suddenly ceased to exist. OK, but what about a universe next door to us where there are no brains and there never have been, yet on a remote planet in that universe, an erosion pattern just happens to spell out (in English), Pi = 3.14... (the erosion pattern even includes the ellipsis). Is the physicalist going to say that that erosion pattern constitutes a fact in that universe? How, exactly, does that work?

And if so, and if there are countless intelligent beings in the multiverse speaking countless languages, then every erosion pattern on every world is a fact, since it's bound to refer to some fact in some language. That is an absurdity.

But if the materialist claims that my erosion example is not a fact, what about an erosion pattern in this universe that says Pi = 3.14...? Is that not a fact? What if I wrote down Pi = 3.14...? THAT, they would have to concede, is a fact, but how is that different than the erosion pattern? If facts are physical, it doesn't matter HOW the fact came about, it's still a fact.

nrt, and it's long, so please don't be mad, but i'm, not at all sure i really believe in anything. in fact, i would say that i have certain quasi moral values with more conviction than i do any belief about the world. and long may it not last ha

But a physicalist will say that there is only the ink down on the paper, and that any content represented by it exists as chemical reactions in our mind. — Lionino

It seems like some form of superstition. A couple of days ago in one of the new thread here, the OP was claiming that he witnessed the actual wave of gravity with telescope, and it must be the physical existence of spacetime. It sounded like some religious beliefs of some cult folks claiming the earthquakes and hurricanes are act of the angry God or something.

So for physicalists, facts are physical or there are no facts; — Lionino

We are not denying the existence of physicals or substances, but they themselves are not facts or minds.

otherwise it would depend on whether you are talking about the type or the token, or whether the guy you are asking is an idealist, or what the fact is talking about. — Lionino

Wittgenstein said in TLP "The world is the totality of facts.", and it sounds interesting. It also sounds a kind of Solypsism. It cannot be said, but it presents itself. One's perception of the world is limited by one's knowledge of the facts of the world that one knows. The facts includes certain possibilities, impossibilities and logic that operates in the world. Could the facts one knows about the world he faces, and lives in, be the ultimate reason to believe in the existence of the world?

So the physicalist has to claim that in a mindless -sorry!- brainless universe, facts still exist. That, to me, seems absurd, but the physicalist can say that an old Encyclopedia Brittanica book still contains facts, even if all the brains in the universe suddenly ceased to exist. — RogueAI

I think there's an element of ambiguity here. For some, the word "fact" means "true sentence". For others the word "fact" refers to the aspect of the world that true sentences correspond to.

So for some "it is raining" is a fact if it is true.
For others "it is raining" is true if it refers to a fact.

The physicalist who says that there are facts in a brainless universe is just saying that the world exists and has certain features even if there's nobody around to see them or talk about them.

And I'll add, arguing over whether or not a fact is a true sentence or the thing that true sentences refer to is a meaningless argument. Just so long as you make explicit what you mean by "fact", use it however you want.

I think there's an element of ambiguity here. For some, the word "fact" means "true sentence". For others the word "fact" refers to the aspect of the world that true sentences correspond to.

So for some "it is raining" is a fact if it is true.
For others "it is raining" is true if it refers to a fact.

The physicalist who says that there are facts in a brainless universe is just saying that the world exists and has certain features even if there's nobody around to see them or talk about them.

And I'll add, arguing over whether or not a fact is a true sentence or the thing that true sentences refer to is a meaningless argument. Just so long as you make explicit what you mean by "fact", use it however you want. — Michael

"The physicalist who says that there are facts in a brainless universe is just saying that the world exists and has certain features even if there's nobody around to see them or talk about them."

I don't think they're saying just that. The physicalist says an encyclopedia volume is full of facts, right? However you want to define facts, the book is chock full of them. Many many more facts than a book with nothing but blank pages.

Now, all brains disappear. Did the facts in the book disappear? How could they, under the materialist worldview? There was no physical change to the book.

OK, now suppose before all the brains disappeared that a person had set up a machine to produce random books. All brains disappear and the machine hums along. Through a fantastic chance, it spits out a volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica. Is that encyclopedia volume also chock full of facts?

The physicalist says an encyclopedia volume is full of facts, right? — RogueAI

It's full of true sentences about mountains. It's not full of mountains.

Did the facts in the book disappear? — RogueAI

What do you mean by "fact"? Do you mean "true sentence" or do you mean the thing that a true sentence describes?

For my examples, fact = "true sentence" works fine. So, do facts still exist in a universe where all brains disappear?

For my examples, fact = "true sentence" works fine. — RogueAI

Is that what the physicalist means by "fact"? Or do they mean the thing that a true sentence describes?

Is that what the physicalist means by "fact"? Or do they mean the thing that a true sentence describes? — Michael

They're going to have to say that a science textbook is full of facts! How can it not be?

They're going to have to say that a science textbook is full of facts! How can it not be? — RogueAI

They can say that a science textbook is full of true sentences that refer to facts.

They can say that a science textbook is full of true sentences that refer to facts. — Michael

That seems a little wordy. Why wouldn't they just say that a science textbook has a lot of facts about the world?

I bounced it off ChatGpt:

"For example:

"Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level." This is a true statement about the physical world and qualifies as a fact because it accurately describes a well-established property of water."

Is there a problem with that?

That seems a little wordy. Why wouldn't they just say that a science textbook has a lot of facts about the world? — RogueAI

Maybe they would, but they don't have to.

Or maybe they use the word "fact" to refer to both true sentences and the things that true sentences describe, and so whenever they say something about facts it is important to understand which meaning they are using at the time.

You're getting too confused by ambiguous language, so just forget the word "fact" entirely.

Physicalists claim that for all X the sentence "X exists" is true iff it describes some physical feature of the world, and that many of these physical features of the world would continue to exist even if intelligent life were to die out.

OK, so replace all instances of "fact" in my examples with "true sentence". The encyclopedia is full of true sentences, even if all brains disappear, right? Is the randomly produced encyclopedia volume in the brainless universe also full of true sentences?

The encyclopedia is full of true sentences, even if all brains disappear, right? Is the randomly produced encyclopedia volume in the brainless universe also full of true sentences? — RogueAI

Well let's imagine a hypothetical physicalist:

1. In a brainless universe there are no true sentences; books simply contain ink printed on paper
2. Everything that exists in a brainless universe is a physical object (or process)

Is there a problem with this position?

So let's imagine a hypothetical physicalist:

1. In a brainless universe there are no true sentences; the book simply contains ink printed on a page
2. Everything that exists in a brainless universe is a physical object (or process)

Is there a problem with this position? — Michael

I think so. At time T, a book is said to contain true sentences. At T1, all brains disappear. Also at T1, no physical change happened to the book. But at T1, the book no longer contains true sentences??? How did they disappear? Are true sentences not physical things? If true sentences are physical things, how did they disappear without a physical change happening? If they are not physical things, what exactly are they?

At T₁ the ball is someone's property. At T₂ everybody dies. Nothing physical has changed about the ball but it is no longer someone's property.

At T₁ the ink markings are a true sentence. At T₂ everybody dies. Nothing physical has changed about the ink markings but they are no longer a true sentence.

There's certainly a sense in which we can say, of the above, that property and true sentences "cease to exist" if everybody dies, but there's also a sense in which the things which were property and were true sentences continue to exist even if everybody dies – they're just no longer property or true sentences.

Again, this is down to the ambiguity of language. Clear up the language and there's less of an issue.

Unless you want to argue that the concept of property disproves physicalism? I think that may over-interpret the physicalist's claim, but I'll leave it to a physicalist to comment on whether or not being someone's property is a physical state of affairs.

At time T1 the ink markings are a true sentence. At T2 everybody dies. Nothing physical has changed about the ink markings, but they are no longer a true sentence. — Michael

I think that's a big problem for materialism.

So for physicalists, facts are physical or there are no facts; otherwise it would depend on whether you are talking about the type or the token, or whether the guy you are asking is an idealist, or what the fact is talking about. — Lionino

I think Lionino is right, which is why I was using "fact". But "true sentence" works just as well. The materialist claims a "true sentence" is a physical thing. What else could it be? But when all brains disappear, all true sentences undergo a change: they are no longer true. All changes are physical, so the change from "true sentence" to "sentence" has to be a physical change, but nothing physical happened to all the true sentences. The only thing that happened was all brains disappeared.

The materialist can avoid all that by simply claiming that the truth of a sentence is dependent on a brain (also whether something is someone's property), but isn't that a little like what an idealist would say? That truth is mind-dependent? Except, instead of mind-dependent, it's brain-dependent. But how does that dependence work exactly? How does this system of neurons and chemicals inside a skull confer something like "truth" onto a collection of ink markings? What does a purely physical account of that process look like? And is "truth" physical? What else could it be? What is truth made out of? How heavy is it?

I think that's a big problem for materialism. — RogueAI

Why? Is the below a big problem for materialism?

At T₁ the ball is someone's property. At T₂ everybody dies. Nothing physical has changed about the ball but it is no longer someone's property.

Mount Everest is the highest mountain. K2 is the second highest mountain. Mount Everest is destroyed. K2 is now the highest mountain. Something about K2 has changed even though nothing about K2 has physically changed.

This seems to highlight a problem with superveniance rather than a problem with physicalism more broadly. You have a similar sort of problem when a detective can tell that a cup of coffee has been recently prepared because its heat varies from that of the general environment. Information is essentially relational, it does not exist simpliciter.

K2 becoming the tallest mountain after Everest is hit with a meteor or atomic bomb seems like something that is certainly describable in "physical terms." The relationship of mountains' height to one another is a physical relationship, in the same way that a coffee cup having a higher temperature that the ambient environment is a physical relationship between the cup and the environment. The problem is with the idea of supervenience, and perhaps with the idea of discrete objects existing as fundemental ontological objects in the first place. In a universe composed of one universal process, it doesn't make sense to talk of superveniance.

That said, physicalism has commonly been defined in terms of superveniance and causal closure. If you remove these, particularly if you move to a process metaphysics, it starts to be unclear exactly what claims physicalism makes outside of the trivial "everything that exists is physical and only real things have real effects."




The conventions around what constitutes facts versus states of affairs versus events versus propositions in contemporary metaphysics involves a lot of hair splitting. In general though, facts are the bearers of truth values. They are not abstract entities like propositions, but are rather the concrete entities that propositions are "about."

So, a science text book would (hopefully) be full of true propositions that describe facts, states of affairs, and events. It wouldn't contain facts or events themselves, although obviously the way the word "fact" is often used would allow us to say such books are full of facts.

TBH, I am not sure if these distinctions are necessarily useful. How you define truth has a lot to do with how we might view propositions. If truth is conceived of in terms of "accuracy of a description" then truth = fact, since something is always a complete description of itself. Propositions are descriptions of facts, but there can also be facts about propositions.

Really, a modern Porphry needs to come along to write an Isagoge to sort this sort of thing out.

I actually deleted that comment because I recognise that mountain height isn’t the best example. I think my previous comment about property is more pertinent.

Why? Is the below a big problem for materialism?

At T1 the ball is someone's property. At T2 everybody dies. Nothing physical has changed about the ball but it is no longer someone's property. — Michael

Is "truth" a physical thing? Is "belonging to" a physical thing? They have to be, right? So, we have two physical things: "ball" and "belongs to so-and-so" (or "truth" and "sentence"). And somehow those two things become attached or combined. But only when a lump of meat in a skull is involved! How does that work? Why is a brain necessary for that?

Why? Is the below a big problem for materialism?

At T1 the ball is someone's property. At T2 everybody dies. Nothing physical has changed about the ball but it is no longer someone's property. — Michael

So the ball loses "is someone's property" and gains "was someone's property".

A couple of days ago in one of the new thread here, the OP was claiming that he witnessed the actual wave of gravity with telescope, and it must be the physical existence of spacetime. — Corvus

Well, you can see gravitational waves insofar as you observe them by checking the spatial distortion that they cause. Maybe that is what they were getting at but I did not see that thread. Not sure what the connection is with what I said though.

We are not denying the existence of physicals or substances, but they themselves are not facts or minds. — Corvus

For someone who defends physicalism, they are.

Could the facts one knows about the world he faces, and lives in, be the ultimate reason to believe in the existence of the world? — Corvus

I would say no because those facts could be a fabrication of the mind.

I don't know if this makes a difference. The relationship the ball (physical) stands in to people (physical) has changed due to the death of all people (a physical change). It only looks different at first glance because physicalism itself tends to have a sort of cryptodualism built into it, such that mental events, which are presumably ultimately physical if physicalism is true, are seen as somehow "less real." Thus, concepts like ownership can seem "less real."

But I don't think this has to be a problem. Physicalism just needs to let go of the flawed idea that everything can be explained in a way similar to mathematical physics. This is a sort of synecdoche by which one aspect of reality, that which is subject to quantification, is taken to be the whole.