Sure, so is Herbert Hoover president now?

It seems like a tautology isn't sufficient to make ontological claims about what obtains at a particular time, no? — Terrapin Station

What's your point? That wasn't what I intended. I was contrasting my logic with psychologism logic to show you why it wouldn't change from beforehand to afterwards. There is nothing in my logic to imply that it would change. If it obtains beforehand, and the same conditions for it obtaining remain in place, then obviously it will obtain afterwards. That was my point.

And it obtains in correspondence to the language rule. I don't think that the language rule would magically disappear or magically cease to apply. You draw different conclusions because you go by different premises. How many times are we going to have to go over this? It always comes back to you, but you always turn it back on me, so it ends up being a pretty pointless back and forth.

So, "If 'flirt' means 'give someone a sharp blow' or 'sneer at,' then 'flirt' means 'give someone a sharp blow' or 'sneer at'"? — Terrapin Station

That's a tautology, so it's obviously true.

Wouldn't that also go for "If Herbert Hoover is president, then Herbert Hoover is president," "If the Azure Window is in Malta, then the Azure Window is in Malta," "If Hershey's makes Reese's Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Cups, then Hershey's makes Reese's Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Cups," and so on? — Terrapin Station

Yes, these are more tautologies. It would be the epitome of unreasonableness to doubt them.

And down the rabbit hole you go again. Sorry, as long as I have the impression that you're not honestly engaging with my posts, I won't continue putting effort into a discussion with you. — Echarmion

Oh my god, what a joke. It's just a way of wording it which is relative or conditional, and yet maintains objectivity. Meaning is relative to the language rule. It's also a very common way of speaking: "What does 'chein' mean in English?", "It means 'dog' in English", "Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with that word in English, what does it mean?", "The word 'dog' in English means a furry creature with four legs and a tail which barks".

It would be very silly to expect me to involve a subject or subjectivity, like you do, so I hope that that wasn't what you were expecting from me. I consider language and meaning to be objective in the sense that I've been using throughout this discussion and the other one. In accordance with the language, x means y. How else can I even put that? That's about as fundamental as it gets.

I did watch parts of it. I am not sure how exactly it's relevant. I know what you mean, or what you want to establish. I just don't think it works that way.

If we go by ordinary language, the term "meaning" can be used as "I mean X" as well as "X means Y". So what is the proper, ordinary language use of meaning? I can make sense of "X means Y" as a short form of saying "When I (people) say X, I (they) mean (usually mean) Y". That seems like ordinary language use to me. — Echarmion

It means: in this language, x means y. That's also ordinary language use, and it doesn't have the problems of idealism.

You already know what my position is, I am not going to discuss this with you again.

I still don't know how I am supposed to know what words mean without referencing things I have experienced. — Echarmion

Fine, no one is forcing you to do anything you don't want to. But the problems remain. And this is not meant as an insult, but I genuinely don't believe you when you say that you don't know this meaning. I think that you think that you have to say that in order to maintain your position. I think that it's like the photocopier guy from the video when he asks what a photocopier is. Did you watch the video I'm referring to?

No, but I have seen, felt and heard rocks. And I've seen pictures of Mars (and also of rocks on Mars, but we can ignore that). So I have things to reference when you talk about rocks on Mars. — Echarmion

That might seem okay. That might seem like it works. But then we all die, and the very moment the last person in existence dies, those rocks on Mars immediately cease to exist. And you find this logical consequence plausible?

In fact, it's worse than that. You've not been generalising. You've been talking about yourself. So it's solipsism, then?

Meh - I have two that are easily twice that, on this forum. — Banno

Yeah? I bet they didn't get closed prematurely. If I didn't act like such a smartarse, it probably would've just kept going to infinity.

But since S has specifically criticized that part, I think there is no way around language referencing observations. I just cannot think of any other way I know what things are other than to reference things I have seen, heard, felt etc. — Echarmion

So you've seen, heard, and felt rocks on Mars?

"Set" is a name used to pick out a group of different particular things. — creativesoul

No, that talks about a word. My question was about a thing. De re, not de dicto.

A set of rules is a group of rules. — creativesoul

I'm not looking for the kind of answers you're giving. I could have given these kind of answers myself. You're doing it wrong.

I'm asking what kind of thing is a group, fundamentally.

That's debatable... obviously. — creativesoul

Yes, I'm not looking for obvious and unhelpful comments like that.

Perhaps a better question is this... — creativesoul

Please stop doing that. I'm asking the questions here. It's my discussion, not yours. I'm the chairperson, not you.

Shared meaning being used to influence the world and/or ourselves. — creativesoul

If you include "being used" in your definition, then there will be no language when it's not being used. Are you okay with that? Because I'm not.

Meaning is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. — creativesoul

Just to clarify, I'm exclusively talking about linguistic meaning in this discussion. I don't care about, "Oh gosh, that means a lot to me".

The setting of linguistic meaning seems dependent on that. Why would linguistic meaning be dependent on that?

There is only one creature in existence. A creature draws a correlation between this and that: "In this language, this means that". He writes it down. The creature dies a minute later. Why would the linguistic meaning he set die with him? Why wouldn't this mean that in the language? These are the questions that no one properly answers. Properly means giving a fully justified answer instead of just asserting a necessary dependence.

I find that none of those notions can take proper account of meaning. — creativesoul

Real helpful. It's ontology or nothing. If you refuse to do ontology, then you're just not cooperating. You must think on that level, and begin to categorise in that way.

I enjoy seeing you get your knickers in a twist.

But please be a man for once and admit that you were off topic as much as me. — Sir2u

No, we were at cross purposes with you apparently talking past me. I stuck to the original topic. You made it about something else. I tried to steer the conversion back to the original topic. Don't try to make out as though I'm complicit in your act of taking things off track.

When those two things line up, the credibility of the Church will be restored. — Jake

Yeah right. The stench of this scandal is going to follow the Church around for a long, long time to come, even if they manage to get a grip on it. And rightly so.

But I enjoyed it and that is what counts, at least for me. — Sir2u

Well yeah, the schadenfreude at your expense was quite satisfying, but it's odd that you got so much enjoyment out of it.

The same applies to you.

In none of the posts I made along that line of discussion did I refer to gun control, for the simple reason that we were discussing armed societies being normal not gun control.
The only times I mentioned guns was to respond to your comment about wounds and that people might buy them for protection.
There was no change of topic, just parallel discussions. The same thing happened when I was talking to andrewk, separate discussion.

I wonder if you would have even looked at the list of references if I has not specifically mentioned them. And if would would care to take note, I posted the link as a reference to the UK being violent nothing about guns.
The fact that you continued to talk only about guns is your problem, but I have been talking about something else as well — Sir2u

The original comment about armed societies was clearly about firearms, not any old weapon. Not slingshots, maces, dynamite, or lightsabers. So it's you, and whoever you were discussing this tangent with, who has gone off topic and taken the phrase out of context.

Jesus. What a waste of time that was.

Anyway, I rejoined when you and some other guy were talking about shooting criminals. If not with firearms, then with what? Water pistols?

And of course the UK is violent. What place isn't? That's a massive climb down from your original claim. You should be more open about the fact that the original claim was shown to be dubious. I took one look at that link and raised an eyebrow. And lo and behold...

Hey guys, look, this website says that guns aren't that bad after all:

www.obviously-dodgy-rightwing-propoganda.com

Seems legit! :rofl:

From a philosophy perspective, wouldn't it be better for the staff to add a post that says, "we (the site administrators) think the position of S is nonsense. — ZhouBoTong

Oh god, no. There'd be one of those in every discussion I involved myself in. That's already an invisible signpost which follows me around. They wouldn't recognise my good sense if it ran up to them and slapped them round the face! To them, everything I say is utter nonsense.

Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But not far off.

I would also note that the thread was SO active there was likely to be a bit of banter mixed in. It had over 600 posts in just a couple weeks (when closed I had four responses waiting for me). — ZhouBoTong

Did you hear that, @Banno? :grin:

I'm more confused than ever. What would it have to do with logic? — Terrapin Station

Remember this?

But once they're established, I simply ask: wherefore art thou, necessary dependency?

I go by the realist logic, which seems very reasonable to me, that if x means y, then x means y.

I don't go by any logic which I think Russell would call psychologism. That is, something like: x means y if x means y & if and only if x is understood by S & y is understood by S &... — S

So, beforehand, x means y. And, absent any contradiction, afterwards, x still means y. You create your own contradiction because of your additional premises. But I don't have that problem. Neither do you, internally, but then you have logical consequences I find weird and implausible. For you, x just wouldn't mean y anymore. But that is not at all convincing to me.

I'm not saying it can't be what the word means in English. I'm querying how that works. It works in some nonphysical way in your view? — Terrapin Station

No, I'm more sceptical than that. If it is physical, then I am not in possession of an explanation in that regard of which I'm convinced. It could be nonphysical, as far as my knowledge goes. I also still haven't even ruled out the physical-nonphysical being a category error.

It works if the logic works, it seems to me. You go by your unnecessary phychologism logic which creates problems for you. I only go by what is necessary and cut out the extra with Ockham's razor.

We write down "planet . . . " and then that causes some nonphysical thing to happen? — Terrapin Station

It's logic, whatever that counts as. And we don't even need to write it down. You just need to provide a justified basis for the logic to suddenly stop applying.

the expression *is* the rule — Mww

The mashed is the potato? :brow:

You mash a potato. You express a...?

A rule!

There's the potato.

And there's the mashing of it.

There's the rule.

And there's the expression of it.

A potato is a potato, and mashed potato is mashed potato. A potato is not mashed potato. When I say that I'm going to mash this potato, I'm not saying that I'm going to mash this mashed potato.

A rule is a rule, and an expressed rule is an expressed rule. A rule is not an expressed rule. When I say that I'm going to express this rule, I'm not saying that I'm going to express this expressed rule.

Admit it, your language is completely whack, as this logical demonstration shows.

So first, we're going to assume that it doesn't "magically change" when there are no people around.

If it doesn't magically change, and meaning exists independently of people once it's created, then once people are absent, there should still be meaning. So, the question becomes this: in a world with no people, how exactly does a dictionary, for example, amount to meaning, when all we're talking about is a set of ink marks on some paper? — Terrapin Station

Well, you still seem to have your physicalist cap on. I am not a physicalist like you, so I don't share the same set of beliefs which you do. You might well be talking about a set of ink marks and nothing else. I, however, am talking about a set of ink marks which are also pages and pages of definitions written in the English language. The ink marks would say things like, "planet - a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit round a star". Why wouldn't that be what the word meant in English, as per the definition? I've asked this question so many times, but I never get back a properly justified answer, because it always goes back to some fundamental unjustified premise or way of speaking.

Again, this is what it was before, and it doesn't magically change, and there is no alternative for concluding such a change which has been properly justified.

If your argument goes something like, "Given physicalism...", or, "Given subjective meaning...", then it won't work on me. You would first need to convince me of that before going any further.

What are rules themselves existentially dependent upon?
— creativesoul

The rules would have to depend on some kind of communication. Otherwise they cannot be shared. — Echarmion

For their existence? So for there to be rules, there must be communication? They must be able to be shared? Which obviously necessitates subjects to do the communication. To do the sharing.

That was after all what the question was explicitly asking about: existence. If so, then that's a controversial assumption which would require justification.

The rules then consist of a bunch of connections of symbols (in any form) to observations, and connections of symbols to other connections and other symbols. — Echarmion

But when you say that, it becomes boring, because you're forcing idealism through defining rules in terms of observations.

If there are rules, then by definition there are observations, and if there are observations, then there must be observers. :yawn:

Is this really all that idealism has to offer? One can define virtually anything into being true. But that's trivial.

How about this? Rules are supposed to be followed, and following has a connection with our Creator. So, since there are rules, our Creator exists. There can't be the one without the other.

It's just like with rocks. I take a normal dictionary definition. You then add the interpretation that it's about observations. I could just as well take the additional interpretation that it's about our Creator, so that where there are rocks, there is our Creator. Or, alternatively, we could be sensible and cut that out with Ockham's razor.

I don't see your argument here. Both, "he has eggs for breakfast", and, "people should respect others and wait their turns", are written in words. The fact that you say "it is an unwritten rule" does not negate the fact that it is actually written in words.

Try this. Take away the words "he has eggs for breakfast", Now, the person gets up every morning and has eggs for breakfast, nice pattern. How does this pattern become a rule, unless it is stated as such? Or do you think the person gets up and thinks there is a rule that I must have eggs every morning for breakfast therefore I must have eggs, and so decides to have eggs? And try the other, so-called unwritten rule, "people should respect others and wait there turn". Take away those words, and what are you left with? It's certainly not "a rule". — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, this amounts to nothing other than a) expressed rules are expressed rules, and b) I assume that rules must be expressed, therefore they are. That's a tautology which misses the point, followed by begging the question.

That you claim that you can't comprehend a rule that isn't expressed is not a logically valid basis for concluding that rules must be expressed, just as you claiming that you couldn't comprehend a potato that isn't mashed would not be a valid basis for concluding that potatoes must be mashed. The fallacy this time around is known as an argument from incredulity.

It's not very productive to engage with that, except as a game of spot the fallacy to keep us on our toes. But if you want to move beyond that, then you would have to up your game. A lot.

Sure, I agreed with Janus on this point. But not all cases of behavioural patterns are cases of rule following. So the premise "if there is behavioural patterns, there is rule following" is not a true premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, but it makes sense to call the behavioural patterns in question rule following, as Janus plausibly argued. If you don't want to call them that, then you're free to do so, but if you were to say that it doesn't make sense to call them that, then that would ring hollow.

sure, and we can never be absolutely, truly a bunch of things. Does the inability of purity make the quest less important? — Rank Amateur

No, certainly not. It just means that it could amount to a foolish endeavour.

except there is no "truth" or "wisdom" judge to give you the absolute and un-biased truth that you really are a fool. Although - there will be no shortage of impostures that tell you they are - and that you are — Rank Amateur

Yes, there is no such judge. We can only judge for ourselves as best we can.

You too?? — Rank Amateur

Ah, but the difference is that I'm not an impostor. That's everyone else. :grin:

how about something like an objective search for truth as you perceive truth to be, and acting in accordance with your truth. — Rank Amateur

The problem is that we can never truly be objective, in the sense you seem to mean here. And that it could still be unwise, or so it seems to me, to go out searching for what we perceive truth to be, and acting in accordance with this perceived truth, which might not be true at all. Or should we all go on a wild goose chase, so long as we believe we can catch one?

But your stab at it is along the same lines as my stab at it, and I think that both of our stabs at it are better than Pattern-chaser's, who seems to have thrown his toys out of the pram after I criticised his attempt.

Anyway, here's what I really think about wisdom.

Poe's Law. :smile: — Necuno

I prefer Cole's Law. But not too much mayonnaise.

Baden, stop making bad jokes.

Alrighty then. See ya around Play-Doh Bollocks Cunt. (That one was for Baden :kiss: ).

You’re running out of interesting things to say it seems. So, you might want to put your thinking cap on. Or do you put that on your vagina? — Noah Te Stroete

My thinking cap is also my badass cap. And I put it on my head, as opposed to my giant balls. I'm wearing it right now, as it happens. I save my giant balls for your mother. The cap would get in the way.

That’s almost right. Your talking vagina family is the exception. I guess you were created in His image. — Noah Te Stroete

We all were, or so the story goes. So we're all talking vaginas, even you and your talking vagina family who spend all day rolling around in a marsh.

And what did your mom’s vagina say when you came out of it? “Damn. Too late for an abortion.” — Noah Te Stroete

Vaginas can't speak. Except for the Holy Vagina up above. He can do anything, apparently, if you believe the fairytales.

My mother wasn’t a Te Stroete, moron. — Noah Te Stroete

Well then at least she didn't spend all day rolling around in a marsh! At least until she met your father.

Where we evolved into men with balls, not into talking vaginas. — Noah Te Stroete

So your mother was a man with balls?

Me: Hey, what’s your name?
S: Sissy
Me: Fuck you, Sissy. — Noah Te Stroete

What's that? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention because I was watching your entire family roll around in a marsh like filthy animals.

“S” stands for little “sissy”. — Noah Te Stroete

"Stroete" suggests your ancestors lived in a filthy marsh.

So I can kick them into your throat. — Noah Te Stroete

Your mum's a throat.

What? But it's brimming with philosophical value!

I pray you grow a pair. — Noah Te Stroete

So that you have something to suck on?

I would respond to that, but I don’t respond to people who talk out of their vaginas. — Noah Te Stroete

You don't pray?

Ooh. Fighting talk from a whiny little bitch. :lol:

Right, I think this is the important point here. And to relate this to what I say above, it is this expression in language which gives the principle, or rule its particularity and this is its existence as a thing. That's what I told S, in the question about abstraction. An abstraction only exists as a thing, if there is a symbol. The symbol is what allows the abstraction to have actual existence as a thing. One might try to separate the principle or rule, from the language which expresses it, like one might try to separate the abstraction from the symbol which represents it, but there is no sense to this unless we allow that the symbol is prior to the principle represented, and then what is the symbol at that time before it represents something? It can't be said to be a symbol. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to be muddling up representation and expression. That a symbol represents a thing is obviously a representation. Whereas if I say, "This symbol represents that thing", that's obviously an expression. I'm not saying that a rule doesn't need to represent or correspond to anything. I'm saying that it doesn't need to be expressed. The rule and the expression of a rule are two different things, obviously. Why else would we have different words at our disposal for distinguishing between the two? How are you going to explain that one away? Do you really interpret me to be saying that the rule and the rule are two different things? I don't think so. I think that that would require a conscious effort on your part. It seems very disingenuous.

Also, a rule presupposes a language for its expression. — Mww

How are some people going so spectacularly wrong here in terms of logical relevancy? No one here should be talking about language being necessary for a rule to be expressed.

I can give you countless examples of rules which exist in the form of language, and could not exist without language to express them. In order to disprove my inductive conclusion, that rules require language to express them, you need to present some rules which do not require language to express them, or demonstrate how the rules which we express in language could exist without language. Otherwise you might reject my inductive conclusion, but your rejection is rather meaningless. And, an inductive conclusion is based in observation and reason, it is not a matter of "begging the question" as you are wont to say. — Metaphysician Undercover

What you call your inductive conclusion is an irrelevant conclusion. It is both true and beside the point that rules require language to express them. I'm not going to keep repeating that. And I certainly don't need to meet your unreasonable criterion of expressing rules without expressing them.

What you need to validly demonstrate is not that rules require language to express them, but that rules do not exist independently of their expression in language, which is to deny that there can be a rule at a given moment in time, and at that time it is not being expressed in language.

Please be careful not to misunderstand the relevant sense of independence here. It is either the sense described above, or it is your own sense, and your own sense is not relevant to my argument, and if you go by it, then you'll just be talking past me, as you are wont to do.

You providing countless examples of rules expressed in language - which I can do myself - doesn't meet your burden of proof, just as showing me lots of white swans doesn't meet the burden of proof that there are no black swans.

An abstraction requires language, because a symbol is required to represent the thing abstracted. Otherwise the thing abstracted has no presence, and there is no such thing as the abstraction. You are using "abstraction" as a noun, not a verb. — Metaphysician Undercover

The existence of a symbol doesn't require that it be expressed in language, which is sufficient reason to believe that if abstractions are symbols, and rules are abstractions, then rules don't require to be expressed in language in order to exist. Even though that conclusion is obvious and a matter of common sense to begin with, so it shouldn't really need a logical argument behind it.