Pre-linguistically, we humans can do alright. — Richard B

Or post-limguistically

This was in my YouTube feed, thought you would appreciate it. I guess Mary Tiles was right: some people are starting to rethink actual infinity in favor of potential Infinity.

Some parts of communication are hardwired, like the general framework. I think a lot of the things we take to be abstract objects have their reality in expectations.

But he hasn't presented anything even approaching an argument. — SophistiCat

Argument for what? The Hard Problem?

there are limits on what we can express in language, — Richard B

That's very true. I occasionally find myself thinking about scenes from Charlie Kaufman movies, my mind will just revolve around them endlessly.

Today I was thinking about the scene in Synecdoche where the main character is talking to his adult daughter. She has blood poisoning from a tattoo, and she can only speak German. She's lost the ability to speak English for some reason. She demands that the main character ask for forgiveness, and after trying and failing you understand for what, he does ask. Then she cries and tells him she can't forgive him in return.

It's all dreamlike, and the feelings associated with it are a blend of grief and confusion. It's like we're watching the main character dive into the realm of femininity where he can't get things to add up, and he reaches, but fails to grasp.

This is a truth that wouldn't be created by trying to say it straight out, but Kaufman does it in his own genius way.

If meaning is use, then it is regardless of whether you believe it. Thinking meaning is use wouldn't change how you obtain meaning or change how you act. — Hanover

I'm picking up what you're laying down, there.

For if meaning is identified with usage, then the philosophy of language loses its normative status, because the use of every expression must be seen as self-justifying with respect to the immediate context that precipitated the use of the expression. — sime

True. If you really believe meaning is use, you wouldn't complain that other people don't understand that. You'd just try to read the use in their utterances.

Sorry, but your comment is just a confusion. — Sam26

What's confusing about it?

Well, there are photosensitive molecules in your skin and elsewhere if you ever feel checking it out. — NOS4A2

That's how exposure to sun triggers melanin production in your skin. I've already got so much melanin it doesn't do much for me.

Have you never felt the sun on your skin? — NOS4A2

The sun is 90 million miles away, so no.

The light hits the eyes. That’s the direct contact between perceiver and perceived — NOS4A2

Light hits the skin on the back of your hand as well. Is that also perception?

I find computational metaphors for mind to be trivial, so I do not believe there is anything like data or processing going on in there. — NOS4A2

You're free to think whatever you like. March to your own drum.

A tool you might consider, Sam26, is an admonition not to think in terms of meaning, but to instead look at what the words are being used to do — Banno

I guess this utterance is being used to do something. Not sure what.

The expression “meaning is use” should not be taken literally. — RussellA

I agree. It's true that you have to pay attention to intentions and context of utterance to discern what command is being given or what proposition is being asserted.

But trying to have a theory of meaning that deletes out the vast contents of the psyche, conscious, subconscious, and unconscious, is silly.

What is precluded and how is it precluded? — NOS4A2

Visual data is processed in the occipital lobe at the back of the brain. There's no light back there.

I think it may be that some circularity is unavoidable. On the one hand, language may influence the way we think. So as a child's brain is developing, patterns of thought that are prevalent in the culture might become cemented in the language comprehension areas if the brain.

On the other, it may be that some aspects of the way we think are innate so that pattern recognition isn't starting from a blank slate.

So maybe the idea of pain is innate, but whether it belongs to a psychological interior or is part of the world around me is something I learn from my culture. The basic building blocks would be innate, but the arrangement comes from thousands of years of cultural evolution.

In fact I argued that we perceive the light directly, described how it is possible, and can describe the properties of this real-world medium. I don’t recall anyone doing the same with sense-data. — NOS4A2

The anatomy and physiology of vision preclude what you're describing. The eyes work much like a camera. The film is vitamin A.

He was also talking to those he was more positively inclined toward, such as Kierkegaard and James. — Joshs

Philosophy is usually a response to an opposing idea, or an attempt at synthesis. Philosophers don't usually write at length to express agreement.

Who is he talking to in the Philosophical Investigations? — Joshs

Himself

Read Schopenhauer, then read the Tractatus. It will become obvious that he's talking directly to Schop.

That is not a scientific hypothesis but a metaphysical stipulation. — Clarendon

Clarke's Laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

:up:

We know enough about consciousness to know that it is a state quite unlike size or shape. We know that it is a subjective state, that there is something it is like. — Clarendon

It's like with gravity. We knew basically that it's the reason apples fall. Beyond that, we knew nothing. The first hypothesis was that it's some kind of force. That turned out to be wrong.

Likewise, we know what we're referring to when we talk about consciousness, but we have no scientific theory that explains what it is.

The first hypothesis was that it's a little bit of God. Another is that it's strongly emergent. The theory does entail that consciousness is the kind of thing that can be strongly emergent.

You're saying nothing can be strongly emergent, but your reasoning also rules out weak emergence, which numerous posters have been trying to point out.

But then you're getting consciousness out without putting it in. — Clarendon

I think the main problem with saying this is that it presumes more knowledge about consciousness than we actually have.

Strong emergence is a bare beginning of a theory. As the theory progresses, we would say more and more about what consciousness is such that it is the type of thing that emerges where there was none before.

If the theory subsequently breaks down, it will be because it's colliding with facts. There isn't a fundamental logical problem with the hypothesis.

I think we might be getting a little religious about Wittgenstein in this thread. His arguments are only as good as their premises, some of which have been proven to be incorrect.

The real problem of consciousness is people treat it like a unified entity and run off into the bushes hunting for the faculty that makes consciousness possible! — DifferentiatingEgg

What's wrong with that? It's what we did with gravity.

I think strong emergence is saying that matter has the potential to become conscious under the right circumstances.

With weak emergence, we're saying matter has the potential to become liquid. In a sense liquidity comes from no-liquidity.

I don't know who responded to that survey. I don't really care.

You want to apply semantic realism to math. That would be a move I'd make if I just want to be deflationary. In other words, I don't want to answer whether platonism or nominalism is correct.

But if you want to reject platonism, you can't do semantic realism because platonism is the status quo (among people who know what they're talking about).

You pretty much have to pick one if you're going to avoid contradiction.

Maybe there's some quantum physics explanation we haven't discovered yet.

The same will be true if one quantifies over physical objects. Doing so is a statement about what ontological commitments are required by the theory.

What happened to indispensability? — Banno

You don't have the foundation to understand the argument. :confused:

hatever it take for you to commit. — Banno

Dude. If you were committed to the topic, you would at least know what mathematical realism is. :razz:

What do you take Quine to have said about ontological commitment with regard to mathematical entities? It'd be helpful to understand how you think it differs from the view I expressed, which makes use of his "To be is to be the value of a bound variable." — Banno

Would it be better to start a thread on ontological commitment? If so, I can do that.

Would be interesting to know just why and how it has come to that. — ssu

There's a documentary about it. One of the factors is that the Silent generation didn't have enough to eat when they were young. They didn't have much of a concept of a healthy diet.

And why is there advertising for prescription medication? — ssu

I know. It's ridiculous.

One hypothesis is that there simply isn't so much preventive health care treatment. Or how about food safety? — ssu

Both. A good diet is more expensive. Ironically, the American problem with obesity is caused by low quality, ultra-processed crap.

Health care of the population shouldn't be viewed as an opportunity to get profits, — ssu

Maybe, but I think there is some benefit to competition in healthcare, although since COVID, American healthcare providers have been coalescing into mega-entities. The advantage to that is that huge operations (spanning across half the country in some cases) can take control of drug costs.

the healthcare system is mediocr — ssu

Outcomes are worse. That doesn't equate to "mediocre.". Why exactly outcomes are worse is an unanswered question. One hypothesis is that the American population is sicker for some reason.

American and German doctors compared notes trying to discover why American COVID outcomes were so much worse. Neither group could pinpoint the cause.

Basically what Quine said about ontological commitments.

You said your constructivism was compatible with realism, which would imply that the reality of numbers is a byproduct of social practices. Social practices are objective, and numbers are an aspect of them, so in that sense numbers are objective.

I handed you the problem with that theory, which is that a constructivist is forgetting about the existence of things like the extension of decimal pi.

You would notice that Quine struggled with the same issue and reluctantly agreed with platonism based on the indispensability argument. And if you think about it, Frege, Godel, Quine, and Putnam had time to sit around pondering it full time. You can't really half-ass your way to rejecting their arguments. :grin:

I don't think you understand what math realism is.

The straw man to which I referred is the one proffered as the only alternative to indirect realism, is the contentious "direct realism" of their imaginings. — Banno

I'm confused then. They're both realists.