Ok? I'm not sure why you're repeating that.

here's no such thing as what pixels "really" look like, if this is supposed to mean how they look when nobody is looking (which is why naive realism is false). — Michael

I agree that this is what indirect realism is saying, but it makes more sense to me to say that pixels is one way to divide up the world. There could be others.

:up:

Kripkenstein is not skepticism. That's your first failure to understand it. It's merely the insight that the issue uncovered by the PLA generalizes. It's not just beetles in boxes that defy expression due to the unavailability of fixed rules. It's all language.

"For what we thereby show is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we call “following the rule” and “going against it” — Banno

That would work if there was any fact of the matter about what rules anyone has been following up to now. There isn't.

Meaning is not dependent on rule following. It's something else. I think we're officially off topic now, but it just goes to the previous baloney associating the PLA with matters of perception.

Any thoughtful examination of the PLA will produce Kripke's same insight. If you don't have that insight, there's some thoughtfulness missing. :razz:

I guess Meta is a math skeptic.
— frank

I like to apply a healthy dose of skepticism to any so-called knowledge. Nothing escapes the skeptic's doubt. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suppose so, but the GPS in your phone was designed using math invented by Descartes. It's so weird that your GPS works even though math does not exist. :confused:

I'd cite to PI 1 to I don't know 20 or so for that not being right. — Hanover

I'd be curious to know how you interpret that text if not in the way I described.

Grammar means something different to Wittgenstein. Under that definition, it is a grammar theory. — Hanover

Oh good grief.

And Meta's view undermines most of mathematics, despite what we do with it. — Banno

A nominalist would provide an argument for why we can use math without committing to abstract objects. I guess Meta is a math skeptic.

These issues are actually specifically addressed by Wittgenstein. — Hanover

No, they weren't. People use the PLA to conclude that meaning is dependent on public verification in the form of successful social interaction. I learn a rule about the use of the word "salt" and I verify that I'm using the right rule because you pass me the salt when I ask for it.

This conclusion is based on a set of assumptions about the basis of meaning and how language is acquired, both of which are undermined by Chomsky and Kripke. That would make a couple of threads.

but I'll consistently reject scientific alternatives because they it's a category error to argue how a scientific theory of reality can replace a grammar theory. — Hanover

The PLA is not a grammar theory, and philosophy and science intimately relate and temper one another. There is no category error.

So when you say "my headache" and you mean the actual pounding you're feeling right now, how am I to know what you're talking about other than how you use the term consistently with others who I have seen use the term, which must be related to behaviors and the use of other terms I am already familiar with. — Hanover

Both Chomsky and Kripke offer good reasons to doubt that you learn language purely by watching others use the terms. Your own childhood language acquisition happened too quickly to be explained that way. More likely there is an innate component to linguistic capability, although exactly what that means is still being fleshed out.

It's possible that meaning is based in part on empathy and projection. You put yourself in the shoes of the speaker. You know what Michael means about his headache because you know what it means to have a headache yourself, and the ability to recognize your own pain and speak of it is something you were born with, not something you learned.

I'm not saying this fully reveals other people's beetles to you. But it would mean you can discern the nature of other beetles because of an innate ability to feel what others feel. And this brings us back around to science versus philosophy. A scientist wouldn't just assume that there's only one way that meaning can work. Why would the philosopher do that?

I think it's important to keep in mind that the Private Language Argument only pertains to one theory of meaning, that being rule following. If words gain meaning in some other way, the PLA becomes moot.

Regardless of what you assert, to say that the value represented is an object called "a number" is platonism. — Metaphysician Undercover

:heart:

Ok. I'm probably wrong then.

Yes. Nominalists believe we don't need to posit abstract objects to make sense of math. It's generally considered that they have the burden of proof, and they take that seriously.

I don't think it's that simple. It really comes down to which view best accommodates what we do with math.

So your argument is that 2 is not between 1 and three. — Banno

He's saying that 2 isn't a thing. It's a modifier like pink. You can't count pinks because it's not a thing you count. It's nominalism.

This issue is more complicated though. The Neo-Platonists took Plato's name and claimed to continue Plato's school, but their ontology is consistent with what you call platonist. Aristotle's school claimed to be the true Platonists but the Neo-Platonists took the name. So you have to take on the Neo-Platonists, and tell them that they should call themselves Neo-platonists, as not true Platonists. But this problem has been around for millennia, and they do not like being accused of misrepresenting Plato, they like to claim the true continuation of Plato's teaching. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am a Neoplatonist, and I don't care whether you capitalize the P or not! :grin:

I agree. but my spell check doesn't like little p platonism. And, I count the distinction as unimportant because there really would be no such thing as big P Platonism if we maintained that distinction. Plato pitted ideas against each other so there's no real ontological position which could qualify as big P Platonism. So they end up being the same meaning anyway. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you're discounting the importance of community. If it's not stretching your spine out of shape, you can go along with the rest of the phil of math and write it as platonism. It's a little nod to the deep bonds that hold us together over the millennia as our brothers and sisters try to take freakin' Greenland and what not.

It's called nominalism. I would ask one favor though. Stop capitalizing the P in Platonism. The phil of math view of platonism. Plato pitted opposing ideas against each other, so for instance, in Parmenides, he outlines a lethal argument against the Forms. That's why they use a little p: platonism.

1. Two views about mathematics: nominalism and platonism

In ontological discussions about mathematics, two views are prominent. According to platonism, mathematical objects (as well as mathematical relations and structures) exist and are abstract; that is, they are not located in space and time and have no causal connection with us. Although this characterization of abstract objects is purely negative—indicating what such objects are not—in the context of mathematics it captures the crucial features the objects in questions are supposed to have. According to nominalism, mathematical objects (including, henceforth, mathematical relations and structures) do not exist, or at least they need not be taken to exist for us to make sense of mathematics. So, it is the nominalist's burden to show how to interpret mathematics without the commitment to the existence of mathematical objects. This is, in fact, a key feature of nominalism: those who defend the view need to show that it is possible to yield at least as much explanatory work as the platonist obtains, but invoking a meager ontology. To achieve that, nominalists in the philosophy of mathematics forge interconnections with metaphysics (whether mathematical objects do exist), epistemology (what kind of knowledge of these entities we have), and philosophy of science (how to make sense of the successful application of mathematics in science without being committed to the existence of mathematical entities). These interconnections are one of the sources of the variety of nominalist views. — SEP

Oh oh, the set {1,2,3} has 3 numbers. :gasp: — jgill

A nominalist entirely rejects set theory because it's a mountain of abstract objects.

Again, "integer" is a faulty concept, because it assumes that "a number" is a countable object. — Metaphysician Undercover

So apples are countable, but numbers aren't. :grin:

Yes, I'm aware of that - and of the startling results that followed when his view was set aside and infinity was treated as real, thus enabling the invention/discover/development of the calculus. — Ludwig V

Aristotle is not set aside by calculus because it does not deal with actual infinity. Set theory is a different matter.

When you said a picture of Cagney is a representation of Cagney, that's true, but it's a different sort of representationalism than what we're talking about. That's just a picture. — Hanover

I know. There's also a homunculus problem with using Cagney as an example, but I wasn't trying to say that watching a movie is a comprehensive analogy for perception. My point was that highlighting the fact that we call Cagney's representation "Cagney" is not philosophically significant. It does not at all imply that we don't know the difference between the thing and its representation.

I don't see how we can move on to the real philosophical problems with indirect realism if we're stuck on an inflationary reading of common speech ("inflationary" in that it's drawing conclusions about the state of things by various turns of phrasing.)

Therefore, the representation (assuming indirect realism) would be of the object Cagney versus the phenomenal Cagney or it could be of the picture of Cagney versus the phenomenal state of the picture. As you've described it, you have the real Cagney versus a picture of Cagney. That is not the sort of representationalism we're interested in here. — Hanover

I don't understand what you're saying here. I'll leave you with a painting by Magritte (I had a poster of it on my wall as a teenager.) It's about indirect realism.

So you're acknowledging rampant equivocation, where we call objects and representations the exact word in all cases outside philosophical circles. The noumenal Cagney and the phenomenonal Cagney are always called "Cagney."

Under what scenario do you distinguish the noumenal from the phenomenonal, and can you tell me the specific difference between the two? If you use the term interchangeably, and you don't even know how the two are different from one another, what exactly are you protecting? — Hanover

There are a couple of issues here, but what I'd like to first square away is the notion that philosophy results in delusional behavior. Jimmy Cagney is dead. You didn't actually see Jimmy Cagney in the movie. You saw a representation.

Can we first agree that there is a difference between Jimmy and his representation?

I think that it is not necessary for the infinite number of numbers to exist in my mind. All I need to have in my mind is S(n) = n+1. — Ludwig V

This is Aristotle's finitism. Finitism is like this: if we put you in a spaceship that has an odometer, you will never see any but a finite number on it. You'll never see an infinity symbol, though you never stop moving forever and ever.

Per Aristotle, infinity exists in potential. The actual is always finite. Set theory, by handling infinity as a set, appears to be defying finitism. This is an unresolved issue in phil of math. Someday it may result in a shift in thinking about set theory.

If they're different, why do you call them both "Trump"? — Hanover

Say you watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. You report that you saw Jimmy Cagney in the movie, though you also know what you saw was a representation.

Is this because there's no reasonable basis to maintain a distinction between Jimmy and his re-presentation?

If that, why not for simplicity sake just consider the noumena the same as the phenomena since you can't tell me how the specific distinction between what is and what is perceived except to say there is general consensus as to what the ship is. That sounds like a form of direct realism. — Hanover

We know data comes into your brain in discreet bits. What you experience is a seamless whole. The architecture of the nervous system testifies that what you're experiencing is a construction, in some ways like a movie.

When I say I saw Trump on the TV, what I mean is that I saw digital data that came from sampling the light bouncing off Trump, which was then digitally transmitted to my computer, which regenerated the pictures of Trump and sent them to my screen. What I say is that I saw Trump. That's indirect realism.

I reject the assumption of any "mathematical objects" finite or infinite, as Platonism, and unacceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok.

Your view is called finitism. It's from Aristotle.

Nobody cares

Awe is not an argument. — Banno

Neither is word smithing.

You want I should be awe struck into agreement? Nuh. — Banno

You have an awe deficit.

Your jump from "neural processes are necessary for perception" all the way to "the world is generated by the brain" is illegitimate. — Banno

You completely missed my point. Oh well. :grin:

Or is it that you hung your flag on the "indirect realist" mast, then found that you basically agreed with what I had to say? — Banno

Take a moment to stop and take in the world around you: the sights, sounds, movements in time and space. Now take in that all of it is generated by your brain (possibly with some quantum magic).

I wouldn't want your word smithing to make you miss out on the touch of awe associated with that.

An hallucination is defined precisely by there being no object of which one is aware, only a belief-like state produced in a derivative way. — Banno

More word smithing.

Got ya. :up: — Tom Storm

Many people think this, but there's probably a very good argument to the contrary.

I'm not sure I know what that might mean; but I do hear my wife's voice, through the telephone. — Banno

Telephony creates an illusion, and so does television. There's no tiny Donald Trump inside your TV.

The causal chain remains the same, but our attention(the blanket) can be placed in differing locations. So in one throw we can refer to your wife’s voice, in another to the electronically constructed reproduction, and so on. — Banno

You don't have access to your wife's voice. If you did, you wouldn't need a phone.

Think of your sensory nervous system as technology that allows that grey blob in your skull to gain information it wouldn't otherwise have access to.

See the weasel word? Did you hear your wife's voice? what dis she say? Were have you thrown the Markov Blanket? Were else might you throw it? — Banno

:chin:

Rather, having an experience is having that flood of electrical data. What you experience, if we must talk in that way, is the cat. — Banno

My contribution to your word smithing would be that we do need to speak in terms of experience. Sight is not an isolated activity. It's integrated into a whole. And there is some functional entity we generally refer to as "you" which directs attention. As Isaac may have mentioned to you, a popular image among scientists is a main distribution board of some kind, from which "you" can turn focus away from sensation to a day dream, or a math problem, and then turn again to senses to see what time it is, and then the sound of a chainsaw grabs attention. It doesn't really make sense to say that you are your function of sight.

You see the cat, not your neural activity. Your neural activity is seeing the cat. — Banno

When you hear your wife's voice on the phone, that's not really her voice. It's a computer generated representation. If the logic of that throws you for a loop, I guess we could work through it. I wouldn't advise rejecting it because sounds illogical, though.