Well, he was, from what we know, arguing that motion was not real. — Banno

Yes, but we can get along just fine in an illusion. Contradictions are just little sign posts that things aren't exactly as we're imagining them. They can't be.

Paradoxes occur when we say things incorrectly. The world cannot be wrong, but what we say about it can be. — Banno

Thank you, John Locke. Your faith is commendable.

End of the thread, — Banno

It never ends. :smile:

So the paradox involves confusing a way of talking, the maths, with a description of how things are, the ontology. We can be pretty confident that space is not infinitely divisible and yet still use calculus to plot satellite orbits. — Banno

Zeno wasn't arguing that we can't plot satellite orbits with acceptable precision.

I do admire your devotion to the practical. Detaching yourself from it and purely following the contours of the mind will set you out in front of contradictions.

Yes, and the question is, is your use of "cold" only about some mental image, or about the water? The disagreement only makes sense if we are talking about the bath water and not just our sensations. — Banno

I'm afraid if I answer this, our disagreement will disappear. :grin:

That they disagree makes no sense unless the bath has a temperature that both feel. — Banno

Indirect realism isn't disputing this. Remember that it is realism.

See how explicit the admixture of two differing language games is here? — Banno

I suppose so, yes.

A similar example is that cats can see in conditions that a human would describe as completely dark. Is it dark or not? It depends your sensory apparatus.

One can argue that calculus doesn't solve Zeno's paradoxes as we don't have yet a clear understanding of infinity. — ssu

I guess you could put it that way.

The point is that the paradox isn't fundamentally a math problem. It's a series of questions that point to a contradiction.

Applying the Mathematical Continuum to Physical Space and Time: As noted in §1.2, the ‘received view’ of Zeno (developed in the latter part of the Twentieth century by philosophers developing the ideas of Grünbaum 1967) aimed at showing how modern mathematics resolves the paradoxes. However, central to this project was the recognition that a purely mathematical solution is not sufficient: the paradoxes not only question abstract mathematics, but also the nature of physical reality. So what they sought was an argument not only that Zeno posed no threat to the mathematics of infinity but also that that mathematics correctly describes objects, time and space. It would not answer Zeno’s paradoxes if the mathematical framework we invoked was not a good description of actual space, time, and motion — SEP

l

I'm not claiming calculus tells us what space and time are; I'm denying that this is a coherent question. — Banno

If we want calculus to solve Zeno's paradox, we have to assume that the math is telling us something about space and time.

What I need is for you to explain why you think calculus tells us something about space and time. It's in the article.

And some can’t do the maths. — Banno

What does math have to do with the structure of space and time? Read the SEP article on Zeno's paradox.

No need to overcomplicate things. — Banno

That's not an argument either. Some people are just emotionally averse to paying attention to things like Zeno's paradox. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, that sort of thing.

but that simply does not stop it being traversed in a finite time.

Zeno mistook an infinite description of motion for an infinite obstacle to motion. — Banno

Zeno saw himself as proving that all motion is an illusion. You're saying that he's wrong, but you aren't providing an argument. That's fine.

Zeno's paradox is a convergent series, dude. It doesn't matter what order you sum it in.

With this, I fully agree. But the videos are clear. I can't understand why you'd need one. Its clear. — AmadeusD

Such situations should not be judged by the public based on videos. An internal affairs type investigation should take place. When the president publicly pushes back on the idea of an investigation, it's bad joo joo.

This is absolute bullshit for that reason. Also, the President didn't shoot her. LOL. — AmadeusD

Any federal police action should be reviewable by an internal affairs entity called an OPR. Word is that due to personnel cuts, there is presently no one to do the investigation. So some are demanding that the FBI do it. Meanwhile Noem and Trump are making statements that even Republicans are calling out as BS. A halfway decent president would just say the issue us being investigated by the FBI.

and a recent murder of a woman by an ICE agent. — Relativist

Yep. The president has no commitment to rule of law.

If there was a duality between perceiver and perceived, a duality between me and my pain, this would suggest that I am separate to or outside my pain, and it is my choice whether to feel my pain or not. — RussellA

The duality is necessary for evaluation. Some part of your cognitive system evaluates mental states for things like truth, accuracy, and appropriateness. This is how you may wonder if you saw something correctly.

This is the computational theory of cognition. It's the scientific status quo, so to speak. Other theories will explain themselves relative to it. An example of an alternative theory is behaviorism, which says there are no mental states. It's just behavior.

But there is no relation between perceiver and a mental state if the perceiver IS the mental state. — RussellA

I take this to be a problem for cognitive science. If they end up agreeing with you, they'll at least have to explain the expectation of the duality of perceiver and perceived.

I can't really do anything with the mere suggestion that there is no duality.

The homunculus infinite regress problem arises when the mind is assumed to be a separate entity to the brain, and the mind is looking at the neural activity in the brain. — RussellA

A person is thought of as being in a relation to a mental state, such as believing a proposition, imagining Paris, etc. Conceiving of thought as having the character of relationship naturally implies a separation between believer and belief, or in the case of perception, between the witness and the thing witnessed.

The difference between direct and indirect realists as represented in this thread, comes down to how we want to describe that perceptual relation. Is it between perceiver and a mental state? Or is it between perceiver and physical object?

Half the problem here is that those who are advocating indirect realism think the only alternative is a naive direct realism. — Banno

My charitable reading is that direct realists believe a representational theory of mind entails mind ghosts.

Turtle saves other turtle.

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: