Both aspects of this reply are awesome. — AmadeusD

:cool:

Leontiskos is the guy who was just a few days ago forcefully insisting that Frege did not philosophize in terms of thoughts. Then he said maybe Frege did in his early years, but transitioned to something else later own. :lol:

The coolest results I get from using AI (I use Wonder) come from giving it an image to start with. If I wanted a three story building, I'd give it an image of a three story building and then see what it does with it. I go through lot of iterations and sometimes feed its own images back into it.

HIlarious he's a mod. — AmadeusD

She's not a mod anymore.

See the SEP article on states of affairs.

"Thoughts can be the contents of propositional attitudes. When one says “There are three things that everyone who works on elementary physics believes”, one quantifies over things that everyone working in elementary physics believes: thoughts (see Chisholm 1970: 19). Thoughts are also truth-value bearers (“There are three truths that everyone who works in elementary physics believes”). How are thoughts related to states of affairs? For instance, how is the thought that Socrates is wise related to the state of affairs Socrates’ being wise?

"Prima facie,thoughts are one thing, states of affairs another. Thoughts and states of affairs differ in their individuation and existence conditions.

"Individuation-conditions: Thoughts are supposed to be the contents of propositional attitudes like belief and desire. Let “j” be shorthand for a propositional attitude verb (“desire”, “believe” etc). If one can j that p without eo ipso j-ing that q (and vice versa), the contents that p and that q are different. Now I can believe, for instance, that Hesperus shines without believing that Phosphorus shines. Hence, if thoughts are the contents of propositional attitudes, the thought that Hesperus shines is different from the thought that Phosphorus shines. If the thought that Hesperus shines is different from the thought that Phosphorus shines,thoughts cannot be logical complexes whose constituents are particulars and properties. Following Frege, many philosophers therefore take thoughts to be complexes that are built up out of modes of presentation. Here “thoughts” only refers to such complexes. Since there are different modes of presentation of the same particular (property), there can be different thoughts that concern or are about the same particulars and properties. In contrast, Hesperus’s shining and Phosphorus’s shining are the same state of affairs, namely the complex that contains only the planet Venus and the property of shining. We will see in section 2.4 that not all philosophers follow Frege’s lead. If one has arguments for a coarse-grained individuation of the objects of belief, states of affairs may serve as contents of propositional attitudes."

I think that rather than worry over this issue, this thread might benefit from comparing Frege's view of the world to Wittgenstein's. Or maybe that would be a different thread. But it would more interesting to me. It's a pretty fascinating topic.

In a multicultural society how much is it incumbent to teach the subgroup the dominant customs? — schopenhauer1

I live in a capitalist society, so that's something that money settles. Some rappers are billionaires, right?

Can that contribute to self-fulfilling prophecy? Is that itself treating others as having less agency? — schopenhauer1

It's possible. One source of counter message is in forms of Christianity that teach having faith in yourself. They focus on how to avoid the pitfall of pity. Someone may think they're helping you with their pity when it's actually destructive.

It seems to be the case this is what happens in multicultural societies or when dealing cross-culturally. If let's say a subgroup individual does X "bad" action, we say, "Oh he is a product of that culture". If the dominant culture individual does X "bad" action, we say "He made a bad decision" or at the least make it much more atomized (it's his family at the most, or his own personal background or life story, not necessarily cultural). — schopenhauer1

It would be cool if everyone could be looked at as individuals. But it's also true that some people have challenges where others have privilege, you know?

For the dominant group, it is more seemingly free willed — schopenhauer1

Is it? Are they better at taking responsibility for their actions?

I think you can take any behavior and analyze it out for influences from the most poignantly personal all the way out to the nature of life.

One thing I remember from time to time is the comment from a friend who was listening to me explaining race relations. He said "You know you're just trying to understand yourself.". I was stunned, but I knew it was true.

Quite overwhelmingly, professional philosophers are in favour of abortion on demand in the first trimester. — Banno

Intellectuals advise, but they rarely govern.

The assignment of the truth-value is done by judgment, — Srap Tasmaner

If you're a realist, you wouldn't say truth is "assigned.". You would just say some propositions are true and some are false. Some have never been expressed and some probably never will be.

But saying it has a right to live because it has human DNA isn't really any less arbirtray than saying a child has a right to live after birth, but not before. — Echarmion

So you're admitting that the dividing line is arbitrary?

Alisha was slightly pregnant, slightly wrong to abort it, slightly grieved, and overjoyed to get in with her life.

Abortion is nothing like infanticide or child sacrifice. — Michael

But one of the challenges the pro-choice advocate faces is explaining the dividing line between killable and not-killable. When and how does that transition take place?

Excuses. The failure of the USA to correct the decline of its democratic institutions is a global tragedy. — Banno

But we never had a nuclear war. That's a win!

Given that this is around sixty percent of your population, why is it that they do not have "the power"?

Or is yours a failed democracy. — Banno

It takes a lot of energy to amend the Constitution. That's as it should be.

Have a look down the page from Pew Research linked above. Opposition to abortion is overwhelmingly from white evangelical protestant republican conservatives. — Banno

They gang together, yes. That's how democracy works. An issue is powerful to the extent it gets people to put aside their differences and join forces. Republicans have been pretty good at that for several decades. These days, not so much.

The issue is now decided at the state level. After years of supporting Roe V Wade, I finally came around to realizing that was the wrong way to do it. When pro-choice people have enough power to create an amendment, then it will be a federal issue. Maybe in a couple of generations.

There are plenty of cysts in the female reproductive system. A fetus is just another one of those. And if a cyst doesn’t resolve on its own, we remove them. That’s just rationality at work. — NOS4A2

I think there might be a cyst in your skull. :razz:

Seriously? So you have given up on rationality. — Banno

Rationality is a matter of fashion.

See you on the ramparts. — Banno

Do you even own a weapon of any kind?

They think it is immoral, but their justification for that is shite. — Banno

You can't even justify believing 2+2=4. That doesn't diminish your civil rights.

What they think their invisible friend says is no justification for forcing their view on others. — Banno

They think it's immoral. The reason that matters is a little thing called democracy.

Tough. What folk think their invisible friend says is no basis for moral choice. — Banno

The honorable response to a person who claims crimes are happening is to listen to them, understand what they're saying, and respond with your own viewpoint. It's dishonorable and morally repugnant to suggest that they don't have a right to their feelings. Treat them the way you'd like to be treated if you had a grievance and you wanted to be heard.

You seem to be having trouble with the fact that the foetus develops over time. — Banno

I've studied fetal development to moderate depth. I'll never forget the mind-bender of realizing how closely the early development of an animal resembles plant reproduction. The womb is a seed pod.

Go over it again, if you will. "Murder" is a legal term. Folk who think abortion is murder, despite it not being so on the state legal code, perhaps might defend their view by appeal to the supposed laws of their invisible friends. They call it murder because their invisible friend says so. — Banno

This argument is actually offensive, and you're usually a fair-minded person, so I'll chalk it up to lost in translation.

And by the time a heart develops, we are no longer looking at a cyst. Yet we are still not looking at a person. — Banno

Ok, so stop calling it a cyst, because the fetuses that are aborted look like little humans.

Your terminology is muddled here, but it seems you are intent only on being a bit of a dick, so I'll leave you to it. — Banno

Not at all. I was just explaining what my fellow citizens see as a moral fault.

I don't. You raised "heart", not me. — Banno

Point was it's a cyst with a beating heart.

They" think it against god's law, perhaps. — Banno

They think it's murder.

It is safe, simple and low-risk when done under 12 weeks of pregnancy.

I guess things have changed, but the heart starts beating at 5 weeks, around the time a woman would notice she's pregnant, so most fetuses that are aborted have a beating heart.

Why do you care about the heart, though? Does that give you pause?

Abortion is not murder if it is legal. — Banno

That's a sketchy way to look at it. They think it's a wrongful killing. Does that help you understand?

To be fair, the thread didn't fully shift to the criterion of quality until frank posted.) — Leontiskos

Excuse me?

It has a beating heart when they do the abortion. They don't like to do them before 12 weeks.

Murder is unlawful killing. It's not murder if abortion is legal. — Banno

Slavery is ok if it's legal?

It's a cyst with a beating heart. They just think it's murder. It's no more complex than that.

Then why would he so triumphantly post about air conditioning sales going down? — unenlightened

I don't know. I think he was saying that increased air conditioning doesn't account for their population increase.

This is true of temperate zones, but near the equator heat itself is a big problem — unenlightened

Yes. It's hot at the equator.

You're my favorite troll. — BitconnectCarlos

That's what I was going for, thanks!

I think his point was that humans can and do adapt to desert conditions with extreme heat.

It's true. Some Spaniards wandered into El Malpais and died because they couldn't find water and their horse's hooves were damaged by the glass in the sand. Meanwhile, humans have been living there like Fremen for thousands of years.

I don't think this is really related to climate change, where volatility is the main problem, not heat.

In the US we saw a wave of violence across college campuses as pro-Palestine protestors took over university buildings and vandalized them — BitconnectCarlos

They were broken hearted about what's happening to Gaza. They aren't anti-Semitic.

The Middle East falls apart. Crude oil prices rise. Inflation rises. The Fed is stuck.

It occurs to me that if for you, understanding people doesn't involve looking for truth conditions for the statements they make, you're kind of talking to yourself. You're not interested in what they really mean, you're just figuring it out for yourself by analyzing the words. Your biases are there, but you don't care. Meaning is your own private universe.

I don't know if it's relevant, but back then, there were no academic credentials to add weight to an idea. It was common for people to pass their own ideas off as the ideas of famous people in order to gain credibility. An elaborate example of it is the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. From the text, we can tell that this book was written much later than it purports to be. They used the name of Daniel because he was a folk-figure. He was supposed to have been a wise man, but there's no record of his existence.

Plato might have been sensitive to this issue because he himself was using Socrates as a mouthpiece. So it's possible that the exchange is the sort of thing we do when we argue over sources, but the whole issue was much more wide open. There might have also been some clever subtext to it as well.

Maybe form and formlessness are dependent on one another for meaning. It's one concept.
4 days ago
Wayfarer
22k
↪frank Yes. That’s a rather Taoist way of looking at it. — frank

Also western.

Quick question, do you find that different languages shape the way you feel?

But how does it differ? — Banno

We've talked at length about what a proposition is.

If "assertoric force" is proposed to be understood as not an illocutionary force ranging over the subsequent expression, then it is up to the proposer to set out what it is that the force does that is different to the illocutionary force of asserting. — Banno

Maybe it's the same as long as we narrow our focus to propositions in the Fregean sense.