I took the point of the observation to be that we can deliberately use what is not experienced (for the most part) to imagine a scene that is neither false nor meaningless.

The sword cuts in two ways. Separating truth from falsehood belongs to some activities but not to others. There is something about this constraint that invites other ways of making sense. — Paine

:up:
There are two primary ways to interpret the PI:

1. Pyrrhonism: that Witt believed that all philosophy is nonsense because it can't be about anything of this world.
2. Non-pyrrhonism: that Witt believed that philosophy can point out the cases where philosophers fall into nonsense, but that he was also offering positive philosophical views (which often have to be reconstructed from the text).

Then there's the third way: Witt wanted to abandon philosophy because he knew that it's all nonsense, but he couldn't stop, so the PI is confusing because he was stuck in this struggle when he wrote it.

According to this scheme, there are three ways to take the private language argument:

1. That he believed the question is nonsense.
2. That he believed it is truly impossible to have a private language.
3. That the argument carries the dynamic tension of the struggle all philosophers face when they realize that philosophy has no answers, but we can't stop looking for them.

I took the point of the observation to be that we can deliberately use what is not experienced (for the most part) to imagine a scene that is neither false nor meaningless. — Paine

This is what we tell ourselves when we set out again asking philosophical questions, right?

The sword cuts in two ways. Separating truth from falsehood belongs to some activities but not to others. There is something about this constraint that invites other ways of making sense. — Paine

What are the other ways of making sense?

Following our failure to deliver a fact that distinguishes our historic use of "plus" vs "quus," it appears Kripke's skeptic has caused the "idea of meaning to vanish into thin air."

Why? Because if we weren't following any specific rule in the past, then it follows that we aren't now, in spite of my confidence that I know now what I mean by "plus."

I'm not quite following why this is true. Why does meaning have to be rule following? Why can't it pop into thin air in the present?

There's something I'm missing

:up:

I looked at the video. At the portion you marked, the guy is suggesting that if we limit methane emissions from cattle (apparently California has already dropped it by 25%), then we can reduce the CO2 content in the atmosphere.

He's saying that in cattle production there's an opportunity to go beyond net zero to net negative. I get that. We haven't discussed that up to this point, though. We were just talking about whether or not cattle production is net zero.

You and Kripke may be excused. Return to dinner when you have stopped playing your little games. — jgill

Hey, general relativity came out of little games.

a previous post, Agree to Disagree linked to an article from the University of California that supposedly showed that cattle farming is net-zero. However this article makes the OPPOSITE point (apologies for shouting). The full impact of this article is that reducing methane from cattle farming is a cost effective way to reduce global warming - because reducing methane has a more immediate impact on the environment than reducing CO2. — EricH

I don't see where it says that. This is the entire article:


"The Biogenic Carbon Cycle and Cattle
February 19, 2020
By Samantha Werth

"Cattle are often thought to contribute to climate change because they belch methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas. While this is true, cattle do belch methane, it is actually part of an important natural cycle, known as the biogenic carbon cycle.

"Photosynthesis and carbon
The biogenic carbon cycle centers on the ability of plants to absorb and sequester carbon. Plants have the unique ability to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and deposit that carbon into plant leaves, roots, and stems while oxygen is released back into the atmosphere. This process is known as photosynthesis and it is central to the biogenic carbon cycle.

"When plants perform photosynthesis, carbon is primarily converted to cellulose, a form of carbohydrate that is one of the main building blocks for growing plants. Cellulose happens to be the most abundant organic compound in the world, present in all grasses, shrubs, crops, and trees. Cellulose content is particularly high in grasses and shrubs found on marginal lands, which are places where grains and other human edible crops cannot grow. Two-thirds of all agricultural land is marginal, full of cellulose dense grasses that are indigestible to humans. But guess who can digest cellulose?


"Cattle upcycle cellulose… and carbon!
Cattle are made to digest cellulose. They are able to consume grasses and other plants that are high in cellulose and, through enteric fermentation, digest the carbon that is stored in cellulose. Cattle can use that carbon, upcycling the cellulose, for growth, milk production, and other metabolic processes.

"As a by-product of consuming cellulose, cattle belch out methane, there-by returning that carbon sequestered by plants back into the atmosphere. After about ten years, that methane is broken down and converted back to CO2. Once converted to CO2, plants can again perform photosynthesis and fix that carbon back into cellulose. From here, cattle can eat the plants and the cycle begins once again. In essence, the methane belched from cattle is not adding new carbon to the atmosphere. Rather it is part of the natural cycling of carbon through the biogenic carbon cycle.

"Fossil Fuels Are Not Part of the Biogenic Carbon Cycle
The biogenic carbon cycle is a relatively fast cycle. That is, carbon cycles between plants and the atmosphere in a short period of time, usually in the range of a few years to a few decades. In the case of cattle, this cycle is about ten years. By comparison, carbon exchange between the atmosphere and geological reserves (such as deep soils, the deeper ocean, and rocks) is on the span of millennia, 1000 or more years. Hence, why the extraction and burning of fossil fuels (i.e. geological reserves) has a much greater impact on our climate than the biogenic carbon cycle.

"It takes 1000 years for CO2 released from the burning of fossil fuels to be redeposited back into geological reserves. That is tenfold (10x) the amount of time it takes methane belched by cattle to be redeposited back into plant matter. To put this in perspective, the CO2 released from driving your car to work today will remain in the atmosphere, having a warming effect on our climate, longer than the lifetimes of you, your children, or even your grandchildren. Thus, the burning of fossil fuels has a longstanding impact on our climate, one that is much more significant than the belching of methane from cattle, which is part of the short-term biogenic carbon cycle."

It looks like it's saying that cattle farming is not a significant contributor. What am I missing?

I think that you and I agree on about 99% of what we are talking about. But that doesn't make for an interesting discussion, so I am going to concentrate on the 1% where we disagree. Also, I don't like tofu. :grin: — Agree to Disagree

Yea. That's probably how it works. Tofu is especially good in Thai food. :grin:

Anytime you need somebody to be confused, I'll be happy to help. — T Clark

:lol:

I give up. — T Clark

Your challenges still helped me flesh it out, so thank you.

The big problem is that economies and countries and people (farmers, etc) who depend on cows (beef, dairy, etc) are being punished for no good reason. Economies and counties and people are being damaged financially. Countries that are damaged financially have less money to fight fossil fuels, and are wasting resources that could be used to fight fossil fuels. — Agree to Disagree

But let's say that the public begins to favor a lower cholesterol diet and they want to move away from monoculture land use with all the pesticides and fertilizers that go with that. The people in the beef and dairy industries could adapt to the changing scene just like all the people who had to adapt to the rise of computers and the end of American steel. They could find jobs doing something else, like making tofu.

I guess where I land on the issue is that I think the use of coal and natural gas needs to be the main issue. Doing something about cows will not solve the problem. Doing something about coal, considering the massive amount of coal we have left to burn, would be a giant step toward solving the problem. Whatever social technology we develop to make that change will help us change whatever else needs adjusting.

I mean, the very notion that people would sit around arguing about cows seems crazy to me. We all agree on what the main problem is. Our common ground is huge compared to the rest. How the hell to we end up at each other's throats over the tiny bit we disagree on?

They are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, as the Titanic slowly sinks. — Agree to Disagree

At present, this is true. The present global commitment isn't enough to accomplish much even if there was universal buy-in.

I think that there is something that we might be able to do about global warming long-term. If we concentrate on the right solutions. Even then, it will be difficult and take a long time. I favor a slow move away from fossil fuels. But not so fast that it creates big problems. — Agree to Disagree

:up:

It's specifically about your assessments of past behavior. You assume you know the rules you were following. Kripke's skeptic suggests that there is no fact of the matter. The fiction of "quadding" is just meant to illustrate this. — frank

I got this wrong. Kripke's challenge is not about epistemology. It's metaphysics. That's the point of the emphasis on facts.

Wow.

What is the proposal for how atmospheric methane is absorbed by the farm? As I understand it, plants don't make use of atmospheric methane as they make use of atmospheric CO2. (Although some species of bacteria metabolize methane.) — wonderer1

Methane oxidizes to CO2 after about 12 years.

The cows put out 1 ppm of methane. The plants take up 1 ppm of methane. That's what net-zero means.
— frank

Yes, and it also means that there is always a correlative amount of methane hanging about in the system. It doesn't just flow from the mouth of the cow into the tissues of the plant. — Pantagruel

Yes. The emissions won't be absorbed for about 12 years, but cattle farms don't last forever. After Juan retires and closes down the farm the plants still absorb the methane for about 12 years. In the end, if the farm was truly net zero, it did not contribute to global warming.

You are not grasping that this is a system and there is a definable quantity of methane within the entire system that correlates with a specific population level of cattle. Ergo any decrease in the population of the cattle is simultaneously a decrease in the associated methane level. It is irrelevant over what period of time the cattle achieve a net-zero methane balance. — Pantagruel

The cows put out 1 ppm of methane. The plants take up 1 ppm of methane. That's what net-zero means.

I think you're just basically asserting that it isn't possible for a cattle farm to be net-zero.


:up:

If cattle farming were truly net-zero, this wouldn't be true.
— frank

Yes, it would be true. This is why:
This is true. But what is not mentioned is that the more cows there are, the higher the stable amount of methane in the atmosphere is
— unenlightened — Pantagruel

I'm not seeing this. Let's say we start from today. There's an average of 1.7 ppm of methane in the atmosphere. This average covers seasonal variation. Now we'll add a cattle farm in Mexico, and it's truly net zero, which means that after 12 years, its output is entirely absorbed by its input.

Why would there be a net increase in methane?

he fact of the matter is, we should be making whatever reductions even remotely make sense and actively searching for new possibilities to do so. We have been quite content to radically disturb the biosphere haphazardly in aid of profit, we should be courageous enough to do so systematically in aid of human well being. — Pantagruel

And I repeated this same sentiment earlier in the thread. The thing is, it really doesn't relate to the argument Agree-to-Disagree made. My point is just this: his assertion is not illogical. I would need more than a vague principle to accept that cattle farming is net-zero. But if he's correct that it is, then he's right that it's not a contribution to global warming.

Ah... Now, maybe, I understand your point. I'd forgotten that I'd never encountered 57 before. Let me think... Ok, for natural numbers, the definition of "addition" can be traced back to counting. Are you saying that I can count to 56, but for any larger number I'm doing something different? — T Clark

It's specifically about your assessments of past behavior. You assume you know the rules you were following. Kripke's skeptic suggests that there is no fact of the matter. The fiction of "quadding" is just meant to illustrate this.

That sounds cozy.

If all cattle were gone, methane levels would decrease. — Pantagruel

If cattle farming were truly net-zero, this wouldn't be true. As you say, we don't know if it is. A pretty complex analysis would have to be brought to bear.

Any process that involves methane, for example, involves the transport of that methane throughout a cycle, portions of which are stored for durations in the environment. Carbon is stored and flows in such a cycle. And nitrogen. Viewing cattle as an abstract point of methane data is unrealistic. Short-term, a cow is a very-high-net methane producer. Reduce the number of cows and you must reduce the net-methane load in the environment. — Pantagruel

But it's the nature of a cycle that as methane is emitted today, the components of yesterday's emissions are simultaneously being taken up by plants. This is the argument, anyway.

I used to do aquariums, so I'm somewhat tuned into cycling and bio load on a closed system. I presently have an immortal fish with whom I have a troubled relationship. I want her to die so I can close down my last aquarium, but she's now about 4 times the age her species is supposed to live. I think of letting the bio load rise until the pH is incompatible with life, but I can't do it!

Sorry for the extraneous details.

I mean, who is to say the tribes that have a word for "one", "two" "three" "anything more than three" is wrong? If used in a way that everyone gets by, there you go. — schopenhauer1

I'll have to come back to this.

Does my behavior include my invisible, to you (and perhaps to me), mental processes? If it does, I say "I already have given you that fact." — T Clark

In the challenge, it's granted that you know everything there is to know about your mental processes.

I think the problem is that following the rules of addition are exactly the same as following the rules of quaddition up to the number 57. What in your mental processes would have been different so as to prove that you weren't quadding rather than adding?

Is this something about word-games and their context?
In another thread I was saying thus, and I think it might have some relevance about context and the meaning of terms (like plus and quus): — schopenhauer1

Yes, definitely. The challenge ends up being about the meaning of any word.

For physicists, "nothing" has a different connotation than the classic philosophical notions of nothing. It just needs zero energy to be considered "nothing" in physics I guess. And of course, that is unsatisfying in a philosophical sense that the theoretical principles and laws and fields that underlie this "nothing" still need to be accounted for. — schopenhauer1

:up:

Right. You say: "No! I've been doing addition, not quaddition. Stop embarrassing yourself, you baboon!"

Then I ask you for a fact about your previous behavior that shows that the rule you were following was addition rather than quaddition.

How did you start the heater? Did you use lighter fluid?

Sorry. There's something I'm missing. If I apply the definition of addition to 68 and 57, I get 125, not 5. What you are describing, "quus," is a different operation which is not consistent with that definition. — T Clark

You haven't been doing addition. It was quaddition.

Even if that were true, there is a certain "environmental load" to maintaining any greenhouse-gas involved process. If scale of cattle-farming were reduced, the "environmental load" would also be reduced. Which is part of the goal, I think. — Pantagruel

What kind of load?

There isn't a shred of logic in these statements. Even if it were true that output was stabile, that doesn't imply that the situation to which the output is a contributing factor is stabile. And the fact that the current number of cows won't cause "any additional" global warming just means that the ongoing amount of their ecological impact isn't decreasing. Which is the point. — Pantagruel

He's just saying that cattle farming is net-zero wrt greenhouse gas emissions. That's what we want all human operations to be. It's ok to produce greenhouse gases as long as your emissions are being scrubbed somehow.

Whether it's really the case that cattle farming is net-zero, I have no idea.

It talks about livestock emissions and whether these emissions are actually a problem. — Agree to Disagree

If you don't think we can do anything about climate change, it doesn't really matter if cattle farming is net-zero, does it?

There aren't any fossils in fossil fuels.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that in the phrase "fossil fuel" the adjective "fossil" means "[o]btained by digging; found buried in the earth", which dates to at least 1652,[25] before the English noun "fossil" came to refer primarily to long-dead organisms in the early 18th century.[26] — frank

So you were right. The rest of us were wrong.

"The theory that fossil fuels formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants by exposure to heat and pressure in Earth's crust over millions of years was first introduced by Andreas Libavius "in his 1597 Alchemia [Alchymia]" and later by Mikhail Lomonosov "as early as 1757 and certainly by 1763".[23] The first use of the term "fossil fuel" occurs in the work of the German chemist Caspar Neumann, in English translation in 1759.[24] The Oxford English Dictionary notes that in the phrase "fossil fuel" the adjective "fossil" means "[o]btained by digging; found buried in the earth", which dates to at least 1652,[25] before the English noun "fossil" came to refer primarily to long-dead organisms in the early 18th century.[26]

"Aquatic phytoplankton and zooplankton that died and sedimented in large quantities under anoxic conditions millions of years ago began forming petroleum and natural gas as a result of anaerobic decomposition. Over geological time this organic matter, mixed with mud, became buried under further heavy layers of inorganic sediment. The resulting high temperature and pressure caused the organic matter to chemically alter, first into a waxy material known as kerogen, which is found in oil shales, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons in a process known as catagenesis. Despite these heat-driven transformations, the energy released in combustion is still photosynthetic in origin.[4]"

Wikipedia on fossil fuels.

Being composed of carbon, coal forms a carbonaceous deposit. Having been transported and accumulated in a single deposit it is sedimentary. Having undergone metamorphosis and petrification it is a rock. Consequently it is reasonable to classify coal as a carbonaceous sedimentary rock.
Oct 12, 2015 — BC

Yes, I guess that's true. I just don't normally think of coal as a rock. Have you ever been through West Virginia and seen the huge bands of coal in the cliffs beside the highway? Awesome.

No, this is again wrong. Pressure and heat cause the fossilisation of plant matter. — Benkei

I don't think so. Let's all follow BC's lead and grow a sense of humor. :razz:

:lol:

Cool.

Turpentine from certain pine trees has been used medicinally for treatment of cough, gonorrhea, and rheumatism.

Applied topically? Or do you drink it?

Fossil fuels are fossilised plants (and some animal remnants). — Benkei

I think it's more that under pressure, fossilized organic material produces oil and coal. An actual fossil won't burn because it's made out of rock.

Also wrong. Natural tar is crude oil coming to the surface of which the lighter part evaporates leaving tar or asphalt. — Benkei

Once upon a time, all tar came from pine trees. Tar was used to coat the bottoms of sea vessels and most of it came from one of the English colonies.

You only need to know that if you're into college basketball and you want to know why one of teams is called the Tarheels.

But yes, there's another kind of tar that comes from coal.

They don't burn, Sparky, because they ain't got no carbon left in them. Fossilised carbon deposits is coal and oil and tar, and they burns pretty good. — unenlightened

Yep. It takes a bunch of pressure to turn old fossils into coal or oil.

Tar comes from pine trees.

Those plants get fossilized.

- We burn those plants. — Mikie

Fossils don't burn, Sparky. They're made out of rock.

thought that 1 billion cows must be causing a huge problem. But then I researched further and found that CO2 and methane from cows are part of the biogenic carbon cycle. There is no overall gain or loss of carbon atoms in the atmosphere due to cows (in the long-run).

Most people are spending a lot of time and resources trying to reduce emissions of GHG's from cows. It is — Agree to Disagree

I don't think most people are worried about cows. It would turn our world upside down to stop using coal and natural gas. Once we figure that out we can worry about any other contributions we're making by way of agriculture.

One thing you're not mentioning though is that cows don't usually just eat grass. They feed them corn, which requires fertilizers that put CO2 to the atmosphere.

Rainforests sequester carbon. Logging releases that carbon back into the atmosphere. It’s a cycle. Thus, there is no overall gain or loss in the destruction of the rainforests.” — Mikie

That's actually true. Young trees take up a significantly higher amount of CO2 than old trees, so harvesting wood isn't a problem if it's done sustainably, and as my recent post pointed out, we've gained a whole Amazon rainforest since the 1980s due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

It's truly your ignorance that is embarrassing. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. It just really is.

How did the livestock issue end up on your radar? Are you a farmer?