So would we say that "You can't change iron into gold" is true eternally? Or is it only true for people to whom it's meaningful? — frank

The answer is that it depends on what we think of as a truth bearer. If a sentence has to be placed in context before it's truth apt, then the issue of 'true for you, but not true for her' doesn't exist. We don't locate facts or speak of them as occurring here, but not there. A statement is always indexed. This is the concept of a proposition.

If the truth bearer is something else, like an utterance, then relativity seems inevitable.

It's more interesting to think of an alien who can't understand the idea of Iron because her form of life is so different.

This alien experiences time as weight (not too far fetched, actually). If iron weighs as much as a bag of sand, she can't tell the difference. It's an amount of time, not material.

So would we say that "You can't change iron into gold" is true eternally? Or is it only true for people to whom it's meaningful?

It needed a jolt to wake them up. Re’ Germany’s dependency on Russian gas. — Punshhh

Supposedly every country is going to be moving more towards self sufficiency, but not so much because of Russia, but because of the way the US went after Russia.

Remember, Russia attacked Ukraine once and nobody thought much about it.

Why is this time so different?

I told you we were talking about truthmakers.

Trump spoke of leaving NATO, Johnson has become disingenuous about the EU and Putin sees the EU as a threat. The EU can’t rely on the US/U.K. axis any more, for their security. — Punshhh

That's been true for a while, though.

Yes, but it's still the case that the thing they've chosen is a bishop because that's how they've decided to use it. — Michael

Right, but it's not an individual family that established the custom. The custom is the result of the buy-in of humans over many cultures for more than a thousand years.

The question is whether the concept of magnetism has its basis in a form of life that has similar restrictive power (from the family's POV).

That question can't be addressed from a POV within a form of life. It requires a POV outside or transcendent to our form of life.

It's easy to argue that we can't access such a transcendent position.

Given what the words currently mean, human institutions can't just decide that lead is gold but can just decide that a stone is a bishop. — Michael

If players pick stone, that's not really a case of fiat because they're following an established custom. They can't pick mountains as chess pieces because they aren't movable.

They're restricted in chess as much as they are in science.

As I was saying the biggest story emerging out of this crisis is Germany and therefore the EU waking up to the necessity to provide their own security. — Punshhh

What do you mean?

I think he means to say economy is not as important to them as, say, control. — Merkwurdichliebe

I see. The American southeast was like for decades after the Civil War. Maybe it's a side effect of catastrophe.

I wonder if those who see Russia as an imperial state remember that. Russia went through a large scale catastrophe just 30 years ago.

Are you afraid?

The comment you quoted is about the context on which the institutional fact occurs — Banno

I'm not sure what it means for a fact to "occur."

They are true because of the role that each plays in a wider activity: chess; property; and Ukrainian government. — Banno

You seem to be using the idea of a truth maker. .

The problems associated with correspondence theory can't be separated from that idea.

The fact that these patterns repeat themselves across such diverse spaces is all the more reason to be reminded that capitalism will kill us all, in the long run. — StreetlightX

Probably not.

Economy isn't as important as it is in American or Western politics. — ssu

That does not compute.

But it's hurting his economy. That can't be right.

I don't understand what they're doing. Omicron is unstoppable. Plus it's not as dangerous as the others, so protecting vulnerable people and vaccinating should be the focus, not trying to remain zero-covid. Nature is going to win this battle.

ok

Yeah, pitifully....for my knowledge, I have no choice but to trust an intrinsically circular explanatory system, the very one that tells me to never trust circular explanatory systems. — Mww

Do you forget that and rediscover it over and over? Or are you always aware of it?

For me, sheer interest. Nothing more or less. Simply put.....how do I know stuff. What explains how I know stuff. What is the knowing of stuff? Any fool can learn practically anything, given enough time, which I was already pretty good at, but....what happens between my ears that explains how that happens to me? — Mww

Reached any conclusions about that?

Sure, one can start in the middle, as usually happens. Then what? Depends on what the objective is, I suppose — Mww

I started out with free will and determinism, trying to understand why they're both correct, but opposing.

Or I started out with potential and actual.

Or beginning and end.

Or top and bottom. That was actually my first one. Which was your first one?

Even observations of how we think presupposes something, is reducible to something. — Mww

Can't we just start in the middle of it all? And be deflationary or anti realist about the rest?

No?

And what underpins all of that? And everything else? Without exception? — Mww

I think it's just observations about how we think. Is that what you mean?

I think it plain redundant, so we lose nothing but dropping it. Necessity is a logical condition anyway, right? — Mww

Usually. There's logical, metaphysical, epistemic, and physical possibility. Necessity usually has to do with a priori knowledge.

Kripke's aposteriori necessity is interesting, but it's nothing earth shaking. It's kin to epistemic possibility.

Ohfercrissakes......all this beating around the proverbial “rule” bush. — Mww

So we have Kant:

Reason provides categories that inform our expectations of the world. So yes, necessity is in there. (Nobody is paying attention to what "logical" necessity actually is, so we may as well drop the logic part.)

Wittgenstein:
Has nothing to do with the topic as far as I can see. Somebody could explain how if they think otherwise.

Schopenhauer :
Causality is about explanation. We're bound to certain ways of thinking, so yes, we think in terms of necessity when producing our explanations.

Anybody else?

:up:

Do you mean the use of any nuclear weapon by Russia or a nuclear exchange between Russia and NATO? — Baden

I think the first will lead directly to the second based on what Count Timothy von Icarus said. The world would react to Russia's use of tactical nuclear weapons in a way that would lead Putin to use strategic weapons.

But you're still betting on a cease fire and negotiations. Sounds good. :up:

@Baden
What are the odds of nuclear war and would you bet on it?

Philosophy via concept analysis. Always a good idea.
1h — Mww

Maybe

Given the above, ↪Wayfarer is not mistaken. — Mww

Philosophy via sentence analysis. Never a good idea.

Nature selects things all the time with no intention; the Omicron variant, for instance.

Yes, but how is randomly determined different from non-randomly determined? — Haglund

"Random" usually just means a thing wasn't intentionally selected.

But the question is, is the initial state random? — Haglund

Randomness is just a matter of how a thing is determined, not whether it is.

That doesn't make them non-random. You can only predict the gas pressure variations if you know the initial state of the gas particles. You can't predict these. The initial momentum distribution is random. — Haglund

Laplace's demon knows the initial states. Obviously the answer to Beanhead's question regarding randomness is: your conclusion will follow from your assumptions.

The guy who believes rocks have feelings? — jgill

So philosophy's not your cup of tea. Nothing wrong with that. Have a good evening. :eyes:

I've often wondered how the aether affects ectoplasm — jgill

Depends which guage shotgun you shoot it in the head with.

Gotta move up to the 21st century, buddy. — jgill

Laplace's demon has been upgraded with the latest software by David Chalmers.

Suppose my random number comes from an observation of unpredictable minute changes in atmospheric pressure? — jgill

Those changes shouldn't be unpredictable to Laplace's demon.

Random numbers are generated by a deterministic system. In a computer it's a quartz oscillator.

Yes. Was it supposed to be a wiki thing? That’s what came up. — Mww

Yes. This started with Wayfarer saying that X is logically necessary if it's happening by natural laws.

That isn't true because we can imagine the counterfactual: our universe with different laws.

Epistemic possibility has nothing to do with that.

Did you read the article?

China has 370 million people on lockdown. :grimace: