As for your other comments - perhaps look at the original post if you haven’t already rather than the passage in isolation? — Wayfarer

Well, yes, if I had read the whole piece, I would not have got so excited about the Wittgenstein reference. But now that I have, I don't see that everything that I said was so far off the mark as to deserve no reply. But then, one can't expect a reply to everything.
As I understand it, the practice of tying one's comments to quotations is to try to ensure that comments are directed at something specific. I think that's good practice, although it is sometimes rather limiting.

Its primary method is the epochē or “bracketing,” in which one suspends the “natural attitude” — the habitual assumption that the world exists just as we take it to do. This suspension is not a denial of the world; it is a way of clarifying the pure content and structure of experience without smuggling in our preconceived notions of what it means. The resemblance between Husserl’s procedure and the Buddhist practice of “bare awareness” in mindfulness meditation is not coincidental. — Wayfarer

What bothers me here is that the methodology of our physics makes a very similar move. It brackets those aspects of the world that cannot be handled by its methods. So my question becomes how phenomenology resolves what classical physics leaves out . In a sense, perhaps it does, but it sits alongside physics, insulated from it - as physics is insulated from phenomenology. Both are theoretical projects and result in the hard problem rather than solving or dissolving it.

The resulting puzzles — the Hard Problem most of all — arise not from the mysteriousness of consciousness, but from the misapplication of categories that cannot, by design, encompass them. — Wayfarer

Quite so. So phenomenology is part of the defence of consciousness, but not part of the solution of the problem.

... Bitbol’s central claim: the attempt to derive consciousness from material processes reverses the real order of priority. Whatever is presumed to exist in the physical world already presupposes consciousness as the field in which such ascriptions occur. — Wayfarer

As I understand it, you do not deny the truth of the naturalistic, causal account of the relationship. So what does "priority" mean here? Does it mean something more like "logical priority", in which Eucldi's axioms are prior to his theorems, but not temporally prior to them? Or something like Heidegger's "always already"?

But consciousness does not appear from the outside. It is the medium within which anything like “outside” and “inside” is first constituted. — Wayfarer

I don't see how consciousness can be both the medium withing which inside and outside are defined and at the same time one limb of the dialectical pair.
The solution is simple. It is to accept that knowledge is always of something, and therefore, most often, connected to the outside. Ditto consciousnes, experience, concepts etc. You seem to think that knowledge exists in its own right, quite independently of what it is knowledge of. But knowledge is defined in relation to its objects (and to its subject as well) So the supposed gap is bridged.

... Bitbol’s point is not that materialism is wrong in its domain, but that it becomes inappropriate — and conceptually unstable — when extended to the nature of conscious experience. — Wayfarer

I could say exactly the same about idealism.

But still, if it is intelligible it seems 'natural' to ask ourselves if there is a 'reason' of that intelligibility. — boundless

Well, my first reaction is to examine the question to work out what will count as an answer.

A disordered pile of books is only chaotic because it is not ordered in a way that is interesting to us. There are in fact, endless ways in which they could be ordered. Our problem is only to pick which order we impose on them. Radical chaos is different. In such a world, we would be unable to identify any object, process or event; there could be no constituents to be ordered or chaotic. — Ludwig V

I think that's as good an answer as you are ever going to get.

Of course, you are free to avoid such speculations. But I find them very interesting, fascinating and so on. — boundless

Fair enough.

I don't think in terms of transcendence because the idea of a transcendent realm or reality seems unintelligible to me, or else simply a reification of a conception of this world into another imaginary register, so to speak, and I don't think the idea is at all helpful philosophically. — Janus

I think there is something to be made of the idea. For example, the table is somehow more than the sum of its parts. One might recognize this by saying that the table transcends its part. But there is no particular glamour or value involved here. It is just that the parts need to be integrated, arranged, put together in a certain way before the parts become a table. In addition, one can recognize that any description of the table will fail, in some sense, to "capture" everything about the table, so the object transcends the descriptions of it.

How the world 'is' independent from (sc. the representation ordered by our own cognitive apparatus) is unanswerable because we can't get out from our own perspective. I believe that there is a truth in there but at the same time, they overreach. — boundless

I agree with that - especially that there is a truth in there. Philosophy pushes into binary yes/no responses. But, for example, it is true that we can't get out from our own perspective. What idealists tend not to notice is that our perspective throws up problems that it cannot deal with. So we are forced to reconsider and develop a new perspective. The disruption is the world talking back to us.

Because, it has no reason (I am using this word without any reference to 'purpose' here) to be intelligible, otherwise. It might be intelligible, yes, but I don't think there is any need for that. And yet, it seems that it is. It could be a complete 'chaos' and yet it is ordered. My question is: why is it so? — boundless

If it has no reason to be intelligible, it has no reason not to be. But this misunderstands what intelligibility is, in two respects. Intelligibility is always partial, never finished. What we understand generates new questions and hence new understandings. But also, the category of the chaotic is, curiously enough, a matter of perspective. A disordered pile of books is only chaotic because it is not ordered in a way that is interesting to us. There are in fact, endless ways in which they could be ordered. Our problem is only to pick which order we impose on them. Radical chaos is different. In such a world, we would be unable to identify any object, process or event; there could be no constituents to be ordered or chaotic.

My own speculative answer is that even what we call 'mindless', 'inanimate' matter has a structure because it derives from a 'Principle' of both 'being' and 'intelligibility' (and this IMO is an 'argument' - speculative argument, not a 'proof' - of the existence of a 'Divine Mind'). — boundless

I'm really not qualified to speculate with you, I'm afraid.

Reduction by itself isnt necessarily a bad thing, but we want to aim for the right kind of reduction. Reducing phenomena to physical processes relying on objective causal mechanisms is concealing kind of reduction since it slaps abstractive idealizations over what we experience, hiding the richness of that experience. Husserlian reduction and Wittgensteinian seeing bracket the flattening generalizations of empiricism so we can notice what is implicated in them but not made explicit. — Joshs

I agree that reduction is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends, I would say, on the context, and there is a huge dose of pragmatism required here, rather than the simple-minded pursuit of truth. But I have to say, Wittgenstein's project seems to me the most promising approach. Husserl and Heidegger, for me, amplify and elaborate the range of theoretical stances available, but do not manage to arrive in the lived world. Perhaps Wittgenstein does not get there either, but he does identify where we need to go.

The aspect called physical reality comprises events and objects which in themselves are devoid of affect, relevance and mattering. They simply ‘are’ as neutral facts of the real. Relevance is a gloss we as subjects add to them. — Joshs

Well, there is a case for saying that relevance is not properly though of as something added to the neutral facts, but something that underlies the project of thinking of things as neutral facts. In other words, we pursue the project of understanding the world stripped of relevance in pursuit of our human lives. So that project needs to be seen in the context of our lives.

I was joking but it seemed to me that your use of adverbs like 'clearly' meant that it was impossible for you that I could be a panentheist :smile: — boundless

I thought you might be. Perhaps my response was clumsy. I must confess I didn't give a thought to your possible religious beliefs. If I offended you, I apologize.

Consider this analogy. Alice every time that plays a lottery, wins. Let's say that this reapeats for 10 times.
Our instinct is: it can't be "just a coincidence". We want an explanation of "what is really going on". Perhaps, we discover that the lottery system is rigged in her favour, with or without her knowledge. And then we discover how it is rigged and we can make an explanation of why she is winning.
However, someone else might just say: "well, it is unlikely but it isn't impossible. The game works as it should, Alice is just very, very, very lucky.". — boundless

Thanks. This is very helpful. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that we are lucky to be alive. Some people think that life is a bit of a curse.

So, here's the point. If, for instance, the mathematical structure of our physica models doesn't 'reflect' an intelligible structure of the "physical world as it is", our success becomes difficult to explain. We might just be lucky: there is no intelligible structure but somehow we manage to make models that work. Or there is an intelligible structure which is 'reflected' (albeit imperfectly) into our models that allows us to make successful predictions. — boundless

I'm finding it very hard to envisage the possibility that there may be no intelligible structure in the world. It seems to me that the fact that we survive and find our way about seems to me to demonstrate that there is. So, for me, there is no "if there is an intelligible structure...", only "Given that there is an intelligible structure..."
There is the possibility that quantum mechanics demonstrate that, at that level, there is no intelligible structure. But I maintain that the probability laws in quantum mechanics demonstrate that there is some structure in the world, even if there is some chaos. If there was none, there would be no probability laws.

There is an interesting and possibly confusing issue about how much of the structure we perceive in the world is imposed on it by us, and how much of it is recognized by us - i.e. does exist in the world independently of our perception of it. I don't have an answer for that.

Is there such a thing as an unintelligible structure? If there's a structure, it will be intelligible. If it's not intelligible, it won't be a structure.

Yes, but why should a 'mindless world' be intelligible at all? If conscious beings - and even more rational beings - are completely accidental product of 'blind' processes of a 'mindless world', why would such a world have a structure that can be truly (even if imperfectly) understood by them? — boundless

Why do you think a mindless world might not be intelligible?
I don't know that we are an "accidental" product of the processes of the world. That presupposes there is some purpose or system at work with a definite aim. I don't think there is. However, given that it was always possible that life would be generated by the world that we inhabit, it is not all that surprising that life did develop.
Your description of "mindless" and "blind" hints that you think there is some impossibility or unlikelihood of that happening by itself, as it were. Am I right? Why do you think that?
Perhaps the probability of life developing is small. But small probability events happen all the time. Ask any lottery winner. Consider the existence of any star.
Finally, given that we evolved to survive and even thrive in this world, it cannot be much of a surprise that we are equipped to understand it.

As for your other comments - perhaps look at the original post if you haven’t already rather than the passage in isolation? — Wayfarer

I guess I should. Give me a few hours.

This dissolves the dualism of the hard problem by showing there to be a single underlying process of experiencing accounting for the historical decision to bifurcate the world into concepts like ‘physically real’ and ‘real in other ways’. — Joshs

Your strategy is quite right. But I don't think your solution really works.
It the underlying process is a process of experiencing, then isn't it firmly located on one side of the dualism? One needs something that embraces - or even, I suppose, transcends - both sides.
You mention history, so you have opened the door to complication. It seems to me that the original decision happened in ancient Greece. But your characterization of it does not quite catch its significance. Plato - who may or may not have been the first - makes the division you describe. But, for him, the physical world was a world of shadows because it is a world of change. The true world was the changeless world of mathematics where the objects we call Forms resided.
That suspicion of the material world survived and was dominant in Western culture until Aristotle was rediscovered. It suited the Christian church perfectly. However, Aristotle, of course, brought the Forms back to earth and located them firmly in physical reality. Perhaps this was when the primacy of matter began, But materialism was not unknown to the ancient world - Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius.

Both Heidegger and Wittgenstein said that the best way to do philosophy would be to use poetic language. — Janus

I don't recall Wittgenstein's remark about poetry, but I'm prepared to believe it. I seem to remember that he says somewhere that one could write a whole book of philosophy that consisted of nothing by jokes. I wouldn't have expect jokes to be a forte of Wittgenstein's, who seems an extremely serious-minded person to me. But then, he loved cowboy movies. Perhaps we all have a lighter side. I hope so.

There’s a difficult point at issue here so bear with me. It is often said that ‘materialism says that everything is physical, and idealism that everything is mind or mental.’ That they are therefore structurally similar albeit constructed around different ontological elements. — Wayfarer

You don't actually reject this, and there must be some account of the two in relation to each other that brings out the agreements and the disagreements. Without some such structure, there wouldn't be a problem.

That dualism is exactly what phenomenology seeks to avoid. — Wayfarer

I guess this is the difficult point you mention. I'm not sure that I should pronounce on phenomenology at all. But if it is the epoche that you are talking about, I don't see how it helps. It seems to me more like a clear taking of sides - especially when the resulting project is called phenomenology which locates it in the world of phenomena - experience.

But if consciousness is not a “something,” it is also not a “nothing.” It is neither a useful fiction, nor a byproduct of neural processes, nor a ghostly residue awaiting physical explanation. Instead, says Bitbol, it is the self-evidential medium within which all knowledge about objects, laws, and physical reality arise (here the convergence with Kant is manifest). Any attempt to treat consciousness as derivative — as some thing that “comes from” matter — therefore reverses the real order of dependence. The world of objects may be doubted, corrected, or revised; but the presence of experience itself, here and now, cannot be disconfirmed. — Wayfarer

There is much to agree with in the first sentence. I'm not sure I completely understand the second sentence, but it is certainly true that only people and, to some extent, other conscious beings can be said to know things. But then comes the slide. You put it more clearly in the OP

Bitbol’s central claim: the attempt to derive consciousness from material processes reverses the real order of priority. Whatever is presumed to exist in the physical world already presupposes consciousness as the field in which such ascriptions occur. — Wayfarer

Presuming anything is the act of a conscious being, so it is certain that presumption of the physical world presupposes a conscious being. But we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings existed (at least on this planet) and, since we know of no conscious beings that exist without a physical substrate, we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any conscious beings in it. You and Bitbol seem to slide from what is obviously true to something that is either obscure and not explained or clearly false.
If I had a clear explanation of what is meant by "priority" and "derive" here. I might understand better what you are getting at.
The last sentence of your quotation seems to be true, in a sense, although I do not think that the idea that there is a world of objects can be doubted or corrected or revised. However, it is true that many (most) specific assertions about that world can be doubted or corrected or revised. But I don't see the relevance.

But one takeaway is that both phenomenology and Buddhism are very much concerned with philosophy as lived, as it informs day to day or moment to moment existence. — Wayfarer

I can get behind that. I don't fully understand how the "theoretical stance", which is so popular in philosophy, and the lived world are related. But I'm clear that, in the end, philosophy needs to attend to both and recognize that the lived world is the context for the theoretical stance, not the other way round - unless, perhaps, you are Euclid. I'm sure you are aware that is a theme found, not only in Heidegger, but also in Wittgenstein as well.

Bitbol's "if consciousness is not a something, it is not a nothing either" rang a bell.

. “But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain.” Admit it? What greater difference could there be? “And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a Nothing.” Not at all. It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said. We’ve only rejected the grammar which tends to force itself on us here. — Wittgenstein Phil. Inv. 304

I don't claim there's any great illumination for us here. It's just a curiosity. Does Bitbol ever mention or quote Wittgenstein?

But this makes it sound as though there is more than one real world; that physics effectively captures the reality of an aspect of it (the physical) and we need another explanation alongside of it for something like consciousness. This is dualism, a reification of the hard problem. — Joshs

I agree with you that the hard problem needs to be dissolved rather than solved. But it is also worth remembering that the intention behind the arguments is precisely to stake a claim for the reality of consciousness - to put a block in the way of reduction. The arguments have succeeded, I think, in doing that. But they have presented us with another problem instead of the original problem.
Part of the problem is encapsulated by the confusion inherent in the idea of the "real world", "reality". The idea that physics captures the reality of an aspect of the world is meant to insist that there is only one world, which is thought of in many ways. These conceptual systems are related to each other in something of the way that different interpretations of a picture are related. They are independent, complete in themselves, yet, in a sense competing with each other, and, in that competition, co-existing. The picture of the duck-rabbit is really a picture of a duck and a picture of a rabbit and it is not possible for it to be both simultaneously; yet there is only one picture. It seems impossible and yet, there it is.

If instead we claim that the phrase ‘physical world’ is not describing a world that is real in the sense of being real independent of our conscious interaction with it, then we are doing phenomenology. — Joshs

So, in order to avoid consciousness being subsumed in physics, you subsume physics in consciousness. That just perpetuates the issue. Yet it is true that physics qua science was developed by human beings. But those human beings posited the world as something that existed independently of consciousness or at least of how consciousness happens to conceive of it. We cannot be true to consciousness, it seems, without being false to physics - and vice versa. The puzzle picture resolves our anxiety or at least to show that we can live with both.

This dissolves the dualism of the hard problem by showing there to be a single underlying process of experiencing accounting for the historical decision to bifurcate the world into concepts like ‘physically real’ and ‘real in other ways’. — Joshs

I don't think it does. We need some way of conceiving of a single process, but not one that dissolves the physical into the mental. We didn't need the dissolution of consciousness into physics either. Co-existence, co-dependency is the only way to go. Not that it is easy.

You might be disappointed by what I say now: I am a panentheist, so obviously, I regard the (Divine) Consciousness as ontologically fundamental — boundless

I'm not disappointed at all. Many people have beliefs of this kind that I do not share. You, in your turn, may be disappointed to learn that I have never been able to sign up to any doctrine of this kind - mostly because I find it too hard to make sense of them. For purposes of classification, I call myself an agnostic. I think we can co-exist.

No, merely stating and observing they work isn't an explanation. They could for instance work by pure 'luck'. — boundless

I don't understand what you are asking for.

The physical world seems intelligible, which seems totally ungaranteed if
the 'physical' was totally independent from consciousness. — boundless

"The physical world seems intelligible" means, to me, that we can understand the physical world. You use the word "seems" which suggests that you think that might not be the case. I agree that we do not understand it completely. Is that what you mean? I can't see what it might mean to say that our partial understanding is an complete illusion, as opposed to partly wrong.
Conscious beings evolved in the physical world, and evolved the means for understanding that world. If those means had failed to understand the physical world, our species would likely have died out long ago. No?

What gives you a guarantee that the 'better' account isn't also illusory if there is no intelligibility? — boundless

There is no guarantee. In fact, past experience supports the idea that any given account will be superseded in due course. I see no reason to suppose that there will ever be a final, complete account. The thing is, each account generates new questions.

Yes, what it is like cannot be subject to ontological analysis, even though we may be able to give inadequate verbal descriptions of it. The descriptions, if they are to be intelligible, are always in terms of sense objects and bodily states, sensations and feelings. — Janus

I'm always fascinated by the fact that a question that seems, on the face of it, to have a perfectly straightforward answer manages to persuade us that it has no proper answer at all. The descriptions are gestures towards what escapes description. But if the description is not the real thing, it cannot substitute for the real thing in our experience.

What the 'explanatory gap' and 'hard problem' arguments are aimed at, is precisely that claim. That everything is reducible to or explainable in terms of the physical. That is the point at issue! — Wayfarer

Well, that's a good point. But doesn't idealism fall into the same trap in reverse? The solution, if there is a solution, is to understand the two apparent foes in their relation to each other.
Here's an attempt. (I'm channelling Ryle here, but I'm sure that won't prejudice you.)
An accountant knows everything that goes on in the library - it all shows up in the accounts, one way or another. So every book registers in the accounts. But all the accountant (qua accountant) knows is how much the books cost, how much the shelving for the books costs, etc. What accountants don't know is anything about what is in the books - the stories. You have to read them to know that. (There's a by-way here about the meaning of "in" the books. What's in the books, you might say, is paper and ink or maybe words and pictures. Where is the story? Well, it is not outside the book, that's for sure.) You could say that the accounts include everything that goes on in the library, but miss the point of the library, which is what the stories and ideas in the books. That does not mean that the accounts are irrelevant. On the contrary, they are essential if the library is to function properly.
We could tell a similar story about all the other people involved in the library, both inside it and outside it. The whole story needs all these points of view if the institution is to be understood properly.

At this point? Justifying building stuff because our lords have said it's time to accept the inevitable. — Moliere

The story of the roll-out does justify a feeling that it has been imposed, rather than introduced. There's an impression that the policy is to get it out there and embedded and sort out any problems afterwards - or don't sort them out and force us to accept whatever we are given. But the world was ready for it. How come? It's been a dream for decades.

There are cities wanting data centers since our lords have pointed: not just manufacturing, but energy firms and city councils. — Moliere

Well, yes. Everybody wants the latest thing. In a way, no different from the latest fashion in clothes or music.

Though, yes, the point is not what it actually does for us as much as it's what it makes for thems owning the architecture we are currently communicating with. — Moliere

Well, yes. The prospect of a fat profit is always an incentive.
But I think there's more than that to it. There's a prospect of finally getting workers who can do any job under any conditions without all the messy issues that come with employing human beings. There's a vision of god-like entities that will tell us how to solve all our problems. Disappointment will set in eventually.

Isn't science supposed to be explanatory? If science cannot answer the "what is it like?" question, isn't that a huge failure? — RogueAI

It might be that science is just not set up to answer questions like "what is it like". Myself, I don't think that question has an answer at all. The only way to know what it is like is to experience it.

a year ago. When plagiarism was considered shameful. — bongo fury

I think the problem is that AI doesn't fit into the standard ideas about plagiarism. If plagiarism is using someone else's work without acknowledgement, there's an issue about whose work the AI's work is.

To find out whether the bot were really as shameless as all that? Perhaps, having asked for and received from it full details of a source, it was remiss of them not to have politely sought clarification on whether these new details were indeed factual? — bongo fury

I have the impression that my informant did not believe the AI in the first place but found it hard to believe that it was wrong. As to the citation, either the AI did not, or could not, give one, or it did give one. It would take only a few minutes to see that the citation was wrong, so it was then necessary to check all the text to make sure it was not just a mistake about the citation.

As with a human, if a quote is given, then a citation must be provided. A human, or an AI, that quotes Pindar without giving a citation that can be readily checked can be ignored. — Banno

Yes. I don't understand exactly why they felt they had to go through all those texts. My point is really that once one realizes that the AI is not a magic fountain of truth, but needs to be treated as sceptically as a human being, one begins to wonder what the point of it is.
There are some things that it can do better than human beings. So let them stick to those tasks.

The physical world seems to have an intelligible structure. If consciousness isn't fundamental in some sense, how can we explain that? — boundless

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that consciousness isn't fundamental in some sense. I was just asking in what sense you think it is fundamental. Obviously, you don't mean in the sense that it is the causal origin of the world.

An explanation that explains why our conceptual models work that isn't reduced to a mere "they work because experience tells us they work". — boundless

So you accept that they do work. But if they work, they provide an explanation - that's what conceptual structures do, isn't it?

This kind of answer means either that:
(1) "it just happens that the physical world has an intelligible structure", i.e. there is no explanation, it's just so.
(2) "intelligbility is illusory". It appears that there the physical world has an intelligible structure but this isn't true. — boundless

I don't understand the first alternative. If the world has an intelligible structure, then there is an explanation why things are the way they are.
As to the second, it happens all the time that we think we have an account of the world and it turns out to be wrong. We just set to work to devise another, better, one.

I do accept both things. However, this doesn't exclude the possibility that some form of consciousness is fundamental as it is suggested by the second 'horn' of the dilemma. — boundless

It depends what you mean by "fundamental". Clearly, consciousness is not the origin of the physical world and does not exist independently of some physical substrate. That suggests that it is the physical world that is fundamental. So what do you mean by "fundamental".

The fact that there is no 'perfect model' that mirrors the way the world isn't enough to say that we get no knowledge of the 'things in themselves'. In other words, my question is: according to all these thinkers is there a reason why our predictive models work? Is it just a 'brute fact'? — boundless

You are right to think that our not knowing all about everything does not mean that we know nothing about anything. However, the reason why our predictive models work is that we test their predictive power. If they fail, we revise the model or abandon it. What more do you want?

nothing in the physical story seems to explain why pain feels the way it does, or why color experience has its distinctive qualitative nature. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure that there is a real question here. It seems to presume that pain might not feel the way it does or colour might have some different qualitative nature. But those possibilities seem like empty gestures to me.

he argues that current forms of physical explanation leave an unresolved conceptual gap between objective accounts and subjective experience, a gap that cannot be closed simply by adding more neuroscientific detail — Wayfarer

That's true. However, it seems to me to follow that the metaphor of the gap that can't be closed does not work. It assumes that the two sides of the gap are, somehow, in the same category or commensurable. But physics is designed to exclude anything that doesn't fit its methodology. Nothing wrong with that, until you start claiming that the physical world is the only real world.

As I said before, I see the physical world as an artificial construct, the real world being made up of consciousness and mind, which acts out certain things in the artificial world for some reason, or other. — Punshhh

There's no doubt that the physical world, as treated in physics, is an artificial construct, so I agree that it has no special claim to be the real world. However, I see consciousness and mind, as conceived here, as an off-shoot of that construct. The real world has both as natural inhabitants and co-existents. In the real world, physics needs conscious, mindful people and conscious, mindful people need the physical world.

Folk treat this as an "authority", but of course any authority here would be granted by the participants, not presumed. That is, if you disagree with the AI's response, then you could openly ask it for an alternate response, to ground your objection. — Banno

I heard an account from an academic that told of an AI, in response to a question, providing a factually wrong answer about Pindar; when questioned, it doubled down on its mistake by providing quotations to back up its claim. A long search through a lot of actual text in an actual library eventually proved that it was wrong. It had written the quotations itself. Many hallucinations will not be subjected to that level of examination. What earthly use is a machine like that? One might as well ask one's next-door neighbour.

Using AI in this context can be frustrating but it ultimately saves time and avoids tedium. It's also a very direct and fast way of understanding the ways that LLMs get things wrong generally. — Jamal

Nobody could quarrel with saving time and avoiding tedium. Your suggestions all seem sensible to me. If people don't find them useful, I'm sure they'll let you know.
But I'm very concerned about the way that LLMs get things wrong. Please can we think carefully about ways to trap harmful errors?

There is the SOA (snow is white)
There is also the SOA (snow, being white, is well known)
There is the problem of disconnecting the world from the thought of the world, when we only know the world through our thoughts.
Being known is a thought, but then being white is also a thought. — RussellA

I'm really quite confused. I lazily though that that-clauses would work - after all, thinking that snow is white and the fact that snow is white are perfection in order grammatically. But the state of affairs that snow is white doesn't sound right. Your way of doing is comprehensible, but not standard English. Which doesn't mean it's wrong. But there must be a standard English way of doing it. On the other hand this gerund business is very curious, yet seems to make grammatical sense. I had thought vaguely that "the state of affairs that snow is white was all one needed.
Then there's the business about states of affairs obtaining rather than existing. My intuition tells me that there is no need for that, but isn't certain.

Have a look at the relevant part of the article:-
SEP - States of affairs 1.1

We may have the concept of a possible world where there is the State of Affairs (snow is white), and we may also have the concept of a possible world where there is the State of Affairs (snow is black). — RussellA

I looked up the SEP - States of Affairs
In section 1.1, I discovered that states of affairs are in fact expressed by gerund clauses, as in "Charlie’s eloping with Ginger was surprising" or "Mary’s divorcing Charlie caused Charlie’s demise" or "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s being more than seven feet tall is well-known". I was somewhat relieved that they are related to facts and thoughts.
I think that this is all a philosophical mare's nest around a grammatical device in language. I don't say there is nothing here, and I'm prepared to be convinced.

he (sc. Wittgenstein) uses it (sc. the shadow metaphor)as a stepping stone towards dropping meaning in favour of use. — Banno

Since it doesn't occur in the Phil. Inv., one thinks it must be some sort of stepping stone. It didn't make the cut. But I think that's a pity - though no doubt he had his reasons. His discussion of pictures and sentences show traces of the TLP with its similarity of structure. Perhaps that's why it didn't survive into the PI.
He articulates meaning as use on pg. 4 of the Blue Book, but doesn't mention shadows until pg. 36. So whatever kind of step it was/is, he had meaning as use when he made it.

"Caesar is a General" is true IFF Caesar is in the extension of "...is General". — Banno

I'm a bit bothered about this. Caesar was not always a General, so would ("Caesar is not a General" is true IFF Caesar is not in the extension of General) also count as timelessly true?
It is clear that there is no contradiction here. Yet contradiction seems only to require that p and not-p are never true of the same object simultaneously. We need time to apply that law, but timelessness doesn't have time.
It's just that necessary/analytic/a priori truths are clearly timelessly true. Both hypotheses are true, but it is the formula as a whole (p IFF p is true) that is timelessly true, not the constituent sentences.

In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but re-establish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false. — On the very idea of a conceptual schema

Yes. One remembers that sentence. I'm still a bit hesitant, because I think that the distinction is useful, even if it is not always apposite.

But I cannot understand that if in a possible world there is no apple, there still is the apple’s haecceity — RussellA

Is it possible that the haecceity in question is the haecceity of the possible apple?
Really, there is no making sense of this. I know it is not proper philosophy. Some poets make fun of similar issues.

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
etc. — Hughes Mearns

Or there's "The Railroad Station" by Wilawa Szymborska.

Yep. There is something quite odd about such ghost-apples. — Banno

Wittgenstein makes a major feature of what he calls "shadow" objects in the Blue and Brown books.

The next step we are inclined to take is to think that as the object of our thought isn't the fact it is a shadow of the fact. There are different names for this shadow, e.g. "proposition", "sense of the sentence". — Page 32 Blue Book

He explores the idea in some detail.

But the actual world can only exist at one moment in time. — RussellA

The idea that only the present exists is really very odd. "Present" only has meaning in the context of "Past" and "Future". They all exist in the fashion that's appropriate to them. They form a conceptual system, and claiming that only one of them exists is like forgetting that "North" only has meaning in the context of "South" (and "East" and "West").

We might posit two more states of affairs, D and E, to account for these changes, but then we have changes between A and D, D and C, C and E, and E and B, requiring more states of affairs. And so on. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's the argument. What's your solution? To posit that all change takes place instantaneously between states of affairs? That's absurd. It is clear that most changes take place continuously over a period of time. Look around you.

And it's not that simple. If we redefine "state of affairs" as you suggest, such that 'state of affairs" covers all of reality, then all you have done is produced a false description of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know that reality is different from my version? Because of that argument? It is not a description of reality, but a reductio ad absurdum of a certain way of thinking about reality.
I did not say that "state of affairs" covers all of reality. I did allow that there are some events that do not fit in to that category.

This is the principal reason for Aristotle's duality of matter and form in his physics. When one state of affairs changes to another, the form or formula changes, but matter provides for the underlying continuity between the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. So there is no need to insist that all change occurs between states of affairs. I don't agree with his metaphysics, but it does solve the problem he was facing.

What other ways? Do you mean to define words so that they reflect the way that you want reality to be, rather than the way that it is? That's not very good ontology. — Metaphysician Undercover

I like to define words so that they do not produce absurdities.

The reason is the argument presented by Aristotle. Suppose at some time we have state of affairs A, and at a later time state of affairs B. Since these two are different we can conclude that change has occurred in the time between A and B. As philosophers we desire to know and understand this change. We might explain the change with a third, distinct state of affairs, C, which occurred between A and B, but then we have a change which occurred between A and C, and between C and B. We might posit two more states of affairs, D and E, to account for these changes, but then we have changes between A and D, D and C, C and E, and E and B, requiring more states of affairs. And so on. — Metaphysician Undercover

So it does depend on the definition of "state of affairs". Aristotle's argument is indeed a good reason for changing that definition, to allow that states of affairs can comprise change. Problem solved!

This is the principal reason for Aristotle's duality of matter and form in his physics. When one state of affairs changes to another, the form or formula changes, but matter provides for the underlying continuity between the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I knew that was why Aristotle constructed his system. But I don't think it would be helpful to adopt it now that we have other ways of explaining it.

Right, so what I am talking about is something which cannot be placed in that category. The name "state of affairs" cannot be used to refer to this. — Metaphysician Undercover

I thought so. Can you give me a reason for restricting the term in that way?

EDIT
On reflection, there is a bit more that I can say.

I have no doubt that change can be accommodated as a "state of affairs".
@Banno has already given an example, I offer "The plane is flying from London to Edinburgh" is clearly a state of affairs. But it is a process which will not change (much) as long as it is flying. That is, it is a continuous process, which occupies time.
We can also easily accommodate changes in the process. The plane may fly faster or slower, lower or higher, but all these changes are easily accommodate as states of affairs.
"The plane is taking off" also seems like a state of affairs. But it is accelerating, which means that its speed is changing. In this case, the speed is not just changing but the rate of change is changing. )The place accelerates faster as it travels down the runway.
But none of that presents a problem. What might present a problem is the fact that to speak of accelerating involves a concept of speed at an instant, But speed is defined as distance covered in a period of time, If the period of time is infinitely close to zero, it seems problematic. But the calculations work perfectly well, so I don't see that as a problem either.
But there is a problem here. If the plane started moving at 1:00, are the wheels turning at 1:00? In which case, it has already started at 1:00. Or are we to say that the wheels are stationary at 1:00? In which case, the plane has not yet started moving at 1:00. We may end up saying that the wheels were moving at infinite velocity at the moment of starting.
In other words, limits and boundaries do present problems and we may have difficulty saying what the state of affairs is at 1:00. This is not really a problem about states of affairs, but about boundaries and limiis. We need to recognize that they belong to neither of the states of affairs that exist on either side of them; these are in a different category and do not occupy space or time.
I think that this is the problem you have in mind when you talk of change between states of affairs.. But, I hope you can see that the problem is not about all changes, particularly not about changes that are processes and occupy time. It is about a certain kind of change, which is a boundary or limit. Nor is it a problem that affects just talk of "states of affairs". The same problem occurs whenever those changes occur and would face us whatever notation we decide to use.

If you reject the sound logic, and simply refuse to accept that there is any part of empirical reality which cannot be describe as states of affairs, then you are in denial. — Metaphysician Undercover

When we reach the limits of what "states of affairs" can do for us, and there is still more reality to describe, we must devise a new way to speak about it. — Metaphysician Undercover

It all depends on how you define "state of affairs". "Description" is simply a name for specific kinds of language, mostly those that are true or false. "State of affairs" is simply a name for what the description is a description of. It has very little content, like the word "thing".
There are also metaphorical descriptions, which are more complicated - but are often the engine that generates new kinds of description. When we have invented new kinds of description, "state of affairs" is extended to include those new kinds of description.
In other words "state of affairs" is just a correlative to "description", and is no more limited than "description".
You seem to have a more limited idea of what a state of affairs is. But it is just a question of definition, not of the nature of reality.

In both cases we are referring to something that does not exist. — RussellA

You keep saying that. But I don't understand what it is that we are referring to. What's worse is that you are saying on one hand that this object must exist and that it doesn't.

We can talk about Sherlock Holmes who does not exist, and Meinong’s logic can deal with non-existent objects, such as round-squares — RussellA

In a sense, both halves are true. The difficulty is that Meinong, IMO, doesn't explain anything, but simply assigns names (labels) to the problems. What we need is a way of seeing through the problems so that we can understand that they are illusions created by our misunderstanding of language. That's what the logical analysis is intended to do.

Thank you.

In possible world, say W34, there are no apples at all. Then the proposition “there is no apple on the table” is true.
What would the logic statement be for this possible world W34? — RussellA

I'm pretty sure that it is "In W34(¬∃x(P(x)∧Q(x)))". But I'm no expert. Perhaps @Banno will comment.

To say “there is no apple on the table” is no different to saying “there is no apple in the set”.
In both cases we are referring to something that does not exist. — RussellA

I don't understand you. The table exists, and the set exists. We are not referring to any specific apple and not asserting either that apples in general exist or that they don't.

The proposition "There is something that is an apple and this something is not on the table" can be written as ∃x(P(x)∧¬Q(x)) where P(x) means "x is an apple" and Q(x) means "x is on the table" — RussellA

That might be true, when, for example, there is only one apple around or when I mean that the apple I'm holding in my hand. But ¬∃x(P(x)∧Q(x)) identifies a different state of affairs, which does not refer to any apples.

EDIT
I'm not saying that there is no problem about referring to non-existent objects. I am saying that this isn't it.

I suggest that it's simpler to semantically equate, “there is no apple on the table” with the fact that apples are not in the set of objects on the table. — Relativist

Thank you. That's much better.

In Ordinary language, when we say “there is no apple on the table”, we mean that the apple does not exist. — RussellA

Do you mean that the apple that might be on the table does not exist? Clearly, there is not, in this world, any apple that might be on the table. That apple only exists in the possible world in which there's an apple on the table. If there are many apples that might be on the table, each apple will exist in a different possible world.

In ordinary language, if “there is no apple on the table” is true, then there is no apple. The proposition is referring to something that is non-existent. This seems like a puzzle. — RussellA

No, this seems like a muddle. "There is no apple" needs a context to be meaningful.

Yes, in modal logic, if in W3 the apple exists but does not obtain, and in W6 the apple exists but does not obtain, is this the same apple or a different apple even though it is identical. — RussellA

I don't know which apple you are referring to as "the apple". Are you using "does not obtain" to mean "does not exist in the actual world"? In general, IMO, the identity or difference of objects across different worlds depends on the specific details of the case. One cannot generalize.

This is the problem that modal logic solves. The apple exists even if it does not obtain. If it exists then it can be included within modal equations. — RussellA

Yes, but you have to specify in which world these apples exist.

So a relativist has a conundrum -- how to make an argument against foundationalism without making a universal or truth-based claim? — L'éléphant

Not necessarily.
It is often argued that any foundationalism leads inevitably to an infinite regress - what are the foundations of the foundations?
Or it might be simply based on a critique of the foundationalist's argument. (Somewhat as the arguments against the existence of God are often based on a critique of the arguments for God's existence.)

Foundationalism, on the other hand, is, at its core, an epistemic principle whose theory is based on axioms and justification. — L'éléphant

If the epistemic principle is truth-based, it will not justify any moral principles. If it is value-based, it will beg the question.
Axioms are a weak foundation for any assertion. Euclid's axioms allow him to demonstrate geometrical truths, but only if they are true. Different axioms, different "truths". To put it another Euclid's theorems are only true relative to his axioms. Or do you think that there are some self-evidently true moral axioms?

However the penchant for a modal ontological argument gives me pause. — Banno

I looked this up. I see what you mean. His argument feels like a construction for a pre-determined outcome - as does his theodicy. Perhaps I'm being too black-and-white. Most likely, with Christians who indulge in philosophy, there is influence both ways.

All this by way of mostly agreeing with you. Including the suspicion that Plantinga is misled by his faith. — Banno

From what I've seen, it does seem very likely that Plantinga thinks that there is a connection between his philosophy and his faith. But I'm pretty sure that there are Christians who accept his faith but not his philosophy, I suspect it is not really the faith that is misleading him, but good old-fashioned philosophical mistakes.

Possibility 3 - the apple is not on the table
Possibility 6 - the apple is not on the table
Possibility 9 - the apple is on the table
Possibility 12 - the apple is on the table — RussellA

I don't quite understand this. 3 and 6 appear to be identical; so do 9 and 12. So we are considering two possibilities.
"It is possible that the apple is not on the table" and "It is possible that the apple is on the table".
Both these sentences presuppose that there is some specific apple in question. Normally, one would work out which one from the context. But here, there is no context, so no clear interpretation of the sentences is available.
As they stand, the first sentence means "There is no apple on the table" which doesn't refer to anything non-existent and "There is an apple on the table", which refers to the apple on the table, which does exist.
So I don't see your problem.

The possible worlds could supply an appropriate context. But whether the apple in W3 is the same apple as the apple in W6 or the apple in W9 is the same as the apple in W12, - or perhaps the same apple is in question in all four worlds - is a question of trans-world identity. That's an awkward question, but at least we have a context that supplies an apple to be referred to. But I wouldn't be dogmatic about how all that works.

The general problem of non-existent objects has two facets. The only such objects that we can talk about are objects like "the present king of France" or "Pegasus" or "Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman". These are all defined in a context which gives the terms some meaning, while at the same time stipulating that their existence is confined to those specific contexts and excluded from what we are pleased to call the real world. It requires a certain mental gymnastics, but people seem to manage it, on the whole. Without some such conceptual device, I don't see how one can say anything at all about non-existent objects. They have to exist in some sense if we are to talk about them at all.

Plantanga proposed “haecceity” to account for this uniqueness of entities. — RussellA

So far as I can see, "haecceity" has no meaning beyond "the property that accounts for the uniqueness of entities". It is just a label for the problem.
Since non-existent objects don't exist, they can't possess haeccity". So it is doesn't help with non-existent objects. .

How do you address the ontology of the hypothetical apple? .... — frank

"I might have had an apple for breakfast" (a) is puzzling when we ask which apple I might have had for breakfast, and then we wonder about the ontology of the hypothertical apple as if it were a kind of apple. We understand "I might have had that apple in the bowl" (b) for breakfast without positing an hypotherical apple; we even understand "I might have had one of the apples in the bowl for breakfast" (c) without positing hypothetical apples. The puzzle lies entirely in the difference between (a) and (b) or (c). (a) is perfectly comprehensible until you ask the follow-up question which apple you might have had. The question doesn't have the context that would enable an answer. Brutally, there's no such thing as a hypothetical apple; there are only hypotheses about apples.

Heicceity is an historic term, going back to John Duns Scotus in the 13th C, who proposed that although an object is no more than its set of properties, haecceity makes the object unique and different to any other object. — RussellA

We can ask whether this object is red or heavy or... We then notice that there is nothing to prevent something else having just the same properties. After all, a property is inherently something that can occur more than once. There is no guarantee that the same bundle will not occur again. But it is no help to posit yet another property and attributing to that property the magical capacity to be uniquely found in that object. It just makes another puzzle. In specific cases and contexts, we distinguish objects from each other in specific cases and contexts.

It seems that the caravan has moved on while I was away. But thank you both for making me think through what I was saying.

If Aristotle, and perhaps Homer, never actually existed, yet Aristotle and Homer are rigid designators, then what is Aristotle and Homer actually designating. — RussellA

Well, Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. So presumable "Homer" designates that person whoever he may be. The difficulty is not just that someone else wrote those epics, but that they were a) not written down (until long after they were created) and b) not created by a single author. The poems were part of an oral tradition in which each poet created their own version(s), so b) our ideas of authorship and texts do not apply in that culture. I wouldn't press this as any kind on knock-down argument here. It's just an interesting conundrum.
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That would be very interesting if you could explain a reasonable difference between these two. The former would be an actual predication, the latter would be an imaginary predication. Is that what you're saying? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's easier than that. Existence is not a predicate. I'm not quite sure whether being imaginary counts as a predicate, but there's no doubt that "imaginary" excludes "exists". What does exist (in our world) is the account that people give of what they have imagined. Whatever has been imagined would then count as a possible object, and so existent in another world, not this one. Yes?

Perhaps we don't need a theory about the nature of possible worlds in order to use modal logic to regiment modal discourse. An open rather than a close approach. — Banno

It so happens that I think that many, though not necessarily all, questions about the nature of things are ill-formed, because what is meant by nature is not well-defined in the relevant context. So I am extremely comfortable with that approach.

However, Kripke argues for necessary a posteriori knowledge, that some truths can only be known through empirical observation. Therefore, even though my knowledge of Aristotle may be totally false, when I use the name Aristotle, it is still a rigid designator because the name still refers to the actual Aristotle. — RussellA

So is the name "Homer" a rigid designator in this case?
Wikipedia - Homer,

This conflates possibility with potential. It's true that, given what occurred, the counterfactual is not possible. But the question is whether or not what occurred was necessary or contingent. — Relativist

Well, my question is how to tell the difference between necessary and contingent. It seems that any contingent statement becomes necessary if the relevant conditions hold. I don't see that distinction as particularly interesting.

That you do not have at hand a definite description of Aristotle does not make your reference fail. The person you are mistaken about is Aristotle... the reference still works, even in near-complete ignorance. Indeed, there are examples in the literature of reference working in complete ignorance. — Banno

I'll have a look at Donnellan and see. There's something going on here that I haven't pinned down.

“Learning” smuggles in a representational picture: as if what is transmitted along the chain is a mental grasp of an object. That’s exactly the picture Wittgenstein is trying to loosen. On his later view, what is transmitted is not knowledge of a bearer but participation in a practice. Hence my suggestion. — Banno

Oh dear! That was so far from my intention that I lost sight of the possibility. I thought everything that I said emphasized knowing how to use the term.

I probably should not have mentioned the fiction argument at present. It works by rejecting maximal consistency, which has it's own consequences. They may be treated as partial, consistent worlds. Poor pedagogy on my part. But it's were we might go.... — Banno

It wasn't your fault. I brought the topic up, in my innocence. But I think the issue here is what the limits of possibility are and the complication is that there are different limits at different levels. For example, it is not physically possible that the sun does not rise in the morning, but it is logically possible. Whether it is possible to imagine such an event is different again.

Yes, but the same could be said for any so-called "possible" world one entertains with the semantics. If I had my way, we'd distinguish between fictional and possible worlds. — Relativist

I don't disagree. I made the connection because I thought the analogy/similarity between fictional worlds and possible worlds made it easier to understand the latter. I underestimated the difference.

I agree that there is this difference between a fictional world and a possible world, that the possible world might or might not exist - become actual, if you will...
— Ludwig V
Only if it pertains to the future, and is consistent with the history of the world up to the present, and everything else we know about the world. — Relativist

Well, "it is possible" does pertain to the future, because it is in the future that the possibility resolves. If it is possible that I win the race, I win or lose the race in the future. Past possibilities - "it was possible" - are, by implication resolved and I have already won or lost. I do think that, like probabilities, the future is part of the concept.

However, when entertaining counterfactuals about the past or present, the implication is that this counterfactual world could possibly have happened. But could it? This is analyzable and debatable. It's a very different debate if we're simply examining the coherency of a fictional world. — Relativist

It is tempting to agree that counter-factual is a possibility. But the game of alternative history suggests that a counterfactual does not contemplate a possibility, but an event, whether it is possible or not. "How would things be now if Hitler had won the war?" Since he did not, it is not possible that he did. Yet somehow we can contemplate that eventuality and build a coherent story from it.

That's the role of w₀. You answered your own question, I think. — Banno

I'm glad you agree with my answer. It gives me confidence that I'm not thinking rubbish.

I've again got "A nice derangement of epitaphs" in the back of my mind here. A reference is successful if the enterprise in which it is involved is a success. — Banno

I wouldn't quarrel with that. I wish I could get hold of the article, but the only source I found wants £55 for a copy.

I am assuming that each possible world will have a similar recursion and therefore be capable as functioning as a world of origin. Yes?
— Ludwig V
Yes. — Banno

So each world serves as the origin of its transworld identifications. Which world is the origin depends on which world we are in. Each world is the actual world in that world.

This is a different point, further complicating the issue; that since in the actual world Tolkien developed Frodo as a fictional character, we might decide that Frodo is necessarily a fiction - a fiction in any possible world in which he occurred. What this would mean is that were we to come across a small hairy man with nine fingers who was a friend to the elves and wizards, that would not be Frodo, because he is actual and Frodo is a fiction. — Banno

I think that works for this case. But fictions are a varied bunch, so a story about a real or possible person in our world might well count as a possibility and what you say here wouldn't apply. What about stories that mix real and fictional characters and/or places?

What you learned is irrelevant. You heard someone use the word Aristotle, and you started to use the word; and crucially, you would be talking about Aristotle even if what you think you know about him were completely wrong. — Banno

H'm. I'm working this out as I go. You have a point. But I'm inclined to say that other people would take me to be talking about Aristotle. I, on the other hand, don't know what I'm talking about. But there is an objectivity here. The interpretation of people in general determines what is the case, so it is not wrong to say my deviant use is wrong.

(Remember - what preserves the causal chain is people using the tag.)
— Ludwig V
Yes! And that alone! — Banno

But surely the causal chain is a chain of people learning to use Aristotle in that way. I agree that one person does not determine anything.

If you overheard the bloke on the TV say that Aristotle Taught Alexander, and assumed he meant that Aristotle taught Alexander Graham Bell, and that was all you knew about Aristotle, you would be mistaken, and importantly, you would be mistaken about Aristotle. The reference works despite all you know about Aristotle being wrong. — Banno

Yes. But the causal chain is a chain of people learning to refer to Aristotle correctly. Isn't it? What else could it be?

1 - For me, the name Aristotle is a tag to what I learnt about Aristotle.
3 - There is a reality to Aristotle in 350 BCE, even though I may not know what it is. — RussellA

1. What you learnt about Aristotle enables you to refer to Aristotle - to use the tag. (Remember - what preserves the causal chain is people using the tag.)
3. Yes. It is that reality that enables Kripke to pass off "rigid designation" as a real thing. It is what enables other people to think of Aristotle even when a parrot or speaking machine says Aristotle. Nonetheless, the link is established by the continuous use of the name by people who understand it.

iii) “There are possible concrete worlds other than ours” presupposes that there are other concrete worlds
iv) “Possibly there are concrete worlds other than ours” does not presuppose that there are other concrete worlds — RussellA

That's perfectly clear. Thank you.

We produce a fictional idea, a possibility, then to make it fit within the possible worlds semantics, we assign concrete existence to it. This is unacceptable, to arbitrarily, or for that stated purpose, assign concrete existence to something completely imaginary. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, we don't have to assign existence to it. All we have to do is to imagine or suppose that it exists.

There is no logical problem with imagining something as being actual and concrete. — RussellA

Quite so.

"May not a paranoid's delusions of persecution be frighteningly coherent? May not a patient's faith that a mere placebo is a wonder drug be therapeutically useful? Russell was quick to claim in opposition to Joachim that multiple systems of beliefs may be internally consistent, though incompatible with each other. Nietzsche had already suggested well before James that false beliefs may be not merely useful but indispensable for life. "
--Truth -PRINCETON FOUNDATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY ; Burgess & Burgess, pg 3 — Relativist

I wouldn't disagree with any of that or with the familiar point that none of those uses or benefits is a substitute for truth.

The book establishes a fiction. We could examine this fictional world for coherence, and draw valid inferences if (and only if) it is, but the inferences are all qualified by, "within Tolkien's fictional world...". But no unqualified objective truths can be inferred. — Relativist

That's true so far as it goes. But the existence of the book does establish that there is a fictional world in which.....

And critically- nothing here establishes the hobbit world (in toto) as anything more than a fiction, so calling it a "possible world" is misleading. — Relativist

I agree that there is this difference between a fictional world and a possible world, that the possible world might or might not exist - become actual, if you will, but we know that the events in LOTR could not possibly take place. On the other hand, many stories seem entirely possible - and there are docudramas. Characterizing the verisimilitude that is required to persuade us to suspend our disbelief is not easy. Aristotle, if I remember right, uses a word that is translated as "plausible". Is that better?

Not within the logic. We might do that when we give the edifice an interpretation. — Banno

Oh, yes. I'm happy to respect the distinction. I may not always understand it.

So, if there exists possible worlds, are they all existing together as a collection in some world that contains them all? — QuixoticAgnostic

That's not quite what my analogy of the bookshelf of possible worlds proposed. It is the descriptions of all the possible worlds that exist in our world. What the descriptions describe or refer to is something else. Where they exist, in my opinion, is not a question that has an answer. Compare this question with "What happened before the Big Bang? Where did the Big Bang happen?" It is not possible to define a framework that could enable a normal answer to be given. Similarly, but differently, those questions about Middle Earth are unanswerable. Fiction is a curious and paradoxical business. It works very hard at what we might call verisimilitude while at the same time denying that anything in them is real - except, confusingly, those elements of reality the authors insert into the fiction. Our ability to immerse ourselves in these worlds ought to be astonishing, but is too much part of our everyday lives to be noticed as such. It's no wonder that sometimes people don't know where the boundaries are.

Kripke’s solution bypasses any metaphysical problems as to the essence of Aristotle. The name Aristotle is just a tag to something else, and in this case that something baptised Aristotle. — RussellA

Yes and no. A name is not like a tag, though a tag is, in some ways, very like a name. Both serve us as ways of identifying things and people. But what maintains the connection between name and named is the use of both. It is handed down from one person to another, and that is the connection Kripke identifies. But this means that anyone using the name needs to know what and who Aristotle is, so it is very odd to say that the link between name and named exists even if no-one know about it. It seems plausible because we - the audience - know what we need to know.

Aristotle is necessarily Aristotle even if no one knows it. An instance of necessary a posteriori. — RussellA

I find that remark almost impossible to understand. Such understanding as I have of it rests on my knowledge of who and what Aristotle is.

Anyway, note that the name of that individual in w₀ - Aristotle - is used as a rigid designator in order to stipulate the very same individual in a different possible world in which he is called Barry. See how the designation w₀ functions in this game? It's the from where that the rigid designation is fixed. — Banno

Yes, I get that. But that gives w₀ a special status that differentiates it from all the other possible worlds. I suppose, though, that one could point out that for someone in that different possible world in which he is called Barry would make the same claim, with the names reversed. So who a name refers to depends on what world one posits as the world of origin. My question is, whether the system can work without positing some world as the world of origin.

I hope we might leave the theory of reference to one side - we have enough distractions. But I might just suggest that there does not appear to be any reason to think there must be One True Account of reference - there may be many ways in which we can use a proper name. What is salient is that Kripke and Donnellan showed that proper names do not always and only refer in virtue of an attached definite description. — Banno

I wouldn't argue with any of that. The idea that there may not be One True Account of reference seems very plausible to me.

The claim that “there is a possible world in which hobbits exist” amounts to nothing more than the claim that the predicate hobbit is satisfied by at least one object in the domain of some world. No commitment follows to hobbits existing outside that domain, nor to their being actual, concrete, or real in any further sense. — Banno

Quite so.

It's a neat point to put pressure on. The simple answer is that the possible worlds are in w₀, the actual world. But all this means is that it is we, in this world, who are talking about them and quantifying them, and they are in our domain of discourse.
What looks a bit paradoxical is actually a recursion. That recursion enters when we describe all possible worlds from the standpoint of a particular world — that’s the “loop” that looks tricky, but it isn’t a real contradiction. — Banno

I am assuming that each possible world will have a similar recursion and therefore be capable as functioning as a world of origin. Yes?

There is a difference between saying “there are possible concrete worlds other than ours” and “possibly there are concrete worlds other than ours.” — RussellA

I've puzzled about this a great deal. Can you explain the difference to me?

Another way to ask this: what is it that establishes the truth of the statement, "there is a possible world in which Hobbits, Trolls and Orcs exist" — Relativist

Why isn't a copy of the book(s) enough?

Ludwig V is right to point out that whenever we speak of "owning" somebody or somebody's life, unless we do mean slavery, there is something odd about this sort of speech. — Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

There is indeed something odd. I think there are two aspects to it. The first is fairly straightforward "A owns B" asserts that A has the means to control B and is not inhibited from exercising it. The second plays of the implicit reference to slavery and suggests that B is a lesser person as a result. It is like calling a human being an animal. In one way, it is a fact, but in another, it is an insult.

It is not univocal with "owning" a car, a house, a picture, or even a pet. — Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

I agree. And it is even less univocal with "I own my own life". But perhaps the point here is to assert one's right to decide whether and when I have the right to end my own life. The bad news is that it is not an argument.
Perhaps, in some contexts, the relevant part of the metaphor is the assertion that I do not own my own life. The implicit claim is that there are some decisions about my own life that I do not have the right to make. This may well be true, in the sense that we all have responsibilities to others, in one way or another. But it does not follow that there may be circumstances when those responsibilities fall away, as when I am no longer able to meet them.