I mean, clearly she is not a physicist and there is no mathematical model here. It's just speculative interpretation withiut the benefit of a formal model that demonstrates anything tangible. — Apustimelogist

Well, it is seems reasonable to recognize that she is a physicist but a physicist who is not, when she writes what is quoted, doing physics. That's allowed. What I object to is that while her perspective may be interesting and relevant and legitimate, it has no special authority just because she is writing from the perspective of a physicist. To be fair, I don't think she would claim that. But I'm encourated to believe that a mere philosopher might have something to contribute.

but the model of causality it expresses is designed to apply equally to the micro and the macro level — Joshs

I don't know about "designed", but certainly it is expected that it will. That expectation may be disappointed, but all too often, the existence of anything that it does not apply to, is denied.

I don't think the "model of causality" is as much at stake as the question of whether models at one scale can give satisfying explanations of higher levels. — Apustimelogist

Well, we both think they can. Our difference is about the concept of "level". Specifically whether the assumption that all the different descriptive perspectives that are available to us dovetail neatly into a single hierarchy.

It matters which cuts are enacted: different cuts enact different materialized becomings…. — Barad

This is much closer to my perspective, but it neglects the complication introduced by the apparent limitation of "becomings" to "materialized". From my perspective, some varieties of becomings are introduced, not by materialization, but by interpretation. (as in puzzle pictures.)

any kind of observation or perhaps description about the smallest scales of reality will have more information about reality than all the scales upwards simply by the fact that descriptions on higher scales necessarily coarse-grain over details, while at the same time all the observations on higher scales are effectively redundant in terms of how they would correspond to a mind-independent reality. — Apustimelogist

If that isn't reductionism, I'll eat my hat. It's the "higher scales are effectively redundant" that does it.

Now let’s take a non-linear model of a particular sort, an account which begins from the assumption that no attributes of a physical object pre-exist its actual interactions with other objects, and that each actual interaction subtly changes the qualitative properties of the objects involved. — Joshs

My word! This is very close to Berkeley. It would be interesting to dissect the differences, but I guess you would find that irrelevant, and perhaps it is.

Barad is fascinating. It is very close to philosophy. From the language, I reckon she has been reading phenomenology. Nothing wrong with that. But it also echoes a familiar issues from Berkeley and Ayer. First you say it:-

In my agential realist account, scientific practices do not reveal what is already there; rather, what is ‘‘disclosed’’ is the effect of the intra-active engagements of our participation with/in and as part of the world’s differential becoming. — Barad

... and then you take it back:-

Which is not to say that humans are the condition of possibility for the existence of phenomena. Phenomena do not require cognizing minds for their existence; on the contrary, ‘‘minds’’ are themselves material phenomena that emerge through specific intra-actions. Phenomena are real material beings. What is made manifest through technoscientific practices is an expression of the objective existence of particular material phenomena. — Barad

Yes, I have been reading Austin.
There is an unusual - to me - twist to this, however, in the phrase "material phenomena". There's a perfectly respectable use of the word in science to mean "that which needs to be explained" or, possibly "data". But the limitation of phenomena to "material phenomena" is unusual, and puzzling. I scent reductionist tendencies here.

It's time to be a bit more helpful, but I'm going to take a break here and post that later.

You are agreeing that free speech is a virtue then. Yet you don't seem too bothered by the globalist war on free speech. — fishfry

That's not quite fair. I do agree that free speech is a Good Thing. So I am bothered by Putin and Xi Jinping. But I don't think that criminals should be allowed free access to their victims

It's a great heresy to be against the environmentalists these days. But of course IMO one can be against the environmentalists yet for the environment. That would be me. — fishfry

The song but not the singer. I don't disapprove of some enivironmentalists, but I do get bored with them.

The effects are virtue signaling among the first world elite; and terrible suffering in the third world, out of sight. This is my point. I oppose the environmentalists. — fishfry

The truly depressing thing is that the poor are screwed by climate change and by the attempts to reduce it.

I don't know how we got here but environmentalism isn't one of my favorite conversational topics. I know what I think and I don't bother to talk about it much. — fishfry

I'll shut up about it then (after this reply!)

Right. But most longtime liberals haven't noticed. They've gone from gay rights (good) to transing the kids (bad) without missing a beat. — fishfry

Well, not to go on about it, I can accept that there is some work around trans people to be done. But the recent publicity has been provoked by some thoroughly objectionable trans people (and some "trans" people). My partner has some acquaintance in those circles and tells me that many trans people just want a quiet life and are horrified by them.

Did you see the Kamala "interview?" If the Democrats get away with this the country is doomed. Not just policy-wise. But that Americans would have validated the four year Biden swindle, propping up a senile candidate who campaigned from his basement; and then swapping in the historically unpopular Harris, hiding her from the press while her fans swooned. It's very bad if they get away with this. And honestly, not too much better if Trump wins. He's past his prime for sure. — fishfry

The really basic question is why there is no decent candidate on either side. All the people who might have make a good shot at an impossible job seem to have taken a back seat.

A disease is contrary to human nature. That is the point. If it were not contrary to human nature then the human will and immune system would not oppose it. It is not being said that disease is contrary to Nature in some absolute sense. — Leontiskos

I'll abandon the example of disease and this point until and unless l can work out a better way of putting it.

Voluntary slavery is not a contradiction if we attend to Aristotle's terms. Indeed, it is not clear that voluntary slavery of any kind is an analytical contradiction. — Leontiskos

Simpson's point in the quote you provide is that it is not necessary to enslave them (nor to not-enslave them). — Leontiskos

You are right, Aristotle's slavery is not a sufficient condition of forcible enslavement. I was naive, then, to assume that all slaves are imprisoned by force and kept imprisoned by force as long as they are slaves. It should have been obvious, natural slaves are slaves whether anyone is forcing them to do things or not. (That's implicit in the discussion of the rules of war, where it is envisaged that the defeated army will be composed of a mixture of slaves and non-slaves.) Ordinary slavery, then, is a state quite different from Aristotle's slavery.
There's another difference which I might as well bring up here.

The condition that makes the natural slave need not be permanent

Details are given on the same page. The natural slave might cease to be irrational. Presumably, one should release them at the point.
So a slave is just a servant. It seems that masters of tame animals are supposed to look to their welfare, and presumably the same applies to servant-slaves.
I left with just two questions. How do natural slaves who have no master live? How do natural rulers who have no people to rule live?

For Aristotle a slave is a natural dependent in that they require the economia of a master to flourish. — Leontiskos

Does the master not require the slave to flourish? Mutual dependency, common good. Positively inspiring!

The difference is that Henry Ford is capable of performing the manual laborer's job — Leontiskos

Perhaps. He may well not be. He probably doesn't have the time, what with running the whole show.

This maps to a proficiency with the mind vs. a proficiency with the body, — Leontiskos

Yes. Intellectuals do tend to down-grade physical work. They might have more respect for it if they did some for a week or two.

I understand that some people think that Aristotle's argument demonstrates that universal human equality is nonsense. It is indeed nonsense if it means that everyone is the same. But Aristotle's argument demonstrates what it does mean. For the motivating assumption of the argument is that everyone should be treated in the way that is appropriate to them. Irrelevant circumstances (such as Hecuba's birth - Simpson p. 12) should not come into play. The only issue is what is appropriate to who. That's what universal equality means.

There's safety in free speech and a limited, Constitutional republic. Me and Thomas Jefferson against the world. — fishfry

There is, indeed. It may not be perfect, but some arrangement like that is all there is.

Sigh. I probably shouldn't reduce your esteem for me any more than I already have — fishfry

Don't be ridiculous.

I'm not much of a climate fanatic, either. The question is whether we should wreck our economy and throw billions into poverty to effect a hypothetical fraction of a percent change in the average global temperature, which is ridiculously hard to measure anyway. — fishfry

It was always obvious that dealing with climate change would be a mess, and that it might well be ineffective. We can probably organize some response after the event. There will be some mitigation, but nothing less that world-wide panic will trigger serious attempts at mitigation and that won't happen until serious climate change has kicked in. As usual, the poorer countries will suffer most, and much of their population will leave, looking for somewhere safer to live. There'll be a lot of trouble.

The air and water are a lot cleaner than in the 1970s, so I'm all for the environment. I love the environment. Just not the radical environmentalists. — fishfry

Fair enough. We can achieve things. It's just that it takes a disproportionate amount of shouting and shoving to make things happen. It helps when people can see the effects themselves. (see above)

Besides, warmer temps are GOOD for life and colder temps are BAD for life. — fishfry

Yes. Temperate. So too hot and too cold are both problems and climate change will cause more of both. But the temperate north and south of the world will be less badly affected than the equator and tropics - apart from the effects of sea level rise and the increase in extreme weather events.

You know Christopher Lasch's book. The Revolt of the Elites? — fishfry

No. I looked at the wikipedia article. It seems quite plausible. But I'm very difficult to convert. I'm going to be reading "Techofeudalism" soon, in a futile attempt to keep up to date.

I don't know about you, of course, but I was liberal when liberals were a minority and thought to be insane. Then things starting going our way. Splendid - until I realized that younger generations would want to push everything further. I've gone some way with them, but not all the way. Much of what they are pushing for now seems to be dubious, at best. They don't remember what it was like to be what it is to be an oppressed minority, so they feel no need to compromise and make room for different views. But hey! no-one listens to doubts and compromises any more.

But he's all we've got against the continuation of what's been going on. — fishfry

Now that Biden has gone, the context has changed. He looks different in a different context. I think you'll find that the right wing will get some of what it wants - not all. That's what's happened to liberalism. Life has to go on and forces compromises. Remember, liberals are as fearful as conservatives.

The proof makes use of infinite ordinals. Transfinite numbers are not defined in Peano arithmetic, pushing the proof outside the capabilities of this theory. The difficulty is to prove that the proof must make use of them. — Tarskian

OK. I think understand what is going on, even though I cannot understand the proofs. Thanks.

Examples for Godel's theorem are in fact always such contorted corner cases. — Tarskian

I'm not surprised.

That is why arithmetical reality appears so orderly to us, while in reality, it is highly chaotic, just like physical reality. We just cannot see the chaos. — Tarskian

I've been changing my view of mathematics for a couple of years now - since I came back to it, in fact. I no longer think of it as an eternally peaceful, ordered world, as in Plato's heaven. (Although they did already know about the irrationality of sqrt2). As you say, it's coming to look much more like physical reality.

Therefore, having a sound theory to prove a given fact from is a necessary condition to assess its provability but not a sufficient one. — Tarskian

What if a given fact is unprovable within a given theory, but provable within another one. Would that be consistent with Godel?

Links to renderings: — ucarr

Thanks. It would be quite a festival to play all of those at the same time.

NORTH KOREAN VERSION!!!

I know the song well - have done for years. It always gets a smile. Don't know if it's Art Garfunkel's rendering. How many are there?

In the grapevine mesh of existing things, for each thing, there's always one observer who sees that thing as it is in truth. Is this not a charming article of faith warding off depression? — ucarr

Yes, it is.

I need your help in understanding how I'm being unfair. — ucarr

Yes, our experience is rooted within interrelationships. There seems not to be any existing thing utterly isolated and alone. There's always the hope of being understood. — ucarr

You seemed a bit depressed when you said this. I was trying to be encouraging. "Be fair" is an expression I use - perhaps it is not as widely used as I thought - to signal that there is a brighter side to what seems so depressing. It's not an accusation or criticism.

Not today. Today, he's putting people in jail who express ideas you don't express. So you let me know when an authoritarian regime has ever known when to stop. As he was consolidating power, Stalin killed his most fervent supporters. Hitler did the same. — fishfry

All digital communicates get stored. Nobody looks at them till your friend's friend's friend's friend whom the government doesn't like, steps out of line. Then they roll up the whole chain. Like I say. Find me an authoritarian regime that ever knew when to stop. — fishfry

History has not been kind to that argument. — fishfry

Yes. I do worry about that argument. But since Stalin was on the left and Hitler on the right, it seems like there's no safety anywhere. Any more than there is against the possibility of all-out nuclear war (or indeed against the reality of climate change) These things are hard to predict.

I absolutely and without reservation share his bleats. Even liberal legal scholars have been outraged by the New York 34-felony case. It's a legal travesty, the kind of thing you see in banana republics. — fishfry

Yes. I expressed myself badly. Perhaps I was in a bad temper. My point was that most people are sore losers and it's very hard to tell when a protest like that is valid.

I saw this today. — fishfry

I'm afraid the Telegraph has been tracking my viewing of its articles. There's a limit on free views of them and I've hit it. But I do know that there was a case like that and there was a lot of reporting of it. I don't pretend to know the rights and wrongs.

Man I've been hearing this leftist claptrap since 2016. Enough already. I don't begrudge you your beliefs. I do choose not to engage with them. — fishfry

I have never persuaded anyone of anything in decades online :-) — fishfry

Maybe it's all lies. How would I know, right? — fishfry

I rather think you have a bad day. I'm sorry about that.

Thank you very much for this. I hope you won't mind if someone who is neither mathematician or logician makes some ignorant comments - purely in a spirit of enquiry. Perhaps it's worth saying that I don't really have an opinion about whether Godel is right or not. It doesn't offend my sensibilities. It's way above my pay grade, so that's a legitimate possibility for me.

"This is not provable."
Assuming that this sentence is decidable, it is true or false.
If it is true, then it is (true and unprovable).
If it is false, then it is (false and provable).
Hence, the sentence is (true and unprovable) or (false and provable). Therefore, it is a legitimate existence witness for his theorem. — Tarskian

This is not contorted. It's perfectly straightforward. Self-reference. I've long held the heretical view that the "witness" is not decidable. Is there any reason to suppose it must be? Of course, you could assign a third truth value to undecidable sentences, but I suppose that would be cheating.

A better example, Goodstein's theorem, was later discovered for which the theorem itself can be expressed in Peano arithmetic but the proof cannot, making it (true and unprovable) in that context. — Tarskian

Yes. I thought that something along these lines would probably work. However, you seem to be assuming that if a theorem can be expressed, it must be true. In which case, if that assumption is correct, it is provable. Or is that idea just an assumption or an axiom or something?

Godelian sentences are fiendishly difficult to detect in arithmetical reality because in that context we systematically use soundness to discover truth: the sentence at hand is true because it is provable. Arithmetical vision requires calculation. It is virtually impossible to detect an arithmetical fact without calculation. — Tarskian

Yes. That's what puzzled me.

On the other hand, if we had a copy of the theory of the physical universe, observing physical Godelian facts would be trivially easy.
Unlike in arithmetical reality, in physical reality we do not need to know why exactly a physical fact occurs in order to be able to observe it. — Tarskian

But not knowing why my observation is true is not the same as its being unprovable. Surely that will only work if what I observe is incapable of being proved, as opposed to my not knowing how to prove it. If I knew that it was unprovable, I think I would either not believe my eyes or at least suspend judgement.

Our eyes do not have to calculate a fact in order to see it. Our eyes just see it. We are perfectly able to see things with our eyes that we do not understand or cannot possibly predict (up to a point, of course). — Tarskian

Well, maybe. I think most people believe that my brain does the calculations. I can see where the ball is going to land and catch it, without consciously doing any calculations or being aware of any calculation going on in my head. It's a tricky philosophical issue.
In any case, wouldn't calculations after the event prove that I did see what I saw?

(By the way, this is a simplification because our eyes may also use "calculations" in order to "see".) — Tarskian

I'm sorry I don't understand that. Do you mean that my eyes may follow heuristic principles, rather than calculations? Quite likely. But then my seeing would be an educated guess, which could be proved right (or wrong) after the event.

Right, "Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule," does not mean that Aristotle says that every Greek is fit to rule. — Leontiskos

Well, I think it is ambiguous and I didn't recognize that. However, because he says the "the many" are not fit to rule and therefore implies that some, but not all, are fit to rule, I should have realized that your interpretation is correct. So you are right.

I'm in a bit of a quandary here. There are two conclusions in this argument. One is about leaders. I don't have any violent objection to that argument. I think it's false, but I'm not sure that I can be bothered to refute it. In practice, it wouldn't make any difference. The other is about slaves, and I cannot accept that it is right, or even all right, to enslave any human being. So I need to show that that conclusion does not follow from the argument. Briefly.

A. If we can identify characteristics that make someone fit to rule, then it follows that people who do not possess those characteristics are not fit to rule; it does not follow that they are slaves, or fit to be slaves. We could, instead, characterize them as natural followers or maybe natural independents (compare Simpson on tame and wild animals p.4)

B. You may be mistaken, however, to think that "the rational are more fit rulers than the irrational" is empirical. I may be wrong, but I think that, for Aristotle at least, reason is the faculty that enables us to get things right. A leader needs to decide the best thing to do and how to do it; so, by definition leaders need to be rational.

C.

All he (sc. Aristotle) says is that it is unjust to enslave those who are not natural slaves. — Simpson - p.13

So who is a natural slave and what is the index of being one?
1 Aristotle thinks the index is irrationality. Is there anyone whose life does not include some irrationality? And some rationality? This is not a clear criterion.
2 If slavery comes naturally to some people, why is it necessary to enslave them? One doesn't have to force a natural musician to play or a natural leader to lead. One only needs to enforce something that is against nature - irrational. A natural slave would accept slavery when it was offered. Voluntary slavery is a contradiction in terms.

D.

A thing is manifestly contrary to nature when it is not as its nature requires it to be, but is losing or has lost that nature. Disease is contrary to nature, in that sense. — Simpson - p.4

That's a most confusing sense of "nature". In the real world, disease is entirely natural. That's why we take many artificial measures to restore us to health.
We are in two minds about nature. Sometimes we consider that what is natural is good. Sometimes we consider that it is bad. It depends on the case. No general evaluation can stand up to the facts.

the new bottle perturbs the old news into something interesting: — ucarr

I'm suggesting that it has been over-hyped and is rather less interesting than one would have thought, given all the fuss.

There's always the hope of being understood. — ucarr

Be fair. Sometimes we are understood, and sometimes we manage to sort out misunderstandings.

"Basic" as the criterion for "simple" expresses an ideal of efficiency and clarity and certainty. — ucarr

Well, those are all good things.

True, but I'm not saying they're components of themselves. They're components of the architecture. — jkop

Perhaps my problem is a verbal one. "Components" suggests that they are parts of the building in the sense that the roof and the windows are parts of the building. But they aren't. I would much prefer "aspects" of the building, or of the architecture, whichever you prefer.

Their own components result in practical, beautiful, and sustainable parts of a building, but the building won't be successful as a building by merely having such parts.
These, in turn, must be composed (e.g. balanced or distributed) in ways that make the building successful as a building. — jkop

Yes, you could have parts of the building that meet those critieria. But the basic point, I think, is that they are holistic. If we say that the frontage of the building is beautiful, that's a description of the whole frontage not of any part or segment of it. If we say that the building is very practical, we mean that the building as a whole is practical.

Short version - holistic aspects of the building.

Neural information encodes — apokrisis

That's like saying that a phone encodes the information passing down it. (Let's assume an old-fashioned phone that is connected by a wire without computers interfering). Then I can say that what is passing down the wire is the causal consequence of the sounds at the end of the line and the "decoding" is a reversion to the sounds at the other end. In a sense, it is just like a fancy megaphone. So what you are doing is treating what is passing down the wire as information. I can see nothing wrong with that, except it's a stretched sense of "code" - probably the result of the misleading analogy with information processing machines.
I do get the point, though, at least I think I do. Biology is not reducible to physics because a living body, though it is a physical object, cannot be explained without reference to concepts that have no place in physics. They cannot be understood without taking a holistic view of the organism and what helps to keep it alive - a concept that physics has no room for.
Except I heard that some physicists are talking of causality as information. But I don't know anything about the background.

I don't have a criterion for existence but my assumptions from what science and philosophy seems to say to me is that: there is a single realm of existence; — Apustimelogist

I agree with that.

I think we construct mathematical objects and impose them on the world enactively, which is not really any different from any other concepts or knowledge we use. — Apustimelogist

But you didn't get the memo about categories. I'm afraid the news is that there are many different kinds of existence.
I wouldn't use the word "impose". It has all the wrong connotations. "Apply" would be better.
No, it isn't any different from any other concepts or knowledge we have/use. Including physics.

Because emotions are much more than just hormones. — Apustimelogist

Oh, to be sure they are. My brain is heavily involved. But the point is that my brain is not the whole story. Same applies to plus tasks.

From my perspective anyway, everything I am experiencing is literally what it is like to be some kind of higher level, higher scale functional structure in the vicinity of that part of existence which we might label my brain. — Apustimelogist

You seriously mean that you live in your head? I'm sorry. If I knew how to let you out, I would rush to the rescue. (That may seem a bit sarcastic, but it isn't meant to be. It's an attempt to get you to see how you are misusing language here.)
The idea that the self or the person is another creature like us inside our heads was the founding mistake of dualism. Now you are positing that there is particular physical structure inside my head which is the real me. The only difference is that your internal person is a physical structure. That won't explain anything, will it?

So the distinction does not seem so big from my perspective. — Apustimelogist

And yet you defend your brain tirelessly. So it must be important to you even if it is not big.

Yes, I get that and I have never excluded those things, after all that is the level at which we engage with the world in everyday life. But I think a distinction can be made between: the use of different explanatory frameworks and ways we engage with the world that are perspective-dependent for various reasons; and then the concept of ontological grounding in principle - that behaviors described at one scale will be grounded in those on smaller scales, even if I require different explanatory frameworks to make sense of the world in any pragmatic way. — Apustimelogist

So the concept of ontological grounding is not perspective-dependent? H'm.

Well then the only criteria I see for the plus task is that it is performed correctly in the way regular people deem it correct. A calculator can plus correctly imo. — Apustimelogist

Oh, I agree with you. Some people wouldn't. But I have to note an important difference. The calculator neither knows not cares whether it is correct. It cannot evaluate its own answer, in the sense of trying to correct wrong answers.

You may not want to say a brain is doing what you are doing but lets see what happens when we stop the brain doing what its doing and knockout that occipital lobe - how that affects what you are doing. — Apustimelogist

Try stopping your heart or draining your blood. Same result.

Let me try again. Consider what philosophers have said:-
1 Everything is physics
2 Everything is language
3 Everything is experienced
All true. They are all perspectives and there can be more than one perspective on anything. Physics, from my perspective, is not unique in any respect.

In this sense, they are both emergent properties and components of the architecture. — jkop

I don't understand why you include components when I thought you were saying (correctly) that utility, beauty and sustainability are the result of other components, but not one of them. I think this may be a category issue.

The special sciences won't answer how they causally emerge, nor how a balanced or distributed composition satisfies the success of a building. Yet every effect has a cause, and for millennia we have known that buildings should be practical, beautiful, and sustainable. — jkop

"Every effect has a cause" may be true, in a way. But it does not follow that every effect must have a cause which is a specific component of the building. The cause of utility might be an effect of the totality of the building as built, rather than as a collection of components.

QM tells us the observer perturbs what s/he observes. — ucarr

Isn't that old news in a new bottle? Only physicists needed QM to tell them about the specificity of observation and its distortion in the process of communication.

Well, as I've been saying, no one reads a given text exactly as another reads it. This because each individual perturbs what s/he observes individually. — ucarr

You are looking at only one side of the coin. We learn to read from each other (and we learn the language that we read and communicate in) and we learn all the skills of knowledge. Sharing and correcting
.

I suppose it means that in a given time period for a foundational theory, no one can discover a form more basic. — ucarr

So "simple" means "more basic"?

Okay. Proceeding from the observer as an always local person, if we bind the thinking of an always local person to that always local person, then it too, is always local, and the abstraction of abstract thinking starts dissolving. — ucarr

I don't know what you mean by "bind". If a local person indulges in abstract thinking, and shares that thinking with other local and non-local thinkers, how does the abstraction of abstract thinking dissolve?
(Don't forget that is the abstract dissolves, so does the concrete.)
I have no problem with the idea that mathematical objects are real or that we can generalize from the particular to the general.

The simple binary of concrete/abstract hasn’t dissolved away to nothing, but it has become faint. — ucarr

I didn't understand a lot of the intervening ideas. But this inclines me to retort that perhaps it needs to become faint. Binary oppositions are almost always less clear and definitie than some people would like to think.

Might it be an ability to see how cognitive objects such as language, and cognition itself, per Gödel, will generate valid statements unprovable with the boundaries of supposedly axiomatic systems? — ucarr

I have a lot of difficulty with the idea of something true but unprovable. How could we know that such things exist, and if we do, how do know what they are? But this is a bit more specific and so it helps. I still haven't seen an example of such a truth and would love to do so.

There may not be any elegant simplicity axiomatic to everything. — ucarr

Perhaps there isn't. But isn't that just a methodological principle that applies when there are competing theories in play? In any case, it only requires us to choose the simplest of available theories, so it would be hard to refute. By the way, what is the criterion for simplicity? Kolgorov complexity?

Which is all very interesting and important. I mean that.

However, it occurred to me that, as a definition, "Statements about statements" captures far too much, but we've been over that. More important is this - Berkeley's Dialogues for example can be read as a philosophical text, but also as a historical or religious text. The difference is not in the text, but in the approach to the text. Philosophy is not simply matter of texts, but of an activity, a skill, a language game, or several language games. The disciplines are different ways of reading (in the large sense) and responding to them.

PS One can also read Berkeley as an exercise in rhetoric. The text is riddled with it.

the public is not happy when the only people going to prison are the ones calling attention to it. — fishfry

Some of the public are quite likely not happy. Others are more bothered by the rioting and are perfectly happy. Starmer has read the mood perfectly.

So everyone uses the example incorrectly. — fishfry

Yes. I won't use it again. And I'm all ready to slap down anyone who tries to.

Yes right. Just don't let Two-teir Keir hear you say that :-) — fishfry

I don't think he cares much what I think, and anyway, I don't think he's listening. But you never know. Everything leaks in the end. But I do choose carefully about who I raise it with.

And again -- in the US, the ruling class cheered on the Floyd riots and threw the J6'ers in solitary. So it's two-tier policing again. — fishfry

I can see your point. The problem is that whether you cheer on the rioters depends on whether you agree with them. You and I don't have to be impartial, so that's ok. Law enforcement does. But it's nigh on impossible, but I think most of them do try.
I do think it is hilarious to hear Trump bleating on about how all the prosecutions against him are political. I don't know whether or how much they are influenced by political considerations. The thing is, he wants to make all prosecutions political, by appointing people who agree with him politically to, for example, the Supreme Court and throughout the legal system. What matters is whether he is guilty or not - the fair trial. He does the same thing about elections. If he likes the result, he accepts it. If he doesn't he decides that the ballot was rigged. His losing the election is not evidence that the ballot was rigged. He's not the only one, but he's the most prominent one.

You know I like immigrants. If the government would impose some order on the system, it wouldn't be creating a right wing backlash. I don't like racist hooligans. But we have to try to grapple with the government policies that they are reacting too. — fishfry

I agree with all of that. The liberals focus too much on the individuals and the hard-liners too much on the numbers. There's a real need to balance and consensus.

Right. But it's tricky. Nobody, not even freedom-loving and rule-resenting me, thinks online platforms should be allowed to carry criminal material.
You know the reason I'm a little triggered by you saying I resent rules is because it's true. I've always been this way, always a rebel against authority. — fishfry

Where would we be without rebels against authority? But choose your issues.

I'm on Quora a lot arguing about the JFK assassination, and people just get vile about the most trivial differences of opinion. — fishfry

You do like the contentious topics. Yes, some people are very trigger-happy. I find "Let's agree to disagree" followed by ignoring them works quite well.
I've seen a bit of Quora (and Reddit). They look a bit too much like snake-pits for me.

And sometimes I do the same thing. — fishfry

Don't we all? But sometimes there is a deeper issue - the arrogance of the opinion or its wilful blindness, for example, rather than its content.

I'm trying to be nicer and more civil online. Been at it for about 24 hours now :-) — fishfry

The first day is the hardest. The hard thing is to disagree nicely - especially with sensitive people. But if you can, you might actually persuade the other side to move a bit.

Sure, you could argue that the objects in math are not reducible to objects in physics... they are more general and perhaps abstract than physics... but we can make any sets of arbitrary tools we want that are not inherently related or reducible in a hard way to other tools or descriptions. They are, after all, just constructs. — Apustimelogist

So are you saying that mathematical objects don't really exist? What is your criterion for existence? Is it, by any chance, being physical?
I don't think Quine's slogan "to be is to be the value of a variable" is perfect. But it's not bad as a slogan.

We can acknowledge the conceptual divides between different perspectives but I think we also must acknowledge that if different perspectives map up to each other substantially, like the brain and mind, then its simply seems impossible to me to not talk about those mappings in terms of some kind of underlying commonality. — Apustimelogist

I don't have any problem with the mirrored patterns of brain waves or with mapping the hormones circulating in my bloodstream with various emotions. But notice that in the latter case, the hormones do not map one to one with my emotions.
I do have a problem with saying A's brain is in love with B's brain. I simply don't understand why anyone would want to say that - except to wind up people like me.

I really have no idea because I don't think anyone knows exactly how they count or do plus tasks. — Apustimelogist

Nonsense. They know perfectly well how to count. Maybe they can't explain how they count very well, but that's a different know-how. So we say they act blindly. But the point is that they act correctly.

But is what a person does independent of what a brain does? No. — Apustimelogist

I never said it was. All I'm saying is that what I do is not what my brain does - except by synecdoche.

Given that, we can always in principle describe the brain behavior in terms of those more fundamental levels. — Apustimelogist

Quite so. But it doesn't follow that we can in principle describe my behaviour in terms of the same levels. You can describe my running in physical terms. But physics has no equivalent to an intention or to the rules of athletics, so you can't describe my running and winning a race in terms that physics would recognize.

Though, at the same time, we can't do without this narrative aspect -- it's the sweeping, big narratives that I'm skeptical of here; so in some sense to concede that Greek Culture was given a Mediterranean empire for free because their culture was absorbed and spread across the Mediterranean after being dominated is to say, sure, we can put the story this way, — Moliere

It might help your perspective on this to point out that the Greeks thought of themselves as Athenians or Spartans or Thebans. During the Persian Wars the opposition was never more than an alliance of city states, and some cities (Thebes) simply surrendered to them. That disunity continued until Philip of Macedon defeated them in battle and force a unification treaty on them. The story after than is very complicated, but a lasting unity was finally imposed by Rome in 30 BC. So although the culture was Greek, it was not the product of any single Greek political entity.

I do think things change, actually -- it's just not a sweeping Progressive narrative, per se. And they can change for the better. The only way I know of in which this happens is when regular people get together to demand change, though. It takes effort and planning, but it can be done. — Moliere

Some things are better, that's true. It's just that so many important things are not.

Anarchists believe in individual needs and individuals, but that they are a part of a wider community -- rather than a bundle of self-interested individuals anarchists build collectives of cooperation which are intentionally built through collective decision-making and consensus building. — Moliere

Yes. That would be better. And I guess it can work, but only at a relatively small scale. Roughly, up to the size of community that can function at a person-to-person level.

I, in principle, could explain in an enormous amount of detail, why these specific components, interconnected with each other in this specific way, results in the emergent property of the design. — wonderer1

I'm sure you could. Thank you for letting me off the detail. I agree that the "emergent" physical property of the gate "emerges" from the design. But the design emerges from the designer. Physics cannot even recognize a design, much less apply its laws to it.

So it seems reasonable to me, to see understanding of emergence as something particular experts have, — wonderer1

Yes. I like the idea that it is about particular cases, rather than some very general abstraction. Generality is there the hand-waving comes in.

If self-reference(s) is the antecedent to "they," then I might start thinking of you as being a radical QM materialist, as I am. For what I've seen so far (not exhaustive), scientists and logicians still maintain a white knuckle grip on the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Here at TPF, many debaters think they've scored a slam dunk whenever they discover a contradiction from the opposition. — ucarr

The Principle exists, but only rarely applies. You have to define your language very carefully to produce one. A fundamental rule of language appears to be to design itself to avoid the possibility f being faced by one, allowing third possibilities and shades of grey. A binary choice is almost always artificial.
A contradiction can only do harm when it has not been spotted. The self-reference paradoxes are completely transparent and consequently do no harm (so far as I can see) - except to the poor souls who think they have to "solve" it.
Compare the awkwardness about If P then Q when P is false. This is well understood. People have reacted in various ways. When it is not spotted it could do harm, but I don't see any need to get excited about it. (My solution is that truth values do not apply in this kind of case - and that is not a third truth value.
I'm not sure how serious I am here, so I reserve the right to contradict myself if you reply!

It dovetails with Gödel and, with a marvelous concision, translates his premise into verbal language. — ucarr

I didn't appreciate that. I got too annoyed at the revelation that he didn't want a definition. He wanted an algorithm that would enable an AI to distinguish philosophical texts from the rest. What would be the criterion of success? THAT would be the definition.
Not that definitions are all that important. Geach, long ago, wrote a wonderful article excoriating the Euthyphro because Socrates equated not knowing what piety is with being unable to define it. He was quite right.

The methodology for the scientific method might not be scientific, but it is philosophical. — ucarr

I hoped you would say that. So science, in the end, is grounded in human beings. Worse than that, not in a scientific, but history and philosophy. Oh dear!

The observer cannot be abstracted from the experiment. — ucarr

Yes. But the observer, in my book, is not an abstraction - a point of view. (At most, a point of view is a location for a possible observer.) An observer is a person.

These quotations are not in the order they came in your messages. I hope that doesn't make anything difficult to follow.

Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of state and corporate power. — fishfry

Point taken. If Government and Corporations are collaborating, normal people don't stand a chance.

Comes down to what responsibility platforms have. Being litigated all over the world at the moment. — fishfry

There was a landmark case in the US about this. The difference is that platforms (internet, phone, slowmail and, I think, couriers) are not responsible for the content of what they carry, only for delivering it. But Government can intercept and read them. Newspapers and publishers in general (broadcasters as well) do have responsibility for the material they publish; I think the difference is that they have editorial control over it, i.e. pick and choose what they publish. The point about platforms is that they don't pick and choose. The internet providers won the case, and have been dodging the small print about Government access ever since.

I like Nigel. He's fighting the emerging globalist government, as is Trump. — fishfry

Nigel is indeed very likeable when you first meet him. When you get to know him better - not that I know him, but I have followed him and had him pushed in my face for quite a while - you may well decide that he is a sleaze-bag. I doubt if he seriously cares about anyone but himself.

I see no checks on his power at the moment. — fishfry

Checks on the power of the Prime Minister in the UK are mostly behind the scenes.

When they came for the trade unionists I said nothing, etc. — fishfry

I'm very mindful of that.

People thrown in prison for tweets the government doesn't like? — fishfry

That would be worrying. But people setting up a meeting with the intention of rioting - those I worry less about.

Some happy medium. Fewer social services in order to discourage people from showing up who can't support themselves. With that proviso, I'd let everyone in who can make a contribution. — fishfry

Happy medium is exactly right - but also the problem. You do know, don't you, that illiterate people can also make a contribution? Not sure that reducing welfare for everyone in order to discourage immigrants would play very well in politics.

Then again there's that German stabber. Islamic terrorists have taken credit. — fishfry

IS have claimed responsibility for events that they had no hand in. On the grounds that anyone who does something they approve of is a supporter. I'm not sure where that issue has got to now.

God is a joker. — fishfry

Yes, indeed. It's not a popular theology, but the ancient Greeks believed it and the Vikings had a special god, Loki, for mischief. They reckoned that one of the primary functions of human beings is to provide amusement for the gods. Not a bad idea. Conventional heaven seems rather boring.

In the US, direct incitement to violence or unlawful action is illegal. Just about anything else, no matter how vile, is legal. — fishfry

I'm not surprised. But once you have conceded that, it's just a question of what and where. Not that it's an easy question.

I hope you know, and as a professional philosopher you should know, that this is a bad example, was never a principle of law, — fishfry

Well, I was never talking about the law as such. I didn't know about the Supreme Court. My intention was to use a cliche as a quick way of making a point.

there are scenarios in which intentionally lying about a fire in a crowded theater and causing a stampede might lead to a disorderly conduct citation or similar charge.

This was more what I was gesturing at, but more as a moral criticism that a matter of legal action.

Still others have categorized hate speech in a similar way.

I do have a problem about restricting that. Freedom of speech includes the right to give offence.

I don't like online abuse. — fishfry

And I agree with that. It's not contradictory. The reconciliation is that it seems only natural that if someone insults and abuses me, I would want to deck them, but that would be to lose the argument, so instead I would try to make them shut up. In a democracy, if that's the will of the people, I won't object.

Does physics ground mathematics?
— Ludwig V
Do the smallest scales of existence ground our use of math?
Absolutely. — Apustimelogist

You rephrased the question. Surely, applying math to the smallest scales of existence implies that physics and math exist independently. So I'll take that as your answer. Which I agree with.

I am not going to be able to make you understand what I am saying without you giving up this kind of dualism. — Apustimelogist

Would a Popperian ontic triadism be better? I doubt it. I suppose it is time to come out. I do have a view of this. I see your claim as the classic philosophical mistake of thinking that a grammatical device, which is purely rhetorical, has some philosophical significance. "Brains do plus tasks" is synecdoche for "People do plus tasks". You may not know what synecdoche is (I had to look it up to be sure).

Synecdoche refers to a figure of speech in which the word for a part of something is used to refer to the thing itself (as "hired hand" for “worker”), or, less commonly, the word for a thing itself is used to refer to part of that thing (as when society denotes "high society"). In metonymy, a word that is associated with something is used to refer to that thing (as when "crown" is used to mean "king" or "queen").

I just mean mechanistic in the sense of one event causing the next event and the next event in a way that is divide of any kind of extra meaning. — Apustimelogist

Yes, I understand that. So the language that you use to describe the brain process excludes the possibility of describing a plus task. So in what sense can it explain or cause a plus task?

I know Apustimelogist already answered, but I want to add the following link to flesh out the very literal sense in which synchronization occurs: — wonderer1

Thanks very much. Very thoughtful of you. I did know about this, but I saw the reports so long ago that I have completely forgotten where. I noticed that in this report, there is no suggestion that A's brain is in love with or trusts B's brain. I'm completely relaxed about the idea that brain mirroring is among the symptomatic criteria for love and trust, along with heavy sighs, big smiles, dilated pupils, raised heart rate, the release of oxytocin and, on occasion, mild insanity. Yes, I realize I'm channelling Wittgenstein here.

The kind of synchronication between internal and external states as described by active inference / free energy principle. — Apustimelogist

However, the synchronization that is involved here (mirroring) is not obviously the same as the one that @Apustimelogist is concerned with. But I don't know what the active inference/free energy principle is, so I could be wrong.

As an engineer I'm a complicator. I have to consider a multitude of details, about the ways physical things interact, in order to do my job well. — wonderer1

I liked this distinction. I'm happy to admit that as a philosopher, I'm usually a complicator. But I don't deny that simplification has its uses and it would be hard to do without it. We need both, each in their place. It takes all sorts...

But you said all the complex behaviours of neurons emerge from lower level physics which is quite wrong. They emerge from the information processing which entropically entrains the physical world in a way that brains and nervous systems can be a thing. — apokrisis

I think you are saying that the a physical process can (under the right conditions) be interpreted as an information processing process, and conversely. If so, that's very nearly what I was getting at. Thank you.

Complex dynamical systems exhibit nonlinear effects and a type of causality called causal spread, which is different from efficient causality. The interactions and connectivity required for complex systems to self-organize are best understood through context-sensitive constraints
I suggest that such non-linear reciprocal affecting between cause and effect is more fundamental than the mechanistic billiard ball or domino form of description we might try to foist onto neural processes as their ‘real’ basis. — Joshs

That's all very helpful. I do think it is high time that philosophers took seriously modern developments in the sciences and abandoned the concept of causality that developed in the context of 17th century science, with its Aristotelian heritage. (Not that the classical concept of causality was ever completely satisfactory; I'm sure you are aware that the concept of gravity was an exception.)

It is not the non-linearity that is particularly problematic when trying to grasp minds/brains. It is the complexity, and lack of anything remotely approaching a detailed account of that complexity. — wonderer1

It isn't just the complexity. The relation between minds and brains is cross-categorial, which means there can be no relation, which is absurd. There are other situations when we ache to understand different categories in relation to each other, but lack the conceptual resources to do so. I doubt that philosophers will find the way in this case; practical science seems already to be making progress, mainly by simply ignoring the problem.

I don’t favour computer analogies but what do you think causes the state of a logic gate to flip. Is it the information being processed or the fluctuating voltage of the circuits? — apokrisis

For my money, it depends what you mean by "cause". The system can be described as a physical process or as a information process. Both categories apply, so both the information and the voltage cause the gate to flip. If a physical bug is interfering with the process, you will apply the physical description and deal with the problem. If a software glitch is the problem, you'll apply the information description and deal with the problem.

A logic gate flipping is a physical process with emergent properties which allow us to treat it as if logic determines the results, by imposing additional constraints by only sampling the output of the logic gate on clock edges. — wonderer1

This made be realize why I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of "emergent" properties. It still locates the physical as original or fundamental. But, in the case of the logic gate, the gate emerged from the information process. I don't deny that it can work the other way round, of course.

I think the utility, beauty, and sustainability of a building are Emergent Properties, and the parts, features, and configurations from which they emerge are not so distinct. They can depend on each other, or emerge from one and the same part. — jkop

I agree with what you say. Indeed, it seems obvious. At present "emergent properties" seems to be pretty much a label for the undefined. I think the most useful approach is not to affix a label and try to answer the question "what is an emergent property", but to consider and understand cases and then work out how they are related. Then we'll know whether to pin one label on all the cases or maybe different labels for different, but similar cases. So your comments on reinforced concrete slabs seem entirely appropriate. The label doesn't help and can get in the way
d

This question directs some light onto what makes Tarskian's definition of philosophy interesting: — ucarr

I have many problems with this - and with self-reference. Not the least of which is that I'm inclined to think that if a language cannot talk about itself, then there is something it cannot talk about, so it is incomplete. Nor is there anything wrong with self-reference. Some specific uses of it are problematic, but since I'm not committed to avoiding all logically problematic uses of language by ruling them out of court in advance, I'm not much bothered by them. I don't think they give rise to any major problems of philosophy. Logicians and mathematicians have adopted the project of constructing a language with a grammar that rules such statements out. That's their choice. But it seems clear that a language that include those possibilities is perfectly workable.

I am wondering, however, whether self-reference may not be part of the distinction between science and the humanities. There is history of history, literature about literature, philosophy about philosophy. Metamathematics is presumably about mathematics, but I'm not sure whether it is mathematics or not. But there isn't physics about physics or chemistry about chemistry. More than that, can there be science of science. I doubt if it could follow some version of scientific method, including the experimental method, so would such a discipline be scientific?

A statement is philosophical, if it is a statement about another statement. For example: It is irrelevant that it is raining today. — Tarskian

I'm afraid I'm completely stuck in my opinion that the example is not a philosophical statement, unless you mean that it being used as a philosophical example makes it a philosophical statement. Which I think would be unduly stretching the scope of philosophy.
For another example "This work is copyright". I think that's legal and not philosophical at all. Yet it occurs in (or at least around) philosophical texts and is about them.

In what sense do you mean that physics does not ground everything? Physics describes the smallest scales of existence which grounds everything else and upon which all higher scale behavior depends and emerges from. — Apustimelogist

Does physics ground mathematics?

Of course, words and concepts must be inherently evolved, developed, learned, used in a social context. Brains in some sense synchronizing with other brains as well as other parts of the environments they navigate. — Apustimelogist

H'm what does "in some sense" mean? Brains no doubt navigate their environment - the body. But I don't navigate that environment (under normal conditions); the environments I do navigate are all "external" to the body.

what neurons are doing in my brain are not related to the semantics of "plus" and you don't need the semantic notion of 'plus' to explain how mindless neurons do 'plus' tasks. — Apustimelogist

I know what a "plus" task is. Hence, I know that brains/neurons don't do the plus tasks that I do. I don't understand what you mean by "the semantic notion of 'plus'". Are you by any chance saying that brains/neurons do plus tasks without knowing what they mean? Somewhat as a small child might move a chess piece without knowing the rules of chess?
In that case, though we might interpret what the child does as a move, it isn't a move in the sense that I might make the same move as part of a game of chess. To put the point another way, the child doesn't know what they are doing and isn't playing a game of chess. Similarly, the brain/neurons doesn't/don't know what it/they are doing and isn't/aren't performing a plus task.

I didn't mean mechanistic in such a narrow sense as you do here. — Apustimelogist

Can you explain in what sense you do mean "mechanistic"?

Looking at the level of global self-organizing processes of a living system will reveal a non-linear reciprocal causality that moves between the global and the elemental. — Joshs

I expect it will. One of the obvious features of life in general and people in particular is that they are autonomous. Whether those systems approaches can answer all the questions is another issue. On the surface, it looks as if they leave out the notion of a person, which implies that their scope will be limited.

Thank you for the link. I think (hope) that we don't need to get into the weeds here. Simpson summarizes his argument at the end of the article and I think that may serve our purposes. I think it will help if I copy it here.

The natural masters are fundamentally the virtuous or those who have been or those who have been perfected in their development and the natural slaves are fundamentally the vicious, or those who have been damaged or corrupted in their development. Many barbarians are in this condition, to be sure, but there is no need to suppose that all of them are. More to the point, some Greeks will be in this condition, in particular the many and (sc. those) whom the many admire. These views fit in with, and may in fact be said to fall out of, the teaching of the Ethics (where the many are certainly characterized as slavish and bestial (references to the text omitted). They are not views peculiar to the ancient Greeks or to Aristotle. — Simpson pp. 13,14

They are certainly not peculiar to Aristotle. The parallels with Plato's argument about the leadership of the ideal society are inescapable. The common theme is the central importance of reason. They share the view that the critical feature required to qualify one for leadership is reason. (Admittedly, Aristotle, unlike Plato, distinguishes between theoretical and practical reason, and that is an important distinction.)

Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics. He does not say that Greeks are fit to rule because they are Greek. — Leontiskos

Aristotle says that most Greeks are not fit to rule. It is implied that some are. Nothing is said or implied about all Greeks - or barbarians. On the other hand, there is nothing to rule out the possibility that some random group of people may turn out (empirically) to share some characteristic which makes them all natural leaders or natural slaves. In fact, he proposes just such a group of people - "the many". One is inclined to think that "the few" must share the characteristic of being being leadership material.

Aristotle gave an empirical case for inequality qua ruling, and I don't see how serious-minded individuals can oppose Aristotle's arguments without making their own empirical case for equality. — Leontiskos

The first sentence of Simpson's summary makes it quite clear that Aristotle equates the natural with the moral. So Aristotle's empirical case is not what we would call an empirical case at all. It is built round his moral principle that the rational should rule over the irrational. I'm sure he would accept that that is not always the case in practice. He would say that when it is not the case, something unnatural is going on, meaning that something wrong is going on. So his claim is fundamentally a moral claim, not empirical at all.

Whenever I think about whether some group of people is better off or not due to a social action I think to myself: would I be willing to be on the receiving end? — Moliere

That's a very good test. It's not perfect. Some people have very poor imaginations and worse memories. I remember, in the small town that I lived in a while ago, there was a recession and a number of people lost their jobs. They got very annoyed about the welfare system - not much money, ill-mannered and unhelpful staff. When they got jobs, they forgot all about it and reverted to moaning about high taxes and the idle poor.

anarchy is not opposed to power at all as much as wants it to be directed according to what human beings want, rather than a class of deciders. — Moliere

That seems reasonable. But I feel that they are rather weak on the role of co-operation in making life worth living.

the desire to dominate will lead to endless suffering that need not be. — Moliere

That's quite obvious. And yet people still try that way. They see themselves as the winners, but mostly end up as losers, because there's always a bigger dog round the corner. It's the same syndrome as the gamblers. They think about what they're going to win and never about what they're losing.

Greece may have been given a Mediterranean empire for free, but if I were greek I'd have preferred to not be dominated. — Moliere

I'm still trying to work out what that refers to. It doesn't reflect anything I know about and I can't find anything obvious in what the reference sites say.

Though, of course, the Greeks had already accepted this sort of conquer-or-be-conquered ethos; in some sense it's deserved because it was the same thing they'd do to others. — Moliere

Well, everybody accepted that. The point of war was to get rich quick.

My suspicion is that ethos still has reflections today which, rationally speaking, need not be the case. — Moliere

Of course. Nothing changes, except the way people dress up what they're doing. Hope is all there is.

This might be a clue. I am enjoying the discussion by the two of you. Better by far than what is found on the visible pages. — jgill

Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. I've looked at some of the clips, none of which I trust because they are clips and context is always important.
It looks much like what goes on here. More and more people come. The policies make precious little difference. Politicians spend their time bickering and trying to invent quick fixes. No-one really cares about the problem.
I'm glad you are enjoying our conversation. We are trying to demonstrate a better way.

This just came across the wire. The head of Telegram was just arrested in France, for a "lack of moderation" on the platform. Europe is cracking down on free speech. I think that's very bad. — fishfry

The question is whether Telegram is facilitating free speech (good) or facilitating criminal activities (bad). I think that if he couldn't help the bad people taking advantage of Telegram. But he could at least try to prevent them or at least help police and prosecutors nail them.

Didn't Socrates run afoul of the Starmer types? — fishfry

Not really, though politics played a big part. Prosecutions in Athens were only brought by private citizens; there was no such thing as Government legal action. It was a very different world. The real problem that many of his followers were right wing. But there's no evidence that he agreed with them and some evidence that he believed in the Athenian constitution, which the right wing opposed.

If he's enabling illegal activities, that's different than if he's only enabling free speech. — fishfry

There's something we agree on.

I find it hard to believe that he didn't realize he was liable to arrest if he went to France. What were his people doing? It looks as if he and they just assumed that because he was OK in the USA, he must be OK in France. That's the kind of attitude that seriously annoys the rest of the world.

The emerging globalist government is cracking down on free speech. You and I are not on the same side of this issue. Perhaps we can agree to disagree. I'll go with the First amendment to the US Constitution. I'm burnt out on this topic, my apologies. — fishfry

OK.

Well authoritarianism doesn't always look like jackboots. — fishfry

True. But fascism does.

But still ... arrested for what is in your thoughts? — fishfry

I don't know about that case. I agree it looks bad. But on the principle, the difference between murder and manslaughter is your intention i.e. what is in your thoughts.

I think we should drop this. You know the kind of scurrilous literature I read. Since we talked last I've got 20 articles about the repression of speech in England. I won't bore you with them. — fishfry

Fair enough. I don't expect us to agree about much. I'm quite happy to understand what you think and find out what we agree about. After that, agreement to disagree is fine, and certainly much better than exchanging abuse.

Actively trying to destroy free speech. I say that's bad. Bad choices. — fishfry

You seem to resent any restrictions on free speech. The classic question here is whether you have no objection to someone shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre or stadium when they know darn well that there is no fire. (Thus causing mass panic and distress, injury and death) Nobody doesn't limit free speech. The only question is what limitations are appropriate.

Not so. Trump's Remain in Mexico policy was keeping a lid on the problem. You don't need a police state to simply defend your own border and enforce the laws already on the books. — fishfry

I gather that the numbers were down and have gone up since. I don't know why.

I can live with open borders as long as nobody gets government services. But that's not workable, because people get sick and need health care. Kids need education. It's a thorny problem.. — fishfry

It is indeed.

I believe it was Milton Friedman who said you can't have both open borders and a welfare state. That's the mistake the US government is making. — fishfry

That's what I call the honey-pot effect. That's a thorny problem too.

But your question is analogous to asking, "Since you're against bank robbery, why are you against bank withdrawals." I'm fine with legal immigration. — fishfry

What if you disagree with the existing laws about immigration? People who have a problem with immigration want restrictive laws as well. Most people expect some level of control. The really thorny argument is how much control should there be. (At one point, the law in the UK did not allow any immigration at all. It didn't work very well.)

I may be exaggerating about the police state, but how would you feel about employers having to get government approval before offering anyone a job? Or hospitals having to check your status with the government before treating or even examining you? Or hotels, landlords and restaurants contacting the police before letting you have a room? Schools asking permission before they take on your child? Have a look at what China is doing on the surveillance front.

Your government is way over the line these days. But like I say, I have my hands full fighting off the censors in the US. Hoping for the best for our British cousins. I hear Starmer is letting hardened criminals out to make room for the posters of mean tweets. — fishfry

Whose line is it over? Yours? But you are not living here and you are not a citizen. The job of the UK government in the UK is to keep in line those who are way over the UK lines (by law). That's what they are doing.

I don't spend much time following the Royals, but they're in the news and hard to miss. Meghan and Harry and all that. England's gift to the US. — fishfry

There's a paradox. In the UK, there is practically no coverage at all of what they are doing at the moment. They are invisible.

So far Kam still hasn't announced any actual policy stances, nor sat for an interview or press conference. She might get away with it. Trump looks tired and out of it these days. — fishfry

She does seem to have got the Democrates back in contention. She seems to have worked out that joy and confidence are more attractive than fear. It's a brilliant move against Trump.
I'm also wondering if his age is catching up with him, and whether it will create difficulties for him when it comes to voting. That would be ironic. There's a rather old-fashioned phrase in English English "hoist with his own petard" it means roughly "blown up by his own grenade". Very satisfying.

One can only hope. — fishfry

Well it will help if, in the mean time, we do not treat as terrorists people who are not terrorists. Islamic terrorists are a tiny minority of Islamic people. The vast majority of them disapprove of them. Other Islamic people have suffered from them as well, you know.

I hope your buddy Starmer is as open-minded :-) — fishfry

I'm sure he will, and if he doesn't, there are plenty of his supporters and officials who will sit on his head.

Well your side is going to soon crush my side. I have no doubt that bad days are ahead. You might call them good days. No unapproved thoughts. — fishfry

On the contrary, I'm seriously worried that the whole world is moving to the right. The dictators (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and all the small fry) think things are going their way. They recently had a global conference to swop tactics and sympathy - somewhere in S. America, I think. The UK, I believe, was represented by Nigel Farage! Talk about the emerging global government. It's quite likely to be a right-wing government.

These processes are not meant to explain the rules, they explain our behavior despite underdetermination. — Apustimelogist

Yes, and they explain in a proximal sense all our rule-following behaviors in principle. — Apustimelogist

what neurons are doing in my brain are not related to the semantics of "plus" and you don't need the semantic notion of 'plus' to explain how mindless neurons do 'plus' tasks. — Apustimelogist

I'm sorry. I really don't understand what you are getting at. We are agreed that we need functioning brains to do plus tasks. I don't understand anything beyond that.

you don't need the semantic notion of 'plus' to explain how mindless neurons do 'plus' tasks. — Apustimelogist

Can you explain what the semantic notion of "plus" is?
I don't need to explain how mindless neurons do plus tasks, because they don't do plus tasks. Saying that I act blindly when I do a plus task is saying that there is no need of and no room for an explanation how I do them. So I don't know what my neurons are doing while I am blindly doing a plus task, either.

I think you believe a philosophical thesis that physics is the ultimate grounding of everything, and that you therefore infer that my neurons must be doing something relevant. My problems are first that I don't accept the philosophical thesis that there is/must be an ultimate grounding of everything and second that you don't seem able to explain what the relevance of my neurons is.

know-that is a special case of know-that - or at least that is how it is implemented. Know-that is enacted. — Apustimelogist

I hope there's a typo there and you meant that know-that is a special case of know-how. I would agree with that. Articulating one's knowledge is also a case of a know-how that is quite distinct from the know-how that one is articulating. Quite a surprise - especially to philosophers!

Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics. He does not say that Greeks are fit to rule because they are Greek. — Leontiskos

You did indeed say that. Not quite oops! but nearly. Could you give me the reference?

It's a complicated question. The issue that provoked it was:-

whenever a civilizer comes along somehow the civilized end up worse off and helping the civilizer live an easier life — Moliere

This was based on the standard narrative of the civilizing imperial missions of some of the European nations in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
But the question doesn't really apply to the conquest of Greece by Rome (between 146 and 31BCE).
During the Hellenistic period (between 323 BCE and 30 BCE) Greek cultural influence spread through the Mediterranean and beyond. There was a good deal of fighting during that time; I don't know how far that actually affected the Greeks. Yet it seems that prosperity and progress reigned. The Romans, therefore did not bring peace and prosperity - the Greeks were doing quite nicely on their own, thank you. In fact, there was a kind of reverse take-over. Greek culture dominated native Roman culture, to the point that there is very little left of what went before. How far that benefited the Greek in the street is hard to discern, but some Greeks did; Greek people were much in demand as tutors, doctors and administrators.

I just want to say, that I appreciate your thoughtfulness. — wonderer1

It's very kind of you to say so. The fact is that most of the time I feel as if I'm wading through mud. A lot of struggle for rather meagre progress.

From a point of view, it seems unproblematic; from another point of view, it would then be puzzling why Aristotle said that Greeks are suited to rule the world — Lionino

Forgive my ignorance. I must have missed something. Did Aristotle say that Greeks are suited to rule the world? Reference?

a dogma which says that no race or people has any characteristic which makes it better, in any way, than any other race or people. — Leontiskos

Well, that is indeed a bit sweeping. It may well be that people with a black or brown skin are better suited to living in a tropical country. Evolution would see to that, just as it has, no doubt, seen to the colour of people living in temperate countries. Do we think that is particularly relevant to the practice of enslaving them? I hope not.
But I'm not sure that's what anti-racists are/were on about. I think that they were on about the idea that people with a black, brown or yellow skins were suited to being dominated by people with white or pink skin. They may have suspected that people with black, brown or yellow skins were not dominated by people with white skins because of some inherent characteristic but because of the more effective technologies of the white people. But I think they were more bothered by the idea that it was morally acceptable to maltreat any human beings simply because of the colours of their skins. Doing that seemed incompatible with the mission of civilizing and Christianizing non-European and non-Christian countries - as indeed, it was.

"anti-racists" have a difficult time even with saying that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics, and this is because the "anti-racist" holds to a dogma which says that no race or people has any characteristic which makes it better, in any way, than any other race or people. — Leontiskos

I suppose you understand that sentence is itself an example of a tendency much criticized by anti-racists and other people opposed to prejudicial discrimination - stereotyping. Some racists may have a problem with the idea that Greeks, as such, are fit to rule and yet be completely at ease with the idea that people with x, y, and z characteristics are fit to rule. If all Greeks turn out to have x, y, and z characteristics, so be it. But they will not be willing to assume that they do on such fragile grounds as the fact that they all speak Greek or live in Greece. There is no rational connection between speaking Greek or living in Greece and being fit to rule.

I can generally agree with this. I think there has always been a disparity between those with knowhow and those not, but the information age has caused something of a hiccup I feel. — I like sushi

I'm sure there has, but that it is more a question of degree than have/havenot distinction. In the context of education policy, there are three questions:-
1. What is required to function at a minimal level?
2. What is needed to function well and effectively?
3. How much can we instil into children before they become adults?

It's pretty clear to me that what happened in WW2 blew apart the conventional argument that the humanities have a civilizing or moral force, even if we include science in the list. My suspicion is that a practical (as opposed to theoretical) understanding of civilization and morality is not gained in any classroom or theoretical study, but only by living in such a society with civilized and moral people - and even that is not a guarantee.

This opens up a huge debate. Bringing up good citizens (let's suppose that this society is at least on some winding pathway towards civilization.) is a complicated and messy business. Formal education, as we understand it, is an important part of that. Don't think that I'm trying to disparage it. But play-time and parenting are important parts as well. Beyond that, I'm very confused.

Don’t forget Nietzsche here.…and Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche: — Joshs

As if.... !
I did think about them. But, given that I wasn't citing anybody else, I couldn't be confident that I could summarize them with reasonable accuracy. I reckoned that my argument was inclusive enough to include them. If it was, then well and good. If it wasn't, then I couldn't be confident about whether they would support what I was trying to say. I'm quite happy that you seem to support at least the drift of my argument.
But, in both those quotations, I don't find my human beings, and I miss them. :smile:
More seriously, I think "actual human beings" are important because this is about the humanities, which are about actual human beings, as opposed to the abstract ones that Nietzsche and Heidegger seem to be talking about.
I'm not saying that they are wrong, because I don't even say that I properly comprehend what they are saying.

the adverb reveals how an action is performed by an individual person with his/her unique Point Of View being the adverbial force that determines the "how" of the doing of an action — ucarr

Suddenly, I understand what you are saying. :grin:
I was interpreting "how" as asking a different question. How you got home, or How a computer works or How to make glass.
I see your point. I'm not sure what I think about it yet.

"Point of view" is an interesting concept. I think it's paradigm use is as in movies, when one talks about the camera's (audience's) point of view. The first use, of course, was in the context of (realistic) pictures and the theory of perspective, which has its place in geometry. It also occurs, I understand, in the Theory of Relativity, which proves its universal theses by proving that they are true of all possible points of view (sometimes they talk about observers). None of these uses is about actual people.
A point of view is an abstract of possible observers and ideal observers; it isn't about actual human beings. History, literature, and some approaches to language are about actual human beings, not abstract concepts. Linguistics is another interesting case that straddles the divide. (Is philosophy included here? Depends on what you mean by philosophy. Much philosophy presupposes an abstract observer, but Wittgenstein, of course, challenged that.)

Architecture consists of its components, but there are causal relations between them and the composition. — jkop

"utility, beauty, and sustainability", I would say are not components of the building, but aspects (properties) of the whole. So I agree with your sentiment, but am inclined to think that "causal relations" - which implies that they are distinct parts (components) of the whole - is not quite the right way to articulate the point.