Now you want to do something a bit more, along the lines that if there are no minds, then there can be no propositions, and hence no true proposition. Quite right. But that again does not change the gold at Boorara. — Banno

How could it not? You want to say that if all minds ceased to exist, it both would and would not be true that there is gold in Boora. On the one hand you say that the truth (or the gold) must "stay the same." On the other hand, you say that there are no true propositions apart from minds.

"It would still be there," is a proposition which you hold to be true. At no point does, "It would still be there," become a non-proposition.

But what is at stake here is not reified and accidental propositions as you conceive them. We are asking about the relation between truths and minds. Either you think that there can be truths without minds or you don't. Either you think that there can be truths-about-what-exists without minds or you don't.

Just so you know, I am not planning to pursue this topic very far with you. I have reason to believe it is not something you want to discuss in depth.

I find this thread dizzying. I don't understand what anyone is saying or why anyone thinks their implicit inferences are valid. We are moving from 17th century theories of substance, to Platonic "degrees of reality," to Liberalism, to metaethics, to philosophical anthropology... If I asked Chat-GPT to write a post on a random topic and then posted it in this thread, I don't see how it could be off-topic. :halo:

Really no idea, at this point, why this OP got started. — Wayfarer

It feels like the Wild West. Or that movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

By just as real, I mean that, although the impulses reaching the brain do not originate in physical objects, the experiences of them are just as real. Cypher certainly agrees with me. He knows there is no physical steak at the other end of the impulses hitting his brain. But the origin of the impulses isn't important. What's important is the experience. As you say, he actually prefers, and chooses, the experiences he gets from the impulses that simulate physical things to the experiences he gets from impulses originating in physical things. — Patterner

Which is to say that Cypher thinks that The Matrix is more real than the real world, no? If your measurement is experience, and Cypher thinks The Matrix provides the superior experience, then Cypher thinks The Matrix is more real. That is why I said he disagrees with you (although I took you to be saying that the reality of each is equal, which may be different from what you were saying).

We just know, "don't do that or you will break it." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep, and this goes to @Srap Tasmaner's notion of "degenerate cases" (of, say, the material conditional). If one does not see logic as teleological, then there can be no degenerate or non-degenerate cases.

Note too that formal logic is supposed to involve no rules that require interpretation. But once we introduce "degenerate cases," we have introduced a rule or norm of logic that requires interpretation. This is why formalists dislike the notion of degenerate cases.

I've already addressed this objection — Janus

You haven't shown your defense to be coherent:

I'm not saying X will be true tomorrow, but that it is true now that X will be tomorrow. — Janus

"X will be tomorrow"? What does that mean, other than, "X will be true tomorrow?" As I said above, there are no existence predications which are not truth predications.

When my sister tells my nephew to eat his broccoli, he will push it around the plate. You are pushing the contradiction around in your system, without ultimately addressing it. You want to say that a claim about the future involves no claim about what will be true in the future, and that's not coherent.

Has it? It's used all over economics, pol sci, and other social sciences, e.g. the notion of "utility." It's all over organizational psychology, or other areas of psychology. It's used in biology in the form of "teleonomy" and "function." It's used everywhere in medicine and public health. It even shows up in the pedagogy of physics in the way that the properties of end states make them more likely (sometimes to the point of being, for all intents and purposes, determined) to occur. Even more reductionist biologists like Dawkins feel the need to rely on the idea (e.g. "archeo vs. neo purpose).

As the biologist J. B. S. Haldane observed: "Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. :up: Also logic, for those who don't think it is mere symbol manipulation.

Incorrect. — Michael

You should have read beyond the first few sentences of that post.

Go ahead and explain that. Some of us are uneducated. — Srap Tasmaner

Do you see how the motion of the last train car has more dependencies than that of the first (engine) car?

By the same token an atheist who believes that truth or falsity is a property of propositions, but that existence is not, can consistently say that something will exist, even in the absence of humans. but cannot consistently say that truth can be in the absence of propositions. — Janus

Except "that something will exist" is a propositional truth. So he hasn't managed to speak about existence apart from propositions and truth.

I have to run, but I will address the rest your post in the future.

I assume I get to be a substance in some sense, that I am not less real than my mother was because my existence is dependent on her having existed. — Srap Tasmaner

But her existence is equally dependent on her mother. Arguably, you are less real because you're farther back the line. The train engine is most real. The second car is second-most real. The third car is third-most real, etc. (And now ditch the linear paradigm.)

The idea seems simpler than many are making it. It's basically levels of ontological dependence (whether per se or per accidens). But then apparently we want to make it an extrapolation of Aristotle's distinction between substance and accident, and that's where things become more confusing. Still, the basic idea seems straightforward.

I already explained it. We can say something is true now about what would be in the future. Can we say it would be true in the future absent us? So if truth or falsity is a property of propositions and it is true that the gold will exist in the non-human future do you say it will also be true in that non-human future that there is gold when there are no propositions? — Janus

Do you want to say that, "X will be true tomorrow," is different from, "Tomorrow, X will be true"? I don't see a proper distinction between the two.

In other words I'm suggesting that truth is propositional and existence is not. — Janus

But is there an existence-claim that is not simultaneously a truth-claim? Can we talk about what exists apart from what is true?

Would God be capable of knowing what is true and what is false? — Janus

Sure, God knows the true from the false. A theist could uncontroversially say that even if all humans died, truth would remain.

And why does that make incest impermissible when there's no chance of procreation? — fdrake

I never said it was. I was answering your question about eugenics.

At the very least I would say that is impermissible on account of societal example and norms, but I'm not looking to have that conversation. It would at least require a more nuanced thread.

I'm afraid I don't understand. Are you saying eugenics is never immoral? — fdrake

I am saying that any form of eugenics which falls under the principle set out is not immoral/impermissible. To give you an example of this, when a couple with a genetic disease that will cause extreme hardship to their (future) progeny decides not to procreate, they are engaged in a permissible form of eugenics.

Cue schopenhauer1 in 3, 2, 1...

"Never being immoral" isn't the same thing as "being required not to". — fdrake

We are talking about when eugenics is permissible. Never immoral = never impermissible.

Alright, which forms are eugenics are good and which are bad? — fdrake

I would apply the principle that it is never immoral to abstain from copulation in view of the extreme hardship that would result on the part of the person conceived. Rare diseases and the deformities that can result from incest certainly fall under this umbrella.

A better reason for claiming that incest should not be considered as permissible is that the conditions for consent to it don't make that much sense, the hypothetical scenario in the OP is not representative of the scenarios where incest occurs. It's a bit like saying that murder is permissible since there are conditions in which killing is permissible. — fdrake

This presupposes beforehand that there is something wrong with it. We don't worry about "conditions for consent" when it comes to neutral acts.

You have to be really careful using principles like that, because as written they provide support for eugenics. — fdrake

The prohibition on incest is a form of eugenics, and that's okay.

The argument here that better logicians have made includes a condition, namely the condition that no procreation is possible (e.g. a couple that is infallibly known to be sterile).

- So we have a duty to bring about uniquely bad lives?

(I'm leaving this thread now :grimace:)

I really don't understand what you're saying. I'm saying those inside the Matrix are having real experiences, are facing real choices, and are making real decisions. — Patterner

You said:

I think living in the Matrix would be just as real as living in the real world. — Patterner

Who agrees with you?

Not Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, etc. Not Cypher. He thinks the Matrix is better than the real world, but not "just as real." Not the people who choose the blue pill - they have no way to compare the Matrix to the real world. And presumably no one at all who takes a red pill would say that the Matrix is just as real as living in the real world.

So what basis do you have to say that it is just as real?

It's willful engagement in behavior that is likely to produce an unsafe condition of elevated likelihood for birth defects. "Life is better than no life" would not be a way to justify drinking alcohol during pregnancy or competing in a boxing competition while pregnant. Why would it be any different in this scenario? — Outlander

:up:

Agree, I think; correct me if I have this wrong: by metalogical I take you to mean a logical "move" (such as MP) that is not identical to its truth function. — NotAristotle

Yes, something like that.

If all valid arguments use the material conditional, arguments with some false premises could seem to still have a true conclusion.

But this seems wrong, at least to me. If any premises are false, a valid argument will result in a conclusion that is necessarily false, according to my non-standard understanding of validity in an informal context. — NotAristotle

<A valid argument with a false premise will result in a false conclusion>

That seems intuitively correct. This may be close to what @Count Timothy von Icarus was fishing for. The idea is that valid arguments preserve falsity, and not just truth.

But in fact this does not turn out to be correct. For a counterexample, <All bugs are mortal; Socrates is a bug; Therefore, Socrates is mortal>. More generally, explosion will yield truths and falsehoods alike.

were you to exclude [F, F] as a degenerate case — NotAristotle

This paragraph is unclear to me, but the degenerate case of the material conditional that I am thinking of is [F X]. [F F] does not strike me as degenerate.

What is at stake here is a direction of evaluation. "The antecedent is false, therefore the conditional is true," is parallel to, "The premise is false, therefore the argument is valid." It is not the value of the conclusion that is at stake, but the validity of the argument (which has to do with guarantees regarding the value of the conclusion).

In any case, I am not sure I agree that an argument is MP in any formulation, as putting an argument in terms of MP would seem to lead to the result that every argument had an "infinite regress" of premises. — NotAristotle

I think every argument does have an "infinite regress" of premises in that way. This is just to say that logical inference (modus ponens) is not capturable in formal or truth-functional language. Trying to capture it in that schema results in an infinite regress.

More simply, modus ponens can be thought of as "follows from," and every inference relies on the notion of "follows from."

In the quote you provide, what are the modes referred to? — Srap Tasmaner

From @Wayfarer's source:

For the philosophers we will discuss, at the very deepest level the universe contains only two kinds or categories of entity: substances and modes. Generally speaking, modes are ways that things are; thus shape (for example, being a rectangle), color (for example, redness), and size (for example, length) are paradigm modes. As a way a thing is, a mode stands in a special relationship with that of which it is a way. Following a tradition reaching back to Aristotle’s Categories, modes are said to exist in, or inhere in, a subject. Similarly, a subject is said to have or bear modes. Thus we might say that a door is the subject in which the mode of rectangularity inheres. One mode might exist in another mode (a color might have a particular hue, for example), but ultimately all modes exist in something which is not itself a mode, that is, in a substance. A substance, then, is an ultimate subject. — 17th Century Theories of Substance | IEP

The mistake you are making is failing to notice the difference between "is true" and "would be true". It is true for us now that there would be gold etc., even if all percipients were wiped off the face of the Earth. That is not the same as to say it would be true that there is gold even if all percipients etc. — Janus

That is a very thin attempt at an explanation. What are the two putatively different claims, how are they different, and which one am I supposed to be making?

Actually it surprises me that being a theist you don't believe it would still be true because God would be there to know it. — Janus

Banno makes that statement as an atheist who is presumably not assuming non-living minds (whether or not God counts as a non-living mind).

The circularity is, interestingly, a result of the structure of the argument, not because of any specific premise. — NotAristotle

Yes, but I think that all arguments are, structurally, modus ponens. This goes back to the earlier point about whether all arguments are modus ponens, or whether all arguments utilize a material conditional. Tones is claiming that the metalogical inference uses a material conditional, and is not merely a modus ponens, and that this is why he thinks inconsistent premises automatically* make an argument valid.

1. If MP could be false, then RAA could be false.
2. But RAA is not false.
3. Therefore neither is MP. — NotAristotle

You're right that the conclusion utilizes modus tollens, but here is the way that modus ponens is operating metalogically:

• (1 ^ 2) → 3
• (1 ^ 2)
• ∴ 3

When I deny that the '→' in the first premise is a material conditional, what I mean is that no legitimate metalogical move is available whereby the degenerative uses of the material conditional are utilized. It is only the logical connector needed for a modus ponens, not a material conditional in its full degenerative sense. So there is no permissible metalogical argument as follows:

• (1 ^ ~1) → 2
• ∴ 2

* Note that "automatically" is my word, not Tones'. Let us preempt his quibble.

Is it viciously circular? — NotAristotle

See my post <here> and the excerpt contained therein <here>.

The effect issue is sort of ancillary. The issue is that 1 only follows from 2 given elements of logic that seem to be more a bug than a feature—that do not comport with common standards of "good reasoning." — Count Timothy von Icarus

In Aristotelian terms, we would say that (1) is a proper accident of validity. It is not the essence of validity, and yet every valid argument will possess the character of (1).

As Priest says — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up: That's what I've been saying for months. :smile:

Now, what is now orthodox comes out of people being uncomfortable with where logic had been previously, fixing perceived problems, so if those moves were properly motivated, others attempts for satisfactory resultions seem like they should be too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know if I quite followed that.

I think the degeneration of logic has a lot to do with what said.

The others don't need a rewrite. They go back and forth, themselves in either setting. And their decisions are real in either setting. — Patterner

The fact that they refuse a rewrite and Cypher desires it just shows that the experience of the one who takes a blue pill is different from the experience of the one who takes the red pill (even within the Matrix). And yet you seem to say that there is no difference.

And I doubt consciousness/mind of one environment could go back-and-forth between entirely different environments, and remain the same. It possibly could not go back-and-forth at all. — Patterner

Yes, perhaps.

Cypher, presumably, thought there was no possibility of surviving other than the path he chose. But he could not live with the guilt of that choice, so wanted to be rewritten. That's incomprehensible to me. Being rewritten, giving up your consciousness/mind/self, is as good as death. The last moments before being rewritten couldn't feel any different than the last moments before the blade of the guillotine hits. — Patterner

No, I don't think so. Cypher would want his rewrite whether or not the betrayal had occurred. In fact if you follow the plot, the betrayal is the cost of the rewrite, and thus the desire for the rewrite is prior. But "rewrite" may be the wrong word altogether. He just wants to forget that the real world exists. He just wants to rewrite history, such that he took a blue instead of red pill. Forgetting something is presumably not death.

If anyone could prove the existence of God, there would be very few atheists. — Hyper

There are very few atheists.
Therefore, God exists.

:naughty:

But I wouldn't want to be rewritten. Trinity, Neo, Morpheus, and all the rest were themselves whether in the Matrix or out. — Patterner

But Cypher is the only one who agrees with you. He wants to be rewritten to forget about the real world (and also his betrayal). You're really opting for the blue pill, are you not? One must choose before they know the difference between the Matrix and the real world, and that is why Cypher needs his rewrite.

If you were a sadist in the Matrix, you wouldn't be a saint when you unplugged, or vice versa. — Patterner

Maybe. The Matrix is a simulation, so it really depends on how accurate the simulation is. But I don't know why anyone would want to live in a simulation.

The Matrix is shot through with religious imagery, and implicit in much religious imagery is the idea that a new level of agency is itself awakened with conversion or enlightenment or whatnot. So it's not generally true that one's agency or capacity is equal in both worlds. In fact there is supposed to be a radical difference in all sorts of ways.

There is something essentially elitist about philosophy... — Tom Storm

I wonder if philosophy is too sprawling an enterprise... — Tom Storm

There are lots of niches in sprawling enterprises, and when everyone can set up shop in their own niche and be the resident expert there, pride finds root. This even extends to the question of whose niche gets to construe the topic at hand. It's no wonder that posters are at their best when they write an OP and are forced to creep out of their niche.

We might say, "1 is simply a consequence of 2." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that's right. I think you've got the horse pulling the cart.

I mentioned quia demonstrations vs. propter quid demonstrations earlier. Supposing that the two definitions do rightly overlap, it would seem like 1 would be a quia demonstration (going from effects backwards), while 2 actually gives us the "why." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't see this as relevant. I don't see that propositional logic has a causal or metaphysical direction in any obvious sense. For example, why think that (1) would be a quia demonstration? Because the "effect" of a valid argument is the necessary relation between premises and conclusion that (1) captures? It's hard to see this as an "effect" in any strict sense.

1. An argument is valid when it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false; — Count Timothy von Icarus

On the standard (non-Tones) interpretation of (1), I would say that this represents a kind of static, non-directional construal of validity. It's about possibility space, not primarily deducibility. On this standard reading of (1) I think (1) and (2a) are coterminous, are they not? I think (1) properly captures a necessary formality of valid arguments; I just think Tones interprets it badly. On the standard interpretation, there is nothing mistaken about (1).

This all comes from the conversation that emerged after you insisted that NotAristotle needs to follow a rule:

The rule is completely unambiguous:

If P v Q is on a line, and ~P is on a line, then we may put Q on a new line. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That characterization is a good example of logic-as-symbol-manipulation, and @NotAristotle's difficulty had to do with the nature of logic or inference. This question of "symbol manipulation" is therefore quite relevant to the question of how to understand validity vis-a-vis explosion. Burying your head in the sand and refusing to address the heart of the issue is not a great look.

So, if you can't list any other than me, then we may infer that you meant me. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I actually said, "When I wrote it I wasn't sure whether you fit the bill or not." So no, not primarily you.

But you left it open, thus it is insinuation. But you don't have the integrity to say who you mean. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Rather, you asked for information that you would misuse and I did not give it to you. I only gave you the information that pertained to your person.

To maintain that I don't think logic is mere symbol manipulation, it is not required for me to say what logic is. To maintain that basketball is not mere players' statistics, I don't have to tell you what basketball is; whatever it is, I know that it is not mere players' statistics. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Pretty amazing how many miles you will run to avoid a simple question.

Who did you mean ? If you won't say, then I'll take it you don't have the guts to say, as you are sneaky insinuator. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Paranoid, much?

TonesInDeepFreeze: I don't think acetone is merely oxygen. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Not a great analogy, to say the least.

Leontiskos: What else do you think is in acetone? — TonesInDeepFreeze

The formula for acetone is (CH₃)₂CO. Notice how simple that was.

- Three posts on this? Have a drink, or take a nap or something.

It's mathematics without the math. :roll: — jgill

Incidentally, this is my mother's favorite kind of mathematics. :smile:

Why do you get to keep ignoring my question? Why do you think you are entitled to an answer to your question?

• Leontiskos: There are folk in these parts who drive Toyota Camrys.
• Tones: I certainly don't drive a Toyota Camry!
• Leontiskos: What kind of car do you drive?
• Tones: :zip:

When you wrote, "There are some logicians in these parts who view logic as mere symbol manipulation", who were you referring to? — TonesInDeepFreeze

When I wrote it I wasn't sure whether you fit the bill or not. Time to answer my question:

If you say that logic is not merely symbol manipulation, then what do you say it is? — Leontiskos

The conflict, if it is a conflict, between secular and sacred readings of traditional and pre-modern culture, is also a factor in Buddhist modernism. It's a sort of tectonic plate. — Wayfarer

Interesting. Do you have a link to an article?

By the way Book 1 of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis has just been published. — Wayfarer

:up:

When you wrote it, you were referring to unnamed photographers. Was I one of them or not? — TonesInDeepFreeze

Is photography mere photon manipulation?

I don't know if you fall into that group. It's hard to spot photographers. They disguise themselves, blending into their environment. That's why I am asking you a question. You have disavowed such a view in the past but I don't understand what alternative route you purport to take.

- :lol:

- I'm working on figuring that out with my question to you.

Surely. I suppose a traditionalist way of putting it, would be the relationship of scientia and sapientia, which don’t conflict, but have a different focus. It’s one of the things I admire in Aquinas, with this view that science and faith can’t be ultimately in conflict — Wayfarer

Yep. :up:

-

we also understand that there is a difference between disputes over matters of interpretation and personal attacks. — Fooloso4

Well, there is also gate-keeping and axe-grinding:

It’s because there’s a kind of unspoken prohibition on certain topics or attitudes in the consensus view. I’m reminded of a clause in the founding charter of the Royal Society of London, which explicitly prohibited the consideration of ‘metaphysik’ on the grounds that it was in the province of churchmen, not natural philosophy as such (and in those days, one really had to stay in one’s lane.) — Wayfarer

But to be fair, in this case Wayfarer asked you about metaphysics and mysticism.