Comments

  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    The best we can do is investigate empirically as much as possible and then provisionally accept what seems most plausible. — Janus

    Uh, no. The best we can do, in such situations is not accept the claims. Why would you think that its good to accept unsubstantiated claims just because they seem plausible? That, as I said, demonstrates a lack of critical thinking.
  • Property Dualism
    H2O's macro physical characteristics, under any conditions, are explained by how's it's micro physical properties behave under those conditions. Every physicist, website, and book that explains its characteristics, under any conditions, including why ice floats on water, will say the same. It's because of the properties of its molecules, like its weak hydrogen bonds, and the angle of the arrangement of its atoms in the molecules. These things, in turn, due to the nature of electron shells. — Patterner

    You are leaving out many possibilities, dissolved substances, heavy water, etc.. No natural water is pure H2O. Your argument is nothing but a gross oversimplification.

    Or point me to any other macro characteristic that is not explained by how the micro properties of its constituents behave under the conditions it is in. — Patterner

    Here again, you argue against your own thesis. The "conditions" is something completely distinct from the micro parts. You argue that the macro is nothing other than a composite of the parts in an arrangement, but now you qualify with "under the conditions it is in", which implies a larger context. The larger context is something other than the micro.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    Affect the chemistry of the brain and you affect mental processes too. — flannel jesus

    Sure, but it's a fallacy to conclude from this premise, that mental processes consist only of brain activity. If a thing is composed of multiple components, affecting one of the components will have an effect on the composite thing, but that does not imply that the composite thing consists only of that one component.

    Perhaps you're not entirely compelled to agree, that's fine, but we're far far away at this point from it being an entirely unsubstantiated assumption. We have plenty of fantastic reasons to think mental processes might be neural processes. — flannel jesus

    As i said, it is completely unsubstantiated, and your assumption that it is close to being substantiated, and this means that it is not completely unsubstantiated, indicates nothing except that you are lacking in skills of critical thinking.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    We are 'blind' to neural processes in vivo, so of course mental processes don't seem to us to be neural processes. I think this "seeming" is what causes all the difficulties. — Janus

    Two things which "seem" to be different must be proven to be the same before they can be accepted as being the same. Otherwise you're just making an unsubstantiated assumption.
  • Property Dualism
    Of course. I used H2O to illustrate this. — Patterner

    So, you're disproving what you are asserting?
  • Property Dualism
    Second, big things are made of little things. And the big things have the characteristics they have because of the properties of the little things. — Patterner

    Participants in this thread have demonstrated two problems with this statement. First, a lot of the characteristics of the "big things" are due to the variety of different ways that the "little things" can be arranged, therefore many of the characteristics of the big things are not "because of the properties of the little things", they are bcause of the way that the little things are arranged. The next problem is the reason why the little things get arranged in the way that they do. This is the issue of causation, the arrangements are not random chance.
  • Donald Trump (All Trump Conversations Here)
    Why wouldn't you expect half of the world's population to produce half of the stuff and get half of the profits? — Banno

    I think this is a misstatement. It's not those people who are represented as "half of the world's population", who are getting these profits. A company, like Tesla for example, can set up operations in a country like China, and reap huge profits. Those people working those factories, are not getting these profits. There may even be significant tax loopholes due to the international nature of the company. That is the long standing tradition of capitalism.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    If so, what is it? — 180 Proof

    Exactly as I said:

    The world we know, is the medium. — Metaphysician Undercover

    There are two distinct aspects of the world we know, one being known as material bodies, the other as mind and ideas. Each requires a distinct "substance" to support logically (justify), its reality. The world we know, as we know it, is the interaction, therefore the medium, between these two substances.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    It's less inconsistent and more parsimonious, it seems to me, to conceive of "physical" and "mental" as two properties – ways of describing / modeling – substance than positing them as "two substances" (which do not share a medium by which to interact with one another). Property dualism, for example, does not have "substance dualism's" interaction problem. — 180 Proof

    I don't see the purpose of your proposal. Substance dualism does not deny a medium of interaction. The medium is the third element proposed by Plato in his "tripartite soul". This is the world we live in, the world of interaction between the two distinct forms of substance. The world we know, is the medium.

    By claiming that the physical and the mental are two distinct types of properties, instead of two distinct substances interacting, you try to make the medium itself, into the substance. This is untenable by our current principles of knowledge and understanding. As demonstrated by the failure to detect the aether which supports electromagnetic waves, we do not have the required principles to understand both mental and physical as the properties of one underlying substance. Our knowledge does not substantiate that claimed substance.

    Therefore until we have the elusive "theory of everything", we need to understand reality according to the principles which we do have. These principles support an understanding of two distinct substances which interact, rather than two distinct types of properties of one substance. All we have as evidence is the interaction, not the substance which ties the two together. The "ideal" of a single substance is just an unsubstantiated "pie-in-the-sky". And it's inherently self-contradictory to assume an unsubstantiated substance.

    That's the point of "substance", it has to be what supports, gives reality to our principles, ideas, and logic, as what substantiates them. It cannot be a speculative ideal, which may or may not be true, because this cannot provide any true foundation for the reality of being. So we must assume the "substance" which actually supports our knowledge until it is demonstrated, proven, to be incorrect. Currently our knowledge is supported by two distinct and separate substances.
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    My point was not about the truthful perception of a thing, but about differences in general. A thing can never be perceived absolutely; there are no 1:1 real-time representations. — DasGegenmittel

    This can be a starting point. We can say that differences are presented to us through sense perception, and sameness is something designated based on conceptual principles. For example, look around you and notice that there is difference everywhere. Your sense of vision is providing these differences to you. And if you say that things are the same as they were last time you looked around, you are making a comparison in your mind, with the use of memory, and some principle which allows you to ignore tiny changes as insignificant.

    From this perspective, we do not perceive "things". A thing is something created by the mind, with the use of sense perception, but not directly perceived as a thing. The mind, abstraction, conception, etc., produces "things" through principles of individuation, and sameness, and this provides the foundation for the conception of numbers and also identity. I believe it is important to recognize and uphold this distinction in order to properly understand the difference between a judgement of "true", and a judgement of "justified". When we judge that "this" is different from "that", through sensation, we have a judgement of truth. But if we judge that "this" is the same as "this", we judge according to some principles which dictate that it is the same word, despite appearing as two different instances, so this is a judgement which is justified.

    Now the issue gets very complicated, because with conceptual principles we adopt opposing principles. So the opposite of "same" is "not same", and this is often known as "different". The problem here is that this results in a type of difference which is justified through principles of sameness, but it is not necessarily true by sense perception, it is a conceptual difference. These conceptual principles are applied back against the claimed truths of perception, through the law of noncontradiction, to justify those claims of truth. The point being that the differences of sense perception (supposed truths) may be overruled by principles of sameness (justification), and this is a fundamental aspect of knowledge. In other words justification overrules truth and we create sameness out of things which appear to be different. This is known as equality and equivalence.

    Correct, but I would add that both sameness and difference are equally important to emphasize the definitional core of the matter. There is no delimitation without differentiation. — DasGegenmittel

    The point now is that we have two types of "difference". One is supported by the truth of sense perception, and the other is supported by the justification of not same. These are very different meanings of the same word. Therefore to avoid equivocation we cannot simply class sameness and difference together as opposing principles, because this would include the "true difference" which is not justified, in with the "justified difference", as if they are both opposed to same. They are not both opposed to same, because the senses do not give us any "same", therefore "difference" by sense perception is completely distinct from "difference" by principles of "not same".

    These principles of categorical separation within the use of the same word, are very complicated, and were explored by Plato in books like Parmenides. You may wonder about the importance of maintaining such separations, but it becomes very important to maintain some form of separation between true and justified, to avoid confusion when we consider terms like "possible" and "necessary".
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    I tend to look at "substance" as what provides for, or gives, reality to something, anything, and everything. So when someone asserts that such and such is real, we can ask for the substance which supports that claim. We can ask for the substance which supports the claimed reality of physical objects, and likewise we can ask for the substance which supports the claimed reality of abstractions, ideas and concepts.

    In this way, matter or energy is commonly cited as the substance of physical objects, and the physical world in general, while meaning or mind, may be cited as the substance of ideas and concepts. Since these two supporting substances appear to be very different, I think that substance dualism is the best way to understand the reality of world.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Biden’s final “fuck you” to the world was the crossing of “red-lines” and the possibility (50% possibility, according to US intelligence) of all out nuclear war. — NOS4A2

    Looks like a response to North Korea's involvement.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪NOS4A2

    That's the inevitable result of modern technology. Would you prefer that we return to a pre-industrialization society?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I can only speak for myself, but my own paranoia is the compression of space, that distant events and people can influence local and regional affairs. — NOS4A2
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    His installing as prime minister is the swan song of globalism — NOS4A2

    Why are some people afraid of globalization? Can you explain the basis of this paranoia?
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    Then I want to say that when we know what the sign means, what we know is how to use it. That means not only understanding the conceptual structure that gives is meaning, but what it requires us to do (and not to do). — Ludwig V

    This is obviously incorrect. Use is fundamentally subjective. I can use a sign in a way which serves my purpose, and you might use the same sign in a completely different way to serve your purpose. To say that knowing the meaning is knowing how to use the sign is a very one sided way of looking at a multifaceted thing. This completely ignores the intersubjective (communicative) aspect of meaning. To include this supposedly "objective" aspect into your definition of meaning, we would need to consider "correct" usage.

    And this exposes the real problem. What constitutes "correct" usage? Therefore referring to knowing how to use a sign, as an indication of knowing the meaning of a sign does nothing for us toward defining meaning, because "correctly" is implied by "knowing how to use", and this provides no guidelines for how to judge one's usage as "correct". So we really do not even approach the true nature of meaning in this way, because it is hidden by not including "correctly" within "knowing how to use". This is the issue exposed by Plato in The Republic, when he asked different individuals to describe how each would use the word "just". Each person had a different way of using the word, and debate was required to demonstrate that any individual's way was incorrect. This argumentation proved that the person really did not know how to use the sign "correctly", even though they could actually use it the way that they did. This indicates that "knowing how to use" implies some form of justification as implicit.

    I don’t think so. “2 + 2 = 4” isn’t a statement about reality as such, but about a perceptual pattern abstracted by the mind. Numbers aren’t part of the world in the same way as, say, rocks or trees. They’re tools—mental instruments that help us structure and process sensory input. They emerge after perception, not before it. — DasGegenmittel

    This is very doubtful, and that's the point of Kant's "a priori". Some form of abstractive power, or capacity, is necessary for, therefore prior to, sensory perception. And, since the difference between the thing-in-itself, and the perception of the thing (as a type of abstraction in the mind), is fundamental to the nature of knowledge, especially the fallibility of knowledge, we need to pay close attention to the nature of this difference in any epistemology.

    This is the point of Aristotle's law of identity, "a thing is the same as itself". This law locates the identity of the thing directly within the thing itself rather than what we say about the thing, or how we symbolize the thing, thus creating a separation between the thing and the abstraction. When we adhere to this principle of separation, we notice that the so-called abstraction which corresponds with the symbol does not necessarily have any identity at all, as a thing. This allows for the reality of the fictive, imaginative, creative capacity of the mind. Therefore the real meaning of mathematical symbols such as "2" may be entirely imaginary, creations of the mind which are not at all based in perceptual patterns. And I really think that this is the true nature of what is known as "pure mathematics". The mind creates categories which are not based in abstractions produced from sensory perception, but based in its own intentions. The "empty set" for example.

    Perception introduces difference. Without difference, there’s no concept of “two.” Numbers are thus not touchable objects, but operational categories—modalities of cognition. — DasGegenmittel

    The problem with this approach is that we must allow that there is a means by which perception apprehends difference. This fundamental "mechanism" if we can call it that, determines which types of differences will be perceived. And, we need to take account of this mechanism, the a priori, to have a true understanding of the way that living beings come to know things. If we include this mechanism, then we see that the living being creates freely, through imagination, its own operational categories through the influence of forces such as intentions. Then through some trial and error process, experimentation etc., the successful, useful ones are maintained through time. If we do not include this fundamental principle, we wrongly presume that "correctness" is forced onto the living being by its environment, rather than something chosen by the being through its activities of application.

    In other words, if we assume that difference is forced upon us by perception, as you propose, rather than something created by us for the purpose of judgement, we avoid having to understand the true nature of justification. We simply take justification for granted, as something given by the differences within perception. But this is fundamentally incorrect, as Plato demonstrates, justification is actually the means by which we get beyond the deceptions which the senses serve us. (Take the clock example for instance.) True justification requires that we establish a priori principles, real principles of difference, not just the apparent differences which the senses show us. Notice that we have five different senses. Within each sense there are differences which we notice, but we also need principles to account for the differences between one sense and another, which is a much deeper type of difference.

    As for the broken clock case:

    To say, “S cannot believe that a broken clock is working,” misrepresents the belief. “Broken clock” is an external diagnosis, not necessarily part of S’s belief content.

    If S looks at the clock at 2:00 p.m., and the clock (stuck at 2:00) shows 2:00, S forms the belief “It’s 2:00.” That belief is justified (the clock appears fine), true (it is 2:00), and believed. The Gettier problem arises here.     — DasGegenmittel

    This is Plato's point with justification. The senses deceive us, and cannot be the source for true justification. The idea that sense evidence is what justifies, is itself misleading, guiding us toward faulty justifications. We must establish principles of comparison derived from the creative, imaginative mind, which form the real basis for justification. These principle are derived from concepts of sameness rather than concepts of difference. This is why it is very important to have a very rigorous definition of "same", to start from, as that provided by the law of identity.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    This particular act wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment meltdown of the mentally ill, as usually is the case, but the use of a mask and duct tape suggest some level of planning, so the owner guesses it was probably a neighbor or someone who followed him home. — NOS4A2

    Someone is caught on camera slashing another person's tires. We cannot jump to the conclusion that the vandalism was carried out because the person is a Tesla owner. Slashing tires is a somewhat common vindictive act, and probability dictates that it's bound to happen to Tesla owners, just like it happens to the owners of other cars.

    So, we need some statistics showing which types of cars are subjected to the largest amounts of vandalism. It might be the type which attracts the most aggressive driver type. Have you ever taken a baseball bat to a Dodge Ram? I saw a Honda Civic with slashed tires.
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    Well, what you say is not wrong, of course. But I would have put it differently. That I prefer to say that "2+2=4" is a statement in what grammarians call the timeless present just shows that I'm uncomfortable with metaphysics. So let that pass. When I said it signified nothing, I was taking advantage of an ambiguity in the meaning of "signified". The traditional structure of signifier and signified articulates the two terms as inherently relational - two objects in a relationship. I don't think it necessarily is. For example, does a road sign saying "Road closed" stand in any necessary relation to anything that you would want to call an object, in the sense that the sign itself is an object. I don't think so. But the sign has a clear meaning, nonetheless. — Ludwig V

    I agree with this in principle, but I would not fuss over the meaning of "signified" like that. There is no reason to think that "the signified" must be an object. In fact, we should think the opposite, what is signified is meaning, not an object. To "signify" only means to be a sign of something, or to mean something. If a person takes a name to represent a particular thing, then that is the meaning the person associates with that sign. So we are not talking about a relationship between two objects, we are talking about a relationship between an object (the sign), and what the sign means (what is signified).

    We can say that, but we do well to pause for a moment and work out the meaning of what we just said. If we post the meaning (significance) of a term as an object and think things through, we may realize that no object could possibly do the things that we require meaning to do. So we have to park that idea and think more carefully about what we actually mean by meaning. — Ludwig V

    Yes, this would be the problem with standard Platonism. Platonism assumes objects of meaning, ideas. These objects are supposed to be eternal unchanging objects. So, for example, in Platonism the sign we know as the numeral 2, signifies an eternal and unchanging idea commonly called "the number two". The number two is supposed to be an eternal unchanging object of meaning, an idea.

    The difficulty with this proposal of Platonism, is that when we consider most instances of meaning, it is easy to recognize that the meaning signified by a word, is not very often fixed and unchanging. So Plato looked at the ideas signified by many different words, love, just, good, for example, and found that especially in words related to ethical ideas, the meaning is far from fixed, but varies from person to person, and therefore is free to evolve over time.

    Now, I've read a good portion of the essay linked by @DasGegenmittel in the op, and I think the intention is to divide knowledge into two distinct types, the eternal, unchanging type (static knowledge), and the evolving type (dynamic knowledge). I would not make a division in this way. I would say that all knowledge, just like all meaning is evolving, but there are differences of degree in the rate of change. Some might propose "ideals", which would be eternal unchanging objects of meaning, but these are imaginary, fictional, because we do not have any such unchanging ideas. So "ideals" are self-defeating, as fictions which are supposed to be eternal truths. And even ideas like that signified by "2", are changing, having come into existence at some time. And we see that there are a number of different numbering systems, like natural, rational, real, etc., and the sign has a different meaning depending on the conceptual structure of the system which provides the context of usage.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    And it has turned out that—if true—everything it has removed... — NOS4A2

    The track record indicates an extremely low probability of truth, so this statement is meaningless.
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    Yes, but representing and corresponding are not the only ways to mean something. If we can calculate and apply our equations to the world, we know what they mean even if the signify nothing. — Ludwig V

    I do not think that the equations signify nothing, that was my argument against AmadeusD, who wanted to reject a dualism of aspects in the world which are changing, and those which stay the same. Amadeus wanted to say that everything in the world is changing. But since the truth of "2+2=4" is something not changing, then it cannot be something in the world so it ends up being nothing.

    We can say that there is something called "meaning", and assume that this accounts for the aspects of the world which are not changing, such as truth. But that does not do very much to help us understand this dualism. Now we have the questions of what type of existence does meaning have, and how does it manage to stay the same as time passes, to support the reality of "truth".
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    Musk's right wing ideology is something he recently grew into. He was a hero of the left right up until he chose to think for himself and observe the censorship and complete ineptitude of the administration in power which was largely the liberal democrat bureaucracy. — philosch

    I suggest you look a little closer at this so-called enlightenment.

    At the same time, his daughter Vivian came out as transgender and changed her name, declaring that she no longer wanted to “be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form”.

    Musk himself has cited Vivian as a reason for his political shift, telling the pop psychologist Jordan Peterson that he had “lost [his] son [sic], essentially”, and concluding that his son “is dead, killed by the woke mind virus”.

    --- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/09/elon-musks-journey-from-humanitarian-to-poster-of-rightwing-memes

    Lastly colonizing Mars is a next logical step in our development and is critical to the long term survival of human kind. That's simply a scientific fact. — philosch

    I can only take this as a joke. Then again, the things which pass as "scientific fact" to some these days, never ceases to amaze me. Since Mr. Musk sems to believe that AI is the biggest threat to human kind, I suppose that the opportunity of a colony on Mars where AI is fully outlawed, is the basis of this "scientific fact".
  • On the substance dualism
    These two descriptions describe the same thing. — Banno

    They do not describe the same thing though, that's why they are different. To conclude that they do describe the same thing requires further premises or assumptions which need to be judge for truth or falsity, to determine how sound that conclusion would be.
  • On the substance dualism
    it is waffle because it tries to mix two different types of language games - the physical and the intentional. — Banno

    Waffles are breakfast. Make sure you use real maple syrup.

    There's an obvious solution to this problem. Dualism. I.e., if you want to avoid that sticky sappy stuff.
  • We’re Banning Social Media Links
    There go my pig videos — Shawn

    This little piggy went to market...
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    No, but that's not something in the world. It's something about things in the world. All the things that could represent that equation wont stay the same. — AmadeusD

    Yes, but it's more than just "something about things in the world", it's a belief about things in the world. And the belief is that it is true, therefore something such as correspondence with reality must support that truth, as justification.

    Now, the belief is that this "something" is something which does not change. You appear to be saying that if we exclude this "something" from "the world", then we can truthfully say that we believe there is nothing in the world which stays the same. But all you have done here is relegate this "something" which you believe in, to somewhere other than "the world". So unless you adopt some form of dualism, to give this "something" a place of being, then to avoid self-deception you need to accept that this belief is really nothing instead of "something".

    In principle, that's the route which atheism takes with "God". God has no place in "the world", so we exclude God from our monist reality, which is allowed only to consist of things of "the world". Then, to be consistent, and avoid self-deception, we must deny belief in God. You have not taken this step, to maintain consistency, and avoid self-deception. You want to believe in "2+2=4", assert that it actually signifies "something", but you want to exclude that "something" from your world, so it would actually be nothing. That would be self-deception, insisting that "2+2=4" actually signifies, represents, or corresponds with nothing.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    A notable feature of resource-conscious logics is how they naturally have "quantum-like" properties, due to the fact their semantic models are state spaces of decisions that are generally irreversible, thereby prohibiting the reuse of resources; indeed, the assumption that resources can be reused, is generally a cause of erroneous counterfactual reasoning, such as when arguing that a moving object must have a position because it might have been stopped. — sime

    Can you explain a bit more thoroughly what you mean by "resource-conscious"?
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    ↪AmadeusD

    Lot's of things stay the same as time passes. Look around you. Don't you notice a lot of aspects which are not changing as the time passes. But if that doesn't convince you, we could look at some simple arithmetic. Do you believe that the truth of "2+2=4" could change as time passes?
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    I don't think that's a solution - especially as I'm not clear what the problem is. We have two different ways of describing the world. End of story. — Ludwig V

    Not "end of story". The two different ways correspond with two distinct aspects of the world. If it was simply a matter of two different ways of describing the same thing, we'd choose the best for the purpose at hand. But the two different ways correspond with two different aspects, that which stays the same as time passes, and that which does not stay the same as time passes.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    Unsound argument means the premise was false, and also invalid reasoning was applied for the conclusion. — Corvus

    Replace "and" with "or" here, and you'll see that if the reasoning is valid and the premise is false, then the argument is valid but unsound. So you should conclude "Hence the argument is unsound', instead of the following:

    Here reasoning seems valid, but the premise was false, which led to the false conclusion. Hence the argument is invalid. — Corvus

    https://iep.utm.edu/val-snd/
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    Your notion of "change" is untenable. I'm reminded of Heraclites' river.

    Change is irrelevant to JTB. At time t1(insert well-grounded true claim here) and viola!     — creativesoul

    So, if knowledge is JTB, and change is irrelevant to JTB., am I correct to conclude that we cannot have knowledge of change, therefore?

    My notion of change is untenable to you, because change is unintelligible to you.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    Wrong assumptions lead to invalid conclusions. — Corvus

    It's better to say that those conclusions are unsound rather than invalid.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    An obvious wrong assumption? — Corvus

    That assumption does create a measurement problem. So unless we think that measurement problems are good, then I'd say it's a wrong assumption.

    But it does puzzle us still. Because if you think that we know everything about mathematical infinity, then I guess there should be an answer to the Continuum Hypothesis. — ssu

    Again, "continuum" assumes something being divided. Simply saying that there is a number between any two numbers does not assume anything being divided, just like assuming that there is always a higher number does not assume anything being counted. These are simply pure mathematical axioms. But when we say things like "there is a continuum", "numbers are objects", then we introduce ontological premises into the mathematical axioms, which may or may not be true.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    Is this a "misuse" in mathematics? We are talking about mathematics.

    Pick two real numbers, and it can be shown that there are real numbers between them. Pick even two rational numbers, and you have rational numbers between them.

    You would wander to the illogical, if you would to start to argue that it isn't so, that it's misuse or something.     — ssu

    That's not misuse, nor is it a problem.

    The problem is in Zeno's application, when things like distance, and time, are assumed to be infinitely divisible. It is a measurement problem because instead of determining the natural constraints on such divisions (these constraints are unknown), it is simply assumed that divisibility is infinite.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    Can you show me a physics text that does not use time? — Banno

    How's that relevant? Physics uses mathematics, but that doesn't mean mathematics is physical.

    Here I would side with Moliere. It is a logical problem. Or basically that the measurement problem is a logical problem, hence you cannot just suppose there to be "an adequate way of measurement". — ssu

    Whether or not it is possible to devise an adequate way is irrelevant. The problem is that we do not have an adequate way. And the lack of an adequate way produces the use of an inadequate way. Therefore the problem is not a logical problem, it is a problem in the application of logic. Principles are applied where they are not suitable for the task which they are applied to. That is a measurement problem.

    The problem is infinity itself. And that is a logical problem for us. — ssu

    Infinity itself is not the problem. The problem is how the concept of infinity is developed and employed. In its basic form "infinity" allows that principles of measurement such as numbers, can be extended indefinitely so that in principle anything and everything can be measured. That is beneficial, it is not a problem. The problem is that there are many misuses of infinity, such as the idea that there is some type of thing which can be infinitely divided. That is not a problem with infinity, but a problem with its application, a problem of applying the wrong principles to the task, a measurement problem.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    ↪Banno

    Zeno's paradoxes are very clearly problems of measurement. Like I explain above, if we had the appropriate way of measuring things like time and space, we wouldn't have to entertain the logical possibility of infinite divisibility. Then there would be no such paradoxes. The paradoxes are due to a deficiency in measurement capacity.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    We're limited in terms of measuring -- but I want to say that Zeno's paradoxes are not problems of measurement at all. They are logical problems (which is why they evoke the difference between physics and logic and math, as the OP stated already) — Moliere

    The logical problems are the result of not having an adequate way of measuring. We are reduced to logical possibility. If we had the proper way we wouldn't have to entertain those possibilities.

    So for example, the true divisibility of every physical thing is determined by its physical composition. But if we do not know how it is composed we just assume the logical possibility of infinite divisibility. This is what happens with space and time, and before the atomists, matter itself. We do not know how these things are composed so we just assume the logical possibility of infinite divisibility.

    A "non- physical" measurement of a physical quantity... what would be your non-physical units for the fuel left in the tank - not litres, since they are physical. — Banno

    I was talking about the problems with the measurement of time (basis of the uncertainty principle), not the measurement of fuel. Show me how time is a physical quantity.
  • Tortoise wins (Zeno)
    What I'm asking is more about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which as he interpreted it meant that reality itself doesn't allow for a precision of both, but rather demands aprecision, or position,* of any one particle. But due to cuz that's how nature works, not cuz how we measure it. — Moliere

    It's due to the way that time exists, in conjunction with the limitations of our capacity to measure. We are limited in our ability to measure time by physical constraints. If we had a non-physical way to measure time we wouldn't be limited in that way.
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    ↪DasGegenmittel

    Thanks Das, I'm going to hold off on any further reply right now and take a look at your essay.
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    Timestamps, while not sufficient, are nevertheless necessary for any attempt to articulate change. The shift from being to becoming cannot be described adequately through a chain of static states. As Aristotle argued, change is not captured by a succession of positions; rather, it exists between them. It’s a different kind of phenomenon—continuous, processual, and epistemically elusive. Yet without temporal markers, we would lack the coordinates needed to locate, compare, or even recognize shifts in state. Timestamps provide the necessary structure within which the insufficiency of static snapshots becomes visible. They do not capture becoming, but they allow us to trace its outline. — DasGegenmittel

    I agree with this, and this use of time stamps to understand change is commonly found as cause and effect, which is a temporal ordering. In physics, the matter gets complex because special relativity employs the principle of the relativity of simultaneity. This allows that spatially separated events can have different temporal ordering depending on the frame of reference used. I believe it is common practise in cosmology for example, to choose the frame of reference according to principles of giving the proper temporal order to events which are known to be causally related. That is the "light cone" principle.

    In this context, DK is not a lack of certainty, but an ideal in its own right. Knowledge is modeled as a limit process: not something one has, but something one approaches. The limit in the DKa and DKh formulas represents the asymptotic approach to ideal knowledge in dynamic contexts. It shows that knowledge evolves step by step, reducing uncertainty over time, but never fully reaches absolute certainty: see as well bayesian epistemology as complementary approach. It models the continuous refinement of justified beliefs under changing conditions. I distinguish two complementary dimensions: — DasGegenmittel

    To me, this is equally problematic, because it sets out what knowledge ought to be as an ideal, without properly addressing what knowledge really is, in its actual existence, the ontology of knowledge. The fact that it "never fully reaches absolute certainty" indicates that knowledge never is the way that it is shown to be. So we are still stuck with the same problem that Plato demonstrated with JTB, we do not have a good understanding of what "knowledge" actually is, in its real existence.

    Unless we address the issue of what knowledge actually is, how it exists as the property of particular individuals, we still have that ought/is separation between what knowledge ought to be, and what it really is. And, if we keep focusing on the ought, without addressing the is, the knowledge which is the property of individuals, might actually be progressing in a different direction and we wouldn't even know it. So for example, we may be allowing our criteria for justification to be getting more and more lax, so that the knowledge which individuals have may be actually getting a lower and lower degree of certainty, and moving away from the ideal, though we claim we are moving toward the ideal.

    The "uncertainty principle" is an example of how we are inclined to allow ourselves to move away from the goal of certainty, allowing uncertainty right into our knowledge, as an acceptable part of it. The matter/form division of Aristotle relegated unintelligibility to matter, ensuring that only the aspects of reality which were designated as intelligible were allowed to be part of our formal knowledge. The unintelligible aspects were segregated, and excluded.

    Elsewhere, I've argued that the inclination toward "formalism" is a cause of this trend, to allow aspects known to be unintelligible, to enter into knowledge. In its quest for absolute, ideal principles, (which is really impossible) formalism allows elements of uncertainty right into the basic premises, the axioms. This contaminates the entire formal structure, allowing uncertainty to lurk everywhere instead of excluding it from the formal structure, which ensures that valid logic produces certainty and relegates uncertainty to the truth or falsity of the premises. The formalist axioms already incorporate uncertainty.

    JTC mirrors the structure of JTB—justification, truth, and belief remain essential—but reinterprets them dynamically. Truth is no longer static but contextualized within time. Justification adapts, and belief becomes a crisis-aware assertion. Together, these preserve the functional core of JTB while enabling knowledge to operate under uncertainty. JTC is not a rejection but a temporal simulation of JTB—an epistemic snapshot in motion, like Zeno’s arrow suspended mid-flight. — DasGegenmittel

    This appears like you are trying to justify uncertainty. This would be a step in the wrong direction, as explained above, a movement away from certainty.
  • Gettier's Gap: It's about time (and change)
    Personally, I find no issue between JTB and change. That's what proper indexing/timestamps are for. — creativesoul

    Timestamps are not sufficient, because what is at issue is the fundamental difference between a describable state-of-being, and the activity of becoming. What Aristotle demonstrated is that we cannot adequately describe any activity as a succession of states-of-being because there is a basic incompatibility between these two.

    If state A changes becomes state B at a later time, then the change has occurred in the time between A and B. If we describe the change between A and B as state C, then changes have occurred between A and C, and also between C and B. If we continue to describe changes in terms of intermediary states, we'd posit D as between A and C, and E between C and B, and we are on our way to an infinite regress of states-of-being, without ever describing the activity which is the change which occurs in the time between distinct states. Therefore we cannot ever adequately describe active change, or becoming, in terms of states-of-being.
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