We agree the E and the M are things. "Relation" being an abstract term is nothing other than an idea. What is it, then, that the relation refers to that might be real. Well, the E and M are describable in themselves, these descriptions ideas more or less corresponding to what they are describing - the thing described real, the description the expression of an idea. The E and M also in apparent motion in and through spacetime. E, a thing, moving through spacetime, also a thing. and the M likewise. And the E and the M apparently alter spacetime. The alterations apparently effecting the exact path of both through spacetime. All of this a description, and no mention of relation or the existence or causative efficacy of any relation. It all apears to be things thinging with things, that we do our best to describe in terms meaningful to us.

But who talks this way? No one, unless they're trying be careful about what they say and what they mean. That is, it can be useful to talk as if relations were real, independently-existing thing, but as you can see, they're not.

Let X be at least one(although there are countless ones) creature capable of drawing correlations between different things, where at least one of those things is want/desire/aims/goals of the agent and another is a means to that end.

Without that, there is no purpose. — creativesoul

Purpose then emergent, requiring person, desire, goal, means? In this your "agent," the person, necessary, desire as catalyst. It looks to me like ends and means are unnecessary. As with a person said to be ambitious, that is, a person with purpose but not (yet, presumably) with a goal or means to achieve it.

No, I recognize that the earth and the moon are doing things, and that their activities are related. You apparently recognize this to, by describing it as a 'corkscrewing" activity. You, however refuse to separate the description "corkscrewing", which is an idea, from the reality of what the relation actually is, — Metaphysician Undercover

Great, what is relation? I keep asking and you keep not answering. I ask what they do, and you answer that they do things and their activities are related. All you're telling me is that your not very good - or no good at all - at reflectively questioning your own thinking. This the state of a naive thinker who has taken certain things for granted and having done so, is incapable of further testing them or thinking about them. If relations are real in your sense please provide an example, which of course cannot be an idea.

Why are you afraid to admit that the reality of the immaterial extends far beyond the reality of human ideas. — Metaphysician Undercover

Because I only have evidence that some people think and believe so, and that it can be useful to think so. Neither of which establishes the kind of existence it seems to me you're insisting on. The nature of which you characterize as

There's a lot of unknowns in the world, and this is one of them. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mentioned the "corkscrewing through spacetime" only as against your idea/relation/model of the moon "orbiting" the earth. Now, take a moment and try to think through exactly what the earth is doing and what the moon is doing. I think you will see that any "relation" between them is an idea that comes from you.

I'm thinking he did - which I quoted from. In my ed. section 4, starting, "From the results of section 2 there follows a remarkable result concerning a consistency proof for the system P.... Theorem XI.... The proof is (in outline) the following...." The Undecidable, Davis, ed. pp. 35-36.

Tim, are you having trouble reading? I just got though explicitly telling you the opposite of this, twice in one short post. I told you: — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's a compromise proposal. You say relations exist as "ideas", or "expressions of ideas". I say relations exist outside of human minds. Can we agree that "ideas", or "expression of ideas" may exist outside of human minds? So, let's say that the screw has a relation to the engine, and this relation is an idea, or an expression of an idea, which is outside of all human minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

My bad, then, for being confused and not realizing it. Let's bury this, then: ideas exist, are immaterial but are mind-dependent, in that no mind, no idea. My corollary being that ideas and material things exhaust the contents of the universe. You appear to have a third category; the essence(?) of which you have yet to make clear.

Leaving relation, which all along I have taken to be an idea. But you say no, not an idea, but something immaterial existing independently of mind - not mind-dependent in the way an idea is. So far so good? A caveat, as I've said before I yield entirely on the usefulness of relations. But it's not their efficacy that is in question, but the nature and way of their existence. And as belief, axiom, or as supposition, I yield, but those also not the question. So its up to you to make clear how they exist, as non-material, non-mind-based what-evers.

And it's useful to look closely at our example, the earth and moon. They seem related to be sure. But the challenge is to make clear exactly how they are related, and then the convenient fiction yields to facts. To keep it simple, you say they're related, I say they are not, on two causes, 1) that relations are ideas and things don't have ideas, and 2) the "relationship" of earth and moon is a convenient fiction and artifact of ideas, and that the two have actually nothing to do with each other.

However, Freewill-within-Determinism Compatibilism is compatible with my own Both/And worldview. Does that compromise work for you? :smile: — Gnomon

Yes and I think it must. No doubt you had to decide whether one lump or two in your morning coffee. But I doubt you would claim that decision was made for you in, by, and during the Big Bang. Maybe better to say that the Big Bang, with a whole lot of other influences, set the stage for your opportunity to make such a decision.

So it seems to me - not being versed in the details of Determinism - that among the first things a determinist must make clear is what, exactly, it means.

I am inclined to believe that between any cause and any effect it is thought to be a cause of, is "noise" (here cleverly left undefined), the more of which reducing the connection of the cause and its effect. All this expressible more rigorously in a few several hundreds of more words, but I think you get it. Thus, Big Bang has nothing to do with your one or two lumps, but even if it did, the connection impossible to trace. Same page?

...all relations are ideas. I do not accept that principle. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what are they? And also what are ideas?

Apparently for you ideas are independent of mind, existing without mind, and relations are not ideas. Great! Please make clear, then, what these are.

If for you axioms, or givens or hinge propositions or absolute presuppositions, please say so.

---------------------

I say your position makes no sense, because if we actually were free to invent the relations, then these ideas (what I call models or representations, and you call inventions), could consist of absolutely anything, and one would not be more true (in the sense of corresponding with reality) than another. — Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously they can and do- called theories - and on the basis of applied criteria - experiments - work or are disproved. The word for this is "science."

Mighty nice OP, mighty nice response.

My own image - metaphor - is that morality/ethics comprise the warp and weft of the social fabric, whether a society of one or of many. And I think it is pretty clear that they grow from values and evolve and are refined. Some of which common to all, and some, being developed over time, not.

And it does not appear that any are absolute, unless in some reduced state that makes recognition problematic. I have in mind mother-love - what could be more basic and moral that that? Yet consider some examples of mothers from history, literature, and even in today's news. Most modern mother-love seems to be about caring, protecting, and nurturing, but underneath seems to be proprietorship.

An old joke - so to speak - from a philosophy class is that there is no such thing as a rope. Absurd on its face but also true. We might say that rope is the realization of purpose gathered together from many and different sources, but not in any sense pre-existing those. So with morality and ethics.

But there does seem an exception: while much moral theory seems to come from considerations of life itself and how to live it, these all seem made in the sense of the rope. Kant, on the other hand, looks for it in reason, and finding it there, finds something that can sometimes appear alien and strange. And as reason arguably pre-existing, in the sense of reason's being universal and necessary.

Which implies you understood well-enough to judge it inaccurate. But your arrow finds a target. Our contention is the existence of ideas. My view being that the universe contains material and ideas, ideas being immaterial matters/products/whatever, of minds. You holding that ideas exist absent/without mind(s) - I'm not sure what else you think is in the universe - and we both agree that ideas exist. And it appears that we each goggle at the other's absurdity.

I infer that for you truth is comportment with some set of criteria. I call that truth-according-to. And with that standard, you can, for example, represent the movement of the earth and moon on a very Euclidean piece of paper and say that the moon orbits, goes around, the earth. And that would be true-on-paper, but not really true. Thus "truth" itself a possible source of great confusion.

An axiom for me is that material things, in terms of their existence, truly exist. For you to hold - in my view - that an idea exists independently is to hold that in some sense the idea is true apart from any notion of "true-according-to." But ideas can obviously be wrong, even impossible. And that would suggest that as ideas, they cannot so exist. - Unless you separate idea from its content. Do you claim not that ideas exist, but instead idea as an "empty vessel" exists without content? A very odd thing to claim if you do.

As to relation(s), you apparently hold they exist. And we agree completely that they exist but differ completely as to how. I offer this quick distinction for convenience without claiming rigour: that you discover them and I invent them. You hold there is a relation between the earth and moon. I invite you to try even to think about what that relation might be without yourself putting into it exactly what you're trying to find in it.

That leaves your account of how and in what way ideas exist. How and in what way do they exist?

So, Purpose is both the Desire and the Reason for Doing. But, is that desire directed by an internal agency (self-caused), or merely one link in a long chain of causes & effects? — Gnomon

Hard to see how any would not ultimately be "directed by an internal agency." And here implied a development, hierarchy, and a taxonomy of purpose, starting with the infant(ile), through to adult. But I wonder if there is a sub-taxonomy either within the adult or transcending or otherwise moving beyond adult, and what the names of those would be.

For example, for the adult there is self-interest, both with and opposed to others, and altruism extending into self-denial and sacrifice for others. The question then being whether the higher purpose is found in a balance of purposes, or in an extreme of purpose, and under what circumstances - or under any circumstances!?

Jesus Christ being an example - the example - of supreme sacrifice. But I wonder. Countless people act selflessly for others, giving their lives a little bit each day or all in a moment - and without benefit of knowing that they're also God.

All your points fair and orderly and in a reasonable world would prevail, but you clearly have not interacted with MU much. In this case, what he claims not to understand is his own words. Tell you what: here's the sequence; if like MU you find you cannot understand, then please let me know.

How can you continue to refuse to acknowledge the third category, the relations between things? This is what we observe as the interactions between things. So, we need three categories, things, the relations between things, and ideas. If we deny the validity of this category, "the relations between things", then how could there be any truth to what the moon and earth are doing with each other in their interactions?
— Metaphysician Undercover —

"This is what we observe.., and if we deny the validity..., then how can there be any truth ...?" So then it would appear that for you, what you "observe" and that comports what with what you think is the case, so that it agrees with your criteria for truth, must be right and true and exist.

Is that accurate?
— tim wood

Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. — Metaphysician Undercover

I made an edit, a correction, from "what what," to "what with what."

Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you need help with English, get some.

Any evidence, nos4? Btw, are you a paranoid schizophrenic?

How can you continue to refuse to acknowledge the third category, the relations between things? This is what we observe as the interactions between things. So, we need three categories, things, the relations between things, and ideas. If we deny the validity of this category, "the relations between things", then how could there be any truth to what the moon and earth are doing with each other in their interactions? — Metaphysician Undercover

"This is what we observe.., and if we deny the validity..., then how can there be any truth ...? So then it would appear that for you, what you "observe" and that comports what with what you think is the case, so that it agrees with your criteria for truth, must be right and true and exist.

Is that accurate?

Of course, you're obnoxiously wrong, as usual. — Jamal

Great! How? In what way, exactly?

Maybe the trouble is expecting grammar to be logical in the first place, when mostly what matters is what’s conventional, i.e., standard. — Jamal

I gotta go with Vera Mont, here. There are standards, and they're corrupted, usually by ignorant people, the arrogance of ignorance then claiming correctness in virtue of mere usage. In a sense it all comes down to being either well-mannered or ill-mannered, educated or ignorant, the ill-mannered having forgot, or contemptuous of through a failure of understanding, the benefits of manners. And society becomes more piggish and brutal - seemingly without limit. Can we say MTG, or DJT, these just two horrible examples of many.

A peeve of mine is people who pronounce forte, meaning (a) strength, as fortay, when it should be fort, being an old French word for a strong point. Pronounced as fortay, it is an Italian musical term meaning loud.

Or Canadian geese as the plural for Canada goose. Or ax for ask. All of these signs at least of greater or lesser ignorance, which misused at the wrong place and time can exclude the speaker from membership he or she may very much want and value, and be otherwise entitled to - as, for example, a job. .

Anyway, I think I'm starting to understand your perspective. Would you agree that the moon does not exist, and the earth does not exist? These words signify ideas, just like "the moon orbits the earth" signifies an idea. If you can agree with this, then we might have a starting point. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't question the existence of things here. The moon, the earth, screws, engines, all exist. And absolutely the moon orbits the earth, in an ordinary and non-critical sense that is both intuitive and useful. What the moon and earth actually do in terms of these descriptions is that both revolve around a common moving center as they cork-screw their way along curved geodesics in space-time - or at least I think that's the most recent and accurate description.

And that leaves two questions: is that what they do as a matter of accurate description? Probably not. Maybe close, close enough for significant calculations, but as with map and territory, all we ever have about the territory is description. And the second question, is the description essentially accurate at all in any sense? And that a topic for another day; I don't think it's ours here.

I think the ground zero of the issue here is how ideas, the claims and descriptions themselves, exist. We appear to agree that material things exist. My criterion the material itself. I'm aware yours may be a bit more nuanced. But maybe here at least, no issue.

Ideas don't have material. They certainly exist. In as much as ideas are without material, I account for them as matters of mind, created by minds, in the exact sense that no mind means no ideas. Above you ask about the existence of the moon and earth. As descriptors, as ideas, we have to answer only as ideas. But at the same time I don't question the existence of the thing called the moon or the thing called earth - back to maps and territories.

I divide in two, then, things and ideas. Material and products of mind. You either divide into more than two, or one of your two is quite different from mine. and this the extra- or non-mind existence of ideas. Or, if I get it right, a) ideas have independent non-material existence, and b) you don't need a mind to have ideas.

One of your arguments seems based in utility. And no doubt; I don't question the utility of ideas - but that's not our question. So it's your account of this existence I wait for.

In passing: you note what appears to be the existence of non-material, non-idea things like relations, forces(?), intentions, purposes, and the like. I think if you look closely enough at them, you will see that they're all ideas, all usefulness granted, but, I think you will agree, utility not itself constitutive of separate and independent existence.

And our difference is categorical, thus not to be resolved through non-rigorous use of language, not through equivocation, ambiguity, amphiboly. Not to be resolved through any claim of mere belief. Ours to test whether something is or is not, and belief itself no standing nor merit in such a discussion.



,,,

we describe an activity as "the moon orbits the earth", — Metaphysician Undercover

I say relations exist outside of human minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

Great, let these, then, be the examples of your insisting on the reality of a fiction and of reifying ideas in some kind of form which they don't have. The moon does not orbit the earth. But to you that's a fact and a relation that exists. How and where? Made of what? I keep inviting you to make your argument, to make your case, and you cannot or will not do it. And you can shift gears all you want, but until you engage your clutch, you're going nowhere, even if your engine is racing. You have your beliefs: some are imo nonsense. But they're your beliefs. If you want them to be more than merely your beliefs, you'll need more than just your insistence.

I would appreciate it if in your reply, if you reply, you acknowledge that the moon does not orbit the earth, and follow that with an explanation of how a false belief - the relation - can exist other than as an idea. If you get that far, please include how any belief can be other than an idea, and how any idea can be real and exist in whatever your sense of "exist" is. Ideas being the stuff of minds, it's hard to see how there can be such absent mind.

Gravity a great example: of course it exists, except that it doesn't.
— tim wood
What could this possibly mean? — Metaphysician Undercover

Best you do a little bit of research. I just did - you won't have a problem.

From a purely rational standpoint, — Vera Mont

Hmm.

are there sound, logical reasons to commit suicide? — Vera Mont

Not to be confused with "good" or sufficient reasons. If I have a visitor, I can move to greet, wait for, or move to delay the meeting. If the visitor is death, and if the benefit is to move and greet, then why not? Otherwise, I do not think so. Or if so, reason can reason its own annihilation?

Are frivolous and silly ones? — Vera Mont

Can frivolous and silly be purely rational?

Are there reasons that seem to make sense from one POV, but not from another? — Vera Mont

If purely rational, how could there be a different POV?

What is your opinion? — Vera Mont

Being purely rational, I do not have opinions.

The paper you referenced exceptionally readable and brief - thank you for it. Anyone with even a remote interest imho should read it.

Of course he skates over some of the details, but for his purpose that is a good thing well done. But I do have a question about one thing - maybe you can clarify. He attributes to Godel this idea:
:“'Basic arithmetic cannot prove a contradiction.'
It turns out that this statement is also true but unprovable. This means that basic arithmetic cannot prove
that basic arithmetic is free of contradictions. “

Um, how does this square with Godel that I quote here:

"In particular, the consistency of P is unprovable in P, assuming that P is consistent. (in the contrary case, of course, every statement is provable)." (His proof of this being very slippery.)

In Godel, it appears consistency is assumed else explosion. That is, the "cannot" maybe should be, "simply assumes... is free of contradictions"?

I fear you are willing to treat people as a means in order to achieve your desired end, namely, “moral outcomes”. — NOS4A2

Will you ever address the question - which you dodge and run from like an adulterer from a husband with a gun - of infrastructure, its desirability and benefits and cost, and who pays and how and why?

You know better how one ought to live better then the Bangladeshi does, — NOS4A2

Yeah those Bangla-whatevers - one-horned or two, or is it humps they have one or two of? And to be sure, their employers know best how to care for them in the way that they like and thrive within. And which of course, those Banglas not being people, it would be immoral for us to even think about interfering in any way on their behalf. because of course we all know, or should know, as you do, that those bangers like to live in poverty and subject to every catastrophe of the moment and would neither choose nor aspire to anything better. Thank you, nos4, for setting us straight and keeping us straight.

That income is theirs because that is the terms they agreed to with their employer. — NOS4A2

What nonsense - the part about their agreement with their employer as if that established any "morality." It seems to me that to achieve morality, there must be something like a level playing surface, and when did, or does, that ever happen between employer and employee? Unless the morality of applied force, sometimes gloved, sometimes not. Is that your morality?

Slight injustice here: I read, replied, read some more, rinsed and repeated. I should have just read first. And would have but for my inability to accommodate a lot at one time. Sorry for that.

It is in the object's relations to other objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

And this is where to my ear your answer equivocates. Where is the relation? What is it made of? Thing or idea? My view is that the screw just is, in some primordial sense that at the least represents the attempt to not attribute to the screw anything at all which it itself does not have - which ordinary, informal, everyday language does not even try to do, in part because it is not the business of such language to do that. Relation, then, the expression of an idea by a person who has the idea. Presumably referring to the thing we call a screw - although the idea expressed in itself as itself is no warrant as to its own correctness or accuracy.

There could even be the question whether the "screwness" of the thing we call a screw is attributable to it. And perhaps it isn't. What was it before it was a screw? Answer: a something we call a piece of metal. A piece of something its form changed to something else we call a screw. The point being that all of these distinctions and labels are not-so-much terms of art but rather terms-of-common, used in a convenient way to represent useful ideas of various kinds - and none whatsoever of it in or of the thing itself. And the discussion itself of no great importance, except as it can help to identify when people make wrong attributions.

I think that relations exist independently of human minds, just like the objects which are related to each other exist independently of human minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

Think or believe? On my usage of these two words, if you believe you get a pass from me. if you think, then show your thinking - make your case. "Exist independently": this existence either an invocation of magic or substantive in some sense that comports with existing. I know of two and only two classes of existing things: material things and ideas. I think the number two, for example, exists, but only as an idea. As it happens, for the screw, it seems to me that almost everything that in any ordinary way that might be said of it, is an idea. -- Hmm. That itself leads to the notion that everything expressed is just an idea - which I think is correct, no exceptions occurring to me at the moment.

I say relations exist outside of human minds. Can we agree that "ideas", or "expression of ideas" may exist outside of human minds? — Metaphysician Undercover

Um, no. I acknowledge you believe it. Are you looking for me to accept what you merely believe? Or if you have more, then make it more than just a belief. Make it real and then you needn't invite me, but instead compel (in a nice way of course).

For example, we say that there is a specific type of relation between the earth and the moon, which we know as "gravity" — Metaphysician Undercover

And just this an example of the kind of place where we have to be "damned careful" with what we say and mean. The proposition here is whether, not the map as you put it exists, but if the territory, the relation itself independent of mind, exists. I invite you here to think carefully about just what exactly it is that you believe - affirm - exists. My quick answer is the moon, the earth, and ideas about them. And people who have those ideas. The notion of accuracy of idea being here a test. If the idea is wrong, does it exist in your sense? That is, can existing things that cannot exist, exist? They can as ideas. If pressed I can affirm six impossible things before morning tea - as ideas.

This problem is the result of the restrictions on language which you are trying to enforce. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely, in the context in which it matters. Absolutely not, in contexts where it does not matter.

You are refusing to acknowledge that in order to develop an adequate understanding of reality, we must allow that relations have independent existence. Do you understand, and respect this conclusion? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. because unnecessary and at best grounded in a kind of utilitarian apologetics.

And this "remembers" a discussion about whether anyone sees a tree. And of course they see the tree. Everyone sees the tree, always did, always will. Except that on analysis, no one ever saw the tree nor ever did nor ever will. And similarly we can talk about relations and purpose, intention, telos of course as independently existing or existing in things, of course of course of course. Except that on analysis they don't. Gravity a great example: of course it exists, except that it doesn't.

So, in this our context I divide between material and not-material, the latter being ideas. And these two being exhaustive. Believe what you like, but if you wish to establish a third category, be my guest. I request you keep in mind, though, that many approaches for you are disqualified in that you already have them, as convenient fictions.




.

Why not charge people for these so-called services? — NOS4A2

You want to charge people for what they have already paid for?

Your argument is from the possibility of bad spending of any tax dollars that all taxes are theft and condition slavery? And as to "foreign wars," I shall be glad on the occasion of the opportunity to volunteer your backyard as the battlefield.

Are you really that stupidly ignorant and reason and logic and knowledge-free? I cannot believe that you are, and that only leaves your being a nasty little chicken troll. Try for an argument with at least some substance. Try, for example, to resolve the question of paying for infrastructure. If your aspiration is to live like a caveman in a cave, I think you could find a place for that. But most like the benefits of society, understand it comes at a cost, and are usually glad to pay it - that is not slavery, nor theft.

What is it, exactly, you hope to achieve here? I ask because your claims have no value. Is it mere exhibitionism and attention-getting?

Who the F pays for infrastructure, fool? Or are you opposed to all that taxes provide? That's what I did not find in Nozick, the idea of benefit, the cost of benefit, and how it's paid. Nor do I lie to myself. Nor does any sensible person. We, the community of sensible people, understand. You apparently cannot or will not, being content to throw stones and then run away from engagement. On your definition of "slave" everyone including God himself is a slave. Which guts the word of all meaning. But there have been and are real slaves in the world; co-opting their terrible reality is disgusting - and so far that is the apt description of you.

Your argument so far, you're a slave because everyone is a slave. Not much of an argument.
.

Insofar as one reflectively reasons in order to critique and interpret norms (i.e. rules, criteria, methods, conventions, customs, givens), philosophy is performative. To say, for example, 'one ought to philosophize' does not seem a philosophical statement. — 180 Proof

:100:
Fly in a bottle? An education in a paragraph.

Sorry, I have no inclination to restrict my language to suit your desires. You demonstrate severe obstinance, most likely the feature of a closed mind, which greatly limits your capacity to understand. Restricting my language in the way required for you to understand would disable me from being able to say what I want to say. This would simply leave me saying what you want me to say, so that your limited capacity for understanding could understand the things I say, within your own little world of 'how the world must be described' according to your dictates of 'the world is like this'. If you have no inclination to expand your little world to include the way that other people see the world, within your world, this type of discussion is pointless. — Metaphysician Undercover

Language is first a tool of convenience that people use to get the world's work done. As such it is rife with implications that simply are not true of themselves, notwithstanding their utility. And to my knowledge no one complains too much about this facile, "artifice"-like aspect of language because it does get most of the world's work done. Most, but not all. There are times when the curtains have to be pulled aside, and the free use of language restricted.

In our case, it seems to me, you use descriptive language that in ordinary usage I take no exception to. And you then try derive specific meanings the language-as-convenient-tool cannot support. In a phrase, which might not be completely accurate but close enough for the moment, you try to reify description. We can talk all the day long about engines and screws and their purposes and intentions and relation to each other, but I and I suspect you too know perfectly well that these descriptive terms, while about the objects, are in no sense part of the objects themselves. And inasmuch - as you often say - this is a philosophy site, we ought to be able to make the distinction between casual descriptive language and more rigorous usage. Which of course means that language is subject to restriction - in fact language is always subject to some restriction for the sake of sense. The question being, how much sense do you want to make?
--------------
Let's try "relation." What exactly do you say a relation is? I say it's the expression of an idea. Thus of a mind: no mind, no relation. But, you might say, there are lots of things in the universe not under the gaze of a mind: is there zero relation between these things? And I would answer that by asking if you were simply seeking some descriptive language, because if that's all, then why not? But if you want to attempt to approach the truth of the matter, you had then better be damned careful about what you say and what you mean.

Newton's gravity can stand here is an example: a mighty piece of description - which as a shortcoming apparently Newton himself understood better than most - but now replaced with the curvature of space-time, and some even newer, tentative theories. The-force-of-gravity is still a useful piece of description, but it would seem that there actually is no such thing.

Or race. people talk about race all the time - usually not a good thing. But apparently whatever they mean by race is a something that does not actually exist. Differences between individuals? Sure, just not race. And finally, as is the case especially with race, to talk about anything as existing that does not actually exist, absent good and useful purpose, is just plain at best not a good look, and at worst, much worse.

You want to insist on a carte blanche for your own language and meanings and significance? Yours for the taking, but it puts you outside the bounds of reason and reasonable discussion, certainly outside the bounds of TPF.

What’s your counter argument, Tim? Maybe you pay taxes voluntarily. Except I wager you would never pay more or less than what they tell you to pay. Tell me why you are not a slave to their whims. — NOS4A2

Time for you to define "slave." As it sits you are merely abusing language and words. And "whims" while you're at it.

Perhaps you are innocent of any understanding of how the world actually works and how and why it works the way it does. People join in communities because they are clear on the benefits of community, and understand that as communities by combining resources they can accomplish with relative ease what would be impossible for any individual. They choose these things, and understanding there is a cost to such things, they freely pay it. That is, the community decides what it wants and pays to get it.

Also, I am not a slave because by no sensible understanding of the word do I meet any criterion for being a slave.

As to my need to make any counterargument, you have not put up anything to counter. But even your asking for one is by now unacceptable, being apparently just another dodge of your cowardice in the face of even this trivial confrontation.

You're akin to a man who upon entering and fully enjoying the services of a fine restaurant, on being presented with the bill hollered theft and slavery.

I don't understand this. My OED defines "relation" as what a thing has to do with another. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah? How? Does the screw discuss with the engine? Or do they talk to you? What language does a screw speak? The screw and the engine - or any inanimate things - cannot partake of relationship - that can only be assigned by a being, and no guarantee the being gets it right.

So here, you are saying that the relation which you call "a part of", is not an idea, but a fact. So you really do believe that relations are more than just ideas. Can I have some consistency please? — Metaphysician Undercover

Saying x is a part of Y is an idea. Actually screwing the screw into the engine exhibits a facticity that corresponds to the idea.

I should like us to be able to reach an understanding as to the actuality of these things. Pieces of metal in themselves do not own or think or participate in anything at all. And such as is assigned to them is assigned by a being able to make the assignment. And your OED does not trouble, apparently, to make that distinction, and why should it, the OED mostly about common and informal understanding and usage - and etymologies. Exactly what we are not concerned with here.

Who knows, in the case of an agreement between people, you might argue that the agreement is actually between them, somewhere.

An artifice is a clever device. Do you not think that an engine fits this description? — Metaphysician Undercover

If you think it does, kindly make clear how it does - of course without reference to anything but he engine itself. And to be sure, there is nothing intrinsic to engines that is clever.

Look, we can describe the engine as "a piece of metal" like you did, or we can describe the engine as a piece of metal designed and built with intention. Do you honestly believe that the latter explains no more about what an engine is, than the former? — Metaphysician Undercover

Until you pay more attention to your own use of language, we're going to have a difficult time. "We can describe...". And indeed we can. But so what? When we describe, what we have is a description, our own description, which may be useful to us for our own purposes.

Taxation isn’t the voluntary transfer of property. — NOS4A2

Yeah, it is among people who understand what they're getting in exchange. And some people do not - and there is no accounting for what some people cannot or will not understand.

As to argument, yours seems to be that taxation amounts to - is - theft and slavery. That's not an argument but a claim. And your claim absurd on its face given the words you use. So you're still on square one. Why don't yo attempt an argument - and so-and-so said won't cut it.

No, we are not in agreement on this. By saying that one is a part of the other, you already include a relation. You want to deny my description, that the screw has purpose in relation to the engine, and replace it with your description, that the screw is a part in relation to the engine. Each description involves a relation between the screw and the engine, and neither description is more true than the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confusing yourself with language. A relation is either an idea - or the expression of one - or a thing. I don't see how a screw can in any sense have an idea, nor how it can be one, and at the same time a screw. Nor do I see how an idea can be a thing. And the screw is a part of the engine not in virtue of any idea or relation, but on the simple fact that it is.

This is not an issue of the validity of the logic, — Metaphysician Undercover

Just the truth, then? Hmm, could be interesting - your criteium for truth being?

You ought to be able to see that my description is just a more precise and accurate description of the items indicated, and the relations which constitute a part of the description. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree on this section, but did you mean artifact instead of "artifice"?

That's right. I hold the words "learn, intention, and will-power" in themselves have no explanatory value.
— tim wood
Really? I find that highly unusual, even absurd. — Metaphysician Undercover

Great, what do they explain?

Come on now tim, does the difference between something produced intentionally, and something produced without intention have absolutely no significance to you? Have you never spent time in a court of law where intention provides great leverage with its explanatory value? — Metaphysician Undercover

On the basis of intention or the lack of it someone is guilty or innocent? Intention to what? And because you lodge meaning in the word, the word for you shall have to be sufficient. Well, guilty? Innocent? The words themselves just names - signposts - otherwise devoid of meaning. E.g., from the word "learn," what do you learn about learning? From the word "intention," what do you know of my, or anyone's intention(s)?

But why not answer and argue for yourself? — tim wood

Have you run away? You quoted out of context what you appear not to have understood. Imho you should either yourself disavow your usage or defend it. Or like a horse in the city, wear a bag to catch your droppings, in your case from your mouth.

I have to admire your ability to write long, except that length can defeat its own purpose. I shall reply as best I can, largely summarily if I can pick up the threads.

I think you make an error in logic. You have purpose implying intentional creation. P => IC. And if in fact you have the P, then you have the IC - simple modus ponens. But you infer P; you don't have it; and thus you do not have IC.

We have a screw and the engine it's a part of. These things themselves entirely innocent of any intention, purpose, or creation, being just (presumably) pieces of metal. So also any relation, relation itself being just an idea. Are we in complete agreement on this? The hazard of the informal use of language being to anthropomorphize or otherwise animate these inanimate things. And as to intention, creation, purpose (IPC), these all from the beings that have them, by type. For human IPC, humans.

As to freedom of choice, I merely say that, it seems to me, creation involves discontinuity, from not-being to being. And freedom necessary because no freedom, no discontinuity, no becoming. Rather instead it - whatever it is - in some sense inevitable. Which I call operation according to law. As to human freedom, you seem to hold that there is no freedom to not choose - not choosing itself being a choice. And this in this context both trivial and vapid - and counter-productive. Unless at the ice-cream parlor, you being offered a choice between vanilla and strawberry and choosing neither, are pleased to pay your four dollars for an empty dish full of neither.

What!!? I am shocked and amazed at your naivety. You think "learn" has no explanatory value in the behaviour of babies? You think "intention" has no explanatory value in the behaviour of babies? You think "will power" has no explanatory value in the behaviour of babies? — Metaphysician Undercover

That's right. I hold the words "learn, intention, and will-power" in themselves have no explanatory value. Supposing that they do is the mark of the educator, who knowing better is usually trying to sell something to someone who doesn't, opposed to the teacher who knows and has learned, sometimes from brutal experience, that they don't.

So, if the individual human being has purpose in relation to a higher organization, such as a family, business, community, society, or humanity in general, where is the intentional agent which gives this purpose to the individual? — Metaphysician Undercover

Our caveat against reifying inferences in mind, I argue that organizational hierarchy does not mean a hierarchy of sources of intention. It can certainly mean a variety of sources of information that can inform intention. And the intention, coming from the individual, is usually in part the result of consumption and digestion of that information.

I think - maybe wrongly- that you're trying to pry open some gap to allow God into this. And no need to pry; you can have Him all day long and at night too as a matter of belief. But the facts and logic of the matter will not allow you to make Him also a fact of the matter. Meaning of course that for folks who try, they either have belief or self-delusion.

From this site:
http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/NozickExcerpt.html

"A distribution is just if it arises from another just distribution by legitimate means. The legitimate means of moving from one distribution to another are specified by the principle of justice in transfer. The legitimate first "moves" are specified by the principle of justice in acquisition.1 whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just. The means of change specified by the principle of justice in transfer preserve justice. As correct rules of inference are truth-preserving, and any conclusion deduced via repeated application of such rules from only true premises is itself true, so the means of transition from one situation to another specified by the principle of justice in transfer are justice-preserving, and any situation actually arising from repeated transitions in accordance with the principle from a just situation is itself just."

Further down:
"Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.ii Some persons find this claim obviously true: taking the earnings of n hours labor is like taking n hours from the person; it is like forcing the person to work n hours for another’s purpose. Others find the claim absurd."

As with so many, one can question whether you read - it's clear you did not understand and that you took your quote out of context.

But why not answer and argue for yourself? Modern society is built on infrastructure, "infrastructure" broadly understood. Without it, no society as known and understood. And society itself aspirational, continually trying to be better. But it comes at a price. One aspect of the price is taxation. Taxation paying for infrastructure, for the betterment of the lives of all. You call that theft and those who pay, slaves. If it's justice how is it theft? And if society freely chooses, how are they slaves?

Charged by a DA who campaigned on prosecuting him, tried by a judge who donates to the opposing campaign in violation of the states ethics rules, and convicted by a jury who were given poor jury instructions. They are willing to sacrifice justice itself on the altar of their mental illness. — NOS4A2

Lies. How easy it is for the troll to lie. Bragg was a replacement, remember? And he put the whole thing on hold while he reassessed it. Merchan submitted himself for review of his donations and was cleared to stand as judge. And poor jury instructions? Another claim - make your case, in what respect were they "poor," and what exactly should they have been? "They," who are they? Mental illness? Whose? What mental illness? Just more lurid lies from the troll.

I have addressed my claim and put it right in front of you in the form of an argument, — NOS4A2

Your claim is

Taxes are not only theft, but forced labor. — NOS4A2

And you have neither argued nor defended. On the other hand, my claims about your character are exemplified and proved by your responses. Two statements: "Taxes are theft," and "[taxes are] forced labor."

If they're theft, why not file a complaint and have the thief arrested? And sue for recovery? If forced labor, are you being forced to work? Is anyone you know being forced to work? And if theft, are you not a willing and eager receiver of stolen goods?

The only thing you put in front of people is your ignorance and shamelessness as a troll. If it's my website, you'd have to up your game or be gone.

Whether the charges should have been brought is one question, and to my mind not an interesting question, and certainly an ignorant question. The fact is he was charged - with crimes - tried and convicted.