We can judge that it is raining, but this does not mean that that it is raining is not a judgment.
— Snakes Alive

How can you ask that right after I type: "We can make judgments about whether it's raining, but rain isn't a judgment"? — Terrapin Station

A miscommunication here because @Snakes Alive intended to say "... is a judgment" (see the original referenced post).

@Snakes Alive was simply stating what you had both agreed on to that point - that judgments about rain don't imply that that it is raining is itself a judgment.

Then his argument is that, similarly, judgments about the good don't imply that that something is good is itself a judgment.

Who do the Liberals look up to historically for economics, interpretation of the Constitution, rights, stuff like that.

Milton Friedman is to Conservative as ______ is to Liberal. — Drek

Historically, John Kenneth Galbraith. More recently, Paul Krugman.

Well you can't. Everything in your present is space-like separated from you. — Inis

I now observe the moon as it was a second ago and everything on my desk even sooner. The timing can be factored in as needed.

The point is that relativity is a theory that explains what human beings observe and measure in a specific frame of reference.

You think you can observe your present? — Inis

I think I can observe things in the present.

Except you have just argued for observer dependence. — Inis

No. Dinosaurs existed in the distant past independent of any observers. Whereas our knowledge of dinosaurs depends on observation.

I have no idea why you think our knowledge is reference-frame dependent. We all know relativity, and it has nothing to do with which particular reference frame we happen to be in. — Inis

We know relativity as a consequence of theorizing about what is observed (in our reference frame).

But if you prefer an objective reality and take scientific knowledge seriously, you are confronted by situations like the following:

If you pass someone in the street, your present, among other things, includes that person. You consider that person to be real, and equally subject to the laws of physics. If this person is real, and independent of you and your present, relativity tells you that she also has her own present, which is as real to her as your present is to you. Your presents are not the same. — Inis

Yes. The way I would state it is that our knowledge (of reality) is reference-frame dependent. In my reference frame, I make a distinction between the past, present and future. Per that distinction, other people and many other things exist, but dinosaurs do not exist. Similarly, while each person has their own reference frame (and thus present), dinosaurs do not exist for them either.

So I think on that view, presentism, relativity and realism are compatible.

Nope. Presentism is falsified by several well known experiments, including time-dilation, twin paradox, and the fact that your GPS actually works. — Inis

You seem to be interpreting presentism as a denial of relativity. But I haven't seen anyone claim that. I certainly don't.

As far as I can tell, eternalism versus presentism is just a semantic dispute. Each side accepts relativity, so accept time-dilation, the twin paradox, relativity of simultaneity, etc. The dispute just hinges on the language used to talk about it.

Consider Alice on Earth in 2019 claiming that dinosaurs exist. Is her claim true or false?

Presumably both sides will say her claim is false. Perhaps the eternalist will translate it into a tenseless claim first. Is there more to the dispute than this?

If not, then the same prospects (or lack of) for time travel are available to both presentists and eternalists.

Obviously not, because Bob measures the time between t1 and t2 as 6 years, and Alice measures the time between t1 and t2 as 10 years. Therefore the quantity of time between t1 and t2 is indeterminate. — Metaphysician Undercover

t1 and t2 are 20 years and 30 years if you're using Alice's clock. Alternatively, t1 and t2 are 20 years and 26 years if you're using Bob's clock. They travel different spacetime paths which is why their ages are different.

What you can say is that the time between two points in spacetime is indeterminate.

Literally everything in relative motion inhabits a different present. These presents become more strikingly in disagreement as relative speeds increase and with distance. A classic example of this is Penrose's Andromeda Paradox, inappropriately named, because it is not a paradox. — Inis

Yes, that's relativity of simultaneity. The events that are simultaneous for Alice need not be simultaneous for Bob. But, again, any apparent disagreement is resolved by factoring in their respective reference frames. If they shared the same reference frame then the same events would be simultaneous for both of them.

So I don't see a conflict between presentism and realism. A problem only occurs if one assumes an absolute reference frame for determining simultaneity. (Note: one could consider a reference frame for the whole universe, but then time drops out.)

So I may conclude that from the point in time when Bob left, to the point when Bob returned, the amount of time which passes is dependent on one's frame of reference. Can I make the further, more generalized conclusion, that the amount of time between any two points in time, is indeterminate? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it is determinate. This is just arithmetic (the amount of time between t1 and t2 is t2 - t1). Note that to specify times at all is to assume a particular reference frame. Normally we don't have to think about this because we (and most matter in the universe) age at about the same rate (because we move at similarly slow speeds relative to the speed of light).

What do you think "time elapsed at a different rate" means? Suppose you and I meet. It is the present when we meet. Then we go our separate ways, and meet again later. It is still the present when we meet the second time, and it was the present for each of us during the entire intermediate period. But for each of us, there is a different amount of time passed between the two meetings, if we take differing spacetime paths. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes.

Doesn't this just mean that there is not a fixed quantity of time between any two distinct points of the present? So we can say that for any two points in time, there is not a fixed amount of time between those two points, because the quantity of time between them varies according to the spacetime path that a person or thing takes to get from one to the next. — Metaphysician Undercover

It just means there is no absolute (or frame independent) time. Here's an example in terms of the twin paradox.

Suppose Alice and Bob are twins. On the day they both turn 20 years old, Bob travels into space at high speed and returns on the day that Alice turns 30 years old (according to Alice's clock on Earth). But Bob is 26 years old (according to the clock on his spaceship) and has only aged 6 years. Less time has elapsed for Bob than for Alice. (Example here.)

Can you give an example of a factual disagreement?

In the time dilation example, one clock traveled a different spacetime path to the other. Once each clock's reference frame is factored in, there is no factual disagreement - time simply elapsed at a different rate for each clock.

Eternalism isn't metaphysical if it's part of our best physical theories. Both general relativity and quantum mechanics tell us that the universe as a whole is at rest. This was realised early on in GR but took a while to be understood in QM.

This means that presentism isn't metaphysical either, it's just wrong.

What is metaphysical, however, is the claim that an objective observer-independent Reality exists. If you take the view that reality is observer-dependent, then presentism may be rehabilitated, but at what cost? — Inis

A presentist need not deny observer-independent reality. Instead they are describing reality from a preferred reference frame - their own (as Luke discusses here).

That is compatible with the universe as a whole being static and unchanging (and thus a kind of eternal present independent of time).

This is similar to Alice measuring an electron in a spin up state. That is true in her reference frame. Yet that is compatible with the electron being in superposition in a different reference frame.

Perhaps you don't, but you cannot explain, given an objective present, why the clocks diverge. — Inis

Both clocks traveled the same amount of spacetime. However since one clock traveled further in space, it therefore traveled less in time. Which is to say, it ticked at a slower rate than the clock on the ground.

OK, but how about the following example:

(1) All Alice's children have three legs
(2) All Alice's children are children
(3) Therefore some children have three legs

If Alice has no children then (1) is true (vacuously). Is that not also strange?

That seems to me a reason to treat non-referring terms separately.

Maybe a real world example is needed so the fiction thing isn't a hang-up. — MindForged

Here's a familiar real world example that follows Darapti:

(1) All black swans are black
(2) All black swans are swans
(3) Therefore some swans are black

Each of those premises are true, so it is not a counterexample to the validity of Darapti.

However suppose this argument were considered prior to the discovery of black swans in Australia (or, alternatively, if the color was red).

In modern logic, the first two premises would be considered true by definition. The third premise would be considered false. So the argument would be considered invalid.

However in Aristotelian logic, since the subject (black swans) had not been observed and thus thought to be non-referring, all three premises would be considered false. So it would not be a counterexample to the validity of Darapti.

Anyway, what I'm saying is there doesn't need to be anything that instantiates this for us to reason about it. For Aristotle, logic is supposed to be used for things known to exist. In the above, "For every" is just the universal quantifier yes? That's before the predication. But surely it's fine to reason in mathematics without assuming something in the physical world corresponds to this? (Obviously it does in this case but pure mathematics isn't guaranteed to) — MindForged

That's fine, as far as I can tell. Aristotle was fine with abstractions and hypotheticals, as long as their use was intelligible. The only issue I've raised is with vacuous statements. But there doesn't seem to be a vacuous statement in your example.

Any time one uses the universal quantifier I would think. "For each natural number n, "n x n" = "n + n". That does not assume there is some existing n, it's just a statement about how to define an abstract operation, whether or not that holds in the physical world. — MindForged

I'm not clear on how the example applies. There's one natural number that satisfies that identity (the number 2). But even if the result were an empty set, I don't see any predication of its members analogous to "all winged horses are horses".

Right, but Aristotle stipulated that additional premise; as your Wikipedia quote states, it was "a thoughtful choice, not an inadvertent omission." — aletheist

I don't think he's stipulating an additional premise. He's instead saying that predication is only applicable when the subject term refers to something that exists.

That is, for Aristotle, vacuous statements are neither true nor false since the presupposition that the subject term refers fails.

It's just true that, for example, mathematicians both use formal logic and do not assume that every entity they quantify over is instantiated. Thus if we followed Aristotle we'd handicap mathematics in pretty ridiculous ways. — MindForged

Can you give any examples where this issue would be important?

Logic ought to work just just the same regardless of whether or not there are instances of the things referenced. — MindForged

To me it seems analogous to "The King of France is bald". Note that Russell and Strawson disagreed on how to treat this kind of statement, with Strawson defending the view that the presupposition fails (and thus the statement is neither true nor false).

Because empty terms show this argument form to fail and thus Aristotle was wrong to deem it a valid argument, hence Classical Logic was right to distance itself from Aristotle's logic. Following from Russell, take this argument:

All winged horses are horses,
All winged horses have wings,
Therefore some horses have wings.

Clearly the first two premises are true but the conclusion is clearly false, we know there are no horses with wings. So this ought not be regarded as a valid argument in the logical systems developed after Aristotle. — MindForged

It is a valid argument form in Aristotelian logic because statements of the form All A is B must have one or more instances in order to be true (just as with Some A is B).

To give an example using real things:

(1) All tall trees on my property are tall.
(2) All tall trees on my property are trees.
(3) Therefore some trees on my property are tall.

If I have no tall trees on my property then (1) and (2) are not true. And there are no cases where (1) and (2) are true and (3) is false, so it is a valid argument.

Wikipedia gives the rationale for Aristotle's choice.

It is claimed Aristotle's logic system does not cover cases where there are no instances. Aristotle's goal was to develop "a companion-logic for science. He relegates fictions, such as mermaids and unicorns, to the realms of poetry and literature. In his mind, they exist outside the ambit of science. This is why he leaves no room for such non-existent entities in his logic. This is a thoughtful choice, not an inadvertent omission. Technically, Aristotelian science is a search for definitions, where a definition is 'a phrase signifying a thing's essence.'... Because non-existent entities cannot be anything, they do not, in Aristotle's mind, possess an essence... This is why he leaves no place for fictional entities like goat-stags (or unicorns)." [13] However, many logic systems developed since do consider the case where there may be no instances. — Existential import - Wikipedia

See, we can say what it means for a sentence (for example) to be inconsistent. I don't think it is possible to say what it means for an object or a state of affairs to be inconsistent - without looping back to the language that we use to describe that object/state of affairs. So yes, you can sort of attribute inconsistency to things, but that attribution will be parasitic upon language, thought, reason. — SophistiCat

That seems equally true when attributing any state to things, such as that the switch is on. Do switches really have state or is that just a conceptual projection by humans onto a world that has no intrinsic structure?

Of course, things and talk of things are hard to separate anyway, except that if we are realist to any extent, we accept that there is a one-to-many relationship between them. That is, there is one thing, but our relationship to it is through thinking/talking about it, and there can be more than one way to do the latter - including dialetheic ways. — SophistiCat

Yes, though dialetheic realism would seem unintelligible. It's worth noting that Aristotle's main version of the LNC was about the nature of the world and not propositions (i.e., it is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect [Metaph IV 3 1005b19–20]).

One way or another, they can end up talking about the superposition state using a deliberately inconsistent model. Does it make the subject of their description itself inconsistent? Yes, as long as they are talking about it in that particular way, and with the understanding that the inconsistency awes itself to that particular conceptualization. — SophistiCat

Do you mean the person-on-the-street's mistaken intuitions about QM? Even if so, people don't usually think of themselves as referring to their own conceptual models. The subject of ordinary discourse, as with physics discourse, is the world itself (albeit with the understanding that claims are provisional).

Conversely, Bohr's famous quote may be apt here: "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."

States if affairs or physical objects cannot be either coherent or incoherent. — SophistiCat

The switch being on and off is an example of an inconsistent state of affairs. The SEP entry for States of Affairs gives the example of Paul's having squared the circle.

Also paraconsistent logicians accept or at least consider the existence of inconsistent physical objects.

What kinds of objects are we considering (only mathematical objects or do we include physical objects as well)?
...
[Priest's] proposal seems to be committed to ‘inconsistent objects’ in the physical world: the objects to which our inconsistent but true physical theories refer.
...
Whether the world is indeed ‘inconsistent’ — assuming there is a sensible formulation of this claim — is something we would rather be agnostic about. Just as empiricists (such as van Fraassen [van Fraassen, 1980]) are agnostic about the existence of unobservable
entities in science, we are agnostic about the existence of true contradictions in nature. — Paraconsistent Logics and Paraconsistency - da Costa, Krause, Bueno

Or are you asking the switch to be an inconsistent physical object? — MindForged

Yes, that's the scenario that is unintelligible.

Mental maps (and beliefs) are abstract representations of the world. We know that representations can be mistaken or inconsistent. But the maps are not the territory.

If we encountered a physical switch that seemed to be both on and off at the same time, we would want an explanation for what was really going on.

This is the case with QM where it seems like the switch is both on and off when you're not looking (due to observed interference effects).

(Just an aside - I recommend using the Quote button or otherwise distinguishing the parts you are quoting to make it easier to read your posts.)

I kant understand what you mean by this. Perhaps you want to state that the phenomenal world is also real? I agree with you; but then what noumenos means for Kant is what we now call "fundamental" or primary. — DiegoT

Well, I was making the point that "representation" is a relational term. If noumena does not exist, then neither does phenomena (as representation), as the the Nietzsche quote in the OP suggests. It is more intelligible to say there is a single world that presents to us in experience (and that we represent in language). That is, what you see and know about is primary.

I don't see this. If one has a coherent but inconsistent logic with the appropriate semantics, and they have a theory about the world which best explains the data which requires reasoning by that logic, then it seems to me there would a case for intelligibly understanding inconsistent states of the world. — MindForged

Suppose you have a logic that could represent a switch that is both on and off in the same sense and same respect. Can you visualize or simulate a scenario where such a switch would operate? That is the test of intelligibility. It seems to me that that exercise would require changing how the switch is represented such that its states were consistent.

Forget physics, I've no idea if such Paraconsistent logic and dialetheism will ever be used there. — MindForged

Note that @PossibleAaran said that the idea of A and not-A obtaining is unintelligible. This follows Aristotle's use of the LNC as a rule for thinking about the world.

Per physics, it's possible for an electron to be in a quantum superposition of spin up and spin down. But the term "superposition" has a clear mathematical meaning and there is no implication that the electron is in a contradictory state.

It is really the idea of contradictory states obtaining in the world that is unintelligible (so it seems to me).

In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant distinguished between the phenomenal world (the world as representation) and the noumenal world (the world as it is in itself). The former refers to the world as we experience it; the latter refers to the world as it exists independently of our experience. My question concerns whether Kant is justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world. — philosophy

I think once you accept Kant's premise of a phenomenal world (the world as representation), the noumenal world inexorably follows. It's Plato's Cave redux. Deny the world as it is in itself and you are left with shadows or representations. But shadows or representations of what? Nothing?

But if there is nothing, then Kant's premise is false. There is no world as representation. Instead it is the world as it is in itself that we are experiencing.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding ... [Magee]

I interpret the underlined phrase to mean that realism smuggles a human perspective in, without recognising that it has done so. The pre-history of the Earth (for instance) is understood in terms of preceding epochs - that is, to all of us, an objective fact or set of observations, and I am not taking issue with that. But what this doesn't recognise is that, these observations are still oriented around an implicitly human perspective in terms of time and space. And that spatio-temporal framework is what is 'the creation of the understanding'. That is what would not be real, in the absence of any observers. So the picture we have, of the serene early Earth, silently orbiting the Sun, still contains an implicit observer, who forgets that she is still part of the picture. Absent that organising principle supplied by the mind, what can be said to exist? — Wayfarer

Thanks for your explanation, that was helpful.

As I read it, Kant is reifying the way things appear to us into a world of appearances and making that the domain where dinosaurs, along with space and time, exist. A world of appearances does imply an observer.

Whereas the empirical realist says there is no world of appearances (nor a noumenal world), only a unitary world that appears in a particular way to observers and is described in human terms. So while our descriptions or pictures of the early Earth imply an observer, the early Earth itself does not.

Certainly the objects of common experience exist in a common-sense way - which is the attitude of empirical realism. But when you really examine the nature of those objects, and indeed the nature of experience itself, at bottom it is actually quite mysterious - even unreal. — Wayfarer

People at one time thought that the movements of the stars and planets were mysterious. But that turned out to be a statement about people's knowledge and understanding, not about the phenomena themselves.

I'm not clear what transcendental idealism is adding here.
— Andrew M

It's a subtle but important point, but it undermines the entire notion of 'mind-independence', albeit on different grounds to Berkeley. Kant points out that empirical knowledge is dependent on attributes and powers which already exist in the mind - so 'things conform to thoughts', rather than vice versa. — Wayfarer

I don't understand that conclusion. Was Kant claiming that the existence of dinosaurs in the ancient past depended on human thought?

An illusion to the perceiver. — Waya

So that is Descartes' proof of one's own existence. Whether perceiving correctly or incorrectly, there is always a subject doing so. Your existence is implicit in both your perceptions and misperceptions, belief and doubt.

As far as I know, no information need be lost in principle. In practice, holograms created from real subjects will lose some information in terms of resolution.

In a side-by-side comparison under optimal conditions, a holographic image is visually indistinguishable from the actual subject. A microscopic level of detail throughout the recorded volume of space can be reproduced. — Holography - Wikipedia

In terms of the holographic principle, no information is lost.

In the case of a black hole, the insight was that the informational content of all the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon. — Holographic principle - Wikipedia

I am not sure of myself and see no way to prove it. I simply assume I exist and what I see is probably true. It is impossible to prove it. Life could just be a grand illusion, all the interactions are just products of an overly active imagination. — Waya

An illusion to whom?

Let' say for the sake of argument that we live in 4-dimensions.

Now, we want to go to 3-dimensions to describe something.

Is information lost when going from the fourth dimension to the third dimension? — Wallows

Holograms are 3D images that are encoded on a 2D surface. The holographic principle in cosmology uses this idea.

But the point is, the manner in which either 'the universe' or 'the object' exists 'independent of our describing' is never known to us (as per Kant). So the object is not simply 'in the mind', but the reference frame, which the observer brings to the picture, is intrinsic to any description or knowledge of the world. We can't know of it outside of or apart from any such frame. The 'assumed independence of the object' is just what Kant refers to as 'transcendental realism'. (CPR, A369. — Wayfarer

I would say that the manner in which a thing exists is known to us. The apple is red, etc. That is the thing in itself, as described in human terms.

Looking at the apple is the basis for our language about it. Nonetheless the apple exists independently of human experience and representation.

And that is also the main point at issue in the debate between Bohr and Einstein.) — Wayfarer

The moon still exists when no-one is looking...

But the other point is, this allows Kant to be both an empirical realist, and a transcendental idealist. He can accept (as I do) the empirical reality of the age of the Universe etc, but at the same time, insist on the fact that the 'intuitions of time and space' are still intrinsic to the observer and not to the so-called objective world. It is being able to grasp that kind of 'double perspective' that is important here. (On that note, have to log out for at least a few days, duty calls.) — Wayfarer

I'm not clear what transcendental idealism is adding here. All that seems required is that empirical explanations take into account the nature of the observer.

↪Terrapin Station You say that the 'objective world' exists irrespective of whether anyone is around to observe it. I say not. Why? Because the very image of the 'objective world' that you're referring to, contains an implicit reference from the human perspective. You can picture the vast empty cosmos, planets coursing in their orbits, the formation of stars, and so on. But that is a picture that exists from a perspective, and containing a time-scale and distance-scale within which it is meaningful. Absent those elements of a framework within which that judgement is made, what can be said 'to exist' at all? That 'empty universe' is still something that is dependent on there being an observing mind.

Furthermore, something like this has been shown by physics itself. [...] — Wayfarer

I commented on this a while back. One way to think of it is not that the universe didn't exist prior to sentient observers, but that its dynamics presuppose a frame of reference (which an observer can provide).

Just as we look at an object from a specific perspective (yet the object exists independent of our looking), so we describe the universe from a specific perspective (yet the universe exists independent of our describing).

Was her desire for water not an objective fact?
— Dfpolis

Of course not. Desires are mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station

@Dfpolis was making an empirical claim about the 7-year-old girl. That she had a desire for water.

Don't you think that is a claim that can be true or false? And one that you can marshal evidence for or against?

All winged horses are horses,
All winged horses have wings,
There is at least one winged horse,
Therefore some horses have wings.

That's valid. But we know it's not sound since the third premise is clearly false.

Some people try to defend Syllogistic on this point by saying Aristotle thought logic was only concerned with existing things and so it's not really invalid. Of course, this is just stupid. If you try to keep this as valid and say that, for example, Syllogistic doesn't get anything wrong you end up invalidating other argument forms that are considered valid (I can go into this if you want) and you might as well exhaust mathematics since mathematics cannot function with the limited inference resources of Syllogistic (and besides, lots of math (pure mathematics) isn't "real" so this is a death knell). — MindForged

I'm curious about what the problems really are. It seems easy enough to modify the above argument so that it is sound. For example, in Greek mythology all winged horses are horses ... in Greek mythology there is at least one winged horse, namely Pegasus.

Also it seems to me that your first premise is problematic in the same way that the King of France is bald is problematic. If winged horses don't exist, then you can't predicate anything of winged horses. If so, then the argument is invalid as well as unsound.

That's confusing haha! What's the moral of the story? — Kranky

The problem is identified by the doctor at the end of Scene 5: "Besides, when one starts doubting one's own sense perceptions, the doubt spreads like an infection to higher and higher levels of abstraction until finally the whole belief system becomes one doubting mass of insecurity."

The moral is that while it is true that any judgment can be critically analyzed, it is better to trust one's considered judgments than to doubt everything.

That is a pragmatic consideration (since we have lives to live), not a guarantee that our considered judgments will be correct. But the point of epistemology is to provide tools to help test and identify mistakes in our thinking, not to produce mistake-proof conclusions. As Gilbert Ryle aptly put it:

What is wanted is not any peculiar certificated process, but the ordinary careful processes; not any incorrigible observations, but ordinary corrigible observations; not inoculation against mistakes, but ordinary precautions against them, ordinary tests for them and ordinary corrections of them. — Gilbert Ryle - Concept of Mind

It appears that I'm posting on this forum. — Kranky

Wrong! But don't despair - Raymond Smullyan's experimental epistemologist will sort you out.

It means you don't see the tree; you see the light. (And you never, ever, did see the tree.) — tim wood

The way the term "see" functions in ordinary usage is that it relates a subject (you) to an intended object (the tree). That usage pragmatically abstracts over the specific details of the underlying physical process (which can be unknown). Whereas you're drawing on knowledge of that process - that it involves light reflection - and supposing that it is the light itself that is being seen. But that would be a different use of "see" and also one that fails to reference what we ordinarily want to talk about (the tree).

That is, the expression, "I see a tree," is perfectly common, perfectly well understood. It just does not happen to be even slightly accurate with respect to the actual process. Think about what light has to do with it. For example, no light, no see the tree. — tim wood

It's common knowledge that you can't see things without light. But then the expression, "I see a tree", doesn't imply otherwise. So what is inaccurate about it?