It is indeed a sensible answer, but doesn't explain what appears to be the modally necessary character of the abstractions, and their role in explanation, if any. Have you read the target paper I cited? It might explain the problem better than I have. — J

Yes. I note that causation is also an abstraction, and that there is not 'necessarily' more than one object, and leave you in peace.

are our abstractions mysteriously agreeing with the world? — J

This becomes a ridiculous question as soon as you understand that "abstract" literally means "taken out".

origin of abstract
Middle English: from Latin abstractus, literally ‘drawn away’, past participle of abstrahere, from ab- ‘from’ + trahere ‘draw off’

https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english/abstract

So where are abstractions taken from? I suggest "the world" is a sensible answer, and one that explains the "mystery" rather well.

I can see that you wouldn't like this approach on the grounds that it shoots your fox and spoils the fun of the chase.

Q1. Why is the number 23 not divisible (evenly) by 3?
Q2. Why are 23 objects not evenly divisible into three collections of whole and unbroken objects? — J

A1. 23 divides by 3 exactly into 7 & 2/3.
A2. You have introduced 'whole' and 'unbroken'.

If you have 23 objects you have already mathematicised them by counting: they are pre-labeled, as it were, and the act of division is a relabelling, labels which we can call in this case ,' a, b, and c,' instead of numbers again (that would be confusing). Then we have objects:

1a, 2b, 3c, 4a, 5b, ... and so on. And because the labels are always applied in the same sequence and we always stop the sequence in the same place, the result is always the same.

First you learn the label names in sequence, and then you apply the labels to themselves and that is the abstraction that is arithmetic. And the meaning of the name is its position in the sequence, and nothing else.

And when philosophers and mathematicians have thoroughly forgotten their childhood, they wonder that the world should mysteriously agree with their abstractions, as though they were abstracted from nowhere at all.

And lo, God said "this should freak them scientists out for a century or Two." And verily, it was so.

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-the-platypus-a-mammal

If God does not exist, then it is false that if I pray, then my prayers will be answered. — Banno

I, (or perhaps just this post,) am the answer to all you godless people's prayers.

Therefore the quoted premise is false.

So should we assume that everything that you say is sarcastic? — Agree-to-Disagree

You should, but everyone else, not so much. :grin:

I mean, the other way round.

Oh, let's just agree to disagree about it all.

Are people meant to take you seriously? — Agree-to-Disagree

No. they are supposed to smile at the sarcasm. Like this : :grin:

That OP looks messy and unfocused to me. And this conversation seems now to be about everything and anything. — Baden

Yes, but that is, for me, the value of philosophy; that it can somewhat clean up conceptual messes. There's something messy about how we think and talk about causation, because our talk and thought is inside the causal chain not beyond it. Even just to understand that much is useful. We cannot untie that knot, but we can acknowledge it, and apply a palliative dose of humility and some 'whereof one cannot speak ...'.

Herewith, some more lies and propaganda from the new scientist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG_iHwEn33I

There is something interesting here though.

Triggering cause (push of other domino or finger) vs. enabling condition — Baden

Triggering cause, trigger, enabling condition bullet in chamber? "Guns don't kill people, rappers do."

We set up the dominoes so that we can see how a small cause can have a large effect; the trigger is another example. We love to exploit 'the butterfly effect' - the will to power perhaps?

And there is also, I think, an urge to begin the casual story with a human. The trigger does not pull itself, the gun does not aim itself. And one cannot follow the causal story into the physiology and neurology of the individual without generalising them out of existence. The story becomes personal and no longer objective.
And at this point we have arrived at the starting point of this thread: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15499/when-can-something-legitimately-be-blamed-on-culture/p1

The story changes from causes to reasons and motives. The faulty trigger mechanism fails to fire, the bullet but the faulty person fails to reason or act appropriately; the storyteller has entered the story and transformed it.

One tells only the causal story that one finds interesting
— unenlightened

Yes, that's the key to understanding causality. — SophistiCat

As witness:

Maybe we can take a simple scenario like the one below, and analyze things from there.

*

Two dominos, A and B and an agent, X.

X pushes Domino A, causing Domino A to fall against Domino B, causing Domino B to fall.

Domino B falling:

Proximal cause = Domino A falling against it
Distal (ultimate) cause = X pushing Domino A. — Baden

Wot? Falling not caused by Gravity? :gasp:

Many people are gullible enough to accept what they are told without thinking. — Agree-to-Disagree

But not me. I scrutinise your every word. And I trust, by and large, the published temperature figures of meteorological departments, because I don't have time to personally inspect their facilities, but I see that their work is used by farmers and weather forecasters and so on who find their figures useful, and I see no evidence of or reason to suspect any conspiracy to inflate the figures.
On the contrary, there is strong evidence that powerful interests have for credible reasons of power and profit sought to undermine the evidence for global warming over many years. So when gullibility is in question, well right back at you, kiddo.

And God said, "I'm not going to be ordered about by a bunch of bloody logicians." and promptly ceased to exist.

(Plagiarised from Douglas Adams.)

↪Baden Bingo! Thanks for that. — I like sushi

Well that seems the other way round from the op, and totally in line with the notion that action at a distance would be "spooky".

But in practice, we do a lot of hand-waving, because to spell out the full mechanism each time would be both tedious and unjustifiable. 'The billiard ball went in the pocket because the player had practiced, and judged his shot well.' One leaves out the psychology, the neuroscience, the physiology, the Newtonian physics, the properties of felt and slate and effects of air resistance, and... But we understand that a ball entering a pocket is also caused by Some billionaire offering prize money for a tournament in his backyard. What's the difficulty?

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe — Carl Sagan

Because an apple is made of star dust. Yet most recipes leave out that bit, and assume that you already have a universe at hand, and access to apples therein. One tells only the causal story that one finds interesting- the full history of every atom of pie, tin, and oven from the big bang would take too long, and your pie would get cold.

Being wrong, and realizing it, is like removing a splinter — Moliere

I never am wrong, so I wouldn't know. Always I realise I was wrong when I have just changed my mind. :cool:

Being wrong is the best thing ever. It is the fundamental unit of learning.

And then there's this:

I can make some limited sense of necessary and sufficient causes, but direct and indirect? What do they mean, what is the distinction being made?

Two pythons on one page! I think we have broken the nonvenomous snake record. It must be global warming leading to an excess of hot air. :nerd: :sweat:

Innocence:— that from which one has fallen. It only has importance or even meaning from the point of view of the fallen, as the name and symbol of the paradise that has been lost.

As a parent, one knows that human innocence must inevitably be lost as the price of participation in society. One hopes and endeavours that one's child (and every child) loses their own innocence, rather than have it wrenched by another from them untimely.

You are talking rubbish.

No one has suggested that nighttime temperatures in Kuwait at night exceed those during the day, though it is conceivable that it could happen there rarely.
Your desperation to find an excuse for your obvious failure to make any kind of a case here is pathetic. I'm quite sure you are not even convincing yourself, never mind anyone else. Time to concede, or at least end the futile continuation of a lost cause.

Yet another report: a valediction for the natural world.

https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-GB/

Where is your evidence to support these statements? — Agree-to-Disagree

You just gave it to me.

From Abstract:
During the day, the temperature difference (urban/suburban minus versus governorates) was −1.1 °C (95% CI; −1.2, −1.00, p < 0.001) indicating a daytime urban cool island. — Agree-to-Disagree

A daytime urban cool island is produced by basic physics. Dry sand has air pockets that are a net insulator as compared to solid rock or concrete and the urban environment is therefore going to absorb more heat during the day and emit more heat during the night. Perhaps you ought to try and understand what you are reading, before trying to use it in an argument.

During the day, the temperature difference (urban/suburban minus versus governorates) was −1.1 °C (95% CI; −1.2, −1.00, p < 0.001) indicating a daytime urban cool island. At night, the temperature difference (urban/suburban versus rural governorates) became 3.6 °C (95% CI; 3.5, 3.7, p < 0.001) indicating a nighttime urban heat island.

Conclusion
If there is a UHI effect at night of up to 3.6 °C or 3.8°C then that could explain the meteorologist's claim that the number of days per year that see temperatures rise above 50C have more than tripled since the turn of the century. It is not necessarily caused directly by global warming. — Agree-to-Disagree

Well no it couldn't. On the contrary, the fact that daytime temperatures are reduced by extra absorption of heat by concrete could explain why day time temperatures have decreased on average. Except that they haven't, they have increased in spite of that extra absorption. It does explain why nighttime temperatures have increased though, but not quite to 50°C.

So you want to be surrounded by "yes men". Perhaps you should change your name to Donald Trump. — Agree-to-Disagree

Neither yes men nor no men such as yourself are of any value to a discussion.

My advice is to just let them be. Banging your head against a brick wall is useless— eventually you just have to stop. Ignore feature is helpful there. — Mikie

Forgive me, I will not take your advice. If no one shovels out the shit, then the whole thread becomes shit. If I was a mod, I would have banned, but since I am no longer a mod, I feel the need to respond to even pathetic attempts to undermine what I post, even though it is a never ending and thankless task.

so you’re irrelevant. — Mikie

I'm irrelevant too because I don't get to vote. But I notice that Dump has become of late a magnet for flies - so he seems to report and comment on in his campaign speeches of late. I immediately thought of "The Lord of the Flies', or ...

Beelzebub is the Greek version of the name Baal-zebub, a pagan deity worshipped in the ancient Philistine city of Ekron during Old Testament times. The name means “the lord of flies” (2 Kings 1:2), which is significant as golden fly images have been discovered during excavations at ancient Philistine sites. After the Philistines, the Jews changed the name to “Beelzeboul,” as used in the Greek New Testament, which means “lord of dung” and refers to the fly god that was worshipped for protection from fly bites. According to certain biblical scholars, Beelzebub was also known as the “god of filth,” which later became a term of contempt in the mouth of the Pharisees. As a result, Beelzebub was a particularly despised deity, and the Jews used his name as another name for Satan.

Tell all your fundamentalist Christian friends not to vote for this antichrist. Signs and wonders, people!

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has officially evaluated temperature record extremes of 54.0 °C at two locations, one in Mitribah, Kuwait, on 21 July 2016 and a second in Turbat, Pakistan, on 28 May 2017.

In its most intensive evaluation ever undertaken, the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes, has verified the Mitribah observation as 53.9 °C (± 0.1 °C margin of uncertainty) and the Turbat one as 53.7 °C (± 0.4 °C).

The Mitribah, Kuwait temperature is now accepted by the WMO as the highest temperature ever recorded for the continental region of Asia and the two observations are the third (tied within uncertainty limits) and fourth highest WMO-recognized temperature extremes. Significantly, they are the highest, officially-recognized temperatures to have been recorded in the last 76 years.

Full details of the assessment are given in the on-line issue of the International Journal of Climatology published on 17 June 2019.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231218172054/https://public-old.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-verifies-3rd-and-4th-hottest-temperature-recorded-earth

But Mr troll is suddenly the world expert on weather station rules on the basis of a photo.

So what next, Troll?

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — Agree-to-Disagree

A troll, a complete troll, and nothing but a troll. There is literally no end to your bullshit, is there?

Even if the Conservative Party has dominated the politics of post-war UK, there has been the Attlee administration, Wilson and Callaghan administrations and the fifteen years of Blair and Brown. So the Labor party has had it's share in power here. — ssu

What has changed though is trade union power. The Wilson era was the last one in which the unions held huge power and influence on policy of either party. Unions were a strong force for raising the living standards of the poor, but also a strong drag on innovation and modernisation. Socialism grows in the big factories the coal mines, steelworks, the docks, shipbuilding where collective solidarity can develop. In agriculture, tourism, catering, everyone is too spread out and isolated for it to happen.

I think you are also right that the waste of oil revenues massively contributed to the decline of manufacturing, but the unions helped too by opposing all change. Until the Winter of Discontent, followed by Thatcherism, and the great sell off.

We've been in a slow decline since WW2 and the end of Empire. Your analysis is pretty good; Thatcherism and Blairism were both about selling off all the government assets to cover up this decline, and once the assets are gone (to the extent that the health service no longer owns the hospitals it runs) nor the education service its schools), the sums stop adding up and there is "austerity". I see no prospect or serious plan for recovery, because xenophobia, which has been promoted and exploited by the right wing makes the obvious need for immigration impossibly unpopular.

The plan is, it will be an autonomously operating AI that could take over the world if it had bad intentions. — Carlo Roosen

Or good intentions, presumably. Isn't that what humans do as best they can anyway - take control of the world to adapt it to their requirements? And in building said device, I assume you in particular want to take over the world with good intentions?

So do you think that intention can arise from language processing, or do you have another system in mind that will fire up autonomous action and the language aspect will again be the tool of this autonomous intentional system?

Incidentally, just don't put links to your work, don't talk about fund-raising, and talk sensibly about what you are interested in, and there will be no problems. This is an ad free site paid for by the owner and members' donations, and people are sensitive about it. If you are not exploiting us or disrupting us, there will be no bother. Move on from the rules and warnings, and have the interesting discussion, and things will be fine, apart from being called an idiot now and then ... that happens to everyone.

You have not really illuminated me as to what you mean by intelligence, but I infer from what you say, that you mean language manipulation. In which case, the answer to my second question is that your SAI will still be a tool that is functionless apart from the non-super human operator. Disappointing, but not unexpected.

https://www.pbs.org/video/are-we-at-the-tipping-point-udlvvz/

First of a series of easy-watching videos that might illuminate a little.

We have already built various superhuman devices - superhuman diggers, lifters, throwers, calculators and so on; so my first question is what you intend to mean by superhuman intelligence? It is fairly clear that current AIs are not superhuman in anything much as independent intelligences but can only function as tools under close human supervision.

So I conclude from this that intelligence as implemented in current AI is nothing more than a tool that can be used or misused by humans but does nothing of itself. So it can be great for looking for patterns in data, astronomical or medical or whatever, but is devoid of what might be called 'common-sense'.

Are you building a better tool, or a real super-human?

I think his point was that humans can and do adapt to desert conditions with extreme heat. — frank

Then why would he so triumphantly post about air conditioning sales going down? I like a charitable reading if one can be found, old man, but yours is a completely nonsensical reading, and thus fails also of charity.

volatility is the main problem, not heat. — frank

This is true of temperate zones, but near the equator heat itself is a big problem. As a minute's research would have told you.

https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mecc_infosheet_heat_and_migration.pdf
https://theconversation.com/increasing-heat-is-already-a-factor-in-human-migration-new-study-206358
https://www.climate-refugees.org/spotlight/2023/10/4/global-temperatures

etc.

You really are an idiotic argumentative twerp.

The world's hottest city whose coast can burn sea creatures to death and whose streets feature air conditioning has been branded "unliveable".

In happier times, Kuwait City was known as the "Marseilles of the Gulf", boasted a thriving fishing industry and was an attractive prospect for tourists.

But like so many of Britain's seaside towns, the hub has fallen on harder times in recent years - albeit for reasons that would be alien to anybody who has taken a shivering stroll on one of the UK's beauty spots.

On July 21, 2016, the Mitribah weather station in northern Kuwait registered a temperature of 54C (129F) – the third-highest reading in the world. The blistering Cerberus Heatwave Europe has just endured would hardly have raised an eyebrow in the Middle Eastern country.
On July 21, 2016, the Mitribah weather station in northern Kuwait registered a temperature of 54C (129F) – the third-highest reading in the world. The blistering Cerberus Heatwave Europe has just endured would hardly have raised an eyebrow in the Middle Eastern country.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1798490/world-s-hottest-city-where-streets-are-air-conditioned-spt

So demand for new air con units has fallen because it is so unliveable that tourists are avoiding it and the economy has declined along with new builds. But you couldn't work out that your evidence was evidence for exactly what I said, so you had to go posting it like you were in the right.

Idiot!

Why is the population of Kuwait going up so fast when Kuwait is supposedly "already more or less human uninhabitable in summer" ? — Agree-to-Disagree

I already told you. Air conditioning.

This is not a good song. But it is all this thread deserves.

The normal human body temperature range is typically stated as 36.5–37.5 °C (97.7–99.5 °F). Because movement, digestion circulation and all life processes generate heat, at ambient temperatures above 30°C the human body needs to cool itself by sweating even at rest, to avoid heat stroke. The effectiveness of sweating as a cooling response is reduced by humidity. The recommended sleeping ambient temperature is 18 - 20°C

Kuwait, in the summer (June, July, August) the nighttime temperature rarely falls below 29°C.
The average high these same months is 45°C. Without air-conditioning, Kuwait is already more or less human uninhabitable in summer. With air-conditioning, wot me worry about climate change?

https://weatherspark.com/y/150245/Average-Weather-in-Kuwait-Year-Round#Figures-ColorTemperature