If you were to make a truly complete map or model of something, you could not help but replicate its function, and so build a replica, a simulation. — Pfhorrest

Clearly not the case, since map is such a near synonym for description (which indeed was your starting point), or theory. Completeness of a description (or map or theory or representation) implies no similarity between descriptors and objects. This is as true for mathematical descriptions as for any other kind.

it is a general feature of mathematics that whatever we find things in reality to be doing, we can always invent a mathematical structure that behaves exactly, indistinguishably like that, and so say that the things in reality are identical to that mathematical structure. — Pfhorrest

Yes.

One may be tempted to say that that does not make the description identical to reality itself, as in the adage "the map is not the territory". In general that adage is true, [...] But a perfectly detailed, perfectly accurate map of any territory at 1:1 scale is just an exact replica of that territory, and so is itself a territory in its own right, indistinguishable from the original; — Pfhorrest

No, I reckon not. Fine to gloss description as map or model, but not map as working model or replica or simulation. Neither description nor map typically imply these. Indeed "1:1 scale map" is an obvious and reasonably good joke. Scale model is admittedly an intermediate step, but the gloss (from map to replica) is misleading. Map correctly suggests the potential gulf between symbols and objects in a system of interpretation, hence the adage, which you can't just turn on its head; nice try!

"Mathematical model" is ambiguous between

• a computational or mechanical simulation that is to some degree a "working model" but always also a description or map; so, a piece of language; and
  
  
• an abstract mathematical structure in the sense of model theory. Potentially instantiated: in which case, a piece of the world; but otherwise only fiction.

In a thread about mathematical Platonism, one fears that playing on this ambiguity risks encouraging the worst kinds of philosophical excess as typically perpetrated by fans of The Matrix.

But whatever model it is that would perfectly map reality in every detail, that would be identical to reality itself. — Pfhorrest

You mean (we hope), the reality would provide a real instance of the otherwise fictional structure described by the theory. But you encourage simulation-hypothesising. :roll:

perfectly accurate models of people like us would find themselves experiencing it as their reality exactly like we experience our reality. — Pfhorrest

I mean, really.

There necessarily must be some rigorous formal (i.e. mathematical) system or another that would be a perfect description of reality. — Pfhorrest

Yes, no reason to put limits on the scope of scientific (or artistic) representations. But as Putnam and Goodman both point out, no reason either to assume limits on the variety of right ones.

"To make a faithful picture, come as close as possible to copying the object just as it is". This simple-minded injunction baffles me; for the object before me is a man, a swarm of atoms, a complex of cells, a fiddler, a friend, a fool and much more. If none of these constitute the object as it is, what else might? If all are ways the object is, then none is the way the object is. — Nelson Goodman: Languages of Art, p6

Is it just me, or oughtn't everyone here (and on similar threads) to clarify which of these two related but separable questions they are addressing?

• is my external red the same as your external red?
• is my internal red the same as your internal red?

Also, in aid of trying to critique or deflate the second one (assuming the first to be answered roughly in the affirmative), is there any use in assimilating it to,

• is my internal up (down) the same as yours, now you've been wearing the upsidedown goggles for some time?

? Just an idea.

To be is to be the subject of a predicate. — Banno

If by "subject" you mean some thing the predicate is (maybe) true of, then fine. If you mean a phrase further along in the sentence, then you are megafogging.

Not saying Santa can't change, if he really wants.

Beauty is not the same exact thing as “rightness” though. [...] It’s more like beauty is a quality that we project on things — Pfhorrest

Ok, and (is this right?) beauty is the suspicion or seeming of rightness? I would buy that, vague as it is. Leave beauty to roam free in meaning and, like Goodman, analyse rightness more carefully. It would be one way to make sense of the OP's first sentence, where the operative word is (as also later on) "seems".

But from the next sentence on, it's clear you make no such distinction, and feel free to gloss rightness itself as the suspicion or seeming of rightness. Main culprit: "apprehending", used here as "representing" (describing or prescribing, and potentially having rightness) and there as feeling or suspecting (rightness).

But hey, I'm being pedantic. Everything is everything. Art is pleasure. :roll:

I do mean it all of those ways, as I went on to elaborate. It could be "right" as in true, or "right" as in good, in many different senses of "true" and "good". Just any kind of feeling of agreement, a "yeah!" kind of feeling -- which could be "yeah, that's a thing I want!" or "yeah, that's how things are!", etc. — Pfhorrest

So "right" isn't any clearer than "beautiful", or even vaguely distinct from it? You might as well have said,

I hold that beauty is, broadly speaking, the experience of apprehending something that seems, in some way or another, right beautiful. This rightness beauty may be either of a descriptive or a prescriptive nature: the feeling of apprehending some truth, or of apprehending some good. — Pfhorrest

No?

I hold that beauty is, broadly speaking, the experience of apprehending something that seems, in some way or another, right. This rightness may be either of a descriptive or a prescriptive nature: the feeling of apprehending some truth, or of apprehending some good. — Pfhorrest

So is it rightness of representation, or of things represented, or either or both? Or is it the pleasure in or anticipation of a representation or a thing? You seem to have it all of those ways. Which needn't be a problem, except the vagueness seems wedded to abstractness (whereby truth and goodness are relatively "concrete"?!), so it's a problem for me. Is it a necessity for you?

I'm interested because Goodman and Elgin pursue "rightness" as "cognitive efficacy" (of symbolism), which maybe isn't a world away from,

[facilitation of] the successful comprehension of [that] complexity by way of [the] underlying simplicity. — Pfhorrest

On high and low... perhaps one reason that the distinction so often fails, as when the supposed low art of one age or social class becomes revered in the next, is that artworks are identifiable as physical objects or sets of them. As such, they are potentially inexhaustible sources of insight and revelation. Critical judgements presuming to rate the sophistication of one whole artistic culture relative to another must always underestimate this potential.

I found that difficult to follow. — Banno

I've been clearer.

But then I don't see much use in the type/token distinction. It seems to me to introduce unnecessary metaphysical entities. — Banno

That would indeed be ironic and a shame, since a focus on tokens is usually (e.g. in Carnap and Goodman and Quine, I don't know about Peirce) motivated by a nominalist aspiration to remove unnecessary metaphysical entities.

Doubly ironic that you contrast it with speech act theory, which seems to have continued an anti-abstract trend away from positing of (as entities) propositions to only sentences to only statements on particular occasions. (Yay, tokens! ... utterances, inscriptions.) Trouble is, Austin then starts multiplying unnecessary psychological abstractions (the forces, yuk). And the abstract metaphysical entities (states of affairs, yikes) have sneaked back in, as "content".

I read Goodman as saying, observe the discourse instead as a proliferation of sentence tokens which are acts of predication i.e. pointing of symbols at things.

Arguably, no statement is ever entirely bereft of any illocutionary force, and [such that it?] might be considered a "dud ticket". But we use them quite routinely when doing logic, so I'm not too concerned about that. — Banno

Great, and when you do logic, aren't you writing (or uttering) tokens, and excluding or contextualising (e.g. attaching "not" tokens to) contradictory ones, from within a system of proliferation of assertive tokens?

There is a distinction between the statement "there is a fire in the next room" and the assertion "there is a fire in the next room. — Banno

• The second is a sentence token having, like a money token, currency and value in a system of interpretation. As such, within that system (of interpretation and production of sentence tokens as assertions), it is licence to produce more tokens, with similar value.
  
  
• The first, if not an assertion, is outside the system - a dud ticket, a void note, an invalid vote.

So, in this,

It's raining [on fire in the next room] but I don't assert that it is [on fire in the next room] — bongo fury

... we are confronted with, either:

• a system of contradictory assertions, one of them denying the true nature of a certain other one; or else,
  
  
• two different systems; or else,
  
  
• one system, and a dud token valid in no system.

"Belief" is (arguably) just a customary way of separating out a system of assertions peculiar to one or more persons (or momentary time-slices of a person), separate from some more general system. In which case, the same choice of analyses applies for "but I don't believe it" as for "but I don't assert it".

the ability to define things. — unenlightened

...by pointing symbols at them.

:cool: :up:

Ergo all matter is photosynthetic :snicker: :roll:

What? Talk about human reference? As in, "Peter", "Jane"? — Banno

No, I just meant study of meaningful discourse and communication. "Mental talk" meant mentalist talk: study which is of that subject matter and is of a mentalistic bent, tending to imply mental entities.

Do you suppose that beliefs sit in your mind like you sit in your comfy chair? — Banno

I'm not a believer: in minds, or beliefs, as such. So I was recommending translating that kind of picture into one making do with representing speech acts, and so on. Glossing beliefs as mental assertions seemed a plausible enough first step, although I'm not especially surprised if that gloss would outrage some people's, er, beliefs.

Then I'll not pay much further attention to your recommendations. — Banno

I wasn't presuming otherwise.

"Mental talk" - what sort of thing could that be? — Banno

Talk about human reference which uses theoretical terms implying mental entities such as beliefs.

How many other unspoken speech acts are you aware of? — Banno

I'm not in favour of multiplying them. I'm recommending translating the mental talk into speech talk.

"Beliefs" are just assertions dressed in unhelpful mental woo. Better and sufficient to deal with,

It's raining, but I don't assert that it is. — bongo fury

I.e. what else is belief than mental assertion, since you've agreed to distinguish assertion from belief just on its being vocal.

What else?

Belief is a relation between an individual and a statement. — Banno

But so is assertion. Neither relation is clear enough to merit distinguishing it axiomatically from the other.

An assertion will be sincere iff the person asserting p believes p vocally also asserts p mentally. — Banno

There. That at least rests the distinction on the background mentalism.

It seems easy to credit animals with inductive reason and hard to credit them with deductive reason. — apokrisis

Again, the question is whether the ape reasoned [whichever the duction] by giving meaning to symbols, by being able to play the social game of pretending to point them at things. That would be logic in the human (as opposed to pocket calculator or trained neural network) sense. — bongo fury

But if you, MacIntosh, were to say exactly the same thing to McGillicuddy—“It’s raining, but I don’t believe it is”—your friend would rightly think you’d lost your mind. Why, then, is the second sentence absurd? As G.E. Moore put it, “Why is it absurd for me to say something true about myself?” — Wheatley

"Beliefs" are just assertions dressed in unhelpful mental woo. Better and sufficient to deal with,

It's raining, but I don't assert that it is.

It’s not like someone behaves a certain way, then obtains a high IQ, and begins behaving differently. — Pinprick

The room grew silent. I cursed myself for losing control and creating a scene. I tried not to look at the boy as I paid my check and walked out without touching my food. I felt ashamed for both of us.

How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who­ would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes-how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It infuriated me to think that not too long ago I, like this boy, had foolishly played the clown.

And I had almost forgotten.

I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. I was just like him!

Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined with them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all. — Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon

And of course:

yet so many begin their discussion with "let's first define our terms". — Banno

The hope seems to be that if we wire them (the terms) up to the right bits of the world in the first place, we can ignore semantics and rely on syntax.

The problem with this account is that it underdetermines actual word use. I suppose you could (as has been tried) twist every word use example as drawing the listener's attention to something (object, concept, state of mind), but this is utterly trivial as everything falls into that parenthesised list, and following another's talk cannot be done without paying it some minimal attention.
— Isaac

Bang. — Banno

Indeed. A proof of how absurd the circumstance: a field linguist would be so spoilt for choice as to the right interpretation of native utterances as to make his task untenable.

Not a contest.

Woodger's term, p.17, is 'shared name'. Martin, in Truth and Denotation, Ch. IV, speaks of divided reference as multiple denotation. I applaud that use of 'denote', having so used the word myself until deflected to 'true of' by readers' misunderstanding; and Martin's 'multiple' obviates the misunderstanding. — Quine: Word and Object, p 90n.

I.e. Quine, at least, agrees that all predication is shared-naming, and hence all linguistic reference, as shared and un-shared naming, is a game of pointing words at things.

Goodman extends the insight to pointing of pictures and gestures and music.

Crows can plan three steps ahead, — Banno

I think what the crows (and current AI) are able to do is less than we are able, which we might distinguish as "rational" but I would propose clarifying as semantical: the ability to discern meaning in the sense of discerning what symbols are supposed to be pointed at. — bongo fury

the equivalent of a disjunctive syllogism where the ape could tell that if one food reward cup was empty, then the treat was hidden in the other. — apokrisis

Again, the question is whether the ape reasoned by giving meaning to symbols, by being able to play the social game of pretending to point them at things. That would be logic in the human (as opposed to pocket calculator or trained neural network) sense.

But what I had supposed was that his theory of reference had some merit, it would be ill conceived to consider it an account of the whole of language. — Banno

You might be surprised.

Cool.

https://monoskop.org/images/1/1b/Goodman_Nelson_Languages_of_Art.pdf

Well, I'm going to continue to side with Quine and StreetlightX here, — Banno

Like, it was clear enough where everyone stood?

By the way, by "pointing" (at or up) I mean (to influence usage in the direction of): denoting, labelling, being true of, describing, exemplifying, naming, shared-or-multiply-naming.

Only exemplification is much different in principle from the rest, being (as Goodman noticed) reciprocal or symmetric between pointer and pointee.

The rest deserve to lose most of their habitually imposed distinctions.

and say that pointing is pointedly indeterminate. — Banno

Good, but you didn't, you started saying that it doesn't (always) happen, missing the point.

You agreed with Harry as to "hello", but I find that most unconvincing; — Banno

I agreed that a person said hello to can reasonably offer for consideration an interpretation in which the word has been pointed at (or points up) a meeting or greeting. The greeter or a passing linguist are free to argue for different interpretations.

it is not obvious that pointing up is a form of pointing. — Banno

No. The insight (Goodman's) arose out of a nominalist (in the sense of cutting out the middle-man of intentions) investigation into pointing/denotation/labelling as a formal relation between symbols and things.

Harry suggests that words are to be understood by determining to what they point. The reasonable response is to point out, as I and others have done, that there are words that do not seem to point. — Banno

No, that completely misses the point (sorry), which is whether the determination of pointing that does go on should be regarded as something that can be (or already is) fixed, or as a much more precarious and subtle cooperative game.

So are you for it, or agin it? — Banno

For pointing, agin definitions.

"Hello" doesn't point to the beginning of a conversation; it doesn't point to anything. — Banno

How the certainty? Is pointing or not pointing a matter of fact?

Obviously plenty of words in most sentences, and all in some, don't point directly or at all. Not so obviously, even the direct pointing (just as plentiful) is a game of pretend. (Quine's insight.) People who worship definitions probably don't get that.

But what raises us above the beasts in the field and the chess-playing computers, as yet, may well be the ability to trace and hypothesise about pretended mappings from words into the world. It's unfortunate that the disillusion of one brilliant early investigator has led to so much incredulity about that possibility.

Kids arrive at five by playing with beans, moving them around, sharing them, sorting the beans from the marbles, cooking them, embedded number in their lives.

Pointing is a gross oversimplification. — Banno

But as Piaget argued, all of that playing and sharing and using and sorting enables her to set up potentially a clear mapping or pointing, i.e. a counting out.

Of course pointing isn't evident in a lot of meaning. Maybe the child can't demonstrate an understanding of a correspondence. But pointing is the (invented, pretended) basis on which we clarify and interpret each other's utterances.

↪Banno Hello.

This is a scribble or sound used to point to the start of communication, — Harry Hindu

Yes exactly.

The "Na" in...

" Na na na na na na na na na na na na na " - My Chemical Romance. — Isaac

Lots of the meaning in speech is musical meaning: like the meaning in all decorative and expressive arts, it points up patterns and qualities and attitudes. Goodman suggests that we can quite coherently interpret this kind of meaning as things pointing back at their potential labels, and even indirectly back at other things. "Na" in the musical work cited appears to exemplify (point up) qualities of articulation in an electric guitar riff, etc.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm too stupid to understand Goodman. — RogueAI

A clear reductio!

Try this: green is like a straight line going through each of a set of data points; grue is a line going through all the same points but it predicts that all subsequent points collected will be on a different straight line, so it jumps straight to that, making (say) a zee shape instead of a "simple" line.

"Simple" in quotes because it's in the eye of the beholder. If the zee shape projection were borne out by subsequent data we might decide that the straight line had ignored confounding variables. We might then recalibrate so that the zee shape became the straight one after all, but we might just learn to see the zee shape (and its partner zee shape corresponding to bleen) as the simpler and more natural or basic.

This isn't to deny the zee shape makes the wrong projection, only that what is right to project is a matter of what looks simple or uniform to us, and what looks simple or uniform depends on how we are used to looking at things.

To sort out the wheat from the chaff and then watch the chaff complain about it. — StreetlightX

So said the weavers to the Emperor.

How very dare you! Goodman is a paragon of virtue with respect to the vice in question. Your chosen extract is a perfectly helpful clarification of a logical distinction involving nonsense words given a technical meaning, for the best possible reasons. Obviously if you remove it from the technical context (and from a wealth of exemplary explanation) you might convince some passers by that it was willfully obscure. Well duh.

Having said that, Goodman might have helped some readers (even more) with appropriate (but inevitably convoluted) Venn-type diagrams, which are now easily found online.

SO why not drop pointing and go straight to use. — Banno

Quine doesn't mean reference isn't a game of pointing, only that it's a game of pretend.

Pointing is a gross oversimplification. — Banno

But generally also the assumed basis of any more complex clarification. (E.g. counting, sorting.)

No, it's not raining or not independently of the state of affairs representation. But it is raining or not independently of any report or statement. — Andrew M

Where or what is this entity, "the state of affairs representation", if it isn't the wet stuff it represents, and it isn't a part of the report? I suppose you will say that it's an abstraction. Ok, but please stop implicating modern nominalism in any such business?

And on your view? — Andrew M

The pointing of symbols at things by social animals. — bongo fury

Animals who, if they have any sense, regard

is it raining or not independently of any report or statement? — Andrew M

as an invitation to confused logic, with cycles in it. And usually do, and get on with the weather report, instead.

On your view, is it raining or not independently of any report or statement? — Andrew M

The states of affairs represent the weather and the talking. But states of affairs are not themselves talk. — Andrew M

The SA is a representation of the concrete situation so, no, not literally wet. — Andrew M

On your view, is it raining or not independently of any representation?

If so, perhaps one of them would suffice?
— bongo fury

No, because I make a distinction between what the weather is and what a person says the weather is.

It seems that you don't make that distinction. — Andrew M

I make it when it makes sense: as when a weather report for any reason offers comparison of its own findings with those of Alice and Bob. "True" and "false" would of course be useful words in that kind of report. In the more usual kind, they are redundant, in the same way as your "states of affairs".

And thus lack a model for what it means for a statement to be true. — Andrew M

I lack only a spurious interpretation of the T-schema.

Statements S1 and S2 are the weather-talk by Alice and Bob — Andrew M

I know.

(which are derived from states of affairs SA2 and SA3 respectively). — Andrew M

... or which, in other words, SA2 and SA3 were talking about, as I said.

So, SA1 (or asserting it) is talking about the weather, while SA2 and SA3 are talking about the talking?

But SA1 isn't the weather (e.g. it isn't wet), but rather represents or talks about it. — bongo fury

Or not?

If so, then "obtaining" is plainly interchangeable with "true", and the SA layer gratuitous. If not, and the SA is the concrete situation, and is literally wet, then an SA isn't composed of subject and predicate, and you need to rethink the "isomorphism" supposedly grounding your truth "function". If you still think that some such mapping is required.

or as some bizarre kind of weather sentence... with a fifty percent chance of predication, perhaps... something like that? :wink:
— bongo fury

Your comment would apply equally to Alice's statement. — Andrew M

Not at all. Alice's statement gives every appearance of pointing appropriate words at concrete situations.

But both her statement and the state of affairs refer to rain, not predication. — Andrew M

If so, perhaps one of them would suffice?

Platonism says (after a process of cosmic reasoning) that our pointing must also reflect the way the things really are, and introduces more things (properties, similarities etc. [and now states of affairs]) to create a new level of sorting. To correspond with the first. — bongo fury

The benefit of so doing is that it is now possible to apply logical operations or transformations on those formal structures.
— Andrew M

Such as? (You may need to decide if you are talking about the weather, or about the talking, or both.)
— bongo fury

Yes, but note that that information is implied by the structures. — Andrew M

Let's see.

I can represent the original concrete situation in a model with the following obtaining states of affairs:

(SA1) It is raining
(SA2) Alice says that it is raining
(SA3) Bob says that it is not cloudy — Andrew M

So, SA1 (or asserting it) is talking about the weather, while SA2 and SA3 are talking about the talking?

But SA1 isn't the weather (e.g. it isn't wet), but rather represents or talks about it. (Likewise, SA2 and SA3 aren't the weather-talk by Alice and Bob but merely talk about that weather-talk.)

So SAR doesn't, as implied here...

Finally, a conditional can be added that relates statements to states of affairs — Andrew M

... relate talk about the weather to the weather, but only to more talk.

this feeds the suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out. — bongo fury

So the concrete situation is that it is raining outside and Alice says, "It is raining outside".

Now suppose I want to model that situation. In my model, I can represent the weather formally as a state of affairs. This, it seems to me, is at least comparable to a physicist representing a physical system formally as a state. — Andrew M

Whether it's comparable will depend on whether you proceed to analyse the weather as a collection of physical particulars related in physical ways, or as some bizarre kind of weather sentence... with a fifty percent chance of predication, perhaps... something like that? :wink:

The benefit of so doing is that it is now possible to apply logical operations or transformations on those formal structures. — Andrew M

Such as? (You may need to decide if you are talking about the weather, or about the talking, or both.)

Is that still metaphysics, on your view? — Andrew M

Prove me wrong, by making sense of it?

Can "that it is raining outside" please be the actual raining? Can Alice's statement please be her actual utterance?
— bongo fury

Yes, of course. All of these abstractions are grounded in the actual raining and Alice's actual utterance. — Andrew M

... Or, to be less equivocal: no, the raining and the utterance can't be the state of affairs and the statement because you are too committed to conceiving those as abstractions. Doing so is apparently so natural for you that you imagine I could be reassured by the notion of their being "grounded" in the concrete instances, as though that wouldn't merely highlight their being entirely gratuitous metaphysical baggage.

Actually, I wouldn't necessarily assume them to be entirely surplus if you weren't apparently set on this spurious chase for an "isomorphism", which seems to be accentuating your metaphysical tendencies.

If, for example, you were to explain a "state of affairs" (like a raining) as a type (or set or common property) of concrete situations (which ground or constitute it in a reasonable sense), I might be challenged to show how nominalism can improve on that analysis, or is any less committed to abstractions itself. Never mind. You insist on fantasising some kind of rainy weather state that somehow exhibits grammatical components. Backs away slowly...

The pattern, then, is that the logical form of a state of affairs is the same as the logical form of a statement (i.e., they both contain a subject and a predicate). — Andrew M

And, even if it made sense, surely you must have noticed that it would impute the same isomorphism between every true statement in subject-predicate form and every "obtaining state of affairs" that you are fantasising in that alleged form? Is that really what you thought occasioned invoking the T-schema?

this feeds the suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out. — bongo fury