Understood metaphysically, — Andrew M

You jest? (Forgive my irony failure if so.)

Wasn't Quine briefly gesturing to a nominalist translation of sets-talk in terms of shared naming before admitting sets as entities for the sake of exposition of the standard Platonism? And then wasn't Lazerowitz seeing the gesture as support for his proposal: where possible, and in a spirit of charity, read Platonists as positing universals as a shorthand for shared naming?

I liked your choice of the Russell as a case study because it is clear and analytical enough to suggest an answer to the OP's question how philosophy becomes metaphysical, often in spite of itself. I'm therefore sorry that my sketch of an answer prompted such an outpouring of metaphysics.

I guess that kind of reaction might explain the tarring of "nominalism" as metaphysical, so I have edited my question to specify modern nominalism, which is what I would like to save from the tar brush. The assumption that to say (e.g.) ...

... that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular. — Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

... is to say merely that the thing is picked out in our talking as exemplifying the same word as the other exemplar. I.e. that we say it is white when we do. You might complain that is a circular answer, but it's a circular question.

Modern nominalism is happy with that, not only to close off metaphysical misadventures but also to address psychological questions (learning, perception) where some circularity is inevitable, though hopefully to some extent straightenable: with enough care, and enough healthy distrust of woo.

And yes it does reject any obligation to its ancestors. Even Roscellinus . :smile:

So I brought up a discussion of the ontology of universals, from Russell's Problems of Philosophy, and other sources on the ontology of math, referencing a couple of articles from SEP and IEP. I note very little reaction to or comment on those issues, which are actually the kinds of things that academic metaphysics discusses. — Wayfarer

Yes, nice counter-example. Not that @Snakes Alive meant to shield even the likes of Russell from the aspersion that metaphysics makes fools of us all. So can we see how it arises, here?

Perhaps it is inevitable wherever questions posed in (what might plausibly be read as) an object-language get entangled with questions in a corresponding meta-language? Where questions not requiring use of a term like "denotes" merge with questions concerning the same domain but so requiring?

But a difficulty emerges as soon as we ask ourselves how we know that a thing is white or a triangle. — Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

So this might be using the word "white" to ask about things, but it might also be asking about the relation of the word (and its relatives) to the things. Probably @Snakes Alive is here begging that we please stick to either the one,

Is it, do electrons exist? Okay, sure. Is it, do electrons have similar properties? Okay, sure.

What else is there to say? — Snakes Alive

... or the other,

Are you talking about the general ability to use nouns? — Snakes Alive

... While @Marchesk is with Russell in happily mixing it up:

Do things share properties and if so, what does that entail? — Marchesk

If we wish to avoid the universals whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some particular patch of white or some particular triangle, and say that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular. But then the resemblance required will have to be a universal. — Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

Which is woo... or where it starts.

But I (like ?) don't understand why [modern*] nominalism should be tarred with the same brush, if all it says is, let's assume we are talking about physical particulars and also about the talking of organisms such as ourselves, about those particulars, and let's be especially careful not to get confused when the two targets of our talk overlap, which they probably often must.

* edit, see below.

What picture?

Do you mean that human understanding is reducible to computer logic — TheMadFool

Only in the almost trivial sense that neurons are quite evidently some kind of switch or trigger.

but that we haven't the technology to make it work? If yes then that means you agree with me in principle that human understanding isn't something special, something that can't be handled by logic gates inside computers. — TheMadFool

I roughly agree with you now (maybe, or maybe the switches will have to be actual neurons; we don't yet know), since you're talking about way off in the future.

But do you at last see the trouble here,

Searle's argument doesn't stand up to careful scrutiny for the simple reason that semantics are simply acts of linking words to their referents. Just consider the sentence, "dogs eat meat". The semantic part of this sentence consists of matching the words "dog" with a particular animal, "eat" with an act, and "meat" with flesh, i.e. to their referents and that's it, nothing more, nothing less. Understanding is simply a match-the-following exercise, something a computer can easily accomplish. — TheMadFool

?

That's to say there is no meaning except in the sense of a consensus. — TheMadFool

If you like. Is that an objection?

What makes you think computers can't do that? — TheMadFool

What, agree and disagree about where each other's words have 'landed', out in the world? If by computers you mean some future AI, then sure. This would no doubt be a few steps more advanced than, say, being able to predict where each other's ball has (actually) landed. Which I assume is challenging enough for current robots.

How do we do it, link the word "water" to the water itself, in your opinion? — TheMadFool

By learning to agree (or disagree) with other people that particular tokens of the word are pointed at particular instances of the object.

Yep. So what is it that a computer so easily (according to you) links to the word "water"? The referent you just described, or merely the description?
— bongo fury

The description consists of referents. — TheMadFool

Ok, well to see "why people make such a big deal of understanding" you need to see that they are interested in how we link the word "water" to the water itself, and not merely to more words for water.

"Referent" usually refers to the designated object itself, not to other words, semantically related or not.

What's the problem with referents? — TheMadFool

Whether they are things out in the world, or merely more words referring to those things.

The clear liquid that flows in rivers and the oceans that at times becomes solid and cold, and at other times is invisible vapor is the referent of the word "water". — TheMadFool

Yep. So what is it that a computer so easily (according to you) links to the word "water"? The referent you just described, or merely the description?

Well, I don't know why people make such a big deal of understanding — TheMadFool

It's about

referents — TheMadFool

They (and I) mean things out there, you mean just more words/data.

I hope you reply soon to this query. — TheMadFool

Why? A quick reply isn't usually a thoughtful one. In my case at least. Actually, I think the site should instigate a minimum time between replies, as well as a word limit.

They don't have to be but they can be, no? — TheMadFool

I don't think I've been understood, here. (Take more time?) I was trying to explain why @A Raybould was non-plussed by your statements about semantics. See also @InPitzotl's recent posts here.

I expect that you, like "they" in the story, haven't even considered that "referents" might have to be actual things out in the world?
— bongo fury

Yes, I did consider that. — TheMadFool

Ok...

Referents can be almost anything, from physical objects to abstract concepts. — TheMadFool

Ah, so after due consideration you decided not. (The referents don't have to be things out in the world.) This was Searle's frustration.

You can be sure you are in the respectable company of his critics at the time. Also of a probable majority of philosophers and linguists throughout history, to be fair.

Searle's argument doesn't stand up to careful scrutiny for the simple reason that semantics are simply acts of linking words to their referents. Just consider the sentence, "dogs eat meat". The semantic part of this sentence consists of matching the words "dog" with a particular animal, "eat" with an act, and "meat" with flesh, i.e. to their referents and that's it, nothing more, nothing less. Understanding is simply a match-the-following exercise, something a computer can easily accomplish. — TheMadFool

I wish I could locate the youtube footage of Searle's wry account of early replies to his vivid demonstration (the chinese room) that so-called "cognitive scripts" mistook syntax for semantics. Something like, "so they said, ok we'll program the semantics into it too, but of course what they came back with was just more syntax". — bongo fury

I'll have another rummage.

I expect that you, like "they" in the story, haven't even considered that "referents" might have to be actual things out in the world? Or else how ever did the "linking" seem to you something simple and easily accomplished, by a computer, even??? Weird.

Do you deny the existence of universal concepts in our language? — Marchesk

I really have no idea how to answer that question. — Snakes Alive

I thought this was fine...

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example? — Snakes Alive

It's an interesting line of investigation for sure, — Isaac

Hey thanks.

particularly the actions AI would have to demonstrate before we're prepared to label them 'rational'. — Isaac

Ah well that's more of a Turing Test approach, which I was aiming to avoid. I'm less concerned about our common judgements about people's reasoning and more about the reasoning itself. Hence my proposed clarification of rational as semantical, in a sense further clarified. But then this is a good example of how an armchair method (the Chinese Room) could conceivably be of help.

But that's a very different topic — Isaac

So I agree :wink:

and I don't want to derail the thread talking about it. — Isaac

The OP will be grateful.

What is also interesting about this, and more related to the thread, — Isaac

More relevant than my posts, then, which are about whether non-metaphysical philosophy has plenty to contribute to investigations into the human condition? :wink:

, is the way in which the criteria for the term 'rational' are being created post hoc to reflect the way we'd like things to be. — Isaac

Yes, just like reading a post the way we'd like it to be. :wink:

We've all been using the word 'rational' (or it's equivalent) for 2000 years. What on earth is a discussion about what it means doing 2000 years later! — Isaac

Helping to understand the human condition. E.g. the sense of consciousness. :meh:

This claim is either meaningless or amenable to empirical evidence. Is our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning? If it isn't, what would be different about the world, how would we notice? — Isaac

magical thinking [...] "animals don't think rationally like us because.... I really, really don't want them to" — Isaac

I agree it's empirical, but 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.

I agree that I should suggest kinds of supporting evidence if anyone were actually going to dispute my claim.

On the other hand, I might first appeal to mere armchair devices like the Chinese Room, to
ascertain what would count as evidence for my disputant.

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?
— Snakes Alive

That’s close! — Wayfarer

Yep, and by taking the plunge and facing the further truth that reference is never a matter of fact but a sophisticated social game of pretend, you get, if you want, to avoid metaphysics but discover a world of useful work for philosophy.

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc — bongo fury

And ethics, of course.

Some important-seeming questions of the 'globalising' variety will always arise. The trick is to be prepared to recognise when one's efforts have developed the symptoms described in the OP, and to then have the humility (or strategic sense) to retreat to more solid ground.

I don't see that there is anything in eternalism per se that precludes motion, unless you define it as such. — ChatteringMonkey

And in which case, mightn't this be turned around:

... objects are arranged in space in an orderly way. Their arrangement can be described without referring to "passage of space" or some equivalent of motion. — Echarmion

...?

Spatial patterns just as well can be described in terms of change and motion and passage. The rectangle changes (moves, passes, travels) from red to yellow, from left to right; and a rate of change is measured with respect to a horizontal position, which may represent time or (just as easily) any variable you like (hence we say the rectangle is coloured with a "gradient").

Thanks. Links or recommendations welcome. What did he (or you) think of philosophy that tends to avoid metaphysics? E.g. currents in foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc? Or don't you agree that plenty of philosophy is cheerfully non-metaphysical?

I didn't want to allude some sort of is-ought-fallacy, where racism or xenophobia are (more) acceptable because they are in some way "natural". — Echarmion

No I know you didn't. You made it clear you want to guard against the innate tendency. I just suspect the tendency isn't innate at all, and that that might be relevant to the question how best to guard against it.

I just wanted to point out, partially from personal experience, that not being prejudiced is really hard, — Echarmion

I'm not sure this kind of breast-beating (if that's the figure; pardon if I'm over-doing it) is necessary or helpful.

and that there are mental mechanisms (wherever they come from) that introduce and reinforce prejudice, of which racism is a subtype. — Echarmion

So, do you at least see how, if I were right about the whole innateness hypothesis being (gladly or not) a racism-serving myth, that repeating these psychologisms might be counter-productive?

Just refusing to say the word "black" won't keep your brain from noticing that "these guys over there look different", and if you don't pay attention, your brain may turn "different" into "dangerous". — Echarmion

Ditto, really.

Not sure whether I agree at all with the OP about tweaking the language. But the innateness thing gets in the way.

Racism is part of the human condition. — Echarmion

It may be, now, but were there any pseudo-scientific theories of racial superiority disseminated widely prior to the advent of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?

If not, do you perhaps mean rather that some more general and symmetric relation of xenophobia is innate?

I doubt that anyway (here), but the kind of racism that I imagine I would find especially hard to bear politely would be the kind that dared to assert my natural inferiority. (And compounded the error to the nth degree by seeing my resultant social subjugation as evidence for the theory.)

So I am especially suspicious of the claim of innateness if it is meant to apply to that kind of racism.

Anyway, perhaps by "human condition" you don't mean innate?

OK. I guess my point is that if we ultimately reduce 'semantic' to pointing symbols...that at some point AI may satisfy our intuition. — path

My point also. And @InPitzotl's, I thought.

The Chinese Room (and the chips and dip?) just (or partly) cautioned against conflating the mere production of tokens with the actual pointing of them.

The fact there is no 'actual' about it is what makes the social game of pointing so sophisticated. (imv.)

IMV, Derrida was making the kind of point that I'm trying to make, dissolving some pure subject or consciousness into social linguistic conventions. — path

If that means trying to explain our sense of consciousness as a natural effect of our thinking and conversing in symbols, then hooray, cool.

But you can at least believe that more risk-averse people might prefer to (in effect) bank the grand.

I doubt we'd call that a paradox though, without the "infallible" mis-direction. The OP has a point.

I think roughly half of us are indignant that the problem is clearly stated as,

There is an infallible predictor,...

... but then,

Nozick avoids this issue by positing that the predictor's predictions are "almost certainly" correct, thus sidestepping any issues of infallibility and causality.

E.g. this,

It isn't possible to win $0 or $1,001,000 and so those alleged outcomes ought not be considered. — Michael

is perfectly true but for the switch (to fallible).

The A.I. produces “elaboration graphs" on a screen. For the MacBeth question, the program produced about 20 boxes containing information such as “Lady Mac­beth is Macbeth’s wife” and “Macbeth murders Duncan.” Below that were lines connecting to other boxes, connecting explicit and inferred elements of the story. — Frank Pray

I wish I could locate the youtube footage of Searle's wry account of early replies to his vivid demonstration (the chinese room) that so-called "cognitive scripts" mistook syntax for semantics. Something like, "so they said, ok we'll program the semantics into it too, but of course what they came back with was just more syntax".

I think Searle was a bot. — path

(And still is, presumably.) A machine with a sense of / illusion of consciousness? Agreed. He himself would of course reject "illusion of", and even "sense of" except in the narrower sense of "accurate sense of". Not "machine": he embraces that.

Why is he so sure that he is swimming in something semantic? An appeal to intuition? 'I promise you, I can see redness!' — path

Yes, he might be wrong trusting that kind of intuition... but... be right about swimming in something semantic: namely, the social game of pointing symbols at things. I think he would be right that Genesis and the chinese room fail at that.

And what do those symbols refer to? Not the symbols themselves, but actual chips and dip. So somehow you need to get the symbols to relate to actual chips and dip. — InPitzotl

Yes, and that (the getting the symbols to relate) will be an elaborate social game of agreed pretence, as there will be no matter of fact about the relation. As you say, it will require vast experience of interaction with symbols and the things we learn to agree (to pretend) they are pointed at. Never heard this called "agency", but I get it. Searle calls it "intentionality" and thereby embraces unnecessary mentalisms. But he definitely exposed the problem for any AI that fakes a proper semantics.

This essay says it much better than I ever could https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer — Wayfarer

Great essay against the old, pre-connectionist, symbolic computer model of brain function, which I shall cite next time (and it won't be long) that I want to scorn the ancient myth of pictures in the head. Not an essay espousing the existence of ghosts (in machines), though.

BTW,

I challenged researchers there to account for intelligent human behaviour without reference to any aspect of the IP metaphor. They couldn’t do it, and when I politely raised the issue in subsequent email communications, they still had nothing to offer months later. They saw the problem. They didn’t dismiss the challenge as trivial. But they couldn’t offer an alternative. — Robert Epstein: The Empty Brain

They should have looked here.

I'm not sure that being sexually attracted to other races is proof of lack of racism. — Hanover

Agreed, put like that, it could be a kind of racism, or an aspect of it.

But (to put the premise differently) the fact of our sexual attractions not being noticeably reduced by signs of genetic diversity at least calls into question the too-universally acknowledged 'truth' that racism is somehow innate.

The racism of me subconsciously favoring my tribe is a universal problem facing us all, — Hanover

Then why is exotic erotic?

Modern philosophy (e.g. here) offers therapy for the ancient delusion that humans have pictures inside their heads.

For gods it may be a different ball-game, of course.

So the picture one might choose — unenlightened

This one?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=GSzSXoP6DuuGjLsPgqGVEA&q=Zardoz&oq=Zardoz&gs_lcp=ChFtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1ocBADMgUILhCTAjICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAA6AggpOgUIKRCTAjoFCAAQgwE6AgguUN8TWMclYPlBaABwAHgAgAHsAYgB7AaSAQUwLjUuMZgBAKABAbABDw&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-hp

:clap: :ok: :rofl: :100:

Well, I did try to keep my wordcount to a minimum. — TheMadFool

:ok:

Perhaps that's where the fault lies. — TheMadFool

Never, ever.

:ok:

I heard there is a growing online campaign to seek a posthumous apology from Turing for his Test.

:snicker:

:point: :ok:

Also, wasn't it the other way round, to some extent? Weren't Newton & co. rather cheekily re-purposing psychological words like force ("courage, fortitude"), inertia ("unskillfulness, ignorance"), moment ("importance")? (Cherry-picked from Online Etymology Dictionary.)

A clear distinction cannot be vague. Clear and vague are antonyms. — David Mo

I think that's wrong, in an interesting way. Antonyms are a good example of how two (or more) concepts can be vague in having fuzzy borders, but yet also be clearly distinct and mutually exclusive, because their fuzzy borders are kept a sufficient distance apart.

Thus, black and white may each have a vague border with grey, but in that way remain perfectly distinct from each other. More here.

Pardon my interjection. I doubt that anyone here is claiming science and philosophy to be mutually exclusive in any particular respect. :chin:

What Whitehead would call perception in the mode of symbolic reference which comes after causal efficacy and immediate presentation. — prothero

Sounds cool. Will drink.

And this is why using "consciousness" (self knowledge, self reference, self awareness) as a synonym for "experience" creates a problem. — prothero

My point exactly. Please read the context.

Consciousness is a special kind of experience but without the lower orders of experience there would be no consciousness. — prothero

This is obvious, but is also what lulls people into the sleep from which this consideration,

It [panpsychism] “explains” why my socks and bubblegum are conscious, even though no one thought they were, but it doesn’t explain why the human brain is conscious the way the human brain is conscious, which is what we actually want to know. — Zelebg

... really ought to rudely awaken them.

By 'an experience' do you mean 'a conscious experience'?

I was going to add: ... or the kind of experience a sock can undergo?... but I gather that cuts no ice.

Really? So get a newborn, poke it with a sharp stick, does it feel anything? — bert1

Feel consciously, I'm prepared to doubt. Not firmly. Just casting a preliminary vote.

If it might elicit a vote from you (because you weren't a panpsychist) I might ask you whether a snail poked with a sharp stick (and hardly lacking in responses quite rightly earning our sympathy) feels consciously.

At what point in the chain of being “existence” or “life” do you think this ability disappears working your way down. Do higher animals have experience? Ants? Bees? Flowers? — prothero

Excellent question.

Somewhere below Primates, Cetaceans and possibly Elephants. — Isaac

My vote, FWIW... where human infants acquire competence in pointing symbols (including samples) at things, so that a red thing is perceived as an example of red things.

Ok, well I did my best to get you to notice where I think your argument tricks you into thinking it is deflationary while it is anything but. Something which is hard to notice, and needs focus... which we've lost.

Physicalism is not identical to eliminativism.
— Pfhorrest

No, but it is usually implied by it. — bongo fury

Which direction do you mean that implication to go? — Pfhorrest

:roll: