I'm finding this unineligible.

a fact cannot be false. — Banno

What are facts, though? — bongo fury

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields

In a frivolous mood I pasted the first 1000-odd words of B&T and PI into prowritingaid.com and learnt that the former has a readability grade of 13, and is advised to reduce average sentence length and word length; while Witty is apparently suitable for 4th grade, and might well "use a few longer sentences to add more depth to your writing."

(Which readability index is it that penalises abstract nouns? That's what I was looking for... might make it a feature request, if I didn't dream it. Haha, the dreams of a nominalist.)

Why is linguistic imprecision a problem? — sime

Well obviously it's a puzzle if we accept also the premise that calling a single grain a heap is absurd. If calling it a heap is tolerable then, as I keep saying, no puzzle.

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] Well, certainly, it's the very smallest size of heap.

Game over. People often finish up claiming 2 had been their position all along. Perhaps it should have been, and the puzzle is a fraud.

I think it reveals aspects of the behaviour of antonyms that are fundamental to both syntax and semantics.

(like the threshold of hearing a noise) differs for people — Gregory

Sure, but does the distribution of personal thresholds of heap-recognition, and hence usage of "heap", extend all the way back to a single grain? If so, no puzzle.

A single grain is a minimal heap. A completely bald man is minimally hairy. Black is minimally white.

The puzzle requires an intuition to the contrary. — bongo fury

I think you are approaching this from a subjective angle for or less, which is how I see it — Gregory

Bits of what you say make sense. So I doubt if your zero attention to syntax is forgiveable. I don't know your situation so probably shouldn't judge. But jeez.

Day 112. Ok so I guess I have entry level absolute pitch: I can now calibrate musical 'calculations' with respect to a core of mental images (mainly, the Ravel and Gimme Shelter), without feeling obliged to refer to a higher authority i.e. a physical image; and while it's a long way (see day 99) from battle-ready for parsing actual music, I can begin to theorise, albeit introspectively, about the nature and behaviour of the imagery.

I.e... theorise about the nature and behaviour of the introspection, which is soaked in folk-psychological theory about imagery and introspection.

What I gradually embraced and reinforced (if grudgingly, and assuming a growing debt of needed clarification) was talk of an image as an internal mental event, of the kind typically conceived as coinciding with a neural event conceived, in turn, as a physical trace or recording or representation of some external music not actually present. More specifically, I associated pitch-wise veracity of an image, increasingly closely, with an intuition of the vividness or clarity or realism or authenticity or solidity or immediacy or effortlessness of the image. Immediacy in the sense of directness of acquaintance, or absence of noise: not in the sense of rapidity of formation; on the contrary I got in the habit (see day 92) of either waiting patiently for an arrival or being prepared to "launch" a large number of (individually quicker) "flights".

An empirical question, I expect, is whether this kind of association, of perceived clarity with pitch-wise veracity, is well-founded. This might be the case if clarity resulted specifically from a forensic, causal connection between stimulus and image, as with (according to naive folk-semiotics at least) the clarity of a photograph or a sound recording. And if so, we might ask whether either or both of the clarity and the veracity are available with respect to relative (relational) as well as absolute (non-relational) pitch sensitivity; and which available kinds of clarity and veracity are associated. How, further, the abilities and their associations may vary among differently (from most to very least) gifted or trained musicians.

For example, my hypothesis of a conflict between development of absolute and relative sensitivity: perhaps clarity is more pertinent to the first. Perhaps clarity of an image is a requirement for correct recall of a pattern by untrained listeners. And perhaps an image of Gimme Shelter (intro) is clearest when truest because of its exhibiting of non-notate-able (and hence less readily transposed) patterns.

Whatever the empirical or theoretical merits of such a view, I've indulged it, and acquired a degree of skill in facilitating spasms of neural activity as though... well, partly as though recalling a stored image to a viewing area, and checking it for authenticity... but partly also as though conjuring or manufacturing such an image in situ (on stage in the viewing area), by the authority of one possessed of absolute pitch, and then subjecting it to a similar evaluation. The "as though" is effected by a rather thorough visual running commentary (of the recalling or the manufacturing) which matches the sound images to visual ones from e.g. the relevant youtube visuals, or my finger approaching the g4 on a piano etc. I.e., a folk-psychological narrative of phenomenal sound events is maintained by a (narrative of a) visual narrative.

Either way (imagined as recall or manufacture), clarity of an image upon "viewing" (or rather, "auditing") has become sought after as an indication of its veracity with respect to absolute pitch. This has created a variety of distinct navigational predicaments:

(A) Stage empty: thoughts have turned to music, but no ear worms are present. Free and able to call up any image, probably the Ravel, and to reject and re-order if not completely satisfied. The re-ordering may express a preference up or down, or it may not. I thought I noticed a drift (with increasing skill) towards not; but possibly that aspect of the successive improvement had merely become quicker and less conscious. While unsatisfied, also free to,

(B) call up an image of different music, but must then expect that the process (whether of manufacture or selection from pre-pitched alternatives) is influenced by the pitch of at least the last image from (A or C) however unreliable that pitch. (B) repeatable like (A). Satisfaction during (A) or (B) may lead to,

(C) consolidation-cum-testing: try an image of different music (possibly returning to that of A or D, if here from B). If tending to the view that the image is recalled whole from storage, one might hope to allow it to land according to its own 'gravity'. The landing place not being as expected relative to the previous image would in that case mean dropping or re-launching (C again) one of the two, probably the first. But on the contrary view i.e. assuming the image's manufacture in situ to be guided by the growing skill in absolute pitch, one must assume that its correctness depends on that of the previous image. (The skill in pitching the current image can hardly be uninfluenced by the approval of the previous one.) So the current and previous images can't be evaluated for reliability independently of each other. On the other hand, neither are they acting entirely in concert. One of them may present an unclarity or instability that undermines the other. ...Badly, and go to (B). Apparent fit, on either view, and repeat (C). The weight of influence of a (possibly wrong) consensus then increases.

(D) Thoughts have turned to music, and found an ear worm active. Increasingly often, tempted to evaluate it for veracity, or even for the indication of it in vividness. (If not tempted, discard and go to B). The latter is an option at least if the ear worm happens to be one of the core. (Occasionally, an ear worm is actually a rapid sequence-of-Ravel-starts-as-calibration-attempt, haha. Not sure if that's a good or bad.) If not core, the image might yet be suspected of being significantly vivid, if it is music likely heard only in one key. As with (A), go to (B or C) depending on satisfaction.

(E) Reminded of (e.g. from reading about) a piece of music. Lately (never previously) construction of the image may well be interrupted and restarted in an effort to position it right.

(F) ... Sub-species of (C), impressed by the vividness of the images of more than one core fragment, but aware of the possibility of deepening error: or rather, the possibility of deepening trust entrenching the same error, such that the vividness might be caused by the pitching being relative to each previous image as much as by veracity of the present one. (The "wrong consensus", above.) Have been on occasion inclined by this awareness to interrogate one or more of the images for signs of deviance, but gratified instead by a spontaneous correction: presentation of an image differently pitched and apparently uninfluenced by the prevailing consensus.

There is no a priori linguistic definition of "heap" in terms of any specific number of grains of sand, — sime

Yes, that is the problem.

which is why "heap" must be logically represented as referring to a potentially infinite number of grains of sand. — sime

So... the answer to this question...

Any finite number of grains of sand does not have this property.
— sime

So... isn't a heap?
— bongo fury — sime

... would be? 5 million grains, say... isn't a heap, in your logical representation?

But what is the smallest number of grains that would need considering by speakers as a particular case? Is it 1?
— bongo fury

It is you and only you who gets to decide the answer to that question — sime

Not if I'm a semantically competent speaker of English, it isn't. I know full well that a single grain is so far from being a heap in this language as to make it an obvious case of a non-heap. So the smallest number of grains that would need considering as a particular case would seem to be much larger than one, no? Or are you ok with,

Sure. Heap is a spectrum. No puzzle.

A single grain is a minimal heap. A completely bald man is minimally hairy. Black is minimally white. — bongo fury

Any finite number of grains of sand does not have this property. — sime

So... isn't a heap?

the semantics which concern the precise moment when an actual heap of sand is considered to be mere grains of sand, isn't linguistically specified a priori but is decided by speakers on a case specific basis. — sime

Agreed. But what is the smallest number of grains that would need considering by speakers as a particular case? Is it 1?

A complete impasse, or a minimal impasse? :grin:

So you've pumped the required intuition, and a single grain is no longer merely the smallest heap?

Sure. Heap is a spectrum. No puzzle.

A single grain is a minimal heap. A completely bald man is minimally hairy. Black is minimally white.

The puzzle requires an intuition to the contrary.

So, 1?

To a man-sized being a heap has more than a "few" grains arranged one upon another, — DeGregePorcus

Yes, but how many?

like imagining a heap of sand that never changes after a grain is removed or added. — sime

... leading to the conclusion (incompatible with a premise, or there's no puzzle) that a single grain is a heap. Does that happen also with your "infinite" element, so that it can evaluate to 1?

I mean the critical point determines when a heap/pile becomes such. — DeGregePorcus

Sure. The critical point could be 53. But it could be 530. So, could it be 1? If so, no puzzle. If not, what's the lowest number it could be?

Yeah, the objects are identical, not the names. Typo?

that two names refer to the same thing, and so are necessarily identical, — Pfhorrest

:chin:

Ahem, we of the sorites appreciation society are not amused :meh:

Try bald vs. hairy, black vs. white etc.

Chair vs. settee.

We just don't have that many images of piles of sand such that we can visualize a "different" pile to account for every single grain. — Don Wade

The puzzle doesn't require us to guess, nor to fail to guess, the numerical size of a heap. It tells us the size, at each step. Whether we can reliably point a numerically distinct heap-picture, at each step, is no more relevant than whether we can reliably point a specific number-word, at each step. The puzzle does that part for us.

Then we are asked if we think that that particular numerical size of grain collection deserves to be pointed at by a word ("heap") which is a good deal less specific than the number-word. Even though we are in no doubt as to the perfectly specific number.

You're assuming that we should always be as specific as possible. The puzzle is about the behaviour of words that are deliberately non-specific.

Your brain might be persuaded, grain by grain, to the position of pointing a heap-word or a heap-picture at a single grain. That doesn't solve the puzzle.

The puzzle is how to avoid arriving at that position, without denying the validity of any one step along the way.

You've lost one of the two required (and puzzlingly opposed) intuitions that we are trying to reconcile. — bongo fury

Rather, blue the qualia is a sign that signifies 470nm light.
— hypericin

But ok, perhaps that doesn't describe yours or @Luke's or @khaled's or @Olivier5's position?
— bongo fury

Yes, I interpret colors as biological signs (like the genetic code is a set of biological signs). — Olivier5

Fair enough. I expect all of you assume some sort of correlation between a variety of internal qualia in any sensory modality and some corresponding variety of external properties in that modality. You probably disagree with each other as well as with people like me about symbolism, and about how your various conceptions of the correlation relate to that topic. For example, I think that the correspondence between codons and amino acids is mechanical or syntactic, and not semantic, except within human discourse about the correspondence. And @Marchesk says he doesn't agree that qualia are symbols. But you probably all agree about the internal-external correlation, which you in particular go on to describe in helpful detail in the case of colour.

I invite you to consider the possibility of conceiving much the same, fuzzy and delicate correlation: but between the same physical properties as mediated by our sensory machinery with its wired-in biases, and - instead of internal qualia - classes or sets of stimuli. E.g., between whatever weird disjunction of wavelengths and contextual cues makes us see red and - instead of an internal red sample - the set of all red things (or more precisely and less derivatively the set of all red illumination events). Seeing an object as red is thus a matter not of comparing it with an internal sample (or representation) but of associating it with red things in general. Seeing red differently is associating or assimilating or equating a somewhat different range of objects.

I anticipate various kinds of reaction against such a proposal, which I expect would be related to its origin in so-called "nominalism", and perhaps also behaviourism. One advantage which I think worth advertising for it is the fun of "de-naturing": of noticing how differently different individuals and different cultures "carve things up". This might be related to a likely sceptical reaction: that association with "red things in general" is mere fantasy. But hence the interesting connection with reference as a specifically (or largely) human skill.

I was thinking in terms of the cognitive structures the brain produces internally to make sense of the world. But yeah, animals don't need language to understand smells and colors. I wouldn't consider them symbols, though. — Marchesk

Ah, shame, maybe. Not an opportunity to agree roughly where it is we disagree. I was reminded of Goodman's argument that colours often function symbolically, i.e. refer to themselves and each other, by exemplifying: being samples, examples. Typically, for us humans, colour-words are deeply implicated in the classifications resulting therefrom. (So that G equates exemplification by an object of a colour-word to exemplification of that word's extension, a class of objects or illumination events.) But they wouldn't be required in principle.

So, far from exemplifying (!) "anthropocentric", I was willing to be drawn into speculation about the colour experience of "non-linguistic" animals, on that basis.

Although, as you would probably guess, I'm sceptical about samples in the head. About, e.g., now that I think of it,

Rather, blue the qualia is a sign that signifies 470nm light. — hypericin

But ok, perhaps that doesn't describe yours or @Luke's or @khaled's or @Olivier5's position?

(Although @hypericin might recognise exemplification as the relevant mode of signification.)

The point is other animals carve up the world successfully without language. — Marchesk

Isn't carving up the world a good rough definition of language, in the wider sense of symbolism or reference?

So perhaps you just mean, without specifically verbal language, but qualia are internal symbols? You don't need words to speak the language of colour and smell etc?

Of course, computers have internal symbols, but presumably not qualia. And then, it isn't even clear that neural-network-type computers have internal symbols.

Still.

Day 101, ...Trust restored (above) in the Ravel/GS-centred repertoire as a reliable test of other mental images if not sounding ones, I reneged on the intention to keep testing that repertoire. Day 100 spent instead trying to parse the Bowie, from the chorus out. The key changes are typical of the kind I lose track of, and would hope eventually to trace efficiently by means of non-relational sensitivity. Too ambitious in this case, partly (possibly) because not heavily exposed to the track. Still working on it.

As a beakon or azimuth, a goal that will never be attained but nevertheless indicates a worthy direction to take, objectivity is not a problem but a solution to a problem. — Olivier5

But that direction not, presumably, towards just maximum possible approximation to infinite information and complete truth? That doesn't seem to be what people are driving at with

We do see things as they are - the sugar in the bowl, the tree in the garden. — Banno

and such.

Some philosophers think human colour experience is composed of internal colour elements which may or may not correspond to physical properties of external stimuli. For them, red-green colour-blind means having (roughly) one internal element type correspond to both of two external properties, whereas most people have two distinct internals, one for each of the two externals. For those philosophers, it makes perfect sense to ask whether two internal elements, one in each of two normal-sighted people, where these elements apparently correspond to the same set of external stimuli, are of the same or different type. Whether, upon seeing into each other's minds, they might be surprised at the type of internal colour element thus revealed.

Most of this thread is about disputing the nature of the supposed internal elements: about whether they are private, or objectively specifiable, or coherently discussable, or how they map onto external stimuli. But not about disputing their role as a basic material.

Other philosophers* think human colour experience is composed of just external colour elements, which are sets (or classes or types) of external stimuli (illumination events) as ordered and classified through language and other symbol-based social interaction. (And pain is types of trauma-event, etc.) That view could also be relevant to the topic of "intersubjectivity", I submit. Because classifications can develop from particular points of view, and be more or less in conflict.

* @un, maybe? Witty? Quine? Churchills? Goodman says: go with internal or external, but both is a mess.

Day 99, 09.25: Surprised to find a crystal clear Madonna ear worm to be a fourth flat, upon fitting the Ravel.

Very tempted to regret wasting several weeks not thinking to triangulate. Although, that notion not supported by the peculiarity of the reliability of the Ravel. However, the (as it were) conspiracy of the several targets does at least appear to keep the options confined to steps on the modern (A-440) scale.

17.20: Good. I'd better make sure I have a couple of weeks without upset before regarding the Ravel on a par with an actual check.

18.50: Good.

21.25: Well, didn't take long... Tried to use the Ravel to get bearings in Bowie's Pretty Things: wasn't sure, but went with what turned out to be a semitone flat, probably through an ill-advised effort to get a comfortable fit key-wise.

What I forgot in my disappointment, however, is that this was a (nearly) first try at superimposing the Ravel image onto an actual, sounding image. So, not such a bad.

Ok. Relational in the sense of inviting description by means of many-place predicates (transitive verbs etc), or in the sense of being true relative to a point of view?

I assumed "modes of activity" was a thing, with which I was unacquainted. Nvm. Just "activity is relational"?

All modes of activity would seem to be relational. — Janus

:chin: Google not much help... de Beauvoir?

Cannot something be accurately described in more than one way? — creativesoul

Exactly. Although it's hardly a big deal if the different ways are in no kind of conflict or competition. (E.g. if they are, at least, all accurate.) And then each different way seems bound to shrink in significance, or degree of informativeness. The aspiration to describe or otherwise represent an object "as it is" seems to react against that impression of relativism or subjectivity.

Goodman is (I think) objecting (there) to the notion that some pictures succeed in that aspiration and are intrinsically more realistic or informative than others.

.

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? — bongo fury

So what? There's no structure to things? Things are whatever we want them to be? Is that what you and this guy Goodman are saying? — Olivier5

I think what he is saying is that good analysis of intersubjective representations on a non-cosmic scale is always hobbled by reasoning about their possible foundations on a cosmic scale. I.e. about, usually, objectivity.

:ok:

Rules... conventions... traditions... customs...

All of them and more compose what must be a unique reality, with many different facets. — Olivier5

So,

the notion of the structure of the world.
-- Goodman — bongo fury

?

But that's not how the world really looks. — frank

It's not even the way the world (or even a manageable portion of it) looks from a particular perspective (e.g. the lens of a security camera). It's just a symbol that refers to that portion (and others such as its own) according to well-established rules.

Agree, but beware also the profundity of "as it is":

"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

Day 96, 11.05: Borderline (Madonna) after calibrating last night... Just checked the image that happened to be present as ear worm... didn't gel well with the Ravel, and turned out a semitone flat. Good that the Ravel is proving reliable (ish) for calibrating other images.

13.20: Trying to launch several at once, with equal influence. This one probably unequal in favour of the Ravel. Anyway, good.

15.10: The several being, GS, the Ravel and Borderline, in that order of priority and influence. Good. GS was convincing straight off.

22.00: Good. I think first to land was Madonna.



Day 97, 13.30: Madonna present as ear worm, but a semitone flat according to the Ravel, which checked out.

15.25: Delighted (if not deluded) to sense the GS image conflicting with the others (being in a distant key) even before landing. Anyway, confirmed thereafter by the Ravel, which then checked out.

18.40: Starting with GS, I think. Anyway, good. Oh yes, I was thinking of trying Claire de lune as company for GS.

22.05: CDL not hugely anchoring... Relied on GS. But good.



Day 98, 12.30: See last.

15.15: Considerable want of anchorage from the Ravel. Had to relaunch it. Which has become a rare necessity. Especially, I speculate, since collaging it with others.

19.55: Madonna present as ear worm, again. True this time.

00.10: Good.

The quantity of information necessary to "see the world as it is" would be infinite. — Olivier5

Likewise any object.

The notion of the structure of a work [or any object] is as specious as the notion of the structure of the world. A work, like the world, has as many different structures as there are ways of organising it, of subsuming it under categorical schemata dependent upon some or other structural affinities with and differences from other works. — Goodman, Problems and Projects

the map will never be the territory, for a host of reasons e.g. — Olivier5

Yes and your point no. 1 is great but then you get carried away, and no. 5 is silliness you probably didn't mean, like

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 — bongo fury