Will you be able to shed any light, on this matter? — Aryamoy Mitra

No. Sorry.

Have I significantly misapprehended the argument, — Aryamoy Mitra

At (5) and (6), yes.

Interpreting this sentence, is harder than accruing a mastery over all of Mathematics. — Aryamoy Mitra

But you have undertaken to follow the copious and kind advice of @TonesInDeepFreeze, so you may be pleasantly surprised. Good luck.

short translations — Aryamoy Mitra

Godel's second incompleteness theorem explained in words of one syllable

What we see on the screen is the "mind". It is a consequence of all components working together, but we cannot find "where it is", we can only view it as a result of the components working. — Christoffer

And isn't that, in a very real sense, what we find when we look for the holy spirit of our lord Jesus Christ? Please turn now to Psalm 56 in your hymn books. Gladys, the organ.

I mean I doubt if there isn't a lack of inclination. Not that the inclination is a thing, haha.

... You did mean an inclination to avoid/reduce?

Amen to that.

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. — bongo fury

...maybe what you are noticing is how poorly it’s often done rather than a lack of inclination. — DingoJones

Sadly not...

Dreaming is thinking about the real world, just off-line and hence fundamentally confused about physics (the walking in the air).

On-line thought is fundamentally confused about psychology (the pictures in the head).

Well that makes everything perfectly clear.

I found I had to practice to even duplicate it with my voice, — frank

Well this inspires me to actually getting around to browsing empirical research, rather than simply saying, in this case: doesn't everyone experience musical "ear worms"?

...

Ok, the wiki page says yes, everyone (98%) does. So the next question is, do we have, in your case, a syndrome as rare and curious as that of aphantasia, or a simpler misunderstanding? Or, not simpler, but par for the course in phenomenological discussion! ... E.g. I wonder what degree of clarity (reality? hallucination?) of imagery you are supposing is involved in "duplication"?

I do seem to come back to the same starting frequency. — frank

Ok. You checked against a recording? A few times, not too close together? I'm tempted (as already mentioned) to trawl the research for reference to the obvious question of the variance of most people's ear worms (or spontaneous performances) from the usual pitch (e.g. the pitch of a recording where relevant). But there was no mention of this on the ear worms wiki page.

Btw @Metaphysician Undercover would be interested in your involving vocalising in the aiming for the pitch.

Or do you just mean you maintain whatever random starting pitch for the duration of the performance? (Which is a thing, that by no means always happens.)

I think according to the Private language argument, u shouldn't be able to do this. Do you know what I mean? — frank

Haha, is it about ear beetles? ... Not sure. Good question.

It seems clear that you are using a different definition of "object" than the one rigorously employed within the discipline of semeiotic. Again, anything that is denoted by a sign--real or fictional, existent or imaginary--is an object in that technical sense. — aletheist

Didn't Russell rather skewer that approach? (On Denoting.)

And in your example of fictional writing, there are no objects denoted. — Metaphysician Undercover

Speaking literally, yes.

The author simply builds up images of characters — Metaphysician Undercover

This needs clarifying. Produces strings of alphabetic characters? Sure. Conjures mental images of non-existent and hence undenoted people? Well, "mental" is problematic but let's park that. Or skirt it, by assuming the book is a picture book. Goodman's very neat solution is then to read "images of characters" e.g. "picture of Pickwick" not as requiring two separate denotata, a picture and a Pickwick, but as long (if only slightly) for "Pickwick-picture", a one-place predicate applying to a certain sub-class of pictures.

If this were true, then the author could not create those "images of characters" in the first place, and we could not think or talk or write about them afterwards. — aletheist

If what version were true? If my suggested version, then why (could we) not?

The possible objection that we must first understand what a man or a unicorn is to know how to apply "man-picture" or "unicorn-picture" seems to me quite perverted. We can learn to apply "corncob pipe" or "staghorn" without first understanding, or knowing how to apply, "corn" or "cob" or "corncob" or "pipe" or "stag" or "horn" as separate terms. And we can learn, on the basis of samples, to apply "unicorn-picture" not only without ever having seen any unicorns but without ever having seen or heard the word "unicorn" before. Indeed, largely by learning what are unicorn-pictures and unicorn-descriptions do we come to understand the word "unicorn"; and our ability to recognize a staghorn may help us to recognize a stag when we see one. — Goodman, Languages of Art

Of course, if one just decides - as you seem to have - that our minds are not souls, — Bartricks

No, the premise I'm deciding to explicitly deny is that we have things called minds, except in a manner of speaking about our physical constitution and behaviour.

But then you're the fantasist, as you're deciding how things are with reality and then closing your mind to evidence to the contrary. — Bartricks

To be fair, I think I'm maintaining a reasonably coherent worldview and finding I can consistently deny what seems to you an undeniable axiom.

But don't forget I have a mind in a manner of speaking about my physical constitution and behaviour.
— bongo fury

What do you mean? Do you mean you do have a mind or that you don't? — Bartricks

I added this, above:

Incidentally, I think the appropriate manner of speaking (which disqualifies any present-day bot) is to imply skill in the social game of agreeing (or disagreeing) about which words and pictures are being pointed at which objects out in the world. — bongo fury

And thoughts are mental states. — Bartricks

Again, only in a manner of speaking:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/433444

Ah, I see. So because you already know how things are with reality and my arguments contradict your understanding, my arguments must be faulty. — Bartricks

No, I said I suspect your argument is valid.

It seems you think you're God. — Bartricks

It's about beliefs facing the tribunal of experience as a corpus. That's why I might be just as inclined to judge premises from the conclusion of a valid argument as the other way round.

How do you doubt something without a mind? — Bartricks

But don't forget I have a mind in a manner of speaking about my physical constitution and behaviour.

And yes, if there actually are any extended sensible objects then I accept entirely the possibility that a sensible body might evolve without there being any soul inside it. — Bartricks

Cool... an animal body able to compute statements implying it had a mind in more than a manner of speaking?

a typist without a mind....which is a bot — Bartricks

Yes, good definition of a bot: a typist without a mind in a manner of speaking.

Incidentally, I think the appropriate manner of speaking (which disqualifies any present-day bot) is to imply skill in the social game of agreeing (or disagreeing) about which words and pictures are being pointed at which objects out in the world.

An animal.

My arguments have the premises they have. Are you disputing one? Which one — Bartricks

The idea that we each have a mind, except in a manner of speaking about our physical constitution and behaviour.

and why? — Bartricks

Partly because I suspect that arguments like yours would show that this idea leads easily to the fantasies (as they seem to me) of immaterial souls and the like. So I would see your argument, if it works, as a reductio.

I doubt (as also no doubt will you) that I am qualified to offer the kind of stress test of your argument that you seek. I thought I would try instead to see if there was any chance of making you doubt the premise, getting you to appreciate the possibility that animals might evolve without acquiring any non-physical aspect or component, but then also in certain cases be able and inclined to think the opposite.

I thought one reason you might entertain such a scenario could be that mechanical robots are (or soon will be) a clear case of rational-but-mindless-if-not-in-a-manner-of-speaking. So the scenario would merely be that of the evolution of a kind of animal with similar functionality to a machine. And evolution has proved adept at producing biological machinery of almost limitless complexity, so the scenario wouldn't seem implausible.

But you say you take "rational" as already implying possession of a mind (in more than a manner of speaking). And I expect you will feel the same way about "think". So for you (or other dualists) I would probably need to sketch the scenario in terms like "computational" and "compute": an animal able and inclined to compute statements implying that it had a mind (in more than a manner of speaking).

You have as a premise that we each have a "mind" (or "mental events"). Can you imagine a rational animal being like a robot in lacking a such a gift?

it is an all-too-common nominalist mistake to insist that if abstract objects are real, then they must also exist. — aletheist

... An all-too-rarely credited nominalist insight, rather.

Trying to establish a separation between "real" and "existent" just muddies the water by creating ambiguity, and is counterproductive toward understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

ruining the good old word "exist". — Quine, On What There Is

Do those who deny the existence of qualia also deny subjectivity altogether? — noname

If only. Unfortunately they mostly can't resist taunting believers with a more subtle dance, wherein the beetle is supposed irrelevant, but not doubted. [Witness the next two pages...]

And what are the best arguments against the existence of qualia? — noname

Neural networks: learning, but without the internal images.

With pattern-making?

Yep.

It still does not explain why minor chords tend to be heard as more subdued and less assertive than major chords. — Olivier5

Sure it does, to the extent they do, which is grossly overstated.

It's because they have been used successfully to express sadness.

Path dependence.

Contingent on prior adoption of a classification into and of triads, as well.



... How have they been used successfully to express sadness? Good question, but a matter for analysis, which isn't at all obliged to implicate an innate correlation.

Goodman explains "expression" as the metaphorical exemplification of properties. The chord expresses sadness in that it is a sample of metaphorically-sad things in general. Is metaphor illusionary?

That's the other thread, though.

For me too. And it was Goodman's actual point here:

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 — bongo fury

I might (later) edit in the continuation that explains how emotional analysis of music should lead to structural.

Haha, but is it disappointing that the connection isn't natural? I would be expecting to be accused of wishful thinking on this question. (Of denying the innate programming.)

Happy to dismiss the relevance of any non-artistic/intellectual pleasures to aesthetic analysis or ethical analysis/design. (And preferring to analyse the aesthetic or ethical satisfaction in terms of understanding rather than pleasure.)

Pain a different matter for the ethics, I suppose. Happy to admit the relevance of (any kind of) suffering to ethical analysis. Just not that of pleasure. Agreeing with @Wayfarer there.

listening to music, mastering an intellectual discipline etc
— Wayfarer

I would count the good or bad feelings one gets from those, and emotional states generally, as well within the domain of pleasure/pain/hedonic experience. — Pfhorrest

Prefer the other way around. ("Cognitivism"? Not that the label matters.)

Convention, complicated by path-dependent exploration of the infinite possibilities. Creating the illusion of a natural connection. Yuk, I know. Something like that, though.

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?