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

What is the experience of red of someone who is colourblind but does not know it? — unenlightened

Yes, :ok: if we can address it without slipping back into the Cartesian version, as possibly here,

23 odd years of talking about something he could not see and not noticing that he could not see it. — unenlightened

... as though (on one reading) the problem (slash non-problem) is that he was seeing a different colour but calling it like us.

Better to address it as: what class of things (even better: class of illumination events) was he associating with any one thing he called red, i.e. what things was he disposed to call red, i.e. what was the extension of "red" when he asserted it of a thing?

And then, what if anything does that difference in our external reds have to do with our colour discourse which purports to talk about internal reds?

The thesis claims that every scientific hypothesis requires a belief in a set of assumptions. — Curious Layman

Not some clearly defined set from which to reason deductively, no.

Inductive, associative, habitual, holistic. On this more inclusive view of reason, a finite web doesn't need a clear starting point. Morality, science etc. are large going concerns with unclear sources. — bongo fury

The entire scientific method is based on foundationalism — Curious Layman

Contra Duhem and Quine?

Day 93, 11.25: Not impressed with a particularly vivid GS image immediately upon its consideration. So tried to launch a search, by way of passive waiting. Next image vivid enough to urge testing. Verified. I suppose that passivity required losing track of the relation to the first image. So that relation unknown. But nvm.

15.15: I think the sequence here was: first GS fairly vivid; implied Ravel image far too low (2 semitones); "waited" for second GS image, hopefully uninfluenced by Ravel judgement; result good.

17.00: Waited (a second or two) and was pleased enough with the first image (GS); and my pleasure (with the vividness) was validated as an indication of truth.

19.35: Noticed a GS image already playing as ear-worm. Seemed authentic enough, but the corresponding Ravel image seemed badly flat, by a fourth, in fact (duly verified). So this trial (if significant at all and probably not) then a point against the hypothesis of notatability (of a musical stimulus) varying inversely with non-relational pitch sensitivity.

21.35: As per 11.25.



Day 94, 10.10: As per yesterday at 15.15.

12.45: As per 11.25 yesterday, but result a semitone sharp.

16.00: Good. As per 17.00.

21.40: And again.



Day 95, 13.05: As per day 93 at 15.15.

Time to choose target stimulus no. 5. WILTY the panel show reminds me of the Charles and Eddie... will try that. The Ravel fits nicely... truly it turns out.

What we expect is that the normal propensity to produce images at an arbitrary pitch, which may or may not be a result of skill in relative pitch, will reduce, as the ability to produce them at the correct absolute pitch increases. Will that be a shame?! Do we expect it, actually?

16.05: Reasonably vivid. The Ravel found the image to be a semitone too high, though. Which was indeed the case.

Pasting the Ravel into other mental images is proving fairly easy. Must try more often to paste it into sounding ones.

18.30: Fairly vivid Ravel/C&E mashup: not sure which appeared first; anyway, verified.

20.45: Hmm... mashups not rushable: semitone sharp.

Luckily, analysis of "right thing" and "evolutionarily advantageous" causes them to be distinguished clearly more often than confused.

what "inter-subjectively agreed" adds to just "agreed". — Isaac

Well put, but it suggests an answer, which is "overcoming differences of perspective". So it's useful, because it succinctly forestalls the unnecessary baggage of "subjective" and "objective".

Day 91, 13.15: Good.

17.55: Good.

20.50: Decided to find a fourth stimulus to try and perceive non-relationally. Well, another Stones clip that the algorithms had lately found me receptive of is Gimme Shelter. I must have been exposed to it upwards of 10 recent times and, as with HTW, I wondered whether the vividness of an image of it, that had now launched (or rather, landed - see below) immediately upon consideration of the tune as an option, might be a sign of its veracity pitch-wise... perhaps disconfirming yesterday's no doubt rash conclusion that the number of exposures is "no matter". This time I didn't attempt an estimation straight away but planted the Ravel opening into the midst of it and found it (the putative g4) a comfortable fit on step 5 of the Stones' key. I don't mean I tried alternative placings of it for comfort; rather, it seemed to land there. (A third elephant. Or second can of worms.)

So, turns out the GS image was precisely a semitone flat. But then, no wonder the Ravel fit so nicely. Placing it on step flattened-fifth would surely have been awkward. I even wonder whether the Ravel image (true, as it turned out) could have dragged down the GS image. It probably kicked up enough dust upon "landing" to obscure the shift. (Had the original GS image been also true.)

23.50: Good.



Day 92, 13.35: Good. Tried to overlay a GS on a Ravel; not quite sure what happened (too much dust), but then bringing the Ravel up a semitone seemed to allow the GS to land in what I'm now aware is the right place relative to the semitone-sharp-Ravel, i.e. a fourth up from it. And the Ravel turned out to be where it ought, i.e. truly a semitone up.

16.25: GS rather immediate and vivid. And true.

Elephant 3: the "landing" of images... implying a flight, from a launch. But the launch and the flight are invisible (inaudible). It used to be (and still is in the main) that the image landed (and played out) without delay, at an arbitrary pitch. Now (for the 3 or 4 test clips) there is a delay while waiting for the system as a whole to find the right place. I suppose the sense of flight and of landing results from the time-limit imposed by such props as: imagining reaching to push with a finger on the g4 of a keyboard. In order to aid recall. And from the frequency of erroneous results. One isn't (yet) prepared to wait indefinitely for an image on the expectation of it being true when it arrives. One assumes that the image will need weighing up and then adjusting. And one feels that only a time limit will (as yet) stimulate the unconscious background search that would make the first image any more reliable than chance.

I'm constantly struck by the comparison between this process (if it isn't a completely empty fantasy) and a more familiar effort of recall: that of finding the right word. (wts)

19.35: Good, or just noticeably flat. But again, based on a first image of GS, whose vividness again presses the question whether some sound fragments are perceived non-relationally more easily than others. With GS (the intro) we are talking about a decorative display of glides and glissandos as much as clearly defined pitches, and I wonder if such a pattern, being relatively poorly captured in notation, is more easily perceived non-relationally than, say, a piano pattern? (There could well be research on that. See previous excuses for ignorance.)

22.40: Almost surprised to find the first GS image not confirmed upon pitching a Ravel image a tri-tone down. The Ravel protested and wanted to be two semitones higher: subsequently verified. I was thinking the foregoing theory must be true and I'd missed an obvious trick. But maybe not. Or the test was flawed. Try again tomorrow.

Option (b) because prescription is basically description: you ought to do the thing, inasmuch as its true description is "right thing".

But option (c) because facts are true descriptions, and true is a value.

Day 86, 13.50: Good.

16.30: Good.

19.05: Flat.

22.41: Flat.



Day 87, 11.35: Flat.

13.55: Good.

18.08: Good.

21.05: Good.

23.05: Good.



Day 88, 14.00: Flat.

14.50: Sharp.

15.50: Good.

17.20: Good.

21.15: Good.

23.40: Good.



Day 89, 09.55: Astounding inertia in acting on the foregoing insight, belated as it was, and bothering to check against a different clip: the Stones HTW. Good, anyway.

14.40: Good. (Ravel)

18.30: Yikes, 2 semitones sharp, wtf?

23.10: Again!! (Both the Ravel)

00.45: Good.



Day 90, 14.30: Slightly flat.

22.30: Definitely flat.

Both of the mooted new test clips cause a small opening in the can of worms that is (so called and alleged) octave equivalence. Also they draw attention to the elephants in the room that are: the differential sensitivity to absolute pitches (to some more than others), and the differential sensitivity to a particular absolute pitch in different musical contexts. Second elephant first:

E.g. I just noticed that a first image of HTW seemed vivid enough to warrant testing, to see if the vividness happened to be on target. But a mere image of the Ravel at the same pitch was enough to conclude that the HTW image was roughly half an octave out. This fits with the assumption (see OP) that vividness had been previously unfettered by choice of pitch, and only now (through training) correlates with accuracy (absolute, non-relational), and perhaps (why not) only or mostly in the case of images of the test clip. That the skill would be strongest with the examples used for training. So, strong with the Ravel intro but not the HTW intro, no matter (because the vividness generally unfettered) how often one had recently played the latter.

A week or two ago I thought it might be time to conclude almost complete failure. Except where allowed a minute's (or more) silence. Thereby excluding any prospect of being able, which I would very much like to be able, to confirm a hypothesis about a pitch relation (such as a modulation) on the basis of a judgment of a subsequent pitch, and not be restricted to the converse justification, deducing a later pitch from knowledge of earlier pitches and judgements of intermediate relations (intervals and modulations). Having (on the contrary) to go into a trance stops it from being, regardless of accuracy, even a party trick, let alone useful.

But I now kick myself for not questioning the reliance on the single "target stimulus" (the Ravel). I suppose the restriction resulted from the complete novelty and possible hopelessness of the task: of trying to consistently disqualify 99 per cent of pitch-wise perfectly good transpositions of the music as true instances of the music.

Anyhow, I have belatedly noticed that certain other frequently invoked intro sounds on youtube (namely those of Honky-tonk Women and the music from Would I Lie To You) were manifesting as "images" with a vividness that I have been learning, slowly, to trust as an indication of pitch-truth. (Slowly because I was fairly expert in producing vivid images of the music that were true only relatively i.e. relationally. Hence the vividness is of a particular and new kind. Though not a Mary's Room level of new (see OP) as yet. :grin:)

Conveniently, both of these stimuli were in more or less the same key as the Ravel, making it feasible to collage their images swiftly. A lot more easily, for example, than collaging alternative pitchings of any one of them. Judging the absolute (as opposed to relational) pitch-truth of the whole collage caused a surprising and promising feeling of confirmation, as though triangulating from information at relatively distant points in the cortex. (As though.)

Which makes the prospect of judging an image in the midst of a sounding context (without recourse to an undisturbed silent trance) slightly less daunting. And I feel I'm starting to be able to resist automatically parsing musical pitches relationally, or at least to begin to expect to discern their absolute aspect. Haha, we shall see.

...those trapped by erroneous notions of meaning, — Banno

Haha, count me as one of 'em (if you didn't already) :rofl:

To be fair, "wrong" brings to mind countless specific descriptive indications: examples of actions or behaviours that are indicated, described, denoted, labelled, pointed at, by the word.

Sure, those are cases to be proscribed, and alternatives prescribed. Right and wrong are roughly co-extensive with prescribable and proscribable, respectively. That doesn't stop an ethical choice from being one of correct description: finding appropriate descriptive application (pointing) of the ethical words. — bongo fury

I suggest you google Nelson Goodman — sime

:party:

and his ideas concerning irrealism — sime

... well, not to the extent that anyone would (that I can see) benefit from searching for definitions of that ism.

that more or less convey the basic structure of community-level solipsistic logic. — sime

If you say so... very keen to see how you would flesh it out. Are you starting from his treatment of indexicals in Structure of Appearance? Or perhaps from the phenomenalist basis of that book? Or from later ruminations about "world-making"?

On the face of it (while eager for more) I wish to protest in the strongest terms. :gasp:

The traditional way of thinking is to assume that whenever a community of speakers discuss the universe in an absolute sense, they must be referring to the "same" universe. But this is proposterous according to a Goodmanian irrealist, according to whom each and every speaker cannot transcend their personal frames of reference and so cannot refer to the same universe in an absolute sense, even when they insist otherwise. — sime

With that emphasis, yes, fine. "The world" is mysticism. But without the mystical baggage, "worlds", or universes of discourse or of quantification, become the perfectly good basis for a completely general (e.g. analog) semantics, in Languages of Art.

Consquently the irrealist understands every assertion, including assertions of absolute truth, as being relative to the speaker and of the form "according to speaker X assertion Y is true". — sime

Sounds like you have a very particular take. Interested to hear more. My take is nothing at all like a "community of solipsists".

Civilisation and its Discontents. — Wayfarer

See edition of Commentary :rofl: