...an exploration of what we can coherently imagine... — Janus

That's pretty close. And "A property had by a thing that we cannot imagine it existing without" works for many purposes. The formal definition is somewhat different. The trouble is not just that we can imagine alls sorts of odd things, but that what one person can imagine might be quite different to what another person can imagine.

An alternative might be to understanding "what if this blue table had been red instead of blue" as asking what would be the case, what would be true, if this table were red instead of blue. It's convenient, if perhaps for some folk not intuitive, to call the things that would to be true were this table blue, a "world".

There's the additional problem that some folk imagine impossible worlds. A whole other story.

There's considerable overlap between "A property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists" and "A property had by a thing that we cannot imagine it existing without", but they are not quite the same.

Lots of thinkers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. Anyone in this thread?

The step further, that claims that essences themselves change, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Who does this?

Whom? — Moliere

Leon.



Kripke: Identity and Necessity?

or

Naming and Necessity, reading group? and Naming and necessity Lecture Three?

Been a few others, too.

Here's the main paragraph concerning the issue from Identity and Necessity:

In recent philosophy a large number of other identity statements have
been emphasized as examples of contingent identity statements, dif-
ferent, perhaps, from either of the types I have mentioned before. One
of them is, for example, the statement "Heat is the motion of molecules."
First, science is supposed to have discovered this. Empirical scientists in
their investigations have been supposed to discover (and, I suppose, they
did) that the external phenomenon which we call "heat" is, in fact,
molecular agitation. Another example of such a discovery is that water is
H₂O , and yet other examples are that gold is the element with such and
such an atomic number, that light is a stream of photons, and so on.
These are all in some sense of "identity statement" identity statements.
Second, it is thought, they are plainly contingent identity statements,
just because they were scientific discoveries. After all, heat might have
turned out not to have been the motion of molecules. There were other
alternative theories of heat proposed, for example, the caloric theory of
heat. If these theories of heat had been correct, then heat would not
have been the motion of molecules, but instead, some substance suffus-
ing the hot object, called "caloric". And it was a matter of course of
science and not of any logical necessity that the one theory turned out to
be correct and the other theory turned out to be incorrect. — Kripke

Here it's not only water being considered. Nothing much of this argument hangs on the truth or falsity of water being H₂O, or any of the other identities listed. Rather he's concerned with the modal consequences of any such equivalence: that If a and b are rigid designators and a=b then ☐(a=b).

Too late. It's not mine to change. These is the accepted term. Not mine to change.

Repeating your errors does not reduce them.

The Libs consider themselves to be the natural party of government, in their entitled way, despite never actually achieving enough seats to govern in their own right an having to bed down with the Nats.

The natural party of government, so far as there is one, has always been the ALP. The only party to gain sufficient seats.

Partly becasue they had to accomodate the nats, and partly becasue of their funding arrangements, they could not maintain a liberal ideology. It has become increasingly conservative.

Just to add, the Libs are far more ideologically driven than the more pragmatic ALP. Hence the dearth of policy.

I quite agree.

Downside is that the Labor gov will have no strong supervision. The Greens will be the effective Opposition, via their power in the Senate, but the perks of opposition will go to the Libs in the reps - that is, the Greens will have very little admin support.

Ley says they have no choice but to move to the centre, and I think they will have to do that, otherwise the Teals will continue to eat their breakfast. — Wayfarer

Yes, but... doing so supposes support for a move to the centre. See this article:

Retiring MLA Nicole Lawder admitted on the ABC's election night broadcast that some within the ACT branch of the party were less interested in being elected than pushing it ideologically to the right. — ABC News

This has been the state of play in the ACT, where the Liberals have not won for twenty years. The Boys will not reform, becasue ideology is more important than government.

On Saturday night, Ms Lawder lashed out at what she described as "a couple of very powerful players in the party" who "have pushed the Liberals too far to the right".

"I think there are some people that are so ideologically driven that [they] would prefer to sabotage the pathway to winning," she said.

Lawder is a former MLA and knows her stuff.

And I think there is a pretty good chance of something similar occurring at Federal level.

So does Ley have an expiry date?

Or will she be kept as a figurehead, a small "l" Liberal, so they can pretend to be reforming?

I don't think the Boys will be able to stand back and let her lead. I don't think she has broad support in the Liberal establishment. 29 votes to 25 in the party room. I'm guessing it's less out in the suburbs. "Her new demographic would be the young professionals and first-generation Australians in the major cities trying to get ahead and into their first home" (Saturday Paper) but these are not the people you will find in a typical Liberal Branch.

She may surprise. I doubt it.

That looks like the second option.

The ALP specifies socialism in it's charter, so I doubt it.

The Australian Labor Party is a democratic socialist party and has the objective of the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the
extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields. — ALP Constitution

Scenario one: the Libs finalise their divorce the Nats, clean out all the right wing nutters and adopt genuine liberal policies with a social conscience and become a proper liberal opposition to Labor

Scenario two: The Libs blame Dutton entirely for the disaster - after all, he's gone, and no one else wants to take any responsibility; they take the money from Rinehart, indirectly of course, and keep to the right, business as usual, reactors and all, re-form the coalition in a year or so and repeat their mistakes next election.

Now, which of these is more likely to come to pass?

Yep. It's rather a way of setting that logical status out, and in a broader context.

But what it does put the lie to are ideas along the lines that logical impossibilities are unthinkable or even inconceivable. Impossible worlds can be conceived of, thought about and put into formal systems.

The semantics of possible worlds just says that we understand "it is possible that it will rain tomorrow" as stipulating for our consideration two possible worlds, W₀ in which it is true that it rains tomorrow, and W₁ in which it is true that it doesn't rain tomorrow. There is no contradiction.

Must be the fifth or sixth time this has been pointed out to you. In no possible world does it both rain and not rain. That only happens in impossible worlds.


Added: "It is possible that it will rain tomorrow" just says that there is a possible world in which it rains tomorrow. And this is true, and therefor "It is possible that it will rain tomorrow" has a truth value.

"It is possible that it will rain and not rain tomorrow" is false, since there is no possible world in which it both rains and does not rain.

And this adds to your idea, @Hanover, in that such things only ever happen in impossible worlds, and so "It is possible that it will rain and not rain tomorrow" is false in all the possible worlds, but perhaps true in some impossible world...

:wink: Did they not recognise the peace offering?

Cool.

There's a bunch of ambiguities in Leon's formalism that muck it up. "Water" rigidly designates H₂O, and does so even when we talk about what happened before Cavendish. But it wasn't used in that way then, for obvious reasons. There's no contradiction or circularity here that I can see.

I think he is adamantly agreeing with you.

Yep

John had a drink of water=John had a drink of H₂O
Substitution works, so it's transparent.

John knew he had a drink of water ≠ John knew he had a drink of H₂O
If John does not know water=H₂O, substitution fails.

What's important is to see that putting the issue within the scope of what we know changes how the bits fit together.

Can we say water is necessarily H2O, D2O, HDO and T2O? (Because all of these naturally occurring in nature when analyzing water) — Richard B

Sure. Yep. Fixed to "water is necessarily H₂O, D₂O, HDO or T₂O". As discussed, I'd simplify all this by just stipulating that the "H" in H₂O incudes all the various isotopes.

Or would we say no because I can imagine a possible world where water is just H2O? — Richard B

Only if we reject "Water is H₂O". Taking ☐(water =H₂O) as true limits our access to only those worlds in which water=H₂O.

The issue is simply that of consistency. If water=H₂O then ☐(water=H₂O). If water is not always H₂O, then ~☐(water=H₂O).

SO yes, we can imagine a possible world in which ~☐(water=H₂O), but nevertheless, if (water=H₂O), then ☐(water=H₂O).

Again, a side issue.

Sure. We covered that previously.

Of course it depends on how you use the term "water". It's a side issue. Here we are in effect supposing that the extension of "water" and the extension of H₂O are identical. If you think they are not, then for the purposes of this discussion, pretend that they are. Becasue "Water = H₂O" is being used as an example, and it is the resulting logic that is being discussed.

That is, we could use Kripke's lectern instead, and have the same discussion.

Nice.

So the concern is that at some future date we re-assess "Water is necessarily H₂O" and decide that it is false.

Well, then we would say that water is not necessarily H₂O. That, prior to Cavendish, folk did not use the expression "water is H₂O", quite rightly, and then there was a period were people believed that water was necessarily H₂O, and said things like "Water is necessarily H₂O". But now we know better.

This could all be set out unambiguously using a formal notion. it's be a bit convolute, so I'll leave it.

The salient bit might be the difference between "Water is necessarily H₂O" and "We know that Water is necessarily H₂O". The first is extensionally transparent, the second, extensionally opaque, becasue the sentence "Water is necessarily H₂O" is within the scope of "We know that..."

Talk of real and nominal essences is a bit of a furphy. It's about scope.

Water is necessarily H₂O. However, prior to Cavendish, folk did not use the expression "water is H₂O", and did not know that water was H₂O.

That seems pretty clear. Is there a problem?

So we now agree that the binding of Isaac would be immoral even if he were a consenting adult. Ok.

On a quick look, I'm not seeing much to commend here. Why would I care whether Quine was more like Aristotle or Plato, when Kripke, who is not mentioned in your article, gives a better account anyway?

That Quine's criticism of essentialism was misdirected doesn't much impact Kripke.

If you are going to reject the notion that essentialism is just about necessary truths in possible worlds, then you would best present an account of essence that is at least as useful.

Again, what is an essence, if not a property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists? Pointing us to an article that doesn’t offer a decisive argument for why Kripke’s modal metaphysics is insufficient just doesn't answer that question. Without showing that Kripke’s system fails or that the Aristotelian alternative can do the same explanatory work, it amounts to special pleading. Unless Spade can do the work Kripke does, the conversation will always favour the more robust, explanatory, and precise framework.

Meaning is in your head. — Hanover

Nuh. Instead of worrying about meaning, worry about what folk do. I'm not asking folk to burn their book, just that they not to use it as an excuse for abominations.

Meh. This just looks lazy. "I'll only consider stuff that reinforces the views I already have".

Is wisdom found in the book, or in the conversations and interpretations of the book? The alternate story might be understood as a way of showing how not to misread the story of Issac as advocating extremes of faith.

Would it be ok if Isaac were an adult? — BitconnectCarlos

What do you think? Should we allow the sacrifice of willing, compliant adults?

And what do you think of this? Will you be off to join an exclusive religious community - or are you already a member?

Do you think this an admirable way to live?

Kierkegaard's focus wasn't as much on Isaac's acceptance of his fate as it was on Abraham's pure faith in not resisting or questioning God. — Hanover

This is a reading of the Binding that is told in parallel to reading it as an admonition against human sacrifice. It's the target of much of my argument. In an alternate story, Abraham says to god "This is an evil thing you ask, and I will not do it, even for you", and then god comes clean and says that it was all a test, solving the Euthyphro by showing that god wills what is good, not the good is what god wills.

I read Banno as referencing the Akedah story as he has often done, and equating the institution of sacrifice with murder. — BitconnectCarlos

Pretty much.

, the case I referred to and I've been using throughout the argument is that of Elizabeth Rose Struhs.

You might think that a father trussing up his son and holding a knife to his throat is fine if the child gives consent, but both I and the law disagree.

But will you happily judge a faith sufficient to risk one’s life to save another as good?

If so then there is nothing good or bad necessarily involved in acts of faith qua acts of faith.

So your argument’s reliance on child murder is smoke.

You are avoiding. — Fire Ologist

What are these sentences? Not a syllogism. Yes, we might judge a faith that is sufficient for self sacrifice to be good. And that faith of itself is neither good nor bad is one of the consequences of the argument I presented, and is meant to be contrary to those who insist faith is always a virtue.

So we have agreement on these issues?

Somewhat. The text is a bit too much of a list of disasters, somewhat ordinary.

You didn’t address the more substantive parts. — Fire Ologist

The most substantive part was where you agreed with my general point.

...believing something without good evidence is fraught with peril, and then acting on what is already perilous is reckless, and further, we’ve seen horrible atrocities committed based on such perilous recklessness. — Fire Ologist

That'll do.

Acting without sufficient evidence is a good now. — Fire Ologist

An odd thing to say. A lesser evil, sometimes.

Good and bad things follow from acts of faith, but not

So if both are true, we can’t use good acts or bad acts as some kind of measure of the faith those acts were based on. — Fire Ologist

A non sequitur. I will happily judge that a faith sufficient to murder a child is not a good faith. If you can't do likewise, that's on you. Your argument is invalid.

Well, thanks.

My fourth post here, but not for a while.

But since you showed interest, also reading Norman's The reluctant Beetle, Frankopan's The Earth Transformed, New Scientist How to think about Consciousness (good read, a bit introductory and scientistic), and Pete Brown's coffee table book The ultimate book of blues guitar legends.

I'm using this last as a listening guide, reading a page and listening to the commendations.

Interesting development.

The Nats have split from the liberals.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has confirmed his party won't be re-entering a Coalition agreement with the Liberal Party. — ABC

A waste of my time and yours.

I'm not trying to convert an atheist. — BitconnectCarlos

I didn't think you were, and couldn't care less anyway.


I've really got no idea what you are attempting to do here.

It started with

A few questions for the atheists: — BitconnectCarlos

...which I answered, then a long pause filled with empty posts, now

if we were to start with, e.g., Ezra-Nehemiah and work backwards, when would the atheists start taking issue? — BitconnectCarlos

Have you a point, or are you just trying to running a bible study group for atheists? 'cause I'm not keen.

Fuck the logic, it doesn't qualify as wisdom so why waste time trying to understand it, when all that has ever done is produce faulty interpretations. It's best to leave logic as it is, impossible to understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, then, best you stop posting about logic, don't you think?