Looks like gobbledegook dressed in formal clothing.

So how am I to read f(t)? That f is a function acting on t? Or as a predication? And if it's a predication, what's the addition symbol doing? And how do I read {t,f} - what do the curlies do?

And how does it relate to my post?

No.

Since both f(t) + f(f) = f(t+f) and f(t+f) = {t,f}, then X, a transcendent fact TF transcends itself and thus TF and its transcendence {t,f} reciprocally vary i.e., transcend each other. This is higher-order transcendence_supervenience as determined by the paradoxicality of self-transcendence (a transcendent fact). — ucarr

What is that?

It's not a logical system I recognise, nor is it something that I can locate in Wolfram Mathworld.

Ah.

That: X is accurate.

X rigidly designates the clock, broken or unbroken. That's what allows the ambiguity to be shown.

Perhaps we can jump ahead and re-parse this as

There is a clock, that clock is broken, but S believes (that clock is accurate).

Time does not seem relevant, but if you must include it:

There is a broken clock X and (S believes that X is not broken) — Banno

becomes

At time t, there is a broken clock X and (S believes that X is not broken)

S has an attitude towards the broken clock.

I considered referring to the Dunning-Kruger effect for that post, but it's so cliché.

Fiction is written self-consciously, in that the author understands that what they are writing didn't happen. This is different, in that the author apparently thinks they are writing down what did happen.

It's not bullshit, either, since it is sincere.

Self-deception?

It wouldn't be problematic if @Benj96 had set out to write a poem imagining what it would feel like to be a photon. Indeed, Einstein imagined what it would be like to ride on a photon while developing the Special Theory. But then Einstein did the maths.

It's wanting to be "profound" without doing the work.

Light cannot interact with itself at the speed limit. Because how does one impart action when velocity is unanimously equal? It's like the dog chasing it's tail but never quite reaching it. — Benj96

And yet Interference happens.

There's a few folk hereabouts, including @Benj96, @ucarr, @Gnomon, who seem to think that philosophy consist in doing physics without the maths.

The result is poor physics, and poor philosophy.

Fair enough, Been a long session, Very soggy outside, so no gardening. Think the rain is heading your way.

Yep, wonderful stuff. I support your crusade against the reductionist attitude of the engineers hereabouts. But I don't see the world as a haunted machine, as you seem to.

It used to be the red one. But pick any cup you like.

I'm attempting a philosophical critique of why it doesn't. — Wayfarer

Good. I like Mary Midgley's suggestion that they are simply different topics. But I also like Davidson's idea that what's true in one topic, if it can be translated into another, must be true there as well.

Now there's a genuine philosophical puzzle.

I do believe that there is a real conflict going on, a contest between the materialist attitude and its challengers. That that is what is behind the 'culture wars'. — Wayfarer

Sure. That doesn't mean that the conflict is about anything substantive - so to speak.

I’m careful to explain that I’m not claiming that things go into and out of existence depending on whether they’re being perceived, but that, absent an observer, whatever exists is unintelligible and meaningless as a matter of fact and principle. — Wayfarer

So do we agree that the cup, unobserved in the cupboard, still has a handle? I'm going to take it that we do, that the cup in the cupboard is not the sort of thing that you are talking about as "absent an observer".

Then what is it that is "unintelligible"? Aren't you just saying that saying something requires a sayer? That thinking requires a thinker? Sure, why not.

But you seem to think you are saying something else, in between that the unobserved cup has a handle and that thinking implies a thinker. And here I'm at a loss.

You asked, I answered why the juxtoposition. — schopenhauer1

I'm not seeing that you did provide any such answer. Sorry. Thanks for trying.

Physicalism is monistic - it says that there is nothing other than matter-energy. — Wayfarer

If we instead said that physics talks about matter and energy and stuff like that, we wouldn't be surprised to find that physics tells us little about jealousy and democracy and stuff like that. A different area of study, with different concerns. Folk who claim love is nothing but oxytocin don't have much of a grasp of love.

Ok. I don't see how to respond; I don't see how this relates to what I wrote.

Indeed. Or perhaps de manu?

I will take issue with this. — Wayfarer

Nothing could please me more. This seems to be pivotal:

(Wayfarer's argument) is against the common presumption that 'the world makes mind' - that the mind is a product of or output of what are presumed to be the (purely) physical processes that purportedly drive evolution — Wayfarer

There's your primacy of consciousness.

The demand is that either everything is physical, and mind somehow emerges therefrom; or that everything is mind, and the physical little more than a pattern. What puzzles me is why we feel obligated to phrase the discussion in these terms; why the juxtaposition?


(That juxtaposition, it seems, underpins the Bitbol paper you cite.)

Pretty much. It's trying to talk about stuff about which we cannot talk...

Also, it's where showing (and doing) take over from saying.

...there is no coherent answer... — Janus

Cool. But at times you seem to look for an answer to those questions. It puzzles me, rendering some of my replies snooty. A bad habit of mine.

Yeah, that lecture, but I think his point was to show the audience that he had hands, and thereby that there is stuff in the world.

wanting to know how things are independent of how we routinely perceive them to be. — Janus

You mean, physics?

I'm guessing not. I don't think there is a way to understand your question, Janus.

Amusingly enough, I had written the first part of my last post before @Janus chimed in. Providence.

Yes, I'm assured that Kant's use was innocent, by @Mww and others. But what came next made it into a dog's breakfast, only cleaned up by Russell and Moore. Your innocent use of "Idealism" might give some solace to those who like to eat out of a bowl on the floor. Case in point:

By "real" I mean how could we know whether some conceptual schema or other corresponds to what is independent of human experience and understanding, or how any conceptual schema could do so? — Janus

But I think that Kant's transcendental idealism evades this dichotomy, because Kant acknowledges the harmonious co-existence of both empirical realism and transcendental idealism. — Wayfarer

Yeah, but then to the never-ending joy of philosophy neophytes, unhelpfully mentions the thing-in-itself.

...the real thing? — Janus

Coke?

What do you mean, real? :kiss:

Yes, it's a bit obtuse. So far as I can make sense of it, it seems to suppose that since A derives from B, B cannot derive from A. It forgets about circles, supposing everything to be linear.

And that's a problem with both idealism and materialism, each supposing that it alone has priority.

Something that @Wayfarer sometimes agrees with, when pushed.

Like most materialists, Banno... — Gnomon

How rude.

So Maria is lost?

I think you are claiming idealism but advocating antirealism. But more, for you, the ghost is still haunting the machine. I also think you do this in the most articulate and intelligent way, and that your posts are always worthy of consideration. Of all those here who try to say what cannot be said, you say it better.


Why are there Californian Poppies in the Alps?

I sigh. "You know, we have followed this path each time, only to backtrack when the going gets tough. There are three problems - the puzzle of other people, the fact that we are sometimes wrong, and the inevitability of novelty - each of which points to there being meadows and butterflies and Maria, despite what you have in mind. I think you know that idealism won't cut it."

"Well, I hope so." I scoop up some more berries, and start to pop them in my mouth.

"But you've set me another puzzle: the cutlery might not be where I think I left it. I might turn out to be mistaken about it's location. That'd be a puzzle for someone who understood the word as being created by the mind. If mind creates the world, how could the world ever be different to what the mind supposes - how could one ever be wrong about how things are? In order to be mistaken, there must be a difference between how things are and how one thinks they are - but how could that happen, if everything is in the mind..."

I frown.

"Thats much quieter. Better for a reflective mood." I sit wiping the bright red stains from my hands.

"Of course I can say what it is - it's mountains and poppies and butterflies... we agree on this. The thing is, you started this walk by yourself, and forgot about other people. That's the trouble with idealists - they are all of them closet solipsists."

This last bit causes me to fall into silence, wondering how a solipsist could find themselves in a wardrobe...

"♪♫The hills are alive...♪" echoes around the valley...

"Yes, we know we have a perspective, that our view may be different from that of someone else, so we can take this into account; we can change how we talk about the butterflies and the meadow and the mountains in such a way that we agree as to what is the case; that you, I and Maria von Trap over there see things differently, and yet overwhelmingly we agree, the butterflies are flying East..."

"...so there is something more here than just perspective. Something explains this agreement. Sure, there are minds that make the sentences, and sing the songs, but there is more than just mind here".

"The simplest way to explain the smell of Poppies is to suppose that there are indeed poppies."

I start feeling around for a hatchet...

Did I know it was a picture of him?

Excellent OP.

Interesting in puzzling ways.

SO let's go back to your meadow. I stand facing you. A butterfly flutters between us. You say "See the butterfly flutter from left to right!" I reply "Beautiful! But it went from right to left!"

"Ah," says you, "and from this we see that what is happening in this world is true or false only with reference to the perspective of some observer! For you, it is true that the butterfly went right to left, but for me it is that the butterfly flew left to right!"

But me being Banno, you know I'm going to disagree. "How can something be true for one of us and not for the other?" I ask, scratching my nose. You carefully explain again how truth, the way things are, is dependent on perspective, and that as a result mind is integral to the whole of reality; how we cannot have the "view from nowhere" required for truth to be independent of some point of view.

"Oh." says I. Then I sit quietly for a while, arms folded, staring at the ground, while you glory in the vista.

"If we swapped places, it would be you who says that the butterfly flew right to left, while I would say it flew left to right"

"Yes", you explain patiently, "The truth is dependent on one's perspective, so if we swap perspectives, we swap truths".

"But we agree that the butterfly was flying away from the river and toward the mountain", I finally offer.

"S'pose so", says you, in the hope of shutting me up.

So on we traipse, over the foothills, through the pass to the valley beyond the mountain; all the while, butterflies flitting past us, heading in the same direction.

Over a cup of coffee, I return to the topic. "Yesterday, the butterflies were going towards the mountain. Now, they are going away from the mountain. And yet they are going in the same direction. How can that be?"

"Well," you patiently begin, "both the butterflies and we are heading East, towards the rising sun. Yesterday the mountain was before us, and now it is behind us".

"Oh. So yesterday the butterfly was heading East, and today it is still heading East, and this is a way of saying which way the butterfly is heading?"

"Yes", you agree, thinking to yourself that next time you might choose a different companion.

"Yesterday we disagreed that the butterfly was heading left to right or right to left, and that this was because we each have a different perspective. But even though we had different perspectives, we agreed that for you it was left to right, while for me it was right to left - that if we swapped places, we would also swap perspectives. We agreed that the butterfly was heading towards the mountain. And now, even though the butterfly is heading away from the mountain, we agree that it is heading East. Is that right?" I puzzle.

"Yes!", your disinterest starting to show.

"So hasn't it been the case that the Butterfly was always heading East, regardless of our perspective? Isn't this a way of describing the situation that removes the need to give the perspective of the observer? And if that is so, then perspective is not an attribute of the world, but of how we say things about the world. We can rephrase things in ways that do not depend on where we are standing...."

Taking a breath, I continue "We started with butterflies moving left and right, but found ourselves disagreeing; then we said the butterflies were flying towards the mountain, but after we crossed the pass found that they are flying away from the mountain. Then we said that they are flying East. Each time, our view became broader, and where we were standing became less important. Sure, I can't talk about taking a point of view from nowhere, but it makes sense to try to talk about things in such a way that it doesn't matter were I am standing. Not a point of view from nowhere, but a point of view from anywhere. We can set out some truths in such a general way that we can agree, and it doesn't matter where we are standing. And if we do that, our personal perspective becomes irrelevant."

How do you respond?

Show me. — creativesoul

Show what?

There's an ambiguity here that can be expounded by getting the scope clear. It might be

There is a broken clock X and (S believes that X is not broken)

Do you see a problem with that?

Or it might be that

There is a broken clock X and S believes that (X is broken and not broken)

S is irrational or some such.

Glad to see you changing your claims in response to the critique hereabouts.

Ok, so the Jupiter example was at least rhetorically a poor choice, since it led us off on a side line.

Here's what I would defend:

• Not all our beliefs are explicit
• Beliefs are propositional attitudes, and as such can be put in the form: M believes that p for some proposition p and some believer M.

As for the Jupiter example, I erred. It's at least missing one premise - that creativesoul is rational, and so has consistent beliefs. I didn't think that worth doubting.

So we have
Creativesoul believes
{

• Banno is in Australia
• Australia is not in orbit around Jupiter
• therefore, Banno is not in orbit around Jupiter.

}

And it may have indeed been true that

Creativesoul believes
{

• Banno is in Australia
• Australia is not in orbit around Jupiter
• Banno is in orbit around Jupiter.

}
provided that Creativesoul is allowed inconsistent beliefs.

Thanks for urging the correction.

And this counts somehow against treating beliefs as propositional attitudes? How?

You're trying to make a point that is something to do with de re and de dicto interpretations? Or substitution?

Sure, substitution into such contexts is illicit. Substitution within the context, not so much.

See my recent stuff on Gettier — creativesoul

Not without a link.

What?

I place considerable value on bivalence. I'm not claiming "belief statements are not bivalent." — creativesoul

Ok, so no antirealism towards belief. Good.

Then I don't understand your use of "belief". But we knew that.

Because you perhaps believe that I am in Australia, and hence that I am on Earth, and hence that I am not in orbit around Jupiter. Or are we not to make such deductions?

"The infant believes there is a dummy" is a statement of the infant's belief. All beliefs can be put into the form "M believes that p". This, I think, is merely a statement of the grammatical structure of belief.

Again, the core function of attributing beliefs is to explain actions. That the infant cannot indulge in such explanations is irrelevant.

I was looking for that:

The picture theory is abandoned. — Fooloso4

which chimes with this:

This and the text thereabouts lead me to suppose that the picture theory of meaning is itself being rejected here. — Banno

...which you appeared to be rejecting, here: ; especially:

Despite significant changes the Tractarian theme of seeing and saying are still at work — Fooloso4

which it seems I had misunderstood...

All by way of clarification; thanks.

Please show me where I denied "the existence of certain things posited by science". — Gnomon

You said that potential energy is not real.

Yet physics uses it in it's calculations.

You then bend over backwards to try to explain how it is that physics makes use of something that does not exist.

All of which leads me to think you have gone astray somewhere.

Specific enough?

For my part, I, and I think most physicists, think that potential energy is real, and have no qualms about it existing. Hence it seems that your "In Science, what is Real & Physical & Actual is what is not Ideal or Imaginary or merely Potential" is incorrect.

If "the slab" is considered as a concept that exists in the mind... — RussellA

The slab does not exist only in the mind, nor only in the world. You seem stuck on this false dichotomy.