Suppose you are being challenged to explain how you arrived at some belief, or formed some intention, after some episode of deliberation. The how question usually refers to the justification of your belief, or decision, and aims at probing the cogency and soundness of your justificatory argument. The probe, or challenge, can be conducted (as well as your defense) in complete abstraction of the underlying implementation of your cognitive abilities. — Pierre-Normand

Is this a difference that contradicts determinism?

If someone asks me how I beat some opponent at some computer game, I can describe it in such terms as predicting their moves, using attacks that they’re weak against, etc., or I can describe it as pressing the right buttons at the right times. Your approach to free will seems similar to the first kind of explanation and the determinist’s approach seems similar to the second kind of explanation. But they’re not at odds. They’re just different ways of talking.

So I would think that if you accept the underlying determinism then your position is compatibilist, not libertarian.

Is there a difference between these two sentences?

1. A triangle is a 3-sided shape
2. "Triangle" means "3-sided shape"

Obviously there's a use-mention distinction, but is that distinction relevant here?

1) would be considered an analytic sentence but wouldn't 2) be considered a synthetic sentence? And I think a case could be made that 1) and 2) mean mostly the same thing. Would it then follow that 1) is synthetic and that 2) is analytic? Or perhaps that the analytic/synthetic distinction isn't a significant one?

Or if 2) is in fact an analytic sentence, is it not also a posteriori? Something Kant considered a contradiction?

So we have a number of different sentences:

1. A triangle is a 3-sided polygon
2. "Triangle" means "3-sided polygon"
3. Joe Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States
4. It is raining

Some make a distinction between a priori truths (1), and a posteriori truths (2, 3, 4), and others make a distinction between constant truths (1, 3) and non-constant truths (2, 4).

Is there some significance to these distinctions?

What if I distinguish between truths about the weather and truths about things that aren't the weather?

Then what about a sentence such as "Joe Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States"?

The difference between such sentences is that in one the truth value of it can change such as the sky is blue. In others it remains constant and never changes such as all triangles have 3 sides. — invicta

Is there a difference between these two sentences?

1. A triangle is a 3-sided polygon
2. "Triangle" means "3-sided polygon"

The difference between such sentences is that in one the truth value of it can change such as the sky is blue. In others it remains constant and never changes such as all triangles have 3 sides. — invicta

Isn't that exactly what I said? Some sentences are always true and some aren't.

You claim that there is only one sort of truth, well I claim that there are two. Constant truth which never changes night or day and the variable type that changes the colour of the sky night or day. — invicta

Are you just saying that there are some sentences that are always true and some sentences that aren't?

So Chomsky's not wrong to say that there's no significant difference is he? — Isaac

He didn't say that. He said that there's no fundamental difference. And on that I think his recent remarks on the Republican party suggest that he's changed his mind.

It's an objective assessment of the number of people affected. — Isaac

You've just said that more people are affected by X than by Y. There's no "objective measure" for how many people must be affected by something for that thing to matter. I say it matters that Republicans are restricting abortion rights, and this policy is one area in which there is a significant difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Abortion policy is a complete irrelevance when it comes to the major issues civilisation faces. — Isaac

Well that's a very selfish outlook.

You just seem to be arguing that because the differences between Republicans and Democrats don't affect you then they're not significant. I disagree.

Wealth disparity isn't the only measure of the differences between political parties.

The latter are some actual laws and the former are, as yet, empty promises. — Isaac

They're not empty promises.

Blue states have been preparing to become abortion safe havens

So far in 2022, at least nine Democrat-controlled legislatures have passed legislation affirming that abortion is a legal right, protecting those who seek abortions and perform them, and expanding access to the procedure, sometimes using considerable public funding.

...

16 states and Washington, DC, have laws that protect abortion rights, as of May 1.

...

Other measures to protect abortion rights have passed at least one chamber in several states, but actually enacting them may be difficult. In Washington state, for instance, abortion rights are protected under the law, and lawmakers have considered an amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. But Democrats don’t have a supermajority in either chamber of the state legislature, and state law requires a two-thirds majority to put an amendment on the ballot.

Democrats are doing what they can to protect abortion rights, but where they don't have enough votes the Republicans' anti-abortion policy is a roadblock.

The argument was about how significant they are and I see no one addressing that beyond just declaring them to be. — Isaac

You don't see a significant difference between Democrats wanting to codify abortion rights in law and Republicans passing laws against abortion that don't even allow for exceptions for rape or incest, or when it's a pregnant 10 year old?

At least 11 US states – including Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas – have passed legislation that bans abortion without any such exceptions. Where Republicans once believed that absolute bans were unpalatable and “toxic” with voters, the party’s legislators have now adopted the language once promoted by the most extreme anti-abortion activists in the country who say any such exceptions are “prejudice against children conceived in rape and incest”.

A pre-teen girl was denied abortion in the US state of Texas in a case that blatantly highlights the ill aftereffects of SCOTUS’ decision to scrap federal abortion rights. The 10-year-old, hailing from Ohio, was reported to be six weeks and three days pregnant, as reported by The Hill. According to Texas state law, females cannot get a fetus aborted after its cardiac activities begin, around six weeks.

As the OP mentions Chomsky's view in 2008, maybe it's worth considering his more recent view.

Chomsky: Republican Party 'most dangerous organisation on earth' (2017)

Noam Chomsky: The GOP Is a “Gang of Radical Sadists” (2021)

Noam Chomsky Says GOP 'Not a Political Party' but a 'Radical Insurgency' (2022)

I suspect he's changed his mind in 14 years.

So the measure of significance is "Michael says so"? — Isaac

No, I say so because there is a significant difference.

I think it would be childish to suggest that Chomsky literally meant that the two parties were identical in every way. He was obviously making the point that they weren't significantly different. So a counter-argument has to contain measures of significance, not merely the presence of differences. — Isaac

They're significantly different on welfare, healthcare, guns, abortion, and LGBT issues.

When it comes to welfare, healthcare, guns, abortion, and LGBT issues, there is a huge difference between Democrats and Republicans, and so it’s overly simplistic to say that because they’re both pro-business that it’s a one party state.

Nevertheless Beetles do matter when it comes to the perspectival and idiosyncratic aspects of language that are relative to each individual who must individually adapt their mother tongue in a bespoke inferential fashion to match their own worlds; such beetles are necessary, but lie beyond the aperspectival limitations of social norms and communication. — sime

i.e. an idiolect.

How have (or could) you establish “my private experience of apple is different to yours”? — Richard B

Individual differences in visual science: What can be learned and what is good experimental practice?

We all pass out our lives in private perceptual worlds. The differences in our sensory and perceptual experiences often go unnoticed until there emerges a variation (such as ‘The Dress’) that is large enough to generate different descriptions in the coarse coinage of our shared language. In this essay, we illustrate how individual differences contribute to a richer understanding of visual perception, but we also indicate some potential pitfalls that face the investigator who ventures into the field.

But why do you believe in the apple in the first place ? — plaque flag

Well, this is where my actual beliefs differ from the more limited argument I've been making.

I believe in the existence of objects other than myself and that these objects have a causal effect on my experience. I am unsure as to whether or not I can say anything more about these objects than this, and so unsure as to whether or not I am something of a transcendental idealist à la Kant. Tentatively, I am a scientific realist. I think that something like the Standard Model (or string theory) might describe what Kant would call "noumena".

Given that the entities described by our scientific theories are unlike the entities that appear to us, I do not think it correct to say that the everyday objects we are familiar with (chairs and tables and apples) are reducible to the entities described by our scientific theories. On this account I consider myself something of an antirealist (with respect to everyday objects).

So strictly speaking it's not that I believe in the existence of a perception-independent apple that causes me to see a particular shape and colour but that I believe in the existence of perception-independent entities that cause me to see a red, round apple, and that our talk of these perception-independent entities as being the red, round apple is a pragmatic narrative à la fictionalism.

As to why I believe in the existence of objects other than myself, I suppose it's a parsimonious explanation for the occurrence and regularity of conscious experience. It seems to be more reasonable than solipsism.

How can the illusion, trapped in the brain, be of something red at a distance ? — plaque flag

How does phantom limb syndrome work? I don't know how it happens, I just know that it happens.

Or as a more ordinary example, there is an apparent depth in flat images, e.g when watching TV. Various pixels on a screen being lit up in the right way creates the illusion of one person being behind another. This is even more evident in the case of "3D" films. It seems as if things are reaching out of the screen, but they're not.

Even if that redness is causally connected to the brain, I don't see why you need to put it in the brain.. — plaque flag

It's a characteristic of conscious experience, and conscious experience doesn't extend beyond the brain. Unless you want to argue for some non-physical mind that has some connection to the brain but ultimately reaches beyond it and out into the world?

There's something iffy here. What is this illusion of conscious experience ? — plaque flag

The characteristics of conscious experience create the illusion that they extend beyond the body. It seems as if the red colour I see a property of some external world stimulus, but it isn't. It seems as if my amputated arm is still there and hurting, but it isn't.

Why is conscious experience not real ? — plaque flag

It is real.

I would still say that the apple is red. — plaque flag

If this means “the apple looks red” or “the apple appears red” then I agree.

But the concept red tends to be applied to the objects — plaque flag

Applied wrongly. It’s the naive realist fallacy. The characteristics of conscious experience are falsely projected onto external stimuli. Much like in the case of phantom limb syndrome where a particular feeling is falsely projected onto an empty area of space. This is the illusion of conscious experience. It seems as if it extends beyond the body, which is physically impossible.

I don't see a problem with reference, but the reference is not the meaning. — plaque flag

My point from the start has only been that words like "red", "sweet", and "pain" refer to some characteristic of conscious experience, not to some property of the apple or fire.

The key thing is that concepts of internal entities are still public norms. — plaque flag

The key thing is when the person with synesthesia talks about numbers having colours he's referring to some characteristic of his conscious experience, i.e. his neurological response to certain stimulation.

I think we can include an entity like synesthesia, but its meaning will be the role it plays in claims in inferences. — plaque flag

Synesthesia is the perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway, e.g. seeing colours when sound waves stimulate the chochlea.

This common sense, scientific understanding is far more believable than the Wittgensteinian account you're pushing.

How does a heretic decide that God is love or tolerates incest ? We can postulate causes, and we'll need premises and inferences to do so. — plaque flag

I'll rephrase it.

If Wittgenstein is right then the person with synesthesia wouldn't describe numbers as having colours, given that his language community doesn't use colour vocabulary that way.

The person with synesthesia does describe numbers as having colours.

Therefore, Wittgenstein is wrong.

I think Wittgenstein has already made a good case against that kind of representationism. — plaque flag

Well, I think he didn't. As I asked above, how does the person with synesthesia come to describe numbers as having colours, given that nobody else in his language community uses colour vocabulary that way?

Yes !

So it's no single inference that gives 'disgusting' its meaning. It's all possible inferences involving claims involving 'disgusting.' — plaque flag

I think you missed the point. There's no inference that gives "disgusting" it's meaning. The meaning of "the apple tastes disgusting" has nothing to do with whether or not Suzy throws the apple out of the car.

OK, but I think that these two mean different things:

1. Suzy thought the apple tasted disgusting
2. Suzy threw the apple out of the car

We should be able to make sense of the meaning of 1) without reference to 2). Especially as there are any number of reasons that can explain 2):

3. Suzy thought the apple smelled disgusting so she threw it out of the car
4. Suzy thought the apple felt disgusting so she threw it out of the car
5. Suzy thought the apple looked disgusting so she threw it out of the car
6. Suzy is sexually aroused by littering so she threw the apple out of the car

Or even:

7. Suzy thought the apple tasted disgusting but she doesn't like to litter so she didn't throw it out of the car

How an apple tastes (or smells or looks) to Suzy is one thing, and her throwing it out of the car is a different thing entirely.

And I would say that how an apple tastes (or smells or looks) to Suzy concerns what's going on in her head (specifically, with her brain).

I say instead that it gets its meaning inferentially. 'Suzy thought the apple tasted disgusting, so she threw it out of the car.' — plaque flag

What does the word "disgusting" mean in the sentence "Suzy thought the apple tasted disgusting, so she threw it out of the car"?

Saying the apples look red sounds to me like dualism, as if one peels off the redness and leaves the real apple behind. — plaque flag

It's no different to saying that apples taste sweet.

I don't think of words like 'sweet' getting their meaning from this or that quale. Instead concepts are norms — plaque flag

Then how are we able to disagree on how an apple tastes?

And how does the person with synesthesia come to describe numbers as having colours, given that nobody else in his language community uses colour vocabulary that way?

But it's the world that's seen and not an image of the world. — plaque flag

I think the focus on sight is a detriment to the discussion. So forget sight for the moment and consider the other senses. It's fine to say that we taste apples, but it's also correct to say that the tastes we taste are not properties of the apple. Tastes are a neurological response to stimulation of the gustatory cells by the chemicals in the apple. We might want to talk about apples having a taste even when not being tasted, but that is properly interpreted in the counterfactual sense of what it would taste like were we to taste it, not in the sense that it has in its own right some material property which is a property of taste. And the claim that there is a right or wrong way for an apple to taste is false. It's not right that sugar tastes sweet. It's just the case that, given the way the human body is, sugar tastes sweet to most humans in most situations. To a different organism (or a human with an uncommon body) sugar might not taste sweet, and that is no more or less correct.

The same with how an apple smells, and how an apples a feels, and how an apple sounds (were it to make a noise).

And the same with how an apple looks. Sight isn't special. The visual characteristics of an apple (such as colour) are a neurological response to stimulation of the photoreceptor cells by light, not properties of the apple. It's not right that apples look red (or green, depending on the apple). It's just the case that, given the way the human body is, apples look red to most humans in most situations. To a different organism (or a human with an uncommon body) apples might not look red, and that is no more or less correct.

I think it's much safer to claim that we could not induce seeing red for the first time with someone who was in the complete dark, had never seen red before, using only the means you're suggesting are required. — creativesoul

Why not? If electromagnetic radiation stimulating the rods and cones in someone's eyes can cause them to see red for the first time then why can't we (with a sufficiently advanced technology) do this artificially? Is there something unique about the electrical signals sent by the photoreceptors such that we cannot in principle replicate them?

In fact we're trying to do exactly that to enable the blind to see.

Okay. Then seeing red does require things outside the head. — creativesoul

It doesn't require it. It's just how it usually works. It only requires the activation of the appropriate parts of the occipital lobe.

The position you're arguing for seems to completely neglect all the events that lead up to the ability to reactivate the biological machinery. — creativesoul

No it doesn't. I accept that we (usually) see red in response to electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 700nm stimulating the rods and cones in our eyes, which then send signals which are processed by the occipital lobe. I just reject the claim that the red we see is a property of apples. Like the pain we feel, the red we see is "in the head". It's (usually) a response to things outside us, nothing more.

I'm just baffled by the claim that seeing colours and shapes does not require anything outside the head. — creativesoul

Does feeling pain require something outside the head?

So, the very first time someone sees red, it does not require anything not in the head? — creativesoul

It requires the appropriate areas of the occipital lobe to be activated which does not in principle require anything outside the head (notwithstanding the fact that the brain isn't an isolated system and energy has to come from somwhere).

In fact on this point you might want to look into the notion of Boltzmann brains.

Does it require having seen red before? — creativesoul

No, otherwise nobody could have ever seen red in the first place. At some point in my life I saw red for the first time.