As I said above we make the choice to come here, we actually agree to certain things before we come here. Part of this agreement includes the suppression of many of our memories, — Sam26

According to esoteric traditions like Gnosticism, Hermeticism or Neoplatonism our loss of memory of who we are or of where we come from is basically a disease. A result of an ancient spiritual fall.

That's just not true. Take an apple out of an apple pie:It's still an apple despite it's no longer being a part of an apple pie. The apple pie is still an apple pie as well. — creativesoul

Sure, for all practical purposes it is still the same apple. But strictly speaking, by taking the apple out of the apple pie something has changed in the apple: its relations to other things have changed and so it is now different from other things in a different way than when it was in the apple pie. But as I said, this change is negligible for all practical purposes.

No. Differences do not constitute relations. To quite the contrary, relations are existentially dependent upon different things. — creativesoul

There would be no relations between things without things, but also there would be no things without relations between them. Things and relations depend on each other; you cannot have one without the other.

"The (apparent) variety is merely different names and forms of consciousness."

What I'm trying to get at in this thread is the viability of the above sentence. An elephant, a rock, and a memory of childhood ... can they all be reduced to being merely different names and forms of the same thing, consciousness? Or do objects possess an ultimate (essential) uniqueness that goes beyond this underlying sameness? — rachMiel

Every two objects have some identical properties and some different properties; in this sense they are both same and different but never identical (meaning that they differ in at least one property, otherwise they would not be two objects but one).

If you are looking for the most general (universal) property, a property of every object, then we can call this property "objectness", "identity", "existence", or "logical consistency". Like any property, this property is a non-spatiotemporal, abstract, general object that is "instantiated" in other objects. These other objects can be properties (meaning that they themselves are instantiated in other objects) or concrete objects (meaning that they are not instantiated in other objects). The instantiation relation seems to be a primitive (unanalyzable) relation, like when a general triangle is instantiated in a particular triangle. It is also known as "exemplification"; it is a kind of manifestation or expression.

Or maybe you are not looking for the most general property but for the smallest objects that compose all other objects or for the biggest object that is composed of all other objects ("composition" is a different relation than "instantiation" but I think it is equally primitive). First, it is not clear whether there exists a smallest or biggest object, as composition might go on infinitely in both up and down directions, unless it would be logically inconsistent (which we may never know due to Godel's second incompleteness theorem, if I'm not mistaken). Second, in composition there seems to be a particular kind of similarity between a part and a whole, in that the identities (or "essences") of the parts are somehow subsumed into the identity of a single whole, or differentiated from the whole.

See the below

The fundamental parts must exist in their entirety even when they are not in the combination of the thing being reduced. — creativesoul — Wayfarer

One could argue that once the parts cease being the parts of a particular whole, they are no longer the same objects they used to be; they stopped existing when the whole they composed stopped existing. That's because their relations to other objects have changed, and when an object's relations change, its identity changes too. An object's identity is inseparable from how the object is different from other objects and these differences constitute the relations of the object to other objects.

But if the parts don't change "too much" after the dissolution of the whole they composed, they can be regarded, "for practical purposes", as the same objects they used to be.

There’s an analogy in holograms - take a holographic image and divide it, and instead of two pieces with half the image in each, you end up with two smaller [and lower-res] pieces of the same image. Very important principle. — Wayfarer

Well, the pieces have a lower resolution than the original image so they are clearly not identical to the original image.

How deep/close is the relationship between an object and its most fundamental building block? — rachMiel

A whole is not identical to any of its parts. A whole and its part are two different objects. A whole is a collection of its parts.

To what extent can one reduce the 'essence' of an object to that of its fundamental parts?

(To paraphrase a well-known metaphor:) Let's say you have three solid gold rings. One is an old family heirloom, handed down through five generations. One is a simple flat band sold by a jewelry chain store. One is a striking piece of wild ring art made by a local craftsman.

To what extent are these three rings all just (different shapes of) gold? — rachMiel

If by 'essence' you mean 'material', you can say fairly accurately that the 'essence' of the gold rings is the same as the 'essence' of the pieces of gold they consist of. Note however that gold is not a fundamental 'essence' because if you broke a gold atom into its constituent subatomic particles, these would not have the 'essence' of gold.

My personal opinion is that possible realities branching out and diverging from the actual world kind of fade off and become meaningless. Take it for what's that worth, just an opinion. — Posty McPostface

Ok, that's a common intuitive view although upon reflection I fail to see why a particular possible world should be more real than others, or what it would even mean...

Just think of it as an observer that obtains reality from what they observe, the world. Yeah, it's getting mystical and solipsistic here. — Posty McPostface

Was Wittgenstein a modal realist like David Lewis, that is, did he believe that all possible worlds are just as real as the actual one and the actual one is simply the possible world in which we happen to live? I see that in the article you linked, reality is identified with the totality of all possible worlds (the logical space).

I believe the answer is presented in the above quote from the website you referenced. I see now that I'm going to have to delve into Stenius' interpretation of the Tractatus. Dang... — Posty McPostface

Well, it just says that the actual world is represented by a designated point in logical space. But why is this point designated?

http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/wolniewicz1.html — Posty McPostface

I see that Wittgenstein regards only one possible world as actual. Does he also explain what makes a possible world actual?

Yes, but couldn’t something also be indescribable by or to humans just because humans, by their own limitations, can’t describe it? — Michael Ossipoff

Sure, but I meant indescribable in principle.

…but a description of its relations, if it has them, and if they’re describable, would count as a partial description of it. — Michael Ossipoff

The description of a thing's relations to other things could be regarded as a partial description of the thing but it will never be complete because the thing must be something above and beyond its relations to other things; otherwise there would be nothing that would stand in those relations and thus there would be no relations either.

True. We know ourselves directly, first-hand. But there’s a little that can be said about us, about Consciousness, with respect to the realm of the describable, and so we aren’t completely indescribable. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, for example you can describe red color (as a sensation) by referring to a tomato, or to the electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength, or to a certain pattern of neuronal firings, but these descriptions will always leave out what red color is in itself. A person who is congenitally blind will not know from these descriptions what red color is in itself; they will only learn about relations of red color to tomatoes, electromagnetic radiation or neuronal firings.

There may well be things about us that are quite indescribable and unknowable to us. But I feel that there should be an effort to describe as much as possible, before assuming indescribability. — Michael Ossipoff

By "unknowable" (to us) I would regard things that cannot be part of our consciousness. These things may even be parts of our own bodies but they are not part of our consciousness - for example, red blood cells. We may observe these things (for example red blood cells under a miscroscope) and thus become conscious of them but strictly speaking, all we can be conscious of is our own consciousness, and when we observe red blood cells we are conscious of the representation of red blood cells in our consciousness, not of the red blood cells themselves. Still, for reasons related to evolutionary fitness, there is probably some significant similarity between a thing outside our consciousness and its representation inside our consciousness, so in this sense we may partially know also things that are outside our consciousness.

Can you use the word "philosophy" for matters unknowable, un-assertable, un-arguable and indescribable? — Michael Ossipoff

"Indescribable" means "non-relational", because every description of something is a presentation of this something in relations to other somethings ("it has such and such properties, such and such parts etc."). The something itself that stands in these relations is necessarily non-relational (different from its relations) and therefore indescribable. However, it doesn't mean that it is unknowable. We know many somethings even though they are indescribable: the somethings that make up our own consciousness.

I agree that process metaphysics can be subsumed in substance metaphysics by treating spacetime as a persistent/timeless substance and events as parts of this substance and thus as substances too.

The most general basis of metaphysics should be "something" (as opposed to nothing) and then we may try to define what this "something" is. In my view, every intelligible something should be what it is and should not be what it is not; in other words, it should be identical to itself and different from other somethings. By being identical to itself, it must be something (as opposed to nothing) in itself; and by being different from other somethings, it must stand in relations to other somethings.

The most general kind of relation between two somethings is "difference" (or "similarity"), which means that the two somethings have certain identical properties as well as certain different properties. This automatically establishes two more general kinds of relation (which are simultaneously specific instances of the "difference" relation): "instantiation", which is the relation between a property and its instance (both the property and its instance being somethings), and "composition", which is the relation between something and the collection (whole) of which it is a part (the collection being a something too).

That's it. The building blocks of reality are these somethings with the relations between them. Note that there is no mention of (topological) space or time. Space and time are non-fundamental somethings that can be composed from spaceless and timeless somethings.

Some philosophers identify "states of affairs" with facts. Others (I presume Wittgenstein among them) seem to treat "states of affairs" as properties or propositions (propositions themselves can be seen as a kind of property), and in that case a fact obtaining from a state of affairs is an instance of a property.

When are we going to get over it? — Marcus de Brun

I agree with Schopenhauer that our supposedly free acts are ultimately determined by factors that determine our desires, needs and intentions, and we cannot control these factors because we are not even conscious of them.

Now, the question is why some people still refuse to acknowledge this. Maybe that's because there is a resistance in people to widen their views, and in this case you must widen your view in order to include those factors that are behind our desires, needs or intentions. There is probably an evolutionary pressure not to open your mind too much because focusing on the big picture makes you lose sight of the details, in this case the practical everyday details, which paralyzes you and decreases your chances of survival and reproduction.

Of course, having your mind too closed has its disadvantages too, so one needs to be flexible in widening and narrowing one's perspective depending on the situation.

But, if the idea is that we are going to be able to explain the mind in terms of representational states, don't we end up in a circle, since "representation" is not a two-way relation between a representer and a representee, but a three-way relation: one thing represents another thing to or for some third thing, and that third thing is always something concsious — jkg20

Representation is a part of the mind. Representation is conscious.

One hard question that someone asked me was, "And why is your life-experience possibility-story self-consistent? What keeps it self-consistent?"

I'd been a bit troubled about that too. But I think that can be answered by saying that a person's life-experience possibility-story consists of a system of abstract if-then facts, and there's no such thing as mutually inconsistent or contradictory facts. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, inconsistent facts don't exist.

Sure, within a particular logical system, I don't think we disagree on anything. — Michael Ossipoff

I recently had an argument in another thread about ontological relevance of paraconsistent logic. Paraconsistent logic admits contradictory objects - objects that are not what they are, or that don't have the properties they have - but that's just language games to me and even such language games must be played on some consistent basis, otherwise they would invalidate all claims they make.

Sure, but those objects needn't be claimed to exist, other than in the sense of not being contradictorily or inconsistently defined. — Michael Ossipoff

I don't require more than non-contradiction for existence. (But it is not as simple as it may seem, because since there can be no inconsistency in reality, every existing object must be defined consistently with all other objects.)

Physical reality and metaphysical reality can be explained by a system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals. The hypothetical premises and conclusions of the if-then facts are about hypothetical objects. — Michael Ossipoff

But the objects (hypothetical or whatever) are not relations, at least not all of them. That's why I'm saying that in addition to relations there must also be "stuff" (non-relation) that stands in those relations.

You're the last person here with whom I expected to disagsre about Eliminative Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism vs Materialism, because I thought we agreed on that matter, in conversations around the time when I first joined this forum. — Michael Ossipoff

We share the liberal metaphysical view that all possibilities constitute reality, which goes far beyond not only materialism but also religions. But since I've been in this forum I have always claimed that these possibilities include not only relations but also objects that are not relations.

The results are pre-figured by the premises, so the only real qualitative meaning is in the premises. — Joshs

Well, there is a difference between being conscious of premises and being conscious of their implications. The former consciousness seems relatively general and vague while the latter more specific. Similarly, a deterministic unfolding of a universe may be a substantive change. But anyway, our world is not completely deterministic; there is also quantum-mechanical indeterminism that precludes exact derivation of future events from the past.

For instance, if you extend a thing in time, you are not producing a qualitative transformation, just a quantitative one. — Joshs

Not sure I understand this. A thing that is not extended in time is a different thing than a thing that is extended in time and that consists of things that are not extended in time. Different things have a different intrinsic identity (quality).

Qualitaitive has to do with what a thing means intrinsically. — Joshs

Yes, it is what the thing is in itself, rather than its relations to other things.

Notice that the kind of thinking that defines objects and their attributes is an atomistic one, starting from the parts and then to the whole, but there is another kind of thinking that begins always from the whole and the parts emerge from it. — Joshs

If you can coherently describe what it means that a whole "emerges" from parts or parts "emerge" from a whole, I have no problem with either of these descriptions.

What it does is kill any chance at understanding the origin of the problem, which is separating the world into relations and non-relations. — Joshs

Why would it be a problem? If there are two things with certain properties then there are certain relations between those things based on those properties. Seems perfectly natural to me.

You have to learn to translate your notion of a thing into a process of change before you can see the fundamental basis of experienced reality as already 'affective' — Joshs

No problem. A process is a thing extended in time. This thing consists of shorter processes and ultimately of things that are not extended in time at all (it is a sequence of these things).

If all Slitheytoves are (or were) brillig, and all Jaberwockeys are (or were) Slitheytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are (or would be) brillig.

That if-then fact about hypotheticals is true, even if there aren't any Slitheyitoves or Jaberwockeys. — Michael Ossipoff

Unless the objects you have named "Slitheytoves", "brillig" etc. are inconsistently defined they exist. They exist in the most general sense of "exist", which means "be consistent".

There are abstract if-then facts. Who says there has to be concrete, objectively-existent objects and "stuff" for them to be about? — Michael Ossipoff

So what are the if-then facts about? About "hypothetical" objects rather than about "objectively-existent" objects? If so, what is the difference between "hypothetical" and "objectively-existent"?

Of course not all of Reality is knowable, describable, discussable, But it isn't necessary to posit the unknowability and indeterminacy at the metaphysical and physical levels. — Michael Ossipoff

The problem is that only relations are describable, but if there are relations then there must also be objects between which those relations are. Those objects can't be nothing because relations between nothings would be absurd.

But even if those objects are indescribable that doesn't necessarily mean they are unknowable. It appears that we can know some of those objects directly simply by being them - they are the stuff we are made of. And others we may know at least to some extent indirectly, by interacting with them and thus mapping some of their properties via causal relations into ourselves, that is, creating representations of them in ourselves, and then knowing these representations.

The hard problem, of course, is how to reconcile subjective experience with an objective world of causal processes. — Joshs

There is a metaphysical view called Russellian monism according to which physics and mathematics only describe relations (including causal relations) but relations cannot exist without "things" that stand in those relations. The "things" are not relations or structures of relations and therefore they are also non-mathematical and indescribable. Their indescribability is due to the fact that every description is based on relations - for example, if you want to describe a car, you can do so by referring to its properties or to its parts, that is, by presenting the car in relations to other things than the car itself (various properties or parts); but the car itself is a thing, not its relations to other things. The "essence" of the car is indescribable, just as the "essence" of (the experience of) red color is indescribable even though you can describe red by referring to tomatoes, blood, a specific range of fequencies of electromagnetic radiation and whatnot.

This view solves the hard problem of consciousness by killing two birds with one stone: it shows why there are indescribable (ineffable) things such as qualia in addition to mathematically or verbally describable relations, and why these indescribable things are related to other things, like qualia are related to neural processes (neural correlates of consciousness).

However, if you want to regard all indescribable things as qualia (consciousness) you should at least differentiate the level or intensity of consciousness, because some things are apparently more conscious than others (humans are more conscious than flowers or rocks).

The issue I'm thinking about with the HOM experiment is this. Suppose we name the two photons that are measured at the end of the experiment P1 and P2. Can P1 be identified with the photon that was originally above (or, else, below) the beam splitter? — Andrew M

Well, since the two photons have no measurable differentiating property at the end of the experiment, not even a different position in physical space, we cannot find out which one was above the beam splitter at the beginning of the experiment and which one was below the beam splitter.

We might at least measure (if it is technologically feasible) whether their frequency didn't temporarily change during the experiment, to rule out that they temporarily merged into one photon (which would manifest as temporary doubling of frequency, since total energy should be conserved). If they merged into one photon and then separated again it seems that their identities were terminated at the merger and new photons came into existence at the subsequent separation. If there was no merger into one photon then the identity of the particles was preserved but since they have no measurable differentiating property at the end of the experiment we can no longer say which one is which.

That doesn't make sense. If, as you have said, that logic is fundamental to reality there is no possible situation where disjunction introduction is invalid. — MindForged

That's right. But there is also no possible situation where disjunction introduction is valid and invalid. Your contradiction referred to that situation.

Speaking of "situations"/states of affairs in this way is a mistake. They are not the same things as propositions. — MindForged

A situation/arrangement/proposition may be true in some possible world and false in another. And in the world in which it is true it is a fact. I assume that by "state of affairs" you mean a fact, and that is indeed different from situation/arrangement/proposition.

You already said that you believe logic is fundamental to reality in your first post, on the first page. So this precludes you from dealing with possible worlds where different inference rules hold. — MindForged

Unless an axiom itself is self-contradictory (e.g.: "There is a circle that is not a circle"), there is no reason to prefer the axiom or its negation in ontology. They are both true but not in the same possible world (because if they were true in the same possible world they would constitute a contradiction).

A proposition is distinct from a state of affairs, so you can have a proposition (which is an object) that is a contradiction, yet that doesn't entail there is some state of affairs (or a possible state of affairs) which corresponds to the contradictory proposition. — MindForged

I agree that a proposition is distinct from a fact (state of affairs) and that a proposition is an object, but I don't think that a contradictory proposition is an object, because it would be a contradictory object - a referent (meaning) of a contradictory string of words. Contradictory objects lack identity, so they are absurd. And of course there is also no fact that corresponds to a contradictory proposition.

A situation (or state of affairs) is some way the world is that makes a given proposition true. It is not the arrangement of an object because objects are part of a state of affairs. — MindForged

Here is a misunderstanding. By a situation or an arrangement of object and property I don't mean a fact (state of affairs) but simply a proposition.

I've already dealt with this. Propositions aren't strings of words (that's a sentence) and yet they can have a referent in reality, and a truth value. — MindForged

I suppose that by the referent of a proposition you mean a fact. Ok. I'll just add that a proposition that is true in some possible world becomes a fact in that possible world. In other possible worlds this proposition may not be true and then it doesn't become a fact there. I regard a proposition as a kind of property that may be instantiated in some possible worlds (as a fact) and thus be true there and not instantiated in other possible worlds and thus be false there.

And I regard a proposition as a referent (meaning) of a string of words (sentence).

Contradictory propositions (under most views) are precisly those propositions which cannot correspond to a possible state of affairs. They are not ontologically nothing, even on your view, because you said that have a property. If you say a contradictory proposition has no properties, that means they don't have the property of falsity. Which is just ridiculous because propositions are necessarily false, which is a property. — MindForged

Yeah, it's confusing. We can talk about contradictory propositions as if they were objects with a property called falsity but in fact they are not objects, and by characterizing them as (necessarily) false we mean that they cannot be true in any possible world - they cannot be instantiated as a fact in any possible world, which is not surprising, because they are simply nothing.

But a contradictory string of words (sentence) is something, an object with an identity; it just doesn't have a referent (meaning) because its referent is a contradictory proposition, which is nothing. A contradictory string of words is an object that has the property of (necessary) falsity because its meaning (a proposition) cannot be true in any possible world.

OK, so granting that there are two photons throughout the experiment, are you saying that the property distinguishing the photons would not be physically measurable but still be physically real (a hidden variable)? Or not physically real and just part of the abstract structure (instrumentalist)? Or something else? — Andrew M

Depends on what you mean by "physical". Is "imaginary momentum" that a particle has in quantum tunneling "physical"? It cannot be measured, even in principle, but physical theory implies it is there.

Disjunction introduction is a valid rule of inference and it is not a valid rule of inference. That's a contradiction yet clearly it's not making reference to a state of affairs. — MindForged

This contradiction is referring to a purported situation where disjunction introduction is a valid rule of inference and not a valid rule of inference.

This is especially the case if you think logic is fundamental to reality, because then the validity of the inference rules varies in different states of affairs (or at least in different possible worlds), which seems to prevent logic from being fundamental. — MindForged

But if an axiom is valid (true) in one possible world and not valid (not true) in a different possible world then it is not a contradiction to say that the axiom is both valid and not valid. A contradiction arises when we affirm and deny something in the same sense, but here we are not doing it: were are saying that the axiom is valid in a possible world and is not valid in a different possible world. It would be a contradiction to say that an axiom is valid and not valid in the same possible world.

A proposition is not a situation. The SEP summarizes this well:

Propositions, we shall say, are the sharable objects of the attitudes and the primary bearers of truth and falsity. This stipulation rules out certain candidates for propositions, including thought- and utterance-tokens, which presumably are not sharable, and concrete events or facts, which presumably cannot be false.

[...]
Clearly, not all propositions can be possible states of affairs, because there are propositions that are not possibly true, whereas possible states of affairs must obtain in at least some possible world. We might wish to extend the notion of a state of affairs to include impossible ones. — MindForged

I mean "situation" not as a fact but as an arrangement of an object and its property. Such an arrangement may hold in some possible world and thus be true in that world, and in another possible world it may not hold and thus not be true.

Also, that you refer to a contradiction as an object (I agree it is) would seem to imply that it has properties (it does). But if it has properties, it cannot be "nothing ontologically". — MindForged

Contradiction in the sense of a string of words without a referent has its identity as a string of words. But contradiction in the sense of the purported referent itself - a contradictory situation/arrangement/proposition - does not have identity (does not have the properties it has) and therefore does not exist in my view; it's ontologically nothing even though we can talk about it as if it were something.

The problem is that quantum mechanics would seem to rule this out. The reason is that if there were a differentiating property such as position while in the beam splitter then, per figure 1, quantum states 2 and 3 would be physically distinct states and therefore would not destructively interfere (cancel out). But, as experiments show, they do. — Andrew M

I am not sure if you understood me. I was saying that the differentiating property of the two photons is their position in the abstract structure of the theory, not in physical space. According to theory (and also in reality if the theory is correct) the energy of one photon is E = hf, where h is Planck constant and f is frequency. So if in an experiment you measure frequency f and total energy 2hf, then theory tells you that there are two photons, not one. So it is the theory, the structure of its definitions and rules, that differentiates the stuff into two photons and thus gives each of them a separate identity. In this theory, in its abstract space or structure (and also in the corresponding abstract structure of reality), the two photons have a different position. But physicists cannot measure this position; it's not a position in physical space.

It's not a situation, you can have a contradiction that makes no reference to a state of affairs (contradictions in math, for instance). — MindForged

Example?

Propositions aren't strings of words, and yet propositions can be contradictory. — MindForged

My understanding is that propositions are meanings of strings of words (if the string of words has a subject-predicate structure). In other words, propositions are referents of strings of words, or situations to which the strings of words refer. A contradictory string of words refers to a contradictory proposition/situation but such a proposition/situation would be an object without identity, which would be an absurdity, and therefore such an object doesn't exist and a contradictory string of words has no referent (meaning). We can talk about contradictory propositions or situations but ontologically they are nothing.

No, you are making a *reference* to the property of blackness, the *referent* of the sentence is the dog in question. — MindForged

When I am making a reference to the property of blackness then the referent is the property of blackness, no?

Contradictions have properties (they are necessarily false, for instance), and therefore (on your view) they have an identity. So on your view there must be a contradictory situation, and hence, a contradictory object. — MindForged

A contradiction has an identity as a sentence (a string words) but it does not have a referent. A contradiction refers to a contradictory situation but there is no such situation, so a contradiction has no referent.

In "My dog is black", you are attributing the property of "blackness" to the referent "dog". — MindForged

And in so doing I am also referring to the property of blackness. The property of blackness is the referent (meaning) of the word "black".

How are situations objects??? A situation (state of affairs) picks out how things are, it is not itself an object. — MindForged

An object is anything that has an identity. In other words, it is something (as opposed to nothing). In my view "objects" without an identity are nothing (so not really objects).

So you say, and yet the entire point of this view (non-reflexive logics and the referenced view in QM) is that it might be the case that you can have an object without an identity. That just makes your post question begging against an opposing view. I've told you what it could mean: That identity only holds for some objects and not others, which is sketched out via a restriction in the logic as to what identity applies to. If you're looking for an in-depth semantics as to how this can work, well, I already reference the papers. Here, I'll even link them:

Classical Logic or Non-Reflexive Logic? A case of Semantic Underdetermination

The Received View on Quantum Non-Individuality: Formal and Metaphysical Analysis — MindForged

Ok, I'll look into it.

"Black" is not a referent though, it's a predicate, a proeprty an object may have or lack. In your sentence, the "dog" is the only referent in the sentence. — MindForged

Properties are objects too - they are something that is identical to itself and different from other objects. I see no reason why words could not refer to properties.

You're confusing a predicate with a referent, and you're mistaking a state of affairs (or "a situation") with a referent. — MindForged

Situations are objects too - they are identical to themselves and different from other objects. Situations are referents of sentences.

"false" is not a referent — MindForged

"False" is a property, so it can be a referent.

What do you think self-reference even means? That a situation refers to itself? — MindForged

The sentence "This sentence is false" refers to a purported situation that includes the sentence, so in this sense it is a self-referential sentence. The part "This sentence" refers to the sentence itself.

In other words, Identity (arguably) not applying to a certain class of objects is not the same as saying "An object has a property and does not have that property". — MindForged

But without identity there is not really an object. I don't know what it would mean that an object has no identity or what it would mean that the law of excluded middle does not hold. Paraconsistent logic and intuitionistic logic seem to characterize imperfect knowledge rather than objects in reality.

So any time that a photon interacts with something (say, the beam splitter or the detector), we could say that it is annihilated and created anew. But sometimes we want to consider the identity to have persisted (as with a photon in the double-slit experiment or things at a macroscopic level, such as humans). Even in the HOM experiment, there is some sort of continuity in that we started with two photons and ended up with two photons. But the history in terms of individual photon identity seems not to physically exist. — Andrew M

In theory - and also in reality if the theory is correct - there are two photons throughout the experiment, not one photon. They are numerically different, so there must be a property that ensures that they are two photons and not one. I would say that this differentiating property is the position of each photon in an abstract structure of the theory, because it is the abstract structure of the theory (including the definition of energy of a photon as a product of Planck constant and frequency) that differentiates the situation into two photons.

That's a contradiction, not an identity violation. Without equality in the language identity isn't present within the language. — MindForged

So there is a language in which an object can have and not have the same property?

No it isn't that's not what a referent is. I hate to quote Wiki of all places but it states it plainly:

"A referent (/ˈrɛfərənt/) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence 'Mary saw me', the referent of the word 'Mary' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word 'me' is the person uttering the sentence." — MindForged

The Wiki quote just says that the referent of the word "Mary" is Mary and the referent of the word "me" is me, with which I agree. But the whole sentence "Mary saw me" is a linguistic expression too, and its referent (meaning) is the situation that Mary saw me.

The referent of "The dog is black" is the dog in question, not "the whole situation". — MindForged

The referent of the word "Dog" is the dog, the referent of the word "black" is black (color), and the referent of the sentence "The dog is black" is the situation that the dog is black.

The Liar sentence does not say it is both true and false. The Liar claims, of itself, that it is false. That the Liar is also true is entailed by it being false. — MindForged

That's why I said in an earlier post that the Liar sentence says "implicitely" that it is true. But that doesn't matter. The meaning of the sentence is that it is both false and true, and that's what matters. That's why it is a contradiction.