Demanding Evidence

[Touchstone]

So we cannot map our maps? If we are mapping a map (aren’t you doing that?), then isn’t the map the territory? How are these terms supposed to correlate, exactly?

The relationship is “reference”; symbol pointing to referent.

So, yes, when you’re “territory” is also a map (which is not a logical problem), then… the territory is also a map. It’s still important not to get the map (map A) with the territory (also a map, but a different map, map B), because the thing modeling another thing is NOT the other thing, no matter what the other thing is.

When I invoke “the map is not the territory”, by “territory” I am referring to, analogically, reality itself. But the caution is more general and useful than just keeping “reality” distinct from “models of reality”; if we want to avoid confusion and error, it’s imperative to not conflate X, with “models of X” or “symbols referring to X”, no matter what X is.

-TS

 

[Syntax]

I interspersed corrections within your texts throughout showing your conflations.

Nowhere…did I make mention of any dependency on a particular language. I do not see particular languages, or distinctions between them at all relevant here, so this strikes me as an odd response from you. A proposition is language **[this identity statement makes no sense and is false. You mean to say “a proposition is expressible by language.”] **it doesn’t matter what language, even to the extremes of admitting “private languages” **[this is true] **… A proposition is a sentence asserting the truth or falsehood of some condition. **[this is false. A proposition is NOT a sentence. You are confusing tokens and types again too. A propositon is NOT-identical to a sentence-type (nor a sentence token), but is expressible BY a sentence-type. For example, “You won the presidential election” as stated by myself in speaking to Obama expresses the very same identical proposition as “I won the presidential election” as expressed by Obama even though both sentence-types are not-identical]. **It’s intrinsically language bound. **[Again, I am not sure what “intrinsically bound” means. Do you mean ontologically dependent on language?] **No language, no propositions, and particular languages don’t matter at all in this regard **[what’s the difference? See remarks below.] **

Again, this matters not at all, which particular language we are talking about. See above. No language, no concepts. If you have concepts, you have language, and it doesn’t matter if it is German or Swahili or Wittgenstein’s “private language”.

(Ignoring concepts for the moment because that’s an entirely different matter which would take too long to discuss, let’s just focus on propositions.) It doesn’t matter that we are talking about any specifically particular language or **all **languages. Your remarks above still end up with a fallacious result either way:

(1) All propositions depend for their existence on all languages.
If (1) is true, then so is the following logical entailment:
(2) All propositions are dependent for their existence on a some languages.
But this **contradicts your implicit admission **that,
(3) A given proposition does not depend for its existence on some languages.

This is compeletely irrelevant to nature of propsositions themselves. A proposition is a sentence about the truth or falsehood of condition. What particular language it’s rendered in couldn’t be less important…

I’ve said this in my previous post: if a proposition is not dependent on any particular language, what makes you think it is therefore dependent on all language? This is absurd because no such entailment exists here.

That it [a proposition] is a product of language is absolute critical to a basic understanding here.

Do you suppose it’s an “assumption” that I must use langauge **to express **a proposition?

These two remarks above are saying completely different things, but you think they are the same. I’ve already said they are clearly different, namely,

(A) Language-expressions are a necessary conditions for the **expression of **propositions

does not entail that,

(B) Language is a necessary condition for the existence of propositions

The first states language is a necessary condtion for our expressing propositions which is true. The latter states that language is a necessary condition for the existence of propositions which is false, and neither claim entails the other. What are your not understanding here?

It is true that the existence of propositions *arises from *language, and that makes them partially linguistic entities having their source in language, but they are not dependent on any language for their existence. You seem to think propositions are purely linguistic entities in the **same way **that sentences are. This is false. Propositions are **what **sentence expresses, **not **the sentences themselves. Propositions are abstract objects that we come to know through the various correspondences between linguistic utterances and the way the world works. So a sentence is a necessary condtion for expressing propostions, but the sentence itself is not a proposition–and you continue to say that a proposition just is a sentence, which is completely false. For this very reason, propositions expressed by these sentences can exist without these sentences.

Suppose John utters the sentence-token, “the cat is on the mat” expressing the sentence-type the cat is on the mat, and a German-speaker utters the sentence-token “Die Katze setzet auf dem Vorleger” expressing the sentence-type Die Katze setzet auf dem Vorleger. The proposition they both express is identical to the abstract *object or state-of-affairs *of the cat-being-on-the-mat, namely, <Mat(x)> which is counterfactually false in some worlds and true in others, even if no linguistic-speakers exist in those worlds. Because propositions are not merely linguistic entities they can exist independently of all languages, even though it requires language to express them.

 

[Syntax]

It need not even be expressed outwardly. Just the ability to FORMULATE a proposition – at all – requires language. “Proposition” is transcendentally dependent on language. [If you only mean “transcendentally dependent” on language, this is true. If you mean ontologically dependent on language, this is false] Maybe it will help to consider whether you think math is entailed by a formula. Do you suppose you can propose “a^2 = b^2 + c^2” without implicating math? If not, then you already understand why propositions (FORGET WHICH LANGUAGE – DOESN’T MATTER WHICH) implicate [the use of!] language.

This is true.

Propositions can be expressed in any number of particular languages. But all of them, all of them that we know of, require **[being expressed in] **language **[so that we can know about them]. **

This is true.

-]And we are not looking around for “non-language propositions”/-] -]any more than we wonder about ‘non-math formulas’, because one implicates the other, necessarily /-]-- propositions entail **[the use of] **language, formulas entail [the use of math] rule and symbols (a form of language).

This is true.

 

[Syntax]

I don’t approve of using metaphors like “territories and maps,” especially when we are discussing a delicate topic like the philosophy of language because these lame metaphors will just mix everyone up. Precision, clarity, and thrift are virtues necessary for a proper understanding of notions of reference, subject/predicte, types/tokens, truth-conditions, syntax, grammar, and linguistic properties/relations.

Touchstone, I told you to get your use of terms straight before you reply to me with lengthy convoluted messages that make this entire topic stink. You need to take things cautiously and slowly if you want to make any sense of these notions. I can’t stand it when philosophy of language is turned into such a confusing mess.

 

[Touchstone]

(Ignoring concepts for the moment because that’s an entirely different matter which would take too long to discuss, let’s just focus on propositions.) It doesn’t matter that we are talking about any specifically particular language or **all **languages. Your remarks above still end up with a fallacious result either way:

(1) All propositions depend for their existence on all languages.

That isn’t related to what I’ve said, either, any more than “particular languages”.

Try this: “All propositions are linguistic formulations”. That is, every proposition depends on language (or ‘depends on a language’, if you prefer). What language that is doesn’t matter for our purposes, here, just as understanding that a formula depends on math, doesn’t matter what the formula, or the math rules are.

If (1) is true, then so is the following logical entailment:
(2) All propositions are dependent for their existence on a some languages.
But this **contradicts your implicit admission **that,
(3) A given proposition does not depend for its existence on some languages.

I made no such admission, implicit or explicit. Propositions are language constructs, just as formulas are math constructs. One necessarily must invoke math when invoking a formula. One must necessarily invoke language when offering a proposition. There’s no “some” or plural dependency needed.

I’ve said this in my previous post: if a proposition is not dependent on any particular language, what makes you think it is therefore dependent on all language? This is absurd because no such entailment exists here.

I agree, no such entailment exists, but you have me confused with someone else, apparently; I’ve not said such a thing (a proposition depends on all language(s)), any more than I’ve said a proposition depends on a particular language.

I believe my statements are direct and clear: Propositions are language products. To produce a proposition, is to engage language, just as to produce a math formula is to engage math.

These two remarks above are saying completely different things, but you think they are the same. I’ve already said they are clearly different, namely,

(A) Language-expressions are a necessary conditions for the **expression of **propositions

does not entail that,

(B) Language is a necessary condition for the existence of propositions

It does, because what we refer to with the term “proposition”, expressed or no, depends on language – the semantic graphs that emerge from concepts which tie subject and objects together with relationships. It doesn’t matter if you never express a proposition, or if you could have used German or Swahili or Pig-Latin as alternatives to your native tongue, the very formation of a proposition entails language. That’s what language is, the assembly of semantically rich concepts to create a coherent statement or unit of thought.

Look this is pretty straightforward for you to discredit if you think this is wrong. Suggest an example or two of a proposition that doesn’t rely on semantically rich symbols (symbols which have subject-object relationships as referents). It needn’t be communicated or expressed, just formulated. If you can point to something like that, then I think you have something to consider by way of objection. Failing that, though, I think your “does not entail” is simply an assertion that falls against the ontology of language (symbols, concepts, relationships, etc.).

The first states language is a necessary condtion for our expressing propositions which is true. The latter states that language is a necessary condition for the existence of propositions which is false, and neither claim entails the other. What are your not understanding here?

I have no idea what you mean by “existence of propositions”. I can tell you explicitly what I mean by “existence of propositions” - a brain-state that neurophysiologically connects symbols into a conceptually coherent unit that can be evaluated for truth or falsehood, where ‘truth’ is an index to ‘correspondence to the actual state of affairs in the world’.

Given that, we understand a proposition to be a physical phenomenon in a physical being (a human brain). If the person in question ceases to exist, then so does that instance of the proposition, as soon as her brain ceases to function as a proposition-bearing mind. Other humans may carry the same or similar instances of the proposition, but where there are no brains or living beings, there are no propositions. Propositions obtain as natural phenomena, no more ambiguous than the existence of rock, or a bolt of lightning (which is another, if impersonal, highly complex electrical pattern).

It is true that the existence of propositions *arises from *language, and that makes them partially linguistic entities having their source in language, but they are not dependent on any language for their existence.

Ok, well, I understand this to be resigning the point, but in just such a way as to protect your superstitions. If it’s “partially sourced”, even by your account, I think my point is made, and carries. You’ll need to defend the “other part” of the partial there, the magic part, I think to make headway against this.

You seem to think propositions are purely linguistic entities in the **same way **that sentences are.

I do think that, partly just because it’s tautological, but also because there isn’t anything else to support the idea that there’s some immaterial/supernatural “beyond reality” reality for propositions which obtains independent of language.

Really, you might as well contend propositions are also dependent on marshmallows. No kidding, that idea has just as much to recommend itself.

-TS

 

[Syntax]

We can, and we do. If you can provide meaning for a term, it can be used to convey meaning, and it’s then not at all useful as part of our language. Do you suppose any of those you’ve listed are not capable of conveying meaning and being useful in communication?

No. This was precisely what I was saying. That’s why I said, “These concepts are used all the time without having explicit definitions. I see nothing problematic here.” Concepts can have partial meanings without explicit definitions. But I would like to see you define “the good” or “justice” with a definition that all can agree on. It is too difficult; and we can only give what we take to be instances of it.

I suspect the “irrelevant” religious views are confounding the rest of the thinking, there.

That’s an unfounded assumption.

In any case, insofar as P refers to some state of affairs in the real world (a claim about the ‘territory’), “P” is “true” only to the extent its features are isomorphic to the real world (a part of our “map”).

True.

But this in no way makes maps a cosmic feature of the territory. No mappers, no maps.

This does not logically follow. Maps are real world things existing in the real world, too, along with the territory. Maps have the functions of representing, whereas objects in the territory do not. But this doesn’t entail maps don’t exist or are not part of the set of objects within that territory. So your metaphor collapses right from the start. Just drop it.

A concept is a (set of) relationship(s) between subjects and objects – that’s language. Go look up the definitions of your favorite words. What do you find? Isomorphisms - the relationship of a given word vis-a-vis semantically related words! Where you have concept, you have language.

I don’t disagree. But you could have expressed this much better.

I think we can and should say that all it signifies is magical thinking about the world. Otherwise, it appears to be perfectly empty, incoherent…

What? The concept of “the truth” signifies “magical thinking” and is “empty” and “incoherent”? whatever. That’s not an argument, that’s just your opinion.

You understand that some concepts are dependent on other concepts. “‘P’ is true iff P” is dependent on ‘true’, conceptually…

Your remark that “”‘P’ is true iff P" is dependent on ‘true’," conceptually"–is all I’ve been saying along anyways. If it is conceptually dependent on “true,” as you say it is, what do you think “true” means? There is a concept of “truth” being presupposed here even though it cannot be explicitly defined.

And that is the case with all sentences – the semantics of the terms used to form the sentence need to obtain in order to convey meaning. What is now fairly clear that you don’t understand is that concepts themselves are a product of language, that when we engage in concept formation we are necessarily engaging in language. This is what language involves, and what concept formation produces. Giving voice to it, be it in German or English or whatever is beside the point. Forming a “statement” that relies on symbols and concepts standing in relation to each other is the human engaging language.

Now you are speaking of concepts. I would rather clear up the piece on propositions first before we delve into this. You need to approach the subject with caution step by step, and stop deriving conclusions from your sloppy uses of technical terms. It is irresponsible, and I won’t discuss this until we clear this up. Propositions first.

It doesn’t matter how much lofty, fluffy, or numinous terms you want to hang on it – capitalizing the “T” in “Truth”, for example – or invoking all manner of superstitions about “other forms of reality” in which math formulas and “justice” stand as Platonic objects of some kind (I know, don’t ask how that works!); it’s still statements about those (imagined) things – map making.The map is not the territory.

You are just assuming that the concept of “truth” is superstitiously imagined right from the start. Again, no argument for this; just assumption. Like I said, maps are really existent objects just like the territory that they represent. Just because they are different things doesn’t entail that the maps we use to represent the territory don’t exist. So your metaphor collapses from the start. Please stop using such sloppy expressions. No one is so dense as to confuse the map with the territory anyways.

 

[Touchstone]

This is false. Propositions are **what **sentence expresses, **not **the sentences themselves.

Why would you say that? You have now thorough confused map and territory. Let’s look at common usage here (from Webster):

*1 a *(1) : something offered for consideration or acceptance : proposal (2) : a request for sexual intercourse b : the point to be discussed or maintained in argument usually stated in sentence form near the outset c : a theorem or problem to be demonstrated or performed
2 a : an expression in language or signs of something that can be believed, doubted, or denied or is either true or false b : the objective meaning of a proposition
3 : something of an indicated kind to be dealt with

From Wikipedia:

A proposition is a sentence expressing something true or false. In philosophy, particularly in logic, a proposition is identified ontologically as an idea, concept, or abstraction whose token instances are patterns of symbols, marks, sounds, or strings of words.[1] Propositions are considered to be syntactic entities and also truthbearers.

Words mean whatever we want the to mean, no more, and no less. But “proposition”, as understood in our language, is the sentence. I think you need to find a different way to refer to the territory (the referrent). The proposition is not the reality. The map is not the territory. The word is not the thing being defined.

Propositions are abstract objects that we come to know through the various correspondences between linguistic utterances and the way the world works.

Language is how we do this, both the uttering and the conceptual models that ground the utterances.

So a sentence is a necessary condtion for expressing propostions, but the sentence itself is not a proposition–and you continue to say that a proposition just is a sentence, which is completely false. For this very reason, propositions expressed by these sentences can exist without these sentences.

It’s past time that you defined what you mean by “exist” then. I gave my distinctions above – “exist” means ‘extended in space-time-energy-matter (STEM)’. Propositions as I understand them, exist in a straightforward way under that definition (brain-states). What would you use to divide “exists” from “does not exists” with respect to propositions?

Suppose John utters the sentence-token, “the cat is on the mat” expressing the sentence-type the cat is on the mat, and a German-speaker utters the sentence-token “Die Katze setzet auf dem Vorleger” expressing the sentence-type Die Katze setzet auf dem Vorleger. The proposition they both express is identical to the abstract *object or state-of-affairs *of the cat-being-on-the-mat, namely, <Mat(x)> which is counterfactually false in some worlds and true in others, even if no linguistic-speakers exist in those worlds. Because propositions are not merely linguistic entities they can exist independently of all languages, even though it requires language to express them.

No, and trivially identified as incoherent. “On” doesn’t have any meaning independent of concepts and language. Nature is what it is, so the physical objects in nature do what the do regardless, but there is no ‘on’, if there is not a “concept holder” that makes “on” coherent. You’ve again got your territory and map hopelessly mixed up, the territory is what it is, but there is no discussion, no relationships, no isomorphisms no concept formation or expression without language, and the presence of a being capable of thinking in language – “on” is descriptive, and without anyone or anything to do the describing, it’s incoherent to say “on” exists.

Matter and energy obey the laws of physics regardless, but “on” is a meaningless void until there exists the machinery to develop and process concepts, and tie them together in a sentence where “on” might have some meaning. Then it exists, as a part of proposition.

-TS

 

[Syntax]

Originally Quoted by Syntax:
These two remarks above are saying completely different things, but you think they are the same. I’ve already said they are clearly different, namely,
(A) Language-expressions are a necessary conditions for the expression of propositions
does not entail that,
(B) Language is a necessary condition for the existence of propositions

It does, because what we refer to with the term “proposition”, expressed or no, depends on language – the semantic graphs that emerge from concepts which tie subject and objects together with relationships.

Again, you are just assuming that there does exist such an entailment. So where’s the premise you so desperately need to draw this conclusion? I am not convinced; and just repeating that it is “obvious to you” doesn’t help anyone here. Moreover, I give another argument against your view below. So I don’t see how you have the upper hand at all.

Look this is pretty straightforward for you to discredit if you think this is wrong.

Again, **you **think it is pretty straightforward. But I don’t see it. Where’s the argument?

I have no idea what you mean by “existence of propositions”. I can tell you explicitly what I mean by “existence of propositions” - a brain-state that neurophysiologically connects symbols into a conceptually coherent unit that can be evaluated for truth or falsehood, where ‘truth’ is an index to ‘correspondence to the actual state of affairs in the world’.

A “brain-state,” eh? Now you’re getting into reductive physicalism, which I really don’t want to discuss (although if it is true, you face a huge problem I point out below). But I will say this: If a proposition was just a token of a brain state, isn’t it odd that a physical thing can have a representational character of other physical things? It’s like objects in your territory representing other objects. But rocks have no function of representing trees, only mental states can do this. Aren’t you familiar with any of Hilary Putnam’s works on representation and semantic externalism? Intentionality is peculiarly unique function of language, concepts, and mental representations that objects alone cannot possess at all.

Moreoever, you can’t use the concept of “correspondence” without already having some implicit notion of what “correspondence” means. “Correspondence” means that a sign, a symbol, a mental state, a concept, or a proposition represents what the world is like. And the meaning of “representation of what the world is really like,” in turn, depends on some notion of those representations “being true.” So without the concept of “being true,” you have no way of making sense of what “representation” means at all. It is presupposed in discussions of “correspondence.” Some people will confuse “correspondence” with “similarity.” But this is wrong. Similarity is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation–we also need intentionality. But there’s not enough space to go into that here.

Given that, we understand a proposition to be a physical phenomenon in a physical being (a human brain). If the person in question ceases to exist, then so does that instance of the proposition, as soon as her brain ceases to function as a proposition-bearing mind. Other humans may carry the same or similar instances of the proposition, but **where there are no brains or living beings, there are no propositions. **Propositions obtain as natural phenomena, no more ambiguous than the existence of rock, or a bolt of lightning (which is another, if impersonal, highly complex electrical pattern).

I disagree with your reductive physicalism. But let’s assume it is true. You are going to have a huge problem explaining how in the world someone can die without the concept-type ceasing to exist altogether, if this concept-type is identical to the set of every individual token-instantiation of it by each brain. Here’s a question for you:

Does this concept-type exist **over and above **each individual brain-token of it, or is it simply identical to the set of all brain-tokens. Take the concept of bachelorl. Is it the conjunction of (1) or the denial of this conjunction (2)?

(1) bachelor=(A’s brain-token1 and B’s brain-token2 and C’s brain-token3).

(2) bachelor (not =) (A’s brain-token1 and B’s brain-token2 and C’s brain-token3)

Therefore,

(a) If (1) is true, then when A dies the concept ceases to exist, and B and C no longer have it.
(b) If (2) is true, then when A dies the concept continues to exist, and B and C still have it.

But (a) is absurd.
Therefore, (b).
Therefore, (2) is true and (1) is false
So concepts exist over and above the mind’s conception of them.

Originally posted by Syntax:
You seem to think propositions are purely linguistic entities in the same way that sentences are.

I do think that, partly just because it’s tautological, but also because there isn’t anything else to support the idea that there’s some immaterial/supernatural “beyond reality” reality for propositions which obtains independent of language.

I just gave support in the argument above (not for an explicit thesis of their immateriality, but I certainly gave an argumet to support their independent existence from the mind).

You are the one left without an argument for the needed premise to support what appears to be “so obvious” to you.

Really, you might as well contend propositions are also dependent on marshmallows. No kidding, that idea has just as much to recommend itself…

Lol. uh huh…

 

[Syntax]

Why would you say that? You have now thorough confused map and territory. Let’s look at common usage here (from Webster):
From Wikipedia:Words mean whatever we want the to mean, no more, and no less. But “proposition”, as understood in our language, is the sentence. I think you need to find a different way to refer to the territory (the referrent). The proposition is not the reality. The map is not the territory. The word is not the thing being defined.
Language is how we do this, both the uttering and the conceptual models that ground the utterances.

You got to be kidding me. Webster and Wikipedia are your sources to support your claims? Hahaha! Those are dictionary definitions! Webster was a lexicographer, not a linguistic philosopher…lol. I am talking about the philosophy of language and linguistics, which you apparently haven’t thought much about.

Quiz: how many times does this sentence occur?

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.

The answer is once. When Johnny is bad in class, the teacher tells him to right the same sentence 50 different times on the chalk board, not 50 different sentences one time.

Similarly with propositions:

If a proposition was identical to the sentence-type used to express it, then,

“The cat is on the mat” would be a different proposition than “Die Katze setzet aur dem Vorleger.”

But clearly these two *different *sentence-types express the same proposition. Therefore, propositions are not sentences. Q.E.D

Why is this not clear?

It’s past time that you defined what you mean by “exist” then. I gave my distinctions above – “exist” means ‘extended in space-time-energy-matter (STEM)’. Propositions as I understand them, exist in a straightforward way under that definition (brain-states). What would you use to divide “exists” from “does not exists” with respect to propositions?

You just assume that what is not physical does not exist. I disagree.

No, and trivially identified as incoherent. “On” doesn’t have any meaning independent of concepts and language. Nature is what it is, so the physical objects in nature do what the do regardless, but there is no ‘on’, if there is not a “concept holder” that makes “on” coherent.

There is no discussion, no relationships, no isomorphisms no concept formation or expression without language, and the presence of a being capable of thinking in language – “on” is descriptive, and without anyone or anything to do the describing, it’s incoherent to say “on” exists.

I agree. So what’s the objection? “On” is a word, and can’t exist without language. But its semantic content (or meaning) is determined by external states of affairs. Therefore, it represents that state-of-affairs, namely, of a cat **being-on **the mat. Also, the word occurs as part of a proposition that is a publicly ascertainable entity whose existence is not dependent on any language. There’s the word, its content, then its structural place within a proposition. I can tell you don’t understand me; and this is turning your objection to me into a straw-man.

Again, I continue to say that propositions are not merely linguistic entities and that they can exist independently of all languages, even though it requires language to express them." You are always committing the genetic fallacy that arising from=dependent on. This is false, and I’ve repeatedly said why. You need an argument for thinking why this true. So far, there is none.

Matter and energy obey the laws of physics regardless, but “on” is a meaningless void until there exists the machinery to develop and process concepts, and tie them together in a sentence where “on” might have some meaning. Then it exists, as a part of proposition.

I agree.

 

[Syntax]

…Just for the record, I agree with most of what wikipedia says, but with one exception, because, who ever wrote it made a common blunder found among people not quite trained in the subject. So what wikipedia says should look like this with my slight modifications.

“A proposition -]is a sentence /-] [is an abstract entity] -]expressing/-] [which is] -]something/-] true or false. In philosophy, particularly in logic, a proposition [can be considered] -]identified/-] ontologically as an idea, concept, or abstraction whose token instances are patterns of symbols, marks, sounds, or strings of words.[1] Propositions are considered to be -]syntactic/-] [structural] entities and also [having] truthbearers.”

The bold-faced clause is EXACTLY what I’ve been saying. The sentence-type “the cat is on the mat” is a token instance of the proposition the cat is on the mat, just as the German sentence-type is a token instance of the very same proposition.

Hopefully, this is becoming clear to you by now…

 

[Touchstone]

Again, you are just assuming that there does exist such an entailment. So where’s the premise you so desperately need to draw this conclusion?

It’s tautological; “equals” in a formula isn’t meaningful without mathematical rules that give it semantics. An Word cannot be spelled without letters – that is the stuff words are made up of. Do you have problem with the idea that spelled English words entail letters? If you have no problem with that, then there’s no “assuming” to be done for propositions, they are made of language… concepts that place subjects and objects standing in relation to each other.

I am not convinced; and just repeating that it is “obvious to you” doesn’t help anyone here. Moreover, I give another argument against your view below. So I don’t see how you have the upper hand at all.

You’ve hedged in granting… “partial” dependence. I’m saying nothing more is needed than the because the complement to that concrete partial for you is either undefined or incoherent as you’ve got here. So, “all” of your own identified dependence also relies on language. You appear to simply suppose that a superstitious “something else” obtains, and can’t be bothered to address that. I won’t bother you with it – superstition isn’t amenable to that kind of analysis. That’s why we call it ‘superstitious’.

Again, **you **think it is pretty straightforward. But I don’t see it. Where’s the argument?

The basis for discrediting my claims is quite clear – show this “extra” stuff, demonstrate the object of your superstitions. That would be compelling in its falsification of what I’ve said.

A “brain-state,” eh? Now you’re getting into reductive physicalism, which I really don’t want to discuss (although if it is true, you face a huge problem I point out below). But I will say this: If a proposition was just a token of a brain state, isn’t it odd that a physical thing can have a representational character of other physical things?

Why would that be odd? What do expect, and on what basis do suppose that expectation has metaphysical insight that the rest of us empiricists lack? In any case, that would be a different thread to pursue, the “intuition of oddness” you may experience.

It’s like objects in your territory representing other objects.

Yes, you have it now. But rocks have no function of representing trees, only mental states can do this.
A photograph would be another, non-mental example of a representation of a tree. But yes, the fact that rocks don’t have internal representations of nearby trees, cognitively or otherwise, I do not find problematic. A rock is not a brain is not a photograph. They are all part of nature, but they are different manifestations of nature.

Aren’t you familiar with any of Hilary Putnam’s works on representation and semantic externalism? Intentionality is peculiarly unique function of language, concepts, and mental representations that objects alone cannot possess at all.

Well, again, the difference is tautological – distinguishing by definition. If we agree that entities that have meta-representational cognitive faculties are better classed as something other (or “higher”) than “object”, that’s our agreement. But that again, is coloring on the map. The territory isn’t changed in the least by such distinctions. However singular our meta-representational abilities may be, it doesn’t change our physics by virtue of that; we are natural and bound by physics as any “object” – your nearest friendly rock, say.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Syntax:

Moreoever, you can’t use the concept of “correspondence” without already having some implicit notion of what “correspondence” means. “Correspondence” means that a sign, a symbol, a mental state, a concept, or a proposition represents what the world is like.

Yes, that’s true of all words, of all concepts; they are constructed in terms of relationships to other things. Words need to have “existing semantical relationships” to be useful in conveying meaning – all words, “correspondence” included. This is what linguistic and conceptual formation and integration yields to us humans, a “bootstrapping” process, informed by our innate biology, which takes natural predispositions (trust in sense-data as reflective of an extra-mental world) and give rise to models of the extra-mental world.

And the meaning of “representation of what the world is really like,” in turn, depends on some notion of those representations “being true.” So without the concept of “being true,” you have no way of making sense of what “representation” means at all. It is presupposed in discussions of “correspondence.” Some people will confuse “correspondence” with “similarity.” But this is wrong. Similarity is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation–we also need intentionality. But there’s not enough space to go into that here.

Some representations need no intentionality, or telic overlay at all. But some do, too. But this is incidental, not a “need” for representation. I don’t think “similarity” is adequate term to use – “correspondence” seems quite adequate as is for our purposes, but “intentionality” bends this off down a confusing rabbit trail, I think. Best just left off for now.

I disagree with your reductive physicalism. But let’s assume it is true. You are going to have a huge problem explaining how in the world someone can die without the concept-type ceasing to exist altogether, if this concept-type is identical to the set of every individual token-instantiation of it by each brain. Here’s a question for you:

Does this concept-type exist **over and above **each individual brain-token of it, or is it simply identical to the set of all brain-tokens. Take the concept of bachelorl. Is it the conjunction of (1) or the denial of this conjunction (2)?

(1) bachelor=(A’s brain-token1 and B’s brain-token2 and C’s brain-token3).

(2) bachelor (not =) (A’s brain-token1 and B’s brain-token2 and C’s brain-token3)

Therefore,

(a) If (1) is true, then when A dies the concept ceases to exist, and B and C no longer have it.
(b) If (2) is true, then when A dies the concept continues to exist, and B and C still have it.

But (a) is absurd.
Therefore, (b).
Therefore, (2) is true and (1) is false
So concepts exist over and above the mind’s conception of them.

(a) is not absurd at all. If B and C don’t have the concept (assuming we take isomorphic representations in different brains to be the same concept), and no other mind anywhere has it, it’s gone. If it’s not, maybe you could tell me where and how it exists?

This is a devolved form of the argument ignorance – you apparently just have strong intuitions that a concept cannot cease to exist, and must obtain is some magical plane, so circumstances that omit that magical plane seem “absurd”. There’s nothing absurd about that. Again, if you can support your “magical plane of existence” with something more than an intuition you may have, then you’ve got something to work with. As it is, there’s nothing here to address but superstitions.

I just gave support in the argument above (not for an explicit thesis of their immateriality, but I certainly gave an argumet to support their independent existence from the mind).

I understand your argument now to be "My intuitions indicate they exist in some magical unseen realm, and to suggest that is not the case seems absurd to me, therefore it must be true. I invite you to improve on my rendering of your argument, as I don’t think either of us wants it left like that.

You are the one left without an argument for the needed premise to support what appears to be “so obvious” to you.

What premise do you want to see support for?

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

You got to be kidding me. Webster and Wikipedia are your sources to support your claims? Hahaha! Those are dictionary definitions! Webster was a lexicographer, not a linguistic philosopher…lol. I am talking about the philosophy of language and linguistics, which you apparently haven’t thought much about.

If you read what I said, I was pointing out what “proposition” or “sentence” in common usage. If you want to use terms of art in this discipline or that, I’m fine with it – I’m a software developer, and I work in information theory and computer languages, so I have a different lexicon that applies in those domains. That’s not a problem, the challenge is just being clear and consistent in your terms.

Quiz: how many times does this sentence occur?

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.

The answer is once. When Johnny is bad in class, the teacher tells him to right the same sentence 50 different times on the chalk board, not 50 different sentences one time.

“Same” is not a measure of cardinality. This is missing the type/instance distinction. There’s one class of sentence, and three instances of that class. Three by one measure, one by another. If we looked at all the electrons we can find, we’d find they are all identical. Is it that we only have just one electron in the universe?

Repetition or reiteration across multiple instances conveys information, even though (and because) it is redundant. For example, if we receive this transmission:

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.

We have a concrete epistemic advantage from the three sentences over the one.If we had just received:

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.

We would have likely misunderstood if the “triplicate” transmission was:

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.

In which case we would infer that that “pair” was the correct word rather than “hair” due to its redundancy and “hair” being the odd man out in the trio. In any case, instances are not classes, and instances, even in repetition, represent information on their own. Even across languages, the language-specific renderings are instances of a class, a class defined by the conceptual/semantic graph that is unified across both languages (which may or may not be possible in practice, depending on what you take as “same” with respect to abstract language constructs – some linguists think that we think in a particular language which can never be perfectly translated to another, for example).

Similarly with propositions:

If a proposition was identical to the sentence-type used to express it, then,

“The cat is on the mat” would be a different proposition than “Die Katze setzet aur dem Vorleger.”

This is just equivocating on “different” across class/instance lines. If you have 3 electrons trapped in your vacuum chamber, but they are utterly identical in attributes and constitution, how many electrons do you have? Depends on what you mean by “different”!

But no matter. Even if we just agree, arguendo, that the English and German renderings are the same fundamental proposition, the proposition in abstract is still a function of language. It’s abstracted from a particular concrete tongue, but that doesn’t “de-language-ize” it in the least. If represents a coherent thought unit made up semantically rich symbolic concepts… language.

But clearly these two *different *sentence-types express the same proposition. Therefore, propositions are not sentences. Q.E.D

Now your are confusing the sentence-class from the sentence-instance! If I have an image, I can “render it” on my color LCD screen, to a black and white printer, even print out the Postscript instructions for rasterizing it. These are all different manifestations of the image, but the source image remains the same. It remains an image, even though we can render it in various ways. A proposition, as a sentence – a coherent thought unit – we can (often) “print” in various languages. A language that comes from a community that has never seen a cat and has no word for it would be an exception of where this wouldn’t work, and another example of where concepts don’t exist (people who’ve never seen or heard of “cat” will have no idea what “cat” means, it’s not available to them conceptually, and those via language.

But even for all the different languages we can render the sentence in, as concrete sentences, it doesn’t make the “logical sentence” any less language-bound than our in-memory image we might print to paper or screen, in color or black and white.

-TS

 

[Syntax]

Some representations need no intentionality, or telic overlay at all. But some do, too. But this is incidental, not a “need” for representation. I don’t think “similarity” is adequate term to use – “correspondence” seems quite adequate as is for our purposes, but “intentionality” bends this off down a confusing rabbit trail, I think. Best just left off for now.

Fair enough.

(a) is not absurd at all. If B and C don’t have the concept (assuming we take isomorphic representations in different brains to be the same concept), and no other mind anywhere has it, it’s gone. If it’s not, maybe you could tell me where and how it exists?

But you don’t see the consequence. If (a) is true and the concept doesn’t exist in B’s and C’s mind, then B and C had different concepts than A all along since each concept is merely a token without a type. The consequence becomes that when A uses the concept of “bachelor” and C uses the concept of “bachelor,” they must therefore be meaning different things. So the meaning of bachelor1 (not=) the meaning of bachelor2. So they can’t really be said to communicate at all. The very notion of **shared meanings **presupposes the existence of a type for which bachelor1 and bachelor2 are tokens. Without a type, however, communication doesn’t ever really happen. This should be obvious.

You may just take it as **brute fact **that communication does happen, while I don’t. I think this phenomenon needs explanation. And in all my readings of reductive naturalism such as Quine, I have not yet found a reductive translational paraphrase of statements implicitly referring to absract entities that has yet been successful in preserving the statement’s original meaning. In spite of all of Quine’s great work otherwise, it is widely known that Quine failed in his promise to provide a successful linguistic paraphrase of statements which implicitly refer to immaterial/abstract entities such as in

“Humility is a virtue.”

The paraphrase he came up with refers to individuals instead of *immaterial properties *such as,

“Humble persons are virtuous,”

But the latter linguistic shift is neither semantically conservative of original meaning nor consistent with the logical implications of the original statement. So my main reasons for rejecting reductive physicalism are primarily **semantic **and logical.

This is a devolved form of the argument ignorance – you apparently just have strong intuitions that a concept cannot cease to exist, and must obtain is some magical plane, so circumstances that omit that magical plane seem “absurd”. There’s nothing absurd about that. Again, if you can support your “magical plane of existence” with something more than an intuition you may have, then you’ve got something to work with. As it is, there’s nothing here to address but superstitions.

Sure, our intutions disagree. But I am supporting my intuitions with arguments, you are not. Your intuitions are already deeply entrenched within scientific naturalism and you can’t see beyond that. The very thesis fueling your naturalism seems to be the implicit and false positivist assumption that what can’t in principle be empirically observed therefore doesn’t exist or doesn’t have truth-conditions.

Your disagreement with me is that I should’nt count some abstract objects, other than physical ones, as existent entities into my ontology. My disagreement with you is that, if reductive physicalism is true, then types don’t exist, only tokens, and meaning, communication, and various forms of linguistic practice are left without explanation for what makes this practice possible.

What premise do you want to see support for?

We need a premise that will warrant the inference from,

(A) Language-expressions are a necessary conditions for the expression of propositions

to

(B) Language is a necessary condition for the existence of propositions

It is your own intuition that is guiding this inference which I don’t share whatsoever, because if it is true, we get into too many absurdities such as sentence-types being identical to propositions (which I’ve already explained is false–something you should clearly be seeing by now).

 

[Touchstone]

Syntax:

You just assume that what is not physical does not exist. I disagree.

I’m open to the idea, if it can be expressed coherently, and somehow demonstrated. So far as I’m aware, there isn’t ANY coherent meaning available for “exist” in immaterial terms. If you disagree, and you can support that, you can and should be famous! If I have some entity, “X” (perhaps one of these magical propositions), what is the principle that distinguishes X as “immaterially exists” apart from “immaterially doesn’t exist”? What would be my method of showing some putative “X” did not “immaterially exist”.

Given that, I don’t need to assume anything about it. Non-material existence hasn’t yet managed to become even possibly false, conceptually. It’s stuck in incoherence and meaningless.

Seriously, if you can give it some coherence and meaning, that would be big news. I ask this all the time, and am ALWAYS disappointed by the deafening silence I get in return. This is where the immaterialist ideas are show for the poverties they are.

I agree. So what’s the objection? “On” is a word, and can’t exist without language.

“On” is a word, but it’s a word tied to a concept, and that is what cannot exist without language. As soon as you have a concept of “on”, for which “on” is an English symbol pointing to that concept, you necessarily have language.

But its semantic content (or meaning) is determined by external states of affairs.

Well, yes, but in the same sense “red” is determined by particular wavelengths of light. Nature is what it is, but our concepts are not the external states. They are informed by them, but they not the sources of information themselves.

The map is not the territory.
The map is not the territory.
The map is not the terrirory.

(Is that three sentences or one?)

Therefore, it represents that state-of-affairs, namely, of a cat **being-on **the mat.

Yes, language! Look at the word you used – “represents”. It’s the map, not the territory we are talking about, and it is constructed in the brain, by the brain through our cognitive faculties. “being on” is utterly meaningless without mind. What we call “cat” and what we call “mat” are what they are if all humans never were, and do not exist. But “being on” is a void, in that case. It’s a nothing.

Also, the word occurs as part of a proposition that is a publicly ascertainable entity whose existence is not dependent on any language. There’s the word, its content, then its structural place within a proposition. I can tell you don’t understand me; and this is turning your objection to me into a straw-man.

I do, I think you are again confusing the map for the territory. Mapping is language. Language is how we map. And “being on” is purely map, and is not the territory. No mappers, no maps, and thus no “being on”, even though, and especially though the matter and energy configurations of nature are what they are if there were no human or language-capable minds (cats are problematic as examples as they have cognitive faculties that are rudimentary, but possibly fairly classed as concept-capable, and thus language-engaged).

Again, I continue to say that propositions are not merely linguistic entities and that they can exist independently of all languages, even though it requires language to express them."

Why do you say this? I’m stumped as to what would lead you to conclude this, and you won’t tell me why you say that.

You are always committing the genetic fallacy that arising from=dependent on. This is false, and I’ve repeatedly said why. You need an argument for thinking why this true. So far, there is none.

You haven’t said why this is a a genetic fallacy, you’ve just asserted that it is. You’ve already affirmed a “partial” sourcing in language, which is the source I understand and we can both affirm, even if you only “partially”. So we have common ground on that. I see no need or room for anything extra, and yet you claim there is. So where is this extra, and how do you demonstrate its actuality?

-TS

 

[Syntax]

“Same” is not a measure of cardinality. This is missing the type/instance distinction. There’s one class of sentence, and three instances of that class. Three by one measure, one by another. If we looked at all the electrons we can find, we’d find they are all identical. Is it that we only have just one electron in the universe?
Repetition or reiteration across multiple instances conveys information, even though (and because) it is redundant. For example, if we receive this transmission:

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.

We have a concrete epistemic advantage from the three sentences over the one.If we had just received:

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.

We would have likely misunderstood if the “triplicate” transmission was:

I will not pull Susie’s hair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.
I will not pull Susie’s pair in class.

In which case we would infer that that “pair” was the correct word rather than “hair” due to its redundancy and “hair” being the odd man out in the trio. In any case, instances are not classes, and instances, even in repetition, represent information on their own. Even across languages, the language-specific renderings are instances of a class, a class defined by the conceptual/semantic graph that is unified across both languages (which may or may not be possible in practice, depending on what you take as “same” with respect to abstract language constructs – some linguists think that we think in a particular language which can never be perfectly translated to another, for example).

This is just equivocating on “different” across class/instance lines. If you have 3 electrons trapped in your vacuum chamber, but they are utterly identical in attributes and constitution, how many electrons do you have? Depends on what you mean by “different”!

I get what you are saying. You are assuming the principle of the **Identity of Indiscernibles **which is an epistemic principle that is somehow supposed to guide us in the determination of entity’s unique identity. But I think this principle is false because I don’t think it is metaphysically sufficient for identity whatsoever. The “two” electrions might be epistemically indistinguishable, but *qualitative indistinguishability *as the sole criterion for determining numerical identity sounds absurd to me. Besides, the epistemic situation you are describing with respect to sameness and cardinality is irrelevant to the logic of my argument anyway.

Now your are confusing the sentence-class from the sentence-instance!

Not at all!!

“The cat is on the mat” is an sentence-instance of the sentence-type the cat is on the mat, likewise for German. “Die Katze setzet auf dem Vorleger” is a sentence-instance of the sentence-type Die Katze setzet auf dem Vorleger.

You are just assuming again that the sentence-type *the cat is on the mat *is identical to the proposition expressed by it. It is true I cannot “write” the actual proposition down without putting it into a language-type (so it is invisible), but two language types (the german and the english) express the same thing, namely, the proposition. The proposition is the one and only entity commonly expressed by both language-types. I don’t know why this is so confusing to you.

 

[Syntax]

I’m open to the idea, if it can be expressed coherently, and somehow demonstrated. So far as I’m aware, there isn’t ANY coherent meaning available for “exist” in immaterial terms. If you disagree, and you can support that, you can and should be famous! If I have some entity, “X” (perhaps one of these magical propositions), what is the principle that distinguishes X as “immaterially exists” apart from “immaterially doesn’t exist”? What would be my method of showing some putative “X” did not “immaterially exist”.

Given that, I don’t need to assume anything about it. Non-material existence hasn’t yet managed to become even possibly false, conceptually. It’s stuck in incoherence and meaningless.

Seriously, if you can give it some coherence and meaning, that would be big news. I ask this all the time, and am ALWAYS disappointed by the deafening silence I get in return. This is where the immaterialist ideas are show for the poverties they are.

It is widely known that existence can’t be defined (unless you want to dive into lengthy discourses about “being” like the existentialists do). You are merely proposing that the logic of quantification be restricted to the domain of physical entities. But the burden of proof is no more on me than you on which domain we should be restrict quantification to.

“On” is a word, but it’s a word tied to a concept, and that is what cannot exist without language. As soon as you have a concept of “on”, for which “on” is an English symbol pointing to that concept, you necessarily have language.

Right.

Well, yes, but in the same sense “red” is determined by particular wavelengths of light. Nature is what it is, but our concepts are not the external states. They are informed by them, but they not the sources of information themselves.

Some concepts are innate. Not all concepts are empirical abstractions like the concept of red. I imagine you might disagree with this. But I’m trying to make my replies short.

The map is not the territory.
The map is not the territory.
The map is not the terrirory…
(Is that three sentences or one?)

One sentence-type and three token instances. If you are going to flat-out assert that sameness does not determine cardinality, I simply disagree because I think the Identity of Indiscernibles is false.

Yes, language! Look at the word you used – “represents”. It’s the map, not the territory we are talking about, and it is constructed in the brain, by the brain through our cognitive faculties. “being on” is utterly meaningless without mind.

You haven’t said why this is a a genetic fallacy, you’ve just asserted that it is. You’ve already affirmed a “partial” sourcing in language, which is the source I understand and we can both affirm, even if you only “partially”. So we have common ground on that. I see no need or room for anything extra, and yet you claim there is. So where is this extra, and how do you demonstrate its actuality?

I’m tired of this map/territory stuff. The map represents, but is also another object among many objects within this territory. Our ontologies are just different. You deny the existence of the map. I’m saying the map is language created, but that it can transfer from one person’s hands to another and is distinct from any particular person’s token use of it, but is still the same numerically identical map no matter whose hands it is in. So it is ontologically independent of whomever is using it.

I hate this metaphor.

The “actuality” of the proposition is arrived at inductively through two-different sentence-types expressing the same proposition as in the English/German case earlier. Here’s another example: the my token utterance “you are president” of the sentence-type *you are president * expresses the same **numerically identical **propostion by me referring to Obama as when Obama utters the token “I am president” of the different sentence-type I am the president.

 

[Betterave]

Originally Posted by Betterave

What you claim here is interesting though. “The territory remains what it is.” This sounds like your claim that “reality is reality” or that you believe in “the reality of reality” (which is of course comforting to hear!). Okay, but the map apparently doesn’t simply “remain what it is,” and the only way to talk about the territory is through ‘using’ a map(?).

Right. The only tools we have produce “maps”.

“The only tools we have produce ‘maps’”? (Huh?) What does it mean to ‘use’ a map? It’s to go somewhere? So depending where we want to go, we’ll make different maps? …But you’re not saying we make maps; rather, “tools we have produce maps” - …so what is involved in that production process? (Remember, in answering this question you will be making a map, and constituting whatever it is you are mapping as a territory, as reality, so your answer must allow for an appropriate kind of self-referentiality.)

Quote:

And apparently your map is different from mine… So how do we know we’re mapping the same territory?

We can identify similarities in our maps. This produces a starkly parsimonious explanation: we are, in fact, charting out the same territory. To the extent we produce models (here is where ‘map’ metaphorically starts to break down) that are consistent with each other, and effictive in making novel, precise predictions for future or unknown situations, we simply have no other reasoned explanation for the match beyond supposing that the consistency obtains from our experiencing a shared, objective, extramental reality.

We can also identify differences, which destroys the allegedly stark parsimony you assert above. I think you are right that the map-metaphor starts to break down here, I’m glad you noticed that. Here you have started making postulates about the normative conditions governing map-making. You are no longer talking about a territory with any independent standing - the territory that you are mapping is all territory that you have constituted through your normative suppositions, so its own claim to having a basis in extramentality is groundless.

Quote:
Nothing ever gets expressed directly about the territory, that is, the territory never expresses itself - indeed, the territory could be altered and we could continue to use our maps (express our concepts) just the same.
Yes.

Quote:

But “territory” means reality and it is axiomatic for you that reality never changes?

No, not axiomatic. It’s not a necessary assumption (which is what makes a proposition axiomatic). Perhaps reality does change, even at the most fundamental levels, has or will. What I intend by reality’s “unchangeability” (apologies if I used that term – it’s awkward here) is NOT that reality can’t change, but rather that our “mapping” has perfectly no ontological influence on it. Reality is what is, changing or no, completely independent of our mapping efforts, or, more importantly, regardless of whether there are minds, concepts, languages and maps at all, anywhere, ever. The territory is UNCHANGED BY MAPS. That’s the point I was trying to convey. Reality may change dramatically, in all sorts of ways, itself.

Excellent, you have identified the issue. Now you just have to understand why your position on it is false. ‘Territory’ is the correlate of ‘map.’ A territory is simply the object of a map. One map can be the object of another map. So maps and territories are not really distinguishable in principle. Map-making is itself a constitutive contribution to reality. Therefore the territory is changed by maps (on your account).

Quote:

(Even though the appearance of reality does change, since it is brought to light (expressed) in different conceptual schemes? What is the purpose of your clinging to the reality of a reality which apparently never appears?

It does appear. It just gets “modeled” imperfectly. But “imperfectly” can be astonishingly impressive and practically useful, even so. I can fly coast to coast in 5.5 hours, thanks to a shared “map” of the territory that is reality. To the extent we can distill a consensus of observations and models that perform – that enable a 250,000lb hunk of metal to fly 2,500 miles at 35,000 feet – reality does appear to us. Performance in objective terms is the validation of our our appearances.

In any case, it’s not saving the “reality of reality”. The reality of reality is the only hypothesis that isn’t laughable by way of accounting for the agreements we do arrive at, the similarity and performance of our maps.

No, I don’t think it does appear - that would radically change your position. It is only imperfect models, i.e., maps, that appear. And in the very asking of the question “what is it that appears?,” we engage ourselves in the production of a map of the relation of reality/territory and appearance-of-reality/map - but how can this be a coherent enterprise? Only if we have some access to reality beyond its conceptual expression in our maps. But we must have this - how else did we get maps in the first place (maps of real territory, that is)?

Your appeal to the impressiveness of the achievements of aeronautical engineering is strange - is this a new kind of stipulation you are building into your map-building manual? (If so, then you should grant that it is not grounded in extramental reality.) Or is such a normative gesture supposed to map a feature of the real territory? (That would call for some careful explanation.)

(“The reality of reality” cannot be considered an hypothesis, as you suggest, until it has received some kind of coherent content.)

 

[Betterave]

Quote:
What does it mean to characterize such a reality as real? In characterizing it, aren’t you conceptualizing it, i.e., making it part of the map?)

As above, performance is the validation of appearances. To the extent we can objectively predict, test, verify and perform with our “maps”, we support not just the performance of those maps, but the underlying metaphysical conjecture that reality is real (this accounts for the agreement and performance).

Maybe it would account for the underlying metaphysical conjecture - at least it would if you could succeed in explaining how that conjecture can be conceived as a map of extramental territory. (So far I think you have not.)

Your concept of ‘performance as validation of appearances’ counts as another map you’re offering us. But this statement seems very murky and muddled. It’s not at all clear how your second order considerations are grounded in ‘extramental’ reality. On your account all three bolded terms serve normative functions, so how is it that they map extramental territory? You can say normativity is a real part of the reality of STEM - but then we’re back wondering what you mean by your insistence that “the map is not the territory” - why not?

Quote:

And what about our concepts here? Are we still mapping the changeless territory?

Sorry about the confusion there. Reality can be as static or dynamic as it will be. Our map-making is just an effort to achieve ever more effective approximations of the territory. If the territory is “fluid”, our map-making just gets that much more complex, and has to “co-fluid” in some respect, if it is to be useful.

I like this. You just need to realize that it seems to render incoherent the most basic claims grounding your position.

Quote:

Is our own map-making part of the changeless territory? (Is that what you want to say?) Or are maps not always about changeless territories? (Are they ever about changeless territories?)

Hah. Now I’m lost. This was “Douglas Hoftadter” quality in it’s self-referential complexity. We are part of the territory, and so “map-making” is a phenomenon, just like flowers blooming in the spring, or the tide coming in. But just as the tides and the flowers are effects, so too are our maps. That’s part of a performative map, but a tricksy one; it requires some nuance in the model to keep that clearly in view, AND at the same time not get the maps (conceptually) confused with the territory.

Right, I’m glad you noticed this. Now my question is: do you think you have succeeded? It seems to me you have not and that perhaps you need to radically revise your position; perhaps it’s not just tricky, perhaps it’s incoherent.

 

[Touchstone]

But you don’t see the consequence. If (a) is true and the concept doesn’t exist in B’s and C’s mind, then B and C had different concepts than A all along since each concept is merely a token without a type.

These are all approximations. Every brain has a different set of neurons and patterns. We have identified different loci for various functions (cf. Wernicke’s Area), but the particular brain-state for person A that would map to “cat” is going to be different than the particular brain-state for person B.

What makes these concepts the “same” is functional equivalence. Person A, and Person B, despite difference in the particular neuronal pattern that fire upon seeing a cat, nevertheless have a neuronal response that fires for “cat”; They both have the concept of “cat” and these are the same concept in practice. But the abstraction, the “magical proposition” is just descriptive of practically isomorphic brain-states. They align functionally, not as identical electrical schematics in the brain.

The consequence becomes that when A uses the concept of “bachelor” and C uses the concept of “bachelor,” they must therefore be meaning different things.

I don’t know what you mean by “different”, here. Above, I pointed functional equivalence, whereby we decide that “different” applies when functional divergence obtains. If A and B do not respond to the same questions or semantic distinctions regarding “bachelor” (perhaps A identifies some set of known-to-be-married men as “bachelors” along with lots of unmarried men), we consider that a substantive basis for saying their concepts of ‘bachelor’ are “different”. If we can’t come up with a way to elicit different answers or responses based on testing the semantics for A and B, and they identify the same objects in discriminating tests the same way every time, we have a basis for describe the concepts of “bachelor” for A and B to be “same”.

So the meaning of bachelor1 (not=) the meaning of bachelor2. So they can’t really be said to communicate at all.

There’s not binary polarity here – either “understanding” or “not understanding”. Understanding obtains in levels of overlap and through approximation. Perhaps Person A considers a widower to be a “bachelor”, where Person B insists that a bachelor is “a man who has never been married”. These are not identical ideas, but they are partially compatible, and they would both identify a male college graduate who’d never been married as a “bachelor”, agreeing in that case.

Anyone familiar with language translation will be aware of the “approximation factor”, whereby words from one language to another get mapped, but are only approximate in their semantic content. “Dasein” has connotations and overtones for German speakers that only approximately map to the English word “existence”, for example.

The very notion of **shared meanings **presupposes the existence of a type for which bachelor1 and bachelor2 are tokens.

Only in practical terms. By “type” we simply mean practical overlap between the various instances such that it is useful as a handle to refer to the group.

Without a type, however, communication doesn’t ever really happen. This should be obvious.

Communication does happen, as the types are synthetic, made up of clusters of approximately analagous semantic and logical constructs. Person A and B have slightly different concepts of “cat” – when the word is invoked in the same sentence it may conjure up slightly different images and semantic relationships, yet it is close enough betweent them that communication obtains. “That cat on the mat is black” is sufficient to connect to both A and B’s concept of cat, even though their particular concepts differ to some degree; they are similar enough for the hearer to understand the speaker.

You may just take it as **brute fact **that communication does happen, while I don’t. I think this phenomenon needs explanation. And in all my readings of reductive naturalism such as Quine, I have not yet found a reductive translational paraphrase of statements implicitly referring to absract entities that has yet been successful in preserving the statement’s original meaning. In spite of all of Quine’s great work otherwise, it is widely known that Quine failed in his promise to provide a successful linguistic paraphrase of statements which implicitly refer to immaterial/abstract entities such as in

“Humility is a virtue.”

The paraphrase he came up with refers to individuals instead of *immaterial properties *such as,

“Humble persons are virtuous,”

But the latter linguistic shift is neither semantically conservative of original meaning nor consistent with the logical implications of the original statement. So my main reasons for rejecting reductive physicalism are primarily **semantic **and logical.

Am I understanding this right? Quine was unsatisfactory (I’m not satisfied with Quine, either), ergo immaterial propositions? This should at least get promoted to an argument from ignorance, should it not?

-TS