What is P and -P?

[Terrapin Station]

Yeah, let me pay you for that bridge first.

I don't want you to pay for a bridge.

I want you to solve the epistemic problem of criterion.

What's your criterion for "coherence" ?

You must have one, since you have asserted physicalism is "coherent".

But if you ever felt like a hamster... the categories of "coherent" and "incoherent"....

Maybe try a dictionary of you want to understand a common word you want to pretend to be unfamiliar with?

[Skepdick]

Maybe try a dictionary of you want to understand a common word you want to pretend to be unfamiliar with?

I used the dictionary to tell you that "coherence" implies parts fitting together.

Monist metaphysics don't have parts. That's what "monism" means. Oneness. Singleness.

To ascribe "coherence" to something with a single part is incoherent.

But if you are using the OTHER definition of "coherence" which is... "the quality of forming a unified whole." then ALL monist metaphysics are coherent.

But I told you this already.

[Terrapin Station]

Maybe try a dictionary of you want to understand a common word you want to pretend to be unfamiliar with?

I used the dictionary to tell you that "coherence" implies parts fitting together.

Definitely reading is hard.

When you want to be serious again and not play stupid I'll give you serious responses.

[Skepdick]

Definitely reading is hard.

Reading is trivial.

Computing implications seems to be beyond your grasp.

[Terrapin Station]

Definitely reading is hard.

Reading is trivial.

Computing implications seems to be beyond your grasp.

You might have missed the edit. When you want to be serious again and not play stupid I'll give you serious responses.

[Skepdick]

When you want to be serious again and not play stupid I'll give you serious responses.

I am as serious as it gets when I told you that all Philosophy is vacuous.

I am not playing stupid. I am stupid. Just not as stupid as Philosophers.

[Terrapin Station]

When you want to be serious again and not play stupid I'll give you serious responses.

I am as serious as it gets when I told you that all Philosophy is vacuous.

I am not playing stupid. I am stupid. Just not as stupid as Philosophers.

If only that would explain having trouble reading through a definition of a word you surely know anyway.

[Skepdick]

If only that would explain having trouble reading through a definition of a word you surely know anyway.

If only you could explain how dictionaries could possibly be coherent.

It's just terms referring to other terms, referring to other terms. The entire affair seems circular and vacuous.

You can't even define "define" without using undefined terms!

[Skepdick]

As for symbol assignment, the laws of (all) logics are only about the meaning, not the particlar symbols they are FORCED to use when attempting to express anything.

*BZZZZZZT*

Wrong.

In the eternal feat between syntax and semantics, it turns out that meaning resides in syntax while semantics is the home of illusions.

It's just mechanistic symbol wrangling. It's computation in the sense Turing meant it: following fixed rules with no authority to deviate from them in any detail. It's the ultimate abdication of free will!

A new world-view is required here. From the rules of logic to the logic of rules

[Terrapin Station]

I'm more than willing to entertain ontological categories other than "physical" for anyone who wants to try to make them coherent.

If "physicalism" is coherent, then so is every monist metaphysic.

Lets make one up while we at it. Energism - everything is energy.

Although it's weird that you would use the word "coherent" here, which normally means "sticking together", which implies there are parts to stick together.

Physicalism is "coherent" because it has only one part!

I should have brought this up when you first mentioned it, by the way, but were you thinking that insofar as physics deals with energy, it's dealing with something that's not physical?

I didn't bring that up at first because I find the notion of energy occurring on its own incoherent, and that's more interesting to me.

[Terrapin Station]

It's just terms referring to other terms, referring to other terms. The entire affair seems circular and vacuous.

If only that had something to do with coherence.

[Terrapin Station]

As for symbol assignment, the laws of (all) logics are only about the meaning, not the particlar symbols they are FORCED to use when attempting to express anything.

*BZZZZZZT*

Wrong.

In the eternal feat between syntax and semantics, it turns out that meaning resides in syntax while semantics is the home of illusions.

It's just mechanistic symbol wrangling. It's computation in the sense Turing meant it: following fixed rules with no authority to deviate from them in any detail. It's the ultimate abdication of free will!

A new world-view is required here. From the rules of logic to the logic of rules

Conventionally, semantics is the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. If "meaning resides in syntax," then that would be a semantic fact, it wouldn't be something aside from semantics.

[Skepdick]

I should have brought this up when you first mentioned it, by the way, but were you thinking that insofar as physics deals with energy, it's dealing with something that's not physical?

I didn't bring that up at first because I find the notion of energy occurring on its own incoherent, and that's more interesting to me.

Whatever physics deals with it would be the same kind of stuff irrespective of the label you put on it.

The nature of things doesn't change in any way just because we re-describe them. It would be stupid if it did.

Physics deals with symmetries and structures, so the Mathematical equations used to describe physics would be exactly the same even if energy was non-physical.

Underneath molecules are atoms.
Underneath atoms are quarks, leptons and gluons.
Underneath quarks, leptons and gluons there's nothing.

Those things can only be understood in terms of Mathematics.

[Skepdick]

If only that had something to do with coherence.

If only you could tell us what "coherence" is. Sure sounds as mystical as the christian God.

I won't hold my breath.

[Skepdick]

Conventionally, semantics is the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. If "meaning resides in syntax," then that would be a semantic fact, it wouldn't be something aside from semantics.

Except, conventionally, syntax and semantics are distinct categories.

Which is why you've been harping on about denotation (and denotational semantics).

And the irony is that logical and mathematical symbols don't denote anything.