Philosophy Now Forum

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 2:45 pm Yeah. I finally put him back on ignore, so I don't know what he's arguing, but with red circles, there's clearly something in the extramental world with respect to electromagnetic radiation and spatial extensional relations that we can all be wrong about, and that we can discover, whereas that's not at all the case with moral edicts or stances or whatever we'd like to call the supposedly extramental moral whatevers.

This position is indefensible without solving the Symbol-grounding problem

The description of any physical quanta requires an appeal to Mathematical realism. It requires the reification of real/complex numbers as physical objects. There is nothing "beneath" our "fundamental particles" - it's just mathematics!

What or where are "electromagnetic waves". What's a "wave" anyway? Complex numbers?!?!? Oh! Another mathematical reification.

Clearly this idiot hasn't looked deep enough into the matter.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 2:59 pm Who would look at that and say it isn't red?

Who would look at murder and say it isn't wrong?

I guess you can find contrarians for any Philosophical position.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:03 pmWho would look at murder and say it isn't wrong?

Is abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment murder?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:06 pm Is abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment murder?

Is crimson, carmine, cardinal and madder red?

Some people see a distinction/nuance - some people don't.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:09 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:06 pm Is abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment murder?

Is crimson, carmine, cardinal and madder red?

Some people see a distinction/nuance - some people don't.

Do you think abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment are just nuances? Whatever names people give to the shades of red they see, I imagine (perhaps wrongly) that they could sequence them according to some criterion of redness. Your red circle would be fairly near the middle of most such sequences. If abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment were to be equivalent, you would expect one example to be similarly placed. Which one would you pick?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:19 pm Do you think abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment are just nuances?

Semantically, it doesn't matter! They are different things.

But if you end up mapping them all to the same thing (murder) you are literally doing quantization.

You are mapping many different things to one thing. You would be doing the equivalent of "all shades of red are red"

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:19 pm Whatever names people give to the shades of red they see, I imagine (perhaps wrongly) that they could sequence them according to some criterion of redness.

And whatever degrees people assign to murder, I bet they could sequence those too.

1st degree.
2nd degree.
3rd degree.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:19 pm Your red circle would be fairly near the middle of most such sequences.

Why would it? It's just an arbitrary wavelength on the continuum. It's not "the middle" of anything until you specify some interval.
For all you know that is a shade of red and not "true red" itself.
For all you know that wave length is to the left; or to the right of "true red".

And the moment you begin talking about "sequencing" and "ordering" you are talking about reifying abstractions (numbers) again.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:19 pm If abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment were to be equivalent, you would expect one example to be similarly placed. Which one would you pick?

My opinions don't matter here. We are being "mind-independent" and "objective", right?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:28 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:19 pmDo you think abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment are just nuances?

Semantically, it doesn't matter! They are different things.

Then what is murder?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:31 pm Then what is murder?

What is red?

You know it when you see it, apparently.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:32 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:31 pm Then what is murder?

What is red?

You know it when you see it, apparently.

Yup and it blurs into orange, brown and purple. When you see abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment, do you see murder or are the boundaries similarly blurred?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:38 pm Yup and it blurs into orange, brown and purple. When you see abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment, do you see murder or are the boundaries similarly blurred?

You really seem confused about this.

It's precisely the arbitrary boundaries which we, humans put down is what turn the continuous light spectrum into "red", "brown", "orange" and "purple".
It's the same with all categories. "Red" is a range/interval of light frequencies not a frequency itself.

That's how discretization works.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:41 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:38 pmYup and it blurs into orange, brown and purple. When you see abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment, do you see murder or are the boundaries similarly blurred?

You really seem confused about this.

That's either because you don't understand the question or you are just being your usual dick. So to be charitable, do you think abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment are shades of murder?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:48 pm That's either because you don't understand the question or you are just being your usual dick. So to be charitable, do you think abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment are shades of murder?

That's a stupid fucking question! It's a continuum! Everything is a shade of everything.

"Red" is a shade of "yellow" and a shade of "blue".

This is the idiocy of descriptive language!

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:50 pmThat's a stupid fucking question!

Meh. Just being your usual dick it is then.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:52 pm Meh. Just being your usual dick it is then.

You don't like objective, mathematical truth?

And I am the dick?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:52 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 3:50 pmThat's a stupid fucking question!

Meh. Just being your usual dick it is then.

Here, let me help you out.

Is red a shade of blue? If not, why not?