Philosophy Now Forum

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 5:00 pm And I don't I know if a point is being made about what we call anything, but that doesn't matter. With a red circle, what it is for it to be the case is that it has particular em wavelengths/frequencies and spatial extensional relations--whatever we call it.

You are just working overtime to hide the ball from yourself.

What is "it" that you think we call "waves", "wavelengths" and "frequencies"?

They are just abstract mathematical constructs in the framework of information theory and signal processing!

You are going PRECISELY the wrong fucking way! You are climbing higher and higher into the tower of abstractions and you have fooled yourself into believing that you are getting "closer and closer" to the ground.

It's turtles all the way up/down (since you can't tell which way you are going)

We call this colour 'red'.

Oh, yeah. Okay, prove that the things we call 'colour' and 'red' really are what we call them.

Der. Brain-fart.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:25 pm We call this colour 'red'.

We call this behaviour "wrong"

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:25 pm Oh, yeah. Okay, prove that the things we call 'colour' and 'red' really are what we call them.

Oh, yeah. Okay, prove that the what we call 'murder' and 'wrong' are what we call them.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:25 pm Der. Brain-fart.

Precisely! Shit for brains.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:34 pmYou can say that euthanasia is murder.
You can say that euthanasia isn't murder.
You can say that this is blue.
You can say that this isn't blue.

You can say whatever you want!

Indeed.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:34 pmAnd yet you say that this is red. WHY?

Because when someone asks me what I mean by red, I can point your example and say 'I mean that.' If they ask what I mean by murder, I can't just point to a corpse and say the same.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:00 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:34 pmYou can say that euthanasia is murder.
You can say that euthanasia isn't murder.
You can say that this is blue.
You can say that this isn't blue.

You can say whatever you want!

Indeed.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:34 pmAnd yet you say that this is red. WHY?

Because when someone asks me what I mean by red, I can point your example and say 'I mean that.' If they ask what I mean by murder, I can't just point to a corpse and say the same.

The thing is that we can (all) get wrong whether a color is red. We can show that we got this wrong via instruments like spectrometers.

We can't get wrong whether nonconsensual killing is ethically bad. Or at least there's no justification for saying this in lieu of specifying something akin to spectroscopy that's measuring some extramental state of affairs that amounts to nonconsensual killing being ethically bad. Showing nonconsensual killing, showing consequences of nonconsensual killing, etc. would not do this. We'd have to show, accessible by scientific instruments, nonconsensual killing being ethically bad.

And of course, this is assuming that what anyone is attempting to do with morality in the first place is to report the extramental state of affairs re what's morally right, wrong, permissible, impermissible, etc., and that's a big assumption. Most people are probably telling us how they feel about the behavior in question, not attempting to report some set of properties found in the extramental universe re permissibility etc.

After all, if it turned out to be the case that some set of extramental properties pervading the universe somehow were such that objectively, murder is morally obligatory--so that we're almost all wrong about this (under the assumption that we're attempting to report objective ethical edicts), how many people would care about that over their personal feelings and preferences that we shouldn't be murdering other people?

The same thing goes for when this sort of discussion occurs in an aesthetic context. There's an unacknowledged assumption that anyone would be attempting to report whether some piece of music, some film, some painting, is good or bad independent of how the person in question feels about it. That's a fairly odd thing to assume. Why would they be more concerned with good/bad as objective properties than they are with how they and others will feel about it, whether they or others like or will like it, etc.?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:00 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:34 pmYou can say that euthanasia is murder.
You can say that euthanasia isn't murder.
You can say that this is blue.
You can say that this isn't blue.

You can say whatever you want!

Indeed.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:34 pmAnd yet you say that this is red. WHY?

Because when someone asks me what I mean by red, I can point your example and say 'I mean that.' If they ask what I mean by murder, I can't just point to a corpse and say the same.

Ostension is one of several ways to explain how we use a word, such as 'red'. And on its own it may not work. For example, my one-year-old nephew refers to water as 'bath'.

Teaching and learning how to use 'right' and 'wrong' is a different language game. Rightness and wrongness aren't properties like redness.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:00 pm Because when someone asks me what I mean by red, I can point your example and say 'I mean that.' If they ask what I mean by murder, I can't just point to a corpse and say the same.

There's a bunch of websites with videos containing really gory details of murders being committed.

Would you like me to point you to them?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:06 pm The thing is that we can (all) get wrong whether a color is red. We can show that we got this wrong via instruments like spectrometers.

No, you can't. You are confused about how measurements/instruments work and what it is that a spectrometer informs you of.
You don't understand the symbol-grounding problem

You are going to point the spectrometer at any particular thing which reflects light and it will give you a frequency reading. A number.

But the argument between humans is not whether that particular patch is of frequency/number between 500 and 700. THAT is a testable falsifiable claim. That is a claim I can be "wrong" about, but that is not the claim I am making.

The argument between humans isn't about frequencies or numbers - those are abstract mathematical objects.
The argument is about whether the patch of color is "red" or not.

Who decides which frequency-range maps to "red" and how ?

You say this frequency is "red".
I say this frequency is "blue".

They are just different linguistic descriptions of the same frequency. When I point at it we now have a reference point for translating between your language and mine (you call "red" what I call "blue"), but there's no way to dismiss one of those descriptions as "wrong".

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:29 pmOstension is one of several ways to explain how we use a word, such as 'red'. And on its own it may not work. For example, my one-year-old nephew refers to water as 'bath'.

But you understand what he means, and no doubt your mutual understanding will develop. I used to give my daughters bashy donuts. Twenty years later, they are familiar with pistachio nuts.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:29 pmTeaching and learning how to use 'right' and 'wrong' is a different language game. Rightness and wrongness aren't properties like redness.

My point precisely.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:29 pm Teaching and learning how to use 'right' and 'wrong' is a different language game. Rightness and wrongness aren't properties like redness.

They are assertions. Both "redness" and "wrongness" are assertions performed after appropriate calibration.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:32 pmThere's a bunch of websites with videos containing really gory details of murders being committed.

Would you like me to point you to them?

What will they tell me about the moral status of euthanasia?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 3:24 pm What will they tell me about the moral status of euthanasia?

The same thing "red" tells you about the color satus of this image.

It tells you what some people say about it - it tells you about the language they use to describe it, but it doesn't tell you why they describe it that way.

Now, do you want to stop playing the stupid, denotational language games and focus on connotation?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 3:26 pmIt tells you what some people say about it - it tells you about the language they use to describe it, but it doesn't tell you why they describe it that way.

If someone tells me that a particular corpse is a product of a murder, I will assume, rightly or wrongly, that they are making a moral judgement at least, and probably a legal one. What are the equivalents for colour?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 4:25 pm If someone tells me that a particular corpse is a product of a murder, I will assume, rightly or wrongly, that they are making a moral judgement at least, and probably a legal one. What are the equivalents for colour?

Equivalence is judgment. It's what mathematicians call judgmental equality.

You are equating the experience of this color with the word "red".

It's a proposition. Or an assertion. Same difference.