Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:46 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:45 pm Which I don't buy.

I don't believe you.

You use plurals in English.

Grapes. Cats. Dogs. Things. Those are all types.

Yes. I use those terms. That doesn't imply that I think that two separate things can literally be identical with respect to properties somehow.

What I'm doing is employing an abstraction I've created.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:51 pm Yes. I use those terms. That doesn't imply that I think that two separate things can literally be identical with respect to properties somehow.

That's literally why you are using one term to refer to two things.

This cat is a cat.
And this cat is a cat.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:51 pm What I'm doing is employing an abstraction I've created.

Exactly! In an abstract sense this thing and that thing are both "cats", even though they are different things. Two different things have some set of shared properties which you recognise as the properties that identify those thing as a "cats".

Abstraction is the elimination of the irrelevant and the amplification of the essential.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:55 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:51 pm Yes. I use those terms. That doesn't imply that I think that two separate things can literally be identical with respect to properties somehow.

That's literally why you are using one term to refer to two things.

This cat is a cat.
And this cat is a cat.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:51 pm What I'm doing is employing an abstraction I've created.

Exactly! In an abstract sense this thing and that thing are both "cats", even though they are different things. Two different things have some set of shared properties which you recognise as the properties that identify those thing as a "cats".

Abstraction is the elimination of the irrelevant and the amplification of the essential.

They don't literally have the same properties, though.

"The essential" is a subjective determination, by the way.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:57 pm They don't literally have the same properties, though.

You are literally calling two different things by the same name.

Why are you doing that if they are literally different?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:57 pm "The essential" is a subjective determination, by the way.

No shit. That's how all abstraction works.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:58 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:57 pm They don't literally have the same properties, though.

You are literally calling two things by the same name.

If we're talking about a plural on a single/particular usage, sure . . . which has nothing whatsoever to do with them literally having the same properties.

Why are you doing that if they are literally different?

Because it's a useful kludge.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:00 pm If we're talking about a plural on a single/particular usage, sure . . . which has nothing whatsoever to do with them literally having the same properties.

We are talking about any two things (e.g with two unique identities), that you refer to by the same name.

This rose and that rose.

Whatever properties a "rose" makes, both things have them.
Whatever properties a "rose" doesn't have, both things don't have them.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:00 pm Because it's a useful kludge.

Useful.... for the purpose of?

Are you that lazy that you can't find two words for two things?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:37 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:25 am
So, a thing we think about, such as Gandalf, exists physically in the brain in the form of electrochemical processes or 'dynamic brain states' - which factual assertions can describe correctly?

Correct. That's the case with mentality in general, so it's going to be the case for fictions/things we imagine or fantasize about, too.

This is magical thinking, rather like the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood: no accidental change occurs.

I don't understand "no accidental change occurs" (I don't get the context etc.)

There's nothing "magical" about this: see below.

The only things that exist in the brain are organic material and electrochemical processes - because the only things that exist are physical things, both inside and outside the brain. Any other use of 'exist' is metaphorical and likely equivocatory.

Again, mind is physical. So saying that there are facts about a particular instantiation of "Gandalf" is saying something about physical stuff. Mind is identical to a subset of brain states. It's what those states are like (it's their properties) from the spatiotemporal frame of being the brain states in question.

'Mind' is nothing like 'lightning', which is a measurable and explicable physical phenomenon. That claim just begs the question. Explaining lightning is like explaining the brain, not the mind.

Mind is identical to a subset of brain states.

The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation assumes a dualism: substance and accidents. The substance is the essence or essential nature - for example of the bread and wine - and the 'accidents' are the exterior or manifest properties that 'manifest' the substance. That's the absurd explanation for why the bread and wine in the mass are unchanged; their supposed substance is magically trans-substantiated into the body and blood of Jesus.

My point is that what you call 'a particular instantiation of Gandalf' is problematic. In what way is an electrochemical process an instantiation of a thing such as Gandalf? In what sense does or can Gandalf 'exist in the brain'? Physically? Or does something like a substantial change occur in the brain that is physically ('accidentally') undetectable?

I think this is all nonsense. And the charge of 'eliminativism' assumes there's something that needs to be eliminated - something that does or doesn't exist.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:14 pm My point is that what you call 'a particular instantiation of Gandalf' is problematic. In what way is an electrochemical process an instantiation of a thing such as Gandalf? In what sense does or can Gandalf 'exist in the brain'? Physically? Or does something like a substantial change occur in the brain that is physically ('accidentally') undetectable?

Uhhh. Retard.

In what way does "understanding" exist in the brain?
In what way do "explanations" exist in the brain?
In what way does "language" exist in the brain?

And if none of those things exist in any particular way, then how do you explain that you understand language?

Seriously. You must be going for the stupid high-score.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:02 pm Whatever properties a "rose" makes, both things have them.
Whatever properties a "rose" doesn't have, both things don't have them.

They can't literally have the same properties on my view. They rather have similarities/resemblances that we abstract as the "same properties," as a kludge, in our concepts.

Useful.... for the purpose of?

Conceptualizing interaction with the world and communicating.

Are you that lazy that you can't find two words for two things?

Language wouldn't work if we had a unique word (with no resemblances a la "cat" and "cat" where we're talking about non-identical tokens) for every particular at each unique temporal instance.
.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:14 pm My point is that what you call 'a particular instantiation of Gandalf' is problematic. In what way is an electrochemical process an instantiation of a thing such as Gandalf? In what sense does or can Gandalf 'exist in the brain'? Physically? Or does something like a substantial change occur in the brain that is physically ('accidentally') undetectable?

"Gandalf' and everything associated with it--semantic associations, concepts, mental images, etc. are identical to properties of particular brain states from the spatiotemporal reference frame of being the brain states in question. (So yes, it's physical. I'm a physicalist. I don't believe that there is anything extant that's not physical, and I find the very notion of nonphysical existents to be incoherent.)

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:53 pm They can't literally have the same properties on my view. They rather have similarities/resemblances that we abstract as the "same properties," as a kludge, in our concepts.

You aren't saying anything of interest. You arrive at "sameness" by abstracting away all differences.

By virtue of that fact "sameness" is always abstract. That's a feature, not a bug.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:53 pm Conceptualizing interaction with the world and communicating.

And those things are useful because...?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:53 pm Language wouldn't work if we had a unique word (with no resemblances a la "cat" and "cat" where we're talking about non-identical tokens) for every particular at each unique temporal instance.

Yes, it would. The words "red" and "scarled" have absolutely no resemblance, but they have very similar meaning.

You are confusing the richness/fidelity of a vocabulary with its effectiveness. Language is generative you can create or erase as many distinctions as you want or need.

The word/label A could represent the universe; or it could represent a single electron. There's no limit on how far one stretches or shrinks their abstractions.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:14 pm And those things are useful because...?

Sometimes you want a bagel.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:17 pm Sometimes you want a bagel.

And you can't point at what you want why?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:18 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:17 pm Sometimes you want a bagel.

And you can't point at what you want why?

Pointing and grunting often doesn't work as well.

As if we need to waste time saying this.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:52 pm Pointing and grunting often doesn't work as well.

Clearly you aren't a scuba diver.

Communication is multi-dimensional.