Philosophy Now Forum

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 8:55 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 8:53 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 8:52 pm Non-circular within a limited scope, or universally non-circular? If you are after the latter then that's your problem. Good luck

Non-circular within the limited scope of language.

I think even with the former you have a problem. Good luck

Okay good luck finding a language that doesn't run into a circularity problem. I'll root for you.. from far away..

Everyone keeps asserting that there are "problems"... I look around and I can never see them.

Are you sure they aren't in your head?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:17 pm <dum dumb fuckery by the dumb dumb fuck>

Here's more counter-examples you have no philosophical explanation for.

Fuck your religion.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 6:17 pm Here's the same code but, this time written to return a string of text in response to the question of whether this thing is equal to itself

Dumb Dumb doesn't even understand that the way you encode the meaning of a question directly determines the sort of answer you are going to get.

Dumb Dumb doesn't even understand the difference between printing meaningless strings and evaluating meaningful expressions.

Dumb Dumb doesn't understand what evaluation is. The very process of computing the value of an expression.

I won't be able to be the voice of reason in this particular thread becuz I know very little about computer code, so u guys are on your own.

I somehow feel like F.D. Pants is right tho even tho I haven't a clue what u guys are talking about. This could be a complex bias designed by me internalizing my observations of the group's hostile reactions to Skepdick combined with my personal admiration of F.D. Pants (as a poster I mean I'm not a homo) tho.

Like that herd instinct thing where u feel like u have to join the others at throwing rocks at the one monkey the group has ostracized for whatever reason. Like u don't even know why they're throwing rocks you're just like damn he musta done something bad so u start throwin rocks at em too. That's how I feel right now.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:28 pm I somehow feel like F.D. Pants is right

You think the moral skeptic is "right"? What do you mean by that?

This smuggling of moral language into the affairs of empiricism is perplexing.

What does it even mean to believe in "A=A" ? It doesn't even mean anything until we give the "=" symbol some computational meaning.

Wait a minute I thought u guys are arguing about the function of certain codes and what they mean in that Python language or whatever.

I dunno how i ended up thinking Pants is a moral skeptic in all that, but now that we're there I feel like I gotta say something.

If i thought i had a moral skeptic who claimed to be 'right', i wouldn't interpret that as a contradiction on the part of the moral skeptic becuz:

Regarding hypothetical imperatives, it is possible to be 'right' or 'wrong' when making an evaluative statement about something. For example, if the goal is to keep someone alive, killing them would be the objectively wrong thing to do.

But to claim that killing is objectively wrong independently of the fact that it would be contradictive for someone who wanted to keep people alive, to kill them, would be nonsense.

Whether or not there is the quality 'right' or 'wrong' in morality depends entirely on what you're tryna do. If your behavior is conducive to producing your desired result, it is the 'right' behavior.

U can substitute 'good' and 'bad' here instead and it would change nothing.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:52 pm Wait a minute I thought u guys are arguing about the function of certain codes and what they mean in that Python language or whatever.

We are talking about the meaning of "A=A". It means whatever we evaluate it to mean.

I am only using Python to demonstrate the number of possible evaluators which can be constructed.

Simple empirical demonstration that identity is prescriptive, not descriptive.

Prescriptive statements are moral statements.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:52 pm If i thought i had a moral skeptic who claimed to be 'right', i wouldn't interpret that as a contradiction on the part of the moral skeptic becuz:

Regarding hypothetical imperatives, it is possible to be 'right' or 'wrong' when making an evaluative statement about something.

Constructing evaluators which produce different/conflicting outputs for identical inputs is PRECISELY what I am demonstrating with Python.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:52 pm For example, if the goal is to keep someone alive, killing them would be the objectively wrong thing to do.

There are no such things as goals in a paradigm which claims to be engaging in unmotivated reasoning.

It's just description, right? Objective facts. Zero subjective evaluation.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:52 pm U can substitute 'good' and 'bad' here instead and it would change nothing.

Ehhh, no. Moral skepticism is to be skeptical of the possibility of making moral evaluations.

Such as the right and wrong.

So if you evaluate A=A to True and I evaluate it to False, insisting that my answer is "wrong" is a moral claim.

The evaluator exists. Objectively. It's a computer programmed using Python. It has no feelings or thoughts or intentions.

What's "wrong" with it?

I don't think this argument-style has a name so I will give it one. "Argument by making you deeply regret having lied about your epistemic position in the first place."

To that one question about A=A.

Well i think it's the tautological nature of the law of identity that gets people all philosophically frustrated like your homeboy heraclitus. One starts to mistake the question of what something is for a possible refutation of the fact that something is, whatever it is, if it is.

See what i mean? Whatever is, is what it is. But what is it!? What is it that is!?, growls the philosopher.

That's what I mean. He's focusing on two different questions at once. Bro-bro's confused.

So what 'it means to believe that A=A' and what it means are kinda different. Despite what Joe thinks it means, it means what it means.

U can't really 'believe' that A=A, or even act like A=A.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 2:14 pm To that one question about A=A.

Well i think it's the tautological nature of the law of identity that gets people all philosophically frustrated like your homeboy heraclitus. One starts to mistake the question

You have misunderstood. What does the question "A=A" even mean?

On a subjectivist/moral skeptic account: It means whatever you evaluate it to mean; and however you evaluate it.
On moral objectivist account: it means True. By definition/prescription.

If you believe in Identity (the first Law of thought) you are no moral skeptic or subjectivist of any kind. Why are we still playing this fucking stupid game?

So yeah, the moral outrage over my relativization of identity by the so-called "moral skeptics" and "moral subjectivists" is fucking hilarious.

"It means whatever you evaluate it to mean; and however you evaluate it."

Yes and no. Yes in that u can designate a meaning for the symbol in a language and create rules for its use. No in that u can't designate a chair with a watermelon. That's to say a chair can't ever be a watermelon regardless of how u talk about it with language or what symbols u use to describe it.

U couldn't ever merely choose to mean watermelon when u say chair like u can choose what meaning to give to symbol A in a line of code.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 2:27 pm "It means whatever you evaluate it to mean; and however you evaluate it."

Yes and no. Yes in that u can designate a meaning for the symbol in a language and create rules for its use. No in that u can't designate a chair with a watermelon. That's to say a chair can't ever be a watermelon regardless of how u talk about it with language or what symbols u use to describe it.

U couldn't ever merely choose to mean watermelon when u say chair like u can choose what meaning to give to symbol A in a line of code.

You are trying to hold two world-views in one head.

This isn't just about naming words. This becomes a super-complex issue when we start talking about temporal phenomena which span cultures and centuries. Like "ethics". I "ethics" a word, concept or an empirical/temporal cultural phenomenon?

What about words which represent complex interactions? Like the "free market"; or "geopolitics". What the fuck does "identity" even mean when you move from the abstract into the concrete?


Here's a chair....

Btw I dunno how to answer some of those questions becuz you're somehow involving ethics in an epistemological matter. Like a moral relativist can't believe that A=A unless he's a moral objectivist?

I am so lost here. I have no idea what's going on right now.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 2:36 pm Btw I dunno how to answer some of those questions becuz you're somehow involving ethics in an epistemological matter. Like a moral relativist can't believe that A=A unless he's a moral objectivist?

EVERYTHING is an epistemological matter to an epistemologist.

Is geopolitics identical with itself?

Wut? What does the question even mean?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 2:36 pm I am so lost here. I have no idea what's going on right now.

Welcome to the jungle of "I have no fucking clue what Identity means."

The Universe is identical with itself. But it changes in a way that's consistent with it remaining identical with itself.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 1:28 pm I won't be able to be the voice of reason in this particular thread becuz I know very little about computer code, so u guys are on your own.

I somehow feel like F.D. Pants is right tho even tho I haven't a clue what u guys are talking about. This could be a complex bias designed by me internalizing my observations of the group's hostile reactions to Skepdick combined with my personal admiration of F.D. Pants (as a poster I mean I'm not a homo) tho.

Like that herd instinct thing where u feel like u have to join the others at throwing rocks at the one monkey the group has ostracized for whatever reason. Like u don't even know why they're throwing rocks you're just like damn he musta done something bad so u start throwin rocks at em too. That's how I feel right now.

You can redefine anything in Python, you can make yes mean no, equality mean inequality or the square root of fairy dust or anything else. Skepdick thinks that this has major implications for the universe. I guess when he was little he smashed his head into a concrete wall, another sad story..

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 2:36 pm Like a moral relativist can't believe that A=A unless he's a moral objectivist?

You've definitely missed the bus...

"A=A" is not a statement which says "A is equal to A."

It's a question which asks "Is A equal to A?"
What are the possible answers?