Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:15 pm Wires crossed, perhaps. I'm an atheist.

But anyway, my OP question is rhetorical, because I think moral assertions express value-judgements rather than factual claims - so morality can't be objective, full stop. (The god question is irrelevant.) In a nutshell, where do you stand on that? I can't work it out.

I get the impression we differ over the possibility of knowledge of reality expressed by means of true factual assertions - the possibility of objectivity. If you think such things are impossible, I think you're wrong - and that our communication here belies your denial.

No - it's far simpler.

I am not calling you religious because of a belief in the Abrahamic conception of a 'god'.
I am calling you religious because you believe in the conception of "objectivity" as synthesised by the "law" of non-contradiction.

It's not a real law, but you have bowed (appealed) to its authority. Contradictions are very real and they are here to stay.
Because we have incomplete knowledge.

LNC is your God.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:22 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:15 pm Wires crossed, perhaps. I'm an atheist.

But anyway, my OP question is rhetorical, because I think moral assertions express value-judgements rather than factual claims - so morality can't be objective, full stop. (The god question is irrelevant.) In a nutshell, where do you stand on that? I can't work it out.

I get the impression we differ over the possibility of knowledge of reality expressed by means of true factual assertions - the possibility of objectivity. If you think such things are impossible, I think you're wrong - and that our communication here belies your denial.

No - it's far simpler.

I am not calling you religious because of a belief in the Abrahamic conception of a 'god'.
I am calling you religious because you believe in the conception of "objectivity" as synthesised by the "law" of non-contradiction.

It's not a real law, but you have bowed to its authority. Contradictions are very real and they are here to stay.
Because we have incomplete knowledge.

Still not clear. Are you saying we can't believe and know things about features of reality and express true or false factual assertions about them? Do you believe every fact - true factual assertion - dissolves into a contradiction? And that communication is impossible?

Btw, calling my attitude towards objectivity 'religious' is ridiculous nonsense. Not bothering with that.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:29 pm Still not clear.

LNC is your God.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:29 pm Are you saying we can't believe and know things about features of reality and express true or false factual assertions about them? Do you believe every fact - true factual assertion - dissolves into a contradiction? And that communication is impossible?

False dichotomy again. The word 'fact' is non-sensical without a conception of 'objectivity' (which I reject).
ALL language is vaue-ladden. All 'facts' OMIT information about reality.

How did you decide what to OMIT and what to INCLUDE in your 'facts' without pre-supposing a set of values?

Communication requires at least TWO participants. Otherwise it's a monologue.

WHY do you want to communicate with others? That's a question of TELEOLOGY! There is nothing "objective" about teleology. Teleology is utility.
And depending on your utility-function you could either say "water" or 'dihydrogen monoxide".

So what you call "true factual assertion" - I call "motivated partial description". Or if I was trying to discredit you - I could call it "lying by omission".
Either way, colloquially - we call it language.

You are a victim of logocentrism.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 1:29 pm Btw, calling my attitude towards objectivity 'religious' is ridiculous nonsense. Not bothering with that.

Naturally - you would say that. All theists do when their faith towards their God is challenged.

The correspondence theory of truth ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspon ... y_of_truth ) is a poor attempt at solving this problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_det ... correction in attempt to minimise human mis-communication.

It tries to do that by controlling language. By insisting that words have some objective meaning. When they clearly don't!

TimeSeeker

I don't subscribe to the correspondence theory, because it gets things back to front. There are three things: features of reality; what we believe or know about them, such as that they are the case; and what we say about them, which may be true or false, given the way we use the words or other signs involved. To muddle these things up is a mistake.

It's the mistake in the JTB definition of knowledge and Gettier's criticism; the ancient mistake made by metaphysicians - such as that objectivity is a kind of thing that may or may not exist; and the mistake you make in saying that all descriptions are partial. What would a complete description be like? By what non-existent objective standard do you judge a description to be partial or complete?

That we can always say more doesn't mean we can never say enough for the purpose at hand. There's no logical foundation beneath what we say about things, and things don't conform to our ways of talking about them. Our linguistic practices constitute everything we say about everything. To think that any linguistic (symbolic) expression can somehow escape being linguistic is a metaphysical delusion.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:42 pm

You subscribe to LNC, don't you ? That's your God

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:42 pm That we can always say more doesn't mean we can never say enough for the purpose at hand.

RIGH!!! What IS the purpose at hand. Right now. At this very moment while you and I are communicating?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:42 pm There are three things: features of reality; what we believe or know about them, such as that they are the case; and what we say about them, which may be true or false, given the way we use the words or other signs involved. To muddle these things up is a mistake.

Sorry, but I reject your taxonomy. Reality has no categories either. You mistake properties of reality with properties of minds.
This also contaminates your epistemology because categories too are dictated by the purpose at hand.

My mind/epistemology is just a tool - hardware! What is the purpose at hand (software)?

If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that nature does not know it! -- RIchard Feynman

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:43 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:42 pm

You subscribe to LNC, don't you ? That's your God

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:42 pm That we can always say more doesn't mean we can never say enough for the purpose at hand.

RIGH!!! What IS the purpose at hand. Right now. At this very moment while you and I are communicating?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:42 pm There are three things: features of reality; what we believe or know about them, such as that they are the case; and what we say about them, which may be true or false, given the way we use the words or other signs involved. To muddle these things up is a mistake.

Sorry, but I reject your taxonomy. Reality has no categories either. You mistake properties of reality with properties of minds.
This also contaminates your epistemology because categories too are dictated by the purpose at hand.

My mind/epistemology is just a tool - hardware! What is the purpose at hand (software)?

Nope. Of course reality has no categories. That's my point. Talk of properties of minds is as muddled as talk of properties inherent in reality. But what sort of language are you fantasising about that doesn't rely on linguistic categories?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:55 pm Nope. Of course reality has no categories. That's my point. Talk of properties of minds is as muddled as talk of properties inherent in reality. But what sort of language are you fantasising about that doesn't rely on linguistic categories?

For where we absolutely have to draw lines: Temporal type theory.
Otherwise: wave functions.

This thing we are using right now to communicate - it's about consensus. Not about reality.
It's crude and imprecise and it's just a starting point.

Either way - before we decide how to cut-up reality into boxes. First we need a purpose...

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:56 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:55 pm Nope. Of course reality has no categories. That's my point. Talk of properties of minds is as muddled as talk of properties inherent in reality. But what sort of language are you fantasising about that doesn't rely on linguistic categories?

For where we absolutely have to draw lines: Temporal type theory.
Otherwise: wave functions.

This thing we are using right now to communicate - it's about consensus. Not about reality.
It's crude and imprecise and it's just a starting point.

Either way - before we decide how to cut-up reality into boxes. First we need a purpose...

But with what sort of linguistic precision are you comparing our crude and imprecise language(s) with their crude and imprecise categories? That's the delusion I'm talking about. Of course languages depend on consensus in the use of signs. And it's precisely because signifiers don't magically contain signifieds that linguistic practice evolves. The longing for fixity, certainty and foundations - for somewhere we can absolutely draw lines, whatever that means - is what leads you to deny what we call objectivity and facts.

Your argument seems to be: the correspondence theory is a mistake, so we can't talk about reality. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:06 pm Of course languages depend on consensus in the use of signs. And it's precisely because signifiers don't magically contain signifieds that linguistic practice evolves.

Except the symbol-grounding problem is solved.
You fail to draw the distinction I've been pointing out for a while. Regular languages (Chomsky hierarchy) do not suffer from this problem as per the Curry-Howard isomorphism. Proofs (valid arguments!) compute. Software.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:06 pm The longing for fixity, certainty and foundations - for somewhere we can absolutely draw lines, whatever that means - is what leads you to deny what we call objectivity and facts.

Yes. It does. I reject your value-ladden descriptions of reality under the guise of 'facts'.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:06 pm Your argument seems to be: the correspondence theory is a mistake, so we can't talk about reality. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

A ridiculous strawman! We can and DO talk about reality. But you already recognised the need for purpose.
Purpose is what allows us to PRIORITIZE what information is and isn't relevant! PURPOSE is what allows you to decide what information to retain and what information to omit.

So how does one talk about reality/truth/knowledge/objectivity without having a stated purpose/success/failure criteria? What's a 'good' and 'bad' definition of 'objectivity' without a stated purpose?

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:18 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:06 pm Of course languages depend on consensus in the use of signs. And it's precisely because signifiers don't magically contain signifieds that linguistic practice evolves.

Except the symbol-grounding problem is solved.
You fail to draw the distinction I've been pointing out for a while. Regular languages (Chomsky hierarchy) do not suffer from this problem as per the Curry-Howard isomorphism. Proofs (valid arguments!) compute.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:06 pm The longing for fixity, certainty and foundations - for somewhere we can absolutely draw lines, whatever that means - is what leads you to deny what we call objectivity and facts.

Yes. It does. I reject your value-ladden descriptions of reality under the guise of 'facts'.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:06 pm Your argument seems to be: the correspondence theory is a mistake, so we can't talk about reality. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

A ridiculous strawman! We can and DO talk about reality. But you already recognised the need for purpose.

So how does one talk about reality/truth/knowledge/objectivity without having a stated purpose/success/failure criteria? What's a 'good' and 'bad' definition of objectivity?

Do you want to be able to talk about reality without stated purpose, success and failure criteria? Do you think that's possible?

The so-called symbol-grounding problem is a confected difficulty arising from the delusion that a symbol can be anything other than a symbol. It's a classic example of a metaphysical delusion.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:24 pm Do you want to be able to talk about reality without stated purpose, success and failure criteria? Do you think that's possible?

Do you WANT to?

Why do you WANT to? (is what I have been asking for 2 weeks).

I have been trying to figure out your teleology.

I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want. --Mark Twain

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:24 pm The so-called symbol-grounding problem is a confected difficulty arising from the delusion that a symbol can be anything other than a symbol. It's a classic example of a metaphysical delusion.

How do you reconcile the fact that symbols from programming languages have a direct effect on reality?
How do you reconcile the fact that robots (programmed using symbols) drive cars.

You are busy talking to some stranger over the Internet. Computers (programmed using symbols) are moving data packets around the globe.

I suspect you will resort to something like denying that programming languages are are actual languages

Consistent interpretation of symbols was the problem all along. Computation!

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:34 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:24 pm The so-called symbol-grounding problem is a confected difficulty arising from the delusion that a symbol can be anything other than a symbol. It's a classic example of a metaphysical delusion.

How do you reconcile the fact that symbols from programming languages have a direct effect on reality?

You are busy talking to some stranger over the Internet. Computers (programmed using symbols) are moving data packets around the globe.

So what? Does having a direct effect on reality - whatever that is - mean that symbols aren't symbols?