Philosophy Now Forum

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:05 pm

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:55 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:44 pm
But can you make an example where they break down in philosophy?

Yes. Define ‘exists’ in a manner compatible with popperian epistemology.

viewtopic.php?t=25087

Exist as in, it's there? Like the monitor in front of me? Not sure what you want to have defined, existence is itself.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:11 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 6:05 pm

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:55 pm

Yes. Define ‘exists’ in a manner compatible with popperian epistemology.

viewtopic.php?t=25087

Exist as in, it's there? Like the monitor in front of me? Not sure what you want to have defined, existence is itself.

I don’t know what ‘exists’ and ‘real’ and ‘illusionary’ mean. They don’t parse in my head but I see them being used all over by philosophers, so surely they are logical assertions?

So the objects definitions are there (god, universe, human). Define a function that tests for existence in accordance with your own beliefs.

God doesn’t exists.
Universe exists.
I exist.

Etc... you will have a hard time defining anything other than a function which returns “true” all the time

A tautology/truism.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:22 pm We’ve seen (at great length) that one reaction to the claim (my claim) that morality isn’t objective – because it can’t be – is that nothing is objective anyway, because objectivity and truth don’t exist.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:17 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:22 pm We’ve seen (at great length) that one reaction to the claim (my claim) that morality isn’t objective – because it can’t be – is that nothing is objective anyway, because objectivity and truth don’t exist.

I believe you have a different sense of what is morality and what is objectivity.

Morality is not something like prospecting for nuggets of gold in the wilderness. Morality in the objective sense do not pre-exists to be discovered.

However in order to establish an effective Framework and System of Morality and Ethics, there is a need and imperative to establish objective moral principles.

As with Science and other fields of knowledge,
objectivity is based on intersubjective consensus.
Thus, even in the absence of a God, it is possible to establish secular objective moral principles based on solid grounds.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:04 am I believe you have a different sense of what is morality and what is objectivity.

Morality is not something like prospecting for nuggets of gold in the wilderness. Morality in the objective sense do not pre-exists to be discovered.

However in order to establish an effective Framework and System of Morality and Ethics, there is a need and imperative to establish objective moral principles.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:21 am As per my example on what computer scientists are forced to do as part of their education.

1. They conceptualise a language (L). It does not 'exist' except in their head (what philosophers might have you believe is just an illusion)
2. They write an interpreter (lets call it IL) for their language in another language (say language M).
3. Once they have an interpreter (IL) for L written in M, they are forced to write an interpreter for L IN L.

Now you have a language that can INTERPRET ITSELF and just like that - we have INVENTED objective meaning!

I want you to observe a second thing that also happens as part of this process.
Before you invent a language - you have no conception for 'Language' that is other than the one you have LEARNED TO USE! English.
So your very notion of the word conception is defined in English. This is the philosophical "define X" game.
Define 'conception' (and you spill out some metaphysical wordsoup which we can't untangle for weeks)
Define 'define'. Game over

After you invent your own language - you have a conception for 'Language' that is the one you CREATED (Language M), and because you created a language you have a conception for 'conception' that is grounded in experience. And the biggest win of all - you have a conception of how a conception turns from "just an idea" to something OBJECTIVELY MEANINGFUL. This is what engineers call realization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realization_(systems). Or you can just call it 'creation'.

And so when two software engineers (one from China and one from Russia) who have never met before bump into each other on the street: they already have a shared EMPIRICAL and OBJECTIVELY MEANINGFUL concepts for:
* conception
* realization
* language
* interpretation
* objective meaning

AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN SAID A WORD TO EACH OTHER YET!!!

Whatever claim Philosophy used to have on Metaphysics - I laugh in their face!

Observe this tiny tiny TINY TINY TINY (OK.It is fucking HUMONGOUS!) distinction between English and Programming languages.
English DEFINES itself (circular)
Python INTERPRETS itself (recursive)

Recursion is computation. This thing we call 'reason'!

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:04 am I believe you have a different sense of .... what is objectivity.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:04 am And, to repeat, this is to misunderstand the word 'objective', which means: 'relying on, or a matter of, facts, rather than judgements, beliefs or opinions'.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:16 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:04 am I believe you have a different sense of what is morality and what is objectivity.

Morality is not something like prospecting for nuggets of gold in the wilderness. Morality in the objective sense do not pre-exists to be discovered.

However in order to establish an effective Framework and System of Morality and Ethics, there is a need and imperative to establish objective moral principles.

No Peter, you misunderstand. You are stuck in a circularity. You don't understand the difference between 'circularity' and 'recursion' and so you can't tell why one is bad and the other is good. Well - you SAY that you KNOW that circular reasoning is bad, but you can't observe yourself DOING circular reasoning. I am trying to get you to see your own performative contradiction. I don't know how to reach out to you - because you won't tell me where your uncertainty lies (so you are making me do this to you).

You don't even have a conception for the words 'conception', 'objectivity' or 'meaning' that is in any sense 'objective' because you've learned them from the English language. You are chasing your own tail because you are trapped in Logocentrism.

Until you conquer the limits of language I don't really think you have anything to offer to the world (sorry to be this harsh).

I will copy/paste from the other thread for your benefit:

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:21 am As per my example on what computer scientists are forced to do as part of their education.

1. They conceptualise a language (L). It does not 'exist' except in their head (what philosophers might have you believe is just an illusion)
2. They write an interpreter (lets call it IL) for their language in another language (say language M).
3. Once they have an interpreter (IL) for L written in M, they are forced to write an interpreter for L IN L.

Now you have a language that can INTERPRET ITSELF and just like that - we have INVENTED objective meaning!

I want you to observe a second thing that also happens as part of this process.
Before you invent a language - you have no conception for 'Language' that is other than the one you have LEARNED TO USE! English.
So your very notion of the word conception is defined in English. This is the philosophical "define X" game.
Define 'conception' (and you spill out some metaphysical wordsoup which we can't untangle for weeks)
Define 'define'. Game over

After you invent your own language - you have a conception for 'Language' that is the one you CREATED (Language M), and because you created a language you have a conception for 'conception' that is grounded in experience. And the biggest win of all - you have a conception of how a conception turns from "just an idea" to something OBJECTIVELY MEANINGFUL. This is what engineers call realization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realization_(systems). Or you can just call it 'creation'.

And so when two software engineers (one from China and one from Russia) who have never met before bump into each other on the street: they already have a shared EMPIRICAL and OBJECTIVELY MEANINGFUL concepts for:
* conception
* realization
* language
* interpretation
* objective meaning

AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN SAID A WORD TO EACH OTHER YET!!!

Whatever claim Philosophy used to have on Metaphysics - I laugh in their face!

Observe this tiny tiny TINY TINY TINY (OK.It is fucking HUMONGOUS!) distinction between English and Programming languages.
English DEFINES itself (circular)
Python INTERPRETS itself (recursive)

Recursion is computation. This thing we call 'reason'!

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:04 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:17 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 28, 2018 3:22 pm We’ve seen (at great length) that one reaction to the claim (my claim) that morality isn’t objective – because it can’t be – is that nothing is objective anyway, because objectivity and truth don’t exist.

I believe you have a different sense of what is morality and what is objectivity.

Morality is not something like prospecting for nuggets of gold in the wilderness. Morality in the objective sense do not pre-exists to be discovered.

However in order to establish an effective Framework and System of Morality and Ethics, there is a need and imperative to establish objective moral principles.

As with Science and other fields of knowledge,
objectivity is based on intersubjective consensus.
Thus, even in the absence of a God, it is possible to establish secular objective moral principles based on solid grounds.

Thanks again. I know you believe it's possible to 'establish objective moral principles' - you've been saying it here consistently.

And, to repeat, this is to misunderstand the word 'objective', which means: 'relying on, or a matter of, facts, rather than judgements, beliefs or opinions'.

If we agree on (establish) a moral principle, it would then be a fact - a true factual assertion - that we have done so. But it wouldn't follow that the moral principle itself is then a fact - a true factual assertion. Surely you can see that to claim that would be to make a category error.

A claim such as 'it is good to promote individual well-being' - how ever interpreted - can't be a fact of any kind - so it can't be objective.

What is fact and being objective as in a scientific theory other than it being at best a polished conjecture [Popper]. Note a fact is fundamentally a conjecture.

You cannot put 'fact' on an absolute objective pedestal.

Thus we can develop and polish moral conjectures to be moral objective principles just like how scientist make scientific theories objectives.
Just like we have Pure and Applied Science or Mathematics, we can have Pure and Applied Morality & Ethics.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:54 am P1 People eat animals and their products.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:58 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:54 am P1 People eat animals and their products.

It contains no USEFUL information. Criterion for useful: I am able to make some yes/no DECISION (action!) with it.

Otherwise, if you have no useful/useless distinction then I suppose I can give you 10^200 facts. Every single quark, lepton and electron in the universe. Which is the other end of your extreme - information overload!

All you have done with that statement is set a context. So that SUBSEQUENT sentences can be interpreted in some useful/meaningful way.