Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Terrapin Station]

I understand that you're using the term that way. Do you understand that I'm not using the term that way?

Yes I understand that perfectly.
This changes nothing.

Ooohhkay . . . it would probably just be worthwhile to remember that I'm using the term "fact" differently than you are.

[GE Morton]

Knowledge of geology is in people's heads. The geology is not.

Geology is the logos of the earth. Geology is mental. This is a study. Study is a mental state.

Oh, please. Would you have preferred that I'd said, "Knowledge of geology --- of rocks, strata, tectonic plates, volcanism, etc. --- is in people's heads. The rocks, strata, volcanoes, etc., are not"?

If you wish to make an objection try to come up with something of substance, and dispense with the juvenile carping.

(Sophomoric ad hominems disregarded, of course).

[Sculptor1]

Yes I understand that perfectly.
This changes nothing.

Ooohhkay . . . it would probably just be worthwhile to remember that I'm using the term "fact" differently than you are.

Yes you are also applying a mentally engineered idea. You are applying a mentally informed concept.
When a fact is verified, it is a mentally recognised relationship in which a human uses a system of metaphors to describe an actual real and empirically verifiable description of reality. IN other words a fact is a mental construct, like everything else.

[Sculptor1]

Geology is the logos of the earth. Geology is mental. This is a study. Study is a mental state.

Oh, please. Would you have preferred that I'd said, "Knowledge of geology --- of rocks, strata, tectonic plates, volcanism, etc. --- is in people's heads. The rocks, strata, volcanoes, etc., are not"?

If you wish to make an objection try to come up with something of substance, and dispense with the juvenile carping.

(Sophomoric ad hominems disregarded, of course).

Everything you are describing is nothing more than a system of metaphors in which you seek to build a mentally constructed facsimile of reality. Most of which you cannot see, or may have seen, or maybe never seen.
In other words facts are mental too.

[Terrapin Station]

Ooohhkay . . . it would probably just be worthwhile to remember that I'm using the term "fact" differently than you are.

Yes you are also applying a mentally engineered idea. You are applying a mentally informed concept.
When a fact is verified, it is a mentally recognised relationship in which a human uses a system of metaphors to describe an actual real and empirically verifiable description of reality. IN other words a fact is a mental construct, like everything else.

What I'm referring to is something that's not usually a mental construct. I'm referring to states of affairs in general, where most of them are independent of us--most would obtain whether we existed or not. There are facts with respect to mental constructs, too, but that's a minority of facts.

[GE Morton]

Apparently you didn't understand this comment of mine: "I'm after what is actually going on, in terms of physical details (or if someone would want to assert there are also nonphysical details, they'd need to try to support that, starting with trying to support the very idea that a "nonphysical" existent is coherent). And I do mean details--details of exactly how such and such is supposed to work, where exactly it's supposed to occur (remembering that locations can be complex and discontinuous), what exactly it's supposed to be a property of, etc."

Yes, you asked that before and I answered it before. You seem to be asking how learning (of a meaning, a fact, a skill, etc.) works --- how an association is formed between, e.g., a word and something else (a thing-in-the world, another word, a state-of-affairs, etc.). I answered that that is a question for neurophysiologists, not philosophers, though we know it happens in the brain. Is that what you're asking? If not, then I have no idea what you're asking.

BTW, there are innumerable non-physical existents, and there can be as many more as we care to invent. They exist as long as they have some descriptive or explanatory value. "To be is to be the value of a bound variable" (Quine). An odd comment coming from you, for whom minds, the paradigm non-physical existent, looms large.

"Okay, so let's say we have ink marks on paper or pixel marks on a screen that look like this: "Paris is the capital of France" (using that one since you liked it earlier--if you want to change it that's fine).

"Is the next step that you want to claim that those ink marks assert something independent of anyone's mind? How do they do that? Describe exactly how that works--and again, it has to be an explanation that's independent of anyone's mind."

Ink marks don't assert anything unless they are letters in an alphabet and are combined into words whose meanings are known to a group of speakers, and the words are arranged according to syntactical rules also known to those speakers. And, yes, what they assert is independent of anyone's mind. "Paris is the capital of France" asserts a state of affairs, namely, that Paris is the capital of France --- a state of affairs independent of anyone's mind. Knowing that that sentence denotes that state of affairs does, of course, require a mind. To know that, each speaker will have had to learn the meanings of the words employed and the syntactical rules for combining them, which he will learn by observing others' behavior, including their uses of those terms --- not by reading anyone's mind. "The meaning of a term is its use" (Wittgenstein).

The challenge is to DETAIL how P in L is true iff s. Just how does that work, in terms of what physically obtains, where it obtains, etc.?

Answered above. But if that answer is not what you're looking for I have no idea what you're asking.

I'm not looking for the standard slogan. That doesn't tell us anything about what's going on ontologically.

For the most part ontology is fatuous nonsense, resting on various supernatural assumptions, usually unrecognized. I can't tell you what is going on ontologically because I have no idea what variant of the nonsense you've adopted.

[Belindi]

GEMorton wrote:

For the most part ontology is fatuous nonsense, resting on various supernatural assumptions, usually unrecognized.

That is not correct, GEMorton.

Some people claim there is no such existence as supernatural existence; pantheists for instance.I think you don't understand ontology is the study of theories of existence.

As for your usage of 'nonsense' , apparently anything GEM does not like is is nonsense.

[Sculptor1]

Yes you are also applying a mentally engineered idea. You are applying a mentally informed concept.
When a fact is verified, it is a mentally recognised relationship in which a human uses a system of metaphors to describe an actual real and empirically verifiable description of reality. IN other words a fact is a mental construct, like everything else.

What I'm referring to is something that's not usually a mental construct. I'm referring to states of affairs in general, where most of them are independent of us--most would obtain whether we existed or not. There are facts with respect to mental constructs, too, but that's a minority of facts.

You do not seem to be getting this.
How do you know there is a state of affairs; what does it even mean?
I have already said that there is an external reality.
But no state of affairs exists unless a human mind has in interest in certain pertaining conditions which are sensible to humans; and I mean can be sensed.
The "state of affairs" is thus ipso facto a metaphor between what is real and the system of language (visual, audible and linguistic) of our mental state used to understand that "state of affairs". The mental state is the realm of facts, as it is the realm of ALL MORALITY.

The point for the thread is that whilst we might be able to trade our perception about concrete objects and find agreements; it is not possible to exchange such views so accurately when it comes to the diverse and often personal ideas about morals. You cannot point to a moral whilst you can get wide agreement that the duck is on the rock; or the dog is asleep.
Morals are always about judgement and values.

[Sculptor1]

GEMorton wrote:

For the most part ontology is fatuous nonsense, resting on various supernatural assumptions, usually unrecognized.

That is not correct, GEMorton.

Some people claim there is no such existence as supernatural existence; pantheists for instance.I think you don't understand ontology is the study of theories of existence.

As for your usage of 'nonsense' , apparently anything GEM does not like is is nonsense.

GE Morton's claim here is ironically absurd since it could not be possible to have a single moral proposition unless it is underpinned by a thoroughly rigorous, even draconian system of ontology.

[Terrapin Station]

Yes, you asked that before and I answered it before. You seem to be asking how learning (of a meaning, a fact, a skill, etc.) works --- how an association is formed between, e.g., a word and something else (a thing-in-the world, another word, a state-of-affairs, etc.). I answered that that is a question for neurophysiologists, not philosophers, though we know it happens in the brain. Is that what you're asking? If not, then I have no idea what you're asking.

And I explained in response to that that you can't possibly be appealing to neurophysiology in this because your claim is that it works mind-independently.

So why in the world would you bring up neurophysiology in describing how it works if it has nothing to do with minds?

Since you didn't answer that last time, I'm going to leave it at that, so we don't get distracted by anything else and you finally answer it. I mean, the problems with this should be glaringly obvious. You're claiming that P is T in L iff s works mind-independently. I'm asking for the physical (or nonphysical if you want to propose) DETAILS about just how it works mind-independently, and you appeal to neurophysiology! Isn't the problem with your response here obvious to you?

[Terrapin Station]

You do not seem to be getting this.
How do you know there is a state of affairs;

So "states of affairs" just refers to "ways that things are" or "things that are the case," but with a connotation that we're referring to "complexes"--relations among things.

You know that there are states of affairs by virtue of there being anything. If there are things, there are ways that they are (in relation to each other).

But no state of affairs exists unless a human mind has in interest in certain pertaining conditions which are sensible to humans;

Why in the world would you believe such nonsense? There were countless states of affairs 2 billion years ago. There were no humans 2 billion years ago. Thus, states of affairs clearly do not depend on humans in any manner.

[Terrapin Station]

It seems kind of like we're running up against the walls of your "script," and when asking for you to step outside of your script, you're lost. Hence why you're saying something as obviously ridiculous as "it would depend on neurophysiology" as a response to "How does this mind-independently work, exactly (with details)?"

Part of what I like to do on boards like this is prod people to think past their scripts. (A script being prepared material that people tend to rely on instead of actually thinking about stuff they haven't thought about before.)

[Sculptor1]

You do not seem to be getting this.
How do you know there is a state of affairs;

So "states of affairs" just refers to "ways that things are" or "things that are the case," but with a connotation that we're referring to "complexes"--relations among things.

You know that there are states of affairs by virtue of there being anything. If there are things, there are ways that they are (in relation to each other).

But no state of affairs exists unless a human mind has in interest in certain pertaining conditions which are sensible to humans;

Why in the world would you believe such nonsense? There were countless states of affairs 2 billion years ago. There were no humans 2 billion years ago. Thus, states of affairs clearly do not depend on humans in any manner.

No.
Relating takes an observer.

[GE Morton]

GEMorton wrote:

For the most part ontology is fatuous nonsense, resting on various supernatural assumptions, usually unrecognized.

That is not correct, GEMorton.

Some people claim there is no such existence as supernatural existence; pantheists for instance.I think you don't understand ontology is the study of theories of existence.

I expected that comment would draw some protests.

Yes, I do understand what ontology is. I said, "for the most part" it is nonsense. Perhaps I would have been clearer saying, "Most ontological theories are nonsense."

The inquiry into the concept of existence is, of course, perfectly legitimate, even necessary.

[Terrapin Station]

So "states of affairs" just refers to "ways that things are" or "things that are the case," but with a connotation that we're referring to "complexes"--relations among things.

You know that there are states of affairs by virtue of there being anything. If there are things, there are ways that they are (in relation to each other).



Why in the world would you believe such nonsense? There were countless states of affairs 2 billion years ago. There were no humans 2 billion years ago. Thus, states of affairs clearly do not depend on humans in any manner.

No.
Relating takes an observer.

On your view there are no relations with no (human?) observers? (????)