Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Atla]

A location in spacetime is a location in spacetime. A reference point maps the rest of spacetime viewed from that location, and so it also has to have an orientation.

I'm defining the terms I'm using. Synonymous terms, as I'm defining them are spatiotemporal situatedness or spatiotemporal orientation.

What does quibbling about how you'd like me to define terms I'm using have to do with whether the relations in question are subjective or objective? (By the way, I thought that subjective/objective wasn't even a distinction you accepted.)

Okay word salad and nonsensical accusations from you as usual. I'm not interested in this.

If you can't understand what I'm saying (it seems like "word salad" to you), we'd need to clarify it for you/figure out how to put it in words that you would understand for the same content. I'm willing to do that work, but it can't be done if you're not interested in participating. <shrug>

Yes which is your usual attitude. You take a topic with a fairly well-established vocabulary, redefine most of the key concepts for yourself, to the point where you don't even understand what the issues were all about, and dismiss the issues. And then you lament how it's other people's shortcomings for not doing the work of trying to figure out what you mean. And when they do put in the effort, it usually turns out that what you meant was some banal misunderstanding, which wasted everyone's time.

I don't know why you get off on this, but most people come to philosophy forums to actually improve, learn something new, or at least get a better understandings of the views they already hold. Not to play such games, it gets old real quick.

[Steve3007]

I guess I'm late to this particular party because of time zone differences. It already seems to be in full swing with the music up to full volume and the neighbours banging on the wall.

So I'll just start with this.

Objectively, is the blue car on the left or the right?

In my usage, "objective" means propositions that are verifiable (or questions that are answerable) by an arbitrarily large number of other people because they're propositions/questions about real things outside of the proposers mind rather than about the proposer's state of mind. ("Is it raining?" versus "Is it raining in your heart, Buddy?"). Or to put it more succinctly: Objective propositions are about real objects.

So the question quoted above is an incomplete objective one. That doesn't stop it from being objective. It just makes it incomplete. A bit like asking "Objectively, is it raining in the city of...?".

Here's a complete version:

Objectively, is the blue car on the left or the right of the red car from the point of view of the green car looking towards them and standing upright?

In other words, leftness and rightness are not merely relative in the way that distance is relative.

Given your interest in GR and SR, I'd think you'd say distance is relative in the same way: the distance you measure between two objects will depend on your movements relative to those two objects. The invariant thing is the quantity that in SR is referred to as "interval".

Directional orientation, such as leftness and rightness, is not merely a relationship between the physical objects in the image. It is relative to a made-up (and therefore transcendental) reference frame; That is, unless we posit consciousnesses (plural) and by extension real conscious presents (plural) that can each act like a reference frame but perhaps be real.

No consciousness required. Just an acknowledgement that objectively existing properties can be described differently from different possible points of view. You don't have to place a conscious being at that point of view in order to state how objective facts about the positions of objects are worded from that point of view.

[Terrapin Station]

I'm defining the terms I'm using. Synonymous terms, as I'm defining them are spatiotemporal situatedness or spatiotemporal orientation.

What does quibbling about how you'd like me to define terms I'm using have to do with whether the relations in question are subjective or objective? (By the way, I thought that subjective/objective wasn't even a distinction you accepted.)

Okay word salad and nonsensical accusations from you as usual. I'm not interested in this.

If you can't understand what I'm saying (it seems like "word salad" to you), we'd need to clarify it for you/figure out how to put it in words that you would understand for the same content. I'm willing to do that work, but it can't be done if you're not interested in participating. <shrug>

Yes which is your usual attitude. You take a topic with a fairly well-established vocabulary, redefine most of the key concepts for yourself, to the point where you don't even understand what the issues were all about, and dismiss the issues. And then you lament how it's other people's shortcomings for not doing the work of trying to figure out what you mean. And when they do put in the effort, it usually turns out that what you meant was some banal misunderstanding, which wasted everyone's time.

I don't know why you get off on this, but most people come to philosophy forums to actually improve, learn something new, or at least get a better understandings of the views they already hold. Not to play such games, it gets old real quick.

So, for one, you're saying that "spatiotemporal reference point" is a common term, where I'm using that common term in an unusual way that you can't figure out from the context of usage, and you have a problem with this. Is that correct?

[Terrapin Station]

I don't know why you get off on this, but most people come to philosophy forums to actually improve, learn something new, or at least get a better understandings of the views they already hold.

Re that,by the way, I've been doing philosophy for close to 50 years now (I first became intensely interested in philosophy in late 1973/early 1974). The only thing I can really learn on boards like this are quirky things that particular individuals believe and quirky attitudes and personalities they have, although unfortunately (for entertainment purposes) there's not near as much variety in the attitudes and personalities as there is in the odd beliefs. I haven't been very much involved with academia for awhile, so posting on boards (even though I'd prefer chat) is an opportunity to keep up some of my communication chops in a philosophical context (to my satisfaction). And trying to figure out the weird things that the motley crew of participants on boards like this believe and especially what their (often ulterior) motivations if not simple relatively uneducated confusions are is a welcome casual challenge, especially in light of the almost guaranteed concurrent arrogance the views arrive with. I also get some entertainment from attempting to break through all of that, even though it's more of a challenge fit for psychological/psychiatric work.

[Atla]

.

I think the problem might be that they aren't using a "universal" perspective at all, they are only using local reference frames. While we jump back and forth between the two kinds of perspectives, which I find necessary to do.

[Atla]

I don't know why you get off on this, but most people come to philosophy forums to actually improve, learn something new, or at least get a better understandings of the views they already hold.

Re that,by the way, I've been doing philosophy for close to 50 years now (I first became intensely interested in philosophy in late 1973/early 1974). The only thing I can really learn on boards like this are quirky things that particular individuals believe and quirky attitudes and personalities they have, although unfortunately (for entertainment purposes) there's not near as much variety in the attitudes and personalities as there is in the odd beliefs. I haven't been very much involved with academia for awhile, so posting on boards (even though I'd prefer chat) is an opportunity to keep up some of my communication chops in a philosophical context (to my satisfaction). And trying to figure out the weird things that the motley crew of participants on boards like this believe and especially what their (often ulterior) motivations if not simple relatively uneducated confusions are is a welcome casual challenge, especially in light of the almost guaranteed concurrent arrogance the views arrive with. I also get some entertainment from attempting to break through all of that, even though it's more of a challenge fit for psychological/psychiatric work.

I know this, except philosophy does go worlds beyond what you understand, so you aren't exactly the best person to judge the views of others.

[Terrapin Station]

.

I think the problem might be that they aren't using a "universal" perspective at all, they are only using local reference frames. While we jump back and forth between the two kinds of perspectives, which I find necessary to do.

A so-called "universal perspective" IS simply another reference frame, and there are no objectively preferred reference frames.

There are definitely some spatiotemporal reference points/situatedness/orientations from which some relations won't obtain. This doesn't imply that they don't (objectively) obtain from other spatiotemporal reference points/situatedness/orientations.

(By the way, "reference frame" is a common term in physics, unlike "spatiotemporal reference point," and its conventional definition isn't how we're using it here. Not that this should be an issue, but I'm just saying . . .)

[Terrapin Station]

I don't know why you get off on this, but most people come to philosophy forums to actually improve, learn something new, or at least get a better understandings of the views they already hold.

Re that,by the way, I've been doing philosophy for close to 50 years now (I first became intensely interested in philosophy in late 1973/early 1974). The only thing I can really learn on boards like this are quirky things that particular individuals believe and quirky attitudes and personalities they have, although unfortunately (for entertainment purposes) there's not near as much variety in the attitudes and personalities as there is in the odd beliefs. I haven't been very much involved with academia for awhile, so posting on boards (even though I'd prefer chat) is an opportunity to keep up some of my communication chops in a philosophical context (to my satisfaction). And trying to figure out the weird things that the motley crew of participants on boards like this believe and especially what their (often ulterior) motivations if not simple relatively uneducated confusions are is a welcome casual challenge, especially in light of the almost guaranteed concurrent arrogance the views arrive with. I also get some entertainment from attempting to break through all of that, even though it's more of a challenge fit for psychological/psychiatric work.

I know this, except philosophy does go worlds beyond what you understand, so you aren't exactly the best person to judge the views of others.

Says someone with nowhere near my own qualifications. But that's part of the arrogance I'm referring to.

[Steve3007]

Obviously this topic is a continuation of the conversation in another topic in which Scott (supported by Atla) proposed that leftness and rightness are "fictions" because they only make sense when a reference frame - a point of view - is specified. It uses the examples of coloured cars in a carpark/parking lot that I started with there.

As I said in that topic, my view is that the base of the problem is confusion between references and referents. As I said, the fact that it's possible to refer to a given referent in a number of different ways doesn't make the referent fictional, and it makes no sense (to me at least) to say that the reference is fictional independently of consideration of what it is referring to. That would constitute reification of the reference.

So an object can be to the left of, the the right of, above or below another object depending on point of view. That just means that relative position can be referred to by a number of different words depending on viewpoint. That has no bearing on whether anything is fictional or not. Just as the fact that Santa Claus can be referred to as "Santa Claus" or "Father Christmas" (or other terms) doesn't in itself tell us whether that particular referent is fictional.

[Terrapin Station]

(And I'd expect no less, by the way. So carry on.)

[Steve3007]

...It already seems to be in full swing with the music up to full volume and the neighbours banging on the wall.

And the occasional fight breaking out. Calm down. We've all had a drink.

[Terrapin Station]

. . . because they only make sense when a reference frame - a point of view - is specified.

And whether we specify one or not, there's no escaping them. The idea that there's some way that anything is "from no reference frame" is incoherent.

[Steve3007]

And whether we specify one or not, there's no escaping them. The idea that there's some way that anything is "from no reference frame" is incoherent.

Yes, hence they are often implicit, probably the most common implicit one being the surface of the Earth. So when I said "standing upright" I didn't need to say "perpendicular to the surface of the Earth."

[Atla]

I don't know why you get off on this, but most people come to philosophy forums to actually improve, learn something new, or at least get a better understandings of the views they already hold.

Re that,by the way, I've been doing philosophy for close to 50 years now (I first became intensely interested in philosophy in late 1973/early 1974). The only thing I can really learn on boards like this are quirky things that particular individuals believe and quirky attitudes and personalities they have, although unfortunately (for entertainment purposes) there's not near as much variety in the attitudes and personalities as there is in the odd beliefs. I haven't been very much involved with academia for awhile, so posting on boards (even though I'd prefer chat) is an opportunity to keep up some of my communication chops in a philosophical context (to my satisfaction). And trying to figure out the weird things that the motley crew of participants on boards like this believe and especially what their (often ulterior) motivations if not simple relatively uneducated confusions are is a welcome casual challenge, especially in light of the almost guaranteed concurrent arrogance the views arrive with. I also get some entertainment from attempting to break through all of that, even though it's more of a challenge fit for psychological/psychiatric work.

I know this, except philosophy does go worlds beyond what you understand, so you aren't exactly the best person to judge the views of others.

Says someone with nowhere near my own qualifications. But that's part of the arrogance I'm referring to.

You are only qualified when it comes to the history of philosophy.

An education in philosophy typically doesn't improve one's philosophical abilities. If anything, an education in Western philosophy tends to make things worse, afterwards you will have to start with unlearning it. What is arrogant but ultimately self hindering, is not wanting to admit this.

[Terrapin Station]

Re that,by the way, I've been doing philosophy for close to 50 years now (I first became intensely interested in philosophy in late 1973/early 1974). The only thing I can really learn on boards like this are quirky things that particular individuals believe and quirky attitudes and personalities they have, although unfortunately (for entertainment purposes) there's not near as much variety in the attitudes and personalities as there is in the odd beliefs. I haven't been very much involved with academia for awhile, so posting on boards (even though I'd prefer chat) is an opportunity to keep up some of my communication chops in a philosophical context (to my satisfaction). And trying to figure out the weird things that the motley crew of participants on boards like this believe and especially what their (often ulterior) motivations if not simple relatively uneducated confusions are is a welcome casual challenge, especially in light of the almost guaranteed concurrent arrogance the views arrive with. I also get some entertainment from attempting to break through all of that, even though it's more of a challenge fit for psychological/psychiatric work.

I know this, except philosophy does go worlds beyond what you understand, so you aren't exactly the best person to judge the views of others.

Says someone with nowhere near my own qualifications. But that's part of the arrogance I'm referring to.

You are only qualified when it comes to the history of philosophy.

An education in philosophy typically doesn't improve one's philosophical abilities. If anything, an education in Western philosophy tends to make things worse, afterwards you will have to start with unlearning it. What is arrogant but ultimately self hindering, is not wanting to admit this.

Maybe there's some way you could make it cleared that you are unaware of what's involved in getting a PhD in philosophy, but I'm not sure what that way would be.