So if words are about things, what sort of a thing is a hypothetical cat?

I'm talking hypothetically. It refers to a hypothetical state of affairs. Does that make sense? — Purple Pond

OK, but it's an example which you posted for some purpose. So the point is, the phrase you posted "the cat is on the mat", is not really about any cat or any mat at all, it's about some sort of demonstration you're trying to make.

How can mere words be about anything? For example, when I say, "the cat is on the mat", I'm talking about the cat being on the mat. The statement is about a state of affairs. — Purple Pond

This is not true. When you state "the cat is on the mat" here, you are posting that phrase up as an example. I really don't believe that you are saying anything about any cat on any mat.

They're more relaxing, yeah. — fdrake

Right, if we're going to take a look at how people deceive us, we ought to do it in a way that doesn't stress us out.

There is no "lack of motion" in eternalism, so yes I ignore fictitious problems. — Inis

There is a lack of motion in eternalism. You would have to turn to something outside the block universe as the source of any perceived motion within the universe.

I suggest we all immerse ourselves in serious (I mean SERIOUS!) metaphysical issues to avoid the disease of the idle mind.

W indicates that the concepts of ethics and aesthetics contain a high degree of blurriness, and that (e.g.) philosophers have a similarly hopeless task of trying to find "definitions that correspond to our concepts". — Luke

I think he goes even further than this, suggesting that since it is a hopeless task, we ought not even try to define ethical words like "good", instead, recognizing that such words just naturally have a "family of meanings". That is why I said he is rejecting Platonic dialectics, which is a method that analyzes different sorts of usage in an attempt to produce the ideal definition which all usage partakes of; as exemplified by "the good".

Roger Stone. Any relation to you?

That was an analogy, not an attempt to change the subject.

Until you either recognize, or disprove, my claim that there are two distinct types of referring, your propositions remain meaningless and nonsensical.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/249720

Indeterminate means having no fixed value. So consider this analogy. Some one asks you what time it is. By the time you say what time it is, it is no longer that time. So "what time it is" has no fixed value, and time is inherently indeterminate.

Newtonian relativity. Inertia is frame of reference dependent. There is no absolute rest.

It's only indeterminate if you're looking for an overaching time perspective, which is why I brought that up first. — Terrapin Station

It has nothing to do with an overarching time perspective, we went through that already. Why do you allow that idea to distract you? It's the human perspective. We designate points in time as the beginning and ending of a period of measurement. That's how we quantify time. Without such points we have no measurement of time, but the human capacity to designate such points is deficient. Therefore from the human perspective, time is indeterminate.

Keep in my, that at 75 he is asking those questions. He provides no answer to them at 75. To answer these questions he draws the analogy of two pictures at 76. Another person wants sharp boundaries to the concept "game" (definition), Wittgenstein does not want such boundaries. Wittgenstein's "picture" is one of colour patches with vague contours, the other person's "picture" has similarly distributed colours, with sharp contours. There are similarities between them, and there are differences. He proceeds to investigate the correlation at 77.

Last week, in my post: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/246986 I said this is analogous to comparing what a person with poor vision sees, to what one with 20/20 vision sees. and Isaac did not like my analogy. But really it's Wittgenstein's own analogy of "seeing", and we do judge whether a person sees better or worse.

In any case, Wittgenstein proceeds with the two pictures analogy at 77, to investigate whether a picture with clearly defined colour contours can be made to correspond with the one with vague colour patches. As I said in the post referenced above, I see this a s a rejection of Platonic dialectics.

Exactly, just as the twin that takes a side trip to some other star and back is not measuring the duration between the two events of departure and return. — noAxioms

All things change place as time passes, it's a premise of relativity. If moving means that one cannot measure duration, then time is indefterminate.

Do you agree? — creativesoul

No I disagree. In the appropriate context, showing someone your cat is referring to your cat.

He's saying, that if his knowledge of what a game is, is equivalent to an unformulated definition, then he ought to be able to formulate that definition, and this description, or explanation, which he ought to be able to produce, if his knowledge is like that, would completely express his knowledge of what a game is.

He's going to show at 76-77, that his knowledge of what a game is, is not like this. It is not the case that he could produce an explanation, description, or definition, which could express his knowledge of what a game is, because it would be extremely difficult to make that explanation, description, or definition "correspond" with the knowledge that he has of what a game is. This would be a hopeless task.

can measure the distance between myself and that tree over there, and get an indeterminate value because one of the measuring tapes takes a path around that other tree to the left over there, and thus measures a different distance. So all measurements are indeterminate in that sense. — noAxioms

It's not analogous unless you are claiming that the distance between yourself and the tree is indeterminate. And that's not what your claiming, because taking a side trip around another tree is not measuring the distance between yourself and the tree.


OK, I'll go with that then.

Notice that at 75 he asks the following question concerning knowing what a game is without being able to say what it is:
"Is this knowledge somehow equivalent to an unformulated definition?"

The point is that there is a multitude of possible amounts of time between the first point and the second. Therefore the amount of time between those two points is indeterminate.

This makes no sense to me. If the one reads 500 hours on the nose and the other reads 499 hours, 58 minutes and 30 seconds, then the amount of time between those two is not indefinite, it's a minute and 30 seconds. That's very definite. — Terrapin Station

There is a beginning point, and an ending point to the time period being measured. One clock measures that time period as 500 hours. Another clock measure it as 400 hours. Another, 499 hours, 58 minutes and 30 seconds, and so on. Since there is an infinity of possibilities, to the amount of time between that beginning point and the ending point, that amount of time is indeterminate.

I think you have a different concept of presentism than the one typically presented on philosophy sites, which might ask when the twins get back together and notice 10 or 20 years elapsed, isn't one of them more correct about how many years actually went by? Presentism would say yes to that, but you seem to say no, since a different amount time passed for each of them, so they're both right about it. — noAxioms

Presentism assumes that only the present is real. If both the twins experienced only the present, for the entire time of separation, and continue to experience only the present, how could this be a problem to presentism? The fact that they have aged differently is irrelevant to presentism.

I don't think that presentism is capable of providing a premise for counting a quantity of time, because any past time would become unreal, therefore there can be nothing to count. So what is inconsistent to presentism, in this thought experiment, is that one twin measured 10 year and the other measured 20. Presentism really does not allow any reality to such measurements of past time.

SR just says no preferred folation is locally detectable. It doesn't forbid its existence. — noAxioms

I think you misunderstand SR. It strictly stipulates that no frame of reference could be preferred in the sense of being more real than another.

You seem to use 'indeterminate' as 'not absolute'. The word means 'uncalculable', or 'unpredictable', and as Terrapin has been trying to point out, it is quite calculable. These things are just frame dependent, but completely determined given a choice of frames. — noAxioms

Indeterminate means without a fixed value. If the quantity of time measured between when the twins separated, to when they reunited, varies from one frame of reference to another, it is without a fixed value, and is therefore indeterminate.

This is a feature of your future light cone. That cone, not the present, delimits events which can and cannot be changed.
Similarly, the past light cone, not the present, delimits that about which we can know (events which can have an effect on us, vs those which cannot).

Neither of these fundamental things changes at the boundary of the present, except where the two cones happen to intersect the present. So no fundamental change as described here occurs at the present.

Those light cones are not frame dependent. They are 'determinate' as you put it. — noAxioms

I think you are wrong to say that the light cones are not frame dependent. Any event has a light cone. According to SR, the present of an event, or time that an event occurs, is frame dependent. Therefore the light cone for any event is frame dependent.

No, it is determinate. This is just arithmetic (the amount of time between t1 and t2 is t2 - t1). Note that to specify times at all is to assume a particular reference frame. Normally we don't have to think about this because we (and most matter in the universe) age at about the same rate (because we move at similarly slow speeds relative to the speed of light). — Andrew M

Obviously not, because Bob measures the time between t1 and t2 as 6 years, and Alice measures the time between t1 and t2 as 10 years. Therefore the quantity of time between t1 and t2 is indeterminate. So I disagree\ with you again, and I really wonder where you are getting your information from. That your statement is wrong is evident from the fact that physicists employ a "proper time". The employment of "proper time" is to create a semblance of determinacy. It's a similar principle to your "preferred foliation", it provides an illusion of determinacy.

It is called a preferred reference frame, or at least a preferred foliation (an objective ordering of events). Presentism must assume such a thing, but the existence of a preferred foliation does not necessarily imply the existence of a present (a preferred moment). — noAxioms

I don't see why presentism requires a preferred reference frame. When we as human beings meet together, and communicate, we call this the present. We only need to produce a reference frame if we want to measure the passing of time. Presentism doesn't necessarily require this, so it doesn't require a preferred reference frame. But when we proceed toward measuring time, time is indeterminate due to the possibilities of reference frames.

Anyway, under the preferred foliation, there is a fixed amount of time between any two moments in time, and frames which do not correspond to this preferred frame are simply not representative of the absolute ordering of events. Hence clocks are all wrong because they're all dilated, some more than others. — noAxioms

A "preferred foliation" might validate determinacy in time, if the preferred foliation was justified, not arbitrary. But if the preferred foliation were justified, wouldn't special relativity be contradicted?

In the spacetime model, there is no concept of 'point in time'. — noAxioms

Removing the possibility of a point in time is another indication that any claimed amount of time is indeterminate.

Both the time and the space between any two events is frame dependent (indeterminate), but the combination of the two (the interval) is always the same. — noAxioms

Right, there is a combined value of time and space. However, since what is actually measured by us, according to our capacities, is time, and space independently, and these are indeterminate, then the combined value is fundamentally indeterminate.

But that's not true. Again, we can know that on the ground, clocks are going to read, say, 500 hours on the nose, while on the space station, clocks read, say, 499-point-whatever (I don't know what the exact difference is--I'd have to research it) hours relative to the 500 hours on the ground.

How is that indeterminate? — Terrapin Station

You seem to be forgetting that there are two definite points, between which the time is measured. One clock measures 499, the other measures 500. Therefore the amount of time between those two points is indefinite. You can say, as noAxioms does, that there is no such thing as a point in time, but that is just an admittance that any so-called amount of time is indeterminate.

I never said anything about "psychological time". I'm talking about time itself. From the human perspective, time is indeterminate.

But time isn't indeterminate in a particular frame of reference. — Terrapin Station

I know, but the human perspective gives us the potential for infinite frames of reference. Therefore from the human perspective, time is indeterminate.

It's just relative--due to factors such as velocity--when you compare different frames of reference. We can predictively calculate those differences to a high degree of precision, which wouldn't make much sense if it were indeterminate. — Terrapin Station

I can't see the point here. The very fact that there are differences in the amount of time which passes between one moment and another moment according to human measurement, is clear proof that time, which is what passes between those moments, is indeterminate from the human perspective. Unless the means of quantifying the differences provides an absolute solution, then all it does is veil the indeterminacy, hiding it behind an illusion of determinacy. Perhaps you'll understand if you consider that there is a limit, the speed of light, and as the frame of reference approaches the speed of light there is an infinitely small quantity of time between two moments. Infinite is synonymous with indeterminate.

If I assumed a "Master Time", then I couldn't conclude that time is indeterminate. The Master Time would necessitate a determinate time. So, remove your premise of Master Time. Make your perspective the human perspective. From the human perspective, there is a variable amount of time between any two moments in time depending on the frame of reference. Therefore time is indeterminate.

It's indeterminate because from every different frame of reference there is a different amount of time between the two points. Therefore there is no fixed value for that time period.

That is two different kinds of referents. It is not two different kinds of referring. — creativesoul

OK, let's look at it from that perspective then, one type of referring, but two types of referent. How would we determine a "successful reference"? Suppose I refer to "my cat". I have successfully referenced a subject for discussion, "my cat". However, you do not know whether I have a cat or not, so I have not successfully referenced a physical object named "my cat". It is impossible by the law of non-contradiction that the same act of reference can be both successful, and not successful.

Therefore, we must separate these two as two distinct acts of reference, according to the reality of two distinct referents. However, the act itself, referring to "my cat", is just one act. Therefore, I propose that to resolve this contradiction, we allow that this one act, referring to "my cat", fulfills the criteria of one type of referencing, but not the criteria of the other type of referencing. Therefore it is a successful reference of one type of referencing, but not the other type. And so, to avoid such contradictions which would arise from assuming that the two distinct types of referents are referenced by one type of referring, we ought to assume that it is two different kinds of referring

Suppose Alice and Bob are twins. On the day they both turn 20 years old, Bob travels into space at high speed and returns on the day that Alice turns 30 years old (according to Alice's clock on Earth). But Bob is 26 years old (according to the clock on his spaceship) and has only aged 6 years. Less time has elapsed for Bob than for Alice. (Example here.) — Andrew M

So I may conclude that from the point in time when Bob left, to the point when Bob returned, the amount of time which passes is dependent on one's frame of reference. Can I make the further, more generalized conclusion, that the amount of time between any two points in time, is indeterminate?

- time simply elapsed at a different rate for each clock. — Andrew M

What do you think "time elapsed at a different rate" means? Suppose you and I meet. It is the present when we meet. Then we go our separate ways, and meet again later. It is still the present when we meet the second time, and it was the present for each of us during the entire intermediate period. But for each of us, there is a different amount of time passed between the two meetings, if we take differing spacetime paths. Doesn't this just mean that there is not a fixed quantity of time between any two distinct points of the present? So we can say that for any two points in time, there is not a fixed amount of time between those two points, because the quantity of time between them varies according to the spacetime path that a person or thing takes to get from one to the next.

Which means I referred prior to showing. — creativesoul

Yes, you referred to a subject, "your cat" without physically pointing to anything, or physically showing anything. But we never physically point at anything when we refer to a subject. In fact, it makes very little difference whether there's a corresponding physical object or not when we reference a subject. For all I know. or care, you have no cat. The referent, as the matter referred to, is conceptual. So you have not successfully referred to any physical object named "my cat", you have proposed a subject "my cat" as a matter for discussion, and in doing so you have successfully referenced that subject..

What I'm questioning here is whether or not pointing alone, and/or showing alone is referring... — creativesoul

As I said, there's two very distinct forms of referencing. One is to refer to a physical object, the other to refer to a subject. Until we disentangle the two this question is pointless. Seems you didn't read my post, or at least didn't understand it.

And the clue is in the fact that Witty says the seeing-as does not imply seeing differently; — StreetlightX

I believe that what is said here, is that to "see" a sample as a sample of a universal, rather than as a particular, might be said to "see" the sample differently, but it is not really a matter of seeing the sample differently, it is really a matter of using the sample differently. So if we say that the person sees the sample differently, "this might well be so—though it is not so—for it would only be to say that, as a
matter of experience, if you see the leaf in a particular way, you use it in such-and-such a way or according to such-and-such rules." I.e., when you see the leaf in this or that way, you are using the image of it, in your mind, in this or that way. The sample is understood as...

Witty aims to once again 'de-interiorize' perception - just as he did with the memory-image in §56/57. Just as, in §56/57, the importance of the memory-image had to do with its role in a langauge-game, so too does perception's importance come out in the role it also plays in an economy of use: — StreetlightX

Here's a brief note on this subject. I do not agree with this characterization of a "de-interiorizing" at this point. There is no warrant for an exterior/interior dichotomy here. And this is the same as at 56/57, the division of internal/external is shown to be irrelevant. There are internal and external aspects implicated, but to create such a division is of no advantage to the inquiry. Witty is describing the way that one "sees" the sample in ostensive definition (73), as a consequence of the way that the sample is used in demonstration. (You might call this an external using of the sample.) Further, the way that one "sees" the sample (74), "the sample is understood as...", is itself a using of the sample by the learner. (You might call this an internal using of the sample within one's mind.) So talking in these terms, of how the sample is used, does not immediately necessitate an internal/external division, the sample is used internally and externally. "How the sample is seen", or more appropriately, 'the sample is understood as...", is a description of the use of the sample, whether it's using the sample externally in demonstration, or using the sample internally in understanding.

I think that "refer" is a complex word with a lot of different uses. It is most commonly use in relation to a subject matter, rather than a physical thing. So for instance you say something to me, and if I am not clear as to what you are talking about, I ask you what are you referring to. What you would be directing my attention to, would be the subject of your talk.

Now consider your example, your cat. Imagine you are telling me something about your cat "tigger", You say "tigger is ...". I, not knowing that you have a cat named tigger, say "what are you referring to?". In reply, you could either say "my cat named tigger", or you could point to, or hold up the physical object, your cat. Each is an instance of "showing" me. In the former your words show me a grammatical subject, in the latter, your actions show me a physical object.

Notice that in the former, there is the possibility of no physical object corresponding to the named subject, "my cat named tigger" (the scenario might be imaginary). Nevertheless, you have successfully referenced the subject. When successfully referencing a subject, there is no necessity for a corresponding physical object, and whether or not there is such a corresponding object is irrelevant to the success of the reference.

Therefore I propose to you that there are two very distinct forms of "successful reference". What is proper to language, as "successful reference", is to direct one's attention to a subject for discussion, and whether or not there is a corresponding physical object or situation is irrelevant. But there is another, completely different form of "successful reference", which is to direct one's attention toward a physical object, or physical occurrence, and this is not a linguistic matter at all, it's a matter of showing the physical object, or occurrence, referenced.

Do you think it is possible to discuss "successful reference" without equivocating between these two distinct forms of "successful reference", each of which I hope has been successfully referenced, individually, as distinct subjects.

Give me an example of successful reference that uses neither naming practices nor descriptive ones. — creativesoul

I already did, pointing, touching, taking one's hand and guiding that person, etc.. I could list more, but there's no use. Instead of recognizing that these are instances of referencing without language, you just widen your definition of "language" to include these things into your notion of language, as "sign language". But the point is that these things are neither naming, describing, nor a combination of these. So you calling them language doesn't help your case. The fact remains that referencing is something distinct from naming, describing, or a combination of these.

Our issue here, as always with you, is a difference in our notions of reference. — creativesoul

No, there is actually very little difference between your and my notion of referencing. This is from your op:

In order for successful reference to happen, a speaker must draw an other's attention to the same thing that their attention is already upon... — creativesoul

Replace "speaker" with "person", and this is exactly the same as my notion of reference. The only difference being that you add the unwarranted qualification "...by some linguistic method or another." So you appear to be making the claim that in order for one to successfully draw another's attention to the same thing (reference), that person must use language.

Once you realize that a person can draw another's attention to the thing that their own attention is already on, without the use of language, then we'll have common ground for a discussion of successful reference.

I have noticed that we do agree at a few points, but then we go in different ways.

If the "Present" existed, then the clocks would read the same. — Inis

I don't see how the reading on the clock has anything to do with whether or not the present exists.

I see that he has now moved from describing ostensive definition as a demonstration of how words are used (at the beginning of the book), to this point (73), where ostensive definition is now described in terms of how the objects, samples are used. He performs this inversion with the principle stated at 50. The sample is "the means of representation". Ostensive definition is not a case of using words, and demonstrating how one ought to use words through the use of words, it is a case of using objects, samples, to demonstrate the meaning of words.

How about doing a simple time dilation experiment? Synchronise atomic clocks, and take one on a flight around the world. When the clocks are reunited, they no longer agree on the time. How is that possible under presentism? — Inis

Are both clocks at the present when they are reunited? The time displayed on the clocks is irrelevant to presentism, so long as the clocks always remain at the present.

I am getting at the idea that an idea of you is more real than the material you that is talking to me right now, do you follow me? The material you is a smartphone to me. All I know of you is your post. Going back to Plato's cave, perhaps you are a human that could track me down and show me you are not a bot, and my reality of you would change, and I would not "hold the idea" that you were just my phone any longer, until then-- and perhaps after if I chose to be an ass about it :wink: --how can I or you know which is the truth? How do you know you are not just an app in my smartphone or vice versa? In essence I understand Plato's argument to say that it is irrelevant-- you are what you convey. — Carmaris19

Try looking at it this way then. From your perspective, all you know about me is the ideas that you have of me. You assume that there is a material me, somewhere. However, since the ideas of me are what are immediately present to you, in your mind, and the material me is just some assumption that you create from those ideas, the ideas of me are more real than the material me.

I’m saying I don’t even need the word “different” to understand relational dissimilarities; it’s just an instance where language mitigates confusion. When I’m working stuff out in my head “difference” is never brought to my attention, even while I’m busy cognizing relative judgements. Still, in a dialogue, the word “different” and it’s variations is used in order to show the participants understand there is in fact some relational disparity between them. — Mww

Yes, but the point is that if you were seeing in your head, some relational dissimilarities between A and B, and you were not seeing A and B as different, then you would not say that A and B are different. You would only say that they are different if you were seeing them as different (unless you're lying).

AJJ constructed his syllogism based on the definitions intrinsic to a favored discipline, and even if the form of the logical argument is valid in the holding to its definitions, the premises are not known to be true, which makes the conclusion unsound (the Universe exists necessarily because a timeless eternal thing created it).

TS, on the other hand, has constructed a logically valid syllogism where the major premise is indeed true, and from which the conclusion is sound (the Universe exists necessarily because we’re in it). — Mww

TS proceeded from the premise "there are human experiences" to the conclusion that "there is a universe". Another premise is required to necessitate the conclusion. That "other" premise is not sound, as Descartes demonstrated. And now we have multiverse speculations, which if true would indicate that there is not "a universe". TS's conclusion is not sound.

You say (pg15) logic is what makes this timeless eternal thing necessary and if one skips the logic, the principle of necessity is negated in both A and B. I disagree, insofar as it is merely the definitions grounding the logical argument A, re: “posited to exist timelessly and eternally”, which make the thing ipso facto necessary, and that is henceforth incorporated into the argument, and in B it is the absolute impossibility otherwise which grounds the principle of necessity. — Mww

No, that's not the case, deficiencies in human capacities deny the possibility of such absolute certainty (principle from Descartes).

See the.......er.....difference? — Mww

No, I don't see the difference. The claimed difference is based in an untrue principle, that the human being has absolute certainty about one's experience. I will however admit, that since AJJ's premise is TS's conclusion, there is a higher degree of certainty in TS's premise than AJJ's.

Language works to direct a person's attention in the desired way because of consistency in usage.

What qualifies as successful reference is having directed the person's attention in the desired way.