You're not understanding the issue I'm getting at. Given that, how can you say whether the questions I'm asking are relevant to understanding it?

I’m not saying those things. If I have you’ll have to quote where I did. — AJJ

What? I'm asking you questions in order to try to give you a better idea of what the issue is.

It’s actual if it’s actual. You’ve said in this thread you believe there are objective facts. How we tell something is an objective fact is beside the point; the point being that if a proposition matches an objective fact then it is true. I’m asking what role does a person play in this matching, beyond thinking up the proposition? — AJJ

You're not understanding the issue here. Describing a cat being on a mat isn't identical to the thing in question, is it? And neither is the meaning that someone might assign to "the cat is on the mat" identical to the state of affairs of a cat being on a mat, is it?

The meaning describes a possible state of affairs. If that state of affairs is actual, then the meaning/proposition is true. Is that not basically what you’ve said to me? — AJJ

I'm not sure what you're thinking of, but no, that's not what I would have said.

But I'll work with it for a moment. "If that state of affairs is actual" per what? What's making the determination if something described is actual? That's the question here. Let's detail how the determination is made, because that's the matching.

Right, and I'm asking you to specify the details of how the matching obtains. We have the meaning in the person's head and we have a fact. What determines if the two match? What are the details for that?

The dog is on the rug. If the dog is on the rug, then that proposition matches a fact. If it isn’t, it doesn’t. I’m not seeing where I come in to that matching process. — AJJ

So "The dog is on the rug," in terms of meaning, is a set of mental states in someone's head. You said that you agree with that. So how do we go from that to the meaning in an individual's head matching a fact, where we're no longer talking about the meaning in the person's head?

I'm not at all ready to say that there's anything negative about it without a pretty good argument, backed by empirical evidence, for something that I'd feel is negative.

But I think it's pretty clear it would be a factor for someone young spending a lot of time online.

The match is independent of our mental recognition of it. — AJJ

Again, we need to detail how. So pick an example and detail it.

It doesn't work to just claim that it's the case. That's not good enough. I can just claim that it's not the case. Is that good enough? Detail how it's supposed to work with an example. I can suggest an example if you like.

Yeah, I read you as saying that you don't think that meaning is mental.

So once a meaning is created, which is an event in someone's head, then the way that we can extramentally see if a fact matches the proposition is . . . what?

I don’t think meaning is extramental. — AJJ

I do, and I don't think there's any way to make it extramental at any point.

You'd need to argue how it can be extramental or at least how it can be made extramental.

I just added this while you were typing:

We can't be talking about meaning, which is what is usually taken to be what a proposition is, because meaning is a mental phenomenon. Otherwise, if you're going to argue that we can somehow have extramental meaning, then you'd need to present the argument for that (and I'll offer my objections as you present the argument, because I don't believe that there's any way to make sense of meaning being something extramental, and I'm familiar with all of the standard tactics/arguments.)

The dog is on the rug. If the dog is on the rug, then that proposition matches a fact. If it isn’t, it doesn’t. I’m not seeing where I come in to that matching process. — AJJ

Right, so we're talking about what matching, text marks that look like this: "The dog is on the rug"? Those sounds, or what?

We can't be talking about meaning, which is what is usually taken to be what a proposition is, because meaning is a mental phenomenon. Otherwise, if you're going to argue that we can somehow have extramental meaning, then you'd need to present the argument for that (and I'll offer my objections as you present the argument, because I don't believe that there's any way to make sense of meaning being something extramental, and I'm familiar with all of the standard tactics/arguments.)

Because something can match another thing regardless of anyone thinking it does. — AJJ

How would that work? We'd need to be able to describe/detail the process.

What I'm challenging is that there's no way for it to work outside of minds. That's one of the primary unique things about minds--intentionality, the "aboutness" ability, the ability to think about something as denoting other things.

It's an interesting issue when we're talking about younger folks (like your age, Wallows, or younger) who spend a significant percentage of their time socializing online. It would definitely factor into developing personal identity in a way that wouldn't be the case for older folks or for people who don't spend so much time socializing online.

Although even as someone close to 30 years older than you, some of us (at least those who were kind of nerdy at the time) already had home computers while we were in our teens (so the end of the 70s/beginning of the 80s in my case), and we were already socializing--and arguing/"debating" etc. with strangers online. Just in cases like mine we're talking about Radio Shack and Commodore computers, and calling local BBS numbers instead of using the Internet.

If a proposition is true when it matches a fact - and the fact is objective - then why in your view would that truth not be objective? — AJJ

The matching would have to be objective. That is, it would have to be a property of extramental things.

How are we supposed to arrive at extramental matching?

Or if a proposition is neither true nor false until someone judges it, which one is it when two people judge differently, and why? — AJJ

True to the people who judge it to match. False to people who judge otherwise. (Simplifying so there are no other options.)

as Terrapin Station seems to be doing, ignores half the problem. — Echarmion

What's stupid about it is that it's believed despite the complete lack of any cogent support for it. It's as bad as religious belief.

Come up with a good reason to entertain it, and then it might be worth bothering with it.

I don't have a third-person perspective to know for sure, but then the very idea of a third-person perspective stems from a mind. My view is everything is mind-dependent in some way. Your view is that there are mind-independent things. In my view you can't use the mind-dependent concept of mind-independent things to prove that there are mind-independent things.

What you see as objective facts, I see as ideas that some minds try to impose on others based on mind-dependent criteria. — leo

I don't see how this answers the question I asked you. My question is whether you're more certain about one particular claim than another, and then I'd ask how you're more certain of that.

Re my views, they have nothing to do with certainty, proof, etc. Those things are red herrings for empirical claims. I'm not asking you for anything like that, either. (The only reason I used the phrase "more certain" was because you used that phrase about your own views.)

The issue I see with calling these objective truth is, I am sure this is true to you, and I am sure you think this is true in general, but what if I don't know what these symbols mean? What if these arrows, chevrons and parentheses do not evoke anything in me beyond shapes drawn on a screen? Then these statements wouldn't be true to me, they would be drawings, and while I could say it is true to me that I see these drawings, I couldn't say these drawings refer to some independent truth. — leo

The reason I agree that there is no objective truth is because of a "technical" issue re truth in analytic philosophy that I described above. (Truth is a property of propositions in analytic phil, propositions are the meanings of statements, and then my view stems from what I think the ontology of meaning is and how I think that the "link" between propositions and other things work--namely, that it's a judgment that a mind has to make.)

I do, however, think that there are objective facts. Most folks on the board seem to use "truth" so that it amounts to the same thing as "fact" (even though a couple different senses of "fact" tend to be conflated here, too). So that leads to some confusion.

Re objective facts, in general they don't hinge on whether you're aware of them, whether you understand them, whether you agree that they're facts. You're irrelevant to most of them. If you're not aware of them, don't understand them, don't agree that they're facts, then that's your problem. It doesn't change the facts.

Don't forget to answer: "You'd say that you're more certain that the experiences stem from a world that doesn't exist aside from our minds?"

See the last part in italics, my brain? That's what I think he's looking for, — tim wood

Nope. I'm literally asking you a question about whether taking a cookie is actually just your arm/hand, since it's something your arm/hand are doing, and whether it thus doesn't involve something that's not your arm/hand (namely, a cookie, where the cookie is different than your arm/hand)?

An answer to that is that in your view, it actually IS something that's only your arm/hand--there's no "cookie" that's different than your arm hand, or it isn't something that's only your arm/hand--there actually is a cookie that's different than your arm/hand.

I invited you to educate twice, now a third time, — tim wood

And that I'd do, but a requirement, as a student, is that you do the assignments. Otherwise you get an F.

But I responded to your talk about "identification" by pointing out that it is irrelevant to the logic — Janus

That's wrong, though. Even when we're talking about necessity in the context of Spinoza, say.

Yeah, well if you really were familiar with Spinoza i particular you would understand that that meant something like "insofar as being is thought of as physical it could not be thought of as necessary". — Janus

What would be excluded as potentially being necessary in that case? (So that you'd point out that "Obviously no physical being could be a necessary being"?)

What you have been saying seems to indicate that you are not familiar with Scholastic and Spinozistic thought. If you are familiar with those, then I can't understand why you would say the things you have been saying, and asking the questions you have been asking. — Janus

Because (a) I have necessarily have to take the initial post in the thread to only be asking under the rubric of someone else's thought, (b) I have to believe that the texts in question (re scholasticism etc.) are coherent, not at all confused, etc., and (c) I have to read your comments so that no matter what you actually write, they have to be passable under (b)?

What's the point of this question? — Janus

The point is that you wrote "Obviously no physical being could be a necessary being," so if Jesus was a physical being (not merely physical of course, as that's categorically ruled out per your comments), he couldn't be a necessary being.

Otherwise we need to revise "Obviously no physical being could be a necessary being"

According to the logic of necessary being there would be no such thing as a being which is "only physical" in any case. — Janus

So then why bring up whether Jesus is merely physical. Physical things are not merely physical in this context--that would be understood without needing to specify it. So was Jesus physical?

Thank you for that article, it definitely answered my question. — CurlyHairedCobbler

Glad it helped even if Janus is arguing that it has nothing to do with what you were asking.

Okay, so you meant, "Obviously no physical being that's only a physical being could be a necessary being"?

You wrote this: "To say that a physicalist account of logic and semantics is possible then, would be to say that a comprehensive and intelligible explanation of all logic and semantics could be given in the language of physics (mathematical equations)."

An argument about that, including about whether it's possible, whether it's been accomplished, etc., would need to clarify criteria for explanations first.

It has nothing to do with being "patronizing" — Janus

It's patronizing to assume that someone isn't familiar with something.

I've mentioned my background here many times. But okay.

Re why I'm referencing the rigid designation stuff, I explained that already. I don't agree that God being "necessary" has anything to do with whether "Jesus is God" is a necessary proposition.

Also, what relevance is the question about the physicality of Jesus? — Janus

The relevance is that you gave nonphysicality as a criterion for metaphysical necessity. You wrote "Obviously no physical being could be a necessary being," So that means that if Jesus was a physical being, he can't be a necessary being.

I find that option no less plausible than believing the experiences we have in common stem from a world that exists independently of us. I am sure that I have experiences, I am confident that others have some experiences in common with me, I am less certain that these experiences stem from a world independent of us (as in a world that doesn't depend on minds). — leo

Wait--you'd say that you're more certain that the experiences stem from a world that doesn't exist aside from our minds?

And maybe you'll answer the question to you outstanding now for about three pages, two threads, and that you have not paid attention to, other than to dismiss. — tim wood

This is the way I'm answering it. Either you play along or I don't participate.

First, if what you gave me is "the most accurate answer you can think of," then you should be fine with "The way you see a tree is that you see a tree. You see it by seeing it," if that's the most "accurate" answer that someone can think of.

But at any rate, I explained in more detail. I'll do so again. With a simpler question to follow.

When you take a cookie, it's something that your arm/hand does. Does that mean that taking a cookie is actually just your arm/hand, and it doesn't involve something that's not your arm/hand?

So we can argue whether the arguments are really that? I have zero interest in that. The bottom line is that if you want to have a discussion that's going to hinge on claims about explanations, we'll need to go over explanation criteria before I'll participate. If you don't care if I participate, then you don't need to bother. It's up to you. I'm just giving you the requirement for my participation.

absent "objective truth," how do you know anything is objective? — tim wood

Two things here. One, re the general discussion, I'm not going to have it with you if you don't systemically go through the deal with the taking etc. analogies. I'm bringing that up for a reason (that I also can't just give, because it won't work for the purposes I have if we don't go through it a la a Socratic dialogue).

Aside from that, re the question in relation to me saying I agree that there is no objective truth, I already wrote a response to you about this earlier in the other thread. It was a response that you didn't respond to in turn. Here's a link to it:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/301585

Our concept of a material world stems from experiences we have in common. If you are willing to believe that your subjective experiences depend on you (in the sense they stop when you die), what prevents you from believing that your shared experiences depend on you and those you share them with? — leo

Wait, is that telling me why you'd pick one option over other options? Or are you ignoring that question and asking me other questions instead?

It should have been obvious that I meant "arguments generally". But even in such special cases as the one you refer to here, it is a matter of interpretation. — Janus

I wasn't saying anything about "arguments generally." I'm referring to arguments that basically go, "There is no explanation for x, therefore . . . " ---doesn't at all have to be about phil of mind, by the way.

How can it be, if it is uninformative in exactly the area where information is being sought. — tim wood

You said that the way you take a cookie is by taking it. You take it by taking it.

Isn't that what you just said above?

Is that "informative in exactly the area where information is being sought?"

What we call the material world can also be interpreted as a shared imagination — leo

And the reason that you'd pick that option is?

ou have not in other threads denied objectivity? — tim wood

I've denied that certain things are objective. I've not denied objectivity wholesale. Not at all. If that's what you were thinking, you're grossly misreading me for some reason.

What determines whether something is objective or subjective on my view is ultimately, simply where the "thing" in question is located. What it's a property or process of.

I have never, if memory serves, asked how you perceive a tree. — tim wood

That's fine. Just change it to:

"The way that you see a tree, despite seeing being a function of your mind, is to see it. You see it by seeing it."

Is that acceptable?