Since we've been trafficking in this thread lately with more than accounts of truth, or even phenomena that are quite nearby, like reference and knowledge, but in what amount to complete theories (or sketches of theories) of mental life, I thought I'd share a comment of Herbert Simon's, in defense of the sort of computational model he helped develop in the 50s and 60s: our mental life is indeed complex, but it is not complex because we are complex -- the mechanisms of mental activity are relatively simple -- but our environments are quite complex.

It may be that the history of research in artificial intelligence refutes that suggestion -- I'm in no position to say -- but it is a pregnant thought as we imagine modeling our mental lives, or at least a reminder to give some thought to the source of its evident complexity.

Just like the fact that we all 'know' Aragorn was king of Gondor.
— Isaac

I used your example of '"Aragorn was king of Gondor" is true' to demonstrate this. That proposition is part of the "collective fiction" model and it's not possible that it could be false.
— Luke

I don't understand how it's not possible to be false. — Isaac

Because that's not how the story (or model) goes. As you said, it's a fact we all know.

"Aragorn is the king of Mordor" is false. — Isaac

Because that's not how the story (or model) goes.

Why? You're connecting 'truth' to surprise but that's the very connection in question - the degree to which the truth of "the kettle is boiling" is connected to the hidden states that might surprise me. I'm not denying that hidden states can cause surprise I'm denying the link (or the strength of it) between them and the semantic content of a speech act such as "the kettle is boiling". — Isaac

What do you mean by "hidden states" exactly? Are hidden states a feature of deflationism? Because I was attempting to poke a hole in deflationism, not in your personal theory of truth.

I might have a model of my environment that I interact with and could be surprised by (if I get my predictions wrong, or fail to control it). — Isaac

Isn't the view of deflationism that the model is the environment? You call this model/environment a "collective fiction".

Correspondence theory seems to want have it that our words somehow try to match that environment. I'm arguing that that's not what our words do. — Isaac

You're arguing that this is not what our words do?

Truth is a property of statements, so the extent to which our words don't match an external world, is the extent to which the truth is unrelated to the external world. — Isaac

You're arguing that this is what our words do? Sounds a lot like correspondence theory with its matching that you describe above.

That a verb like "know" isn't factive.

One of my aims here has been to convince you to abandon the idea that the 'factive verbs' form a sui generis semantic or syntactic category. Perhaps there is some sui generis semantic or syntactic category of expressions that deserves the name 'factive verbs' or 'factive expressions', but the list that philosophers usually offer does not comprise such a category. I have made a case for denying that an utterance of "S knows p' is true only if p is true, i.e. that "knows" is factive. — Michael

The other way to go is to allow that if S knows p then p is true, but define "true" differently. As I propose, "true" would mean a statement of what S honestly believes, i.e. p would be an expression of what S honestly believes. Of course this definition of "true" has its problems, but I think it's much better than what some here propose, which is to reduce "true" to a special form of justified, like justified in an infallible way. Then "knowledge" simply becomes justified belief regardless of whether the justification is done in honesty or not, because infallible justification is impossible unless we invoke an omniscient God who holds real knowledge.

I would rather take the inference rule as primary and say that our usage of "know" mostly, though imperfectly, follows that -- that this is the nature of knowledge -- rather than saying the inference rule rests on an analysis of how we use the word "knows." — Srap Tasmaner

The problem is that this is not the nature of knowledge. This is the way that some epistemologists think knowledge ought to be. In reality, knowledge changes and evolves, and things accepted as knowledge at one time (geocentricity for example), are later rejected, becoming no longer justified. Knowledge naturally contains much which is not consistent with the reality of things, therefore not "true" by common definition.

That was one of my two options: At one time the person claimed to know p, but it turns out later that they did not know p. — Luke

That's not what I said. I said the person did know p, then later came to know not-p. I thought I made that clear. At one time the person knew p. At a later time the person knows not-p. This is not a case of it turning out that the person did not know p at that time. Nor does the person know not-p at that time, because the person knew p at that time.

What I am saying is that p was a part of the person's knowledge at one time, and not-p was a part of the person's knowledge at another time, because knowledge changes. The person clearly knew p, as p may have played a significant role in the person's body of knowledge. So we clearly cannot change this to say that the person did not know p, because this would involve the contradictory conclusion that the knowledge possessed at the time was not really knowledge.

And how did they "decide" this? — Luke

The person decides not to believe p any more for a number of possible reasons, but most likely because other evidence is brought to the person's attention, which the person did not have access to before.

My understanding on the factivity of "know" is that you cannot know ~p where p is true. — Luke

You are using "true" in a deceptive way here. That p is true is a judgement. And of course, if one judges that p is true, then this person obviously does not know not-p. So, who is making the judgement that p is true in your example? Obviously it's not the person who knows not-p. This example is just deceptive sophistry.

The problem, as I've explained, is that your statements do not give an accurate representation of what knowledge really is. In reality, knowledge consists of many mistakes. That's why the knowledge of yesterday is always being replaced by the knowledge of today. Things which were accepted as fact, and which were a part of our knowledge are later demonstrated to be not accurate. That's the nature of justification.

This is the issue Plato faced in "The Theaetetus". They sought to determine the true nature of knowledge. But they set out with the prerequisite condition that knowledge could not contain any mistakes. Then they found out that of all the possible descriptions of knowledge that they examined, none of them had the capacity to exclude mistakes. So they ended up concluding that this prerequisite condition, to exclude falsity. was itself a mistake, therefore not really a defining feature of knowledge.

Grice claims that conversational implicature is "triggered" by an apparent violation of a maxim of conversation, which suggests that what you mean by uttering p must be different from the plain meaning of p, in order to preserve the assumption that you are cooperative (and not after all violating a maxim). — Srap Tasmaner

Here lies the problem. Intentional violation of the maxim is dishonesty. But if you mean something different from p than what others take from it ("the plain meaning of p"), this could be either dishonesty (intentional violation of the maxim) or an honest mistake. Now we need principles to distinguish one from the other, to determine whether the person practises deception.

No.

That was one of my two options: At one time the person claimed to know p, but it turns out later that they did not know p.
— Luke

That's not what I said. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's exactly what you said. I quoted you as saying that the person does not know p. Here it is again:

What is correct, is that what is at one time called "knowledge", is at another time not allowed to be called knowledge. So the same ideas at one point in time qualify to be called "knowledge", yet at a later time are said not to be knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

You clearly refer to negative knowledge of p (i.e. ~Kp); not to positive knowledge of not-p (i.e. K~p). You say that it is not knowledge: "not allowed to be called knowledge", "said not to be knowledge". It is unreasonable to deny this; it is there in black and white.

What I am saying is that p was a part of the person's knowledge at one time, and not-p was a part of the person's knowledge at another time, because knowledge changes. The person clearly knew p, as p may have played a significant role in the person's body of knowledge. So we clearly cannot change this to say that the person did not know p, because this would involve the contradictory conclusion that the knowledge possessed at the time was not really knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are effectively saying that p was true at one time and is false at another time. I am saying that this attacks a straw man and does not address the factive claim. It cannot be known that not-p is true if p is true, due to non-contradiction. This applies at any given time.

That p is true is a judgement. And of course, if one judges that p is true, then this person obviously does not know not-p. So, who is making the judgement that p is true in your example? — Metaphysician Undercover

The same person or people making the judgment that p is true in your example. It makes no difference.

Obviously it's not the person who knows not-p. — Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously not. Nobody can know that not-p is true if p is true.

You clearly refer to negative knowledge of p (i.e. ~Kp); not to positive knowledge of not-p (i.e. K~p). You say that it is not knowledge: "not allowed to be called knowledge", "said not to be knowledge". It is unreasonable to deny this; it is there in black and white. — Luke

You clearly misunderstood what I said. Or, as is often the case with you Luke, you intentionally misrepresented what I wrote. Whatever, I will repeat myself as usual. The same ideas which are knowledge at one time are not knowledge at another time.

It cannot be known that not-p is true if p is true, due to non-contradiction. This applies at any given time. — Luke

Again, you are using "true" in a deceptive, sophistic way, as I explained in my last post. That a statement is "true" or "not-true" is a human judgement. The same person can judge the same statement as true at one time, and not-true at another time, yet a person cannot judge the same statement as true and not true at the same time (contradiction). The same idea is judged as "true" at one time and "not-true" at another time, and there is no contradiction.

This is completely consistent with my definition of truth, as an expression of what one honestly believes. You however, seem to be assuming some sort of "truth" which is independent of human judgement, as an unstated premise. Your use of this unstated proposition is simply an attempt to deceive. Who would make such a judgement of truth, God?

The same person or people making the judgment that p is true in your example. It makes no difference.

Obviously it's not the person who knows not-p.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously not. Nobody can know that not-p is true if p is true. — Luke

The question is, in your statement "Nobody can know that not-p is true if p is true", who is making the judgement that "p is true". A person can know that not-p is true, when that person is not making the judgement that p is true. Therefore you need to disclose who is judging p as true, in your statement. If it is not the person who knows not-p, then there is no problem.

Your use of "true" here is deceptive, because you do not disclose the person who is making the judgement that p is true. Clearly it's not the person who knows that not-p is true, so who is it making the judgement that p is true? I honestly believe that you are simply employing a counterfactual here, for the purpose of deception. When the person knows that not-p is true, then "p is true" is proposed as a counterfactual unless justified, in which case it would be an attempt to change the person's mind. You have made no attempt to justify "p is true", so I conclude the counterfactual is proposed for the sake of deception.

Your use of "true" here is deceptive, because you do not disclose the person who is making the judgement that p is true. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no judgement. It just either is or isn't true.

A man who lives alone, perhaps the last living man in the universe, can die even if he believes that he is immortal.

If two men disagree on whether or not something is the case, the laws of noncontradiction and excluded middle entail that one of them is right and one of them is wrong.

The sensibility of these scenarios proves the distinction between truth and judgement.

But there will be no one to judge him to be dead, therefore he will not be dead,

Oh, and there will be no one to judge him to be alive, therefore he will not be alive.

No matter, because there will neither be nor not be a universe that includes or does not include him either not alive or not dead.

Your turn. Philosophy is fun!

There is no judgement. It just either is or isn't true. — Michael

This cannot be correct. A proposition requires an interpretation and a comparison with what is the case, to be determined as either true or not true. That is a judgement. With no such comparison or relation, between the words of the proposition, and the reality of the situation, there is no truth to the words.

This is where Banno ran into trouble with the claim that a proposition is always already interpreted, and I accused him of dishonesty with that claim. We cannot ignore the simple fact that symbols symbolize, and therefore need to be read. Apokrisis has a unique way of dealing with this, claiming that the interpretation, (or rules for interpretation, or something like that), are actually encoded within the symbol itself, so the symbol actually reads itself. This, it is claimed, is derived from biological foundations.

A proposition requires an interpretation and a comparison with what is the case, to be determined as either true or not true. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said to another poster a few days ago, all this says is that we determine the meaning of a proposition. It doesn't follow from this that we determine the truth of a proposition.

Our language use determines the meaning of the proposition "water is H₂O". John believes that this proposition is true and Jane believes that this proposition is false. The laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction entail that one of them is right and one of them is wrong, irrespective of what they or I or anyone else judges to be the case.

If the world is the model, then there should be no surprises. — Luke

I still don't see how you're getting here. Why should there be no surprises if the world is the model?

it is possibile that our model could be false in at least some respects, and that we could be surprised, because you speak of the possibility of a better model. — Luke

Yes.

Since it is possible that our model could be false in at least some respects, and that we could be surprised, it follows that there is more to truth than a mere "collective fiction". — Luke

Only if you already beg the very question we're debating by assuming 'truth' refers to the hidden states that the model is of.

No, I'm saying that redundancy conflates the two. If "p is true" means no more than "p" and there is nothing "outside" language, then I don't see how it is possible for the fiction to fail in its task. — Luke

No one is saying anything about there being 'nothing' outside of language, I don't know where you're getting this from.

Philosophy is fun! — Srap Tasmaner

Ahhhh....the sheer joy of it!!! I’m about to indulge, so....here goes.

The sensibility of these scenarios proves the distinction between truth and judgement. — Michael

Is this to say common sense is sufficient criterion for proof?
———-

There is no judgement. — Michael

If two men disagree on whether or not something is the case.... — Michael

That one agrees or disagrees with another is nothing more than one’s judgement relative to the other’s. That a third party invokes the logical laws to justify the differences between the first two, is no less a judgment.
———

we determine the meaning..... — Michael

Our language use determines the meaning.... — Michael

.....which reduces to we are our language use, which presupposes we of particular abilities. Better to understand what we are, such that our abilities are then possible, before making claims about things we do with them. If, given sufficient examination, it is discovered every initial thought or consequential speech-act, by each and every individual otherwise rationally adept human, is a determined judgement, then it follows necessarily that truth is a judgement, a judgement of relative certainty. Relative with respect to the conditions for its ground, certain in accordance with experience.

Thing about having fun with philosophy, is that it just might be at someone else’s expense, for which I offer a sort of apology.

Sorry, Micheal, if my fun costs your dismay, but I couldn’t let this go by transcendentally unmolested. Feel free to.....you know.....judge the comprehensibility of my comment, or not, as you wish. But just by reading it, haven’t you already?

Why should there be no surprises if the world is the model? — Isaac

There should be no surprises if the world is the model because you claim that the model is a collective fiction. I already answered the question of why there should be no surprises using your analogy with "Aragorn was king of Gondor". You did not address it.

Why should there be any surprises if the world is the model and the model is a collective fiction?

Since it is possible that our model could be false in at least some respects, and that we could be surprised, it follows that there is more to truth than a mere "collective fiction".
— Luke

Only if you already beg the very question we're debating by assuming 'truth' refers to the hidden states that the model is of. — Isaac

By that logic, you are also begging the question by assuming 'truth' does not refer to such hidden states.

However, I'm criticising your claim that the semantic content of expressions refer to a collective fiction. My argument is that this collective fiction cannot possibly be false, for the same reason that "Aragorn was king of Gondor" cannot possibly be false. The reason this collective fiction cannot possibly be false is simply because it is a collective fiction. I fail to understand how a collective fiction could possibly be false, and you have yet to provide any explanation. Since it cannot be false, then there should be no surprises, as the collective fiction is always true. Surprisingly, however, you admit that our collective fiction could be false. This leads me to question your claim that the semantic content of expressions refer to a collective fiction.

Pointing out such inconsistencies is hardly begging the question.

No one is saying anything about there being 'nothing' outside of language, I don't know where you're getting this from. — Isaac

You seem to have forgotten the current discussion from a week or two (and longer) ago, where several participants were arguing for a world independent of and outside of language. The discussion included my argument with Banno that sentences are not kettles, as well as these exchanges that you and I had:

The boiling kettle can't be 'true' since there are no matters, outside of language, which could make it so.
— Isaac

Therefore, there are no boiling kettles outside of language, either? There are only statements about kettles but no actual kettles?

If something 'outside' of language constitutes the 'kettle' regarding which we're assessing the truth of some property, then what is it?
— Isaac

The kettle itself; not merely talk about a kettle. — Luke

Therefore, there are no boiling kettles outside of language, either?
— Luke

No. Language is what delineates 'kettle' as an object. Without it, there's just 'the stuff that kettles are drawn from'. — Isaac

That's where I'm "getting this from". You were one of those saying something "about there being 'nothing' outside of language".

You clearly misunderstood what I said. Or, as is often the case with you Luke, you intentionally misrepresented what I wrote. Whatever, I will repeat myself as usual. The same ideas which are knowledge at one time are not knowledge at another time. — Metaphysician Undercover

You claim I've misunderstood or misrepresented, yet you re-state what I said, exactly as I understood it and represented it.

You are talking about knowledge of p (i.e. Kp) at one time and not-knowledge of p (i.e. ~Kp) at another time. Once again, this is irrelevant to the factive claim regarding positive knowledge of not-p (i.e. K~p).

I won't bother wasting any further keystrokes.

There should be no surprises if the world is the model because you claim that the model is a collective fiction. — Luke

Why would that lead to a lack of surprise though? You're not joining the dots.

I already answered the question of why there should be no surprises using your analogy with "Aragorn was king of Gondor". — Luke

You didn't say why there should be no surprises using my analogy with "Aragorn was king of Gondor". You just declared that there should be none.

Why should there be any surprises if the world is the model and the model is a collective fiction? — Luke

Because the hidden states the world is a collective model of may be modelled imperfectly.

By that logic, you are also begging the question by assuming 'truth' does not refer to such hidden states. — Luke

I'm not assuming though. That conclusion doesn't itself form part of my argument for it.

You were one of those saying something "about there being 'nothing' outside of language". — Luke

Come on, at least the bare minimum of effort to fairly represent your interlocutors. It's literally written in the very quote you cited...

there's just 'the stuff that kettles are drawn from'. — Isaac

...so not 'nothing' then...

You didn't say why there should be no surprises using my analogy with "Aragorn was king of Gondor". — Isaac

Because we could never be surprised to find that Aragorn was not king of Gondor, or that "Aragorn was king of Gondor" is false. Surely we know our collective fiction (which is the model, which is the world) in exactly the same way, and with the same level of surety, that we know Aragorn was king of Gondor. So, whence surprise?

Because the hidden states the world is a collective model of may be modelled imperfectly. — Isaac

Then the model is not equivalent to the world; there is a distinction between them. The world is not the model or a collective fiction, because the world can surprise us.

By that logic, you are also begging the question by assuming 'truth' does not refer to such hidden states.
— Luke

I'm not assuming though. That conclusion doesn't itself form part of my argument for it. — Isaac

My point was that I'm not assuming, either. How am I begging the question by pointing out your inconsistency?

Come on, at least the bare minimum of effort to fairly represent your interlocutors. It's literally written in the very quote you cited... — Isaac

I quoted you fairly, didn't I? I could have cut it short and quoted you like this instead:

Therefore, there are no boiling kettles outside of language, either?
— Luke

No. — Isaac

You also said:

The boiling kettle can't be 'true' since there are no matters, outside of language, which could make it so. — Isaac

Anyway, I take the position of redundancy to be that there are no matters outside of language, and that the model is equivalent to the world, whether that is your personal view or not.

Because the hidden states the world is a collective model of may be modelled imperfectly. — Isaac

I

If we have modeled imperfectly some detail of the hidden states, but we never encounter evidence that would encourage us to update our model, were we wrong?

Another question: can our model be properly said to supervene upon the hidden states? That is, can there be a change in our model without a change in the ("underlying") hidden states?

If the answer is "no," if our model is not so tightly coupled to the hidden states as that, what is the source of that relative freedom? And if our model is then, to some undetermined degree, independent of the hidden states, what entitles us to describe changes to our model as updates rather than just changes, which could, for all we know, be arbitrary, or, if not arbitrary, free?

There is nothing, it seems, that we can point to as "evidence" that is outside the model, not even surprise; surprise is not a fact, but part of our model of ourselves.

II

There's an impressive set of studies showing just how constructed our visual perception of the world is, the ones with the flashing lights. Put some people in a dark room facing a screen or a wall and flash a sequence of lights in just the right way and people will report seeing a single light moving, say, left to right. Even better, if you arrange the lights as you would to go around a small obstacle, people will report actually seeing the obstacle -- or at least report that there was "something" there that the light had to go around. That latter result shows just how much "filling in" we do from our priors, as you might say, about how the world works.

But this study requires carefully controlled circumstances. To determine the speed at which to flash the lights and how far apart to space them, no doubt experiments were needed. I doubt they nailed it the very first time, and there's a range -- I don't know how big -- outside of which the illusion of a single moving light would not hold. Similarly, there must be no other sensible information about the space where the light "detours," else people would report that the light behaved as if something were there but there wasn't.

Outside the lab, none of those restrictions apply. The simulacrum we are said to inhabit is so detailed that we can test it however we like. We can prove to our satisfaction that a tree before us is not a plastic model by cutting into it and seeing the rings, the xylem and phloem, all that. We can study a bit of the wood under a microscope and see more, even under an electron microscope if we choose, we can "touch" individual molecules of water in the tree sample. And we can do this sort of thing anywhere to any degree we are capable.

If a map reproduces every last detail of the territory, and does so not with ink on paper, but using the same materials, for all we know, as the territory, then the map is in fact a perfect duplicate of the territory, not a map at all, and to find your way around the so-called "map" is exactly the same process as finding your way around the territory.

What becomes questionable is the claim that the "map" is not the territory but only a map, and the positing of a "genuine" territory out there, somewhere, that the "map" we wander around in is a copy of. That will surely strike most residents of the "map" as an article of faith. Anything can count as evidence for it, and nothing can count as evidence for it.

III

I don't think it will quite do to answer that "data underdetermines theory." What "data" there is, is not just theory-laden; it is crushed under the weight of the theory it's carrying on its back. It could, for all we know, be 100% theory.

You want to call your view a sort of realism because you maintain there is "something" outside our Markov blanket. Is that "something" similar to the non-existent "something" that the non-moving light did not actually detour around?

If this is realism, it is indistinguishable from idealism, if only in some suitably circumspect Kantian sense of idealism.

IV

We seem to have a sort of antinomy here. On the one hand, we claim to know only our conception of the world, loosely enough coupled to it that it can deviate from the world's supposed true state. But (1) nothing entitles us to make any claim that there is such a true state, or to make any claim about how close our conception is to it, and (2) our conception is so complete that it qualifies as itself a world of the sort we claim only to have a conception of.

We have a model that is, for all we know, 100% mistaken, and at the same time, for all we know, all there is and no model at all.

@Isaac

Before you post "pragmatism" and count that as a job well done, plan on explaining exactly how pragmatism answers any of the questions I asked, or shows the questions to be ill-conceived. Jobs to be done, purposes, free-energy gradients, surprise minimization -- all part of the model, after all. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too, not even by saying that pragmatism entitles you to the impossible.

Because we could never be surprised to find that Aragorn was not king of Gondor, or that "Aragorn was king of Gondor" is false. Surely we know our collective fiction (which is the model, which is the world) in exactly the same way, and with the same level of surety, that we know Aragorn was king of Gondor. So, whence surprise? — Luke

I prefer to say that the world is a collective representation... which is constantly changing. The ways of representation are manifold.

The events surrounding fictional characters are forever fixed...unless further is written about them such as to change, perhaps even contradict, what was previously told in some way. Who but the original author could have the authority to do such a thing?

The situation with history is a little different because it is not simply an arbitrary tale: rather histories purport to, or at least strive to, present past events veraciously. Historical research is based on studying and comparing the accounts of past historians and archived documents. New documents may come to light, so there can be surprises even regarding what happened, or what is thought to have happened, in the past.

When it comes to the collective understanding of the world, this is ever-changing in line with new experience, so of course there may be surprises.

I've not been following this discussion in detail, caught up as it is in Meta's confusion. But Isaac's comment here it pretty much correct.

I see it a third way (if that's allowed). Our phenomena are private, so we can't have a public language referring to them. But appearances (hidden states) are inaccessible except via our models, so we can't have a language that's in a one to one correspondence with them either. So to what does the semantic content of expressions refer? My answer is that they refer to a collective fiction. an agreed on, shared model. Just like the fact that we all 'know' Aragorn was king of Gondor. We can talk about Aragorn and his goings on and be right/wrong about them. Kettles are like that. A collective story about the causes of the sensations we all experience, kept consistent by repeated joint activity and repeated joint language use. Which leads directly to... — Isaac

I wouldn't have chosen to make the comparison with fiction, since although there is some sense to it, it will inevitably lead to misunderstanding. The boiling kettle before us is not a fiction. It is indeed a boiling kettle. that it is a boiling kettle is a result of the way it interacts with us and we with it and we with each other. The world is such that we, collectively, make sense of it.

The kettle is not a model of a kettle. Nor is one individual's neurological modelled Markov blanket any substitute for a kettle. The analogy of a collective fiction captures one aspect of reality, but errs in that the things in our world are not fictions, despite our part in evoking them, for want of a better word).

It looks to me that 's misunderstanding of your posts is based on that problem Isaac and I spoke of earlier, of confusing the non-symbolic modelling done by neural nets with the symbolic presentation in "The kettle is boiling".

Since the world is all that is the case, it is also a collective story. That does not meant hat just anything goes. You will still burn your hand if you touch the boiling kettle.

The result is that some statements are true, some false.

Since the world is all that is the case, it is also a collective story. That does not meant hat just anything goes. You will still burn your hand if you touch the boiling kettle.

The result is that some statements are true, some false — Banno

So then Davidsonian non-reductive physicalism rather than Putnam’s conceptual relativism? And the moral implications are perhaps that , like the boiling kettle, there is a fact of the matter in social affairs preventing ethical debates from getting lost in interminable relativity?

So then Davidsonian non-reductive physicalism rather than Putnam’s conceptual relativism? — Joshs

Yes.

And the moral implications are perhaps that , like the boiling kettle, there is a fact of the matter in social affairs preventing ethical debates from getting lost in interminable relativity? — Joshs

An incautious leap, don't you think, Joshs?

Since the world is all that is the case, it is also a collective story. That does not meant hat just anything goes. You will still burn your hand if you touch the boiling kettle. — Banno

@Isaac - would you actually agree that "you burn your hand if you touch the kettle" would be the same as ""you burn your hand if you touch the kettle" is true" though? I think in @Isaac's world even saying that there is a kettle is problematic. Or whether there "really" is a kettle

Those are scare quotes around "really".

Those are scare quotes around "really". — fdrake

Really? What is it about reality that you are scared of? :wink:

@Isaac has previously expressed acceptance of realism. I think a generous interpretation is in order.

Really? What is it about reality that you are scared of? :wink: — Banno

It's the word "really" I'm scared of in this context. Austin derived methodological worries (what the word "really" does to statements and its ambiguous senses) with Kant inspired metaphysical ones at the same time (thing-in-itself = "really", what is the kettle really? Do we need to know what the kettle really is for "the kettle is boiling" to be true? That sort of thing).

Of course it was.

At you made use of the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena, comparing it to the distinction between neural models and kettles. I don't think that works. It would be an easy, yet baleful mistake if philosophers were to take the developments of neural science and simply interpret tham in Kantian terms. I suspect that this is what is happening here.

It would be an easy, yet baleful mistake if philosophers were to take the developments of neural science and simply interpret tham in Kantian terms. I suspect that this is what is happening here. — Banno

What do you see as being a significant difference between the "hidden states" that give rise to our models or collective representations, and the noumena that are represented as phenomena? Or perhaps @Isaac, if he agrees with you, can answer that question in a more informed way than you can.

I suspect that this is what is happening here. — Banno

Yeah. I think there is a distinction between the two; the neural models interact with the kettle, the noumenon is either a limit on possible thought or a cognitive grasp of an object. I imagine our suspicions are the same!

Yeah. I think there is a distinction between the two; the neural models interact with the kettle, the noumenon is either a limit on possible thought or a cognitive grasp of an object. I imagine our suspicions are the same! — fdrake

This doesn't seem to be saying anything cogent; can you explain further?

What do you see as being a significant difference between the "hidden states" that give rise to our models or collective representations, and the noumena that are represented as phenomena? — Janus

Seems my diagnosis is correct, at least for Janus.

The "hidden state" has nothing to do with noumena. But that confusion is where this thread has wandered.