As you're no doubt aware - having spent so much time on the forums - it's a rare thing for a mind to be ahubristic and circumspect enough to draw a distinction between its truths and its beliefs. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Granting that -- there is still a difference between true sentences, and a mind's truths, and a mind's beliefs.

A true sentence is: On the 25th of November at about 10 in the morning Moliere wrote some posts on the Philosophy Forum.

Now, unless we are frequenting this discussion, this surely wouldn't be a believed sentence. And, to be honest about my own beliefs, I didn't really believe it until I wrote it now. I don't get in the habit of documenting everything I do, I just go about and do it. But it was a true sentence before I believed it because that's what I was doing.

"A mind's truths" has the air of a different sort of thing, to me -- sort of like "We hold these truths to be self-evident". Things that are important to some mind that need no further explanation and which, if you do not believe, you just don't see The Truth.

Do you see the difference, in spite of what a mind might be inclined to do?

If you allow that disagreement can be meaningful, you open the abyss of meaning without agreement. This is how we defend ourselves against the nonsense of Platonism, by showing that meaning emerges with agreement, and is not the property of some eternal objects. But then the background from which meaning emerges must be something other than agreement.

The point now, is do we simply say as I do, that this "other than agreement" is disagreement, or do we try to argue like Banno and some others, that it is actually some form of agreement? We might be best off to place it in a category distinct from agreement/disagreement, but how would we keep ourselves from getting lost then?

Or, put another way, the cat being on the mat causes (or strongly probabilistically promotes) my belief that the cat is on the mat. — fdrake

I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on this (unfortunately!). We seem to keep coming back to the same disagreements. In my view, something causes my belief that the cat is on the mat, but not necessarily a cat, a mat and the spatial relation 'on'.

Statements are still true or false simpliciter. "The cat is on the mat" is either true or false. Nevertheless, belief must come in degrees of probability. — fdrake

Again, this distinction relies on 'cat,' mat', and 'on' being simples outside of my belief in them - again, not my belief in an external world - I don't see any sense in denying that - just my belief in the division and relations.

A logic of belief in Ramsey's would look like Bayesian computation. — fdrake

Yes - you see the link between Ramsey, Friston and my interest in psychology.

It looks to me that the best bet would be "There are more than 3 bodies currently in orbit around Saturn", but I don't have an explicit probability assigned to the statement. — fdrake

But in Bayesian terms you do. Ramsey's system for measuring belief is really complicated. I don't think I could do it justice in a single post. Plus it has quite a few flaws - not enough to slay it, in my opinion, but due to Ramsey's untimely death, it was never properly ironed out. A topic for a thread, but I don't sense a strong community of Ramsey fans here to go through it with me. As such we might just have to leave that one hanging.

why would my predisposition towards any of the statements in the list be necessary for there to be a given number of bodies in orbit around Saturn? — fdrake

Not an easy question to answer.

Simple version - 'Saturn', 'number', 'bodies', and 'orbit' are all themselves models of something, but are not necessary models of that something, they could be other than they are. What they are is a property of your mind and so any adjustment to that model (say by observing a fourth body orbiting Saturn) that would impact on whether it is the case ('is true') that only three bodies orbit Saturn, is a property of your belief.

Complicated version -

I've gone through a bit of this with Banno above, so there'll be a bit of repetition. No framework is without its problems. One of the things I love about Ramsey's writing is that he's so acutely aware all the time of the other possibilities, he even at one point splits his whole essay into what might be the case if there were complex entities and what would be the case if there weren't, never deciding which. Anyway, here I think there are simply more problems with the alternatives.

Say there really are three bodies orbiting Saturn and ignore for now my concerns about those terms - let's just say they're simples. For us to say "it's true that there are three bodies orbiting Saturn" is the same as simply saying "there are three bodies orbiting Saturn", which is the same as saying "it's a fact that there are three bodies orbiting Saturn" - I think we agree on this. But it's not the same as saying "there are four bodies orbiting Saturn". So the simple 'Saturn' has an existent complex property {having three bodies orbiting it}. Also the simples 'the three bodies' have the property {being in orbit around Saturn}, all the while 'there are three bodies orbiting Saturn'. All three say the same thing, they have the same meaning, but they do not have the same logical structure (one has three elements, the others only two. So we have something with a different logical structure having nonetheless the the same meaning. Ramsey thinks this is deeply problematic for logic and so rejects the existence of such complexes. It's just that the consequence of this is that 'there are three bodies orbiting Saturn' no longer exists as an entity, so Ramsey relegates it to the success of a belief that it is so.

It's very possible I've misunderstood Ramsey. He's right at the edge of my comfort zone when it comes to logic and mathematics, so all this is to be taken tentatively - just in case that doesn't come across in my writing.

Which makes the all referents of such perception-talk and model-dependent realism socially mediated... doesn't it? — creativesoul

Not with inderect reference it doesn't. We can (and do) refer to 'hidden states' without directly identifying objects within them.

Alright I can see that my attempt at demonstrative persuasion didn't work -- but I'm afraid I've lost the plot here Meta.

Meaningful disagreement, by my lights, is the sort of disagreement you have with someone while understanding the words they say. So we do not share the same belief. But I understand the statement the belief is about. edit: So its opposite is disagreeing with someone but not understanding the statement the belief is about -- so you don't really even disagree with their belief as much as you disagree with a statement, hence why it is a kind of meaningless disagreement -- a disagreement arrived at by way of not having the same meaning in mind.

But in Bayesian terms you do. — Isaac

Not sold on this. If outputs of whatever system of belief formation we have actually were probability statements, rather than being realisations of probability models, we'd have an easier time eliciting our own priors. This is a distinction between sampling from what is most probable in realising an active perception from a model and those samples being probability statements. EG, when you sample randomly from the standard normal distribution, you get numbers between $-\infty$ and $\infty$, rather than things like the density of the normal distribution you sampled from. We don't output models by sampling from them, we output states (active perceptions) which are consistent with their generating model.

My general picture here is that we can consider people as active-perception machines. We output states (actions, perceptions, sensations, thoughts) in accordance with our current model. These states cease being models, they become events when they realise from our active-perception modelling apparatus. The model says look left (disposition) and then we look left (event).

Once you include social stuff, environmental stimuli can be speech acts, but so can model outputs. That is, we perform speech acts, we aren't just predisposed to do them. They are language events themselves rather than active-perceptual predispositions to perform them. In other words, belief is in the mind but what it concerns isn't.

Simple version - 'Saturn', 'number', 'bodies', and 'orbit' are all themselves models of something, but are not necessary models of that something, they could be other than they are. What they are is a property of your mind and so any adjustment to that model (say by observing a fourth body orbiting Saturn) that would impact on whether it is the case ('is true') that only three bodies orbit Saturn, is a property of your belief. — Isaac

We don't operate on necessities though; we don't need them. We weigh events for evidence and check them for their accord with our expectations or theories. Being true to the active perception theory here, contingency and necessity are themselves outputs of an abstract modelling procedure. Mere perceptual features and language constructs. Upon what basis do you believe that necessity is relevant at all for vouchsafing a representative connection between external stimuli and output states of active perception models? The absence of the two constructs, "contingency", "necessity" from this more primordial realm of active perception models gives me pause. In a moment of zen; how can it necessarily be the case that "Saturn" is a model of something when we cannot imbue necessity into any model output? (Not that I care about necessity much here as previously stated).

Does a stimulus constrain perceptual features associated with it? If it did not constrain perceptual features associated with it, where does all this accord come from?

Sure.

That's pretty much the reason Davidson works with statements rather than either propositions or facts. There are statements that are not believed and yet true.

Further, if your objection is re-worked using statements, it seems to me to dissipate. There are statements that are not believed and yet true.

:up:

What about adopting the view that what counts as a simple depends on what one is doing? That something can be simple in one way, complex in others?

PI §48

They think that truth is relative to conceptual schemes, and hence hope to save things like Chinese medicine from being wrong. — Banno

Right, so what would Chinese medicine be "wrong" in relation to according to you?

Further, if your objection is re-worked using statements, it seems to me to dissipate. There are statements that are not believed and yet true. — Banno

Statements that have never been thought or uttered?

Getting rid of conceptual schemes reintroduces being wrong. — Banno

I agree. However, I think we're much better served here if "being wrong" were made more explicit. If we begin by granting all conceptual schema are true - then we are doing so by virtue of granting coherency, and we further take that to mean that they cannot be wrong as a result of their being invalid or self-contradictory. If our next move involves removing conceptual schemes altogether and focusing upon belief, and our doing so reintroduces being wrong, it does so by virtue of recognizing the equivalence between scheme and belief, in addition to no longer granting that coherency alone is sufficient for truth.

I think that that's pretty important. A belief can be coherent/reasoned/etc, and false. As can an entire belief system(conceptual scheme/linguistic framework/etc.)

Which makes the all referents of such perception-talk and model-dependent realism socially mediated... doesn't it?
— creativesoul

Not with inderect reference it doesn't. We can (and do) refer to 'hidden states' without directly identifying objects within them. — Isaac

We do not do so without extremely complex language use, which is precisely the point being made here. Indirect reference is a complex cognitive process that quite simply cannot happen without language use. Something that is existentially dependent upon language use is socially mediated. Indirect reference is existentially dependent upon language use. Therefore...

Indirect reference is socially mediated, as is all perception-talk and model-dependent realism.

Not all common referents are existentially dependent upon language use. Trees are not existentially dependent upon our naming and descriptive practices... all perception-talk, indirect reference, conceptual schemes, linguistic frameworks, axiomatic systems, etc., most certainly are.

There are statements that are not believed and yet true — Banno

So, a statement need not be believed in order to be true. A statement's being true requires more than being believed.

It is a mistake to say that a statement's being true does not require belief. In order for a statement to be true, there must first be a statement. All statements(true, false, and/or neither) are existentially dependent upon belief and language use. When and where there have never been belief, there could never have been statements. When and where there have never been statements, there could not ever have been true ones.

It is a big mistake to completely divorce truth/falsity from belief.

Meaningful disagreement, by my lights, is the sort of disagreement you have with someone while understanding the words they say. So we do not share the same belief. But I understand the statement the belief is about — Moliere

Thank you for clarifying that. So your point is that there is no disagreement concerning the meaning of the words, the disagreement is about something else, some other "belief". So how do you construe the disagreement itself as being meaningful?

You had attributed "meaningful" to "disagreement" in "meaningful disagreement", which I thought was incorrect. Now I see that what you really meant was that there is meaning, and agreement in the understanding of the words, yet disagreement concerning something else, some belief other than the belief in what the words mean.

How do you think that this belief exists as something other than the belief in the meaning of the words? Suppose we pass judgement of true or false, or some such thing, on the meaning of the words which we understand. If we disagree on this judgement, as we often do, how can this disagreement be meaningful?

Now here's the point. Your so-called background of agreement, upon which you apprehend a "meaningful disagreement", is simply the meaning of the words, itself. But this is not the background at all, it is the foreground, the surface, the shallows. The true background is the principles we hold (beliefs) by which we make judgements of true or false. The meaning, and all these agreements and conventions are the foreground, while in the background lie these judgements of true or false, where disagreement is abundant. Disagreement is abundant because such judgements are often based in intuitions, attitudes, feelings, and emotions, rather than rational logic. This is why the background is a background of disagreement, and agreement is conjured up in the foreground, by conscious minds. But the conscious mind is just the tip of the iceberg, and we often cannot even say why we believe some things and not others, because those principles often extend deep into the subconscious. So the background is full of disagreement.

If outputs of whatever system of belief formation we have actually were probability statements, rather than being realisations of probability models, we'd have an easier time eliciting our own priors. This is a distinction between sampling from what is most probable in realising an active perception from a model and those samples being probability statements. — fdrake

I agree with you here so I'm not sure I picked up on the point you were making before correctly. The probability I'm suggesting you have is in your disposition to act. In Ramseyan terms, it's something like the number of times you would take some action over another in repeated circumstances. In neuroscience terms its more interesting because when you look at the staccato action of neural signals related to the timing of backward modulating actions, you do genuinely get a probability out of neural structures. So it's entirely feasible that a belief (neural structure) is genuinely a probability of some response (and an exhaustive probability of all other possible responses). That is the framework in which I mean that you do have a number, not in the sense that you might add it to your statement.

The model says look left (disposition) and then we look left (event). — fdrake

Same unresolved issue here I'm afraid (are we getting anywhere?). It's only our expectation-mediated perception which tell us what that output is (that we did indeed look left), it's still only a reflection of what we are disposed to see/feel, constrained by what actually is happening, but not in any way necessarily 'true' to it. Take phantom limb. They're not 'really' moving their arm, but their perception is telling them they are, and without contrary input, that's exactly the 'event' they'll perceive. Not what we'd want to call the real event at all, simply what they were expecting to perceive without any contrary evidence to deal with. Faced with conflicting contrary evidence the brain will make up all kinds of stories to marry the two sources, any or none of which may actually reflect reality.

Upon what basis do you believe that necessity is relevant at all for vouchsafing a representative connection between external stimuli and output states of active perception models? — fdrake

I don't. But necessity is relevant for theories of truth based on the objects thereby referred to. To consider sense objects as simples is fine in most cases and the necessity of those simples is irrelevant. But to claim (as Davidson seems to) that those simples are all there is, universally shared... That seems to me to be making a claim for their to be necessarily that way, and that claim I think, can be refuted.

how can it necessarily be the case that "Saturn" is a model of something when we cannot imbue necessity into any model output? — fdrake

Yeah, fair point. I'd have to dial back my use of the term, not sure how it affects the argument though? Surely without that necessity, you still cannot go from there to reify 'Saturn', simply on the grounds that it is not necessarily a model?

Does a stimulus constrain perceptual features associated with it? If it did not constrain perceptual features associated with it, where does all this accord come from? — fdrake

Yes, but in a number of ways, only some of which will be relevant to our form of life at any one time, hence the possibility to have more than one accord with our perceptual features. The chances of it being the case that something like 'the cat' could really be both on and off something like 'the mat' at the same time depending on how you look at it are very slim, which is why I think Davidson is right most of the time. But with more fundamental perception, or with less concrete objects, it is perfectly possible that their form, properties or constitution really are different depending on how you perceive them, and yet that final perception is all we have access to to give a name.

Answering out of order:

Yeah, fair point. I'd have to dial back my use of the term, not sure how it affects the argument though? Surely without that necessity, you still cannot go from there to reify 'Saturn', simply on the grounds that it is not necessarily a model? — Isaac

Let's see if I can re-cast your argument as a syllogism.

(N1) In order for an output of a model to be real for certain, the connection between the model output (model results) and model input (what is modelled) must be necessary.
(N2) The connection between model output and model input is never necessary.
(N3) The model output is never real for certain.

If you want to undermine any connection between model output and model input, you can supply a defeating context whereby the model fails to perform in some way. Like in phantom limb;

Take phantom limb. They're not 'really' moving their arm, but their perception is telling them they are, and without contrary input, that's exactly the 'event' they'll perceive. Not what we'd want to call the real event at all, simply what they were expecting to perceive without any contrary evidence to deal with. Faced with conflicting contrary evidence the brain will make up all kinds of stories to marry the two sources, any or none of which may actually reflect reality. — Isaac

This fleshes out the sense of necessity in the above argument. If there exists some defeating context for a model; when it fails to perform, produces an output with error; then that model is not necessary.

I don't. But necessity is relevant for theories of truth based on the objects thereby referred to. To consider sense objects as simples is fine in most cases and the necessity of those simples is irrelevant. But to claim (as Davidson seems to) that those simples are all there is, universally shared... That seems to me to be making a claim for their to be necessarily that way, and that claim I think, can be refuted. — Isaac

The bolded statement there is in my mind a restatement of (N1).

Does this seem about right?

Does this seem about right? — fdrake

Yes, I think so. I sense there's a commitment resulting from this that I'm not going to like, so I'm wary of the fact that it's not exactly how I would word it (laying out my escape route early on!), but yes,. It's related to the same answer I would give to Banno, so I've put them in the same post.

What about adopting the view that what counts as a simple depends on what one is doing? That something can be simple in one way, complex in others? — Banno

Let's take "the Cat is on the Mat" (in the meta language - the second part of a Tarski Theory). I could also say "a Cat-Mat exists" where a Cat-Mat, to me, is what you'd call a complex of the simples Cat and Mat, but to me, it's just a simple Cat-Mat. You'd claim three relational propositions (after Ramsey)

1. The cat is on the mat
2. The cat has the complex property {being on the mat}
3. The mat has the complex property {having the cat on it}

I'd claim only one - the Cat-Mat exists.

Both models are within the constraints set by reality - if you want to stroke the cat, you can reach out to where the mat is and your belief about the location of the cat will be justified. If I want to take my Cat-Mat to vet/carpet-cleaner (who in my world are the same person), I reach out to where my Cat-Mat is and my belief that it exists is justified by my interaction with it.

Both models could potentially be wrong, evidenced by our failure to interact with them object(s) in the way we were expecting.

But crucially, each model makes demonstrably different logical constructs in any truth claim. This, for Ramsey, makes it very difficult to say they have the same meaning.

Davidson, it seems, would like to say that in all cases anyone's Cat-Mat can be translated in terms of Cats and Mats. It might seem as weird as me talking to you about Cat-Heads and Cat-Bodies as if they were two different things, but it's essentially doable. I agree for most cases. Where I disagree is when we indirectly reference hidden states. Here you have a Cat-Mat, I have a Feline-Rug and we can't talk directly about the simples either complex is constructed from because we don't have referential access to them, but we can infer (from the various psychological and neuroscientific experiments with perception) that such simples exist.

Again, I think Davidson would like these to 'drop out' of the conversation on the grounds of a lack of reference, but I think they do have a reference in the same way as I can refer to "the things I don't know" - no direct object-reference relation, but I can nonetheless infer there must be such things.

(N1) In order for an output of a model to be real for certain, the connection between the model output (model results) and model input (what is modelled) must be necessary. — fdrake

Yes, I think so. I sense there's a commitment resulting from this that I'm not going to like, so I'm wary of the fact that it's not exactly how I would word it (laying out my escape route early on!), but yes,. It's related to the same answer I would give to Banno, so I've put them in the same post. — Isaac

The thing that bugs me about the argument is (N1). If I can replace "real for certain" with "true", the thing that bugs me about it is I have to assume (N1) is true in order for the syllogism to be valid. It's like we've found a necessary truth that there are no necessary truths.

Regardless, I'm quite happy with the idea that there are no necessary truths (for some account of necessity). What I'm really interested in is why this sense of necessity seems relevant at all to you, and what it is. If we can find defeater contexts for every model, we can clearly revise our knowledge.

For example, it isn't necessary that the cat is on the mat (the cat could be elsewhere). It isn't necessary that I believe the cat is on the mat if and only if the cat is on the mat in order for the cat to be on the mat (the cat could be on the mat and I could be out of the house and believing the cat is outside). That which my perceptual features aggregate into "my cat" counts as the cat, but the represented entity also counts as my cat. This "counting as" works both ways - it's relational and context sensitive.

What I'd replace the notion of necessity with is (fallible) accord of (fallible) perceptual features; then treat the perceptual features as real objects with regularities that (fallibly, contextually) ensure the (fallible, contextual) accord. Phantom limb patients don't have to be delusional ("my leg's still there") to have phantom limb sensations.

It looks to me that once you remove that need for necessity, a fallibly perceived reality is literally at your fingertips. No more see through veil, a seen through veil. Rather than "unmediated contact", say, mediation is a shared style of being in the world (the operation of embodiment as it works in human bodies). (Though I don't think I'm arguing exactly what Davidson is here, but we're talking about something (truth-belief relations) that weren't fleshed out in the paper anyway; an intuition I have is that Davidson's "principle of charity", if it works, works because we already do share so much)

we can find defeater contexts for every model, we can clearly revise our knowledge. — fdrake

What if they're not 'defeater' contexts, but just indeterminable alternative contexts. That matters I think, because we'd have no reason to revise our knowledge, but we'd have reason to accept other, equally valid alternatives.

Plus also - as a matter of simple pragmatics, this does seem to be the way perception works, it just gets very difficult to frame and progress with questions about that interface (perception - causes of perception) without being able to talk about alternative models.

It isn't necessary that I believe the cat is on the mat if and only if the cat is on the mat in order for the cat to be on the mat (the cat could be on the mat and I could be out of the house and believing the cat is outside) — fdrake

This is where partial belief comes in. To say you 'believe the cat was outside' would be to act only that way. You have a hundred people at your disposal searching for the cat (which you've suddenly acquired an urgent need for) and you send all of them looking outside. If you send even one of them to the mat, then you at least partially believe that the cat is on the mat.

If it's not something you at least partially believe (even to the tiniest degree) then how could the question even arise? This is what Ramsey means by saying we'd have to be God-like to be 100% certain of all true propositions.

That which my perceptual features aggregate into "my cat" counts as the cat, but the represented entity also counts as my cat. This "counting as" works both ways - it's relational. — fdrake

Yes, I think I'd agree with that, but is it commensurable? Is it impossible for someone else to have a different set of hidden states combine to make a slightly different entity? If so, their entities (and relations) may be incommensurable with yours because, despite the fact that we're happy to accept whatever aggregate we perceive as real, we cannot refer to the simples constituting it (they're hidden). So if someone did have a different aggregate it would not be possible to translate it by reference to shared simples.

Again, just to emphasise, I think Davidson is right the vast majority of the time, but just not all cases.

What I'd replace the notion of necessity with is (fallible) accord of (fallible) perceptual features; then treat the perceptual features as real objects with regularities that (fallibly, contextually) ensure the (fallible) accord. — fdrake

Yep, totally with you on this one too, but this doesn't lead to an impossibility of alternative models does it? More than one set of perceptual features could be no less in (fallible) accord? Treat them as real objects, yes. Admit that their regularities are in accord with something (and so must in some way reflect that something), yes to that too. But if their accordance does not exhaust all the possible ways of being in accord, then you'll end up, by this means, with more than one reality.

Yes, I think I'd agree with that, but is it commensurable? Is it impossible for someone else to have a different set of hidden states combine to make a slightly different entity? If so, their entities (and relations) may be incommensurable with yours because, despite the fact that we're happy to accept whatever aggregate we perceive as real, we cannot refer to the simples constituting it (they're hidden). So if someone did have a different aggregate it would not be possible to translate it by reference to shared simples. — Isaac

Why would it need to be impossible? What's the reasoning behind (N1)?

I don't think the hidden states matter here. The perceptual features or internal states do. The perceptual features or internal states count as the entity (whose dynamics are given by the dynamics of hidden states). This is active perception and thought/predisposition. Then the words concerning the perceptual features or internal states count as the perceptual features or internal states (which count as the entity). This is speech acts. When we follow the chain backwards, we understand the speech act when we can output perceptual or internal states which count as the other's perceptual or internal states; that is, we can attribute "beliefs" and "propositional attitudes" to them which are in accord with their behaviour (and self reports).

The criterion for commensurability I don't think should be the possibility of different perceptual features being associated with entities, it should be which perceptual features count as that entity; and the behavioural/language components which count as those perceptual features give us fallible indicators that we count entities as entities identically; that is, for when we coincide in how we count what as what. When we coincide in how we count what as what, we are commensurable, when we have strong indicators that we coincide in how we count what as what, we have strong indicators of commensurability.

Trying to count the same stuff as the same stuff as much as possible is a form of the principle of charity; maximise agreement. The mere possibility of difference is largely irrelevant when we can agree upon that possibility and flesh out contexts which would actualise it.

Why would it need to be impossible? What's the reasoning behind (N1)? — fdrake

Basically, if it's not impossible we've no grounds to say there aren't incommensurable conceptual schemes, only that there don't seem to be any, which is quite a different claim. If I wish (as I do) to make a claim that we cannot judge two competing models on the basis of their proximity to reality, we can only do so by proxy - how well they work, the counter to that claim, from a Davidsonian position, would only work in two circumstances.

1. The two models are really fitting/organising the same features of reality, and we can translate them by reference to these features. Or

2. The two models are really fitting/organising the same perceptual features (fallibly linked to reality - but this is irrelevant) and we can translate them by reference to these features.

I can't see 1 (direct realism, I suppose) being the case, and I'm guessing you don't either, so we're talking about 2.

You're saying that our behaviour and our language give us good cause (albeit fallible) to accept 2. That the principle of charity should direct us to accept 2, even where we have doubts.

I'm with you so far, but it seems unwarranted to extend this to literally all cases, just on principle. And 'fleshing out the contexts' in which differences might be actualized, is a good aim, but again seems unwarranted to assume will be possible in all cases. That essentially back to where necessity matters in your N1. Only necessity here (which is lacking) would warrant a universal presumption covering all cases.

Am I way off in saying that the majority of our difference here comes down to how much latitude we think reality gives us to model it accurately - what the chances are of two wildly different models being both within those parameters - what the chances are of two language-sharing humans creating models based off radically different aspects of reality?

I'm with you so far, but it seems unwarranted to extend this to literally all cases, just on principle. And 'fleshing out the contexts' in which differences might be actualized, is a good aim, but again seems unwarranted to assume will be possible in all cases. That essentially back to where necessity matters in your N1.. — Isaac

I guess we don't want to be anti-realist and say that any system just is our representation of it. Otherwise there'd be no possibility of disaccord with model and modelled or representation and represented; since there's strict identity between modelled and model or representation and represented. In terms more related to the essay: that is, in order for there to be true statements, the propositional content of those statements would have to be identical to their associated perceptual features.

I also guess we both agree that you can weaken this identity to an equivalence; like counting the same things as cakes, or agreeing upon what my cat is and in what configurations it is in when it is on the mat.

What I would like to say is that the truth of a statement does not require the identity between perceptual features associated with statement propositional content and that propositional content, it only requires that the perceptual features are equivalent to the propositional content. That is, in order for a statement to be true, the propositional content of the statements would have to be equivalent to its associated perceptual features. We can demonstrate any such equivalence fallibly and contextually; whether it is true or not does not depend upon this demonstration (hence the fallibility, we can be in error).

Another way of saying this is that propositional content occurs in the same way as perceptual features; they are of the same ontological order/stratum/regional ontology. They're all events under some representation that tracks some generating conditions, so long as the conditions which generate the propositional content are tracking (strongly informationally constrain or are accurately modelled by) the conditions which generate the perceptual features; differences in one track differences in another, content in one track content in another, changes in hidden states in one track changes in hidden states in another, we're in a relative accord whereby we can state truths of what is modelled by counting it as a model output. "Sticks really do look like they bend in water, why?".

I can say that "my arms are on my body" because I have no reason to doubt that they are not; that is, I have no evidence that I'm in any context in which any doubt regarding that is warranted. What count as my arms are what count as on what count as my body. But what makes this true is that what count as my arms are what count as on what count as my body! Not whether the perceptual features are necessarily of the hidden states generating my arms, my body and their attachment.

An analysis of the duck/rabbit experience reveals ideas and uninterpreted stuff (matter in the old sense of the word).

Neither pole of this analysis can stand independently. The hidden stuff Isaac is talking about is a logical entity, a side effect of the analysis of something we experience as united.

Likewise the duck doesn't make sense as the Thing We Are Seeing because it's also a product of analysis that depends conceptually on matter for existence as a thing seen.

An analysis of the duck/rabbit experience reveals ideas and uninterpreted stuff (matter in the old sense of the word). — frank

It reveals that some environmental patterns can generate more than one perceptual feature. Notice that we don't disagree where the lines are drawn even as it shifts from duck to rabbit. The shifts are however unambiguously perceptual events; the lines aren't changing.

The rabbit wears a black band on its neck if and only if the duck wears a black band on its neck.

Notice that we don't disagree where the lines are drawn even as it shifts from duck to rabbit. — fdrake

The lines are standing in as "matter" in your description of it. A closer look reveals that what's true of the duck is true of the lines. It's ideas/matter all the way down. It's built into the way we analyze things.

As for truth, you know we're free to go crazy on that topic since Frege demonstrated that we can't define truth. So here I go:

Correspondence theory (truth bearers and makers) is very intuitional and the philosophy behind it is fascinating, but it's coming from a misunderstanding. We think humans are the only ones who talk, and so we think when a human says something, she's pointing to the world. In order for her statement to be true, the world has to correspond with what she's saying.

This is wrong. The world talks to us. This becomes clearer when we notice that the proposition that the cat is on the mat is expressed by humans, but it's not coming from us. It's the world talking. This is part of our heritage from ancestors who saw the world as being conscious just like we are. In the same way we attribute beliefs and consciousness to each other, we attributed the same thing to the world in general.

Since then, we've narrowed our population of conscious entities to ourselves, but the old way of thinking and talking is still there. We treat the world as if it can talk. The world makes assertions, and that's all there is to truth: that something was asserted.

If you think of it this way, deflation isn't so strange.

BTW, didn't anybody see my post about why Davidson is wrong? It took me an hour to put it into my own words!

Another way of saying this is that propositional content occurs in the same way as perceptual features; they are of the same ontological order/stratum/regional ontology. They're all events under some representation that tracks some generating conditions, so long as the conditions which generate the propositional content are tracking (strongly informationally constrain or are accurately modelled by) the conditions which generate the perceptual features; differences in one track differences in another, content in one track content in another, changes in hidden states in one track changes in hidden states in another, we're in a relative accord whereby we can state truths of what is modelled by counting it as a model output. — fdrake

This sounds very promising (in that it gives a model of Tarski in terms that Davidson could use) but I'm concerned about the reification of' propositional content here. I take it by 'propositional content' you mean the meta-language half of a Tarski truth-theory sentence. But Tarski limited it to formal language and you're extending it to ontology.

So let's say propositional content exists, but is different from perceptual features. I perceive "the cat is on the mat", and 'the cat is on the mat', therefore my perception (turned into a statement) is true.

So what kind of a thing is propositional content? It's not the way the world really is (that would be direct realism with correspondence theory). It's not the way I believe the world is to any degree (we're wanting to see if we can eliminate belief talk). It's not the shared belief, perceptions or any other agreement (if it were then dissent wouldn't be 'false' except by some appeal to authority). It's not semantics (those would apply to the first half, the statement itself). It's not logical complexes (see Ramsey's proof that complexes lead to problems of meaning).

So I've got what they're not. But I don't feel any clearer as to what they are than if you'd told me that flumpkins were an ontologically distinct occurrence.

The rabbit wears a black band on its neck if and only if the duck wears a black band on its neck. — fdrake

Not if you're 'black-band-blind'. When was the last time you saw your own nose? It's constantly in your field of vision, your brain just refuses to see it. In some unfortunate cases of brain injury, this effect gets shifted an the patient can't see any noses at all!

It's constantly in your field of vision, your brain just refuses to see it. In some unfortunate cases of brain injury, this effect gets shifted an the patient can't see any noses at all! — Isaac

That's amazing.

Not if you're 'black-band-blind'. — Isaac

The equivalence is ironically still true because both are false; the duck is seen without a black-band and so is the rabbit.