• InPitzotl
    880
    First, perception goes by way of mental states with representative contents. You say you're willing to grant this, like there's an option to deny it. No, they're essential.Bartricks
    You're just playing games. How you define a word is arbitrary. If I want to say a brainless creature with nerves perceives something, I might want a weaker definition.
    Second, 'conveying' information - as opposed just to acquiring a true belief - requires an information giver and an information receiver.Bartricks
    And yet, my cat weighs 15. There's no information giver here. So either this is a lingual quibble or it's wrong.
    And in the case where the sky writingBartricks
    If the digital scale my cat steps on shows you're wrong, it's pointless to keep running back to your cloud writing.
    You then proceed to beg the question by supposing that it is somehow the squiggles that are doing the representing. No, they're not. Minds represent 'by' using squiggles to convey something to another.Bartricks
    And yet, my cat weighs 15. That 15 was not conveyed to me by any mind. And yet, my cat weighs 15.

    You keep running into the same problem. I thought you said you agreed with this. You're going backwards.

    ETA: I think what you're trying to say is that agents are what understand what the symbols mean. But you keep saying something quite different. "Agents" is also a bit broad; it's generally just us human types that understand complex statements. But a lot of other creatures perceive things.

    The note does not understand the symbols written on it. But neither does the scale understand the symbols it generates. Nevertheless, the note conveys a meaning and so does the scale. The scale provides meaning to me; and it's even the semantic content of the symbols it produces.

    But the semantic content of that digital scale's display is the weight of the cat. Surely you don't deny that "15" is symbols, the symbols are a number, and that this number is the weight of the cat, right?
  • Bartricks
    6k
    First, perception goes by way of mental states with representative contents. You say you're willing to grant this, like there's an option to deny it. No, they're essential.
    — Bartricks
    You're just playing games. How you define a word is arbitrary. If I want to say a brainless creature with nerves perceives something, I might want a weaker definition.
    InPitzotl

    No, you are just showing that you don't really know your stuff. You can't perceive something absent a mental state with representative content. They're essential. Not wordplay, it's just about grasping the concept.

    Second, 'conveying' information - as opposed just to acquiring a true belief - requires an information giver and an information receiver.
    — Bartricks
    And yet, my cat weighs 15. There's no information giver here. So either this is a lingual quibble or it's wrong.
    InPitzotl

    Once more, you have acquired a true belief. But no information was conveyed to you. For no representation was made.

    Imagine a leaf floats in through the window and the markings on the leaf look like the number 15. You form the belief that your cat weighs 15 stone on that basis. Your belief is true - your cat really is 15 stone - yet no one conveyed this information to you.

    You are begging the question horribly or not really understanding the argument I am making.

    Mental states with representative contents are essential to perception. So, in their absence, we do not perceive anything.

    For a mental state to have representative contents (and this is a vulgar way to speak, of course, for no mental state itself represents anything to be the case) it needs to be being used by an agent for the purposes of representing those contents to its bearer.

    The leaf that floated in through the window with 15 on it, was not telling you anything about anything, even though you took it to be. If someone knew of this leaf's existence and loaded it into a set of scales such that if anything weighing 15 stone sat on it this leaf would be emitted, then - then - you are being told something about your cat's weight. Otherwise not.
  • InPitzotl
    880
    No, you are just showing that you don't really know your stuff.Bartricks
    No, you're just crowing in a pathetic attempt to gaslight me.
    Not wordplay, it's just about grasping the concept.Bartricks
    Words aren't concepts.
    Once more, you have acquired a true belief. But no information was conveyed to you. For no representation was made.Bartricks
    The symbols "15" represents the weight of my cat. My cat's weight was conveyed to me.
    Imagine a leaf floats in through the window and the markings on the leaf look like the number 15.Bartricks
    There's an infinite number of imagined scenarios where I can see the symbols 15 in such a way that they have no bearing on the weight of my cat. But they have no bearing on the fact that the scale's display showing 15 means my cat weighs 15.
    Mental states with representative contents are essential to perception.Bartricks
    It sounds like you're confusing two things. "15" and "the cat is on the mat" are strings of symbols, written in a medium. We can call those signs. These signs exist on screens, displays, notes and the like. We form mental states from signs by reading them; but the signs don't require us to read them to be the signs they are. My scale would still show 15 if my cat stepped on it even if nobody read the display.

    Now if I did look at the display, then we can talk about a mental state. And yes, we use perception to read displays.
    For a mental state to have representative contents (and this is a vulgar way to speak, of course, for no mental state itself represents anything to be the case) it needs to be being used by an agent for the purposes of representing those contents to its bearer.Bartricks
    With said caveats, sure.
    The leaf that floated in through the window with 15 on itBartricks
    Your leaf example is superfluous. You already have a pie in the oven, and it doesn't refute my cat's weighing 15. I don't get why you think introducing a leaf with a 15 stamp is going to help you any.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    No, you're just crowing in a pathetic attempt to gaslight me.InPitzotl

    Not sure what that means, but I am just pointing out that to be aware of something essentially requires you to be in a mental state with representative contents, whatever else it may involve. It isn't up for negotiation. There are issues over whether we are directly or indirectly aware of what such states make us aware of (when they make us aware of something). But those are beside the current point, which is to do with how something gets to have representative contents.

    Words aren't concepts.InPitzotl

    Erm, yes. I didn't say otherwise. Cows aren't tables. So there.

    The symbols "15" represents the weight of my cat. My cat's weight was conveyed to me.InPitzotl

    Question begging. See OP and other representations of the argument above.

    There's an infinite number of imagined scenarios where I can see the symbols 15 in such a way that they have no bearing on the weight of my cat. But they have no bearing on the fact that the scale's display showing 15 means my cat weighs 15.InPitzotl

    You've missed the point.

    Your leaf example is superfluous. You already have a pie in the oven, and it doesn't refute my cat's weighing 15. A leaf with a 15 stamp isn't going to help you.InPitzotl

    I think you meant 'super' not 'superfluous'. It isn't superfluous because although I have other examples that illustrate the same point, they don't seem to have conveyed it to you, and thus I keep coming up with variations in the hope that by about example 7 or 8 you might get the point. Which is that despite you acquiring a true belief via these mechanisms, the leaf, or clouds, or squiggles or whatever, do not have any representative contents until or unless an agent gets involved.
    The leaf is 'apparently' making a representation, but isn't actually. And no amount of tightening the causal relation between what it appears to be making a representation of and the truth-maker of your belief is going magically to make it start representing successfully.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    I can perhaps make the point in another way. Imagine I want to convey to you what your cat's weight is (and I do know this). I am, however, thousands of miles away and have no clue where you are. Nevertheless, I write your cat's weight on a piece of paper and make it into a little paper plane and throw it out of the window. By purest fluke, it manages to find its way to your window and to land on your table. YOu read the note, which says 'your cat weighs 15 stone'. Is that a representation? Yes. Is information from me being conveyed to you? Yes. Yet the mechanism I have employed is about as unreliable as it is possible to be.

    Now go back to my leaf. The leaf floated in through the window, and by purest fluke its markings cause you to believe that you are being told that your cat's weight is 15 stone. You are not being told that. You are not being told anything. It's just a leaf.

    Now imagine that the connection between the leaf coming through the window and your cat's weight is very tight, such that if your cat did not weigh 15 stone it would not have come through the window.

    That's not going to make a difference, is it? For to think it would, is to think the tightness of the connection between the apparent representative contents and its object is the crucial matter. But if that was the crucial matter, then my paper-plane case should be one in which it is clear that the note lacks representative contents. Yet the opposite is true.
  • InPitzotl
    880
    Not sure what that means,Bartricks
    Don't worry too much about that... other people know what it means.
    "The symbols '15' represents the weight of my cat. My cat's weight was conveyed to me." — InPitzotl
    Question begging. See OP and other representations of the argument above.
    Bartricks
    There's no question begging here; only your confusion. In fact, you agreed I formed a justified true belief that my cat weighs 15 pounds. I formed that belief by reading and interpreting the symbols "15". So something about those symbols justify my belief that the cat weighs 15.
    It isn't superfluous because although I have other examples that illustrate the same point, they don't seem to have conveyed it to you, and thus I keep coming up with variations in the hope that by about example 7 or 8 you might get the point.Bartricks
    It might help if you understood why I say 15 on the digital scale represents my cat's weight.
    The leaf is 'apparently' making a representation, but isn't actually.Bartricks
    The leaf is not even apparently making a representation. Incidentally, it's worth noting that the symbols "representing" a thing has suddenly mutated into the surface it's written on "making a representation" of the thing.
    And no amount of tightening the causal relation between what it appears to be making a representation of and the truth-maker of your belief is going magically to make it start representing successfully.Bartricks
    Are you sure? Because you don't seem to know what you're trying to adjust for when you're tightening the relation.
    I can perhaps make the point in another way.Bartricks
    I laud the approach... this is much better than repeating yet another silly thing with 15 on it. But it misses.
    Imagine I want to convey to you what your cat's weight is.Bartricks
    So let's start here. You are a sentient entity that understands English. So you have mental representations. You are capable of using your agency to translate mental representations of agentive world models (including hypothetical ones) into strings. The digital scale I referred to is not an agent, and does not have mental models, but nevertheless its display can generate strings... strings like "15".
    YOu read the note, which says 'your cat weighs 15 stone'. Is that a representation? Yes.Bartricks
    Agreed. It represents a mental model you've formed about a shared world model. But it doesn't represent my cat's weight. It just "apparently" represents my cat's weight.
    Is information from me being conveyed to you? Yes.Bartricks
    Agreed. It conveys information about a mental model you have. But it doesn't properly inform me of what my cat's weight is.
    Yet the mechanism I have employed is about as unreliable as it is possible to be.Bartricks
    In other words, it does not represent the weight of my cat.
    Now go back to my leaf.Bartricks
    ...okay.
    and by purest fluke its markings cause you to believe that you are being toldBartricks
    ...this doesn't seem to relate to what that 15 on the leaf represents.
    Now imagine that the connection between the leaf coming through the window and your cat's weight is very tight, such that if your cat did not weigh 15 stone it would not have come through the window.Bartricks
    Not sure why, but okay.
    That's not going to make a difference, is it?Bartricks
    Nope.

    Maybe you should understand another property of my scale; one I've mentioned. My cat often stands on the scale spontaneously. Each time my cat does so, it displays 15.

    That 15 is shown on the digital scale when the cat weighs 15 is indicative of its weight; contrast with your leaf, where it going into the window is coincidental.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Again, you are begging the question throughout by just helping yourself to the idea of a representation, when what it takes for something successfully to represent is precisely what's at issue.
  • InPitzotl
    880
    Again, you are begging the question throughout by just helping yourself to the idea of a representation,Bartricks
    "Begging the question" does not apply here. Begging the question is a logical fallacy where you assume the conclusion of your argument.
    when what it takes for something successfully to represent is precisely what's at issue.Bartricks
    So what's the problem? 15 on the digital scale successfully represents my cat's weight. The 15 on the leaf blowing through the window does not represent my cat's weight. You may as well have my cat knock over a deck of Tarot cards in such a way that when I draw the top card it happens to be a 15. Your particular idea of the causal relationship to the symbol via the leaf is simply the wrong idea (and it's just a rehash of your pie in the oven).

    There's something critically different between 15 being displayed on my digital scale and that 15 on your leaf blowing through the window. Put it this way; we can use that digital scale to weigh cats; we cannot use your leaf to weigh cats. In the use of the digital scale to weigh things, the weight is reflected by symbols on the display. The symbols displayed represent the weight.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    So Bartricks, your strong suit as I see it is discovery through chaos, and there have been a few things of interest to me along the way. Maybe three.
    To add to the chaos there is the class of inanimate objects that we deal with all the time. No agency in a tree or a mountain or the moon but you have the exact same process of information conveyance, perception and true belief.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    FWIW, you can't claim to have shown that it's impossible to evolve an awareness of one's environment by demonstrating that it's possible in language to be misled, classic use of the word "surely" notwithstanding. If you believe in your premise, why not tackle it head-on rather than making the leap from 'Something might look like sentence that isn't true' to 'You cannot evolve awareness of things' without justification?

    Consider Descartes's lump of wax, for instance. I can be aware of its shape, its colour, its location, its texture, etc. How is this incompatible with the theory of evolution, without recourse to incomparable analogies?
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Er, I know what begging the question involves.
    Now, final time, the weighing machine example is shit. Why? Because it's DESIGNED.
    I am arguing that our faculties need to have been DESIGNED in order to generate representations and not apparent representations. See?

    No. Again then: the machine is designed. So it ain't a counterexample. It is designed! And it doesn't even make representations. If it did, it wouldn't be a good example. It doesn't, so it's even worse.When it says hello, it isn't greeting you. It isn't telling you your cat's weight. It isn't doing that either way.

    You think the fact the machine enables you reliably to know the cat's weight is what's doing the trick, yes?

    I keep refuting that with examples. And so you just repeat the same bloody point. A point that isn't the relevant one.

    It has nothing to do with reliability. As I have shown. It has everything to do with design.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    You don't understand the argument, clearly. I am arguing that in order for something - be it a mental state, a picture, some squiggles - to be said to be 'tepresenting'something to be the case (as opposed to appearing to represent something to be the case) there needs to be a representer.
    The clearest way to show this is with notes. This - this here, this 'message' - isn't representing anything if I am a bot. It is if I am a person.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    I don't know what you mean.
    If I am a bot, this isn't a message. It just looks like one. But it won't be.
    Our faculties are bots if they evolved by blind evolution. Therefore the mental states that they create in us, like this 'message' if I am a bot, won't have any representative contents. They will appear to. They won't.
    They need to have actual representative contents if we are to perceive by means of them. So we won't be perceiving anything ever if they're bot built. We won't be believing anything either. We will just be appearing to perceive and appearing to believe.
    We do perceive and we do believe. Thus our faculties are not bot built. Thus they are not products of blind evolution, but design. They are the means by which an agent is telling us about the world.
  • InPitzotl
    880
    Now, final time, the weighing machine example is shit. Why? Because it's DESIGNED.Bartricks
    I don't deny it's designed. The problem is:
    I am arguing that in order for something - be it a mental state, a picture, some squiggles - to be said to be 'tepresenting'something to be the case (as opposed to appearing to represent something to be the case) there needs to be a representer.Bartricks
    ...there's no representer (in the sense you mean it).
    So it ain't a counterexample.Bartricks
    Sure it is, because the scale is not a representer.
    You think the fact the machine enables you reliably to know the cat's weight is what's doing the trick, yes?Bartricks
    Yes. Incidentally, I am an agent that speaks English.
    I keep refuting that with examples you don't understand.Bartricks
    You haven't refuted anything except in your imagination. We're still left with the symbols 15 that my scale displayed, and the fact that this indicates to me that my cat weighs 15. Somehow you got it into your mind that if you tell me a story about a leaf that by a fluke blows into my window with the number 15 on it, then it means that my scale isn't indicating my cat's weight. I have no idea how you came up with such a silly idea, but it's clearly wrong.
    It has nothing to do with reliability.Bartricks
    Reliability is critical. If the symbols have nothing to do with what my cat weighs, they can't possibly represent my cat's weight.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Like I say, you don't have a case. You just know that Anscombe is supposed to have used the example of a speak your weight machine to refute an argument made by cs Lewis. I'm not Lewis and you're not Anscombe and the example is rubbish for reasons I have now explained numerous times. You might as well say 'yeah, but you're wrong because I am eating an orange'.
    The weighing machine is designed. And, worse, it doesn't make representations. So it does not begin to challenge my case.

    Then I refute the idea that reliability has anything to do with whether something is representing or not. And your response? A nay say. Brilliant. Okaaaay Anscombe, you bested me.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    It is not in dispute that we perceive things by way of mental states with representative contents.Bartricks

    Sorry to tell you, but there is quite a bit of dispute about how and what we perceive.
    Most people would probably agree that mental states come about because of perception. Try building a mental state about how sorry you are that the Trescian Water Mole is extinct.

    Maybe you could finally explain why Banno's red cup is red.

    An agent. Do you mean who? Not sure. God probably.Bartricks

    So all through the thread you have been telling us that the information that we have been perceiving is sent from an agent, but you have no idea what that agent is!
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Bartricks is saying we can know an agent is behind the world. But God is unknowable. Bartricks is saying we need to believe in God in a literal obnoxious way but people who are open to possibilities will say they are atheists and don't believe in proof of God but could possibly be true believers of whatever is beyond thought. Who can say for sure whether they are believers or notGregory

    Could you point me to where he said that please, I must have missed this gem.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    An agent that designs the world is a description of God
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Sorry to tell you, but there is quite a bit of dispute about how and what we perceive.Sir2u

    Not about that though. Not about the fact that we perceive by being in mental states with representative contents.

    Try building a mental state about how sorry you are that the Trescian Water Mole is extinct.Sir2u

    What on earth are you on about? Good riddance to the little shits.

    So all through the thread you have been telling us that the information that we have been perceiving is sent from an agent, but you have no idea what that agent is!Sir2u

    No, I have some idea. What's your point? Are you, perhaps, thinking that if I can't say who is responsible, then somehow that'll magically mean that blind evolutionary forces can create mental states with representative contents? How does that work, exactly?

    Here's us at a crime scene:

    Detective Bartricks: well, the axe lodged in the back of her head and 'die, you bloody bugger!' written in her blood on the wall makes me think she was probably murdered.

    Sir Fit of Ignorance: Who murdered her?

    Detective Bartricks: I don't know - I've just arrived at the scene. I'm establishing that she has, in fact, been murdered. We'll try and figure out who later.

    Sir Fit of Ignorance: So all this time you've been banging on about how she's been murdered and yet you haven't got a clue who did it!! Back to the drawing board everyone - how did she die? She wasn't murdered until we find someone who murdered her. But until then she wasn't murdered. So, we're not looking for a murderer, because we don't yet know how she died.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    No it isn't.

    This is a description of God: a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

    That's all you need to qualify.

    You don't have to have created everything (or anything).
  • InPitzotl
    880
    Like I say, you don't have a case. You just know that Anscombe is supposed to have used the example of a speak your weight machine to refute an argument made by cs Lewis.Bartricks
    You do realize you're fantasizing again.
    have now explained numerous times.Bartricks
    And I've explained numerous times why it works. So if the number of times one explains things is a factor in how true something is, then we're about even in that department, so you had better get another metric.
    The weighing machine is designed.Bartricks
    And I might care, were it the fact that all you're arguing is that agency is involved somehow in semantics. But that's not what you were arguing. You were arguing that symbols must be intentionally given by an agent in order for them to represent something.

    So my digital scale conveys signs to me, that I get to interpret as world states via the semantic content of the sign, and it is certainly not an agent (at least by my model of agency; pretty sure by your model either). At first, that didn't count because what if it didn't correlate to anything. Problem is, it does correlate. Then, it didn't count because that could possibly be a fluke. Problem is, with the digital scale, it's not a fluke. But now, it doesn't count because you already explained why too many times.

    Okay. But that 15 on my digital scale still means my cat weighs that much. That's a string (syntax) conveying semantic content about a world state (weight of my cat) without an agent intending for that string to convey it (you keep mentioning the designer, but the designer didn't tell me my cat weighs 15).
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    An agent that designs the world is a description of GodGregory

    That is not what I asked you to point me to.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    What on earth are you on about? Good riddance to the little shits.Bartricks

    So you are having trouble creating the mental state then. Difficult to do that if you have never really perceived them.

    Are you, perhaps, thinking that if I can't say who is responsible, then somehow that'll magically mean that blind evolutionary forces can create mental states with representative contents?Bartricks

    Never said that, so it must be a thought of your own. I don't think magic has much use in this world either. But the fact that your theory needs an agent but you don't have one does very little to disprove that evolution is responsible. Which I presume is your objective.


    Here's us at a crime scene:

    Detective Bartricks: well, the axe lodged in the back of her head and 'die, you bloody bugger!' written in her blood on the wall makes me think she was probably murdered.
    Bartricks

    Point 1. why would anyone write "die, you bloody bugger" on the wall in a dead person's blood. Surely if the supposed murderer was using her blood she must have been dead already.
    Point 2. seeing the evidence only made you think it was murder, you have not stated it as a fact. Is the mental state the scene caused not true because there is no agent to make it true?

    Sir Fit of Ignorance: Who murdered her?Bartricks
    I doubt anyone except the writer of absolutely pathetic writers of pseudo philosophical examples would actually think of asking that question. Something along the lines of "Any idea who might have done it?" might be a more common question.

    Detective Bartricks: I don't know - I've just arrived at the scene. I'm establishing that she has, in fact, been murdered. We'll try and figure out who later.Bartricks

    So it is still not established, you obviously are having doubts about the whole idea.

    Sir Fit of Ignorance: So all this time you've been banging on about how she's been murdered and yet you haven't got a clue who did it!!Bartricks

    Of course you don't have a clue who did it, you still have not made up your mind if it was murder or not. Again, after being told that you only think it is murder a sane person would not even waste their time asking such a silly question. It might be a good idea to ask if you are ware of anyone with a reason to kill her.

    Back to the drawing board everyone - how did she die?Bartricks

    I thought you already knew the she had an axe in her head.

    [/quote]She wasn't murdered until we find someone who murdered her. But until then she wasn't murdered. So, we're not looking for a murderer, because we don't yet know how she died.[/quote]

    The only crime scene here is your attempt to use bullshit to try to convince people that they are wrong.


    .
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Never said that, so it must be a thought of your own.Sir2u

    I was charitably trying to figure out why you'd thought it significant that I didn't know for sure who was responsible for our mental states with representative contents. Why did you think it significant then?

    I'll hold your hand, Sir Fit, so that you can understand your own reasoning and just how unbelievable bad it is.

    I have been arguing in this thread that mental states with representative contents require a representer. That is, absent a representer - an agent of some kind - the mental states in question will lack representative contents, no matter how much they may seem to us to have them. And thus, as perceiving the world requires us to be in such states, perceiving the world is not possible if the relevant mental states are the creation of blind evolutionary forces alone.

    So, in my example that's analogous to the thesis that Jane has been murdered. You may disagree with that thesis - you may think the fact the axe murderer wrote "die you bloody bugger!" on the wall 'after' the event seems sufficiently confusing as to cast in doubt the 'she was murdered' thesis. But anyway, the fact is we'd at least then be discussing the plausibility of the murder thesis. Analogously, you might want to try and find some way to call into question my thesis that perception is impossible if our faculties are the creation of blind natural forces.

    BUt then you have asked who the representer is. THat's to ask who the murderer is. And that really isn't the issue - it doesn't bear on it. See? No. Well, you are Sir Fit of Ignorance for a reason.

    Back to the drawing board everyone - how did she die?
    — Bartricks

    I thought you already knew the she had an axe in her head.
    Sir2u

    That was you, Sir Fit. Do pay attention to my parody, for goodness sake. You reasoned that as I can't identify the murderer for you, she therefore doesn't have one and there must be some other explanation for the presence of the axe in her brain.

    I don't know for sure who the representer is. I am arguing that there must be one. I am not arguing that she's called Bethany and has red hair. I don't know who she is. I am just arguing that there must be one, for we're perceiving things and we wouldn't be if there wasn't a representer. YOu asked who she is, and I said I don't know. And you think - well, what do you think?

    The only crime scene here is your attempt to use bullshit to try to convince people that they are wrong.Sir2u

    No, I am using reasoned argument to show that perception is incompatible with our faculties being the product of blind evolutionary forces.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    You don't understand the argument, clearly. I am arguing that in order for something - be it a mental state, a picture, some squiggles - to be said to be 'tepresenting'something to be the case (as opposed to appearing to represent something to be the case) there needs to be a representer.
    The clearest way to show this is with notes. This - this here, this 'message' - isn't representing anything if I am a bot. It is if I am a person.
    Bartricks

    And you don't understand the criticism. I'll say it more simply: language is not like awareness. There is information in both, but the former is very different. Trying to disprove X with an analogy that is about as far from X as is possible is a non-starter. Do you understand?
  • Bartricks
    6k
    No Kenosha, I don't. There are different kinds of representation. But all require a representer because they all represent, even if some do so propositionally and others not. Do you understand?
    Oo but, but, 'language'. Bartricks is wrong because language. Langwoooidge.
    When do we have language use and not just squiggles or sounds, child? Is it, perhaps, when we have a representer trying to represent something with those squiggles or sounds?? Yes.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    This is a description of God: a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.Bartricks

    "And the Queen is a biscuit."
  • Bartricks
    6k
    That's not a definition of a Queen.
    A biscuit's definition is, I believe, matter of public record. A biscuit - unlike a cake - gets softer with age. Is the queen getting softer with age? Perhaps. Has she been baked twice in an oven? No.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    There are different kinds of representation. But all require a representer because they all represent, even if some do so propositionally and others not. Do you understand?Bartricks

    Continuing with the same error is not a defense of it.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Why did you think it significant then?Bartricks

    I find no significance at all in it. I don't think that there is an agent behind anything so it makes no difference at all to me.
    But as you are the one claiming that evolution cannot be responsible I would presume that you have an answer.

    I have been arguing in this thread that mental states with representative contents require a representer. That is, absent a representer - an agent of some kind - the mental states in question will lack representative contents, no matter how much they may seem to us to have them. And thus, as perceiving the world requires us to be in such states, perceiving the world is not possible if the relevant mental states are the creation of blind evolutionary forces alone.Bartricks

    You are beginning to repeat yourself,. No sorry, you have been repeating yourself for most of the thread.
    Maybe if I stated what you you appear to be saying in plain English you would understand what the problem is.

    "We cannot believe what our senses tell us about the world because it is not presented to us by an agent.
    If we accepted that there is an agent that is purposely sending the information then we can believe it."


    No, I am using reasoned argument to show that perception is incompatible with our faculties being the product of blind evolutionary forces.Bartricks

    OK, let's try something else.
    Define perception.
    What are our faculties?
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