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.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
And yet, my cat weighs 15. There's no information giver here. So either this is a lingual quibble or it's wrong.Second, 'conveying' information - as opposed just to acquiring a true belief - requires an information giver and an information receiver. — Bartricks
If the digital scale my cat steps on shows you're wrong, it's pointless to keep running back to your cloud writing.And in the case where the sky writing — Bartricks
And yet, my cat weighs 15. That 15 was not conveyed to me by any mind. And yet, my cat weighs 15.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
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
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
No, you're just crowing in a pathetic attempt to gaslight me.No, you are just showing that you don't really know your stuff. — Bartricks
Words aren't concepts.Not wordplay, it's just about grasping the concept. — Bartricks
The symbols "15" represents the weight of my cat. My cat's weight was conveyed to me.Once more, you have acquired a true belief. But no information was conveyed to you. For no representation was made. — 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.Imagine a leaf floats in through the window and the markings on the leaf look like the number 15. — 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.Mental states with representative contents are essential to perception. — Bartricks
With said caveats, sure.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
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.The leaf that floated in through the window with 15 on it — Bartricks
No, you're just crowing in a pathetic attempt to gaslight me. — InPitzotl
Words aren't concepts. — InPitzotl
The symbols "15" represents the weight of my cat. My cat's weight was conveyed to me. — InPitzotl
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
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
Don't worry too much about that... other people know what it means.Not sure what that means, — 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."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
It might help if you understood why I say 15 on the digital scale represents my cat's weight.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
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.The leaf is 'apparently' making a representation, but isn't actually. — Bartricks
Are you sure? Because you don't seem to know what you're trying to adjust for when you're tightening the relation.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
I laud the approach... this is much better than repeating yet another silly thing with 15 on it. But it misses.I can perhaps make the point in another way. — 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".Imagine I want to convey to you what your cat's weight is. — 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.YOu read the note, which says 'your cat weighs 15 stone'. Is that a representation? 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.Is information from me being conveyed to you? Yes. — Bartricks
In other words, it does not represent the weight of my cat.Yet the mechanism I have employed is about as unreliable as it is possible to be. — Bartricks
...okay.Now go back to my leaf. — Bartricks
...this doesn't seem to relate to what that 15 on the leaf represents.and by purest fluke its markings cause you to believe that you are being told — Bartricks
Not sure why, but okay.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
Nope.That's not going to make a difference, is it? — Bartricks
"Begging the question" does not apply here. Begging the question is a logical fallacy where you assume the conclusion of your argument.Again, you are begging the question throughout by just helping yourself to the idea of a representation, — 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).when what it takes for something successfully to represent is precisely what's at issue. — Bartricks
I don't deny it's designed. The problem is:Now, final time, the weighing machine example is shit. Why? Because it's DESIGNED. — Bartricks
...there's no representer (in the sense you mean it).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
Sure it is, because the scale is not a representer.So it ain't a counterexample. — Bartricks
Yes. Incidentally, I am an agent that speaks English.You think the fact the machine enables you reliably to know the cat's weight is what's doing the trick, yes? — 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.I keep refuting that with examples you don't understand. — 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.It has nothing to do with reliability. — Bartricks
It is not in dispute that we perceive things by way of mental states with representative contents. — Bartricks
An agent. Do you mean who? Not sure. God probably. — Bartricks
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 not — Gregory
Sorry to tell you, but there is quite a bit of dispute about how and what we perceive. — Sir2u
Try building a mental state about how sorry you are that the Trescian Water Mole is extinct. — Sir2u
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
You do realize you're fantasizing again.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
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.have now explained numerous times. — 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.The weighing machine is designed. — Bartricks
What on earth are you on about? Good riddance to the little shits. — Bartricks
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
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
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.Sir Fit of Ignorance: Who murdered her? — Bartricks
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
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
Back to the drawing board everyone - how did she die? — Bartricks
Never said that, so it must be a thought of your own. — Sir2u
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
The only crime scene here is your attempt to use bullshit to try to convince people that they are wrong. — Sir2u
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
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
Why did you think it significant then? — Bartricks
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
No, I am using reasoned argument to show that perception is incompatible with our faculties being the product of blind evolutionary forces. — Bartricks
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