We know it isn't a sentence because multiple sentences can be used to express the same proposition.

It's not an utterance (sounds or marks) for the same reason. Distinct utterances, same proportion.

It's not a mental object because...same thing. You and I can think of the same proposition, but my mental state can't be identical to yours.

It's an abstract object. It's the primary truth bearer. It's what's expressed by the utterance of a sentence.

ds

We know it isn't a sentence because multiple sentences can be used to express the same proposition.

It's not an utterance (sounds or marks) for the same reason. Distinct utterances, same proportion.

It's not a mental object because...same thing. You and I can think of the same proposition, but my mental state can't be identical to yours. — frank

It wouldn't be a specific sentence, or specific scribbles, or specific mental objects. It would be sentences in general, or scribbles in general, or mental objects in general. Just as the content of a computer's hard drive is data, even though you and I have different data on our hard drives.

Different propositions tell different truths depending on their contents (symbols) and what they refer to (what is the case).

It's an abstract object. It's the primary truth bearer. — frank

Ok, and does it have content? If so, back to my first question.

Different propositions tell different truths depending on their contents (symbols) and what they refer to (what is the case). — Harry Hindu

Two is a prime number.

The above is an utterance of a sentence. It expresses a proposition, specifically that two is a prime number.

Jim, pointing to a 2 written on a white board, said "It's a prime number."

Jim expressed the proposition that two is a prime number.

What this example (straight from a famous philosopher) shows is that discerning the proposition expressed by the utterance of a sentence is context dependent.

frank

Ok, and does it have content? If so, back to my first question. — bongo fury

It is content.

ds

Two is a prime number.

The above is an utterance of a sentence. It expresses a proposition, specifically that two is a prime number.

Jim, pointing to a 2 written on a white board, said "It's a prime number."

Jim expressed the proposition that two is a prime number.

What this example (straight from a famous philosopher) shows is that discerning the proposition expressed by the utterance of a sentence is context dependent. — frank

A lot of famous people say stuff. It doesn't make it true, or useful, because they are famous.

All your example shows is that we can substitute hand motions (pointing) and scribbles (different symbols) in creating some proposition (symbols and what it refers to - in this case another scribble, 2). Your example still helps my case, not yours.

Your example still helps my case, not yours. — Harry Hindu

Ok.

ds

:up:

It is content. — frank

That's fair enough. It's the end of the road, and doesn't itself refer to anything and isn't about anything?

My point was that images are ambiguous in 2 senses: 1. they can match different descriptive sentences that do no share the same proposition. 2. Propositions - differently from sentences - are supposed to be unambiguous, however images can be not only ambiguous but also be ambiguous in ways that no descriptive sentence can render (image ambiguity does not match sentence ambiguity).
These observations are relevant b/c if we are supposed to take propositions as correlates that different sentences, different languages, different propositional attitude can share, we can wonder if propositions can be shared across different media (images vs linguistic expressions) — neomac

Here we are talking past each other again. In 1 and 2 you are talking about the some string of scribbles (descriptive sentences that do not share the same proposition). You're talking about words, not images. You're explaining how words, not images, are ambiguous. I want to know how a wordless image can be ambiguous without using language to describe it. I'm thinking the image is a description of something - either ambiguous or concrete - and words - either ambiguous or concrete - can describe the image (but that would only be useful to someone who can't see the image), or what the image is about (what someone who is just looking at some image believes it to be informing them of). I wish you would be more clear about which one you are talking about.

OK let’s start again. I remember you claiming “When translating languages, that is what is translated - the state-of-affairs the scribbles refer to”. Now, I understand your comment as implying the truth of the following conditional: if translation consists in replacing statements from at least 2 different languages co-referring the same state-of-affairs, then the French translations (I provided in my example) could translate the English sentences indifferently, because they all are referring to the same state of affaires (at least to me). But the consequent of that conditional is false, so it should be false also the conditional. — neomac

Huh? How is it false? I also said that you can translate different words in the same language (synonyms). What if I were to say that instead of translating the scribbles, we were translating the rules by which the scribbles are used.

My central claim is that semantic relations can not be reduced to sequences of mind-independent causal chains. You seem to do the same (due to the relevance of the notion of “mind” in your argument), but you are also developing your discourse over aspects that simply widen the scope of that central claim (e.g. with the reference to art works), which is fine but I'm more interested in arguments that support or question the claim: semantic correlations (between sign and referent) can not be reduced to causal chains. To support that central claim, one could for example argue that while art works are ambiguous in some sense, any causal chain involved in the intentional production/experience/understanding of a piece of art work can not be qualified as "ambiguous". While to question that main claim one could argue that indeed ambiguity can be reduced to some probabilistic feature of causal chains involving psychological states, etc.
In any case, I'm not interested to deal with this specific task in this thread. So I'll leave it at that. — neomac

You seem to be reading more into what I've been saying than what I've actually been saying. Semantic correlations are themselves effects of prior causes as correlating some symbol and what it refers to is dependent upon the experience and education that one has in establishing those correlations. We interpret what some visual or auditory experience means based upon prior experiences. Sometimes we get it wrong like in the case of seeing a mirage. When we understand that what we see isn't objects (like puddles of water), we see light, then we interpret the causal relationships more accurately - like there is a "middle-man" called light in the causal sequence that we call "seeing", and that we don't see objects directly, or else we could see objects in the dark - without any light.

In your past comment, you wrote “The act of memorizing an experience is the act of believing it”. This looks as an identity claim to me, and I don’t support such identity claim. For me belief exceeds both experience and episodic memory. Maybe you wanted to say that an act of memorizing a given experience always results from believing in that experience. Even if this was true, it would be just an empirical fact, namely something that doesn’t exclude the logical possibility of believing a given experience without memorizing it and memorizing a given experience without believing in that experience. Besides there are actual counter-examples: I remember a dream but I do not believe in that dream, I do not take whatever seemed to happen in that dream to be the case. Maybe you want to claim that while dreaming I was believing whatever was experiencing, and that resulted in me memorizing it. But that we believe in our dreams while dreaming can be acknowledged for all our most common dreams, yet we do not seem to remember all of them either.
The correlation between usefulness, memory, experience and belief you are pointing at, again looks empirical to me, not logical (which is the part I’m more interested in), and even more slippery because what counts as useful is no less controversial than what counts as memory, experience, and belief. — neomac

What else would belief include if not just experience and episodic memory? In the moment of your dream, you are remembering what is happening and therefore believing it is happening. What happened in the beginning of the dream is useful to remember in the middle of the dream, or else how would you know you're still in the same dream? After you wake up you still have the memories because they were stored when you were believing, not when you aren't. Because they aren't useful memories they will eventually be forgotten.
.
What is logic if not the manipulation, or the processing, of symbols?

That's fair enough. It's the end of the road, and doesn't itself refer to anything and isn't about anything? — bongo fury

Right. It doesn't refer anymore than the world refers to something else. Russell wanted to picture it as: a proposition is a state of affairs. The snag there is that there are false propositions.

Right. It doesn't refer anymore than the world refers to something else. Russell wanted to picture it as: a proposition is a state of affairs. The snag there is that there are false propositions. — frank

What would it mean for there to be false propositions if not that the proposition doesn't refer to some state-of-affairs that isn't just another proposition being stated?

The world refers to the state-of-affairs that existed prior to the world existing. Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. What is someone asking when they ask, "what is the meaning of my life?", if not how or why did I come to exist?

This weed isn't helping your philosophy skills. Change to a different strain.

So, I'm curious as to how your account makes sense of the content of the belief as well as what the belief is about...

If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?

Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. — Harry Hindu

An all too common error; the conflation of meaning and causality. The former requires being meaningful to something or someone, whereas the latter does not. The conflation is the basis for many who claim that clouds mean rain even when there is noone around to take notice...

Earlier you mentioned that one interpretation of believing that a broken clock is working would lead to what seems to be Jack holding self-contradictory belief, and that that was ground for changing the report to something similar to neomac's rendering.

I pose the same questions to you that I just posed to them...

If we say that Jack believes of that broken clock that it is working, what is the content of Jack's belief and what is Jack's belief about?

Russell wanted to picture it as: a proposition is a state of affairs. The snag there is that there are false propositions. — frank

So if I gloss my question as,

What is the content of a sentential utterance? And is it sentential? — bongo fury

... you will say, a state of affairs, and yes?

What is the content of a sentential utterance? And is it sentential? — bongo fury

I would say the the utterance of a sentence expresses a proposition. I don't know what the second question means exactly. We might use sentences to identify propositions, or it's the object of a that clause: "It's true that..."

Do you know anything about the data/information idea?

Plus, if you want to talk to a reliable source, Nagase is a good teacher. Haven't seen him lately tho.

Mary's room is based upon the dubious presupposition that we can learn anything about seeing red without seeing red.

Qualia is neither ineffable, nor knowledge.

I would say the utterance of a sentence expresses a proposition. — frank

Which you glossed as a state of affairs, I got that.

I don't know what the second question means exactly. — frank

I don't know what the title of this thread means exactly, hence my first question.

Do you know anything about the data/information idea? — frank

I know what I think: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/585599

Plus, if you want to talk to a reliable source, — frank

No, I wanted folk here to explain and clarify what they mean by "content".

This weed isn't helping your philosophy skills. Change to a different strain. — frank

Committing logical fallacies isn't helping your argument. You should try a different argument.

An all too common error; the conflation of meaning and causality.The former requires being meaningful to something or someone, whereas the latter does not. — creativesoul

Huh? Meaning requires being meaningful to something or someone? This is circular logic. What does it mean for something to be meaningful to someone?

The conflation is the basis for many who claim that clouds mean rain even when there is noone around to take notice... — creativesoul

You're conflating causal relationships between clouds and rain and someone taking notice that clouds mean rain. Are you saying the act of taking notice is meaning? Observations are meanings?

I would say the the utterance of a sentence expresses a proposition. I don't know what the second question means exactly. We might use sentences to identify propositions, or it's the object of a that clause: "It's true that..." — frank

What form does a sentence take? What form does a proposition take? How can you tell the difference between a sentence and a proposition? Can propositions exist independently of sentences? If so, how? How do you know you're thinking of a sentence as opposed to a proposition?

No, I wanted folk here to explain and clarify what they mean by "content". — bongo fury

Scribbles and spoken sounds?

Can propositions exist independently of sentences? If so, how? — Harry Hindu

Did you see that movie Arrival? If you haven't, I won't spoil it, but it's related to this question.

“the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. What does this mean to you?

Gettier. Russell. Moore.

Both Gettier cases, Russell's clock, and Moore's paradox all directly involve and/or include false belief, but none of the three address that aspect as a subject matter in it's own right.




The stopped clock example shows how Russell left out a key consideration; Russell is correct to question whether or not the belief about what time it is counted as a justified belief. It's certainly true, but are we to claim that a false belief counts as good justificatory ground?




Gettier's first case shows how an accounting malpractice of a false belief can lead us astray when taking account of that false belief by virtue of using the rules of entailment. Smith believed that he would get the job and that he had ten coins in his pocket. Entailment allows us to say that he is justified in believing that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, and he is. The issue here is that - when it comes to Smith's belief - "the man" has one referent and one referent only. He's talking about himself and no one else... after-all. So, because Smith's belief is about himself, and because "the man" refers to himself, the only way for Smith's belief to become true is if he got the job. He did not. Therefore, his belief about what would happen was false. This case shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.

It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.

Gettier's second case shows us the same as above, except it's a bit more complex. Smith believes Jones owns a Ford, and because Smith believes that he also believes that either Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, but he only believes that the disjunction is true because he believes Smith owns a Ford. He cannot believe it to be any other way. He does not believe that that disjunction is true as a result of the second disjunct. Rather, to quite the contrary, Smith believes the disjunction is true because he believes the first disjunct is true. So, while either disjunct can be true, and that alone makes the disjunction true as a result of either one's being so, Smith's belief is only true if Brown owns a Ford. His belief is that the disjunct is true as a result of the first disjunct being so. It is not. It is true as a result of the second. Smith's belief is false. Again, this example shows us that the belief and the statement thereof have different sets of truth conditions.

It only follows that the two are not always equivalent.



Moore's paradox shows us that we can say of another that they are in error, that they have some false belief or another, but we cannot say the same about ourselves, at least not while still believing the falsehood. That last part is what I've found to be lacking in the explanations of the problem. There are all sorts of reasons for this, self-contradiction being one. However, after becoming aware of our error, there's nothing at all stopping us from admitting that it was once raining outside and we did not believe it, or that we once believed a broken clock was working, or that we once believed that we would get the job, or that we once believed that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because we believed that Jones owned a Ford.

All of this seems to show some inherent issues with the accounting practices...

Did you see that movie Arrival? If you haven't, I won't spoil it, but it's related to this question.

“the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. What does this mean to you? — frank

I would need "world" defined in this instance.

No you don't. Just jump right in there and answer.

It's nonsensical. But if you're going to twist my arm, then I'll say that what it means is a strange form of solipsism where reality is only the use of some language. So the contents of this solipsistic reality would be only scribbles and spoken sounds.

then I'll say that what it means is a strange form of solipsism where reality is only the use of some language. — Harry Hindu

Yea. I think that captures the flavor of the situation, and what's really going on with the OP.

So the contents of this solipsistic reality would be only scribbles and spoken sounds. — Harry Hindu

Language is more than scribbles and sounds, ya know.

@Harry Hindu

> Here we are talking past each other again. In 1 and 2 you are talking about the some string of scribbles (descriptive sentences that do not share the same proposition). You're talking about words, not images. You're explaining how words, not images, are ambiguous.

No, I’m talking about images. Images are visual entities like strings of letters written on a paper, yet we can take images and strings to represent something (again intentionality is a presupposition here for understanding images and textual strings as representational). If we were to describe with sentences what images can represent, we would notice that there can be many descriptions that could correspond to the same image (this is particularly evident in the case of so called “ambiguous images” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguous_image), yet they do not share the same proposition. And so on with the other remarks I made. Don’t forget that my brainstorming was about the propositional nature of images.

> Huh? How is it false?

That’s basic propositional calculus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_proof): if you claim that conditional that I reported in the previous comment, it can not be true that the consequent is false and the antecedent is true. I gave an unquestionable counter-example to prove the falsity of the consequent, so the antecedent must be false.

> I also said that you can translate different words in the same language (synonyms).

Besides the fact that synonymity is grounded on semantics, while passive and active forms are grounded on syntax, the point is that translation has to take into account all the relevant semiotic dimensions of a text for a proper translation, and the co-reference to the same state of affairs is only one semiotic dimension.

> What else would belief include if not just experience and episodic memory?

To my terminology, experience includes perception, memory, imagination. Belief can not be reduced to experience. Belief is a cognitive attitude based on experience or other beliefs.

> In the moment of your dream, you are remembering what is happening and therefore believing it is happening. What happened in the beginning of the dream is useful to remember in the middle of the dream, or else how would you know you're still in the same dream?
After you wake up you still have the memories because they were stored when you were believing, not when you aren't. Because they aren't useful memories they will eventually be forgotten.

I don’t follow you here: first it seems to me you are talking about different types of memory (working and episodic memory) and I don’t know if you are taking this in due account, secondly your statements concern empirical regularities (while I’m more interested in broadly logic analysis and reasoning), thirdly they do not seem to be always true (I doubt that while dreaming at any given time I know that I am in the same dream, also because normally I’m not aware of dreaming when I dream), forth you talk about usefulness which is a term to be clarified and then empirically proved.
In conclusion, I’m not sure how to understand your claim, if I understood it, it doesn’t seem to be right, and even if you were right, I don’t know what to do with it.


> What is logic if not the manipulation, or the processing, of symbols?

This seems again an identity claim, but I wouldn’t talk about logic as identical to manipulation or symbolic processing. However, I’m not going to open another front of contention, before converging on the many ones that we already have at hand.