Tanquery. Rangpur if you got it. I hate beer. — Mww

Okay, I will bring you a glass of that gin you like. And I won't throw it in your face. Promise. :halo:

Regarding my conversation with S., in this thread, just for the record, that conversation ended by S. being asked what he meant, and being unable to tell what he meant. — Michael Ossipoff

Incorrect. It ended with me informing you that I was going to ignore you, because we reached a dead end whereby you kept asking me to do something which is demonstrably unnecessary - provide a definition - and thus a waste of my time, and I had already explained that. The meaning is understood by both of us, but the difference is that I don't pretend otherwise for the sake of pushing some rubbish argument.

I think I am fine with all of that. I would say that any single experience I have is subjective, but it can be made more objective by comparing it to other people who have had similar experiences. Isn't that a major part of the scientific method? I can agree that experience is how we learn. Heck, I would even say that experience has taught me that the rock will still be there when humans are gone because when I leave a room and return, everything is still there (I get there could be some crazy supernatural or just plain weird stuff going on, but extraordinary claims blah, blah... it seems simplest to assume it all just stayed there vs thinking it disappears and re-appears every time I blink). — ZhouBoTong

Yes! That's the right kind of thinking! (At least, I think so). It's different priorities, it seems. What's more of a priority? The question of whether you were there at the time to observe the room? No, it seems silly to even ask that, because we already know the answer and agree on it. The question of which explanation is best? Gold star!

You all get in a lot of responses each day. I try to read everything, but apologize for any overlaps. — ZhouBoTong

You have nothing to apologise for. If it weren't for the involvement of those such as yourself and @Janus, I would feel much more like I am in a madhouse! :lol:

If we say something about a river, we're not talking about something that is itself language...

That's only if we focus on the utterance as an utterance. — Terrapin Station

Ironically, this was your type of error from earlier on, when I was stating the meaning of "boat", and in response, you were talking about a definition.

A small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine. That's not a definition. A small vessel isn't composed of words.

No time “telling”, no temporal reference frame, time itself becomes nothing.
— Mww

It doesn't follow that time becomes "nothing", that conclusion is merely a dim reflection in the dark mirror of your prejudicial thinking. Time becomes untold is all. If time were "nothing" then what would there be to be told in the first place? — Janus

:100:

This is a confusing example, because isn't it your position that ALL utterances are subjective? If definitions are subjective can anything be said that is NOT subjective?

So since religious people take certain claims to be objective, that is the "exact same" as someone claiming that words have consistent meaning?

I think I am missing your point? — ZhouBoTong

It seems to me that there might be a problem with his method. It's like he starts from, "It must be subjective!", and then tries to come up with an argument in support of that. It puts the cart before the horse.

Why should a student NOT be allowed to argue (and actually win / get credit) any wrong answer on a test, because that is what the question "meant" to them?

2 + 2 = 5? Well I interpreted = to mean equal plus 1. Why am I not allowed to do that? — ZhouBoTong

Ooh, good point. :up:

The student would be marked down on that one, because he answered incorrectly, because he failed to understand the meaning. He thought it meant something else, or he deliberately went by his own idiosyncratic interpretation, and as a result answered incorrectly. There is an objective meaning, which is what it means in the public, shared language. He should have followed the rules of that language.

I think we all know your argument by now. What's the point of repeating it? That reply of yours doesn't progress the debate or engage productively. It merely reasserts premises I rejected ages ago, and anything that follows from rejected premises is irrelevant to my position.

It is easy to say "Bring in tougher gun laws" but as I have said since the beginning writing laws and enforcing them are two different things. — Sir2u

Bring in tougher gun laws which can be enforced, and enforce them.

As usual you have no idea what you are talking about. — Sir2u

No, you just don't like it when I correctly identify an error in one of your replies, although I was basically beaten to the punch by andrewk when he said that you didn't answer the question. I just narrowed it down to two related informal fallacies and named them. Either you deliberately changed the subject, i.e. a red herring, or you make an irrelevant point without realising it, i.e. missing the point.

I think you should have addressed you reply to Emmanuele as he is the one that said it would be easier to shoot whoever was carrying a gun.

And in case you did not notice, I have not agreed with him on the idea. — Sir2u

I included his quote above yours. I addressed it to both of you, since he said it and you humoured him without addressing the elephant in the room.

No idea what you're saying here.

What is "your sense of making sense" that isn't to a particular person? — Terrapin Station

I doubt whether your first sentence is sincere. You have no idea? Despite what I already said? You have no idea what it means to say that gibberish doesn't make sense in English?

So making sense isn't to anyone in particular? — Terrapin Station

Depends what you mean. Not in my sense, no. I know what I mean, and I can guess what you'll mean because you're predictable. You'll probably set aside what I mean and go by your own subjectivist interpretation.

That's a false accusation of a false analogy. — Terrapin Station

That's a false accusation of a false accusation of a false analogy.

Then how did you receive my meaning loud and clear, as evidenced by your reply?
— S

I didn't. — Terrapin Station

:rofl:

Are we in a Monty Python sketch?

Having meaning in the language is having a rule in the language that makes sense.
— S

Makes sense to whom? Rocks? — Terrapin Station

That makes sense per the rules of the language. In English, "The don't why up on the change please you can", doesn't make sense.

People say that objective/factual morality is simple and evidently true. Do you agree? — Terrapin Station

That's a false analogy. Moral objectivists and I absolutely agree that there's a right and a wrong. That's an appropriate analogy here. You're like a moral nihilist who denies this simple and evident truth.

That's funny, because I just did express meaning to you.
— S

No, it's funny that you're insisting this, because you didn't. — Terrapin Station

Then how did you receive my meaning loud and clear, as evidenced by your reply? :lol:

You understood the meaning that I expressed to you.

Sure I do, and I can't tell you, because meaning is a mental activity. There's not a way to make a mental activity into lightwaves, etc. — Terrapin Station

You can't tell me what the word "boat" means? That's very funny. You might have just overtaken the guy who said that rocks don't exist.

What is "having meaning in the language"--text strings? — Terrapin Station

Having meaning in the language is having a rule in the language that makes sense.

You're taking metaphorical ways of speaking to be literal. It's a form of projection. Projecting mental activities into the (extramental) world, as if the (extramental) world itself is doing the activities in question.

It's the same exact mistake that people make when they take moral or aesthetic utterances to be objective. — Terrapin Station

You're making the mistake of overthinking what's simple and evidently true: that I'm expressing meaning to you through language.

You can't literally "express meaning to me." You can say and do things that I assign meaning to. — Terrapin Station

That's funny, because I just did express meaning to you. I'm doing it now. That's how we're communicating successfully enough.

The meaning is what it means. What it means is a small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine.
— S

That's not what it means. — Terrapin Station

That's what it means. You don't know what "boat" means? :brow:

There is no meaning in a text string qua a text string. We have to think about it in a particular manner in order for it to have meaning. — Terrapin Station

The text is meaningful because it has meaning in the language. That's already established. We only have to do that mental stuff of which you speak in order to understand the meaning.

Ironically, you do not understand what it means to understand, as opposed to what it means to have meaning. You're muddling up the distinction.

Nope, that's the definition. — Terrapin Station

Predictable. Yes, it's the definition. That's how I express the meaning to you. How else could I possibly do that?

The meaning is different. — Terrapin Station

No, the meaning is what I just expressed to you. It's no different to that.

Again, the definition is simply the text strings (which is what you've presented) or sound "string" etc. There's no meaning in that. The meaning occurs in you thinking about the text strings. — Terrapin Station

Regarding "occurrence" in this context: you're talking weird again because of your weird views.

The definition is the words which convey the meaning. The meaning is what it means. What it means is a small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine.

Your error here is a finger/moon, use/mention, de dicto/de re kind of error.

The meaning is the subjective stuff. Thinking about things associatively, the picturing and conceptions we perform, etc. — Terrapin Station

No, that's just the related mental activities. They are what they are, and meaning they are not. The meaning is what it means. The meaning of "boat" is not my thinking about it. The meaning of "boat" is a small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine. You miss the point by rightly saying that that's a definition, but the point is that it expresses the meaning. Obviously I can't give you the meaning without expressing it to you. That's how I give it to you.

There's, for example, a term--"cat," say, and a definition, "a small domesticated carnivorous mammal with soft fur, a short snout, and retractable claws . . . "

Objectively, that's a set of ink marks on paper, or activated pixels on a screen (however it works, exactly, re computers), or sounds someone uttered, etc. It's handy to have a term that cleaves the difference between this and the mental activity we engage in to make an association between "cat" (the ink marks or sounds) and "a small domesticated carnivorous mammal" (other ink marks, sounds, etc.), as well as the mental activity of picturing and conceiving and so on.

So I don't know that we're talking about the same thing. There are different phenomena to pick out. — Terrapin Station

There's a third thing you're missing out, which is the whole point I'm making here in the discussion related to Part 2. There's the set of ink marks on paper, or activated pixels on a screen: which is objective. And there's the mental activity of picturing and conceiving and so on: which is subjective. And there's also what a word means: which is objective. The meaning isn't objective in the sense that it never required any subject or subjects at any point previously, because it did: that's how it got a meaning in the first place. But it's objective in the sense that it doesn't need there to be any subject or subjects at the time, or all the time. It simply means what it does, and would continue to do so an hour later, even if we all suddlenly die in five minutes. Once the meaning has been set, it is retained, unless there's any reason for that to change, and no one here, yourself included, has been able to reasonably provide such a reason. They've instead assumed or asserted a reason which is inadmissible. There's an unwarranted link that they make.

If I’m misunderstanding over and over, why aren’t you telling me how? Your experiment is really simply worded, which implies simple responses. Now, I did find reference to “hidden premises” on my search for cats and optical illusions, but I’m going to ignore those because hidden premises amounts to a guessing game along the lines of Russell’s teacup, which doesn’t interest me. — Mww

So we're playing the game where we pretend like I haven't told you how you're misunderstanding, are we? I don't like that game. I gave you the short version when I told you that I'm not asking for empirical knowledge. What don't you understand about that? I'm asking instead for what we could call metaphysical knowledge. I gave you an example of the distinction earlier, remember? Am I asking how we can know what a rock looks like? No. Am I asking whether there would be a rock? Yes.

Or, if you do understand what I'm asking, then do you have an answer that isn't either a bare assertion that I don't accept, or something that I've already been over which will send us back around in circles? You say that the opening post is simplistically worded, but we've had fifteen pages of discussion where I've explained myself in detail and multiple times, so that seems like a flimsy excuse. You should know by now that I'm asking whether there would be a rock, and addressing related questions like how I know that there would be a rock, and that I reach my conclusion through a reduction to the absurd, and through a practical use of the term "know", which doesn't exclude common sense stuff it makes sense to say that we know.

It's really bad that you're making me repeat all of this.

I see that you've said that you're specifying empirical knowledge because it's a physical object. And my assessment of why you're doing that is because you either a) go by a premise which doesn't miss the point, but is false and unsupported, where for me to know that there would be a physical object, I must be there to experience it; or b) you're going by a true premise which misses the point, where you point out something I've never denied, since I too am an empiricist, and I accept that I must have had some experience of rocks, or some experience related to rocks, in order to make meaningful claims about rocks. But that's clearly not relevant to my claim, although it might well be relevant to a different claim which I haven't made.

You have the nerve to make those remarks of yours about hidden premises in my argument, yet you surely must have hidden premises of your own here, because what you've given me just doesn't add up. It looks like you make a logical leap in order to reach a different conclusion to me here.

Your calling what we know “knowledge. “Knowledge” is what we know. “Thoughts” are what we think. “Feelings” are what we feel. “Experiences” are what we experience. “Anything” is any thing.

Yikes. — Mww

All of that is true, you're just making my point seem less helpful by taking it out of context. I gave examples. I don't need to give you a definition beyond what I gave, and accompanied by enough examples for you to grasp my meaning. Giving any other sort of definition will risk opening up a can of worms, causing a needless and avoidable hindrance to the discussion.

It's not a rule, just the result of analysis. — Terrapin Station

Okay, so in my language, it's a rule, and in your language it's just the result of an analysis, even though we're talking about the same thing. The two languages translate.

I did not mean to imply that an idealist cannot imagine realist scenarios.

What I wanted to point out is this: you're constructing thought experiments to serve as arguments against idealism. If you begin those thought experiments with the phrase "let's say rocks are what most people think rocks are" then your thought experiment starts with a realist assumption.

So if, in the course of your thought experiment, you come across a contradiction or an absurdity, you have constructed an argument against realism. Which, presumably, is not what you intended. — Echarmion

But a strength of my argument is that I'm not saying anything controversial on the face of it. If the idealist can't even handle a hypothetical scenario of a rock (as defined by the dictionary) after we've died, then that's a big failing for idealism. I'm not suggesting that they can't bite the bullet, I'm suggesting that it's wrong to. It's a failing if you have to go to such lengths in order to explain away something as simple and easily understandable as post-human rocks. Again, what would the guy on the street think? He'd get it straight away, wonder why you were making such a fuss, and think you peculiar. So idealism has to invent a whole new way of interpreting language just to account for it's wacky premise? Why should we speak their peculiar language? These problems stem back to the wacky idealist premise, do they not? Isn't that the real problem?

The problem here though, is that I've asked you to explain what you mean, in a way that does make sense me, and you've failed to do that. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I have failed to get through to you. You've proven unbreachable. And you explain away your own failure in understanding by rationalising that I'm talking nonsense.

There is no point to even trying to communicate with an attitude like that. — Metaphysician Undercover

Believe me, I've tried. I've tried for fifteen pages. I kept on trying when many others would have long since given up. If you don't recognise or appreciate that, then it's you who has the bad attitude.

I’m back. I packed a lunch, got my walkin’ shoes on, went looking for cats and optical illusions. Didn’t find any. — Mww

Son of a... So you want me to go back and get it, I suppose? Would you like me to construct a half-decent argument for your position whilst I'm at it? Is there anything else I can do for you, sire? A cold beer? A back massage?

I am specifying empirical knowledge because you are demanding knowledge of a physical object. Asking about whether there would be a rock must use empirical knowledge because you’re still asking about a physical object. Hence the dialectical conundrum, re: empirical knowledge a posteriori is not suited because there’s no direct experience, we’re all dead remember, and empirical knowledge a priori cannot give the answer you insist is correct.

You’ve asked a million times, and got back the same answer every time......it can’t be empirically known whether there would be a rock; reasonably believed, sure; known.....nope.

Obvious to the most casual idealist observer. — Mww

I'm getting back an answer to your misunderstanding of what I'm asking. That's the problem, and that's why I've asked you more than once.

I'm not asking about empirical knowledge, so don't tell me about empirical knowledge. It's not my fault if you apparently can't help but misinterpret the question. I've tried to warn you about misinterpretation and taking a blinkered approach.

Nobody does that. “Reasonable enough” and certainty are mutually exclusive, and “knowledge” is never absolute. — Mww

You seem to suggest something along those lines frequently, and I'm not the only one to have remarked on that.

No. No it doesn’t. Proof has to do with necessity. That which is contingent cannot be a proof. — Mww

Whatever.

I call “knowledge” the condition, or the state, of the intellect. What do you call it? — Mww

I call what we know "knowledge", and that can be things like how to ride a bike, what chocolate tastes like, and that there would be rocks.

I want to just do a small bit at a time, especially because some of this I already addressed. Even this little bit is a few different topics.

"Rules that this word means that"--again, this isn't meaning, it's definition. They're different. Definitions aren't rules. They're reports of common usage in some population.

Likewise, spelling, grammar, etc. present conventions. Conventions are different than rules. — Terrapin Station

Okay, so in your language game, you call them something different. Those are your rules.

I don't understand what you are trying to tell me. — Echarmion

Okay, then I'll go back and explain. You said:

"If we imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to, we are already in realist territory, and so any conclusions from that are irrelevant to an idealist."

That means that if you were an idealist, then you couldn't even reasonably imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to, because, if what you say is true, that's realist territory.

But if an idealist can't even do that, then that's a big problem. I can. Lots of other people can. It seems to make sense. The idealist is abnormal, and this requires an explanation. I think that the best explanation is that they're doing something wrong.

You are describing different arguments, are you not (argument from language, argument from predictive power etc.)? If you think the question can be solved with arguments, then we ought to argue. If it can not then arguing is pointless. — Echarmion

The question can be solved with arguments, yes. I've made them throughout the discussion and I'm not exactly in any rush to repeat them from scratch with you.

Languages are tools utilizing symbols (often but not necessarily sounds or marks) to represent objects, concepts, etc. They tend to change, to evolve over time. When they're public, conventions develop, but various conventions occur at the same time, and the conventions can be skirted very easily without any significant detriment to the usefulness of the tool. — Terrapin Station

Sure, languages are tools. Tools designed for communication. And they consist in rules. That's what makes communication through language possible.

Your account is incomplete.

Well, first, I don't believe that languages consist of "rules about meaning" period. I don't know what a "rule about meaning" would even be. I don't believe it's possible to actually speak meanings, by the way --remember that meanings are different than definitions in my view. ("In a language, it would be the case that this word means such-and-such"--that's not a meaning, it's a definition. Also, definitions aren't rules. They're reports--journalism, basically, about conventional usage.) — Terrapin Station

Very weird. What's a language without rules? I don't even think that that's possible. There are rules everywhere you look. Rules that this word means that, rules that this combination of letters is that word, rules about punctuation, etc., etc. What's linguistic meaning, then? What's the linguistic meaning of a word like "hat"? It's that it's a shaped covering for the head worn for warmth, as a fashion item, or as part of a uniform. I can demonstrably speak that meaning.

But even aside from that, I wouldn't say that languages are about rules, period. There are conventions in languages, but those conventions aren't rules in the same sense sense of rules of a game, or laws, or rules that some business might have for its employees or patrons ( "no shirt, no shoes, no business") or anything like that. (Even though some folks prone to persnickettiness would like to treat the traditional conventions that they prefer as if they're rules.) — Terrapin Station

Just because you don't have to follow them, or that they're also convention, that doesn't mean that they're not rules. They're rules because they're what's required for you to play the language game properly.

At any rate, on my view, x only has meaning insofar as S assigns meaning to x. — Terrapin Station

Very weird. It's evidently not a continual thing. The act of assignment is a temporary act. Once the linguistic meaning has been assigned, the x has that meaning.

What I'm asking in what you're quoting is basically this (exaggerated for a moment to make this clearer): why isn't L (consisting of words/expressions x, y, z, grammar G, etc.) a language at time T1 if at T2, S doesn't understand anything about L? — Terrapin Station

Why would a language depend on me understanding anything about it at the time? I can only ask you that in response. Necessary dependency, necessary dependency, wherefore art thou, necessary dependency? Without this assumed necessary dependency, it wouldn't make any sense to think that there'd be this change over time.

In other words, why does L need to be a language at T2, T3, T4 ad infinitum in order for L to be a language at T1? — Terrapin Station

That's not my reasoning. If L is a language at T1, then for it not to be a language at T2, something relevant would have to change. I accept the change, e.g. we cease to understand it at T2. But I reject that it would be a relevant change in the sense you suggest. No necessary dependency has been reasonably established. Instead it has just been assumed or asserted. So it would be unreasonable of me to think that a relevant change would occur over time. You expect me to be unreasonable?

And if L is a language at T1, and it's a private language at T1, then a private language is possible. It would be irrelevant whether any L exists in perpetuity (or at least for the lifetime of the previous users of L, or whatever temporal claim someone would be trying to sneak in). — Terrapin Station

This doesn't seem relevant. I'm just saying that a language would continue to have linguistic meaning over time, because linguistic meaning is objective. I don't see how it would be any different for a private language. A private language would be some language I made up which no one else knew the meaning of. I set the meaning, then it would cease to apply because...? Because of some irrational belief about subjective dependency which hasn't been reasonably supported, but instead merely assumed or asserted?

I actually asked with respect to not understanding particular words at T2 rather than the language wholesale (hence the above being an exaggeration), but that was the idea. The assumed "It needs to be the same over time" requirement is untenable--since no language is, and all of the skepticism points about memory etc. apply just as much to public language. Plus the temporal sameness requirement would have to be made explicit, anyway. — Terrapin Station

The linguistic meaning is as set, unless it has been changed. Why would it be otherwise? Because of the irrational belief about a necessary dependency on there being a subject understanding the language at the time?

You're just begging the question, then bizarrely expecting me to go along with it. How is it reasonable to expect me to make sense of a problem you've created by assuming something that I don't? I can only point out the error in you doing that.

So, how do you explain what seems like an illusion? When for example, evidence suggests that I see red as blue? That I see visible light with a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres, but it looks like blue to me? If I didn't know any better, I'd think it was blue? Is it blue or isn't it? :brow:

That would be a massive problem if you claim that you can't even imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to.
— S

I did not say that I can't imagine it. — Echarmion

Then I didn't mean you, personally, did I? :roll:

I meant them. Those of the position we're talking about.

Even if it's down to bare assertion vs. bare assertion, it doesn't have to end there. One can consider what makes the most sense, what better conforms with our common language use, what has greater explanatory power, etc. Are you interested in that or not?

The argument has already been made. Until you put in some effort to actually understand it, you'll get nothing else from me. — Echarmion

:rofl:

A bare assertion is not an argument, and it can rightly be dismissed. Make your argument, and then I will consider addressing it.

Or maybe the problem is that you are using a term - "illusion" - that's already predetermining the answer. It only makes sense to speak of illusions if you consider rocks to have a definition independent of the observations in question. It's a form of begging the question. — Echarmion

Can there be an illusion? Yes or no?

Again this is a realist position. An idealist would say that a rock is the looks, feelings etc. — Echarmion

Again, that doesn't matter. Don't send us around in circles. I'm still disagreeing with you. Realists can disagree with each other, ya know.

You're still assuming there are things like rocks, cats and microwaves that are things in and of themselves, and then someone comes along and looks at the things and sees a rock. But to an idealist, there are no cats or microwaves either. These words refer to collections of subjective observations. The sentence "I observe a rock, but it really is a cat" makes no sense from that position. — Echarmion

Yes, I know that. I'm making the case that that makes very little sense for anyone outside of their crazy little world. There are things like rocks, cats, and microwaves. The real things, that is, not mere appearance, which is something else entirely. My finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

No, you're fallaciously moving the goalposts by switching from present-tense to past-tense. You can't do that. You need to be consistent. If a rock is what looks like a rock to me, then a rock is what looks like a rock to me, not what looked like a rock to me. If I died, then nothing would look like a rock to me. Therefore, there wouldn't be a rock, by your own definition.
— S

My point above applies here. The way you phrase your example presupposes that rocks are things in and of themselves, and that your observations conform to these objects. — Echarmion

As can be seen, we were talking about your definition there. You keep changing the subject. Don't do that. I like to stay on point.

Address my point first, then maybe I will address yours in return. Quid pro quo.

If we imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to, we are already in realist territory, and so any conclusions from that are irrelevant to an idealist. — Echarmion

That would be a massive problem if you claim that you can't even imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to.

For appearance to be illusory, we'd need to be able to compare it to something, and conclude the two don't match. What are we comparing appearances to? — Echarmion

Hold on a minute. Don't you think that it's absurd that illusions are impossible? That needs to be accounted for.

That post doesn't answer the question, and provides no new information. I had already read the context.

To what ratio were you referring with your use of 'rarely'? — andrewk

Indeed, that was a classic case of red herring / missing the point.

Let's not forget that if weapons are illegal it's fair to shoot whoever is carring a gun on sight. It makes targetting the bad guys a hell of a lot easier.
— Emmanuele

So who is going to shoot them if no one else is carrying a gun? And please don't answer the cops, because everyone knows there are hundreds of illegal guns for each cop. — Sir2u

They need to be dealt with by the appropriate authorities using appropriate force. It's unreasonable to jump straight into assuming that they need to be shot. Jesus Christ. Not only is that an unreasonable assumption, it's a harmful assumption.

That kind of answer would surely fail a police exam. Or if not, say, in somewhere insane like Texas, then it should do.

It's just as nonsensical, to talk about years when there's no human beings, as it is to talk about hours, and as it is to talk about rocks. — Metaphysician Undercover

Except it isn't, because to do so demonstrably makes sense to other people, which shows that you're just interpreting it in a way that doesn't make sense.

"I'm unable to make sense of what you're saying because I'm not interpreting it right" is not a sensible criticism. It's not a criticism at all, it is an admission of failure. And although you won't admit this, you tacitly do this whenever you make comments like the quote above. It's self-defeating. All I have to do is point this out, and I've done that here in this comment, and once is enough, so even if you repeatedly make the same error, I would've already dealt with it. Whenever you make those comments, you can simply return here to this reply.

Q.E.D.

You're just wrong, full stop. — Echarmion

That's a great argument you've got there. How long did it take you to come up with? Hours, I'm guessing.

Without an argument from you, I am clearly in a stronger position here, given that at face value it's clearly absurd to say that Earth is an observation. Earth is a planet. A planet is not an observation. The contrary can easily be lead to even more absurdity if we assume it to be true and apply logic.

Then, by definition, the majority of observers are mistaken about rocks, because that's what the word "illusion" means. — Echarmion

But they can't be mistaken by your own definition of what a rock is, because the definition would fit. It can't be both. That's the problem. To avoid contradition, you would be forced into to either rejecting your ill-considered definition, or the far greater absurdity of accepting that such an illusory scenario would be impossible.

Your definition here would be that a rock is what looks, feels, etc., like a rock to these people. We have what looks, feels, etc., like a rock to these people. So that would be a rock by your definition. The problem with that, is that, really, it could be anything. You might be imagining an actual rock when you do this, but really, it could be a glass of water, a cat, or a microwave, that looks, feels, etc., like a rock.

If a rock is what it looks like to you, and you die, a rock is still what it looked like to you. This is just running in circles with words. — Echarmion

No, you're fallaciously moving the goalposts by switching from present-tense to past-tense. You can't do that. You need to be consistent. If a rock is what looks like a rock to me, then a rock is what looks like a rock to me, not what looked like a rock to me. If I died, then nothing would look like a rock to me. Therefore, there wouldn't be a rock, by your own definition.

Saying a rock is what it looks like to X is not an idealist position, it's a realist position. To an idealist, the rock is nothing in and of itself. — Echarmion

That's come out of nowhere, and doesn't address what I said. Why are you saying that in reply to what you quoted above it? It just looks like a red herring or missing the point.

If we no longer see rocks as rock, there must still be rocks, because by the terms of that very sentence, rocks both are a thing in and of themselves and something that people see.

You're entangling yourself in your own word salad. — Echarmion

I'm trying to make the point in a way that will get you to see sense. Your definition allows for a situation with "rocks" (in your sense), that aren't actually rocks (in my sense, which is the normal sense). So, we could take the dictionary definition I gave, and imagine a scenario where there's a rock by that definition, but so long as it doesn't look, feel, etc., like a rock, then it's not one by your definition.

I think that that's a problem. And I'm guessing that I'm not the only one. It removes the requirement that reality matches up with our language, and instead goes by a model whereby language matches up with mere appearance, which of course can be illusory, which causes problems for the model, as I've shown.

Of course it's counterintuitive if you say things that are contradictory. Your definition is not a definition, but a tautology. — Echarmion

It's easier just to say that a rock is a rock, but what I really mean is that a rock is a solid mineral material... (i.e. a rock).

(That's an analytic a priori statement, like all such definitions).

This contrasts with your "rock", which isn't really a rock, it's merely an appearance.

You know, I never understood this fixation with language. I just figure those guys with PhD’s in philosophy had to do something different because Kant had already set the bar so high for epistemology and reason nobody could do any more with it. Maybe Schopenhauer, another transcendental idealist, and Russell, an empiricist with prominent a priori tendencies due to his math and logic distinction, who added stuff because of the major advances in the science of his day.

Common language is fine most of the time. Even technical language is fine as long the understanding remains consistent with the language being used. That is to say, a guy talking in the technical language of chemistry isn’t going to communicate too well with a guy using the technical language of astrophysics. Even so, where the terms overlap there shouldn’t be any language or understanding issues.

Bet you didn’t know Bohr answered Einstein’s “I can’t believe the moon doesn’t exist if no one is looking at it” with “try as you may you cannot prove it does.” Look it up.

Hand me my Nike, wodja? — Mww

Actually, I did know that. It would depend on what exactly is meant by "proof" there. And there you have an example of the importance of language use in relation to philosophy straight away. If we don't first clear that up, then we risk talking past each other. Proof generally seems to be about sufficiency, but here again what exactly that means to me might differ from what exactly it means to you. Or we might agree on the standard and the results, but I might call that "knowledge", whereas you might not.

And you don't have to go very far from the importance of language use before you run into the importance of common language use. Common language use, after all, is our main way of communicating with each other. It is, or should be, in many cases, our intuitive guide for what works and what doesn't. What use would it be to come up with your own language for philosophy which fundamentally clashed with ordinary language use? How would that be a net benefit? It's like your sense of "knowledge": what good is it? It just seems to cause problems in communication. Guess what language most people speak: the common language! So you'd first have to explain your language, and then they'd just be left with a sort of, "Oh, okay then. Well, good for you, but that doesn't really seem right in terms of the bigger picture, and you can keep your special language, since it lacks a wide utility and seems to cause more problems than it solves".

I'm under no obligation to reply to every post here. I want to follow a particular line of thought, and it seems to me that your views are of no help to me. Hence... — Banno

I realise that you're under no obligation to reply to every post here. But you shouldn't not reply to my posts for the wrong reason, and you gave the wrong reason in relation to me, so I objected.

I suspect that you only find my views of no help to you because you're stuck in your own ingrained views about morality, and you don't like that I'm challenging them. You don't want help of that kind? It's noticeable that you seem to have found those who agree with you more "helpful" here in this discussion.

I'm not interested in defending or rearguing the private language argument here; there is plenty of stuff elsewhere for that. That's why I'm ignoring @S and @Terrapin Station... — Banno

But you're ignoring what I've said about morality, moral rules, correctness, and your own stuff about private rules.

Thanks for ignoring all of that and lumping me in with Terrapin, who clearly at one point was talking exclusively about Wittgenstein's private language argument in a number of comments.

For example, you've said stuff along the lines that private or individualistic morality doesn't count, and that there's no (objective) standard to go by. You've said that morality is about "we", not "I". You've said that stuff here, and you've said it elsewhere. This stuff you say is wrong, or at least unfounded or arbitrary, as I've argued.