Semantics in a logical system seems like a somewhat difficult prospect. Would be interested to hear your criticisms of Kripkean (possible world?) semantics after I have digested the article.

You are saying that a proposition is a statement that we all agree on? I have heard the term proposition applied in a more neutral sense. "The cat is on the mat" might be a proposition. It could be true; it could be false; it is not necessarily something we agree on. I think that is what you mean by "statement" however.

Thoughts? — frank

Sounds right to me. To use the language of the article, I think "possible world semantics" is supposed to change "modal logic" from an "intensional" into an "extensional" language (EDIT: Or as I read further, to subject modal logic to an "extensional semantic theory"). Or, put differently, to change modal logic so that it is subject to "substitutivity principles."

The term "semantics" is a question mark for me here because semantics has to do with meaning, right? So how does meaning factor into a formal logical system?

We do not know how life formed or whether other Earthlike planets have the conditions to enable life to form. The odds seem to be: what are the chances of all the right ingredients being in the right place at the right time? In another sense, there may not be any "odds" involved, it is either going to happen on another planet or it will not as a result of the atomic, chemical, (whatever else), forces involved. When I say the "odds" I am referring to the credence we attribute to the result of life arising on another planet that is like Earth. So it is not so much that the process of life forming is random, but that our knowledge of whether another planet will or will not give rise to life is chancy. Or, to try to narrow it down a bit further, maybe the question of "odds" is really a question of just how similar other planets are to Earth, the closer the similarity, the more likely the chances of life on that planet.

Most Earthlike planets are estimated to have yet to be born -- https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/most-earth-like-worlds-have-yet-to-be-born-according-to-theoretical-study/ . <a href="https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/missions/hubble/releases/2015/10/STScI-01EVSR5F1P8JVARK199WAZPNBQ.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/missions/hubble/releases/2015/10/STScI-01EVSR5F1P8JVARK199WAZPNBQ.pdf</a>

If this estimate is correct, and if it is also correct that life is carbon-based only, and if life only arises on some Earthlike planets but not all, then the fact that most Earthlike planets have not formed yet suggests that, as you said initially, we are one of the very first intelligent species. But I see no reason to reject the hypothesis that abiogenesis can happen on other planets. You are right that the timeline of discovery might be more like billions of years; that is a matter of when the other Earthlike planets form. (So my initial lower bound estimate of at least a 20,000 years waiting period for alien contact might have been an underestimate).

I see your point about detecting (or not detecting) other alien technologies. Given that the chances of ETI are low in my opinion, I think it unlikely that Dyson spheres or anything like that will be detected; at least, not in our lifetime.

I was referring to life in our galaxy only as I think it is more likely that any first received radio signals would originate within our galaxy due to the vast distances between galaxies.

I think a primary factor in determining the variation in time between life on Earth compared to when life forms elsewhere would be the difference in time between Earth's formation and the formation of most Earthlike planets.

Who knows … life could be infinitely unique and we could be the only lifeforms in the whole galaxy. We still don’t know what the odds of abiogenesis occurring are here. — kindred

I do not think it is infinitely unique; maybe it is unlikely. However, given that life arose on Earth fairly soon, in geological timescales after the planet formed, it seems like it would not be that unlikely an occurrence. But I agree with you that the odds of abiogenesis are important to the question of whether there are aliens.

the deafening silence is reason to be pessimistic about the numbers. — Mijin

If life were not only carbon based, I do think we would be right to expect more aliens. That said, if it is carbon based and only forms on planets similar to Earth, most of those planets are either still forming or are young compared to Earth, meaning we would not expect there to be ETI, or at least not that many ETIs; so I agree that some pessimism is warranted in that regard, but not about the possibility of ETI.

As said, the odds of abiogenesis are relevant.

The timescale on when an ETI would be expected to send out a radio signal will consider 1. the odds of abiogenesis, and as pointed out, 2. the times at which those planets formed.

I realize this thread is not recent, but I thought I should tack my thoughts on here rather than starting a new thread.

I think it is more probable than not that we are the first, or one of the first, intelligent species in the galaxy. I think this because most Earth like planets are, so I have heard, younger than Earth (they formed after Earth). If that is the case, and it is the case that carbon lifeforms are the only kind, then it stands to reason that we are probably one of the first intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy.

Assuming that alien life started around the time or shortly after life on Earth started, and assuming a similar timeline of evolution, there may well be aliens like us right now in the galaxy. So why haven't we heard from them yet? I think we have not heard from aliens yet simply because the galaxy is big and any radio transmissions (which intelligent life elsewhere would presumably have developed) would take a long time to reach us. In fact, supposing the Milky Way to be about 100,000 lightyears in diameter, and if we estimate that most earthlike habitable planets are between 20,000 and 50,000 light years away (I am making some estimates but I don't think they are wildly incorrect), that means we will likely have to wait another 20,000 or so years before we contact aliens, or they contact us, or both.

Of course, if aliens are not just carbon-based, that should make alien life more abundant and increase the likelihood that we hear from aliens in a less massive time frame.

Final thought: each day that we do not detect aliens strengthens the case that aliens are carbon-based lifeforms only, like us.

The introduction conceptually orients; "possible worlds" means something like - that that is opposed to the "actual world" such as a historical counterfactual, or perhaps, an agent acting differently than she or he actually did.

The first section begins with a discussion of logic. The author presents the term "extension." This is not meant in the Cartesian sense as the length or width of an object; rather, extension in this context is what is being referred to, or denoted, by a "term." The extension of a "sentence" is its truth value; that is, presumably, whether the sentence is true or false.

1.1

Next we get a discussion of "substitutivity principles." I do not quite understand what is meant by "extensional logic" even though a definition is proffered. That being said, extensional logics seem to be characterized by being subject to substitutivity principles.

As I understand it, a substitutivity principle means the following: if two sentences are co-extensional, that is, they refer to the same truth values, that is to say they are logically equivalent sentences, then the addition of the same logical operators to both sentences will affect the truth value of both sentences in the same way, so that they retain the same extensionality and therefore each sentence can be substituted one for the other without changing the truth value.

The main point here, unless I am misreading, appears to be that modal logic (logic that uses the necessarily and possibly operators) is intensional, not extensional. Or in other words, logically equivalent modal sentences may not retain the same truth values if they are both modulated by the same operation.

:up: Okay, thanks.

Okay, fair point. Supposing it is possible, the answer would seem to be that the probability of the coin being Heads is 50% or (1/2). The number of times the participant awakens has no influence on whether the coin is Heads or Tails. It is true that if the participant guesses Heads both days when the coin has instead landed Tails, that she will be incorrect two times. However, she will still be correct when she states that there is a 50% probability that the coin has landed heads after one flip of the coin, regardless of how many times she awakens, as one coin flip always carries a 50% probability that either side will land facing up.

Something related that perplexes: if a coin lands Heads and is flipped a second time, is it more likely to land Tails on the second flip? It seems to me that it is more likely, the likelihood being greater than 50% but less than 100%. And, the probability of landing Tails seems to go up after many consecutive Heads flips. However, this would seem to contradict that there is always a 50% chance of landing Heads or Tails. Thoughts?

Physics is a basis for understanding the laws of the physical world. The nature and purpose of 'existence' is more complex. — Jack Cummins

:up:

spirituality, in this context, goes further: it is not just a subjective experience that can be analyzed with objective structures; more than that, it is radical criticism of every objectification, every analysis. — Angelo Cannata

:up: :100:

If we conceive “understanding” as a game or a music that we like to play, rather than something serious and strict, then understanding spirituality becomes instantly possible, we start immediately touching it, while previously it was like something continuously escaping from our efforts to understand. — Angelo Cannata

:up:

Receiving what is there, gazing upon in a receptive way, letting what is present show itself as it is. Not an aggressive -looking at- but a more relaxed sort of noticing. An that, an analogy for understanding versus analyzing.

The juxtaposition of the subjective and objective seems complex in my understanding of philosophy. — Jack Cummins

Agree.

The idea of the mind of 'God' may involve questions about physics and metaphysics — Jack Cummins

Agree.

From my perspective, that is where the idea of 'God' becomes so tricky, especially whether 'God' is imminent or transcendent. — Jack Cummins

Not sure that I see the problem; can you further articulate the problem here?

religion may be seen as the outer expression of human experiences — Jack Cummins

Outer and inner, no?

Sorry if this was said before but this seems impossible. In other words, why can she remember the experiment, but not one day prior?

Not sure if anyone said this already. But it seems to me that the original argument has an additional conclusion.

"...Hence an external world does exist."

Seems to me that truth is caught up in subjective experience; the two are inextricable.

Meanwhile, if you ask me, all human understanding is coming-to-understand the mind of God -> the "evolution" of consciousness.

Also, seems to me that science must be silent about values. Humans are not silent about values. Hence any proper anthropology must include a value-laden aspect; lastly, it seems difficult to extract values from spirituality.

Here is an epistemological argument for God's existence; it is similar to the metaphysical argument I stated earlier in the thread:

Knowledge requires a knower; it does not exist independently of someone knowing it.
People, and other creatures, know things.
No creatures start out knowing anything; all acquire knowledge from another.
Therefore, all creatures must acquire knowledge from someone who is uncreated; in other words, God.
Therefore, God exists.

It may be thought that knowledge can be acquired from experience. This is true in a sense, however, experience can not possess knowledge because it is not a knower. Therefore, all knowledge gained through experience must be gained through someone who knows already. To say otherwise would be to say that knowledge can exist without a knower.

Alternatively, one may say that knowledge can be created or generated in someone by experience. However, if knowledge is created or generated, it must be created or generated by someone who has the power to generate or create that knowledge in another, that is, someone prior who knows. Yet, if someone knows prior, than the knowledge is not really created or generated, as it exists within the mind of the one who knows prior.

Why did you not add that the created beings, in addition to being omnipotent and omniscient, could also be created so that they are omnibenevolent? Or is the creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent creature not logically possible? If not, that would seem to raise an objection to the argument. For, an omnipotent and omniscient creature whose will was inclined towards ill would seem able and inclined to cause suffering.

Free will seems relevant to the argument.

Redacted.

Marxist theory is contradictory. It fails.

Here are two contradictions in Marxist thinking:

1. Capitalism supposedly adversely affects the worker's relation to work.
(A) Capitalism supposedly deprives the worker of work by alienating him from labor through technology and industrialization, reducing his labor from skilled to unskilled. (B) Capitalism is thought to make the worker work more; this work is "exploitative" because, through it, surplus value is extracted from labor as capital; the worker must work more to retain the value that was lost from the extracted surplus and because more work is needed to recoup the lower wages from being an unskilled worker. Thus the worker is both deprived of labor and labors more due to capitalism.

2. The worker is allegedly exploited in capitalism.
This alleged exploitation is a result of: (A) the worker must work more. He must work more because his wages are less than if he were in control of the means of production (E.g. a shoemaker makes more than a shoe factory worker). For the worker, the cost of living goes up. Meanwhile (B) the worker is exploited because in order for the capitalist to profit, the capitalist must "extract surplus value" from the worker; in other words, to make a profit and be competitive, the capitalist must pay the worker less for the worker's labor, so that the cost of production is less. But if capitalism causes the cost of production to be less, than "exploitation of the worker" actually lowers the cost of living. Thus the alleged exploitation of the worker both reduces and increases the cost of living for the worker.

Adorno is saying that this casting aside of the content of the concept creates an illusion. — frank

If I am understanding you correctly, the forgetting of the concepts, the moments in the dialectical process leads to the apparent (but illusory) independence of the sublated result. The consequence being "unassailability" of the sublated result. Perhaps even, the sublated result can only be negated by tracing the concepts leading to it. The concepts are essential in a sense, to ND.

But how does negation occur?

There is a certain self-contradictory aspect of your terminology. A concept is a universal. So it is somewhat contradictory to refer to "a particular concept", if we maintain a category separation between the particular and the universal. Therefore this is a form of language which might best be negated. But language itself is counterproductive in apprehending the non-conceptual — Metaphysician Undercover

If that is true it is not my language that is incoherent but the entire notion of non-conceptual. Even the word itself is nonsensical if what you are saying is correct.

Are there not particular concepts? Concept of capitalism. Concept of a car. Etc.

I really think the only way to make sense of the nonconceptual is as the negation of the concept.

The problem is that the non-conceptual, by its name, is fundamentally unintelligible. So trying to understand it, or conceptualize it, is sort of self-defeating. The three putative theories here are each just as correct as the others, but in a deeper sense, they are all equally incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmm, maybe the idea is not "non-conceptuality" as such, the non-conceptual as distinct from the conceptual. Rather, perhaps the "non-conceptual" is instead to be understood as the negation of [a particular] concept. In that way, it is not failing to be a concept, but is the unrendering of a specific concept.

Adorno calls consciousness "universal mediation."

Some questions:

When does idealism become ideological? How are we to define ideology?

Thought is still negative in the Phenomenology of Spirit. That which does not think tends towards the bad positive, i.e. the conceptual being interpreted as if we are seeing the thing. This difference between the positive and the negative is easy to see in that we can renounce thinking and yet then may still encounter the object as it is (a positive, non-conceptual); but a thought will always be negatable (leaving a negative) — Moliere

This looks right to me. What confuses me, is how can non-thinking lead to a "bad positive" and at the same time enable seeing something "as it is." In the "that which does not think" section I thought he was referring to the naive consciousness. But again, I am confused by this apparent contradiction. I think you retold the paragraph well Moliere, I just do not understand it.

Similarly in paragraph 6, we have an apparent contradiction where immediate consciousness both appears to be entirely unsubjective, and at the same time the subjective moment.

:up: thanks

. "Since Hegelian logic always had to do with the medium of the
concept and only generally reflected on the relationship of the concept
to its content, the non-conceptual,"

Seems to me that he explicitly defines the content as the non-conceptual.

material in nature — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this is right because materiality is non-conceptual in its thingness; that is, its concretality. Meanwhile, I read "solidified" as a kind of appropriation of the non-conceptual into thought; the conceptualization of it.


"So the content here is not something like sense-data or the given, i.e., the content of experience in AP terms, but the content of philosophy (philosophy as it should be, i.e., negative dialectics)."

Right, I think, because sense-data and the given are what they are for consciousness, not as such.

What does AP refer to?

Unless we read it as saying the content is the non-conceptual only for Hegelian logic.

To summarize, we have 3 putative theories of "content." 1. Philosophical content. 2. Material kernel of consciousness. 3. The non-conceptual.

What would nonexploitative labor look like? And do you maintain that such labor is necessarily inconsistent with a capitalist system? (And if so, please explain why this inconsistency)

I would agree that Adorno is critical of Marx, but only insofar as he is a revisionist of Marxist thought. As I understand it, mass culture and media play a much more important role for Adorno than they did for Marx.

I look at communist regimes historically and they are all terrible, so that is why I am wary of Marxist thought whether it is from Marx himself or even from Adorno. The promise of utopia always seems to lead to hell on earth.

Do you think exploitation of labor is definitive of capitalism or could extra capital be achieved through other avenues like technological development?

Thanks for delineating some of the contours of Adorno's thinking.

I see irony in the way Marxism purports to have pierced the veil of ideology. Yet, it presents itself as non-ideological, when precisely some of the features you mentioned (revolution of the proletariat, economic determinism, superstructure of culture etc.) seem to me to be highly ideological and that precisely because they purport to be non-ideological.

I do think at some point we may have to confront these theories (Freudian thought, Marxist thought) that weave throughout Adorno's writing and ask whether the reliance on them contradicts the overall aim of negative dialectics or if they serve a wider literary objective.

Lastly, I will just comment on the prose itself. I find it remarkably difficult. Maybe even intentionally opaque? There are a lot of allusions I do not understand and the method of expression is not in any way explicit or easy to elucidate. Still, I appreciate the level of interpretation the text allows because of its complexity.

Do you think Adorno talks about Marxism as if it were objectively true? If so, why? Given the terrible things done under Stalin during Adorno's lifetime, does it really make sense to read Adorno as a Marxist? Or, does criticality towards capitalism not imply Marxism?

This seems to be a tension inherent in the book; ND rejects abstract theorizing, why is Marxism the exception to this rule? Or, do you disagree that Marxism is theoretical and abstract?

To analyze is to objectify, but not in a way that allows the objectified to be what it is, rather it appropriates the other as a kind of thought-meat; analysis is the rendering of an object into a thought-object.

In negative dialectics, on the other hand, you bite the bullet. You accept that you won't be able to encompass the object of thought completely, you expose yourself to the vertigo of bottomlessness (reading ND as philosophical exposure therapy), and you relinquish the consolation that the truth cannot be lost. — Jamal

Well said.

The object is the face of non-identity; it is beyond thought in its objectivity. ND works because it aims to unravel, not the object, but thought itself, that is, negativity, thus the name: ND. Thought is undefined; it is fungible; in its formation (information? Information for what?) it negates the object through determinate negation through presenting, portraying, the moments of thought (philosophical therapy). Moving from untruth to Truth.

The Truth can be lost in philosophy, in any thought, scientific, etc. because Truth lives, and so can be killed. Can be forgotten. Can be lost. Can be buried. But then its not really Truth who dies when Truth dies but us instead, or Truth in us.

Adorno says that the concept of certainty has degenerated from a liberating one—Descartes, as a presursor to the Enlightenment, made his philosophy depend not on religious authority but on his own reason — Jamal

I would be interested to see what Adorno would have to say about Descartes. My take on Adorno's ND project is that he wants us to avoid imposing reality (read ideology), our own version of reality, upon reality as it really is. That way, Truth isn't merely "my truth;" but the Truth in entirety.

I think Adorno adopts a more combative stance against the supremacy of reason, ratio. The Enlightenment expected to build a world out of reason, only to realize its baselessness, its lack of any foundation, for reason - thought, is nothing other than pure negativity. Ratio, analysis, it seems to me, is a kind of destruction, a rending apart, into subcomponents, atomistically; reason is not a real rending, but a mental one, a negative one, until actualized. "Knowledge is power" as "Enlightenment is dominion" over nature, over others, even over self.

Reason qua analysis (of persons including self), in contrast to a more intimate knowing by means of intellectus, understanding, is, at least at times, a kind of distancing, an unwillingness to feel or experience, ultimately a "no" to Truth, to reality. It is detachment from reality. Rationalization. Analysis is cold, procedural, dead, there's no love in it is there?

Rational human beings rebel against this idea — Metaphysician Undercover

But God is not an idea. And I am a rational human being who does not rebel against God. God is simple in being, yes, but I should think the creator of all things is even more complex than the greatest complexity found in creation. God is truth and the source of the objective law. And what is this objective law? Jesus spoke it, you know it already: it is to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself.

if all objective laws are actually fictions — Metaphysician Undercover

I personally don't think all objective laws are fictions. And I think you are correct that Adorno also believes in objective laws and truth. There must be a reality in the first place for the project of negative dialectics to make any kind of sense.

You seem to be suggesting that if both P1 and P2 are true then it's possible that C1 is false? — Michael

Right.

I think P2 excludes the possibility of the C1 disjunctive introduction and therefore foils the entire argument.

I agree with the way you defined validity. If I remember correctly, Tones in Deep Freeze defined it formally as an argument whereby there is no interpretation such that all the premises are true and the conclusion is false. I am unclear of what you mean by deduce and deduction. For me, to deduce is to come to a conclusion based on premises where logical principles or inference rules govern the arrival at that conclusion. I see no inference rules being applied in an explosion hypothesis and therefore cannot see it as a deduction at all.

I am also not concerned about including any modals in the argument. Let me consider what you stated:

(1 ^ 2) → 3
(1 ^ 2)
∴ 3
— Leontiskos


...which would be:

([If MP could be false, then RAA could be false] ^ [RAA is not false]) → [MP is not false]
[If MP could be false, then RAA could be false] ^ [RAA is not false]
∴ [MP is not false] — Leontiskos

All I am doing is giving more detail to "1."
1 = (¬3 → ¬2)

Given that replacement, premise 2 of the argument as well as the conclusion in line 3 may be written as:

(¬3 → ¬2) ^ 2
∴ 3

My understanding of modus tollens is that it is a logical operation of this form:

(¬A → ¬B)
B
∴ A

But that is the same form as
(¬3 → ¬2) ^ 2
∴ 3

or written otherwise

(¬3 → ¬2)
2
∴ 3

that is why I refer to the second and third lines of the argument as a "modus tollens."

Using the terms you suggested, the modus tollens would be:

(1 ^ 2)
∴ 3

which of course is no modus tollens at all. However that is only because without the detailed replacement for "1" we cannot see that the second and third lines are a veritable modus tollens.

The "objective law" is objective for someone who has consented to its objectivity, its reality; it is not truly objective but the one who consents to that "reality" thereby reifies it and lends it its objective aura. The objectively necessary consciousness is the thinking that goes in to sustaining the non-thought objectivity - that is, the ideology. That ideology could be capitalism as much as it could be Marxist communism. The relevant part is the attitude I think Adorno would have us take to theories and that attitude is one that acknowledges fictions as fictions. The point of such reflections must surely be intended as critique of the operant ideology. That is not to say that all ideologies are equal as the horrors of the twentieth century enacted by Marxist communist regimes indict themselves.

Right, ideology is properly more than is thought qua thought, but I think Adorno would say it is thought nonetheless. In other words, ideology has yet to think itself as thought. Ideology qua ideology is enacted and unquestioned because it is "reality" or "the way things are" in opposition to the way things could be. That is perhaps one reading anyways.

I get what you are saying. However, I maintain that it is strange for me to think of the initial argument of this thread as "valid." In fact, it makes about as much sense to me as
A
¬A
therefore,
(B∨¬B)

being "valid." I guess you would say "yeah, but principle of explosion..." but the principle of explosion is also nonsensical to me.