Why does it have to be the exact same time to be the same photons? Do the photons turn into other photons over time? — Marchesk

As I said above "The photon wouldn't be numerically distinct (including numerically distinct temporal instances)"

Not at the same time is numerical distinction, so it's not identical in that sense.

There might be a way to emit and capture the same photons in a very controlled setting, while bouncing them off two surfaces made to have the reflect the same wavelength. — Marchesk

So at the same exact time, the same photons would bounce off of numerically distinct surfaces--so that the surfaces would have to be spatially separated, but we're not talking about photons that are spatially separated . . . somehow.

That seems really incoherent.

You're asking me whether the same photons bounce off different surfaces? — Marchesk

The photon wouldn't be numerically distinct (including numerically distinct temporal instances) but we'd somehow be able to point the the photon bouncing off of numerically distinct tomatoes?

I'm asking you about the light. You used that as a determiner.

Not if they reflect exactly the same wavelength of light. — Marchesk

So the same light reflects off of two numerically distinct tomatoes?

Things can have identical properties, such as color, under nominalism, — DingoJones

Typically nominalism does not allow identical properties in numerically distinct things.

To be an identical property, we're saying that it's just one property--there's no numerical distinctness--that's somehow instantiated in two different things.

But that's begging the question. — Marchesk

You're using "begging the question" in that weird, non-formal way. It's not begging the question re the logical fallacy.

How do we know two numerically distinct things can't be identical in some manner that would contradict nominalism? — Marchesk

As I said, because for one, "numerically distinct" contradicts "not numerically distinct."

We have tomatoe 1 and tomato 2. If they both have exactly the same color, then isn't that an identical property that nominalism says can't exist? — Marchesk

Are they numerically distinct instances of redness?

Keep in mind that nominalists are NOT saying that two separate things can't be "similar in all (non-relational) respects."

They're saying that two separate things can't literally be the same, single thing. For one, it contradicts the idea that they're two separate things.

This extends to saying that a property instantiated in two separate things can literally be the same, single thing.

So all it would take to disprove nominalism is to find a numerically distinct thing that was identical for some property or function? — Marchesk

Sure. Although how anyone could do that is a mystery. A nominalist isn't going to take any numerically distinct things as identical to each other, a fortiori because we believe that the idea of this is incoherent . . . and that's the case even for nominalists who buy that there are real abstracts, but most nominalists do not buy that notion.

So Data wouldn't present a problem to you, because he could tell you he was conscious, and back that up with convincing behavior? — Marchesk

That's not something I'd worry about. It doesn't make much of a difference in a case like that if we figure he's conscious or not.

I don't know that I can agree with that. How would they functionally be different for such a simple case? You're saying that there can never be an exact duplicate function across different physical subtrates. — Marchesk

So, what would make one a nominalist, at least in the more common sense of the term, is that one doesn't believe that any numerically distinct things can be identical.

Because different substrates are numerically distinct things, then as you surmise, under nominalism, no properties, including functions, can be literally identical. And it's even the case that with the "same" substrate, two numerically distinct instances can not be literally identical.

That doesn't mean that they can't be similar enough that we (loosely) call them "the same." It's just that literally, they're not actually the same. It's different things that are similar.

So all that functionalism would amount to, to a nominalist, is similar behavior in some respect(s). It's not identical behavior, as in "one and the same."

That might work, but would you extend that to different computers performing addition? — Marchesk

Yes. Again, I said this in the earlier post. The full quote was: "'Adding 2' is not identical in both instances, obviously. And it's not identical in two instances of a calculator (or two calculators) adding two, either. "

I don't think we're doing exactly the same thing as a calculator/computer when we add two, — Marchesk

Hence why I said, "'Adding 2' is not identical in both instances, obviously."

However, I think the argument is that functionalism is a kind of dualism, because it's something additional to the physical substrate. — Marchesk

That would work maybe if the functionalist is positing multiple instances of something identical, so that they'd have to be realists on universals/types. But we could have a nominalist sort of functionalism, where we're calling x and y "F," even though it's not literally two identical instances of F.

What we see, i.e. the input signals we receive, create some kind of model in our heads, i.e. an abstraction of the physical world. — alcontali

So when someone says something like this, I ask--is this correct? What's the argument or evidence for it? And the answer to that is?

Re this, by the way:

"Putnam, Fodor, and Block and Fodor argued that if functionalism about the mind is true, physicalism is false.The line of argument assumes that functional organizationsare multiply realizable. The state of adding 2 cannot be identical to an electronic state if a nonelectronic device (e.g., a brain) can add 2."

What Putnam et al are arguing is false. The state of adding 2 would be identical to the electronic state for the electronic device as it adds 2, and it would be identical to the brain state as the brain (as someone mentally) adds 2.

"Adding 2" is not identical in both instances, obviously. And it's not identical in two instances of a calculator (or two calculators) adding two, either.

Anyway, re the "harder problem," it's not something we need to account for--it's just something that we're unsure of--whether and when something that's different materially but similar functionally (and/or structurally) would be conscious.

My stance is one of cautious skepticism, basically. I think we need to show good reasons for why functionalism/substratum independence might be true before accepting it. Although I think it's worth pursuing functionalism practically, with lessened skepticism, simply because it might produce useful technology to pursue it.

This is because logical possibility is based on the nature of being, not on contingent restrictions as physical possibility is. For example, the reason for the logical principle of noncontradiction is that it is impossible to instantiate a contradiction in reality. On the other hand, the laws of nature are contingent and need to be discovered empirically. — Dfpolis

The Euthyphro problem in a nutshell here is that either God could do things that are "logically impossible" if He were to choose to do so, or logic is primary/prior to God, who must obey it.

You presumably mean that in your current human mind's eye with your current language and current psychological construct of 'time', your sentence 'makes sense' to 'like minded' humans ? — fresco

No, I didn't "mean" anything like that.

I shouldn't just comment on this a bit at a time, I suppose, but that's what I'm doing as I go through the Block paper first:

"The Hard Problem is one of explaining why the neural basis of a phenomenal quality is the neural basis of that phenomenal quality rather than another phenomenal quality or no phenomenal quality at all. In other terms, there is an explanatory gap between the neural basis of a phenomenal quality and the phenomenal quality itself. "

Re what I said about explanations above, we could just as well say:

"A hard problem is explaining, for any explanation of any property, why the (observationally-)claimed basis of a property is the basis of that property rather than another property or no property (at least of x-type) at all. In other terms, there is an explanatory gap between the observational basis of a property and the property itself."

==========================================================================

"The claim that Q is identical to corticothalamic oscillation is just as puzzling—maybe more puzzling—than the claim that the physical basis of Q is corticothalamic oscillation."

The distinction he's making there isn't clear to me.

"How could one property be both subjective and objective?"

It's not, actually, since mental phenomena are subjective period. If corticothalamic oscillation is mental phenomena--which it is if it's identical to Q, then it's subjective.

But what he's asking is at the heart of the "explanatory gap": he's asking about corticothalamic oscillation not "seeming like" Q when one is observing another's corticothalamic oscillation, whereas it "seems like" Q when it's one's own corticothalamic oscillation. That's because our mentality is simply the properties of things like corticothalamic oscillation from the perspective of being the corticothalamic oscillation in question.

There's a similar problem in all explanations, since they're always from some perspective, some "point of reference," and there are no perspectiveless perspectives or point of reference-free points of reference. Any phenomena or property/set of properties p is different from different perspectives/reference points, including that they're be different from the perspective/reference point of being the substances/dynamic relations in question than they are from various removed-from-identity observational perspectives/points of reference (which are all different from each other).

The hard problem of the hard problem of consciousness is that there's no good analysis of what explanations are, including (i) what makes something count as an explanation versus not count, and (ii) just what the relationship is between an explanation and what it's explaining. The ridiculous problem of the hard problem of the hard problem is that no one seems as if they could care less about this.

From the Block paper:

"T. H. Huxley famously said ‘How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue' . . ."

Hey, nervous tissue isn't that annoying. It's just trying to make friends.

Mad magazine, a US institution famous for the grinning face of jug-eared, tiny-eyed mascot Alfred E Neuman, is to stop being a regular fixture of newsstands — Amity

Yeah, I was bummed out hearing that.

On the other hand, I hadn't bought Mad regularly for quite some time, so I was part of the problem. Although in my case, it's primarily because I didn't run across it in stores very often--although that's partially my fault, too, as I probably could have found a store that regularly carried it and made sure that I visited. But also for whatever reasons, I have ridiculous problems with trying to receive magazines via subscription in the mail. I've tried to subscribe to various things, and in all cases, at least living where I live, I'd be lucky to even get 20% of the issues for a year. So I don't bother subscribing to anything because it's pretty pointless and frustrating.

I was also a fan of Cracked when it was simply a knockoff of Mad magazine. But obviously Cracked died over ten years ago now and the owners turned it into that click-baity/not-very-funny website instead.

A pragmatist might ask why 'the physical world' is not also 'a language object'. Why is 'physicality' not merely 'a set of experiential expectancies' associated with those aspects of human physiology we call 'the senses'? — fresco

Because there was a physical world a billion years ago.

You're not a young Earth creationist or something, are you?

One major problem is, of course, that R is actually unknown. As Immanuel Kant famously quipped: Das Ding an sich ist ein Unbekänntes. (The thing in itself is an unknown). — alcontali

Maybe if you folks stopped treating Kant like a religious messiah.

Kant was wrong. Philosophers, including the most famous philosophers, were just people like anyone who posts here. They can and often did say things that were just as wrong, stupid, misconceived, etc. as anyone says on the board, or as anyone says around the watercooler at your place of work, etc.

When someone says something, don't just accept it. Ask, "Is this correct? What's the argument or evidence for it (and what's the argument or evidence for the claims made in the argument for it? And for the argument or evidence for that . . . .) Does this analysis make any sense? Is this coherent/clear/etc.?" And so on.

The issue is "meaning". I think there is far more meaning in two extremely complex things like DNA which happen to match, than there is in the correlation between a proposition and a state of affairs. In comparison, the correlation between a proposition and a state of affairs is extremely simplistic, while the correlation between replicated DNA is extremely complex. Don't you think that the complex correlation is far more meaningful than the simplistic correlation? — Metaphysician Undercover

Meaning is something that individual people do. It's an associative way of thinking about things--making associations, thinking in terms of connotations, references, etc. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to try to quantify thing/process A versus thing/process B as "more meaningful"--at least not in general. It can make sense a la the report of an individual, where they're telling us something about the extent to which they think about A versus B in terms of meaning.

In any event, this is avoiding the point I was making and what I was asking. I explained how it makes sense to talk about DNA "matching" something. That's referring to a physical process, inherent in the properties of the substances involved, that results in something with similar structure, etc. being fashioned out of particular substances. In what similar way would we be talking about matching when we're talking about propositions and states of affairs?

I've been trying to avoid responding here beyond offering brief comments because time is precious for me at the moment. So I'll keep it as short as possible. — Janus

I wish everyone would keep it as short as possible--seriously. So I appreciate that.

There are two senses of 'fact': facts as verbal statements and facts as ostensive ontological propositions or conceptions of states of affairs. States of affairs are propositional in the sense that they are always given, even prior to their expressions, in the form that 'such and such is the case'. The verbal propositional equivalent is just the expression of what is already recognized to be the case. The fact need not be expressed, but it is always already in propositional form by virtue of its recognition as fact nonetheless. — Janus

The sense of "fact" that I use (which isn't a novel sense, but that's not important), is simply that facts are states of affairs. A billion years ago, there were countless facts. There was no language, there were no propositions, etc.

The sense of "proposition" that I use (which again isn't novel), is that propositions are the meanings of statements.

So again, a billion years ago, there were no propositions, as there was no meaning, because there were no creatures of the sort that create meaning, yet there were plenty of facts.

Facts are not propositional, they're not conceptions, they're not verbal statements. Facts are not in the form that "such and such is the case." They're in the form simply of existent things/processes, in (dynamic) relation(s) to other existent things/processes. Facts are certainly not in the form of meanings, and meanings are also not identical to any words, gestures, behavior, etc. (Well, or the only facts that are in the form of meanings are facts of meanings; that is, that so and so is thinking in some particular way that amounts to meaning.)

Maybe it's just included as a courtesy to folks who don't think that there are only physical phenomena? Well, and then it just starts to sound normal, so it tends to get repeated without thinking about it as a possible redundancy.

The idea that properties would be somehow separable from physical things, from substance, is completely incoherent.

Properties are simply the characteristics of substances/(dynamic) relations of substances. You can't have something/(dynamic) relations of things without them being/behaving some way. That's all that properties are.

I don't buy "emergence" as that's usually characterized.

Likewise, you can't have the way that physical things/dynamic relations of physical things are, you can't have their characteristics, without actually having the physical things/dynamic relations. Thus you can't have properties sans physical stuff/relations either.

Philosophy started going way off track with this with Aristotle, because he tried to separate properties from substances (well, although maybe we can blame Plato because of forms). He made that initial incoherent move. It's just because they were confused about the relationship of thinking, concepts, language, etc. to the world in general.

(Of course, if I'm wrong and it is just phenomenalism, then that's fine. But I'm pretty sure that phenomenalists aren't saying just what I'm saying, so if you're interested in my view, it would be better to focus on my view as my view rather than trying to assimilate it into something that it's not.)

Well, the point is kind of that I don't think that my view is actually just phenomenalism.

It would probably be better to learn more about what my view actually is rather than trying to squeeze it into some template you're already familiar with.

:grin:

A phenomenalist says that all there is, is properties. — frank

Properties are unique physical things.

If phenomenalism posits that only unique physical stuff exists, perhaps. That's not how I normally understand stock phenomenalism, but if you want to say that's what it's positing, then okay.

It's also my brand of (nominalist) physicalism.

Agreed. Judgements are not described as truth. — Mww

On my view truth is a judgment.

But when we say two shirts are the same, isn't this a kind of shorthand for saying that the pattern, color, size, etc. are the same? The sameness you're talking about is under the umbrella of universals. I think your nominalism is sort of shabby chic. — frank

We're saying that properties are "the same," yes. I'm not sure what you're pointing out here, because "it's all properties" really.

Imagine a dream in which the scenery comes into existence spontaneously with the flow of the dream. It wasn't there before the action takes place, but having come into being, the dreamer flows on with the rock solid assumption that the landscape it takes place in was always there. The dream gives itself its own history. When the dream characters interact, they all draw from this solid ground they find themselves in. And every word they speak is reinforcing and recreating that landscape moment by moment.

I think to some extent this is what we mean by form of life. Now that is doing something with words. — frank

Um . . . :confused: I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're getting at with any of that. So I'm not sure how to comment on it.

First, I don't really get what your post has to do with determinism vs. intelligent design.

Huh?

:razz:

When DNA replicates, it's quite clear that something is making a correlation between distinct things. If there was no correlation, it would not be a replication. So if agency is necessary to draw correlations between distinct things, then agency must be involved in DNA replication. — Metaphysician Undercover

One thing I brought up in another thread about this is that we could say that two things "match" when they're structurally similar--for example, two shirts that we'd loosely call "the same shirt."

But when we're talking about the correlation between a proposition and a state of affairs, surely we're not saying that they're similar in that way, are we? (And beside that, extramentally, we have nothing to make a determination that they're similar.)

With the DNA example you use, we're talking about a physical process that manipulates materials in a particular way. If we're proposing this for a way that correspondence can work when it comes to something like truth value, what analogous (to DNA) physical process are we talking about?

I'm basically a constructivist on mathematics and logic, by the way.

I'm also a physicalist and what's called a nominalist, where part of my nominalism is a rejection of there being any real abstracts.