Yes. I guess. Not sure.

I assume chatbots and chromosomes are all syntax. Like Chinese rooms. And semantics is the interpretations that we (and future machines conceivably might) add. As Searle argues.

I agree that this added dimension is what Searle addresses in terms of intention. I grok the "extensionalism" (and nominalism) of Quine and Goodman as trying to bypass the internal psychology. Hence Word and Object rather than Person and Object (as Chisholm had it).

But no, no one is denying the importance of semantics. (Intentionality if you prefer.)

we could devise a more accurate notation “that makes I think internal to p: we may form the letter p by writing, in the shape of a p, the words I think.” — J

A splendid proposal, I say, but improvable. In a spirit of extensionalism, we may remove the thinker from the analysis, and instead form a suitable word shape from the words "this sentence token hereby asserts that".

Pat's objection is likewise less psychological. He says

it might as well read, "this sentence token declares true that". But either way, you seem to be confusing utterance or inscription in the object language with utterance or inscription in the meta-language. Or at any rate, it's not my experience that a declarative sentence usually refers to its own semantic properties. And if it did so, the effort would be unnecessary, as is well known. The prefix would be entirely redundant."

I think he has a point, about assertion and declaring true. But I disagree about redundancy. Thinking you can speak (utter or inscribe) as though completely in an object language, without referring implicitly to the convention of reference between word and object, albeit the convention of a make-believe and non-physical relation, is magical thinking. Not in the good way of playing the game of pretend, but in the bad way of pretending not to be.

Another cause might be the evident separation of convention and pretence (i.e. semantics) from syntax, in many cases. We are ready to add an interpretation to the physical behaviour of a calculator's cogs or capacitors, or to that of a cell's chromosomes. And some of the calculator's mechanical and syntactic behaviour affects display elements that partake in the semantic interpretations that we add; and some of the chromosome's mechanical and syntactic behaviour affects protein production that partakes similarly in our semantic interpretations. Still, the syntactic operations might carry on just as effectively without the interpretations.

My point being, it almost seems as though meaning is physical after all?

(Music to the ears of the bio-semioticians?)

What does Quine mean by the inscrutability of reference? — Darkneos

He means a) the relation of reference not happening to be a physical relation, but instead mere convention, or pretence; and b) the possibility of determining a non-physical relation, from observation of physical behaviours, not happening to be as straightforward as we might think.

Why b? Who ever thought the possibility of determining a convention from observation of behaviours would be straightforward, and anyway why should that make it impossible?

Well... people who thought that theories based on observation of the same behaviours should naturally converge towards a unique theory of what the behaviours meant. That's who. And those people being wrong about that would rule out a unique determination, at least.

Why do people think a unique determination is a reasonable expectation? Quine talks about the consequences, not so much causes, of failure to perceive the indeterminacy. But it seems reasonable to blame this failure on the success of language in talking about real, physical relations. Its unreasonable effectiveness, if you will.

Logic is the essence of philosophy. Compare:

Philosophy of science isn't science of philosophy.

Philosophy of art isn't art of science.

Whereas, philosophy of logic is logic of philosophy.

QED

Trying to put Peirce in either nominalism or Platonism (label or categorize him) — Mapping the Medium

To be fair, you're the one hurling the 'isms' around.

The irony...

By labeling, — Mapping the Medium

Again, nominalism isn't a tendency to proliferate labels. Nominalisation is closer to being that.

By labeling, nominalism often concretizes properties that are actually relational. — Mapping the Medium

Nominalism agrees that nominalisation tends to reify (hypostatize) abstract properties, i.e. suggest they are real like concrete objects. Nominalism opposes that tendency.

Nominalism doesn't concretize properties because it doesn't reify them, and nominalisation doesn't necessarily concretize properties even when it reifies them. In reifying them it (nominalisation) might posit them as abstract properties (platonism). But if it posits or characterises them as concrete properties, then it's neither nominalist nor platonist.

You seem to suggest that concretizing amounts to monadising? (Maybe there's a better word for reducing relations to monadic properties.)

Being concrete is usually opposed to being abstract.

Being monadic (intrinsic if you like) is usually opposed to being relational.

The two distinctions are usually kept apart. Does Peirce associate them? Or could you flesh out how you think they correlate? I would be interested in that.

Nominalism (typically) respects the reality of concrete over abstract, but it has no preference at all for monadic over relational or vice versa.

Nominalisation may or may not concretize, but it also reifies relations just as readily as monadic properties. As the diagrams on the wiki page for hypostatisation make clear.

And Hypostatic Abstraction of the Haphazard kind is exacerbated by nominalists who hypocritically hypostatize the very process they like to oppose?

Could be, I suppose. That hardly explains why you would blame 'nominalism' rather than 'platonism' for the sorry state thus exacerbated.

I think you were confused by the terminology. Sorry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

But has my thought been influenced by nominalism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

Or has it been influenced by nominalisation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

How is this binary question not appropriate?

Influenced by which one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

You are approaching this from a nominalist position,. — Mapping the Medium

I am? In what sense of nominalist position? That of someone disposed to nominalisation/reification/hypostatisation? Or that of someone opposed to it?

Ah! I've solved it :rofl:

@Mapping the Medium, you think that nominalists are people who nominalise (or nominalize), in the grammatical sense which is, ironically and confusingly, precisely the process of creating a noun (a 'nominalisation') from a non-noun? But that (and the consequent expansion by one of the assumed ontological domain) is exactly what nominalists from Ockham to Goodman have generally abhorred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

I mean, I don't think he does, but I'm intrigued about this thirdness stuff if it's about that.

He reifies the relation of reference or denotation?

Go on?

(Edit: this was when Mapping the Medium had said "he" instead of "Banno" and I thought she (MtM) was addressing the question of mine which she quoted, and which was about Goodman.)

Right, so we're curious (I think someone asked at some point) whence the anti-nominalism? If Goodman says,

The nominalist cancels out the property and treats the predicate as bearing a one-many relation directly to the several things it applies to or denotes. — Goodman

Shouldn't that align with your objection to hypostatisation?

The temptation is to hypostatize — Banno

Yes, or i.e. to reify. Be realist about mere abstractions. The kind of error ('platonism') usually alleged by the nominalist, not of the nominalist.

No worries.

As I specified, here:

Yes, Pegasus exists, in that Pegasus is the subject of a quantification. — Banno

So, is that the same as admitting that Pegasus is fiction, and doesn't literally exist? Or not?

Then I haven't understood your post. — Banno

That was my impression.

That's fairly normal. — Banno

Oh, you!

What bit of your post is where you think we differ? — Banno

About you equivocating between fact and fiction. I suppose that does sound like us.

Are we in agreement? — Banno

No.

If folk want to say that, in addition, Pegasus is in the stables down the road, it's up to them to present their case. — Banno

But if they want to point out that, literally and unequivocally, Pegasus and numbers don't exist, it's up to you to explain how this

Yes, Pegasus exists, in that Pegasus is the subject of a quantification. — Banno

isn't equivocal.

"To be is to be the value of a variable"

just means (it seems to me)

"To avoid rabbit holes, do this: read 'there exists some x such that' as 'at least one of the x among the set of all that exist is such that' ".

I.e. the sentence (following) isn't about whether some particular thing exists but about some particular existent thing.

This might not be a perfect method of staying above ground, but replacing 'the set of all that exist' with anything else isn't following the method.

E.g. replacing it with 'the set of all elements of this or that fiction' is trashing the method.

Influenced by chapter IV of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art, I go for unanimity and a ternary nature of truth.

A bright room can be controversially white (or a voltage controversially on), and a shadow controversially black (the voltage controversially off), but the whites (or on's) are uncontroversially not blacks (not off's).

Grain collections that are heaps are uncontroversially not pittances and vice versa (grain collections that are pittances are uncontroversially not heaps) but not all of both are uncontroversially one or the other. Some are controversially somewhere in between. But none are even controversially both. The two fuzzy borders (of "heap" and "pittance") are kept far enough apart.

Obviously this is relative to a system. Sometimes the system catches on, other times a continuous spectrum is preferred, other times again some unrestricted pattern of overlapping is more appropriate.

Obviously too there can't (in the restricted system) be free expression for Humpty Dumptys.

antonym — bongo fury

We know.

But the point about predicating truth of future utterances now?

utterances can have propositional content whereas paintings cannot. — J

If utterances can have propositional content (whatever that means) then surely pictures can have pictorial content?

Indeed!

There's no mystical connection between utterances and mind-independent, non-spatial, non-temportal abstract objects;. — Michael

Where (on earth) do you find that Quine accepts that kind of mystical connection?

In his supposing some future inscription to exemplify the word "true"?

Or where?

Surely Quine suggests we refer timelessly (non-modally) to the sentence inscribed or uttered in a future region of space-time? And we describe it (rightly by your hypothesis) as true? Is that non-sensical?

And so "there are unwritten true equations" is true in the non-platonic sense that someone could write a true equation that doesn't exist in the present, — Michael

But are you denying that it's already true?

The only tenable attitude toward quantifiers and other notations of modern logic is to construe them always, in all contexts, as timeless. — Quine: Mr Strawson

I don’t know what you mean.

Rain exists or it doesn’t. — Michael

And if it does, then the world (or region) satisfies the sentence in question. If not, not.

Rain isn't truth-apt. — Michael

Is it satisfaction-apt? That was my point.

Yes, a true sentence is about what is the case. But note that truth is a property of the sentence, not a property of the rain. — Michael

Yes but, to be fair... satisfaction of "it's raining" is a property of the weather event, not a property of the sentence.

:joke:

1. Is this a hoax?

2. Is it a real hoax, or a bot-generated one?

3. What or who is nihilsum.com?

The issue is that you attribute all use of LLMs to plagiarism. — Christoffer

Eh?

Never mind.

But show me a case of unacknowledged chat-bot-assisted writing that isn't a perfectly clear case of plagiarism by this definition?
— bongo fury

How does that lead to such a clear conclusion? — Christoffer

Can you, or can't you?

You're talking more about the philosophy of authorship and not specifically plagiarism as a legal phenomena. And it's in court where such definitions will find their final form. — Christoffer

You're waffling. I'm talking about a common sense understanding of plagiarism as warned about in typical forum guidelines.

Someone using it to generate an entire text might not be the author, — Christoffer

You don't say.

Just asking the LLM to do all the work is a clear case, but this is not the best use of LLMs for text generation and not really how it's used by those actually using it as a tool. — Christoffer

Asking anything or anybody for advice on formulating and expressing ideas, or on refining and redrafting a text, is perfectly clearly plagiarism if unacknowledged.

You need to define in what intended use-case of an LLM you attribute to making plagiarism, is operating in. — Christoffer

Apparently my definition leaves you without a counter example, so no I don't.

And also include a comparison to how a humans process available information into their own text and when that person is stepping over into plagiarism. — Christoffer

Not while the cases are clear.

What happens when a human accidentally produces exact copies of sentences from memory, without even knowing that they do so? — Christoffer

That human is mortified, and hopes not to be judged deliberate or negligent in their error.

How does that differ? — Christoffer

Not at all then.

Add to that the improvements of LLMs and the future scenario in which LLMs have become better than humans at not copying training data text directly and always providing citation when referencing direct information. — Christoffer

Only compounding the crime of failing to acknowledge their input.

And if the systems start to operate better than humans at avoiding plagiarism and using these models as assistive tools might even help avoid accidental plagiarism, what then? — Christoffer

Or even in their present condition of (rather drastic) fallibility, let them join in. But properly acknowledged, and properly scrutinized. Is my point.

In the end, the plagiarism will be attributed to the human, not the machine. — Christoffer

Could be either, of course.

Or should we blame the computer of plagiarism for the use of CTRL+C, CTRL+V and not the human inputting that intention? — Christoffer

So there are clear cases? Or not?

Any competent and reflective practitioner of English will define plagiarism as something like: deliberate or negligent misattribution of authorship.

Authorship tends to have unclear cases as well as clear ones. So does deliberateness or negligence with respect to this criterion.

But show me a case of unacknowledged chat-bot-assisted writing that isn't a perfectly clear case of plagiarism by this definition?

Should we have some guidelines on acceptable use of plagiarism on the forum?

Oh, we already do?

since Pa does not display an assertion, — Pierre-Normand

(quote from Kimhi)

I would assume it does, until something stops it. Just by recognising it as a sentence in a language, you allow it to assert itself: to replicate, and produce corollaries.

The question is, do you want to allow it to proliferate unchecked into this or that discourse? Or will you, within such a discourse, impose restrictions on the sentence's self-assertion, and ensure that it appears in public only, if at all, suitably contextualised, and qualified.

Perhaps, most harshly, wearing a negation sign - thereby qualified as untrue.

Or neutered. Contextualised as the disjunction of its assertion and denial (Pa v ~Pa).

Or conditionalised, or hypothesised, or probabilised.

Or chaperoned, by speakers: asserters, who would like to assist, and deniers, who oppose proliferation of the naked sentence.

Speakers on opposite sides might resort to all sorts of (more or less democratic) means to exert influence.

If they resort to logic, though, they must allow full rights of self-assertion to the premises, and then withdraw to watch the game. Which is played out by the self-asserting sentences, unassisted.