Comments

  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    Part one of the article is a study of some now fairly typical examples of opaque contexts. That is, contexts in which one cannot swap names around without losing the truth of what one is saying.

    The examples include quotation, what we might now call propositional attitude, and modality. It's worth noting that these are three distinct issues, and they might (do....) need to be addressed in different ways.

    The thesis is summed up in the last sentence:
    What is important is to appreciate that the contexts ‘Necessarily . . .’ and ‘Possibly . . .’ are, like quotation and ‘is unaware that . . .’ and ‘believes that . . . referentially opaque.
  • Ontology of Time
    A breathe of fresh air. A history over time exists whether it is recorded through human perception or not. Paleontologists discover this truth frequently.jgill

    Cheers. Comes back to the confusion between what is believed to be the case and what is the case. Sometimes our beliefs are different from what is true. Sometimes we are mistaken. Even Palaeontologists.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    This is a complex issue. I'm still working through it. First some comments on syntax, then on semantics.

    Necessity and possibility quantify over complete propositions. Folk will be familiar with propositional logic, the p's and q's of p⊃q and so on. "Normal" modal logic (the system K) allows us to write ☐p and ◇p, so that the whole of the proposition is inside the scope of the modal operator.

    (2) Necessarily (∃x)(x is greater than 7)J
    This can be parsed as ☐∃(x)(fx) were "f" is "greater than seven". This is well-formed, since ∃(x)(fx) is complete.

    (1) (∃x)(x is necessarily greater than 7)J
    The apparent parsing here is ∃(x)☐(fx). But "fx" is incomplete. The "x" is a variable, not an individaul constant. It's not that "x" could stand for anything - that'd be U(x)(fx). It's that we just do not know what x might be. It does not say that something is f, nor that nothing is f. That is, it is not a whole proposition. Hence it cannot be replaced by the p's and q's of propositional calculus, and cannot take a modal operator in normal modal logic. But the situation is more complex than that.

    To a large extent this is a modern version of the de re/de dicto distinction. but we can be much clearer here using modal first order language than was possible in medieval times.

    Despite these syntactic misgivings there may well be interpretations in possible world semantics in which ∃(x)☐(fx) can be understood. "There is something that in every possible world is f". The question then becomes how this is to be understood, and if it can be made consistent. From what I have been able to glean, if we step from K to S5 and permit ∃(x)☐(fx), then modal collapse follows.
  • Ontology of Time
    I don't.

    But I do not intend to continue this somewhat odd conversation, which is a continuation of the equal odd conversation in PM.

    I've flagged your post for mod attention. I think it and this ought be deleted as irrelevant to the thread.
  • Ontology of Time
    ↪Banno Stop avoiding me Banno, answer my questions.Arcane Sandwich

    Which questions?
  • Ontology of Time
    For example, if I am packaging my visit to Japan 10 year ago into experience, then the arrival of Narita Airport via JAL flight would be the beginning of the experience, and then my stay in central Tokyo, visiting Nagoya and Osaka area for meeting with my friends in the cities, and then the moment of boarding my return flight would be the end of the experience.Corvus
    So... that's an ordering in terms of time, which you say doesn't exist...


    Banno as a newborn 50+ year ago = Banno as a man after 50+ years from his birth ?
    They don't look the same Banno to me.
    Corvus
    Now you have moved on to identity. I grew up, over time.

    Your thesis is that what is not part of your immediate perception does not exist. This is in error.

    Being perceived is not what it is for something to exist.
  • Australian politics
    New polling

    The model estimates there is a 78 per cent chance of a hung parliament, and a 19 per cent chance of the Coalition winning a majority.ABC News

    I'm surprised it's that close.
  • Ontology of Time
    Then start a thread about Bung and Kripke rather than drop it in the middle of another thread. :grimace:
  • Ontology of Time


    First, Physics uses modal operations throughout.

    Second, how is this germane?

    Third, no one here owes anyone else a response.

    Fourth, I'm not avoiding your posts, just not bothering with those that appear trivial or irrelevant.
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    Alternat link: Internet Archive.

    This is the whole text of the book, 10.3MB
  • Quine: Reference and Modality
    The Marcus Family site. It's been useful for years, I'm not too concerned, but do as you see fit.
  • Ontology of Time
    Then why bother raising the topic.
  • Ontology of Time
    Sure. How would you set these out in first order logic?
  • Ontology of Time
    "is" in English has three interpretations in first order logic: Quantification, equivalence and predication.

    That's one of the problems here - it is very unclear how one is to make sense of @Corvus's "time does not exist".
  • Ontology of Time
    The birth of Banno was an event in the past which doesn't exist now.Corvus

    It's far from clear how to make sense of this. It is true that I was born in the past. If banno's birth is an event in the past then there are events in the past and hence there is a past.

    Nor is it clear how my existing now is different to the way in which I existed fifty years ago. I grew forma. young man into an older, wiser one, perhaps, but how is that a change in my "mode of being", or whatever obtuse term one might choose.

    The Banno just born 50 year ago doesn't exist now.Corvus
    Well, it was more than fifty years, but I am still here.

    Seems to me that the more you say, the more confused your position becomes.
  • Ontology of Time
    It existed in the past.Corvus

    Well, no. The OP was written in the past. It still exists.

    Perhaps you might try setting out what you means by "exists".
  • Ontology of Time
    Your error is to equate experience (perception?) with existence, or something along those lines.

    The Op was written in the past. Therefore there is a past for it to be written in.
  • Ontology of Time
    It is the archive of the OP.Corvus

    Well, no. It's the OP. It was written in the past. There is a past in which it was written. There is perhaps a future in which you read this post. End of story, really.
  • Australian politics
    And you find it necessary to use scare quotes for that?Arcane Sandwich
    Yep. Your lizardfish are a different, and less tasty, species to our flathead.

    You know what we import from Australia?Arcane Sandwich
    Coal.
  • Ontology of Time
    Time exists, but in a conceptual form. The OP's statement time doesn't exist have different implications. The OP was in the past, and it doesn't exist now, as it was when it first created.Corvus
    "...it doesn't exist now"? Your OP exists. Here is a link to it:

    "...as it was when it first created"? Do you mean that you edited it?

    Time is much more than a concept. It's happened between your last post and your next. It happened between your reading the beginning and the end of this sentence. And your reply to this post is in the future. Unless you are reading this even further not the future, or you give up and do not reply.

    You have been talking about the OP in the past, but not time. What existed in the past doesn't exist as in the same state when time passed.Corvus
    I am definitely talking about time; I mentioned your OP, but now I am talking about your last post. What they both have in common is being in the past, which is an aspect of time.
  • Ontology of Time
    We don't deny past, but we are saying the events in the past existed in the past not now.Corvus

    But your claim, in the OP, is that time does not exist.

    So are you now saying that there is a past, but no time?
  • Ontology of Time
    Socrates did exist in the past.Corvus

    Hence there is a past.

    You have been talking about the OP. Not about time, or time.Corvus
    The OP was posted in the past. Therefore there is a past.
  • Ontology of Time
    None of what you have been saying is about time itself.Corvus
    It's about time. What is time itself?

    Socrates existed. But does he exist now?Corvus
    Socrates exists in the past. On you account, there is no past for Socrates to be in, because time does not exist.
  • Australian politics


    Take a look at this from the Lowy Institute. It shows trade in terms of US vs China, from 2001 to the year before last.


    (The bit about Chinese wisdom. The US didn't notice it was in a war until China had already won.)

    Canada and Mexico are the only places left that have more trade with the US than China.

    So who do they impose a tariffs on?
  • Australian politics
    So far as I am aware the only thing we buy from Argentina is "flathead".
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    @Wayfarer - you probably saw this.

    Elon Musk's DOGE agency is at the centre of controversy in the US. So what is it?

    It suggests the main game might be setting up "Government by AI"... Not at all concerning, that. All good.
  • Australian politics
    The 20% tariff has to be passed on to the purchaser. So US goods go up in price relative to imports to AU from other countries. So we buy less from the US, more from China and Korea.
  • Ontology of Time
    If there was no forum, and you lost all your memory, then you wouldn't know the OP existed.Corvus

    Yep. None of which implies that you never made the OP.

    Not nine days ago as you claimed. But ten days ago now.Corvus
    ...so you were right to say, yesterday, that it was nine days ago, and now it is ten days, but you are wrong to say it exists.

    It was ten days ago, therefore something was ten days ago.

    Or, if you prefer, my browser says it was nine days ago, yours, that it was ten. Which it correct? On your account, neither.
  • Ontology of Time
    The OP is in the forum, not in the past.Corvus

    Well, make up your mind:

    It belongs in the past.Corvus

    Which is it? Does it belong in the past or is it not in the past?
  • Ontology of Time
    It depends what you mean by "exist". Past is just in your memory. It doesn't need to exist. You are saying it exist, because you remember it.Corvus

    The past is remembered, sure. But that does not mean that the past is just memory.

    If the past were just memory, there could be no misremembering. One misremembers when what one remembers of the past is not what happened in the past.
  • Ontology of Time
    If the claim is that the past does not exist, then the OP cannot belong in the past.

    But

    It belongs in the past.Corvus
  • Disagreeing with Davidson about Conceptual Schemes
    If we are good regulators then thats trivially what they are.Apustimelogist

    How?
  • Ontology of Time
    It belongs in the past.Corvus

    Yep. Exactly. Therefore something belongs in the past. Therefore there is a past.

    Now, what could someone mean by saying that the past does not exist?
  • Ontology of Time
    What does that question mean?

    The OP was nine days ago. Therefore something was nine days ago.
  • Ontology of Time
    In memory….Wayfarer
    of whom?

    Does it make sense to ask if your memory is accurate - is it true that the OP was made nine days ago? If so, then by existential introduction isn't there a time that was nine days ago?

    The OP was nine days ago
    Therefore something was nine days ago.

    Is it possible that you could go back to 9 days ago?Corvus
    You seem to think this relevant. It is not clear how. But it is not at all clear how you are intending to use "exists".


    Added: Worth pointing out yet again that Wayfarer has muddled his memory with what is the case. Again, muddled his beliefs with how things are. Again, mistaken epistemology for ontology.
  • Disagreeing with Davidson about Conceptual Schemes
    I don't see how that addresses my question. It is not clear that conceptual schemes correspond in any helpful way with "models" in cybernetics