Epistemic Perspective : Meanings ARE in the head

[octelcogopod]

The problem here : At what stage is the transfer effected?
Let's say we move the ship plank by plank over a period of time.

At what point (ie after how many planks) does ship A stop becoming the ship of Theseus? And at what point (ie after how many planks) does ship B become the ship of Theseus?
Is there an intermediate point where both ships are the ship of Theseus; or perhaps where NEITHER ship is the ship of Theseus?

I hope you can see how non-sensical is the idea of transference of identity based on physical components.

The only way to resolve the apparent paradox is to recognise that identity is based on design, and not on the physical components.

But isn't ultimately design just the way the brain identifies unique features it sees in the physical components?
Arguably a human may change design when he ages, his physical composition changes with age, but the thought of that person may remain the same.
A human when he ages most people change their opinion of him, even if they still see the same person, it's not the exact same person as he was say 30 years ago.
Could be argued that the design changed, but something is still identifiable with the 'new' design. In fact what determines in the design what the likeness of the new and old person is? Or am I not seeing it correctly?

 

[moving finger]

But isn't ultimately design just the way the brain identifies unique features it sees in the physical components?

Yes, I agree with this - but not limited to human agents. In principle a machine could "recognise" a particular design.

Arguably a human may change design when he ages, his physical composition changes with age, but the thought of that person may remain the same.

Also agreed - and this reinforces the intuition that "meanings are in the head". The important aspect is what the agent (the human in this case) considers to be the design. If Theseus decides that ship C is now the ship of Theseus, then so be it. There is nothing anchored in the external world (this so-called mythical rigid designator) which constrains one ship or another to be the ship of Theseus - the only thing that determines this is whatever is in Theseus' mind.

A human when he ages most people change their opinion of him, even if they still see the same person, it's not the exact same person as he was say 30 years ago. Could be argued that the design changed, but something is still identifiable with the 'new' design. In fact what determines in the design what the likeness of the new and old person is? Or am I not seeing it correctly?

I agree that both the design and the physical components of human agents change over time, but the important thing is that this change is VERY gradual, such that we can identify many common elements of that design which do NOT change from day to day (ie we observe continuity underlying the gradual development). We could in principle swap every atom and molecule in your body for the "same" atom and molecule, but as long as we do not alter the design then you would remain the same person (this is the principle underlying the Star Trek matter transporter). However, if we were to radically change your design, keeping the physical components (the atoms and molecules) the same, but simply re-arranging them, then (if the design change were radical enough) you would arguably NOT be the same person (you might not even be alive).

If your girlfriend were to wake up one morning and behave like a completely different person to the person she was the night before (ie her design had fundamentally changed), then you would perhaps be justified in claiming "you've changed - you're not the girl I fell in love with!"

Returning again to this notion of Bill Clinton in many possible worlds - there need be nothing (imho) which constrains Bill Clinton in possible world A to be "identified" with Bill Clinton in possible world B, apart from the name. The two Bill Clintons could be completely different people, with absolutely nothing in common but the name. This notion (intuition?)that there is some kind of "trans-world identity" which is mystically retained between Bill Clinton's in different possible worlds is (imho) a misguided and wrongheaded notion which simply confuses people. Why some people should have the desire to retain such an intuition is a puzzle to me, unless it is somehow linked to the subconscious desire to believe in a soul, or to believe in something mysterious within a human being which transcends the physical world?

 

[Lord Ping]

This notion (intuition?)that there is some kind of "trans-world identity" which is mystically retained between Bill Clinton's in different possible worlds is (imho) a misguided and wrongheaded notion which simply confuses people. Why some people should have the desire to retain such an intuition is a puzzle to me, unless it is somehow linked to the subconscious desire to believe in a soul, or to believe in something mysterious within a human being which transcends the physical world?

It's nothing mystical - it's to account for the objective truth-value of counterfactuals and the objective necessity or contingency of propositions. There's been loads and loads of literature about this but among people with a fondness for speculative metaphysics (I sense you're not one of them) trans-world identity definitely matters.

Counterfactuals

Something like: "If Bill Clinton hadn't married Hillary, he wouldn't have become president" has an objective truth value according to speculative metaphysics folk. The truth value is decided by looking to the nearest possible world in which Bill doesn't marry Hillary and seeing what the results are*. But the thing is, we have to find or stipulate that world in which Bill doesn't marry Hillary, so there has to be some kind of trans-world identity between actual Bill and possible Bill. If we define Bill Clinton as "husband of Hillary" we are in a real pickle.**

*= People disagree over "where" these possible worlds are. Some people think they're as real as the actual world, some people think they are real but abstract, others think they are in the imagination - I would go with this latter option. Possible worlds can be "in the head" even if meanings aren't.

**= Clearly we don't define him as that, but the argument extends to any description of Bill's superficial properties.

Necessity

Is it necessary that "Bill Clinton is the husband of Hillary"? No.
Is it necessary that "Bill Clinton is the being that came out of Virginia Cassidy's womb on 19th August 1946?" It's debatable but I'd say yes, it is.

How do we account for the difference? Well, if that's correct it must be because being the husband of Hillary is a superficial property of Bill, but being born to a particular mother at a particular time is essential to being Bill.

How can this be objectively true (this matters to a speculative metaphysician)? Well, it can be true if there are possible worlds in which Bill exists but he is not the husband of Hillary; and no worlds in which Bill exists but is not the being that came out of Virginia's womb on 19th August 1946.

I mean, you don't have to agree with the claims about Bill - I'm just illustrating how possible worlds can account objectively for the difference between necessity and contingency.

You may well reject this need for objectivity (aren't the "essential" properties whatever we say are the essential properties?) and wish to stay outside the school of Kripke/Putnam/Lewis/Armstrong & friends. I have big doubts myself. I think they would reply that this kind of metaphysics can be really fruitful in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind, where earlier programs (like that of Russell and the positivists) have failed.

 

[moving finger]

Hi Lord Ping

Counterfactuals

Something like: "If Bill Clinton hadn't married Hillary, he wouldn't have become president" has an objective truth value according to speculative metaphysics folk. The truth value is decided by looking to the nearest possible world in which Bill doesn't marry Hillary and seeing what the results are*. But the thing is, we have to find or stipulate that world in which Bill doesn't marry Hillary, so there has to be some kind of trans-world identity between actual Bill and possible Bill. If we define Bill Clinton as "husband of Hillary" we are in a real pickle.**

Agreed there must be some high degree of correlation between the two worlds in question for the comparison to be relevant. But "trans-world identity" between the two Bills? I think that's a whole different thing, and not necessary at all. Correlation does not entail identity (whatever identity may in fact be). Thus insisting on this "trans-world identity" (when a high degree of correlation is all that is required) is insisting on something which is, imho, not needed.

Necessity

Is it necessary that "Bill Clinton is the husband of Hillary"? No.
Is it necessary that "Bill Clinton is the being that came out of Virginia Cassidy's womb on 19th August 1946?" It's debatable but I'd say yes, it is.

Firstly, we must agree what we actually mean by the term "Bill Clinton" (not only in this but in all possible worlds too). What, precisely, is the "essence" of Bill Clinton in our world, which must be replicated in all possible worlds in order to be able to claim "this is the same Bill Clinton"? How much are we allowed to change about Clinton, in a possible world, before he stops being Clinton? Is a bald Bill Clinton still Bill Clinton? Is Bill Clinton with a ponytail and beard still Bill Clinton? Is a Bill Clinton who divorced Hillary and remarried Monica, after his affair with the latter, still Bill Clinton? I'm interested to know just how far we can go in changes to this person before he becomes a different person? (in other words, what is the essence of Bill Clinton which must remain immutable?).

But this issue aside, there are still many ways to show that it is not necessary that "Bill Clinton is the being that came out of Virginia Cassidy's womb on 19th August 1946?". Would he NOT have been Bill Clinton in a possible world where he was born one day earlier, on 18th August? Another possible world is one where DNA replication, human cloning and test-tube babies are commonplace. In such a world it is not inconceivable that a "Bill Clinton" is created from the fingernail of a donor who is named not Virginia Cassidy but is named Suzie Roberts (she just happens to have the same DNA as Virginia Cassidy in our real world).

The above examples show how the suggested "necessary properties" in the history of Bill Clinton are not really necessities at all (they may simply appear to be necessities to those agents who perhaps do not use their imaginations hard enough to conceive of other possible worlds which show the "necessary" claim to be false).

imho the only necessity is that there be a high degree of correlation between the designs of Bill Clinton in two different worlds, for us to be able to say "these are, in effect, the same Bill Clinton". (its the same with the ship of Theseus example - the only important issue is design). But how much correlation? That's debatable (and gets back to my questions about the "essence" of Bill Clinton above).

I think they would reply that this kind of metaphysics can be really fruitful

Understood. But with respect I think one must be very wary of drawing conclusions from (what seem intuitively to me to be) false premises - no matter how "fruitful" such conclusions may seem (one simply leads oneself up the garden path of fairy tales).

 

[moving finger]

Interesting observation:

Putnam claims that intension determines extension. In other words, that extension is (philosophically) supervenient on intension. If we agree that "meaning" is some combination of intension and/or extension, then to derive the meaning of a word all we need to do is to specify the intension of that word (the extension, and also therefore the meaning, is then determined).

But intension is related simply to the definition of the word. Now, definitions are subjective (even a consensus definition is a subjective definition). If intension determines extension (and meaning), it follows therefore that meanings are subjective. The intension of the word "water" includes (from both Oscar and Twin Oscar's point of view) properties such as "that colourless, odourless liquid which at times falls from the sky", and from this it follows that the extension of the word "water" includes things like H2O on Earth and XYZ on twin earth.

Simple? Or am I missing something here?

 

[Lord Ping]

Putnam thinks natural kind terms, like "water", have an objective intension. When we use the term we mean to refer to a kind of stuff that is objectively all the same in some essential respects - even if we don't know what those essential properties are.

To him the dictionary definition (from a time before H2O) is just how we decide, in practice, which stuff is water, to the best of our knowledge. The dictionary definition doesn't always get to the essential properties of the kind.

You could reasonably ask "Why is a chemical formula a more essential property than superficial appearance?" As I've said above, this is just an intuition. Many people are understandably sceptical about the convenient "intuitions" of Kripke and Putnam.

A counterexample (I just thought of this) might be milk - "skimmed milk" is still milk, even though the composition is different to normal milk, suggesting the composition is not essential at all - it's the origin and consistency of the liquid that are essential to its being milk.

Nonetheless, we can disagree about what the essential properties are while agreeing that 1) there must be some essential properties and 2) we don't have to know what they are when we use the word.

 

[Drachir]

Meaning is ONLY in the head.

moving finger, in the OP you wrote:

Once the relative nature of our epistemology is accepted, the problem is solved, and meanings are once again firmly rooted where they belong - in the head.

Except for that word ‘relative’ I agree with you. Here is why.

Meaning presupposes significance. Significance presupposes signs. Signs presuppose symbols. Therefore, meaning presupposes symbols.

The unknown can only be explained in terms of the known. Meaning of the unknown can only be given by meanings of the known. Therefore, meaning is equality with possessed symbols.

Any animal’s first assignment of meaning to a previously unknown thing requires inborn symbols (templates, pre-wiring, etc. of the brain).

New symbols representing specific combinations of possessed symbols can be formed and memorized (learning).

The neural system --- the connection between the mind and the world outside the mind --- is the epistemic foundation for all animals.

Meanings can only be in the head (brain).

Here is why I disagree with your including ‘relative’ in your statement.

The active parts of the brain are neurons, axons, and synapses. There is nothing relative about those structures and their actions. Memory is the presence of a certain protein. There is nothing relative about the nature of that protein or its effect.

Mind, an action of the brain, requires a living brain. Life and death are absolutes. The nature of the neural system is as absolute as are the natures of sodium and potassium. The nature of our neurologically based epistemology is absolute.

 

[Lord Ping]

I think you (correctly) claim that brains are necessary for language and language is necessary for meaning.

I don't think this gets to the heart of the OP, which asks whether there is more to the meaning of a name than just the referent and the things we know about the referent.

 

[Drachir]

Lord Ping , in #38 you wrote:

I think you (correctly) claim that brains are necessary for language and language is necessary for meaning.

I did not make that claim. I would claim, instead, that brains are necessary for storing and manipulating meaning symbols, that meanings are necessary for language, and that language is necessary for both communication and abstract thought.

You also wrote:

I don't think this gets to the heart of the OP, which asks whether there is more to the meaning of a name than just the referent and the things we know about the referent.

A clear understanding of the nature of meaning is required in order to answer what the heart of the OP asks. I hope I have given that understanding in #37 above.

Names are words. Words are invented or learned as designators for possessed symbols. Meaning symbols must be in place before they can be represented by a word. Because the meanings of a referent and its attributes precede its naming, and because the act of naming does not alter those meanings, the name cannot represent more than those meanings.

 

[Evo]

and that language is necessary for both communication and abstract thought.

I beg to differ. You can communicate without words, and what exactly do you define as abstract thought?

 

[Lord Ping]

You also wrote: A clear understanding of the nature of meaning is required in order to answer what the heart of the OP asks. I hope I have given that understanding in #37 above.

Names are words. Words are invented or learned as designators for possessed symbols. Meaning symbols must be in place before they can be represented by a word. Because the meanings of a referent and its attributes precede its naming, and because the act of naming does not alter those meanings, the name cannot represent more than those meanings.

I think your argument is approximately as follows:

1. Words are just things we attach to concepts in our heads.
2. Names are just words.
3. Names are just things we attach to concepts in our heads.

I would also recommend Kripke to you. One of Kripke's most helpful examples is Godel. All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem. Yet a counterfactual like "If Godel hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him" is intuitively* either true or false. But for it to have a truth-value, "Godel" has to refer in a scenario where Godel never did the only thing we attribute to him. The meaning of his name must be something different from merely what we know about him.

*= To a fan of speculative metaphysics. Of course intuitions vary.

 

[Drachir]

Evo, in #40 you wrote:

I beg to differ. You can communicate without words, and what exactly do you define as abstract thought?

I also beg to differ. First of all, in what you correctly quoted I made no mention of words, only language.

Langauge is a means of communication consisting of a body of words and the systems for their use. Words are units of language that are signs or tokens for the meanings they convey. The notion of words includes not only spoken or printed words but also the visual or touch signs of a sign language, the postures and movements of the body, eyes, and face in body language, the calls of birds in bird language, and the dance of bees on a hive in bee language, to name only a few.

A rattlesnake’s rattle is a means of communicating only one word or meaning that probably is “I feel threatened.” However, a language requires a plurality of words (see definition above). Very little can be communicated without a language and its required words. I cannot communicate without words

Before I define abstract thought let us first examine what is meant by abstraction. Mass, gravity, and albedo, are attributes of physical objects. Attributes do not exist independent of objects. There are no such things as mass itself, gravity itself, or albedo itself. If you choose to think about the mass of an object to the exclusion of all its other attributes, you have taken away or abstracted the attribute of mass. Mass, gravity, albedo --- being abstracted from physical objects --- are abstract ideas or abstractions. The concept of physical properties is an abstraction from other abstractions. Abstractions are often many layers deep. The process of abstraction requires a language and its words.

Although one can think about the meaning of a tree by recalling an image of a tree, one cannot think about the meaning of an abstraction without recalling words of a language. Try thinking about the concept of physical properties without using words.

Abstract thought is thinking with, or about, abstractions. Langauge is necessary for abstract thought.

 

[octelcogopod]

Abstract thought is in a way a side effect of written language then.
We are able to separate all the different abstractions because the words are physical things which helps our mind make a clear distinction between them.

Without language we may have had an intuition about the different things we see, but I don't see how we could clearly abstract one from another, in a useful or coherent way.

And moving-finger, thanks for your reply. Don't have much to add though.

 

[Lord Ping]

I'm not sure if we need language for abstract thought. Without language, I can look at a plank of wood and imagine it being shorter than it in fact is. I can imagine something that is the same thing but with a different length. Can I do that without possessing some abstract notion of what a length is?

Of course you could turn that argument on its head and conclude that we can't even imagine without language. Interestingly, Donald Davidson claimed that without language we can't have any concepts at all - an argument I find vaguely terrifying.

I think this is very much a moot point but not very related to the questions of reference that motivated the OP.

 

[rudinreader]

Hi movingfinger,
Nice writeup. I wish more people here were interested and conversant in the nuts and bolts of philosophy.

Again I didn't read all three pages of this thread but.. although as a math student I'm probably as conversant in the nuts and bolts of philosophy as a civil engineering student is in the nuts and bolts of calculus, I still find it interesting..

From the OP:

Therefore meanings are not in the head. Instead, we rely and depend on the world to give and assign meanings. From this, Putnam concludes that “meanings just ain’t in the head”.

I get the impression both approaches are practical, so why vote republican or democrat?

Well, that is, if you want to simplify your theory of everything, which is sort of along the lines of philosophy, it seems good to remove the contradicting aspects of each theory - which seems to be the part where they claim to be absolute.

A state machine is simple to define, describes computers and a lot of other systems well, is ignorant of it's surroundings, and if meaning is defined in terms of the state machine it goes against the Putnam line. But it can be hard to define intelligence and discovery in terms of automata, in the same line that "randomness" seems to be hard to define for non-experts yet nonetheless intuitive.

On the other hand, the existence of a vast universe U which includes all the "real" things we know and all that we don't know seems highly intuitive, and thus worth keeping in mind in case there's a big philosophical breakthrough in terms of describing U. Actually, that is kind of the aim of set theory, and ironically the most recent modern breakthrough in terms of set theory seems to be the opposite - of having an explicit way to define grammars and state machines.

In this characterization it seems that "Physics" agrees more with Putnam, in that U is best studied as an "empirical" object where you can at best make local measurements, that may not yield much or any information at all about the rest of U.

Oh well.. I probably should freshen up on information theory..

 

[rudinreader]

I guess I don't see what is so "cutting edge" about the Putnam paper that it should have been written in 1975, or the rebuttal in the OP that it should be written in 2008.. It seems like rationalism vs empiricism.. and once the additional vocabulary words are added it becomes more an issue of interpretation of poetry in English literature..

But even if it's an even older debate it's still interesting, and again since I don't know the "nuts and bolts of philosophy" I won't be heartbroken if my interpretation gets wiped out...

As rational creatures I do kind of feel the "state machine" description fits, as a vast universe the emperical point of view -- if Oscar and twin Oscar are physicists they will distinguish the two types of water in principle..

Again, it seems theoretically possible to make the two ideas agree by defining "discovery" in terms of automata, but that adds a lot of complexity to the theory.. in a way that the real number system agrees with set theory because you can define a complex system of sets that satisfy the real number axioms.. And another point is that the application of the automata "discovery" definition may be of limited help to artificial intelligence applications but not necessarily to philosophy. Anyways that's enough!

 

[Drachir]

Lord Ping, in #41 you wrote:

I would also recommend Kripke to you. One of Kripke's most helpful examples is Godel. All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem. Yet a counterfactual like "If Godel hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him" is intuitively* either true or false. But for it to have a truth-value, "Godel" has to refer in a scenario where Godel never did the only thing we attribute to him. The meaning of his name must be something different from merely what we know about him.

*= To a fan of speculative metaphysics. Of course intuitions vary.

It seems that Kripke’s intuition let him down. In addition to being true or false, his counterfactual could also be indeterminate, and if indeterminate, would have no truth-value. As I will now demonstrate, that is the case.

Because “All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem” is posited as true, we can form the following true conditional statement: “If Godel had proved the incompleteness theorem, I would sometime have heard of him”.

The inverse of that true conditional statement is "If Godel hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him", which is Kripke’s counterfactual. The inverse of a statement has an undetermined truth-value, in that it may or may not have the same truth-value as the statement of which it is the inverse. In order for the inverse of a conditional statement to be true, the conclusion of the inverse statement must necessarily follow from its hypothesis.

“I would never have heard of him”, though a possible conclusion, does not necessarily follow from the hypothesis of Kripke’s counterfactual. If Godel had not proved the incompleteness theorem, Kripke might, nonetheless, have heard of Godel for a number of different reasons including, for example, proving only the second of the two incompleteness theorems, proving a different important theorem, and reasons unrelated to Godel’s work.

Because the conclusion of Kripke’s counterfactual is only one of several possible conclusions that might follow from its hypothesis, Kripke’s counterfactual is indeterminate and cannot have a truth-value. Therefore, the remainder of Kripke’s argument is irrelevant and the meanings of names remain identical to what we know about the people and things to which the names refer.

I hope that Kripke did not spend much time trying to figure out what that “something different” could be.

 

[rudinreader]

Drachir:

I hope that Kripke did not spend much time trying to figure out what that “something different” could be.

Why would it matter?

 

[Lord Ping]

It seems that Kripke’s intuition let him down. In addition to being true or false, his counterfactual could also be indeterminate, and if indeterminate, would have no truth-value. As I will now demonstrate, that is the case.

Firstly, I'm not quoting Kripke here, so please don't blame him for the flaws in my arguments!

Secondly, propositions are true or false. What do you mean, "indeterminate"? We might not know which they are, so we might say the truth-value is undetermined, but they're still true or false. There is no third way.

Because “All I know about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem” is posited as true, we can form the following true conditional statement: “If Godel had proved the incompleteness theorem, I would sometime have heard of him”.

No. This doesn't work. You go from a claim about the actual world to a modal claim about possible worlds.

I need not commit to the truth of this conditional - and indeed it is surely false. It is clearly possible that I could have never come to know of Godel, regardless of what Godel did or did not do.

The inverse of a statement has an undetermined truth-value, in that it may or may not have the same truth-value as the statement of which it is the inverse.

Right.

In order for the inverse of a conditional statement to be true, the conclusion of the [original?] statement must necessarily follow from its hypothesis.

I think you mean that the inverse conditional (If B then A) is guaranteed true if A is necessary for B. Right.

Since your first premise is wrong this isn't important. Even so, you seem to be doing epistemology here, and showing how we could know the truth-value of a counterfactual. This is not the point at all.

“I would never have heard of him”, though a possible conclusion, does not necessarily follow from the hypothesis of Kripke’s counterfactual. If Godel had not proved the incompleteness theorem, Kripke might, nonetheless, have heard of Godel for a number of different reasons including, for example, proving only the second of the two incompleteness theorems, proving a different important theorem, and reasons unrelated to Godel’s work.

Because the conclusion of Kripke’s counterfactual is only one of several possible conclusions that might follow from its hypothesis, Kripke’s counterfactual is indeterminate and cannot have a truth-value.

Again I'm not sure if you're doing epistemology or metaphysics here. Epistemologically speaking, of course I don't know for sure whether the counterfactual is true.

Nonetheless, it is true or false, and that's why it makes sense for me to assert that it's true. And that's the concern of metaphysics.

How can it be true or false? Well, according to David Lewis, the key is the nearest possible world - in this case the possible world exactly like ours but where Godel doesn't have the one property I associate with him. In this world, do I learn about Godel? Does he appear in my textbooks? Naturally I can't go and check, but I don't need to be able to in order for the counterfactual to make sense.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

 

[Lord Ping]

Why would it matter?

Nice. Maybe it doesn't really matter whether we understand how language refers to objects. But maybe it doesn't really matter whether the Earth goes round the sun or vice versa.

 

[rudinreader]

.. Maybe it doesn't really matter whether we understand how language refers to objects...

I don't want to interrupt your discussion, it was a mistake to jump in here. If you really want to understand what I was getting at, I can recommend Sobolev to you. See this link: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=205459

So please, continue on.

 

[Drachir]

octelcogopod in #43 you wrote:

Abstract thought is in a way a side effect of written language then.

I think you have it reversed. Spoken language facilitated abstract thought. The idea to represent a spoken word by a graphic symbol is an abstract idea that had to arise before there could ever be written language. Written language was a side effect of abstract thought.

In the same post you also wrote:

We are able to separate all the different abstractions because the words are physical things which helps our mind make a clear distinction between them.

Words are not physical things; they are mental symbols we use to represent meanings stored in the brain. I am sure your considering words to be physical things is simply a mistake. A real inability to distinguish between physical things and mental things is a form of psychosis.

In the same post you also wrote:

Without language we may have had an intuition about the different things we see, but I don't see how we could clearly abstract one from another, in a useful or coherent way.

Fortunately we have never been without language. Bacteria communicate with a chemical language. Birds communicate aurally with their calls, visually with their body language, and with their touch language. We, too, have always communicated with visual, aural, and touch languages.

You are right though. An abstraction would be is pretty useless if it didn’t have a word to represent its meaning. We can recall visual memories to recognize what apples, roses, sunsets, and blood have in common or to recognize what egg yolks, ripe bananas, and ripe lemons have in common without the use of words. However, without words to represent the meanings of those common properties it becomes difficult to recognize what those common properties have in common. Without words it would be impossible to recognize the meanings represented by the words ‘Physics Forums.’

 

[Drachir]

Lord Ping, in #44 you wrote:

I'm not sure if we need language for abstract thought. Without language, I can look at a plank of wood and imagine it being shorter than it in fact is. I can imagine something that is the same thing but with a different length. Can I do that without possessing some abstract notion of what a length is?

Yes, you can do that without possessing any abstract notions at all. You can do that by first recalling (imagining) your observations of something that changed its length. Next, with analogical imagination you can imagine anything else doing the same thing,

Abstract thought is thinking about or with abstract ideas. I’m sure we need language to think about physics, which is an abstract idea.

(Having worked with many wood planks, I particularly enjoyed your choice for an example. Thinking about this response, I realized that I always imagine them with grain patterns and free of knots.)

You also wrote in #44:

Interestingly, Donald Davidson claimed that without language we can't have any concepts at all - an argument I find vaguely
terrifying.

There, there, Lord Ping. Don’t be terrified. Drachir is here.

If by the word ‘concepts’ Donald Davidson meant general notions or general ideas, then, since such notions and ideas are abstract ideas, we can happily and without fear agree with him. See the paragraph preceding my wood planks and my response to octelcogopod above. Without abstract ideas all that would be in the mind would be current perceptions, memories of past perceptions, and communication symbols (a rudimentary language). If Davidson meant something else by ’concepts,’ I would think he was misusing the word.

By the way, in order to form abstractions an animal must not only have a language, it must also be able to think about its thinking. A recursive process like that would require some neurons and reentrant ‘wiring’ in the brain. I doubt that the Aplysia snail has any neurons and synapses available for that task.

Not only can we think about our thinking, we can even think about our thinking about our thinking. I can hold on to it for four levels. I imagine that a chess master could hold on to it for several more levels.

 

[Drachir]

Lord Ping, in #41 you wrote:

I would also recommend Kripke to you. One of Kripke's most helpful examples is Godel. All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem. Yet a counterfactual like "If Godel hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him" is intuitively* either true or false. But for it to have a truth-value, "Godel" has to refer in a scenario where Godel never did the only thing we attribute to him. The meaning of his name must be something different from merely what we know about him.

Please disregard my previous attempt at a disproof of that argument. Here is a more cogent one.

A word is a symbol for the meaning it represents. Usually that meaning is given in terms of several other words. A name is a word that is a symbol for a particular person or group of persons; its meaning is also usually given by several other words. Sometimes substituting their meanings for words or phrases in a sentence exposes covert self-contradictions. Let us try the substitution technique with that argument.

From the sentence “ All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem” it follows that for Kripke the name ‘Godel’ means the person who proved the incompleteness theorem. Now, in your argument, let’s substitute that meaning for all references to the name. Let’s also substitute meanings for relevant words or phrases. The original sentence and the sentences with substitutions will be recognizable below.

(1o) All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem.
(1s) All Kripke knows about the person who proved the incompleteness theorem is that he proved the incompleteness theorem.

(2o) Yet a counterfactual like "If Godel hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him" is intuitively* either true or false.
(2s) Yet a counterfactual like "If the person who proved the incompleteness theorem hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of the person who proved the incompleteness theorem" is intuitively* either true or false.

(3o) But for it to have a truth-value, "Godel" has to refer in a scenario where Godel never did the only thing we attribute to him.
(3s) But for it to have a truth-value, "the person who proved the incompleteness theorem" has to refer in a scenario where the person who proved the incompleteness theorem never proved the incompleteness theorem.

(4o) The meaning of his name must be something different from merely what we know about him.
(4s) The person who proved the incompleteness theorem must be something different from merely the person who proved the incompleteness theorem

Now let us examine the substitution sentences.
Sentence 2s’s counterfactual is not “intuitively either true or false”; it is necessarily true. That renders the remainder of the argument inconsequential.

Sentence 3s can be interpreted in two ways. The first is that the person who proved the incompleteness theorem does refer to the person who proved the incompleteness theorem in the scenario. The second is that the scenario is self-contradictory since it requires the same person to have proved and not have proved the incompleteness theorem. Either interpretation renders the remainder of the argument inconsequential.

Sentence 4s is a self-contradiction.

I hope that is a sufficient disproof of the argument. Words remain symbols for meanings that are in our heads. If we attach words to incomplete or wrong meanings, we will misuse those words and produce tangled thoughts and miscommunications.

 

[Lord Ping]

From the sentence “ All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem” it follows that for Kripke the name ‘Godel’ means the person who proved the incompleteness theorem.

(4o) The meaning of his name must be something different from merely what we know about him.

Okay... how can these claims be consistent? In fact, (4o) is exactly what Kripke thinks (and I think!), whereas your preliminary assumption is not something he agrees with at all.

I don't think you'll succeed in attacking the logic of Kripke's modal argument, and if you do it will only be because I've expressed it wrongly. It's better to think about the issues it raises and whether you agree with it. Some people (e.g. John Searle) take the point that a speaker doesn't have to know the full meaning of a name to use it to refer, but dismiss all this "essential properties" talk I have occasionally lapsed into.

 

[Drachir]

Lord Ping, more about the argument

All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem. Yet a counterfactual like "If Godel hadn't proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him" is intuitively* either true or false. But for it to have a truth-value, "Godel" has to refer in a scenario where Godel never did the only thing we attribute to him. The meaning of his name must be something different from merely what we know about him.

Thanks for directing my attention to the first sentence. That sentence, “All Kripke knows about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem”, is a thinly veiled fallacy because the sentence implies that Kripke also knows Godel’s name. Thus, “Godel” is the name of the person who proved the incompleteness theorem. The meaning of his name is merely what we know about him: that he was so named and that he proved the incompleteness theorem. We could stop here, but since you might think that the remainder of the argument could invalidate this quick conclusion, let’s continue.

The word ‘Godel’ has two meanings; i.e., (1) the name of the person and (2) the person so named. To avoid confusing those meanings in what follows, “Godel” will mean the name of the person, while Godel will mean the person named “Godel.”

To correct the fallacy in the argument’s first sentence, it should be rewritten as:
All Kripke knows about Godel is that his name is “Godel” and that he proved the incompleteness theorem. Now we can continue with the remainder of the argument.

Yet a counterfactual like “If Godel’s name hadn’t been “Godel” and Godel hadn’t proved the incompleteness theorem, I would never have heard of him” is intuitively either true or false.

But for it to have a truth-value "Godel" has to refer in a scenario where Godel never was named “Godel” and Godel never proved the incompleteness theorem. Notice that now “Godel” in the requirement does refer explicitly to “Godel” in the scenario as well as to the “Godel” implicit in the meaning of Godel. As a consequence, the counterfactual can now have a truth-value without a mysterious difference of the meaning of his name from what we know about him,

Again, “Godel” is the name of the person (Godel) who proved the incompleteness theorem. The meaning of his name is, after all, merely what we know about him.

 

[Lord Ping]

You pick up on a slight problem with using Godel as an example, in that, as far as I know, Godel really was called "Godel" by his contemporaries, and this might conceivably be something else I know about him.

However, it doesn't follow that Godel was called "Godel" from the statement "All I know about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem". In fact, I can refer to a particular person by a particular name without knowing they were called by that name at all. So there is no "fallacy".

For example, "All I know about Pliny is that he was a famous Roman philosopher." Here I am using an anglicized name for a referent who was never called that at all while he was alive.

 

[Drachir]

Lord Ping{/b] in #57 you wrote:

However, it doesn't follow that Godel was called "Godel" from the statement "All I know about Godel is that he proved the incompleteness theorem".

What does follow from that statement is that you called the person who proved the incompleteness theorem Godel and imply that his name is “Godel.”

For the argument you presented in #41 it is immaterial whether Godel was real or imaginary, or, if real, what others may have called him, or whether what is attributed to that person is real or imaginary. You could just as well have written “All I know about person X is that X did Q”. However, you cannot escape the fact that you know that X’s name is “X”, especially since the remainder of the argument will refer to both the person and the person’s name. Thus you know two things about X: X’s name and X’s act Q.

Even if you attribute an act to a nameless person, you will know that the person is nameless and that the person performed the act. Thus, since you must, of necessity, know more about a person than just the person’s act, it is a fallacy to claim that all you know about the person is the person’s act.

An attributer attributing an attribute to an attributee must somehow identify the attributee in order to differentiate the attributee from all else. Therefore, the attributer must know both an identity of the attributee and the attribute attributed to the attributee.

 

[Rade]

... This example shows how ridiculous it is to think of "identity" as being something objective or special, over and above "what we subjectively define it to be"...(from POST #22)

I both agree and disagree. Imo, it is ridiculous to equate any specific "something objective" metaphysical given with "identity" (such as the boat that changes over time), but, this view misses the point. But first, let me say that I am in the camp of those that conclude that "meaning is in the head", yet I also hold that "identity" (in a certain way) is "objective" (which I think is not what you are saying Moving Finger--please correct me if I error?). Let me explain.

IMO, it is the sum total of all that exists, existence, that equates with identity--leading to a fundamental truth--Existence is Identity, which derives from a fundamental law, the Law of Identity, A=A. Once this is accepted as a fundamental, it is a simple next step to deduce the role of Consciousness--the Identification of Existence. Associating "meaning" (understanding) with existence is a type of mental calculus--a process of first differentiation of the metaphysical given (MG), (that which is given to the mind), then of the process of integration to form concepts. (Of course one can take a MG and use imagination to transform it, add it with others, etc.)

So, this is why I would agree that "meanings of the metaphysical given are in the head" (where else can they be ?). But I would disagree that there is no relationship of "identity" with "existence" -- for it is the sum total of the metaphysical given, as given to the head, that represent the objective reality of existence. This above is a summary of Objectivist Philosophy of Ayn Rand as I understand it.

 

[basePARTICLE]

Very fine progress as the historian Carr, would put it. All the viewpoints have one thing in common: there are all collecting various bits of truth from the world, bundling them together and calling the single parcel meaning. The infrastructure of their work is the collection of truth and itz emergent factor is called meaning.

However in our world when constructing propositions using truth as a basis, a whole different set of rules apply. What is nice about those rules is that they are well defined.

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One problem with Putnam and his XYZ, water on Twin Earth, is that is an impossible possible world since Pauli would reject it off hand. I don't like philosophy which has no meaning to humans on Earth.

Clearly, when working with truth we have to realize there are various types of facts, and their source or extension as some call it, play a major part in knowing the truth. Any question which concerns knowing the truth intrinsically entails a demonstration of some form. With this point of demonstration in mind, let me turn to your meanings.

Static meaning which lies in your head and then the demonstratable meanings which play out in the real world do not conflict because of the lack of truth barrier.