h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

evening psi

'Is Searle's definition available on the web? If not could you give a sketch?'

Sorry gave a link I gave a link in my post to Juan but forgot to include it above. Here's the relevant extract:

'There is an excellent little book by Searle 'Mind: a Brief Introduction' which describes the two concepts quite well (though he use[s] 'observer' rather than 'mind'). The relevant section can be found here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f-z8TXGGLowC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=mind+dependent+facts&source=bl&ots=S4eMUHTBNv&sig=VFaRQBGN4mR0oFUn-x83DML1Jp8&hl=en&ei=nq-ySp2ZE9Ok4Qaws8XADg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false

'Beginning [on page 6] at 'the first is the distinction between those features of the world that are observer independent and those that are observer dependent...'

Unfortunately I don't have SCR here but I checked my notes and I have it that he argued that 'intrinsic features of reality are those that exist independently of all mental states, except for mental states themselves, which are also intrinsic features of reality. Mind dependent (sometimes observer-relative) facts are those that could not exist without there also being minds'. (I don't know whether this was quote from SCR or a precis on my, or someone else's, part.)

Moreover since Searle argues that mind-dependent facts arise from the assignment of status functions then I read it as being, in Joycean terms, a 'relation-designating' account rather than a relativistic one.

He further (though I am unsure whether in SCR or elsewhere) refined the notion of observer dependent facts by arguing that they were epistemologically objective but ontologically subjective.

'I'm not sure why you think that my notions of mind dependence are problematic. I see this as an umbrella term for lots of differents kinds of relations between referents and minds.'

I think it is the fact that it /is/ 'an umbrella term' that makes it problematic if we are not using an agreed sense of mind-dependence then all discussion becomes at best ambiguous and at worse meaningless.

I think this what caused so many problems on 'Objective' until we laid down agreed definitions of the meaning of concepts.

'is meant in the sense:'

"I don't. I think it is a remarkably daft analogy."

Btw: I got Shafer Landau's 'Moral Realism: A Defence' about a week ago. Some of clearbury's arguments echo his though only in the sense that Tony Hart's Morph is an accurate representation of Michaelangelo's David

bsy

Forgot

Which chain?

bsy

Borders.

Evening Bx4,

I don't think I fully understand the distinction between 'relativistic' and 'relation dependent' from the account given in the Joyce. Do you fancy a stab at explaining?

Whilst I think 'subjective' being an umbrella term would be problematic if we were discussing an issue in detail without clarifying our terms, I think if we are just talking about whether it is easy for subjectivists to be relativists, and I've made clear that I'm using the aforementioned SEP article as source material, it shouldn't be a problem.

ttfn

dear both,

i can see that it's been 6 days since i posted here....!!

i mean, what the...........6 days. that's like a week. soz.


Bored DID; i reckon that i would take 3 maybe even 4 of those. i would like to add that i haven't seen a 'bad' guitarist in any list so far, just they 'do' something quite different from one another.
btw loved you post from way upthread, i had guessed correctly! a bit spooky but hey, sue me.

psi DID; just backtracking and in #800 or so you made a prediction, and you saw the future!!
so from your list it really boils down to 2. but these are awesome, one even being a genuine genius (see here for my answer**). so imagine my horror as i was forced to watch an accordion player!! i mean, that's just 'wrong'......nearly forgot, that Tommy Emmanuel's stuff is sooo gorgeous, but just failed to fully grab me. but, the guy has people viewing his clips ranging from 2 to 4 million hits...! and i'd never heard of him, so thanks, will have a looksee again. (though my heart probably belongs to Gordon Giltrap for acoustic stunts/chord sequences)


thinkaboutit; getting nicely involved with book III of Russel's magical mystery tour. can't stop thinking about Machiavelli, not sure if this is wrong, but i'll try and figure out why......
striking (and news to me) how much God features, quite surprising for an unbaptised/uninitiated in any religious activity ever except to sing a couple of hymns (which i quite like, especially with nice acoustics...)

have also dipped my toe in the water in clearbury's other thread (euthanasia) but all that's left after some straw was carbonised is a confused exchange between Juan Toomany and me. may not be joining in as soon as i'd hoped with you two, but keep a seat free for 2012....??

adios!







** frank

"psi DID; just backtracking and in #800 or so you made a prediction, and you saw the future!!"
Sigh....

"so imagine my horror as i was forced to watch an accordion player!! i mean, that's just 'wrong'......"
Y'know, sometimes I wonder about you...
I hope you listened to the solo version played by the man himself.

"(though my heart probably belongs to Gordon Giltrap for acoustic stunts/chord sequences)"
It is the tune that does it for me, and I haven't heard anything by Giltrap that combines such a good tune with such lovely chords, but I'm open to persuasion.

Frank was a genius, I wish I could have found a good version of 'Montana'.

I noticed your encounter with Juan. I'd have agreed with the rejection of DMR but retained a compatibilist notion of free will. Each to their own though eh?

morning psi,


"Sigh...." ;


"Y'know, sometimes I wonder about you..." ; makes at least 2 of us....

and yes indeed i have listened to the man himself. and there's the rub for me. i am in awe of the man's ability to express himself with tone and technique and heart and soul, but then the sum total doesn't 'do' it for me. some styles of music leave me cold, no matter how many times i revisit. as a 17 year old i joined a summer jazz school in Aberystwyth for 2 weeks to see if there was any modern jazz 'in' me. the guitarist was John Etheridge who, i hope you'll agree, is the dog's bits. but whenever he would go all freeform and noodly something in me switched off no matter how hard i tried. i'd just wonder off mentally and think about the weather or breakfast. yet when he found out i was an aggressive hard rock/metal drummer he invited me to jam with him. just the 2 of us! we just blasted through a whole heap of material for about an hour. he said that was "just what the doctor ordered" or words to that effect. i was even more delighted than he was, i mean he can Rawk as well.


"'Montana'" ; one of his finest. that vocal at the end!!! you see, here we are on the same page, so there's hope for us

"Each to their own though eh?" ; i have no idea what "a compatibilist notion of free will" would look like, so i will have to get back to you........(no doubt my dictionary will help, but must get daughter from tap dancing 1st...)


toodlepip!

Afternoon Jank,

It seems, as predicted, that although we find much to admire in the selections of the other, we have very different emotional responses.
This wasn't surprising, but I really respect your reaction because what you didn't do was post-rationalise your emotional response and project that into the music.

Etheridge is a fine fellow and a very good player. I probably like precisely those aspects of his playing that get you wondering about whether you left the gas on and if the cat has caught fire as a result. I think he toured some Zappa material a few years ago. I'm not surprised he can Rawk Interestingly, he followed Holdsworth as the guitarist with Soft Machine, and Holdsworth was reputedly one of Zappa's favourite guitarists.

Compatibilism: I think your response to Juan was spot on this morning.

ttfn

Afternoon Jank

Six days: I has assumed you were distracted by the need to earn a crust at Global Plastic.

DID: I guess that's about the match rate I'd expect though I would be quite interested in which you liked and which you didn't.

Doing stuff: I think that is the issue. In part it's a distinction between between appreciating virtuousity and the emotional response to what is being played.

As a non-instrumentalist (in the musical not the philosophical sense) I'm not really that bothered about virtuosity, compositional skills or technique (not sure I even know how to recognise them) so it's down to the subjective listening experience(and prior prejudices) for me.

Btw, I have been listening to the post-glam Sweet on Youtube and rather like them.

Machiavelli: I think he is interesting for two reasons.

The first is that he articulates a consistent morality that many find repugnant which because of that raises issues about nature of normative judgments.

The second because he rather nicely illustrates moral relativism, since his morality is very much rooted in a particular geographic and historic milieu. It is an interesting exercise to subject ethical systems that are usually treated as abstracted from their milieu to a kind of Kuhnian cultural analysis***.

Euthanasia: Actually the debate about freewill and determinism is somewhat more interesting than the original debate though I think think there is an obvious flaw in the assumptions of genetic determinism that juan was basing some his argument on.

Personally, I think causal determinism is unprovable, and probably falsifiable, so the debate is ultimately pointless.

Must dash

***Such as say Plato's Ideal Good in the context of an arbitrary, fallible and 'immoral' religious pantheon.

bsy

hey psi,


"Etheridge" ; quite likely that as you suggest it is mainly the extreme differences of his styles that we enjoy. but then there's his Zappatistas project where we would both approve. which now makes me wonder if it is the same 'thing' from music we both agree on......


Tommy can you hear me; have had bits of that Angelina song going round my head (it's a curse and a blessing at times, but i can't turn this function off...) and i've found it to map quite well over Sarah by Thin Lizzy.........;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgP-QfArzvs&feature=related

of course they're not the same, but there are similarities even down to the use of a girl's name. coincidence? yeah, probably.


snooker loopy; forgot to award the prize** for your correct answer. it was indeed Hurricane Higgins himself.

Juan 'n me; thanks for the encouragement. i am busking it and find it extremely tricky to use lingo properly, and as a result end up being quite wordy and rambling. but one of these posts i will go up a gear and throw in a "predicate" or "syllogism"....


ttfn





** prize = an anecdote from Dubai. i know, not much of a prize perhaps but you can choose from 3 categories (only the 1st is politically correct);
1) how was Higgins
2) how did i offend religious norms
3) the Paddy "muzzle" awards

morning Bored,


Synthetic Satan; not just Him keeping me busy, but also pd stuff is avalanching in, kids have been pretty ill (usual seasonal nonsense), and my BH has also had much additional badminton stuff (she had olympian Gail Emms do a bit of coaching, who was 5 months pregnant, made for a slightly surreal version of the game...). so have been lurking here and found i only had time to 'do' 1 thread.


your DID; loved CCR, Cale, and Hendrix. can make both Manitas and Pass a close equal 4th. and if you'd added Eric Johnson i wouldn't have chosen him. i find his the sum total of his stuff underwhelming though of course he's very very talented. in the end though it matters not to me either about technique/ability etc. i need the same emotional thrill as you and psi do.


type O; would you believe it, my BH is absolutely hooked on True Blood!!! (despite having the same vampire and clown allergy that i suffer from). for her the breakthrough came from learning that 1 of the guys in her badminton team is the half brother of the lead vampire....small world or what?!


euthanasia thread; just cutting my teeth, and quite enjoying it. still waiting for an argument "against" freewill that holds together. equally i'm not impressed by some of the arguments "for" it either. especially when either side try to involve Uncertainty Principles and other quantum hidey holes........as to it ultimately being "pointless" i see this as a good thing!

quicky for psi,

have had a couple of goes at your tune but am unable to get going properly. if you do happen to have time i would really appreciate just a general chord sequence. likely i can work it out from there but am truely stuck......

btw how's it going on the alternative ending you mentioned a while ago?

hoi!

Afternoon Jank,

Etheridge: I think we agree (all three) on what is important about music which is its ability to evoke a rich emotional response in us. The fact that a different balance of features in the music appeals to each of us is just the 'each to their own' factor.

Sarah/Angelina: I do like that Lizzy track and I do see what you mean about the resemblance. I think I've also done enough analysis of each to figure out what the similarity consists in and would conclude that even if 'Sarah' did inspire Tommy Emmanuel, 'Angelina' is different enough to qualify as an original composition. Most compositions don't represent the musical equivalent of a Kuhnian paradigm shift after all do they? I like George Steiner's phrase for creativity as 'overreaching derivation'.

Juan's latest accuses you of adhering to libertarian free will rather than compatibilism and I wouldn't let him get away with that without a few dart wounds if I were you
Still, free will as a topic is fiddly....

For my anecdote, I predictably plump for 2) please.

On my tune, I'll do some tab and send you a scan.

ttfn

Hi Bx4,

I nearly forgot, you asked why Eric Johnson doesn't do it for me. I don't really know, I do like 'Manhattan', so it might be that I just haven't heard enough, after all for most guitarists I only like a relatively small proportion of their tracks.

ttfn

Hi Jank,

I really think Juan's #107 is full of holes. One thing that might be worth looking into is the difference between determinism and predictability. I can't remember whether you ever got the OCM but if so, look at the entry 'Determinism and Free Will'. Hopefully it is the same in the new edition. Now get that gum shield in and get out there....

ttfn

hi psi,


will have to let Juan wait a bit as flu has settled on my home....doh!! am running around with flanels, buckets, snacks etc etc and am trying to cook rather than incinerate a chicken.....


but as for your prize #2 it is;

in 1990 in Dubai there was very very little to do for expats except for driving fast cars, drinking very heavily, and erm...."doing it"...
so if you befriended any expats you would by default end up with one of those activities. it was a very hedonistic time with scant regard for the social norms of the locals. we did hear horror stories of expats who'd fallen foul of local norms/values/laws but it is a bit like smokers; you never think you will get lung cancer. so one night after playing our set, befriending an expat girl (daddy was 'in' oil), getting quite drunk, driving her car fast to nowhere in particular, we decide to pull over for a bit (a bit of each other as it happened). both of us completely 'in the moment', half in half out of her car, utterly oblivious. just about to light up a post-coital snout (classy eh?) when we realised that all that time we had been right in front of a whopping great big mosque........
to this day i have no idea how we got away with that, but i know i would not be typing this if we hadn't.



hoi!

Ha ha ha ha...nice one.

I hope everyone chez Jank gets better soon.

ttfn

Hi psi-

'I don't think I fully understand the distinction between 'relativistic' and 'relation dependent' from the account given in the Joyce.'

I'm not surprised as I think his argument is confused and contains much that is immaterial to the distinction he is trying to make. Here is *my* interpretation of his case.

The difference may be more easily understood if we look at observer independent and observer dependent (observer relative ) facts as discussed by Searle using his 'bathub' example. Suppose there is some natural thing x such that we can say

(1) x has the property mass

(2) x has the property bathtub

The property 'mass' is independent of the observer while the property 'bathtub' only exists in relation to the observer, that is it is observer dependent. Searle has it that the relation between the observer and the object is one of function attribution.

Joyce I think is trying to extend this notion of the relational nature of observer dependent facts to putative moral facts and references a paper by C.L Stevenson in his 'Facts and Values' (1964). There is I believe something similar in Peter Railton's 1986 paper 'Moral Realism' but as I have read neither I can't comment on them.

Joyce's argument seems to pivot on a stance that at least some indexicals


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/indexicals/

contain 'no eliminable indexical element'. In this he seems to be following the position of Frege and others described in the above article.

His position I think is that this allows him to deconstruct agent and group relativism, which he considers subsets of indexical relativism, into a relation designating account of moral facts and properties such that "all speakers' moral utterances are made true or false by the same mental activity, then this is not strictly speaking a version of relativism" so that we have something like a collective Searlian attribution of function such:

X has the property wrong

He then overcomes the John/Jenny issue by arguing that the determination of the truth or falsity of the proposition is established a Firthian 'ideal observer' or some equivalent method (see main article Section 5).

I guess that the oddity of this process is required by attempting to establish some analogical equivalence between an observer dependent property like 'bathtub' and one like 'wrong'.

(Personally I think the analogy fails because putative moral properties like 'wrong' are, after Mackie, 'queer' in a way that properties like 'bathtub' are not. This is tangential to the argument about whether 'subjective cognitivism' is relative or not.)

In passing he mentions that '[t]here are more complicated possibilities' such as that held by Harman. This along with other stances such as Williams' "appraiser relativism" and Dreir's 'speaker relativism' hold that the truth-value of a moral judgment depends on the moral system of the of the speaker (or group) making the judgment.

It is a pity that Joyce does not address this in more detail since the stance that propositions can take /relative/ truth values is one which, as I suggested upthread, is very queer indeed unless one develops a calculus distinct from 'vanilla' propositional calculus.

Of course as a robust non-cognitivist simpliciter, I consider all of this another example of the Lillehammer Syndrome *** and essentially more onto-metaphysical Woo Woo.

'I think if we are just talking about whether it is easy for subjectivists to be relativists, and I've made clear that I'm using the aforementioned SEP article as source material, it shouldn't be a problem.'

Well we seem to have agreed that we are discussing cognitivist subjectivism.

However while the aforementioned SEP article has it 'that moral facts exist but holds that they are, in some manner to be specified, constituted by our mental activity' but then doesn't quite seem to get round to a /specific/ account of how these facts do exist.

I think another problem is that we have as yet no description of the specific type or types of relativism that is 'easy for subjectivists'

***Named in honour of the originator of 'Analytical metaethics is an area where a great deal of ingenuity is currently required in order to find a distinctive yet plausible position to defend at any length.'.

Bx4,

Thanks for taking the time, I'll give that some thought

bsy

Evening jank:

My own 'Satan' has many attributes, absorption in the latest phase of the 'Project', the increase in social excursions/incursions (for which I hold the SO solely responsible) and the several recently opened Weihnachtsmarkte for which I am a complete sucker. Nothing as bad as Global Plastic or the hors de combat jankaasjes (who I hope are improving).

BH: Being a committed asportist the significance of the enceinte Gail Emms passed me by until I looked her up to find that she was 'All England Champion, Olympic medallist ....and WORLD NO. 1' (sadly her site had no picture of her playing while pregnant).

Clearly your BH has some considerable status in the world of shuttlecock exchanges to attract so notable a sportist and in any case obviously has more sense (as is often the case with BHs/SOs) than you since I would imagine that being a badminton instructor is considerably more fun than being at Global Plastic.

Trueblood: Clearly, unlike some, she has benefited from overcoming her prejudices

My DID: I thought you said upthread that you were a fan of CCR. Somewhat surprised you didn't go for Elmore James or Roy Buchanan over Pass. I already knew you didn't 'get' Metheny and I also thought it was likely that the same applied to Hall.

Eric Johnson: Wouldn't have included him because I did not know enough of his work:

Emotional thrill: Indeed though it is interesting that we get it from quite varied artists and genres.

Determinism: The oppositional position to determinism is not really free will but indeterminism. I think that it is almost impossible for those of either persuasion to make their respective cases though there is much scope for Lillehammer Gambits to further one's ascent up professional philosophers 'greasy pole'.

The problem with the Copenhagen Interpretation as an argument for indeterminism is that there are also deterministic accounts which also, albeit with a greater degree of complexity, explain the phenomena.

Unless one can establish which theory (including any underlying assumptions) is 'true' and this seems unlikely (the Duhem-Quine Problem) then the status of the Copenhagen as evidence in support of indeterminism is problematic.***

Pointless but fun: I see that you have cleaved to the philosophical 'Dark Side'. Well done, my padawan!

Tend to agree with psi's assessment of #107 and I see we are doing the 'nonsense upon stilts' about 'human nature'. Hull's 'On Human Nature':

http://www.jstor.org/pss/192787

should be required reading as a counterweight to such stuff.

***This argument is not mine though I can't recall where I came across it