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

Hi Bx4,

Thanks, I'll have a look and a think.

ttfn

hi jank

Talking bollards can be quite fun but only if everyone involved knows they are talking bollards otherwise it can get nasty. I do not butler so I still get to talk bollards in the world and some close to me c hold that I mostly do....

MHB: His style reminds me somewhat of Mr. Twisty(TM). 'Witty' one liners and not much substance.

Error msg: I haven't encountered it perhaps because I've set a a bookmark that goes directly to the old format 'My Personal Space'.

Survival: Apparently h2g2 has been advertised for sale. I don't think the religious boards are slated for immolation in the current bonfire.

e-mail: I got the e-mail you sent to my Hotmail address. Got diverted by your question a about evolution and sexual reproduction. Will reply as soon as I confirm that drop point address is still current.

philosophical jabberwocky: An inevitable outcome of the Humptydumptyist filosofickal tendency to slice and dice meaning to the point where result is nonsense, perhaps?

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

You know its nonsense but it still has a weird fascination...

bs

jank

Forgot:

Touring: I tend to do about a month touring in the spring and/or autumn. The extended Fennoscandian tour was an exception.

Too busy this spring to take time off despite my being 'retired'. Summer apart from festival will be sailing, sea canoeing and, hopefully, windsurfing with a bit of offroading on my other boxer.

Autumn very much a wait and see dependent on outcome of ongoing camper van or Baltic boat negotiations and work commitments.

bs

hi psi

No hurry I'm quite busy in the world. Unfortunately I don't have copy of Ramsys 'Facts and Propositions' to hand and I can't find it on the Internet. There is also a paper 'On Truth' which is supposedly a precursor to 'Facts and Propositions' but I haven't found a text of it yet.

On page 79 of 'Ruling Passions' Blackburn claims that

'X is good' is true==X is good

is an example of a Tarski T-schema. An occurrence of Jabberwock?

must dash

bs

Hi Bx4,

I haven't had chance to read the link yet so this is a preliminary reply to some of your main points.

"Blackburn is asserting that there is no 'semantic ascent' in that the phrases 'is true', it is really true that', 'it is really true that p, etc. are redundant. That is they add nothing to the meaning of p.

So Ramsey ladder simply reduces to

{p==p==p==p} which is to say {p}"
That doesn't mean you can substitute 'is false' instead of 'is true' though. The 'is true' is only redundant in the sense that if I assert that a square has only four sides, a competent speaker will know that I'm saying what I think /is/ the case rather than saying what I think is /not/ the case.

"Michael Dummett describes a redundancy theory thus:"
I don't think Dummett's formulation agrees with ramsey's does it? I thought Ramsey advocated a kind of success semantics.

"implies a non-redundant theory where 'the meaning of a sentence consists in an apprehension of its truth conditions, in knowing what has to be the case for it to be true'."
I don't think it does. All it implies is that no semantic ascent is achieved by adding 'is true'.

""The correct form is ¬q==(q is false)."

Surely not since if 'is false' is redundant then you are saying `¬q==q which is incoherent."
Yes I think you are right, this isn't an RM form even though it is correct. I gave a correct RM form later on.

"This appears to do more than say p is true and q is false which again implies that your theory of meaning is non-redundant in that it involves truth conditions. How is this compatible with your use of the redundant Ramsey's Ladder?"
I don't think what I have said is incompatible with ramsey's success semantics.

"This only works if you assume that by asserting q you are asserting that 'q is true' and not that 'q is false'. What prevents me from asserting 'A square has only three sides is false' whereby in a horizontal Ramsey's Ladder (q is false)==q since 'is false' is redundant."
The redundancy of 'is true' depends on a competent speaker understanding what is asserted. So 'is false' cannot be redundant in the same sense, otherwise to assert 'A square has only three sides is false' would be equivalent to asserting 'A square has only three sides', which as you point out, is incoherent.


Saying 'is true' doesn't add anything, it is redundant in the sense that if I say 'The shop is open and has milk' then what enables success in my goal of getting milk when I go to the shop is the shop being open and having milk. My saying 'The shop is open and has milk is true' doesn't change the success criteria.

It doesn't follow that when I say 'The shop is open and has milk' my success criteria could include the shop being closed. So it doesn't make sense to claim that me saying 'The shop is open and has milk' could be equivalent to 'The shop is open and has milk is false'.

In summary 'p' should be understood to be equivalent to 'p is true' and this shows the 'is true' to be redundant. If 'p' could be equivalent to 'p is false' as well, this would mean 'is true' would /not/ be redundant.

ttfn

hi psi
busy over next few days. may manage to post in bits

bs

Hi Bx4,

"busy over next few days. may manage to post in bits"
Pull yourself together man.

ttfn

Hi Bx4,
Before this shuts down I thought I'd mention that I've come round to your view that the deterministic thesis is unprovable either way.

ttfn

hey psi and Bx4,

so this is going to close down? i thought it was an "aspiration", to use modern parlance/codswallop.....

either of you know what boards will remain, or are they all heading binwards.......?


enjoy the sun, ttfn

hi psi

Apologies for the delay. We are planning to return to the UK in a few weeks and there is much to do before then.

I have managed to 'pull myself together' in that I have pulled myself together in so far as got as far in your post as attempting a deconstruction of:

'The 'is true' is only redundant in the sense that if I assert that a square has only four sides, a competent speaker will know that I'm saying what I think /is/ the case rather than saying what I think is /not/ the case.'

I managed to get hold of a copy of Ramsey's 'Facts and Propositions' which rather opaque, woolly and imprecise. Strange that so many icons of the icons of the 'linguistic turn' have these tendencies.

There seems little, if anything in it, that is about semantic ascent which is hardly surprising since it would be an anachchronism. Perhaps Blackburn should take ownership of his own metaphor.
bs

hi both

Have I missed the announcement of the death of h2g2?

I've set up a Google group as an alternative. rg (previously royalgrounded) have set up one where we chunter about motorcycles and Nordic detective novels. Works ok except for tedious bogroll effect.

Psi- Glad to hear about your conversion re deterministic thesis. Of couse equally applies to indetermistic thesis.

Gather 'The Bull' may also be for chop.

Jank: Still to reply to your e-mail. Soon. Promise!

bs

Hi jank

Apparently abbout 200 sites will close this year. It is unclear which as all we have got from the BBC is this corporate pish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/2011/01/delivering-quality-first.shtml

panjandrums will be protected. The strategic codswallop is just a front to allow cuts that in areas other the wages an expenses enjoyed by the D-G and his panjandrumsfront that protects the trough D-G and other Reithian panjandrums.

Forgot the Gogle Group link:

http://groups.google.com/group/not_even_wrong/

bs

Hi Bx4,

"Of couse equally applies to indetermistic thesis."

I agree, yes.

ttfn

hi psi

If both theses are unprovable then does this mean that debate about whether there can be /ontologically/ alternate possibilties is unresolvable?

bs

Bx4,

I'd want to resolve the issue of what ontological status possibilities can have before I decide that one I think.

ttfn

psi

Surely a resolution of 'ontlogical status of a possibility' would be dependent on whether one is committed to either the determinist thesis or the indeterminist thesis?

But if neither is provable then surely one cannot make any decision as to the existence of ontological possibilities?

Hi Bx4,

I'm not sure. I think people on the compatibilist thread had some ideas that possibilities are only 'real' or 'genuine' if the future is in some sense 'open', in other words only if the determinist thesis is false. If that's what they think, then I agree that no decision can be made in their terms about whether there are 'real' or 'genuine' possibilities.

On the other hand, even in an indeterministic universe, from a B-theoretic standpoint there is a sense in which only the actual exists. Possible states of affairs do not share the ontological status of actual states of affairs- that's what distinguishes the latter from the former isn't it?

ttfn

psi

'Open' : Agree. Though properly, in an A theoretic model, the indeterministic thesis would also require the past be 'open'. No more provable than the alternative thesis where the future and past would be 'closed'

I'm not sure how causality would function in a B-theoretic model** but suppose it did and there was some state of affairs S at (x,y,z,t) I don't see how this tells us anything about whether the universe is deterministic or otherwise.

I agree that we would refer to S as 'actual' but I'm not sure that in the context of the determinism/indeterminism theses*** that we should treat 'possible' as the opposite of 'actual'.

It seems to me that in this context, the deterministic thesis, if provable, would mean S is actual and necessary and the deterministic theses, if provable, would mean S is actual and contingent.

However since neither thesis is provable all we can say is that S is actual. I agree that if S exists at(x,y,z,t) means S is actual at (x,y,z,t) but I'm not clear, how, if S did not exist at (x,y,z,t) this would mean S is possible at (x,y,z,t).

** Nor how it is supposed to function in in an A theoretic one.

***As distinct from the usage in PW semantics which is a whole different issue.

bs

Hi Bx4,

I agree that S tells us nothing about whether the universe is deterministic or otherwise but I don't see the B-theoretic model as particularly problematic for causality. Like you, I don't know how it actually functions in either model.

I didn't say that we should treat 'possible' as the opposite of 'actual', rather I was pointing out that they don't have the same ontological status. I agree with your necessary/contingent distinction so long as we are clear that we are talking about causal necessity rather than logical necessity. I think you meant 'indeterministic thesis' in the second clause, leading to S being actual and contingent if the thesis were proven.

"However since neither thesis is provable all we can say is that S is actual. I agree that if S exists at(x,y,z,t) means S is actual at (x,y,z,t) but I'm not clear, how, if S did not exist at (x,y,z,t) this would mean S is possible at (x,y,z,t)."
We could say S is logically possible, it just doesn't happen to be the case.

ttfn