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

dear both

(in a rare moment when this thread allows me to view and post)

hope you are both well, can see that your musings are reaching epic proportions, in a language wot i don't understand. not a problem though, looks like fun all the same.

take care!

Hi Bx4,

I heard a rumour that h2g2 was to be axed but I can't remember where now and have nothing specific, sorry.

I've been turning the Ramsey's Ladder problem over and over to try to figure out what has gone wrong, but to no avail so far.

I'll recap how I see it.

Let E1 be the death of Caesar by murder.
Let E2 be the death of Caesar by suicide.
Let p = 'Caesar did not die by murder'
Let q = 'Caesar died by murder'

I see E1 and E2 as states of affairs or facts like raining(x,y,z,t) although spacio-temporal coordinates are not necessary.

Suppose E1 obtains, then we have:

p = F (the truth value of p is FALSE)
q = T (the truth value of q is TRUE)

if E2 obtains, then we have:

p = T (the truth value of p is TRUE)
q = F (the truth value of q is FALSE)

This assumes that suicide is not murder of course.

Case 1: E1 obtains:
Then your (i) seems ok to me and would translate as:

(iTr) 'q is true' means no more than 'q'

There is a problem with (j):
'That Caesar did not die by murder is false' (R1) means no more than 'that Caesar did not die by murder'(R2)

Under E1, I hope we can both assent to: 'Caesar did not die by murder' is false.

We must withhold assent from 'Caesar did not die by murder' though, because under E1, he was murdered.

So it cannot be the case that 'Caesar did not die by murder is false' (R1) means no more than 'Caesar did not die by murder'(R2), since we assent to the first but withhold assent from the second.

The translation would be:

(jTr) 'p is false' means no more than 'p'

recall that under E1, p = false

You seem to be assuming that if we say

1) p is false

then since p actually /is/ false under E1, this is equivalent to saying:

2) p

My contention is that these are not equivalent assertions. The point here is that to assert p is to declare that p is the case. It is perfectly possible to assert falsehoods, that's just called being wrong.

looking at j again:

'That Caesar did not die by murder is false' is true, so it cannot mean no more than 'that Caesar did not die by murder' since that is false (under E1).

A similar analysis can be done for E2.

I hope this clarifies, since if not I'm at a loss I'm afraid.


ttfn

Hi jank,

when you get the 'unknown error', have you tried clicking on 'My Space' on the left?

ttfn

hi jank

'Language wot I don't understand'

I take it you have abandoned your foray into philosophy? If so you are wise man.

I hadn't looked at 'Not Even Wrong' so I hadn't realised that you had posted there. I did get your mail as messages on my ntl mail account. I think this happens if you use 'Reply to Author' rather just 'Reply'.

Mostly I am on my netbook where I use my Hotmail account rather than my ntlworld one. I should install Thunderbird on my netbook so I can get ntl mail on it but like you I procrastinate.

I have not looked at let alone posted the 'religious' boards for sometime. On brief foray on Pocket Universe #1 thread about Scottish independence. Memo to self stay away Gegners!

bs

hi psi 'I hope this clarifies, since if not I'm at a loss I'm afraid.' I think we are arguing from very different conceptual bases. I am expanding on this in my reply to your 1259 but I'm a bit busy so it'll probably be a few days As to HooToo: There is a Reithian apparatchik, Nick Reynolds who operates under the grandiose title of Social Media Executive, BBC Online, BBC Future Media & Technology. Heis sort of Dr Beeching of the BBC Boards. If he appears on a board it will inevitably be axed. Anyhow his last appearence was with this announcement: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/forums/A639056/conversation/view/F77636/T8072491 Nothing since as far as I know. bs

Hi Bx4,

"I think we are arguing from very different conceptual bases."

I look forward to your reply then.

ttfn

hey Bored


"I take it you have abandoned your foray into philosophy? If so you are wise man."; wisdom be damned i guess as yesterday i picked up 100Years of Philosophy again.....

"like you I procrastinate"; huzzahs!! glad it's not just me with such a potentially anti-social habit. i still see these threads as somewhere between chat-in-the-pub and pen-pals. so to rush things is not needed.

but as you know, once you let me have your drop for a convenient pick up i can mail you EP #1 to complete your collection.

hoi!

hi jan

Managed to get off e-mail with address to your ntlworld account. If we weren't procrastinators it would be Virgin.

bs

hey Bored

great will have a look later, am currently in Plastic Towers for my sins against somethingor other....

as ever having immense problems even getting to this thread; access denied almost 100% of the time.

quick question for you regarding 1 of your favourite topics; single malts

my brother in law just turned 50 and he loves the stuff, so would you be able to advise on a decent bottle to get him. budget around £50 or is that not enough? am truely stuck...

thanks!

hi jank

Malts: Variety of malts from different regions, Highland (inc Speyside), Lowlands, Campbelltown, Islands (inc. Islay) so you need to find out what he likes. For example the peated malts from Islay like, Ardbeg and Laophraoig, are generally regarded as the most complex and perhaps very much an acquired taste:

The 1992 Cask strength Glenlivet, a Speyside it around £50 might be a safe but slightly unusual choice: Google

Glenlivet 1992 / 16 Year Old / Cask Strength Edition

to find it online:

If he's into peated whiskys then Ardbeg Uigeadail might be the way to go.

bs

"For example the peated malts from Islay like, Ardbeg and Laophraoig, are generally regarded as the most complex and perhaps very much an acquired taste:"

Definitely one I've acquired

would you adam and eve it. finally got to read the posts left for me. literally tried a dozen times yesterday.....

many thanks for the advice and the 2nding by psi!

at least now i know what to look for.

cheers, proost!!

hi both

An early delivered Father's Day present is one of only 208 bottles of Ardbeg 18 Year Old 1991 Cask 5440 - Old Malt Cask. Deep,deep joy!

Jank, I see you continue to post on the soon to be discontinued (I didn't see that coming) 'darkling armies' boards. Where will the dogmatists and ideologues go? I had pretty much lost interest even feeling jaded by jobongerism. I gather we will now be blogged at. Wot fun!

psi, I continue to noodle away at your last but a somewhat diverted by canoe practice, agricultural labouring duties and ground preparation for imminent installation of another wind generator.

Unfortunately, as seems inevitable when I noodle it grows like topsy. Hopefully I finish/revise/proofread/post it before h2g2 joins the 'bonfire of the boards'

bs

this darned thread.........still can't access with any certainty. will keep it short in case it dumps everything. again.....


glad you like your Fday present. a bit more high brow than the 1 liter Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum (2010, from some stainless steel kettle, Eurozone no doubt...) i know coming my way!


"Jank, I see you continue to post"; for shame! yes i am still noodling away, but as ever them trolls are sooooo tasty. but every time there's wind, i'm out there hacking up and down. or as it's known in this world; "fanging"

have sort of managed to do waterstarts, which means a whole world of much smaller boards are available for me to, well, go fanging on. so last year i tended to use 165 liter boards, but now will go out on 135 liter down to 120 liters. have gone faster this year than i had hoped for, and in a month will be in Spain for 3 weeks doing little else.

deep joy!


also hitting a rich vein of voice overs after a quiet patch. at least for now and the near future am the continuity voice for Dutch Syfy channel. yes, that's Syfy. replacing the old skool spelling of Sci-fi. rebranding = progress....? hmmm?

tot ziens

oops, forgot to ask B. is now a good time to post CD 1? pls reply to ntl email as this board is too unreliable for me....

hoi

bluehillside if you pitch up here I have set up a separate conversation... http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F7737541?thread=8246967&post=109528281#p109528281

Stazbumpa If you do make it here. I've started a separate conversation http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F7737541?thread=8246962 bis spater

hi psi

'End of Days' on the Xtian topic led to a complete collapse of 'steely resolve'.

Anyhow, I plan a couple of days of relaxation then I will return to the wacky world of Blackburn. Somewhat puzzled by his inconsistent 'minimalism' I have ended up reading his 'Troof: A guide for the perplexed'. Sadly I am even more perplexed.

The good news is I have got past Ramsey's 'objective factors' and have move onto the 'subjective factors' though 'illocutionary acts' may be an archaism as far as Ramsey is concerned...

(Btw, the good news is that hootoo has been saved.)

bis spater

Hi psi

My reply continued to grow like topsy so I thought I break it into separate topics which it logically falls into anyway.

As a preamble I have now ploughed through Ramsey's somewhat badly written 'Facts and Propositions'. Much of it is opaque (and not because it is an intrinsically difficult topic but because much of the account relies on an ambiguous and poorly defined terminology. However his intention is clear:

'The problem with which I propose to deal is the logical analysis of what may be called by any of the terms judgment, belief, or assertion.'

and that:

'Suppose I am at this moment judging that Caesar was murdered: then it is natural to distinguish in this fact on the one side either my mind, or my present mental state, or words or images in my mind, which we will call the mental factor or factors, and on the other side either Caesar, or Caesar's murder, or Caesar and murder, or the proposition Caesar was murdered, or the fact that Caesar was murdered, which we will call the objective factor or factors...'

It is interesting that while Ramsey initially treats the objective and subjective factors as part of 'what may be called...judgment,belief or assertion' that in his discussion of the subjective factors he says:

'..the mental factor in a judgment [belief or assertion] (which is often itself called a judgment [belief or assertion])'

and his account of the subjective factors is given in terms of belief (and disbelief). So it seems reasonable to read his account of this in terms of the propositional attitude of belief towards the content of the proposition.

I was initially somewhat confused by the attribution of the origination of redundancy theory, as distinct from other mininalist/deflationary theories, particularly to Ramsey given that Frege seems to have anticipated Ramsey's:

'it is evident that 'It is true that Csesar was murdered' means no more than that Caesar was murdered, and 'It is false that Csesar was murdered' means that Caesar was not murdered.'

with his:

'It is also worth observing that the sentence "I smell the scent of violets" has just the same contentas the sentence "It is true that I smell the scent of violets". So it seems, then, that nothing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth.' (Der Gedanke, 1918, p.61)

Which certainly seems to prefigure Blackburn's 'Ladder'. However, I have recently come across a series of essays, 'Prospects for Pragmatism: Essays in Memory of F. P. Ramsey'(Cambridge University Press, 1980) edited by D. H. Mellor who says in his introduction:


'A redundancy theory's real problem is to say what belief is without relying in turn on the concept of truth. It must, in particular give the content of a belief without an appeal to the meaning of sentences understood as truth conditions.'

Which is of course consistent with Dummett's definition of a redundancy theory that I gave earlier:

'Its [redundancy theory primary significance is as an overt rejection of the notions of truth and falsity are central to a theory of meaning: to accept the redundancy theory is to deny that a grasp of 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,...'( 'Frege: Philosophy of Language', Harvard, 1993, p.458)

It is notweorthy that Ramsey concludes:

'　I must emphasise my indebtedness to Mr Wittgenstein, from whom my view of logic is derived. Everything that I have said is due to him, except the parts which have a pragmatist tendency, which seem to me to be needed in order to fill up a gap in his system. But whatever may be thought of these additions of mine, and however this gap should be filled in, his conception of formal logic seems to me indubitably an enormous advance on that of any previous thinker.
　　
My pragmatism is derived from Mr Russell; and is, of course, very vague and undeveloped. The essence of pragmatism I take to be this, that the meaning of a sentence is to be defined by reference to the actions to which asserting it would lead, or, more vaguely still, by its possible causes and effects. Of this I feel certain, but of nothing more definite.'

In his 'Ruling Passions' Blackburn seems to take this point:


'F.P Ramsey whose famous paper 'Facts and Propositions' that argues ... that progress is made..by understanding the various kinds of judgments in /behavioural/ terms.'(p.79)

though his:


'We can see why this is so if we put it in terms of what we can call Ramsey’s ladder. This takes us from p to it is true that p, to it is really true that p, to it is really a fact that it is true that p, and if we like to it is really a fact about the independent order of things ordained by objective Platonic normative structures with which we resonate in harmony that it is true that p...Ramsey’s ladder is horizontal. The view from the top is just the same as the view from the bottom, and the view is p.'
(Review of Thomas Nagel's 'The Last Word')'

is, I think, in terms of 'Facts and Propositions' somewhat suspect since there is nothing in it that seems to correspond to 'what we can call Ramsey's ladder' rather as I hope to show later that Ramsey view is inconsistent with Blackburn's attempted, and nowhere justified, attribution.

bs

dear both,

finally managed to get back into this thread, went through the front door for a change rather than via R&E one.

am about off for our usual annual holiday in Spain, exact same apartment for the 5th year, ready to windsurf, snorkel, eat/drink, fry up some more melanomas. yummy.

did DIIC 1 ever reach you Bored? wonder what you make of it, and the "art' work which was supposed to be mildly cryptic and/or odd.

anyhoo, take care both, catch up mid August as i will be 100% AFK

tot ziens