10 ideas
10670 | A 'singulariser' converts a plural like 'number of' to a syntactically neutral form [Cartwright,H, by Hossack] |
Full Idea: Helen Cartwright calls 'a number of' a 'singulariser', an expression whose linguistic function is to convert to a syntactically neutral form an expression whose semantic value remains plural. It is a great convenience grammatically. | |
From: report of Helen Cartwright (On Plural Reference and Set Theory [1993]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 2 | |
A reaction: Compare Hofweber's Idea 10004, suggesting it is a crucial psychological convenience for reasoning, as well as a 'grammatical' convenience. |
16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined. |
16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
A reaction: This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic. |
16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B) | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism. |
16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11) | |
A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream. |
10197 | An immanent universal is wholly present in more than one place [Zimmerman,DW] |
Full Idea: An immanent universal will routinely be 'at some distance from itself', in the sense that it is wholly present in more than one place. | |
From: Dean W. Zimmerman (Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory [1997], p.306) | |
A reaction: This is the Aristotelian view, which sounds distinctly implausible in this formulation. Though I suppose redness is wholly present in a tomato, in the way that fourness is wholly present in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. How many rednesses are there? |
10198 | If only two indiscernible electrons exist, future differences must still be possible [Zimmerman,DW] |
Full Idea: If nothing existed except two electrons, which are indiscernible, it remains possible that differences will emerge later. Even if this universe has eternal symmetry, such differences are still logically, metaphysically, physically and causally possible. | |
From: Dean W. Zimmerman (Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory [1997], p.306) | |
A reaction: The question then is whether the two electrons have hidden properties that make differences possible. Zimmerman assumes that 'laws' of an indeterministic kind will do the job. I doubt that. Can differences be discerned after the event? |
10199 | Discernible differences at different times may just be in counterparts [Zimmerman,DW] |
Full Idea: Possible differences which may later become discernible could be treated as differences in a counterpart, which is similar to, but not identical with, the original object. | |
From: Dean W. Zimmerman (Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory [1997], p.307) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This is a reply to Idea 10198, which implies that two things could never be indiscernible over time, because of their different possibilities. One must then decide issues about rigid designation and counterparts. |
14610 | Neither 'moving spotlight' nor 'growing block' views explain why we care what is present or past [Zimmerman,DW] |
Full Idea: Neither the 'moving spotlight' nor the 'growing block' view of A-theory time can explain why we care so much about whether things (such as a headache) are present or past. | |
From: Dean W. Zimmerman (The Privileged Present: A-Theory [2008], 3) | |
A reaction: He goes on the defend Presentism as the best version of the A-series view. You can't deny that the past is more of a 'truthmaker' than the future, so it seems to have a firmer ontological status. Deeply weird. |
14608 | A-theorists, unlike B-theorists, believe some sort of objective distinction between past, present and future [Zimmerman,DW] |
Full Idea: To be an A-theorist is to believe in some sort of objective distinction between what is present and past and future. ..To be a B-theorist is to deny the objectivity of our talk about past, present and future. | |
From: Dean W. Zimmerman (The Privileged Present: A-Theory [2008], 2) | |
A reaction: The A/B distinction originates with McTaggart. All my intuitions side with the A-theory, certainly to the extent that the present seems to be objectively privileged in some way (despite special relativity). |