Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Identity and Existence in Logic' and 'The Blank Slate'

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20 ideas

4. Formal Logic / E. Nonclassical Logics / 6. Free Logic
18767 Free logics has terms that do not designate real things, and even empty domains [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: Free logics say 1) singular terms are allowed that do not designate anything that exists; sometimes 2) is added: the domain of discourse is allowed to be empty. Logics with both conditions are called 'universally free logics'.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.3)
     A reaction: I really like the sound of this, and aim to investigate it. Karel Lambert's writings are the starting point. Maybe the domain of logic is our concepts, rather than things in the world, in which case free logic sounds fine.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 5. Second-Order Quantification
18763 Basic variables in second-order logic are taken to range over subsets of the individuals [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: Under its now standard principal interpretation, the monadic predicate variables in second-order logic range over subsets of the domain on individuals.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 1.5)
     A reaction: This is an interpretation in which properties are just sets of things, which is fine if you are a logician, but not if you want to talk about anything important. Still, we must play the game. Boolos introduced plural quantification at this point.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 7. Unorthodox Quantification
18771 Stop calling ∃ the 'existential' quantifier, read it as 'there is...', and range over all entities [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: Ontological quantifiers might just as well range over all the entities needed for the semantics. ...The minimal way would be to just stop calling '∃' an 'existential quantifier', and always read it as 'there is...' rather than 'there exists...'.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.6)
     A reaction: There is no right answer here, but it seems to be the strategy adopted by most logicians, and the majority of modern metaphysicians. They just allow abstracta, and even fictions, to 'exist', while not being fussy what it means. Big mistake!
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
18769 Do mathematicians use 'existence' differently when they say some entity exists? [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: A cursory examination shows that mathematicians have no aversion to saying that this-or-that mathematical entity exists. But is this a different sense of 'existence'?
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.6)
     A reaction: For those of us like me and my pal Quine who say that 'exist' is univocal (i.e. only one meaning), this is a nice challenge. Quine solves it by saying maths concerns sets of objects. I, who don't like sets, am puzzled (so I turn to fictionalism...).
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
7508 Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker]
     Full Idea: Good reductionism (also called 'hierarchical reductionism') consists not of replacing one field of knowledge with another, but of connecting or unifying them.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.4)
     A reaction: A nice simple clarification. In this sense I am definitely a reductionist about mind (indeed, about everything). There is nothing threatening to even 'spiritual' understanding by saying that it is connected to the brain.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
18770 We can distinguish 'ontological' from 'existential' commitment, for different kinds of being [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: There are sensible ways to maike a distinction between different kinds of being. ..One need not fear that this leads to a 'bloated ontology'. ...We need only distinguish 'ontological commitment' from 'existential commitment'
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.6)
     A reaction: He speaks of giving fictional and abstract entities a 'lower score' in existence. I think he means the 'ontological' commitment to be the stronger of the two.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 4. Impossible objects
18766 's is non-existent' cannot be said if 's' does not designate [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: The paradox of negative existentials says that if 's' does not designate something, then the sentence 's is non-existent' is untrue.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.1)
     A reaction: This only seems be a problem for logicians. Everyone else can happily say 'my coffee is non-existent'.
18768 We cannot pick out a thing and deny its existence, but we can say a concept doesn't correspond [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: Parmenides was correct - one cannot speak of that which is not, even to say that it is not. But one can speak of concepts and say of them that they do not correspond to anything real.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.5)
     A reaction: [This summarises Alonso Church, who was developing Frege] This sounds like the right thing to say about non-existence, but then the same principle must apply to assertions of existence, which will also be about concepts and not things.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
18765 Individuation was a problem for medievals, then Leibniz, then Frege, then Wittgenstein (somewhat) [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: The medieval philosophers and then Leibniz were keen on finding 'principles of individuation', and the idea appears again in Frege, to be taken up in some respects by Wittgenstein.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 1.6)
     A reaction: I take a rather empirical approach to this supposed problem, and suggest we break 'individuation' down into its component parts, and then just drop the word. Discussions of principles of individuations strike me as muddled. Wiggins and Lowe today.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
18764 The notion of 'property' is unclear for a logical version of the Identity of Indiscernibles [Anderson,CA]
     Full Idea: In the Identity of Indiscernibles, one speaks about properties, and the notion of a property is by no means clearly fixed and formalized in modern symbolic logic.
     From: C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 1.5)
     A reaction: The unclarity of 'property' is a bee in my philosophical bonnet, in speech, and in metaphysics, as well as in logic. It may well be the central problem in our attempts to understand the world in general terms. He cites intensional logic as promising.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
7510 Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker]
     Full Idea: Connectionists do not, of course, believe that the mind is a blank slate, but they do believe in the closest mechanistic equivalent, a general purpose learning device.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This shows the closeness of connectionism to Hume's associationism (Idea 2189), which was just a minimal step away from Locke's mind as 'white paper' (Idea 7507). Pinker is defending 'human nature', but connectionism has a point.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
7513 Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker]
     Full Idea: Are memories stored in protein sequences, in new neurons or synapses, or in changes in the strength of existing synapses?
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This seems to be a neat summary of current neuroscientific thinking about memory. If you are thinking that memory couldn't possibly be so physical, don't forget the mind-boggling number of events involved in each tiny memory. See Idea 6668.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
1556 By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
7509 Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker]
     Full Idea: The roundworm only has 959 cells, and 302 neurons in a fixed wiring diagram; it eats, mates, approaches and avoids certain smells, and that's about it. This makes it obvious that human 'free' behaviour comes from our complex biological makeup.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5)
     A reaction: I find this a persuasive example. Three hundred trillion neurons cannot possibly produce behaviour which is more than broadly predictable, and then it is the environment and culture that make it predictable, not the biology.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
7511 Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker]
     Full Idea: The appeal of neural networks is that they automatically generalize their training to similar new items. If one has been trained to think tigers eat frosted flakes, it will generalise that lions do too, because it knows tigers as sets of features.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This certainly is appealing, because it offers a mechanistic account of abstraction and universals, which everyone agrees are central to proper thinking.
7512 There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG]
     Full Idea: Connectionist networks have difficulty with the kind/individual distinction (ducks/this duck), with compositionality (relations), with quantification (reference of 'all'), with recursion (embedded thoughts), and the categorical reasoning (exceptions).
     From: report of Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: [Read Pinker p.80!] These are essentially all the more sophisticated aspects of logical reasoning that Pinker can think of. Personally I would be reluctant to say a priori that connectionism couldn't cope with these things, just because they seem tough.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
7505 Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker]
     Full Idea: To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Pref)
     A reaction: The point is that modern liberal thinking says everything is nurture (which can be changed), not nature (which can't). Virtue theory, of which I am a fan, requires a concept of human nature, as the thing which can attain excellence in its function.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
7516 In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker]
     Full Idea: In 1828 Friedrich Wöhler showed [by synthesising urea in the laboratory] that the stuff of life is not a magical, pulsating gel, but ordinary compounds following the laws of chemistry.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Wöhler synthesised urea in the laboratory.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
7515 All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker]
     Full Idea: The overwhelming evidence is that the process of evolution, far from being intelligent and purposeful, is wasteful and cruel.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.7)
     A reaction: This is why opponents should reject evolution totally, rather than compromise with it. Stick to a 6000-year-old world, fossils sent to test our faith, and species created in a flash (with no pain or waste).
7514 Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker]
     Full Idea: The originator of 'intelligent design' (the biochemist Michael Behe) takes every phenomenon whose evolutionary history has not yet been figured out, and chalks it up to design by default.
     From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.7)
     A reaction: This seems to summarise the strategy very nicely. The theory essentially exploits the 'wow!' factor. The bigger the wow! the more likely it is that it was created by God. But research has been eroding our wows steadily for four hundred years.