On 10/30/2012 5:39 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 10/30/2012 2:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 10/30/2012 5:15 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Dear Brent,
What is it that distinguishes between tokens and propositions?
Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds) that
are used to represent a proposition in a particular language.
What determines the map between the letters, words, sounds and
the content of propositions?
The proposition is the abstracted meaning which is independent of
particular language.
Does this independence do so far as to disallow for an arbitrary
physical entity to know of it? Independence of abstractions from
particular individuals is not independence from all.
So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing the same
proposition as "Two equals one plus one." which is that 2=1+1.
That
Which 'that' do you refer to, the tokens or the proposition.
is true only because multiple persons came to believe that it is true
You previously agreed that one person alone could come to know that
2=1+1 or 17 is prime and express it symbolically, i.e. in tokens. So
multiple persons are only necessary in order for the tokens to be used
for communicating from one to another; which is the case whether the
thing communicated is true or false.
Reread this:
In 10/30/2012 5:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of
symbols "17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular
mathematical object and one of its particular properties, then how
does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all?
I agree with that. But you're talking about the tokens "17 is prime"
not the concept that 17 is prime. Could not a person who grew up
alone on an island realize that 17 has no divisors, and he could even
invent a private language in which he could write down Peano's axioms.
/* Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for abstract
questions? Why the reference to single individuals? Did you not
understand that I am claiming that meaningfulness requires at least
the possibility of interaction between many entities such that each
can evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus can truthfully
claim to have knowledge of true statements? *//*
*//* A person that grew and died on a desert island may have
discovered for itself that 17 objects cannot be divided into equal
subsets, but our statements about that are mere figemnts of our
imagination as we could know nothing objective and non-imaginative at
all about that person. We are imagining ourselves to have powers that
we simply do not have. We are not omniscient voyeurs of Reality and
there is not anything that is. */
How is an imaginary entity come to aquire a real 1p or actual real
properties? It might if that imaginary entity is deemed to have 1p
content within some narrative. But outside of that narrative, it does
not even exist! Languaging more about this is getting us nowhere.
Brent
and acted to cause it to be true. Remove one person from the
multiplicity and the meaning still is there. Remove all of them and
the meaning vanishes.
--
Onward!
Stephen
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