On Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 10:40:12 AM UTC-7, PGC wrote:
On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:55:39 PM UTC+1, Bruno
Marchal wrote:
On 20 Feb 2020, at 01:20, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything
List <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2/19/2020 12:15 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
Wittgenstein is at the core really of *linguistic
pragmatism *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism>
Languages are tools. There is no truth "out there".
My view is that "true" means different things in
different contexts.
And in different modes (of self-reference). The platonists
dis understand that the absolute truth requires faith in
something beyond “my consciousness” or “consciousness” (to
take into account Terren Suydam’ remark).
Wittgestein up to now still has the upper hand with those old
arguments over anybody proposing science based ontological
packages metaphysically: language will seduce people to
overgeneralize, to confuse personal mysticism with reality, to
engage in false equivalencies between terms used in formal
contexts and everyday use of language, scientism etc. Slowly,
yours truly is coming around to the idea that folks agreeing
on ontology/reality/religion, which would guide research in
some allegedly correct direction; spilling over positive
effects into the world... that Wittgenstein may prove correct
in that this is a confused product of muddled armchair
thinking, not because of his generally negative stance, but
because there seem to be positive developments out there that
he couldn't have informed those arguments with.
I see/predict metaphysics shifting from the naive armchair
forms of identity, reality, matter etc. practiced here on this
list with profound erudition, walking in circles for 20 years
now (Wittgenstein says thousands of years) to optimization and
more efficient pursuit of value and benefit questions instead,
through say orchestration of highly sophisticated forms of
organization applied to education, governing, finance,
technology, problem solving, applied or theoretical etc. that
are permissionless, universally accessible, require no
hierarchy of politics, charlatan experts, control freaks,
their sycophants, and bibles of some Messiah achieving
miracles such as eternal life, self-duplication etc.
Metaphysical setups that place less emphasis on truth, trust,
power, control, or proof and more emphasis on "can entities
such as ourselves be highly organized, solve specific survival
problems over short and long terms, without trusting each
other + instead assuming that folks will be opportunistic and
idealistic?" Example: we don't agree on what reality may be,
but we do agree on the need for habitable living space in the
long term, nutrition, water, health, limiting
self-destruction, expensive wars, standards of living etc.
quite clearly. There ARE more appropriate politics and
economics on the horizon. Metaphysics here, shifting our
old-school conceptions of what first principles are, and you'd
refute Wittgenstein instead of running from him. Engineering
incentive and not what the game is but /how/ the game of life
on this planet could be.
About this, it is clear to me that in “I think thus I am”,
Descartes use the “first person” I. Indeed he start from
the doubt. Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum. Descartes
did not prove the existence of Descartes, bit of his own
consciousness, hoping others can do the same reasoning for
themselves. Consciousness always refer to a first person
experience implicitly: like God (truth) it is not a thing.
You concede to Terren that "true means different things in
different contexts" but everyday like clockwork you still
barrage the list with your use of "large truth, 3p, reality
that cannot be named, mechanism is incompatible with
physicalism" and all the rest of it. I used to wonder why you
don't pursue contact with linguists, physicists, a wider
audience, and philosophers but this has ceased to surprise me.
PNGC
I think I finally got it -- what mechanism means for Bruno --
namely, that a human being can be perfectly simulated by a
computer. But if that's what he means, how does it follow that
mechanism is incompatible with physicalism?
