here's
the readable version of the dialogue, merged with JKS's new contribution:
Daniel
Davies wrote:>>> I don't think this would be right. For example, if
there were no concrete entities, there would still be an abstract entity called
"the set of all concrete entities", and you could make true or false statements
about it (like "it's an empty set"). If you were a
Platonist.<<<
I answered:>> if there were no concrete
entities, I couldn't make statements at all, of either the true or false
variety.<<
JKS wrote:>So? That doesn't mean the statements you
could make if you existed wouldn't be true or false.<
[I
answered:]>>... I guess my prose is really, really, bad. What I said is
that if there were no concrete entities, I couldn't make statements at all.
Because I _couldn't_ exist without violating the assumption that "there are no
concrete entities."<<
JKS now
writes:> Right, I understood your point. You couldn't make statements if
you didn't exist. But mine was this: even if you didn't exist, the statements
that, hypothetically, counterfactually, you could make if you did
exist, would still be true or false. ....<
[Me, now:] A "proposition" requires a proposer, a sentient being. My view is that the universe seems to some "laws" that are true independent of our proposing them, but that doesn't mean that our proposals correspond to these laws.
JKS
continued:> Even when there wasn't anybody, say in the first few seconds of
the big bang and for several billion years thereafter, the proposition ... "No
conscious life exists" was true.<
[I responded]>> but in that
case, there _were_ concrete entities (the monoblock that's exploding and then
its pieces).<<
JKS now writes:> Doesn't really matter, since the concrete entities are not malking [??] the statements in those cases. Your point is really that propositional content depends on someone being able to entertain it. No people, no statements, no content, right? [right] So from your point of view, a world of nothing but quarka and muouns is effectively emopty. But you can the point to be aboura [??] wholly empty world, nothing but the spacetime, if you like.<
[me, now:] No, a world with nothing but quarks and muons would NOT be effectively empty, since there are quarks and muons. As an ontological realist, I believe that the quarks, etc. exist independent of my consciousness of them. That's different from saying that my understanding of them (i.e., propositions) exists independent of my consciousness.
One with only spacetime would be empty only if according to one’s definition of empty. But there would be no sentient consciousness or propositions. No-one could define “emptiness.”
JKS had
said:>All the propositions that could ever be exist, though of course only an
infinutesmal [infinitesimal?] fraction of them will ever be said or thought.
....<
[I responded:] >>propositions are mental states. How can
propositions exist without minds? <<
JKS now writes:> Here's ther nub of the disagreement. I think propositions are the contents of intentional mental states. I believe _that_ Jim's a smart guy. "Jim's a smart guy" is the content of my belief. [flattery will get you nowhere] But it's not, in my book, a mental state. Propositionally speaking, its content isn't even an English sentence. It's equivalent to "Jim ist intelligent" and other such statements in other languages that I don't know or which have never been invented, but which all say the same thing. It has to be this way, or we couldn't have the same thoughts, since I don;t have your mental states, but if we agree that capitalism sucks, we have a belief with a common propositional content, right? <
[me, now] It doesn’t matter if one thinks that propositions are the content or the form or the external referent or whatever of mental states, propositions can’t exist without minds. Which was my point. Propositions involves some kind of _understanding_, something that cannot be done without a sentient mind.
[I wrote:] >>Now we _can_ say that (after the Big Bang, at least), some propositions that we _now_ think about were empirically true. I'd bet that "E = m c squared" fit empirical reality before Einstein thought it up -- and before sentient beings arose that were able to think about such matters. <<
JKS
writes:> So far so good.<
[I wrote:]>> But saying that "a
proposition we now posit was true" is different from saying "the proposition
_existed_."<<
JKS:> Fair enough. But I think that all these propositions do exist. One way to think about them is as possible worlds where the proposition in question in true. Then we can say, there is a possible world where, e.g., capitalism sucks. But the "there is" is an existential quantifier. It says that world exists. Whether it is our world we can argue with the right. But as a possible world it exists. …<
[me now:] this seems a distraction. I say that the world exists (and that there are certain laws of nature) outside of our understanding of it. However, our understanding of that world (and its laws) -- i.e., propositions -- need not exist.
[I wrote:]>>Similarly, saying that 2 + 2 = 4 applied before sentient beings developed mathematical principles is different from saying that mathematical principles exist independent of our minds. (It's a mistake to confuse our consciousness of something for that something.)<<
JKS now writes:> Hmmm. This is less clear. How would that be? Do you mean that 2+2=4 "applied" in virtue od [of?] the possibility that someday a szentient being [a sentient being from Eastern Europe?] might think it?<
[I now write:] No. All I was saying was that if there 2 hydrogen atoms in region A of space and there are 2 hydrogen atoms in region B, there are four hydrogen atoms in regions A+B, whether or not someone understands that fact or not.
[me:]>> Among other things, it's quite possible that our mathematical principles turn out to be wrong in some sense (or at least incomplete). Our mathematical principles do not correspond to the abstract nature of empirical reality _exactly_ because we don't (and can't) know the world exactly.<<
JKS:> Well that is neither here nor there. 2+2=4 is a placeholder for whatever the true mathematical principles are. ....<
[me, now:] the idea of a placeholder is exactly what I’m talking about. We can’t have placeholders (or propositions) without sentient beings.
[me:]>>By the way, even simple math depends on assumptions (just as the number of planets orbiting the sun depends on assumptions). …<<
JKS:> I am not sure what this means. You need axioms and rules to state a formal mathematical system such as arithemetic, so there are assumptions, yes – in expressing math in a fgormal language. But that is totally different from what the true mathematical relations between numbers a re that w e express in the system. Likewise the numberof the planbets is what it is; our statements about astronomy. of course, involve assumptions.<
“The
number of planets is what it is”? No, the number of planets is a product of our
minds, which includes the definition of what exactly a planet is. (Do we count
Pluto?) On the other hand, the existence of planets is what it is. They exist in
themselves, independent of our consciousness of them, independent of whether we
call them “planets” or not. (Or at least that is my, realist, ontological
assumption.)
JKS had written:>There, Ian, I'm really scary -- I am
not only realistic about maths, I'm realistic about propositions!
...<
[me]>>JKS, I'd say that you heed a very specific kind of realism, idealist realism (Platonism), rather than realism in general.<<
JKS now:> No, I'm just not prejudiced about my realism. I'm a pragmatist, so I'm happy to posit whatever's useful. Do we need abstract entities? Sure, then let's help ourselves to them. What about unobservables? No problem. Angels and cherubs? Well, whatever for? No thanks. But not because their weird, rather because they do no work.<
I’m all in favor of pragmatism, but the idea that propositions (mental states) exist independent of proposers (sentient critters) is idealism.
