Are proper names countable?
Jim, Jeff, Jenny... that's three.
1 is the proper name for that number; 2 , for the next number. and on it goes. So there are at least countably infinite proper names.
Suppose I take the set of infinite lists of ones and zeros. I know from Cantor's diagonal that this is uncountable. So I give each its own name; are there then uncountably many proper names?
First-order predicate logic apparently assumes only a countable number of proper names: a,b,c...
How would it change if there were an uncountable number of proper names?
Comments (140)
There is an important clarification to make there: it would require infinite moments of stating names.
Someone could do it, they would just have to be an infinite series of moments of speaking a name. The issue isn't actually requiring infinite time, it's living/being the infinite speaker.
Note - the requirement that names be finite does not mean there has to be an upper limit on the length of a name. With a countable alphabet, there could be names of length n for every integer n, yet the set of names would still be countable as long as no names were infinitely long (or even, as long as there were only countably many infinitely-long names).
My understanding is that it is this feature that caused Thorvald Skolem to question whether the unnamable real numbers really exist. If they don't, then the real numbers are countable.
Don't ask me what 'exist' means in this context though. I have no idea.
That's not an issue of the speaker because they are the one taking the action. They're always of the time of their speech.
It's not technically an issue with regards to knowing either, as someone might realise which name someone is going to say prior to them finishing. I could hear someone say "Jim..." and know they were going to end with "my." This example is also not an infinite naming. An infinite naming would not end in "my" to "mi," it would continue forever, endless sounds being spoken.
We are only locked out of hearing the end of an infinite naming or naming with ends after our hearing does (as in the case of JIm... my or Jim...mi" ).
In what sense would they have ever taken the action? The point here is that predication needs to name the name to make some definite claim. Monkey with infinity and you are dealing with ambiguity.
One wouldn't have to wait an infinite time for that, if we know that the reference is to one or the other, because two different infinite strings must have a first character that differs, and that first character must be in a finite-numbered position. It's just that one wouldn't know how long one has to wait to see the differing character.
It would however take an infinite time do indicate exactly which individual one was referring to.
That's what I am questioning. Is there an argument in suport of this contention?
It is readily proven that for any positive integer n, there is only a countable number of different n-tuples from a countable alphabet. One proves this by constructing a one-to-one map from the positive integers (which are countable) to the set of all such n-tuples.
It is also readily proven that a countable union of countable sets is countable (it is in fact the proof from the previous paragraph, applied to the case n=2). The set of all finite strings from a countable alphabet is the union, for n going over all positive integers, of the set of all strings of length n, each of which we know is countable from the previous paragraph. This is a countable union of countable sets, and hence countable.
Quoting andrewk
What if one used an uncountable alphabet?
Say we allow "words" of infinite length.
Then we know we have an non denumerable number of "words"...
They are the infinite speaker, one who is an endless series of moments speaking this infinite name. There is no ambiguity to this infinity. It's an endless series of moments of speech.
"Jim..." but without an end, an endless presence of utterances into perpetuity, existing moments of using a sound/letters which never cease.
Like I said then.
Studiously missing the point as usual.
Then we could refer to an uncountable number of individuals using sequences of just one letter.
Whether that entails that we can use it to refer to all the real numbers depends on whether we accept the Continuum Hypothesis. Indeed the continuum hypothesis is precisely the assertion that no uncountable set has a lower cardinality than that of the reals. It can neither be proven nor disproven by ZFC - the foundational axioms of most of mathematics.
So it seems.
And my question is, what are the consequences?
Since ZFC relies on hereditary sets and hence contains no individuals, it doesn't count here.
You reply by pointing out that this isn’t a problem if strings terminate in finite time. Way to go.
I don't understand this bit - what do you mean?
[quote...]if a countable theory has a model, then it has a countable model.[/quote]
What I am after is, what happens when the model is uncountable?
It's just that if one were to try to pick out an individual by printing out the decimal places one by one, one would never be finished picking it out, because at any time there would still be an infinite number of decimal places that had not been printed out yet.
Quoting Banno
An uncountable model of a countable theory will contain uncountably many elements that cannot be individually picked out by any constant term. But the L-S theorem tells us that the model will contain a countable sub-model. A countable submodel of the real numbers, that satisfies all the axioms of the real numbers, can be constructed as follows:
1. Let N be the natural numbers.
2. Define map f from the power set of the reals to itself such that, for any subset A of the reals, f(A) is the set of all reals that can be picked out as the unique satisfier of a proposition with a single free variable that only uses symbols from the theory's alphabet and real numbers in A.
3. Define D to be the transitive closure of N under the operation f, that is:
D = N ? f(N) ? f(f(N)) ? ........
Then D is a countable subset of R that satisfies the axioms of the real numbers.
This is an application of the downward L-S theorem. The upwards L-S theorem says that there are also models at all cardinalities larger than the one we started with. But that is less surprising (to me) because it just involves tipping in lots more unnamable individuals.
OK - I get that.
It's a side issue.
Perhaps I'm missing something about uncountable sets. Can one set with aleph-1 elements be mapped to another set with aleph-1 elements?
So could an uncountable number of individuals be mapped to an uncountable number of names?
Consider an alphabet made up of symbols, each of which is a square of side length 1cm that is black below a line at height r cm above the base and white above that, where r can be any real number in the interval (0,1). Then the alphabet has the same uncountable cardinality as the real numbers, and a one-to-one map between the symbols and the reals is that which maps the symbol with line height r to the real number tan((r - 0.5) x pi / 2).
Neat example.
The most 'sensible' among us are sitting atop a reservoir of wild shit
Suck it up.
Quoting csalisbury
Nu. It doesn't espouse a wide enough explanation to count as a cracked pot. The stuff I wrote this morning about the role of the Awesome in education, now that's much more terracotta.
Just to add...any given list of proper names of actual people will have duplicates...triplicates...Like Socrates the footballer and Socrates the philosopher...the many Kims of Korea...the andrewks and mcdoodles...
So where will all this counting of the different names get us?
If you like. That point is irrelevant to a discussion of the use of constants in first order language. @andrewk's example above appears clear enough; it's not about people.
Andrew seems the only one who can see the interest in an esoteric bit of logic. That's a bit sad.
but thanks, Andrew, for your help.
What about pre-writing? Are spoken proper names countable?
Better to focus on audible names, rather than spoken names, in order to transcend the limitations of the human larynx.
Audible names need not be countable. We could generate an uncountable set of names as follows. Let every name be a sound of length two seconds, that is a pure tone (sine wave) of frequency 800Hz and constant amplitude. We could map the written symbol that is the square whose black part has a height to width ratio r, to a tone with amplitude A + r (B - A), where A and B are widely different amplitudes that are both within the comfortable range of hearing of most humans. Then we distinguish sound symbols by amplitude, and we have an uncountable set of amplitudes from which to choose - the numbers in the interval (0,1).
I suppose I'd prefer to distinguish the number of proper names in a given universe from the number of proper names indicated by, say, a formal notational system of predicate logic. I'm not sure which of these you're question is aimed at. I suspect it may be a question about the notational system.
If it is not, then I suppose the answer must vary along with the universe given, and that there is no satisfying answer to the question in general.
Each proper name, I recall vaguely, is a unique logical identifier for each particular entity recognized in a logical universe, so there is a one-to-one correspondence between entities and proper names in a universe. There may be many entities in the same universe called Tom Jones; accordingly, a name like "Tom Jones" is not the logically proper name of any entity. Each thing that exists as a logical object in a predicate system has its own proper name. Is that about right?
In that case it seems the proper name is a sort of logician's posit or fiction or theoretical construct. How many of these are there in a given logical universe? As many as the logician who constructs the universe pleases.
What is the total number of logical universes actually constructed by actual logicians in the course of the actual universe; and how many proper names did each of those logical universes in fact contain? I suppose that's a sort of empirical question.
The point is that logic derivations have to be of finite length. So you can never use more than a finite set of names in a formal proof. Even if you imagine to have an uncountable set of names, the set of names that you can use in any derivation, however complex, will always be countable. So, it doesn't make any difference what's the cardinality of set of names that you have. The only thing that counts is the cardinality of the set of names that you can use in a derivation.
You could imagine to use geometric objects (whose sizes are supposed to be an uncountable set) instead of strings for names, and use geometric constructions as rules. In that case you would have a "logic" based on an uncountably infinite set of "names", but then the problem of recognizing if two names (or lengths) are the same I think would become undecidable: there is no physical way to compare an uncountable set of lengths to decide if they are the same.
Every mathematical object has a proper model of itself.... basically itself. So basically (not rigorously) it means that R=R
Proper names only occur when someone thinks or says one.
But that's not right. "Two" is a proper name. Same for any integer. There are integers that have never been thought or said. Hence there are proper names that have never been thought or said.
What about uncountably infinite stuff?
Hnece:
Quoting andrewk
and
Quoting andrewk
Which seems to settle the question in the negative.
And how is it a proper name prior to being used as such?
There are? Where? And how do their names exist prior to being named?
"Proper name" aka "proper noun": "A noun that is used to denote a particular person, place, or thing, as Lincoln, Sarah, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Hall." (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/proper-name)
We could extend it to "names" (do you mean variables?) used in logical propositions if you like. How are there any of those if someone didn't think or say them?
That exist where/how prior to someone (or something, like a computer) creating/assigning them?
I'm definitely not a platonist. In fact, I'm a nominalist. I don't buy that any (objective) abstracts exist.
As a platonist, how would you demonstrate that abstracts exist?
The difference simply is that you cannot count them (duh!), no possibility of putting them in a proper order and hence get the 1-to-1 mapping to natural numbers. This means also that you cannot make a model of them with a function like y = f(x).
However, every uncountable infinite "stuff" does have a proper model of itself, namely itself. You just cannot compute it. And the model is quite useless, actually, because y = y doesn't get you anywhere.
Might sound simplistic or just semantic, but what is important to note that there genuinely is uncountable 'stuff' in mathematics. The best mathematical models for lot of things which we are interested might just be these uncountable/uncomputable 'stuff'.
People wouldn't be actually happy to find it is so.
If they're just possible, that doesn't imply that they're actual. The claim that they exist whether we count them or not is a claim that they're all actual and not only possible.
Quoting Mephist
And that doesn't follow. Our definition could be inaccurate for example.
(I'm also overlooking just how we're using "common" here. Remember that as a nominalist, I don't think that any numerically distinct things, including properties, are actually identical.)
Quoting Mephist
In order for the attributes to be actual names, we need to show that they are.
Not at all sure what you are saying here. I think we can be confident that there are fifty-digit integers that have not been written down or spoken.
Where do you think that fifty-digit integers that have not been written down or spoken are located?
Very funny.
As a nominalist how would you demonstrate that abstracts don't exist? To decide either way is to entertain a prejudice.
As I've mentioned many times, I always type my points.
By pointing to locations and noting that there are no abstracts there.
Or perhaps having a location is a prerequisite for having a name?
But why am I trying to guess what you mean?
The notion of a locationless existent (or subsistent, or whatever one would like to propose) is incoherent.
In one sense of the UN, it's at 405 East 42nd Street, New York, NY.
"This exists someplace that isn't physical" is what's absurd. The idea of that is completely incoherent. There isn't anything that's nonphysical. It's a completely idiotic idea.
No.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Special pleading.
It's a fiction that the UN is located at 405 East 42nd Street? lol
In any case, even granting your physicalist prejudice which demands that abstracts must have a physical location; you cannot demonstrate their non-existence by pointing to locations where they don't exist, because the locations you are able to point to make up an infinitesimal set that does not even begin to exhaust all possible locations.
Can you explain it, ontologically, in a manner that's coherent to you and that doesn't simply consist of negations ("not physical" etc. )?
Logical or semantic space can be physical, though. So what would be the ontological difference between physical logical or semantic space and nonphysical logical or semantic space that's not simply a negation?
They can be physical a la an ontological analysis of what they actually are as existents, which is a set of brain states in persons.
So the difference between that and nonphysical claims about them ontologically, where we're not simply stating negations, is?
You're misunderstanding. This isn't about proving anything. I'm stating an ontological account of how logical and semantic spaces can be physical. In contradistinction to that, your task is state an ontological account of how they can instead be nonphysical, where your account isn't simply a set of negations.
This puzzles me. IS Terra's claim that the number 2 is a brain state?
But that's nonsense, since it would mean that my 2 and your 2, being different brain states, are different numbers.
Looks like cobblers.
I dunno. Elsewhere you say clever stuff.
Yes.
Quoting Banno
And indeed that's the case, a la it being a nominalistic truism that two instantiations of "the same" anything are not actually identical.
I have no idea what you have in mind there.
Then, since you are talking about a completely different thing to the rest of us, why should we pay you any attention?
Why not treat your argument as a reductio, and conclude that since it makes language impossible, it's wrong?
It's curious how far the drive for reductionism will push folk.
Again this shows your physicalist prejudice. Of course two physical instantiations of any abstraction are not physically identical, but they are semantically and logically identical which shows that no coherent physicalist account of logic or semantics is possible. Physicalist accounts are not themselves physical, which, means that physicalist accounts are not, and cannot be, be given as a set of universally recognizable physical objects.
Say the account is given textually. The letters that make up the words, and the words themselves, and the sentences they make up, and the paragraphs that the sentences form and so on all have determinate physical configurations, but these determinate physical forms have no meaning to someone who does not speak the language the account is written in. Also two bodies of text with very different physical configurations can say the same thing, and yet there is no discernible physical relation between their configurations that could explain how that is possible.
It's not a bad assumption, if only for the purpose of checking out possibilities. Whta woudl be the alternative?
Quoting Janus
There's no necessity here. Understanding 2 is being able to do stuff with 2.
Quoting Janus
No brain state, just a capacity to do certain things...
Quoting Janus
Don't jump the gun. That @Terrapin Station has it wrong does not make it impossible.
There was a typo there: it should have read "physicalist account". My point was just that the physical form in which all accounts are given is irrelevant, in terms of their mere physical configurations, to their meaning. Of course this is not to say that the conveyance of meaning is not effected by recognizable physical configurations, but to make the fairly obvious point that there is no necessary, or necessarily physically recognizable, connection between physical conformation and meaning.
Quoting Banno
You lifted that out of context. Omitted parts of the whole sentence including the part you quoted above
Quoting Janus
should make it clear that I am not doing anything more than granting that assumption (that an ontological account is necessarily a physicalist account) for the sake of argument, and then going on to say what would be required to demonstrate the soundness of the assumption.
Quoting Banno
I don't believe I have "jumped the gun" and nor do I think it is merely that Terrapin "has it wrong", but that it is reasonable to conclude that no such account is possible. So, a physicalist account (which is itself always a logical and semantic, as well as a physical, entity) would be an account in the language of physics.
To say that a physicalist account of logic and semantics is possible then, would be to say that a comprehensive and intelligible explanation of all logic and semantics could be given in the language of physics (mathematical equations). This seems obviously unsupportable, or at least it does not seem possible to discover any reason to believe it could ever be done.
Well, yeah. But do you conclude that there is stuff that is not physical? 'Cause that does not follow.
What do you mean by "stuff"? If to be "stuff" is to be physical, then obviously it is merely a tautologous conclusion that there is, and can be, no stuff which is not physical.You said earlier that there were numbers which have never been written or spoken; are they "stuff"? Or do you say they are not physical and yet are existent or subsistent in some sense?
"Not identical" does not amount to "completely different" (in the sense of "completely dissimilar").
Quoting Banno
Because I'm not saying anything contradictory.
Quoting Banno
That's not at all the case. It simply has different claims about how language works--the underlying mechanics of it, than your account. Your account is not the only account possible, of course.
Quoting Banno
Not at all incompatible with my view of course.
Quoting Banno
So you don't agree with the standard jtb characterization of knowledge?
Yes, but first we need to go over what the "rules" for explanations are going to be. Can you do that with me?
Also, are you going to get to your alternate nonphysicalist account in terms that aren't just negations once we do that? Or are you never going to get around to that?
You can claim they're logically and semantically identical, of course.
Now can you explain how they are, explain how that works, etc.? We'll go over those rules for explanations first. Ready?
Quoting Janus
Can you get to the ontological account of what they are in unique, non-negative terms already?
He asked you what would be the alternative. You didn't tell him, aside from telling us what it wouldn't be.
Physicalism is NOT subservience in any regard to the science of physics.
By the way, re saying "Again this shows your physicalist prejudice," I'm a physicalist (and a direct realist, and a nominalist, etc.). I think that nonphysicalism is incoherent, it's obviously incorrect, and you've done nothing yet to make it coherent. So obviously I'm going to have a "physicalist prejudice," because I want to say things that are correct/accurate about what the world is like. The alternate views are obviously wrong, and defending them via used-car-salesman/Christian apologetics-styled tactics underscores what a mess they are.
What "rules for explanations"? Are you going to propose that they must be in physicalist terms to count as explanations? That would be very convenient for you.
There are no rules for explanations which are not predicated upon some presupposition(s) for which no explanation can be given. I say that explanations must make sense to count as explanations. What makes sense for me might not make sense for you due to your different basic presuppositions.
Or are you claiming that there is only one true kind of explanation? What evidence could you present for such a claim? Consensus? But then it could only be one of your despised "arguments ad populum". That'd be real consistent!
Quoting Terrapin Station
Where have I promised an "alternative non-physicalist account"? Account for what?
Quoting Terrapin Station
If we cannot speak about the same things then there is no point conversing since we would just be talking past one another (talking past one another does seem to be an ineliminable entailment of your position, which explains why all "conversations" with you seem to end up the same way; in the Land of the Strawpeople).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Physicalist accounts are semantic of course like all accounts. No negative terms there.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What is physicalism then? Whatever you want to say it is--- is this just your subjective understanding of physicalism, the meaning of which cannot be shared with anyone else (since there are no shared meanings, according to you)?
Your final paragraph there is nothing but rhetoric and says more about your prejudices than it does about anything else, so I won't waste time replying to anything specific in that.
It seems you've been waiting at the "Station" too long: I think it's time for you to finally catch that train. :wink:
Quoting Terrapin Station
You are going to use some notion of language as communication between your homunculus and our homunculi, in which you homunculus takes his brain state 2 and translates it into "2" - the word - and utters it in some way, and then each of our homunculi take the "2" and translate it into thier brain state 2...
And then you will deny that there are homunculi, saying that they are brain states, and hence each homunculus does not talk to itself in a private language despite the need to translate brain states into English.
Or some such. It's never put together as a whole.
But 2 is a thing in a head, a physical state of some sort that is repeated every time... what? You count? You calculate? You do anything related to the second number?
Now so far as I am aware there is no evidence for this - no MRI brain scans that show that every single time Jimmy thinks of "2" such-and-such a nerve cluster fires, and this only happens when Jimmy thinks of "2". And of course such a correlation could not be falsified, anyway.
SO the theory is wishful in that regard.
It's also adding an unneeded entity. An entity that supposedly is needed to account for how counting and calculating with 2 are the same... they are both about the concept "2". But why bother adding this? Why not just use the same words for different things - counting and calculating and whatever.
That is, what there is, is doing things like calculating and counting, but what there isn't, is a distinct thing called "2".
This is pretty straight-forward Wittgenstein, where we drop the search for the meaning of "2" and instead look at what we do.
It seems to be a corollary of your position that the existence of the number 2, just as with the existence of countless numbers which have never been thought or named, is, as well as not being confined to brain states, likewise not confined to "what we do".
When I asked how that works I was not asking how counting works, but I see no reason to doubt that you knew that.
So the existence of those uncounted numbers does depend on, not our counting them but on our capacity to count them? If you agree with that then explain what it is about our capacity to count that you think provides the conditions for the existence of those uncounted numbers.
Since you're not just using "homunculus"/"homunculi" in a "decorative literary" manner--at least it doesn't seem like you are since you then go on to talk about denying them--I'd need to clarify just what "homunculus"/"homunculi" is amounting to. Otherwise I can't say whether I'm claiming or denying anything like that.
Re "private language," I'm not at all denying private language. Remember that I think that Wittgenstein is mostly garbage. I'm not a fan.
Discussions would proceed better here if there were some interest in different ideas, because of a genuine curiosity, rather than everyone just wanting to "prove everyone else wrong."
Hopefully this link will work for you. I've posted variations on this many times, because it's a crucial issue that never gets addressed (not just here, but in philosophy in general):
https://thephilosophyforum.com/search?Search=explanations&expand=yes&child=&forums=&or=Relevance&discenc=&mem=&tag=&pg=1&date=All&Checkboxes%5B%5D=titles&Checkboxes%5B%5D=WithReplies&or=Relevance&user=Terrapin+Station&disc=&Checkboxes%5B%5D=child
Most of the posts at the top of those search results are about this. I get tired of having to retype the same thing over and over in slightly different wording, so that's why I just gave you the search results.
Yeah, those explanations of what you mean by 'explanation' are clear as mud! :roll:
An odd question. Which integers do you think are not countable?
The question at hand was, are there integers that have never been spoken nor though about.
I never said "uncountable" I said uncounted.. We both agree that there are integers which have never been spoken nor thought about (counted). But you seemed to be claiming that the existence of these integers is dependent upon our ability to count them. I can't make sense of that claim because it seems to suggest that those uncounted (not uncountable, mind) integers would not exist if we did not exist.
They're not at all an "explanation of what I mean by explanation."
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Terrapin Station
So "rules for explanations" is not "what...(you)... mean by explanation"?
What I was referring to was the issues with invoking "explanations"/hinging any arguments on whether there are "explanations" for something. The comments of mine referenced address the issue in more detail. I don't feel like typing it out in slightly different wording yet again. If you're interested, read some of those posts.
Cool. Guess we can't really proceed then.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, so first you make a claim (that the number 2 exists only as a brain state) and when I ask you for an argument in the way of explanatory support for that claim, you evade the question by saying that "first we need to go over what the "rules" for explanations are going to be. Can you do that with me?" and then by also making out that I have failed to provide an "alternative non-physicalist account" that I never promised. I was critiquing your physicality account not promising any alternative. (My "position" is basically a "negative" one of skepticism in case you hadn't noticed; I think there are problems with all positive standpoints when they are absolutized the way you do. What I am concerned with is not the nature of reality, but what we can sensibly say given the ordinary meaning of terms).
So, then when I ask for an explanation of what you mean by "rules for explanations" you link previous posts of yours and then when I tell you that those posts do nothing to clarify what you mean you go on to say that those posts do not contain any explanations of what you mean by "rules for explanations". Instead you say that you are referring to "the issues with invoking explanations/ hinging any arguments on whether there are explanations for something".
An argument just is an explanation for (why you claim) something. So, it seems that you cannot provide an argument for what you are claiming, and instead of admitting that choose to employ evasive tactics instead, which makes you a pretty useless interlocutor. or maybe just a troll after all.
As I relay in some of the posts you weren't interested in, there's no way that I'm doing an argument with anyone about explanations if we don't establish criteria for explanations first--criteria that are plausible and consistent with what the parties involved in the discussion count versus don't count as explanations of various things and why they count or don't count.
You said you weren't interested in this issue. So there's no way that I'm doing an argument that hinges on points about explanations. I'm opting out, because the problem with those arguments is that there's no criteria for explanations. No one cares about that, of course, at least not in these Internet arguments. They just plow ahead as if there's some clear, completely uncontroversial thing that "explanation" denotes in general . . . while there isn't at all. It's just a word that can be flung around like a sledgehammer that no one thinks to question. I consider that a waste of time.
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, read the posts I referenced. If you're not interested, that's fine. It's fine with me either way. But I won't be just moving on as if "explanation" is unproblematic.
Your style is such that you always do what you here accuse others of doing "plow ahead as if there's some clear uncontroversial" set of presuppositions which just make sense tout court (because they make sense to you). I don't think you are genuinely interested in what others think at all; if you were you would grant their presuppositions for the sake of argument and then try to discover if there are inconsistencies with those presuppositions in the arguments they present.
So, for example I see that you presuppose that only the physical exists, and hence that only physicalist explanations are sound. But the problem is that any argument, even a physicalist one, insofar as it is an argument that remains identical with itself, is semantic and logical. If the argument is taken not be identical with itself across time and its various physical instantiations then there remains nothing stable to argue about, and discussion would become pointless. And that just is how it seems to be with you. I have seen so many of your interlocutors frustrated by the various ways in which you make discussions go nowhere.
I'm saying things far more specific about "explanations," actually.
And part of it is that if S is going to issue an argument that hinges on whether something is an explanation, then S had better make clear what S's criteria for explanations are, in a manner that's plausible demarcation criteria for S's general usage of "explanation," as well as being able to say why S's criteria--especially if relatively novel--should matter in general/to others.
Whether or not the argument matters to others is not the concern of the person presenting the argument: if others are not interested they don't have to and probably won't (if they are intelligent) respond. The only point of responding should be to discover and identify any inconsistencies or errors which are internal to the argument. But to criticize an argument from the perspective of premises which are alien to it is bad form, it's chauvinism and only creates a situation where talking past one another ensues.
Sure some do. For example, there are phil of mind arguments predicated on whether there's a physicalist explanation for mind. The answer for those who invoke these arguments is "No," of course.
I wasn't saying anything about "arguments generally." I'm referring to arguments that basically go, "There is no explanation for x, therefore . . . " ---doesn't at all have to be about phil of mind, by the way.
So we can argue whether the arguments are really that? I have zero interest in that. The bottom line is that if you want to have a discussion that's going to hinge on claims about explanations, we'll need to go over explanation criteria before I'll participate. If you don't care if I participate, then you don't need to bother. It's up to you. I'm just giving you the requirement for my participation.
The problem is that I never intended to have a discussion that hinges on claims about explanations, and have not used that criterion at all; it was only you who brought that consideration into the conversation. I'm happy to leave it because I know how slippery you are, and it's not worth the effort.
You wrote this: "To say that a physicalist account of logic and semantics is possible then, would be to say that a comprehensive and intelligible explanation of all logic and semantics could be given in the language of physics (mathematical equations)."
An argument about that, including about whether it's possible, whether it's been accomplished, etc., would need to clarify criteria for explanations first.