Terrapin Station

I have no idea what you were saying in that particular post. Things make sense or not to individuals.

No idea what you're saying here. What is "your sense of making sense" that isn't to a particular person?

So making sense isn't to anyone in particular?

That's a false accusation of a false analogy.

I didn't. I assigned meaning to it. I said something that was correlated to the meaning I assigned. You assigned meaning to that. We both did this in ...

People say that objective/factual morality is simple and evidently true. Do you agree?

No, it's funny that you're insisting this, because you didn't. I assign meaning to things like text strings. It's not somehow, mysteriously-in-some-ma...

You're taking metaphorical ways of speaking to be literal. It's a form of projection. Projecting mental activities into the (extramental) world, as if...

You can't literally "express meaning to me." You can say and do things that I assign meaning to. That's not what it means. There is no meaning in a te...

Nope, that's the definition. The meaning is different. Again, the definition is simply the text strings (which is what you've presented) or sound "str...

The meaning is the subjective stuff. Thinking about things associatively, the picturing and conceptions we perform, etc.

There's, for example, a term--"cat," say, and a definition, "a small domesticated carnivorous mammal with soft fur, a short snout, and retractable cla...

Good and evil are assessments that people make about behavior. They're not something that exists independently of people making assessments. And not e...

It's not a rule, just the result of analysis.

If you care at all, you're employing empathy.

This is eleven pages (and note that it's a pdf), so it's not short, but it does a better job than I could do: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...

I want to just do a small bit at a time, especially because some of this I already addressed. Even this little bit is a few different topics. "Rules t...

If you're asking whether someone is going to choose something they're not aware of then no (and I noted that we don't experience that phenomenon in th...

What? It would be possible to choose pumpernickel if it's available, if one were to know about it, and if the choice ("choice" really) of some other t...

It's not as if I'm going to agree that morality is conventionally thought of as rules of conduct just because the SEP article says that if it does. Wh...

The variable was simply a way of saying "refers to whatever it refers to for you" but giving that a symbol, so that we could differentiate it from ano...

Just to be clear, I'm on the "there is ontological freedom/there is free will" side of this issue. I'm criticizing compatibilism a la Dennett, as I be...

It could be a unique alphabet, or non-alphabetic script (a la Chinese) if written. It wouldn't necessarily have to be written.

Languages are tools utilizing symbols (often but not necessarily sounds or marks) to represent objects, concepts, etc. They tend to change, to evolve ...

Well, first, I don't believe that languages consist of "rules about meaning" period. I don't know what a "rule about meaning" would even be. I don't b...

No, of course not. Say that it's not predetermined that Joe chooses rye bread instead of whole wheat when he orders his sandwich. Well, pumpernickel c...

I'd have to know more details, but at best it should have been a manslaughter case. The moral issue there is simply that the person should have taken ...

It could simply be relational and not in terms of any other text or phoneme strings.

Context? Becoming (what/in what context?) involves choosing one's own standards?

Why couldn't they simply think about what every symbol of their devising is going to refer to?

Phenomenally, there may be no difference. Hence, the issue is whether what it seems like is what it really is. What it means for a choice to be predet...

So, a cinematographic duration is?

We'd have to define "complex," but I don't see why someone couldn't do this. Private language arguments would need to specify and define "complex" lan...

I don't even really understand the idea of that. Why would you need a criterion to judge the objectivity of an experience? That sounds like we're star...

What would your criteria have to do with whether, say, clorophyll or dark matter or "the rule of thirds" in visual art or photons or anything else is(...

You were going to well until that part. :razz: (I'm a fan of most blockbusters, and not so much of a fan of the typical Criterion Collection sort of f...

Doesn't that require ontological freedom in the first place? If there's no ontological freedom, you can't actually pick one thing and discard another....

I'm getting off topic, but I just want to chime in that there are other reasons for (doing things by) schedules and lists, including it aiding in maxi...

He was rude to me, but I couldn't care less. I just ignore that and keep plugging away on trying to get him to think, critically, in ways he hasn't th...

I'm talking about whether it's "physically possible" to ignore someone. You're talking about how others might interpret that. How others interpret it ...

What is "cinematographic, telecommunicational duration"?

I don't know if I noticed that comment from Purple Pond. I'd wonder what Purple Pond would have in mind with meaning that doesn't involve reference in...

I don't want to speculate why. Why would you say it's a load of rubbish?

We really would need to define just what we're referring to with "free" here. And that would probably answer the question.

I don't want anyone banned, especially not because of any opinion they have/any view they express, but I do find what I call "agenda posters" annoying...

I don't agree with antinatalist views, but I don't agree with your comment here, either. If something doesn't exist, we can't say it has any propertie...

One big problem with the usual formulations of the private language argument is that they focus on a private language not being able to be "correct." ...

I don't believe that any of those work. I'm a direct/naive realist. Which ones do you find convincing? Sure it is. It's not someone else making the ra...

Sure. So that the private language creator doesn't remember, so they can't understand, some word in their private language at a later date doesn't imp...

That's fine, but weren't they words in a language prior?