Terrapin Station

Meaning is the associative act, not what you're associating (just to make sure you're clear on that). Language enters the picture because it's one of ...

If I say that the probability of the Big Bang occurring today is zero and you say it's not, then we need a way to determine which one of us is correct...

Why wouldn't that be an argumentum ad populum?

Like roll two dice, and if we get two 5s, we assign "zero," if we roll two 1s, we assign "0.5" etc.?

We're not just assigning probabilities randomly, are we?

That's fine. Now, what is the probability based on? We say that x has probability n. (And whether n is zero or non-zero changes the classification per...

So it's important to understand that meaning is an activity that we perform. It's not something that external things have or not. Can we perform that ...

You're not answering what the probability is based on. I don't know how many times I have to ask that until you'd attempt to explain what the probabil...

Almost every sentence of PI has some problem. I was detailing that in my comments on the PI thread. What's hidden? I have no idea what you're asking. ...

Again, that's basically the sort of distinction I'm making. It's a locational distinction.

You say "blah blah blah Paris." I hear it. I assign the meanings I do to those sounds, and as long as I can make sense, per my meanings, concepts, etc...

You're perhaps conflating the referent and meaning?

Refrigerators are a part of the world. But aren't some things inside of refrigerators and some things outside of them?

Based on what? The fact that you're stipulating it?

Put it this way. If I were to say, "Between the last message I posted and this one--a finite time period, there was zero probability of a big bang occ...

Based on what?

Sure. It's not impossible for there to be just one big bang. In order to say it's impossible, we'd need an argument for that, and our argument can't b...

In one ear and out the other. Go ahead and repeat the claim, though. Surely that will help.

I wasn't using the term that way, either. There can be just one big bang, say, given infinite time. Again, see what I wrote above if you want to argue...

All you'd need to do is point out what the truthmaker would be. Where is it located, what is it a property of, etc. However you need to specify it.

There's a serious problem with that theory, then, because an event can happen just once given an infinite amount of time. If you want to argue that an...

Yeah, that's ficction/fantasy as well, though "religion" is a more descriptive tag for it because of its cultural history.

That certainly makes sense, but if we're forwarding a logical argument what is the ground for assigning any probability for any arbitrary time period?...

Would it be outdated to talk about internal and external to something like a refrigerator? Because that's more or less similar to the distinction. It'...

I wasn't making a claim about what's really the case either way. I was critiquing the logic of his argument as he presented it. " We would of reached ...

I'm not presenting a model per se. I'm describing what's really going on ontologically. Are you simply avoiding claims about what's really going on on...

That's a longer, more detailed version of the claim. It's not an argument for any of it. Same with the responses afterwards that I'm not quoting. It r...

File in the SciFi/fantasy subforum. One problem with the SciFi scenario is that we'd need a fictional account of what energy is (a fictional account t...

It would be unnatural and caused by God per what? Those claims don't follow from anything. Again, this is a complete non-sequitur. You're assuming som...

Yes, because it's a logical argument, and those don't rely on scientific consensus in any significant way (it would be to their fault if they were to;...

He's presenting a logical argument. He wasn't presenting an argument a la "This is the current scientific consensus, and the current scientific consen...

Bob's action is moral to Bob if he approves of it. X is always moral or immoral (or whatever else on the spectrum, including morally neutral) to someo...

How did you get to this claim. It's coming out of nowhere. If you're not using "real" in an unusual way, you did zero work above to support the idea.

There's no reason at all to believe either one of these premises. Re (3), time could be infinite with matter/energy creation occurring at just one poi...

What's recoverable is that nature is processual. And you could add "organic" as long as we're talking about living things or carbon. ;-)

Okay. Normally "perception" is reserved for (the notion of (ideally) accurately) processing external information.

So I'm confused how you're using "realist" and "real" then.

Is an atom "the same thing" as an apple? The two actually have no correlation to each other.

Apparently you don't really understand the distinction between things we believe that "parallel" facts that are external to us and things we think tha...

No such thing in my view. The fact that any person(s) is considered an authority in x never makes it the case that what they say about x is correct, o...

You have the idealism disease, too? Or are you just pretending to for "fun"?

Again, the world itself, outside of minds, doesn't make associations. That's an activity that brains perform. So you can't perceive an association.

Not everything in the world is something functioning in a mental way. As far as we know so far, only brains do that. Brains functioning in a mental wa...

"Space is infinitely divisible" is theory. So, right, when that theory leads you to conclude something obviously absurd, you don't go with the absurdi...

Zeno's paradoxes are a good example of theory-worship--you take the theory to trump reality, and when the theory results in something absurd, you conc...

Yes, definitely. I do this as a musician all the time, for example. "When I associate a spout with its vase and see a teapot, is that perception"--tha...

The world outside of minds isn't the sort of thing that feels that it's okay or not to kick puppies. Creatures with minds are the sorts of things that...

Correct. What's not an objective state of affairs is if it's better or worse, proper or improper, etc. to use ingredients that will make us sick, or k...

When I say, "You'd need to try to make any sense whatsoever of what nonphysical things are supposed to be ontologically, what their properties are in ...

It's not clear to me what that is supposed to read that would make sense. Unfortunately, per your views, you have no grounds for believing there's any...