Isaac

Basically, yes. I don't follow your argument here. I'm saying that the function of the collective fiction is to reduce surprise about each other's beh...

I think so. I'd been using expectation as if it were synonymous with anticipation. I'm used to talking as if our brains are surprised by what our bodi...

I swore I wouldn't get into this nonsense again, but this one is so simply answered, and could well summarise half the thread in one sentence. Here's ...

Ha! I hadn't even noticed. Which makes your comment all the more pertinent, I think. In my view, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about expec...

Did 'boiling' involve getting all the water to 100C, a rolling boil, the first bubbles, too hot to touch ("that's boiling!")... I don't see how we can...

The argument is that the predicate '...is true' cannot be analytical of X by correspondence if X has no fixed extension. Hence the discussion about X'...

As I said above to Srap, The idea that I can change the external world by some vocalisation (same for doing so by some gesture) to others does indeed ...

I'm not clear where this is going. I don't think there's anything about saying that "the kettle" is defined functionally which renders it victim to Ol...

Go on... I'm with you so far, but all this seems to make our vague picture sufficient to get the job done. I'm not seeing the link to it being suffici...

Thanks. I'll reanimate a previous example. Those of us with an upstairs will perhaps have a landing light which has a switch upstairs and one downstai...

Yep, mine too. Basically, the gap is 'black-boxed' out. I have one model where hidden states are inferred by neural networks and then acted upon (to r...

That's pretty close, but I've maybe clarified a bit in my reply to Srap above. That categorisation is about function, not spatio-temporal locations. W...

I love the fact that I always get a free anecdote along with the philosophy in your posts. I immediately tried the trick on my son, who was visiting. ...

Is that true? I can't see how it's coherent to escape the way meaning determines truth by claiming some intervening statement is true anyways. If you'...

2. Your argument seems the equivalent of... If the {on/off state of a light} can change without {switch for that light} changing then the {on/off stat...

No, I agreed to that. You stipulated that it does for the sake of your thought experiment. Nothing, we chose not to, according to the rules you stipul...

No. I don't see how you're getting that.

...because we stipulated it wouldn't. So... ...us stipulating the meanings of the expressions under consideration. The expression at T2 could be eithe...

Yep. Look at the bolded bits. The activities described are those of a living language.

Not at all. Just like a 'race' is any kind of activity which has a start, a finish, and some competitive element, a 'belief that the pub is at the end...

Doesn't that just beg the question a little? Ramsey's concern about propositions is exactly that we just can't do that. But the meaning only didn't ch...

Is it? Does "the kettle" include the screw in the drawer or not? Does it include it at T1, but not at T2, or vice versa perhaps? Did you paint the scr...

Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head. It cannot be be the thing in that sense identified by our use of the expression "the kettle" because no s...

Yes. But since it could be literally any matter at all, to claim that the truth of any sentence involving kettles depends on this fact would render al...

Yep. Using language. The truth of "the kettle is black" cannot be determined by hidden states because nothing in those hidden states determines that t...

I asked... ...and you answered... But if it... ...then my original question stands unanswered. Does this particular matter the truth about the colour ...

You just agreed the contrary. You said "yes" when I asked if the material particular matter was any particular matter. So it isn't made true by the ex...

It's 4 I'd quibble over. I'm not sure in what sense we can say the kettle is a concrete object if we can't agree on what that concrete object constitu...

Absolutely. And we're agreed there. But if what it relies on can't be specified (does it include the screw or not?), then it can't act as truth-maker....

No. Language is what delineates 'kettle' as an object. Without it, there's just 'the stuff that kettles are drawn from'. So, outside of our talk, is t...

The statement. The boiling kettle can't be 'true' since there are no matters, outside of language, which could make it so. I tried to explain that wit...

I used Ramsey's arguments against Russell in my response to @"Michael" (or at least, my interpretation of it). It answers the same question you're ask...

Absolutely. It's what I've tried to get at in my response above.

Then how? You say that the truth of "the kettle is black " depends on both that the kettle is black and that some hidden value is in such and such a s...

Any nonlinguistic feature? Does that include the screw in the drawer or not? Because without determining that, we can't say if the expression is true ...

So what about if I dispute your claim by saying that the silver coloured screw in my kitchen drawer is still part of 'the kettle' even though it fell ...

So if a sentence is "the kettle is black", then presumably there's some nonlinguistic element which can render it true. If you say "the kettle is blac...

Well worth a read. Apparently Davidson (much quoted here) used to have a term 'Ramsey Effect' for the revelation that one's new philosophical insight ...

Thanks. So, small-t might fit with the sort of use that amounts to statements about the world, Ramsey-like redundancy. Where to say "p is true" is sim...

Not any proposal I've made, that. Are you having problems at work? If you need to talk to someone... Why's that? Really? Not the belief that bikes are...

Bit boring for everyone else when we agree though! Yes, that works as far as my model (scientific model - going to start specifying from now on) of co...

Well there's our first mistake then. 'Honesty' is the good and honourable thing. 'Truthfulness' is a game used to convince people your beliefs are bet...

Yes, that's exactly it. My bad expression to blame for the lack of clarity there. Yep, absolutely. Knowing things is a social game of comparisons in o...

Ah, maybe I'm mistaken then. It seems that you say on the one hand that we'd have no basis for our agreement that the models were both 'of the neighbo...

Indeed. If one looks at groups which cohere and those which don't, a shared common goal is often cited as a feature of those that do. The obvious reas...

That's the spirit! See above ^. Did you read my mind? I'd not finished writing my post about how the critiqued are always going to assume a lack of ch...

Absolutely. That, and abandon any sense of the 'throw everything in a bucket' type of empiricism that seems at times to be popular among the lay philo...

Cool. I think that's the only sensible way to go here. a lack of rational argument is good. I don't think this sort of thing is particularly amenable ...

I don't doubt that, but there's categories and approaches. You'd find it weird if we all, as car drivers, tried to puzzle out our commitments and back...

You said... ...and also... None of which is to contradict the fact that my representation is a mischaracterisation (only you can know that), but it is...