There are different shades of red that you can experience. You can distinguish between RED35 and RED36, two experiences of different shades of red. Both experiences of the two shades of red are more similar, phenomenologically speaking, between them that with regard to RED2.
Furthermore experiences RED35, RED36 and RED2 seem to be more similar that an experience of GREEN21. In general we distinguish between red experiences and green experiences. The phenomenal properties that characterize red experiences are in a sense different from those which characterize green experiences.
Do you think that it is controversial to suppose that red experiences have something phenomenological in common?
The former four experiences are in a sense similar, they are color experiences. They differ in a sense from visual experiences of forms, like a visual experience of a square. But again this experience and an experience of a red object have something in common: they are visual experiences, and in a sense the way they feel is similar.
Do you agree that visual experiences feel somehow similar and that the way that they feel is different from, say, auditory experiences?
Monday, July 13, 2009
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Indeterminacy Problem or Fact?
Recently, Manolo Martínez presented his “A Solution for the Indeterminacy Problem.” I voiced a worry I had some time ago, according to which indeterminacy will be just a fact if whatever it is in the individual that determines reference, fails to determine a particular one within a range of equally natural candidates.
In the discussion with Sònia Roca, however, it seemed to me that he would agree with this but contend that, in a given range of cases in the discussion, one of the candidates was indeed more natural than the alternatives. So reconstructed, the paper will advance a particular elaboration on the relevant notion of naturalness via HPCs as to substantiate the contention. Is this a fair reconstruction?
In the discussion with Sònia Roca, however, it seemed to me that he would agree with this but contend that, in a given range of cases in the discussion, one of the candidates was indeed more natural than the alternatives. So reconstructed, the paper will advance a particular elaboration on the relevant notion of naturalness via HPCs as to substantiate the contention. Is this a fair reconstruction?
Phenomenal Properties and Epistemic Access
Phenomenal properties are properties of mental states. In virtue of a phenomenal property a certain mental state feels somehow, there is something it is like to be in that mental state.
Some philosophers have argued that a mental state M of a subject S can instantiate a phenomenal property P without S realizing (or even being able to realize) that she is feeling anything (phenomenal consciousness without access consciousness in Block's terminology).
I disagree. There is a sense of feeling, that is the sense I am interested in, in which it makes no sense to talk about feeling anything if one does not realize it. In that sense, phenomenal consciousness entails access consciousness.
If we are interested in phenomenal properties and in its naturalization, the discussion is relevant. For imagine that one is interested in a neural correlate of a conscious mental state, or in some empirical evidences relevant for certain theories of consciousness. Is the epistemic access a constitutive part of the phenomenal property?
For instance, blindsighters have been sometimes presented as an objection to representational theories of consciousness. In order to deal with this, representational theorists introduce some further condition for instantiating a phenomenal property besides the representational character (for instance Tye introduces the condition of being available for reasoning and believes -being "poised" in Tye's terminology). But if we accept the distinction between the phenomenal property and the epistemic access, we can say that what is missing in the case of the blidsighter is the epistemic access (poised would not be a necessary condition for consciousness). In that case, I see no pre-theoretical way to decide whether or not a phenomenal property is instantiated.
A further problem would be that, if the process responsible for the instantiation of the phenomenal property and the epistemic access are different, one could fail. Imagine that S is instantiating phenomenal property A, the epistemic access machinery fails (certain neurons misfire) and indicates phenomenal property B. What does S feel? Trilemma:
It seems to me that in virtue of instantiating a phenomenal property I thereby come to know what it is like to undergo the corresponding experience (maybe I cannot remember it 1 msec. later). If this is true, the epistemic access is an intrinsic element of the phenomenal property and there cannot be phenomenal consciousness without access consciouness.
What do you think about the relation between phenomenal properties and the epistemic access?
Thanks
Some philosophers have argued that a mental state M of a subject S can instantiate a phenomenal property P without S realizing (or even being able to realize) that she is feeling anything (phenomenal consciousness without access consciousness in Block's terminology).
I disagree. There is a sense of feeling, that is the sense I am interested in, in which it makes no sense to talk about feeling anything if one does not realize it. In that sense, phenomenal consciousness entails access consciousness.
If we are interested in phenomenal properties and in its naturalization, the discussion is relevant. For imagine that one is interested in a neural correlate of a conscious mental state, or in some empirical evidences relevant for certain theories of consciousness. Is the epistemic access a constitutive part of the phenomenal property?
For instance, blindsighters have been sometimes presented as an objection to representational theories of consciousness. In order to deal with this, representational theorists introduce some further condition for instantiating a phenomenal property besides the representational character (for instance Tye introduces the condition of being available for reasoning and believes -being "poised" in Tye's terminology). But if we accept the distinction between the phenomenal property and the epistemic access, we can say that what is missing in the case of the blidsighter is the epistemic access (poised would not be a necessary condition for consciousness). In that case, I see no pre-theoretical way to decide whether or not a phenomenal property is instantiated.
A further problem would be that, if the process responsible for the instantiation of the phenomenal property and the epistemic access are different, one could fail. Imagine that S is instantiating phenomenal property A, the epistemic access machinery fails (certain neurons misfire) and indicates phenomenal property B. What does S feel? Trilemma:
- S feels anything. But this seems to be an ad hoc answer
- S feels B. In this case the phenomenal property instantiated plays no role in what S is feeling.
- S feels A. In this case S feels A but if she has a believe about what she is feeling this is going to be false. This option seems to go against the widespread intuition that we do have direct access and knowledge of what we are feeling
It seems to me that in virtue of instantiating a phenomenal property I thereby come to know what it is like to undergo the corresponding experience (maybe I cannot remember it 1 msec. later). If this is true, the epistemic access is an intrinsic element of the phenomenal property and there cannot be phenomenal consciousness without access consciouness.
What do you think about the relation between phenomenal properties and the epistemic access?
Thanks
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
"Discursive Dilemma"
Today at the LOGOS Colloquium, Stephan Hartmann discussed the so-called “discursive dilemma.” I was convinced by Genoveva Martí that it is not clear how to get a real dilemma from the examples. Suppose a hiring committee agrees to appoint a candidate if but only if s/he is strong both at research and at teaching. One third of them think s/he is, one other third think s/he is strong only at research, and the final third that s/he is strong only at teaching. It seems to me that a collective decision-making mechanism that allows the candidate to be hired in this situation is not the most reasonable one.
Pettit (2001) seems to suggest that, were the candidate not to be hired, the group would suffer from a certain sort of deficiency in “collective rationality”, as the majority think the candidate is strong at research, and the majority think that s/he is strong at teaching. That is true, but it certainly does not follow that the majority think that s/he’s strong both at research and at teaching—actually, the majority think s/he lacks one essential requirement to be appointable. Why should they hire the candidate??
Sunday, March 02, 2008
MM Lowe and McCall: two incompatible requisites on sums-at-a-time
The MM reading group has been reading a paper by Lowe and McCall: “The 3D/4D Controversy: A Storm in a Teacup”. I could not attend the session, but here is a worry that I have about the paper. (Warning: this posting is not self-contained and will not be intelligible for those who have not read the paper. I am sorry about that…)
In order to get the desired result that the 3D and 4D views are equivalent, the authors need “sums-at-times” to satisfy two requisites: (a) sums-at-times are acceptable for endurantists, i.e. they are not additions to the endurantist ontology, they are nothing over and above the enduring particles that the endurantist already accepts (b) Sums-at-times are “timebound”, i.e. they exist at only one time. For any two different times t and t’ in which an object O exists, (O, t) is numerically distinct from (O, t'). (Because of problems with the blogger, I use brackets instead of > and < to represent sums-at-times...In my notation, (O, t)represents the sum of particles that constitute O at t).
The second requisite is necessary for the translation scheme they propose to work. If sums-at-times are not timebound, then something is true of them that is not true of temporal parts (namely, that they exist or may exist at more than one time). This is why, I think, the authors hasten to emphasize that
But in ensuring that sums-at-times satisfy (b), the authors compromise (a). Understood as entities that exist at only one time, sums-at-times are genuine additions to the endurantist ontology. And this is so independently of how ontologically promiscuous the endurantist decides to be about other issues (i.e. whether she accepts coincidence, arbitrary composition, etc) while still being endurantist.
Take an example. Suppose that there are two times t and t’ such that Tibbles does not change in its constituent particles from t to t’. Then the set of particles that constitute Tibbles at t is the same set that constitutes it at t’. However, given (b), (Tibbles, t) is not identical to (Tibbles, t’). They are two different entities, one existing only at t and the other only at t’. But why should the endurantist accept the existence of these two numerally distinct things, (Tibbles, t) and (Tibbles, t’)? She accepts the existence of Tibbles, the existence of times, and the existence of enduring particles that constitute Tibbles at different times. Let us assume that she will also accept the existence of sums of these particles. So she will accept the existence of a sum of particles that constitute Tibbles at t, and a sum that constitutes Tibbles at t’. But why should she say that these are two numerically distinct things? After all, they are composed of exactly the same enduring particles. Nothing in the endurantist’s position commits her with the existence of two things here. In fact, the endurantist position can be understood precisely as the negation of the existence of two distinct things in a case like this. So understood, the endurantist view is that there are sums-at-times, but not as many as the perdurantist think there are. Notice that the endurantist can have this view even if she accepts unrestricted mereological composition. The existence of two different sums-at-times in the example above does not follow from accepting arbitrary composition. It would follow from accepting arbitrary decomposition. But this is precisely the doctrine that the endurantist refuses to accept, and what makes her position non-equivalent to perdurantism. .
In order to get the desired result that the 3D and 4D views are equivalent, the authors need “sums-at-times” to satisfy two requisites: (a) sums-at-times are acceptable for endurantists, i.e. they are not additions to the endurantist ontology, they are nothing over and above the enduring particles that the endurantist already accepts (b) Sums-at-times are “timebound”, i.e. they exist at only one time. For any two different times t and t’ in which an object O exists, (O, t) is numerically distinct from (O, t'). (Because of problems with the blogger, I use brackets instead of > and < to represent sums-at-times...In my notation, (O, t)represents the sum of particles that constitute O at t).
The second requisite is necessary for the translation scheme they propose to work. If sums-at-times are not timebound, then something is true of them that is not true of temporal parts (namely, that they exist or may exist at more than one time). This is why, I think, the authors hasten to emphasize that
(O, t) [the sum of particles that constitute O at t] may be understood as a 3D object which exists only at time t and no other time. […] The upshot of this is that the intertranslatability of 3D and 4D descriptions rests ultimately upon entities which can be described indifferently as “instantaneous 4D temporal parts”, or “3D objects which exist at one time only”. (p. 574)
But in ensuring that sums-at-times satisfy (b), the authors compromise (a). Understood as entities that exist at only one time, sums-at-times are genuine additions to the endurantist ontology. And this is so independently of how ontologically promiscuous the endurantist decides to be about other issues (i.e. whether she accepts coincidence, arbitrary composition, etc) while still being endurantist.
Take an example. Suppose that there are two times t and t’ such that Tibbles does not change in its constituent particles from t to t’. Then the set of particles that constitute Tibbles at t is the same set that constitutes it at t’. However, given (b), (Tibbles, t) is not identical to (Tibbles, t’). They are two different entities, one existing only at t and the other only at t’. But why should the endurantist accept the existence of these two numerally distinct things, (Tibbles, t) and (Tibbles, t’)? She accepts the existence of Tibbles, the existence of times, and the existence of enduring particles that constitute Tibbles at different times. Let us assume that she will also accept the existence of sums of these particles. So she will accept the existence of a sum of particles that constitute Tibbles at t, and a sum that constitutes Tibbles at t’. But why should she say that these are two numerically distinct things? After all, they are composed of exactly the same enduring particles. Nothing in the endurantist’s position commits her with the existence of two things here. In fact, the endurantist position can be understood precisely as the negation of the existence of two distinct things in a case like this. So understood, the endurantist view is that there are sums-at-times, but not as many as the perdurantist think there are. Notice that the endurantist can have this view even if she accepts unrestricted mereological composition. The existence of two different sums-at-times in the example above does not follow from accepting arbitrary composition. It would follow from accepting arbitrary decomposition. But this is precisely the doctrine that the endurantist refuses to accept, and what makes her position non-equivalent to perdurantism. .
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Against Causal Decision Theory?
Too bad I missed last session of LOGOS RG on DT, where people discussed Andy Egan's 'Some Counterexamples to Causal Decision Theory'. Did anyone get why exactly CDT predicts that Paul should press the button?
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Limitations vs Generality Constraint?
If I understod it right, in the first part of Pepa’s yesterday seminar Oscar talks about there was an argument from the limitation of discriminative powers of a given perceptual system of representation to the failure of generality constraint. I wasn’t clear however how the argument could succeed.
Suppose the pigeons discriminate between 40 pecks and 50 pecks but fail to discriminate between 48 pecks and 50 pecks, so that are able to think:
(1) 40 pecks is different from 50 pecks.
(2) 40 pecks is different from 48 pecks.
It seems true that due to the limits alluded to the pigeons can not think
(3) 48 pecks is different from 50 pecks
as opposed to
(3#) 50 pecks is different from 50 pecks.
But in order for generality constraint to be put in jeopardy it seems one would need the lack of ability to think (3) (and thus (3#)) period, and nothing about the limitation mentioned seems enough to substantiate this latter contention.
I might be misconstruing something in the situation, can anyone help?
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
On inference relations and constituents of representations
Today Pepa Toribio gave a thoughtful and dense talk on nonconceptualism, and the very beginning of it she told us that
"For to contentful mental states to be inferentially related, they ought to have at least one constituent in common"That puzzled me, because it seems easy to give examples of inferences in which none of the premises share a constituent with the conclusion. Take for example the inference from "b is red" to "There are non-blue things". The inference works because "red things are not blue" is analitically true (though not being logically true, or true in virtue of the sintax alone.) Does anyone else shares my feelings?
Saturday, November 24, 2007
St. Petersburg Paradox -Where are you?
During our last sesion on Decision theory, we were discusing on St. Peterburg paradox.
We, at least partially, agree that there is a paradox even if there is no infinite utilities. I will briefly defend that this position does not resist a simple mathematical analysis.
On the asumption that there are no infinite utilities the St. Peterburg game is perfectly acceptable:
I would bet 2utilities for getting 2utilities if the coin lands heads and 4utilities if the second time that I flip the coin it lands heads again. The game seems to be completelly fair. And so are the following games where:
The fist column represents the maximum price of the game. This would be 2utilities if the coin is flipped only once, 4 if it is flipped at most 2 times, and so on. In general 2 to the power of n where n is the number of times that the coin can as much be flipped.
The second represents the probability of each case.
The third column represents the expected utility (how many utilities should I pay to play the game).
| Premium | Probability % | EU | Result |
| 0 | 50,0000000000 | 0 | -20 |
| 2 | 50,0000000000 | 1 | -18 |
| 4 | 25,0000000000 | 2 | -16 |
| 8 | 12,5000000000 | 3 | -12 |
| 16 | 6,2500000000 | 4 | -4 |
| 32 | 3,1250000000 | 5 | 12 |
| 64 | 1,5625000000 | 6 | 44 |
| 128 | 0,7812500000 | 7 | 108 |
| 256 | 0,3906250000 | 8 | 236 |
| 512 | 0,1953125000 | 9 | 492 |
| 1024 | 0,0976562500 | 10 | 1004 |
| 2048 | 0,0488281250 | 11 | 2028 |
| 4096 | 0,0244140625 | 12 | 4076 |
| 8192 | 0,0122070313 | 13 | 8172 |
| 16384 | 0,0061035156 | 14 | 16364 |
| 32768 | 0,0030517578 | 15 | 32748 |
| 65536 | 0,0015258789 | 16 | 65516 |
| 131072 | 0,0007629395 | 17 | 131052 |
| 262144 | 0,0003814697 | 18 | 262124 |
| 524288 | 0,0001907349 | 19 | 524268 |
| 1048576 | 0,0000953674 | 20 | 1048556 |
For the example assumme that I have a lineal utility function regarding money between 0 and 1million euro (hard to believe but assumme that that is the case) and that the utility of 100M € equals the utility of 1M for me. The function saturates at 1M. (if you are not convince, for 30€ you can earn up to 1billion €, and I think that that is enought to saturate definitely the utility function of all of us).
The fouth column shows the money I would win or lose depending on the result of the game.
If you are having doubts on whether to play the game or not is because the utility of money is not linal for you and therefore: U(1M€) is not equal to 50000*U(20€).
In this case you would pay less money to play the game, but this is completely compatible with decision theory. Think of something wich utility is lineal in this range and you accpet the game (psichological reasons to avoid betting are out of the question) as you clearly see when the game is propossed to win just 4€.
The paradox is expressed in terms of utilities so have to find something which utility is lineal between 0 and 1M.
The real problem arises just in case we consider infinite utilities (no matter whether they are lineal or not). Imagine that more money has always a higher utility, so the utility function of money is a monotonically strictly increasing function in any interval. Then there is a problem, because at the limit the price is infinite...
The expected utility of any lottery involving an infinite price cost infinite no matter what the probability is. This two lotteries has the same cost (infinite):
| 1,00% | 99,00% |
| 0 | infinite |
|
|
|
| 99,99% | 0,01% |
| 0 | infinite |
You should prefer the second lottery to all that you have and that is obviously unacceptable. The solution: there are not infinite utilities.
The problem with lower probabilities is just that we are not able to find any utility that satisfies that lottery and therefore it is difficult to find an interpretation of paying 250 utilities to play this lottery.
99,99%->0
0,01%->25000000
But that says absolutely nothing against the decision theory.
The St. Petersburg game is only a problematic if we consider infinite utilities.
Friday, November 23, 2007
C&R Zeman: A Closet Contextualist?
With respect to this framework, one can characterize contextualist versions of moderate relativism endorsing the appearances of sentence s being true at c (wrt i_c) while false at c* (wrt i_c*); and in turn one can distinguish indexical contextualism (having it that this is true in virtue of s having a different content at c than c*) from non-indexical contextualism (having it that s has the same content at c and c* but that determines a different value wrt i_c than wrt i_c*.
Contexts in this sense are very rich. In particular, there is nothing as the epistemic situation (or standard or whathaveyou) of the context. There is that of the speaker at the center of the context (if one), that of the attributee of the utterance at the center of the context (if one), that which is salient in the conversation that takes place near the center of the context (if one), and so on and so forth. As Dan Z points out, this richness of contexts tends to be neglected in some discussions about knowledge attributions, and more sophisticated versions of indexical contextualism would presumably exploit this. (He still thinks that the view suffers from other “quite serious” difficulties so that it is “likely” that it will fail. I’m not convinced, but let’s discuss that in some other occasion.)
As I understand his own positive proposal, he claims that the attributions have the same semantic value across context, but are evaluated differently with respect to different indices of these context—where the epistemic standard of the context that figures as a coordinate in the index need not be that of the subject at the center of the context, nor the attributee, but is the highest (I guess among those that are relevant in the conversation that takes place near the center). But thus his seems to me to be a version of non-indexical contextualism and not radical relativism proper!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Ways of Doing Otherwise?
Today, at the LOGOS Colloquium, Carlos Moya (València) presented his views on how to defend the principle of of alternate possibilities (PAP) from Frankfurt-like cases, which he published as chapter 2 of his Moral Responsability (Routledge 2006).
In a nutshell, and if I didn't misunderstand his presentation (I haven't read the chapter), the main idea was the following one. John's being responsible for murdering Smith doesn't contradict PAP, for John could have done otherwise after all: he could have merely involuntarily killed Smith.
(Carlos originally stated this in terms of unintentionally killing Smith, but as issued in discussion with Prades, the notion of intentional action in place cannot be merely that of action appropriately caused by beliefs/desires, and Carlos replied he was happy rephrase it in terms of (in)voluntary action.)
I worried, in connection with Jose's, that this seemed to be dangerously close to the following (unsatisfactory, I take it) general way of dispelling any possible counterexample to PAP: if the agent is responsible, s/he could always have done otherwise, for s/he could always have done the "corresponding" thing without being responsible. It was hard for me to see how the sense in which the act of murdering and the act of involuntary killing someone (in the Frankfurt situation) were "different actions" could fail to vindicate that same sense in the latter, trivializing case.
In a nutshell, and if I didn't misunderstand his presentation (I haven't read the chapter), the main idea was the following one. John's being responsible for murdering Smith doesn't contradict PAP, for John could have done otherwise after all: he could have merely involuntarily killed Smith.
(Carlos originally stated this in terms of unintentionally killing Smith, but as issued in discussion with Prades, the notion of intentional action in place cannot be merely that of action appropriately caused by beliefs/desires, and Carlos replied he was happy rephrase it in terms of (in)voluntary action.)
I worried, in connection with Jose's, that this seemed to be dangerously close to the following (unsatisfactory, I take it) general way of dispelling any possible counterexample to PAP: if the agent is responsible, s/he could always have done otherwise, for s/he could always have done the "corresponding" thing without being responsible. It was hard for me to see how the sense in which the act of murdering and the act of involuntary killing someone (in the Frankfurt situation) were "different actions" could fail to vindicate that same sense in the latter, trivializing case.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Imagining Scientific Models?
Yesterday, at the LOGOS Seminar, Roman presented his views on scientific models (see also Manolo M’s discussion).
I was very sympathetic to Roman’s contention that “going fictionalist” in debates in metaphysics or the philosophy of mathematics of the philosophy of science need not help much—unless, of course, one has an illuminating general theory on fictions, and is in a position to substantiate the claim that the problematic entities are indeed fictions, in the sense of the theory.
This was indeed the aim of Roman’s paper, dwelling upon the “pretense theory.” As he himself acknowledged, there might be general problems with the view—what if the key normative notions employed ultimately make no sense—and specific problems with the intended application to scientific models—what if the sensible generation principles are relatively trivial, and the only truths in fiction are very close to the surface?—. In particular, I worried that there seemed to be a crucial disanalogy between literary works and descriptions of scientific models: although talk about imagination makes perfectly good sense in the former case, it seems to be at best metaphorical in the latter. As Roman seemed to agree in discussion, the relevant kind of act seems to be more that of considering—as opposed to imagining, I would say. But then the worry was that the contrast with the alternative so-called “formal” approaches turn out to be much less clear after all, as also pointed out by Jose.
Roman on fiction and models
In yesterday's session of the Logos Seminar, Roman Frigg made the interesting suggestion that scientific models -such as ball-and-stick molecular models or simple pendula, with their massless strings and their point masses- should be understood as being similar in kind to literary fictions -such as Sherlock Holmes or Godzilla. Furthermore, he proposed that the best treatment for these is one along the lines of Walton's acts of make-believe.
I had doubts about one of the arguments he presented for treating models as fictions:
(The Semantic Argument) The simple pendulum equations are not true of anything -they would only apply to pendula with a massless string and a point mass, shielded from all forces but a uniform gravitational field, or something like that. Therefore, between the equations and real pendula we must postulate an imaginary something -a scientific model- to which the equations would faithfully applied, if it existed.
In fact, Roman's aim for the talk was to consider the relation between ourselves and the scientific model -relation he spelled out in terms of acts of make-believe- and not the relation between model and world.
But I would have said there is another option to deal with the lack of conformity between the simple pendulum equation and real pendula: the relevant singular terms in the equations do really refer to pendula; it is just that the equations misrepresent them. Actually, they don't misrepresent them that much; this is why the equations are useful. Wouldn't this get rid of models-as-fictions in the case of pendula?
A way to drive this point home, maybe, is to consider a history book in which several things are said about World War II, some of which are false: that Spain sent troops to Germany, maybe. Couldn't we mount an analogue to the Semantic Argument above to the effect that there is a fictional war involved in our understanding of the text?
(The Semantic Argument - WWII version) The sentences in the history book are not true of anything -they would only apply to a war in which Spain did send troops to Germany. Therefore, between the book and the real war we must postulate an imaginary something -a fictional war- to which the sentences would faithfully applied, if it existed.
But we feel no temptation to postulate such a fictional war: it is just that the book misrepresents WWII.
Another question in this connection: does it follow, if Roman is right, that there is a fictional model between ball-and-stick molecular mock-ups and real molecules, one in which atoms are spherical and rigidly bonded to one another? I'm not sure that it follows, but if it does, that is surely less natural than simply say that such a ball-and-stick mock-up truly represents the molecule of, say, cyclohexane, just like a map of the London Tube truly represents the London Tube.
I had doubts about one of the arguments he presented for treating models as fictions:
(The Semantic Argument) The simple pendulum equations are not true of anything -they would only apply to pendula with a massless string and a point mass, shielded from all forces but a uniform gravitational field, or something like that. Therefore, between the equations and real pendula we must postulate an imaginary something -a scientific model- to which the equations would faithfully applied, if it existed.
In fact, Roman's aim for the talk was to consider the relation between ourselves and the scientific model -relation he spelled out in terms of acts of make-believe- and not the relation between model and world.
But I would have said there is another option to deal with the lack of conformity between the simple pendulum equation and real pendula: the relevant singular terms in the equations do really refer to pendula; it is just that the equations misrepresent them. Actually, they don't misrepresent them that much; this is why the equations are useful. Wouldn't this get rid of models-as-fictions in the case of pendula?
A way to drive this point home, maybe, is to consider a history book in which several things are said about World War II, some of which are false: that Spain sent troops to Germany, maybe. Couldn't we mount an analogue to the Semantic Argument above to the effect that there is a fictional war involved in our understanding of the text?
(The Semantic Argument - WWII version) The sentences in the history book are not true of anything -they would only apply to a war in which Spain did send troops to Germany. Therefore, between the book and the real war we must postulate an imaginary something -a fictional war- to which the sentences would faithfully applied, if it existed.
But we feel no temptation to postulate such a fictional war: it is just that the book misrepresents WWII.
Another question in this connection: does it follow, if Roman is right, that there is a fictional model between ball-and-stick molecular mock-ups and real molecules, one in which atoms are spherical and rigidly bonded to one another? I'm not sure that it follows, but if it does, that is surely less natural than simply say that such a ball-and-stick mock-up truly represents the molecule of, say, cyclohexane, just like a map of the London Tube truly represents the London Tube.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
(How) Is the Present Special?
Unfortunately, I’m very unfamiliar with debates on these extremely complicated issues in the philosophy of time—so that for instance it wasn’t clear which was exactly the content of the invoked intuition, nor thus what would qualify as vindicating it, and in particular why it didn’t work the proposal that it consisted in the present time exemplifying the irreducible property of being present. In any case, I worried how Sven proposal in terms of the present times occupying the object NOW ultimately differed from the considered proposal. In discussion, some other people seemed to share this concern. (If I don’t misremember, Sven suggested that his could work without the metaphor of “occupying” that object, by invoking relations of variable temporal distance to an object (which is therefore not a time). But as it issued in discussion with Sebas, it’s not clear that the latter notion is more illuminating than the former.)
On reflection, I also share Manolo M’s other concern: there seems to be as much reason to posit NOW as to posit also TOMORROW, TWO DAYS AGO, and so on. Thus, at each moment, every time occupies one of these “transcendental” positions. The original worry would then reappear: in which sense is NOW special?
Any thoughts?
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Teleology and Indeterminacy
Yesterday, at the LOGOS Seminar, Manolo M presented two ideas for responding to Fodor on teleological/functional solutions to the “Disjunction Problem.”
I haven’t (re-?)read Fodor’s stuff yet, but if I followed correctly, Fodor's general point was that there arguably are pairs of distinct properties such that, nonetheless, there is no fact of the matter as to whether a given mental state has the function of signalling one as opposed to the other. (As Oscar remarked, plausible examples might be harder to come with if a restriction to natural (enough) properties is in place.)
This sounds right. But, as Sebas also worried, it’s not clear in which sense the resulting indeterminacy is not precisely one the defender of the teleological/functional proposal would independently predict and willingly embrace.
Any views?
Friday, October 19, 2007
New e-Discussion Group on Contextualism & Relativism
In addition to the regular LOGOS Reading Groups, we are planning to run an informal e-discussion group on contextualism and relativism.
Following the format of last year e-RG on meta-metaphysics, the idea would be to have the discussion every two or three weeks here at The bLOGOS, so everybody is welcome to participate, regardless of whether you are sited near
We would be mainly discussing papers by ourselves. It is my pleasure to announce that the first paper to get this started will be Dan Zeman's 'Knowledge Attributions and Relevant Contexts'. New posts discussing this paper are to be expected around 2 November, with titles starting with ‘C&R Zeman.’
As for further e-sessions, I’d like to suggest López de Sa 2007 and Kölbel 2007 exchange (on Kölbel 2004, to which Dan Z also refers). Any other suggestions? Please give them in comments, and add links if available.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
DT RG: Carcel Confusion
This pertains to the reading group on decision theory, but any comments are welcome.
It's my version of the Three Prisoners Paradox. I read about the original paradox years ago in a book about the Monty Hall Problem, and I always assumed that it was created as a variant of this problem. However, Wikipedia recently taught me that it's much older than the MHP, and that it's due to Martin Gardner.
Here goes the story (I assume you know about the Monty Hall Problem; otherwise, read the wikipedia entry first):
Three prisoners, A, B and C, are awaiting their execution. It's known to them that one of them will be pardoned, but part of their punishment is that they may not know who prior to the day of the execution. They are kept in separate cells in different buildings.
One day, as the prison guard comes to check on prisoner A, A begs him to give him a hint concerning his fate. Of course the guard declines, but A keeps begging. At least, A suggests, the guard could tell him the name of only one of the others who will be executed for sure. That way A would still not know whether he will die or live, and the guard wouldn't have disobeyed his orders.
The guard thinks it through and mercifully agrees to give the required information: B will die. A thanks the guard and thinks to himself: "Well, at least I know that my chances to get out alive are 50% now."
So far, so good. Anyone familiar with Monty Hall will see that A is wrong. His chances are still 33%, the guard's revelation has gained him nothing. To draw the analogy to Monty Hall, he should switch fates with C if only he could. If we, the audience, were the type of people who bet on people's lives and deaths, we should put our money on C's staying alive.
That's the Three Prisoners Paradox as I remember reading it in the book. Now my appendix:
The guard passes by the cell of poor B, who is sound asleep, and finally comes to C. Here, a similar scene as before unfolds. C implores the guard to tell him something about his situation. The guard recalls his talk with A, goes through the reasoning once again to make sure he's not disobeying his orders, and tells C that B is going to die. "Whoopy!", thinks C, "So my chances to survive are 50%!!" But of course we know that this is false, his chances are 33%.
To sum up, we have A at a survival-chance of 33%, doomed B at 0% and C at 33% as well. But that seems a bit odd...
I've been puzzled by this for a long time, and I've asked a bunch of people and received a bunch of interesting and interestingly different answers. I think I know what's wrong, but I'm never quite sure (about 66% most of the time), so I await clarification(s)!
It's my version of the Three Prisoners Paradox. I read about the original paradox years ago in a book about the Monty Hall Problem, and I always assumed that it was created as a variant of this problem. However, Wikipedia recently taught me that it's much older than the MHP, and that it's due to Martin Gardner.
Here goes the story (I assume you know about the Monty Hall Problem; otherwise, read the wikipedia entry first):
Three prisoners, A, B and C, are awaiting their execution. It's known to them that one of them will be pardoned, but part of their punishment is that they may not know who prior to the day of the execution. They are kept in separate cells in different buildings.
One day, as the prison guard comes to check on prisoner A, A begs him to give him a hint concerning his fate. Of course the guard declines, but A keeps begging. At least, A suggests, the guard could tell him the name of only one of the others who will be executed for sure. That way A would still not know whether he will die or live, and the guard wouldn't have disobeyed his orders.
The guard thinks it through and mercifully agrees to give the required information: B will die. A thanks the guard and thinks to himself: "Well, at least I know that my chances to get out alive are 50% now."
So far, so good. Anyone familiar with Monty Hall will see that A is wrong. His chances are still 33%, the guard's revelation has gained him nothing. To draw the analogy to Monty Hall, he should switch fates with C if only he could. If we, the audience, were the type of people who bet on people's lives and deaths, we should put our money on C's staying alive.
That's the Three Prisoners Paradox as I remember reading it in the book. Now my appendix:
The guard passes by the cell of poor B, who is sound asleep, and finally comes to C. Here, a similar scene as before unfolds. C implores the guard to tell him something about his situation. The guard recalls his talk with A, goes through the reasoning once again to make sure he's not disobeying his orders, and tells C that B is going to die. "Whoopy!", thinks C, "So my chances to survive are 50%!!" But of course we know that this is false, his chances are 33%.
To sum up, we have A at a survival-chance of 33%, doomed B at 0% and C at 33% as well. But that seems a bit odd...
I've been puzzled by this for a long time, and I've asked a bunch of people and received a bunch of interesting and interestingly different answers. I think I know what's wrong, but I'm never quite sure (about 66% most of the time), so I await clarification(s)!
Friday, July 20, 2007
CFP: LOGOS Conference on Meta-Metaphysics
LOGOS Conference on Meta-Metaphysics
Barcelona , 19-21 June 2008
www.ub.edu/grc_logos
Barcelona , 19-21 June 2008
First Call for Papers
Do numbers, sets, and other abstract entities, exist? Does mereological composition ever occur? Does it always occur? How do objects persist through time? In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the status of certain traditional debates in metaphysics such as these. Some think that some of these turn out to be genuine disputes but of a semantic or conceptual character. Some think that some of these turn out to be pseudo-disputes that should be just dismissed. (Some others think, of course, that the disputes are indeed genuine, but not of a semantic or conceptual character.) Reflection of these issues promises to shed light on the nature of philosophical inquiry in general.
LOGOS—Grup de Recerca en Lògica, Llenguatge i Cognició is organizing a conference on meta-metaphysics. Invited and submitted papers will be made available to participants one month before the conference. Participants are expected to read them in advance, as there will be no presentation of them during the conference. Sessions will start with a critical commentary (lasting 20 minutes at most), followed by a response by the author(s) (lasting 10 minutes at most) and a general open discussion period.
Proposals to participate as a speaker and/or as a commentator should be sent by e-mail to logos@pcb.ub.es by 1 April 2008. Full papers in suitable form for blind refereeing should be submitted in order to participate as a speaker, and a short CV is to be supplied as to participate as a commentator. We expect to notify accepted proposals within four weeks of the deadline.
Participants other than invited speakers will have to rely on their own institutions to defray the cost of travel and accommodation.
Confirmed Invited Speakers:
John Hawthorne (Oxford )
Amie Thomasson (Miami)
Stephen Yablo (MIT)
Organizing Committee:
Manuel García-Carpintero (Barcelona)
Dan López de Sa (NYU/St Andrews)
Pablo Rychter (Barcelona)
Scientific Committee:
Fabrice Correia (Rovira i Virgili)
Manuel García-Carpintero (Barcelona)
John Hawthorne (Oxford)
Max Kölbel (Birmingham)
Dan López de Sa (NYU/St Andrews)
Sven Rosenkranz (Barcelona/St Andrews)
Pablo Rychter (Barcelona)
Amie Thomasson (Miami)
Gabriel Uzquiano (Oxford)
Timothy Williamson (Oxford)
Stephen Yablo (MIT)
Further information:
logos@pcb.ub.eswww.ub.edu/grc_logos
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Power-points to the point
This video reminds me some power-point presentations I've recently seen. Enjoy!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Nussbaum on India
Martha Nussbaum has written a surprisingly well-informed and insightful essay on the rise of fascism in India. Surprising, that is, for someone like me who isn't following her work very closely; she has just published a whole book about this issue. You have to give it to her, her scope is impressive.
Reading through the piece brought back memories of some downright scary discussions about this guy that I had in India. There is not much that is more distressing to a German than to be congratulated for this part of his country's history.
In case you're neither interested in Martha, Adolf nor India, read it for the sake of the good point she makes against over-pragmatically inclined educational systems.
Reading through the piece brought back memories of some downright scary discussions about this guy that I had in India. There is not much that is more distressing to a German than to be congratulated for this part of his country's history.
In case you're neither interested in Martha, Adolf nor India, read it for the sake of the good point she makes against over-pragmatically inclined educational systems.
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