vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) (03/31/88)
[ I'm adding talk.philosophy.misc to the newgroups ] In article <375@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: >You state that >concepts may not exist, as I define them, since I have defined them as possible >entities. Then you wonder how we can hold PSOF's (possible states of affairs, >as you term my idea of concepts), since they may not exist. To hold them, we >would have to hold something that *did* exist. And that would have to be some >kind of mental representation (MR). Fair enough, but you missed a critical point (see below). >My response is that a *possibility* may exist, even if the thing which is >possible does not necessarily exist. The possibility exists that there is a >purple car (not a purple cow) in my driveway. Though the car may not exist, >the *possibility* of the car exists. What? Then what is a possibility? How can I distinguish a possibility from something that is not a possibility? Doesn't the possibility of *anything* exist? You seem to have presented us with a vacuous category of things. And what about impossibilities? Do they exist? Are they anti-concepts? The crucial point regards the falsifiability of these possibilistic claims, something I went to great pains to express earlier, but didn't get a response to. I asked above "doesn't the possibility of *anything* exist?" And the answer is that the possibility of anyhing *that I can express*, that is anything I can construct an MR for, exists. And this is the key. Let's say that there exists a possibility for which I cannot construct an MR. On what possible grounds can I consider whether or not it exists? Thus even if your theory is true, it will be impossible to distinguish it from mine. >>Hmm, it is certainly true that not everything that exists is >>represented. However, it need not be true that everything that is >>represented does indeed exist, that is, it is possible to represent >>PSOFs. So I do admit the existence of things that are not perceived. >>In fact, we seem to have the general result that presentation and >>existence are totally disjoint: that is, things presented to me can >>either exist or not, and things that exist can either be presented to me >>or not. > >What?? Everything that exists is represented?? That doesn't seem correct, >somehow. No, it isn't: please read the quotation again more carefully! I'll ignore your response for now, and perhaps you'll want to respond again. BTW, the important sentences is the last one, not the first one. >I might know that there are papayas at the local Lucky's without >having any particular representation of that fact. I don't necessarily get the >sentence "There are papaya's at Lucky's", nor even a picture of papayas or >Luckys, when I know that. This fact *may* bne represented in a number of ways, >but it may *not* be represented, at any particular time. Hmm. Let's say I ask myself what the fourth root of 67 was, and then I do the calculations, and find the answer. After the calculation, I know the answer. Did I know the answer before I did the calculation? I think not. In other words, I think what you're saying is that if at time t-1 I wasn't representing Lucky's and papayas to msyelf, and then at time t I was, that I still knew it in both cases. This thesis is also unfalsifiable. Clearly, if I can know something without representing it to myself, then I can legitimately claim to know everything right now: it's just that I haven't represented it to myself yet! >You *may* be right that, in order for us to put our attention on some fact or >idea, it must be represented in some way, or that it just so happens that there >is always some representation present when our attention is on a fact. I don't >happen to think that's the case. But even if it *were* the case, that wouldn't >mean that the representation *is* the fact or concept. No, it doesn't mean that the MR *is* the concept, it means that the MR and the concept are *indistinguishable*, and the existence of the "naked" concept is unknowable. O----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Professional Cybernetician | Systems Science Department, SUNY Binghamton, New York | vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .