Re: All computation & human reasoning encoded as finite string transformations --- Quine

In comp.theory olcott <polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/27/2025 9:57 AM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

olcott <polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/26/2025 3:38 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

olcott <polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/26/2025 12:31 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

In comp.theory olcott <polcott333@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/26/2025 11:04 AM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

[ .... ]

I suspect Quine's statements were much more nuanced than your
understanding (or misunderstanding) of them would suggest.  Since you
can't cite Quine's original text to back up your assertions, it seems
more likely that these assertions are falsehoods.

Two Dogmas of Empiricism --- Willard Van Orman Quine (1951)
https://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

I am not going to wade through his double talk and weasel
words any more deeply that his issue with how the term Bachelor(x)
gets its meaning. He totally screwed that up proving that
he is clueless about how words get their meaning.

Or, far more likely, you are clueless about what he actually wrote, and
what it means.

You can just keyword search the term 98 instances of the
term [synonym] and see all of his mistakes.

I could, but I'm not going to.  I put it to you, again, you have not read
and understood that paper of Quine's.  It says things you don't like,
that you can't counter logically, so you just end up cursing.

You haven't provided any evidence for you actually having read the
original.  You're likely just quoting somebody else's opinion of that
original.

If anyone in the universe says that the analytic/synthetic
does not exist we can ignore everything that they say and
provide the details of how analytic truth works:

*Semantic logical entailment from a finite list of basic facts*

In other words, if anybody disagrees with you, you bad mouth them.

Not on this. This material is difficult.

I don't doubt it.  So why don't you conclude that you might not have
understood it fully?

No answer?

My statements are self-evidently correct as proven by the
meaning of their words.

Still no answer.  Just you regard whatever you say is true (despite
copious evidence to the contrary), therefore you must be right.  Wrong!
You've said that Quine's paper is difficult, and let's face it, your
intellectual level is not that impressive.  It's highly probable you've
not understood the paper, whether you've actually read it or not.

It <is> inherently true that a body of analytic knowledge
can be comprised by applying semantic logical entailment to
a set of basic facts expressed in language.

That's your religion.  You're not really a christian at all.  You have
faith in the existence of analytic knowledge which can not be justified,
and you expect other people to believe it, just because you say it's
true.

As I said, it's your religion.

[ .... ]

I just found the 98 instances of the term [synonym] [in Quine's paper].
That alone shows that he is quite confused.

That he might discuss synonyms a lot is not in the slightest an
indication of confusion.

[ .... ]

When we link a the set of basic facts ....

And that typo epitomises one of the difficulties in your viewpoint.
There is no single definitive set of basic facts.  There are only lots
of sets of basic facts, all of them incomplete.

An essential feature of a set is membership; either an element is a
member of a set or it's not.  Since there's no workable criterion for
membership of your purported set of all basic facts, that set does not
exist.

That no complete definition of basic facts has
currently been fully elaborated sure as Hell does
not even hint that such a definition cannot be provided.

It is indeed a strong hint to that effect.  Or at the very least, the
assemblage of a quadrillion "basic facts" won't be of any use.

It seems to me that the compositional meaning
of "basic[common]" and "facts[common]" fully
specifies the meaning that I intend.

You're wrong.

This definition already excluded your "value
judgment opinion" on the basis that it is
no kind of fact. Facts must be certainly true.

What, my educating you on the quality of life in Nuremberg?  That was a
fact.  If you have some different notion of "fact", then it seems you
have a fact problem.  Nothing you watch on television or read in the
newspapers will be a fact to you.  To you the only thing a fact is will
be a content-free truism.

[ .... ]

One can derive theorems from mathematical axioms and logic, one can
derive scientific truth from observations.  But outside of these
fields, this idea of "derivation from basic facts" would appear to be
questionable at best.

It is stipulated that {cats> <are> {animals}.
It is ONLY this stipulation that provides semantic
meaning to the otherwise meaningless finite strings
of "cats" and "animals.

You couldn't be more wrong.  The meaning is acquired in early childhood,
as the growing child gradually associates certain vocal sounds with the
corresponding pieces of reality.

With enough of these Rudolf Carnap Meaning Postulates
we have all of the basic knowledge of the world that
can be expressed in language.

For some strange value of "have".  What you've said is an extreme version
of the idea that you can solve the game of chess on a computer by playing
out every possible sequence of moves.

[ .... ]

OK, so you remove from "the entire body of human knowledge that can
be expressed in language" everything that _can't_ be derived from
your axioms.  That's circular and tautological.

Not at all We remove uncertain opinions from knowledge.

Amongst all the other knowledge that can't be derived in your way.

There's going to be very little of value left.  Certainly no art or
music, no religion, little, if any, science.  All you'll be left with is
pure mathematics.  Your formulation of knowledge is not a useful one.

Every fact that can be written down about these things
is included. It is a fact that Pluto is no longer
considered to be a planet.

It's not.  It is a fact that there are still people around who consider
Pluto to be a planet.

This is a good illustration of how your sterile itsy-bitsy screwing-up of
language leads to error.

[ .... ]

The entire body of human knowledge that can be expressed
in language includes anything that anyone could ever
say about anything.

That Nuremberg is a good place to live can be expressed in language and
is part of the body of human knowledge.

[ .... ]

All these things can be expressed in language.  They cannot be derived
from some set of axioms.

Statements of opinions are anchored in the meaning
of their words. The full meaning of every word is
an aspect of basic facts. When I say the full meaning
I mean that the word: "human" may have a quadrillion
related axioms comprised of basic facts.

A quadrillion "basic facts" is ludicrous.  One cannot construct anything
worthwhile from such a large set.

Presumption.
Every detail about every detail of everything related
to humans may easily take that many. One of the things
that this requires is every detail about every government
that ever existed. Likewise requires every detail of
all of the advances in human medicine since medicine
first began.

Do you know anything about quantum mechanics?  Its measurements and
theory show that the precise state of things at the quantum level is
unknowable.  likewise, the precise details of "everything" related to
humans is unknowable.  Your fantasy can never be realised.

[ .... ]

It is not aspects which are unclear, it is that your whole attempted
construction is ridiculous.  It is as ridiculous as the builders at
Babel trying to construct a tower to reach Heaven.

"There is in my opinion no important theoretical difference between
natural languages and the artificial languages of logicians; indeed I
consider it possible to comprehend the syntax and semantics of both
kinds of languages with a single natural and mathematically precise
theory." (Montague 1970c, 373)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montague-semantics/#Bac

The ravings of an extreme fantasist.  A mathematically precise language
is wholly useless for going about one's daily life.  Lack of precision is
an essential feature of all natural languages.

As I said, it's up to you to prove your assertion that the entire body of
human knowledge can be derived from "basic facts".  You haven't yet given
even a single example of such a basic fact, never mind some derivation of
useful human knowledge from it.

I have done this many hundreds of times:
{cats} <are> {animals}

OK.

objects of thought are divided into types, namely:
individuals, properties of individuals, relations
between individuals, properties of such relations, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_type_theory#G%C3%B6del_1944

A simplified overview of a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)

You're talking about abstracting some properties of things and thus
categorising them.  This process of abstraction will lose the essence of
those things just like pulling the wings off a butterfly to see how it
flies loses the butterfly.

If it loses ALL of the essence then no one would
have ever been interested in text novels. The ONLY
thing that it loses are the first hand direct experience
of physical sensations.

It also enables True(X) to be computed for the entire
body of knowledge that can be expressed on language.

This you know to be false, from numerous threads on this newsgroup,
though you haven't shown any signs of understanding why.

[ .... ]

Anything less that certainty is not knowledge.

Don't be ridiculous!  You're implying that scientific knowledge, being
less than certain, is an oxymoron.

If you fully understand the deep philosophy behind that
you will know that I am correct.

On the contrary, you are clearly wrong.  Practically all knowledge which
isn't pure mathematics is uncertain to a greater or lesser degree.

To "know" things that turn turn to be false is an oxymoron.

Then you know nothing.

[ .... ]

There are few, if any, words which have complete meanings.

We keep adding Rudolf Carnap Meaning Postulates
to a word until its complete meaning is fully specified.

Have fun.

Dictionaries don't have enough room for this. Each
sense meaning of a word is defined separately.
Duplicate sense meanings are combined.

Their meanings are highly dependent on the context they're used in,
and new contexts come into existence continually.

Context is kept in a separate discourse context knowledge ontology.

Meaningless word salad.

[ .... ]

--
Copyright 2025 Olcott "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius
hits a target no one else can see." Arthur Schopenhauer

--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).