Liar's paradox

[Plasmatic]

As I said a long time ago. It all comes down to what you think a definition is/does.

[altonhare]

It may be true, as you said, that x=x; but this has no meaning unless x refers to something in reality.

[x=x] means that [any x] is [that x]. For example, if we let [x=apple] then [x=x] becomes [an apple is an apple]. If we let [x= dog] then it becomes [a dog is a dog]. No matter what we substitute for x, the statement remains true and that is where the truth and meaning of the sentence is contained... in the structure of the sentence itself.

This doesn't make any sense. As soon as you say "[x=x] means that any particular x is itself, you are referring to something outside the statement (a particular...). The statement itself refers to nothing particular.

This is not entirely true. The statement refers to something quite specific. It is the idea that anything is absolutely identical to itself.

You cannot even conceive that anything is absolutely identical to itself until you have observed and identified "thing". Now the statement is specific with respect to what you observed and identified. The statement, by itself, has no meaning. You must connect it with something physical to grant it meaning.

By itself x=x is just an internally consistent statement without meaning (physical/existent referent).

Wrong. [x=x] has meaning but no physical reference. The meaning comes from our essential understanding of what terms like [anything] or [everything] are. These terms have no physical reference, because if you take [all the physical things that exist], you haven't referenced what is meant by [everything] or [anything]. Suppose, for example that a caveman created an abstract sculpture out of wood. Over time the wood rotted and the sculpture disappeared. It no longer exists, and so it is not a part of what has a physical reference. Even if we found a scroll that made reference to this piece of wood, there is no way that we can know what it looked like. We have no way to reference it except as a vague and abstract concept. Similarly, ideas do not have physical references. Yet both ideas and the abstract sculpture are clearly defining aspects of the term [everything]. If we want to ignore them we have to refer to some other concept, such as [every physical thing that currently exists]. But this is not [everything], it is a [limited subset of everything].

Objects only exist in "present mode". When you say "everything" it is implied that you are referring to "everything that exists", which again only exist in the present. An object has no conception of its own future or past. It just has shape and location.

Otoh when I point at *this* keyboard and say "this keyboard is itself" the statement is both internally consistent (true) and has meaning (existent referent).

Ironically, in the most absolute possible sense, this slightly statement is false. The [keyboard] is made of atoms, those atoms are in constant motion. Thus, at any given instant, the [make-up of the keyboard] is ever so slightly different than it is at any other given moment. Thus, in the most absolute sense, the [keyboard at time1] is not the same [keyboard at time-2]. Thus, this [keyboard is this keyboard] is a necessarily vague statement that has no absolutely specific meaning or truth. It is considered to be true only because we interpret the statement using concepts that artificially define the [keyboard at time-1] to be identical to the [keyboard at time-2] even though, in reality, we know that they are not the same at all.

Again, objects ONLY exist in present mode. This is the only way we can use the word "exist" consistently. When I say THIS keyboard is itself, it is itself at that very moment. Not some time later or some time before.

You may argue that the [keyboard at time-1] is a physical reference that we can use to make a specific incident of [x=x] true, but this is not so, either. [Keyboard at time-1] is necessarily a concept, because time is infinitely divisible. Thus, any specific time that we use for [time-1] is only a vague approximation of an absolute time. Thus, there isn't any physical thing we can refer to that makes [x=x] absolutely true in the specific physical sense.

I don't need to say "keyboard at time-1". I just say "this keyboard" and point. I don't need to quantify, i.e. measure, anything to make this statement. I am not making an approximation because I am not even measuring. Also, time is not a thing which can be divided.

By contrast, the concept [x=x] is absolutely true in even the most absolute sense possible. This is possible precisely because we are not referring to something physical. We are referring to a concept, which is exactly what it is.

With no reference to an existent, it is just a bunch of symbols. Worse, it is just some shapes with no meaning whatsoever. You could not even conceive this until you had observed a particular existent.

Concepts, however, are vague in a reciprocal sense--because no two people understand the same concept in exactly the same way. Thus, while [x=x] is necessarily true, the meaning that it has is also necessarily vague to a certain degree.

Contradicting yourself.

[Antone]

asdf

[Antone]

You cannot even conceive that anything is absolutely identical to itself until you have observed and identified "thing".

You might not be able to... (what are you mentally disabled?) but I assure you that I can and I believe that most other people can as well. It's not that difficult to do.

I believe the definition of the term [thing] is never specific (in the sense you're implying) under any circumstances. The very definition implies vagueness. As in

Any matter, circumstance, affair, or concern

That's ANY... not [specific this] or [specific that]. It is ANY... until you choose something to be [your specific thing]. But even then it is [THIS thing], [THAT thing] or [MY thing], etc. Such [things] are only the [specific thing you've chosen] because of the modifiers [this] or [that], which allows us to reference a particular instance using a non-particular term. Without those modifiers, I'm fairly certain that it is impossible for [thing] to be linguistically specific. That is simply not part of its definitional nature.

Therefore, your comment is not only inaccurate--it is the exact opposite of accurate. In essence, [thing] is linguistically analogous to [x]. It is a blank variable, for which [any specific thing] can be substituted. Being a [blank variable], however, is a very specific sort of thing--so even if I did limit myself to your distorted logic, I would still not be prevented from saying what I said--because [thing] is a [fairly specific conceptual sort of thing].

It is ... easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague.
C. S. Peirce

Now the statement is specific with respect to what you observed and identified. The statement, by itself, has no meaning. You must connect it with something physical to grant it meaning.

Again, totally false. Such a statement is only marginally more specific than it was before. Suppose you pick [this puddle] as [your thing]. Then you are saying [this puddle is this puddle]. But the puddle is constantly changing, because it is evaporating, and dust particles from the air are settling into it, and so forth. Thus, you are still necessarily referring to something that is vague.

In this sense, the word [thing] is much more precise before it is applied to the puddle, precisely because it is a vague word. Thus it accurately defines [any matter, circumstance, affair, or concern]. Anything that you can possibly name is in the most possible absolute sense a [thing], whereas the puddle that you specified, is too vague to be absolute in the same way. The puddle has absolute aspects as well, but they are not aspects that we can accurately name or otherwise identify with absolute precision--not in the same way that [thing] can be identified with absolute precision, at least in the mind of a given person at a given point in time. lol.

Objects only exist in "present mode". When you say "everything" it is implied that you are referring to "everything that exists", which again only exist in the present. An object has no conception of its own future or past. It just has shape and location.

I agree that [objects], which are necessarily physical, exist only in the [present]. However, [physical objects] did exist in the past, and we can easily hold [concepts of those objects] as they existed in the [past] or as they will exist in the [future].

Now when I say [everything] it is implied that I am referring to [everything that exists], which to me (and I believe to most people), suggests [conceptual entities], such as the [definition of the word thing], as well as [physical objects].

While an inanimate object has no conception of its other tenses, the laws of physics none-the-less demand that time progresses from the past to the future. And even if animal intelligence is incapable of understanding what that means, human intelligence certainly is not so limited. And since we can reference such concepts--which obviously do not exist any more, because they now reside in the past--it seems obvious that we can reference things that are not merely physical objects.

Again, objects ONLY exist in present mode. This is the only way we can use the word "exist" consistently. When I say THIS keyboard is itself, it is itself at that very moment. Not some time later or some time before.

Let us ignore all the other contradictions in your argument for the time being and stipulate for the moment that I agree with you--for arguments sake. You would be correct that [This keyboard] was [that keyboard]. It is no longer [this keyboard] because it is not the [same keyboard] I was referring to when I said [this keyboard]. It cannot be, since it is constantly changing at the subatomic level. So what I was referring to when I said [this keyboard] no longer exists, and a new thing exists in its place, as you yourself have insisted. Thus, using your own guidelines, it would appear that there is no way to speak meaningfully about anything at all without being vague. But that means that we aren't really talking about physical things at all.

We suppose, however, that things do have a physical nature--and that they are objects. Apparently, it's just that we cannot talk meaningfully about them, under your way of understanding. Anything we can reference no longer exists. Thus, we are forced to talk about things that don't exist, but we must imagine that they do exist even though they don't, because nothing can be [something that doesn't exist physically]. Which is true, but not in the way you mean it.

In the strictest possible sense, I agree with you. That is why [concepts] are so utterly indispensible. They allow us to refer to things that existed, as if they still do. They allow a definition of a physical thing to include the idea that they change over time--and thus, we can speak of an [enduring concept] that includes all the [were physical moments] that no longer are physical--without being inconsistent.

Back to reality
... Using [exist] to refer only to physical objects insures that we must be inconsistent.
Objects exist physically; and
entities exist conceptually.

The [idea I have] exits--even though it is not a [physical thing]. Now, an instant later, it existed. It is the same exact thing. There is no difference between them, because they are both the same concept. Similarly, because what we are referring to is always a conceptual entity, we can refer to [this keyboard] and it is the same at [any present] and [any past] as long as it has not changed to such a degree as to invalidate the meaning of how we have defined [this keyboard].

Keep in mind that this does not mean that there isn't a physical reality underlying what we are speaking about. Even a [conceputal entity] must have some physical aspect involved in its definition. The concept [nothing] only has meaning because we know what a [physical thing] is, and we can imagine the [absence of them all]. Such a thing is not physically possible to achieve, but the concept is only possible because we understand what a physical thing is. Conversely, however, we only understand what a [physical thing] is, because we understand certain concepts which are necessary to define it.

The two aspects compliment each other.

[Plasmatic]

Alton, once again its the "issue of exist"! Conceptual entities are existents. Unless you can teach Antone the role essential characteristics play in the process of concept formation[and therefore definitions] ,your wasting your time.

[Antone]

... its the "issue of exist"! Conceptual entities are existents.

Well said.

Unless you can teach Antone the role essential characteristics play in the process of concept formation[and therefore definitions] ,your wasting your time.

I agree that he's wasting his time (as well as everyone elses, lol.) But I don't see what understanding the the role of essential characteristics has to do with it, since essential characteristics themselves must necessarily be concepts--for the same reasons I've previously enumerated.

Just because a characteristic is essential doesn't mean that it is necessarily well defined--in the sense of being absolutely precise. I am a human being. Remove that from what I am and I cease to exist. But what is a human being? The fact that being a human is an essential characteristic of what I am does little to explain what I am unless you know what being a human means. And you understand that by understanding the concept of what it means to be a human being. This is demonstratively not an absolute thing--because there are borderline cases where it is difficult to determine whether something is indeed a human being or not. For example, Is an unborn child a human being? If so, at what point does it begin to be a human being--as opposed to just flesh inside of another human being? Is a Dead person a human being? If so, at what point does this corpse cease to be human? Certainly when it turns to dirt we must concede that it is no longer a human. If a dead person is not human, then at what point do we consider a dying person to be dead? If a child is born with such a gross deformation that we cannot recognize what it is, is it still a human being? What about a non-sentient alien life form found on another planet that just happens to look just like a human being?

There are many ways to define being human, and each has its own boundaries between [what is] and [what is not] a human. So clearly, the concept [being human] is not well defined.

In any possible instance where it is well defined, we are always talking about something that is inaccessible. My personal definition of [human being] is (at this very moment) very precise. But I can't tell you exactly what it is, because much of what I believe about being a [human being] is a subconscious conceptual entity. I can never understand it with absolute precision. I can gain a greater understanding of what it is through a long process of self-reflection--but even this process changes what my belief was when I began the process. We engage in such reflection with exceeding regularity, and so each of our concepts are in a constant state of flux. So even an intense effort of self reflection cannot give us access to our own absolute beliefs and ideas about a certain concept.

So again, I would suggest that understanding the nature of essential characteristics could have nothing whatsoever to do with convincing me that I am wrong.