This is an interesting post but, I have to say, kind of frustrating. I have tried to follow the discussions between Esar and RobbBB and your substantial elucidation as well as many other great comments, but I remain kind-of in the dark. Below are some questions which I had, as I read.
This question doesn’t feel like it should be very hard.
What question? What exactly is the problem you are purporting to solve, here? If it is, “What is the truth condition of ‘If we took the number of apples in each pile, and multiplied those numbers together, we’d get six.’”, then doesn’t Tarski’s disquotation schema give us the answer?
Navigating to the six requires a mixture of physical and logical reference
Not sure why you obscure matters with idiosyncratic metaphors like ‘navigating to the six’, but never mind. Can we infer from the distinction between logical and physical reference that there is a distinction between logical and physical truth? It appears you countenance the Analytic/Synthetic distinction—precisely the distinction which is usually considered to have undone logical positivism. Do you have a preferred response to Quine’s famous argument in ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, or do you have a reason for thinking you are immune to it? I think you think you aren’t doing philosophy, so it doesn’t apply, but then I really don’t know how to understand what you’re saying. If your problems are just computational, then surely you’re making matters much harder for yourself than they should be (not that computational problems aren’t sometimes very hard).
Next we have to call the stuff on the table ‘apples’. But how, oh how can we do this...?
How about by saying “Those are apples”? What exactly is the problem, here?
...when grinding the universe and running it through a sieve will reveal not a single particle of appleness?
Here’s my best guess at what is exercising you. You reason that only those properties needed to account for the constitution and behaviour of the smallest parts of matter are real, that being an apple is not among them, and hence that being an apple is not a real property. Assuming this guess is right, what exactly is your reason for accepting the first premise? It is not immediately obvious, though I know there are traditionally different reasons. The reason will inform the adequacy of your answer.
Standard physics uses the same fundamental theory to describe the flight of a Boeing 747 airplane, and collisions in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Nuclei and airplanes alike, according to our understanding, are obeying special relativity, quantum mechanics, and chromodynamics.
So far so good...
We also use entirely different models to understand the aerodynamics of a 747 and a collision between gold nuclei in the RHIC. A computer modeling the aerodynamics of a 747 may not contain a single token, a single bit of RAM, that represents a quark. (Or a quantum field, really; but you get the idea.)
Nothing controversial here, but it of course has nothing to do with our understanding of the problem. If the understanding is correct, the problem exists regardless of whether anyone or thing ever imagines or represents or refers to apples or anything else. To introduce representations and models into the discussion is only to confuse matters, no?
So is the 747 made of something other than quarks?
Where does this question come from? If my guess about the problem is correct, it is irrelevant. It may be that the property of being a 747 (apple) is not identical to the property of being in any very complicated way composed of quarks, bosons and leptons, even though a given 747 (apple) is made only of these particles. The (philosophical) thesis about properties is different than the scientific thesis about the constitution of physical objects.
No, we’re just modeling the 747 with representational elements that do not have a one-to-one correspondence with individual quarks.
Similarly with apples.
Please clarify—what precisely does the relation between a computer model of a 747 and a 747 have to do with the metaphysics of properties?
To compare a mental image of high-level apple-objects to physical reality,
Can you say what you mean by this? For myself, this is someting I only ever do very rarely -conjure a mental image, then see how it agrees or differs from what I’m looking at. To be sure, sets of neurons in my brain are being activated all the time by patterns of light hitting my retinas, but there’s a lot of explanatory distance to cover to show these (the story about neural events and the story about images) are the same thing. In any case, this seems entirely irrelevant to the present concerns.
for it to be true
Are mental images the sorts of thngs which can be true (in the sense in which a sentence or proposition can be, as opp. merely accurate)? Suppose I have a mental picture of a certain cat on a certain table and that the cat is indeed on the table. Is my mental image true? Even if the cat in my image is the wrong colour? Or is sitting when the cat is standing? As far as I can see this isn’t just nit-picking. You have some kind of AI model which involves mental images and which you seem to think needs a semantic theory, and it’s just not clear how it all fits together.
...doesn’t require that apples be fundamental in physical law.
If my guess is correct, your answer to the problem as far as I can see is something like “The problem is not a problem”.
A single discrete element of fundamental physics is not the only thing that a statement can ever be compared-to. We just need truth conditions that categorize the low-level states of the universe, so that different low-level physical states are inside or outside the mental image of “some apples on the table” or alternatively “a kitten on the table”.
Can you give an example of a low-level state being ‘inside a mental image’ of “some apples on the table”? I really don’t know what this means.
Having gone through this once, here’s a second pass at a gloss. You accept, reasonably, that “That is an apple” is true in English iff that (pointing to a certain apple) is an apple. The referent of the “that” we can take to be a certain object. The question arises, however, as to what the referent or other semantic value is of “is an apple”. Plausibly, it is the property of being an apple. But, we may reasonably ask, what sort of thing is being and apple? I understand your answer is as follows:
Just as an individual apple is nothing more than a quite large number of quarks and leptons and bosons interestingly assembled, being an apple is nothing more than being a quite large number of quarks and leptons and bosons assembled in a certain interesting way.
Is this roughly a fair understanding? If so, please consider:
1) You will need to augment your story to include so-called etiology. The property of being a 10-dollar bill is not equivalent to the property of being in a certain way composed of matter—causal origin/history matters, too (perfect counterfeits).
2) The problem of vagueness often seems like a paradigm of philosophical futility but it is a real problem. Suppose you could cross-breed apples and pears, and have a spectrum of individuals ranging from unproblematic apple to unproblematic pear (= non-apple). What will the truth-condition be of the statement ‘That is an apple’, pointing to the piece of fruit in the middle? Do you give up on bivalence, or do you say that the statement is determinately true or false, but there are deep epistemological problems? Neither answer seems satisfactory, and where you come down may affect your theory.
3) If this story is correct, it will presumably apply to the whole very large hierarchy of properties, ranging from being a quark through being a proton and being a carbon atom up to being an apple and beyond. And the high-level properties will have at a minimum to be disjunctions of lower properties, even to accomodate such mundane facts as the existence of both green and red apples. And you may find ultimately that what is in question is more like a family-resemblance relation among the cases which constitute being an apple (if not apples, then tables and 747s, very likely). And then aren’t you in danger simply of laboriously re-capitulating the history of 20th c. philosophical thought on the subject?
This is all philosophy, which you’ve repeatedly said you aren’t interested in doing. But that’s what you’re doing! If you’re just doing AI, you really shouldn’t be wasting your time on these questions, surely. Research into neural nets is already making great progress on the question of how we make the discriminations we do. Why isn’t that enough for your purposes?
A last thought: there’s something of a debate on this site about the value of traditional philosophy. I think it has value, a big part of which is that it encourages people to think carefully and to express themselves precisely. I don’t claim always to be as careful or precise as I should be, but these are values. Doing analytic philosophy is some of the best rationality training you can get.
Regarding your point numbered 1 specifically: the causal history of matter is considered here as part of its physical properties in a block universe, so this objection doesn’t apply. See the older sequence article Timeless Physics for more on this.
Regarding points 2 and 3: The OP is saying that for something to be an apple means that its low-level physical state matches some pattern, but not necessarily that the pattern matching function must return a strict True or False; there are fuzzy pattern matching functions as well. The older sequence article Similarity Clusters goes into this in more detail.
On the other hand, your objections are totally legit within the context of this article and its examples alone, and as an introductory article that’s a fine and appropriate context to be working from. Maybe the article would be improved by some footnotes and/or appropriate links? Then again, it’s already pretty long.
On the other other hand, as an introductory article its purpose is only to introduce what reductionism is and get people to grips with the notion of different levels of abstraction. If philosophical arguments are being made about e.g. what is “real”, or more subtly about what makes for an appropriate definition of a word like “apple”, then they aren’t being made here, but in the articles that depend on this one. “Lying to children” and all that.
This is an interesting post but, I have to say, kind of frustrating. I have tried to follow the discussions between Esar and RobbBB and your substantial elucidation as well as many other great comments, but I remain kind-of in the dark. Below are some questions which I had, as I read.
What question? What exactly is the problem you are purporting to solve, here? If it is, “What is the truth condition of ‘If we took the number of apples in each pile, and multiplied those numbers together, we’d get six.’”, then doesn’t Tarski’s disquotation schema give us the answer?
Not sure why you obscure matters with idiosyncratic metaphors like ‘navigating to the six’, but never mind. Can we infer from the distinction between logical and physical reference that there is a distinction between logical and physical truth? It appears you countenance the Analytic/Synthetic distinction—precisely the distinction which is usually considered to have undone logical positivism. Do you have a preferred response to Quine’s famous argument in ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, or do you have a reason for thinking you are immune to it? I think you think you aren’t doing philosophy, so it doesn’t apply, but then I really don’t know how to understand what you’re saying. If your problems are just computational, then surely you’re making matters much harder for yourself than they should be (not that computational problems aren’t sometimes very hard).
How about by saying “Those are apples”? What exactly is the problem, here?
Here’s my best guess at what is exercising you. You reason that only those properties needed to account for the constitution and behaviour of the smallest parts of matter are real, that being an apple is not among them, and hence that being an apple is not a real property. Assuming this guess is right, what exactly is your reason for accepting the first premise? It is not immediately obvious, though I know there are traditionally different reasons. The reason will inform the adequacy of your answer.
So far so good...
Nothing controversial here, but it of course has nothing to do with our understanding of the problem. If the understanding is correct, the problem exists regardless of whether anyone or thing ever imagines or represents or refers to apples or anything else. To introduce representations and models into the discussion is only to confuse matters, no?
Where does this question come from? If my guess about the problem is correct, it is irrelevant. It may be that the property of being a 747 (apple) is not identical to the property of being in any very complicated way composed of quarks, bosons and leptons, even though a given 747 (apple) is made only of these particles. The (philosophical) thesis about properties is different than the scientific thesis about the constitution of physical objects.
Please clarify—what precisely does the relation between a computer model of a 747 and a 747 have to do with the metaphysics of properties?
Can you say what you mean by this? For myself, this is someting I only ever do very rarely -conjure a mental image, then see how it agrees or differs from what I’m looking at. To be sure, sets of neurons in my brain are being activated all the time by patterns of light hitting my retinas, but there’s a lot of explanatory distance to cover to show these (the story about neural events and the story about images) are the same thing. In any case, this seems entirely irrelevant to the present concerns.
Are mental images the sorts of thngs which can be true (in the sense in which a sentence or proposition can be, as opp. merely accurate)? Suppose I have a mental picture of a certain cat on a certain table and that the cat is indeed on the table. Is my mental image true? Even if the cat in my image is the wrong colour? Or is sitting when the cat is standing? As far as I can see this isn’t just nit-picking. You have some kind of AI model which involves mental images and which you seem to think needs a semantic theory, and it’s just not clear how it all fits together.
If my guess is correct, your answer to the problem as far as I can see is something like “The problem is not a problem”.
Can you give an example of a low-level state being ‘inside a mental image’ of “some apples on the table”? I really don’t know what this means.
Having gone through this once, here’s a second pass at a gloss. You accept, reasonably, that “That is an apple” is true in English iff that (pointing to a certain apple) is an apple. The referent of the “that” we can take to be a certain object. The question arises, however, as to what the referent or other semantic value is of “is an apple”. Plausibly, it is the property of being an apple. But, we may reasonably ask, what sort of thing is being and apple? I understand your answer is as follows:
Just as an individual apple is nothing more than a quite large number of quarks and leptons and bosons interestingly assembled, being an apple is nothing more than being a quite large number of quarks and leptons and bosons assembled in a certain interesting way.
Is this roughly a fair understanding? If so, please consider:
1) You will need to augment your story to include so-called etiology. The property of being a 10-dollar bill is not equivalent to the property of being in a certain way composed of matter—causal origin/history matters, too (perfect counterfeits).
2) The problem of vagueness often seems like a paradigm of philosophical futility but it is a real problem. Suppose you could cross-breed apples and pears, and have a spectrum of individuals ranging from unproblematic apple to unproblematic pear (= non-apple). What will the truth-condition be of the statement ‘That is an apple’, pointing to the piece of fruit in the middle? Do you give up on bivalence, or do you say that the statement is determinately true or false, but there are deep epistemological problems? Neither answer seems satisfactory, and where you come down may affect your theory.
3) If this story is correct, it will presumably apply to the whole very large hierarchy of properties, ranging from being a quark through being a proton and being a carbon atom up to being an apple and beyond. And the high-level properties will have at a minimum to be disjunctions of lower properties, even to accomodate such mundane facts as the existence of both green and red apples. And you may find ultimately that what is in question is more like a family-resemblance relation among the cases which constitute being an apple (if not apples, then tables and 747s, very likely). And then aren’t you in danger simply of laboriously re-capitulating the history of 20th c. philosophical thought on the subject?
This is all philosophy, which you’ve repeatedly said you aren’t interested in doing. But that’s what you’re doing! If you’re just doing AI, you really shouldn’t be wasting your time on these questions, surely. Research into neural nets is already making great progress on the question of how we make the discriminations we do. Why isn’t that enough for your purposes?
A last thought: there’s something of a debate on this site about the value of traditional philosophy. I think it has value, a big part of which is that it encourages people to think carefully and to express themselves precisely. I don’t claim always to be as careful or precise as I should be, but these are values. Doing analytic philosophy is some of the best rationality training you can get.
Regarding your point numbered 1 specifically: the causal history of matter is considered here as part of its physical properties in a block universe, so this objection doesn’t apply. See the older sequence article Timeless Physics for more on this.
Regarding points 2 and 3: The OP is saying that for something to be an apple means that its low-level physical state matches some pattern, but not necessarily that the pattern matching function must return a strict True or False; there are fuzzy pattern matching functions as well. The older sequence article Similarity Clusters goes into this in more detail.
On the other hand, your objections are totally legit within the context of this article and its examples alone, and as an introductory article that’s a fine and appropriate context to be working from. Maybe the article would be improved by some footnotes and/or appropriate links? Then again, it’s already pretty long.
On the other other hand, as an introductory article its purpose is only to introduce what reductionism is and get people to grips with the notion of different levels of abstraction. If philosophical arguments are being made about e.g. what is “real”, or more subtly about what makes for an appropriate definition of a word like “apple”, then they aren’t being made here, but in the articles that depend on this one. “Lying to children” and all that.