tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post114043248596728742..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Tricky TokensRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1140511263444020812006-02-21T03:41:00.000-05:002006-02-21T03:41:00.000-05:00I think one interprets speach in the manner in whi...I think one interprets speach in the manner in which it was intended (ie in context) if someone says "this is a thought token" you would consider the thought to be the thing refered to not the vibrations in the air. Just like if someone said I am tall one would asume it was the human making that assertation not the vibrating air.<BR/><BR/>The person saying it might think differently (he might think it is the air) but that isn't fundimentally troublesome.<BR/><BR/>My theory is that you can explore specific traits of specific definitions if you want but all you can find at the end of it is your own definitions repeated back to you in a slightly different form. <BR/><BR/>> But then how do we directly express desires? <BR/><BR/>Not sure that you can - you could say "make P true" but that would only be an expression of desire if we accept that "saying "make P true" WAS a desire for P. But since it is a statement surely it is removed from the desire itself?<BR/><BR/>Of course I think I might have changed my mind .... if you consider everything to just be a pattern then somthign you say could genuinely be a part of a "desire" in that the "desire" and "you" or "your brain" only partly overlap in the universe. It is a bit definitional but I think the patter way of looking at things is generally better.Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1140458301752402392006-02-20T12:58:00.000-05:002006-02-20T12:58:00.000-05:00In the case of 'this is a thought token' I think t...In the case of 'this is a thought token' I think that the typical formula can be salvaged by stipulating that the indexical is carried over from the thought token. We can, after all, make an indexical point out anything we please; so the 'this' in 'This is a thought token' can be made to point out the thought token expressed rather than the utterance token that expresses it. This works like the substitution, but preserves the indexical information. In a way it's still interesting, because the thought token is self-referential, but, necessarily, the utterance token is not. This usually suggests the distinction between an 'essential indexical' and a 'quasi-indexical' or 'quasi indicator' -- quasi-indexicals are derivative from self-referential indexicals and preserve self-referential indexical information, but involve no self-reference. For instance, I could say,<BR/><BR/>"The Chairman believed that he himself was an idiot"<BR/><BR/>where 'he himself' is a quasi-indexical, derivative from the Chairman's indexical belief "I am an idiot". (Castaneda has a paper I think you'd like called "Omniscience and Indexical Reference" (Journal of Philosophy) that discusses quasi-indexicals.) But I don't think "This is a thought token" is a quasi-indexical: it's just a plain indexical, like "This is a desk".Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com