** For Your Eyes Only ** ** High Priority ** ** Reply Requested by 9/11/2011 (Sunday) ** Your properties shine through. As for muons, I wonder why muons ought to have a "point". As for your remarks on my "area", they are noted and remembered. To be sure, not forgiven being self not christian at all. best regards to M. donalmcevoyuk, or whatever it is you want to be named after. since you express no lit and no ideas, it is indeed very difficult to add anything else >>> Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> 9/11/2011 1:58 PM >>> The library that enjoins one to refrain from pornography also in its possible wisdom prevented this reply being posted yesterday. On re-reading it, I notice that I failed to thank Adriano for wishing me the best of luck, but consider it too late to start now. "Your posts are like muons - entities that, scientifically, we know exist but that no one yet knows the point of. They are also to grammar what a monkey clambering on a typewriter is to James Joyce. Please refrain from bringing "ms. mcevoy" into it, for, like the subject-heading you have used and your capacity for rational argument, she is non-existent. That your affiliation is to a university and not a psychiatric outpatients is a sure sign that social provision in your area is not as organised as it should be. Be warned. Best, Donal" Best of luck also. From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, 10 September 2011, 16:33 Subject: [lit-ideas] It is just most unfortunate that you're confused on so many points that it is hopeless, as it generally the case with those who affected by idiotic philosophy (in this case, as I gather 'popperianism' whatever the hell that is) tend to impute their inability to understand to "philosophy" consider mcevoy, s/he/it has the property of being called "Donal" s/he/it has the modal property of "being possibly called [karl]" as ms mcevoy may notice there is no obfuscation, properties are satisfied ro not, modal properties are not to be satisfied by the same models Best of luck ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ξε ν’, γγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ἀ ὅτι τ δε κείμεθα, το ς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. /begin/read__>sig.file: postal address palma University of KwaZulu-Natal Philosophy 3rd floor of Memorial Tower Building Howard College Campus Durban 4041 South Africa Tel off: [+27] 031 2601591 (sec: Mrs. Yolanda Hordyk) [+27] 031-2602292 Fax [+27] 031-2603031 mobile 07 62 36 23 91 calling from overseas +[27] 76 2362391 EMAIL: palma@xxxxxxxx EMAIL: palma@xxxxxxxxxx MY OFFICE # IS 290@Mtb *only when in Europe*: inst. J. Nicod 29 rue d'Ulm f-75005 paris france email me for details if needed at palma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ________ This e-mail message (and attachments) is confidential, and/or privileged and is intended for the use of the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail you must not copy, distribute, take any action in reliance on it or disclose it to anyone. Any confidentiality or privilege is not waived or lost by reason of mistaken delivery to you. This entity is not responsible for any information not related to the business of this entity. If you received this e-mail in error please destroy the original and notify the sender. >>> Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> 9/10/2011 5:16 PM >>> A "necessity" works as a prohibition on what can happen. If it 'logical necessity', and an example is 'If A, then A', this 'necessity' prohibits it ever being the case as a matter of logic that A can be true and its negation, non-A, also true. If it is 'physical necessity' as in a law of nature, and an example is 'E=mc2', this 'necessity' prohibits it ever being the case as a matter of physics that there can ever be 'E' such that it equals something other than 'mc2'. The prohibitive effect of a physical law reflects the fact that the logical form of a universal generalisation ['UG'], which may be given as "All As are Bs", has no 'existential import' but merely asserts that there cannot be an instance of 'A' that is 'non-B'. This also means that events may be the product of physical necessity, i.e. of some level of law-like prohibition such that they could not be to some extent otherwise (i.e. to the extent prohibited by some law), without being fully determined to every extent. For example, if we try to suspend a car from an ordinary cotton thread, physical laws may prohibit as impossible that the cotton thread will not snap, but this prohibitive effect of physical laws may not suffice to mean there is no leeway as to when the thread will snap (to the smallest possible measurement) or no leeway to where exactly the falling car will land (to the smallest possible measurement). It is quite simple to say, a la Tarski, that a physical necessity of the above kind is a 'fact' if the UGs used to express such a necessity are true and if their truth is not merely coincidental but reflects a necessity in nature. And we can test the truth of such a set of UGs by obervation. There is nothing "utterly unclear" about this. What is "utterly unclear" (at least to me) is why we need obfuscatory and high-sounding talk of things like "a modal property (hence a property)" to understand this. This is the kind of philosopher's talk that makes careful people check they still have their wallet. Donal Checking his wallet London From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, 9 September 2011, 8:23 Subject: [lit-ideas] as for 'fact' if necessity is a modal property (hence a property) it is utterly unclear what it would be for a property to 'be' a fact, is that a statement of identity? if so, it is very similar to claims of the laughable idiocy of truth is beauty und so weiter ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ξε ν’, γγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ἀ ὅτι τ δε κείμεθα, το ς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. /begin/read__>sig.file: postal address palma University of KwaZulu-Natal Philosophy 3rd floor of Memorial Tower Building Howard College Campus Durban 4041 South Africa Tel off: [+27] 031 2601591 (sec: Mrs. Yolanda Hordyk) [+27] 031-2602292 Fax [+27] 031-2603031 mobile 07 62 36 23 91 calling from overseas +[27] 76 2362391 EMAIL: palma@xxxxxxxx EMAIL: palma@xxxxxxxxxx MY OFFICE # IS 290@Mtb *only when in Europe*: inst. J. Nicod 29 rue d'Ulm f-75005 paris france email me for details if needed at palma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ________ This e-mail message (and attachments) is confidential, and/or privileged and is intended for the use of the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail you must not copy, distribute, take any action in reliance on it or disclose it to anyone. Any confidentiality or privilege is not waived or lost by reason of mistaken delivery to you. This entity is not responsible for any information not related to the business of this entity. If you received this e-mail in error please destroy the original and notify the sender. >>> Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> 9/8/2011 8:01 PM >>> A week and a half ago I wrote this response in the above thread (which explains for example why, logically, from one set of initial conditions, A, nothing may be inferred as to another set of "initial conditions", B) only to be met by a barrage of silence and the comparative analytical spaghetti of sharia law. I do not ask much, a simple "Popper is of course correct" would do. From the whole list please. Donal London From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, 28 August 2011, 2:05 Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation --- On Sun, 28/8/11, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote: From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Sunday, 28 August, 2011, 0:18 On 8/27/11 4:12 PM, Robert Paul wrote: Donal wrote ... Cannot "necessity" be both a fact [e.g. it is the case that there is a universal law such that "All Xs are Ys"] and also an interpretation [i.e. we interpret, or theorise, the correlation between X and Y as one of 'necessity', as opposed to contingency]. If neither excludes the other, then the fact 'necessity' can be regarded as an interpretative device does not exclude it being also regarded as a fact, and indeed being a fact. When we ask whether interpreting a relation in terms of 'necessity' is correct, we are asking whether it is true that such a relation holds, and if it is true it holds then it is a fact that there is such a relation. I don't know what it would mean for necessity to be a fact or not be a fact. I'd always thought that 'necessity,' and questions about its use arose when one was confronted with expressions like, 'the conclusion of a valid argument follows necessarily (i.e., it doesn't just happen to follow) from its premises,' or "'x is is identical with x' is necessarily true." Facts usually hide in 'that clauses' (where they really do no work, e.g. 'It is a fact that the earth has two magnetic poles,' just means 'The earth has two magnetic poles.' If I were asked to give some examples of facts, I'd give examples like the foregoing, along with the fact that if I touch my nose with my right index finger, my right elbow will be bent. If someone replies she didn't mean facts that so-and-so, but just plain unadorned facts, I wouldn't understand what she meant. Donal gives this account: This leaves open in what way is 'necessity' "established". Taking the "necessity" in a 'universal law' or, better perhaps, 'universal generalisation' ['UG']:- such a UG as "All swans are white" cannot be established by induction though it may, conjecturally and non-inductively, be falsified by a counter-example such as a black swan. But even if we had empirical omniscience, so that we could survey the whole universe and observe that the only colour swans came in was white, this would not be enough to establish "necessity" in the sense of law: it would not show that a non-white swan was not a physical possibility. So there is a further sense in which "necessity" cannot be "established": to assert "necessity" as a relation between phenomena is to assert something beyond a universal but contingent link between phenomena - yet what we observe, even if it were the whole universe, is consistent with any UG that holds being only contingently true. As far as I can tell, scientific 'laws' are empirical generalizations; they are not necessary truths or true 'of necessity.' That is, if they're falsifiable, they can't be true necessariy. My first cousin is so necessarily, in virtue of our sharing at least one set of grandparents, which entails that at least at least one of my cousin's parents is a sibling of at least one of my cousin's parents. Maybe I should draw a diagram... In any event, that Alice is my first cousin is a contingent fact, but what makes her my first cousin is a relation which would make anyone who stands in that relation to me, my first cousin. I'm not clear about what an omniscient being's all-knowing would have to do with the contingency or necessity of things: this being is said to be empirically omniscient (although it might know a few logical truths), which means, I think, that what it knows is what happens, what is the case, here and now. Otherwise, we might be faced, as Medieval theologians were, with the problem of God's knowledge of 'future contingents.' If God, who does not exist in time, knows everything (and if what he knows cannot be otherwise) then what we see as the contingency of the future is an illusion. Everything that happens, happens necessarily. God, who has his whole being at once knows everything at once; his knowing it makes it true, and necessarily true. So, the omniscient observer sees only time slices in which things are this way or that way, and its seeing that all swans are black at t, does not make 'All swans are black,' a necessary truth, for at t+1, it may observe a white one. Donal: Thus Popper rightly claims that the whether there exists even one natural law, or natural "necessity", is a metaphysical question. It cannot be "established" empirically. All that can be "established" empirically, and then only conjecturally and non-inductively, is the non-existence of a claimed 'natural law' by adducing a falsifying counter-example.There are no logical relations (necessity being a logical or mathematical notion) between objects or states of affairs. 'The only possibility is logical possibility; the only impossibility is logical impossibility.' I'm not clear whether Popper believes this or not. Can we establish the existence of natural laws by metaphysical argument? Not conclusively, but the balance of the argument favours it as Popper sees things. In any case, the search for UGs would be fruitful even if their truth were contingent, for it would still be universal. And so the absence of a clear metaphysical proof of the existence of any natural laws (which is not a disproof of their existence), does not affect the rationality of searching for such invariants. This argument can be reworked even for 'propensities', that is probabilistic relations between phenomena that fall short of necessity. As to whether the search for some kind of "regularity" is itself a 'necessity' of some kind, Popper would affirm for Kantian reasons: without being oriented to interpret the world as forming patterns we would be lost. But this does not mean we are lost because our world lacks _complete_ regularity; only that it is necessary that we search for some degree of it and that there appears [contingent or not] to be some degree of it.These last three paragraphs are extremely interesting. Robert Paul, somewhere south of Reed College Please find our Email Disclaimer here-->: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer ( http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/ ) Please find our Email Disclaimer here-->: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer ( http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/ ) Please find our Email Disclaimer here: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/