🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov21.115346.17656@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>In article <MxG=!XC@engin.umich.edu> 
>rcj@engin.umich.edu (R o d Johnson) writes:

>>In article <erwin.722217539@trwacs> 
>>erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:

>HE:
>>>Unfortunately, the brain doesn't operate that way. Two statements are
>>>considered equivalent if their processing generates the same activation in
>>>the cerebral cortex (or a subset thereof).

>RJ:
>>"Are considered" by who?  Says who?  Suppose I were to say "two
>>statements are considered equivalent if they hold in exactly the same
>>possible worlds."  Why is my claim any less definitional than yours?
>>(Note: this isn't about which one is *correct*; this isn't an
>>empirical question.)

>Just because the correctness of your definition of synonymy is not
>amenable to confirmation by (narrowly construed) empirical means, does
>not imply that there is no matter of fact about it.  

No no no.  I knew I had expressed that last bit poorly.  I don't mean
that accounts of synonymy (or meaning) are necessarily not empirical.
I meant the question of which definition one uses isn't empirical.  If
I use Harry's definition, I ask one set of questions and (maybe) get
one set of answers; if I use mine I ask another.  I'm not objecting per
se to his definition (though to be honest I find it ridiculous) but to
the implied consensus behind "are considered."

>In particular, one
>failing of the possible-worlds approach consists in its identification
>of proof-theoretically equivalent propositions.  This is unproblematic
>in situations which call for the study of such deductively closed
>domains as doxastic commitment; however even in such cases, full
>generality will be sacrificed to the implicit assumption that the
>underlying Boolean algebra of propositions must be atomic.

I'm not even remotely interested in defending possible-worlds
semantics.  I was simply using it for an example of a competing, and
nonequivalent, definition of "equivalent."  Any other would have done
as well.  However, while we're on the subject, I've never heard the
argument made that PW semantics must have an atomic Boolean algebra
(in fact--be kind, I'm rusty here--aren't all Boolean algebras
atomic?).  Can you amplify?

 
-- 
       Rod Johnson  *  rcj@caen.engin.umich.edu  *  (313) 764-3103
    
                "What I do doesn't happen in a warehouse"
                                          --Jim Dickinson