10,807 research outputs found
Indexical Realism by Inter-Agentic Reference
I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term.
Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’
Third Person References: Forms and Functions in Two Spoken Genres of Spanish
This volume, a case study on the grammar of third person references in two genres of spoken Ecuadorian Spanish, examines from a discourse-analytic perspective how genre affects linguistic patterns and how researchers can look for and interpret genre effects. This marks a timely contribution to corpus linguistics, as many linguists are choosing to work with empirical data. Corpus based approaches have many advantages and are useful in the comparison of different languages as well as varieties of the same language, but what is often overlooked in such comparisons is the genre of language under examination. As this case study shows, genre is an important factor in interpreting patterns and distributions of forms.
The book also contributes toward theories of anaphora, referentiality and Preferred Argument Structure. It is relevant for scholars who work with referentiality, genre differences, third person references, and interactional linguistics, as well as those interested in Spanish morphosyntax. [From the Publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1096/thumbnail.jp
The ultimate tactics of self-referential systems
Mathematics is usually regarded as a kind of language. The essential behavior
of physical phenomena can be expressed by mathematical laws, providing
descriptions and predictions. In the present essay I argue that, although
mathematics can be seen, in a first approach, as a language, it goes beyond
this concept. I conjecture that mathematics presents two extreme features,
denoted here by {\sl irreducibility} and {\sl insaturation}, representing
delimiters for self-referentiality. These features are then related to physical
laws by realizing that nature is a self-referential system obeying bounds
similar to those respected by mathematics. Self-referential systems can only be
autonomous entities by a kind of metabolism that provides and sustains such an
autonomy. A rational mind, able of consciousness, is a manifestation of the
self-referentiality of the Universe. Hence mathematics is here proposed to go
beyond language by actually representing the most fundamental existence
condition for self-referentiality. This idea is synthesized in the form of a
principle, namely, that {\sl mathematics is the ultimate tactics of
self-referential systems to mimic themselves}. That is, well beyond an
effective language to express the physical world, mathematics uncovers a deep
manifestation of the autonomous nature of the Universe, wherein the human brain
is but an instance.Comment: 9 pages. This essay received the 4th. Prize in the 2015 FQXi essay
contest: "Trick or Truth: the Mysterious Connection Between Physics and
Mathematics
A Categorical Framework for Quantum Theory
Underlying any theory of physics is a layer of conceptual frames. They
connect the mathematical structures used in theoretical models with physical
phenomena, but they also constitute our fundamental assumptions about reality.
Many of the discrepancies between quantum physics and classical physics
(including Maxwell's electrodynamics and relativity) can be traced back to
these categorical foundations. We argue that classical physics corresponds to
the factual aspects of reality and requires a categorical framework which
consists of four interdependent components: boolean logic, the
linear-sequential notion of time, the principle of sufficient reason, and the
dichotomy between observer and observed. None of these can be dropped without
affecting the others. However, in quantum theory the reduction postulate also
addresses the "status nascendi" of facts, i.e., their coming into being.
Therefore, quantum phyics requires a different conceptual framework which will
be elaborated in this article. It is shown that many of its components are
already present in the standard formalisms of quantum physics, but in most
cases they are highlighted not so much from a conceptual perspective but more
from their mathematical structures. The categorical frame underlying quantum
physics includes a profoundly different notion of time which encompasses a
crucial role for the present.Comment: 35 pages, 1 figur
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