What kind of entity is a fictional character?

[Kharakov]

Not all physical experiences are subjective experiences. Some trees fall in the middle of the forest where no one can hear or see them.

And our experience of the knowledge of that is the subjective part of the physical experience. Anything we can think of and experience is ultimately subjective AND objective. You can't mention something without getting your dirty subjectivity all over it.

You got your subjectivity in my objectivity. You got your objectivity on my subjectivity. Two great perspectives that taste great together. There's no wrong way to view reality. Perfect.


Seriously though- that tree fall in the middle of the forest that No. One can hear has been echoing through the noosphere for centuries. I'm pretty sure it's been heard.

You ever notice that atheists see No One as lack of observers, and theists see it as No. 1 being the observer? Weird... it's that improper spacing of Davka's, who I credit out of sheer...

 

[Perspicuo]

Not all physical experiences are subjective experiences. Some trees fall in the middle of the forest where no one can hear or see them.

And our experience of the knowledge of that is the subjective part of the physical experience. Anything we can think of and experience is ultimately subjective AND objective. You can't mention something without getting your dirty subjectivity all over it.

You got your subjectivity in my objectivity. You got your objectivity on my subjectivity. Two great perspectives that taste great together. There's no wrong way to view reality. Perfect.


Seriously though- that tree fall in the middle of the forest that No. One can hear has been echoing through the noosphere for centuries. I'm pretty sure it's been heard.

You ever notice that atheists see No One as lack of observers, and theists see it as No. 1 being the observer? Weird... it's that improper spacing of Davka's, who I credit out of sheer...

Yes, but if you fail to distinguish both in discourse, you will only produce philosophical confusion. As I said before, blueness in a physical object such as a painting is produced by the wavelength of light refracted by calcium copper silicate in the pigment used, while blueness in my mind (brain) is an entirely different phenomenon, involving no CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄.

In similar fashion, properties of subjective objects have none of the properties of physical objects. Every subjective property is a denotation that represents stimuli from actual afference. It has command value, a semeiotic property, over our behavior. And that is nothing like the properties of a physical object.

CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄ → modified photon wavelength → neuron terminus stimulation → afference → denotat[blue]

This denotation in the brain software is stored in memory and has the ability of modifying behavior. Through learning, this behavior may become adjusted to whatever is both blue and requires a particular reaction (signal stimulation → behavior → conditioning consequences → reinforced behavior elicited by the same signal in future occasions).

In short,
Fictional properties (and therefore fictional characters) are fundamentally "code".

 

[Togo]

Hm.. But it's not enough to declare them false, because their falsity or truth doesn't have any bearing on the case. What matters is whether they are coherent. Russel claims (from memory) are extremely strong - he claims that the idea of an existant unicorn doesn't make sense, even to the person talking about it - that it is literally non-sensical. But in the case of the story, the existance or otherwise of the characters is an essential plot point. Something coherent is being consistently communicated. We can establish, as an observed fact, that existance can coherently be treated as an attribute - within the context of a fiction. Hence my claim that Russel's position is counterfactual - people do in fact make sense of a relationship that he claims doesn't contain any.

Hello Togo, I think we're agreed that context matters in evaluating what authors do with sentences.

Here are two tries at refuting the notion that existence is a predicate of individuals. See what you think.



I will use the example of the fictional character, Anna Karenina. I assume there was no historical AK. I think it's legit to argue using an example, because if existence isn't a predicate in her case, the case would falsify the general thesis.

1 (a la Russell).

The contradiction argument.

AK is a fictional character who is presented in the novel as existing and as having a unique identity.

a. Assume ex hypothesi that a set of predicates applies to her: Russian, woman, unhappily married, exists, etc.

b. But fictional characters by definition do not exist.
Therefore a. and b. entail a contradiction.
We jettison a. because b. is established by the meaning of "fictional."

It won't help to try to undo this refutation by accusing it of equivocating on "exist." If "existence" in fiction really bears a sense different from "existence" in the real world, so that it's spelled the same but means something else like "fictionality," then the refutation still works because "Existence" becomes no longer a predicate of AK. Something else, "fictionality" or whatever, becomes the predicate, so the original thesis turns out not to satisfy truth conditions after all.

Sure, but that's doesn't mean that there isn't an equivocation between the two, nor does it mean that this equivocation isn't the problem.

As you say, there are two meanings of the term exist. In the fiction, AK is an existing character as opposed to characters that might be referenced in the fiction that are not existing. In b, a statement is made that fictional characters don't exist.

But the meaning is clearly different in each case. The predicate in a is within the context of the fiction. Within that frame of reference some objects exist and some do not, and she is in the class of the former. In b, the statement that fictional characters do not exist means that, to borrow Russel's terminonlogy, they are not instantiated in the real world. Or to put it another way, within the frame of reference of the real world, some things exist, and some do not, and fictional characters are in the class that do not.

It should be clear, comparing these two different interpretations, what the common element is. Each describes existence in terms of their frame of reference, whether the real world, or within a fictional setting.

The objection you've cited suggests that if there is an equivocation, then it must be that the fictional character's predicate of existence is false, and must be changed, but this simply begs the question. The point is that existance always refers to a frame of reference, in fiction, in mathematics, in hypotheticals, and in real life. A definition that excludes this, and pretends that all things exist or do not exist according to a single frame of reference, is going to generate logical inconsistencies when compared with how the term is actually used.

You get a similar situation with other terms. 'Inside' is one such. One might be inside or outside. You can treat 'inside' as a predicate, saying that some people are outside, and others inside. But this is clearly a relative term. If I am in a house, inside refers to those in the house, and outside refers to those out in the fresh air. If I set up a tent in my living room, and sit in it, then inside refers not to those inside or outside the house, but those inside or outside the tent. Thus, in the same way as with the term 'existance', one can be both inside and outside sumultaneously, just as a fictional character can be both existant, in the story, and non-existant, in the real world, simultaneously. This is not a logical contradiction, because the frame of reference is different in each case.

The "does no work" argument (a la Kant).
AK is a fictional object that must be distinguished from other fictional objects in the novel. AK is described by a unique set of properties, which ex hypothesi includes existence. Her husband, Karenin, is described by a different, unique set of properties, which ex hypothesi includes existence. Same for all the other objects presented in the novel. Since "existence" is a property of each of them, it does no work in describing any object; "existence" is otiose in the description. But a predicate does work of describing a thing. Therefore existence is not a predicate of an individual.

It won't help to retort that the above argument confuses identification and description. If existence is a property of all the objects in the novel, it is tautological to repeat it in an assertion about any one object. By the definition of description, the information that is given about the described object is not true of at least one other object in the relevant domain.

It may be that existence is a predicate of concepts. I am also aware that some philosophers maintain against Russell, Frege et al that existence is a predicate (or property?) of individuals. I'm waiting to be convinced!

But the term does do work. Let us say that AK, in the novel, dreams of being a child in a tall dark house. In the novel's frame of reference, she exists, and the house, being a mere fancy of her dream, does not. Later on in the novel, she comes across a tall dark house exactly like the one in her dream, and is greatly shocked. Did she grow up there? Is there some mystery in her past of which she was unaware? And so on. This scene, a fairly common literary device, depends entirely upon the idea that she is existant, and the house was assumed not to be. If you remove all references to which objects were dreamed, and which were dreaming, and the meaning of the scene is lost. The term existance does work here.

It seems easy to claim, based on a few examples of real objects, that the term existence does no work, or that it can only have meaning in circumstances other than the usual. Fish would no doubt make the same claim about the concept of 'wet'. But I don't think it stands up once you get beyond objects in the real world.

 

[DBT]

Not all physical experiences are subjective experiences. Some trees fall in the middle of the forest where no one can hear or see them.

That is not an experience, it is a physical event. An unexperienced event. For the event to be experienced requires an experiencer...a brain. The falling tree itself experiences nothing.

 

[Juma]

Not all physical experiences are subjective experiences. Some trees fall in the middle of the forest where no one can hear or see them.

That is not an experience, it is a physical event. An unexperienced event. For the event to be experienced requires an experiencer...a brain. The falling tree itself experiences nothing.

And you know this because... what?

 

[Togo]

On the Searlian account, any utterance about Henry will be taken as an assertion about a real-world Henry until we find out that we are dealing with fiction. Then, by the shared codes that govern writing and reception of fiction, we assume that Henry by definition doesn't exist. So we read utterances about him in the fiction w/ the same language rules we use for assertions but at the same time read them as pretend assertions, since Henry is pretend. So your "Henry believes that x" is an utterance either way but only an assertion if it has reference -- which it can't have if Henry does not exist. It's only a pretend assertion in fiction. So you're right, you can't tell from the utterance whether it is an assertion or a pretend assertion. You need to know the pragmatic context to ferret that out.

Searle also gets into one of the fascinating questions for me: what about real-world referents in fiction? If Henry says "3+3=6" in the fiction, I'm not sure whether Searle would say that THAT is an assertion because it has real-world reference.

And we still don't get a general rule.

Take 3+3=6. Say it in the real world. So it's now a real assertion? Assertions are only real if they have referents. Is 3 real? Can you kick it, punch it? Does it exist in the same way that a teapot does? Either you're committed to 3 being some kind of metaphysical real object, as real as a teapot or any other object, or the entirity of mathematics becomes a pretend assertion, a fiction along the lines of the loch ness monster. Clearly neither conclusion is really satisfactory. The way I try and save the situation is through declaring existence to be sensical only within a frame of reference. The alternative would be abandon mathematics, and indeed all of abstract thought, as a fiction of pretend assertions. Unless there is another way?

 

[DBT]

Not all physical experiences are subjective experiences. Some trees fall in the middle of the forest where no one can hear or see them.

That is not an experience, it is a physical event. An unexperienced event. For the event to be experienced requires an experiencer...a brain. The falling tree itself experiences nothing.

And you know this because... what?

Do trees have the necessary neural architecture to experience physical events? As far as I know, only a brain has the capacity and the ability to generate ''experience.'' Without an experiencer, a brain, physical event like a tree falling unseen in the forest cannot be experienced by the tree or the forest floor or the surrounding air molocules or the clouds above....therefore physical events are not necessarily experienced events. If you are unconscious during an operation, you do not experience your operation. You are unconscious of your operation.

 

[ficino]

Thanks for your rich reply, Togo. Will come back to do it justice later. I agree that context is crucial. It may be that we have to allow existence, understood in a non-standard sense, as a predicate to fictional objects... must think more about this. Since Russell worked from a mimetic conception of fiction, under which statements in fiction are false, he may not have done justice to fictional discourse.

Perhaps the "existence is not a predicate" thesis holds for direct descriptions of individuals in the "real world." I am loathe to give up THAT thesis without pushing to see whether it can prove its mettle.

I think your AK/house analogy may not work because you posit that she comes across a house in the fiction later on. But I get the idea. Isn't Macbeth's dagger a hallucination in the play? That might be a good example of an object in fiction that is presented in the fiction as not existing.

Later, f

 

[Perspicuo]

Not all physical experiences are subjective experiences. Some trees fall in the middle of the forest where no one can hear or see them.

That is not an experience, it is a physical event. An unexperienced event. For the event to be experienced requires an experiencer...a brain. The falling tree itself experiences nothing.

Got it. Yes, that's what I meant. Nice catch.

 

[ficino]

Thanks for your rich reply, Togo. Will come back to do it justice later. I agree that context is crucial. It may be that we have to allow existence, understood in a non-standard sense, as a predicate to fictional objects... must think more about this. Since Russell worked from a mimetic conception of fiction, under which statements in fiction are false, he may not have done justice to fictional discourse.

Perhaps the "existence is not a predicate" thesis holds for direct descriptions of individuals in the "real world." I am loathe to give up THAT thesis without pushing to see whether it can prove its mettle.

I think your AK/house analogy may not work because you posit that she comes across a house in the fiction later on. But I get the idea. Isn't Macbeth's dagger a hallucination in the play? That might be a good example of an object in fiction that is presented in the fiction as not existing.

Later, f

In "On Denoting," Russell distinguishes between subsisting, or being, and existing. He doesn't deny subsistence to Meinongian objects, but he does deny existence to them. This distinction might help clear up some of the puzzles.

 

[Kharakov]

Yes, but if you fail to distinguish both in discourse, you will only produce philosophical confusion. As I said before, blueness in a physical object such as a painting is produced by the wavelength of light refracted by calcium copper silicate in the pigment used, while blueness in my mind (brain) is an entirely different phenomenon, involving no CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄.

In similar fashion, properties of subjective objects have none of the properties of physical objects. Every subjective property is a denotation that represents stimuli from actual afference. It has command value, a semeiotic property, over our behavior. And that is nothing like the properties of a physical object.

CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄ → modified photon wavelength → neuron terminus stimulation → afference → denotat[blue]

This denotation in the brain software is stored in memory and has the ability of modifying behavior. Through learning, this behavior may become adjusted to whatever is both blue and requires a particular reaction (signal stimulation → behavior → conditioning consequences → reinforced behavior elicited by the same signal in future occasions).

What if the quale "blueness" is actually a property of light that our brains (bodies) have organized into a meaningful experience?

Blue might be an objective property of light, hops be an objective quality of an IPA, and... well, I'm going to look for another beer.

 

[Kharakov]

Do trees have the necessary neural architecture to experience physical events? As far as I know, only a brain has the capacity and the ability to generate ''experience.'' Without an experiencer, a brain, physical event like a tree falling unseen in the forest cannot be experienced by the tree or the forest floor or the surrounding air molocules or the clouds above....therefore physical events are not necessarily experienced events. If you are unconscious during an operation, you do not experience your operation. You are unconscious of your operation.

You're defining the matter/energy we are made up of as non-conscious. That's a major leap for a conscious being to make- that everything is non-conscious except the beings that react like m/e. Like the old fashioned dehumanization of enemies idea applied to everything in reality except humans and higher vertebrates.

 

[DBT]

Do trees have the necessary neural architecture to experience physical events? As far as I know, only a brain has the capacity and the ability to generate ''experience.'' Without an experiencer, a brain, physical event like a tree falling unseen in the forest cannot be experienced by the tree or the forest floor or the surrounding air molocules or the clouds above....therefore physical events are not necessarily experienced events. If you are unconscious during an operation, you do not experience your operation. You are unconscious of your operation.

You're defining the matter/energy we are made up of as non-conscious. That's a major leap for a conscious being to make- that everything is non-conscious except the beings that react like m/e. Like the old fashioned dehumanization of enemies idea applied to everything in reality except humans and higher vertebrates.

Is there evidence of consciousness existing outside of the workings of a brain?

 

[Togo]

Thanks for your rich reply, Togo. Will come back to do it justice later. I agree that context is crucial. It may be that we have to allow existence, understood in a non-standard sense, as a predicate to fictional objects... must think more about this. Since Russell worked from a mimetic conception of fiction, under which statements in fiction are false, he may not have done justice to fictional discourse.

Perhaps the "existence is not a predicate" thesis holds for direct descriptions of individuals in the "real world." I am loathe to give up THAT thesis without pushing to see whether it can prove its mettle.

I think your AK/house analogy may not work because you posit that she comes across a house in the fiction later on. But I get the idea. Isn't Macbeth's dagger a hallucination in the play? That might be a good example of an object in fiction that is presented in the fiction as not existing.

Later, f

In "On Denoting," Russell distinguishes between subsisting, or being, and existing. He doesn't deny subsistence to Meinongian objects, but he does deny existence to them. This distinction might help clear up some of the puzzles.

Hmm.. Possibly. But isn't that just creating a new definition for existance - 'things that work for Russel's concept', which applies only to real physical objects, and then stuffing all the exceptions or hard cases into a different definition that he doesn't have to worry about? It seems to me that existance, except in certain rare cases, is almost always a consideration of hypothetical, theoretical, or fictional objects, not physical ones.

 

[ficino]

Sorry I haven't gotten back to more of what you wrote previously, Togo. Right now I'm trying to get speech act theory down, so must postpone a return to the problem, whether existence is a predicate. Later, f

 

[Togo]

No rush, this isn't a contest.

 

[Perspicuo]

Yes, but if you fail to distinguish both in discourse, you will only produce philosophical confusion. As I said before, blueness in a physical object such as a painting is produced by the wavelength of light refracted by calcium copper silicate in the pigment used, while blueness in my mind (brain) is an entirely different phenomenon, involving no CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄.

In similar fashion, properties of subjective objects have none of the properties of physical objects. Every subjective property is a denotation that represents stimuli from actual afference. It has command value, a semeiotic property, over our behavior. And that is nothing like the properties of a physical object.

CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄ → modified photon wavelength → neuron terminus stimulation → afference → denotat[blue]

This denotation in the brain software is stored in memory and has the ability of modifying behavior. Through learning, this behavior may become adjusted to whatever is both blue and requires a particular reaction (signal stimulation → behavior → conditioning consequences → reinforced behavior elicited by the same signal in future occasions).

What if the quale "blueness" is actually a property of light that our brains (bodies) have organized into a meaningful experience?

Blue might be an objective property of light, hops be an objective quality of an IPA, and... well, I'm going to look for another beer.

Yes, without beer, because, "the quale "blueness" is actually a property of light that our brains (bodies) have organized into a meaningful experience" is what I've been saying, but in other words, of course.

On the other hand "blue" is not a property of light--wavelength is. "Blue" is a denomination, a linguistic interface command for attempting to elicit "code" responses in someone else's brain.

 

[Kharakov]

What if the quale "blueness" is actually a property of light that our brains (bodies) have organized into a meaningful experience?

Blue might be an objective property of light, hops be an objective quality of an IPA, and... well, I'm going to look for another beer.

Yes, without beer, because, "the quale "blueness" is actually a property of light that our brains (bodies) have organized into a meaningful experience" is what I've been saying, but in other words, of course.

On the other hand "blue" is not a property of light--wavelength is. "Blue" is a denomination, a linguistic interface command for attempting to elicit "code" responses in someone else's brain.

I'm not sure if I've conveyed what I mean (to you). I understand the linguistic nature of the term blue- and even the linguistic nature of mathematical descriptions of reality as opposed to the actual reality, of which the mathematical/logos descriptions are simply a part.

I was basically saying that if a photon of a specific wavelength (relativistic Doppler effects included) interacts with an atom, molecule, or more specifically an electron in an atom or molecule, or whatever, the atom itself may experience blueness. These colors, or experiences of various other qualia, may exist as actual physical properties of reality- the taste of salt may actually be something that exists in the ocean independent of human tasting of saltiness.

The human brain, and our minds themselves would simply be individualized organized experiences of the qualia of reality that happen to allow us to select from the various qualia of reality with greater skill as we move along, ultimately leading to orgasmic bliss, love, knowledge, and peace. The rudder of qualia is in our hands, and can lead to unity as long as we see the qualia as parts of the living reality in which we live. Of course never mention this kind of stuff to immature beings, they'll reject it out hand.

 

[Perspicuo]

I reject it, and I don't think it's because of my immaturity (healthy inner child, reporting). We don't choose our qualia, we hardly choose anything at all. What we call "me" is the conscious and loquatious self, who thinks s/he decides but doesn't realize unconscious processes do it [almost] all. "We" are little more than kings of UK: Parliament decides in our name, while we just have to accept it, look dignified and try not to break wind before the foreign dignitaries.

Source.

 

[Kharakov]

I reject it, and I don't think it's because of my immaturity (healthy inner child, reporting).

What I said (about immaturity) sounded a bit douche (or pretentious). What I thought would be specifically rejected was of referring to reality as "the living reality in which we live".

We don't choose our qualia, we hardly choose anything at all. What we call "me" is the conscious and loquatious self, who thinks s/he decides but doesn't realize unconscious processes do it [almost] all. "We" are little more than kings of UK: Parliament decides in our name, while we just have to accept it, look dignified and try not to break wind before the foreign dignitaries.

Source.

I remember that study (or something similar), having cited that or something similar in an old free will thread a few years back (2007 or so). Building upon that, because of the way we experience reality and the satisfaction we get, it appears to me that the emotional and physical (sensation) impact upon us is important to the beings that make us up, especially considering that the impact upon us as conscious beings is being taken into consideration by that which makes us up (if our decisions are made behind the veil).


Oz...