# Thinking About "Dual Descriptions" **URL:** \ **Category:** General Philosophy\ **Created:** [September 15, 2026, 12:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086 "2026-09-15T12:36:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 12:02am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/61 "2026-09-18T00:02:06Z")
> [@Patterner](#): > > And yet, anyone noticing them in the background would know they’re hearing music, whether they thought it was good or horrible. (It’s sublime, imo.) Yes, I think they would, at least anyone in the West. Maybe “hearing something as music” isn’t dependent on a single criterion. One might never have heard anything like Bartok before, but there would still be links to things we _have_ heard before – in this case, the string quartet instrumentation and the adherence (for the most part) to the standard 12 notes. Or in other examples, it might simply be the perception of rhythmic pattern that “cues” you that it’s music. (As for Bartok . . . the 4th “B”, IMO. Greatest composer of the 20th century, though he probably shares the title with Stravinsky.) Fading fast here . . . I’ll reread your post tomorrow. Appreciate the conversation! ---
**Author:** ![Patterner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/patterner/32/192_2.png) [@Patterner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Patterner)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 12:22am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/62 "2026-09-18T00:22:13Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > (As for Bartok . . . the 4th “B”, IMO. Greatest composer of the 20th century, though he probably shares the title with Stravinsky.) Agreed on all points. > [@Jay](#): > > Appreciate the conversation! Always a pleasure! ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 12:42am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/63 "2026-09-18T00:42:04Z")
@jay has rightly, and diplomatically, chastised me for not responding in this thread, since it engages with topics I have some interest in, and in particular with the series I’m running looking at Davidson’s papers directly; my silence was not the result of my having too little to say, but too much. In response I’ll have a brief go at sharing my incomplete, meandering and tedious response to the OP. The first puzzle is the notion of “ontological primacy” of things that are equivalent. I can’t make much of the idea, unless something more than the simple fact of two things being the same is included. One classic example is “Hesperus = Phosphorus”, where Hesperus is the evening star and Phosphorus is the morning star, and I think it clear that neither of these, at least considered as they stand, has any claim to primacy, of being more “basic”, over the other. It might be thought that since both are the very same as Venus, that Venus has a claim to ontological primacy, since in a sense it subsumes both; the idea being that equivalence between two things is demonstrated by their equivalence to a third. But I don’t see any requirement to think in this way, and a few other examples might show why; Superman is Clark Kent, even if both are also Kal-El; Constantinople is Istanbul, perhaps in different periods; Water is H₂O, despite some impurities, and so on. The difference here concerns the conversation in which one is involved; “Hesperus” might be the suitable word if we are doing poetry, “Venus” if we are doing Astronomy; “Clark Kent” is suitable for the hack, “Kal-El” for the interplanetary visitor; “Water” for what we add to a scotch, H₂O for when we do chemistry. It’s the differing _use_ to which we might put these words that influences their selection, rather than any one conversation being more _basic_. This of course is straight out Wittgensteinian linguistic relativism - the word is chosen on the basis of its use, not only on the basis of what it refers to. We can bring this in to the excellent music analogy @Jay develops. First a quick note, that I think might be helpful later; a chord is _not_ the very same simple frequency, that might be given in Hertz. A chord has a fundamental plus overtones, and would be given by a Fourier series rather than a simple frequency. But we might leave that aside for now and accept that a dominant 7th, an augmented 6th, and some given Fourier series, all have the very same referent. Building on the previous discussion of equivalence, we might suppose that we chose which term to use on the basis of what we are doing; If the chord is a C, it needs no resolution, but if the chord is A flat 7, it will sit uncomfortably until perhaps the G sounds. In contradistinction, the Fourier series is wholly irrelevant, perhaps until one is playing with recording software. (I hope I have the music theory correct - not my area). Put simply, there is no primacy apart from the use to which the stuff and language at issue is being put. And this works for mind and brain, too. In this case we might have a _reason_ for an action, given perhaps in terms of our desires and beliefs, along side a physical description of our action, given in terms of neural paths, muscle contractions, feedback loops and so on. And these might be of the very same act. Following the line of thought given above, we have enough basis for assigning “ontological Primacy” _apart from_ what we would do with each description. Davidson did have a tendency to follow his mentor Quine in presuming a primacy for physical descriptions, and grounded this on his account of causality as strictly involving universal statements - physical laws. But he was not explicit here, and even were he, we need not to follow him. @jay’s question is bigger than that, of course; what is it that allows us to use the differing names for the very same thing? But here the answer is I think much the same, and the very one Jay and @EQV discuss in historical terms, but which is also evident in the account given here - the equivalence is found or evidenced in what we are doing, in the success of the concert or the recording, and in our bringing together divergent descriptions to a common purpose. And this is not so far from Kripke’s account of the equivalence of kinds in terms of causal chains, nor from constraints within dynamical systems, for that matter. Anyway, there are weeds need pulling this fine spring morning, so I’ll leave this as is, half-argued and ill-considered. ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 1:12am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/64 "2026-09-18T01:12:14Z")
> [@Johnathanrs](#): > > You can’t peer behind the curtain sorry. Oh. Thank for your professional knowledge here. I must have been mistaken with my logic since it didn’t even register as important enough for you to consider or comment on. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 1:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/65 "2026-09-18T13:04:08Z")
> [@Patterner](#): > > > [@Jay](#): > > > > Did anyone hear “4’33” as music before they were instructed in how to do that? > > Meh. I doubt anyone does even after. We can understand the idea that it’s the ultimate endpoint of free-form music, but it’s more a philosophical experience than a musical one. I both agree and disagree. Yes, what we listen to when we listen to a performance (if you’ll allow the term) of “4’33” is not music according to anyone else’s conception besides Cage’s. Cage is asking us to try to find something he considers to be music in the silence / ambient noise. That’s a philosophical request, no doubt. But the musical part is that, if we follow his request, we _may_ find something worth listening to. Is it music? Each listener must decide for themselves. Many things are worth attending to that are not music. > [@Patterner](#): > > No particular tonal system is, though. Not only are their different tonal systems in the indigenous music of different cultures, but it took some time for Western music to settle on the major/minor system we have. All true, but I believe it’s also true that the tonic - octave - fifth relation (fundamental + first two overtones) is present in every musical culture. I’m not up on current musicology, though, so this could be outdated. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/66 "2026-09-18T14:19:37Z")
> [@EQV](#): > > So the question “do they stand in some relation?” treats them as separable, the way a cup and a table are. Yes, it does. And I can see how carefully you’re trying to avoid language that would accentuate this. But if you say, “They’re two irreducible aspects of one thing,” you still have two separable items, only now the items are called aspects. And if you reply, “But they’re _not_ things, or ‘items’, that’s the whole point,” then the reply is, “OK, then what are they, such that they are denominated as ‘_two_ aspects’?” Believe me, I’m not saying you’ve missed a better way talk about this! I encounter the exact same problems, as I think we all do, when we bump up against the conceptual limitations that a certain language’s grammar imposes on us. > [@EQV](#): > > The two descriptions are something else. They’re ours, and each captures one aspect of the thing only partially. That’s why neither is basic, and also why **their failing to be basic doesn’t by itself show that the matter/form distinction is inadequate.** Right. The matter/form conception you’re offering is genuinely different. > [@EQV](#): > > If the matter/form framework is inadequate, I’d expect it to show up somewhere along the way from organisms to reasoning, as **a point where the appeal to higher-order organization fails to explain anything**. I don’t think we’ve hit that point for normativity, though the distance to rational norms is large. Experience is different. That’s where I’d be least surprised to find the matter/form picture falling short, and I can’t rule it out. This makes sense to me. We’d have to test the conception by its explanatory power. And see below for more on that. > [@EQV](#): > > A question for you. By “basic description”, do you mean the explanation that would show why a given material fits a given function? If yes, then I agree that we don’t currently have it. But, to me, that seems like the comprehension barrier under another name, and something we’d arrive at through inquiry rather than something that we need before we get started. Or do you mean some kind of neutral description that we’d need in order to compare the other two descriptions at all? If the latter, then I think it asks for more than probably any inquiry can provide. Hoo boy. Excellent question. My OP implies that the “basic description” would be a neutral description, and denies that there could be such a thing for the mental/physical nexus, at least as currently understood. Such a description, I argued, would be desirable not only for purposes of comparing different-level descriptions, but for lending coherence to the whole idea of “same thing-ness.” You’re rightly asking, is that more than any inquiry can provide? Far from being unique, is the neutral-description problem for the mental and the physical merely another example of the futility of wanting such a thing? So let’s go back and look at my musical analogy, where I claimed that a basic description was in place – a description of a musical event in terms of frequencies. Is it a _neutral_ description of the kind we’re looking for? Well, it has a few features we could call “neutral”: It makes no claims about what these frequencies represent semantically, or are used for; it doesn’t claim that Hz numbers are the only way to measure frequencies (though it’s the one we’ve adopted); it is “objective” or “scientific” in that what it describes is verifiable according to scientific method. Is this enough? Not really. The point of “neutral” is that it’s meant to not “take sides” between two or more contrasting descriptions. So what are the contrasting descriptions in this case? One of them is the functional-harmony description. But the other is . . . the very description we’ve just been discussing, the acoustical description! Far from being “neutral,” this description asserts itself as the one we ought to employ if we’re looking for a basic description. More accurately, I assert it to be so. And I think that’s defensible, but the defense is of its basic-ness, _not_ its neutrality. So . . . a long way around the bush to say that I now accept your point about neutral descriptions. Should we go with the alternative you propose – that a “basic description” should focus not on neutrality but on explanatory power? Specifically, the power to explain how “a given material fits a given function”? That is an attractive option, whether or not we agree that it’s the comprehension barrier under another name. (Having coined the phrase, I’ll go out on a limb and say that I think there are some differences! But they probably don’t matter for this particular point; or if they do, we can return to them.) But doesn’t it still leave us with the “thinness” or assumptive quality that you and many of us on the thread have noted, concerning exactly what is the single item being described? Let’s pull back a little. This whole mess got generated by a certain conception of the physical/mental nexus advocated by Davidson. On this conception, the physical stuff (brains, neural firings, et al.) is ontologically primary. But that _description_ is not. Equally indispensable is the Space of Reasons description, where we bring in our familiar concepts of “thought,” “meaning”, “intension,” et al. Now you point out, rightly, that we don’t need a basic description of the comprehension-barrier-breaking sort in order to get started. Such a description, if we ever got it, would be a highly desirable _result_ of our inquiry, not a premise for beginning it. But we do need a reason that justifies our very strong intuition that the dual descriptions are indeed properly so called – that is, they describe a single phenomenon. Davidson gives some reasons, but they depend on a semi-physicalist understanding of the underlying ontology. And even so, as you said earlier, “Davidson’s identity is a thin metaphysical claim rather than a full explanation. And if your complaint is that it leaves the relation between mind and physics unintelligible, then I think that’s the right complaint.” This insight of yours now can be seen in a better light. You’re pointing to the poor explanatory power of Davidson’s account, and your concern about the relation being unintelligible is what we’re now calling the comprehension barrier. I accept all of this, and I think we’re both expressing “the right complaint” now. Or let me put it another way. When we adopt the basic description of musical events as frequencies, we’re now able to understand how the other descriptions arise, and use them for different purposes. But Davidson, while claiming a basic _ontology_, avoids the claim that to _describe_ the ontology this way is basic. So what do we do with his scheme? It raises problems rather than solving them. It doesn’t show us how or why dual descriptions might explain the relation between reasons and causes, and the degree of their “same thing-ness”. I would call it more a relabeling of the problem, albeit a brilliant one. ---
**Author:** ![Patterner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/patterner/32/192_2.png) [@Patterner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Patterner)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/67 "2026-09-18T17:00:30Z")
The problem I see with 4’33" is that no two “performances” can ever be the same. Sure, that’s true of any composition. But the degrees to which any number of performances of Beethoven’s 5th differ do not make them unrecognizable _as_ Beethoven’s 5th. Even _Ionisation_ and _The Yellow Shark_ are recognizable after enough hearings. You could notice that one instrument or another never came in when it was supposed to for ten measures at some point. You would never walk into a room where 4’33" was being performed, or where a recording of it was being played, and say, “Oh! I recognize this! It’s 4’33”!" Every noise, from traffic, to the shuffling and coughing of the audience, to construction on the building next door, to any actual silence that might ever occur, are part of the performance. It that’s music, then there is no distinction between random noise and music. > [@Jay](#): > > All true, but I believe it’s also true that the tonic - octave - fifth relation (fundamental + first two overtones) is present in every musical culture. I’m not up on current musicology, though, so this could be outdated. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that natural acoustics helped shape all musical cultures. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 7:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/68 "2026-09-18T19:04:31Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > @jay has rightly, and diplomatically, chastised me for not responding in this thread, since it engages with topics I have some interest in, At least I was diplomatic! 😉 But yeah, I wanted to get the benefit of your thoughts on this one. > [@Banno](#): > > The first puzzle is the notion of “ontological primacy” of things that are equivalent. I can’t make much of the idea, This idea, taken from Davidson, is what you allude to a little later: “Davidson did have a tendency to follow his mentor Quine in presuming a primacy for physical descriptions”, except he’s not quite that straightforward about it. He holds the _descriptions_ to be equivalent, with neither one more basic than the other, but nonetheless insists that what there _is_, including thoughts, must be physical. So that would be the ontological primacy of the physical. > [@Banno](#): > > It might be thought that since both [Hesperus and Phosphorus] are the very same as Venus, that Venus has a claim to ontological primacy, since in a sense it subsumes both; Better yet, I think the Davidsonian account would be that all three names, including “Venus”, describe a physical phenomenon (which an astronomer could describe in very precise language but I can’t). > [@Banno](#): > > the idea being that equivalence between two things is demonstrated by their equivalence to a third. But I don’t see any requirement to think in this way Yes, and if you read some of what @EQV and I have been discussing, you see that the whole “neutral description for purposes of comparison” idea is pretty much in tatters at this point. > [@Banno](#): > > a chord is _not_ the very same simple frequency, that might be given in Hertz. A chord has a fundamental plus overtones, and would be given by a Fourier series rather than a simple frequency. Quite right. I left out overtones as part of my “vast oversimplification” of acoustic theory; a dubious decision, perhaps, but writing simply about a topic is _really hard._ Thanks for the elaboration. > [@Banno](#): > > If the chord is a C, it needs no resolution, but if the chord is A flat 7, it will sit uncomfortably until perhaps the G sounds. In contradistinction, the Fourier series is wholly irrelevant, perhaps until one is playing with recording software. (I hope I have the music theory correct - not my area). You probably had Db in mind rather than G, since a Db chord is generally what Ab7 “wants” to resolve to. But otherwise yes, functional harmony appeals to how overtones are produced to explain some of its basic concepts, such as the “root” of a chord, but in its practical applications it deals only with pitch, so wouldn’t reference the Fourier series or, indeed, frequencies. > [@Banno](#): > > Put simply, there is no primacy apart from the use to which the stuff and language at issue is being put. > > And this works for mind and brain, too. In this case we might have a _reason_ for an action, given perhaps in terms of our desires and beliefs, along side a physical description of our action, given in terms of neural paths, muscle contractions, feedback loops and so on. And these might be of the very same act. OK. But what about the physical description of what accompanies or underlies the reason itself? Leave aside any action that may ensue. Let the reason be, “I water the lawn because I don’t want it to get brown.” We assume that when this reason / thought occurs to you, it’s accompanied by a pattern of neuronal firing. Are you good with saying, with Davidson, that 1) neither of these dual descriptions is more basic than the other, and 2) “the very same act” is a justifiable way to talk about the “act” of having a reason and the “act” of neurons firing? > [@Banno](#): > > @jay’s question is bigger than that, of course; what is it that allows us to use the differing names for the very same thing? I’m afraid so, and it’s probably too big to fit into this thread. But _use_ may well be the key, just as you say. I have to think some more about how to fit Kripke’s causal chains into this, though. I wonder what would happen if we asked, “Is ‘middle C’ a rigid designator?” I think the answer is yes, but then “261.63 Hz” is too, isn’t it? > [@Banno](#): > > Anyway, there are weeds need pulling this fine spring morning, so I’ll leave this as is, half-argued and ill-considered. Thanks for helping pull _these_ weeds! ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/69 "2026-09-18T20:54:30Z")
I am thinking at this point that language is the problem - as it introduces clear duality where none may exist at all. Therefore, we are required to examine what language is, and we can answer that by saying it is codified sound and that sound itself doesn’t suffer any duality that subsequent human language systems bring into reality.The naming, splitting, and categorizing. Jay and EQV are debating Davidson and Aristotle. I am questioning the medium in which the debate is conducted. The Hard Problem is framed in language. If language introduces duality, then the problem may be an artifact of the medium. I am suggesting that the problem is not the lack of a basic description—it is the medium of description itself. Language introduces duality. Sound does not. Therefore, the resolution may not be a new description, but a different mode of knowing. One that is not linguistic. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 8:59pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/70 "2026-09-18T20:59:10Z")
> [@Patterner](#): > > You would never walk into a room where 4’33" was being performed, or where a recording of it was being played, and say, “Oh! I recognize this! It’s 4’33”!" That’s right. As a matter of fact, I don’t like “4’33” at all, so maybe this is what I should say: “4’33” is a very poor piece, because it has no identifiable theme, no development, and very little interest at the level of performance. Heck, you can’t even recognize it! Yes, my tongue is a little in my cheek, but only a little. I’m willing to call it music, as long as I can say why it doesn’t work as _good_ music. > [@Patterner](#): > > I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that natural acoustics helped shape all musical cultures. And the intimate connection to the body – singing and dancing. We _vibrate_ with vibrations. ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 9:40pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/71 "2026-09-18T21:40:02Z")
> [@WhoKnows](#): > > Language introduces duality. Sound does not. Therefore, the resolution may not be a new description, but a different mode of knowing. One that is not linguistic. Or…one that is linguistic but acknowledges the actual lack of duality. The choices.. Being trapped by language (believing its dualities are real). Using language consciously (knowing its dualities are artifacts). _Artifacts of what exactly?_ Rambling thoughts on this question: If the duality is an artifact of **language** , then the solution is to use language consciously - knowing that its dualities are products of the medium, not of reality. If the duality is an artifact of **cognition** , then the solution is to understand how the mind works - to see how it constructs the subject/object split. If the duality is an artifact of **perception** , then the solution is to examine the perceiver - to inquire into the nature of the one who perceives. If the duality is an artifact of **the simulation** , then the solution is to understand the simulation’s design - to see why it produces the appearance of duality. If the duality is an artifact of **the code** , then the solution is to access the code - which is not available from within the simulation. The Question That Remains Which of these is it? Or are they nested? Language within cognition, cognition within perception, perception within the simulation, the simulation within the code? That is the thing to uncover. ---
**Author:** ![Johnathanrs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Johnathanrs](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnathanrs)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 9:53pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/72 "2026-09-18T21:53:20Z")
Hardy har har. Fine I’ll play along. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole—which is why I ignored your logic, or as I’d rephrase it, politely side-stepped and dodged because it can derail the conversation. What you’re really asking about is simulation theory to me. > [@WhoKnows](#): > > I must have been mistaken with my logic since it didn’t even register as important enough for you to consider or comment on. > > ​Why would a higher intelligence (us) purposely build a simulation just to permanently lose ourselves inside it? We wouldn’t. ​To answer your question, imagine yourself as an extraterrestrial game developer. Constructs like moral and ethical values are built-in features of the game, they have tangible in-game benefits, but they aren’t fundamental laws outside the simulation. When you code a digital world, your baseline empathy toward the simulated beings is practically zero compared to beings in the real world, simply because the digital entities aren’t real by definition—they only perceive they can be. If every aspect of this world is engineered by you, right down to the characters’ personalities, then the idea of losing yourself is just an engineered illusion. And honestly, it’s probably a welcomed one if your goal is to make the experience feel authentic. ​When you look at the scale of the observable universe, we haven’t explored even a fraction of a percent of it, making the whole setup look a lot like a sandbox. Of course, that doesn’t definitively mean life is a literal video game or simulation. What it _does_ mean is that higher life forms are possibly using this concept as a mechanism to cultivate new life and harvest experiences to train and develop us. There are numerous other possibilities. One example is you could be living multiple lives right now, cycling through a new one every time you go to sleep. Under time dilation, what feels like a lifetime to us could just be a few hours by an external observer’s standards. By physicalism standards it’s your body that is real and you would reject this possibility, and so on. The list goes on. I could come up with hundreds of practical scenarios that are rationally plausible. Who knows? ---
**Author:** ![EQV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@EQV](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/EQV)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 10:19pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/73 "2026-09-18T22:19:29Z")
> [@Jay](#): > > But if you say, “They’re _two_ irreducible aspects of one thing,” you still have two separable items, only now the items are called aspects. And if you reply, “But they’re _not_ things, or ‘items’, that’s the whole point,” then the reply is, “OK, then what are they, such that they are denominated as ‘_two_ aspects’?” The traditional reply is that matter and form are distinguishable in thought but not separable in being. The mind can differentiate within thought that which is unified within the thing. So we can ask two different questions about a thing: (1) what is it made of, and (2) how is it organized such that it does what it does. We inquire in two different ways and get two different answers. When you nominalize those answers you get two nouns (“matter” and “form”) and it looks as though we’ve found two “entites” inside the thing. But hylomorphism asks us to remember that both questions are two different inquiries into _one_ thing. Aristotle raised roughly the same objection against himself, in the _Metaphysics_. He asks, what makes a bronze sphere one thing instead of two (e.g. bronze + sphericity)? His answer is basically that the question misfires. The notion that we could have a bronze object with no shape is unintellgible. The relationship between matter and form is not part to whole, but potentiality to actuality. In terms friendlier to complexity theory, we might say that the material processes provide a space of realizable possibilities, while form is the organization that selects and stabilizes a particular range of those possibilities as the ongoing activity of one system. Whether that’s a good answer depends on whether the framework itself generates questions that it can’t handle. When we test the framework against the question “what relates form to matter?”, the framework replies that this is just Aristotle’s bronze-sphere question all over again. When we pose the analogous question to Davidson (“what relates the mental description to the physical one?”), he replies that it’s a good question and tries to find a way to tie them together. So the two frameworks aren’t in the same position. One says the question misfires and gives a reason for it. The other permits the question and struggles to answer it. > [@Jay](#): > > Far from being “neutral,” this description asserts itself as the one we ought to employ if we’re looking for a basic description. More accurately, I assert it to be so. And I think that’s defensible, but the defense is of its basic-ness, _not_ its neutrality. OK, I think that makes sense. I’ve been reading up on the history, and it looks like a fair bit of the early science was actually motivated by the desire to help explain the practice of music itself. People wanted to know which frequencies count as picthes at all, why can we treat the octave as an identity, why certain combinations go together while others don’t, etc. People wanted to know if there was a deeper reason why music works the way it does. The German physicist Helmholtz even wrote a book subtitled _as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music_. So the physics wasn’t the ground upon which music theory was built. The two grew up partly in response to each other, which helps explain why they illuminate each other now. > [@Jay](#): > > But we do need a reason that justifies our very strong intuition that the dual descriptions are indeed properly so called – that is, they describe a single phenomenon. I agree, and this is where I think the hylomorphic framing may have an advantage over Davidson’s framing. Davidson gives us a reason for saying that a mental event and a physical event are the same event, but organismal unity doesn’t really feature into it. That’s probably why the conclusion feels so thin. Their unity is the conclusion of an argument, which means the unity is only as good as the argument holding them together. If you start with the living thing instead, the unity isn’t something to be recovered via argument. The animal is one thing in a sense we can investigate rather than posit. Its parts are produced and maintained by the activity of the whole; it makes and repairs the boundary that separates it from its surroundings; it lives and dies as a unit. This is what authors like Moreno/Mossio and Juarrero are getting at. None of that unity is established by comparing a physical description with a mental one. It’s there from the beginning, and our inquiries into it can produce many different descriptions. On this approach, its less problematic to say that the two descriptions are of one thing because thinking is something an animal does, similar to how walking is. No one feels puzzled about the fact that the physiological description of walking and the description of someone crossing the room are describing the same event. The thing that walks and the thing that thinks are the same thing. Davidson’s framing arguably loses sight of this by starting with two events that may (or may not) be identical in some sense. On that approach the organism drops out, and everything has to be assembled into a unity by way of an argument for identity. So the hylomorphic approach gives us the unity of the organism, and (arguably) gives us account of how things can count as good or bad for the organism. That’s a start toward something like an account of normativity. It’s less obvious to me that it can give us the unity of the _subject_ for whom there is something it is like to be that organism. That is, I don’t think it unconditionally solves the hard problem, though it may transpose it. In any event, I do think it it helps us make sense of what we’re asking about when we ask whether two descriptions are descriptions of the “same thing”. It’s no longer a question about whether we can find a description that underwrites an identity, but an account of how something is organized such that it can do the things it does, and be the kind of thing it is. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/74 "2026-09-18T22:23:27Z")
Now to begin the analogy. > [@Jay](#): > > We could imagine a Davidsonian “anomalous monism of music,” in which the chord “C dominant 7th”, played at a certain time and place, is token-identical to its acoustical substrates. But that chord would not be type-identical to the four Hz descriptions beginning (if the chord starts on middle C) with “261.63 Hz”. Rather, we would have two different descriptions of the same thing, just as we allow reasons and causes to serve as different descriptions of . . . but here’s the problem. If I bang a “C dominant 7th” on the keyboard, I’ve also hit something like the following sequence of frequencies: - From C4 (261.63 Hz): 261.63, 523.26, 784.89, 1046.52 Hz… - From E4 (329.63 Hz): 329.63, 659.26, 988.89, 1318.52 Hz… - From G4 (392.00 Hz): 392.00, 784.00, 1176.00, 1568.00 Hz… - From Bb4 (466.16 Hz): 466.16, 932.32, 1398.48, 1864.64 Hz… I want to set this out because it is important to see that the physical description of the chord is vastly more complex than writing “C dominant 7th”. If I hit the chord again, we have a different token, but I have still played “C dominant 7th”. The physical description, however, will be slightly different in some of the extreme detail, because of differences in the way I hit the four keys. Say I believe that the cup is yellow. That belief stays the same when the cup is in my hand and when the cup is in the dishwasher. That’s analogous to the “C dominant 7th” played at different times, or indeed on a keyboard or on a guitar. But the physical descriptions will be vastly different, for the differing instances of the chord, and also for the differing instances of the belief. _That’s_ the place of the anomalous monism: the one chord with multiple physical descriptions, the one belief, likewise. And this stands _alongside_ the point that my hitting “C dominant 7th” and my hitting German-sixth would have exactly the same physical descriptions. That’s not the point Davidson is making. He does not claim _type_-identity. Now that may be what you have in mind. But I would first be very clear here. Different cases of certain physical phenomena are all cases of “C dominant 7th”. That they are all “C dominant 7th” is the monism; that they all have differing physical descriptions is what is anomalous. It’s having many distinct physical descriptions united under one heading, in both cases. I’ll stop there, and see what the reaction is. Incidentally, this is where I think @Wayfarer may have gone astray, and missed actually addressing anomalous monism. ---
**Author:** ![Johnathanrs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Johnathanrs](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnathanrs)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 10:31pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/75 "2026-09-18T22:31:10Z")
> [@WhoKnows](#): > > am thinking at this point that language is the problem - as it introduces clear duality where none may exist at all. I remember a great linguistic thread that might help you out that was more philosophy of language in my opinion. > [@Being Before Essence](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/being-before-essence/1674/4): > > A) human language simplifies reality by finding what things share in common at the expense of its uniqueness. ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 11:01pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/76 "2026-09-18T23:01:28Z")
I haven’t overlooked this; sorry not to reply yet. I need to work through it and be sure I understand it . . . thanks for your patience ---
**Author:** ![WhoKnows](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/whoknows/32/1145_2.png) [@WhoKnows](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/WhoKnows)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 12:34am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/77 "2026-09-19T00:34:31Z")
> [@Johnathanrs](#): > > To answer your question, imagine yourself as an extraterrestrial game developer. Constructs like moral and ethical values are built-in features of the game, they have tangible in-game benefits, but they aren’t fundamental laws outside the simulation. When you code a digital world, your baseline empathy toward the simulated beings is practically zero compared to beings in the real world, simply because the digital entities aren’t real by definition—they only perceive they can be. Maybe. If the game was actually designed in that way. It is possible that the game was designed to allow for morality (and everything else it allows for) and I say this because the game re consciousness is designed in what I refer to as “Blank Slate Technology” - All who enter start as blank slates. Also the design tells us that it is not a perfectly completed sim. It is unfolding… So it is possible that morality is not built in but allowed to formulate within the construct. As to the builders empathy being zero for the players, this is presently a presumption. Who are the players, if not those who are also the builders? The form would therefore be simulated rather than the consciousness which is experiencing the form. This doesn’t mean that the e consciousness is not real by definition, the perception is not necessarily “they can be” but that “they are”, but that the forms are not. > [@Johnathanrs](#): > > If every aspect of this world is engineered by you, right down to the characters’ personalities, then the idea of losing yourself is just an engineered illusion. And honestly, it’s probably a welcomed one if your goal is to make the experience feel authentic. Or, The game is designed to grow personalities, which is why the BST is part of the design. One goes inside, temporarily loses ones self identity, puts on another identity in a genuine manner, and once the temporary concludes, either brings that back to the dominant reality of the makers or even places that into the next level phase, also a simulated reality with different features - such as the ability of the personality to instantly manifest a reality experience just by thinking one into existence. I base this idea on the study of such things as Astral Travel and NDE reports, as well as induced experiences through DMT et al. As to “the goal” It may be “something to do” especially if the builders (who play in temporal realms the build) are eternal entities. > [@Johnathanrs](#): > > When you look at the scale of the observable universe, we haven’t explored even a fraction of a percent of it, making the whole setup look a lot like a sandbox. Of course, that doesn’t definitively mean life is a literal video game or simulation. What it _does_ mean is that higher life forms are possibly using this concept as a mechanism to cultivate new life and harvest experiences to train and develop us. Yes. THat is the “growing personalities” I mentioned - only the truth might be that the “us” is “them” as in - we are the builders creating new entities from our own inventions because the primary (or real) ingredient is Consciousness - which itself cannot be created but can be utilised in this manner - placing aspects into the game(s) designed in ways which allow for this to occur. As far as scale goes - the bigger the universe the smaller the objects which can be infused with consciousness can be, which leads to interesting outcomes. > [@Johnathanrs](#): > > There are numerous other possibilities. One example is you could be living multiple lives right now, cycling through a new one every time you go to sleep. Under time dilation, what feels like a lifetime to us could just be a few hours by an external observer’s standards. True. That would mean the universe itself may/would also have a manufactured time dilation - but why do so if the builders are eternal? Simply design a simulation which ticks along in real time, and see what unfolds. Perhaps make a few tweaks here and there but mainly let it go at its own pace. However long its temporal trajectory might be, it is still but a blimp compared to timelessness - to always and ever having consciously existed… > [@Johnathanrs](#): > > By physicalism standards it’s your body that is real and you would reject this possibility, and so on. Even so, that is just one personality type and it is the temporal nature of a human lifetime which allows for said personality to eventually see how wrong they got things and why they needn’t have rejected such and where that might take them (character/personality et al) in the next level… > [@Johnathanrs](#): > > I could come up with hundreds of practical scenarios that are rationally plausible. Who knows? 🙂 So, how does this all tie into solving - not only the Hard Problem, but also this language duality discussion… ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 2:02pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/78 "2026-09-19T14:02:32Z")
Thanks for this. One of the things I like about philosophy is that it creates a space where possibly obtuse, obvious, or childlike questions are not only encouraged but kind of essential. So here’s mine: Is ST meant to be understood as a metaphor or an actual description of the human condition? And if that’s the wrong binary, can you say how I might better think about? ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 2:34pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/79 "2026-09-19T14:34:02Z")
> [@EQV](#): > > So the two frameworks aren’t in the same position. One says the question misfires and gives a reason for it. The other permits the question and struggles to answer it. Good analysis. I now remember Aristotle’s bronze-sphere argument. Its relevance here depends on whether we agree that “what relates form to matter?” is the same _kind_ of question as “what relates the mental description to the physical one?”, or at least shares a structural isomorphism. Is it clear to you why this must be the case? Rather than dive into some of my thoughts about that, I’d prefer to check it out with you and make sure I’m understanding you. > [@EQV](#): > > People wanted to know if there was a deeper reason why music works the way it does. Yes, and once equal temperament was established, there was a host of fascinating new “why?” questions to be asked, essentially mathematical ones generated by the stipulated equality of the 12 intervals from root to octave. As you probably know, this does not occur in nature, and an acoustical analysis of the overtone series reveals something quite different. So to explain “why our harmonic theory works,” theoreticians had to look away from Nature and toward the rules they’d established for Western tonality. But anyway, yes, all of this was a back-and-forth process, at no point of which was there a “foundation” that everyone could appeal to. > [@EQV](#): > > So the hylomorphic approach gives us the unity of the organism, and (arguably) gives us account of how things can count as good or bad for the organism. That’s a start toward something like an account of normativity. You paint a very clear picture of the modern hylomorphic approach. I’m looking forward to reading Juarrero as a starting place. My first, uninformed set of questions might start with the “givenness” of the living thing, and the claim that there’s no puzzle about “the thing that walks and the thing that thinks”. In practical terms, I’d say that’s true, but when was philosophy ever practical? 😉 Isn’t it our job to question what seems unproblematic? But as I say, this is me talking before I read, so I’ll be quiet. > [@EQV](#): > > It’s less obvious to me that it can give us the unity of the _subject_ for whom there is something it is like to be that organism. That is, I don’t think it unconditionally solves the hard problem, though it may transpose it. Yes. I don’t see the hard problem dissolving even under such a subtle analysis. We could talk about “mental” and “physical” as a unity but still not know how to answer the question of what it means for _me_ to be an instance of this. As Nagel likes to ask, “Is ‘I am Thomas Nagel’, said by me, a fact about the world?” ---
**Author:** ![Jay](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/jay/32/206_2.png) [@Jay](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Jay)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 3:09pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086/80 "2026-09-19T15:09:08Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > Say I believe that the cup is yellow. That belief stays the same when the cup is in my hand and when the cup is in the dishwasher. That’s analogous to the “C dominant 7th” played at different times, or indeed on a keyboard or on a guitar. > > But the physical descriptions will be vastly different, for the differing instances of the chord, and also for the differing instances of the belief. This opens up some significant issues. Let’s start with the belief that stays the same. Is that _belief_ – “The cup is yellow” – the same thing as the _proposition_ “The cup is yellow”? What I’m trying to do with that question is tease out whether we can hold a belief without expressing it propositionally. I think we can – and that opens a whole other wormcan about the status of such beliefs. For our purposes here, then, would you be OK in just talking about the _proposition_ “The cup is yellow”? That way, we can say that it has tokens which can be described as particular thoughts in particular minds, and also as patterns of neurons firing. And then I think the analogy with “C dom 7th” goes through: That chord, described that way, is a sort of proposition, an abstraction that has infinitely many possible tokens or instantiations. > [@Banno](#): > > But the physical descriptions will be vastly different, for the differing instances of the chord, Yes, and not just in one way – that’s what this is helping me see. They’ll be different because they’re expressed in the Hz language, of course, but _also_ because each “performance” of the chord will be subject to variations in strength of finger placement, timbre of instrument used, etc. So even if two tokens of a C dom 7th are identical in terms of Hz description, they’ll differ in these many other small ways. And, importantly, _neither_ description – the harmonic or the acoustical – depends on some standard instantiation. They both assume a degree of abstraction from what happens when hands are put to keyboard. We can recognize the chord, under either description, despite these small differences, because neither description is meant to line up with one and only one real-world token. Just like different performances of Round Midnight all qualify as “being Round Midnight”. (And compare to visual art, where that one-to-one lining-up is precisely what characterizes an art object!) (Except in Pop art.) > [@Banno](#): > > _That’s_ the place of the anomalous monism: the one chord with multiple physical descriptions, the one belief, likewise. Following my suggestion, can we say “the one proposition, likewise”? I think so. Your point is about what must underlie or be basic in a monistic philosophy. And what’s fascinating is that you’re showing that the “mental” description can just as easily be taken as basic! – we can hold “C dom 7th” steady and point out the infinite possible physical descriptions. But what allows us to do this is the realization that the Hz language also admits of different physical realizations, and that these realizations can vary along some fairly noticeable axes – dynamics, timbre – while still being tokens of the Hz-language type. So the following paragraph: > [@Banno](#): > > Different cases of certain physical phenomena are all cases of “C dominant 7th”. That they are all “C dominant 7th” is the monism; that they all have differing physical descriptions is what is anomalous. It’s having many distinct physical descriptions united under one heading, in both cases. turns out to be equally true of the Hz description; we just substitute the Hz language for each use of “C dom 7th”. The “differing physical descriptions” would now be _below_, or _at a tangent to_, the Hz description – info about how hard the note G is pressed within that chord, for example. I hadn’t taken that on board, so thanks for the analysis. [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086.md?page=3) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/thinking-about-dual-descriptions/3086.md?page=5)