> A "promise" is not merely a pattern being recognized, it's word that stands in for a fundamental concept of the reality of the world around us.
It's probably even stronger than that: e.g. a promise is still a promise even if we're just brains in a vat and can be kept or broken even just in your mind (do you promise to think about X?—purely unverifiable apart from the subject of the promise, yet we still ascribe moral valence to keeping or breaking it).
It's probably even stronger than that: e.g. a promise is still a promise even if we're just brains in a vat and can be kept or broken even just in your mind (do you promise to think about X?—purely unverifiable apart from the subject of the promise, yet we still ascribe moral valence to keeping or breaking it).