One way to define Philosophy, is to note that it is that department of thought that addresses hard, core questions. Known to be hard as there are no easy answers.
Where, core topics include metaphysics [critical analysis of worldviews on what reality is, what exists etc], epistemology [core questions on “knowledge”], logic [what are the principles of right reason], ethics/morals [virtue, the good, evil, duty, justice etc], aesthetics [what is beauty], and of course meta issues emerging from other subjects such as politics, history, Mathematics, Theology/Religion, Science, Psychology, Medicine, Education etc. As we look at such a list, we can see that one reason why these are difficult is that it is very hard to avoid self-referentiality on such topics, opening up question-begging on one hand and self-referential, self-defeating incoherence on the other.
For striking example, in his 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis, Nobel Laureate Sir Francis Crick [a co-discoverer on the structure and function of DNA], went on ill-advised record:
. . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
The late Philip Johnson, of course, aptly replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Johnson then tellingly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.]
This problem is fairly widespread, and a point that should be borne in mind when we try to argue on big questions. Regrettably, this seems harder to do than one might at first imagine.
However, Elton Trueblood, building on Josiah Royce, may have put a way forward on the table, though this turns on an irony. For, one of the points of consensus of debate is that error exists. For empirical evidence, kindly refer to primary school sums duly marked with the infamous big red X’s. (That’s why I went out of my way to use green as my marking colour . . . )
However, this is not just an empirical fact, it is an undeniably true and self-evident knowable truth. To see this, set E = error exists, and try to deny it ~E. But this means, E is . . . an error. Oops. So, we know the very attempt to deny E instantly produces patent absurdity, a self defeating self contradiction. But this simple result is not a readily dismissed triviality. No, apart from being a gentle reminder that we need to be careful, it shows that self evident, certainly knowable truth exists which instantly undercuts a wide swath of radical relativist views. Their name is Legion, in a post modern world.
We can widen the result, take any reasonably identifiable subject, G. Assign, that O is the claim that some x in G is an objective, i.e. warranted and credibly reliable truth. Try to deny it, ~O. Has o shifted away from G? No, it is still a claim on the subject matter G. So, it refutes itself. Once there is a reasonably identifiable subject, there are objective knowable truths about and in G. This is a first such truth. Of course on many topics, the second truth is, we know little more than the first truth. That is Mr Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns. Beyond lurk, the unknown unknowns.
BTW, Morality and History count as reasonably identifiable topics, as do Economics, Politics, etc. Controversy does not prevent us from knowing truths.
And, Dallas Willard et al (with slight adjustment) are right:
To have knowledge in the dispositional sense—where you know things you are not necessarily thinking about at the time—is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”). This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life, and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric . . . no satisfactory general description of “an adequate basis of thought or experience” has ever been achieved. We are nevertheless able to determine in many specific types of cases that such a basis is or is not present [p.19] . . . . Knowledge, but not mere belief or feeling, generally confers the right to act and to direct action, or even to form and supervise policy. [p. 20] In any area of human activity, knowledge brings certain advantages. Special considerations aside, knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with. Knowledge involves assured
[–> warranted, credible] truth, and truth in our representations and beliefs is very like accuracy in the sighting mechanism on a gun. If the mechanism is accurately aligned—is “true,” it enables those who use it with care to hit an intended target. [p. 4, Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge|Taylor& Francis Group, 2018. ]
Of course, that easily leads to the situation where false or tainted or materially incomplete knowledge claims can capture this prestige, so our knowledge institutions should be open to reform.
For this, an adapted JoHari window is helpful:
Coming back to focus, let us be on guard against making errors of self referentiality. END
The challenge of self-referentiality on hard questions (thus, of self-defeating arguments)
You just give your judgement over to us, and we’ll teach you to doubt yourselves. Doesn’t that turn out great for you? You are totally emasculated. Lobotomized.
Andrew
Jim Slagle on the self-referentiality problem for those who claim that beliefs are produced by non-rational forces (such as blind particles in the void):
With an almost painful accuracy, he goes on to describe the self-referentiality problem for skeptics of rationality:
As in, oopsie . . .
The problem of self-referential incoherence is baked in certain worldviews from the very outset.
A free rational person who builds a worldview starting with the claim ‘X is all that exists’, while X does not allow for the existence of a free rational person, inevitably runs into self-referential incoherence. Such a person is unaware that “all that exists” necessarily also refers to him. The same profound lack of awareness plagues Rosenberg when he keeps writing stuff like “When consciousness convinces you that you, or your mind, or your brain has thoughts about things, it is wrong.” Somehow, Rosenberg is unable to acquire the awareness that such claims also refer to himself. For some reason, he cannot rid himself of the illusion that his position is independent of his claims about consciousness and rationality.
So, we should be very careful when we make grand claims like “Information is all that exists”, “Physics is all that exists”, “Tao is all that exists”, or even “God is all that exists.” When we make such an “All that exists is X” claim, we should immediately follow up with the question: “Does the claim allow for my existence as a free rational person?”
A divided, polarized civilization? No. Where does the average person get true statements? His teachers? Parents? The Media? I think most people are too busy living their lives to analyze any statements beyond assigning a level of credibility based on the source, followed by a rapid assessment of whether or not any statement is true based on basic logic and previous knowledge. For the average person, such assessments happen on an almost intuitive level.
@3
I have no objection to this line of reasoning. But who exactly is the target here? Who is it who supposedly says “all beliefs are produced by non-rational forces”?
I can tell you this much: the Churchlands do not say this. Dennett does not say this. (Neither do Dewey, Freud, or Marx say this, despite what Pearcey and Slagle insinuate.)
PM1 @7
These folks say that the physical is all that exists. They argue for causal closure of the physical—everything has a sufficient physical cause. If we then point out that physical reasons radically differ from rational reasons, and that their worldview implies that all beliefs are produced by non-rational (physical) forces, they, like you, pretend not to understand the argument.
Reasoning is a distinct kind of rule-governed behavior. It does not require violating the causal closure of the physical universe.
You want to say that naturalism cannot accommodate rationality as such because it does not accommodate your preferred theory of what rationality is. This ignores the fact that naturalists have their own understanding of what rationality is. They have constructed, within the resources of their account of reality, an account of the cognitive operations whereby they know what reality is.
That their account differs from yours does not mean that they are being incoherent or that they have any self-referentiality problem.
“That their account differs from yours”
In other words, whatever they believe is fine. lol
Andrew
@10
My point was that naturalism does not suffer from the internal incoherence that Origenes believes it does.
PM@ 11:
It most certainly does. That you refuse to acknowledge that fact doesn’t negate its truth in the slightest. And in your so doing, you merely reinforce your preference for falsehood as completely acceptable in your worldview, because your preferences drive your reality.
PM1, the incoherence of evolutionary materialistic scientism is a real issue, one that cannot be wished away. As for Marx, Slagle gave an explicit citation that is directly parallel to what I saw from live marxists. Crick, as cited above, speaks for himself and is indisputably eminent. However, my OP is not just about such, it speaks to other forms of determinism or materialistic reductionism. It is also far broader, the issue is that a key part of the difficulty of big core worldview questions is that in addressing such, we are going to be self referential, almost inescapably. So, we should be careful to avoid incoherence. KF
PS, as to the solution to the linked hard problems of worldviews that are evolutionary materialistic and scientistic [the relevant description of naturalism], It would be interesting to see at least a substantial and cogent answer. This includes the hard problem of consciousness, for just one aspect.
PPS, naturalism is a tad hard to pin down, per SEP:
Boiling down, we may turn to Merriam Webster:
In short, in practice materialistic, evolutionary, and scientistic.
PM1 @9 , Animateddust @12
You seem to have mastered the art of misunderstanding. My point is:
1. Physical Causal closure states: everything has a sufficient physical cause.
2. Beliefs exists and have a cause.
Therefore, from 1. and 2.
3. All beliefs have a physical cause. (If Dennett & co worldview is correct)
Please stop with that repeated whining argument. My “preferred” theory of reasoning is that it is not shaped by chemical ‘reasons’. Na+ + OH- –> NaOH is not my “preferred” reason to hold any belief.
– – –
AnimatedDust
Hear! Hear!
KF @
Naturalism, according to Slagle:
1. The physical sciences are the touchstone of reality.
2. Causal closure of the physical.
3. Anti ‘supernatural’
4. The mind is causally derivative from the physical.
5. Darwinian evolution.
6. At some level, the denial of teleology.
PM1 was upset about 6.
Origenes, the first five directly expand the summary phrase, evolutionary materialistic scientism. The most plausible understanding of teleology is, from AmHD:
1 – 5 would naturally lead to 6, unless one wishes to infer design and purpose are built in to the world. Which is some form of pantheism or panentheism; which, of course, are not naturalistic views.
I think we are seeing slippery definitions here, with meanings provided by self selective typically prestigious in-groups that run far counter to the normal usage. Of course, unannounced until there is enough power to openly impose. As, is being pushed on us regarding being male or female. It looks a lot like rationality is about to be redefined away from responsible freedom that [habitually] works in accord with first principles of logic to infer reliable, credibly true conclusions, as opposed to blind GIGO limited computationalism. That suggests subversion of language to herd us in a direction preferred by agendas backed by influence and reaching for naked power.
I would say, for many things, ends or purposes or goals are naturally evident — eyes TO see, ears TO hear, etc — but that is not opposed to intelligent purpose expressed in the world. In that context FSCO/I, is a strong sign, especially things like coded information in the living cell. Notice, how hotly such . . . the manifest consensus . . . has been objected to.
I get very wary when I see signs of in groups and such slipperiness. 1984, Animal Farm, doublethink and doubletalk come to mind. Do I need to add, Napoleon and Big Brother?
But then, just maybe, we will be given a cogent, straightforward explanation.
KF
KF@16, PM1
WRT teleology & naturalism.
In the Galton board thread, PM1 links to papers where teleology is allegedly being “naturalized.” In one of these papers they look at biological organization, I assume that they identify some goals of the organism, assume that an organism is just physical stuff produced by Darwinian evolution, and say:
“we present teleology brought to you by purely blind natural processes!”
I wonder what will stop them from “naturalizing” teleology by identifying the goals of, let’s say, Professor James Tour?
@17
You can assume whatever you want without reading it. Or you can read it for yourself and then make up your mind.
PM1 @18, KF
Let’s read it together. According to you, this has to do with the “naturalization” of teleology. This is the abstract of one of the papers you linked to:
Origenes, they are trying to subvert the compelling force of the evidence of design by begging questions on imposed a priori materialistic evolutionism per Lewontin. We can take it as a back handed admission that we have won the evidence of design issue so they are now trying to smuggle purpose in the back door without sound responsiveness on the source of complex design as observed. KF
.
#19-20
It’s double-speak. It’s horse poo — “let us use words to succeed amongst ourselves where the evidence and reason fails us”
And it is most certainly another unspoken admission that the inference to design in biology is both valid and inescapable. (something we’ve seen here time after time)
If one thought exists then naturalism is impossible. Is that simple.
If consciousness and thoughts die when the physical brain dies then naturalism/physicalism/materialism are the better explanation.
There is no supernatural, only the unknown.
@15
I can easily imagine versions of (1)-(6) that I would accept, and versions of (1)-(6) that I would not accept.
Origenes/17
I think the word you’re looking for is “teleonomy”
Let us stop pretending that ‘naturalism’ is a worldview/philosophy. It is an enumeration of sciency stuff without internal coherence, axioms are either lacking or endlessly malleable. It can neither be understood nor argued against. It is the western version of Tao.
Origenes/15
I’d say it’s a question of “so far, so good.” The physical sciences have been the most successful tools we have for probing the nature of physical reality and we would be foolish not to continue using them, all the while bearing in mind they may have their limits.
In the broadest sense, yes.
Absolutely.
What we observe so far is that the mind/consciousness disappears irretrievably when the brain dies so that is a reasonable inference.
Not just Darwinian.
We know that there are artefacts produced by intelligent agents because we designed them. The question is whether there are other such beings of much greater knowledge and power than ourselves elsewhere in this Universe. I would not be surprised to find there are. Whether they rise to the level of the Christian God is another question.
Seversky @27
So, which is it? Is reality what physical sciences says it is? Or is the case that physical sciences “may have their limits”? What does that mean?
Oh, I forgot the naturalist is resistant to “extreme reductionism.” So, some things may not be reducible to what physical sciences are about. Or perhaps they are, but we should not really be so extreme. So, I guess we should (somewhat?) get rid of premise 1.
Is that in the same broadest sense as the Tao should be understood, or rather cannot be understood?
This is getting rediculous.
Strictly as an exercise for my own edification, here are some various specifications of (1)-(6).
The first grouping consists of variations that I would reject, on the grounds that they go beyond what can be scientifically supported.
The second grouping consist of variations that I would accept, on the grounds that they are more solidly based on what the sciences do and do not license one to justifiably assert.
Any similarity between Group 1 and the worldview of Alex Rosenberg is strictly intentional.
Group 1
1. Fundamental physics is the sole guarantor of ontological commitment
2. Causal closure of the fundamentally physical (anti-emergentism)
3. Nothing cannot be explained in terms of fundamental physic is ontologically permissible.
4. Mental states and processes can be exhaustively explained in terms of fundamental physics
5. The modern synthesis is necessary and sufficient for explaining biological diversity
6. There is no teleology, only teleonomy.
Group 2
1. The methods of the social, biological, and physical sciences are more reliable indicators of ontological commitment than other forms of understanding.
2. The universe as a whole is a causally closed system.
3. No events, states, or processes within the universe can violate laws of fundamental physics
4. The biological function of cognition is to enable organisms to cope with environmental complexity.
5. Organism-centered accounts of evolution — natural selection is not a causal factor but a higher-order effect of what tends to happen to populations of organisms over time.
6. Intrinsic purposiveness is real (PDF); organisms are natural purposes.
Seversky at 23,
I would not encourage anyone to take your word for it. It seems some would rather expose themselves to hot lava than say a prayer to God. He’s waiting for you.
Origenes at 26,
Naturalism is a worldview. Fer cryin’ out loud, what do you think you’re up against here? Nothing?
The person who believes “the natural is all there is” REJECTS anything else. If he can’t see it, touch it or look at it under a microscope – forget it. So he can go through life with a worship of men ONLY. Some great man wrote a book and he will meditate on it, maybe build his life around it.
F/N: One of the key test cases for Slagle’s concern is Darwin himself, as we may see from the wider import of his July 3, 1881 letter to William Gray:
Of course, of course, his apologists hasten to provide a context, that he was in fact targetting abstract metaphysical, theological and religious sentiment driven reasoning, not oh so well established simple empirical evidence that grounds, say, his theory. We only pause to say, that already has written off mathematics and any other complex discipline.
But such is not the core. The core is, immediately, if we are so delusion prone and discredited, where do we suddenly get credibility from to warrant any knowledge of significance? As, there are no firewalls in our minds. From this, it is but a step to notice that the sort of distinction that is being made to try to shield the Evolutionary theory, is precisely a case of highly abstract, abstruse reasoning. It fails, fails by self referential absurdity.
Going further, we now have right of fair comment to point out that the defence offered is manifestly special pleading to protect an establishment. As any graduate of Marxism 101 would have no problems identifying.
Speaking of socialists, we now see the point J B S Haldane, a co founder of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, made. Here, I skeletonise and augment his famous remark:
Finding another socialist, Lewontin, too, needs to be heard [in annotated form to draw out the issues}:
So, it seems, the matter of self referentiality needs to be carefully pondered.
KF
@32
1. Whether or not Darwin’s “horrid doubt” undermines mathematics in addition to metaphysics depends on what one’s account of mathematics is. I don’t see how it would undermine mathematics if mathematics were (to use some jargon) “analytic”, i.e. truths based on meaning alone.
2. Whether or not the impossibility of metaphysical knowledge entails the impossibility of all knowledge (including empirical knowledge) depends on whether or not one thinks that metaphysical knowledge is a “foundation” for empirical knowledge. Some philosophers (such as Descartes) have thought that it is. Others have disagreed.
3. The quote from Haldane was published before he became a Marxist. When he became a Marxist and a proponent of dialectical materialism, he realized that his own earlier objections to materialism no longer pertained, because he realized that he had been targeting reductive materialism. Haldane’s dialectical materialism is explicitly and emphatically emergentist, just as Engels’s was in Dialectics of Nature.
4. Lewontin’s point is simply that we cannot do science without assuming the uniformity of nature, which means that we must assume that God will not interfere with the natural order whenever it suits His plan. His objection to Sagan is that we do not infer from science that there are no miracles; rather we must adopt a posture of methodological naturalism in order to do science in the first place.
5. Whether or not one needs to assume anything like classical theism in order to ground or justify methodological naturalism, that is a separate point from the point that Lewontin is making, which is that we must assume that God does not arbitrarily interfere with the natural world in order to science at all in the first place. We could not do science at all if God could change the results of experiments at any time because it suited His plans that are inscrutable to us.
6. While it is almost certainly true that Lewontin’s Marxism influenced his commitment to methodological naturalism, it’s probably also true that the influence runs in the other direction as well. Regardless, one can certainly appreciate Lewontin’s objection to Sagan regardless of Lewontin’s other philosophical-political commitments.
7. Regardless of what Darwin worried about, the question could still be asked: do contemporary cognitive sciences, evolutionary theory, and theoretical biology give us reason to believe that the evolved cognitive capacities of human and non-human animals are generally unreliable? As someone with a basic competence in those fields, I see no reason why would be the case.
🙂 Consciousness and thoughts can’t die because are immaterial. Brain is just a tool used by conscience to access and have an impact in the material world.
There is not a shred of scientific evidence that matter can create information (so let’s forget about intelligence and consciousness that are far more superior levels than information).
Sev @23>There is no supernatural, only the unknown.
That’s the problem with the wish being the father of the assertion. It doesn’t make it true. Dang it.
To say something like that requires you to disregard all evidence of supernatural experiences had by humans, reported for thousands of years, and some are now peer reviewed scientific studies. BA has reported on this, extensively as well.
Sev, it must be hard to spend so much time here, with your fingers in your ears and having to incessantly yell LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!
What a miserable existence.
PM1, Mathematics is a highly abstract, conceptual discipline. If our minds are dubious for philosophy, they are perforce dubious for math. If they are good enough for math, they are good enough for phil. And of course the attempts to rule out one kind of knowledge while letting in favoured claims, is similarly based on highly abstract reasoning. Marxism 101 should be enough to alert one to what is obviously going on. Emergentism, of course is just as suspect, above and beyond being ill supported poof magick, at this stage, that stronger term is fair comment. Lewontin was exposing, inadvertently, ideological imposition and polarisation, aka bias trending bigotry. The horrid doubt is a relevant case. KF
@36
If one’s epistemology were basically Humean, it would be relatively straightforward to argue that mathematics and science can be disentangled from metaphysical speculation. And I don’t think it would be at all difficult to show that Darwinian processes can give rise to Humean minds.
That said, I am more inclined to think that, with regard to epistemology, Kant’s philosophy of mind is more promising than Hume’s. But I also think that Darwinian processes can give rise to Kantian minds. (One of the first people to make this argument explicitly was the psychologist Konrad Lorenz.)
PM1, epistemology is already beyond the threshold. Mathematics is riddled with similar abstracta. Start with the — the only — null set and use von Neumann’s construction to go transfinite then go hyperreals. Infinitesimals, limits, calculus and beyond. All has to go, too. And more. Utterly, patently absurd. KF
In regards to,,,
In regards to that claim, Sev responds,
Over the years Sev has made that claim, and been corrected on that claim, at least 10 times now, perhaps even 20 or 30 times.
And yet, he simply refuses to listen. As AD noted, “it must be hard to spend so much time here, with your fingers in your ears and having to incessantly yell LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!”
Not to mention that it must be extremely hard to type on your computer with your fingers planted firmly in your ears. 🙂
But anyways, here goes again.
We have far more ‘observational’, which is to say ‘eye-witness’, evidence for the fact that the immaterial mind/soul can exist apart from the material body than than we do for the Darwinian claim that unguided material processes can generate functional information.
Again, we have far more observational evidence for the reality of immaterial minds/souls than we do for the Darwinian claim that unguided material processes can generate functional information. Moreover, the transcendent nature of ‘immaterial’ information, which is the one thing that, (as every ID advocate intimately knows), unguided material processes cannot possibly explain the origin of, directly supports the transcendent nature, as well as the physical reality, of the immaterial mind/soul:
Moreover, although Einstein himself did not believe in a personal God, nor in life after death, special relativity itself contradicts Einstein and offers rather stunning ‘scientific’ evidence that the NDE testimonies, (testimonies of going through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension), are in fact accurate ‘physical’ descriptions of what happens after death.
Darwinian materialists also like to claim that these millions of reported experiences of life after death are merely ‘hallucinations’ of the dying brain.
But directly contrary to their ‘hallucination hypothesis’, it is now found that the ‘memories of near-death experiences are recalled as ‘‘realer” than real events or imagined events.’
Exactly how is it remotely possible for a supposed ‘hallucination’ to be ‘‘realer” than real events or imagined events’?
Moreover, as if all that was not bad enough for Darwinian materialists, their belief that material particles are the ultimate substratum from which all reality, and all life, flows is now falsified by the violation of Leggett’s inequality which falsified what is termed “realism”, (of note: “realism’ is the notion that material reality exists independently of any measurement and/or observation of it)
As the following article stated, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.” and ““You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.”
In short, the violation of Leggett’s inequality has, as far as empirical science is concerned, left the Darwinian materialist without any ‘real’ material foundation to stand on.
So what is a Darwinian materialist to do when science itself is ripping his materialistic foundation out from under him? Might I be so bold as to suggest Christianity?
BA77, not only near death but dying experiences that in this part of the world are sometimes called, travelling, often involving interactions with close others [sometimes utterly unexpected], and of course the dying visions you have noted, Ac 7 has one, and Ac 9 has a similar but non dying experience. There are too many for them to be delusional without consequences for general credibility of mind. Which brings us back to the self referentiality challenge. KF
Well, Humean epistemology is certainly not beyond ‘the threshold,’ since it’s basically just introspectionist associationist psychology. (Whether that’s adequate as epistemology is, of course, precisely the point of Kant’s critique.)
This would depend entirely on what philosophy of mathematics one accepts. It’s probably right to say that a Humean mind could not grasp Platonic abstracta. But Platonism is not the only game in town, when it comes to philosophy of mathematics. Intuitionism, for example, might be an option for the Humean.
Regardless of that issue, I still don’t see any argument for “Darwin’s Doubt” need trouble anyone today — an evolutionary approach to cognitive neuroscience does not entail that our cognitive faculties are generally unreliable. On the contrary, it explains how and why they are reliable, to the extent that they are.
PM1: “an evolutionary approach to cognitive neuroscience does not entail that our cognitive faculties are generally unreliable. On the contrary, it explains how and why they are reliable, to the extent that they are.”
Perhaps before you make such sweeping claims for the ‘designing prowess’ of Darwinian processes, you just might want to experimentally solve the ‘hard problem’ first? Or is such an experimental threshold of credibility for your claim(s) beneath your dignity as a philosopher?
PM1, epistemology is inextricably intertwined with metaphysical and logical issues as part of core philosophy. Mathematics studies the logic of structure and quantity, reflecting logic of being. That is ontology and wider metaphysics. But the basic point is, quite abstract, even abstruse, based on huge inferential infrastructure. If one cannot trust one’s mind to handle logic and linked metaphysics, trust in Math is similarly undermined, and if we have cognitive-logical capacity for math, we have same for metaphysics too. It is obvious that some seek to have their cake and eat it. KF
PS, to give a first stage:
Start with the null set
{} –> 0
{0} –> 1
{0,1} –> 2
. . .
N = {0,1,2 . . .} –> w
w the first transfinite ordinal
for n in N, define n’ + n –> 0, so Z
for p, q in Z define p/q –> Q
for R, numbers at limit of power series of rationals
[think, decimals]
ponder H as > any n we may count to,
h = 1/H less than 1/n, so transfinite and infinitesimal hyperreals
Compare, one doubts. One doubts even one’s existence, but to doubt must exist.
Which, is self referential.
And so forth.
Talking about self-defeating something something :))
Project Veritas and a Pfizer Director:
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1619001318294552576
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SjtYsET8Tc
https://www.bitchute.com/video/EqdKrgIN18AS
UPDATE:
https://rumble.com/v27f5xw-breaking-james-okeefe-gives-update-on-youtube-removing-critical-mass-direct.html
Whistler, media shield in action, as is being exposed at Twitter, now up to 15 drops on what has been going on, including that the approved investigators were twisting the truth and projecting defamation, creating an agit prop narrative from 2016 on or thereabouts, complete with blacklists of the innocent. I see, there was YT censorship on PV exposing a Director of Pfizer letting the cat out of the bag on gain of function, man made mutations to viruses; on claims that this is not what the new magisterium approves. As in a live case of the cultural relativist, the reformer must be wrong absurdity. Meanwhile, there is serious concern over adverse reactions and a surge in deaths. Eventually, a critical mass of people are going to hold the lot of them ideology driven liars and shut them out. This specifically includes major media and even academic sources. KF
Kairosfocus: Mathematics is riddled with similar abstracta. Start with the — the only — null set and use von Neumann’s construction to go transfinite then go hyperreals. Infinitesimals, limits, calculus and beyond. All has to go, too. And more. Utterly, patently absurd
Not absurd to a mathematician. Some of that mathematics has turned out to be incredibly useful. I had an ex-student tell me that fast Fourier transforms are ubiquitous in some fields of engineering.
@42
The hard problem of consciousness, as articulated by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind, has no possible empirical solution. I’m surprised you take it seriously. If I recall, you have shown some disdain for merely abstract metaphysical puzzles that have no testable, measurable solution. The hard problem of consciousness falls into that category. I don’t take it seriously, and I’m surprised that you do.
To appreciate the hard problem of consciousness, consider the following list of behavioral and psychological criteria for consciousness*:
1. Global activity and accessibility (making information available to a number of different cognitive processes)
2. Binding and unification (creation of a single integrated experience from a variety of perceptual and cognitive processes)
3. Selection, plasticity, learning and attention (ability to select between different neurons and pathways/processes and inhibit attention to unnecessary information)
4. Intentionality (aboutness—reference to states of the body or world)
5. Temporal ‘thickness’ (persistence of experiences through time)
6. Values, emotions and goals (the felt valence of experience and subsequent motivation)
7. Embodiment, agency and a notion of ‘self’ (a distinction between self and environment)
All of these criteria can be operationalized in psychological and neurological experiments, observed in self and in others, etc.
The hard problem of consciousness asks: can we conceive of something that satisfies all six criteria in every measurable and observable way, but which lacks qualia?
If you think that question is meaningless, then you don’t take the hard problem of consciousness seriously.
Chalmers is also quite clear that, since qualia are precisely what cannot be conceptually reduced to any observable criteria, there cannot be a scientific solution to the hard problem of consciousness. In The Conscious Mind he concludes with an argument for panpsychism, though I do not know if that’s still his view.
* From The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul by Ginsburg and Jablonka.
@46
I believe you misunderstood KF’s use of “absurd”. He was not saying that mathematics is absurd.
He was saying that if the human mind is the result of natural selection filtering out non-satisficing neurocognitive functions, then we have no reason to believe that any of our mental capacities are generally reliable, hence we must accept the absurd result of rejecting all of mathematics.
A somewhat different way in which KF could have made his point is that if the human mind is the result of natural selection filtering out non-satisficing neurocognitive functions, then we have no reason to suppose that we have a capacity for apprehending Platonic abstracta.
And that would be a problem if realism about universals was the only way (or even the best way) of understanding the nature of abstract thought, including mathematics but also metaphysical speculation and ethical deliberation.
It would be a disaster if our best-confirmed theory of what the mind is and how it evolved had the implication that abstract concepts like DEMOCRACY or JUSTICE were beyond the scope of the mind to even become aware of, and that such words are meaningless, flatus vocis.
I am untroubled by this argument for primarily two reasons: (1) I think that conceptualism about universals, rather than realism, is a far more plausible and coherent position; (2) there is no conceptual tension between cognitive neuroscience and conceptualism about universals; see Abstract Concepts and the Embodied Mind.
JVL, context. We both know that I have never argued that core math is unattainable or absurd. The absurdity lies in refusing the same access to powerful logic for worldviews analysis and particularly for other aspects of the logic of being. Hence my comment on trying to have one’s cake and eat it too. Darwin’s horrid doubt points to the need for respecting the credibility of mind with sophisticated reasoning — more precisely, logic, especially modal logic starting with S5 [which is algebraic] — across the board. KF
Sandy @22
Truth. Allow me to elaborate:
If one thinks one thought, then physicalism* is impossible. Physicalism does not allow for a person who is in control of one single thought. Here follows the ironclad proof:
– – – – –
*) No longer will I argue against ‘naturalism’, because it is undefined. From now on when the term ‘naturalism’ pops up I will take it to mean physicalism.
@50
If you were to replace “physicalism” with “determinism” I would have no objection to your argument.
@51
Like determined physical events, undetermined physical events also do not allow for a person to be in control of his thoughts, per Van Inwagen:
I’m not really interested in defending either determinism or indeterminism. I find all these debates are so unmoored from science that they become idle speculations. It’s sufficient that agent causation can be grounded in thermodynamics (see here).
PM1, it is not my argument, it is Darwin’s admission. As to your emergence argument, at best it would lead to a computational substrate, inherently GIGO limited and utterly incapable of responsible, free reasoning. That’s disregarding the problem of creating the complex functional organisation and information from filtered lucky noise. KF
@54
I would not call it an ‘admission’: it is a concern that he raises, given what little was known about cognitive ethology in 1881.
In 2023, we can be much more confident that large-brain social primates (such as monkeys) really do reliably track lots of complex causal and social relations (see How Monkeys See the World and Baboon Metaphysics). I also recommend Nature and Normativity by Mark Okrent. Okrent argues that baboons count as at least proto-rational animals. It’s really fascinating!)
This is not quite right. It is true that I emphasized computation as a function that brains perform, but computation is performed on representations. The GIGO problem would arise for me only if I did not have an account of causally efficacious semantic contents on which computations are performed.
I don’t disregard that problem — it’s rather that I think that Deacon’s account of teleodynamics emergent from thermodynamics does the basic conceptual work that’s required (see here (PDF)). Of course that’s not to say that his account has been empirically confirmed. And it would be a separate issue to defend emergentism as a metaphysical position as such (but I think that an excellent attempt at that is done here).
Let’s stop pretending that emergent consciousness is a coherent concept that deserves serious consideration. It simply is not. The most basic questions about it turn out to be completely unanswerable.
From the Galton board thread:
Like with ‘naturalism’, it is completely unclear what ’emergentism’ actually pretends to propose.
@56
It’s pretty wild that you assume that your questions are “completely unanswerable” just because I happen to not answer them. You know nothing about who I am, how I live, and what else I have going on in my life. And it’s hard to keep track of conversations in threads where there are multiple conversations between many participants and bornagain77 tosses in a Gish gallop every few days.
In the future, should I lose track of a conversation, please remind me that I haven’t responded to something you’ve said, instead of attributing to me an inability to do so.
PM1
It’s pretty wild for you to assume that my assessment “completely unanswerable” is merely a description of you not answering them. That was not my intent at all.
I think that in general it’s a mistake to look for essential definitions for any wide-ranging “-ism” that has been defended (and attacked) by many different people, for many different reasons, across wide swaths of history. An “-ism” is a banner under which more than one army has marched.
(I also like to bear in mind Nietzsche: “all concepts, in which an entire process has been semiotically congealed, elude their definitions; definiability is only for that which has no history” — Genealogy of Morality II:13; trans. modified.)
I won’t get into the history of “naturalism” or “emergentism”, fascinating as those topics are to me.
I consider myself a naturalist insofar as I hold that scientific methods are the best approach we have yet devised for describing and explaining the underlying structures of reality. That is, I am a scientific realist.
This does not mean that everything non-scientific must be jettisoned. On the contrary, I think we have good reasons for believing that epistemically virtuous science — what Kitcher calls “well-ordered science” — is extremely difficult to do, and hence many interesting and important issues cannot be resolved by any current or near-future foreseeable scientific practices.
In other words, for any belief that p, one has a defeater for p if the best confirmed scientific theories of one’s time indicate or entail ~p. (But since scientific practices are always fallible and corrigible, it is always possible that scientists will subsequently indicate or entail p.)
What grounds my commitment to scientific realism lies in the methods of science. But I do not think that any specific science is privileged over the others. There are some questions for which statistical thermodynamics is a better approach than qualitative sociology, and other questions for which the reverse is the case.
The idea of emergentism lies in the conjunction of two theses. The first is a commitment to the unity of science — all the sciences are about the same world, so it should be possible to coordinate their findings into a single metaphysical picture of the world. The second is a commitment to anti-reductionism: inter-theoretic reduction, long seen as the Holy Grail in philosophy of science, is exceedingly difficult (see Beyond Reduction).
I can see the prospects for giving up on the unity of science, as Dupre and Cartwright have done. But I don’t see any hope for reviving reductionism. So as I see it, it’s either making sense of emergentism or giving up on having any unified scientific metaphysics completely.
I’m greatly enjoying the current pandemic of alternative narratives. IMO it is driving home the folly of thinking that there is an external, objective reality you can find “truth” in beyond the logical truths one could just as easily demonstrate within. No supposed external reference is necessary.
“Self-reference” is all we have to work with or from. Everything we do and think is – ultimately – entirely self-referential.
@58
Well, ok, fair enough. But then why the heck did you say that your questions were “completely unanswerable”?
Is there an interstate in south central Texas where you live?
Is that real? How do you get the food you eat and the water you drink? Is that a reality.
The real question is whether the posts that someone who claims to live in south central Texas, is from a human being or a chatbot?
But yes, most of the discussions on UD are nonsense..
The “scientific” method is based on 3 ancient philosophies: The Realism, The Empiricism and The Skepticism . Philosophy is the base of science and as a consequence philosophy is more valuable than science but atheists for an obvious reason try to chop science( that is wrought by philosophy) from philosophy itself and make from science a kind of golden calf to be worshiped. An invented idol. This is somehow natural because atheists (after rejecting God) their own hierarchy of value it’s turned upside down starting to whorship the matter as a god that needs to perform countless miracles(see darwinian evolution fairytale).
PM1, Darwin knew enough to be very concerned about a process that if it worked would bring our thinking into deep discredit. That has not changed, and the reality is still that a computational substrate is inherently non rational, as say Haldane already realised. The resort to poof magic emergence etc is little more than a back handed admission of no good answer. We are seeing more and more reason to question what is being pushed in the name of science, education and progress by those who have entrenched themselves in key institutions. Reformation is needed but it will not come from within. KF
Whistler
As StephenB would say “Reason informs the evidence not the other way around” Empirical knowledge is not the highest form of knowledge. This is the reason many atheists ( not all) hate philosophy, often times deny reason and logic all the while totally ignorant that their “empiricism” is itself a philosophical position. Go figure.
Vivid
The secret to the Evolution debate is ecology.
Nothing can enter an ecology that would destroy the ecology. This eliminates Darwinian evolution, punctuated equilibrium, emergence or any other possible mechanism except intelligence in the development of life.
Adaptation or Darwinian processes exist and are active in change of life but only in relatively minor ways. That’s why what is seen is genetics and only that.
There is no major accumulation of changes to a species. It would destroy the ecology. Intelligence is absolutely necessary for major change to preclude harm to the ecology. It’s as simple as that.
~ Why emergence is true **POOF** magic ~
1.) If we know how the smaller or simpler entities give rise to the larger entity, then we can describe it perfectly well, thank you very much, without ever invoking this concept of “emergence”. That is why we talk about water forming from a certain number of molecules and through certain chemical bonds. We don’t talk of water “emerging” from hydrogen and oxygen.
2.) If we do know of a larger entity that cannot be explained by its parts (to date there is no known example of such), then we can’t really say, what the emergentist says, namely that the larger entity **nonetheless** emerged from the smaller entities. In fact, if we would ever be confronted with such an enigmatic thing, the logical conclusion would be, after it is established that the parts are not a sufficient cause, that the search for a sufficient cause must continue elsewhere and be directed away from the parts.
Emergentism is the hypothesis that something that cannot be explained from its parts nonetheless follows(?) from its parts and therefore **MAGICALLY** emerges from its parts **POOF**.
Whistler, modern science was born in Medieval Christian Europe out of three Judeo-Christian presuppositions, (1) Intelligibility, (2) The Contingency of Nature, and (3) The Fallibility of Human Reasoning.
And the ‘scientific method’, or more particularly, the ‘bottom-up’ inductive reasoning that lays behind the scientific method, was championed and popularized by Francis Bacon primarily because of his deeply held Christian belief in man’s fallen sinful nature.
Further notes
Verse
What is emergence? What does “emergent” mean?
[…]
Emergent broadly speaking refers to novel types of behavior in systems with many interacting constituents. A good example is the “La ola” wave that you sometimes see in the audience of sporting events. It’s not something you can do alone. It only becomes possible because of the interaction between people and their neighbors.
Indeed, something very similar happens in many condensed-matter systems, where the interactions between atomic constituents gives rise to certain types of collective behavior. These can be waves, like with la ola. The simplest example of this are sound waves. Sound waves are really just a simple, collective description for atoms in a gas that move periodically and so create a propagating mode.
But we know that in quantum mechanics waves are also particles and the other way round. This is why in condensed matter systems one can have “quasi-particles” which behave like particles – with quantum properties and wave-behavior and all that – but are actually a collective that moves together. Quasi-particles are emergent from the interactions of many fundamental particles.
And this is really the most relevant property of emergence. Something is emergent if it comes about from the collective behavior of many constituents of a system, be that people or atoms. If something is emergent, it does not even make sense to speak about it for individual elements of the system.
There are a lot of quantities in physics which are emergent. Think for example of conductivity. Conductivity is the ability of a system to transport currents from one end to another. It’s a property of materials. But it does not make sense to speak of the conductivity of a single electron. It’s the same for viscosity, elasticity, even something as seemingly simple as the color of a material. Color is not a property you find if you take apart a painting into elementary particles. It comes from the band structure of molecules. It’s an emergent property.
You will find that philosophers discuss two types of emergence, that is “strong emergence” and “weak emergence”. What I just talked about is “weak emergence”. Weak emergence means that the emergent property can be derived from the properties the system’s constituents and the interactions between the constituents. An electron or a quark may not have a conductivity, but in principle you can calculate how they form atoms, and molecules, and metals, and then the conductivity is a consequence of this.
In physics the only type of emergence we have is weak emergence. With strong emergence philosophers refer to the hypothetical possibility that a system with many constituents displays a novel behavior which cannot be derived from the properties and the interactions of the constituents. While this is logically possible, there is not a single known example for this in the real world.
The best analogy I can think of are photographic mosaics, that are photos made up of smaller photos. If I gave you all the individual photos and their properties you’d have no idea what the “emergent” picture will be. However, this example is hardly a natural phenomenon. To make a photographic mosaic, you start with the emergent image you want to get and then look for photos that will fit. In other words, the “strong emergence” which you have here works only thanks to an “intelligent designer” who had a masterplan.
The problem with strong emergence is not only that we have no scientific theory for it, it’s worse. Strong emergence is incompatible with what we already know about the laws of nature. That’s because if you think that strong emergence can really happen, then this necessarily implies that there will be objects in this world whose behavior is in conflict with the standard model of particle physics. If that wasn’t so, then really it wouldn’t be strong emergence.
[…]
Vividbleau/66
Reason without data is vacuous. For example, borrowing from Lewis Carroll.
All borogoves are mimsy,
All mome raths are borogoves,
Therefore, all mome raths are mimsy.
A basic deductive argument but so what?
On the other hand, a collection of facts without an explanatory framework into which they can be fitted and which makes sense of them, is no more than a collection of butterflies. Interesting, but so what?
Depends on what you mean by “highest” You could say it has more practical value and is more reliable because it has been tested against observable reality..
I think there are a few atheists/empiricists/naturalists/physicalists etc, who regard philosophy as a futile exercise in circumlocutory tergiversation but I’m not one of them. As for empiricism being a philosophical position, so what?
~ Eric Anderson on **emergence**
Sev 71
So what?
Vivid
Do you mean *Poof *POOF * poof? 🙂
Whistler @64 and Bornagain77 @69,
I’ve mentioned this before in other posts, but it bears repeating.
The earliest example in history of an experiment using the complete scientific method can be found in . . . the Bible!
Skeptical?
-Q
Regarding strong emergence —
Is there any way to test for the difference between strong emergence and not having any explanation at all?
I don’t have a problem with weak emergence but that only represents a category of explanation rather than an explanatory principle in itself.
With strong emergence, if it’s permissible to define an explanatory principle purely in terms of its inability to explain, then the statement “Science explains everything.” becomes a tautology. Something’s wrong there.
Seversky at 71 pays lip service to valuing empirical evidence
Sev: “You could say it (empirical evidence) has more practical value and is more reliable because it has been tested against observable reality..”
Yet Seversky never puts his money where his mouth is. i.e. Seversky never allows the empirical evidence to falsify his apriori belief in Darwinian evolution.
Here are a few empirical falsifications of Darwin’s theory that the vast majority of Darwinists simply ignore as if they do not matter to the overall scientific validity of their theory.
Verse:
PM1, it is precisely because of the slipperiness of “naturalism,” that I draw out briefly, the focal form, evolutionary materialistic scientism. All are agreed that scientific methods, so called [they are legion, per Feyerabend] are often highly effective even though the sense of knowledge is a weak, defeasible form given the pessimistic induction. But, that is the general usage. Where, in particular, as scientific theories and models [as opposed to observations] are explanatory, predictive constructs, they may be reliable but cannot be deemed true as proved by observations; inferences to the best so far explanations are always just that — so far. Science, too, lives by faith, similar to Mathematics, post Godel. However, crucially, science cannot monopolise or dominate or else it becomes a stalking horse for whatever ideology of the day prevails in relevant institutions; which is precisely what has been happening. Where, moreover, knowledge is inherently a philosophical topic, properly studied under epistemology and there is even a branch called philosophy of science. Further to such, mathematics, key to the hard sciences is inherently about issues of logic of being tied to patterns of structure and quantity and associated abstract logic model worlds. KF
HN42, excellent question. I find in the Chalmers corpus:
Yes, interactions of entities may yield unexpected results, which we may struggle to account for, a classic case being the discovery of chaos, leading to the famous case of a PhD based on dripping of a pipe.
However, the not deducible in principle is worlds different from, unexpected. That is an opening to question begging ideological imposition, and to the problems of self reference where we are implicated. This comes out in evolutionary materialistic, scientistic accounts of origin of man, mind, morals, credible bodies of knowledge.
That is precisely the issue with Darwin’s horrid doubt. He projected the problem to critics of his . . . ah, ah, okay . . . theory. But, from the above it is clear that — apart from the perceptions of those bound up in the commitments and convictions invited and cultivated by Darwinism — doubts about the credibility of convictions of a monkey mind, are a case of a generally corrosive self referential acid.
J B S Haldane saw it:
Materialistic reductionism has no recourse but to atoms and the like, which we know can be organised into a signal processing, computational substrate. We see analogue signal processing, digital and summing gate plus threshold networks [neural networks]. Each is dependent on functional organisation and is information rich. Each is GIGO-limited and each is a signal processing entity, not a freely, responsibly rational agent. What is hoped for — or is outright asserted — is that high complexity, memory elements, feedback loops, self modification [aka “learning”] etc — will give rise to agency in some unexpected, unpredictable manner. Including of course information in copious quantities from success filtered lucky noise.
This is why proponents are resistant to the manifest, fine tuned nature of such FSCO/I rich systems, i.e. islands of function in the midst of seas of non function in a configuration space of possibilities. Which is a reliable, readily observed characteristic. If you doubt such, take time to visit a hardware store and see how even humble nuts and bolts or gears must be precisely fitted together. Such is less visible in computers, electronics etc, but it is there. It is also there in biological systems, just ask a doctor.
The end of the dominance of evolutionary materialistic scientism will not come overnight. It will come as bit by bit, ever more epicycles must be added to keep things going. Backed, by ever more blatant power politics to lock out alternatives.
Such as, censorship and career busting.
Which, as we know, are already happening.
KF
Sandy @74
~The (strong) emergence concept stems from the extreme reductionist mindset.
Let that sink in: B “arises from” A, but B is “not deducible even in principle from” A …
IOW emergentists say, if we encounter a high-level phenomenon that cannot be explained even in principle from the low-level domain (its parts), then we say that the high-level phenomenon is explained/arises from its parts anyway. In emergentism, if the lower-level domain suffers utter failure as a sufficient cause for the high-level phenomenon, the lower-level domain is **NONETHELESS** identified as the sole cause. It is called **EMERGENCE** (**POOF**).
That is, WRT causes, emergentists are focused on the low-level domain only and beforehand exclude any other type of cause from consideration. And emergentists offer as a final explanation: the higher level **POOF** emerges from the lower level—end of the analysis.
So, emergentists claim that an insufficient cause (the low-level domain) can, on its own, produce an effect, that it cannot explain. With emergentism, a new type of causation has been introduced: causation from insufficient causes. An obvious violation of the principle of sufficient reason.
Suppose that it has been conclusively established that consciousness cannot be explained by neurons and their interactions. Could we then all agree that, given the fact that consciousness is not caused by neurons, materialism as an explanation for everything has failed, and that logic informs us that consciousness is therefore NOT a (high-level) phenomenon that arises from the (low-level) of neurons, and move on?
Nooo! No, that would not happen, because the emergentists would step in with their insane claim that **BECAUSE** consciousness cannot be explained by neurons it must **EMERGE** (**POOF**) from neurons.
Forgive me for being unclear. You are right, I meant three successive **POOFS**
A comment from 17 years ago
Until those who support ID, change their tactics this will remain true. If anything it has gotten worse for ID over the years.
Origenes
These poof magic emergentists reject the PSR.
Unsurprising, as much flows from it, it is an enormously powerful principle that is the root of the causal principle [contingent beings are caused, necessary ones are framework to worlds, impossible candidates have contradictory core characteristics and cannot exist] and is tied to logic of being; as was just outlined.
Instead of getting into grand debates over strong form PSR, I simply pose a weak,freedom of inquiry form. We can ask why then explore per logic of being. Bring in possible worlds as sufficiently complete descriptions of how this world is/may be/was/might have been, or another world and away we go. Candidates C may be impossible of being, or possible, i.e. would be in at least one PW were it actualised. Of possibles, contingent ones are not in all worlds, necessary ones are in all. NBs are framework for any world. Compare a world W in which C is to a near neighbour W’ without C and we identify a causal constraint on C. And more.
So, we see that a weak form PSR is useful.
KF
David Chalmers is probably the living philosopher with whom I most enjoy disagreeing. He is utterly brilliant and I always learn something from figuring out why I disagree with him. The distinction between “weak emergence” and “strong emergence” is no exception.
I don’t have any problems with weak emergence. One feature of weak emergence that needs some consideration (which I’m sure Chalmers has done) is the relationship between retrospective explanation and predictability. I doubt that the basic principles of quantum mechanics — the wave function and some definition of orbitals — would allow one to predict the viscosity and conductivity of water.
But one can use quantum mechanics to explain why water has the conductivity it has. Once you understand some ideas of subatomic structure, it’s easy to see why a molecule with one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms would have one weak negative charge and two weak positive charges. From there it’s easy to understand why some molecules will be hydrophobic or hydrophilic, depending on their distributions of electrical charge. Some basic knowledge of subatomic structure and some thermodynamics is sufficient to explain why phospholipids in water will spontaneously form a bilayer, even if a phospholipid bilayer were unexpected given the principles of subatomic structure alone.
My real qualms concern his use of “in principle” when it comes to strong emergence. How do we determine what is and what is not “in principle” deducible? Surely not what is deducible by us. Then by whom? The Vulcan Science Academy? The Time Lords of Gallifrey? God? It’s impossible to say. And that makes “not deducible even in principle” a vacuous concept.
That’s not to say that therefore strong emergence is a hopeless concept; I do think that Chalmers has correctly identified a need for a distinction here. I just don’t think that he’s correctly articulated that distinction.
Of course it’s hopeless.
It is self refuting just as every form of naturalized Evolution is self refuting. The greater the changes hypothesized, the more obvious the self refutation.
Jerry, the issue is not merits, rights, publications etc. It is, that we have determined lawless ideological oligarchs who have wormed their way into influence and power who — lawless — are ruthless, vindictive and cruel. This of course includes the same academy now spouting absurdities across many domains and demanding that we bow before such rubbish presented under colour of knowledge. If the craziness of US politics since 2015 did not convince us, the global mishandling of the pandemic and the surge in before time deaths should. To clench the nail over, someone paid 40+ billions to expose what was happening with Twitter and apart from a few outlets, it isn’t hardly news much less the global, epochal scandal it should be. There will be no fair hearing, there will be no fair court cases, there will be no reasonable responses. The lawless oligarchs and their ideology will have to be exposed and broken, with a serious alternative in place through a David generation, trained in the College of Adullam’s Cave. As an extension school of that College, let us remember the saying that a good newspaper is the people’s college. Update it for our ICT era. This fight will take a generation or two, but let us remember what happened to the Iron Curtain in the end, the pity is, there being no viable successor for Russia, Putin’s KGB mafia seized clearly criminal power and is now embarked on expansionism. I have long stressed that, historically, the default form of government is lawless oligarchy; since July 4, 1776 [the 1619 rubbish is blatant agit prop], the viable alternative is lawful, reform-minded constitutional, representative democracy and it matters not whether there is a president or a constitutional monarch. The equivalent of the late, great Queen Elizabeth II would have done the US much good. The ID issue is part of a civilisational crisis and the issue is to stand, not to make premature compromises with the lawless who only respect determined, superior force. Kindly, see Plato’s parable of the ship of state. KF
PM1, Chalmers has put his finger on the problem, there is a magickal ideology of poof, emergence and once the camel’s nose is under the tent, the whole beast will follow unless it is solidly restrained by recognising some form or other of sufficient reason. Thus, logic of being. And from non being, nothing comes. KF
OT:
Interesting, I am finding the inability to edit a comment on the computer I have with me while away. Usually I can edit a comment to change typos or grammar or correct usage.
I will have to see if my IPad has the same issue
KF @ 82, PM1 @83
Absolutely. That is their thing.
Other than the fact that is a completely superfluous term, I have no objection either.
As Eric Anderson wrote:
So, the claim that consciousness, the free rational person, “emerges” from neuronal processes, just like water “emerges” from H + O (weak emergence), is as easily refutable as it always was. It can be treated just like the good old nonsensical materialistic claim.
Strong emergence, if the tortured concept makes any sense at all, is the only concept that pretends to offer an **explanation** (**POOF**) of consciousness, the free rational person, that differs from the utterly failed attempts of good old nonsensical materialism.
“I think there is no God because I want to be god. “
I’ve heard in many debates (theists vs atheists ) theists saying BS like : “Of course you can be moral being atheist” . Never. Unbelievers are not moral people because to be moral requires an unbelievable struggle and focus and that ‘s is not enough you need God’s direct help to become a moral person . Let’s not confound interested behaviour and hypocrisy with morality.
While true to some extent, I have no idea what this has to do with what I said.
I will continue to push focusing on ID. No one seems interested in that here. I have been reviewing comments from 17 years ago and finding interesting observations. I just found Giuseppe Puccio’s original comments.
I can edit a comment on my IPad but not the computer I have. I am adding this now. Wondering what the difference is?
Ba77,
As I’m sure you know, Darwinist ideas must be promoted at all costs or God gets back into science, which you have pointed out. They can’t allow a Divine foot in the door. Also, if Evolution was not promoted, those looking for answers could default to ID, which could get into the schools and pulpits. Not a good idea – for certain people.
Jerry, we must understand the mindset we are dealing with. The design inference on good signs is solid. That is not the issue. Here, we have an OP on a core logical problem tied to issues and it has surfaced an underlying proposed “mechanism” meant to subvert any design inference with, strong form emergence. That needs to be identified and shown for what it is, imposing a default in defence of an ideology; a principle not subject to any empirical test. How can you answer empirically to oh, it emerged in ways that cannot be deduced from prior circumstances and principles. You can only expose that this is present and what it is equivalent to, magick. KF
F/N: try restarting your PC, you may have entered an odd state. KF
Sandy, moral principles are built in and attested to by conscience. We often feel them most directly when we have been wronged, our struggle is to then reciprocate to others. Unfortunately habits of life and breakdowns of the community can undermine such. KF
F/N: it should be clear that the design inference is an inference to a key causal factor. As such, it points to intelligibility of the world, that effects require adequate causes. In turn cause points to sufficient reason. Which is actually built into the foundations of science, more than just common sense. KF
Only if you have the right frame of reference or worldview. If you freely choose the materialistic frame of reference you have a new type of morality of own ego. Our beliefs modify our perceptions.
OT, but I think this might be of interest to some here. I lived with the guy being interviewed while doing the field work for my M.Sc. He is also the author of several sci-fi novels.
His predictions in the first few minutes about pandemics is interesting, given that this was recorded a few years before COVID.
https://youtu.be/g1_YZZ9V3WU
I am slowly working my way through the above mentioned video. At about the 30 minute mark he made the claim that people with Parkinson’s, a disease that affects the brain, are less religious.
Given the fact that it is well known that people with serious diseases or addictions, often “become” religious. Born again. No atheists in a fox hole. But it does turn out that the lack of religious belief is a risk factor for Parkinson’s.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10943-022-01603-8
Sandy, while it is true that harmful worldviews can damage our ability to think straight about right and wrong, there is still conscience and there is the nagging little question that when we find certain things to be wrong when we suffer harm, we should avoid doing such to other people. Though of course our sense of empathy and our sense of conscience can be benumbed. As a capital case, Ms Maxwell seemed to have helped Mr Epstein procure underage girls. And more. KF
F/N: Wikipedia on PSR:
Now of course, these are strong form, and open up all sorts of controversies.
We can start with a familiar case, a tossed die, which seems to take its value at random. If there is a cause why at random? To this, some might point out that a die is a chaotic system and while in principle outcomes are determined, mechanically, we cannot trace them and randomness is a useful fiction. This is also used in classical kinetic theory of gases, or the Galton Board or Quincunx.
We can go to a quantum phenomenon such as radioactivity. Where, it seems each RA atom has a calculable likelihood of decaying per unit time. For that case, it seems, one can point to the order in the chaos and highlight a range of outcomes set up through underlying order. Which outcome per atom is not strictly predictable but a population shows the order, and we can argue that cause here is relevant to what sets up the underlying order.
Is mind like that? Perhaps, sometimes, we may toss a coin to decide a path. This highlights agency, self moved behaviour on choice, as a causal factor; agency. Which, as we know, is critical to have credible reasoning.
Then there are world models with arbitrary initial parameters, dynamics etc, or axioms that are not explained from within a scheme such as Geometry or Arithmetic, or we could set up some truly arbitrary framework. Obviously, acts of will. But, too, when we want axioms to be true, we infer them from experience or what seems reasonable.
On the necessary being side, are we simply opening up a grab bag for what does not fit otherwise? No, for example twoness naturally emerges from there being a distinct possible world. Likewise, the logic is, that non being has no causal power. Nor is cause a mere statistical association, we think in terms of dynamics with principles and mechanisms. Heat, oxidiser and fuel for a fire that carries out a combustion chain reaction.
We already see, that we can inquire and reason out circumstances.
But what about a grand composite contingent fact: the world is, as it is, for no particular reason. Or that there are brute givens that just are, or an ultimate necessary entity that just is? These open up the weak form PSR, even if we have no current generally accepted answer, we may freely inquire and there is no good reason to abandon hope. but, something within the cosmos is part of its evident contingency, and on rejecting a world from non being, we may see that the world requires a reality root that always was. The ultimate necessary being, whose explanation is, necessity informed by a contingent world with contingent creatures capable of reason.
That is, self referentiality demands coherence and here we find it. Were there not such, we would not be here to debate, so we have good reason to know of such. As to ontolgical character, necessary, on pain of absurd denial of there being a world.
But as always, the debate goes on.
KF
KF
FP states,
Not to denigrate people with Parkinson’s, but are you saying that atheism could be a disease of the brain?
Of related note
Sandy, KF @
Our worldview does indeed modify our perception. When certain people are no longer considered ‘people’ according to one’s worldview, the golden rule is not applicable and immorality necessarily follows. The Nazis didn’t consider Jews to be ‘people’, a certain religion does not consider ‘non-believers’ to be ‘people’, a ‘slave’ was considered personal property, and so on.
Origenes, one has to lie to oneself to pretend that Jews, Slavs, Gypsies or Subsaharan africans are not human; our ability to freely interbreed is decisive proof enough. IIRC, it has been said the genetic diversity across our race is less than that of a Baboon troop. That slaves could be property was an anomaly of property rights, and a good part of why that was stopped was that it was seen that it was abusive, one is one’s own property and that is non transferable. However one’s liberty may be forfeit on court sentence. KF
KF @101
Is Gödel’s “proposition that can neither be proved nor disproved” identical to the axiom that is a proposition “accepted as having no justification possible within the system”?
I note that the idea ‘everything has prior cause/reason’ necessarily leads to the absurdity of an infinite regress. So, if the PSR states that everything has a sufficient cause AND every cause/reason is external/prior to what it explains, it must be wrong.
Case in point: “I do something, therefore, I exist”, is a truth about the person that is established by the person, as opposed to being established by something external to the person.
KF @
Of course, I agree. However, we are not always mistaken in our harsh assessment. Serial killers are not considered ‘people’ and rightly so. We correctly suspend the golden rule: we deny them their freedom and, sometimes, even their right to live.
@105
No — Gödel’s proposition is the conclusion of a theorem, which is based on axioms.
He proved that a certain class of formal systems (those sufficiently rich to express arithmetic) cannot be both complete and consistent: if it is not the case that both a statement and its negation can be proved within the system, then it must be the case that there exist true statements expressible in the system that cannot be proved within that system.
Interestingly, Terrence Deacon and Tyrone Cashman argue that strong emergence is entailed by interpreting Gödel’s incompleteness theorem as an ontological truth. (See their “Steps to a Metaphysics of Incompleteness“.) I found that part of the argument quite perplexing, to say the least! Their article also has several responses by various theologians.
The PSR avoids the infinite regress precisely by showing that there must be a necessary being whose existence is explained by itself. The more interesting question, as I see it, is not whether or not the necessary being exists but whether the PSR is compatible with the existence of anything else besides the necessary being.
There is also the question of what (if anything) grounds or accounts for the principle of sufficient reason. If Peirce is right, then the PSR should be treated as a meta-induction over the history of successful inquiry. But that is not strong enough to give us the metaphysical conclusions that depend upon invoking the PSR in the first place.
Origenes, actually, the Agrippa trilemma is solvable once we see there are self evident propositions, on the reasons side, and once we see that there are necessary beings — especially a reality root — on the causal side, starting from our existence in a going concern world. The Godel proof is about how axiomatic systems are inherently limited, we cannot compress the infinity of Arithmetic into a finite code of axioms and primitives, if we are consistent. But that does not prevent math facts from being observed or finding that math forks and our axiomatisedmodel worlds now face two neighbours depending on whether a proposed axiom A or its negation are chosen, etc. PSR is not about cause but reason, causes apply to contingent possible beings, necessary beings must be if a world is and obviously one is. Note too, I emphasise a weak form, we may ask and investigate, with hope. That draws out modes of being which then is itself a space of reasons for being and non being: impossible, possible, contingent, necessary. I contend, it is a good reason for core math that 2, 1, 0 thence NZQRCR* are necessary on there being a distinct possible world. KF
PS, as for the weak inquiry form PSR it is self evidently the case that one may freely ask why and investigate with confidence, taking advantage of logic of being and possible worlds speak. A unicorn is possible and likely will be within this century as people would pay to own one. I need not advocate any strong form for my purposes.
PM1 @107
Can it be said of each axiom of a system that is not the case that both the “statement and its negation can be proved within the system”?
Can you elaborate? I do not understand your question.
Maybe, but only because axioms are never proved at all within the system in which they are used. Axioms are just the initial claims that are then used to prove all the theorems in that system. (For example, Euclid showed how all theorems of geometry can be proven from axioms and definitions. Peano established the axioms of arithmetic that are used to prove all the theorems in number theory.)
This is just my little hobby-horse; it’s not really relevant to any of the discussions in this thread.
@80 (and a few others)
I don’t think that strong emergence as Chalmers defines it entails a violation of the principle of sufficient reason.
In “Strong and weak emergence” Chalmers defines strong emergence as “not deducible even in principle from the laws of physics.” That is clearly not the same as “a brute fact with no explanation at all” (which is what a violation of the PSR would be).
Here’s how Chalmers characterizes strong emergence:
In other words, strong emergence is defined relative to what physics alone would allow us to predict. That is different from being defined relative to what we know how to explain.
There is, Chalmers thinks, at least one strongly emergent phenomenon: consciousness:
Consciousness counts as strongly emergent because psychophysical laws (the laws that correlate consciousness with neurobiological facts, etc.) cannot be derived from the laws of physics alone.
This isn’t a view I myself would defend, because (for reasons I’ve given above) I don’t share Chalmers’s intuitions about the metaphysical weirdness of consciousness. But more importantly, I’m not at all convinced that “not deducible even in principle from the laws of physics” is a coherent way of thinking about strong emergence.
So while I agree with Chalmers and others that there is a distinction to be made here, I don’t agree with Chalmers about how to make it.
PM1
Axioms are “accepted as having no justification possible within the system.” To me that is synonymous with it “is not the case that both the statement and its negation can be proved within the system.” You say … “maybe.” Here, as so often, I cannot understand your line of reasoning. You seem to argue that they may be synonymous, but the reason for this phenomenon isn’t correct. They are “only” synonymous “because axioms are never proved at all within the system in which they are used.” Is that supposed to be a good reason to ignore the issue? How does that compute in your mind?
Sure. In my view, Gödel’s theorem makes clear that each system is necessarily based on axioms that cannot be proved within the system. That simple.
For each item in the system, except for the axiom/necessary being, a distinct cause/reason can be identified. This perfectly fits PSR, perfect compatibility with PSR. Perfect harmony. However, for you “the more interesting question” is “whether the PSR is compatible with the existence of anything else besides the necessary being.” How can this question possibly make sense?
Baffling.
That is nonsense.
The objective is lots of comments about irrelevant issues..
I have restarted the computer I am using and still no editing of comments. So a reset is not the answer
Thank you for the suggestion. It just means that I have to be more careful with what I write and especially with the formatting used. No chance to edit it on the computer I am using. Will have to go back to room and get IPad to edit comments. It’s an old computer (Apple laptop) but with most recent system for it.
So this is not the issue. I only posted this in case others experience the same problem.
I will ask a question which no one seems to want to address:
What happens to an ecology when a species is introduced that is superior to all the others in the ecology in terms of reproduction? Will that ecology survive? Remember that the time will be relatively short with little or no chance for the other species to adapt because that is how the world works.
Now explain how emergentism, punctuated equilibrium and adaptation will not have the same effect unless adaptation is very limited. In other words the fossil record is what it is because in a short time a new species would destroy the ecology. Therefore the logical conclusion is that such species never developed unless guided. Or as the title of the OP says,”Self-Defeating Arguments.”
So yes, this site waste a lot of pixels on nonsense. It has nothing to do with the mindset of undesirable people.
PM1 @111
Strong emergence is the claim that when X is “not deducible even in principle from the laws of physics”, it has a physical explanation nonetheless. This is in violation of PSR.
Only if a non-physical cause (or new physical laws) is proposed for X, is PSR not violated.
If X cannot be explained by known laws of nature, then a physical explanation cannot be provided. One’s intuition can be that there must be a physical explanation for X, so the search for new fundamental laws of nature ensues. In this case, we will wait for the discovery of those new fundamental laws of nature that explain freedom and rationality, but we won’t hold our breath. What is the usefulness of the term ‘strong emergence’ here? It does not explain anything and adds nothing to our knowledge.
No, physical determination is not at all a plausible explanation for a free rational person, Mr. Chalmers.
If “strongly emergent” means “caused by the physical anyway even though it cannot be explained by it”, then the term is just an expression of Chalmer’s relentless desire for a materialistic explanation of consciousness.
Emergence is a nonsense idea.
Yet thousands of comments are wasted on it. It is the least likely way for anything biologically to happen but because some inane commenter pushes it. more inane comments are generated.
If anything actually emerged, it would destroy itself in a very short time. Nothing more has to be said.
@112
I’m sorry, but that simply cannot possibly be correct: every system is necessarily based on axioms that cannot be proved within the system. That was already perfectly understood when Euclid systematized ancient Greek geometry. Gödel was not needed for that.
To see why, it might help to think of axioms as parameters of a system, or as rules of a game. The rules of a game tell you what is a legitimate move in the game. In axiomatized systems like logic, arithmetic, and geometry, the process of making moves in the game is the proving of theorems.
What Gödel did was prove that, for a specific class of formal systems, there will be statements constructed in that system (consistent with its axioms) that cannot be proven within that system, precisely because they are statements about the system as a whole. These statements are not the axioms of the system.
@116
That’s not how Chalmers defines the term, and he is vehemently opposed to all materialistic explanations of consciousness.
As he sees it, to say that consciousness is strongly emergent just is to say that consciousness cannot be deduced even in principle from the laws of physics.
He is as passionately anti-physicalist as any one might hope for. In his recent work he has expressed some interest in panpsychism but he observes that there are problems with panpsychism that have not yet been solved.
“anti-physicalist”? Seriously? Elaborate arguments confuse the issue. There is no “emergent” anything. It is fiction. As in fiction.
[said with a Brooklyn accent] Hey buddy! I got yer emergent right here!
Addition to my 118
One could also think of the axioms of a system as being like the syntax of a computer language and theorems as executable programs within that language.
Gödel is saying that if the syntax of a formal system has the property of capturing elementary number theory, then there will be true statements expressible within that formal system that cannot be proven using the axioms of that system.
Jerry: It’s an old computer (Apple laptop) but with most recent system for it.
Me too; two different Macs in fact with no editing problems. Could be your browser? Using Safari?
Jerry: If anything actually emerged, it would destroy itself in a very short time. Nothing more has to be said.
Doesn’t water have properties and effects that neither of its constituent parts have?
Isn’t emergence just saying the sum is more than just the combination of its parts? From Wikipedia:
PM1
It makes sense to say that a statement about the system as a whole must come from a position outside the whole (with the exception of consciousness).
JVL at 123,
A little chemistry lesson. Hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. If you take a tank with hydrogen gas and one with oxygen, and light a handheld torch on each, and combine the output, you get water. This is a subatomic/quantum effect. And not explainable as emergent anything. Another example: If a building fire gets hot enough, any water present within decomposes to hydrogen and oxygen and feeds the fire.
Water turning into ice at a given temperature is another subatomic/quantum effect. The examples involve subatomic combinations under given conditions. I would never use the word emergent. It is a case of phase transition/combination.
One last example. Some metals combine readily to form alloys, others cannot do this.
I’m not sure we’ve latched onto the real notion of axiom, at least in mathematics. Again from Wikipedia:
So, I don’t agree they are like syntax which has to do with an arbitrary structure governing expression NOT was is or is not ‘true’ in that axiomatic system. But, clearly, axioms cannot be ‘proven’ to be true since they are akin to assumptions or bases upon which the rest of the axiomatic system is built.
Relatd: This is a subatomic/quantum effect. And not explainable as emergent anything.
Well, I think water does exhibit properties not apparent or present from its constituent parts so it seems to me that those properties of water are emergent properties by the definition of emergent. The fact that things combine or not is not the emergent bit; it’s the new properties that are present.
Sometimes it is better to use terms as they are commonly used in the literature to ensure people know what you are talking about. It seems to me you are talking about something at a different level than simple emergence.
Origenes: It makes sense to say that a statement about the system as a whole must come from a position outside the whole
In mathematics there are many, basic, easy-to-prove within the system statements that apply to the whole system. There are infinitely many prime numbers is a good example; you can easily prove that within the axiomatic system. All prime numbers are within 1 of a multiple of 6 is another.
JVL at 127,
Why do some metals combine to form alloys while some cannot? The alloy has properties of the combined metals. I think “emergent” is a fake idea.
Jerry: What happens to an ecology when a species is introduced that is superior to all the others in the ecology in terms of reproduction? Will that ecology survive?
Most likely that will change the ecology so, strictly speaking, the previous ecology does not survive. IF the change happens slowly enough then adaptations will occur AND some marginal lifeforms may become winners while others may become losers.
On could argue that what human are doing to the Earth’s climate is such an example: there will be winners and losers and many humans will be losers but possibly not the species overall. Of course in the case of humans it’s not just reproductive expertise that’s causing the problem. On the other hand, if there were only 1 million humans over the whole planet those 1 million individuals could drive the largest gas-guzzling SUV available, use single-use plastics all the time, keep their thermostats set to 75 degrees, etc and not significantly affect the overall planet’s climate. Too many humans + too much environmental degradation and overuse of some natural resources is a fairly toxic combination.
Relatd@
When you mix 2 Blue and 1 Red, the color Purple *emerges*. Is that fake news? 🙂
JVL at 130,
What? Industry – with lots of money – could not afford to install scrubbers on their smoke-belching smokestacks. Why? Because their competitors wouldn’t do it either. Losing millions of peasants is OK. Don’t you get it? And plastic? Electric cars? Oil companies and oil companies. Electric cars were available in 1905 but oil barons could not get rich that way.
https://archive.curbed.com/2017/9/22/16346892/electric-car-history-fritchle
Origenes at 131,
It’s totally fake. The laws of physics apply. In my kids’ chemistry set, I got two clear liquids that, when one is poured into the other, turn purple. I can’t just pour ANY two clear liquids into each other and get a purple result. Clear?
Relatd: Why do some metals combine to form alloys while some cannot? The alloy has properties of the combined metals. I think “emergent” is a fake idea.
You’re focusing on what can or cannot combine NOT what properties ’emerge’ (sometimes) when combinations occur. That is the point: emergent properties are those which are not apparent or predictable when some combinations occur. Not all combinations. And it’s not a statement about what can and what cannot combine.
Would you agree that water has properties not shared by hydrogen and oxygen? I can’t think of any metallic examples but I wouldn’t be surprised if some exist. Anyway, the concept of emergence exists outside of chemistry and metallurgy.
JVL at 134,
100% fake. Nothing emerges from anything. Everything has properties and potentialities. Period. These are built-in and predetermined by the laws of atomic physics.
“Would you agree that water has properties not shared by hydrogen and oxygen?” Absolutely not. Water can exist as a solid, liquid and gas. Built-in, happens every time properties.
Your attempt to create a fake “something from nothing” situation is fake. Nothing “emerges.” Period.
Relatd: What? Industry – with lots of money – could not afford to install scrubbers on their smoke-belching smokestacks. Why? Because their competitors wouldn’t do it either. Losing millions of peasants is OK. Don’t you get it? And plastic? Electric cars? Oil companies and oil companies. Electric cars were available in 1905 but oil barons could not get rich that way
I just offered a minor opinion. Chill out.
How dare you tell me to “chill out”? I will chill out when I’m good and ready… 🙂
Relatd: 100% fake. Nothing emerges from anything. Everything has properties and potentialities. Period. These are built-in and predetermined by the laws of atomic physics.
Well, I’ll leave it up to you to argue against the philosophers who have argued about the existence of emergent properties.
Your attempt to create a fake “something from nothing” situation is fake. Nothing “emerges.” Period.
At room temperature oxygen and hydrogen exist as gases. Water is a liquid. Combining things together sometimes introduces new properties, sometimes modifies existing properties. And those changes are not predictable. They ’emerge’.
Relatd, the problem is, apart from nukes, the densest energy storage is diesel and gasoline. KF
JVL at 138,
Chemistry cannot be done, and industry could not function, if “… those changes are not predictable.”
Kf at 139,
Energy storage? Who brought that up? I’m talking about something “emerging” in TOTALLY unpredictable ways. Yeah, right…
Relatd: Chemistry cannot be done, and industry could not function, if “… those changes are not predictable.”
Some reactions are predictable; we’re talking about the times when new properties arise which were not predictable. Which does happen. You could not predict the specific properties of water from the properties of hydrogen or oxygen. Take NaCl. Sodium and Chlorine are stupidly poisonous on their own. Together they form a simple compound used by all of us everyday in our food. Could you predict that based on the two constituents?
It DOES happen that some compounds or combinations yield results which are unpredictable from the constituent parts. The properties of the compounds or combinations that cannot be foreseen are defined as emergent properties. They exist.
You’re running out of road.
Look, if you don’t get the point why not just stop arguing?
JVL at 142,
This falls under the anarchist category, where things just ‘happen’ on their own. Sodium and chloride are always poisons and the combination always results in salt. Nothing unpredictable there.
Relatd: Sodium and chloride are always poisons and the combination always results in salt. Nothing unpredictable there.
Again, you seem to be missing the point. Could you predict, before you knew the outcome, that mixing two poisons together would give you something essential for life? That property is emergent.
I’m beginning to suspect you’re arguing just to be belligerent. You seem to be missing the point intentionally. For what reason I know not.
JVL at 144,
You are taking the Darwinist, life just “emerges” position. Salt, when chemically analyzed, consists of sodium and chloride. You are taking scientific facts and making them sound mysterious.
And why would human beings be designed to need salt? Planned and designed to need salt for life functions.
JVL,
The point is that Emergence is not an explanation. It’s the whirl of a black cape and a *POOF* of smoke. The rabbit Emerged from the hat.
It’s just a lame turn of phrase for the weak-minded.
Andrew
Relatd: Salt, when chemically analyzed, consists of sodium and chloride. You are taking scientific facts and making them sound mysterious.
I am saying that salt has properties that sodium and chloride do not have and those properties of salt are not predictable based on the properties of sodium and chloride.
And why would human beings be designed to need salt? Planned and designed to need salt for life functions.
Not the point. You clearly are just trying to waste my time.
Andrew at 146,
I suspected the Jedi mind trick. Thanks for clarifying.
Asuaber: The point is that Emergence is not an explanation. It’s the whirl of a black cape and a *POOF* of smoke. The rabbit Emerged from the hat. It’s just a lame turn of phrase for the weak-minded.
The point is that sometimes combining some things/elements/compounds/structures togethers gets you some new properties or effects that you could not have predicted just knowing the properties and effects of the constituents. This is clearly true. So, the term for properties and effects not predictable from the properties of the constituent parts is emergent.
What is the problem? Sometimes, when you put stuff together, you get something you didn’t predict. Duh.
It is NOT the same a a rabbit coming out of a hat.
“you get something you didn’t predict”
…like a rabbit from a black top hat, a plastic wand, and some magic *POOFERY* in the air.
Still not an explanation… which is what science is supposed to be for. Why are you advocating for Not Science?
Andrew
Asauber: Still not an explanation… which is what science is supposed to be for.
It’s a category observation that has been labelled. Sometimes you get something you couldn’t have predicted when physically combining some things together. That does happen, clearly. Why are you denying that?
What is your explanation of why combining two poisons together yields a substance necessary for many forms of life?
To explain a nonsense idea like darwinism you need to use more nonsense ideas .*Poof* magic wand.
Poor darwinists ! all the big events already happened and they have only randomness in their magic hat to explain everything including functional information , conscience,morality .
*Poof*
“Why are you denying that?”
JVL,
I’m not denying that stuff happens. Let’s call it Stuff Happens instead of Emergence with the pretense that it means something. That would me slightly happier.
Andrew
When you mix red and blue, purple **emerges** Who could have predicted that? Who could have predicted water, when you only know H and O?
So, …. maybe from a warm little pond … life ** poof** and …. , maybe when you have a bunch of neurons … consciousness **emerges **
Do you get the emergentists’ vibe?
At 53 above PM linked to a very interesting paper on “Naturalising Agent Causation”, by Henry D. Potter and Kevin J. Mitchell, here, at the National Library of Medicine at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. I read this lengthy paper fairly closely, and even though the level of expertise required to write this was way beyond my amateur level, the paper was well written and understandable.
The paper formally describes a key idea that I have occasionally expressed here: in my words, that human beings exercise their freedom by making choices that are internally generated and are integrated for the good of the organism as a whole. That is, we are causal agents in a way that doesn’t require metaphysical concepts such as libertarian free will or theistic relationships to some divine reality.
One refreshing thing about the paper is that it started by trying to accurately summarize the common objections to the position it was going to describe. This is something good constructive discussion should include: an honest and well-informed attempt to understand positions other than one’s own.
So thanks to PM for pointing me to this paper.
All the thoughts (we have) are metaphysical. The meaning of a hammer or of the trinitarian dogma are both metaphysical. Do you know a thought that have no meaning? 🙂
Late to the party, much to comment on, but leave it at this;
JVL, anyone. Distinction between “result” and “emerge”?
Belfast,
How about this . . .
Emerge is the obfuscating term used to magically evade causality when the origin of a result is still a mystery.
-Q
Belfast: JVL, anyone. Distinction between “result” and “emerge”?
You always get a result, some of those results display emergent characteristics.
I don’t understand why people are having such a hard time with the concept.
Asauber: I’m not denying that stuff happens. Let’s call it Stuff Happens instead of Emergence with the pretense that it means something. That would me slightly happier.
You can use terms however you like but if you want others to understand what you are saying quickly then it’s generally a good idea to expressed yourself in the common parlance.
Besides, ‘stuff happens’ isn’t very descriptive or indicative of something new occurring. Stuff always happens, sometimes the stuff is new and unpredictable.
Querius: Emerge is the obfuscating term used to magically evade causality when the origin of a result is still a mystery.
Do you think the origin of the result of getting water from two gases is a mystery?
Why are you so negative towards a concept that has been around for centuries? What term would you use to indicate a surprising or novel result considering the known qualities and characteristics of the inputs?
Thanks, Querius, cynical but neat. There’s no real connection to merit a distinction, it’s like asking the distinction between a clock and a horse. I believe it is a dishonest term when used in biology, as it smears over not only unknown intermediates but also intermediates, indescribable, but hoped for.
In origin of life debate, ‘emerge’ suggests, without stating as much, that there is a property in matter which in the right conditions culminates in life.
In a burlesque interlude of Moliere’s, ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ a medical candidate responds to the question ‘why does opium cause sleep?’ answering, “Because of its sleepiness virtue.”
In other words, opium puts people to sleep because it has a property of putting people to sleep.
Similarly, life is an emergent property of matter because matter has an inherent property of coming alive when conditions are suitable.
‘Emerging’ is not really a word to be used in science.
Belfast: ‘Emerging’ is not really a word to be used in science.
Despite all the non-biological examples on the Wikipedia page about it? “In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviours that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.” It’s a simple concept and one it’s good to have a term for.
JVL [attn VL & PM1],
emergence is a systems term, by implication.
Where, the more apt, more objective term is synergy; Wikipedia confesses:
The related concept is functionally specific organisation, which surfaces what is being suppressed in the raft of half truths, vagueness and pushing in by the backdoor that is going on. For, such specific organisation points to correct, matched, properly oriented and coupled parts, per a Wicken wiring diagram.
Which turns up the invisible part, information.
(Even as, for machinery, lubricants are a key and often invisible part.)
Yes, functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information.
Emergence, strong form (and in this context), is thus exposed: it is little more than an evasion of the need for adequate causal explanation of complex functional organisation. Second, a good slice of that “little more” is a dodging — or at best an inexplicable overlooking — of the gap between a GIGO limited computational substrate and responsible, rational, self moved agent freedom of thought, volition and action. Without which, as Darwin feared,
To feel the force of the challenge, ponder this explicitly self-referential adaptation: “the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of [Charles Robert Darwin’s] mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.” Apply to the grand theoretical structure he and his successors constructed and the magnitude of the challenge emerges.
Of course, he tried to swivel it against philosophically minded objectors, but at once we may compare the abstruseness of philosophical and sophisticated mathematical schemes, and can note that the appeal to scientism and superiority of the empirical is an exercise in epistemology inextricably entangled with both metaphysics in general and ontology in particular. All three are facets of a whole, core philosophy. So, the self referentiality and question begging convenient exceptionalism remain.
Turning instead to the synergy involved, we can readily point to the need for adequate cause, noting that the only, and massively observed cause of such FSCO/I is design. Where, intelligently directed configuration [that’s a definition in brief], can readily be seen as far more capable than blind needle in haystack search.
The problem is not the weight of evidence but the weight of ideological imposition.
KF
If life cannot be sufficiently explained by matter, then we cannot really say that life *emerges* from matter. Can we? If B cannot be sufficiently explained by A, then we cannot really say that B arises from A.
Here, in Chalmers’ scenario, there is a B that cannot *EVEN IN PRINCIPLE* be explained by A.
In such a case it would be logical to conclude that B is not caused by A. However, this is where the emergentist makes his move:
He says that B is **strongly emergent ** with respect to A.
Life is **strongly emergent ** with respect to matter. Consciousness is **strongly emergent** with respect to neurons.
In there is an assumption without warrant. Worse: it is a denial of the PSR.
JVL @ 160 –
I think it’s legitimate to speak of emergence as long as it’s understood to be a question and not an answer.
Weak emergence is a valid concept but here emergence represents a category of explanation and not an explanatory principle in itself. An emergent explanation shows why something has properties not possessed by its constituents.
As I understand it, water is a liquid at room temperature because when the hydrogen and oxygen atoms are together the attractive forces function differently than they would separately. If I’m wrong, you could still use it as an example of what a valid emergent explanation would be if it were correct.
In an emergent explanation (and this applies only in weak emergence), you can still explain without any reference to the concept of emergence itself.
Strong emergence is a totally different animal. Strong emergence is that one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater we hear tell of. But it’s not the one that eats people – or even purple people. It’s the one that eats one-eyed one-horned flying purple people.
As usual on UD discussions become inane.
A perfectly simple word is bastardized. The word “emerge” is being used to explain unknown processes as if the word itself is the process. Then some of these unknown processes are being extrapolated to explain other unknown causes as if they are the same thing by using this simple word, “emerge.”
The nonsense becomes clearly apparent when the phenomena to be explained are completely different from each other. Life is incredibly different from a chemical compound. But they are united by a simple word. Similarly Evolution is different from life itself and certainly from chemical compounds.
As I said, inane.
More inanity
Try intelligence.
Aside: The use of the word “emerge” is a constant example of the fallacy of begging the question.
Aside2: The use of the term “emerge” is a non sequitur in the process of Evolution. It would actually prevent Evolution.
Aside3: Maybe the only good thing coming from this discussion is a focus on how Evolution can happen.
Aside4: no way will logic get in the way of inane discussions on UD.
I find it really interesting that so many people here are adamantly against the very idea of “strong emergence,” considering that Chalmers very clearly thinks that strong emergence is the only alternative to reductive physicalism, with regard to consciousness.
Maybe he’s wrong about that, but I don’t see anyone here offering an alternative to both strong emergence and to reductive physicalism.
VL @155
Here follows some quotes from the paper with my commentary.
Fine. You are arguing against physicalism. You are arguing that matter cannot account for an organism.
If matter can explain an organism, then, obviously, there is no such thing as ‘agent causality’.
This is pure compatibilism! “Without violating the thesis of physicalism”, means that everything is determined by the physical. Everything that happens is in accord with blind particles in the void mindlessly obeying laws, but, nonetheless, in this scenario exhausted by complete total physical determination, there can be, at the same time, according to the naturalist, ‘agent causality’. This cannot work. This is the naturalist attempt at compatibilism that is utterly incoherent.
Naturalists want to situate agent causality in a world where there is, without exception, pure blind particle interaction. They want agent causality to be active in a world where, at the same time, nothing acts in accord with agent causality.
I don’t really understand the focus on the term “emerge” as being non-explanatory. It’s not, but then science doesn’t actually explain anything in terms of causes. Science describes and makes models of behavioral patterns. Models of behavior are not the causes of that behavior.
I mean, you bring two objects with mass together and **poof** gravity emerges. Nobody knows what is causing it. The only actual cause any of us are directly aware of is our own causal agency. Everything else we observe/experience might as well be bits on a screen caused by programming code in response to the actions of our own agency.
The physical world around us acts as if it is governed by mathematical and logical programming. There is literally no reason to think it would be anything other than random experiential chaos otherwise.
Follow up #169. ~The Argument Against Naturalistic Compatibilism~
1. If physical determinism is true for agents, then all agent actions are consequences of physical events and laws of nature.
2. Physical events and laws of nature lack teleology.
3. Agent action is teleological.
Therefore,
4. If physical determinism is true for agents, then teleological agent action cannot exist.
“I don’t really understand the focus on the term “emerge” as being non-explanatory.”
WJM,
Maybe because some UD contributors keep using the term like it’s explanatory. They say “I’m an Emergentist” like it means something. Well, I’m a StuffHappensist and a ItisWhatItIsist. Let write some 2000 word comments about these positions and mix in some philosophers names and other compelling drama.
Andrew
Kairosfocus absolutely nails *emergentism* in #164.
to Origenes: did you read the rest of the article. They discuss your objections.
VL @ 174
The paper does not address my objections on a principle level. In order to get to agent causality (teleology) they invoke information. See, for instance, here:
The origin of information has been discussed many times. No new insights are offered. Surely, there is nothing “naturalistic” about the kind of information involved. As we all know FSCO/I points to intelligent design and does not come for free out of random blind particles bumping into each other.
So, their objective to get to agent causality “without violating the thesis of physicalism” is not being achieved. They use information, that comes from intelligent design, to ground agent causality.
@164
You’re right insofar as strong emergence is a label for the kind of explanation that would show how complex functional organization comes to exist without the need to posit any antecedent intelligence to perform the organizing.
That is why I’ve been urging for a few years now that the real debate is not between evolution and intelligent design, but between complexity theory and intelligent design.
The crux of complexity theory that’s especially relevant here is how life can emergence from physics without the need to posit intelligent guidance. Terry Deacon has provided a nice proof-of-concept for this: he has shown how it is conceivable that thermodynamic systems can give rise to biological systems, without any violation of the principle of sufficient reason. Nor is there anything “magical” about Deacon’s model: the only people who think so are those who haven’t studied it.
I would urge some caution about how one uses terms like “the weight of ideological imposition”. Whereas emergentism may look to some people as ideological imposition in favor of atheism (thereby completely disregarding all of the theological interest in emergence), intelligent design may look to other people as ideological imposition in favor of theism. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
This is more about philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science than about the metaphysics of emergence.
Briefly put (since my time is limited today): I would frame the problem in terms of whether a scientific explanation of cognitive systems is compatible with (and shed light upon!) our self-understanding of ourselves as persons. I have no objection to personhood as involving “responsible, rational, self moved agent freedom of thought, volition and action”. But I think that the cognitive sciences explain personhood and do not eliminate it.
However, the real issue there is whether the Augustinian/Thomistic conception of personhood, as necessarily involving libertarian freedom and apprehension of real universals, is itself necessary for personhood as such, or as optional features.
As I see it, the de-theologicized or secularized conception of personhood that can be found in the epistemology and ethical theory of Immanuel Kant is fully compatible with the biology of cognition (including not only neuroscience but also ecology, developmental biology, evolutionary theory, etc.).
Still at it? Life emerges from non-life. Mixing two chemicals together results in a combination that is edible or poisonous or neither. But the average person is now required to go “Oooh, ahhh! Look! That combination of chemicals has resulted in water or salt or concrete!” And we should all be fascinated by this?
Much ado about nothing.
Or is this about removing God from Creation, including the creation of all physical laws?
“You’re right insofar as strong emergence is a label for the kind of explanation that would show how complex functional organization comes to exist without the need to posit any antecedent intelligence to perform the organizing.”
JVL @161,
Of course not. 2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O (actually, 2 HOH) This works on specified volumes of these gases at STP, moles, and individual molecules with enough activation energy initiate an exothermic reaction by breaking the covalent bonds of hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Water doesn’t magically “emerge.”
Yes, this anti-science term has been around for centuries. You are correct. Most popularly, it was the argument used for the “spontaneous generation” of maggots from rotting meat, and mice from grains of wheat in rags.
-Q
Belfast @162,
Yes, exactly! Nicely demonstrated . . . but then, this is a target-rich environment (i.e. walnut meets sledgehammer). LOL
In non-scientific areas, emergence is a legitimate term, but in absence of knowledge. In fact, it just occurred to me that EMERGE is the name of yet another god-of-the-gaps along with MUSTA and MIGHTA.
-Q
Querius at 178,
You don’t believe in magic? 🙂
How to perform a magic trick:
1) Get two chemicals.
2) Mix them together.
3) Get the same output every single time.
Note: In order for this to be magic, you are required to be amazed that the output is uh… the same. Every, single time.
So I guess materialists want to hold that the conscious mind is ‘strongly emergent’ from the material brain when a certain level of functional complexity is reached?
Small problem, the conscious, intelligent, mind is the only thing known to produce functional complexity and/or functional information.
,,, I guess Baron Münchhausen would be considered ‘strongly emergent’ when he pulled himself and his horse out of the swamp by pulling on his own hair. 🙂
Emergent is a God substitute term. You don’t need God! Men are great! God? Not so much.
God created the Universe. But, in the case of crystal growth, for example: “See! See! It happened all by itself!! Without GOD !!!”
And we are supposed to think that creating the Universe does not mean creating all the physical laws that make it function as it does?
Querius: Water doesn’t magically “emerge.”
You’re still not completely understanding the point. It’s not that the properties ‘magically’ emerge; it’s that the properties were not already present in one of the constituent ingredients. It’s all really clear in the quotes I provided from the Wikipedia entry which, it appears, many of you have not bothered to read.
Not sure it’s worth arguing with people who won’t spend the time to learn the common parlance.
Emergent just has to do with whether or not new properties, not observed in the contributing constituents before the confluence, are observed afterwards. It’s not saying how those properties arouse, it’s not saying they are magical or designed; just that they were not present before. It’s that simple.
JVL at 183,
“common parlance”?
Me: Hey Bob. What do you know about emergent properties?
Bob: What?
PM1, there are other alternatives to physicalism, another way to say, evolutionary materialistic scientism, or at least an updated form of the materialistic part. KF
Relatd: Emergent is a God substitute term.
No, it is not. It just means properties or characteristics that were not present in the things that made up a . . .
You know what. I’m not sure why I’m bothering. The concept/idea of emergent properties is very clear. It’s not necessarily explanatory, just observational.
You guys are attacking something which the concept of emergence doesn’t embrace. I’m not sure why.
“embrace”? Not a scientific term. So emergence doesn’t explain anything? It just happens and uh… yeah? So what?
Realtd: “embrace”? Not a scientific term. So emergence doesn’t explain anything? It just happens and uh… yeah? So what?
Have you at least read the Wikipedia article which explains the concept and give lots of non-biological examples?
From Wikipedia:
“For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry.”
When they make life in the lab, contact me.
Also From Wikipedia:
“Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic.”
What a joke.
Andrew
Again, Baron Münchhausen would be pleased, 🙂
Asauber @190,
It still boils down to “emerge” is not a scientific explanation. While Wikipedia is not a reliable source, the author’s admission of resemblance to magic is appropriate.
Took a walk this morning where my poodle demonstrated “emergence” to me, which I picked up with a plastic bag and deposited it into the proper bin. The emergent matter had none of the properties unique to the poodle:
1. It didn’t look like the poodle.
2. It didn’t feel like the poodle.
3. It didn’t smell like the poodle.
4. It didn’t bark or whine like the poodle.
5. It didn’t move at all.
6. Unlike the poodle, it was homogeneous.
7. Maybe JVL might have an opinion about the taste.
However, EMERGE is definitely a god-of-the-gaps device, just as MUSTA and MIGHTA. It fills in massive holes in scientific understanding. Let me paraphrase to underscore the point:
You see? It works!
-Q
If the concept of “emergence” was actually operating in life forms it would destroy Evolution not explain it.
Aside: If some unknown process produced major changes in life forms, it would leave traces in the fossil record while creating complex proteins.
None have been observed. Punctuated equilibrium was supposedly such a process
My guess is that those suggesting it has happened, have no understanding of proteins. That’s not hard to understand since those suggesting it are not very knowledgeable.
“It still boils down to “emerge” is not a scientific explanation.”
Q,
And that raises the question of why some people are hanging on to it like grim death. 😉
Andrew
@177
Whether or not there’s a need to posit an antecedently existing intelligence to perform the organization that assembled organic molecules into the first life forms has nothing at all to do with whether or not there is a Creator.
On the one hand, there’s no valid argument for identifying the intelligent designer responsible for life with the Creator of rational or revealed religion.
On the other hand, there’s no valid argument against the existence of the Creator of rational or revealed religion exists just because there’s no empirical support for an intelligent designer that organized organic molecules into the first life forms.
As it happens, there’s a lot of interest in emergentism coming from theologians and philosophers of religion. Deacon has been in dialogue with a few theologians: Mariusz Tabaczek, O. P., Brian Patrick Green, and Adam Pryor.
In their rush to define life as being merely an ’emergent property’ of chemistry, they may be overlooking something important,
Verse:
“Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science
“Notre Dame Press, 2019
“Mariusz Tabaczek
“Tabaczek New Metaphysic Crop
“Over the last several decades, the theories of emergence and downward causation have become arguably the most popular conceptual tools in scientific and philosophical attempts to explain the nature and character of global organization observed in various biological phenomena, from individual cell organization to ecological systems. The theory of emergence acknowledges the reality of layered strata or levels of systems, which are consequences of the appearance of an interacting range of novel qualities.
“A closer analysis of emergentism, however, reveals a number of philosophical problems facing this theory. In Emergence, Mariusz Tabaczek offers a thorough analysis of these problems and a constructive proposal of a new metaphysical foundation for both the classic downward causation-based and the new dynamical depth accounts of emergence theory, developed by Terrence Deacon. Tabaczek suggests ways in which both theoretical models of emergentism can be grounded in the classical and the new (dispositionalist) versions of Aristotelianism. This book will have an eager audience in metaphysicians working both in the analytic and the Thomistic traditions, as well as philosophers of science and biology interested in emergence theory and causation.”
@169
You would be right if by “the thesis of physicalism” they meant what you mean, namely “physical determinism”. But that is very clearly not at all what they mean. All that “the thesis of physicalism” means as far as they are concerned is the causal closure of the universe, sufficient to rule out contra-causal libertarianism. That by itself does not entail physical determinism, and that is all that their argument involves.
Besides which, a close reading of their article indicates they deny that determinism is true even of physical systems: they cite “Physics without Determinism” and “On the nature of causation in complex systems” in support of non-determinism even with regard to physics.
PM1@
As you know Deacon’s concept has been discussed here at UD.
To say that Pattee was unimpressed by Deacon’s model would be an understatement: “What are the symbol vehicles?”
UB on Deacon’s concept:
PM1@:
Those physical systems exhibit FSCO/I ….
From the paper:
“Naturalizing” agent causality with (free) information 🙂
@199
I don’t think it’s at all correct to say that Pattee was unimpressed with Deacon’s model. They have a profound and important disagreement: does symbol-grounding precede interpretation (Pattee)? Or does interpretation precede symbol-grounding (Deacon)? There might be a really important distinction here — or this might be a semantic quibble. I haven’t yet looked into it to have a fully informed opinion, and it’s a bit different from my day-job. Maybe I’ll have time one day.
BA2@196.
Thanks for your link to the review of Robert Saunders review of Meyer’s “Signature in the cell.” Unfortunately, it did not work being truncated. The link that works is, https://www.algemeiner.com/2012/04/04/british-geneticist-robert-saunders-leaves-a-highly-prejudiced-signature-in-his-review-of-signature-in-the-cell/
As the article restates Meyer, and provides other endorsements as well, it is a good resource, and well-written.
PM1 @201
At first sight, both ideas seem utterly nonsensical. There is no symbol without interpretation and vice versa. Perhaps Deacon fails to understand this, but Upright Biped always speaks highly of Pattee. Can it be that Pattee argues for “symbol-grounding precede interpretation”?
Here Upright Biped writes:
Can you provide a quote of Pattee arguing that symbol-grounding precedes interpretation?
Folks,
here is a case in point of synergy, leading to an emergent effect due to due and proportionate interaction: mix blue and yellow pigment to get green.
It may at first be surprising, but as pigments typically work by subtraction from white light, we see that yellow will absorb red and blue, and blue will absorb red and yellow. Mix, and red is suppressed, blue is suppressed, yellow is suppressed, all in varied proportions, yielding green.
Assume we are dealing with a child’s box of watercolour paints. As the brushes are washed in water it typically takes up a reddish, grey-brown muddy colour. This too, is due to pigment mixing, as some pigments are stronger than others. That’s why you do not get a strong black by mixing colours.
Notice, the fact of interaction is independent of our knowledge of how it works, or of our knowledge of the nature of light. We can — and did — construct colour mixing technology, likely, back in the days of cave paintings. [Notice, some of those are excellent art, itself a story on the capabilities of so called primitive people.] However, what results is a systemic, synergistic effect, with identifiable, intelligible causes.
Which is precisely what our weak form PSR (wPSR) hopes for, and places this as a possible, contingent effect. If strong form as stated meant only that we have not yet figured out, that would be one thing. But it declares, we cannot deduce — better, infer — from the presumable causal factors at work. That leads me to the conclusion, again, that this is a rejection of even wPSR. It is obviously serving here as a rhetorical device to blunt the force of the well founded inference on reliable sign, part of our inductive reasoning toolkit.
That is, never mind that on trillions of cases, without exception, FSCO/I reliably comes from intelligently directed configuration. Never mind, that we can readily see the fine tuned nature of interaction — notice artistic expertise on colour mixing and the development of colour matching computerised paint mixers, also colour printers — and thus islands of function. Never mind, we therefore have islands of function in large configuration spaces and so blind needle in haystack search is maximally implausible. No, emergence, strong form is king.
Nope.
KF
@203
I was relying on the abstract to his “Symbol Grounding Precedes Interpretation“. (I’ve read the paper but I would need to read it again, and other things by Pattee, before it really makes sense to me.)
@204
I don’t think this is anywhere close to being right, at least as a reading of Chalmers.
Chalmers is (as always) remarkably clear about what he’s stating and why: his claim is that consciousness cannot be deduced, even in principle, from the laws of physics alone. (If you wish, you can quibble with his use of “strong emergence” for that claim.)
This would be a violation of the PSR if one were a physicalist. If one were committed a physicalist or materialist ontology, then the impossibility of deducing consciousness from the laws of physics alone would be a violation of the principle of sufficient reason: because then consciousness would seem to come out of nowhere!
If, however, one were not a physicalist, then the impossibility of deducing consciousness from the laws of physics alone would not be a violation of the PSR. It would mean only that the PSR tells us to look beyond physics (and all other sciences that are in principle reducible to physics) to explain consciousness.
Please note: Chalmers thinks that all of the natural sciences can be deduced from physics, “in principle”: he thinks that in principle, we can reduce psychology, biology, chemistry etc to physics. That is why he thinks that biology is only weakly emergent with regard to physics, whereas consciousness alone is strongly emergent.
In other words, if one thinks that consciousness could never, not even in principle, be reduced to or explained in terms of any facts of neuroscience, biology, chemistry, or even physics, then you agree with Chalmers that consciousness is strongly emergent with regard to physics — even if you don’t like his use of the phrase “strongly emergent”.
And that would violate the PSR only if one assumed that the only causal explanations available to us were those that were reducible to physics.
Put otherwise: Chalmers’s theory of consciousness violates the PSR only if one agrees with Alex Rosenberg about ontology in the first place.
PM1, no one here has argued that blind physical forces account for FSCO/I rich systems, notice, design inference. If Chalmers is making or inviting or just open to a design inference, fine. I doubt that one would characterise such intelligent action as not deducible in principle from available candidate causal factors. Emergence in context seems to suggest only matter and energy interacting in space and time need apply. However, we for cause reject denial of causal adequacy. That is an event, thus an entity or system with a beginning, must have adequate cause. On seeing FSCO/I, that adequate cause is intelligently directed configuration. Per, reliable sign. It is evident that blind chance and mechanical necessity are not adequate causes for relevant phenomena. KF
PM1 @ 201, 205 ~Pattee vs Deacon~
Pattee’s paper “Symbol Grounding Precedes Interpretation” states the obvious, at least according to Pattee.
So, Deacon proposes that interpretation precedes symbol grounding. Pattee explains why this cannot make any sense:
So, Deacon must be wrong to propose the opposite, because:
Pattee has more axes to grind with Deacon:
And Pattee follows up with a list of what he considers to be “not fair assessments.”
Pattee doesn’t like Deacon’s “central dogma of semiotics.”
Pattee’s critique of models in general:
Pattee’s critique of Deacon’s model specifically:
Pattee on the origin problem:
From Dr Pattee:
Sounds like support for unguided evolution. It certainly is no support for design.
KF @164
None of the fermions and bosons of a computer are at all interested in code and information.
However, they are organized in such a way that they are forced to act in accordance with them. None of the fermions and bosons involved act in accordance with code because they are interested in it.
However, the naturalist might point out: here we have an entirely physical system that exhibits teleological behavior; it follows that we have “naturalized teleology.”
No, Mr. naturalist, you do not have “naturalized teleology”, because you have no ‘naturalistic’ explanation for the organization/information of a computer. The problem is exactly the same with organisms.
If it were up to fermions and bosons entirely, there would be no computer organization, no organisms and zero teleological behavior. There is no ‘naturalistic’, from the level of fermions and bosons, explanation of FSCO/I.
JVL at 208,
“… there is no doubt these conditions would have determined the chemistry from which life originated.”
Convince me. Make life in the lab.
Relatd: Convince me. Make life in the lab.
The point is that one of the shining stars of semiotics, Dr Pattee, does not think his work supports intelligent design. And before anyone says: oh but he has to toe the party line . . . no, he does not. And he could have left the last couple of sentences out. But he didn’t.
Anyway, as I’ve said to Upright BiPed many, many times: no semiotics researcher has publicly said they support ID. Which means they think their work is compatible with unguided evolution. This is pretty much a case closed in the case of Dr Pattee.
JVL @ 208
I agree. As Upright Biped has often stated, Pattee, despite his conviction that things are irreducible complex ….
…. seems to remain loyal to ontological physicalism.
I note here that Pattee does not use the term “sufficiently.” That is, he does not say: ” … there is no doubt these conditions would have *sufficiently* determined the chemistry from which life originated.”
JVL at 211,
You’ve got nothing, along with the Doctor.
“Semiotics is the systematic study of sign processes and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, usually called a meaning, to the sign’s interpreter.”
Origenes: I note here that Pattee does not use the term “sufficiently.” That is, he does not say: ” … there is no doubt these conditions would have *sufficiently* determined the chemistry from which life originated.”
You’re really reaching now. If he wanted his position to be ambiguous (at best) he could have just left out his last couple of sentences.
Again, no semiotics researcher has said they support design. Which means they think their work is compatible with unguided evolution. Which means they think the kind of system they propose must be in place can arise via unguided processes, i.e. chemistry. Dr Deacon, in fact, said so explicitly. Dr Pattee disagreed with him on some points but NOT that design was required.
Relatd: You’ve got nothing, along with the Doctor.
Seems I’ve got Dr Pattee agreeing that unguided evolution is possible. And he is considered one of the top semiotic researchers on the planet.
Related: “Convince me. Make life in the lab.”
JVL: “The point is that one of the shining stars of semiotics, Dr Pattee, does not think his work supports intelligent design.”,,,
So you are not going to create life in the lab, much less create it in a primordial environment? 🙂
Golly gee whiz JVL, what could possibly be the problem with very intelligent Chemists creating ‘simple’ life in the lab? It can’t be that hard can it?
Of note, The positional information that is found to be in a simple one cell bacterium, when working from the thermodynamic perspective, is found to be on the order 10 to the 12 bits,,,
,,, Which is the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. ‘In comparison,,, the largest libraries in the world,, have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”
Verse:
JVL at 215,
Again, just make life in the lab. You, the Doctor, anybody. Everyone seems to *know* so much but talk, as they say, is cheap.
Some people have this cartoon idea of life forming. A lipid bag contains chemicals, and then what? How does it eat? What does it eat? How does it metabolize (turn food into energy) anything? What does it do with waste products? How does it reproduce? WHERE do the internal instructions come from to do what living things do?
All I’m seeing here is hand-wavium. Or someone trying to sell so-called cryptocurrency: “Trust me, your money is safe.” “Trust me, life is nothing but chemicals.”
Bornagain77: So you are not going to create life in the lab, much less create it in a primordial environment?
I don’t have the expertise or the equipment.
It’s pretty funny how you avoid accepting my point: that no semiotic researcher, in this case Dr Pattee, has said that they support ID. Which means they think their work is compatible with unguided evolution.
Let’s hear you acknowledge that.
Golly gee whiz JVL, what could possibly be the problem with very intelligent Chemists creating ‘simple’ life in the lab? It can’t be that hard can it?
Seems to be. But Dr Pattee even suggested some things that should be checked out. He’s in favour of such research. Clearly.
Realtd: Again, just make life in the lab. You, the Doctor, anybody. Everyone seems to *know* so much but talk, as they say, is cheap.
Let’s get one thing clear: do you accept that no semiotics researcher has said their work supports ID? Yes or no?
Some people have this cartoon idea of life forming. A lipid bag contains chemicals, and then what? How does it eat? What does it eat? How does it metabolize (turn food into energy) anything? What does it do with waste products? How does it reproduce? WHERE do the internal instructions come from to do what living things do?
Do you accept that no semiotics researcher has said their work supports ID? Yes or no?
All I’m seeing here is hand-wavium. Or someone trying to sell so-called cryptocurrency: “Trust me, your money is safe.” “Trust me, life is nothing but chemicals.”
I guess you’ve not keeping up with the research then. Or with the semiotics researchers who have NOT said their work supports ID. That is true isn’t it? One of the great hopes of ID, the semiotics field, has failed to support ID. Correct?
Let us all bow down to ‘semiotic researchers’ or not.
Me: Golly gee whiz JVL, what could possibly be the problem with very intelligent Chemists creating ‘simple’ life in the lab? It can’t be that hard can it?
JVL: Seems to be. But Dr Pattee even suggested some things that should be checked out. He’s in favour of such research. Clearly.
Hmm, you do realize that the more we have learned about the ‘problem’ of OOL, the worse the ‘problem’ has become for atheistic materialists do you not? In other words, we are much further away from ever ‘intelligently’ creating life in the lab today than we first naively supposed we were decades ago.
Relatd: Let us all bow down to ‘semiotic researchers’ or not.
I think they probably know more about their field than you do. So I suspect their view on what their work does or does not support is more likely to be correct than your view.
“So I suspect their view on what their work does or does not support is more likely to be correct than your view.”
Unless it’s wrong. Then it has a 0.0% chance of being correct.
Andrew
Bornagain77: Hmm, you do realize that the more we have learned about the ‘problem’ of OOL, the worse the ‘problem’ has become for atheistic materialists do you not? In other words, we are much further away from ever ‘intelligently’ creating life in the lab today than we first naively supposed we were decades ago.
We can talk about the Origin of Life situation . . . but first I’d like you to acknowledge that you’re getting no help from the semiotics community.
After we settle that point I’m happy to move onto another topic.
The “semiotics community”? Woo hoo! What will ID researchers do without them? I suspect they will change nothing about their work going forward.
Asauber: Unless it’s wrong. Then it has a 0.0% chance of being correct.
Well, if you’d like to argue against the semiotic researchers, address their points specifically, be my guest. Otherwise, you’re just whistling down the wind.
JVL @218
No, not “clearly” at all. You have misunderstood Pattee’s point. He objects to the origin of life research under unrealistic conditions. He doesn’t say it explicitly, but he seems to regard it as cheating or at best as irrelevant.
When he discusses autocatalytic and RNA network models, which according to him will never solve anything because they both “miss the crucial point” , he bitingly notes:
As I said, Pattee has a problem with cheating and that’s why he wrote:
I don’t expect Pattee to believe that simulated sterile seashores will produce life. Rather, since 1965, he holds that research under unrealistic conditions is irrelevant.
JVL, And yet ‘simple life’ remains tantalizing out of reach for all these ‘know way more than you do’ semiotic researchers that you are clinging to. Go figure.
Well, regardless of whomever believes what, the scientific evidence itself paints a very different picture than the rosy picture you are trying to paint for yourself and your atheistic worldview.
Namely, only intelligence has shown the capacity to ‘thermodynamically’ move a system in a ‘life friendly’ direction.
Origenes: You have misunderstood Pattee’s point. He objects to the origin of life research under unrealistic conditions. He doesn’t say it explicitly, but he seems to regard it as cheating or at best as irrelevant.
But he does, clearly, think that unguided origin of life research should be done. And, if done correctly, has a better chance at figuring out how life arose via unguided processes.
JVL @ 229
No, you have, again, misunderstood. Pattee holds that the origin of life research should be done under abiogenic conditions in order to be relevant (period). Research under unrealistic conditions is cheating and irrelevant but surely has a better chance of being successful. Surely, they would use a sterile seashore if that offers more chances.
Bornagain77: And yet ‘simple life’ remains tantalizing out of reach for all these ‘know way more than you do’ semiotic researchers that you are clinging to. Go figure.
You are too funny. No one is saying they know how life arose via unguided processes. Dr Pattee didn’t say that. I didn’t say that. What I did assert, based on the quotes above, was that Dr Pattee clearly did not support an ID approach. Which is what I’ve been saying for awhile. I don’t know why you can’t acknowledge the truth of that. You prefer to slide the topic sideways a bit and hope no one notices you lost some ground.
Origenes: Pattee holds that the origin of life research should be done under abiogenic conditions in order to be relevant.
I did say “done correctly”. Are you just arguing to have the last word?
Maybe the ID community should figure out how to move ahead without the support of semiotics. That clearly doesn’t seem to be in the cards at this point.
Unfortunately for you and all atheists “agreeing” is not the same as “proving”.
Biosemiologists are closer to truth than darwinists but like darwinists they were brainwashed the same way as darwinists were -so they won’t dare to contest the “unchangeable dogma” of evolution. In science unchangeable means human ideology=false.
Pattee has no better explanation than darwinist about HOW information appeared, but his work (and others biosemiologists’ work) point to design . That is certain.
Bornagain77 writes:
I suspect that they will be able to do so at some point. But that gets us no closer to proving how life originated.
But demanding that scientists prove the unguided OoL by producing life in a lab certainly speaks volumes about the reasoning ability of the ID community. And not in a good way.
Relatd writes:
They will probably continue to do brain-dead experiments like lysing cells and then claiming that this proves ID because they couldn’t reassemble.
JVL, just because Dr. Patee has ‘faith’ that life may someday be explained naturalistically, that does not ‘scientifically’ bolster your case that life will someday actually be explained naturalistically. Not even close.
For that ‘faith’ in a naturalistic OOL you need actual experimental evidence. And, as things sit right now, you simply don’t have the scientific evidence you need to base your naturalistic ‘faith’ on..
To repeat, the more we ‘scientifically’ know about the OOL ‘problem’, the more apparent it becomes that a vastly superior intelligence must be involved in creating life. (see posts 216 and 221)
Even your expert Dr. Patee is against ‘cheating’ in OOL research and suggests using, “sterile seashores with sand, clays, tides, surf and diurnal radiation, hydrothermal vents, etc.” And yet, as Dr. Tour, (a top-ten synthetic chemist in the world), recently demonstrated, even the minuscule steps taken in a ‘life friendly’ direction in current OOL research required ‘massive’ human involvement. i.e. required massive intelligent intervention.
In short JVL, and as far as the scientific evidence itself is concerned, you got less than nothing to base your ‘faith’ on for a naturalistic OOL.
And I haven’t even touched on advances in Quantum Biology yet!
Ford Prefect at 235,
I don’t know where you get your ideas about ID.
https://intelligentdesign.org/articles/molecular-machines-in-the-cell/
FP @234:
Please explain.
Sandy: Unfortunately for you and all atheists “agreeing” is not the same as “proving”.
And what has the ID community ‘proved’ recently?
Biosemiologists are closer to truth than darwinists but like darwinists they were brainwashed the same way as darwinists were -so they won’t dare to contest the “unchangeable dogma” of evolution. In science unchangeable means human ideology=false.
Oh, right (conspiracy theory argument). So, all those semiotic researchers are too stupid to figure out that the implications of their own work supports ID? Or too scared to admit it. Is that your argument? Let me ask you: aside from you wanting that assumption to be true what evidence do you have?
Pattee has no better explanation than darwinist about HOW information appeared, but his work (and others biosemiologists’ work) point to design . That is certain.
Let’s see: I can take the opinion of the biosemiologists who have studied the topics involved for years, decades even. Who have had to support their ideas in the face of their colleagues views (note how Dr Pattee has a significant disagreement with Dr Deacon) all the while. I can take them at their word OR I can buy into your conspiracy theory? What semiotic qualifications do you have? What papers have you published? What courses have you taught? What seminars have you attended? What professional activities in the field have you participated in?
Why should I believe you instead of them?
Bornagain77: just because Dr. Patee has ‘faith’ that life may someday be explained naturalistically, that does not ‘scientifically’ bolster your case that life will someday actually be explained naturalistically. Not even close.
I take it then that you admit I am correct in asserting that no semiotic researcher has said that semiotic research supports an ID view. Thank you. Was that so hard?
For that ‘faith’ in a naturalistic OOL you need actual experimental evidence. And, as things sit right now, you simply don’t have the scientific evidence you need to base your naturalistic ‘faith’ on..
As opposed to holding an ID point of view in which case you don’t need any experimental evidence whatsoever? Just because you choose NOT to keep up on the experimental research doesn’t mean there isn’t any.
To repeat, the more we ‘scientifically’ know about the OOL ‘problem’, the more apparent it becomes that a vastly superior intelligence must be involved in creating life. (see posts 216 and 221)
Uh huh. And yet, hundreds and hundreds of biologists are publishing hundreds and hundreds of papers based on experimental research which supports unguided evolution. Funny that.
Even your expert Dr. Patee is against ‘cheating’ in OOL research and suggests using, “sterile seashores with sand, clays, tides, surf and diurnal radiation, hydrothermal vents, etc.” And yet, as Dr. Tour, (a top-ten synthetic chemist in the world), recently demonstrated, even the minuscule steps taken in a ‘life friendly’ direction in current OOL research required ‘massive’ human involvement. i.e. required massive intelligent intervention.
So, you are willing to die on Dr Tour’s hill? Because why? Because he says so? What academic qualifications do you have for judging whether or not his views are correct? How do you know you’re not just being taken for a ride?
In short JVL, and as far as the scientific evidence itself is concerned, you got less than nothing to base your ‘faith’ on for a naturalistic OOL.
We’ll see.
And I haven’t even touched on advances in Quantum Biology yet!
I’ve had enough of your ‘Gish gallop’ for one day thank you.
Quantum Biology:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.892582/full
JVL, I object for cause to the use of a slander against a decent man, turning his very name into a further accusation. Dr Gish et al won 300+ debates fair and square on evidence that there are systematic gaps in the fossil record so that there are no well documented cases of origin of major body plans by observed incremental steps. That is a serious point, and whatever one may think of his YEC views, it is true that with millions of fossils in museums, billions seen in the ground and 1/4 million fossil species, we still do not have any good case of origin of a main body plan by increments. Indeed, punctuated equilibria was created to suggest why that might be so. Further, it should be obvious that if X poses say 12 key factual claims and Y is able to show that any one of them is ill founded, X has been damaged, so the claim we do not have time to track down and expose every error is patently an excuse; especially as after decades since the debates, the gaps are still there starting with OOL. Meanwhile, it remains clear that there is no cogent answer to the observed pattern of self referential self discredit the OP highlights, and it is also clear that strong emergentism as used, is little more than evasion of causal adequacy. KF
~ JVL discussing the inference of intelligent design with Upright Biped ~
JVL, “you are willing to die on Dr Tour’s hill?”
If you would bother to actually watch the videos by Dr Tour, instead of just hand-waving them off, you will soon see that it is not “Dr Tour’s hill” that is being defended In the videos, it is the chemistry itself that is being defended, and it is the chemistry itself which debunks Dave Farina. Moreover, Dave Farina’s ‘experts’, as far as the chemistry itself is concerned, turned out to agree with Dr Tour on the actual chemistry, not with your atheistic buddy Dave Farina.
In case you ever decide to pull your head out of the sand and honestly question your atheistic worldview, here are the recent videos by Dr Tour again,
@164
It would help to know what Darwin meant by “conviction” here. Fortunately the rest of the letter to Graham tells us. They are discussing Graham’s argument that natural laws indicate a purposive intelligence at work in the universe. Darwin raises some objections. He then says:
As I read this, in one sense, Darwin really was a teleologist, deep down: he had the conviction that the universe is not the result of chance, but was somehow guided by an intelligence. (My reading of Darwin this way is admittedly influenced by The Romantic Conception of Life, which has a fascinating final chapter on how Darwin was influenced by Schelling via Alexander von Humboldt.)
In other words, he is talking about one’s intuitions about the fundamental nature of reality, not one’s reasoned arguments, inferences, warrants, assessments, and so on. That is the target of his “horrid doubt”, and not our cognitive faculties generally.
Origenes writes:
Think about it. I am sure you can figure it out.
JVL writes:
It is interesting that when I type “Gish” into Google the top suggested phrase is “Gish Gallop”. And if you type in “Duane Gish” , the second option is “Duane Gish Gallop”.
FP @246
I have really tried to figure it out, but I cannot come up with anything. So, again, I ask you to explain.
Appeal to authority?
Why in the world would you appeal to authority in science over a subject nobody brought scientific evidences ? Answer: because evolution is faith-based ideology and not science and can survive only by appeal to authority.
Appeal to authority (of Bible, Quran,Vedas,Sutras,etc) is normal in theistic beliefs but in science is the worse thing you can do(instead of showing the scientific evidences that in this case obviously do not exist 😉 ).
FP, piling on on a widespread, intentional slander speaks volumes, not in your favour. We are all aware of how a movement with access can create and push their talk points and themes to message dominance regardless of duty to truth, right reasoning and fairness; especially given the deeply flawed state of defamation law in the US, Wikipedia being a capital example of the problem. We can readily see how the actual balance of evidence is that there are indeed systematic gaps in the fossil record, which is the opposite of what the gradualistic evolutionary narrative has pushed since 1859. Likewise, as Origenes and BA77 just again documented, the existence of complex coded information — explicit coded info known since Crick and Watson, 1953 — in the cell and the nature of the chemical challenge to OoL scenarios are decisively in favour of a design inference. But that’s not how it is pushed by those with message/media dominance. There are many other similar cases and one sees a long term design of not just indoctrination and polarisation but degrading the public understanding and trust in credibility of sources not pushing the policy agenda behind that dominance, regardless of actual balance on merits. The living memory historical antecedents for such, speak for themselves, in ways no sane person would favour: those who ignore, dismiss or suppress the lessons of history doom themselves to repeat its worst chapters. This evident, consistent pattern, clearly undermines genuine reformation and the matrix of cultural buttresses for lawful constitutional democracy. The obvious conclusion is that there is intent to herd us into lawless ideological oligarchy; which is not in the interest of the ordinary person. Such will not end well. KF
PM1, precisely. CRD was playing logic with a swivel, when it is massively evident that Math is as abstract, abstruse and convoluted as philosophy, indeed in its core part, it is an elaboration of the logic of structure and quantity, an aspect of logic of being, aka ontology. Where, logic, even in his day, was finding algebraic, mathematical expression, now modal logic is manifestly algebraic, with S5 as a key example. Of course, Math is inextricably intertwined with science, and there is bite in IIRC Berlinski’s remark that key arguments against God [thus metaphysics] are also arguments against math. Further to such, the epistemology behind modern sense inductive reasoning [especially inference to the best current explanation] is equally part of core philosophy and is intertwined with the metaphysics Darwin was trying to blunt. So, it is entirely in order on doctrine of fair comment to highlight his self referential dilemma. Agenda serving, rhetorically convenient exceptionalism aka selective hyperskepticism is obviously of little substantial merit. On the other horn, the strictures against complex abstract reasoning would also bring his favoured scheme under the same taint of invited inference of delusion or at least dubiousness. And it is commonplace, that intuitions and associated feelings are surface expressions of deep worldview beliefs and thoughts: out of the abundance and overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks and the hand moves, the latter, with force of pen or money or sword. KF
PS, SEP https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/ and Wiki’s confessions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S5_(modal_logic) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_logic
PPS, on further thought, we should also recognise that Darwin was evidently resisting the weight of evidence pointing to design in the world of life.
Origenes [attn FP, JVL & Sandy]: it is manifest that if chemistry was valid 3 – 5 BYA, it is valid today and lab circumstances can test that chemistry. The issues raised on OoL are valid questions and the dismissiveness we see from Tour’s detractors is a backhanded admission that the chemistry does not favour their views. We have not even advanced to the information issues yet. The point is, there is a grinding attritional struggle as a deficient but entrenched school of thought is forced to retreat inch by inch; fighting bitterly — and sometimes ruthlessly — to protect the turf it seized. In the end, this entrenched ideologisation of science will not end well. Compare the fate of leading empires c 1914. If they had settled by 1916, maybe, 1917 – 33 could have been averted. The bitter taste over the management of the pandemic and its consequences, as a key case, is going to have far reaching onward consequences. Blood cries up from the ground. The shaking you feel is a sea change in the trajectory of civilisation as a comfortable, arrogant establishment gradually loses the mandate of heaven, as the Han put it. KF
PS, as a rule no authority is better than underlying facts, logic and assumptions, however 99% of practical argument relies on authority, ranging from dictionaries to authentic record, to the collective voice of authors and teachers. The issue is, validation of authority and trust. Which raises all sorts of issues about selectively hyperskeptical agendas.
PM1,
I think I should add some remarks.
First, the letter, which is not easy to find as there is a problem with the most prominent link, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13230.xml (This is the same letter that coolly predicts genocide.)
Second, in a further letter, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2739/2739-h/2739-h.htm LETTER 307. TO LORD FARRER, it seems Aug 28, 1881, we find:
Here, he definitely applies the same line of thought to cosmological argument, showing that it is of metaphysical-ontological import. He argues to undermine not only intuitions but also the vessel that holds such, the human mind. So, instantly, the issues already raised are highly relevant. And notice, he recognises the matter as unsolved, opining indeed, insoluble. The context of resisting the cumulative force of evidence pointing to design is clear and raises even an echo of say Rom 1:19 – 24..
As for the modern debates, here is Plantinga, replying to challenges:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/11/29/saving-us-from-darwin-an-exchange/
The issue of self referentiality still stands.
KF
In re: 251 and 253,
I really do think you are badly misreading what Darwin is actually saying. He is talking about our most deeply held metaphysical intuitions, not about reasoning or arguments at all.
If one wants to argue that evolutionary theory leads us to cast doubt on the reliability of our capacity to reason our way to warranted conclusions, one cannot find any help from Darwin himself.
Hence I think Plantinga is flatly mistaken in thinking that the naturalist must take Darwin’s “horrid doubt” to apply to all beliefs, including her own belief in naturalism.
(That is not to say that no one ever traced a path from evolutionary theory to global skepticism. I can think of at least one philosopher who did contend that a fully naturalistic explanation of mindedness led to global skepticism, and who fully accepted and embraced the idea that this argument is self-defeating.)
F/N: I should add from Marx, Communist Manifesto, Ch 2:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
This is of course a second case in point of the self referentiality plus agenda serving exception problem.
KF
PM1, he is tracing the imagined discredit of mind and its convictions to ancestry as he imagines. Notice, he does use monkeys. I have every right to draw out that the same claimed ancestry and forces apply to the mind on equally abstract mathematics, epistemology, phil of sci, sci. And as Plantinga highlighted, the root is on his claimed dynamics, mind is about reproductive advantage, so abstract a metaphysical notion and conviction as “truth” is not even on that card. Where, truth is accurate description of reality; which is manifestly metaphysical. No, Darwin’s acidic doubt is not so neatly contained and confined to ideas one is inclined to reject. KF
PS, I note that convictions are strong beliefs or persuasions and that the following definition of intuition is highly relevant
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/intuition
Neither of these precludes reasoning or argument and both are deeply epistemological in character. Indeed, one can see the latter moving from sub conscious synthesis, to epiphany [my favourite is the surf fisherman out on a sand bar in the dead of night having the bolt of lightning insight that the reason why shark attacks were so rare had something to do with how few people were in a similar position to his! But, he continued throwing to the stripers], to questioning, and on to settled conviction, whether formally reasoned out or not, but all would be deeply bound up with our rational faculty. The line you would rule fails.
KF
~ Charles Darwin & self-referential incoherence.
The human mind intuits intelligent design.
But the intuitions of the human mind cannot be trusted because it is developed from animal minds, so we should reject intelligent design.
So, Mr.Graham’s arguments are to be discounted because they are produced by a mind that is developed from animal minds? And … the arguments of Charles Darwin Himself are (somehow) …. not?
Jim Slagle would say this:
PPS, well do I remember the advice that when one gets truly stuck on a geometry problem, take a break, let the unconscious work on it, then allow a flash of insight as you go bike riding or the like. It often worked.
Origenes, PM1 is trying to put a wall of partition between convictions, intuition, reasoning and arguing. This may well reflect romanticism or subjectivism but I do not think it can stand. Where, yes, you are right that if the mind is tainted on alleged ancestry this is self referential and self discrediting. Notice, Marx in his manifesto, about as central an argument as you can get. KF
if one reads comments on this site 17 years ago, ID supporters assumed that sometime in the near future that someone would create life.
So to suggest that the success of OOL researchers had anything to do with ID being true or not is absurd. Synthetic biology was discussed several times here as a source for probable creation of life. ID does not depend on the impossibility of someone creating life. Nor does it depend on the impossibility of finding a natural mechanism for Evolution.
ID does say that life and complex life organisms defy known physical processes and most likely had an origin due to an incredible intelligence.
KF @259
It seems that Darwin’s horrid doubt about the human mind ONLY comes up when things point to intelligent design.
Charles Darwin says that he has an inward conviction that the universe is not the result of chance.
However, on these occasions the horrid doubt “always” comes in handy to suppress such inward convictions:
What is a “conviction” here? Something apart from reasoning? Something for which there are no arguments? I agree with you that such a claim cannot stand.
– – –
edit:
Aside, Darwin questions if there are any convictions in a monkey’s mind, yet he claims that the conviction that the universe is not the result of chance is identical to it (or has been developed from it).
I’m reluctant to get into yet another go-around about Marx or Marxism. All I’ll say (for now) is that it’s trivially easy to accuse Marx of self-referential incoherence if all one reads is the Manifesto, but much harder if one takes the time to actually read the arguments in The German Ideology, Grundrisse, and of course Capital.
With regard to Darwin: it’s rather clear that Darwin maintained that the evolutionary considerations that undermined the reliability of metaphysical intuitions did not affect the reliability of scientific theories. (One can all this “the evolutionary argument for agnosticism”.) One might argue that Darwin was mistaken to think that, and one might even argue that Darwin’s view in this matter was inconsistent with his own naturalism.
One can argue that Darwin was wrong to suggest a partition between metaphysical speculation and empirically grounded scientific theories, but it was by no means inconsistent for him to suggest that there is a partition, based on his own theories about how the human mind might have developed if constrained by natural and sexual selection.
The suggestion that Darwin’s epistemology is self-defeating only works by assigning to him commitments that he explicitly disavows. That is, it would be one thing to argue that Darwin is mistaken to distinguish between metaphysics and science, and therefore his skepticism about metaphysics applies to science as well, including his own. But that does not show that his theories are self-defeating, because one arrives at this conclusion only by relying on a premise that Darwin does not have.
PM1, Marx is simply trying to discredit his critics as class conditioned, but of course HIS reasoning is science. See the scientism, self referentiality problem? Notice, how he extends it to seeing marriage and family as little more than stage of societal evolution myths. I suggest that once one sets out to blanket taint any large cross section as delusional, one invites the self referentiality challenge. For Darwin, we can simply point out the roots of intuitions, epiphanies and convictions; setting aside irrational romanticism or notions of the genius hero whose insights are near infallible. And, when one’s implicit rejection of epistemology through its core philosophy connexions undermines epistemology, it undermines one’s own epistemology also. KF
Origenes, yup. A clue as to what is going on. KF
PM1@ 262
Darwin makes it very clear that he disavows the commitment to apply his skepticism about metaphysics evenly. He is strongly committed to excluding his own naturalistic metaphysics and the naturalistic metaphysics of science. He is strongly committed to applying skepticism (“the horrid doubt”) only when it suits him.
Yes, it does. When his skepticism is applied correctly, that is, without excluding Darwin’s own position, then it turns out to be self-defeating.
Darwin does not rely on the premise that his skepticism applies to his own position, but, here I suggest “go soak your head, Darwin.”
@263
This is (forgive my bluntness) simply not true.
The Communist Manifesto is, among other things, a manifesto. This is a genre of political writing that has the primary aim of getting people rallied behind a specific political program. It is not a work of political philosophy, epistemology, or economic analysis; it is not intended to be a work of careful, painstaking arguments. That’s just not it’s job.
Marx does have arguments for his claims, and if one were to actually study those arguments, one would show that the whole problem of “self-referential incoherence” disappears. Marx is, as a dialectical thinker, committed to a specific version of the law of non-contradiction: he (following Hegel) holds that contradictions do exist, but that they should not exist. His critique of capitalism in the Grundrisse and Capital is that capitalism is necessarily committed to contradictions, which is why (ultimately) capitalism is necessarily irrational.
One can, of course, poke holes in this whole approach and find flaws in it. My point is that there is no self-referential incoherence in how Marx is arguing here: he is claiming to demonstrate that capitalism is irrational and this will necessarily affect any defense of capitalism that one presents. But this only works because Marx is committed to rationalism, and because he assumes that his audience shares that commitment: his goal is to get people to realize that their commitment to capitalism is incompatible with their commitment to rationalism, and therefore join the struggle against capitalism for the sake of a more rational society.
Darwin does not reject epistemology, not even implicitly. His point is an evolutionary argument for agnosticism about the nature of ultimate reality; he suggests that natural selection probably did not produce a capacity to discern the ultimate nature of reality. That argument would undermine both theism and atheism. But it does not undermine science or license global skepticism.
To show that Darwin’s “horrid doubt” undermines science as well as metaphysics, it would be incumbent upon you to show that it is not possible to demarcate between science and metaphysics as Darwin does. But even if you are right, it would not show that Darwin’s theory is self-defeating — it would only show why he was mistaken to believe that it is not.
To show that Darwin’s whole project is self-defeating, it would be necessary to show that Darwin’s very own commitments are at odds with his theories.
But even if you’re right that science and metaphysics cannot be distinguished as Darwin seemed to think, that shows at most that Darwin had the wrong commitments — it does not show that the commitments that he actually had are at odds with themselves.
Showing that a position is self-defeating is actually quite difficult, because one has to be exceedingly careful not to smuggle in one’s own assumptions in the course of interpreting the very position that one is attempting to demonstrate is self-defeating.
(Aside: I’m reading Slagle now, and I’ve found two separate passages in Chapter 4 where his critique of the Churchlands depends on assumptions that are obvious to him but which the Churchlands explicitly reject.)
PM1, on this point he is both self referential and anti civilisational. It would be fair comment to ask pointedly, what radicalised him, and to point out that when the Bolsheviks tried to break the family they soon enough found out it was unworkable. Notice, his ground was, ancestral monkey mind that discredits ability to form sound convictions, where we have good reason to know that our sub conscious is working on what we know and perceive then surfacing the result. It may err but it is not working in ways that are radically different from our other thinking. Indeed, we can interrogate and see why the thought went there, or test the approach and see. Indeed, an example in the linked article is driving on automatic with developed skill. He has used a blunderbuss to rhetorically discredit those he disagrees with and we have every right to point to his own class and movement conditioning. KF
PS, what you assert to dismiss is one thing, what you warrant on evidence is another. The former disrespects the right of innocent reputation, even were your assertion shown to be correct.
PM1@
I too am in favor of a partition between purely metaphysical speculations like …
… and an empirically grounded scientific theory like: “F=MxA”
PM1 @254
Plantinga does not need any help from Darwin in this regard. It may very well be the case that Darwin lacked the ability to understand the implications of his theory WRT beliefs and reasoning. That is not Plantinga’s concern.
That does not follow. It is not the case that Plantinga cannot make his argument because Darwin was a selective skeptic, wasn’t forthright, and/or failed to understand some of the entailments of his theory.
I think you make things too personal. It isn’t about Darwin and it is not about the Churchlands. Their explicit rejection of something can be in complete contradiction to the position they usually defend. Slagle discusses, among other things, eliminative physicalism. He is no psychologist, he does not care about the Churchlands at all. He does not write about the Churchlands other than in the context of physicalism. The focus is on physicalism, The Churchlands and everyone else, take the third row. In my view, it makes perfect sense for Jim Slagle to ignore contradictory statements by any of the proponents of physicalism.
@269
Fair enough — we can take “Darwin’s Doubt” as a mere rhetorical hook on Plantinga’s part, and not allow anything about Plantinga to depend on his reading of Darwin.
That would still allow us to pose the two-fold question: given that Darwin is implicitly committed to both an evolutionary argument for agnosticism and to promoting the growth and development of scientific knowledge, what must the mind be like in order to prevent agnosticism from spirally into global skepticism? And is that account of the mind consistent with the general thesis that the mind has been predominantly shaped by the biological need for coping with environmental complexity?
My point is that the Churchlands’s statements are not contradictory. He thinks they are because of his own philosophical assumptions, which they do not share.
Two quick examples might help illustrate my point.
1. Slagle thinks that eliminative materialism undermines rationality and logic just because it proposes replacing folk psychology with neuroscience. But this assumes that there is some deep connection between rationality and folk psychology, so that jettisoning the latter means jettisoning the former. This ignores the possibility of reframing the entire project of rationality itself in neuroscientific terms, which is exactly what Paul Churchland does; cf the last chapter of Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind.
2. Slagle dismisses the comparison between folk psychology and vitalism on the grounds that vitalism is an interpretation of biological phenomena, whereas folk psychology is not an interpretation of mental phenomena but the very phenomena themselves. The Churchlands would deny this: part of their whole project is that folk psychology really is just a conceptual framework that we use to interpret ourselves and others — one that we learn how to use so early in childhood that as adults it doesn’t feel like an interpretation.
Maybe Slagle doesn’t care about what the Churchlands, or Rorty, or Feyerabend, or anyone else has said. If he wants to attack a straw man of his own devising, that’s fine with me.
PM1@ Slagle & Pantinga on Beliefs & Darwinistic evolution
Look what Slagle and Plantinga are doing here. They note that “Darwin himself seemed to recognize that there is a disconnect between our brains being merely the product of evolution and our beliefs (“convictions”) being mostly true”, and move on. That Darwin seemed to be aware of it is just an aside, it is not at all required for Darwin to recognize the disconnect to make the argument.
@271
This is simply not true, because by “convictions” Darwin clearly does not mean all beliefs: he is referring to a specific class of beliefs.
In fact, though I don’t think Plantinga or Slagle realize this, it is relatively straightforward to use contemporary evolutionary theory to bolster Darwin’s original hunch. This is because in one sense (though not one that Plantinga or Slagle seem to appreciate) Darwin really did have an evolutionary argument against naturalism!
To see this, let us take “naturalism” to be synonymous with atheism, just as Plantinga insists: naturalism holds that there does not exist any such being as God, as defined by classical theism.
Atheism, like theism, is not just any old belief: it is a specific kind of belief. It is a claim about the fundamental, ultimate explanation for how and why the universe is the way it is. As such it is a claim that by its very nature goes beyond what any possible empirical science could establish.
To be justified in staking out a position in this domain, regardless of whether it is for or against either theism or atheism, requires that we have sufficient epistemic powers for even so much as addressing this problematic.
Now, is it reasonable for us to attribute such epistemic powers to ourselves, if our epistemic powers have been shaped by millions of years of biological evolution and millennia of cultural evolution?
Suppose one were to begin with Peter Godfrey-Smith’s thesis, in his Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature, that the function of biological cognition is to allow the organism to cope with environmental complexity. Suppose we were to adopt a version of informational teleosemantics according to which the proper function of brains is to exploit perceptually detectable regularities in order to control behavior. And suppose further that we adopt a version of neurocomputationalism according to which brains do this primarily by correlating information coming from multiple sensory transducers and mapping it onto multiple muscle effectors.
If we think about biological cognition in these general terms, we could then flesh out some additional story about what makes human cognition distinct (Sterelny)
and use that account to explain how it is that we are able to do science (Rouse). The upshot is an account of our ability to do science that is based upon a theory of biological cognition.
Nevertheless, what we will not find in such an account is anything suggesting that our biological and cultural history has equipped us with the specific kinds of epistemic powers necessary for taking up a warranted position with regard to the ultimate explanation of the universe.
But since naturalism in Plantinga’s sense is a position about the ultimate explanation of the universe — namely atheism — then what we have really is an evolutionary argument against naturalism, just because it is an evolutionary argument for agnosticism and hence an evolutionary argument against both naturalism and theism.
PM1@
Again, my point is that it is of no consequence what Darwin meant. Darwin is not going to decide that evolution selects for true beliefs only. Darwin may claim that it does, but Plantinga and Slagle won’t take his word for it. We are going to decide what evolution selects for, based on our own arguments.
@273
Hopefully also based on a contemporary understanding of evolutionary theory and cognitive science, and not just some armchair speculations.
PM1 @ Sometimes logic and sound reasoning are all you need to get to the truth.
PM1, just as an example, a little while ago I woke up after a dream, pondering simple educational robots, having spent time yesterday on WA with my former HOD with whom I am collaborating. Surely, dreams — ah yes, so suspect in the Modern West! [but in traditional cultures, so important and in the Bible (shudder), one way for God to get our attention . . . ] — are monkey minds at work, on Darwin’s principles! The dream triggered a memory from years ago about a YT vid on ultra simple education robots for Raspberry Pi. I decided to look at YT, and ran across a simple kit. I tried the usual suspects for supplies, no luck. Then I noticed a search term, robot chassis. Bingo, multiple hits on good possibilities for the simple devices I want. All of this accords well with the Psychology Today web article in 256, on intuition, which you sidestepped above: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/intuition KF
PS, PT on intuition, again:
As I noted already, “Neither of these precludes reasoning or argument and both are deeply epistemological in character. Indeed, one can see the latter moving from sub conscious synthesis, to epiphany [my favourite is the surf fisherman out on a sand bar in the dead of night having the bolt of lightning insight that the reason why shark attacks were so rare had something to do with how few people were in a similar position to his! But, he continued throwing to the stripers], to questioning, and on to settled conviction, whether formally reasoned out or not, but all would be deeply bound up with our rational faculty. The line you would rule fails.”
PPS, I had earlier bought a more complex kit that would be suitable for demonstration but not for work in pairs type lab exercises. What a difference a search term makes. A lesson for future search.
PPPS, I think, Darwin’s intuition was a nagging feeling that sounds suspiciously like the voice of conscience saying nope, there is adequate evidence of design [as your co-founder Wallace is arguing . . . ], you have duties of cultural leadership. That in the very same letter he turns to prediction of genocide, echoing his chs 5 – 7 in Descent of Man, itself speaks.
Origenes, you are on to something. As I just commented to PM1, we have something substantial on the table about intuitions, gut feelings, nagging pangs of conscience, — and even dreams! — etc. We have an unconscious mind, which can and does process our collected experiences and memories, the collective voice of teachers and authors, knowledge, possible alternatives etc. Sometimes, we have epiphanies like a surf fisherman in the dead of night on a sandbar suddenly realising that risk for a sub population may make nonsense of an average risk calculation and the usual conventional, comforting average statistic. [This BTW specifically opens up a differential Bayesian analysis tied to such differences, which should have been heeded in the pandemic and in how HIV/AIDS has been managed, or tobacco smoking etc.] Sometimes, there is the nagging inner voice of conscience . . . speaking as the Ciceronian law of moral prudence . . . that we need to reconsider. These can turn into convictions or pangs of guilt etc. Or, in my days of struggling with fiendish Geometry and Calculus Mechanics exercises or integration exercises, resting for a short while can trigger fresh insights. All of these are fairly high level abstractions, some of them go straight to logic of being and wider metaphysics, they are “a form of knowledge [–> or, at least insight] that appears in consciousness without obvious deliberation.” But by direct contrast to the lingering notions of Romanticism, they are not opposed to reason or to more conscious, deliberate analysis. Indeed, such trained intuitions can feed our speech, writing, driving of vehicles and more. And with this, PM’s wedge evaporates, no, intuitions, convictions, pangs of conscience, gut feelings, subtle judgements, impulses [that temptation to give a cutting reply when provoked . . . ] etc are part of the warp and woof of our experience as responsible, rational significantly free thinkers. So, Darwin’s selectively hyperskeptical monkey brains argument was and is a fallacy, one with of course, self-referential, self discrediting impact. KF
PM1, I remind you of the bane of any species of computationalism. GIGO. Garbage in, garbage [or, sometimes, ‘gospel’] out. Computation is not rational, responsible, free contemplation, judgement and decision, it is a programmed, dynamic-stochastic process pivoting on quality of organisation and information coming from designers and programmers. This is obvious with digital machines such as the Pentium with its mathematical error that hit the headlines. It is present with analogue, ball and disk or Op Amp circuit computers or something like a slide rule. It is present with summing and threshold gate, neural networks with weighted sum inputs [cf memristor arrays here]. Where, given fine tuning based islands of function patterns [even a toilet tank’s flapper valve is fine tuned, next time you flush], blind, needle in haystack search is not a credible organiser or programmer. But then, ever so many have been indoctrinated to resist design inferences on tested reliable sign. I suggest, reconsideration is indicated, it is time to stop refusing to look through Galileo’s telescope at Jupiter. KF
@275
I very much doubt that. Logic and sound reasoning are tests for incompatibility: if someone believes that Mercury is closer to the Sun than Mars, then they should not believe that Mars is closer to the Sun than Mercury, etc, because (in general) one ought to avoid holding beliefs that are incompatible with each other.
This is why “one person’s modus ponens is another person’s modus tollens“: both inference rules are saying that the p –> q, p, and q are incompatible, hence one should not endorse all three of them. But once you see it that way, it becomes clear that neither inference rule can tell you which of the three ought to be rejected.
Because logic and reasoning can only indicate incompatibility and compatibility, they can at most tell us what must be the case and what cannot be the case. They cannot tell us what actually is the case.
I’m on chapter 5 of The Epistemological Skyhook. At this point I’m reading it “here’s an argument that could be applied to some philosophical positions, regardless of whether or not anyone has actually held those positions.”
KF @
This sentence keeps running around in my mind. I’m struggling to find the correct terms and concepts. We cannot really say that the organization of a system is “invisible”, can we? Yet I understand what you mean when you say “invisible.” It is not something tangible. It is the “whole” somehow. It is not a distinct “part” that can be separated and set aside. Or can it be separated and is this what “information” is? Conversely, is organization information made “visible”? Instantiated information?
Perhaps it is correct to say that organization is the “form” of a system or part of the form (form … “information”). The organization is distinct because it is in need of an explanation external to the system, and yet an inseparable aspect of the system.
Just thinking out loud here ….
@276
I ignored it because it is not relevant to how I was using the term “intuition”.
@277
This is just not true, for the reasons I laid out in my 272. Darwin had good reasons for not thinking that his evolutionary argument for agnosticism led to global skepticism, and the same is true of contemporary naturalists who adopt a biological theory of cognition. There is no fallacy.
@278
True, but this would be relevant to my point only if I did not have an account of the representational contents on which computational processes are performed. Teleosemantics is that account. Piccinini puts them together here.
In any event, neurocomputational processes performed over neurorepresentational contents is a general model of what animal brains are doing — it is not an account of rationality per se. With regard to reasoning, I endorse the kind of social account that Laden develops, and which dovetails nicely with lots of work by Sterelny, Tomasello, and Heinrich on selection for cooperation in hominid evolution.
Sample of illogic
in my world, what must be the case actually is the case.
Maybe this should be a clue to everything else proclaimed.
what theory?
I didn’t know there was one and I have been reading about Evolution for 25 years.
Aside: as I typed the previous sentence Apple suggested words and I used them to type all but 3 words. A chatbot at work.
one of the more stupid statements ever made.
@282
But not conversely: not everything that actually is the case, must be the case. Logic cannot tell us anything interesting about contingent truths.
@282
Really? Ok then: give us an example of a contingent truth — something that is true but not necessarily true — that you know by logic alone.
the game keeps changing.
What was said
Logic can tell us many things about what is true so use of word “anything” is definitely nonsense.
This was made more absurd by adding word “interesting.”
P => Q => not Q => not P
Hate to break it to you but that is logic and it tells one something about contingent truths. It’s how we find out how to get along in world. By what isn’t true. It’s essentially how science works and how ID works.
Sometimes enough logic will isolate what must be true by pointing to what cannot be true. Such as Spinoza is nonsense and so is eternal universes. So look elsewhere.
@285
The inference schema modus tollens:
is logically valid always, under all conditions, regardless of the values for P and Q. It is a necessary truth, not a contingent truth.
Essentially another stupid statement.
Can you read? Yes what you said is true but this process leads to the truth of contingent statements.
If something must be one of three or some finite number of possibilities and all but one are false then logic says the one must be true.
Maybe you should disqualify yourself from commenting and just ask questions till you have a basic understanding of how things work.
Aside: ID is based on logic. Essentially ID shows that certain explanations cannot be true so ID gains credibility because it hasn’t been eliminated. It is still standing while other explanations have been eliminated and are false.
Will ID be proved logically? No but it will be shown highly credible while all proposed alternatives are false.
In other words:
is logically valid for all values of P, Q, and R, and therefore is a necessary truth, not a contingent truth.
Do you have reading comprehension issues as well?
Truth is a very blurry thing. There are usually hundreds of possibilities. What logic does is eliminate lots of alternatives and as Sherlock Holmes said
not necessarily QED but how life works.
Aside: you have been a pretty good foil.
Aside2: we are meant to have doubt. If everything was QED, we would be automatons. So doubt is the key concept to keep in mind. Without it, life would be meaningless. Logic helps us navigate through the doubt. To find the truth.
Logic cannot tell you which alternatives to eliminate. It can only tell you that if all but one alternative is eliminated, then the remaining alternative must be true. The reasons for eliminating the alternatives must come from evidence gathered from how the world actually is. Logic cannot help you there.
Another incredibly stupid statement.
Logic is applied to the evidence and the gathering of evidence. That is what science is mainly about. Evidence accumulates and is accepted through logical processes.
You have revealed your true intentions. You are not interested in truth but only in showing something inconsequential wrong, trying to find nits to object to. In the process one keeps digging themselves deeper into a hole. UD has been filled with similar commenters for years.
No one who exhibits such behavior has ever contributed to finding the truth. Why? Because it’s not their objective.
I’ve been using the word logic to mean deductive logic, because that’s how philosophers today use the word. Sorry that wasn’t obvious.
PM1, you do not get to define intuition as you please. It is an experience of life, has been drawn out by the psychologists based on their investigations and is used to analyse things like decision making. So in effect you have conceded the point. KF
PS, logic does not mean just deductive logic. That has never been the case, there has always been a major aspect dealing with argument by support, induction. It is harder to reduce to neat algebras and has been subject to disputes, but that is true of just about any philosophical topic.
Origenes, my context first gives the example of lubricants. While strictly visible in certain cases, they are a key to the functioning of machinery that is not obvious; what is that slippery, sticky yet slimy and often smelly stuff? Take it out and things grind to a halt, maybe literally. Where, once, sperm whale oil did miracles (and modern transmission fluids were created as a substitute, yes whale oil was used in automatic transmissions not just watches and Maxim guns.) As to information, it is an intangible. Parts are visible, we infer the requisites of functional organisation and that it is informational. KF
Truth. I am convinced that you must be right. Our explicit conscious reasoning is assisted in more ways than we can count. Perhaps you remember the ‘plate-spinning’ act on tv? Remember a guy running back and forth to keep all the plates on sticks spinning? Anyway, it seems to me that our mind would be in a similar state without the massive assistance it gets from something that appears to encompass more than ‘intuition’ alone. I would argue, that without that assistance, we would not be able to talk or think at all.
@293
I don’t have the right to insist that everyone use “intuition” as I do, but I do have the right to stipulate a specific definition of “intuition” for the express purpose of explicating what Darwin meant by his use of the word “conviction,” which is what we were discussing.
In general, that’s quite true. However, in the context of my discussion with Origenes, I think I was justified in thinking that the word “logic” was being used to mean deductive logic. Recall that Origenes said that “logic and sound reasoning” were sufficient to assess Slagle’s criticism of naturalism, which was their response to my query as to whether any knowledge of evolutionary theory and cognitive science were relevant to that assessment.
If Origenes had intended to include inductive and abductive reasoning, then it would not have made any sense for them to dismiss my suggestion that evolutionary theory and cognitive science were relevant to assessing Slagle, since those sciences are based on inductive and abductive reasoning about what organisms are, how they cope with their environments, and what we can say about the biological function of cognition.
Finally, and trying to get back on track here: my point here is that a biological theory of cognition actually does show why and how cognition is generally reliable, and that the EAAN as Plantinga intended it fails. There is a nearby cousin, what I call “the true EAAN,” which succeeds — precisely by showing that a biological theory of cognition entails agnosticism about God, but it does not license skepticism about empirical knowledge generally.
Hence naturalism of a specific kind is not self-defeating.
Interesting enough, there is a specific kind of naturalism that is defeated by the EAAN: Spinozism. And this is because a biological approach to cognition (along the lines of Dewey, Dretske, Millikan, Godfrey-Smith, Sterelny, Neander, etc.) would seem to indicate that we do not have the epistemic power that Spinoza calls “the intellect”, which in turn is the basis for his a priori metaphysical naturalism.
In other words, a biological approach to cognition does not undermine metaphysical naturalism as a synthesis of the sciences, but it very well may undermine metaphysical naturalism as wholly a priori speculation.
PM1, Darwin spoke to our convictions and intuitions. Psychologists subsequently elucidated how our intuitions work. These, presumably, attach to our convictions and lead to the inference that Darwin was fighting to suppress what the little voice fed by the body of his experiences etc was telling him. Worse, he did not then and does not now have a viable mechanism for his descent with modification to body plans level. He proceeded to assert a general claim about the discredit of jumped up monkey minds. He hoped he could firewall off what he wished to reject while retaining what he wished to keep, but there is no firewall in our descent and there is a similar level of complexity, abstractness etc, with a similar base in observation. The verdict is clear, selective hyperskepticism, fail. Self referential special pleading, fail. And more. KF
@297
Sure, if you say so.
Gorden Hawkes on Haldane:
To act in accordance with the principles of logic is, obviously, not the same as acting from the principles of logic. I hold that Haldane had the latter in mind. Some thoughts:
The fermions and bosons that make up a computer operate in accord with the principles of logic, due to FSCO/I that forces the parts to act that way, despite their tendency to ignore such. Just like water that flows in accord with irrigating farmland, the non-logical actions of fermions and bosons are channeled by the organization (code included) such that at some level they are in accord with the principles of logic.
So,.what a computer does is “replicate valid reasoning”, as Lowe would say. The fermions and bosons involved do not act because of it, and therefore do not constitute it. Immaterial FSCO/I constitutes it.
Like a stereo set playing a love song is not sentient, a computer running a program is not logical.
The accordance with logic is derived from FSCO/I only. What is derivative does not stem, and does not belong to the computer, it is essentially not a part of the matter that makes up the computer.
When someone applies the principles of logic in his reasoning because he is compelled to do so by something beyond his control, as opposed to because he understands them and underwrites them, then someone does not understand logical reasoning. And as a consequence, he does not understand anything, or very little.
‘The Chinese room’ by Searle makes essentially the same point: there is no understanding possible. The goings on in a computer are in accord with logical reasoning, yet it is not logical reasoning and therefore it cannot lead to understanding.
So, if materialism is true, and we are organized matter like computers are, then what we do is not logical reasoning. What we do may be in accord with logical reasoning, if evolution organized us correctly, but that is irrelevant. What we do does not come from us, is derivative, and therefore it cannot lead to understanding.
So, if materialism is true, and we are organized matter like computers are, we do not understand anything.
1. If materialism is true, we are organized matter, like computers are.
2. Computers act in accord with logic, compelled by FSCO/I, coming from an external source.
3. The fermions and bosons that make up the computer do not understand logic.
4. Applying logic without understanding it, cannot lead to understanding.
5. If materialism is true, we do not understand anything.
~ follow-up #299 ~
On the problem of explaining reason naturalistically, Nagel writes:
Two additional Nagel quotes:
Stewart Goetz simply puts it like this:
Matter does not reason. If we are matter, we do not reason. Naturalism is self-defeating.
There are several ways to make the argument that matter does not reason. For instance, the argument from logical principles argues that logical principles are abstract entities, and are therefore not available to matter.
Personally, I prefer to point out that matter is literally not into reasoning. It has simply no natural tendency to do it. It can be compelled to act in accord with it by means of organization (computer), but it won’t even know it. Reasoning is alien to matter (see #299).
KF @, PM1
What Hasker writes about emergentism confirms your assessment:
If the FSCO/I involved cannot be explained by naturalism, and indeed it cannot, then emergentism depends on a non-naturalistic element. Therefore emergentism is not a naturalistic hypothesis.
Welcome to the ID movement, PM1.
Origenes, no, the computer does not implement or even replicate reasoning, which requires freedom to evaluate, judge, decide etc. It is a glorified calculator. As the globally notorious 1994 Pentium FDIV bug shows [then there was the 1997 F00F processor lockup bug], if the designers get their logic wrong — THEIR logic, not “logic” — the processor ALU will blindly, mechanically grind out the error. Then, when software is added, the rule is GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. Sadly, many will take that as ‘gospel’ out. So, no, if indeed Haldane was led to think computers were a valid answer, he was misled. Worse, this is actually yet another instance of scientism, the computer being a capital case of automated, mechanised sci-tech. KF
KF @
My mentioning of Lowe came from this:
I think that with “replicate valid reasoning” Lowe meant to say that, under determinism, a person can at most mimic reasoning—without understanding, not produce the real thing.
GIGO supports my claim of the total absence of understanding in the system (what you call ‘blind and mechanical’), which I argue in #299.
@299
It’s worth a moment’s notice that Haldane’s argument against materialism is from his 1927 essay “When I Am Dead”. A year later Haldane traveled to the Soviet Union and by 1937 he announced that he was a committed Marxist (though he left the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1950). And he regarded himself during this time as a dialectical materialist.
So either he realized that his argument against materialism was mistaken, or he had ceased to be a rational agent by his own standards.
As for this:
This argument is not logically valid.
To see why, consider the following inference scheme:
In other words, just because computers and people are organized matter, and computers lack understanding, it does not follow that people lack understanding.
What you would need is something more like this:
This is a logically valid argument, and it would be a decisive argument against the naturalist if she were committed to all of the premises. But the naturalist can simply reject (1): there is nothing in naturalism which commits her to the view that computers are the only kinds of organized matter that can act according to logical rules.
@300
Nagel is an intriguing and ambiguous figure here. I do not share his view that reason involves a transcendence of biology, since I find “reason” to be a worrisome reification of the process of reasoning, which is something that we do.
That aside, I actually quite agree with Nagel’s speculation that there might be an immanent teleological principle at work in the universe that biases it the universe towards the emergence of life and consciousness. This was the view of the German Idealist Friedrich Schelling, and also that of Charles S. Peirce (who called it “evolutionary love”), and Hans Jonas, and Stuart Kauffman (who calls it “the fourth law of thermodynamics), and also of course that of Terrence Deacon.
To the extent that Nagel is willing to take seriously the idea that there is an immanent teleological principle in the universe that biases it towards the strong emergence of life and of sentience, then Nagel and I are on the same side. As far as that goes, the main difference between Nagel and myself is that I think current developments in theoretical biology make this speculation somewhat less of a promissory note and somewhat closer to the gold standard of scientific inquiry.
@301
Sure, if I regarded FSCO/I as a useful concept to begin with. I think that one of the mistakes in the ID movement is to reify information — to treat information as having a definite ontological existence, or what Dembski now calls “informational realism”. I think that’s a mistake. I take Norbert Wiener’s line that information is pattern, organization, structure. But organizations, patterns, structures are wholly immanent to the material, physical universe and do not need a transcendent cause.
~Follow up #303~
Once more a comment on Lowe:
Under determinism the movement of the mind is derivative. The movement originates from [is derived from] an external source. Even if we grant that this derived movement is in accord with valid reasoning, it “cannot constitute it”, that is, the movement does not originate from the understanding of the person. The person is not rationally involved in the process.
PM1, once one reduces to computation on a substrate, one is in a GIGO limited dynamic stochastic frame of blind mechanism and/or stochastic/chance behaviour. This is inherently, inescapably non rational. Usually, one projects to others and somehow exempts oneself or one’s ideology but the self referentiality is clear. KF
PS, Biographical details of Mr Haldane are interesting but do not undercut the point, as people do not fit into neat categories and are often — sometimes, commendably — inconsistent. For example ponder his response to the Lysenkoism that was pushed in Russia from 1928, with Stalin’s approval in 1935 with all that that implied as the era of purges dawned.
PPS, as for FSCO/I it is as commonplace as the text in your objections, the glasses you may be wearing, the computer or similar device you may be using, the Internet, and of course D/RNA, the cellular metabolism network in your body’s cells, our in common human body plan, or even a common nut and bolt. Denial and/or dismissiveness regarding its ubiquitous reality and relevance as an information rich phenomenon only means, denial of manifest reality; probably ideologically influenced. And, it needs to be adequately causally explained: Orgel-Wicken functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information [cf. Wicken’s wiring diagram].
@306
I’ve already made it abundantly clear how I see a biological theory of cognition as avoiding the GIGO problem, and I’ve grown weary of repeating myself.
PM1, it does not and cannot rise above its constituting inputs. You have been using strong emergence as a euphemism for something from nothing. KF
PM1@
Let’s have a look then:
Mark Johson on Dewey
What does this have to do with the (insurmountable) GIGO problem that Kairosfocus brings up for every material concept of cognition/reasoning/understanding? Dewey bases his alleged “naturalistic” model of cognition on biology, anthropology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, and linguistics. IOW his supposedly “naturalistic” model of cognition is based on a bunch of stuff for which there is no naturalistic explanation.
In what way does this naturalist (who does not like reductionism) avoid the GIGO problem for materialism?
Emergence is not ‘something from nothing’. Emergent properties are novel causal powers, but not a new entity that came into existence ex nihilo.
In any event, strong emergence features in my solution to the GIGO problem only insofar as the starting-point for a biological theory of cognition is a theory of organisms in their environmental contexts. Neural computation — a theory of neural functioning — avoids the GIGO problem precisely because neural computations map sensory representations to motor representations. There would be a GIGO problem at the neural computational level if there were no sensory or motor representations, or if those representations were not causally entangled with the ongoing dynamical processes of environments and bodies.
Oh, you discovered Johnson on Dewey! Dewey is one of my all-time favorite philosophers, and Mark Johnson’s work on Dewey is pretty good. (I prefer Godfrey-Smith, when it comes to Dewey’s theory of cognition.)
As for your question: well, of course I think it’s an unfair burden on the naturalist to insist that they’re not entitled to naturalism until they’ve solved the problem of abiogenesis. But, we’ve been conversing long enough that I do understand why you think this is a reasonable expectation.
Dewey’s approach to cognition counts as naturalistic in the following sense: it is methodologically naturalistic, in that it takes the empirically constrained biological and psychological sciences as the ‘raw material’ on which the philosopher works, generalizing, abstracting, synthesizing, and bringing the sciences into close contact with the humanities.
That’s consistent, I think, with something that Denis Walsh calls “methodological vitalism”. By this, he means that biologists and biophilosophers should do their research as if there is something ontologically distinct about life, and thereby avoid the organism=machine metaphor and its many corollaries (the brain=computer metaphor being one of them). A methodological vitalist may choose to hold out hope that strong emergence will be found workable, or that a wholly naturalistic explanation of abiogenesis may some day be found. But until that time comes (if it ever does), there’s no reason why we should not continue to make what progress can be done on a biological theory of cognition, reasoning, ethics, etc.
As for myself, I’m going to continue to read and think about the biology of cognition and its implications, without worrying too much about abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is absolutely fascinating, for sure, and if I could go back in time and begin college all over again, maybe that’s a field I would have gone into. Is abiogenesis the stumbling block to a fully satisfactory metaphysical naturalism? Well, it’s definitely one of them.
PM1 @310
With Dewey we are way beyond the matter of unexplained abiogenesis, his starting point is way beyond bacteria, instead, he bases his alleged “naturalistic” model of cognition on a host of other things which also lack a naturalistic explanation: biology, anthropology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, and linguistics.
That is fine, but I would appreciate the removal of the ridiculous label “naturalistic.”
Dewey’s concept is irrelevant to the fundamental claim that matter is not into reasoning. Only when FSCO/I constrains/channels the actions of matter, as with a computer, it may act in accordance with reasoning. But even then it is not reasoning, there is no understanding, as is illustrated by the GIGO problem.
The other day, in the context of defining metaphysical naturalism, the resolute rejection of “supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.” came up. Only now do I understand the ugly consequences and the underlying design. The rejection is echoed here:
The rejection of the supernatural and religious notions is a pretext for naturalism to annex everything else by default! For instance, psychology, social sciences, and linguistics are all purely “natural.”
The gain here for naturalism is two-fold:
1. Religion is painted as some fringe practice.
2. An immediate alleviation of the pressure to justify metaphysical materialism and come up with reductionist explanations.
“… he took great care to avoid the reductionist tendencies that limit the explanatory scope of certain sciences”. Yeah, right, I am sure Dewey did just that.
@312
You are correct to this extent: for Dewey, the social and biological sciences count as “naturalistic” insofar as he eschews all ‘supernatural’ concepts. He thinks that the sciences should be committed to an expansive methodological naturalism — at any rate, expansive enough to allow the Society for Psychical Research to make the best case they can.
That said, I would like to make two points about how Dewey is being portrayed here.
1. Dewey very clearly positioned himself as a naturalist, not a materialist (see here). As he sees it, naturalism is the commitment to the view that reliable knowledge is publicly verifiable knowledge. This does not entail that the naturalist must dismiss the mystic’s experience of God; it entails only that the testimony of the mystic is acceptable as knowledge only if what she says could be verified by others. He explicitly distances himself from the kind of materialism that says that pains are ‘nothing but’ synaptic firings or that colors are ‘nothing but’ electromagnetic frequencies.
2. Dewey thought that a distinction could be made between “the religious attitude” and any specific claims about “the supernatural.” He thought that the religious attitude is supremely important in human life. But he also thought that it was possible and desirable to transpose (as it were) the religious attitude from the supernatural to the natural. He was one of the original signers of the first Humanist Manifesto (though he did not play any important role in writing it).
I do not think that a religious humanist can be fairly described as being antagonistic towards religion, but only antagonistic towards the assumption that religions necessarily involve assent to claims that purport to be knowledge of the supernatural.
Here, in effect, Dewey incoherently tries to distance himself from what is, in fact, an inseparable ‘mystical’ aspect of all knowledge: consciousness. How do others verify your personal experience of self-awareness? How do others verify the existence of your “I” that is accessible by no one but you? There is no “publicly verifiable knowledge” available for your innermost personal experience of “I” Under Dewey’s rules, should we discard your testimony of your “I” as the “testimony of the mystic” that cannot be accepted as “knowledge” because it cannot be “verified by others”?
@314
The nuance here depends on getting right the distinction between experience and knowledge. Dewey can happily allow for statements about one’s personal experience that are meaningful, but which don’t count as knowledge. He’d have no objections to “I had this really intense dream last night” or “wow, it’s so cold in here!” as expressions of how one is experiencing the world. Those just wouldn’t count as knowledge, by his standards. Dewey wrote a lot about aesthetics, about enjoyment, art, beauty, creativity — these things really mattered to him, they just didn’t count as knowledge. That doesn’t make them any less important or valuable.
PM1 @315
Perhaps I was being unclear. I am not talking about intense dreams. My point is that Dewey’s epistemology does not take into account that the rational free person, consciousness, is inseparably at the very foundation of knowledge.
Dewey suggests that knowledge must be based on things that are publicly verifiable, meanwhile, the very thing that forms knowledge, judges knowledge, holds knowledge, and grounds the very existence of all knowledge is not publicly verifiable: consciousness — the free rational person.
But ignoring the elephant in the room is not a problem, because we can naturalize agent causality by studying microbes…
Do you see the problem with this?
Dewey would be deeply suspicious of the very idea that knowledge needs to be “grounded” or that it has a “foundation”.
If the claim is that all knowledge requires a knower as well as a known, then Dewey would not object. But he would not identify the knower with some private inner sanctum of consciousness, immediately and unproblematically given to the ego.
The knower is the embodied agent herself, a being that senses and acts in the world, a being with language, culture, tradition, and worldview — all of which involve a hugely complicated causal nexus involving other people and a world shared with them, and all of which are publicly verifiable.
So Dewey would accept that a cognitive agent, a knower, must be free and rational — but he would insist that the cognitive agent is the embodied enculturated person, and not the private, ineffable consciousness of the embodied person. That leads to what he calls “the spectator theory of knowledge”, which he considers a drastic mistake.
Worthless