>>ALL morals that we have, regardless of the source, regardless of whether they are objective or subjective, are filtered through humans. As such, we can never be absolutely sure that they are free from error. All of your “moral governance”, “reasoning and responsibility“, “self referential”, “IS-OUGHT” talking points are just that. Talking points. They are not arguments against what I have said about the fact that ALL purported moral actions are open to be questioned. Unless, of course, you suggest that we shouldn’t use the reasoning capabilities that we were given. >>
This is of course reflective of common views and agendas in our civilisation and so it is appropriate to reply, taking time to address key issues at worldviews level:
KF, 32: >>Pardon, but it is now further evident that you have not seen the significance of self-evident truth in general.
Could you be in error that you are conscious?
If so, what is there that is aware to regard the possibility of error? (And this is about the bare fact of consciousness, you could be a brain in a vat manipulated by electrified probes to imagine yourself a man in the world and you would still be undeniably certain of the bare fact of your own consciousness.)
Speaking of, that error exists is also undeniably true. Let E be that claim, then put up the attempted denial ~E. In other words ~E means it is an error to say that error exists. So, E is undeniable.
2 + 3 = 5 is also self-evident and undeniable:
|| + ||| –> |||||
In general, SET’s are truths that — once we are able to understand i/l/o our experience of the world — are seen to be so, and to be necessarily so on pain of patent absurdity on the attempted denial.
Such lie at the heart of rationality, through the manifest fact of distinct identity. Take some distinct A like a bright red ball on a table, so the world W is:
W = {A|~A}
From this world partition, we instantly see that A is itself, and no x can be (A AND ~A), also that any x is (A X-OR ~A). That is, from distinct identity, the three first principles of right reason are immediately present: Laws of Identity, Non-Contradiction and Excluded Middle.
Likewise from distinct identity two-ness is a direct corollary and from that the natural counting numbers and much of the logic of structure and quantity follows — i.e. Mathematics (which is NOT primarily an empirical discipline). As a start, I use the von Neumann construction:
Much more can be said, but the above is sufficient to show that there are literally infinitely many things that we may know with utter certainty, starting from a few that are self-evident. But also, such SET’s are insufficient to construct a worldview; they serve as plumbline tests for worldviews.
In particular, that something like E is knowable to utter certainty on pain of patent absurdity on attempted denial means, truth exists as what says of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not. Similarly, this is warranted to utter certainty and so some things can be known to utterly, absolutely cretain degree. Therefore any worldview that imagines that such knowledge is impossible collapses in fatal, central error. Subjectivism, relativism and post modernism, I am looking straight at you.
Going further, following the Kantians, many have been induced to imagine that there is an ugly gulch blocking us from knowledge on the external world of things in themselves. Ever since F H Bradley over 100 years ago, this is known to be false. For, the claim to know of such an ignorance gap is to claim to know something of the outside world, i.e. the claim is self referential and incoherent.
A plumbline
We may then infer freely, that we may and do know things about reality external to our interior lives. Though, as error exists is equally certain, we must be careful in warrant. As a first test, plumbline truths will help us. And for many things a lesser degree of warrant is more than good enough. For example on serious matters, we may have moral certainty, that it would be irresponsible to act as though some A were false, on the evidence to hand or reasonably accessible. For yet other things — including science by and large — plausibly or possibly so and reliable i/l/o the balance of evidence is good enough. And so forth.
I am taking a little time to show you that I am not just talking from empty talking points, there are grounds of warrant for what I have to say. And, speaking for this blog, on worldview matters we have spent years thinking through such core matters. As, they lie at the heart of how our civilisation is in the state it is.
Now, too, you will notice that in speaking of moral certainty, I highlighted responsibility, moral government. We intuitively know that we have duties to truth, care in reasoning, fairness, justice, neighbour who is as we are, and more.
All of this reflects how our life of reason is inextricably entangled with responsibility, duty, moral government. And, dismissive hyperskepticism seeking to sweep that away is manifestly a failure of such duties.
Were our rational faculty utterly unrestrained by responsibility, duty, moral government, it would fall into the cynical nihilism of utter manipulativeness and imposition by force: might and/or manipulation make ‘right,’ ‘truth,’ ‘knowledge,’ ‘justice’ and more. That is suicidally absurd. And you know better, as you know that the very force that energises dispute such as in this thread is duty to truth, sound reason and more.
Yes, the mere fact that we inescapably find ourselves trying to justify ourselves and show others in the wrong immediately reveals the massive fact of moral government, and that this is critical to governing ourselves in community. On pain of mutual ruin.
But then, that surfaces another point you wished to brush off with dismissive talking points: the IS-OUGHT gap. That IS and OUGHT are categorically distinct and hard to resolve and unify. That has been known since Plato and beyond. Since Hume, we have known it can only be resolved at world-root level, or else we fall under the guillotine of ungrounded ought. Reasoning IS-IS, then suddenly from nowhere OUGHT-OUGHT. Where, if OUGH-ness is delusion, it instantly entails grand delusion, including of the life of responsible reason itself.
Your root challenge is, there is only one serious candidate that can soundly bridge the gap: the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being; worthy of loyalty and the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature.
This is not an arbitrary imposition, we are dealing with worldviews analysis on comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and balanced explanatory adequacy (neither simplistic nor an ad hoc patchwork). If you doubt what I just said, simply put up a successful atlernative: ________ . (Prediction: v. hard to do.)
So, we are at world-root level, looking at generic ethical theism and the central importance of moral government in our life of reason.
The easy hyperskepticism that sweeps all before it on sheer rhetorical audacity is not good enough.
And, it is interesting that so far you have not readily found significant fault with the central Christian ethical teaching (which is of course profoundly Hebraic in its roots). It is there above, laid out in full. Kindly, tell us why those who acknowledge themselves to be under its government and will readily acknowledge that it is a stiff life-challenge are to be instantly, deeply suspect with but few exceptions.
And, tell us why a civilisation deeply influenced by such a teaching is to be branded with a scarlet letter instead of found to be in the sort of struggle to rise to excellence in the face of our finitude, prone-ness to error, moral struggle and too often our ill-will that are the anchor-points of genuine progress for our world.>>
I should add an earlier remark on two example of self-evident moral truth:
KF, 15: >>[I]mplicit in any contested argument is the premise that we have duties to truth, right and soundness in reasoning. On pain of twisting our intellectual powers into nihilistic weapons of cynical deception. In short X objects to Y, on the confident knowledge of in-common duties of intellectual, rational and epistemic virtue. The attempt to challenge ALL moral obligation would be self-referential and incoherent, undermining good faith reasoning itself.
I would go so far as to say this duty of care to truth, right and sound reasoning is self-evident and is typically implicitly accepted.
So, no, we cannot challenge ALL moral claims without undermining even the process of argument itself. No, we cannot dismiss general moral reasoning as suspect of being a blind appeal to authorities. No, mere consequences we happen to imagine (ever heard of the doctrine of unintended consequences?) or motives we think we read in the hearts of others (you are the same who seemingly views Christianity in general as though we are automatically suspect . . .) cannot ground such a broad-brush skepticism about moral reasoning.
We are already at self-referential incoherence.
Infinite regress comes out of the insisted on ALL and the inextricable entanglement of reasoning and moral duties as were outlined. Claim A is suspect so B must be advanced but implies another ought, so B requires C, and oops, we are on to infinity and absurdity.
General hyperskepticism about the moral brings down the proud edifice of reason too by fatally undermining its own self.
Selective hyperskepticism ends in inconsistency, exerting a double standard: stiff rules for thee, but not for me when such are not convenient to where I want to go . . . .
we need plumbline, naturally straight test cases.
One of these, as I outlined, is the inextricable entanglement of reason and duty to truth, right and soundness of logic.
In that light, we can then look at sound yardstick cases and clear the rubble of the modernist collapse of rationality and responsibility away.
For example,it is self-evidently wrong, wicked, evil to kidnap, bind, torture, sexually violate and murder a young child for one’s sick pleasure. (And, sadly, this is NOT a hypothetical case.)
Probe this case and you will see that such a child hath neither strength nor eloquence to fight or plead for himself or herself. And yet, were we to chance on such a demonic act in progress we are duty bound to try to rescue or at least bawl for help.
We are inescapably under moral government.
Which implies that IS and OUGHT must be bridged in the root of reality, on pain of reducing moral government to grand delusion that takes down rationality itself in its collapse.>>
Food for thought. END
Comments
I notice that you provided no examples. What self evident truths have been found not to be self evident? Please be specific. Surely, you understand that scientific claims do not count.
Are you saying we could have an example of something previously deemed immune from criticism, in principle, then somehow not deemed immune in principle?
A proposition is either true or false. However, a claim that a proposition is self evidently true is to claim that it is immune to criticism, in principle, not that it was somehow found false. If you tried to find out ways it was false, even thought all of them failed, that represented criticizing it and concedes that it wasn't immune, in principle, in the first place.
For example, Is the proposition that some propositions are self evident itself a self evident proposition? If one thinks so, wouldn't they just keep claiming it's immune, in principle, to be criticized, and keep ignoring criticisms of it?
This wouldn't be just any kind of mistake. it would be a mistake that actively thwarts itself from being found as a mistake. It perpetuates itself.critical rationalist
January 3, 2018
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@UB
You sure appear to be saying that semiotic descriptions do not scale to the use of a quantum storage medium.
We can chalk this up as yet another example of a fallible interpretation.
This comment actually quoted part of the paper that talks about symbols in particular. So, even if you didn't bother to read the paper....
1 Introduction
In some respects, information is a qualitatively different sort of entity from all others in terms of which the physical sciences describe the world. It is not, for instance, a function only of tensor fields on spacetime (as general relativity requires all physical quantities to be), nor is it a quantum-mechanical observable.
But in other respects, information does resemble some entities that appear in laws of physics: the theory of computation, and statistical mechanics, seem to refer directly to it without regard to the specific media in which it is instantiated, just as conservation laws do for the electromagnetic four-current or the energy-momentum tensor. We call that the substrate-independence of information. Information can also be moved from one type of medium to another while retaining all its properties qua information. We call this its interoperability property; it is what makes human capabilities such as language and science possible, as well as biological adaptations that use symbolic codes, such as the genetic code.
Again, when pointing out we need a more fundamental theory of information that scales to both classical and quantum systems, which explains why symbols are possible, it's unclear why you would think I though symbols were impossible in quantum systems.
What doesn't scale is a means of cloning information in quantum systems. And that caused us to develop a more fundamentally theory of information.
From this comment...
That’s odd. I referenced an entire paper which presents a physical theory of information, which includes programable constructors. When I asked if you were presenting a theory of information, you refused to answer the question until after being asked point blank at least a dozen times. At which I pointed out said theory of information was incomplete.
For example, the referenced theory spans both classical and quantum physics. In addition, for information to be instantiated into a medium, it requires reversible computations, which includes a material source of the information to be copied. Your supposed “theory of information” doesn’t address any of those issues. So It’s unclear how criticizing your theory represents a failure to engage the issue.
Apparently, your strategy is to present an incomplete theory of information that does't address copying, as if that somehow makes it immune to the problem of cloning in quantum systems.
Did the designer magically make information appear in the first cell?critical rationalist
January 3, 2018
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JS
SB at 256, I wouldn’t have a problem if we had an infallible means of determining what is a self-evident truth. Sadly, history is full of claims of self-evident truths.
I notice that you provided no examples. What self evident truths have been found not to be self evident? Please be specific. Surely, you understand that scientific claims do not count.
JS
Why the reluctance to expose them to examination? Is it s fear that your self-evident truth will be shown to found wanting?
Who is reluctant? We shout if from the rooftops. The most important ones are law of non contradiction, law of identity, Principle of sufficient reason, Law of causality, and natural moral law. All those principles are self evident. They can be self-evident in two ways: In themselves or to someone else.StephenB
January 2, 2018
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@KF.
Likewise, you and I are aware of ourselves, we are conscious. So, if we doubt this, WHO is there to doubt?
Thank Zeus we're not limited to what criticisms you can conceive of. And we supposedly don't have any imagination?
This has already been addressed.
What? How might we be mistaken that two plus two is four? Or about other matters of pure logic? That stubbing one’s toe hurts? That there is a force of gravity pulling us to earth? Or that, as the philosopher René Descartes argued, “I think, therefore I am”?
…then goes on to present examples of how those might be false.
I must now apologize for trying to trick you earlier: All the ideas that I suggested we might know infallibly are in fact falsehoods. “Two plus two” of course isn’t “four” as you’d discover if you wrote “2+2” in an arithmetic test when asked to add two and two. If we were infallible about matters of pure logic, no one would ever fail a logic test either. Stubbing your toe does not always hurt if you are focused on some overriding priority like rescuing a comrade in battle. And as for knowing that “I” exist because I think—note that your knowledge that you think is only a memory of what you did think, a second or so ago, and that can easily be a false memory. (For discussions of some fascinating experiments demonstrating this, see Daniel Dennett’s book Brainstorms.) Moreover, if you think you are Napoleon, the person you think must exist because you think, doesn’t exist.
Why do you think you have an exhaustive list of every possible criticism that could be leveled against any idea? Is it really that difficult to connive of not having such an exhaustive list?critical rationalist
January 2, 2018
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@Origines
It's particularly humorous that you yourself are a fallibilist about fallibilism, and apparently didn't recognize it.
See the above quote from #207. That's what it means to be a fallibilist about fallibilism. And that's what you did when you wrote:
Suppose that 2 + 2 = 4 is open to questioning. Would there be a basis for mathematics?
You picked 2 + 2 = 4 because you thought it, out of possible others, was most obviously and unambiguously true. Are you saying you didn't quickly try to conceive of ways it might be wrong in relation to other possible candies?
Did you arbitrarily pick 2 + 2 = 4?critical rationalist
January 2, 2018
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The point of subjecting any proposition, theory, or assertion to a “critical evaluation,” is to test its truth value. If a certain proposition is self-evidently true, then it doesn’t need to be tested for truth value since it is already known to be true. Self evident truths are not to be criticized or evaluated, they are the means by which we criticize and evaluate everything else. Obviously, CR does not grasp the point.
My point was and has continues to be: how does a proposition obtain the status of being "already true" before reason has its say? The application of reason, being a form of criticism.
How might we infallibly possess a complete list of all the ways a proposition might be false at the time of considering it? What about the creation of genuinely new knowledge in the fields of human biology, neurology and epistemology, etc. that we do not have right now? Nor are we even guaranteed to actual come up with all the possible ways to criticize something at all. It might take years, decades, centuries, millennia or never even come at all.
Criticisms failing and continuing to fail as we develop new ones are all we have. Persuasion is “critical evaluation”
If you hold some source to be infallible, how did you infallibly identify it among others? How do you infallibly interpret it? How do you infallibly determine when to defer to it?
For example, in respect to the Bible (assuming you've somehow managed to infallibly identify it) what is metaphor and what is literal? is the Bible a science book? Should we defer to it on matters of mathematics and the number of legs on insects?
What about the Quran? It claims to be the verbatim and final revelation of God. So, why haven't you decided you do not need to defer to it as well?
No one has addressed #207. Let me quote it for your convenience..
For example, how did you specifically pick 2 + 2 = 4, and all other propositions listed here, as candidates for immunity from criticism? Why not some some other propositions, such as the angles of a triangle sum to two right angles, or that the city you live in exists, etc?
Did you not conclude those specific propositions would best make your point because they were the most unambiguously true of all the candidate propositions you considered including in your argument?
If so, then how did you determine how obviously and unambiguously true each of those candidate propositions was in relation to the other candidates? Did you not stop and criticize them by an attempt to quickly consider reasons or ways they might be conceivably false?
It seems that, if you didn’t criticize them, then you have no way of concluding those specific propositions would best make your point. If they were immune from criticism, then did you arbitrarily choose them?
critical rationalist
January 2, 2018
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JS,
I note your 258:
I wouldn’t have a problem if we had an infallible means of determining what is a self-evident truth. Sadly, history is full of claims of self-evident truths. Why the reluctance to expose them to examination? Is it [a] fear that your self-evident truth will be shown to found wanting?
. . . and think we need to respond yet again.
Not least, without these matters being clarified, onward discussion -- such as of controversial questions regarding origins, science, scientific inference on reliable signs, the design inference, linked worldviews, dominant narratives and major cultural agendas thence linked policy matters -- may well be futile. Doomed from the outset.
One of the very first self-evident truths is, that error exists; which we may symbolise as proposition E. This, is obviously central to your claims above and to your projected fear.
But in fact, as has been repeatedly pointed out, certain things can be established as utterly certain beyond responsible doubt. I did not say, beyond pathological doubt or hyperskeptical dismissal. Such, are a different thing.
Now, kindly, tell us what is fallible in the chain, E, so we may posit the denial ~E. We then can note that ~E means it is error to assert E. So, on the attempted denial, we would establish E.
E cannot be successfully denied.
Similarly, E AND ~E would be necessarily false and so fails of being true, being also an error (presuming one asserting such intends truth).
Likewise, you and I are aware of ourselves, we are conscious. So, if we doubt this, WHO is there to doubt?
Is not bare consciousness, then, utterly certain, notwithstanding that we may be in error on some of the contents of conscious awareness or thought?
Again, behold a bright red ball on a table, A.
The world W is thus W = {A|~A}, demonstrating distinct identity.
What is wrong or untrustworthy in the corollaries,
[LOI:] A is itself,
[LNC:] no x in W is A AND ~A, and
[LEM] any x is A X-OR ~A?
Likewise, going back to E, why are you so confident of your fallibility in ALL reasoning?
Then, please explain what is uncertain in
2 + 3 = 5
i.e. || + ||| --> |||||
And so forth.
Is it then, responsible or reasonable to suggest fear of critique as motive for positing that established SET's are above "criticism," indeed are the basis for such insofar as critique is rational and responsible?
In this light (and yes, these cases are there in the OP), do you or do you not recognise that in certain limited cases even a finite, fallible, morally struggling and too often ill-willed mind can attain to utter, self-evident certainty?
Or, that such core SET's are foundational to reasoning?
If you still deny such, kindly explain why: _______
(Then, kindly explain how you avoid the implication of being conscious _____ and relying on distinct identity ____, also the grounds for your apparent utter certainty that error exists ____ )
Later, we can address the concept that some things may be rightly seen by one with an adequate base of experience and understanding, as necessarily true on pain of patent absurdity on the attempted denial.
As for CR's objection to choosing such, we can note that consciousness is a first fact and the means of accessing others, the potential for error is a universal concern, and to reason we rely on distinct identity. Including, to reason regarding structure and quantity -- Mathematics.
After that, we may ponder how we are subjectively aware of an inner and outer world, but may accurately describe what is as being so and what is not as not being so, thence how we may soundly warrant certain things we believe such that on these things we have knowledge in the common, weak sense as well as in a few cases the strong sense just addressed.
Then, we may look at moral truth and knowledge claims in light of the pervasive sense that we have duties of care to truth, sound reason (hence the concern over fallibility), as well as to fairness/justice and equity etc. Including, a certain sadly real-world case:
It is self-evidently wicked, wrong and evil to kidnap, bind, gag, sexually assault and murder a young child for one's pleasure. Where, were we to encounter such in progress, we would be duty-bound to seek to rescue the victim or at least to bawl for help.
And yes, I hold this to be a moral yardstick case that is highly instructive, given that the child is vulnerable, lacks strength and lacks eloquence to defend or even speak for itself. (In the real case -- pardon an ugly fact -- gagged with his own school socks.) This brings up the world of duties as a neighbour in a community.
Surely, you will accept that much pivots on the above, so it is worthy of serious consideration.
KFkairosfocus
January 2, 2018
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Origenes, self-referential claims are very tricky and we should learn to be extra-cautious in making such. One who is conscious should realise that if s/he doubts that he knows that bare fact incorrigibly, there is the slight matter of who is there to doubt. To reason or communicate, one relies on distinct identity and so should not doubt its corollaries, LOI, LNC, LEM and the implication of [1] A & [2] ~A, so number and thus the naturals etc. To doubt moral knowledge as a bare fact, one should reckon that one senses duties to truth, sound logic, fairness etc in all reasoning so if that sense is delusional, one taints all of one's mental life with grand delusion, including here an infinitely regressive chain of doubts. The real problem, I suspect is that there is a palpable IS-OUGHT gap and such can only be bridged at world-root level. As there is only one serious candidate (after centuries of debate) those who are alienated from God face a sobering challenge. That then comes out in arguments as we see above, for they expect us to be under moral government in the life of the mind -- or else they have become utterly ruthlessly and cynically manipulative. It is really hard to be in that corner, but it is one that too many of our civilisation's intellectual leadership have painted themselves into over the past several centuries; often putting on a lab coat in so doing as to them science seems to pretty nearly monopolise serious knowledge. But in fact, Science is perhaps the capital example of weak form knowledge, especially insofar as we address its theories i/l/o the pessimistic induction of theory after theory having had to be replaced across time. So, we have no grounds to hold confidence that our current crop will not suffer much the same fate. KFkairosfocus
January 2, 2018
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StephenB: Self evident truths are not to be criticized or evaluated, they are the means by which we criticize and evaluate everything else.
This should be carved in stone.
CR's fallibilism is the idea that all knowledge is fallible. This idea lives on in CR based on CR's inability to understand that "all knowledge is fallible" is itself knowledge and ,thus, fallible.
In short, self-reference is something CR cannot grasp. CR is the kind of person who can say stuff like: "Certainty cannot possibly exist" or even "No one is talking at this moment" and not blink an eye.Origenes
January 2, 2018
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SB at 256, I wouldn’t have a problem if we had an infallible means of determining what is a self-evident truth. Sadly, history is full of claims of self-evident truths. Why the reluctance to expose them to examination? Is it s fear that your self-evident truth will be shown to found wanting?JSmith
January 2, 2018
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JS: "Which pretty much explains my comment at 253. EGO. ????"
Fear not. Your fifteen minutes of fame will be extended either on this thread or the other.StephenB
January 2, 2018
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Origenes @251:
That is correct. The point of subjecting any proposition, theory, or assertion to a "critical evaluation," is to test its truth value. If a certain proposition is self-evidently true, then it doesn't need to be tested for truth value since it is already known to be true. Self evident truths are not to be criticized or evaluated, they are the means by which we criticize and evaluate everything else. Obviously, CR does not grasp the point.StephenB
January 2, 2018
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SB
J Smith @252, If you read the posts at 249 and 250, you will notice that my comments were about CR and not you.
Which pretty much explains my comment at 253. EGO. :)JSmith
January 2, 2018
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J Smith @252, If you read the posts at 249 and 250, you will notice that my comments were about CR and not you.StephenB
January 2, 2018
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This thread has dropped off the “recent comments” list. As I was the one who triggered this OP, my ego dictates that I get it back on the list. Maybe we can make it to 360.JSmith
January 2, 2018
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SB
KF, the point is to keep the heat on and demand answers. That is one of the most important functions of a question. At times, we do far too much explaining and not enough demanding.
I hope you accept that I have made every effort to answer your questions. You may not agree with the answers but that is different than not answering.
We don’t hold people accountable by explaining things. We hold them accountable by asking them to explain things.
I think that accountability requires both. In short, an honest back and forth without resorting to loaded questions or insults. If I run into a commenter that resorts to these dishonest tactics I simply stop reading their comments or responding to them.
If they fail to deliver or evade the point, anyone who is lurking will get the message. We are writing to influence members of our audience, not our adversaries.
This is true. But don't be surprised if the message they get is not the one that you expect them to.JSmith
January 2, 2018
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StephenB @249
CR does not provide a single example of a critical evaluation of a self evident truth. That's why I asked him to provide one in #235.
CR: I’ve provided example of just that in #207.
No, CR has done no such thing. #207 has nothing to do with a critical evaluation. It is simply incoherent nonsense.
What's even more incredible is that CR refuses to understand that any 'critical evaluation of self evident truths' necessarily depends on self evident truths itself.
In the words of Kairosfocus:
CR does not understand that to critique first principles of right reason, he has to implicitly use said principles. Actually, to think at all in concepts or to try to communicate in any coherent fashion.
Origenes
January 2, 2018
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kairosfocus
SB, feel welcome to go around the bush yet again. I predict, you will find nothing more substantial than many others have, who have tried.
KF, the point is to keep the heat on and demand answers. That is one of the most important functions of a question. At times, we do far too much explaining and not enough demanding. I am happy to answer all questions directed to me, and I expect my dialogue partners to respond to mine. We don't hold people accountable by explaining things. We hold them accountable by asking them to explain things. If they fail to deliver or evade the point, anyone who is lurking will get the message. We are writing to influence members of our audience, not our adversaries.StephenB
January 2, 2018
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SB: Why do you disagree with my statement? It reads, “self evident truths are not subject to critical evaluation.”
CR: The things you call self evident truths are subject to critical evaluation.
Incredible: I ask CR why he thinks that self evident truths are subject to critical evaluation and he answers by saying that self-evident truths are subject to critical evaluation.StephenB
January 2, 2018
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JS, there is a known source of complex, functionally specific and coherent organisation and information. The only actually known source. We also know that it is maximally implausible for such FSCO/I to arise from blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. The blind-spot of materialism is that it tries to force-fit FSCO/I into a slot that it simply will not fit. There is nothing inherently abhorrent in intelligently directed configuration, whether of a text such as your comment, or of the equally alphanumeric text in D/RNA or the functional organisation of the physics and circumstances of a cosmos. Save, that it seems that many today react with a numinous horror that seems to trace to deep fear whenever something that may be the shadow of the Eternal One impinges on anything they care about. Indeed, it sometimes seems to me that, often, the rhetoric of pejorative projection and accusation and suspicion I see from too many of atheistical or quasi-atheistical bent may well reflect that fear. KFkairosfocus
January 2, 2018
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UB
JS, just a quick comment: There is no evidence whatsoever that the material conditions enabling biology are built-in to the laws of physics. To the contrary, there is enormous evidence that they are not. Life is the product of a very specific (and well-documented) organization that “sits on top” of dynamics. Such an organization can be found nowhere else in the cosmos except in the use of written language and mathematics (i.e. two unambiguous correlates of intelligence).
You may be right. But if God can create life, he can certainly create conditions for it to develop without his further input.JSmith
January 2, 2018
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CR says" "You mean I’ve “run” from your failed understanding of the argument?"
Are these not your words?
”Just as the scope of Newton’s laws does not scale to very high velocities required to build GPS satellites, your “theory of information” does not scale to the level of quantum storage mediums” – critical rationalist, Nov 6, 2017
It looks like to me you are saying that a description of semiosis does not scale to the use of a quantum storage medium.
Are these your words?
“your “theory of information” does not scale to quantum storage mediums” — critical rationalist, Nov 8, 2017
and here...
“UB’s theory of information is an approximation which does not scale”. — critical rationalist, Nov 29, 2017
and here ...
“UB’s theory of information does not scale” – critical rationalist, Dec 6, 2017
and here ...
“Since your theory of information does not scale” — critical rationalist, Dec 9, 2017
You sure appear to be saying that semiotic descriptions do not scale to the use of a quantum storage medium.
Okay.
Provide an example of using a quantum storage medium that is not semiotic, or do the intellectually responsible thing and acknowledge that you can't (at which time I will be happy to continue the conversation and disabuse you of your remaining misconceptions of the topic).Upright BiPed
January 2, 2018
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CR: That same physical system can also be subdivided / explained as a constructor, substrate and input / outputs. ... It’s a more fundamental explanation.
It can only be a "more fundamental explanation", if constructors are not themselves physical systems, but, instead, are fundamental to physical systems. However, since constructors are physical systems — even Deutsch admits to this — and "physical systems are a more fundamental explanation of physical systems" is incoherent, it is not an explanation at all; let alone 'more fundamental'.Origenes
January 2, 2018
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After you provide an example of a quantum storage medium that is not semiotic, then you can provide an example of a semiotic organization “found in abundance in the cosmos”.
Apparently, you still don't get it.
Are you calming the the only way to subdivide the translation system is in a semiotic triad? Is that what you're claiming?critical rationalist
January 2, 2018
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You (very publicly) run from your own statements.
You mean I've "run" from your failed understanding of the argument?
Again, the papers I've referenced indicates what tasks are necessary for symbols and that task is necessary for information in both quantum and classical systems. So, why on earth would you expect me to think that symbols were not possible in quantum systems?
What responsibly to I have to defend your failed understanding of the argument presented?critical rationalist
January 2, 2018
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That organization can be found in abundance in the cosmos.
We can now add this to the list of statements you make about the existence of things, but can't provide any actual examples of.
After you provide an example of a quantum storage medium that is not semiotic, then you can provide an example of semiotic organizations "found in abundance in the cosmos".Upright BiPed
January 2, 2018
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KF: CR does not understand that to critique first principles of right reason, he has to implicitly use said principles. Actually, to think at all in concepts or to try to communicate in any coherent fashion.
Exactly. I have asked CR a dozen times what "guesses" and "criticism" are based on. Never did I get a response.
I have explained over and over again and in various ways, that fallibilism is absurd and self-defeating. CR refuses to understand that in order to criticize his championed fallibilism one needs a position distinct from fallibilism, thus, we would have to seek another argument, another chain of reasoning, another set of beliefs, by which one can judge fallibilism—and a third set to judge the judgment of the judgment, ad infinitum..
The only response I have got is some idiotic text by that comedian Deutsch (see #72).Origenes
January 2, 2018
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"For example, what do you mean by 'enabling biology'"
Now CR wants to district by playing definition derby.
Classic. See https://uncommondescent.com/ddd/definition-deficit-disorder/Barry Arrington
January 2, 2018
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Upright BiPed @ 236,
The truly astonishing thing is that CR continues to post and post and post as if everyone does not know this too be true. As trolls go, he is particularly brazen.Barry Arrington
January 2, 2018
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Such an organization can be found nowhere else in the cosmos except in the use of written language and mathematics (i.e. two unambiguous correlates of intelligence).
That same physical system can also be subdivided / explained as a constructor, substrate and input / outputs. That organization can be found in abundance in the cosmos. It's a more fundamental explanation.critical rationalist
KF, 32: >>Pardon, but it is now further evident that you have not seen the significance of self-evident truth in general.
From this world partition, we instantly see that A is itself, and no x can be (A AND ~A), also that any x is (A X-OR ~A). That is, from distinct identity, the three first principles of right reason are immediately present: Laws of Identity, Non-Contradiction and Excluded Middle.
Much more can be said, but the above is sufficient to show that there are literally infinitely many things that we may know with utter certainty, starting from a few that are self-evident. But also, such SET’s are insufficient to construct a worldview; they serve as plumbline tests for worldviews.
