The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Philosophy & Science => Topic started by: What Came Before on April 24, 2013, 06:34:58 pm
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Recent 'philosophy wank' posts in Scott's blog have revealed that a lot of the things he discusses are extremely opaque to some of his readers (and I do not exclude myself, I find most Continental philosophy very opaque). Therefore, I think it's only natural to start a thread here that we can point people to if they want to understand what Scott is going on about. Obviously, the philosophy underpins a lot of his writing, so understanding the background could allow people to have deeper readings of his work.
First, I'd say that most blog posts of Scott's are related to a single philosophical problem. The Hard Problem of Consciousness.
Relevant initial reading:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
I also highly, highly recommend Chalmer's book "The Conscious Mind" as a primer. He also gets into the extremely thorny issue of intentionality. Another book I could recommend for people unfamiliar with these types of philosophical questions is "The Mind's I", a collection of classic essays compiled and commented on by Daniel Dennet and Douglas Hofstadter.
Extremely briefly:
The hard problem of consciousness is primarily a problem that we run into with the predominant "physicalist" mindset that has been so successful at explaining the world, thanks to science. Basically, the assumption that "a consistent physical world with highly structured laws" is all that exist underlies the scientific methods. Scientists don't 'do' ghosts, souls, spirits, gods, magic. We break things into smaller things and see how they work. The power of reductionist empirical methodology is undeniable: computers, vaccines, atomic bombs, men on the moon, etc. In this way, scientists and philosophers (and intellectuals more generally) have come to reject heliocentrism, special creation, the existence of a Judeo-Christian omnibenevolent deity, and so forth. Science explains it all away.
The problem occurs when you turn that scientific lens INWARDS, towards the brain. Suddenly, the human 'soul' (consciousness, Being, first-person frame, phenomenology, whatever you want to call is) vanishes. You look with science, and all you find is cells. But it seems like science is wrong here! I most definitely 'have' a first-person perspective... there is something it is like to be me. I bold that statement because the meaning of those words constructed in that fashion may lie at the heart of the problem.
Perhaps the concept that most vividly illustrates the disconnect between science and soul, is the concept of a quale (plural qualia). Again, I'm doing an injustice to this idea here, but I think many children get a sense of this problem when they ask the seemingly innocent question:
"How do you know my blue is your blue?"
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
The existence of qualia seems undeniable, they lie at the heart of what it means 'to be' for a human being. However, when science gets involved, qualia disappear. There seems no way to account for their existence from a purely physicalist perspective. It gets really weird in the literature. You have philosophers denying qualia exist or that the concept is nonsensical (Dennett) or those who advocate that many objects possess 'mental phenomenology': there is something it is like to be a thermostat.
Alright, so that's a quick and dirty primer on the philosophy of mind.
Scott's entries on 'philoso-wank' can be reduced to the following ideas:
1. Philosophical ideas cannot be trusted because there is no good measuring tape by which to judge them. Academics are as prone (or more prone) than laymen to fall pray to self-confirmation bias and in-group selection. Basically, the "Ivory Tower Eggheads are Also Idiots and Will Defend Nonsense" hypothesis. This is more of an institutional attack (specifically on the division between analytical and continental philosophy), and one that also considers academics to be self-excluding. Scott claims that many literarati don't actually want to communicate to the masses, because they shun the genres that would be most effective at doing so. Then (in typical Bakker fashion), he turns the canon on himself and says that this is due to his own self-confirmation bias since he writes fantasy.
2. Your sense of volition or "willing" actually comes after the decision has been made at parts of your brain you have no conscious access to. This deserves a much longer treatment, and I will eventually get around to fixing this entry, but for now just understand that this is the pervading theme of the Prince of Nothing trilogy, and a recurring motif in the Second Apocalypse in general. It also plays a huge role in his psych-thriller Neuropath. Very quickly: cognitive neuroscience is starting to prove Hard Determinism. More generally, science is starting to deliver final answers on philosophical problems previously thought to be intractable or only solvable by introspection.
3. The Hard Problem of Consciousness occurs because of the way the brain is structurally wired, and because of the way evolution works. Bakker has never made the claim that he has solved the problem. But his "Blind Brain Theory" (BBT) makes testable empirical predictions about consciousness. BBT is too difficult to quickly recapitulate, but a rough and dirty summary might be as follows.
[list=1]
You can injure someone's brain in such a way as to cause them to lose function of an arm. That is not hard to believe, we have all met stroke victims. Startlingly, it is also possible to injure someone's brain in way that makes them unable to recognize that their arm no longer works. They will 'confabulate' explanations as to why their arm no longer functions. More startlingly, it is possible to do the same thing with blindness. The stroke-blinded patient will vehemently insist that they can see. This phenomenon is call anosognosia and it reveals something profound about the way our conscious experience always seems "full" or "complete". Blind brain theory postulates that ALL conscious experience can be summarized this way. That every qualia you experience is the result of some part of your brain hitting an asymptotic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote) limit in information integration, which is the result of the more recently evolved parts trying to track the information in the deeper parts. This "thalamo-cortical" loop eventually 'runs out' on tracking itself.[/list]
An empirical prediction this theory would make is that we should be able to 'indefinitely' expand qualia space (ie: see colors you've never seen before, or have a novel phenomenological experience associated with sonar). It also predicts that we don't actually understand our own phenomenology as much as we would like to believe we do. That is, that our own awareness of our mental states might be deeply flawed. (also see: Eric Schwitzgebel's blog (http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/))
4. Dissection of middle and late 20th century philosophy through the lens of BBT. These posts are extremely difficult, primarily because philosophers like Heidegger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger) and Derrida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrida) did not go out of their way to make themselves easily understood.
5. Future implications. If you ever see a blog post with the words 'Semantic Apocalypse' in them, that means Scott is using it to buttress his claim that cognitive neuroscience will annihilate 'intentionality' and 'meaning' from the world.
So... what the hell does this have anything to do with Drusas Achamian, Anasurimbor Kellhus, and Esmenet?
Everything.
My own reading of the Second Apocalypse, is Scott's attempt to structure a hypothetical universe where "intentionality" and "meaning" cannot be extricated by science. God and Soul are literally true. The work then examines the epistemological and moral consequences of such a universe, a universe where science still works but it is wrong.
In other words, the most mind-blowing piece of fantasy fiction this side of 1954.
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Wow, what a great overview. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
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I think these pieces always suffer from the reader not percieving any problem to begin with. So it all ends up looking like an elaborate rain dance. Whilst it's raining.
a universe where science still works but it is wrong.
My own interpretation is that gods, souls, magic all exist...and science will still win out, even with all of that present. But I'm slightly off topic.
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Wow, what a great overview. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
You're welcome. These things serve also to test myself and see how much I really get it. Hopefully people will start asking questions. Everyone should feel free to post useful links that illustrate philosophical issues pertaining to the blog.
I think these pieces always suffer from the reader not percieving any problem to begin with. So it all ends up looking like an elaborate rain dance. Whilst it's raining.
Yes Callan, you are correct. The initial perception of the problem is key.
I don't think you can do better than the "is my blue your blue?" idea. Basically, it shows how subjective mental frames are 'special' and 'closed'. No mater how much neuroscience you throw at the colorblind guy, he won't "know" red until he actually experiences it.
Another issue is that you have to be a materialist to begin with. Otherwise you see this whole line of argument, and you just shrug and say "Magic. There's something science can't explain. What a shocker."
The problem with that line is that we talk about the problem. That means that there's a physical encoding, and a causal chain of events that leads to all this filthy philosophizing. Qualia are physical, we just can't see how that's possibly true. BBT at least attempts to explain that blindness.
My own interpretation is that gods, souls, magic all exist...and science will still win out, even with all of that present.
Well, I have no idea what will 'win', but the books are extremely interesting outside of whomever Bakker pens winning the conflict. The range of emotions I've experienced while reading about Esmenet, Mimara, Achamian, Kellhus, Cnaiur, Comphas, Serwe, Sorweel, Cleric and Proyas is quite astounding. And even more astounding is how your perception of these characters changes as revelations unfurl. For example, in TDTCB and WP I thought Proyas was "awful". But he has a simply astounding moment in TTT, where he actually lives true to his principles and actually stands out as quite possibly the most compelling character in terms of our contemporary real world Western morality, despite the fact that Achamian has painted him as a zealot throughout the entire narrative. It'd be the equivalent of waking up one day to find out that Theodore Beale had saved 13 orphans from a burning building.
But perhaps the most incredible thing about the books is how one can genuinely root for the Inchoroi and the Unholy Consult. No one ever rooted for Sauron and his Ringwraiths.
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who thinks in terms of "philosowank"?
and does RSB really believe that stuff about ivory tower eggheads? it's affirmatively sophomoric, borderline teabagger.
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I don't know if Bakker "really believes" anything.
However, from his posts, it seems he experienced some in-group mentality in academia that really bothered him. It's implied that at some point in his college education he felt compelled to hide his love of pop-culture 'nonsense' like fantasy literature because the literati in-groups he was trying to become a part of did not approve. At some point during his philosophy PhD (after he had mastered the art of talking like the scarf-wearing tweed jacketed motherfuckers), he became disillusioned with the way academics seemed to only be writing for themselves, and isolating themselves from dissenting audiences.
This is the narrative of his academic life that he sell us anyways.
He makes a particularly compelling case for the way 'literary fiction' has been compartmentalized and essentially become a 'genre' of its own... one with its own tropes and audience expectations, no different than Fantasy or Thrillers.
Again, he often mocks his own stance by pointing out that OF COURSE he would think this, given that he suffers from the same cognitive biases as any other monkey on this ball of dirt. He writes fantasy, therefore fantasy matters.
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I would like to suggest that qualia are physical. When one considers what it is like to be angry/happy/confused or any other state of being there are corresponding felt sensations. It's just that we don't often realize this because most of the time these sensatons are relatively subtle. We lump these sensations under a name like fear or wonder. What it feels like to be you at any given moment is a constellation of physical sensations that you may describe as being in love, being irritated, being depressed, etc. If qualia are really constellations of physical feelings the question becomes how these sensations arise. I believe the answer is again to be found in biology. Our brains automatically trigger releases of chemicals at various bodily sites according to genetically programmed responses to situations (perceptions). Add to these genetic programs the miriad programs acquired through life experiences and you get a repertoire of automatically triggered chemical responses to virtually any situation. The result is a contiuous flow of qualia as we go through our days.
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nice. the issue for me, assuming the constellation of sense perceptions, what intrudes to cause an interpetation A of constellation B, where the interpretation is an abstract ideology of affect?
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If qualia are really constellations of physical feelings the question becomes how these sensations arise. I believe the answer is again to be found in biology. Our brains automatically trigger releases of chemicals at various bodily sites according to genetically programmed responses to situations (perceptions). Add to these genetic programs the miriad programs acquired through life experiences and you get a repertoire of automatically triggered chemical responses to virtually any situation. The result is a contiuous flow of qualia as we go through our days.
Why should physical chemicals lead to a mental phenomelogy? Or, if you are not a neural chauvinist*, why should "programs" or informational structures lead to a mental phenomenology?
You have simply restated the Hard Problem of consciousness.
*Neural chauvism is the belief that only carbon-based organic lifeforms with neurons can have inner mental lives and first-person phenomelogical experiences. It is not widely held in philosophical circles, nor amongst scientists.
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Why should physical chemicals lead to a mental phenomelogy? Or, if you are not a neural chauvinist*, why should "programs" or informational structures lead to a mental phenomenology?
*Neural chauvism is the belief that only carbon-based organic lifeforms with neurons can have inner mental lives and first-person phenomelogical experiences. It is not widely held in philosophical circles, nor amongst scientists.
Can you give me an example of a mental phenomenon that could not be produced neuro-chemically?
I would agree that neural chauvinism is not popular among philosophers but among scientist, and in particular neuroscientists it is quite widely held. I doubt that many neuroscientist would subscribe to the idea that there is anything we experience that is not neuro-chemically induced.
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I think you missed the point, TWNF. You're approaching it from the outside.
The hard question is hard because of attempting to answer it from the inside.
Claim some kind of qualia on your own behalf - this will anchor you on the inside, trying to explain it from there. 'neuro-chemical' does not answer anything on this subject - you do not engage neuro-chemical structure, you do not think neuro-chemical structure, you FEEL.
That's the sport of it - you can't solve the hedge maze by walking around outside of it to the end, even though this technically solves it. You need to find the way through the hedge maze. The answer needs to lie along those lines.
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seems to me that the neurochemical thesis is bracketed by the same issue on each side:
the neurochemicals, accepting them arguendo, certainly are not randomly dispensed--a neurochemical slot machine, say--and therefore infusion of same must be triggered by some causality that is not random: perhaps the sight of my kid dumping her food on the floor with a smirk that i read as deliberate mischief--her fuck you to me that morning for denying her the new toy she desires--produces a series of recognitions in me (i have to clean that shit up now! i must buy yet more plastic crap to entertain her! she doesn't listen! she defies my authoritah! i am horrible at parenting! the state will dispossess me of her! she will end up in the gutter!). the recognitions might reasonably be triggers for certain neurochemicals. considering that i am capable of reacting to those recognitions in different ways at different times, and considering that wife also reacts differently at different times--inconsistent between her reactions viewed diachronically, and inconsistent with my own contemporaneous reactions at times--it might well be that the triggers are context sensitive, vary across human persons, but do not necessarily partake of either randomness or individuated determination: there is likely a discernible pattern to the varying infusions, and it is not solely a matter of "well, every person is an individual!" which is the grat battle cry of the liberal humanist who labors under the influence of ayn rand without necessarily realizing it.
once infused, one must interpret the infusion. i suggest two layers of reading: one, the less-than-conscious hermeneutics of turning the infusion into an abstract mental state: anger, fear, adoration, slowly dawning horror, abject failure, whatever. the second: the probably conscious recogntion that the abstraction has come into existence.
neither bookend of the interpretitve apparatus appears to be neurochemical in itself, but more a matter of ideology, shared structures of affect, circulating as power-knowledge intersubjectivities.
that in itself is no explanation or answer. but i respectfully submit that it attempts to frame the question. relying on the neuroscientists to frame it will lead only into simplistic positivism, which is to restate the question in a rhetoric that introduces as much mystery as it seeks to explain.
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neither bookend of the interpretitve apparatus appears to be neurochemical in itself, but more a matter of ideology, shared structures of affect, circulating as power-knowledge intersubjectivities.
What are ideology, shared structures of affect, and power-knowledge if not patters stored in neurons (acquired through heredity and experience)? The brain matches stored information with current information to compute what information is important (wins the neural relevance competition). It then takes that information and computes an appropriate response to the features of the current situation it has calculated to be of importance. It's neuro-chemical activity all the way down.
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I think you missed the point, TWNF. You're approaching it from the outside.
The hard question is hard because of attempting to answer it from the inside.
Claim some kind of qualia on your own behalf - this will anchor you on the inside, trying to explain it from there. 'neuro-chemical' does not answer anything on this subject - you do not engage neuro-chemical structure, you do not think neuro-chemical structure, you FEEL.
That's the sport of it - you can't solve the hedge maze by walking around outside of it to the end, even though this technically solves it. You need to find the way through the hedge maze. The answer needs to lie along those lines.
I agree that trying to solve the hard problem from inside is hard and I would say it's impossible. When you do this you are trying to understand how a mental state arises from within a mental state. It can't be done. It's just spinning intellectual wheels. To understand how mental states arise you need to look at the mechanisms within the brain that are producing those states. The brain is the maze that needs to be examined to see what is producing the effects we call mental states.
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It's neuro-chemical activity all the way down.
certainly the mental arithmetic. but the causality of the ideology: neuro-chemical?
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It's neuro-chemical activity all the way down.
certainly the mental arithmetic. but the causality of the ideology: neuro-chemical?
Ideology like any pattern in the brain is the product of the continuous evolution of brain patterning. No one is born with an ideology. It evolves bit by bit as experiences are integrated into existing neural associations. An ideology is an assembled brain pattern of associations. The continuing cause of the formation of an ideology is the interaction of present experiences with stored neural associative patterns.
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no doubt. the question for me is distinguishing the functionality of the machine from the causality of its contents. only the immaterialist will deny the neurochemical functionality, insisting on a soul or some other magickes as the mechanism. what i'm wondering: is it so simple as the neurochemical functionality supplies the incoming triggers as well as the outgoing abstractions? if so, are these sources of supply subject to the necessity of neurochemical science? to identify the chemical is to exhaust the inquiry?
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TWNF:
You did not understand neural chauvism, probably because I didn't explain it well.
A neural chauvinist believes that ONLY neurons and organic chemical reactions of the kind we have in our brains are capable of producing mental experiences. This contrasts with the view that, if properly programmed, a computer of some kind could have mental phenomenology. This is important, because computers can be made out of anything... not just vacuum tubes or semi-conducting microchips, but paper, DNA, or even people (see Schwitzgebel's "Is the United States Conscious (http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-united-states-conscious.html)?")
I assure you, most neuroscientists I have spoke to are not neural chauvinists. Indeed, several preeminent neuroscientists advocate emulating parts of the brain in silico to better understand how information is processed.
When you do this you are trying to understand how a mental state arises from within a mental state. It can't be done. It's just spinning intellectual wheels.
And yet, we "experience" things, and this forces our mind to the question. How do operations performed at the cellular level lead to phenomenology? If it cannot be understood, within science, then it effectively proves that science is flawed or fundamentally limited in a metaphysical way. And I do not currently see a way that science can account for private first-person perspectives.
Scott's Blind Brain Theory is similar to your statement, it explains in one fell swoop WHY we can't get to the answer and WHY we can't help but constantly ask it. It's due to the way we're wired. And yet, as Scott has pointed out, there's a huge problem. If you accept BBT, then you accept, on some fundamental level, that your phenomenology doesn't exist at least as far as science is concerned.
Understand that I am not advocating a position either way (I generally consider myself a materialist: I don't buy into supernatural nonsense). I don't know the answers to these questions any more than anyone else does. But I hate it when people try to dismiss the Hard Problem as though it wasn't there.
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Click for a classic paper on qualia: Epiphenomenal Qualia (http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/epiphenomenal_qualia.html)
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TWNF:
You did not understand neural chauvism, probably because I didn't explain it well.
A neural chauvinist believes that ONLY neurons and organic chemical reactions of the kind we have in our brains are capable of producing mental experiences. This contrasts with the view that, if properly programmed, a computer of some kind could have mental phenomenology. This is important, because computers can be made out of anything... not just vacuum tubes or semi-conducting microchips, but paper, DNA, or even people (see Schwitzgebel's "Is the United States Conscious (http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-united-states-conscious.html)?")
I assure you, most neuroscientists I have spoke to are not neural chauvinists. Indeed, several preeminent neuroscientists advocate emulating parts of the brain in silico to better understand how information is processed.
Thanks Jorge, I see what you mean now and I would agree that most neuroscientist would not subscribe to the neural chauvinist doctrine.
When you do this you are trying to understand how a mental state arises from within a mental state. It can't be done. It's just spinning intellectual wheels.
And yet, we "experience" things, and this forces our mind to the question. How do operations performed at the cellular level lead to phenomenology? If it cannot be understood, within science, then it effectively proves that science is flawed or fundamentally limited in a metaphysical way. And I do not currently see a way that science can account for private first-person perspectives.
It is exactly the source of our experience that needs to be addressed. However, in my mind, discussions of phenomenology only serve to obscure the issue. Science is no doubt flawed and limited but it is continually pushing its limits. Just because science cannot provide a complete detailed picture of how mental phenomena arise does not mean it never will. My opinion is that there has to be a material explanation for what we experience and that science will eventually reveal that all experience is neuro-chemically based.
Scott's Blind Brain Theory is similar to your statement, it explains in one fell swoop WHY we can't get to the answer and WHY we can't help but constantly ask it. It's due to the way we're wired. And yet, as Scott has pointed out, there's a huge problem. If you accept BBT, then you accept, on some fundamental level, that your phenomenology doesn't exist at least as far as science is concerned.
I'm not sure that Scott would go that far. BBT says that we can't directly know from the inside what is going on in our brains. We have no access to the brain's processes. I do not see that this makes phenomenology non-existent. I just makes the source mechanisms of mental phenomena invisible. Introspection cannot penetrate the blind box.
Understand that I am not advocating a position either way (I generally consider myself a materialist: I don't buy into supernatural nonsense). I don't know the answers to these questions any more than anyone else does. But I hate it when people try to dismiss the Hard Problem as though it wasn't there.
I'm afraid you will hate me then. I think the hard problem is only there because people are loath to admit the increasingly likely possibility that all we experience (including mental phenomena) is generated mechanistically. The belief that the sources of mental phenomena are somehow exempt from the laws of physics and chemistry is perhaps the last bastion of dualism.
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the recognitions might reasonably be triggers for certain neurochemicals. considering that i am capable of reacting to those recognitions in different ways at different times, and considering that wife also reacts differently at different times--inconsistent between her reactions viewed diachronically, and inconsistent with my own contemporaneous reactions at times--it might well be that the triggers are context sensitive, vary across human persons, but do not necessarily partake of either randomness or individuated determination:
I think it's funny how modern medicine still works within the idea of organs - they hardly try and work at the level of individual cells - yet when people try to figure conciousness, they try and break it down to the most tiny component bits. Rather than seeing organs, intermingled.
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This is important, because computers can be made out of anything... not just vacuum tubes or semi-conducting microchips, but paper, DNA,
, dominoes...
Sometimes I think of a carbon based life form in symbiosis with a logic based life form. Or even a carbon based life form parasitic on a logic based life form.
But then I also wonder if logic actually exists.
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I think the hard problem is only there because people are loath to admit the increasingly likely possibility that all we experience (including mental phenomena) is generated mechanistically. The belief that the sources of mental phenomena are somehow exempt from the laws of physics and chemistry is perhaps the last bastion of dualism.
And again, this shows to me that we're talking past each other.
I'm a strong believer that my thoughts and feelings are determined by physical forces. If you use an electrode in the right way in my brain, you can make me believe I'm a pink elephant, you can make me swear that water tastes like wine, and you can make me murder my loved ones while cackling gleefully. All you would need is a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of the wiring inside my head and you could hack me, completely, and I would be your willing puppet. (ie Cants of Compulsion from PoN, or Neal's Marionette from Neuropath)
I am not a dualist insofar as it pertains to the CAUSES of mental phenomena.
What IS the problem is why 'mental phenomena' exist at all. Why are we not just a bunch of 'philosophical zombies', INSISTING that we have conscious experience, but with no actual 1st person frame?
Phrased differently: why does pain include the qualia of 'hurt'?
You could imagine a universe, just like this one, where people do the exact same things we do, and talk and type about the exact same things, but have absolutely no phenomenology. Behind the eyes, there is nothing but darkness. If these people hurt each other, there would be no pain. If you showed them a rose, they'd exclaim "what a wondrous shade of red!" but would not actually experience the associated qualia.
Science has absolutely NOTHING to say on this issue. Qualia exist because for some reason, that isn't immediately comprehensible under a scientific purview, information integrated and processed in a certain way results in phenomenological experience.
BBT is actually saying: you ARE a philosophical zombie silly! You just trick yourself into believing you're not. That's why, if you look with science, the intentional agent, and the first-person frame... just vanishes.
(While I think BBT makes some very interesting predictions, and accounts marvelously for the way conscious experience always seem sufficient and encompassing, I do not think it even comes close to solving the Hard Problem.)
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(While I think BBT makes some very interesting predictions, and accounts marvelously for the way conscious experience always seem sufficient and encompassing, I do not think it even comes close to solving the Hard Problem.)
If BBT says that there is no Hard Problem at all, doesn't that mean that it is solved if BBT is true?
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What IS the problem is why 'mental phenomena' exist at all. Why are we not just a bunch of 'philosophical zombies', INSISTING that we have conscious experience, but with no actual 1st person frame?
Phrased differently: why does pain include the qualia of 'hurt'?
Isn't 'hurt' just a description, a verbal representation of the sensation of pain? The word is associated with the sensation so it makes sense that even just the word can invoke to some degree physically felt sensations of pain. The brain triggers chemical responses to both sensations and images or words associated painful sensations. We feel what we feel because everything is laden with associations (both positive and negative). What you refer to as mental phenomena are thoughts and their associated physical sensations, subtle though they may be. A subjective experience of a rose is created by sensory data (visual information, olfactory information, tactile information, etc.) triggering in the brain associations with past encounters with similar data. And this stored data is not in any way neutral. It carries with it information about the positive and negative aspects of the previous encounters. Your experience of a rose is the felt physical responses and associated thoughts precipitated by neuro-computations/associations that the rose's appearance, smell, feel, etc. trigger in your brain.
Qualia exist because for some reason, that isn't immediately comprehensible under a scientific purview, information integrated and processed in a certain way results in phenomenological experience.
Exactly! The only question is what that 'certain way' is. Give science time and we will one day know how it occurs. Call it experience or phenomenology its not beyond the purview of scientific enquiry simply because there is nothing non-physical going on. Experience exists because the brain produces it.
BBT is actually saying: you ARE a philosophical zombie silly! You just trick yourself into believing you're not. That's why, if you look with science, the intentional agent, and the first-person frame... just vanishes.
True. What actually vanishes is the belief in the independent agency of an autonomous self. What does this say about a belief in 'qualia'?
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What IS the problem is why 'mental phenomena' exist at all. Why are we not just a bunch of 'philosophical zombies', INSISTING that we have conscious experience, but with no actual 1st person frame?
You could imagine a universe, just like this one, where people do the exact same things we do, and talk and type about the exact same things, but have absolutely no phenomenology. Behind the eyes, there is nothing but darkness. If these people hurt each other, there would be no pain. If you showed them a rose, they'd exclaim "what a wondrous shade of red!" but would not actually experience the associated qualia.
I can't imagine that. I think you are naturallx driven to a kind of dualism here. On the one hand there is your brain ect. and on the other hand the person/consciousness that experiences all the qualia. In the universe you mention, the person has no input.
But why assume that these two things are not the same. Think about showing them the rose? Who/what are you showing it to?
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You could imagine a universe, just like this one, where people do the exact same things we do, and talk and type about the exact same things, but have absolutely no phenomenology. Behind the eyes, there is nothing but darkness. If these people hurt each other, there would be no pain. If you showed them a rose, they'd exclaim "what a wondrous shade of red!" but would not actually experience the associated qualia.
I'm not sure I'm addressing the idea this is trying to get at, but I can't imagine this. When I was young I was trying to figure how you'd make an AI. I figured, you'd need positive input (or atleast, I determined to copy what existed, which is eaier to do).
And it struck me, how do you make 'positive input'?
And after a brief inside out kind of feeling, I realised it'd just be a signal on a wire. From the 'inside' it'd feel positive, in as much as it actuated a series of pursuits.
But as aweful as that might sound, I just can't imagine some universe where behind the eyes there is nothing but darkness. No, there would be signals on the wire. Even if you want to call them waves, like at the shore, rather signals so as to be non intentional, there are waves behind the eyes. There is a storm.
I think it's something about the BBT (ps, whatever happened to BBH? or BBQ?) I just can't get what's being tried to get at, since it seems to need to refer to something as just darkness/blankness...actually more than that, it seems to be pitched in a 'well, if it's not X, it's fuckin' nuffin/darkness!' way. Almost like some kind of wilful angry rejection. I don't know if I'm not getting it, or if it's something kind of rejection.
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If BBT says that there is no Hard Problem at all, doesn't that mean that it is solved if BBT is true?
Damn it. It appears I contradicted myself here:
BBT is actually saying: you ARE a philosophical zombie silly! You just trick yourself into believing you're not. That's why, if you look with science, the intentional agent, and the first-person frame... just vanishes.
(While I think BBT makes some very interesting predictions, and accounts marvelously for the way conscious experience always seem sufficient and encompassing, I do not think it even comes close to solving the Hard Problem.)
If BBT is true, then what is explained is why consciousness seems all encompassing. It certainly paves the way for a materialistic elimination of intentionality (the true causes of our actions are occluded from conscious experience), but leaves phenomenology intact. It explains why our phenomenology takes on some of the characteristics it has, but leaves open the question of why we have phenomenology in the first place. Why do information horizons cause experiences and 1st person frames to 'exist'?
So, I guess I would have to disagree with Bakker that using BBT makes the 'coin trick' of consciousness vanish. At least if I'm taking the position that it does not solve the hard problem by 'explaining it away'.
I will need to think more about this.
Exactly! The only question is what that 'certain way' is. Give science time and we will one day know how it occurs. Call it experience or phenomenology its not beyond the purview of scientific enquiry simply because there is nothing non-physical going on. Experience exists because the brain produces it.
I do not disagree with the bolded sentence.
I am trying to understand a deeper problem: why.
Also, ontologically, as much we don't want to be dualistic, it seems like 'experience' falls under a different category than brain matter.
I will admit there may no answer to this question anymore than there is an answer to the question "why does anything exist at all?"
I'm not sure I'm addressing the idea this is trying to get at, but I can't imagine this.
Yeah, the zombie argument has always suffered from the conceivability problem. It's like a square-circle: you can't picture it. Well, maybe I'm tricking myself somehow, but I have absolutely no problem conceiving of 'zombie earth'.
Consciousness seems utterly redundant to me. You could have people that do the exact things we do (even argue about consciousness!) without consciousness itself. Although how it is possible for beings to talk about something without a physical referent is a glaring problem with my position. I generally don't like using this line of argumentation, but I find it helps get across what I'm talking about, more or less.
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Consciousness seems utterly redundant to me. You could have people that do the exact things we do (even argue about consciousness!) without consciousness itself. Although how it is possible for beings to talk about something without a physical referent is a glaring problem with my position. I generally don't like using this line of argumentation, but I find it helps get across what I'm talking about, more or less.
That means to me, that they must also believe that they have consciousness. So how can you know that you are not on zombie earth?
Hm, I just don't think that a being without consciousness is able to reflect, think, argue ect. When I try to imagine zombie earth, the beings there don't act like we do but more like insects.
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I am trying to understand a deeper problem: why.
Why does the brain generate experience? Because there is survival value in it for the species. This is the answer to all "why" questions when it comes to biology. The more interesting question is "how". How does brain activity produce the sense of subjectivity? Experiencing is something that the brain is doing but what exactly is going on in the brain as it does this?
Also, ontologically, as much we don't want to be dualistic, it seems like 'experience' falls under a different category than brain matter.
The phrase "it seems like" should be a red flag. If neuroscience is teaching us anything it's that things are rarely what they seem to us.
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Experience exists because the brain produces it.
I'll argue that one.
The idea/the hypothesis (and/or the certainty) of experience exists.
You're trying to look at a hypothesis making process, with a hypothesis making process. At which point, like two semi transparencies overlapping, hypothesis forming about hypothesis forming overlaps and appears something not hypothesis/not see through.
Perhaps a bit like a no god, try a 'no hypothesis' hypothesis. Take 'experience exists' and overlap it with a hypothesis of a field of black no hypothesis. Now the 'experience exists' contrasts against transparent black, instead of overlapping another semi transparent and becoming 'solid'. Instead it's a transparency still sitting upon transparency. Recursing back by one previously solid conclusion.
Consciousness seems utterly redundant to me. You could have people that do the exact things we do (even argue about consciousness!) without consciousness itself. Although how it is possible for beings to talk about something without a physical referent is a glaring problem with my position. I generally don't like using this line of argumentation, but I find it helps get across what I'm talking about, more or less.
Here's the ambiguity of 'conciousness' plus possibly the rejection I refer to above.
It's like you'd prefer a world of zombies with blank behind their eyes, than for 'conciousness' to shift it's core at all to something else. Sacred ground - like finding out Jesus was a girl and...rather pretending it was sexless. A blank between the legs. Though that's a pretty weak example from me - most people here would probably find that example utterly cool rather than untenable. My fail!
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Why does the brain generate experience? Because there is survival value in it for the species. This is the answer to all "why" questions when it comes to biology.
Once again, we are talking past each other.
Before I jump into the philosophy of it, I need to point out that you're actually wrong about the biology. Sometimes, we see traits that are ornate and conserved but they serve no function. This is called a spandrel (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/gould.pdf). (Click for a classic paper by Gould and Lewontin) It's entirely possible that consciousness is a spandrel: an evolutionary side-effect of selection for some other information-processing structure.
Now, let me be clear what i am not arguing: I am not arguing that the human prefrontal cortex was not selected for. It very clearly was, given the IMMENSE evolutionary cost of producing and maintaining it. But the 'phenomenal experience' may be an unintentional side-effect of this selection.
Indeed, if BBT and TDTCB are true, it actually seems more likely to me that it IS a spandrel, since it seems to have no actual purpose.
OK, now to the philosophy.
We can probably all agree that a thermostat, or a digital camera has no 'phenomenological experiences'. If we view the human brain under the functionalist perspective, we get to the point at which the complexity of it "somehow" generates consciousness. Why, metaphysically, should this be? We should any inanimate object suddenly be gifted an internal perspective? Again, I argue science cannot answer that question. Maybe. I'm not sure. This is the heart of the Hard Problem.
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I need to point out that you're actually wrong about the biology. Sometimes, we see traits that are ornate and conserved but they serve no function.
I am aware of this. I was (over) generalizing.
Now, let me be clear what i am not arguing: I am not arguing that the human prefrontal cortex was not selected for. It very clearly was, given the IMMENSE evolutionary cost of producing and maintaining it. But the 'phenomenal experience' may be an unintentional side-effect of this selection.
Indeed, if BBT and TDTCB are true, it actually seems more likely to me that it IS a spandrel, since it seems to have no actual purpose.
Personally, I think it is highly unlikely that 'phenomenal experience' and the subjectivity that it involves is anything as inconsequential as to be considered a spandrel. Indeed I would say that subjectivity has enormous survival value.
Without self-aware consciousness:
Stimuli>unconscious processing>action>changes in environment>new stimuli
Organisms without self-awareness act on the output of unconscious process. They rely on the results of their action on the environment for feedback concerning the effectiveness of the unconscious processing. Only after they act do they find out if what they did was effective or not.
With the advent of self-conscious awareness:
Stimuli>unconscious processing>awareness of output of unconscious processing>additional processing*>eventual action>changes in environment>new stimuli
*Conscious awareness allows for additional processing which includes the outcomes of initial processing of stimuli. It is a way of improving on initial responses to stimuli by feeding those responses back into the computation. This loop can cycle indefinitely but in practical terms the cycling is limited by the need to eventually take action. Organisms with self-awareness (experiences) can reflect on the output of unconscious processes before taking action.
If we view the human brain under the functionalist perspective, we get to the point at which the complexity of it "somehow" generates consciousness. Why, metaphysically, should this be? We should any inanimate object suddenly be gifted an internal perspective? Again, I argue science cannot answer that question. Maybe. I'm not sure. This is the heart of the Hard Problem.
Taking my comments about self-awareness into account I maintain that science can tell us why the ability to experience the world with self-awareness has evolved. This capacity has evolved because there is tremendous survival advantage in self-awareness (experiencing).
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Yes, OK. I think you are (roughly) in the Daniel Dennett camp (not bad company, if I do say so myself).
I have, at times, held this position. It currently makes very little sense to me, but perhaps that is to be expected, given the predictions made by BBT.
My only strong disagreement with you is in assigning consciousness a function. If Scott's 'darkness that comes before' is an accurate portrayal of cognition, it seems that consciousness itself is an aftereffect, given that it has no causal power. The thoughts comes when they want... to paraphrase Nietzsche.
EDIT: Although, if you 100% equate consciousness to its neural correlates, then I see your point.
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Coming back to this...
Consciousness seems utterly redundant to me. You could have people that do the exact things we do (even argue about consciousness!) without consciousness itself.
Is there some sort of test for this conclusion? Perhaps people who have suffered a brain injury and can't sustain what many experts might call conciousness, vs someone with it? Both set to the same task?
You could have a monitor show the exact same graphics from a high end graphics card, without any graphics card at all.
But it would not be dynamic. It'd be a prerecorded movie.
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My only strong disagreement with you is in assigning consciousness a function. If Scott's 'darkness that comes before' is an accurate portrayal of cognition, it seems that consciousness itself is an aftereffect, given that it has no causal power. The thoughts comes when they want... to paraphrase Nietzsche.
I contend that self-consciousness is far more than a side-effect of evolution. Rather I believe it is a selected-for trait with enormous survival value.
I also contend that it plays a causal role in decision making. As I explained in my previous post, self-consciousness supplies the brain with a kind of feedback that is not available to more primitive nervous systems. This feedback contributes to (participates is causing) decisions arrived at (computationally) by the brain.
EDIT: Although, if you 100% equate consciousness to its neural correlates, then I see your point.
I attribute consciousness to the activity of neurons. Short of a capitulation to dualism I can see no other source of consciousness.
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I currently capitulate to a kind of dualism, or "dual-aspect monism" which is just a fancy way of saying "I don't know shit."
BBT explicitly contradict consciousness as having much or any functional consequence that we can understand. So, while the feedback might be there, it's certainly not doing what we intuitively understand it to be doing... "volition", "planning" etc. (This sentence was edited for consistency.)
Today's classic paper for Phi101:
http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/lecturenotes/DGB01%20ADD/libet-1999a.pdf
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I currently capitulate to a kind of dualism, or "dual-aspect monism" which is just a fancy way of saying "I don't know shit."
I had a suspicion you were hedging your bets. Why resort to dual-aspect monism when mono-aspect dualism can do the job without all the mental gymnastics necessary to support the "having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too" perspective of dual-aspect monism?
BBT explicitly contradict consciousness as having much or any functional consequence that we can understand. So, while the feedback might be there, it's certainly not doing what we intuitively understand it to be doing... "volition", "planning" etc. (This sentence was edited for consistency.)
Does BBT actually explicitly deny consciousness any functional role? If so, I cannot subscribe to Scott's theory. At least not that aspect of it. I maintain that any information available to the brain, including the contents of conscious awareness, will be automatically included as input in the brain's ongoing computation of 'what needs doing now'. This is how conscious awareness plays a causative role in cognition and behaviour.
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conscious awareness plays a causative role in cognition and behaviour
I strongly disagree with this. Forget the controversial dualism stuff, this is just science: "you" don't cause jack shit. Most of your actions and plans are decided and executed before your conscious mind has even a whiff of them. This is a pretty unpopular opinion, but it is the philosophical underpinning behind The Darkness that Comes Before, what the Dunyain strive for (to free their minds from causal history), and actually backed by some pretty serious science and philosophy.
I am more open to the idea that the neural correlates of consciousness (aka "consciousness" in the Dennett framework) eventually have an effect on your behavior, but I sincerely doubt this is in any way shape or form correlated to your feeling of "willing" something to happen.
I 'choose' to move my arm, but even though I consciously feel I made that choice, it was actually made milliseconds (which is a lifetime at the molecular level) before I was even conscious of the feeling of making it.
And every time we talk about this, I have to dredge up that extremely poignant Nietzsche quote at the beginning of TDTCB. Your thoughts precede you. They come to your mind fully formed, and force you to execute. Beliefs, opinions, sentences, desires, objectives, goals... all these things are hidden in the dark of your mind.
Why resort to dual-aspect monism when mono-aspect dualism can do the job
"Mono-aspect dualism" is a contradiction. Assuming you were being facetious, I can only reply that I clearly don't think any kind of pure monism or physicalism can 'do the job'.
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conscious awareness plays a causative role in cognition and behaviour
I strongly disagree with this. Forget the controversial dualism stuff, this is just science: "you" don't cause jack shit. Most of your actions and plans are decided and executed before your conscious mind has even a whiff of them.
Jorge, you have really leapt to an unsupported conclusion here. Nowhere have I claimed that a self does anything. What I said was the content of conscious awareness plays a causal role. As I explained, any information available to the brain for processing has the potential to play this role; to be grist for the neural mill.
I am more open to the idea that the neural correlates of consciousness (aka "consciousness" in the Dennett framework) eventually have an effect on your behavior, but I sincerely doubt this is in any way shape or form correlated to your feeling of "willing" something to happen.
Just to set the record straight I do not believe free will exists. I'm surprised that you have the impression that I do. I don't remember talking about anything that could be construed as supporting free will or an autonomous self. And I am well aware of the often cited experiments showing unconscious decision making precedes conscious awareness of those decisions.
"Mono-aspect dualism" is a contradiction. Assuming you were being facetious, I can only reply that I clearly don't think any kind of pure monism or physicalism can 'do the job'.
Actually, I meant to say "mono-aspect monism". What is it that physicalism can't do in terms of accounting for experience? If science can't at least potentially explain some aspect of experience then we are back to some quasi-dualistic rationalization. Perhaps you could explain the basic tenets of dual-aspect monism and the thinking that supports them.
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I'm not quite on the same topic, but...
Most of your actions and plans are decided and executed before your conscious mind has even a whiff of them.
I'm guessing this is an extreme example, sans any control efforts? Like maybe you see you have some booze in the fridge and have the strong urge to drink it (such urge might have formed some time ago) but you know it'll get in the way of you studying. So you resist (or try to - you may fail, indeed).
So yes, you 'act out', but some things can be detected and guessed in advance and those actions altered.
Do people ever really think they have absolute control? How would they ever feel 'spontanious' when at the same time they feel some absolute control? Or how would they explain tripping over things or blunder into objects? Or saying things which if they had more time to think aforehand, they would have resisted saying?
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OK, your position is much clearer now. I don't think you would have any qualms with BBT, indeed I advise you to read it (Bakker linked to it recently on his blog) you might actually understand it better than I did.
What I said was the content of conscious awareness plays a causal role. As I explained, any information available to the brain for processing has the potential to play this role; to be grist for the neural mill.
'grist' and 'mill' are flag words for a Bakker sock-puppet alert. Come on Scott! You're going to have to fold those facial knuckles better.
(I apologize if I'm totally off-base)
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OK, your position is much clearer now. I don't think you would have any qualms with BBT, indeed I advise you to read it (Bakker linked to it recently on his blog) you might actually understand it better than I did.
As far as I can tell I don't have any qualms with the central argument that the brain has no access to its own workings. However, Scott seems to think that because this is the case there might be some kind of ineffable mental phenomena (like qualia) occurring in the black box. To me this kind of speculation is just wishful thinking. As I have maintained all along, the only way to allow for qualia and other mysterious mental phenomena is to admit to dualism.
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Today's classic paper for Phi101:
http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.r ... -1999a.pdf
nice. love how high the houses of cards get in order to preserve human freedom.
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Today's philosophy 101 link, a mind-map of Western Philosophy. Shallow, but at least organizes contemporaries together and provides links for deeper to Wikipedia for elaboration.
http://www.mindmeister.com/23290325/western-philosophy/
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The problem, as described by the person who coined the term in the first place:
http://consc.net/papers/facing.html
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Just me or do a few statements there seem to act as the end itself, rather than a means to an end? 'Truth cannot be known through sensory perception, only through logos', for example. And I'm thinking 'knowing such truth, towards what end?' and...it seems like towards no end. It's just knowing truth is the end itself of knowing truth?
In the very least it seems to have no way of failure - you have no way of failing, because knowing truth is the end sought, but it's also the only measure of whether you achieved that end.
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Koch and Crick outlining how and why one should look for the neural correlates of consciousness
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/Papers/438.pdf
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Had a religious person at the door.
"Truth doesn't change"
Took a few seconds for me to disentangle something from that.
Me "It depends on what you're refering to by truth. We used to think the sun orbited the earth..."
"Ah, but that isn't true"
Me "We thought it was truth"
Had to disintangle that kind of truth from a truth that never changes. It's hard to do. Far easier to make the Gordian knot than it is to disentangle it.
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Thanks for this Jorge. I too have had problems trying to communicate the idea of Chalmers philo-zombies. It makes so much sense to me, yet I cannot for the life of me express why it matters to others.
Also, as an aside, loved the line about Vox saving orphans.
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Koch and Crick outlining how and why one should look for the neural correlates of consciousness
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/Papers/438.pdf
I think common culture needs some way of breaking down these papers into what fits into more common discussion. Which is to say I need one (okay, I looked at it and...man, I'd prefer to look at uncommented code).
Perhaps you could take a position on it Jorge, that's arguable, then there's a fun context (everone loves arguing) with which to read the document, instead of taking it as a raw data dump?
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:?:
Isn't causality an assumption? The greatest of precepts?
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What I'm getting at is, if science is predicated upon such a huge assumption - and the Scientific Method surely relies upon causality to be meaningful - then what makes scientific claims any more epistemically valid than religious claims, which simply assume the existence of supernatural entities and create logical proofs from there?
In that case, isn't it merely a matter of 'choose-your-prejudice'?
This has been bugging me for the better part of a year now...
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I guess scientists would point to the apparent successes of their methods and the successive steps of discovery (e.g., the steps taken to get from Newton's laws of motion to the Mars rover) as evidence for the validity of the scientific method. I think any "good" scientist will never say that anything to come out of science is the final and definitive answer; it's just the best explanation we have yet developed ("And just look at the cool technology that has come if it!").
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+1 Meyna.
Philosophy didn't make a rocket ship, the scientific method did?
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Philosophy didn't make a rocket ship, the scientific method did?
No, but see, that's merely begging the question.
But if causality is a mistaken assumption (and there's no way to tell one way or the other, is there?), then the scientific method didn't make anything, did it? Without causality at all, events are totally unrelated to each other.
At any rate, the ostensible utility of science in solving puzzles isn't relevant to the actual epistemic validity of the scientific claims themselves - that is, the strength of the underlying assumptions. What makes causality a better assumption than God? In fact, why should either one be accepted?!
The way it looks here, the choice is ultimately a matter of pure preference. A scientific world-view and a religious world-view are ultimately equally valid.
One more thing: I was under the impression that science is simply Natural Philosophy, so distinguishing between science and philosophy isn't really correct?
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I cringed for ambiguity writing my last post.
Both Meyna and I grant the illusory correlation of causality. I don't Meyna made any claims about it but I do think the scientific method is a philosophy.
I think in your initial questions, you frame a dichotomy. Philosophy would say that scientific claims are logically more valid - validity it not a measure of epistemological truth - than religious claims.
Epistemic claims are subject to validity, a question of logic, which is not the same as epistemological truth.
I've not partaken in the thread thus far but it is crucial to define terms as much as we can in this type of discussion, especially as the gradient to which one is introduced to academic philosophy, skews the matter entirely.
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especially as the gradient to which one is introduced to academic philosophy, skews the matter entirely.
I saw it mentioned, and did a bit of Googling. *shrug* We'll go by your definitions I suppose: validity vs. truth.
Validity = internal logical consistency?
What makes religious claims less logically consistent than scientific ones?
My impression is that religions use rigorous logic in theological proofs; the major issue is simply the assumption of a deity.
Or is there more to it/am I muddling terms?
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Validity = internal logical consistency?
Indeed. Complete falsehoods can be valid.
What makes religious claims less logically consistent than scientific ones?
Creative rigour?
My impression is that religions use rigorous logic in theological proofs; the major issue is simply the assumption of a deity.
I'm optimistically agnostic. I have no real issue with religious claims, though I have huge issue with how religious claims are used to enable and excuse violence in the world.
The study of philosophy covers only a small section of historical texts and Christianity uses only two, Augustine and Aquinas, who are concerned with reconciling their institution with the classic texts "rediscovered" in the Libraries of Islam and the Middle East at the end of the Dark Ages. Those two philosophers cover a number of years of seminary school.
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Because science has a disproval method for it's theories.
Religion does not.
Even with causality, science is the practice of accepting that even if a test produces result Y in 1000 tests, on the 1001st test it may produce result X. Perhaps causality will not be the case at some point? Who knows?
Perhaps god will not be the...
pfff, yeah. As if that thought is entertained by religion.
Religion and science aren't equal. Until religion provides emperical methods of proving it's theories wrong.
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Indeed. Complete falsehoods can be valid.
Then again, what even constitutes a falsehood...
I'm optimistically agnostic. I have no real issue with religious claims, though I have huge issue with how religious claims are used to enable and excuse violence in the world.
Though that isn't really either here or there, for our purposes; but secular claims have been responsible for the same. That, regardless of any score-carding anyone may feel impelled to introduce.
Perhaps causality will not be the case at some point? Who knows?
I don't see that science has any mechanism for disproving causality; science depends upon causality. So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
If 100 tests, X happens 100 times - could be totally unrelated. Does science accept that possibility? Does it account for the possibility of its own uselessness?
Anyway, theology has disproved its own claims plenty of times. The point then is that neither can challenge its own core assumptions - in fact, that these core assumptions exist at all!
Then, insofar as both systems use basically rational approaches to creating claims, they are equally valid. And they ain't worth a shit when it comes to "truth".
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Lol, you may be looking for opposition I can't offer, Bakker User.
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At the risk of coming off as an evangelical nihilist (a paradox?): I would really like to encounter a convincing argument against what I've presented; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to read Bakker's posts without feeling like a massive hypocrite for enjoying them! Or anything else, really...
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Perhaps causality will not be the case at some point? Who knows?
I don't see that science has any mechanism for disproving causality; science depends upon causality. So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
I don't know why you think science - the act of scientific investigation - is trying to prove itself to begin with? Perhaps because you've lined it up next to religion?
Science is a practice of investigation.
Science is the practice of thinking 'If X then Y is occuring, causality is occuring'. It puts an 'if' before everything.
When an IF is put ahead of causality, why do you think it has no mechanism for disproving causality?
If 100 tests, X happens 100 times - could be totally unrelated. Does science accept that possibility? Does it account for the possibility of its own uselessness?
Either I don't know what you mean, or you didn't read what I wrote - it is accepted that on the 101st time result Y might occur.
This would of course be a trigger for further attempts at investigating why Y happened. But otherwise the previous hypothesis is proven useless. I'm not sure why you want science as a whole proven useless by one theory being proven useless? Never mind that it was proven useless by adhering to the principle of scientific practice to keep an open mind that another result might occur and if it does, then to consider the previous hypothesis as false.
Anyway, theology has disproved its own claims plenty of times.
Skeptical.
The point then is that neither can challenge its own core assumptions - in fact, that these core assumptions exist at all!
I think sciences core assumption is not causality, but the assumption that a hypothesis based on emperical measurements can be wrong.
It's rather hard to shout down that assumption as wrong, without enacting that assumption.
Then, insofar as both systems use basically rational approaches to creating claims, they are equally valid. And they ain't worth a shit when it comes to "truth".
I don't know about truth, but if you were trapped in a flooding room and one man tries to hand you a scuba tank while another man tells you to have faith in Jesus, what are you gunna do?
You've simply adopted a position that you, in particular, know what is and isn't worth a shit when it comes to "truth".
Without any disproval method.
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I don't know why you think science - the act of scientific investigation - is trying to prove itself to begin with? Perhaps because you've lined it up next to religion?
I didn't say that.
Science is the practice of thinking 'If X then Y is occuring, causality is occuring'. It puts an 'if' before everything.
When an IF is put ahead of causality, why do you think it has no mechanism for disproving causality?
As I said, that's merely begging the question.
Either I don't know what you mean, or you didn't read what I wrote - it is accepted that on the 101st time result Y might occur.
I should have been more specific: does science accept the possibility that none of these "results" - a word that inherently begs the question - can ever be linked to the other events?
This would of course be a trigger for further attempts at investigating why Y happened. But otherwise the previous hypothesis is proven useless. I'm not sure why you want science as a whole proven useless by one theory being proven useless? Never mind that it was proven useless by adhering to the principle of scientific practice to keep an open mind that another result might occur and if it does, then to consider the previous hypothesis as false.
I don't see the relevance of this to what I've actually been saying.
Skeptical.
Let's focus in on Christianity, and then onto the Catholic Church - you think the Church maintains the same dogma as it did 2000 years ago? Heck, even Calvinists developed their dogma over time.
I think sciences core assumption is not causality, but the assumption that a hypothesis based on emperical measurements can be wrong.
It's rather hard to shout down that assumption as wrong, without enacting that assumption.
Note that without causality this assumption must hold. It seems to follow logically from the absence of causality, in fact - that's what I've been saying.
I don't know about truth
OK.
You've simply adopted a position that you, in particular, know what is and isn't worth a shit when it comes to "truth".
Why bring me in particular into it? Let's assume that science and religion exist as systems exclusive of my own self, which we're ultimately also assuming to exist.
Without any disproval method.
This is just logic. If these systems are predicated on unprovable assumptions while both being internally consistent in their own respects, then any claims emanating from them are merely a deck of cards. I think that logic has an inherent disproval mechanism. And after all, why would I use science to try to disprove the ultimate fallibility of science? Very motivated reasoning there. Now of course, if we might disqualify logic for whatever assumptions uphold it...
Only pause, Callan; refuse to follow the grooves these thoughts have worn into you. Pause, and you'll see. :twisted:
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I don't know why you think science - the act of scientific investigation - is trying to prove itself to begin with? Perhaps because you've lined it up next to religion?
I didn't say that.
So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
I have to admit it's possible there a communication failure somewhere. But this might also just be you dodging owning up to your own words.
Again, I don't know why you think this relates to the practice of science somehow disproving itself.
Definately the 'I didn't say that' responce isn't charitable reading of the other person/trying to figure out why they responded that way to you. If you are disinterested, say so. Otherwise 'I didn't say that' really isn't good enough.
Science is the practice of thinking 'If X then Y is occuring, causality is occuring'. It puts an 'if' before everything.
When an IF is put ahead of causality, why do you think it has no mechanism for disproving causality?
As I said, that's merely begging the question.
No, you've treated it as being a direct reliance on the assumption of causality.
I've just shown no such assumption is made. Only an 'if', not an 'it is'.
IF you wont listen to the difference, what can I say?
Either I don't know what you mean, or you didn't read what I wrote - it is accepted that on the 101st time result Y might occur.
I should have been more specific: does science accept the possibility that none of these "results" - a word that inherently begs the question - can ever be linked to the other events?
It's right there in the description! The 101st test could give Y result, or Z result or A result or B result or whatever.
Does that sound like an assertion of set in stone linkage?
It is dislocated. No assertion of a link.
This would of course be a trigger for further attempts at investigating why Y happened. But otherwise the previous hypothesis is proven useless. I'm not sure why you want science as a whole proven useless by one theory being proven useless? Never mind that it was proven useless by adhering to the principle of scientific practice to keep an open mind that another result might occur and if it does, then to consider the previous hypothesis as false.
I don't see the relevance of this to what I've actually been saying.
If 100 tests, X happens 100 times - could be totally unrelated. Does science accept that possibility? Does it account for the possibility of its own uselessness?
Again, you do not seem to own up to your own words of 'Does it account for the possibility of its own uselessness?'.
I'll slide a card of mine forward - this forgetful thinking is a hallmark of religious thinking. Assertions just get erased, because the 'I didn't say that' has more short term effect than relying on the previous spoken words.
It wont do much to say so except get it out in the open (if it's occuring). But if it is occuring I'm not interested in validating by letting it go unnamed.
Skeptical.
Let's focus in on Christianity, and then onto the Catholic Church - you think the Church maintains the same dogma as it did 2000 years ago? Heck, even Calvinists developed their dogma over time.
I think that's like comparing a dictatorship to a democracy in that the dictatorship has changed its policy over the years.
I suspect you think that whatever way the catholic church has changed the stories it's passed on over time/it's policies is the only way it can be done, thus the practice of science must use the same method.
No, you didn't say that. Of course not - if I'm trying to point out a potential flaw in your understanding, your are obviously not going to have said your flaw, or otherwise you'd know it already! Be charitable and humour me that these things might be in what you say and be the assumptions behind what you say.
I think sciences core assumption is not causality, but the assumption that a hypothesis based on emperical measurements can be wrong.
It's rather hard to shout down that assumption as wrong, without enacting that assumption.
Note that without causality this assumption must hold. It seems to follow logically from the absence of causality, in fact
I don't see why it must hold in the absence of causality or why it would follow logically from the absence of causality. It's just an idea.
You've simply adopted a position that you, in particular, know what is and isn't worth a shit when it comes to "truth".
Why bring me in particular into it?
Because for the third time you do not own up to your own words:
And they ain't worth a shit when it comes to "truth".
It's YOU who are making a claim here, but you treat it as if YOU hadn't said a thing - you even go so far as to ask why I'm bringing you into it, even as you quite clearly make a claim.
You seem to have trouble with anyone reading a subtext into your words rather taking them verbatum. And you lose track of your own claim making.
I'll push forward a card again - the latter is strongly indicative of religious thinking. The voice from nowhere authority undulates from being 'how things are' to 'what I said' without rhyme or concious notice.
Again, if it does happen to be occuring, I say this to make it a named thing. Brought before the eye, instead of sacading the eye from behind.
Without any disproval method.
This is just logic. If these systems are predicated on unprovable assumptions
Only one is. Unless you treat 'if' as predication.
Only pause, Callan; refuse to follow the grooves these thoughts have worn into you. Pause, and you'll see. :twisted:
Such are the words of those who are at the very center of the world.
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There's one way I'd like to deal with you, but I suppose we all accept Bakker's positions on Semantic Command & Control...
So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
Where in this line did you read a "must"? What I'm saying is that science has no means of disproving causality. But we'll leave it there for now, as you don't seem to recognize causality as an assumption somehow. The line is predicated on your acceptance of the fact that causality is an assumption, and one that science can not function without.
I've just shown no such assumption is made. Only an 'if', not an 'it is'.
You've shown nothing. "If X happens, then Y happens, then causality is occuring" is an instance of begging the question. How do you know that causality is occurring? For Y to be a result of X then causality must already be operative. A consequence of causality can not be a proof of causality without begging the question. It is circular reasoning.
It's right there in the description! The 101st test could give Y result, or Z result or A result or B result or whatever.
Look - if each test gives a different "result" because everything occurs randomly, then what the hell use is science? It would tell you nothing about anything, in this scenario. In this scenario (of randomness) a test is correlated temporally to a pink elephant, and this pink elephant has nothing to do with the test: it's random.
Again, you do not seem to own up to your own words of 'Does it account for the possibility of its own uselessness?'.
I'm referring to the absence of causality. If you're not getting what I'm putting across, then while I am at fault for not tailoring my words to your peculiar psychology, your peculiar psychology is at fault as well. Take some responsibility.
I'll slide a card of mine forward - this forgetful thinking is a hallmark of religious thinking. Assertions just get erased, because the 'I didn't say that' has more short term effect than relying on the previous spoken words.
Doubtful. I'm an atheist, by the way.
I suspect you think that whatever way the catholic church has changed the stories it's passed on over time/it's policies is the only way it can be done
As I said, I'm an atheist. Why do you make unnecessary assumptions like this? Why not stick to the discussion at hand?
No, you didn't say that. Of course not - if I'm trying to point out a potential flaw in your understanding, your are obviously not going to have said your flaw, or otherwise you'd know it already! Be charitable and humour me that these things might be in what you say and be the assumptions behind what you say.
Humor you? I'm debating with you! Are you really asking me to just throw up my hands and take your position without a second thought to its contradictions?
Ha, see? That's an interpretation you likely didn't intend - but I put it forth to confound you. This is just how it feels for me, by the way, when you say really bizarre, irrelevant, and/or heretofore-addressed things. Now, if we're just going to trade platitudes and flippant analogies continually, then let the whole affair end sooner rather than later. Confront my propositions, and try to think them through.
I don't see why it must hold in the absence of causality or why it would follow logically from the absence of causality. It's just an idea.
Alright, we'll walk through it.
You said this:
I think sciences core assumption is not causality, but the assumption that a hypothesis based on emperical measurements can be wrong.
As I said earlier in this post, if everything is random (as would be the case without causality) then every hypothesis based on empirical measurements MUST be wrong. Try it: I hypothesize that my post will influence you into making a reply. Now, I remove causality from the equation. Now, that hypothesis must be incorrect, as without the potential for causative influence your reply (if it indeed were to come) would be completely random and unrelated to my post in any way. Do you see it yet?
Because for the third time you do not own up to your own words:
You've taken me too literally here. Can't you see subtext? <insert smiley here so you get the idea> See a couple of points up for an explanation.
It's YOU who are making a claim here
My "claim" is a consequence; it follows from what I've presented. This is a problem - don't jump to the very end of the idea-chain and complain that it doesn't make sense standing alone!
You seem to have trouble with anyone reading a subtext into your words rather taking them verbatum. And you lose track of your own claim making.
I have trouble with obliquity.
I'll push forward a card again - the latter is strongly indicative of religious thinking.
Quit committing the fallacy of associating things you don't like with unrelated things you don't like! For Bakker's sake...
Again, if it does happen to be occuring, I say this to make it a named thing. Brought before the eye, instead of sacading the eye from behind.
The voice from nowhere authority undulates from being 'how things are' to 'what I said' without rhyme or concious notice.
Farcical. Do you see the link between the two, set as they are one above the other?
Only one is. Unless you treat 'if' as predication.
"If causality is operative, such-and-such etc." - yes, that's calling down an assumption. The religious equivalent would roughly be, "If God exists, then such-and-such etc." The only way out of this for you is to show that causality is not an assumption of science, which I've clearly demonstrated it to be. Would you like more?
Such are the words of those who are at the very center of the world.
They're Bakker's words. Perhaps you haven't read PoN closely enough? ;)
(Yes, that is indeed a double-entendre; but let that be my quota for jibes and facetieties)
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There's one way I'd like to deal with you
I'm going to skip reading your post until I know there's some mutual good will involved here. If you wrote the quoted section because you think there isn't good will on my part, okay, that's not true but I get that you have to place your bets. Otherwise if you think there is goodwill on my part, I'd like some confirmation it's mutual rather than I am percieved as an object to be dealt with as you will. One test is 'would you speak that way in a face to face conversation?'. I try and write what I'd be prepared to say in person (though generally with time to compose I can write better than what I could spontaniously say in conversation).
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I didn't want to use "converse" there, as I thought it would bring the sentence off-kilter.
What I specifically was getting at in that line was that I'd like to resort to the "You're deliberately misunderstanding me" piece, but acknowledged with some sadness that it is indeed invalid for ever.
One test is 'would you speak that way in a face to face conversation?
I haven't had a face-to-face conversation with anyone in 6 years. I meant what I said in that intro post.
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So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
Where in this line did you read a "must"?
The way I know english, 'would' and 'must' mean pretty much the same thing here.
The charitable reading I can give is that I don't speak your language. It's a derivative of english (or my language is a derivative of english. Either way, same deal).
The other reading is that you simply state claims, then give way on them and ask why I think you were making a claim.
I'll try a dungeon scenario - you say 'When we press this button, it would open the door to the next room'. Someone presses the button and scorpions come out of a hole in the wall. Do you say 'I never said it must open the door!'
You've shown nothing. "If X happens, then Y happens, then causality is occuring" is an instance of begging the question.
You're ignoring 'if' as a qualifying statement. By your logic if I say 'If I buy a lottery ticket, then my numbers come up, then I have won the lottery' you'll read me as saying that just by buying a lottery ticket, I'll win the lottery. This is simply either bad reading, or you work from some derivative of english (or I do).
Well, you can keep arguing that science essentially says if you buy a ticket, you'll win. It's not true, though that is what every religion operates from.
Look - if each test gives a different "result" because everything occurs randomly, then what the hell use is science?
It's use is that it will admit it is of no use. This is the humility of science. Tell me of a religion that has a process by which it'll admit itself useless?
I'll pause here, as even this amount of reply may still evoke large posts of responce. Or if the above gets sorted out shortly, then I'll move on to more of your reply.
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The way I know english, 'would' and 'must' mean pretty much the same thing here.
Hmm... your trouble seems to be with syntax. Read the full sentence again.
So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
And your reply:
I don't know why you think science - the act of scientific investigation - is trying to prove itself to begin with? Perhaps because you've lined it up next to religion?
I never said that science is trying to disprove itself. I said that science has no mechanism for disproving causality. What I did say: If, on the other hand, there were such a mechanism - it is crucial that you understand this caveat which I was making - then - and let me make it explicit - without a mechanism for proving causality it would necessarily be disproving itself. Why, you might ask? Because science is predicated upon causality - that's literally my whole point.
You're ignoring 'if' as a qualifying statement.
The way I speak English, "if" is a predicating word, just like "assuming".
Well, you can keep arguing that science essentially says if you buy a ticket, you'll win. It's not true, though that is what every religion operates from.
I don't want to misinterpret you here, so please rephrase that without abstraction.
It's use is that it will admit it is of no use. This is the humility of science. Tell me of a religion that has a process by which it'll admit itself useless?
"Humility" of science? Why should I value humility over correctness? This sort of statement does nothing for me. I could care less how 'nice' or 'good' or 'moral' or what-have-you any one abstraction appears to you.
BUT - I note that you tacitly admit my very point: it will admit it is of no use
So you agree that without causality, science can not function properly.
What, then, are you arguing for? That I should maintain a sacred faith in Science, which with strong hand and outstretched arm has theoretically lifted our People up out of the Land of Ignorance, in which we lived as slaves, and brought us into the Land of Reason, a place flowing with milk and honey, in which we shall live for ever and ever and become as numerous as are the grains of sand in the Sea, most Blessed among Species, so long as we keep our Covenant with Science?
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Why does science depend on causality? From all I've seen, this was something stated that was simply taken for granted.
Causality is a way in which we represent reality to ourselves; we note that certain actions follow others, and link them together via causal reasoning. This doesn't mean that causality exists, but merely that we associate temporal moments in a causal way.
Science, especially in its contemporary state, is aware of the shortcomings of causality; but, since science is based on experiment and trial-and-error, I don't think it requires causality in order to function. We can still follow our day-to-day operations without any appeal to causality. We can doubt causality since this will allow us more easily to accept when commonly occurring phenomena do not follow in the manner/order to which we are accustomed; but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation. After enough experimental trials communicate the same, or similar, results, we find a plausible basis on which to assume that such results will continue. I don't think science "disproves" itself if it somehow manages to disprove causality. Science has always been concerned with correlation: i.e. "The following conditions yielded the same results 9 out of 10 times; thus, it is likely that these conditions will continue to yield such results (however, it is not imperative that these conditions yield such results)."
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Interesting. Keeping it on your terms:
but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation
This line suggests that all causal statements should be considered non-scientific; that is, once a "scientist" extrapolates results or develops a theory, they necessarily stray outside the realm of science - because "science isn't about determining causation". Would you abide by that assessment?
After enough experimental trials communicate the same, or similar, results, we find a plausible basis on which to assume that such results will continue.
Without causality, there is certainly no plausible basis.
Again, would you accept the notion that "assum[ing]...such results will continue" is unscientific?
"The following conditions yielded the same results 9 out of 10 times; thus, it is likely that these conditions will continue to yield such results (however, it is not imperative that these conditions yield such results)."
Without causality, it is imperative that these conditions have no relation to these "results".
I need to hear how you make irreconcilable this
once a "scientist" extrapolates results or develops a theory, they necessarily stray outside the realm of science
with
but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation
I simply can't see how one can remove causation from science's ambit without accepting that science is incapable of prediction and generalization. which really REQUIRE causality in at least some extent.
I mean, it certainly seems to me that science ascribes - that is, causally links - phenomena to physical, non-supernatural causes, in its current form. It certainly seems to me that science seeks to correlate to predict and generalize.
I really need to see whether you reject my initial formulation, and if so how you make compatible the apparent functions and claims of modern science with what I'm treating as your core line:
but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation
:?:
EDIT: And, isn't that really the point of correlating in the first place - to discern where the causation lies, and so better yoke it to human purposes? After all, any system can invoke correlation - for instance, I can correlate my post with yours. And it is my conception of science that a scientific approach would attempt to investigate the correlations between my posts and yours, both past and future, to discover whether there is some causation at work between them. I simply can't conceive of science as removed from making causal assessments.
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Causality is a way in which we represent reality to ourselves; we note that certain actions follow others, and link them together via causal reasoning. This doesn't mean that causality exists, but merely that we associate temporal moments in a causal way.
I will note that humans don't temporally associate in unanimous fashion.
Bakker User, I have to ask - what's the switch? This seems like bait; what is your ulterior position after someone yields to the claim you've made? And mind, anyone might simply embody your passion within an tact for linguistic semantics rather than assume that your use of language actually dissembles phenomena the way you seem to think.
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your passion within an tact for linguistic semantics
Ouch, is that what you see?
what's the switch? This seems like bait; what is your ulterior position after someone yields to the claim you've made?
I think I mentioned earlier, though perhaps not all that explicitly, that I would like to encounter an argument against my premises that I can't think my way around, thus forcing me to abjure for at least as long as I remain incognizant of a good counter. This is sort of a Bakkerian exercise, I think.
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That's not what I read. I was simply highlighting an easy lever for someone to dissemble your position in this Bakkerian exercise.
Also, you were clear; I bowed out early for that reason. Perhaps, if you'd like us to provide a foil in the form of your actual argument, you will need to at least sketch those dimensions, as well. We can't argue one of your positions for you, if we don't know more information.
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We can't argue one of your positions for you, if we don't know more information.
To be honest, I must confess that I'm not quite understanding your usage of "dissemble".
I'm looking for arguments against, not for. I'm afraid that I'm missing something.
Edit: If it helps: there's no "real" argument beneath this 'surface' one. Perhaps that's the key here.
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Just to note, I've only paid cursory notice to this thread in general and the back and forth between yourself and Callan.
You are arguing against a position you already hold as part of your explanatory style: that is, causality & science?
Causality as you've encountered it seems to you an indigestible distinction?
It would seem Callan and Soterion share your usual perspective yet aren't tackling that position as you'd like or, at least, not so well as you think you are tackling the other half within the debate you've set up here.
You hope to strengthen the security of an existing perspective by playing your own Devil's Advocate? Certain to be respected in some measure, excepting that you aren't finding the counter you are incognizant of?
EDIT: Also, you were correct, Bakker User - I meant that first dissemble as disassemble, though the second one stands. Minor nitpick.
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Interesting. Keeping it on your terms:
but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation
This line suggests that all causal statements should be considered non-scientific; that is, once a "scientist" extrapolates results or develops a theory, they necessarily stray outside the realm of science - because "science isn't about determining causation". Would you abide by that assessment?
Speaking semantically and logically, this is correct. The formulation of theory rests on an absolutization of correlative phenomena that isn't proven merely by observing said phenomena. However, causal statements should be assessed based on the wealth or paucity of correlative evidence.
We can say that an affirmative causal statement is, in and of itself, unscientific; but we can claim that it is supported by scientific experimentation.
After enough experimental trials communicate the same, or similar, results, we find a plausible basis on which to assume that such results will continue.
Without causality, there is certainly no plausible basis.
Again, would you accept the notion that "assum[ing]...such results will continue" is unscientific?
Yes to the second statement, but I take issue with your criticism of plausibility. I'll try my best to express what I mean here. I intend "plausible" as distinct from "probable." There can be no probability in such an assessment. Here I'm following the work of Quentin Meillassoux; that is, probability requires a totalization of all possible combinations. We have no reason to assume that there is a totality of physical outcomes.
Plausible acceptance, however, can be achieved because it is unscientific. Repetition and observation are scientific; from them we can arrive at plausible acceptance, but this plausibility is no longer scientific.
"The following conditions yielded the same results 9 out of 10 times; thus, it is likely that these conditions will continue to yield such results (however, it is not imperative that these conditions yield such results)."
Without causality, it is imperative that these conditions have no relation to these "results".
Correct; but science rests purely in the repetition and observation of experiments, as I perceive it. Even if science disproved causality, it would still prove beneficial for human use simply by providing us with the ability to plausibly assume certain results, even if it does not guarantee them.
I need to hear how you make irreconcilable this
once a "scientist" extrapolates results or develops a theory, they necessarily stray outside the realm of science
with
but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation
Science provides the foundation for accepting a theory, or assumption, as plausible. Our causal assumptions aren't scientific in and of themselves; but evidence of correlation, based on scientific research, allow us to make unscientific judgments.
I simply can't see how one can remove causation from science's ambit without accepting that science is incapable of prediction and generalization. which really REQUIRE causality in at least some extent.
I mean, it certainly seems to me that science ascribes - that is, causally links - phenomena to physical, non-supernatural causes, in its current form. It certainly seems to me that science seeks to correlate to predict and generalize.
I really need to see whether you reject my initial formulation, and if so how you make compatible the apparent functions and claims of modern science with what I'm treating as your core line:
but science, in my opinion, is focused on determining correlation, not causation
:?:
EDIT: And, isn't that really the point of correlating in the first place - to discern where the causation lies, and so better yoke it to human purposes? After all, any system can invoke correlation - for instance, I can correlate my post with yours. And it is my conception of science that a scientific approach would attempt to investigate the correlations between my posts and yours, both past and future, to discover whether there is some causation at work between them. I simply can't conceive of science as removed from making causal assessments.
I want to ask first if my former comments have answered your questions; I apologize if not, and I'll try again if you continue to specify your concerns.
Finally, I don't object to the charge that science is ultimately geared toward "human purposes." I simply think that science rests entirely within the realm of experimentation: repetition, and observation. The judgments we make, which might be criticized as being irrational, acausal, unscientific, and anthropocentric, ultimately fall outside the realm of science, although science provides the evidence by which arrive at our judgments. Those whose judgments lack scientific support warrant more scrutiny than those that don't.
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The way I know english, 'would' and 'must' mean pretty much the same thing here.
Hmm... your trouble seems to be with syntax. Read the full sentence again.
Dude, this doesn't say much about your open mindedness. Despite the way people can clearly end up using language in different ways and even that language is made up, you don't think you could be wrong, or your usage could be particular. It's just that it's entirely up to me to read it again and again.
If you think language is a one sided affair, in your own perspective you're going to be right at the end of this, simply from lumping the other guy with all the work and him giving up because of that.
Perhaps you could reread what you wrote as well.
So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
And your reply:
I don't know why you think science - the act of scientific investigation - is trying to prove itself to begin with? Perhaps because you've lined it up next to religion?
I never said that science is trying to disprove itself.
You just quoted me saying 'proved' - then you turn that into 'disprove'.
Slow down and acknowledge some reading errors on your side of the discussion.
It's a simple error - can you acknowledge it, or must no concession be made to me and nothing relinquished? I'm guessing a lack of responce to this question and moving the subject on. Which means no concession.
You're ignoring 'if' as a qualifying statement.
The way I speak English, "if" is a predicating word, just like "assuming".
Well, you can keep arguing that science essentially says if you buy a ticket, you'll win. It's not true, though that is what every religion operates from.
I don't want to misinterpret you here, so please rephrase that without abstraction.
By your reading of english, if I say 'If I buy a lottery ticket, then my numbers come up, then I have won the lottery' you'll read me as saying that just by buying a lottery ticket, I'll win the lottery.
It wont help this conversation between us to just stick with that method of reading.
It's use is that it will admit it is of no use. This is the humility of science. Tell me of a religion that has a process by which it'll admit itself useless?
"Humility" of science? Why should I value humility over correctness? This sort of statement does nothing for me. I could care less how 'nice' or 'good' or 'moral' or what-have-you any one abstraction appears to you.
You've said science and religion are the same (you'll now say you never said that). So tell me which religion will admit itself useless?
BUT - I note that you tacitly admit my very point: it will admit it is of no use
So you agree that without causality, science can not function properly.
What, then, are you arguing for? That I should maintain a sacred faith in Science, which with strong hand and outstretched arm has theoretically lifted our People up out of the Land of Ignorance, in which we lived as slaves, and brought us into the Land of Reason, a place flowing with milk and honey, in which we shall live for ever and ever and become as numerous as are the grains of sand in the Sea, most Blessed among Species, so long as we keep our Covenant with Science?
Like alot of athiests, it sounds like you're looking for an under the counter god. Alternatively, I have no idea why you bring up 'sacred faith'.
Note to self: 'Under the counter god' would be a wicked book title. It's mine, folks! All mine! Time stamped and everything! :twisted:
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Hmmm...
I'm reminded of this (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5f_1359794904) video for some reason. At the heart of your words flexes the cold of scrutiny. Measure is unceasing...
You are arguing against a position you already hold as part of your explanatory style: that is, causality & science?
I would be lying if I were to disclaim an implicit belief in the strength of causality. My default loyalty was at one point unqueestionably with science, I suppose.
Causality as you've encountered it seems to you an indigestible distinction?
Indigestible assumption, I would say.
It would seem Callan and Soterion share your usual perspective
I'm unsure, in quite a few senses.
You hope to strengthen the security of an existing perspective by playing your own Devil's Advocate?
I'm not sure that I am, actually. Then again... on reflection, perhaps I've set this up in such a way that, "no matter who wins, I win". That is, I'm no longer certain of which side I hold the preference for.
you aren't finding the counter you are incognizant of?
Nothing I hadn't thought of or can't think of a way around - yet.
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Soterion, you make this both easier and more difficult by introducing a novel conception of what science is and does...
Easier because it keeps some problems and introduces others; harder because I need to switch quite a few mental gears, and track guage, etc...
I'll need to visit a few more points and questions. But my impression is that your definition of science much reduces it - if not in terms of prestige, then certainly in terms of usual scope.
However, causal statements should be assessed based on the wealth or paucity of correlative evidence.
But it always rests upon the assumption of causality. So even defining science this way and removing it from the causal picture, all that "evidence" suddenly isn't worth very much.
We can say that an affirmative causal statement is, in and of itself, unscientific; but we can claim that it is supported by scientific experimentation.
Same point as above.
Repetition and observation are scientific; from them we can arrive at plausible acceptance, but this plausibility is no longer scientific.
Then, is any set of repetitions and observations scientific? Then, would a hunter-gatherer noting the correlation between the onset of dark and the disappearance of the sun be an instance of scientific experimentation?
If that's the case, then what's the difference between ascribing this phenomenon to supernatural rather than natural causes? Both are supported by the same scientific evidence, and both make the same sort of non-scientific claims - spiritualism and physicalism brought to the same level.
At the very least, "scientific theory" would have to be considered an oxymoron and discarded from common usage.
Even if science disproved causality
But then, I'm not sure how mere correlation could ever disprove causation. I've heard, "Correlation does not necessitate causation", but I've never heard, "Correlation necessitates the absence of causation"!
it would still prove beneficial for human use simply by providing us with the ability to plausibly assume certain results, even if it does not guarantee them.
On the contrary: it can only hold with causality. Without causality, we can not plausibly assume results. If, in an acausal universe, jumping twice in a row is alternately followed by flying pink elephants and instant death-and-resurrection, it would certainly not be plausible to assume any causal link between these events!
***************
If no one minds, I'll confine Soterion's conception of science to responses directed at his posts, unless anyone else would actually like to adopt it.
Dude, this doesn't say much about your open mindedness. Despite the way people can clearly end up using language in different ways and even that language is made up, you don't think you could be wrong, or your usage could be particular. It's just that it's entirely up to me to read it again and again.
If you think language is a one sided affair, in your own perspective you're going to be right at the end of this, simply from lumping the other guy with all the work and him giving up because of that.
Funnily enough, that's pretty much what I said of your approach!
Slow down and acknowledge some reading errors on your side of the discussion.
Oh shi-i-i-t, son, I'll grant you that one. I missed it. However, though this is an embarrassing oversight it doesn't actually change the substance of my counter too much. Let's try it again.
So even if there were a way for science to disprove causality, it would essentially be disproving itself.
And your reply:
I don't know why you think science - the act of scientific investigation - is trying to prove itself to begin with? Perhaps because you've lined it up next to religion?
I never said that science is trying to prove itself. I said that science has no mechanism for disproving causality. What I did say: If, on the other hand, there were such a mechanism - it is crucial that you understand this caveat which I was making - then - and let me make it explicit - without a mechanism for proving causality it would necessarily be disproving itself. Why, you might ask? Because science is predicated upon causality - that's literally my whole point.
*shrug* That's my stance on the sentence.
By your reading of english, if I say 'If I buy a lottery ticket, then my numbers come up, then I have won the lottery' you'll read me as saying that just by buying a lottery ticket, I'll win the lottery.
Nope. Perhaps you'd like to show how this analogy actually holds?
You've said science and religion are the same (you'll now say you never said that).
I've got you dead-to-rights here. I never, ever, said that. What I said is - and you may search this up yourself, if you don't believe it:
The way it looks here, the choice is ultimately a matter of pure preference. A scientific world-view and a religious world-view are ultimately equally valid.
Epistemically-speaking.
8-)
Like alot of athiests, it sounds like you're looking for an under the counter god.
Nah - I've already noted my motivation earlier on.
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Hmmm...
I'm reminded of this (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5f_1359794904) video for some reason. At the heart of your words flexes the cold of scrutiny.
Measure is unceasing...
Lol. None know me, Bakker User ;), though I'd wager that I've exposed my expressive self on this forum more than any other avenue of my life - I certainly can't rank Dunyain, simply someone attempting one active, embodied practice of many. In the future, I'm sure I'll be classified as some fundamentalist evolutionist and not one of those new-age hippie transcendentalists or augmentalists. I even embrace emotions :shock: ;)?
You are arguing against a position you already hold as part of your explanatory style: that is, causality & science?
I would be lying if I were to disclaim an implicit belief in the strength of causality. My default loyalty was at one point unqueestionably with science, I suppose.
Just curious - my opinion would be that you've been fair in offering premises to justify your refutation, regardless.
Causality as you've encountered it seems to you an indigestible distinction?
Indigestible assumption, I would say.
Distinctions are only attempts to sketch borders? I admit the assumptive nature of naming things, forcing them into places. Everything is change, or not, and yet all we can do is throw these very human nets at leviathans and grotesqueries.
It would seem Callan and Soterion share your usual perspective
I'm unsure, in quite a few senses.
You hope to strengthen the security of an existing perspective by playing your own Devil's Advocate?
I'm not sure that I am, actually. Then again... on reflection, perhaps I've set this up in such a way that, "no matter who wins, I win". That is, I'm no longer certain of which side I hold the preference for.
you aren't finding the counter you are incognizant of?
Nothing I hadn't thought of or can't think of a way around - yet.
Keep flexing - the brain's a muscle unlike any other. A most useful practice.
"You can never convince others, only that, in this moment, you have learned enough."
A common metaphor in my philosophic experience is a pot of water that boils, when decrying science in philosophy's favour based on the noncausality charge.
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I never said that science is trying to prove itself. I said that science has no mechanism for disproving causality. What I did say: If, on the other hand, there were such a mechanism - it is crucial that you understand this caveat which I was making - then - and let me make it explicit - without a mechanism for proving causality it would necessarily be disproving itself. Why, you might ask? Because science is predicated upon causality - that's literally my whole point.
You're refering to some other method and attributing that as being the scientific method. I've said "if a test produces result Y in 1000 tests, on the 1001st test it may produce result X. Perhaps causality will not be the case at some point? Who knows?"
You keep reading it as "Hae, science thinks if you get result Y 1000 times, then it's proven!". Indeed looking back at your former posts I recognise this now, when you say "If 100 tests, X happens 100 times - could be totally unrelated."
As I said back then: Either I don't know what you mean, or you didn't read what I wrote - it is accepted that on the 1001st time result Y might occur.
No, science doesn't think if you get result Y 1000 times, it's proven. Apparently you keep insisting that is what science does think.
Nope. Perhaps you'd like to show how this analogy actually holds?
Show entirely on my own, without effort on your part? No, I wouldn't like that.
I'll quote you
You've shown nothing. "If X happens, then Y happens, then causality is occuring" is an instance of begging the question.
You've said this is begging the question, because you treat the following as a statement of fact "if X happens, then Y happens, then causality is occuring", as if causality IS occuring, rather than causality MIGHT BE occuring.
It's not the former. You keep reading it the way it's not intended, then when I go to correct your reading to the latter, to treat it as a MIGHT BE statement, you've ignored that. Maybe the lottery ticket analogy was just too complex to show up as such a correction, but it doesn't seem complex to me.
I've got you dead-to-rights here. I never, ever, said that. What I said is - and you may search this up yourself, if you don't believe it:The way it looks here, the choice is ultimately a matter of pure preference. A scientific world-view and a religious world-view are ultimately equally valid.
Let's go even further back
What I'm getting at is, if science is predicated upon such a huge assumption - and the Scientific Method surely relies upon causality to be meaningful - then what makes scientific claims any more epistemically valid than religious claims, which simply assume the existence of supernatural entities and create logical proofs from there?
In that case, isn't it merely a matter of 'choose-your-prejudice'? - See more at: http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/philosophy-101-t1239708-50.html#sthash.zAVwJaqv.dpuf
It makes it sound like you're stating actual facts here, that you say they are both predicated on huge assumptions.
So you're not stating any facts, you're just saying 'choose what you wanna'?
It honestly didn't sound like it. It sounded like you thought you had some sort of facts to treat them as equal choices.
Nah - I've already noted my motivation earlier on.
I still don't know why you brought up 'sacred faith'
Unrelated Foot Note: This just in - I hate that when I cut and paste text from here it throws in an advert for this forum. I didn't even know there was code that could do something invasive like that (next if I take a screen shot they'll have code to put in a shitty watermark)
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Unrelated response: There are plenty of sites that do that - I've even encountered it academically, along with some discomfort.
I haven't experienced that here? Does it happen within forum or only when you take the text to quote on another site or document?
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I haven't experienced that here? Does it happen within forum or only when you take the text to quote on another site or document? - See more at: http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/philosophy-101-t1239708-80.html#sthash.XR1dkHv2.dpuf
When I look at the forum in my browser, highlight, copy then paste, the above occurs. It may be a default setting.
Also although I'm in part to blame, I wonder if we are detracting from Jorge's good idea to have a philosophy 101 thread - maybe this discussion (pretty much starting with Bakker Users first post) could be clipped off into it's own thread and we can continue it from there (obviously with a link back to this thread, for reference)?
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No, science doesn't think if you get result Y 1000 times, it's proven. Apparently you keep insisting that is what science does think.
I'll clarify: That's not quite what I'm saying, because I disagree with your
Perhaps causality will not be the case at some point? Who knows?"
I do not see science as accepting this possibility. In fact, if the X-result occurs on the 1001th time, science would never, ever reject causality as a whole - it would instead consider the possibility that the causal mechanism behind these results is not as well-understood as previously thought. That's a huge distinction.
You've said this is begging the question, because you treat the following as a statement of fact "if X happens, then Y happens, then causality is occuring", as if causality IS occuring, rather than causality MIGHT BE occuring.
Let's go back to what you originally said that prompted this response.
'If X then Y is occuring, causality is occuring'.
That wasn't a paraphrase; you said it yourself. No "might be" in there.
It makes it sound like you're stating actual facts here, that you say they are both predicated on huge assumptions.
So you're not stating any facts, you're just saying 'choose what you wanna'?
What exactly are you talking about? What's your point? How is that relevant to your claim that I said "science and religion are the same"? 'X holds Y assumption' is a factual statement, by the way. So count me bewildered.
I still don't know why you brought up 'sacred faith'
Assumptions are calls to faith.
Also although I'm in part to blame, I wonder if we are detracting from Jorge's good idea to have a philosophy 101 thread - maybe this discussion (pretty much starting with Bakker Users first post) could be clipped off into it's own thread and we can continue it from there (obviously with a link back to this thread, for reference)?
Isn't this 101-material?
It seems to me you're not clear on what the argument is, and what evidence I have called for it. Perhaps we should start from the beginning and revoke the existing subsequent posts?
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Distinctions are only attempts to sketch borders? I admit the assumptive nature of naming things, forcing them into places. Everything is change, or not, and yet all we can do is throw these very human nets at leviathans and grotesqueries.
You give me too much credit. I hardly understand half of what I post...
A common metaphor in my philosophic experience is a pot of water that boils, when decrying science in philosophy's favour based on the noncausality charge.
I've thought about this for a couple of days, but I'm afraid I have to admit that I don't understand the metaphor.
P.S. The forum-link attachment to copy-pastes is kind of annoying.
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I haven't seen the added links, either. I'm guessing the Firefox add-ons Adblock Plus and/or NoScript are dealing with them :)
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Soterion, you make this both easier and more difficult by introducing a novel conception of what science is and does...
Easier because it keeps some problems and introduces others; harder because I need to switch quite a few mental gears, and track guage, etc...
I'll need to visit a few more points and questions. But my impression is that your definition of science much reduces it - if not in terms of prestige, then certainly in terms of usual scope.
However, causal statements should be assessed based on the wealth or paucity of correlative evidence.
But it always rests upon the assumption of causality. So even defining science this way and removing it from the causal picture, all that "evidence" suddenly isn't worth very much.
I'm not understanding why...
Repetition/iteration doesn't prove causality. It merely provides a foundation for praxis. I perceive science itself as an abstraction, as experimental apparatuses that function in order to formulate meta-functional axioms. Science functions like Kant's categorical imperative. It isn't actually comprised of causal statements, but it allows us to test causal statements. We can repeatedly put a causal statement to the test; if it consistently passes, this doesn't prove its causality but it does allow us to continue under the presumption that future tests will yield similar results.
Once a test yields a negative result, we know definitively the causality of the aforementioned statement to be untrue.
Repetition and observation are scientific; from them we can arrive at plausible acceptance, but this plausibility is no longer scientific.
Then, is any set of repetitions and observations scientific? Then, would a hunter-gatherer noting the correlation between the onset of dark and the disappearance of the sun be an instance of scientific experimentation?
If that's the case, then what's the difference between ascribing this phenomenon to supernatural rather than natural causes? Both are supported by the same scientific evidence, and both make the same sort of non-scientific claims - spiritualism and physicalism brought to the same level.
There is no difference if we're talking about definitive attributions of causality; neither supernatural nor natural causality can be proven. If our skepticism allows us to pursue scientific practices without recourse to causal thinking, then both supernatural and natural explanations become imaginary and irrational. They're nothing more than the way we represent reality to ourselves.
Even if science disproved causality
But then, I'm not sure how mere correlation could ever disprove causation. I've heard, "Correlation does not necessitate causation", but I've never heard, "Correlation necessitates the absence of causation"!
I'm under the impression that correlation doesn't disprove causation; if, however, an experiment yields results in which previously correlative phenomena are shown to no longer correspond, then we've definitively disproved causality in this case.
it would still prove beneficial for human use simply by providing us with the ability to plausibly assume certain results, even if it does not guarantee them.
On the contrary: it can only hold with causality. Without causality, we can not plausibly assume results. If, in an acausal universe, jumping twice in a row is alternately followed by flying pink elephants and instant death-and-resurrection, it would certainly not be plausible to assume any causal link between these events!
That's the ideology of practical operation. I think of Žižek's "They know what they do, and yet they do it anyway." This isn't false consciousness; we may accept cognitively that causality doesn't actually exist, or doesn't need to exist, but we must act as though it does.
This leads me to a question that I think needs clarification. When we discuss "science," are we discussing the cultural institution of science; i.e., the institution that is subject to monetary demands, social obligations, political pressure, etc.? Because I certainly think you're making decent points if we're discussing some adulterated cultural manifestation of science as institutionalized. I'm referring to science in the sense of an abstract pursuit, as a concept that we use to describe our investigations of the physical world.
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I do not see science as accepting this possibility. In fact, if the X-result occurs on the 1001th time, science would never, ever reject causality as a whole - it would instead consider the possibility that the causal mechanism behind these results is not as well-understood as previously thought.
Well, that theory of causality is disproved. Do you expect all notions of causality aught to be disproven without experiment?
Also lets consider this in contrast - what else do you have? You don't think science as a practice wont sort of go 'Well, what other options are there?' and genuinely ask it?
It seems at best you have your personal opinion that it wont? Got more than that?
'If X then Y is occuring, causality is occuring'.
That wasn't a paraphrase; you said it yourself. No "might be" in there.
Again you just read 'if' in the way that forfils your conclusion.
Is there more than one way to read 'if' in that sentence?
Just say no, if you're so sure there isn't. But it's not so much that you're sure, but that you're taking a reading shortcut when it most advantages your conclusion.
It makes it sound like you're stating actual facts here, that you say they are both predicated on huge assumptions.
What exactly are you talking about? What's your point? How is that relevant to your claim that I said "science and religion are the same"?
Tell me in your own words what you think my point is. Take a guess, if need be.
I don't think you're even trying to formulate what I'm saying in your head right now - you're not bothering, then responding to your own hash of not bothering as if some sort of genuine inability to understand the point. Write what you think I'm saying.
I've seen this occur before - people who don't want to see a point easily enough just don't see it. It's not hard - just power down the mental processes and everything the other guy says just literally doesn't make sense anymore.
Assumptions are calls to faith.
So religious folks will, if you ask them, straight away say 'oh, my faith is really just an assumption!'? Or they'll say 'Oh, my faith is really just a disprovable hypothesis!'?
Keep kludging them together, I guess, if that's what you need to do.
You're claim doesn't actually have a disproval method attached to it, come to think of it.
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if it consistently passes, this doesn't prove its causality but it does allow us to continue under the presumption that future tests will yield similar results.
Well, isn't that the point? That causality is still an assumption. Keeping it apart from the suggested correlative function of science, the fact of the assumption makes
However, causal statements should be assessed based on the wealth or paucity of correlative evidence.
subject to dismissal. If causality remains an assumption, then whatever the specific function of science, these "meta-functional" axioms arising from its correlations are no better than a causal judgement even without any correlative evidence.
If our skepticism allows us to pursue scientific practices without recourse to causal thinking, then both supernatural and natural explanations become imaginary and irrational.
This really gets to the heart of the issue and articulates my overall point much better than I have done or could do. Thanks. Though I'm still not sure I can accept this stripped-down version of science you maintain.
I'm under the impression that correlation doesn't disprove causation; if, however, an experiment yields results in which previously correlative phenomena are shown to no longer correspond, then we've definitively disproved causality in this case.
Well, to be more precise you've disproved absolute causality for this particular 'sequence'.
That's the ideology of practical operation. I think of Žižek's "They know what they do, and yet they do it anyway." This isn't false consciousness; we may accept cognitively that causality doesn't actually exist, or doesn't need to exist, but we must act as though it does.
I've no idea; as far as professional philosophy goes, I've only ever read Bakker and some Plato. Sounds like the "useful myth of morality" bit, though.
I'm referring to science in the sense of an abstract pursuit, as a concept that we use to describe our investigations of the physical world.
Science as a system; the latter. But as we've established, your different conception of science requires (has required) a somewhat different approach.
Though it seems to be leaning toward the affirmative, I'd still like to hear what you think of
Then, is any set of repetitions and observations scientific? Then, would a hunter-gatherer noting the correlation between the onset of dark and the disappearance of the sun be an instance of scientific experimentation?
It's the one thing that I seem to lack definite understanding of vis-a-vis your version of science.
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It seems at best you have your personal opinion that it wont? Got more than that?
It's not an opinion?
Just say no, if you're so sure there isn't. But it's not so much that you're sure, but that you're taking a reading shortcut when it most advantages your conclusion.
:roll:
Tell me in your own words what you think my point is. Take a guess, if need be.
I don't think you're even trying to formulate what I'm saying in your head right now - you're not bothering, then responding to your own hash of not bothering as if some sort of genuine inability to understand the point. Write what you think I'm saying.
I've seen this occur before - people who don't want to see a point easily enough just don't see it. It's not hard - just power down the mental processes and everything the other guy says just literally doesn't make sense anymore.
:roll:
So religious folks will, if you ask them, straight away say 'oh, my faith is really just an assumption!'? Or they'll say 'Oh, my faith is really just a disprovable hypothesis!'?
Keep kludging them together, I guess, if that's what you need to do.
I believe you're referring to the practice of some theists to attempt to demonstrate the existence of a god through some test or perhaps logical proofs. This would be an attempt to prove an assumption through propositions that rest upon that very assumption. And so?
You're claim doesn't actually have a disproval method attached to it, come to think of it.
It does - Soterion did it just now by adopting a definition of "science" that would make my particular arguments incompatible. As I mentioned earlier, you would need to show that science does not hold causality as an assumption to beat me back, and his redefinition ensured just that. This way, I'm forced away from confronting science per se, and instead toward denigrating both supernaturalism and physicalism specifically. With the implicit ( :oops: ) definition of science I've been relying upon within our discourse, physicalism and science are inextricable - thus the assertion of a causality assumption in science. Get it yet?
So don't you see what you're doing here? 'I can't see a way around what this guy's saying, so it must be undisprovable (which is somehow bad, I guess, probably), so I get to walk away scot-free; so convenient for me and my cherished beliefs'.
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Though it seems to be leaning toward the affirmative, I'd still like to hear what you think of
Then, is any set of repetitions and observations scientific? Then, would a hunter-gatherer noting the correlation between the onset of dark and the disappearance of the sun be an instance of scientific experimentation?
It's the one thing that I seem to lack definite understanding of vis-a-vis your version of science.
Very explicitly and specifically, yes.
As soon as a conscious organism (for our purposes, a human being) witnesses or observes some phenomenon, it projects causal temporality onto the sequence or chain of events that it observes. This seems to be a rather inherent construct of consciousness, although I'm always hesitant to grant something's "inherent nature."
However, if we take the pure act of observing a set of repetitions, then this maintains the status of "Science" in my opinion; it is experimentation at its purest. Instantaneously we begin to project our own values (including the representational framework of our own sensory perception) into the event we witness. It becomes nearly impossible to physically separate true, pure science from its vulgar, irrational cultural manifestation; but conceptually, I believe that there is a scientific component to human action, and it can be isolated as this practice of pure observation/experimentation.