Re: Probability, Necessity, and Infinity
On 11/19/2010 6:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Nov 2010, at 06:10, Rex Allen wrote: In this case, if we had sufficient mental capacity there would no need to think in terms of trees or forests - we could think exclusively in terms quarks, electrons, photons, and whatnot. Thinking in terms of trees and forests is a "good enough" computational shortcut. This is not obvious. Thinking might *necessitate* such approximation. Thinking is a matter of relations among images or words or concepts. So it must be approximate; it's usefulness in is abstracting and generalizing. Obviously so once we assume that the brain (or whatever consciousness supervene on) is a Turing emulable machine. However, there is certainly no prediction I could make based on my knowledge of trees and forests that would be as accurate or precise as the predictions I could make if I had the mental and sensory capacity to comprehend the forest at the level of it's constituent quarks and electrons. The only advantage of thinking in terms of trees and forests is brevity and economy. Shortcuts. If you had no need of brevity or economy, then you would have no need for concepts like trees and forests. Rather, you might as well think exclusively in terms of fundamental entities...quarks, electrons, photons, and whatnot. But quarks, electrons, etc. are themselves high level description of what is eventually just relations between numbers. This is derivable from digital mechanism, but is also corroborate from physics itself. Note that you would also have no need of "emergent" laws like evolution or the laws of thermodynamics. Further, given sufficient computational power there's no "abstract interpretation" that you couldn't legitimately extract (via the right Putnam mapping) from the collection of electrons and quarks that comprise the forest. It would be like looking for bunny-shaped clouds in the sky. Trees and forests and squirrels and hikers *might* be the most obvious higher-level interpretation of what exists...but certainly not the only interpretation, and not privileged in any way. I doubt this. Dowker and Kent have written a paper showing that there are many possible, quite different quasi-classical worlds consistent with quantum mechanics. So whether our world, or something similar, is necessary seems to be an open question. My point being that, even assuming scientific materialism, trees and forests only exist in your mind. They are part of how things seem to us. They are part of us. Like logic and reason and arithmetic descriptions. OK, but then everything is part of us. But I am quite skeptical about the idea that elementary arithmetical truth is part of us. Prime numbers did not wait for humans to have their remarkable properties. I think you are confusing the discovery of numbers by humans, and those numbers abstract properties which are not in the category of time and space. But why should not being in time and space excuse arithmetic from depending on humans? Price is not in spacetime and neither is love. I'd say that spacetime and number are equally inventions. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Compatibilism
On 19 Nov 2010, at 13:36, 1Z wrote: We don't invoke thought and reason to explain the abilities and behavior of chess playing computers Sometimes we do...see Dennett;s "intentional stance" key point, I agree. I would say we always do that. No one will explain why a chess playing computers makes a move in term of the material and physical laws making up the computer activity. With a so strong form of reductionism, power sets would not exist. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Probability, Necessity, and Infinity
On 18 Nov 2010, at 06:10, Rex Allen wrote: On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 5:38 AM, 1Z wrote: On Nov 16, 3:27 am, Rex Allen wrote: If logic and reason reduce to causal laws, then ultimately causal laws alone explain the result. If causal explanation and rational explanation are categoreally different, they don't exclude each other. We can explain the operation of a calculator in terms of electrical currents, or we could explain it in terms of the laws of arithmetic. The two operate in parallel. The law of electromagnetism (or whatever physical law it approximates, if any) operates in the world and has causal power. In the theories which postulate the primitive existence of such worlds. The UD argument, explained more than one on this list, shows that such theories contradicts Mechanism. The laws of arithmetic operate only in your mind and have no causal power. Assuming mechanism (that the relevant activity brain can be emulated digitally) "causal power" is a first person plural notion emerging from the laws of arithmetic. So, the two don't really operate in parallel. In fact the laws of arithmetic don't "operate", in any literal sense, at all. That's right. Operating is an internal emerging notion. What makes a calculator a calculator is that its operation is susceptible to an arithemtic description. Arithmetic description exists only in the mind of a describer. One man's calculator is another man's hammer. The calculator might disagree! One man's kindling is another man's slide rule. What makes a calculator a calculator is that you use it as a calculator. It's only a calculator in the sense that it's a calculator to you. If I use your head as a hammer, you might think again about this. There is some Putnam mapping that would let you use a rock as a calculator. But since you don't know this mapping, the rock is just a rock. Unlike the calculator, the rock wasn't designed to have easily interpreted inputs and outputs. Putnam mappings evacuate the question of what is a rock, once we postulate mechanism. How can you infer from that that there is no valid arithimetical description? Where did I say that there are no valid arithmetical descriptions? I certainly never meant to say that. Though I do claim that you can't justify your belief in valid arithmetical descriptions... True. But we can never justify the truth of our starting assumption. Both physicalist and mechanist have to postulate the truth of elementary arithmetic (at the least). If causal laws and "logic and reason" are entirely different things, and causal laws are sufficient to explain the way that events transpire, then what do we need "logic and reason" for? They are superfluous, except as descriptive categories. We need logic and reason to explain how premises lead to conclusions. That is different from explaining how causes lead to effects, although the two can run in parallel, That you can eliminate talk of forests in terms of talk of trees does not mean there are no forests. The existence of trees and forests. Assuming that some sort of scientific realism/materialism is true, Scientific realism is independent of materialism. then trees and forests are both abstractions - rough approximations of reality forced upon us by our limited mental resources. Causal power, force, energy, etc. are all such kind of approximations. In this case, if we had sufficient mental capacity there would no need to think in terms of trees or forests - we could think exclusively in terms quarks, electrons, photons, and whatnot. Thinking in terms of trees and forests is a "good enough" computational shortcut. This is not obvious. Thinking might *necessitate* such approximation. Obviously so once we assume that the brain (or whatever consciousness supervene on) is a Turing emulable machine. However, there is certainly no prediction I could make based on my knowledge of trees and forests that would be as accurate or precise as the predictions I could make if I had the mental and sensory capacity to comprehend the forest at the level of it's constituent quarks and electrons. The only advantage of thinking in terms of trees and forests is brevity and economy. Shortcuts. If you had no need of brevity or economy, then you would have no need for concepts like trees and forests. Rather, you might as well think exclusively in terms of fundamental entities...quarks, electrons, photons, and whatnot. But quarks, electrons, etc. are themselves high level description of what is eventually just relations between numbers. This is derivable from digital mechanism, but is also corroborate from physics itself. Note that you would also have no need of "emergent" laws like evolution or the laws of thermodynamics. Further, given sufficient computational power there's no "abstract interpretation" that you couldn't legitimately extract (via the righ
Re: Probability, Necessity, and Infinity
On Nov 18, 5:10 am, Rex Allen wrote: > On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 5:38 AM, 1Z wrote: > > On Nov 16, 3:27 am, Rex Allen wrote: > > >> If logic and reason reduce to causal laws, then ultimately causal laws > >> alone explain the result. > > > If causal explanation and rational explanation > > are categoreally different, they don't exclude each other. > > We can explain the operation of a calculator in terms of > > electrical currents, or we could explain it in terms of > > the laws of arithmetic. The two operate in parallel. > > The law of electromagnetism (or whatever physical law it approximates, > if any) operates in the world and has causal power. > The laws of arithmetic operate only in your mind and have no causal power. > > So, the two don't really operate in parallel. In fact the laws of > arithmetic don't "operate", in any literal sense, at all. That doesn't stop them being a valid explanation > > What makes a calculator a calculator is that its > > operation is susceptible to an arithemtic description. > > Arithmetic description exists only in the mind of a describer. It's a valid description of that is true and false of different things for objective reasons. There is an important differrence between things that exist in the mind qua useful high level descriptions (horses, logic) and things which exist only in the mind qua complete fictions (unicorns, magic) > One man's calculator is another man's hammer. > > One man's kindling is another man's slide rule. > > What makes a calculator a calculator is that you use it as a > calculator. It's only a calculator in the sense that it's a > calculator to you. > > There is some Putnam mapping that would let you use a rock as a > calculator. But since you don't know this mapping, the rock is just a > rock. Unlike the calculator, the rock wasn't designed to have easily > interpreted inputs and outputs. There is an occam's razor principle too. Most of these Putnam mappings are too complex to be cognitively accessible to us. > > How can you infer from that that there is no valid arithimetical > > description? > > Where did I say that there are no valid arithmetical descriptions? I > certainly never meant to say that. Then what is the point of claiming that they are in the mind? > Though I do claim that you can't justify your belief in valid > arithmetical descriptions... > > My point being that, even assuming scientific materialism, trees and > forests only exist in your mind. They are part of how things seem to > us. They are part of us. But not in the sense unicorns and magic are. What this is all about is whether we can say things happen because of rationality. If rationality is a valid description of a particular event we can say that the event occurred because of rationality. We can avoid that, as you have been doing, by requiring that "because" only applies to some absolutely basic physical causality. But then we probably wouldn't ever know if any "because" statement was valid. The sceptical conclusion would follow, but only because of an initial decision to raise the bar and make things difficult for ourselves. >Like logic and reason and arithmetic > descriptions. > >>> OTOH, it *is* obvious that being the result of causal > >>> laws is exclusive of being freely chosen. You need, but > >>> don't have, an argument to the effect that free choice is essential > >>> to rationality. > > >> Actually I would say that the burden of proof is on you to show that > >> abstract concepts, like logic and rationality, can also be causal > >> forces. > > > Not at all. If L&R were causal, then they *would* exclude other > > causal explanations. But their compatibility with causal > > explanations is based on the fact that they are not a kind of > > casual explanation. > > Well, here we are pretty close to agreement. > > So, either there are causal laws that have some sort of independent > existence and account the order we see in the world - OR there aren't, > and the order we observe is either the accidental result of random > events or perhaps a product of our minds. > > However, logic and reason have no independent existence. They are > part of our experience of the world, not part of the world. They have mind-independent criteria of applicability even if they don't have mind-independent existence > >> Is a computer executing a chess program logical or rational? Does > >> logic cause the computer to select one move instead of another? > > > It doesn't cause it but it does explain it. It may be "just" > > description but it is a valid description. > > How do you justify your belief in it's validity as a description? It's concise, explanatory and predictive > A very good quote: > > "The mind actively processes or organizes experience in constructing > knowledge, rather than passively reflecting an independent reality. > To speak metaphorically, the mind is more like a factory than a mirror > or soft wax. > [...] > > Truth, it i
Re: Compatibilism
On 18 Nov 2010, at 07:31, Rex Allen wrote: On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Nov 2010, at 04:51, Rex Allen wrote: On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: ? Are you saying that it is obvious that compatibilism is false? Compatibilism is false. Unless you do something sneaky like change the meaning of the term "free will" to make it true. Which is like changing the definition of "unicorn" to mean "a horse with a horn glued to it's forehead". I agree with the critics of compatilism in this passage: "Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition of free will: Incompatibilists may agree that the compatibilists are showing something to be compatible with determinism, but they think that something ought not to be called 'free will'. Compatibilists are sometimes accused (by Incompatibilists) of actually being Hard Determinists who are motivated by a lack of a coherent, consonant moral belief system. Compatibilists are sometimes called 'soft determinists' pejoratively (William James's term). James accused them of creating a 'quagmire of evasion' by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism. Immanuel Kant called it a 'wretched subterfuge' and 'word jugglery.'" What is your position? And what is your definition of free-will? My position is: So either there is a reason for what I choose to do, or there isn't. If there is a reason, then the reason determined the choice. No free will. Hmm... (see below). If there is no reason, then the choice was random. No free will. I don't see a third option. =*=*=*= As for my definition of free will: "The ability to make choices that are neither random nor caused." Obviously there is no such ability, since "random" and "caused" exhaust the possibilities. But some people believe in the existence of such an ability anyway. Why? Well...either there's a reason that they do, or there isn't... Lol. I agree with you. With your definition of free will, it does not exist. But your reasoning does not apply to free will in the sense I gave: the ability to choose among alternatives that *I* cannot predict in advance (so that *from my personal perspective* it is not entirely due to reason nor do to randomness). When you say "random or not random", you are applying the third excluded middle which, although arguably true ontically, is provably wrong for most personal points of view. We have p v ~p, but this does not entail Bp v B~p, for B used for almost any hypostasis (points of view). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Compatibilism
On Nov 19, 3:11 am, Rex Allen wrote: > On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > Rex, > > > Your post reminded me of the quote (of which I cannot recall the source) > > where someone asked "Who pushes who around inside the brain?", meaning is it > > the matter that causes thought to move around a certain way, or is it the > > opposite? The looped hierarchies described by Hofstadter, if present, make > > this a difficult question to answer. If the highest levels of thought and > > reason are required in your decision making, does it still make sense to say > > we are slaves of deterministic motions of particles or is that missing a few > > steps? > > Well, I find it entirely conceivable that fundamental physical laws > acting on fundamental physical entities (particles, fields, strings, > whatever) could account for human behavior and ability. > > So if human behavior and ability is what we are trying to explain, > then I see no reason to invoke thought and reason as causal forces No-one is. They are just valid descriptions. There is no argument to the effect that logic is causal or it is nothing. It is not the case that causal explanation is the only form of explanagion . > And, even if you wanted to, I don't see how they could be made to > serve that role. 1Z and I discussed this in the other thread. > > We don't invoke thought and reason to explain the abilities and > behavior of chess playing computers Sometimes we do...see Dennett;s "intentional stance" >- and while human behavior and > ability is much more complex and extensive, I think it can be put in > the same general category. Dennett would agree, but push the logic in the other direction: Humans are a complex sort of robot. Humans have intentionality. Therefore some other, sufficiently complex, robots have intentionality -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Compatibilism
On Nov 18, 6:31 am, Rex Allen wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> > On 16 Nov 2010, at 04:51, Rex Allen wrote:
>
> >> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> >>> ? Are you saying that it is obvious that compatibilism is false?
>
> >> Compatibilism is false. Unless you do something sneaky like change
> >> the meaning of the term "free will" to make it true.
>
> >> Which is like changing the definition of "unicorn" to mean "a horse
> >> with a horn glued to it's forehead".
>
> >> I agree with the critics of compatilism in this passage:
>
> >> "Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition of free will:
> >> Incompatibilists may agree that the compatibilists are showing
> >> something to be compatible with determinism, but they think that
> >> something ought not to be called 'free will'.
>
> >> Compatibilists are sometimes accused (by Incompatibilists) of actually
> >> being Hard Determinists who are motivated by a lack of a coherent,
> >> consonant moral belief system.
>
> >> Compatibilists are sometimes called 'soft determinists' pejoratively
> >> (William James's term). James accused them of creating a 'quagmire of
> >> evasion' by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying
> >> determinism. Immanuel Kant called it a 'wretched subterfuge' and
> >> 'word jugglery.'"
>
> > What is your position? And what is your definition of free-will?
>
> My position is:
>
> So either there is a reason for what I choose to do, or there isn't.
>
> If there is a reason, then the reason determined the choice. No free will.
Unless you determined the reason.
> If there is no reason, then the choice was random. No free will.
>
> I don't see a third option.
>
> =*=*=*=
>
> As for my definition of free will:
>
> "The ability to make choices that are neither random nor caused."
>
> Obviously there is no such ability, since "random" and "caused"
> exhaust the possibilities.
>
> But some people believe in the existence of such an ability anyway.
Free Will is defined as "the power or ability to rationally choose and
consciously perform actions, at least some of which are not brought
about necessarily and inevitably by external circumstances".
Not that according to this definition:
1. Free will is not deterministic behaviour. It is not driven by
external circumstances.
2. Nor is free will is randomness or mere caprice. ("Rationally
choose and consciously perform").
3. Free will requires independence from external circumstances. It
does not require independence or separation from one's own self. Ones
actions must be related to ones thoughts and motives
4. But not complete independence. Free will does not require that
all our actions are free in this sense, only that some actions are not
entirely un-free. ("...at least some of which...").
5. Free will also does not require that any one action is entirely
free. In particular, free will s not omnipotence: it does not require
an ability to transcend natural laws, only the ability to select
actions from what is physically possible.
6. Free will as defined above does not make any assumptions about
the ontological nature of the self/mind/soul. There is a theory,
according to which a supernatural soul pulls the strings of the body.
That theory is all too often confused with free will. It might be
taken as an explanaiton of free will, but it specifies a kind of
mechanism or explanation — not a phenomenon to be explained.
I.1.v Libertarianism — A Prima Facie case for free will
These arguments are not to be regarded as finalising the issue of free
will, but only of showing that there is a case to be answered.
1. The existence of the introspective sense of free will.
(Determinists will quickly tell you this is down to not understanding
the causes of our actions — but why don't we intuitively see our
actions as being random, or, for that matter determined by unknown
causes? (Determinism by unknown causes is certainly thinkable, after
all it is just what the determinist thinks. It is not as if we can't
conceive of either of those).
2. The tendency to value freedom. (No-one, not even a determinist,
would want a benevolent dictator making their decisions, even if the
decisions in questions were better than the ones they would have
made).
3. Our ability to detect greater and lesser amounts of 'robotic' or
'zombie' like behaviour in others.
4. Creativity and innovation. (Determinists often make a hand-
waving argument (like this)listing all the external influences that go
to act on an individual, and conclude that there is no room left for
any individual contribution. But then why aren't we still in caves ?)
It is often claimed that free will is an inherently contradictory
idea, or that if free will is possible at all, it must be somehow
magical or supernatural. We intend to argue against both these claims
by building a consistent theoretical model of free will could work in
an indeter
