Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2013   wrote:

> Falsifying was a term invented by a philosopher. I forget his name.


Understandable, philosophers are not very memorable. And no philosopher
invented falsifiability, some just made a big deal about something rather
obvious that had already been in use by scientists for centuries; although
way back then they were called Natural Philosophers, a term I wish we still
used.

> Kark Popper! That's it!
>

There is not a scientist alive that learned to do science by reading Karl
Popper. Popper was just a reporter, he observed how scientists work and
described what he saw. And I don't think Popper was exactly a fount of
wisdom.

In chapter 37 of his 1976 (1976!!) book "Unended Quest: An Intellectual
Autobiography" Popper says:

 "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical
research program".

Those are Popper's own words not mine, and this is not something to make
Popper fans or fans of philosophers of science in general proud.  Finally,
two years later in 1978 at the age of 76 and 119 years after the
publication of "The Origin Of Species", perhaps the greatest scientific
book ever written, Popper belatedly said:

 “I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the
theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a
recantation”.

Better late than never I guess, he came to the conclusion that this Darwin
whippersnapper might be on to something after all in his 1978 (1978!!)
lecture "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind".

> On free will, I simply say that free will is knowing what you love or
> hate.
>

In a previous post I said "a particular set of likes and dislikes that in
the English language is called "will". "Will" is not the problem, it's
"free will" that's gibberish".

> Free will doesn't seem to mean, in control of events.
>

Free will doesn't seem to mean anything, not one damn thing; but a little
thing like not knowing what the hell "free will" is supposed to be never
prevents philosophers passionately arguing if humans have it or not.
Apparently the philosophers on this list have decided to first determine if
humans have free will or not and only when that question has been entirely
settled will they go on and try to figure out what on earth they were
talking about.

  John K Clark

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

[spudboy100]

I don't agree that philosophers do have a bad name, save that they 
don't employ falsifiability. Falsifying was a term invented by a 
philosopher. I forget his name. Kark Popper! That's it! Also, many 
scientists by nature are logical positivists, even though this is a 
philosophical concept from the 19th century. On free will, I simply say 
that free will is knowing what you love or hate. An example would be 
asking a person carried off and bounced along the ground by a tornado, 
"How do you like it so far? And the victim could reply, Ah! I could do 
better without it." the victim would be correct of course, but that is 
free will-having an opinion of yourself. Free will doesn't seem to 
mean, in control of events.


-Original Message-
From: Craig Weinberg 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Fri, Sep 6, 2013 5:39 pm
Subject: Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

I don't think that having different concepts or perspectives means that 
people don't know what they are talking about. Free will is a concept 
which is so fundamental that it is literally necessary to have free 
will before you can ask the question of what it is. I think that it is 
the claim that we don't know or can't know what words like free will 
and consciousness refer to which are more of a distraction.


In the days before computers, physicists and mathematicians spent 
decades poring over there slide rules and logarithm tables. Some made 
new discoveries, but most did not. I don't see any difference with 
philosophical debate. Not everyone wants to be limited to thinking 
about things which can be detected by inanimate objects. I wouldn't 
waste my time focusing so narrowly on that aspect of the universe, but 
I wouldn't begrudge someone else that right. Why should it bother me if 
people argue about esoteric terms or count blips from a particle 
accelerator?



On Friday, September 6, 2013 2:34:51 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote:This is 
what gives philosophers a bad name! In just one day people have sent 
the following philosophical gems to the list, enough hot air to 
signifacantly contribute to global warming,


* I  also do not “KNOW” whether or not I really do have “free will”. 
But if I do [blah blah]


* How do you explain the experience of “free will” then?

* The experience of free will is not a snap shot, instead it [blah 
blah]


* If free will exists (and also of course that we have it) then [blah 
blah]


* If instead free will does not in fact exist, then [blah blah]

* consciousness necessarily must exist in the first place in order for 
free will to exist.


* Are you maintain that the experience of free will does not itself 
exist?


* Can you conceive of “free will” without introducing a subject in 
which it arises and is experienced?



And so it goes, on and on arguing about if free will exists or not, but 
never once does anybody stop to ask what the hell "free will" means 
before giving their opinion about it's existence. People argue 
passionately but they don't know what they're talking about, by that I 
don't mean that what they are saying is wrong, I mean that they quite 
literally DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT.


When he was a student at Princeton Richard Feynman had an encounter 
with philosophers, years later this is what he had to say about it and 
why he developed a contempt not for philosophy but for philosophers. I 
gave this quotation before but apparently it needs repeating:


"In the Graduate College dining room at Princeton everybody used to sit 
with his own group. I sat with the physicists, but after a bit I 
thought: It would be nice to see what the rest of the world is doing, 
so I'll sit for a week or two in each of the other groups.


When I sat with the philosophers I listened to them discuss very 
seriously a book called Process and Reality by Whitehead. They were 
using words in a funny way, and I couldn't quite understand what they 
were saying. Now I didn't want to interrupt them in their own 
conversation and keep asking them to explain something, and on the few 
occasions that I did, they'd try to explain it to me, but I still 
didn't get it. Finally they invited me to come to their seminar.


They had a seminar that was like, a class. It had been meeting once a 
week to discuss a new chapter out of Process and Reality - some guy 
would give a report on it and then there would be a discussion. I went 
to this seminar promising myself to keep my mouth shut, reminding 
myself that I didn't know anything about the subject, and I was going 
there just to watch.


What happened there was typical - so typical that it was unbelievable, 
but true. First of all, I sat there without saying anything, which is 
almost unbelievable, but also true. A student gave a report on the 
chapter to be studied that week. In it Whitehead kept using the words 
"essential object" in a particular technical way that presumably he had 
defined, but that I didn't understand.


After some discussion as to what "

Re: Kant's disproof of materialism and empiricism

[Richard Ruquist]

Bruno,

A simple question. Lucid dreams are such that you are awake in your dream.
So my question is whether a lucid qualifies as 1. being awake or 2. in a
dream, or a third state.
I suggest that the third state may be in the realm of the afterlife, along
with all dreams,
except that you may be rational and have choice in a lucid dream, somewhat
like salvia.
Richard


On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> Hi Roger, and people,
>
> On 05 Sep 2013, at 00:32, Roger Clough wrote:
>
>  Kant's disproof of materialism and empiricism
>
> Materialists argue that in essence we are no more than our bodies.
> Empiricists such as Hume ruled out the possible influence of anything
> transcendental
> in our perception of objects.
>
> But that position was disproven by Kant, for example in his transcdendent
> deduction of
> the role of the self in perception
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/
> in which cognitive science and philosophers such as Dennett and Chalmers
> seems to have overlooked the critical importance of the transcendental.
>
> As a result, Kant gave this argument against materialism and empiricism:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
>
> "Kant proposed a "Copernican Revolution-in-reverse", saying that:
>
> Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the
> objects [materialism and positivism]
> but ... let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of
> metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our 
> cognition[transcendental
> idealism]."
>
>
>
> The mechanist hypothesis, and the usual Occam razor go farer: the physical
> reality becomes derivable from the "theology of numbers" (itself entirely
> derived from addition + multiplication + Church thesis + some common
> analytical definition of belief and knowledge).
>
> Kant is very good. No doubt. But we have progressed, and from that
> perspective we are closer to Plato and Plotinus, and all those who does not
> oppose mystic and rationalism.
>
> But now we have a math problem: to derive explicitly the physical laws
> from a precise theory of "number dreams". Physical realties are stable
> computational sharable dreams. That sharability gives the first person
> plural points of view.
>
> With mechanism or computationalism, you have to add something magical in
> the mind to attach it to some magical primitive matter.
>
> Kant has gone far, but assuming computationalism, there is not much choice
> than going much farer, as farer as Plato of the Parmenides, or Plotinus or
> Proclus theology. Then computationalism gives the tools, indeed theoretical
> computer science, to make this into an experimentally testable theory. Up
> to now, it fits.
>
> Kant is right:  the why and how of the physical laws emerge from the laws
> of cognition, which follows from comp + computer science and logic, so we
> can indeed test such idea.
>
> Some people are unable to doubt this *primitive* matter (in need of
> Einstein conscious act of faith, as I realize reading Jammer's book on
> Einstein & Religion), but perhaps the primitive belief has been probably
> wired by evolution, in our probable stories (which explains what it is hard
> to doubt it)).
> Yet, "nature", our probable histories have given us an experience which
> rises the doubt: the dream.
>
> Here is a good exercise for the honest researcher on the fundamental. Ask
> yourself every hour of the day "Am I dreaming or am I am awake?", for a
> month (or more if necessary). During that time, write all your dreams in a
> diary, and when going to sleep, keep attention to dreaming and to that
> question again.
> Now when awake, most people hardly doubt that they are awake, and see
> dreams as fuzzy bizarre experience, hard to remember.
> But the training above leads easily to a dream where the subject will ask
> her/himself if she/he is awake, and she/will will  usually either conclude
> "of course I am awake", or induce a lucid dream.
> The first case will make the point, as it illustrates that you can dream
> that you are *sure* of being awake, and that is enough to learn to doubt
> that an experiment or an experience can teach us a certainty, above
> self-consciousness.
>
> In a sense, this go "against nature", as nature provided us a brain wired
> for taking seriously the predator/prey measurement done, for example, but
> computationalism saves the theology of numbers from nihilism, by its high
> non triviality and its capacity of being tested, by the constraints on the
> observable logics.
>
> Bruno
>
> PS
> - I found my Max Jammer "Philosophy of QM", in the remaining box. Thanks
> God!
> - Apology for sending this to both lists but it can clarify different
> points made in the different list.  I will try to avoid this.
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>  --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop 

Re: David Bohm: Thought as a System

[meekerdb]

On 9/6/2013 1:02 PM, John Mikes wrote:

Evgeniy, it was a while ago when I read (and enjoyed) David Bohm.
Since then I modified many of my ideas and included 'newer' ideas into them. I cannot 
resort to ancient (?) thinkers: our knowledge is evolving.
Random is (IMO) out: how would you justify ANY of the physical laws and their 
consequences if 'random' occurrences may intrude - and change the continuation of anything?


They are justified by their success in prediction.  "Random" doesn't mean "anything can 
happen".  In the successful theories the randomness is narrowly constrained and random 
distributions are accurately predicted.


It all comes from my agnosticism: we know so little and don't knwo so much. Some newer 
knowledge infiltrates our base - in adjusted format, of course, how our primitive 
mindset of today can apply it - but our knowledge-base does grow.

That means my disregard for 'older' thoughts (e.g. of yesterday...).
I am on the basis of "I don't know".

In another line there was mention of statistical analysis.
*Statistics* is (IMO) a no-no, it is upon our arbitrary (present?) norderlines within 
which we COUNT te appropriate items. As we gather new information the borderlines change 
and our statistics becomes irrelevant.


It has been very successful in explaining thermodynamics by statistical 
mechanics.

Brent

*Analytics*, however, is restricted to the (present?) inventory of structural etc. parts 
in our (statistically applied?) system of a presently KNOWN composition. The real 
results may be ingenious, but insufficient: restsricted to today's knowledge.


I leave my doubts on the 'anticipatory' for tomorrow.

Regards
John M


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

[Craig Weinberg]

I don't think that having different concepts or perspectives means that 
people don't know what they are talking about. Free will is a concept which 
is so fundamental that it is literally necessary to have free will before 
you can ask the question of what it is. I think that it is the claim that 
we don't know or can't know what words like free will and consciousness 
refer to which are more of a distraction. 

In the days before computers, physicists and mathematicians spent decades 
poring over there slide rules and logarithm tables. Some made new 
discoveries, but most did not. I don't see any difference with 
philosophical debate. Not everyone wants to be limited to thinking about 
things which can be detected by inanimate objects. I wouldn't waste my time 
focusing so narrowly on that aspect of the universe, but I wouldn't 
begrudge someone else that right. Why should it bother me if people argue 
about esoteric terms or count blips from a particle accelerator?


On Friday, September 6, 2013 2:34:51 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote:
>
> This is what gives philosophers a bad name! In just one day people have 
> sent the following philosophical gems to the list, enough hot air to 
> signifacantly contribute to global warming,
>
> * I  also do not “KNOW” whether or not I really do have “free will”. But 
> if I do [blah blah] 
>
> * How do you explain the experience of “free will” then?
>
> * The experience of free will is not a snap shot, instead it [blah blah] 
>
> * If free will exists (and also of course that we have it) then [blah blah]
>
> * If instead free will does not in fact exist, then [blah blah]
>
> * consciousness necessarily must exist in the first place in order for 
> free will to exist.
>
> * Are you maintain that the experience of free will does not itself exist?
>
> * Can you conceive of “free will” without introducing a subject in which 
> it arises and is experienced?
>
> And so it goes, on and on arguing about if free will exists or not, but 
> never once does anybody stop to ask what the hell "free will" means before 
> giving their opinion about it's existence. People argue passionately but 
> they don't know what they're talking about, by that I don't mean that what 
> they are saying is wrong, I mean that they quite literally DON'T KNOW WHAT 
> THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. 
>
> When he was a student at Princeton Richard Feynman had an encounter with 
> philosophers, years later this is what he had to say about it and why he 
> developed a contempt not for philosophy but for philosophers. I gave this 
> quotation before but apparently it needs repeating: 
>
> "In the Graduate College dining room at Princeton everybody used to sit 
> with his own group. I sat with the physicists, but after a bit I thought: 
> It would be nice to see what the rest of the world is doing, so I'll sit 
> for a week or two in each of the other groups.
>
> When I sat with the philosophers I listened to them discuss very seriously 
> a book called Process and Reality by Whitehead. They were using words in a 
> funny way, and I couldn't quite understand what they were saying. Now I 
> didn't want to interrupt them in their own conversation and keep asking 
> them to explain something, and on the few occasions that I did, they'd try 
> to explain it to me, but I still didn't get it. Finally they invited me to 
> come to their seminar.
>
> They had a seminar that was like, a class. It had been meeting once a week 
> to discuss a new chapter out of Process and Reality - some guy would give a 
> report on it and then there would be a discussion. I went to this seminar 
> promising myself to keep my mouth shut, reminding myself that I didn't know 
> anything about the subject, and I was going there just to watch.
>
> What happened there was typical - so typical that it was unbelievable, but 
> true. First of all, I sat there without saying anything, which is almost 
> unbelievable, but also true. A student gave a report on the chapter to be 
> studied that week. In it Whitehead kept using the words "essential object" 
> in a particular technical way that presumably he had defined, but that I 
> didn't understand.
>
> After some discussion as to what "essential object" meant, the professor 
> leading the seminar said something meant to clarify things and drew 
> something that looked like lightning bolts on the blackboard. "Mr. 
> Feynman," he said, "would you say an electron is an 'essential object'?"
>
> Well, now I was in trouble. I admitted that I hadn't read the book, so I 
> had no idea of what Whitehead meant by the phrase; I had only come to 
> watch. "But," I said, "I'll try to answer the professor's question if you 
> will first answer a question from me, so I can have a better idea of what 
> 'essential object' means.
>
> What I had intended to do was to find out whether they thought theoretical 
> constructs were essential objects. The electron is a theory that we use; it 
> is so useful in understanding the 

RE: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?

[Chris de Morsella]

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 9:31 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?

 

On 9/5/2013 8:34 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote:

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of chris peck
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 7:30 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?

 

Hi Chris

 

>> I also do not "KNOW" whether or not I really do have "free will". But if
I do not have "free will" evolution has seen fit to evolve a very expensive
- in evolutionary terms - illusion of "free will... To argue that "free
will", "self-awareness" etc. are just noise, of no real value or consequence
goes against evolution. Evolution doesn't work like that. Unless it can be
clearly shown that these qualia are inevitable by-products of some other
evolutionarily vital brain function"

 

>>You haven't really addressed the ideas raised in my post. I'm not arguing
that the illusion of free will has no consequence I'm arguing that there is
no illusion of free will. And if there is no illusion of free will then
there is no reason to drum up some evolutionary story to justify it.

 

How do you explain the experience of "free will" then? 

Our experience of free will, of having executive decisional power within our
own selves is a distinct, high fidelity, consistently reproducible,
experience in us - I *know* through direct experience that I experience this
in my own self, and I bet long odds that, even though you deny it, you also
experience the sensation of having free will in your own everyday life. 


>>I agree with Chris Peck.  I don't recognize your "drama of unfolding
experience" at all.  I cogitate on decisions and make choices.  But none of
that entails feeling "free will".



You claim you "cogitate" on decisions and make choices. Some synonyms for
cogitate are: "think about/on/over, contemplate, consider, mull over,
meditate on, muse on/over, ponder, reflect on, deliberate on/over, ruminate
on/over" So in other words you wrestle with choice, you contemplate your
options, and you *choose*... i.e. you exercise your free will or you
experience the illusion of exercising your free will, one or the other. You
can't have your cake and eat it too. Either outcomes are determined or they
are not. if you are cogitating - exercising your executive decision making
power - then you are deciding outcomes. You can say out of one side of your
mouth that you are a deep thinker who cogitates before he chooses then out
of the other say that our inner mental life is a program playing out along
some deterministic path with an outcome that can - a priori - be predicted
based on the inputs. Just like it would be in a deterministic computer
algorithm. Given a set of inputs one can predict the outputs if one can
follow the logical heuristics of the algorithm and wind it forward.

Obviously if you are busy cogitating all the time this is not the process
that is happening in your head. You are admitting that you wrestle with
choices and that you make decisions after much cogitation. How exactly is
that any different than saying you exercise your free will? Other than
employing a synonym to express yourself.





Hundreds. thousands maybe, times a day you (or I, or anyone) are being
presented with choices and experiencing the feeling that we are making
decisions - i.e. exercising free will; we all wrestle with dilemmas in our
lives and mull over decisions. Often in fact the drama of our unfolding
experience of this non-existent free will extends over considerable
durations of time and on occasion can dominate an entire life span. 

 

The experience of free will is not a snap shot, instead it unfolds over
spans of time and is experienced as a clearly ordered series of distinctly
related emotions, thoughts, and deep sensations emerging within our focal
sense of self.  


>>That just sounds like obfuscation to me.



Whatever. you are just engaging in an attempt at characterization of what I
described without making any arguments as to why you characterize it that
way. Instead it is a succinct description of the dynamically unfolding and
self-revealing carefully sequenced and highly nuanced dramas that play out
in our minds each and every day of our lives. The experience of free will is
NOT a snap shot! Rather it is an unfolding drama with many parts in it that
each must be ordered correctly and segued properly from one scene to the
next of the internal drama of decision making process as it occurs in our
minds. We do not know how we will decide before we do decide; so if our
decision is predetermined then it must therefore be kept hidden from our
conscious selves until the drama reaches the climax of us "believing" we are
arriving at the decision we made with our "free will". 

So e

Re: David Bohm: Thought as a System

[John Mikes]

Evgeniy, it was a while ago when I read (and enjoyed) David Bohm.
Since then I modified many of my ideas and included 'newer' ideas into
them. I cannot resort to ancient (?) thinkers: our knowledge is evolving.
Random is (IMO) out: how would you justify ANY of the physical laws and
their consequences if 'random' occurrences may intrude - and change the
continuation of anything?
It all comes from my agnosticism: we know so little and don't knwo so much.
Some newer knowledge infiltrates our base - in adjusted format, of course,
how our primitive mindset of today can apply it - but our knowledge-base
does grow.
That means my disregard for 'older' thoughts (e.g. of yesterday...).
I am on the basis of "I don't know".

In another line there was mention of statistical analysis.
*Statistics* is (IMO) a no-no, it is upon our arbitrary (present?)
norderlines within which we COUNT te appropriate items. As we gather new
information the borderlines change and our statistics becomes irrelevant.
*Analytics*, however, is restricted to the (present?) inventory of
structural etc. parts in our (statistically applied?) system of a presently
KNOWN composition. The real results may be ingenious, but insufficient:
restsricted to today's knowledge.

I leave my doubts on the 'anticipatory' for tomorrow.

Regards
John M


On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:

> On 02.09.2013 20:41 meekerdb said the following:
>
>  On 9/2/2013 10:11 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>> On 01.09.2013 21:52 meekerdb said the following:
>>>
 Unconditioned=random works.

>>>
>>> I do not think so. I would say that
>>>
>>> If we say that the unconditioned is random, then it would be
>>> foolish for us to try to do anything with the conditioning.
>>>
>>
>> ?? How do you conclude that?  Just because there is something Bohm
>> calls "the unconditioned" doesn't mean there is not also
>> conditioning, which may modify the unconditioned (=random).
>>
>
> I am in the middle of the book, so I cannot tell you exactly what would
> Bohm say. The answer was mine.
>
> If I have understood Bohm correctly, he believes that we can somewhat
> influence the thought process. Along this way however, I doubt that random
> process will help. My logic is close to that of Rex Allen
>
> http://groups.google.com/**group/everything-list/t/**5ab5303cdb696ef5
>
> Yet, I did not want to say that this is Bohm's opinion. If I find
> something to this end in his book, I will let you know.
>
> Evgenii
>
>
>
>
>> My point is just that if you go thru the excerpts below and
>> substitute "random" for "unconditioned" everywhere then the meaning
>> is unchanged. Bohm says, "If everything is conditioned there's no way
>> out."  I don't know where he thinks "out" is, but if somethings are
>> random then he can get there.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>>
>>> Evgenii
>>>
>>>
 Brent

 On 9/1/2013 6:39 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> I am reading David Bohm, Thought as a System. A few quotes
> below to the theme that is quite often under discussion here.
>
> Evgenii
>
> p.  72 “We have to be able to think on this clearly; even
> though, as I said, that by itself won’t really change the
> reflexes. But if we don’t think of it clearly then all our
> attempts to get into this will go wrong. Clear thinking implies
> that we are in some way awakened a little bit. Perhaps there is
> something beyond the reflex which is at work – in other words,
> something unconditioned.”
>
> p. 72 “The question is really: is there the unconditioned? If
> everything is conditioned, then there’s no way out. But the
> very fact that we are sometimes able to see new things would
> suggest that there is unconditioned. Maybe the deeper material
> structure of the brain is unconditioned, or maybe beyond.”
>
> p. 72 “If there is the unconditioned, which could be the
> movement of intelligence, then there is some possibility of
> getting into this.”
>
> p. 73 “If we say that there cannot be the unconditioned, then
> it would be foolish for us to try to do anything with the
> conditioning. Is that clear?”
>
> p. 72 “If we once assume that there cannot be the
> unconditioned, then we’re stuck. On the other hand, if we
> assume that there is the unconditioned, again we are going to
> be stuck – we will produce an image of the unconditioned in the
> system of conditioning, and mistake the image for the
> unconditioned. Therefore, let’s say that there may be the
> unconditioned. We leave room for that. We have to leave room in
> our thought for possibilities.”
>
>

>>>
>>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to 
> everything-list+unsubscribe@**goo

Re: Kant's disproof of materialism and empiricism

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Roger, and people,

On 05 Sep 2013, at 00:32, Roger Clough wrote:


Kant's disproof of materialism and empiricism

Materialists argue that in essence we are no more than our bodies.
Empiricists such as Hume ruled out the possible influence of  
anything transcendental

in our perception of objects.

But that position was disproven by Kant, for example in his  
transcdendent deduction of

the role of the self in perception 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/
in which cognitive science and philosophers such as Dennett and  
Chalmers
seems to have overlooked the critical importance of the  
transcendental.


As a result, Kant gave this argument against materialism and  
empiricism:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

"Kant proposed a "Copernican Revolution-in-reverse", saying that:

Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to  
the
objects [materialism and positivism] but ... let us once try whether  
we do not get farther with the problems of
metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our  
cognition[transcendental idealism]."



The mechanist hypothesis, and the usual Occam razor go farer: the  
physical reality becomes derivable from the "theology of  
numbers" (itself entirely derived from addition + multiplication +  
Church thesis + some common analytical definition of belief and  
knowledge).


Kant is very good. No doubt. But we have progressed, and from that  
perspective we are closer to Plato and Plotinus, and all those who  
does not oppose mystic and rationalism.


But now we have a math problem: to derive explicitly the physical laws  
from a precise theory of "number dreams". Physical realties are stable  
computational sharable dreams. That sharability gives the first person  
plural points of view.


With mechanism or computationalism, you have to add something magical  
in the mind to attach it to some magical primitive matter.


Kant has gone far, but assuming computationalism, there is not much  
choice than going much farer, as farer as Plato of the Parmenides, or  
Plotinus or Proclus theology. Then computationalism gives the tools,  
indeed theoretical computer science, to make this into an  
experimentally testable theory. Up to now, it fits.


Kant is right:  the why and how of the physical laws emerge from the  
laws of cognition, which follows from comp + computer science and  
logic, so we can indeed test such idea.


Some people are unable to doubt this *primitive* matter (in need of  
Einstein conscious act of faith, as I realize reading Jammer's book on  
Einstein & Religion), but perhaps the primitive belief has been  
probably wired by evolution, in our probable stories (which explains  
what it is hard to doubt it)).
Yet, "nature", our probable histories have given us an experience  
which rises the doubt: the dream.


Here is a good exercise for the honest researcher on the fundamental.  
Ask yourself every hour of the day "Am I dreaming or am I am awake?",  
for a month (or more if necessary). During that time, write all your  
dreams in a diary, and when going to sleep, keep attention to dreaming  
and to that question again.
Now when awake, most people hardly doubt that they are awake, and see  
dreams as fuzzy bizarre experience, hard to remember.
But the training above leads easily to a dream where the subject will  
ask her/himself if she/he is awake, and she/will will  usually either  
conclude "of course I am awake", or induce a lucid dream.
The first case will make the point, as it illustrates that you can  
dream that you are *sure* of being awake, and that is enough to learn  
to doubt that an experiment or an experience can teach us a certainty,  
above self-consciousness.


In a sense, this go "against nature", as nature provided us a brain  
wired for taking seriously the predator/prey measurement done, for  
example, but computationalism saves the theology of numbers from  
nihilism, by its high non triviality and its capacity of being tested,  
by the constraints on the observable logics.


Bruno

PS
- I found my Max Jammer "Philosophy of QM", in the remaining box.  
Thanks God!
- Apology for sending this to both lists but it can clarify different  
points made in the different list.  I will try to avoid this.



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?

[John Clark]

>
> > You cannot say you meditate on choices and make decisions and then in
> the next breath say that we are deterministic.
>
Why the hell not?!

> > Either we are programs – in which case given a knowledge of our
> algorithms our behavior and outcomes should be predictable based on a
> knowledge of some input state
>
The exact same stupid philosophical errors are being made over and over on
this list. Being deterministic is not the same as being predictable. A
computer program is deterministic but you have no way of knowing what the
output of the program will be until the machine has finished its
processing.

  John K Clark

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

What gives philosophers a bad name?

[John Clark]

This is what gives philosophers a bad name! In just one day people have
sent the following philosophical gems to the list, enough hot air to
signifacantly contribute to global warming,

* I  also do not “KNOW” whether or not I really do have “free will”. But if
I do [blah blah]

* How do you explain the experience of “free will” then?

* The experience of free will is not a snap shot, instead it [blah blah]

* If free will exists (and also of course that we have it) then [blah blah]

* If instead free will does not in fact exist, then [blah blah]

* consciousness necessarily must exist in the first place in order for free
will to exist.

* Are you maintain that the experience of free will does not itself exist?

* Can you conceive of “free will” without introducing a subject in which it
arises and is experienced?

And so it goes, on and on arguing about if free will exists or not, but
never once does anybody stop to ask what the hell "free will" means before
giving their opinion about it's existence. People argue passionately but
they don't know what they're talking about, by that I don't mean that what
they are saying is wrong, I mean that they quite literally DON'T KNOW WHAT
THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT.

When he was a student at Princeton Richard Feynman had an encounter with
philosophers, years later this is what he had to say about it and why he
developed a contempt not for philosophy but for philosophers. I gave this
quotation before but apparently it needs repeating:

"In the Graduate College dining room at Princeton everybody used to sit
with his own group. I sat with the physicists, but after a bit I thought:
It would be nice to see what the rest of the world is doing, so I'll sit
for a week or two in each of the other groups.

When I sat with the philosophers I listened to them discuss very seriously
a book called Process and Reality by Whitehead. They were using words in a
funny way, and I couldn't quite understand what they were saying. Now I
didn't want to interrupt them in their own conversation and keep asking
them to explain something, and on the few occasions that I did, they'd try
to explain it to me, but I still didn't get it. Finally they invited me to
come to their seminar.

They had a seminar that was like, a class. It had been meeting once a week
to discuss a new chapter out of Process and Reality - some guy would give a
report on it and then there would be a discussion. I went to this seminar
promising myself to keep my mouth shut, reminding myself that I didn't know
anything about the subject, and I was going there just to watch.

What happened there was typical - so typical that it was unbelievable, but
true. First of all, I sat there without saying anything, which is almost
unbelievable, but also true. A student gave a report on the chapter to be
studied that week. In it Whitehead kept using the words "essential object"
in a particular technical way that presumably he had defined, but that I
didn't understand.

After some discussion as to what "essential object" meant, the professor
leading the seminar said something meant to clarify things and drew
something that looked like lightning bolts on the blackboard. "Mr.
Feynman," he said, "would you say an electron is an 'essential object'?"

Well, now I was in trouble. I admitted that I hadn't read the book, so I
had no idea of what Whitehead meant by the phrase; I had only come to
watch. "But," I said, "I'll try to answer the professor's question if you
will first answer a question from me, so I can have a better idea of what
'essential object' means.

What I had intended to do was to find out whether they thought theoretical
constructs were essential objects. The electron is a theory that we use; it
is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call
it real. I wanted to make the idea of a theory clear by analogy. In the
case of the brick, my next question was going to be, "What about the inside
of the brick?" - and I would then point out that no one has ever seen the
inside of a brick. Every time you break the brick, you only see the
surface. That the brick has an inside is a simple theory which helps us
understand things better. The theory of electrons is analogous. So I began
by asking, "Is a brick an essential object?"

Then the answers came out. One man stood up and said, "A brick as an
individual, specific brick. That is what Whitehead means by an essential
object."

Another man said, "No, it isn't the individual brick that is an essential
object; it's the general character that all bricks have in common - their
'brickiness' - that is the essential object."

Another guy got up and said, "No, it's not in the bricks themselves.
'Essential object' means the idea in the mind that you get when you think
of bricks."

Another guy got up, and another, and I tell you I have never heard such
ingenious different ways of looking at a brick before. And, just like it
should in all stories about philosophers, it ended up in 

Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?

[John Clark]

> > I also agree that the notions of free will and qualia are two different
> things.
>

Yes, they are two very different things; one is gibberish and the other is
not.

> *>to argue that “free will”, “self-awareness” etc. are just noise [...] *
>

Only a fool would say self-awareness is just noise, and only a fool would
say "free will" is more than just noise. As for "etc", I need more
information before I can comment on that.

  John K Clark

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

RE: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?

[chris peck]

Chris

"How do you explain the experience of “free will” then? "

You'll have noticed that I don't even try to explain it.

"Our experience of free will, of having executive decisional power within our 
own selves is a distinct, high fidelity, consistently reproducible, experience 
in us"

No determinist would deny that you have 'executive decisional power'. Choices 
are being made and it is you making the choices. But what makes you Chris?

I know someone who continually makes poor decisions and gets herself into all 
sorts of scrapes and compromising situations. Knowing her we forgive her. Why? 
Well when my friends and I get together and discuss her there is a common 
theme: Her father was rotten to the core. Her mother wasn't any better. She had 
a thoroughly rotten childhood. The decisions she makes now, reflect these facts 
about her past. This is the conclusion we always reach. She did 'this' because 
'that' happened to her in the past. This I offer is a typical way of speaking 
about people and their behavior.

There is an unspoken assumption here which is that had she had a different 
past, had her parents been better than they in fact were, she would make 
different decisions. Equally then, there is an assumption that people who have 
had a past like hers will make similar decisions. This is the language of 
determinsm. 

Now its most certainly true that this kind of folk-psychology is questionable 
with regards to how things actually are. But, here is the crux of the argument: 
it certainly does reveal how people feel about how things actually are.

So to review the argument again just make it abundantly clear what I am 
arguing, it is this:

1) The way we speak about behavior reveals how we feel about behavior
2) When we speak about behavior we speak as though the past is reflected in the 
present.
3) So, we feel that our current behavior is determined by our past.

Somehow, the wool has been pulled over our eyes and we have been asked how come 
we have an illusion of free will if everything is determined. 

The real question is how come we talk about one another as if behavior is 
determined if in fact we feel we have free will?

Chris, at some point in your post you ask this:

"OR Are you maintain that the experience of free will does not itself exist? 
(can you argue that?)"

Look again at the very first paragraph in my post to you. You quoted it, so I'm 
assuming you read it:

"...I'm arguing that there is no illusion of free will..."

Could I have been any clearer?

All the best

Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2013 21:30:47 -0700
From: meeke...@verizon.net
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?


  

  
  
On 9/5/2013 8:34 PM, Chris de Morsella
  wrote:



  
  
  
  
  
 
 

  
From:
everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
  Of chris peck

Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 7:30 AM

To: everything-list@googlegroups.com

Subject: RE: When will a computer pass the Turing
Test?
  

 

  Hi
  Chris
   
  >>
  I
also do not “KNOW” whether or not I really do have “free
will”. But if I do not have “free will” evolution has
seen fit to evolve a very expensive – in evolutionary
terms – illusion of “free will... To argue that “free
will”, “self-awareness” etc. are just noise, of no real
value or consequence goes against evolution. Evolution
doesn’t work like that. Unless it can be clearly shown
that these qualia are inevitable by-products of some
other evolutionarily vital brain function”
   
  >>You
  haven't really addressed the ideas raised in my post. I'm
  not arguing that the illusion of free will has no
  consequence I'm arguing that there is no illusion of free
  will. And if there is no illusion of free will then there
  is no reason to drum up some evolutionary story to justify
  it.
   
  How
  do you explain the experience of “free will” then? 
  Our
  experience of free will, of having executive decisional
  power within our own selves is a distinct, high fidelity,
  consistently reproducible, experience in us – I *know*
  through direct experience that I experience this in my own
  self, and I bet long odds that, even though you deny it,
  you also experience the sensation of having free will in
  your own everyday life. 

  



I agree with Chris Peck.  I don't