Probability, Necessity, and Infinity

[Rex Allen]

Somewhat related to Stephen's post on Srednicki and Hartle's paper.

 

Quentin Meillassoux, "Potentiality and Virtuality":

 

"We have at our disposal the means to reformulate Hume's problem without abandoning the ontological perspective in favour of the epistemic perspective largely dominant today. Beginning to resolve the problem of induction comes down to delegitimating the probabilistic reasoning at the origin of the refusal of the contingency of laws. More precisely, it is a matter of showing what is fallacious in the inference from the contingency of laws to the frequency (and thus the observability) of their changing. This amounts to refusing the application of probability to the contingency of laws, thereby producing a valuable conceptual distinction between contingency understood in this radical sense and the usual concept of contingency conceived as chance subject to the laws of probability. Given such a distinction, it is no longer legitimate to maintain that the phenomenal stability of laws compels us to suppose their necessity."

 

(pdf attached)

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi Rex,

 

    Thank you for bringing this paper to our attention. I would like to point out two problems that I see in Meillassoux’ argument.

 

So to minimize arguing against a straw man I will quote specific passages from the paper.

 

“ if laws were contingent, they would change so frequently, so fre-
netically, that we would never be able to grasp anything whatsoever, because
none of the conditions for the stable representation of objects would ever obtain.
In short, if causal connection were contingent, we would know it so well that we
would no longer know anything. As can be seen, this argument can only pass from
the notion of contingency to the notion of frequency given the presupposition that it
is extraordinarily  improbable  that the laws should remain constant rather than
being modified in every conceivable way at every moment.”

 

    Here we have what appears to be a well reasoned argument until we inquire as to the definition of the term “to know” that is used. If an entity exists in a universe subject to frequent and contingent change what is to allow the mind of that entity the ability to have the ability to know anything at all? The entity and its brain/mind would be subject to the very same capricious randomness that the rest of that universe undergoes and thus the notion of knowing becomes null and void.

 

“...thinkable worlds, which could only reinforce the

conviction that the constancy of just one of them is extraor-

dinarily improbable. But it is precisely on this point that the

unacceptable postulate of our `probabilist sophism' hinges,

for I ask then: of which infinity are we speaking here? We

know, since Cantor, that infinities are multiple, that is to

say, are of different cardinalities - more or less `large', like

the discrete and continuous infinities - and above all that

these infinities constitute a multiplicity it is impossible to

foreclose, since a set of all sets cannot be supposed without

contradiction. The Cantorian revolution consists in having

demonstrated that infinities can be differentiated, that is,

that one can think the equality or inequality of two

infinities: two infinite sets are equal when there exists

between them a biunivocal correspondence, that is, a

bijective function which makes each element of the first

correspond with one, and only one, of the other. They are

unequal if such a correspondence does not exist. Further

still, it is possible to demonstrate that, whatever infinity is

considered,  an infinity of superior cardinality  (a `larger' infinity)

necessarily exists. One need only construct (something that is

always possible) the set of the parts of this infinity. From

this perspective, it becomes impossible to think a last

infinity that no other could exceed.
But in that case, since there is no reason, whether
empirical or theoretical, to choose one infinity rather than
another, and since we can no longer rely on reason to
constitute an absolute totality of all possible cases, and
since we cannot give any particular reason upon which to
ground the existence of such a universe of cases, we
cannot legitimately construct any set within which the
foregoing probabilistic reasoning could make sense. This
then means that it is indeed incorrect to infer from the
contingency of laws the necessary frequency of their
changing. So it is not absurd to suppose that the current
constants might remain the same whilst being devoid of
necessity, since the notion of possible change - and even
chaotic change, change devoid of all reason - can be
separated from that of frequent change:  laws which are
contingent, but stable beyond all probability, thereby become
conceivable.”

 

The bold and italics are my highlighting of a statement within this passage.

end quote

 

    Does Meillassoux not understand anything about calculus, analysis, computational complexity theory or other higher mathematics? These infinities within the Cantorian tower are not just some abstraction that has no relation with other abstract structures. There is a long line of careful reasoning that allow us to understand what Cardinality of infinity a set belongs to and thus this part of Meillassoux’ argument is contradicted by mathematics. Additionally, Meillassoux seems to also gloss over the assumption of well-foundedness in his logic...

    Failure to understand what infinities are has plagued many and a failure to understand them by some persons is a sad fact in our world.  OTOH, to wonder which infinity the set of all possible worlds belongs to is not trivial matter so I can forgive this obvious 1004 error (of using jargon to hide a fallacy), we can point to Max Tegmark’s meandering thoughts on this question if we want to, we need to find a firm foundation upon which we can leverage the notion of “contingent yet stable”laws. Over all I think that Meillassoux is asking the right kinds of questions but I just wish that he would venture away from the Streetlight. I will continue to read and think about this papers ideas.

 

 

Please also see http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/118/272 for more detailed discussion of Meillassoux’ ideas.

 

Onward!

 

Stephen

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.

[Rex Allen]

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Stephen Paul King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Rex Allen <rexall...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "if laws were contingent, they would change so frequently, so

>> frenetically, that we would never be able to grasp anything

>> whatsoever, because none of the conditions for the stable
>> representation of objects would ever obtain. In short, if causal
>> connection were contingent, we would know it so well that we
>> would no longer know anything. As can be seen, this
>> argument can only pass from the notion of contingency to the
>> notion of frequency given the presupposition that it is
>> extraordinarily improbable that the laws should remain
>> constant rather than being modified in every conceivable way
>> at every moment."
>>
>
> Here we have what appears to be a well reasoned argument until
> we inquire as to the definition of the term "to know" that is
> used. If an entity exists in a universe subject to frequent
> and contingent change what is to allow the mind of that entity
> the ability to have the ability to know anything at all? The
> entity and its brain/mind would be subject to the very same
> capricious randomness that the rest of that universe undergoes
> and thus the notion of knowing becomes null and void.

If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal
laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
either?

If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
logic or rationality.

Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.

Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case
(for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional
schizophrenics).

So holding true beliefs, even in a universe with causal laws, is
purely a matter of luck - i.e., is the entity in question lucky enough
to live in a universe with initial conditions and causal laws that
lead to it holding true beliefs.

Further, if the initial conditions and causal laws don't cause the
entity to present and believe true rational arguments, there would be
no way for the entity to ever detect this, since there is no way to
step outside of the universe's control of one's beliefs to
independently verify the "reasonableness" of the beliefs it generates.

Again...schizophrenics are generally pretty convinced of the truth of
their delusions.

Even in a lawful universe how do you justify your beliefs? And then
how do you justify your justifications of your beliefs? And then how
do you justify the justifications of the justifications of your
beliefs? And so on. Agrippa's Trilemma.

So. Given the capricious randomness involved in the selection of the
entity's universe's initial conditions and causal laws (of which the
vast majority of conceivable combinations would result in false
beliefs) the notion of knowing becomes null and void.

Neither Meillassoux's scenario nor the "lawful universe" scenario
allow for knowledge. In both cases, holding true beliefs is a matter
of luck, and no belief can be justified (not even the belief that no
belief can be justified).

> Does Meillassoux not understand anything about
> calculus, analysis, computational complexity
> theory or other higher mathematics?

Perhaps you could be a little more specific in exactly how you feel he
exposed his ignorance?

> OTOH, to wonder which infinity the set of all
> possible worlds belongs to is not trivial matter

I think Meillassoux's main point with this digression into Cantorian
set theory is that just as there can be no end to the process of set
formation and thus no such thing as the totality of all sets, there is
also no absolute totality of all possible cases.

In other words, there is no "set of all possible worlds". And thus

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Rex,

[RA]

If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal

laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)

either?

 

[SPK]

    I am not sure of what you mean by "unchanging causal laws" so I will offer a definition: A set of relations that given some sharp configuration of energy-momentum on a plane of simultaneity there will always be some other sharp configuration and none other. Is this a satisfactory definition of "unchanging causal laws" to you? Note that this definition is consistent with the classical "block universe" model of the universe.

 

 

[RA]

If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental

underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of

logic or rationality.

 

[SPK]

    What is "more fundamental"? If the block universe of classical physics is taken to be the totality of what can and does exist, there can be no "more fundamental" anything, not even a "process". I am amused to reread the occasionalist and epiphenomenalist theories of mind that have been offered to account for the notion of knowledge (a.k.a. justified true belief). I am sure that you agree that without a mind there can be no belief, justified or otherwise, not logic nor rationality. So if the universe does not allow for entities to have something that can be considered as mind then we can go no further down this line of reasoning as we have removed all possible means to continue.

 

[RA]

Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the

initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.

 

Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity

holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case

(for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional

schizophrenics).

 

[SPK]

    We have not established that an entity can have a mind in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal laws so until we do we can ask no further questions. OTOH, in the spirit of the discussion I will overlook this fatal flaw, but we are presented with another problem: How do we distinguish the schizophrenics, deluded or otherwise, from the non-schizophrenics? Following your reasoning, the same causal laws would generate both, so the difference is a set of initial conditions. What determined those to be such rather than some other? I see a crack opening here that allows us to recover many worlds... The point is that if there is any choice at all in the state of the universe and anything therein, then it is necessary that a multiplicity of prior possibility exist.

    The mere fact that I have a mind or some delusion that leads to a similar condition leads me also to the conclusion that there is something that is like the subjective sense of having a choice of action and that sense of having a choice extends to what ever reasons, rationalizations or delusions that I might have about the nature and origin of justified true beliefs. So if there is the possibility, encapsulated in the word *may*, as in "Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity

holds true beliefs...", then it inescapably follows that there is a multiplicity of at least initial conditions that could have lead to this state of affairs. So we cannot coherently hold that unchanging causal laws disallow for justified true beliefs. You seem to agree with this conclusion below.

 

[RA]

So holding true beliefs, even in a universe with causal laws, is

purely a matter of luck - i.e., is the entity in question lucky enough

to live in a universe with initial conditions and causal laws that

lead to it holding true beliefs.

 

[SPK]

    I agree, because there is no a priori restriction of the possible initial conditions that could, following those causal laws, generate the condition or state of having a mind that holds true beliefs. But your point about holding those beliefs is a "matter of luck" necessitates a prior spectrum of initial conditions from which a set of true beliefs can obtain and thus, at least in an a priori sense, a plurality of possible initial conditions. So if we have an a priori plurality of initial conditions, we left in a condition where we have at least have way recovered the notion of a plurality of possible worlds. Is this not countering your claim here, at least partly?

 

[RA]

Further, if the initial conditions and causal laws don't cause the

entity to present and believe true rational arguments, there would be

no way for the entity to ever detect this, since there is no way to

step outside of the universe's control of one's beliefs to

independently verify the "reasonableness" of the beliefs it generates.

 

Again...schizophrenics are generally pretty convinced of the truth of

their delusions.

 

[SPK]

    Sure, but are we not arguing against the direct evidence that we have at hand, evidence that contradicts our premise? What is the point of doing that? Even if our ideas are delusions the very fact that we have something that is like having those delusions contradicts the mere possibility that we cannot detect such a situation! Are we restricted in only being able to step outside of the universe's control to verify reasonableness? That looks far too similar to a false choice argument to be considered seriously.

 

 

[RA]

Even in a lawful universe how do you justify your beliefs?  And then

how do you justify your justifications of your beliefs?  And then how

do you justify the justifications of the justifications of your

beliefs?  And so on.  Agrippa's Trilemma.

 

So.  Given the capricious randomness involved in the selection of the

entity's universe's initial conditions and causal laws (of which the

vast majority of conceivable combinations would result in false

beliefs) the notion of knowing becomes null and void.

 

Neither Meillassoux's scenario nor the "lawful universe" scenario

allow for knowledge.  In both cases, holding true beliefs is a matter

of luck, and no belief can be justified (not even the belief that no

belief can be justified).

 

[SPK]

    OK, so maybe there is something wrong with the premises and assumptions that we are using in our reasoning here. In my study of philosophy I have found that a lot of the problems, such as Agrippa's Trilemma, etc. rest on the assumption of well foundedness and much smarter people than me have found at least one solution to this mess. I respectfully request that you look into Non-wellfounded set theory and its logic and see for yourself have we can avoid this conundrum that you find yourself in.  That Meillassoux was unable to grasp this solution was no fault of mine or yours, but a failure to allow for the possibility that an alternative exists does fall on our shoulders since it is our duty to perform the due diligence that research and study requires.

   

 

> [SPK]

> Does Meillassoux not understand anything about

> calculus, analysis, computational complexity

> theory or other higher mathematics?

[RA]

Perhaps you could be a little more specific in exactly how you feel he

exposed his ignorance?

 

[SPK]

 

    For example, in analysis there is a notion of a Borel set http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borel_set  that is used to define a measure on the set of Real numbers that allows for a coherent notion of probability, among other things. This is just one example of how infinities are used in a coherent way that does not fall prey to a supposed infinite regress or runaway condition.A philosopher making an argument that professes to use logic and that is oblivious to well established principles in mathematics is not helping his reputation.

 

    We also have the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_paradox which Meillassoux is using a crude version to make his argument. It would be helpful for use to understand the solution to this paradox.

 

From the Wiki page reference we find:

 

begin cut/paste

“Statement and proof

In order to state the paradox it is necessary to understand that the cardinal numbers admit an ordering, so that one can speak about one being greater or less than another. Then Cantor's paradox is:

Theorem: There is no greatest cardinal number.

This fact is a direct consequence of Cantor's theorem on the cardinality of the power set of a set.

Proof: Assume the contrary, and let C be the largest cardinal number. Then (in the von Neumann formulation of cardinality) C is a set and therefore has a power set 2^C which, by Cantor's theorem, has cardinality strictly larger than that of C. But the cardinality of C is C itself, by definition, and therefore we have exhibited a cardinality (namely that of 2^C) larger than C, which was assumed to be the greatest cardinal number. This contradiction establishes that such a cardinal cannot exist.

Discussion and consequences

Since the cardinal numbers are well-ordered by indexing with the ordinal numbers (see Cardinal number, formal definition), this also establishes that there is no greatest ordinal number; conversely, the latter statement implies Cantor's paradox. By applying this indexing to the Burali-Forti paradox we also conclude that the cardinal numbers are a proper class rather than a set, and (at least in ZFC or in von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory) it follows from this that there is a bijection between the class of cardinals and the class of all sets. Since every set is a subset of this latter class, and every cardinality is the cardinality of a set (by definition!) this intuitively means that the "cardinality" of the collection of cardinals is greater than the cardinality of any set: it is more infinite than any true infinity. This is the paradoxical nature of Cantor's "paradox".”

end cut/paste

We can start down this path of finding a solution by studying Non-well-founded sets

 

>[SPK]

> OTOH, to wonder which infinity the set of all

> possible worlds belongs to is not trivial matter

[RA]

I think Meillassoux's main point with this digression into Cantorian

set theory is that just as there can be no end to the process of set

formation and thus no such thing as the totality of all sets, there is

also no absolute totality of all possible cases.

 

In other words, there is no "set of all possible worlds".  And thus

"we cannot legitimately construct any set within which the foregoing

probabilistic reasoning could make sense."

 

[SPK]

    Sorry Rex, no joy. The reasoning is not sound so the proof does not follow. Let’s try harder.

 

Onward!

 

Stephen

 

 

[Rex Allen]

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 6:21 PM, Stephen Paul King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> [RA]
> If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal
> laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
> either?
>
> [SPK]
> I am not sure of what you mean by "unchanging causal laws" so I will
> offer a definition: A set of relations that given some sharp configuration
> of energy-momentum on a plane of simultaneity there will always be some
> other sharp configuration and none other. Is this a satisfactory definition
> of "unchanging causal laws" to you? Note that this definition is consistent
> with the classical "block universe" model of the universe.

Hmmm. Well, no. I didn't intend it to be limited to the apparent
laws of our universe.

By "causal law", I am just referring to whatever it is that is
intended to explain why events transpire one way instead of some other
way.

"Unchanging" isn't intended to mean much except that the laws don't
change *unless* caused to do so by some other law. So I just mean
that the laws don't change for no reason.

Bottom line: I am referring to a universe where everything that
happens does so because it is *caused* to happen by some "law".
Nothing happens without a reason for it to happen. A universe where
the Principle of Sufficient Reason applies.

As opposed to a Meillassouxian universe, where there is no reason why
events transpire one way instead of some other way.

> [RA]
> If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
> underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
> logic or rationality.
>
> [SPK]
> What is "more fundamental"? If the block universe of classical physics
> is taken to be the totality of what can and does exist, there can be no
> "more fundamental" anything, not even a "process". I am amused to reread the
> occasionalist and epiphenomenalist theories of mind that have been offered
> to account for the notion of knowledge (a.k.a. justified true belief). I am
> sure that you agree that without a mind there can be no belief, justified or
> otherwise, not logic nor rationality. So if the universe does not allow for
> entities to have something that can be considered as mind then we can go no
> further down this line of reasoning as we have removed all possible means to
> continue.

It's not the mind that I have doubts about. I know that my experience
of this moment exists. How could I be wrong about that?

It's the universe that is meant to explain *why* my experience of this
moment exists that I have doubts about.

So, we want to explain our conscious experiences. To do so, we
postulate the existence of some "underlying" system (e.g., the
physical world) that accounts for the order and predictability of what
we observe.

But then the inevitable question is, "what accounts for the order and
predictability of the underlying system"? What explains the
explanation? And then what explains the explanation of the
explanation? And so on...infinite regress.

But further, why this particular infinite chain of explanations
instead of some other infinite chain? Why not nothingness? And if you
have an answer, what explains that answer? Why that answer instead of
some other answer? Another infinite regress!

If you keep going you end up with an infinite number of infinite regresses...

So. That doesn't seem right.

Perhaps the answer is that there is no reason for why things are the
way they are. Which Meillassoux calls this the "principle of
unreason", or the "principle of facticity", in contrast to Leibniz's
"principle of sufficient reason".

> [RA]
> Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
> initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.
>
> Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
> holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case
> (for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional
> schizophrenics).
>
> [SPK]
> We have not established that an entity can have a mind in a universe
> that is subject to unchanging causal laws so until we do we can ask no
> further questions.

My proposal is that no such universe exists. There is nothing to
reality except our experiences.

> [SPK]

> OTOH, in the spirit of the discussion I will overlook
> this fatal flaw, but we are presented with another problem: How do we
> distinguish the schizophrenics, deluded or otherwise, from the
> non-schizophrenics? Following your reasoning, the same causal laws would
> generate both, so the difference is a set of initial conditions. What
> determined those to be such rather than some other? I see a crack opening
> here that allows us to recover many worlds... The point is that if there is
> any choice at all in the state of the universe and anything therein, then it
> is necessary that a multiplicity of prior possibility exist.

OR, it could be that there is no reason for the current state of the
universe. It just is this way.

If you invoke the existence of a multiplicity of prior possibilities
to explain the state of the universe, then what explains the existence
of the multiplicity of prior possibilities?

> [SPK]

> The mere fact that I have a mind or some delusion that leads to a
> similar condition leads me also to the conclusion that there is something
> that is like the subjective sense of having a choice of action and that
> sense of having a choice extends to what ever reasons, rationalizations or
> delusions that I might have about the nature and origin of justified true
> beliefs.

Hmmm? You have to "conclude" from other evidence that there is

something that is like the subjective sense of having a choice of

action?

I would think that this subjective experience of having a choice of
action would be known directly, not inferred from other evidence.

Rather, the fact that you do not *actually* have a choice of action is
inferred from other evidence. But that it feels like you have a
choice of action is known directly. Ya?

If there is a reason for every action, then there is no choice. The
reason determines the action.

> So if there is the possibility, encapsulated in the word *may*, as
> in "Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
> holds true beliefs...", then it inescapably follows that there is a
> multiplicity of at least initial conditions that could have lead to this
> state of affairs. So we cannot coherently hold that unchanging causal laws
> disallow for justified true beliefs. You seem to agree with this conclusion
> below.

I'm saying that once you think through the implications of living in a
universe with unchanging causal laws, you should conclude that while
your beliefs *may* be true, you can't justify your belief that they
are.

BECAUSE, in such a universe no one presents or believes arguments for
reasons of logic or rationality. Rather, they present and believe the
arguments that are entailed by the initial conditions and causal laws
of that universe.

So, if you believe that you are living in a universe with unchanging
causal laws, you should also believe that *all* of your beliefs could
very well be wrong...including the belief that all of your beliefs
could very well be long.

Wouldn't you say that this rules out the possibility of knowledge, in
that you can't really establish a justification for holding your
beliefs, even if you accept that the beliefs could be true?

Let's keep in mind that unlike Bruno or Tegmark, Meillassoux isn't
proposing a "platonic" logico-mathematical foundation for reality.

Rather, Meillassoux uses Cantorian detotalization to counter proposed
resolutions of Hume's problem that rely upon a probabilistic logic
depending upon a totality of cases.

> [RA]
> So holding true beliefs, even in a universe with causal laws, is
> purely a matter of luck - i.e., is the entity in question lucky enough
> to live in a universe with initial conditions and causal laws that
> lead to it holding true beliefs.
>
> [SPK]
> I agree, because there is no a priori restriction of the possible
> initial conditions that could, following those causal laws, generate the
> condition or state of having a mind that holds true beliefs. But your point
> about holding those beliefs is a "matter of luck" necessitates a prior
> spectrum of initial conditions from which a set of true beliefs can obtain
> and thus, at least in an a priori sense, a plurality of possible initial
> conditions. So if we have an a priori plurality of initial conditions, we
> left in a condition where we have at least have way recovered the notion of
> a plurality of possible worlds. Is this not countering your claim here, at
> least partly?

So there is the notion of a spectrum of possible worlds.

But are there any ontological implications that we can draw from this?
Does this notion tell us anything about what actually exists? Or why
things are this way instead of some other way?

I meant "matter of luck" in the sense of it being a contingent fact,
without explanation or reason.

I didn't mean luck in the sense of probability...which implies that
there is some mechanism that causes some possible worlds to be
instantiated, but not others.

As Meillassoux says:

"To demonstrate why laws, if they can change, have not done so
frequently, thus comes down to disqualifying the legitimacy of
probabilistic reasoning when the latter is applied to the laws of
nature themselves, rather than to events subject to those laws. Here
is how such a distinction can, in my opinion, be effectively made: to
apply a probabilistic chain of reasoning to a particular phenomenon
supposes as given the universe of possible cases in which the
numerical calculation can take place. Such a set of cases, for
example, is given to a supposedly symmetrical and homogeneous object,
a die or a coin. If the die or the coin to which such a calculative
procedure is applied always falls on the same face, one concludes by
affirming that it has become highly improbable that this phenomenon is
truly contingent: the coin or die is most likely loaded, that is to
say, it obeys a law — for example the law of gravitation applied to
the ball of lead hidden within.

And an analogous chain of reasoning is applied in favour of the
necessity of laws: identifying the laws with the different faces of a
universal Die — faces representing the set of possible worlds — it is
said, as in the precedent case, that if these laws are contingent, we
would have been present at the frequent changing of the 'face'; that
is to say, the physical world would have changed frequently. Since
the 'result' is, on the contrary, always the same, the result must be
'loaded' by the presence of some hidden necessity, at the origin of
the constancy of observable laws. In short, we begin by giving
ourselves a set of possible cases, each one representing a conceivable
world having as much chance as the others of being chosen in the end,
and conclude from this that it is infinitely improbable that our own
universe should constantly be drawn by chance from such a set, unless
a hidden necessity presided secretly over the result."

The man is a genius!

> We also have the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_paradox which
> Meillassoux is using a crude version to make his argument. It would be
> helpful for use to understand the solution to this paradox.
>

> [...]

>
> Since the cardinal numbers are well-ordered by indexing with the ordinal
> numbers (see Cardinal number, formal definition), this also establishes that
> there is no greatest ordinal number; conversely, the latter statement
> implies Cantor's paradox. By applying this indexing to the Burali-Forti
> paradox we also conclude that the cardinal numbers are a proper class rather
> than a set, and (at least in ZFC or in von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory)
> it follows from this that there is a bijection between the class of
> cardinals and the class of all sets. Since every set is a subset of this
> latter class, and every cardinality is the cardinality of a set (by
> definition!) this intuitively means that the "cardinality" of the collection
> of cardinals is greater than the cardinality of any set: it is more infinite
> than any true infinity. This is the paradoxical nature of Cantor's
> "paradox"."

So how does one go about applying probabilistic reasoning to a
collection that is more infinite than any true infinity?

Rex

[1Z]

On Nov 4, 4:40 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Stephen Paul King <stephe...@charter.net> wrote:

That doesn't follow.

> Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
> initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.

That doens;t stop them being logical or rational.
It only stops them being the result of a free choice
to adopt logic or rationality

> Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
> holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case
> (for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional
> schizophrenics).

OTOH, it;s more likely than not. Organisms with delusional
beliefs would have trouble surviving and reproducing, so
organisms are more likely than not to lack them (or not
have many, or compartmentalise them into areas that
don't effect survival too much).

> So holding true beliefs, even in a universe with causal laws, is
> purely a matter of luck - i.e., is the entity in question lucky enough
> to live in a universe with initial conditions and causal laws that
> lead to it holding true beliefs.
>
> Further, if the initial conditions and causal laws don't cause the
> entity to present and believe true rational arguments, there would be
> no way for the entity to ever detect

except if the causal laws caused it to

> this, since there is no way to
> step outside of the universe's control of one's beliefs to
> independently verify the "reasonableness" of the beliefs it generates.
>
> Again...schizophrenics are generally pretty convinced of the truth of
> their delusions.
>
> Even in a lawful universe how do you justify your beliefs?  And then
> how do you justify your justifications of your beliefs?  And then how
> do you justify the justifications of the justifications of your
> beliefs?  And so on.  Agrippa's Trilemma.

Would apply to a non-causal universe

[Rex Allen]

On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 3:53 PM, 1Z <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Nov 4, 4:40 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal
>> laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
>> either?
>>
>> If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
>> underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
>> logic or rationality.
>
> That doesn't follow.

It follows by definition.

1. IF a universe governed by causal laws -

2. THEN everything that occurs within that universe is a result of
those laws acting on the universe's state. Every change of state
happens according to some law.

3. The entity's holding of some belief occurs within that universe.

4. Therefore the entity's holding of some belief (whether rational
*or* irrational) is a result of causal laws acting on the entity's
state, and nothing else.

What else could account for the entity's holding of some particular belief?

"Logical" and "rational" are adjectives. You're confusing descriptive
labels with causal forces.

====

A. "Bob believes X" - True.

B. "Bob believes that believing X is rational" - True.

C. "Bob believes that he believes X because it is rational" - True.

D. "Bob believes X because believing X is rational" - FALSE

E. "Bob believes X, and believing X is rational" - may or may not be true.

====

Maybe we need to define our terms.

What definition are you using for "belief"? What is a belief? Is
belief fundamental or does it reduce to something more basic?

If belief just reduces to physical brain states, then option D above
is *still* false.

In our entity's universe the brain being in state Y isn't caused by it
having previously been in state X. Rather, the governing laws cause
the transition from X to Y.

Under different causal laws, the brain might instead have transitioned
from state X to an irrational state like Z.

>> Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
>> initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.
>
> That doens;t stop them being logical or rational.
> It only stops them being the result of a free choice
> to adopt logic or rationality

Once you give up free choice, you're left with skepticism.

Bryan Caplan had an interesting comment on this:

"Now it is a fact that people disagree on many questions; this leads
us to wonder if on any given issue we are correct. How is the
determinist to come to grips with this? If the content of my mind is
determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how would I ever
double-check my views? I would be determined to believe them; and if
arguments convinced me, then they would be determined to convince me.
The crucial point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --
would be the result of inexorable causal forces. And these forces
determine people to error just as inexorably as they determine them to
truth. Of course, I might be correct by coincidence. But knowledge
is _justified_ true belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe
whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard to see what
the justification of our beliefs is.

Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
micro-particles impose on us. It might be the case that those
micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.

Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the possibility
of justified true belief. "

And probabilistic laws aren't any better.

>> Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
>> holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case
>> (for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional
>> schizophrenics).
>
> OTOH, it;s more likely than not. Organisms with delusional
> beliefs would have trouble surviving and reproducing,

Again, you're confusing descriptive labels with a causal forces.

Some organisms are caused to hold delusional beliefs by the same
forces that cause others to hold rational beliefs.

Further, those same causal forces also determine the fates of both
delusional and rational organisms.

That schizophrenia hasn't been observed to vastly increase
reproductive success is merely a contingent outcome of the our
universe's particular initial conditions and causal laws.

>> this, since there is no way to
>> step outside of the universe's control of one's beliefs to
>> independently verify the "reasonableness" of the beliefs it generates.
>>
>> Again...schizophrenics are generally pretty convinced of the truth of
>> their delusions.
>>
>> Even in a lawful universe how do you justify your beliefs? And then
>> how do you justify your justifications of your beliefs? And then how
>> do you justify the justifications of the justifications of your
>> beliefs? And so on. Agrippa's Trilemma.
>
> Would apply to a non-causal universe

Correct. It applies everywhere.

[Brent Meeker]

I don't know what "pre-determined" adds to this and "no matter what" is inconsistent.  If you are a determinist then all beliefs are causally connected to facts (facts about your brain, perception, the world...).  If the facts and the belief are congruent and they are causally connected then they are justified_true_beliefs.

Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
micro-particles impose on us.  It might be the case that those
micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
  

Whatever truth is, it isn't a causal agent. 

Brent

[Rex Allen]

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>> On 11/10/2010 4:54 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>
>> Once you give up free choice, you're left with skepticism.
>>
>> Bryan Caplan had an interesting comment on this:
>>
>> "Now it is a fact that people disagree on many questions; this leads
>> us to wonder if on any given issue we are correct. How is the
>> determinist to come to grips with this? If the content of my mind is
>> determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how would I ever
>> double-check my views? I would be determined to believe them; and if
>> arguments convinced me, then they would be determined to convince me.
>> The crucial point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --
>> would be the result of inexorable causal forces. And these forces
>> determine people to error just as inexorably as they determine them to
>> truth. Of course, I might be correct by coincidence. But knowledge
>> is _justified_ true belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe
>> whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard to see what
>> the justification of our beliefs is.
>>
>
> I don't know what "pre-determined" adds to this and "no matter what" is
> inconsistent.

By pre-determined I just take him to mean that our beliefs are
determined by the state of things at some previous point in time. The
state of the universe at time t0 (plus the causal laws that govern the
state changes) determines our beliefs at time t1.

Given the state at t0, the outcome at t1 is...pre-determined. So the
"pre" just emphasizes the impact of the past on the present.

I don't think it adds much to use "pre-determined", but I don't see
that it is really cause for complaint either...?

As for "no matter what" being inconsistent...well...I suppose so. It
does imply fatalism instead of strict determinism. In other words:
"no matter what happens between time t0 and t1, the outcome will still
be the same."

But I'm pretty sure that he meant: "The only events that can occur
between time t0 and t1 are the specific events neccessitated by the
state of the universe at t0 and the universe's causal laws, and thus
the outcome is not in doubt".

He did *not* mean to imply that additional events are possible, but
will not alter the outcome.

> If you are a determinist then all beliefs are causally
> connected to facts (facts about your brain, perception, the world...). If
> the facts and the belief are congruent and they are causally connected then
> they are justified_true_beliefs.

If the facts and the beliefs are congruent, then the beliefs are true. I agree.

However, just because Belief X is causally connected to Fact Y doesn't
meant that Belief X is justified.

The question of justification is how do you *know* that Belief X is
causally connected to Fact Y?

It may be a fact (Fact Z) that Belief X is causally connected to Fact
Y, but how do you justify your belief in Fact Z?

And then, how do you justify your belief in your belief that Belief X
is causally connected to Fact Y? And then, how do you justify your
belief in your belief in your belief that Belief X is causally
connected to Fact Y? And so on.

The problem is that the only facts that we have direct access to are
facts about our current beliefs. It is a fact that I believe this.
BUT, I can't say for sure that it's *true* that we only have direct
access to facts about our current beliefs.

It's just what I believe at this moment. Though, I can't even say for
certain that I believed it an hour ago. I believe I did, but I can't
justify that belief.

From our current beliefs we infer the existence of other facts, but
why should we believe that our current beliefs are true or that our
process of inference is correct?

Skepticism doesn't say that there are no true beliefs. It just says
that we can never justify them.

>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>> micro-particles impose on us. It might be the case that those
>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>>
>
> Whatever truth is, it isn't a causal agent.

Right. And neither is logic or rationality.

[Brent Meeker]

Depends on what you consider justification.  We use common sense and other theories of the world all the time.  They are justified by the fact that they usually successful in making predictions.  Not always, but mostly.  If I left my watch on the dresser last night I can usually find it there in the morning.  To imagine that it would be a better justification of this to have some complete, deterministic theory of everything is the fallacy of the misplaced concrete.

Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
micro-particles impose on us.  

If determinism is true...nothing whatsoever follows.  It's like saying "God did it."  Unless you can specify the initial conditions and the causal laws of evolution, it's nothing but a form of words.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Nov 2010, at 02:37, Brent Meeker wrote:

> On 11/10/2010 4:54 PM, Rex Allen wrote:

<snip>

>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>> micro-particles impose on us. It might be the case that those
>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>>
>
> Whatever truth is, it isn't a causal agent.

There is plausibly no sense to see truth as the ultimate "causal" agent.
But self-referential correctness relatively to our most probable
(computational) histories might be, and this is part of truth.
We have good reason to believe that our brains are not so bad
dynamical mirror of the most probable consistent neighborhoods.
Like we have good reason to trust an altimeter in a plane.
When beliefs separate from knowledge, we leave the normal worlds, and
the dreams become less and less sharable, up to some consciousness
'backtracking', probably.
Eventually beliefs work *because* they are (self) determined, like
'free-will' can be seen as relative partial self-determination.
In science, we never know when we have knowledge, except perhaps on
arithmetic, but even there I am not entirely sure.
Determinism would be a problem if it was entailing 100% correct self-
determination, but that does not exist, for logical reasons.

Bruno

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

[1Z]

On Nov 11, 12:54 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 3:53 PM, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Nov 4, 4:40 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal
> >> laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
> >> either?
>
> >> If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
> >> underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
> >> logic or rationality.
>
> > That doesn't follow.
>
> It follows by definition.
>
> 1.  IF a universe governed by causal laws -
>
> 2.  THEN everything that occurs within that universe is a result of
> those laws acting on the universe's state.  Every change of state
> happens according to some law.
>
> 3.  The entity's holding of some belief occurs within that universe.
>
> 4.  Therefore the entity's holding of some belief (whether rational
> *or* irrational) is a result of causal laws acting on the entity's
> state, and nothing else.
>
> What else could account for the entity's holding of some particular belief?
>
> "Logical" and "rational" are adjectives.  You're confusing descriptive
> labels with causal forces.

Your argument still doesn't work. You re tacitly assuming that
being the result of causal laws is exclusive of being the result
of logic/.reason. But that is , to say the least, not obvioius.
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.

> ====
>
> A.  "Bob believes X" - True.
>
> B.  "Bob believes that believing X is rational" - True.
>
> C.  "Bob believes that he believes X because it is rational" - True.
>
> D.  "Bob believes X because believing X is rational" - FALSE

Saying it doesn't make it so. If Bob goes fishing because of
causal laws, he still goes fishing. If Bob is rational because of
causal laws, he is still rational. (Whether he *chooses* to go
fishing is another matter...)

> E.  "Bob believes X, and believing X is rational" - may or may not be true.
>
> ====
>
> Maybe we need to define our terms.
>
> What definition are you using for "belief"?  What is a belief?  Is
> belief fundamental or does it reduce to something more basic?
>
> If belief just reduces to physical brain states, then option D above
> is *still* false.

Not established.

> In our entity's universe the brain being in state Y isn't caused by it
> having previously been in state X.  Rather, the governing laws cause
> the transition from X to Y.

It would make more sense to include both in your account..the state
and the transition rules

> Under different causal laws, the brain might instead have transitioned
> from state X to an irrational state like Z.

Yeah. That doesn';t mean he wasn't actually rational when
he was. It *does* mean he can't choose to be
rational if the rules and previous state conspire against him...

> >> Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
> >> initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.
>
> > That doens;t stop them being logical or rational.
> > It only stops them being the result of a free choice
> > to adopt logic or rationality
>
> Once you give up free choice, you're left with skepticism.

That needs demonstration

> Bryan Caplan had an interesting comment on this:
>
> "Now it is a fact that people disagree on many questions; this leads
> us to wonder if on any given issue we are correct.  How is the
> determinist to come to grips with this? If the content of my mind is
> determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how would I ever
> double-check my views? I would be determined to believe them; and if
> arguments convinced me, then they would be determined to convince me.
> The crucial point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --
> would be the result of inexorable causal forces.  And these forces
> determine people to error just as inexorably as they determine them to
> truth.  Of course, I might be correct by coincidence.  But knowledge
> is _justified_ true belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe
> whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard to see what
> the justification of our beliefs is.

If double checking is unmiraculous, it can be caused as well
as anything else.

> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
> micro-particles impose on us.

But there is nothing to stop them imposing understanding
and justification too. Our beliefs aren't necessarily true
or justified under determinism, but they aren't anyway.
What would be the difference between the deterministic
universe and the free will universe? Are you seriously
assrting that in the FW universe, our beliefs would be more
universally true and justified? But FW wouldn't force that on us.
Are you saying that in a deterministic universe they would
be less true and justified? But determinism doesn't force any
particular
level of error on us. We could be determined to be 0% right.
10% right, up to 100% right. (Although evolutionary considerations
would indicate a higher figure).

> It might be the case that those
> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.

Or it might be the case that you have FW and freelly choose
to make mistakes. How would that look different? FW
can't force people to be correct and justified and right
all the time -- where's the freedom in that?

> Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the possibility
> of justified true belief. "

That's a non-sequitut. THat it isn't necessary(under either
assumption!)
doesn't make it impossible.

> And probabilistic laws aren't any better.
>
> >> Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
> >> holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case
> >> (for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional
> >> schizophrenics).
>
> > OTOH, it;s  more likely than not. Organisms with delusional
> > beliefs would have trouble surviving and reproducing,
>
> Again, you're confusing descriptive labels with a causal forces.

> Some organisms are caused to hold delusional beliefs by the same
> forces that cause others to hold rational beliefs.
>
> Further, those same causal forces also determine the fates of both
> delusional and rational organisms.
>
> That schizophrenia hasn't been observed to vastly increase
> reproductive success is merely a contingent outcome of the our
> universe's particular initial conditions and causal laws.

So? Under determinism AND evolution one could reasonably assume
that most of one's beliefs are correct. So the sceptical conclusion
doesn't follow.

> >> this, since there is no way to
> >> step outside of the universe's control of one's beliefs to
> >> independently verify the "reasonableness" of the beliefs it generates.
>
> >> Again...schizophrenics are generally pretty convinced of the truth of
> >> their delusions.
>
> >> Even in a lawful universe how do you justify your beliefs?  And then
> >> how do you justify your justifications of your beliefs?  And then how
> >> do you justify the justifications of the justifications of your
> >> beliefs?  And so on.  Agrippa's Trilemma.
>
> > Would apply to a non-causal universe
>
> Correct.  It applies everywhere.

So? EIther you have all-embracing scepticism , or
you admit that the trilemma doesn't lead to
scepticism in any universe.

[Rex Allen]

But what is the ultimate significance of our use of common sense and
other theories?

Why do we care about usefulness? Evolution?

Then why did we evolve this way instead of some other way? Physical
laws and initial conditions?

Then why do we have the physical laws and initial conditions we have
instead of some others? And so on.

Subjectively you feel that there’s some significance. But ultimately
it’s just the way things are, and there is no reason why they are this
way instead of some other way.

> They are justified by the fact that
> they usually successful in making predictions. Not always, but mostly.

This brings us full circle back to Meillassoux's essay.

Why do you believe that success in making predictions justifies your
theories? Some form of probabilistic reasoning, right? But how do
you know that your application of such reasoning is legitmate in this
case?

Let me just quote Meillassoux’s essay here and try to present the core
of his argument, without requiring you to read the whole thing:

"The problem of induction as formulated by Hume consists fundamentally
in asking how we can justify that the future should resemble the past.

Goodman, following Hume, fully affirms that we simply cannot do so:
this justification is impossible by rational means.

[...]

The problem of induction, as soon as it is formulated as the problem
of the effective necessity of laws, issues in an avowal of the defeat
of reason, because nothing contradictory can be detected in the
contrary hypothesis of a changing of constants. For reason does not
seem to be capable of prohibiting a priori that which goes against the
purely logical necessity of noncontradiction. But in that case, a
world governed by the imperatives of reason, would be governed only by
such logical imperatives. Now, this would mean that anything
non-contradictory could (but not must) come to pass implying precisely
the refusal of all causal necessity: for causality, on the contrary,
asserts that amongst different, equally conceivable events certain of
them must come to pass rather than others. This being so, we would
indeed have to agree that in a rational world everything would be
devoid of any reason to be as it is. A world which was entirely
governed by logic, would in fact be governed only by logic, and
consequently would be a world where nothing has a reason to be as it
is rather than otherwise, since nothing contradictory can be perceived
in the possibility of such a being-otherwise.

[...]

Hume's discovery, according to our account, is thus that an entirely
rational world would be by that very token entirely chaotic: such a
world is one from which the irrational belief in the necessity of laws
has been extirpated, since the latter is opposed in its very content
to what constitutes the essence of rationality.

[...]

I would affirm that, indeed, there is no reason for phenomenal
constants to be constant. I maintain, then, that these laws could
change. One thereby circumvents what, in induction, usually gives rise
to the problem: the proof, on the basis of past experience, of the
future constancy of laws. But one encounters another difficulty, which
appears at least as redoubtable: if laws have no reason to be
constant, why do they not change at each and every instant? If a law
is what it is purely contingently, it could change at any moment. The
persistence of the laws of the universe seems consequently to break
all laws of probability: for if the laws are effectively contingent,
it seems that they must frequently manifest such contingency If the
duration of laws does not rest upon any necessity, it must be a
function of successive 'dice rolls', falling each time in favour of
their continuation or their abolition. From this point of view, their
manifest perenniality becomes a probabilistic aberration - and it is
precisely because we never observe such modifications that such an
hypothesis has seemed, to those who tackled the problem of induction,
too absurd to be seriously envisaged.

[...]

Beginning to resolve the problem of induction comes down to
delegitimating the probabilistic reasoning at the origin of the
refusal of the contingency of laws. More precisely, it is a matter of
showing what is fallacious in the inference from the contingency of
laws to the frequency (and thus the observability) of their changing.
This amounts to refusing the application of probability to the
contingency of laws, thereby producing a valuable conceptual
distinction between contingency understood in this radical sense and
the usual concept of contingency conceived as chance subject to the
laws of probability. Given such a distinction, it is no longer
legitimate to maintain that the phenomenal stability of laws compels

us to suppose their necessity. This permits us to demonstrate that,
without serious consequence, real necessity can be left behind, and
with it the various supposedly insoluble enigmas it occasioned.

In short, Hume's problem becomes the problem of the difference between
chance and contingency.

[...]

Now, if this [probabilistic] reasoning cannot be justified, it is
because there does not truly exist any means to construct a set of
possible universes within which the notion of probability could still
be employed. The only two means for determining a universe of cases
are recourse to experience, or recourse to a mathematical construction
capable of justifying unaided the cardinality (the 'size') of the set
of possible worlds. Now, both of these paths are equally blocked here.
As for the empirical approach, obviously no-one — unless perhaps
Leibniz's God — has ever been at leisure to survey the entire set of
possible worlds. But the theoretical approach is equally impossible:
for what would be attempted here would be to affirm that there is an
infinity of possible worlds, that is Vernes'y of logically thinkable

worlds, which could only reinforce the conviction that the constancy

of just one of them is extraordinarily improbable. But it is precisely

on this point that the unacceptable postulate of our 'probabilist

sophism' hinges,for I ask then: of which infinity are we speaking
here?

[...]

[T]here is no reason, whether empirical or theoretical, to choose one

infinity rather than another, and since we can no longer rely on
reason to constitute an absolute totality of all possible cases, and
since we cannot give any particular reason upon which to ground the

existence of such a universe of cases, we cannot legitimately

construct any set within which the foregoing probabilistic reasoning

could make sense. This then means that it is indeed incorrect to infer
from the contingency of laws the necessary frequency of their
changing. So it is not absurd to suppose that the current constants
might remain the same whilst being devoid of necessity, since the
notion of possible change - and even chaotic change, change devoid of
all reason - can be separated from that of frequent change: laws which
are contingent, but stable beyond all probability, thereby become
conceivable.

[...]

Now, we can see in what way the critique of the probabilist sophism
permits us to challenge such a topos in a new way. For such reasoning
is only legitimate if we suppose the existence of a determinate set
(whether finite or infinite) of possible universes, obtained through
the antecedent variation of the givens and constants of the observable
universe. Now, it appears that there are no legitimate means of
constituting the universe of possibles within which such reasoning
could make sense, since this means, once more, could be neither
experimental nor simply theoretical: as soon as one frees oneself from
the imperatives of experience, in the name of what principle can one
limit, as the Anthropic Principle implicitly does, the set of possible
worlds to those obtained solely by the linear variation of constants
and variables found in the currently observable universe, and in whose
name do we limit such a set of worlds to a determinate infinity? In
truth, once the possible is envisaged in its generality, every
totality becomes unthinkable, and with it the aleatory construction
within which our astonishment finds its source. The rational attitude
is not, in actual fact, to seek an explanation capable of responding
to our astonishment, but to trace the inferential genealogy of the
latter so as to show it to be the consequence of an application of
probabilities outside the sole legitimate field of their application."

> If I left my watch on the dresser last night I can usually find it there in the
> morning. To imagine that it would be a better justification of this to have
> some complete, deterministic theory of everything is the fallacy of the
> misplaced concrete.

First, I’m not arguing that it would be a better justification. So
I’m not sure how this connects to my post.

And second, what is it that would be incorrectly reified by such a
belief? The deterministic laws? Believing that such laws were in
some sense “real” just because of their completeness and predictive
success would be to succumb to the fallacy of the misplaced concrete?

It seems to me that Meillassoux is arguing against that exact fallacy.
That there is no "concrete" necessity behind the orderliness of our
observations.

> On 11/11/2010 10:43 AM, Rex Allen wrote:

>> Bryan Caplin:
>> “Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only

>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>> micro-particles impose on us.“
>
> If determinism is true...nothing whatsoever follows. It's like saying "God
> did it." Unless you can specify the initial conditions and the causal laws
> of evolution, it's nothing but a form of words.

If determinism is true, there are no specific predictions about the
physical world that can be made as a result.

But there are facts about our universe that can be logically inferred
from the definition of "determinism". And Caplan’s point is one of
those facts.

So even without knowing the specific initial conditions and causal
laws, one can still draw general conclusions that would hold *if* the
universe is deterministic (and if your starting assumptions and
processes of inference are valid).

[Rex Allen]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:27 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 11 Nov 2010, at 02:37, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>> On 11/10/2010 4:54 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>>

>>> Bryan Caplan:

>>>
>>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
>>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
>>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>>> micro-particles impose on us. It might be the case that those
>>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
>>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>>>
>>
>> Whatever truth is, it isn't a causal agent.
>
>
> There is plausibly no sense to see truth as the ultimate "causal" agent.

If you are proposing a logico-mathematical underpinning for reality,
then aren’t you thereby proposing that truth *is* the ultimate causal
agent?

In that the nature of reality is determined by “true”
logico-mathematical statements, and not by the “false”
logico-mathematical statements?

What causes only true statements to have an effect?

> We have good reason to believe that our brains are not so bad dynamical
> mirror of the most probable consistent neighborhoods.

Why only consistent neighborhoods? Why couldn’t inconsistent
neighborhoods (a la Graham Priest) have role in determining the nature
of reality?

> Eventually beliefs work *because* they are (self) determined, like
> 'free-will' can be seen as relative partial self-determination.

How do beliefs determine themselves?

Rex

[Bruno Marchal]

? Are you saying that it is obvious that compatibilism is false?

Either you throw the notion of person, or you ask for a 'magical' notion of person.

Free will is the free choice between 2+2=4,and 2+2=5. Something well illustrated by Orwell.

Like freedom is the right to cross the ocean in a sieve. 

We cannot get the whole picture when observing oneself, so free will is the ability to suggest local "reasonable" alternatives. It is what makes sense for defending "more freedom", and it is made possible by self-acceleration relative to our (most probable) neighborhood (brains, paper and computers are usually used for that relative speeding-up).

You need, but
don't have, an argument to the effect that free choice is essential
to rationality.

====

A.  "Bob believes X" - True.

B.  "Bob believes that believing X is rational" - True.

C.  "Bob believes that he believes X because it is rational" - True.

D.  "Bob believes X because believing X is rational" - FALSE

Saying it doesn't make it so. If Bob goes fishing because of
causal laws, he still goes fishing. If Bob is rational because of
causal laws, he is still rational.

I follow you here.

(Whether he *chooses* to go
fishing is another matter...)

The problem is as much in defining "he"  than in defining "choose".

E.  "Bob believes X, and believing X is rational" - may or may not be true.

====

Maybe we need to define our terms.

What definition are you using for "belief"?  What is a belief?  Is

belief fundamental or does it reduce to something more basic?

If belief just reduces to physical brain states, then option D above

is *still* false.

Not established.

Agreed. "D" is ambiguous, also. It can be trivially true in some context, and trivially false in others.

In our entity's universe the brain being in state Y isn't caused by it

having previously been in state X.  Rather, the governing laws cause

the transition from X to Y.

It would make more sense to include both in your account..the state
and the transition rules

The number and the universal number.

In reality the numbers are confronted with infinities of universal numbers. Governing laws, transition laws are local first person (plural) bets.

Under different causal laws, the brain might instead have transitioned

from state X to an irrational state like Z.

Yeah. That doesn';t mean he wasn't actually rational when
he was. It *does* mean he can't choose to be
rational if the rules and previous state conspire against him...

Right.

And here mechanism gives the assurance of the solidity of laws, given that they emerge from a mean on all rational laws (amenable to some universal numbers, or equivalently, executed by the universal dovetailer (which executes all universal numbers), or equivalently, proved (infinitely often) in Robinson Arithmetic.

Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the

initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.

That doens;t stop them being logical or rational.

It only stops them being the result of a free choice

to adopt logic or rationality

Once you give up free choice, you're left with skepticism.

That needs demonstration

I think so.

Bryan Caplan had an interesting comment on this:

"Now it is a fact that people disagree on many questions; this leads

us to wonder if on any given issue we are correct.  How is the

determinist to come to grips with this? If the content of my mind is

determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how would I ever

double-check my views? I would be determined to believe them; and if

arguments convinced me, then they would be determined to convince me.

The crucial point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --

would be the result of inexorable causal forces.  And these forces

determine people to error just as inexorably as they determine them to

truth.  Of course, I might be correct by coincidence.  But knowledge

is _justified_ true belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe

whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard to see what

the justification of our beliefs is.

If double checking is unmiraculous, it can be caused as well
as anything else.

Yes. It might even be statistically justified, but if it applies to reality, double checking is not enough to convince of truth, there is a need of an infinite-checking which can be justified for first person only. But science, reason, public demonstrations don't need that infinite checking, and your answer goes through (if I get it correctly).

Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only

because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,

then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent

micro-particles impose on us.

But there is nothing to stop them imposing understanding
and justification too. Our beliefs aren't necessarily true
or justified under determinism, but they aren't anyway.
What would be the difference between the deterministic
universe and the free will universe? Are you seriously
assrting that in the FW universe, our beliefs would be more
universally true and justified? But FW wouldn't force that on us.
Are you saying that in a deterministic universe they would
be less true and justified? But determinism doesn't force any
particular
level of error on us. We could be determined to be 0% right.
10% right, up to 100% right. (Although evolutionary considerations
would indicate a higher figure).

Evolutionary considerations, sure, but more generally relative consistency considerations, relative depth of computational states considerations.

We might be determined to be 100% right on something, and 0% right on something else, like if some illusions are necessary.

 It might be the case that those

micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the

truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.

Or it might be the case that you have FW and freelly choose
to make mistakes.  How would that look different? FW
can't force people to be correct and justified and right
all the time  -- where's the freedom in that?

Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the possibility

of justified true belief. "

That's a non-sequitut. THat it isn't necessary(under either
assumption!)
doesn't make it impossible.

Define or represent belief by provability of PA (or provability in PA). (Bp).   Knowledge by Bp & p, p being an arithmetical proposition asserting some case (like "it exists a number which multiplied by two give six"). That provides counter-examples. A machine can belief (prove, assert and justify) that 1+1=2, and that might be true.

And probabilistic laws aren't any better.

Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity

holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case

(for example, our own universe produces a fair number of delusional

schizophrenics).

OTOH, it;s  more likely than not. Organisms with delusional

beliefs would have trouble surviving and reproducing,

Again, you're confusing descriptive labels with a causal forces.

Some organisms are caused to hold delusional beliefs by the same

forces that cause others to hold rational beliefs.

Further, those same causal forces also determine the fates of both

delusional and rational organisms.

That schizophrenia hasn't been observed to vastly increase

reproductive success is merely a contingent outcome of the our

universe's particular initial conditions and causal laws.

So? Under determinism AND evolution one could reasonably assume
that most of one's beliefs are correct. So the sceptical conclusion
doesn't follow.

I would have said "locally plausible" instead of "correct", except for a part of math, perhaps.

this, since there is no way to

step outside of the universe's control of one's beliefs to

independently verify the "reasonableness" of the beliefs it generates.

Again...schizophrenics are generally pretty convinced of the truth of

their delusions.

Even in a lawful universe how do you justify your beliefs?  And then

how do you justify your justifications of your beliefs?  And then how

do you justify the justifications of the justifications of your

beliefs?  And so on.  Agrippa's Trilemma.

Would apply to a non-causal universe

Correct.  It applies everywhere.

So? EIther you have all-embracing scepticism , or
you admit that the trilemma doesn't lead to
scepticism in any universe.

We cannot distinguish our states of belief from our states of knowledge, except for one uncommunicable and unexpressible fixed point (consciousness). To know p is to believe in p, luckily or deterministically in a universe u where it is the case that p.

 (Although to be precise we have to nuance this for each notion of person views and add the case of the truth of p in the universes belonging to some neighborhood of u). 

We have to be sufficiently self-referentially correct relatively to our most probable universe. It is the basic choice between to eat and to be eaten.

We have to be able to distinguish between the prey and the predator.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Nov 2010, at 22:17, Rex Allen wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:27 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
>> On 11 Nov 2010, at 02:37, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/10/2010 4:54 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Bryan Caplan:
>>>>
>>>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
>>>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is
>>>> correct,
>>>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>>>> micro-particles impose on us. It might be the case that those
>>>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
>>>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Whatever truth is, it isn't a causal agent.
>>
>>
>> There is plausibly no sense to see truth as the ultimate "causal"
>> agent.
>
> If you are proposing a logico-mathematical underpinning for reality,
> then aren’t you thereby proposing that truth *is* the ultimate causal
> agent?

Well, if I am willing to accept a brain Turing emulable transplants,
(arithmetical) truth is a big enough realm to explain machine's
believes in realties and reality, and it is (absolutely) undecidable
if we need more at the utimate level. We know there is necessarily
(much) more epistemologically. SoI suggest this by comp + some occam
razor.

>
> In that the nature of reality is determined by “true”
> logico-mathematical statements, and not by the “false”
> logico-mathematical statements?

Well, this is a bit like asking if the Mandelbrot set is determined by
the points belonging to it, or by the points not belonging to it. But
the explanation of life, consciousness relies on the (interesting)
boundary.

>
> What causes only true statements to have an effect?

By definition.
If I smash two protons with enough energy, either I will get a boson,
or not. I will say that something has an effect if, by definition, it
is true that it has an effect.
If that was not the case, I could answer all your question by "because
2+2=3". I am pretty sure this will not have the "right effect".

>
>
>> We have good reason to believe that our brains are not so bad
>> dynamical
>> mirror of the most probable consistent neighborhoods.
>
> Why only consistent neighborhoods? Why couldn’t inconsistent
> neighborhoods (a la Graham Priest) have role in determining the nature
> of reality?

Priest handles paraconsistency, not arithmetical inconsistency. Priest
can be modeled in arithmetic by a sentences of the type Bf (not on the
type f). This is because G* proves DBf (the consistency of the
provability of the false).

>
>
>> Eventually beliefs work *because* they are (self) determined, like
>> 'free-will' can be seen as relative partial self-determination.
>
> How do beliefs determine themselves?

By self-reference. Like a Löbian machine proving that Bp -> BBp. (If I
can prove p, then I can prove that I can prove p).
For example, by Löb's theorem, sentences (machines' beliefs) asserting
their own provability are true and provable. Machine's beliefs can
bootstrap themselves a bit like a placebo medication.

Bruno

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

[Rex Allen]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 14 Nov 2010, at 22:17, Rex Allen wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:27 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>>>
>>> We have good reason to believe that our brains are not so bad dynamical
>>> mirror of the most probable consistent neighborhoods.
>>
>> Why only consistent neighborhoods? Why couldn’t inconsistent
>> neighborhoods (a la Graham Priest) have role in determining the nature
>> of reality?
>
> Priest handles paraconsistency, not arithmetical inconsistency. Priest can
> be modeled in arithmetic by a sentences of the type Bf (not on the type f).
> This is because G* proves DBf (the consistency of the provability of the
> false).

"Though the construction of inconsistent mathematical theories (based
on adjunctive paraconsistent logics) is relatively new, there are
already a number of inconsistent number theories, linear algebras,
category theories; and it is clear that there is much more scope in
this area. The theories have not been developed with an eye to their
applicability in science—just as classical group theory was not. But
once the paraconsistent revolution has been digested, it is by no
means implausible to suggest that these theories, or ones like them,
may find physical application—just as classical group theory did."

-- Graham Priest

[1Z]

It is obvious that if there is strict causal determinism, the will is
not
free from strict causal determinism.

> Either you throw the notion of person, or you ask for a 'magical'
> notion of person.

Or there is not strict causal determinism

> Free will is the free choice between 2+2=4,and 2+2=5.

A FW that could choose anything that is not logically impossible
would be physically miraculous.

A FW that was constrained always to be strictly logical would not
be all that free.

> Yes. It might even be statistically justified, but if it applies to
> reality, double checking is not enough to convince of truth, there is
> a need of an infinite-checking which can be justified for first person
> only. But science, reason, public demonstrations don't need that
> infinite checking, and your answer goes through (if I get it correctly).

I think I followed that...no amount of checking
suffices for certainty, but any finite amount is unmiraculous

[Rex Allen]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 1:39 PM, 1Z <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> On Nov 11, 12:54 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> It follows by definition.
>>
>> 1. IF a universe governed by causal laws -
>>
>> 2. THEN everything that occurs within that universe is a result of
>> those laws acting on the universe's state. Every change of state
>> happens according to some law.
>>
>> 3. The entity's holding of some belief occurs within that universe.
>>
>> 4. Therefore the entity's holding of some belief (whether rational
>> *or* irrational) is a result of causal laws acting on the entity's
>> state, and nothing else.
>>
>> What else could account for the entity's holding of some particular belief?
>>
>> "Logical" and "rational" are adjectives. You're confusing descriptive
>> labels with causal forces.
>
>
> Your argument still doesn't work. You re tacitly assuming that
> being the result of causal laws is exclusive of being the result
> of logic/.reason. But that is , to say the least, not obvioius.

How can it not be exclusive? Either the causal laws explain the
result -or- logic and reason explain the result.

If logic and reason reduce to causal laws, then ultimately causal laws
alone explain the result.

If causal laws reduce to logic and reason, then ultimately logic and
reason alone explain the result.

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.

> 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.

Is a computer executing a chess program logical or rational? Does
logic cause the computer to select one move instead of another? OR do
specific arrangements of electrons and quarks that make up the
computer, and the laws of physics, cause the computer to enter one
physical state instead of another, and we merely categorize and
interpret these physical states using abstract concepts like logic
and rationality?

Logic and rationality are in the mind beholder if they are anywhere,
and certainly not in the quarks and electrons of computers, which are
the same as the quarks and electrons of rocks or clouds, and are
*literally* unmoved by reason.

A computer is moved by logic only in the figurative sense.

>> ====
>>
>> A. "Bob believes X" - True.
>>
>> B. "Bob believes that believing X is rational" - True.
>>
>> C. "Bob believes that he believes X because it is rational" - True.
>>
>> D. "Bob believes X because believing X is rational" - FALSE
>
>
> Saying it doesn't make it so. If Bob goes fishing because of
> causal laws, he still goes fishing. If Bob is rational because of
> causal laws, he is still rational. (Whether he *chooses* to go
> fishing is another matter...)

This is, of course, Case E. Bobs actions may fall into the category
of "rational", but he didn't take those actions because they were
rational.

>> E. "Bob believes X, and believing X is rational" - may or may not be true.

>> Bryan Caplan had an interesting comment on this:

>>
>> "Now it is a fact that people disagree on many questions; this leads
>> us to wonder if on any given issue we are correct. How is the
>> determinist to come to grips with this? If the content of my mind is
>> determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how would I ever
>> double-check my views? I would be determined to believe them; and if
>> arguments convinced me, then they would be determined to convince me.
>> The crucial point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --
>> would be the result of inexorable causal forces. And these forces
>> determine people to error just as inexorably as they determine them to
>> truth. Of course, I might be correct by coincidence. But knowledge
>> is _justified_ true belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe
>> whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard to see what
>> the justification of our beliefs is.
>
> If double checking is unmiraculous, it can be caused as well
> as anything else.

But how do you double check your double check? If you doubt the
assumptions and reasoning that led to your initial belief, why
wouldn't those doubts apply equally to your double checking process?

You can't step outside your beliefs to independently verify them.
Crazy people don't know their crazy. Often, they think it's you who
is crazy.

>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>> micro-particles impose on us.
>
> But there is nothing to stop them imposing understanding
> and justification too. Our beliefs aren't necessarily true
> or justified under determinism, but they aren't anyway.
> What would be the difference between the deterministic
> universe and the free will universe? Are you seriously
> assrting that in the FW universe, our beliefs would be more
> universally true and justified?

NO! I'm not arguing for free will. I'm arguing for skepticism.

1. If there is no free will, then all that's left is skepticism.

2. There is no free will.

3. All that's left is skepticism.

> But FW wouldn't force that on us.
> Are you saying that in a deterministic universe they would
> be less true and justified? But determinism doesn't force any
> particular
> level of error on us. We could be determined to be 0% right.
> 10% right, up to 100% right. (Although evolutionary considerations
> would indicate a higher figure).

Evolution is nothing except initial conditions and causal laws.

Either our initial conditions and causal laws are such that we are
right, or their not.

Evolutionary considerations add nothing.

>> It might be the case that those
>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>
>
> Or it might be the case that you have FW and freelly choose
> to make mistakes. How would that look different? FW
> can't force people to be correct and justified and right
> all the time -- where's the freedom in that?

Free will isn't a coherent concept so there's no point in spending
much time on it.

>> Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the possibility
>> of justified true belief. "
>
> That's a non-sequitut. THat it isn't necessary(under either
> assumption!)
> doesn't make it impossible.

If it isn't necessary then how do you justify your belief in it?

True belief isn't impossible. Justified true belief seems to be.

>> Some organisms are caused to hold delusional beliefs by the same
>> forces that cause others to hold rational beliefs.
>>
>> Further, those same causal forces also determine the fates of both
>> delusional and rational organisms.
>>
>> That schizophrenia hasn't been observed to vastly increase
>> reproductive success is merely a contingent outcome of the our
>> universe's particular initial conditions and causal laws.
>
> So? Under determinism AND evolution one could reasonably assume
> that most of one's beliefs are correct. So the sceptical conclusion
> doesn't follow.

Again with the evolution.

What does evolution add to a deterministic universe? Either the
initial conditions and causal laws lead to some particular outcome
(e.g., intelligence) -or- they don't. There's nothing for evolution
to do.

What's more, evolution adds nothing to a probabilistic universe either.

What is evolution, beyond causal laws acting on state over time?

Again, you've taken a figure of speech (natural selection) and
interpreted it literally.

No "selection" actually takes place. Things just happen, per the
governing causal laws (if there are any).

Evolution is history, it's not a causal force.

[Rex Allen]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> 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.'"

[1Z]

On Nov 16, 3:27 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> "Logical" and "rational" are adjectives.  You're confusing descriptive
> >> labels with causal forces.
>
> > Your argument still doesn't work. You re tacitly assuming that
> > being the result of causal laws is exclusive of being the result
> > of logic/.reason. But that is , to say the least,  not obvioius.
>
> How can it not be exclusive?  Either the causal laws explain the
> result -or- logic and reason explain the result.

or both

> 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.
What makes a calculator a calculator is that its
operation is susceptible to an arithemtic description.
How can you infer from that that there is no valid arithimetical
description?

> If causal laws reduce to logic and reason, then ultimately logic and
> reason alone explain the result.

> 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.

Any word is "superfluous" individually, since it can
be replaced by its definition. That does not make
all words superfluous, and it has nothing to do
with the inapplicability of the word. "Unicorn"
doesn't apply to anything because of the way
the world is, not because of any linguistic
substitutability.

> > 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.

> 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. Talk of forests can be
replaced with talk of tress, but that doesn't mean there is no
forest.

>OR do
> specific arrangements of electrons and quarks that make up the
> computer, and the laws of physics, cause the computer to enter one
> physical state instead of another, and we merely categorize and
> interpret these physical states using  abstract concepts like logic
> and rationality?

You can't infer that there is no logic from
the fact that it doesn't do something -- explain
causally--that it isn't supposed to do.

> Logic and rationality are in the mind beholder if they are anywhere,
> and certainly not in the quarks and electrons of computers, which are
> the same as the quarks and electrons of rocks or clouds, and are
> *literally* unmoved by reason.

There are objective facts underpinning the applicability of the
concept "logical"
There are objective facts underpinning the applicability of the
concept "quark"
There is a sense in which all concepts are in the head, but it is not
useful
to look at things that way.

> >> D.  "Bob believes X because believing X is rational" - FALSE
>
> > Saying it doesn't make it so. If Bob goes fishing because of
> > causal laws, he still goes fishing. If Bob is rational because of
> > causal laws, he is still rational. (Whether he *chooses* to go
> > fishing is another matter...)
>
> This is, of course, Case E.  Bobs actions may fall into the category
> of "rational", but he didn't take those actions because they were
> rational.

That depends on what you mean by "because"
If it labels causation, no. If it labels a psychological
motivation, quite possibly yes.

> > If double checking is unmiraculous, it can be caused as well
> > as anything else.
>
> But how do you double check your double check?  If you doubt the
> assumptions and reasoning that led to your initial belief, why
> wouldn't those doubts apply equally to your double checking process?

I don't disupute that. If you think scepticism follows
from the fact that you can't infinity-check, then it follows,
since you can't. But I don't think that is a strong form of scepticism
since it only means you can't be certain, not that you can't be right.
Also, it has nothing to do with determinism and freedom

> You can't step outside your beliefs to independently verify them.
> Crazy people don't know their crazy.  Often, they think it's you who
> is crazy.



> >> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
> >> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
> >> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
> >> micro-particles impose on us.
>
> > But there is nothing to stop them imposing understanding
> > and justification too. Our beliefs aren't necessarily true
> > or justified under determinism, but they aren't anyway.
> > What would be the difference between the deterministic
> > universe and the free will universe? Are you seriously
> > assrting that in the FW universe, our beliefs would be more
> > universally true and justified?
>
> NO!  I'm not arguing for free will.  I'm arguing for skepticism.
>
> 1.  If there is no free will, then all that's left is skepticism.
>
> 2.  There is no free will.
>
> 3.  All that's left is skepticism.

But your arguments for scepticism actually have nothing to
do with FW!

> > But FW wouldn't force that on us.
> > Are you saying that in a deterministic universe they would
> > be less true and justified? But determinism doesn't force any
> > particular
> > level of error on us. We could be determined to be 0% right.
> > 10% right, up to 100% right. (Although evolutionary considerations
> > would indicate a higher figure).
>
> Evolution is nothing except initial conditions and causal laws.
>
> Either our initial conditions and causal laws are such that we are
> right, or their not.
>
> Evolutionary considerations add nothing.

Given the very reasonable
assumption that having correct beliefs promotes
survival, evolution predicts that just because
you are an organism, you probably have a lot
of correct beliefs.

It doesn't necessarily give you FW, but
you are unable to explain how FW would resolve scepticisism

> >> It might be the case that those
> >> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
> >> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>
> > Or it might be the case that you have FW and freelly choose
> > to make mistakes.  How would that look different? FW
> > can't force people to be correct and justified and right
> > all the time  -- where's the freedom in that?
>
> Free will isn't a coherent concept so there's no point in spending
> much time on it.

If it isn't a coherent concept, how can its absence imply scepticism?

> >> Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the possibility
> >> of justified true belief. "
>
> > That's a non-sequitut. THat it isn't necessary(under either
> > assumption!)
> > doesn't make it impossible.
>
> If it isn't necessary then how do you justify your belief in it?

Contingently.

scepticism tends to unravel once you detach truth from certainty

> True belief isn't impossible.  Justified true belief seems to be.

If you want justification to be infinite yes. If not, no.

> >> Some organisms are caused to hold delusional beliefs by the same

> What does evolution add to a deterministic universe?  Either the
> initial conditions and causal laws lead to some particular outcome
> (e.g., intelligence) -or- they don't.  There's nothing for evolution
> to do.

It's a kind of anthropic principal. Since you are an evolved
being, you must have evolved from a long line of organisms
that weren't massively deluded. The fact that you are in the universe
tells you something about the universe. You could not just pop up
in any old universe.

> What's more, evolution adds nothing to a probabilistic universe either.
>
> What is evolution, beyond causal laws acting on state over time?

A specific kind of causal law that tends to promote rationality.

> Again, you've taken a figure of speech (natural selection) and
> interpreted it literally.
>
> No "selection" actually takes place.  Things just happen, per the
> governing causal laws (if there are any).

That's a massive non-sequitur. If causal laws cause
dinosaurs to die out that's selection occuring.

That the forest is a bunch of trees does not
mean there is no forest.

> Evolution is history, it's not a causal force.

It doesn't need to be. That it occurred tells you
something about the way causal laws operate
on you.

[Bruno Marchal]

What is your position? And what is your definition of free-will?

Personally I am OK with the following paragraph (from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/)

<<
“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of
capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among
various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the
fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated
this question for over two millenia, and just about every major
philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers
suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the
concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views,
is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible
for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on
responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being
culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the
alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will
is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will
also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments
(why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the
autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love
and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1; but see
also Pereboom 2001, Ch.7.)
>>

I am kind of OK too with your quotes. I don't believe in any version
of free-will which would ask for third person indeterminacy.
And if I do believe in notions of first person and first person plural
indeterminacies, I think that they have no *direct* role in the very
'existence' or 'meaningfulness' of free-will or things like personal
choice and moral responsibility.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

It is not obvious for me (and the many compatibilists).
Some people can premeditate crime, and this independently of the fact
that some genius in psychology, or God, could have predict their act.

>
>> Either you throw the notion of person, or you ask for a 'magical'
>> notion of person.
>
> Or there is not strict causal determinism

I don't see how low level indeterminacy (of any sort) could help in
bringing free-will. On the contrary free-will is a form of partial
(from the point of view of the actor) self-determination.

>
>> Free will is the free choice between 2+2=4,and 2+2=5.
>
> A FW that could choose anything that is not logically impossible
> would be physically miraculous.

?

>
> A FW that was constrained always to be strictly logical would not
> be all that free.

This depends on the level of description.
The consistency of Peano Arithmetic with lies (Bf) is already a
theorem of Peano Arithmetic, and there are infinities of modal logics
given different sense to logical, so "strictly logical" has not so
much meaning to me. Logic is classical logic + an infinities of non
classical logics. Classical logic + arithmetic entails the existence
of many illogical things, even weird dreams if you assume mechanism.
Free will is the high level cognitive facility which makes possible
for a person to choose a way to satisfy herself in the knowledge/
belief of many alternative ways. It usually asks for (more) freedom.

Bruno

>
>
>> Yes. It might even be statistically justified, but if it applies to
>> reality, double checking is not enough to convince of truth, there is
>> a need of an infinite-checking which can be justified for first
>> person
>> only. But science, reason, public demonstrations don't need that
>> infinite checking, and your answer goes through (if I get it
>> correctly).
>
>
> I think I followed that...no amount of checking
> suffices for certainty, but any finite amount is unmiraculous
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com
> .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> .
>

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

[1Z]

as stated, it's tautologous

> Some people can premeditate crime, and this independently of the fact  
> that some genius in psychology, or God, could have predict their act.

If there choices are predicable because of determinism, they
are not free from determinism.

> >> Either you throw the notion of person, or you ask for a 'magical'
> >> notion of person.
>
> > Or there is not strict causal determinism
>
> I don't see how low level indeterminacy (of any sort) could help in  
> bringing free-will.

I can

>On the contrary free-will is a form of partial  
> (from the point of view of the actor) self-determination.

and if the self is atomic, and if its self-determination is tertium
datur that
is neither determinism nor indetermism, it is impossilbe

if the self is complex, its self-determination could be a regulated
form of low-level indeterminism

[Bruno Marchal]

Not so. Cf the use of the term "many". I was alluding to past
discussions on this list, and to the fact that many philosophers are
compatibilists. It is a debate which lasts since millennia.

>
>> Some people can premeditate crime, and this independently of the fact
>> that some genius in psychology, or God, could have predict their act.
>
> If there choices are predicable because of determinism, they
> are not free from determinism.

That's begging the issue. The point of compatibilism is that free-will
exists even if there is determinism.

>
>>>> Either you throw the notion of person, or you ask for a 'magical'
>>>> notion of person.
>>
>>> Or there is not strict causal determinism
>>
>> I don't see how low level indeterminacy (of any sort) could help in
>> bringing free-will.
>
> I can

How?

>
>> On the contrary free-will is a form of partial
>> (from the point of view of the actor) self-determination.
>
> and if the self is atomic, and if its self-determination is tertium
> datur that
> is neither determinism nor indetermism, it is impossilbe
>
> if the self is complex, its self-determination could be a regulated
> form of low-level indeterminism

Which exists from a first person points of view. But it does not help
to have free-will, except by letting emerge the type of stable
observable reality we are used to.

I look forward for your explanation of how free will can be made
possible by third person indeterminism. You could perhaps try to
explain what is free will for you, so that we can avoid a vocabulary
discussion. I use the term free will as a quasi synonymous as the
ability to choose how to act in a context where we can see that many
alternative actions are possible. For example I will choose freely in
ten seconds if I will do a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, and I don't
feel less free if it happened that some god has enough knowledge to
predict my choice. It seems to me that if my decision is, even
partially, based on third person indeterminacy (like if my brain was
using some coin), then I am *less* free, with respect to my act.

Bruno

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

[Rex Allen]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 5:38 AM, 1Z <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Nov 16, 3:27 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> 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.

> 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.

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.

> 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...

>> 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,
then trees and forests are both abstractions - rough approximations of
reality forced upon us by our limited mental resources.

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.

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.

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.

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.

>>> 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.

>> 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?

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 is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its
object. In consequence of this mere nominal explanation, my
cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object.
Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by
cognizing it...Since the object is outside me, the cognition in me,
all I can ever pass judgment on is whether my cognition of the object
agrees with my cognition of the object."

-- Lee Braver, "A Thing of This World"

> Talk of forests can be
> replaced with talk of tress, but that doesn't mean there is no
> forest.

See my comments above.

>> Logic and rationality are in the mind beholder if they are anywhere,
>> and certainly not in the quarks and electrons of computers, which are
>> the same as the quarks and electrons of rocks or clouds, and are
>> *literally* unmoved by reason.
>
> There are objective facts underpinning the applicability
> of the concept "logical" There are objective facts
> underpinning the applicability of the concept "quark"

How do you know? What underpins the objective facts then? Why can't
the concept of a quark be fundamental?

> There is a sense in which all concepts are in the head,
> but it is not useful to look at things that way.

"Not useful" in what sense? With respect to what goal?

And why do you have that goal instead of some other goal?

>>> If double checking is unmiraculous, it can be caused as well
>>> as anything else.
>>
>> But how do you double check your double check? If you doubt the
>> assumptions and reasoning that led to your initial belief, why
>> wouldn't those doubts apply equally to your double checking process?
>
> I don't disupute that. If you think scepticism follows
> from the fact that you can't infinity-check, then it follows,
> since you can't. But I don't think that is a strong form of scepticism

What would be a stronger form of skepticism?

> since it only means you can't be certain, not that you can't be right.

I said as much in my second post to this thread, in response to SPK.

Skepticism doesn't mean that we're necessarily wrong about anything,
but rather that we can't justify our belief that we're right.

>>>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
>>>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
>>>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
>>>> micro-particles impose on us.
>>>>
>>> But there is nothing to stop them imposing understanding
>>> and justification too. Our beliefs aren't necessarily true
>>> or justified under determinism, but they aren't anyway.
>>> What would be the difference between the deterministic
>>> universe and the free will universe? Are you seriously
>>> assrting that in the FW universe, our beliefs would be more
>>> universally true and justified?
>>
>> NO! I'm not arguing for free will. I'm arguing for skepticism.
>>
>> 1. If there is no free will, then all that's left is skepticism.
>>
>> 2. There is no free will.
>>
>> 3. All that's left is skepticism.
>
> But your arguments for scepticism actually have nothing to
> do with FW!

I quoted Bryan Caplan's argument that determinism entails skepticism
in support of my more general claim that if we exist in a universe
that is governed by unchanging causal laws (deterministic or
otherwise) then we can't have justified, true, beliefs.

Existing in such a universe also precludes the possibility of free will.

Let me quote that earlier post:

"If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal
laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
either?

If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
logic or rationality.

Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the

initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.

Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case."

>>>> It might be the case that those
>>>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
>>>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>>
>>> Or it might be the case that you have FW and freelly choose
>>> to make mistakes. How would that look different? FW
>>> can't force people to be correct and justified and right
>>> all the time -- where's the freedom in that?
>>
>> Free will isn't a coherent concept so there's no point in spending
>> much time on it.
>
> If it isn't a coherent concept, how can its absence imply scepticism?

If I said "free will implies X", then I would need free will to be a
coherent concept.

Since I'm saying "absence of free will implies skepticism", I don't
need free will to be a coherent concept.

Incoherence is consistent with absence.

Though, really my argument is more:

Determinism entails skepticism. Determinism is a coherent concept.

Indeterminism entails skepticism. Indeterminism is a coherent concept.

So, I think I'm fine.

>> What does evolution add to a deterministic universe? Either the
>> initial conditions and causal laws lead to some particular outcome
>> (e.g., intelligence) -or- they don't. There's nothing for evolution
>> to do.
>
> It's a kind of anthropic principal. Since you are an evolved
> being, you must have evolved from a long line of organisms
> that weren't massively deluded.

Why couldn't the universe have come into existence 1 minute ago with
us fully formed as part of it's initial conditions?

What about Boltzmann Brains? Boltzmann universes?

If we apply the principle of indifference to the universe's current
macrostate, what should we conclude about the universe's entropy level
yesterday? Should we conclude that it had higher or lower entropy
than today?

> The fact that you are in the universe
> tells you something about the universe. You could not just pop up
> in any old universe.

Why not? What would stop that from happening?

>> What's more, evolution adds nothing to a probabilistic universe either.
>>
>> What is evolution, beyond causal laws acting on state over time?
>
> A specific kind of causal law that tends to promote rationality.

Evolution is a causal law? Like electromagnetism, or the strong
force, or gravity?

Are there evolution fields? Evolution particles? "Evolvitons"?

No.

Evolution is a *consequence* of causal laws and initial conditions.
It isn't a causal law itself.

It is an "emergent" law, like the laws of thermodynamics. They are
consequences, not causes.

>> Again, you've taken a figure of speech (natural selection) and
>> interpreted it literally.
>>
>> No "selection" actually takes place. Things just happen, per the
>> governing causal laws (if there are any).
>
> That's a massive non-sequitur. If causal laws cause
> dinosaurs to die out that's selection occuring.

No, that's just events transpiring in accordance with causal laws and
initial conditions. There is no additional "selection" process above
and beyond the usual fundamental laws of physics.

Which don't include evolution.

> That the forest is a bunch of trees does not
> mean there is no forest.

It means that the forest only exists in your mind. Like evolution.
They are all descriptions, abstractions, representations - short cuts.

[1Z]

On Nov 18, 5:10 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 5:38 AM, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Nov 16, 3:27 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> 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...
>

<snip>

> 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 is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its
> object. In consequence of this mere nominal explanation, my
> cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object.
> Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by
> cognizing it...Since the object is outside me, the cognition in me,
> all I can ever pass judgment on is whether my cognition of the object
> agrees with my cognition of the object."
>
> -- Lee Braver, "A Thing of This World"

OTOH, scientific epistemology does not aim at a once-and-for
all overview of the mind-world relation. It is incremental, piecemeal
and based on predictive ability rather than correspondence

> > Talk of forests can be
> > replaced with talk of tress, but that doesn't mean there is no
> > forest.
>
> See my comments above.
>
> >> Logic and rationality are in the mind beholder if they are anywhere,
> >> and certainly not in the quarks and electrons of computers, which are
> >> the same as the quarks and electrons of rocks or clouds, and are
> >> *literally* unmoved by reason.
>
> > There are objective facts underpinning the applicability
> > of the concept "logical" There are objective facts
> > underpinning the applicability of the concept "quark"
>
> How do you know?

If you want to explain intesubjective agreement,
it seems a likelier hypothesis than the alterantives

>What underpins the objective facts then? Why can't
> the concept of a quark be fundamental?

If it is, the concpet of a quark is still a concept. Being "in the
mind"
doesn;t stop concepts having an objective basis.

> > There is a sense in which all concepts are in the head,
> > but it is not useful to look at things that way.
>
> "Not useful" in what sense?

In the sense that it doesn;t distinguish horse type
concepts from unicorn type concept

> With respect to what goal?


> And why do you have that goal instead of some other goal?
>
> >>> If double checking is unmiraculous, it can be caused as well
> >>> as anything else.
>
> >> But how do you double check your double check? If you doubt the
> >> assumptions and reasoning that led to your initial belief, why
> >> wouldn't those doubts apply equally to your double checking process?
>
> > I don't disupute that. If you think scepticism follows
> > from the fact that you can't infinity-check, then it follows,
> > since you can't. But I don't think that is a strong form of scepticism
>
> What would be a stronger form of skepticism?

That you can;t check at all, or that nothing is true

> > since it only means you can't be certain, not that you can't be right.
>
> I said as much in my second post to this thread, in response to SPK.
>
> Skepticism doesn't mean that we're necessarily wrong about anything,
> but rather that we can't justify our belief that we're right.

justify at all or infinity-check?

> >>>> Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs only
> >>>> because we understand them to be true; but if determinism is correct,
> >>>> then we automatically accept whatever beliefs that our constituent
> >>>> micro-particles impose on us.
>
> >>> But there is nothing to stop them imposing understanding
> >>> and justification too. Our beliefs aren't necessarily true
> >>> or justified under determinism, but they aren't anyway.
> >>> What would be the difference between the deterministic
> >>> universe and the free will universe? Are you seriously
> >>> assrting that in the FW universe, our beliefs would be more
> >>> universally true and justified?
>
> >> NO! I'm not arguing for free will. I'm arguing for skepticism.
>
> >> 1. If there is no free will, then all that's left is skepticism.
>
> >> 2. There is no free will.
>
> >> 3. All that's left is skepticism.
>
> > But your arguments for scepticism actually have nothing to
> > do with FW!
>
> I quoted Bryan Caplan's argument that determinism entails skepticism
> in support of my more general claim that if we exist in a universe
> that is governed by unchanging causal laws (deterministic or
> otherwise) then we can't have justified, true, beliefs.

And I have criticised his argument

> Existing in such a universe also precludes the possibility of free will.
>
> Let me quote that earlier post:
>
> "If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging causal
> laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
> either?
>
> If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
> underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
> logic or rationality.
>
> Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
> initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.
>
> Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
> holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the case."

And the "aren't held" of the second paragraph
isn;t justified by the "no requirement" of the fourth.

> >>>> It might be the case that those
> >>>> micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but the
> >>>> truth would not be the ultimate causal agent acting upon me.
>
> >>> Or it might be the case that you have FW and freelly choose
> >>> to make mistakes. How would that look different? FW
> >>> can't force people to be correct and justified and right
> >>> all the time -- where's the freedom in that?
>
> >> Free will isn't a coherent concept so there's no point in spending
> >> much time on it.
>
> > If it isn't a coherent concept, how can its absence imply scepticism?
>
> If I said "free will implies X", then I would need free will to be a
> coherent concept.
>
> Since I'm saying "absence of free will implies skepticism", I don't
> need free will to be a coherent concept.

Yes you do, because "absence of squarglefax implies scepticism" is not
a valid argument.

> Incoherence is consistent with absence.

Incoherence doesn't imply absence, presence or anything else.

> Though, really my argument is more:
>
> Determinism entails skepticism. Determinism is a coherent concept.
>
> Indeterminism entails skepticism. Indeterminism is a coherent concept.
>
> So, I think I'm fine.

But neither argument is valid. You only have an argument
that you, all other things being equal, don;t
necessarily have justified true beliefs. THat doesn't mean
you don't actuall have justified true beliefs. Moroever
you need to look at the specifics of causal laws, eg
evolution.

> >> What does evolution add to a deterministic universe? Either the
> >> initial conditions and causal laws lead to some particular outcome
> >> (e.g., intelligence) -or- they don't. There's nothing for evolution
> >> to do.
>
> > It's a kind of anthropic principal. Since you are an evolved
> > being, you must have evolved from a long line of organisms
> > that weren't massively deluded.
>
> Why couldn't the universe have come into existence 1 minute ago with
> us fully formed as part of it's initial conditions?

It's a poor scientific hypothesis.

> What about Boltzmann Brains? Boltzmann universes?
>
> If we apply the principle of indifference to the universe's current
> macrostate, what should we conclude about the universe's entropy level
> yesterday? Should we conclude that it had higher or lower entropy
> than today?
>
> > The fact that you are in the universe
> > tells you something about the universe. You could not just pop up
> > in any old universe.
>
> Why not? What would stop that from happening?

The selfsame causal laws that are supposed to be preveting
you from having justified beliefs

> >> What's more, evolution adds nothing to a probabilistic universe either.
>
> >> What is evolution, beyond causal laws acting on state over time?
>
> > A specific kind of causal law that tends to promote rationality.
>
> Evolution is a causal law? Like electromagnetism, or the strong
> force, or gravity?
>
> Are there evolution fields? Evolution particles? "Evolvitons"?
>
> No.
>
> Evolution is a *consequence* of causal laws and initial conditions.
> It isn't a causal law itself.

That makes no difference. Organisms in a universe with evolution
will tend to be rational. It doesn't matter whether evolution
is a higher level law or description. The forest is still there even
if it is
really just trees.

> It is an "emergent" law, like the laws of thermodynamics. They are
> consequences, not causes.


> >> Again, you've taken a figure of speech (natural selection) and
> >> interpreted it literally.
>
> >> No "selection" actually takes place. Things just happen, per the
> >> governing causal laws (if there are any).
>
> > That's a massive non-sequitur. If causal laws cause
> > dinosaurs to die out that's selection occuring.
>
> No, that's just events transpiring in accordance with causal laws and
> initial conditions. There is no additional "selection" process above
> and beyond the usual fundamental laws of physics.

I didn't say there was. The forest isn;t over and above
the trees. If selection is an adequate high-level descriptio
of lower level processes, and those processes are occuring,
then "selection occurs" is true.

To assert of some thing X that it exists is not
to asser that it exists fundamentally.

> Which don't include evolution.



> > That the forest is a bunch of trees does not
> > mean there is no forest.
>
> It means that the forest only exists in your mind.

Of course not. The trees don;t exist only in my mind. The forest is
the trees.
THerefore the forest doesn't exist only in my mind.

>Like evolution.
> They are all descriptions, abstractions, representations - short cuts.

Descriptions can be and often are true.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 18 Nov 2010, at 06:10, Rex Allen wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 5:38 AM, 1Z <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Nov 16, 3:27 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> 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 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.

>
> 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.

>
>
>>>> 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.

This typically depends upon what is your starting theory.

>
>
>>> 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?
>
> 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.

I like that quote. It works well for mechanism, where the physical
reality is a construction of the universal numbers' minds.

>
> [...]
>
> Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its
> object.

I would prefer to say that knowledge consists in the agreement of
belief with truth.
Truth, by definition is independent of what we or anyone belief, in
general.

> In consequence of this mere nominal explanation, my
> cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object.
> Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by
> cognizing it...Since the object is outside me, the cognition in me,
> all I can ever pass judgment on is whether my cognition of the object
> agrees with my cognition of the object."

This shows only that we cannot never know *for sure*, except our own
consciousness here and now.
Well, that is why scientist proposes * theories* which are always
hypothetical but can have varying degrees of plausibility.

>
> -- Lee Braver, "A Thing of This World"
>
>
>> Talk of forests can be
>> replaced with talk of tress, but that doesn't mean there is no
>> forest.
>
> See my comments above.
>
>
>>> Logic and rationality are in the mind beholder if they are anywhere,
>>> and certainly not in the quarks and electrons of computers, which
>>> are
>>> the same as the quarks and electrons of rocks or clouds, and are
>>> *literally* unmoved by reason.
>>
>> There are objective facts underpinning the applicability
>> of the concept "logical" There are objective facts
>> underpinning the applicability of the concept "quark"
>
> How do you know? What underpins the objective facts then? Why can't
> the concept of a quark be fundamental?

Like molecules suggest atoms, quarks behavior (entirely described by
relations between 'measurable numbers') suggest many other things, and
with mechanism, we know those things are infinite computational
histories.

Self-reference logic provides plenty of counter-examples (no need of
mechanism here)

>
> Existing in such a universe also precludes the possibility of free
> will.
>
> Let me quote that earlier post:
>
> "If an entity exists in a universe that is subject to unchanging
> causal
> laws, how can it have justified true beliefs (a.k.a. knowledge)
> either?
>
> If the entity's beliefs are the result of some more fundamental
> underlying process, then those beliefs aren't held for reasons of
> logic or rationality.
>
> Rather, the entity holds the beliefs that are necessitated by the
> initial conditions and causal laws of it's universe.
>
> Those initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that the entity
> holds true beliefs, but there is no requirement that this be the
> case."

Of course. (I think you ask for too much here). Science works only
through hypotheses. Only the media asserts that science proves things.
When a scientist proves something it is always in a theoretical
(hypothetical) framework.

In which theory?

>
> What about Boltzmann Brains? Boltzmann universes?

Well, if we are machine, then quantum mechanics emerges from
'Boltzmann universes", or "computational histories".

>
> If we apply the principle of indifference to the universe's current
> macrostate, what should we conclude about the universe's entropy level
> yesterday? Should we conclude that it had higher or lower entropy
> than today?

In which theory?

>
>
>> The fact that you are in the universe
>> tells you something about the universe. You could not just pop up
>> in any old universe.
>
> Why not? What would stop that from happening?

With the mechanist theory that happens all the time in a testable way,
indeed.

>
>
>>> What's more, evolution adds nothing to a probabilistic universe
>>> either.
>>>
>>> What is evolution, beyond causal laws acting on state over time?
>>
>> A specific kind of causal law that tends to promote rationality.
>
> Evolution is a causal law? Like electromagnetism, or the strong
> force, or gravity?
>
> Are there evolution fields? Evolution particles? "Evolvitons"?
>
> No.
>
> Evolution is a *consequence* of causal laws and initial conditions.
> It isn't a causal law itself.

It can develop its own "causal laws", like 'causal laws" themselves
(can) emerge from arithmetical law (and necessarily so with mechanism,
by the UDA).

>
> It is an "emergent" law, like the laws of thermodynamics. They are
> consequences, not causes.

The notion of cause is itself a creation of the mind, assuming
mechanism. If you disagree I will have to ask you what you mean by
"cause".

>
>
>>> Again, you've taken a figure of speech (natural selection) and
>>> interpreted it literally.
>>>
>>> No "selection" actually takes place. Things just happen, per the
>>> governing causal laws (if there are any).
>>
>> That's a massive non-sequitur. If causal laws cause
>> dinosaurs to die out that's selection occuring.
>
> No, that's just events transpiring in accordance with causal laws and
> initial conditions. There is no additional "selection" process above
> and beyond the usual fundamental laws of physics.

Why could not a selection process emerge. if everything which emerges
does not exist in any sense, then there are numbers, addition and
multiplication and nothing else. Obviously this is false.

>
> Which don't include evolution.
>
>> That the forest is a bunch of trees does not
>> mean there is no forest.
>
> It means that the forest only exists in your mind. Like evolution.
> They are all descriptions, abstractions, representations - short cuts.

Do you conceive that atoms, quarks, physical laws, ... could also be
descriptions, abstractions, representations?

Bruno

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

[Brent Meeker]

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Nov 2010, at 22:37, Brent Meeker wrote:

> 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.

Yes.

"Our world" is ambiguous.
But if by "our" you mean us the (hopefully sound) self-referentially
correct machine, then we might (re)define our physical worlds by the
set of things which we can observe, and this can be shown to be
necessary. With mechanism, there is no primitive physical laws, but
the laws of physics are necessary, all the (physical) rest is history
and geography.

>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> 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?

Are you serious about this? Do you really think that the fact that you
cannot cut 17 in two, that is "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII" is two equal parts
depend on humans? In such a case Church thesis and most of classical
mathematics is made false.

> Price is not in spacetime and neither is love. I'd say that
> spacetime and number are equally inventions.

Inventions by who? Are you taking the set of humans as what exists
primitively? Assuming mechanism, both matter and observers emerge from
something simpler: the laws of addition and the laws of multiplication.
Also, it can be proved that it is just impossible to derive arithmetic
from anything simpler than arithmetic, that is why arithmetic or
something implying arithmetic has to be assumed, and is the simplest
things to assume from which we can derive more complex things (like
the belief arithmetic and in space and time by machine/numbers).

Bruno

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