TAG Defective?

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Cary Cook

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Feb 14, 2020, 1:30:51 AM2/14/20
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I find TAG sufficient to convince me of the probability (not necessity) of a Supreme Being.  But I must admit that my understanding of TAG consists of vignettes connected intuitively, but not rigorously.

 

I have never seen TAG rigorously stated, neither by Van Till, Bahnsen, Passantinos, Russ Manion, or Brady Lenardos.  Brady has agreed to present such a statement to one person I know of, and delivered a beginning, but then dropped the discussion.

 

Bill Zuersher has shown a defect in TAG as I understand TAG.  Brady has said Bill's understanding of TAG is defective, but has not given us his supposedly correct version of TAG.

 

I still have a sloppy 80% probability judgment that a Supreme Being exists, but that's all.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

ucapol...@yahoo.com

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Feb 14, 2020, 10:36:05 AM2/14/20
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Hi Cary,

Let me address a few things.

1) It seems that those who reject the argument are the ones that seem to bail on the discussions, William, our friend on FB, wasn't interested in continuing after I created two videos which were the start of my presentation. As for Bill, He wanted to talk about it via phone. I gave him my number so we could talk. After a week and no response, I emailed him again and asked to talk. Still no response.

2) I presented the argument in full on this forum in a discussion with an atheist, I think it was with Sean. That was a number of years ago.

3) What defect do you think Bill found? As I pointed out in my comment on his youtube video. He tries to change the transcendental argument into a deductive argument (modus tollendo ponens). The problem is that a transcendental argument is not a deductive argument. Thus, he created a strawman fallacy (i.e defeating an argument that is not the transcendental argument).; but, maybe you are talking about something else that I missed. Please let me know if you are.

4) Cary wrote: "I find TAG sufficient to convince me of the probability (not necessity) of a Supreme Being." Yes Cary, now you got it. The Transcendental Argument does not end with, "Therefore, God." You are left with two positions, Intentionalism and Unintentionalism. We don't know which one is true. All we can get from it is that Intentionalism has the elements that allow for the possibility of knowledge and Unintentionalism does not have the elements that allow for the possibility of knowledge. If we say we know anything, we have to presume the position that allows for the possibility of knowledge. It makes no sense to assert you have knowledge and them presume a position that doesn't allow for the possibility of knowledge.

So, Cary, do you know anything?

Regards,

Brady


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Email

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Feb 14, 2020, 1:16:49 PM2/14/20
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Hi Cary,

Logic doesn't really answer any of the "big questions." (The classical example being that it can't even prove it's own validity -- and, by extension, neither can it really "prove" anything else.)

This is the reason why "science" (although still partially based on "reason" -- hence on "logic") has effectively replaced "philosophy" at the cutting edge of the advance of understanding. (The critical improvement being the granting of authority to "observation," in addition to just "reason.")

Ergo, the reason I took the direction I did in Who Designed God?.

- Don


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ucapol...@yahoo.com

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Feb 14, 2020, 1:52:02 PM2/14/20
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Hi Don,

You wrote: "This is the reason why 'science' (although still partially based on 'reason' -- hence on 'logic') has effectively replaced 'philosophy' at the cutting edge of the advance of understanding. (The critical improvement being the granting of authority to 'observation,' in addition to just 'reason.')"

Partially based on logic? Let's keep this simple, Where in science can you do away with the law of identity? Where in the mathematical equations can 1 not equal 1, but equal 25? Try writing a sentence without the law of identity.

Unless all the laws of logic are in play, all the time, science and anything else is meaningless. You can not utter a meaningful sentence or have a thought unless all the laws of logic are in play. Without a philosophical underpinning, you have no way to know if there is even an objective something out there to observe, and that includes other minds.

Regards,

Brady


Email

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Feb 14, 2020, 2:14:03 PM2/14/20
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One of us must have misunderstood the other.

Science doesn't "drop logic," it "adds observation" ( and a "method" to combine the two).

It takes "logic" "on faith" but also takes "observation" "on faith" -- although most scientists seem to be blissfully unaware of the "on faith" part or this dual commitment, as are most atheists.

- Don



> On Feb 14, 2020, at 10:50 AM, 'ucapol...@yahoo.com' via BYS vs MH <bys-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Regards,

Email

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Feb 14, 2020, 2:25:19 PM2/14/20
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Oops, I forgot to say, "Hi Brady," (and "how's it going?")

- Don

ucapol...@yahoo.com

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Feb 14, 2020, 5:23:42 PM2/14/20
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Doing fine, my friend. I hope you are too.

Brady

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Email

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Feb 14, 2020, 6:21:17 PM2/14/20
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Hi Brady,

I am, indeed, doing fine at the present, (Debbie and I having both recently recovered from some bug which has been making the rounds here for the past few months). I have finally started resuming all of the activities that I had been letting slide.

- Don


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Cary Cook

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Feb 14, 2020, 8:01:41 PM2/14/20
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Brady,

 

I'm not going to address all of you points.  Only one matters.

Do you, or do you not have a coherent presentation of TAG?

Not a discussion; not a copy-paste of Van Til or Bahnsen; not a long essay with links to references.

Just coherent presentation of TAG.

 

Cary

 

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ucapol...@yahoo.com

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Feb 15, 2020, 10:46:22 AM2/15/20
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Cary wrote: "Do you, or do you not have a coherent presentation of TAG?"

Yes Cary,

And I gave you a succinct version of it in my last post.

Let me outline it for you. Anything other than the outline will become an essay.

1) We have a necessary antithesis: Either everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism) or everything is what it is without intent (unintentionalism).

2)  By examining the elements of Intentionalism, we find there is at least one scenario that has the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge.

3) By examining the elements of Unintentionalism, we find not only that the elements do not have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge, but they make the possibility of knowledge impossible.

***** Please note here, even though we have an antithesis we are not doing a disjunctive syllogism.

4) We do not know, nor can we know which of the above two options is the case. Thus there will be no "Therefore, God."

5) However, if one wants to say that he knows something, anything, we have to ask what are the necessary and sufficient preconditions for his knowledge claim to be true? Intentionalism can be part, if not the whole, of those preconditions. It has at least 1 scenario that allows for the possibility of knowledge.

6) Unintentionalism cannot be part, or the whole, of the necessary and sufficient preconditions for one's knowledge since Unintentionalism denies the possibility of knowledge.

7) So, it may be the case, in spite of our declaration of knowing, that there is no knowledge at all. However, if we make a knowledge claim, we must realize that Intentionalism will have to be part of the necessary and sufficient preconditions for the possibility of that claim to be true. That doesn't mean the knowledge claim is true, but for it to possibly be true intentionalism must be accepted as a precondition.

Going back to Bill's "DEFECT", I hope you and others can see I am not denying one leg of a disjunct and then saying that the other leg is therefore true. The above argument is not a disjunctive argument. My big objection is that Bill knew his presentation was wrong days prior to giving his presentation; and he decided to give his strawman presentation anyways. He made the group he spoke in front of weaker; and worse yet, he has not (to my knowledge) tried to go back and remedy the situation. If any of those he taught comes across a theist that knows the above, their attempts to refute the TA will fail, making them look like fools because Bill taught them to refute an argument that is a strawman.

I hope this clears things up, Cary. Should you want an essay explaining any part of the above, let me know.

Regards,

Brady



Email

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Feb 15, 2020, 3:27:59 PM2/15/20
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Hey Brady,

I think I followed most of that; however, I missed how you excluded the possibility of "knowledge" being an accidental-emergent-property in your step #3:


3) By examining the elements of Unintentionalism, we find not only that the elements do not have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge, but they make the possibility of knowledge impossible.

In Who Designed God? it took me quite a bit of groundwork (mostly chapters 10-12 and 14) to make a case that elements in the class of "knowledge" (e.g. sentience, logic, choice) are not, nor can they be, emergent. You appear to see a path to this conclusion which I don't see in your description.

- Don


G. Brady Lenardos

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Feb 15, 2020, 5:04:55 PM2/15/20
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Hi Don,

I expect we came to our conclusions from very different starting points. I don't want to go into it in great detail here, because Cary said he did not want an essay, just a concise argument. However, I did do an animated video discussing the issue. Here is the Link: Atheism and Logic Don't Mix




Cary Cook

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Feb 15, 2020, 8:50:18 PM2/15/20
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Brady,

 

That’s good.  Thanks.

Cary Cook

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Feb 15, 2020, 9:10:28 PM2/15/20
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Brady,

 

Can you explain #3 a bit?

May I add this to my TAG essay, and credit you for it?

http://www.sanityquestpublishing.com/essays/tagc.html

Email

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Feb 15, 2020, 10:46:52 PM2/15/20
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Cary, (re. your question to Brady),

Can you explain #3 a bit?


That's where I got hung up too:

3) By examining the elements of Unintentionalism, we find not only that the elements do not have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge, but they make the possibility of knowledge impossible.


I get as far as: (my edited version of Brady's #3):   

By examining the elements of Unintentionalism, we find that the elements do not have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge.


I agree that the primordial "elements" are not sufficient to account for "knowledge."

Where I get hung up is (also my edited version of Brady's #3):

not only [that], but they [also] make the possibility of knowledge impossible


It appeared to me that Brady also said this in his video (at about 11m 30s), however, I couldn't follow the presumed connection there either. (I find printed material much easier to analyze, particularly as I get older, because I can't mark up and diagram a video with the same ease -- not without first spending an inordinate amount of time transcribing pertinent parts of it.)

So,


Brady, 

I'm still trying to understand how you eliminate the possibility that the foundations necessary for "knowledge" cannot possibly be "emergent" (in some some unspecified, convoluted, evolutionary, manner) rather than having been supplied directly and primordially.

As I explained earlier, I agree with your conclusion (and have attempted to explain the thought process which led me to this same conclusion in part 2 of W.D.G.), but I still do not understand the procedure which you used to reach it. I would like very much to understand it, because it would certainly have to be greatly simpler (and greatly more elegant) than the path which I followed.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 16, 2020, 5:49:30 PM2/16/20
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Brady & Don,

 

I agree with #3.

But if it is not explained, most atheists will get that far, and laugh it off.

 

Cary

 

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G. Brady Lenardos

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Feb 16, 2020, 7:24:52 PM2/16/20
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Hi Cary and Don,

Yes, I will be happy to expand on point 3. I just started a vacation today. I am in "Vegas, Baby, Vegas!!" I just flew in and are my arms tired. I am not as young as I use to be, it wiped me out. However, after dinner tonight, I do plan on hitting the bar, having a virgin strawberry daiquiri, a good cigar, and pounding out a response for you.

Cary, reading your tell-back on point 3 was insightful, I will want to clarify some things there; more on that later.

So, it is off to dinner! Viva Las Vegas!

William Zuersher

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Feb 16, 2020, 9:34:44 PM2/16/20
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Hi Brady, I had emailed you after I saw your initial comment on my presentation because I wanted to understand better your objections.  I never saw that you had replied to my email.  (I’m embarrassed to say that I can now see where they were.)  Then I saw that you had added a second comment on my presentation, from the tone of which, and from the fact that I hadn’t seen an email reply, I concluded that you desired no part in communicating with me.  I apologize for missing your emails and misinterpreting your attitude.

In the presentation under discussion, my aim was to educate the audience about the type of argument found frequently on YouTube by Sye Bruggencate, Matt Slick, and others of that ilk.  I recognize that they may not be the only, or the best, spokespersons for TAG/Presuppositionalism, but felt I was doing my audience a service by critiquing the argument as it is customarily presented.

On related arguments pertaining to reason (by which I mean the package of logic, knowledge, etc.) I have, despite conversations with a patient Russ, only a tenuous grasp.  But I am currently trying to put the challenge into my own words.  If I want to address this challenge from a skeptical standpoint, I need first to put it into its strongest form.  Accordingly, I have cobbled together two draft arguments, below.  I think they do quite a bit of theistic work, although they don’t get all the way to “Therefore, God.”

Argument from Consciousness:

1.     Human consciousness exists.

2.     The source of human consciousness is either materialistic or non-materialistic.

3.     The components of materialism (matter and energy) are non-conscious.

4.     Consciousness cannot arise from non-conscious components.

5.     Therefore, human consciousness does not have a materialistic source.

6.     Therefore, human consciousness has a non-materialistic source.

Argument from Rationality:

1.     Events in nature, such as a breeze or a sunset, have physical causes.

2.     Physical causes do not have truth values.

3.     If our thoughts are purely events in nature, then they do not have truth values.

4.     Therefore, the only way our thoughts can have truth values is if they are not purely events in nature.

5.     We must assume our thoughts have truth values in order to be rational.

6.     Therefore, in order to be rational, we must assume our thoughts are not purely events in nature.

Regarding the Argument from Consciousness, I think there is a weakness in premises 3 and 4 -- and it seems to be the same weakness that I detect in the TAG outline you offered Cary in your email.  In that outline, Steps 1 and 3 are the sticking points.

Regarding Step 1, in order to exclude the middle properly, I think you need to recast things.  Instead of:  “Either everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism) or everything is what it is without intent (unintentionalism).”  It should read:  “Either everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism) or it is not the case that everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism).” 

In this corrected form, we can see that the second disjunct opens the logical possibility of:  “Some things are what they are by intent and some other things are what they are not by intent.”  Now, how could that be? 

That brings us to Step 3.  We must consider the possibility that consciousness (animal and human) can arise from below rather than presuming it must be vouchsafed from above.  Hence, local intentionality might arise within global unintentionality.

How this might work, how the non-physical can come from the physical, is definitely a head-hurter.  Nevertheless, there seem to be difficulties with all of the “theory of mind” candidates.  Is the answer a type of substance dualism, as in a soul, or is it property dualism, as in emergence or something like panpsychism?  I’ve got a lot of reading in neuroscience to do.

Regarding the Argument from Rationality, I’m here trying to state the challenge of going beyond our own consciousnesses and into some correspondence with an allegedly external world.  In answer to this challenge, I can only presuppose reason.  That is what I said in my presentation.  But it seems that this applies to all human beings.  You – and your argument -- presuppose reason too.  You may disagree and claim that your argument merely points out that we can possibly know things and reason only under intentionalism.  But such an objection is itself a reason (be it right or wrong) for adopting intentionalism.  Hence, you’re using reason prior to arriving at intentionalism, i.e., you’re presupposing it.

As before, I’d be grateful for your comments on any of this.  The difficulties highlighted in the two arguments above are why I consider myself only a 51% atheist -- and why I stated, in my presentation, an openness to theism.  But perhaps I have missed your point entirely and need to start over.  I’m happy to learn from anyone who can teach me.

Bill Z





Cary Cook

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Feb 16, 2020, 10:14:12 PM2/16/20
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4 truth seekers after the same goal!

This is what life is meant to be!

(assuming intentionality)

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

Email

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Feb 17, 2020, 4:19:54 AM2/17/20
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Hi Bill,

Don Stoner here.

With Brady in Lost Wages, NV, and Cary, apparently waiting/watching to see what happen next, it's looking like it might be our turn to see if we can work out any kind of agreeable solution here.

How this might work, how the non-physical can come from the physical, is definitely a head-hurter.  Nevertheless, there seem to be difficulties with all of the “theory of mind” candidates.  Is the answer a type of substance dualism, as in a soul, or is it property dualism, as in emergence or something like panpsychism?  I’ve got a lot of reading in neuroscience to do.

I think your comment here is the right place to start. As I have mentioned, I've done the homework and have written up what I believe to be the correct answers -- and the necessary supporting arguments here: http://dstoner.net/Philosophy_Religion/WDG2017.01.10.pdf (Who DesignedGod?)

The short answer is that I am neither a dualist, nor a normal monist. Instead I am a "thought" monist -- although what I mean by this is not quite what most people mean by "panpsychism." However, understanding what I do mean might require a very long explanation. Unfortunately, my full explanation and arguments (linked above) required many pages of technical and scientific investigation, like this:

image8.jpeg


I'll try to cover it here with a "very quick" summary (OK, sorry, it's still kind of long):

Part1:

Chapter 1 begins by describing one physics student's reaction to the Michelson-Morley experiment, and how the world is stranger than we normally suppose. It also presents the accepted role of causality, and how we might expect everything in the world ought to fit together. The following single page probably best summarizes what that chapter presents:

image9.jpeg

Next, Chapter 2 attempts to explain Einstein's special theory of relativity in simple terms. In particular, it attempts to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment using very little math, so the reader can understand what bothered the physics student from chapter 1. (And be bothered too.) It's supposed to begin to separate the reader from a few of the common errors inherent in old-fashioned classical physics.

Chapter 3 builds on special relativity, explaining the role of time as a "fourth dimension" which is both different from, and yet somewhat interchangeable with the other three.

Chapter 4 builds from that understanding, to how a four-dimensional universe can begin at a single point, and expand, from there, into space-time, in all four directions, without having any "outside" surface (other than the single starting point).

Chapter 5 explains Einstein's general theory of relativity (also with very little math) and explains (vaguely) why the real universe is even stranger than the one described in Chapter 4. The result is so strange, in fact, that it becomes difficult to believe that it is "physically" possible for it to "exist."

Chapter 6 kind of finishes that job by explaining quantum mechanics in enough detail to make "physical" reality appear completely impossible in any imaginable sense.

Chapter 7 gives the reader a brief break (before starting part two), and speculates about what kind of "creative agency" might be required to pull off the "big bang."

Part2:

Chapter 8 introduces the problem of stepping from the mechanical world, to minds. (Your "head-hurter.")

Chapter 9 is a whirlwind survey of all of the well-established connections linking quantum mechanics to chemistry, from there to biochemistry, from there to cellular biology, from there to neuroscience, then to "brains." This is done quickly because the concepts are not nearly as weird as modern physics is -- or as what follows is.

Chapter 10 is back to completely-weird again, because there are a bunch of verifiable (simple experiments the reader can try) paradoxes in the way our minds actually work (compared to how it seems they ought to work in a "real" world).

Chapter 11 investigates artificial intelligence, and shows how A.I. researchers are encountering exactly the same weirdnesses we saw in living minds, when they try to construct computer minds.

Chapter 12 is kind of a last-ditch effort to make sense out of the mess we are encountering. It takes a suspicious look at logic itself, as the possible source of our trouble, but encounters the expected problem (that logic can't justify itself) and, instead, settles for the remaining "conditional" situation that: if we are going to proceed at all, we will have to "presume" that logic will work -- noting contingent consequences -- while keeping in mind that we haven't really proved anything at all.

Chapter 13 briefly explores similar oddities (similar to oddities in logic) but in morality.

Chapter 14 summarizes (and kind of tallies up) all of the weird things we've encountered -- all of the things which don't really make any sense.

Part 3:

Chapter 15 tries modifying what is essentially the Chapter-1 causality structure (from the page copied above -- but with several small edits we've made along the way), using recommendations which two leading researchers in consciousness (Christof Koch and Roger Penrose) are almost agreed on (using only the part which they do agree upon). Using this, we make one more rather small, but very weird modification to our causality structure.

The result of this single operation is the resolution of every weird paradox tallied in chapter 14 -- even making some of them seem completely obvious.

See if you can figure out the solution yourself with the following 2-piece puzzle:

Slide 1 illustrate the causality diagram for the parts of us which seem to have thought/intent.

Slide 2 illustrates the remainder of the universe which is free from thought/intent.

The goal is to overlay the to diagrams so that:

1) All causality proceeds in the direction of the arrows, and

2) You are still able to scratch your nose -- or to achieve other effects in the physical world. 

Hawking's "fire" (bottom layer of slide 2) is from Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4104-even-if-there-is-only-one-possible-unified-theory-it

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image6.jpeg

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image1.jpeg

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I probably haven't really explained this very well, so I'm expecting some questions. Also, it's taken quite a while to compose it, so my inbox is likely to contain enough info to make this all obselete. 

- Don Stoner


Email

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Feb 17, 2020, 12:00:04 PM2/17/20
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Brief update:

1) There is nothing in my inbox from you guys, so no immediate edits are required.

2) This isn't anything like a "proof." Instead, we're looking for a "theory," (any theory at all, actually), which is consistent with all of the observable "head-hurting" facts. (Specifically: making sense of causality, special and general relativity, cosmology, quantum mechanics, biochemistry, neurology, human thought, machine "thought," and our perceptions of the nature of logic and morality ...)

3) For a modest starting place, I'm suggesting we simply attempt to align two simple causality diagrams (Slide 1. "intentional stuff," and and Slide 2. "accidental stuff") so that Requirement 1: Causality arrows are all correctly aligned and, Requirement 2: We are still able to scratch out noses (our choices can direct our real-world actions).

4) There is a working solution to the two-piece puzzle -- it's not impossible, just really strange. Once the two parts are correctly aligned, finding answers to all of the other questions (specifically: making sense of causality, special and general relativity, cosmology, quantum mechanics, biochemistry, neurology, human thought, machine "thought," and our perceptions of the nature of logic and morality) appear to be almost trivial. Even Stephen Hawking's question about "fire" stops hurting our heads.

- Don Stoner



On Feb 17, 2020, at 1:19 AM, 'Email' via BYS vs MH <bys-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi Bill,

Don Stoner here.

With Brady in Lost Wages, NV, and Cary, apparently waiting/watching to see what happen next, it's looking like it might be our turn to see if we can work out any kind of agreeable solution here.

How this might work, how the non-physical can come from the physical, is definitely a head-hurter.  Nevertheless, there seem to be difficulties with all of the “theory of mind” candidates.  Is the answer a type of substance dualism, as in a soul, or is it property dualism, as in emergence or something like panpsychism?  I’ve got a lot of reading in neuroscience to do.

I think your comment here is the right place to start. As I have mentioned, I've done the homework and have written up what I believe to be the correct answers -- and the necessary supporting arguments here: http://dstoner.net/Philosophy_Religion/WDG2017.01.10.pdf (Who DesignedGod?)

The short answer is that I am neither a dualist, nor a normal monist. Instead I am a "thought" monist -- although what I mean by this is not quite what most people mean by "panpsychism." However, understanding what I do mean might require a very long explanation. Unfortunately, my full explanation and arguments (linked above) required many pages of technical and scientific investigation, like this:

<image8.jpeg>


I'll try to cover it here with a "very quick" summary (OK, sorry, it's still kind of long):

Part1:

Chapter 1 begins by describing one physics student's reaction to the Michelson-Morley experiment, and how the world is stranger than we normally suppose. It also presents the accepted role of causality, and how we might expect everything in the world ought to fit together. The following single page probably best summarizes what that chapter presents:

<image9.jpeg>

<image1.jpeg>

Cary Cook

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Feb 18, 2020, 4:18:22 AM2/18/20
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Don,

 

I see slide 1 in previous email.  Where is slide 2?

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

image6.jpeg

Email

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Feb 18, 2020, 12:30:21 PM2/18/20
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Cary,

You have to go back one more iteration, the automated "reply" system dropped slide2 on the 2nd- generation copy.

- Don


<image6.jpeg>

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<image1.jpeg>

Email

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Feb 18, 2020, 1:18:57 PM2/18/20
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Hi Cary,

Sorry, I missed a much more elegant answer to your question:

--------------------------------------------------

image1.jpeg
--------------------------------------------------

image2.jpeg

- Don



On Feb 18, 2020, at 1:18 AM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Cary Cook

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Feb 18, 2020, 6:48:00 PM2/18/20
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Don,

 

Slide 1

Are you saying conscious minds CAUSE logic & math?

 

Slide 2

You have electronics & mechanics 3 levels before humans.  I assume you mean natural electronic & mechanical events.

No, I was wrong, because you also have other man made things before humans. So I don't get it.

image1.jpeg
image2.jpeg

Email

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Feb 18, 2020, 7:16:17 PM2/18/20
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- Don



On Feb 18, 2020, at 3:47 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Don,

 

Slide 1

Are you saying conscious minds CAUSE logic & math?

 

Slide 2

You have electronics & mechanics 3 levels before humans.  I assume you mean natural electronic & mechanical events.

No, I was wrong, because you also have other man made things before humans. So I don't get it.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: 'Email' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 10:19 AM
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Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Hi Cary,

 

Sorry, I missed a much more elegant answer to your question:

 

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Email

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Feb 18, 2020, 8:40:42 PM2/18/20
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Cary, (sorry, my thumb brushed "send" before I started)

Those are excellent questions!

Slide 1

Are you saying conscious minds CAUSE logic & math?


Although I did not clearly state it, slide 1 is supposed to show that conscious minds cause/generate epistemological logic and math. Slide 2 refers to ontological logic and math (bottom box). Slide 1 is supposed to map causality of "intent," while slide 2 is supposed to map "accidental" causality.

Slide 2

You have electronics & mechanics 3 levels before humans.  I assume you mean natural electronic & mechanical events.

No, I was wrong, because you also have other man made things before humans. So I don't get it.


Presenting the opposite of slide 1 (although, again, I didn't clearly state it), slide 2 is intended to organize the ontological aspects of both natural and man-made things. The slide-2 emphasis is that "motors," "computers," and robots (although designed and constructed by humans) exist ontologically as a result of their component "atomic" and "quantum mechanical" foundations.

Unfortunately, this doesn't become obvious until after the two pieces are correctly assembled. I didn't even notice this lack of clarity until you pointed it out -- since I was imagining the two parts as already having been correctly aligned -- which they clearly are not (this being presented as a puzzle instead of as a solution).

The normal way to assemble these two pieces (the way which we have been taught all of our lives), is to align/overlay the bottom block of slide 1 with the left (and possibly middle) entry/entries of the top block of slide 2. (Or, possibly, blending a layer or two from the top of slide 2 with a layer or three from the bottom of slide 1 -- depending on a person's personal views regarding neuroscience.)

This keeps all of the causality arrows pointing in the same direction. Unfortunately, it presents a very serious problem in the top box of slide 1, where our choices have no causal access to the physical world (the arrows simply point away from/off the chart). We have no way to physically build the computers and robots which we design; or even a way to scratch our own noses. It is also why all of the paradoxes in modern physics (Schrodinger's cat, the Bell experiment, Einstein's time ...) appear to be philosophically impossible. Add to this how hard our heads hurt when we try to understand how our "brains" produce "consciousness," or the complete failure of any A.I. researcher to make any computer even a tiny bit "conscious." In short: this particular slide-(mis)alignment is responsible for every single mystery tallied in chapter 14 of W.D.G..

OTOH, overlaying two different parts of these two slides supplies answers to all of those questions with that one single realignment.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 18, 2020, 11:12:07 PM2/18/20
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Don,

 

I really don't understand what you're doing here.  It appears to be something you have to present in person with the graphics on a table or screen.  And even if you were to do that, it sounds like you're asking other people to make sense of it.  Is that correct?

Email

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Feb 19, 2020, 1:37:27 AM2/19/20
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Hi Cary,


I really don't understand what you're doing here.


I'm encouraging you to try to "assemble" a working "causality stack" from the two pieces of the supplied puzzle. (Hopefully beginning, at the bottom, with something we can more-or-less agree upon, then building upwards, one layer at a time, adding only stuff which we can agree is properly explained in terms of the supporting layers below it.) The right-hand column (immediately below - taken from a page in the first chapter of WDG), is a very rough attempt at such a stack: 

image1.jpeg

The two "slides" which make up the "two-piece puzzle" are intended to be two separate parts of our world's causality stack. Slide 1 is the causality stack for the "intentional" parts, and slide 2 is the causality stack for the "accidental" parts. The "problem" you are being invited to solve with the "puzzle" is to fit the two pieces together into a single "causality stack" which includes both "intentional" and "accidental" parts. A correct linking will make sense of our world, an incorrect linking will lead to absurdities (e.g. we can't scratch our nose).

It appears to be something you have to present in person


Does this mean you think there will be too much back-and-forth for e-mail? I'm willing to do the typing, if that works for all involved, but I'm also prepared to try to schedule a workable in-person meeting. I'm leaning toward doing the typing, because it might help me learn to explain the subject matter better.

with the graphics on a table or screen.


I have sent the required "graphics" (mostly just slides 1 and 2, also included again below).
It might help to print them out, cut them into the two separate slides, and then manipulate them.

  And even if you were to do that, it sounds like you're asking other people to make sense of it.  Is that correct?


That's my goal. However, I'm also willing to explain what I believe is the correct point for connection (or see chapter 15 of WDG) -- and why that point makes sense out of every serious scientific or religious question I've ever encountered. I'm also willing to explain what each of those questions were (summary in chapter 14 of WDG), and why the proposed reconnection answers each of those questions (summary in chapter 15  of WDG).

Besides, the correct alignment is actually indicated by "cheat marks" which I put on the two slides.

The required gestalt realization was the one I had in my living room when the pre-robed incarnation of Eric S. was practicing his doctor's thesis (featuring the standard version of the causality stack) at Mars Hill. You were there, and we both argued it with Eric -- who elected to ignore the change we both suggested and go with what he'd already prepared. The correct modified solution to the two-piece puzzle (featured here now) is the same one we were both trying to convince Eric was an improvement over the one in his thesis.

It's been a few years; I only remember it now because it inspired me to write WDG.

- Don


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On Feb 18, 2020, at 8:12 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Don,

 

I really don't understand what you're doing here.  It appears to be something you have to present in person with the graphics on a table or screen.  And even if you were to do that, it sounds like you're asking other people to make sense of it.  Is that correct?

Cary Cook

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Feb 19, 2020, 2:34:54 AM2/19/20
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Don,

 

Your bottom turtle approach is essentially the Cosmological Arg.  Atheists back into infinite regress, or "I don't know", or "There is no bottom turtle, first cause, first anything".  But they refuse to admit they lost the arg.  They ask "What caused God?" (the whole point of your book) as though that question neutralizes your logic.  Human thinking has been at this impasse since... when? The Enlightenment?

 

Any attempt to solve your puzzle will just rearrange the pieces with different dogmatic starting points.  TAG tries to circumvent the Cosmological Arg. problem.  And I think that is where we 4 are presently.  Are you not asking us to go back and redo what we've already tried and failed to do?

 

Cary

 

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From: 'Email' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 10:37 PM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Hi Cary,


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William Zuersher

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Feb 19, 2020, 12:05:50 PM2/19/20
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Hi Brady,

This is my second email addressing various issues you have raised.  In my first email, I shared my work-in-progress on consciousness and pointed out what appears to be the nub of the issue, namely a serviceable theory of mind.  In the process, I raised concerns about a couple of the premises in the TAG outline you provided to Cary.  In this email, I want to leave those concerns aside and take a fresh look at your TAG.  As I explain below, I don’t see that it is much different from the arguments I critiqued in my presentation. 

In order to make our discussion easier to follow, I have paraphrased your argument.  I hope I have done so fairly -- if not, please correct me.  I believe that at the cost of very little nuance I’ve gained a lot of readability.

1) Either Intentionalism or Unintentionalism.

2) Intentionalism makes knowledge possible.

3) Unintentionalism makes knowledge impossible.

4) We cannot know which is the case.

5) If we make a knowledge claim, then we presuppose Intentionalism.

It seems there are a few problems.  The first problem: The premises consist of knowledge claims.  Hence -- if the conclusion is correct -- you have already presupposed intentionalism throughout.  By doing so, you have contradicted Step 4, which claims that we cannot know whether or not intentionalism is the case. 

The second problem concerns recursion in the conclusion itself.  If you need intentionalism to make a knowledge claim, then you can’t claim so without circularly presupposing intentionalism. 

Any argument that intentionalism is needed for argument implicitly presupposes that very intentionalism.  Hence it falls prey to epistemic circularity (where the conclusion is needed in order to establish the premises, as discussed in my presentation).  I don’t see how an argument’s designation as ‘transcendental’ rather than ‘deductive’ confers upon it escape velocity from the circuit.

These reflections are related to the point I made in my first email about the human need to presuppose reason.  (Once again, by reason I mean the package of logic, knowledge, etc. that I discussed in my presentation.)  As an aside: my thinking on this subject has progressed since the time of the presentation.  In it, I suggested that a person could presuppose God.  I now think that doing that is impossible.

Could a person’s epistemological starting point be to presuppose intentionalism?  No, a person first needs reason even to conceive of intentionalism or to distinguish intentionalism from un-intentionalism or even to have the notion of presupposing anything at all.  It is possible that intentionalism precedes human reason ontologically.  But on the plane of human epistemology, reason must precede belief in intentionalism.

As ever, if I have misinterpreted your meaning, I apologize.  I am committed to understanding these issues as best I can.  Thank your for your help in that.

Bill Z

 



Email

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Feb 19, 2020, 12:40:11 PM2/19/20
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Cary,

Are you not asking us to go back and redo what we've already tried and failed to do?


No. I am not. The difference is that going through the exercise is supposed to straighten out some of our misconceptions concerning: 1) God, and 2) logic.

1) First, we falsely presume God (creator) exists within something like "time" and "space."
(Grasping that this is an error follows from a minimal understanding of relativity, quantum mechanics, and cosmology).

2) Next, we we fail to grasp the idea that "logic" also exists independently of "time" and "space."
(Logic being both necessary and sufficient to explain relativity, q.m., and cosmology, which, taken together, are sufficient to explain time and space.)

When we fix the causality diagram (thereby fixing our science and our theology), those two (God and logic) become essentially unified (it is at least unnecessary to presume the two are separate entities) -- and everything else (including the universe and ourselves) becomes a causal consequence of this single unified non-physical entity (spiritual monism).

Outside of "time" or "space," the concept of "origin" is meaningless, and therefore unnecessary. In order to have an "origin" something must first not exist, then later begin to exist.

I think I may have forgotten to state that last part explicitly. 

- Don


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G. Brady Lenardos

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Feb 19, 2020, 5:35:31 PM2/19/20
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Ok Bill, let me toss the detailed explanation I was working on and address your new post instead.

Here is what concerns me the most at this post - You write: "As I explain below, I don’t see that it is much different from the arguments I critiqued in my presentation."

Here is the difference.

1) A disjunctive syllogism is a deductive argument. A transcendental argument is not a deductive argument.

2)  A deductive argument concludes with, "Therefore, X" A transcendental argument does not conclude with, "Therefore, X."

3) A deductive argument deals with the truth value of the conclusion that is necessarily derived from the premises. A transcendental argument does not deal with that kind of conclusion. A transcendental argument tries to find and show the necessary and sufficient preconditions for a particular proposition to be true; however, it doesn't make any claim that the proposition is true or not.

4) Sy and Matt Slick try to force a transcendental argument into a disjunctive form (as do you in your objections below), I do not.

Let's stop here. Do you see the difference now?





Cary Cook

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Feb 19, 2020, 7:12:51 PM2/19/20
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Don,

 

I agree with 1) and 2).

 

But in that case, in Slide 1 you start with Conscious Minds. Don’t they have to be eternal rather than created?  And if so, why plural?

Or are you saying the slide 1 causality diagram is wrong and needs fixing? 

 

Outside of "time" or "space," the concept of "origin" is meaningless

Are you saying that the first created thing was necessarily this universe with its spacetime being the ONLY spacetime?

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Email

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Feb 19, 2020, 8:31:11 PM2/19/20
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Hi Cary,

I agree with 1) and 2).


We're at least off to a good start.


But in that case, in Slide 1 you start with Conscious Minds. Don’t they have to be eternal rather than created?  And if so, why plural?


That's a very good question. At least the singular version certainly has to be eternal.

I have remaining unanswered questions regarding "our" plural "minds." Clearly we're connected to our physical brains in some ways and disconnected in others. Our "consciousness" fits cleanly into the "eternal" category, but our "memories" and our "senses" fit cleanly into the "temporal" category.(Examples, arguments, and thought experiments to sort these things out, and also to sort out several other things, are provided in chapter 10 of WDG). This division complicates the puzzle, and I have insufficient understanding (e.g. no "memory") of any of the data I would need to give you a complete answer. Can you identify any impossibility of there being some kind of "middle" solution? (E.g.: that we are not in some sense in "God" and "he" also somehow in us -- kind of like the cryptic description in Jn.17:21.)

Or are you saying the slide 1 causality diagram is wrong and needs fixing?  


Its bottom block is certainly at least oversimplified; apparently to even a greater extent than all of the other blocks on both slides are also/already very much oversimplified.

Outside of "time" or "space," the concept of "origin" is meaningless

Are you saying that the first created thing was necessarily this universe with its spacetime being the ONLY spacetime?


Yes; but conditionally; we've had this discussion before. As I explained then: I have no way of knowing whether or not "God" also created other "universes" (of which we can know nothing), or even whether or not there are other entities which exist somehow "beyond" what I am able to imagine.

- Don



On Feb 19, 2020, at 4:12 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Don,

 

I agree with 1) and 2).

 

 

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On Feb 18, 2020, at 8:12 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Don,

 

I really don't understand what you're doing here.  It appears to be something you have to present in person with the graphics on a table or screen.  And even if you were to do that, it sounds like you're asking other people to make sense of it.  Is that correct?

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

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Cary Cook

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Feb 20, 2020, 1:11:34 AM2/20/20
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Don,

 

Our "consciousness" fits cleanly into the "eternal" category, but our "memories" and our "senses" fit cleanly into the "temporal" category.

If mind is split into eternal and temporal parts, does it still work in your causal stack?

This division complicates the puzzle

Yes, seriously!

 

Can you identify any impossibility of there being some kind of "middle" solution?

No.  A middle solution appears likely - which would require further revision of your whole causality stack - or kill it.

 

So you're conditionally saying that this universe with its spacetime is the ONLY spacetime.  That may be all you can say as a physicist, but are you trying to confine all of philosophy within the bounds of physics?  Do you deny that philosophy addresses parts of reality that physics does not address?

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Email

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Feb 20, 2020, 4:32:04 AM2/20/20
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Cary,

Our "consciousness" fits cleanly into the "eternal" category, but our "memories" and our "senses" fit cleanly into the "temporal" category.

If mind is split into eternal and temporal parts, does it still work in your causal stack?


Yes. (More detail on that below.)

This division complicates the puzzle

Yes, seriously!


Agreed, but I don't see any real problem. I designed computers and software for a living, and still do it in my retirement. Keeping thousands of lines of code or as many electrical connections from getting "tangled" is how you ship a working computer system. Anyone who can't do it must find a different line of work.

If you have the patience to proceed, then I am also willing; if you don't, I'll stop bothering you.

Can you identify any impossibility of there being some kind of "middle" solution?

No.  A middle solution appears likely - which would require further revision of your whole causality stack - or kill it.


Worst case: a middle solution might require that one block be supported by two separate underlying blocks. This is already understood to be the case with the single-file stacks, because it is already understood (and explicitly stated in the illustration on p.7 of WDG), that each block can be supported by any combination of the blocks which are located anywhere below it in  same linear stack (e.g. "computers" comprise both active electronic and inert mechanical supporting structures; however the mechanical components might be supported by elements from  several-layers-down below the active support).

As long as the two pieces of the puzzle are assembled so that both the  "intentional" and "accidental" parts of our "minds" (which are present in the blocks) are each supported from somewhere below them by the required prerequisites, there is no need to revise the stack. In this case, I don't see a problem with the present block arrangement. It actually appears to work well enough just the way it is.

- Don


Email

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Feb 20, 2020, 2:07:08 PM2/20/20
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... and still do it in my retirement.

OK, that's an exaggeration. My retirement projects are considerably more modest. 

- Don


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Cary Cook

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Feb 20, 2020, 6:42:55 PM2/20/20
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Don,

 

each block can be supported by any combination of the blocks which are located anywhere below it in  same linear stack

"Can be supported by" is an ambiguous statement. Do you mean "is supported by"?  And if so, does "is supported by" mean "is caused by"?

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Email

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Feb 20, 2020, 8:00:19 PM2/20/20
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Cary,

each block can be supported by any combination of the blocks which are located anywhere below it in  same linear stack

"Can be supported by" is an ambiguous statement. Do you mean "is supported by"?


Example Stack:

Element 4
Element 3
Element 2
Element 1

Element 1 is either primordial or unsupported (e.g. logic).
Element 2 is supported by element 1.
Element 3 is supported by element 2, but may also be partly supported directly by element 1.
Element 4 is supported by element 3, but may also be partly supported by some combination of elements 2 and 1.

And if so, does "is supported by" mean "is caused by"?


It means:
is caused by,
is explained in terms of,
is a result of,
is an abstraction of,
... all are always true.

1. Chemistry is caused by quantum mechanics.
2. Chemistry is explained in terms of quantum mechanics.
3. Chemistry is a result of quantum mechanics.
4. Chemistry is an abstraction of quantum mechanics. (This literally means chemistry is just more q.m.)
5. Chemistry is a phenomenon which appears to be "emergent from" quantum mechanics (assuming a person is too ignorant, stupid, or lazy to explain exactly how that happened -- or simply expects us to take it on faith). 

Definition #4 is explored in some detail on p.121 of WDG. Please notice that it is always true for all links between all levels -- and that this implies universal monism of whatever comprises the single bottom level. 

- Don


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Cary Cook

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Feb 20, 2020, 10:34:22 PM2/20/20
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Don,

 

Then by "2 is supported by 1" you mean, "1 is a necessary cause of 2", right?

 

3 is supported by 2, but may also be partly supported directly by 1.

Means 2 is a necessary cause of 3, right?

But then 1 is also a necessary cause of 3, right?

What does "may be partly" have to do with it?

If 1 exists, but 2 doesn't exist, then 3 can't exist, right?

 

Same with 4, right?

------------------------------

"is supported by" means:

is caused by,

is explained in terms of,

is a result of,

is an abstraction of,

... all are always true.

Great!  That's clear.

BUT does "is a result of" mean "is always a result of"?

If so, then all of the above necessary causes are also sufficient causes, which I can't comprehend.

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Email

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Feb 21, 2020, 2:04:11 AM2/21/20
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Cary,

Then by "2 is supported by 1" you mean, "1 is a necessary cause of 2", right?


I would have presumed so.
However, your logical term "necessary" may cause some confusion in a scientific context.
More on this below.

3 is supported by 2, but may also be partly supported directly by 1.

Means 2 is a necessary cause of 3, right?


Correct (assuming we are actually communicating).

But then 1 is also a necessary cause of 3, right?


It is necessarily a cause of 2 which is necessarily a cause of 3 -- so yes.

What does "may be partly" have to do with it?


If 1 is "all eternal sources," and 2 is "all temporal sources," then, obviously, 1 is the cause of 2.

However, If 3 is "human minds" (which appear to have both "eternal" and "temporal" components),
Then,
3 is "partly" caused by 2 (which is caused by 1), and "partly" caused directly by 1 (skipping over 2).

If 1 exists, but 2 doesn't exist, then 3 can't exist, right? 


Correct.

Same with 4, right?


If 4 is a creation of human minds, then 1, 2, and 3 must all be present.
Even if "God" (1) helped the "human mind" (3) directly, 1, 2, and 3 must all be present,
(even though 4 was partly created by 3 and partly created directly by 1).

------------------------------

"is supported by" means:

is caused by,

is explained in terms of,

is a result of,

is an abstraction of,

... all are always true.

Great!  That's clear.


Cool!

BUT does "is a result of" mean "is always a result of"?


Probably not. Here is where I'm worried that we aren't really communicating:

If so, then all of the above necessary causes are also sufficient causes,


Here is a scientifically true statement: "Chemistry" is supported by "quantum mechanics."

In this universe, "chemistry" cannot happen without "quantum mechanics."
However, immediately after the big bang, "quantum mechanics" did exist, briefly,
before there were any "particles" which are necessary for "chemistry" to happen.
Other conditions were also necessary (lower temperatures) before particles could form.
 
Another scientifically true statement: "Biology" is supported by "chemistry."

Again, there are other conditions which must also be met:
Lower-yet temperatures (allowing for liquid water) are needed before "biology" becomes possible.
Also, self-replicating "biology" requires the presence of extremely complex "chemistry."
It doesn't spontaneously self-start.

In a different universe (even a very similar one -- having the exact same laws of physics, but having slightly more or less total mass) "life" never would/could have happened. Even the existence of "stars" depended on very carefully chosen preconditions.

The logical concept of a "sufficient" cause, may find no place to operate in the scientific universe.
In particular, a large fraction of the technical problems (which were logged in chapter 14 of WDG), required that an intelligent designer be present at the bottom of the causality stack.

This recurring requirement was not explicitly indicated in most of the blocks in WDG's causality stacks (the only exception being a conditional inclusion in the very bottom block), in order to avoid presuming the presence of deity until a very focused image of the required "God" had been produced -- from presumedly "natural" evidence.

 which I can't comprehend.


I'm guessing that you're trying to understand something which I'm not really saying.

- Don


 

 

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Cary Cook

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Feb 21, 2020, 4:31:23 AM2/21/20
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Don,

 

I totally screwed up.  It's necessary and sufficient CONDITIONS - not

necessary and sufficient CAUSES.  Now I have to reread the whole thing, and respond more sensibly.

Email

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Feb 21, 2020, 12:13:47 PM2/21/20
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Cary,

That ought to make it easier.

- Don


William Zuersher

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Feb 21, 2020, 12:29:49 PM2/21/20
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Hi Don,  Wow and thanks for this.  This is a ton of stuff - obviously you've been surveying the headwaters of the this problem for longer than I.  Give me some time to digest - maybe Cary and I can drive up and we can wrestle with some of this over lunch.  Bill


Email

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Feb 21, 2020, 1:29:33 PM2/21/20
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Hi Bill,

I'm looking forward to our discussion.
I could drive down, instead of both of you driving up.

- Don



> On Feb 21, 2020, at 9:29 AM, 'William Zuersher' via BYS vs MH <bys-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> contingent

Cary Cook

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Feb 21, 2020, 7:20:09 PM2/21/20
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Don,

 

I still think "is an abstraction of" doesn't work for most of these.  e.g. something being an abstraction of math.

 

Re: rows 2 & 3, are you saying everything in row 3 is supported by everything in row 2?  or everything in row 3 is supported by at least one thing in row 2?

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: Cary Cook
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2020 1:31 AM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: TAG Defective?

 

Don,

 

I totally screwed up.  It's necessary and sufficient CONDITIONS - not

necessary and sufficient CAUSES.  Now I have to reread the whole thing, and respond more sensibly.

 

Cary

Cary Cook

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Feb 21, 2020, 7:23:52 PM2/21/20
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Don & Bill,

 

I'm up for this.  But first let's go as far as we can go in emails before driving.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

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Email

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Feb 22, 2020, 1:08:05 AM2/22/20
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Hi Cary,

I still think "is an abstraction of" doesn't work for most of these.  e.g. something being an abstraction of math.


I have to presume that's because you haven't spent enough time grinding out the math involved in calculating the properties of two particles interacting (quantum mechanics). One of the things you can't help noticing, at some point, is that it's all math. The particles themselves have no properties at all in the wave equations, other than their probabilities of interacting with each other at any given "place" and "time" within the "energy field" (which also happens to be purely mathematical).

I might never have noticed this except that a professor at CSULB (he was a very bright and interesting man named Hutchinson) happened to suggest the possibility to me (in about 1971) -- and I thought the idea was nuts. But, afterwards, I always watched for evidence of there being anything more involved -- other than the pure math. By the time I was dealing with the 'impossible" elements of Schrödinger's cat and Wheeler's delayed choice, I found it impossible to believe that physical reality comprised anything other than pure ontological mathematics.

The general equivalence between "abstraction" and "causality" was a difficult one for me to sort out. I had to keep checking it, doubting it each time, before it started "feeling" like it made sense. The subject comes up in WDG in chapter 11 (A.I., pp.100, 102), ch.14 (Are W There Yet? pp.121,125), ch,15 (Thought Experiment, pp.131,132,135), and ch.15 (Who Designed Logic? p.141) -- where the "abstraction" connection between various pairs of layers is examined.

If you have trouble understanding the "abstraction" connection between any pair of layers, please identify the pair and I will attempt to explain the mechanism in whatever level of detail is required.

However, if "abstraction" never "clicks" for you, all you'll miss out on is the "non-physical monism" part of the whole thing.

Re: rows 2 & 3, are you saying everything in row 3 is supported by everything in row 2?  or everything in row 3 is supported by at least one thing in row 2?


Neither. In some cases, there will be at least one thing in row 3 which is directly supported by at least one thing in row 1 (completely skipping over row 2). As explained in an earlier email, mechanical structural elements in computer circuits are supported directly by a lower layer than the layer which supports the logically active elements.

The correct statements are: At least one thing in row 3 is supported by at least one thing in row 2 (justifying the location on level 3). And: Every single thing in row 3 must be supported by at least one thing in row 2, or by at least one thing in row 1 (supporting everything in row 3).

- Don


Email

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Feb 22, 2020, 1:08:13 AM2/22/20
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Cary,

I'm good with that.  In any case, Bill said he wanted to go over the stuff he'd already been exposed to before getting together.

- Don



On Feb 21, 2020, at 4:23 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Don & Bill,

 

I'm up for this.  But first let's go as far as we can go in emails before driving.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: 'William Zuersher' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2020 9:29 AM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Hi Don,  Wow and thanks for this.  This is a ton of stuff - obviously you've been surveying the headwaters of the this problem for longer than I.  Give me some time to digest - maybe Cary and I can drive up and we can wrestle with some of this over lunch.  Bill

 

 

On Monday, February 17, 2020, 01:19:57 AM PST, 'Email' via BYS vs MH <bys-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

 

Hi Bill,

 

Don Stoner here.

 

With Brady in Lost Wages, NV, and Cary, apparently waiting/watching to see what happen next, it's looking like it might be our turn to see if we can work out any kind of agreeable solution here.

How this might work, how the non-physical can come from the physical, is definitely a head-hurter.  Nevertheless, there seem to be difficulties with all of the “theory of mind” candidates.  Is the answer a type of substance dualism, as in a soul, or is it property dualism, as in emergence or something like panpsychism?  I’ve got a lot of reading in neuroscience to do.

I think your comment here is the right place to start. As I have mentioned, I've done the homework and have written up what I believe to be the correct answers -- and the necessary supporting arguments here: http://dstoner.net/Philosophy_Religion/WDG2017.01.10.pdf (Who DesignedGod?)

The short answer is that I am neither a dualist, nor a normal monist. Instead I am a "thought" monist -- although what I mean by this is not quite what most people mean by "panpsychism." However, understanding what I do mean might require a very long explanation. Unfortunately, my full explanation and arguments (linked above) required many pages of technical and scientific investigation, like this:

<image8.jpeg>

 

I'll try to cover it here with a "very quick" summary (OK, sorry, it's still kind of long):

Part1:

Chapter 1 begins by describing one physics student's reaction to the Michelson-Morley experiment, and how the world is stranger than we normally suppose. It also presents the accepted role of causality, and how we might expect everything in the world ought to fit together. The following single page probably best summarizes what that chapter presents:

<image9.jpeg>

<image6.jpeg>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<image1.jpeg>

<image9.jpeg>
<image8.jpeg>
<image1.jpeg>
<image6.jpeg>

Email

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Feb 22, 2020, 1:19:19 AM2/22/20
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You'll probably notice that I contradicted myself between the first two paragraphs. After writing the first paragraph, I started thinking about how "obvious" I thought it was, and remembered how easily I could have missed it completely. It was an interesting story so I told it in the second paragraph -- completely failing to notice I'd already stated the opposite. My bad.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 22, 2020, 2:50:06 AM2/22/20
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Don,

 

it's all math

Is that the current majority consensus of physicists?  In my admitted ignorance of the subject, whatever percentage of physicists agree with it is the probability judgment I would give it.

Does it include centers of intentionality (aka souls)?  If so, it should remove virtually all atheistic objections to afterlife.  In fact, any "person" could exist in multiple bodies simultaneously.

 

In any case, my ignorance of physics makes my criticism relevant only  to your ability to communicate to others also ignorant of physics.

 

Assuming slide 1 as you understand it is correct, it is still hard to understand by non-physicists.  We still need an unambiguous statement of the relationships of the elements in the 4 rows. 

"Is supported by" [ even when clarified to mean: is caused by, is explained in terms of, is a result of, is an abstraction of]  is still ambiguous.

These guesses of mine are incorrect:

1. everything in row 3 is supported by everything in row 2.

2. everything in row 3 is supported by at least one thing in row 2.

 

You made one clear statement:

In some cases, there will be at least one thing in row 3 which is directly supported by at least one thing in row 1 (completely skipping over row 2).

But we need to know what is true in all cases.  We need either a statement that covers all elements in all rows, or the diagram split into sub-diagrams.

Email

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Feb 22, 2020, 4:05:54 PM2/22/20
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Hi Cary,

it's all math

Is that the current majority consensus of physicists?  In my admitted ignorance of the subject, whatever percentage of physicists agree with it is the probability judgment I would give it.


It's pretty nearly universal -- although it's usually described in slightly different terms.

The prologue of John Gribbin's In Search of Schrödinger's Cat (IMO, the best layman's book on QM) is titled "Nothing is Real." The prologue is summed up on on p.2, "For what quantum mechanics says is that nothing is real and that we cannot say things about what things are doing when we are not looking at them. Schrödinger's mythical cat was invoked to make the differences between the quantum world and the everyday world clear."

Quantum physicists are nearly universally agreed that "nothing is real" in a "physical" sense -- whether or not they happen to believe the underlying math is "real."  On p.3, Gribbin says, "Theorists who accept the pure version of quantum mechanics say that the cat exists in some indeterminate state, neither dead nor alive, until an observer looks into the box to see how things are getting on." (Notice that this presumes that the "sentient perception" of the cat is more "real" than the "cat," by itself, is.)  Einstein was one exceptional physicist who didn't go along with this understanding. His position was universally considered "rejecting QM" rather than being considered a "different understanding" of it.

Does it include centers of intentionality (aka souls)?  If so, it should remove virtually all atheistic objections to afterlife.  In fact, any "person" could exist in multiple bodies simultaneously.


In Gribbin's chapter 11 (p.235), which is titled "Many Worlds," he appears to be seriously suggesting that we all follow bifurcating paths into the future (occupying multiple bodies in different future realities). In the first paragraph of chapter 11, he identifies this as his own opinion (and also as a minority opinion), rather than as a necessary consequence of QM.

"Centers of intentionality" (the term "souls" is "religiously" avoided) are quite controversial and are not normally addressed by those not seeking a fight. Christof Koch (who doesn't invoke QM) and Roger Penrose (who does invoke QM) are notable pioneers in this virtually non-existent field of study. 

In any case, my ignorance of physics makes my criticism relevant only to your ability to communicate to others also ignorant of physics.


....Which is an important goal.

Assuming slide 1 as you understand it is correct, it is still hard to understand by non-physicists.  We still need an unambiguous statement of the relationships of the elements in the 4 rows.  


My previous answer applied to any generic 3-row stack. Slide 1 has an abnormal bottom block. Also, its organization could use some minor editing (details below).

image1.jpeg
Row one is either taken to be primordial (assuming this slide is placed at the bottom) or to take its row number from whichever slide-2 block with which you choose to align it (assuming you selected an alignment other than the very bottom).

Assuming a bottom orientation (having the simplest row numbers), the row-4 actions can comprise support from any combination of rows 2 and 3, depending on what level of forethought row 1 chooses to invest before acting. Row-3 "choices" are placed above row 2, not because row 2 is necessarily involved, but because it might be involved. 

And here I have made two apparent organizing errors: The row-2 "sentience" entry will certainly be invoked while "morality" "logic" and "math" are all optional. A more-carefully-designed slide 1 might have (first edit): moved "sentience" down to row 1, left the two optional elements ("morality" and "logic") in row 2, and (second edit): placed "math" on row 3 with "calculations." The goal of the puzzle was to locate one single common causality error which is greatly more severe than either of my two inadvertent errors here -- which I am now trying to correct.

"Is supported by" [ even when clarified to mean: is caused by, is explained in terms of, is a result of, is an abstraction of]  is still ambiguous.


I'm not following.  In what sense?

These guesses of mine are incorrect:

1. everything in row 3 is supported by everything in row 2.

2. everything in row 3 is supported by at least one thing in row 2.


Yes.

You made one clear statement:

In some cases, there will be at least one thing in row 3 which is directly supported by at least one thing in row 1 (completely skipping over row 2). 


(Yes.  This applies to a subset of general 3-or-more-row stacks.)

But we need to know what is true in all cases.  We need either a statement that covers all elements in all rows, or the diagram split into sub-diagrams.


I repeat (from my previous post) a short paragraph which appears to have been accidentally dropped (but which contained an additional error in any case). These statements are true in all cases:

The correct statements are: At least one thing in row 3 is supported by at least one thing in row 2 (justifying the location on level 3). And: Every single thing in row 3 must be supported by at least one thing in row 2, or by at least one thing in row 1 (supporting everything in row 3).


 Because of the error, I must now revise this as follows (applying to all correctly-formed 3-or-more-row stacks, or to slide 1 assuming primordial orientation and that "sentience" has been moved down to row 1 and "math up to row 3). The revision:

At least one thing in row 3 (e.g. "choices") must at least possibly be supported by at least one thing in row 2 (e.g. morality or logic),  (justifying the location on level 3).

This allows for the possibility of row-3 "choices" which haven't been properly thought out, (but which still belong above row 2 just because something from row 2 should -- or even might -- have become involved).

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 22, 2020, 7:18:39 PM2/22/20
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Don,

 

When I said:

"Is supported by" [ even when clarified to mean: is caused by, is explained in terms of, is a result of, is an abstraction of]  is still ambiguous.

I should have clarified that I didn't mean it is ambiguous as a stand-alone statement, but that its application to the diagram could be taken in several ways.

 

------------------------------

At least one thing in row 3 (e.g. "choices") must at least possibly be supported by at least one thing in row 2 (e.g. morality or logic),  (justifying the location on level 3).

I understand that I have to wait for a revised diagram.  When working on it, please consider this question: 

How does the word "possibly" above relate to "These statements are true in all cases"?

image1.jpeg

Email

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Feb 22, 2020, 8:44:57 PM2/22/20
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Cary,

When I said:

"Is supported by" [ even when clarified to mean: is caused by, is explained in terms of, is a result of, is an abstraction of]  is still ambiguous.

I should have clarified that I didn't mean it is ambiguous as a stand-alone statement, but that its application to the diagram could be taken in several ways.


I may still not be following you, or maybe my next answer may help straighten this out:

------------------------------

At least one thing in row 3 (e.g. "choices") must at least possibly be supported by at least one thing in row 2 (e.g. morality or logic),  (justifying the location on level 3).

I understand that I have to wait for a revised diagram.


Sorry, I, mistakingly, thought it was obvious:

4. Actions which affect the physical world
3. Choices, Judgements, Conclusions, Mathematics/Calculations (really kind of the same thing)
2. Morality, Logic
1. Conscious Minds/Sentience (really kind of the same thing)

 When working on it, please consider this question:  

How does the word "possibly" above relate to "These statements are true in all cases"?


What is true in all cases is: The row-2 elements ("Morality" and "Logic") can affect/cause/explain/... row-3 elements ("Choices," "Judgements," ,Conclusions," and "Mathematics/Calculations"); however, the row-1 element (Conscious Minds/Sentience") may possibly elect (or it may not elect) to avail itself of the services of either (or both) of the row-2 elements, and may (or may not) possibly, directly perform a row-3 operation without making use of either.

If you find this to be too illogical, I suppose we could add a third option like "willfully amoral stupidity" to row 3.) This sort of ungainly complexity becomes necessary only because a conscious/sentient being does "as it damned well pleases" (correctly quoting the Harvard law of animal behavior). I am merely attempting to make my diagram reflect reality.

- Don



On Feb 22, 2020, at 4:18 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Don,

 

When I said:

Email

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Feb 22, 2020, 9:05:08 PM2/22/20
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While we're at it, we might as well add "emotion" to row 2.

4. Actions which affect the physical world
3. Choices, Judgements, Conclusions, Mathematics/Calculations
2. Morality, Logic, Emotion
1. Conscious Minds/Sentience

- Don 


Cary Cook

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Feb 23, 2020, 12:57:01 AM2/23/20
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Don,

 

Totally agree about emotion in row 2.

Sentience can be eliminated as just logic plus emotion.

Math can be eliminated as a subset of logic.

But morality is also superfluous. 

Morality is just logic plus objectified emotion.

Email

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Feb 23, 2020, 12:30:36 PM2/23/20
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Hi Cary,

Totally agree about emotion in row 2.


We're off to a good start.

Sentience can be eliminated as just logic plus emotion.


Or as an approximate equivalent to consciousness (where I moved it).

Math can be eliminated as a subset of logic.


Or as a subset of calculations (where I moved it).

But morality is also superfluous.  

Morality is just logic plus objectified emotion.


I'm still not buying this. Here is my argument:

On February 11, 2020 at 1:55 AM
Cary Cook Wrote:
Prioritizing values

"If there IS an afterlife, then nothing is more important than being right.  Better to be right and ugly than wrong and beautiful.  Better to be right in a vacuum than wrong in the center of a stadium.  Better to be right than to love or be loved.  Even happiness is not more important than being right, because if one is happy but not right, then that happiness is based on a false foundation, and will necessarily collapse, causing more unhappiness than it was worth.  If errors and/or illusions are necessary to make life appear worthwhile, then life is not worthwhile, and would be better off not existing."

I responded:
"That sounded correct to me."

The key phrase being: "Even happiness is not more important than being right."

I am now adding:
"Happiness" is an emotion, And "being right" is a moral obligation.

If one is "more important" than the other, the two are obviously different things.

- Don


ucapol...@yahoo.com

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Feb 23, 2020, 1:36:27 PM2/23/20
to 'William Zuersher' via BYS vs MH

Hi Bill,

 I am back from Vegas.

 Let me go back to your original email and address that.

 Emails getting lost? Whoever heard of something like that? LOL! Welcome to the 21st century Internet. It happens. No harm, no foul. They probably landed in your spam folder, which maybe is where they belong. I don’t know. The important thing is we finally made contact.

 I understand that you wanted to address some of the popular authors, even mistaken authors, in your presentation. I guess I just had hoped that you would have mentioned that there was another version of TAG that didn’t have the problems you mentioned; if for no other reason but for completeness sake. But, Que sera sera.

 Let’s take a look at how a Transcendental Argument works. Perhaps that will clear up some misunderstandings.

A transcendental argument simple looks for the necessary and sufficient conditions for a statement to be true. For instance, if we say we know something, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for that to be true?

 Let me use a mundane example to illustrate how this works, then we can go to the transcendental example.

 Let’s say you go out in your front yard and you see your neighbor across the fence. You exchange greetings and you notice that he has a glass of iced tea in his hand. He says he just made a pitcher and offers you a glass. As an inquisitive person, you wonder what are the necessary and sufficient preconditions for his statement to be true. You begin to think and you determine that for his statement about making a pitcher of iced tea to be true he would minimally need:

1)    Tea

2)    A pitcher

3)    Ice

4)    Water

5)    Some way to heat the water (unless he was a barbarian and used instant tea)

You will note that each of the above ingredients is necessary to make a pitcher of Iced tea; but unless they are all present, there wouldn’t be sufficient conditions to create the pitcher of iced tea. So, a transcendental argument will be looking for the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be true.

 In our case we want to look at different cosmological positions and ask, which, if any, have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that would allow for knowledge?

 In examining the different cosmological positions (theories of what exists), we find that there are nine basic cosmologies and some have variant positions within the cosmology. For instance, Judaism and Christianity differ in many aspects; However, they share the same basic cosmology.

 These nine basic cosmologies and their variants are at the heart of all philosophical and religious positions.

 Here is a video explaining each cosmology:


 We can either go through each cosmology (and each variant) one by one to see if they have the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge or we can group them (categorize them). We could look at categorizing these cosmologies in a number of ways, but the most efficient would be into the following categories:

 !) Those that deny the existence of a physical reality

2) Those that affirm the existence of a physical reality

 Regarding the first category, we can do away with them pretty fast. The cosmologies jn that category state that what is perceived as physical reality is just an illusion.  This would make all creatures an illusion too; and since illusions can’t have knowledge, these cosmologies would not have the necessary and sufficient conditions for the creatures (including us) to have knowledge. These cosmologies include both an atheistic cosmology and some theistic cosmologies.

 The second category can be divided into two sub-categories.

 1)    Those cosmologies that say that physical reality exists and is what it is via intent. This category consists of theistic cosmologies.

2)    Those cosmologies that say that physical reality exists and is what it is without intent. This category would include an atheistic cosmology and some theistic cosmologies where God is impersonal.

 The question now is there at least one scenario in both or one of these categories that has the necessary and sufficient conditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge? It is also possible that neither have the necessary and sufficient preconditions for knowledge.

 Please note, even though the positions are antithetical, there is at least the logical the possibility that both could have a scenario that would have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that would allow for knowledge. So, a disjunctive syllogism would be out of play here.

 Let me stop here and see if there are any questions or points that need further discussions before we move on.

Regards,

Brady





Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: 'ucapol...@yahoo.com' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2020 7:46 AM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Cary wrote: "Do you, or do you not have a coherent presentation of TAG?"

 

Yes Cary,

 

And I gave you a succinct version of it in my last post.

 

Let me outline it for you. Anything other than the outline will become an essay.

 

1) We have a necessary antithesis: Either everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism) or everything is what it is without intent (unintentionalism).

 

2)  By examining the elements of Intentionalism, we find there is at least one scenario that has the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge.

 

3) By examining the elements of Unintentionalism, we find not only that the elements do not have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge, but they make the possibility of knowledge impossible.

 

***** Please note here, even though we have an antithesis we are not doing a disjunctive syllogism.

 

4) We do not know, nor can we know which of the above two options is the case. Thus there will be no "Therefore, God."

 

5) However, if one wants to say that he knows something, anything, we have to ask what are the necessary and sufficient preconditions for his knowledge claim to be true? Intentionalism can be part, if not the whole, of those preconditions. It has at least 1 scenario that allows for the possibility of knowledge.

 

6) Unintentionalism cannot be part, or the whole, of the necessary and sufficient preconditions for one's knowledge since Unintentionalism denies the possibility of knowledge.

 

7) So, it may be the case, in spite of our declaration of knowing, that there is no knowledge at all. However, if we make a knowledge claim, we must realize that Intentionalism will have to be part of the necessary and sufficient preconditions for the possibility of that claim to be true. That doesn't mean the knowledge claim is true, but for it to possibly be true intentionalism must be accepted as a precondition.

 

Going back to Bill's "DEFECT", I hope you and others can see I am not denying one leg of a disjunct and then saying that the other leg is therefore true. The above argument is not a disjunctive argument. My big objection is that Bill knew his presentation was wrong days prior to giving his presentation; and he decided to give his strawman presentation anyways. He made the group he spoke in front of weaker; and worse yet, he has not (to my knowledge) tried to go back and remedy the situation. If any of those he taught comes across a theist that knows the above, their attempts to refute the TA will fail, making them look like fools because Bill taught them to refute an argument that is a strawman.

 

I hope this clears things up, Cary. Should you want an essay explaining any part of the above, let me know.

 

Regards,

 

Brady

 

 

 

On Friday, February 14, 2020, 8:01:43 PM EST, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

 

 

Brady,

 

I'm not going to address all of you points.  Only one matters.

Do you, or do you not have a coherent presentation of TAG?

Not a discussion; not a copy-paste of Van Til or Bahnsen; not a long essay with links to references.

Just coherent presentation of TAG.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: 'ucapol...@yahoo.com' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2020 7:36 AM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Hi Cary,

 

Let me address a few things.

 

1) It seems that those who reject the argument are the ones that seem to bail on the discussions, William, our friend on FB, wasn't interested in continuing after I created two videos which were the start of my presentation. As for Bill, He wanted to talk about it via phone. I gave him my number so we could talk. After a week and no response, I emailed him again and asked to talk. Still no response.

 

2) I presented the argument in full on this forum in a discussion with an atheist, I think it was with Sean. That was a number of years ago.

 

3) What defect do you think Bill found? As I pointed out in my comment on his youtube video. He tries to change the transcendental argument into a deductive argument (modus tollendo ponens). The problem is that a transcendental argument is not a deductive argument. Thus, he created a strawman fallacy (i.e defeating an argument that is not the transcendental argument).; but, maybe you are talking about something else that I missed. Please let me know if you are.

 

4) Cary wrote: "I find TAG sufficient to convince me of the probability (not necessity) of a Supreme Being." Yes Cary, now you got it. The Transcendental Argument does not end with, "Therefore, God." You are left with two positions, Intentionalism and Unintentionalism. We don't know which one is true. All we can get from it is that Intentionalism has the elements that allow for the possibility of knowledge and Unintentionalism does not have the elements that allow for the possibility of knowledge. If we say we know anything, we have to presume the position that allows for the possibility of knowledge. It makes no sense to assert you have knowledge and them presume a position that doesn't allow for the possibility of knowledge.

 

So, Cary, do you know anything?

 

Regards,

 

Brady

 

 

On Friday, February 14, 2020, 1:30:52 AM EST, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

 

 

I find TAG sufficient to convince me of the probability (not necessity) of a Supreme Being.  But I must admit that my understanding of TAG consists of vignettes connected intuitively, but not rigorously.

 

I have never seen TAG rigorously stated, neither by Van Till, Bahnsen, Passantinos, Russ Manion, or Brady Lenardos.  Brady has agreed to present such a statement to one person I know of, and delivered a beginning, but then dropped the discussion.

 

Bill Zuersher has shown a defect in TAG as I understand TAG.  Brady has said Bill's understanding of TAG is defective, but has not given us his supposedly correct version of TAG.

 

I still have a sloppy 80% probability judgment that a Supreme Being exists, but that's all.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

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Cary Cook

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Feb 23, 2020, 6:58:26 PM2/23/20
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Don,

 

I think you agreed with me based on an interpretation of my words that I did not intend.

I asserted "Even happiness is not more important than being right" because if one is happy but not right, then that happiness ... will cost more unhappiness than it was worth.

NOT because being right in itself is more important (to any organism) than happiness.

[I assume you remember my definition of happiness.]

 

"being right" is a moral obligation

Disagree.  I assert:

Some rightness/wrongness has no moral/immoral value.

Trying to be right is not necessarily moral.

Trying to be morally right is a moral obligation.

 

I further assert that the only reason any organism has to care about morality is the affect morality has on his ultimate happiness.

Happiness to a community of organisms is a separate issue.

Happiness to everything in the universe that feels happiness/unhappiness is a separate issue.

Email

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Feb 23, 2020, 7:06:50 PM2/23/20
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Cary,

Fair enough. It seems we're still at an impasse.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 23, 2020, 7:20:14 PM2/23/20
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Don,

 

True, but we can still discuss your diagram profitably.

 

Are conclusions supported by logic, or part of logic?

How are conclusions and calculations different?

Email

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Feb 23, 2020, 9:25:40 PM2/23/20
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Cary,

True, but we can still discuss your diagram profitably.


Agreed.

Are conclusions supported by logic, or part of logic?


Requisite review: 

The slide-1 causality stack:

4. Actions which affect the physical world

3. Choices, Judgements, Conclusions, Mathematics/Calculations

2. Morality, Logic, Emotion

1. Conscious Minds/Sentience


To pick nits, row 3 actually comprises 4 separate sub-rows:
3D. "Choices" are kind of the final step before an "action."
3C. "Judgements" would be a balancing of "conclusions," "morality," and "emotion."
3B. "Conclusions" would be a would be a combining of "logic" and "calculations."
3A. "Calculations" would be the quantitative extension/consequence of "logic." 

And to answer your question (first, the "real-world" answer): each row is ultimately evaluated, under the direction of the "conscious mind" down on row 1. That conscious mind might choose to evaluate (or skip over) any part of any process it chooses. A conscious mind may choose to support its "calculations," "conclusions," "judgements," "choices," and ultimately, "actions," using every applicable aspect of "logic", some applicable aspects of "logic," or even no applicable aspect of "logic."

If the "conscious mind" under consideration happens to be "omni-everything" (potentially the "source-of-the-natural-world" answer): we might expect that sort of "conscious mind" to evaluate every applicable contingency before "acting." The rest of us are likely to be more limited.

How are conclusions and calculations different?


Details are provided in 3A and 3B above.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 23, 2020, 11:10:09 PM2/23/20
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Don,

 

Are you defining these terms such that they are separate or overlapping concepts?  If they overlap, this gets mushy - you are drawing arbitrary lines, and anyone can draw boundary lines elsewhere.  The result would be that even if your diagram works, any number of counter diagrams can equally work.

Email

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Feb 24, 2020, 1:48:11 AM2/24/20
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Cary,

Are you defining these terms such that they are separate or overlapping concepts?  If they overlap, this gets mushy - you are drawing arbitrary lines, and anyone can draw boundary lines elsewhere.  The result would be that even if your diagram works, any number of counter diagrams can equally work.


None of that is really a problem. Those terms and categories are actually clear enough for the task I am trying to accomplish here. The goal is to be able to construct a causality diagram where it can be possible to "scratch our nose." That's all. But it's still a nearly impossible task (assuming we are starting from a traditional world view).

Other larger or smaller individual blocks could be used (putting more or less functionality in each block), or different names could be used. Add to this, the fact that different individual minds actually tend to use different systems for making decisions.

I spent a few years sorting out the two diagrams which I eventually used (and I am still making adjustments to them in response to your questions). In spite of the remaining  minor shortcomings, both slides are fully adequate to illustrate the coarse monster of an error in every standard global causality model -- which these two slides are intended to reveal.

If you choose to insist that I remove all "mushy" descriptions and boundaries from my attempt to diagram the "truly-mushy" and arbitrary processes which actually happen in the minds of real people -- and insist that I produce the one "unique" perfect solution (which describes no real human), then we will never get far enough along to see the real problem.

I have tried (to the best of my ability) to make the model inclusive enough that it can also reflect clear thought -- the goal being that it could also be used to model an as-close-as-possible "divine" conscious mind.

The bottom line is: "Is or isn't this a reasonable representation of how a more-or-less normal (or even "divine") conscious mind might make a choice which it can then send on -- to activate an action in the physical world (row 4) -- like scratching a nose -- or even creating a universe.

The next step (which I am attempting to steer this discussion toward) is to connect this diagram (essentially slide1) to a similar structure (slide 2) describing the "physical world," in such a manner that:

1) Our minds can exist, attached to some part of the slide-2 physical world.
and
2) Our minds can cause our slide-2 physical hands to scratch our slide-2 physical noses.

If we ever get that far, we will then encounter the real problem -- where we will see we need to make a very serious modification to all normal standard-model causality diagrams.

This will not be a "fuzzy boundary" sort of error, it will clearly be a "completely backwards" sort of error.

Here is a new candidate for the slide-1 causality stack:

4. Actions which affect the physical world

3. Choices, Judgements, Conclusions, Mathematics/Calculations

2. Morality, Logic, Emotion, Initiative (somewhat random), Senses (e.g. "itch" activated)

1. Conscious Minds/Sentience


- Don


Email

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Feb 24, 2020, 2:01:16 AM2/24/20
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Cary,

Do you find this simplified causality structure acceptable:

3. Actions which affect the physical world

2. Thought processes culminating in choices

1. Conscious Minds/Sentience


- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 24, 2020, 4:34:39 AM2/24/20
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Don,

 

YES.  That's all clear and easily defensible.

Does it do everything you want done?

 

Cary

 

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From: 'Email' via BYS vs MH
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Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Cary,

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William Zuersher

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Feb 24, 2020, 12:58:33 PM2/24/20
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Hi Brady,  Glad you're back safely and hopefully still solvent.  Thanks for this.  I think I follow so far.  I would at some point like to get back to your numbered argument, but for now, please proceed with this discussion.  Bill



Email

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Feb 24, 2020, 1:36:04 PM2/24/20
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Cary,

Does it do everything you want done?


Almost everything.  We can explore the lacking element (with more clarity) when we try to overlay the two slides.

- Don


Email

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Feb 24, 2020, 7:44:52 PM2/24/20
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Cary,

We will also need a more-easily-edited "slide 2"
(it's also reorganized and split into two parts):

First, Slide  2A: Living Chemistry (Carbon):

9A. Logic-processing brain
8A. Complex body parts (e.g. itchy nose, parietal lobe, useful finger)
7A. Cellular groups: e.g. nerves (active), skin, bones (passive)
6A. Various types of living single cells
5A. Molecules (very large range of complexity)
4A. Atoms
3A. Elementary Particles
2A. Quantum Mechanics, space/time
1A. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)

Next, Slide 2B: Mechanical Chemistry, (Silicon):

9B. Logic-processing computer ("They don't think, they just follow instructions.")
8B. Control and sequencing circuits, Math and logic processing, Memory arrays, Routing circuits
7B. Electrical interconnections, Logical processing circuits (active), Mechanical structures (passive)
6B. Insulators, Conductors, Semiconductors
5B. Molecules (very large range of complexity)
4B. Atoms
3B. Elementary particles
2B. Quantum mechanics, Space/time
1B. Harking's "fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)

(How and where are the "programs/instructions/code" added into this diagram?)

And, of course, our Slide1:

3. Actions which affect the physical world

2. Thought processes culminating in choices (includes Math and Logic somewhere)

1. Conscious Minds/Sentience


- Don



On Feb 24, 2020, at 1:34 AM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

Cary Cook

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Feb 24, 2020, 7:51:03 PM2/24/20
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Don,

 

That all looks good to me.

Thank you for splitting it into 2 slides.

 

(How and where are the "programs/instructions/code" added into this diagram?)

Good one!  Let's see how atheists answer it.

Email

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Feb 24, 2020, 11:52:14 PM2/24/20
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Cary,

We may already have lost everyone in the copious minutia.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 25, 2020, 1:03:14 AM2/25/20
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Don,

 

Maybe.

I think your most recent revisions are worthy of a presentation in front of a mixed audience.  E.g. O C Thinkers

Shane Fletcher

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Feb 25, 2020, 2:44:21 AM2/25/20
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"

(How and where are the "programs/instructions/code" added into this diagram?)

Good one!  Let's see how atheists answer it."


I've done my best to follow along, but the minutia have definitely overwhelmed me.

What exactly is the question/problem that you see?

I also have a question on "conscious minds/sentience" ... are you including here the simplest of animal minds, that are essentially doing no more than responding to stimuli? And are you including decisions made by the subconscious mind, like the ability to catch a ball sailing along a parabola in the air, whilst not consciously being aware of performing the maths required to plot it's trajectory?

Cheers
Shane

Cary Cook

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Feb 25, 2020, 4:34:09 AM2/25/20
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Shane to the rescue!

Don, I think I should let you answer this – at least to start.

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: Shane Fletcher
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2020 11:44 PM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

"

(How and where are the "programs/instructions/code" added into this diagram?)

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Shane Fletcher

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Feb 25, 2020, 6:56:43 AM2/25/20
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Well I'm happy to continue this with Brady. I don't know if there is an easy way to find our previous discussion. I thought it was on Facebook, but maybe it was here just after you asked me to join. A lot of this seems familiar, and I hesitate to repeat myself, but

"1) We have a necessary antithesis: Either everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism) or everything is what it is without intent (unintentionalism)."

That is not an antithesis. The antithesis is "Either everything is what it is via intent, or not everything is what it is via intent." The motion of matter in the materialistic world is bound by laws, that is observable, repeatable and predictable. To claim that if there was no intent at the creation of the universe, then there is no connection between anything in our universe from any moment to any moment, is something Brady will need to demonstrate.

I don't think there is any need to move further down the list till this has been addressed.


Brady

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Feb 25, 2020, 8:21:19 AM2/25/20
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Hi Bill,

Thanks for the note. I will be working on the followup tonight. What I am doing here is an expansion on the numbered argument.

Regards,

Brady

Email

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Feb 25, 2020, 12:42:55 PM2/25/20
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Cary,

I'm open to that.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 25, 2020, 9:29:39 PM2/25/20
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Cary agrees with Shane on this.

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: Shane Fletcher
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2020 3:56 AM
To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Well I'm happy to continue this with Brady. I don't know if there is an easy way to find our previous discussion. I thought it was on Facebook, but maybe it was here just after you asked me to join. A lot of this seems familiar, and I hesitate to repeat myself, but

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Email

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Feb 25, 2020, 9:59:15 PM2/25/20
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Shane,

(How and where are the "programs/instructions/code" added into this diagram?)

Good one!  Let's see how atheists answer it."


First, here is some of the "history" behind this particular question, and Cary's response to it:

This is a standard "paradox" left over from the earliest days of computers: "How does a newly-powered-up computer (without any software loaded into it yet) "know how" to perform even a task as simple as loading its own software?" The solution to this problem came to be called "bootstrapping" because the problem was, in some ways, like expecting the computer to "lift itself up by pulling upwards on its own bootstraps."

At first, the necessary initial code was entered into the computer's memory by hand, one binary instruction at a time (using manually accessible lights and switches which were added to the low-level hardware of the computer for exactly that purpose). This cumbersome process was a serious nuisance, so eventually, the required instructions were permanently hard-wired into virtually all computers. In time, this startup process came to be known as "booting" a computer.


Next, on to your actual response:

I've done my best to follow along, but the minutia have definitely overwhelmed me.

Sorry about that. I ought to have seen the need to fix/simplify the causality stacks earlier. I will attempt to keep things simpler in the future.

What exactly is the question/problem that you see?

The primary nature of the causality stacks is that each row (or layer) must be completely supported by the rows underneath it). Something on row 3 cannot cause anything on row 2 to exist, or to change. Causality (of all kinds) must proceed upwards from lower layers to higher layers. Computer memory cannot load software into itself, that code must be loaded into it  by "bootstrap" hardware, from a lower row, which is in the correct position to cause this to happen. That boot program initiates a chain of subsequently-caused events which, ultimately, comprise everything the computer actually does.

However, in this particular case, the full problem is actually very difficult to understand: The bootstrap code must first be written by a "conscious, sentient, and intelligent" human programmer, which seems to suggest a "cause" originating from a layer which has a much higher "row number" (instead of from a lower layer -- as is always required, by definition). To clearly visualize this problem, we need to align the relevant parts of all three slides. The "problem" (paradox?) is locating the top row of slide 1 ("actions"), by aligning it correctly with slide 2A, in such a way that it is below a suitably low row on slide 2B -- without doing something which is clearly "impossible" (which is exactly how this might now appear to be).

(Slide 2B now uses new causality row numbers which are intended to correspond correctly to the new Slide 2A causality row numbers. See below for details.)

The causality stacks are included here for reference (also including some emphasized edits):

First, Slide  2A: Living Chemistry (Carbon), the unconscious parts: 

 

2A-13. Complete logic-processing brain

2A-8. Complex body parts (e.g. itchy nose, parietal lobe, useful finger)

2A-7. Cellular groups: e.g. nerves (active), skin, bones (passive)

2A-6. Various types of living single cells

2A-5. Molecules (very large range of complexity)

2A-4. Atoms

2A-3. Elementary Particles

2A-2. Quantum Mechanics, space/time

2A-1. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)


Row 9 has been renumbered to 13, to remind us that we can't modify the computer's levels (9-12 below) with any sort of unconscious, logical, "mental state." We must use our hands, or our voices, or some other lower level of functionality to make any changes to the computer's hardware or code. This renumbering is part of an attempt to "functionally" align the layers in 2A with those in 2B, so that it will be easier to understand what can, and what can't, "cause" something to happen.

Next, Slide 2B: Mechanical Chemistry, (Silicon), the unconscious parts:


2B-12. Complete logic-processing computer ("They don't think, they just follow instructions.")

2B-11. Control and sequencing circuits, Math and logic processing, Memory arrays, Routing circuits

2B-10. Electrical interconnections, Logical processing circuits (active), Mechanical structures (passive)

2B-9. Insulators, Conductors, Semiconductors

2B-5. Molecules (very large range of complexity)

2B-4. Atoms

2B-3. Elementary particles

2B-2. Quantum mechanics, Space/time

2B-1. Harking's "fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)


Here, rows 6-9 have been elevated to 9-12. This is to allow human hands (2A-8) to construct or modify these computer parts.

And, of course, here is our Slide1, the conscious parts:

1-3. Actions which affect the physical world

1-2. Thought processes culminating in choices (might include Math and Logic somewhere)

1-1. Conscious Minds/Sentience


This is where our "choices" are obviously made. It has been edited (emphasized text) to allow for the lowly paramecium,(see below) which might not perform very well in symbolic logic or mathematics classes.

I also have a question on "conscious minds/sentience" ... are you including here the simplest of animal minds, that are essentially doing no more than responding to stimuli?

There are "worms" being studied which have fewer than a dozen brain cells. Even these relatively-simple creatures exhibit "behavior" which is surprising difficult to understand; however, the mystery goes clear down to the lowly "paramecium" which comprises only one single cell (and that one cell is not even a nerve cell), yet, somehow, a paramecium appears to demonstrate "deliberate" action (including approaching food and avoiding obstacles and predators -- these appear to be "choices"). Weirder yet, exposure to anesthetic gasses (e.g. ether, nitrous-oxide, and xenon) temporarily suspends this behavior -- much like how it works with humans. See Stuart Hammeroff, e.g.: https://www.quantumconsciousness.org/sites/default/files/Consciousness%20Microtubules%20and%20Quantum%20World.pdf

Although my slides 1, 2A, and 2B, were specifically designed to map humans and computers, very similar diagrams can be constructed to map a paramecium or any other critter.  For example, here is the non-conscious causality diagram for a paramecium:

 Slide  2C: A Paramecium:


2C-6. One single living cell

2C-5. Molecules (very large range of complexity)

2C-4. Atoms

2C-3. Elementary Particles

2C-2. Quantum Mechanics, space/time

2C-1. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)


The paramecium's "conscious" diagram might be anybody's guess; but the "slide 1" we're presently using (above) is sufficiently simple that (with the single adjustment indicated above) it will probably be close enough -- presuming that a paramecium does, in fact, experience something like "consciousness," as Hammeroff's experiments (link above) seem to suggest.

And are you including decisions made by the subconscious mind, like the ability to catch a ball sailing along a parabola in the air, whilst not consciously being aware of performing the maths required to plot it's trajectory?

Yes, I am: More specifically, the "cerebellum" is the structure in a human brain which "unconsciously" produces (or causes) the behavior which you have just described. My slide 1 specifically maps the causality for "conscious minds." So, instead, we might expect the "cerebellum" to be found on my non-conscious-human slide (specifically in row 2A-8, as an addition to the three examples listed there, including the brain's "parietal lobe").

If and when you attempt to fit the two pieces of the puzzle together (human conscious slide 1, and human non-conscious slide 2A), one of the choices you must make is how closely (or distantly) to locate the "conscious" and "non-conscious" parts of the human "mind" with respect to each other.

The goal here is to connect the two pieces together in such a way that a human can make a "conscious choice," (not a mere reflex action), which will then start a chain of properly caused events, which will culminate in that person's finger scratching their nose (a specific action which affects the physical world). 

I presented some thought experiments in chapter 10 of WDG:
which are intended to help sort out some of the differences between the conscious and unconscious parts of our "minds" -- with the intent of sorting out how those parts might fit into a single, unified, correct, and complete causality diagram.

- Don


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Shane Fletcher

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Feb 26, 2020, 2:09:58 AM2/26/20
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Hi Don,

"like expecting the computer to "lift itself up by pulling upwards on its own bootstraps."

"In time, this startup process came to be known as "booting" a computer."

Is that where the term actually comes from? Because that's worth the price of admission right there.

Thanks for all the clarification. That helps a lot. Especially the renumbering from 9 to 13.

"The primary nature of the causality stacks is that each row (or layer) must be completely supported by the rows underneath it). Something on row 3 cannot cause anything on row 2 to exist, or to change."

Is this what you are going for, or is this how you believe things must be? Because large macro things can certainly change atomic things. Magnets and batteries come immediately to mind. As does the Large Hadron Collider. And there are man made elements, that didn't exist until we caused them to exist. And more artificial molecules than I could count.

So while we certainly exist because of the lower levels on the Slide, there comes a point where it is not simply one way traffic. The point I am trying to make, is that it doesn't seem like the top levels of the Slides have to be all taking, and no giving.

"The goal here is to connect the two pieces together in such a way that a human can make a "conscious choice," (not a mere reflex action), which will then start a chain of properly caused events, which will culminate in that person's finger scratching their nose (a specific action which affects the physical world). "

So what about the Paramecium? Are we asking the same questions about it, making it's "choices" that affect the physical world, or not, because it doesn't have a brain, and therefore doesn't have consciousness?

Cheers
Shane

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Feb 26, 2020, 4:48:34 PM2/26/20
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Hi Shane,

"like expecting the computer to "lift itself up by pulling upwards on its own bootstraps."

"In time, this startup process came to be known as "booting" a computer."

Is that where the term actually comes from? Because that's worth the price of admission right there.


I used to enter a "bootstrap loader" by hand, until I got tired of it, programmed it into a "bootstrap" ROM (also by hand), and then hand-wired it into the first working computer I ever built.

Thanks for all the clarification. That helps a lot. Especially the renumbering from 9 to 13.

I should have noticed that and fixed it earlier.

"The primary nature of the causality stacks is that each row (or layer) must be completely supported by the rows underneath it). Something on row 3 cannot cause anything on row 2 to exist, or to change."

Is this what you are going for, or is this how you believe things must be?

It actually always must be true - in the final analysis; causes cannot be circular; Esher's Hands-Drawing-Hands cannot draw themselves; and no effect can ever be its own cause (not even indirectly).

This can appear to be complicated, in real life, because "loops" do happen -- like a "feedback loop" when you put a microphone too close to a speaker when setting up a public-address (P.A.) system. But in all of these cases, there are two restrictions which separate them from being causally paradoxical:

1) You have to add energy from a separate source (e.g. the P.A. system's power plug) to keep the system going (the "cause" is not self-sufficient).

2) There is a delay around the loop between each "repetition" of the sound: causes can "trigger" future events (although they cannot also "power" them), and those future events can "trigger" events which are even farther into the future. But those future "effects" can never initiate the whole process.

Although this is an example of one cause triggering a chain of events (lika a boot program loading and running other programs) it isn't really an "effect" being it's own "cause."

Because large macro things can certainly change atomic things. Magnets and batteries come immediately to mind. As does the Large Hadron Collider.

"Size" isn't really an issue.

"Magnets" "are made from," "are a result of," and "are caused by" large collections of atomic particles. In fact, they are really nothing more than "a mental abstraction" (a way of thinking about) a whole bunch of separate "magnetic" atoms -- taken together as a whole. When we say (abstractly) that the "magnet" in a "collider" causes the "velocity" of a moving particle to change, we are really making an abstract reference to how the primordial laws of physics cause elementary particles to interact with each other. 

Batteries just add the "chemistry" abstraction layer to the mix.

 And there are man made elements, that didn't exist until we caused them to exist. And more artificial molecules than I could count.

A human genetic engineer can certainly modify a DNA molecule from one critter and even create a new different living critter from that modified DNA. Were it not for the "time delay" (like in the P.A. feedback loop above), this would allow him to design and create himself ("his literal self," not merely a clone of himself). Any genetically-modified critter he designs really belongs up on the same causality levels (9-12) as computers occupy -- where the human designer's hands (level 8) can modify them. The same applies to simpler synthetic chemicals.

This isn't really "circular causality." True "circular causality" and "circular reasoning" have very similar properties. Neither reflect an accurate representation of actual reality.

The same argument could be made for the man-made transuranium elements (that they belong on levels 9-12). However, this time you're getting sufficiently close to catching the featured error (in all standard causality diagrams) that, instead, I'm going to try to encourage you by "focusing" your objection, bringing us closer to the real solution:

So, yes, "humans" can cause changes, even right next to the very bottom of the stack -- in particular, even all the way down to the Q.M. level: According to virtually all physicists, by merely "observing" Schrödinger's cat (no level-8 hands required), experimenters can cause it to change its state of existence. (This is universally agreed upon as being very weird -- bordering on spooky.)

(Furthermore, according to "Wheeler's Delayed-Choice Experiment" (and the "Bell experiment"), the choices we make now in how we make our "observations" can actually cause changes to events which appear to have already happened in the past -- but that might take too long to explain here.)

The trick is to align slide 1, relative to 2A/2B, so that "causes by mere observation" becomes possible. (If you can do that, "scratching your nose" becomes trivial.)

So while we certainly exist because of the lower levels on the Slide,

Clue: This is mostly true, but also partly false.

there comes a point where it is not simply one way traffic.

Clue: Causes must always be below effects (even if we must put transuranium elements above our level-8 hands to achieve this).

The point I am trying to make, is that it doesn't seem like the top levels of the Slides have to be all taking, and no giving.

Same clue again here.

"The goal here is to connect the two pieces together in such a way that a human can make a "conscious choice," (not a mere reflex action), which will then start a chain of properly caused events, which will culminate in that person's finger scratching their nose (a specific action which affects the physical world). "

So what about the Paramecium? Are we asking the same questions about it, making it's "choices" that affect the physical world, or not,

Indeed we are.

because it doesn't have a brain, and therefore doesn't have consciousness?

Stuart Hammeroff (and Roger Penrose) have explained theoretically, and have demonstrated experimentally, how a Paramecium can be, and quite likely is, something very much like "conscious." Their argument is that quantum-mechanical effects in nano-tubules (as well as in nerve cells -- which also contain nano-tubules) are the critical active elements. Here's the link again: https://www.quantumconsciousness.org/sites/default/files/Consciousness%20Microtubules%20and%20Quantum%20World.pdf

That should be about the last missing piece required to finish the puzzle.

- Don


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Cary Cook

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Feb 26, 2020, 9:46:00 PM2/26/20
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Don,

 

That section on causes cannot be circular was great!

May I paraphrase it and put it out on Facebook?

 

But then later you say observations can cause changes to events which appear to have happened in the past.  So, I can't follow you there.

 

Please give us a revision of your slides that has all the numbering correct.  That's necessary in order to even begin to follow you.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: 'Email' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 1:48 PM
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Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Hi Shane,

Email

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Feb 26, 2020, 11:14:05 PM2/26/20
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Cary,

That section on causes cannot be circular was great!

May I paraphrase it and put it out on Facebook?


Probably.  But I'd like to know what, exactly, I'm approving before I approve it.

But then later you say observations can cause changes to events which appear to have happened in the past. 


It's probably the single weirdest part of Q.M., so weird that the "Bell experiment" was designed and performed, to try to figure out what had "gone wrong." However, the Bell experiment produced results which were even harder to explain.

So, I can't follow you there.


I'm not sure anyone really "follows" what it means. I finally gave believing in the "physical" and went with "spiritual monism" instead.

One interesting effect (of having a universe which works this way) is that both John Calvin and James Arminius turn out to have interpreted the relevant parts of scripture "correctly." Yes, we make our own choices, and yes, "the universe" anticipated and prepared for (in advance) every specific choice.

Please give us a revision of your slides that has all the numbering correct.  That's necessary in order to even begin to follow you.


Is this good enough?:

Slide 2A: Living Chemistry (Carbon), the unconscious parts: 

 

2A-13. Complete logic-processing brain

2A-8. Complex body parts (e.g. itchy nose, parietal lobe, useful finger)

2A-7. Cellular groups: e.g. nerves (active), skin, bones (passive)

2A-6. Various types of living single cells

2A-5. Molecules (very large range of complexity)

2A-4. Atoms

2A-3. Elementary Particles

2A-2. Quantum Mechanics, space/time

2A-1. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)


Slide 2B: Mechanical Chemistry, (Silicon), the unconscious parts:


2B-12. Complete logic-processing computer ("They don't think, they just follow instructions.")

2B-11. Control and sequencing circuits, Math and logic processing, Memory arrays, Routing circuits

2B-10. Electrical interconnections, Logical processing circuits (active), Mechanical structures (passive)

2B-9. Insulators, Conductors, Semiconductors

2B-5. Molecules (very large range of complexity)

2B-4. Atoms

2B-3. Elementary particles

2B-2. Quantum mechanics, Space/time

2B-1. Harking's "fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)


Slide1, the conscious parts:

1-3. Actions which affect the physical world

1-2. Thought processes culminating in choices (might include Math and Logic somewhere)

1-1. Conscious Minds/Sentience


- Don


Shane Fletcher

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Feb 27, 2020, 1:31:34 AM2/27/20
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Thanks for the reply. I am familiar with the Double Slit & the Delay Choice experiments. Fascinating stuff. But I now understand what you mean about the cause and effect. The confusion about the scale being the issue, was due to the way the list was ordered from smallest to largest.

So ... why isn't Slide 1 simply coming after 2A-13? You need the brain before you can have a mind, that has thought processes, and can make actions with the body that affect the physical world? That's the cause and effect of it all. I mean it can't occur earlier in the cause and effect chain. What am I missing?

Cheers
Shane

Cary Cook

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Feb 27, 2020, 4:01:16 AM2/27/20
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Don,

 

The jump in numbering sequence in 2A & 2B is confusing.

Even if you explain it perfectly, it will case confusion.

--------------------------------

I propose this paraphrase:

-------------------------------------

Causes cannot be circular.

 

This can appear to be complicated, because "loops" do happen -- like a "feedback loop" when you put a microphone too close to a speaker when setting up a P.A. system. But in all of these cases, there are two restrictions which separate them from being causally paradoxical:

 

1) You have to add energy from a separate source (e.g. the P.A. system's power plug) to keep the system going (the "cause" is not self-sufficient).

 

2) There is a delay around the loop between each "repetition" of the sound: causes can "trigger" future events (though they cannot also "power" them), and those future events can "trigger" events which are even farther into the future. But those future "effects" can never initiate the whole process.

 

Though this is an example of one cause triggering a chain of events (like a boot program loading and running other programs) it isn't really an "effect" being it's own "cause."

 

by physicist Don Stoner http://www.dstoner.net/

Email

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Feb 27, 2020, 2:46:53 PM2/27/20
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Hi Shane,

Thanks for the reply. I am familiar with the Double Slit & the Delay Choice experiments. Fascinating stuff. But I now understand what you mean about the cause and effect. The confusion about the scale being the issue, was due to the way the list was ordered from smallest to largest.

We're off to a very good start!  I'll try to figure out a way to explain the scale-issue up front.

So ... why isn't Slide 1 simply coming after 2A-13?

Because the resulting "actions" would point upwards, off the edge of the chart, to non-existent higher levels above level 13.

You need the brain before you can have a mind, that has thought processes,

The lesson from Stuart Hammeroff's paramecium experiments is that this nearly-universally-held, "standard causality assumption" appears to be simply false: sngle-celled critters appear to "make choices" without brains. At the risk of quoting "Bob" from the cartoon flick, Monsters and Aliens: "It turns out you don't need a brain."

and can make actions with the body that affect the physical world?

What Roger Penrose adds to Hammeroff's experiment, is the supporting-understanding of the mechanism whereby quantum-mechanical effects link to microtubules (in paramecium and in brain cells) -- the understanding of how Q.M. effects can affect the physical actions of living cells. (We can also see this from simply examining the lower position of Q.M. on our causality diagram).

That's the cause and effect of it all.

Except that the "whole brain" (which is merely a "large abstraction" of billions of complex microscopic processes which are operating independently within it) sits up on causality level 13, where "it" can't operate a level-8 hand. That has to be done through the agency of level-7 nerves, which, in-turn, require the actions of level-6 nerve cells (still part of the brain) -- on down the chain, until we finally get to the actual "choice" which ultimately triggers the "real-world" action.

I mean it can't occur earlier in the cause and effect chain. What am I missing?

That it must occur lower in the cause-and-effect chain. (In a primordial part of the brain).

You are using the traditional, standard, (Newtonial-physics, naturalistic-philosophy), cause-and-effect model which has been programmed into your thought processes -- beginning from a very young age. It would probably be just as difficult for you, as it was for many upper-division university physics students (which I have personally watched), to look at the results of the Michelson-Morley, or delayed-choice experiments, and believe what your/their own observations are telling you/them.

Those upper-division physics students actually do crazy thing like loose their cool, and shout, "This thing's broken," while they give the Michelson-interferrometer they were just using a violent shove. I've also watched brilliant philosophers shake their heads after hearing accurate descriptions of Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment, and ask, "Do physicists really believe that rubbish?"

The bottom line is, "No, it's not broken," and, "Yes, we've observed it with our own eyes."

The only way that our thoughts can affect any physical change, in the universe, is if we initiate the resulting actions from the bottom of the causality stack -- from right where Penrose and Hammeroff (neither of whom are backwoods preachers) are telling us that consciousness actually happens.

What you're missing is the requisite immersion in the century of scientific advancement between Newtonian-based, naturalistic philosophy, and the newer, seemingly-winged-out, modern physics -- which has actually replaced it.


Connect level 1-1 with 2A-1, level 1-2 with 2A-2, and level 1-3 with 2A-3 (and up), (as Penrose and Hammeroff have recommend) and everything will begin to make logical sense -- but in a very different kind of way. (Merges in italics, New edits in bold italics):

2A-13. Complete logic-processing brain

2B-12. Complete logic-processing computer ("They don't think, they just follow instructions.")

2B-11. Control and sequencing circuits, Math and logic processing, Memory arrays, Routing circuits

2B-10. Electrical interconnections, Logical processing circuits (active), Mechanical structures (passive)

2B-9. Insulators, Conductors, Semiconductors

2A-8. Complex body parts (e.g. cerebellum, itchy nose, parietal lobe, useful finger)

2A-7. Cellular groups: e.g. nerves (active), skin, bones (passive)

2A-6. Various types of living single cells

2A-5. Molecules (very large range of complexity)

2A-4. Atoms

2A-3. Elementary Particles

2A-2. Quantum Mechanics, space/time

2A-1. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)

1-3. Actions which affect the physical world

1-2. Thought processes culminating in choices (might include Math and Logic somewhere)

1-1. Conscious Minds/Sentience  (might include ontological Math and Logic somewhere)


- Don


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Email

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Feb 27, 2020, 3:14:20 PM2/27/20
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Hi Cary,
 

The jump in numbering sequence in 2A & 2B is confusing.

Even if you explain it perfectly, it will case confusion.


In my reply to Shane, I put the human and computer parts back together into a single table (but keeping the causality levels distinct, preserving the new row numbers). Is this an acceptable solution?


--------------------------------

I propose this paraphrase:

-------------------------------------

Causes cannot be circular.

 

This can appear to be complicated, because "loops" do happen -- like a "feedback loop" when you put a microphone too close to a speaker when setting up a P.A. system. But in all of these cases, there are two restrictions which separate them from being causally paradoxical:

 

1) You have to add energy from a separate source (e.g. the P.A. system's power plug) to keep the system going (the "cause" is not self-sufficient).

 

2) There is a delay around the loop between each "repetition" of the sound: causes can "trigger" future events (though they cannot also "power" them), and those future events can "trigger" events which are even farther into the future. But those future "effects" can never initiate the whole process.

 

Though this is an example of one cause triggering a chain of events (like a boot program loading and running other programs) it isn't really an "effect" being it's own "cause."

 

by physicist Don Stoner http://www.dstoner.net/


Your edits were probably all improvemebpnts.

- Don


Shane Fletcher

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Feb 27, 2020, 6:28:18 PM2/27/20
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Hi Don,

Why is there a hard limit on cause and effect at 13? We’ve agreed that things interact with other levels in all sorts of loops.

If the list is supposed to be physical things, why does 13 exist at all? Shouldn’t the physical end at 8? And then it’s the interactions between other things in level 8 that give various cause and effects.

Cheers
Shane

Cary Cook

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Feb 27, 2020, 6:50:27 PM2/27/20
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Don,

 

Are you saying it’s like this?

Slide 1

Slide 2A

Slide 2B

 

 

13

12

11

10

9

 

8

7

6

5

4

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

3

2

1

3

2

1

Email

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Feb 27, 2020, 7:22:31 PM2/27/20
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Cary,

Move the "13" from column 2B to column 2A -- then I think you've got what I'm thinking. I used level 13 (instead of 9-12) to emphasize the fact that a human brain couldn't directly cause any changes to parts of a computer; but, unfortunately, it's equally true that "parts of a computer" have no obvious direct causal access to human brains. Maybe something like a "Y-shaped" graph (with causal isolation between the two branches) would be a more correct representation.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 27, 2020, 8:59:06 PM2/27/20
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Don,

 

Then like this?

That’s a weird looking paradigm.

I think I’ll wait for your Y shaped paradigm before trying to figure it out.

Shane Fletcher

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Feb 27, 2020, 9:46:45 PM2/27/20
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Also, 6,7&8 should not be in the 2C slide, because they organic elements that don’t exist in a computer.

Email

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Feb 27, 2020, 11:12:53 PM2/27/20
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Shane, (and Cary will also find this interesting),

Great reply, thanks!


Why is there a hard limit on cause and effect at 13?

Because "the brain," itself, as a whole, doesn't really do anything useful. The only useful property of that "blob of protoplasm" is that it is a conceptually-useful abstraction for the billions of lower-level microscopic processes which are operating within it. Those lower processes are where we find the causality levels which are actually operative.

We’ve agreed that things interact with other levels in all sorts of loops.

If you are now addressing something which "we've agreed" upon, then that type of "loop" involves no causal initiative. Real-world causality "loops" are neither self energizing (sufficient cause) nor able to "initiate" anything  (causal source). Any sufficient, causal source of initiative must come from a lower level.

If the list is supposed to be physical things, why does 13 exist at all?

This is actually a really good question! Unfortunately, the wording is a little bit ambiguous, so, I'll answer it the most obvious way, but I'll also add some (probably unnecessary) clarifying detail:

Level 13 was added (awkwardly) to mark the place on slide 2A where "choices" are commonly believed to occur (but actually don't). The level is functionally useless -- except as the necessary false target -- since it's no more than the sum of (or an abstraction of) its level-8 components -- but then, the same is also true of every level all the way down.

Incidentally, the operative distinction is not physical/non-physical, it's conscious/non-conscious. However, as it turns out, (and as you apparently noticed), the two descriptions mark off a nearly identical division. Level 13 is on the (mostly) physical, non-conscious list. The "brain" is a conceptually-useful abstraction of the (mostly) physical properties (physical, chemical, electrical) which operate within it. All of these things are "physical" and "non-conscious" as is the "blob of protoplasm" description of the brain. Ergo, level 13 appears to belong on the 2A list.

OTOH, the brain's quantum-mechanical properties (level 2) are, arguably, either physical and non-conscious (the foundational source of all physical matter), or both non-physical and conscious (the compositional stuff of "choice"). This ambiguity provides the obvious point of connection between the two lists (conscious/non-physical slide 1 and non-conscious/physical slide 2A).

Shouldn’t the physical end at 8?
And then it’s the interactions between other things in level 8 that give various cause and effects.

If we eliminate any single place for a philosophical naturalist to point to (as the likely site for the presently-unexplained, mysterious, "emergent" phenomena of consciousness, then we have no reason to stop there:       level-8 effects are "given" by level-7 causes,
                       and level-7 effects are "given" by level-6 causes,
                       and level-6 effects are "given" by level-5 causes,
                       and level-5 effects are "given" by level-4 causes,
                       and level-4 effects are "given" by level-3 causes,
                       and level-3 effects are "given" by level-2 causes,
and  level-2 quantum mechanics are "given" by "consciousness," "math," and "logic."
... Which is actually the explanation for everything, and the point I'm trying to make; but it also completely eliminates the "puzzle" I'm trying to design here.

The level-13 "fork" is graphically cumbersome, but avoiding it makes the puzzle appear (to beginners) to have the single most important piece missing. Leaving off man-made objects (transuranium elements and computer "brains") would eliminate that problem, but would invite questions about where that stuff would belong. These questions would be difficult to answer (as we have just seen) -- if we don't simply start by presenting the correct version of the diagram -- which makes for a really lousy "puzzle."

- Don


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Email

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Feb 27, 2020, 11:42:34 PM2/27/20
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Cary,

The "Y" problem might be a bit more complicated than I presumed.
 Check my 8:12 p.m. reply to Shane for the  details.

- Don


Cary Cook

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Feb 28, 2020, 2:40:52 AM2/28/20
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Don,

 

I agree with slide1 as I understand it.

I agree with 2A & B 1,2,3,4,5 as I understand them.

After that, only vignettes make sense to me, but I can’t put them together as you claim to have done.

Upon re-examination, it looks like this.

Slide 1

Slide 2A

Slide 2B

 

13

 

12

11

10

9

 

8

7

6

5

4

 

 

 

5

4

 

 

1

3

2

1

3

2

1

Slide 1-2 & 3 don’t appear to correspond to slide 2-2 & 3.

2A-6,7,8, appear right according to my limited understanding of biology.

2B-9,10,11,12 I don’t understand electronics & computers enough to comment on.  I just have to take your word for them.

2A-13 appears to go where 2A9 would go if there was one.

That’s all I can do presently.

Shane Fletcher

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Feb 28, 2020, 2:47:51 AM2/28/20
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Okay, as consciousness as an end goal, I can see why you went to 13. I have no problem pointing to cerebellum cells at level 8 and saying consciousness emerged from them, when you have them connected in a certain way, but that's okay.

I think I have a grasp of what you're trying to say, and the problem you're proposing. Here's what I think.

(How and where are the "programs/instructions/code" added into this diagram?)

You seem to be asking about where choices are made. It seems obvious that this occurs at level 6 with living cells. It's unambiguous observed behaviour. The repeatability in molecule construction at level 5 indicates that they are not making choices at this point.

Yes, I am: More specifically, the "cerebellum" is the structure in a human brain which "unconsciously" produces (or causes) the behavior which you have just described. My slide 1 specifically maps the causality for "conscious minds." So, instead, we might expect the "cerebellum" to be found on my non-conscious-human slide (specifically in row 2A-8, as an addition to the three examples listed there, including the brain's "parietal lobe").

Again, I don't have a problem saying that cerebellum cells, when in the right number and configuration, can produce consciousness. Any combination of specific cells can make a plant, or leg muscle, or any number of complex things which are more than the sum of their parts.

1-3. Actions which affect the physical world

1-2. Thought processes culminating in choices (might include Math and Logic somewhere)

1-1. Conscious Minds/Sentience

And here is where I think you have things backwards. I believe consciousness is the last step on that ladder. I believe all thought processes and choices are made unconsciously, and consciousness is just a construction of the choices being made. Like a monitor displaying the output of a computer, which is busily doing the processing work. It seems to indicate something bigger is at play, but really it is just the end product of the computations, which have already completed, some time in the (not too distant) past.

We know that consciousness is a snap shot of the past. Things you see, is light that hit your retina, was converted to electrical impulses, sent to the brain, which then built them into a construction that would make sense to you (after first flipping the image, top to bottom and left to right). This all takes time, so everything you see, is the past. Same for everything you smell, hear, taste & touch. The present doesn't exist. Just the future, and the past.

Any choice I am consciously thinking about, is also occurring in the past. Again, it is the brain working, which takes non 0 time, so at the point I think I have made a decision, my consciousness is just catching up to the workings of my cerebellum.

Assuming that you can get on board with that, then the dilemma is no longer how do we make conscious choices, but rather the idea of "bootstrapping" the brain, to make choices at all. Actually you might be okay with that, if you agree that the paramecium can make choices at level 6. These are simply are being that can move, responding to stimuli.  Looking for things it wants, and avoiding things it doesn't. Making choices, and taking actions that affect the world.

So maybe the dilemma is how does consciousness arise from cerebellum? Why are animals conscious? As multi cellular creatures grew bigger and more complex, their ability to respond to stimuli also increased. And eventually you get to a point where you can't have every response you need hard coded as a chemical reaction. You get nerve cells and tiny brains, that can route that external stimuli from various locations in their body to one central point that can then respond to it. And the last step of the puzzle, is a storage system. You have to be able to remember.

You need to be able to remember past experiences (in a more complex way than your immune system "remembers" past illnesses via anti-bodies), and make choices based on those memories. When the experiences, through the senses are at a certain level, and the memories can have a certain level of fidelity, then you have a life form that has consciousness.

So, does that answer the question? Choices are happening from level 6, that result in actions that affect the world. Levels 7 & 8 result in multi cellular organisms that are continuing to make choices, and eventually get complex enough to have consciousness.

Cheers
Shane

Shane Fletcher

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Feb 28, 2020, 2:51:14 AM2/28/20
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I think Don has put 2B9-12 where they are, in order to show that a computer does not have consciousness. Perhaps there are other steps required to create an actual AI, that would get it to 2B-13

Shane

Email

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Feb 28, 2020, 3:44:24 PM2/28/20
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Hi Cary, (and also Shane),

Slide 1-2 & 3 don’t appear to correspond to slide 2-2 & 3.


For reference:

1-2. Thought processes culminating in choices (might include Math and Logic somewhere)

and:

2A-2. Quantum Mechanics, space/time

2A-1. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)



Re. First half of 1-2:

1-2. Thought processes culminating in choices ...


According to Hammeroff and Penrose (and to my arguments in WDG and here) "thought" processes are "quantum-mechanical" processes (in addition to being the cause of elementary particles, atoms, molecules, etc.).

2A-2. Quantum Mechanics, ...


So, "Quantum Mechanics" actually includes "Thought processes." (Ergo, same layer)


Re. second half of 2A-2:

2A-2. ..., space/time


According to Einstein, "space/time is" no more than the "medium" in which Q.M. exists. A Einstein put it, "If you removed all matter and energy (both are abstractions of Q.M. structures) from the universe, time and space would simply cease to exist." Another way he put it is, "There is no Aether." (The imaginary stuff that "space" was supposed to be "made out of.")  Ergo, space/time is a simultaneous consequence of Q.M. (not a time-delayed effect).


Re. second half of 1-2:

1-2. ...  (might include Math and Logic somewhere)


Math and logic are available on 1-2 because of support from 2A-1:

2A-1. Harking's "Fire"   (creator? ontological logic/math?)



Re. 1-3 and 2-3

1-3. Actions which affect the physical world


The "physical world," which the level 1-2 "choices" (causes) can affect, is:

2A-3. Elementary Particles, ... 2A-4. Atoms, ... 2A-6. Molecules, ... etc. on up the stack



I guess none of that was as obvious as I thought it was.


And, Finally:

2A-13 appears to go where 2A9 would go if there was one.


"Brains" are "real" (in the sense that they are physical structures), but they don't add anything new to the top of the causality structure (above level 2A-8) -- making them "non-physical" (in the sense that they only exist as an abstraction). Adding a "causality" entry for the entire "body" would cause similar problems (since it is not really "created" by its parts, but is merely an "abstraction" of, and a simultaneous consequence of those parts.

As I tried to explain to Shane (but seem to have failed), that "causality" block was added as a "decoy" (in this case, as a false target) because everyone is expecting to see it there -- holding a presumedly "emergent sentient mind" (which is not "supposed" to exist on any level below level 9). 

Unfortunately, since this entry is phony, it turns out that there is no place to put it where it doesn't create logical absurdities: Level 13 is too high (where it could be created by a human creation); and level 9 is too low (where it ought to be able to construct computers without the aid of hands).

That paradox essentially destroys the elegance of the puzzle which I was attempting to construct. I would either have to include absurdities on it (putting minds potentially on the same levels as their creations), or make the puzzle appear to be missing its most important single piece (having no realistic place to put a block where everyone is expecting to see the source of "mind").

Maybe I should point out that I have omitted "minds" (on a 1-piece puzzle) and invite challengers to show me where they belong -- without causing either of the two absurdities which I have just identified. 

- Don


Brady

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Feb 28, 2020, 7:10:31 PM2/28/20
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Hi Bill,

Sorry about the delay. I caught something on the flight home and have been really sick for the last few days. No, it wasn't Corona, but the Doctor did give me a lime wedge for some reason.

Now that my brain is working again, let me continue on our discussion. I will keep this one short.

Let's now turn to Intentionalism and see if the elements give us at least one scenario that would allow for knowledge. I do want to stress that we want to see if there are the necessary and sufficient preconditions for knowledge from the elements. The one thing we want to avoid is Ad Hoc speculation.

The elements of Intentionalism are that things are what they are via intent. Intent requires an intender. So, we have the scenario that the universe was created (is what it is) with the intent that it could be known, and creatures were created with the intent that they could (at least in some ways) possibly know it. It is possible that we may think of scenarios within this framework that don't allow for knowledge, but we do have at least one that does.

If you have any questions or would like to add anything, I will stop here for comments.

Regards,

Brady





Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 


Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2020 7:46 AM

To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Cary wrote: "Do you, or do you not have a coherent presentation of TAG?"

 

Yes Cary,

 

And I gave you a succinct version of it in my last post.

 

Let me outline it for you. Anything other than the outline will become an essay.

 

1) We have a necessary antithesis: Either everything is what it is via intent (intentionalism) or everything is what it is without intent (unintentionalism).

 

2)  By examining the elements of Intentionalism, we find there is at least one scenario that has the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge.

 

3) By examining the elements of Unintentionalism, we find not only that the elements do not have the necessary and sufficient preconditions that allow for the possibility of knowledge, but they make the possibility of knowledge impossible.

 

***** Please note here, even though we have an antithesis we are not doing a disjunctive syllogism.

 

4) We do not know, nor can we know which of the above two options is the case. Thus there will be no "Therefore, God."

 

5) However, if one wants to say that he knows something, anything, we have to ask what are the necessary and sufficient preconditions for his knowledge claim to be true? Intentionalism can be part, if not the whole, of those preconditions. It has at least 1 scenario that allows for the possibility of knowledge.

 

6) Unintentionalism cannot be part, or the whole, of the necessary and sufficient preconditions for one's knowledge since Unintentionalism denies the possibility of knowledge.

 

7) So, it may be the case, in spite of our declaration of knowing, that there is no knowledge at all. However, if we make a knowledge claim, we must realize that Intentionalism will have to be part of the necessary and sufficient preconditions for the possibility of that claim to be true. That doesn't mean the knowledge claim is true, but for it to possibly be true intentionalism must be accepted as a precondition.

 

Going back to Bill's "DEFECT", I hope you and others can see I am not denying one leg of a disjunct and then saying that the other leg is therefore true. The above argument is not a disjunctive argument. My big objection is that Bill knew his presentation was wrong days prior to giving his presentation; and he decided to give his strawman presentation anyways. He made the group he spoke in front of weaker; and worse yet, he has not (to my knowledge) tried to go back and remedy the situation. If any of those he taught comes across a theist that knows the above, their attempts to refute the TA will fail, making them look like fools because Bill taught them to refute an argument that is a strawman.

 

I hope this clears things up, Cary. Should you want an essay explaining any part of the above, let me know.

 

Regards,

 

Brady

 

 

 

On Friday, February 14, 2020, 8:01:43 PM EST, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

 

 

Brady,

 

I'm not going to address all of you points.  Only one matters.

Do you, or do you not have a coherent presentation of TAG?

Not a discussion; not a copy-paste of Van Til or Bahnsen; not a long essay with links to references.

Just coherent presentation of TAG.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 


Sent: Friday, February 14, 2020 7:36 AM

To: bys-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TAG Defective?

 

Hi Cary,

 

Let me address a few things.

 

1) It seems that those who reject the argument are the ones that seem to bail on the discussions, William, our friend on FB, wasn't interested in continuing after I created two videos which were the start of my presentation. As for Bill, He wanted to talk about it via phone. I gave him my number so we could talk. After a week and no response, I emailed him again and asked to talk. Still no response.

 

2) I presented the argument in full on this forum in a discussion with an atheist, I think it was with Sean. That was a number of years ago.

 

3) What defect do you think Bill found? As I pointed out in my comment on his youtube video. He tries to change the transcendental argument into a deductive argument (modus tollendo ponens). The problem is that a transcendental argument is not a deductive argument. Thus, he created a strawman fallacy (i.e defeating an argument that is not the transcendental argument).; but, maybe you are talking about something else that I missed. Please let me know if you are.

 

4) Cary wrote: "I find TAG sufficient to convince me of the probability (not necessity) of a Supreme Being." Yes Cary, now you got it. The Transcendental Argument does not end with, "Therefore, God." You are left with two positions, Intentionalism and Unintentionalism. We don't know which one is true. All we can get from it is that Intentionalism has the elements that allow for the possibility of knowledge and Unintentionalism does not have the elements that allow for the possibility of knowledge. If we say we know anything, we have to presume the position that allows for the possibility of knowledge. It makes no sense to assert you have knowledge and them presume a position that doesn't allow for the possibility of knowledge.

 

So, Cary, do you know anything?

 

Regards,

 

Brady

 

 

On Friday, February 14, 2020, 1:30:52 AM EST, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:

 

 

I find TAG sufficient to convince me of the probability (not necessity) of a Supreme Being.  But I must admit that my understanding of TAG consists of vignettes connected intuitively, but not rigorously.

 

I have never seen TAG rigorously stated, neither by Van Till, Bahnsen, Passantinos, Russ Manion, or Brady Lenardos.  Brady has agreed to present such a statement to one person I know of, and delivered a beginning, but then dropped the discussion.

 

Bill Zuersher has shown a defect in TAG as I understand TAG.  Brady has said Bill's understanding of TAG is defective, but has not given us his supposedly correct version of TAG.

 

I still have a sloppy 80% probability judgment that a Supreme Being exists, but that's all.

 

Cary

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

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