David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
Zack Alright
Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" can be found on Friedman's site here:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/Ought_From_Is.html
I'm certain the vast majority of doctrinaire "Objectivists" who
currently frequent this newsgroup are familiar with it. I've yet to
see anyone offer a substantive critique (the only interesting thread I
found in a brief search of google's extensive archives misses the
point.)
Allow me to briefly restate the core objection-
Objectivists argue all organisms face a life versus death world. All
non-humans automatically act for their survival*, while homo sapiens,
a higher species to be sure, must choose. The only sure-fire method of
survival for humans is survival by rationality; Man qua man.
The problem, assuming Darwin approximately got it right, is that
natural selection does not necessarily favor rationality, and
certainly does not reward survival of reproductive success. Indeed,
survival (and rationality) are only important in so far as they
contribute to our genetic legacy.
So let's assume two organisms, Randriods and Darwinites, are competing
for resources. Randroids enjoy an easier, happier existence. However,
all Randroids are infertile (which contributes to their comfortable
individual lifestyles). It's no surprise, then, the average life-span
of a Randroid is twice that of your typical Darwinite. Darwinites,
unfortunately, are constantly struggling, mostly because they have
utterly failed to devise more rational methods of resource
acquisition. But Darwinites, unlike their counterparts, are extremely
fertile and strongly inclined towards reproduction.
In the long run, we're all dead -- but Randroids will most assuredly
die off first.
"Objectivists" mistake the individual as the fundamental unit of
analysis over the gene. Maybe some of Darwin's contemporaries take the
selfish gene idea, popularized by famed zoologist Richard Dawkins, too
far... but you don't have to be an evolutionary psychologist to see
the importance of natural selection and reproductive success. These
ideas are completely missing from the "Objectivist" literature (as I
know it).
___
* A plant does not "seek survival" anymore than a river "seeks" the
ocean or a missile "seeks" its target.
grelbr
1914.4...@posting.google.com>...
[snip]
> all Randroids are infertile
[snip]
Aherm. Ahem.
Maybe you want to rework that little gem a bit.
grelbr
Atlas Shrugged
are discussing is in the realm of science and not philosophy. Darwin's
theories clearly dealt with groups such as species. Rationality is a
property of individuals, so you're mixing apples and oranges right there.
Your "randroid vs. darwinite" argument is flawed also. I'm not sure which
species you consider to be human, but neither one appears to be human
according to your description. Let's assume that the former exterminates
the latter for wasting resources. So their reproductive abilities are
useless and your conclusion falls apart.
Paul
"Zack Alright" <qofr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:11599c23.02051...@posting.google.com...
RussK
> One of the simplest, most accessible and devastating arguments against
> Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" can be found on Friedman's site here:
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/Ought_From_Is.html
>
> I'm certain the vast majority of doctrinaire "Objectivists" who
> currently frequent this newsgroup are familiar with it. I've yet to
> see anyone offer a substantive critique (the only interesting thread I
> found in a brief search of google's extensive archives misses the
> point.)
>
In his argument, David uses a quote from one of Rand's characters:
^^There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence
or non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to
living organisms. ... But a plant has no choice of action; ...: it acts
automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
An animal ... . But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to ignore its
own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own
destroyer.^^
David goes on to say that the statement is false, and gives some
examples of why it's false. He then goes on to say: ^^Some
philosophies...could dismiss all of this as irrelevant to metaphysical
argument. But Objectivism claims to base its conclusions on the facts
of reality--and the fact with which Rand starts her argument is false.^^
With that said, lets look at Ayn Rand's quote.
1) There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence
or non-existence. It pertains to living organisms. This is true.
2) A plant--living entity--has no choice of action; it acts
automatically to further its life, and cannot act for its own
destruction. This is also true.
3) An animal cannot choose evil. This is also true, an animal or insect
does not posses the same volitional faculty that a human does.
To try and prove Ayn Rand's quote as being false, David gives an example
of a male mantis mating with a female mantis, and the final step of the
process is the male mantis being eaten by the female. This does nothing
to prove the quote above wrong. The male, and female mantis are both
acting on instinct, and therefore cannot use volition to choose evil,
which by the way is what Ayn Rand was talking about. I would even go so
far as to say that the male mantis wasn't even acting for his
destruction--through instinct--because it is after all the female mantis
that kills the male. The mantis, or any animal, no matter how it is
killed, use instinct to act for its own good, and cannot CHOOSE the evil
and act as its own destroyer. David's statement is tantamount to saying
that a fly that flew into an electric lamp 1) had human volition, and 2)
that they fly chose to commit suicide.
Russell Keniston.
Symmetry
>From: RussK rkeni...@cox.net
>Date: 5/14/02 5:59 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3CE196C4...@cox.net>
>
>2) A plant--living entity--has no choice of action; it acts
>automatically to further its life, and cannot act for its own
>destruction. This is also true.
It can act to increase the probability of its own destruction, and plants do
this all the time when they invest resources in producing offspring.
>3) An animal cannot choose evil. This is also true, an animal or insect
>does not posses the same volitional faculty that a human does.
>
It can act as its own destroyer though, as the quote mentions.
>This does nothing
>to prove the quote above wrong. The male, and female mantis are both
>acting on instinct, and therefore cannot use volition to choose evil,
Hey slap-festival, what this example is supposed to disprove is that plants and
animals act automatically to further their own life. That's false.
>I would even go so
>far as to say that the male mantis wasn't even acting for his
>destruction--through instinct--because it is after all the female mantis
>that kills the male.
Irrelevent who kills him. Male mantii have a relatively high probability of
dying when they engage in some action, and yet they have evolved such that
specifically seek out that action. That's called acting for your own
desctruction, nutgarbles.
>The mantis, or any animal, no matter how it is
>killed, use instinct to act for its own good
Blatantly false.
> and cannot CHOOSE the evil
>and act as its own destroyer.
Maybe not, but Rand's argument is not just that non-humans can't choose
anything.
>David's statement is tantamount to saying
>that a fly that flew into an electric lamp 1) had human volition, and 2)
>that they fly chose to commit suicide.
>
You have reading comprehension issues. Volition is not relevent to what David
is trying to show. It was Rand who started asserting that animals cannot choose
things. From reading the text it is explicit that Rand holds the false belief
that plants act automatically to further its life, and it is implicit that she
holds the false belief that as far as they can choose, animals chose to do
that, and if they cant choose, animals automatically do that also.
RussK
>
>
> It can act to increase the probability of its own destruction, and plants do
> this all the time when they invest resources in producing offspring.
>
So what? They don't choose. They use instinct to automatically further
life.
>
>
> It can act as its own destroyer though, as the quote mentions.
Yes, a goat can slip off of a hill and break it's back, so what?
Instinct.
>
>
>
> Hey slap-festival, what this example is supposed to disprove is that plan
> ts and
> animals act automatically to further their own life. That's false.
>
Plants and animals DO act automatically to further their own life. The
only alternative is that they act rationally to further life, this is
what is called a CHOICE. Read the quote, plants, for example, cannot
choose evil.
>
>
> Irrelevent who kills him. Male mantii have a relatively high probability of
> dying when they engage in some action, and yet they have evolved such that
> specifically seek out that action. That's called acting for your own
> desctruction, nutgarbles.
>
I agree, it doesn't matter how a male mantis gets killed. What matters
is that it doesn't have the opportunity to CHOOSE evil.
>
>
> Blatantly false.
Blatantly true. The only alternative is a mantii acting rationally, and
choosing its actions with his rational faculty.
>
>
>
> Maybe not, but Rand's argument is not just that non-humans can't choose
> anything.
Ayn Rand, through her character's statement, was indeed talking about
rationality and volition.
>
>
>
> You have reading comprehension issues. Volition is not relevent to what David
> is trying to show. It was Rand who started asserting that animals cannot
> choose
> things. From reading the text it is explicit that Rand holds the false b
> elief
> that plants act automatically to further its life, and it is implicit tha
> t she
> holds the false belief that as far as they can choose, animals chose to do
> that, and if they cant choose, animals automatically do that also.
>
I have reading comprehension issues? Here's the quote, read it again.
^^There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence
or non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to
living organisms. ... . But a plant has no choice of action; ....: it
acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own
destruction. An animal... But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to
ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its
own destroyer.^^ The problem of comprehension isn't on my part, Ayn
Rand is speaking about volition. The facts are that entities that rely
on instinct must act on instinct to further life, and instinct means
that CHOICE is not available; therefore, entities that rely on instinct
cannot ^^decide to CHOOSE the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
**btw, what's with the explosion of personal attacks? I think we can
both agree that they are not needed, and degrade argumentation.
Russell Keniston.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <3CE1C0B9...@cox.net>
>
>>
>> It can act to increase the probability of its own destruction, and plants
>do
>> this all the time when they invest resources in producing offspring.
>>
>
>
>So what? They don't choose. They use instinct to automatically further
>life.
They may use instinct, but investing resources in offspring can only be a
life-destroying act. If the goal was to further their plant-life they'd invest
them in their own health.
>> It can act as its own destroyer though, as the quote mentions.
>
>
>Yes, a goat can slip off of a hill and break it's back, so what?
>Instinct.
>
We're talking about things that it is in these organism's nature to seek out.
It is not in a goat's nature to seek out deadly falls. It is in a plant's
nature to actively seek out things that harm its life, like putting its
resources into offspring.
>> Hey slap-festival, what this example is supposed to disprove is that plan
>> ts and
>> animals act automatically to further their own life. That's false.
>>
>
>
>Plants and animals DO act automatically to further their own life. The
>only alternative is that they act rationally to further life, this is
>what is called a CHOICE
No, that is not the only alternative. They could act automatically to further
something other than their own life. That is in fact what plants and less
complex animals do. It just so happens that their own life is often a means to
their goal, but not always. Animals and plants would not reproduce if their
main objective was to further their own lives. Reproduction is a costly
endeavor.
>> Irrelevent who kills him. Male mantii have a relatively high probability of
>> dying when they engage in some action, and yet they have evolved such that
>> specifically seek out that action. That's called acting for your own
>> desctruction, nutgarbles.
>>
>
>
>I agree, it doesn't matter how a male mantis gets killed. What matters
>is that it doesn't have the opportunity to CHOOSE evil.
So you think Rand's whole point was that such animals can't make choices? That
wouldn't show anything about life being the proper standard of value.
>Blatantly true. The only alternative is a mantii acting rationally, and
>choosing its actions with his rational faculty.
Here is your problem, you're assuming that the 'aim' of a mantii, whether
conscious or not, must be to further its own life. If you assume that, then of
course there are two possiblities, it can do it by choice, or not by choice.
However, what you take to be their 'aim' is false.
>> Maybe not, but Rand's argument is not just that non-humans can't choose
>> anything.
>
>
>Ayn Rand, through her character's statement, was indeed talking about
>rationality and volition.
>
Correct, but she brought animals into the picture because she was saying
something like this:
"Plants and animals automatically act to further their own lives, but huumans
have no such automatic mechanism to further their lives, so they must make
choices to do so"
However, the statement "Plants and animals automatically act to further their
own lives", which is not a direct quote, does happen to be blatantly false.
Nonhuman orgnaisms do not tend to act in ways that place their own life as
their highest aim.
Here is a direct quote from Rand:
>But a plant has no choice of action; ....: it
>acts automatically to further its life
That is just false.
>
>**btw, what's with the explosion of personal attacks? I think we can
>both agree that they are not needed, and degrade argumentation.
>
I just used two, and I don't think they interfere with my argumentation at all.
Of course they are not 'needed'. I just throw them in for some entertainment
value, feel free to ignore them, scrotegarbles.
s
s
s
s
s
sss
s
s
s
s
s
ss
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
Zack Alright
805...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>...
> There is no need to offer a philosophic refutation, since the subject you
> are discussing is in the realm of science and not philosophy. Darwin's
> theories clearly dealt with groups such as species.
No, I'm afraid this is a very real problem for Objectivism. Rand quite
clearly bases her ethics on the "nature of man" as another fact of
reality. If this view is flawed, then it poses problems for the
beliefs that rest on top of it. Rand's not merely claiming to say how
we "ought" to behave. She's claiming reality necessitates we act a
particular way. Maybe most can dismiss all this along the lines of
Moore's Naturalistic fallacy, but for Rand, Isness is essentially
oughtness.
>Rationality is a
> property of individuals, so you're mixing apples and oranges right there.
> Your "randroid vs. darwinite" argument is flawed also. I'm not sure which
> species you consider to be human, but neither one appears to be human
> according to your description.
I tried not to project any distinctly human qualities, so we could
just analyze their different strategies and values. The point I tried
to demonstrate (and maybe I completely failed) was that species who
seek only survival will be weeded out quickly. The "goal" of organisms
-- and biologists are resistant to teleological thinking -- then it's
reproduction.
>Let's assume that the former exterminates
> the latter for wasting resources. So their reproductive abilities are
> useless and your conclusion falls apart.
Well, again, I didn't mean to project any human qualities on the
species struggling. They could have been rats for all intents and
purposes. The point is that Rand misses the importance of
reproduction.
Zack Alright
> In his argument, David uses a quote from one of Rand's characters:
> ^^There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence
> or non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to
> living organisms. ... But a plant has no choice of action; ...: it acts
> automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
>
> An animal ... . But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to ignore its
> own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own
> destroyer.^^
>
> David goes on to say that the statement is false, and gives some
> examples of why it's false. He then goes on to say: ^^Some
> philosophies...could dismiss all of this as irrelevant to metaphysical
> argument. But Objectivism claims to base its conclusions on the facts
> of reality--and the fact with which Rand starts her argument is false.^^
>
> With that said, lets look at Ayn Rand's quote.
>
> 1) There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence
> or non-existence. It pertains to living organisms. This is true.
If you mean "existence or non-existence" to mean "life or death," then
no. Individual organisms who automatically act only for their own
survival do not necessarily guarantee their genetic legacy. Natural
selection is important here. Those organisms that "value" or have a
predisposition to surivive over reproducing, will not be around for
long. They'll quickly be weeded out of the gene pool. Maybe according
to Rand humans should value rationality over all else, but that's a
very good strategy (from the perspective of natural selection).
Look- Rand, at least from what I've read, believes this: Humans must
be rational in order to survive. Darwinists take a slightly different
perspective: rationality and survival are only important in so far as
they promote reproduction. Organisms that cannot survive *probably*
won't reproduce; rationality simply aids survival (in our case).
> 2) A plant--living entity--has no choice of action; it acts
> automatically to further its life, and cannot act for its own
> destruction. This is also true.
Not necessarily true. Of course there could have been some mutations
that inclined organisms to act for their own destruction -- but they'd
be weeded out within a generation.
> 3) An animal cannot choose evil. This is also true, an animal or insect
> does not posses the same volitional faculty that a human does.
> To try and prove Ayn Rand's quote as being false, David gives an example
> of a male mantis mating with a female mantis, and the final step of the
> process is the male mantis being eaten by the female. This does nothing
> to prove the quote above wrong. The male, and female mantis are both
> acting on instinct, and therefore cannot use volition to choose evil,
> which by the way is what Ayn Rand was talking about. I would even go so
> far as to say that the male mantis wasn't even acting for his
> destruction--through instinct--because it is after all the female mantis
> that kills the male. The mantis, or any animal, no matter how it is
> killed, use instinct to act for its own good, and cannot CHOOSE the evil
> and act as its own destroyer.
The point is that the mantis is acting towards its own destruction.
Rand's characterization of nature seems to imply this behavior could
never take place. It doesn't matter whether or not the mantis
"chooses"; the mantis isn't acting for its own survival, which
contradicts Objectivism (or at least presents problems)
> David's statement is tantamount to saying
> that a fly that flew into an electric lamp 1) had human volition, and 2)
> that they fly chose to commit suicide.
No, I don't think he's saying that at all. Again, we're reading human
qualities into the organism in question. He's just saying this:
individual survival is not the goal of all organisms (as Rand
suggests). On the contrary, if an organism truly wants to be
succesful, it must value reproduction above it's own survival. The
mantis, a more extreme example, demonstrates this point perfectly.
RussK
**Cut, garb that doesn't even matter**
>
> Correct, but she brought animals into the picture because she was saying
> something like this:
>
> "Plants and animals automatically act to further their own lives, but huumans
> have no such automatic mechanism to further their lives, so they must make
> choices to do so"
>
Now what she said is this: ^^There is only one fundamental alternative
in the universe: existence or non-existence--and it pertains to a single
class of entities: to living organisms. ... . But a plant has no choice
of action; ....: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot
act for its own destruction. An animal... But so long as it lives, ...
it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil
and act as its own destroyer.^^ The problem of comprehension isn't on
my part, Ayn Rand is speaking about volition. The facts are that
entities that rely on instinct must act on instinct to further life, and
instinct means that CHOICE is not available; therefore, entities that
rely on instinct cannot ^^decide to CHOOSE the evil and act as its own
destroyer.^^
What that means is that plants do act for their own good automatically,
by instinct. The only way a plant can further its own good is by
instinct, because it is not a rational animal. Since it is not a
rational animal, with volition, it cannot ^^decide to CHOOSE the evil
and act as its own destroyer.^^ The only alternative to instinct is
volition.
>>**btw, what's with the explosion of personal attacks? I think we can
>>both agree that they are not needed, and degrade argumentation.
>>
>>
>
> I just used two, and I don't think they interfere with my argumentation a
> t all.
> Of course they are not 'needed'. I just throw them in for some entertainment
> value, feel free to ignore them, scrotegarbles.
>
It degrades argumentation because usually--with good reason--the person
getting attacked gets angered. I'll ignore them, because i'll ignore
your posts.
Russell Keniston.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <3CE266E3...@cox.net>
>> Correct, but she brought animals into the picture because she was saying
>> something like this:
>>
>> "Plants and animals automatically act to further their own lives, but
>huumans
>> have no such automatic mechanism to further their lives, so they must make
>> choices to do so"
>>
>
>
>Now what she said is this:
I was summarizing what she was getting at, not trying to summarize that quote
exactly.
>The problem of comprehension isn't on
>my part, Ayn Rand is speaking about volition. The facts are that
>entities that rely on instinct must act on instinct to further life
First, my summary is about volition. Second, you're making the same error.
The fact that X acts on instinct does not imply that X acts on instinct in
order to futher its own life. X could act on instinct in order to kill both you
and itsself, as a bee would be trying to do if you invaded its hive.
What you might mean is that since X acts on instinct, then IF it acts to
further its life, it must do so by instinct. Hopefully you don't just mean that
though, since its quite trivial and uninterresting and doesn't help Rand's
argument.
>instinct means that CHOICE is not available; therefore, entities that
>rely on instinct cannot ^^decide to CHOOSE the evil and act as its own
>destroyer.^^
And they can't choose anything else.
>What that means is that plants do act for their own good automatically,
>by instinct.
Wrong. See below.
>he only way a plant can further its own good is by
>instinct,
Correct.
>The only alternative to instinct is
>volition.
Thats actually false, but it isn't important.
I tried to explain your problem to you earlier but for some reason you didn't
seem to follow. Try this:
Immagine an organism whose instincts program it to act to maximize its
reproductive output, even if this harms its own life.
By your argument, since this organism acts on instinct, then therefore it must
do so in the aim of furthering its own life. But that is comicaly false because
the means by which something is acting has no relation to what it is acting
for.
RussK
>
> First, my summary is about volition. Second, you're making the same error.
>
> The fact that X acts on instinct does not imply that X acts on instinct in
> order to futher its own life. X could act on instinct in order to kill bo
> th you
> and itsself, as a bee would be trying to do if you invaded its hive.
>
> What you might mean is that since X acts on instinct, then IF it acts to
> further its life, it must do so by instinct. Hopefully you don't just mea
> n that
> though, since its quite trivial and uninterresting and doesn't help Rand's
> argument.
>
That is what I mean, and that IS what Ayn Rand said. ^^it is unable to
ignore its own good, unable to DECIDE to CHOOSE the evil and act as its
own destroyer.^^ What you seem to be thinking she said is: ^^it is
unable to act against its own good. It cannot reduce the chances of
life through actions on instinct; its instinct is omnipotent.^^ This,
however, is false.
>
>
> I tried to explain your problem to you earlier but for some reason you didn't
> seem to follow. Try this:
>
> Immagine an organism whose instincts program it to act to maximize its
> reproductive output, even if this harms its own life.
>
> By your argument, since this organism acts on instinct, then therefore it
> must
> do so in the aim of furthering its own life. But that is comicaly false b
> ecause
> the means by which something is acting has no relation to what it is acting
> for.
>
No, you just didn't understand what I was writing. I was saying, and
i'll use your example: Imagine an organism whose instincts program it to
act to maximize its reproductive output, even if this harms its own
life. In order to survive, the organism must use instinct in order to
further its life, and be able to reproduce.
**Notice that in order to reproduce the organism must be alive, etc...
Reproduction has ultimate value is a contradiction.
Russell Keniston
RussK
> [snip]
>
>
> If you mean "existence or non-existence" to mean "life or death," then
> no. Individual organisms who automatically act only for their own
> survival do not necessarily guarantee their genetic legacy. Natural
> selection is important here. Those organisms that "value" or have a
> predisposition to surivive over reproducing, will not be around for
> long. They'll quickly be weeded out of the gene pool. Maybe according
> to Rand humans should value rationality over all else, but that's a
> very good strategy (from the perspective of natural selection).
>
> Look- Rand, at least from what I've read, believes this: Humans must
> be rational in order to survive. Darwinists take a slightly different
> perspective: rationality and survival are only important in so far as
> they promote reproduction. Organisms that cannot survive *probably*
> won't reproduce; rationality simply aids survival (in our case).
You seem to be arguing David's whole point. My post was at its base, or
the first point he raised, which is false btw. I'm not going to argue
everything else he said, because I would have to accept the base, which
is false. Just for general information, I only read about half of
David's writing. However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
>
>
>
> Not necessarily true. Of course there could have been some mutations
> that inclined organisms to act for their own destruction -- but they'd
> be weeded out within a generation.
>
You are not understanding what I said, or what David quoted. The only
way an 'instinctive' entity is to survive, is by using instinct.
Therefore, 2) A plant--living entity--has no CHOICE of action; it cannot
^^decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
>
>
> The point is that the mantis is acting towards its own destruction.
> Rand's characterization of nature seems to imply this behavior could
> never take place. It doesn't matter whether or not the mantis
> "chooses"; the mantis isn't acting for its own survival, which
> contradicts Objectivism (or at least presents problems)
>
The mantis is going to get killed, does it know his death is coming? No
I doubt it, but this doesn't really matter, and has nothing to do with
what was quoted and acted by David Friedman. As for your statement that
it doesn't matter whether or not the mantis ^^chooses.^^ Well it most
certainly does, since Ayn Rand said: ^^But so long as it lives, ... it
is unable to DECIDE to CHOOSE the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
Russell Keniston.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <3CE29B64...@cox.net>
>> What you might mean is that since X acts on instinct, then IF it acts to
>> further its life, it must do so by instinct. Hopefully you don't just mea
>> n that
>> though, since its quite trivial and uninterresting and doesn't help Rand's
>> argument.
>>
>
>
>That is what I mean, and that IS what Ayn Rand said.
I'm sorry, I overestimated you. The assertation that since nonuhumans canot
chose, any furthering of their life they may happen to do cannot be chosen is
trivial.
However, Rand was saying something more substantial.
>What you seem to be thinking she said is: ^^it is
>unable to act against its own good. It cannot reduce the chances of
>life through actions on instinct; its instinct is omnipotent.^^
Not close.
>I was saying, and
>i'll use your example: Imagine an organism whose instincts program it to
>act to maximize its reproductive output, even if this harms its own
>life. In order to survive, the organism must use instinct in order to
>further its life, and be able to reproduce.
Yes, you were pointing out something trivial. Now, what did you hope to
accomplish through that?
>**Notice that in order to reproduce the organism must be alive, etc...
Indeed.
>Reproduction has ultimate value is a contradiction.
This is just poor reasoning. Try to derive a contradiction from it.
(just because X is a means to Y does not mean that X is 'more important' than
Y)
Symmetry
>Message-id: <3CE29F14...@cox.net>
>
>However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
>an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
>ultimate value is a contradiction.
It is hard to decide if this is more irrational than the position of those who
think voting is rational because if no one voted it would be bad.
Lon
that animals act out of instinct while human beings
alone act out of choice. This is a somewhat non-standard
usage of instinct since animals do learn empirically
and most people distinguish between instinct and what
is learned. But if we take the claim to be that only
human beings can do evil because only human beings
have free will, then what she says is reasonable, but
hardly worth the effort to argue for since the traditions
that Rand is opposed to also have that view. Both the
Kantian and the Christian tradition agree that human
beings and only human beings have free will.
But in the sections under discussion Rand seems to
be doing more tjam that. She is clearly arguing that
living things have values, while non-living things do
not. She also claims that "its life is the standard
of value directing its encounters." She claims that
"An animal is equipped with...an automatic knowledge
of what is good for it or evil. So long as it lives,
it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety" and
later claims that "An instinct is an unerring and
automatic form of knowledge."
These claims, which are laced among the ones that
you include to show that animals lack free will, are
the ones which Friedman is correctly claiming are
untrue. If an animals value is what it acts towards
it is simply untrue that animals have automatic
knowledge of what is in their best interest. It is
also untrue that they act unerringly towards that
value. In some ways your fly into the fan example
shows this even more clearly than does the mantis
example, although that one works as well.
A better response to Friedman might be to ask
whether it matters whether what she says there is
true. Normally, of course, it makes a difference
to an argument whether the early parts of the argument
are true. But that is because in a normal argument
the later parts of the argument follow from the
earlier parts. But Galt's speech is not a normal
argument in this sense. In Galt's speech there is
a rhetorical flow to the argument but no actual
support between the claims.
So while the argument seems to be trying to show
that non-rational animals value their own lives
exclusively to suggest that human beings should value
their own lives exclusively, there is no direct
connection between the two. Rationality is something
which makes a moral difference, so it seems likely
that it should make a difference to what we value.
But this means that if Rand had succeeded in showing
that animals use their own life as their standard of
value this would not support her argument about people,
the fact that she fails to show this does not necessarily
undercut her argument about people.
In fact, as was discussed in the thread on Owl's
criticism of Rand, if the argument about animals did
work and carried over to people, it would lead to the
wrong conclusion for Rand since it would lead to the
conclusion that people should take their life as the
standard of value rather than the quality of their
life. So maybe what supporters of Rand should say is
that what Rand says here is false, but it was only
put in for its rhetorical value, and if it were true
that would be even worse.
Lon
>
> Russell Keniston.
Zack Alright
> the first point he raised, which is false btw. I'm not going to argue
> everything else he said, because I would have to accept the base, which
> is false.
I agree with Friedman's conclusions but, I too, only want to argue the
premises (which has obvious conclusions).
>Just for general information, I only read about half of
> David's writing. However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
> an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
> ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
I'm just saying you have two organisms (call them whatever you wish).
The organism that "values" only its own welfare, will not last long.
I'm not saying organisms must "choose" values; they can act on
instinct, it doesn't matter. Natural Selection will simply favor those
who are succesful at breeding, and punish those who aren't.
Rand argued the goal of all non-human life is to act for survival.
This is mistaken. If there's any goal at all, it is to reproduce.
That's pretty much all I'm arguing. Rand failed to account for
reproduction.
> > Not necessarily true. Of course there could have been some mutations
> > that inclined organisms to act for their own destruction -- but they'd
> > be weeded out within a generation.
> >
> You are not understanding what I said, or what David quoted. The only
> way an 'instinctive' entity is to survive, is by using instinct.
No, you're missing the point. This should read: The only way for an
'instictive' entity to *thrive*, is by using instinct. Surivival is
not the ultimate goal(!)
> > The point is that the mantis is acting towards its own destruction.
> > Rand's characterization of nature seems to imply this behavior could
> > never take place. It doesn't matter whether or not the mantis
> > "chooses"; the mantis isn't acting for its own survival, which
> > contradicts Objectivism (or at least presents problems)
> >
>
>
> The mantis is going to get killed, does it know his death is coming? No
> I doubt it, but this doesn't really matter, and has nothing to do with
> what was quoted and acted by David Friedman. As for your statement that
> it doesn't matter whether or not the mantis ^^chooses.^^ Well it most
> certainly does, since Ayn Rand said: ^^But so long as it lives, ... it
> is unable to DECIDE to CHOOSE the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
Heh, I thought Manti couldn't choose to begin with. Whatever, this
ignores the larger issue.
George Dance
> Symmetry wrote:
> That is what I mean, and that IS what Ayn Rand said. ^^it is unable to
> ignore its own good, unable to DECIDE to CHOOSE the evil and act as its
> own destroyer.^^ What you seem to be thinking she said is: ^^it is
> unable to act against its own good. It cannot reduce the chances of
> life through actions on instinct; its instinct is omnipotent.^^ This,
> however, is false.
> ... I was saying, and
> i'll use your example: Imagine an organism whose instincts program it to
> act to maximize its reproductive output, even if this harms its own
> life. In order to survive, the organism must use instinct in order to
> further its life, and be able to reproduce.
I think that's essentially Rand's argument: that an organism cannot
exist as a living organism except by behaving in certain ways (what
way being dictated by the kind of organism that it is) that that are
sufficient for it exist as that type of living organism; this
behaviour being both necessary and sufficient for its existence, then
its existence is equivalent to its behaving in those ways.
That of course has nothing to do with what else the organism does.
It's a simple point that I have made to Symmetry in the past, one
which he apparently prefers to not understand.
George Dance
2443.0...@mb-fc.aol.com>...
Obviously less. It would be the same as a claim that: if you
preferred playing tennis to voting, and whether you could continue to
play tennis depended on the outcome of a certain vote, it would be
more rational for you to vote then than to play tennis instead.
Or, to take one of your examples: suppose you believed your 'ultimate
value' was to rape as many babies as possible. You spot a baby in a
mall, with its mother beside it talking to four policemen. Would it
be rational for you to rape that baby or not?
RussK
>
> I think that's essentially Rand's argument: that an organism cannot
> exist as a living organism except by behaving in certain ways (what
> way being dictated by the kind of organism that it is) that that are
> sufficient for it exist as that type of living organism; this
> behaviour being both necessary and sufficient for its existence, then
> its existence is equivalent to its behaving in those ways.
>
> That of course has nothing to do with what else the organism does.
> It's a simple point that I have made to Symmetry in the past, one
> which he apparently prefers to not understand.
>
Thank you for this information. I was going to post another reply, but
given this I'm not going to waste my time.
Russell Keniston
Symmetry
>I think that's essentially Rand's argument: that an organism cannot
>exist as a living organism except by behaving in certain ways (what
>way being dictated by the kind of organism that it is) that that are
>sufficient for it exist as that type of living organism; this
>behaviour being both necessary and sufficient for its existence, then
>its existence is equivalent to its behaving in those ways.
>
>That of course has nothing to do with what else the organism does.
>It's a simple point that I have made to Symmetry in the past, one
>which he apparently prefers to not understand.
No, I corrected yu on this before. You probably just don't remember. Your
earlier argument that I think you're referring to was flawed because IIRC, it
equivocated on the past and the present.
By the way, I am sort of curious as tow hether you learned anything from our
previous exchange, and I'd like to check on my instrucitonal abilities:
True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that
if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
Symmetry
>Date: 5/16/02 12:47 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>> >However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
>> >an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
>> >ultimate value is a contradiction.
>>
>> It is hard to decide if this is more irrational than the position of thos
>> e who
>> think voting is rational because if no one voted it would be bad.
>
>Obviously less.
Obviously less irrational? Surely see the absurdity in saying that it is a
*contradiction* to have reproduction as your ultimate value?
>It would be the same as a claim that: if you
>preferred playing tennis to voting, and whether you could continue to
>play tennis depended on the outcome of a certain vote, it would be
>more rational for you to vote then than to play tennis instead.
But it probably wouldn't if the vote were a national election, since the
expected value my vote brings would probably be less than one tennis match.
>Or, to take one of your examples: suppose you believed your 'ultimate
>value' was to rape as many babies as possible. You spot a baby in a
>mall, with its mother beside it talking to four policemen. Would it
>be rational for you to rape that baby or not?
Probably not, but that doesn't mean that its a contradiction to have
baby-raping as your ultimate value.
I'm not sure your point here. I was just trying to help this guy with logic and
point out that there is no contradiction, and then you come up with examples
where you think persuing your ultimate end in the short term is less good for
your ultimate end overall than taking some non-ultimate-end action that would
allow you to best persue your ultimate end in the long term. Of course there
are situations like that. They don't show that this means to your ultimate end
must really be your ultimate end though.
Symmetry
>Date: 5/16/02 3:30 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3CE4179...@cox.net>
>Thank you for this information. I was going to post another reply, but
>given this I'm not going to waste my time.
>
Ha ha.
More likely you realized that you couldn't derive a contradiction from someone
valuing reproduction as their ultimate goal and saw this as a convenient way to
evade further instances of appearing silly.
Symmetry
>Date: 5/16/02 4:43 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <20020516174258...@mb-mq.aol.com>
>
>Obviously less irrational? Surely see the absurdity in saying that it is a
>*contradiction* to have reproduction as your ultimate value?
>
That should read "surely you see".
Resijinth
generally the result of any sort of progression in either the natural
world of the human world. Those who are evil are those who are of
unlike-quality. Whichever standard of likeness and unlikeness are
chosen, this is true. For example, to an Objectivists, what is wrong
is using irrational standards. For environmentalists, what is wrong is
to harm the environment. For a christian, what is wrong is sin, sin as
defined by the christian religeon. No system of beleif exists, at
least not in very long times, which does not encourage its beleivers
to help those of like kind.
Now, one objection to this theory may be raised: "Objectivism will
exist for a long time!". Well, yes, but that's because Objectivists
can best benefit off of dealing with other Objectivists. Certainly the
Objectivists would refuse to sanction the non-Objectivists, just like
some of the non-Objectivists would refuse to sanction the
Objectivists. In this way, Objectivism is a theory which, even though
it may not be their purpose, will lead to other Objectivists
benefitting the more widespread Objectivism is.
The other factor, other than how it interacts with those of
like-quality, is how it interacts with those of unlike-quality. If it
seeks to gain from harming those of unlike-quality, and it turns out
those of unlike-quality will not exist for long, then their gains will
eventually die out. If this becomes habitual, then the gains will
actually become losses. On the other hand, if those it harms will
exist for a sustained period of time, they will have to fight, in at
least SOME way, against the first people. That is, if they are causing
the harm. If they are NOT causing the harm, and they are in fact
gaining from removing harm, then those who are harmed will try to
protect those who help them. Of course, if you permanently remove the
threat, then the situation is the same, except that the others won't
retaliate aganist you.
Like, people who sell security devices are benifitting because of the
harm that criminals do to individuals. They are benefitting off of the
harm done to others. Criminals also benefit off of the harm done to
others, but they benefit off of the harm that THEY do to others. Of
course, if people who sell security sell too much, even if they sell
it at market price and market quantity, they will cause others to no
longer need to buy from them. Unless you can expect a base rise in
crime - A rise in the amount of crime that would occur without the
existence of security devices - selling security devices eventually
become unprofitable. Of course, there will always be rises in crime as
long as there are rises in population.
Now, if one gains off of the benefit of others, then this not only
means you must preserve their benefit to continue gaining, but that
they must let you gain if you wish them to seek to preserve you. There
is also the possibility that they will seek to gain off themselves as
efficiently as possible, so that there will be no room for you to
gain. If they learn there is gain from their actions, then if it is in
their means, they will seek to keep the gain for themselves. If it is
not in their means, but it is in your means, and the thing which
benefits them cannot simply be something you do and benefit off of
your own gains, then a symbiotic relationship is the most rational
choice.
Now, this works for both individuals, and systems, or 'collectives',
based on the similarity of individuals. Now, how the collective
interacts with individuals of like and/or unlike quality, and how the
individual interacts with collectives of like and/or unlike quality,
is another issue, but the fact is that whether something is an
individual or a collective, a species or a specimin, it will follow
the same or similar rules, with qualities as the only distinguishing
factor.
RussK
>
> Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
> I'm just saying you have two organisms (call them whatever you wish).
> The organism that "values" only its own welfare, will not last long.
> I'm not saying organisms must "choose" values; they can act on
> instinct, it doesn't matter. Natural Selection will simply favor those
> who are succesful at breeding, and punish those who aren't.
An organism that values only its own welfare would last longer than an
organism that valued only reproduction, and natural selection would
dictate that organisms that could eat, and drink, would last longer than
those that only tried to reproduce. However, we both know, I hope, that
your two examples are not realistic.
It should also be known that good and evil do not apply to organisms
without freewill. ^^that which is outside the possibility of choice is
outside the province of morality^^ which btw comes from the same
character speech that David quoted.
>
> Rand argued the goal of all non-human life is to act for survival.
> This is mistaken. If there's any goal at all, it is to reproduce.
> That's pretty much all I'm arguing. Rand failed to account for
> reproduction.
>
>
Ayn Rand argued that the goal of all life is to act for survival.
Either your living, or your not. Life is a process of self-sustaining
and self generated action. For an organism to live, its actions must be
those that sustain the ultimate value, which is life. ^^There is only
one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or
non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living
organisms.^^ If there's any goal at all, it is to reproduce? How does
an organism reproduce if it is not alive; how does a plant reproduce
without using its instinct in the process of sustaining life? Granted
that a plant does reproduce, the fundamental here is that life is a
process of self-sustaining and self-generated action, and a plant must
act automatically with its instinct in order to live.
^^In situations for which its knowledge is inadequate, it perishes--as,
for instance, an animal that stands paralyzed on the track of a railroad
in the path of a speeding train. But so long as it lives, an animal
acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice: it
cannot suspend its own consciousness--it cannot choose not to
perceive--it cannot evade its own perceptions--it cannot ignore its own
good, it cannot decide to choose the evil and act as its own
destroyer.^^ --Ayn Rand, VOS.
>
> Heh, I thought Manti couldn't choose to begin with. Whatever, this
> ignores the larger issue.
>
If you think that the Mantis cannot choose evil, and act as its own
destroyer, then you are in agreement with Ayn Rand, and in disagreement
with David Friedman. ^^But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to
decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
Russell Keniston.
RussK
>
> Ha ha.
>
> More likely you realized that you couldn't derive a contradiction from so
> meone
> valuing reproduction as their ultimate goal and saw this as a convenient
> way to
> evade further instances of appearing silly.
>
Wow.. This shows the extent into which you thought in your responses as
they applied to our discussion, and how much you were dedicated to a
rational arguement. Our discussion pretty much had nothing to do with
me saying that reproduction as an ultimate value was a contradiction.
RussK
>
> Ha ha.
>
> More likely you realized that you couldn't derive a contradiction from so
> meone
> valuing reproduction as their ultimate goal and saw this as a convenient
> way to
> evade further instances of appearing silly.
>
Wow.. This shows the extent into which you thought in your responses as
they applied to our discussion, and how much you were dedicated to a
rational argument. Our discussion pretty much had nothing to do with me
Kent Christiansen
2213.7...@posting.google.com>...
[...]
> > However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
> > an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
> > ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
> Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
It proves that if one isn't alive one can't reproduce - ie. that life
is a necessary and sufficient condition for reproduction and in terms
of values, that which is necessary and sufficient, necessarily is more
'ultimate' than the condition that it supports.
In an earlier note you said:
>Individual organisms who automatically act only for their own
>survival do not necessarily guarantee their genetic legacy. Natural
>selection is important here. Those organisms that "value" or have a
>predisposition to surivive over reproducing, will not be around for
>long. They'll quickly be weeded out of the gene pool.
Here it looks like what you mean by 'those organisms' is 'those
species', not the individual organism that may value survival over
reproducing. If that isn't what you mean, ie. if you mean that an
individual who values survival over reproduction will 'not be around
for long', on what basis do you make such a claim? It would have to be
along the lines that the act of reproducing somehow enhances that
individual's survival. But that is ridiculous, so you must mean that
the 'species' will not be around if reproduction isn't valued at all,
and that really 'proves nothing' with regard to individuals.
Individual animals or plants other than humans, as has been pointed
out, have no choice in the matter. Humans do. And there is no reason
for a human to hold 'reproduction of the species' as any value
whatever. And much in the same way that the 'invisible hand' works in
the market place, they may choose to have children, but that choice
would be a self-interested one - and as an unintended consequence, it
would further the survival of the species, but that fact is hardly,
nor should it be, a factor in making the decision.
In the same note you state:
>Look- Rand, at least from what I've read, believes this: Humans must
>be rational in order to survive. Darwinists take a slightly different
>perspective: rationality and survival are only important in so far as
>they promote reproduction.
And as you point out, this is a matter of 'perspective'. Rand's
perspective is from what an individual must do in order to survive.
The Darwinists perspective is that of a scientist observing behavior
and results. And to use the market analogy again, economists who are
looking to 'maximize utility' should come to the conclusion that
individuals _should_ be 'self-interested' when entering the
marketplace. That 'self-interest' will 'convert' to maximum utility -
the economist's goal, but that goal says nothing about what _should_
be the intention of the individual buyer/seller. In fact the economist
that sees that it is self-interest that drives the market, also sees
that if the buyer/seller would have a goal of 'the good of society',
that would ensure that maximum utility _wouldn't_ be achieved.
Kent
Symmetry
>Date: 5/16/02 9:14 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3CE46849...@cox.net>
>Our discussion pretty much had nothing to do with
>me saying that reproduction as an ultimate value was a contradiction.
But you did claim that, and so far as I see you haven't apologized for your
claim or even admitted it was in error. By focusing on this claim of yours it
helps me determine how evasive you really are. If you won't acknowledge such a
blatant error, how can I expect you ever to understand any rational line of
thought?
>Wow.. This shows the extent into which you thought in your responses as
>they applied to our discussion, and how much you were dedicated to a
>rational arguement.
I am not dedicated to refraining from laughing at you or showing concern for
your ideas when they are comicaly irrational, no. I am concerned with correct
reasoning though. I tried to be patient with you earlier. The fact that I no
longer hold much hope of you not being evasive and am even less friendly than I
was doesn't imply that at one point I wasn't carefully trying to help you to
reason properly.
Zack Alright
> organism that valued only reproduction, and natural selection would
> dictate that organisms that could eat, and drink, would last longer than
> those that only tried to reproduce. However, we both know, I hope, that
> your two examples are not realistic.
My examples are not intended to be realistic; I'm trying to
demonstrate a point. I'll try again. We have two species, A and B.
Species A is only inclined to increase its own welfare, while species
B sacrifices its chances at individual surivival to reproduce.
Granted, even if A lives longer, which we'd expect, the species would
go extinct within a generation. Natural selection favors those species
that are capable of reproducing. Now, of course we should not take
this to wild extremes. We cannot, therefore, infere the bird who lays
12 eggs will win out in the gene pool over the bird who lays only six.
Finding enough food to feed twelve mouths presents opportunities to
predators to sweep in and steal all the offspring. I'm simply arguing
for successful reproduction. If an organism fails to pass on its
genes, then nature weeds it out.*
> It should also be known that good and evil do not apply to organisms
> without freewill. ^^that which is outside the possibility of choice is
> outside the province of morality^^ which btw comes from the same
> character speech that David quoted.
No, I believe this is actually mistaken according to Rand. Good and
Evil only applies to organisms who face the alternative of life vs.
death (indestructible robot, anyone?). So Bill Murray's character in
the wonderful film "Groundhog's Day" could not really do anything
immoral. If he massacred 100 people, it wouldn't matter because he
doesn't face the prospect of non-existence. Murray's character, of
course, doesn't harm anyone. He's transformed from a jerk into a
pretty nice guy. Either way, says Rand, his actions are neither moral
nor immoral.
> Ayn Rand argued that the goal of all life is to act for survival.
And this is incorrect.
> Ayn Rand argued that the goal of all life is to act for survival.
> Either your living, or your not. Life is a process of self-sustaining
> and self generated action. For an organism to live, its actions must be
> those that sustain the ultimate value, which is life. ^^There is only
> one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or
> non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living
> organisms.^^ If there's any goal at all, it is to reproduce? How does
> an organism reproduce if it is not alive; how does a plant reproduce
> without using its instinct in the process of sustaining life? Granted
> that a plant does reproduce, the fundamental here is that life is a
> process of self-sustaining and self-generated action, and a plant must
> act automatically with its instinct in order to live.
No, you're confusing means with ends. Survival is not the end towards
which all life strives. If it did, then by virtue of natural
selection, all those preservation-oriented organisms would be weeded
out by reproduction oriented ones. I don't see how this is very
difficult to understand.
> If you think that the Mantis cannot choose evil, and act as its own
> destroyer, then you are in agreement with Ayn Rand, and in disagreement
> with David Friedman. ^^But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to
> decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
I'm certain everyone -- David Friedman, Ayn Rand and us included --
recognizes that manti are not moral agents. That's obvious.
Friedman's pretty clear:
"[Rand's claim...] is that living things other than human beings
automatically act for their own survival. That claim is false. A male
mantis, for example, mates, even though the final step of the process
consists of being eaten by the female. Female mammals get pregnant,
even though (especially in species where the male does not help
support female and offspring) doing so substantially reduces their
chances of survival. If one is going to ascribe values to non-human
living things, the purpose of those values, on both empirical and
theoretical grounds, is not survival but reproductive success."
And just compare the first line where he characterizes Rand's position
to something you just said: > "Ayn Rand argued that the goal of all
life is to act for survival."
We're beyond the stage of understanding Rand's position. Now it's time
to find out if it's empircally true. Hopefully I've shown otherwise.
_____
*The essential idea is passing on genes, not just survival or
reproduction. Female worker bees, for example, forgo the opportunity
to reproduce, instead dedicating their lives to the hive. This holds
because sisters share so much in common genetically, there's really no
point in bothering to reproduce. Again, the main idea is genes.
Usually the best, or only, way to propagate genes is through
reproduction.
RussK
>
> My examples are not intended to be realistic; I'm trying to
> demonstrate a point. I'll try again. We have two species, A and B.
> Species A is only inclined to increase its own welfare, while species
> B sacrifices its chances at individual surivival to reproduce.
> Granted, even if A lives longer, which we'd expect, the species would
> go extinct within a generation. Natural selection favors those species
> that are capable of reproducing. Now, of course we should not take
> this to wild extremes. We cannot, therefore, infere the bird who lays
> 12 eggs will win out in the gene pool over the bird who lays only six.
> Finding enough food to feed twelve mouths presents opportunities to
> predators to sweep in and steal all the offspring. I'm simply arguing
> for successful reproduction. If an organism fails to pass on its
> genes, then nature weeds it out.*
>
There's quite a difference between using organism and species in an
example to make a point. My response was to the organism example.
However, you cannot talk about a species without the organism, and my
previous statement still stands. A Relganism that values only its own
welfare, will last longer than an organism that only values
reproduction. The ^^only values its own welfare^^ are the words you
used in your example. We should not take this to extremes? heh, the
example itself takes this to extremes. You say: ^^Species A is only
inclined to increase its own welfare, while species B sacrifices its
chances of individual survival in order to reproduce.^^ Once again, I'd
like to say that you cannot divorce the organism from the species. I'm
also in a sense arguing for successful reproduction, because there's no
doubt that living entities reproduce, and non-humans don't do so
volitionally. However, in order to live, an entity that uses instinct
must use that instinct to further its life, through automatic processes.
>
>
> No, I believe this is actually mistaken according to Rand. Good and
> Evil only applies to organisms who face the alternative of life vs.
> death (indestructible robot, anyone?). So Bill Murray's character in
> the wonderful film "Groundhog's Day" could not really do anything
> immoral. If he massacred 100 people, it wouldn't matter because he
> doesn't face the prospect of non-existence. Murray's character, of
> course, doesn't harm anyone. He's transformed from a jerk into a
> pretty nice guy. Either way, says Rand, his actions are neither moral
> nor immoral.
>
What? Rand identifies the robot as being amoral. I don't know much
about the film, so I have no idea of what your talking about. However,
if Murray's character cannot choose between good and evil, then he
cannot be immoral. Since being immoral means choosing evil, and
choosing requires freewill. Thus: ^^that which is outside the
possibility of choice is outside the province of morality.^^ and ^^But
so long as it lives, ...it is unable to decide to choose the evil and
act as its own destroyer.^^
>
>
>
> No, you're confusing means with ends. Survival is not the end towards
> which all life strives. If it did, then by virtue of natural
> selection, all those preservation-oriented organisms would be weeded
> out by reproduction oriented ones. I don't see how this is very
> difficult to understand.
>
I'm not confusing anything. Goal direct action is the mean to the end,
or goal; and if an organism wants to survive, it must act towards the
goal of living, or ultimate value. Why is life the ultimate value?
Because in order to live, an organism must act towards that goal. Why?
Because there is only one fundamental alternative: existence or
non-existence--life or death.
>
>
> I'm certain everyone -- David Friedman, Ayn Rand and us included --
> recognizes that manti are not moral agents. That's obvious.
>
Ugh, no. Speak for yourself, because David says ^^But so long as it
lives, ... it is unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own
destroyer^^ is false.
> Friedman's pretty clear:
> "[Rand's claim...] is that living things other than human beings
> automatically act for their own survival. That claim is false. A male
> mantis, for example, mates, even though the final step of the process
> consists of being eaten by the female. Female mammals get pregnant,
> even though (especially in species where the male does not help
> support female and offspring) doing so substantially reduces their
> chances of survival. If one is going to ascribe values to non-human
> living things, the purpose of those values, on both empirical and
> theoretical grounds, is not survival but reproductive success."
Friedman is pretty clear in showing that he doesn't understand what he's
talking about. His statements do not relate to Objectivism or the quote
he used from Ayn Rand's character in Atlas Shrugged, which was: ^^There
is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or
non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living
organisms. ... But a plant has no choice of action; ... it acts
automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
An animal ... . But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to ignore its
own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own
destroyer.^^
^^In situations for which its knowledge is inadequate, it perishes--as,
for instance, an animal that stands paralyzed on the track of a railroad
in the path of a speeding train. But so long as it lives, an animal
acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice: it
cannot suspend its own consciousness--it cannot choose not to
perceive--it cannot evade its own perceptions--it cannot ignore its own
good, it cannot decide to choose the evil and act as its own
destroyer.^^ --Ayn Rand, VOS.
>
> We're beyond the stage of understanding Rand's position. Now it's time
> to find out if it's empircally true. Hopefully I've shown otherwise.
>
If this was true, then I wouldn't be discussing it.
> _____
> *The essential idea is passing on genes, not just survival or
> reproduction. Female worker bees, for example, forgo the opportunity
> to reproduce, instead dedicating their lives to the hive. This holds
> because sisters share so much in common genetically, there's really no
> point in bothering to reproduce. Again, the main idea is genes.
> Usually the best, or only, way to propagate genes is through
> reproduction.
>
Russell Keniston
George Dance
4695.0...@mb-mq.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
>
> >I think that's essentially Rand's argument: that an organism cannot
> >exist as a living organism except by behaving in certain ways (what
> >way being dictated by the kind of organism that it is) that that are
> >sufficient for it exist as that type of living organism; this
> >behaviour being both necessary and sufficient for its existence, then
> >its existence is equivalent to its behaving in those ways.
> >
> >That of course has nothing to do with what else the organism does.
> >It's a simple point that I have made to Symmetry in the past, one
> >which he apparently prefers to not understand.
>
> No, I corrected yu on this before. You probably just don't remember. Your
> earlier argument that I think you're referring to was flawed because IIRC, it
> equivocated on the past and the present.
If you remember correctly, then I don't. That's a true conditional,
as its antecedent is false. 8)
> By the way, I am sort of curious as tow hether you learned anything from our
> previous exchange, and I'd like to check on my instrucitonal abilities:
>
> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know
> that
> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
True if it's a trick question, and X is something like "it's possible
for us to know something."
It's also true wrt quantified claims - it is possible to prove a
universal claim false but not true, and an existential claim true but
not false (which is trivially true by the axiomatic rule
(x)Fx<=>~(Ex)~Fx).
If X is a contingent fact, though, it would be impossible to know
both, because it would be contradictory. If it were true that I knew
my computer was on, for example, it would have to be true both that my
computer was on, and that I could know whether it was on or off. But
that cannot be true, if it's true that, if my computer were off, I
couldn't know whether it was on or off: I would be unable to know
whether it was on or off, when it was off, only if I were unable to
know whether it was on or off, when it was on (as whether it's on or
off is independent of my ability to know which it is). In which case
it could not be true that I knew my computer was on.
Robert Allen Leeper
distinguish between a necessary condition and a necessary and sufficient
condition?
Kent Christiansen wrote:
>
> Zack Alright wrote:
> > Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
>
> It proves that if one isn't alive one can't reproduce - ie. that life
> is a necessary and sufficient condition for reproduction and [...]
--
Best wishes,
RAL
Reason Is Not a Perfect Guide
But There Is No Other
George Dance
0001.1...@posting.google.com>...
> > If you think that the Mantis cannot choose evil, and act as its own
> > destroyer, then you are in agreement with Ayn Rand, and in disagreement
> > with David Friedman. ^^But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to
> > decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
>
> I'm certain everyone -- David Friedman, Ayn Rand and us included --
> recognizes that manti are not moral agents. That's obvious.
>
> Friedman's pretty clear:
> "[Rand's claim...] is that living things other than human beings
> automatically act for their own survival. That claim is false. A male
> mantis, for example, mates, even though the final step of the process
> consists of being eaten by the female. Female mammals get pregnant,
> even though (especially in species where the male does not help
> support female and offspring) doing so substantially reduces their
> chances of survival. If one is going to ascribe values to non-human
> living things, the purpose of those values, on both empirical and
> theoretical grounds, is not survival but reproductive success."
>
> And just compare the first line where he characterizes Rand's position
> to something you just said: > "Ayn Rand argued that the goal of all
> life is to act for survival."
>
> We're beyond the stage of understanding Rand's position. Now it's time
> to find out if it's empircally true. Hopefully I've shown otherwise.
I don't think you understand Rand's position the way I do. The claim
that "living things other than human beings automatically act for
their survival," AIUI, reduces to two claims:
a) Living things other than humans 'act automatically'; they do not
act volitionally, like humans; strictly speaking, they 'behave' rather
than 'act.'
b) Living things other than humans behave in ways that keep them
alive.
You said earlier that it is noncontroversial that (a) is true. So
your claim, and Friedman's, must be that (b) is false. Friedman's
claim is then that he has discovered a counterexample to (b) (the male
mantis) that does not behave in any way that keeps it alive.
But we are talking about a sexually mature male mantis. And there can
be no such thing as a sexually mature mantis, that has not behaved in
ways that has kept it alive.
The example of the male mantis does refute the more extreme claim
b') Living things other than humans cannot behave in ways that do not
keep them alive.
But this is not a claim that, AFAICS, Rand made or even implied.
Zack Alright
2007.5...@posting.google.com>...
> Zack Alright <qofr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<11599c23.020515
> 2213.7...@posting.google.com>...
> [...]
>
> > > However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
> > > an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
> > > ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
>
> > Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
>
> It proves that if one isn't alive one can't reproduce - ie. that life
> is a necessary and sufficient condition for reproduction and in terms
> of values, that which is necessary and sufficient, necessarily is more
> 'ultimate' than the condition that it supports.
No. Some organisms, in the struggle for existence, (literally) kill
themselves in order to reproduce (in the case of the Mantis). We could
just as easily say a necessary and sufficient condition for the
perpetuation of one's genetic legacy is reproduction of some kind. The
point is that Rand doesn't even take it into account.
>
> In an earlier note you said:
>
> >Individual organisms who automatically act only for their own
> >survival do not necessarily guarantee their genetic legacy. Natural
> >selection is important here. Those organisms that "value" or have a
> >predisposition to surivive over reproducing, will not be around for
> >long. They'll quickly be weeded out of the gene pool.
>
> Here it looks like what you mean by 'those organisms' is 'those
> species', not the individual organism that may value survival over
> reproducing.
I agree I've used "species" and "organisms" in a confusing way. This
mostly stems from the confusion created by the "Darwinites" versus the
"Randroids," whereupon everyone, undestandably, assumed both were
human.
>If that isn't what you mean, ie. if you mean that an
> individual who values survival over reproduction will 'not be around
> for long', on what basis do you make such a claim? It would have to be
> along the lines that the act of reproducing somehow enhances that
> individual's survival. But that is ridiculous, so you must mean that
> the 'species' will not be around if reproduction isn't valued at all,
> and that really 'proves nothing' with regard to individuals.
> Individual animals or plants other than humans, as has been pointed
> out, have no choice in the matter. Humans do.
Rand bases her ethics on the "nature" of man. She claims non-humans
automatically act for their own survival -- that this is their goal.
She has this tabula rasa view where man must "choose" between
"existence and nonexistence." None of it meshes very well with our
understanding of natural selection, however.
> And there is no reason
> for a human to hold 'reproduction of the species' as any value
> whatever.
The organism that completely shuns reproduction for a comfortable
lifestyle is weeded out of the gene pool. Its characteristics and
dispositions will not be passed on to the next generation.
>And much in the same way that the 'invisible hand' works in
> the market place, they may choose to have children, but that choice
> would be a self-interested one - and as an unintended consequence, it
> would further the survival of the species, but that fact is hardly,
> nor should it be, a factor in making the decision.
I'm not saying that as humans we ought to consciously decide to have
lots of children. We're naturally compelled to have sex, but many of
us take precautions for own individual welfare. In the ancestral
environment, though, there's no such thing as birth control, for
example.
Here's the situation one more time:
Suppose we have two Male Manti. We'll call one an Objectivist (even
though it doesn't have free will) and the other a Darwinist. The
Objectivist, through random genetic mutations, is not particularly
inclined to have sex and reproduce. Instead it just acts for its own
survival-- automatically. The Darwinist, however, is inclined to
mate, whether he knows the consequences or not. He's predisposed to
risk his life in order to mate.
The Darwinist's genes will find themselves in the next generation,
while the Objectivist's lineage ends with him. Slowly the mantis
population will be overtaken with Darwinists.
[snip market quote]
As Richard Dawkins says, the individual -- the organism -- is only a
vehicle for the gene. See _The Selfish Gene_.
Rob
2007.5...@posting.google.com>...
> 2213.7...@posting.google.com>...
> [...]
>
> > > However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
> > > an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
> > > ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
>
> > Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
>
> It proves that if one isn't alive one can't reproduce - ie. that life
> is a necessary and sufficient condition for reproduction
False. Life (at some time) is necessary for reproduction, not
necessary and sufficient. If it were sufficient, then every living
organism would reproduce.
> and in terms
> of values, that which is necessary and sufficient, necessarily is more
> 'ultimate' than the condition that it supports.
This seems false. Suppose condition A is necessary and sufficient for
another condition, B. That will be true if A is equivalent to B. But
then B is also necessary and sufficient for A. If the principle you
state above were correct, it would follow both that A is more ultimate
than B and also that B is more ultimate than A.
Rob
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know
>> that
>> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
[snip]
>If X is a contingent fact, though, it would be impossible to know
>both, because it would be contradictory. If it were true that I knew
>my computer was on, for example, it would have to be true both that my
>computer was on, and that I could know whether it was on or off. But
>that cannot be true, if it's true that, if my computer were off, I
>couldn't know whether it was on or off: I would be unable to know
>whether it was on or off, when it was off, only if I were unable to
>know whether it was on or off, when it was on (as whether it's on or
>off is independent of my ability to know which it is). In which case
>it could not be true that I knew my computer was on.
Sigh.. I thought I explained this so well to you earlier.
Let's look at where exactly your error occurs:
>I would be unable to know
>whether it was on or off, when it was off, only if I were unable to
>know whether it was on or off, when it was on (as whether it's on or
>off is independent of my ability to know which it is).
This is just horribly wrong.
Let's go back to the kitten in the blender example.
Suppose there is an opaque blender which is usually air-tight when sealed, but
there is a little valve on the back of the blender that you can't see that
allows air to flow into it when its open.
Suppose you see a kitten being placed in the blender, and then it is sealed.
You can't see whether the air valve is open or not.
Suppose you know for certain that one of 3 situations will occur:
(1) They will turn the blender on for 3 days.
(2) They won't turn the blender on, but they'll leave the kitten in there for 3
days with the air valve closed.
(3) They won't turn the blender on, but they'll leave the kitten in there for 3
days with the air valve open.
(the blender starts out with some water in it, in all situations)
Also, you will be sitting there observing the blender for this entire 3 day
period. If you notice the blender on the whole time, you can know that the
kitten is dead at the end of 3 days. If the kitten was not dead in 3 days
though, then situation 1 could not have occured, and you have now ay to
distinguish between 2 and 3, so you simply couldn't know if it was alive or
dead.
Please remember this example next time so you don't make the same error in the
future.
Robert Allen Leeper
What does the kitten hypo have to do with the knowledge possibility
principle?
That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
was or not.
Symmetry wrote:
>>?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that if X wa
>>s not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.<<
> Suppose there is an opaque blender which is usually air-tight when sealed
> , but
> there is a little valve on the back of the blender that you can't see that
> allows air to flow into it when its open.
>
> Suppose you see a kitten being placed in the blender, and then it is sealed.
> You can't see whether the air valve is open or not.
>
> Suppose you know for certain that one of 3 situations will occur:
>
> (1) They will turn the blender on for 3 days.
> (2) They won't turn the blender on, but they'll leave the kitten in there
> for 3
> days with the air valve closed.
> (3) They won't turn the blender on, but they'll leave the kitten in there
> for 3
> days with the air valve open.
>
> (the blender starts out with some water in it, in all situations)
>
> Also, you will be sitting there observing the blender for this entire 3 day
> period. If you notice the blender on the whole time, you can know that the
> kitten is dead at the end of 3 days. If the kitten was not dead in 3 days
> though, then situation 1 could not have occured, and you have now ay to
> distinguish between 2 and 3, so you simply couldn't know if it was alive or
> dead.
--
Mark Young
>> Friedman's pretty clear:
>> "[Rand's claim...] is that living things other than human beings
>> automatically act for their own survival. That claim is false. A male
>> mantis, for example, mates, even though the final step of the process
[...]
George Dance:
> I don't think you understand Rand's position the way I do. The claim
> that "living things other than human beings automatically act for
> their survival," AIUI, reduces to two claims:
>
> a) Living things other than humans 'act automatically'; they do not
> act volitionally, like humans; strictly speaking, they 'behave' rather
> than 'act.'
>
> b) Living things other than humans behave in ways that keep them
> alive.
>
> You said earlier that it is noncontroversial that (a) is true. So
> your claim, and Friedman's, must be that (b) is false. Friedman's
> claim is then that he has discovered a counterexample to (b) (the male
> mantis) that does not behave in any way that keeps it alive.
You've got the quantifiers mixed up. Friedman is interpreting Rand as
making a forall statement -- that (b) is "Living things other than humans
behave *only* in ways that (when successful) keep them alive." To act
"automatically for (your) survival" is to act *always* in a way that is
conducive to your survial. It is not compatible with acting against
your survival, and so the mantis *is* a counter-example to the claim -- it
behaves in a way that is manifestly against its survival.
You may argue that Rand's claim is merely general rather than universal
(in which case the male mantis' terminal sex act is a mere exception), but
it is not reasonable to take it as existential -- that living things other
than human beings behave *at least once* in a way that keeps them alive --
because it is equally true that every organism behaves at least once in a
way that gets it dead, and so death becomes equivalent to life on that
measure. But your interpretation does take her claim as existential --
since you take its opposite as "does not behave in *any* way that keeps it
alive".
> But we are talking about a sexually mature male mantis. And there can
> be no such thing as a sexually mature mantis, that has not behaved in
> ways that has kept it alive.
The obviousness of the above should clue you in that you have mis-analysed
Friedman's argument. If you want to point out an error in his argument,
you have to look elsewhere.
> The example of the male mantis does refute the more extreme claim
>
> b') Living things other than humans cannot behave in ways that do not
> keep them alive.
>
> But this is not a claim that, AFAICS, Rand made or even implied.
It contradicts a weaker claim than that -- the claim that every action of
a non-human organism is "for its survival". The act of mating is not for
its survival. The act of mating is for its reproduction, which it (in
general) successfully accomplishes.
...mark young
Symmetry
>From: Robert Allen Leeper ra...@hcsmail.com
>Date: 5/17/02 8:52 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3CE5B3D1...@hcsmail.com>
>
>What does the kitten hypo have to do with the knowledge possibility
>principle?
>
Not sure what that principle is.
>That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
>Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
>there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
>was or not.
That's a clearer example than the kitten one. Thanks.
Kent Christiansen
5B...@hcsmail.com>...
> Why should anyone read more of a post that shows its author can't
> distinguish between a necessary condition and a necessary and sufficient
> condition?
You're right, they shouldn't. My mistake.
Kent
Kent Christiansen
1033.1...@posting.google.com>...
> Kent Christiansen <ke...@voyager.net> wrote in message news:<c1e2d5c2.020516
> 2007.5...@posting.google.com>...
> > Zack Alright <qofr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<11599c23.020515
> > 2213.7...@posting.google.com>...
> > [...]
> >
> > > > However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
> > > > an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
> > > > ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
>
> > > Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
> >
> > It proves that if one isn't alive one can't reproduce - ie. that life
> > is a necessary and sufficient condition for reproduction and in terms
> > of values, that which is necessary and sufficient, necessarily is more
> > 'ultimate' than the condition that it supports.
>
> No. Some organisms, in the struggle for existence, (literally) kill
> themselves in order to reproduce (in the case of the Mantis).
No they don't "kill themselves", and as such, not "literally" or
otherwise. Their mates _kill_ them. To say that they "commit suicide"
would to say that they know beforehand and intend it. Even David
wouldn't say that. AND as was reported here a few months back, new
research says that not all mating male mantises are killed.
> We could
> just as easily say a necessary and sufficient condition for the
> perpetuation of one's genetic legacy is reproduction of some kind. The
> point is that Rand doesn't even take it into account.
Yeah - if individuals thought in terms of 'genetic legacy' as a goal,
which they do not.
> > In an earlier note you said:
> > >Individual organisms who automatically act only for their own
> > >survival do not necessarily guarantee their genetic legacy. Natural
> > >selection is important here. Those organisms that "value" or have a
> > >predisposition to surivive over reproducing, will not be around for
> > >long. They'll quickly be weeded out of the gene pool.
> > Here it looks like what you mean by 'those organisms' is 'those
> > species', not the individual organism that may value survival over
> > reproducing.
> I agree I've used "species" and "organisms" in a confusing way. This
> mostly stems from the confusion created by the "Darwinites" versus the
> "Randroids," whereupon everyone, undestandably, assumed both were
> human.
When we are talking about 'ultimate values', and when the supposed
argument is against those ultimate values, then we ARE talking about
humans. This is about Rand's ethics not her zoology.
> >If that isn't what you mean, ie. if you mean that an
> > individual who values survival over reproduction will 'not be around
> > for long', on what basis do you make such a claim? It would have to be
> > along the lines that the act of reproducing somehow enhances that
> > individual's survival. But that is ridiculous, so you must mean that
> > the 'species' will not be around if reproduction isn't valued at all,
> > and that really 'proves nothing' with regard to individuals.
> > Individual animals or plants other than humans, as has been pointed
> > out, have no choice in the matter. Humans do.
> Rand bases her ethics on the "nature" of man. She claims non-humans
> automatically act for their own survival -- that this is their goal.
> She has this tabula rasa view where man must "choose" between
> "existence and nonexistence." None of it meshes very well with our
> understanding of natural selection, however.
That's because humans with volition 'select'. That volition was a part
of natural selection doesn't change the nature of volition or what
volition entails given the other aspects of the nature of man.
> > And there is no reason
> > for a human to hold 'reproduction of the species' as any value
> > whatever.
> The organism that completely shuns reproduction for a comfortable
> lifestyle is weeded out of the gene pool.
Like I said above, unless you are making a claim that 'shunning
reproduction' somehow decreases survival of an _individual_ then this
statement is irrelevant to whether survival for an individual human is
the ultimate goal - which is what David contests. Metaphors such as
'weeded out of the gene pool' mean nothing in this context, again,
unless you can bring forth some evidence that shunning reproduction
decreases survival of the individual, which was Rand's context. I know
of no such evidence, which of course doesn't mean such evidence
doesn't exist.
>Its characteristics and
> dispositions will not be passed on to the next generation.
So what? We're talking about the individual and the basis of his guide
to action - ethics.
> >And much in the same way that the 'invisible hand' works in
> > the market place, they may choose to have children, but that choice
> > would be a self-interested one - and as an unintended consequence, it
> > would further the survival of the species, but that fact is hardly,
> > nor should it be, a factor in making the decision.
> I'm not saying that as humans we ought to consciously decide to have
> lots of children. We're naturally compelled to have sex, but many of
> us take precautions for own individual welfare. In the ancestral
> environment, though, there's no such thing as birth control, for
> example.
Nor were there computers, cell phones, heart transplants, etc. etc. -
ie the fact that there was no birth control is irrelevant to the
point.
> Here's the situation one more time:
> Suppose we have two Male Manti. We'll call one an Objectivist (even
> though it doesn't have free will) and the other a Darwinist. The
> Objectivist, through random genetic mutations, is not particularly
> inclined to have sex and reproduce. Instead it just acts for its own
> survival-- automatically. The Darwinist, however, is inclined to
> mate, whether he knows the consequences or not. He's predisposed to
> risk his life in order to mate.
No. He is 'unaware of the "risk", so he isn't so "predisposed". Unless
you are talking about humans now and if so then he has the means
(rationality and volition) to know the consequences and act
accordingly - like put a muzzle on the female manti, eg. <G>
> The Darwinist's genes will find themselves in the next generation,
> while the Objectivist's lineage ends with him. Slowly the mantis
> population will be overtaken with Darwinists.
That say _nothing_ of what the individual ought to decide when looking
for a guide for his own life.
> [snip market quote]
> As Richard Dawkins says, the individual -- the organism -- is only a
> vehicle for the gene. See _The Selfish Gene_.
While I accept this fact, again, it, and any argument supposedly using
this fact still doesn't show that Rand was wrong about the basis of
human ethics with regard to the individual.
Kent
Kent Christiansen
7ba...@posting.google.com>...
> Kent Christiansen <ke...@voyager.net> wrote in message news:<c1e2d5c2.020516
> 2007.5...@posting.google.com>...
> > Zack Alright <qofr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<11599c23.020515
> > 2213.7...@posting.google.com>...
> > [...]
> > > > However, I must point out that in order to reproduce,
> > > > an entity must be living. Therefore, having reproduction has the
> > > > ultimate value is a contradiction. The same goes for rationality.
> > > Yes, life is a precondition for reproduction... this proves nothing.
> > It proves that if one isn't alive one can't reproduce - ie. that life
> > is a necessary and sufficient condition for reproduction
> False. Life (at some time) is necessary for reproduction, not
> necessary and sufficient. If it were sufficient, then every living
> organism would reproduce.
True, as acknowledged in another post tonight.
> > and in terms
> > of values, that which is necessary and sufficient, necessarily is more
> > 'ultimate' than the condition that it supports.
> This seems false. Suppose condition A is necessary and sufficient for
> another condition, B. That will be true if A is equivalent to B. But
> then B is also necessary and sufficient for A. If the principle you
> state above were correct, it would follow both that A is more ultimate
> than B and also that B is more ultimate than A.
While there may be cases where what you say above is true, I was
thinking in terms of conceptual hierarchy in ethics for humans where
all other values are dependent upon being and staying alive.
Kent
George Dance
5850.0...@mb-ba.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/17/02 11:49 AM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
Well, no. If I notice the blender on, that doesn't mean the blender
is on; as t least if you're correct, and it's possible to know that
the blender is on (that is, to believe with justification that it's
on, if it is on) but impossible to know whether the blender is on or
off, if it's off.
Say the blender is off. Then, if you're right, I can't know that it's
off. Neither can you I unsure whether it's on or off, because if I
were unsure that would mean that it was off - if it was on, would not
be sure. In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
I'd believe that it was on if it was on . Which means I'd believe the
blender was on whether it was on or off; and I'd believe the kitten
was dead, whether it was alive or dead.
That follows from your belief that it is possible to know the blender
is on and impossible to know that it is off.
> If the kitten was not dead in 3 days
> though, then situation 1 could not have occured, and you have now ay to
> distinguish between 2 and 3, so you simply couldn't know if it was alive or
> dead.
But your claim was that it is possible to know that the kitten is
dead. So I must be able to distinguish between 2 and 3, if 2 occurs
and the kitten is dead.
So, by your claim, I must be both able to distinguish between 2 and 3,
and unable to distinguish between 2 and 3.
>
> Please remember this example next time so you don't make the same error i
> n the
> future.
When doing logic, it is hard to avoid the 'error' of calling a
contradiction a contradiction.
George Dance
9...@hcsmail.com>...
> Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
>
> What does the kitten hypo have to do with the knowledge possibility
> principle?
>
> That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> was or not.
But does the lack of radio broadcasts make it impossible to tell that
there is no life there, if there is not? That's the case you need:
one in which it is both possible to tell there is life on A.C., and at
the same time impossible to tell that there is not.
(Of course, if your example were consistent with Stupidity's earlier
claim, the situation would have to be reversed - it would have to be
both possible to tell that there is no life, and impossible to tell if
there is any.)
George Dance
> That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> was or not.
Pretty obvious? It's pretty obvious to me that you're relying on the
belief that, since we can know that we're receiving their broadcasts,
then we would also know if we were not receiving their broadcasts.
Yet that's the very principle you're denying: you're claiming that it
is both possible for us to tell that we are receiving their
broadcasts, and impossible for us to tell if we were not.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>> (the blender starts out with some water in it, in all situations)
>>
>> Also, you will be sitting there observing the blender for this entire 3 day
>> period. If you notice the blender on the whole time, you can know that the
>> kitten is dead at the end of 3 days.
>
>Well, no. If I notice the blender on, that doesn't mean the blender
>is on;
We can safely assume that your senses do not decieve you.
>as t least if you're correct, and it's possible to know that
>the blender is on (that is, to believe with justification that it's
>on, if it is on) but impossible to know whether the blender is on or
>off, if it's off.
That is possible in the general sense, but in my make believe scienario it
isn't possible, since we can stipulate that you can tell either way.
>Say the blender is off. Then, if you're right, I can't know that it's
>off.
False. You seem to have lots of trouble following arguments. The relationship
betweent he blender and you had no such properties in the scenario that I
stipulated.
>Neither can you I unsure whether it's on or off, because if I
>were unsure that would mean that it was off - if it was on, would not
>be sure.
This seems to be rather ungramatical. Fix it if you want a response.
>In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
>off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
>I'd believe that it was on if it was on .
This is wrong. Not being able to tell something doesn't imply that you EVER
need to have false beliefs about it. And again, this whole thing with the focus
on the blender seems to stem from your confusion about what I was saying.
>That follows from your belief that it is possible to know the blender
>is on and impossible to know that it is off.
But that was never my belief, fagnuts. Also, that doesn't follow at all. Again
I must point out how funny it is that you seem so into logic yet you are so bad
at it.
>> If the kitten was not dead in 3 days
>> though, then situation 1 could not have occured, and you have now ay to
>> distinguish between 2 and 3, so you simply couldn't know if it was alive or
>> dead.
>
>But your claim was that it is possible to know that the kitten is
>dead. So I must be able to distinguish between 2 and 3, if 2 occurs
>and the kitten is dead.
Wrong. Let me clear up some misunderstandings you seem to have:
I never claimed that it is possible that in each in every case that the kitten
was dead, I could know that it was dead, but that if it wasn't dead I wouldn't
be able to know.
The claim was that it is possible for me to know the kitten is dead in some
case, whereas in no case could I know that the kitten was alive.
If you recall, this whole thing sprung from your incorrect claim that it was a
contradiction when I said that moral realism is false, and if it were true no
one could know (or something).
>So, by your claim, I must be both able to distinguish between 2 and 3,
>and unable to distinguish between 2 and 3.
Develop your reading comprehension skills, my boy.
Symmetry
>From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
>Date: 5/18/02 8:44 AM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>> That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
>> Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
>> there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
>> was or not.
>
>But does the lack of radio broadcasts make it impossible to tell that
>there is no life there, if there is not? That's the case you need:
No it isn't, cockgarbles.
What you earlier thought was contradictory (with my moral realism comments) was
that there would exist some condition where a person could know that X is
false, but if X were true there'd be no means by which they could distinguish
one way or the other.
Your foolishness is reflected in the fact that you've been confusing the
existance of one situation in which X is false and you being able to know about
it, with being able to know X is false in all situations when X is false.
George Dance
3873.0...@mb-cu.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: Robert Allen Leeper ra...@hcsmail.com
> >Date: 5/17/02 8:52 PM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <3CE5B3D1...@hcsmail.com>
>
> >What does the kitten hypo have to do with the knowledge possibility
> >principle?
>
> Not sure what that principle is.
Your principle:
"It is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that
if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not."
Here's yet another proof that your principle entails a contradiction.
Feel free to spot the logical error, if you can.
To make it simple for you, I've put it into propositional logic, with
only four propositions:
A = "X is true"
B = "S knows that X is true"
C = "S knows that X is not true."
D = "S knows whether X is true or not."
I'm also claiming two axiomatic relations between them:
I. (A&D) <=> B
II. (~A&D) <=> C
Your principle can be formalized as:
1. B & ~<>(~A->C) AIP
from which it follows that:
2. B 1 Simp
3. ~<>(~A->C) 1 Simp
4. []~(~A->C) 3 MN
5. ~(~A->C) 4 T
6. (A&D)<->B I
7. ((A&D)->B)&((B->(A&D)) 6 Equiv
8. B->(A&D) 7 Simp
9. A&D 2,8 MP
10. D 9 Simp
11. (~A&D)<->C II
12. ((~A&D)->C)&(C->(~A&D) 11 Equiv
13. (~A&D)->C 12 Simp
14. (D&~A)->C 13 Comm
15. D->(~A->C) 14 Exp
16. (~A->C) 10, 15 MP
17. (~A->C) & ~(~A->C) 5, 16 Conj
18. p & ~p 17 Sub [p/(~A->C)]
----------
19. ~ (B & ~<>(~A->C)) 1-18 IP
QED
Robert Allen Leeper
>
> Robert Allen Leeper:
> > That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> > Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> > there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> > was or not.
>
> But does the lack of radio broadcasts make it impossible to tell that
> there is no life there, if there is not? That's the case you need:
> one in which it is both possible to tell there is life on A.C., and at
> the same time impossible to tell that there is not.
I thought the case I needed was, not "at the same time impossible to
tell that there is not", but *at the same time possible to know (given
the liberal criterion of 'knowledge' that the whole question seems to
presuppose) that if there were no life there (so that we would not have
the positive evidence we do) we would have no evidence one way or
another (and so would not know whether there was life there or not)*.
To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
[if C is true then we can know that A is true] - and since A and B are
both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
A simpler hypo. Suppose Jones is in a black box about which we have no
knowledge except that if and only if he simultaneously presses buttons A
and B, then an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off then we know he
has pressed button A. But we also know that if he does not press button
A then we cannot know whether he does or not (since we do not know
whether he presses button B).
In other words, it is possible to imagine situations in which the only
evidence we can have is positive.
Resijinth
> Symmetry wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > It can act to increase the probability of its own destruction, and plan
> > ts do
> > this all the time when they invest resources in producing offspring.
> >
>
>
> So what? They don't choose. They use instinct to automatically further
> life.
Yes, but it's not necessarily THEIR own life they further sometimes.
>
>
> >
> >
> > It can act as its own destroyer though, as the quote mentions.
>
>
> Yes, a goat can slip off of a hill and break it's back, so what?
> Instinct.
It still acts.
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Hey slap-festival, what this example is supposed to disprove is that plan
> > ts and
> > animals act automatically to further their own life. That's false.
> >
>
>
> Plants and animals DO act automatically to further their own life. The
> only alternative is that they act rationally to further life, this is
> what is called a CHOICE. Read the quote, plants, for example, cannot
> choose evil.
NO! They AUTOMATICALLY act to further their genetic legacy. Their
genetic legacy depends on themselves living. It is ENTIRELY possible
for a species whose individuals automatically acts for their own
destruction once they surve no more purpose to their species, or to
their family, or whatever.
>
>
> >
> >
> > Irrelevent who kills him. Male mantii have a relatively high probability of
> > dying when they engage in some action, and yet they have evolved such that
> > specifically seek out that action. That's called acting for your own
> > desctruction, nutgarbles.
> >
>
>
> I agree, it doesn't matter how a male mantis gets killed. What matters
> is that it doesn't have the opportunity to CHOOSE evil.
Right, but they still DO it, whether or not they CHOOSE to. What they
do and whether or not they have chosen to do it are entirely different
issues.
>
> >
> >
> > Blatantly false.
>
>
> Blatantly true. The only alternative is a mantii acting rationally, and
> choosing its actions with his rational faculty.
No, the alternative is it acts for its own destruction as a way to
serve its family or its species so its genes can survive.
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Maybe not, but Rand's argument is not just that non-humans can't choose
> > anything.
>
>
> Ayn Rand, through her character's statement, was indeed talking about
> rationality and volition.
Yes she WAS, but she wsn't JUST taking about it. She was talking about
rationality and volition AND talking about something else. She was
((WHOLE OF PHRASE MEANS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN THE SUM OF ITS
PARTS))"NOT-JUST"((WHOLE OF PHRASE MEANS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN THE
SUM OF ITS PARTS)) talking about the fact that non-humans can't choose
anything.
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > You have reading comprehension issues. Volition is not relevent to what
> > David
> > is trying to show. It was Rand who started asserting that animals cannot
> > choose
> > things. From reading the text it is explicit that Rand holds the false b
> > elief
> > that plants act automatically to further its life, and it is implicit tha
> > t she
> > holds the false belief that as far as they can choose, animals chose to do
> > that, and if they cant choose, animals automatically do that also.
> >
>
Yeah.
>
> I have reading comprehension issues? Here's the quote, read it again.
> ^^There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence
> or non-existence--and it pertains to a single class of entities: to
> living organisms.
I'll use two definitions of alternative.
Alternative1: That which exists for volitional beings because they can
choose A over B or B over A.
Alternatives: That which exists for anything capable of changing
states.
Using the definition of alternative1, living organisms, other than
humans (and similarly volitional beings) have no alternative, so this
statement is false.
Using the definition of alternative2, anything, including a rock or a
drop of water, has alternatives, so this statement is also false.
> ... . But a plant has no choice of action; ....: it
> acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own
> destruction.
I'll use two definitions of act.
Act1: Volitionally choosing to take a course of action.
Act2: Simply happening to take that action.
Using the definition of act1, it does not act automatically to further
its own life, since it has no volition.
Using the definition of act2, it is false that it cannot act for its
own destruction, because sometimes they DO act for their own
destruction, simply because it is not volitional, and therefore the
only action taken is that which is necessary to further its genetic
legacy.
> An animal... But so long as it lives, ... it is unable to
> ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its
> own destroyer.^^
Of course, it can't IGNORE its own good because it isn't capable of
REALIZING it, but it doesn't PERCEIVE it's own good either!
Furthermore, it is unable to CHOOSE the evil and act its own
destroyer, but they DO act as their own destroyer sometimes.
> The problem of comprehension isn't on my part, Ayn
> Rand is speaking about volition. The facts are that entities that rely
> on instinct must act on instinct to further life, and instinct means
> that CHOICE is not available; therefore, entities that rely on instinct
> cannot ^^decide to CHOOSE the evil and act as its own destroyer.^^
Yes, but irrelevant. They don't choose the evil. They do it. And it
can't be evil because they have no will. But it also can't be GOOD, at
least not good as it means when it is opposed to evil.
>
>
>
> **btw, what's with the explosion of personal attacks? I think we can
> both agree that they are not needed, and degrade argumentation.
I don't know who was using personal attacks, but Leonard Piekoff uses
personal attacks too, just to warn you.
>
>
> Russell Keniston.
-Resijinth
Robert Allen Leeper
>
> Robert Allen Leeper <ra...@hcsmail.com> wrote in message news:<3CE5B3D1.B5A8
> 9...@hcsmail.com>...
>
> > That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> > Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> > there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> > was or not.
>
> Pretty obvious? It's pretty obvious to me that you're relying on the
> belief that, since we can know that we're receiving their broadcasts,
> then we would also know if we were not receiving their broadcasts.
Yes.
> Yet that's the very principle you're denying: you're claiming that it
> is both possible for us to tell that we are receiving their
> broadcasts, and impossible for us to tell if we were not.
No. Possible to know that if we were not then we'd have no knowledge.
(see my longer post)
Resijinth
Now WHAT the FUCK do all those GODDAMNED symbols mean? Please explain
what is meant. Trying to proove something to us this way is the same
as using a word like "Reprocussion" to a five your old.
-Resijinth
Resijinth
CB...@hcsmail.com>...
Also, what if the situation were different, IE if he pressed EITHER A
OR B the alarm would go off. We wouldn't know that if the alarm went
off that he had pressed A, but we WOULD know that if the alarm DIDN'T
go off that he did NOT press A. So, in this case, it is also possible
to imagine situations in which the only evidence we can have is
negative.
Of course, I know some of you will try to contradict me on this, as
some of you will try to contradict Rob on his point.
r
r
rrr
r
r
rr
rr
r
rr
r
r
r
r
r
rrr
r
r
r
rr
r
r
-Resijinth (Yes, I'm doing that, what Symmetry does, but ONLY so that
it forces the mod-bot to accept my post.)
George Dance
5dfc...@posting.google.com>...
> *SNIP*
>
> Now WHAT the FUCK do all those GODDAMNED symbols mean? Please explain
> what is meant.
OK, I'll try; but I can do that by putting the symbols back in. So
here they are again:
The letter A-D stand for atomic propositions. Their translations are
given: en.
> A = "X is true"
> B = "S knows that X is true"
> C = "S knows that X is not true."
> D = "S knows whether X is true or not."
While the other symbols are logical operators, of two kinds:
~_" means "not _", <>_ means "possibly _", and []_, "necessarily _";
_&_ means "_ and _", "_v_" means "_ or_", "_->_" means "if _, then _",
and "_<->_" means "_ if and only if (iff) _".
That allows for a full translation of the argument into symbolic
language, which (like mathematical language) does not allow for
fudging, equivocation, or anything other verbal tricks. The argument
can then be examined for its logical structure alone, and one is able
to tell if it's logical or not.
The symbols on the right are the justification. Each line of the
proof has to be reasoned out from previous lines: the numbers refer to
those previous lines, and the abbreviations beside them to the
justifications for each step of the reasoning. No step in the
reasonins is allowed unless it is justified by a previous step and by
a rule of reasoning.
A full sentence-by-sentence translation follows.
> A = "X is true"
> B = "S knows that X is true"
> C = "S knows that X is not true."
> D = "S knows whether X is true or not."
>
> I'm also claiming two axiomatic relations between them:
> I. (A&D) <=> B
"S knows X is true, iff X is true, and S knows whether X is true or
not."
> II. (~A&D) <=> C
"S knows X is false, iff X is false, and S knows whether X is true or
not."
> Your principle can be formalized as:
>
> 1. B & ~<>(~A->C) AIP
"S knows X is true, and if X is false, it is impossible for X to know
whether X is true or not."
> from which it follows that:
> 2. B 1 Simp
"S knows that X is true"
> 3. ~<>(~A->C) 1 Simp
"If X is false, it is impossible for S to know whether X is true or
not."
> 4. []~(~A->C) 3 MN
"Necessarily, X doesn't know whether X is true or not, if X is false."
> 5. ~(~A->C) 4 T
"X doesn't know whether X is true or not, if X is false." (by axiom T
- whatever is necessary is true).
> 6. (A&D)<->B I
"S knows X is true, iff X is true, and S knows whether X is true or
not."
> 7. ((A&D)->B)&((B->(A&D)) 6 Equiv
"S knows X is true, if X is true, and S knows whether X is true or
not; and
"S knows X is true, only if X is true, and S knows whether X is true
or not."
> 8. B->(A&D) 7 Simp
"If S knows X is true, then X is true, and S knows whether X is true
or not."
> 9. A&D 2,8 MP
"X is true, and S knows whether X is true or not." (Because S knows
X, from line 2).
> 10. D 9 Simp
"S knows whether X is true or not."
> 11. (~A&D)<->C II
"S knows X is false, iff X is false, and S knows whether X is true or
not."
> 12. ((~A&D)->C)&(C->(~A&D) 11 Equiv
"S knows X is false, if X is false, and S knows whether X is true or
not; and
S knows X is false, only if X is false, and S knows whether X is true
or not."
> 13. (~A&D)->C 12 Simp
"If X is false, and S knows whether X is true or not, then S knows
that X is false."
> 14. (D&~A)->C 13 Comm
"If S knows whether X is true or not, and X is false, then S knows X
is false."
(Note, even changing the order of the propositions has to justified.)
> 15. D->(~A->C) 14 Exp
"If S knows whether X is true or not, then if X is false, then S knows
X is false."
(Note
> 16. (~A->C) 10, 15 MP
"If X is false, then S knows X is false." (Because S knows whether X
is true or false, by line 10.)
> 17. (~A->C) & ~(~A->C) 5, 16 Conj
"If X is false, then S knows X is false" (from line 16) and "If X is
false, then S does not know X is false" (from line 5).
> 18. p & ~p 17 Sub [p/(~A->C)]
"Line 17 is contradictory."
> ----------
> 19. ~ (B & ~<>(~A->C)) 1-18 IP
"Since the original assertion logically implies a contradiction, it is
false."
> QED
"The proof has been demonstrated (Latin)."
Trying to proove something to us this way is the same
> as using a word like "Reprocussion" to a five your old.
>
> -Resijinth
No one has to stay at the 5-year-old level forever. Learning the
language of logic is relatively easy. Learning to use it, makes it
possible to determine the soundness or unsoundness of any piece of
reasoning, without error, as precisely as you can use mathematics to
determine the soundness or unsoundness of a numerical calculation.
George Dance
3884.0...@mb-cu.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/18/02 8:44 AM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
> >
>
> >> That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> >> Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> >> there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> >> was or not.
> >
> >But does the lack of radio broadcasts make it impossible to tell that
> >there is no life there, if there is not? That's the case you need:
>
> No it isn't, cockgarbles.
>
> What you earlier thought was contradictory (with my moral realism comment
> s) was
> that there would exist some condition where a person could know that X is
> false, but if X were true there'd be no means by which they could distinguish
> one way or the other.
Complete bullshit. Your 'moral realism' claim was that you knew both
that x was false, and that it was impossible to know that X was true
(if it were true), at the same time and in the same respect.
> Your foolishness is reflected in the fact that you've been confusing the
> existance of one situation in which X is false and you being able to know
> about
> it, with being able to know X is false in all situations when X is false.
If your claim is true, then this contradiction is possible, which
means it can be the case in any situation.
You can of course simply 'stipulate' that your claim is true in this
case, and false in this other case; but when you do that in real life,
it isn't called 'stipulating'; it's called 'pretending.' Which is
what you're trying to do in this example: to pretend that your claim
is true wrt to the existence of life on AC, and false wrt the
existence of the radio broadcasts.
George Dance
CB...@hcsmail.com>...
> George Dance wrote:
> >
> > Robert Allen Leeper:
>
> > > That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> > > Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> > > there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> > > was or not.
> >
> > But does the lack of radio broadcasts make it impossible to tell that
> > there is no life there, if there is not? That's the case you need:
> > one in which it is both possible to tell there is life on A.C., and at
> > the same time impossible to tell that there is not.
>
> I thought the case I needed was, not "at the same time impossible to
> tell that there is not", but *at the same time possible to know (given
> the liberal criterion of 'knowledge' that the whole question seems to
> presuppose) that if there were no life there (so that we would not have
> the positive evidence we do) we would have no evidence one way or
> another (and so would not know whether there was life there or not)*.
Nope. Stupidity is claiming that, in his kitten example for instance,
that it is always possible to tell the kitten is dead, if it is, and
never possible to tell that the kitten is alive, if it is.
> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
> [if C is true then we can know that A is true] - and since A and B are
> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
Sure there could be; but that's not the point at issue. This dummy
claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
know if there were any or not.
There was nothing in his claim about two different conditions; that's
only waffling he's introduced later.
Which is why I keep formalizing the argument, as it leaves no room for
him to keep changing his argument (and also, I suspect, why he keeps
evading the formalizations).
> A simpler hypo. Suppose Jones is in a black box about which we have no
> knowledge except that if and only if he simultaneously presses buttons A
> and B, then an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off then we know he
> has pressed button A. But we also know that if he does not press button
> A then we cannot know whether he does or not (since we do not know
> whether he presses button B).
Right; but whether Jones presses button A, and whether Jones presses
button B, are two different events. To be consistent with the
original claim, the situation has to be one in which: if Jones presses
button A, you can tell that he did; but if Jones does not press button
A, you cannot tell whether he pressed button A or not.
> In other words, it is possible to imagine situations in which the only
> evidence we can have is positive.
It's possible; if X has to be true in one state, and false in another,
and if we could only learn whether X is true in the first state,
that's an instance. But this is not what Stupidity is claiming, and
not what he's defending; it's only waffling he's resorted to after the
fact to cover his butt.
Robert Allen Leeper
> This dummy
> claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
> the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
> know if there were any or not.
But this is completely different from what I thought we were arguing
about - do I have to go back and quote you? - that we could know x and
also know that if x were false, then we couldn't know x or ~x.
As an aside, either the ethical subjectivists or the ethical
objectivists may be wrong, but neither is making some dumb error in
elementary logic.
George Dance
3884.0...@mb-cu.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/18/02 12:17 AM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
> >> Also, you will be sitting there observing the blender for this entire
> >> 3 day
> >> period. If you notice the blender on the whole time, you can know that the
> >> kitten is dead at the end of 3 days.
> >
> >Well, no. If I notice the blender on, that doesn't mean the blender
> >is on;
>
> We can safely assume that your senses do not decieve you.
Which contradicts your conclusion, which I note is now being called
your 'knowledge principle': that it's possible for S to know X ("the
blender is on"), and at the same time impossible for S to know ~X
("the blender is off").
> >at least if you're correct, and it's possible to know that
> >the blender is on (that is, to believe with justification that it's
> >on, if it is on) but impossible to know whether the blender is on or
> >off, if it's off.
>
> That is possible in the general sense, but in my make believe scienario it
> isn't possible, since we can stipulate that you can tell either way.
Sure; you could have stipulated that the blender is a special
exception to your 'knowledge principle.' But you didn't, and there's
no reason to assume that it is an exception (and the alternative,
assuming that your 'principle' is false because contradictory, is not
available to you).
> >Say the blender is off. Then, if you're right, I can't know that it's
> >off.
>
> False. You seem to have lots of trouble following arguments. The relationship
> betweent he blender and you had no such properties in the scenario that I
> stipulated.
No special properties were needed, under your principle: from that,
it's possible in every case (meaning possibly true in every case) that
you can know X but not ~X.
So there's no need to add in any properties, to claim that your
'principle' is possibly true of the blender.
>
> >Neither can I be unsure whether it's on or off, because if I
> >were unsure that would mean that it was off - if it was on, I would not
> >be unsure.
>
> This seems to be rather ungramatical. Fix it if you want a response.
Fixed.
> >In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
> >off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
> >I'd believe that it was on if it was on .
>
> This is wrong. Not being able to tell something doesn't imply that you EVER
> need to have false beliefs about it.
If it's not possible to tell that ~X ("the blender is off), then your
beliefs can't be any different whether X or ~X; because if they were
any different, the difference would allow you to tell that ~X.
> And again, this whole thing with the
> focus
> on the blender seems to stem from your confusion about what I was saying.
No; it just shows that you can't reasonably conclude something from an
example in which you 'reasonably assume' that your conclusion is
false.
> >That follows from your belief that it is possible to know the blender
> >is on and impossible to know that it is off.
>
> But that was never my belief, fagnuts.
It's what you've been claiming, bullshit boy. Your claim, remember,
was that it's possible that there are situations in which it's
possible to know X and also impossible to know ~X; you could have
added, "except in scenarios where I assume that it's not possible,"
but you didn't up to now.
> Also, that doesn't follow at all. Again
> I must point out how funny it is that you seem so into logic yet you are so
> bad at it.
Point out whatever you've wanted. Since you're having trouble
understanding the argument in English, I've provided you with a
formalized version; find the 'error' you've been claiming, in that,
and then you can get away with pretending to know something about
logic.
> >> If the kitten was not dead in 3 days
> >> though, then situation 1 could not have occured, and you have now ay to
> >> distinguish between 2 and 3, so you simply couldn't know if it was ali
> >> ve or
> >> dead.
> >
> >But your claim was that it is possible to know that the kitten is
> >dead. So I must be able to distinguish between 2 and 3, if 2 occurs
> >and the kitten is dead.
>
> Wrong. Let me clear up some misunderstandings you seem to have:
>
> I never claimed that it is possible that in each in every case that the k
> itten
> was dead, I could know that it was dead, but that if it wasn't dead I wou
> ldn't
> be able to know.
No, what you claimed was that it was possible in any case to both know
X ("the kitten is dead") and at the same time impossible to know ~X
("the kitten is alive). Now show why it's possible in this case. Or,
if you want, 'stipulate' or assume that it's impossible in this case,
too; since you've already contradicted your conclusion once in your
assumptions, you might as well keep doing it.
George Dance
CB...@hcsmail.com>...
> George Dance wrote:
> >
> > Robert Allen Leeper:
> > > That principle seems pretty obvious: We know there is life on Alpha
> > > Centauri 2 because we've been receiving their radio broadcasts, but if
> > > there weren't life there we (know that we) wouldn't know whether there
> > > was or not.
> >
> > But does the lack of radio broadcasts make it impossible to tell that
> > there is no life there, if there is not? That's the case you need:
> > one in which it is both possible to tell there is life on A.C., and at
> > the same time impossible to tell that there is not.
>
> I thought the case I needed was, not "at the same time impossible to
> tell that there is not", but *at the same time possible to know (given
> the liberal criterion of 'knowledge' that the whole question seems to
> presuppose) that if there were no life there (so that we would not have
> the positive evidence we do) we would have no evidence one way or
> another (and so would not know whether there was life there or not)*.
No; S's 'knowledge principle' is not that there can be evidence of X,
while its absence would not be evidence of non-X (that's possible),
but that there can be a situation in which it is possible to know X
and at the same time, impossible to know non-X if non-X were true
instead (under the same conditions).
Of course we have no evidence right now from AC besides the
broadcasts, but it's possible to get that evidence, by sending a probe
there, eg. So this is not an example of the 'principle'.
It's not even a coherent example, if the 'principle' is possibly true
wrt every fact. For then it could be that we knew we were receiving
broadcasts from AC, but could not know whether were or were not
receiving broadcasts. (You could of course stipulate that the
principle is false in *that* case, as S is trying to do in his
scenarios; but of course one cannot not justifiably just stipulate
that the 'principle' applies or not wrt real states of affairs.)
> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
> [if C is true then we can know that A is true] - and since A and B are
> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
Well, we have no conclusive evidence that A is false; but it is
evidence that either A or B or both are false. And there's no reason
discovery has to stop at that point - though, if we accept S's
principle and conclude that we cannot discover the truth of ~A, that's
where it of course has to stop.
> A simpler hypo. Suppose Jones is in a black box about which we have no
> knowledge except that if and only if he simultaneously presses buttons A
> and B, then an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off then we know he
> has pressed button A. But we also know that if he does not press button
> A then we cannot know whether he does or not (since we do not know
> whether he presses button B).
Look, if the alarm goes off, we know he has pressed A and B; we know
the equivalence between <alarm> and (A&B). By which, we also think,
we know the equivalence of <no alarm> and ~(A&B). But if S's
'knowledge principle is correct, it could be that we can know (A&B)
when it happens, but also true that we cannot know ~(A&B), so you
can't even conclude that.
We can of course have situations - I could imagine some of my own - in
which we did know (A&B) but wouldn't know (A&B). But this has nothing
to do with the possibility of knowledge; and that's what S's
'knowledge principle' deals with.
> In other words, it is possible to imagine situations in which the only
> evidence we can have is positive.
Agreed. This is not a question of evidence, or proveability for that
matter, but of whether knowledge of a fact can be possible, at the
same time as knowledge of a its absense is impossible.
Symmetry
>From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
>Date: 5/18/02 7:45 PM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>> >What does the kitten hypo have to do with the knowledge possibility
>> >principle?
>>
>> Not sure what that principle is.
>
>Your principle:
>"It is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that
>if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not."
It might be less confusing to you if you stated it like "It is possible for
situations to exist in which you can know that X is true, but if the situation
where changed so that X was false, you couldn't know if X was true or false."
>A = "X is true"
>B = "S knows that X is true"
>C = "S knows that X is not true."
>D = "S knows whether X is true or not."
>
>I'm also claiming two axiomatic relations between them:
>I. (A&D) <=> B
>II. (~A&D) <=> C
>
>Your principle can be formalized as:
>
> 1. B & ~<>(~A->C) AIP
Aha, you're the guy whose logical errors I had to fix long ago because you seem
unfamiliar with quantificational logic.
Take a gander back to
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl4191790538d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=2002
0105020051.19485.00003779%40mb-fo.aol.com&rnum=134
We discuss the same topic and you'll see yourself making logical error after
logical error in a comical fashion ( you actually claim that
(C&(C->(~A&(A->~<>K(A)) entails a contradiction)
In this post, you're just letting "X" float around unbounded. Because of this
your 'argument' is rubbish. I'll not waste my time with it. Also, learn to use
some predicates. Better notation would be.
K(X, p) = x knows that P is true.
That's the only special notation you need to define. Then you can write.
X = "X is true" (obviously)
K(S, X) = "S knows that X is true"
K(S, ~X) = "S knows that X is not true."
K(S, X) OR K(S, X) = "S knows whether X is true or not."
The notation you use is simply awful.
I mean, what reason could there be for defining A = "X is true"? Why not just
use X?
>Your principle can be formalized as:
>
> 1. B & ~<>(~A->C) AIP
Again, this doesn't even make any sense because X is unbounded. How you can
take me asserting that "S knows that X is true" as some general principle where
both S and X are not bound is just comical for someone who allegedly is into
formal logic.
I suggest that you learn some mathematics to help you think more logically.
I'll semi-formalize my assertaiton somewhat properly:
Let U be the set of all possuble situations (not that well defined yet, but it
doesn't matter here)
Let P be the set of all propositions
Let K(x, u) = x can be known by some person in u
E = there exists,
e = 'element of'
EueU( ExeP( x --> K(x, u) AND ~x --> ( ~K(x, u) && ~K(~x, u) )))
Now, the above is sort of sloppy, and I'd spend more time trying to make it
precisely correct if I were going to write out some big proof starting from it.
But, it is vastly closer to what one would need to do to formalize my
proposition than what you did.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.0205...@posting.google.com>
>
>> What you earlier thought was contradictory (with my moral realism comment
>> s) was
>> that there would exist some condition where a person could know that X is
>> false, but if X were true there'd be no means by which they could
>distinguish
>> one way or the other.
>
>Complete bullshit. Your 'moral realism' claim was that you knew both
>that x was false, and that it was impossible to know that X was true
>(if it were true), at the same time and in the same respect.
What is this 'at the same time and in the same respect' stuff? I know I didn't
say that in my initial claim, and haven't said it since.
Here is your initial post on the subject
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
> joe teicher <joeo...@aol.com> wrote in message news:<b4cbfeca.0112031252.
> 1832...@posting.google.com>... snip
> > No, it is your premise. You say that suppose an organism can percieve
> > moral data, and in regards to action X he percieves moral data of type
> > A which he interprets to mean that doing X is good. But in reality
> > doing X is wrong. There is your premise. Your premise is that there
> > is some reality in which X is wrong apart from how the organism feels
> > about X. In practice, of course, "X is really wrong" is an impossible
> > statement to make, so an argument based on it is pretty useless.
>
> OK, the problem is that I have two arguments. One of them is that
> there is no moral truth of the type that Owl or D. Friedman envision,
> and another is that, if there were such truth, we couldn't discover
> it. You were talking about my second argument I believe, and for some
> reason I was thinking of my first.
To be unable to discover moral truth means to be unable to tell if
some statement S is a moral truth or not. If S were a moral truth, no
one would know; and similarly, if S were not a moral truth, no one
would know.
To say that there is no moral truth, is to say of every statement S
that might be a moral truth, that it is not; which requires the
ability to tell whether S is a moral truth or not.
As your two arguments contradict each other, you cannot consistently
claim both.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
That is you in the text without any > to its left.
Check
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&threadm=20011226203836.29146.000
00374%40mb-dh.aol.com&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dif%2Bthen%2Bgeorge%2Bgroup
:humanities.philosophy.objectivism%2Bauthor:symme7ry%2540aol.compare.com%2
6hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26selm%3D20011226203836.29146.00000374%2540mb-dh.aol.com%
26rnum%3D2
What you claim there is simply false, and what you have been claiming since is
simply false.
I've given countless example, and here is the simplest one yet.
Suppose you know for certain that if X occurs, it implies that A is true.
Suppose you know for certain that if X does not occur, that the logical
expression "A OR B" is true. You have no other information about A or B.
This is a clear cut case where it can be that you know that A is true, but if A
was not true, you could not know one way or the other whether A was true.
I don't know how much more elmentary I can get with you. The above is exactly
the form of my initial claim that it was both the case that moral realism is
false, but if it weren't false there'd be no way to tell one way or the other.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>> I thought the case I needed was, not "at the same time impossible to
>> tell that there is not", but *at the same time possible to know (given
>> the liberal criterion of 'knowledge' that the whole question seems to
>> presuppose) that if there were no life there (so that we would not have
>> the positive evidence we do) we would have no evidence one way or
>> another (and so would not know whether there was life there or not)*.
>
>Nope. Stupidity is claiming that, in his kitten example for instance,
>that it is always possible to tell the kitten is dead, if it is, and
>never possible to tell that the kitten is alive, if it is.
When did I say this? When did I say that if the kitten is dead, you can always
tell that it is dead?
Before I just thought you were rather foolish and amazingly bad at logic, but
this kind of stuff makes me think that you are dishonest as well.
If you don't find any evidence of my saying that in my example you could always
tell that the kitten is dead, and you also don't admit your mistake, it will be
rather good evidence that you are of bad character.
>> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
>> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
>> [if C is true then we can know that A is true] - and since A and B are
>> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
>> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
>
>Sure there could be; but that's not the point at issue.
It is exactly the point at issue.
>This dummy
>claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
>the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
>know if there were any or not.
And this exact situation can be modeled by what Robert wrote. Are you erally
this slow?
>There was nothing in his claim about two different conditions;
This has to be the stupidest statement I've seen in quite awhile. If I make a
claim that A-->B, it doesn't matter how many intermediate steps you have to go
through to infer B from A, or how many 'conditions' are involved in the
scenario, or anything else concerned with WHY A-->B. If you claim that there is
somethign contradictory in the claim A-->B, then if there exists one possible
scenario in which A is B, then you're wrong.
Suppose that A = moral realism is true in Robert's example. Then in the
situation he describes, it is possible for someone to know both that moral
realism is true, and if it weren't, we couldn't know one way or the other. To
not see this you have to be operating at an extreme level of invasion.
Your "but he didn't say anything about 2 conditions" is so foolish it is hard
to put into words. I don't need to spell out the exact reasons why I can know A
but if A weren't true I couldnt know whether A or ~A. I simply asserted it was
true and you said it was contradictory. The fact that I didn't hold your hand
and show you one possible way in which it could be true doesn't mean a thing.
You claimed that what I said was contradictory and it wasn't. Robert has
explained this quite clearly to you multiple times, yet you just keep on
evading..
>Which is why I keep formalizing the argument, as it leaves no room for
>him to keep changing his argument (and also, I suspect, why he keeps
>evading the formalizations).
When have I 'kept' doing this? I linked to the one other time you tried to
formialize my argument long ago, and in that thread you can clearly see me
giving you a logic lesson.
>> A simpler hypo. Suppose Jones is in a black box about which we have no
>> knowledge except that if and only if he simultaneously presses buttons A
>> and B, then an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off then we know he
>> has pressed button A. But we also know that if he does not press button
>> A then we cannot know whether he does or not (since we do not know
>> whether he presses button B).
>
>Right; but whether Jones presses button A, and whether Jones presses
>button B, are two different events. To be consistent with the
>original claim, the situation has to be one in which: if Jones presses
>button A, you can tell that he did;
Wrong. I claimed that (1) We can know that moral realism is false, and (2) If
it weren't false, we couldn't know either way. This is in direct parallel to
the claim that:
(1) We can know that Jones pressed button A, and (2) If Jones didn't press A,
we wouldn't be able to know either way.
Are you too slow even to see the exact parallel there? I never claimed that in
all situations where moral realism were false we could know.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <3CE7BCFF...@hcsmail.com>
>> This dummy
>> claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
>> the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
>> know if there were any or not.
>
>But this is completely different from what I thought we were arguing
>about - do I have to go back and quote you? - that we could know x and
>also know that if x were false, then we couldn't know x or ~x.
Do you really think George is honest enough that you'll get him to admit his
mistake?
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>> We can safely assume that your senses do not decieve you.
>
>Which contradicts your conclusion, which I note is now being called
>your 'knowledge principle': that it's possible for S to know X ("the
>blender is on"), and at the same time impossible for S to know ~X
>("the blender is off").
I can't believe how confused you seem to be about every little thing. My
'principle' does not state that for EVERY proposition its possible to know its
true in some case when its true but impossible to know either way of its false.
The proposition that my 'principle' was being applied to was whether the kitten
was dead or alive. To start applying it to whether the blender is on or not is
pure error on your part.
You stated that it is contradictory to assert that you know _SOME_ thing is
true, but if it were false you wouldn't know either way. I only have to come up
with one "some" thing to show that you're horribly wrong. The thing I have
picked in that example is whether the kitten is alive or dead. I don't need to
show that everything fits into this catagory. Understand?
>> >at least if you're correct, and it's possible to know that
>> >the blender is on (that is, to believe with justification that it's
>> >on, if it is on) but impossible to know whether the blender is on or
>> >off, if it's off.
>>
>> That is possible in the general sense, but in my make believe scienario it
>> isn't possible, since we can stipulate that you can tell either way.
>
>Sure; you could have stipulated that the blender is a special
>exception to your 'knowledge principle.'
Quote me saying that my 'principle' can be arbitrarily applied to anything.
Your comments seem a bit further off toward the 'dishonesty' zone than normal.
If you cannot provide any evidence for this and still do not admit your error,
this is another example of something that simply reflects bad character on your
part.
>> >Say the blender is off. Then, if you're right, I can't know that it's
>> >off.
>>
>> False. You seem to have lots of trouble following arguments. The
>relationship
>> betweent he blender and you had no such properties in the scenario that I
>> stipulated.
>
>No special properties were needed, under your principle: from that,
>it's possible in every case (meaning possibly true in every case) that
>you can know X but not ~X.
For any arbitrary X? When did I say this? Provide a quote.
>> >In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
>> >off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
>> >I'd believe that it was on if it was on .
>>
>> This is wrong. Not being able to tell something doesn't imply that you EVER
>> need to have false beliefs about it.
>
>If it's not possible to tell that ~X ("the blender is off), then your
>beliefs can't be any different whether X or ~X; because if they were
>any different, the difference would allow you to tell that ~X.
Pay close attention here because this is another clear-cut error on your part.
Your beliefs can be the same in the case of X and ~X without you believing
either that X or ~X. You can simpy not believe either of them, and be unsure
about it.
Hence this quote of yours is wrong:
">> >In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
>> >off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
>> >I'd believe that it was on if it was on . "
Here I am just checking your honesty and the qualify of your character in
general: do you agree that you were wrong, there?
>> >That follows from your belief that it is possible to know the blender
>> >is on and impossible to know that it is off.
>>
>> But that was never my belief, fagnuts.
>
>It's what you've been claiming, bullshit boy.
When have I ever claimed anything about 'X' in what you call my "knowledge
principle" being the blender? I never said it could be the blender, and I never
said it could be any arbitrary thing. I did at one point say it could be 'moral
realism is false', and I did say in my kitten example, X could be 'the kitten
is dead'. When have I ever let X be anything else?
This is another example where, if you just let this drop without admitting your
error, it will be a wonderous display of your poor character.
>Your claim, remember,
>was that it's possible that there are situations in which it's
>possible to know X and also impossible to know ~X; you could have
>added, "except in scenarios where I assume that it's not possible,"
>but you didn't up to now.
My claim was never that you could let X be arbitrary. I claimed it was true for
some X, yes. Some doesn't mean 'all' or 'any'. Try to find a quote where I say
its true for all things.
>> I never claimed that it is possible that in each in every case that the k
>> itten
>> was dead, I could know that it was dead, but that if it wasn't dead I wou
>> ldn't
>> be able to know.
>
>No, what you claimed was that it was possible in any case to both know
>X ("the kitten is dead") and at the same time impossible to know ~X
>("the kitten is alive).
Provide a quote where I said this was possible in "ANY" case like you claim I
said. You just keep attributing things to me that I never said. Why?
George Dance
AA...@hcsmail.com>...
> George Dance wrote:
>
> > This dummy
> > claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
> > the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
> > know if there were any or not.
>
> But this is completely different from what I thought we were arguing
> about - do I have to go back and quote you? - that we could know x and
> also know that if x were false, then we couldn't know x or ~x.
It's the same argument in the abstract - that it can be possible to
know x ("There are no moral truths") and, at the same time, be
impossible to know ~x ("There is at least one moral truth").
> As an aside, either the ethical subjectivists or the ethical
> objectivists may be wrong, but neither is making some dumb error in
> elementary logic.
That's not what I'm claiming. Check out the formalization I gave
earlier.
George Dance
9590.0...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/19/02 9:39 AM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
> >Nope. Stupidity is claiming that, in his kitten example for instance,
> >that it is always possible to tell the kitten is dead, if it is, and
> >never possible to tell that the kitten is alive, if it is.
>
> When did I say this? When did I say that if the kitten is dead, you can a
> lways
> tell that it is dead?
Oh, maybe I misunderstood you. What you said was:
<q>
it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that
if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
</q>
But you didn't say whether X stood for "the blender was on" or "the
kitten was dead". It sounded clear that by "X was not true" (or ~X)
you meant "the kitten was alive," as that's all you claimed we could
know. But, on rereading, it does sound now as if you may have been
equivocating, using "the blender was on" for X, and ~X is "the kitten
is alive" for ~X.
> Before I just thought you were rather foolish and amazingly bad at logic, but
> this kind of stuff makes me think that you are dishonest as well.
Go right ahead; I've seen the value of your thoughts.
> If you don't find any evidence of my saying that in my example you could
> always
> tell that the kitten is dead,
If you cannot tell that the kitten is dead (and if you were not
equivocating, and actually were using "the kitten is dead" as X, then
it's impossible for you to know X either. So your example fails: it
does not show that it is possible to know X and at the same time
impossible to know ~X.
> and you also don't admit your mistake, it will be
> rather good evidence that you are of bad character.
I did not suspect that you might be equivocating over X. My bad.
> >> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
> >> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
> >> [if C is true then we can know that A is true] - and since A and B are
> >> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
> >> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
> >
> >Sure there could be; but that's not the point at issue.
>
> It is exactly the point at issue.
No, it is not. According to you, it is true right now both that it is
possible to know X (="There are no moral truths") but impossible (at
exactly the same time, and in the same respect) to know ~X (="There is
at least one moral truth. All this business about 'changing
conditions' - the blender being on and off, the invisible God, etc. -
is just a result of your own confusion.
> >This dummy
> >claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
> >the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
> >know if there were any or not.
>
> And this exact situation can be modeled by what Robert wrote. Are you erally
> this slow?
> >There was nothing in his claim about two different conditions;
>
> This has to be the stupidest statement I've seen in quite awhile. If I make a
> claim that A-->B, it doesn't matter how many intermediate steps you have
> to go
> through to infer B from A, or how many 'conditions' are involved in the
> scenario, or anything else concerned with WHY A-->B. If you claim that th
> ere is
> somethign contradictory in the claim A-->B, then if there exists one possible
> scenario in which A is B, then you're wrong.
No. For you to claim (at the same time and in the same respect) that
you know two things, is to claim that both things are true at that
time and in that respect. One of your claims is that it's possible to
know X, and the other entails that it is impossible to know ~X, if ~X
were true. It is not a claim that it would be possible to know X in
one 'scenario,' and impossible to know ~X in some other 'scenario'.
(You can of course sensibly make that last claim, as I suggested, as a
disjunction; but you didn't like that, as it would mean admitting you
might not really know either 'fact.'
> Suppose that A = moral realism is true in Robert's example. Then in the
> situation he describes, it is possible for someone to know both that moral
> realism is true, and if it weren't, we couldn't know one way or the other. To
> not see this you have to be operating at an extreme level of invasion.
I can see very well that 'if it weren't' refers to a hypothetical
state of affairs, which differs from the actual one in only one
respect: A is false rather than true.
> Your "but he didn't say anything about 2 conditions" is so foolish it is hard
> to put into words. I don't need to spell out the exact reasons why I can
> know A
> but if A weren't true I couldnt know whether A or ~A. I simply asserted i
> t was
> true and you said it was contradictory.
Not only did you not say that knew A and couldn't know ~A, under
different conditions: you said that it was both true that you knew A,
and couldn't know ~A, under the very same conditions: those obtaining
at the time at which you claimed to know both claims.
> The fact that I didn't hold your hand
> and show you one possible way in which it could be true doesn't mean a thing.
That's partly you true: you did not show 'one possible way in which it
could be true' in your scenario. In that, the only time it's
impossible for you to tell whether ~X ("the kitten is alive") is when
the blender is off, and in that case you can't tell whether X (="the
kitten is dead"), either.
Nor have you addressed the problem that, if it's possible for you to
be able to know X but impossible to know ~X, then another 'possible
way' would be if X were "the blender is on." In that case - if it
were impossible for you to tell if the blender was off, then you must
believe it's on if it's off, just the same as if you would believe it
was on, if it was on - as I've explained; your only reply to that
being that you'd now decided to stipulate that it was possible to know
~X in that case.
But that itself is illogical. If it's possible that it's impossible
to know ~X, then it's impossible to know ~X.
> You claimed that what I said was contradictory and it wasn't.
I also gave an argument that your claims are contradictory; you
claimed there was an error in that argument (but wouldn't say what it
was), so I've formalized it for you. You still haven't shown any
'error'; and I don't need your opinion, as you've already given that
several times.
> Robert has already
> explained this quite clearly to you multiple times, yet you just keep on
> evading..
> >Which is why I keep formalizing the argument, as it leaves no room for
> >him to keep changing his argument (and also, I suspect, why he keeps
> >evading the formalizations).
>
> When have I 'kept' doing this? I linked to the one other time you tried to
> formialize my argument long ago, and in that thread you can clearly see me
> giving you a logic lesson.
IIRC, you claimed that it was a special kind of argument, that
couldn't be formalized in propositional logic.
> >> A simpler hypo. Suppose Jones is in a black box about which we have no
> >> knowledge except that if and only if he simultaneously presses buttons A
> >> and B, then an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off then we know he
> >> has pressed button A. But we also know that if he does not press button
> >> A then we cannot know whether he does or not (since we do not know
> >> whether he presses button B).
> >
> >Right; but whether Jones presses button A, and whether Jones presses
> >button B, are two different events. To be consistent with the
> >original claim, the situation has to be one in which: if Jones presses
> >button A, you can tell that he did;
>
> Wrong. I claimed that (1) We can know that moral realism is false, and (2) If
> it weren't false, we couldn't know either way.
(2) entailing (2b): it is impossible to know that moral realism is
true.
This is in direct parallel to
> the claim that:
> (1) We can know that Jones pressed button A, and (2) If Jones didn't press A,
> we wouldn't be able to know either way.
(2) again entailing (2b): it is impossible to know that Jones did not
press button A.
> Are you too slow even to see the exact parallel there? I never claimed th
> at in
> all situations where moral realism were false we could know.
No; just that we could know that moral realism is false in the same
situation in which we could not know that moral realism was true:
corresponding exactly to the situation in which the alarm does not
sound.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>> When did I say this? When did I say that if the kitten is dead, you can a
>> lways
>> tell that it is dead?
>
>Oh, maybe I misunderstood you. What you said was:
><q>
>it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that
>if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
></q>
>
>But you didn't say whether X stood for "the blender was on" or "the
>kitten was dead".
In my example I was always talking about X standing for the kitten being dead.
I'd be surprised if you could provide a quote where it even looks like I am
using X to mean "the blender is on"
>But, on rereading, it does sound now as if you may have been
>equivocating, using "the blender was on" for X, and ~X is "the kitten
>is alive" for ~X.
Paste a quote where you think I even remotely suggest that X stands for "the
blender is on." Since you've been 'rereading' it it shouldn't be that hard to
actually back your claims up with evidence.
>> If you don't find any evidence of my saying that in my example you could
>> always
>> tell that the kitten is dead,
>
>If you cannot tell that the kitten is dead (and if you were not
>equivocating, and actually were using "the kitten is dead" as X, then
>it's impossible for you to know X either. So your example fails: it
>does not show that it is possible to know X and at the same time
>impossible to know ~X.
You must have misread. The key word in my text is *always.*
>> >> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
>> >> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
>> >> [if C is true then we can know that A is true] - and since A and B are
>> >> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
>> >> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
>> >
>> >Sure there could be; but that's not the point at issue.
>>
>> It is exactly the point at issue.
>
>No, it is not. According to you, it is true right now both that it is
>possible to know X (="There are no moral truths") but impossible (at
>exactly the same time, and in the same respect) to know ~X (="There is
>at least one moral truth.
Whatever you mean by "in the same respect", I suspect its just a little tool to
help you evade. Here were my two claims:
(1) We can know that moral realism is false.
(2) If moral realism were true, we could not know either that it was true or
false.
Your "at the time and in the same respect its impossible to know ~X" is
inconsistent with my claim above, because I am obviously stipulating a
different 'situation' than the one that now obtains (which is referred to in
claim 1) in my second claim. "If moral realism were true" clearly indicates
that I am not talking about our current situation, but one that is different in
the respect that in that situation moral realism is true.
For you to try to put such words in my mouth to assist you on your evading
spree is just sad. Try to stop thinking about how you can possibly twist your
way out of this so you don't look like a fool, and try to honestly appraise
what is going on here.
>All this business about 'changing
>conditions' - the blender being on and off, the invisible God, etc. -
>is just a result of your own confusion.
The stuff about 'changing conditions' in my posts of many months ago was not
very clear and sort of muddled, but only because I failed to realize just how
confused you were and you'd sort of brought me into your logical-error land. At
the end of that thread after I devote some effort to untangling the mess you'd
made for yourself I show how your problems were the result of your failure to
employ quantifiers in your logic.
I just need to make sure you are honest, so humor me for one moment: do you
acknolwedge in the old post I linked to that you made at least one logical
error that I pointed out in that post?
>> >There was nothing in his claim about two different conditions;
>>
>> This has to be the stupidest statement I've seen in quite awhile. If I make
>a
>> claim that A-->B, it doesn't matter how many intermediate steps you have
>> to go
>> through to infer B from A, or how many 'conditions' are involved in the
>> scenario, or anything else concerned with WHY A-->B. If you claim that th
>> ere is
>> somethign contradictory in the claim A-->B, then if there exists one
>possible
>> scenario in which A is B, then you're wrong.
btw, that "A is B" should read "A-->B"
>> This has to be the stupidest statement I've seen in quite awhile. If I make
>a
>> claim that A-->B, it doesn't matter how many intermediate steps you have
>> to go
>> through to infer B from A, or how many 'conditions' are involved in the
>> scenario, or anything else concerned with WHY A-->B. If you claim that th
>> ere is
>> somethign contradictory in the claim A-->B, then if there exists one
>possible
>> scenario in which A is B, then you're wrong.
>
>No. For you to claim (at the same time and in the same respect)
Where did this 'same time and same respect' stuff come in? That's just your way
of making it easier to evade, right?
>One of your claims is that it's possible to
>know X, and the other entails that it is impossible to know ~X, if ~X
>were true. It is not a claim that it would be possible to know X in
>one 'scenario,' and impossible to know ~X in some other 'scenario'.
Obvoiusly it is, beacuse if X is true now, and I am talking about what would
happen if ~X were true, then obviously this 'what-if' situation is not the one
we find outselves in.
>> Suppose that A = moral realism is true in Robert's example. Then in the
>> situation he describes, it is possible for someone to know both that moral
>> realism is true, and if it weren't, we couldn't know one way or the other.
>To
>> not see this you have to be operating at an extreme level of invasion.
>
>I can see very well that 'if it weren't' refers to a hypothetical
>state of affairs, which differs from the actual one in only one
>respect: A is false rather than true.
If you were assuming that that 'one respect' could have no consequences in the
hypothetical, then that is just an error on your part. Anything implied by A
being false would also obtain in the hypothetical.
Take a look at what you're saying. If all hypothetical examples could only
differ from our current world in only the explicit manner that was specified,
then you'd get this kind of stuff:
"If I had wings, I could fly"
"That's a contradiction"
"Uh, no"
"Yes it is, because right now you can't fly, and you never stipulated that you
could fly, only that you had wings. Since you can't fly now and everything else
other than what you stipulate must remain the same, then in the hypothetical
you can't fly either, but you just said you could in the hypothetical -- a
contradiction."
See how dumb you are?
>> Your "but he didn't say anything about 2 conditions" is so foolish it is
>hard
>> to put into words. I don't need to spell out the exact reasons why I can
>> know A
>> but if A weren't true I couldnt know whether A or ~A. I simply asserted i
>> t was
>> true and you said it was contradictory.
>
>Not only did you not say that knew A and couldn't know ~A, under
>different conditions: you said that it was both true that you knew A,
>and couldn't know ~A, under the very same conditions:
No, the conditions obviously are not the same if I explicitly stipulate a
*different* world in which moral realism is true.
>Nor have you addressed the problem that, if it's possible for you to
>be able to know X but impossible to know ~X,
Find a quote where I say its possible to know X and impossible to know ~X in
the same situation.
>then another 'possible
>way' would be if X were "the blender is on."
Again, unless you can find a quote where I say you're free to assign anything
you want to X, what you're doing is in error.
>In that case - if it
>were impossible for you to tell if the blender was off, then you must
>believe it's on if it's off, just the same as if you would believe it
>was on, if it was on -
My god, I showed you this was blatantly false before. Its possible to not know
something without having a false belief about it. I don't know the atomic
weight of Plutonium but that doesn't mean I have to have false beliefs about
it.
>as I've explained; your only reply to that
>being that you'd now decided to stipulate that it was possible to know
>~X in that case.
Uh, my reply was that you don't seem to understand that if I say something is
true for one X, you can't go around substituting anything you want to for X. My
other reply which I already gave reappears above.
>> You claimed that what I said was contradictory and it wasn't.
>
>I also gave an argument that your claims are contradictory; you
>claimed there was an error in that argument (but wouldn't say what it
>was)
Did you read my post or not? Do you understand quantifiers at all? Do you
understand that your first premise actually makes no sense because S and X are
not specified? If you don't understand this, just say so.
>> When have I 'kept' doing this? I linked to the one other time you tried to
>> formialize my argument long ago, and in that thread you can clearly see me
>> giving you a logic lesson.
>
>IIRC, you claimed that it was a special kind of argument, that
>couldn't be formalized in propositional logic.
I claimed that a normal if-->then without quantifiers in the way you were using
it was not suitable for handeling future possibilites, and I was correct. When
I pointed out that you needed quantifiers, IIRC you vanished.
IOW, here is what you were doing:
I'd say "if I had a telescope, I could see pluto" and you'd try to formalize it
as
"you have a telescope" ---> "you can see pluto" and then evaluate the
propositions in our current situation and say "gee, you don't have a telescope,
so its trivially true whenever you don't have a telescope", but of course thats
wrong.
>> >> A simpler hypo. Suppose Jones is in a black box about which we have no
>> >> knowledge except that if and only if he simultaneously presses buttons A
>> >> and B, then an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off then we know he
>> >> has pressed button A. But we also know that if he does not press button
>> >> A then we cannot know whether he does or not (since we do not know
>> >> whether he presses button B).
>> >
>> >Right; but whether Jones presses button A, and whether Jones presses
>> >button B, are two different events. To be consistent with the
>> >original claim, the situation has to be one in which: if Jones presses
>> >button A, you can tell that he did;
>>
>> Wrong. I claimed that (1) We can know that moral realism is false, and (2)
>If
>> it weren't false, we couldn't know either way.
>(2) entailing (2b): it is impossible to know that moral realism is
>true.
Very good, but you need to make it clear that it is only impossible in that
situation.
>This is in direct parallel to
>> the claim that:
>
>> (1) We can know that Jones pressed button A, and (2) If Jones didn't press
>A,
>> we wouldn't be able to know either way.
>
>(2) again entailing (2b): it is impossible to know that Jones did not
>press button A.
Correct. (2b) is still of course specific to the situation in (2).
You don't see how this is a clear example of your wrongness?
>> Are you too slow even to see the exact parallel there? I never claimed th
>> at in
>> all situations where moral realism were false we could know.
>
>No; just that we could know that moral realism is false in the same
>situation in which we could not know that moral realism was true
Pure stupidity. Find a quote where I say those things about the exact same
situation. It isn't the exact situation if we have to stipulate that moral
realism si true in one case and false in the other. That's what we call a
'difference'. Understand?
pete...@webtv.net
the "pleasure principle." The pleasure principle is the theory that
attempts to identify the reactions of organisms to their immediate
environments; instinctively for non-sentients, by choice for humans.
The pleasure principle is the presumed source of "fulfilling and
enjoying" of life in Rand's arguments.
Rand speaks of this specifically in Galt's speech when he says that life
is more than just surviving, but is a value to be enjoyed. Thus,the
pleasure principle is shown to be chaotic and moment-to-moment survival
in the subhuman; chosen, logical and long- range in the human (man qua
man).
George Dance
9590.0...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/19/02 9:27 AM Central Daylight Time
> >> What you earlier thought was contradictory (with my moral realism comment
> >> s) was
> >> that there would exist some condition where a person could know that X is
> >> false, but if X were true there'd be no means by which they could
> distinguish
> >> one way or the other.
> >
> >Complete bullshit. Your 'moral realism' claim was that you knew both
> >that x was false, and that it was impossible to know that X was true
> >(if it were true), at the same time and in the same respect.
>
> What is this 'at the same time and in the same respect' stuff? I know I d
> idn't
> say that in my initial claim, and haven't said it since.
Oh come on. You said you knew both claims at the same time (at the
time you made them). Maybe they weren't in 'the same respect' - 'it's
possible to know there are no moral truths' might have meant something
different from 'it's impossible to know that there are moral truths'
(you might have meant different things by 'moral truth,' or by 'know',
or even by 'possible' in each claim) - but in that case you were just
equivocating.
> Here is your initial post on the subject
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
snip
> > OK, the problem is that I have two arguments. One of them is that
> > there is no moral truth of the type that Owl or D. Friedman envision,
> > and another is that, if there were such truth, we couldn't discover
> > it. You were talking about my second argument I believe, and for some
> > reason I was thinking of my first.
>
> To be unable to discover moral truth means to be unable to tell if
> some statement S is a moral truth or not. If S were a moral truth, no
> one would know; and similarly, if S were not a moral truth, no one
> would know.
>
> To say that there is no moral truth, is to say of every statement S
> that might be a moral truth, that it is not; which requires the
> ability to tell whether S is a moral truth or not.
>
> As your two arguments contradict each other, you cannot consistently
> claim both.
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Great. Thanks for repeating it.
> I've given countless example, and here is the simplest one yet.
I notice you changed the example, in this case, from one fact (A or
~A) to two different facts (A or B). Let me correct that by adding
that B<->~A.
I also notice you again are switching between two different states of
affairs. Let's look at each in turn, and see if, in either, it is
true that you know:
a) it's possible to know A, and
b) it's impossible to know ~A.
> Suppose you know for certain that if X occurs, it implies that A is true.
To know that, you would have to know that X->A is true; but (you are
also claiming) it is also impossible for you to know if X->A were not
true, if X->A were not true - because if X->A were ever false, X&~A
would be true, and it is impossible for you to ever know that X&~A is
true (because it is impossible for you to ever know that ~A is true).
So for a and b both to be true, you have know 'for certain' that X->A
is true, and it also has to be impossible for you to know whether X->A
is ever false. Which I'm saying is impossible: if it's impossible for
you to know whether X->A is ever false, it is impossible for you to
know for certain that X->A is true.
Since you don't know X->A, and your only evidence for A is X, then you
don't know that A occurs. It is not the case that:
a) it's possible to know A, and b) it's impossible to know ~A.
Now for the other state of affairs, where X does not occur.
> Suppose you know for certain that if X does not occur, that the logical
> expression "A OR B" is true. You have no other information about A or B.
If you have 'no other information,' that doesn't make it impossible
for you to know that ~A (or B). But let's grant you this inference,
and say that it's impossible for you to know in this case that ~A.
But as you also have 'no other information' on whether A occurs, it's
impossible (by the same inference) for you to know that A.
a) it's possible to know A, and b) it's impossible to know ~A.
> This is a clear cut case where it can be that you know that A is true, bu
> t if > A
> was not true, you could not know one way or the other whether A was true.
Neither case is clear-cut, and neither is consistent with your claim.
George Dance
50...@hcsmail.com>...
That's what I said: if we were not receiving their broadcasts, we'd
have no knwoledge of whether we were receiving their broadcasts or
not. (it being 'possibly impossible', IOW impossible for us to ever
know that we were not receiving their broadcasts).
That follows from your 'knowledge possibility principle': it is
possible to know X and know that, if X were not true, we could not
know whether X were true or not. (With "we are receiving broadcasts
from AC" substituted for X).
George Dance
1528.0...@mb-mu.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/19/02 5:42 PM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
> >> When did I say this? When did I say that if the kitten is dead, you can a
> >> lways
> >> tell that it is dead?
> >
> >Oh, maybe I misunderstood you. What you said was:
> ><q>
> >it is possible to know both that X is true, and also know that
> >if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
> ></q>
> >
> >But you didn't say whether X stood for "the blender was on" or "the
> >kitten was dead".
>
> In my example I was always talking about X standing for the kitten being
> dead.
> I'd be surprised if you could provide a quote where it even looks like I am
> using X to mean "the blender is on"
But if X means "the kitten is dead", then you're claiming that it is
possible to know that the kitten is dead - not sometimes possible, and
at other times impossible.
> >But, on rereading, it does sound now as if you may have been
> >equivocating, using "the blender was on" for X, and ~X is "the kitten
> >is alive" for ~X.
>
> Paste a quote where you think I even remotely suggest that X stands for "the
> blender is on." Since you've been 'rereading' it it shouldn't be that hard to
> actually back your claims up with evidence.
Look, I told you that originally, I thought that by X you meant "the
kitten was dead." But that was before you began saying that, if the
kitten was dead (in state 2) it would be impossible to know that it
was dead. That contradicts your 'principle' that: It's possible to
know that X is true, and impossible to know that X is false; as [when
the blender is off] is the only time it's impossible to tell if the
kitten is alive (impossible to know ~X), and in that case it's also
IMpossible to tell if the kitten is dead (impossible to know X).
> >> If you don't find any evidence of my saying that in my example you could
> >> always
> >> tell that the kitten is dead,
By your 'principle', it is possible that you can know X ("the kitten
is dead") if situation 2 (the blender is off, and the kitten is dead)
obtains, even though you can't know ~X ("the kitten is alive") if
situation 3 (the blender is off, and the kitten is alive) obtains.
> >If you cannot tell that the kitten is dead (and if you were not
> >equivocating, and actually were using "the kitten is dead" as X, then
> >it's impossible for you to know X either. So your example fails: it
> >does not show that it is possible to know X and at the same time
> >impossible to know ~X.
>
> You must have misread. The key word in my text is *always.*
Sorry, boy, that doesn't help you. If P is possible, then P is
necessarily possible (P must be possible).
Of course that axiom allows for cases in which you cannot know ~X, and
(by the same reasoning) cannot know X either. But these would *not*
be cases in which it was possible to know X and impossible to know ~X.
snip much more of the same (I think Robert's original post needs
another reply).
George Dance
CB...@hcsmail.com>...
snip
> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
> [if C is true then we can know that A is true]
Stop right there. The only way you can actually deduce k(A) is by:
k(C) -> (k(C->A)->k(A))
IOW, you first have to know that C is true. Let's stipulate that: if
C is true, then you know that C is true.
You also have to know that (C->A) is true: that whenever C is true, A
is also true. That can't be stipulated; for to know that (C->A) is
true, you have to know that (C&~A) is false. k(C->A)<->k~(C&~A).
Yet you're also claiming that it's impossible to know ~A, if ~A were
true. And in that case, it's also impossible to know (C&~A), if
(C&~A) were true.
So it has to be possible, at the same time and in the same respect,
that k~(C&~A) is possibe, while k(C&~A) is impossible.
> - and since A and B are
> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
But you don't even have any evidence in the presence of C; all you
have is evidence of C, and a belief that (C->A); you cannot have
evidence of (C->A), because no evidence could count against (C->A); if
there were any evidence that ~(C->A) were true, it would be impossible
for you to have that evidence.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02052...@posting.google.com>
>> >Complete bullshit. Your 'moral realism' claim was that you knew both
>> >that x was false, and that it was impossible to know that X was true
>> >(if it were true), at the same time and in the same respect.
>>
>> What is this 'at the same time and in the same respect' stuff? I know I d
>> idn't
>> say that in my initial claim, and haven't said it since.
>
>Oh come on. You said you knew both claims at the same time (at the
>time you made them).
Correct.
>Maybe they weren't in 'the same respect' - 'it's
>possible to know there are no moral truths' might have meant something
>different from 'it's impossible to know that there are moral truths'
>(you might have meant different things by 'moral truth,' or by 'know',
>or even by 'possible' in each claim) - but in that case you were just
>equivocating.
False. Those two things can have different truth values without any
equivocation whatsoever.
>> I've given countless example, and here is the simplest one yet.
>
>I notice you changed the example, in this case, from one fact (A or
>~A) to two different facts (A or B).
I haven't necessarily changed anything. I am now simply trying to describe to
you exactly how you are wrong, whereas before I didn't get into the details.
There are countless 'facts' in any scenario. Because I am going into greater
detail due to your repeated failure to understand this doesn't mean I've
altered the situation. If I didn't say anything about how A related to B in my
first example, then you cannot assume that there is no B that A is related to.
>I also notice you again are switching between two different states of
>affairs. Let's look at each in turn, and see if, in either, it is
>true that you know:
>
>a) it's possible to know A, and
>b) it's impossible to know ~A.
>
I have tried to simplify this many times for you, possibly altering the example
in each case. This is just to try to make it easier for you. If you think any
one of these hypotheticals is contradictory, you're wrong, and I shall create a
new post to walk you through this.
>> Suppose you know for certain that if X occurs, it implies that A is true.
>
>To know that, you would have to know that X->A is true;
Obviously.
>but (you are
>also claiming) it is also impossible for you to know if X->A were not
>true,
No I'm not. When did I ever claim that? Here X is not in reference to the
variable of the same name you use when stating my 'knowledge principle'
>So for a and b both to be true, you have know 'for certain' that X->A
>is true, and it also has to be impossible for you to know whether X->A
>is ever false.
No again. X --> A is always true in this latest hypothetical.
Again you seem to be trying to apply my 'knowledge principle' to any arbitrary
thing I keep telling you that this is in error but you seem to just ignore me.
In this hypothetical my 'knowledge principle' is about A only.
>> Suppose you know for certain that if X does not occur, that the logical
>> expression "A OR B" is true. You have no other information about A or B.
>
>If you have 'no other information,' that doesn't make it impossible
>for you to know that ~A (or B).
How would you determine whether A was true if the only information you had
regarding A was that X-->A, ~X --> (A OR B), and the truth value of X?
>But let's grant you this inference,
>and say that it's impossible for you to know in this case that ~A.
>
>But as you also have 'no other information' on whether A occurs, it's
>impossible (by the same inference) for you to know that A.
The information that you could know included the truth value of X. I should
have been more clear about that, probably.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02052...@posting.google.com>
>
>> In my example I was always talking about X standing for the kitten being
>> dead.
>> I'd be surprised if you could provide a quote where it even looks like I am
>> using X to mean "the blender is on"
>
>But if X means "the kitten is dead", then you're claiming that it is
>possible to know that the kitten is dead - not sometimes possible, and
>at other times impossible.
>
No, I am claiming that there exists a situation in which you can know for sure
that the kitten is dead, and there exists no situation where you can know for
sure that the kitten is not dead.
That is all I need to establish that someone holding the position that:
(1) X is true.
(2) If X were false we couldn't know the truth status of X.
Namely, if there are two situations in which X can be true, and in only one of
them can you know that X is true, then in that one situation you could
justifiably hold the above beliefs without contradiction, showing that you are
wrong.
>> >But, on rereading, it does sound now as if you may have been
>> >equivocating, using "the blender was on" for X, and ~X is "the kitten
>> >is alive" for ~X.
>>
>> Paste a quote where you think I even remotely suggest that X stands for
>"the
>> blender is on." Since you've been 'rereading' it it shouldn't be that hard
>to
>> actually back your claims up with evidence.
>
>Look, I told you that originally, I thought that by X you meant "the
>kitten was dead." But that was before you began saying that, if the
>kitten was dead (in state 2) it would be impossible to know that it
>was dead. That contradicts your 'principle' that: It's possible to
>know that X is true, and impossible to know that X is false
No, that is simply wrong. My 'principle' does not imply that in all situations
in which X is true you can know that X is true, just that in at least one of
them you can.
>> >> If you don't find any evidence of my saying that in my example you could
>
>> >> always
>> >> tell that the kitten is dead,
>
>By your 'principle', it is possible that you can know X ("the kitten
>is dead") if situation 2 (the blender is off, and the kitten is dead)
>obtains
Wrong. My principle does not imply its possible to know X whenever X is true.
It implies that there is one situation in which X is true where you can know X
(case 1). I even formalized this for you in response to your awful attempt at
formalizing my position.
>> >If you cannot tell that the kitten is dead (and if you were not
>> >equivocating, and actually were using "the kitten is dead" as X, then
>> >it's impossible for you to know X either. So your example fails: it
>> >does not show that it is possible to know X and at the same time
>> >impossible to know ~X.
>>
>> You must have misread. The key word in my text is *always.*
>
>Sorry, boy, that doesn't help you. If P is possible, then P is
>necessarily possible (P must be possible).
It is possible in that there is one situation in which you can know X. This
doesn't mean every time X obtains you can know it.
>Of course that axiom allows for cases in which you cannot know ~X, and
>(by the same reasoning) cannot know X either. But these would *not*
>be cases in which it was possible to know X and impossible to know ~X.
But I don't need them to be such cases, because I don't need all possible cases
to be ones in which I can know X if it is true.
blazingmuse
> "If X is false, then S knows X is false." (Because S knows whether X
> is true or false, by line 10.)
Slight problem, thanks for the exhaustive clarification, but your
proof that S knows whether X is true or false is dependant on X being
true. Therefore, if X was false, there is no guarantee S could know
whether or not it was. Which puts us back at step one.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02052...@posting.google.com>
>
>Robert Allen Leeper <ra...@hcsmail.com> wrote in message news:<3CE70BAB.267D
>CB...@hcsmail.com>...
>
>snip
>
>> To generalize, it seems pretty clear that there could be circumstances
>> in which A&B => C [if A and B are both true, then C is true], C => k(A)
>> [if C is true then we can know that A is true]
>
>Stop right there. The only way you can actually deduce k(A) is by:
>
>k(C) -> (k(C->A)->k(A))
>
>IOW, you first have to know that C is true. Let's stipulate that: if
>C is true, then you know that C is true.
>
>You also have to know that (C->A) is true: that whenever C is true, A
>is also true. That can't be stipulated; for to know that (C->A) is
>true, you have to know that (C&~A) is false. k(C->A)<->k~(C&~A).
That's wrong. Of course this can be stipulated. You're just asserting that it
can't, where is your justification? Knowing C & ~A is false will never tell you
whether or not ~A if ~A is true.
>Yet you're also claiming that it's impossible to know ~A, if ~A were
>true. And in that case, it's also impossible to know (C&~A), if
>(C&~A) were true.
But by stipulation C & ~A isn't true, so the conditional "if C & ~A, then ... "
must always be true.
It's only impossible to know C & ~A because its a contradiction according to
what was already stipulated.
>So it has to be possible, at the same time and in the same respect,
>that k~(C&~A) is possibe, while k(C&~A) is impossible.
~(C & ~A) is not just 'possible', it is claimed to be true. Of course it is
possible in the same time and the same respect to know k~(C&~A) is possible and
k(C&~A) is impossible. It was stipulated that ~(C&~A). What's your point?
>> - and since A and B are
>> both true, we can know that A is true - while we can also know that in
>> the absence of C, we would have no evidence one way or another.
>
>But you don't even have any evidence in the presence of C; all you
>have is evidence of C, and a belief that (C->A); you cannot have
>evidence of (C->A), because no evidence could count against (C->A);
C-->A is stipulated to be true so presumably in our hypothetical there is
conclusive evidence that C-->A.
Evidence "could" count against it in some possible world, but not in the one
being stipulated.
That's like saying "you can't have any evidence that you have two legs, because
no evidence could possibly show it to be false." Well, obviously not at the
same time that its true. If you didn't have two legs, surely there could be
evidence of it. Similarly, if C-->A were false, theres no reason to think there
couldnt be evidence for it. But, its not false.
> if
>there were any evidence that ~(C->A) were true, it would be impossible
>for you to have that evidence.
But there cannot be such evidence because we stipulated that C-->A were true.
Its just something that you know.
If there were evidence showing ~(C->A) in our hypothetical, then anything
follows, since that contradicts our hypothetical.
George Dance
9590.0...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
> >From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
> >Date: 5/19/02 10:44 AM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
> >> We can safely assume that your senses do not decieve you.
> >
> >Which contradicts your conclusion, which I note is now being called
> >your 'knowledge principle': that it's possible for S to know X ("the
> >blender is on"), and at the same time impossible for S to know ~X
> >("the blender is off").
>
> I can't believe how confused you seem to be about every little thing. My
> 'principle' does not state that for EVERY proposition its possible to kno
> w its
> true in some case when its true but impossible to know either way of its
> false.
Only propositions that can have the form "X". (Are there any that
can't?)
> The proposition that my 'principle' was being applied to was whether the
> kitten
> was dead or alive. To start applying it to whether the blender is on or n
> ot is
> pure error on your part.
Why is it an error? It should be possible to know that the blender is
on, and impossible to know that it's off, according to your
'principle.'
> You stated that it is contradictory to assert that you know _SOME_ thing is
> true, but if it were false you wouldn't know either way. I only have to c
> ome up
> with one "some" thing to show that you're horribly wrong. The thing I have
> picked in that example is whether the kitten is alive or dead. I don't ne
> ed to
> show that everything fits into this catagory. Understand?
No. You began by claiming a general principle of knowledge, and the
kitten was supposed to be only an example. There's nothing in the
principle itself that restricts its application that one made-up
'fact.'
> >> >at least if you're correct, and it's possible to know that
> >> >the blender is on (that is, to believe with justification that it's
> >> >on, if it is on) but impossible to know whether the blender is on or
> >> >off, if it's off.
> >>
> >> That is possible in the general sense, but in my make believe scienario it
> >> isn't possible, since we can stipulate that you can tell either way.
So it is possible in general to know that a blender is on, but
impossible to know that it is off, and vice versa?
> >Sure; you could have stipulated that the blender is a special
> >exception to your 'knowledge principle.'
>
> Quote me saying that my 'principle' can be arbitrarily applied to anything.
OK; that's you in the speaking first and last.
>> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and
also know
>> that
>> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
[snip]
>If X is a contingent fact, though, it would be impossible to know
>both,
snip
Sigh.. I thought I explained this so well to you earlier.
Let's look at where exactly your error occurs:
>I would be unable to know
>whether it was on or off, when it was off, only if I were unable to
>know whether it was on or off, when it was on (as whether it's on or
>off is independent of my ability to know which it is).
This is just horribly wrong.
<quote>
'It' referred to a computer, of course, but it can refer to a blender
just as easily.
> Your comments seem a bit further off toward the 'dishonesty' zone than no
> rmal.
> If you cannot provide any evidence for this
Evidence for what? That you claim it is possible to know X, if X is
true, and at the same time impossible to know ~X, if ~X is true?
> and still do not admit your error,
> this is another example of something that simply reflects bad character on
> your part.
What error? That you claim it is possible to know X, if X is true,
and at the same time impossible to know ~X, if ~X is true?
> >> >Say the blender is off. Then, if you're right, I can't know that it's
> >> >off.
> >>
> >> False. You seem to have lots of trouble following arguments. The
> relationship
> >> betweent he blender and you had no such properties in the scenario that I
> >> stipulated.
What properties are those? Whether it's possible for you to know the
blender is on and impossible to know it's off, or not, is not a
property of the blender.
> >No special properties were needed, under your principle: from that,
> >it's possible in every case (meaning possibly true in every case) that
> >you can know X but not ~X.
>
> For any arbitrary X? When did I say this? Provide a quote.
Sigh...
<quote>
>> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and
also know
>> that
>> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
[snip]
[GD: No.]
[snip]
This is just horribly wrong.
</quote>
> >> >In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
> >> >off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
> >> >I'd believe that it was on if it was on .
> >>
> >> This is wrong. Not being able to tell something doesn't imply that you
> >> EVER
> >> need to have false beliefs about it.
However, being able to tell if something is true, and not being able
to tell if it is false, does.
> >If it's not possible to tell that ~X ("the blender is off), then your
> >beliefs can't be any different whether X or ~X; because if they were
> >any different, the difference would allow you to tell that ~X.
>
> Pay close attention here because this is another clear-cut error on your
> part.
> Your beliefs can be the same in the case of X and ~X without you believing
> either that X or ~X. You can simpy not believe either of them, and be unsure
> about it.
Not if it's possible for me to know the blender is on. If I didn't
believe that the blender was on, when it was on - if I was always
'unsure' when it was on - then I couldn't know that it was on. So I
have to believe that the blender is on, when it's on.
> Hence this quote of yours is wrong:
>
> ">> >In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
> >> >off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
> >> >I'd believe that it was on if it was on . "
>
> Here I am just checking your honesty and the qualify of your character in
> general: do you agree that you were wrong, there?
Nope.
> >> >That follows from your belief that it is possible to know the blender
> >> >is on and impossible to know that it is off.
> >>
> >> But that was never my belief, fagnuts.
> >
> >It's what you've been claiming, bullshit boy.
>
> When have I ever claimed anything about 'X' in what you call my "knowledge
> principle" being the blender? I never said it could be the blender, and I
> never
> said it could be any arbitrary thing.
What in your principle stops it from being 'any arbitrary thing'?
> I did at one point say it could be 'moral
> realism is false', and I did say in my kitten example, X could be 'the kitten
> is dead'. When have I ever let X be anything else?
You let it be "Invisible unicorns exist" once, IIRC; but that really
doesn't matter. If your principle is true, then it's possible to
know X and impossible to know ~X. It doesn't matter what fact is
substituted for X; there's certainly nothing in your principle about
it applying to a fact only if you 'let it' apply to that fact.
> This is another example where, if you just let this drop without admittin
> g your
> error, it will be a wonderous display of your poor character.
I have no intention of letting anything drop.
> >Your claim, remember,
> >was that it's possible that there are situations in which it's
> >possible to know X and also impossible to know ~X; you could have
> >added, "except in scenarios where I assume that it's not possible,"
> >but you didn't up to now.
>
> My claim was never that you could let X be arbitrary. I claimed it was tr
> ue for
> some X, yes. Some doesn't mean 'all' or 'any'.
It applies only if you 'let it' apply? What's more arbitrary than
that?
> Try to find a quote where I say
> its true for all things.
>
> >> I never claimed that it is possible that in each in every case that the k
> >> itten
> >> was dead, I could know that it was dead, but that if it wasn't dead I wou
> >> ldn't
> >> be able to know.
> >
> >No, what you claimed was that it was possible in any case to both know
> >X ("the kitten is dead") and at the same time impossible to know ~X
> >("the kitten is alive).
>
> Provide a quote where I said this was possible in "ANY" case like you claim I
> said.
Sigh...
<quote>
>> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and
also know
>> that
>> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
[snip]
[GD: No.]
[snip]
This is just horribly wrong.
</quote>
No restrictions on X. No "except where X is a fact about a blender,"
"except where I don't let this principle apply," or any of the other
bullshit you've been dishing out since.
> You just keep attributing things to me that I never said. Why?
It's called logical implication: if you claim A, and A->B, then you're
claiming B (at which point you can either decide B is true - that it
is possible to know that the blender is on, when it's on, but
impossible to know that the blender is off, when it's off - or that ~A
is true - your 'knowledge possibility principle' is false.
Robert Allen Leeper
George Dance wrote:
>
> Robert Allen Leeper wrote:
> > I thought the case I needed was, not "at the same time impossible to
> > tell that there is not", but *at the same time possible to know (given
> > the liberal criterion of 'knowledge' that the whole question seems to
> > presuppose) that if there were no life there (so that we would not have
> > the positive evidence we do) we would have no evidence one way or
> > another (and so would not know whether there was life there or not)*.
>
> No; S's 'knowledge principle' is not that there can be evidence of X,
> while its absence would not be evidence of non-X (that's possible),
> but that there can be a situation in which it is possible to know X
> and at the same time, impossible to know non-X if non-X were true
> instead (under the same conditions).
At the point I stepped into this, Symmetry asked
"True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also
know that if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or
not."
[from]
>Subject: Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
>From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
>Date: 5/17/02 11:49 AM Central Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
That's the principle I've been working on.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <6312c50b.02052...@posting.google.com>
>> >Which contradicts your conclusion, which I note is now being called
>> >your 'knowledge principle': that it's possible for S to know X ("the
>> >blender is on"), and at the same time impossible for S to know ~X
>> >("the blender is off").
>>
>> I can't believe how confused you seem to be about every little thing. My
>> 'principle' does not state that for EVERY proposition its possible to kno
>> w its
>> true in some case when its true but impossible to know either way of its
>> false.
>
>Only propositions that can have the form "X". (Are there any that
>can't?)
No, I never claimed it applied to any proposition that could be so designated.
>> The proposition that my 'principle' was being applied to was whether the
>> kitten
>> was dead or alive. To start applying it to whether the blender is on or n
>> ot is
>> pure error on your part.
>
>Why is it an error? It should be possible to know that the blender is
>on, and impossible to know that it's off, according to your
>'principle.'
But you're assuming my 'principle' has the quantifier "for all X" implicitly
preceding it. That's incorrect.
>> You stated that it is contradictory to assert that you know _SOME_ thing is
>> true, but if it were false you wouldn't know either way. I only have to c
>> ome up
>> with one "some" thing to show that you're horribly wrong. The thing I have
>> picked in that example is whether the kitten is alive or dead. I don't ne
>> ed to
>> show that everything fits into this catagory. Understand?
>
>No. You began by claiming a general principle of knowledge,
No, I began with a very specific claim about moral realism. I then abstracted
it to be about something called 'X', but without a "for all X" before my
'principle', you are unjustified in picking some arbitrary X.
>and the
>kitten was supposed to be only an example.
Right. The kitten was an example of one such X.
>There's nothing in the
>principle itself that restricts its application that one made-up
>'fact.'
As you state my principle, it doesn't make sense because X is unbound. You
can't just talk about X without any reference to what X means, or without
specifying that X ranges over all things. It simply makes no sense.
>> >> >at least if you're correct, and it's possible to know that
>> >> >the blender is on (that is, to believe with justification that it's
>> >> >on, if it is on) but impossible to know whether the blender is on or
>> >> >off, if it's off.
>> >>
>> >> That is possible in the general sense, but in my make believe scienario
>it
>> >> isn't possible, since we can stipulate that you can tell either way.
>
>So it is possible in general to know that a blender is on, but
>impossible to know that it is off, and vice versa?
No, in general it is possible for a _specific situation_ to exist where we can
know that a blender is on, but can't know either way of its off. But my kitten
example was not such a specific situation.
>> >Sure; you could have stipulated that the blender is a special
>> >exception to your 'knowledge principle.'
>>
>> Quote me saying that my 'principle' can be arbitrarily applied to anything.
>
>OK; that's you in the speaking first and last.
>
>>> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and
>also know
>>> that
>>> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
>
>[snip]
>
>>If X is a contingent fact, though, it would be impossible to know
>>both,
>
>snip
>
>
Note that above I am simply refering to something called X. This doesn't mean
that X can be anything. You need to show that I specified at some time "for all
possible propositions X, what I say here is true:"
The fact that I call something X doesn't imply I am using a universal
quantifier.
You really are totally unfamiliar with quantifiers aren't you?
Here is more of you quoting me:
>Sigh.. I thought I explained this so well to you earlier.
>
>Let's look at where exactly your error occurs:
>
>>I would be unable to know
>>whether it was on or off, when it was off, only if I were unable to
>>know whether it was on or off, when it was on (as whether it's on or
>>off is independent of my ability to know which it is).
>
>This is just horribly wrong.
><quote>
>
>'It' referred to a computer, of course, but it can refer to a blender
>just as easily.
Above, when I was saying 'it can refer', my meaning was that we can think of a
situation in which it would refer to a blender. This is the first example
you've shown where I can see how someone might honestly be confused about my
meaning.
>> Your comments seem a bit further off toward the 'dishonesty' zone than no
>> rmal.
>> If you cannot provide any evidence for this
>
>Evidence for what? That you claim it is possible to know X, if X is
>true, and at the same time impossible to know ~X, if ~X is true?
>
You don't realize that it doesn't make sense for you to start talking about 'X'
without binding it to something?
>> and still do not admit your error,
>> this is another example of something that simply reflects bad character on
>> your part.
>
>What error? That you claim it is possible to know X, if X is true,
>and at the same time impossible to know ~X, if ~X is true?
Same comment. I tentatively withdraw my 'bad character' remarks though, since
it does seem like you honestly are confused by this.
>> >> False. You seem to have lots of trouble following arguments. The
>> relationship
>> >> betweent he blender and you had no such properties in the scenario that
>I
>> >> stipulated.
>
>What properties are those? Whether it's possible for you to know the
>blender is on and impossible to know it's off, or not, is not a
>property of the blender.
When did I say it was a property of the blender? I clearly say above that its a
property of the relationship between you and the blender, or, more accurately
the 'situation' that you and the blender are in.
>> >No special properties were needed, under your principle: from that,
>> >it's possible in every case (meaning possibly true in every case) that
>> >you can know X but not ~X.
>>
>> For any arbitrary X? When did I say this? Provide a quote.
>
>Sigh...
>
Then you go on to provide quotes of me talking about something called X.
X <--/-> "for all possible propositions X"
>> >> This is wrong. Not being able to tell something doesn't imply that you
>> >> EVER
>> >> need to have false beliefs about it.
>
>However, being able to tell if something is true, and not being able
>to tell if it is false, does.
In no case that I've mentioned did I say someone could do those things in the
same situation.
>> Your beliefs can be the same in the case of X and ~X without you believing
>> either that X or ~X. You can simpy not believe either of them, and be
>unsure
>> about it.
>
>Not if it's possible for me to know the blender is on. If I didn't
>believe that the blender was on, when it was on - if I was always
>'unsure' when it was on - then I couldn't know that it was on. So I
>have to believe that the blender is on, when it's on.
In "case 1" of the 3 cases I broke the kitten example down into, yes. In case 2
and 3 though, you'd be unsure regardless of whether X or ~X.
>> Hence this quote of yours is wrong:
>>
>> ">> >In order for me not to be able to tell when the blender is
>> >> >off, I must believe it's on when it's off, no differently from the way
>> >> >I'd believe that it was on if it was on . "
>>
>> Here I am just checking your honesty and the qualify of your character in
>> general: do you agree that you were wrong, there?
>
>Nope.
Then you're in error, but I think I have been overestimating you, so I'll
postpone drawing conclusions about your dishonestly for awhile. This issue can
be abandoned to save time unless you ask me to show you clearly why you're
wrong.
>> >> >That follows from your belief that it is possible to know the blender
>> >> >is on and impossible to know that it is off.
>> >>
>> >> But that was never my belief, fagnuts.
>> >
>> >It's what you've been claiming, bullshit boy.
>>
>> When have I ever claimed anything about 'X' in what you call my "knowledge
>> principle" being the blender? I never said it could be the blender, and I
>> never
>> said it could be any arbitrary thing.
>
>What in your principle stops it from being 'any arbitrary thing'?
First, you're the one who formulated 'my principle', and you did it in a way
that leaves X unbound and hence doesn't make any sense.
A more complete characterization of 'my principle' would be:
"There can exist some situation where for some X ... <insert your formulation
of my principle here>"
In my original claim about moral realism, I was just saying our current
situation was such a situation, and some proposition about moral realism was
one X for which that was true.
>> I did at one point say it could be 'moral
>> realism is false', and I did say in my kitten example, X could be 'the
>kitten
>> is dead'. When have I ever let X be anything else?
>
>You let it be "Invisible unicorns exist" once, IIRC; but that really
>doesn't matter. If your principle is true, then it's possible to
>know X and impossible to know ~X.
What is X there? You can't formulate a principle about X without binding it.
Ever done any math? You'll notice that when they state theorems and such, they
don't just say "Theorem: X >= 0", since no one would know what the heck X was.
They say "Theorem, for all X in { x | Ey in R such that (y^2 = x)}, X >= 0"
You need to do something similar whenever you start talking about some
variable.
>It doesn't matter what fact is
>substituted for X; there's certainly nothing in your principle about
>it applying to a fact only if you 'let it' apply to that fact.
There's nothing in 'my principle' about X applying to anything, since you
formulated it nonsensically.
>> >Your claim, remember,
>> >was that it's possible that there are situations in which it's
>> >possible to know X and also impossible to know ~X; you could have
>> >added, "except in scenarios where I assume that it's not possible,"
>> >but you didn't up to now.
>>
>> My claim was never that you could let X be arbitrary. I claimed it was tr
>> ue for
>> some X, yes. Some doesn't mean 'all' or 'any'.
>
>It applies only if you 'let it' apply? What's more arbitrary than
>that?
See my above reformulation. My 'letting' it apply means my coming up with
hypotheticals where it applies for certain things but not others. Given any
fixed hypothetical, I certainly can't just arbitrarily decide it applies to
whatever I want it to apply to.
>> >No, what you claimed was that it was possible in any case to both know
>> >X ("the kitten is dead") and at the same time impossible to know ~X
>> >("the kitten is alive).
>>
>> Provide a quote where I said this was possible in "ANY" case like you claim
>I
>> said.
>
>
>Sigh...
>
Then again you proceed to show me talking about "X." Again, this doesn't show
what you need to show. "X" doesnt mean "any X." It is rather meaningless
without further clarification.
Here's an example of what you think is evidence for me saying "all X":
>>> True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and
>also know
>>> that
>>> if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not.
How do you get "all X" from that? All you can get from that is that the meaning
of X needs to be clarified.
Symmetry
>Message-id: <3CE9A8CC...@hcsmail.com>
>
>At the point I stepped into this, Symmetry asked
>
>"True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also
>know that if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or
>not."
>
>[from]
>
>>Subject: Re: David Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Evolution
>>From: George Dance georg...@hotmail.com
>>Date: 5/17/02 11:49 AM Central Daylight Time
>>Message-id: <6312c50b.02051...@posting.google.com>
>
>That's the principle I've been working on.
Let the record show that in my above quote X does not appear bound by any
quantifier. My quote should be proceded by "There can be a situation where, for
_some_ X..."
George Dance
AD...@hcsmail.com>...
> George Dance wrote:
> >
> At the point I stepped into this, Symmetry asked
>
> "True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also
> know that if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or
> not."
>
> That's the principle I've been working on.
Me, too.
The above principle is true only if it is also true that: "It can be
both possible to know X, and impossible to know ~X, at the same time
and in the same respect."
You to know "that X is true," only if it is possible to know X.
You know that "if X is not true,we couldn't know whether X was true or
not," then it is impossible to know ~X. (You can't know ~X is X is
true, and also cannot know ~X if ~X is true.)
You can know "both that X is true, and also know that if X was not
true, we couldn't know whether X was true or not," at one time and in
one respect, only if it is both possible to know X, and impossible to
know ~X, at that time and in that respect.
George Dance
01035.7...@posting.google.com>...
> > > 16. (~A->C) 10, 15 MP
> > "If X is false, then S knows X is false." (Because S knows whether X
> > is true or false, by line 10.)
>
> Slight problem, thanks for the exhaustive clarification, but your
> proof that S knows whether X is true or false is dependant on X being
> true.
Well, no. X is true went into the argument as a premise, because that
was part of the original claim: both that X ("there are no moral
truths," "the kitten is dead") was known (and therefore true), and
that it was impossible to know ~X ("there is at least one moral
truth," "the kitten is alive").
Therefore, if X was false, there is no guarantee S could know
> whether or not it was. Which puts us back at step one.
In that case - if it was claimed that it was known that X was false,
and also that it was impossible to know that X was true) - one could
simply redefine A, B, and C as:
A = "X is false"
B = "S knows X is false."
C = "S knows X is true."
And the same argument could be used to prove the same contradiction.
George Dance
9590.0...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
> I'll semi-formalize my assertaiton somewhat properly:
>
> Let U be the set of all possuble situations (not that well defined yet, b
> ut it
> doesn't matter here)
> Let P be the set of all propositions
> Let K(x, u) = x can be known by some person in u
>
> E = there exists,
> e = 'element of'
>
> EueU( ExeP( x --> K(x, u) AND ~x --> ( ~K(x, u) && ~K(~x, u) )))
First of all, you don't need "EueU"; if there is at least one
proposition, there is at least one proposition in one situation. Nor
do you need "_eP"; is clear that x refers to a proposition. So this
is just clutter.
Second, you changed one of your assertions from a categorical to a
hypothetical; your first conjunct shoud not read "x->K(x,u)" but just
"K(x,u)" (or, since you don't need 'u' in the first place, "K(x)".
We can make those corrections and rewrite your claim, in FOPL, as:
(Ex)(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)))
and go on to prove the contradiction (with the addition of two further
premise, this time, indicated by *) as follows:
1. (Ex)(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)) AIP
2. K(a) & (~a -> (~K(a)&~K(~a)) 1 EI [a/x]
3. K(a) 2 Simp
4. K(a) v K(~a) 3 Add
5. ~a -> (~K(a)&~K(~a)) 2 Simp
6. ~a -> ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 5 DeM
7. (K(a)vK(~a))->(~a->(K(a)vK(~a)) * (A->(B->A)
8. ~a -> (K(a)vK(~a)) 4,7 MP
9. ~a ACP
10. ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 6,9 MP
11. (K(a)vK(~a)) 8,9 MP
12. (K(a)vK(~a)) & ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 10,11 Conj
13. ~a -> (K(a)vK(~a)) & ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 9-12 CP
14. <>a ^ <>~a * (x is a contingent fact)
15. <>~a 14 Simp
16. <>((K(a)vK(~a)) & ~(K(a)vK(~a))) 13, 15 <>A&(A->B)-><>B
17. <>(p&~p) 16 Sub [p/(K(a)vK(~a))]
------------
18. ~(Ex)(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)) 1-17 IP
19. (x)~(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x))) 18 QN
QED
> Now, the above is sort of sloppy, and I'd spend more time trying to make it
> precisely correct if I were going to write out some big proof starting fr
> om > it.
> But, it is vastly closer to what one would need to do to formalize my
> proposition than what you did.
Are you happy now?
Symmetry
211100....@posting.google.com>...
> Symmetry <symm...@aol.compare.com> wrote in message news:<20020519142356.0
> 9590.0...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
> > I'll semi-formalize my assertaiton somewhat properly:
> >
> > Let U be the set of all possuble situations (not that well defined yet, b
> > ut it
> > doesn't matter here)
> > Let P be the set of all propositions
> > Let K(x, u) = x can be known by some person in u
> >
> > E = there exists,
> > e = 'element of'
> >
> > EueU( ExeP( x --> K(x, u) AND ~x --> ( ~K(x, u) && ~K(~x, u) )))
>
> First of all, you don't need "EueU"; if there is at least one
> proposition, there is at least one proposition in one situation.
I need EueU because we need some context to evauluate x in which is
not the one we're in right now, because we're talking about
hypotheticals. If I left it out, then when I assert that x is true, it
is taken as my asserting that x is actually true in the real world,
but I'm talking about x being true in some hypothetical.
> Nor
> do you need "_eP"; is clear that x refers to a proposition. So this
> is just clutter.
Yes, it is probably clear. I was just trying to emphasize that you
strictly need quantifiers everywhere, and in these types of situations
when they are omitted they are implicitly there, since you seemed to
think you could interprate statements about x without any definition
of x.
> Second, you changed one of your assertions from a categorical to a
> hypothetical; your first conjunct shoud not read "x->K(x,u)" but just
> "K(x,u)" (or, since you don't need 'u' in the first place, "K(x)".
I do need something similar to u, but you are right that x->K(x,u) is
the wrong thing for me to have there. I was being careless and that is
an error on my part. I mistranslated my 'principle'.
You see, when I mistakenly write x -- > K(x, u), it implies that in
all cases that x is true, I can know it. But as you know, I have
repeatedly stressed that this is not the case when I've been
describing my position in english. So, my fault for causing you to go
through this trouble due to a misstatement of my 'principle', but, the
practice should be good for you. I'll go over your proof to point out
any logical errors or offer encouragement.
See the end of the post for a better translation.
> We can make those corrections and rewrite your claim, in FOPL, as:
>
> (Ex)(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)))
Nope, this is inaccurate. It doesn't deal with any hypotheticals at
all. You basically write above that "you know x, and, if x is false,
then...." when you need something that corresponds to "you know x, and
in a hypothetical situation where x were false, then... " That you'd
make the above simplification and think it represents my 'principle'
indicates that you don't understand my 'principle' at all.
What you write doesn't contain a contradiction though.
> and go on to prove the contradiction (with the addition of two further
> premise, this time, indicated by *) as follows:
>
> 1. (Ex)(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)) AIP
> 2. K(a) & (~a -> (~K(a)&~K(~a)) 1 EI [a/x]
You should just be able to look at this and see it isn't
contradictory. Consider the situation in which a is true, and K(a) is
true. Then the above expression has a value of true regardless of the
subexpression (~K(a)&~K(~a)).
Through like 2 logical simplifications the whole expression boils down
to:
k(a) AND a, which surely isn't a contradiction.
In your proof you try something tricky involving possiblity though, so
feel free to try to justify it below.
> 3. K(a) 2 Simp
> 4. K(a) v K(~a) 3 Add
> 5. ~a -> (~K(a)&~K(~a)) 2 Simp
> 6. ~a -> ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 5 DeM
> 7. (K(a)vK(~a))->(~a->(K(a)vK(~a)) * (A->(B->A)
> 8. ~a -> (K(a)vK(~a)) 4,7 MP
> 9. ~a ACP
I don't know what "ACP" is, but it looks like you are just considering
the possiblity of ~a being true or something and seeing what would
follow from it.
> 10. ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 6,9 MP
> 11. (K(a)vK(~a)) 8,9 MP
> 12. (K(a)vK(~a)) & ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 10,11 Conj
> 13. ~a -> (K(a)vK(~a)) & ~(K(a)vK(~a)) 9-12 CP
> 14. <>a ^ <>~a * (x is a contingent fact)
Not sure what ^ is supposed to mean. I assume you're just saying a is
possible and ~a is possible. However, even though I've never used
'possiblity' in logic before, I think there is a problem with you
introducing this in this argument. You started out with the
proposition that there simply exists an x such that
K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)) is true. It could be that all such x's
that make that true must be true and k(x) must be true. You really
can't infer that ~x is possible. x may be a contingent fact in that it
depends on the state of the world or something, but in the logic I am
familiar with, the state of the world is fixed when you're evaluating
simple argments of the above form, and even though x is contingent
upon the state of the world, x is definitely true, or ~x is definitely
true, because we're working with some specific state of the world.
Maybe I just don't catch the meaning of your <> symbols though. And
maybe there are different 'rules' when you're using logical systems
that deal with possiblities. If so, explain.
> 15. <>~a 14 Simp
> 16. <>((K(a)vK(~a)) & ~(K(a)vK(~a))) 13, 15 <>A&(A->B)-><>B
> 17. <>(p&~p) 16 Sub [p/(K(a)vK(~a))]
> ------------
> 18. ~(Ex)(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x)) 1-17 IP
> 19. (x)~(K(x) & (~x -> (~K(x)&~K(~x))) 18 QN
>
> QED
Thats very nice, assuming you can stipulate its possible that ~x.
> > Now, the above is sort of sloppy, and I'd spend more time trying to make it
> > precisely correct if I were going to write out some big proof starting fr
> > om > it.
> > But, it is vastly closer to what one would need to do to formalize my
> > proposition than what you did.
>
> Are you happy now?
Well, no for two reasons. One is that I made a sloppy mistake in
formulating my 'principle', and you seem to be using 'possiblity' in a
way that you shouldn't.
Now, for a more careful attempt at formalizing my principle:
K(x) = it can be known that x
Let S be some set of hypotheticals.
Let W(~x) be a subset of S consisting of all the hypotheticals where
~x is true.
Let W(x) be a subset of S consisting of all hypotheticals in which x
is true.
(Note that W(x) and W(~x) form a partition of S.)
Then:
Ex( EweW(x)( w --> K(x) ) AND AweW(~x)( w --> (~K(x) AND ~K(~x)) ) )
I am much happier w/ the above principle. I should have been more
careful the first time.
blazingmuse
> > proof that S knows whether X is true or false is dependant on X being
> > true.
>
> Well, no. X is true went into the argument as a premise, because that
> was part of the original claim: both that X ("there are no moral
> truths," "the kitten is dead") was known (and therefore true), and
> that it was impossible to know ~X ("there is at least one moral
> truth," "the kitten is alive").
Let me know if I slip up, but my summarisation of your proof goes
along the following lines:
(a) S knows X is true.
(b) Therefore X is true.
I can accept this, assuming that knowing something implies you have
total infallible certainty on the point and are unmistaken. At any
rate, you specify this.
(c) Therefore S knows whether X is true or false.
Obviously enough, in this case.
(d) Therefore, since we have established that S knows whether X is
true or not,
if X was false, S would also know it.
This is where I have difficulty. Just because S knows if X is true or
not does not entail the ability to find out again under every
circumstance. If X was false, S would not *know* that X is true and
would certainly not of neccesity thereby know whether it was true or
not.
Rob
2052.2...@posting.google.com>...
> Rob <log...@mailandnews.com> wrote in message news:<ea1f2acf.0205171145.18
> > > and in terms
> > > of values, that which is necessary and sufficient, necessarily is more
> > > 'ultimate' than the condition that it supports.
>
> > This seems false. Suppose condition A is necessary and sufficient for
> > another condition, B. That will be true if A is equivalent to B. But
> > then B is also necessary and sufficient for A. If the principle you
> > state above were correct, it would follow both that A is more ultimate
> > than B and also that B is more ultimate than A.
>
> While there may be cases where what you say above is true, I was
> thinking in terms of conceptual hierarchy in ethics for humans where
> all other values are dependent upon being and staying alive.
Again, though, this is false. I may value my spouse or loved ones
receiving a life insurance payment after I die. It is something that
fits the Objectivist definition of a value -- something I act to gain
or keep (by paying premiums). Nonetheless, their receiving the payment
is not dependent upon my being or staying alive. They never will
receive it as long as I do stay alive.
Your claim goes wrong in another way, too. Remember, you said you were
talking about a condition that was necessary and sufficient for some
other condition. But being and staying alive is not necessary and
sufficient for all other values -- for the obvious reason that, if it
were, everyone who was alive would have all that he valued.
Rob
George Dance
> > Well, no. X is true went into the argument as a premise, because that
> > was part of the original claim: both that X ("there are no moral
> > truths," "the kitten is dead") was known (and therefore true), and
> > that it was impossible to know ~X ("there is at least one moral
> > truth," "the kitten is alive").
>
> Let me know if I slip up, but my summarisation of your proof goes
> along the following lines:
> (a) S knows X is true.
> (b) Therefore X is true.
> I can accept this, assuming that knowing something implies you have
> total infallible certainty on the point and are unmistaken. At any
> rate, you specify this.
> (c) Therefore S knows whether X is true or false.
> Obviously enough, in this case.
Correct.
> (d) Therefore, since we have established that S knows whether X is
> true or not,
> if X was false, S would also know it.
One slight correction; the last line here should read:
if X was false, S would know that X was false.
('know it' was a bit ambiguous, and I think you've fall into that
ambiguity here:)
> This is where I have difficulty. Just because S knows if X is true or
> not does not entail the ability to find out again under every
> circumstance.
Right. If S knows X is true in one situation, that does not prove
that it's possible that S in all other situations. The question I'm
focussing on is whether there is a possible situation U in which S
knows X is true, but if X were false in that situation, it would be
impossible for X to know that S was false.
For example, this situation in which I'm having a cup of coffee. I
know that there's coffee in my cup only if there is coffee there; can
I also know that, if there was no coffee in the cup, it would be
impossible for me to know that instead?
> If X was false, S would not *know* that X is true
[there's the ambiguity I feared: If X is false, S either knows it's
false, or does not.]
> and
> would certainly not of neccesity thereby know whether it was true or
> not.
Hmm ... here's the best example I can give: Are you wearing pants
right now?
Do you know that you are wearing pants? Do you know whether you are
wearing pants or not? Can your answer possibly be 'yes' to the first,
and 'no' to the second?
Now take your pants off. Do you still know whether you are wearing
pants or not? If no: why? If yes: do you know that you are not
wearing pants? Can you answer possibly be 'yes' to the first sentence
in this paragraph, and 'no' to the third?
George Dance
F3...@ns.sympatico.ca>...
> Zack Alright:
> >> Friedman's pretty clear:
> >> "[Rand's claim...] is that living things other than human beings
> >> automatically act for their own survival. That claim is false. A male
> >> mantis, for example, mates, even though the final step of the process
> >> consists of being eaten by the female. [...]"
> [...]
>
> George Dance:
> > I don't think you understand Rand's position the way I do. The claim
> > that "living things other than human beings automatically act for
> > their survival," AIUI, reduces to two claims:
[...]
> > b) Living things other than humans behave in ways that keep them
> > alive.
> >
> > You said earlier that it is noncontroversial that (a) is true. So
> > your claim, and Friedman's, must be that (b) is false. Friedman's
> > claim is then that he has discovered a counterexample to (b) (the male
> > mantis) that does not behave in any way that keeps it alive.
>
> You've got the quantifiers mixed up. Friedman is interpreting Rand as
> making a forall statement -- that (b) is "Living things other than humans
> behave *only* in ways that (when successful) keep them alive." To act
> "automatically for (your) survival" is to act *always* in a way that is
> conducive to your survial. It is not compatible with acting against
> your survival, and so the mantis *is* a counter-example to the claim -- it
> behaves in a way that is manifestly against its survival.
But that is Friedman's interpretation, not Rand's claim. And it's the
latter that we're talking about.
> You may argue that Rand's claim is merely general rather than universal
> (in which case the male mantis' terminal sex act is a mere exception), but
> it is not reasonable to take it as existential -- that living things other
> than human beings behave *at least once* in a way that keeps them alive --
> because it is equally true that every organism behaves at least once in a
> way that gets it dead, and so death becomes equivalent to life on that
> measure. But your interpretation does take her claim as existential --
> since you take its opposite as "does not behave in *any* way that keeps it
> alive".
I'm willing to interpret Rand's assertion (sorry, having trouble with
my c key) generally; I don't see right off how that would look,
though.
But I'd argue that, by the same argument, the assertion should not be
interpreted universally, either. If it's true that 'every organism
behaves at least one time in a way that gets it dead,' then that
interpretation is false.
IOW, Friedman has 'proved' the assertion false, only by interpreting
it so that it is false.
> > But we are talking about a sexually mature male mantis. And there can
> > be no such thing as a sexually mature mantis, that has not behaved in
> > ways that has kept it alive.
>
> The obviousness of the above should clue you in that you have mis-analysed
> Friedman's argument.
Similarly, the obvious falseness of Rand' assertion (as interpreted by
Friedman) should be a sign that Friedman has misinterpreted.
> If you want to point out an error in his argument,
> you have to look elsewhere.
If the assertion Friedman disproves is not the one that he sets out to
disprove, then he has made a fallaious strawman argument.
> > The example of the male mantis does refute the more extreme claim
> >
> > b') Living things other than humans cannot behave in ways that do not
> > keep them alive.
> >
> > But this is not a claim that, AFAICS, Rand made or even implied.
>
> It contradicts a weaker claim than that -- the claim that every action of
> a non-human organism is "for its survival".
OK; let's rewrite Friedman' interpretation as:
b'') Living things other than humans do not behave only in ways that
keep them alive.
> The act of mating is not for
> its survival. The act of mating is for its reproduction, which it (in
> general) successfully accomplishes.
>
> ...mark young
George Dance
snip
Sorry, my bad. b'' should have read:
b'') Living things other than humans behave only in ways that keep them alive.
Symmetry
> blazingmuse <blazi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<c69a5fd0.02052
> 21034.4...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > This is where I have difficulty. Just because S knows if X is true or
> > not does not entail the ability to find out again under every
> > circumstance.
>
> Right. If S knows X is true in one situation, that does not prove
> that it's possible that S in all other situations. The question I'm
> focussing on is whether there is a possible situation U in which S
> knows X is true, but if X were false in that situation, it would be
> impossible for X to know that S was false.
Where you seem to not understand my principle is that you think its
the 'same situation' when X goes from true to false. If X is true in
one situation, and false in another, then those two situations aren't
the same.
The clearest example of what my 'principle' talks about is the one
Robert gave about Jones being in a box. In that case, there is a case
where we can know for sure that he pressed button A, because the alarm
goes off. However, in the case that he doesn't press button A, we
can't know.
Not sure why you haven't realized yet that my initial statements about
morality are analogous.
dt
d
d
d
t
t
d
blazingmuse
> > not does not entail the ability to find out again under every
> > circumstance.
>
> Right. If S knows X is true in one situation, that does not prove
> that it's possible that S in all other situations. The question I'm
> focussing on is whether there is a possible situation U in which S
> knows X is true, but if X were false in that situation, it would be
> impossible for X to know that S was false.
Oh I get it. You're saying that the fact S could possibly find out
that X was true requires he had a means of determining it. Alright.
But what if X's being true confers, and alone confers, the ability to
find out/investigate?
Mark Young
>>> I don't think you understand Rand's position the way I do. The claim
>>> that "living things other than human beings automatically act for
>>> their survival," AIUI, reduces to two claims:
> [...]
>
>>> b) Living things other than humans behave in ways that keep them
>>> alive.
>>>
>>> You said earlier that it is noncontroversial that (a) is true. So
>>> your claim, and Friedman's, must be that (b) is false. Friedman's
>>> claim is then that he has discovered a counterexample to (b) (the male
>>> mantis) that does not behave in any way that keeps it alive.
Mark Young:
>> You've got the quantifiers mixed up. Friedman is interpreting Rand as
>> making a forall statement -- that (b) is "Living things other than humans
>> behave *only* in ways that (when successful) keep them alive." To act
>> "automatically for (your) survival" is to act *always* in a way that is
>> conducive to your survial. It is not compatible with acting against
>> your survival, and so the mantis *is* a counter-example to the claim -- it
>> behaves in a way that is manifestly against its survival.
George Dance:
> But that is Friedman's interpretation, not Rand's claim. And it's the
> latter that we're talking about.
What you wrote was "So your claim, and Friedman's, must be that (b) is
false." That is a claim about what Friedman is claiming, not what Rand
is claiming. The claim is wrong, because there is no guarantee that
Friedman got Rand's claim correct -- and if his interpretation of her
claim is different than yours, then what follows from your interpretation
plus his claim need not follow from his interpretation plus your claim.
If you want to point out that Friedman got the interpretation wrong, then
point out where the error is; don't put words into his mouth.
I note that Friedman is usually quite good at pointing out that "this is
where your argument leads" rather than "this is what you are claiming."
>> You may argue that Rand's claim is merely general rather than universal
>> (in which case the male mantis' terminal sex act is a mere exception), but
>> it is not reasonable to take it as existential -- that living things other
>> than human beings behave *at least once* in a way that keeps them alive --
>> because it is equally true that every organism behaves at least once in a
>> way that gets it dead, and so death becomes equivalent to life on that
>> measure. But your interpretation does take her claim as existential --
>> since you take its opposite as "does not behave in *any* way that keeps it
>> alive".
> I'm willing to interpret Rand's assertion (sorry, having trouble with
> my c key) generally; I don't see right off how that would look,
> though.
>
> But I'd argue that, by the same argument, the assertion should not be
> interpreted universally, either. If it's true that 'every organism
> behaves at least one time in a way that gets it dead,' then that
> interpretation is false.
Acting "for its survival" does not guarantee its survival. But what you
wrote was "does not behave in any way that keeps it alive" -- which means
that it not only takes no action for its survival, but that it takes no
action that doesn't result in it dying, and so if it is alive it is only
because it hasn't "behaved" at all.
The universal interpretation is possible (tho not necessary).
> IOW, Friedman has 'proved' the assertion false, only by interpreting
> it so that it is false.
But it is a reasonable interpretation, to my mind. You just wrote what
your differing interpretation was and then started to explore what would
follow from your interpretation and Friedman's claim.
>>> But we are talking about a sexually mature male mantis. And there can
>>> be no such thing as a sexually mature mantis, that has not behaved in
>>> ways that has kept it alive.
>> The obviousness of the above should clue you in that you have mis-analysed
>> Friedman's argument.
> Similarly, the obvious falseness of Rand' assertion (as interpreted by
> Friedman) should be a sign that Friedman has misinterpreted.
(a) it's not as obviously false as the claim you made, and (b) I believe
that Friedman's interpretation is required for the claim to have the
effect she intended -- when I read one of your earlier contributions to
this thread my immediate reaction was to want to write back saying "But
why the Hell would she even bother to say that?" That animals cannot
*choose* their actions says absolutely nothing about what actions humans
*should* choose.
>> If you want to point out an error in his argument,
>> you have to look elsewhere.
> If the assertion Friedman disproves is not the one that he sets out to
> disprove, then he has made a fallaious strawman argument.
He may have misinterpreted Rand. But you weren't presenting *that*
argument (so far as I could tell).
...mark young
George Dance
5837.0...@mb-md.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: Robert Allen Leeper ra...@hcsmail.com
> >Date: 5/20/02 8:58 PM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <3CE9A8CC...@hcsmail.com>
> >At the point I stepped into this, Symmetry asked
> >
> >"True or false?: it is possible to know both that X is true, and also
> >know that if X was not true, we couldn't know whether X was true or
> >not."
> >
> >That's the principle I've been working on.
> Let the record show that in my above quote X does not appear bound by any
> quantifier. My quote should be proceded by "There can be a situation wher
> e, for
> _some_ X..."
>
Fine. Making Symmetry's 'principle,' whih Robert believes obviously
true, equivalent to:
"There can be a situation where, for _some_ X, it is both possible to
know that X is true, ad impossible to know that X is false."
Any disagreement, from either of you?
George Dance
Symmetry <symm...@aol.compare.com> wrote in message news:<20020519145629.0
9590.0...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
> >Subject: Re: Knowing we couldn't know
> >From: Robert Allen Leeper ra...@hcsmail.com
> >Date: 5/19/02 9:56 AM Central Daylight Time
> >Message-id: <3CE7BCFF...@hcsmail.com>
>
> >> This dummy
> >> claimed, originally, that he knew there were no moral truths, and at
> >> the same time, that if there were moral truths, it was impossible to
> >> know if there were any or not.
> >
> >But this is completely different from what I thought we were arguing
> >about - do I have to go back and quote you? - that we could know x and
> >also know that if x were false, then we couldn't know x or ~x.
>
> Do you really think George is honest enough that you'll get him to admit his
> mistake?
What is 'completely different' in what I've said, Robert? What is
this alleged 'mistake', Symmetry?
Are either of you saying that Robert's statement of the principle -
"we could know x and also know that if x were false, then we couldn't
know x or ~x"
does *not* entail what I've said it does, that:
"There can be a situation where, for _some_ X, it is both possible to
know that X is true, and impossible to know that X is false."
???
Marc Davies
I believe this is a similar theory to the selfish gene theory. Instead
of animals acting in ways that keep them alive, they act in ways that
will ensure their genes survive. The theory postulates that such
behaviour was developed over millions of years through the 'survival of
the fittest' idea. It is consistent with most, if not all, Darwinian
theory.
This perhaps circumvents the problem of the male mantis - If it is able
to pass on its genes through its sexual activity, then its own live is
irrelevant. (assuming that the selfish gene theory is correct)
I think the selfish gene theory is right on the ball - much animal and
human behaviour can be attributed to it. Unfortunately there is little
evidence to prove it aside from conjecture and circumstantial evidence.
It is just one of those theories that rings true to my ears.
Marc
Resijinth
CCB...@adelaide.edu.au>...
Well, selfish gene theory is kind of correct. But, it's not the
individual gene itself rather than the information on the gene. Many
animals have developed what I call efficient altruism. It's a way not
only for the most information to be preserved, but for those who are
the strength of the species (or of their sub-unit) to survive along
with their kind.
Of course, cognisant beings contribute much more with a captalist
position than with a selfish gene position. Culture, however, to
exist, must have some way to pass on the culture, which is easiest
through heredity, which requires procreation, even if not for the
gene.
-Resijinth
George Dance
> > > This is where I have difficulty. Just because S knows if X is true or
> > > not does not entail the ability to find out again under every
> > > circumstance.
> >
> > Right. If S knows X is true in one situation, that does not prove
> > focussing on is whether there is a possible situation U in which S
> > knows X is true, but if X were false in that situation, it would be
> > impossible for X to know that S was false.
>
> Oh I get it. You're saying that the fact S could possibly find out
> that X was true requires he had a means of determining it.
Exactly. Say I take this coin and throw it in the air. It's possible
that the coin will land hands, and possible it will land tails; and
it's also possible that I can know whether it landed heads or tails,
and also possible that I cannot tell whether it landed heads or tails
(because it rolls under a surface, or something. But is there any
possible situation in which: if the coin lands heads, I can tell that
it landed heads; and if it lands tails, I cannot tell whether it
landed heads or tails?
> Alright.
> But what if X's being true confers, and alone confers, the ability to
> find out/investigate?
I can see such a situation, where ~X is impossible: say, if X were the
Law of Non-Contradiction. Or in what I called the 'trick' example: if
X were "I know at least one thing", then if X were false, I wouldn't
know anything (including that I didn't know anything).
But I don't see any such situation as being possible, where X is a
contingent fact (it could be true, or it could be false), and there is
no trick.
Take Symmetry's example of the kitten in the blender, in which (he
says) it is possible to know that the kitten is dead, and impossible
to know the kitten is alive.
In this example, a kitten is put into an opaque, soundproof blender -
the blender is either turned on, or not; and one has no other
evidence.
Symmetry's claim is that there is no way to know that the kitten is
alive, if the blender is off; and (he admits) it is equally possible
to know that the kitten is dead if the blender is off.
But, if the blender is on, he says, it is possible to know that "the
blender is on" - it is also possible to know that "if the blender is
on, the kitten is dead"; and therefore it is possible to to know "the
kitten is dead"; while it remains impossible to know that "the kitten
is alive."
For Symmetry to know that "if the blender is on, the kitten is dead",
he must be able to know that "the blender is on, and the kitten is
alive" is false; he still needs a method to tell him whether "the
blender is on, and the kitten is alive" is true or false. But (as
he's also claiming that it is impossible to ever know that "the kitten
is alive" is true), his argument implies that it is also impossible to
tell whether "the blender is on, and the kitten is alive" is true.
He cannot tell if "the blender is on, and the kitten is alive" is
true; but he also knows, at the same time and in the same respect,
that "the blender is on, and the kitten is alive" is not true.
Symmetry's only answer is that he knows that "the blender is on, and
the kitten is alive" is false, because he stipulated that he knows it
is false. But that begs the question of whether one can know
something just by 'stipulating' that one knows it. I don't see how
one can actually know anything by *that* method.
George Dance
39...@posting.google.com>...
<cut to the chase>
> Now, for a more careful attempt at formalizing my principle:
>
> K(x) = it can be known that x
> Let S be some set of hypotheticals.
> Let W(~x) be a subset of S consisting of all the hypotheticals where
> ~x is true.
> Let W(x) be a subset of S consisting of all hypotheticals in which x
> is true.
>
> (Note that W(x) and W(~x) form a partition of S.)
>
> Then:
>
> Ex( EweW(x)( w --> K(x) ) AND AweW(~x)( w --> (~K(x) AND ~K(~x)) ) )
> I am much happier w/ the above principle. I should have been more
> careful the first time.
Second time, too, I think. What does your quantifier, "Ex", mean?
That "there is something that is a fact (or: "there is a case in which
x is true")? All that gets you is a proof that it's impossible to
know that something is false if it is true.
Do you know what first-order predicate logic (FOPL) is? It's a logic
that allows one to distinguish between something's existing, and what
is true or false about that thing. I'd suggest you formulate your
'principle' in FOPL, as:
(Ex)((Ew)(Fx -> Gw -> K(Fx)) & (w)(~Fx -> Gw -> ~K(~Fx)))
or possibly (because you are claiming that there are two possible
states of 'w', that
(Ex)((Ew)(Fx -> Gw -> K(Fx)) & (w)(~Fx -> ~Gw -> ~K(~Fx)))
Since your formulation is equivocal between these two, I would
appreciate your choosing one or the other as a correct formalization
in FOPL.
Then we can proceed to putting your claim into modal form.