Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 3:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/11/2011 7:51 AM, Rex Allen wrote: Instrumentalism, anyone? I'll have a helping. And I'll also note that instrumentalism with a pinch of common sense is as good as it gets. Common sense? What is this common sense that you speak of? Let me guess: If you have to ask, you ain't ever gonna know. It seems to me that this view of science, instrumentalism with a pinch of common sense, isn't the view that's generally presented to the general public - or at least hasn't been in the past, though maybe that's changing now. It seems like you hear it more now than 15 years ago, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention then. What impact do you think it would have if that were the public face of science? Positive? Negative? None? It seems to me that it would be a big change - probably positive, but who knows. The mystery of consciousness takes on a bit of a different color when set against an instrumentalist background though. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.12395,y.2011,no.3,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx The range of phenomena physics has explained is more than impressive; it underlies the whole of modern civilization. Nevertheless, as a physicist travels along his (in this case) career, the hairline cracks in the edifice become more apparent, as does the dirt swept under the rug, the fudges and the wholesale swindles, with the disconcerting result that the totality occasionally appears more like Bruegel’s Tower of Babel as dreamt by a modern slumlord, a ramshackle structure of compartmentalized models soldered together into a skewed heap of explanations as the whole jury-rigged monstrosity tumbles skyward. [...] Such examples abound throughout physics. Rather than pretending that they don’t exist, physics educators would do well to acknowledge when they invoke the Wizard working the levers from behind the curtain. Even towards the end of the twentieth century, physics was regarded as received Truth, a revelation of the face of God. Some physicists may still believe that, but I prefer to think of physics as a collection of models, models that map the territory, but are never the territory itself. That may smack of defeatism to many, but ultimate answers are not to be grasped by mortals. Physicists have indeed gone further than other scientists in describing the natural world; they should not confuse description with understanding. Confusing a good detailed, tested description with understanding is a lot better than confusing arm-chair philosophizing with understanding. In either case, at the end of the story you're still confused. But at least in the latter case it ends with you sitting in a comfortable arm-chair... Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Irrationality of Physicalism
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 5:16 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Rex, you wrote something great: A rare compliment! Thanks! Rationality is correlated with survival. You are rational, and you survive. But to say that rationality causes survival? What if rationality and survival are both caused by the same underlying processes?... My habituel question when neurologists assign thought (mentality?) to the (measurable) neuronic physiology and claim That causes the mental process. Correlated action, as the application of a 'tool' appears combined with the result of such process and without knowing the details 'scientists' are tempted to look at it as the 'originator' of the combined process. BTW I have to clarify (for myself?) Mihai Nadin's idea about 'cause' which is not in the starting conditions, rather in the aimed-at final stage of the change. His example is the cat, thrown off a building, falls on its feet, while a stone will fall just as it happens. The cat 'visualizes' by inherited trends how to twist while falling, to land without harm. Nadin is basing this on Robert Rosen's anticipatory principle (different from teleology). As for survival: it is an outcome of much more than we can include into our 'rationality' or whatever. The wholeness in its entirety influences the happenings by all the relations between all the unlimited ingredients into an outcome. We know only part of those so our conclusions are illusions. We assume what we presume. John Mikes On 7/20/10, Allen Rex rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 7/16/2010 8:51 PM, Allen Rex wrote: So, he seems to imply that initial conditions and causal laws must give rise to rational actors. But as he says, there is no independent standard of rationality. Yes he does. Rationality is what conduces to survival. You insist on reductive chains of laws, but I see it as a virtuous circle of explanation. Rationality is correlated with survival. You are rational, and you survive. But to say that rationality causes survival? What if rationality and survival are both caused by the same underlying processes? Processes involving quarks and electrons being acted on by fundamental laws? So rational is a meaningless label. In his formulation above it just means “whatever ends up being the most commonly manifested behaviors.” But it’s not commonly manifested because it’s rational. Rather, it’s labeled rational because it’s commonly manifested. Only by successful organisms. Successful is just a synonym for “common” here. Assuming physicalism, the causal laws of our universe applied to a suitable set of initial conditions will, in time, exhibit features that we categorize as “evolutionary”. Some of these evolutionary processes may give rise to entities that have conscious experiences, and some of those conscious experiences will be of holding this, that, or the other beliefs about logic. But those beliefs are a result of fundamental laws acting on fundamental entities, and not associated with any sort of independently existing platonic standard of “logical reasoning”. I don't understand that last sentence. Does fundamental laws refer to those theories we use to explain physical processes. No, it refers to the physical processes that are approximately described by our theories. What fundamental entities do you refer to? Those involved in the physical processes you refer to above. And why should not the beliefs we experience be associated with logical reasoning. What are you logically reasoning about? Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Irrationality of Physicalism
Hmmm. Interesting. Part 2 made it, but not part one. Part 1: You never think about how to test and potentially falsify your theories do you. Which makes these discussions fruitless. Brent Did you stop reading there??? It got better! Especially once I got past the Cooper quotes. So I'm not arguing against the Standard Model, of which I take an instrumentalist view. Rather, I'm arguing against the metaphysical position known as Physicalism. Is physicalism falsifiable? I seem to recall that you believe that an external indeterministic physical world exists independently of your observations, where events transpire according to some kind of necessity. Yes? No? But, this belief isn't entailed by methodological naturalism. It's a leap of faith. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Irrationality of Physicalism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 7/16/2010 8:51 PM, Allen Rex wrote: So, he seems to imply that initial conditions and causal laws must give rise to rational actors. But as he says, there is no independent standard of rationality. Yes he does. Rationality is what conduces to survival. You insist on reductive chains of laws, but I see it as a virtuous circle of explanation. Rationality is correlated with survival. You are rational, and you survive. But to say that rationality causes survival? What if rationality and survival are both caused by the same underlying processes? Processes involving quarks and electrons being acted on by fundamental laws? So rational is a meaningless label. In his formulation above it just means “whatever ends up being the most commonly manifested behaviors.” But it’s not commonly manifested because it’s rational. Rather, it’s labeled rational because it’s commonly manifested. Only by successful organisms. Successful is just a synonym for “common” here. Assuming physicalism, the causal laws of our universe applied to a suitable set of initial conditions will, in time, exhibit features that we categorize as “evolutionary”. Some of these evolutionary processes may give rise to entities that have conscious experiences, and some of those conscious experiences will be of holding this, that, or the other beliefs about logic. But those beliefs are a result of fundamental laws acting on fundamental entities, and not associated with any sort of independently existing platonic standard of “logical reasoning”. I don't understand that last sentence. Does fundamental laws refer to those theories we use to explain physical processes. No, it refers to the physical processes that are approximately described by our theories. What fundamental entities do you refer to? Those involved in the physical processes you refer to above. And why should not the beliefs we experience be associated with logical reasoning. What are you logically reasoning about? Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Irrationality of Physicalism
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 4:01 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Are you saying that the book provides evidences that we are not Turing emulable? As far as I know, Cooper doesn’t state his position on this question. Or that the prime character of the number 17 evolves in time/space? So I don’t think this part of the debate is going too far. I’m primarily interested in defending my position. I’m not as interested in defending Cooper’s position. :) However, I will quote the passages that made me think he was probably not in sympathy with your views. Also, see the quotes in my initial response to Brent. Today, in the general drift of scientific thought, logic is treated as though it were a central stillness. Although there is ambiguity in current attitudes, for the most part the laws of logic are still taken as fixed and absolute, much as they were for Aristotle. Contemporary theories of scientific methodology are logicocentric. Logic is seen common as an immutable, universeal, meatscientific framework for the sciences as for personal knowledge. Biological evolution is acknowledged, but it accorded only an ancillary role as a sort of biospheric police force whose duty it is to enforce the lgoical law among the recalcitrant. Logical obedience is rewarded and disobedience punished by natural selection, it is thought. [...] Comfortable as that mindset may be, I believe I am not alone in suspecting that it has things backward. There is a different, more biocentric perspective to be considered. In the alternative scheme of things, logic is not the central stillness. The principles of reasoning are neither fixed, absolute, independent, nor elemental. If anything it is the evolutionary dynamic that is elemental. Evolution is not the law enforcer, but the law giver. [...] The Principles of pure Reason, however pure an impression they may give, are in the final analysis propositions about evolutionary processes. Rules of reason evolve out of evolutionary law and nothing else. Logic is a life science. [...] ‘How do humans manage to reason?’ Since the form of this question is the same as that of the first, it would be natural to attack it in a similar two-pronged fashion. One part of the answer, with might naturally be placed at the beginning of a treatise on the question, would consist of logical theory. the different kinds of logic - deductive, inductive, mathematical, etc. - would be expounded and derived from first principles, perhaps in the form of axiomatizations of the various logical calculi. These ideal systems would be taken to define the rules of correct reasoning. The explanation of how humans evolved in ways that exploit these principles would come later on. The stages of adaptation to the rules of logic would be discussed, including some consideration of how well or poorly the human mind succeeds at implementing the fundamental logical principles set forth in the first part. [...] There would again be two parts to the exposition, a first part explaining the laws of logic and a second the laws of evolution. All this seems, on the surface at least, in good analogy with the explanation of bird flight. What the Reducibility Thesis proposes is that it is a *false* analogy. There are no separable laws of logic. It is tempting to think of the power of reasoning as an adaptation to separate principles of logic, just as flying is an adaptation to separate laws of aerodynamcis. The temptation should be resisted. SO...taken with the quotes I provided in my initial response to Brent, how friendly do you think he sounds to your position? I think he sounds friendlier to mine! Which, to recap is this: If our conscious experiences are caused by some more fundamental underlying process, then no one presents or believes arguments for reasons of logic or rationality. Instead, one presents and believes arguments because one is *caused* to do so by the underlying process. The underlying process *may* be such that it causes us to present and believe logical and rational arguments, but there is no requirement that this be the case. If the underlying process doesn’t cause us to present and believe rational arguments, there would be no way to detect this, since there is no way to step outside of the process’s control of one’s beliefs to independently verify the reasonableness of the beliefs it generates. In other words: crazy people rarely know that they’re crazy. Wrong people never know that they’re wrong. Further, this is true of every possible position that has conscious experience caused by a more fundamental process. 1) The universe’s initial conditions and causal laws *may* be such that they cause us to have true beliefs about reality, but there is no requirement that this be so. 2) Our God *may* be such that he causes us to have true beliefs about him and reality, but there is no requirement that this be so. 3) Our fundamental and uncaused conscious experiences *may*
Re: The Irrationality of Physicalism
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: And in either case the counter argument is the same, c.f. The Evolution of Reason by William S. Cooper. Maybe. But it’s not a very good counter argument. Actually, if his thesis is true, I think it helps my argument more than it hurts. The thesis posited by the book is a bigger problem for Bruno's theory that mine. A long-ish response, but there are several quotes from the book that add up in length. So logic reduces to biology. Fine. And biology reduces to...what? Initial conditions and causal laws, that’s what. “Evolution is not the law enforcer but the law giver - not so much a police force as a legislature. The laws of logic are not independent of biology but implicit in the very evolutionary processes that enforce them. The processes determine the laws. If the latter understanding is correct, logical rules have no separate status of their own but are theoretical constructs of evolutionary biology. Logical theory ought then in some sense to be deducible entirely from biological considerations. The concept of scientific reduction is helpful in expressing that thought. In the received methodological terminology the idea of interest can be articulated as the following hypothesis. REDUCIBILITY THESIS: Logic is reducible to evolutionary theory.” So obviously evolution is not a law enforcer or a law giver. It isn’t a causal law, but rather a consequence of causal laws. Cooper claims that logic reduces to evolutionary theory. And what does evolutionary theory reduce to? Initial conditions and fundamental causal laws acting on fundamental entities. Assuming physicalism, the causal laws of our universe applied to a suitable set of initial conditions will, in time, exhibit features that we categorize as “evolutionary”. Some of these evolutionary processes may give rise to entities that have conscious experiences, and some of those conscious experiences will be of holding this, that, or the other beliefs about logic. But those beliefs are a result of fundamental laws acting on fundamental entities, and not associated with any sort of independently existing platonic standard of “logical reasoning”. This is the gist of my post, and seems to be the main gist of his book. We do part company eventually though. I’ll save that part for last. Continuing: “‘How do humans manage to reason?’ Since the form of this question is the same as that of the first, it would be natural to attack it in a similar two-pronged fashion. [...] Somewhere in the latter part there would be talk of selective forces acting on genetic variation, of fitness, of population models, etc. [...] The laws of Reason should not be addressed independently of evolutionary theory, according to the thesis. Reasoning is different from all other adaptations in that the laws of logic are aspects of the laws of adaptation themselves. Nothing extra is needed to account for logic - only a drawing out of the consequences of known principles of natural selection.” Selective forces? What would have caused those selective forces? What do these selective forces reduce to? Why these selective forces instead of some others? Natural selection? Well, there are causally neutral “filters” (metaphorically speaking), but these metaphorical filters are as much a consequence of the universe’s initial conditions and causal laws as the organisms that are (metaphorically) selected. Evolution is a consequence of causal laws, not a causal law itself. In this it is like the first law of thermodynamics - which is a consequence of the time invariance of the causal laws, not a causal law itself. Evolution and the first law of thermodynamics are descriptions of how things are, not explanations. So as I said, if physicalism is true then the arguments that we present and believe are those entailed by the physics that underlies our experiences, and by nothing else. In this view, evolution is also just a manifestation of those same underlying physical forces. And logic is merely an aspect of the experiences generated by the more fundamental activities of quarks and electrons. In this vein, he says: “If evolutionary considerations control the relevant aspects of decision behavior, and these determine in turn the rest of the machinery of logic, one can begin to discern the implicative chain that makes Reducibility Theory thinkable. [...] If the evolutionary control over the logic is indeed so total as to constrain it entirely, there is no need to perpetuate the fiction that logic has a life of its own. It is tributary to the larger evolutionary mechanism.” All we have to do is add that the universe’s initial conditions and causal laws control the evolutionary considerations, and my point is practically made. The main point of contention between my argument and Cooper’s is: “In this way the general evolutionary tendency to optimize fitness turns out to imply, in and of
Re: Quentin Meillassoux
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 7/12/2010 10:54 PM, Allen Rex wrote: So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by unbreakable causal chains. And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up. My beliefs are formed by reality - I'll take that as a compliment. In that view, you know who else's views were formed by reality? Charles Manson. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Stalin. Hitler. Every murdering, molesting, schizophrenic, delusional, or psychopathic deviant who has ever lived. That's who. SO. I wouldn't take it as *that* big a compliment. Don't pat yourself on the back too hard. And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your conscious experience of holding those beliefs. No, IF you're right there is no finite causal chain of explanations for that. No, if I'm right (as opposed to the physicalists) there are no explanations. Just facts of experience. There's no mysterious physical world that underlies and explains what you oberve but has no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future. Only the conscious experience of these things. You've made a great leap from I can't have a complete explanation of the world. to There is no world. You and Meillassoux are like the little boy who discovers that no matter what his mother says he can ask Why?, except you consider it a profound discovery. I think we're more like the little boy who points out that the emperor wears no clothes. Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same thing. The first two options just have a lot of extra inferred-from-experience behind the scenes infrastructure which serves no purpose except...what? If you don't think it serves your pursposes, then don't believe. I've found it serves mine. Indeed...I imagine that the dogmas of religious belief can be a great comfort. Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent. Us? Who's us? In any case I don't exist. I'd explain why, but You don't exist, but in my experience, emails bearing the name Brent Meeker always have interesting content. Speaking of which, you didn't respond to my previous email. I was particularly curious about your response to: If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic metaphysics means to reject all real necessity, Why all? Quantum mechanics already rejects some necessity and replaces it with probabilities - but not all; instead it recovers necessities in certain limits (eigenfunctions, decoherence,...). Quantum mechanical laws would still enforce the necessity of one probability distribution instead of some other, wouldn’t they? The probabilistic aspect takes place within the fixed and unchanging context of quantum mechanics. Like the randomness of the shuffle takes places within the deterministic rules of poker. Do the rules of poker change from one day to the next? The suits? The number of cards in the deck? Are those aspects random? Does quantum mechanics have similarly fixed aspects? Do new fundamental forces pop in and out of existence? Are there days when electromagnetism doesn’t work? And if not, why not? What enforces the consistent application of the QCD and QED and gravity? And what enforces the consistent application of that enforcement? And what enforces the enforcement of the consistent application of the enforcement? And so on. Is there a sufficient reason for these things? Or is this just the way it works, for no reason? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Quentin Meillassoux
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world. So the first sentence says: “I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality” In his book “After Finitude”, Meillassoux explains that the principle of facticity (which he also refers to as “the principle of unreason”) stands in contrast to Leibniz’s “Principle of Sufficient Reason”, which states that anything that happens does so for a definite reason. From pg. 33 of After Finitude: “But we also begin to understand how this proof [the ontological proof of God] is intrinsically tied to the culmination of a principle first formulated by Leibniz, although already at work in Descartes, viz., the principle of sufficient reason, according to which for every thing, every fact, and every occurence, there must be a reason why it is thus and so rather than otherwise. For not only does such a principle require that there be a possible explanation for every worldly fact; it also requires that thought account for the unconditioned totality of beings, as well as for their being thus and so. Consequently, although thought may well be able to account for the facts of the world by invoking this or that global law - nevertheless, it must also, according to the principle of reason, account for why these laws are thus and not otherwise, and therefore account for why the world is thus and not otherwise. And even were such a ‘reason for the world’ to be furnished, it would yet be necessary to account for this reason, and so on ad infinitum. If thought is to avoid an infinite regress while submitting to the principle of reason, it is incumbent upon it to uncover a reason that would prove capable of accounting for everything, including itself - a reason no conditioned by any other reason, and which only the ontological argument is capable of uncovering, since the latter secures the existence of an X through the determination of this X alone, rather than through the determination of some entity other than X - X must be because it is perfect, and hence causa sui, or sole cause of itself. If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic metaphysics means to reject all real necessity, and a fortiori to reject the principle of sufficient reason, as well as the ontological argument, which is the keystone that allows the system of real necessity to close in upon itself. Such a refusal enjoins one us to maintain that there is no legitimate demonstration that a determinate entity should exist unconditionally.” It is explanations that may be contradictory, not facts. Pg. 60: “We are no longer upholding a variant of the principle of sufficient reason, according to which there is a necessary reason why everything is the way it is rather than otherwise, but rather the absolute truth of a *principle of unreason*. There is no reason for anything to be or to remain the way it is; everything must, without reason, be able not to be and/or be other than it is. What we have here is a principle, and even, we could say, an anhypothetical principle; not in the sense in which Plato used this term to describe the Idea of the Good, but rather in the Aristotelian sense. By ‘anhypothetical principle’, Aristotle meant a fundamental proposition that could not be deduced from any other, but which could be proved by argument. This proof, which could be called ‘indirect’ or ‘refutational’, proceeds not by deducing the principle from some other proposition - in which case it would no longer count as a principle - but by pointing out the inevitable inconsistency into which anyone contesting the truth of the principle is bound to fall. One establishes the principle without deducing it, by demonstrating that anyone who contests it can do so only by presupposing it to be true, thereby refuting him or herself. Aristotle sees in non-contradiction precisely such a principle, one that is established ‘refutationally’ rather than deductively, because any coherent challenge to it already presupposes its acceptance. Yet there is an essential difference between the principle of unreason and the principle of non-contradiction; viz. what Aristotle demonstrates ‘refutationally’ is that no one can *think* a contradiction, but he has not thereby demonstrated that contradiction is absolutely impossible. Thus the strong correlationist could contrast the facticity of this principle to its absolutization - she would acknowledge that she cannot think contradiction, but she would refuse to acknowledge that this proves its absolute impossibility. For
Re: Quentin Meillassoux
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason. What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth. This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say. I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we observe. See my response to Brent for further quotes from Meillassoux's book. He states own his case pretty well I think. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Quentin Meillassoux
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:06 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 7/12/2010 7:56 PM, Allen Rex wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world. So the first sentence says: “I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality” You mean the absence of a sufficient reason for any piece of reality? No, I imagine he means what he says. Any reality. I assume you were going to say something about quantum indeterminancy here? Or am just I being paranoid? For not only does such a principle require that there be a possible explanation for every worldly fact; it also requires that thought account for the unconditioned totality of beings, Why thought? Why not thought? What’s wrong with the use of thought there? He’s French, he does things like that. If thought is to avoid an infinite regress while submitting to the principle of reason, Why does it need to avoid an infinite regress? An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, and for any proposition in the series Pn, the truth of Pn requires the support of the truth of Pn+1. There would never be adequate support for P1, because the infinite sequence needed to provide such support could not be completed. Distinction is made between infinite regresses that are vicious and those that are not. One definition given is that a vicious regress is an attempt to solve a problem which re-introduced the same problem in the proposed solution. If one continues along the same lines, the initial problem will recur infinitely and will never be solved. Not all regresses, however, are vicious. Trying to find a reason for a reason for a reason...seems like the vicious kind of infinite regress. Hey, look, the “The Münchhausen-Trilemma”! I’ll read that tomorrow. Arguing with Brent has paid dividends yet again! Maybe reality is like an infinite set of Russian dolls. Actually my favorite is the virtuous circle of reasons. You just follow it around until you find one you understand. Why would reality be that way instead of some other way? Why our particular circle of reasons instead of some other circle? Why not a vicious circle instead of a virtuous one? it is incumbent upon it to uncover a reason that would prove capable of accounting for everything, Who says it's incumbent...and why should I care? Quentin Meillassoux...and because you’re intellectually curious? Actually, you’re more intellectually grumpy I think. If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic metaphysics means to reject all real necessity, Why all? Quantum mechanics already rejects some necessity and replaces it with probabilities - but not all; instead it recovers necessities in certain limits (eigenfunctions, decoherence,...). Quantum mechanical laws would still enforce the necessity of one probability distribution instead of some other, wouldn’t they? The probabilistic aspect takes place within the fixed and unchanging context of quantum mechanics. Like the randomness of the shuffle takes places within the deterministic rules of poker. Do the rules of poker change from one day to the next? The suits? The number of cards in the deck? Are those aspects random? Does quantum mechanics have similarly fixed aspects? Do new fundamental forces pop in and out of existence? Are there days when electromagnetism doesn’t work? And if not, why not? What enforces the consistent application of the QCD and QED and gravity? And what enforces the consistent application of that enforcement? And what enforces the enforcement of the consistent application of the enforcement? And so on. Is there a sufficient reason for these things? Or is this just the way it works, for no reason? Clearly then, for contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. What every logic - as well as every logos more generally - wants to avoid is a discourse so trivial that it renders every well-formulated statement, as well as its negation, equally valid. But contradiction is logically thinkable so long as it remains ‘confined’ within limits such that it does not entail the truth of every contradiction.” Yes, I'm familiar with Graham Priest. Splendid. His wikipedia entry says that he is 3rd Dan, International Karate-do Shobukai; 4th Dan, Shi’to Ryu, and an Australian National Kumite Referee and Kata Judge. If every
Re: Quentin Meillassoux
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:13 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 7/12/2010 8:00 PM, Allen Rex wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason. What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth. This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say. I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we observe. He's arguing that if we don't have a reason for everything we can't have any reason for anything. In which case I have no reason to believe him. But in that case you have no reason to disbelieve him either. So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by unbreakable causal chains. And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up. And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your conscious experience of holding those beliefs. There's no mysterious physical world that underlies and explains what you oberve but has no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future. Only the conscious experience of these things. Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same thing. The first two options just have a lot of extra inferred-from-experience behind the scenes infrastructure which serves no purpose except...what? Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
