On Nov 26, 6:01 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 4:12 PM, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > On Nov 21, 6:43 pm, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 7:36 AM, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > >>> No-one is. They are just valid descriptions. There is no argument > >>> to the effect that logic is causal or it is nothing. It is not > >>> the case that causal explanation is the only form of explanagion > > >> “Valid descriptions” don’t account for why things are this way rather > >> than some other way. > > > If a higher level description is a valid description of > > some microphysics, then it will be an explanation of > > why the result happened given the initial conditions > > > It won't solve the trilemma, but neither will > > microphysical causality > > So Agrippa's Trilemma revolves around the question of how we can > justify our beliefs. > > It seems to me that an entirely acceptable solution is just to accept > that we can't justify our beliefs.
..in an absolute way. We still can relative to other beliefs. And that isn;t a problem specific to higher-level categories such as reason and logic. The Trilemma applies just as much to microphysical causality > >> As I said before, materialism could conceivably explain human ability > >> and behavior, but in my opinion runs aground at human consciousness. > >> Therefore, I doubt that humans are a complex sort of robot. > > > Is human consciousness causally effective? > > I don't believe so, no. Then the sense in which we are not robots is somewhat honorific: we are not because we have consciousness, but consc. doesn't explain out behaviour since it doesn't cause anything , so we behave as determined... > And claiming that consciousness is itself caused just runs into > infinite regress, as you then need to explain what causes the cause of > conscious experience, and so on. The claim is more that it causes. And it could be causal under interactive dualism (brain causes consc causes different brains state) and it could be causal under mind brain identity: mind is identical to brain; brain causes; therefore mind identically causes. > Therefore, taking the same approach as with Agrippa's Trilemma, it > seems best to just accept that there is no cause for conscious > experience either. Again, the trillema only means there is no non-arbitrary ultimate cause. The trillema does not mean that nothing whatsoever is caused. In any case it is a rather poor reason for dismissing the causal efficacy of consciousness. You are saing that you are not causally responsible for what you have written here, for instance > Is it a useful answer? Maybe not. But where does it say that all > answers have to be useful? If true knowledge is unobtainable, it makes a lot of sense to settle for useful knowledge. > Besides, what causes you to care about usefulness? Evolution. > > What causes evolution? Initial conditions and causal laws. > > What causes initial conditions and causal laws? > > And so on. We've been through this before I think. Yep. That it is in a sense caused by evolution does not make it wrong. -- 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.
