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Answering Popperian’s challenge: “why doesn’t someone start out by explaining how human beings generate emotions, then point out how the universality of computation does not fit that explanation . . .”

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A classic, 310A at 7 V, 1917c high-current dynamo (HT: Wiki)
A classic, 310A at 7 V, c 1917 high-current dynamo (HT: Wiki)

There are some key motifs that often come up in discussions of design theory and linked ideas. Popperian, as captioned, has posed one of these. Notice, his view, that we GENERATE emotions, suggesting a dynamo churning away and generating electricity. That is, the motif that would reduce explanations to mechanisms is here revealed.  I think it is well worth the pause to address it by headlining an in-thread response:

___________

>>Popperian, re:

why doesn’t someone start out by explaining how human beings generate emotions, then point out how the universality of computation does not fit that explanation. Effectively stating “It’s magic and computers are not magic doesn’t cut it.” Pushing the problem into an inexplicable mind hat exists in an inexplicable realm, doesn’t improve the problem.

Thanks for sharing your reflections (as opposed to the too common deadlocks on talking point games and linked typical fallacies that have become all too familiar . . . and informal fallacies are instructive on this matter . . . ), this always helps discussion move forward.

A Watch Movement c. 1880
A Watch Movement c. 1880

Second, pardon an observation: your response inadvertently shows how you have become overly caught up in the Newtonian, clockwork vision of the world.

Again, that reasoning by analogy or paradigmatic example — even though misleading — is instructive.

My fundamental point is that reasoning as opposed to blindly mechanical computation inherently relies on insight into meaning and a sense of structured patterns that suggest connexions. For instance, many informal fallacies pivot on how emotions are deeply cognitive judgements that shift expectations and trigger protective responses. So, if someone diverts attention from the focal topic and sets up then soaks a strawman in ad hominems and ignites, the resulting fears and anger will shift context and will contribute to inviting dismissal of the original matter without serious evaluation. Thus the protective heuristics have been manipulated.

Similarly, by shifting focus from the significance of insights and meaningful connexions to the scientific paradigm of Newtonian clockwork, then blending in the success of computer systems there is a shift away from a crucial difference that then leads to a reductionist, mechanistic tendency.

{Let us insert an illustration or a few, starting with an abstract generic dynamic-stochastic “mechanical” system model that shows blindly mechanical linkages at work:

gen_sys_proc_modelAs an application, let us look at a neural network, then a brain:

A neural network is essentially a weighted sum interconnected gate array, it is not an exception to the GIGO principle
A neural network is essentially a weighted sum interconnected gate array, it is not an exception to the GIGO– garbage in, garbage out — principle

neurobrain750

We now zoom back, putting up a simple model of the two-tier control cybernetic loop, after Derek Smith:

The Derek Smith two-tier controller cybernetic model
The Derek Smith two-tier controller cybernetic model

Such brings out that a mechanism can live in a wider context that is able to move beyond mechanistic dynamics, through a supervisory interface. Then, we need a contrast on computation vs contemplation, pivoting on the point that a rock has no dreams and that refining a rock into a computational substrate does not materially alter the blindly dynamic cause-effect bonds involved.

A Mechanical analogue computing framework will help, a ball and disk integrator that was formerly used in tide prediction and naval gunnery:

thomson_integrator

Here, the rate of accumulation of motion of the cylinder [viewed as input] depends on where the ball is relative to the centre of the disk, and so a dynamical input then is accumulated in the angular position of the disk effecting integration by moving from rate to cumulative degree of change. The components in this device are seen to be simply dynamical elements blindly interacting through cause-effect chains, it is the designer who is responsible for configuring to obtain reliable and accurate integration.

This continues if we move to a generic operational amplifier based analogue computer that solves differential equations in terms of voltages:

op_amp_integrator

Little has changed if we move to a digital computer, which, suitably programmed can do much the same through taking inputs, storing intermediate results and data, processing through an execution unit involving an arithmetic and logic unit based on electronic circuits to generate outputs:

mpu_model

{u/D Jul 8: let me add a diagram of an ALU:}

74181 4-bit slice ALU internal logic, showing "howtwerdun"
74181 classic TTL 4-bit slice ALU internal logic, showing “howtwerdun” — a mechanical, controlled cause-effect chain using gate circuits (HT: Wiki)

In all these, we are subject to Leibniz’s remark in his Monadology, on the analogy of the Mill:

17. Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception must be sought for. Further, nothing but this (namely, perceptions and their changes) can be found in a simple substance. It is also in this alone that all the internal activities of simple substances can consist. (Theod. Pref. [E. 474; G. vi. 37].)

Thus, to try to reduce mind to mechanism seems rather like trying to get North by insistently heading West. This sets up the contrast:

self_aware_or_notThe self-evident nature of such consciousness and linked experience is pivotal in opening up our minds to the reality of a different order of experiences.}

The case of expert systems as was just discussed with Mapou is instructive:

reasoning and common sense etc are not blindly mechanical causal chains (perhaps perturbed by some noise) such as are effected in an arithmetic-logic unit, ALU or a floating point unit, FPU.

Instead, such are inherently based on insight into the ground-consequent relationship and broader heuristics that guide inference, hunches, sense of likelihood or significance of a sign etc. While we can mimic some aspects of such through sufficiently complex blends of algorithms — I have in mind so-called expert systems, these again are critically dependent on programming design and the structure and contents of data evaluated as knowledge and rules of inference, heuristics of “explanation” in response to query, etc.

Notice, the motif of evaluation by comparison while noting key differences? Thus, the implication that analogies — pivotal to inductive reasoning BTW — are prone to being over-extended. We know per widespread experience that there are patterns in the world, and that sch often can be extended from one case to another so if we think there is a significant similarity, we will extend. But this raises the question of implications of significant difference and adjusting, adapting or overturning the extension.

Such thought is imaginative, active, inferential, defeasible but verifiable to the point of in some cases strong empirical reliability, and more, much more. It is inherently non-algorithmic, pivoting on meaning, judgement and insight.

As I am aware of your problem with inductive reasoning (broad sense), I share Avi Sion’s point:

We might . . . ask – can there be a world without any ‘uniformities’? A world of universal difference, with no two things the same in any respect whatever is unthinkable. Why? Because to so characterize the world would itself be an appeal to uniformity. A uniformly non-uniform world is a contradiction in terms.

Therefore, we must admit some uniformity to exist in the world.

The world need not be uniform throughout, for the principle of uniformity to apply. It suffices that some uniformity occurs.

Given this degree of uniformity, however small, we logically can and must talk about generalization and particularization. There happens to be some ‘uniformities’; therefore, we have to take them into consideration in our construction of knowledge. The principle of uniformity is thus not a wacky notion, as Hume seems to imply . . . .

The uniformity principle is not a generalization of generalization; it is not a statement guilty of circularity, as some critics contend. So what is it? Simply this: when we come upon some uniformity in our experience or thought, we may readily assume that uniformity to continue onward until and unless we find some evidence or reason that sets a limit to it. Why? Because in such case the assumption of uniformity already has a basis, whereas the contrary assumption of difference has not or not yet been found to have any. The generalization has some justification; whereas the particularization has none at all, it is an arbitrary assertion.

It cannot be argued that we may equally assume the contrary assumption (i.e. the proposed particularization) on the basis that in past events of induction other contrary assumptions have turned out to be true (i.e. for which experiences or reasons have indeed been adduced) – for the simple reason that such a generalization from diverse past inductions is formally excluded by the fact that we know of many cases [[of inferred generalisations; try: “we can make mistakes in inductive generalisation . . . “] that have not been found worthy of particularization to date . . . .

If we follow such sober inductive logic, devoid of irrational acts, we can be confident to have the best available conclusions in the present context of knowledge. We generalize when the facts allow it, and particularize when the facts necessitate it. We do not particularize out of context, or generalize against the evidence or when this would give rise to contradictions . . .[[Logical and Spiritual Reflections, BK I Hume’s Problems with Induction, Ch 2 The principle of induction.]

We have a deep intuitive sense that there is order and organisation in our cosmos, which comes out in recognisable, stable and at least partly intelligible patterns that extend from one case to another.

Mechanism, of course is one such, and explanation on mechanism is highly successful in certain limited spheres. But by the turn of C19, there were already signs of randomness at work and by C20 we had to reckon with the dynamics of randomness in physics. In quantum mechanics, this is now deeply embedded, many phenomena being inextricably stochastic.

But reducing an irreducibly complex world tot he pattern of mechanism with some room for chance, is not enough.

The first fact of our existence is our self-aware, self-moved intelligent consciousness and interface with an external world using our bodies.

This too is a reasonable pattern, one that we see in action with others who are as we are.

From this we abstract themes such as intelligence, responsible freedom, agency, purpose and more, which we routinely use in understanding how we behave and the consequences when we act.

What has happened in our time is that due to the prestige of science, mechanism based explanations have too often been allowed to displace the proper place for agent based explanations, the place for art and artifice. This has even been embedded in a dominant philosophy that too often unduly controls science: evolutionary materialism.

There is even a panic, that if agency is allowed in the door, “demons” will be let loose and order and rationality go poof. This then often triggers fear, turf protection and linked locked in closed minded ideological irrationality.

The simple fact that modern science arose from in the main Judaeo-Christian thought that perceived a world as designed in ways meant to point to its Author, through involving at some level simple and intelligible organising principles or laws, should give pause. The phrase thinking God’s [creative, organising and sustaining] thoughts after him should ring some bells. (This is too often suppressed in the way we are taught about the rise of modern science.)

And of course, by way of opening the door to self-referential incoherence through demanding domination of mindedness by mechanism, evolutionary materialism falsifies itself. Haldane puts it in a nutshell:

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.

So, the very terms you use: “how human beings generate emotions,” is a giveaway.

We do not so much generate emotions and other consciously aware states of being, we experience them. And, to recognise and respect that fact without reference to demands for mechanistic reduction is a legitimate start-point for reflection.

All explanation is going to be finite and limited, so there will always be start-points. Starting from the realities of our interior-life experience is a good first point, and reflection on such shows that rationality itself (a requisite of doing science etc) crucially depends on insightful, purposeful responsible and rational freedom.

That which undermines such will then be self-defeating, and should be put aside.

Thus, the significance of Reppert’s development of Haldane’s point via Lewis:

. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions

Trying to reduce this to blindly mechanistic physical cause-effect chains with perhaps some noise, is self-defeating.

In short, start-points and contexts for reasoning count for a lot.>>

___________

In short, our emotions are experienced as a facet of self-aware, responsibly free, rational agency. And, it is legitimate to begin from such a first fact of experience, especially as the mechanistic alternative shows every sign of breaking down when it becomes self-referential.

Perhaps, then, it is time for a fresh think that moves beyond say Crick in The Astonishing Hypothesis:

. . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.

. . . and similar patterns of thought?

Philip Johnson’s reply seems to have a bit of bite to it. Namely, that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”  Johnson then acidly commented:  “[[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [[Reason in the Balance, 1995.]

Surely, it is time for fresh thinking? END

Comments
Reading Ross's Thought and World.Mung
July 9, 2015
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PS: Some eye-opening reading from Ross: http://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriality.pdf Clipping: >>ANIMAL cognition and desire, from the appetite of a clam to the optical systems of vultures and frigate birds, is supposed to have neurobiological explanations resultant from, if not reducible to, universal laws of physics. That is a minimal and modest project for epistemology naturalized, one to be assisted by special-ized sciences.' There is a larger and bolder project of epistemology naturalized, namely, to explain human thought in terms available to physical science, particularly the aspects of thought that carry truth values, and have formal features, like validity or mathematical form. That project seems to have hit a stone wall, a difficulty so grave that philosophers dismiss the underlying argument, or adopt a cavalier certainty that our judgments only simulate certain pure forms and never are real cases of, e.g., conjunction, modus ponens, adding, or genuine validity. The difficulty is that, in principle, such truth-carry- ing thoughts2 cannot be wholly physical (though they might have a physical medium),3 because they have features that no physical thing or process can have at all.4 >> Read on . . .kairosfocus
July 8, 2015
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F/N2: I notice from Marcus' underlying NYT article -- Face it, Your brain is a computer -- a two-tier strawman tactic. First, he locks out mind from the title on, considering only brains vs computers. Second, he then compares a simplistic series of contrasts in that context. Let me clip, to represent what I wish to comment on:
Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer JUNE 27, 2015 . . . . Often, when scientists resist the idea of the brain as a computer, they have a particular target in mind, which you might call the serial, stored-program machine. Here, a program (or “app”) is loaded into a computer’s memory, and an algorithm, or recipe, is executed step by step. (Calculate this, then calculate that, then compare what you found in the first step with what you found in the second, etc.) But humans don’t download apps to their brains, the critics note, and the brain’s nerve cells are too slow and variable to be a good match for the transistors and logic gates that we use in modern computers . . . . Often, when scientists resist the idea of the brain as a computer, they have a particular target in mind, which you might call the serial, stored-program machine. Here, a program (or “app”) is loaded into a computer’s memory, and an algorithm, or recipe, is executed step by step. (Calculate this, then calculate that, then compare what you found in the first step with what you found in the second, etc.) But humans don’t download apps to their brains, the critics note, and the brain’s nerve cells are too slow and variable to be a good match for the transistors and logic gates that we use in modern computers . . . . Finally, there is a popular argument that human brains are capable of generating emotions, whereas computers are not. But while computers as we know them clearly lack emotions, that fact itself doesn’t mean that emotions aren’t the product of computation. On the contrary, neural systems like the amygdala that modulate emotions appear to work in roughly the same way as the rest of the brain does, which is to say that they transmit signals and integrate information, and transform inputs into outputs. As any computer scientist will tell you, that’s pretty much what computers do.
To see what has gone wrong here, cf the Smith Model in the OP. Notice, the cybernetic loop with an i/o controller in the loop. Observe also the higher supervisory tier that interacts with the i/o in-loop controller. There is no requirement that the in-loop controller be or do anything beyond mechanical computations with various possible architectures . . . including neural networks as also is illustrated. That is not the issue. The issue is, that such an i/o processor is inherently mechanical, cause-effect chain-, wiring- and programming- driven. It is incapable of responsible freedom or even rational reflection, it is just processing signals as programmed. If then, one locks out the whole world of our interior life, one then imagines that one is dealing with such a processor. But, we experience ourselves to be responsibly free and at least sometimes rationally contemplative. Worse, absent such responsible freedom rationality based on insight, meaning and understanding ground-consequent links etc collapses into blind causal chains like Leibnitz's mill wheels grinding against one another. That is, we face self-referential incoherence, much as Reppert and Haldane outlined as clipped in the OP. Let's for convenience clip Haldane as a refresher:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
Smith provides a way forward. Consider what happens when an i/o in-loop controller is part of a multi-tier system, with supervision. Its behaviour can then be directed and it can feed/share stored information, integrated sensory pictures of the world-situation and proprioception of internal posture in the world. Thus, we see a basis for integrated situation awareness of the internal and external situation, for stored reflections, perceptions, for abstraction and synthesis of models or explanatory constructs etc. That already sets up an interactive context. But, we have not touched the specific point on self-aware responsible freedom, rational reflection and our experience of emotions as felt responses to perceived and judged circumstances and expectations etc. This interior world, we are directly aware of, and have good reason to accept that it is an experience shared with other people as well as to a significant, limited extent with higher animals. Conscious, minded, responsibly free active engagement of the world in short. That which, seemingly must not be mentioned or taken seriously. And yet, that interior life is evident fact no. 1 of our lives, the fact through which we access all other facts. Where, without responsible freedom, rationality -- the prime necessity of doing science -- collapses. So, we see a locking out in an age dominated by ideological evolutionary materialistic scientism. How do we find ourselves conscious, significantly and responsibly free and rational? I do not know, but I do know that absent acknowledging that experience, all else collapses. Linked to this, such cannot be reduced to dynamic-stochastic blind cause-effect chains on computational substrates on pain of the same self-referential incoherence. I can suggest that at interface level, the world of quantum influences offers openings that were not on the table in the post-Newtonian world of hard cause-effect chains. What seems reasonable is that our experience of mindedness taps another domain of reality, which can reasonably be termed in traditional terms, the spiritual. It is time for fresh thinking. KFkairosfocus
July 8, 2015
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F/N: I have put in a diagram of a 74181 4 bit slice ALU, showing an example of the "mechanical" computational logical processing in a digital computer. KFkairosfocus
July 8, 2015
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Box, I think he is just struggling with some basic epistemological issues and the linked leap from the rhetorical to the dialectic; part of a much broader and commonplace problem of want of familiarity with worldviews issues. I suspect Gettier counter-examples and the like will be novel to him, and how they influence the way I have posed the apparently simple definitions of knowledge and truth I have given will likely be just as novel. Knowledge as well warranted, credibly true belief in a broader context of moral certainty, are not commonplace issues or considerations today. Much less, the self-evident, first principles of right reason, the vexed issue of our bounded rationality, error-proneness and absolutely needing to rely on inductive reasoning when such cannot deliver absolute certainty and more. The issues of radical or selective hyperskepticism, appeals to general delusion and self-referential incoherence lurk, as does the challenge of responsible, reasonable faith in first plausibles at the roots of tenable worldviews. Not to mention, issues of moral government, responsible freedom and rationality. Not to mention the deep ways in which moral duties of care intertwine with rationality, responsible freedom and logical thought. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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Carpathian ... what is your point? The fact that theories can be overturned or extensively modified, indicates that they are produced by blind non rational forces — so materialism can ground rationality? Is that your argument?Box
July 6, 2015
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Carpathian, do you consider scientific or historical knowledge, etc. to be knowledge? If so, you are forced to a weak form view of knowledge that does not demand absolute certainty or incorrigibility. That is, the relevant degree of warrant for many fields of responsible practice or prudent behaviour is some type of moral certainty. In sum, if X is warranted to this degree, it would be irresponsible or foolish to act as though it were false, never mind that you are open to possibility of correction. In short, knowledge in this sense is a certificate of reasonable, responsible trustworthiness. Not, a guarantee that what we think we know at any given point is beyond possibility of needing correction. If instead you insist on absolute certainty, the field of knowledge would collapse to a very sparse set indeed. In particular, science, history, jurisprudence, economics and a good slice of mathematics post Godel's incompleteness theorems would collapse. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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kairosfocus:
And BTW, light does not always travel in geometrically straight lines, hence diffraction, interference and so forth, on to the effect called gravitational lensing. KF
Their is no dispute on what light does. The dispute is whether what we call "knowledge" changes. Please try to understand the analogy. What was considered "knowledge" was "error" in this case. At one time, our pool of "knowledge" included the fact that the Earth was only a few thousand years old. That "knowledge" has been replaced by the new "knowledge" that the Earth is billions of years old. That previous "knowledge" was an "error".Carpathian
July 6, 2015
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Carpathian, I cited then corrected Popperian. Warrant is beyond opinion, it requires reasoned analysis and successful grounding -- even to make the leap from a fact-claim to an established fact. That should be well known. And BTW, light does not always travel in geometrically straight lines, hence diffraction, interference and so forth, on to the effect called gravitational lensing. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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kairosfocus:
Knowledge is not stored useful information but well warranted, credibly true belief. That is, responsibly free rational reflection is a condition of knowledge.
I don't think that's the case when we humans speak of knowledge. Just look at this debate. If we take knowledge as being something we agree with after rational reflection, then knowledge starts to become a point of view. For instance, at one time it was said that light travels in a straight line but it has been proved that isn't the case. Was the fact that light traveled in a straight line knowledge or an opinion?Carpathian
July 6, 2015
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For you, doubters, here is an example of 'unidextrous emergentism': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty68LPKRQQQAxel
July 6, 2015
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Popperian;
Knowledge is information that, when embedded in a storage medium, plays a causal role in it being retained.
And thus the pre-requisites for knowledge are ... ? And the knowledge to construct and integrate the required components for knowledge came from ... ? Since Popper rejected a causal theory of mind, what did he offer in it's place?Mung
July 6, 2015
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Popperian #62 claims to address KF's point directly, however he does no such thing. KF's point is about the process of rational inference. KF clearly shows that this process cannot be a chemical/mechanistic process. Popperian again fails to address KF's point.Box
July 6, 2015
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Popperian:
Knowledge is information that, when embedded in a storage medium, plays a causal role in it being retained.
Gross error of definition. Knowledge is not stored useful information but well warranted, credibly true belief. That is, responsibly free rational reflection is a condition of knowledge. Knowledge comes about by a process of reflection, involving interior life and typically external experience and perception. This leads to processes of warrant on exertion of logical and/or empirical tests that lead to sufficient weight of warrant to put the stamp of credibility, knowledge, on. Though, this often comes with the proviso, that the degree of warrant is provisional, such as in science, management, law and many other practical affairs. You have again set up and tried to knock over a strawman. Now, of course, knowledge may often be posed in verbal forms or other representations amenable to storage, but that is secondary to what knowledge is. Error, by contrast, often claims to be knowledge but in the end fails the test of warrant. (Let me add, following Aristotle, that truth says of what is that it is, and of what is not, that it is not.) Knowledge is one form of reasonable and trustworthy faith. And, I deliberately use this term to underscore that faith and reason -- contrary to commonly seen skeptical notions -- are not opposites that are inevitably at war with one another. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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A rational process requires an evaluation and judgement. If this was a physical mechanism, then concepts would be chemically associated or not. Many rational judgements, however, can process through equally reasonable but opposing solutions. Finding and interpreting reasons and meanings in the content of arguments cannot be either random or mechanistic.Silver Asiatic
July 6, 2015
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To address KF's point directly...
It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true.
Knowledge is information that, when embedded in a storage medium, plays a causal role in it being retained. This includes books, genomes and yes, brains. Furthermore, knowledge is objective in that is is independent of anyone's belief. So, while I would agree that merely having a belief doesn't make it true, we have a reason to suppose that our brains can genuinely contain knowledge. What explanation do you have for the growth of knowledge? Let me guess: the reason why our beliefs may be true is because "that's just what God must have wanted"? In fact, wouldn't that also be the case for computers? That is, if you're a dualist, computers could just as well have emotions, but they do not for the same reason? Specifically, there can be no better explanation for the fact that human exhibit emotions, while computers do not other than "that's just what God must have wanted'.Popperian
July 6, 2015
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F/N: Let me now take up the but you have no explanation for emotions talking-point. __________________ KF, OP: >>the very terms you use: “how human beings generate emotions,” is a giveaway. We do not so much generate emotions and other consciously aware states of being, we experience them. And, to recognise and respect that fact without reference to demands for mechanistic reduction is a legitimate start-point for reflection. All explanation is going to be finite and limited, so there will always be start-points. Starting from the realities of our interior-life experience is a good first point, and reflection on such shows that rationality itself (a requisite of doing science etc) crucially depends on insightful, purposeful responsible and rational freedom. That which undermines such will then be self-defeating, and should be put aside . . . >> KF, 35 supra: >> Scratching the definitionitis itch: >>e•mo•tion (??mo? ??n) n. 1. an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, etc., is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness. 2. any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, hate, love, etc. 3. a strong agitation of the feelings caused by experiencing love, fear, etc. [1570–80; appar. . . . >> KF, 33 supra -- failure of the evolutionary materialist model: >>The worldviews level is actually antecedent to science and grounds (or, fails to ground . . . ) science as one particular way to explore reality. The proper method at this level is comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power/balance. Where, major worldview alternatives sit to the table as of right, not sufferance. The first thing is to understand that evolutionary materialistic scientism in its various forms cannot account for fact no 1 of our existence: our self-aware, conscious selves with distinct unified identities, time-streamed but continuous and cumulative, sometimes rational, morally governed interior life that in turn influences our behaviour as embodied agents. Repeatedly, we find scientific thinkers of the order of a Crick trying to dismiss that interior life as at best epiphenomena of the electrochemistry and interactions of neurons or the like. Crick, again, in The Astonishing Hypothesis:
. . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
This boils down to implying self-referential incoherence and falsification as immediate corollary, for blind mechanical necessity and/or chance influenced processes are the exact opposite of freedom and sense of duty to seek, warrant and accept warranted truths then step by step decide to work out, follow and acknowledge implications leading to soundly arrived at conclusions. If we are not responsibly free we cannot be rational. That is why, thirty years past, I responded to marxian class conditioning, Freudian accounts of the interior life and Skinner’s operant conditioning as I did: these are simply variations on a consistent pattern of self-referential incoherence. Likewise, Johnson was dead right to challenge Crick that he should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Johnson then acidly but aptly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” It should be quite plain that if one discredits rationality in general, one has undercut the ground on which science has to stand. Further, as the various evolutionary materialistic schemes are forced to account for our interior lives on blind chance and mechanical necessity working through forces of genetic and cultural survival, via nature + nurture, these generally end up implying exactly the sort of incoherence just exemplified four times [again]. >> And, 33 again: >>phrasing you used with implicit approval, that humans GENERATE emotions, is a sign of the problem. Evolutionary materialistic scientism — never mind institutional dominance — is factually inadequate, fatally incoherent and grossly inadequate as an explanatory framework starting with rationality. It is therefore inconsistent with the project of seeking to rationally understand the world, including the practice of science. While many practising scientists adhere to it, it embeds the fatal weakness of an inconsistent system in their thought: loss of ability to distinguish truth from falsity. It is also a straight-jacket, demanding reduction of everything to mechanisms of blind necessity and/or chance acting on matter and energy in space and time. This is an improper demand. In reply it is entirely appropriate to highlight the self-falsifying nature of the evolutionary materialistic worldview and then point to the primacy of our interior life as the first fact through which we access all exterior facts. Yes, with possibility of error, but in turn it is a fatally self-referential error to imagine that there is an impassable ugly gulch betwixt the two. We have good reason to accept that we can bridge the two, however error-prone we may be at times. (And here I follow F H Bradley replying to Kant et al.) In that light, we experience perceiving, acting into and responding to the world involving intellectual, moral, volitional, aesthetic and emotional aspects in various blends. We experience intentionality and qualia, neither of which is explicable on blind mechanisms. We ponder, we find ourselves able to act based on decisions, often expressed on rational reflection — such as composing and typing posts in this thread. And more, much more. In that context, rational reflection and discussion on our inner and outer lives can teach us much that a materialist straight-jacket would lock out. For instance, responsible freedom being a necessity for rationality, moral government is then on the table. That points to the IS-OUGHT gap and to the only place such can be resolved: world-root level. Thus, we come to the only serious candidate to ground such: the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of ultimate loyalty and reasonable service by doing the good in accord with our nature. Thus, a lot of anti-theistic prejudices and dismissiveness that tries to pretend that the supernatural is inherently irrational and generally suspect stand exposed as just that: prejudices. For, to believe in God on a principled basis is reasonable, and to involve oneself with a theistic tradition that focusses on reasonable service by doing the good in accord with our evident nature is not bigotry and irrationality. And indeed, millions testify to living encounter with God and to resulting positive life transformation. I, am one of these — starting with the miracle of guidance that saved my life 40+ years past. In such an opened up context of thought, it is not unreasonable to ponder say the Smith model of a cybernetic loop with a two tier controller [--> cf OP], with perhaps a quantum-level informational, perceptual and directive interface between the two, that allows the brain-body loop to be supervised by a higher level controller stage that brings to bear responsible freedom. After all, the quantum level is non-mechanistic, non-deterministic and physically fundamental. Emotions in that context are felt responses to perceived and evaluated circumstances, involving a lot of cognitive assessment and judgement. For instance, we fear when we see a rapidly approaching car and jump back out of the road. We enjoy the beauty and delicate redness of a rose at sunrise. We appreciate and respond to the attractveness and evident empathy of a person of the opposite sex, maybe even beginning to fall in love. This then involves all sorts of issues of moral duties (we are not simply rutting animals), addressing of circumstances, mutuality and onward solemn commitments should the process lead on to marriage and family. A kitten, notoriously, will attract us through its sheer cuteness. A threatening bully will excite rage and fear, triggering hormones that are designed to equip us for turbocharged performance in fighting or fleeing as required or appropriate. (But the emotion is not equal to the shot of adrenaline, as I know from the repeated experience of adrenaline injections to break dangerous asthma attacks.) In short, we need fresh reflection that takes both our interior and exterior lives seriously.>> __________________ In short, there is an understanding of emotions as an integral aspect of our interior lives, connected to both thought and responsible decision and to bodily events and actions. It is not mechanistic, but by that fact it is also not dragged down into self-referential incoherence. And, it is directly tied to our commonplace experience of, familiarity with and understanding of emotions. The demand for mechanistic explanation, by contrast, heads straight into self-referential incoherence and absurdity. It is not a reasonable request. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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Box, yes, revealingly so. KFkairosfocus
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Popperian:
you seem to think there can be no explanation for how emotions work. As such, it’s unclear how you know the universality of computation could not simulate emotions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your logic seems to be based on the idea that since God is responsible for emotions and God is inexplicable, then emotions are must also be inexplicable. Furthermore, you seem to have confused specific instances of computational devices that exist today with the principle behind them: universality of computation. Yes, current day computers have no subjective self. But the very explanation for how universal turing machines work indicates this is indeed possible.
Strawman. The pivotal issue is that we do experience conscious, self-aware agency, this is directly connected to reasoning based on understanding ground-consequent, meaningful relationships of concepts, and that this is utterly distinct from blindly mechanical cause-effect relationships. Indeed, it has been repeatedly pointed out to you -- just studiously ignored -- from Haldane, as follows:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
In addition, your attention has been drawn to this, from Reppert:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
That is, the attempt to reduce ground-consequent, meaningful inference to blindly mechanical cause-effect chains ends in patent absurdity. As, has been shown in many ways above and elsewhere. In general, without responsible, rational freedom, reasoned thought collapses. In principle, and in general, blind mechanical cause-effect chains and/or equally blind chance processes -- dynamic-stochastic systems -- are not and cannot be rational. (When such are composed into a computational substrate with associated software, invariably both are the product of contrivance by a knowledgeable designer; and the results are always subject to the GIGO principle. Neither the substrate nor the software know nor care whether they are playing out chains of error or a sound computation. Hence the great practical importance of troubleshooting and debugging. Where it is a principle that bounded rational agents cannot completely remove errors from complex computational systems, they can only reduce to a tolerable level. Hence also, abort-retry-fail escape options.) That is, whether or not we understand it (and to experience and acknowledge a fact does not require creating a model of how it may arise), responsibly free rational agency is primary and a necessity of reasoned thought. Including, those types of reasoning and investigation of the empirical world we term science. Thus, the substitution of "reduce to mechanistic cause-effect chains" for "explain" or "understand," is not only an ideological imposition, but it is plainly a case of clinging to the demonstrably incoherent. Now, you keep reverting to how a Turing Machine can be seen as a universal computer. Yes, that plainly means that such a model is capable of computing anything that can be addressed by a finite series of stepwise mechanical actions on signals representing states of a variable. That is, a UTM can emulate any other computational machine. Which, then begs for an answer to the question as to whether everything can be reduced to a computation. To extend this UTM can emulate any other computer into, oh we can in principle generate a self-aware responsibly free and rational mind through such a computation is a gross extrapolation beyond what is warranted by the relevant evidence. Specifically, we know that neither blind cause-effect mechanism nor blind stochastic chance process exhibit freedom in the relevant sense. Nor, can they exhibit the sort of reflexive, free first action that is required for rationality and responsibility. We credibly experience such freedom, on pain of collapse of rationality itself. As, has been shown. That is, our first credible fact of experience, self-aware, conscious existence and action, strongly indicates that there is more to reality than is dreamed of in your philosophy, dear Horatio. On pain of self-referential absurdity, let me add. As for Deutsch, at best he is arguing to a universal simulation of the physical cosmos considered as a dynamic-stochastic system of some form. That the physical cosmos then exhausts all of reality is a further and deep question, one that is patently being begged ideologically by a priori evolutionary materialists, and that in the teeth of considerations on what is even required to be a rational scientist. Worldview level question begging and linked strawman misrepresentation do not answer to a reductio ad absurdum on self referentiality of thought. I suggest, a re-think is in order. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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Materialists consistently IGNORE this crushing argument:
Kairosfocus: Thus, the significance of Reppert’s development of Haldane’s point via Lewis:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions
Trying to reduce this [rationality] to blindly mechanistic physical cause-effect chains with perhaps some noise, is self-defeating.
Box
July 6, 2015
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Mapou, kindly tone down language, I just snipped an insult that was simply not needed. And, I cannot afford to be following along behind as cleanup crew. KFkairosfocus
July 6, 2015
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Creationism has 2 parts, the creator and the creation. The existence of the creator is a matter of opinion, the existence of the creation is a matter of fact. Creationism is the only philosophy which validates both subjectivity and objectivity. With creationism we can describe the facts of how the Earth is created, and express the opinion that the Earth is beautiful. The opposition to creationism is not based on reasoning or science, but based on egotism. People are so inclined to conceive of choosing as sorting out the best result, using the facts about what is good and evil (original sin) as sorting criteria. By defining choosing in such a way, then every time you made a decision, then as per definition you did the best, and the ego get's a boost. No matter what evidence or argument is presented, people who have built their emotional life around this way of ego boosting will never accept the fact that freedom is real, that things in the universe are chosen, nor accept that subjectivity is valid. It is the original sin of knowledge of good and evil, everybody is affected, and it takes quite a bit of effort and grace to get away from that.mohammadnursyamsu
July 6, 2015
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Popperian
We do not know what things are capable of based on induction. Rather, we know what things are capable of based on explanations for how they work.
Direct experience tells us more about the existence of a thing than an explanation does. In this case, I directly experience what I call emotions. These may have enough in common with what you experience that we can talk about the same kind of experience. But you can't directly observe my emotions the way you can observe a rain cloud or a tumbleweed.
“For millennia people dreamed about flying, but they experienced only falling. Then they discovered good explanatory theories about flying, and then they flew – in that order.
Yes, that's true of some human inventions, but not all. Musical compositions or fine art works are often composed directly or through improvisation, without any explanation at all. Regarding emotions, this seems to be saying "at one time, no human beings had emotions. Then someone explained what emotions are, and humans began to feel sad, happy and angry. Obviously, that's absurd. The explanation did not precede the emotion.
As such, it’s unclear how you know the universality of computation could not simulate emotions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your logic seems to be based on the idea that since God is responsible for emotions and God is inexplicable, then emotions are must also be inexplicable.
No, that's not my logic. Emotions are only directly observable by the subjective agent experiencing them. Explanaitons of emotions do not create emotions. They do not even communicate emotions - except perhaps for boredom but that's usually not intended. Emotions are something that is felt by a self-aware agent. Whether created by God or something else, no one but myself directly observe my emotions.
Yes, current day computers have no subjective self. But the very explanation for how universal turing machines work indicates this is indeed possible.
I'd need to do more research on that to agree that it's possible even theoretically. but yes, I was just speaking of present day computers. As I see it, conscious self-awareness is not reducible to physics alone.Silver Asiatic
July 5, 2015
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Popperian #40: So, it’s quite possible to be a Darwinist while rejecting scientism.
I agree. I would like to go even further and say that it is vital for any Darwinist to forget about science altogether, because there is zero scientific empirical observation in support of Darwinism.
Popperian: This is possible when you flip the role of empirical observations plays in empiricism on it’s head.
I think I see where you are going with this and I like it. What you propose is very interesting. So, every time empirical observations refute Darwinism we simply *flip* their role and flat out state the opposite is true? One problem though: isn't that what Darwinists are doing already?Box
July 5, 2015
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Carpathian
What kind of physical measurements can you apply to a thought? Chemical and electrical.
Can you provide some reference showing the physical characteristics of an individual thought? Do you think a human thought has been empirically observed somehow?Silver Asiatic
July 5, 2015
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Popperian quoting the "infinite parallel universes" [snip-insult] David Deutsch:
Despite this long record of failure, AGI must be possible. And that is because of a deep property of the laws of physics, namely the universality of computation. This entails that everything that the laws of physics require a physical object to do can, in principle, be emulated in arbitrarily fine detail by some program on a general-purpose computer, provided it is given enough time and memory. The first people to guess this and to grapple with its ramifications were the 19th-century mathematician Charles Babbage and his assistant Ada, Countess of Lovelace. It remained a guess until the 1980s, when I proved it using the quantum theory of computation.
What a nut. Deutsch is a legend in his own deranged mind. Like everything else Deutsch believes in, quantum computing will be shown to be pure unmitigated crackpottery in the "not even wrong" category. Even if computers are universal, not everything is computable. We see beauty in the universe even though beauty is not a physical property. We see colors, blue, red, orange, yellow, etc. and yet not one of those color sensations is computable or even exists in either the environment or the brain. The neurons that code for green are biologically identical to the neurons that code for blue or red.Mapou
July 5, 2015
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Carpathian:
You seem to be saying that the physical processes of the brain could result in the behavior we label mind.
I neither said nor implied any such thing. Crawling is a behavior of infants and it is a physical process.Virgil Cain
July 5, 2015
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Carpathian:
SA: What kind of physical measurements can you apply to a thought? C: Chemical and electrical.
I think you need to look again to see why Crick's similar answer fails and why Haldane so long ago cautioned:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
KFkairosfocus
July 5, 2015
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Silver, We do not know what things are capable of based on induction. Rather, we know what things are capable of based on explanations for how they work. To quote from The Beginning of Infinity, by David Deutsch.
“For millennia people dreamed about flying, but they experienced only falling. Then they discovered good explanatory theories about flying, and then they flew – in that order. Before 1945, no human being had ever observed a nuclear-fission (atomic-bomb) explosion; there may never have been one in the history of the universe. Yet the first such explosion, and the conditions under which it would occur, had been accurately predicted – but not from the assumption that the future would be like the past. Even sunrise – that favourite example of inductivists – is not always observed every twenty-four hours: when viewed from orbit it may happen every ninety minutes, or not at all. And that was known from theory long before anyone had ever orbited the Earth. It is no defense of inductivism to point out that in all those cases the future still does ‘resemble the past’ in the sense that it obeys the same underlying laws of nature. For that is an empty statement: any purported law of nature – true or false – about the future and the past is a claim that they ‘resemble’ each other by both conforming to that law. So that version of the ‘principle of induction’ could not be used to derive any theory or prediction from experience or anything else.”
Yet, you seem to think there can be no explanation for how emotions work. As such, it's unclear how you know the universality of computation could not simulate emotions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your logic seems to be based on the idea that since God is responsible for emotions and God is inexplicable, then emotions are must also be inexplicable. Furthermore, you seem to have confused specific instances of computational devices that exist today with the principle behind them: universality of computation. Yes, current day computers have no subjective self. But the very explanation for how universal turing machines work indicates this is indeed possible. From this article on artificial intelligence.
Despite this long record of failure, AGI must be possible. And that is because of a deep property of the laws of physics, namely the universality of computation. This entails that everything that the laws of physics require a physical object to do can, in principle, be emulated in arbitrarily fine detail by some program on a general-purpose computer, provided it is given enough time and memory. The first people to guess this and to grapple with its ramifications were the 19th-century mathematician Charles Babbage and his assistant Ada, Countess of Lovelace. It remained a guess until the 1980s, when I proved it using the quantum theory of computation.
As the article points out, we don't know how to program this as of yet. However, based on the explanation for computation itself, the barrier is knowing how. What we will need is a breakthrough in philosophy regarding how human beings create new explanations.Popperian
July 5, 2015
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Silver Asiatic:
I observe legs moving in physical space, at a certain rate, with certain weight measurments, exerting physical pressure on the ground dependent on weight and muscle.
Yes, and neuroscientists observe neurons firing in the brain. Both are physical processes, and both are described from a perspective of functionality, i.e. you use your legs to "walk" and your brain to "think".
What kind of physical measurements can you apply to a thought?
Chemical and electrical.Carpathian
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