Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Either I have lost my mind, or materialists have lost theirs

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With what is now known about the fine-tuning of the laws of physics for the production of a universe that “knew” we were coming (Freeman Dyson), and with what is now known about the sophisticated information-processing systems and technology found in even the simplest living cell (not to mention the human mind), it is incomprehensible to me that this evidence would lead any rational person to the conclusion that it all came about by chance and necessity, and not by design.

Either I have lost my mind, or materialists have lost theirs.

There is no third option.

Comments
Rather than demonstrate that causality is derivative, which would be very time consuming and unsatisfactory for most observers, I will grant, for the sake of argument, that it is NOT inextricably tied to the Law of Non-contradiction. That is no problem since it can stand on its own as a first principle of right reason. First, I will begin by asking the obvious question cited above: Can a brick wall appear suddenly, and with no cause, in front of a automobile traveling 60 mph? If not, why not? This is, to be sure, a yes or no question followed by an explanation. This question is primarily for Champ since, eisengate, by virtue of his denial of LNC, will feel free to say Yes AND no. Stay with me for about five or six rounds of questions. I will, if necessary, get to quantum mechanics. However, we can get nowhere if you do not answer my questions.StephenB
February 9, 2012
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StephenB, eigenstate, I confess to only having skimmed your discussion, so forgive me if I misrepresent either of your positions. With that caveat, a few comments: 1. I think that sacrificing the law of non-contradiction is more of a problem than eigenstate acknowledges, because once you allow for contradictions, the truth of any proposition (and its negation) follows from the principle of explosion. Thus any model that allows contradiction fails to conform to our observed reality, in which some propositions are true and others are false. 2. This is okay, because I don't think that quantum mechanics forces us to abandon the LNC anyway. However, it does force us to abandon the law of the excluded middle (LEM). Let me explain. In the Cleland experiment, the paddle can be in three distinct states:
1) moving, 2) not moving, and 3) in a superposition of moving and not moving.
I maintain that a paddle in state 3 is not in state 1 and not in state 2. In other words, there is a difference between
3) saying that the paddle is in a superposition of moving and not moving, and 4) saying that the paddle is both moving and not moving.
#4 would be a contradiction, but it's not true. #3 is not a contradiction and it is true. Thus there is no need to abandon the LNC in order to accommodate superposition. On the other hand you cannot say that the paddle is either moving or it's not moving; there is a third possibility: that the paddle is in a superposition of moving and not moving. Thus we do have to sacrifice the LEM in order to accommodate superposition. 3. I absolutely disagree with StephenB about causality being derivative of the LNC. Causality is not a principle of reason. It is an empirical observation at best, subject to all the limitations of inductive inference. Prior to QM, we seemed to be able to find a cause for every event, so we inferred that every event has a cause. Now we have observed phenomena that falsify this inference. The status of causality was, and is, a fact about the world, not a self-evident axiom of reason. If causality is derivative of the LNC, as StephenB claims, then assuming acausality should lead to contradictions. I don't think Stephen has demonstrated this, and I don't think he can. Causality is not a self-evident axiom of "right reason".champignon
February 8, 2012
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eig: "Observation forces the collapse of the wave function into a discrete state." This is based on your specific interpretation of the wave function -- Copenhagen. And Born7's favorite, Copenhagen's red headed step child-- von Nuemann. And as you know, many hold that the collapse is an illusion altogether.junkdnaforlife
February 8, 2012
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I wish eigenststate well and hope that he finds his way back to rationality. However, based on his responses, I don't think that he will make it. This dialogue has been a useful exercise, though, because it dramatizes the primary reason why ID proponents can't reach Darwinists and their brainwashed victims with evidence and rational arguments. What you have witnessed here is, by no means, unusual. The intellectual and moral lights are going out for Western Civilization and one of the core problems is postmodern subjectivism, an unnatural and destructive philosophy of mind that renders its victims incapable of abstract reasoning. If we strip down most of the objections to ID, we will find, at the core, a commitment to this kind of militant anti-intellectualism posing as sophistication, characterized by a denial of reason itself. Until we confront that problem and teach people how to think, rational arguments will be of no avail.StephenB
February 8, 2012
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@StephenB,
If our minds do not correspond to reality, then how do you know enough about reality to know that our minds do not correspond to it?
We deploy models, of course. It begins before we are born, and we hone and develop them as we grow and learn from our experience. We can identify areas of ignorance, questions and puzzles for which we do not have knowledge, by reference to areas where we can demonstrate knowledge. If we can explain, predict, and account for our observations with our model (in a way that is falsifiable), we have demonstrable knowledge insofar as those explanations and predictions hold. This is "correspondence". By contrast, where we are not able to explain, predict, and build falsifiable models that account for our observations, we do not have knowledge. This is "non-correspondence", or more precisely "lack of corresponence". A falsified model, as opposed to the absences of any model, would be "non-correspondence".
You don’t understand the difference between not being able to identify a cause and making the irrational claim that no cause exists? I can now readily understand why you think a brick wall can appear in front of your car on the highway without a cause.
I understand the difference. Again, you are mistaken on the role indeterminacy plays in quantum physics. It's not a matter of saying "we don't know what the cause may be". QM depends on a positive element of acausality. That is, it requires pure probabilisms. Any cause, any determiner that is more specific than pure probabilistic chance, BREAKS THE MODEL. That's one of the main reasons physicists regard QM as exceedingly weird -- the model works and the predicts are stupendously precise and accurate WHEN acausality is the predicate for the events. And it isn't a matter of just equiprobability. Given the same starting conditions, the outcome is indeterminate, non-repeatable. That's as acausal as acausal gets. Imagine rolling a pair of fair dice, over and over. For real dice can hold in your hand and roll, we might say the die are "equiprobable" in that they have (roughly) uniform geometry for each of the six faces. But an actual roll does not have an equiprobable outcome; if you know the beginning position, trajectory, angular momentum, weight, surface friction, and all the other physical variables for the roll, the roll becomes predictable before the die has landed. QM isn't like that, per our observations. Not only are the "dice fair", but there is no way, in principle, to "predict the roll". It's fundamentally acausal in resolving discrete values. If we could "find the missing reason", our whole performative model wouldn't work, for it's inherently a product of that fundamental probabilism.
If your map tells you that a physical law can also not be a physical law, or that it can morph into anything your imagination conceives, then you are using the wrong map. Naturally, this is a choice. One can choose to use a reasonable map or one can choose to use an unreasonable map. Evidence cannot inform or invalidate reason’s rules because reason’s rules are the means by which we interpret evidence reasonably.
Your use of "law" is highly problematic. Using "models" and "Nature" per above to avoid the confusion in your usage, I don't have any reason to understand Nature to be changing into something else. But I do understand that my models, and the principles invoked in those models, are subject to change with the introduction of new evidence, and the development of more sophisticated and effective models. As for choosing the wrong map, I don't determine the reasonability of my map based on my intutions about how the map must look, I judge the map by its performance, it's ability to navigate, predict and manipulate the territory. It's a results-based model for judging maps, based on our experience with using those maps, not an intuitive or a dogmatic insistence that the map be this way or that, evidence and results notwithstanding.
You misunderstand. I will happily discuss science with any reasonable person, that is, anyone who knows the difference between scientific models, which attempt to explain reality in causal terms, and the underlying metaphysical standards, which define the law of causality being applied. In large part, science is a search for causes. Accordingly, why debate the possible cause(s) of a given effect with someone who thinks, as you do, that effects can occur without any cause at all. That would be like trying to identify a murderer who put 27 stab wounds in a victim’s back with a forensic scientist who believes that wounds can appear without a cause.
I don't see any reason to debate the (a)causality of quantum events for the sake of debating. The wonder of science is that that is not needed, nor helpful toward a scientific conclusion. What matters in science is the performance of the model, the results you get when using a model. And while causality is a pervasive feature of all scientific models, QM included, it's transcendentally necessary that any model must terminate in unknown, unspecified causes. Else you have an infinite regress of causes needed for any given model. In the case of QM, we have something even strong than "unknown", a positive place for acausality as the basis for the probabilism that makes it all work. While science certainly aims at identifying causal relationships, matching effective causes with effects, science aims at performative models, which is not just a "search for causes". Your stabbing murderer example, again, just highlights the conceptual difficulty you are having with QM. Nature behaves in fundamentally different, and alien-to-human ways at sub-atomic scales. The way things work at the "bloody knife" scale is NOT how things work at the Planck scale. Because of the enormous cardinality of any macro object you have human experience with -- like a knife -- Nature has a robust causal fabric that attends your senses at your scale. This is the result of probabilities aggregated into enormous ensembles, predictable at your scale for the same reason "7" is predictable as the most common roll of 10 trillion rolls of a pair of fair dice. If you insist on the intutions that evolution has equipped you with, and generally serve you well at the scale in which you operate, you simply won't be able to grasp other fundamental aspects of Nature that others have struggled with, and rendered intelligible, predictable, explainable. It involves more flexibility and sophisticated use of our reasoning tools than the kind of brittle, magical thinking you are set on maintaining. That's your choice, but you are serving your tools, as you have things situated now. If you let your tools serve you, and facilitate knowledge, performative, demonstrable knowledge, you will understand far more than you currently do about the world around you.eigenstate
February 8, 2012
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@StephenB,
Do you think it would help your case if I chose a smaller planet? How about a little red ball situated on your dining room table? According to your testimony, Jupiter (or the little red ball) can both exist and not exist at the same time. You also believe that effects can spring up without causes.
Smaller is better, but even the ball is big enough, it's not appreciably different than a huge planet. Here's an example of a macro object (albeit a very, very small one) being put in superposition.
The law of non-contradiction cannot be demonstrated; it is the means by which we demonstrate. One either accepts it as a self evident principle of reason or one does not.
It's a reasoning tool. It's as useful and effective as the results it produces. If you can't build a model that performs as well as, say, modern quantum mechanical models, because you supposes quantum superposition and other weird aspects of QM are at odds with your understanding of the LNC, you are giving up model performance -- knowledge about the world around you, including the ability to predict and explain fundamental phenomena -- for your tools. Your tools are supposed to serve you. None of this is all-or-nothing. It's good to remember that the only way superposition gets identified as problematic for rigid notions of the LNC is by invoking and relying on the LNC in the first place. That is, in order for a contradiction to be identified as such, LNC has to support the analysis. A particle that is problematic in terms of particle|wave duality is only problematic if we understand that "waveness" is somehow exclusive of "particicleness", and "particleness" is somehow exclusive of "waveness". Unless we can support the "exclusive" relationship of "waveness" and "particleness" there is no putative contradiction to worry about. Or, as a college professor once told a class I was in: "You need the LNC to show a problem with the LNC." LNC is transcendentally necessary to locate even apparent contradictions or violations. So, the problem is not the abandoning of the LNC, that causes a complete halt. Indeed, the LNC is a crucial tool invoked to identify areas of our experience where LNC runs into trouble. That's not a problem, so long as we realize that, -- *cough, cough* -- the LNC is not magic, or some kind of cosmic jedi mind trick. It's just a tool we use in reasoning.
Obviously, you do not, for reasons we have already established. If you accepted reason’s rules, you would be compelled to acknowledge a causeless cause of the universe. Hence, you deny causality altogether as a means of escaping reality.
Causality is cool. It's so pervasive that we hardly notice it. But it's not magic, it's just a tool for reasoning. And causality is problematic in quantum mechanics. The Uncertainty Principle is not just a philosophical challenge to the classical notions of causality, it is an empirical problem, by which I mean that QM only works as a predictive model when it is PREDICATED on acausality. If you believe, pace "rules of right reason", that quantum events MUST have causal antecedents, then any causal model you plug in will break QM. QM in that sense, requires acausality, the probabilistic intedeterminacy of fundamental events to achieve the predictions and results it produces. So, you can hold fast to your simplistic and brittle notions of causality, faith in its magical powers, or you can endorse the models that perform (and they perform stupendously, to levels of precision unmatched by other theories) based on integrating acausality for events into the framework. Pick one.
If you are not trying to set aside the law of non-contradiction, then why are you looking for examples that are calculated to do that very thing? In any case, a quantum superposition between multiple POSSIBLE end states does not violate the law of non-contradiction.
I'm not looking for counter-examples. They find me, through science. But no matter how they are found, problems with the LNC exist, and can't be avoided as problems if you are going to accept evidence and experience as reflective of our extra-mental reality. Our brains can't integrate sensory input apart in violation of the LNC; we cannot see the same ball being "red" and "not-red" at the same time. This, as above, is an example of where the LNC gets applied to good ends, but is useful in understanding conflicts with the LNC. If our sensory inputs are rectified under LNC, the LNC becomes problematic as the result of models that are built from LNC-abiding observations and experiences. This is the case with QM. We cannot "see the superposition". Observation forces the collapse of the wave function into a discrete state. But the model only works (predicts, performs) if we integrate superposition for contexts where there no discrete state (no EIGENSTATE). So while we can't "see" the superposition, it must obtain in order for the probabilities to work out as we observe. That's a subtle, but crucial point. Superposition isn't just abstract potential, as in "might be"; quantum superposition entails that the particle EXISTS in all possible states, simultaneously, until it has to resolve under measurement. That is not "exists as a potential" in some sense that equivocates on "exists" (using "exists" in the sense that for a fair die, "the potential exists to roll a '3'"), but physically exists. That's a problem for the LNC, unless one accepts that a natural object - the same object - can exist in all possible states at the same time. These states are, per our understanding of 'state', discrete and exclusive; state A is NOT state B (and vice versa). But object X in superposition simultaneously exists in state A and state B. The way you phrased your comment there suggests you haven't grasped the problem. Superposition is not a "choice" between (your word) multiple possible states. It is the the simultaneous existence of the object in multiple states. This is a good example where a rigid, magical view of the LNC limits understanding, and thwarts reasoning toward knowledge.
To exist actually is not the same thing as existing potentially. A given child exists actually at a height of 4’ 6” and potentially at a height of 5’9.” Do you therefore, conclude that he can exist at both heights at the same time? All this is irrelevant, however, because you reject the law of non-contradiction across the board, which is why you claim that a law of nature can also not be a law of nature. So, we are not talking exclusively about quantum waves or particles. For you, the law of non-contradiction is negotiable–anytime, anywhere.
This is not what quantum mechanics holds. In your example, there are two different states separated by a time differential. That's not a problem. In the case of a photon in superposition, the two different states obtain AT THE SAME TIME. That photon still exists while in superposition, and is both 4'6" and 5'9" tall and EVERY OTHER POSSIBLE HEIGHT (to use the values from your example), all at the same time. Would you say that the same child, existing at both the height of 4'6" and 5'9" at the same time is a problem? And every other possible height for that child at the same time as well? If so, then you have grabbed a toehold on the problem here. Your dogma stunts your reasoning. Your belief in the magic powers of simplistic rules closes off understanding and knowledge. And note that in showing this, I don't eschew the LNC, I use it and use it forcefully. The LNC is a "form of intelligibility", a powerful tool, but it's not axiomatically universal, and Nature is not bound to be exhaustively intelligible by its light. Nature is what it is. More anon...eigenstate
February 8, 2012
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Yeah, that’s not a good actual example given the huge size of Jupiter, but this the witness of quantum physics; this is the principle of superposition. LNC is transcendental to speaking and conceptualizing any {a|~a}, but that’s just a tool for thinking and communicating. Nature isn’t bound by our notions of LNC to fit into that neat little box.
Do you think it would help your case if I chose a smaller planet? How about a little red ball situated on your dining room table? According to your testimony, Jupiter (or the little red ball) can both exist and not exist at the same time. You also believe that effects can spring up without causes.
Aristotle in Metaphysics Gamma, 3, 4, attempts a proof by retortion of LNC, but as far as I can see, all he establishes is that LNC is a necessary condition of meaningful thinking and speaking, not that its validity extends beyond thought and speech and their objects to things in themselves.
The law of non-contradiction cannot be demonstrated; it is the means by which we demonstrate. One either accepts it as a self evident principle of reason or one does not. Obviously, you do not, for reasons we have already established. If you accepted reason’s rules, you would be compelled to acknowledge a causeless cause of the universe. Hence, you deny causality altogether as a means of escaping reality.
For superposition in quantum physics, we aren’t necessarily committed to setting aside the LNC, even if it doesn’t work on a basic (classical) level of understanding the physics. Problems applying the LNC may just be symptomatic of contextualizing the problem; “particle|wave” may not be the exclusive characters of a particle that we suppose they are.
If you are not trying to set aside the law of non-contradiction, then why are you looking for examples that are calculated to do that very thing? In any case, a quantum superposition between multiple POSSIBLE end states does not violate the law of non-contradiction.
But as it is, quantum superposition as a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics confounds the LNC. The particle exists simultaneously in all its possible states.”
To exist actually is not the same thing as existing potentially. A given child exists actually at a height of 4’ 6” and potentially at a height of 5’9.” Do you therefore, conclude that he can exist at both heights at the same time? All this is irrelevant, however, because you reject the law of non-contradiction across the board, which is why you claim that a law of nature can also not be a law of nature. So, we are not talking exclusively about quantum waves or particles. For you, the law of non-contradiction is negotiable--anytime, anywhere.
Our minds do not “correspond” [to reality] per se, but our models can, and do.
If our minds do not correspond to reality, then how do you know enough about reality to know that our minds do not correspond to it?
What do our models tell us? Causation is key feature of our models. It works, and performs. But causality is not a magic wand or a guarantee. We don’t have a model for the causation of the timing for individual decay events for radioactive isotopes, for example. That phenomenon has defied causal models for individual events, thus far.
You don’t understand the difference between not being able to identify a cause and making the irrational claim that no cause exists? I can now readily understand why you think a brick wall can appear in front of your car on the highway without a cause.
This is an epistemology that is accountable to experience, corrigible with respect to extra-mental experience. If a particular reasoning tool doesn’t perform against our experience, our map does not and cannot accurately reflect the territory to the extent that it fails.
If your map tells you that a physical law can also not be a physical law, or that it can morph into anything your imagination conceives, then you are using the wrong map. Naturally, this is a choice. One can choose to use a reasonable map or one can choose to use an unreasonable map. Evidence cannot inform or invalidate reason's rules because reason's rules are the means by which we interpret evidence reasonably.
I do understand your hesitation to discuss science.
You misunderstand. I will happily discuss science with any reasonable person, that is, anyone who knows the difference between scientific models, which attempt to explain reality in causal terms, and the underlying metaphysical standards, which define the law of causality being applied. In large part, science is a search for causes. Accordingly, why debate the possible cause(s) of a given effect with someone who thinks, as you do, that effects can occur without any cause at all. That would be like trying to identify a murderer who put 27 stab wounds in a victim’s back with a forensic scientist who believes that wounds can appear without a cause.StephenB
February 8, 2012
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eig: “anything external to our local runtime environment, our local virtual machine”. Ok, now what about runtim env, how would you define runtime environment, physics, space-time, vector space ?junkdnaforlife
February 8, 2012
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@StephenB,
One cannot, without abandoning all reason, escape the fact that the laws of nature (understood (subjectively as a “description” of regularity), and (objectively as the “existence of regularity”) do exist. Because of his prior commitment to materialist ideology, eigenstate simply cannot accept rational component of objective reality. Notice, for example, this comment: “Laws are descriptive, and do not ‘enforce’ anything on nature.” Can you grasp the radical subjectivism inherent in that comment– as if nature’s laws were solely a function of our mind’s description –as if the objective reality of the law’s power on nature didn’t exist? This is what materialistic monism does to the powers of human reason.
Nature is what it is. It doesn't delegate to our "laws" -- laws in the prescriptive sense, like a law passed by a legislative body -- where it becomes effective. Nature operates as it operates, and we build models to describe it, explain it and predict its behavior. Those descriptions are human artifacts -- maps. Nature is the territory, and it's not bound to operate according to our notion of what a map should look like. Maybe it's easiest to use "models" as the human-constructed, descriptive parts of this discussion, and "nature" for the physical world, operating as it does, independent of any models or descriptions. That would keep the confusion down, I think. Per that, our models are descriptive, a construct of human minds, the "map". Nature is the "territory".
Objectively, these laws EXIST as regularities and subjectively we UNDERSTAND them as regularities, describing them as “laws.” To suggest that we cannot draw rational conclusions based on that understanding is simply one more example of the same anti-intellectual posture that discounts reason’s rules. To claim that our understanding of these laws makes no difference raises anti-intellectualism to a new level.
You are equivocating here on "laws". Let's use "models" and "nature" so we can keep our maps and territories distinguished here, OK? Epistemologically, we affirm knowledge where we have models that perform empirically. Nature remains what it is, but our models change, and improve where we are able to adjust them to match our observations and pass our tests better than previous versions. Our understanding of our models does not change the nature of reality -- the map changes, the territory is what it is.
Can you perceive the confusion inherent in this statement? It is based on the assumption that the rules of right reason are solely subjective, that is, that they are limited to our thinking, and do not necessarily apply to the rational world outside of our consciousness.
The law of non-contradiction is not dependent on empirical observations, by your own affirmation. We reason "from" it, not "to" it, remember? That "from" means its not corrigible by our observations. If that logical principle was corrigible by evidence, it is something we would reason "to". That doesn't mean we can't apply them to our experience, but such a principle is tautological, analytic. Any application is impervious to the feedback available from our experience.
Hence, if I point out that, according to our mental “map,” Jupiter cannot exist and not exist at the same time, the materialist responds by saying, “That’s just fine for “your” map, but the territory just may well allow Jupiter to exist and not exist at the same time. Stop putting nature in a box.”
Yeah, that's not a good actual example given the huge size of Jupiter, but this the witness of quantum physics; this is the principle of superposition. LNC is transcendental to speaking and conceptualizing any {a|~a}, but that's just a tool for thinking and communicating. Nature isn't bound by our notions of LNC to fit into that neat little box. Here's the way Bill Valicella (Maverick Philosopher) put it in a post I recall from last year that articulates this well:
That's right, I am defending LNC as a transcendental, not a transcendent principle, and for two reasons. First, I believe that LNC is well-nigh unassailable if presented as a transcendental a priori condition of the possibility of (i) meaningful discourse and (ii) experience of the objects of Sellar's manifest image or of Kant's phenomenal world, with (i) being more unassailable than (ii). Second, the transcendental defense is all I need to turn aside what I take to be your conclusion from the Cleland experiment, namely, that there are macro-objects of direct perceptual acquaintance that serve as counterexamples to LNC. To show that LNC applies beyond our thought and beyond our experience to whatever lies beyond our thought and experience, if anything, is not so easy. One cannot just dogmatically assume that a law of thought is automatically a law of reality, especially since this has been denied by any number of philosophers. Aristotle in Metaphysics Gamma, 3, 4, attempts a proof by retortion of LNC, but as far as I can see, all he establishes is that LNC is a necessary condition of meaningful thinking and speaking, not that its validity extends beyond thought and speech and their objects to things in themselves.
(emphasis mine) This is the map|territory distinction. And his objection sounds like it's aimed right at your claims, here, right? I'm not citing Valicella as an authority, but rather as a crisply put framing of the problem. For superposition in quantum physics, we aren't necessarily committed to setting aside the LNC, even if it doesn't work on a basic (classical) level of understanding the physics. Problems applying the LNC may just be symptomatic of contextualizing the problem; "particle|wave" may not be the exclusive characters of a particle that we suppose they are. But as it is, quantum superposition as a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics confounds the LNC. The particle exists simultaneously in all its possible states. As I understand you, nature IS beholden to the LNC, without qualification. This is the resolution of the rational mind rational universe axioms you advance. My position is that the LNC, as a measure of the operation of nature, is precisely as effective as its utility in performative models. It's as right as we can show it to be in building models that work, no more and no less. This doesn't deny, or diminish the LNC, it only understands it as a tool, rather than some metaphysical imperative to which Nature is subordinated.
At the root of this error is the illogical notion that our rational minds do not correspond to a rational universe.
Our minds do not "correspond" per se, but our models can, and do. We can, and do build models that demonstrably predict and model various aspects of Nature. But I am not aware of any metaphysical "all or nothing" axiom. Our models correspond as closely to Nature's behavior and principles as we can show they do. The "correspondence level" is not a given, it's only shown by how well our models predict, explain and surpass potent falsification tests.
In other words, eigenstate is saying that the territory is not only different from the map, something we already knew, but also that the terriroty can defy reason in a way that the map cannot, something all rational people know to be false.
What cannot be rationalized, what cannot be modeled, defies our reason. Science moves from the inside out, from minimal, rudimentary knowledge to more robust and sophisticated models, but there's no guarantee entailed in having a human mind that all of nature will conform to the LNC or be comprehensible by any "rules of right reason".
Logic tells us that if it rains, the streets will get wet. Eisengate thinks that, in the real world, that same relationship between cause and effect need not exist.
What do our models tell us? Causation is key feature of our models. It works, and performs. But causality is not a magic wand or a guarantee. We don't have a model for the causation of the timing for individual decay events for radioactive isotopes, for example. That phenomenon has defied causal models for individual events, thus far.
Logic tells us that a brick wall cannot just appear in front of our moving automobile unless something or someone puts it there. Eisengate thinks that a brick well, in principle, could well appear uncaused—like a quantum event—or a universe—or anything. So, what’s the bottom line? For eisengate, the laws of nature need not be laws exclusively—they can be laws and also be something else—they can act like people and choose to do something else, like create—even out of nothing. Can anyone understand why I hesitate to discuss science with those who discount reason’s rules?
Nature is what it is. Our models change, and our descriptions of the principles at work change as those models change. That doesn't make Nature different, it makes our models different. This is an epistemology that is accountable to experience, corrigible with respect to extra-mental experience. If a particular reasoning tool doesn't perform against our experience, our map does not and cannot accurately reflect the territory to the extent that it fails. I do understand your hesitation to discuss science. Your tools aren't means to an end, they ARE the end, in your view. If you value your understanding of the way the world must be, in simplistic terms, over the performance of models that are judged by experience and empirical tests, well, there's really not much science can offer you. It works both ways. If I am talking with a person who is committed to axioms that defeat and thwart development and apprehension of performative models of the world around us, there's not much to say. Such a person is incorrigible by the evidence, unpersuaded by superior performance of one model versus another.
So, now we pose the question: Why does eisengate refuse to acknowledge the law of non-contradiction and the law of causality?
These are both important and useful tools for reasoning. To the extent they aid and facilitate development of better and performative models, they are essential tools.
Why does he think a law can be a law and also be something else? Why does he think that evidence can inform the rules of logic when he should know that the rules of logic inform evidence?
Our reasoning toolkit aids in interpreting the evidence (again, models). These rules do not inform, if that means influence or change the evidence. Nature is what it is. Our logic is as good as the results it produces in our models.
The reason is simple: If he acknowledges reason’s rules, and the relationship between reason’s rules and evidence, he must concede the same point that he has been avoiding. A contingent universe cannot arise from a law, it requires an antecedent cause, which, in turn, must either be the first/causeless cause, or the effect of a first/causeless cause. We all know where that one is going. Since his ideology leaves no room for the truth, the truth must be denied, and reason, the vehicle by which we arrive at truth, must be abandoned. It’s as simple as that.
If you close yourself in a dark room, and take no input from outside, your intuitions cannot be falsified. No one, and no thing, no evidence can make a dent in your 'truth'. It's a tautological framework. As soon as you suppose that your logic, your tools are only as good as the results they can demonstrate, then everything changes. All the traditional heuristics have their place, and are used heavily in the models we develop. But Nature is what it is, and our intuitions about how intelligible the world MUST BE according to those tools don't change Nature at all (so far as we can tell). This is just the problem of dogma redux.eigenstate
February 7, 2012
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@junkdnaforlife,
Ok, granted you think it is conceptual poverty, but I posted this as an open definition. I need you to add to it, if it is impoverished, feed it something. To eliminate our ideological premises, consider this is a team that received funding to first come up with an operational definition of what an immaterial mind might entail, and then look for evidence, indications etc.
That's an interesting way to respond, kudos. I've not been the recipient of angel sed funding or A-round funding for that kind of startup, but as a long time Christian, and one frequently engaged in apologetic and witnessing contexts, I have spend a good amount of time in my years thinking about just that -- how to ground the concepts for these terms I had come to use as part of my vocabulary. The closest I came on that was to invoke "supernatural" and "immaterial" as analogous to the real world programmer and physical computers, where "our reality" was the computer simulation running on a real computer. If you accept, provisionally, the idea that all of our experience of this local reality is a huge, unimaginably complex and sophisticated computer simulation (something a bit like the set up for the movie The Matrix, but not just like that), then "immaterial" would mean, conceptually, "anything external to our local runtime environment, our local virtual machine". The human (or not) programmer, in some "real space" would be "supernatural", transcendant upon the virtual machine we exist in, the program that is resolving all of our physics, all our sensory inputs, interactions, etc. I admit to that being unsatisfactory -- it's postulating a "hyper-material" material context, and using that as the basic for grounding concepts like "supernatural", and is thus "going the wrong way" -- but it's good to remember that at the end of the day I WAS unable to ground those concepts in 'faith friendly' ways, and this is the best I could do. For what it's worth, I can't recall anything that "whiffed" in a more noble way. Maybe someone can offer a better attempt than I. Anyway, back to the "computer simulation" metaphysics. IF you accept the "we're in a computer simulation" paradigm for the moment, two questions arise: 1) How could we discover or arrive at such concepts in the first place? 2) How could we test or verify those concepts, once we adopt them? On 1), I think the idea of our universe being one huge virtual machine emerges as an "inside out" jump. We develop virtual machines in our world, and this provides the catalyzing idea: perhaps WE are in a big virtual machine. That idea is not any empirical warrant for supposing we are ourselves contained in a virtual environment like we create, it's just an idea. On 2), testing and verification are likely impossible as a practical matter. Our "Programmer God" could create "virtual gods" who are terrifying deities in terms of their powers to alter and control resources and constraints in our world, but they are necessarily "virtual" in the same way we are -- runtime elements in a computing context in a virtual machine. Nothing would "jump out of the system", or more precisely, even if the programmer could interact with us via some interface (speaking into a microphone so as to render those sounds in our virtual machine), we would have no way to verify its "supernaturality", to verify that it was from "Programmer World", and not just another part of the simulation. That's the hard knocks of transcendence. As I said above, it's an inadequate paradigm in lots of ways. But, this framework is not without redeeming qualities, and in just the area we are talking about. An "immaterial mind", on this view, would be grounded in concrete semantics. "Mind" would embrace its use of stolen concepts of "mind" in this world, and posit a real, "extended in space/time" (and remember the premise here is that THIS world exists in a virtual machine, meaning space/time is virtualized) context for its existence. Made out of matter, consuming resources, "wired" as a logical mesh of discrete connections. It doesn't take long in thinking about this attempt to see that it quickly looks fractal or recursive: we project what we know "upward", transcendentally; the minds we know in our local context are the basis for the minds we imagine in "Programmer World". I've kept my concepts grounded, but in doing so, I've only introduced a form of recursion, the container becoming the contained, with nothing different ontologically, but just a nesting of reference frames. On one hand, that seems to go somewhere because the "Programmer" is "outside", transcendant. AND, the concepts for my terms remain grounded, only because I've copied them from this word, and extrapolated our "local physics" upward to our "enclosing metaphysic". On the other hand, that just signals regress, of course, and worse, it's -- gasp! -- materialism. It's the projection of our local ontology upward (and in this example, downward, as we could devise virtual machines that are simulations that we are the "gods" of). That's as far as I ever got. I had either grounded concepts, and a uniform ontology (materialism), or I had dualism and lots of easy desirable answers, but no grounding for my immaterial concepts. I had to pick one or the other. The conceptual void that is left if you DON'T steal concepts is one of those realizations that caused me to confront the role of my intuitions and superstitions in what I claimed was my right reasoning, and the poverty of the supernatural domain as a feature of the reality I embraced as a Christian.eigenstate
February 7, 2012
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JDH, I am glad you have picked up on the problem. Also, I like your question to eigenstate.StephenB
February 7, 2012
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aqueels, thanks for reading.StephenB
February 7, 2012
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champignon: Good point. I should probably be doing that. Thanks.StephenB
February 7, 2012
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eig: "to show you what I see as the conceptual poverty of this whole effort." Ok, granted you think it is conceptual poverty, but I posted this as an open definition. I need you to add to it, if it is impoverished, feed it something. To eliminate our ideological premises, consider this is a team that received funding to first come up with an operational definition of what an immaterial mind might entail, and then look for evidence, indications etc. Your smackdown came here: A thing I managed to get the word "A" in. How should we proceed? Should we just give the grant money back?junkdnaforlife
February 7, 2012
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@groovamos,
The above so-called model can never be other than imagination gone wild, so IS in conflict with serious philosophical discourse.
That is not the case. String theory, the best candidate physics has for unifying macro and quantum physics into one coherent model, produces universes by... well, by the metaverse-full. See, for example of this model applied in Lee Smolin's "Fecund Universe" proposal and Leonard Susskind's "Cosmic Landscape". The universe generation in these models are the product of the applied physics from string theory. They may not be correct, and string theory itself is still, by most measures, unfalsifiable itself, and thus only theoretic in terms of our epistemology. But, these are frameworks that proceed directly from the physical theories. You don't have to do anything to get cascading universes, or get starry-eyed about anything. You just need to work out the implications of those frameworks.
It CAN be a debate tool pretending to be more (fancy sounding browbeater?) than it is. One should not have to offer why this is. But there being no chance such fantasies can ever be verified, they can only exist in the imagination, not ever as science.
If you take some to get familiar with these frameworks, you will see that universes being generated by the billions is not a contrivance from the model, but the prediction and implications of those models. Verification is problematic in principle, although the history of science suggests we ought not be to fatalistic about scientific ways to indirectly test some of these ideas at some point in the future; there may be ways that our universe interacts or indirectly reflects aspects of predictions from those frameworks that are both novel and can be verified by our own observations. But even if I stipulate that that it's completely non-verifiable in principle, it's still got characteristics that separate it from and commend it above god hypotheses. As I said, it's the extrapolation of well attested, performative physics models we have established in this universe. That's something, even if it's incorrect, it's a kind of "educated guess" in a way that the god hypothesis is not. And it's parsimonious. It provides an explanatory framework for the existence of our universe that does not need, nor can it use "god" as part of its "explanatory capital". This is economy, and the extension of the physics we already have, not needing the 'multiplication of entities' in gratuitous ways that the god hypothesis represents by comparison.eigenstate
February 7, 2012
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@junkdnaforlife,
We could start with: A thing that possess self-awareness (I), that acts on or can have an effect on material properties but does not possess any material properties such and such…
Ok, let me unpack this -- which I think is a good effort on your part, all things considered -- to show you what I see as the conceptual poverty of this whole effort. 1. "Thing". "Thing" is a concept stolen from the natural world. Thing is as generic as it gets in our language, something like "object" (the maximally general term in the programming languages I use) but the semantics are nevertheless grounded in our concept of existence -- some configuration of mass/energy that is extended in space/time. And note that "configuration", "mass", "energy", "extended" and "space/time" all have grounded semantics in support of that concept. But to start with your definition, we have IMMEDIATELY violated your "immaterial" adjective. Either what you are defining with "thing" IS immaterial, in which case "immaterial mind" is self-contradictory, or your use of "thing" has no conceptual grounding. Or, it is conceptually grounded, and I'm just ignorant of what makes a "thing" a "thing" vs. a "non-thing" in an immaterial domain. 2. "Possess". Another stolen concept. This is a stark problem in light of StephenB's claim in this thread that an "immaterial thing" cannot have parts. Now, I'm not holding you to StephenB's claims, those are his problems, but the discrepancy is the issue to consider. Is StephenB right, and "parts" is an undefined/inapplicable concept in the immaterial domain? Beats me. And it beats you, too. And it beats StephenB, too, even if he can't quite come to grips with that problem. Because there is no model, no paradigm, no fundamentals from which to start in the "immaterial domain". There is no way (so far as I'm aware) that any "immaterial thing" can be shown to "possess" or "not possess", or even "be" or "not be". That's profoundly problematic, and it points up the pervasiveness of stolen concepts in the way supernaturalists speak about these ideas. There's no "there" there (yet another stolen concept, I know!). 3. "Self-awareness". Another divide by zero on immaterialist terms. On natural terms we can provide semantic cargo for this term to carry. An organism incorporates sensors and perceptual machinery which provide input into the brain. The brain, in integrating the inbound percepts into some model which correlates that with a response is "aware". It is processing input. On immaterialist terms, though, there's no mechanism for awareness -- no sensors, no inputs, no stimuli -- and nothing to be AWARE OF. That's a nice symmetry, I admit: no use gearing up with "immaterial sensors" when there's no "thing" to "sense" because it's all immaterial, but as efficient as that may be, the result is that you are left, once again, borrowing concepts from the natural world that have NO REFERENTS in the context you are applying them to. I can go on. The same divide by zero happens with "acts" and "effect", and the "have an effect on material properties" is extra-problematic: having an effect on material properties is WHAT WE MEAN BY "MATERIAL". Any such "thing" would be a real (material) thing by virtue of having material effects. That is the conceptual criterion we use for "material" (gravity, for example, is not "extended in space/time" in the way a 'thing' might be, but it is a qualified part of materialist ontology by virtue of having material effects). Immaterialist prose imports meaningful concepts from the material domain, and maps them on to... nothing. And maybe that's Ok because "immaterial" means "nothing"? Or maybe not, and immaterial just doesn't have any positive grounds at all, but is just the negation of 'material'. If so, then that negation makes all the terms that get imported misplaced, unanchored, referent-less, semantically empty. There is no model for any of this, so far as I'm aware, no epistemology. No tests, no accountability, no feedback, no way to check inputs or outputs at all. I was raised as a Christian, and spent decades reading, listening, thinking about theology, from Augustine and Aquinas to Kreeft and Plantinga (it wasn't until I started paying attention to William Lane Craig that the strong clues that the Emperor had no Clothes emerged). There's all manner of ornate, baroque, festooned prose about the mechanics and dynamics of the "immaterial world". But once you press and actually test those mechanics, dynamics and semantics, the whole thing collapses as a house of cards. There's no grounding for any of it, immaterially. And yes, I understand the prejudice of asking for "grounding", another good example of the point I'm making. There's not even a meta-concept in which to anchor (oops, there I go again) or attach (OK, I give up!) our concepts of immateriality.eigenstate
February 7, 2012
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Stephen, Could you use blockquote tags when quoting others in your comments? It would make your comments much more readable. I've been asking others to do this, as well.champignon
February 7, 2012
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---eigenstate: “Here, and your response buttresses the importance of the point I was raising, we have “argument by definition”, by which I mean that StephenB is pronouncing what nature fundamentally can or cannot do because of our *descriptions* of nature’s operation. Laws are descriptive, and do not “enforce” anything on nature.” If nature “produces novel and creative events” — and manifestly, it does, everywhere, all the time — it’s folly to suppose our desired understanding of “laws” makes any difference one way or another.” One cannot, without abandoning all reason, escape the fact that the laws of nature (understood (subjectively as a “description” of regularity), and (objectively as the “existence of regularity”) do exist. Because of his prior commitment to materialist ideology, eigenstate simply cannot accept rational component of objective reality. Notice, for example, this comment: “Laws are descriptive, and do not ‘enforce’ anything on nature.” Can you grasp the radical subjectivism inherent in that comment-- as if nature’s laws were solely a function of our mind’s description –as if the objective reality of the law’s power on nature didn’t exist? This is what materialistic monism does to the powers of human reason. Objectively, these laws EXIST as regularities and subjectively we UNDERSTAND them as regularities, describing them as “laws.” To suggest that we cannot draw rational conclusions based on that understanding is simply one more example of the same anti-intellectual posture that discounts reason’s rules. To claim that our understanding of these laws makes no difference raises anti-intellectualism to a new level. --“Nature can’t “only do what [laws] can do”, where laws are something StephenB understands by his “rules of right reason”. Nature does what it does, completely apart from that, and couldn’t give an impersonal fig about StephenB’s attempts to put nature in the small, simplistic, naïve little box he wishes to cram it into.” Once again, and even after several correctives, eisentage seeks to create confusion by conflating the words “nature” and “law,” trying to make it appear as if I had said that nature is limited to laws when, of course, I said that laws were limited to regularity. As a bonus, he informs us that I “cram nature in a box,” when I point out that laws cannot also NOT be laws--that a thing cannot, at the same time, and under the same formal circumstances, be what it is and also be something else [law of non-contradiction]. --“This is a key distinction for science, and scientific epistemology, and the empiricism that epistemology relies on. “Nature” here is ‘what happens’ and ‘what appears’. “Laws” are our limited, but increasingly more sophisticated attempts to identify descriptive rules and principles that match ‘what happens’ and ‘what appears’. It’s important to point out, because StephenB has made a crucial mistake, confusing the map for the territory here, in insisting that “nature can’t be that way” because it doesn’t obey his demands that proceed from HIS definition of law.” Can you perceive the confusion inherent in this statement? It is based on the assumption that the rules of right reason are solely subjective, that is, that they are limited to our thinking, and do not necessarily apply to the rational world outside of our consciousness. Hence, if I point out that, according to our mental “map,” Jupiter cannot exist and not exist at the same time, the materialist responds by saying, “That’s just fine for “your” map, but the territory just may well allow Jupiter to exist and not exist at the same time. Stop putting nature in a box.” At the root of this error is the illogical notion that our rational minds do not correspond to a rational universe. In other words, eigenstate is saying that the territory is not only different from the map, something we already knew, but also that the terriroty can defy reason in a way that the map cannot, something all rational people know to be false. Logic tells us that if it rains, the streets will get wet. Eisengate thinks that, in the real world, that same relationship between cause and effect need not exist. Logic tells us that a brick wall cannot just appear in front of our moving automobile unless something or someone puts it there. Eisengate thinks that a brick well, in principle, could well appear uncaused—like a quantum event—or a universe—or anything. So, what’s the bottom line? For eisengate, the laws of nature need not be laws exclusively—they can be laws and also be something else—they can act like people and choose to do something else, like create—even out of nothing. Can anyone understand why I hesitate to discuss science with those who discount reason’s rules? So, now we pose the question: Why does eisengate refuse to acknowledge the law of non-contradiction and the law of causality? Why does he think a law can be a law and also be something else? Why does he think that evidence can inform the rules of logic when he should know that the rules of logic inform evidence? The reason is simple: If he acknowledges reason’s rules, and the relationship between reason’s rules and evidence, he must concede the same point that he has been avoiding. A contingent universe cannot arise from a law, it requires an antecedent cause, which, in turn, must either be the first/causeless cause, or the effect of a first/causeless cause. We all know where that one is going. Since his ideology leaves no room for the truth, the truth must be denied, and reason, the vehicle by which we arrive at truth, must be abandoned. It’s as simple as that.StephenB
February 7, 2012
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Which is why I’m wouldn’t = Which is why I wouldn’t oopsElizabeth Liddle
February 7, 2012
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–Liz: “The idea that a whole has properties not possessed by its parts (and indeed may lack properties possessed by its parts) is a perfectly familiar one. An ocean wave has properties not possessed by either the water or the air between which it forms the interface. But that doesn’t make it immaterial.” An immaterial mind, or anything alleged to exist in the spirit world, does not, by definition, have parts.
Which is why I'm wouldn't describe the mind is immaterial, any more than I'd describe a wave as immaterial, even though it is neither water nor air, but the pattern of the interface. It is the result of material processes, even though it does not, itself, have substance. It has properties, however.
Only physical things have parts. That is one reason why the brain and mind are substantially different. A mind that has no parts cannot die because a whole without parts cannot disintegrate; a brain that does have parts can and (as we know) will die. If, on the other hand, the mind had parts, it would not be substantially different from the brain and would die right along with it.
Well, obviously you are entitled to your view. Obviously I disagree. I don't think minds have "parts" exactly, because they don't have substance, just as an ocean wave has no substance, but I do think that minds can be said to have properties.
–”In fact, what would be the point of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body if it did [require an immaterial mind]? Monism seems to me to be a concept perfectly compatible with traditional theism tbh. In fact I learned it from a catholic theologian.” From a Catholic point of view, a person, while physically alive, is a composite of body and soul. At death, the immaterial soul is separated from the material body, just as the mind is separated from the brain. In a sense, this is, again from a Christian perspective, unnatural since both body and soul were meant to be a unit. The separation is part of the death experience. Accordingly, If an immaterial soul could not live on without a body, it would make no sense to say that a glorified body is re-united to the soul at the end of time? Similarly, if the soul and body did not, as it were, miss each other, or if the soul could be complete without the body, there would be no reason to re-unite them.
Well, the catholic theologian I learned it from disagreed. He used to gently mock the idea of the soul "as a kind of helium-filled balloon, that we are handed some time before our birth, and carry with us until we let it go death". He was a lovely man, but I'm sure you would have found a lot to disagree with him about :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_McCabeElizabeth Liddle
February 7, 2012
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@StephenB,
We are not talking about nature, a concept that is a lot more ambiguous than the ones you have been characterizing as unusable for want of clarity. The subject was the “laws” of nature, which are [subjectively understood, descriptions and [objectively understood, regularities]. These laws cannot do anything other than what they have always done and cannot, therefore, produce anything new or novel. That should be evident.
We only understand through using a map of the territory. We don't know, directly, the intrinsics of nature. We reverse engineer those constraints and dynamics as best we can, through science. So that means our maps change, and sometimes substantially, even as we understand that the territory remains the territory, same as it ever was. A "law" that stipulates that "nature cannot generate novel or creative events", when it fails as part of an applied model, gets overthrown with something more effective in modeling. That doesn't mean that NATURE changes, but that our map has changed, and (hopefully) improved. If one is inclined to confuse the map with the territory, that will look like an approach that sees "nature changing". If we develop principles regarding novel events as fundamentals in physics, indeterminate events, then saying "laws don't do that" is just spitting in the wind. Our descriptions change and adapt towards better performance, and to accomodate new tests and evidence.
The law of gravity, for example, cannot suddenly become bored with its role and decide to change its relationship to nature. If it could, it wouldn’t be a law.
See this is indicative of a persistent confusion about "laws" in this context, this equivocation between descriptive rules and the fundamental dynamics of nature. A law of gravity, in the descriptive (scientific) sense of "law" can and will be discarded unceremoniously if new data and models are developed that overthrow it. That's how science works. If gravity is to be rethought, and that is not an abstract problem for science, because our current "map" of the "territory" regarding gravity is woefully inadequate and demonstrably broken when attempts are made to harmonize it with quantum physics, then our "map" will change as we develop better information about the territory through experimentation, testing, and analysis. The law (descriptive sense) WILL change its relationship with nature -- it will be superceded in our usage by something more performative. Again, that doesn't imply that nature itself (not the descriptions, the physical dynamics laws and model attempt to describe) changes.
That is why a law cannot produce a universe out of nothing.
That depends on what you mean by 'nothing', 'nothing' be a subtle concept given to overloading and equivocation. In the science/physics sense of the term (a vacuum, having no discrete mass/energy), the evidence-driven models we have suggest that a universe can, and will come "out of nothing", the product of quantum fluctuations in that vacuum. If you mean by "nothing" a "philosophical nothing", then "law" does not apply, nor does any claim from physics, as physics does not integrate that concept into its epistemology. It's not a natural concept. Either way, though, what you say cannot be the case. Both senses are problematic.
If nature does produce a novelty, it arises either from intelligent agency or the combination of law and chance.
"Chance" in this context IS law. Indeterminism and probabilistic phenomenon are fundamentals in physics, as fundamental (and arguably more, all regularities are statistical aggregates of these probabilities) as whatever predictabilities or regularities you want to point to. It's useful for us to distinguish between "law" (regularity, predictable) and "chance" ('unpredictable' works for our purposes, here), but these are both fundamental dynamics of nature. They are both "physical principles".
Law, by definition, and by itself, cannot produce a novelty or create anything. In any case, nature AS novelty cannot arise from law. This point is unassailable, though, as you have demonstrated, not unavoidable.
Again, nature isn't the least bit moved by your arguments of definition. It is what it is, regardless of the paradigm and definitions you'd like to thrust upon it. If nature produces novel, creative events, then it produces novel, creative events. Do you suppose complaining that nature can't do that because "that's against the definition of 'law'!" is going to change anything at all? Again, maybe you should just provide your working definition of 'novel', or 'creative', and we can use that to apply it to actual physics, and see what the evidence, observations and performative models have to say on this question. Then it's StephenB's definitions against the witness of nature by its operation, and people can decide which the find more compelling.eigenstate
February 7, 2012
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Eigenstate: "And, the Big Bang doesn’t point to any creation event that is a problem for materialism. In a cascading universe model of the multiverse, the Big Bang is a local “bubble” in a “foam” of universes. This is not a conflict at all with materialism." The above so-called model can never be other than imagination gone wild, so IS in conflict with serious philosophical discourse. It CAN be a debate tool pretending to be more (fancy sounding browbeater?) than it is. One should not have to offer why this is. But there being no chance such fantasies can ever be verified, they can only exist in the imagination, not ever as science.groovamos
February 7, 2012
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@JDH, Here's what StephenB said that prompted the part of my response you are objecting to:
I think this is a pretty good conversation so far between you and StephenB. I would have a lot more respect for you though if you would apologize here for your mistake. StephenB was quite right to say a “law” cannot “…produce novel or creative events.” Your switch from “law”, a well defined term, to “nature”, a meaningless term because it has no definition, was very clumsy and should be humbly admitted as a mistake.
There is, then, only one question to answer: Can the first/ causeless cause be a law or must it be an intelligent agent? We know that it cannot be a law because laws cannot produce novel or creative events; they can only do what they do. That leaves intelligent agency as the only other possibility.
(my emphasis) Here, and your response buttresses the importance of the point I was raising, we have "argument by definition", by which I mean that StephenB is pronouncing what nature fundamentally can or cannot do because of our *descriptions* of nature's operation. Laws are descriptive, and do not "enforce" anything on nature. If nature "produces novel and creative events" -- and manifestly, it does, everywhere, all the time -- it's folly to suppose our desired understanding of "laws" makes any difference one way or another. Nature can't "only do what [laws] can do", where laws are something StephenB understands by his "rules of right reason". Nature does what it does, completely apart from that, and couldn't give an impersonal fig about StephenB's attempts to put nature in the small, simplistic, naïve little box he wishes to cram it into. This is a key distinction for science, and scientific epistemology, and the empiricism that epistemology relies on. "Nature" here is 'what happens' and 'what appears'. "Laws" are our limited, but increasingly more sophisticated attempts to identify descriptive rules and principles that match 'what happens' and 'what appears'. It's important to point out, because StephenB has made a crucial mistake, confusing the map for the territory here, in insisting that "nature can't be that way" because it doesn't obey his demands that proceed from HIS definition of law. My focus on the "territory", on nature, and distinguishing that from our "maps", the descriptive models we build as a way to apprehend nature, was not a mistake. If you think it is, still, after reading this, then I've not gotten a key distinction here across, and the map is still getting confused with the territory. StephenB just likes his maps this peculiar, simplistic way. And he wants to insist that's how the territory really is and how it really must be -- it just cannot be otherwise, in his view (cf his "we reason from..." mantra). But the territory is what it is, and his predilection for simplistic and self-serving maps doesn't have any bearing on the territory.
But I would like to ask you an honest question. If mind is nothing but a property of the brain, what is your model for the mind controlling the body.? You may have a good model for this. But what is it. I can not think of a non-life analogy. You may have one, and your belief in “mind” as only a property of matter may make it over this hurdle.
I have to be careful about the "mind/brain" identity thing. The brain is the nexus of the mind, where cognition all comes together, but the mind is not, and cannot be just the brain. A brain in a vat is not a human mind, as a human mind necessarily integrates the sensory and cognitive infrastructure of the whole body. That said, the model is a natural, physical framework that understands all cognition to be mediated by human physiology, our neurological infrastructure. We integrate stimuli from out side the brain (visual percepts sourced from the brain, "gut feelings" which really are often sourced in the gut through the enteric nervous system, etc.), and our cognitive processing produces beliefs, emotions, and internal or external responses. The decision-making process, that which has "mind controlling the body", is a natural, physical function of the brain working its inputs and internal processes as mind. By analogy, it's an "operating system", that like a computer operating system, draws on connected physical resources (disk drive, random access memory, serial I/O, etc.) that resolve against a constantly (re-)computing algorithm, which, depending on the values for its state machines, drives output, "control", responsive actions. For a computer, the operating system is a toy, in terms of scale and complexity, compared to the human mind. But the dynamics are analogous enough to make that example useful for pedagogical purposes. The human mind, in terms of scale and complexity, would necessitate us thinking about the whole internet and all its parts and pieces and inputs and outputs, and even then, I think the mind would surpass such comparisons. But those are matters of scale, questions of degree in terms of complexity, connectedness, parallel processing, discrete and fuzzy/spiking logic, etc. It's all biology and physics, being biological and physical. The sense of "I" and "self" as both "disembodied" and "free" are practical adaptations that enable us to think in abstract and meta-representational ways, adaptations that are hugely advantageous for our surviving and thriving. We can think on a high level, due to that "trick", and focus on designs, schemes, concepts, plans, abstractions. The cost of that is a "low level blindspot"; we'd not be able to function due to the sheer overload of ennui if we were consciously aware of what we are "choosing" to do, moment by moment, and why.
I also can’t understand how your idea of mind as a “property of matter” can encode things for the future which have absolutely no possibility of being connected by physical law.
Didn't grok that, sorry. The "no possibility of being connected by physical law" didn't parse for me, here. Maybe your following comments will make this more clear to me.
For example: I can use my mind right now to affect an event 2 years from now. I can wire up a button to a bomb that will explode my house. I can decide in my mind that I will push that button precisely ( down to the second ) two years from now.
Ok, I get the plan, there, but what's the problem? In a natural model, this choice would, if you intend to carry it out (!!!), require committing the button pushing task to memory (or taking other actions to remind you: Outlook To-Do Entry on 2/7/2014: "Detonate my house by pushing the red button behind the dishwasher at precisely 12:43pm!"). Memory is not problematic as a natural process/phenomenon, is it? Still not seeing the problem here. Maybe you can point to where you think a natural paradigm runs into trouble in fulfilling your two year plan to blow up your house (!!!).
that is a large effect on the real, concrete, non-abstract world, brought about by the actions of my mind. What is your model for a mere, “property of matter” being able to do that?
The inputs driving the decision (!) are natural, the decision-making process itself is natural (thought), the planning for execution is natural (memory), and the execution of the plan (!) is natural (brain to arm->hand-finger: PUSH THE RED BUTTON NOW!). Maybe it helps to use a robotic example, as a means of teasing out what you think to be a problem. If I build a robot and program it to wait 2 years, then navigate to the target button, and use its robotic arm to push the button at the target time, why would that be a problem? Is the problem just deciding to DO something like that in the first place? Because as a matter of execution, a machine made from current technology could do this -- be invested with the instructions that get stored/saved for two years, with a routine running that will cause that directive to "wake up" two years hence and get to the task of blowing up your house (!!!). That doesn't seem a problem just from a robotic version of the scenario. Why is that a problem for humans, if my robot can accomplish this in a straightforward way?eigenstate
February 7, 2012
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I would second that. StephenB, your comments as usual are very insightful. As a casual onlooker, I can see the usual turn about tactics comming into play when things get a little tough!aqeels
February 7, 2012
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@eigenstate I think this is a pretty good conversation so far between you and StephenB. I would have a lot more respect for you though if you would apologize here for your mistake. StephenB was quite right to say a "law" cannot "...produce novel or creative events." Your switch from "law", a well defined term, to "nature", a meaningless term because it has no definition, was very clumsy and should be humbly admitted as a mistake. But I would like to ask you an honest question. If mind is nothing but a property of the brain, what is your model for the mind controlling the body.? You may have a good model for this. But what is it. I can not think of a non-life analogy. You may have one, and your belief in "mind" as only a property of matter may make it over this hurdle. I also can't understand how your idea of mind as a "property of matter" can encode things for the future which have absolutely no possibility of being connected by physical law. For example: I can use my mind right now to affect an event 2 years from now. I can wire up a button to a bomb that will explode my house. I can decide in my mind that I will push that button precisely ( down to the second ) two years from now. that is a large effect on the real, concrete, non-abstract world, brought about by the actions of my mind. What is your model for a mere, "property of matter" being able to do that?JDH
February 7, 2012
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---eigenstsate: “Nature produces novel, creative events at an uncountable rate, at immense scales (trillions and trillions of these events occurring all the time). My example didn’t address causation (although there’s apparently some problems with your understanding of causation and quantum events, but one problem at a time), but the novelty of events all around us, just nature doing its thing.” We are not talking about nature, a concept that is a lot more ambiguous than the ones you have been characterizing as unusable for want of clarity. The subject was the “laws” of nature, which are [subjectively understood, descriptions and [objectively understood, regularities]. These laws cannot do anything other than what they have always done and cannot, therefore, produce anything new or novel. That should be evident. The law of gravity, for example, cannot suddenly become bored with its role and decide to change its relationship to nature. If it could, it wouldn’t be a law. That is why a law cannot produce a universe out of nothing. If nature does produce a novelty, it arises either from intelligent agency or the combination of law and chance. Law, by definition, and by itself, cannot produce a novelty or create anything. In any case, nature AS novelty cannot arise from law. This point is unassailable, though, as you have demonstrated, not unavoidable. ---“I predict your example will support my working hypothesis that you equate contradiction of your intuition with “irrational”, that your opponent is irrational precisely insofar as they disagree with what you intuitively know to be rational.” On the contrary, I have always been very clear about the minimum and objective standards for rationality. To say that these standards are objective means that they are not a product of my “intuition.” It would be more accurate to say that they test the validity of my intuition. Anyone who denies or even discounts the law of non-contradiction or its derivative law of causality, for example, fails to qualify as a rational person. Note, we are not discussing intelligence. There are many intelligent people who are not rational. As an example, anyone who finds creative ways to argue that a universe can arise without a cause is not a rational person, though possibly quite intelligent. Ironically, materialists, who bristle at the prospect of an objective standard for rationality do, invariably, provide their own subjective standards and, predictably, they vary from materialist to materialist. --“I just find the personification of matter peculiar, is all. I use “mass and energy obey physical law”, which is analogical language too, but “slave” suggests some kind of oppressive dynamic which is strange here. But no matter, I don’t need to bother with peculiar language. Bigger fish to fry!” It’s simply a matter of style. In this case, the word “slave” implies lack of freedom, which is a reasonable description of an organ’s inability to do what an intelligent agent can do. A faculty can, among other things, use nature’s laws; an organ, by contrast, can only obey them. The language of freedom, expressed as a personification of nature, dramatizes the difference, which is quite real. --“Yes, but not in just a “give me more words” sense. It’s the show-me-the-referent version of that ploy, a question of the concept you are pointing at with the term. How do we substantiate, examine, test, model the referent there, or in any way distinguish it from the concept pointed to by the word ‘imaginary’ or ‘unreal’ or ‘nonexistent”?” It is not necessary to know everything that one can know about a word to reasonably understand and systematically build on its meaning. Plato’s Republic was, in large part, an attempt to define justice. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the word as an abstract concept. In this sense, materialists simply run away from words like “spirit,” or “non-matter” not because the terms are incomprehensible or unserviceable, but because they do not serve the cause of materialism. Indeed, I have never met a competent philosopher, professional or amateur, who didn’t understand what those words mean or how to use them in a rational argument. So, your protests seem like evasions to me. In spite of the extended length of your posts, you have yet to address the first cause argument. In keeping with that point, if you reject the law of causality, just let me know and I will abandon the entire enterprise with no extravagant references about your status as a rational person. ---“And well they do. There’s no arguing with incoherent concepts. If you can describe it, test it, apply it, observe it, or interact with it in ways that are subject to the witness of our senses and experience, there is grounds upon which to move forward. But if you can’t ground your semantics, if you can’t provide operational concepts, there’s nothing to argue about, only incoherence to get us chasing our tails.” The laws of non-contradiction and causality are both abstract concepts that cannot be tested. We do not reason our way to them; we reason our way from them. Do you reject them on the grounds that they cannot be tested? Were you under the impression that contemporary findings in science can render them obsolete? If so, I will be happy to explain why this cannot be the case.StephenB
February 6, 2012
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eig: "I’m happy to look at operating definitions for “immaterial mind”, if you’ve got one." We could start with: A thing that possess self-awareness (I), that acts on or can have an effect on material properties but does not possess any material properties such and such... And we can build an op definition from there. Once we have an unambiguous OPD, we can start our journey for some evidence or any indication of this thing. Stop 1) QM. First problem in the quest. Is the wave function real?junkdnaforlife
February 6, 2012
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@StephenB,
The problem is what unethical people do with the descriptive tools. Epiphenominal materialists (monists) try to have it both ways by manipulating the language so that they can appear to be rational, acknowledging the existence of minds, while arguing on behalf of that which is irrational, characterizing minds to brains. On the one hand, they reduce everything to matter; on the other hand, they use the language of non-matter when reductionism is shown to be irrational.
I understand from reading many of your posts now that statements that contradict your intuitions you understand to be irrational. That would explain the conspiracy theory reasoning you invoke here. Maybe you can link me to an example of where you've got your materialist victim in "irrational reductionism" with respect to theory of mind, so people can judge for themselves. I predict your example will support my working hypothesis that you equate contradiction of your intuition with "irrational", that your opponent is irrational precisely insofar as they disagree with what you intuitively know to be rational.
My claim is not false. The problem would be if, after we had defined the meaning of a sphere, and applied it to earth, someone would come along and argue that the earth is really a square because, as it turns out, the meaning of sphere has been changed to square. This is exactly what the epiphenominalst does with the words brain and mind.
No, you've misunderstood the basis for repurposing the word. The repurposing is corrective, providing utility for the word by "repairing the referent". In this case, the referent for the symbol "mind" being pointed at a material property of the human body, it's cognitive activity as a material phenomenon, in lieu of the untenable idea of "mind" as a supernatural substance, if you'll pardon my stealing the concept of 'substance' for that purpose, not knowing what else to use, there. "Mind" is still "what does the thinking", but the details are updated to reflect new knowledge. In the case of changing the meaning of "sphere" to the meaning of "square" (perhaps you meant 'cube'? Same problem either way, I think), since definitions are just descriptive tools, such a change would put the label "sphere" for the earth at odds with its underlying geometry. "Sphere" is just a label. If you map "sphere" to [solid with six identical square faces at right angles], to what we refer to now as "cube", that works if we can get those we communicate to share this convention, but the referent of the label has changed; spheres, that is, [objects that are round with a surface defined by a radius rotated in all directions around a center point] are not [solid with six identical square faces at right angles], so we would need to change our usage to preserve the same referential semantics. Which is just to say that a rose is a rose, by any other name. The goal for the scientist is to be descriptive in ways that closely approximate natural reality, meaning that no matter what term you use "sphere" or something else, the term should point at a concept that applies => [object that are round with a surface defined by a radius rotated in all directions around a center point]. Even "sphere" is just approximate, the earth is, as I understand it, but bulges a little near the equator. Whatever the case, what matters is the concept, the geometry you are referring to. With "mind", if we are referring to "the means of human thought and self-conception ('I')", we are referring to a material phenomenon of human cognition, not something "immaterial" -- again, having to borrow the idea of "thing" to apply to "immaterial".
If I define a mind as an immaterial faculty of an immaterial soul, then redefining it as matter is a linguistic trick calculated to obfuscate.
Words are descriptive tools. They serve us, not the other way around. We can overload words all we like, and communicate effectively so long as we have a convention for agreeing on which meaning is used in what context. So you can define "mind" however you like. The definition is not a problem AS a definition. It's problematic as term for a concept we actually want to use in building knowledge. The LABEL is not the problem, it's the underlying concept which is incoherent. That's why I can't be bothered what you label it (as long as we can keep it straight) -- it's a conceptual problem you have here, your referent is incoherent. "Faculty", for example, connotes an ability, power, capability. These are material concepts, and we have a wealth of experience-based examples that ground the semantics for "ability". But "immaterial" ostensibly operates outside ANY and ALL of those contexts, so we have nothing in which to ground "faculty". It's the same problem we grapple with when asked to consider "the smell of the color nine". The terms themselves are meaningful as standalone terms. They are incorrect in the structure "smell of the color nine". "Immaterial faculty" has the same problem. it's not a labeling problem, it's a concept fail.
To the claim that immaterial minds exist, the materialist can respond honestly in only one way: He must say, “In my judgment, minds don’t exist.” It would be dishonest and illogical for him to say that minds do, indeed, exist, except that they are grounded in matter. By extension, it would be dishonest and illogical to say that the soul is grounded in the body.
It's not dishonest at all. She simply understands that your definition is conceptually problematic, and is using a definition that has concrete and coherent semantics. It's neither dishonest or illogical, it's just pragmatic use of language. "Soul", for example, is incoherent semantically, and imaginary insofar as it points to something "immaterial" or "supernatural". It's a concept fail, and except for keeping the archaic understanding of that word handy (for understanding supernaturalists in a debate, say, or reading religious texts, etc.), "soul" is a great word to use in the way Douglas Hofstadter uses it. It's just a practical upgrade for the word, conceptually, and insofar as I can accept this new convention along with others, we can communicate effectively with this new meaning for the term. Quick review: words are descriptive tools. They point at concepts. They serve us. We don't serve them. Communication works when there is convention on usage, and no particularly meaning is "normative".
Why do you emphasize what is obvious and ignore what is relevant? Physical organs are slaves to physical laws. They have no power to redirect those laws, counteract them, or refuse to obey them. This is news to you? Or is this the part of the discussion where you claim not to know the meaning of the word “obey” in the present context.
I just find the personification of matter peculiar, is all. I use "mass and energy obey physical law", which is analogical language too, but "slave" suggests some kind of oppressive dynamic which is strange here. But no matter, I don't need to bother with peculiar language. Bigger fish to fry!
Is this the famous, “why-whatever-do-you-mean-by-spirit” ploy so favored by materialists?
Yes, but not in just a "give me more words" sense. It's the show-me-the-referent version of that ploy, a question of the concept you are pointing at with the term. How do we substantiate, examine, test, model the referent there, or in any way distinguish it from the concept pointed to by the word 'imaginary' or 'unreal' or 'nonexistent"?
Well, of course they do. It is the means by which they avoid arguments.
And well they do. There's no arguing with incoherent concepts. If you can describe it, test it, apply it, observe it, or interact with it in ways that are subject to the witness of our senses and experience, there is grounds upon which to move forward. But if you can't ground your semantics, if you can't provide operational concepts, there's nothing to argue about, only incoherence to get us chasing our tails. I'm happy to look at operating definitions for "immaterial mind", if you've got one. That'd be remarkable, and fascinating to apply, and to test out. But I've never had anyone take me up on such an offer, or even lay out how those concepts would be grounded, tested, made operational, even if they never got around to doing it. So I won't hold my breath, but if you can actually provide a model, some conceptual grounding for your terms, it would be super interesting to see how those tests worked out, and what we might learn from them.eigenstate
February 6, 2012
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--Liz: "The idea that a whole has properties not possessed by its parts (and indeed may lack properties possessed by its parts) is a perfectly familiar one. An ocean wave has properties not possessed by either the water or the air between which it forms the interface. But that doesn’t make it immaterial." An immaterial mind, or anything alleged to exist in the spirit world, does not, by definition, have parts. Only physical things have parts. That is one reason why the brain and mind are substantially different. A mind that has no parts cannot die because a whole without parts cannot disintegrate; a brain that does have parts can and (as we know) will die. If, on the other hand, the mind had parts, it would not be substantially different from the brain and would die right along with it. --"In fact, what would be the point of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body if it did [require an immaterial mind]? Monism seems to me to be a concept perfectly compatible with traditional theism tbh. In fact I learned it from a catholic theologian." From a Catholic point of view, a person, while physically alive, is a composite of body and soul. At death, the immaterial soul is separated from the material body, just as the mind is separated from the brain. In a sense, this is, again from a Christian perspective, unnatural since both body and soul were meant to be a unit. The separation is part of the death experience. Accordingly, If an immaterial soul could not live on without a body, it would make no sense to say that a glorified body is re-united to the soul at the end of time? Similarly, if the soul and body did not, as it were, miss each other, or if the soul could be complete without the body, there would be no reason to re-unite them.StephenB
February 6, 2012
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@StephenB,
Unpredictability does not equal acausality. No event, not even a quantum event, can be uncaused.
I wasn't talking about causality, and neither were you. You said:
We know that it cannot be a law because laws cannot produce novel or creative events; they can only do what they do.
(emphasis mine) Nature produces novel, creative events at an uncountable rate, at immense scales (trillions and trillions of these events occurring all the time). My example didn't address causation (although there's apparently some problems with your understanding of causation and quantum events, but one problem at a time), but the novelty of events all around us, just nature doing its thing. As I said above, quantum cosmology, a prominent idea in modern physics, understands our whole universe to be the result of one of these quantum events.eigenstate
February 6, 2012
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