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Human Consciousness

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(From In the Beginning … ):

For the layman, it is the last step in evolution that is the most difficult to explain. You may be able to convince him that natural selection can explain the appearance of complicated robots, who walk the Earth and write books and build computers, but you will have a harder time convincing him that a mechanical process such as natural selection could cause those robots to become conscious. Human consciousness is in fact the biggest problem of all for Darwinism, but it is hard to say anything “scientific” about consciousness, since we don’t really know what it is, so it is also perhaps the least discussed.

Nevertheless, one way to appreciate the problem it poses for Darwinism or any other mechanical theory of evolution is to ask the question: is it possible that computers will someday experience consciousness? If you believe that a mechanical process such as natural selection could have produced consciousness once, it seems you can’t say it could never happen again, and it might happen faster now, with intelligent designers helping this time. In fact, most Darwinists probably do believe it could and will happen—not because they have a higher opinion of computers than I do: everyone knows that in their most impressive displays of “intelligence,” computers are just doing exactly what they are told to do, nothing more or less. They believe it will happen because they have a lower opinion of humans: they simply dumb down the definition of consciousness, and say that if a computer can pass a “Turing test,” and fool a human at the keyboard in the next room into thinking he is chatting with another human, then the computer has to be considered to be intelligent, or conscious. With the right software, my laptop may already be able to pass a Turing test, and convince me that I am Instant Messaging another human. If I type in “My cat died last week” and the computer responds “I am saddened by the death of your cat,” I’m pretty gullible, that might convince me that I’m talking to another human. But if I look at the software, I might find something like this:

if (verb == ‘died’)
fprintf(1,’I am saddened by the death of your %s’,noun)
end

I’m pretty sure there is more to human consciousness than this, and even if my laptop answers all my questions intelligently, I will still doubt there is “someone” inside my Intel processor who experiences the same consciousness that I do, and who is really saddened by the death of my cat, though I admit I can’t prove that there isn’t.

I really don’t know how to argue with people who believe computers could be conscious. About all I can say is: what about typewriters? Typewriters also do exactly what they are told to do, and have produced some magnificent works of literature. Do you believe that typewriters can also be conscious?

And if you don’t believe that intelligent engineers could ever cause machines to attain consciousness, how can you believe that random mutations could accomplish this?

Comments
CH@231
If you can make whatever I arbitrarily decide to invent to be true depending on how you choose your axioms, then nothing chosen as an example will have any real meaning. If anything is everything else, then it is nothing in particular, and the whole endeavor becomes meaningless because it is vacuous.
Yes, it is a bit disorienting when you realize that there are an infinite number of true statements out there (and an infinite subset of them can't be proven). That's perhaps some of the reason you don't hear philosophers, mathematicians and scientists describing what they do as "looking for truth". If truth is universal, we have no common way of gaining access to it. If truth is local, then everybody can have their own truth. The solution is straightforward. We don't judge our work based on how many truths we find, we judge it on how many *interesting* truths we find (where "interesting" in on a continuum, not a binary property). So what's interesting? Well, starting with G. H. Hardy:
Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
Utility is another test (although not one Hardy would have agreed with>: there has been a huge body of work on how to do arithmetic on a few dozen binary digits, all because we happen to live in a time where that can be done extraordinarily quickly. Years ago, I summed up my work as "The creation and appreciation of elegance". Elegance is much harder to come by than truth, and I've found it to be far more satisfying.BarryR
September 15, 2010
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CH@228
Can you provide a cite that tells you that everything of any consequence whatsoever has to be cited? Peer-reviewed please.
What an interesting question! This is one of those things that are usually taken for granted --- like spell-checking your manuscript before sending it in for review. But sloppy spelling never wrecked a career, and sloppy citing has, so it's far more important than that. Let's see what I can find. Randolph Smith dedicates and entire chapter to "Documenting your scholarship" in his _Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals_. He cites Bruner(1942) as follows:
a sin one more degree heinous than an incomplete reference is an inaccurate reference; the former will be caught by the editor or printer, whereas the latter will stand in print as an annoyance to future investigators and a monument to the writer's carelessness.
There are two important ideas encapsulated in the above: "monument" and "future investigators". Taking them in turn: I'm establishing a reputation here each time I post (as are you). By adding citations, I'm communicating to readers that I know enough about the topic to be able to cite the literature, and if they're familiar with the topic themselves the can get a very finely calibrated understanding of the limits of my understanding from my cites. So when you cite Lewis, this tells me volumes about what you've been reading (and haven't been reading). Folks who don't cite anything aren't likely to have read widely or deeply and are probably just expressing an uninformed (though sincerely held) personal opinion. So that's the reputation aspect. Second, it's unlikely that I'll ever have anything original to say about foundational mathematics, but what I can do is point readers to people who have said interesting things. I enjoy it when people do this favor for me, and I like returning the favor. There's a third reason that only really applies to this kind of forum. When I read something as silly as:
As all rational people know, truth is the correspondence of the mind to reality.
I need a polite way of expressing my skepticism. Saying "you're wrong" or "that's silly" isn't helpful. But if I ask for a citation, one of two things will happen: I'll get a citation and learn something without losing face, or everyone else reading the exchange will note the lack of citation and conclude that the author was expressing a personal opinion. I've forwarded your question along to the folks at talk.origins. I'm interested to see if they can unearth if science got the practice from the legal profession of if it work the other way 'round. If you like, I'll post a summary of the responses here.
I’m still waiting for your response to Chesterton’s argument in Orthodoxy and Lewis’s argument in De Futilitate. You can start any time.
As I said yesterday (although it may have been obscured by the missing closing blockquote) look for that to be posted on talk.origins on Monday.BarryR
September 15, 2010
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F/N: Meet the mind of CSL, here. That old lion yet roars.kairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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F/N: Since there is an attempt to dismiss the connexions, here are the lyrics: ___________________ >> Redemption Song lyrics Old pirates, yes, they rob I Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I From the bottomless pit But my hand was made strong By the hand of the almighty We forward in this generation Triumphantly Won't you help to sing These songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever have Redemption songs Redemption songs Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds Have no fear for atomic energy 'Cause none of them can stop the time How long shall they kill our prophets While we stand aside and look? Ooh Some say it's just a part of it We've got to fullfil the book Won't you help to sing These songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever have Redemption songs Redemption songs Redemption songs Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our mind Woh, have no fear for atomic energy 'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time How long shall they kill our prophets While we stand aside and look? Yes, some say it's just a part of it We've got to fullfill the book Won't you help to sing These songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever had Redemption songs All I ever had Redemption songs These songs of freedom Songs of freedom >> ______________________ Now, let us look at CSL and GKCkairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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PS: The Marley Song is an object lesson to those who would build a middle wall of partition between philosophy, art and history, even theology. All of these are deeply connected in the context of worldviews. "Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit." PS: tribute, here is Arrow live, maybe a few years ago.kairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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Just for fun: Arrow's 1982 Hot hot hot. Best way to remember a great -- and verrrry nice -- guy. (Funny, Bob Marley used to love across from my street where I grew up. Redemption Song. Telling contrast on national ethos!) "None but ourselves can free our mind" -- a quite from Marcus Garvey. Gkairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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PPS: GKC's companion to Orthodoxy, Heretics. I can't wait till we get reasonable cost kiosk printer-binder machines, to read books that make SENSE, thanks to Project Gutenberg.kairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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PS: Onlookers, in a lot of modern mathematics the key proof technique is to deny the proposition one wishes to prove, i. e. switch from P to NOT-P. Then, show that the latter entails a contradiction. By reversing the denial, one is back at P as true.kairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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Stephen Apparently BR does not recognise that a self-evident argument is one where the truth is evident on understanding what is being claimed, on pain of reductio ad absurdum. And the case here of injecting an arbitrary contradiction by equivocating he meaning of + and ending up denying that 2 + 2 = 4 is a capital example. Here is Wiki -- as a hostile witness making an acknowledgement against interests -- on self-evident truth:
In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is one that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof. Some epistemologists deny that any proposition can be self-evident. For most others, the belief that oneself is conscious is offered as an example of self-evidence. However, one’s belief that someone else is conscious is not epistemically self-evident . . . . A self-evident proposition cannot be denied without knowing that one contradicts oneself (provided one actually understands the proposition). An analytic proposition cannot be denied without a contradiction, but one may fail to know that there is a contradiction because it may be a contradiction that can be found only by a long and abstruse line of logical or mathematical reasoning. Most analytic propositions are very far from self-evident. Similarly, a self-evident proposition need not be analytic: my knowledge that I am conscious is self-evident but not analytic . . . . For those who admit the existence [i.e. reality] of abstract concepts, the class of non-analytic self-evident truths can be regarded as truths of the understanding–truths revealing connections between the meanings of ideas.
Do you think, above, that BR does not know that to say 2 + 2 = 4 AND 2 + 2 = 147 is not a contradiction? Or, that it is introduced by willfully equivocating the meaning of +? Hardly likely . . . Gkairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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Clive Welcome. I hope that he actual substance of the argument is addressed. Including the issue C S L makes on the astonishing correspondence between reason and the world, which is reflected int he remarks on the "unreasonable" power of mathematics, which is symbolised logic. Gkairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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---BarryR: “The argument from self-evidence that the twin virtues of being the second-oldest philosophical argument (the first being “Because I said so”) as well as the weakest. To dismiss this argument, simply state “It’s not self-evident to *me*”, and the line of reasoning need not be considered any further.” All reasoning begins with the acknowledgement of self-evident truths. If you don’t believe that, try beginning with something else. With respect to the problem that some say, “it’s not self-evident to me,” there is a simple answer to that objection. Such individuals are simply afraid or unwilling to acknowledge that which they do, indeed, know. All sane people know that a thing cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. All sane people know that universes do not just pop into existence. ---“There’s another, deeper problem with this approach. Once you declare something to be self-evident, you’ve removed both the incentive and the possibility of going back and improving your understanding of it. In the marketplace,” It is possible to improve one’s understanding of basic logic without abandoning its principles. ---“A different approach allows axioms to be introduced, debated and discarded based on the interests and abilities of the mathematician. The approach not only works, but works spectacularly well.” Once one “discards” the law of non-contradiction, he/she loses his capacity to reason in the abstract. Recall Edmond’s logical errors with respect to the syllogism. ---“So, what do we lose if we abandon (most) self-evident truths? Other than a fragile, unearned sense of certainty, I can’t think of anything.” I have already explained the cost of abandoning causality. ---“What do we gain? Modern mathematics and everything that makes use of it.” Modern mathematics is founded on laws, as I have pointed out several times. ---“Axioms used to be defined as self-evident, but it wasn’t true then (think Euclid’s parallel postulate) and is a dead issue now. All of Euclid’s elements are known to be self evident with the exception of his parallel postulate, which is not self evident and has never been proven or disproven. The elements [axioms] represent the basic foundation for all mathematics and have never been invalidated. Contrary to your assumption, no mathematician may add or delete them at will if he wants his mathematics to be rational. ---“The wikipedia article on axioms isn’t too bad, you might want to take a look.” Wikipedia alternates between rationality and irrationality depending on the subject matter. ---“Theological and metaphysical truths are at variance with *each* *other*, You may think you’ve caught hold of the Actual Truth (and you may even think it is self-evident), but there are a couple billion people who are just a certain that they’re self-evidently right and you’re self-evidently wrong.” You are assuming that since disputes about truth exist, that truth itself cannot exist. On the contrary, the principle should be clear. If one religion is in conflict with another, then either one or both of those religions are in error. If science is at war with logic, then either science or logic is misleading us. Only if there is one unified truth with many aspects can there be any rationality. [If, for example, there is no law of causation, [a philosophical not a scientific truth] then there may be some effects that occur without causes. That would mean that science, which is a search for causes, is dead.] ----“This kind of thinking usually comes out out of a very immature faith: God is perfect, thus X; if not-X, then God does not exist. [Law of causality] No, it comes from an understanding that science is a search for causes, and if we cannot know for sure that everything is caused, then we cannot know that anything is caused. I have already made that clear. \ ---“As you said, the idea of causation is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one, and as such it will make no nevermind to science however it ends up being decided.” The metaphysical principles of right reason underlie all science. Science cannot move one step without them. If you doubt this, try evaluating evidence without them. [Edmonds doesn’t even define the truth that he attempts to discuss.] ---“I think it was “truth in general is context-dependent”. That is not a definition. [As all rational people know, truth is the correspondence of the mind to reality.] ---“Can you give a cite to a rational person who has published something to that effect? Peer-reviewed, please.” I like your sense of humor. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Adler, Maritain, Gilson, Copleson, Kreeft, ….I could fill the entire page. ---“It’s a really terrible definition: how do you go about ascertaining if something is true? It’s true if it corresponds to reality. It’s the only rational definition that has ever been offered. Do you know of a better one? ---“Or real?” Reason and evidence ---“Since this is just your mind, how do you communicate this to others?” Truth doesn’t just involve the mind; it involves the minds relationship to reality. If there was no reality to know, there would be no truth to obtain. How do I communicate truth to others? I tell them. ----“As to Edmonds, I think he can be fairly summarized as “True statements are statements that are correct in a particular context.” Yes, that is not a bad summary of his position. However, there is no definition of truth there. As I have already made clear, Edmonds does not reason very well. Unfortunately, he is steeped in Kantian subjectivism and doesn’t understand logic. Why would you want to follow him when there are so many better thinkers around? Begin with Mortimer Adler.StephenB
September 15, 2010
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Clive: You have of course identified why it is that we must purge contradictions from our thought life. If A and NOT-A can be both true in the same time and sense of A, then meaning itself collapses into confusion and chaos. For meaning rests on distinctions. And when, for instance some would cite quantum behaviour as a claimed denial of non-contradiction, they find themselves having to implicitly assume what they wish to dismiss. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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kairosfocus, Thanks for those links.Clive Hayden
September 15, 2010
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PPS: Orthodoxy and De Futilitate (excerpt on logic here).kairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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BarryR, I used 2+2=147 just because it came to mind. I could've just as easily used 2+2=9,235, or 2+2=0, or whatever else comes to mind. If you can make whatever I arbitrarily decide to invent to be true depending on how you choose your axioms, then nothing chosen as an example will have any real meaning. If anything is everything else, then it is nothing in particular, and the whole endeavor becomes meaningless because it is vacuous. Clive Hayden
September 15, 2010
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Onlookers: Clive is of course dead right to remind us that the real issue is the balance of a matter on its merits of fact and reasoning [ultimately traceable to first principles], not whether or not today's neo-magisterium has deigned to award its imprimatur of approval. So, when we see above, a claim like . . .
[MF, 209:] I see the following “laws” which Barry has shown can be false given a change of axioms: #103 2+2=4 a+b+c = c+b+a It is not possible to divide by zero #126 a+b gives a unique result
. . . that tells me a lot about just how far wrong we have gone. As has been repeatedly pointed out above [e.g. cf 187 - 191], MF, the notion that 2 + 2 = 4 can be shown "wrong" by shifting "axioms" in midstream is a gross confusion rooted in the blatant error of substituting a novel redefinition of the ""+" operator; creating an unnecessary and blatant contradiction where + is now held to at once mean two different things that deny one another. One more time, onlookers, let us get the old box of matches, and group sticks in pairs:
A: { | | } { | | } B: Regroup by combining, pushing them together: C: { | | | | }
Step B operationally exemplifies -- and we can state a formal definition -- the addition operator, in its fundamental form. Using standard symbols we have known since our early days at school: 2 + 2 = 4, QED This result, once we understand the meaning of the numerals and symbols used based on our living in our common world as conscious, reasoning and understanding creatures, states something that is true, and which must be true, on pain of absurdity. Something that most of us knew full well by the time we were 5 years old. The + operator is indeed extended to other cases, but -- for excellent reason -- that is done in a way that preserves its core meaning instead of contradicting it without warning; worse, insisting on sticking to an embedded contradiction in our reasoning, in the teeth of correction. Indeed, this side-track debate above shows what happens when we deal with the blatant rejection of first principles of right reason, starting with things like non-contradiction. (I still point out, as at 208 above, that the side tracks serve to allow non-discussion of a key issue that some desperately do not wish to discuss.) And when it comes to the proverbial live donkeys kicking the dead lions Lewis and Chesterton, let it suffice to note that they have failed to actually engage the matter on the merits, again. Just as how they would kick rhetorical sand in our eyes to confuse us about the self evident truth that 2 + 2 = 4. Remember that, onlookers: "2 + 2 = ?" has now been reduced to a relativist morass of confusion. Let that be the final demonstration of the absurdity of today's self-referentially absurd evolutionary materialism and its radically relativist ultra/post- modernism, and let that show the fatal error being made by those who willingly go along with the pronouncements of the new materialist magisterium. And sorry, when correction on the basic merits is refused again and again, on the blatantly plain, that is a sign that something is deeply wrong. In unfortunately now necessarily plain words: Reductio ad absurdum, backed up by evident willful obstuseness, disguised with distractive rhetoric. A sadly, utterly telling outcome. If one is trapped in a hole, the first step to escape is to stop digging in deeper. GEM of TKI PS: O/T F/N: Alphonsus, "Arrow" Cassell -- Montserrat's leading Soca entertainer, and a world figure [The song Hot hot hot is his trademark] -- passed away from cancer today. Condolences to all fans, friends and family. I am going to miss our little exchanges in his Manshop.kairosfocus
September 15, 2010
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markf,
I think you also took part in this discussion did you not Clive?
Of course, and I was amused as well.Clive Hayden
September 15, 2010
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BarryR,
Can you give a cite to a rational person who has published something to that effect? Peer-reviewed, please.
Can you provide a cite that tells you that everything of any consequence whatsoever has to be cited? Peer-reviewed please. And please cite something peer reviewed and published that claims that anything published should be peer-reviewed please. And please cite something peer reviewed and published which says that only things peer reviewed and published should be discussed. And please cite something peer reviewed and published that says you should have a discussion at all. And please cite something peer reviewed and published which tells you that you should look to them for guidance in the first place in all endeavors of life. Presumably this would include a peer-reviewed and published work which tells you to trust them in all things to begin with, before you can make sense of how to proceed in any discussion, that is, what should you look to for peer review and what you shouldn't in a discussion (i.e. X should be peer-reviewed but Y doesn't necessarily have to be). And please provide the citation that tells you when it's appropriate to provide a citation. Peer-reviewed please. I'm still waiting for your response to Chesterton's argument in Orthodoxy and Lewis's argument in De Futilitate. You can start any time. And actually, if you would please, make an argument in your own words, that would be great, for that would tell me whether you actually understand A) What you're arguing against, and B) What you're argument itself really is. I don't want vague referrals to other people's works. I want to know how BarryR responds. Clive Hayden
September 15, 2010
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markf @221: If you read the comments carefully, you will discover that it was not the participation but rather the lack of intellectual curiosity of the participants that was being questioned.StephenB
September 15, 2010
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#221 I am also amused by this side discussion about the credentials of C.S. Lewis from pedants I think you also took part in this discussion did you not Clive?markf
September 15, 2010
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@222 Whoops, dropped a closing blockquote. Sorry.BarryR
September 14, 2010
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markf@209
(A) “the addition and multiplication functions on real numbers are commutative and associative” Assuming that is what you meant, then these laws are dependent on the axioms of the arithmetic of the natural numbers. I am not a mathematician so I may be wrong about the detail, but I believe the appropriate axioms are the Peano axioms with addition of the definition of the addition and multiplication functions. It needs a better mathematician than me to prove exactly (A) follows from these axioms – perhaps BarryR can oblige.
Lambda calculus will allow you to derive both addition and its commutative and associative properties using a tiny set of simple axioms, but you will be insanely bored by the time you get there. If you're curious and a masochist, the best presentation I've see in chapter 7 in Ryan Stansifer's _The Study of Programming Languages_. Before you master what lambda calculus does, you have to learn both the formal and informal notation, and for mere mortals it's incredibly opaque. Stansifer is very good at providing BNF grammars so that, if you don't have a life, you can unambiguously pick apart how each of the theorems are derived. Just to give you a taste, let lambda be "&"...
Let f be the lambda expression &z.6. Then Y f reduces as follows: (&h.(&x.h(xx))(&x.h(xx)))f (&x.h(xx))(&x.h(xx))[h:=f] (hx.f(xx))(&x.f(xx)) f(xx)[x:=&x.f(xx)] f((&x.f(xx))(&x.f(xx))) (&z.6)((&x.f(xx))(&x.f(xx))) 6[z:=(&x.f(xx))(&x.f(xx))] 6 Notice that we chose to reduce the outermost redex when there was a choice. The result is 6; exactly what we would expect the fixedpoint of the constant function f to be.
Foundational mathematics is much more fun to think about than to work through.BarryR
September 14, 2010
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StephanB@219 Thanks for reading the paper. I appreciate it.
In effect, Edmonds doesn’t acknowledge the reality of self-evident truths.
The argument from self-evidence that the twin virtues of being the second-oldest philosophical argument (the first being "Because I said so") as well as the weakest. To dismiss this argument, simply state "It's not self-evident to *me*", and the line of reasoning need not be considered any further. There's another, deeper problem with this approach. Once you declare something to be self-evident, you've removed both the incentive and the possibility of going back and improving your understanding of it. In the marketplace, A different approach allows axioms to be introduced, debated and discarded based on the interests and abilities of the mathematician. The approach not only works, but works spectacularly well. So, what do we lose if we abandon (most) self-evident truths? Other than a fragile, unearned sense of certainty, I can't think of anything. What do we gain? Modern mathematics and everything that makes use of it.
Thus, he doesn’t even consider the role that self-evident truths play in the filed of mathematics, reducing all starting points to “axioms.”
Axioms used to be defined as self-evident, but it wasn't true then (think Euclid's parallel postulate) and is a dead issue now. The wikipedia article on axioms isn't too bad, you might want to take a look.
If theological and metaphysical truths are at variance with scientific truths and mathematical truths, we would be living in a cosmic madhouse, and there would be no warrant for trying to reason with anyone about anything.
Ummm.... Theological and metaphysical truths are at variance with *each* *other*, You may think you've caught hold of the Actual Truth (and you may even think it is self-evident), but there are a couple billion people who are just a certain that they're self-evidently right and you're self-evidently wrong. In contrast, science and math are remarkably catholic (in the original sense). It comes from having a neutral moderator pass judgment on our claims (that arbitrator being reality).
If, for example, there is no law of causation, [a philosophical not a scientific truth] then there may be some effects that occur without causes. That would mean that science, which is a search for causes, is dead.
This kind of thinking usually comes out out of a very immature faith: God is perfect, thus X; if not-X, then God does not exist. It amuses God to generate a consistent stream of not-X's. As you said, the idea of causation is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one, and as such it will make no nevermind to science however it ends up being decided. For scientific ideas, exceptions are simply incorporated into the theory until we come up with a more general theory that accounts for them.
Indeed, Edmonds doesn’t even define the truth that he attempts to discuss.
I think it was "truth in general is context-dependent".
As all rational people know, truth is the correspondence of the mind to reality.
Can you give a cite to a rational person who has published something to that effect? Peer-reviewed, please. It's a really terrible definition: how do you go about ascertaining if something is true? Or real? Since this is just your mind, how do you communicate this to others? As to Edmonds, I think he can be fairly summarized as "True statements are statements that are correct in a particular context."
G.K Chesterton, who may well have been greatest writer of the twentieth century
No.BarryR
September 14, 2010
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Don—A professor, a lecturer or a Fellow. I guess I take this for granted, and am baffled I have to explain this.
I don't understand your bafflement. The title of professor means something different in England from what it means in the U.S. It took a number of people to dig up the fact that in England, professor means department head.Petrushka
September 14, 2010
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StephenB,
I am also amused by this side discussion about the credentials of C.S. Lewis from pedants who have never read him and probably wouldn’t do so even on a bet. In order to have something to talk about, his critics should continue to attack him personally because they clearly have no answers to his arguments, of which they are almost always ignorant.
Isn't that the truth.Clive Hayden
September 14, 2010
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Petrushka,
His field seems to have been English rather than Philosophy, except for six months when he was a substitute.
You mean for a year, when another philosophy professor (tutor) went on leave and asked that Lewis take his place.
Don---A professor, a lecturer or a Fellow.
I guess I take this for granted, and am baffled I have to explain this. Clive Hayden
September 14, 2010
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---BarryR: "What did you think of section 3.3 of Edmond’s paper?" Because I respond to so many people on so many threads, I tend to go straight to central issues and abbreviate my answers. Occasionally, I will stretch out with a long post, but most people can get the point if distill the point to its simplest essence, as will be the case here. Edmonds approach is just one of the many postmodernist/subjectivist approaches to philosophy informed by, dare I say, contaminated by, the unfounded skepticism of Immanuel Kant. Among other things, he assumes, like Kant, that analytic and synthetic reasoning are our only tools for obtaining truth. To better understand Edmonds’ confusion, send your search engine in the direction of “Little Errors in the Beginning,” by Mortimer Adler. In effect, Edmonds doesn’t acknowledge the reality of self-evident truths. Because Edmonds does not acknowledge the starting point for all thinking, he immediately sinks into intellectual quicksand. Thus, he doesn’t even consider the role that self-evident truths play in the filed of mathematics, reducing all starting points to “axioms.” On the matter of logic and the role of the syllogism, he appears not to even understand the basic distinction between a valid argument and a sound argument, indicating surprise that a false major premise would produce an unsound conclusion. Even though he articulates a reasonable objection to his philosophy, [that truth must be unified] he appears not to understand WHY it is the case that only a unified truth can be true. If theological and metaphysical truths are at variance with scientific truths and mathematical truths, we would be living in a cosmic madhouse, and there would be no warrant for trying to reason with anyone about anything. If, for example, there is no law of causation, [a philosophical not a scientific truth] then there may be some effects that occur without causes. That would mean that science, which is a search for causes, is dead. If some effects can occur without causes, there would be no way of knowing which effects were caused and which ones were not. Metaphysics illuminates science; science does not illuminate metaphysics. Indeed, Edmonds doesn’t even define the truth that he attempts to discuss. As all rational people know, truth is the correspondence of the mind to reality. If that correspondence doesn’t take place, truth has not been apprehended. What is Edmonds definition of truth? If he had one, this would certainly have been the place to disclose it. Many, not all, of Edmonds assertions qualify as old errors with new labels, which is why I so strongly recommend the work of G.K Chesterton, who may well have been greatest writer of the twentieth century. I feel no hesitancy in saying that you will not be refuting him, especially in the presence of those of us who have really read and understood him. The only way a secularist/naturalist/skeptic can deal with Chesterton is to ignore him. I am also amused by this side discussion about the credentials of C.S. Lewis from pedants who have never read him and probably wouldn't do so even on a bet. In order to have something to talk about, his critics should continue to attack him personally because they clearly have no answers to his arguments, of which they are almost always ignorant.StephenB
September 14, 2010
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#213 CY - thanks for a balanced and helpful comment. It may come down to a difference between UK and US interpretation of the word "professor". I didn't realise that in the USA a professor is anyone who does research and teaching. In the UK you have to be quite a distinguished academic to get that title. In the unlikely event that anyone is interested I did some more research. The Wikipedia article is misleading about the role of tutor and fellow at Oxford. This link is rather wordy but pretty much settles the issue: http://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/documents/alumni/publications/rectors-and-fellows.pdf To summarise what is in it. At the time there were two types of fellows - tutorial fellows and ordinary fellows. Tutorial fellows had some tutorial and lecturing responsibilities. Ordinary fellows were usually researchers but included, for example, the rector. So some fellows were tutors and some were not. However, clearly you could also be a tutor and not a fellow beause Lewis was not a fellow of University College when he was a tutor there. I think it is high time to draw a line under this!markf
September 14, 2010
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markf, It also appears quite remarkable that a lowly tutor from Oxford should all of a sudden have a professorship created for him at Cambridge in 1954. Clearly Lewis' academic credentials had been well established by that time.CannuckianYankee
September 14, 2010
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Clive, markf, others It's difficult to get reliable information online regarding teaching positions at Oxford in the 1920s. What I was able to find is that Oxford combines "fellow" with "tutor" as one who oversees the teaching of a particular subject (in Lewis' case English) to a group or individual, through lectures or individual study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutor "In the University of Oxford, the colleges fuse pastoral and academic care into the single office of Fellow and Tutor, also known as a CUF Lecturer." So apparently at Oxford "tutor" and "fellow" are the same thing. Also, CUF lecturers are members of the faculty; not merely teaching assistants. Lewis was elected as a Fellow in English in 1925 at Magdalen College, Oxford. I wasn't able to find information regarding professorships specifically at Oxford; However, the title "Professor" was usually given only to the chair of a department, and not to all fellows within a particular department. If you simply take a look at the lists of faculty at Oxford (on their website), you will see that they maintain this structure even today. The department chairs are listed as "Professor," while the fellows are listed as "Dr.," "Mr." or "Mrs." Thus, for 29 years, Lewis was a Fellow; teaching, doing research and publishing, similar to what is expected of a professor at any college or university here in the U.S. Then in 1954 He became a Professor of Medieval and Rennaisance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge; that is, he was distinguished as a chair of a department, and not merely as a fellow. In fact, that position was created for him that year. It's important not to misconstrue terms here. What is meant by "Professor" in 21st Century American academia is far different from what was meant in early 20th Century English academia. Clearly Lewis was not simply a private tutor of English all those 29 years at Oxford. In fact, Lewis was quite influential as a fellow; publishing, establishing the "Inklings," broadcasting lectures on radio, etc. The issue of whether Lewis was a philosopher is a quite different matter. Clearly Lewis' published works were largely concerned with philosophical issues, yet Lewis did not consider himself a philosopher.CannuckianYankee
September 14, 2010
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